Archive for January, 2008
Permission Email Marketing
Posted by: | CommentsPermission email marketing vs s*p*a*m, what’s the difference?
Spam is equivalent to the “junk” mail you receive in your physical mail box, if you did not give explicit permission for the mailer to send it to you. (As a copywriter, I shudder to call it “junk” mail, but that’s what it’s known as.) To carry the analogy further, you would continue to receive the mailings forever and there would be no way to turn it off.
If permission email marketing were to be carried over to the direct mail world, here’s how it would operate.
You would decide that it would be ok to be included on Company A’s mailing list. Either they mailed something to your home as an insert for another company’s materials, or you picked up a postcard somewhere. They may have offered a free gift or report if you sign up now. They may even have a mechanism for you to call in and ask to be included on the list.
Next, the company would mail you a postcard asking you to confirm your inclusion in the list. That’s what we call “double opt-in” in email. You take the first step, raising your hand as it were, asking to be included on the list. The company then requests that you affirm that indeed it was you that wanted to be included. The company is making sure that it didn’t receive your name and address from another party.
After the company received back the confirmation from your address, it would begin regular mailings to your home.
Email marketing and attrition
Posted by: | CommentsI recently mentioned the concept of building your list “one at a time”. One reason this is important is due to attrition.
People change their email address and forget to notify you. Sometimes they are trying to get rid of spam and sometimes it is a change for a different reason. Bottom line: their email starts bouncing and you lose a subscriber.
A mail box fills up and the email starts bouncing. This can happen for a number of reasons. The reader may be sick or out of town and unable to read his or her email. They intended to stay on your list but it looks they’ve abandoned their email address.
Often readers get fed up dealing with all of their email, and go on mass unsubscribe rampages.
Or they just realize that they aren’t really interest in your product or service.
Whatever the reason, email list attrition is a part of life and there’s nothing you can do about it, most of the time.
To compensate, you must keep adding new readers to your list if you want to at least keep it the same size.
My prior post gave some ideas for doing that.
Learn copywriting by affiliate marketing
Posted by: | CommentsOne method of learning and practicing your copywriting skills is affiliate marketing.What’s affiliate marketing?
It’s simply the process of selling products for someone else, and taking a share of the sales price.
You can see this in action by typing a popular search term, like “guitar lesson” into Google. When you do this, you will see ads on the right side of the screen. Someone has paid the the placement of each of those ads, and while many use this method to sell their own products, some use it as affiliates.
There are many ways to sell as an affiliate; here’s how a typical setup would work for the products you see advertised on the right side of Google.
If you click on an ad link, the seller is charged for that click. The seller will typically do one of two different things. First, they may send you to a web page where they will sell you on a product they are promoting for someone else, and try to get you to click on a link to a checkout page. Second, the smart ones will send you to a page and try and persuade you to sign up for an email list, and THEN they will sell you on the product via email.
If someone buys through your link, you get paid! You can therefore learn by doing. Just make sure that you understand enough about Google Adwords that you don’t spend too much for the clicks.
The Best Tax Shelter in the U.S.A.
Posted by: | CommentsGreat headline, isn’t it?
The best tax shelter is a home-based business.
Check out the full article by Stacie Walker.
Build Your List, One at a Time
Posted by: | CommentsYou should have a sign-up form on your website or blog, and ask for visitors to sign up for your free ezine, weekly tips, or whatever you send to keep in touch with your prospects and customers.
Make it easy for people to sign up. And if you use a professional service like Aweber, the process is pretty automated for you too.
Many sites use a “pop-over”, to force visitors to either enter their email address or close the box. This is something that you will want to test to see if conversion rates are better. It will depend on the market and perhaps on the layout of your site.
Another technique you can use is encouraging your readers to forward your email to friends or colleagues who would enjoy it. Some of them may sign up for your list.
A similar technique employed by some websites is a feature whereby one can send an article, or a link to it, directly from the website to a friend or colleague. Again, this technique should result in more readers added to your list.
The Ezine Queen
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’re interested in starting your own ezine, one resource you should check out is Alexandra Brown’s site:
http://www.ezinequeen.com
She offers a free 45 minute audio class on starting an ezine, and free articles, weekly tips via email, and paid products.
According to her site, Mark Victor Hansen & Associates said she is one of the top ten direct marketers in the world, so you should definitely check out what she has to say.
