A Guide To Why You Need Email Validation

During an email marketing campaign, you’re going to be sending out a lot of emails to all kinds of places. While you might think that sending mail to any email address on your list is the way to go, it can actually hurt your sender reputation if you do this blindly.

Internet service providers are always on the lookout for those who send emails indiscriminately, since that’s the mark of someone distributing spam or malware. You need to be careful about how you send emails and who you send them to if you want to keep on top of your game.

What Is Email Validation?

Email validation is simple in concept, less so to put into practice. Put in a few words, it’s the process of making sure that each and every email address on your mailing lists is connected to a real person, is actively used and not an abandoned or throwaway account, and can actually receive your emails.

Why Should You Use Email Validation?

As mentioned before, sending emails indiscriminately hurts your reputation as a sender. In other words, the more you do this the more likely ISPs are to flag your content as potential spam or malware and block you or send you straight to the spam folder! That’s a big no-no in email marketing, since you heavily rely on people reading your content to succeed.

There are several actions that hurt your reputation. These include:

Sometimes people put the wrong information into your sign-up forms, whether deliberately or accidentally. Sending to these non-existent addresses is a huge red flag to ISPs. In addition, some servers have what’s called an “accept-all” policy, where the mail will be accepted even if the desired mailbox doesn’t exist.

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How to Find Low Competition Keywords for Your Website

If your website’s domain authority is low and the top keywords you want to rank for are out of reach, then the best alternative for you is to focus on low competition keywords.

What are low competition keywords?

Usually, everybody wants to rank for the most in-demand keywords. For example, let’s say you run an ecommerce store that sells products for dogs, including food. The most ideal keyword you could rank for is “dog food.” It has a search volume of 285,000.

Ranking for this keyword will get you a ton of high-intent search traffic, which will likely yield significant sales, but actually ranking for that term is easier said than done. This is because all the top sites with high authority are vying for it.

To rank towards the top of page one for it, you need to create an impeccable product/category page and build hundreds of links from high authority sites. And your site’s own authority likewise needs to be high. Even if you build all those links, it will take you months and maybe even a year to rank for this keyword.

This is why if your authority is low or you don’t have a vast budget to build all those links, you should opt for low competition keywords.

An alternative to “dog food” might be “best dog food for senior dogs.” It has a search volume of 2,900, but you can potentially rank for it quickly. An even easier alternative would be “best wet dog food for senior dogs.” It has a search volume of 1,100.

As the keywords and search strings you aim for get longer, they see less volume of people searching for them each month. However, they also get more specific, which means that the bigger businesses you compete with will be less interested. You can use the grep command to search a file for a particular string.

What’s more, assuming that you have a great landing page that offers quality resources about the “best wet dog food for senior dogs,” the people who do search for these terms are all the more likely to actually engage with your content.

As you rank for these low competition keywords, your authority will improve, and you can then set your sights on high competition keywords.

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Brain Training Apps for Remote Workers and How They Can Reduce Stress

Like traditional office workers, remote workers endure work stress, which emanates from different sources. From untrusting bosses who subject you to excessive supervision and monitoring to the boredom and loneliness that come with working remotely, there’s no doubt about the fact that remote workers remain susceptible to significant stressors. As a matter of fact, a recent survey conducted in June 2020 found on Statista proved that remote workers are more stressed than we think. This was when 51.4% of the participants admitted that working remotely had left them more stressed than when they were working in their regular places of work before the lockdown.

However, the good news is that remote work stress can be easily overcome with brain training apps. Today we take a closer look at these apps, including what they are in particular and how they can help reduce stress:

What Are Brain Training Apps?

Simply put, brain training apps are those that can help train the brain, enhancing your memory and other cognitive functions. Some apps are specifically meant for this purpose, and they are designed to serve different purposes even though they offer enhanced memory and cognitive benefits. For example, strategy games and puzzles provide brain training benefits besides the enjoyment you get from playing video games. So, how do brain training apps help reduce stress? To answer the question, let’s first understand how a person develops anxiety whereby they find themselves in a state of emotional or mental tension or strain due to demanding or adverse circumstances.

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6 Essential Brand Assets You Need to Create for Your Business

When setting up your new business, you need to focus on branding as much as your operations. Brand assets are the essential elements of your branding strategy, and they’ll serve as the foundation for your marketing. But, which brand assets do you need, and how do you create them?

Fortunately, we’ve compiled a list of the top six assets to focus on. These elements work in tandem with each other, so you can build a strong foundation for your company. Let’s break down how to create each one and why they’re so valuable.

Brand Research – Audience and Competition

Technically, this isn’t an “asset,” but it’s a crucial part of building any brand. The research phase of creating a business will help shape your brand and ensure long-term success. Without this step, you’d be flying blind, meaning you’d be scrambling to keep up with market trends and consumer demands.

