Audience Development Strategy posts focus on how to drive more website traffic through organic and paid sources, including search and social. You’ll also learn how to convert website visitors into email subscribers.
Charles Darwin said, “In the long history of humankind, those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”
And that’s pretty much the culmination of social media, social marketing, community marketing, or whatever you want to call it. It’s also a great representation of how businesses are currently adapting to the idea that
Hands-on Twitter workshop provides up-to-date techniques
One of the hands-on workshops at our upcoming Digital Publishing Workshop is entitled Unlocking the Power of Twitter. It will take place on Wednesday, July 18th at the McGraw-Hill Conference Center in New York City.
Our conversation on Twitter has evolved over the years. We began by suggesting online
Improvements to your social media strategies can lead to much higher monthly traffic counts
We’ve been sharing the good word of Twitter and Facebook for years now.
Our Social Media Specialist Amanda MacArthur is a big reason for this, since she stays up-to-date on the latest tips and strategies for using social media to increase website
What social media tools do you use for efficient publishing?
Many users of popular social networks utilize different tools to make social media more effective, and more efficient.
For instance, when I first started using Twitter professionally, I downloaded TweetDeck.
I was a fan of TweetDeck for a long time. It provided me with a dashboard
Five Techniques to Building the Better Subject Line
Here’s a test of subject lines (from a mortgage company) from copywriter Mark Everett Johnson, a frequent speaker at SIPA events. Choose one.
1) “Do you want to save thousands with no-hassle refinancing?”
2) “Who else wants to save thousands with no-hassle refinancing?”
Drumroll please. Number two won by 37%.
A study from the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth shows businesses saying, “it’s not you, it’s me” to blogging during its peak of effectiveness
There are no sweeter words right now in the publishing industry, than the report that 26% of all those non-publisher Inc. 500 companies trying to weasel their
“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it is what consumers tell each other it is.”
That’s a line from Scott Cook, founder of Intuit. And indeed, word of mouth is a precious gem that unfortunately, we have no control over. Just like someone might tell a friend that a
If you want your digital products found by audience members, you need to know how to name them.
Reuse, recycle and repurpose; that is the mantra of digital publishers.
One way digital publishers are creating new revenue streams is by taking legacy magazine content and packaging it as singular digital products.
Email marketers are paying more attention to the communicational factor of email newsletters.
Doing so puts a focus not only on the content being presented, but on how specifically the email recipients are addressed.
Why should this be the case in email marketing? It’s very important to take note of the stage email marketers are
Which products sell the best?
This is a question that email marketers ask themselves often. The answer profoundly defines what the focus of alignment should be in future email marketing campaigns.
The question above brings two further notions: First, not all products are created equal, nor do they all deserve the same amount of promotion. Second,
Lessons Learned From UK Publishers Study
The recent UK Publishing Email Benchmarking Survey conducted by Adestra shows some interesting results, according to a post on InPublishing by Henry Hyder-Smith. He focused on the importance of acquiring new data and managing your existing data, and cited the example of Centaur Media, “who segmented the information they
We’ve recently installed a “fan gate” or “like gate” application on that Facebook Fan page you just visited. A fan gate is used to entice people to like your page. Some companies just ask people to like their page, but we like to take it up a notch. What’s the incentive to “like”? What do
Faster than a speeding bullet…Capturing prospects in a single bound – It’s LinkedIn! Yes, LinkedIn—today’s best friend and rainmaker in media sales. With its plethora of users and information, it’s the best prospecting tool we have for reaching new and hidden decision-makers, shortening the sales process, lifting the quality of the sales conversation, and increasing
What do you look for on LinkedIn? When finding professionals with interesting backgrounds and skill sets, do you go beyond the marketing buzzwords and look for the ideas they have to share?
Professionals who develop blogs have a better, more concrete chance to show people who they are through their written words. And although the Internet
Professionals scouring LinkedIn are granted an interesting opportunity: the chance to network and make new business connections.
Most of those doing so are attempting to better their careers, and thus, don’t necessarily have an extensively amount of time to dedicate to the social network.
