Internet Marketing

Here are just 20 questions that are worth an answer.

Lead Generation Questions

Email Marketing

Both

I picked this up from a MarketingSherpa email update just in over the weekend. In it they talk through how Sony Ericsson puts together its global email programs – it’s quite a good read and worth a look over.

Part of the story is how Sony Ericsson has invested in their own heat map technology and use it for testing each campaign before they send it out. I have seen heat maps referenced for web pages but never email – here’s the example email heat map they show.

Another feature added to the blog – chat is in testing and should be on the top right hand side of the blog – do drop by and share the occasional word or two.

All the best

Chris

Just for those who would like an email containing the latest post – just head down to the bottom right hand side of the blog and type away.

Have fun

Ok so we all now know that email is great for one to many direct coms – its quite simple to set up – has a good chance of being read and delivered well will make the personal connection you want.

But how about the time when the value you are trying to unlock is going to come from an ongoing conversation across time – not just a one message event?

When tried with email this ends up as an ongoing iteration of notes in each person’s Inbox with no one place where all the communication effort is stored. Online forums go someway to make this happen but they are not the easiest of things to edit at the best of times. Now wikis are starting to make an impact. A wiki is a web site that you can set up to allow whoever you want to have the power to edit the content shown.

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that uses this type of technology and method for building content

I am trialing the use of a few wikis for customers that want a central space to capture the workings of a nationally dispersed worker team. I think that a wiki well implemented could take team collaboration to a whole new level. I’ll let you know if my thoughts are well founded.

For all those in RSS land here’s a link to the latest newsletter from Permission. Have fun.

At last there is some way to stop Xtra subscribers that want to CC their address book with their next newsletter and in the process reveal to all who they are sending it to.

Your nice new web site is bright, shiny and ready to welcome to receive visitors. But will they come? This brief article overviews how Google is well worth considering when wanting to attract more traffic to your site and provides some suggestions on how your site can be made Google friendly.

But how important is Google?

Well let’s start off with the statement that Google is largest search engine on the planet. In its index are over 8 billion web pages, 900 million images and 850 million usenet messages. Using this resource there are over 18 million unque visitors performing over 200 million searches per day.

That’s a lot of people searching for web sites just like yours.

So how do you make sure your web site is picked up and placed in this gargantuan index?

First off it’s important to know that a web page with no links coming to it will not be placed in the index. You need at least one link to your web site, and ideally the more the better that people can follow from another site to yours. Once you have this set up then Google will take notice when it comes prowling by.

Google uses automated programs called robots or spider to trawl the Internet looking for web sites that fit these basic criteria to add to its index. These programs try to read each and every page of your website started typically with your homepage and then following each link from there on.

Once you are in the Google index your ranking for the terms people search for depends on the level of relevance your site has with the search words used and the Google “credibility level” of what your web site has to say.

Determining credibility on the web is a function of who else “backs up” what you say through the links they have to your web site pointing to the content you are offering. A growing list of links from people in similar content areas to your content helps increase your online credibility. Therefore increasing your virtual “credibility” is something that you cannot alter by changing the content on your web site, whereas relevance is.

The relevance of your web site to the search terms used is dependant on how these terms are used as text (Google is blind to images) on your site. Web pages that contain lots of content that frequently but appropriately reference the searchers words have a good chance of being found.

There will be, however, a limit to the amount of search words that your web site can be found under. (Padding out your content with lots of possible searched terms makes it look a mess for your prospects and is frowned upon by Google anyway).

Your specialist content area will start to hone in on the terms that your web pages can be found under. The trick though is to use terms that prospects use when searching for the services you provide rather than the product names or technical terms that your business usually describes itself under.

This is a quick article on a very broad and intensive area of online marketing. There is a lot more to cover but the main points are: -

• Google accounts for a massive amount of search traffic on the Internet, estimates have it up to 35% of world wide traffic and around 85% of the New Zealand search traffic.
• Therefore making your web site Google friendly is a wise area to focus on.
• Credibility and relevance are two broad areas to focus on when working in this area
• Start thinking about the terms prospects use when searching rather those you use when selling

Of all the tools available in your e-mail marketing kit bag the viral campaign is in my mind is the hardest to master. If a newsletter has the complexity of a hammer, (it doesn’t but please with me with this analogy), the viral solution is a half blunt weighty chainsaw with attitude.

Some times they work well, sometimes they injure all within its radius.

I don’t want blood on the e-mail marketing market so here is my opinion on how to tame this beast to perform each time for all concerned. For I believe if you choose the right benefits and pack them into a simple message your next viral campaign will do its job well.

What you want it to achieve is the first thing to decide.

Do you want 30,000 people in the draw to win your prize? Or, would you like to build permission to talk to 10,000 people at a later date. I would suggest the later has more appeal.

Please don’t confuse the two. The messages for each are very different. Draw entry forms that have sneaky opt out tick boxes hidden at the end of the form surprise everyone. Especially those that accuse you of spamming them when all the thought they did is put their name in the hat.

No, don’t let those teeth get a grip. Make your intent clear and pack in those benefits for trading your email address and you are way on the producing a high-growth way email.

What you offer to entice people to join your list can have a real affect on the people you attract. For example a company wanting to attract members to a new service email that offered a free VW Beetle would attract a fair share of offer seekers mixed in with their target group. Pick a prize that your ideal prospect would like to receive and you have a better chance to weed competition seekers out.

But how can you make your viral campaign get up and grow as apposed to sit dead still in your prospects inbox?

The key personal motivations working against viral campaigns working are lethargy, interest and compassion. These three make up what I call the sloth index. The first is obvious. There is other stuff to do. Why bother. Interest is again a simple one, does the whole process sound worthwhile, simple and fun to follow.

This leaves compassion, the feeling that would I want to receive this from someone else. Do I really want to be a part of spreading this message to my friends? These are big motivations to try to resist.

But resist it you must – so plan your next campaign to fight each with a vengeance.