Direct digital marketing – Martin Orange

Text message marketing – tools, service providers and solutions for small companies

admin — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 08:26:22 +0000

In the continuation of the article, you will get to know the tools and solution providers for successful text message marketing.

Text message marketing is quickly becoming one of the most popular modern marketing techniques and is a great option for small businesses looking to make a big impact on their customer outreach. This is because the text itself, unlike other marketing techniques, acts as a direct line to the customer and creates a personal connection between them and your business.

Customers are more likely to see and respond positively to a text message than to an email or advertisement. In the following chapter I will describefor which purposes people in different industries are using SMS marketing software, and which SMS marketing solutions are best for small businesses. Stay tuned!

The Snapchat mobile app is currently one of the most used platforms in the world!

How to start with Text message marketing and for whom is this type of advertising especially suitable?

Marketing agencies: Introduce a diverse range of services and inspire new customers.
Online store: Abandon mobile coupons, direct quality traffic to your site, increase your contact base, and more.
Salons: Strengthen customer relationships, confirm appointments, and promote service discounts.
Nightclubs: Increase your participation and promote nightly promotions.
Real Estate Agencies: Increase your potential leads, set up information campaigns, and monitor how real estate searches grow.
Fitness Centers: Stay in touch with your loyal gym members and send special offers tailored to their monthly activities.
Cafes and Restaurants: Let Text message marketing work as a modern reward and loyalty program. Send exclusive ads for a limited time.

You’re probably wondering how to even start composing the content of a text message. If you are fresh out of ideas, I have an example below (for Cafes & Restaurants).

Example:

“VIP table for 2 available tonight at 6:30 pm. Drinks on the house! Call 555-54-58 to reserve ASAP!”

… you can maybe also include a picture of something tasty to wet their whistles.

And that’s it, you’re all done and set to get the traffic to your place.

And now we should focus on the following, the ultimate question that is bugging all beginners – which providers are best to choose from?

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Tools, service providers and solutions for (small) companies

The most famous and effective tools are:

ClickSend: ClickSend is for businesses of all shapes and sizes. It provides easy and cost-effective communication with your customers and staff across multiple channels. It offers a multi-channel business communications platform that also offers MMS, RCS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, email, fax, mail, and more from a single dashboard or through APIs.

Want to know more? https://www.clicksend.com/eu/

ActiveCampaign: Enables advanced use of text message marketing. Send your marketing straight into their pockets. ActiveCampaign SMS marketing reaches people on the go. SMS campaign automation makes it easy to reach people when they’re out and about.

People “check” email. They “get” SMS messages. Your contacts are extremely likely to read texts—which makes them perfect for reminder messages and flash sales. With the ActiveCampaign SMS marketing tool you’re able to import your contacts with phone numbers or manually manage your existing contacts.

Collect phone numbers with custom forms on your website, so you can stay in touch with text campaigns when your contacts are on the go.

ActiveCampaign SMS marketing tool allows you to add text messages as a step in your automatized digital marketing. That means you can send scheduled text message notifications and campaigns automatically.

Simple and effective! That’s the dream isn’t it?

To check out this amazing tool visit:

https://www.activecampaign.com/customer-messaging/sms-marketing

MessageMedia: Is a premium SMS solution, that enables you to simply deliver exceptional customer engagement. It’s a low-cost way to reach anyone with a mobile phone.

With MessageMedia tool you’ll be able to create rich, trackable, and personal messaging experiences. You’ll also be able to add media to your text message and increase engagement by 40%.

To make your SMS marketing even more memorable, MessageMedia tool allows you also to extend your message beyond 160 characters and create even deeper customer experiences, with so-called “mobile landing pages”. Use MessageMedia configurable templates to build unique mobile-first journeys that you can track, using your branding and images, barcodes, CTA buttons, and more.

And if that isn’t enough for you, using the MessageMedia tool you can also chat with your costumers on the apps they like to use, such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

To check out this amazing tool visit and search for a form on the website, that allows you to enter your mobile demo for an interactive demo. See MessageMedia in action: https://messagemedia.com/au/

SlickText: Is a powerful, easy-to-use software, with amazing customer service, that is rich with features and works wonderfully on all devices. And to make this deal even sweeter, this SMS marketing service has no contracts or hidden fees. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel at any time. No strings attached!

