I received 25 e-mails today. It was a slow day. Five were from friends. Five were from clients. Five were from relevant services in the Savannah area. Ten I never saw because they went straight into the spam filter. People receive anywhere from 5 to 75 e-mails per day. Are they reading yours? Did I read yours?

It all depends on how you design your e-mail blasts.

Whitelist E-Mail Marketing

Hopefully your e-mail counted as one of the “relevant services” and didn’t wind up in the spam folder. My top senders are on my whitelist, which means they get full access to my inbox and load with images every time.

I look forward to hearing from these senders every week or so to see what news they have and what deal they are offering. The e-mails are always distinctively titled and branded, so I know who it is without having to read the sender’s name. These e-mails are usually brief, but well-written and give me access to everything I need: contact info, privacy notice, customer service, and easy ways to take action. They even have multiple ways to view the e-mail, in case I’m using my phone. Best of all, they are understanding and will let me unsubscribe at a moment’s notice. Did I mention they give me special deals on my birthday?

Cautious E-mail Marketing

There’s also the middle-of-the-road e-mails. I’m willing to read them, but I don’t always trust them. If it’s a Monday or a Friday, forget it, I’ve got too much to do. If I remember subscribing to them, I’ll at least open the e-mail when I get the time. Whether or not I go any further depends on the subject line, whether or not it’s relevant to me, if it’s current, and if it’s easy to read. It should look good and be recognizable even if I don’t load the images, which I’m unlikely to do unless the text catches my eye. From there it’s a delicate dance of style, tone, and polite conversation as I work my way through the message.

Will you end up on the whitelist, stay neutral, or get written off as spam and deleted forever?

Blacklist E-mail Marketing

If your e-mail blast did get automatically trashed, you might want to revise your strategy. Strengthen your e-mail marketing performance by avoiding words like “Free,” “Promotion,” “Discount,” etc. While you might be offering a great deal, my spam filter freaks out and assumes that you’re evil. If you bought my e-mail address from a list, you’ve probably already been black-listed.

Check your links to make sure that they all go where they are supposed to and only use credible sources. And don’t send out all your e-mails at once. You’re clogging the tubes and making yourself look suspicious. A professional e-mail delivery service will send out your e-mails at a reasonable pace without setting off alarms.

If you fix all of these issues and are still seeing readers not opening your e-mails or deleting them, politely remove them from your list so that you aren’t hurting your spam score. The same goes for bounced or undelivered e-mail addresses. Save yourself the heartache and find readers more willing to check their inbox. They can always re-subscribe if they have a change of heart.

There’s more to e-mail blasts than you might think. E2 Marketing will build your e-mail marketing campaigns so you can reach your target audience.

What are people saying about you in Savannah?

Are your customers willing to put their reputation on the line for you? Do they trust you enough to recommend you to a stranger, friends, or even family? Word of mouth advertising is one of the purest forms of marketing: a customer shares their experience with full-disclosure, giving others a heads up on the good and the bad.

Whether it’s through a text message, online comment, or a full discussion, your company’s reputation is defined by these little conversations in a big way. A potential client is more likely to trust someone who has experience with your company, especially if it’s someone they know.

It might feel like word of mouth advertising is beyond your control, but don’t underestimate the amount of influence you have.

Here are five things to remember when considering word of mouth advertising.

1.  Make it easy — Leaving comments on your blogs shouldn’t be a hassle, so keep the process clean and simple. The option to share your blog posts, web site, or best deals with friends should be politely visible and connect to the most popular networks that your audience might be using.

It should be easy to talk to you as well, not just pass on information. The more approachable and inviting your business is, online and in person, the more likely people will feel comfortable engaging in a conversation.

2.  Get customers talking — Be straight forward about wanting to hear feedback and suggestions from customers, as well as encouraging them to share their experiences with others. If your customers are mysteriously quiet, go ahead and ask a question to get them started. People have more to say when they know you’re listening.

