Email Marketing

For this post I will be analyzing two emails I received based on criteria for effective email marketing campaigns that I learned from Professor Pepe’s Digital Marketing Class. One email is from Starbucks and the other is from CVS.

The first email I will be analyzing was one I received from Starbucks. I was at a local Starbucks and in order to use the free wifi I had to put in my email address, which actually put me on their email list. This was the first email I have received from them since I prefer Dunkin Donuts coffee over Starbucks, so I do not look at their emails, besides this one.

The subject line was “Welcome to Starbucks.” It was inviting but did not entice me to open the email because there really was no strong call to action. When I clicked on “Coffee inspiration and need to know news | View online” this brought me to a page that showed me a larger version of the graphic, which I think it should of brought me to the Starbucks website in order to be more effective.

I think the content was too brief and the graphic included in the email did not include any image of food. I think that it would of been more effective to include a picture of at least one food or beverage item sold by Starbucks in order to entice users to go to a Starbucks store. This email went to a segment which is comprised of consumers who signed up for the email list recently and it accomplished the goal of making the consumer feel welcome, and offered the option to unsubscribe to the emails at the bottom of the email itself if a consumer did not wish to receive any emails from Starbucks. I do think that there should of been something to entice users to visit the website and view the product offerings. As of right now, the only way to be brought to the website is if you click on the logo, but every individual may not be aware that if you click the logo you will be brought to the website.

The next email from Starbucks should include images that provide information as to the kind of products Starbucks sells including seasonal items that are popular and well known to consumers. There should also be more of a direct link that brings consumers to the website, which an example could be a call to action regarding a sale on a drink, and the landing page from the link will provide more information on the sale.

 

The next email I received and will be analyzing was from CVS. I received this email because I am signed up as an ExtraCare member, which is a discount card and rewards system that also keeps track of your spending and what items you have purchased, and uses that information to provide you with discounts to those items as well as similar items that you might be interested in purchasing.

The subject line of the email was “Tara, Last Call: BOGO Free Nature Made, Nature’s Bounty, CVS Health Vitamins & More!” which enticed me to open the email because of the CTA (Call To Action) of “BOGO” which expressed that there was a deal, and the urgency of “Last Call” made it seem like the deal would only last for a little while longer. This CTA was effective in that it prompted me to open the email and then click on “View weekly ad” which successfully brought me to a page with the discounted products that were advertised.

I think that the content in the email was appropriate because it was relevant to the products listed in the subject line and contained an image of those exact products to provide consumers with a visual. This email seems to of been sent to a segment, one that has purchased vitamins in the past, including myself since I have purchased vitamins from CVS recently. This email accomplished it’s objective in advertising their BOGO sale on specific vitamins by sending this email to consumers who have purchased vitamins in the past. The view weekly ad option also helped build the brand and advertise their ExtraCare rewards system by spreading how a weekly email/ad is sent out to consumers giving coupons for the most recent sales.

In order to continue with the awareness of the ExtraCare rewards system I think that the next email CVS sends out should be similar to this one, in that there is a sale to entice consumers to read the email and accept the coupon offer. It would be important however that CVS utilizes their database (purchase records of each consumer) to effectively advertise products that are relevant to each individual consumer and is something that they may actually want to buy.

 

 

On-Site SEO Ranking Analysis

For this blog post I will be focusing on ways to increase SEO ranking for my blog, which is an assignment for my Professor’s class but it can also help you too with your own website! First it is important to know what SEO means and what it stands for. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and can be broken down into On-Site and Off-Site SEO. To make it simple, Search Engine Optimization involves getting traffic to your website from free or “organic” search results. Links are very important when it comes to both On-Site and Off-Site SEO, as they are what bring consumers to your website. To quote my professor, “85% of all traffic on the internet is referred from a search engine,” which shows how important it is to provide keywords that are relevant to your content which will bring consumers to your site. When starting a website it is important to understand the concept of SEO and how to bring the most traffic to your website. Companies/Individuals can access information online about how to drive traffic to their website by reading articles like this one. 

