B.A. Fegles's Blog, page 10
February 23, 2017
How To’s & TutorialsThings you should check when buying a WordPress theme
WordPress, as an open source software, is free of charge and provides users with a number of plugins as well as multiple themes to choose from. Many people love it because of the relatively simple code, the beautiful site architecture and the fact that they don’t need to have any programming skills in order to be capable of editing the content.
Besides that, there is a large online community of developers in the world who are trying to continuously improve the platform. An important feature is that WordPress provides a good basis for SEO optimization.
WordPress allows a dozen of free themes that users can choose from, and that makes the process of finding the perfect theme very difficult. Every theme is beautiful in its own way and targets a particular type of industry. The theme that you will choose needs to be complimentary the content that you will provide to the readers and represent your business in the right way.
Almost all WordPress themes are built to provide flexibility and customization. But, if they are not coded properly you may struggle to find how to customize them. Also, you need to make sure that the website will be fast and that it will provide an excellent user experience.
That’s why you should keep in mind the following things when choosing a WordPress theme:
1. Strive for Simplicity
Make sure that you will choose a theme that will be visually appealing. But, a crucial thing is to be simple enough so the visitors can easily find their way through the site’s architecture.
Many WordPress themes offer a lot of animations and complex menus and in most cases, you won’t need any of them. The purpose of any website is to help users to find some kind of information, and if the user struggles in the process of finding the required information he will leave your site and try to find the easier way to achieve its goal.
So, keep in mind that the theme doesn’t only need to look good, but it also needs to be simple and functional.
2. Responsiveness
As the number of hand-held devices increases daily, most of your target population will try to reach your website through some type of mobile device. That’s why a very important feature of every theme is the responsiveness. You need to make sure that your website will be responsive to all type of devices i.e. that it will be capable of adjusting the layout according to the screen size of the device.
Make sure that the WordPress theme that you will purchase is not with a fixed size layout. If you are not sure whether the theme is responsive or not, you can find out be resizing your browser. If the layout adjusts its size to the size of the browser, it means that the theme is responsive.
3. Browser Compatibility
Another thing to keep in mind is that the visitors of your website may use different kinds of browsers. There is a possibility that your theme will look perfect on the browser that you are using, but may look completely different on another browser.
That’s the reason why you need to test the theme on different browsers. The browser compatibility may be mentioned as a feature when you purchase the theme, but if it’s not then you must test it by yourself.
Try how it is going to look (both on laptop and mobile device) when opened from some of the most used web browsers, such as Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, and Firefox.
4. Supported Plugins
The plugins are special features, that don’t come in the package with the basic WordPress elements but are a key element for the effective functioning of the site. Their main purpose is to improve the site in the form of functionality, performance, and security.
It is believed that there are currently several tens of thousands of plugins for WordPress. Of course, you will need a few basic plugins, but later you can decide on your own which ones you are going to add additionally in order to improve the functionality of the site.
Always make sure that your theme supports most of the existing plugins.
5. Translational ready theme
If you want to target populations from different countries, you’ll want to create a website that can be easily translated to the language of the visitor. That’s why you need to make sure that your theme can be easily translated and that it supports multilingual WordPress plugins.
6. Page builders
The page builders allow the usage of drag and drop interface. Like that the user can easily create different page layouts. Some of the WordPress themes are coming with built-in page builders. But, there is one drawback regarding these page builders. The thing is that they can produce a lot of unwanted code that can make a struggle the processes of switching to a new theme. If you want to use a page builder you can also purchase it separately from the theme.
7. SEO friendliness
Although the theme that you like looks good, it may still have a poorly coded HTML. This can lately affect the performance of your site on the search engines.
If you don’t have any programming skills, it may be extremely hard for you to analyze the source code, and that’s why you need to make sure that the theme is labeled as optimized for SEO.
8. Look through the rating and reviews
One of the best ways to make sure that the theme is satisfactory and created with high quality is by looking through the reviews provided from people that are already using it.
You can see their ratings and comments and find out what they liked and what they didn’t like in the given theme. Like that you will draw a conclusion on your own and decide whether you want to purchase the theme or not.
9. Balance between aesthetics and functionality
It is normal that the theme should be visually appealing in order to attract readers. You may encounter themes that look good to the eye but are poor with additional features.
In a situation when you don’t have a lot of programming knowledge it is preferable to choose a theme that looks good but lacks in functionality.
That is because the functionality can be easily improved by incorporating additional plugins that are easy to install, but the process of changing the design will be hard if you don’t have any CSS knowledge.
The change of the entire layout of the theme can be an extremely hard process and that’s why you should choose the theme wisely. Always try to achieve balance among the aesthetics and the functionality.
10. Customization
Before you choose a WordPress theme, make sure that you can easily accommodate it according to your needs and preferences. This is extremely important in the case when you don’t have any skills with the CSS language.
You need to be assured that you will be able to customize the colors, fonts, headers, logos, add images and videos without any problems. Otherwise, you will be stacked and unable to create the type of design that you were aiming for.
11. Advertisement
A great thing is that through blogging you can make money – by advertising. If you use a theme as a portfolio site we need to mention that it doesn’t feature adverts, if you want to earn money on that way. By using Google AdSense you can monetize your website if you use a theme that is optimized for monetization.
12. Social media plugins
Social media plugins are a great way to increase the web traffic. These plugins may come as a part of the theme, and if they don’t, you can install them additionally.
When choosing a WordPress theme, you should always check whether it has built-in social media buttons. If they already exist it will save you a lot of time and struggle.
If your theme has these buttons it means that you won’t need to purchase the plugins for them separately and you won’t waste time by designing them on your own.
13. Last update time
If you are looking for a WordPress theme for the first time you will probably pay attention to the date of creation of the theme. You are wrong. It is not important when was the theme created, but it is important when the theme was updated for the last time.
The developer of the theme must keep the pace with the development of the technology and the newest trends and incorporate them into his theme. If the theme has not been updated for more than a year, it means that it has some problems with its functionality and security.
As a conclusion, always check the time of the last update and skip the themes that are not updated for a longer time.
14. Frequently Asked Questions
Before you start using a theme, always look at the section with Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). In this section, the developer of the theme explains how the theme works, explains all of its features, the plugin compatibility, the framework that it uses, that support that will be given to you and much more.
15. Support
When you purchase premium WordPress themes and plugins don’t only check the different layout and color options. You should always check what type of support will be provided to you if you purchase the theme. Some developers don’t offer support at all, some offer a lifetime support and some offer a support for a given time period (usually between six months and one year).
The support is important because if you have struggled with the usage of the theme, there will be someone to help you. You can check how fast the support will be by sending an email or adding a comment and wait for a reply from the support team.
So, if you ever decide to purchase a WordPress theme, have the previous tips in mind. You certainly don’t want to end up constantly changing the website themes and spending money for nothing.
You may also like:
Web Hosting Security Checklist
How to use quizzes to generate leads
Storytelling in Content Marketing – tools and resources
The post How To’s & TutorialsThings you should check when buying a WordPress theme appeared first on ThemeFuse.
