WSI Blog - Internet Marketing Tips and Strategies

What is it that your business needs to market effectively online and enhance your revenues significantly? Maybe it's an interactive video on YouTube. Could be an email marketing campaign and a monthly e-newsletter. A blog might be the one thing your business could really benefit from. How about an RSS Feed or a podcast? Is your landing page truly a sales tool or simply a good looking showroom where people stop by and leave without taking any positive action? When was the last time you updated your Facebook profile to make it more meaningful to your business image?

A comprehensive mix of Internet marketing tools and techniques could help you accelerate your business and move it to the next level – a level your competitors may already be eyeing on their radar. In the "Amazing Race" of the Internet, time is of the essence! What steps should you take to stay ahead?

Let's take a look at the top Internet marketing trends that you can leverage to enhance your business efficiency and profits:

Search Engine Marketing

Getting your website to list on top positions in leading search engines or hundreds of clicks coming in to your site is fantastic. The question is - how much of this is impacting your bottom line through increased conversions and sales?

While the goals of search engine optimization and pay-per-click are primarily to increase traffic to your website, the goal of a good Search Engine Marketing strategy is much more than that. Statistics indicate that lead generation, direct online sales and driving traffic are the leading objectives for search marketing. Get your WSI Consultant to help your search marketing strategy deliver these results.

Social Media Marketing

Social media enables users to easily participate in and actively contribute to. Consumer Generated Media (CGM) is the intersection between real and virtual worlds. Anyone with an Internet connection can share their message with the world. This is perhaps the biggest reason why social media has gained such importance. It involves people and it gives them power – the power to voice their opinions and the power of knowledge that comes from gaining insights and feedback. The distinct advantage that social media has over other forms of traditional media is its dynamic and flexible nature. Not only can it change with time and be edited as required by the author (or sometimes by a community of users), it can also be shared, archived and indexed by search engines.

Social Media Marketing is about reaching out to the Web community and leveraging the power of word-of-mouth publicity. RSS Feeds, Podcasting, Blogs, Social Networking sites and Interactive Video are powerful, inexpensive and easy to use tools that you can leverage to reach out to your customers. Contact your WSI Internet Consultant today to find out how.

Landing Page Optimization

Stefan Tornquist, Research Director at MarketingSherpa quotes statistics indicating that "an improved landing page can result in an average 40% increase in conversion". The fact is that the overall volume of users visiting website home pages is going down and will reduce further, significantly. If the point of entry is increasingly, a landing page, then that page must cater to different types of visitors. It must be dynamically designed to cater to each of their needs, yet, lead them all to convert.

With the complexity of media vehicles and Web user trends, testing the efficacy of a landing page is critical to ensure your RoI. WSI Consultants have been trained by industry leading firms like Google, Yahoo and MarketingSherpa to design and test revenue generating landing pages for businesses like yours. To make sure that your landing page speaks to your audience and leads them to conversion, contact your local WSI Consultant today.

Your online business must have a comprehensive Internet Marketing strategy to attract and convert more customers. WSI offers Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Email Marketing, Social Marketing, Landing Page Optimization, Video Marketing and more to help you put in place a good mix of Internet marketing tools.

CONTACT US and get started on a detailed e-Business evaluation and execution plan as soon as possible. Good luck and cheers to your online success! 

Spend the time filling in the pieces of the big picture as it pertains to your online business. The big picture entails four key components:

1. Product
2. Conversion
3. Traffic
4. Follow-up Marketing

When these four components come together, they make up the core foundation of any successful internet business. This is the secret to making money online.

First, we have product. In order to have a successful internet business, you need to have a product to offer people. You can’t make money if you don’t have anything to offer. Despite what many people believe, creating a product isn’t that difficult and there are many types of product you can create to put into the market.

These products could be eBooks, software, video or audio and these are just scratching the surface. These are only a few of many digital products you could sell online. Now, there are many ways to put together a product quickly and simply, whether it be from resale rights, master resale rights or ghost written works.

Your product can be something as straightforward as a website with a subscription form for a newsletter or ezine. If you are focused on affiliate marketing, you could build a landing page to capture prospects before sending the traffic on to the affiliate site. This way you leverage promotions to build your own mailing list and keep the subscribers for yourself. By doing this, you can tap a cash source virtually any time you wish.

