Gmail gives email marketers a second chance

Amit Singhal, SVP of Google Search announced that Gmail  is testing a new feature in which Gmail.com users who go to Google to do a search, may see their own received emails displayed on the search results page. How would this work? Well Google will simply take the search query, use it to query the web as usual, but then also query your gmail inbox. If a marketer sent you an opt-in email newsletter on the topic of "social media marketing tools", and you then go to Google to search something similar to "social media marketing tools", you'll see on the right side of the Google search results page are displayed some search results from your own gmail inbox, including that email newsletter.
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For marketers, this could be really cool in that even if your gmail subscriber didn't do much of anything with your email newsletter, your subscriber might see your newsletter show up on their own search results page.
I can see how this could be useful to the user as well. In my own case, I often archive a lot of emails that I receive in gmail. For example, I might have archived an opt-in email from Groupon which had a discount to that hip, funky, new coffee house in the Virginia Highlands area of Atlanta. I may not be ready to use it now, but if two weeks from now I do a Google search for just such a place, I might see that Groupon email pop up in my search results.

Reopening the opt-in email newsletter may also boost your email sending reputation by the simple fact that the recipient is engaging with it again. Engagement is a critical factor in your ability to get email marketing messages into the inbox.

More information can be found on Google's blog. If you'd like to try it out, Google is allowing some gmail users to opt-in to the trial period of this feature.

Read next: How to double your gmail inbox placement rates

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What are the Most Important Elements of a Mobile Site?

Make your online personal brand mobile-friendly with these tips

As the online world expands, more sites are working towards developing mobile-friendly access. Currently, one in seven searches are done by mobile access points, meaning there is a large population out there who are searching for your site, but if they can’t find it, you’re losing business.

A mobile site is going to be very different from your regular website because it will target the specifics of mobile access. To accomplish this, you need to address some very important elements needed to not only generate a usable site, but make it easily accessible by those searching with their mobile devices.

The primary principle is not to complicate things. When it comes to mobile, simplicity says it best. Currently, mobile software isn’t able to load an extravagant page with an array of different components. 

Quick load times

You’ll want to make your site load as quickly as possible, at least from the delivery portion of the site (service can affect a user’s access speeds). Images and photos should be calculated to accommodate the smaller screen along with text format and background imaging. Remember that black backgrounds take longer to load and text should contradict the setting so that it’s easy to read, since text will be smaller on a mobile screen.

While loading is essential to the delivery and accessibility, you’ll also need to be accessible yourself. This means you need to readily make available all the info that someone searching you would desire. This includes: location, hours of operation, and contact details (phone number, email, etc.). Don’t make these difficult to find on your page because they are essentially the top three things that a mobile user is going to be looking for. They’re looking for speedy access to you, so give it to them.

As for usability, you’ll also want to make your mobile site as touch-friendly as possible. Touch screen access is currently the most prominent, which can make it hard to be accurate when “clicking” on a link or button. Make sure your links and buttons are large enough with adequate spacing to make your site as “clickable” as possible. Additionally, make sure you integrate your familiar sites with your mobile site, since a large number of mobile users access their social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin).

Personal Word of Mouth Marketing

As for the application of your mobile site, it should be pictured more as a direct access point to you. The majority of mobile searches are performed because the user has the immediate desire to get in touch with you. This could be due to a conversation they’ve just had with an associate or even an immediate need, but it is up to you to make your site a window to you. Buttons that give your location or can quick-call you are often the most desired by mobile users. This gives you the opportunity of personal Word of Mouth Marketing, which is essential in the mobile world.

With the internet now easily accessible on the go, it is crucial that brands and businesses make their sites easily accessible and are able to present their audience with all the information they need as quickly as possible. After all, time is money.

Your Twitter feed is too full. How to calm it down with one easy app.

Do you find yourself overwhelmed with a Twitter stream full of people you followed-back just to be nice because they followed you (and not because they were so awesome)? If so, that might mean you aren't getting anything of value out of Twitter because there's just too much noise in your Twitter stream. If you read this blog you have interest in the topic of "email marketing" but your Twitter stream is packed with so many links to cat videos, that you can't find the posts about email marketing.

If this sounds like you, there's an easy way to regain control of Twitter so it can be the really useful tool that it was when you first started using it. If done properly, you can easily get a lot of value out of the important people on Twitter that you want to actually hear what they are saying.