The relentless attention to detail shines through in every area of the SlickText platform. They’ve taken care of the small details to ensure your experience is seamless. With a large library of features and automations, that is constantly growing, there is nothing you can do, but to fall in love with this amazing platform.

SlickText even offers a free mobile app so you can manage all your SMS marketing on the go.

Whether you’re new to SMS marketing or a seasoned pro, SlickText experts will help you develop a text messaging strategy that is tailored for you, and you only.

So, you have absolutely no excuse, but to check out this amazing tool right now:

https://www.slicktext.com/

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I invite you to read another one of our articles on the topic of digital advertising. And for step-by-step video tutorials, check out our hands-on e-courses.

Find out more about them at https://www.martin-orange.com/e-courses/

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E-mail marketing trends in 2020

admin — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 03:13:55 +0000

Through the article we will discuss E-mail marketing step by step and 2020 trends.

E-mail marketing in the digital world of constant change, carries the prestige of the most stable and perhaps even the most important marketing channel in 2020 as well.

As with other channels, it is necessary to be aware that the way we read e-mails is changing, and more and more detailed research allows us to be as successful as possible in the preparation and implementation of email marketing campaigns. We have selected the four most important trends that you will need to pay the most attention to in 2020.

Email marketing remains the king of efficiency

E-mail is still number 1 activity online and as many as 94% of users use the web to check their emails. Despite many predictions that e-mail marketing is dead (the most famous statement came from Sharyl Sandberg in 2010, who is the operations manager at Facebook), reading and sending e-mails does not stop. If in 2010, about 250 billion e-mails were sent per day, 300 billion are sent daily today.

While e-mail cannot boost of the kind of growth that social networks can, we can feel the special stability that e-mail marketing brings.

Email marketing – the most stable and perhaps even the most important marketing channel

Email marketing highlights in 2020

Email marketing has basically remained the same for a decade. However, trends and sending methods are changing dramatically. The four areas that need special emphasis in e-mail marketing in 2020 are:

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Customization of content for each user

We began to learn about the tailoring of content to the end user when advertising on social networks. We gained the best opportunities to present information tailored to the different groups we identified through their interests.

The trend has also covered e-mail marketing, with the difference that here in the first place the group includes only people who have already had some contact with us, and we need to understand them through the campaigns they have carried out. Content customization is important primarily because the most commonly used e-mail account hosts (e.g. Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, etc.) are increasingly behaving like a sieve – emails are separated by importance.

Important e-mails are those to which there is the best response and which are most relevant to our interests. Only the most important emails will be received in the main folder, the lower rated ones will go to the promotion folder, the even lower rated ones will go to the spam folder. Thus, it is important that e-mails are not sent to all contacts, because logically, the same content cannot satisfy everyone.

Hosts of e-mail accounts distinguish e-mails by importance – main, promotions, spam …

By adapting the content of emails to the interests of specific groups, you will achieve a higher level of response to e-mails, thus building loyalty and authority with e-mail providers, which will come in handy when e-mails are sent to recipients’ mailboxes.

Segmentation and automation of email marketing

In 2020, it is necessary to segment the entire database of e-mail addresses according to demographics and the interests they show towards certain content. In doing so, some special tools can be of help to you, with which you can Tag on the basis of which action or content someone has subscribed to the individual database of e-mail recipients.

E.g. you will tag differently the users who came to the site for the first time and bought something, and those who came to the site and added the product to the cart but did not make a purchase. Another tag will also be for the ones who came to the site for the first time and did not add the product to the cart. And another also for someone who has visited your site multiple times over a period of time, completed a specific form, and similar. This way of segmenting contacts is nothing new, but it is an area that will be even more emphasized in 2020.

In order for the entire process to run smoothly and without additional workloads, it is necessary to automate such e-mail marketing. For this, it is best to use tools that allow you to create automated email marketing sequences. One of the most famous ones is the Active Campaign tool.