If you’re a regular Mequoda Daily reader, you already know that attaining (and holding) a high Google ranking isn’t easy. Of course, the Mequoda system gives you an edge in this regard, but you still need to feed it with quality content. And lots of it.
Montes de Oca Delivers on Social Media Insights
True or false, asked Wendy Montes de Oca, best-selling author of Content is Cash: Leveraging Great Content and the Web for Increased Traffic, Sales, Leads and Buzz, at a roundtable at last month’s Marketing Conference in Miami. “I don’t need to market my social media accounts; people will
2011 saw record numbers for email marketing campaigns
Some online business professionals may be surprised that email marketing is on the successful path it’s currently on. Some thought that other online channels like social media would take over, as the growth in social media has spiked in the last few years.
But the fact of the matter
Email campaigns fall into an interesting category for online publishers. On one hand, it focuses on great quality content and intriguing headlines, which is familiar to successful publishers.
On the other hand, there are technicalities that must be faced before, during and after email campaigns are initiated. For instance, the process of email whitelisting needs
One of the most memorable Mequoda Summit sessions I recall attending was in Napa Valley.
The session was 41 Ways to Build Email Circulation, and I, like many of the other attendees, created a detailed checklist while watching Don and Kim present the information.
One interesting note to make is that many of the 41
Some marketers might freak out a little about the news that Twitter bought Summify, the little content prioritization tool that works hand in hand with Twitter, Facebook, and your RSS feeds. The duty of Summify is to read all of your RSS and social media feeds for you, and then tell you (through email) which
Some businesses have social media marketers, and others have social media rockstars. If you have a rockstar, you know it, they know, and you probably don’t have any trouble on the traffic-driving end of things other than cooking up new ideas. However, if you’re a marketer or editor who’s leaving social media as a side
In a digital world where engagement is vastly important, video content, when used appropriately, can help boost website traffic and audience interactivity
Have you been looking for innovative ways to generate more website traffic?
By now, the use of video to present content is no secret, and it’s used with good reason.
Are you looking to make groundbreaking changes in 2012?
An overhaul of your email newsletter could yield better results. Have you tested your email design recently or compared it to others in your market?
One major switch we made to the Mequoda Daily newsletter was going from one featured story to a six-snippet email newsletter. Doing
Give your story, and audience, a fine tuning with the new rules of social media PR
In PR Newswire’s 2012 edition of Unlocking Social Media for PR, Jason Keller, Senior Vice President of Products for PR Newswire reminds your marketing and PR team that “you simply cannot escape the influence of social media in modern public
We’ve written several times lately about how to rock at social media and how a little automation can cut a significant amount of time from your daily social media duties. That isn’t to say though, that you can just spend a Monday writing tweets and take off on a social media vacation for the rest
In only 12 lessons, you can grasp the process of writing for search engines.
By now, the question, “why should I write for search engines?” isn’t asked as much as it was a few years ago. Today, online editors are asking how they can learn the best tips for writing for search engines because they get
Website traffic is a big part of email list creation; If new visitors aren’t arriving at your website, you won’t be generating new subscribers.
In 2012, here are a few strategies you can implement to help generate more inbound traffic.
Tips for generating more website traffic and building email marketing lists
There comes a time when editors have the opportunity to interview interesting people from their market, people who are innovators that have a lot of valuable information to share.
Good journalists are prepared with questions before interviews start. However, it’s also important to be able to think quickly and listen intently, as the subject of
Have you discovered actionable strategies for Facebook and Twitter? Are you able to create blog posts optimized for search engines?
These strategies have become an organic marketer’s dream as they help build relationships with audiences.
Being proactive about email errors can help you avoid major issues
After being active in the online community for years, it still amazes me how powerful email can be.
Two recent news stories caught my eye and led to this article. The first is from late December, when The New York Times sent the wrong email
By now, many professionals on Twitter are using social media dashboards so all the pertinent information is collected in a central location.
My first social media dashboard was TweetDeck, although I’ve been convinced that HootSuite is a better option. Today, let’s take a look at the options offered by HootSuite.
Do you know how much attention an active, engaging social media strategy deserves? The numbers suggested by social media specialists may surprise you…
However, the associated time, when assigned by people who the work firsthand, can lead to a major presence on social media; which we all know is extremely popular with a wide variety of
Successful email strategies have multiple components where all work together to create a cohesive program that helps build a list and develop relationships with users.
