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Successful Online Marketing and
Business Info For Today. (Part 2)
By Michael J. Keenan
Owner of YesHomestead
Copyright (2007) All Rights Reserved.
Table of Contents: (Part 2)
Chapter Five: E-mail Marketing
- Permission Based E-mail
- Build Your E-mail List
- E-mail Newsletters
- List Hosting Services
- Great Subject Lines
Chapter Six: Build a Community Online
Chapter Seven: Strategies for Co-Branding
- Adding Partners to Your Website
- Integrating Partnership Products
Chapter Eight: Rising to the Top of Search Engines
- Search Engine Optimization Defined
- Optimizing Your Website
- Submitting Your Website to Search Engines
Chapter Nine: Building E-mail Lists
- Importance of lists
Chapter Ten: Forgetting About SEO
- Successful Branding
- Market Research
Chapter Eleven: Website Development
- Your Business Design
Conclusion
Chapter Five: E-mail Marketing
As the Internet has grown, e-mail marketing has become one of the most efficient and cost effective tools for online marketing. E-mail marketing drastically affects businesses whether they are B2B or B2C (business to business/business to consumer). Marketing through e-mail increases your brand loyalty and increases your customer service through the eyes of your customers. When permission based e-mail marketing is done right it can be more effective than any other type of online marketing strategy. The thing to keep in mind is that no one single component of online marketing can stand on its own. For instance, an e-mail newsletter needs to have a great website to back it up as well as interest in your business to build your e-mail list in the first place.
The number one activity online is e-mail. This is why e-mail can be used as a great online marketing tool. Many Internet users say that they would rather get marketing messages in their e-mail than be bothered by sales phone calls at home.
Permission Based E-mail
One important key to an effective e-mail marketing strategy is to only focus on permission based mail. This means that customers need to choose to receive mail from you. This is known as “opt in”.
You should never rent or buy an e-mail list since this is considered to be spam. No matter what the owner of the e-mail list will tell you, the majority of the addresses on the list did not opt in to receive e-mail or to have their personal information sold to you. When you send e-mail to people who don’t want it you’re sending spam. Spam will give your company image a cheap look and take away any trust that customers have in you. You want leads that are quality and not quantity and this means building your own e-mail list. You’ll find that the final results will be tremendous to you and your business.
E-mail marketing should be considered an extension of the customer service that you provide. You want to be able to communicate with your customers at every point in the sales process. When you give your customers what they ask for, without abusing any permission, you establish the base for a relationship that is founded on respect and leads to long term customer loyalty.
Build your E-mail List
It takes time to build an e-mail list but once you do you’ll have the names of people who are genuinely interested in what you’re selling. The one thing you need to remember is not to abuse a person’s trust once they give you their private information and e-mail address. Let your customers know that you value their trust and will respect their privacy. You can do this through a privacy policy on your website where you promise not to sell information to other businesses or vendors. You can go so far as to let your customers know what you’ll be e-mailing them and how often they can expect it. Always provide people with the option to remove themselves from your e-mail list. This promotes customer confidence.
If you take part in joint promotion and/or co-branding with another online company make sure that you don’t trade e-mail lists. What you can do is include information about that company in the newsletter you send to your customers. All e-mail should come only from you. You’ll lose your customer’s trust if they think you’ve sold their personal information to another business. And this means that they will disregard any future communication with you and your business.
To get people to join your e-mail list don’t ask them for much more than a few bits of information at a time. You need to gain their trust before asking for too much information. You can start out by asking for their name and e-mail address. Your future marketing promotions will help you fill in other information such as age and demographics. It will take time to get a clear idea of who your best customers are and what they want to get out of your website and e-mail newsletter.
If customers have trust in your business it won’t be hard to get an e-mail list together. Gaining trust is as easy as holding a contest, offering discounts or coupons, regularly changing your website content, or providing informative newsletters.
Should you have on offline store, a great way to gather e-mail addresses is by asking people to give you their business card if they want to win a free lunch. Other offline methods of gathering e-mail addresses include networking events and trade shows. A good rule of thumb is: if someone gives you their business card that has their e-mail address on it you can safely assume that it’s okay to send them an e-mail at least once. If they don’t respond back you should then assume that they are not interested. Take these non-respondents off your e-mail list.
