Good affiliate marketing techniques to help you make money online.

Good Affiliate Marketing Techniques Start With A Solid Foundation

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a web-based advertising technique where companies pay affiliates for every lead brought in by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. The affiliate acts as a “brand spokesperson” that spreads the word about the products or services.

Today, good affiliate marketing techniques require much more than simply posting affiliate links online. You need to start with a solid foundation in order to get people to actually click the links to increase valuable leads for the company you’re representing.

Good affiliate marketing techniques to help you make money online.
Image Credit: Picasa Web Albums

But actually, all affiliate marketing techniques are not always big successes. Whether intentional or not, most will not succeed after exhausting much time, effort and resources. That’s because oftentimes, affiliates use unnatural techniques which tend to drive a not-so-great user experience.

Effective Affiliate Marketing Techniques for Valuable Leads

Start right and set your affiliate marketing techniques and campaign towards success. Create an effective platform using these tips:

Choose Your Affiliate Products and Services Wisely

Pick your affiliate items and services wisely by joining programs that compliment your industry and/or niche. If you want to advertise solutions within a niche you’re not familiar with, you just may fail. In this case, you’ll need to be prepared to put in the work required to build this new audience from scratch. If you want to engage your current audience, start with the foundation of what you know well and improve it by keeping up with the trends within your niche.

There are niches that are easy to sell. Unfortunately, there are also niches where products rarely get a sale. The bottom line is: you should choose your niches wisely. What is trending in the social media will give you an idea on niches you should focus on.

But, keep in mind that longevity is important, too. Is the product or service going to be in trend for years or just months?

Own Your Own Website

How affiliate marketing techniques work.
Image Credit: Meehan Digital Consulting

Get your own website domain name is a good affiliate marketing technique. Owning your own URL is very important in determining your success online. It secures your commissions and shows long term partnership potential. Businesses want to be sure that you won’t dump the item and the client after some weeks or months.

Getting your own website domain will help you increase your client’s trust. This is especially true when the following elements are seen on your page:

  • original content
  • introduce yourself truthfully
  • contact details
  • social media network accounts
  • testimonials from your previous clients

Getting your own website is always a smart choice. But, be sure that you are going to promote it effectively. A website is useless if it has no visitors. And, visitors are useless if you’re not attracting an audience that will buy your affiliate products and services.

Content Marketing – Try Article Writing

One of the most effective affiliate marketing techniques is content marketing. Compose quality and informative articles to help your audience understand the value of the affiliate’s solution you’re marketing.

Expanding your article portfolio improves your exposure. This is important to becoming a quality competitor within your niche. Give original, insightful and helpful tips your audience can actually use to improve their lives somehow. Then, relate that content your affiliate products or services, leading viewers to check them out on your site.

Choose Your Affiliate Links

You have to make sure that users have a positive experience when visiting the affiliate links you have provided. So, always include links that come from a top level domain. Concentrate more on quality than quantity. And, aim to establish a good reputation, build a relationship of trust and providing users with a heartwarming experience.

Featured Image:
Affiliate Marketing Techniques
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Community

Author Bio: Dorothy Matthews is one of the people behind Big Drop, a responsive web design company agency that will meet your expectations and suit your originality.

4 Tips For More Effective Law Firm Marketing

4 Tips For More Effective Law Firm Marketing

Getting your law firm’s name out there and showing potential clients that your firm is the best in the field that you operate in is crucial for the success of your practice. Doing this is easier said than done though. Most lawyers that start a law firm don’t have an extensive background in marketing, nor do they have the budget to hire a marketing consultant or agency to handle all of the firm’s marketing activities.

4 Effective Tips for Your Law Firm Marketing Campaign

By being smart about your marketing however, you can improve your firm’s visibility in the market without having to spend tons of money or staying up all night every night slaving away at your marketing plan.

Here are 4 tips that your firm should employ to improve your marketing.

4 Tips For More Effective Law Firm Marketing

1) Create/Update Your Law Firm Marketing Plan

If you’ve started your business without a proper marketing plan, you need to create one as soon as possible. You don’t need a 100-page document describing exactly how your firm will handle every small aspect of marketing, but you do need to have some measurable and realistic objectives for your business.

Think about what you want to achieve with your firm in the coming year, as well as for the longer term. From your overall objectives you can start to create a monthly planning for what needs to be done in order to get closer to your objectives, which will then form the basis for your weekly marketing todos.

