VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

12 Steps to Becoming a Natural at SEO - Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of our 12 Steps to Becoming a Natural at SEO. In Part 1, I covered the basics of SEO such as the difference between SEO and PPC, writing title and meta tags, structuring your URLs and website efficiently, or how having great content can help with generating organic traffic. So let's jump into #7-#12:

7. Get the Word (and Links) Out

If you're reading this blog, you probably have one of your own, along with Facebook, Twitter and all sorts of other social media pages. So why not take advantage of these online properties to boost the SEO value of your main website? Not only can you link back to it from those pages, you can leverage your existing online community whenever they choose to repost any content that you share. So once again, having fresh, interesting content is a great way to climb the rankings. 

Don't forget about offline promotion either: list your website URL on your business cards, tradeshow booths, direct mail pieces, etc. Building this reputation can only lead to faster discovery by those who are interested in what you have to offer, and by extension by search engines. 

8. Give your Links Extra Weight

Anchor text is the clickable text that users will see as a result of a link. It should be concise while being descriptive enough to tell users and search engines what the page you're linking to is about. For instance, linking sign up might be better than a generic click here when inviting people to your webinar.

You can use anchor links not just as external links to direct people to outside websites, but as internal links as well, which can help visitors and spiders navigate your website better. 

9.  Say It with More Than Words

You may think that images only serve to illustrate and break your text, since they can't be worth 1,000 (key)words to a spider, right? Au contraire, they are also a main component in optimizing your web page. See, each image you add has a different filename and alt text (just like in your emails), so in case a visitor is viewing your page using a browser that doesn't support images, he/she will still be able to read information about your picture instead of "image1.jpg."

• Use brief but descriptive filenames and alt text, mixing in some of those search query-friendly keywords we've discussed. 
• Supply alt text when using images as links, as it will help search engines understand more about the page you're linking to, just like what anchor text does for your text links. 
• Create an Image Sitemap file to provide spiders with more information about the images found on your site, similar to the XML Sitemap file I mentioned when talking about your site navigation. 

10. Get Mobile

We recently reviewed a few mobile sites that we loved, but before we can add yours to the list let's make sure we can find it!

• Make sure it is indexed by the main search engines: create a Mobile Sitemap once your mobile site is ready and submit it to the search engines to inform them of its existence. 
• Verify your mobile URLs are crawlable: some search engine have mobile-specific spiders, so check your mobile site's permissions in order to grant them access. Also (sorry to get all technical on you), make sure your URLs' Doc Type Definition (DTD) declaration is in an appropriate mobile format such as XHTML Mobile or Compact HTML.
• Redirect mobile users to the correct version: of course you'll want desktop users to access the desktop version of your site and mobile users the mobile one, not the other way around. Thankfully, search engines are able to detect the relationship between the desktop and mobile version of the URL if you redirect them accordingly. Also, point mobile users to the specific page they were looking for, not the homepage of your mobile version of your website by default. 
• Don't get flagged for "cloaking": cloaking is when a website tries to cheat the system by serving different content to spiders than to regular users in order to boost its rankings, which can lead to disappearing from search results, which would be bad. To avoid that, simply switch content based on User-agent in case your desktop and mobile URLs are identical.

11. Love Thy Numbers

Of course, after putting in all these efforts to optimize your website, you'll want to track the fruits of your labor. Tools such as Google Analytics and Omniture SiteCatalyst can provide you with in-depth metrics on how much organic traffic you are now attracting, which keywords are driving this traffic, how much revenue it is generating, how your competitors' websites are performing, etc.

Also, Google and Bing each offer their own version of Website Optimizer, a neat little tool that allows you to run tests on which on-page changes will generate the best results, conversion rate-wise. Did I mention how much we love testing here at VerticalResponse? 

12. Your Ultimate Consumers are your Users, not Search Engines

Despite all the technicalese I just shared with you, remember that your website is meant to be read by human beings, not electronic spiders. Some tweaks might help you gain a couple of spots in the organic rankings, but if they hinder the user experience then you will have taken 2 steps back instead of one forward. Your site's visitors are the main readers of your content and are using search engines to find it, so base your optimization decisions first and foremost on what's best for them.

And that concludes our 2-parter on getting started with SEO. Search isn't an exact science, just like email marketing it requires a lot of tweaking, tinkering and testing, but these 12 tips and tactics should give you a great head start.