By creating a newsletter with new affiliate offers and sending it out to your mailing lists, you have the possibility to make thousands of dollars. You build trust with subscribers and create the ability to generate revenue consistently for years from your target market.

The next part of the big picture is conversion. This measures the rate in which you influence visitors to take the desired action on your website. If you can manage to get half of your visitors to take the desired action, you have a 50% Conversion Rate. Improving your conversion rate is important because it helps you minimize your efforts while maximizing your results.

Conversion is a massive study with many schools of thought. For the beginner internet marketer, there are a few basics that should be followed. The most important one being copywriting. You could have the world’s greatest product for sale, but if you cannot manage to convince your prospect of that and get them to buy, than you’ve failed. Your words are a bridge between you and your prospects, so you need to make
them powerful.

By adding things like graphics, audio and video to your website, you can increase your conversion rate by allowing your prospects to interact with your website. When you add testimonials to the site along with case studies, your conversion rate will also rise. This happens because you are not just making a statement about your product anymore, you are now backing that statement up with hard facts and proof.

Three tips for boosting you conversion rates are:

1. Create safe communication in your copy so your prospects feel comfortable on your website.
2. Create credibility and trust so your prospects believe in your products and want to make a purchase with you.
3. Create a feel of urgency so your prospects are highly motivated to purchase.

The third part of the big picture is Traffic. Here are five keys to successful traffic generation:

1. Not all traffic is created equal. Your focus is only on getting highly targeted and market specific traffic that will convert well to sales.
2. Leverage all the traffic you get. Capture your visitors’ information for follow-up.
3. Master at least one traffic strategy and use it as your main method.
4. Do something everyday to get traffic to your site. Create a traffic generation plan and stick to it.
5. Money ties your traffic by adding different profit streams within your website. You could have a one-time offer, affiliate offers or even Google AdSense

There are many ways to get traffic, but you need to align them to the five keys above. Traffic generation requires some work, be it from press releases, articles, pay-per-click or joint-ventures and affiliate programs.

The final part of the big picture is Follow-up Marketing. This is the most important part in making the bulk of your money. Follow-up Marketing profits are the key to excess revenue. Follow-up Marketing is finding complimentary, higher-end or recurring income products across multiple scenarios.

1. Immediately after the sale or site launch.
2. During the checkout process as an add-on option.
3. A special offer or recommendation through follow-up email.

A huge portion of your profits will be generated by follow-up emails. This is why it is very important to capture the names and email of your site visitors and build your email lists. Affiliate products make great backend recommendations as you don’t need to create your own. You can simply offer affiliate products that give you high commissions, residual income or multi-tier profitability.

Make sure your backend products are complimentary to your market or site topic. This will help you create massive backend profit easily and consistently.

Here are the Top 15 Best Practices for Email-Marketing

By Mitchell Harper

Introduction
As you may know, most people now spend more time reading their emails than they do surfing the web. Email is one of the most powerful mediums that you can use to talk to visitors, customers and prospects.

In this article I will discuss 15 best practices that you can use everyday in your email marketing activities. Used wisely and consistently, there’s no doubt you’ll see an increased response from your subscribers -- whether it be for more feedback, more product/seminar registrations, or even more orders.

1. Avoiding the Spam Filters
The majority of large Internet service providers now use rigorous spam protection mechanisms to trap unsolicited email before it gets into their customers inboxes. Spam filters generally "rank" each email by a number of different criteria, and, if that email rates above a certain level (such as 10 spam points), then it is flagged as spam and deleted.

To make sure your emails don't get flagged as spam -- and deleted before they even get to your subscribers -- avoid using words such as 'Free', '$$$', 'Save', 'Discount', etc in both the subject line and the content of your email.

2. Maximizing Click-Thru Rates
Both web pages and emails can contain a lot of text and graphics, and this sometimes makes it harder to get your subscribers to perform a certain task, such as clicking on a link to see your special offers.

Numerous research papers tell us that the majority of Internet users respond better to a plain, bold, blue text link -- such as this -- as opposed to a banner or button. So, if you're going to include links in your emails, make sure they are bold, blue and underlined. This will mean that more subscribers click through, meaning more conversions/sales for you.

