Marketing – Page 3 – Raleighwood Media Group + Raleighwood Event Group

You’re Making Us Blush! A Raleighwood Review from Carmon’s Curl Up & Dye Salon

Lisa Jeffries Nobling on November 17, 2014

The big benefit of using a CMS is that Beth and Carmon are now able to post updates to their blog and update their website in just a few clicks – almost instantly! And when they need some help with the “heavy lifting,” they know we’ll be there.

Email Never Went Anywhere

Lisa Jeffries Nobling on June 30, 2014

It seems like at least once a week I read a really well-written and well-thought-out article or blog post about how “email/email marketing is back” or that suddenly interest is surging in the “what once was old” medium of communication. I’m here to reassure everyone that not only is email not dead – it also never went anywhere.

Sure, social media has been the darling of all online marketing communications for the last seven years or so, but I personally cannot remember a single instance where I’ve seen the use of Facebook or Twitter alone out-perform the use of an integrated marketing communications (IMC) campaign that included email. As any marketing professional will tell you, it’s highly unlikely that anything you produce will ever go “viral” and even when things go viral, they’re still often shared via the original social media channel: email.

As Facebook continues to limit what shows up in users’ feeds, the ability to actually communicate directly to users who have expressed an interest in our products and services without fear of a filter will continue to prevail. Who wants to spend their hard-earned time and investment to build an audience they aren’t guaranteed of being able to communicate with?

While the currently under-25 crowd may not be strong users of email, I believe that trend changes as they become career professionals, where the modern workplace still depends heavily on the use of email as the primary form of communication.

I’m proud to say that consistent, well-branded email marketing has always been a staple product and service provided by Raleighwood Media Group to our clients. It has a high ROI and is very trackable when it comes to finding out what’s working and what’s not in regards to subject lines, content, list segmentation, and other variables.

For your reading pleasure and if you’re so inclined, here are some of the articles I’ve read about email (and the “return” of email) lately… and often replied with the simple statement, “duh”.
The NY Times – For Email Newsletters, a Death Greatly Exaggerated
BiZReport.com – Email newsletters top news source for business executives
EmailOnAcid.com – Is Responsive Design Really Effective?

I would love to hear your thoughts on where you’re getting the most bang for your buck when it comes to online marketing efforts in the comments below.

Cheers!
–Lisa

New Facebook Feature: More Local Pages You Might Like

Lisa Jeffries Nobling on February 4, 2013

To be honest, this may not technically be new, but it is the first time I’ve seen this feature, personally. Facebook often rolls out new features and functionality in waves to different users, so I’m curious – has anyone else seen it, yet?

Facebook Feature – More Local Pages You Might Like

A few thoughts follow – as scattered as they might be:

Anytime I see something “new” on social, I wonder, “what can we (marketers, publicists, online marketing people) do with this?”
Can we do some positive PR and leave a nice comment on the wall of a new page we found and say “Hi, I’m here because Facebook thought I might like you since I liked (insert name of other local business here)!”
- Does that open the door to a nice note becoming a nasty-gram if that other business is actually a competitor? (We can’t really expect Facebook to NOT suggest direct competitors, can we?)
Do we leave just leave it alone and hope Facebook doesn’t start suggesting that we like “Target” when we’ve just liked the neighborhood independent gift shop?
This rogue thought still burns me up and I think of it every time I think “Facebook Marketing”: when is Facebook going to finally stop so heavily throttling how many people see page-created content? These are the Facebook users who have opted-in to liking the pages we heavily invest time and effort into promoting (you’re welcome, Facebook). Facebook is forcing us to buy “sponsored” visibility to improve the chances that more than 10% of page subscribers will see the posts we take the time, and have been trained to, create. {Read more about this on NewMediaRockStars.com, if you’re so inclined.}

Ending today and this post on a positive note: big “thank you” goes out to Kim Adamof for the referral that came my way today in need of public relations services!

Happy Mondaying,
Lisa

Come Join Us Today at a Few Shop Local Raleigh Events!

