Any email marketer wants to grow their email opt-in list. It's necessary as 10% - 30% annual churn can be expected for every list. Growth is required to keep reaching your audience effectively.
When economic times challenge marketing budgets many businesses have turned to email marketing because it is inexpensive and easy to measure ROI. This increase in email marketing has led to cluttered in-boxes and makes it harder to obtain quality opt-ins.
There are three groups to target when trying to grow your opt-in list.
1. Current Opt-in List
An important rule to growing your list is to work to keep the names you already have. You can strengthen your list by requesting double opt-in from the beginning. This will ensure that opt-in's are serious about receiving your emails. Then stay consistent with what you've promised your subscriber. If you guaranteed emails containing coupons you need to hold to that promise. And finally test the messages you send out and experiment with the way you present your content. Does one style garner a higher open rate? How can you get those that haven't opened your emails in several months to begin opening again? Keeping your current list engaged and interested will grow your list by reducing churn.
2. Easily Added Targets
These potential opt-in's are already familiar with you and your product and they should be given the opportunity to opt-in to your list whenever they cross paths with your brand. On your website your most visited pages should include a link to opt-in to your e newsletter. Make the opt-in prominent on these pages and consistent. To reach this audience offline consider an in-store handout or discount incentive for signing up for the email list. Use materials you are already distributing such as sales receipts and packaging to share your message. Lastly, include opt-in options within your social media pages. These are effective and inexpensive methods to grow your list.
3. Bought & Bartered
The third and final group that you can target involves an audience that is a good potential fit for the service you offer but they have yet to have any direct contact with your brand. The downside of this method is that it can be costly. You can reach them by renting a list and creating a message that the owner of the list will send on your behalf. Another option would be to use a pay-per-click campaign with the goal to grow your list. Your PPC ad should click through to an opt-in page. If money is an issue consider bartering with a logical partner. If you build houses, partner with a plumber or window manufacturer. Once you've found a partner send out promotional emails on each others behalf.
Initiating these three tools or a combination of them can help ensure that you keep the contacts you have and grow your list over time.
Landing pages are tricky and extremely important tools. Many people believe that success has been reached when someone clicks through to your landing page, however that is only half the battle. You got their attention enough to push them further but it's the landing page that needs to seal the deal and drive your consumer to take action.
1. Determine your customer goal - It's up to you to decide what you want your visitor to do upon reaching your landing page. If you don't make it obvious what they should do upon arriving to your landing page then there's a good chance they will leave without taking any further action.
2. Make your landing page consistent with your ad - Using a consistent message from your ad to your landing page will help the visitor to understand the action you are encouraging them to take. It also let's the visitor know they've landed in the right place. This increases the likelihood that the visitor will follow and complete the path you've set out.
3. Present a professional design - Your landing page should meet or exceed the design standard set by your website. The page needs to look professional and be well designed with quality graphics.
4. Don't offer extra links - Keep your landing page to one message goal. Don't throw all kinds of links in there and hope the viewer finds something they like.
5. Call for action - If a consumer has clicked through to your landing page they are interested in your product. Make sure they know what to do upon arriving to the landing page to complete the process.
6. Track your results - Is your PPC campaign cost effective? Make sure you can measure your results. Track your conversion rate & the marketing cost per sale.
Click here to read Murapa's blog post entitled The rules of creating powerful landing pages.
In order to grow your dental business you need to market yourself. A radio or print ad can cost you $12,000 and it needs costly design and production before it can run. This day in age our lives are driven by the internet. For most of us it would be a challenge to completely avoid the internet for an entire week. 94,000,000 American adults use the internet every day and 63% of those people are using search engines everyday. Pay Per Click Marketing can give your dental office a cost effective way to easily and quickly bring in new business. Studies have shown that you can aquire a new customer through PPC for a cost of about $8.50 each. Considering a customer is likely to stay with your dental practice for the next 5, 10 or even 50 years that's an amazing return on your investment.
Research your keywords. For example, an estimated 40,500 people are searching Google every month for "Dentist Chicago". Finding additional keywords that are more unique will be inexpensive and enhance your campaign. Make sure your ad is clear and well written and stays true to your keywords. A PPC campaign can ensure that you are high on the paid search results but you also need to be sure your website is appearing under the organic search results as well. This will ensure the most clicks as some people gravitate to organic results. (Adjusting your organic ratings is a project for another day.)
