I vowed that my next car was not going to set tire treads in a gas station. I have a solar powered house and the idea of plugging my next car into my roof gives me a green thrill, even if it doesn’t make much practical sense-yet.

Last week I prodded my partner Amir, who is a real car guy, to check out the new Tesla with me. The Tesla is to the automotive industry what Apple was to computing: A fresh approach to something we’ve been doing the same way for years.

The first thing that comes out of your mouth when you see this car is a soft whistle. Keep in mind that Amir has no patience for the Leaf, Prius or Volt (other clean cars). In his mind these are just compromises littering the highways. But once he sat behind the wheel of a Tesla, he said, “Now this is a car!”

Before getting in the car, you unplug it from the wall. The sensual door handles glide out from the door frame beckoning you inside – no key. Then – you just put your foot on the brake and… nothing happens. At least that’s what you think. But your electric chariot is humming and ready to rock, she’s just silent. I tightened my safety belt knowing that Amir was going to test the 0-to-60 MPH- in-under-4-seconds claim in short order.

Monster Meets Model S from Tesla Motors on Vimeo.

As predicted, not even outside the underground garage, Amir had this puppy in Mach 2. I was half waiting for a flight attendant to come down the aisle and check my safety belt. Holy shit, this thing was fast and it can go 240 miles without an electron refill.

The next thing you notice, once your eyes return to their sockets, is the central dashboard. Imagine a stunning display as large as two stacked iPads that probably control every aspect of the car and your life using a web browser, Google maps and an assortment of apps. Forget about texting while driving. Here, you have to keep drivers from uploading their blog posts while on the move. You can even eliminate the blind spots by turning on a rear view camera. In short, this is a back-to-the-future experience, beautifully done.

I can keep going, but that’s not the point of this post. Although I do have to add that it comes with an app that allows you to pre-warm or cool the car from bed. And if there is a problem, the Tesla technicians just log into your car remotely. No oil changes, no tune ups. It makes the 3,000 mile oil change ritual part of the Old Testament. Goodbye Jiffy Lube.

After all is said and done, the basic Tesla model sprinkled with leather and tech goodies costs about $1K/month to drive for 3 years. At that point, if you choose, you can return the car and Mr. Tesla will pay off the rest of your loan. It’s financing imitating a lease.

Once I heard the price, I ruled it out. My current car costs half as much, which is still too expensive. But that is why God created partners.

“Ronen, forget the money. Will you be comfortable driving this car? If so buy it.” Amir very eloquently took the money excuse off the table and since this would be a business expense and also come out of his pocket, this was a significant dare.

He was right; the crux of the issue is my image. I would not have a problem riding a $10K bicycle, but expensive fancy cars are not part of my personal brand. A little voice would argue that the extra money spent on this car can feed a small African village for several years, or can be better spent loading up the college savings account.

This thing screams status, which I detest. But on the other hand, it can plug into my solar roof and completes a clean and green story that I want to believe in. And if I want to stay out of the gas station, it’s a very tempting and innovative solution.

What do you think?

Posted as Taking The Tesla Test on The OpenMoves Blog

Me: Please tell us a little about yourself and your entry into SEO and online marketing, and now working with startups.

AH: While in law school in the late 90s, I dabbled in the Internet teaching myself website optimization which was the start of my path into digital marketing.  I founded Prime Visibility in 1998. It grew to about 70 people twice making the Inc. list of Fastest Growing Companies.  We worked with B2B, B2C, startups, Inc 1000, and Fortune 1000 companies. But I got the most personal satisfaction working with startups, taking an entrepreneur and turning their idea into a real business online.

Andrew Hazen founded Prime Visibility in 1998

When Prime Visibility was acquired in 2011, I left to pursue further entrepreneurial activities. And, after being away from Law for 12-15 years, I joined Ruskin Moscou Faltischek to help create their Digital Media Group, which is a new and exciting practice area: As you can imagine, there are so many unknowns in the digital world, between who owns these social media accounts, the use and administration of them, and privacy rights. The firm is seeing all new activity, from domain name disputes to M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions) to digital media asset purchases.

On Feb. 11, 2013 we opened LaunchPad, a 12,000 square-foot business incubator and accelerator in Mineola, Long Island, for startup and early-stage companies, offering seed capital, resources, industry know-how and experience to help bring their businesses to the next level. In less than 90 days we’ve leased all 12 offices.

