Affiliate Marketing Must Have's

Affiliate marketing has been a viable way to help build anciallary revenues by having someone else marke your products.

You can go about this through affiliate networks, such as Commission Junction or LinkShare, or simply start an affiliate program on your site and track with affiliate software like DirectTrack.

But before you start, make sure you know the critical elements to help grow your program:

1) Promotion. This is where you're promoting your program on targeted locations as well as recruiting affiliates to market your program. You'll want to make sure you list your program on all the top affiliate directories, networks, forums, associations, bulletin boards, websites, listings and blogs. You'll also want to leverage free classified sites such as Craig's List as well as social media sites like LinkedIn. And of course, don't forget to create a powerful news release on the program's launch.

2) Site Awareness. It will be hard to promote your program to a site that doesn't have a decent traffic rank or web traffic. If your site has poor traffic, a professional affiliate marketer will look at it as a lost opportunity. It will only make his job harder.

3) Online Store. Make sure you know which are your best selling and most universally appealing products. Those are the ones you'd want to have in your affiliate program. You should also have varied price points. You don't want to pick prices too low, as after the affiliate split, there won't be anything left. And you don't want to pick prices too high, as since most of these leads are cold, it will be a harder sell. A good range is $69 - $300.

4) Affiliate Rewards. Decide if you're going to pay out per lead (CPL) or per sale. Decide if you're going to have a flat commission rate OR a tiered system. Do your competitive research and see what other, similar affiliate programs are paying out. Some of the best performing programs on the Web are offering 25% of the product price.

5) Analytics. Make sure you have a robust reporting system. You'll want the ability to track underperformers and super affiliates, and reward OR incent accordingly. You'll also want to know which creatives are performing the best and worst, and of course, how many sales and leads are coming in as well as how long the lead is staying on the file and their life time value (sales).

6) Keeping In Touch. Top affiliate programs often have a newsletter or ongoing communication to keep their affiliates engaged...up to date on latest products being offered, special sales incentives, updates to program terms, and other newsworthy notes.

Affiliate marketing can help with most all of your online marketing objectives ... lead gen, sales conversions, web traffic, branding and buzz. Not having one could be detrimental to your business.

If you need assistance with your affiliate marketing plan, visit http://www.precisionmarketingmedia.com/.

SEO for PDFs...here's what you need to know!

There's a misconception out there that search engines don't read (spider) PDFs.

They do. Of course, HTML pages are faster to index than a PDF, but they can be indexed. The trick is to know how to set up the PDF to make sure you get maximum pick up by the search engines.

Here are the top 5 tips to help make sure your PDFs on your website are optimized for search engines...

1. Make sure each PDF file is text based and has the correct document properties set up. When the search engines spider a PDF, they extrapolate the text from the information fields within the PDF ... so it's critical what meta data and keywords you have in these fields. The important fileds are: author, document title, description, file size and modificaiton date.
2. Remember to tag the PDF and use anchor text and links within the file. Just as SEO best practices tells us for a website, this method is also viable for PDFs. In addition, make sure your links are not burried deep within the PDF file. Have them at the root level ... easy to find for search engines.
3. If you have a large PDF file, consider breaking it into smaller relevant groups, sections, chapters, etc. These sections should be tagged accordingly with accurate, relevant keywords. This is not only reader friendly for humans, but also for search engines, since as I mentioned, it takes longer to spider a PDF than HTML.
4. Check the PDF file format version number and make sure it's readble by search engines. Typically, the version to use is Acrobat 5/Adobe XMP (PDF V. 1.4 or 1.5).
5. Finally, make sure the reading order in your PDF is logical and flows. Again, this is user friendly for humans and search engines. However, your reading order, for a search engine perspective, will give you an idea of what will be displayed in organic search results. To do this, when your PDF is open, select Advanced-Accessibility-Add Tags to Document. Then select Advanced-Accessibility-Touch Up Reading Order. After you do this, the reading order of the PDF will be displayed.

So if you have PDFs on your site already, it's a good idea to review them to make sure they were originally set up correctly for search engines.

Don't let your PDF content get overlooked ... optimize it today!

Tips for developing free reports and infoproducts

If you're a publisher, then I don't have to tell you there is no shortage of content in your world.

But do you truly know how to leverage all the content you have? Repurposing, repackaging, refreshing, bundling, and republishing your content for sales, leads, bonding, and more!

Remember, content comes from a variety of sources: text, audio, and video.

You can leverage existing content and repurpose it from:
--Old newsletter issues or articles
--Bonus Materials
--Teleseminars
--Webinars
--Interviews
--Conference calls
--Event audio or video
--Old products

At least two times per year, to get the most of your products, you should go through your entire product line and see if you can bundle existing products together to create an entirely new product and price point. Bundled products are a great mid-point or back end. Look through the content to see if the information is still valuable and fresh. You may need to update dates or references to specific points in time. But good content is good content. There's no need for it to collect dust. Repackage and reprice!

Also, consider taking a transcript from a conference call or video event and making it either a free report for your list (bonding) or low cost paid report (as a front end product). This is a great way to fully utilize all the content opportunities you have.

You can also take like-minded, or themed content from several issues and create a "best of" report. This is a great way to repurpose content. And even better, you can offer it to your "new to file" names that likely didn't see the articles the first time they were published. This type of report could be used for bonding, as a holiday "thank you" to your list, or as a low cost paid report.

