| LED Digest 1504: Developing a Business Presence |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest ................................................. January 27, 2003 Issue #1504 ................................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= -=Effective Marketing Tactics?=- ~ Yuwanda Black "... it is easy to notify customers with new offers quickly [with postcard mailings]." ~ John Smart "This is going to look like a blatant plug for one of my clients..." -=Subscription Management Software=- ~ Peter Warnock "...focus on developing a stronger presence before venturing into content subscriptions." -=Search Engine Optimization (SEO)=- ~ Kevin Jackson "...the term SEO is incorrectly being used to include many activities..." ===== GEEK TIPS ================== -=Email Web Page Code=- ~ Martyn Gay ~ James Kalassery ==== BILLBOARD =================== -=Understanding Internet Advertising Pricing=- ~ Mark Brownlow ~ Steven Rothberg ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Yuwanda Black Subject: Effective marketing > Because no business (these days) can survive on > word-of-mouth alone, what marketing tactics will > attract more customers to our website...? - Valerie Harris, LED 1502 Valerie: I own two small businesses and have promoted both very effectively via postcard mailings - one business for over four years. One of my businesses offers a professional service and the other sells product (URL below). I find postcards to be one of the most cost-effective ways to promote an online business offline. Not only is it relatively cheap, it HAS to be read because there's no envelope to open. Your message is readily available. Having an interesting graphic also catches a lot of attention. Customers over the years have told me that they "posted it on the refrigerator" or "framed it for their desk" because the "card was so attractive." Another advantage of postcard mailings is that it is easy to notify customers with new offers quickly. In short, I haven't found a negative to using this form of advertising. I've used the services of postcardpower.com (their customer service is outstanding) and vistaprint.com (a bit cheaper and very, very good) over the years. I have no affiliation with either company - just a happy user. Last, from day one, I advise using some type of software (I use Constant Contact - no affililation) that lets visitors to your site opt in to leave contact information (even if it's just an email). You may not have any campaign in mind now, but it is never too early to start building your own in-house customer database. This will pay untold dividends in the future. Be sure to reassure your visitors that you won't rent, sell, blah, blah, blah their information - and stick to that. Good luck in your venture. Sincerely, Yuwanda Black EthnicHomeDecor.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: John Smart Subject: Effective marketing This is going to look like a blatant plug for one of my clients, but I feel it is a justified one, so I will risk it! Easy Self Promotion is a web site that deals with getting people published. This may not seem important, but read the site. As you get published, you mention publications you have been in, and this shows you as more of an expert in the field. I haven't taken the time to follow his advice yet, but I do intend to. His web site is located at: www.easyselfpromotion.com and there is a report you can freely download. I would recommend anyone looking to be seen more gives it a try. (Now all I have to do is change his contract so I get a commission!!) John Smart, Technical Director InternetDesign.com http://www.internetdesign.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Peter Warnock Subject: Subscription management > ... thinking about turning a website to a subscription > only basis for selected pages. Does anyone have > any good recommendations for a beginning > subscription management package. - Jeff Meister, LED 1502 I'd focus on developing a stronger presence before venturing into content subscriptions. Consider having a unique logo developed so that you can build a recognizable brand name. Hire a designer to develop a professional looking dynamic site that **you** can manage via forms. People won't buy content because it is hidden behind a door; if they do, it won't last for long. The site should be very professional in appearance, and clearly indentify what the consumer is paying to see. Before accepting payments, you will need to build trust with your visitors by having a privacy statement backed up by an organization like TRUSTe or the Better Business Bureau. You will also need a security certificate, preferably from Verisign or Thawte. Lastly, make sure the content you are selling, isn't available for free elsewhere. If so, your investments in the items mentioned above are wasted. Peter Warnock, technology webstructor webstruction.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Kevin A. Jackson Subject: SEO clarified Happy to see the old LED come back to life, it was a source of much inspiration when I first subscribed (in 1997!). I have spent the intervening years as a SEO specialist, a portal publisher, and co-founder of a web development company. I think the term SEO is incorrectly being used to include many activities; keyword buying, pay-per-click campaigns, reciprocal link campaigns, and campaigns to get listed in Directories and Industry specific portals. Each of these activities requires careful attention to detail, industry savvy, and a consistent, professional approach. Contrast that to my definition of Search Engine Optimization: A properly optimized site is designed so that when an automated Search Engine crawler finds it, the desired terms and words are found, indexed, and given the maximum possible relevance ranking against the other words on the site, and the same words on other websites. Many factors come to play in increasing that relevance, HTML, content, reciprocal links, etc. Results are best achieved if implemented at the time a website is first designed and built, and then given time to get indexed and ranked. Like good wine, good rankings improve with time. To me, the art of Search Engine Optimization includes only these activities, and the term should not be confused with other methods of online marketing. The Internet is maturing, and part of that process includes having a clear and realistic understanding of the roles needed to make it work. Cheers Kevin Jackson http://www.biz-zone.com ===== GEEK TIPS =================================== From: Martyn Gay Subject: Email page > As a means of site promotion, I would like to