Email Marketing vs Social Media Marketing/Mobile Marketing

We know. Many reckon there is not even necessary to compare. Many would say Social Media Marketing & Mobile Marketing are all the hype now. Some would say Email Marketing is gone.

Think twice. Email Marketing is now more powerful than ever because of social media!

Why You Need Email Marketing

This is because Email Marketing moves the conversation between you and your customers up to a more personal level – the Inbox. Moreover, with so many chat apps out there, most of us are joining too many chat groups which do not concern us at all.

So what do most of us do at the end of the day? We start to ignore certain chat apps and no longer reading them.

6 Best Email Marketing Practices

But Email is different. Your email inbox is something more private. Most of us check our email inbox from time to time no matter what.

For example, the Exabytes Group, the largest website hosting provider in Malaysia is still using Email Marketing!

So now the question is how can we make sure that the emails you send are opened, read, and acted on?

#1 Good Email Subject Lines

Email subject lines are what your recipients see before they open your emails.

You must understand that your email will be competing with hundreds of other emails/e-newsletters as many of us subscribe to quite a number of newsletters from different companies at the same time.

To grab the attention of your readers, the quality of your Email Subject Line is what makes all the difference.

For examples, if you offer 50% off for ABC package, which of the following subjects would you choose?

Subject 1: Grab 50% OFF For Our ABC Package!

Subject 2: How to Pay RM500 LESS for ABC Package!

Obviously, subject 2 creates more curiosity and is able to grab readers’ attention. On the other hand, subject 1 is less attention grabbing. At the same time, you also want to avoid email subject lines that sound too spammy such as the following:

“FREE! Grab 50% OFF & FREE Gift NOW!”

To write effective email subject lines that get opened, simply read more articles on how to write good email subject lines.

#2 Punctuation

A sentence without any punctuation is not good because nobody understands the tone and emotion of your message. Using the right punctuation marks in your subject line can show some excitement/emotion to the readers!

#3 Use Capital Letters

Use capital letters appropriately! While FULL UPPERCASE subject lines can draw attention, it can also indicate anger, and some of your recipients might not like it.

A more tolerable use of capital letters is to use Title Case, for example, “What is Email Marketing?”

On the other hand, using Sentence case (“What is email marketing?”) in your subject lines can give your readers a feeling of being more casual and informal, which can be useful sometimes.

#4 Use short subject lines

Every day, the number of mobile users is increasing rapidly, and more and more people are checking their emails on smart phones. Try to keep your subject lines more direct and less wordy.

Your goal is to get readers to open your emails! 60 characters or less usually does the magic.

#5 Quality Relevant Content

Always remember to match your goal with your content. The content of your email should depend on the immediate goal of the email.

For example, if the primary goal is to give information, forget about sales pitches and stick to your main topic. In this case, short sentences and paragraphs are preferred.

NOTE: Make sure your email message is directly related to the subject line. Not only is this good for your credibility, it will prevent your email from going to the “Junk” or “Spam” folder!

 #6. Always End with a Call-to-Action Phrase

Every email you send should have a specific goal or desired outcome. What exactly do you want your readers to do? Do you want them to buy something, opt-in to register for a webinar, or simply read a blog post?

If you don’t tell your readers, or stress to them in the end of the message, some of them might not figure it out themselves. Thus it’s always wise to make it clear to your readers before you end your email!

#7 Colours

Orange and red are popular call-to-action phrase/button colours. You could also use standard text with a blue underlined hyperlink or fancier graphical based images.

This wraps up “6 BEST Practices for Email Marketing”. Do you have what it takes to be a good email marketer? We are sure you do!

Lastly, we hope you enjoyed and learned something new from this blog post. Thank you for reading.

Stay tuned for more!

Related articles:

• Email Marketing Metrics & KPIs To Boost Conversions
• 5 Effective Marketing Tools You Should Use

Ever thought of building your own website? What is stopping you? No knowledge in coding and design?

No budget to hire a web developer/designer to work on a beautiful and responsive website?

CAN YOU HANDLE DRAG & DROP? SURE YOU CAN!

Now all your concerns will be solved by Exabytes EBiz Pro, a hosting plan that comes with a Super User-Friendly Website Builder that lets you build your website with the powerful yet super convenient DRAG & DROP FEATURE!

Forget about website coding! If you know how to use a smart phone, you can build your own website!

In this post, we’re going to show you step by step on how to create a simple yet beautiful website.

Still don’t think it’s as easy as ABC? Check it out!

#1 Choose your template/theme

There are a total of 108 different designs/styles you can choose for your website!

Changing your template is just a click away.

After changing, all content will sync automatically.

Now you can rearrange everything by just DRAG & DROP.

#2 Start Creating Pages

First, ask yourself how many pages you want for your website, for example, “Home”, “About Us”, “Contact”, “Portfolio” etc.

Other than that, you can create a folder in the website builder to have the main tabs, and also the drop down menu.

For examples, when a website visitor hovers his mouse over your main tab “About Us”, they will discover other sub-topics such as “Our Story”, “Our Commitments” etc.

For page elements, you will have versatile widgets to design your page too!

You can also add in some videos.