February 20, 2017
How To’s & TutorialsWeb Hosting Security Checklist
Hosting services and host security are among the most discussed topics nowadays, which sometimes help make the right decision for your needs, but often overwhelm you with ideas you can’t decide between.
The endless options included dedicate hosting, shared hosting, free hosting, premium hosting, and many more paralyzing attributes that make a hosting provider better than his competitors. How to decide then?
When it comes to hosting services, we can’t discuss a role model or one-size-fits-all provider you could opt for blindfolded. Instead, it takes to be specific and consider all unique things about your website and choose appropriate offers.
Basically, the decision will depend on whether your host allows you to achieve what you want, and whether its price suits your budget.
How can you distinguish a good from a poor web host? Without exaggeration, doing so is a cumbersome and art-like process. It takes the time to find a fast, secure, and reliable web hosting, in particular, if you’re not familiar with how it works, and have no clear picture of what you want.
To make things even harder, developers keep releasing their ‘best-of-breed’ solutions, leaving you no choice but to look for a reliable checklist and let someone else narrow that list down for you.
Before you’ve made any decision, make sure you understand how important good hosting is for the success of your website, and that it won’t cause any issues in future. The quality of your hosting provider is determined by a number of factors including bandwidth, loading times, uptime, SEO features, and much more.
As practice shows, the poorer and cheaper your web hosting is, the more problems you will face in future, in particular with slow loading and frequent downtimes. This is why we once again remind you to clarify your priorities before you’ve begun searching.
These are the criteria to consider:
Secure Server Capabilities
Secure server capabilities are essential for online retailers looking to do business online. It is because having them makes people entrust you their financial information, and be sure no breach will make their data go to the wrong hands. Without a secure server, no one will trust you enough to purchase stuff from you.
Shared hosting may be a good idea for beginners that won’t need much traffic in future, but you have to know these providers reveal their companies’ URLs next to yours. Choose a provider that will be able to set up a dedicated server in future, so that customers willing to leave money would access directly your company.
Speed
There is no compromise when it comes to speed – the least you should accept from your host is a T3 Internet connection which will make your profits proportional to the pages’ loading speed. The faster, the better!
The speed of your pages depends on the most on the hosting providers’ Internet connectivity, which may end up slowing even an empty page. While some website owners think this is not such a big issue, we assure readers that there is no faster way to lose visitors than letting them wait for more than 30 seconds to load a page.
In the WordPress case, speed will also affect the SERP rankings of your website, and you definitely won’t appear on top of Google’s ranking page with slow loading.
The space you have available
For a startup website, you definitely won’t need more than 15 megabytes of space to support traffic, but it is never a bad idea to have few of those in store for when it starts expanding. Most hosting providers allow users to buy additional space, and that’s definitely a smart move when offering e-book downloads, streaming videos, or displaying large files. As you see, this is a problem that can be easily solved, unless the provider has imposed certain unnecessary bandwidth restrictions.
Unlimited CGI Access
A CGI program is necessary for running a professional website, so look exclusively for hosting with unlimited CGI access. If the web host doesn’t have this, skip it.
Raw Server Logs Access
These features are also important so that intelligence systems and data analyzers would be enabled to access and process your data. When you have a server log on, you can easily check and compare your weekly traffic, and find out where leads are coming from and how they are navigating your website. The best hosts in this aspect are those that offer you a private server log and unlimited access to it, or even and additional log-reading software that will aggregate this data in docs that are easy to understand.
A complete email service
Compromise for nothing less than a complete email service that offers unlimited aliases and pop mailboxes (certain providers also offer a newer email technology called IMAP, used to give extended control over messaging). In most of the cases, email services are included in the original price of hosting packages, so avoid providers who ask you to pay extra money for them.
Accurate and frequent data backups
The thing that can really make web hosts leaders is their power backup system which makes sure your server data will be backed up off-server day by day (namely exported to external devices in case your hard drive is damaged). In this case, you can be sure nothing will happen to your website even if the complete hardware is crashed in a natural disaster.
Unfortunately, security is a privileged service that will require you to pay extra bucks to automate backups. Nevertheless, there are few automated backup services for WordPress that you can get for free.
Make sure tech support is reliable
Test the tech support of the hosting provider you’re looking at by simply emailing a question ad confirming they take a little time to answer. This is the key to determining whether they will be able to deal with frustrating problems in future instead of making you lose insane amounts and wait for ages. The best web hosting providers offer support 24/7 and do so by email, phone, and live chat. As good as the hosting is, you will eventually experience technical issues, and assistance will be everything you can rely on.
Software, services, and scripts
The least you can expect from a reliable web host is a script library from where you can choose statistics, fonts, forms, and other extracts to add to your website. It is smart to look for a provider that offers e-commerce functionalities, such as merchant account support, shopping cart software, order management, and so on. Finally, look for a hosting that supports MySQL, PHP, Java, Real Video, Real Audio, FrontPage, and Shockwave extensions.
Uptime scores and server reliability
Nothing makes more sense than a web host that operates 24/7, as this is for how long you will get a stable network and access to a powerful server. As for uptime scores, the recommended value is 99.5% and more, but you should ideally be looking for 99% scores.
Multiple Add-on Domains
Due to the fact that domains are affordable, all of us would opt for having more than a single one. In order to accommodate all of them, we need to rely on some more hosting space, and our provider should be totally on board with it. In most cases, hosting providers permit website owners to add 25 domains in a single account, but you better check that before you decide for one.
A no-brainer hosting control panel
If not convinced of the value of an uncomplicated control panel, try working on a cumbersome one! It is hardly possible that a complex and dysfunctional control panel will give you full control, and what you’ll end up doing will be hanging around technicians’ necks, asking for basic server changes.
Custom Error Pages
What happens when a visitor is denied access to a web page is that the server is experiencing an error, and can’t access a particular part of your database. Error pages, however, don’t have to be the classic ones that appear on all websites – we can convert them into our own piece of art, and send a sweet and personalized apology styled in an attractive manner. These pages are called custom error pages, and you should ask your hosting provider whether it can offer such.
This way, you will help users understand what is happening with your website, and make sure they haven’t been redirected to a malicious page. Besides, custom error pages make it possible to give users instructions on how to proceed and eventually use a sitemap to reach the desired destination.
Security is definitely the most important thing to consider when doing business online, so try to make it a priority when choosing your web hosting provider. This is particularly important when receiving payments online, and asking people to entrust personal data and purchase the products of your company. Relying on a poor web host and hoping that a breach won’t happen will bring hackers directly on your website, and there’s not a more secure way to push customers away.
You may also like:
How to use quizzes to generate leads
Storytelling in Content Marketing – tools and resources
How to Design a Good Email Newsletter to Encourage Customer Engagement
The post How To’s & TutorialsWeb Hosting Security Checklist appeared first on ThemeFuse.
February 16, 2017
DiscoverImpressive WordPress wedding themes
Weddings are among the most important events in a person’s life, which is why many people try to make it as interesting and entertaining as possible. One of the most modern trends for planning a wedding is to make a special website and add a little bit more excitement for your prospect guests.