Need more proof of the potential a PPC campaign can have for you. If you spend $2,000/month on PPC marketing and focus on a 10 mile radius you are likely to get 45,000-50,000 ad impressions (how many times your ad shows up in search engines) and from those impressions roughly 500 - 550 people will visit your site. These people need to land on a page of your site that entices them to call, email or fill out a form to take the next step with your business. On average 10% of these 500-550 visitors will act on the landing page. This gives you 50 new leads for your dental practice. If you want to be more conservative say that only 35 leads came from those visits and 30% of those didn't act beyond that initial communication. From those 25 prospects you may book appointments with 20% (on average.) Thus booking 5 new patients for the month. Depending on the dental procedures they book, perhaps a couple cleanings and a couple cosmetic procedures. If 4 out of 5 were happy with your services they could become customers for decades. Think of the return of 4 patients for 10 years. More than worth the small $2,000 initial investment for that month.
Budgets are tight but marketing is more valuable than ever. PPC is a way to market your business without breaking the bank.
Over the past 2 years, online shopping alone has increased to over 875 million consumers (According to Nielsen’s Global Online Survey). That’s a 40% increase in 2 years. Not to mention all those who use the internet for research and to find local business services, which accounts for nearly 80% of all US adults.
Think of all those opportunities for your business. Pay Per Click (PPC) is an effective and powerful marketing tool that allows your business to get instant exposure online. We have found that PPC marketing returns are some of the strongest in the marketing industry, and averages about the same return as search engine optimization (only 8% of marketers experienced a poor ROI according to www.eMarketer.com), but produces almost instant results.
Pay Per Click marketing allows you more control over your marketing dollars and the ability to pin point market niches more effectively than SEO. PPC is like having an ad in your local newspaper and only paying for the prospects that actually read your ad! According to www.eMarketer.com, PPC advertising will grow to a $16.950 billion dollars a year in marketing spends.
No wonder Newspapers are going out of business, television advertising is decreasing along with radio. Internet marketing is here to stay and Pay Per Click marketing is a valuable marketing tool to consider for most businesses.
Earlier this week, eMarketer published an article that reaffirmed what WSI is always telling our clients - even in a poor economy, you have to invest in your online marketing spending to make money. In fact, for a lot of businesses, increasing your business spending or reallocating marketing dollars into cheaper and more effective (read: online) media during a downturn can help you come out on top as the economy picks up.
The eMarketer article goes on to discuss the correlation between businesses that are continuing to succeed and greater marketing spending. The bottom line: "Almost two-thirds of small businesses that expected increased revenues had raised or planned to raise marketing spending, compared with just 32% to 36% of businesses with flat or declining revenues."Additionally, "the survey showed small businesses shifting marketing initiatives toward cheaper digital media and away from traditional channels. The top three marketing tools used were social media, e-mail newsletters and search."
Contact us today to find out how WSI can help your business leverage these three (and other) marketing tools to maximize the effectiveness of your business spending. You may think you can't afford to increase business spending or increasing online marketing spending right now, but the truth is you can't afford not to if you want to survive and thrive in the current economy.
We encourage you to read the eMarketer article in its entirety here.
Yes. Does that mean you should? Probably not. And here's why - if you're like most small to medium sized business owners, you most likely already wear a lot of hats within your organization. You may already feel like you do not have enough time in a day to complete everything on your "to-do" list, and if so how much time are you really able to dedicate to managing your pay per click campaign? Unless you are able to spend a couple of hours per day (yes, per day) you may be wasting your clicks.
When pay per click marketing first came out, it was easy for small and medium sized business owners to set up a pay per click campaign, choose a few keywords, and let it run for the month. But as internet marketing practices become more specialized, pay per click becomes more competitive and requires constant attention. How much time are you willing and able to devote to pay per click management? Consider this -
- How much is your time worth, or how much would you have to spend to hire someone in-house? Conservatively, let's say that amount is $50/hr.
- You should spend a minimum of 5-10 hours per week on your PPC campaign, checking keyword performance and ads, which is $250 per week or $13,000 per year! And that's on the low end.
