Internet Marketing Techniques To Use

My last entry was about Internet marketing techniques to avoid so this one is about the opposite, things you should do. Email marketing isn't a great way to get new contacts or clients, however it is an excellent way to build and maintain relationships with clients/contacts you already have. Building a solid list of contacts involves adding suggestions to your printed marketing materials for people to register to receive some kind of valuable information from you via email. Everything you print should have something on it about receiving more information via email and ask readers to sign up on your website (this gets visitors to your site and also makes it easy for readers to sign up). After you get people on your contact list the following techniques will help maximize the return you receive through your email marketing efforts.

Track Where New Sign-ups Come From - The more you know about someone on your list the better you can target messages to them. People are more likely to open, read, and take action on something they have an interest in.

Segment Your List - Break the list up into groups based on interest so you can target people with specific messages based on their interest

Analyze Statistics Data - If you use a professional email marketing system and you should be, they track all kinds of data from who opened an email to what links they clicked on within that email. Make sure you look at this information and use it to target clients, figure out whether or not bad contacts are in your database and remove them, or to quickly notice problems getting through spam filtering systems at companies (multiple contacts at the same organization bounce).

Keep Emails Short - The shorter and easier to read your information is the better. People use email because it's quick and easy so your message should be quick and easy. Don't put too much information in an email or you risk it being deleted. Sometimes you might get some opens in your analytics that are actually useless because the recipient opened the email but immediately deleted it because the message was too long, not very well organized, or of no interest to them. I usually like to keep all emails in the 3 to 5 paragraph range. Providing links at the end of each paragraph to additional information on your website is better then posting an entire article or explanation within the email.

Don't Over-use Graphics & Pictures - I try to only put up a header graphic, and 2 to 4 small pics inserted into text or in a column on the left or right hand side of the main body of the email. Make sure the email size is small to prevent getting flagged as spam and to also make it easier for recipients to open the email (some people have their anti-virus and adware filters set up to scan emails so if you send a huge email it will take a long time for them to open it and they may decide to delete it instead of waiting).

Use The Spam Checker - All professional emailing software has a spam checker that will analyze your message and rate it on a scale of 1 to 5 or something similar of how likely it is to be flagged as spam.

Email marketing techniques are ever-changing so it's important to keep up on the latest best practices. Email marketing will never stay the same so don't get comfortable with current practices while ignoring new trends and changes. Adapting the techinques above and keeping up on new trends will maximize the value of your emailing investments and campaigns.

Things to Avoid While Marketing Online

Using Internet marketing techniques can improve relationships with existing clients and help you acquire new ones. There are many different ways to market your organization online including; building a website, creating an interactive community website, blog, forum, banner ad, video ad, and email to name some. Internet marketing is easy and it’s often much cheaper than traditional forms of marketing. There is a lot of mixed information floating around on and off the web about how businesses should market themselves online so I've created this blog post to list and explain what I think should be avoided and why.

Internet Marketing Tactics I Avoid

- Unsolicited Mass Emails or Spamming – This is when you send out an email to a whole bunch of people without first obtaining their permission. Reasons for avoiding this include; annoying people, wasting your time sending things to people who aren’t interested, getting “blacklisted” or blocked by business or ISP servers, and being overly intrusive.

- Putting Pop Ups On Your Site – These things are incredibly annoying and likely do you more harm than good as far as organizational image. Many people have popup blockers now so chances are good your popped up message isn’t even reaching very many people. News websites still don’t get it when it comes to these kinds of ads. Don’t put something on your site that slides or crawls around above the page and is difficult (if not impossible) to close out of. People won’t buy if they’re annoyed and in all reality you shouldn’t have to trick people into buying your product or visiting your website.

- Posting Shameless Plugs in Forums or In Chat Rooms – Doing this has to be one of the most unprofessional tactics I’ve witnessed. To me, it shows you like to find an easy way out and not really MARKET professionally but instead show up and stick your sign up in anyone (and everyone’s) face whether they have an interest in what you’re doing or not. Avoid this like the plague. In many cases doing this makes it seem as if you’re gloating about yourself in an unprofessional manner.

- Requiring People Sign Up For Your Email List – It’s perfectly fine to ask people if they’d like to sign up for special offers and announcements, you should be doing this, but don’t force them to sign up in order to get more information or to visit your site. People don’t like this and it will reflect negatively on you. It makes you look like an infomercial.

Those are all things I’d avoid when it comes to marketing online. Tomorrow’s blog entry will be about tactics that are good to use at this point in time. When you are an expert, good at what you do, your work speaks for itself so there’s no need to trick people, overwhelm them with your presence or to be unnecessarily intrusive. Be professional and use good Internet marketing practices. Check back tomorrow for more information about those good Internet marketing tactics!

New Website Is Up!

The new TM Broadwater Web Communications website has officially gone live. You can visit it via the following link...

http://www.tmbroadwater.com

The blog will be much more active from this point on and I plan to add a forum and chatbox to the website. I'm officially in business nationwide after a year of preparation!

Welcome!

Welcome to my eMarketing, Internet Marketing, and Internet Coaching and Training blog. In this blog I will discuss various topics related to the use of technology in non-profit organizations and small municipal governments. My main area of focus is helping small business and non-profit professionals learn and better use marketing opportunities on the Internet to improve their organizations.

If you are interested in learning more about what I do please feel free to contact me via email: tom@tmbroadwater.com or directly by phone: 614.906.4922.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tom