Besides, informing users is much easier done online than it is by sending invitations by post, and guarantees they will have all the necessary information classic letters can’t gather. For instance, you can use Google maps to help them locate the venue, schedule timing with automated reminders, and share photos of the ceremony afterward.
A great possibility wedding websites offer is to organize a list of visitors, and let invitees register so that you will know the final number before the bid day arrives. Sharing your love story with photos and videos is another great idea.
Hitched
Hitched is a stunning wedding website template on WordPress. It is built on The Core (a versatile multi-purpose template) that comes with 20 thematic demos.
Specially designed for wedding ceremonies, Hitched is a powerful tool to get a properly organized marriage website. The icing on the cake being its drag and drop options, used to create remarkable layouts quickly and with no coding skills required.
This fully responsive and customizable marriage landing page template allows you to get a well-structured website: location presentation, info about bride and groom, wedding roles and much more.
Hitched can serve as a tool to create your event online and to present your wedding to your family and friends. You can use it after the wedding to share photos and videos.
Jack & Rose
Jack & Rose is a precedent for every wedding website, and that’s because of its whimsical and user-friendly design. It looks beautiful, and functions smoothly, and the number of fancy features available is displayed perfectly on mobile devices.
The drag-and-drop builder eliminates the need for coding knowledge even in cases where the user is interested in advanced customization. Otherwise, managing the theme is as easy as importing demo data and filling fields with it.
There are three different demo versions of the homepage, including one with sliders, full-width images, and video backgrounds. The options you’ve chosen are simply irrelevant – visitors will love every fade out animation, sakura fall effects, or smooth parallax effect you’ve applied!
Honeymoon
When it comes to catchy parallax designs, Honeymoon is definitely the most memorable one. The theme’s high-impact imagery in the front and the center, the ready-to-use guestbook and RSVP forms will contribute to the idea of ‘a day to remember’, especially if you make use of the options panel’s time counter, and unrestricted color and font customization.
There is also advanced features worth of consideration, including Visual Composer, Revolution Slider, and more than 1200 premium quality icons.
Maya
Maya is another impressive wedding theme that loads fast and functions in an intuitive manner and can be set up within seconds. There are more than 18 composable sections you can use to obtain the website you want, both as separate pages and internal page modes. The same as the previous ones, this theme is mobile-responsive and allows guests to follow updates regardless of their whereabouts. As expected, the template is highly customizable and organized the way only premium themes are.
You even get to choose your intro sections’ design, colors, sidebars, and mega sections and bundle your website with an eye-catchy Revolution slider and a number of cool animation effects suitable for every wedding.
XOXO
XOXO is known as the super-theme for wedding websites, which is also used to engage visitors for business purposes.
The reason for its popularity is responsiveness and Off-Canvas Mobile Menu integration which ensures the final product will be suitable for all devices. Customization is even more extended than before: you can choose from a variety of colors, hundreds of Google fonts, and many different types of layouts which will make your website more attractive.
You can even add an extensive slider with welcoming photos on the homepage to inform friends and relatives, and a super sweet counter to note the days and hours prior to your grand day. This being said, XOXO is the visually most attractive theme for elegant weddings.
Wedding Suite
Wedding Suite is another name for sophistication, as designers did their best to polish its aesthetics, and make it stunningly beautiful and memorable.
At a first glance, the theme looks stylistically clean, pristine, and understated, but its soft looks are only the surface of its genuine technological power.
Deep there, Wedding Suite is a reliable, inviting, and highly responsive theme that caters all functions and resources related to your wedding, and it is therefore recommended by the most prominent caterers, wedding designers, and professional bands.
Perfect Couple
Responsiveness won’t be an issue even with Perfect Couple, a theme that ensures proper functionality on all devices, including tablets, pads, and phones.
Guests rate it as one of the best wedding themes which provide an optimal viewing experience, and that’s because of the Bootstrap 3 technology used to develop it. Customization is made simple, as there is a Redux Framework admin panel connected to Visual Composer, where the number of applicable layouts is just endless.
The Wedding Day
Here comes another fully responsive and breathtaking wedding theme recognizable by its gentle, feminine touch, where there are a variety of wedding-related faucets, icons, and colors.
Another symbol you can recognize The Wedding Day by is the rounded fonts and circular shapes, and the variety of countdown, RSCP, and guestbook options. An advanced image slider is also available.
GeekLove
Minimalism fans should consider GeekLove – one of the most elegant and functional WordPress wedding themes.
Both the power and the design are stunning and will make your special day’s website look just the way you’ve imagined it. Besides, GeekLove has the most advanced color management and allows for more variations than any other wedding theme.
WeddingEngine
We assure you that WeddingEngine looks just as professional as it sounds: it will not only excite invitees and share your love story with them, but it will also cater all of your organizational needs.
In order to examine the features of this proper wedding planner, check out their demo and see what their product can do for you. Depending on the level of customization you need and expect, you can choose a modestly priced starter package, or opt directly for the premium plan with most time-frames and layouts included.
The RSVP form allows you to invite guests and register them as they arrive. At the same time, the theme remains active after the wedding has finished, and enables your guest to share their wishes and impressions, and gain access to photo albums and memorabilia. What is even better is that you can automate notifications from the very first moment, and keep guests updated on any change.
Match
Match is another smart choice for minimalism fans that can be used for couples interested to post a lot of wedding-related content. It is modern and simple and offers a large array of amazing features that can make the chronicle of your events even more beautiful.
Match also complies with the data accessibility requirements and is therefore fully functional on all devices and browsers. The theme uses Post Formats to publish content and looks just wonderful even when displaying simple content, such as time and date.
A distinctive advantage is that you get to attach all types of content on it, including audio, video, links, ‘asides’ snippets, quotes, or any other element you believe can pique the curiosity of your wedding’s attendees.
Wedding Style
Wedding Style is another example of a functional and well-organized business theme which is also responsive enough to be used for wedding purposes.
Alongside your beautiful timer and wedding gallery, you get to run a special wedding blog customized to your needs and wishes, where you can share different content to encourage guests to come to your wedding.
The homepages are quite diverse, the same as the image sliders and font options, but the cutest widgets are definitely the guest wishes (they are presented in a way in which you simply can’t miss them!).
You may also like:
22 Best WordPress Themes for Blogging
Starting a new WordPress website? These are the plugins you need!
Top Responsive WordPress Themes
The post DiscoverImpressive WordPress wedding themes appeared first on ThemeFuse.
February 13, 2017
How To’s & TutorialsHow to use quizzes to generate leads
In the past few years, what we often see in the online world are quizzes popping everywhere. They are becoming more and more popular and businesses decide to use them as a part of their marketing strategy. Quizzes are a part of every type of social media, we can see them on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even in our mailboxes.
People often avoid them, having the opinion that they are useless and the truth is completely opposite. If businesses incorporate quizzes as a part of their strategy they can affect positively on the sales and growth of the company.
The social media gives you the chance to get closer to the potential customers and provides you an even bigger platform that you can work with. If you are thinking of incorporating this idea into your strategy, you need to pay attention to the type of the quiz that you are going to create. Your responsibility will be to create a well-produced quiz that will help you to reach your starting objective.
