Looking for tips and advice on digital marketing, web development, branding or pretty much anything that helps your business to grow? Then check out the Cloud9 Marketing blog!

marketing-agency
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Why Hiring a Marketing Agency Will Rock Your World

Marketing is fun in the beginning. It’s all about ideas and vision and finding incredible ways to get your product or service out to the world. This is why so many businesses undertake this momentous task themselves. What businesses fail to realize in the honeymoon stages of a marketing plan, is how much work is actually involved, and how hard it is to stay focused. Once the ink has dried and the glow of a new idea begins to fade it’s easy to abandon ship, switch direction and never achieve anything worthwhile in the end. Marketing is an essential function for any successful business and hiring a marketing agency is the best strategy to reach your goals – here’s why…

Lightning Pace of Trends and Technology

Technology and trends are moving so fast that by the time you’ve familiarized yourself with the latest SEO tactics Google’s algorithms have changed once again. As a business owner, or with an internal marketing department, it can be hard staying abreast of the latest technologies and trends. There is just too much other work to distract. Marketing Agencies live and breathe change and innovation, it’s what sets them apart from their competition. It is a blatant waste of time for business owners to stay on the bleeding edge of innovation – of course having an idea of what is happening in your industry and how technology is changing is important – but staying on the pulse of everything new and trendy is best left to professional marketers.

Agency Wide Skill Sets

Marketing Agencies are often collectives of highly skilled strategists, brand specialists, web and graphic designers, copy-writers and bloggers, and social media managers. Business owners and internal marketing departments very rarely have the same extensive skill sets as agencies. When out-sourcing to a Marketing Agency you can leverage all of the skills and experience in that particular agency. This is great for long term marketing plans as well as one off projects. Not only can Marketing Agencies cover a broad range of projects they can do so with trained expertise.

In it for the Long Haul

Persistence is the key to any marketing plan’s success. Results cannot be expected over night. Marketing Agencies have experience executing marketing plans. They know that taking small consistent steps in the direction of your goals and vision are key to long term success. Too often when businesses execute their own marketing plans they get impatient if results aren’t immediate. Marketing agencies have the skills and experience to execute marketing plans but also have the understanding to step back, re-evaluate and shift focus if necessary.

It’s Cheaper

When you look at the hourly rate of a Marketing Agency or the cost of a one off project you might gasp. Although the hourly rate may appear more than the hourly rate of an internal marketing coordinator or manager, when you look a little harder you will find out-sourcing is a lot more affordable. When hiring a staff member internally there are many fixed costs that you may fail to consider. Taxes, vacation and sick pay, CPP contributions and health benefits can be as much as the base salary. Considering recruitment, training and human resource issues the costs of an internal marketing department can escalate very quickly. When you hire a Marketing Agency you are generally not doing so on a 40 hour per week basis. An Agency may be able to do the same amount of work as an internal team in a fraction of the time.

Finally, licenses and software programs to support marketing efforts can be costly and time consuming. Marketing Agencies generally have licenses to all the required software already, and may pass on a nominal charge for you to use them. This saves businesses the stress of training staff on various software programs plus the ongoing cost to upgrade and update the programs.

Outsourcing to Marketing Agencies is becoming more common as today’s marketing environment becomes more complex. Here at Cloud9 Marketing in Whistler, BC we operate as a marketing collective with a team of freelance web designers, graphic designers, social media coordinators, photographers, strategists and bloggers. When we receive a project from a client we have a full team of experts on-hand to get the job done quickly and professionally, using the latest tactics and technology. As many business owners strive for a better work/life balance, out-sourcing is becoming an essential way to achieve this lifestyle. Let Cloud9 Marketing rock your world by turning your marketing dream into a reality.

 

 

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social-media-goals
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Setting (and measuring) Social Media Goals like a Pro!

You are probably tired of hearing how important social media is for your business. If you are like many you may be wondering how the effort spent on social media actually translates to a return on investment (ROI). It is not uncommon for business owners to delegate social media efforts to front-line staff, or take a stab in the dark themselves, with no notable results. Like any business venture, setting measurable goals is essential for ensuring the hours spent posting and tweeting is time well spent. Setting SMART goals on the most important social media metrics is essential for achieving results. Don’t recall SMART goals from Business101? They are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely. Below are 5 social media metrics with an example SMART goal for each.

