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The Truth About Legitimate Email Marketing!

 


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                 ** DEMC ** Volume X No. 9 **
        The Truth About Legitimate Email Marketing!
          Serving the Internet Since November 1995

Quote for today:

"Wake up with a smile and go after life . . . Live it, enjoy it, taste it, smell it, feel it. - Joe Knapp
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Go to: http://www.demc.com/Advertise/advertise.html

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What's In This Issue - Features

1) Editor's Note: "5 Steps to Improve Your Email Marketing"
2) Marketing Insights: "The 7 Steps to Promoting Your RSS Feeds on Your Website"
3) Feature Article: "The Power of Topic Specific Search Engines"
4) SOHO Help Desk: "5 Tips for More Search Engine Traffic"
5) DEMC's - Advertising Information



======================

1.

Editor's Note:

"5 Steps to Improve Your Email Marketing"

Want to increase the size and responsiveness of your in-house email list?

Then don't miss out on the results of our survey. The initial feedback has been terrific and very informative.

And if you haven't yet taken the survey, I'll continue to make it available for a little longer. Remember all survey participants will be entered into a free drawing for a chance to win a Private Emailing out to your fellow DEMC subscribers.

The link again for you is - http://survey.perseus.com/716082e.htm

So, I expect you're curious about the survey answers, I'll share some highlights and my insight about the results.

1) 34% of DEMC readers found DEMC from a link from another site and 22% said they found DEMC from a partner site. Thus 56% of DEMC readers are coming to us from inbound links and associations with other sites. Only 22% are coming from Search Engines.

How can this information help you?

If you're looking to build your list as well as increase your site's traff1c, work on developing inbound links to your site.

Incoming links not only help to improve your Search Engine position, but as you can see in the case of DEMC we gain more subscribers from links to us than from the Search Engines.

A free resource to help you develop links to your site can be found at - http://www.incominglinks.com/

2) The majority of the DEMC readers noted that they found DEMC in the last 2 years. 21% in 2004 and 30% in 2005. DEMC began in 1995 and just 2% of survey participants said this is when they began reading the publication.

Evaluating these statistics, tells me that 50% of our readership comes from more recent subscribers. It confirms other study's findings, I've read, that new subscribers read your emails more than pre-existing subscribers.

To be successful as an ezine publisher, you must continually work to acquire new subscribers. New readers generate the highest response rates to your messages. What's more if you want to increase your revenue it is essential to give new subscribers special treatment!

A new subscriber to your email list, should not simply be dumped into your main subscriber database and forgotten. A new subscriber is much more likely to open and read your emails due to the newness factor. Be sure to take advantage of this new subscriber interest.

Consider setting up an autoresponder series to send new subscribers a welcome package as they're likely to appreciate the information. You might start with an email containing your best-of articles. Then send along a survey or questionnaire to determine their areas of interests. Follow- up with an interesting case study you conducted. Plus deliver an overview of your site, highlighting resource sections, recommend pages to view and provide special offers on your wares.

You have a couple of weeks to a couple of months with new subscribers to make a positive impression and generate additional revenue. Don't waste the opportunity!

If you need an autoresponder to deliver your new subscriber messages I recommend SendFree - http://www.sendfree.com. You'll find both free and paid services that are super easy to use.

3) A small percentage of DEMC readers have contacted me asking for DEMC to be available by an RSS feed. Therefore I asked in the survey if you would like to see DEMC available via RSS.

The response - about half of you said Yes! 47% of you said you would like DEMC to be available via RSS. This statistic is particularly interesting considering only 20% of you said you currently use RSS.

My interpretation of these findings is that RSS is a growing delivery medium. Some of you have tried it already and it's likely more and more of you will test it out in the coming months. As an ezine publisher, with half of my subscribers wanting to read DEMC as RSS, I should get DEMC set-up via an RSS.

Seeing these results, should encourage you to look into using RSS for your email communications. DEMC has been running a series on getting set-up with RSS which you can find in our archives at - http://www.demc.com/newsletters/ . You'll find part 4 of the series in today's issue.

4) The survey also asked for your input on the content of DEMC. The majority of you, said you like the content, (Thank you, I appreciate the positive feedback :-). However, you asked for even more online marketing information.

