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May 18, 2008
Smart Ways To Use The Internet
The Internet is an extremely over-hyped area of opportunity but I can suggest several tested, proven, practical and almost universally valuable uses.
To begin, you need to create a website for your business, not so much as a means of acquiring customers via cyberspace, but a customer service, education, and information center. For example, your website could offer answers to all the commonly asked questions, diagrams, etc. accessible free, 24 hours a day. You could even make a portion of your site "access restricted," for customers, clients, subscribers, or "members" only, adding mystique to your marketing, and adding perceived value for your clientele!
This technique would work whether you have a brick and mortar or internet based business. For example, a restaurant could do this with "secret recipes" and special VIP offers; a clothing retailer with etiquette and fashion tips and special offers, and so on. Of course, you'll also want a promotional area on your website designed for new customers and you'll then want to add your website address to video brochures, audio recordings and infomercials for your advertising and marketing materials.
Second, begin collecting and organizing the email addresses of your customers and collecting the email address of visitors to your site.
With the list, you can do virtually free "push button marketing" anytime you like, as often as you like. You can send out an email newsletter to your customers, or other information like tip sheets.
Let's say you have a rather ordinary business; kitchen and bath business, for example. Here are a few of the things you might transmit by email to your customer list:
1. Resources to upgrade your counter tops to granite or marble
2. Cabinet grade tips and suggestions
3. Special offers for new plumbing fixtures
4. Tips on determining the grade of cabinet materials
5. New product information
Keep in mind, regardless of your business or product you can use the above techniques for creating and marketing your website and business.
Third, in seeking publicity from the media, being able to fax, email or mail very brief, provocative news releases that refer the recipients to your website for more information is very useful.
Everybody in the media is online. And, some are lazy, so if they can research a story without leaving their chair, believe me, that's the way they're going to do it. If you go the route of writing articles for publication in your industry journals or article forums, you can even post a whole collection of them on your site, and invite any publication to download and use whatever they like.
In summary of my advice to most business owners about the Internet: do Not be seduced, do Not buy into the hype and expect miracles or invest inordinate amounts of time or money. Do Not let the Internet take away from your commitment to more reliable, predictable, results-measurable advertising and marketing media. But DO get involved. At whatever pace is comfortable for you, begin learning about the Internet, getting your business on the Net, and experimenting with practical applications like those I just described. Proceed calmly, deliberately, strategically.
Above all else, Just Do It!
Posted by billenross at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2008
How To Use Postcard Marketing
Finding new customers can be difficult, and costly. But once you have a satisfied customer, one of the techniques to keep in touch with them is through post card marketing. Using direct mail postcard marketing, you keep in contact with your customers, to let them know that you appreciate them. You will stand out of the crowd, because this technique is not used by many marketers. This can result in repeat sales, for a long time to come.
Using direct mail postcard marketing is a great way to make sure that your customers keep coming back to you. There are a few things that help you to provide the attention your customers deserve. First, get as much information from them as possible. If you do not know your customer's name or email address, it’s difficult to provide the customer service needed. Finding out the basics like name and email address, and their mailing address, is vital so that you can keep in contact.
However, to have the best success with direct mail postcards, you have to go above and beyond. Building a relationship with customers goes a long way in the business world. By opening up, you are showing the customers that you care about them and their needs and that they can trust you. It is difficult, if not impossible, to build a relationship from one direct mail postcard. That is why it is crucial to have a regular follow-up with your customer.
Going the extra mile, using direct mail postcard marketing, differentiates you from the "also-ran" marketers. It makes it very obvious that you are providing quality service to your customers. It also shows them that they are of utmost importance to you. You can do this by sending your customers special offers for upcoming products, and providing them with discount pricing for being a premium customer.
Throughout the process of following up with your customers, it is vital that you make your postcard design consistent with your business image, to establish and increase the recognition of the postcard, thus increasing your response rate. Color postcards, including photos, will also increase your response rate.
Direct mail postcard marketing is a great way to keep customers informed of upcoming deals and new products, while providing quality customer service at the same time. Return customers are to be valued, so it is vital that you let them know they are valued. You can do all this and more with direct mail postcards.
Posted by billenross at 05:38 PM | Comments (0)
May 08, 2008
eMail Marketing
How To Double Promotional Email and Ecommerce Revenue
Most newcomers to email marketing think that they can send a promotional email to a list of subscribers and then sit back and watch the money flow in. If only email marketing was that easy. That said, email marketing does have the potential to generate a lot of revenue from promotional email campaigns and ecommerce, but it requires some ingenuity.
If you want to be successful in ecommerce, you will have to work harder than just shooting off a newsletter. With just a little bit of effort, you can double the revenue generated from an ecommerce website All it takes is some effort, careful analysis, testing different methods, and then refining them. Make sure you concentrate on building your email list, creating outstanding content for your emails, managing your list, dividing your list into categories and testing.
A good home page does not necessarily translate to revenue generation. You should get traffic that converts. You have to get new subscribers who visit your website regularly to check out new products or services. This can be done by list building, which in turn is only possible if you expand your current list. Make sure your website has an opt-in subscription form on practically every webpage.