It is very important for the quiz to have more than just an entertainment value. By taking the quiz, the user will give you some relevant information and normally in return they will want something.
If you haven’t created a quiz before, the first steps may be hard but when you once get used to it you will start using it as the most powerful tool in your marketing strategy. The next quizzes will only need a bit of redesigning and changing the content, a piece of cake!
Personalize your value proposition and ask for a lead in return
The content marketing can be an effective marketing strategy, but the question is how can you know that you are providing to the customers the things that they are expecting to read and see. The answer will be- by using quizzes.
If you are afraid that people won’t even try to take the quiz, a good idea is to offer something for free in return. Everyone wants to get something for free, and people are usually ready to give some basic information for themselves if they are going to get a free gift for it. Using this type of “gifting” quizzes you will get the information you want and the customer will get the price he wants.
Once you gathered the information you can use it to create a quiz that will match the preferences of your customers. Like that, you will go even deeper, know what the customer prefers and what are his buying habits so you will be able to continue to make even bigger sales.
Pair a quiz with a big event in your company or industry
If you want to spread your business a good idea is to from time to time to create some events that will bring you closer to your customers. Send invitations for a cocktail where you will present some of your best-selling products.
In order to attract people and sparkle attention, you can create some online quizzes through which you will inform them of the upcoming event. The quizzes are a very powerful tool for bringing social attention to your business and generate leads.
If you decided to create a quiz, keep in mind the following things:
– Naming
The first thing that a reader and a potential customer see in a quiz is its name. Because of that, you will need to come up with an interesting and eye-catching name that will attract the reader and make him open the quiz.
– Tone and Structure
The tone and the structure of the quiz are extremely important. The quiz always needs to be simple and casual with a conversational tone. When creating a quiz think of it as you are talking with your customers in person.
Keep in mind that the quiz will reach a diverse audience, everyone with different needs and knowledge. That’s why you should always use words and references that everyone will understand. Be sure that the questions are understandable and easy to answer.
Don’t make the quiz extremely long, since the reader will give up if it’s needed to spend a lot of time in solving and answering it. Write a maximum of 12 questions that won’t take more than 12 minutes for answering. Like that you will keep the readers focused and interested.
– Content
If you don’t know how to start and what kind of content to create for your quiz, make a little research. You can even take some quizzes by yourself, and you will see how your competition works and what are they focused on. Always try the content to be associated with some new events and inventions so the readers will know that they are reading something that is new, nobody wants to spend time on an outdated content. If you have some new product you should definitely incorporate it in your quiz.
Always use a positive tone through the entire quiz structure. The readers need to feel respected and important. The tone always needs to be friendly and to encourage the reader to share your content with some of his friends.
Capturing Leads
Newer forget that the main goal of your quiz is to capture leads. Keep this in mind during the entire process of creation and advertising of the quiz. When the customer is going to take the quiz, he will probably be required to provide some personal information, such his name, and email address, and with that will create new “leads”. Later, you will use the information to create a new relationship with the potential customer and gradually transform him into a loyal client.
Keep the need for personal information to a minimum. Many people are skeptical in sharing more than their name and email address, and to be honest you don’t even need more than that. If you are too picky you won’t attract new customers.
WordPress quiz plugins
One way to create quizzes is to use WordPress, and here we will present some of the best WordPress quiz plugins:
This is a very powerful WordPress quiz plugin with many functions. It has a really nice design with many configuration options. It can be translated into many languages and is fully compatible with cache plugins.
Quiz Cat allows you to create eye-catching quizzes in BuzzFeed style. It has a beautiful landing page with a headline, subheadline, and a start button. It lets you create an unlimited number of quizzes.
This plugin allows you to easily create quizzes and surveys and track the results. There is an option the results to be sent to the email address of the reader. It has a responsive design and supports custom fields and drop down questions. WordPress Simple Survey plugin is compatible with most of the web browsers.
Using it you can create a quiz with very friendly interface. You can specify hints based on answer selection and give a detailed explanation of the solution. There is a possibility for multiple choice or single choice questions.
It has a very cool and eye-catching design, very easy to handle and customize. You can save user scores and restrict the readers to submit the quiz without answering the questions, which will save you a lot of time in analyzing the results.
Using this plugin, you can make quizzes very fast and easy. You can easily rearrange questions and insert multimedia items. It also has the ability to automatically translate itself into the language of the country of the user.
You may also like:
Storytelling in Content Marketing – tools and resources
How to Design a Good Email Newsletter to Encourage Customer Engagement
Starting a new WordPress website? These are the plugins you need!
The post How To’s & TutorialsHow to use quizzes to generate leads appeared first on ThemeFuse.
How Toâs & TutorialsHow to use quizzes to generate leads
In the past few years, what we often see in the online world are quizzes popping everywhere. They are becoming more and more popular and businesses decide to use them as a part of their marketing strategy. Quizzes are a part of every type of social media, we can see them on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even in our mailboxes.
People often avoid them, having the opinion that they are useless and the truth is completely opposite. If businesses incorporate quizzes as a part of their strategy they can affect positively on the sales and growth of the company.
The social media gives you the chance to get closer to the potential customers and provides you an even bigger platform that you can work with. If you are thinking of incorporating this idea into your strategy, you need to pay attention to the type of the quiz that you are going to create. Your responsibility will be to create a well-produced quiz that will help you to reach your starting objective.
It is very important for the quiz to have more than just an entertainment value. By taking the quiz, the user will give you some relevant information and normally in return they will want something.
If you havenât created a quiz before, the first steps may be hard but when you once get used to it you will start using it as the most powerful tool in your marketing strategy. The next quizzes will only need a bit of redesigning and changing the content, a piece of cake!
Personalize your value proposition and ask for a lead in return
The content marketing can be an effective marketing strategy, but the question is how can you know that you are providing to the customers the things that they are expecting to read and see. The answer will be- by using quizzes.
If you are afraid that people wonât even try to take the quiz, a good idea is to offer something for free in return. Everyone wants to get something for free, and people are usually ready to give some basic information for themselves if they are going to get a free gift for it. Using this type of âgiftingâ quizzes you will get the information you want and the customer will get the price he wants.
Once you gathered the information you can use it to create a quiz that will match the preferences of your customers. Like that, you will go even deeper, know what the customer prefers and what are his buying habits so you will be able to continue to make even bigger sales.
Pair a quiz with a big event in your company or industry
If you want to spread your business a good idea is to from time to time to create some events that will bring you closer to your customers. Send invitations for a cocktail where you will present some of your best-selling products.
In order to attract people and sparkle attention, you can create some online quizzes through which you will inform them of the upcoming event. The quizzes are a very powerful tool for bringing social attention to your business and generate leads.
If you decided to create a quiz, keep in mind the following things:
– Naming
The first thing that a reader and a potential customer see in a quiz is its name. Because of that, you will need to come up with an interesting and eye-catching name that will attract the reader and make him open the quiz.
– Tone and Structure
The tone and the structure of the quiz are extremely important. The quiz always needs to be simple and casual with a conversational tone. When creating a quiz think of it as you are talking with your customers in person.
