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WEEKLY
ISSUE #19
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Thu,
Mar 10, 2005
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TABLE
OF CONTENTS - TIPS
OF THE WEEK!
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Web
Marketing
Tip - The Power Of
Repetition. by Joe Garcia |
You
can't succeed at most things
if you try them just 'once.'
It would be silly to say, 'I
tried playing the piano
once. I wasn't very good at
it, so I gave up.'
The same thing applies to
marketing your products and
services.
Obviously, you can't just
sit next to your phone and
wait for it to ring. You
have to be proactive. You
have to 'do something' if
you want your to ring, or
get people to place an
order.
You need to contact your
prospects and customers with
an
appealing offer that asks
them to take immediate
action.
That's pretty basic, and I'm
sure you are doing that from
time to time.
But did you know that most
people don't respond to
marketing offers until they
have received them at least
5 times?
It's true. Most sales are
made after the 5th contact.
Repetition is everything.
But most small business
owners and salespeople
'stop' and give up after the
first contact.
Mary, the owner of a
3-year-old small business
told us that she had very
good success by delivering
her marketing offer to some
of her local residential
neighborhoods.
She had created a simple
flyer, and had placed them
in the homeowners' newspaper
boxes. Just in case you
don't know, it's illegal to
put flyers in US Mail Boxes,
but you can put them in the
newspaper boxes or rubber
band them to the homeowners'
doorknobs.
For certain businesses, this
method of delivery works
well.
Mary shared that on average
she got two new clients for
every 100 flyers she
distributed in this manner.
She didn't realize it, but
we assured her that she was
getting an exceptional
response.
Mary was looking for some
new ideas for getting even
more sales.
I asked her how many times
she had delivered her flyer
to the local neighborhoods
she had targeted.
'Just once,' she said. 'Why
do you ask?'
'Well, if you are getting
such great results from a
marketing process, doesn't
it make sense to maximize
your results from that
effort?'
'I guess so,' she replied.
I told her that at least
every 3 months, she should
go right back to the same
neighborhoods where she was
so successful and distribute
the same flyers again.
Mary was a little skeptical.
'But I already gave everyone
in those neighborhoods my
flyer. If they were going to
buy, wouldn't they have
already responded?' Mary
asked.
'Absolutely not,' I said.
This is a common and costly
misconception held by many
small business owners.
The fact is, most of the
people who have an interest
in what you are offering 'do
not' usually respond the
first time they receive your
offer.
They may have every
intention of doing so, but
for one reason or another,
they don't respond.
They procrastinate.
They get side-tracked by
something else.
They need to think about
it--and then forget it.
They don't have the money
right now.
They have a million other
things that they have to do
first before they seriously
consider your offer.
Their circumstances won't
allow them to respond now,
but those circumstances may
change completely in a few
months.
And on and on.
I always have flyers,
emails, letters, post cards,
etc. of offers that I am
genuinely interested in. But
I put them aside with every
intention that later I will
study them more closely and
make a decision then.
More often than not, those
letters, emails, etc.
eventually get misplaced or
tossed.
However, those marketers
that are smart enough to
send me the same offer
multiple times, keep
bringing their offer to the
top of my mind. They don't
let me forget it. Those are
the offers that I eventually
respond to.
And the same is true for you
and your prospective
customers.
Repetition is powerful.
Sending your marketing
message once rarely does the
trick. You need to keep
reminding your prospects and
customers again and again
about your business, your
products and your offers.
If you don't, there's a good
chance your competition
will.
Now that you know about the
power of repetition, you
have an incredible tool to
help you grow your sales. It
works.
But it only works if your
message and your offer are
designed to get immediate
action. Send a weak or
ineffective offer and it
doesn't matter how many
times you send it--you're
not going to get any
response.
Our Give to Get Marketing
course is designed to give
you the knowledge to create
enticing and compelling
offers that get immediate
results.