Me: How did you find those companies?

AH:Most found us through people mentioning our names, or reading about us. Between Newsday and LIBN, on a weekly basis we are getting media exposure somewhere.

Rich Foster and Andrew Hazen founded LaunchPad on Feb. 11, 2013

And Meetup.com has been very helpful in getting us in front of people we typically want to get in front of – people working at home or at their local coffee shop who didn’t know about Andrew Hazen, or Rich Foster or LaunchPad! So Meetup is a nice connector for us. And our relationship with Listnet which has now officially moved in to LaunchPad, has been really big for us as well.

We also find technology companies are looking for talent, or like many executives at Computer Associates, for example, want to mentor other startups or other emerging companies.  We’re connecting them.

Me: How did you and Rich Foster meet?

AH: Michael Faltischek, a founding member of Ruskin Moscou Faltischek, introduced us in October 2012. Rich is a 23 year-old entrepreneur who has many successes. In one of our first meetings I shared with Rich my vision for LaunchPad: One location where startups would hang out and collaborate; where people would meet up and write on the walls and come up with ideas together. Rich’s extensive background includes construction and build-outs. He holds about 7 U.S. patents and has an interest in about a dozen portfolio companies. He also owns has a couple of construction companies.  When he and I started to look at office spaces, the costs were astronomical. So, given Rich’s construction experience we were able to do a build-out and remodel LaunchPad in the most cost-effective way. In addition, my friends and now partners, the Levine family, own the building where LaunchPad exists so part of the recipe for success for LaunchPad is to have entrepreneurial landlords with the same vision as Rich and me.

Me: So what’s the next stage for LaunchPad?

AH: The next stage includes generating more exposure. We really need one or two success stories to get more traction. We made an investment at the beginning of this year in GroupGift

ing.com and feel this will turn out well. That, coupled with another investment that takes on additional funding or sees some sort of exit, will be very advantageous to us as well. But, until then, you know we have to show the investor community as well as the startups that we’re good at what we say we are good at.

Me: Any thought of replicating LaunchPad?

AH: Good question!  As an addicted domainer, I’ve already procured at least 50 domain names, from LaunchPadSanJose, LaunchPadMiami and more, to LaunchPadFranchises.com. You name it. We’ve had serious interest in Atlanta and in Boca and there’s some interest in the Philadelphia and NJ areas. But – it’s not so easy to be in 15 different locations.

Me: What about other locations in Long Island?

AH: We looked at 2 locations in Happauge, 1 in Huntington, and another, east of 454. But are people participating to get access to Rich and me? How are you going to feel if you signed up via LaunchPad in Mineola and we’re only there half a day or one day a week? We’ll be doing a program at Stony Brook University, so if I’m there 2-days a week, and have other commitments… It’s interesting to see what LaunchPad is evolving into even 90 days into our start. And we are believers in the startup methodology, and following lean startup practices by having a business model canvas and pivoting where we need to. Our model today is different than it was 75 days ago.

But, if Rich and I intend to do up to 10 angel deals a year on Long Island, how many do we have to see? We’re thinking at least 300. Are there 300 new and exciting startups in Nassau and Suffolk counties?  3 months ago I would have said, yes, they’re out there – we just have to find them. I believe they are out there, I just don’t know if there are 300 a year, starting up.

Me: Are there any events or programs at LaunchPad of interest to established businesses like OpenMoves’ current clients — anything from small business to local ecommerce companies?

AH: We have a monthly speaker series. The calendar is online at our Web site LaunchPadLI.com. It covers everything from how to do negotiations, to what are the types of insurance to have for your business, to how to strategize for your business, exit strategies, how to raise capital… those could all be applicable to companies you’re dealing with.

We also have pitch night once a month or so.  4 or 5 startups pitch their business or their idea to our audience. So it’s good for people that either want to learn how to do sales and marketing better and how to pitch their company, and also for companies looking to expand, or for strategic partners or acquisitions or people to work with. You might find a potentially great strategic partner doing the pitch – a conversation could ensue, and hopefully, a marriage could follow.

We have startup weekends with 12 hours of tracked events. It’s a great resource for entrepreneurs, startups, or anyone who wants to be empowered to take their business to the next level.

Me: Last question…  any thoughts on where SEO and digital marketing are heading?

