Emails your subscribers will actually click on – and read

  

 The “less is more” rule applies to many elements of online marketing, including email marketing.

Did you know that the average office worker receives 121 emails per day? When you send out a newsletter or a special offer you are competing for your reader’s attention, which now sits at an average of about eight seconds.

While there is no magic formula for how long your email subject line and body should be, there are some simple things you can do to increase your email’s readability.

Here are some tips:

·      Keep it simple. Don’t use complex words where simple ones will do. For example, instead of “utilize” try “use.”

·      Don’t use too many filler words. You’re not writing a novel, no need to get too descriptive and flowery.

·      Break up blocks of text into sections.

·      Organize information into bulleted lists.

·      Keep the subject line to six or seven words – anything longer won’t display on mobile.

·      Don’t use images that will interrupt the flow of the text.

Of course the design of the email makes a difference too. If you can, send a test of the email to yourself and check it on your mobile device. How does it look?  

Want to test your message before you send it? Try this FreeReadability Test Tool. You can simply copy and paste your text, then it will give you a readability score and tell you what that score means. For example, this message scores at an 8^th grade reading level.

If you want to get really technical the tool will also give you statistics such as how many complex words and average number of syllables are in your text.

So how readable is your content?

Free lunch every month at our Lunch n' Learns

Hello and good afternoon fellow marketers!

There is such a thing as a FREE LUNCH! Read on . . .

Here at ISJ Media we spend a lot of time doing a lot of research on the latest and greatest digital marketing tools and trends. It's what WE do.

"But how does that affect me and my business?" Glad you asked.

We do the research so you don't have to. But how do we pass that valuable information on to you, the business owner? With our free monthly Lunch and Learns! Did I mention it was free? Oh, and we've got your lunch covered too.

The next Lunch and Learn will be held on Tuesday, March 14. We offer a session at 7:45 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. to accommodate different schedules.

Previous topics have included:

• Getting your page to rank higher on Google search results
• The importance of having a responsive website
• Why Facebook is NOT the same as having a website
• Advertising on Facebook: Is it effective and tips for getting the most bang for your buck
• How to capitalize on "micro moments," those spur of the moment things that cue an online search for a product or service. 

This is NOT a sales pitch. Really. No-one will pressure you to buy anything. We want you, the local business owner, to succeed. Interested? Want more information? Contact Jenny Hopkins at jhopkins@journalnet.com or 208-239-3532. RSVP by March 9. 

See you there! 

Content marketing tips for small businesses

By Jenny Hopkins

jhopkins@journalnet.com

Content Marketing is a way of communicating with your customers and potential customers without selling. Instead of selling your products and services you are providing valuable information and content in order to build brand loyalty and awareness.

It's a tactic that is used by many large brands, including BarkBox.com. BarkBox is a service in which the subscriber receives a box monthly filled with dog toys and treats for his or her canine companion. A percentage of the proceeds are donated to canine rescue groups and animal shelters. BarkBox also produces a newsletter that features news stories about dogs and the animal rescue groups. The newsletter is not selling their product, but provides a service by giving subscribers feel-good stories about something that interests them – canines.

Content marketing also helps your website get picked up by search engines like Google. Search engines use “bots” to “crawl” the web and catalog elements such as keywords in order to create their search rankings. If a website does not get updated the “bots” have no reason to come back to the site and it will drop in the search rankings. Sites that are updated more frequently appear higher in search rankings, so creating fresh content for your site plays a crucial part in getting your site recognized by search engines.

Of course we don't all have time to create a weekly or monthly newsletter, and hiring a content marketer is not in the budget. But there some things you can do right now to create fresh content, some of which you may already have.