What else have you done or planned on doing to boost your natural rankings?

 

Posted by My Truong

My Truong is the Marketing Programs Manager at VerticalResponse. Connect with him on Twitter @PtitMy. 

 

 

Related Posts:

12 Steps to Becoming a Natural at SEO - Part 1

SEO for Small Business - 5 Tips that Will Give You a Bang for NO Bucks!

12 Steps to Becoming a Natural at SEO - Part 1

At my first job out of business school, I was tasked with implementing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for the website of the company where I worked. First, as green as I was, I knew this was a big deal and was shocked at the fact that it hadn't been undertaken yet. I mean, in a day and age where people don't even bother typing in URLs anymore and just go straight to Google or Bing, what's the point of having the best product/service in the world if no one will be able to find it? Second, I remember feeling completely overwhelmed by the amount of information available and work that needed to be done on our website at the time.

I stepped back, took a deep breath, and proceeded to strip it down to a few basic action items that could help boost our rankings in relatively quick fashion. And guess what? It worked out pretty well. After a few months our natural search traffic increased 213% year over year! So I thought I'd share 12 tips and tricks that helped increase our organic rankings. This is the first of two posts that will each contain 6 SEO take-aways. Fret not, they're no Labors of Hercules, but they should be more than enough to give you a proper foundation to start optimizing your website.

1. SEM vs. PPC vs. SEO: WTH?

You've probably seen these acronyms floating around as you were doing your research (the first 3 at least). Here's a refresher on what they mean:

• SEM/PPC: Search Engine Marketing and Pay Per Click usually refer to a form of online advertising that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising and paid inclusion. In some instances, SEM is used as the umbrella term for both PPC and SEO. Paid results can be found at either the top or right hand-side of search result pages. 
• SEO: Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or web page in search engines via unpaid search results, otherwise known as "natural" or "organic" results. In general, the earlier or higher a page gets ranked on the search results page, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. Unpaid results constitute the main portion of these results. 

Here's a visual that shows it in action: 

Above is what you typically get when typing "VerticalResponse" into a search engine. In the red rectangle are the paid search results, and in blue, the organic ones. 

 

2. Create Brief, Unique and Accurate Page Titles

Let's go back to our previous search results:

When your web page comes up in the listings, the title tag will appear in the first line and link to said page. You can also find it at the top of your browser window:

When writing a title tag, try to keep these best practices in mind:

• Make sure it accurately describes the page's content and effectively communicates its topic. For example, you can list the name of your website/company and a few bits of information about what the company does, using keywords that are likely to be typed in user search queries. In our case, "email marketing" or "social media" would be good options. 
• Make your title tag unique for each page so that "search spiders" (the programs that "crawl" websites on behalf of the search engines) will know that given page is distinct from the others on your site.
• Keep it brief and to the point as users want to be able to scan through results and click on what seems most relevant to their query in a hurry. Also, as with email subject lines, if your title is too long the search engine or browser header will only show part of it. 

 

3.  Paint the Picture with your Meta Tags

A page's description meta tag gives searchers and search engines a summary of what the page is about. It's usually the paragraph located below the title tag in your results:

Notice I said "usually." Sometimes the search engine might decide that another portion of your page is more relevant to the query and show it instead of the actual meta tag. To make sure that doesn't happen and your carefully crafted description gets the attention it deserves, here are a couple of tips:

• Accurately summarize the page's content. Write a description that both informs and interests users enough to draw their mouse pointer toward your link. 
• Use unique meta tags for each page. Just like for title tags, each page should get its own distinct description, especially in cases where multiple pages from your website show up in the same search query. 

 

4. Clean Up Your URLs

In addition to the title and meta tags, simple to understand URLs will be more click-friendly to users, while informing them of the exact content of your page. For example, if given a choice between http://www.verticalresponse.com/email-marketing and http://www.verticalresponse.com/0123456789/9876543210, which one would you click? My thoughts exactly. 