Lisa Jeffries Nobling on April 28, 2011

This month marks the two year anniversary of the launch of Shop Local Raleigh by the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association – happy birthday, SLR! Join us in celebrating today with two great local events:

Networking Event at Joint Venture Jewelry in Cary
From 4:00pm until 6:00pm, come and enjoy networking, great discussion, and a beverage with other SLR members, volunteers, and local business owners. (Don’t forget those business cards!)

Anniversary Party at Natty Greene’s in Raleigh
Shop Local Raleigh turned “2” on April 15th and to celebrate, we have partnered with NCSU marketing students to plan an Anniversary Party at Natty Greene’s Brewing Co. On April 28th, starting at 7 pm, there will be giveaways, $3 pints of local beer and fun guaranteed for all.

To add to the festivities, we have shared some fun statistics regarding small businesses, public relations, and the return on investment of email marketing, for SLR to use at these events. Along with those “trivia facts”, we’ve also included a special offer for event attendees – so be sure to check out what’s “in store” and “on tap” at these great events tonight. We’ll be back with those special offers here later on the blog, but we didn’t want to spoil the fun by giving them away in advance!

Cheers!

Missed the February Social Media Seminar?

Lisa Jeffries Nobling on February 27, 2011

Did you miss the February 2nd Shop Local Raleigh social media seminar? We certainly missed you, but I’ve provided the information shared in that event below so that you can study up on social media and how it positively impact your marketing plans.

Presentation Files:

https://raleighwoodmedia.com/files/slr_marketing_seminar_2011_02_02.ppt (PowerPoint Format)
https://raleighwoodmedia.com/files/slr_marketing_seminar_2011_02_02.pdf (PDF Format)

My friend Greg – facilitator, educator, rhythmatist, Trained HealthRHYTHMS Facilitator, and founder of Shop Local Raleigh member business Drum for Change – asked if I could share these resources with him for an upcoming industry conference. I told him that “I am an open book” and would be happy to share this information as a resource for him and his group and also provided the following “talking points” (below) from the presentation (which I went back and added after the presentation, because if you’ve ever attended an event with me, you know I’m an “off-the-cuff” girl and like to let the audience and their questions about a topic steer our conversation). I thought it would be helpful to share here on the Raleighwood blog, too – for everyone’s benefit!

Talking Points:

Slide 3 – The AMA (American Marketing Association) board is comprised of working marketing professionals, so I feel this definition more accurately describes the business of marketing than the typical dictionary definition.

Slide 5 – As overused as the phrase “social media is a two-way conversation” is, it’s true! Businesses that only promote their businesses, but don’t take the opportunity to engage with their audience, are not going to benefit from the time and effort required to nurture this form of communication.

Slide 6 – BIG takeaway: DO NOT MAKE A PERSONAL PROFILE FOR YOUR BUSINESS. Make a PAGE. There is a difference. Signup at facebook.com/pages. Have a personal profile so you can understand how it works from the personal user perspective, but create a page for your business/brand/organization. A vanity URL is a short, personalized URL like https://www.facebook.com/raleighwood – this is the same as telling people what your website address is exactly so they can come right to you instead of telling them to “google you”, where your competitors could snatch up their attention, instead.

Slide 8 – Remember that twitter is a unique network in itself. You don’t want to have to Twitter profile for your brand and only populate it through your facebook activity. You won’t get very many followers if you’re not offering unique information to that audience separately. You’ll also be “blind” to the responses you get on Twitter if you never actually use twitter to engage your audience there, as well. (IE: They’re not going to go to your facebook page to leave you a comment, they’re going to do it on twitter and you will likely miss it.)

Slides 10 and 11 – I LOVE iContact.com for an email service provider. They are local to Durham, NC – as is Bronto.com. MailChimp.com is free as long as your list is under 1,000 subscribers.

Slide 12 – AllFacebook.com and Mashable.com are two nice resources for staying up to date on social media happenings and changes. They can be overwhelming due to the frequency of their content and updates, so I just check in once a month or so 🙂

Have any questions about this event? Feel free to ask! I hope to see you at the next Shop Local Raleigh seminar and will be sure to post details here when that event is confirmed!