1. Shoot a quick video: Content marketing does not have to be text-based. It can be photo and video too. Try taking a quick video that features a new employee or a behind-the-scenes of your business. How-to videos are huge right now, so try creating a quick how-to video that relates to your business or service without directly selling it. You don't have to be a professional videographer to do this, every cell phone has a camera built in nowadays, and there are countless free video editing apps available on Google Play or the App Store. Just remember to not make the video too long, a minute or two is good, any longer than that and your viewers are likely to lose interest.
2. Add some history about your business: You already know how, when and why your business got started, and of course you're proud of it, so why not tell the world! Write a mission statement, a little information about the inspiration behind your business's beginnings, or a time-line of events and milestones.
3. Add photos: Take some quick behind the scenes photos of your staff or a step in the process of creating whatever product or service you offer. Did your business recently have an employee retreat or volunteer in the community? Take some photos to post on your website and social media. Show your human side.
4. Use curated content: Create a round-up of links to articles that relate to your industry. Save your audience time by bringing the best articles and information regarding your service or product to them in one place. If your business is home décor, for example, create a list of articles about the latest home design and Do-It-Yourself trends. Make sure you link back to the original source.
5. Encourage user-generated content: Wouldn't it be great if you could get people to interact with your business or service for free? Well, you can, but only if you ask for it. Try prompting your audience to share a photo of themselves enjoying your product or service or asking them to tweet about how your product or service has benefited them. Don't be vague, pick a specific theme. Going back to the home décor, for example, you could ask people to share a photo of their best fall decorating projects. Use a hashtag that corresponds with the theme to encourage others to participate. You'll get more response with some than others, but don't get discouraged, try different prompts until you find the ones that click. Try offering a prize for participants to increase participation. Pick a random participant to win or offer a discount to all.

Get more marketing tips and find out how ISJ Media can expand your digital reach at www.isjmedia.net

How to use Pokemon Go to attract customers

By now you've heard of Pokémon Go, unless you've been living in a cave or stranded on an island in the south Pacific.  Driving through Pocatello yesterday I saw tweens and teens walking around in groups, eyes glued to their phones (even more so than usual), looking for the cute little animated creatures.

DMR reports that 78% of Pokémon Go users are between the ages of 18-34 and there are 20 million active users daily in the United States alone. This is a huge opportunity for small businesses!

Here's the basics of how Pokémom Go works:
A Pokémon, or pocket monster, is an animated animal-like creature. There are different types and

One of our tech guys getting in on the fun.

some are more rare than others. When a player downloads the app and signs in, the game uses the GPS on his or her phone to create a virtual map of the area.

The goal is to catch as many Pokémon as possible, so players walk around and using the map, find where the Pokemon are hiding. When the player gets in range of the Pokémon the app uses the camera function on the player's phone to put an animated picture of the creature in the scene, so it looks like it is really there.

When the player gets close enough to a Pokémon, they try to catch it by throwing a PokéBall. See that red and white ball in the photo to the right? Players swipe the phone screen to toss the ball and catch the Pokémon. But it is not as easy as it sounds, the Pokémon move! If you miss you have to throw another PokéBall, and you only have so many.

To get more PokéBalls and other fun add-ons, players visit PokéStops, which are marked on the virtual map created on your phone.

Players can visit PokéGyms to battle other players, use incense that attract rare Pokémon and level up as more and more are caught.

Going mobile means more now than ever

Chances are you've used your smart phone to search for a local business in the last few months.  Search engines like Google are great for finding the phone number and addresses of local restaurants and stores, but online business listings offer so much more than the ancient phone book. Online business listings can offer reviews, directions, specials, services and more.

With so much information literally at our fingertips we can be much more selective about the information we want to find. And if you are a consumer searching for a specific product or service, such as coffee shops that are open at 6 a.m., if you coffee shop does not have an online presence those searchers might not even know you exist and will take their business to a shop that has hours, prices, specials etc. online.

Think about what you expect when doing an online search. Your keywords bring up a list of web sites, and if your click on the first one does not yield useful information then you're on to the next.

So having an  informative and well-designed website is a great way to get new customers, but in this increasingly mobile era it is not enough.  It is estimated that 60% of searches are done on a mobile device. Is your website mobile friendly? Sure it looks great on your office desktop, but remember that mobile device screens are much smaller and things like videos and large image files can slow down how fast your page loads, especially on a mobile device.

Most people won't sit around and wait for a page to load on their device. If it does not load they'll simply go to a different web site or get frustrated and
 not come back.

Need another reason to make your website mobile friendly? Google searches done on a mobile device will no longer yield results with non mobile-friendly websites.  That's a relief for consumers, but if your business has not hopped on the mobile bandwagon it could be suffering.

So what does having a mobile-friendly website mean?

The design should be responsive. Responsive websites can detect when a user is visiting from a mobile device and automatically fits the content to the correct size.

Read more about how mobile can benefit your business in the article How to Seize Untapped Mobile Opportunity in 2016