But, what does brand research involve exactly? Let’s break it down:

  • Target Demographics – In this case, it’s better to be hyper-focused than generic. For example, instead of appealing to women ages 20 to 25, you should focus on married women with at least one child and a household income of $80,000 or more. By narrowing your demographics, you can address specific needs and solve unique problems. During this stage, you need to figure out what’s important to your audience so you can figure out how to market to them.
  • Competitor Offerings – Regardless of your business strategy, you’ll have both large and small competitors within the marketplace. What are those other companies doing right or wrong? What advantages do they have over your business and vice versa? What can you offer that they can’t? Not only should you pay attention to what other brands are doing, but you should also see how their products appeal to your target demographics.
  • Competitor Branding – When looking at the competition, pay attention to the brand assets for each company. What do their logos look like? What about color schemes, fonts, and brand identities? If you can define these elements for other businesses, it’s much easier to figure them out for your own.

Brand Name

What’s in a name? Well, as a business, your brand name means everything. It’s the first thing people know about your company, so you need to make an immediate impact all the time. Here are some tips on how to create a captivating brand name:

  • Keep it Short and Simple – Did you know that Mug Root Beer used to be called Belfast Old-Fashioned Mug Root Beer? As you can imagine, the original name was too much of a mouthful, and since everyone called it Mug, the company shortened the name. You should take the same approach to your brand. If it’s too long, it’s harder for people to remember, and it might be challenging to enter into a URL bar, to get creative, we suggest using a Word Combiner to come up with a new and great name for your brand.
  • Make it Memorable – Complicated names or phrases can be tricky to get right. So, you want a brand name that’s easy for customers to recall later. Imagine if someone only sees your brand for a second, such as on the highway. Will they be able to remember your company at the end of the day? They should.
  • Incorporate Your Brand Identity – A brand identity is what you want customers to think of when they see your business. Do you want to be light and fun, or serious and authoritative? Make sure your brand name reflects that. For example, if you’re opening an indoor playground, a name like The Fun Zone fits better than John Smith’s Play Area.

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How to Hire The Perfect Social Media Manager For Your Business

Social media marketing is an excellent tool for building brand awareness. It gives businesses an opportunity to connect with their target audience directly and helps in increasing their sales and adding to the bottom line. However, social media management can be a very time-consuming task. For getting the desired results on social media platforms, showing up consistently is very important.

Businesses need to research new methods and develop better strategies for creating engaging content for the audience. It is also important to keep up the interaction with potential customers and make meaningful conversations with them from time to time. The landscape of social media is ever-changing, so there will be the added task of staying on top of the latest trends and features. Keeping up with all these tasks in addition to managing the business can be overwhelming. This is where a social media manager comes in.

For businesses that want to develop and execute an effective social media marketing strategy, a social media manager can prove to be a valuable addition to your team. They can help companies in creating and publishing content, and communicating with potential clients. Outsourcing all the marketing-related tasks to an experienced and knowledgeable social media manager can help a business focus on the more important matters at hand. In this article, we will cover everything new and emerging businesses need to know about social media managers (SMM) and the best way to hire the perfect candidate for social media management.

Who are social media managers and what is their role?

A social media manager plays a very important part in any company’s social media team. To hire one that is reliable, you can try utilizing strategies such as reverse recruiting. An SMM is someone who is involved in sourcing, creating, writing, and scheduling social media posts for a business. Social media managers essentially serve as the voice of the brand. Some of the main duties of a social media manager are as follows –

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Top 5 Video Game Marketing Campaigns that were Extremely Successful

Marketing Campaigns have always been the key to a game’s success, and here are some of the best game marketing campaigns that actually paid off.

Developers and Publishers spend millions of dollars in making the games and wouldn’t it be a shame for them to miss out on reaching the maximum number of people out in the world. For that, the makers spend tons of money on marketing as well because marketing actually decides if the game makes the money or falls in the books of the flops.

No doubt, marketing is a key component in deciding whether the game will reach the desired popularity or hit the dirt. But in some cases, the publishers tend to go over the top to try and make their games look extravagantly good. As we all witnessed the surreal hype surrounding the Robo-armed role-playing sensation “Cyberpunk 2077”, which was created among the community of gamers.

Although, when the game was released, it was far from being the life-changing experience the developers promised. Ultimately, People were heavily disappointed because the game itself was a major letdown. Nevertheless, here we’d be shedding some light on 5 of the greatest marketing campaigns that worked wonders for the games.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Bethesda went to the next level with their marketing with an ultra-unique stunt that would be unimaginable if they hadn’t done it. The publisher promised free Bethesda games for life to fans who had a baby on the game’s release date and named it after the protagonist of the game Dovahkiin.

