| LED Digest 2158: Give, then Take |
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List Moderator: Published by:
Adam Audette LED Digest
adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com
..............................................
May 11, 2006 Issue no. 2158
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.....IN THIS DIGEST.....
==== CONTINUING =================
--== Repeat Emails to a Customer List? ==--
~ John Audette
"Like Yoda said: Give, then take."
~ Susie Redfern
"...if no sales result, try a different approach."
~ Rob Bishop
"I think you should listen to your gut!"
--== 'Net Neutrality ==--
~ John Smart
"...like in the wild, hurt animals lash out without
prejudice."
~ Tom Anson
"Are we talking about internet providers...?"
--== Penalized for Site Re-designs? ==--
~ Michael Martinez
"We went through a similar recrawl phase
last year..."
~ Tom Aman
"...the Google spider, like most spiders, can
only read text..."
~ Michael Linehan
"I recommend setting up a Google XML sitemap..."
==== BILLBOARD ===================
--== Renamed and Redesigned ==--
~ Mary Lee
======== CONTINUING ===============================
From: John Audette
Subject: Repeat emails
> I fear that sending the same email so soon will
> possibly anger some customers.. Will potential
> sales outweight the potential loss of some
> customers from our list?
- Andy Johnson, LED 2157
Greetings....
It won't anger them *if* the email is truly informational and
useful. It's important to reward our customers for being our
customers. It's also important not to punish them for being our
customers -- by pummeling them with worthless marketing messages,
for example.
It should be a *positive experience* for them to be our customers.
If it is, if we offer solutions to their problems, we will stay on
their radar -- sales will follow. Like Yoda said: Give, then take.
Cheers,
John Audette
-------- new post - same topic --------
From: Susie Redfern
Subject: Repeat Emails
I think your instinct on this is correct, another identical email so
soon will definitely annoy, if not anger, some folks. Better to
follow-up with those who responded to the email, in my opinion, and
if no sales result, try a different approach.
Susie Redfern
-------- new post - same topic --------
From: Rob Bishop
Subject: Repeat emails
I think you should listen to your gut! You would not have asked this
question, if you did not think that it was a bad idea. You are
right! Every time my company contacts a customer, I think about how
I would feel if I was the customer.
If I received the exact same email I would think a few things;
- this is the exact same email so I would only read the first line
until I realized this **delete**
- this company that is sending it doesn't know what they are doing
- if I was unsure whether I wanted more info from you in the future,
this would decide it for me **unsubscribe**
I always look at a group of customers in three blocks. The first
block has no interest in future business with me, and anything I say
or do will not change their mind.
The second block is the drop dead loyal fans who think everything we
do is gold! Both of these groups take little work.
The third and final group is the one we pay most attention to. They
like us, but it wouldn't take much for them to go somewhere else.
They would purchase from us, but they need a compelling reason. You
should direct all of your actions with this group in mind.
If your partner insists on contacting them again, at least preface
the email with, "We contacted you recently with a great offer. We
did not want you to miss out, so you should place your order before
(date in near future) and take advantage now. Here are the details
of that exciting offer." (and paste in your previous email )
Unless your purchase is an impulse buy, prospects need the start of
a relationship, and to learn to trust you. This takes time, so be
patient, and speak to them how you would want to be spoken to.
Hope this helps.
Rob Bishop
Binkley Custom Products
-------- new post - new topic --------
From: John Smart
Subject: Net neutrality
The story continues on C-Net. At this point I am not too worried,
but I think that the phone companies are hurting, and like in the
wild, hurt animals lash out without prejudice.
http://snipurl.com/qaw6 [news.com.com]
John Smart, Technical Director
InternetDesign.com - A Human Touch in a Digital World
-------- new post - same topic --------
From: Tom Anson
Subject: Net neutrality
Hi Adam and other LED-ers,
Something I don't understand (for sure) about the idea of tiering
websites: Are we talking about internet providers (e.g. ComCast,
RoadRunner, Alltel or Internet Nebraska) allowing web pages
according to who paid, or are we talking about servers (whoever they
might be)? We already have paid listings in the search engines, so
I'm assuming that's not what this subject is about.
