1. More Is Better
This seems to be the ethos driving a lot of email marketing companies and products, that seek to swell your subscriber list ever greater, as though that were an end in and of itself. The truth is that adding to your subscriber list only matters if you’re adding motivated consumers, who are going to be susceptible to your campaigns. Focus on improving the percentages of people engaging with your emails, rather than the total number of people receiving them.

2. Every Lost Subscriber Is A Problem
Building on the previous misconception, this is the idea that whenever your subscriber count decreases, you need to adjust your strategy and implement solutions to prevent a mass exodus. The reality is that disinterested readers are doing you a favor by removing themselves from your overall pool. You should only really be alarmed if your unsubscribe rate rises above 1%, and only then if you see a resulting drop in traffic to your site or sales.

3. You Should Live In Fear of Flagging
You should definitely take steps to avoid being flagged as spam, but the truth is that most people don’t take the time to flag emails. Less than 0.05% of people take the time to hit the spam button. If you’re tip-toeing to avoid being flagged, you’re probably not marketing as aggressively as you could be.

4. Email Marketing Is On The Way Out
Odd how a rumor about an industry’s impending death can perpetuate itself, even in a flourishing industry. While online marketing in general faces challenges, as the Internet continues to figure out exactly what the hell it wants to be, email is still the preferred primary channel of communication for more than three-quarters of Americans. People automatically assume that concert tickets and reservation confirmations will be sent to their email. Email is still a powerful and versatile medium, and marketing through it will continue to be robust and effective.

5. Emails Should Be Sent On A Specific Day Or At A Specific Time
While there’s some truth to the notion that sending emails at particular times is better than others, the tendency in marketing circles is to get far too specific. This causes a few problems. First, if you’re following the same “best practices” as other marketers, you’re going to be hitting subscribers’ inboxes at the exact same time. Second, it ignores the variation within types of emails. You’re better off seeing how promotional offers fare in the evening compared to newsletters in the morning and vice versa than treating your messages as a monolith.

Your campaigns deserve attention! Don’t fall for these false ideas and sabotage yourself.

The post 5 Common Email Marketing Myths Debunked appeared first on LaunchNeo.

Here are nine ways in which your business can benefit by getting your business on the Internet:

Improve Your Company’s Image

Business websites and social media accounts are very common these days. When a business doesn’t have an online presence, it causes customers to wonder if its owners are even serious about their trade. When you take the time to set up a website and social media account(s) for your business, you show your customer base that you are a committed business owner. If for no other reason, you should develop a website and social media presence for your business just because your customers expect you to have one.

An Online Presence Helps Make Sure That You Are Available All The Time

There are some gas stations, pharmacies, convenience stores, and fast food outlets that stay open 24 hours a day, and every day of the week. For most other businesses, however, being always open is impossible. When you take your business online, you can, at the very least, offer detailed information about your products and services to your customer base, every hour of the day. Many people like researching the products that they will buy from the comfort of their homes. If you have no website, you lose out on these customers. A website would help you generate more leads. If you have e-commerce capability on your website, you can help your leads buy from you anytime, as well.

You Can Offer Your Customers Better Support

When you have no online presence, your customers are less able you contact you with presales questions. You can’t sit by the phones at your company all day, and all night. What you can do is to set up an online presence for your business, and direct users to an informative page, an email form, or a social media account. Often, visitors to your website won’t even need to make contact with you. If you have a FAQs section, product manuals, usage videos, and other information on your website, you will be able to answer your visitors’ questions even before they ask them.

Getting Started Is Easy

While it’s possible to spend tens of thousands of dollars on building a top-notch commercial website, there are options out there for less. LaunchNeo offers a simple monthly package called a LaunchPlan that provides everything that you need for a custom WordPress website.

The Internet Is Business-Friendly

When you get on the Internet, every potential customer out there is just a click away. You can use your website and social media presence to educate visitors on your products or services, convert them into customers, and help them use their purchases. Getting on the Internet makes your business more customer-friendly.

The Internet Allows You To Do Business From Anywhere

In many cases, if you have an online presence, you can run your business remotely. You don’t need to be in a specific town to run it. You can move to any city that you like, and continue running your business online.

Cut Costs 

Moving even parts of your daily operations online can help you lower costs. A single online video that explains your product’s features may be able to allow you to cut down on customer support staff. Once you begin making much of your sales online, you will be able to cut down on sales staff, as well.

Target New Geographical Areas

When you restrict yourself to your brick-and-mortar location, your business is limited by the number of individuals who live close by. Getting your business online, however, opens you to a much wider geographical area. You may be able to use delivery services to deliver your product to a larger customer base.

The Internet Allows You To Be More Responsive

When your business goes online, you get to respond to your clients and potential customers far more readily than you would if you weren’t online. You can respond to questions through email and offer basic information to customers through articles and videos on your website.