Enter the iPhone app "Slices". Slices is a simple way to segment your Twitter stream into subject areas. For example, I am interested in hearing what the important thought leaders in social media, e-marketing, entrepreneurship, and search engine optimization are saying. But since I follow hundreds of Twitter users, it's impossible to see anything in all that noise. So, I have segmented the people I follow into these subject areas (the subject areas are what the app Slices calls, well, "slices"):

• Social Media
• eMarketing
• SEO-deliverability
• Entrepreneurship

I've created segments of just the Twitter topics I want to read about

I next went through my list of people I follow and indicated which category (if any) that they were in. Now, when I want to read about social media topics, I open the Social Media slice and I see only those Twitter feeds that talk about social media. When I want to read about "fantastic kitchen recipes that use rutabagas," I open the "Awesome Rutabaga Recipes" slice. So far, I don't have a single feed in that slice, but I'll keep looking. And, if a Twitter user that I follow doesn't fall into any of my slices, I don't worry about it. I simply don't add them to a slice. That way, whatever they are posting about the latest shenanigans that their cat "Sprelunkers" is doing, doesn't occupy my day.

Slices will help you regain what you lost from Twitter feeds that got too busy

Have you found any great iPhone apps that help email and social media marketers? Let us know in the comments. And please, no links to cat videos : ).

Read more social media marketing: Aunt Bea says to not post to a Facebook business page more than once a day

Farewell to Your Indispensable Employees

I have been trying to fall in love with RGIII, but I just can't. I want Mike Wise of the Washington Post to like me and quit calling me a racist. Here's my problem. Through two preseason games, Robert (as Joe Theismann calls him) has thrown exactly zero passes down field. We have seen zero post patterns and zero deep outs. His sole touchdown pass was a screen pass.

If you owned a Ferrari, wouldn't you take it out for a spin? Team Shanahan know RGIII isn't ready to run a pro style offense. They don't trust him to throw down the field. They trust the third string guy, Kirk Cousins, but they don't trust their Ferrari. Yes, I know Cousins is playing against guys who next week will be asking if we want fries with our Big Mac. But Cousins is playing WITH these guys as well.

One of the resident idiots on sports radio station ESPN980 said that the Skins haven't shown anything from the offense they intend to run in the regular season. That's great. I'll bet the Bears didn't show anything on defense they intend to run in the regular season either. The Skins apparently intend a run and shoot college style offense. How many run and shoot teams have won a Super Bowl? That number is a whole number somewhere between one and negative one – zero. The Skins paid for a Ferrari but they may have bought a Yugo. I hope I'm wrong.

I've been searching for the perfect way to describe the difference between the employee mind and the business owner mind. Here it goes..... Employees expect reward to precede performance. Business owners expect the reverse.

Those of you who are long time business owners, or have managed employees for a long period of time, have heard some variant of the following from an employee. “If you give me (insert some type of a reward), I will give you (insert some version of his best effort).” Reward precedes performance. Of course that's just not how the human mind works when it comes to motivation. When the reward precedes the performance, the performance never appears.

A couple days ago, one of our admin employees gave her two weeks notice. Her notice came in the form of an e-mail message to Paul and me ending with the phrase, “Good luck”. She sent this message before heading out the door in the afternoon after a meeting she had with Paul. Paul asked her to begin arriving on time in the morning as opposed to regularly being fifteen minutes late. He also asked her to stay until the end of the day.

According to her, she wasn't being paid enough to show up on time and stay for the full day. She needed a raise to do that. Isn't that just a variant of the “Reward me now and I promise to perform better” attitude I noted above? It is really just a version of Popeye's friend Whimpy's refrain, “I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

The “Good luck” phrase at the end of her resignation signaled her belief in the demise of our firm with her departure. After seven months, she was indispensable. Never mind that we were around for twenty-two years before she was hired. Somehow we muddled along before her. There's a line from a Sonny and Cher song from the sixties that goes, “and the beat goes on....” It surely will - in her absence.

If you read my post from a week or so ago titled, “Get Your Priorities Hijacked II”, you read the story of Danette, one of my ex-employees who believed my accounting department at Sky Courier would disintegrate when she left. The department improved the day she vamoosed. And the beat goes on.....

I had another prize employee at Sky Courier named, Debbie. Just as I didn't change Danette's name for that post, I'm not changing Debbie's name for this one either. If you cause me as much grief as they did, I'm calling you out – by your real name. Get thee away from me, Satan.

Debbie's job was to reconcile our bank accounts monthly. At Sky Courier, we were always broke. So there wasn't much to reconcile. That's not really fair. When you're regularly bouncing checks and arguing with the bank about overdraft charges, bank reconciliation is accounting hell.

Debbie lived somewhere near Winchester, Virginia and commuted to the office in Reston, Virginia. Winchester is not near Reston. They are nearly fifty miles apart. She decided that she would start her workday at 7:30 AM to avoid traffic and leave at 4PM each day. That would have been fine if she had ever actually arrived at 7:30AM. I know she wasn't on time since I was in by 7:15AM each morning. I'm a bit of a morning person.

