Does your business have a blog? Are you satisfied with the role it plays in your marketing? A lot of times, business blogs fall under the label of “cost of doing business,” which basically means “We’re not sure what it does, but we’re afraid to stop doing it.” Here we will go through exactly how you can use your blog as the focal point of your content marketing and start building brand strength, customer loyalty & more revenue.

Build a Foundation
In order for your blog to be the center of a strong content marketing plan, you’ll need to make sure you build your blog on a strong foundation. You’ll need to get tech resources to support your blogging efforts, like the team provided for you through the eMerge program. For most businesses, this translates to ongoing technology support, rather than a few minutes of someone’s time when they’re available. This are essential to a strong foundation because you will have a team of professionals maintaining the techy stuff for you.

Know Your Audience
Before you begin blogging, you’ll need to know whom you’re writing for and what they’re interested in reading. This will come from your data through things such as reports, analytics & insights. Reports from email, social media and surveys can be generated from the eMerge platform. You can also incorporate Google Analytics & Facebook insights into eMerge to get a full picture of just who your audience is. Once you know who your audience is and what they like, you can generate content to fit their needs.

Develop A Plan
Several components come into making a good content marketing plan. You’re going to want to map out your promotional calendar by planning your organization’s marketing events for the year and using public holidays where appropriate. The purpose is to create hooks for your content. You can also include relevant tradeshows and conferences, as well as social media participation.

You definitely want to have a calendar in place to keep up with company events, holidays and other points of interest that you can feature or incorporate into your blog posts. Also, figure out what kind of posts you want to put out & schedule them on that calendar. It will help to keep you accountable and will also keep you on track. Just remember that if you have any ongoing columns, themes or promotions that you stick with them on a consistent schedule, you would be surprised at how people will start to keep track of your posts.

Optimize For Effectiveness
Your content isn’t finished once it’s written or created. You still have to enhance its attractiveness to readers.
Here are some key points to make your content work for your business.

• Integrate your brand somehow into each blog post and piece of content.
• Optimize content for search [link to 4 factors blog]
• At a minimum, focus each post or piece of content on a keyword phrase, and be sure to include both internal and external links!
• Entice readers by making it easy to read your content. Break your content into bite-sized information chunks, use bold type to guide readers who are skimming to grasp the sense quickly and use photographs to attract attention.

Promote Your Content
Just publishing your content isn’t sufficient to reach a broad audience. You’ll also need to promote your content so that more of the right people see it. This can be as easy as including social sharing buttons to extend the reach of your blog post, or allowing readers to receive your posts through email without having to think about it.

Sharing your content across the social media platforms will help you engage more of your audience. You can automate this process with a programs like eMerge that allow you to schedule your content. You can also include social sharing buttons with each blog post and other content to enable readers to share your content.

Email newsletters are also a fantastic way to get more eyes onto your blog. By tapping into the contacts and clients you have already, you can bring in more views & prompt more engagement with your content.

Track Your Results
As with any other business initiative, you must measure your results. Plan your metrics and content creation to ensure that you have integrated the ability to capture the data you need through programs like eMerge and Google Analytics.

When used properly, a blog not only supports your social media, search optimization and sales processes, it acts as the hub for the rest of your content marketing. Don’t neglect this valuable resource & start putting together a plan to get the most out of your content marketing.

To find out how you can grow your online marketing exponentially through the eMerge content program, the Total Market Dominator. Visit us online [eMerge], see success stories [link to testimonials] & request a demo [demo]. You can also contact us at getstarted@easyemerge.com or by phone at 985.781.4471.

Quality of Life Matters!
Isabel’s drive comes from her desire to constantly improve her quality of life. Therefore, financial stability has always been the main focus behind all of her business decisions. Her daily goal is to get more and more business which she states she achieves by nothing more than working hard and working smart.

