Archive for June, 2011
Blog Promotion Via Email Lists
Major Sample of Your Target Market
Email groups are created on the basis of shared interests or any other common factor. Email groups may be composed of people with the same hobby, living in the same area, or with the same occupation.
Whatever the reason an email group had for establishing itself, what’s important is for you to determine whether they can match the profile of your target market. When it does, getting the group hooked to your blog instantly lets you kill several birds with just one click!
Unified Response
Another great thing about tapping on email groups is the kind of relationships members have with each other and how group decisions are made. In email groups, there is always a clear distinction between moderators and ordinary members. When moderators make a decision, members almost always automatically perform a similar action.
If you can manage to convince the moderators of the email group to visit your blog and maybe even link to it, you can expect the members to promote your blog as well. Convince the one that matters and you win all!
Variety
As we’ve mentioned earlier on, email groups are established for varying reasons. It is unlikely, therefore, that you won’ find any email group matching the description of your target market. As such, you should take the time to browse through email group directories. Pay attention to the information they’ve provided for their group and you’ll know whether they’re likely to be interested in your blog or not.
How to Tap on Email Groups
Now that you’re aware of the importance of email groups, here are a few tips to effectively promote your blog through them.
Join the Group
Your messages will be welcomed more warmly if you join their group first. To do so, you’ll usually need a valid email address, pass their security test, and maybe explain your reason for joining.
While it’s always good to be candid, it wouldn’t hurt to mention any other reason you may have besides wanting a chance to promote your blog. If you’re stuck for a reason, try thinking of yourself as an ordinary member instead. Think of the benefits you’ll enjoy from joining the group and make sure to mention that.
Know the rules
Every email group has rules for members to follow. Make sure you learn these carefully so that you avoid unknowingly violating any of their rules. Abiding by them as you start posting your messages to the group is sure to endear yourself to other members as well.
Introduce yourself
Before posting any message, it’s important to introduce yourself to other members. Remember to thank them for letting you join their group and take the time to get to know them as well. Introducing yourself is a great way to direct the conversation to your blog and from there, you’ll able to start on your marketing plan.
Return the favor
Last but not the least, remember to return the favor. If the email groups you’ve joined are working hard to promote your blog, you should return the favor and promote them as well. Doing that is good karma, and that’s never bad for your business!
Best Ways To Generate Revenue From Email Marketing
Email marketing has the immense capability to generate revenue in leaps and bounds; the excellent thing is that email marketing can be integrated into any form of internet marketing. Just like any good internet marketing, email marketing comes with these in-built features:
It is possible to track everything You can define the ROI With better implementation, any other medium would be kicked out of service.
For email marketing, the fact that ROI kicks the butt of other online marketing medium is better news.
Looking to grow ROI and revenue from your email campaigns? Have a look at these highly effective steps you need to follow:
Get your landing page optimized. Dont be satisfied until you attain 30% conversion rate for your landing page. Also, your click-through rate as well as calls to action for conversions should be optimized. You should endeavor to ascertain the conversions percentage generated by featuring an an image-link in your email campaigns for every call to action. Subsequently, place them in the topmost click-through rate locations and get familiar with the phrase as well as layout that generate the real thing. Take steps to grow the email database leads. An excellent way is to generate leads from every touch point that you have with potential clients and existing clients. Also, engage in vigorous search engine optimization, online PR, pay-per-click as well as social media campaigns; the whole essence is to ensure that you generate revenue on every lead; in addition, you will get future marketing email addresses. Meet your subscribers need in all possible ways use mobile email messaging. Your email messages should feature particular capabilities to offer a mobile email message to a recipient, including a mobile landing page. However, it all depends on whether they are using desktop application or mobile device. Incorporate social media. In a situation where a very loyal product following accompanies your products, the exceptionality of your product will be sufficient for your mobile messages to spread across social networks such as Facebook. Otherwise, ensure that the content of your message is remarkable so that it can benefit your audience. Alternatively, you can make the message very entertaining, so that people would be quick and excited to share the message. As soon as you are done, go ahead and make Share and Like calls to action as part of your email. Subsequently, you ought to get revenue from social networks as well. Incorporate SMS. The read rate of SMS is almost 100 percent. The good part is that the spam part of SMS is just 5 percent. So, send only valuable info occasionally, this way, you will achieve huge reach and substantial response from the recipient of your message.
If you adhere to these steps, you will have a rapidly growing substantial revenue from email marketing.