Goal Oriented Marketing: After you’ve created your e-mail list it’s time to develop an e-mail marketing plan. Determine what your business goal is and how you plan to achieve this goal: through (1) repeat customers? (2) more leads? (3) e-mail marketing? You want to define your goals as well as you can so that you can keep track of the process.
E-mail Newsletters
If you’re going to send a newsletter via e-mail you need to provide incentives for people to want to stay on your e-mail list.
Ideas for Content: You don’t always have to offer discounts or a free product as incentives to customers. The content of your newsletter can also be a good incentive. Good newsletter content includes:
- Customer submitted success stories.
- Information from experts in your industry.
- A section for questions and answers.
- News and/or statistics about your industry.
- Feedback from customers.
- Tips about your products or services.
Your newsletter shouldn’t include information such as “about you”, your company history, or your company news. This type of information is only valuable for investors. The bottom line is that your customers don’t really care about what is happening in your business. They only want to know what you can do for them. Good newsletter content is anything that catches the interest of your customers. A newsletter, just like your home page, has only a few seconds to attract the attention of your customer before they decide to delete it. Your newsletter should immediately let your customer know what you can do for them, how you’re going to do it, and why they should do business with you. Newsletters are a great way to promote your business but make sure that you take into consideration the content, the length, and the frequency of the newsletter.
Keep it Short: Your newsletter should be concise, short, and get to the point. It should be no more than 1000 words and deal with no more than five different products or services at one time. People don’t like to read lengthy e-mails.
Newsletters that deal with too many departments are more difficult for you to update. This could be a roadblock to you sending out newsletters on a regular basis while at the same time providing new and fresh content. If there is too much information in the first e-mail your customers won’t want to click through to your website. And a no-click means you have no way to keep track of the success or failure of your e-mail marketing strategy.
The main difference between online marketing and traditional marketing is that online methods allow you to track what is happening. If the e-mails you send out don’t encourage customers to click to your website you won’t know what is working and what isn’t.
Frequency and Timing: You need to determine when and how often you’re going to send out e-mail newsletters. You don’t want to send e-mails out too often as this will overwhelm your customers. At the same time, you don’t want to wait too long between e-mails or your customers will start to forget who you are. Timing and consistency will vary depending on what type of business you have. If you’re not sure when and how often to send your newsletters, just ask. Whenever someone joins your e-mail list ask them how often they would like to receive an e-mail from you. Another way to track frequency and timing is by sending out e-mails at different times during the week. Then keep track of which days have more viewings of your e-mail and your website to determine what day is the better one for sending out your newsletter.
List Hosting Services
You can build, send, and keep track of your e-mail marketing campaign by using an e-mail hosting program. Using an e-mail program is an important method of effective online marketing. An e-mail hosting service takes away some of the work of manually adding and deleting addresses from your database. These services also have the ability to test your newsletters before you send them out. There are multiple templates for you to choose from which means that you won’t have to learn how to use html in order to send a newsletter that is professional looking. If you decide to use a template make sure that it matches the look and feel of your company brand and website. Consistency is the key to effective online marketing.
E-mail list hosting services allow you to track and manage your e-mail marketing campaign. You have the ability to receive reports that have precise details about which links and graphics your customers have clicked on. This information lets you change the content of your newsletter when you know what it is that your customers most want to read and see. As you start to send out more newsletters you’ll get a better feel for what it is that your customers want. This is why you want the content of your newsletters to be flexible.
You should create newsletter content that is somewhat based on the profiles of the customers you’re trying to reach. The majority of e-mail list services will allow you to set up your subscription pages so that your customers can indicate what they want to receive from your company. When you can identify the audience that you’re writing for you can modify your newsletter so that you include the right kinds of promotions and product information.
If your newsletter contains something of value, such as travel information, your customers are more likely to forward the e-mail on to friends and family. When you establish yourself as an expert in your industry, by giving your customers the information they want to see, you build credibility and trust.
