SIPA Marketing Conf. - Presentation on Leveraging LinkedIn

SIPA’s (Specialized Information Publishing Association) Mid-Year Event was in Miami last week at the Ritz-Carlton.

The event was a great success…from a networking, prospecting, and educational standpoint.
My presentation on Leveraging LinkedIn was also a success. I discussed many tips and tricks to use LinkedIn for events, content syndication, market research, PR, and more.

If you’re interested in a copy of my presentation, please email me (my contact info is in my blog profile).

SEO: Definitely Worth Your Time

The below is an article I wrote while I was VP of Marketing at Agora Publishing/Early to Rise.I’m republishing it because it’s timely…with the current economy the way it is, marketers are often forgetting about the grass-roots approaches … marketing that is virtually no cost, but just requires time, effort and strategic thought.

SEO often gets a bad rap, because some marketers don’t know how to measure it. But it should always be a crucial part of your online marketing mix.

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Don’t Overlook Organic Search Efforts in Your Online Marketing Mix
By Wendy Montes de Oca

Many Internet entrepreneurs think they’re doing everything they can to get the word out about their businesses. They allocate their marketing budgets to direct mail, e-mail, banner ads, print ads, co-registration, and pay-per-click (PPC). They spend much of their time, effort, and money on getting those channels to produce a positive ROI (return on investment). But they’re ignoring a major source of potential traffic… which means they are losing hordes of potential new customers. Big mistake.

I’m talking about organic search via search engine marketing and optimization (SEM/SEO).
Many marketers think focusing on organic search is "a waste of time." Some think there’s no way to monitor, measure, and monetize the results. But they’re either clueless or misinformed. For instance, according to a recent survey by Jupiter Research, 80 percent of Web users get information from organic search results. And measuring sources of traffic and visitors is easy with the free Web tool Google Analytics.

Search engines like diversity in relevant back links to your website. And one of the best ways to get lots of relevant back links – as I said in my article about the SONAR Method of Content Distribution – is with a synchronized distribution of your content to a variety of sources.
So in addition to having optimized website pages, having a variety of news aggregators, social networks, blogs, and directories linking to your site helps give you a heavier weight in organic listings. This helps build your organic market presence for little or no cost. And, let’s face it, low cost is a good thing.

Using organic search strategies helped increase traffic rank and visits to ETR’s sister publication, Total Health Breakthroughs, by 3,160 percent and 81.5 percent, respectively, in only three months. In that same time period, Total Health Breakthroughs had a 62.01 percent rate of converting that organic search traffic into subscribers. That’s about 16,000 organic names in three months at virtually no cost!

Now tell me… does that seem like a waste of time to you?

[Note: This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health, and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.]

Branding vs. Direct Response: Which is right for you?

As I’ve written before … several of my real-life experiences influence my blog posts.

A colleague of mine asked how could he leverage a popular email list and drive them (consumers) to a retail store to purchase his product.

My explanation and recommendation led me to explain the difference between branding and direct response marketing.

You see, driving a consumer to a store to “take action” is more "branding". Branding is a form of marketing where a consumer sees or hears your message (albeit email, TV, print ad, radio) and then takes action. The action isn’t immediate (i.e. “direct response”) it typically involves going to a retailer to make the sale (or “convert”).

The marketer has to hope that once the consumer sees/hears the message they remember it. (Advertising studies show that the average consumer needs to see a message 7-8 times before it becomes familiar to them). Then, hope that consumer has enough loyalty or name recognition from that product that when they do go to the retailer to purchase, they don’t get distracted by other competitive products.

Branding is hard to measure. Usually, you tie into the timing of your campaign in to retail sales for the specific product during that same time period and make assumptions.

As opposed to “direct response marketing”, where there is generally one strong message with a compelling offer. One platform (i.e. an email, a newsletter ad, a direct letter, an online ad). You see, it's more controlled … you’re directing the consumer where to go next (i.e. “Click here now”) and your message will be the only one in front of them at that time. In addition, it's quantifiable … easier to measure … looking at metrics like open rates, click through rates, response rates, conversion rates. You can directly calculate your ROI (return on investment), which helps the marketer offset any advertising costs from the profits. Plus, typically direct response marketing overall is more cost effective than branding.

Branding efforts take time, as you have to develop your brand loyalty with the list first to help overall conversions (think of loyal brand followers of well-known products like Nike, GE, BMW, McDonald’s, etc ... these companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on brand development). Branding is also not as accurate to measure.

For businesses – especially during the current economic environment – unless you’re a Fortune 500 company, the most reliable marketing method in my opinion is direct response marketing.

What smart marketers are doing NOW to bring in leads & cash

I recently started several discussions in targeted Marketing groups in the popular, LinkedIn professional social network. I asked, “How are you marketing your business during this economy?”

Here’s what I found out…

· Local advertising. Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
“I am using primarily local business-to-business networking in an effort to capture those first dozen or so customers. My web site is optimized to attract hits as well.”

· Word of mouth marketing. Social media (SMO)
“My best marketing tool is wearing my line of jewelry…. I took on social networking a couple months ago, and plan to have a blog also. I am also networking with a travel agent as her most common question is, ‘What do I where on a cruise?’ ”

“As a consultant, testimonials and referrals are very important. I have great clients and the majority of my business in 2009 has been from referrals. I also network at lot through all the major online social networks.”

· Social Media. PR.
“I use are social media, (mainly Twitter, Facebook and Youtube), Press releases, Forums, articles, blog posts. I find that forums are great places to talk to targeted audience.”

· Networking. Leveraging expertise.
“…Definitely local networking is working for me for through various groups as well as the chamber of commerce … I also teach classes and offer my services as a speaker to groups.”

· Event marketing.
“I have been marketing my services through gift bag requests.”

Thanks to all that have taken the time to post comments in the various LinkedIn Groups where I asked this question.

As you can see, most everyone that commented is utilizing low/no cost marketing channels as well as being creative thinkers with their marketing tactics…both proven approaches that I’ve written about many times on this blog and are featured in my SONAR marketing method.

What have YOU been doing to market during t his tough times…let me know!

3 ways to measure your social media efforts

Many people have been using social media because they "think" it's what they should be doing. After all, it's all the rage. Everyone seems to have a Twitter or Facebook account. But social media may not be the right channel for some businesses. Even more disturbing, some businesses are putting all this time and effort into SMO because "everyone else is doing it" and they're not even measuring their efforts to see if all this work is really paying off.

It's not that they're lazy or sub par marketers, it's just that they may not have a direct response or PR background -- in other words, they're not familiar with how to measure ALL of their marketing efforts ... including social media.

Well, I'm here to shed light on this important topic.

Below is an article I wrote while I was VP of Marketing and Business Development at Early to Rise.

Check it out…Have a question about measuring social media or using social media for profits? Drop me an email!

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Measuring Social MediaBy Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA

If you’re an online marketer or publisher, chances are you’re well aware of the power of social media optimization (SMO). If you’re new to the world of Internet marketing, you’ll be interested to know that this breakthrough method is a truly inexpensive (practically free) way to create buzz about your products, increase traffic to your site, build trust about your company, and boost your sales.

Today, I’m going to show you a simple way to get started in social media marketing – and an easy three-step process you can use to measure how well it’s working.

In a nutshell, social media is an interactive platform where people can correspond – via chat rooms, forums, bulletin boards, networks (as in MySpace, Facebook, Classmates, LinkedIn, Bebo), user-generated content sharing (as in Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit), wikis (interactive online encyclopedias), and blogs – with like minded individuals who share similar interests, whatever those interests may be.