Basic Email List Building
Many people will tell you that the one essential in email marketing is to concentrate on building your email list. These people speak the truth. It is a shame that most will not tell you how.
It is not that complicated and there are some basic methods that give excellent returns. However, you must realise that it is on-going. These procedures are not a one-off. If you want to succeed in email marketing then you must always have systems in place to capture new subscribers. And they must succeed.
Current customers who are not already on you email lists should be targeted. They are satisfied customers so will be receptive to a way in which they can save money. A common device is the follow-up email.
Once they have had the product for a certain period, say a printer when they might need replacement cartridges, send an email to their purchasing department asking if they have had any problems. Include subtly a suggestion they subscribe to your email list, and mention they could save money on consumables.
People are more willing to subscribe to newsletters than email marketing but they will accept that there is a cost to such valuable information. So click-throughs and advertising for subscribers can be more overt without irritating them into cancelling their subscription.
The company website is often seen solely as a way of selling products to casual visitors. However, your search engine optimisation will be directing those whom you want to become email list subscribers to your website. Every page should have some method of encouraging them to click through to, perhaps, a landing page that is dedicated to the advantage to those who click the box.
Find out the most popular pages on your site that are not dedicated to selling, perhaps the FAQ page or maybe the series of how-to articles that have become well-known in the business. Not only should you carry display adverts on these articles but also include links to the email list landing page or at the very least your newsletter.
Everyone who buys a product, receives your newsletter or visits your website should be seen as a potential recruit to your email marketing.
Avoiding Spam Email Defending Your Inbox
Isn’t it amazing how many people are concerned about you on the Internet?
You create a new email address and in no time at all, perfect strangers are suddenly very concerned about you having the best credit card, the best home loan, and especially the best “bedroom performance” possible. All of these “kind” people are sending you email every day in order to be sure you are up to date with the latest in electronics, the prettiest of Russian mail-order brides, and the most “exciting” websites you could ever want to visit.
We have all been a victim of it. This thing called “email spam.” Unsolicited emails that clog your inbasket and make it very hard for you to find the emails that you actually care about. Congress has finally made some attempt to control spam, but there are still far too many loopholes for the unscrupulous to dive through in order to assault your inbox with junk email.
There are various tools you can use to try to cut down on the amount of spam that reaches you. If your email software allows for it, you can use a spam filter as well as a black list or white list. Unfortunately, each of these tools has their own drawbacks.
One of the best ways to deal with spam email is to avoid the online behaviors that cause your email address to be picked up by spammers and added to their lists. What follows is a set of rules to help reduce the chances that your inbox will fall prey to a spammer’s unwanted attentions:
Rule #1: Never allow your email address to be displayed on a website. This means that if you are active in online forums, or if you maintain your own website, or are involved in any other online activity where you might possibly post your email address, it is best to use a modified email address that a human would understand but a computer program might not. For example, instead of posting “myaddress@gmail.com”, you could post “myaddressDeleteThis@gmail.com”. A human reader will know to remove the letters “DeleteThis” but a computer program designed to harvest email addresses from web pages would find it much more difficult. However, be warned that spammers are using other tricks these days that make even this technique not as safe as it used to be.
Rule #2: When you receive spam email, NEVER click on the line that says something like “click here to be removed from our list.” In some emails, clicking such a line will in fact remove you from their list. Unfortunately, in other emails clicking on that link tells the spammer that your email address is “valid” (because someone clicked on the link). The spammer may or may not take your name off of their list, but what they WILL do is turn around and sell your email address to other spammers. Because they now have verification that the email address is a good one (because you clicked on the link), your email address brings them more money when they sell it.
Rule #3: Set up a “junk email” account and use it when you make one-time purchases or any other time a website that you must use requires an email address. Most internet service providers give you the option of creating multiple email addresses. If yours does not, you can always create a “throw away” email address on Gmail, Yahoo, or any of a number of other free email services. Once you have this account set up, always use this email address when you need to supply an email address to a company or website that you do not expect to visit more than once. This goes doubly true for taking advantage of “free offers” online that first require you to enter your email address. Many of these “free” online offers are getting paid through the selling of your email address!