Connection Counts!
Isabel’s advice to other real estate agents, particularly up-and-coming agents, is to keep in touch with clients on a daily basis. Past clients are great connections because they will refer you and the quality of work you provide. Most importantly? Those past clients will come back as “repeat business” so nurture and maintain those relationships.

Online Marketing Works!
Isabel realizes the importance of marketing herself and maintaining relationships through social media and email. She also realizes that it takes valuable time that she could be spending on other strengths. “I use eMerge because it helps me keep in touch with past and current clients more easily and offers more opportunities to attract potential customers,” states Isabel.

You can build relationships, target leads and convert opportunities with the eMerge “Total Market Dominator” program. eMerge empowers brokers and agents to take control of their online marketing success in one easy-to-use platform! Find out how when you contact us today at Getstarted@easyemerge.com or give us a call at 985.781.4471.

Post with Purpose
This is a rule across all online marketing platforms, but is slightly amended when it comes to blogging.  Typically, you should not post unless you have something of value to add to the community. With a blog, however, it is assumed you have something of value so you are able to establish a content schedule for yourself.

What’s In A Name
Many times blogs include this in their name, like “Real Estate Weekly,” or “Daily Cooking Updates.” Having a name like this means that the site will be updated at least once a week, or even daily, and the writer must abide by that schedule. It is your job to make sure you can follow a set schedule for yourself, yet still put out meaningful, relevant information for your readers.

Stay Current
You want to make sure what you are posting is timely, or current. You will not be seen as a good source of information if your information is outdated and old news. Blogging isn’t necessarily a real-time platform like Twitter, but it’s good to keep it as close to that speed as you can. The more current your information, the more people will rely on you.

Stay Engaged
Crowd-sourcing is huge in the blogosphere. It is as basic as asking people what they want to read about, and basing your writing off of their responses. When people give you a good suggestion, it’s a good idea to try to cover those topics because it will show your readers that you are willing to listen and engage with them.

Ask for Feedback
When community members write really good comments, write a post about what they said to highlight them and their contributions. This is one of the easiest and best ways to build an audience over time, and engage with them and highlight those that really contribute positively to your blog.

Don’t be Rude
You would think this is common sense. There was a blog once that jokingly suggested giving illegal substances to people if it would get them to invest. It was intended to be funny; it wasn’t, and comments like that run a serious risk of offending people. This was a blog about personal finance, the comment totally immature and it clashed with the brand image the writer was trying to develop.

Save The Drama For Your Mama
Unless your company revolves around taking stands on controversial issues, it’s best to leave that type of commentary at home. Statements like these stand to upset or anger half of your potential customers no matter what side you take.

Remember The 4 Factors of Posts
When you are blogging you want to keep these basic building blocks in mind: Linkable, Searchable, Sociable & Scanable. Always include links to your sources, your other online channels and related articles you’ve written. Include tags to make it easier for people to find you through search engines. Respond to people who comment, comment back & also comment on other blogs. Lastly, don’t write with huge blocks of text, break it up with images, headers & visual elements to make your post simple to scan, while still getting the message.

Blogging is not hard, but it does take commitment. Time will be your most valuable resource when it comes to filling your blog with content. But what if there was a way to fill your blog consistently with engaging, lifestyle content without having to worry about when you will have the time to do it. With eMerge you can utilize thousands of professionally written content articles to supplement your professional blog. Start using your blog to make money today with eMerge. Find out how at www.easyemerge.com or give us a call at 985-781-4471.

Take A Look Around. This first tip is one that isn’t talked about much, but is still important. When you set up shop somewhere, you don’t go in blind; you take a look around. The same principle applies to social media. Before you start up, or revamp your social media presence, take a look at what other brands are doing. You can get some great ideas for graphics, promotions, and a handle on how you want to approach your own brand. Why reinvent the wheel? Plus it also helps when it comes time to…

Create A Plan. It’s very important to know where your consumers and prospects are having conversations online, and where your business can add value. Using tools like Google to search around can help, but there are also search tools built in to each social platform where you can easily pick out your largest audience.