If you decide to reuse some of your content for lead generation (free reports), here are some tips:

--Keep the content at a "macro" level. You want to save the details ... the recos, if you will, for the "paid" version. Paid reports have information on a "micro" level ... the "how to," details, or recommendations.
--Free reports have general information. Again, you don't give away valuable specifics on your area of expertise. For instance, if your a financial publisher, you can talk about general market conditions, trends, or forecasts, but save the specifics on sectors or certain stocks for the paid version.
--Free reports should also not be too long or not too short. I've seen some free reports at 3 pages. Even though it was free, I felt gipped and new the publisher was just after my name (email address). For credbility, bonding and life time value, I recommend offering around 5-10 pages. Even though it's free, still provide valuable content. Then the reader will not resent giving you his email address. If your content is good, he'll welcome that opportunity and even want to receive more information from you OR buy your products.
--Free reports are also a great way to gauge market interest or sentiment. Let's say you're thinking of a new product. Before you spend time,money and resources on something your customers may not even find appealing. Offer value-added, yet watered down version. Start a PPC campaign and see if the general public has interest. You can also do the same to your own list as a low cost paid report (let's say $9.95). Then if your list responds to the basic content, you'll have an idea if a more comprehensive product or service is worth your time.

Content is king ... so leverage it as much as you can!

Listbuilding Secret From the Experts: Polls! (part 2)

Last week I mentioned some fundamental criteria for successful polls for lead generation / list building efforts.

This week, I'm going to continue with powerful pointers to make sure your polls are the most interactive and engaging polls on the web and that the names you bring in are valuable and qualified.

Here we go...

6. Follow Up. To help reiterate to prospects the connection between the poll they just took and your incentive, it’s important to make sure that each name that comes in gets an immediate "thank you page" (for taking the poll) and then an auto responder email containing the free eReport or eLetter. Also consider sending a series of bonding emails that basically "warm up" the new subscriber to your company – letting them get to know who you are, what you do, and how it will benefit them. This will help improve the life time value (LTV) of the lead.

7. Results. Don’t just leave 'em hanging … make sure you tell prospects on your poll page that "results will be published" and they should check your site regularly. This will help readership and website traffic.

8. Reader Participation. Mention on your poll landing page that some comments may be published (anonymously) when the results are released. Pick the very best, most powerful and provoking responses and publish those on your website. This tactic has been extremely successful with social networking communities and blogs. It also helps with reader engagement as viewers can connect with the realism of the comments.

As I mentioned last week, polls are a viable way to build you list. So try it out...I know you won't be dissapointed with the outcome. To success and new leads! Good luck.

Listbuilding Secret From the Experts: Polls! (part 1)

Polls ... one of the best marketing vehicles I've used to gauge consumer interest or collect qualified emails. Underestimated by those that don't truly know it's value and how to leverage them. But a completely viable and reliable way to build your prospect database.

Polls can be used on your own website as well as placed on other websites/blogs via banner or text ads through a media buy.

Variables for success will include the poll question, media placement, amount of media (impressions) purchased, and your overall budget.

However, unless you have an up-sell landing page that comes up immediately after completion of the poll, the leads will not be initially monetized. To some, initial monetization is important. To others, having those names convert organically in the normal sales cycle of 30 - 90 days is fine.

If that’s the case, it’s important to email these names soon after you collect them with a dedicated email for a low priced offer and try and convert leads for revenues to offset the media cost.

Here are some other important things to consider when using polls for lead generation:

1. Interactivity. Your question should engage the reader, encourage participation, peak interest, and tie into a current event. Also, have a "comments" field for additional remarks. Sample proven poll topics include: Politics, economy, health, consumer breakthroughs, the stock market, foreign affairs. It's great to weave current events and hot topics into your poll. Some websites that highlight the most talked about (and searched) topics on the web include: buzz.yahoo.com/, 50.lycos.com/, and google.com/press/zeitgeist.html.

2. Relevance. Your poll question should be related to your product, free eLetter topic, or free bonus report topic. This will greatly improve your conversion rate and up-sell rate.

3. Incentive. If you're a publisher, after people take your poll or survey, mention that to thank them for their participation you’re automatically signing them up for your free eLetter, which they can opt out at any time. If you don't have an eLetter, you can offer a "must read" eReport and mention the reports value. This can be any useful "macro" level report that is anywhere from 3-10 pages. Emailing the report will reduce the number of bogus emails you get. Keep in mind, if it’s part of your privacy policy not to sell or rent email names to third parties (and as a best practice, it should be), mention this by sign up button. This will help reassure users that their email addresses are safe with you.

4. Name Quality. If your poll question and your product are in sync, these names could be extremely qualified for current … or future products. This can help allocate leads for like-minded front end products, such as a paid newsletter. Each name that comes in under a specific topic or product type should be "tagged" accordingly by your database folks for segmentation purposes to help conversion rates.

5. Market sentiment. In addition to name collection, your effort will also gauge general market opinion. The results from your poll could be helpful for product development. You'll be tapping into people's thoughts and behaviors and may consider next steps based on market demand.

Stay tuned, as next week I'll wrap up the "must do" list with how to follow up properly, get the most from the poll results and how to encourage participation!

Caio for now.

Leveraging "Linked In"

For those of you that haven’t established a presence on LinkedIn yet, I strongly recommend that you create a profile and linkaway!

LinkedIn is on of the top 5 social networks on the Web and focuses on linking professionals to one another through networking opportunities, business discussions, information exchanges, Q&A’s, industry news, professional Groups, and more.

It’s easy and free to get started. You simply go to Linkedin.com and create a profile. You can information on your education and career. And through your account settings you can chose what information you’d like private and what you’d liked displayed for others to view.

It’s also helpful to get and give recommendations, as it helps validate your credentials as an expert in whatever field you specialize in.Once you sign up, you can invite colleagues and business partners to join your "network" as well as join various Groups that relates to the industry you’re in. After you join those Groups, you’ll receive weekly messages from the Group leader regarding Group discussion, news, relevant articles and other useful information. You will also be able to view other Group member’s profiles and invite those you feel could be synergistic to your business to join your network.

