Get “Mocial” With Your Email List

Recently we’ve discussed the importance of incorporating newsletters into your marketing plans and how to make them great.  Well, great newsletters need readers, right?  But of course!

If you’ve already started using newsletters to communicate with your current and potential customers, you most likely have some sort of call-to-action on your website urging new visitors to “sign up” or “join” your mailing list.  But it doesn’t have to stop there.  It’s time to get “mocial!”

What in the world is “mocial?”  In a nutshell, it’s a silly sounding word that summarizes the wave of the future.  The world is mobile and interconnected personally and professionally through social media.  While most companies are engaging with consumers online, very few are using these channels to grow their opt-in lists.

As luck would have it, we’ve found a handy-dandy infographic that shows how your company can use these social media apps and mobile tools to get “mocial” with your email list.

Make Your Website Mobile Compatible: Responsive Design

Do you know where your clients are? Although some of them may be walking by your shorefront or googling your services on their laptop, most of them are reaching into their pockets for their cellphones. Phone in hand, they are looking for your business. When they find your website, will they have to zoom in and out as they struggle to hit small hard-to-see links? Will they eventually get discouraged, close their browser and move on with their lives? Or, will they have an incredibly enjoyable and informative experience because you have made your website mobile compatible?

Your Customers Are On Visiting Your Web site From Their Phones

According to Dzinepress, eight out of 10 Internet users access the web over their phones. One out of every seven searches are done on a phone, and four out of five smartphone users shop on their cellphones in the U.S., according to MozakDesign. According to iBlogZone, 40 percent of those people claim that they will turn to a competitors site if they don’t have a positive mobile experience. The importance of a user-friendly mobile-compatible Web site is clear from the numbers, but creating the perfect site isn’t always easy.

Start With A Decision

Decide whether you want to copy your original site or make a completely new one. If you decide to copy your current site, certain design elements may not transfer easily to a smaller screen, and these elements may need to be adjusted to make your mobile site attractive and compelling. In most cases, you will also need to drop a lot of content. According to TechRadar, identifying the important content and removing superfluous copy is one of the most critical parts of this process.

Although you may end up removing parts of your website, you will get to add a lot of great features at the same time. Mobile sites can provide a higher degree of functionality than most desktop sites. With the click of a button, prospective clients can get directions to your store, call you, add your app to their phone or add your details to their address book. According to TechRadar, with the right knowledge, you can even customize your mobile site so it offers different products and services to different users based on their location.

How To Make The Change

If you are comfortable with programming languages like HTML, WML, Compact HTML and XHTML Mobile profile, you can easily make a mobile-compatible website, and you may even be able to add features like live chat, which can increase conversion rates by 20 percent, according to LivePerson.com.

Thanks to Google, making your website mobile compatible can now be a DIY project regardless of how tech savvy you may or may not be. The Internet giant recently paired up with DudaMobile to create a free mobile site builder. According to a review at iBlogZone, using the program is simple.

Users simply need to type in the URL, and then they are lead through a process that allows them to select themes and tailor features to meet their needs. The program makes it easy to upload logos, graphics and links, and it only takes a few minutes to complete.

Once your mobile site is live, take a few extra steps to ensure that your clients can find you. Ideally, according to hireawiz.com, you should update your info in any relevant databases like Yelp, and you may even want to hire a mobile SEO guru to help tweak your site’s final details.

If You Ain't First, You Might As Well Be Last.

Most of us are at an age where we can appreciate advances in technology, but still remember simpler times.

What if phonebooks were still the lifeblood of your customers’ business searches? Where would you want your business to be listed? Buried under a misspelling in the white pages? Among a list of hundreds of similar businesses in the yellow pages? Prominently featured on the cover? If you were in business 20 years ago, you may even remember some competitors intentionally starting their business’ name with an “A” or “B” because they wanted to rise to the top of searches by the way people were looking for them—alphabetically. A business could be lost in a sea of names if it wasn’t positioned to be found.

Fast-forward to the digital age and online rankings are much like the phone book. If people know the exact title of your business, they can track you down fairly quickly. However, if people are searching for someone in your business category on the web (as is the number one search method), there may be hundreds, thousands, and yes, sometimes millions of businesses that trump yours in the search results. Is it your habit to click through multiple pages when you do a search? If people cannot find what they are looking for on the first or second page, they generally don’t keep scrolling through other listings, they re-phrase their search words. Roughly translated, this means if you aren’t first, you might as well be last.

Did you know?

- 8 out of 10 people search online when looking for product information
- 85% of people ignore paid links
- 63% of the links naturally listed at the top of Search results are opened
*source: Search Engine News

Your Design Online partners with you and takes a personal interest in making sure your business shows up correctly in the “white pages,” outranks your competition in the “yellow pages,” and is placed in front of other businesses through a prominent feature on “the cover.”