Perfection Not Needed. You’re not going to know it all from the starting gate. Spend a couple hours doing some simple research online for best practices and tips, that will be enough to give you a good start. eMerge provides some great resources that you can use to learn the latest in social media and email marketing, blogging, websites and much more, so utilize the knowledge base available to you and

Combine Your Tools. So you discovered your audience is on Twitter & Facebook, but you only have time to keep up with one! What do you do? One option is to focus on using one social media tool effectively than to use five of them poorly. Another, and more practical, option is to use a program like eMerge where you can monitor & maintain multiple social media platforms at once without having to jump around to difference browser pages or have multiple logins.

Schedule Your Posts. Piggy-backing off of the last tip, you can also use a program [link to eMerge] to schedule your content so that you can do a week’s worth of social media marketing in just a few minutes. This will help to prevent yourself from forgetting to post & account for being unavailable during your regular posting times. Just remember that when it comes to responding to comments and responses to your posts, you should…

Be Consistent. If you can only dedicate one hour a week to social media, it’s best to be consistent with your time. When you are on a consistent schedule your audience will learn to expect you. In fact, they might get irritated when you skip your regular time, just like when we get irritated that our favorite show is on reruns instead of a new episode.

Respond Quickly. Social media is one of the most effective ways for businesses (especially small businesses) to leverage their customer service.

”Social media users who receive excellent customer service from brands spend on average 21% more than non-social customers” – mediabistro.com

Also remember that they are reading your response & can’t hear your tone or pitch, so word it as positively as possible so they don’t mistake your helpfulness for sarcasm.

Don’t Be A “Me” Monster. You know that guy/girl at the party who won’t stop talking about themselves? It’s equally annoying on social media as it is in person. People don’t like to engage with brands that are constantly talking about how awesome they are, people want something they can interact with, exchange information, find something of value or learn something new. Try the 80/20 rule. 80% of your content should be engaging, 20% should be self-promotional.

Interact With Your Audience. Be sure that when your fans and followers comment back, share, re-tweet, +1, re-pin, or mention your business that you interact with them and make them feel like a part of your online community. That’s what interactive / online marketing is all about. If you can establish brand loyalty through a simple conversation with a fan, you’ve got a fan for life.

Track Your Analytics. This is very important for online marketing. You can use the analytic tools that are built into your social media channels to measure each one to see which channel is getting the most interaction. Or you can use a platform like eMerge that can run reports & analytics on all of your channels at once.

We hope that these 10 tips helped to get you started in really taking the social media bull by the horns. What tools or strategies do you use to save time with social media? Tell us on our Facebook, Twitter or Google+ pages! Then sign up for a free demo where we’ll show you how you can consolidate, maintain & monitor all of your online channels in a single, easy interface.

Learn more about how you can minimize your effort while maximizing your marketing online, visit us at www.easyemerge.com or give us a call at 985-781-4471.

Is your business on Facebook? If so, you’re off to a good start! If not, why not? Facebook has proven to be a great resource for businesses of all types to create brand awareness, engage with their customers and fans, and most importantly, generate leads and sales.

But what makes Facebook such a valuable resource? Well, there are a couple things we’ll look at here, as well as some tips & tricks you can use to make the most out of your Facebook business page.

Your Brand
What are some things that make up your brand? Well, there are is the visual content, customer service, terminology/verbiage, your product, and many other aspects of your brand that you can promote through Facebook.

Your visual brand is carried out through your cover image, profile image, tabs and the graphical elements of your business page. These can be something you create, or have professionally branded for you with the help of a company like eMerge. But the important thing to remember is.

Tip: You want your visual brand to be consistent not only within your page, but across all of your online channels. You also want to make sure your promotions & image posts make sense in the context of your business. 53% of active adult social networkers follow a brand, so it’s a good idea to stay consistent, appealing & engaging.

