Karen Scharf's Page

Can you believe it’s November already? I’m not really sure how that happened, but it happened nonetheless.

And while I’m always sad to see the Summer go, I love this time of year because it’s a great time to start preparing your 2010 marketing plan. But before you do that, you’ll need to evaluate which of your 2009 marketing strategies worked and which were not effective. Since email marketing is one of the best marketing strategies for increasing your online presence, you should be constantly… Continue

Now that you have gone live with your blog, what’s next? How will you know if it is successful; how will you know if you are delivering the content your readers, your prospects and your clients are after? You will definitely want to monitor your pageviews, traffic, clickthroughs, search engine rankings and other overall indicators of website success. Your number of blog subscribers, however, may be the most accurate and reliable measurement you have for determining the success of your blog.

Eas… Continue

According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) small businesses enjoy a $43.52 return on every dollar spent in email marketing. That's the strongest ROI-yielding direct marketing tactic, and it's a result that even small businesses on a small business budget certainly can't ignore.

If you're not quite seeing a 4,300% return on your email marketing investment, why not consider one or more of these kick-starts:


*** Take Advantage of Personalization
If you're using an email service provider… Continue

The great thing about Twitter is that it helps create a conversation with your clients and prospects and joint venture partners and other interested parties in a quick and fast-paced manner. Thanks to the 140-character limit, you've got to get to the point and move on very quickly.

I know several marketers who have replaced their email marketing with their Twitter feed. Personally, I wouldn't suggest anything as drastic as that, but I do recommend that you supplement your current marketing effo… Continue

If you’ve added social media to your marketing mix, you’re probably asking yourself, “Is it worth all the time and effort involved?” That might seem like a difficult question to answer at first, but there are definite steps you can take to measure the return on your social media investments.


** What Are You Trying to Do?

First and foremost, you need to determine what your actual goal is. Are you trying to create brand awareness, generate sales, find joint venture partners, communicate with cu… Continue