The next most important factor is DO NOT write content to sell your services or goods. What do we mean by this? In this day and age small companies are using the internet as a key part of building their customer base, keeping in contact with their clients and also using it as a means of advertising.

Having a website is essential today, however it is what you do with it which will determine if having it in the first place was money well spent or money down the drain! This is why online marketing is essential.

The common mistake is that people think as soon as a website is designed, like magic hundreds of customers are going to start flocking to take advantage of the services and products on offer. If this is you and you are about to have your website designed, it won’t happen, you need to give the development of your ... continue reading article.]]> With all content ensure before you start you identify exactly who you are aiming at. The reality is that we are all aiming at someone to take advantage of what we are offering however what is that persons profile? i.e. what makes them tick? who is your target audience?

The next most important factor is DO NOT write content to sell your services or goods. What do we mean by this?
In this day and age small companies are using the internet as a key part of building their customer base, keeping in contact with their clients and also using it as a means of advertising.

Having a website is essential today, however it is what you do with it which will determine if having it in the first place was money well spent or money down the drain! This is why online marketing is essential.

The common mistake is that people think as soon as a website is designed, like magic hundreds of customers are going to start flocking to take advantage of the services and products on offer. If this is you and you are about to have your website designed, it won’t happen, you need to give the development of your website much more thought!

95% of websites don’t actually achieve anything. Why? Because they were never designed with the objectives of the business in mind from the start…

Too many websites are designed with the sole purpose of selling products or services.

If you want to benefit from the rewards the power of the internet brings you need to turn your website into a lead generation tool and don’t try and sell from it.

Once you do this your profits will go through the roof!

What am I getting at?

Think about the last time you searched online, how many websites did you visit before you actually found the info you wanted? 10, 20 or even 30. Meaning that all the websites you visited that you didn’t interact with might as well not have been there in the first place! This type of behaviour is common for every type of internet user, meaning every day millions of sites are being visited but 95% of them might as well be redundant.

That is what you need to stop! You need to get this 95% of internet users to interact with your website when they visit it. You have to give them a reason for staying on your website and ensuring they give you their data so you can use it to market your products and services to.

Imagine if you collected data of 5% of the users of your website, this would mean you would be generating leads to market to at a later date!

Look at your website as a lead generation tool, nothing more. Write the copy of your website with this objective in mind.

This is why having a website isn’t about selecting the right web developer or technical genius it is about selecting the right online marketeer who can explain this to you. Someone who can give you tips on how your website copy should read, how to generate leads and how to use that data to maximise your profits.

Online Marketing and web development are two totally different things, one will cost you money, one will make you money!
So how are we going to ensure your audience stays on our website, reads your articles and emails?

The answer is information. Free information! If you can provide your readers with information about what you are offering they will interact with you. We all like to find out more about interesting topics, therefore if a user is searching online for a certain topic that you offer if you have written an article about it they are likely to read about what you are saying.

As they read your article they are likely to click on the anchor text links you have added to find out more which means that you actually start to generate visitors visiting your website, interested in exactly what you do.

If you can get a visitor to your website through writing interesting articles you are half way there, however what you need to do is when you get them to your website is actually offer them something else for FREE i.e. an E Book with more information about what they have been reading about? Why?

The answer is very simple, because as soon as they complete that contact form for further information you have got exactly what you need to turn your website traffic into sales! You have their data! Once you have their email address you can then continue to send Free information about who you are and what you do then suddenly one day that user actually needs what you are offering and who are they going to contact?

At this point they are going to contact you. You have provided them with various free information, from the initial article, to the Free E Book, to the follow up emails until suddenly they actually need what you are offering!

What has happened here…. When a customer walks into a shop on the high street it is because they more than likely need something from that shop, however when we search online we have so much more choice, meaning many times a user searchers online they don’t actually interact with any websites. However if you can actually capture the data of your users and then market to them regularly through email marketing campaigns, when they actually come back to searching online they are more likely just to go straight to your site as you have continually reminded them you are there!

Your website is their for one purpose to collect data and provide free information! Do not forget that. Once you have that data you can use it and then try and sell your products and services. If you think your website will do that for you, you will be very disappointed.

As more traffic is driven to your site, you can entice many of them to subscribe to your mailing list or opt-in list. This is a list where in website visitors agree to be sent promotional materials such as newsletters, catalogs and such that could keep them updated about your site or the niche of your site. These promotional materials are sent via e-mail to the members of the list in different time intervals.