Rule #4: Avoid becoming part of those large chains of emails that get forwarded to tons of people. You know the kind. Someone gets a funny story, a spiritual thought, or some other interesting bit of news and then forwards it to everyone in their address book. The problem is that every time someone forwards such an email, all of the email addresses belonging to the other people “in the chain” also get transmitted with the message (unless the sender is savvy enough to remove them…which most people are not). All it then takes is for a spammer to get a hold of any ONE of these messages (which is now serving as a traveling email address collector) and suddenly you are on a spammer’s list again. If you ever have an email that you wish to send to lots of people in your address book, do them all a favor and do not expose their email address to the spammers as well. Address the email TO YOURSELF, and then include all of the desired recipients on the “bcc” line (the “blind carbon copy” line). Doing so will allow you to send a “mass email” without exposing anyone else’s email address (because “bcc” email addresses are not included as part of the message, which is not the case if you “cc” the recipients or put them on the “to” line).
Rule #5: Never give your email address to anyone who does not need it. I cannot count the number of times this has happened to me. You are in a “brick and mortar” store and a clerk casually asks for your email address as if it is required to complete the transaction. If it is a store I know and trust and I actually want to receive emails from them, I might give them my email address. More often, however, I tell them “you do not need that information to complete the transaction.” This rule leads to a very good rule to follow in all of your life’s dealings: NEVER GIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION OUT TO PEOPLE WHO DO NOT NEED IT!
These are just a few behaviors that can help you avoid getting your email address on a spammer’s list. The most important thing to remember is that your email address represents money to unscrupulous email spammers. Armed with this information, you will be able to go quite a long while before having to change your email address due to a clogged inbox.
Avoid Email Spam And Beat The Spammers
Concerned people who want to avoid email spam have long wanted to make spams illegal. Although it has been successful in some ways, spammers remain unstoppable and they still continue posting spams. Spam has been existing since 1970s when the internet was born but it only took off in the 1990s when spam was used to advertise something over the internet. In the early 1980s, the word spam was used in chat rooms to get rid of unwanted newcomers. People in the chat room who wanted to get rid of unwanted persons joining their chat or conversation would type spam spam spam etc. until the unwanted person leaves the chat room.
Spam is actually the works of a few numbers of people who want to disrupt the activities on the internet by flooding other peoples inbox with unwanted messages. Spammers are actually paid to make spam emails to advertise companies, products or web sites by sending spam emails. They are equipped with tools that can bypass spam blockers and spam detectors. They have millions of addresses in their mailing list and so they can send spam mails to so many people worldwide. Spammers are creating havoc on many people especially to those who wish to avoid email spam anymore. Nevertheless, to avoid email spam, there are various anti spams techniques that end users and administrators of email systems use.
These techniques can be found in anti spam products, services, or software. These anti spam assistants avoid email spam totally to ease up the inconveniences and difficulties being experienced by internet users. Unfortunately, spammers have devised a new way of using anti-spam sites in sending emails. They use the names of these web sites to invade your inbox pretending to be legitimate email messages. This type of spam targets individuals by invading their email inbox is called email spam. With the influx of softwares to avoid email spam in the market, individuals can now beat spammers and protect their mailbox.
Another type of spam is the Usenet spam. It is not quite popular because it only targets Usenet users. This is usually a single message that is sent to about twenty users of Usenet newsgroups. Getting spams in you inbox can really be annoying aside from it can be an utter waste of time. Not to mention that spam messages can also infect your computers with viruses. But do not fret, there are anti spam softwares to help you avoid email spam. They do not only block spams but also protect your computer from viruses.
Most of these softwares designed to avoid email spam. They have filters that quarantine spam emails. Quarantined emails are stored for a certain period so it allows you to check and recover any legitimate email that was dumped. Furthermore, anti spam softwares allow you to create a whitelist. This is a list of people whose email messages are allowed to enter your inbox to further avoid email spam. You can regularly modify this list. Ideal anti spam software is the one that allows you to customize it according to your needs and that ensures that you avoid email spam. However, you cannot be complacent for spammers are always one step ahead.
So, get yourself a good spam blocker that avoid email spam and continually updates its features to cope with the demands in blocking spam messages.
Automotive And Transportation Email Marketing Strategy
You have recently opened a limousine hire service targeted towards tourists and others who are looking to enjoy a luxurious chauffer driven ride on a special occasion. Your biggest problem is that business spikes at certain times during the year (college graduations, wedding seasons, etc) and experiences a lull the rest of the year.
This strategy will help you stabilize your business all year round and keep the cash coming in even during times of traditional slowdown.
Who is your customer?
