6 Reasons Why You Should Build An Email List

Do you think email lists are outdated? Are you considering building one but you have some doubts as to their usefulness?

Many businessmen and bloggers have doubts where email lists are concerned. This is usually because they don’t realize the importance of building one when they’re just starting out. However, they usually change their minds when they see the impact an email list has on somebody else’s traffic and revenue.

If you’re still in doubt, we have 6 convincing reasons why you should start building your email list right now.

What Is An Email List?

Basically, an email list is a list of email addresses from persons who gave their consent so that you can send them updates and promotions regarding your business or service.

Email lists can be used with an email marketing software so that you can send emails in bulk regarding blog updates, online sales, product launches and other related marketing paraphernalia.

Why Is It Important?

Studies by the Direct Marketing Association reveals that email lists have an average of 4,300% for businesses. Because people have given you permission to send them updates regarding their products, this means that they are interested in what you have to offer.

Here are reasons why emails are an invaluable communication channel.

• Email Is Personal

Each email you send lands in a prospective customer’s inbox. There is no limit or ranking system for your reach. It is a direct and personal way to communicate.

• It’s Purposeful

To get emails from you, people need to sign up using a form and they confirm their email addresses. Somebody who takes time doing this means that they are interested in hearing from you and are much more receptive to your communication efforts.

• Email Is Targeted

Since subscribers are interested in hearing from you, you can send them updates on products or service that they are interested in. this means you can offer them highly relevant products that can deliver better results. This is what we call segmentation.

• You Own That Email List

Nowadays, it is normal with businesses to interact with their customers using Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. However, you social marketing efforts and your SEO campaign can go down the drain should any of these channels change their policies. On the other hand, you own your email list so you can continue with your email marketing campaigns because it is not influenced by the decisions of other businesses.

• It’s One-On-One

People read their emails in the privacy of their inbox. Unlike posts in social media, only the intended person has access to what’s in your email. They can ask questions directly and in private. This type of communication builds rapport and trust.

• We Use Email All The Time

Many people know that Facebook has over 1 billion users and Twitter has 100 million daily active users. What they don’t know is that there are over 3.8 billion active email accounts all around the world. This is roughly half the population of the Earth.

Big brand names understood this a long time ago which is why they spend thousands of dollars on social media campaigns to get people to sign up on their list. They know that email marketing is a very good long term investment with a higher return because people will continue to get the message for a longer time at a very low cost.

A personalized digital marketing strategy can be very rewarding for your company in the long run. Contact Creativ Digital for digital marketing strategies in Sydney.

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Reasons Why Your Content Marketing Campaign Is Failing

Content marketing is all about information dissemination. It is a type of marketing that relies on sharing educational, entertaining or insightful information that can help readers improve their lives.

This decision can change their behavior or it could influence their purchasing decision. Content marketing is not about forcing a sale, it’s about helping them move towards the best course of action.

Content marketing is a marketing strategy focused on distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content designed to attract and retain a targeted audience.  

However, the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy can make or break your business. If you’re finding yourself in the latter, these could be the reasons why your content marketing strategy is failing.

Not Understanding Buyer Personas

A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data on your existing customers. When forming your buyer persona, it should be based on demographics, age, buying behavior, motivations and goals. The more details you have, the better.

However, not all marketers take time to do the research and not knowing your audience can have a disastrous effect on your content marketing efforts.

Content marketers should develop buyer as well as reader personas so that update recipients will find newsletters and blog readers will find information that they need or find relevant to their situations.

Always remember that blogs are not just about educating readers and buyers about your product or brand so that you can push them down the sales funnel. When you understand your audience, you know what topics will grab their attention.

Failing To Provide Quality

The primary goal of content marketing is to get leads through quality information. Keep your content fresh and to publish consistently.

When you don’t post new blog articles, people will stop going to your website or blog. Post as often as you can and remember to post quality content.

It’s also alright to post once a week, so long as you focus on quality over quantity. It’s also best to post at a regular time so that people will know when to expect updates.

Not Proof-reading or Editing

Wrong grammar is one of the biggest pet peeves of readers. Misspelled words, no commas or periods can be irritating. These little mistakes can send some readers over the hill. Moreover, it makes your blog look unprofessional.

Always spell check, proof-read and edit your content before publishing. There are also tools like Gramar.ly and peer-readers who can check your work for you.

Not Reusing Or Repurposing

If you’ve been producing content for a long time, chances are you have a ton of it. Many marketers usually product content that covers a lot of topics and the good news is that you can recycle them over and over again.