2) Provide a Great Service

Providing a great service will be the foundation of any law firm marketing plan. Only by delivering great value to your clients will you be able to grow your firm. Happy clients will return to your firm when they need more legal help and will recommend your services.

Hiring great employees, and making sure that they are happy in their jobs will help your firm create happy clients and more business.

3) Develop a Great Reputation

Your firm’s reputation can make or break your business. If you are well known for being the best in your field and always providing more value than anyone else, clients will flock to your firm. You can improve your reputation by proactively trying to help everyone in your network succeed, including your clients, colleagues, referral sources, business partners, etc.

This doesn’t just mean trying to find services you can provide to help them succeed, but also connecting them with other people in your network if you believe this could be beneficial for both parties.

Another way of improving your reputation is by writing articles for your website and also pitch them to other publications. If some of your articles get picked up by a major news source, your firm will get a lot of great exposure.

4) Network, Network, Network

Try to spend some time networking every week. You can do this by attending networking events such as local small business events, trade association meetings, but also just by having a lunch with a good client or a drink with a business partner.

You can also use online social networks for networking such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and even Facebook.

Author Bio: Zane Schwarzlose is a writer at Colley & Colley, LLP, a personal injury law firm in Austin, Texas. Zane thinks that reputation management is crucial to law firm marketing.

Viral Video Marketing Techniques: Make Your Viral Video Count

Viral Video Marketing Techniques: Make Your Content Go Viral

With the popularity of email and social media, it’s easy for your online video to show up in front of millions of people within seconds. For most people, this is the ultimate goal: to have a video go viral. That requires viral video marketing.

So, how do you make yours go viral? You need to employ effective video marketing techniques.

However, just because a video goes viral doesn’t mean that your online business will benefit. Sure, you’ll end up getting more traffic to your site. But, if you’re not converting these leads into something more, your viral video did nothing to help your success.

Viral Video Marketing Techniques: Make Your Viral Video Count
Viral Video Marketing Techniques: Make Your Viral Video Count. Image Source: Proceed Innovative

4 Viral Video Marketing Techniques for Online Success

If you want to make your viral video count, the following are four viral video marketing techniques you need to implement:

1. Create a quality video

The amount of time a visitor spends on your website is important to your overall website success. The last thing you want is to have a high bounce rate, which means how quickly a person leaves your site when they land on your page.

On average, an individual typically leaves a website after three seconds if they don’t find exactly what they want. This is a high bounce rate.

Adding videos to your website is a great way to decrease your website’s bounce rate, but in order to do so, you need to create quality videos with a decent length. If the quality of your video is poor, your audience will not watch it.

If your video is too short, you won’t captivate your audience long enough to decrease your bounce rate. If your video is too long, you’ll have visitors leaving before they get through the first few minutes.

The safest length for an online video is between two and three minutes. This keeps your audience on your site long enough to decrease your bounce rate and is the perfect amount of time to captivate their attention without them becoming antsy.

2. Add a call to action

Your video may be informative, funny, witty, engaging, sad or whatever you want it to be, and you may have attracted millions of viewers because of it. However, having these millions of people visit your website will not truly help your online business unless you get them to take some type of action.

How to Write an Effective Call to Action for Your Blog Post

At the end of your video, make sure you place a call to action to get your audience to do something other than close out of the browser. Maybe you want them to check out other videos you made.

Maybe you want them to sign up for your email newsletter. Maybe you want them to make a purchase. Whatever it may be, place that call to action on the video and make it easy for your audience to do.

If your video is highlighting a product and your call to action tells your audience to buy the product, let them get to the online shopping cart with one click of a mouse. This way, your online viral video will make an actual impact on your business by increasing sales.

3. Add your branding to the video

You want your audience to correlate your video with your brand. But, if your branding cannot be found on the video, they won’t do this. Thus, they’ll have no idea who created the video, and your online business will suffer.

Make sure you embed the videos directly on your website so that your audience can see the URL, company name and company logo. If possible, add some branding flair, such as your logo or company colors, to the video as well. This will force the audience to see your branding, and it will put your company name in the back of their mind.

If you are using YouTube for your videos, make sure to customize your YouTube channel so that it corresponds with your branding.

(WATCH) Video SEO: 10 Tips to Make Your YouTube Channel More Visible

4. Add transcriptions to your video

Your online presence relies heavily on search engine optimization, but videos do absolutely nothing for your SEO. That is, unless you provide transcriptions.

Search engines cannot crawl through video content, which means that the content used in your video does not help your website get ranked on the search engines. However, if you were to utilize an online video transcription service and provide a verbatim transcription of the video on your site, it will give the search engines content to crawl through and use to rank your site.

