Extreme eMarketing Techniques and Guide

In 2006 businesses spent nearly $400 million on email marketing. This figure is staggering, yet it proves just how important online businesses believe email marketing to be.

Most marketing experts would likely rank Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies as the number one marketing mechanism for online businesses. However, it is email marketing that comes in second. The reason this marketing technique is so highly touted is because it doesn’t wait for business to trickle in. Email marketing takes your message directly to the people providing a sense of immediacy and purpose.

SEO strategies are essential for the long term viability of your marketing strategy, but for the most significant return on investment (ROI) email marketing has consistently held an edge over other marketing strategies such as Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising or banner advertising.

Email lists that are organically grown typically hold the greatest ROI, but some online businesses have found a modicum of success using rented or purchased lists, but there is always a price.

The reason many businesses look for lists that have already been compiled by third parities is because they can begin to market immediately. The problem many encounter with this strategy is that many of those on the email list may not be very happy with their private information being made available to the highest bidder. Recipients may also be hostile to any overtures from unknown companies.

You will discover that the best response you receive will be a direct result of interacting with existing, satisfied customers. They are the ones who already have an affinity for your product and do not tend to view your emails as unwanted material or spam. 

The propagation of spam has made email marketing a bit more of a challenge for online businesses, which has placed a greater emphasis on trust, worthwhile correspondence and value for the existing customer. 

Another reason purchased or rented lists are suspect with recipients is that legitimate email delivery is either personal or opt-in. If recipients have not signed up for the email in question they will not likely be excited to receive it. These unhappy recipients can (and often will) report your email as spam and you could be blocked from being able to send future emails – not just to the recipient who reported you, but also to any others that may be using the email service provider (e.g. Yahoo, MSN, etc.).

The value of email marketing is well noted and it can be tempting to take shortcuts from which to glean potential customers. In the end you may be gambling with your potential to send email to customers in the future if hostile recipients view your company email as spam.

Many internet marketers have deduced that email marketing face the worst crisis since its discovery. They ground this conclusion on the massive increase of unsolicited emails known better as SPAM.  Recent Research has proved that the clicks of every email campaign have been reduced to the lowest point. Before few years email campaigns were very productive with click percentage of 15%-25%. Unfortunately this ratio has dropped to 2% today.

Since every internet user receives a huge amount of spam email messages, the time for distinguishing the legal opt-in subscriptions messages from spam has increased considerably. Therefore it’s highly possible for the user to erase the genuine messages with the spam messages.

Although these facts are true, the “Death of email marketing” as some internet marketers call it, will not happen. Solid proofs for that are the many corporations, small businesses, and home business entrepreneurs running successful and profitable email campaigns.

All these successful email marketing campaigns do have something in common, some specific principals that any online business entrepreneurs should incorporate into their marketing plans.

1. Personalization. Research has proven that when Personalization is used the click through rate of the email increases dramatically. The friendly tone is the key to build rapport with the subscriber. Most of the autoresponder services and email software contain this feature. One thing must be specified though. There must be no exaggeration in the personalization otherwise the results will be reversed. 

2. Email marketing schedules. The frequency of the mailings is extremely important. Although it seems tempting to send emails daily, with that strategy many of the subscribers will unsubscribe, especially if the mails contain advertisements most of the times and not useful information. One of the best email marketing tactics is to broadcast one time per week and not exceed two times per week maximum.

3. Which is the Best Day for campaigns? The answer is simple, Friday. The internet user has the whole weekend to check his email and distinguish the spam with the luxury of time, something not possible in other days of the week.

4. Use of double opt-in. The subscribers who signed double opt-in are extremely targeted, because they verified their interest for the newsletter and they are more disposed to buy the products or services the email list owner recommends. Plus, this feature provides maximum safety to newsletter owner from spam complaints and the relevant consequences.

5. Recommend not sell, plus unique content. The internet user searches for information on the internet. The same happens with the user’s email. The subscription happens for that reason for over 95% of the times. The messages must contain a combination of useful information and personal recommendations of tested and proven products or services.

6. No Co-Registrations.  This is the easy way to boost the number of the subscribers on the email list. Co-Registrations offer forms to users with many other email list owners with different fields of interest. The danger of spam accusations relies on that method and the effectiveness is questionable.

7. Buying leads to send emails. Another hyped email marketing technique. The list owner who bought the leads will not be clearly informed how the “subscriber’s” emails have been acquired.  Have they been gathered with ethical opt-in methods or email script crawler has been used? There is no control on that tactic and here too relies the danger of spam accusations.

