E-mail marketing is still a winner when it comes to selling products and services. Consumers prefer e-mail communications to direct mail, social media, in store promotions and text messages, according to the latest figures.

A recent survey of shoppers across Illinois, Kansas, North Carolina and Ohio by CrossView revealed that almost 4 in 10 of them would elect to receive promotional information via e-mail.

E-mail turned out to be the most popular promotional communications channel amongst US consumers, followed by direct mail (23%), Text Messaging (18%), in store advertising (11%), social media (9%) with newspaper, TV and other traditional channels bringing up the rear with a total of just 3% between them.

Those are pretty telling statistics, and suggest strongly that investing in building a solid opt-in e-mail list and delivering compelling e-mail marketing on a regular basis is still a fantastic way for businesses to connect with consumers.

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When you’re choosing your web hosting there can be so many variables that it’s difficult to know where to start.

There’s storage to think about, monthly bandwidth, domain registration, e-mail, databases, online applications and scripts, website builders and much more.

Here at LetsHost we pride ourselves on having some of the best web hosting support in the business… but what about supporting people who aren’t yet LetsHost customers?

We decided it was time to take the pain out of choosing the perfect Irish web hosting plan.

Just click on the banner, answer a few simple questions about what you want from your Irish web hosting plan, fill in your contact details and one of our friendly team of web hosting experts will get in touch via your preferred contact method (phone or e-mail) for a chat.

They’ll talk you through everything, and once they have a clear idea of exactly what you need, they’ll advise you on the ideal hosting solution for your needs.

LetsHost offers a wide range of hosting and domain management solutions specifically tailored to deliver outstanding value and performance to Irish website owners. From shared hosting for home users and hobbyists to high-performance dedicated servers for large business clients and high-volume e-commerce systems, we have all your Irish hosting needs covered.

So click on the banner, and let us help you pick the ideal Irish hosting solution today!

Image by suzukik via Flickr

In a recent post we looked at how you can use web analytics tools already included in your LetsHost Complete Hosting Plan to analyse your website traffic and gain valuable insight into how your visitors use your site.

While these basic log file analysis tools are fine for giving you a general overview of activity on your site, they offer a very basic user interface and a pretty inflexible window on your logfile data.

Enterprise class analytics software for free

Enterprise class analytics software can (and does) cost many thousands of Euro, but thanks to Google many of the features you’d typically find in high end commercial analytics software are now available for free.

Welcome to Google Analytics.

Setting up Google Analytics on your website is easy. Once you have a Google account (if you don’t already have one you can sign up for a Google account here), just head over to the Google Analytics website.

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Image by Tom Raftery via Flickr

• Do you know how many people are visiting your website every day?
• Do you know where they’re arriving from, what pages they’re landing on?
• Do you know how long they spend with you once they arrive, and which page they leave from?

The simple answer is yes, you do!

All of that data is being recorded for you automatically in your server log files, and is easily accessible using the free tools in your LetHost CPanel account.

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So, you’ve  unboxed your shiny new Apple iPhone, connected it to iTunes and synchronised your music contacts and other bits and bobs… now you’re wondering how you go about collecting your e-mail on your brand new iPhone.

Well, there might not be an app for that… just yet – but here’s a handy YouTube video courtesy of those lovely people at Wiley Publishing who created the iconic “For Dummies” series of books.

All of your LetsHost email accounts support both IMAP or POP access, and your server for both incoming and outgoing mail is mail.yourdomain.com (where “yourdomain” is a primary or add-on domain associated with your LetsHost Irish hosting account).

Your username is the e-mail address you want to access (replace the @ with a + if you have problems logging in), and your password is the one you specified when you created the e-mail address in cpanel.

You’ll find lots of information on setting up new e-mail accounts and e-mail settings for IMAP, POP and SMTP access in the LetsHost Support FAQ/Knowledgebase.

Want more iPhone tips and tricks? You’ll find iPhone for dummies over on Amazon.

Image via Wikipedia

Social Media has been the darling of the digirati, online early adopters and web2.0 advocates for a while now, but 2009 was the year when explosive growth took social media into the mainstream.

Research by Nielson group for the year to May 2009 revealed the following statistics:

• An 82% increase in the total time spent on social networks and blogs in the year to May 2009.
• A 62% increase in the average time per web user spent on social networks and blogs in the year to May 2009
• Traffic on Twitter, the “poster-boy” of Social Media in 2009, grew by a staggering 1,448%

What does the rise of social media mean for you, your brand and your website?

If your peers, your customers and your prospects aren’t already using social media, chances are good that they soon will be. Getting involved in the same online social circles offers you the opportunity to engage in a meaningful dialogue with them.

There’s a global conversation going on, through blogs, social networks, forums, “micro-blogging” platforms and other social media platforms. Here are just a few ways you can harness the power of social media to benefit the online presence of your brand:

• Get and give help and advice: learn what peers and thought leaders in your industry are talking about, and gain insight that can help you in your business, and help others in return.
• Build a community around your brand: people like to feel a connection with the products and services they use, and to interact with the human beings behind the logo.
• Monitor, respond and influence: there’s a conversation going on out there, with or without you. Far better to engage and foster a positive perception of your brand from the outset than to sit on the sidelines.
• Foster ongoing, mutually beneficial relationships: it’s far easier and more profitable to retain existing customers than it is to chase new ones… social media tools can help you to build stronger relationships with a much wider network of people.
• Word of mouth: good news travels fast online… social media offers a wonderful opportunity for people to spread the love about your brand.

Exactly what opportunities social media can offer you depends very much on your business, where your customers congregate online and what you want to get out of it. The best way to find out is to dive in and start exploring… to get started why not try following @LetsHost on Twitter, or post a comment on this blog post?

We’re looking forward to hearing more from you and your business online!