Your chances of getting new subscribers will increase if you offer some kind of incentive. An incentive can be anything from an offer for free shipping to giving $20 off on the first order. You can easily get a new customer's email address through the shopping cart form. Make sure you add a link to the subscription form in the transaction confirmation email. This opportunity can be also used to get further details like gender, likes and product interests.
A Pay-Per-Click (PPC) program, if used effectively, can generate a lot of traffic. One of the most used methods to look for products is to search for them online, and a PPC program will definitely help you here. However, make sure that you have an easy sign-up process, whether the visitor buys a product or not. In addition, concentrate on search engine optimization to get targeted traffic to your website.
If you have a physical location of your business, then offer sign-up forms to your customers at the cash register. This way you get their subscription while the customers are present and you can then send them in-house promotional offer through email. Whenever you send a newsletter, make sure it has an eye-catching subject line,which will compel readers to open the email.
On your website, products should be divided into categories, so that visitors can find it easy to locate what they want. Give your subscribers enough options to select what is appropriate for them. You should not forget to personalize your emails by using the customer's first name. Adding a "send-to-a-friend" option in all your newsletters will help to generate new subscribers, provided your content is good.
If your email message has a great content and design, you can be sure to get a good open a click-through rate. Finally, keep checking your email program so that you can eliminate any issues before the mail is sent out.
Posted by billenross at 07:30 PM | Comments (0)
May 04, 2008
How To Get Free Website Traffic
An online business is only successful if you have traffic coming into it. In fact, traffic generation could be the most important part of your online business promotion. Without traffic your business is dead in the water. So what are some free and easy ways to get traffic to your website?
The first one is Blogging
Chances are, you probably have a blog or have at least have heard of blogging. But do you know how important it is to develop an informative blog that people are going to follow?
To have a successful blog it should be updated daily and it should have only quality information on it. A great way to keep people coming back to your blog is to frequently give away free stuff that is related to your business. It could be a free e-book that you have written or a free template that will be beneficial to the people that are reading your blog.
The reason that blogs are mentioned first in this article is because search engines love them and they will crawl all over them when new content is added. If you have a blog that is updated on a daily basis the chances of your blog getting ranked high in the search engines is very good. Two of the more popular blogging sites are Blogger.com, which is very user friendly and Wordpress.com, which is a little more advanced. both of these are free to use.
Next are online forums.
This is another free way to get traffic. All you have to do is start posting on forums. Do a quick search in your favorite search engine and find a few active forums that are related to your business topic. Sign up for the forum and then read through a few of the posts to get a feel for the way that things are done. Find out what people are talking about. Find out what questions they're asking. Once you get familiar with how the forum operates then simply start posting.
One important point to remember when posting to online forums is not to spam the forum. It is considered spam when you jump right in and start posting all about your business and products with a bunch of links to your website. In most cases doing this can get you promptly removed from the forum. This is easily avoided by just posting relevant information that will help solve some of the problems that the people on the forum are talking about. Just make sure that each time you post it has value to it and you'll never be accused of spam.
Something to remember with both of these traffic generation methods is that they are all about building up your reputation. If you spend some time and develop a reputation on your blog or an online forum as someone who is an expert and as someone who is willing to help other people with their problems, then people will actively seek out your posts and comments to see what you have to say next.
Then in your signature line or on your about me page, you can insert a link to your website or favorite affiliate program. If you have a good reputation and people value your opinion, they will click on your links almost every time to see what else you may have to offer. Both of these methods of traffic generation are free, easy and have the extra added benefit of getting targeted traffic.
So there you have it, two free ways that you can drive traffic to your Website. There are many more ways, but these two are simple and you can start using them right away.
Posted by billenross at 09:50 PM | Comments (0)
May 03, 2008
Building Relationships With Your Customers
No matter what kind of business you're in, building customer relations should be one of your top priorities. All customers, whether on-line or off, like to feel that they are appreciated when they shop in your brick and mortar store or through your web-site. It's easy in today's hurry up, not enough hours in the day society we live in, for business owners to get all caught up in their everyday schedules of running their businesses and loose focus on why they have a business in the first place... CUSTOMERS!
Here are 5 techniques every business owner can use to help increase relations and build trust with their client base.
Email's
Email opt-in list building is creating a list or a collection of email's of people who have a similar interest. List building is largely about building relationships with your customers and should be considered your business life line as it can directly effect your prosperity as well as profits.
Building a high-quality, robust and responsive mailing list can be worth it's weight in gold. An opt-in list for your business is and important commodity and should be one of your priorities no matter whether you have a web-site or not. Building lifetime customers is arguably the most important thing you can do for your business and building a successful list can sometimes mean the difference between success and failure.
Ezine's
This is a great way of capturing the email address of those who are interested in your products or services. Just place a small subscription form box on your web-site, or place printed forms in your business somewhere, explaining the benefits of your product or service. Launching your own email ezine is a good and fun way to help you build customer loyalty and build a communication link to them other than through traditional advertising.
It builds trust in the eyes of your customers when done right. Doing it right means including useful information about different topics of interest. Make it cheerful and fun so your subscribers will be counting down the days until they receive your next edition.