Whether you physically provide a service to a certain geographical location, or sell products that can be shipped, taking your brick-and-mortar business online can be a powerful way to increase your revenue and find more customers.

The post 9 Reasons Why You Should Take Your Business Online appeared first on LaunchNeo.

Promoting your website is at the heart of business success in the 21st century. For most businesses, your website is your lobby; it’s the place where your customers first meet your company and your products or services.

1. Put it everywhere – Your web address should be everywhere. On business cards, on your car, on your t-shirt everywhere.
2. Make your website your business – Amazon, Google, Twitter, Poshmark. There might be companies behind these websites, but they are known as their website. If you have a website, you should name your business the same.
3. On social media – Every social media post should have your web address in it. Every time some sees something you’ve posted, even just for fun, it should have your web address on it.
4. PPC (Pay per Click) Advertisements – Facebook ads, Google ads, everywhere, you should be promoting your website. If you make promoting your website the focus, then you know where to concentrate your sales efforts.
5. SEO – Make sure your website is attracting search engines. You want Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others to come look at your website frequently. SEO will help you do that. It’s a process (see some of our other blogs), but it’s a great way to promote your site.
6. Content – Post interesting content to your website regularly. Blogging once a week with information that people can use is a great way to get Google to see you and get people to come to your website.
7. Email marketing – A series of regular emails that invites people to your website is an excellent way to market it. By contacting them through their inbox and then finding a reason to visit your site, like a blog post or a video, you can get lots of traffic to your website.
8. Infographics – These little informative gems are perfect for the internet. They’re shareable, full of data, and make people want to look at your website for more information.
9. Micro-influencers – When people think of influencers, they think of the Kardashians, but micro-influencers have even more power. They have smaller followings, but those are very loyal followers. They have a lot of influence in a small niche. Make friends with them and they can help promote your business.
10. Google My Business – The free Google business listing is one of the most powerful ways to tell people you exist. Make sure that your website is listed on there. (See our blog about Google My Business listings.)
11. Business listing sites – YP, Yelp, and many, many more sites have spaces for you to add your website. Make sure that your information is correct and that your website is properly linked. There are even a few services that will list you on dozens of sites at once.
12. Quora – Go on Quora and ask and answer questions. Include your web address in your profile or in your answers with an invite to learn more.
13. YouTube – YouTube is the world’s second-busiest website and social media site. Making videos that teach, share, or even just make people laugh is a great way to promote your business. Be sure to include your web address in your description and your video.
14. Reddit – Reddit is a discussion forum that’s a little less formal than Quora. Put answers there and include your website. It will help make SEO connections and will promote visits to your site.
15. Medium – Medium is an article posting that has gained a lot of popularity lately. You can post articles there and have your website LinkedIn your profile.
16. Help a Reporter Out – Reporters are often looking for experts. Help a Reporter Out is a site that acts as a resource for those reporters. You can list yourself and your site there as a resource for solid expert advice.
17. Backlinks – A backlink is when another website links to yours. Warning: There is no easy way to do this. Google will penalize you if they discover that you’re setting up a link exchange. Create great content and people will naturally link to you.
18. Signature – Every email you send out, every text message, can have your web address in it. That will give people an easy way to look up your website. 
19. Guest blogging – Find bloggers who talk about what you do. Offer to write for them in exchange for a chance to list your website. Many times, those who are your competitors are willing to work together simply because there are plenty of customers in the world.
20. Twitter – Unlike other forms of social media, Twitter is a bit more laid back as a promotional site. You can post marketing tweets all the time, but you shouldn’t. Give people a reason to read your tweets, like inspiration, humor, or interesting facts, and only pitch your website every 8 or 10 posts.
21. Blogger outreach – Finding bloggers in your realm is easy. Once you have, contact them and invite them to write for your website or to simply check it out. Ask if they would be willing to recommend your website as a resource if that’s appropriate. If you sell something, offer them a sample.
22. Engage – Be sure to respond to comments on your blog and on social media. If people are willing to engage with you, you should do them the courtesy of responding. Don’t leave them hanging, even if it’s just a note saying, “Thanks for your comment.”
23. Pinterest – This very visual platform is a great place to post images of your products, memes with great advice, and much more. Sharing on the site, with your web address in the image, is an excellent way to promote your website. Infographics are awesome on Pinterest.
24. Quality – The final idea applies to everything above: Always post quality. You don’t need to be Shakespeare to share quality writing or Einstein to share quality ideas, but make sure that everything you do, you do to the best of your ability.

Promoting your website can actually be fun if you approach it as a challenge. The most important thing to note is that there’s always a new way to promote yourself and your website so you should never be bored.

The post 24 Ways To Promote Your Website appeared first on LaunchNeo.

