How to

How to increase the life span of your battery?

by Joe B on March 27, 2012

We all use equipment with lithium-ion batteries, cell phones, laptops, tablets, etc. And we have all experienced the battery charge in that equipment not lasting as long as it once did. Even if you don’t use the equipment for a few years and try to charge it, it won’t work.

A number of factors can accelerate battery degradation (see study from Battery University).

Battery Temperature


Permanent capacity loss when
stored at 40% state-of-charge
(recommended storage charge level)


Permanent capacity loss when
stored at 100% state-of-charge
(typical user charge level)

0°C

25°C

40°C

60°C

2% loss in 1 year; 98% remaining

4% loss in 1 year; 96% remaining

15% loss in 1 year; 85% remaining

25% loss in 1 year 75%; remaining

6% loss in 1 year; 94% remaining

20% loss in 1 year; 80% remaining

35% loss in 1 year; 65% remaining

   40% loss in 3 months

By not charging your battery fully, your run time might be a little less, but your battery will last longer. Heat is also a factor in battery degradation. Keep this in mind when recharging the batteries in your equipment.




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How To Fail At Internet Marketing

by Christi on March 21, 2012

Sometimes the best laid plans just don’t work. It could be that you have the wrong tools or maybe outdated tools. Maybe your technique wasn’t correct. Probably the main reason for failing when it comes to internet marketing is because you didn’t have the right plan or perhaps you didn’t have a plan at all. What makes an internet marketing plan fail?

  • No clear goals – if you don’t care where you are going, anywhere you end up is fine. Or is it really? Sometimes we don’t get where we want to go because we didn’t have a destination in mind in the first place. Decide on realistic, measurable goals for your business before you start to implement any internet marketing plan. Your goals will help you determine what tools and techniques are correct.
  • Focusing on things that will not help you achieve your goals. -  Let’s take your website as an example. Everything on your website should have a purpose. Perhaps you should have content that is search engine friendly to help you get more organic traffic. If your goal is to convert traffic into leads for your business, you should probably have clear calls to action to help you achieve that goal. If your focus is on having just the right color of blue as your background color or using a particular font, you need to think about how those things will help you achieve your goals. When is the last time you visited a website just to admire their background? When is the last time you filled out a form on a site because of the font they used? Oh, and by the way, that perfect shade of blue that you love so much will look different on my screen than it does on your screen or your customer’s screen.
  • Adding elements to your marketing without understanding how they fit into an overall plan that will help you achieve your goals. – Perhaps you are told that you have to be on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or Google+. While those are all great marketing tools, you need to be sure that you are using them in a way that fits your overall internet marketing plan. Too often, businesses feel like they have to jump on the latest thing without deciding first how it can be used to help them reach their goals. Without a plan, many businesses end up wasting time and money on efforts that are not moving them to their goal.
  • Not measuring your results. – If you are not measuring your results, how will you ever know if you meet your goal? How will you know if you are veering off course and need to adjust? Measuring your results is an often overlooked but very important part of internet marketing.
  • Not working with people who understand the importance of having an overall internet marketing plan with measurable goals.

Don’t fail! Make a plan and do it right. In the long run, you will save money and you will have measurable success.

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Capturing Leads | Experiments With Conversion

by Christi on February 29, 2012

It is important to have a system in place that tracks your conversion performance. Wharton Marketing can provide you with ways to analyze the effectiveness of each individual landing page and offer to make sure you are getting the most out of your marketing efforts.

  • Your offers should be living, breathing documents that are constantly changing.
  • They need to help educate your prospects on the buying process.
  • If your landing pages and offerings do not seem to be reaching their full potential, you should try to:
    • Attach their links in your email newsletters.
    • Have your pay-per click ads go right to the landing page.
    • Use them as the next step after a trade show or event.

Website design is not a one and done deal. Your web pages should evolve and improve over time. This is especially important for your landing pages since they help convert your faceless website visitors into opportunities that you have collected vital information about.




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Formatting Your Landing Pages

by Joe B on February 28, 2012

Donʼt make the mistake of underestimating the importance of a compelling landing page. This is where you can see real results of your website redesign.

An effective landing page:

  • Leaves out any website navigation.
  • Keeps the description of the offer clear, simple, and concise.
  • One company found that they had a 32% conversion rate with a longer description and form field. They cut it down, which brought their conversion rate to 53%.
  • Keep the form above the fold.

To maximize efficiency, consider these questions:

  • How fast can you launch a new landing page?
  • Can one person do it in 15 minutes?
  • What is the cost of experimentation?