For this post I will be specifically discussing On-Site SEO which is used by digital marketers to increase traffic to a website. In order to increase traffic, which I discussed in my previous blog post, it is important to have keywords that are relevant to the content on your website. You can find relevant keywords by utilizing Google’s Keyword Planner, which allows you to assess for traffic and competition for each keyword. In my case, I will be selecting keywords that are related to the theme of my blog which is home decoration ideas and tips. The screenshot below shows all of the options for keywords that I could use when I typed in the keyword “Home decoration tips” and gives insight as to the competition and traffic of that particular keyword. The keyword “Home decoration tips” is an example of a long-tail keyword which is a more specific keyword and is beneficial to use because it narrows down the search.

Another keyword search that I performed included the phrase “DIY” which means “Do It Yourself.” This relates to the content on my website because the tips and advice I give on home decoration and organization are the kind that you can “Do It Yourself.” The keyword “DIY” is an example of a short-tail keyword which is beneficial to use because it keeps your search more broad as opposed to using a long-tail keyword.

Not only do keywords have to be relevant, it is important for keywords to be strategically placed in a least one of the following locations – the URL, title tag, header tag, content, alt text, and anchor text. As you can see in the screenshot below, I changed the URL for this specific blog post to include the keyword “Home Decoration Tips” so that when someone puts that keyword into a search engine, this specific blog post will appear in the search engine results.

Another place I put the keywords from the search I did within Keyword Planner was in the actual content of this blog. By placing the keywords “Home Decoration Tips” and “DIY” in the content, increases the likelihood that my blog website will appear in the search engine results if someone else uses the same keywords that I used.

My blog posts improve my SEO quality rankings especially if I have relevant keywords that are placed strategically in the locations that I mentioned previously. It is important as a blogger and even as an individual who runs a website that your content is up to date and that you are posting frequently. Frequent posts drive traffic to your website and can ultimately lead to conversions. Lastly, frequent use of the same keywords and theme ideas can drive even more traffic to your website.

 

 

What Measures The Success Of A Website?

For this blog post I will be doing an analysis of the retailer Bed Bath & Beyond, in terms of the three criteria that measure the success of a website which are traffic, conversion, and revenue. This blog post is for my Digital Marketing Class taught by Professor Pepe, in which this analysis was taught during one of his classes.

I chose to analyze the website Bed Bath & Beyond because of its relatability to the content of my blog as well as to hopefully help others understand what measures the success of a website. To give you background on Bed Bath & Beyond, the retailer sells items varying from many different categories such as bedding, bath, kitchen supplies, furniture, home decor, etc. The site also allows customers to personalize their shopping experience by enabling them to create ‘ideaboards’ which allows them to write notes and save items to their board in order to envision what their space could look like. The site also has a tab for ideas and inspirations if you are looking for design and organization tips.

As mentioned before, the first measure of success when analyzing a website is traffic. Traffic can be broken down three ways; Direct, Search, and Referral. Direct Traffic is when a user types the URL, in this case https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com, into the search bar on websites such as Google. Bed Bath & Beyond experiences direct traffic in that they are a recognizable brand that is known for selling home decor products. Bed Bath & Beyond also experiences direct traffic because of their easy to remember URL, which simply states the name of the company. The next form of traffic is search, which can be broken down into paid and unpaid searches. Paid searches are when you search up a phrase, the company can choose for their website URL to be one of the first options you see. For an example, refer to the image below. In this image, you can see that I searched in Google the keyword “home decoration stores” which provided the URLs to various stores. Wherever you see the green word “Ad,” that means a company paid for their website to appear at the top, in this case Bed Bath & Beyond did not pay for their URL to appear at the top.

