Have you found yourself in the position that you have joined Google+ and people keep sending you unsolicited Google+ email notifications into your inbox? Pretty annoying, to say the least, however it could be due to the persons lack of knowledge about Google+ or their inexperience at marketing. You are allowed to click the SPAM button and report the email as such. This is actually an illegal practice and Google frowns upon spamming others.
Just because Google+ has an integrated email system that allows you to send your posts to different circles via email, doesn't mean that everyone in every circle wants to hear your ramblings about whatever you're pushing that day. Sending an automated email message should be regarded with the same rules as with email marketing. Would you compose a daily or hourly email and then send it to literally everyone in your address book? Probably not, because you understand that not everyone wants to hear from you constantly about whatever idea, sale, or industry fact happens to cross your mind at any given moment.
My suggestion when being spammed constantly is to alert that person to the fact that they are spamming you, and request to be put on a list that does not get email communication from them. If they persist, then report them as spam. Remember people, it is a good idea, before sending people email notifications, that you have content that you think they will truly be interested in before exercising your ability to put it in their inbox. It's not good email marketing, and it's not good manners to shove unwanted information constantly into people's email.
If you found this post helpful, click the +1 below to recommend it o Google, then click the icon "add to your circles" to the right, but don't spam me!
Tracking your marketing is extremely important. Small business owners can find ease in tracking click throughs of their marketing efforts by using trackable links, like Bitly links. Once you enter your URL into Bitly, it generates a new, customizeable link that you will use to promote your marketing strategies. It's perfect for social media posts like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+. Anytime someone clicks on the link, it will be tracked in your account. You will be able to see what day they clicked on it, and where it was generated from, for the most part.
Trackable links are great if you want to see what content people find particularly interesting. For instance, I was talking to a client recently who wants to know what reasons people are most likely to contact his company. This is easy to do with content marketing and trackable links. Using Bitly, trackable links can be generated for content distributed through a variety of channels, like social media, blogs etc. Each link will have a separate page on the company's website with relevant content for testing. Using a variety of marketing mediums, we will begin testing the content to see which pages not only get the most links, but also generate the highest conversion rates.
Here are a few of my Bitly links. Feel free to click through and like my profiles!
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/FB_SSM
Twitter: http://bit.ly/SSMtwt
Website: http://bit.ly/SSMsite
If you found this post helpful, please give me a +1 below. Thanks!
Last year, I received the best Valentine's Day gift ever from my husband. He ordered a mail order Valentine's gift from Box of Beans, probably because he can do it from his desk over lunch hour instead of fighting crowds at the store. It was a bunch little tubes of jelly beans (think Jelly Belly's) arranged into a picture of 4 different hearts. It was so cool, because it had 5 different flavors of jelly beans that made up the design of the picture of his choosing. Of course, as a marketing person, I immediately tasted marketing strategy in every tube that I gobbled down. If Box of Beans can put pictures into their mail order gifts, maybe they could spell company names or marketing messages as well.
I was pleasantly surprised when I went to the Box of Beans website and found they already were marketing to corporate accounts by allowing you to customize your order with your name, logo or monogram. Edible gifts are great marketing tools, because it combines the thoughtfulness of a well-planned marketing tool with the satisfying happiness of your tummy. You've heard the saying, "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach." I don't think this concept holds true only with men, otherwise, why would men give candy to their women at Valentine's Day? If you are wooing a new account, or keeping an old one happy, Box of Beans is a unique corporate gift idea you should check out!
I'm a Social Media person, and I've written about lots of blog posts about different social media mediums, but the new one I've been into is Empire Avenue. Empire Avenue mixes the elements of Facebook, Twitter, the NYSE and Klout all into one fun social media site. The premise is you are trying to accumulate wealth by buying and selling stock in other Empire Avenue participants, but some of the stock price is also predicated on how effective you are at social media.
Now there are parts of the game that I haven't quite figured out yet, like the purpose of "Eaves" or the missions that are created by players offering Eaves as an incentive for what they want, like Facebook likes, Twitter retweets or YouTube likes to name a few, but all in all it is actually quite fun. Empire Avenue also creates a network of friends that all have the same goal in mind, which is to increase each other's wealth and/or stock price, so there is a certain level of commraderie that is missing in Klout.
Like I said before, I'm not quite sure exactly what I'm doing, but I've had a fun time playing around, an apparently I must be doing something right, because my stock price keeps going up, and I've had multiple people buy my stock and post on my wall that they are buying because I'm a top performer. Though that is nice to hear, ultimately, I've met some Empire Avenue investors that have engaged with me over a multitude of social media mediums, which is invaluable on many levels. If you haven't heard of the site, I recommend you start a profile, and buy stock in Chuck444. As I said, I'm making my investors money, so people keep telling me.
If you would like to contact me, fill out a contact form.
Follow Shoestring Mktg on Facebook or LinkedIn and you can help my Empire Avenue score go up while getting great marketing tips and facts on a regular basis. Thanks for connecting!