Cutting-edge businesses and marketing-centric companies have jumped on the social media bandwagon to leverage the increased popularity of this phenomenon. Companies large and small got their marketers to create MySpace, FaceBook, or LinkedIn profiles in order to have their fingers on the pulse of the market, correspond with consumers, and create buzz about their products.

Here at ETR, we’ve been on the Web for some time now, dabbling in all sorts of social media activities with content syndication, viral marketing, and online PR efforts.

Recently, we started leveraging the presence of our individual team members on LinkedIn. If you’re not familiar with this site, it’s a network community for business professionals. Users can set up profiles highlighting their corporate experience and areas of expertise.

Edwin Huertas, one of ETR’s search engine marketing specialists, answers select questions on LinkedIn that are related to his area of expertise. He also uploads blog posts about a variety of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), pay-per-click (PPC), and social media practices. This helps create buzz about ETR (through Edwin’s profile and position at ETR). Plus, he sometimes supplements his posts with links back to relevant articles on our website – which helps drive traffic to the ETR site.

This is a practice you can emulate easily. Simply register as a member of one of the social media groups. Then begin to participate in the discussions. For instance, if a LinkedIn member posts a specific question about SEO, Edwin will try to find an article on our ETR site that addresses that issue. He then answers the question in his own words, but recommends that the member also read the ETR article, which has more valuable information. By answering questions posed by your fellow members (making sure you add relevant links back to content on your website), your posts will begin to generate “free” traffic.

Another site that works well for us is StumbleUpon.com. This site directs Internet surfers to Web pages based on the surfer’s pre-selected categories every time they click on the “Stumble” icon on their toolbar.

You can install the StumbleUpon toolbar on your own computer and recommend articles on your own site. This allows you to give any page a “Thumbs Up” or “Thumbs Down” rating. It also allows you to include a brief description and category for your submission. If you rate your article, it will appear in the StumbleUpon rotation – which, again, means ‘free’ traffic to your site.

Getting started is super-easy. But the key to making social media work for you is the same with any marketing medium: You need to have a way to find out if it’s working.

Although many marketers have been going all out with their social media efforts, most haven’t a clue as to how to actually measure the campaign’s success or failure.

Let’s say Early to Rise just published an article on goal setting for 2009. The article is followed by a related product ad in the ETR issue, as well as by a separate e-mail promotion for a related goal setting product, like our Total Success Achievement program. Product sales are generated from the e-mail and from the ad. Meanwhile, the social media aspect takes over.

The article content is syndicated via RSS feeds, as well as top article directories (like EzineArticles, GoArticles, ArticleBase, Buzzle, and others) and user-generated content networks (such as Digg and Reddit). Readers may also discuss the article on goal setting and self-improvement blogs, forums, and bulletin boards.

So how could you measure the social media aspect of such an effort?
It’s easy. By using the same metrics that are used to measure a public relations effort: Outputs, outcomes, and objectives – what I like to call the “3 O’s.”

1. Outputs (measures effectiveness and efficiency)
For our example, I’d look at Google Analytics for spikes in traffic to the Early to Rise homepage in the days following the article’s publication. I’d look specifically at traffic sources, visits, unique visits, and visit percentages. I’d also look at referring sites and search engines to see whether the traffic is coming directly from social media platforms. And I’d look for an increase in new ETR subscriber sign-ups (leads) during that same time period.

2. Outcomes (measures behavioral changes)
For this metric, I’d look at feedback from our customers… e-mails, phone calls, comments posted on our ETR member forum. I’d also do some reputation monitoring by searching the Web for keywords like “ETR,” the article title, and the product name to see if others were talking about it in chat rooms, external forums, and bulletin boards.

3. Objectives (measures business objectives/sales)
The most obvious and directly related metric is direct sales of the product that are tied to the editorial. Orders generated from an e-mail link or ad link are coded for tracking, so attributing sales to those sources is definitive. If the sales come from a product page on our website where the true “source” cannot be tracked, I’d look at the sales during the corresponding dates of the campaign for correlations.

Finally, for each of the above, I would compare the current campaign data versus the year-to-date (YTD) average and year-over-year data to clearly illustrate pre- and post- campaign performance. In other words, I’d check out website traffic, unique visits, specific product sales, etc. – all for the same time periods. That way, I’d have an established benchmark against which to measure our current social media efforts.

Social media is a low cost and effective way to spread the word about your company and products, as well as to conduct market research. By understanding the “3 O’s” and how they work, you can actually quantify your efforts with hard data… a critical component for any direct marketer.

[Note: This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.]

8 "Must See" Tips For Smarter and Cheaper Online Media Buys

With the current economy the way it is, many marketers and business owners are opting to forgo online media buys in their marketing mix and spend more time on little-to-no cost tactics such as search engine marketing/optimization and social media marketing.

It doesn’t have to be that way. There are plenty of cost-effective tricks to ensure you’re getting the most bang for your buck when buying online media.

I say, “market smarter, not harder … or more expensive.” Media buying (albeit pay per click/display ads, banner ads, text ads, paid newsletter sponsorships, and email list rentals) should always have a part in your online marketing plan…even if the percentage is small.

Like an investment portfolio, never put all your eggs in one basket.

Having a variety of online marketing tactics, strong creative, and always testing helps put the odds in your favor for meeting or exceeding your overall goals.

Below is an article I wrote while I was VP of Marketing and Business Development at Early to Rise. Now, more than ever, the tips are invaluable! Check it out…

Have a question about your online marketing mix? Drop me an email!
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Muscle Media Buying
By Wendy Montes de Oca,MBA

If you’ve got have a strong e-mail campaign going but you’re looking to expand your direct-response tactics to include online ads, chances are you will do some media buying. Why? Because purchasing banner, text or other display ads can be a very cost effective way to attract customers.

As a multi-channel marketer, many of my responsibilities over the years have required me to buy ad space in magazines, newspapers, radio, TV, and the Web. Along the way, I’ve become an expert (especially with online media), and picked up a few techniques that could save you hundreds, maybe even thousands, of dollars.

But before I explain further, I’d like to point out that there are differences in online advertising.
You can focus your ad to be direct-response-oriented, which includes lead generation (acquiring e-mail names) and product sales. Or you can focus your ad on branding. Branding isn’t direct-response marketing – meaning it doesn’t require an immediate action from the consumer. Its goal, rather, is to build awareness and name recognition of a product over time and help it stay in the minds of prospects. In the offline world, think the battle of the cola giants. In the online world, it’s typically video ads like the ones you see for a new car or truck.

Because results are harder to measure with branding, many online marketers lean toward the direct-response model.

Your job as a media buyer is simply to try to get the best bang for the buck when purchasing media units. It involves allocating money for advertising in various outlets, print or online, and negotiating the actual advertising agreement with the publisher. This agreement is known as an IO (insertion order), and will cover the ad unit cost, size, placement, and other critical components (which I’ll address shortly).

Here are some helpful hints to keep in mind when buying media for your sales campaigns.

Hint #1: Keep up with the industry.
Sign up for free industry trade papers, such as DM News, Response Magazine, and Target Marketing, and as many free e-letters as you can read. One of my favorite e-letters is Clickz.com, because it covers the online marketing world in a comprehensive and dynamic way. I also like mediabuyerplanner.com, which keeps you abreast of the latest media-buying news, and DoubleClick.com, which provides some of the marketing industry’s best practices, trends, and forecast reports.