Joining LinkedIn can help your business…and your website (and company!) in several ways…

• SEO. You can write and upload useful articles or news as well as start discussions regarding information that will benefit your fellow members. Article should be relevant and value-oriented information. When you do this, you also get to upload a backlink to your site. Not only will this reinforce you credentials as an expert, but it’s also information that is truly benefiting you’re peers. This encourages traffic to your site, which if optimized, you can leverage the traffic via lead gen collection boxes or eCommerce platform. And the traffic is easily identified with Google website analytics.
  
• Advertising. You can easily alert members of your special skills, expertise or services by posing a relevant question and offering a benefit-oriented solution. The opportunity is there to network with responders and gain potential business. Again, the key is to be relevant. You can also post a classified-type ad in the Job section. And here’s where good copy writing comes into play, as for best response, your ad should get people to take action quickly. If done right, I guarantee you will also get a handful of qualified leads that will generate new business and added to revenue growth. In my experience, within hours of my initial posts I received nearly 20 leads for potential clients.
  
• Increased Web Presence. If you’re goal is to improve your website’s presence, then being actively involved in LinkedIn is critical. If you spend an hour or less a day and offer expert solutions to relevant Q&A’s, provide commentary to targeted questions and include your name and website URL -- your "brand" will be prominent to site users. This will not only establish you as an expert within LinkedIn, but also have the potential to drive ancillary traffic to your website from members and referrals. And the more traffic your site gets, the more it will help your organic search ranking and visibility.

Now, some may argue that social media is just the latest craze, but it’s not easy to monetize or measure. I wholeheartedly disagree.

I say, if you’re a creative and strategic thinker, you can not only measure social media efforts, like those in LinkedIn, but also increase you’re business’s bottom line.

CoReg tips for better conversion

Co Registration can be a cost effective way to bring in names to your file.

However, if done incorrectly, these names will become worthless as well as be a burden to your file by becoming names you payfor to send your message (email transaction fee) and those names will be unresposive or invalid thereby effecting open rate, bounce rate and deliverability rate.

And you need extra baggage on your email list.

Here are some quick and dirty tips for optimal results:

• These names come in from another website after a transaction and people tend to forget what they opted in to receive.
• For optimum results, flag names that come in (segment) and withhold them from eLetter circulation for approx. 5-7 days.
• Use this time to reconnect with them and let them bond with you, your gurus, your pub, or your philosophy. Let them build that "warm fuzzy feeling" for you. Do this by following up with targeted introduction emails.
• After the email series, where you'll also be giving them fantastic editorial, send them a special offer (such as discount, special new subscriber pricing, etc.) to help monetize the names.
• Avg. cost per lead (CPL) for coreg tends to be between $1- $5.
• Implementing the email intro series also helps the LTV (life time value) of the subscriber. They'll buy more frequently, monetarily, and be more loyal.

Critical Components Of The Free E-Letter

1. Your E-Letter Must Be A Good Read. Make sure the information is value-oriented, useful, and benefits your target audience. Copy should be in simple, lay terms. Pull your reader in by telling a story or using personal events. Your tone should be first person like you are talking to your friend. Offer actional advice or take-a-ways your subscribers can easily implement in whatever niche they're in.
   
2. Remain Informal With Copy. Some tips and tools to help make sure content suits your readers:
   --Flesch–Kincaid Readability Scale.
   --Grade Level of 6-8th grade is ideal.
   --Check out this free tool where you simply drop in the content and you get a readability score http://www.standards-schmandards.com/exhibits/rix/ .
   
3. Building A Community of Loyal Readers
   --It helps the LTV (life time value) of your publication and subscribers as well as related product line
   
4. Quality names. Make sure your prospecting efforts brings in qualified, targeted names to your file. Or else you'll see either high monthly subscriber attrition (over 2% of file size), high email bounce rate (due to bad email addresses), or low open rates.
   Sources include:
   --PPC, newsletter ad swaps, organic search = Excellent acquisition source of names. Typically offers highest LTV
   --Banner ads, polls = Good source of names
   --Co Registration = Mediocre - to - good source of names (if done correctly with immediate launch of introductory email series for bonding)
   --Sweepstakes offers = Bad source of names. Typically, lack of connection between the offer and the front end product. Most leads that come in this way, are bogus OR forget what they signed up for and don't open your ezine.
   
5. Bonus. Offer an incentive for prospecting efforts:
   --Free special report
   --Free white paper
   --Free analysis (via survey, poll, etc.)

Don't forget building your hot list...

So, you're about to launch a new product, service or website.

On your timeline, you're a few months away from your target launch date. What marketing can you do during this time between planning and execution?

Build a hot list. You can start by creating a simple webpage with some strong copy about your product/service/website -- teaser copy that doesn't give too much away -- and have an email sign up form. Also, it's important to include on your page your product/service/site's name, logo and tag line for branding.

This way, you can start seeding forums, blogs, bulliten boards, tweeting...where ever you can spread the word and drive traffic to your sign up page.

What you're doing, in addition to branding, is creating buzz ... you're building anticipation and a pent up demand with your targeted audience.

You can also start using this landing page in media buys or reciprocal ad swaps with industry publications. Then, as you collect these "qualified names" (as they already displayed an interest in your product/service/site before it launched), you can send them updates, do a count down to launch, or even start "soft" cross-promotional messages.

So instead of looking at a pre-launch time as taking care of pre-launch operational issues, start building your hot list and hit the ground running when launch date arrives!

Is Social Networking A Waste Of Time?

My friend and colleague, copywriting expert, Bob Bly, has an intersting discussion about social media going on on his blog. I chimmed in and it occured to me to comment about this topic on my own blog as well.

To check out the full article and discussion, visit: http://bly.com/blog/

However, in a nutshell, one of the commenters mentioned that "...by a direct response marketer’s metrics, social media is a waste of time..." and "...social networking is simply real world interpersonal networking digitized. You wouldn’t try to apply direct marketing practices to a business networking event, and you wouldn’t expect to launch a marketing campaign with a “Chamber of Commerce Business Mixer Strategy...”