Keep in mind that the quiz will reach a diverse audience, everyone with different needs and knowledge. Thatâs why you should always use words and references that everyone will understand. Be sure that the questions are understandable and easy to answer.
Donât make the quiz extremely long, since the reader will give up if it’s needed to spend a lot of time in solving and answering it. Write a maximum of 12 questions that wonât take more than 12 minutes for answering. Like that you will keep the readers focused and interested.
– Content
If you donât know how to start and what kind of content to create for your quiz, make a little research. You can even take some quizzes by yourself, and you will see how your competition works and what are they focused on. Always try the content to be associated with some new events and inventions so the readers will know that they are reading something that is new, nobody wants to spend time on an outdated content. If you have some new product you should definitely incorporate it in your quiz.
Always use a positive tone through the entire quiz structure. The readers need to feel respected and important. The tone always needs to be friendly and to encourage the reader to share your content with some of his friends.
Capturing Leads
Newer forget that the main goal of your quiz is to capture leads. Keep this in mind during the entire process of creation and advertising of the quiz. When the customer is going to take the quiz, he will probably be required to provide some personal information, such his name, and email address, and with that will create new âleadsâ. Later, you will use the information to create a new relationship with the potential customer and gradually transform him into a loyal client.
Keep the need for personal information to a minimum. Many people are skeptical in sharing more than their name and email address, and to be honest you donât even need more than that. If you are too picky you wonât attract new customers.
WordPress quiz plugins
One way to create quizzes is to use WordPress, and here we will present some of the best WordPress quiz plugins:
This is a very powerful WordPress quiz plugin with many functions. It has a really nice design with many configuration options. It can be translated into many languages and is fully compatible with cache plugins.
Quiz Cat allows you to create eye-catching quizzes in BuzzFeed style. It has a beautiful landing page with a headline, subheadline, and a start button. It lets you create an unlimited number of quizzes.
This plugin allows you to easily create quizzes and surveys and track the results. There is an option the results to be sent to the email address of the reader. It has a responsive design and supports custom fields and drop down questions. WordPress Simple Survey plugin is compatible with most of the web browsers.
Using it you can create a quiz with very friendly interface. You can specify hints based on answer selection and give a detailed explanation of the solution. There is a possibility for multiple choice or single choice questions.
It has a very cool and eye-catching design, very easy to handle and customize. You can save user scores and restrict the readers to submit the quiz without answering the questions, which will save you a lot of time in analyzing the results.
Using this plugin, you can make quizzes very fast and easy. You can easily rearrange questions and insert multimedia items. It also has the ability to automatically translate itself into the language of the country of the user.
You may also like:
Storytelling in Content Marketing â tools and resources
How to Design a Good Email Newsletter to Encourage Customer Engagement
Starting a new WordPress website? These are the plugins you need!
The post How Toâs & TutorialsHow to use quizzes to generate leads appeared first on ThemeFuse.
February 9, 2017
Discover22 Best WordPress Themes for Blogging
WordPress is a blogging platform that people prefer precisely because of the flexibility and powerful features it offers. The WordPress blog themes are easily adaptable to a range of stylish prospects for any website.
It is important to choose the right WordPress blog theme for when you have a website that looks good and has a good user experience. A good theme will enrich your web siteâs distinctive character and sense and will leave a positive impression on your target audience of readers and visitors.
In addition, a well-coded theme will help your website to rank well in search engines. Here are presented some of the best WordPress blog themes that you can choose from if you decide to enter the blogging world.
1. The Core
The Core is a multipurpose theme that has a demo for every need, from Corporate and Portfolio to Shop and Blog, and everything in between. 20 built-in themes are included, and more are on the way. Whether youâre looking for a general-purpose theme or one that addresses a specific niche, The Core is worth checking out. It is WooCommerce ready, and it features an advanced drag and drop Visual Builder together with a great set of shortcodes, layouts, multiple types of portfolio showcases, and animations.
2. Lets Blog
This is a theme that offers different blog designs for different purposes, built using the latest WordPress technology. It has four menu options, including top, main, footer and side. Lets Blog has a responsive design, compatible with most devices and browsers.
3. Redwood
This is a classic and elegant WordPress theme for bloggers, offering five different blog layouts. The big number of color options allows users to create the blog from their visions, with a highly responsive design. Recommended for every ambitious blogger that wants to express his thoughts in a unique way, through a simplistic and aesthetic design.
4. Pluto
This is one of the top-rated WordPress themes. Its responsiveness and flexibility make it a blog for every type of content, including cooking, family, technology and anything you need it to be.
5. November
Without any coding skills required you can get your portfolio website up and running. November creates a beautiful welcoming page with full-screen header images. It is customizable giving the opportunity to easily change its looks and is responsive giving the same high-quality experience on any type of device. November also offers beautiful and readable serif fonts.
6. Carrie
Carrie is the most customizable WordPress theme, offering seven different blog layouts. It is highly customizable, allowing the user to change fonts, colors, layouts and much more. It is very stylish and elegant theme, suitable for everyoneâs needs. Using it you will present your content in a very unique and responsive way.
7. New York
Using this theme, you will easily attract the attention of your readers., with the clean and modern design it offers. It is compatible with most of the browser, and it has a responsive design.
8. Portada
Portada offers a multi-demo design with an unlimited number of colors, fonts, and layouts, making it suitable for every type of blogger. It is fast, with free lifetime updates and compatibility with most of the browsers. It comes with four types of post formats, such as gallery, audio, video and normal. With its elegant and eye-catching design, it will attract everyoneâs attention.
9. DashBlog
This is an exclusive theme for a personal blog. It offers twelve home blog layouts with five built-in header layouts and unlimited color styles, making it adaptable to everyoneâs style.
10. Hello Friday
A theme coming with many available updates, compatible with all browsers and translatable. It is easy for installation and offers a great number of fonts to choose from. The design is simple, but with a high dose of elegance. Hello Friday is the perfect theme for every photographer, traveler, and storyteller.
11. Introfolk
Introfolk offers a clean and fashionable design to all bloggers. It has seven different blog layouts, unlimited color and font options making it customizable with only one click of the mouse. Using it, you will provide a remarkable visual experience to your visitors.
12. Lapin Blanc
Focus on your content and beautify it with modern photos using Lapin Blanc. This the best WordPress theme for all fashion bloggers.
13. Setwood
SetWood makes spreading your thought easy as a piece of cake. It is suitable for bloggers of all kinds. There are predefined post formats making adding content very easy. It is SEO ready, with customizable colors and typography.
14. CheerUp
This is one of the best themes for the previous year. It has a very pleasing design that satisfies the needs and dreams of every blogger. It has six unique designs with more than 200 layout variations, making it suitable for blogs and magazines.
15. Writsy
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If you love the vintage style, this is the right WordPress theme for you. It has a fully responsive layout making it perfectly displayed on all types of devices. Comes with 24 homepage variations and 6 post formats. It has a clean a minimal style, created following the latest technology trends.
16. Noemi
Noemi is a WordPress theme for all lover of the beautiful design and customizable functionality. It offers different header and footer options, with a custom color scheme. It is a clean and modern blog created to underline the individuality and uniqueness of the blogger.