AH: SEO is becoming very personalized with geo-location. People perform the same search in different parts of the country, with different results. We’ll see more of that; sites that our friends have visited or liked, and the behavior of people in our social graph will have more influence on SEO. We went from Web 1.0 to 2.0, and now, apps and handheld mobile devices are going to outnumber desktops by next year. Mobile search is still in the very early stages.  Application of technology for mobile devices – that’s something that digital marketers and ecommerce companies should be trying to figure out now, how they can adopt this early on, to leverage digital and handheld devices.

Me: Anything I didn’t ask about you’d like to leave our readers with?

AH: LaunchPad is always looking for exciting ideas for businesses to invest in.

We have 1/4 million-dollar seed fund, so anyone with a great business idea or an early-stage company looking for money and — money-aside — looking for the right people to help them grow their business, should go to LaunchPadli.com and contact us and let us see what you’re all about.

Me: Thanks Andrew. Good talking to you.

Posted as A Conversation with Andrew Hazen on The OpenMoves Blog

Like many consumers, I recognize all the choices I have these days when I shop online. Before I buy a product, I usually check online customer reviews. A few bad reviews and I go elsewhere, looking for another supplier’s product.

Savvy vendors are aware that competing today takes extra effort – and they differentiate themselves by educating customers – mainly through their blog content — with good information and expertise. In other words, effective marketing is no longer about selling … it’s about teaching … one person at a time.

Your customers and prospects are going to listen to you if you provide genuine information that will resonate with them. It must be authentic. And the best way to accomplish that is to use your blog to provide solutions.

Start by making a list of the most commonly asked questions your salespeople hear and use that list as a guideline for your blog’s “editorial calendar.”

With your blog at the heart of your content marketing strategy, you can now use email and social media to promote it. That will help your site rank higher in the search engines and drive traffic directly back to your Web site, leading to profitable consumer action and enhancing your brand as an industry leader.

P2P is about nurturing your existing clients and prospects.
Here are four new social media P2P rules of thumb:

1. Focus more on teaching than selling.
2. When you post on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, educate, entertain or empower.
3. Write to your followers like people, not companies.
4. Be human. People like people, not faceless vendors.

Try these tools and tactics to initiate your P2P efforts:

• Give away free quality content in the form of whitepapers and case studies.
• Give away free samples of your work in the form of videos, slideshows, and so on.
• Align messages with communication channels.
• Encourage email sign up for all visitors who you drive back to your blog for lead nurturing.

Good P2P communication strategy can:

• Increase communications with clients.
• Drive traffic to your site.
• Keep your brand top of mind.
• Improve your online influence.
• Reach the friends and family of your clients and prospects with your message.
• Inform your audience of specials in real-time.
• Increase your search engine ranking.

Remember … whether your business is B2B (Business-To-Business) or B2C (Business-To-Consumer), it’s still all about being P2P – which means relating to people.

Use social media to get these P2P relationships started by boosting your SEO and increasing your findability.Social mediawill enhance your domain’s authenticity and reduce the time for Googlebot to find and index your content.

Remember, the more people who see you on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, and Pinterest, the more likely they are to open your email when it hits their inbox. And when they open it, they need to find Calls-To-Action (CTAs) and links back to your Web site or landing page.

Think of your marketing as an ongoing conversation. A good conversation requires both being a good listener and being relevant.

We’d love to hear how your business is making strides to nurture People-To-People relationships. by connecting with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and/ or Google+ .

Posted as Bridging The Person-To-Person Divide In Social Marketing on The OpenMoves Blog

The answer: Date fields to manage targeted, auto-generated email campaigns that message customers in a very timely fashion.

In this two-part article, we’ll discuss how to:

• Create date fields
• Manage list uploads
• Create triggered content
• Package it all up in an automated triggered send

Birthdays

Sending your customers a birthday wish (and perhaps gifting them with a discount coupon to celebrate) both builds loyalty to your brand and generates fresh business. Start the data collection process with a website signup form that includes a birthdate field.

Renewals

If your company is service-oriented and your POS or CRM data includes renewal dates, bring that information into an address book to automatically advise your customers of pending contract renewals.

Follow ups

POS systems often collect last purchased dates. Website social sites record the dates your registered users last logged in. This type of information is useful to produce triggered follow-ups, both personalized and targeted.