8. No Red flag words. Words and phrases like free, discount, bonus, make money, opportunity, income .e.t.c. lead the email to spam folders. These phrases should be avoided at all costs. There is software that provides spam check features for that and free services as well.

The Internet has made it possible to connect millions of peoples’ names and addresses from around the world. And the number increases as more and more people discover the convenience and the growing necessity of the Internet in today’s fast-paced environment, where business growth largely depends on information technology. This has created many opportunities to encourage below the line marketing strategies.

Enterprising marketers have found the Internet a fertile ground to launch their products and services. They employ what is known as bulk email marketing or sending advertisements and infomercials to email users. In the 1990’s, this method went unchecked and unmonitored. This resulted in the birth of the term spam mail- unsolicited email. And the problem goes on today although measures are being taken to stop spammers. 

To ensure the success of bulk email marketing strategies, the sender must have a clean list of targeted email addresses. This wills not only help the company assess the success of their campaigns; it will more importantly curb the risk of breaking the anti-spamming laws. Several US states and countries around the world have already enacted these laws to protect the public against unwanted mail. 

Through the use of available software, generating a useful addressee list is fast and easy. Targeted email addresses can be extracted from URL’s and email service providers. Another option is to purchase a ready made list. This list usually comes from email service providers and agencies that conduct surveys.

Although sending out magazines and newsletters to millions of addresses through bulk emailing is free, companies cannot afford to risk the equity of their brands by offending people. Your email address lists should only contain those that signify they want to receive email from you. Otherwise, your unsolicited advertising will be classified as spam mail.

When people start a website they feel they need to make changes to increase their website traffic when in reality it is their targeted website traffic they need to focus on. Having hundreds of thousands of people come to your website a day means nothing if what you offer isn’t what they’re looking for. You have to find out what people want to know and what they need to help gear your website towards your targeted website traffic. So how do you do this?

The first thing you must do to reach your targeted website traffic is find one niche and focus on that. Too many times people try to promote more products than they need to which hurts their traffic. If you focus on one product or service as your main item, you will gain knowledge on the product and be able to promote it the correct way. People want to know that you know what you’re talking about and that isn’t always as easy as it sounds when you have multiple niches.

While you need to focus on one niche, you need to also offer items that are closely related to your niche. For example, if you sell shoes on your website then you need to offer shoe laces and waterproof protector and so on. This will make your site more appealing and increase your targeted website traffic. Try not to offer more than needed; stick to items that will be of interest to your guests.

In order to increase your targeted website traffic you have to determine what your targeted website traffic consists of. Figure out who you are targeting and experiment with your site to see what types of visitors are coming more than others. After you have determined who you are targeting, begin adjusting your site to make it more appealing for the targeted crowd. Go to forums and peoples blogs to see what questions they have that you can answer on your website. The more your website focuses on your targeted crowd, the more people you will get.

Lastly, remember to continuously add free content. If you give the readers new content every day they will return to your website to see what you’ve added. Give the readers information that they want to know but have not heard of yet. To increase your targeted website traffic you must make a post or two a day to keep people entertained with your site. Also, try to build up an email database so that you can drop people a quick email notifying them of changes to your website from time to time.

It is important that you stay focused on increasing your targeted website traffic over your website traffic in general. Focusing on a particular niche will drive in your targeted website traffic because your niche is specific. Just remember, the more targeted website traffic you receive, the more productive your site is.

After a website is optimized for the search engines, some creative marketing can easily be done to help drive new traffic to your site. Many high traffic entertainment/humor websites use funny videos that are viewed for free by site visitors. In fact, many of these viral video clips that are sent around the world via e-mail originated from these websites.

The only down side to starting a funny videos site is the initial cost to build it, and ongoing update costs, coupled with the bandwidth these websites consume, which can cost between $100-$1000/month just for hosting on a dedicated server. This is because these funny videos websites have hundreds or even thousands of downloadable videos available, and every time one is viewed there is a sizable amount of bandwidth consumed.

So how do you take the idea from the funny videos platform and apply it to your own website? Webmasters can easily incorporate this creative marketing technique into their own eCommerce websites.

Think about it this way. Most eCommerce websites have one primary function: To sell a product. The key to success with an eCommerce website is to rank high in the search engines and be found by someone looking for a product. Often times when a customer visits an eCommerce site, he or she sees the same basic format. There is a nice looking home page with an overview of the company and product line, and some pictures of featured products. Then the customer can find links to other product pages as well, or do a search for a product by keyword.

But to get the customer to come back to your website and buy more products, there must be something that sets you apart from your competition. How can this be done? There are two effective methods to achieve this. In a nutshell, adding video media will bring a whole new dimension to your website to help drive new traffic and gain repeat visitors.

