WSI Matrix is an consulting company in Edmonton, AB serving local businesses. We specialize in building an online presence for local businesses, optimizing their websites and driving targeted traffic.
Thursday, 30 August 2012
Simple Steps For Building An Email Marketing List
There are many different methods you can use to market a business online. Lately, people have began to rely on email marketing lists. This is because emails are sent to people that have already expressed interest in your products and services. This article will give you a few tips on how to build an email list that will make you a lot of money in the end.
One thing that may seem like it is a given is having a subscription form that is very appealing to the eye. This is very important, but surprisingly many people overlook this. Most people see forms, and they hesitate to fill them out. A well -designed one will give people a reason to want to read it. Make sure that the form is not too far off in style from the rest of your page, but it is distinctive enough to stand out.
Placing your subscription form in the right place means a lot. You do not want to have it at the top of the front page so you seem pushy, but you also do not want to have it hidden somewhere so no one will ever see it. A good recommendation is to place it in the center of the front page. People will see it when they are trying to read all of the page content.
Social media is taking over in the marketing world and hopefully you have taken advantage of that. You should have created a profile on as many social networking sites as you possibly can. While you are sharing information on your social media pages, you should let people know that you have an email list you would like to to sign up for. This is an easy way to convince more people to get involved.
When you email people, you should not ramble on and on without giving them anything of value. Good advice is always a wonderful and so is good news, but the reality is that people want to get something from you they cannot get anywhere. Ti show your customers appreciation for being a part of your email list, you should offer a well-written newsletter and/or ebooks.
Even though you are promoting something that is going to be online, you should not forget that offline advertising is just as important. Talk to someone at your local library and ask if you can place a flyer on the bulletin board. Place an ad in your local paper letting everyone know about you and what you have to offer. These are just a couple of the endless opportunities you can take advantage of when marketing offline.
These ideas here are great for people that are eager to get an email marketing list started. You can boost your earning potential by following the advice pretty carefully. The most important thing you have to remember is that good things do not always happen overnight, so you will have to be patient. Before long, you should be at the top of your industry.
Getting Started with Social Media
Social media is indispensable for businesses to promote and sustain their brand. Businesses new to the medium may find it overwhelming. You can minimize your startup hassles with some planning and a disciplined approach.
Here are a few pointers to set you on the right track:
• Establish Social Media Purpose. Do you intend to make your social page as a customer service hub or is it intended solely to interact with audiences and build a following? Clarity about what you want social media to do for you will help you design content and strategies accordingly.
Monday, 27 August 2012
Where To Learn About Internet Marketing
Even though you might feel as if there is nowhere online to learn about new information on internet marketing, you may be quite surprised to learn that there are a number of great sources of information to be found. You simply must know what you are looking for, and you have to know where to look. Once you figure those two things out, knowing where to go for answers to any and all of your internet marketing questions online will be easy for you. Just do a little research starting with the information in this article and you will soon have a good idea of which direction to take.
By simply looking at the way other people market on the internet, you can find out how to market your own products and services. This is one of the best ways you can become successful in a short amount of time with internet marketing. Try your best to learn strategies from other successful internet marketers so that you will know how to become successful very quickly. Then over time you can form your own strategies and start marketing to a lot of people on the internet. It's perfectly fine to borrow strategies from other internet marketers. Business professionals do it all the time.
There are a lot of online forums where you can find answers to your internet marketing questions. If you feel as if you need a little help from others, you should visit to some online forums. Online forums are a great resource that a lot of people seem to forget. Joining an online forum is great because you can either research answers to some of your questions, or you can ask a question yourself. If you are generous, you can go ahead and help people with any questions that they might have with internet marketing. Try to be as friendly as possible, and good things will come as a result.
Other acquaintances who market on the internet can be a good resources for you. Talk to them, and they can become your greatest allies in figuring out how to successfully market online. Be open to talk to others and share information that you have gathered. Together you can go over completely new strategies that you haven't applied yet to be successful with online marketing.
Internet marketing can open many doors for you financially. There is a lot of potential in the field of internet marketing, so you should make sure that you try your best to learn as much about the subject as possible. If you don't, you might find yourself lagging behind the competition. Keep yourself ahead and do what it takes to stay current with everything there is to know about internet marketing. With enough effort you will be able to become one of the best internet marketers the world wide web has ever seen come its way. Follow the tips presented here to get off to a great start with internet marketing.