Because of this, your website will provide more keywords to the search engines, which they’ll in turn use to better rank your site. If you earn a higher search engine ranking, your website will be found by more people online, thus increasing the success of your business.

Author Bio: Lizzie Lau is a freelance writer who combines personal opinions and research to create appealing and informative articles on various topics.

Learn About Online Marketing Plans 

Content marketing engagement increases online popularity, increasing online sales.

Engagement Vs. Usefulness? The Content Marketing Conflict

Content marketing engagement increases online popularity, increasing online sales.What’s more important, content marketing engagement or target audience usefulness?

The digital world can be a noisy one with everyone competing to be heard. What will make you stand out takes a bit of time to develop and understand. With B2B content, you’re looking at a model that aims to inform and engage at the same time.

It is also a playing field where your communication should synch with the understanding of customer behavior. Creating content that serves your goals while putting the end user is crucial to your success in the B2B world.

Recognize Need for Better Content Marketing Engagement

The key to creating what customers will buy is recognizing a need and stating clearly how you’re going to fulfill that need. With that in mind, you’re able to align your marketing efforts to those businesses that are in rhythm with your end goal.

Blogging has become a powerhouse for B2B marketing in terms of generating buzz and delivering compelling and engaging content when the buyer needs it. Again, it’s all about that end buyer. When you create content, think about the benefits you are providing and the needs you are fulfilling. Start with that and your results will be increased sales, profits and traffic. Business blogging with a purpose is the vehicle to take you to your goals.

Ask yourself: are you doing it efficiently and effectively?

Audience Need Vs. Content Marketing Engagement

Forbes referenced the synchronized nature of need versus engagement: “Does it speak to them when they’re just beginning their research, or later when comparing competitor features, or finally when coming to a buying decision together with their colleagues?”

Buyers can alter their shopping habits, researching products and services when and where they want. This is a great opportunity to utilize the most unused resource: B2B marketing, and blogging. Unlike push marketing – inbound marketing doesn’t interrupt you.

Seth Godin calls this content marketing engagement technique “permission marketing.” It’s online marketing that isn’t intrusive. Instead, information or content marketing is there when you need it – providing you with the information you’re searching for online.

Godin goes on to say:

“permission marketers understand that when someone chooses to pay attention they are actually paying you with something precious. And there’s no way they can get their attention back if they change their mind. Attention becomes an important asset, something to be valued, not wasted”.

Find Effective Solutions

Online marketing is impacted by necessity meeting solution. The better that information is presented, the more likely you are to buy into. Creating a space where buyers are given an opportunity for a two-way communication is crucial.  Since B2B purchase decisions take more time (depending on how many stakeholders are involved) than B2C, B2B marketing is a feedback channel that gives the buyer a voice.

Ultimately, there’s a demand for different information for different audiences. The blogsphere is a great place to meet that demand:

  • It’s an engaging space.
  • It builds connections with your prospects.
  • The content opens a door to meaningful interactions.

You get a chance to provide relevant information while developing a relationship that prevents, or mitigates, a problem in real-time. You have a chance to be easily accessible when it comes to addressing customer issues, need and concerns. This can only be done by going back to understanding customer behavior and listening to your prospects.

Staying consistent is another part of getting people to come back to the online marketing content that you put out there. Information that understands customer behavior is aware that humans like to be engaged in information that fulfills a need. It may not be in the immediate moment but, B2B clients know the importance of forming relationships with those who prove to be consistent in their marketing efforts.

Check this out: Infographic: Traditional Advertising VS Content Marketing

Featured images:
  •  License: Royalty Free or iStock source: Shutterstock

Author Bio: John Braithwaite is a father, husband and entrepreneur. He writes on behalf of Ergo Digital, a firm offering online marketing services in Reading, UK and beyond.

Social Media News Streams and How They Work

Social Media News Streams: How Do They Work?

I love social networking, and the social media news streams that comes with it. I have a lot of family and friends all over the world. While it would be wonderful to be able to keep close contact over the phone, or in person, with each of them, it just isn’t feasible. Social networks make it much simpler, letting you keep involved in one another’s lives no matter where you are. All in a convenient format that maximizes communication despite distance, or even just lack of time.

Social Media News Streams and How They Work

Sure, it isn’t perfect. Some people will choose social networking over real life interaction, and a lot of friendships maintained that way can become shallow. But, when used correctly, it is a great way to remain close to others, discover new friends and a lot more. Social networking has a lot of functions, and I try to make the most out of every one, including social media news streams.