Be it a college graduation, prom night, wedding day, or tourists day out, your customer is typically a luxury seeker. He or she prefers to drive around in style, but can only afford to do
so on special occasions. To work around this, you need to focus on customers who can afford limousine rentals on an everyday basis. Hence your target profile should be large corporate companies who have their head offices located in the vicinity of your service. This way you would be able to ensure business all year round by becoming the preferred vendor for the companys board of directors and other staff entitled to luxury cars.
What is the best thing you can do for that customer?
Corporate offices expect the very best in terms of service from their vendors and are willing to pay a little extra to get it. Offer dedicated cars and chauffeurs to each corporate that signs an annual contract. Offer value added benefits to retain such customers by guaranteeing them additional cars within a one hour notice period and so on.
How are you going to do it?
Ensure you have a sufficiently large fleet of new limousines as well as professional chauffeurs. If required, you could enter a sub-contract with other limousine hire services located around you to make up for excess demand. Create a database of all the offices within a predetermined radius of your rental office.
Invite them, via email, to join your Privilege Club of customers who are entitled to special benefits when they signed up for half-yearly or annual contracts. Incentivize such deals not only
with discounted pricing but more through value added services such as dedicated cars and chauffeurs.
Dont forget to say thank you
Every new member of the Privilege Club gets a thank you email and a gift hamper. Also include a link to a survey with the following suggested questions and others of your own.
What is your companys daily requirement of luxury cars?
Is this a fixed or flexible requirement? Are there any times of the year when the can foretell a spike in requirement? What are the key factors that decide their choice of a car vendor service, pricing, availability, newness of fleet, etc?
When to communicate with your members
In order to maintain ties, send out email newsletters on monthly or quarterly basis. Use the newsletter to inform them of any special offers for employees and one time hires as well as
of upgrades to your fleet or service.
Of course you must also contact them one month prior to the expiry of their contract urging them to renew it. If you do not hear from them, send a follow up email one and two weeks after your initial mail.
How do you measure success?
Conduct quarterly surveys of your existing customer database to judge their level of satisfaction across various service and pricing parameters.
Build Build Build. Measure new as well as lapsed corporate partners on a monthly basis and compare numbers and turnover with like periods across the past few years. The more people that sign up for annual Privilege Club memberships, the more stable your business will become!
Advantages Of Video Email
Video email or video in email is quickly gaining ground on HTML text/image based email marketing, mainly due to superior response and view rates.
The trend towards video as a key marketing tool is gathering pace, in order to keep up with this fast paced trend and stay ahead of the competition, many businesses are considering the use of video email and streaming video ads as part of their marketing tactics. Using video or rich media in the marketing mix can create several advantages for a business.
Fact, video creates a more personal interaction between a business and its customers leading to greatly increased views. The use of both visual effects and sounds is an effective way of gaining a viewers attention. In todays fast paced world, it is much more efficient for someone to click on a video link than it is for them to read a page of text. People want fast and easy information, and web video allows them to have that.
A recent study conducted by the Online Publishers Association, found that 69 percent of online users have watched a video online, and 24 percent do so at least once a week. Out of those surveyed it was found that 66 percent have viewed an online video ad.
There are several ways a business can use video email marketing to its advantage. A video email can be used to describe a product or service in detail, without any confusion. A video email can be used to welcome viewers to websites or to say Thanks for a purchase. Personalized video emails can be used by businesses to remain in contact with clients and customers on a more personal level. Video landing pages have also proven to be an effective way of driving traffic to websites, and capturing a viewers attention.
When a streaming video contains a link to a website, or the name of a company website, it is quite likely that the viewer will visit that site. Studies have found that of the 69 percent of internet users viewing online video ads, 40 percent visited a web site mentioned in the video ad, and 15 percent requested product information.
Any businesses might also gain high recognition for their brands by having their video ads circulating on the web. A good video can be the best way to spread a message, product, or brand. Apart from video emails, placing videos on search engines, and using strong keywords and taglines, can be a successful way of getting video recognition.
Having web videos passed along through e-mails, social media like Twitter or Facebook and word of mouth are other excellent ways to gain brand recognition. Thirty-eight percent of those who watch web video say they pass it along to others, usually through e-mail.
With the right content and the right recognition, using video email marketing and video ads can be a powerful marketing tool to any business
A Quick Look At Email Spam Filters
You must be eagerly finding for a way out to stop receiving Spam mails in your inbox. Take a quick look at email spam filters to get some idea on how to check spam. There are a number of email spam filters that you can use in your computer. For official purposes, you have anti server software spam where the spam filter is located in the server level to trap all email spam. They prevent them from reaching your inbox. The email spasm not only slows down the performance of the server, but also occupies a lot of storage space. Emails are the easiest and the best way for these viruses to spread.