Followers/ Likers

Think of Followers and Likers as your audience. These are potential customers who are interested enough in your brand to tune in to what you say and do. There are two ways to generate followers and likers, organically and through paid advertising. Organic followers are the cream of the crop as these people are genuinely interested in your brand and took their own initiative to follow what you do. Paid advertising is a great way to boost your followers/likers and social media advertising is targeted so you can ensure you are recruiting your target market through these ads.

GOAL: To increase followers/likers organically by 10% between September and December 2015.

If you currently have a following of 500 people a 10% increase would equate to an additional 50 followers. This is easy to measure and a 10% increase should be achievable for most businesses.

Reach

Reach is an important metric when posting on a Facebook Page. Reach is the number of people who saw your post. Don’t confuse reach for impressions. Impressions are the times your post was viewed keeping in mind your post could be viewed multiple times by the same person. Facebook algorithms have changed significantly over the last few years and organic reach is harder to achieve. To get the furthest reach on Facebook you need to pay for advertising. Measuring your paid reach is a good way of assessing how effective your Facebook ad campaign is.

GOAL: To reach 1500 people with Facebook ad XYZ between Sept 1st and Sept 15th 2015

As your ad runs you will be able

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Video Mistakes You Might Be Making
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Key Considerations For Video Marketing

It’s no secret that videos are trendier than ever. From hilarious cat videos, to live news on your smart phone, our society is in love with videos. Embracing film as part of your marketing strategy can drastically improve your reach. We are all for video content because we know how powerful it is, when it’s done right that is. Whether you are gearing up to incorporate video into your marketing strategy or already have it implemented, these considerations for a successful video are key.

Concept

Whatever your concept is, make it clear in the first 8 seconds. The first couple of seconds are when the viewer decides if it is appealing or not. This is your do or die window for their attention. Reflect on what audience you are trying to reach and what you are trying to say about your brand, this is your time to shine.

Overselling

Finding the balance between being clear about your product or idea and drowning people in it can be tricky. The goal with any video is to make a lasting impression and call the viewer to action. You want them to remember your brand, and dig a little deeper on their own free will. It’s about creating engagement from the viewer. Rather than spill all the beans, lead them on with excitement and have all the info they’ll be craving ready in another video, or written on your website and point them in that direction.

Feedback

Everyone needs more feedback. Ask strangers in your target audience what they think about your video. Outside sources are best for feedback as your team, family and friends will have a bias.

Call to Action

As mentioned in overselling, each video needs to call the viewer to some kind of action. The call can be just to create curiosity, generate a referral, get a free quote, how to use your product and so on. Maybe all you are trying to do is get them to like your Facebook page, whatever it is, make sure it is clear in your objectives before and after the video is created.

Boring

A few things can make a video boring. If it is too long, it’s boring. If the concept isn’t portrayed in an engaging way, it is boring. If the people in the video are, well boring, it is of course going to be a boring film. Spending a couple of extra bucks to hire someone to film and act in your video could make all the difference. This is something you’ll need to weigh out for yourself, but if you were planning on using Larry, the monotone receptionist as your lead star, maybe rethink that one.

Placement

Now that you’ve created your perfect video, don’t let it go to waste! Placement on your website should be front and center. On YouTube it should be on your own channel which will eventually have more videos to fill the auto play, this will keep your target audience much more excited about your company as there is even more material for them to view. Be sure to cross post on other outlets like Vimeo and Facebook. If you choose to do paid advertisement with your video choose the sites that will appeal to the right demographic, and again watch placement of where your video will be on each page that you are paying for.

We can’t say this will make video-making fool proof, but it is a step in the right direction. When creating or perfecting your video content keep these helpful hints in mind. If you are interested in video marketing but don’t know where to start, check out Cloud9’s video production & marketing services.

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website audit
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Is Your Website Feeling Under the Weather?

You’ve got an awesome product or service. Your website looks pretty. You’re ready for business.

So why isn’t anyone calling?

The short answer is that there’s a lot more to a good website than you might think. Though it might look nice and be intuitive for you, there’s a good chance that there are some gaping holes lurking around your site.

In other words, your website is feeling a little under the weather – but just like when you’re feeling not-so-hot, it’s fixable.

Go to the Doctor

When something’s wrong with you but you’re not sure what it is, you probably head to the doctor (or, at least, you consult Dr. Google). Your doc probably won’t be able to help with your website, but we can: a website audit is the e-version of the doctor’s appointment.