One current trend is flash banners. These ad units support audio/video use (which engages the viewer and is great for branding), but they are more costly than standard flat (no animation) or animated banners.

Hint #2: Know the ad units.
There are many types of banner ads to choose from: leader boards, skyscrapers, buttons, micro banners, and more. You can find a full list of types of ads, as well as industry guidelines for how and when to use them, at iab.net. All of these ad units are available on most websites, but not every type is effective.

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) are the least effective. The best placements are typically LRECs – large rectangles, such as 300 x 250 IMUs, at the top or middle of a page or within the content. (IMU stands for Internet Marketing Unit.) Putting an ad inside the body of an article is a great placement, since the reader must breeze over the ad while absorbing the content. A recent eyetracking study by The Poynter Institute supported this observation, indicating that banner ads at the top left of the page, as well as ads close in proximity to the body of an article, garnered the most attention from viewers. This is where you want your message to be!

Hint #3: Master the art of negotiation.
You will be required to analyze many proposals when you’re looking for the right ad space. You’ll need to determine if the prices are cost effective and comparable to industry rates. If you’re looking into buying ad space on CNN.com, for instance, check out the prices for that same ad unit and timeframe on similarly ranked news websites. Also, check out various ad networks to see if any include CNN.com in their coverage. (For more on ad networks, see Hint #7.)

Since many variables can affect ad prices, I recommend starting an "ad unit matrix" to keep track of rates. Break down a spreadsheet into columns for ad unit type, size, placement, website, impressions (how many times the ad unit appears on the website), and CPM (cost per thousand impressions). Click here to se a great tool that easily calculates the CPM for you.

Another factor that can affect pricing is seasonality. Internet traffic typically drops during July and August (because so many people are on summer vacation) and, depending on the industry you’re in, can be slower around the holidays as well. So, when you’re negotiating your media buy, try to get lower rates during those times. If you’re running near a typically slow time, let’s say around Thanksgiving, you may want to pause your ad unit the day before the holiday and the day after so you don’t waste impressions.

To help ensure that you’re getting a comparable rate, check out each site’s traffic ranking and page views to see where it stands in relation to its competitors in terms of popularity and reach. It’s best to get this information from a subscription ranking service, like Nielsen//NetRatings or ComScore – but if you don’t have access to such services, consider the free Alexa ranking website (Alexa.com).

Hint #4: Reporting rules.
Make sure, especially if you buy media from an online ad network, that you have full access to the OAS (online ad server) reporting system. Look for key performance indicators, such as impressions served (ad units that ran), and click-thru rate (the percentage of people who saw your ad and clicked on a link in it). If you are testing various ad units and sizes, each one should have a unique tracking code. If your advertiser doesn’t give you access to their OAS, ask about getting daily or weekly reports from your account executive. These reports will be critical in refining your ad to get maximum results.

As a general guideline, the average click-thru rate for a banner ad/text ad is 0.5 to 2 percent, and the average click-thru rate for a dedicated e-mail (an e-mail ad that a third party sends to their subscribers on your behalf) is 7.5 percent.

Hint #5: Know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.
In your insertion order, have a clause that allows you to terminate your advertising commitment without penalty at a given time (an "out clause" or "termination right"). For instance, most online campaigns can be optimized in about a week. If you’re watching your reporting daily (which I suggest you do for the first two weeks) and notice that not many viewers are clicking on your ad, then you should switch to a different ad. If the second ad is not working, you may want to initiate your termination right, end the campaign, and pay only for the impressions you were served.

Not all advertisers will offer this option, but you should certainly ask for it.

Hint #6: There are no stupid questions.
If you’re buying banner ads or other advertising spots on a website, it’s key to find out a few things from your account executive:

Will your ad be ROS (run of site)? Typically, this means your ad will randomly appear on a site’s home page and most (if not all) subpages within the site. This is more cost effective than a targeted ad in a specific section of the site.

Will your ad position be fixed or rotated (shared) with anyone else’s ad? If shared, what percentage of impressions will your ad receive?

If you’re considering buying a dedicated e-mail from a third-party, find out the size of their e-mail list, how often the list gets mailed, the AUS (average unit sale) per subscriber, and whether or not there will be an introduction or implied endorsement by the list owner. (According to copywriting genius John Forde, this can often help boost response rates by 25 percent or more.)

All of these factors will help determine the value of the list and, ultimately, the cost you’re willing to pay to access the people on it.

Hint #7: Be on the lookout for low-cost options.
If you’re targeting a specific audience or a niche buyer, go directly to the website’s publisher for an advertising quote. Cutting out the middleman (ad broker) may get you a better rate. PLUS, it will help you build a relationship with the publisher – which can be advantageous for you down the road.

If your goal is to reach the biggest, broadest audience possible, and you want to run an ad on various websites that have a distinct "channel" or genre (such as entertainment, finance, health, etc.) within the broader subject range of the site, consider an ad network.

Ad networks have an agreement with a variety of popular websites to serve up their ads, and they can sort by website type. Since they typically buy their ad units in bulk from the publishing sites, the networks can pass the savings down to the advertiser and charge a lower CPM rate. Some popular networks include Advertising.com and ValueClick.com. You can find a full list at iwebtool.com.

Just remember to get proposals from more than one network. Some of the lesser-known (Tier 2) networks are looking to make a name for themselves, and may offer better rates. But be wary of "micro" sites, which have little traffic or Web presence. Be sure to ask for a sample of the network’s site listings. I always go for quality over quantity.

Depending on how many impressions you buy from these ad networks, your average cost for an LREC can range from $2 to $5. For blog ads and blog networks, you can often find CPMs lower than $1 or even 50 cents. And if you’re looking to save even more money, ask if remnant inventory is available. Remnant inventory is simply an advertising unit that is not as popular as other ad units on a site and is unsold. Depending on your marketing goal, these ad units may accomplish your objective – and to make them more attractive, networks usually offer them at a lower rate.

Hint #8: Show your poker face.
In this industry, it’s all about confidence and knowledge. If you come across as someone who is savvy to media buying, you’re less likely to be taken advantage of.
Do your homework and follow some of the recommendations above… but your best lessons will happen as you buy.

[Note: This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.]

"Partner up" for leads, sales, editorial and more!

Trying to think of new, cost effective ways to grow your list, get added exposure, tap into another market, or increase sales?

Many business owners and marketers completely overlook leveraging editorial, lead generation, and sales opportunities with synergistic “partners” because they are either afraid of the competition or think it’s a waste of time.

I say, “test it out” and see if you have a winning strategy.

If you find the right list to go to, the possibilities are endless and you could forge a long-term, mutually beneficial venture for both you and your “partner”.

And best of all, it’s virtually at no advertising cost.

Below is an article I wrote last year while I was Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Agora Publishing/Early to Rise. Although the article is a year old, the principals are timeless.

Check it out…

Let’s Get Reciprocal: Maximizing Ad Swaps, Guest Editorials, and JV Opportunities
By Wendy Montes de Oca

Now is a great time to look to your competition for opportunities to help grow your list and add extra revenues to your bottom line for little or no cost.

For example, here at Early to Rise I just completed media buy (i.e., outside advertising purchasing) recommendations for all of our newsletters – Early to Rise, Total Health Breakthroughs, and Investor’s Daily Edge. My advice was to reduce them to help control costs through the end of 2008, as the tough economy continues to impact everyone. But my number one focus is, instead, for each marketing manager to concentrate on leveraging the marketing and editorial relationships we have with our fellow publishers and aggressively pursuing ad swaps, guest editorials, and joint ventures (JV).