Specifically, I received requests for information on affiliatė marketing, search engine marketing, email marketing and advice for increasing online sales. I will be sure to address your requests in upcoming issues. In fact in today's issue, I've included 2 articles on Search Engine marketing.

If you haven't taken the survey and have subject matter you would like to see covered please take a minute to provide your input. You can do so online at - http://survey.perseus.com/716082e.htm .

Why is this information important to you?

As an online marketer, you have to regularly ask for input from your audience. If you're publishing an ezine, run a survey as DEMC did. Make sure the topics you're covering are what your readers want to know more about. If you're selling products/service ask your customers about improvements you can make.

Feedback is essential to your business. It gives you the knowledge you need to improve. When you make the changes requested, it will result in more salės.

5) Lastly, I wanted to find out what you disliked about DEMC.

You had 2 main complaints about the E-Magazine. You said the issues are too long and you could do without so many ads.

I was not surprised by your dislikes. In fact, I have been thinking about redesigning the look of the DEMC publication to address these exact areas. Your feedback has helped convince me a shorter publication with fewer ads would be well received. So I will get to work on creating a new look. You'll just have to stay tuned to find out what the new and improved DEMC will look like!

How can you apply this feedback to your own email efforts?

a) Keep your emails short and stay on point.
b) Realize that ezine can have too much informative content.
c) Don't overdue the ads and selling in your emails.

You should work to make your email communications a balance of predominately good content along with a little promotion. What's the right balance?

Well I'm still working on that one!

Online marketing is all about testing, seeing results and getting feedback to improve. And if at first you don't succeed, try, try again!

Abbie Drew
DEMC Editor
mail@demc2.com


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2.

Marketing Insights:

* Exclusive *

"The 7 Steps to Promoting Your RSS Feeds on Your Website"
By Rok Hrastnik,
http://rss.marketingstudies.net

RSS gets 100% of your content delivered, but it's no good if no one subscribes to your feeds.

So your first order of business after planning and creating your feeds has to be promoting them to your visitors.

The only problem is that most internet users still don't know what RSS is, so you do have your work cut out for. But using the system outlined below you shouldn't have any problems. Actually, after implementing this system, you should be achieving better results than the majority of publishers out there.

1. How RSS Feeds Are Generally Promoted

RSS feeds are generally promoted using the orange XML or RSS buttons, and often also with buttons that enable visitors to subscribe directly to the feed with their RSS reader.

Usually, if clicking on the RSS button, the visitor only sees a lot of confusing XML code. They in fact need to copy & paste the link in to their RSS reader. But since most still don't know what RSS is, using this approach will only waste potential subscribers.

To achieve success, you'll need a different approach.

A] Create an RSS presentation page, on which you explain:

- What RSS is
- How the visitor will benefit from using RSS
- Where they can get a free RSS aggregator (recommend one yourself!)
- How they can install it (provide step-by-step instructions)
- How they can subscribe to your RSS feeds
- Why they should subscribe to your own RSS feeds

Then, on this same page, include the links to all of your RSS feeds.

In addition to the standard orange RSS button, also include direct links for subscriptions via MyYahoo! (get it at http://my.yahoo.com/s/button.html) and other relevant services, such as Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com). There are about 5 RSS readers you should cover with these buttons.

B] Next Promote this RSS presentation page as much as you can using all of your available channels.

2. Location and Content

It's all about location, just like with the subscription box for your e-zine. If they don't see it, they won't subscribe. And if you don't motivate them enough to investigate, they'll just ignore it.

A] Promote your RSS feeds directly below your e-zine subscription box, and always "above the fold". Promote your RSS presentation page (telling your visitors that's where they can subscribe to your feeds) on the most prominent locations of your site.

B] If you're publishing more than one RSS feed, but rather a couple of focused topic feeds, promote each of them next to their topics. For instance, if you're publishing an RSS feed on E-mail Marketing, promote the RSS feed at the top of the topic home page, and in every E-mail Marketing article you publish. These links should actually be direct subscriptions links to the feeds.

Use this service to cover all of the important readers using just one simple button: http://www.methodize.org/quicksub/

C] Promote your RSS feeds in all of your e-mail messages and e-zine issues.