Content
Content is another part of your brand on Facebook. Use your page to share your organization’s content such as your blog, promotions, testimonials, products & services, and information about your industry. Of course you can also include fun posts like pictures from an office party, a charity race that your employees are participating in, or maybe some humorous content (as long as it’s not offensive). But the important thing to remember is…

Tip: You want to provide content that your fans find valuable and will want to engage with through sharing and liking. If you’re in real estate, fans looking for a house will appreciate a new listing, if you’re in retail, fans will find value in a promotional coupon. When your fans share your content, you win! 33% of Facebook users have purchased an item they saw on their news feed or a friend’s wall.

Customer Service
Customer service is huge on Facebook because it’s a “safe” place where people can post their opinions about a product or service without having to talk directly to a person; they just talk about you. Referrals from friends is one of the most powerful marketing tools, but a bad review can be damaging. No one will be happy with you 100% of the time, so when someone does voice a complaint on Facebook it’s important to remember to…

Tip: Respond quickly and politely. Remember, a LOT more people are seeing it now that it’s on Facebook, so respond in a way that will let everyone else know that you are more than willing to bring this to a satisfactory resolution. If you do this, you’ll be ahead of the game. Why? Because 55% of brands ignore customer feedback on Twitter and Facebook.

Ads & Promoted Posts
Facebook ads and promoted posts can be great marketing tools for your brand. Ads allow you do very specific targeting of demographics, interests, and pretty much any kind of user characteristics you can think of. Promoted posts allow one of your posts to be broadcast to a much larger audience than would have been possible through just your fans liking or sharing. But the important thing to remember here is…

Tip: Pay close attention to if the ads are working for you, or if you’re just throwing money down the drain. Watch your clicks, measure it against your sales, and if your ROI is not what you want then you may need to rethink that strategy. But that’s ok! Not all businesses use Facebook ads simply because they didn’t provide enough value. Just because they are available, does not mean you have to jump right in.

Analytics
Perhaps the most important part of a Facebook page is the Insights page. This keeps track of your reach, your virality, your likes, your fan demographics and much, much more. You can see details about the engagement rates for every post you put out and adjust your strategy from there. Just like with any other kind of marketing tool, you want to track what is successfully getting your brand out to your target market, and what could be driving them away.

Tip: No matter how awesome you think a series of marketing content is going to be, if you are getting really low engagement, or even losing fans, it’s time to rethink that strategy. Watch your insights closely and ask yourself some questions: Are you marketing to your target audience? Are your fans even in your target demographics? Will this promotion help or hurt our current efforts? Are there any trends in content engagement that I am missing?

Facebook is a great social media tool for strengthening your brand online, so don’t let it go to waste. By creating a page with your professional brand, engaging your fans with valuable content and great customer service, and tracking your data through your insights, you will be on the right track. Remember that Facebook is a means to an end, it’s great for driving traffic to your website and other online presences, so use it wisely.

To find out more about how you can use Facebook and other channels to engage your audience, generate leads, and grow your business online, visit our website at www.easyemerge.com or give us a call at 985.781.4471.

Email deliverability is very important when it comes to understanding how your email campaigns are performing. You can think of it as a series of factors that affects your email performance and will help you to create better email campaigns that bring you better results and keep your customers happy.

So what is deliverability?
Email deliverability is the ability to deliver an email into the intended recipient’s inbox. There are a number of factors that are used to determine deliverability such as email bounces (hard and soft), the emails sent to the spam folder, or any other reason why emails didn’t make it to the inbox.

To give you an idea of good deliverability, different Email Service Providers will boast about a 95%, 96% or even a 99% deliverability rate.  While this definitely helps you out, a big part of deliverability is in your hands as the one creating the email and maintaining the contact list. This means YOU have a lot control.

So What Affects Deliverability?