The idea is to develop synergistic relationships that are mutually beneficial – to look for areas of deficiency in your competitors and think of ways your company can fill the void.

One potential partner may have a great front-end product (e.g., a low cost e-book) but no up-sell (e.g., a higher-priced related kit containing DVDs, CDs, and workbooks). Another potential partner may have an innovative back-end product but no cost-effective front-end product to bring new customers in the door. Still others may have large, qualified lists but need editorial to bond with their lists. (This frequently happens when marketers collect names through their websites or direct mail, but don’t have a regularly scheduled publication – such as an e-newsletter – to offer people who sign up.)

Some tips to keep in mind when looking for potential partners:

• Do your homework. Find out, in advance, who will be at industry events that you’ll be attending. (Check the program for speakers, vendors, and participants.) Sign up for their e-newsletters. Read their promotional e-mails. Maybe even purchase some of their products.

• Look at EVERY opportunity as a way to maximize your company’s brand. When you go to industry events, don’t eat dinner alone in your hotel room. Go to functions. Mingle. Network. Have a genuine conversation with a potential partner… then, if there’s a synergy between your two companies, exchange business cards.

At this year’s ETR Info Marketing Bootcamp, I noticed that attendees were really taking advantage of all the opportunities to network with each other and the ETR staff…during presentation breaks, lunch time, cocktail parties – whenever and wherever – making the most out of the experience!

• Before you contact a potential partner, get familiar with his products and target audience and figure out how your company may be able to dovetail with his product line or marketing efforts.

So, once you’ve made the connection, now what?

Ad Swaps
Assuming you both have e-newsletters, you can test the waters and see how your lists will react by doing an advertising swap. In other words, you run an ad in his e-newsletter and he runs an ad in yours.

To make sense out of the results of that test, you have to know your “opportunity cost” – the “cost” you will incur for running an outside ad to your list instead of your own ad. If you normally sell ad space in your e-newsletter, this cost could simply be the flat rate fee you typically charge. Or, if you know the average revenues an issue brings in, you could calculate the potential “missed opportunity” of letting another ad run to your list on a given day.

You should also agree to share important information with your partner. Before his ad runs in your e-newsletter, point out any creative issues. (Perhaps the copy is too inflammatory for your list. Perhaps it’s too competitive.) Provide your partner with your e-newsletter’s sent and deliverability sizes, open rate, and ad click rate. Exchanging performance data is critical to a long and mutually beneficial relationship. It has to be a win/win situation for the partnership to work.

Whether your goal is to attract names for your e-list (lead generation) or to make sales, reciprocate in kind. If your partner is letting you do a name collection ad to his list, for example, let him run the same kind of ad to your list. But first make sure his list is approximately the same size as yours. If it’s substantially smaller, you may want to hold off on an ad swap with that publisher until he builds his subscriber base. You don’t want the initiative to be one-sided.

However, on a case-by-case basis, it doesn’t hurt to extend “good will” to a fellow publisher with proven marketing muscle. For example, when Total Health Breakthroughs launched in summer of 2007, I reached out to several industry friends and colleagues, asking if we could run a lead generation ad to their lists to help us build our subscriber base. We had little to offer in return at the time. (We barely had a list of our own.) But, thankfully, many agreed. The THB list grew in no time, and we were soon able to reciprocate.

Guest Editorials
You can also look into doing guest editorials in other publishers’ e-newsletters – with an editorial note or byline that links to your offer. This is a great way to get introduced to a new list with the “implied” endorsement of the publisher. His endorsement gives you credibility. And if you provide his readers with good, solid, useful information, they will bond with you quickly.

This is a soft-sell approach that may or may not yield results on its own. But when coordinated with either a dedicated e-mail (if your partner is on board with a revenue split) or an e-newsletter ad the same week, your conversion rate (the number of people who go on to buy your product) will dramatically improve.

Joint Ventures (JVs)
I’ve got one more idea for you: joint venturing. This is a quick and cost-effective way to make money with your list even if you have not yet developed any products.

With a JV, you have an instant product line with no overhead costs. Your partner will supply the products, fulfill orders, and provide customer support. All you have to do is promote the products to your list and split the net revenues with them. For an even a more turnkey approach, you can sell e-reports through sites like Clickbank.com, where everything is automated.

To determine the viability of a potential JV product, there are several strategic marketing variables to consider. I like to think of them as “PPPGS”:
P = Product quality
P = Price point
P = Performance (when promoted to your potential partner’s house list, as well as to outside lists)
G = General market demand
S = Subscriber interest (when promoted to your list, as determined by feedback, surveys, etc.)

Remember – you’re looking for long-term partners, not one-hit-wonders. So carefully select the people you approach, making sure their products make sense relative to your business…and, together, you can reap the unlimited profit potential of reciprocal marketing!

[Note: This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.]

Increase Sales with List Segmentation/Database Marketing

Most every marketer knows that it cost more to bring in a new name than leverage the power of an existing customer. That said, in the current environment we find ourselves now in, business owners are taking a closer look at getting the most out of their database ... slicing and dicing their lists in efforts to better monetize it.

The timing is very apropo to discuss how to segment your list and deploy database marketing, or data mining, tactics.

The following is an article I wrote while I was Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Early to Rise (a subsidiary of Agora Publishing). It was published in the popular Early to Rise daily eNewsletter. It covers this very poignant topic and can not only save you marketing dollars, but also increase the lifetime value of your customers.

Check it out...

Use the Slice-and-Dice System to Get Your Customers to Buy More
By Wendy Montes de Oca

One of the best ways to build your online business is to build your house list of potential customers. But you can also do it by changing the way you market to your existing customers. Today, I want to show you how breaking up your existing customer database can boost your sales.

Data mining, or database marketing, is basically the art of slicing and dicing your own in-house list of names. You do this to help increase the response to your online sales promotions.
You see, once you divide your list of names into smaller groups ("segmentation"), you can specialize your product offers. Then, by targeting your offer based on customer needs, you’ll be promoting products to people who are more likely to buy them. You increase your customers’ satisfaction as well as your potential conversion rates. (The conversion rate is the number of people who not only read your offer but actually purchase the product.) And higher conversion rates means more money for your company.

One proven model is the RFM method. It’s practiced by direct-response marketers all over the world, and is a marketing method we use here at ETR.

"R" stands for Recency, how recently a customer has made a purchase. "F" stands for Frequency, how often the customer makes a purchase. And "M" stands for Monetary, how much the customer spends.

Here’s how you can use the RFM method to help lift your sales.

*Recency
Whether your house list is made up of people who signed up to receive your free e-zine or people who paid for a subscription, you can segment your database according to how long your customers have been with you. Let’s say, 0-3 months, 3-6 months, 6-12 months, and 12+ months.

You would look at these groups as your hot subs (newest subscribers), warm subs (mid-point subscribers), and cool subs (those who have been subscribing to your e-zine the longest).
Let’s say your list is made up of subscribers to your free e-zine. Here’s how you use that information…

Because your "cool subs" may have lost their initial enthusiasm for your e-zine, you should cross-reference them with your open rates. If most of them haven’t been opening your e-zine in six, nine, or 12 months, you should consider sending them a special message asking if they still want to receive your e-zine.

But that doesn’t mean you ignore them. These inactive subscribers are a great group on which to test new marketing approaches, new prices, new subject lines, and so on. After all, you have nothing to lose. Your goal for this group is to re-engage them. And since they aren’t responding to your current e-mails, why not use this platform to test?