How to repurpose old content: You can make a slideshow or video of your “how to’s”, transcribe your video and audio format, update reports so that it’s current or build on existing content by expanding certain points or building on new ideas and share older content to new audience.

No Call-To-Action

Even professional content marketers forget to add a call-to-action button from time to time. However, there is no better way to guide people to other parts of your website than a well-placed CTA.

Without CTAs visitors will have no way to know about your products or services. Consider placing CTAs in your blog, email messages, Facebook page, every page of your website, within webinars and ebooks and presentation.

Avoiding these email marketing mistakes can help your campaign succeed. Always remember that readers are always looking for information that’s quick, easy to digest and engaging.

Website Content Marketers in Sydney can provide a crisp and compelling content that can engage readers and showcase your brand personality.

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10 Reasons Why You Have A Sucky Blog

We all know that blogging is not for everybody. Many people fail at blogging while others are intimidated and don’t know where to start.

The good news is that with dedication and planning, you can start a blog that can someday supplement your income so that you can quit your full time job. This is because blogging is risky and does not involve a significant amount of financial investment. If done correctly, blogging can be rewarding. The profit margin has no equal which is why it’s good to start blogging right now.

However, before you expect to make thousands of dollars per month, make sure to avoid the following blogging mistakes.

No Objective

For many bloggers, the goal of blogging is to address issues that concern them. For example, if your blog is about people who want to lose weight; your content should be related to weight loss. The same is true if it’s for cat lovers, then it should be about cats. If your blog is about cats and then you post weight loss tips, readers will leave your site.

Before starting a blog, find a niche you’re interested in. You should be passionate about the subject you want to blog about so that you can effectively communicate what you want to say to your readers.

Thinking That Blogging Is Easy

This is perhaps the most common misconceptions about blogging. Many people think that because there are many blogs on the internet, it must be easy so they think that spending 30 hours per week on a blog is insane.

The truth is that blogging requires a lot of time and effort. You don’t only want to write quality content; you should also spend time promoting your blog. After all, what’s the point of creating great content if nobody reads it?

More importantly, more and more blogs are being created every day. This means more competition in an already crowded space. Not promoting your blog can make it irrelevant.

Before starting a blog, take time to figure out how much time you’re willing to devote to your blog. The more work you put into your blog, the faster you will reach your goal of having a passive secondary income stream.

Choosing A Niche Based On Money Making Potential

Blogging takes a lot of trial and effort and sometimes feels like a full-time job. So before you choose a niche, make sure that it is something you are truly passionate about. This means that if you don’t like to cook or don’t know how to, don’t start a blog about cooking or baking. If you’re not into fitness, you shouldn’t start a blog about body building.

This is why you should only blog about topics you know about. If you like basketball, you should start a blog about improving your jump shots, free throws or dribbling abilities.

No Domain

Web addresses like yourblogname.wordpress.com or yourblogname.blogger.com is basically telling your readers that you’re not a professional. There are some bloggers who succeeded using these types of URL but they are one in a million.

It’s better to start a blog using your own domain. Luckily, there are many hosting providers that offer affordable solutions for bloggers.

Nobody Can Find Your Blog

What’s the purpose of writing quality content if nobody reads it? One of the most common reasons why blogs fail is that bloggers think they only need to write good content and people will automatically know how to find it. This is not true because blogging is 30% quality content and 70% promotion.  Google and other search engines won’t rank your blog high just because you launched it.

There are many ways to promote your blog. You can use social media, guest blog or get syndicated.

Believing You Will Be Rich Overnight

As we said above, you can’t expect to make thousands of dollars after just a month or two of blogging. The truth is that there are blogs that make over $5,000 per month but it took them at least 3 years of dedication and hard work to reach that level.

But don’t give up. Try it for at least a year but make sure that your dreams are realistic. $5,000 salary per month is worth the effort so make sure that you dedicate time and effort to our blog.

Being Inconsistent

Readers will expect regular blogs once they become regular visitors to your websites. So if you want to be a successful blogger, you need to stick to a schedule.

You have 2 options when it comes to posting regularly: promise yourself that you are going to post on a regular basis or write a large number of blogs ahead of time and use an auto posting app to update regularly.

Bad Design

Design is just as important as content.  As they say, first impressions count and you only have 1 chance. Before guests read what you have to say, they have to take a look at how your blog looks like so if it looks like it’s designed by a 5-year old they’re not going to take you seriously.

