I had a friend who changed his home’s wifi password every night at bedtime to make sure their teen wasn’t “vamping.” Turns out the teen realized the power of turning your phone into a mobile hotspot (water flows down hill).
“Sometimes I look up and it’s 3 a.m. and I’m watching a video of a giraffe eating a steak,” he said. “And I wonder, ‘How did I get here?’ ”
via Vamping Teenagers Are Up All Night Texting – NYTimes.com.
Email newsletters seem like such a quaint and out-of-date form of marketing, but they are incredibly effective because 1) people still rely on email more than most anything else for relevant info and 2) email has a personal connection in the same way our phones once did.
That doesn’t mean that blasting out emails with no relevancy or context is a successful strategy. Like anything else in the world of marketing, connection matters most.
The NY Times agrees…
With an email, there is a presumption of connection, of something personal, that makes it a good platform for publishers. Newer email newsletter outfits like TinyLetter, which MailChimp owns, are simple, free and easy to use. TinyLetter has over 100,000 users who reach 9.3 million subscribers, and it has had an increase of 15 percent in the number of newsletters sent in the last year.
via For Email Newsletters, a Death Greatly Exaggerated – NYTimes.com.
We’re big fans of MailChimp at Harrelson Agency and use their services for a number of our clients. If you want to get your start with email newsletters, they are a good place to start (and understand the power of mobile!).
My friend Stacy with an amazing, and completely self-giving, post…
So I remind myself, I am not a “that.” I am a woman. I am a child of God. I am a friend. I am a sister. I am a caregiver. I am an advocate. I am a daughter. I am a preacher. I am a confidant. I am a dog mom. I am a geek. I am an auntie. I am a teacher. I am an author. I am a disciple. I am a badass. I am a scholar. I am a chaplain. I am an ally. I am a feminist. I am a peacemaker. I am brave, I am resilient, and yes, I am sexy — on my own terms. I am no one’s object. I am so much more. I am me.
via I Am Not a “That” | chaplainjesuslady.
I celebrate the type of religion and Christianity that does not objectify people but instead points them to the wrestling that is found in places such as Romans 7:15-25.
If only we had more clergy willing to make such brave posts and statements.
Thank you, Stacy.
Almost missed it…
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Latin for “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”, often referred to as simply the Principia, is a work in three books by Sir Isaac Newton, in Latin, first published 5 July 1687
via Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Building an email newsletter is a fantastic thing for your business. In fact, it’s a must. Email is still a very active and viable channel for marketing and with free/cheap tools such as MailChimp, Constant Contact or Awebber, it’s easier than ever to organize and send email newsletters.
Whether your list size is 50 or 5,000, you need to be segmenting your list. That means splitting it up into various sub-lists based on relevance and groupings.
Even with small business lists of only 50 addresses, we commonly segment those into “leads,” “potential leads,” and “previous customers” with each segment receiving their own variation of the newsletter.
It works.
And here’s some data to back me up…
When I conducted a survey about email marketing, I asked respondents to tell me, in a free-form text field, why they chose to subscribe to emails from some companies. One of the most common responses I received was that they expected the emails were going to be relevant to their interests. 38% of respondents specifically referenced the word “relevance,” and one especially well-worded response indicated that content should be “particularly and specifically” relevant to them.
via New Data Proves Why You Need to Segment Your Email Marketing.
https://vine.co/v/MFTr7DiMjaQ/embed/postcard//platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
Vine is Twitter’s 6 second short video sharing social network that allows users to capture short videos that loop when viewed. Like Instagram, Vine is an app and the main experience is via mobile rather than the traditional desktop web. Accordingly, Vine is insanely popular with certain demographics (predominately teens – 24 year olds). It’s rather addicting and companies have caught on. Agencies have even been set up around the idea of “microcontent” marketing.
However, one of the stumbling blocks we’ve hit with client work has been the lack of sharing the number of views (or “loops”) that a particular Vine accumulates. One of the reasons Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram etc all share the number of views and shares particular content has over time is because it adds to the social “virality” of that content. These companies have done a great deal of research on how viewing numbers help to increase additional and long term viewing.