Your "hot subs" are your newest, most enthusiastic subscribers. They are ripe to learn more about you, your products, and your services. If you handle this group properly, you can cultivate them into paying customers. So you may want to send them targeted offers and messages.
For example, you could send them a special introductory series of e-mails. This special series would introduce them to your e-zine’s contributors and philosophy. It could also tempt them with specially priced offers. Sending an introductory series like this can not only increase the number of subscribers who convert to paying customers, it also increases their lifetime value (LTV) – the amount they spend with you over their lifetime as your customer.

If, instead of subscribers to a free e-zine, your house list is made up of people who paid for their subscription, the same segmentation process applies. You break your active subscribers into hot subs, warm subs, and cool subs. You also break out expirers (those who allowed their subscription to run out) and cancels (those who cancelled their subscription).

Cross-marketing to these lists is usually effective. The expirers often just forgot to renew and simply need a reminder. And just because someone cancelled one subscription doesn’t mean they may not be ideal for another service or product that you provide. If they’re still willing to receive e-mail messages from you, add these folks to your promotional lists.

Once you’ve gotten these otherwise inactive subscribers to open your messages, turning them into paying customers is just a matter of time. Most Internet marketers would have written these people off. So any revenues you get from them are "extra."

* Frequency
"It may seem counter-intuitive," says Michael Masterson, "but in the direct-mail world, the best names you can mail to are people who have recently bought products and/or services very similar to what you are selling. The closer you can get to mailing to those who have bought similar products/services, the greater your response rate will be."

This connects to another important way to break down your house list: by how frequently customers have bought from you. So once you’ve divided your list based on recency, you look at it in terms of your customers’ purchase behavior. First, you identify your multi-buyers – customers who’ve purchased more than one product from you. You then split this list further, segmenting out two-time, three-time, four-time (and more) buyers.

Those who have bought from you most often have proven their loyalty and obviously like the products and service they’ve been getting from you. So if, for example, you’re considering launching a new product with a high price point, these would be your best prospects.

* Monetary
Finally, you look at your list in terms of money.

One way to do this is to divide your list by the amount of money each customer has spent with you. You might, for example, assign a benchmark dollar amount, such as $5,000, $10,000, or more. Customers at that level make up your "premium buyers." This is the group that has the most favorable LTV for your company. These are your "VIPs."

Once you discover who your VIPs are, you can design products or offers specifically for them. Let’s say you have some kind of exclusive – and expensive – lifetime membership club. You would market this to multi-buyers who also fall into your "premium buyer" category.

If you offer payment options to your customers, another monetary way to divide your list is according to the payment options they have chosen: monthly, quarterly, yearly, etc. This will help you determine the initial purchase tolerance of each group of customers and which ones may respond best to future price points.

As you can see, by looking at your customers’ purchasing habits – recency, frequency, and monetary – you can identify the best customers for certain products. And by offering a product to customers who are likely to want it, you can improve your conversion rates.

By using the RFM model and other data-mining techniques, I’ve seen conversion rates double and triple. I’ve also seen inactive subscribers’ open rates surge from 0 percent to more than 30 percent. That’s quite an accomplishment, considering that the average open rate for the industry is about 20 percent.

I’ll go into more details on how to leverage the power of your own in-house list through segmentation in future issues of Early to Rise. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about data mining and how to get the most out of your current customer database, I highly recommend an excellent book titled Strategic Database Marketing by Arthur Hughes.

[Note: This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.]

Leveraging The Customer Life Cycle

The following is an article I wrote while I was Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Early to Rise (a subsidiary of Agora Publishing). It was published in the popular Early to Rise daily eNewsletter.

The principals are so important, it's worth repeating ... and posting ... in its entirety on this, my own blog.

With the current economic environment – now more than ever – understanding your customer is crucial.

For those of you that haven't read it before, I hope you take something valuable away from it.

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The 5 Faces of Your Customer By Wendy Montes de Oca

One of the most profound business books I ever read was Permission Marketing by Seth Godin.
The ideas in the book were very innovative at the time. The Internet and e-mail marketing were still young, and, like the Wild Wild West, most marketers and business owners were still trying to “wrangle it in” and figure out how to leverage the Web’s possibilities… and, more important, turn those possibilities into profits.

In a nutshell, the book explained “how to turn strangers into friends and friends into customers.” The principle behind this is to first understand the difference between cold (or interruption) marketing – like those annoying phone calls you always seem to get during dinner asking you to subscribe to the local newspaper… and permission marketing – where the prospect is actually giving you permission to contact them by “opting in” to receive your messages.

To help you get the most out of your Internet marketing, I have expanded on Mr. Godin’s “stranger/friend/customer” concept and added two key components: multi-buyer and advocate. And I’ll show you how you can leverage each of these segments to help grow your business.

Leveraging Your Customers Throughout Their Life Cycle
You may think that a customer is someone who buys from you – period. But that’s a very limited view. From the instant you “meet” your customer… until he’s become a VIP buyer who’s spent hundreds or thousands of dollars with your company… you should be interacting with him in different ways. Treating him properly every step of the way will create a true win/win situation. Your customer will continue to enjoy satisfying experiences with your company, and your company will enjoy the positive effect this relationship will have on its bottom line.

Here are the five stages a customer can go through during his life cycle, and how you can make the most of each one…

Stage 1: Stranger
The stranger or “prospect” doesn’t know you. Your job is to get her attention. You have only a few seconds to get her to react – whether it’s by asking her to click on your ad or open your e-mail message. Which means that your copy for the ad headline or e-mail subject line is critical.
Once you’ve captured her attention, your #1 goal is to have this stranger “opt in” to receive your messages, giving you a chance to continue to bond with her. This is also the time to start to build trust. Show your creditability. And explain what you can do for her (fill a desire, answer a need).

Stage 2: Friend
The friend has demonstrated an interest in your initial promotion and has opted in to receive more information from you. This gives you an outstanding opportunity to introduce him to your philosophy, your company, and your mission, and to re-enforce how you can help him.
During this stage, it’s best to send a series of introduction e-mails (anywhere from 5 to 7) and withhold your new friends from your general mailing list. You don’t want them (the newest names on your list) to start receiving promotional messages BEFORE they receive some of your editorial messages.

We send six introductory e-mails to new Early to Rise subscribers. Each e-mail is a special issue of ETR that’s composed of articles that present our core philosophies. This gives our new subscribers a chance to “warm up” to our expert contributors, the format of our newsletter, and the topics we typically address. Only after they are warmed up do we start sending them ETR as usual – including our promotional e-mails.

Stage 3: Customer/Client
The customer (or client) is someone who has bought into your philosophy and purchased a product (or service) from you.

Many companies make the mistake of ending the customer relationship at this point. But after reading this article, you’ll know better… you’ll know that getting the customer is only the beginning. Keeping him is another story.

You don’t want to put all your eggs into one acquisition basket while having few or no retention efforts. Good retention strategies entail ongoing communication (both promotional and editorial), outstanding customer service, quality products, and fulfilling your promises. Of course there will always be things outside of your control (like losing customers to market conditions). But the idea is to be proactive and not reactive. Keep the “80/20 rule” in mind – which states that 80 percent of your sales come from 20 percent of your customers.

Stage 4: Multi-Buyer
The multi-buyer is a customer who is tied into your brand and demonstrates product loyalty with your company. Multi-buyers have purchased several products from you, and are not afraid to spend money. These folks are your best list to roll out new products to or test higher price points. If you are thinking about creating a “VIP” or “Lifetime” product, you’re going to want to advertise to this list. Multi-buyers will have a high lifetime value (LTV) for you, and will likely purchase cross-channel. In other words, they will buy from you no matter how you contact them – whether via banner ads, e-mail marketing, direct mail, or telemarketing.