3. The Power of Personalization
If you were standing in a crowded mall, which of these would get your attention: "HEY, YOU!" or "HEY JOHN" (assuming your name is John). The power of personalization can and should be used in your emails. In-fact, by simply starting your email with "Hi [subscriber_name]" instead of the boring "Hi there", you can increase both your reading and click-thru rates by up to 650%. Why? Put simply, it's because your subscribers feel like they already have a relationship with you as you've addressed them by their
first name.

4. One-Click Unsubscription
If you want to grow your mailing list, then there are 2 things that you absolutely must have: a double opt-in process, and a quick way to unsubscribe. In some countries, it's actually mandatory by law that every email has an unsubscribe link in it. The unsubscribe link should take the recipient directly to a page where they are then removed -- courteously -- from your mailing list.

5. Signup Confirmation
Don't get accused of spamming -- always, and I mean always use a double opt-in confirmation process. Double opt-in means that after your visitor initially enters their email address to subscribe to your list, you should then send them a "confirmation" email. This email should contain a special link back to your email-marketing program, which will then verify that this visitor did indeed sign up to your mailing list.

6. Tuesday / Wednesday = Increased Response
Studies conducted by online research analysts have shown that the best days to perform a mail-out to your list are Tuesday and Wednesday, as this is when people are more receptive to communication. This means that they are more likely to read your content and click on links, meaning more sales.

On Mondays, everyone is still recovering from a hectic weekend. On Thursday and Friday, people are already too busy looking forward to the weekend. We've actually experimented with this, and received the best results by sending out emails at around 2-3pm (American Pacific Time) on a Wednesday.

7. Repeat Email Communication
An auto responder is an email that is scheduled to be sent at a certain time interval after someone subscribes to your mailing list. Auto responders are a great way to automatically follow up with your subscribers or provide them with more information on your products/services.

For example, if you provide a free newsletter, you could setup 3 auto responders for new subscribers: the first is sent 1 hour after they subscribe. It contains a thank you message and a link to get 10% off your newly released eBook.

The second is sent 24 hours after they subscribe, telling them about your community message boards, and the third is sent 72 hours after they subscribe, in which you can offer them a special deal on becoming a paid member of your site.

Auto responders help your subscribers build trust in both your company and your brand, and this can help make it easier when trying to close sales in the future.

8. Consistency is the Key
If you're running a newsletter or frequent email publication, make sure you keep the look and feel consistent from issue to issue. By keeping the look and feel consistent, you help to maintain and strengthen your brand and your image to your subscribers, which again will make it easier to close sales when you need to.

Create a template for your newsletter and whenever you need to create a new issue, use that template as the basis for each issue.

9. On Time, Every Time
When sending a regular email to your subscribers, always make sure that it's sent on the same day, at the same time. For example, every Wednesday at 3pm. Your subscribers will come to "expect" your email to arrive in their inbox on the same day at the same time every week, meaning that they want to read your content and are generally more receptive to any special offers or promotions you may include.

10. The Half-a-Second Subject Line
When your email arrives in your subscriber’s inbox, you generally have about half a second to catch their attention with the subject line of your email. After this, they will either delete your email or ignore it. In your subject line, try and specify a benefit that the subscriber can expect by reading your email. For example, instead of using 'OurSite Newsletter Issue #1', use 'OurSite Newsletter: 10 Tips for Financial Freedom'.

11. The Free Bonus Hook-In
Free is overused these days, especially on the Internet. However, if you're looking to grow your subscriber list, then create or source a product of value to your visitors (such as an eBook or discount coupon) and offer it to them for free when they signup for your newsletter.

To make sure they don't simply type any email address into your subscription form,
setup an auto responder to send them the free bonus 1 hour after they subscribe to
your newsletter.

12. The Preview Pane
Popular email clients such as MS Outlook show a preview of an email when it's selected in your inbox. Always have some interesting content at the very top of your email, as this is the part that will show in the preview window of your subscribers email program. If it's interesting enough, then your subscriber will open your email and continue on reading.

13. Link-Click Testing
When creating marketing emails, try using different text for both content and links. Also try re-positioning images such as logos and buttons. After sending about 3 different emails, compare the click-thru stats and see which one worked best. Now, when you need to send marketing emails in the future, you know that you will be sending the right mix of content and images that will attract the most click-thrus, and ultimately the most sales.