Think about it, if you don't
know how to create simple
offers that break through
your customers' tendency to
procrastinate, and get them
to take immediate action,
how can you hope to succeed?
http://www.givetogetmarketing.com/cgi-local/go.cgi?pt009b
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Web
Development Tip - Using
Transparent Gif Images |
Graphics
are usually stored as
rectangular images. If you
want to present a graphic
image with an irregular
outline shape, consider
using transparent GIF
images.
Most
graphics packages support
transparent GIF images, and
have an options dialog box
for controlling the storage
of the image. When you use a
transparent GIF image, you
can specify a single color
as the background color.
When a Web browser paints
the image, it does not paint
any of the pixels of this
color. The effect is that
the Web page background
shows through, and the image
appears to float or be drawn
on top of the page
background. This is a cool
effect, and it adds interest
to any Web graphic.
For
more information on
transparent GIF files, check
out Transparent
Images, Yahoo's index of
resources on transparent GIF
images.
Also,
remember that you can
sometimes get the same
effect without using
transparent GIF files. Just
use a background color for
your Web page, and choose
the same
"background" color
for your image. When the
browser paints the image,
the "background"
color of the image will be
indistinguishable from the
page background color, and
you will get the same effect
as the transparent GIF. Of
course, this only works if
the page background is a
solid color, but it is dead
simple and it works with any
graphics file format.
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Web
Copywriting Tip - Increasing
Conversions Through
Action-Oriented Copywriting.
by Karon Thackston |
I
do site reviews. Needless to
say, I see a lot of Web
copy. One thing that always
befuddles me is the lack of
focus many site pages have.
It's as if the writer
assumes the site visitor
will read the copy and
automatically know what to
do next. The fact is you
have to know what action you
want visitors to take before
you get them to take that
action. That means knowing
what the preferred action
you want visitors to take
is, before you write the
copy.
Think
About It
Before
you pen one word (for the
Web or any other marketing
medium), stop and think.
"After reading this
copy, what - specifically -
do I want my site visitors
to do?" Maybe you want
them to click deeper into
the site. Perhaps you want
them to buy right then and
there. It could be that
you'd like them to call to
discuss your product or
service. Make a donation.
Subscribe. Download. There
are thousands of possible
actions. Give some
consideration to the
question above and choose
the action you most want
your visitors to take.
Signposts
Point the Way
The
next step is to include
signposts along the way so
your visitors understand
what they're supposed to do
once they've read your copy.
Leaving verbal clues helps
prepare your visitors to
take action once the time
comes.
For
instance, if you run a
software site that offers a
free trial download, you can
prepare your visitors to get
the trial version all
throughout your copy by
mentioning "free
download" or "free
trial." Your copy might
read:
Email
Lock software allows you
to send emails and
attachments securely
through encrypted
channels. With the free
download, you'll discover
just how easy it is to
protect your messages and
attachments from spying
eyes. It's ultra-easy to
use. You'll send emails
just as you always have,
and your recipients won't
know anything has changed,
either. The free trial
version is fully
functional and allows you
to experience all the
flexibility and simplicity
of sending safe and
encrypted emails and
attachments.
What's
happening as your site
visitors read? They see
phrases like, "With the
free download, you'll
discover…" OK,
where's the download button?
Then they read, "The
free trial version is fully
functional…"
Wonderful! I want it! How do
I download the free trial?
They
begin looking for ways to
take the action you want
them to take. So tell them
how!
Ready?
And… Action!
Your
job is just like a movie
director's job. The director
has to motivate and
encourage his actors. He
tells them why their
characters are so important
to the film. The director
helps the actors understand
the emotions involved with
the parts they are playing.
Then, once he has them all
primed, he calls for action.
That's
what you should do in your
copy. Guide your visitors.
Lead and nudge them in the
right direction. Show them
signposts that point to the
action you want them to
take. Then call for them to
take that action.