D] As for the content, don't just say "Subscribe to receive news from my site", but rather prepare compelling copy to specifically show your visitors why they need to subscribe to your content in the first place and why they should subscribe specifically to your RSS feeds.

3. Enable Auto-Discovery

Some internet browsers, such as Firefox, make it easy for their users to subscribe to RSS feeds. The browser actually asks the user if he wants to subscribe to the feeds the browser finds on the site the user is currently on.

Yes, this is even more powerful than your e-mail subscription form, since the browser in a way "pushes" the user with your RSS feed subscription.

But in order for the browser to do this, you need to help it out to find your RSS feed.

Just include the following piece of HTML code in the section of your webpages and you'll be all set:

link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="ENTER_RSS_URL"

There are many more techniques and 0pportunities available to you, from "direct subscribe" links to actually using sign-up forms, but these 7 steps should get you started in the shortest time possible, and help you achieve a better visitor-to-RSS-subscriber conversion rate than the huge majority of sites are achieving today.

###
Rok Hrastnik is the author of »Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS«, acclaimed as the best and most comprehensive guide on marketing with RSS by top RSS industry leaders, experts, developers and top marketers. Find out all you need to know about RSS and how to use it to get your content delivered, get back your customers, make more sales and increase search engine rankings http://rss.marketingstudies.net/index.html?demc4


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3.

Feature Article:

"The Power of Topic Specific Search Engines"
By S. Houlsey

What are Topical Search Engines?

Simply put, topical search engines are search engines focused on a specific industry, sector or topic.

While many marketers are scrambling for links, any links, an area that is often overlooked is topic-specific search engines. What many don't realize is that these engines do produce traff1c, and they often contain traff1c that is very targeted. Anyone who has taken the time to analyze weblogs and track sales sources will likely see that targeted traffic converts at a significantly higher rate than non-targeted traffic.

A savvy online marketer realizes that often, the quality of the visitor is far more important than the quantity of visitors. Web marketers should focus their energies on attracting targeted traffic whenever possible.

For example, if you sell saddles, advertising on a site related to horses or advertising on a topical search engine like http://www.horse-stall.net will bring significantly more sales than advertising on a generic web site or search engine.

Niche engines are considerably smaller than general search engines but they can still be quite lucrative. The small size of a niche or topic-specific engine ensures that the there are few competitors, and advertisers are generally willing to pay a little more for the focused traff1c. Advertisers appreciate the unique benefit of reaching a very targ'eted audience who have a higher likelihood of purchasing their product or service. As a result, topic-specific search engines and directories are a burgeoning market. There is far less competition in niche directories and dominating a specific market segment and establishing brand recognition is significantly easier.

It is virtual suicide to attempt to compete with the behemoth search engines like Google. Web-surfers are interested in simplicity and efficiency, which translates to as few clicks as possible. This is an area where Google really cannot compete with a topic-specific search engine. Creating a simple, clear navigational structure of related content while cross-promoting related products or services will increase the site's value.

Advertisers will also flock to search portals that are industry-specific, as they appreciate the unique benefit of reaching a very targeted audience who have a higher likelihood of purchasing their product or service.

Consider the niche search engine, Alarm Tools . The traffic this portal attracts will be of significant interest to manufacturers of security equipment or emergency supplies. Imagine the targeted traffic that an alarm company could receive from a link in the above search directory.

Contemplate the quality traffic a financial planner could glean from an RSS search directory focussed on finance and investing at http://www.finance-investing.com .

Locating topic-specific search engines is not all that difficult. Consider using the resources provided by Search Engine Watch, Web Search Engines, and Search Engine Guide to locate engines that are topic-specific:

Search Engine Watch -
http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156351
http://www.web-search-engines.net/directory/topic-specific.

Web Search Engines - html
Search Engine Guide -
http://www.searchengineguide.com/searchengines.html

Qualified 'clickers' or interested buyers is what it is all about; whether you are selling a product or advertising, the more targeted the traffic the better the fit. As an advertiser, consider topic- specific search engines. As an online marketer, consider creating a niche search portal, as the market is ripe.

###
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage a wireless text messaging software company.


======================

4.