Although all parts are important, there are two vital actions that need to be taken if you want to prove yourself as a professional email marketer.
There’s no doubt about it—publishers got much smarter about their online marketing strategies this past year. It’s not clear which empire(s) paved the way and made it “ok” for everyone else to jump on board (sort of like the day Oprah discovered Twitter) but we’re glad it happened. More attention is being paid to socially
Search engine optimization no longer exists with an absence of social media. Now that Google credits “likes” and “tweets” so significantly in their algorithm, it would be pretty hard to launch a website and expect it to rank without any social media influence.
Are you sending email marketing campaigns at the right times?
Email marketers have a few campaign approaches.
They can send to their entire file as a bulk email. This is typically done for specific one-off products, services or events.
We offer an array of services to help you master email marketing and email newsletter creation. We realize the importance of email, which is expected to grow as mobile devices gain incredible popularity.
Email isn’t just about communication nowadays; it’s a trusted primary tool used for business transactions and the storing of valuable information –
How do you stay knowledgeable about the latest trends that affect your business and your audience?
Some might answer this by citing the websites they visit often for up-to-date information. And although that is relevant, what about those sources that you are unaware of? What happens if an amazing publisher takes to the Internet and you
As the Internet grows, more strategies for building email circulation develop.
These strategies are either internal or external, meaning they are executed on your site or away from it. All of the external strategies use your site as a focal point, as they send traffic directly back to it.
Internal strategies for building email circulation
You have all the control in the world getting people to “like” you when they’re visiting your website. Host a dominant “like us” button, hope it gets clicked, and you’ve earned yourself a new subscriber. On Facebook, you can gain that same type of control with a Welcome Page. Welcome Pages are designed to convince
Not all email service providers (ESP) are created equal, and in order to handle massive campaigns, list segmentations, customer support and white-listing services, you need to be using a tier-one ESP.
For systems in need of a reputable ESP, and assistance with its email efforts, we have a solution.
Survey Monkey is one tool we use for member feedback on webinars and live events.
We aren’t the only company that chooses to use this service, as, according to the Survey Monkey website, 8+ million customers use it, including 100% of Fortune 100 companies.
If you want to learn directly from your subscribers, here are a
The rise in mobile is increasing email usage
Email evangelists have a new reason to step up onto their soapbox and preach the good word of email.
Not to say there was ever a doubt, but with the growth of social media, added attention to paid media and attempts to constantly optimize all website content, some
Email is a multifaceted tool for online publishers and content marketers. It can be used to deliver editorial e-newsletters, product promotions and week-in-review compilations.
Ideally, professionals use this medium to help facilitate revenue-generating transactions. However, email is another tool for brand recognition, which allows publishers to stay on the minds of their recipients, even if
Sponsorships help secure revenue for online publishers
Many publishers believe that digital content needs to be free. Acting on this belief helps publishers experience bigger audiences and higher amounts of website traffic. To generate revenue from this process, online publishers offer advertisements and sponsorships on their website, through social media and through email.
The email aspect
The Internet has changed how media is consumed. This is especially true for Digital Native – people who have grown up with the Internet in their lives.
How do the habits of Digital Natives affect media companies? Our Digital Native Survey was designed to highlight the activities of digital natives so online publishers can get
Let’s start with a little breakdown of why Facebook just became the #1 place to generate revenue in social media.
Facebook accounts for 52.1% percent of all sharing on the web. When someone wants to share something, they share it on Facebook—and this includes your promotions and sales. In fact, 93% of Facebook users have posted
I wrote down a tweet once that said, “I like to say that Twitter is like a bar, Facebook is your living room and LinkedIn is the local chamber of commerce.” I don’t know the woman who wrote it, Brenda S. Stoltz from Ariad Partners, but the ideas as so relatable that I couldn’t just
This segment from the Digital Native Survey reinforces the power of the Internet
How many hours do you spend on the Internet each day? This is the question asked to our Digital Native respondents in the following video.
Obviously, someone’s profession plays part in this answer. For online publishers, content marketers, online editors and social media
