Why Businesses Get it Wrong on Twitter

Or are they getting it right?

For me the jury on this one is still out.

Twitter tends to be used in two ways by serious users on Twitter - i.e. not spammy idiots who are trying to get you to sign-up for a free laptop.

1. Usually used by business and is a broadcast medium sending their followers links to their new products or to their blog posts.

2. Communication between like-minded individuals about topics they're interested in, or maybe just their social lives, fun stuff etc. May consist of catching up or posting of links about topics they're interested in.

The ideal for business is to use Twitter how real people use it and actually have conversations with customers. But what so too often happens is that businesses revert to a broadcast marketing communications stance with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and vainly try to encourage participation from their Followers, but rarely succeed.

Yet they will get followers, don't get me wrong, and there is a positive outcome to being able to distribute broadcast messages via Twitter as people do pick them up and even retweet them if they are compelling enough.

But probably the best most businesses can hope for is to provide links of interest to like-minded people, hopefully some of whom might be prospects or customers too. The alternative is to really get under the skin and try to really be part of a potential twitter community that is interested in your type of product. But to do that you need pretty-much dedicated Twitter marketers, which is hard to justify with the prospect of uncertain returns.

One better and longer-term strategy is to not try to broadcast or engage directly, but to create content, products, that will get others talking about you on Twitter. Then you're going viral and you're onto a winner.

Email Marketing Best Practices

If you are thinking about marketing via email for the first time, or if perhaps you need a refresher on best practice for email marketing, here are my top tips for creating email marketing campaigns that work:

1. Do cover yourself for unsubscribes and data protection - make sure you have a clear and easy to use policy, and most importantly process any requests straight away.
2. Get your message across quickly and in a non-spammy but compelling way - that's the real art to email marketing. You want people to open the email, read the key message and then go and do something - preferably order or request more info, or get a free sample perhaps.
3. Short and sweet, but informative subject line - helps get that message across before they open the email.
4. Put your main message in the first line and then repeat the message using different wording before your sign-off - and repeat the same links too. Some people click straight away or get bored with long stretches of text, so don't allow them to get bored and close your email. Get them clicking instead.
5. Make it personal without being cheesy - talk to your customers like they're humans not idiots or computer manuals. Also treat them with respect and make the email personal - it should come from a real named person and they should be encouraged to email you back with queries. 
6. Less is more - an email is not supposed to be a catalogue or all-encompassing brochure. Get your message across simply and clearly so that your target audience take the appropriate action. 
7. Don't worry about fancy images too much, but do make sure your email looks formal enough to not be rejected as spam. Company logos and professional clean design will add to your email.
8. What ever you do don't make your email into a single image - this straight away looks spammy and also will lose you a lot of read email as often email software asks users if they want to download an image first. Who is going to download an image without being able to read the text? Well only a nosey marketer like me, or a moron, that's who!

I hope you find these tips useful. Hopefully you will have understand my clear message and taken the appropriate action!