Creating a Date Field

To begin the data collection process, we’ll need to create a contact data date field. Here’s how:

1. Create a data field by navigating to Contacts > Contact data fields.

   

2. Click the green ADD NEW button to create a new field
   
3. Input a name for the field.Tip: the field name can be a maximum of 20 characters not including blank spaces.
   
4. Use the drop down selector to option a DATE data type.
   
5. Do not setup a default value, as the correct data is crucial to the process.
6. Make the access either PUBLIC or PRIVATE. Public data provides your contacts a way to update the information that you are collecting, as in a signup form that includes input for birthdate.
   
7. Save your good work!
8. Create a newsletter signup form that includes a birthdate data field. Alternatively, you can upload data directly from your POS or CRM.Tip: When uploading date fields from a spreadsheet, format the cell in date format. Excel will do this for you quickly.
   

   With the cells formatted correctly, save your spreadsheet in CSV (comma delimited) file format.
   

Now that we’ve got the data squared away, we’re ready to focus on the content and automated mechanism that fires it all off. Stay tuned next month! In Date Fields That Automate Email Campaigns, Part 2, we’ll define how to create a triggered campaign and wrap it all up with a triggered send.

Posted as Date Fields To Automate Email Campaigns, Part 1 on The OpenMoves Blog

That doesn’t mean ditching the e-newsletters you send to your clients and prospects; they will always appreciate fresh content. But sending regular e-blasts or e-newsletters to your entire database (also known as “batching and blasting”) requires ongoing creativity and content development.

On the other hand, automating your emails will achieve better results because they require less effort and have the highest ROI. That’s because they are:

• Sent individually using 1-to-1 marketing and not “batch and blast.”
• Targeted to the recipient’s behavior and interests and are therefore considered highly relevant.
• Are timely and can deploy a “drip mechanism” to stay top of mind.

As the survey indicates, the top three most successful email methods are all based on automated or triggered emails!

What do we mean by “automated email”?

Unlike your weekly or monthly e-newsletters, triggered emails are written once and then deployed throughout the year automatically based on certain criteria that you define, perhaps an event, a behavior, or lack of behavior. They can be one simple email or a drip series.

Let’s look at some of the more popular automated emails that you can use to maximize conversions with minimal effort:

The Welcome Email. The best time to develop a relationship with a prospect is when they just signed up to receive your e-newsletter or purchased an item for the first time — and you are “top of mind.” A welcome email is an automated email (or series of emails) sent automatically to a new subscriber at a predetermined frequency. Content can be a simple personalized “Thank You” with links to your blog and social media, or a series of emails introducing the reader to your services and company. Read more on creating a Welcome Series.

B2B Lead Nurture Drip. Say someone just filled out a form on your Web site for a free download of your software. Ideally a salesperson should follow up immediately. But whether they do or not, why not also send a series of three pre-written weekly emails that are personalized and specific to the person’s interest. They can describe, say, how to best use the software they just downloaded. You can sleep well knowing that anyone who fills out that form will get a lead nurture drip instantly — whether it’s midnight or your salesperson is on vacation.

Anniversary Drips. Perhaps you sell a product or service with an annual expiration or it’s a seasonal service like tax preparation. Consider automating a few simple reminders to trigger as you get close to term. Examples are automated reminders in January and February about your tax return service or a reminder 30 days before the end of the warranty to extend the agreement.

Birthday Emails. This is especially relevant to B2C firms that want to build long-term relationship with their constituents. Why not acknowledge their birthday and make a sale at the same time? An automated trigger with a birthday wish coupled with a discount is sent on the birthdate and then a second note two weeks later reminding them the offer is about to expire. You’ll generate goodwill and business!

Cart Abandonment. Typical e-commerce sites suffer from 70% cart abandonment. Whether you have a B2C or B2B site, win back as many as 20% of those “abandoners” with a three-part cart abandonment drip. Send an immediate email within 30 minutes of the abandonment as a reminder and then another one or two in subsequent days. You’ll be amazed how quickly you can increase your sales with this automated effort. Read more on Cart Abandonment emails.

Registration & Form Abandonment. This is more typical of B2B business where you may have an event registration (perhaps a tradeshow or webinar) and find that you have lots of browsers but few registrations. Deploy a three-part form abandonment email drip that is personalized and has more information on the event and why they should register now (maybe an expiration date, a discount, or the fact that there are only a few seats left). Typical conversion is is 10-20%.

