Major Developments Major Developments by Calendar Year

February 17, 2014

All you Need to Know about E-Mail Marketing for Small Businesses

Filed under: 2014 — Tags: — Ralph C Dreher @ 5:18 AM

E-mail marketing is considered as an effective Internet marketing strategy for small businesses. It acts as a tool to deliver commercial messages to your potential customers on your products/services. The purpose of e-mail marketing is to build brand awareness and customer loyalty. Small businesses can make the most out of e-mail marketing, by knowing the its benefits.

Benefits of e-mail marketing for small businesses:

  • Reduces Cost, Time and Effort: E-mail marketing takes less time, effort and money when compared to offline direct marketing. In offline marketing the procedure is time consuming as you need to create the design, get it printed and then send it to your customer in an envelope. Whereas in e-mail marketing by using available e-mail templates you can send e-mails to a number of your customers in a matter of seconds.
  • Real Time Results: In e-mail marketing you get to know who opened your e-mail, has the receiver clicked on the link or your e-mail was forwarded to someone else. It gives you real time results and lets you know the behavioral data of your customers.
  • Easy to Track: Another benefit of e-mail marketing is it helps you figure out where you are going wrong. You can track on how many people have opened your e-mail, how many clicked on the link in the e-mail, did your e-mail bounce, etc. By keeping a track on these things you can identify customer engagement and the response you are getting through your e-mails.
  • Global Reach: Through e-mail marketing, you can reach thousands of global customers by a single click. You can send e-mails to a larger group of audiences who are located at different places and locations at the same time. The news related to your business, your products and your services reaches to global audiences within no time.
  • Easy to Create: E-mail marketing does not require much effort and resources to carry out the campaign. You don’t require many employees to do the work. With the use of fancy templates, images, videos and logos you can create a successful e-mail campaign.
  • Test Marketing Messages: You can use e-mail marketing as a medium for test marketing messages. By this, you will be able to understand, to what your customers will respond and accordingly you can plan and execute it in an effective way.

It’s time for small businesses to take e-mail marketing platform more seriously and start the campaign to stay connected with their potential customers. A good email marketing strategy will help your small business grow and succeed.
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February 10, 2014

America’s Best Selling Cars (December 2013)

Filed under: 2013 — Tags: — Ralph C Dreher @ 6:25 AM

Toyota Camry was America’s best selling car in the year 2013. But it was not the best selling car in the last month of the year 2013. The Camry’s sales dropped by five percent and the Honda Accord’s sales jumped 10 percent. Honda also took the third place with its Civic after Toyota Camry.

  • Honda Accord: In the midsize sedan class. It occupied the number one rank in December 2013. The reasons for this are rewarding performance, superb fuel economy and excellent packaging. Its sales in 2013 December are 32,321. It is an increase of 9.8 percent when compared to the past year’s month sales of 29,428. Its yearly sales are 366,678 it is an increase of 10.5 percent.
  • Toyota Camry: It is an ideal choice in the midsize sedan segment with long standing history of dependability and well rounded nature. In December 2012, it sold 31,407, and in December 2013, it recorded 4.6 percent of decrease in sales with 29,964. Yearly sales are increased just less than once percent.
  • Honda Civic: Honda made further improvements to the new Civic. It resulted in the best compact car for this year. Honda Civic sales are decreased 12.4 percent than the past year December from 33,118 to 29,000 in 2013 and it is in the third best selling car in America for December 2013. But its yearly sales rose by 5.7 percent.
  • Nissan Altima: Impressive fuel economy, energetic engines and sophisticated driving dynamics give the Altima a leg up. It’s sales in December 2013 are 24,816, which is an increase of 3.5 percent compared to December’s 23,966 sales. Overall, it achieved 5.9 percent increase in sales.
  • Ford Fusion: With a huge array of tech features, provocative styling, excellent fuel economy and solid power, Ford Fusion topped the list. Its sales in December 2013 are 24,408, and in December 2012 was 19,283. It recorded 26.6 percent higher than in for the year same month. The total sales of the year grew by 22.4 percent.
  • Toyota Corolla/Matrix: December sales in 2013 (22,562) are decreased by 8.6 percent than the past year’s December of 24,679 and took the sixth place. Total yearly sales are increased by 3.9 percent from past year (290,947) to the end of 2013 December (302,180).
  • Hyundai Elantra: For an economical car, the new model of Hyundai Elantra is one of the best pick. With impressive value, decent fuel economy and sharp styling it is easy to see. With an increase of 14 percent sales as compared to 19,024 in December 2012 to 21,692 in December 2013, Hyundai Elantra is in seventh place among best selling cars for December 2013. It showed a good growth in this year with 22.7 percent increase in sales.

Chevrolet Cruze, BMW 3 series and 4 series, and Ford Focus are in the next places respectively. Chevrolet Cruze increased 14.5 percent and BMW 3 and 4 series are by 55.8 percent than the past December. Ford Focus decreased by 31.1 percent.
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February 7, 2014

Best Green Cars of 2013

Filed under: 2013 — Tags: , — Ralph C Dreher @ 6:48 AM

The federal government is offering $7500 incentives to buy green vehicles and constant state of flux in gas prices making the buyers to purchase green cars. The following list is taken from Kelly Blue Book and MSN Auto.