ActiveCampaign – tool for e-mail marketing automatisation

Mobile responsive e-mails, adaptation to all devices

2020 is likely to be the first year that more emails will be opened on mobile devices than desktops or laptops. If we take into account that 2/3 of users will ignore your e-mail, if it is not optimized for an individual mobile device, it is the mobile responsive email, which you will have to implement immediately in 2020 e-mail marketing.

The most important interactive components of an e-mail in 2020 are:

buttons;
product display;
interactive pictures and catalogues;
e-mail extensions (which allow e-mail to be basically shorter but can be extended) ;
research, surveys, rating and other interesting interactive content;
the king of e-mail marketing is of course still text - interesting title and useful content.

Be sure to create interactive content in your emails – the most important ones are listed above!

How to get the best responsive email

The biggest breakthrough came from mobile responsive email back in 2016, when Gmail enabled CSS elements in messaging. While we already knew two ways to improve responsiveness on different devices, which are also used today.

The first is called “Scalable”. It is usually a single-column e-mail, in which we adjust the text size for different devices.

The second is called “Fluid”, which uses percentage ratios and integrates better into the new dimension of the screen, in a way that centers the content, leaving empty space at the edges.

Of course, we will recommend the use of CSS-supported e-mail for use in 2020, in which we will basically prepare various templates for mobile and desktop devices, and have the greatest possible customization. So make sure that your program, which you use to send e-mails, offers the option “Responsive” or CSS.

Tool BeeFree – one of the (free) tools for creating mobile-responsive e-mail templates

Accessibility, assistant for automatic reading of emails through speakers

In 2020, the growth of the assistant for automatic reading of e-mails via speakers will continue. With about 250 million smart readers installed in 2020, marketing departments are already seriously dealing with optimization.

We should also not forget that according to the World Health Organization, there are about 1.3 billion visually impaired people among us, of whom 36 million are blind, which only predicts the growth in the use of increasingly advanced e-mail reading assistants.

We follow the accessibility rule in our e-mail campaigns for the best possible user experience.

How to create material that will be suitable for assisted reading of texts

Keep your material concise and clear. Research suggests that the average attention we pay to email is 13.4 seconds. Taking into account the fact that the average reader reads around 250 words per minute, we find that an ideal email has a total of around 50 words. Or at least the introductory, content-rich part with a link to the website.

For effective email marketing I recommend

Even if you don’t specifically optimize your email for a reading assistant, this definition more than applies to all cases. When you want to make sure that the recipients understand you, the texts usually needs to be shortened rather than expanded. Also, do not use professional words. Legality applies to all texts, and even more so to email marketing, where you want to deliver a striking message in just a few seconds.

Europe is a place where every few hours of driving you change the country and usually your language.

E.g. Mailchimp can read the language settings of the browser of the person who submitted their e-mail address on your website via their form. Then prepare the e-mail in several language variants, and the recipient will receive it in the language in which his browser was set up when he filled out the form. The option of manual language selection will also be offered.

Avoid a fairly common mistake when companies design email content e.g. in Photoshop, and then export both photos and text as an image. The text in the email must be text. Use as few photos as possible (and never use them at the top).

If the image cannot be uploaded or the user is using a reading assistant, it is important to fill in the alt texts for the images in the e-mail to describe them.

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Email marketing automation

At first glance, automation gives the impression of an impersonal approach to email marketing, but in reality it contributes a lot to the personalization of email marketing. It means we spend less time on technical things and more on content. It also means that the user gets the email when he needs it.

Automation also allows us better conversion. We can guide a potential customer through an ever-improving process from subscribing to an e-newsletter to making a purchase. We measure this process, learn from it, better understand our customer and optimize the process.

How to tackle email marketing automation?

First, you need a comprehensive plan for how you will tackle each segment of your e-mail subscribers. Next, I recommend intensive testing and measuring results. No one can predict better how people will respond to your emails than research findings.

With the rise of visual e-mail campaign builders, you can easily test different approaches, setting up individual emails that follow a specific campaign or non-campaign. I recommend using Active Campaign Monitor to create email marketing sequence plans and implement them.

