kinetik IT blog spot

By now, you’ve probably heard dozens of times that email is affordable, consistent, and effective. It’s arguably the best way to reach out to existing customers and prospects, especially when you want to generate quick sales.

But, the unspoken hurdle to email marketing success is developing and growing your list of subscribers. That involves taking steps to add names and email addresses to your database, but also ensuring your existing contacts don’t opt out of further messages. Here are a few tips you can use to accomplish both…

Put Your Signup Form in the Right Places

If you want people to register for your email newsletter, you should make it easy for them to sign up. Add small but visible forms to your home page, landing pages, and other high-traffic areas of your website. If possible, also include some of the benefits a viewer will get for signing up (see below). 

Promote Your Newsletter on Social Media

If you’re using social platforms like Facebook and Twitter to attract potential customers, as so many marketers are, then you should promote your email newsletter on your profiles. You can give fans and followers the option of registering, of course, but also let them know about all the great content that’s being shared each week or so. You might be surprised at how many will decide they don’t want to miss out.

Offer Discounts and Special Offers

One of the most reliable ways to attract email newsletter subscribers – not to mention boost the profitability of your website – is to offer discounts, coupon codes, and other specials within each message you send. That doesn’t just give buyers a reason to stay on your list, but also creates a sense of urgency when your newsletter arrives. They want to open it immediately to find out how they can save, so they start to look forward to your marketing.

Use a Reliable Email Service

It’s amazing, but they are still many businesses using email delivery services that don’t ensure all of their messages are getting through. Is it really worth it to save a few dollars a month if it means your subscribers never see your newsletter in the first place because it gets caught in their spam filter? Invest in the right kind of service (like MailChimp or Constant Contact) and work with a creative team who can help you to configure it correctly.

Keep Your Messages Short and Relevant

Remember, growing your email list is about adding new names and keeping the ones you already have. With that in mind, its a good idea to keep your newsletters short and relevant to your industry or audience. Also, try to stick to a regular publishing schedule. If your subscribers feel as if they are being bombarded by random offers at unpredictable times, they may decide to opt out and avoid the hassle of reading your unfocused messages.

If you need help with email marketing, or web design and Internet marketing in general, be sure to reach out to a member of our team today to set up a free consultation. We are here to help, and look forward to working with you!

When it comes to IT consulting, many business owners will tell you it’s something they either don’t need or can’t afford. In both cases, though, these men and women are losing the forest for the trees. That’s because regular IT consultations are inexpensive, and can be used to lower technology costs while meeting bigger business goals.

To help you understand why, and to convince you to meet with a member of our team for your own good, here are a few things you should keep in mind…

IT Consulting is Advice, Not a Sales Pitch

Many business people assume that an IT consultation is going to turn into a sales presentation very quickly. The reality, though, is that we charge for our time so we don’t have to push other services. Instead, we devote our attention to learning about your business and answering the questions you have about hardware and software. Don’t put off getting the advice you could use because you think you’re going to be sold something. A good IT vendor doesn’t work that way.

Technology Should be Part of Your Business Plan

Making the most of technology isn’t just a part of business these days, it’s a core strategy for maximizing your investments and getting ahead of your competitors. Whatever you are hoping to do with your company – such as sell more products, recruit new employees, or lower your customer service costs – you can do more easily and cost-effectively with the right hardware and software in place. For that reason, it only makes sense to review your business goals with an IT expert to see if we can make any personalized suggestions for the future.

You Can Save Money by Looking Ahead

Many new clients who come to us for the first time do so because they’ve had a difficult time forecasting IT expenditures in the past. What they don’t necessarily realize is that it gets a lot easier to create accurate budgets when you can assess what kinds of technology a business is already using, look ahead to see which pieces of equipment might have to be replaced in the coming months, and align the financial figures with other business goals. With some smart planning, your IT budget can become more effective and less of a mystery at the same time.

A Good IT Vendor Can Help Your Bottom Line

The more often your IT vendor works with you, the better they’re going to get to know your company and the technology you rely on. That means they can be proactive in making suggestions and looking for cost-saving opportunities. Lots of businesses are using hardware and software they don’t really need, and renewing subscriptions that aren’t helping them. During the IT consultation process, your vendor can help you trim the fat from your bottom line.

IT consulting is in about selling new services to your business, it’s about using our expertise to ensure you’re making the right investments for your business, and taking advantage of the opportunities that are in front of you. If you’d like to learn more, why not schedule a complementary technology review with a member of our team and see how we can help?

Search engine optimization is both evolving and getting more competitive all the time. Not only are there hundreds of times as many websites online today as there were when Google first launched, but algorithm updates and artificial intelligence have changed the way search spiders crawl the web.

With all of that in mind, it’s not surprising that a lot of businesses need an update when it comes to their approach to search engine optimization. If you’d like to boost your search visibility in 2017 – and get more buyers coming to your website as a result – here are some steps you should think about taking today…

Re-Evaluate Your Keyword Strategy

Over the years, we have learned that a lot of marketers stick to the keywords they know out of sheer habit. That sometimes remains true even if their potential customers aren’t using the same search terms anymore, or if the competition for search rankings around those terms has gotten intense. The point is that you should re-evaluate your keyword strategy at least once a year to ensure you’re doing everything you can to attract buyers and bring them to your pages.

Clean Up Your Website

Through successive algorithm updates, Google has gotten aggressive in weeding out websites with broken links, scraped content, or out-of-date information. So, if you have any of these issues with your website, the odds are good that you’re either being filtered out of Google’s search results or are losing ground to competitors who are keeping their pages in better shape.

Upgrade Your Web Hosting

Premium web hosting is the new “secret weapon” in search engine optimization. For one thing, it allows websites to load more quickly and consistently. And for another, good web hosting allows for secure SSL connections, which were recently revealed to be a search signal within Google’s rankings. All in all, it almost always makes sense to upgrade your web hosting for a few dollars a day when you consider the added security, performance, and search visibility.

Make Mobile a Big Priority

Mobile web use has been growing rapidly and steadily for a few years, and Google’s emphasis on mobile compatibility has increased step-for-step. This is true to the point that the world’s largest search engine recently announced that positioning for desktop searches could be affected by mobile functionality. If you want to keep Google happy, along with the thousands of people who are likely to visit your website from an iPhone, android, or other mobile device this year, it’s time to invest in responsive web design.

Develop a Content Plan

It’s not enough to just have content on your website anymore – if you want Google to crawl your pages and send visitors your way, you need relevant, current, and insightful articles that invite comments and interaction. That’s not going to happen by accident, so you should develop a content plan that lets you plan ideas and updates for the months to come.

Ready to put your new search engine optimization knowledge into action? Call our creative team today so we can schedule a free website review and talk about the next set of steps you should follow.