Looks like Vine is finally adding this feature too:
With this update, there’s now a new way for you to quickly get a sense of how popular and interesting a Vine may be –– based on how many times people watch a Vine loop. The number, which you can see in our mobile apps and on vine.co, updates in real time, so as you watch a video, you’ll know you’re watching with others at the same time.
via Vine blog – Introducing Loop Counts.
Vine isn’t right for every company, small business, or community group out there. However, if you can find your niche and aren’t afraid to “try new things,” then definitely give Vine a shot in your marketing plan.
There’s no formal announcement of “Twitter Shopping” yet, but Twitter has been making some strategic moves that would allow users to purchase items directly from tweets (such as a partnership with Amazon).
If so, this could be an interesting play for small businesses that sell niche products. Twitter is a level playing field (well, relatively) compared to other social networks in that most everything is public. This could be very interesting for both Twitter and e-commerce…
So did Fancy accidentally make public another Twitter Commerce experiment? Is Twitter starting to facilitate in-tweet purchases?
The companies aren’t saying. Twitter spokesman Jim Prosser declined to comment, and Fancy execs didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
via “Buy Now” Buttons Start Appearing in Tweets. Is Twitter Shopping Here? | Re/code.
We’re big fans and users of Freshbooks for our online accounting, invoicing, and payment software.
It’s interesting to see GoDaddy teaming up with PayPal, Stripe, and Dwolla to offer their own “Get Paid” solution for people and businesses as a small monthly fee starting at $3.99
GET PAID
Everything you need to get paid
Get paid on any device—mobile phone, laptop, tablet
Accept credit cards, checks, PayPal, bank payments
Create and send invoices online and on your mobile phone
via Get Paid | Anytime, Anywhere, Anyhow – GoDaddy.
I suspect this will attract small businesses and folks who want a quick solution without all the hassle that setting up online payment options can cause for those who are less tech literate or strapped for time (and cash).
I also wonder how much this will impact the growing area of online invoicing that our beloved Freshbooks, Stripe, banks etc are already inhabiting after inheriting the space from the ancient Quickbooks ancestor.
Testing is great. Finding a better solution by gathering data is one of the reasons our species has developed and survived. The same is true for solid results on websites, and using tools such as “A/B testing” to determine the best outcome is a worthwhile endeavor for small businesses, churches, community groups, and non-profits with a website…
At many Web publishers, such decisions can lead to impassioned arguments, fruitless debates, even hurt feelings. But 1-800-Dentist doesn’t leave it to chance or opinion. Instead it runs an experiment. It launches two or more versions of a Web page, and then watches as users react. After thousands of people have visited, one version will have edged out the others with a statistically significant improvement in the number of sign-ups.
via A/B Testing for Websites Redraws the Web | MIT Technology Review.
However, there are downsides to relying solely on tools such as A/B testing and the resulting data when it comes to web design (also from the link above)…
In fact, intensive testing appears to be reshaping what the Web looks like. But the page designs that are succeeding won’t win any awards for art direction, just as listicles don’t win Pulitzers. Even proponents of optimization technology admit it can produce sites with simple, cookie-cutter looks.
But A/B testing is spreading because it’s become easy to do. Optimizely says it can pick a winning design after as few as 100 visits for sites that have never been optimized. In practice, running experiments is often much harder. At 1-800-Dentist, which is based in Los Angeles, Kharkats says he’s testing text and images for several slightly different landing pages and estimates that he will need 150,000 visitors to each in order to detect a difference. That could take months, he says.
So, do some testing (we always do). Let it help you guide your path towards a better website or search campaign or poster design.
But, use your gut and trust your instincts (or the instincts of the agency you hire to help you out). After all, we’re humans, not robots.
Twitter has long had an advertising component available (especially for small businesses). With their recent acquisition (acqui-hire) of MoPub, a mobile ad network, they are now releasing ads specifically targeted for mobile app users on iOS and Android in the apps category.
It won’t take long for Twitter to open up their mobile advertising to other categories and businesses as well as they continue to seek a successful monetization strategy…
Twitter is kicking off the global roll out of mobile app promotion ads — units that either take users to app downloads, or to the apps themselves if they’re already installed, via a deep link. Along with that, Twitter’s unveiling new cost-per-app-click pricing for the unit and a dashboard to track usage.
via Twitter Rolls Out App Install And Engagement Ads, And New Click Pricing, Globally | TechCrunch.