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Smart email marketing

Excerpted from ConvUrgency.com's Smart Email Marketing Guide

In the past few years, email marketing has advanced significantly in terms of widespread adoption, as well as sophistication. For some businesses, email has become the single most important communication vehicle, the primary interface for marketing to prospects and customers alike.

I’m not going to bore you with the history of email itself (I’ll assume you either know already, or just don’t care). But it’s obviously a very well-established tool, which has been readily available to marketers for many years now. Despite its age however, for many marketers it remains a mystery of how to use it effectively, and is therefore under-utilized. It’s quite sad, in fact, that the most sophisticated users of email are the unethical marketers known as spammers.

The objective of this document is to educate marketers on how to use email effectively as a marketing vehicle. My hope is that you’ll not only be able to adopt the best practices I’ll outline, but also that they’ll inspire you to test and tweak new ideas of your own.

I should probably give you a quick overview of my credentials as an email marketer. I began my online marketing career by creating simple websites back in 1996. I began working for one company in the role of Webmaster, and worked closely with someone else who was the Email Marketing Specialist. When he moved on, the reponsility of email marketing fell on my plate. I quickly became fascinated with the deep level of interaction email marketing provides. I read books, reports and case studies. I attended seminars and conferences. I tried various email platforms, and tested as many variables with my campaigns as possible, always striving to learn and improve from the results. I began providing informational seminars myself, and during the last one, the thought of creating this document struck me. And now here we are!

It seems that most marketers understand the basic concepts of email marketing. You have a list of email addresses (a.k.a. ‘subscribers’). You create an email and ‘blast’ it out to them. Of those that receive the email (some are blocked or invalid emails), some people will open it. Some of those that open it will actually click on links within the email, and some of those that click will convert (purchase a product, register for an event, etc).

It is very easy to derive metrics with this process. For example, let’s take an average email campaign, throwing in some average numbers. For the sake of the example, I'll tie direct monetary value to the conversion. This may be different in your case if you're not selling products in every email, but the principles are the same.

List size: 1000 subscribers
Valid Recipients: 95% (people who actually receive the email)
Opens: 25% (of the people who receive it)
Clicks: 20% (of the people who open it, referred to as click-to-open rate)
Conversions: 20% (of the people who click through)
Average conversion value: $39.99 (the cost of the product they’re buying)

This can be represented by the formula:
1000 x .95 x .25 x .2 x .2 x 39.99 = $379.91

Now the obvious conclusion is that if I can get more subscribers, I’ll make more money. So let’s do the math. I aggressively promote my email subscription all over my website, and within time I’m able to double my list size. Now the formula looks like this:
2000 x .95 x .25 x .2 x .2 x 39.99 = $759.81

Wow, double the profit! But how much work and time did it take to double that list size? Indeed, it would take quite a bit of effort to double a list size. And this is where the concept of Smart Email Marketing comes into play.

Smart Email Marketing
What if I told you that you could easily double your profits, with the same list size? (and no, not by doubling the offer amount!) Smart Email Marketing works on the premise that if you can optimize each component of the formula, you can derive far greater profits from your existing subscriber list. For example, by refining your list quality and sender reputation/authentication, you could increase the deliverability rate to 97%.

Now the formula looks like this:
1000 x .97 x .25 x .2 x .2 x 39.99 = $387.90

With a better subject line, you could easily achieve a 35% open rate. Now the formula looks like this:
1000 x .97 x .35 x .2 x .2 x 39.99 = $543.06

With optimized content and layout, you could lift the click-to-open rate by 10%. Now the formula looks like this:
1000 x .97 x .35 x .3 x .2 x 39.99 = $814.60

With content and creative matched to your landing page, you could even lift your conversion rate by 5% without much difficulty. Now the formula looks like this:
1000 x .97 x .35 x .3 x .25 x 39.99 = $1018.25

So we’ve almost tripled the profit, with the same list size! Now imagine what it would be like if you actually did double the list size, with all components of the formula optimized!

