How to Write a Great Email Signature

How to Write a Great Email Signature

How to Write a Great Email Signature

 

Is your email signature sending the right message?

While it might seem like a small detail, your email signature reflects on both you and your brand — and it’s important to get it right. Doing so lends more authority to your outreach, and it can also have a major effect on your email response rates.

Here’s what you need to know about acing your sign-off, including some essential do’s and don’ts.

Why Your Email Signature Matters
There are a number of benefits to hitting the sweet spot with your email signature:

  • It tells recipients exactly who you are.
  • It further establishes brand identity.
  • It provides recipients with necessary contact information.
  • It provides your email with more authority.

From cold prospecting emails to brand newsletters, including a well thought-out signature is key to contact recognition, as well as to creating emails that convert.

Email Signature Do’s and Don’ts
Take the guesswork out of a great signature by following these do’s and don’ts.

  • Do link to your website. This gives recipients an easy way to connect your name to your brand.
  • Don’t forget the basics. Even the fanciest of signatures still need to include your name, job title, and a way to get in touch. A headshot can be a great addition too.
  • Do include links to social. Give your recipients a fast way to follow up — or give you a follow — on your social media pages.
  • Don’t use emojis (in most cases). An emoji may come off a bit too unprofessional, especially in certain industries.

Design and Topography Ideas
You’ve got lots of options when it comes to design. Here are some great examples to get you inspired:


Why Your Brand Should Publish on Medium

Why Your Brand Should Publish on Medium

Have you considered using Medium as part of your company’s content strategy?

 

Medium is a social publishing platform that allows anyone to post original blog content. And there are some big benefits to doing so — including boosting brand awareness among Medium’s large reader base (236.65 million monthly visitors and counting).

Here’s what to know about adding Medium to your content marketing strategy (plus a few best practices):

How Medium Can Help Your Content Marketing Strategy
The more ways that you can connect, the better. While Medium shouldn’t replace your company blog, you can use it as a supplementary tool to reach more people, establish thought leadership and increase brand engagement — all of which make it worth a bit of added effort.

Ways to Use Medium
There are various ways to use Medium for your brand’s benefit, especially when it comes to building more authority in your industry.

  • Original content: Write and share new content on topics relevant to your niche and audience.
  • Re-publishing: Repurpose and cross-post existing blog content onto Medium to expand your reach.
  • Engage: Follow people who like your posts, respond to comments and use your content to drive engagement to your social pages and website.
  • Network: Partner with other brands or notable writers to tap into a deeper audience pool.

Best Practices
Success on Medium isn’t a guarantee, but there are some things you can do to increase your chances.

  • Be original. Make sure you’re adding to the conversation instead of just repeating what others are saying.
  • Keep it clean. Your headline and copy should be typo-free and grammatically correct, and you should take just as much care with your content as you would posting on your own site.
  • Avoid overt CTAs. Let engagement happen organically instead of trying to force it with a direct CTA.

Set your ideas in motion with Medium – click here to learn more

Need help with your company’s marketing? Get in contact with Smith Marketing today.

 


The Quick Guide to Google My Business

The Quick Guide to Google My Business

Have you put Google My Business to work for your brand?

 

Google My Business (GMB) allows companies to control how they show up in Google Maps and Google Search. And if you leverage it properly, it can offer you a ton of advantages — especially in your local market.

To help you do it, we’ve put together a quick overview of GMB, including helpful tips to help you make the most of it.

What Is Google My Business?

Google My Business (GMB) is a free Google feature that allows businesses to manage how they appear in local searches. In addition to optimizing your listing, you can also manage images, videos, and reviews, as well as publish posts and answer questions that might be relevant to your local audience.

How Do You Use GMB?

Set up a Google account for your business here, and then create your profile. Once it’s approved by Google, it’ll show up when people search for your brand.

Some benefits to doing so:

  • Increased visibility on Google Search and Maps.
  • Quick and easy way to share information with customers.
  • Ability to see and manage Google Reviews.

Making GMB Work for You

To make GMB work as part of your marketing strategy, you’ll want to have a few best practices in place. Aside from claiming your profile in the first place, make sure you fill out every section. It’s a lot of work upfront, but it will increase the utility of your listing.

Second, update your profile regularly. Answer questions, publish posts, add new photos or videos and double-check that everything is accurate and up-to-date.

While you’re at it, set up messaging on the platform — and use it. It’s one more way for your customers to keep in touch, which is always a good thing.

Need more help with your marketing? Reach out today.

 


Do’s and Don’ts of SMS Marketing

Do’s and Don’ts of SMS Marketing

Reach Your Customers With Text Messaging

  Is your business making good use of SMS marketing?

Text messages can be a great tool for brands. Done right, they’re a fast and direct way to stay connected with your audience, share promotions and collect data on consumer preferences. Done wrong though, they can come off as overly pushy — or worse, even a little bit off-putting.