Debbie was about six months behind in reconciling our main bank account. I removed all of the other accounts from her and gave them to others so that she could concentrate entirely on our main account. After a few months, she still had not even caught up by one month. I began to suspect that as long as Debbie was around, the account would never get reconciled. In her case, the problem wasn't money. She surmised, correctly I might add, that if she ever got caught up, I wouldn't need to put up with her performance and would fire her.

On one of our rare Virginia snowy days, Debbie went out to lunch and then called me to say that she wasn't coming back for the rest of the day due to the snow. She was going to have no problem driving the fifty miles back to Winchester, but she couldn't drive two miles back to work. The next morning, I fired her. Another employee reconciled the main bank account completely and was up to date in a couple of weeks. And the beat goes on....

When you buy a book on the Amazon.com web site, they give you some additional purchasing suggestions with the phrase, “People who bought (your book) also purchased...” If you're buying the importance of indispensable employees, you're also probably also buying the idea of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and Freddy Krueger. Of those, Freddy Krueger is the most relevant. If you are relying on employees and not good business systems, you are living a business nightmare.

Fire your Danette's, Debbie's, and Freddy Krueger's. They are dispensable if you have good systems. If you don't have good systems, fire them anyway, and implement good systems. Your Danette's and Debbie's will fight to the death against the good systems that will make them replaceable. As comedian Ron White joked, “You can't fix stupid.”

<This paragraph was censored by the Stitely family Politburo>

I had a funny story planned for this paragraph that Vladimir Putin, aka Laura Stitely, forced me to delete or face exile to Siberia, aka the basement. I stand in solidarity with Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and the Russian punk rock band, Pussy Riot (no, I didn't make up that name) for freedom of expression.

The “Free Frank Stitely Rally” is being held September 5^th at the Lost Rhino brewery (www.lostrhino.com). Join other advocates of freedom in drink and song. We'll not sing “We Shall Overcome.” We'll sing “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.”

Fight oppression with a good lager or IPA. Save our first amendment rights by getting drunk. There is no higher or more patriotic calling. Forget the Tea Party. Join the Beer Party. We are a nonpartisan political group devoted to nothing in particular but having fun.

Thanks for reading! For real tax and accounting advice, visit our main S&K web site at www.skcpas.com. See you at Lost Rhino.

Higher Google Results for Your Personal Brand

Higher Google results for personal branding

At one point or another, most of us have tried to Google our brand… and chances are that the results were less than pleasing. This makes sense considering there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people out there trying to promote their own unique brands with the help of search engines. Fortunately, there are ways to create results in order to make your brand appear higher up on Google search results and here is a little guide on how to implement them.

Understand Google’s Power

To start things off, it is important to understand the kind of power Google has and how people see you through it. It should be said that every single day, more than a billion names or brands are searched on Google by people from all over the world. Another interesting fact states that about 94% of people who make searches on Google don't go beyond the first page of results. This means that if you are to make it with the help of search engine rankings, you will have to dominate on the first page.

Dominating the first page is easier than it sounds, considering that only 2% of people actually own the first page of Google; only 50% own their first result, a quarter of pages have absolutely no positive content whatsoever to help themselves, with 15% of Google results on the first page having at least one negative result that lowers their reputation. To put it in other words, many first pages are still up for the taking with Google search rankings.

Which Networks

So how exactly should you work on increasing your reputation? Well, social media profiles are an excellent way to do that, especially with Facebook having just reached the billion user mark recently. Not all profiles will give you the same kind of boost. For starters, the most beneficial one is Linkedln, ranking higher than all other networks and website builders. You can also use Facebook  and Twitter as they have a large number of users themselves. As far as blogging goes, you should focus on making WordPress profiles; they rank much higher than even Tumblr and Blogger. Also, as surprising as it may seem, a profile on Vimeo ranks higher with search engines than a YouTube profile. Yet YouTube is by far the powerhouse that can deliver the reach and frequency of your message.  If you are into hosting pictures, then Flickr should be your only choice as it is the only picture hosting website that appears within the first two pages of Google.

Unfortunately, simply creating a run-of-the-mill profile isn't enough. You need to use a service such as BrandYourself which works by first having you submit content about your personal brand. Then, you are provided with tools you can use to make sure that your links are friendly for the search engines. Their tools are going to analyze your profiles and provide you with "boost steps" to increase your positive pages’ ranks. Finally, you are going to receive alerts whenever anything happens to your profiles, allowing you to constantly stay on top of your business. You can even find the service to find out who is Googling your brand and when!