• Use relevant keywords in your URLs. Not only will this help visitors remember your links better and make them more willing to click on them as mentioned above, it will make the URLs easier for spiders to crawl as well. 
• Provide one version of a URL to reach a document. Use and refer to one unique URL for a given document to avoid splitting the reputation of that content between different URLs.
• Allow for the possibility of your URL being truncated. Consider what might happen if a user removes part of your URL, either voluntarily or accidentally. For example if a user were to shorten http://www.verticalresponse.com/email-marketing/social-sharing to http://www.verticalresponse.com/email-marketing/, you'll want to make sure it actually takes him/her to an existing page. This, however, is tied into your website's navigation structure. 

 

5. Throw Away the Ariadne Thread

The term "Ariadne Thread" harks back to the mazes and labyrinths made famous in Greek mythology. While making for great narrative, getting around your website should not be as complicated. A website's navigation is important in helping visitors find the content they want quickly, while at the same time helping search engines understand what the webmaster thinks is important. So to avoid either group getting lost, you can follow these few basic steps: 

• Create a simple, naturally flowing directory structure. Your site's directory structure should organize your content well, allowing users to go from general to more specifc content and letting them know where exactly they're at on your site. 
• Use mostly text for navigation. This will help spiders crawl and understand your site better, unlike Flash or JavaScript. 
• Put an HTML sitemap page on your site, and use an XML Sitemap file. The former will help your human visitors find what they're looking for, the latter will do the same thing, but for search engines. 
• Have a useful 404 page. If a visitor lands on a page that doesn't or no longer exists, instead of serving a generic "404 not found" page that will irritate him/her more than anything, why not create a custom one that provides links directing back to the more helpful content on your site?

 

6. Content is King, Always

Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other optimization techniques discussed here. Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site's reputation the most with both users and search engines. Beyond creating quality and well-written content, anticipate differences in users' understanding of your topic. In other words, keep in mind the different variations of search keywords or keyword phrases that users could type in while performing a search. For example, a seasoned email marketer might look for "CTA" while a new one might use a more general query like "action button."

Whoops, looks like my time is up. Stay tuned for Part 2 of our primer on SEO in the coming days, where we'll tackle some more exciting topics such as promoting your site, reporting (yes, numbers *can* be fun!) or how to make sure the mobile version of your site gets found. In the meantime, feel free to try out some (or all) of the tips outlined above and let us know how they worked for you!

 

Posted by My Truong

My Truong is a Marketing Programs Manager at VerticalResponse. Connect with him on Twitter @PtitMy.

 

 

Related Posts:

12 Steps to Becoming a Natural at SEO - Part 2

SEO for Small Business - 5 Tips that Will Give You a Bang for NO Bucks!

Learn from the Pros: Mobile Sites You Just Can’t Hate

When it comes to mobile websites, haters are gonna hate and boy, do they! In my quest and request of others to direct me towards their favorite mobile sites, the sound of crickets echoed in my eardrums. However, once I inquired about unfavorable mobile sites, the list was so long, I was sorry I asked! 

People are passionate about their mobile web navigation, and for a reason: They’re using their smartphones non-stop (guilty as charged). According to Morgan Stanley, by the year 2014, mobile Internet will surpass desktop Internet usage. That's a lot of on-the-go Internet browsing! With 1.08 billion smartphones in the world, maintaining a mobile site that satisfies is vital if you want to keep people coming back. Today, I’ll share the love and discuss three exceptional mobile sites you just can't hate. Let's learn from the pros:

1. Pitchfork Media
(m.pitchfork.com) 

As a music addict, wanting the latest and greatest music news at my fingertips quickly is of the utmost importance. Having the ability to actually read all of this information from an iPhone screen, in the words of David Bowie, “it ain’t easy.” Pitchfork, a music webzine, has incorporated the technology on its site to detect your pint-sized mobile device. After detecting your mobile, the site immediately directs you to the easy-to-read mobile version instead of dumping you onto a larger-than-life interface with microscopic font. The option to switch to a desktop version of the site is also available, if you so desire.
 
The site navigation is simple and clean, while still providing me with all of the music news, reviews, tracks, videos and features I’d normally find on the homepage of the desktop version. There's also a convenient menu tab at the very top that allows me to quickly navigate throughout the entire site.
 
Highlights: Mobile device detection, simple, easy and well thought out layout, yet still includes all aspects of original site.