3.  Create Opportunities — Seek out innovative ways to reach customers and give them something fun to talk about. Consider group coupons that customers can share or pass on. Let your customer base choose your company’s next charity donation or community project. Small contests via social networks like Twitter, Facebook, or Foursquare can get people talking too. Explore the new possibilities opened up by mobile and location-based technology. You can let customers “check-in” at your location to get your business on the geo-tagging map.

4.  Reward Positive Referrals — When someone feels confident enough to speak highly of your company, acknowledge their kindness. There are many ways to recognize loyal customers. Get creative. It could be as simple and sincere as a personalized thank-you card. A more public display would be a video blog post of the new referred client and the client who encouraged them, talking about their experiences with your company. Sometimes the best way to say thanks is a special perk or discount, either for them, their friend, or both.

What’s important is that you recognize their loyalty and don’t take it for granted.

5.  Respond to Complaints — It isn’t always sunshine when it comes to word of mouth. Expect unhappy customers to be just as visible as satisfied customers. More importantly, your response should be visible too. Trying to hide mistakes will only make you seem dishonest. Show that you care and that you go the extra mile to make it right, even when things don’t go perfectly the first time.

Think about the last time you asked for an opinion about a business or shared your experiences. Are you more willing to share negative or positive commentary? How do you tell the world what you thought? Your customers likely have the same options.

“Memorable Vehicle Wraps”

All of us are stuck in our cars an ungodly amount of time throughout the week. We are zoning out at the stop light. Staring at the vehicle’s bumper stickers in front of us for a half an hour on the way to and from work. We all know how bad rush hour traffic can get in Richmond Hill, Savannah and surrounding Georgia areas. What a perfect opportunity to advertise!

Many people are familiar with traveling advertisements on vehicles throughout Richmond Hill, Georgia. These vehicle wraps are on buses and vehicles of people that own individual businesses. But, what is often not regarded is the importance of a well done vehicle wrap.

We have all seen those small advertisements in plain text on the back of people’s windshields or on the size of their cars. They simple state a business name, display a phone number and a business tag line. They are not memorable in the least.

When your company vehicle is traveling down the road and everyone is staring at it while they’re stuck in traffic, you need to give them something to remember. Your vehicle wrap is a direct reflection of your Richmond Hill or Savannah, Georgia business. The quality, creativity and attention grabbing tendencies are going to be the only thing the people driving around you remember when they go home. It must be memorable.

One of the best places in Richmond Hill to have your vehicle wrapped for business purposes is E2 Marketing. Not only is their design quality unparalleled, but their ability to come up with new and original ideas to represent your business on a vehicle ensures that you have the most creative vehicle wrap out there!

Anyone can paint “call me” on the side of their vehicle. You want to be remembered. Set your vehicle wrap apart from the rest and give Richmond Hill and Savannah, Georgia residents something to look at while they’re stuck in traffic. Turn road traffic into client traffic.

“When it is Important to Use an Agency for Media Buying”

There is a solid do it yourself mentality in Savannah, Georgia and other places throughout the Southeast and coastal Georgia. And, that is what helps make this region of the United States so great. People spend the time and the effort to pull themselves up from their bootstraps. That is how many of the businesses in Richmond Hill and Savannah, Georgia were started.

However, when it comes to buying media such as television and radio for advertisements, this do it yourself mentality can hurt you, not help you. As a business owner, your main focus should be on managing your business and making sure it succeeds. When it comes to marketing, however, it is vital to appeal to a professional. The more time you spend researching marketing yourself, the less time you are spending on your business.

There are several primary reasons that it is beneficial to use a marketing agency when buying media in the Richmond Hill and Savannah, Georgia.

Businesses want to appeal to a targeted demographic. Simply throwing your commercial up on a local television station or radio spot does not, in any way, ensure that your target audience is going to see it. If you are selling cars and your commercial airs during a cartoon show, you can be assured that the giggling children watching are not interested in your product.