The free article section alone looks like a goldmine to me.
I’m not an affiliate (yet) but perhaps I’ll sign up…her stuff looks like the real deal.
Email marketing and sneezers
Posted by: | CommentsIn his book, Purple Cow, Seth Godin discusses the concept of “sneezers”.
Huh?
“Sneezers” are “experts” who tell all of their friends and colleagues about a new product or service, and are perceived authorities in the area and are therefore influential.
The book is worth reading just for the discussion of “sneezers”.
What relevant does this have for your email marketing campaigns?
Everything.
In fact, email is the perfect medium to capitalize on the “sneezers” tendency to “spread” the virus. Email is so very simple to forward to any number of people, adding one’s own comments. And today, of course, almost everyone has email.
You can understand why the ease of forwarding makes gives email a nudge over paper-based communications in many applications. If you happen to hit a “sneezer” at just the right time, you can have influence far beyond your original prospect list.
These principles should not be restricted to business. I belonged to a service organization that insisted on mailing a monthly newsletter with news and training opportunities. I asked why email was not used, citing the lower cost, instant delivery, and ability to forward. I argued that the newsletter could be much more effective and we could save money at the same time. Predictibly, my concerns fell on deaf ears.
For the service organization to which I belonged, there was not much at stake. But my story illustrates how organizations can get trapped by inertia, doing things the same way they’ve always been done and not taking advantage of new opportunities.
Ezine Advertising Strategies
Posted by: | CommentsHere are some ideas to help you as you begin thinking about advertising in ezines.
- Go Slow. It’s your money, so spend as little as possible in the beginning. You don’t know yet what is going to work.
- Test. Have mechanisms in place to track the actions of the prospects who view the ad, and commit yourself to doing the testing.
- Offer to trade advertising space with the ezine owner, if you have your own ezine.
- Don’t advertise in an ezine until you have read at least a few of the issues. Get on their mailing list. Is the ezine targeted well to your market?
- If at all possible, collect the names and email addresses of prospects who respond to your ad. They will then become *your* prospects and you can email them according to own schedule.
Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers
Posted by: | CommentsIn the book entitled:
Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers
Seth Godin carefully explains his concept of getting customers to buy-in to receiving more communication from you. What I like about Godin’s approach is he realizes that business transactions are basically just a relationship between two people, at some level. Therefore, principles at work in personal relationships can also be applied to the business arena.
The books has been around for a while but is worth reading. I don’t know of any source that explains permission marketing better.
When building your email campaign or strategy, don’t get so bogged down with the technical details that you lose sight of the relationship aspect.
This book has had a profound impact on how I think about marketing, and I believe it will have the same impact on you.
5 Steps to Getting Your Business Online
Posted by: | CommentsHere’s what you need to get your business online:
1. Domain name.
Your domain name is your “address” on the internet. If you’re looking for some general guidelines for choosing a domain, I believe that domain names should be:
- Easy to spell
- Easy to say and be understood over the phone
- Memorable
- Descriptive of your product or service (this includes, in most cases, choosing a .com name if you’re a business)
- Reasonable length
Domain names can be purchased for under $10 per year.
2. Webhost and email services.
Next, you need a place to store your website. Often the same company will handle your email for you, though you can set your system up so that different companies “host” your website and email if your needs require it.
3. Build and maintain your website.
Once you purchase your domain name and webhosting, you need to actually build your site. This is commonly done with a special software program. Included on your website will be:
- The actual text of whatever you want to communicate
- Graphics to make your site more attractive to read
- The “code” (HTML, PHP, etc) to make it all work together
- Any non-text content you wish to provide for streaming or downloading (audio, video, forms, documents)
To get people coming back to your site, you will want to update it frequently.
4. Tell the world about your site.
You should have a marketing strategy to get the most exposure to your site. You should promote it online and offline.
Online promotion methods include:
- Search engine optimization
- Directory listings
- Posting comments on relevant blogs
Offline methods would include referring to your site in your newspaper, direct mail, radio, or TV advertising.
5. Email marketing.
This is a separate category of marketing but ties in nicely with your website. Here’s how it works:
You maintain one or more “lists” of prospects and customers that are interested in a certain subject. Email marketing allows you to send messages out to many readers at once, and you can even deliver a series of training or information messages at any interval you choose (every day, every 2 days, or whatever you decide).