14. Email-Based Learning
Add value to your website, build trust in your visitors, establish your credibility and collect more subscriptions to your mailing list by setting up an email-based learning course. To do this, simply create a series of auto responders (for example, 5) containing unique content. Then, schedule the first one to be sent after 24 hours, the second after
48 hours, etc.

15. Always Sign on the Dotted Line
Always include a signature at the bottom of your emails, as it's one of the easiest ways to attract more traffic to your website. This signature should include your personal details, your company details, and an unsubscribe link. You can use your signature to link back to your website, and even to other products. Here's a sample signature:

Regards,
John Doe.
President - Company XYZ.
Visit our website at http://www.companyxyz.com
Unsubscribe from this newsletter at http://www.companyxyz.com/unsubscribe...

Conclusion
By implementing the 15 best practices described in this article, you can take your email marketing to a whole new level –- attracting more subscribers, and building both your brand equity and credibility at the same time.

The marketing opportunities that the Internet provides never cease to amaze. From humble beginnings where websites became another showcase of brand identity, email addresses got corporatized, search toolbars were branded and now videos and online profiles take on brand significance. The best thing about top social media channels is that you can customize your account or profile or video channel to give it a personalized (for an individual) or branded (for an organization) look; for example: A Facebook Page. Customization offers you a sense of ownership over the community that you reach out to and network with using social utilities.

Social utility site, Facebook originally started in 2004 as a networking site for youth. Today it has over 90 million active users and is the 4th most trafficked site in the world (source: comScore). With over 15 billion page views monthly, the site is an emerging marketing armoury and a powerful one at that. Little over a year ago, the site launched the Facebook Platform allowing third party applications to run within its interface. This hugely increased the potential to use Facebook for effective viral marketing. Facebook’s news feed is quickly gaining popularity as a way to keep audiences informed about a company’s activities, new product launches, seasonal promotions, and so on. How do companies use Facebook to market online?

From hosting events to sharing videos, posting pictures and news articles, to writing notes, Facebook users are virtually living by its description – "Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you". The key word here is 'connects' - making the connection, spreading your message, maintaining engagement levels and creating positive reactions – these are the valuable uses of powerful media like Facebook. The 2008 US Presidential Election has seen a striking example of people forming groups to share their voices online, simply writing notes on Facebook as part of the "One Million Strong for Barack" group.

Just like any other marketing technique, the purpose of video marketing is to attract maximum exposure and impressions. With that goal in mind, marketers using video tools like YouTube work towards a goal of adding as many friends to their network as possible and then nurture that network by posting videos of interest to the group. A smart way to start is to post videos on YouTube channels that already have a good volume of subscribers. Accessing an active group of users is a quicker way to build an expanding network of "friends" who will accept your requests to connect online and can be leveraged to virally spread your video message through sharing. YouTube also offers a further step of email marketing. You can send out an email announcement to let people know that you have posted a new video. What must you keep in mind when using video sharing as a marketing tool?

Stephan Spencer on MarketingProfs.com gives these 6 top tips on YouTube marketing:

1. Focus on something fun, something that people will want to share with friends.
2. Clearly demonstrate the product you are marketing.
3. Make sure the video is real; no tricks, no "smoke and mirrors."
4. Encourage viewer participation and support, i.e. — "make your own video like ours."
5. Take advantage of YouTube tags; use adjectives to target people searching based on mood; and match your title and description to the tags.
6. Experiment!

An example of a hugely successful commercial viral campaign on YouTube is "Will It Blend?" for a company called Blendtec. The campaign was a video series on various household objects that are run through a Blendtec blender—including marbles, rake handles, and even iPods. These were actual demonstrations of "extreme blending" being done by the company. Blendtec saw a dramatic increase in sales of at-home and commercial blenders.

If your business is not leveraging the power of social media, you are losing out on this inexpensive, mostly free Internet marketing tool. Get in touch with your local WSI Consultant today and get your Face in the Book and Your Video on the Tube! And don't just stop at that... make it part of your ongoing Internet business strategy to utilize social media for brand awareness and customer outreach.

"Online Social Media is Thriving" has been brought to you by Ron McArthur, WSI.