Internet Marketing Hints And Tips » Internet Marketing

The Many Faces of Viral Marketing

Gary Knox — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:57:21 +0000

Originally, e-mail was the one way that viral marketing began. Since that day long ago, viral marketing has moved from a marketing strategy to an art form and there are numerous ways to accomplish the objective of producing a successful viral marketing campaign.

Below are listed seven of those ways:

E-mail: It was first but it is still around and still used. It is, nonetheless, getting a bit harder to use as increasingly government restrictions (spam) are placed on it. However it does work.
Newsletters: This is an extension of e-mail but it a very effective tool. If you include enough timely and useful information, a good newsletter can push up the number of visits to your website.
Blogging: Supplying the tools on your website to enable bloggers to interact with each other is a fantastic way to get the message about your product or service out there and being talked about. Bloggers have their ears to the ground for fresh products and services.
Chat Rooms: A chat room on your website can and does promote interaction amongst your customers and that can’t be a bad thing. Also, you are able to use the chat room to schedule special events like having an expert available to answer questions on a given day at a given time.
Tell-a-friend Script: If you add this with a statement saying that e-mail addresses supplied will never be shared with third parties, you are able to increase your potential customer list greatly
Video Clips: Including cool video clips on your website will keep the interest up and increase traffic.
Flash Games: Whilst they are a little costly to start, they are an highly effective tool to get your viral marketing campaign going. Once they are established, they require nothing more from you.

As usual if the information provided is of some use please feel free to comment on this post or any others for that matter.

Employing E-Mail to Achieve Viral Marketing Objectives

Gary Knox — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:22:20 +0000

Viral marketing is an integral component of a campaign strategy that is used to accomplish objectives. It is not the objective itself. If the primary objective of an e-mail campaign is branding, in order to attain greater branding success exposure you craft your message or offer in a way that it encourages people to pass-along the message.

Creating a message with a quality offer or an incentive for pass-along is what viral marketing is all about.

Simply advising that e-mail recipients forward your message to their friends and relatives is not viral marketing. A message at the bottom of your e-mail that says “Feel free to forward this message to a friend” is nowhere close to viral marketing at its most effective.

On the other hand, if something worthy of sharing, such as a valuable discount, critical information, further entries into a sweepstakes, an added discount or premium service, a joke/cartoon, or a hilarious video, is included in the e-mail, viral marketing happens naturally and quite successfully.

The bottom line is that your message must be sensed as having actual value. Relevant or timely information, research, or studies are all effective examples of content that may be deemed potential pass-along material. Interactive content like a quiz or text can prompt forwarding, particularly if it is amusing. Personality tests, fitness quizzes, or compatibility questionnaires are all things that have been passed around by several people numerous times. Why? Because they are entertaining and entertainment has value.

A multimedia experience is always going to attain some pass-along. Somebody is always touting the benefits. It is a little more of a time and money investment but the messages have a great appeal and rich media has the reward of being new. The technical element alone is frequently enough for the message to be perceived as valuable.

Fell free to comment below if you agree or even if you do not.

The Use Of E-books With Affiliate Programs

Gary Knox — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:52:01 +0000

A few E-books combine very well with an affiliate program. When the affiliate experiences some additional benefit from promoting the viral message, like being able to brand your E-book with his affiliate links, the affiliate earns a sale when a reader purchases through a branded link. You profit from increased traffic on your website because the affiliate is willing to promote the E-books for you.

Be absolutely sure that your content includes a well-defined call to action. There should not be any doubt whatsoever about what you intend recipients to do. Make certain that the instructions are perfectly clear so that recipients know HOW to act. The action that you call for should be simple and obvious as well. Do not make things too complicated or it will confuse the reader, such as by adding several links.

Remember the K.I.S.S. principle Keep It Simple Stupid! The incentive should be clear to those you require to take an action. Readers will consider your offering for about seven seconds before they move on. If it takes longer than that for them to work out what it is you want them to do, they will move on. Do not make your message vague or difficult to apprehend. If you do, chances are you will lose them. You must respect your readers enough to express your message distinctly.

When you are sure you have an E-book that will be useful to an affiliate program, approach them with your idea and be able to demonstrate that it will be mutually beneficial.

Viral Marketing using E-books is among many techniques that collectively have a cumulative result in attracting customers and subscribers to your business and in attracting targeted visitors to your website. You will very soon discover that this is an excellent way of increasing sales, subscribers and referrals provided that the e-book is relevant to the affiliate program.