17. The Essence
This is highly customizable and multipurpose WordPress theme that is suitable for all types of blogs. It has multiple page layouts, it is easy to customize with the unlimited color schemes and its responsive design.
18. Camille
Camille is suitable for any kind of blog and allows simple customization of the blog by easily changing colors and fonts. offers fantastic functionality combined with elegant and stylish looks. Your site will look great even for those on the go!
19. Storyteller
This is a narrative and beautifully designed WordPress theme. It is easy to customize with the option to change menus, header, logos and footers. It has a responsive design with six different post formats. You can add an unlimited number of galleries in a variety of layouts including one to five columns.
20. Elvira
This theme is designed to help you to build the website that you always dreamed of, no matter if it is a personal blog, travel of fashion, without requiring any coding skills. Using this theme, with responsive and minimal design, you will easily stand out from the crowd.
21. Solstice
Solstice is a multipurpose WordPress theme with a flexible slider and a responsive design. It is very easy to customize it according to your needs and wishes. The theme offers a remarkable visual experience and its suitable for all types of blogs, starting from fashion, food, travel and so on.
22. Innovation
This a WordPress theme mainly used for presenting news of every field. It has a responsive design with several layouts to choose from.
You may also like:
Starting a new WordPress website? These are the plugins you need!
Top Responsive WordPress Themes
Best WordPress contact form plugins
The post Discover22 Best WordPress Themes for Blogging appeared first on ThemeFuse.
February 6, 2017
How To’s & TutorialsStorytelling in Content Marketing – tools and resources
For many marketers, storytelling is the key component of their content promotion approach and the most powerful way to make their products more attractive and engaging.
Basically, by telling a story, you give your services and products an identity and capture what they can really do for your audience to improve their experience. For the purpose of making people build emotional connections to your content, you have to tell your story in a creative, authentic, and inspirational way.
This is the so-called emotional branding strategy which does miracles in progressive marketing, such as dramatic increases in customer retention and revenue. The feelings your product inspires in people are the main incentives for them to buy it, which is why you must give them a reasonable story related to common human challenges.
Impress your audience
In order to craft a good brand story, and convey your message in a way that will affect your audience, try to figure out what matters to your users, and to illustrate it in a creative way. Draft a plan of the steps you need to take to reward customers, and sell them something fun and creative, as difficult as you think that may be.
Remember, nevertheless, that the story you’re sharing is not an invented one, but rather the tale of how your business was developed, and what your products/services are trying to achieve.
Your story should answer users’ questions, fulfill their needs, engage them emotionally, and connect with their everyday life. Basically, what you’re doing is making valuable propositions to your audience of how your story can be useful, and how they can relate to you.
Make it personal and relatable
Since stories have to be personal and involve your development and main mission, try to trigger some valuable sales practices used to connect with the audience, and relate your mission to their needs.
As personal as it is, the story must have something in common with your audience, and enter their minds rather than simply providing facts. As an example, you can involve the customer and give him the leading role in the story, so that he will feel more important to you, and believe that your business is trustworthy and transparent.
Storytelling tools
Content in general leaves enough room for creative people to express themselves, share ideas, but most of all turn simple words into a creative force moving their product ahead.
There are many ways to share a story with your audience, but the most successful one is definitely telling that story as it is. Nowadays, the concept is often confused with fabricated journalism and factual information, and emotive, engaging, and memorable side of the story is neglected.
While many content providers believe engaging audiences is a difficult task, we’d say telling a story is way easier than summarizing facts, assuming that there is a talented writer or blogger in charge of leading users from A to Z seamlessly.
The storytelling tools kit has expanded significantly in recent years and offers an array of creative tricks such as interactive animations and video stories. Let’s learn something more about them:
LookBookHQ
eBooks are the digital form of business books which aim to attract and engage customers with a product and make it easier to combine stats with creative and intellectual content. They often contain relevant analytics and reports, allowing the people interested in those to find them easily and in less than no time.
That’s exactly the role of LookBookHQ: it allows content creators to organize content in a way which allows readers to indulge in specific sections, point out the lengthiest and most important sections, specify what is unique in their story, and consequently involve more users. If you’re looking to educate customers, and provide an online library, LookBookHQ is the perfect tool for you.
Story Builder
In case you’ve decided to work with a reputable and proven brand, you should give Google’s Docs a look. This platform helps you tell and execute unique stories using the familiar Docs and all the features they can offer.
Shorthand
Launched in 2013, Shorthand is an enterprise tool for creating media-rich, immersive and interactive stories – with no coding required. Attention time for stories created with Shorthand can be up to 10 times higher than for other stories, according to their users.
CoSchedule
It is true that brand storytelling and blogging are very similar, but you still need to balance between them. CoShedule is the perfect tool to help you organize content-related needs, as this easy-to-use plugin allows you to perform all important activities from its Post Editor.
Shortcodes Ultimate
As the name indicates, Shortcodes Ultimate aims to provide you with cool and interesting shortcodes collated in a single package and make it possible to attach videos, notes, buttons, or tables without knowing coding at all. Thanks to it, you can deliver both unique and consistent content for your users.
CLICK TO TWEET
Click to Tweet is another neat product, this one allowing you to create shareable content directed towards social networks.
Storybird
Storybird lets anyone make visual stories in seconds. We curate artwork from illustrators and animators around the world and inspire writers of any age to turn those images into fresh stories.
It’s a simple idea that has attracted millions of writers, readers, and artists to their platform. Families and friends, teachers and students, amateurs and professionals have created more than 5 million stories.
Ending thoughts
Marketing storytelling is, in fact, a practice that lets you build emotional relationships with the consumers of your product/service. Plus, it is a creative strategy for sharing vital information and letting users know how your brand can be valuable to them.
Look at some of the most successful marketers and their stories: they are always reinventing this concept, and sharing content on new channels to reach as many people as possible. On the other hand, marketers that fail are usually holding on to traditional campaign restraints, and let their brands suffer from their inability to develop an engaging marketing strategy.
You may also like:
How to use quizzes to generate leads
How to Design a Good Email Newsletter to Encourage Customer Engagement
Starting a new WordPress website? These are the plugins you need!
The post How To’s & TutorialsStorytelling in Content Marketing – tools and resources appeared first on ThemeFuse.
How Toâs & TutorialsStorytelling in Content Marketing â tools and resources
For many marketers, storytelling is the key component of their content promotion approach and the most powerful way to make their products more attractive and engaging.
Basically, by telling a story, you give your services and products an identity and capture what they can really do for your audience to improve their experience. For the purpose of making people build emotional connections to your content, you have to tell your story in a creative, authentic, and inspirational way.
This is the so-called emotional branding strategy which does miracles in progressive marketing, such as dramatic increases in customer retention and revenue. The feelings your product inspires in people are the main incentives for them to buy it, which is why you must give them a reasonable story related to common human challenges.
Impress your audience
In order to craft a good brand story, and convey your message in a way that will affect your audience, try to figure out what matters to your users, and to illustrate it in a creative way. Draft a plan of the steps you need to take to reward customers, and sell them something fun and creative, as difficult as you think that may be.