Good, valid points, however, I disagree somewhat. And here's why:

Social media, to me, is a hybrid between relationship/network marketing and direct marketing.

It’s relationship marketing if you know how to be a strategic thinker as well as be creative with your marketing messages. In other words, what to say and where to say it. Targeting is key. You have to look at each social media website to see if it, and it's users, are the right fit for your marketing message and business. Then, you need to craft your message accordignly. And that requires good creative, copywriting skills. (I've had tremendous success with LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg and StumbleUpon. But not so much with Facebook. For my business, Facebook users are not necessarily the decision makers I want to get in front of to help build my consulting business. However, I still promote my website on Facebook. I get to enjoy ancillary traffic and the backlink (SEO) from a top ranked website. But I don't count on real, solid leads.)

It’s direct response as you can measure results. Granted, it’s not as cut and dry as some other online marketing methods, like email. Where deliverability, clicks, opens, sales, and ROI is concrete. But, for me (and my business), I can specifically track any leads or sales I get back to specific social media platforms. And I can measure traffic to my website via Google Analytics from those same sites. As a core direct marketer, I don't waste my time on something I can't tie a metric to.

What do you think?

FYI, see these other two related articles I wrote on social media:
http://musclemarketing.blogspot.com/2009_03_15_archive.html
http://www.precisionmarketingmedia.com/publishers.html (article in “Online Marketing” section on “Measuring Social Media”).

Video, SEO and the Top Sites to Be On...

Many marketers are uploading video to YouTube, but they reaaaaallllyyy don't know how to exactly leverage this platform.

First, let's reiterate that video is content. And content should be leveraged and syndicated. This will help (as I wrote in my "SONAR" post) with backlinks, SEO, traffic generation, lead generation and monetization, and buzz.

The best video sharing sites to upload your videos to are:
YouTube, Google Video, MetaCafe, Blip.tv and DailyMotion.

These sites are extremely popular and get the most traffic/visitors.

Also, don't forget you can also syndicate your video content through RSS (if you have RSS on your website).

OK, some quick tips on optimal video for SEO:

1) Clips should be less than 5 minutes (1-3 min.), relevant, benefit oriented and interesting for the users. They could also be teaser snipets that link to a fuller-length video that is housed on your website.

2) Make sure your video has a powerful, eye-catching title. This is where good copywriting skills come in. Think "headline" or "banner ad" -- something that a user will only see for a few seconds then decide if they will click.

3) Make sure your title and description is chock full of your top keywords, keywords that are in your video and that your target audience will search under.

4) Make sure your video is tagged (meta data) properly with your keywords to get picked up by SE Spiders.

5) Make sure your video has either your company logo or URL for branding.

6) If the video is on your website, encourage other users to "republish" by providing the proper code. This will help with viral marketing.

7) Cross-market your video in your eNewsletters, website, and in your social media accounts (Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) to drive traffic and create buzz.

When done right, marketing via video is a cost effective, efficient, and powerful way to get prospects and profits. And best of all...the viral factor could be off the charts!

Social Media: Hype or Hidden Treasure?

For those of you that haven’t established a presence on LinkedIn yet, I strongly recommend that you create a profile and linkaway!

LinkedIn is on of the top 5 social networks on the Web and focuses on linking professionals to one another through networking opportunities, business discussions, information exchanges, Q&A’s, industry news, professional Groups, and. more.

It’s easy and free to get started. You simply go to Linkedin.com and create a profile. You can information on your education and career. And through your account settings you can chose what information you’d like private and what you’d liked displayed for others to view.
It’s also helpful to get and give recommendations, as it helps validate your credentials as an expert in whatever field you specialize in.Once you sign up, you can invite colleagues and business partners to join your "network" as well as join various Groups that relates to the industry you’re in. After you join those Groups, you’ll receive weekly messages from the Group leader regarding Group discussion, news, relevant articles and other useful information. You will also be able to view other Group member’s profiles and invite those you feel could be synergistic to your business to join your network.

Joining LinkedIn can help your business…and your website (and company!) in several ways…

• SEO. You can write and upload a useful articles as news or start discussions using with information that will benefit your fellow members. That’s the key, relevant and value-oriented information. When you do this, you also get to upload a URL, which can backlink to your site. Not only will this reinforce you credentials as an expert, but it’s also information that is truly benefiting you’re peers in whatever niche your in.I’ve executed this tactic frequently with the marketing articles I’ve written and those members wanting more of what they read visited the website link I enclosed, increasing traffic, and the opportunity for sales via eCommerce platform. And the traffic was easily identified with website analytics under "top referring sources."
  
• Networking and Advertising. You can easily alert members of your special skills, expertise or services by posing a relevant question and offering a benefit-oriented solution. The opportunity is there to network with responders and gain potential business. Again, the key is to be subtle and relevant. You can, however, post a classified-type ad in the Group’s Job section. And here’s where good copy writing comes into play, as your ad must get people to take action quickly. If done right, I guarantee you will also get a handful of qualified leads that will generate new business and added to revenue growth. In my experience, within 4 hours of my initial posts I received nearly 20 leads for potential clients.
  
• Increased Web Presence. If you’re goal is to improve your website’s presence, then being actively involved in LinkedIn is critical. If you spend an hour or less a day and offer expert solutions to relevant Q&A’s, provide commentary to targeted questions in your Group messages – and include your name and website URL -- your "brand" will be prominent to site users. This will not only establish you as an expert within LinkedIn, but also have the potential to drive ancillary traffic to your website from members and referrals. And the more traffic your site gets, the more it will help your organic search ranking and visibility.

