Archive for August, 2010

Great E-Newsletter Design

As you have read here before, email is far from dead…and will probably remain the preferred method of business communication for the foreseeable future. So using your email database/list to the fullest and sending a company newsletter still makes lots of marketing sense too. But how to get people to pay attention? Well, beautiful design is a good start.

Here at HTA, we’re pretty proud of the graphic layout and design of the e-newsletters we’ve created for clients. But that doesn’t mean we can’t share some other fresh, new designs with you at the same time.

Check out this group of email newsletters that have great artistic design and function, too. Maybe they will give you some ideas for your own marketing communication.

Keep it Fresh!

There are a number of important reasons why you should be keeping the content on your website fresh. The most simple, and critical, reason is to keep your current and future visitors engaged and interested in what you have to say. Stale content, such as promoting a sale or talking about an event that took place 6 months ago, has the potential to really “turn off” visitors to your website.

Another important reason for updated content that I reference a lot with clients is the SEO value that it can provide. Simply put, search engines really like to “see” fresh, new content (text, graphics, charts, video, downloads, etc.) on a website.

They figure that if someone is taking the time to continually add new stuff to the website, some of it is probably fairly relevant information or data, and probably deserves to be ranked higher than a site which is rarely or never updated.

Providing updated content can also support good customer service within your organization, be necessary for regulatory or legal reasons, or help you maintain company/brand reputation, among others. Bottom line, you need to keep your website fresh! And if you don’t have the time, energy or skill to maintain a regular blog or create updates for your webpages, find someone who can help. Even a relatively small investment can pay big dividends down the road.

(Need some ideas for what to write about? Here’s an older post on how to “re-purpose” old marketing materials…)

Personalized Ads on Facebook

Many have discovered the value in Facebook advertising. The costs are lower than many other web options; you can target very specific sets of people; and you can advertise a Facebook page or your website. But once you’ve created your FB advert, here’s a little-known tip that can supercharge your ad.

Imagine watching your favorite TV show. The commercials come on, but instead of fast-forwarding through them (as most do these days), you notice a picture of YOUR friend in the lower corner of the screen, pointing to the business in the commercial saying, “Hey, I like these guys. Check them out!”

Pretty cool, huh? The Facebook ‘Friends of Connections’ ad targeting does just this, allowing your fans to be featured in your ads.

Here’s how to find this option: When you set up your ad, look under the “Targeting” section and you’ll see an option to display more detail. There you will see the option of “Target users whose friends are connected to”, and select the group that you would like.

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