 

2. ESPN
(m.espn.go.com)

I’ll admit, I don’t watch, follow, or play sports. However, I received such positive feedback regarding this particular mobile website, I had to check it out, and guess what? It’s pretty fun, even for someone as sports-challenged as myself. The site is not only optimized for nearly every mobile platform, it also provides fans with timely updates and immediate access to whichever team or sport your action-packed heart so desires. The most exciting aspect of the mobile site is “my ESPN” in which you can customize the site to your particular interests, speeding up your access to all things involving a ball, puck, or… see, I am bad at sports.
 
Highlights: Mobile optimization, timely updates, grouped sports pages, easy navigation, preference settings.

3. Airbnb
(m.airbnb.com)

This San Francisco start-up has seen dramatic growth since its inception in 2008. The site connects people worldwide who are looking for a temporary place to rent or rent out vs. taking your typical hotel or hostel route. Destination listings cover more than 19,000 cities, 192 countries and the site alone has made more than 100 million social connections.

This mobile site deserves major props for its aesthetically pleasing design. Rental listings are beautifully listed including pricing, map location, reviews and more including all necessary info that is easily organized and found under description, details and amenities tabs. A filter button on the homepage allows you to specify your searches depending on availability, and a fun pricing scale lets you slide your way into a preferred budget. You can also sign in via your Facebook account.

Highlights: Beautiful design, details, details, details (with little fuss), Facebook integration, slide and tap features for info-hungry hands.

 
Finding a fast mobile site that adheres to your device, is easy on the eyes, and doesn’t skimp on the details may seem like a dream (that you’d like to watch on your smartphone), but they're out there! So tell me, which mobile sites have you found that pleasantly surprise you, and which ones make you want to scream?

Posted by: Colleen Corkery

Colleen Corkery is the Lifecycle Marketing Coordinator at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @youcollme.

 

Related Posts:

• Email & Social Marketing - 2011 - A Year in Review
• Designing Your Email for Mobile Devices
• Email Delivery: How Your Email Looks in Different Email Clients
• Guide: 8 Rules for Creating Mobile Emails
  

Introducing Webinar Wednesdays!

Happy New Year, everybody! In the same calendar-turning tradition of "starting fresh," we're starting 2012 with our new "Webinar Wednesdays" series, offering plenty of informative and free webinars to help quench your mid-week thirst for knowledge (marketing knowledge, at least).

Plus, as an added bonus, if you attend any of these webinars, you'll receive a follow-up email with a super-exclusive special offer from VR!

So check out our full list of webinars for January and register for one or more today!

Email Delivery Changes in the New Year

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - 10 AM PST
Join delivery and marketing team members to learn more about email delivery, including changes that the top 4 ISPs have implemented and how that will impact your emails in 2012. 

Go Local! - Location-Based Marketing for Your Business

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - 1 PM PST
Location-based marketing couldn't be hotter right now. Whether you're a brick-and-mortar retail business or a national brand, geo-location tools can help you build buzz and drum up new business. Join Marketing team members as we cover:

• Which geo-location apps you need to know
• How to leverage them to build social buzz and drive foot traffic
• Innovative geo-location campaigns to inspire your planning

Maintaining Your Mailing List

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - 10 AM PST
It's a new year and time to do a little housekeeping to start things off right. This webinar will go over:

• Good list practices
• How to clean up your list
• Using segmentation, opt-in forms, plus more

Creating a Successful Email

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - 1 PM PST
Your email is a tool that helps you stay engaged with your customers and prospects and helps you grow your business. Join us as we discuss how you can strengthen your relationships and customer loyalty with an effective email.



Using Surveys For Your Business

Wednesday, January 25, 2012 10 AM PST
Learn how surveys can help build relationships with your customers and grow your business. We'll also go over how to use the VR Survey tool to choose a template, create and edit questions, and analyze the statistics collected.

Related Posts:

• Holidays You Don't Want to Forget to Remember
• How to Win Back Old Customers via Email
  

Posted by Brendan Hill.

Brendan Hill is a Lifecycle Marketing Coordinator at VerticalResponse. Connect with him on Twitter at @BrendanHill

Keep 'em Coming Back for More with Loyalty Programs

I received something in my mailbox recently that absolutely thrilled me. I reached gold card status at Starbucks and my new card arrived! If you didn't know, Starbucks lets you register any gift card, and then tracks your purchases made on that card. Once you reach a certain number, Starbucks will send you a gold card. In addition to the cool card with my name on it, I also get periodic free drinks and discounts on products.