- WSI is working with a $2+ million pay per click management tool that enables us to have access to the latest and greatest in PPC technology far above and beyond a basic Google Adwords account. And we are able to track multiple conversion points (Call Tracking, Email Tracking, Web Form Tracking, Sales, Email Marketing Sign-ups, and a multitude of Web Events). We also optimize our campaigns around the keywords that lead to "conversions." Google Adwords tool can only track conversions from Web Forms and Sales, which means you are probably missing out on tracking 60% of your conversions.
We understand that in current economic times, small and medium sized business owners are looking to shrink their marketing budgets, increase their ROI or both. And while it may be tempting to tackle some of your internet marketing campaigns in house, keep in mind that you get what you pay for. WSI guarantees that we will get you better PPC results than if you manage your campaign yourself. Contact us today to find out how.
As companies continue to struggle in the current economy, many are seeing their marketing budgets cut with more cuts anticipated for the last quarter of 2009 into 2010. During this time of change and scrutiny over every advertising dollar spent, it is important to note that the online advertising sector continues to grow as business are taking their marketing strategies online. According to eMarketer, digital spending will account for 17% of total ad spending in the US by next year, up from 15.4% currently and 13.9% last year. An "Interaction 2009" report done by GroupM Interaction indicates that companies are also increasing spending on search and mobile marketing and decreasing traditional media spending. According to this report, the future of marketing is so-called "intention marketing" with a combination of paid and organic search along with mobile and social media marketing.
Savvy marketers are already following this trend, according to a 2009 accountability study done by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and Marketing Management Analytics (MMA). The number one strategy is taking offline marketing online, and reallocating spending into lower-cost digital media like SEO, PPC and Social Media Marketing.
WSI can take a look at your current marketing strategies online (and offline) and provide the online marketing how to that every business needs in this economy. For every industry, there is a correct marketing mix online that will get you the best ROI possible. And one of the significant benefits of WSI's online marketing strategies is that everything we do is 100% trackable so you know almost immediately how well your campaigns are working and where there is room for improvement.
To find out more about the online marketing strategies WSI can provide, as well as a complimentary analysis of the marketing mix online for your business, please contact us today. As we kick of the fourth quarter of 2009, there's still time to end the year and start off the new year with a bang!
Most of our clients are familiar with pay per click marketing campaigns, and many use WSI for this very service. But it is important to understand that running a PPC campaign is really only half as effective as it could be if the ads are not directed to a customized landing page - and the best possible landing page, at that.
If you are running a PPC campaign and seeing great results, you can stop reading here. You either already have the best landing page for your business (bravo!) or are incredibly lucky and don't need one. (WSI still thinks you could do better if you had one.) But if you were expecting more from your PPC advertising, it may be time to ask yourself why you aren't converting the traffic that you're paying for. Most likely, you need to take another look at the landing page, or whatever page your potential customers hit after they click through.
To help you further understand the partnership between PPC and landing pages, we recommend that you contact WSI today or attend our upcoming webinar. Click here to sign up today!
Think you have squeezed every last dollar out of your Pay Per Click campaigns? Or think you have your Custom Landing Page down to a science? Maybe....maybe Not. As the old saying goes, "You can't improve what you can't measure." This holds true even more so during tough economic times like we are facing today. The answer is effectively managing your Analytics.
Maketing managers and business owners are looking for ways to trim marketing budgets and increase ROI (we should always be looking to do this, recession or not). If you can spend less and make more money, why wouldn't you want to do this?
Ask yourself: 1) Does my print ad in the local newspaper really work? And how well does it work?
2) What is my Yellow Page Ad costing me per lead?
3) Is my website unattractive to my visitors?
4) Is my search engine optimization (SEO) work giving us the leads we are looking for?
5) Are my email marketing campaigns even reaching my prospects INBOX or going straight to Junk Mail?
6) I am spending all this money on a radio ad, but how can I measure its effectiveness?
If you are asking yourself these questions then its pretty clear that you probably aren't up to speed with Web Analytics. You can track and measure all of these marketing campaigns effectiveness. Without proper analysis and not being able to make informed decisions, business owners and marketing managers might stop campaigns that might be working or just need some tweaking.
Check out our Analytics Webinar and Whitepaper on Web Analytics and How to Optimize Your Marketing Dollars During a Recession.
that entices them to call, email or fill out a form to take the next step with your business. On average 10% of these 500-550 visitors will act on the 
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