A website audit is all about finding what elements are performing as they should, and what pieces are not. In our basic package, we search for broken links, HTML code errors, duplicate content, keyword ranking and visibility, etc.

Just like your appointment, audits are pretty quick an easy: we’ll meet with you for an hour to listen to your “symptoms” (a.k.a. your online marketing objective and goals), then we’ll take a few days to run our tests and assemble information. Once we’ve done our work, we’ll meet with you for another hour to discuss our findings, recommendations, and next steps.

Your doctor might recommend surgery, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it right away. On a similar note, our consultations are no-obligation: you can choose to act on our recommendations, or you can think about it for a little while.

Follow Up With the Specialist

You know what’s wrong and you’re ready to take action. Time to book an appointment with the specialist who is going to fix you right up.

Depending on what is wrong in the first place, a simple Band-Aid might be all you need to get back into shape. But let’s say your audit returned highlighting some major weaknesses in the search engine optimization department, and you want that fixed, stat. The next step would be getting an SEO specialist involved (Cloud9 does that!).

If it’s your SEO that needs fixing, we’ll work with you to determine your objectives and strategies, and we’ll come up with some keywords together that will convert searches into sales. We’ll roll up our sleeves, snap on our surgeon’s gloves, and take a look at your website’s structure, putting things back together in a way that makes your website shine.

SEO not the problem? Whatever we find in the audit, we’ll fix at this step, whether it’s a tiny job, a major overhaul, or somewhere in between.

Stay In Shape

Congratulations – you’re feeling better! Now don’t let all that hard work go to waste. Just as new illnesses and injuries come and go, the web is constantly changing. Links go stale, SEO algorithms change, and so on. Adequate follow up is key to staying in good shape.

Touch base with us every few months, and we’ll make sure that everything is running smoothly. If it’s not, we’ll help you fix it. You can even sign up for monthly website assessments so that we can proactively fix minor issues before they become big problems.

Once your website has got a clean bill of health, you can focus on providing your customers with the best product or service! That’s all there is to it.

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using video for business
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How to Use Video to Take Your Business to the Next Level

Some food for thought: according to Brainshark, video will account for 74% of all internet traffic by 2017.

That’s a lot of video.

There’s something about the format that entices people to click, watch, and share (provided, of course, that the content and production quality is top-notch). Videos can do a lot for businesses: boost SEO, increase traffic, generate sales, connect to the target market… the list goes on.

In short, videos are good news for business – but how can you incorporate them into your business?

We’re glad you asked.

Show What You Do

Sure, you could tell people about what it is your business does – or you could show them. Video lets prospective customers see your product (whether it’s a good or service) in action. You can highlight features, demonstrate how it works, and show why people need what you’re selling.

Introduce Yourself

Wouldn’t it be great to personally introduce yourself to every existing and potential customer within your target market? Video is the next best thing: it puts a name to the face and shows viewers who is behind the business, helping build trust and rapport. Chances are pretty good that it’s the people that really make your business. Make sure customers know who those people are.

Explain Your Expertise

Prove to viewers that you know your stuff. Make videos to address industry news, to explain how complex components of your business work, or to give forecasts of where you think the industry is headed. This type of video can help build your reputation as a knowledgeable professional in the field.

Go Behind the Scenes

Most of your clients have no idea what goes on behind the scenes, so show them! Film what goes into developing your product – the inputs, the people, the processes, etc. Use video to show how your business creates value for your customers in a fun, dynamic way.

Provide Support

Raise your hand if you’ve ever YouTubed for help on how to do something, like how to change your headlight bulbs or how to open a bottle of wine with a shoe. A lot of us do this – so create videos to help people with your product. Use videos to help users troubleshoot common issues, to address frequently asked questions, or to show unique ways of using your product. Give them the solutions they crave.

Tout Your Testimonials

Got happy customers? Share it! Incorporate videos of your clients using your product. Prospective customers are keen on checking reviews – just check TripAdvisor, Yelp, or any other review site. Harness your satisfied clients to get even more customers.

Videos that Go Beyond You

Not all videos have to be about you and your business – it can be equally powerful to share videos that are related to your business. For instance, a ski shop might share a video clip from a ski film, ski-related viral videos, or shock-factor avalanche clips. Keep it targeted and interesting to your customer base.

Deliver News

Think beyond the press release and create a video to share exciting news about your business. Won an award? Hired someone awesome? Created something new? Show, don’t tell!

 

We want to help you create videos to help you take your business to the next levels. Get in touch with us – we’ve got some big ideas for you!

