email list segmentation from laptop

Developing An Email Marketing Strategy

Last updated: April 18, 2019Originally published: March 18, 2010 Read time: 6 minutes, 24 seconds Email marketing is one of the pillars of a successful online marketing plan. But, like any plan, it should be well thought out, with clear goals, a strategy, and specific tactics. The benefits of a well-designed email marketing strategy include: a higher open rate more clicks fewer opt-outs better conversion rates In this article we are going to cover; Defining your audience List management Developing your content Establishing a schedule More information Define Your Audience Defining your audience is simple in theory; the reality is often more difficult. The goal is to define your audience segments. Start with the broadest category and look at how you might break that down. Think about how you might talk to the individuals within that category differently. For example, let’s say you are an electrician. You do both commercial…
Read More

Continue reading

Google Analytics For Small Business (video)

Here is the video of Jann Mirchandani at iCAN-Global‘s September Forum. iCAN-Global links global business and technology resources with innovators worldwide. Jann was honored to be invited to speak at their September Forum, help at Westchester Community College and broadcast worldwide. Jann’s discussion covered the basics of Google Analytics and how to use it to evaluate and improve your online marketing.

Continue reading
Westchester Marketing Cafe lunchbox

Content Development For Online Marketing (video)

Welcome to our Summer Lunchbox Series on online marketing webinars. Here is the third webinar in the series: Content Development: More fun than root canal! This webinar was prerecorded so live questions are not possible. Feel free, however to contact us if you’d like any additional information about anything discussed during the webinar.

Continue reading

Marketing Benefits Of Running An Online Contest

The Marketing Benefits of Running an Online Contest Last year Sound Earth, a pet-friendly household cleaning products manufacturer, began a focused effort to increase our community base and in turn increase our customer base. We wanted to appeal to our target market of pet and animal lovers. We also wanted to stay true to the spirit of Sound Earth: helping animals in our daily business conduct; something our followers have come to appreciate and expect. Our freshman campaign was to sponsor the First Annual Best Animal Rescue Contest, aka BARC. The contest was designed to raise our profile as well as provide a lead capture mechanism. It more than surpassed our expectations. What Is The Result a Year Later? Ultimately, 85% of the new email contacts gained through the BARC remain on our list one year later. They receive a weekly e-blast highlighting a product sale as well as a reminder…
Read More

Continue reading
Westchester Marketing Cafe lunchbox

Unlocking Your Online Marketing Potential (video)

Welcome to our Summer Lunchbox Series on online marketing webinars. Here is the first webinar in the series: “Unlocking Your Online Marketing Potential” This webinar was prerecorded so live questions are not possible. Feel free, however to contact us if you’d like any additional information about anything discussed during the webinar.

Continue reading
The Boldness Of Your Brand

The Boldness of Your Brand

Many of you may already know that Marketing Cafe is the remake of Mirchandani Consulting. We spent the better part of a year focusing on rebranding; working with brand experts, business coaches, and designers to help us hone in on our essential essence – helping small businesses take control of their online marketing. It was a challenging process. It was very tempting to hang on to all sorts of stuff that we could do; we can do design, we can do logos, we can do business cards. After all, we had done all of those things.But it was time to be bold. It was time to draw a line in the sand and say we could do those things – but we do not. We focus solely on online marketing. And you know what? It worked. Here are some of the lessons we learned and how you might apply them to your own…
Read More

Continue reading
confusing road signs

Marketing Your Website

One of the biggest questions clients ask is “How will people find me once my website is up and running?” Our clients are mainly small businesses. The first thing I encourage them to do is to think about ways that they can get the word out about their online venture that they may be more familiar with. Old School Before you do anything else, make sure your URL is everywhere your business name appears; business cards, letterhead, advertisements, email signature, etc. Networking – get out there and meet people and hand them your business card and encourage them to visit your website. Many networking events are free or low-cost. Advertising – this can be done via traditional print media and is often something people forget to do when they start building their online business. This, of course, requires you develop an advertising budget and may require you to get creative to…
Read More

Continue reading

Choosing An Effective Domain Name

Selecting THE PERFECT name for your online business can often be a daunting task, especially if THE PERFECT domain name is already taken. So here are some things to consider in selecting your domain. Keywords Our natural inclination is often to use our name as the URL; janesmith.com, joeshmoe.org. And in some instances that makes sense. If you run a business that is well known already, a domain name that matches your business name will be where your current customers will look for you. But what about customers who don’t know you – yet? Using keywords, words that are relevant to who you are and what you do, will help boost you in search results. Let’s take a photographer as an example. Often these types of businesses are set up using the person’s name since they are their business. But JaneExample.com isn’t going to tell search engines anything about the…
Read More

Continue reading

How Do I Get My Business Online?

The first step to successful online marketing is to identify your goal. If you are a merchant, you will obviously want to sell your products online on an eCommerce site. For service providers, it might be to build your “brand”; establishing who you are and your expertise online. Once you know what kind of website you need, you will need to register your domain (the name of your site) and set up a hosting account. If you will be selling online you will need to work with a provider that will support the kinds of services you need for your business, like shopping carts and database management for example. Naturally, you will need to develop content – the information on your website. The information on your site will need to be relevant for your intended audience. eCommerce websites will need to have merchandise organized into categories and subcategories. Brochure site…
Read More

Continue reading