"Goodness is the only investment that never fails." - Henry David Thoreau
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Improve Your Online Small Business Profits
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Cort: Today I have with me Garland Coulson who has finally created a Traffic Bar that is easy to use and makes sense. He also teaches Internet Marketing in a local Canadian university. Garland, I know that you are one of the “hotshots” in Internet Marketing; however I would like to know what you did before your Net involvement. When was this? What got you interested in the Net?
Garland: My background included stints in banking management and marketing. My involvement with the Net as a marketing tool started when I was hired as a marketing director for a company called TopKids On-line that was setting up a safe on-line environment for kids. It was way ahead of its time and our staff and youth members together build an amazingly vibrant on-line community. This showed me the power of the Net for building on-line relationships.
Cort: Did you see the value of Email Marketing almost immediately after it appeared? What made you get involved with Email Marketing?
Garland: I became involved in Email Marketing almost immediately and even ran an email broadcasting service for a while before it was considered spam. I got involved because Email marketing could reach worldwide, cost almost nothing and, in the beginning, had high opening and conversion rates. Once a targeted campaign I ran had over 20% sign up rate! Ah, those were the days...:)
Cort: So right Garland and probably never to return! What are you doing to avoid the ever present spam filters from putting your email in spam folders? Are you considering using PDF files to send your ezine like I have started to do?
Garland: All my email is sent ONLY to people who sign up to receive it. Unfortunately, spam filters still block email even when the person receiving wants the email and is waiting for it. There are a number of techniques I am using to keep my messages from being falsely labeled as spam, including:
*Careful choosing of wording of emails so as not to trigger spam
*Making sure I use my real name in the “From” section
*For newsletters, often I just put in the index of the newsletter contents and then let people click on a link to read the articles on the web
*Ensuring my emails have useful content, not just sales pitches
*Working with multiple methods of connecting with people including RSS feeds, membership web sites that show latest news when they login, reaching them directly through my Free Traffic Bar toolbar.
*And I am working on a solution for email spam filters I can't reveal yet...
Cort: Oh, that sounds like a potential winner! What are your feelings about Plain vs. HTML Email Marketing? What about the Audio and Visual Email?
Garland: I give my members the option when they sign up whether to receive HTML or plain text. HTML has the benefits of being able to add graphics, but many common email clients now strip graphics out as a security measure. A year or two ago, I would have said HMTL was the way to go, but most of my emails are now text.
Audio and Video are high impact, but you don't want them to automatically run when people open the email for two reasons. 1) They will likely trigger security in the email client. 2) People with low bandwidth Internet connections will be annoyed.
Having said this, audio and video are a great way to inform people and I strongly suggest using links to audios and videos in Email Marketing.
Cort: What have been your biggest successes in your business and why? Failures? What would you do differently if you could do things over?
Garland: My biggest success has been the growth of my Free Traffic Bar. It was successful because it was my own product and because I created it to meet the needs of my target audience. Previous failures came for the following reasons:
* Expanding costs and facilities before revenue is in place
* Not “firing” poor suppliers soon enough
* Thinking too small
Cort: Boy, I know about those that think too small. I'm finding that my partners that are over 60 like myself are beginning to get “old fogey” thinking, which is sad. What would be your advice to Internet newbies concerning Email Marketing?
Garland:
* Create value first before you sell
* Find a way to be truly unique
* Install phpList – a free open source email broadcasting system
Cort: What would be your advice to Internet newbies concerning Internet Marketing in general?
Garland:
* Ignore the hype
* Do NOT run a marketing campaign of ANY sort unless you can calculate Return on Investment for EACH campaign.
* Test and track EVERYTHING you do – this will leverage your marketing budget by 10 to a 1,000 times
Cort: Same things they taught us in Marketing classes before the Net still apply! Garland, I know that you have something that you would like to offer our readers.
Garland: Your readers will receive 10,000 bonus free ads when they join the Free Traffic Bar at
http://freetrafficbar.com/virtual/16/?r=64368
Cort: Yes, I will say that since installing this Free Traffic Bar my hit rates on my site as shot through the roof! And you get the opportunity to have 10,000 bonus free ads to start off a campaign.
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Cort McCadden also known by his real name Hugh Simpson is a former consumer investigative reporter for Post Newsweek TV and the co-founder of the new website http://www.showtheworldyoururl.com a video based business directory.
DEMC subscribers get a FREE upgrade Top Slot placement in the directory that will normally be $45 for the first year. So submit your 90 seconds or less, ORIGINAL video today - http://www.showtheworldyoururl.com !
If you would like a PDF that on creating a video contact -
cort009@gmail.com
Subject line: Video Creation E-book.
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