Friday, 27 May 2016

Creating a Facebook Ad? Implement These Call to Action Tips

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Expert Author Peg McDermott
Anybody with a little bit of time and a few dollars can create a Facebook ad and run a campaign. Not everybody has what it takes to create an ad that generates clicks and converts these people into buyers.
When creating a Facebook ad, regardless of your company size or industry, the call to action is one of the most important factors. If your ad is boring and unattractive, you can't expect it to receive a high click through rate. On the other hand, if you implement a killer call to action, you may be surprised at how much traffic you drive.
Here are three call to action tips that can take your mediocre ad and turn it into something much more powerful:
  1. Use at least one "action" keyword. A Facebook page is full of content and images, so your ad has to stand out in the crowd. By using an action keyword, you are telling your audience that you have something special to offer. You are telling them to take action now if they want to take advantage.

    Some of the best action keywords include: save, discount, book now, sign up today, order now, try, and subscribe.

    You can build off of these, based on your particular industry and offering, to create an even more powerful message. For example, if you are pushing a weight loss product, you could use a phrase such as "lose weight today" or "lose weight faster."

  2. Don't beat around the bush. You only have so much time to grab the attention of your audience and convince them to click through.

    Don't make people read through your ad to find out what you want them to do. Instead, the call to action should be displayed in a prominent and powerful location. If your audience can identify the call to action at a glance, while also understanding what it means to them, you have reached your goal.

  3. Ask a question. This is one of the best ways to engage your audience. Not only does a question draw people in, but it can improve your click through rate as they will be interested in learning the answer.

    Note: if asking a question, keep it short and sweet.
With these three call to action tips, you will find yourself taking a different approach when creating Facebook ads. Subsequently, you may also find that your campaign is generating better results.
Peg McDermott is an award-winning marketing communications expert,Internet marketing specialist, and public speaker. Peg is the founder and president of COGO Interactive, an innovative Internet Marketing firm specializing in helping small to mid-sized businesses increase revenue and awareness by leveraging Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Optimization.