In the case of an entertainment website, the funny videos are the catalyst that drives the repeat traffic to the website. In the case of an eCommerce website, you can add videos to your pages that blend with the theme of a particular product.

For example, if you sell fishing gear, then you can add the funny video of the reporter in Mexico who was floating down the river, only to be repeatedly pummeled by hundreds of fish that were jumping at his spotlight into the boat. That should get a laugh from your customer, and give them something to feel good about while they are looking at your product inventory. It’s kind of like a bakery. When you walk into a bakery, you are almost always enticed to buy something. It makes you feel good. Well on the internet, you unfortunately don’t have the option of smelling what you see. But adding funny media can arouse other senses in a customer and make their shopping experience more enjoyable.

Another great way to help market your product is by creating ‘how to’ videos for your products. For example, if you sell products for sailboats, you can make a series of short ‘knot-tying’ videos, and feature a different type of video on each product page. This can be done easily with a digital camera that records video clips.

Here is how you can accomplish this:

1. First, set up an area where you camera is on a tripod or table. 
2. Next, make sure you have a good backdrop for the video clips. You want to use an area that makes the action in the video stand out. 
3. Then record the video. In the case of knot-tying, you can write a script before hand and narrate the video as you are tying each knot for the camera.
4. Then download your video clip to your computer. You can also modify the size of your video with any video editing shareware tool.
5. Simply upload the video clip to your website and link to it with a descriptive title. That is it.
6. One idea to make this effective is add one knot-tying clip to each product page. This will not only make the customer want to visit each page, but it keeps them interested in your website.

There is one more important point to consider. You must present the training clips so they are most effective. To do this, be sure and place them in a prominent area on each page so they can be seen. And add several lines of text under the video link with a description of the video and keywords that someone might find while searching. For example you can tag the video link with ‘Instructional Video On How To Tie An Angler’s Knot’. 

Then lastly, you can create a separate webpage with a ‘video directory’ of all your videos. You want to also have search engine friendly keywords on this page as well. Then add a link to your directory page from your other pages, especially your index page.

These tips will help your website stand out from the competition. Simply by adding a few funny videos to your site, or some informative training videos that you can easily create from your home or office, you have added a creative marketing edge that goes beyond optimization.

So you managed to build an amazing website that you know your visitors would love. You have installed fantastic features that are guaranteed to blow them away. And you have included a lot of cool freebies to boot, just to leave them with something they could be happy about. It’s a blockbuster, and it’s just a matter of time.

The problem is, how exactly would people get to know that your website exists? Surely, they must first learn about its existence before they could visit it, right?

Well, it’s a fair assumption that 80% of the traffic that you’d be able to generate for your website would come from the search engines. Therefore, it is essential that you submit your website to as many search engines as possible. The process starts way before submission, of course, as you would have to optimize your web pages to constantly and efficiently win the attention of the search engine spiders.

Sounds like hard work? Well, this is something that you must do to assure a high volume of traffic for your website, dear friend. You have to employ certain tactics to get a better chance at online success.

But this is the realm of search engine optimization, or SEO as it is fondly called.

You could also try viral marketing and article marketing. The former would fetch for you an exponentially increasing traffic at a regular pace. The latter would result in a boost of users that would get to visit your web pages. Both strategies pursue the goal of exposing your website’s link to as many people as possible. Viral marketing would allow you to continuously spread your link through the use of a free product, which is usually an eBook or a special report, with words to encourage the recipients to distribute the same to their respective networks. Article marketing involves the submission of an article to the many article directories in the World Wide Web. Each article comes with a resource box that includes a link to your website.

Both strategies entail some work, specifically writing.

Are there easier ways to win traffic, you might ask? Well, there are some tactics that require little work yet provides substantial results. Let’s take a look at them.

• Increase your link popularity. Link popularity simply means the number of websites that contain links to yours. If you want to know what your website’s current link popularity is, just use the free tool at www.linkpopularity.com . Convincing other webmasters to display links to your web pages can either be very easy or very difficult. If you have befriended some webmasters throughout your online experience, this would be a cinch. Otherwise, expect to barter for such a spot on their websites, either in exchange for your goods or services, or by allowing them to display their links on your web pages as well.
• Buy spots. Most of the time, money does all the talking, and convincing. If you can’t talk them into allowing your links to be displayed on their websites, simply buy a spot on their web pages. Usually, you’d be given the spot for a month, with the option to renew the agreement every month thereafter.
• The previous two tips are about linking to other websites. Make sure that you choose popular websites. The purpose here is to garner visitors from highly visited sites to check out your web pages. If the other website generates less traffic than yours, your efforts would just be for naught.
• Try Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. This would require some financial investment from you. Overture and Google AdWords are the most prominent PPC advertising programs today. You just have to pay the program for every visitor they manage to refer to your website. You don’t have to worry about going broke, as you could always set a daily limit of how much you want to spend.
• Try traffic exchange programs. There are free ones and there are paid ones. Free traffic exchange programs allow you to join a membership community. For every website you visit, you will earn a certain number of credits. You could use these credits to purchase traffic for your own site. Paid traffic exchange programs don’t require you to visit other websites, but you do have to bring out some cash to avail of their benefits.