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Organizing Your Email Marketing Campaign

Gary Knox — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:52:30 +0000

If you have recently decided to try implementing an email marketing campaign, you can compliment yourself on becoming involved in one of the most effective types of online marketing for your business. Whilst several business owners tend to shy away from email marketing campaigns because they consider these campaigns are always viewed as spam, others recognise the importance of this type of advertising and are willing to spend a good deal of time and effort into orchestrating their email marketing campaign. These business owners will in all likelihood find they are able to enjoy an advantage over their competitors who do not take the time to implement an email marketing campaign.

One of the first elements you should consider when you make the decision to commence an email marketing campaign is the type of information you wish to include in your emails to likely clients. This is very important because the information you provide will help your email recipients to determine whether or not they think your products or services are worthwhile. You can include a mixture of information in marketing emails. This may include, but not limited to the following:

1. Full length informative articles.

2. Short articles enticing readers to visit your website for more information.

3. Links to additional websites which may be of interest to your readers.

4. Links to your own website.

5. Advertisements for your products or services as well as additional products or services your customers may value.

Once you determine the type of content you wish to integrate into your email marketing, it is time to consider how you would like to structure your email marketing campaigns. Two of the most common structures include an informative email with subtle advertising or an in depth e-newsletter with a wealth of information as well as some subtle advertising and even some graphics. Selecting the format of the emails you will be sending out are important because they will dictate the staff you will need to help you in your email marketing effort. You will likely need the assistance of a professional writer to assist you with the content in either emails or e-newsletters but if you opt for an e-newsletter you should also consider engaging a graphic artist to assist you in designing an attractive layout and creating graphics as required to produce an appealing layout for your e-newsletter. Of course all of this can be done by yourself but the results may not be quite as professional looking.

Next you should consider how you plan to create an email distribution list. This is significant because merely purchasing an email list is not likely to be effective. You may reach hundreds, thousands or even millions of Internet users by sending emails to all of the members of this email list but there is no guarantee any of them will have an interest in your products or services. However, if you build your own email list of previous clients who have specifically requested further information as well as potential customers who have also requested additional information you will have a well developed list which includes for the most part members of your target audience. This is ideal because you are much more likely to sell products or services to members of your target audience than you are to sell products or services to members of an email group which is not filled with those who might be interested in the products or services you offer.

Once all of these preliminary decisions have been made, you can begin to produce the actual emails themselves and can begin to dispense these emails. Once you have sent out your first batch of emails, you can take some time to assess the effectiveness of the first email before you send out the second batch. This will be valuable because if you ascertain the first batch was not very successful you can solicit feedback and make changes to the second email before sending it out. If the second email is more successful than the first, you can conclude the alterations you made were beneficial.

Using Your Content for Internet Marketing

Gary Knox — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:46:35 +0000

If you are presently marketing your business online and have not put a good deal of thought into the content on your website, you might be making an incredibly costly mistake. The content on your website is invaluable for a number of reasons. Firstly it affords visitors to your website their first impression of your business and the products and services you offer. In addition, well composed content can be instrumental in marketing your products and services to your potential customers. Finally, the content on your website can influence the size of the target audience you are able to reach by helping to improve your search engine rankings. With your content capable of doing so much, it is clear you should be employing a professional content writer to assist you writing the copy for your website. This article will dig deeper into the importance of supplying accurate, concise and informative content on your website when you are marketing online.

One of the most basic reasons why the quality of the content on your website is so important is because visitors to your website will probably form their initial impressions of your website based on the content on your website. If the copy is poorly scripted, does not hold the visitors attention and does not promote your products and services advantageously visitors are likely to exit your website without making a purchase. Conversely, if the copy on your website is well written, engages the reader and promotes the products and services you offer the visitor is more likely to investigate the website further to learn more about the products and services and might make a purchase. The content of your website will be among the aspects of the website which is first observed by visitors so it is crucial for this content to be well written.

Well written sales copy can also be really persuasive and might compel visitors to the website to purchase the products or services provided on the website. This is significant particularly if the primary purpose of the website is to sell the products or services. The sales copy should accurately depict the products or services offered, emphasize the importance of these products and services and compel the visitor to make a purchase. All of this should be done without looking to be blatantly advertising the products and services. Composing this type of copy can be rather complicated and commonly requires employing a sales copywriter who is experienced and skilled at writing this type of informative and persuasive content. Sales copy written by an amateur or an inexperienced author will not likely be as effective as copy composed by a professional with a good deal of experience in Internet marketing.