  • Nissan Leaf: The starting price of the leaf reduced by $6,000 on 2013 model and federal government tax savings are $7,500, so you can get it for around $22,000. According to Kelly Blue Book, there is no other all electric car better than this. The fuel economy in city is 129 mpg, and on highway 102 mpg. It is available at affordable base price, established in terms of availability and reliability, ample features, quiet cabin and spacious.
  • Tesla Model S: The Tesla Model S is coolest among the available cars and the most desirable electric vehicle today. This is also one of the best luxury sedans. The mileage is up to 94 mpg in city and 97 mpg highway. It supports by the Tesla supercharger infrastructure, available in seven passenger configuration, lots of cargo space, impressive performance, sleek styling and excellent battery.
  • Ford Focus Electric: It has an advanced power-train (pairs 107kw electric motor) and Lithium-ion battery. The advantages with this are high tech options, abundant list of upscale, lively engine, well made and stylish interior, refined & quiet ride, and nimble handling. Mileage is city 110 mpg and highway 99 mpg.
  • Chevrolet Volt: After the first 38 miles with the Chevrolet Volt gas engine will deliver the next 344 miles. The fuel economy is city 101 mpg and highway 93 mpg. Attractions with the Volt are excellent crash test scores, appealing standard features, maximum range is 300 miles and in normal driving monthly fuel costs are low.
  • Toyota Prius Plug-in: The mileage in city is 51 mpg and highway 49 mpg. It offers exterior in a unique black cherry pearl color, premium finished seventeen inches alloy wheels and trim package with style focused. Comfortable & quite ride, standard features, space efficient interior, fuel economy are the attractions.
  • Ford C-Max Energy: This is a rare trait among the present available green vehicles, and can fun to drive beyond its all electric range of 21 miles. The fuel economy is 44 mpg city and 41 mpg highway. It became a new competitor for Toyota Prius Plug-in. It has better electric range, better driving dynamics, and nice interior. Performance is an added advantage.
  • Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid: According to Kelly Blue Book, the Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid is an European sedan a fun to drive; the combined mileage is 45 mpg. The starting price is under $26,000. The fuel efficiency in city is 42 mpg and highway 48 mpg.

The other best green car models of 2013 are Honda Fit EV, Toyota Avalon Hybrid and Lincoln MKZ Hybrid. With Focus Electric, C-Max Energy and Lincoln MKZ Hybrid Ford got three positions in the list. In addition, the Toyota with its Prius Plug-in and Avalon Hybrid occupied two positions.
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February 4, 2014

Top 10 Google Analytics Alternatives

Filed under: 2013 — Tags: , — Ralph C Dreher @ 5:18 AM

Google Analytics is a popular free web analytical tool used to tracks the information of your website. But there are some reasons why people look for other analytics are data limits, premium prices, reporting delays, difficult interface and so on. This article discusses top 10 Google analytics alternatives.

  • Clicky: Clicky is a web analytical tool. It provides the basic information on the visitors of your website. This helps you know how popular your website is as a whole and which webpage content is most popular. You can also monitor your Twitter account from the same control panel like tweets, links, hashtags, etc.
  • Kissmetrics: Kissmetrics is an effective tool that tracks the user behavior on multiple session basis and tracks the conversion rates on each web page. It is also able to track information of the users who are likely to convert.
  • Mint: Mint is the another alternative to Google analytics. It provides information about the visitors including recently visited pages, returning visitors, referral site’s information, most visited content and so on. Another important feature of Mint is Bird Feeder – tracks the feeds subscription pattern of past week, month and year.
  • Mixpanel: Mixpanel is a real time web analytics tool and its dashboard is simple and attractive. It is used to track the user activities on your website within your application. It excels in the areas – funnel analysis, segmentation and report.
  • FoxMetrics: FoxMetrics is a web analytics tool that provides all the essential features that are required to run your online business. It mainly focus on the visitor’s actions and activities on your website. It also provides information of each customer.
  • Woopra: Woopra features are funnel analytics, segmented analytics and retention analytics. These features give your provides real time information about your customers behavior on your website. You can click over the visitors panel to know visitors’ click through pattern, what they are reading and so on.
  • Chartbeat: Chartbeat is real time analytics tool which provides information about real time traffic to your website. It alerts you to know about spikes or downtime (server crash, low loading speed of your web page and so on) in traffic.
  • Open Web Analytics: Open Web Analytics is an open source web analytic tool is with three important features like click heatmaps, DOM click tracking and mouse movement record and playback. It supports WordPress and MediaWiki. It tracks and analyzes visitors’ actions on your website and applications.
  • Reinvigorate: Reinvigorate is a web analytical tool with features like Heatmaps (it shows you where your visitor is click on the page), NameTags, live visitor tracking, referral tracking and so on.
  • Piwik: Piwik is an open source web analytics software. It is customizable and has additional plug-ins, which you can add to your system. It provides complete insight on your marketing campaigns and site’s visitors.

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