Twitter for Business - 4 Essential Ingredients

June 26th, 2009 by Patrick Schwerdtfeger

How can I access my market on the internet? In one form or another, I get asked this question almost every day. My answer is simple.

Conversations are markets. To access a market, you have to participate in the conversation. The trick is to find the right conversation and then participate in an effective (and profitable) way.

Twitter is one massive conversation involving millions of people. It’s like a huge river. You can put your toes in when you want to. You can take your toes out when you don’t. Either way, the river keeps flowing. The conversation continues whether you’re participating or not.

Creative people are constantly finding new ways to leverage Twitter. The innovation will never stop. But at the time of this writing, there are four powerful ways to find the conversation in your market and participate in it. Done properly, it can completely change your business.

Contact. The most powerful aspect of Twitter is search. By using Twitter Search, you can find individual people tweeting about your industry in real time. Select a few keywords that relate to your product or service, and then search for those words. By doing so, you engage targeted prospects at the exact moment they might need you. Make a habit of searching for your keywords twice or three times each day, and reply to their comments with your value proposition.

Connect. When you find Twitter users who are discussing your keywords in a meaningful way, begin following them. There is a culture on Twitter where people you follow have an incentive to follow you back. By proactively following those discussing your keywords, you’ll build a following yourself; one made up exclusively of targeted prospects.

Community. Use a platform like Twellow to find Twitter users who use certain keywords in their profile descriptions. Be sure to select keywords that identify your ideal customers, not your competition. If you’re a Financial Advisor, don’t look for people using words like “finance” and “investment” in their profile. Instead, look for those who use “ceo” or “executive” or “director”. Proactively follow those people to surround yourself with qualified prospects.

Contribute. Add value to the conversation. There are four reasons to write a tweet. Wisdom – demonstrate your expertise with tips, tricks and tools. Personal – show your followers that you’re a person, not just a business. Engagement – retweet (RT) useful tweets, reply to user comments and use hashtags regularly. And Business – tell your followers how your product or service alleviates their PAIN.

Conversations are markets. Twitter is one huge conversation. By following these simple steps, you can engage your community, participate in the conversation and build trust with your prospects. And trust is the immediate precursor to a purchase decision.

Patrick Schwerdtfeger is the author of “Webify Your Business, Internet Marketing Secrets for the Self-Employed” and is available for interviews and speaking engagements. Please call 510-282-4115 for fees and scheduling details.

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Jobs: Product Responsible Web Analytics for IKEA IT

June 9th, 2009 by Jobs

Product Responsible | IKEA IT | Web Analytics | Helsingborg | Sweden

Do you want to work at the frontlines of web technology for one of the most known and loved brands in the world and help us deliver home furnishing inspiration and a state-of-the-art internet user experience to millions of visitors every day?

IKEA.com is at the center of our communication and interaction with our customers.

IKEA IT is the organization that manages and controls the world wide public IKEA web platform. IKEA is now focusing on several exiting initiatives to improve and extend IKEA’s reach and presence on the web. In order to handle this challenge we need to extend our capacity in the web statistic area to support our business with smart and high-quality web solutions for the future.

Knowledge
• Broad experience of web.
• Strong leadership and communication skills.
• Experienced in requirement and change management with good documentation skills.
• Analytical mindset and a structured way of working.
• Experience of working with external suppliers.
• HTML, JavaScript, flash
• Omniture SiteCatalyst (preferable)

Capability/Motivation
• Detail oriented with the ability to establish clear understanding of requirements.
• Motivated by the challenge in working with off-shore development.
• Motivated by staying up to date with market trends and web development.
• Businesses minded with a target/delivery focused mindset.
• Able to build trust and act as a link and advisor between business partner and IT-developers.
• Decisive and ability to take action.

Our product Responsible will have a close cooperation with our orderer to further develop of Web Analytics (Omniture SiteCatalyst) and coordinate changes. Technical support e.g solve day to day technical issues, problems, support to countries when implementing web analytics on micro sites, guidelines and documentation. Support the business owner in technical questions and provide technical expertise in how to gain more value from the product.