Finally the content on your website is very important because it can greatly shape your search engine rankings. This is vital because high search engine rankings help your business to reach a substantially larger audience. Internet users are generally searching for information quickly and want immediate results to their queries. Search engines understand this profile and write complicated algorithms which help them to provide the most relevant websites when a user searches for a specific word or phrase. This is crucial to business owners because Internet users recognise the value of search engines and are likely to only visit websites which rank well in the search engines. This includes websites which rank on the first page or two of search results. Your business might sell T-shirts and you may have a well designed website, a superior stock list and first-class prices but if your website does not rank well in search engines you are missing out on a good deal of free advertising. If your website lands on the third page or lower most visitors who search for relevant terms will not in all likelihood visit your website because they will have discovered what they were searching for on earlier pages. This is where the content on your website becomes important. Websites carrying content which has been optimised for specific keywords will in all probability rank well with search engines. Employing a writer skilled in writing optimised content can serve to improve your search engine rankings so you are able to reach more potential customers.

Autoresponder Software – Selecting the right one.

Gary Knox — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:45:26 +0000

It can be a reasonably difficult and time consuming job in order to discover the right autoresponder. There are a several choices available on the Internet, each one ranging in both cost and features. Before you decide to purchase your own autoresponder, you should first consider your budget as well as your requirements. This way, you will know what you want and how much you are wishing to spend.

Firstly, you will want to determine the features you want. Next, you will need to take a look at some of the different types of autoresponders available on the market. You will also need to select which type is suitable for you, and which brand name you think would work the best. You can resolve these questions by comparing different brands, prices, features, and licensing restrictions.

For a business, autoresponders can be great. As most of us already know, autoresponders are programmes that will send out an automated response via email to a specified address. In most instances, the reply you get back from an email autoresponder is short and sweet, generally letting you know that someone is on holiday, away from their computer, or that they have received your message.

The only real trouble with autoresponders is the fact that they will respond to any email that they receive. If you are subscribed to a mailing list and used your autoresponder address to sign up, it can easily create a problem. Anytime someone sends you an email to your responder address it will send out an automated reply.

For the Internet marketing guru, there are sequential autoresponders. These types of autoresponders are configured to collect different email addresses then send out a mixture of preset messages through email to subscribers that you have on your list. If you have a sequential autoresponder and use it correctly, it can help you bring back more visitors. It can be a really handy tool to have around, particularly if you work with numerous clients. It can help you keep track of subscribers, as well as keep them informed about what is happening with your business.

All over the Internet there are several types of autoresponders. They range from web based programmes to scripts or programmes that run through your computer or personal server. An autoresponder will be a major component of your online business, which is why you should always invest the time and effort to find the best one for your money. If you put the proper research and time into finding your ideal autoresponder, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and headaches in the long-term.

Fundamentally, there are three primary types of autoresponders that you can select from – remote hosted, locally hosted, and desktop hosted. Remote hosted are hosted on someone else’s server or website. Locally hosted will enable you to work the programme for your own web server. Desktop programmes on the other hand, will allow you to work from your own computer.

Before you decide on which type of autoresponder to purchase, you should make certain that you realise what each type will offer you. There are a variety of autoresponders to choose from, meaning that a few might not offer what you need. You should research each type, and then compare prices and features. This way, you’ll know which type of autoresponder will work the best for your needs and your business.

Evaluating the Response to Your Internet Marketing

Gary Knox — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:35:23 +0000

Commencing an Internet marketing campaign is only the first step in the battle. Certainly it is a fine idea to begin an Internet marketing campaign if members of your target audience are expected to use the Internet to research or buy the products you sell or the services you tender but these marketing campaigns might turn out to be a complete waste of time if you are not diligent about measuring the response to your Internet marketing. This means each time you implement a change to your marketing scheme; you had better evaluate the effects of the alteration to ascertain whether or not it generated a larger profit for you. This is significant because it can help you determine what is working and what is not working for you.

Measuring the response of your Internet marketing can be done in a number of different ways. Customer surveys and embedded HTML code are two of the most popular ways of assessing the strength of an Internet marketing campaign. Customer surveys can be as uncomplicated or as complex as you like depending on the amount of feedback you would like to receive. However, one of the most effective ways to ascertain how well your different marketing tactics are running is to include a question asking the consumer where they first heard about your products or services. This is significant because if you find a good deal of your customers are learning about your products or services through a particular avenue, it is a sound indication this method of advertising is working quite well for you.