Can You Use Pinterest for Business to Business Marketing?

Business to business social marketing with Pinterest

For those interested in applying social networking into their business to business marketing, there are certain networks which can benefit your efforts. 

It does, of course, depend completely on how you use the tools that are provided. Pinterest is a very visually appealing network which works very well for presenting your business in various aspects. Though not every business relies on the visual presentation of their product, especially when it comes to those that focus on providing services, Pinterest can still market your efforts by appealing to your audience’s demands.

What are the uses of Pinterest? A visual site with limited room for speech, Pinterest is actually perfect for social marketing. Here you are able to spread your image easily since it is an open network, much like Twitter. It’s available to anyone and everyone, even those who don’t have an account. It is great for gaining public exposure. In addition, cross-networking is a big part of Pinterest. Don’t neglect to link with the prominent social networks like Facebook and Twitter. 

What ways can you employ Pinterest to do serve your benefit?

It’s true that Pinterest most commonly appeal to private individuals. The pictures and visuals seem to have more influence on present clients and potentials. But it is important to remember that there are plenty of other businesses utilizing the social site to promote their own efforts. When it comes to business to business needs, consider Pinterest as a big fish-filled pond. There are potential catches of all sizes and types. You simply have to know what type of bait to use to make your Pinterest page appeal to the right audience. 

So, consider what it is that you provide to your clientele. Your target zone is going to have to be focused, perhaps providing an essential service that businesses prominently use. But, the real question is how you can deliver that through Pinterest. As a visually appealing site with little room for commentary, it can be difficult to appeal to someone who is currently working on promoting their own business. 

Pinterest utilizes the “follow” technique, which works for anyone trying to meet someone new or build a social circle. When you follow a site, you broaden your imagery. What they post is linked to your Pinterest site. This gives you the opportunity to leave comments on pins and discuss. Conversations are the beginning of business, and this is the perfect way to initiate a relationship. 

Work on distributing your image and what it is that you do. Implement pins that display what it is that your business does. Provide info-graphs about your services and what you can provide. Because pictures are the primary focus of Pinterest, this is the perfect chance to sum up what you can do in a simple photograph. They are still pictures, but can easily get the message across through words, statistics, and charts. Expand your application of photography. 

Do keep in mind that while you’re trying to appeal to certain businesses, the whole world is your market. Be ready to work with anything you catch, because you never know when it might lead to a bigger fish. 

Appealing in general

The first practice of Pinterest focuses on word-of-mouth marketing. Pinterest allows you to make people talk about you. You can easily spread your image, but only by appealing to the visual aspect. Create imagery that captures attention- even if they aren’t looking for you. 

To do this, you’ll need to present yourself across a broad range of audiences. You’ll want to touch a subject in everyone’s desire. This can be done through the various boards that the site provides. Focus on appealing with who you are and what you represent. Use individual boards with appealing photos to target a general audience. Include such scenarios as: What do you like? What plans do you have? 

Use Pinterest as an information board. Unite your business employees to add to boards such as goals and ambitions. Unite with clients and associates. Remember that if someone follows you, follow them right back. Don’t be shy, socialize. Comment and respond to comments. Repin things you like because that’s what it’s all about. And most importantly, build a link to your websites through your photos and script. This is a big part of Pinterest so don’t neglect it.

Pinterest can be a useful social networking tool when used in the correct context. With the right application, you can make sure that you create a social network that benefits your particular business needs, even though your target audience is another business. 

Photo Cutting Machine for Small Business or Photo Studio Photo Cutter

Demand and Market of Photo Cutting Machine:

Photo Cutting machine is a unavoidable machine for Photo Studio. With this Photo Cutting Machine you can cut photos in indicated shape and size after taking or capturing photographs. You can also cut Identity Card or any paper in proper shape or size.

How to Cut Photographs or Identity Card with Photo Cutting Machine:

At first put the photo or Identity Card in the indicate place of the machine. Then press the handle and your photo or Card will be cut in directed shape or size with the blade fixed in the machine.

Price of the Photo Cutting Machine:

The price of the hand-operated Photo Cutting Machine is approximately Rs.3,000.

Where to buy the Photo Cutting Machine:

Bharat Machine Tools Industries,

61, Ganesh Chandra Avenue,

Kolkata-700013,

Phone No. 22368015

You can find many companies manufacturing a wide range of Photo Cutting Machine. Their machine matches high technology electronic control.

To read the reviews and buy the Photo Cutting Machine visit websites

www.alibaba.com

www.alibaba.com

www.midwayengravers.com 

You can find many Hand-type photo cutting machines here

You can find Photo Cutter Machine here

                                                                                                                                                                                       18^th July, 2012 KK