When the phrase ‘ad’ does not appear, it means that the company did not pay for their website to appear at the top, which is an example of unpaid search traffic. Even though Bed Bath & Beyond did not pay to have their URL appear, it is good that it appeared in the unpaid search area, which shows that keywords such as “home decor” are effective at driving traffic toward the Bed Bath & Beyond website. This also means that the brand is well-ranked on commonly searched products/keywords as well as uncommonly searched products/keywords.

The last kind of traffic is referral, which can be broken down into paid and unpaid. Paid referral is when an ad appears on another website, whereas unpaid referral could be an example of joining an email list or engaging in different social media platforms. Bed Bath & Beyond has various social media platforms which are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube, and it is effective that each icon is displayed on the website and is linked to the various social media pages.

The second measure is conversion which can involve getting consumers to purchase something off of your site, engagements, subscriptions, and account creation. Bed Bath & Beyond gives you an option to sign up for emails to keep up to date with the latest information and deals. The company uses the phrase “Ready to sign up for great savings?” to entice consumers to give out their email and the brand makes this appealing by showing how the opportunity to receive great savings is versatile in that you can access coupons via email, mail, or on your smartphone.

The last measure of success is revenue, which on Bed Bath & Beyond’s website can be obtained by adding products to the cart and purchasing them. Customers can check their cart at any time which is located in the top right corner of the website. In order to increase revenue, the brand refers customers to items that “you may like” and that are “just for you” to entice you to not only buy what you were intending, but purchase even more items that seem to pair well with what product(s) you have recently viewed or put in your cart. The purchase process is also easy for consumers to navigate and each product has detailed descriptions and customer reviews which makes consumers feel confident and at ease when making a purchase decision.

Lastly as mentioned above, keywords that I could use for my blog and so could Bed Bath & Beyond to increase the search ranking could be ‘home decor,’ ‘DIY,’ ‘home decoration,’ ‘organization tips’ and so on, but it is important that each keyword is related to what the site is about, which in this case is home decoration. To further refine the keywords, myself and Bed Bath & Beyond could use keywords that relate more specifically to different areas of the home such as the kitchen, bathroom, office, etc. and find out what consumers are searching the most and create further keywords based on those findings.

 

 

 

 

Decor Is What We’re All About

Welcome to Home Is Where The Decor Is! It is our goal to provide you with tips and “do it yourself” ideas to decorate any space that you desire, in an affordable yet fashionable and organized way. Whether you are looking to redecorate or begin to decorate your space, no matter the size of your space, we are here to provide simple tips. Being a junior in college myself, I can understand the reality of living a busy lifestyle and trying to make money at the same time, yet wanting to come home to a space that you can call home after a long day. It is especially important for us to provide tips that make your space “cozy” and fit your style.

As mentioned before, I am currently a junior in college taking a Digital Marketing course in which I am using this blog for (Professor’s site found here). However it just so happens that my passion for giving people home decorating ideas came from how I have always loved to craft and decorate since a young age. Even the many HGTV television shows that I have shamelessly (over) watched over the course of a few years have helped spark my interest, too. With various places I have been to and seen, I have gained a lot of inspiration as to the kind of spaces I want to create and write about to share with others. I believe that if your space is cozy, organized, and fits to your lifestyle, it can make a huge difference. The best part about decorating spaces is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to make them look nice.

To further explain the content on this blog, you can expect to see decorating ideas for spaces ranging from bedrooms, dorm rooms, bathrooms, home offices, etc. and even tips for organizing your spaces. In addition to ideas, you can also expect to see recommendations of places to shop and information regarding the stores that I have purchased various items from, from my own spaces! Lastly, you can expect to see photos of my spaces, items that I have crafted and some that I have purchased, as well as places that I have gained inspiration from! For the items I have crafted on my own, you can expect to see “recipes” perhaps you can call them, which will explain the products I used to create what I have crafted.

For all of you out there who want to decorate your space without spending a fortune, this blog is for you! Feel free to try our ideas out, share them with friends, and even recommend your own! We also take suggestions as to the kind of posts you want to see, so feel free to reach out to us!

Happy Decorating!

~Tara