include > an "E-mail this page to a friend" link on my pages... - Tom Anson, LED 1500 This requires some form of server-side scripting but it is fairly simple to do whatever platform you use. We use Microsoft Active Server Pages for all our development. You can find simple scripts to do this sort of thing at sites like www.aspin.com . If you are on a Linux host you will probably need to use Perl or PHP. The one caveat is that you are open to allegations of spamming or mailbombing. If I maliciously come to your site and start pumping addresses into your "tell a friend" script then you may have a lot of people reporting your site as a spam source. Similarly if I want to "mailbomb" someone, I come to your site and send him 1500 "Check out this site" requests. A small number of people do this sort of thing... I've seen it happen. There are ways around this abuse but this involves making the scripts more complicated, for example letting one IP address only tell up to 3 people about your site (may need to log them in a file or database) and including that IP in the content of the mails sent. Personally I've always wondered how many visitors actually use these scripts and how much traffic they build. If I see a site or article that is of interest to a friend, I just email them the link! Martyn Gay www.parodia.net ------- new post - same topic ------- From: James Kalassery Subject: Emailing page link Hi Tom, I have successfully implemented this on the 1000+ pages on our web site. I have modified the free mailform.pl script to suit our requirements. Instead of opening a new page to get the HTTP_REFERER value, I have used another small script (four lines) and SCRIPT_URI variable, to embed, through SSI, the URL of the page in a hidden variable, in the form on the page from where we are sending the email. It is working fine and some of our LED readers have already used it. HTTP_REFERER returns the URL of the referring page (not the page on which you are, but the previous page), while SCRIPT_URI returns the URL of the page from which the script is called (that is, the page on which you are). Therefore, when we send the email, it will contain the link of THE page from which the email was sent. (If somebody types in a URL in the address bar, the HTTP_REFERER will return no URL.) You can see this working at http://businessdigests.com/cities.htm and all the pages linked to it (except home page). If any reader is interested in the scripts, I can email them over. Regards, James Kalassery City-by-city directory of websites. www.businessdigests.com james.kalassery[AT]businessdigests[DOT]com ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Mark Brownlow Subject: CPM 101 > I'm a novice in Web-based marketing. Can somebody > explain the pricing model for Banner Ads... What does > CPM mean? - Partha Chatterjee, LED 1503 A while back I wrote a series of jargon-free articles explaining the meaning of advertising terms like CPM and CPC for people new to the Internet. You can find them under: http://www.ibizbasics.com/glossary.htm Note also that when people quote you advertising rates or you see rates published at their site, that doesn't mean you have to pay them. Premier sites can charge what they quote, but many others will offer (often substantial) discounts if you negotiate. Mark Brownlow Find permission email marketing resources http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/ ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Steven Rothberg Subject: CPM 101 Partha Chatterjee asked for a quick lesson on banner ad pricing. As with any other product or service, the question of whether there are any other charges is one that should always be asked. When you buy socks and see that the price is U.S. $4.99, before whipping out a $5 bill you need to ask if there's sales tax. If you buy the socks online or through a catalog, you need to ask if there's a shipping charge. With banner advertising, ask the same types of questions. Partha's main concern seemed not to be whether the quoted prices included all charges, but in deciphering the shorthand used by the banner ad seller when they quoted the charges. Partha was quoted $XX CPM and wondered what that meant. It means that Partha would be charged $XX per thousand impressions. In other words, for every thousand times that the banner ad is seen, Partha will be charged $XX. Cost per thousand, or CPM, advertising is the traditional way of paying for advertising because traditional media such as newspapers have no accurate way of measuring the performance of an ad. All they can accurately measure is how many newspapers they sell, so that's how they charge for their advertising. Typical CPM rates are around $1 CPM, but that varies considerably depending on the perceived value of the audience. Because Internet advertising can be very accurately measured, many sites are also willing to sell advertising on a cost per click (CPC) basis. Rather than paying for eyeballs, you pay when someone sees your ad and then clicks on your banner ad, presumably because they're interested in your offer. Typical rates are $0.01 CPC. A step closer to actually landing a customer is cost per lead (CPL), where you pay when someone sees your ad, clicks on your banner ad, and then registers at your site or otherwise fills out a form. Typical rates are $0.25 CPL. Finally, you can also buy advertising on a cost per acquisition (CPA) basis, where you pay when someone sees your ad, clicks on your banner ad, and then actually buys something from you. This is the most akin to paying a commission to a sales person. We buy all of our advertising on a CPA basis. Although we pay $100 per sale through our affiliate program ( http://www.collegerecruiter.com/pages/affiliateinfo.html ), we're glad to do so as the least expensive item that we sell costs $125 so even if the new customer buys that item, we're still in the black. We view our advertising expenditures more as a cost of goods sold than an advertising expense because we only incur the expense if we sell an item. While there are many great advertising opportunities available in the CPM, CPC and CPL worlds, we deliberately turn a blind eye toward them all because there are more than enough great advertising opportunities available in the CPA world, so why incur an unnecessary risk of your ad not working. Go for the guaranteed positive ROI (return on investment)! Steven Rothberg Search our database of thousands of jobs. Which one do you want? http://www.collegerecruiter.com ------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1995-2003 Adam Audette. 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