A Look Into the World of Social Media News Streams

My favorite element of the social web is definitely the social media news streams and feeds that are on each one. I have customized mine to give priority to certain people, to let me keep in even closer contact. All while avoiding updates I don’t really want or need.

But, how do these social media news streams and feeds work? They are rather complicated, and each site has its own. Here is a simple glance at the news feeds of Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Quora.

Twitter’s Social Media News Stream

Social Buzz

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform, rather than a traditional social network like many others. They use a unique algorithm that provides live updates. This works as both a search function, and as part of their news feed. It also limits the number of tweets from each follower, and older tweets will disappear as new ones from your list are added.

All content, as a consequence, is entirely fresh. But it doesn’t allow you to go that far back, and to see older tweets you have to go to the actual profile page. Not all tweets will be kept over time there, either. Since tweets are so small, and so regularly updated, this is a benefit to most users.

=> See more of who sees what on Twitter using this cheat sheet for social media news streams.

Facebook’s Social Media News Streams

Example of a Facebook Social Media News StreamsNot all Facebook posts are created equal, and the developers know this. However, they do consider each user’s activity to be important, and so don’t single out any specific profile as less important than any other. To keep you from having to see every post by every person on your friends list, it uses EdgeRank to take a small portion from each friend to display.

You can customize settings, as well. Just select what kind of updates you want to get, allowing the most important for you to be both shown on your feed, and in your notifications. Other pages or users can be hidden from your feed entirely.

=> Read more about the social media news streams on Facebook here.

Google+ and Its Social Media News Streams

Google+ is entirely user customized. You select what kind of activity you want from each circle, keeping some silent, some partially ‘muted’, and others entirely active in your news feed. This puts control completely in your hands, rather than using the EdgeRank system in the same way Facebook does.

Quora’s Social Media News Streams

Quora is much more technical in their updates. They use Redis and MySQL to regular update content for users. But, you can get a full explanation through this excellent breakdown by Quora employee and developer Belinda Gu.

=> Read more: 10 Local Social Networks that Give Your Business a Profitable Local Footprint

Have further details on other social networks and their newsfeeds? Let us know in the comments how they work!

Featured images:
  •  License: Creative Commons on Flickr
  •  License: Creative Commons on Flickr
  • Example of a Facebook Social Media News Streams Image Credit: Stream Creative

By Jessy Troy

Author Bio: Jessy is the social media enthusiast and blogger stay at home for 4 years now. You can hear her tweet at @JessyTroy.

Screenshot of famehorsewire.com Designed by Content Marketing Geek

Getting Your Own Website Domain & Keeping Up With Business Trends

If you have a business idea, you simply must market it on the internet. That means getting your own website domain in order to reach your potential customers online. The world wide web will get your products and/or services more exposure than any advertising media around in 2019.

Having an online store is the answer to your account management and advertising needs. But, having an online shop requires the creation of your own website. You must have a domain name, also known as your URL address (or www address).

Getting Your Own Website Domain Name

Domain serves as your unique website name and address online. It is the recognizable group of words that can be equated to your PC’s IP address. It is your ID online, where clients can recognize and reach you. It is your ticket in venturing into online business. Getting a domain name allows you to start creating your online shop.

Remember, you have to register your online business name first, when getting your own website domain name. This is much like applying for a business permit, but in here, you apply from accredited domain name registrars. Look for one that can give you reliable web hosting support, database recovery, sub domains, SQL databases, and free email accounts.

Having Your Own Name 

Why do you need to be getting your own website domain name? Simply because this is the initial step in having your own name online. You may register through any registrar and pay the minimal fee yearly.

Once done, you may start creating your page by adding content and images. You may want to seek professional help to do the administration for you, if you are not yet knowledgeable and skilled in using apps like HTML, CSS, Java, and more.

Once you are done getting your own website domain name and hosting service, you will be asked by the registrar to pay fees annually. It begins at a minimal fee and it goes up as you ask for higher bandwidth or added features. When everything is set, you are now ready to launch your business site.

Displaying Your Products and/or Services

By having a business site, you can display your products and services to reach millions of viewers or clients. It is accessible 24/7. This gives you a great advantage in capturing as much people as you can every second of the day. That is an instant profit, especially if your items caters to the needs and wants of young people like technology, games, sports, fashion, and more.

Target Your Audience

Getting your own website domain name to have your own site means you can literally lure your target audience to buy in just a few seconds or clicks. That is instant commerce… hassle free!