Remember, nevertheless, that the story youâre sharing is not an invented one, but rather the tale of how your business was developed, and what your products/services are trying to achieve.
Your story should answer usersâ questions, fulfill their needs, engage them emotionally, and connect with their everyday life. Basically, what youâre doing is making valuable propositions to your audience of how your story can be useful, and how they can relate to you.
Make it personal and relatable
Since stories have to be personal and involve your development and main mission, try to trigger some valuable sales practices used to connect with the audience, and relate your mission to their needs.
As personal as it is, the story must have something in common with your audience, and enter their minds rather than simply providing facts. As an example, you can involve the customer and give him the leading role in the story, so that he will feel more important to you, and believe that your business is trustworthy and transparent.
Storytelling tools
Content in general leaves enough room for creative people to express themselves, share ideas, but most of all turn simple words into a creative force moving their product ahead.
There are many ways to share a story with your audience, but the most successful one is definitely telling that story as it is. Nowadays, the concept is often confused with fabricated journalism and factual information, and emotive, engaging, and memorable side of the story is neglected.
While many content providers believe engaging audiences is a difficult task, weâd say telling a story is way easier than summarizing facts, assuming that there is a talented writer or blogger in charge of leading users from A to Z seamlessly.
The storytelling tools kit has expanded significantly in recent years and offers an array of creative tricks such as interactive animations and video stories. Letâs learn something more about them:
LookBookHQ
eBooks are the digital form of business books which aim to attract and engage customers with a product and make it easier to combine stats with creative and intellectual content. They often contain relevant analytics and reports, allowing the people interested in those to find them easily and in less than no time.
Thatâs exactly the role of LookBookHQ: it allows content creators to organize content in a way which allows readers to indulge in specific sections, point out the lengthiest and most important sections, specify what is unique in their story, and consequently involve more users. If youâre looking to educate customers, and provide an online library, LookBookHQ is the perfect tool for you.
Story Builder
In case youâve decided to work with a reputable and proven brand, you should give Googleâs Docs a look. This platform helps you tell and execute unique stories using the familiar Docs and all the features they can offer.
Shorthand
Launched in 2013, Shorthand is an enterprise tool for creating media-rich, immersive and interactive stories â with no coding required. Attention time for stories created with Shorthand can be up to 10 times higher than for other stories, according to their users.
CoSchedule
It is true that brand storytelling and blogging are very similar, but you still need to balance between them. CoShedule is the perfect tool to help you organize content-related needs, as this easy-to-use plugin allows you to perform all important activities from its Post Editor.
Shortcodes Ultimate
As the name indicates, Shortcodes Ultimate aims to provide you with cool and interesting shortcodes collated in a single package and make it possible to attach videos, notes, buttons, or tables without knowing coding at all. Thanks to it, you can deliver both unique and consistent content for your users.
CLICK TO TWEET
Click to Tweet is another neat product, this one allowing you to create shareable content directed towards social networks.
Storybird
Storybird lets anyone make visual stories in seconds. We curate artwork from illustrators and animators around the world and inspire writers of any age to turn those images into fresh stories.
It’s a simple idea that has attracted millions of writers, readers, and artists to their platform. Families and friends, teachers and students, amateurs and professionals have created more than 5 million stories.
Ending thoughts
Marketing storytelling is, in fact, a practice that lets you build emotional relationships with the consumers of your product/service. Plus, it is a creative strategy for sharing vital information and letting users know how your brand can be valuable to them.
Look at some of the most successful marketers and their stories: they are always reinventing this concept, and sharing content on new channels to reach as many people as possible. On the other hand, marketers that fail are usually holding on to traditional campaign restraints, and let their brands suffer from their inability to develop an engaging marketing strategy.
You may also like:
How to Design a Good Email Newsletter to Encourage Customer Engagement
Starting a new WordPress website? These are the plugins you need!
How to Make Content Marketing Work for Small Budgets
The post How Toâs & TutorialsStorytelling in Content Marketing â tools and resources appeared first on ThemeFuse.
February 2, 2017
How To’s & TutorialsHow to Design a Good Email Newsletter to Encourage Customer Engagement
Emails have long ago replaced phone calls as primary means of business communication. And precisely because of that, sending impressive emails is crucial to a business’ success.
For every business, the key to succeeding is to attract more customers, and using the email newsletters is a great way to directly contact them. The email newsletters can range from extremely simple with a single link that will lead to some activity or new webpage of the business, to slightly more complex with a collection of discounts or arrival of new products.
With the development of technology there are many ways on which a business owner can reach a contact with the potential customers, and using the email messaging gives many benefits:
– One way to contact a customer is through social media, but the usage of email newsletters gives more personal and serious tone to the communication that you want to establish.
– By using emails, you can build a kind of community, giving the chance to the customer to know something more about your business and persuade him to buy more of your goods.
– Sending individual emails, you can give some special offers or discounts to some of your customers, making them feel special. With that, they will gain more trust in your business and will become more interested in using your services.
– The usage of email newsletters gives you the chance to build you brand’s personality.
But, in order to attract customers, you shouldn’t just write a few paragraphs and expect you readers to come running at your door. The email newsletter should be written in a polite way that will make the reader feel respected. This type of communication is a key element in the development of your business, and if you decide to use it here are a few guidelines that will come in handy:
– Pay attention to the structure of the newsletter. It needs to be visually appealing and easy to the eye, in order the customers to separate some amount of their time and read it.
– Headline: The headline should be specific. It should tell the one who reads the message why you want to interact. Although the headline is often left as an empty field, it has a big importance. If you attract the reader with the headline the will continue to read.
– The content is the main part of the newsletter, the reason why you type it. The most important thing in this section is each sentence to be clear. If you have three or more paragraphs, perhaps you should consider to reduce the size and try to express yourself in a simpler way. If your main part is longer than 5 lines, just break it into paragraphs. You should also avoid typing shortcuts since the language must be formal and literary.
– The visual elements also pay a big role. They will enhance your text and visually show to your reader what you are talking about. If you use visual elements try to optimize it using a tool such as TinyPNG.
– Call to Action (CTA) is also an important element. Instead of requiring the reader to reply to your newsletter, you can put clickable links and buttons through it that will lead the reader to some of your services and products.
If you want to create a newsletter, there are many ways to which you can do that. The easiest is to use your favorite text editor or word processor. You can also use a dedicated email marketing solution such as MailChimp or AWeber, the choice is yours.
It is very important to know that if you treat your customers well, you will have a positive effect on your business. Treat them with respect and importance and they will develop love for your brand and business and will gladly use your products and services.
Types of Marketing Email
1. Welcome-email
If you are writing an email to a new, potential customer, always pay attention to be extremely polite and friendly. The email actually represents your brand and business. Always show respect to your customers and explain the benefits that they will have if using your services.
2. Event email
If you have some event related to your business, you certainly can’t inform all of your customers for the same face-to-face. The best way is to send them an email, interacting with them on a more personal level. If you have some kind of sale or discount always try to send an email to your customers. By informing them you can even attract some volunteers that will be opened to invest in your business. You can also create a Facebook event and include a link to it in the invitation email.