The rest of this report will explain many real ways in which you can optimize these components. As you read them, you’ll understand that they’re not fluff, not concepts and theory, but tried and true practices that are based on logic and common sense. In fact, when you read many of them, you’ll probably smack your head and wonder why you didn’t think of them!

Oh, and one quick disclaimer. There is no such thing as an absolute best practice. The methods I explain work in the vast majority of cases, but you’ll need to test each for your specific email campaign. Here’s a quick anecdote to illustrate this:

Last year I was running an email campaign to an academic audience. The person responsible for content sent me a 3 page text document. I explained to them that email best practices dictate that we use shorter, punchier, scan-able content. But he argued that this particular audience preferred to get all of the information at once and read through it, before making any decisions.

So we ran two parallel campaigns to portions of the list, one with the full content, and one with an abbreviated version, and links to read the full info online. Contrary to my expectations, the longer version greatly outperformed the shorter email. Once we had confirmed this, we were able to send the best performing email to the rest of the list.

I’m not trying to absolve myself of any sort of credibility with that example. I’m merely trying to express that you’ll need to test each factor, and figure out which is the best combination for your audience.

Excerpted from ConvUrgency.com's Smart Email Marketing Guide

I can only hope to need staff leasing soon

So, starting a business is supposed to be a gradual thing. But in the last few months, business levels (and thereby revenue) is seeming to increase exponentially! Honestly, at this rate, in a year or so I'll be digging around to find some Staff Leasing! Although perhaps at this point it's a little too early to tell, but with Online Marketing going the way it is, it doesn't look like there will be any end in site!

I was supplied recently with a link to Elite Business Solutions, which is a Human Resources Management outsourcing company. Honestly, I'd never even really considered the concept previously, but it makes perfect sense. In most small companies, people are already wearing multiple hats, and stretched thin, it's unrealistic to expect someone to suddenly take on the HR management role when new personnel are required. That's really the concept behind Employee Leasing, all that is done for you, for a fee of course, based on the number of employees your company already has.

At first I thought that a Staff Leasing Company was pretty much the same as a temp. agency. But going through the site, I see that they're completely different. A temp. agency you'd only go to when you need someone in for a brief period of time, to accomplish a set task. This seems to be more like permanent employee finding, which is really what most businesses would need.

Needing some promo items

So, I'll soon be on the prowl for some decent quality but reasonably priced promotional business items. I think at year end I'll send each of my clients some sort of "thank you" package for their business, I just need to find something cool to send. Looking at S&L Promotional Group's website is giving me ideas, I have to admit I'm pretty excited!

Originally I thought of just handing out the standard stuff, like pens or mouse pads. I had even considered getting some t shirt printing done, but then I realized that 1) I don't have a cool enough logo to warrant a t shirt, and 2) no one would wear my t shirts anyways!

So, I guess I'll just look for some other form of funky business promotional item. I would really like to get something stylish, that's used regularly, and wouldn't just be thrown into a desk (like a pen might). I would even consider getting some coasters, but that's a tough bet, because you're presuming on people's tastes, and the style of their home or office, because the coaster would have to match if they were to use them. I guess if I'd like something to be really effective at leaving an impression, and stylish, and expect it to be kept, then I'd have to go with some of their 'Executive Items'. They have one massive catalog though, so this is going to take me a while to go through!

Online Advertising in a Nutshell

Internet is getting very important part in our lives, especially in business. Successful business canÂ’t be imagined without Internet presence. Many companies have their own corporate web sites and email newsletters but it is not enough. Online advertising is the next logical part of every integrated marketing campaign in order to spread the word about your company.

Online advertising is much more different than in early Internet days, back in 1995. At the beginning of online advertising age the most used banner formats were 468x60 pixels, 120x60 pixels and 88x31 pixels. Many website publishers use 728x90 as a new standard for premium banners. Several years ago new ad formats appeared like so called skyscraper ads. We recommend you to visit Internet Advertising Bureau to see universal ad packages.

http://www.iab.net/standards/adunits.asp

Online advertising spending grows exponentially. According to a research made by IAB and PWC online advertising in USA in 2006. was 16.9 billion dollars which is 35% grow from 2005.