Working of Spam Filters
Anti spam software and anti spam solutions are essential to aid you in getting a clean inbox. The server spam filter or anti spam server is a software application that scans all the incoming email messages. With the help of their configuration, they identify Spam and prevent them from reaching your inbox. The spam mails not only eats away the storage space and make selecting your personal emails difficult, they also can contain viruses. Using anti spam filters is necessary as it saves both your time and money. But even when you are using anti spam filters, it is recommended to check the messages just to make sure that no personal message has been marked as spam. Even the server spam filters marks email as false positive to those that are identified as spam, but in reality they are valid messages. There are various anti spam programs that identifies Spam and sends it to the junk mail folder.
Not all spam filters work in the same way. Some of them are pre programmed where the know spammers are inserted. They accordingly block them. Some of the programs filter the emails based on the keywords used in the mails. Some of the email spam filters are configured and you can easily customize it or the network administrator can also customize it according to the requirement of the company.
6 Secrets to Preventing Email Overload
Email can be both a blessing and a curse. The immediacy of the communication provided by email is wonderful, but your workday can easily be spent trying to combat all of the spam and viruses that accompany your email. Here are 6 quick tips that I use to help me better manage my email.
You can tame the email beast, but it’ll take a little effort and energy and due diligence to make it all work. Implement these steps, and you’ll stop dreading receiving email.
6 Fatal Email Mistakes That Cost You Money
Email is a widely used prospecting tool but it is seldom used correctly or as effectively as it could be. Most sales people and small business owners make a variety of mistakes that prevent them from increasing their sales when using email to grow their business. Here are the top six mistakes they make that cost them money.
Mistake 1—Poor subject line
Never, ever reference your company name in a prospecting email. That’s the fastest way to make sure it doesn’t get read. Also, don’t mention something lame like your new website. Do I REALLY care about your new website? Does anyone other than your marketing team and the person who approved the budget care about it? I highly doubt it. A prospecting email must start with a great subject line that catches your contact person’s attention. Executives receive hundreds of emails every day and if your email has a dull or boring self-serving subject line, it’s going to get deleted without being opened or read.
Mistake 2—Asking me for feedback
Once again, I’m too busy to give you feedback on YOUR stuff. This is not a compelling way to capture and keep my attention. Because your email is a sales letter (which I have nothing against) I know that your request is simply an attempt to get me to click through your link. If you want your email to take action make sure that you address a specific problem my company is facing. Then, I might be compelled to follow through on your request.
Mistake3 —Generic approach
The statement, “It describes our services and success with companies just like…” tells me nothing about your product or service. While you or your marketing department might think that that is a creative and intriguing approach, it isn’t. If you really want to get my attention tell me what success have you achieved with other companies like mine. Show me that you have solution to one of my problems. Answer those issues and I will be more likely to click through.
Mistake 4—Using the wrong company name
If you are going to use a computer-generated list, make sure that your information-gathering system actually captures the right information. Otherwise, people will know that your email was mass-produced from a list or computer-generated list. Enough said.
Mistake 5—Ask me to sign up for a webinar (or other ‘pitch’)
Most senders do nothing to establish any type of value so why would I waste my time signing up for a webinar? Especially a webinar that I know is going to be sales pitch and may or may not be of value to me. Decision makers are far too busy to sit through a thinly veiled marketing pitch. Give people something of value and you will get a better response.
Mistake 6—Poor use of the P.S.
It is widely known that a P.S. at the end of a sales letter or email gets read. However, the P.S. statement in most emails focus entirely on the company and do nothing to make people want to click on one of the links in the email. Use a testimonial from a satisfied client or a result you achieved with a particular company instead.
Email is a great way to connect with potential prospects and companies—when it’s used as part of an overall campaign and when it is used properly. Avoid these blunders and improve your odds of successfully connecting with your prospect and increasing your sales.
© MMXI Kelley Robertson, All rights reserved.
Do you know what sales blunders are costing you money?Increase your sales with a FREE audio program, Sales Blunders That Cost You Money and two other sales-boosting resources by subscribing to Kelley’s newsletter at www.Fearless-Selling.ca.
Kelley helps people master their sales conversations so they can win more business and increase their sales. He does this by conducting sales training workshops and delivering keynote speeches at conferences, sales meetings and other events. Book Kelley for your next event: 905-633-7750 or Kelley@RobertsonTrainingGroup.com.