Starbucks reminded me in the card info to update my email address so I know when my special deals arrive. Great for email marketing! By updating my address I'm also signing up for their marketing emails, an easy way to grow their list. Any business can do this, and you don't have to set up a special page on your site; this can also be accomplished in person at a register or in your store.

With the exception of the fancy card, this is a pretty simple loyalty program. You probably are part of one or more like this already: "Buy X sandwiches, get 1 free" or "Spend X amount of money in our store and save 25% off your next purchase." A simple punch card is an easy way to start a loyalty program for your regular customers. Knowing that buying from your company or using your service will earn them something in the future will help keep your company top of mind and keep customers coming back for more. There's even a new app called Stampt built specifically with this use in mind, making it easier and faster than ever to create your own loyalty program.

Really, my fancy new card just shows my dependence on caffeine. But now that I have reached this special level I will be more likely to think of Starbucks when I need a pick-me-up. And, that continued business is the true value of a loyalty program.

Are you using a loyalty program at your business? How do you make it work?

Posted by: Jill Bastian

Jill Bastian is the Training and Education Manager at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter @Jillieb3.

Big News! VerticalResponse Acquires Roost™ Social Media Marketing Platform

I’m super excited to let you in on some great news; VerticalResponse is adding a leading social media marketing platform to our list of powerful tools enabling you to engage with customers instantly; Roost by VerticalResponse.

What’s a Roost?
Roost is a compelling platform that enables small businesses to publish their own content, as well as suggested content to Facebook and Twitter instead of logging in and out of separate social networks. Reporting on clicks for posts is also provided.

What's in it for You?
Right now you may be publishing hosted versions of your email marketing campaigns to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. But what about when you want to post things that aren’t in your email marketing campaigns? You have to log into each of your networks and do your posts (lame). Then you don’t really know how engaging those posts have been (double lame). Roost to the rescue. Now you’ll be able to log into Roost, connect with your Facebook and Twitter networks (more networks to come) and publish. And for now, it’s free to use, so get on in there and check it out!

What & When Should You Publish To Your Social Networks?
What’s really cool is that you can publish one single post, or you can create a full-on time-saving campaign for the entire week or even the month. And Roost provides feeds of content, so if you’re a travel agent and need some content ideas, just enable the Travel feed and you’ll get content from publishers like Travel and Leisure, New York Times Travel Section, the Lonely Planet Blog and much more. Simply check the content you want to publish and when you want to publish it and voila! it will be automatically published! Cool eh? Roost also makes easy-to-implement suggestions on what to post and when. And since Facebook is displaying content in your feeds that has a higher engagement rate, it’s becoming more important for you to get your followers engaged with you and what you have to say.

What’s Next Janine?
Our work has just begun. We want to make it even easier for you to get new customers and engage with your current ones. So, in the future look for us to integrate all of our features under one roof, or in one interface or one single log-in as the geeks say. In the meantime we’ll add features to Roost that allow you to respond to Facebook and Twitter followers from the interface and we’ll add more social networks like LinkedIn and Google+.

Roost has a great team that I’m excited to work with and as we grow together, we’ll be thinking about even more ways to offer tools you can use to effectively grow your business.

I'd love to hear your feedback, so feel free to share your thoughts here.

Posted by Janine Popick.

Janine Popick is the CEO and founder of VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter.

BlogWorld Expo: 10 Steps to Engaging Online Influencers

VerticalResponse marketing team members, Ellery and Colleen, recently attended the BlogWorld Expo in Los Angeles. This is the first in a series of posts on their learnings from the conference.

A recurring theme at this year’s BlogWorld Expo was the importance of identifying and engaging online influencers to talk about your brand and, hopefully, help to build buzz around it. Influencers come in many forms, but bloggers and other active social networkers with large followings in particular, have the potential to put your company in front of a whole new audience. While services like Klout and PeerIndex exist to help make locating influencers easier, most BWE participants stressed that these ratings can only be part of the bigger picture when identifying influencers, and that no single metric will tell the whole story when it comes to finding the right ones for your publicity campaigns.