Like the idea of automated email? Try these tips:

• Plan your drip campaign and frequency carefully.
• Remember to have evergreen content and promotions that are good for 6-12 months.
• Use personalization wherever possible.
• Automated emails don’t have to be fancy; short text emails are perfectly fine for many drip campaigns.
• The first email should be sent immediately following the recipient’s behavior.

It can’t be stressed enough — the highest return in email marketing comes from some sort of automated triggered messages. They work tirelessly for you while you eat and sleep, and they make sure you stay in touch with your constituents, always focusing on conversion.

All the above functionality is available within the OM3 platform. If you want to see how easy it is to create a triggered email series please sign up for a free demo account and go to the Campaigns tab/Triggered Campaigns

Posted as Maximize Your ROI With Triggered Emails on The OpenMoves Blog

Don’t use social media as a substitution for SEO, or instead of email marketing, or as your main content creation engine. The role of social media is to magnify your online presence and amplify ALL of your other branding and marketing efforts. In 9 Step Social Media Plan for Marketers and Business Owners, social media is referred to as “the enabler of the internet.” Let’s take a look at how social media does this. How Social Media Turbo Charges Search Social media turbocharges search by reducing the time for Googlebot to find and index your content. Tweets have been known to cut indexing time by 50%. Social media will also enhance your domain’s authenticity – an important search engine ranking factor — by showing real engagement and value to readers. Social shares can signal freshness to Google’s algorithm, giving you additional relevance in ranking. How Social Media Ignites Email Marketing The email and social media relationship goes beyond adding social share buttons and pressing the ‘Send’ button. Social media primes the motor of your email list. The more people see you on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest and so on, the more likely they are to open your email when it hits the inbox. And when it is opened, it should contain CTAs and links back to your website or landing page. The objective of your email should be to lead visitors back to your website. So the links that you promote on social media should lead back to where your email content lives on your website.

BEFORE SENDING YOUR EMAIL:

Along with including ‘follow us’ icons and social share buttons, your email campaign will explode in shareability by doing the following before you send: Click-To-Tweet

Select a snippet or two from within the email (under 140 characters) and create a “Click To Tweet link like: “Has college prepared you for today’s marketing?”  When the reader clicks this, a pre-filled tweet will open on their twitter account for them to send.

Easy as that! Make sure to include: Catchy Snippet Shortened link back to content on website. Your twitter handle so you can track the mention. Hashtag to extend reach of tweet.

Enable Sharing On Pinterest

Include eye-catching images and provide “Pin-it” buttons for images within your email content.

Make Subscribing Easy

Include a subscribe link in your email so that if it is shared with a friend, that reader can easily opt-in and sign up. Also make sure that your homepage includes an easy to find sign-up form to subscribe to your emails. Trackable Links

Use Google’s ‘link builder tool’ or Hootsuite’s ‘url shortner’ to create trackable UTM links. Build trackable UTM links into your marketing emails in the form of links to your website blog or landing. Claim Authorship of your Content on Google+

In addition to socializing your content, Google authorship helps your searchability. Once authorship is established with Google, information will appear in search results for content you have published or created. You’ll need a Google+ Profile with a good, recognizable headshot as your profile photo. Then, verify authorship of your content by associating it with your profile.

AFTER SENDING YOUR EMAIL:

Optimize shareable content by sizing images and character counts correctly for each platform. Include #hashtags, trackable shortened links and @mentions whenever possible. And then monitor them in a social media listening dashboard. Facebook Posts Post to your Facebook company page with a compelling headline, excerpt, shortened link to ‘content homebase’ and optimized image (no wider then 360px). Ask your employees to share the post with their friends as well. Facebook Advertising One of the easiest ways to advertise on Facebook is to promote an individual post. There is also a pay-per-click option where you compose a text/image ad, and then either pay per 1,000 impressions (CPM) or on a per-click basis (CPC). For more info read: 3 Ways to Start Advertising on Facebook Click Image To Download Checklist Tweet Away For every email campaign that you send out, you should chop your content into 5-10 tweets, and drip them out over a few days following the send. Make sure to include a shortened link and appropriate hashtag to extend the reach of each tweet. Leverage LinkedIn Post to your LinkedIn company newsfeed with link to ‘content homebase’ and image. Also share with relevant LinkedIn groups for targeted delivery. Google+ Make post public and share with your Google+ circles with optimized image, a compelling headline, excerpt and shortened link to ‘content homebase’. Show Pinterest Love Pin images from your ‘content homebase’ that coincide with the email onto Pinterest. When images are pinned from a website, that image retains the original source-link. This means that each time a user “repins” the image to their own board, the website gets a source-link on each of the repinned images that now exist on other users’ boards.

