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The word “integrity” is the most overused and misunderstood word in business. Many claim to have the upmost highest level of integrity when it comes to serving their customers, respecting their service partners and treatment of their employees but very few really know what the word means. By definition, integrity means “a steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code” so the question that comes to mind is whose moral or ethical code? Yours? Your parents? Society? Your religion? Your friends? The list could go on and on.

Having integrity is doing what you believe to be true and moral based upon the ethical code you have chosen to adopt in your life. All of the experiences you have had and all of the influences you have met, how you were raised and the religion you follow are all part of the composition of your ethical code. Integrity is the developed by making the right choices that support your ethical code consistently and without waiver. Integrity is something you have even when others are not looking.

Many successful people are successful because they have integrity. It is through integrity that you develop trusting relationships. And it is because of trusting relationships that good business is formed. Integrity is one of the easiest qualities to detect, or to detect the lack of in people you meet. Once you become familiar with a person’s actions and the choices they make, you will begin to anticipate their integrity level. When you act with integrity on a consistent basis, your actions become more predictable and your behaviors can be anticipated by others.

Integrity is one of the most sought after qualities by customers, business partners and employers so what can you do to ensure your actions are communicating a high level of integrity?

1.   Know Your Beliefs
Understand what makes you tick. What beliefs do you hold as true and as right? Before you can act with integrity, you must first understand your limits and your beliefs and the actions that you would take when those beliefs are challenged.

2.  Be Consistent to Your Beliefs
Integrity is about consistency and holding true to you not matter what the risk. It is about creating predictable behavior that not only you but others will begin to rely upon and depend. Don’t waiver in your actions and hold true to your beliefs each and every time.

3.  Don’t Lie or Exaggerate
Integrity is about creating trust and lying is always associated with lack of integrity, even if you feel the lie is justified. When you are honest and true, your integrity will shine and draw others to you.

4.  Stay True to Your Values
Sometimes we are easily influenced by others and our beliefs are challenged. We often find ourselves on the edge with a choice to go right or go left. To have integrity means to stay true to your values and your beliefs.

In order to succeed, you must not only have drive and ambition, but you must also act with integrity at all times. In the words of President Eisenhower “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionable integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army on in an office”.

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As the business world moves more on-line and email marketing becomes the norm in business, understanding your email metrics can be confusing but is also necessary in determining if your email campaigns are effective. Most email service providers (Constant contact, Aweber and Icontact) provide you with statistics that allow you to track the performance of your digital marketing. There are four measurements that allow you to gain a solid understanding of the effectiveness of your campaigns, they are: Read the rest of this entry »

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Guest Author: LisaMarie Dias

E-newsletters are an easy and affordable way to get your message online and into your client’s inbox. They allow you to target your message and stay on your client’s radar. They are environmentally friendly and easily modified and monitored. They are, quite possibly, the best thing since sliced bread! But they do require some planning and a modicum of ongoing maintenance to succeed and this is where most people drop the ball.

This is when online marketing campaigns begin to flag or, worse yet, fail.

Here are three of the most common e-newsletter mistakes I see and some suggestions on how you can avoid them.

Mistake # 1: No Plan People start e-newsletters for all sorts of reasons.

They want to expand their reach, create an online presence, define or redefine their brand. And sometimes they do it because they read somewhere that e-newsletters were the best thing since sliced bread and decided that they too, should start one! This last reason is NOT a good way to begin and will, in most situations, lead to failure.

Solution: Create a Plan Have a clear idea of what you want to say and to whom.

This may change over time but clarity of message, with a specific call to action sent to a targeted audience is key to making sure your clients can respond!

Mistake #2: Set it and Forget it

I often recommend that people create a few issues at once. If you have made the effort to set up a template and have sat down to create content, keep going. While you are on a roll, block out the next issue. Format the next few issues! It will make your life easier and you will be happily surprised when you sit down the following month and have it already started. But some people will take this to the extreme and create an entire six months or a years worth of e-newsletters all at once! They will copy and rename them and voila, they have a full year of issues. One of the many advantages of using an ESP (email service provider) like Constant Contact is that you can set your emails to go off at future dates up to almost a full year in advance. But if you just send out the same, or a very similar message every single month, after the first issue or two your clients will not bother reading it. Even if you do change your message after a few duplicates, you can be pretty sure that they will not be read.

Solution: Send Quality Information Clearly and Attractively Presented Respect your readers.