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Why Knowing HTML Makes You a Better Marketer

 

There are several schools of thought when it comes to technology and marketing. There are marketing purists that hand-off all of the tech side to colleagues. Then, there are those that lap up every new aspect of digital marketing and become fully engaged in both the technology and its applications for marketers. Wherever you fall on this spectrum, knowing a bit about the tech side, notably HTML and web coding, can have huge advantages.

Whatever your role in marketing, you are likely familiar with basic HTML concepts like the <H1>, <H2> heading structure, using tags and attributes, and the need for code snippets that link to analytics tools.

Understanding the concept is one thing, but it doesn’t take much effort to start seeing the practical reality, pressing CTRL+U in Google Chrome instantly reveals the underlying HTML of any web page and makes it easier to see the structure of sites and content.

Helps understand the web landscape

Looking at web content, both your own and that of competitors is easier when you understand what is going on under the hood. For those working in a marketing team, knowing how all the different parts work through HTML, CSS and how APIs call other applications is at minimum a professional courtesy, and for those that are doing their marketing solo, a vital part of the digital toolbox.

If there is one single benefit you can find from knowing a little HTML, it is the ability to identify a color on a web page. Perhaps you choose one from a color menu or wheel and can’t recall which one or you just found an outstanding color on a website and want to use it. Through a quick HTML inspection, you can find the color’s HTML code and use it to your heart’s content in your designs and marketing.

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7 Tips to a Successful SMS Marketing Campaign

Billions of people still use and value SMS as a quick and simple communications channel. Smartphone users, especially among older demographics and in emerging markets, rely on SMS for many services, while younger users appreciate firms that do not clog their social media with marketing posts. The speed and convenience make SMS marketing campaigns a valuable asset for marketers.

Search “SMS marketing” and there are plenty of stats about the high open and response rates, higher engagement, and reaction to marketing or offers. SMS marketing is also quick and easy to deploy, with no waiting for visuals or debate over complex messaging needs. SMS is perfect for focused marketing and can be enabled quickly in response to business events or changing markets. Follow these tips to make your SMS marketing campaign a great success.

Choose a goal

For SMS marketing, your goals should be immediate and direct. What do you want to sell, raise awareness of, or generate engagement for? Within what time frame and what metrics do you need to hit?

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6 Social Media Marketing Strategies for Promoting Your Dropshipping Business

As the owner of an online store, you’ll already know the many tough challenges that you face to stay competitive. However, easily the most common is trying to attract traffic to your store. Your competition is targeting the same traffic, so knowing the best way to beat that competition for traffic, like the one taught on drop shipping for beginners, is always going to be key.

The eCommerce industry is flourishing right now, but while this is good news overall, it brings with it increased challenges. Demand always attracts those hoping to provide the supply. New competitors will sniff the potential of owning a dropshipping business, meaning you always have to implement the strategies required to maximise the traffic coming to your store.

This article will take you through some of the best social media marketing strategies you can use to aid the growth of your business. They will help increase your traffic, boost sales and keep your competitors at bay.

Find the Right Posting Consistency

When posting content to your social media accounts, there is a fine line between posting too much and not posting enough. Certain audiences will have their own preferred consistency of posting. Overdo the posting and you risk followers unfollowing, while not enough is not getting your brand into the faces of your market enough.

You need to test your optimal posting frequency by analysing the engagement of different posting consistencies. Once you find the right balance, your posts should garner high engagement and increase the traffic to your site. Also, test the performance of your posts at different times of the day.

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8 Ideas for Making Content for Boring Industries

Content marketing, and especially SEO-optimized content marketing, is quickly becoming the backbone of marketing for companies across industries. It requires time, effort, knowledge and money to do well, so if you have the budget, hiring a digital marketing agency to execute an informed content strategy can make a big difference. There are plenty of resources out there for you to learn to do it on your own, however. With that in mind, below are 7 ideas for making content for boring industries.

Associate Your Industry With Non-Boring Ones

Leaning on industries that are not boring is one of the best ways for firms in dull industries to improve their content marketing. Maybe you own a cleaning company; you could explain why cleaning is essential for families with children who have allergies or how long it would take to clean something or somewhere famous, such as Buckingham Palace or a celebrity’s opulent mansion.

Maybe you make ball bearings; you might talk about all the ways ball bearings make daily life possible. The goal is to discover a common ground between your company and a more appealing and marketable industry, so you can stay relevant while also producing mainstream content.

Educate People

Many dull industries are dull because they are not geared toward customers. You might work exclusively with other businesses or a very niche demographic and, therefore, only a small portion of the population.

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