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            Traditionally the day after Thanksgiving is the start of the biggest consumer spending trend of the year and if you have a Web site that takes orders, then you want to make sure you are ready to take advantage of this trend.

            Today I will give you three powerful strategies on how to use email marketing for the holidays.  Before I start, I want you to understand email marketing is the use of “permission-based email”.  This means sending email to someone who has willing signed up to be on your email list.  When sending email to your list you want to follow the following strategies in order to get the highest number of responses.

1. Personalize Your Email Messages: By personalize I mean you will want to use the person’s first name in the subject and message of the email. An example of a personalize subject is; “Kyle, act quickly” or, “Jim and Judy, can you make it” or, “Paul, Deseret News update”

Keep your subjects short, quick and relevant to the email’s purpose.  As you will see in the second strategy below, I give examples based off of the email subjects above. Personalization is a powerful strategy that you will always want to use if you can.

This simple, yet very effective strategy will increase the response rate of your holiday email.  Just think about it. How many times have you been receptive to a phone call where the person didn’t address you by name?  Email is no different.

2.  Re-established The Relationship: One thing you need to know is most people don’t remember who you are when they first read your emails.  Every time you send an email you should use a strategy I call, reestablish the relationship.  

For example; “Dear Kyle, As a Deseret News advertiser I want to let you know about our Christmas promotion.”  or,  “Dear Jim and Judy,  You visited our Real Estate office in Salt Lake City last month and the purpose of this email is to invite you to attend one of our open houses.” Or, “Dear Paul, As a subscriber to the Deseret News I wanted to update you about…”

As you can see this strategy helps your prospects/clients remember what the relationship you have with them is.  This opens them up to be more receptive to your email communication.  This strategy is critically important if you want to reduce the chances of your email being mistaken as spam.  Imagine answering the phone and a voice was on the other end you didn’t recognize. 

If the person started talking to you as if they know who you are, you would stop the conversation and ask them, who is this?  If the person never answers, you would eventually hang up the phone.

Email is the same way except, if you don’t reestablished the relationship in the first part of the email, your email has a much higher chance of being deleted.

3. Send Email Well Wishes: If you really want your customers to bond with you then you should send a “Happy Thanksgiving” email or, “Merry Christmas and we wish you and yours the best.”  Don’t make a sales pitch. Simply tell your customers you appreciate them.

This will help them understand that you appreciate their business and as a result will increase the response you get the next time you send an offer.

My point is you need to remember that a human being is going to read your email. Treat each email like a real communication instead of a virtual communication and you will see a substantial increase in your response rates and more traffic to your web site.

If there is an Internet Marketing topic you would like me to cover, submit your idea at: www.AskDionJones.com.  I will focus future columns on the topics you suggest.

Below are examples of some of the methods discussed in my recent Deseret News column:

Method 2 - Audio Post Card

Method 4 - Product/Service Explanation

Method 6 - Testimonials

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If you have questions about the column feel free to ask them here.

Would you like to be able to promote your website without having to pay a dime until after you’ve made a sale from the promotion?

Of course you would!

In this column I will give you the basics of a no-cost website promotion strategy called affiliate programs.

            Affiliate programs, associate programs and revenue sharing programs are basically the same thing.  By definition they are pay-per-performance models that allow you to pay a percentage of a sale.

            For example, if you sign up to sell one of my software programs, I would pay you 30 percent when someone buys as a result of your efforts. Because you can’t reach everyone on the Internet by yourself, it is in your best interest to have affiliates that will be willing to promote your products with the understanding that you only pay them a commission when there is a sale.

            Basically, with an affiliate program you pay for sales instead of clicks and impressions, which means you can reach your target market faster than you ever could on your own.

Following are three steps to getting started with your own affiliate program.

Step 1: Get the Affiliate Technology. There are two options here. You can do it yourself (you can get help with this at www.AdvancedMarketingSystem.com) or you can hire an affiliate management company (try www.cj.com or www.linkshare.com).  If you’re on a tight budget you can opt for the do it yourself option or if you want a more hands-off approach the affiliate management companies service most of the Fortune 500 and they pay your affiliates for you.

Step 2: Help Your Affiliates.  To achieve the most success you will want to help your affiliates by giving them access to sample ads and suggestions on promotions they can do. If you have sample ads that are working then make sure to tell your affiliates about them.  This is important because your serious affiliates will want to know what ads get the best results for you. 