There are many sites that have some ads. Usually they are smaller or larger animated images called banners. Online advertising is so oversaturated that many studies show that people developed ability to screen out ads. The first banner was published on HotWired web site in 1994. It is a famous banner with text: “Have you ever clicked your mouse right HERE? YOU WILL!”

At the beginning banners had decent click-thru rates, sometimes even 10%. Today, usually CTR is between 0.1-0.3% even lower because of banner saturation.

Marketers needed new online advertising models so they started making ads using Flash. Using Flash technology, marketers are able to make interactive ads that look like mini home pages and in most cases those ads have much better CTR. Ads made in Flash can be seen on many popular portals like Yahoo! and MSN.

Today, the best results show email advertising and contextual advertising. Email advertising is great if your ad appears in double opt-in email newsletters with targeted subscribers. Good ad campaigns can get 2-5% CTR in email newsletters, blogs or video ads.

Google made a revolution in online advertising introducing the contextual advertising models in their services AdWords and AdSense. AdWords is based on a model that advertisers can choose desired keywords so every time someone makes a search on Google with their selected keyword their ad will appear on Google side bar or on the top of Search Engine Ranking Positions. This is good because many people donÂ’t see them like advertising, they see them as Search Engine Ranking Positions, and therefore, CTR is higher. It is Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising so that advertiser only pays when someone clicked on their ad. AdSense, on the other hand, allows publishers that they ads appear like texts only on relevant web sites that have similar target audience like their business. Google AdSense is great for web site owners, too, because they can monetize their web site traffic. Recently, it became possible to have Google ads in RSS. This is very useful for bloggers.

Another good choice for PPC advertising is using services like Overture and AdBrite. Overture allows keyword bidding and many popular sites like Yahoo! and MSN use Overture service for their sponsored Search Engine Ranking Positions. AdBrite allows you to choose web sites on which you want to advertise.

We have listed several useful free services that will help you in making your next successful PPC campaign.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool

Keyword Suggestion Tool

Free Search Engine Ranking & Keyword Tracker

Search Engine Placement Check

When you start with online advertising you have to be able to give answers on several questions.

1) What do you want to achieve?

If you donÂ’t want where you are going, you will never get there. You have to know what you want to achieve with your online advertising campaign. It is like when you make projections in your business plan. You will have to make your Internet marketing plan. Your goals can be to get 100 clients, 2000 subscribers to your email newsletter, brand awareness or anything else. Just be specific and clearly define your goals in order to achieve them.

2) Where to advertise?

This is the next logical step. Depending on what your goals are you will choose your target sites. Do you want to use online advertising for your branding? Then the good use can be larger banner campaign on popular ad networks. It is most likely that you wonÂ’t have some great CTR but many people will see your ad and it is cost-effective. If you want better response rate, good thing is to advertise in email newsletters. If you want to get clients with minimum risk you should use PPC advertising on search engines or affiliate programs based on pay-per-sale.
You wonÂ’t choose same places to advertise if you want to reach newbies and decision makers. You have to know what you sell and to whom. Market segmentation is essential.

You have to choose quality and visited web sites. We have listed several useful free services that can help you to determine site popularity.

Google PR Checker

Alexa

Netratings

Compete

Link Popularity Check

3) Out Of The Box approach

DonÂ’t be scared to experiment with your ads. We have already said that there are many ads, so you will have many competitors. You want to get the most from your advertising dollars. Test, test, test! Be creative and use technologies like Flash or DHTML in order to make your ads stand out from the crowd.

4) Words sell

You have to choose good message for your ads. To clearly define your offer and to call on action. Don’t forget to include words like “Click here”, “Register Now!”, and “Free Report”, to offer contests for popular gadgets like iPod. Good thing is to include interesting questions in your ads, questions that start with “How To…” messages that start with numbers like “7 Email Marketing Best Practices”…

Things to avoid

Although, some people can tell you that pop-ups can bring you many new subscribers, we recommend you not to use pop-ups. Different studies show that people donÂ’t like this technique. DonÂ’t make your banner images bulky, it will have a slow loading time. Not everyone use broadband. Optimize them to have good loading time. Some people make their banners look like Windows dialogue boxes or place a combo box image on their banners in order to mislead their visitors and to have better CTR. DonÂ’t use that technique.

tags: online, advertising, web, advertising, internet, marketing

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Power of Affiliate Programs

Successful business can’t be done without partnerships and cooperation. On the Internet you can have a perfect partnership model – using affiliate programs.