If we're talking about internet providers charging to serve up
pages, that smacks of illegal censorship, doesn't it? The people
with internet access have already paid to get these pages, and (I
would assume) the website owners have already paid the costs of
having the website. It would seem to me that the only legal way for
internet providers to get more money is to up their rates (again) to
cover the costs of broadband -- or maybe a tiered internet access
for the subscriber.
Mark Roberts comments that, "as long as users have equal access to
both... and know the difference... it might workout ok. Not doing
so, is just taking advantage of the unsuspecting" might work, as
long as there is access to both and paid listings are clearly
identified. However, I don't think that's what we're talking about
here. Is it?
Tom Anson
Anson Aromatic Essentials
-------- new post - new topic --------
From: Michael Martinez
Subject: Re-designs
> Anyone else been penalized by Google
> for re-design?
- Mary Lee, LED 2154
Google does not penalize sites for redesigns. The most common
reason for loss of rankings when sites are redesigned is changes in
URLs. When you just change the content, however, you're still
forcing Google (and other search engines) to re-evaluate what your
pages are relevant for. When you don't change the content or the
URLs, the most common reason for loss of rankings is an update at
the search engines.
Right now, Google is in a post-update phase where they are
recrawling the Web. Googleguy has confirmed that this recrawl has
affected some listings. We went through a similar recrawl phase
last year after Google's major February 2005 update. It took Google
a few months to get everything reindexed.
Matt Cutts says that Google's new crawling priorities may affect the
way some sites are reindexed. They have significantly reduced their
crawling activity in a measure to save on server bandwidth for
Webmasters.
At this time, Matt says Google has not identified anything specific
on its side that should explain a general problem. You can read his
latest comments here:
Michael Martinez
"Cuando Maria canta, canta para mí"
-------- new post - same topic --------
From: Tom Aman
Subject: Re-designs
> I suppose that Google can read pages with
> text and obviously can not read graphics.
- Fernando Bergamaschi, LED 2155
Fernando, the Google spider, like most spiders, can only read text
so switching large portions of the words on a site to graphics hides
them from the spider. Any words that are contained in a graphic,
such as on your site, are essentially invisible to it (except,
possibly, the content of any associated ALT tag).
Tom Aman
Aman Software
-------- new post - same topic --------
From: Michael Linehan
Subject: Re-designs
There are probably different reasons for various writers' terrible
experiences with redesign and results - and therefore different
fixes. But in every case, I recommend setting up a Google XML
sitemap, if you don't already have one. I have found this to be
incredibly powerful in getting sites crawled more quickly and more
frequently -- and, therefore, in having the positive results of any
changes raise ranking more quickly.
Of course, if you have broken something with a redesign, that will
have to be fixed as well. But then the xml sitemap will help you see
positive results more quickly than otherwise.
I hadn't even bothered with our own site. Then I decided to
optimize it as an exercise. From nowhere, I took it to #1 out of 30
million in five days. With the XML sitemap, I was seeing a ranking
boost with each refinement on the same day.
Should help.
Michael Linehan
Marketing Alchemy
==== BILLBOARD ===================================
From: Mary Lee
Subject: Renamed redesigned
> On the subject of re-design, I had my
> site renamed and redesigned...
- Bart Patterson, LED 2157
Search engines will most likely treat your site like a new site,
which means sandbox. But more importantly looking at your site I
can tell you some problems you have:
1. Much of your good SEO text is in graphics files instead of in
text.
2. Your images have no ALT text.
3. Your page title is stuffed full of keywords and looks kinda
spammy to me.
4. Most of your links are done using javascript which again is very
bad from a search engine point of view.
5. You have a ton of java scripting on the page that really should
be in an external file.
From what I can see your site is NOT very search engine friendly.
Hope this helps some.
Mary Lee
Dinner and a Murder Mystery Games
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