Now, some may argue that social media is just the latest craze,
but it’s not easy to monetize or measure.

I wholeheartedly disagree.

I say, if you’re a creative and strategic thinker, you can not only
measure social media efforts, like those in LinkedIn,
but also increase you’re business’s bottom line.

And isn’t that what direct marketing is all about?

Launch of "Precision Marketing and Media"

Hi folks,
I just launched my website for my consulting business, Precision Marketing and Media.
We do everything -- online and offline -- including list building, content syndication and distribution, SMO, SEO, SEM, PPC, product launches, online PR, grass-roots marketing, affiliate marketing, business development ...whew, and so much more.

I'm very excited and look forward to a rewarding career.

Check it out: www.precisionmarketingmedia.com!

A Launch Strategy That Works

If you're about to launch a new product, book, website, or whatever and don't know where to begin – then you MUST read this...

After launching multiple products over my career, there's a proven formula that works every time no matter what the actual "thing" is you’re launching. In a nutshell, it’s coordination and synchronization of multi-channel marketing efforts.

These efforts include:
--Staggered emails. These will go to you list and other synergistic lists and aim to build anticipation and a "hot list" of names before your launch. These names will then have potential to be your top buyers.

--Social media. Putting posts on blogs, bulleting boards, forums. Recording a video of yourself and posting it on YouTube. Ultimately, creating messages that have the potential to go viral.

--Pay per click. Bidding on your relevant keywords and having a mechanism and offer to collect names and build your hot list.

--Online PR. Getting your message out quickly and cost effectively. The release will get picked up by blogs, media websites, industry websites, and online news aggregators (such as Yahoo and Google) and not only increase awareness, but also give you backlinks (SEO!) as well as have the potential to go viral.

--Editorial and Article Syndication. Write articles for print and online media about the topic that ties into your launch.

All of these efforts build up slowly and culminate the day of your launch. You’re basically building momentum, that will pay off with traffic and buzz about your product.

***************************************************************************
Editor's Note:
I've been getting many emails from readers asking me about social media and how they can measure their activity. Having an Internet marketing, direct response and PR background, I find the following helpful when assessing my efforts:

Look at the "3 O's"—Outputs, Outcomes and Objectives.

Outputs measures effectiveness and efficiency, such as new subscriber sign-ups and spikes in Web site traffic during your campaign. And it measures analytics, such as referring Web site sources, visits, unique visits and visit percentages.

Outcomes measures behavioral changes such as internal customer/subscriber feedback (calls, e-mails, forum postings) on your Web site, as well as external reputation monitoring or visiting targeted chat rooms during your campaign looking to see the "buzz."

Objectives compare direct product sales during the time of the campaign to other sales that occurred before the campaign. So it establishes a baseline, giving room for sales assumptions tied to your effort.

I also use the following tools:

Google Analytics
-Check the “referring sources page” to see how much traffic was generated by LinkedIn.
-Look at overall traffic to website during same time period of your effort.
-If you have a sign up/email form, look for lead spikes during time period of your effort.

Google Alerts
-Set alert for your name, your company name, and keywords in your content. You’ll get notified via Alert if content/your messagegets picked up and goes viral.

Backlink Checkers
-Google Webmaster Tools - Check back links going to site during same time period of your effort.
-Link Popularity Check - Link popularity analysis is one of the best ways to quantifiably and independently measure your website's online awareness.

Sample free tools:
http://seopro.com.au/free-seo-tools/link-checker/ http://www.iwebtool.com/backlink_checker
http://www.backlinkwatch.com/index.php

CRM - The Forgotten Marketing Tactic

Hi Folks!
After a nice summer break, I'm back with important information on customer relationship management (CRM). Most companies, public, private and entrepreneurial typicaly get so caught up in revenue generation and customer acquisition they forget about retention and managing the relationship with current customers.

Is revenue and new customers important? Heck yeh. But don't forget that an effective CRM plan will also positively impact your bottom line and overall profit margin.

A Harvard Business review study on customer profitability and lifetime value revealed that companies can boost their profits by almost 100% by retaining just 5% more of their customers.

A study by CRMGuru found that company’s that successfully implemented retention plans increased customer satisfaction by 51%.

It's important to understand the complete Customer Relationship Cycle and what you should be striving for. The goal should be post-satisfaction stage and include loyalty, and ultimately, advocacy. This is where many companies, big and small, fall short.

Customer Relationship Cycle
--Awareness. Prospect recognizes need for service
--Knowledge. Gained thru PR or promotional presence
--Consideration. Prospect weights needs vs. solution
--Selection. Prospect seeks solution based on ease of information, opinions of others, how your product meets their individual needs
--Satisfaction. Prospect becomes client (many companies stop efforts here -- after the sale)
--Loyalty. Customer demonstrates commitment to firm by repeat purchases
--Advocacy. Customer becomes advocate of your product and actively promotes it. This is the most personal relationship you can have with your customer!

According to permission marketing guru, Seth Godin, the process to move a prospect thru the sales cycle is:
--Stranger to Friend
--Friend to Customer
--Customer to Multi-buyer
--Multi-buyer to Advocate

You see, the "advocate" is the golden goose. This person not only is loyal to your company with repeat purchases, but is your #1 free marketer – they tell their friends, family and business associates about your company's products and services and they're not even on your payroll!

So make sure you include a CRM Plan as part of your overall Marketing Strategy and benchmark meterics before and after plan is implemented...I'm sure you'll see favorable results.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - Don't overlook it's importance!