Marketing agencies are able to, through careful research and deliberation, decide which television stations in Richmond Hill and Savannah, Georgia best cater to your intended clientele so that you receive maximum return on investment. Also, the times throughout the day that those commercials are aired play a crucial role. If your commercial is airing at two in the morning, it may not be the best time as your target demographic will probably be asleep. If you’re a 24-hour diner, on the other hand, this would probably be a perfect time.

This is an official notice to all current and potential clients. Blogs are the new press releases. Please take note and change your press release formats immediately.

Just kidding. Well, about the first part anyway. The truth is that blogs ARE becoming the new press releases and you need to jump on board for a variety of reasons.

Here are four primary reasons that blogs are not only better than traditional press releases, but also how you will be left in the dust by competitors who choose to use blogs instead of traditional press releases if you don’t change your evil non-technological ways.

1) The almighty RSS Feed — There is a very interesting blog that was written all the way back in 2005 for micropersuasion.com. It estimated that, by 2007, RSS will be considered an official disclosure point because people will instantaneously reach everyone at once. It was right, and in 2010 it is even more true.

Not only is RSS feed the norm, but getting it out to your social networking crowd is also a part of this. When your press release reaches your customers and clients on Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and Tumblr, you are effectively making a better impact than traditional press releases, and you’re doing it faster and easier.

2) Humanity Killed The Press Release Writer — People no longer respond to the official, soul murdering jargon conjured up in so many robotic press release writing formats. Phrases like “we are pleased” and “today announced” will fall to the wayside, and already have in a big way.

Although Internet is a piece of technology itself, it is everything but impersonal. The entire reason behind web 2.0 and social media is to more closely connect normal every day people with otherwise nameless, faceless corporations and businesses shelling out black and white announcements whenever they see fit.

People want language that fits them and that they can relate to. Businesses that do not understand this will most certainly begin to lose touch of their core clientele. Even more traditional businesses with long time clients will begin experiencing a change in this direction due to everyone and their grandmother using Facebook and Twitter.

3) Feedback is Forever — People want to be able to leave feedback and interact. If you are sending out a traditional press release, people are not able to interact with it. When it comes to a blog that RSS feeds to your social media networks you are able to receive comments on your press releases, generating conversation. If the information is news worthy, people will share it by reblogging the info, causing your message to have even more exposure.

4) Cost — It’s free to post a blog. ‘nough said.

There you have it folks. You don’t have to shift the way you’ve always released important news, but for smaller announcements, especially time sensitive announcements, you might want to try blogging it. It’s faster, easier and the information is more rapidly spread.

Internet and online marketing is still in its infancy. But, in the rapidly growing world of information technology, it’s old. In the span of just a decade, online marketing has spurned 4 full generations of online marketing professionals. You have dog years, now there is Internet years. Here is how it breaks down:

Generation 1. 1998 – 2002

Ask anyone from this generation what their ideal online marketing strategy would be and they will tell you to build a website and advertise with banner ads. While today it is still true that you need to build a web site, the act of banner advertising is not so lucrative. There are specialty performance marketing professionals and managers that create banner advertising campaigns, but they are usually paired with multi-level online marketing campaigns.

Generation 2. 2002 – 2005

Ask anyone from this generation what their ideal online marketing strategy would be and they will tell you to start a blog and implement Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising into it. Blogging is still an important part of online marketing. However, blogging is really taking a back seat to shorter information bursts. People no long read the long, thought out blogs that they did between 2002 and 2005. Additionally, PPC campaigns are still lucrative, but only in performance marketing campaigns which, as stated in Generation 1, is part of a well thought out, multi-level performance marketing campaign.

Generation 3. 2005 – 2008

Ask anyone from this generation what their ideal online marketing strategy would be and they will tell you to get on every social media network you can — MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr — and start an aggressive Adwords campaign. This is still incredibly relevant today. With the exception of MySpace, which is pretty much Internet’s forgotten amusement park. However, Facebook ad campaigns and Adwords campaigns are going toe-to-toe these days.

