Showing posts with label Mail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mail. Show all posts

7 Ways to Treat Visitors from Your E-mail Groups to Keep Them Coming Back

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E-mail groups can be a rich mine of prospects. It's only logical that you do everything you can to make sure that visitors coming in from that source are well taken care of so they come back to your blog or website again and again. After all, it probably took you a lot of time and effort to target your leads and tap your network of contacts in order to generate the listing from that e-mail group. Don’t let it go to waste. Here are 7 ways you can use to treat visitors that come from e-mail groups and make sure they come back again and again:

Have a working website

Nothing could be more frustrating and annoying to a visitor than attempting to get through to a website that hangs or simply freezes. If you want visitors coming from e-mail groups to stick around or come back, make sure your website or blog delivers.

Check your website for general operability and use. Do graphics take too long to load? Perhaps it's best to switch to an image with a lower resolution or change the images altogether. Are there dead links? It's probably time to do a periodic site repair. Is the site troublesome? Perhaps it's time to overhaul the whole site or switch to an account with your ISP that can accommodate your site's demands.

Make sure your site can handle the traffic

Traffic can be a problem, particularly if you're on a shared site or free blog. Ultimately, it all boils down to server and processor limitations, so it's a good idea to check if your server has the memory and processor capacity to handle a surge of traffic coming from your e-mail groups. Although blog platforms and most sites are optimized to handle any traffic surges, it's still best to check.

Know your visitors

Granted that e-mail groups are generally easier to 'read' and categorize than generic listings, it's still best to determine certain tendencies that each group has. To do this, you'll need to spend some time analyzing the figures and reports from your blog or website.

Check your most popular entries – those write ups that have generated a spike in traffic, read visitor comments, discussion threads and posts and check your stats regularly. If you receive e-mail messages from your e-mail groups, you might want to check their content for clues. Familiarizing yourself with your visitors will allow you to offer better content and service and approach them on a more personalized level.

Interact

Don’t make your visitors feel that they just landed on a deserted planet when they visit your website. Make sure that you reply to their inquiries, comments and messages. Go beyond the usual 'Thanks for your comment' or 'Come back for more info' posts. Read their messages and post replies that encourage more interaction.

Have a segregated group? Offer relevant content nevertheless

Relevant content is essential to ensuring that you treat your site's visitors well. Regardless of how diverse your e-mail groups are, it's essential that you still cater to their unique interests and needs. Check your content because this is how you'll win their hearts and loyalty.

Always offer a selection

Variety makes for an interesting blog or website. Even if your site has a theme, make sure you offer other content that may be directly or indirectly related to the main subject.

Practice politeness

Political correctness may be overrated for some but politeness is here to stay. Always treat visitors that come from e-mail groups with respect. Avoid writing insults or leering comments. Remember that people are entitled to their own opinions and their right to express themselves is protected by the law.

You may not agree with what they say but hey, it's a democracy. And that's exactly the reason why you enjoy the privilege of maintaining your own website in the first place. So lighten up and treat your visitors with respect. Who knows? You could even build a stronger e-mail group list in the process.
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Tips for Writing an Effective E-mail Signature Promoting Your Blog

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Branding is big business. Companies actually use a significant amount of their budget simply to build and fortify their brands. Brands identify a product and are used by consumers to associate a company with a specific business or service. When you're marketing online to promote your blog or your business, easily one of the most effective means to build your brand is using an e-mail signature, one that will identify you and associate you with a specific type of service or information.

What exactly is an e-mail signature?

An e-mail signature is an identifier that you will usually include at the end of every e-mail message, article, post or thread that you send or publish online. It includes your name, your company, the title of your blog or website, its address and other contact information about you.

The e-mail signature is equivalent to a real world business card – its main purpose is to introduce you to visitors and readers and to provide them with a means to get in touch with you or find their way to your blog. It's easy to set up and better yet, you can use it a thousand times each week and still not spend a single cent.

How important is an e-mail signature? Consider the posts in blogs, articles and comments that marketers and bloggers often leave online and on all those e-mails you receive. At the bottom, you'll find the ubiquitous e-mail signature with a short description of the blogger and their contact information.

Click on the link provided and you'll be brought to that blogger's little space in the Web. Without a signature, it will be difficult indeed for anyone to locate that blogger's URL or at least go through the trouble of seeking him out actively in search engines.

Writing a good and effective e-mail signature for your blog

Promoting your blog can be done in small yet effective steps. One of these is by using an effective e-mail signature. Here's how to write an e-mail signature that will work for you and create buzz for your blog at the same time:

Check the e-mail application or program you're using

Most e-mail applications popular today have a tool that allows you to set up your own e-mail signature. This tool will then automatically add your signature to every e-mail you send out.

Check your e-mail program for this tool. In Windows Mail or Outlook, for example, writing a good e-mail signature can be performed in just a few minutes with a few simple clicks. Use the signature editor on the program in case you want to make changes or use the signature only on specific e-mails you want to send out.

Include carefully chosen keywords

Other than your contact information, consider using keywords in the text link that are related to your blog's subject. This will help increase that link's relevance and popularity, promoting your blog in the process.

Keep it short but informative

Think about all the important information you'll want to include in your e-mail signature – your name, contact information, blog title, address, etc. It's a free country, so you pretty much have a choice on what you want to include but it's best to stick only to the kind of information that will bring you the best results and promote your blog.

Keep your links minimal. One or two will do. Most readers find multiple links to different URLs a bit suspect, so it's best to use only links to the blog where information related to your entry will be found.

Be prepared to be flexible

If you will be submitting some of your blog entries or e-mail content to article directories, find out if these directories have any submission guidelines you will have to comply with. Generally, you'll find that directories or databases prefer plain text formatting and specific rules regarding placement, length and structure of your byline. Tweak your e-mail signature just a bit and you'll be refused.

Since these aren't your rules to bend, you'll have no choice but to follow these submission guidelines so you can get back to the business of promoting your blog. To solve this, write multiple e-mail signatures and use these templates as needed. Then update these should changes occur.

This is also a good idea in case you will be sending out e-mails with a different theme. Changing the keywords on your text link will help increase its relevance and promote your blog.
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