~/~ SOHO Help Desk ~\~
http://www.demc.com


"5 Tips for More Search Engine Traffic"

Today's SOHO Help Desk outlines a 5 step strategy to getting traffic from the Search Engines.

If you have a valuable tip, promotional idea, question or answers you would like included in an upcoming issue of DEMC, all you have to do is submit it by email to - mailto:helpdesk@demc2.com

== How to Quickly Gain Traffic to Your New Web Site ==

From: Herman Drost

The problem with a new site is that it often takes a long time before it is indexed by the search engines. This means you are missing out on getting traff1c and making sales. Google places new sites in the "sandbox" which means they are on "hold" for a period of time before they rank.

Let's look at some ways to generate immediate traffic to your web site:

1. Start a PPC (pay per click) campaign - you can begin a Google Adwords campaign and start generating visitors the same day you set it up. Of course it is going to cost you some money but you can set a limit for how much you wish to spend. You will soon get a good idea what keywords produce the most clicks for your ads. You can incorporate these keywords in your site when you optimize it for the search engines.

While you run your PPC campaign get busy with preparing your site for the main search engines. Once you have been indexed by the main ones such as Google, Yahoo and MSN and start moving up in rankings, you can scale back the amount you spend on Google Adwords. Your goal is to eventually rank high enough that you won't have to use PPC anymore because you are getting enough visitors.

2. Optimize your site for the search engines - the keywords that generated the most clicks from your PPC campaign, should be included in your web pages. Research alternative keywords using utilities such as Wordtracker or the Overture Suggestion Tool. You can determine the popularity of those keywords by seeing how many Google Adword campaigns are running. You accomplish this by entering the keyword or keyword phrase in the Google search engine and see how many ads appear on the right hand side of the page. If there are a lot, that means the keyword you chose is very popular and in high demand.

Integrate a few of your best keywords within the text on each of your web pages. The home page should contain the keywords which have the highest demand (most searches) with the least number of competing web sites. Then proceed with the other pages in descending order of keyword popularity.

Make sure you also include these keywords in your meta tags, title, h1-h3 tags, links and file names. Don't overdo it for you may get penalized for spamming the search engines.

3. Increase link popularity - this refers to how many external and internal links are pointing or linking to any particular page. External links include those that come from web sites other than your own whereas internal links are those that come from within the same domain name. Link popularity is not based on the "quantity" of links but the "quality" of those links as well. Therefore increasing link popularity does not necessarily require having a large number of links pointing to your site but rather a good number of quality links.

4. Submit to the top search engine directories - many of the top directories have good link popularity that can be passed on to your site. They also have specific category pages that are related to the nature of your site. The major directories include The Open Directory, Yahoo and Zeal.

The Open Directory is one of the largest that is still free, however it can take months or even years to get listed. If you become an editor for Zeal you can get your site listed free. Yahoo costs $299.00/year to be included. It is worth it if you can afford it.

Look at these articles on how to properly submit your site to the search engine directories:

http://www.searchrank.com/resources/art007.htm
http://www.searchrank.com/resources/art015.htm

5. Submit to specialty search engine directories - you may wonder why I haven't mentioned submitting to the major search engines. When you work on building the link popularity of your site, it automatically places you in the main search engines. Once you have submitted your site to the main directories, find specialized directories related to your business. The following link is a good resource:

http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156351

You can also research the link partners of your competitors' sites by entering your favorite keyword in the search engines. Once you have found a number of top ranked sites, download the Google toolbar and look at their back links. This can save you a lot of time researching other areas to find quality links.

Once your site been indexed by the search engines and included in the directories, focus on adding more content and continue building your link popularity. This will help you to maintain and/or increase rankings with the result of gaining more traff1c to your new web site.

###
Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com. Affordable Web Site Design and Web Hosting. Subscribe to his "Marketing Tips" newsletter for more original articles. mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com. You can read more of his in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles

===

Send in your feedback for an upcoming issue. Email your questions, advice and/or thoughts to: mailto:helpdesk@demc2.com

Be sure to include your SIG and contact URL with your post as we'll be sharing any viable ideas/ information in an upcoming issue of DEMC E-Magazine.




======================

Advertise In DEMC - * Prices *

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DEMC
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Clinton, CT 06413
(860) 669-4365


(c) 2005 DEMC All rights reserved

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