3. Email Newsletter
It is recommended to send newsletters from time to time to your customers and donors. Inform them about the newest events and development of your business. Always keep them up-to-date if you want your business to prosper.
4. A ‘freebie email’
If you want to keep your customers loyal, a remarkable idea is to surprise them with some special free offer or ticket, or even a gift. Like that your customers will feel respected and appreciated and will buy even more from your products.
You can also make surveys in order to know the opinion of your customers. Ask them what they want to be improved in your services and try to incorporate their opinion.
Use statistics to your advantage
Although sending email newsletters to your customers is a great way to communicate and advertise your services, they may stay unread since people receive emails repeatedly and may skip some of them. Because of that, you need to use some tactics to make sure that your newsletter won’t stay unread.
Using the features offered by the email service provider, you can get a report on which of your previous email campaigns were more accepted from the customers based on the click-through, and use the information to create a new email campaign. Like that, you will know what your readers and customers are expecting from you and you will improve your email marketing.
Make customers interact with your brand
Make your customers act, and not just read the newsletter and forget about it later. Inform them correctly for your business and services, try to sparkle their attention to visit you and buy something from you.
As we already mentioned, the structure and design of the newsletter play a big role. Always try to include CTAs in it, since like that you will encourage the users to click on them and visually see what you offer. Also, keep in mind how your newsletter will look like if it is opened from a mobile device.
Before sending the newsletter, try to make a small research on the past interests of your customers. See what are they usually buying from you and in which products are they mainly interested. Like that you will increase their attention even more.
Everyone wants to win something for free, so why not give that opportunity to your customers. Send them some mini games or quizzes through which they can gain some price and improve your email marketing campaign. You will sparkle their attention and maybe they will later recommend you to some of their friends. Every innovation is a good innovation!
You may also like:
How to use quizzes to generate leads
Storytelling in Content Marketing – tools and resources
Starting a new WordPress website? These are the plugins you need!
The post How To’s & TutorialsHow to Design a Good Email Newsletter to Encourage Customer Engagement appeared first on ThemeFuse.
How Toâs & TutorialsHow to Design a Good Email Newsletter to Encourage Customer Engagement
Emails have long ago replaced phone calls as primary means of business communication. And precisely because of that, sending impressive emails is crucial to a businessâ success.
For every business, the key to succeeding is to attract more customers, and using the email newsletters is a great way to directly contact them. The email newsletters can range from extremely simple with a single link that will lead to some activity or new webpage of the business, to slightly more complex with a collection of discounts or arrival of new products.
With the development of technology there are many ways on which a business owner can reach a contact with the potential customers, and using the email messaging gives many benefits:
– One way to contact a customer is through social media, but the usage of email newsletters gives more personal and serious tone to the communication that you want to establish.
– By using emails, you can build a kind of community, giving the chance to the customer to know something more about your business and persuade him to buy more of your goods.
– Sending individual emails, you can give some special offers or discounts to some of your customers, making them feel special. With that, they will gain more trust in your business and will become more interested in using your services.
– The usage of email newsletters gives you the chance to build you brandâs personality.
But, in order to attract customers, you shouldnât just write a few paragraphs and expect you readers to come running at your door. The email newsletter should be written in a polite way that will make the reader feel respected. This type of communication is a key element in the development of your business, and if you decide to use it here are a few guidelines that will come in handy:
– Pay attention to the structure of the newsletter. It needs to be visually appealing and easy to the eye, in order the customers to separate some amount of their time and read it.
– Headline: The headline should be specific. It should tell the one who reads the message why you want to interact. Although the headline is often left as an empty field, it has a big importance. If you attract the reader with the headline the will continue to read.
– The content is the main part of the newsletter, the reason why you type it. The most important thing in this section is each sentence to be clear. If you have three or more paragraphs, perhaps you should consider to reduce the size and try to express yourself in a simpler way. If your main part is longer than 5 lines, just break it into paragraphs. You should also avoid typing shortcuts since the language must be formal and literary.
– The visual elements also pay a big role. They will enhance your text and visually show to your reader what you are talking about. If you use visual elements try to optimize it using a tool such as TinyPNG.
– Call to Action (CTA) is also an important element. Instead of requiring the reader to reply to your newsletter, you can put clickable links and buttons through it that will lead the reader to some of your services and products.
If you want to create a newsletter, there are many ways to which you can do that. The easiest is to use your favorite text editor or word processor. You can also use a dedicated email marketing solution such as MailChimp or AWeber, the choice is yours.
It is very important to know that if you treat your customers well, you will have a positive effect on your business. Treat them with respect and importance and they will develop love for your brand and business and will gladly use your products and services.
Types of Marketing Email
1. Welcome-email
If you are writing an email to a new, potential customer, always pay attention to be extremely polite and friendly. The email actually represents your brand and business. Always show respect to your customers and explain the benefits that they will have if using your services.
2. Event email
If you have some event related to your business, you certainly canât inform all of your customers for the same face-to-face. The best way is to send them an email, interacting with them on a more personal level. If you have some kind of sale or discount always try to send an email to your customers. By informing them you can even attract some volunteers that will be opened to invest in your business. You can also create a Facebook event and include a link to it in the invitation email.
3. Email Newsletter
It is recommended to send newsletters from time to time to your customers and donors. Inform them about the newest events and development of your business. Always keep them up-to-date if you want your business to prosper.
4. A âfreebie emailâ
If you want to keep your customers loyal, a remarkable idea is to surprise them with some special free offer or ticket, or even a gift. Like that your customers will feel respected and appreciated and will buy even more from your products.
You can also make surveys in order to know the opinion of your customers. Ask them what they want to be improved in your services and try to incorporate their opinion.
Use statistics to your advantage
Although sending email newsletters to your customers is a great way to communicate and advertise your services, they may stay unread since people receive emails repeatedly and may skip some of them. Because of that, you need to use some tactics to make sure that your newsletter wonât stay unread.
Using the features offered by the email service provider, you can get a report on which of your previous email campaigns were more accepted from the customers based on the click-through, and use the information to create a new email campaign. Like that, you will know what your readers and customers are expecting from you and you will improve your email marketing.
Make customers interact with your brand
Make your customers act, and not just read the newsletter and forget about it later. Inform them correctly for your business and services, try to sparkle their attention to visit you and buy something from you.
As we already mentioned, the structure and design of the newsletter play a big role. Always try to include CTAs in it, since like that you will encourage the users to click on them and visually see what you offer. Also, keep in mind how your newsletter will look like if it is opened from a mobile device.
Before sending the newsletter, try to make a small research on the past interests of your customers. See what are they usually buying from you and in which products are they mainly interested. Like that you will increase their attention even more.
Everyone wants to win something for free, so why not give that opportunity to your customers. Send them some mini games or quizzes through which they can gain some price and improve your email marketing campaign. You will sparkle their attention and maybe they will later recommend you to some of their friends. Every innovation is a good innovation!
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The post How Toâs & TutorialsHow to Design a Good Email Newsletter to Encourage Customer Engagement appeared first on ThemeFuse.