Stage 5: Advocate
This segment of your customer database is your holy grail. Your list of advocates is made up of the most satisfied and loyal of your customers – and contains your best “unpaid” employees. Advocates will do your advertising for you by telling friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances about your products and services. And in today’s Net-based environment, advocates are a major force in getting your name in the blogsphere and social communities… and spreading your marketing message virally.

So how do you create advocates? Well, advocates are not created, they’re cultivated over time. The advocate must, of course, believe in your products and services. But for this special group, the customer experience goes deeper… to an emotional level. The advocate feels personally touched by your service, product, or guru. Because of you, her life is changed – and she’s busting at the seams to help others as she has been helped.

Your advocates are people you want testimonials from. People you can invite to be in BETA test or focus groups. And people to get feedback from to help develop future products. Even better, this group can help you make more money in the future. At ETR, some of our best JV (joint venture) partnerships have been with our advocates – people who understand our core values, respect our business, and have a company or product that’s synergistic to our own.

You want to treat these folks like the VIPs they are and invite them to special events or let them be the first to receive discounted offers. You may even consider creating affiliate marketing or referral programs to “formalize” this group’s verbal recommendations.

Always keep in mind that the effort does not stop at the sale. Since it costs more to obtain new leads than to retain existing customers – now, more than ever – you have to know how to optimize the five stages of the customer life cycle.

[Note: This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.]

Boost Your eCommerce Sales

The current economic environment has been hard on both brick and mortar & online sales. But there are a few simple, yet powerful, things you could do to boost online sales and gain loyal customers.

1. Make Sure Your SSL Seal is Prominent. SSL or secure socket layer is a sign that the site is encrypted…that the information consumers enter, such as personal and credit card information, is protected. Most eCommerce sites must file for an SSL certificate from vendors such as VeriSign, GoDaddy, eTrust, TRUSTe, and others. It’s a good practice to display the vendors logo on your order page, as well as make sure in the browser window the “https” or image of a lock is present. This is a clear and comforting sign to consumers that they can order on line with confidence.

2. Encourage Online Sales vs. Other Order Mechanisms. Offer special “Internet Only Pricing” to customers. It could be a discount of 5-10%. This reduces any potential overhead costs for staffing fees such as telesales or order entry personnel.

3. Offer Free Shipping. Many eTailers already factor shipping into their published price, so when there’s a big, flashing banner next to the item saying “free shipping” it gives consumers that extra little push to move forward with the transaction. It boils down to basic psychology. Everyone likes to feel like they’re getting something for free.

4. Use Buyer Feedback To Your Advantage. Have an area on your website or next to select items that says “Customer Favorite” or “Hot Item”. Also, have some glowing customer testimonials next to the product for potential prospect to see. Consumers like to feel good about the item they are about to purchase. To see a great testimonial and knowing that others purchased the product is a validation and comforting feeling. In addition to helping the conversion, this tactic also helps reduce buyer’s remorse and product returns.

5. Advertise Products in Froogle. Froogle is a free product information platform from Google where you can post a single item or submit a data feed. Your products will appear in Google Product search and may also appear in Google.com search results, depending on keywords used.

6. Make Sure Your Product Pages are Optimized for Search Engines. After doing some keyword research on actual search behavior for your product, refine your meta description, meta keywords and title tag of your product pages. This will help consumers find your product in the organic listing of search engine results.

7. Have a Special Coupon Code Banner on Your Home Page. This is a best practice with online fashion retailers. There’s typically a banner ad on their home page stating something like, “Summer Blow Out Sale, Use Coupon Code 1234”. This is another great way to offer a special discount for your online customers that makes them feel good about the purchase. You can also encourage viral activity by having a “forward to friend” text link that opens a MSOutlook email window with the coupon or coupon code. Make sure to have some great intro copy mentioning how customers should “pass on the great savings to friends, family, and colleagues.”

8. Consider Payment Plans. For your higher ticket items, consider setting up extended payment plans that allows customers to pay for an item over a few payments. If an item is let’s say, $200, you might want to offer a flex pay of “6 easy payments of $33.33” that is conveniently auto-billed to their credit card. Just be diligent when calculating your payment prices as well as creating your return/refund policy for these items. The general rule is that your actual production costs/hard costs should be covered in the first 1-3 payments.

Remember to keep testing methods that help improve sales and drive prospects to your storefront. Make note of when you implement new tactics, such as the above, and then after a month of being live, compare sales results year-over-year to see if you found the sweet spot in your eCommerce efforts. I’m confident that you will see an improvement in online sales.

Marketing and Business Solutions During Tough Times

It’s not surprising that marketing and business growth right now is challenging.

The current economic environment is making it harder and harder to find qualified prospects as well as getting established customers to continue their purchase patterns.

This has been the subject of many blogs, Tweets and articles posted to sites like LinkedIn (which is a professional social networking community).

After posing the question myself to some of the top marketers in the industry, here were some ways they are staying afloat at a time when others are drowning…

• Partner Power. Whether it’s through targeted joint ventures, reciprocal ad swaps, guest editorials in like-minded publications, revenue share opportunities OR affiliate marketing efforts -- there’s no better time than the present to reach out and seek out synergistic partners for sales or prospecting efforts. These efforts cost virtually nothing and could bring in a stream of new sales and leads. As I mentioned before on this blog, relationship building and cultivation is always a critical part of your business development/marketing efforts, so make sure you’re spending at least 10-25% of your time doing this.
  
• Database Marketing. This is another tactic I’ve written about before. Data-mining your current customer list into different "buckets" or segments such as VIPs, multi-buyers, hot prospects, new to files, actives, cancels, expires, inactives, etc. and then crafting special messages to each of those groups to either -- encourage purchase activity or re-engage communications through special offers -- is a great way to leverage your database. Find out who your top buyers are (remember the old 80/20 rule?) and then build a strategic marketing plan to contact this list several times a month with special offers, new events, referral programs, and other compelling offers.
  
• Referral Incentives. Speaking of referring a friend, family or colleague … some marketers are offering gift cards to their top customers (of $20 each for group of 25) for every qualified lead they refer to the company on a quarterly basis. On average, each person referred at least 2 people during first 90 days, which equates to about a $20/CPL…a very reasonable cost per lead.
  
• Optimizing Search and Social Marketing. Another tactic that should always be incorporated into your marketing plan is SEO and SMO. However, nowadays, marketers are refining and testing to get the most out of their website’s conversions. They are making sure their website and monetization process is clear and strategic. And since leads obtained from SMO and SEO involve little to no cost to acquire (not including the time of the marketer), reevaluating your website’s overall message, content, navigation, layout, lead gen tools, products, tags and similar will really offer a huge bang for the buck.

What are YOU doing to help grow business during these tough times?

I’d love to hear all about it! Let me know in the comment section of this post.

“Best of the Web” Recognizes MuscleMarketing.Blogspot.com as a Top Internet Marketing Blog

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: Precision Marketing and Mediamedia@precisionmarketingmedia.com
http://www.precisionmarketingmedia.com/

"Best of the Web" Recognizes MuscleMarketing.Blogspot.com as a Top Internet Marketing Blog

West Palm Beach, FL – July 20, 2009 – MuscleMarketing.Blogspot.com was recognized by prestigious industry directory, Best of the Web, as one of the top "…Business/Marketing and Advertising/Internet Marketing…" blogs in the blogsphere.