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video facts for igital marketing
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These 8 Facts About Using Video on Your Website Will Blow Your Mind!

You’ve probably heard that incorporating video into your website will do wonders for your business. More people will visit! They’ll buy your stuff! They’ll become devoted lifelong fans who will wax poetically about your fabulous company!

But we know how it is: taking the time to write, produce, and edit a video isn’t always easy. It requires time, money, and help from other people to incorporate video into your website.

It’s kind of like eating vegetables: you know that adding video content to your website is good for you, but it’s not always the easiest thing to do. We’re here to give you some motivation to eat those proverbial vegetables. Here are 8 facts about incorporating video into your website that you simply cannot afford to ignore.

 

Fact #1: YouTube is the #2 Search Engine in the World

Yes, you read that properly. It goes without saying that people aren’t searching YouTube for text-based posts. Posting video content will allow you to reach out to one billion people who search through YouTube every month.

 

Fact #2: The Value of One Minute of Video is the Equivalent to 1.8 Million Words

Okay, a stick-person stop-motion video might not convey that much information (though in the age of the viral video, you never know). But a properly produced video filled with valuable information can have a major impact on those who view it—and the viewers will actually remember it. Plus, creating a video takes much less time than typing out 1.8 million words!

 

Fact #3: Over Half the 25-54 Year Old Demographic Share Video Online

Business 101: word of mouth is your friend. Sharing content on social media is the new word of mouth. If you can convince your fans to share your content with their friends, then you’re getting a personal introduction through a trusted source to some very valuable potential clients. Not having video means that you’re missing out on these shares.

 

Fact #4: Shorter Videos Are Shared More Often Than Longer Videos

Bonus fact: 20% of people viewing a video will click away from the video after 10 seconds of watching. Don’t be thinking that you need to produce a multi-hour blockbuster to engage your target market. On the contrary: focus on well-executed short videos that pack a punch.

 

Fact #5: Online Video Accounts for 50% Of All Mobile Traffic

See those people scanning through their phones at the bus stop? Half of them are watching a video online.  It’s simply impossible to ignore the fact that people are consuming their media in a whole new way, and that new way is through video. Ignore the importance of video, and you might be facing a future similar to the VHS player.

 

Fact #6: The Average Internet User Watches 32 Videos Per Month

Think about who uses the internet: that would be just about everyone. Now consider the fact that each person watches at least one video per day, on average. If you’re convinced that your target market isn’t into videos, think again.

 

Fact #7: On Retail Sites With Video Components, Site Visitors Stay 2 Minutes Longer—and Are 64% More Likely to Make a Purchase

The facts are starting to add up. We know that the time that people spend on our sites is incredibly valuable. We also spend a lot of time trying to convert site visitors into clients. Here it is in black and white: video does that.

 

Fact #8: Video Content Is 53 times More Likely to Show up on the First Page of a Search Engine Results than the Same Content in Text Form

Our final fact is a bit of a mouthful, but wow—talk about impactful. In the world of SEO, any leg up you can get on your competition is huge. That’s not 53%– it’s 53 times.

 

Convinced that video is the way to go for your website? We just so happen to offer video production services– click here for more details on how to get all the benefits offered by incorporating video onto your website.

Don’t believe us? Check out these websites for sources and more details:
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social media business credibility
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How Does Social Media Help Build Credibility for Your Business?

Imagine that you had the opportunity to have a face-to-face conversation with each and every one of your existing and potential customers.

That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? While it would be incredibly time consuming to actually accomplish this, social media allows a business to establish a more personal connection to customers than ever before.

Creating a strong connection with customers is a good thing: it establishes trust, builds credibility, and demonstrates the personality behind a company, distinguishing it from other competitors in the field. Here’s what you need to do to get there:

Be a Credible Source of Information

Show your fans and followers that you are an expert in your field by being the go-to source for relevant information. The more you share valuable information, the more you gain authority; the more authority you have, the more you are perceived to be an expert in your field.

Focus on Your Followers

Though it might seem counter-intuitive, your business’s social media is not just about you—it’s about your followers. While you definitely want to include news about your company and your product, you also want to maintain a balance by including other information that might appeal to those reading your social media content.

Take Customer Service to the Next Level

Social media provides a business the opportunity to show its customers that the company really cares. A sound social media strategy will allow you to keep your finger on the pulse, anticipating what your customers want and responding to any customer service complaints swiftly and appropriately. Social media allows you to connect with customers like never before: you simply cannot afford to miss out.