Above all these tips, do remember when getting your own website domain, make your domain name simple, yet catchy. It is your brand now and you will carry that name for your business so think twice before selecting a domain name and consider all the factors first. Think of it as part of your marketing strategy. I hope this article helps you.

Author Bio: Dorothy Matthews is one of the people behind Big Drop, a responsive web design company agency that will meet your expectations and suit your originality.

Market Segmentation: An Effective Way to Redefine Your Target Audience?

The Art of Choosing the Right Social Media Marketing Channels for Your Business

A Guide To Using Social Media For Business

Using social media for business is the new shiny thing in the world of marketing. And, there’s no shortage of social media marketing experts ready to tell you how it will transform your business. The only thing is, very few businesses are using social networking effectively. Therefore, few are getting any kind of return for the money they spend on marketing in social media.

One thing is for sure, the opportunity to grow your business using social media is immense. It can amplify your marketing message. And, the fact that social networks hold so much information about you means that you can reach potential customers with ease. If you know how to use it effectively!

Choosing Networks When Using Social Media for Business

The Art of Choosing the Right Social Media Marketing Channels for Your Business
Image Credit: socialh.com

It can be very confusing deciding which social media channel or channels you should use. There always seems to be a new one popping up every now and then. This adds to the list of social media sites to choose from for marketing your business brand, products and services.

You have the usual suspects like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google Plus. There are also the likes of Pintrest and Instagram, both famous as visual social media sites. Social network experts advise the following for deciding which networks to use when using social media for business:

  • Use one or two social media sites that you can manage effectively.
  • Choose social networks where your potential customers are already hanging out.

11 Tips for Marketing Your Social Media Network Channels

Here are 11 social media marketing tips to help you get the most out of the social channels you choose:

  1. Tell customers which channels you use and why to follow you. For example, tell your email subscribers you have a new Facebook page where you will be posting exclusive offers and content there. You basically, have to give them a reason why they should like or follow you.
  2. Advertise the channels wherever you can. Make sure there is a trail back to your favorite channels on all marketing materials, email signatures, website or anywhere else you market your business. This is very important when using social media for business marketing purposes.
  3. Brand the channels. Make sure the channels are branded consistently with colors schemes and logos so your company is instantly recognizable to your customers irrespective of the channel they are on.
    Using Social Media for Business to Build Your Brand Online
    Image Source: business2community.com
  4. Showcase your skills. On your profile imagery make sure you show off what you can do. Before and after pictures work really well as they place and emotional aspect on the services you offer.
  5. Post Frequently. This is necessary to get engagement and to build your audience. Posting throughout the day is a good strategy. Planning out your posts in advance makes it easier to post quality, relevant content when using social media for business.
  6. Be interesting. You could also be funny or just provide useful information to your target audience. Just make sure that your content marketing strategy involves publishing content that piques the interests of your target audience, also known as your potential customers.
  7. Asking questions builds engagement. Posting statements loses the motivation to interact with the post. Asking questions of your followers will encourage engagement. So you might say, “This is today’s free diet tip.” But, you could get better engagement by posting ,”This is today’s free diet tip. What is your favorite diet meal?”
  8. Answer people’s comments. This builds up the sense that the page is being managed and builds a rapport with your followers. You also don’t want to give your audience the impression that you don’t care about their needs.
  9. Always post with pictures. Posts with images get far more interest and engagement than those without any type of visuals. Videos, memes and infographics also work well when using social media for business.
    Using social media for business to get more exposure, more leads and more revenue.
    Image Credit: inblurbs.com
  10. Set up your social media marketing channels to get leads. This is the most important part of all your efforts. Transforming a fan into and lead and then a customer requires you to get their contact details at some point. You can do this by offering some premium content in exchange for their email address or phone number. It could be a free ebook, video series, white paper or anything you feel your followers would like. Once you figure out how to send people to a page where they can sign up for something, you have the recipe for success.
  11. Advertise on Social Media. Here it is! Harnessing the demographic data social media advertising can reach can be the difference between a good business and a great business. For example, if you are a wedding bridal gown shop, you can advertise to any woman who is engaged within 10 miles of your shop. Now, how powerful is that?

Learn How to Use Social Networks to Market Your Business Online

Using these steps, you have a better chance of effective social media marketing making a difference for your business success. Using social media for business is not just the next buzz word or a big black whole for your time.

The best thing you can do is to take a course on the social media network channel you need to work with for online marketing. You can now take an online course at home, or take a social media marketing workshop near you. Either way, it will be a great investment if you plan on using social media for business.