Created by Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA, who is also President and Founder of Precision Marketing and Media, LLC, Muscle Marketing is the ultimate Internet marketing blog featuring tips to grow your business regarding all things marketing.

According to Montes de Oca, "Muscle Marketing offers real-world strategies for optimizing and monetizing online marketing efforts including email marketing, search engine marketing, pay-per-click, social media, list building, content syndication, press releases, media buying, affiliate marketing and more." She added, "Because I have such a diverse background with expertise in direct response marketing as well as business development, product development, and customer retention/communications, I stray from online marketing articles every now and then and write about virtually anything that will help grow AND retain customers."

When asked what makes her blog stand out from the pack, Montes de Oca added, "I write about business solutions that are proven, powerful and cost effective. Nowadays everyone … from Fortune 500 companies, to local proprietors, to online publishers … are looking to make more money, get more leads and grow their business for less. And that’s what I offer: More than 15 years of marketing insight for free."

Montes de Oca concluded, "I’m thrilled that my blog, Muscle Marketing, has been recognized by Best of the Web and look forward to posting more articles and helping business owners bring their companies to the next level."

For more information or to give your marketing a little muscle, please visit http://musclemarketing.blogspot.com/ or http://www.precisionmarketingmedia.com/blogsandmore.html.

About Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA
Ms. Montes de Oca’s diversified background includes over 15 years of experience in marketing, media, publishing, financial services, and law. She has a proven track record with both acquisition and retention efforts as well as has editorial and copywriting experience. Her background includes multi-channel marketing with expertise in direct response marketing for the Web. She is currently President of Precision Marketing and Media, LLC and prior to that she was Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Agora Publishing/Early to Rise. Her marketing articles have appeared in popular eNewsletters such as Early to Rise and The Total Package as well as on various blogs. She is a distinguished speaker at prominent marketing conferences such as the Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA). Throughout her career, she has been recognized with various industry awards for quality, innovation, teamwork, and new product/new business development.

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Hot Marketing Ideas To Help Grow Your Business On A Shoestring Budget

Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company, local proprietor, or online publisher everyone is looking to make more money, get more leads and grow their business … for less.

Below are some ideas to help you do just that.

• Online press releases could be a powerful tool that’s often overlooked. There are many free online press distribution services, like PRLog.org, that can help get your message on the web and picked up by media sources, online news aggregators and bloggers. If you have a relevant, useful, newsworthy message…turn it into a press release. In addition to driving traffic to your site, the link you embed into the online release will help you with SEO link-building efforts.
• Classified ads and internet bulletin boards are not just for selling items any more. They are a powerful way to create buzz, initiate backlinks and drive traffic to your site. Many sites like Craig’s List, which is a "Top 50" site that reaches over 40 million people, offers free postings and many categories to suit your message. Crafting the right ad for your objective just takes some creative thinking. I’ve used this platform successfully for many lead generation efforts.
• Leveraging local or regional newspapers with an editorial piece or captivating print ad is also a great trick I’ve used with fantastic results. You simply search online for list of newspapers by city or state, then narrow down your list by newspaper circulation. If you don’t have the budget for advertising you can offer the newspaper valuable content with your name and contact information mentioned in your byline or editorial note. Surprisingly, there are many regional newspapers that sell advertising space dirt-cheap. Years ago, I was targeting high net worth individuals. I researched the richest counties in America, and then those respective newspapers and publications within those counties. Aspen, Colorado was one area where a print ad cost me roughly $500. That ad generated several sales (I only needed 1 lead to breakeven) and produced an ROI of more than 1000%.
• Partnering with synergistic companies is often a tactic that doesn’t get as much priority as it should. In my opinion, at least 25% of a marketing professional’s role should be business development and relationship cultivation (including affiliate marketing). Reaching out to "friendly competitors" opens the door to a plethora of possibilities including revenue share deals, joint venture agreements, guest editorials, and reciprocal ad swaps (in ezines). These efforts cost virtually nothing and help with both your sales and lead generation efforts.
• Advertising on blogs and ad networks with either banners or text ads is another great way to target a particular prospect (by either channel or genre) and costs a reasonable fee. There are many high traffic blogs for almost any niche out there and some rates are under $1/CPM. With this, research and strategic targeting as well as relevant, powerful creative copy is essential. I’ve been advertising on select blogs for many years with great results.
• My SONAR Content Distribution Model TM is another cost effective, yet powerful, way of repurposing and synchronizing content (albeit text, audio, video) distribution into various, targeted channels. And it allows companies, publishers, entrepreneurs … basically anyone with content on their website … the ability to ultimately turn traffic into sales. For more information, check out http://www.precisionmarketingmedia.com/sonar.html.
• Pay Per Click can be a viable way to bring in leads and sales. Although in my experience, it’s hard to get a conversion with a "cold lead" that is over $99. The "sweet spot" seems to be products between $19.99 - $59.99. This is ideal for lead generation efforts of low cost info-publishing products, like paid eBooks. And you don’t need to break the bank either. With a robust keyword selection and bid management tool as well as engaging text ad and landing page copy, you could bring in several thousand names per month and spend less than $2,000 (which is about a $1/CPL). Note: for saturated markets (such as real estate related terms), certain keywords may cost a little more to get exposure.

There’s many more ways to market your business effectively … and "cost" effectively.
It’s just a matter of being a creative marketer.

If you’re interested in a marketing plan tailored to your specific needs, contact me and I’ll be happy to provide a proposal.

The Four Pillars to Online Success

A friend and colleague forwarded an article from a fellow online marketer stating, "…Mega success on the Internet is all about copy alone. Unquestionably, it's also helpful to know about other things like search engine optimization, squeeze pages, twittering, teleseminars, order forms, testimonials, seminars etc. But without powerful copy to fuel the marketing engine you will not even be able to make a living online. Let alone become wealthy."

I agree…well, sort of.

I don’t think to be a success online an entrepreneur needs just copy alone, per se. Before good copy is developed, you need a few other things, which I’ll go into in a moment.

First, I’d like to clarify the difference between content and copy. Content is editorial…beneficial, value-oriented information that helps a consumer in some way, shape or form without a blatant sales pitch. Copy is creative writing…a promotion that is trying to get the consumer to take action (whether it’s to buy a product or give an email address). Great copy is engaging; tells a story; plays on emotion (i.e. greed, fear, vanity) and evokes response.

In my view, great copy undoubtedly will help seal the deal, but before you even start the "deal" you need:
1)a big idea
2)valuable content
3)strong copy
4)powerful multi-channel marketing

You see, there needs to be a foundation to any business model. And for online marketing, there first needs to be a big idea. The aforementioned may seem simplistic, or even outdated...but they truly are the staples to business growth (online and off).

You need to determine what is your idea’s "unique selling proposition" (USP)? What makes it unique from its competitors? Is there currently market demand for it? Is it solving a problem for the consumer in some way?

Once you have content, you can repurpose it into a variety of products for a variety of objectives, such as:
-For SEO (articles, back links)
-For PR (buzz, website traffic)
-For sales and leads (i.e. free whitepapers for lead generation, paid ebooks, DVDs, CDs, member websites, paid newsletters, instructional binders, webinars, teleseminars, conferences)
-and more!

To me, those are the four pillars to online success.

Could you make a go starting an online business without one of the four? Sure, but you wouldn’t be running on all cylinders, and quite frankly, you would leaving money on the table.

In my opinion, anything worthwhile should be worth doing right.