The following are efforts that can be used for bonding or conversion. For bonding, it can help build relationship and add to LTV (lifetime value) of customer:

--An effort doesn't need to lead to a sale or inquiry to be considered effective
--"Passive" communications, such as a birthday card, a thank you note or a "just because" card assist in CRM efforts
--Freemiums all add value (i.e. eBook, a .pdf of valuable editorial content or white paper emailed to leads and/or subs)
--If all of your communications with someone are about getting something from them, they will tend to tune them out and not be as responsive. But if peppered in that communication you have a genuine peer-to-peer relationship message, they will more open to other messages, and will feel like you are building and investing in a genuine relationship. (insidedirectmail.com)
--During rough times, don't bury your head in the sand, use this opportunity to communicate with your clients. Send a personalized email, audio email (with recording), schedule outbound calls (either live or voice reach), or schedule a teleseminar. You can't control external factors, but you can control how you communicate and reinforce your commitment to your clients.

Subject Lines with better open rates...

--After testing long vs. short subject lines, I've found that subject lines of less than 50 characters achieve higher open rates than those of 50 or more characters. Here's a great tool to help see which subject lines fall within email providers' parameters.
http://www.emaillabs.com/tools/from-subject-line-tool.html

Some other lessons learned:
--Contain emotional drivers (i.e. greed, fear, vanity)
--Ask a question
--Specificty rules (specific $ or %)
--Incorporate well known names in your industry
--Tie into timely news or current event
--Use a powerful call to action
--Forecasts
--Rare events

Where Have All the Pop Unders Gone?

Have you noticed that you don't see as many pop ups and pop unders anymore?

That's because many search engines frown on pop ups or pop unders. A matter of fact, if you start a pay-per-click campaign and happen to be redirecting traffic to your website and you have pop ups on your website, the search engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo) will ask you to disable the pop up code BEFORE they approve your PPC campaign.

That’s largely because these forms of marketing are intrusive and annoying to Web surfers. They are also oftentimes similar to ‘online spam’, where you can’t see how to close the pop up (as the publisher made the close button very small or faint in color). And the ones you do finally figure out how to close, miraculously spawn children when you hit ‘x’, and all these boxes seem to cascade out of now where and the only thing you can do is reboot to stop the madness.

It’s the oldest form of ‘interruption marketing’, and it typically doesn’t work.

So next time you’re wondering why these ads aren’t as popular as they used to be, it’s because consumers have gotten savvier and less tolerant. Thank goodness!

Lead gen success: Using online polls

Polls ... one of the best marketing vehicles I've used to gauge consumer interest or collect qualified emails. Underestimated by those that don't truly know it's value and how to leverage them. But a completely viable and reliable way to build your prospect database.

Polls can be used on your own website as well as placed on other websites/blogs via banner or text ads through a media buy. Variables for success will include the poll question, media placement, amount of media (impressions) purchased, and your overall budget.

However, unless you have an up-sell landing page that comes up immediately after completion of the poll, the leads will not be initially monetized. To some, initial monetization is important. To others, having those names convert organically in the normal sales cycle of 30 - 90 days is fine.If that’s the case, it’s important to email these names soon after you collect them with a dedicated email for a low priced offer and try and convert leads for revenues to offset the media cost.

Here are some other important things to consider when using polls for lead generation:

1. Interactivity. Your question should engage the reader, encourage participation, peak interest, and tie into a current event. Also, have a "comments" field for additional remarks. Sample proven poll topics include: Politics, economy, health, consumer breakthroughs, the stock market, foreign affairs. It's great to weave current events and hot topics into your poll. Some websites that highlight the most talked about (and searched) topics on the web include: buzz.yahoo.com/, 50.lycos.com/, and google.com/press/zeitgeist.html.

2. Relevance. Your poll question should be related to your product, free eLetter topic, or free bonus report topic. This will greatly improve your conversion rate and up-sell rate.

3. Incentive. If you're a publisher, after people take your poll or survey, mention that to thank them for their participation you’re automatically signing them up for your free eLetter, which they can opt out at any time. If you don't have an eLetter, you can offer a "must read" eReport and mention the reports value. This can be any useful "macro" level report that is anywhere from 3-10 pages. Emailing the report will reduce the number of bogus emails you get. Keep in mind, if it’s part of your privacy policy not to sell or rent email names to third parties (and as a best practice, it should be), mention this by sign up button. This will help reassure users that their email addresses are safe with you.

4. Name Quality. If your poll question and your product are in sync, these names could be extremely qualified for current … or future products. This can help allocate leads for like-minded front end products, such as a paid newsletter. Each name that comes in under a specific topic or product type should be "tagged" accordingly by your database folks for segmentation purposes to help conversion rates.

5. Market sentiment. In addition to name collection, your effort will also gauge general market opinion. The results from your poll could be helpful for product development. You'll be tapping into people's thoughts and behaviors and may consider next steps based on market demand.

6. Follow Up. To help reiterate to prospects the connection between the poll they just took and your incentive, it’s important to make sure that each name that comes in gets an immediate "thank you page" (for taking the poll) and then an auto responder email containing the free eReport or eLetter. Also consider sending a series of bonding emails that basically "warm up" the new subscriber to your company – letting them get to know who you are, what you do, and how it will benefit them. This will help improve the life time value (LTV) of the lead.

7. Results. Don’t just leave 'em hanging … make sure you tell prospects on your poll page that "results will be published" and they should check your site regularly. This will help readership and website traffic.

8. Reader Participation. Mention on your poll landing page that some comments may be published (anonymously) when the results are released. Pick the very best, most powerful and provoking responses and publish those on your website. This tactic has been extremely successful with social networking communities and blogs. It also helps with reader engagement as viewers can connect with the realism of the comments.

Polls are a viable way to build you list. So try it out...I know you won't be disappointed with the outcome.

Ramp up your SEM efforts with "SONAR"

SEM -- the ability to leverage natural search -- is an important part of your online marketing plan.

In order to help maximize your website traffic and conversions, synchronization of your content distribution can potentially equate into an increased web presence, growth to your prospect database, and additional sales.