Stand Out From The Herd-

Posted as Don’t Use Social Media… on The OpenMoves Blog

Typically, we apply a broad, brute force approach: bring in more visitors and you get more sales. Say your conversion rate is 2% and you have 10,000 visitors a month, generating 200 sales a month. If you double your traffic to 20,000 visitors each month, you’ll generally double your sales as well, to 400 a month (assuming, for the sake of argument, all other variables don’t change).

The obvious place to concentrate that effort is in growing your organic (free) traffic to your site through search engine optimization (SEO). And you may also have an active PPC or Google Adwords campaign, and, hopefully, you are engaged in email marketing and social media to increase engagement with your clients and stay top of mind.

But SEO and other forms of brute force marketing are sometimes not enough. You have to optimize for conversion.

Imagine instead, you lift your conversion rate, by just 1 percentage point, to 3%. Now you’ll see 300 sales per month. And if then, you double your traffic, the same 20,000 visits will produce 600 sales each month rather than 400 — an increase of 300% rather than 200%.

It’s way more efficient. And it’s usually way easier, to convince more of the people who are already on your site, to buy, than to find more to come and then buy.

So how does this work? How do you increase your conversion rate?

The Basics of Conversion Optimization

Here are the 3 key steps you need to take to ensure robust conversion rates:

1. Add a clear call-to-action on every page, so a visitor will always know what to do next

You have traffic. Now what? A prospect who lands on any page on your site from search, email, an ad, or anywhere, needs to know what to do next. And you only have a few seconds to make that clear, with a very strong, obvious and compelling call-to-action.

Many e-commerce sites don’t make the “Add-To-Cart” or “Buy Now” stand out enough. And they clutter the checkout process with side offers and unrelated content. Instead, make the Add-to-Cart and all other steps necessary to finalize a purchase obvious and clear.

Rather than simply push traffic to your site and hope for the best, you need to control what happens when a visitor arrives at your site. Every page needs an unambiguous, primary call-to-action. And product listings should be available for purchase from the intial page (don’t make a user click three clicks until they see a price or a promotion). .

2. Give visitors the confidence and information they need to shop on your site

On your product pages, give visitors all the information they need – up front — to make a buying decision. That means product price, possible size/color variants, availability, reviews and/or testimonials, product demos, cross-sells and up-sells, and more. On your shopping cart page, make shipping and tax information obvious as well. And at the same time, continually boost their confidence levels with secure shopping badges and multiple payment methods.

3. Make checkout ridiculously easy

You may have implemented “cart abandonment” functionality to recapture abandoned shopping carts by e-mailing users and offering, say, free shipping or other incentives to persuade them to click back and complete their otherwise lost orders. That’s a great thing to do, often significantly improving conversion rates. But don’t rely on cart abandonment clean-up alone. Do what you can to minimize the need for it by removing the barriers and obstacles to completing a purchase. (Did you know that the primary reason for cart abandonment is shipping costs?)

Don’t complicate the checkout process. Keep it simple. Declutter as much as possible. Once your visitor is in the checkout funnel, remove external links and offers. Make it easy to sail through checkout to the receipt page — and more difficult to go back and browse some more. Remove distractions.

Create a positive, supportive user experience on your site, enabling your visitors to find the solutions they seek, or the products they need, easily and quickly. Guide them from one page to the next, with clear calls-to-action, and links to related and supporting info. Make checkout easy, secure, and hassle-free. And your conversion rates will rise significantly!

And most importantly, use analytics – check what is working and where potential buyers drop out of the funnel. Go back and tweak some more. Need help? Click Here to contact OpenMoves for a usability and conversion audit of your site.

Posted as 3 Steps to E-commerce Conversion Optimization on The OpenMoves Blog

Marketing is evolving at an unprecedented rate. In an attempt to catch a breath, over 1000 of the brightest minds from around the world including Australia, India, Israel, the UK, Latin America and Spain, assembled in early April, in San Diego for what could be called the TedTalks of Social Media.

