|
Online Marketing
Today is a free weekly newsletter designed to help you to better market
your products and services online for greater profit. If you like
what you see, feel free to subscribe
now.
Focus
On Advertising That Actually Produces Sales...
A new service that was
recently launched called ScreenBlaze
really yanks at my chain. You may or may not have seen this yet, if
you haven't, hop on over to the site and check it out. I am not
recommending it at all however, so don't sign up and waste your time.
Here's why...
In a nutshell it is a screen
saver traffic exchange.
You download and install a
screen saver, setup your website details, the screen saver comes on
and rotates through other websites using the service, you earn credits
the longer your screen saver stays on, these credits are then cashed
in to display your website on other peoples screen savers increasing
your traffic.
Innovative idea yes, but fundamentally
flawed.
I mean come on. A screen
saver assumes that you're away from your computer. That's why it's
called a "screen saver" and not a "screen starer".
No one sits there and looks at their screen saver for hours on end,
unless perhaps if they've been puffing on the magic dragon for too
long.
If all the participants of
this traffic exchange are away from their computers when other peoples
websites start popping up, who's actually going to be viewing these
sites?
Sure when you come back to
your computer to start working again you might catch a glimpse of the
latest site that's popped up, but are you really going to be
interested in viewing that site further?
You might leave your
computer on overnight (as the service recommends everyone does) raking
up a nice hefty connection fee in the process.
You might earn enough
credits to send 1,000 hits to your site as a result. But guess what
your visitor to conversion ratio (whether it be sales or opt-in
subscribers etc) will be?
Zip. Nada. Nothing.
Sure you're getting hits to
your site but no one's actually actively looking at it. What's the
point of getting 2,000,000 hits to your site if no one buys?
All that is going to do is
force you to upgrade to a better, more expensive, hosting account due
to the increased bandwidth, not to mention the fact that it will
completely skew other valuable marketing data you might be trying to
collect by flooding your site with extremely low quality traffic.
Sure there
are some automated traffic exchange concepts that work reasonably well
but this isn't one of them. Don't waste your time, bandwidth, and
money with ScreenBlaze. Avoid getting caught up in the hype and stay
focused on advertising techniques that actually produces sales.
Search
Engine Relationship Chart Highlights Where To Focus...
If you've ever
wondered about the relationships that exist between the major search
engines and directories then check out this free search
engine relationships chart. (It's a PDF document).
It will show you
whom shares their results with whom, which results they're sharing,
and provide you with more detailed information on each engine (just
stay connected and click on the individual logos).
It's a great way to
clearly see which engines you need to specifically optimize your
website for to gain maximum exposure across the board.
Hint: Think Google
& Inktomi as your primary free search engine positioning targets
and Overture.com & Google Adwords for your paid pay-per-click
advertising campaigns. This will put your website in front of 99% of
the entire searching population at present time ;-)
Automated
Relationship Building To Increase Your Credibility...
You can have the
largest mailing list on the planet but it aint worth diddly squat if
your subscribers are just browsers and not avid readers eagerly anticipating
the next message you're going to send.
Getting subscribers
to take action has long been one of the most difficult tasks
newsletter publishers and mailing list owners have faced. And of
course it's getting even harder these days with the number of competing
publications out there and the share volume of email (solicited or
not) that people receive on a daily basis.
Now by 'taking
action' I don't just mean making sales. I mean getting your
subscribers involved with you and your business on any level.
That could be
taking surveys, sending you an email letting you know what they want
or need, or any sort of interactivity at all... rather than just being
"another name on the list".
The more involved
your prospects and subscribers are with your business, the better your
results will be, and ultimately in the end that will equate to making
more sales which is desired by all businesses.
So how do you do
this?
There are a number
of ways to do this but today I'll share a simple technique I've
recently implemented that's working very well.
As I'm using AutoresponsePlus
to manage my mailing lists (which I highly recommend), I am able to
setup a serious of emails that are automatically sent out to all new
readers of this newsletter at predefined intervals after they've
subscribed.
For example the day
after each new reader subscribes to the newsletter they receive the
following email from me...
Subject
>>> {FIRSTNAME Friend}, Let me know how I can help you personally...
Dear {FIRSTNAME Friend},
Just yesterday you subscribed to my free website marketing success newsletter "Online Marketing Today".
I wanted to take this time to personally welcome you aboard. I hope you're going to find it as valuable to your own online
business as the thousands of other readers from all across the world do. I would also love to know more specifically how I can
personally help YOU make your online business more successful this year...
Do you have trouble driving targeted traffic to your site?
Do you have trouble generating leads and converting them into customers?
Are you happy with the appearance & performance of your website?
Are you getting enough traffic & leads but not producing any or very few sales?
Whilst I simply don't have enough time to personally mentor every subscriber on my newsletter list, if you
can let me know what the biggest problem is you're facing right now, it will help me
tailor "Online Marketing Today" to suit YOUR individual needs better.
Simply reply to this email and let me know how I can help YOU.
I look forward to hearing from you personally.
Sincerely always,
Duncan Carver
admin@onlinemarketingtoday.com
"Online Marketing Today"
http://www.onlinemarketingtoday.com
... This simple
email not only helps me to tailor the topics that are covered in this
newsletter (ensuring I am covering popular topics that people WANT to
read about), but it also helps to initiate interactivity with each new
reader just a day after they've actually subscribed.
Ok a little side
note before I continue...
If you don't think
this message is as "personal" as I mention it is simply because
I'm using an autoresponder
to send it, you're dead wrong. The fact that I am using an
autoresponder is irrelevant.
Sure I could
physically fire up outlook, copy and paste the message into a new
email, and manually send it out to each new subscriber, but that would
just be a mammoth time wasting task considering that several hundred
new subscribers join this list on a weekly basis.
There is really no
difference using either method except for the fact that an
autoresponder saves me hours of time and actually makes this little
marketing tactic possible.
After initiating
this small change several weeks ago I'm now receiving replies from
approximately 20% of all new subscribers to the newsletter.
They tell me what
they want, or tell me they're not sure yet but will definitely let me
know, and I simply thank them for their email and let them know I'm
always available in the future.
It takes less than
a minute to respond to each reply I receive (and each reply is
personal and not a standard copy & paste template), and
occasionally a little longer if I feel I could help them directly then
and there by giving them a little advice on the spot.
It all depends on
what their original response contained.
Sure the time it
takes to do this can add up over the week, but the value of doing it
is worth much more in the long run. These people now know I am a real,
friendly person who is actually reachable when they need me.
They have started interacting
with me and the messages I'm sending the very day after they've
subscribed. As such, they are much more likely to pay attention to the
next few issues of the newsletter that goes out.
This little
automated credibility building technique is something you should
seriously consider implementing if you publish a newsletter, or any
form of mailing list, to get your subscribers interacting with you and
your business for better results.
|