Always keep in mind that no matter how great your newsletter content is, there is no guarantee that people will read it. One way that you can make sure your newsletter isn’t deleted before being read is by have a great subject line.
Great Subject Lines
Many newsletters and business offers are never read by Internet users for the simple reason that the e-mail didn’t have an effective subject line. A subject line may only be a few words but these few words are very important.
As more and more e-mails fill our in-boxes it’s more important than ever to have a subject line that catches our attention. The subject line is one of the most important aspects of your e-mail marketing campaign because it’s what creates a first impression for your business. With just a few words you can encourage someone to read your newsletter or you can cause them to delete your e-mail without another glance.
Here are some simple rules for creating a great subject line:
Keep the subject line direct and short. Subject lines should never be more than ten words long. In fact, five words or less is the perfect length. Most e-mail browsers won’t let users see more than five or six words so a longer subject line will be truncated and not seen by the user. Use strong and descriptive words rather than fluffy adjectives such as “very”.
Emphasize the benefits to the reader. You want to make it as easy as possible for your customers to know precisely why they will benefit from reading your newsletter. This can be as simple as a “reward” for just opening the e-mail. A reward can be information or a discount coupon. You want to use catch phrases such as “save money” and “save time” to get a reader’s immediate attention. The key is to entice your customers to want to read more and open the e-mail.
Ask questions. When you ask a question in the subject line you cause a reader to become curious and want to know more. As well, when you ask a question the e-mail sounds more like it’s coming from a colleague rather than just a business and will more likely be opened and read.
Personal subject lines. One big mistake that screams “spam” is sending your e-mail to “undisclosed recipients”. Make sure to always use your company name or real name as the sender. Try to put the recipients name in the subject line if there is room as well as insert it into the greeting of the e-mail.
Take advantage of holidays and current events. If there is an upcoming holiday, such as Christmas, you can tie it up with your e-mail subject line. For example, “Save time on your Christmas Shopping”.
Avoid using the word “free”. Hard sales phrases, such as “free” and “limited offer”, are often filtered out by e-mail services since they are a clear indication of spam. As well, try to avoid using hype which includes explanation marks or all capital letters.
Chapter Six: Build a Community Online
Over 93% of Internet users take part in some type of online community. But just why are online communities such a draw for so many people?
- Online communities are much like a virtual café, bar, or other gathering place for people to get together with people with similar interests.
- Online communities are a great place to learn something new.
- Online communities are where people can be anonymous and share their problems and fears.
- Online communities allow people to talk with people of the same mind so that they can confirm their beliefs.
- Online communities allow people who are facing a hardship to feel less lonely.
Online Community Defined: An online community can be accessed anywhere at any time. Some of the components of an online community include chatrooms, message boards, newsletters, event calendars, and anything else that lets an Internet user interact with others who are online.
Why should you be concerned about online communities for your online marketing strategy? Customers who take part in an online community are a good target for your sales because they have a high affinity for loyalty to your product when they are participating in an online community. When you have a strong and solid online customer community you know that you’ve built a loyal following for your company and the products or services you sell. Your loyal customers will spread news of your company through word of mouth and this will further increase your sales.
Message Boards: It will be to your benefit to provide your customers with a message board on your website. You can break your message board up into categories for your different products or services and encourage your customers to share their ideas and opinions with others. This is the first step towards building an online community. Customers will answer each others questions and this will save you some money on the cost of customer care. You just need to make sure that you moderate the message board on a regular basis so that your customers are getting accurate information.
Message boards also give you some great feedback about the products or services you’re selling. Honest feedback from customers lets you better take care of their needs. You also get to learn a lot more about your customers and what it is that they want from your business.
Message boards are an important part of your website and your online community. You can develop a message board without spending a lot of time and money. Begin by asking your website hosting company if they can provide you with a message board template that you can include in the hosting package. Otherwise look on the Internet for a message board that is free. Choose a message board that fits the look and feel of your website so that you’re maintaining consistency.
Message Board Content: A successful online community isn’t just a common message board. The content on your website will play a big part in the quality of your online community. The more professional your website content is the better the quality of the message board. Always keep in mind that it’s content that attracts readers and should be your major concern when it comes to your decision to develop an online community.
