"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence." -Helen Keller
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Improve Your Online Small Business Profits
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Ask any Internet guru and they'll tell you successful online
marketing requires testing and tracking. And then for
continued success you must do ongoing testing and
tracking. But if you have a limited budget, as most of us
do, testing and tracking every aspect of our marketing can
seem like a ridiculous expense.
So what can you do with a limited budget?
Borrow knowledge.
Research out the testing results of other marketers and
businesses.
Many times companies will spend thousands to run testing
campaigns and then they'll make the reports of their results
freely available. Search out these reports and follow the
strategies others have tested to improve your own success.
You'll save yourself time and money. And you'll have less
details to test and track yourself.
Recently, I came across 2 informative reports with Internet
marketing testing and research data from MarketingSherpa.
In these reports I found 3 easy improvements we all can
implementing to immediately improve our conversion rates.
1) Type out your email Subject lines.
If you have a tendency to compose your email messages and
subject line in an editor and then copy and paste the
information into your email sender - Stop!
While you may think your message is being transferred
correctly, tests are showing you may be sending out
gobbley gook!
Just the other day I received an email from a customer that
contained his copy for a Solo ad. Honestly the ad had so
many jumbled characters I had trouble deciphering what he
was trying to say.
Word processing programs, especially MS word, are
hazardous to your emails readability. They can turn a simple
apostrophe or quotation mark into something that looks like
this - ā€" .
The problem occurs because of encoding issues. Encoding is
what translates your email message into readable text from
computer language. Unfortunately not all email readers
understand all encoding and certain characters, like quotes,
apostrophes, dashes can get lost in translation.
If you are sending out text messages, but composing them in
a word processing program such as MS word, it is essential
that you save your message as a "Text Only" message. Only
once you have your message stored as a "Text Only"
version should you copy and paste that text version into
your email sender.
If you copy and paste the word document version of your
text message into your email sender and send out the
message you're likely to have text that looks something like
this in your subscribers email boxes.
. . . you donā€(tm)t have to know about the inā€(tm)ternet|
The encoding problem is equally true for subject lines.
So if you're thinking - I send HTML messages I don't have
to worry - hold on. You too need to be cautious with your
subject lines.
Don't write out your subject line in your HTML editor or
word processor and then copy and paste it into your email
sender. If you do you'll have a subject line that looks like this
. . . you donā€(tm)t have to know about the inā€(tm)ternet|
Not very pretty is it.
The solution to ensure you always have good looking
subject lines is easy. Just type them out.
Skip the copy and paste with your subject lines and take the
extra minute to type them out. In the long run you're likely
to prevent a lot of accidental gobbley gook subjects from
being sent to your readers.
2) Focus on Landing Pages
When sending email campaigns it is critical to have a landing
page that is specific to the email offer you are running.
The headline of the email and the page should be the same.
To further improve the results of your landing page, eye tracking
tests show you should implement these tactics.
* Use powerful words as the first word of a headline.
The first words of a headline gain far more attention than
subsequent words.
* Repeat key words throughout the page.
Most visitors to your site will quickly scan the page not read
it word for word. You can expect they'll read maybe 25% of
your copy. Therefore to ensure visitors understand you main
points - repeat them often.
* Offer fewer click options on the landing page.
The less links you have to distract your visitor the better
conversion you'll have on your offer. And if you do put site
navigation on the landing page have it below the first fold of
your page. Use the first fold of the page to make the
strongest offer you can.
* Use bullets points.
Bullets are easy to read and easy to scan. They work well in
all copy writing.
* Have a call to action.
Don't be afraid to be pushy on your landing page. If you
want your visitor to buy, sign-up, click a link - tell the
reader to do so. Use phrases like - "Register Now" and
"Do it Today!"
3) You are the prey.
Face it no one likes to be sold to. When business individuals
are surveyed as to how they found a product / service 75%
to 80% will tell you they researched and found the company
from whom they purchased.
When an individual is ready to buy, they like to think they
go out and find what they are looking for. Only 20% say
they'll buy as a result of promotion that came to them.
How should this effect your marketing?
Start thinking of yourself as the prey and the consumer as
the hunter looking for you. If you want to be captured, you
have to make yourself easy to find and easy to catch. You
have to be visible in all the locations your prospects might
look for you.
Your marketing needs to include the following -
* Organic search engine placement
When a prospect does a search for your product / service,
you want to come up in the search engine listing.
* Paid search engine placement
Again if a prospect is looking for your product / service,
you need to have good search placement on the key words a
prospect might use to find you. If you do not have good
organic placement, buy paid placements.
* PR campaigns
Distribute press releases, offer interviews, put your business
in the news. If your prospects are reading about you in the
news it is more likely they will find you when they're ready
to buy.
* Ongoing brand advertising
Regularly running small year round ads in those areas your
prospects frequent makes you familiar. When the time
comes and they go in search of a product / service you offer
they will recall your brand.
* Article syndication
When prospects are searching out information on the best
product / service to buy, you want articles from your
company available on the subject. Write informative articles
and white papers and allow relevant sites to republish them.
Published articles increase the odds your prospects will find
you when they go hunting.
* Referrals
Keep your current customers happy. When an individual is
looking for a product / service he will certainly ask friends,
family and associates what they use. If your customers are
happy with your product / service they will refer you.
There you have it, 3 tested and studied marketing points that
can give your marketing a jump start. To learn more on the
studies conducted and their results see the resource links below.
Also be sure to check out today's interview article with
Tony Mamone. Discover a hot new Web 2.0 site called
Zimbio.com. Find out how the idea was developed and
launched. Plus learn what wikizines are and how you can
use them to market your business.
Interview with Tony Mamone of Zimbio
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