The traffic strategy you employ should depend on the nature and the goals of your website. A careful study of the benefits and consequences of each tactic should be made before resorting to them. Make sure that they are a perfect match for what you want your website to achieve.

In today’s technological era, you can’t afford not to have a presence in cyberspace as there are an ever-increasing number of people referring to the web as their major source of their information and research. 

Without doubt, your website represents a great opportunity to promote your properties for sale or to rent, in addition to your business generally, to the whole wide world.

This is a real “no brainer” – you must regularly update content on your site and you need visitors. 

To optimize the number of visitors to your website, you need to promote your site with some, if not all of these strategies:-

1. Your web address should appear on all business stationery, promotional material including your newsletter and all advertising especially signage. 

It also makes good sense to refer to your website in your on hold and after business hours telephone messages.

2. You should ensure that you make mention of your web address in all press releases, editorials or articles you write. Any readers will then be able to check your agency out via your website.

Similarly, if you have the good fortune to be interviewed on radio, you should ask the interviewer to mention your web address or you should drop it into the interview yourself ñ with some subtlety, of course.

3. Incorporate your web and e-mail addresses in your e-mail signature message. This may satisfy the curiosity of your e-mail recipients and encourage them to check you out

You can also refer to specific properties or forthcoming auctions in your e-mail signature message ñ however that’s another story!

4. Include your web address in your ë30 second networking commercial’when you meet people and you have an opportunity to talk about your business. Then make sure that you give them a business card to reinforce the message.

5. The web address should be included with your logo and company name on any business t shirts. The visibility with t shirts is difficult to beat.

6. Similarly, staff name badges should incorporate the web address on the name badge. Again this represents excellent visibility.

7. When you are speaking in public, your speaker introduction should include reference to your web address and, wherever practicable, you should also refer to it in the course of your presentation. You can achieve this objective without being painfully obvious.

8. Some may believe that it’s crass, but there’s merit in including your web address in your motor vehicle signwriting. When you stuck in a long line of traffic, you never know who will see your message and record it for posterity or later use. Naturally, this could be a disadvantage if you’re caught speeding, parked where you shouldn’t be or involved in a road accident!

9. Establish reciprocal links with other websites that would appeal to your clients, referrers and prospective clients.

10. Publish a newsletter and regularly include details of new content, features and other changes to your web site.

You should allow visitors to sign up to receive an e-newsletter on your web site ñ you’re sure to be pleasantly surprised by their interest.

The ability of the web site visitor to register for an e-mail newsletter also allows you to collect information regarding visitors.

It’s the biggest mystery on the internet. Everyone wants to open an online business. Everyone has a great idea. Everyone has a sure-fire strategy for success. And in many cases, they go out and build impressive websites around their idea. They include features that make the site sticky, drawing visitors in and inviting them to browse around. The graphics are slick and the layout beautiful. Java and Ajax make the browsing experience smooth and seamless. But in the end, no one shows up.

The vast majority of websites never get much of any traffic. Of course, this should come as no surprise. There are millions of different websites, even within a single topic, and there’s no way for the average internet browser to find one specific website without some help. And that’s what this article is about. What can you do as an online entrepreneur to identify yourself to the masses and help them find their way to your website? More importantly, what can you do to achieve that objective with little or no money?

That last sentence is the most important one so far. We all know the pay-per-click options exist and our hard earned money can quickly and easily drive traffic to your website. We all know it can be done at the click of a mouse. But how much will it cost? For those of us who have tried this type of advertising, it’s truly amazing how quickly you can run a tab paying for one click here and one click there. Well, as it turns out, there are some other options available that can drive just as much traffic and won’t cost you a penny.

The first strategy is encompassed by this article you’re reading. I wrote this article and posted it to the internet for free. Nobody’s paying me a penny. I took the time to write is all down because I know how to post it to thousands of different article directories quickly. And at the bottom of this article is a short bio with some brief information about me along with my website address. That means everyone who reads this article has the option of clicking through to my website directly. It’s called article marketing and it’s one of the best strategies for driving website traffic.

