Case Studies - An Added Benefit to Marketing and Sales

Case studies are a wonderful way to help new clients and prospects see that you have worked on projects similar to their needs. It also demonstrates your knowledge of your client/prospect's business and establishes your reputation as a problem solver.

Case studies are made up of three parts:

1.  A situation or problem
2. Solution
3. Outcome and Results

They establish your reputation as a problem solver, are a powerful advertisement and are extremely cost-effective. Another added benefit is that it establishes your company as a thought-leader and can help increase your mailing list when shared through various social media outlets.

Here is a sample of a case study that I have done.

If you need help creating case studies for your business contact me today at mschemetow@gmail.com.

Effective Email Marketing is Easy

Email is the distribution system of the Internet and it is easy and inexpensive to use.  Whether it is utilized to find new clients or communicate with your current clients; if done effectively it can help grow your bottom line. 

When creating an email keep in mind the importance of creating value for your reader. Steer clear of over-selling your services otherwise your email will be relegated to the spam file. Give your reader relevant information that strikes an emotional accord with them. Also make your headlines powerful to draw your potential reader into your email. Once again relevancy is important, as well as a headline that is news worthy and stokes the reader's curiosity. Remember to keep the headline short, personable and actionable.

Be sure to use a targeted list that is segmented. This way your relevant and engaging message will go to the people who want to read it. If not, you will have many people searching for the unsubscribe link.

One last item is frequency; once a month, once a week? It depends on your audience. You don't want to over send communication to your list because it can be construed as spam.

A third party supplier can help you with customizing an email that will get results. Just remember to target, segment and make it relevant. Happy emailing!

How to Measure Social Media Impact

You are posting on Facebook, tweeting on Twitter and pinning on Pinterest but how is this affecting your sales conversions? Let's take a look at how to measure social media impact.

Before you do anything else you need to establish social media goals. Determine how social media will align with your overall brand, marketing, public relations and sales goals. This will grow a positive online community and following that engages with your company/brand. It will provide an active flow of information between you and your customers and will increase the brand recognition in the online space. Objectives need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely. Raising brand awareness to increase brand recognition and online influence, creating loyal website visitors and boosting community awareness and engagement are important. An example of this would be a need to drive website traffic to increase website conversions using engaging content.

Next you need to create metrics to measure the goals. You can track URL shares, clicks and conversions that move through the various social media sites listed on your website, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and You Tube using Google Analytics.  It will also be important to track what visitors do once they end up on the website. You need to measure what pages and products are viewed and whether a sales conversion takes place.  A suggested way to accomplish this is to apply specific coupon codes to each social media site. From there you can measure where the engagement is and how it is affecting sales.

Now you need to continually monitor  the metrics on a daily basis in order to see how the social media engagement is progressing.  Through daily reports you will be able to determine what is working and what isn’t.  You can use these reports to determine what needs to changed, adjusted or improved.

With careful planning, relevant content and constant monitoring social media can play an integral role in the sales effort.