Interact With Your Community

Build trust with your customers by creating a bona fide community around your business. Encourage your followers to ask questions (and, of course, answer them!).

Engage community members to participate in your social media initiatives, and create a two-way dialogue with your customers. Don’t forget to listen: when you take the time to really hear what your customers have to say, you can gain knowledge that will help you improve your products and policies.

Let Your Customers Speak

The best way to boost your credibility is to let your satisfied customers do the work for you.

Encourage happy customers to share their testimonials on social media, and highlight their Tweets, photos, or posts on your own social media. It’s one thing to tell your customers how great you are, but it’s even more effective to have your loyal fans share their satisfaction with their own community. Begin to see your happy customers as brand ambassadors, and embrace them within your social media strategy.

Be Authentic

If you are not being fully and completely authentic in your company’s social media initiatives, then you are missing the point. It’s hard to build a connection with a phony person, and it’s even more difficult to do so with an inauthentic brand.

Use your business’s strategy and values to shape your social media strategy. Maintain a consistent, honest imagine across your social media channels. Give your customers a behind-the-scenes peek into the people and processes behind your product. Don’t be afraid to reveal your company’s true personality.

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startup content strategy to build brand awareness
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Start-up Content Strategy: How Important Is It?

So you’ve just launched a new venture with a shiny new website. How’s traffic? Non-existant? Well, here’s how to change that with a solid content strategy.

Search engines use various methods to determine page rank and position in search engine results pages (SERPs). A large part of that is determined by relevant and credible links to your content, social media interaction, online discussion, articles and white papers, slide shares, videos, etc.

A start-up should focus on getting as much exposure as possible early on. There are several methods that help to build brand awareness, and they should all be considered.

It is very important to understand that without a solid content strategy that will genuinely appeal to users, social media efforts and other inbound marketing efforts will fall short and the return on investment will be very little.

Creating original content and utilizing tools such as article submission, eBooks, blogging, white papers, slide shares, videos and press releases will help to not only build brand credibility and improve your company website’s page rank (through link backs and shares), it will also give you something to talk about.

Once you have a solid content strategy and have built up enough of a library to feel it is worth presenting to the public, you reach out and you share it like crazy!

And that is where social media comes in. Social media is, in essence, the curation of content. It gives everyone the ability to share content as they see fit. This gives the end-user the control over how extensively your content is shared – unless you use fan blockers or other forceful tactics, which are not recommended if you want to build “goodwill” with your fan base.

If you do not have anything original or well-thought-out to share, people will simply and unapologetically move on and not look back. Which, of course, you don’t want. You want to be the source that people flock to for solid information and share with their friends, colleagues, coworkers and so on. But that is only accomplished when the product is good.

We get a fair amount of start-ups asking for just social media. And while a solid social strategy coupled with Facebook advertising and perhaps contesting can yield good results in terms of social media fan growth and engagement, it may not be the answer to increasing traffic to your web site and ultimately into the sales funnel or develop into leads.

So, is a content strategy important for start-ups? Most definitely.

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social media marketing matt astifan
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Matt Astifan helped someone get 11,000 Fans in 3 weeks

This was an email I received from Matt Astifan about the Facebook for Brands Workshop we (Cloud9 Marketing) co-produced with him in March. Amazing results!

__________________

I love Whistler.

And that’s why when Virginia-Rae from Cloud9 Marketing asked me to host Facebook For Brands in Whistler I quickly agreed!

After the event, I was pleasantly surprised by the feedback I got at the workshop.

Not only did several people tell me it was the best Social Media Workshop they had ever attended. I had several emails from people showing me their new stats.

One person named Patrick from GetBud.net actually shocked me with his results.

He wrote:

“Hi Matt, I’m currently running 5 total ads and spent only $27.00 to generate all this interest…the numbers just keep going up and up! I’ve received a bunch of positive messages and no negative so far. Very encouraging for the start of my online venture! I’d be interested in knowing what you think…is this a normal response for a few $1.00 ads?”

At first, I actually thought he was doing something wrong! I was afraid he was racking up a huge bill without knowing it! So, I offered him a free online consultation to review his Facebook Ads dashboard.

I helped someone get 11,000 Fans in 3 weeks - vquinnell@gmail.com - Gmail

The results: Gnarly.

Patrick was using the exact techniques I showed him in the Facebook For Brands Workshop and getting THOUSANDS of targeted fans for pennies!