You may add in some slideshows too and upload the photos you want for your banner slider at once!

#3 Click & Edit

For text content, it’s super convenient for users to change — just click on the content that you wish to change, and type in the words! Done!

#4 Responsive Website

The website you create will be highly responsive – it fits perfectly no matter what devices your visitors use to view your website.

Now you don’t need to build your website again and again just to make sure it fits multiple screens or on different devices.

SAVE Work, SAVE Time!

ARE YOU A FIRST TIMER? NO PROBLEM!

Of course, if this is the first time you are using the website builder, we understand that you might be anxious about where to begin.

Let’s start from the very basic:

• Choose your favorite theme/template
• Figure out how you want to organize your website, and how many pages you want
• Add widget to your page, and start creating your content

Simply follow the above 3 steps. We are sure you can create a beautiful website too!

HOW DOES EXABYTES WEBSITE BUILDER LOOK LIKE?

Check out the below two websites built by our happy clients!

We hope you learned something useful from this post.

If you are interested with our EBiz Pro Website Solution, you may visit Business Web Hosting for more!

Ooops, did I ever mention, there is 50% discount available too!

See you next time!

It’s true that not all good ideas can be translated into a great business.

Even if you’ve thought of a fantastic product or service, you still need the right business model, pricing, funding, marketing and people to make it work. Most importantly, of course, there are enough customers who are willing to pay for it.

In this blog post, we’ve compiled a few guidelines to make sure that you’re on the winning side before diving straight in. Check them out!

#1 Is there a market for it?

Needless to mention, carrying out extensive market research is the first step to determine if your business idea is fundamentally lucrative.

Not only one needs to ensure there is a market/demand for it, he or she also needs to assess whether the market/demand is big enough (or potentially big enough) to make the venture a success.

Next, based on the target market you have discovered, you now must determine the marketing, pricing and business model, and other strategies that will work for you.

Below are the few questions that you need to ask yourself to find out as much information as possible about your potential customers:

• What type of people are they? What are the demographic, behavior, education and so forth?
• How many are there?
• Where do they shop?
• What drives their purchasing decisions?
• How much do they typically earn and how much disposable income do they have?
• How often would they buy your products or services?

#2 Research Strategies

There are ways to “carry out” some research at zero cost.

• Quantitative research – research based on numbers and statistics

Quantitative research can show you the size, number, percentage, and other measurable statistics. You can grab these data by simply searching for some online surveys. For example, the sales figures and economic trends of a country are published by trade and industry associations.

• Qualitative research – research based on opinions and point of views.

Qualitative research can gauge your prospective customers’ attitude towards your offering. Look at your rivals’ use of technology, customer service, prices, marketing and business model and try to find out what your potential customers think about them – this will help you to identify areas for improvement.

Notes:

1. You are strongly encouraged to get a mixture of all these data to have a reliable picture of the market.
2. The purpose of doing research is to grab as much information as possible about the state, size and needs of your market. Sufficient research can help you to ensure the results aren’t biased.
3. Be prepared to change your idea according to what your customers want, not what you prescribe as the best solution.

#3 SWOT Analysis

Are you wondering what SWOT analysis is? In fact, it is a powerful analysis for anyone wishes to start a business! It’s one way to evaluate the viability of your idea. So what does SWOT stands for?

S – Strengths. What are the strengths of your business idea that can stand out among your rivals?

W – Weaknesses. What are the disadvantages of your business idea?

O – Opportunities. What are the external chances to make greater conversions?

T – Threats. In which areas or context, your business idea could be at risk? For example, is it easy for someone to slightly ‘modify’ your business idea and call it their own?

Spend some time to write them down and find the strategies to secure your business idea. Basically, you can’t protect the idea itself. But what you can do is, safeguard your name (Including domain name), brand, designs and inventions.

In short, extra work should be done to make sure your idea can’t be easily copied by a rival.

#4 What’s the Right Business Model?

To sustain a business, you need to have the ability to monetize your idea. In other words, your marketing, pricing, cost base etc must be in tune.

There are different revenue and cash flow models to consider. For instance, a beauty products business can charge the customer a monthly subscription fee, or based on the number of products sold. Make a plan for your cash flow based on the behavior of your potential customers.

Once again, research is vital to test the viability of your model — what are your customers willing to pay for and how much would they pay.

#5 Have you got what it takes?

Last but not least, have you got the right attitude and skills to turn your idea into a success? Setting up a business is an endurance challenge.

The success of your business depends heavily on your commitment to seeing it through, whether it’s the bad times or good times. In addition, your idea needs to be something you’re passionate about, and you need the skills, drive and belief to make it work.

We hope you find this post useful and come out with a great business idea! You have your business idea? Let’s look at the 7 things that you should know before starting a business here!

See ya!

Have you heard of the Google’s Self-Driving Car? Well, according to Google, the project will come into fruition in 2020!

In fact, the testing of Google’s self-driving car started in 2009. Over the years, Google has been testing self-driving prototypes around its Silicon Valley headquarters in Mountain View, California.

You’ve got a business idea. However, you have no idea what are the next steps to turn that dream into a tangible reality.