What are affiliate programs?

Affiliate programs, which are also known as associate, partnership or referral programs are type of business that includes two parties: a seller and partners or affiliates. In order to have better sales and reach more customers many sellers start an affiliate program to sell their products and services.

Here is how it works. For example, if company A sells software and company B joins in their affiliate program to promote company A software they will earn commission for every new customer or prospect they bring to company A web site. Every affiliate has an unique ID so this way seller can track sales made by each affiliate and to pay them for that.

Affiliate program types

There are two main types of affiliate programs: affiliate programs which are based on cost-per-acquisition model (CPA) and affiliate programs which are based on cost-per-click model (CPC). Of course, much better solution for sellers (and in most cases for affiliates, too) is CPA model. In this case, seller is interested to have as much affiliates as possible, because this way they can’t loose – they pay only for new clients. Commission depends on products and services in affiliate program and can be from 5% to even 40% that you will get joining to Infacta’s affiliate program. This way, if you join to Infacta’s affiliate program you can earn almost $100 per sale! If you are interested to earn money while promoting our services go to http://www.infacta.com/asp/common/affiliate_program.asp

CPC affiliate program type means that the seller will pay a fixed price for every click that is made on their affiliatesÂ’ web sites. Usually click price is in the range from $0.10 - $1.0. This is more risky for companies because they will have to pay even if their affiliates donÂ’t generate new sales and with this model it is always a risk of possible fraud clicks.

Affiliate programs are most widely used in selling books, software and web services. Some of the most successful businesses on the Internet are built on partnerships like Amazon.com and Google with their AdSense program.

Affiliate programs are great for webmasters, too. Very few web site owners can completely sell their ad inventories and with affiliate programs they can fill their unused ad inventory.

Start your own affiliate program

You can start selling your products thru affiliate programs with using specialized services like ClickBank (http://www.clickbank.com), LinkShare (http://www.linkshare.com) and ShareASale (http://www.sharesale.com) or having a custom affiliate program script built for your needs.

Having an affiliate program you wonÂ’t be limited to selling only on your web site. You will have 24x7 salespersons with the help of other web site owners who will join your affiliate program. Best of all, it is completely automated process so you wonÂ’t have to do nothing. You will only have to maintain your balance on your affiliate program service and they will pay your affiliates for sales they generate. Usually, you will also have some upfront investment when you start using some affiliate program service. You will pay a one-time-fee and a commission for every sale made thru that affiliate program service.

If you are a web site owner, you have to find several affiliate programs that are best match for your web site. Targeting is very important in order to have success with using affiliate programs. You wonÂ’t have much success if you have a webmaster resource web site and promote affiliate program for cosmetics. In this case you will have success if you promote services that are aimed to webmasters. So you will have to start promoting affiliate programs for web hosting, domain registration, Internet and email marketing software.

Some affiliate programs are two-tier based so you will earn money even if some other webmasters join to the affiliate program thru you. You will get a commission each time that new webmaster makee a sale.

You can find affiliate programs that fit to your siteÂ’s content on sites that offer affiliate program services. Usually, they offer Sellers and Affiliates section. Also, there are specialized directories for finding affiliate programs like Associate Programs (http://www.associateprograms.com) and Affiliate Programs (http://www.affiliateprograms.com).

As you can see, power of affiliate programs represents a fact that it is a win-win situation – both for sellers and for affiliates.

tags: internet, marketing, affiliate, programs, associate, programs

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Sponsored blogging is the latest 'in' thing

Online marketers are constantly looking for the next big thing that will give them the advantage over their competitors, and yet without using 'Blackhat' techniques which will trip Search Engine TOS flags. The most well-established means of website promotion is currently Text Link Advertising, which thousands of companies do privately and through agencies such as Linkworth.