Spam Filters
You always want to look out for spam. There are all sorts of things that people include in their emails that you wouldn’t think is considered “Spammy”, but can get their newsletters flagged as spam quickly. Plus, spam filters get smarter each year as programmers develop more complex programs to identify spam.  Once some of your email campaigns start getting delivered to the spam folder, it can be very difficult to get back to the inbox.

>> Read “100 Words to Never Use in an Email Subject line”

Keep Your Lists Clean
The best contacts are the ones who opt-in, or choose, to receive your emails. This may be accomplished through sign-up forms, surveys and other methods of data collection, all of which create high-quality lists. The rule of thumb here is the higher the quality, the better your chance of making it into the inbox. Whatever you do, do not buy email lists from third parties. Those recipients did not opt-in to your list directly, so an email from you will be seen as spam. Lastly, clean out bad addresses and bounces if you are not using a service that automatically does so for you.

>> Read “How Can Surveys & Forms Benefit My Business”

Know What Type of Emails Work

The type of email you send can definitely affect how your contacts react.  Emails sent to the contact as a result of an action they took, such as filling out a form or clicking a promotion, will have the highest deliverability because they are expecting it and have opted in.

Newsletters also tend to have high engagement.  Contacts in an organization are expecting some kind of monthly or weekly email, and will actually work to get that email in their inbox.  As long as you send valuable content, like articles and events, your contacts will appreciate staying informed and your emails will be opened or saved.

Use a Program Like eMerge

It’s a good idea to use an Email Service Provider (ESP) for your marketing emails.  Any good ESP will help you target your audience, build and maintain email lists, and automatically process bounces and unsubscribes.  They will also have a larger email infrastructure than what you can maintain on your own.  Because they send out emails every day, their email servers will have a lot of emails on which to base their reputation, and a good reputation will definitely help you.

Stay Consistent

As you send more and more emails to your list, your contacts will get to know you.  After a while, they will be able to spot an email you sent from across the room or just by glancing at their phone.  By being respectful and consistent, you will build trust with your audience.  When you drastically switch email templates, it can be jarring for your contacts.  It will take them longer to identify you as the same people that they have been receiving emails from for years.  Introduce major changes slowly and keep your contacts in the loop.

So What Can I Expect?

Sadly, you can’t expect 100% deliverability, no matter what you do.  There will always be times where the recipient’s email server will not be available, an email addresses change, or something random in your email triggers a spam filter.  By following these guidelines, creating properly crafted emails and good email lists, you should expect anywhere from 95% to 99% deliverability.   Please note that ‘deliverability’ rates are different from ‘open’ rates.

Conclusion

With close to 80% of users preferring to engage with businesses through email, deliverability is a big priority for anyone that uses email as part of their marketing efforts.  By focusing on good email lists and providing emails with good content, you should see an improvement to your deliverability.

LEARN ABOUT eMerge FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Online:  www.easyeMerge.com
Email:  gettingstarted@easyemerge.com
Call:  888-639-9323

eMerge Founder and CEO – Bondilyn Jolly – with Chobani Founder, President and CEO – Hamdi Ulukaya.

Earlier this morning, eMerge CEO – Bondilyn Jolly – met and spoke with members of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program in New Orleans as part of New Orleans Entrepreneurship Week.  Bondilyn spoke in front of an esteemed audience including Margaret Spellings, Former U.S. Secretary of Education and advisor to Goldman Sachs and Hamdi Ulukaya, Founder, President, and CEO of Chobani, the largest yogurt company in the world.  The emphasis of the meeting was to present the success and international growth of eMerge along with showcasing the economic impact that the company provides to employment and revenue within the Greater New Orleans area and the state of Louisiana.

Bondilyn, an alumni of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program, is a huge supporter of the program.  “Small businesses that are seeking or projecting substantial growth can really benefit from the Goldman Sachs program,” she stated.  “Both the educational aspect and the advisory committees are top notch.  They focus specifically on the unique opportunities within each participating business and assist with creating a baseline from which to evaluate and grow.”  The program is supported by organizations such as Delgado Community College, the Idea Village, and HOPE Enterprise Corporation as well as numerous others.