Friday, 24 August 2012
SEO Advice That Doesn't Go Out Of Fashion
It's very important that you keep a realistic idea of the resources available to you when you pick out the keywords you want to focus your optimization efforts on. Unless you have enormous amounts of time, money, and expertise to enlist in your SEO campaign, the most popular and general keywords are likely out of your reach. There's a great deal of competition for general, frequently-searched keywords. You'll find you get much better results by keeping your ambitions modest. Improving your page rank for the keyword "electronics," for instance, will be much harder than optimizing for the keyword "discount electronics in Gretna, Louisiana."
In the most general terms, SEO can be divided into on- and off-site work. Off-site work involves building backlinks to your site and increasing the overall level of traffic being sent to you. On-site work concentrates on incorporating your chosen keywords into the content of your web pages. When you commit yourself to an SEO campaign, it's all too easy to let off-site optimization monopolize your time; this is a mistake you want to avoid. Many of the off-site strategies available to you provide only a temporary boost to your search engine rankings, and the level of control you have over backlinks is minimal. In contrast, on-site optimization produces much more durable results. Make on-site SEO your priority.
Regularity goes hand-in-hand with the last point. You want to provide your website with a constant stream of new content and regular updates. Frequent updates count heavily in your favor with the search engines, and more content always means more opportunities to use your keywords. Updating regularly is also a good idea from a more general online marketing perspective: Visitors to your website will be more likely to stick around and to return in the future if they see that new updates are posted frequently.
Finally, there is one relatively new wrinkle in the SEO game that is not a passing fad: mobile marketing. The number of consumers and Internet users who use smartphones and other mobile devices to browse the web is growing truly enormous. You want to make sure that your optimization work doesn't neglect them. Build a mobile version of your site and make sure it incorporates the same keywords as your main site. If you have a physical business that you want to draw customers to, make sure that you optimize your presence on local sites (e.g. Google + Local and Yelp).
Although you'll want to make a habit of studying the latest evolutions of the search engine optimization game, bear in mind that certain strategies will always bear fruit. If you build a solid SEO foundation using proven techniques like the ones described here, you can expect to get reliable performance out of your efforts even if you experiment with newer, trendier tactics.
Using Video Marketing in Your Business
The likelihood of videos bringing in natural first page ranking is a whopping 50 times more than that of text content, a Forrester Research study states. Videos are not expensive to create either; your camera-enabled mobile device can do the work for you. Above all, videos provide lasting value; create a video once and you can draw traffic for as long it is live.
How to make the most of video marketing for your business?
Tuesday, 21 August 2012
How To Promote Your Business With Social Media Marketing
Find out which social networks your customers are likely to use. You have probably heard about popular networks such as Facebook or Twitter, but there are hundreds of other sites and some of them are targeted at a certain age group or a subculture that might correspond to your target audience. And, if you sell products to an international audience, you will have to find out which social networks are popular abroad too. You should do some research about social networks and ask your customers to answer to surveys about their favorite sites.
Create profiles on the social networks your customers use the most. Take the time to explore the different sites you join and try their different features before you officially launch your social media marketing campaign. You should also fill your profiles with useful information about your business and products. Make sure you include your contact information as well as a link to your main site or blog. If you decide to join more than one social network, keep your campaign consistent by using similar logos and designs from one profile to the other.
Advertise your social media marketing campaign on your main site or blog. You should place links to your profiles, as well as sharing buttons at the bottom of your articles, so your readers can easily share your content with their friends. Add buttons for the networks your readers are likely to use and ask people to give you some feedback about your social media marketing campaign; perhaps there are other sites you should join. You should also add links to your profiles in the signature of your professional emails and posts you write on message boards. If you have business cards, do not hesitate to add the logos of the social networks you use on them.