Please contact me at ylva.palsson@memo.ikea.com

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Interview With Dan Forootan, President and CEO of StreamSend

May 30th, 2009 by Jennifer

We interviewed Dan Forootan, CEO of StreamSend, to discuss the future of e-mail marketing. StreamSend is a permission based-e-mail marketing suite used by marketers, entrepreneurs, and online retailers around the world.

Dan, what would you like to say to companies that believe they already master e-mail marketing?

There is always more you can learn about and improve with your e-mail marketing campaigns. And the needs and preferences of your customers are constantly changing—this is important to remember. It is wise to continually monitor all your campaigns and watch list activity—including size as well as new opt-ins, views and ultimately conversions. These campaigns should be integrated with an analytics option, such as Google Analytics, to make sure campaigns are performing at optimal levels. Most importantly, make sure to know your customers, new and old, and send them relevant, valuable information.

What would revitalize e-mail marketing and make it cool again?

E-mail remains the preferred online communication method for Internet users of all ages. In light of the recent popularity of online social networks, e-mail is sometimes be labeled as the less glamorous of the two, but it is also the foundation and the starting point for all the social platforms.

What is already inherently cool about e-mail is that people choose it and use it as the primary channel for receiving information they asked for. And when used properly by marketers—meaning they adhere to the idea of sending relevant information to an opted-in list—they can see fantastic returns on their investment, up to $47 per dollar invested (according to the Direct Marketing Association).

What marketers can do to make this even more cool, is to truly understand and respond to their customers, their information preferences and online behaviors to send very relevant and personal messages. E-mail can be useful as well as personal. In fact, using features such as triggers to automatically communicate with customers based on behaviors, anniversaries, and birthdays shows a customer that you are really paying attention. Then they really look forward to your e-mails and have loyalty toward you. How cool is that?

What’s your take on testing and personalization of content in e-mail marketing?

Personalization, as talked about above, is very important to the overall success of e-mail marketing. This isn’t just adding a name to an e-mail, but adding personal and customized content. The better and more relevant the information you send your customers, the better your e-mails will perform.

As for testing, it is also a good thing to do, but before just employing random tests to see what works best, it is imperative to make sure you are monitoring, tracking, and analyzing current campaigns first, then making modifications to improve specific areas of your e-mails. Bottom line, know and understand how your e-mails are performing first and foremost. Then make incremental changes to address problem areas or make overall improvements.

What are the most common deliverability mistakes?

There are many factors that lend to successful deliverability, but to ensure success, e-mail marketers need to be a clear and honest with their subscribers about what they are going to receive, how often, and whom it is from, as well as always making a clear and easy way to unsubscribe or opt out if they no longer find value in the email, no matter the reason. In fact, StreamSend has seen up to a 75% reduction in complaints when the unsubscribe link is moved to the top of an e-mail.

Monitoring deliverability is an ongoing process for e-mail marketers, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. There are a few quick steps you can take to make sure you’re achieving maximum deliverability. You can download a copy of “Perform Your Own Deliverability Audit” here. Or attend our e-mail deliverability webinar that is presented live once a week.

What’s the most creative use of e-mail marketing that you have seen?

Here is a simple example of how to creatively use e-mail marketing. I thought this was innovative and simple to implement. A pet supply company created a registration form on their web site to register a new puppy. The form asked for the birthday of the puppy, and it was then recorded it in the database. The company then periodically sent e-mails based on the puppy’s age (for example, type of food to buy for your puppy, nutritional needs, and training ideas). These messages were highly targeted and welcomed by the recipient. Best of all, this was automated using triggers, so it was fairly low overhead for the company to setup.

A recent survey we did with our customers indicates that companies are looking to implement such automated triggers. It takes a little bit of creativity and planning, but pays back through automation in the long run.

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Twitter for Business - 4 Essential Ingredients

Jobs: Product Responsible Web Analytics for IKEA IT

Interview With Dan Forootan, President and CEO of StreamSend

WebAnalysts.Info

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