I love when companies like Constant Contact and Mail Chimp come out with these charts and stats…it is a great tool for business owners to use as a comparison. That said, you can always do better, but you have to have a plan, test and measuring it each step of the way….so, how do your email efforts fare?
Email Marketing Benchmarks
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
How does your email efforts rate?
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010Just in case you wanted to know how Google Works
Thursday, July 8th, 2010Great job by the PPC Blog team on this diagram…check it out! http://ppcblog.com/how-google-works/
My Latest Rant…
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010Ok, so I am not the illustrious writer I wish I was, but I love to rant in short outburst about totally unrelated topics..so here goes.
Twitter Outages – Really? How many outages can a company have on a website on any given day? It’s not like they are passing on photos or files…it is 140 characters!
Facebook – Privacy is a big issue and these guys have dropped the ball. Their CEO has said in the past that people are dumb to give him that much info…have you changed your privacy settings yet?
The iPad – What a great device! I love watching Netflix, playing games, surfing the web, checking email etc on mine. My COO uses his to work on…really work. His favorite apps are omnigraffle, imockups and iwork suite. Good battery life and quick start ups are a plus as well. Will it take over the laptop? As it sits today…no. Give it till the 3rd generation and then lets’ talk.
LinkedIn – A mid-year prediction for everyone. Salesforce.com will buy LinkedIn and solidify itself even further as ‘the’ CRM of choice.
Trends – Did anyone see the news? For the first time, Facebook overtook Google as the number one US website for a week (roughly 7% of all website hits). With over 400 million users and growing, this company is on the move.
Search – We did a graph for a client yesterday showing that their #1 keyword/phrase wnet form 80K searches a day in 2004 to now under 40K searches per day, while during that same time span, Internet usage has more than doubled from 800 million users to over 1.8 billion.
Social Networks As People
Friday, March 19th, 2010We found this amazingly well done illustration of popular social networks as people. We think it’s hysterical and want to find the original artist!
Does anyone know who created this masterpiece?
(Click to view larger image)
SEO – Part 2 – We’re number 3 !!!
Monday, March 15th, 2010I was waiting to write the follow up to my February SEO post, waiting for someone to point out that they looked on Google and couldn’t find us anywhere to be found for the keyword “Internet Marketing”. Of course we are not there. My point of taking a screen capture and highlighting it was to show that you can’t trust screen captures and companies that make erroneous claims of #1 placement on Google. ( I left the 2 visits and date there, maybe you caught that, but I could have easily edited that out)
To many businesses have been deceived into thinking that by paying $100 per month, $450 per month or the best one I recently saw $1,266 per month, that they will be number one for a competitive keyword. (I would love to sell that way, but have a pesky little thing called morals that holds me back) Now let me say this. Yes, SEO is real and yes, SEO works. But it isn’t a magic pill and it doesn’t work overnight AND you can’t guaranty #1 results. I can show you plenty of client’s we have helped achieve page 1 rankings for competitive keywords, above the fold on some cases. But it took hard work, 6 to 12 months time and the client paid more than $100 per month.
Another thing to consider when wanting an SEO strategy is that search isn’t what it used to be. Sure Google is the biggest and best, but some argue that it usage has peaked and social media and other entertainment/news portals are gaining ground. Be that as it may, any marketing strategy based solely on one aspect, even SEO, is doomed for failure. At Fat Atom, we believe in helping our clients build a web presence, relying on multiple strategies, measuring all, testing all and analyzing what worked best. It seems logical and easy, but most companies don’t do it…..which is the name for my next post, and future book, “Stop Check Mark Marketing”.
Email Marketing Tidbits…
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010Thought I would share a couple of quick email tidbits I had hanging around inside my head…
1) Constant Contact released email click through rates by category, for Feb 2010..pretty interesting stuff if you like numbers.
- Constant Contact Click Through Rates by Category
2) Fat Atom is now Sender Score Certified! After spending thousands of dollars and ONE year of hard work, we made it! What does all that really mean? Check back and I will tell in my next post. (www.returnpath.net if you can’t wait)
3) Subscibers who opt-out of permission email cite that these emails lack relevance (75%) or are sent to frequently (73%). Merkle “View from the Inbox” (2010)
4) The top three types of subject lines that compel subscribers to open emails contain one of the following: 1. Discount Offer 2. Free Product Offer 3. Familiar Brand Name – Marketing Sherpa “2010 Email Marketing Benchmark Report”
My top 9 predictions for 2010
Thursday, January 7th, 2010Todd’s 2010 Predictions
It’s easy to look back into 2009 and do a list or a review of the year’s biggest story, so I thought I would challenge myself and see if I could look into my “Google Crystal Ball” and share 9 predictions of what I see in store for 2010…Here Goes.
1) A new buzz word will replace “Web 2.0″ and will be used repeatedly by marketing people who really didn’t know what “Web 2.0″ was in the first place.
2) Google will develop a new product that will rock the world (of geeks) and change the way search is handled…but the masses won’t care.
3) Apple will release an update to the iphone which will make it the most polished interface on any phone on the planet….crap, that one already happened.
4) The stock market will go up, then down and possibly, back up again for a short period of time that will begin after it goes down for a period of time. Please feel free to use this prediction to help you time the markets in 2010.
5) Twitter will continue to grow, Myspace will continue to die and Facebook will thrive the most.
6) Tiger Woods will play golf again AND win a major in 2010. I mean really, what else does he have to do now that everyone knows he is a philanderer.
7) Hulu will surpass a major network television in viewers…..and no one will know it.
8 ) Another large, Indianapolis based company will attempt to perform a Social Media Marketing campaign on their own and in this attempt, will alienate their fans/followers because of a failed tactic, scheme or gimmick.
9) Fat Atom will move their offices to downtown Carmel say, 12 West Main Street and have a great open house in the Spring.
Truth in Humor
Friday, December 4th, 2009While going through the hundreds of emails I get a day, a friend passed along a quick cartoon, illustrating the web design process with “the client from Hell”.
I post this for two reasons. First, so that professional web design companies can read it and commiserate. Secondly, to potential clients so they can try to understand what designer goes through when creating a website.
It’s Friday and I needed a good laugh, hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I did.
Do you comparison shop?
Sunday, November 29th, 2009While reading the local paper last week, I ran across a great article on comparison shopping. The author detailed a scenario in which while shopping for a computer, the add-on’s they try to sell you, don’t seem to expensive because you are comparing them to the overall price of the computer purchase. We’ve all done this before, building a “super computer online” by getting that extra 8GB of RAM and every other option, then hitting delete, starting over or not buying at all because of the price.
I digress a bit to say that the author of this article happens to be the President of local “New Media” company. (they seem to be springing up all around now-a-days). They are the “cool” company that can produce nice websites, for 5 to 10 times above “market” prices.
So back to the story. The author closes by saying that in business, you always need a comparison to your proposal…not only that, but he says, and I quote, “Make sure your buyers are comparing you to more expensive options.” He goes on to say the “brain likes to compare” and contrast leads to easier decision making. While reading this, I remember saying to myself, who the heck do they bring in to “compare” with them….no one is higher priced!
And now you know my 2010 sales strategy 