Once you’ve found a group of influencers to reach out to though, how do you contact and engage them in such a way that they’ll want to talk about your brand or product? Is sending free samples or offering endorsement deals enough in a very crowded market? These are exactly the questions that Arik Hanson and Greg Swan addressed in their BlogWorld session, Blogs, Bribes, and Blasphemy: Engaging Influencers in a Changing World. The takeaway: simply broadcasting your message through a megaphone and hoping it gets picked up just isn't enough in today's marketing environment. You need to cultivate and engage influencers in meaningful and impactful ways.

So where do you start? In their excellent session, Arik and Greg outlined ten steps to a successful influencer engagement strategy:

1. Personalize/individualize
2. Be brief, very brief
3. Don't solely focus on the "A-listers"
4. Don't forget about offline activities
5. Make your ask compelling
6. Lead with them, not you
7. Collaborate, don't preach
8. Always have a follow-up ask
9. Disclose paid relationships
10. Measure, evaluate, adjust

You can see the entire slide deck and commentary over on Arik's blog, which has more details and clarifications on each point. Influencer outreach programs are a necessity in today's marketing world, but like anything else there are right ways and wrong ways to approach it. Putting some time into thinking about how best to engage influencers is a worthy investment towards a successful outreach strategy.

Ellery Long is the Social Media Manager at VerticalResponse and blogs here about all things social. Connect with him on Twitter at @EL.

Facebook Deals: Kind of a Big Deal

Are you looking for new ways to use online marketing and social media to build your business? If you’re reading this blog, then you just might be! In that case, you may want to pay particularly close attention to Facebook’s latest offering for businesses: Facebook Deals. 

Released to five pilot cities at the end of last month, Facebook Deals is the social network’s latest tool for businesses of all sizes to tap into the marketing potential of a community of over 500 million users. Similar to daily deal services like Groupon and Living Social, Facebook Deals offers users access to limited-time only offers from both local and national businesses. The major difference, though, is that Deals takes advantage of the social nature of Facebook, making it really easy for users to share deals with friends and for businesses to promote themselves across the site.

Because of this, Facebook is primarily focused on deals that involve products and services that friends can experience together. Take a look at the deals currently being offered in San Francisco to get an idea of what I mean:

Like any new marketing tool available to businesses, we’ll have to wait and see how this one develops, but I have a hunch that Facebook Deals may just be the silver bullet everyone in the daily deals space has been looking for. Here’s where I think the differences will be: 

Social, Social, Social

Sure, other daily deals enable users to share offers with friends, but none of the purchasing and recommending is happening in the same place, which adds the additional layer of someone having to take yet another step to spread the word. Facebook Deals automates this process, posting any deal a user purchases in the news feeds of their friends, just as if it were a status update. Friends can then comment on and “Like” these posts, encouraging a level of engagement unmatched by other services’ share features.

Hit Your Target Every Time

There is no other advertising network out there that can provide businesses as much data about customer demographics as Facebook can. Most daily deal services can give you an email address and a zip code; Facebook can provide anything from age and location to favorite movies and education level. As Deals expands, businesses will also be able to target customers who have bought certain kinds of offers in the past. Not only is this level of demographic information great for targeting your initial audience, but it will also be available to you about everyone who purchases your offer and can help you craft future marketing messages to them.

Mobilize Your Customers

More than half of Facebook users access the network on mobile devices. Included in this are millions of people that use Facebook to check-in at various business locations. As Deals develops, businesses will be able to leverage this mobile use with offers right at the point of purchase.

Virtual Currency = Real Revenue

Up until now, Facebook Credits could only be used for virtual goods in games like Farmville and Mafia Wars. Deals changes all that. Initially, Deals will only allow people to use Facebook Credits for activity vouchers, services, or other non-physical goods, but I suspect this will change soon as the currency system becomes more widely accepted. Either way, the ability to use Credits for purchases on the site is an important difference from other daily deal services. For one, it makes for a great and easy gift. Secondly, it opens up your offers to a whole new demographic of customers with money to burn: kids. Many members of the coveted tween and teen demographics don’t have their own spending money, but parents can load up their Facebook Credits accounts as kind of a virtual allowance. Reach this audience with your offer and watch it go viral!

Facebook Deals isn’t available everywhere yet, but expect to see the service expand across the nation rapidly. If you’re interested in trying out a Deals promotion for your business, check out Facebook’s Deals Guides for Businesses here.

