Marketing & Advertising Archives

10 Marketing Examples of Facebook Photo Albums

April 23, 2012 • Paul Chaney

There are many ways for ecommerce merchants to use Facebook's photo gallery. My article last week — "Facebook Photo Albums: Maximize the Marketing Value" — outlined a number of them. Here are 10 examples of ecommerce merchants and small businesses that are taking advantage of Facebook...

Social Media

Facebook Photo Albums: Maximize the Marketing Value

April 17, 2012 • Paul Chaney

In last week's article, "Using Facebook's New App Icons to Promote Your Business," I discussed how to modify Facebook Page app icons, which are located just beneath the cover image. The first icon that appears in the row of four is "Photos." It cannot be moved from this first position...

Social Media

23 Twitter Chats for Small Businesses

April 16, 2012 • Sig Ueland

One of the best ways to harness Twitter is by participating in chats, scheduled hashtag discussions that focus on specific topics. Small businesses can utilize chats to develop a social media plan, discuss brand strategy, and take advantage of free legal advice. Here is a list of chats...

Email Marketing

5 Unique and Effective Email Offers

April 16, 2012 • Carolyn Nye

The offer in an ecommerce email campaign is key. Coming up with offers that stand out from the competition and get your subscribers' attention, however, can be difficult. A straight dollar-off discount gets boring over time, and email recipients will eventually ignore the same types o...

Google Ads

Google AdWords Ad Extensions Basics

April 10, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Google AdWords extensions give potential shoppers more information about a merchant and more options to engage with that merchant before clicking a search ad. Although ad extensions have been around for a couple of years, Google recently added conversion tracking data to extensions, ma...

Social Media

Using Facebook’s New App Icons to Promote Your Business

April 9, 2012 • Paul Chaney

Now that Facebook has transferred commercial Fan pages to the new Timeline format, links to custom tabs — now called "apps" — reside in a row below the cover image. These were previously located in the left-hand column, with small icons. No matter how many apps you have, only four appea...

Social Media

Pinterest: Choosing Cover Images, Tracking Pins

April 9, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Pinterest released a new feature last week, giving marketers significantly more control over how their companies' Pinterest boards are represented. This new feature allows users to choose the cover images for their pin boards, which serve as a sort of directory for a user's Pinterest p...

Social Media

5 Creative Ideas for Facebook Timeline Covers

April 3, 2012 • Paul Chaney

This article builds on "Facebook Timeline Cover Images: 6 Pointers," my article last week. Here are five ways to creatively use Facebook Timeline cover images, which Facebook calls "Covers," with 12 examples from small businesses, large retail brands and others. 1. Integrate a Pro...

Social Media

4 Pinterest Marketing Mistakes

April 2, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Pinterest is a fun social media service that lets users post images and videos, organized into topical boards. The site has great potential for driving traffic to online stores, but it is important not to misuse this potential or alienate users and would-be customers. What follows are ...

Influencers & Affiliates

Affiliate Marketing Case Study: CrazyForBargains.com

March 29, 2012 • Carolyn Kmet

CrazyForBargains.com is a small, family-owned retailer of fun, quality sleepwear. It sells everything from plush bathrobes to Batman pajamas, using the Yahoo! shopping cart. Melissa Canepa Murphy launched the company ...

Google Ads

Boost Pay-per-click Profits in 5 Easy Steps

March 29, 2012 • Scott Smigler

The difference between a profitable and an unprofitable pay-per-click advertising campaign can be the post-click conversion rate. We've run hundreds of conversion rate optimization tests at my firm over the past decade. Below I’ll share five optimizations that have consistently driven c...

Content Marketing

How Authors, Entertainers Are Selling Their Content Online; 9 Examples

March 28, 2012 • Sig Ueland

Whether through online video, audio, or ebooks, entertainers and authors are finding new access to audiences. In many cases, it's at the expense of established distribution channels. Here is a list of entertainers and authors who have found success in the shift to online media. Some e...

Google Ads

3 Basic Ways to Improve PPC Advertising

March 28, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Pay-per-click advertising is a staple of ecommerce marketing that can play a key role in increasing site traffic and sales when managed well. Pay-per-click advertising can also be very expensive and labor intensive as marketers seek to find the best combination of ad copy, audience, ke...

Social Media

Facebook Timeline Cover Images: 6 Pointers

March 27, 2012 • Paul Chaney

Facebook states that on Friday, March 30, it will convert all Fan pages to the new Timeline format. The most obvious component of Timeline is the large cover image at the top of the page. Facebook has restrictions on these images. They cannot contain the following elements. Price o...

Marketing & Advertising

Tips on Targeting Other Countries with Google AdWords

March 27, 2012 • Anne Kennedy

With Google's dominant hold on market share around the world, the tools and interfaces you already know -- Google AdWords, Google Analytics, and Google Webmaster Tools -- should help you successfully implement campaigns in other countries.