In addition, be sure to include a note about your special promotions, offers and sales to all members. You can even include coupons that can only be found in your ezine that will allow customers to get secret, un-advertised discounts. This can also help you to track the effectiveness of your ezine. This method will also work with newsletters and emails.
Newsletters
An email newsletter is similar to a regular newspaper but it delivers news directly to your email electronically. Most companies have an email sign up form on their web-site for their newsletters. Your subscribers should be able to set their watches by the arrival time of your newsletter. While newsletters and ezine's are pretty much the same thing it's important to use one or the other to keep in touch with your customers.
Auto-responders
An auto-responder is an easy, web-based email marketing software that delivers your email campaigns, special promotions, sales notices, newsletters, ezine's and follow-ups automatically. This is an absolute must for today's business owners. Once set up, it will allow you to put your marketing efforts on auto-pilot.
The bottom line with auto-responders, and this is extremely important, is you must use a professional auto-responder such as Aweber or GetResponse. Equally important is to use an Opt-in only, type of sign up and I personally would forget about purchasing so called fresh leads.
There are tons of free auto-responder services out there but the simple fact is that they're usually free for a reason; too many advertisements on your out going email messages and deliverability rates to name a few.
Article Marketing
Marketing by using articles can be one of the most effective and least expensive ways to promote your business. This is especially true if you have a web-site. Writing articles about subjects you know about that include keywords related to your business is one of the best ways to get search engines to notice you which can lead to increased traffic to your business. And no, contrary to popular belief, you don't have to be an expert in order to write articles.
Conclusion
Which ever way you choose to promote your business, always remember that the customer is the only reason you have a business in the first place, and you should do everything in your power to make their experience the absolute very best it can be. It's not always about the lowest or cheapest prices either, sometimes it's about how they are being treated that keeps them coming back.
Posted by billenross at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)
May 01, 2008
How To Build A List Of Eager Subscribers
Every online business provides great service to generate satisfaction among their customers. As each and every customer receives satisfaction over their products or the services they get, there is a great chance that they will become a return customer and buy again. Better yet, they will recommend you to other people that could generate more business for you and your site.
As more traffic is driven to your site, you can entice many of them to subscribe to your mailing list or opt-in list. This is a list where in website visitors agree to be sent promotional materials such as newsletters, catalogs and such that could keep them updated about your site or the niche of your site. These promotional materials are sent via e-mail to the members of the list in different time intervals.
When using e-mail as the media of your marketing and advertisements, you eliminate the need for high costs. Email is free and if you can manage to make your own promotional advertisements you can also save a bundle there. With an opt-in subscribers list, you are pretty sure that what you are sending out is received, viewed and read by the subscribers and not simply being deleted. They have signed up for service and have consented in receiving it.
This means that there are constant reminders to your subscribers about all your products, new products and services as well as any promotions and special deals you are having. There is also the chance that they can be forwarded to other potential customers as they tell their friends and families about you and your site.
Of course you should be also aware that a subscriber may unsubscribe when they feel that they are not getting what they want or expected. Make sure that they are satisfied with your opt-in marketing strategies and keep them excited in receiving your newsletters and catalogs. Here are some tips that can help you build a list of eager subscribers.
Make your promotional materials interesting and fun. Try to use a little creativity but not too over artsy. Build around what your product or service is about. For example; if you are selling car parts, put some pictures of what is new in the auto parts world, a new wing door possibly that can fit any car and make it look like a Lamborghini.
Try to research what people are looking for, these way, you stay one step ahead of them all the time and you will be their bearer of new tidings. They will be eager to receive what you are sending them because they new you always have fresh and new things to share with them.
Write good articles that can be very informational but light at the same time. If your subscribers enjoy your articles, they will go to your site by clicking the links that you will be putting on your newsletter to read some more. You can provide articles that can connect to many people. Be diverse in your articles. Put something humorous, then put something informational, then put something that has both.
Are you wary about this because you don’t like writing? No problem, there are many professional and experienced article writers that can do the job for you for minimal fees. They know what they are doing and can provide the need that you have for your newsletters, the money that you pay for your articles are going to be met by the many sign-ups and the potential profit from the sales that you will get.
Create and send an E-book to your customers about anything that is related to your business or site. Use your knowledge and expertise in the field you have chosen to help other people who are similarly interested. Offer this e-book for free. You can write about anything informational and helpful to your subscribers. For example; you can do manuals and guides in so many things. This e-book could be used as a reference for many people.
Share this e-book with everyone, even other sites; just make sure that they don’t change the links in the e-book that will lead people to your site. If you want, you can always get some people to write it for you just like your articles. Your investment once again will be covered by the great marketing this will generate.
Add e-coupons in your newsletters that will help them avail to special discounts. Put a control number in your e-coupon so that they can only be used once. When people get discounts that can be found in your newsletters, they will be eager to receive your newsletter in anticipation of what you are promoting next.
If your subscribers can get benefits from your newsletters, they will be very eager to receive them. Just don’t flood your mailing list with mails so that you don’t annoy your subscribers.
Posted by billenross at 06:55 PM | Comments (0)