Thursday, 26 May 2016

Ways to Protect Your Data Center Against Disasters

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Expert Author Taiba Fatima
In today's Internet-driven world, the role of data centers, in giving oxygen to different business verticals so that they can efficiently meet their targets, can't be overlooked. Ever since the dawn of the Internet, these specialized facilities have marked a significant shift in the way services are offered to the clients. These specialized facilities are equipped to house and manage critical business assets. In addition to this, they provide access to the suite of IT capabilities that include bandwidth access, network/firewall/asset security, application management, and other computing resources required to run a business process smoothly. The facility that supports different industry domains also needs to be managed well, so that its core functionality remains unaffected from both internal and external factors.
Do you remember the Hurricane Sandy that reportedly caused $400 million damage? This hurricane spoiled the functionality of many leading businesses across New York and New Jersey. Just for your information, this disastrous event is labeled as the most expensive hurricane of the nation. Apparently, the downtime caused owing to this catastrophic event has sparked customers' anger and dissatisfaction. It goes without saying that natural calamities are a prevalent contributor to data center failure. Well, we all know that no one is perfect - the scope for improvement remains available everywhere, and this statement deems fit in data center scenarios as well.
If reports are to be believed, human made errors are the most prevalent and leading threat to the existence of business. No matter if it has occurred due to abrupt disconnection of IT equipment or unintentional deletion of a business-critical file from the systems, issues caused by internal management team are quite significant. Another report in this regard suggests that approximately 70% of all downtime issues are instigated by individuals. This is actually a very disturbing figure, as the average costs of downtime is about $700,000, or above.
In this article, you will get to know about the ways opted by various companies to mitigate these hazardous events:
Today, most of the businesses are investing in training programs to prevent downtime issues that occur due to incompetent IT equipment set-up, crippled configurations, or poor maintenance practice Moreover, the inadequate training on internal IT functionalities and improper use of IT shortcuts that result in partial or complete infrastructure failure. Other downtime issues originate from improper equipment labeling or due to overloaded power supplies.
Well, the real time communication solution is the best way out to address all the aforementioned challenges. Companies should lay a concrete foundation for holistic disaster recovery planning. Today, there is a number of data center hosting service providers present in the market who offers super-charged disaster recovery plans to their customers. It is also observed that most of the organizations turn up to the professional vendors, as they lack internal resources and pieces of equipment, and prowess to match with the required disaster recovery procedures.
How Disaster Recovery Proves a Beneficial Alternative
According to experts, those, who leverage an array of business continuity and recovery services, cloud hosting solutions, testing services, including Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS), can efficiently combat unwarranted issues.
Typically, these solutions are hosted in a dedicated environment or on the cloud, which in turn ensures maximum protection for business-critical assets. It majorly involves assessment, designing, provisioning and endorsement of the facility with the help of failover testing. The best thing is such, cloud-enabled BC/DR solutions are powered by global data centers, which enable service providers to deliver solutions through Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) technology. The failover technology allows business owners to maintain high availability in today's competitive world.
However, it is recommended to partner with a vendor that delivers an array of computing and storage capabilities for deploying fault-bearing disaster recovery enabled infrastructures. Also, it is important to note that these solutions (offered by these vendors) are supported by stringent security and full compliance at each level.
Cloud-based DRaaS: An Effective Alternative
Cloud-based DRaaS has the power to recover data within a jiffy, which is undeniably impossible with when using conventional recovery solutions. Minimum investment on hardware and software applications leads to significant cost reductions. As cloud computing model works on a pay-per-use basis, it gives organizations enough flexibility and scalability to manage their applications without facing any downtime issues. The best thing is, it removes the compulsion of deploying physical run books, which ultimately boost automation and accuracy in business operations.
Do not get overconfident that mistakes can't be at your end. Remember, even a small IT error can annihilate your overall business processing.
By partnering with a professional for reliable service benefactor, disasters can be mitigated. Cloud-enabled solutions are highly automated, which reduces the threat of IT failure that generally occurs due to human interruption. It again goes without saying that every organization must now look for such shielding solutions that protect their mission critical systems - powered by such DRaaS.
To conclude extra attention and advance care solutions backed by disaster recovery including continuity plans can help organizations to capitalize on various market opportunities without fearing for catastrophic circumstances.
Go4Hosting is one of the known providers of data center and VPS hosting services, offering purpose-built solutions to businesses of all domains. Supported by industry-leading IT components, the data center facility is managed by experts so that business stays available all the time even if the disaster hits the facility. If you are looking out for a provider that has right disaster recovery and business continuity plans in place, you can either visit the location to take a tour of the data center, or connect with the experts for adequate assistance.

Wednesday, 25 May 2016

Facebook Ads To Generate Leads

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Expert Author Rick Toney
Real estate marketing used to be about referrals, direct mail and flyers. Now, it's gone on-line and marketing through Facebook is an excellent digital marketing opportunity. If you are looking for an ad platform that allows precise demographic and behavioral targeting, then look no further than Facebook. This cost effective medium allows for a competitive advantage among local competitors.
If you are a Facebook user, then you have seen sponsored ads creep into your news feed. If you are thinking about creating a Facebook ad to generate leads, then you will need to get a few things in order to begin. The first must have is a Facebook business page. While it doesn't take a marketing professional to create Facebook ads, it does take some time to develop an ad set and make sure the ads are working. Each ad allows for an image as well as text and a call to action button. A variety of options are available for ad placement varying from a right-hand column advertisement to a mobile or desktop news feed. Understanding your target audience is an essential component in creating any successful Facebook ad campaign.
Ad Targeting
Facebook marketing allows for laser-focused targeting of leads and utilizing Facebook ads to promote real estate services can be a very cost-effective method for gaining qualified leads. Among the top targeting areas are income, behaviors and interests as well as geographic Location. As an example, Facebook offers a behavioral category that's termed "Likely to Move." Other great lead generation possibilities include targeting by life events or home value.
Ad Budgets
Ad budgets can vary significantly, but the biggest thing to pay attention to is the amount of return that you get. Most recommend starting off with a lower advertising budget that won't break the bank. Then determine how the ad is working through engagement and conversions.
Advertising can be done for as little as $2 a day with some major companies spending upwards of $200,000 per day. There are two different pricing systems that Facebook offers: cost per click (CPC) and cost per mile (CPM). The CPM is what you pay per thousand impressions whereas as the CPC allows you to set a price that you will pay for every time someone clicks on your Facebook ad.
Ad Objectives
Without having clear goals in place for a Facebook ad campaign, then you are wasting money. Facebook offers "objectives" which allow you to choose what you want from your ad campaign. Do you wish to increase website conversions? Promote a page? Get people to claim your offer? There are a wide variety of options available to choose from, but the increase in website conversions should be what you want to focus on primarily if the goal is to capture leads.
Capturing Leads
Want more leads? Sure everyone does. But many don't know what to do with them once they get a lead. Having a system in place to capture leads before placing a Facebook ad is crucial. Some wing the Facebook ads and wonder why little to no results are realized. Without planning ahead and having a solid lead capture system in place, the time and money spent on Facebook ads aren't worth it. Obtaining contact information, if only an email will help build up a database.
Without the ability to generate leads business won't come. That's why Facebook ads are a great and cost-effective way to generate highly qualified leads for just about any business. Real estate marketing experts generally agree that Facebook is one of the top ways to gain quality leads. Every day over 900 million people log in to Facebook, so it is a great platform to reach people on for a lead generation tool. Setting up a Facebook page is free, it's only when you want to create an ad that it costs money. Utilizing Facebook's advertising program as an inbound marketing tool can be done through highly targeted ads. A recent Merchant Circle study reported that over 20 percent of small businesses in America have utilized Facebook to help promote their business. And, over 65 percent of businesses stated they would use Facebook ads again. Facebook ads offer flexibility and are also user-friendly to set up and maintain.