Author Bio: Tim Tavender is a blogger and writer who has written for many magazines and newspapers. For more information related to this guide, you can visit Tim’s site where you’ll find details of courses you can take to further your knowledge of using social media for business.

Comment Below Image by reubenrd.com
Comment Below Image by reubenrd.com
Every Company Needs YouTube for Business Marketing Online

Why Every Company Needs YouTube for Business Marketing

YouTube for Business Marketing is one of the best examples of the many tools online that can help to promote a company.  When it is utilized properly, there are many benefits to a business such as an increase in sales and generating a larger customer or client base.  So if you’ve been asking yourself why you need YouTube for Business Marketing, if the previous were not enough, consider that the majority of your competition is already using the site to promote their brand and they are taking your customers. Every Company Needs YouTube for Business Marketing Online

Using YouTube for Business Marketing

Do I have your attention now?  That’s right, more and more businesses are using this social media site to advertise, offer tips and tricks and generally taking advantage of the video platform to stay current.  If you are ready to take the leap, and you should be, the following can help you to make videos that outshine your competitors and can take your videos into 2014 in a much more positive way.

Creating Videos with Value

As stated, there are very few companies who are not using YouTube for Business Marketing to promote their videos.  One of the issues is that they are not using this tool properly.  They are not offering anything of value to their viewers and are not getting all of the important likes, views and subscribers to their channel that is needed for any type of success.

So, when you make your videos, don’t just advertise your products or create “commercials”.  Do something fun and think outside of the box to offer that value that your viewers will enjoy.

Be the “Face” of Your Brand

People want to know who you are, what your company stands for and what you offer.  You can be the face of your company if you only invest just a little of your own personality into the videos you produce.  Rather than having an anonymous voice, show your face, explain why you started your company, what makes you passionate about your products and why they should feel the same way and buy what you have to offer.

You know your company better than anyone so why not make yourself the star of the show when nobody will have the passion that you have.  You will have a hard enough time getting likes from generic videos, make the process easier by giving viewers something to like, namely you!

Larger Audience

Consider where your company is today.  Go on, think about it.  Do you have global coverage?  Are people across the world ordering your products?  No?  They will if you are using YouTube for Business Marketing to promote your company and brand.

Wouldn’t it be great to know that people from around the world will see your brand and immediately know what your company sells just like the big corporations?  This is possible if you are savvy about your efforts on the site.  As long as you put out great videos for them to watch, there is the possibility of bringing in customers from every corner of the world and from ever demographic.

So, now that I have your attention, can we agree that you most definitely need YouTube for Business Marketing?

Featured images:
  •  License: Creative Commons on Flickr
  • Over 1 billions users access YouTube videos every month.

 

 

License: Derek Willis on Amazon

 

Author Bio: Alan Hastings is a social media guru who understands the necessities of audience engagement on all social media sites.

Share your YouTube for Business Marketing links in the comments below.

Pinterest Strategy for Business - Pin Your Way to Valentine's Day

Pinterest Strategy For Business – Pin Your Way to Valentine’s Day

Pinterest Strategy for Business - Pin Your Way to Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day 2014 is just 10 days away, and hopefully you’re prepared with your social media marketing strategy.

If your business represents a fashion, cosmetic or lifestyle brand, you must use Valentine’s Day fever as an opportunity to showcase and sell your products. Pinterest social media marketing is the best platform to display your awesome beautiful products.

Increase Conversion Rates with a Pinterest Strategy for Business

A Pinterest strategy for business provides you with a high conversion rate. That’s because Pinterst users can click your product image, and be redirected directly to the webpage on your site where the product can be purchased. This helps you capitalize on the impulse shopping tendency of social media users.

Here are five ways to help increase your brand’s conversion rates using a Pinterest strategy for business:

1. Valentine Pinboards:

The ideas below are just a few ideas for various types of business brands. Use these Pinterest strategy for business tips to help increase online sales during the Valentine’s Day 2014 holiday:

  • Restaurants – If your business is a restaurant, you can pin various ambiance and food images of your awesome romantic settings. Showcase how beautiful your venue is for a Valentine’s evening of love and romance.
  • Apparel & Accessories – Women love accessories, clothing, shoes and all other apparel. If your business brand or boutique caters to such products, then you simply must set up Valentine Pinboards. Your Pinboards can contain your collection of reds, whites and pinks. You can also target men as most of them wouldn’t know what to give their better half. And, voila, your Pinboard to the rescue! Don’t forget to use Promoted Pins for wider reach and higher lead conversions.
  • Valentine’s Day Flowers – Flowers are always in high demand for Valentine’s Day. Your Pinterest strategy for business should include a Pinboard that has various flower arrangements and some special Valentine’s Day gifts, such as stuffed animals, baskets, cards, candles, etc… Any products included in your list of Valentine specials should be included as well. Various floral and candle decor images to sell your home and lifestyle products do really well this Valentine’s Day season.
  • Weekend Getaways – Valentine’s Day 2014 falls on a Friday. So, why not encourage your Pinterest followers to take special tours or romantic weekend getaways? Pin images of your resorts or special holidays location with packages and entice your followers with them. Make sure you offer your followers special deals for signing up through your Pinterest Valentine’s Day Pinboard.

2. Run a Contest on Pinterest

Social media users tend to enjoy contests. Add a Collaborative Pinboard to your Pinterest strategy for business to entice your followers to take part in your Valentine contest. You can ask your Pinterest followers to pin pictures of the products they would want to gift to their Valentines, preferably from your brand. Offer coupons, discounts and free products or services to winners, chosen based on your Pinterest Collaborative Pinboard contest.

3. Promoted Pinterest Pins

Make use of Promoted Pins to make your products, services, offers and specials more popular with online consumers. With promoted Pins, you can actually convert your followers into fans as they can be instantly redirected to the page where the products can be purchased. You can also allow followers to register for contests, promotions, and more. Your conversion rate increases using this Pinterest Strategy for Business because it capitalizes on the impulse shopping feature of consumers on social media.

4. Cakes and Cupcakes Pinboards

You can also create Pinterest strategy for business pinboards to be used for pinning and sharing Valentine’s Day baked goods with your followers. If your brand is a bakery business, nothing moves faster on internet for Valentine’s Day than a brilliantly cooked cake or other baked good. You may even want to include a review or simple recipe. Valentine’s Day is a time for cakes and cupcakes full of love. If you cater to that audience, make sure your images find their way on Pinterest!

Increase your online sales this Valentine's Day with Pinterest for Business

5. Integrate Your Pinterest Strategy for Business with Facebook

Don’t miss out on building wider audience online. Add Pinterest on Facebook and showcase all your beautiful Pins, promotions and contests on Facebook as well. This will help you gain a much wider audience, capture more leads, nurture your leads and eventually convert these leads into sales. What’s the simplest way to accomplish this? Try using Apps Mav.

What is Apps Mav?

Apps Mav is a simple, automated way to showcase your Pinboards and Pins on your Facebook Fan page. The Apps Mav Facebook application is both easy-to-use and self-manageable. Here are just some of the features of Apps Mav Pinterest App:

  • Integrate your Faceboook Fan Page and your Pinterest strategy for business on one platform.
  • Self-install the Pinterest App with just a few simple clicks. Self-manageable with no technical abilities required.
  • Automatically stream your Pinterest Pins on your brand’s Facebook Fan Page using integrated social features.
  • Cancel your service anytime. There are no contracts or lock-ins whatsoever.

Get the Apps Mav Pinterest App Today

Featured images:
  •  License: Image author owned
  •  License: Image author owned

Author Bio: Ritika Verma enjoys writing about social media strategies and is a complete digital marketing enthusiast. She is currently working with Apps Mav and you can follow them @appsmav.

Magnetic

Weapons Of Mass Destruction – 10 Email Marketing Templates That Dominate

Designing emails is a bit more different and technical than coding and designing a website. You have to go back to the old-school methods of hardcore coding and programming for that. Not to mention, it can be a really tedious task – especially if you are not absolutely sure about programming and web development. This is why using email marketing templates is a much better idea in most situations.

Moreover, mobile marketing is fast becoming the next big thing. In order to ensure maximum reach of your email marketing campaign, you have to optimize your emails for smartphones and mobile devices. It is estimated that approximately 50% users open and read emails on their cellphones and mobile devices (tablets). Therefore, if you do not optimize your email designs in accordance with that, you simply lose half of your potential prospects.

10 Email Marketing Templates That Truly Dominate

Following is a list of 10 really good email marketing templates that you can use for your e-newsletter campaigns. All of these templates are fully optimized for mobile devices and smartphones.

1) Magnetiq

View templates

Magnetiq is a set of 75 different email marketing templates. It is a multi-purpose set of email marketing templates that is fully optimized for smartphones and mobile devices. 11 unique layouts, multiple modern features, a very clean and professional look, a really flexible structure to designing emails and compatibility with many professional email services, e.g. MailChimp, CampaignMonitor, etc. make it an excellent package to buy.