Invest in a paid theme rather than a free one. Make sure that the colors complement each other and the font as well as the typeface is readable.

Having Ads

Having ads on a brand new blog makes it look spammy. Yes, ads mean money but it also affects the trust and recognition of your readers. Unless you’re an established blog, readers will think of ads on a blog as spammy.

Stay away from ads until you have around 50,000 readers. This number might seem large but remember you only get 5-50 cents per ad click so unless you have massive traffic, it won’t matter anyway.

No Opt-in Or Subscription Forms

When you start a blog, start building your email list too. Email should be a priority because people don’t always remember what website they’ve been to and an email can help them remember your blog.

Make sure they subscribe to your email list by asking them through popups, slide-ins and opt-in forms. They might seem intrusive (especially the popups) but they are really useful.

One of best ways to ensure that your blog gets noticed not only by readers but also by search engines is through SEO. An SEO Company from Sydney can help you optimize your website so that you don’t only have blog readers but customers too. They have a wide range of strategies and services so that your blog gets noticed by the right people.

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New UX Books To Help You Succeed

UX or User Experience is an ever changing field. There are always new practices and theories that keep cropping up and explaining them can take some time because it’s not something that can be tweeted or just blogged about on social media platforms.

Keeping your UX skill up to date is an ongoing process and one of the best ways to be on top of industry standard is by reading books. Luckily, there are always new books on UX so learning and keeping abreast of the latest trends and practices is easier.

These books on UX were selected because not only are they the latest, they are also written by industry experts. If you’re a manager, designer or just somebody who likes learning or staying informed, these books on UX are worth checking out.

Strategic Writing for UX

Writing is just as important as visual design in UX. This is very important because writing usually gets neglected and this can make the difference between success and failure of your website. This book will help fill the gap by addressing how to include UX content works in the software development process, how to use framework to align UX content with principle and how to explore first-content design to root UX text in conversion.

Strategic Writing for UX was written by Torrey Podmajersky. In this book she also explains how UX patterns work using different voices and how to product text that’s purposeful, concise, conversational and clear.

Building Design Systems

If you want to learn how to unify shared UX through a shared design language, Building Design Systems makes for a good reading choice. Design system is one of the most talked about topic in UX because it allows a design team to build a framework that addresses their needs by bringing together all the design elements including style guides, UI libraries, CSS frameworks and other resources.

This book is by Sarrah Vesselov and Taurie Davis, leaders of the design field and this book guides you through the process of defining a design language that can be understood across teams. It will also explain how to sell it to key stakeholders and other contributors.

Ruined by Design

Ruined by Design is by controversial web designer Mike Monteiro. This book is half rant half call-to-arms and explains how designers can help fix the world by taking the right attitude to design.

The good news is that this book isn’t just one long rant. It’s also a call-to-action for designers to make better decisions so that we can change the world. It also provides the tools to help you do so. Monteiro explains how to evaluate the potential benefits and harm of your design and how to present your concerns using data and good storytelling to decision makers so that they will actually listen.

Emotionally Intelligent Design

In her book Emotionally Intelligent Design, design researcher and author Pamela Pavliscak probes new technologies and techniques that can help you engage emotionally with users while probing the moral and ethical issues of UX design. She examines new technology that engages emotion and new emotional design practices. Her book depicts her experience and latest research in psychology, neuroscience and behavioral economics.

You will also learn different methods of blending well-being interventions with design patterns, new principles for merging emotional intelligence and design thinking and how to use relationship model for framing product interactions and personality.

Think Like a UX Researcher

Think Like a UX Researcher by David Travis and Philip Hodgson takes a deep dive into theory and practice of UX research and offers practical advice on how to plan, conduct, analyze data and persuade people to take action based on the results.

This book is a good read for UX researchers, designers, project managers, scrum masters, business analysts and marketing managers. It also includes workshop ideas so you can build on your UX maturity.

These books are all available via Amazon so that you can boost your UX books with groundbreaking skills and insights.

We at Creativ.com.au use the latest UX design principles so that your website is responsive and modern. Our designs are strategically personalized so that you can grow, launch and scale your online business.

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Learn Secrets To Outranking Your Competitors

Let’s face it, the internet is so full of ecommerce stores, bloggers, influencers and what not that it’s getting harder to attract your target market’s attention. There are simply too many competitors and standing out is even more important nowadays.

Competitive analysis is a critical part of a business marketing plan. Competitor analysis will  not only give you an insight to what your competitor is doing, it will help you compare and ultimately capitalize on it.