You’ll find that fresh content ideas will start to flow when you have an online community. You’ll know exactly what your customers are looking for and just how you can provide that for them. Active message boards are a cost efficient way for you to provide great customer service.
Message Board Calendar: Calendars are a vital part of the online community because they allow people to meet offline. Even if your company doesn’t have any offline events, a calendar will let you post valuable industry information. For example, if your company sells stationary you could list the dates when you’ll be attending trade fairs in the search for new products for your customers. This type of information lets customers know that your website and business content is ever changing.
Contests: Contests are a great way to get customers excited about your company and your website. Ask customers to share a story about how your product or service has benefited them. When the contest is over you can post these stories, along with the names of the winners, on your website. This marketing technique provides you with customer testimonials and is also a good way for you to see what your customers are interested in.
Maintaining an Online Community: It can take a lot of work to maintain your online community. You’ll need to invest a certain amount of time and effort if you want the benefits of an online community to come your way. Make sure that all of your staff is involved in the maintenance of the community and that they know the importance of responding immediately to posts from your customers. When your online community is in its beginning stages you might have to plant some of your own questions, answers, and comments to the message board. Once traffic to your online community builds it will start to flow on its own and will require less maintenance.
Other Online Communities and Ad Space: If you don’t think that you have the time and manpower to maintain an online community you might want to consider buying ad space on a community that is already established and which has a high profile on the Internet. The online community should have some connection with the types of products or services that you’re selling.
Chapter Seven: Strategies for Co-Branding
Online co-branding can be a little complicated. If an Internet user clicks on a link on your website and is taken to a web page that has a different brand or company it can get a bit confusing. They will wonder why they have been directed to an entirely different web page with unrelated content. When it comes to co-branding you need to choose partnerships that have something in common with the product or service that you’re selling.
Co-branding can be very cost effective, particularly for small online businesses. However, if you choose the wrong partner, or too many partners, it might be more harmful than beneficial.
Adding Partners to your Website
As a small business you need to be cautious with your marketing budget. When you add a partner to your website you need to ensure that you’re going to see strong and positive results from the union. These positive results can include more traffic to your website, increased online sales, or more contact with your customers. Online branding can be costly so be sure to choose partners that can benefit your business.
Co-branding is known by a variety of definitions that include:
- Joint promotions
- Value endorsements
- Joint ventures
- Alliances
Co-branding works best when both you and your partner company each provide a related service or product to the same types of customers.
Powerful Co-branding: Studies show that most online users like the idea of co-branding because it helps them to make decisions about the hundreds of brand name products that they come into contact with on the Internet. When top-quality brands join together in a partnership it strengthens their customer’s approval. If you have a lesser know brand it will be to your benefit to partner up with a more well known brand so that your overall image is improved and so that you get more exposure on the Internet. And if a popular brand partners up with a lesser known brand it won’t harm the popular brand. Your best bet is to partner up with a company that is equal to you.
A partnership needs to make sense and customers need to understand the connection.
Guidelines for Co-branding: If you have the right partner you can share the costs of marketing as well as strengthen your company brand. You’ll also have access to a larger customer base. Following are some important co-branding guidelines:
- What does your co-brand partnership say to your customers? Will it make your customers feel better about themselves?
- What do you and your partner have in common? Are both of your products innovative? Are they dependable? You want to make sure that your image makes sense for your current customer base. You don’t want to lose your current customer base but instead you want to build on it.
- How does your co-branding partnership benefit your customers? Will it save them money? Or will it save them time? Your marketing campaign should make the benefit very clear to your customers.
- Your goal with co-branding should be to find the best solutions for your customers.
- There should be an equal value for both brands in the partnership. You need to have an equal partnership or your marketing strategy will be uneven.
- Will your customers easily be able to see the connection and value of your partnership?
- Does the co-branding partnership bring you into contact with new customers?
The above guidelines need to be answered before you join in a co-branding partnership. Joint promotions take a great deal of time and thought to be implemented correctly. However, when done correctly and accurately, a co-branding partnership can bring you results that are far better than other traditional online marketing methods.