Once
you give your copy focus,
once you define a goal for
the copy and an action for
your visitors, you'll find
it easier to write copy that
converts.
About
The Author:
Most buying decisions
are emotional. Your ad copy
should be, too! Karon is
Owner and President of
Marketing Words, Inc. which
offers targeted copywriting,
SEO copywriting & ezine
article services. Visit her
site at http://www.marketingwords.com
today, or learn to write
your own powerful copy at http://www.copywritingcourse.com.
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Featured
Article - 10
things you should be
monitoring on your website.
By
David Leonhardt |
Every
business needs to know how
it is fairing. That's the
concept behind exit surveys,
customer feedback forms,
suggestion boxes and other
devices. Without feedback
from the customer,
monitoring inventory,
expenses, revenue and other
benchmarks, a business can
take a quick slide down a
slippery slope, without the
owner ever seeing it coming
– or being able to stop
the slide.
Webmasters
should also be monitoring on
their websites. Most of
these can be classified as
traffic related or server
performance related. Here is
my top ten list.
Monitoring
website traffic
Traffic
totals. You want to know
how much traffic you are
generating. If the line on
the graph is heading down,
you know you have to find
out why.
Referrers.
It's not enough just to
know how many visitors you
are getting. You need to
know where they are coming
from. I discovered I was
getting a lot of visitors
from a Thanksgiving site.
They were all being funneled
into my Thanksgiving
Happiness article. Suddenly
I knew I should get more
links from other
Thanksgiving sites. Valuable
information.
Searches.
Much to my surprise, my
happiness site started
getting a ridiculous number
of hits from the search for
"hairdressers". It
just so happens I wrote a
humor column on a
hairdresser experience. I
was surprised to see it
getting so much traffic for
such a generic, competitive
search term. If that had
been a term of a little more
relevance for me, this
information would have lead
me to properly optimize the
page and get even more
traffic.
Pages
viewed per visit. If
people visit only one page
per visit, you have some
work to convince them to
visit more pages, like those
that make you money.
Pages
visited. So you threw up
on your site something cool
as an add-on. How were you
to know that other
webmasters would link to it
and send a whole bunch of
traffic your way? Well, now
you know, so add some copy
to the page to pull visitors
into the rest of your site.
Monitoring
website performance
Forms.
Are they all functioning? A
good website monitoring
service can keep tabs on
them for you. The last thing
you want is to have lost
hundreds or thousands of
subscribers because a
sign-up form stopped
functioning
Shopping
carts. Slow and
complicated shopping carts
are responsible for an
estimated $25 billion in
lost sales. Make sure yours
is functioning properly. A
good website monitoring
service can watch this for
you, too.
Download
speed. Clear your cache
and test your pages. Hmm.
Maybe those images are a bit
large. Time to compress
them, or even remove some.
Remember that some people
are on a much slower
connection than you are. I
use a satellite connection
sometimes, but when I don't,
my connection speed is 28K.
Server
speed. re there problems
with server speed? Maybe not
where you are, but on the
other side of the world.
Global website monitoring
can alert you to a
transatlantic connection
problem, so you can take it
up with your web hosting
service.
Server
accessibility. All the
web hosts promise 99%
accessibility. But is that
for real? Who monitors them?
By one estimate, 75% of
inaccessibility is not on
the hosting server, but
rather on the Internet's
backbone network and in
global routing. A global
website monitoring service
can help identify the
problem, so that you can
work with your web hosting
company to resolve it before
too many sales are lost.
Fun.
If you are not having
fun, audition for that
drummer position in the
local band. There is no
point spending your life
doing something that bores
you. Webmastering should be
fun.
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About
The Author:
David Leonhardt is a creative
freelance writer and
author of one of the best
self-help books. He
wrote this article for an
executive class website
monitoring firm. Get free
website monitoring , and
pick up a website
monitoring stamp. Read
also more on topics
related to web site
monitoring
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