EmailSuccess Helps Businesses Avoid Costly Newsletter Errors

EmailSuccess Helps Businesses Avoid Costly Newsletter Errors
Deciding Which State To Incorporate A Business
5 Ways To Use Marketing Videos On Your Site
Small Business Owners, Go Vote. Don’t Let Others Speak for You

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 11:00 AM PDT

Email marketing is a widely used tool among all types of businesses, but these campaigns can only garner results if they appeal to consumers and don't contain critical errors. Now, companies have options to help ensure their customers don’t receive emails littered with errors and sub-par content.

EmailSuccess

EmailSuccess is a free, automated tool for helping businesses test their email marketing campaigns to make sure they are error free and optimized for target audiences.

Felix Ngassa, Email Marketing Specialist for EmailSuccess says:

"We are convinced it will cause a change in the email marketing world both from the point of view of agencies who will be able to easily test and improve their emails, and also for client marketing professionals who will no longer judge an email campaign just from the attractiveness of the designs and content but will easily evaluate other critical aspects."

Ngassa said that the company has helped companies avoid all kinds of costly errors, from sizing that looks off to not including unsubscribe links and other necessary aspects of email newsletters.

The tool points out errors and suggested changes ranging from critical importance to minor suggestions. The analysis goes over email content, design, and technical factors.

So emails that contain broken links, faulty code, missing images, or incorrect structure, would then have another layer of checks to go through before being sent out to customers. Ngassa said that the EmailSuccess tool includes over 250 automated tests to find these types of errors.

There are plenty of tools available to help companies create and distribute email newsletters quickly and easily, but relying one team members to go through all the necessary checks before sending out such an email could lead to errors that make a company look unorganized and unprofessional.

There are different plans and pricing available, ranging from a free basic plan to an agency plan costing $149 per month. Pricing depends on how many tests a company plans to run and if any extra features are necessary.

The company is based in Italy and is part of Diennea MagNews, a company that specializes in email marketing and digital communication services and technology.

The post EmailSuccess Helps Businesses Avoid Costly Newsletter Errors appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Deciding Which State To Incorporate A Business

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 08:00 AM PDT

After you decide to incorporate your business and choose a business structure, you need to decide which state to incorporate your business in. This means that, as part of the process of forming a legal entity for your business, you need to choose a state to incorporate in and which to make your filing in.

Many people want to know, “What is the best state state to incorporate a business?” Or “Can I save money on taxes by incorporating my business in a different state?”

State To Incorporate

Even though a business can be legally based in any state, even if that state is different from the owner’s state of residence, most business owners choose to incorporate in their own home state, or Delaware or Nevada.

Deciding Which State to Incorporate

Delaware is a popular state to incorporate in, especially for larger companies, because it has the most developed and flexible corporate statutes in the country and is widely considered to be a pro-business state.

Nevada has also become popular state to incorporate because of its lack of state corporate income tax, franchise tax and personal income tax. It also has relatively low fees.

However, most small business owners are likely better off incorporating in their own home state. If you are going to be conducting a substantial amount of your business in your home state, it will likely be beneficial to choose that state to incorporate in.

Even if you incorporate out-of-state, if you do a lot of business in your home state (and/or have a significant physical presence in your home state), you will have to make a filing to "qualify to do business" in your home state. You will then be subject to the same fees, taxes and regulations as if you had incorporated in your home state in the first place, and you will have paid filing fees (and, perhaps franchise taxes) to more than one state.

Sometimes it pays to keep it simple when you're incorporating (and avoid some of the most common incorporation mistakes). Big corporations can often find certain shortcuts that are not available to smaller businesses. Often the simplest answer – the best state to incorporate in is your home state – the right one for your small business. For more details on this, read Nellie Akalp's article on Small Business Trends on where is the "best state" to incorporate.

If you're operating a business in multiple states, then your incorporation and business filing requirements get a bit more complicated. For details, read this article from Small Business Trends on how to handle your business filings when doing business in multiple states.

The bottom line: If your business is like most small businesses, you should probably choose the state where you live as the state to incorporate.

While there can be benefits to incorporating out-of-state, those benefits usually are biggest for larger companies that have more complex tax filing and regulatory situations. Small business owners who do a majority of business in the same state should usually plan to “keep it simple” by incorporating in the same state where they reside.