One of the basic rules of online marketing is: take your message, content, and promotions to your customers rather than focusing too much energy on the effort of trying to bring customers to your website.
Integrating Partnership Products
When it comes to co-branding partnerships you need to take the time to include the benefits of both brands into the overall design of your marketing promotions. This way your customers will understand the connection between both products or services.
Simply putting your company logo, or a link to your website, on another company’s website will save you time and money but at the same time may cause you to lose some potential customers. Co-branding that is successful never leaves your customers wondering exactly what website they are on. Partnerships should improve a customer’s shopping experience by helping them to make buying decisions. You’ll want to exchange content with your partner so that you both expand your expertise in the industry. However, you’ll need to incorporate this content into your website so that it flows naturally and fits in with your own content. The end result will be beneficial to both of you when you maintain professional consistency.
Complementary Partners: Your website will be more legitimate and competitive when you have co-branding content that is well integrated into your own web pages. Co-branding will only help your business if it complements the business goals you have defined for your company. Always keep your business goals in mind no matter what online marketing strategy you’re trying to incorporate into your business. This means that all your website content, promotions, and activities with your co-branding partners encourages your customers to follow through with the sales action.
Chapter Eight: Rising to the Top of Search Engines
The most common way for people to access your website is through search engines. And this means that whether you’re selling a product or service, or just want to get some free press about your business, your company website needs to found by the top Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo! Keeping up with search engines and their technology will be a full time job. However, if your website is well designed, search engines can be your best ally in generating more Internet traffic.
Search Engine Optimization Defined
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the technique of placing your website so that its ranking increases in search engine databases. You want your website to have a high ranking and be as relevant as possible to a user’s search.
Successful SEO websites use articles and keywords that are based on those words that Internet users type into search engines when they are looking for a particular product or service. As you’re building your website you want to ensure effective keyword placement in all of the content and in the HTML coding of each web page.
When you submit your website to the most popular search engines you’ll want to make sure that you’re making the most of optimized keywords, as discussed in chapter 2. Your ranking in a search engine directory is closely connected to the quality of your website. If your chosen industry is in a competitive market you need to make sure that you have as many people as possible visit your website so that you get those sales and, in effect, make the most of your online marketing campaign.
The more you understand about how important targeted keywords are the better able you’ll be to find the right marketing methods and solutions for your business.
Optimizing your Website
One of the most important things for you to remember when you’re optimizing your website for search engines is that these engines read text and ignore graphics. This means that you need to focus on the text that is part of your website content.
The Right Keywords: Internet users will type keyword phrases into the search engine when they want to find a certain product or service. Most users will type about two or three words and then do a search for relevant websites. Before you spend a lot of time optimizing your website you should use a software program to help you determine which keyword phrases get the greatest search volume. This will allow you to focus your efforts on optimizing your website for the right keywords.
Text on your Home Page: Once you’ve decided which keywords are best for optimizing your website you’ll want to put those keywords and phrases into the content of your website. You’ll want to start by focusing on the first paragraph on your home page since this is the first thing that most search engines read to determine if your website is relevant to a user’s search. In that first paragraph you’ll want to use as many keywords and key phrases as you can so that your website comes up in a variety of user searches.
Using HTML Tags: You’ll need to make sure that you have the right tags in your HTML coding so that it corresponds with the text on your website. Your ranking in search engines will be more solid if you’re consistent with your tags and text.
Submitting Your Website to Search Engines
Registration with search engines, such as MSN, Yahoo, and Google, is crucial if you want to attract people to your website. Before you decide what search engines to submit to, you should do a careful study of what features each engine provides. Some of the features that you should be focused on include (1) how they promote websites, (2) what they offer in regards to advertising, and (3) if they have any other resources available. There are analyzers available on the Internet that will help you compare search engines. Your online marketing budget should include money and time so that you can find the right search engine for your business.
There are a few important things that you should focus on when it comes to submitting your website to the right search engine. This includes:
- The search engine generator should provide you with automatic updates.
- The registration process should allow you to include the purpose of your business and website.
- Do a quick study to find out where other businesses in your industry are submitting their website.
Your main goal should be to submit your website to as many top search engines as you can so that you get the highest rankings. This will allow your customers and potential customers to find you fast and easily.