Magnetic

2) Campaigner

View templates

Campaigner is another fully responsive and multi-purpose email marketing template. It is also loaded with a lot of useful and interesting features, and most importantly, it is fully compatible with all the major email clients.

Furthermore, 2 different skins, 8 colors and 9 different layouts make hundreds of different variations that you can use for your marketing campaign.

Campaigner

3) Quinn

View templates

If you want to fully showcase your products, Quinn can be a great option for your marketing campaign. It has 128 HTML files with 6 different color schemes. Moreover, the templates are fully compatible with MailChimp and CampaignMonitor.

Apart from that, they are fully optimized for mobile devices, too.

Quinn

4) ZURB

View templates

It is a set of different email marketing templates, each being fully responsive and optimized for mobile devices. The templates offer a lot of different layouts. So you can choose whichever layout works best for your email marketing campaign. The package is loaded with all the modern features and fully compatible with all the major email clients, ISPs and mobile applications.

5) Market

View templates

Market offers you great flexibility, versatility and a ton of different options for your email marketing templates. It is packed with thousands of different variations that give your marketing campaign a whole unique outlook. In a nutshell, it has 8 different prebuild layouts, approximately 24 different color variations and 28 elements that make over 1 million variations for emails.

Market

6) Freshmail

View templates

Unlike many other email marketing templates, Freshmail is a clean, minimalist, yet a very colorful email design that helps you focus on the right areas. More importantly, Freshmail is MailChimp and CampaignMonitor ready, with many flexible modules and layouts for customization.

Not to mention, it is 100% optimized for smartphones and tablets.

Freshmail

7) FancyMail

View templates

FancyMail is a stunning email marketing template with rich-colors, an elegant design and a whole lot of various useful options. It has 7 different layouts with 8 color variations – which make customization super-easy and impressive. Most of all, it is built on all the modern principles and design-rules, which make it an excellent choice for most online businesses and email marketers.

Fancy

8) MetroMail

View templates

MetroMail is basically designed on the concept of metro-tiles and boxes. Apart from its slightly unique design, it is a beautiful template with all the interesting and useful options that a professional email marketing template should have.

Other than its 8 different layouts and 8 color variations, it is a multi-purpose and fully-responsive email marketing template that works in most circumstances.

Metro

9) SquarePath

View templates

Although SquarePath is a multi-purpose template, you should especially consider it if you are promoting a new product. Its design works specifically well with products’ promotion and marketing.

Unsurprisingly, it is a feature-rich, fully-compatible and mobile responsive email marketing template with a lot of useful options for customization and different variations.

SquarePath

10) Modern

View templates

Modern, as its name suggests, is a truly next-generation and modern email marketing template. It is an excellent fully-responsive email marketing template that is feature-rich, color-packed and elegant at the same time. With 12 totally unique layout variations and 12 block models, you have a lot of options to customize the template and make it look exactly how you want. Furthermore, it is also fully compatible with all the major email clients and service-providers.

Modern

Final Words About These Email Marketing Templates

So these are the 10 email marketing templates. You can use any one of them, based on your specific requirements and needs. All of these email marketing templates are 100% responsive and optimized for mobile devices – and it is something that you must consider when purchasing an email marketing template.

Of course, in some cases you may still prefer a fully customized email marketing template, but creating an email marketing template from scratch is time consuming, so it’s always a question of balancing your time and expenses. Of course if you are an email marketer who doesn’t mind to do a little design in free time, creating something of your own is always a good thing. The Internet is full of tutorials and information that makes it possible to get the job done. You could start with something like basics of responsive email design and work your way deeper into the subject.

Last, but not the least, do not forget the specific requirements of your business. You must have a clear email marketing strategy first. Only then you would be able to select a template that will truly help you achieving that goal of yours.

Featured images:
  •  License: Creative Commons by ThemeForest
  •  License: Creative Commons by ThemeForest
  •  License: Creative Commons by ThemeForest
  •  License: Creative Commons by ThemeForest
  •  License: Creative Commons by ThemeForest
  •  License: Creative Commons by ThemeForest
  •  License: Creative Commons by ThemeForest
  •  License: Creative Commons by ThemeForest
  •  License: Creative Commons by ThemeForest

Author Bio: This content was written by Peete. He is an internet marketer who’s recently got himself into email marketing for a change.