The second strategy involves posting comments on popular industry forums. Once you register with a forum, you can post comments within any topic you can find a string for. Your profile usually allows you to create a signature and that signature can include your website address. Once again, you’ve leaving behind a direct link to your website every time you post a comment. And as such, I would post as many comments on industry forums as you possibly can ñ perhaps as many as 15 or 20 comments each day.

The third strategy is to post comments on popular blogs in your area of expertise of beginning a blog of your own. If you post comments on a blog for 10 consecutive days, I can almost guarantee you that someone is reading your posts. It just happens. People find stuff and you can quickly gain an audience by creating a blog. And of course, you can revert to posting comments on someone else’s blog. You can always leave behind a direct link to your site when you do so.

The forth strategy is to make your website easy to bookmark with any one of the many social bookmarking sites that have emerged during the past year or so. It’s the new craze and sites like StumbleUpon or Boing Boing or Digg can quickly drive traffic to your site if the content you’re providing is appreciated by others. Adding the appropriate buttons and links only encourages that process.

Driving internet traffic doesn’t have to be a mystery. It doesn’t need to be a secret. And there are lots of things you can do to get plenty of organic traffic landing on your website. In most cases, it doesn’t cost any money. It just takes time. And if you can allocate the time, you’ll be amazed at how quickly it will also start happening. Good luck!

So, you want to know more about email marketing. Here is one type that will really help you out. Permission based email marketing. That’s right, permission based email marketing. Email marketing is the new perfect medium to use when you’re other marketing is not effective. For example, in-store marketing is only effective if customers come in the store. If they don’t, this form of marketing is wasted.

Another benefit of email marketing is that it doesn’t cost anything. Large-scale mailings can really add up cost wise, but not so with permission based email marketing. Because email is instant, so is customer response. Usually, if a customer is reading an email, likes what he or she is reading, they are more likely to click a link and make an online purchase. He or she is not likely to close out his or her email and come down to your store, especially if your store isn’t located anywhere near where he or she is. Email marketing is also effective because it widens your customer base. With email marketing, we are no longer held down by our locations.

One way to make sure that email marketing doesn’t turn into a flop for you is to use permission based email marketing. This is gaining permission from the people you are going to be sending to. The reason for this is because of spammers. Because of these people who send off emails that are not permission based email marketing, there are many times when even your emails might be considered to be spam and deleted. Since your lively hood depends on people coming to or shopping in your store, this can be very harsh and cost you money by having to use other forms of marketing. However, if you are using permission based email marketing, there is no need to worry because this form of email marketing requires getting the email address of your customers with their permission to send them email.

So, how do you effectively use permission based email marketing? Create the messages and set them to go out to your customers though an email list automatically. Get the name and email of people by maybe offering something for free. Tracking codes are useful as they give you numbers to show you whether your marketing strategy is working. Keep emails in a friendly tone, this insures that customers are more than willing to read your email than if it was in a mono tone or unfriendly one.

If you wish to provide email marketing as part of your online business plan you might want to look at some of the email marketing software applications available.

Certainly there are sources where you can develop an online group at little or no cost. By following this approach you may be well served at the startup of your online business, but as it grows you may want to invest in software that aids in the effective delivery of your email marketing messages while providing a greater degree of flexibility in the final presentation.

Arial Software

The software application from Arial provides a laundry list of services that include templates for highly developed email messages with photos, logos and headers. The software can be toggled to account for the expertise of the user. Essentially this means that if you are not very skilled at using the software you can select a beginning setting and more assistance is provided to allow you to successfully access the functions you are seeking to use. The cost for the software can range from just under $1,000 to over $5,000 depending on your needs and subscriber base.

PoliteMail

This service was developed to work exclusively with Outlook Express, and works on a ëper email’ fee. The basic package is free to use and has a maximum distribution capability of 10,000. The caveat is that even the free edition requires a fee for the emails distributed through the system. According to PoliteMail, “”For less than a penny per message, you can send to thousands to customers and prospects.”

The professional version of PoliteMail is $495 and it is also subject to fees for each delivered email. It has a larger capacity for subscription and offered additional premium features.

EmailLabs

EmailLabs represents itself as a high-end email marketing solution and unlike other services takes a different approach to service availability, “EmailLabs does not offer a 30- or 60-day free trial account as do manyÖ providers in the industry.” They do provide a demo for clients to tour and their list of clients is impressive. No pricing structure was available for review.

While these three email marketing software solutions are varied in their approach they are also only a small number of potential providers. This article is not an endorsement of any particular product simply a means of alerting you to a variety of possibilities as you consider email marketing as a means of furthering the objectives of your online company.