SEO and Content Syndication: Debunking The Duplicate Content Myth

Oftentimes, real-life experiences with my clients influence my blog posts.

For instance, recently a consulting client of mine asked me if I agreed with a colleague of his about Google disliking duplicate content and to reduce or refrain the amount of content he syndicates (distributes) on the Web.

I think there’s a huge misunderstanding out there about how to distribute your content without hurting your website in the eyes of search engines.

If you publish content, you should have the first, original content on your website. No doubt. However, you can "repurpose" it and strategically distribute it on the Web, and this will not hurt your search engine/Google SEO efforts.

This is something I refer to in my SONAR Content Distribution Model TM and has helped my clients’ quantifiably increase traffic rank, traffic visits, leads and sales.

SONAR is a cost effective, yet powerful, method of repurposing and synchronizing content (albeit text, audio, video) distribution into various, targeted channels. And it allows companies, publishers, entrepreneurs … basically anyone with content on their website … the ability to ultimately turn traffic into sales.

SONAR represents the following online distribution platforms:
S Syndicate partners, content syndication networks, and user generate content sites
O Online press releases
N Network (social) communities
A Article directories
R Relevant posts to blogs, forums, and bulletin boards

SONAR Case study: My synchronized content distribution technique helped increase traffic ranking and visits to a alternative health website by 3,160% and 81.5% respectively in only three months. And in four months, traffic visits increased to an investment website by nearly 80% as well as an increase its traffic ranking by nearly 150 percent. Plus, the traffic to this investment site was monetized for an ROI of 221%.

So not only was the website’s SEO/SEM efforts NOT hut by content syndication, it actually improved exponentially with rank, visits and sales.

The key is to repurpose the content. To tweek an original article on your website with minor changes (for example to headline, intro paragraph, closing, etc.) and then syndicate on other different websites.

Google tries to look for the best version…where the content originated...the first, primary source (usually your website) and typically that site that gets the "search engine credit" so to speak via the higher ranking in the organic results listing.

In Google's view, duplicate content is more hurtful for a site if it's posted in more then one place on that SAME DOMAIN (not via syndication on other websites such as through online press releases, article directories, etc.) .

For example, if you may have two pages on your site with virtually the same content, in most cases, Google notices this and ignores one of those webpages. You will not get both of those listings in the search engine organic results…just one of them.

Keep in mind, Google will decide your pages are duplicate if ONLY your (page titles and meta descriptions) are the same. So make sure each webpage on your site has unique, relevant tags with targeted keywords.

Now if you’re concerned about webpages on your website and it’s text "printer friendly version" hurting your website’s SEO… simply block the search engines from spidering the print friendly version.

When you think about it...syndicating content is the SEO model of social sites (like Digg, Drop Jack, StumpleUpon, etc.) and article directories.

So make sure you understand the power of your content and how to syndicate it the right way before you hit the breaks on any SEO/SEM efforts ...

...Because that’s what will actually hurt your site … doing nothing and not leveraging your content.

Fulfillment Power: Using collateral for sales

It never ceases to amaze me just how many businesses forget to leverage their fulfillment package, whether it’s print or electronic, to help bond with customers and gain continued sales.

Here’s my viewpoint:

I’ve just ordered a widget. I can’t wait for it to come. I’m soooo excited. Finally, that nice brown box comes in the mail and anticipation builds up. I open the box and see…

…a packing slip and my widget.

Just like Debbie Downer on Saturday Night Live…"whaa, whaa, whaaaaa."

Wow, talk about letting the air out of my excitment balloon.

Now, what I would have liked to see and actually expected to see (maybe it’s because of my direct marketing background) would have been a nice, warm and fuzzy "thank you" or "welcome letter." Something from someone of importance…the CEO, the Director of Client Services, whomever. And a simple, personable note letting me know they appreciate my purchase and my continued business.

What’s also nice is getting a special new customer appreciation offer, such as a special discount or coupon certificate or code to use online. I’d also like if the widget company threw in a catalog of all their widgets. Since I’ve ordered one, I may need to order again and they’d be right there to help me out.

Doesn’t that just make good business sense?

Here are some simple ideas, when applicable, for print and electronic fulfillment that helps encourage sales and customer lifetime value:

1. Personal Welcome or Thank You letter
2. Catalog (whether it’s for newsletters, products, or services. It could highlight all products OR current top sellers).
3. Cross-marketing flyer (a flyer highlighting a current hot product OR a natural, synergistic up-sell from the product ordered).
4. Coupon or special discount offer (or if electronic, coupon/promo code for online ordering).
5. Free sample (Women may remember Avon used to include tiny little lipsticks or perfume with their order. This approach is similar, could be a small, economy/sample size product OR bonus report or download access. Customers love, love, love freebies!).
6. Renewal (in publishing, this is called "renewal at birth". If you’re selling a subscription service, include a renewal order form with your first issue).
7. Friends and family savings (another coupon for customer to pass on to friends or family. This encourages viral/word of mouth marketing).
8. Packing slip with product return label/instructions

As most marketers know, the first 0-30 days is when a client is red hot. Don’t leave them cold. Leverage this time frame with your correspondence and turn your fulfillment pieces into another way to monetize sales and relationship build with your customers.

Tweeting for Leads: Building your Twitter Presence

Unless you’ve been in a cave the last year or so, you’ve likely heard of Twitter.

Twitter, or "Tweeting", is a way to connect with like-minded people by broadcasting short, headline oriented messages into the Twittospher. Then, those interested in what you have to say and want to hear more will "follow" you.

Twitter is a great outlet for information as well as a way to promote your business, newsletter or blog and build your prospect database. Many companies, publishers, entrepreneurs and others have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon to leverage this hot social networking outlet. But unless you’re a celebrity or someone that already has universal name recognition … and groupies … getting individuals to opt in and "follow" your messages could be challenging.

So here are some tips to start building your presence on Twitter:

1. Promote the heck out of your Twitter URL (http://twitter.com/youraccountname). Remember, at this point, if you don’t have a notable name and a built-in audience the goal is to drive targeted traffic to your Twitter home page so people can follow you. Remember to include your Twitter link in your emails (as an autosignature). Cross-market it in your newsletters and other correspondence. Mention it in your bio, bylines or editorial notes (whether you’re a public speaker, on your PowerPoint slides, in press releases, article directory postings – virtually any place your name is). Link to it on other social networking sites from your Linked In, Facebook, and MySpace accounts. Add it at the closing in all your business proposals. Have it printed on your business cards. And of course, have it some where prominent on your website or blog. The mention is simple, "Follow me on http://twitter.com/youraccountname."
   
2. Make sure you have a keyword rich and relevant Twitter bio so the right people can read about you and follow you. Text is limited, so pick your descriptive keywords carefully.
   
3. As far as content, keep your Tweets frequent, useful, relevant and entertaining. Don’t just spam messages. It’s transparent and will have a negative effect. Make people want to hear from you. Your headlines should be engaging and provoking, linking to the full article on your website or blog.
   
4. Follow the right people yourself. Many Tweeters have the mentality, you follow me, I’ll follow you … it’s reciprocated. So as you’re following other like minded individuals to expand your interest and knowledge base, they’ll typically return the favor and follow you, thereby helping you build your presence.

You'll see, with a combination of the above and a little time, you'll build your Twitter following. My clients have been implementing these tips and are enjoying steady growth on Twitter.

Oh, and by the way, I too just started Tweeting...you can follow me at http://twitter.com/PrecisionMktg !

Happy Tweeting!

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.