Cheers,
Lisa

Fairway Adds First Digital Billboard Just North of Raleigh

Lisa Jeffries Nobling on December 27, 2010

I just finished reading an interesting press release on dBusinessNews (Triangle) – The Triangle Region Receives its First Digital Billboard. This is something that I might need to make a drive out to Wake Forest to see!

The most compelling sales features of a digital billboard like this is that advertisers can change up their promotional offerings in a digital format, instead of waiting weeks or even months to change the billboard display. Restaurants can now target breakfast consumers in the early morning hours and run lunch-time, dinner, or late-night advertisements at relevant times of day, too.

Non-Profits Take Note!
“As a good corporate citizen, Fairway is utilizing its digital capabilities to help promote local non-profits by providing no cost advertising on the new digital display. Some of the public service announcements will benefit the following non-profits: The Salvation Army, N.C. GreenPower, Franklin County Humane Society and Meals on Wheels of Wake County.”

I checked out Fairway’s website and didn’t immediately notice any calls to join its non-profit program or to submit your organization for consideration, but it would only take a few minutes to email the organization or give them a call to inquire.

I’m sure the display won’t show video or other types of truly attention-commanding media, as driver safety is likely a major consideration when getting local approval for a billboard display of this nature, but simply having a different advertisement displayed each time a driver passes (or showing 3 or 4 while the driver is stopped at a red light), means lots of promotional opportunity within one finite amount of space.

I do have to wonder why Fairway chose to place their first billboard of this kind outside of Raleigh in a more suburban/rural location, but my first suspicion is that it may have to do with local zoning.

Have you seen the new billboard yet? Tell me about it in the comments!

PS – Merry belated Christmas! I hope the holiday weekend was good to you all! Tank and Delta are sitting home now in front of the window watching the snow from this past weekend’s North Carolina blizzard fall from the trees.

Cheers,
Lisa

Free Advice: Don’t Abuse Your Email List!

Lisa Jeffries Nobling on November 26, 2010

Four of the five local retailers that emailed me yesterday, on Thanksgiving, about their Black Friday and holiday weekend sales and promotions sent me the same email again today. That’s eight emails, from the same four retailers, within 24 hours.

Now, that may not seem like a whole lot, but when I deleted 50 more emails that had arrived from non-local retailers between midnight last night and 10am this morning, you can see how the competition for my attention as a consumer gets fierce!

I’m email savvy enough to use a dedicated email address for my lists subscriptions. One that I don’t require myself to check once per day and one that is certainly not connected to my Blackberry. Most consumers are not this dedicated, however. So when their email inbox becomes overwhelming, they start clicking on “unsubscribe”. And once they’re gone, they’re likely not coming back!

I’m going to just put this out there. Email publishers who email frequently, about the same topic, almost always see an uptick in unsubscribes when they took a quick look at their email marketing statistics. Oh no! That’s exactly the opposite of what they want to see happen – and quite unfortunate, too.

So remember the golden rules of email marketing: make it relevant, keep it valuable, and don’t overdo it! I also recommend analyzing your past email marketing campaigns to find out what really works for your audience. Think Tuesday is the best day of the week to send email marketing out to customers or email list subscribers? Think again!

Just because Tuesday at 10:00am seems to be the popular “buzz time” for email distribution among marketing types, I have personally audited many of my clients’ email marketing campaigns and found that each have their own personalities. And many times, the emails they’ve sent on other days of the week have significantly higher open rates. Why could that be? Again, you’re competing for your audience’s attention. Plus, your target demographic may have unique behavioral characteristics. (Teachers work from 7:00am until 4:00pm, bartenders work from 6:00pm until 3:00am… do you think they will be checking their email at the same time?)

If everyone sends emails on the same day, you better have the best subject line among the bunch. And that, is a whole ‘nother topic of discussion!

Want to discuss the analytic side of email marketing? Drop me a note and let’s talk shop! Not using an email service provider so that you can analyze your email marketing performance? Stop what you’re doing right now and send me an email. We have got to get you on the path to making your email marketing work for you! 😉