Author Archive | Anna Spooner

Email Newsletters – Do They Engage or Annoy?

As you work with clients on their marketing mix, you’ll face a common question: Do email newsletters still work? Or are they a thing of the past, bothering more people than they engage?

With the rise of other, trendier marketing strategies, such as new types of social media marketing, the concept of sending a newsletter via email has taken the marketing backseat to some extent.

But that’s not the way it should be. The scope and effectiveness of email marketing and newsletters have been vastly underestimated lately. Is your client hard to convince? Share these statistics with them:

Of all the marketing emails sent, 78% of them are sent to a personal email account. (Meaning that the receivers are more likely to open them!)
70% of email readers will open emails sent from a brand that they know in order to look for deals, coupons or specials.
Facebook and Twitter may be trendier, but email marketing is 40% more successful at acquiring new leads and clients than either of the two social media giants.

Still not so sure how to encourge clients to use email newsletters? Keep reading…

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5 Characteristics of Emails That Get Opened

By Anna Spooner in Email Marketing

Email marketing yields an average 4,300% return on investment for businesses in the United States. In other words, for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return on investment is $44.25.

That’s some pretty crazy return on investment right there – if your clients are not already using email marketing, they need to get started with that today.

But what if they’re already utilizing this effective marketing strategy and it’s just not working because people aren’t opening their emails?

Don’t fret – here are a few solid characteristics of emails that get opened time and time again. Continue Reading →

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Why I Hate Kittens… in Marketing

By Anna Spooner in Marketing Impact, Marketing Strategy

A while ago I was jarred by one of the most “what the heck?” commercials I’d ever seen. Taylor Swift was drinking a Diet Coke. And every time she took a drink there would be more white kittens in her living room. So she took a lot of drinks, and played with the kittens.

End of commercial.

WHAT? Continue Reading →

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Right Place, Right Time, Clear Message… No Impact

By Anna Spooner in Marketing Impact

When I was in college, there was a central area of campus flanked by five buildings that was called the Pentacrest. There was always a certain person with a large presence in that area. We called him the Pentacrest Preacher. Day after day he would position himself along the sidewalks of the Pentacrest when large numbers of students were walking by, shouting his message of sin and repentance. We all heard him, but there was one problem – no one was listening.

According to traditional marketing ideas, the preacher was doing everything right. He identified his target market. He crafted a targeted message with a clear call to action. He found out where his target market was located, and when they were there. He positioned himself in that place at the right time, and shouted to make sure he was heard. Right place, right time, clear message… but no impact.

Why?

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3 Elements to a Great Brand Story

By Anna Spooner in Marketing Impact

Have you noticed that most websites are ‘Me, me, me?’ Your client might be selling the best product ever made, but if their site is all about how great they are, they won’t gain customers. Customers aren’t interested in how awesome someone else is. They’re interested in their own struggles.

A much better approach is for a business to have a story – complete with drama and a heroic ending – to connect with customers. Once your client has defined who they are and who their customers are, connect the two by creating a great brand story. These three elements are key.

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When Content Marketing Goes Wrong

By Anna Spooner in Uncategorized

One July a couple years ago, my husband and I went on a road trip. It was short – about 4 hours one way. Since both of us are very casual travelers, we took a side trip and did other things to make it fun.

Until the car broke down.

Sitting in the middle of the rural Midwest in sweltering heat with a dead car, it would have been easy to panic. Instead, we kept each other calm, called for help, secured a rental, and carried on with our trip. That experience taught me a lot about what to do when a crisis hits.

Business is the same. Just like a vehicle, our best-laid plans sometimes break down. A staffer may send an offensive tweet on the company account, forgetting it’s not his own. A change in policy or products may lead to an army of angry customers commenting on your client’s Facebook page. No matter the case, there are three steps that can take you from being broken down and put your client’s company back on the road to success.

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To Post, Or Not To Post?

By Anna Spooner in Uncategorized

When advising clients regarding content strategy, one question that always arises is “How often should we put up new content?” Some folks advocate a daily posting schedule to a blog, with more frequent posting to Twitter and other social media. Others advocate a weekly blog post, with daily or every-other-day to Facebook or other social media. This article will look at both sides, focusing on blog post frequency.

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4 Simple Steps to Creating Great Content Without an Expert

By Anna Spooner in Helping Clients

Landing a new account is a great boost for any marketing firm, but creating content for the new client can be tricky if you don’t have a subject matter expert. Fortunately, there are simple steps your firm can take to create high-quality, targeted content for your client even if you don’t specialize in the industry.

1. Get a Clear Understanding of the Client’s Goals, Customer, and Market

Before you have any idea what content is needed or what platforms are helpful, it’s important to get a handle on the client’s current market position and target customer base. If they don’t have an existing ideal customer profile, help them create one – or more than one, if needed. All content your firm creates will be aimed at the person or persons described in the profile. Many companies create content that is too broad or to company-centric. When content is correctly targeted to an individual ideal customer, it will resonate and convert.

It’s also important at this stage to understand what the client’s primary goal with the content creation process is. Understand how they define success and your firm will be positioned to blow their minds with your results and gain a long-term customer with ongoing marketing needs.

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Testimonials

"Working with Anna was easy and effective. She helped me focus on getting the customers I wanted, not ones I'd feel stuck with. Within a few days of launching the email series she created, I had new clients."

Stuart Townsley

Townsley Portraits
http://www.townsleyportraits.com/

08/29/2016

Anna is an absolute pleasure to work with. Not only is her work pitch-perfect, as is her ability to tailor her writing voice to suit any industry or style of copy, she's punctual, personal, and very thorough in her work. Her pleasant, upbeat attitude in tackling assignments really comes through in everything she does. I highly recommend Anna for any project you may have that requires a responsive, detail-oriented writer.

Lana Cooper

Anna has been my most reliable freelancer at SEER Interactive. She consistently delivers quality work on schedule, and is always more than willing to help out when you're in a bind. Perhaps Anna's best asset is her ability to develop quality content across a variety of verticals and niches, including but not limited to finance, health, technology, and marketing/business. Even when the topic isn't necessarily her forte, she excels at digging in and doing enough research to demonstrate deep understanding of the subject matter in her writing. I would recommend Anna to any agency in need of quality content for a wide variety of clients. And I hear she makes great fudge, too.

Cary, SEER Interactive