For instance, if you have article in your eLetter at the same time that article is published in your eLetter (and this is critical) repurpose it and distribute it via what I call, "The SONAR Content Distribution Model":

S = syndicate partners and syndication networks. For example, there are many websites that encourage article submission. There’s a financial site called seekingalpha.com or syndication networks such as Mochila.com. They welcome editorial from third-parties. Simply search the Web for “content syndication networks” and a list comes up more potential places to distribute your content.

O = online press releases. Everyday articles from your eLetter can be repurposed to have a press release feel. The most important element is that the release must be newsworthy -- latest research data, a forecast, a product breakthrough, contrarian viewpoint – anything that would be interested to readers and media. Sample low cost or free websites include: PRweb.com, PRbuzz.com, PRLeap.com, I-newswire.com and others.

N = network communities. Social networks user generated content sites have become a great way to syndicated content, create buzz, and drive traffic to your site. Communities like: Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, LinksMarker and more allow users to upload snippets or headlines of their content.

A = article directories. Sites such as Ezinearticles.com, ArticleDashboard.com and AritclesFactory.com allow users to upload articles. If you have a daily or weekly eLetter, you can upload articles to these sites. Good for SEO (search engine optimization), viral marketing, and syndicatation opportunities.

R = relevant posts to blogs, forums, and bulletin boards. Upload an excerpt or message from an article with a link to the article. You never know who in the blogsphere is reading posts, and someone may find the article interesting and publish it in it’s entirety on their website or blog. When uploading posts to blogs and forums make sure your post is relevant and not a blatant promotion. There needs to be some value in the message. You’ll get better results if you have an active presence in the forum prior to your post, lending more credibility to your comments. This “guerilla marketing tactic” needs to be done with finesse incorporating industry best practices and good business ethics.

In my expereince, implementing this powerful, yet simple technique -- while dovetailing your other -- Inernet marketing initiatives will show increased traffic results in no time.

"SONAR" Results In Action

My synchronized technique helped increase traffic ranking and visits to a new health website by 3,160% and 81.5% respectively, in only three months.

And in four months, traffic visits increased to a popular investing website by nearly 80% as well as an increase its traffic ranking by nearly 150 percent. Plus, this traffic was monetized for an ROI of 221%.

Getting the Most Bang for your Buck

Exclusive dedicated emails and enews sponsorships are effective ways to target a message to a specific group based on demographic profiling.

However, the down side of a dedicated email blast is the high CPM rate and limited frequency (one time email blast).

I suggest a more balanced online marketing mix that leverages the broad coverage and targeted segmentation of multiple platforms and includes formats such as banner ads, text links, eNews sponsorships, and polls.

This will allow for more frequent messages to build awareness and the CPM would be more cost effective to your ROI.

Getting The Most Bang For Your Buck With Online Media Buying
Tips To Know!

Tip #1: Watch What’s Happening in the Industry
Get subscriptions to free industry trade papers, such as DM News, Response Magazine, and Target Marketing, and as many free newsletters as you’d like.

I really like Clickz.com because it’s a leader in online marketing. Others to consider are mediabuyerplanner.com and DoubleClick.com (which provides some of the industry’s best practices, benchmarks, trends, and forecasts).

Tip #2: Research Which Ad Is A Higher Performer
If you’re looking at online ads, whether it’s a blog, website, or ad network, there’s many to choose from. Some popular ads include the following. For a complete list of banner ad sizes, visit :
· leader boards
· skyscrapers
· buttons
· micro banners
· large rectangles (LRECS)

However, not every banner is created equal. For instance, it has been my experience that leader boards (ads that run horizontally across the top of a Web page) or skyscrapers (ads that run vertically along the side of a Web page) get the least clicks and conversions.

I believe the best ad units and placements are typically LRECs - large rectangles, such as 300 x 250 or 250 x 250 IMUs (Internet Marketing Unit). These are generally located above the page fold and within or close to the surrounding article content. So as a reader is perusing an article, their eye can’t help but notice the ad next to it … especially if you have a strong headline or eye-catching graphic image.

An eye-tracking study by The Poynter Institute supported this observation, indicating that banner ads at the top left of the page, as well as ads close to the body of an article, received the most attention from readers.

Tip #3: Business Negotiations 101
In the process of putting together your media buy (or “insertion order” as the official agreement is referred to), you will be required to analyze many proposals from different website, blogs or ad networks.

You’ll need to ascertain if the rate you are being quoted is cost effective and comparable to industry rates.

This is where the “Media Tracking Matrix” spreadsheet comes in handy.
I recommend sorting this sheet by ad rate, lowest to highest. So you can see instantly which contenders are out of budget or not.

Keep in mind that when account executives start quoting you advertising rates, many drivers can influence that rate such as:
-Seasonality. Most Web traffic typically drops during summer months as well as major holidays. Use this knowledge to your advantage and try to get lower rates during these times. You can also pause your ad if it happens to be running during a holiday and have it turned back on after the holiday.

-Exclusivity. Find out if your ad is get 100% of the rotations or is sharing that ad space with other advertisers. For instance, one banner ad on a website may rotate and have 5 different messages each time you refresh. This is known as being “fixed ad placement” or “shared ad placement”. If you’re told you have shared placement, find out how many actual impressions YOU will receive.

-Site Targeting. Will your ad be ROS (run of site), by channel, by page? Typically, you can drill down your banner ad or advertising message down to a specific page. But the lower your drill the more you will pay for that targeting. The higher you go, the less you pay. ROS is the highest level, so it’s usually the cheapest. Next is usually ROC (run of channel), that is, running your ad within targeted sections of a site. Then there are also specific pages or demographic targeting. Your goals and budget will determine which placement is best for your needs.