Search engine spiders: A search engine spider is a program that methodically travels the Internet looking for all the web pages that have been recently visited and processing this information in a search engine so that pages are indexed and downloaded faster by the user. When you overuse keyword and key phrases you risk this being noticed by search engine spiders and having them bypass your web pages for inclusion into the search engine. Do you want to risk being left out of search engines by being guilty of keyword abuse?
Using a high keyword density may seem like a good idea when you first start developing web content for your website but the hazards far outweigh the risks.
Another mistake that many websites make is choosing their keywords and then not putting these keywords into the any of the relevant content on the web pages. Search engine spiders are programmed to actually need to see the keyword used before it can acknowledge it and index the web page. So why waste time coming up with keywords that don’t really have anything to do with what your website is all about only to have search engine spiders overlook your website anyway?
Creating False Web Pages: One of the most serious mistakes that you can make when you’re developing the website content for your web pages is to provide your customers with information that has absolutely nothing to do with what you’re selling or advertising on your website. Customers who use the Internet to buy a product or service, or simply to find out more information about what you’re selling, don’t want to arrive at your website pages only to find you’re not selling what your offering. If customers are searching for stationary (and you include the keyword “stationary” over and over in your website content to push you up into the high rankings of the search engines) they expect to able to read accurate and dependable information on your web pages about this stationary. If you’re not selling or advertising stationary you should avoid using this keyword to pull traffic to your website. Customers who have been tricked will quickly leave your website to find the information that they are looking for elsewhere.
The bottom line is that keyword driven websites don’t always work. These websites may get high traffic, and search engine ranking that they want, however customers won’t linger to find out what they are really selling. This means a missed opportunity to develop a successful relationship with customers.
Goals for Successful Websites: A quick mention about what your goals should be when you create web pages that are rich with information that customers want to find on the Internet: One of your main tasks when you have an online business is building up your customer database. You want to have as many customers and potential customers on your list as you can so that your online marketing strategy reaches a wide range of consumers.
Once you’ve built up a customer database you’ll want to make sure that you start to gather repeat customers. Repeat sales are the backbone of a successful business and for increased sales. One of the ways that you can achieve repeat sales is by generating great communication with your customers. You can accomplish this good communication by using the following:
- Affiliate programs
- Coupons for repeat customers
- Contests
- Newsletters that provide useful information about what you’re selling
- Banner ads
- Discussion groups and forums
- Relationships with associates
- Chatrooms
As mentioned previously you’ll already have a lot of customer information that you can use. This includes data that you’ve collected from previous sales, communication with your customers, and e-mail opt-in lists. You’ll also want to collect the information listed here. But just how do you go about gathering that data? There are several different techniques that you can use to get the data that you need to build successful customer databases.
The most important thing to remember is that you always be honest when you’re getting information from your customers. If you use deceptive means to get the data you risk losing the trust of your customer. If being honest and above board means that you lose some of those opportunities to capture customer information then realize that the pay off will be the trust and respect you earn from these customers, and potential customers, when they realize that you’re doing what you said you would do: asking them to voluntarily to provide you with certain types of information.
The following methods of collecting customer data will help you keep track of sales and profit. This customer data can be found in the following places:
- customer order forms
- warranty card information
- servicing information
- records of returned products
- questionnaires filled out at time of purchase
The above information is very helpful but you’ll need a bit more to build up a successful database that includes wide-ranging customer information. This is where some of the newer techniques of data capturing enter the picture. The Internet has provided you with some great opportunities to use technology tools to your advantage. Again, keep in mind that technology is a utensil that you can use and not an end to a means.
All this technology means that you can use some very appealing and winning methods for having your customers leave you the information that you need.
There are many ways that you can correspond with your customers once you’ve got their interest:
- weekly newsletters
- automated e-mails, targeting one time customers, referrals, and repeat
- customers
- discount or free product offers to customers
- e-mail postcards
- follow up phone calls
Corresponding with your customers is much simpler after you’ve profiled them and know what they want to see and hear. Database marketing means that you learn as much as you can about your customers and potential customers before sending them any type of messages. Studies show that random messages sent to all your customers often fails since you’ll be spending a great deal of time and money to reach only a small portion of those customers that feel you have something to say to them directly.