Landing pages are where the magic happens. They are the gateway to your conversion offers that create engaged and interested leads. Make sure you can grab their attention with an interesting offer, but also coherently explain what you are offering through the landing page!

Download the free eBook: 7 Steps to Website Redesign Success to see some other vehicles for original content.

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Formatting Your Homepage | Steps to Successful Website Redesign

by Christi on February 24, 2012

You many want an interactive and flashy homepage that entices your user; however, it is important to understand that fundamentals need to be addressed first. Always keep in mind what is most important to your visitors!

Homepage Redesign
Source: HubSpot, The Science of Website Redesign, June 2011

What is most important to your visitors is that they are able to find what they want. That makes sense. Remember, inbound marketing is all about being there when your customer is looking for you, giving them what they want and converting them into leads/customers for your business.

Your homepage is the face of your services or products. You only get one chance to impress that visitor, so make sure you carefully place the essentials you want them to know on your homepage. It should also act as a launching platform to places where they can contact you in the future (i.e. blog, social media, etc.)

In order to really get the most out of a website redesign, companies need to construct their website in the context of a greater Internet marketing strategy.You can get our checklist of the key issues to address on your homepage from our free eBook: 7 Steps to Website Redesign Success.




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Website Redesign | 2nd Step to Success

by Joe B on February 23, 2012

Insure that your Websiteʼs Assets are In Order and Safe

You can actually do more damage than good by trying to undertake a website redesign on your own without understanding how you must protect the existing assets of your current site.

  • Website assets such as content, inbound links, keyword rankings, and conversion tools are critical to a strong web presence.
  • To preserve your web presence, you must keep track these assets to insure that they are all transferred in the redesign process.

It is important to do an asset assessment before you embark on a website redesign.

If you do not fully understand the importance and practice of proper SEO, doing a website redesign can be more damaging than helpful. If you do not feel comfortable around SEO work, it may be best to hire specialists to perform the redesign so all the hard work you have put into making a web presence does not disappear. Be sure to ask your website designer if s/he understands the importance of maintaining your current website’s assets and of using 301 redirects in a website redesign. If not, find another website designer.

Don’t guess when doing a website redesign – find out how to do it right! Download our free ebook: 7 Steps to Successful Website Redesign today!

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Analyzing & Refining Internet Marketing Strategies

by Joe B on February 16, 2012

Once you have your internet marketing strategies in place, you need to find the best way to use all the techniques to get found online and generate new customers.

5 Steps for Analyzing & Refining Internet Marketing Strategies

  1. Implement an Analytics Program: In order to analyze, you need to have an analytics program in place.
  2. Identify Opportunities: Figure out what you want to improve. Get in the mindset of constantly looking for new opportunities.
  3. Set a Metric for Success: Your metric should be quantifiable and involve a set time frame.
  4. Refine: Analyze how your programs performed and make changes.
  5. Evaluate: Determine if you’ve met your success metric. Continue to monitor it to make sure the improvement has a long-term effect.

Metrics to Analyze

Before diving into how to improve them, let’s first discuss what the relevant metrics are. This is just a minimal list of what you should be monitoring.

  • Website Grade: How well optimized is your website overall?
  • Traffic: Overall, how many people are coming to your website?
  • Leads: How much of this traffic are you converting into leads (e.g. potential customers)?
  • Customers: How many sales did you close this month?
  • Customer Acquisition Cost: How much are you investing to draw in each new customer?
  • New vs. Repeat Visitors: Of your overall traffic, how many visitors are returning to your site, and how many new people are finding you?
  • Effectiveness by Channel: What promotional channels or referring sources are sending you the most traffic?
  • Traffic by Keywords: Which keywords are drawing in the most visitors to your site?

Steps for Improvement

The following are some elements of your website you can refine so you can reach your broader goals:

  • Keywords: Try new keywords or variations of keywords to see if they help you get found better.
  • On-Page SEO: See if changing a simple on-page factor can help boost visits.
  • Conversions: Try new things with your conversion forms or landing pages.
  • Content Strategy: Determine which content is generating the most traffic.
  • Social Media Promotions: Evaluate which social media channels are generating the most site visitors and leads.
  • Lead Nurturing: Maybe you’re sending emails too frequently — or not frequently enough.

The key is to alway keep experimenting and testing.

Get more information on Analyzing & Refining Internet Marketing Strategies as part of a successful internet marketing strategy from the Free ebook: Essential Guide to Internet Marketing. Download it today!
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Are You Mobile Friendly?

by Christi on February 15, 2012

Having a mobile friendly website is essential to a successful internet marketing strategy. mobile strategySmart phones have changed the way people shop, communicate and live. According to a survey by telecommunications equipment vendor Ericsson, 35 percent of Android and iPhone owners in the U.S. use apps such as Facebook before getting out of bed. In 2010, over 50% of internet access was done via a handheld device. Many of the under 30 crowd don’t have a land line and never use yellow pages.