Focus on sharing quality content on your social networks. You should post new updates as often as possible as long as you are sharing valuable and useful content. Share links to the new articles you write and to everything you add to your site, but do not hesitate to share content from other sites or blogs too if you think your audience will find this content interesting. Share pictures, videos, podcasts, games, polls and get discussions started by asking questions to your audience. You should, of course, share information about your latest discounts, including exclusive coupon codes. If you focus on creating quality content and encouraging people to comment on it and share it with their friends, you will get more people to subscribe to these updates and reach out to a wider number of potential customers.
These tips will help you get started with social media marketing, but do not hesitate to experiment with different techniques. Stay up to date with trends and make sure your campaign is adapted to your audience.
Saturday, 18 August 2012
Top Notch Tips To Maximize Your SMS Mobile Marketing
SMS marketing, or text message marketing as it is commonly thought of, is one of the most compelling and yet most controversial mobile marketing methods used today. You get almost instantaneous access to your target audience but through a mechanism that is most commonly used for personal communication. It can be highly effective or highly annoying and brand eroding. It depends on how you use it. Follow the tips below to make sure your efforts are as effective as they can be.
Keep your messaging personable. SMS messaging is off the cuff and of the moment for most of its users. If someone receives a marketing message that is a hard sale, official sounding or simply mechanical in its tone, then that message will more than likely be deleted the minute it is received. Find a personable messaging style for your brand that fits the SMS medium. It will help make sure your message is read.
Anchor your SMS marketing with exclusive discounts or offers. Cutting to the chase: brand marketing and SMS tactics don't mix very well. If you are simply touting your brand without a call to action in your text message, the receivers of it will get annoyed pretty quickly. The better choice for SMS is direct response marketing. Offer something exclusive to your target audience that they'd only receive via your SMS messages. This could be an exclusive sale, a pop-up shop opportunity, a special discount code, or a time sensitive invitation through which an action is necessary. These direct response tactics help make your SMS target audience feel special; it also helps curb the annoyance factor of the immediacy of the text as it pops up on the mobile device.
Take advantage of current events. Because of the immediacy of SMS marketing, current events make an excellent messaging tactic to build context. Is there a holiday on the horizon? Offer a special discount related to it. Is there headline-making news related to your product or service? Tie it in to your offer. This can greatly increase your response rates.
Keep your messaging short and focused. You've read some excellent tips above on messaging, but with all of them you must find a way to make your text message as short as you can while keeping your point focused. If your message feels like it rambles or it doesn't make sense, then you'll lose the interest of your target audience. Make it a habit to write out a draft of your text message before sending it. Take a break from it and return to it with fresh eyes. You may find a way to shorten or rephrase the message for greater impact.
SMS marketing can be a real game changer for your business. It is an exceptional strategy for building direct response traffic, and its immediacy can help you make a difference when time is of the essence. Try out the tips discussed here to get started, and search the Internet for more. There are lots of strategies out there for SMS marketing that can make a difference for your business.
Thursday, 16 August 2012
How to Promote your Website
Websites are primary marketing tools for any business today. They convey credibility and are crucial points of contact for your prospects as well as customers. It’s therefore important to create awareness about your website.
Here are some methods that can help:
• Upgrade Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques. Continuous implementation of different SEO best practices is crucial to improve visibility in organic (natural) searches. Directory submissions, link building, blogging are some examples.
• Use Social Media. Leverage social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter, and channels such as blogs, forums and social bookmarking sites. Interact with audiences and let them know about your website. Build a strong following and earn valuable backlinks to your website.
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
Building A Brand Reputation With Mobile Marketing
As you continue to grow your business, you will undoubtedly learn that nothing matters quite as much as your brand reputation. So, before you get started with this type of marketing, let's look at a few ways to increase the recognition of your brand overall.
If you have regular customers who have been with you for a while, or even if they've made their first purchase, you need to reel them in and score some seriously loyalty points. Try offering them an array of deals to entice them. Thinking they can get the best deals with your business, they won't look elsewhere.
If you have a customer who purchases from you constantly, what are you willing to do to keep that customer happy? Well, for starters, you could offer a nice percentage off of their next purchase. Maybe you could even give them a buy-one, get-one deal to keep them happy. You need to reward your loyal customers.
A lot of marketers make the mistake of prying into a customer's personal life, asking for their real name, phone number and other private information. All you need from your leads and customers is an email. If they want more of a relationship, they can initiate it.