Michael Stelzner—SMMW13 Mastermind

Organized by Michael Stelzner, Social Media Marketing World 2013 (#SMMW13) set a new standard for idea sharing and harnessed the power of like-minded thinkers to form a petri dish of social inspiration.

The opening keynote featured Michael Stelzner, Larry Benet and Mari Smith. During it,  Stelzner asked the simple question, “Has college prepared you for today’s marketing?” and we suddenly realized that it hadn’t.

Over the span of 3 intense days, 33 of the top social media professionals — from companies like LinkedIn, Intel, Sharpie, HubSpot, and many more — began to plug the holes with their social media marketing strategies, tricks, and tips that have proven successful in today’s marketing climate.

Salesmen are out – Educators are in

Chris Brogan— CEO of Human Business Works

Marketing is no longer about selling; it is about teaching. Consumers are so well informed nowadays, thanks to the web. Outbound marketing, gimmicky taglines and salesy agendas thrown at faceless masses are no longer working.

Today’s inbound marketing is all about attracting clients by enabling them to find you. Once they do, convert them into brand advocates and let them spread your message for you.

Openmoves sat front and center as Chris Brogan captivated a standing room only crowd with his magic formula to building a better online digital presence: Outposts –> Media Empire — > Homebase (or Email). (To dive deeper into this concept, check out Mastering your Digital Channel).

5 new, social media selling rules (click to tweet)

1. “Never post on Facebook if you aren’t educating, entertaining or empowering.” ~ Amy Porterfield
2. Speak to your followers like friends, not companies.
3. Be human. People like people, not companies.
4. “Focus less on selling more, and more on teaching more.” ~Jay Baer
5. “Social isn’t about B2B or B2C, it’s about P2P.” ~Mark Schaefer

Content marketing is the new black

Many say that content creation is the most challenging part of marketing today. What makes it so difficult? Genuine, qualitative content cannot be faked and it cannot be automated. It requires time, sweat, knowledge, teamwork and recycling.

Jason Miller from Marketo revealed that this effort can be reduced by tapping into and reusing existing content. He compared it to our approach to the Thanksgiving turkey: “Content should be repurposed and then repurposed some more!”

5 new, social media content rules (click to tweet)

1. Create 10 different tweets for every 1 blog post
2. Recycle content to create giveaways like eBooks, cheat sheets, …
3. “The future is having a marketing plan for each piece of content you create.” ~Jay Baer
4. “If you can’t create enough content – outsource it.” ~Brian Carter
5. “Write content that people will go back to, like a recipe.” ~Chris Brogan

You need to be blogging right now!

Lee Odden SMMW13 Sketchnotes

Your blog is your content warehouse. It is the heart of your content marketing strategy. Using social media to promote your blog, keeps your brand findable with search engines, drives traffic directly back to your website, helps initiate profitable consumer action, and enhances your position as an industry leader.

If you are still not sold on the power of blogging, keep in mind that the Huffington Post started as a blog in 2005. Then in 2011, it was acquired by AOL for $315 million.

5 new, social media blogging rules (click to tweet)

1. “Content is the fire and social media is the gasoline.” ~Jay Baer
2. “86% of Influencers blog.” ~Michael Stelzner
3. “80% content, 20% promotion. 80% focus on *them*, 20% focus on you.” ~Mari Smith
4. “The blog is the rug that ties the entire room together.” ~Jason Miller
5. “The blog gives me a lot of opportunities; the newsletter provides me business.” ~Chris Brogan

Above all GET THE EMAIL!

The most resounding message throughout the SMMW13 conference was the importance of email list building and lead nurturing through targeted dynamic email campaigns. The more people see you on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Slideshare and Pinterest, the more likely they are to open your email when it hits the inbox. And the inbox is where your subtle selling should begin.

5 new, social media + email marketing rules

1. “The best way to convert your leads is email marketing.” ~Amy Porterfield
2. “Facebook marketing as a holistic approach should combine email marketing, landing pages to convert.” ~Amy Porterfield
3. “Our email list is at the core of what we do at SM examiner.” ~Michael Stelzner
4. “Calls to action on your blog to create conversion to email list = gold.” ~Michael Stelzner
5. “The inbox is the best social network in the world.” ~Chris Brogan

If you have questions or need help putting these ideas in motion, give us a shout at info@openmoves.com.