Every business has a brand – is a brand – and this brand represents the values of the business and communicates that to its audience. As a professional you understand the value of a brand, so why is it that so many businesses drop the ball when it comes to their brand online? Because they are not asking themselves, “What do I want my brand to say about me?”

What is your brand?
Your online brand is extremely important, even more important than your brand on other channels. Why? Well because you brand is much more accessible online. Think about it, many people working for a company that doesn’t have physical locations nation (or world) wide, so the only way for the majority of your audience to experience you is through your online brand. But what is most important is making sure your brand is successful. But…

How do you tell?
There are a LOT of things to take into consideration when it comes to an online brand: Messaging, graphics, customer service, user names on social media channels, etc. We know it can be a lot of work to keep all of this in line, but I promise you it is worth it. Here are some characteristics of strong brands that you can use as benchmarks for your own online brand.

Strong Brands Are Consistent
No matter where you are online (or offline) you need to be consistent with your branding. When it’s the visual aspects such as a website, or a pamphlet the easier it is for people to identify you simply by your color scheme and logo, the better. When it comes to your messaging, you need to make sure that all of your online, and offline, messaging is consistent with the rest. Leave as little room as possible for customer confusion.

Strong Brands Are Present
Online, strong brands aren’t found on just Facebook and Twitter, they are everywhere. Now, they may not be as involved everywhere, but when it comes to things like SEO and reaching broader audiences, your successful names aren’t just sitting on Pinterest. It’s ok to be in a lot of places at once, just know which are your main channels how to communicate with these different audiences.

Strong Brands Are Transparent
Don’t be sneaky or secretive, no one has time for it anymore. Online you are on earned time, so the more value and trust you can establish, the better. Your audience will not stick around if they see you as faceless or impersonal. Show them your people, your community involvement, and other aspects of your organization that makes it more human.

Strong Brands Are Interactive
It’s not just enough to be online posting things, you have to interact with your audience as well. Strong brands build strong relationships with their audiences, because it’s their audience who will spread that brand around, effectively doing the work for you. Online you’re just another profile, but when you interact with your fans and build up those relationships, your brand becomes much, much more.

Stats:
- 85% of consumers are searching for local businesses online.
- 82% of adults in the US use the internet, spending an average of 38.8 hours online a month.
- 92% of online users check email, 71% purchase products, 65% use social networks.
- 7 out of 10 consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Conclusion
Your online brand is an intricate and important part of your business’ success. Remember that through consistency, presence, transparency and engagement, you can grow your online brand into an awesome tool to communicate your values and bring in more customers.

I know it’s tempting to cut corners, but your online brand is definitely one area where you shouldn’t. With a professional branding team like eMerge, you have the opportunity to not only learn about strengthening your brand, but be able to execute your ideas quickly and effectively. To learn more about what eMerge can do for you, visit our website at www.easyemerge.com or give us a call at 888.639.9323.

Interactive marketing isn’t just about the fancy designs and templates you can do to visually brand yourself online, it’s also about what you are posting on your channels like Facebook, Twitter & Blogs. One of the biggest mistakes that brands make is posting too much. In fact one study showed that, 73% of online users say they will unlike, or unfollow, brands for posting too frequently. Another study showed that 54% of individuals unsubscribe from email newsletters due to being flooded by content. So where is the happy medium? We’ll help you answer that and other questions for you today.

So, first off…

What makes a post good?
Well, “good” is kind of deceiving in its title. You might think a post is good, but your audience may have a completely different opinion. It really is about the amount of interaction you get. On Facebook, Likes are the big seller. 79% of all interactions on Facebook are Likes, which also create more exposure for your post. On Twitter it’s re-tweets, on your email it’s how many times it was opened & clicked, and with your blog it’s how many times it was shared on social, visited or commented it received. Hopefully that gives you an idea of the response a “good” post gets; lots of interaction.