Generation 4. 2008 – 2010

Ask anyone from this generation (which is current) what their ideal online marketing strategy would be and they will tell you to RSS feed your social networking campaign together (linking Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blog and everything together), get on FourSquare and develop iPad and mobile phone apps. Whew! Exhausting, right?

In the blog “Choosing The Right Online Marketing Campaign” [LINK TO THAT] we talk about the differences between all of these different online marketing strategies. What is important, however, for businesses in Savannah, GA and anywhere for that matter, is to realize there is not one single proven online marketing campaign for your business. There are a variety of them. They all work on separate levels. So, even if you have heard that a particular online marketing strategy works for another person, it does not mean it will work for you.

Make sure to consult with a marketing company that knows what they’re doing in the online realm in order to find out the best way to market your business, product or services online. E2 Marketing located in Savannah, Georgia will be able to do just that for you. Guaranteeing you maximized results and return on investment.

Savannah Web Experts — E2 Marketing — often comes up against the question, “what is a CMS?”. Before answering that question, it’s important to first understand what is NOT a CMS. One of the most frustrating things abut having a third party create your website is the lack of control you have over the finished project. If you have ever attempted to hire someone in Savannah to build your website, you may find that, once the website is finished you are not able to update the content. What happens if you have an important announcement to make on your website? Or you need to change information that is no longer relevant or if you have to change a picture? You have to go through the person that designed the website.

The problem with this process is that the person that designed your website may require more money for each update. Or, you may lose contact with your web designer. Sometimes it will take days for your web designer to make the changes you need, rendering them irrelevant especially with time sensitive updates.

Enter CMS. An acronym for Content Management System, a CMS allows the website owner (that’s you!) have full access and control of a finished website. With very little training, the Savannah web experts at E2 Marketing will be able to teach you how to update any aspect of your website easily with little or no knowledge of code.

Open source blog platforms such as WordPress, MovableType, Drupal and Joomla can be used to create incredibly impactful websites that are easily maintainable by you as the owner. However, the Savannah web experts at E2 Marketing can also create 100% customizable CMS to fit your needs by developing it from scratch, which means without using a an open source program such as those listed previously.

Contact the Savannah web experts at E2 Marketing today and see how we help you keep control of your website.

In today’s online marketing world, one could spend their entire marketing budget for the year on just one aspect of online marketing. Choosing the correct online marketing campaign for your business is important. Should you concentrate solely on social media marketing? Or, should you combine SEO with traditional marketing services? Do you need to concentrate on location-based search results of nationwide Adwords campaigns?

You don’t want to spend your marketing dollars on the wrong combination of online marketing campaigns. The important thing is to optimize your online marketing campaign for your business type and goals because doing it all is unnecessary for most businesses. Let’s look at some common types of online marketing:

• Blogging & Blog Tagging (Digg, Redditt, Del.icio.us, Stumbleupon, Squido)
• Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Bebo, FourSquare, YouTube)
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) this involves a general overhaul of your website and use of tools like Adwords and keyword generators.
• Mobile App Marketing
• Performance Marketing (PPC campaigns, Affiliate marketing)
• Microsite Marketing

These online marketing techniques can be used individually or in various combinations. Usually some kind of combination is used. For example, Blogging and Blog Tagging is an aspect of SEO and can be RSS fed to Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter, effectively combining three online marketing aspects into one. Another example would be an Adwords campaign that links back to a micro site (a spin off of a primary site), which leads back to the primary site’s main blog.

There are endless possibilities, but it is vital to enact the correct combination of online marketing services for your particular business type. E2 Marketing, a well established, award winning marketing firm located in Savannah, Georgia knows how to research the correct marketing campaign for your business. E2 Marketing will come up with a target online marketing combination for your goals and business model, demonstrating verifiable results to ensure maximum return on investment.