When anyone searches for a business near them, they’ll see a listing on the right side of the Google search page lists all the data from your business.

Important note: Unfortunately, this service does not exist for virtual businesses, ones that don’t have a storefront. Since online businesses would be likely to show up in every search, it might give them an unfair advantage.

Google My Business provides your potential customers with operating information about your business.

• Business name
• Address
• Phone number
• Web address
• Hours
• Menu link for restaurants
• Photos
• Reviews
• Questions and answers
• A place for customers to add their knowledge
• A map to the location

All of this is presented in a compact, predictable form by Google. 

Google builds a profile for every business and will keep adding information as customers submit it, but the best way to make sure the information is correct is to claim the business and update the data.

The key to Google My Business is that if your business is the answer to whatever the customer is searching for, your business will show up on the first page. That’s the most coveted place on the internet. 

Google My Business also plays a significant role in local SEO. If you’re looking to build your local business, you need to have this data filled out. Google will use that data to bring you new customers. 

We had a massage therapist friend who had never heard of Google My Business. After we encouraged her to complete the information and keep it up to date, she got almost 70% of her new business from Google searches that showed people her business listing on Google My Business.

How to Get into Your Google Listing

To start, visit https://www.google.com/business.

On that page, you’ll see a button that says “Start Now.”

You’ll put in the basic information (name, address, phone number, website) for your business.

The next step takes some time. Google will mail you a postcard. That postcard has verification information on it. The key here is that want to make sure you’re really at the address you listed.

Once you’ve gotten the post and verified your information…

You can enter your dashboard and personalize your listing.

You can include:

• Hours
• All of your contact info
• A profile picture

That’s just the start though. 

Optimizing your Google My Business listing

That’s the basics. Now it’s time to optimize your listing.

Make sure your listing is up-to-date and comprehensive – If you’re a restaurant, your menu needs to be there along with photos of your food. You need to put in your category, attributes, description, and more.

Remember:  This is Google. That means that all of this information will be shared across all of Google’s platforms, like Google search and Google Maps. If it’s not perfect, you’re sharing bad data with everyone everywhere.

Use a local phone number, not a national hotline. Yes, it can be nice to send calls to the national call center, but it will negatively impact your search rankings. This is Google “local.” Keep it as local as possible.

The category and attributes are important. The category will define how Google lists you. The attributes are the keywords that Google will use to deliver your business as a response to searches.

Use the attributes judiciously. Don’t stuff the attributes with keywords. Take your time. In fact, check out our article on picking SEO keywords and figure out the very best ones to use. 

The attributes section is also the place to add amenities. If your restaurant has outdoor seating, this is the place to list that. If your hotel offers free wi-fi, that goes in attributes. This is the place to put in all the things that differentiate your business from others in the area.

Your description should be short, inviting, and honest. It should sound a bit “salesy” but don’t go over the top with the descriptives. Just make it enticing.

Make sure you live up to what your description says. 

One example of where a business didn’t live up to its description, a new local bar opened up. The listing said that they opened at 3 pm and that they were non-smoking. Some friends of ours walked in at 3:10. The bartender was smoking a cigarette at the bar and said they don’t open until 4. Needless to say, our friends didn’t go back. 

The public takes what’s in your Google My Business listing as gospel, primarily because they know that it’s really easy to fix and update. 

Needless to say, they gave the bar a bad review on Google. Read the section about reviews below to understand why this can be a huge issue.

There’s no excuse for any of your information to be wrong.

Reviews

The single most powerful tool your business has is online reviews. Reviews on your Google profile are the fastest way to get busy and make more money.

Unlike other sites, Google encourages you to ask for reviews. They want your customers to post reviews and tell the world what they think. 

Most studies indicate that over 50% of consumers base their purchasing decisions, at least in part, on reviews that they read online. Many savvy consumers will narrow down their list based on the reviews they read.

When you ask for a review, you shouldn’t necessarily ask for a 5-star review, but let your customers know you’d love a review. “If you’re not 100% satisfied, please let us know. We’re happy to help.” It’s not saying, “Don’t leave any review that’s not 5-star,” but it’s close.

You should respond to every review. Make sure that every review, whether it’s awesome or terrible, gets a response from you. It’s okay if the response is just, “Thank for the review!”

If the review is bad, you should be asking the reviewer to contact you and let you fix it. You can then go back later and post an update about what you did and that you hope the reviewer is more pleased now.

Your Best Online Asset

No matter what you might be trying to do, Google My Business is your single best asset. 

Using this powerful tool, you can increase your business locally. Make sure everything is right and that you adhere to what you said. 

Google My Business, like it did for our massage therapist friend, can be the fastest way to grow your business. 

Claim it, get it up to date, and keep it that way and Google will drive a ton of business to you for free!

The post How To Optimize Google My Business appeared first on LaunchNeo.