If you are regular reader of this site than you know I change the theme about as often as I change my socks. This site is more than a marketing and design resource for my readers, it is also a design and usability testing playground for me! And as you may have noticed, the site has undergone a few new layout changes today.
There is one in particular change that I would like to discuss further, adding an author bio to post pages. While this is not in itself a difficult change or anything that would normally warrant a post, I had to make a minor change to the core WordPress code to allow HTML markup in the author bio field.
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If you’re going to set up a small website with no special intentions of it going huge in the nearby future you probably want to spend as little money as possible on it. What if I said that you can get free website hosting, would you believe me? Well, it’s actually true and it’s a hosting form that’s growing as a competitor to the shared web hosting package. Let’s take a look at what it is and how come it can be offered for free.
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I run into a lot of companies that tell me they have tried direct mail and that “it didn’t work.” This makes me curious and I have to wonder why their results did not live up to their expectation.
I have personally managed direct mail campaigns that generated as high as a 15% response rate. On the other hand, in 10 years in marketing I have also seen campaigns fell flat and pulled a measly .04%! So what makes one mailing fail, while others generate an amazing response?
Believe it or not, the answer can be boiled down to a few simple elements – format, offer, list and follow-up. Putting these elements together successfully does take a certain amount of experience and sometimes even a little luck. But with proper planning, understanding your list, and knowing your goals you can put luck on your side.
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What are some ways to actually succeed in a down economy? I have been asked this question many times in the last few months, so I wanted to write about some specific down-to-earth strategies that can help you weather the storm.
The biggest problem for marketers during a bad economy is their shrinking budget. With less capital to spend on advertising, the pressure to always succeed is greater. There is no room for failure or trial and error when times are tight and budgets are shrinking. So smart marketers need to focus their attention on things that are proven to work and carry little risk.
A well executed game plan during a recession can separate the marketing pros from the wannabes! Here are 3 marketing tips to beat the tough economy:
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Obviously clients expect great service from hired consultants, but what is the best way to provide this? You can add tremendous value to client relationships by making them more personal and taking a more proactive approach. By taking some time to meet with clients and get feedback, you can demonstrate personal interest in the client and get feedback on what is working and what needs improvement. This kind of feedback is invaluable to you and should be sought at all times.
The intention of this guide is to lay out general strategies for initiating and carrying out client visits. Every client is different, and as such should be treated differently. The perfect strategy for one client may not be right for another. Because no boilerplate strategy can be used, a specific plan for each client visit or each client should be developed.
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In a new study, released today by MarketingSherpa, consumer marketers were asked to rank the ROI of various online marketing tactics during Q4 2008. Once again, email, SEO and paid search top the list. A shift in budget spending is also seen, as marketers are shifting away from expensive branding campaigns toward more measurable online strategies.
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UPDATE: The script referred too below, email signature generator has been updated. You may now choose to place your signature above the reply, and you may also add their bookmarklet directly to your Chrome bookmarks bar.
After I finished writing my previous post on HTML signatures I went to reply to an email and realized the email signature was being placed at the very end of the quoted email. I personally can’t stand this and have always preferred to have my email signature appear directly after my reply, not at the bottom of the email. After spending a little time looking at the javascript produced by the GeekFG bookmarklet generator, I found a way to make the email signature appear above the quoted email and after my reply text.
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UPDATE: The script referred too below, email signature generator has been updated. You may now choose to place your signature above the reply, and you may also add their bookmarklet directly to your Chrome bookmarks bar.
If you are using Gmail, then you probably by now have realized that Gmail does not allow HTML signatures. And if you are anything like me, you refuse to accept “no” as an answer. I spent a little while searching around on the Internet trying to find a workaround to this issue. It turns out that a number of people before me have also wanted an HTML signature in Gmail, and there are a handful of methods to accomplish this task.
Many of the methods use a Grease Monkey script for FireFox… Which would work great if you use FireFox. But being that I am addicted to anything Google these days, and the fact that Chrome is a far superior browser, I do not use FireFox anymore.
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