Good
But what are good things to post? Well, as a rule of thumb on Facebook, images & conversational posts get the most interaction, because 1 – people love to share and comment on pictures, and 2- social media is all about the conversation. Share things that are relevant to your business; products, services, accomplishments, testimonials, staff bios, etc. You are online to engage your audience, yes, but you are also there to make money. You can’t expect the average reader to make a purchasing decision on what you offer if you haven’t shown them what it is.

Another great genre for posting is industry-related news. Real estate is a great example of this because when you can share the good news of the housing market improving, you plant that seed of interest in your reader’s minds. “Oh, my options are opening up, maybe now would be a good time to look into a new home.” – Imaginary Audience Member.

Bad
Often times, business owners or professionals make the mistake of posting a lot of personal information and stories on their channels that, while amusing to themselves, don’t really attract a crowd. There is a fine line to be aware of. On one hand posting a short story about how you were able to help a client in need is great, on the other hand, telling the world how your cat threw up in your laptop bag may not be the best decision ever. Remember to keep your posts separated. Keep the baby pictures & personal complaints on your personal profile… Unless of course you run a baby boutique, then by all means post the babies!

Plan it out
You have some great channels at your disposal. Facebook, Twitter, Email & Blogs leave virtually no audience unavailable. But you need to approach them differently. Email is fantastic for promotion, information & directing readers to more information on your website & other channels. Your blog is great for information, collecting contacts & boosting SEO. Facebook & Twitter are fantastic for engagement, promotions, spreading content, and driving traffic to your website & blog.  It can all work together to bring in more contacts, customers and cash, but make sure you have a plan in place so that the message you place into each channel does the job you intend for it to do, otherwise you might end up with potential customers hitting a bunch of virtual dead-ends.

When are the best times to post?
Each channel has different times and days that are “optimal” for posting & generating engagement, so let’s touch on each one.

Email: It’s still King, but not on Monday & Friday. Studies show that Tuesday – Thursday yields the highest open/click-through rates, and then mostly in the afternoon.

Facebook: The best time for businesses to post on Facebook is between 1pm – 4pm. Traffic tends to build up towards mid-day, but the “peak time” on Facebook has been shown to be around 3pm on Wednesday. Weekends are also a hot traffic time because, what else are people doing on weekends?

Twitter: Twitter users are a little more consistent. Friday is pretty much the only day where users are not engaging as often, but the best times to post are still between 1pm – 4pm, after that traffic begins to fade.

Blogging: Blogs are almost the complete opposite of their social media counterparts. The peak time for blog viewing/commenting/linking is in the morning between 9am – 11am. Also, the day with the highest views is Monday, and the day with the most comments is Saturday.

Ultimately, Look At Your Own Results
Now I want you to take everything I just said about “peak times” with a grain of salt. Why? Because no one has come to a final consensus on what really is the best time across the board for any channel. The numbers are generalized, and in the end it comes down to what is the most successful for you as a business. The best thing you can do is test it out. Try posts on different days, different times, and with different content. Then take a look at your data, what do the numbers tell you? If it works, continue, if it hurts, stop. Your business is unique, and your audience is unique. Follow the numbers and you’ll do just fine.

Wrapping It Up
The hardest part about engaging posts is the execution. That’s why eMerge allows you to connect all your channels, plan out your strategy, schedule your content, coordinate your efforts & measure your results; all in a single, simple platform. Don’t let work hours restrict you from posting on weekends, and don’t drive yourself insane trying to manage 20 different online channels at once. Let eMerge do it for you.

Interactive marketing is all about engaging your audience online. Don’t let obstacles like time, money or resource stop you from growing your business into the vision you have for it. Let eMerge show you how to easily engage everyone.

To find out more about the eMerge platform, visit our website at www.easyemerge.com, or www.realemerge.com for real estate professionals. You can also give us a call at 888.639.9323.