While Google and other search engines work hard to crack down on links sponsored purely to increase search ranking, sponsored content and linking is going strong. The latest craze in Search Engine Marketing is sponsored blog posting. This began on a private level, with individual bloggers offering a post in their blog as a means to Make Money Online. The great benefits and low cost of blog advertising quickly became apparent, and companies starting to spring up to manage this on a large network basis. One of those was PayPerPost.com, which is now well-established. The latest into this arena is Linkworth, and only time will tell how successful they are with the venture.

Promotion Technique - Writing Articles

Writing articles is one of the best ways that you can do for your Internet promotion. Writing articles can be put in PR activities section because in most cases you wonÂ’t pay that your article appear in some magazine, web site or email newsletter. ThatÂ’s why articles are usually more useful than ads. People believe more in what they read than when they read something and they know that it is an ad.

Benefits of writing articles

1) Building your web site content and getting repeat visits

On of the most known rules on the Internet is “Content Is King!” People are constantly looking for quality content and if they won’t find it on your web site they will leave to your competitor’s site and probably never come back on your site again. With writing articles that are relevant to your business you will create a web site full of useful information and when people see how much you offer on your web site they will most likely subscribe to your email newsletter, as well. To increase sign-up process for your email newsletter you can put some of your articles in “teaser” format and write that if people want to read the whole article they have to be members of your email newsletter.

2) Branding yourself or your company as an expert

Whether you write articles mainly for purpose of publishing on your places like web site and email newsletter, or you want that they be re-published on many other places, you will have a branding benefit. If your articles offer quality information to your readers they will view you or your company as an expert in your area of business. For example, if you are a company that sells email marketing software, you can write articles that will help email marketers to get the maximum from their email marketing campaigns.

3) Search engines and link popularity

As you probably already know, link popularity is very important factor for better ranking on major search engines like Google. The more sites link back to yours you will have a better page rank. Writing articles is ideal way for having a better placement on search engines. If your web site offers quality content many people will link back to your web site if they know that your web site will be useful for their readers, too. Also, if your articles get re-published on many places like web sites, article submission directories they will also link to your web site because you can (and definitely you should) include a resource box at the end of your articles where you will include your web site URL, as well. Also, you will include several relevant keywords in your articles that will help in your S.E.O. (S.E.O.).

4) Targeted subscribers

Like in above mentioned example, if you are an email marketing software company you will write articles about email marketing. Your articles will appear on places that focus on email marketing and readers of those articles are also interested in email marketing when they read that topic. If they like your articles and want to find more about your company it is most likely that they will visit your web site URL in your resource box. This way you will get targeted visitors and subscribers. Did I mention free?

How to write your articles

1) Don’t write your article like a sales pitch – you should offer quality and useful information in your articles and to focus on ”selling” in your resource box. Also, never include affiliate links in your articles. You should include a max. 5-line resource box at the end of your articles. There you can write something about yourself, your company, and to include your web site url and phone number.

Resource box example:

______________________________
Dejan Bizinger is web manager at B92 and Internet marketing consultant. B92 is media house in Serbia which national TV and radio coverage and most visited web site. For more information about Dejan Bizinger please visit http://www.bizinger.biz
______________________________

2) Catchy title – it is very important that your articles have catchy titles and first two paragraphs because it is usual the only thing visitors will see on article search engines. Then they will decide whether to read your article or not.

3) Clickable links – it is good that links in your articles be “live” or clickable. You have to see from place to place if it is enough to include a usual http://www.yourname.com link or you have to put in HTML tag like http://www.yourname.com

Where to promote your articles

If you are interested that many people use your articles for publishing on their web sites or email newsletters you have to promote your articles. Best way to do it is to submit your articles to specialized article submission web sites and email newsletters.

There are many article submission resources, but some of the most useful are:

Web sites

Go Articles
Ezine Articles
Idea Marketers
Article Depot
Article City
WebProNews

tags: promotion, internet+marketing, writing+articles, emarketing

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New Email Marketing Guide

We've launched a comprehensive new email marketing guide! Check it out, or contact us and you may be eligible for a discount...