Embedding code into your advertisements for the intention of receiving feedback is also a popular way of assessing the reaction to your Internet marketing strategies. Advertisements can be coded so the business owner receives feedback each time an Internet user clicks through a particular advertisement. This is useful for letting the business owner discern which of his advertisements are attracting the most attention. If the business owner is employing two different designs for his adverts he may identify one design is pulling more attention than others and may make the conclusion to convert all of the advertisements to the more effective style. Similarly a business owner who is running the same advertisement on numerous different websites may detect he is experiencing more traffic from one website than others. He might also learn some websites are not drawing much attention at all. This would give the business owner an indication of which advertisements to cancel and which ones to keep running.

Lastly, the reaction to an Internet marketing campaign can be measured by carefully surveying website traffic statistics after carrying out changes to the marketing scheme. This information is of value because an unusual spike in the quantity of website hits directly after implementing a phase of the marketing campaign can furnish positive feedback that the change was well received by potential customers. Whilst this technique of evaluating the response to an Internet marketing campaign can be effective it is important to note applying multiple modifications at once will make it difficult to ascertain which changes were the most effective. Consequently if you plan to use website traffic as feedback for how good your marketing strategy is operating it is crucial to only apply one major modification at a time so they can each be evaluated individually.

Combining Email Marketing with Other Types of Marketing

Gary Knox — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:41:24 +0000

Whether you decide to do your marketing online or offline, one thing does not change. This is the concept that no individual marketing scheme will be as effective as a combination of two or more marketing strategies. This doesn’t signify it is necessary for you to implement every acknowledged marketing strategy to promote your business but rather it implies that it is worthwhile to market from a few dissimilar perspectives to help you accomplish your business associated goals. This article will examine the importance of combining email marketing with other types of marketing to produce a successful multi-tiered marketing strategy and will also offer some advice on overseeing more than one marketing strategy at once.

As the old saying goes, “Two heads are better than one”, and this is certainly true when it concerns marketing. You may enjoy a good deal of success with email marketing but this does not mean you should not attempt other types of online marketing such as website creation, participation in industry associated message boards, placing banner ads, organising an affiliate marketing campaign and generating inbound links to your website. Whilst it is possible that not all of these strategies will be effective for your business, you are likely to discover at least one additional option which complements your email marketing and assists you to attain your business related goals.

Alternately you may even wish to combine your email marketing campaign with more traditional marketing strategies such as radio ads, television ads and the print media. Simply because these types of advertising do not take place online, does not mean they will not be able to assist you generate further business. As a matter of fact advertising both online and offline can allow you to attain a larger target audience. This is because you will in all likelihood reach Internet users around the world but can likewise reach potential customers who do not utilise the Internet for buying or researching products or services similar to the ones you offer.

Popular marketing strategies to merge with email marketing include banner ads and message board participation. These are all online activities and each one individually is fairly simple. However, in combination these simple activities can produce a powerful statement. You might send out emails providing useful information about your products or services, buy banner ad space on websites which might be of interest to your potential customers and participate in industry related message boards where you can earn the respect and pique the interest of possible customers. Even if your potential customers are not presently in need of the products and services you offer, seeing your business name so frequently can have a branding effect. Branding is basically a process in which consumers see a company name so often that they are more likely to select a product from this company when they are require an item the company offers.

If you are planning to combine multiple forms of advertising, you should be mindful that this can make it difficult for you to measure the effectiveness of each marketing strategy. This is particularly true of the marketing strategies that are implemented concurrently. When you are only employing one type of marketing strategy, you can broadly speaking attribute increases in sales or website traffic to alterations in the marketing strategy. However, when more than one type of marketing strategy is in effect, ascertaining which strategy is creating the sought after effect can be quite difficult. This situation can be dealt with by not making changes to more than one marketing strategy at a time. This will help to pinpoint which changes produce an increase in sales or website traffic. It can likewise help you to check when changes to your marketing strategy have a detrimental outcome on your sales and website traffic. However, if you are having trouble ascertaining which marketing strategy is most effective you could consider asking customers to answer survey questions in order to provide information such as how they learned about the products or services your business offers.