When using e-mail as the media of your marketing and advertisements, you eliminate the need for high costs. Email is free and if you can manage to make your own promotional advertisements you can also save a bundle there. With an opt-in subscribers list, you are pretty sure that what you are sending out is received, viewed and read by the subscribers and not simply being deleted. ... continue reading article.]]> Every online business provides great service to generate satisfaction among their customers. As each and every customer receives satisfaction over their products or the services they get, there is a great chance that they will become a return customer and buy again. Better yet, they will recommend you to other people that could generate more business for you and your site.

As more traffic is driven to your site, you can entice many of them to subscribe to your mailing list or opt-in list. This is a list where in website visitors agree to be sent promotional materials such as newsletters, catalogs and such that could keep them updated about your site or the niche of your site. These promotional materials are sent via e-mail to the members of the list in different time intervals.

When using e-mail as the media of your marketing and advertisements, you eliminate the need for high costs. Email is free and if you can manage to make your own promotional advertisements you can also save a bundle there. With an opt-in subscribers list, you are pretty sure that what you are sending out is received, viewed and read by the subscribers and not simply being deleted. They have signed up for service and have consented in receiving it.

This means that there are constant reminders to your subscribers about all your products, new products and services as well as any promotions and special deals you are having. There is also the chance that they can be forwarded to other potential customers as they tell their friends and families about you and your site.

Of course you should be also aware that a subscriber may unsubscribe when they feel that they are not getting what they want or expected. Make sure that they are satisfied with your opt-in marketing strategies and keep them excited in receiving your newsletters and catalogs. Here are some tips that can help you build a list of eager subscribers.

Make your promotional materials interesting and fun. Try to use a little creativity but not too over artsy. Build around what your product or service is about. For example; if you are selling car parts, put some pictures of what is new in the auto parts world, a new wing door possibly that can fit any car and make it look like a Lamborghini.

Try to research what people are looking for, these way, you stay one step ahead of them all the time and you will be their bearer of new tidings. They will be eager to receive what you are sending them because they new you always have fresh and new things to share with them.

Write good articles that can be very informational but light at the same time. If your subscribers enjoy your articles, they will go to your site by clicking the links that you will be putting on your newsletter to read some more. You can provide articles that can connect to many people. Be diverse in your articles. Put something humorous, then put something informational, then put something that has both.

Are you wary about this because you don’t like writing? No problem, there are many professional and experienced article writers that   can do the job for you for minimal fees. They know what they are doing and can provide the need that you have for your newsletters, the money that you pay for your articles are going to be met by the many sign-ups and the potential profit from the sales that you will get.

Create and send an E-book to your customers about anything that is related to your business or site. Use your knowledge and expertise in the field you have chosen to help other people who are similarly interested. Offer this e-book for free. You can write about anything informational and helpful to your subscribers. For example; you can do manuals and guides in so many things. This e-book could be used as a reference for many people.

Share this e-book with everyone, even other sites; just make sure that they donít change the links in the e-book that will lead people to your site. If you want, you can always get some people to write it for you just like your articles. Your investment once again will be covered by the great marketing this will generate.

Add e-coupons in your newsletters that will help them avail to special discounts. Put a control number in your e-coupon so that they can only be used once. When people get discounts that can be found in your newsletters, they will be eager to receive your newsletter in anticipation of what you are promoting next.

If your subscribers can get benefits from your newsletters, they will be very eager to receive them.

It was hardly surprising to hear that in 2010 email marketing would be the top area of investment amongst business executives. StrongMail’s Marketing Trends in 2010 Survey found that 69% of businesses are planning to increase their email marketing budgets, with the second area of investment being social media marketing (59%).

The true benefit of email marketing – it can be used across any business types. You don’t have to be a large business with a huge marketing budget to use it. Email marketing can be relatively inexpensive in comparison to the revenue it can generate. It is also a known fact that email marketing is up to 20 times more cost effective than direct mail where there are postage and material costs.

In my business, we spend about £3000 a month on email marketing and for that spend regularly generate in excess of £70,000 a month from this type of marketing. You have to try it, if you haven’t you are missing out on the most lucrative forms of marketing. Read here for further information on email marketing ... continue reading article.]]> Increase sales, product/ service launch, drive brand loyalty, brand engagement, brand awareness.. whatever your objective – email marketing can help.

It was hardly surprising to hear that in 2010 email marketing would be the top area of investment amongst business executives. StrongMail’s Marketing Trends in 2010 Survey found that 69% of businesses are planning to increase their email marketing budgets, with the second area of investment being social media marketing (59%).

The true benefit of email marketing – it can be used across any business types. You don’t have to be a large business with a huge marketing budget to use it. Email marketing can be relatively inexpensive in comparison to the revenue it can generate. It is also a known fact that email marketing is up to 20 times more cost effective than direct mail where there are postage and material costs.