Do you know how your business is doing? A great way to find out exactly how you're doing and where you can improve as a business is to ask your customers to leave you feedback. Most will be happy to leave feedback if they have purchased from you, and most aren't shy about telling you exactly how it is.
If you're planning on making any changes or offering a new product, you should alert your customers of your intentions. By doing this, you're keeping them in the loop and are making them feel like more than just a regular customer. They feel like a small part of the business.
Mobile marketing methods aren't all going to be great. Sometimes you're going to fail, and almost all of the time you're going to be able to improve. This is why it becomes so important to monitor not only your success but also your failings. Always figure out what's working and what's not and never hesitate to improve.
Some marketers think that they can charge whatever they feel like, while others think they can drop their prices lower than everyone else. Well, you have to play ball in the middle. Too low and you won't make a profit, and pricing items too high is business suicide. Try to be competitive for your niche, but let the market dictate what you charge.
Customers deserve appreciation from your end if they shop with you. It doesn't take very much for you to tell your customers how much they're appreciated. Anything that makes them feel wanted is a good thing for your business.
When it's all said and done, only the businesses with the most recognized brands are going to achieve. So, when you want to make it in mobile marketing, let these tips help you achieve success.
Sunday, 12 August 2012
Six Smartphone Tips To Help Your Business Grow
Although they're expensive and the economy is still shoddy, almost everyone out there carries a smartphone. Of the millions of smartphone users, most people do have plans which allow them Internet access, and they spend a lot of time every week browsing different websites and downloading mobile applications. You need to tap this market if you're hoping on making big money.
If you were operating some type of gaming website or video-themed site that uploaded huge file sizes, you probably wouldn't do well in mobile marketing. Not everyone has a lot of room on their phone, nor do they have the bandwidth available for large files. If you're catering to a mobile market, make sure your file sizes are small. Learn the two C's: Compression and Conversion. Compress files where you can and convert audio and video files by changing the extension and bit rate.
Your natural inclination may be to make your site and marketing efforts very visual, uploading multiple images. However, less is more when it comes to mobile marketing. Cut down on the actual number of images you're using and instead go with pertinent, keyword-specific text to really draw people in. Especially for ads, fewer images and text that's more compelling is definitely the way to go. Plus, it's easier for you in the long run.
It's not at all difficult to design a mobile ad. You just have to remember a few key points when going about it. Number one, you need to make sure that your ad has the right size. Construct your mobile ads specifically for the mobile market. Two, you need to ensure that your ad is very niche-specific. If you thought regular PC users had a short attention span, then you haven't seen anything yet! Finally, make your ads exciting. Mobile users are literally seeing them in passing. Give them a reason to stop.
Social networking sites are hugely popular via the mobile crowd. When that girl on the bus is staring at her phone and giggling, she's probably viewing a Facebook photo or reading a humorous tweet. Make sure you play into the social context of this market, becoming one of the guys, so to speak, by being social and always managing to update your content.
Okay, so you can choose both. You don't have to pick from one or the other in your business. But pretending you had to choose one, which one would you choose? Apps may be difficult to create, but a popular app can receive thousands upon thousands of downloads and trend for years. Mobile sites, while easier to create, are still just websites. So, do you want to put the time and effort into creating apps while keeping your normal site, or do you want to create another site strictly for the mobile crowd? It's a tough choice.
When it comes to measuring the success you're receiving when mobile marketing, there are multiple ways to tell how you're doing. How many more fans do you have since starting your marketing efforts? You can always tell where they're coming from. Are you making more money since you started? Always check the stats of your ads, your social pages, your regular sites, etc, to see where your fans are coming from.
The more adept you become at mobile marketing, the more money you're going to make in the long run. These tips can help guide you through it, but you have to put them to work for you.
Friday, 10 August 2012
Using Blogs for Your Business
Using blogs for your business can build brand awareness, strengthen website presence and generate new leads. Blogs have evolved as one of the most effective and inexpensive online marketing tools. With more people using the Internet every day for research, communication and shopping, it is potentially a limitless reserve of information and connections. Give your business the “blogvantage”!
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
Top Five Mobile Marketing Mistakes
Mobile marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your customers. If you use this medium, you should read this article to learn more about the top five mistakes.