Have you been poking around a website, maybe Bob’s Vacuum Cleaners, filled out a little interest form about a vacuum cleaner you wanted, and immediately received a personalized email welcoming you to Bob’s vacuuming family? If you answered no, then this blog is for you! If you answered yes, then this blog is definitely for you! Congratulations! You were introduced to Bob’s autoresponder!

So what is it?
As a business, it’s a marketing tool that will automatically send messages out for you to people who are interested in you or your product/service. It’s a great way to keep in touch with your prospects and customers, and it’s one of the best returns on a marketing investment for your business that you will ever get. Basically, they are pre-designed emails that are sent when triggered by your audience’s actions.

Turning your visitors into customers
When people you don’t know visit your website for the first time, the best ways to start a communication line with these visitors is to offer them something of value in exchange for them giving you their name and email address. This can be a free consultation, a coupon, a trial offer or anything the visitor might perceive as valuable. Once a visitor has subscribed to your autoresponder, you can begin a campaign to nurture them into a paying customer.

Tips:

1. Make them feel welcome! Set up an autoresponder for new subscribers to your blog and/or website.
2. Give them suggestions! Use your analytics to track what they like, and make suggestions for other purchases.
3. Personalize it! Using the data collected on your contact, make the message feel personal by using their name.
4. The Final Countdown! Send reminders to event attendees that it’s almost time for that webinar, or big in-store promotion to start.

Give yourself one less thing to worry about
You can write and schedule automated messages in advance to be sent to your contacts on any date or time that you want. But autoresponders will be sent to a contact (new or old) when they trigger it by filling out a form, or using your shopping cart. This helps to alleviate much of the responsibilities of manually keeping up with who clicked on what and when. It basically does the work for you, well, automatically. But remember to be consistent. When your contacts are sent messages on a regular basis, it builds an expectation that they will continue to hear from you in the future.

Show your subscribers around!
You don’t need to make your autoresponses bland, show your fans around a little bit! You can direct readers to your blog, website, Youtube channel, and social media. All of these channels should be displaying information about your business that viewers will find helpful. If your business has what the people want, they will want to know how to get it, and an autoresponder message can direct them to exactly what they need to make the buying decision.

One amusing example involved the well-known store, Target, in early 2012. By using a combination of data-collection, analysis and automated response, Target unwittingly informed a teenage girl’s parents of her pregnancy before the daughter had a chance to tell said parents. How? By analyzing certain products she purchased, associating related products in the form of coupons (which in this case, happened to be baby products), and sent the coupons in an automated response to the family. Since this system was implemented, Target’s revenue has grown by more than 50 percent.

Here are some other interesting numbers…

Stats:

1. 55% of consumers prefer “money off” emails from brands they subscribe to.
2. 49% of consumers subscribe to 1-10 brands, 43% subscribe to 11+.
3. 34% of consumers are ok with receiving 6 emails a day from brands they trust.
4. The average conversion rate for Abandoned Shopping Cart emails decreases steadily within the first hour from 5.2% to 3.6%.

If you send it, they will come
People who enjoy doing business with you will likely do so on a regular basis, particularly if you have products or services that they purchase frequently. By using this automatic messaging system that communicates about your products and services, your customers will be reminded to buy what they need from you on a regular basis – automatically. It’s hard to beat an automated marketing tool for a business.

Wrapping it up
When you have such a great marketing tool at your disposal, why wouldn’t you use it? With the eMerge platform you can not only set up autoresponder emails, but you can also track the results of those emails through your reports. Give them your personal touch with customized templates & images, set up as many as you need for capturing information & guiding action. Just remember to keep it within reason, follow the tips from the professionals at eMerge, and soon you’re business will be growing online.

To find out more about the eMerge platform, visit our website at www.easyemerge.com, or www.realemerge.com for real estate professionals. You can also give us a call at 888.639.9323.