He knew his fans’ demographics and what they were passionate about and designed Facebook Ads that engaged them.

Here is what he wrote on his wall:

I helped someone get 11,000 Fans in 3 weeks - vquinnell@gmail.com - Gmail

Before attending the Facebook For Brands Workshop in Whistler on March 20th, 2013 Patrick had only 197 fans, today he has over 11,000!

Do you want to know exactly how he did it? Attend the Facebook for Brands Workshop in Vancouver on May 2nd and I’ll show you how. :)

It’s only been 24 hours and we’ve already sold 25% of the seats!

Get tickets here now –> http://www.webfriendly.ca/facebook-for-brands-workshop/

Best,

Matt

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email marketing
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5 Tactics to Grow Your Email List

Originally posted on Mashable: 5 Tactics to Grow Your Email List.

Back in January, many email marketers said increasing their lists was their top goal for 2013. Well, spring is here. Is your mailing list growing as fast as your flowers and lawn? If not, it’s time to execute a new plan.

Many marketers have email addresses only for 30% or less of their customer and prospect lists. They’re tempted to revert to their direct-mail experience and reach for a quick fix like email append (“e-append”) and list rental/purchase.

But in today’s engagement-based inbox placement world, this “quick fix” approach can give you more headaches than new sales.

If you seek quantity over quality in list growth, you’re practically inviting the ISPs either to block your entire opt-in mailing list or route everything to your recipients’ bulk folders, where they’ll languish in obscurity until the ISPs dump them automatically.

So, what should be in your email list growth plan? Below are five tried-and-true methods to ignite your email list growth, in a safe, permission-based way.

1. Make It Easy to Opt In on Your Website

Your customers and prospects must be able to find your opt-in form easily on your home page. This advice has been around for years, but today’s web designers apparently didn’t get the memo. They position Facebook and Twitter icons prominently but send you on a search-and-rescue mission to find the opt-in field.

Many websites undersell the email value proposition, using just a link saying “Sign Up for Email” relegated to the homepage footer. Worse, the email opt-in call-to-action isn’t even on the page. Make your forms stand out.

If you want to get more opt-ins, make the email invite more visible. Use a benefit-based call-to-action, and test an offer that you subsequently deliver in your welcome series.

2. Don’t Stop at Just One

Add more opt-in forms throughout your site and in various placements: above the fold (the horizontal halfway point on your website, like the fold in a newspaper), below the fold, in the right rail, in left-hand navigation and on a dynamic layer that displays according to visitors’ site activity.

Test these locations to see how many more opt-ins you can drive, each one alone and in combination with each other. One opt-in form on a page might drive X, while having two opt-in form placements on a page might drive 1.5X to 2X.

At the EEC Summit in 2012, Tommy Hilfiger reported that his company drives 2% of all site visitors to opt in by using a dynamic opt-in layer served to new site visitors on site entry.

3. Collect Emails at Your Stores

Ask your customers to opt in for email at your checkout counter or when requesting an email receipt. However, be sure you are collecting high-quality names.

You’ll have to develop a request procedure that helps you overcome two big pitfalls of point-of-sale requests: phony addresses, either provided by reluctant customers who can’t say no to the request or keyed in by sales associates who have to meet email quotas.

Mistakes, which happen when sales people misspell a written address, misunderstand a customer’s spoken address or omit a crucial detail like the “@” symbol.

Here are a few suggestions for collecting more and better addresses:

  • Let customers type in their email addresses on a POS touchpad or credit card terminal.
  • Give them an offer or benefit for signing up in-store.
  • Explain what they’ll be receiving.
  • Get explicit permission before adding the address.

4. Make It Mobile

Consumer adoption of mobile sites and apps makes mobile another important collection point for opt-in for both email and SMS text. The best mobile site home pages have two opt-in forms: one for email, one for SMS. Remember the constraints that mobile puts on viewing and data input.

Don’t ask users to fill out lots of form fields. Keep the form short and simple. You can collect more information later in your welcome series using progressive profiling.

5. Remember Your Social Networks

Give your Facebook followers a simple opt-in form page. Call out the benefits and differences between your social experience and your email communications.

Consider using social login, also known as social sign-in. This uses existing login information from social networks such as Facebook or Twitter to sign in to a website without having to create a separate login account specifically for your website.

You can also use this process to allow your site registrants to quickly and easily sign up to receive your marketing emails.

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