Posted as New Rules for Social Media from SMMW13 on The OpenMoves Blog

The free Preview tool strips away the editing guides and emulates the display of your email as your contacts will see it. We offer test sends too, to get the campaign in your inbox, and we offer Inbox Tests through our partners at Litmus to show your email in dozens of inboxes (paid option) – but the preview tool is instant. Up until now, it only showed what your email would look like on a typical desktop or laptop screen.

We have great news!

Now you can see how your campaigns will display on mobiles and tablets, too. Click on Preview and you’ll get to toggle between desktop, tablet and mobile views. Rotate the mobile devices, to test out portrait and landscape modes.

Desktop View

Tablet View

Smart Phone View

Also new is the ability to see your campaign with images turned off. With some email clients — like Outlook, Gmail, and Androids — disabling images by default, it’s good to test that your key message still gets through. The ability to preview the email as a contact still exists, as does previewing a campaign with dynamic content, but the preview tool has been re-skinned and is little bit easier to use.

Images Off

Using IE?

Our apologies… if you’re an Internet Explorer user, we have some bad news. Although you’ll still benefit from the new Preview tool, you won’t get the option to test on mobiles or tablets. Mobile-compatible campaigns use Media Queries, and IE doesn’t have great Media Query support. In fact, IE8 and below doesn’t support it all; IE9 and 10 do, but it’s patchy at best.

All users of Chrome, Firefox, and Safari will get this (and these browsers are free, if you fancy a change).

Inbox Tests

Although the new Preview tool allows you to get previews across mobiles and tablets, it’s NOT a replacement for Inbox Tests. Previews are approximate – we’ve used average screen sizes for the devices. To see exactly what your campaign will look like on any particular device, send off an Inbox Test and await the results!

Posted as Improved Preview Tool on The OpenMoves Blog

Well… there are 4 kinds of subscribers who are reading your emails, and each of them has a different motive for numerous opens. Let’s examine these four groups and figure out why your emails are getting opened so often.

The Raving Fan

This reader loves your business and adores your emails. This customer values your content so much they park it and return a few times to finish reading the piece.

Tip: Make it easy for these readers to spread the joy. They’re are excited about your business and messaging, so put them to work for you. Add social sharing icons prominently to your templates so your raving fans can forward their favorite articles and emails to their colleagues, giving your business more reach.

The Email Forwarder

This reader gives your content the highest form of flattery by wanting to share your email with his buddies. When that person’s colleague opens the email, it’s recorded as an open from the original readers’ email address.

Tip: Incentivize your readers to forward your emails by placing a forward to a friend button prominently. Since forwarding is trackable, consider rewarding the number #1 forwarder. Make it easy to find your sign-up page for those recipients that want to join your list from a forward.

The Mobile Reader

This person, like the rest of the planet, first scans your email on the phone and then may decide to read it in leisure and on a big screen back at the office or at home.

This means two things for your email campaign, one good and one not-as-good, but fixable. The good part: your customer likes your email enough to read it a second time at the office. The bad part: this probably means your emails aren’t easy to read on a mobile device, making it less convenient for your readers.

The Preview Pane-er

This reader isn’t actually opening your email multiple times. For people who use the preview pane feature to scan their emails, your email can show up in the preview window as they scroll through messages in their inbox.

Open rates are determined by embedding a tiny, invisible image in your email (your email service provider deploys this tracking automatically). Each time the image is displayed, it’s counted as an open. So, those preview pane “scan-bys” display as opens, even though your message wasn’t fully opened and maybe not even read.

Tip: It’s important to design your messaging to be preview pane friendly with the most important bits at the top of the message to attract the attention of the scanners. This kind of design strategy can get your message across even if the email isn’t actually opened and images are turned off.

Interpreting open rates is a combination of both art and science. The extensive reporting can give you the data you need, but some intuition is required to understand behavior. Since advanced email platforms can tell you which type of email client, operating system and IP address was used to read your emails, you can make some educated assumption about your readers, their reading habits and the digital trail they leave behind.

If you are already an OM3 user and would like to sharpen your email marketing skills, Click Here to sign up for one of our training webinars.

If you have a question or problem and need to talk it over with our support specialists, Click Here to contact our Support Center.

Posted as Why people read your email several times? on The OpenMoves Blog