Chapter Nine: Building E-mail Lists
A successful online business requires a trusting relationship with your customers. When your customers know that your online business is reliable and honest they’re more likely to buy products or services from you, rather than from your competition. But it’s up to you to let your customers know that you’re a better choice than your competitor. One way that you can get those important sales is by building up e-mail lists so that you can communicate on a regular basis with your customers.
Never miss an opportunity at communicating with your customers. It’s vital to your online company that you come into contact with as many customers and potential customers as possible so that you increase your contacts and eventually increase your sales.
There is so much competition on the Internet and this is why it’s important that you stand out for your customers. When your customers know that they can rely on you for dependable service, consistent communication, and quality products or services, they will continue to buy from you time and time again. Your repeat customers will become the mainstay of your business since it’s these repeat customers that refer you to their friends and family, thus bringing you more potential customers.
Opt-in Lists: An opt-in list is list of people who have specifically asked to receive more information from your business in the form of e-mail, newsletters, or other types of communication. These people will voluntarily give you their e-mail address to you so that you can communicate with them in the future. Make sure that you build your list of opt-in e-mail addresses so that you can increase the number of customers that you come into contact with.
Online marketing studies show that opt-in e-mailing lists are more successful than other marketing techniques when it comes to sales. When a potential customers requests more information from your business you know that they already have an interest in the product or service that you’re selling.
So how do you develop your opt-in e-mailing list? One way that you can start building your e-mail list is by having a place on your website where users can leave their e-mail address.
When you have someone’s e-mail address it’s up to you to send them an e-mail that is about the products or services that you’re selling. Some of the e-mail that you might want to send to your e-mail customers include:
- Newsletters with information about the product or service you’re selling, such as information about new products. Newsletters have already been discussed in chapter 5.
- E-zines that have detailed information about what your company sells.
- Discount offers that your send out to only those people on your opt-in list.
The first e-mail that you send out to people on your opt-in list should let them know that they asked to be included on your e-mail list so that they don’t think that they are being spammed. As mentioned before, always give people the option to take themselves off your e-mail list at any time. This way they feel that they are in control of all communication with you.
Importance of Building Lists
One of the most important rules of online marketing is the need to have a list of opt-in e-mail addresses. The larger your e-mal list the more successful your online business will be. The bottom line is, if you want to have a successful online business you need to have an opt-in e-mail list.
Many online businesses overlook the other benefits of an opt-in list besides the bottom line of profit. Each time someone buys something from you, you need to make the effort of obtaining their e-mail address. If you don’t get your customer’s contact information you lose all chance of future communication with them. And this may prevent them from buying from you in the future.
Online marketing studies show that successful online businesses think of their opt-in e-mailing list as their most valuable marketing strategy. Most online businesses keep a back up of their e-mail list so that there is no chance of losing it. Without this e-mail opt-in list your business would lose valuable customer communication which is the backbone of their online success.
The more extensive your e-mail opt-in list is the more advertising you’ll generate for your online business. You’ll have sales opportunities from your e-mail opt-in list that you wouldn’t be able to obtain in any other way. When you regularly stay in touch with your customers you ensure that at least some of them will return to your website for a first purchase or a repeat purchase. E-mail opt-in lists let you communicate with your customers with little or no effort on your part.
Make sure that your online website has opt-in options on every web page. This way people who read your website have every opportunity to give you their e-mail address for future contact with your company.
Chapter Ten: Forgetting about SEO
Far too many Internet websites rely on content that is based on what is respectively known as “Search Engine Optimization”. And just as many of these websites are coming to realized that SEO is not the greatest way to write content for their website customers and potential customers that is going to get them the attention that they want to bring to their online business.
Successful Branding
Successful branding is all about one thing: acknowledgment from your customers. When your customers can recognize your product or service, and detach you from your competition, you’ve already taken the first step towards grabbing their notice. Branding uses several methods to ensure that your name is out there at the top and that your customers can pick you out from the crowd. Branding has one goal: to gain the confidence of your customers so that they stand by you.