To help you find the balance, here are the do’s and don’ts of SMS marketing you need to know:

DO require opt-in and consent.
Just because customers give you their phone number doesn’t mean they’re providing consent for marketing texts. Require a direct opt-in so that your customers are more engaged (and happier to hear from you).

DON’T text just to text.
While SMS marketing is ideal for brand awareness, it’s not just for saying “hey” and checking in. There should be a reason behind every text you send, such as announcing a sale or sharing a discount code.

DO allow replies.
If your customer has a question or comment in response to your text, make sure there’s a method for responding. A marketing automation platform will help you do this and will ensure you can easily monitor incoming and outgoing messages.

DON’T overdo it.
Texting too often is pretty much a guaranteed way to get people to unsubscribe. Measure out your frequency and work on finding that sweet spot between texting too often and not enough. (Hint: Look at your engagement rates; if they’re going down, it might be due to your frequency one way or the other.)

Conclusion.
SMS marketing can look spammy and has to be done both carefully and legally. In all, it has come a long way over the past several years. The good news is that people are using their smartphones more than ever before. SMS is an efficient way to directly communicate with customers, once they op-in to your updates and special offers to increase sales. Netflix and Redbox do a great job using SMS marketing. Why not your business?

Need more SMS marketing advice? Get in touch and we can help.

 

 

 


SEO Strategies For Small Business Owners

SEO Strategies For Small Business Owners

In this digital age, we know that SEO or Search Engine Optimization is not a new concept in business. Small business owners know that it’s an important strategy that can help boost their business’ online presence.

For example, a survey said that 46% of searches made on Google were people who were looking for local information.  This data alone shows that SEO plays a big role in getting local shops to gain more exposure online.

However, not all are capable to properly execute SEO strategies even if they have the budget and resources to run an SEO campaign. So here are a couple of tips that can help you understand how to use SEO for business.

1. Create An Optimized Website

 

Most business owners only care about how their websites look without thinking about the functionality and features of the website. Sure, your website looks good visually but if it’s slow, not mobile-friendly or if the elements are not properly placed, you can lose a lot of potential customers in the long run.

For example, if your website does not have a solid structure that search engines can crawl properly, you will lose a significant amount of traffic that can hurt your sales.

2. Prioritize Keywords

 

Knowing the right keywords to use is one of the most important things that business owners need to do. The goal is to determine the keywords that people often look for in search engines and then use those keywords for your website. The better keywords you use, the better chances of being ranked high!

But why is it important to be on the first page of search engines? Well, the higher you rank, the more people will discover your website’s business. It’s that simple.

You need to remember not to overdo keyword placement in your website. Don’t just stuff keywords into your blogs, landing pages or any other content in your website. Make it sound organic whenever you use a keyword.

3. Optimize Website Page Metadata

 

Once you’ve started with the initial stages of SEO, your next task is to make sure that all pages must contain your keywords. You need to optimize your work by putting the keywords in the titles, meta description, and content body. This will make it easier for the search engines to crawl your website’s content.

Apart from that, you also need to make sure to always include an alt tag for your images. Google reads words when it crawls the internet so it needs text information to be able to determine your content.

4. Create A Content Calendar

 

Search engine optimization will not work if you don’t have content to share. Imagine having an optimized website that does not have blogs, photos, videos or other types of content in it. Content is the value that a business offers to its customers so make sure to create a content calendar so you can plan in advance what content to create and when they will go out.

But apart from that, there also needs to be consistency! Don’t create a blog one time then create the next one after 6 months. When you create content on a regular basis that has the right keywords, you are showing Google that your business has authority within your industry.

Just make sure to also avoid duplicating content. Keep your URLs unique and never use the same description for some pages in your website.

5. Build Website Authority Through Backlinking

 

Just like the name implies, backlinks are links from other websites that link back to your website. Sometimes, it can also be a link from your website that links to another part of your website.

Typically, backlinks come in the form of blogs where one blog cites another blog for resource purposes. The purpose of backlinking is to give search engines a signal that other websites consider your content as resource material. This means that you have authority within the industry so there’s better chances of ranking high.

6. Use Google My Business Page

Google My Business should be a requirement for every business. GMB has so many features that can help boost businesses’ social proof and searchability on the internet. It has a review feature that allows users to leave positive feedback to businesses. You can also upload videos or photos to your GMB account so potential customers can see what you have in store for them.

 

Conclusion

Search engine optimization is a must-have for every business. It’s essential because it makes your website more visible on search engines like Google, which will mean more traffic and more opportunities for your business to convert prospects into new customers.

If you’re ready to invest in SEO for your company’s website, Smith Marketing offers a free initial SEO site review that will help assess your current website’s status. Our free assessment will determine your specific needs and anticipated budget at the same time.