Whether you’re just starting out or expanding, knowing what your rivals are doing can help you devise a marketing strategy that can help you outrank them because it identifies their weaknesses and strengths so that you can benchmark them against your own.

If you’re looking for SEO tricks that can help you outrank your competitors you’re in the right place because we have some tips for you.

Investigate Their Online Presence

Get details on how the competitor behaves online. For example, do they use PPC, do they have multiple landing pages, do they use schema data, who are their referrals?

It’s best to identify the strong and weak points in their marketing strategy.

Analyze Their Reputation and Reviews

Analyze how customers think of your competitors. You can find these by going to their Google reviews, social reviews or comments left on their blogs. Read positive and negative reviews.

This will give you an insight on what needs to be improved, how customers perceive a product and other information like what customers don’t like. You can then apply what you have learned to better your product or service.

Track Mentions Of Your Competitors

Remember the saying: keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Aside from monitoring customers or other websites that mention your brand, you also need to track mentions of your competitors online.

You can use Google Alert to monitor new stories or mention of your competitors , your brand and other related subjects.

Analyze Their PPC Efforts

Learn which keywords your competitors are bidding on. Use both secondary and primary keywords within the search engines. You can also use 3^rd party tools to save time. They will help you breakdown which ads are image, text or HTML. It will even analyze the pages the ads lead to.

Evaluate Content

Take a look at your competitor’s content. This will give you insights on what you need to improve in terms of your own. Scan all their content: online, offsite, landing pages, copies, blogs, news, white paper, FAQs, infographics, ebooks, webinars, podcasts and other content forms.

Snoop On Their Social Media

Take a look at which social media platforms your competitors are using, what type of content they post, how often, who their audience are and how the engage with their audience. This will give you a good idea of how customers feel, what type of engagement works well so that you know which styles work and what techniques will work best for your own social media campaigns.

Engage With Them

Having an insight as to what your competitors are doing well can help you capitalize on it. Behave like one of their customers and add yourself on their email newsletter subscription, blog and social media platforms. This will give you the opportunity to review their content, call to action as well as their engagement style.

Benchmark Yourself Against Them

Compare your competitor’s key matrix against your own. From your insights as well as from data gathered you will get an idea of how your competitors market themselves against you in your shared industry. Now that you have an idea of their marketing strategy you can formulate plans so that you can position your brand against them and stand out.

Comparing yourself against your competitors can show you new opportunities for improvement and growth. Knowing what they are doing and how they are doing it can help you do better so that you stand out

A Sydney SEO Company can help you optimize your website so that you have customers on your doorstep. Our strategies can help you attract the right kind of traffic so that you can boost leads and sales.

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Rising Social Media Platforms You Should Try

Marketers are already familiar with the Big 3 social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Marketers love them because they provide an easy way of promoting and sharing products and services.

However, new social media platforms are created all the time. While they don’t have the same popularity as the Big 3, a handful of alternatives can give them a run for their money. If you’re an early adopter of fun and new social media platforms, your business can benefit with these alternatives.

Here are some rising social media platforms you need watch to take advantage of being an early bird.

TikTok

TikTok was previously known as Musical.ly and is very popular with young users. According to studies conducted by Sensor Tower, TikTok was the 4^th most downloaded app in 2018.

TikTok is all about creating short videos that play on a loop. Users love them because the app makes it easy to add music, filters, effects and more.

The app got a bad rep because some people think that it’s just a lip synching app for kids. However, if your audience is between the ages of 16-24, then it’s a great platform to promote your business especially if it is related to fashion.

Lasso

This is basically Facebook’s version of TikTok. It was released in 2018 and users can create short videos with fun filters and effect. They can also log in to their Facebook and Instagram accounts to cross-post their videos. A feature allowing to cross post with Instagram is coming soon.

Lasso might not be as popular as TikTok right now but it could rival it’s competitor soon. If your target audience uses TikTok, you should keep an eye out for Lasso.

Vero

Vero is an Instagram alternative that boasts no ads, no data mining and no algorithms. This platform allows users to share photos, music, TV shows, books, links and others. An interesting feature allows users to choose who can see their post by choosing from categories such as: close friends, friends, acquaintances or followers.

There are no ads on Vero but brands can still work with influencers on the platform and even add a “buy now” button to their posts.

Because Vero is touted as “no ads” it has being called the authentic social media platform. This is a good choice for companies that want to build more meaningful relationships with their audience. Users can use the platform to share a wide range of content so it’s a good venue to find out what your audience likes.