In my business, we spend about £3000 a month on email marketing and for that spend regularly generate in excess of £70,000 a month from this type of marketing. You have to try it, if you haven’t you are missing out on the most lucrative forms of marketing. Read here for further information on email marketing

Not only is email marketing relatively inexpensive but it is easy too. Think of all the different customer touch points – registration forms, phone calls, face to face meetings – these are all opportunities to collect customer data. By building an in-house list you can email existing customers with new offers and incentivise repeat purchases through driving brand loyalty.

Email marketing can reap potential benefits with the majority of response being received in the first two days. It can also be used to target an audience of interest. For example, you might choose to send emails to only individuals that have children when promoting school wear.

Email marketing campaigns are also being integrated with other forms of advertising.

Its all about being creative:

• You can use emails to drive traffic to your website by offering down-loadable coupons, research reports, competition entries or even advertising opportunities.

• Or you could use emails to create greater brand awareness through sending e-newsletters.

• And did you know…. emails have entered the Web 2.0 world? Yes that’s right StrongMail also found that 69% of businesses plan to integrate email with social media in 2010.

Want people to engage with you? An effective method of getting your existing and news customers to engage with you is by incentivising them through email to join you on facebook, twitter and the like. Remember – offer them something but make it relevant to your target market. Individual consumers love offers whilst business customers may be keen to hear about the industries latest news…

In short, email marketing brings immediate gains, it is cost effective, targeted and easy to do for any organisation and can be used for a wide span of business objectives.

A few of my best practice tips:

• Be creative – nobody wants to read a boring email. Make the first 2-3 lines really punchy and try to ensure that your email has a theme. Maybe a seasonal theme – Christmas for example!

• Make sure it is relevant to your target audience – you should only be promoting goods/services that are suitable for the group that you want to engage with and it is imperative that you do your research first. For example, is it just the younger generation that are interested in the latest mobile phones or are the Generation Xers catching on – you wouldn’t want to miss anyone out!

• Get permission – use only emails that have opted in to receive such communication or if it is a first time target – give them a choice to opt-out. (You could even ask them why?)

• DO NOT create spammy emails – there is no point in creating a great email if it will get deleted as soon as it is sent (like the viagra ones I keep getting to my work account..kudos for their determination though). You can check if your content is spammy here at: http://www.lyris.com/resources/email-marketing/contentchecker/

There are a variety of different ways that you can use email campaigns within your marketing framework. A few key questions to ask yourself (in order of importance) are:

1. Who am I targeting?

2. What is the objective?

3. What is the method? – through an in-house or external list?

4. What is the cost? (work out the revenue you could generate from the distribution statistics)

5. How will I be creative? Will it integrate with another marketing platform like Twitter?

6. How will I measure the campaigns success – remember open rates and click through are not the be all and end all. How much revenue was generated? Did traffic to the website increase (use google analytics for this!)

No one campaign is the same – you have to tailor it to your company, audience, offer and objectives. Start by asking yourself these very important questions and remember creativity is key!

I do offer a whole variety of other information on how to do email marketing as well as work with SME’s in constructing and implementing their campaigns. If you would like more information please contact me by posting a reply below.

All the best Simon Rickett

They all went on to say, we are unlikely to be kept up to date of all their latest services, not receive invoices on time (well that’s not the end of the world from my point of view – but it most certainly is from the businesses in question), correspondence will be delayed, etc, etc.

How do this look to me as a customer that this has happened? Yes it can be put down to the postal strike and for me the issues are not that great!

However imagine if you are a business that prints out its literature. Or you had an important deal to sort that could be worth £1000’s for your business and all this is interrupted because of a postal strike!

Look at this from the customers shoes, if they don’t get the service or goods they want, then you are running the risk of losing business!

We live in an age, where this can be avoided. Most businesses use emails to communicate with their contacts, rather ... continue reading article.]]> It amazes me that yesterday I received 3 letters from companies we use, apologising that their services will be interrupted over the next week or so due to the postal strike

They all went on to say, we are unlikely to be kept up to date of all their latest services, not receive invoices on time (well that’s not the end of the world from my point of view – but it most certainly is from the businesses in question), correspondence will be delayed, etc, etc.

How do this look to me as a customer that this has happened? Yes it can be put down to the postal strike and for me the issues are not that great!

However imagine if you are a business that prints out its literature. Or you had an important deal to sort that could be worth £1000’s for your business and all this is interrupted because of a postal strike!

Look at this from the customers shoes, if they don’t get the service or goods they want, then you are running the risk of losing business!

We live in an age, where this can be avoided. Most businesses use emails to communicate with their contacts, rather than using the phone.

However no where near enough are using emails to send out marketing material and to issue invoices.