And remember, running a promotion like this is the perfect time to integrate email marketing best practices too. Make sure to promote your deal to your existing mailing list as well as make it easy for new customers purchasing your deal to sign-up for your newsletters on your Facebook page.

Have you tried out Facebook Deals for your business or personally? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear about it!

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Want to learn more about using Facebook for your business? Make sure to join our free webinar, Getting Started With Facebook For Your Business, at 10am Pacific on May 13, 2011.

Click here to register!

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Ellery Long is the Social Media Manager at VerticalResponse and blogs here about all things social. Connect with him on Twitter at @ellerylong. 

Create a Great Meetup in 4 Easy Steps

In this day and age - from real-time Twitter updates to Facebook statuses - everyone is moving at the speed of light. But when it comes down to making meaningful connections, nothing beats face time and live get-togethers. As a company this can be hard. VerticalResponse has more than 100K customers all around the world, which makes it impossible to get together with each of them to discuss their email and social media marketing. Generally we rely heavily on webinars, blogs, email and social media to connect with the majority, but we were looking for a way to organize smaller, intimate meetings with our users in cities around the U.S. Luckily, we found Meetup.

Meetup allows users to plan an event through the internet where people meet, eat, drink, network and maybe even hear a guest speaker or two. The point is to keep it casual and informal to allow attendees to get the most out of the event. That being said, you need to prepare and it’s pretty easy to do if you follow these 4 steps.

Why Meetup?
Think about why you want to have a Meetup and what you and your attendees will gain by attending. Start by creating an account on Meetup’s site. Craft a clear statement that explains what your Meetup is about.

Create a Group.
Once you have a Meetup account, create a Group. It's easy. Just fill in all the pertinent details like group name, location and headline. Then choose a theme for your group page from a set of templates provided, or create your own. We chose the Meetup standard theme because it worked with our corporate colors and branding.

The next step is very important so choose carefully. You get to select 15 topics that describe what your group is about. Not surprisingly, our topics include email marketing, social media marketing, small business, direct marketing and other relevant topics for our industry. By picking these “keywords” you’ll find the right members for your group. 72 hours after you have created the group, Meetup sends out an alert email to everyone who has listed the topics or keywords you chose to categorize the group and invites them to join. Cool, huh? You can also, of course, invite your subscriber list or followers and fans to join the group, too. We tweeted the link to our group page and got a bunch of new members.

Grow the Group.
Now that you have created your group and gotten a few members, you may be tempted to create an event right away. We advise to give it a little time so you can cultivate a good membership before you announce your first event. You can even create your own holiday, like Mashable did when they created Social Media Day. Hmmm, Email Marketing Day has a nice ring to it don’t you think? Once you put a Meetup event on the calendar, announce and promote it to ensure you get people there. Include details in your email marketing and on social networks.

Be Organized.
It would be great it the magical Meetup elves would plan your event details for you, but you’ll have to cover your own bases. We recommend finding a free venue like a local bar or restaurant. If you hold your event during off peak times like a week night, many establishments will be more than happy to have 50 people show up to eat and drink. Get an accurate head count of how many people are coming so you can have enough space, food and beverages, as well as any other items you’ll need like name badges, a microphone or laptop, etc. The point is to have a well-run event that goes smoothly for everyone and facilitates the flow of conversation.

Why not join VR for our next Meetup? Join our group to get the scoop.

Top 10 VerticalResponse Guides

Each month the team at VR publishes a new guide focused on email marketing, social media and other topics to help our customers learn new skills and maximize their marketing potential. Last year these marketing guides were downloaded over 30,000 times by our fans and followers, and they're still hungry for more!

Here are our Top 10 most downloaded guides for your enjoyment:

1. 5 Steps to a Successful Email Newsletter
2. Savvy Subject Lines 
3. 5 Truths About Email Marketing
4. 5 Step Marketing Plan
5. 8 Giant Reasons to Use Email Marketing
6. 5 Simple Ways to Go Green with Your Business
7. Event Marketing for Your Business
8. 10 Email Creation Tips
9. 9 Hour Marketing Guide
10. 15 Postcard Tips & Tricks

What other guides or information would you like to see from the team? Send us your requests and we'll put it on our list of future guides. Stay tuned for new guides coming soon!