5 Simple Tips for Maximised eCommerce Success

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Expert Author Souvik Ganguly
Every online shopping platform has a unique working style, making generalized assessment extremely difficult. Marketing strategies of an online chocolate store and a portal that sells mango milkshake online will naturally be different. However, there are some basic practices that tend to work in most cases. You can spend millions in advertisements, but without the right basics the chances of a successful run is quite low. I will list the most important tips that can maximize your success without having to spend a lot.
First impression is the one that counts
If your website fails to strike a good first impression, the other factors won't even matter. You can have the best logistics partners, the best deals, and the widest range of quality products, but all that will practically mean nothing without a good first impression. By first impression, I mean the first-screen feel. Try to showcase your best products and deals in the first screen without making it clumsy. The initial feel has to be attractive without being heavy. Simple layout with readable fonts, soothing color combination, and intuitive interface are the first three must-haves in any commercial website. You must realize that online users are not known for their patience when it comes to assessing a website. Most users tend to decide the fate of a website within the first 10 seconds. That is all the time that your website will have to attract and lengthen the stay duration of a new user.
Customer's trust is your first priority
When it comes to running a successful business, customer trust is a must-have. If you run a bakery business, try to be a trusted platform before asking your customers to buy bakery products online. The entire marketing strategy will become much easier if your brand is in the customer's good book. Customer trust is easy to gain if you strictly follow a transparent operating policy and consistently offer high-quality products. Like all other businesses, the eCommerce industry also revolves around customer trust. Even a single dissatisfied customer can hurt your market reputation.
Have a simple operating process
Confusing your customer is the last thing that you should do. The competitive nature of the current market has no room for a time-consuming operating process. Try to keep things simple and short. Easy search options and internal run-time search optimization are absolute necessities for eCommerce platforms. Your website should be able to predict the desired product based on recent search inputs and showcase them accordingly. No modern-day user will take the pain of going through your entire website for a particular item. All pages should be interlinked with variable tabs and buttons. Do not try to be creative with button labels. You must avoid being over creative with buttons and tabs. Use the most obvious and popular label to avoid creating any confusion.
Boosted purchase decisions
Use your back-end data correctly to identify the most popular categories and products offered by your platform. Prioritize your products according to their likability among users. Allow customers to add and remove multiple filters in their search options. As a business website you will naturally try to give your customers options, but too much of anything is usually bad. Think from a customer's point of view and shape your website accordingly. Have checkout buttons and related links on every product page. Never try to push-sell products, if you want to do well in the long run.
Data stream your products correctly
The on-site-search and filter navigation are critical to a website when it comes to sustained user footfall. Try to stream your data as perfectly as possible. Use your back-end and run-time traffic data correctly to make your website appealing and desirable.