You want to develop branding for your online business that sends a clear meaning in one straightforward package. And you want that brand identification to be an expression of your business and personal style. There are several methods that you can include into your branding strategy to gain recognition for your company.
There are several different techniques of branding that you’ll want to consider when you’re developing website pages so that they are readable and easily understandable by all your web visitors:
- Visual communication. Create a company logo which is displayed on your packaging and the visual communication you use with your customers. This includes brochures, business cards, catalogues, stationary letterheads, and other marketing media.
- Creative packaging. Develop packaging for your products that is specific and outstanding to customers.
- beneficial ad campaigns. Take advantage of all media exposure by positively and importantly boosting your public profile.
The approach for successful branding is to keep it simple so that probable customers aren’t put off by the audacity of your logo. The strategy for successful branding includes:
- Develop a strong mission statement. Know exactly where your company is going and how you want to get there.
- Define company goals. Be clear on what your business goals are.
- Branding is for your customers. Branding is all about your customers and not about what you sell.
- Dependable marketing tactics. Customers want reliability and simplicity when they identify your product or service.
Branding is all about identification for your company and not just the products or services that you sell.
The end result of successful branding is being able to sell your products or services along with positive recognition from your customers. It’s this positive recognition and obligation to your business that develops the strong relationship that you have with your customers and creates profits.
There are many companies both on and off the Internet that use branding successfully so that you can easily recognize them and so that they are a bigger name than their competition. These names have become trusted among consumers throughout the world. With so much business action that is now found on the Internet more online businesses are using branding to have their customers find them and remember them. When it comes to your own online business you need to learn how to use branding in such a way that your service or product stands out among the many Internet websites that are all vying for attention and customers.
Branding is a mixture of inspiration and the type of connection that you’re going to have with your customers. The resourceful part of branding is all about the logo (or other branding that you choose to use) and the way that you market on the Internet, and off the Internet, using this logo. The affiliation part of branding is all about the way you make your customer feel when they arrive at your website. You want your customers to feel that they can trust you, and your product or service, so that they generate a sale for your business. The bottom line is that branding offline and online is all about:
- How your product, or service, looks whether it’s viewed on your website or on a shelf in your brick and mortar store.
- How your customer feels when they arrive at your website.
- How you deal with customer orders
- The reliability and trust that you earn with your customers using a mixture of branding and successful Internet marketing
Developing your own branding for your business is a key step when it comes to the success of your company. This means that you need to spend value time coming up with the right branding for your products and services.
Market Research
One of the most unbeaten ways that you can find out what customers want to buy, and find out more information about, is to do market studies. When you watch and listen to what it is that customers are interested in, you raise your chances of getting their attention and giving them the information that they are searching for.
Take some time to carefully check the products and the services that you’re offering on your website or through your website. You should be asking yourself include (1) what are the rewards and disadvantages to your business of selling or advertising online, (2) will you take payment online, (3) what details will you have to consider about shipping your product to customers, and (4) are you willing to constantly update and keep up your website.
When you have an obvious business idea in mind, and know exactly what it is that you’re selling, you’ll want to find out what other businesses out there offer the same product or service. You might want to talk to potential customers to see how they react to your product.
Find other websites that are related to your business and take some time checking them out. Look at how they endorse and market similar products or services as well as how each website is laid out and navigated. If a similar website uses a shopping cart for online purchases check it out. See how smoothly the process works and what can be done to perk up the process. Don’t just look at e-commerce sites that are within your own country since customers won’t limit their shopping to those countries where they live. Look at the way other countries handle e-commerce websites so that you have a broad spectrum of websites to compare yours with.
Here are some things that you should be asking yourself when you’re doing market research for your online business:
- Who are your probable customers?
- What other businesses sell the same products or services?
- Who is going to be your objective market and how are you going to reach them?
- How much will it cost you to market, manufacture, and deliver your product or service?
- Who is your competition?
- How much can you fairly charge for your product or service?
What Are Customers Buying: There are many ways that you can find out what customers are buying both from online businesses and from brick and mortar businesses. Once you find out what customers are buying you can concentrate