State Incorporation Photo via Shutterstock

The post Deciding Which State To Incorporate A Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

5 Ways To Use Marketing Videos On Your Site

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 05:00 AM PDT

I'm guessing you've heard about the power of video to your marketing efforts, right? For example, did you know that including video on website landing pages makes them 53 percent more likely to show up on the first page of Google? Or that a customer who watches videos of products/services is 85 percent more likely to make a purchase? Yeah. Those are all true.

As marketers, we hear these stats and they make an impact. Well, video makes the same impact to your customers.

If you've heard about the power of video but weren't sure how to incorporate it into your small business, below are some ideas of where video can fit into your marketing mix.

1. To Simplify Concepts/Messaging

Whether you're a technical company trying to simplify a product so normal users grasp it, or you want to break down a complicated concept to make a larger point, video can be your greatest ally. Video allows you to talk directly to your customers, while also visuals. As a result, it's better suited for educating users and helping to spread your message.

For example, Stay Smart, Stay Healthy is a new-media venture that aims to help people understand something that is far too complicated – the healthcare industry. How do they do it? Through whiteboard videos that make difficult concepts personable and show how they apply to our lives.

Here's a video they did about how to get the most out of your health insurance. It currently has more than 145k views.

2. Your Brand Story

Social media has shown that users really do care about the story behind your company. We want to know more about the brands that we're loyal to and we want to know more about the brands we're considering being loyal to. Video helps to capture this.

For example, below is a video that my employer Overit created to show people who we are as a company and the types of project Overit has worked on. It's given us an asset we can use to let people in and see what we're all about and what we do.

3. Product Videos

Product videos show people what it is they're about to buy. It breaks that third wall and shows them a living, breathing representation of what could be theirs if they'd just hit the purchase button. This is incredibly powerful – regardless whether you're selling a $500 technological gadget or just a pair of shoes.

For example, Zappos revealed a few years ago it was able to increase sales 6 to 30 percent simply by adding videos to product pages. They didn't change anything else. All they did was add videos. That's powerful.

Zappos is so crazy about reviews they even encourage users to submit their own videos to share their Zappos experience.

4. Customer Testimonials

One area that's seeing a lot of growth right now are customer videos. Many of the larger brands are now creating campaigns solely around building video testimonials. They understand that there's nothing quite as powerful as hearing from a customer, in their own voice and environment, how a company has helped them to achieve a goal or even improved their quality of life. These videos often run between :15 (perfect for Web) and :60, and are a great asset on their own, or paired with other marketing material.

5. Screencasts

Screencasts give small business owners another powerful way to add video content to their websites in a way that is helpful and beneficial to their user. Screencast videos allow SMBs to walk customers through a specific process and show them what is happening (or what should be happening) on their computer during different stages of a task. Screencast videos are great for directing customers through sometimes-confusing tasks like setting up a new account, engaging with the community for the first time, or how to install a piece of software.

Above are just a few ways that marketers can take advantage of video on their website. The possibilities for using video to market your brand, stand out, and to show off what you have to offer are virtually endless. How have you been using video to market your company? Or, if you've been shy to, what's been holding you back?

The post 5 Ways To Use Marketing Videos On Your Site appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Small Business Owners, Go Vote. Don’t Let Others Speak for You

Posted: 30 Oct 2012 02:30 AM PDT

Small businesses are job creators - vote On November 6, 2012 Americans have the right to decide who will govern them — by going to vote. For small business owners, this is our chance to have our say. Everybody and their uncle purports to speak for small businesses 364 days of the year — whether they know anything about the realities of running a business or not.

But on election day, none of that matters. Election day is the day WE get to speak, with our votes. The only way we can be silenced is if we do not vote.

Many states how have early voting. If that’s your thing, then by all means go vote today. Here is a map of states that allow early voting. If you’re in Oregon or the state of Washington, be sure to mail in or deliver your vote to an official drop-off box as soon as possible. Otherwise, head over to the polls early in the day on November 6th.

We’re not here to tell you WHO to vote for. Let your intellect and your conscience guide you. Just be sure to vote.

America is a great nation because each person’s vote counts the same as the next. Don’t let others do your talking for you. As small business owners and job creators, be heard on election day.