You only get a few chances, make sure that you are sending quality information that will be helpful and of interest to your readers. Vary the content. Make seasonal and/or personal references. Create an ongoing dialogue, building on discussions from previous issues. You want readers to look forward to hearing from you, not to be able to tell without even opening it, what you have to say. Otherwise you are wasting everyone’s time – your readers’ and your own!

Mistake# 3: Giving up too easily

People send out an issue or two and see low open rates. Or they send out six and don’t see a lot of clicks through to purchases. They see how much time and energy it takes and decide that it just isn’t worth it. They give up. How many times have you seen this happen? You started receiving someone’s e-newsletter – you may have even enjoyed it – only to find that it started coming less and less frequently, or worse yet, just stopped? The purpose of creating an e-newsletter is to solidify your relationship with your existing clients, to establish your expertise in your industry and to create an ongoing relationship with new clients. This is not something that will happen overnight. It will take time.

Solution: Give it a Year

The most difficult part of creating an online campaign is the initial set up. Now that you have a template, your lists and a few issues under your belt, the hardest part is behind you. Follow through and give it a year. If you still aren’t seeing results, maybe an e-newsletter was not the best choice for your business and you can move on. But before you walk away, sit down and examine your original goals, your content, your lists and your original plan. There may be some obvious gaps that, with some minor changes could garner the results you are looking for.

Review the information you gathered. A year worth of metrics (open rates, click throughs, etc) alone will be invaluable. Even if you do decide to take a different campaign route, examining and utilizing this information will ensure your future plan has better results!

LisaMarie Dias Designs (http://www.LisaMarieDiasDesigns.com) can help make your online marketing campaign a success! She offers strategizing sessions to help you come up with a solid plan and can help you get your e-newsletter up and running. If you already have a campaign and/or e-newsletter, she can help you make it more attractive, efficient and effective. If you would like to start an e-newsletter but just don’t know where to begin, she can help you make it happen! Call her at 973.275.9497 or email at LMD@LisaMarieDiasDesigns.com to set up an appointment to get started today!

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In the world of marketing, you have less than 3 seconds to grab the attention of the reader for them to take the next step towards your product.  The same holds true in article marketing.  A great headline can lead to sales success and a poor headline can lead to failure, therefore your headline is a critical. Read the rest of this entry »

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Article Marketing is one of the easiest and fastest marketing methods to build your brand, establish your expertise, and build links back to your website for minimal cost. All that is required is your knowledge in your area of expertise and an effective strategy to ensure you are leveraging all the possibilities that article marketing can bring to you and your business. Every article must have these top five essential elements in order to be effective and drive your desired results:

1. Valuable Content

Article marketing is about offering value through your words. It is about quality versus quantity so make sure you are offering content that your readers are interested in reading. You do not need to be a strong writer to use Article Marketing as a marketing strategy, but you do need to be able to weave in your expertise. If you cannot write, hire a ghost writer to write for you and you provide direction and editing for your own voice.

2. Enticing Headline

You have less than 3 seconds to grab the attention of the reader so your headline is a critical. Make it appealing and compel your readers to read further. Try to relate a solution to a problem, ask a provocative question or offer a command.

3. Targeted Keywords

Strategically placed keywords are a great resource for for search engine optimization. Search engines love keywords so use keyword tools to select the right keywords for your target. With the right keyword density and content, your articles could end up in the top page of search engine results for a number of competitive keywords but remember not to use too many keywords or the search engines will devalue your content.

4. Structured Resource Box

A well structured resource box is an essential element of getting readers to click on your links to your website. The resource box is the small box at the end of the article where you promote your business or yourself and embed links to your website. A structured resource box promotes the benefits of your products and entices readers to click links to your website usually through an offer for a free service and/or product.

5. Strategic Syndication

The last essential element is strategic syndication. By submitting your aricles to the various article directories, the more chance you have for other publishers to pick up your article. There are many services out there who submit your articles automatically to hundreds of directories and provide your tools to enhance and leverage your article submission. Other uses for your article include:

• Ezine Content – use article for your own ezine.
• Blog Posts – post article to your own blog.
• Guest Blog Posts – post article to others blog.
• Linked In – include in news feed
• Newspaper/Magazines – submit to off line publishers
• Ebook – repurpose all articles into an ebook.

Article marketing is a proven method to boost your online presence, increase leads, and drive traffic to your site, all at no cost to you. By spending as little as an hour each day, you can enhance your brand image, establish yourself as an expert and develop trusting relationships that will lead to more business and more profits.

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