Social Media

Facebook Launches ‘Offers’ for Facebook Pages

March 22, 2012 • Paul Chaney

Facebook is shuttering its check-in deals program — which worked only for brick and mortar businesses — in favor of a new feature, Facebook Offers, which will be incorporated into Facebook Pages. Unlike check-in deals, Offers can be redeemed both in-store and online. Facebook is now b...

Social Media

8 Innovative Brand Promotions Using Social Media

March 19, 2012 • Sig Ueland

With the growing number of social media outlets, businesses are developing innovative ways to promote their products, using new tools to engage customers. Here is a list of innovative brand promotions using a variety of social media: Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Spotif...

Content Marketing

4 Ways to Write Compelling Blog Titles

March 19, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Blog post titles that capture a reader's attention, make strong claims, and solve problems should get lots of clicks, shares, and retweets. Blogging is an important part of any good social media marketing campaign. While writing great blog content — see "Write Better Blog Posts, Pyrami...

Email Marketing

Using Email to Promote Holiday Sales; Pros and Cons

March 15, 2012 • Carolyn Nye

With St. Patrick’s Day near, companies are scrambling to deliver emails to promote green-themed products, or events around the holiday. With all the buzz, it brings up a interesting question: When does it make sense for ecommerce merchants to embrace a holiday or event and incorporate i...

Email Marketing

3 Tips for Better Email Subscription Forms

March 14, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Email subscription forms should be simple and direct, encouraging site visitors to become opt-in participants in email marketing campaigns. Email marketing is one of the best ways that ecommerce businesses have to engage shoppers, introduce new products, and make more sales. But these ...

Social Media

10 Commandments for Effective Online Social Networking

March 12, 2012 • Paul Chaney

Here is a ten-step game plan for effective social network engagement. These are ten practical guidelines that will make you a better member of the social networking communities in which you participate. 1. Pull, Don’t Push One of the first lessons you will learn very quickly when eng...

Social Media

Fancy Is a Pinterest-like Alternative for Ecommerce Merchants

March 7, 2012 • Paul Chaney

There is a lot of interest in Pinterest. It encourages content curation through user self-expression. With over 11 million users, the site has gained a large following in a short amount of time. However, to date, Pinterest has no model for businesses, certainly not one that actively fos...

Social Media

3 New Facebook Marketing Tools: Timeline, Reach Generator, Premium

March 6, 2012 • Sig Ueland

At last week’s Facebook Marketing Conference, the social media giant unveiled three new marketing solutions to drive business growth using social technology: Timeline, Reach Generator and Premium. Here is a list of Facebook’s new marketing products. Access the conference videos to lear...

Social Media

How to Shorten Google+ URLs

March 5, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Google+ business page URLs can be long and unwieldy. But there are a couple of easy ways you can create a short alias addresses that shoppers can remember. At the present, a typical Google+ business page URL looks something like this: https://plus.google.com/u/0/103654589540801342565...

Social Media

Facebook Implements Timeline for Business Pages

March 1, 2012 • Paul Chaney

At its first-ever marketing conference on February 29, Facebook announced sweeping changes to its platform that have direct bearing on businesses. One of the most important was the introduction of Timeline for business pages. Late last year, Facebook introduced Timeline to individual ...

Google Ads

How to Optimize a Pay-per-click Landing Page

February 29, 2012 • Armando Roggio

A pay-per-click landing page should be a sales conversion engine, tuned to help consummate an order. Landing pages “are one of the strongest tools you have to convert visitors to customers,” wrote Brandon Eley and Shayne Tilley in their book, Online Marketing Inside Out. “Much of your ...

Influencers & Affiliates

Affiliate Marketing: Segmenting Your Affiliates, Part 2

February 29, 2012 • Carolyn Kmet

Running an affiliate program often requires managing relationships with thousands of different advertising partners. This can be challenging, as different types of affiliates have different marketing needs. Last month, in "Segmenting Your Affiliates," I addressed two of the most commo...

Google Ads

3 New Google AdWords’ Features Worth Trying

February 28, 2012 • Scott Smigler

Google continues adding new features to AdWords. "Enhanced Ad Sitelinks," "Offer Extensions," and "TrueView" video ads are three examples. I have tested each of these, and recommend them to merchants. Online retailers who use them first can start profiting before their competitors. The...

Social Media

Using Amateur Videos for Marketing Success; 2 Examples

February 27, 2012 • Paul Chaney

In the past, if you wanted to make a video for your business, you had to hire a production company or ad agency, spend tens of thousands of dollars and, as often as not, end up with a product much different than you expected. Edits and retakes were costly, so you just left well enough a...

Content Marketing

Using Content Marketing for Your Ecommerce Business

February 27, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Content marketing seeks to publish high-quality content to engage prospects, earn business, and create repeat customers. In the Internet age, anyone — private or commercial — can publish articles, essays, white papers, newsletters, audio podcasts, games, or videos that have the potenti...