Digital Marketing Specialist, Social Media Consultant,
and Tech Geek at Heart

From the category archives:

Internet

Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2011

January 5, 2012

It’s my birthday and I have some great news!

In January of 2011, I said that I’d make our Internet Marketing Posts of 2011 subscriber only. And I did. Many loyal readers have checked in on the newsletter throughout 2011 to get both evergreen content, the content that typically embraces these monthly updates, in addition to something completely new, monthly digital trends – the stuff you use for presentations and proposals, for arguing that social media and online marketing does have a firm place in today’s landscape. The newsletter, which was sent within the first week of the month, would include new research findings from surveys conducted by research groups such as the Pew Research Center, new discoveries from a marketing firm’s eye tracking study, or data that was recently culled across a multitude of SEO agency case study reports.

This year, I am pleased to bring back our Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2011 thanks to an excellent sponsor, HubSpot. HubSpot has recently launched a most amazing Marketing Grader tool to help you measure the effectiveness of your website. Please be sure to check it out as it’s one of the best tools I’ve ever seen, and I would be saying that even if they weren’t a sponsor!

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How To Monitor Your Three Essential Internet Marketing Strategies

November 22, 2011

This is a guest post by Andy Havard.

Internet marketing strategies vary depending on the nature of the blog, brand, or business and alter with accordance to their physical and digital size and their particular niche. When it comes to marketing any organization, product, or service on the web, there tends to be three essential ways of doing so:

  1. Dominating social media platforms
  2. Utilizing Internet video
  3. Driving traffic to websites

This three-fold plan appears to be a timeless marketing approach on the net, but how do you know you’re succeeding in these areas? How do you know your campaign is ticking all the right boxes?

The following article addresses the best practices for measuring and monitoring your marketing campaign in these three areas, and provides an easy to digest guide to some of the best tools for the job.

Broad Social Media Monitoring

Depending on how social your Internet presence is, you might only be interested in certain aspects of social media data. Let’s imagine your blog, brand, or business operates a wide variety of social media from the likes of Facebook and Twitter to StumbleUpon and Instagram.  The time it would take to collect such a wide variety of data could eat up a good chunk of your day. When you’re operating in this way, the most time- efficient data to gather is a broad overview of how your overall approach is going down on the ‘net.

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QR Codes, Email, and Mobile Marketing: Tools for Small Businesses to Compete Digitally

October 18, 2011

This is a guest post by Julian Rockwood, a product manager at Signal.

For small businesses, marketing often takes a back seat to day-to-day operations. They acknowledge that marketing is important; yet there are only so many hours in the day. Compounding the challenge: Consumer use of emerging technologies is moving faster than a typical business owner can keep up with.

That’s why at Signal, we’ve dedicated a piece of our business to providing an affordable and simple product to help small businesses leverage mobile marketing, social media and email to grow and nurture their customer base.

While it seems like there’s a new tool added to the marketing toolbox each day, these methods are gaining traction thanks to their captivating call-to-actions and instant-engagement capabilities. Based on our experiences, we’ve developed the following tips to help small businesses understand how to incorporate text messaging, mobile-optimized email, and QR codes to complete digitally.

Good Things Come on Packages

To see creative, effective uses of QR Codes in action, check out upcoming food manufacturers. Competition is stiff in the consumer-packaged-good (CPG) space.  Small farms, chefs, and foodtrepreneurs jump through hoops to get a SKU of their product on shelves at the local grocery chain. They have to do something to differentiate themselves from the larger brands.

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Email Overload: The Secret to Getting Inbox Zero Every Time

September 20, 2011

I hit inbox zero for the sixth or seventh time this week in not one but two email accounts which feed in 13 email addresses total. Once an impossibility, it’s now an everyday occurrence. In fact, it’s now a true mindset. Because I’ve streamlined this process so well, I figure other people would benefit from my tips to make inbox zero a true reality. This is especially important as web users have the expectation of fast replies in our fast paced social media world.  My workflow works great, so I’m offering the below to those of you who may want to use these tips for their own internal processes.

Inbox Zero

Use a Conversation Email System

This solution really is best suited for those using Gmail. In my case, 12 email accounts are fed through one gmail.com account. (I also have a dedicated Google Apps account for my Mashable emails.) Why is this so important? Gmail’s mail system offers the tools needed to be an email ninja: labels and threaded emails. Plus, its shortcuts (A for archive) make management a snap.

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The Productive Online Business Toolbox: My Must-Have Tools

March 22, 2011

As many of you know, I’m a work at home mom who operates as a consultant, ad sales manager for Mashable, and soon-to-be startup founder all from one single Dell laptop which I use as a desktop. Having a home office is both a blessing and a curse; the ability not to commute makes my life easier and saves me about 3-4 hours per day. However, that also means I’m working from morning until night. While some would like to have a defined 9-5 schedule, I do not, and I actually thrive in this environment.

I don’t think that’d have been the case without the web-based toolbox and the PC apps that have saved my life more than once. Hopefully, they’ll do the same for you. Here’s a list of what I use that makes me productive, from time savers to the must have tools that rock my world.

Gmail

I still talk to so many people who use Outlook. It’s a nice tool but it’s not as portable as Gmail, and I stick by it. Here are my tips for the best use of Gmail:

  • Use Gmail as a one-stop destination. Currently, I use Gmail as the exclusive “destination” for 11 email accounts.
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