I invite you to read another one of our articles on the topic of digital advertising. And for step-by-step video tutorials, check out our hands-on e-courses.

Find out more about them at https://www.martin-orange.com/e-courses/

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Facebook messenger marketing

admin — Mon, 18 May 2020 11:43:09 +0000

Throughout the article, we will discuss Facebook Messenger marketing.

In addition to the database of e-mail addresses, Facebook Messenger is one of the rare ways of direct communicationwith potential customers, while you can create a database of Facebook Messenger users.
To do this, use one of the specialized platforms, e.g. Manychat.
With a technical link between the platform and Facebook messenger, you will be able to offer to subscribe to the database of recipients of messages to their personal Messenger via ads on Facebook or visitors to your website.

An e-gift is also often used, e.g. an e-book, that a person can get by allowing the delivery of the link to their personal Messenger. A message then appears asking if the person agrees to sign up for Messenger messages.
You can then send messages to those people who actually subscribe to the Messenger recipient database.
These messages shouldn’t look too much like an ad but as if you were writing to another person.
On platforms like Manychat, simply write the text of the message, attach a photo or video as desired, select the recipient database, and click Send. In the next second, everyone in this database will receive this message in their personal Messenger. The number of recipients can be very high, even a few thousand.
You can write less text in the Messenger message, but the opening rate is close to 100%.
In addition, you can create message sequences for those who are logged in to the Messenger database. This means writing messages in advance, e.g. for each week a different message relating to some problem or benefit of the customer. Then everyone who subscribes to the database gets these messages automatically.
You can add a link to a website, an online store in your messages and in this way you can help automate your sales.
Advertising on Facebook is carried out through the Facebook Ads Manager, where you can select Messages as the goal of the campaign. This way, the Facebook ad will show to people who are more likely to contact you via Messenger. This way you will immediately ensure more direct communication with (potential) customers.

Advertising on Facebook Messenger using Manychat

Manychat is a software application that simplifies the complex tools of Facebook Messenger so that they can be used by individuals without having to know how to encode.
You can create Messenger Bots *, create Facebook ads, and even save information about all users who subscribe to your Messenger Bot. The information they learn can then be used to properly segment the audience and guide them based on their interests.
* Chatbot is a part of automatic messaging software that uses artificial intelligence to talk to people.
Bots are programmed to understand questions, provide answers, and perform tasks. From a customer perspective, they are a friendly and affordable time saver. Instead of opening an app (let alone downloading it), making a phone call, running a search, or loading a website, a customer can simply type a message as if sending it to a friend.
Facebook Messenger Marketing is a new form of marketing that may even surpass email marketing.
Manychat is designed specifically for small and medium businesses. The program has evolved in a short time, from a simple chat automation tool to a complete set of communication tools for communication, marketing, sales and support via Facebook Messenger.
It connects you to your audience in a few steps, using (and in some way “anticipating”) the actions you perform most often. To date, Manychat’s success is such that it can operate 20,000 robots that send 10 million messages a month.

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But how does the Manychat tool work?

Manychat works quite similarly to emails. The essential difference, however, is in the greater possibilities of adaptation.
ManyChat allows you to choose what information you want to communicate to your audience. In addition, Manychat has it all gathered in one place and is designed to support Facebook Messenger.
Its services are diverse: from receiving new users to setting up automatic responses and much more.
To understand how Manychat works, you must first know the basics of a Facebook page. Manychat integrates with your site and helps you gain new followers and share content.
To use Manychat, first visit their website and you will see a large “Get Started Free” button on the first page.

Clicking the button then connects to your Facebook account (Manychat is one of the external tools that Facebook approves, if not even promotes).
In the next step, fill in some business information.

At this point, however, Manychat will present you with a list of your Facebook pages and you will need to choose the one you want to automate.

Then click on “Connect”.

You can now create a welcome message:
Your welcome message is the first thing people who communicate with you on Facebook messenger will see.

You can edit the welcome message in the “Automation” tab in the left menu of ManyChat.

