The elements of an email marketing strategy should work together like a finely tuned machine. There is the mailing list, the time of send, the format and content of the newsletter, etc. One thing that often gets overlooked: the call-to-action within the newsletter content. The call-to-action is the piece of the email that tells recipients what to do after they’ve read the email. It can be as simple as a “click here to learn more button” or a “buy now” link.

The call-to-action is an important piece of the email marketing machine; it points the reader to his or her next task. If there is not call-to-action, the email really has no purpose and the recipient has no way of contributing to your business or following up on something that grabbed their attention. For example, if you’re writing an email newsletter to sell some product, including a “purchase” link is essential. It’s an obvious way for subscribers to take the next step.

There are a few more things to consider when crafting a call-to-action. First, think about the location within the email. Also, what will the actual call-to-action look like? Will there be images, what kind of wording will be used, is a bright color better? The answers to these questions will come in the form of testing. Most email marketing companies offer A/B split testing, so it’s simple to try a variety of calls-to-actions. Test to find the most effective one and then use it for all future sends.

A few years ago we had someone working at our company who hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. It turned out that this person had been stealing from our clients accounts over a period of about three years, and he eventually went to jail. It was me that actually caught him at it, and it was me that pressed charges against him on behalf of our clients. All of the clients have been extremely good about it and most of them have stayed with us thanks to our honesty about the whole affair.
Unfortunately it has become increasingly difficult to attract new customers to our company because whenever you Google our name, the first thing that comes up is the story about our old employee stealing funds from our accounts! It hardly fills the customer with confidence, yet it is not a fair reflection on us as a company.
I had been wanting to do something about this for ages, but most people I spoke to had no idea how we could change it, until I spoke to someone who works with computers. He told me that there was a good chance that working with an SEO specialist, I might be able to get our own website up above the story that was online, and with any luck, push the negative story onto the second page of google. As soon as I heard this, I was straight online, trying to find a company who dealt with this sort of thing.
I found a company who specialised in Reputation management and once I spoke to them they were very confident that they would be able to do something for me. Three months later and we had succeeded! My own web page came up top, and the negative story as demoted to page two of Google’s search results!

Five proven ways to make money from your blog

Are you an aspiring write looking to make a little bit of side income from your blog? If so then you’ve stumbled acrossed the right article. Here you’ll find five tips and techniques to help you making money on the internet from writing your own unique content. Put these tips in to practice and you’ll be making money for doing what you love from home.

The first and most important thing you can possibly do is build a steady readership base. Before you can even think about making money you have to know that people are reading and liking what you have to say. Ask yourself questions like “who is my audience?” “who am I trying to reach?” “What message do I want to bring to these individuals?”. The best thing you can do is start by picking a narrow topic range for a while like writing just about politics or fashion for a while until you can find your voice and know who is listening. Be sure to encourage interaction between yourself and your readers in the comment section of your blog posts. Once you know what people like you’ll be able to focus on that content and they’ll be encouraged to share it with their friends. You can also make use of insight software that can tell you what age group and gender looks at your blog most or how many people are viewing your blog a day and all other kinds of useful information.

Now that you’re grounded on a good readership base the first way you can start making money is through advertising revenue. How this works is you submit your blog to a site and if it meets certain minimum traffic requirements they will display ads on your blog that are relevant to the posts you make. You make a certain percent of money for everyone who looks at these ads and a little more for everyone who clicks one of them.

The old saying goes that you have to spend money to make money. To increase users to visit your site you may want to personalize it more by registering your own domain name for you blog so it’s easier to find and has a more memorable address. A good looking blog can also be a good step towards getting a better viewership. Think about hiring a website designer to give your blog a custom skin and a look that will burn in people’s minds.
Finally you may want to take the time to learn SEO (search engine optimization) techniques or hire an SEO specalists to help you. By utilizing SEO your blog can gain a higher page ranking when a topic is searched for on the internet. The higher the site’s page ranking the closer to the top of the search it appears, and the closer to the top it appears the better the chances of someone clicking on it and seeing your ads.

The next option you have for making money online is to become a paid reviewer. Here again you submit your blog to a company and request to review their products. If they feel that your blog meets their standards and has a good readership base they will approve you. Now you’ll get paid to review goods and services on your blog as a type of advertising agent.

And lastly if you feel that your individual articles are up to par, you can try selling individual articles to other websites or having them published in news paper and other forms of media. Many sites on the web collect articles on all sorts of topic and will pay for the rights to a good piece of writing. And then if your name is published on another article, you can always get someone directed back to your blog and there’s more money to be made from advertising revenue.

Follow these techniques and we’re confident that you’ll be making money off your new personalized, commercial, professional blog!