WEEK 11A: E-MAIL MARKETING

E-MAIL MARKETING:

For my business I think once a week up to once a month would be a good amount of Newsletter to send my customers without overloading them with too many e-mails.

Newsletters from Provence Decor: - Invitation to my Shows: A week before each show I will send an invitation to all my customers living close to the area where my show will take place giving them information about the show, my booth location, etc.
- New products: Whenever I get something new, I will send a Newsletter with pictures and description of the new product on the website.
- Specials: Whenever I have some products on sale, FREE Shipping, Special gifts with orders I will send a Newsletter to all my customers to let them know about my specials.
- Contests: I will promote some contests to get customers involved and engaged on the website, Facebook and other Social medias. Whenever I start a new contest, I will send a Newsletter to let all my customers know.

I want to keep my e-mails simple, consistent and only with information that are really interesting to my customers to avoid getting into the spam box or having them unsubscribe from my list.

I have subscribed to 3 of my competitors Newsletters but I haven’t received anything yet to know what they are doing but what I have noticed is that a lot of my competitors are not using Newsletter anymore, only Social Media.

WEEK 10B: CATEGORIES ON BLOGS

CATEGORIES FOR BUSINESS BLOGS:

Creating categories for a business blog would help keep different subjects organized and that would help customers easily find what they are interested at.
For my business I could create different categories such as:
New Products: for all new products available at the moment; Special Offers: anouncing all products on sale at the moment; Home Décor Ideas: Giving different ideas on how to use the products and starting a discussion about the subjec; Contest: To promote contests and have people excited to engage in the blog (best product picture, best home décor idea, etc.); Product Care: giving tips on how to care for each fabric and leaving that space open for questions and suggestions; Traveling to France: giving tips on where to go and what to do in France, opening up discussions and sharing experiences with customers that have been there already; Recipes: a place to find and share great French recipes and so on.

People love to engage, participate and give their opinions on different subjects if you manage to make it interesting, fun and exciting. The blog is wide open area to do that, with imagination you can create many ways to attract potential customers and make them interested enough to stay and become a loyal customers automatically making your business grow.

Blogs I commented on:
Marchella Valdez
Mejia Abraham
Fanghella Michael

WEEK 10A: PERSONAL TOUCH ON BLOGS

ADDING PERSONAL INTERACTIONS ON YOUR BUSINESS BLOG:

If you have a business where you can have personal interaction with your customers, adding human interest to a post can appeal to their emotions because they will relate to you in a personal level.
For example, in my business, when I post videos or chats about my trips to France a lot of times customers want to buy some of my Traditional French products because it reminds them of the good times they had on their vacation going through the little markets in Provence. Also, adding a personal touch to your posts, makes the customer feel that they are directly connected to you and that encourages them to make comments, ask questions and trust that when they do business with you they will get a one to one special treatment. People like to feel special! Of course, even with a human touch, it is important to keep the posts professional and within the business interests. It can be easy to get off track and add personal posts that have no relation to what your business is offering. It is also important to always make sure not to neglect or discriminate any group of potential customers. If adding a human interest into your posts is appropriate for the kind of business you have, it can only help attract more customers because you will be offering a more personal online experience. People are buying online more and more but they still want to keep the social aspect to it and that’s when Social Media becomes so successful in our business.

WEEK 9 : TWITTER

I have chosen to follow those five Twitter users:

-Pottery Barn: Gives excellent ideas of how to decorate your home and also gives me great ideas on how to take professional pictures of my products for future posts.

-Williams Sonoma: Gives great recipes and decoration ideas as well.

-Interior Design: Like Pottery Barn also gives great home decoration insights to improve your home décor.

France-Voyage.com: Gives all sorts of tips on Trips to France which also helps me with my posts since I am focusing on different areas of France and their Traditional Home Décor.

Frenchly: Covers many different things about France (News, Fashion, Politics, Trips, etc.) which is great to keep updated on with what’s happening and getting ideas for posts that might interest my customers.

Yes, I did have to play around with many key words to find few connections that interested me, it is not easy to find really good ones.

Search words I used to find connections were:

Home Decoration, Home Decor, Interior Design, French décor, French Home Decor
French trips, Traveling in France
French news

Lists are a good way to organize everything by subject because when you start having many tweets going on, it can get really busy and confusing if everything is mixed up.

The lists are also very good to keep some tweets locked so competitors won’t be able to see strategic users you might be following.

I’ve created 4 different lists (French News, French Recipes, Trips to France, Home Décor) to organize my Tweets by subjects and make it easier when trying to find the subject desired.

I still don’t have any customer following me on twitter yet but I believe tweets would be more effective around lunch time, end of the day or weekends because that’s when most of my customers are not working and take time to check their social media.