ManyChat gives you the ability to add buttons, lists, images, videos, audio and much more…
For example, you can greet users with your welcome message, promise to reply as soon as possible, and direct traffic to your blog or website for anyone interested in reading more.
Your greeting message should act as a greeting to new users, as well as instructions on what to do next. Here, of course, it all depends on the purpose of your bot. If you are selling e-courses, add a button to see all courses. If you are a business consultant ask people if they want to receive a further offer.

Use keywords to automate the responses of Facebook Messenger bots

Manychat keywords allow you to automate responses based on specific keywords that users enter into the conversation.
For example, when a user types “guide” into a conversation with a company that sells digital marketing tips, the bot delivers a PDF version of a guide of key digital marketing tools to Facebook Messenger.
The possibilities with keywords are endless. You can find the keyword button on the left side of the ManyChat menu(Keywords).

So under the Keywords tab, you can create a new reply, add a tag, subscribe to a new Sequence of messages, start a conversation, set up a custom field, and much more.
The next tab is Growth Tools.

There are three categories of tools here: Overlay Widgets, Embeddable Widgets, and Other Growth Tools.
Under Overlay Widgets, you can set:

Bar: create a bar at the top of the website / blog that you can change according to your needs;

Modal: create a pop-up window that will appear in the middle of your website / blog;

Slide in: create a window that slides along the edge of the website / blog;

Page takeover: you can add a window that completely covers your site / blog, choosing when and how it will be displayed;

You can then create Buttons under Embeddable Widgets that you can place anywhere on your site or even embed in third-party items; or create an activation box (Box) that you can embed anywhere on your site.

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Among other tools for growth, you will also be able to edit:

Landing page which you can use it in cases when you do not have your own website and want to quickly create a landing page;

Messenger Ref URL; this is the URL with the reference code that opens the page of your bot

Facebook Ads JSON. This tool is reserved for professional users. It allows you to start conversations in Facebook messenger with users who click on your Facebook ads;

Facebook Comments is currently in beta version, but allows you to convert all users who comment on a particular post on your page to fans;

Costumer Chat is a chat system that then integrates into your site;

CheckBox is reserved for professional users. This is a field that can be integrated with your website to allow your customers to view the status of their order;

Facebook Messenger Code is also reserved for professional users. Allows you to include a code on your page that is scanned by a visitor to start a chat on Facebook Messenger.

This allows you to customize a number of gadgets and windows in this section to help users interact with you through Facebook Messenger.

The future of online marketing

Chat Bots are the future of online marketing. They have incredible power: to communicate with people like never before.
Of course there are emails…
But think about it. Who really still opens promotional emails?
The truth is that the vast majority of them are almost automatically discarded when they are found in the Inbox. We now associate email with intrusive advertising or work. We use WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger to talk to a friend.
So choose a tool to use according to the characteristics of your audience. For example, if this is made up of managers who check email frequently, email marketing may be the best choice.
But, you may want to attract students, on average 20 years old, who have a lot more practicality with chats. Then it might be better to think about including a Facebook Bot.
This will allow you to establish genuine communication with your (potential) customer who will open your message as if it were a friend’s message. He will receive a notification on his mobile phone and he will be able to chat with you.

So why use Facebook Messenger marketing in your online marketing strategy?

This is a competitive advantage for you and your business.
If we’ve developed a common “survival instinct” for email that leads us to delete advertising messages, that’s not the case with Facebook Messenger chats. ManyChat’s survey of the initial rate of Facebook Bots shows that the opening rate of Chatbots is 80% compared to 20% for emails. Other research, however, has shown that the clickthrough rate is 40%. Numbers that can then be converted to traffic.

We conclude by presenting the importance of Facebook Messenger advertising for your digital marketing future. The Facebook Messenger bot takes business communication to the next level.
It may all seem complicated now. But deepen your knowledge of Chatbots and start using the best strategies for creating and managing contacts.

I invite you to read another one of our articles on the topic of digital advertising. And for step-by-step video tutorials, check out our hands-on e-courses.
Find out more about them at https://www.martin-orange.com/e-courses/

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