Here’s a link to Anne Holland’s Which Test Won? site, which has been educating and inspiring marketers since 2009.

About: “A/B and multivariate testing can – on average – help lead generation marketers get ~40% more leads from their current Web traffic. E-commerce marketers can expect a ~20-25% sales lift if they do a round of tests.”

Matt Mullenweg’s “State of the Word” address at the 2011 WordCamp in San Francisco. Some of Matt’s points:

• Ease of use continues to be the big draw for WordPress developers and users.
• Community is the second-most appreciated benefit.
• 92% of WordPress users use it as a CMS.
• 14.7% of all websites are built on WordPress. That’s up from 8.5% last year. For new websites, it’s a whopping 22%.
• Hourly rates worldwide for WP development range from $5/hour to $2,000/hour (!)
• Coming up: improvements in admin interface, new user experience, media handling.

Jeff Korhan’s article on Social Media Examiner elaborates on the following steps, providing plenty of detail and examples.

1. Plan your QR code campaign strategy.
2. Create quality codes and test them.
3. Link your codes to mobile-friendly or mobile-optimized sites.
4. Track your scans with code management systems.
5. Deliver value and a favorable user experience.

“‘Content Marketing means creating and freely sharing informative content as a means of converting prospects into customers and customers into repeat buyers. The primary goal is to obtain opt-in permission to deliver content via email or other medium over time. Repeated and regular exposure builds a relevant relationship that provides multiple opportunities for conversion, rather than a ‘one-shot’ all-or-nothing sales approach.”

Mobile marketing is evolving quickly; here are some recent examples  from the Mobile App Trends Series that might inspire your own marketing efforts:

• Renault’s Phone-Less Facebook Checkin
• Diesel’s Facebook-Enabled QR Codes
• Macy’s QR Code Explanations on YouTube
• Starbucks Mobile Payments
• Coldwell Banker’s “Branded Video” Ad

Digital Impact makes a bold proposal: There are only seven metrics that are critical for performance measurement across digital channels. While countless other metrics are available to marketers, these seven are the ones that marketers should seek to master:

• Qualified Reach
• Clickthrough Rates
• Brand Perception Lift
• Engagement Score
• End Action Rate
• Efficiency Metrics
• ROI

All the websites I develop now are in WordPress, because it allows me to create sites that non-techie people can manage and update on their own, without needing to learn html or hire a webmaster. Besides that, WordPress offers built-in search engine optimization and content management functionality. (If you’re technically inclined, you’ll realize how important that is. If you’re not, you’ll be glad it’s built in.)

I can help you:

• Decide between using WordPress.com and WordPress.org
• Get your new site up and running
• Convert an existing site to WordPress
• Understand WordPress and general blogging terminology
• Learn WordPress structural basics: themes, pages, posts, and categories
• Choose an appropriate theme from among the thousands that are available
• Customize or fine-tune a theme so it meets your functional and aesthetic needs
• Learn formatting basics: bold, italics, indents, quotes, centering, text justification, colored text, heading styles
• Understand linking: adding links, which text to link to, using a blogroll
• Crop, size, and upload photos; use post image and thumbnail image features

If you’re new to WordPress, you might want to have a look at this series of five short WordPress orientation posts I wrote for Likoma.com. Or head over to WordPress.com for a look at WP’s features or to use their support documentation to get started.

From archives and blogrolls to web presence and widgets — if you’re just getting started with blogging, the terminology can be intimidating. Here’s a link to the blogging glossary I wrote to help demystify all that technical jargon.

Situation:
Likoma’s client, The Queen of QuickBooks, had identified small businesses that needed help with accounting but were not quite ready to make to move to take a class, hire a bookkeeper, or set up an integrated accounting system.

An e-newsletter is the perfect solution for maintaining contact with potential clients who will need your expertise at some (as yet undetermined) future time. It provides a vehicle for ongoing communications and keeps your company and services top-of-mind.

Strategy:
I worked with The Queen of QuickBooks to update the website and jumpstart the Queen’s e-newsletter. We made the monthly e-newsletter process easy by:

• Creating a template in Vertical Response.
• Uploading the existing e-mail list.
• Recommending a communications strategy (give away useful information, time topics to fit clients’ seasonal needs, link to informative white papers on the website, include humor to lighten a technical subject).
• Helping the client develop an editorial calendar, so she could plan a variety of topics for her monthly communications and time them appropriately.
• Assisting with copywriting and project management for the first few newsletters, until the client got the hang of doing it herself.
• Teaching the client to upload and send the newsletters in Vertical Response herself, so she had flexibility and low cost.
• Uploading copies of past newsletters to the client’s website, to encourage site visitors to sign up for the free newsletter.
• Revising the site layout, so the free newsletter signup button was more prominent.
• Providing ongoing technical, editorial, and strategic support on an as-needed basis, so the client had complete control over costs but could still get the job done.

Results:
The Queen of QuickBooks’ e-newsletter and website work synergistically to showcase the company’s expertise. The company’s web traffic and e-mail list have increased. And the Queen of QuickBooks herself is positioned as an expert in streamlining accounting systems and using accounting information make smart business decisions.

Chris Brogan says you should write a blog post almost every day. And Chris Brogan should know. But what if you don’t have time, or can’t figure out what to write about? That’s what happened to the Queen of QuickBooks.

The Queen had a website listing her classes and seminars, services offered, and case studies. She had plenty of QuickBooks expertise. But she also had a business to run, classes to teach, a staff to supervise. She knew that blogging regularly would help bring readers to her website, but making it happen wasn’t so easy … until we developed her editorial calendar.

Read this article I wrote for Likoma.com to learn how an editorial calendar can improve your blogging, increase reader loyalty, and make your life easier.