Many small businesses are seeing solid traction from their social and email marketing efforts. Yet if you’re questioning whether you can further improve results, you may want to consider these lesser-known yet critical facts about Facebook, content development and email because they could have a significant impact on your campaign success.
“Liking” You Is Not Enough
If you’ve established a Facebook Business Page, be aware that due to recent changes, fans that “Like” your business may not always be seeing your status updates in their feed.
To ensure they do, let your customers know that when they “Like” your page, they also need to hover over the “Like” button until the drop-down menu appears and then click on the “Show in News Feed” option. Additionally, you may want to suggest that they also click the “Get Notifications” while they’re hovering over “Like” so they stay informed about what’s happening with your business.
Over-Optimized Content is Counter-Productive
There’s no clear and fast definition for content that’s considered over optimized. Yet if the search engine categorizes it this way, you’ll see your rankings plummet.
There are many factors taken into consideration when search engines rank pages though without getting into the technical details, here are three considerations that will improve your ranking.
Business
• Trustworthy, factual, fresh and original content that doesn’t contain spelling or grammar mistakes.
• Content that isn’t duplicated throughout the website with slightly different key words being optimized.
• Relevant information that reflects what readers want and need to know as opposed to blatant sales pitches.
For more insight, you may want to explore the Google Webmaster’s guidelines.
Avoid Spam Filters
While there are many reasons why email winds up marked as spam or goes unopened, let’s talk about the top three reasons why a customer may have deliberately relegated your messages to the spam penalty box.
• The high frequency of emails has led to readers tuning out your messages.
• The content isn’t personalized.
• The focus is on marketing your goods as opposed to providing insightful information that’s not easily found elsewhere.
You may never know if your messages have been marked as junk. What you can do, however, is ask for honest feedback, analyze campaign results and revamp your content to earn and maintain the privilege of engaging customers through email.
Making these adjustments to your marketing efforts will yield stronger results while creating closer ties to your customers.
Steve Robinson is Constant Contact’s small business expert in Illinois and Wisconsin. A knowledgeable marketing expert with 30 years of experience, Steve has helped thousands of small businesses, associations, and nonprofits develop and implement effective email marketing, social media and online survey strategies. A popular speaker and educator, Steve gives small businesses and nonprofits the tools, techniques, and strategies they need to grow and expand their business and to maximize the power of relationship marketing. Steve’s experience in small business ownership, business development, sales, and fundraising help associations, small businesses and nonprofits achieve success.