We used to say if you aren’t on the web, you are invisible to much of your market. Now, you have to think about being found and seen on mobile or you will be invisible to much of your market.

  • Try it out and see. Look at how your website shows up on a mobile device (or if it can even be rendered by mobile). Does it need some work? Think about adding a mobile friendly version of your site that will render when it is being viewed on mobile.
  • Check out your social media presence. Are you building your network on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter? If someone asks, “Does anyone know someone who _______________?” (fill in the blank), will anyone think of you and your business? If you have social media accounts that you don’t use to engage and inform, you may not be on the radar for a recommendation.
  • Consider offering mobile coupons and running mobile ads to drive traffic to your location. Studies show that mobile ads are five times more effective than internet ads.

Get some great tips and advice for being not just mobile friendly but for using mobile as part of a successful internet marketing strategy from the Free ebook: Essential Guide to Internet Marketing. Download it today!



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Nurturing Leads With Email Marketing

by Joe B on February 14, 2012

Lead nurturing is the process of developing that relationship with your potential customer by sending targeted, relevant, and valuable messages to them in a timely manner. Companies that excel at lead nurturing are able to generate more sales-ready leads at a lower cost-per-lead.

Email Marketing Best Practices:

List Building

  • Create opt-in opportunities.
  • Give people a reason to opt-in.
  • Only send messages to people who have explicitly opted in.

Sending

  • Stay relevant.
  • Get personal. Use a name and email address in the “from” line of your email that your recipients will recognize.
  • Get into the mind of your recipient and ask, “What’s In It For Me?” (WIIFM) Make the value clear in both the email body and the subject line.
  • Don’t rely on images.
  • Be consistent.
  • Brush up on CAN-SPAM regulations to make sure your email practices comply.

Converting

  • What do I do here? When someone opens your email, make it clear what they’re supposed to do.
  • The landing page is part of your email campaign. Make sure your email offer and landing page flow.

Measuring

  • Click-Through Rate (CTR) measures response.
  • What about open rate? Open rate is an increasingly unreliable metric. Focus instead on how many clicks your email received.
  • Unsubscribe rate measures annoyance and spam. You want to make sure your unsubscribe rate does not exceed 5%.
  • Conversion rate measures actions. Test different landing pages to improve the conversion on your website.

Lead nurturing is all about developing relationships with your leads. Do it right and it can payoff big time.

For more information on nurturing leads with email marketing download our “Essential Step-by-Step Guide to Internet Marketing”.




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Create a Business Blog & Other Content

by Joe B on February 9, 2012

Business blogging and creating other content, like ebooks and webinars, are powerful ways to help more of the right people discover your business online.

How to Think About Business Blogging

When business blogging, try to think like a magazine publisher. The goal of your business blog should be to publish articles that are not promotional but instead share industry expertise.

Getting Set Up With Blogging

There are many paid and free tools available that will let you start blogging easily. The most important thing you can do when you first start blogging is to make sure your blog is a section of your business website. A blog makes your website more dynamic. Search engines reward higher rankings to websites that consistently add fresh content.

Blogging Platforms to Consider

Some of the blogging platforms for your business include HubSpot, WordPress, Drupal and Posterous. These platforms all offer a content management system (CMS) that allows you to easily add and update content without having to know any HTML code or calling you webmaster to post changes.

Key Components of a Great Blog Post

While it is important that your blogging software be easy to use, it is more important that the content you create be interesting.

A well-constructed blog post should include several key components:

  • An Attention-Grabbing Article Title
  • Well Written & Formatted Text
  • Images/Videos
  • Links
  • Call-to-Action

Deciding What to Blog About

A great way to start business blogging is to think about the 10 most common questions you get asked by prospective new customers. Take each one of those questions and write a short article explaining an answer. Use each of these articles as a blog article.

Convert Blog Visitors Into Leads

The purpose of your blog and your website is to help you get new customers. You do this by converting your visitors into leads, and then nurturing those leads until they become customers. You can convert your blog visitors into leads by using calls-to-action (CTAs). These CTAs work best if the offer is closely related to the subject matter of the blog post.

Other Types of Content

Blog content isn’t the only type of content you can be creating. Consider producing longer-form content items like ebooks, whitepapers, or research reports. Also consider using how-to videos, webinars, slideshows, etc.

For more tips about how to use internet marketing effectively, download the Essential Guide to Internet Marketing today!



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