To me the two most important parts of a business are:

1 – Getting the interest in the first place

2 – Collecting payment when a client proceeds

Therefore why is not every business using emails to its full advantage?

Here is a great example that explains this further…

Christmas is round the corner and already we are seeing Restaurants / Pubs with ‘Book Now for Christmas’ signs, posters, leaflets all over the place.

Yes they look nice, however they are all very costly! Think about this for a second, who is likely to book with a Restaurant or Pub for Christmas dinner?

A – someone who has never used the place before?

B – a regular customer?

The likelihood is it is going to be a ,B, a regularly customer, that has already experienced how fantastic the food and atmosphere is.

- Why not ask for an email address when a booking is made?
- Why not run competitions to collect email addresses?

Then when September / October comes around you are not spending £1000’s on marketing material, all you do is construct an email and send it out to your customers telling them how great Christmas lunch is going to be.

This applies to all businesses who are sat there scratching their heads wondering, how they are going to cope with a postal strike as their whole business relies on letters, sending out flyers and leaflets.

Remember all printed material costs. This cost can be avoided, by moving your business online and using email marketing.

Don’t let the next postal strike affect your business!

I had about £800 at my disposal, so I had to decide what was the best way to spend this limited budget.

£800 is all I had if I didn’t spend it wisely and generate a sale, then this great new product I had wouldn’t get anywhere until i had saved up another £800, which at the time would have taken ages! Sound familiar?

After a few hours of deliberation, I decided the risk was too high to spend £800. The amount of calls I had received from advertising companies, lead generation companies, newspapers, magazines etc, etc, all promising me the world…

“Spend your money with us Mr Rickett, we fully understand your product and I totally see how it will be accepted”

“Our database is fantastic, if you didn’t get results, I would be astonished”

“This is exactly what our readers are looking for”

Every call was the same old patter! All they were after is my money, they don’t really care if I get ... continue reading article.]]> I remember sitting down one night a few years ago, racking my brain how I was going to market this great new product I had got my hands on. In fact it was the first product I ever really marketed.

I had about £800 at my disposal, so I had to decide what was the best way to spend this limited budget.

£800 is all I had if I didn’t spend it wisely and generate a sale, then this great new product I had wouldn’t get anywhere until i had saved up another £800, which at the time would have taken ages! Sound familiar?

After a few hours of deliberation, I decided the risk was too high to spend £800. The amount of calls I had received from advertising companies, lead generation companies, newspapers, magazines etc, etc, all promising me the world…

“Spend your money with us Mr Rickett, we fully understand your product and I totally see how it will be accepted”

“Our database is fantastic, if you didn’t get results, I would be astonished”

“This is exactly what our readers are looking for”

Every call was the same old patter! All they were after is my money, they don’t really care if I get the response I need, they just want to achieve their sales target. Don’t get me wrong their are some great marketing companies out there who will really work with you to achieve your objectives, but you really need to spend some time shopping round before jumping into bed with the first chirpy sales man who calls from the local paper!

After taking all this into consideration,and deciding I to keep my £800 firmly in my back pocket . I set out putting some time and effort in, so that they only risk to me was hard work and not financial.

What I decided to do was collect email addresses of people who were likely to want my product. Yes it took me a few days, but I managed to get my hands on at least 2000 personal email addresses of potential customers and all it had cost was my time!

This was great as what I actually done, was identify fully who were the people who were likely to be interested in what i was offering, collected their email address, so I could send them an email directly advertising exactly what I was offering. Email marketing is very targeted, what other marketing can you cherry pick the people you want to know about what your are offering?

Over the years I have learned a whole range of things, how best to increase your results from email marketing campaigns, text v visual campaigns, how long to word the email, how many click through links do you need in the email, does group emails work or do they need to be personalized?These are all things I will be discussing going forwards, however if there is one bit of advice I can give is go and collect email addresses.

You can find them on the internet, run competitions, be creative, if you can collect the email address of your potential customers, it will make your life so much easier and most importantly reduce your marketing spend by thousands!

Going back to this first product I marketed these 2000 email addresses collected resulted is £20,000 turnover. Admittedly the product I was selling was high value around the £3000 mark, however I would never have achieved these results if I had spent my £800 with the companies mentioned above! Why? Because non of it was so direct and targeted my profile of customer as well as sending emails.

The beauty of email marketing is that it gives you greater control. You can analyze exactly what happens through a campaign, it doesn’t take long to set up, you can send campaigns more than once and it is FREE once you have collected the data!

Get out there, and start collecting email addresses. Every email address you collect is a potential customer, please note though you want personal email addresses, non of that info@ rubbish. Over the next couple of weeks I will be going into detail on exactly what to do when you have the data, till then get collecting! It will save you £1000’s.

Kind Regards

Simon Rickett