-Remnant Space. Check with the account executive to see if they have any remnant space (space that they’re having difficulty selling for any reason) or last minute specials. With more popular and high traffic websites, you can get some great deals on remnant space. Make sure to find out the Terms and Conditions.

-Termination Right. Make sure your insertion order has a ‘termination right’ or ‘out clause’ (typically 24 - 48 hours). This way, if you see after a week your ad isn’t performing, and you tested other ads, you can end the campaign without penalty and only pay for impressions served.

Tip #4: Due Diligence.
If you’re looking at a banner ad, find out demographic information and website analytics. If you’re considering renting an email list from a third-party, find out the size of their e-mail list, how often the list gets mailed, the average unit sale per subscriber, and whether or not there will be lift note (simply, introduction memo/implied endorsement by the publisher). These variables will help establish the value of the list.

Tip#5: Real Time Reporting
Ask your account executive if you will have access to the OAS system (online ad server) or if he/she can email you daily performance reports. You want to look at impressions served, click thru and open rates. These metrics will illustrate to you the popularity of your ad and if it’s resonating with website visitors. Are they clicking the banner but not converting at landing page? Are they visiting page, but not clicking banner? Answers to these questions will determine where you need to tweak your advertising creative.

For instance:
High clicks (banner ad), low conversions (landing page). This is typically an indicator that something on the landing page is not attractive to readers. Common reasons are offer, guarantee (return policy), price, copy (copywriting that is not compelling and draws reader in), no clear “call to action (what you exactly want reader to do next).

Low clicks (banner ad or text ad). This is typically an indicator that your front end creative is not compelling or eye-catching. You only have a few seconds to grab the readers’ attention. Great copywriting skills and/or strong graphical images are most important here.

Tip #6: Test Ad Networks
If your goal is to reach the biggest, broadest audience possible, and you want to run an ad on a few different websites … consider an ad network.

Ad networks have arrangements with a variety of popular websites. Since ad networks typically buy their ad units in bulk from the publishing sites, the networks can pass the savings down to you. Some popular ad networks include Advertising.com and ValueClick.com. You can find a full list at iwebtool.com.

Important Note: Make sure you get proposals from more than one network when researching your rates. Some of the lesser-known networks like BurstMedia.com are extremely competitive with their rates and can really give the big guys a run for their money.

However, ask for a list of ‘sample sites’ and find out how many total sites are in their ad network universe. You see, many ad networks may only mention their 5 top sites and they may have a universe of 25 sites or more. So the remaining 20 sites are all Tier II or Tier III sites, otherwise known as ‘Micro sites’, with no real traffic or use to you. These are basically obscure sites on the fringe of the Internet. And they’re certainly not worth more than a $1/CPM.

Depending on how many impressions you buy and if you’re buying run of site or run of channel, your average cost for an LREC can range from $2 to $9. For blog ads and blog networks, you can often find CPMs lower than $1. My preferred blog ad network is BlogAds.com. You can create your plan a la carte or buy “hives” (package of similar type blogs). Rates are affordable and you can easily upload your creative’s and change as needed.

Tip #7: Don’t Just Talk The Talk, Walk The Walk
When buying online media, confidence is king. Armed with basic knowledge and the confidence to speak intelligently will go a long way. You will come across savvy to account executives … someone that is not likely to get the wool pulled over their eyes easily. And you need to be perceived that way. If you sound like you’re unsure of yourself or don’t know what you’re talking about, then don’t be surprised if the ad exec tries to take advantage of you and get you to pay ‘rate card’, which is their published rate.

Tip #8: Try To Get ‘Good Will’ Freebies For SEO
Whenever I do a media buy I always see if I can get a ‘courtesy’ back link from the site I’m buying from … especially if they have a ‘resource’ or ‘links’ page. It’s really no skin off their apple and it is mutually beneficial for SEO. And if the site you’re buying from has a really strong traffic rank, then it could be very advantageous for you to get this back-link. More than half the time I get it. The worst the account exec can say is no. So why not ask for it?

Tip #9: Buy More/Get More
If you happen to have a larger ad budget (more than $5K) then you have some leverage to ask for some add on’s. For instance, if you’re renting an email list of 100K names, see if the website will throw in a free banner ad or text ad for a week. Mention if it performs well, you’ll have a good reason to buy this ad unit in next media buy.

Media Cheat Sheet

When coordinating your insertion order (IO) with an online account executive, it’s important to be prepared for some of the questions you’ll be asked. Your response will determine the pricing and data being presented in your overall proposal. Typical questions you may be asked from account execs include:
-When you want to start the campaign and how long do you want it to be?
-What is the offer/goal (product sales, lead gen, other)?
-Do you have sample ad creative to send?
-What’s the budget?
-What’s your target audience (demographic, geographic, psychographic)?
-What kind of websites do you want your ad to run on (genre, category)
-What type of ad unit are you interested in (size, placement)?

The more information you can provide, the more accurate your proposal with costs will be. Other things to know that allow for leverage and leeway…

Budget. I always tell new account execs it’s a ‘test’ buy and the budget is small ($2,500 - $5,000). I tease them with an incentive, such as, “…if this buy works, I’ll roll out with bigger and more frequent buys.” And why wouldn’t I? If my ad makes money, it’s a win/win situation. This usually helps the network be more flexible with their account minimum spend.

Out clause. Many ad networks or websites won’t mention it. Be sure to insist on it. You want to be able to get out if the effort isn’t working and not pay any additional fees for doing so.
Payment terms. Most if not all websites and networks are going to try and get you to pay with a credit card up front. But I always like to ask for Net 30 days payment terms and pay after the campaign is completed.

Ad units. Let’s say you’re testing an LREC (large rectangle banner ad). And surprisingly, after 1 week, click thrus are mediocre. If you don’t have an alternate creative to run, see if the website or network can let you try the same creative, but in another ad unit, like text ad, or skyscraper.