Improve Usability of Your Website

Gary Knox — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:35:32 +0000

No matter how brilliant your website design is, if it is hard to reach the content of your site then your site is as useful as an empty shell. Here are some tips to improve the usability of your website to ensure it serves its functions optimally.

The first method is to make sure the typography of your content is suitable. If you have large blocks of text, make sure to use CSS to space out the lines accordingly. The longer a single line of text is, the greater the line-height of each line should be. Also, make sure the font size of your text is big enough to read easily. Some sites have 10-pixel-tall text in Verdana font; while that may look neat and tidy, you have to really strain your eyes to read the actual text.

Make it easy for visitors to find content that they want on your site. If you have thousands of articles on your site and a certain visitor wants to find one single article from that pile, you have to provide a feasible means to enable visitors to do that without hassle. Be it an SQL-driven database search engine or just a glossary or index of articles that you have, providing such a feature will make sure your visitors can use your site with ease.

Ensure that your site loads fast if you do not want to lose visitors. Most internet users will leave a website if it doesn’t load completely within 15 seconds, so make sure the creme de la creme of your website is delivered to the visitors as soon as possible to retain their attention.

Last of all, test each and every link on your site before it goes online. There is nothing more effective in tarnishing your professional image than broken links, so be very careful about that.

The above tips are the minimum that should be considered, there are plenty of others but these will serve you well as nobody likes a slow loading, poorly laid out website with a decidedly dodgy search function.

How To Use A Tell A Friend Script To Drive Traffic Today

Gary Knox — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:32:10 +0000

Increasingly webmasters have the repeating quandary of how to increase the flow of traffic to their websites. During the past few years several methods have been developed to resolve this predicament. While most of them would work there are some that would not make even a little impact.

Among the methods that have bred several success stories in driving traffic into websites is viral marketing. Viral marketing take advantage of the inclination of a person to share something they find informative, entertaining or amazing.

Numerous companies rely on this behavior to circulate their products and increase the popularity of their company or their website. Viral marketing makes use of many mediums in enticing this behavior. It could be in the form of an interesting story, an addicting flash game, an amusing video and many others that may catch a person’s fancy.

This inventive form of marketing is generally low cost and is a tremendous tool for any company to employ. The benefit greatly overshadows the cost or efforts to initialize this marketing scheme. Any website would greatly benefit from viral marketing.

Tell A Friend Script

One of the easiest methods in viral marketing is using a tell a friend script. This is a simple programming script that you can attach to the code of your website. Commonly, tell a friend scripts are installed in pages where some form of media is placed so that a person can easily send the media to any of his friends or his family members.

The basic concept of a tell a friend script is, a script wherein a person inputs his name, e-mail address, the recipient’s e-mail address and sends the media to the designated recipient much like an e-mail with an attachment. As the recipient receives the e-mail they wouldn’t consider the mail as spam mail because they’d see the sender’s name as somebody he or she knows and trust.

A tell a friend script eliminates greatly the chances of being blocked because they use the information inputted by the sender. This provides a wider dissemination of this marketing method. It can be quite surreptitious but it is very effective.

With the e-mail sent and opened the sent media will either be read, viewed or played. Along with the mail would be a brief description of the company or site that sponsors the media sent. This provides the introduction of either the site, company name or its products. There will also be another tell a friend script so that the recipient can froward the message to their friends .

Thus the process begins again. As more people use the tell a friend script, increasingly more people will know of the existence of the sponsoring company or site. People who read the ads inside the mail who liked what they see would go and click on the link and visit the site. This drives traffic into the site resulting in a great number of potential customers.

Tell A Friend Script Availability

A tell a friend script is very simple and does not demand a complicated method of programming. As a matter of fact, you are able to copy paste a script and merely put it on the designated page. Finding one is even simpler. All you have to do is go to a search engine and type in the search box “tell a friend script” then press enter or click go.

In the search results page you’ll see many links that will direct you to a site where you can get a tell a friend script. It would just be a simple matter of looking and searching for the script and copying it to your intended web page.

With a tell a friend script viral marketing strategy you will be able to drive traffic into your site which could potentially spell profits. This is a simple innocuous script that offers great benefits for low cost coupled with great creativeness and foresight.

It is imperative that you have patience in using a tell a friend script. If your selected media does not get the mileage that is anticipated of it, it may take some time before it gets circulated or shared. But certainly many people will see your ads and there is great probability that they will visit your site increasing your traffic flow.