SteemIt

SteemIt is a blockchain based blogging and social media platform that rewards users with cryptocurrency for creating and curating content. The platform works by rewarding users when they upvote content. They can also be paid when they upvote the content of others. They can then exchange their digital Steem tokens for real money.

Steem is seen as a Reddit alternative where people post about technology topics. However, you an share any type of content on SteemIt and it can cover many different topics. SteemIt today has a small user-base. However, marketers can still use it as an additional channel to share their content and grow their follower base while getting paid at the same time.

Caffeine

Caffeine is similar to Twitch that was created by a team of ex-Apple designers focused on gaming, entertainment and creative arts. The app allows you to create live broadcasts for friends, followers and viewers can interact with you in real-time using comments and emojis.

You should seriously consider using Caffeine because according to Livestream, 80% of users would rather watch videos live from a brand than read a blog. This means live streaming content from apps like Caffeine can generate a lot of attention and interaction. This app is not just for gamers. You can use it to demo a product or service, hold a Q&A session, give a tour of your company and other viewable content.

These 5 rising social media platforms can be a good alternative to the already crowded space that’s being occupied by the Big 3. Jumping early on can give you a competitive advantage.

A Sydney Social Media Marketing expert can help you reach out to clients and interact with them.  We help you create persuasive pages and content to give your brand advantage over the competition.

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Ecommerce Metrics That Are Always Overlooked

For many entrepreneurs, data is everything. When you’re starting out an online store, you’re usually concerned with binary decisions that will make it easier for you to launch your business. You need to decide what product to sell, who your audience is and how to reach them, building a website and putting the proper tools in place to make it easier for people to find you.

In the early days, focusing on building a solid foundation so that you can successfully launch your business is understandable. But after your launch date, you need to step up your game further. You need to evolve from business builder to data analyst. Once your ecommerce store is up and running you need to make strategic decisions so that you can boost revenue, reduce cost and acquire more customers.

Knowing how to make sense of the data plays a big part in your business decisions. Informed decisions can help you improve your ecommerce store so that you can act on areas that need change or optimization. To do this successfully, you need to keep track of these metrics.

Customer lifetime value (LTV)

Customer lifetime value (LTV) is very important but always overlooked. This metric helps you determine how much profit you will earn during the average customer lifespan. Knowing the value of each customer will help you determine budgeting, strategy and help with forecasting. More importantly, it can help you understand how much money you spend in acquiring customers but still remain profitable.

It can also help you with decisions when it comes to strategies related to customer retention and frequency.

The basic formula for computing LTV is by taking your average order value and multiplying it by your purchase frequency. The product of this equation (customer value) is then multiplied by your average customer lifespan. To make it easier, analytics tools like Compass and OrderMetrics can calculate and report on LTV for you.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) or in some platforms as CPA or cost per acquisition helps you understand how much money you spend to convert or acquire new customers. This metric is important because it tells you how much money you need to spend in order to acquire a customer each month.

Calculating CAC is easy. Just divide the total costs associated with acquiring customers with the total number of new customers acquired over the specific time period when the money to acquire was spent. Example of costs include: paid ads, content creating, direct emailing, etc.

Once you know CAC, evaluate it with LTV to know how much money you’re spending to get new customers against how much money you will make during the duration that they are your customers. If you find that you’re spending more than you’re going to make, you have a problem that needs to be addressed.

Page Load/Speed

Page load time or page speed refers to the time it takes for your website to load fully for visitors. Online business owners need to remember that since they can’t meet their customers personally; their website is the primary tool for creating a good first impression.

Slow loading websites can affect customer experience. It also affects your bounce rate and high bounce rates affect your competitiveness in Google Search Results Page.

Revenue by Channel

You should also check revenue by channel to help fuel your business growth. Knowing where your money is making a bigger impact can help you make informed decisions about future marketing growth and strategies.

For example, if your paid Facebook ads are making more revenue compared to your email marketing campaigns then you need to shift more of your budget to Facebook and dial back on your email marketing campaign.

Google Analytics can give you an acquisition report so that you can access conversion rate and revenue data by channel. OrderMetrics and Glew are also good alternative tools for this metric.

You need to pay attention to data to build a profitable and sustainable business. Understanding ecommerce metrics can help you optimize resources, shape strategies and make informed decisions.

Take advantage of the online shopping boom with the help of a Sydney Ecommerce Web Designer. We customize your ecommerce store specifically for your business and we have the expertise to ensure that your project is a success.

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