Is your campaign adapted to your audience? You should not develop apps or create a mobile website unless you have concrete data on your customers and the mobile phones they own. You should consider using apps or a mobile site once you know that a good percentage of your customers own mobile phones that support apps and allow them to go online. If you find that most of your customers do not own Smartphones, tablets or I-Phones or do not use their phones to go online, you should limit yourself to sending text alerts.
If you use text alerts, do not text your customers too often or at hours where they are likely to be sleeping. Send out one text alert a week and take the time to think about your message. Your text alerts should be considered as valuable and useful to your customers: sending out coupon codes is usually the best thing to do. Pay attention to the area code of the phone numbers you are sending your text alerts to: organize these phone numbers in different groups so you can text these customers at a time where they are not sleeping.
Is your mobile website easy to load? Before you launch your mobile site, you should take the time to test it and make sure it loads properly with different devices and browsers. You might have a few things to fix so that all your customers can access your mobile site easily. You can make your mobile site easier to access by using a very simple design and limiting the content of your pages.
Apps are usually popular among your customers, but you have to make your apps easily accessible to your customers. You could allow people to download your apps from your mobile website, text links to these downloads or share these links on social networks since a lot of people use their phones to visit social networks. Present your app in detail and do not charge your customers for it. More people will download your app if it is free and if you present it in a positive way.
Your mobile marketing campaign should be directly connected to your other marketing campaigns. Be consistent in your messages, sales pitch and the discounts you offer. You can also use your other marketing campaign to get more people to sign up for your text alerts or let your customers know about your mobile website and your app. You could place a registration form on your site or blog and share a link to this form in your newsletter and by updating your social networks.
These tips should help you improve your current mobile marketing campaign and reach out to more customers. Keep track of your results and do not hesitate to try new things with mobile marketing or other methods.
Friday, 3 August 2012
Which Type Of Mobile Marketing Is Adapted To Your Customers?
If you are going to use mobile marketing, it is important that you develop a campaign adapted to your audience. Read this article for some helpful tips on mobile marketing.
Text alerts are easy to send if you have a mass texting software or can store all your contacts in your own phones. Get people interested in your text alerts by placing a subscription form on your site and talking about your text alerts in your other marketing campaigns. Text alerts are accessible to any of your customers with a mobile phone: this is perhaps the best form of mobile marketing if your customers do not own recent devices or subscribe to the most complete plans.
If your customers have access to the Internet, you could send out links in your text alerts. You could for instance share links to your mobile website or to your social networking profiles, since a lot of people use their phones to check social networks. You could also share pictures or short videos, but do not send out that kind of content too often since some customers might not be able to load this content quickly. If possible send a link where they can see or download the pictures or video.
Creating a mobile website is a great way to present your customers with basic information about your products. Keep your site as simple as possible and take the time to test it with different mobile devices and web browsers. Your site should load quickly and be easy to navigate. Use a very simple design: a simple color pattern and your logo should be enough. Avoid using too many pictures or videos on your site: this content will take a long time to load. You should use your site to share coupon codes and information about your newest products.
If your customers use Smartphones, iPhones or tablets, you should consider developing your own apps. Creating an app is quite easy, and you can always hire a professional or organize a contest among your customers and reward the person who creates the best app. Your app could be a game, an interactive catalog to help your customers find products, a learning tool or an app that allows your customers to personalize your products. Distribute your app by sharing download links via text messages or advertising it on your mobile website and on social networks.
A lot of people use their phones to check social networks. Your mobile marketing campaign should be connected to your social media marketing campaign. Share links to your mobile website, to your subscription form for your text alerts and share links to download your apps. You could also encourage your customers to take pictures or videos of your products or your store with their cell phones and upload this content on social networks, for instance to enter a contest.
These tips should help you reach out to your customers and develop an efficient mobile marketing strategy. Do more research on the topic and keep improving your campaign.
What are the QR Codes
QR codes are similar to barcodes used to scan prices of goods. Barcodes are one-dimensional whereas QR codes are two-dimensional. This means that QR Codes have more storage space to consume huge amounts of data. QR codes deliver instant access to relevant information that target audiences are seeking. They can be used in a number of ways in business.