This allows them to hit the ground running while promoting your products.  Because you did your homework you will come across as having your act together.   This will payoff big for you if you find out what your metrics are first and then have proven ads for your affiliates to use.

If you have access to a sequential auto-responder service, you can set up a training program that can automatically e-mail your new affiliates on Day One, Day Three, Day Seven, Day 14 and Day 21, and then on a bi-weekly or monthly basis as you discover special offers or new ads that work.

After following the first two steps, you will want to get the word out about your affiliate program by using the next strategy.

Step 3: Use Affiliate Directories.  One of the best ways to increase the awareness of your affiliate program is to announce that you have one to your opt-in e-mail list and submit the details of your affiliate program to affiliate directories.  To learn more about affiliate program directories you might want to visit www.AssociatePrograms.com or www.Refer-it.com.

Starting your own affiliate program is something you want to consider once you have successful ads to give to your affiliates. Make sure you add this strategy to your marketing plan.

Meanwhile, if there is a Web Marketing topic you would like me to cover in future columns, please submit your question/topic at: www.AskDionJones.com.

If you have a Web designer, these strategies can be implemented in less than a day or two and will increase your revenues overnight. Of course, they will only work if your site already features a sales component.

Most sites don't use any of these tactics. But if you want to increase Web site revenue, implementing these strategies should help you see immediate growth.

If there is a Web marketing topic you would like me to cover, submit your idea at www.AskDionJones.com, I will focus future columns on the topics you suggest.
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DiDion Jones is a Web marketing specialist and is affiliated with the BYU Center for Entrepreneurship.
 

How to Promote a Local Business on the Internet

Many businesses believe the Internet can’t be used to increase their success because they want to promote their business only within a targeted region.

Today I want to give you three strategies on how to promote a local business on the Internet.  Whether you operate a pet shop, day spa, restaurant or any other type of local business these strategies will work for you.

The first strategy is to:

Actively Build Your Email List
Have you ever had a slow day in your business?  What if you had an email list of your customers who you can send a special offer to when business is slow?  There is a Mexican restaurant that uses this strategy to literally pack their restaurants each time they send a special offer to their customers.

Here are three ways to build your email list of local patrons:

• Ask Existing Customers: The best place to build your list is with those who are already visiting your store or retail establishment.  Many businesses ask for business cards to be entered in a drawing of some kind, but rarely do they ask for your email address. Big mistake.
• Ask as Part of a Coupon or Promotion: There is a local business in Colorado who sends out a coupon to people via direct-mail. When their customers go to redeem it, they are to verify their physical address and write their e-mail on the back of the coupon. The business is currently getting over 50% of their customers who redeem the coupon to enter their email address. This strategy is allowing them to build their email list at zero cost.
• On your Web site: If you have a Web site, make sure you are asking for your visitor’s name and email address and make them part of your customer loyalty program for joining your list. It's an inexpensive form of advertising and is performance based because they must become customers in order to redeem the coupon.

If you don’t have an email list of your customers and prospects then you are missing out on an opportunity to increase the traffic to your business.  Why not start asking your customers if they would like to be added to your “customer loyalty program”? If they say yes, gather their name and email address, then when you have a slow business day send them a special offer that expires in 24 to 48 hours.

Try it and see what happens. The next strategy is to:

Use Regional and National Portal Sites
A portal site is consider to be a site that attracts a lot of visitors because of its resources. Yahoo.com, Weather.com, Google.com, and DexOnline.com are considered as portal sites. All of these sites offer advertising options that can be targeted to a specific geographical area.

Yahoo!, Weather.com and DexOnline.com can narrow your ads to your city or local area that your business serves.  This is a very affordable way to start testing paid advertising that is strictly targeted to a specific area or region.

You want to make sure to use a special page for the traffic that comes from your ads. Don’t send the traffic to your home page. You want to put the text you used in your ad prominently on the page they see after clicking your ad. For example, if you ad says;

Click Here to Save $10 off Our Deluxe Car Wash

After someone clicks the ad you want to repeat the offer on the web page that shows up alone with some addition details about the offer. This has worked better than sending them to your home page because most home pages have additional links to other pages not related to the offer.

Once your visitors are confused they will move on to another site, most likely your competitor’s.

The next strategy is to:

Use Offline Promotions to Drive Traffic to your Site
I’m sure you’ve heard the age old advice that says; “Put your website address on everything.”  Well, I’m here to tell you that is NOT enough. What you want to do is instead of just listing your web site address on everything; put an offer that gives the reader a reason to visit your website.

Here are some examples: (the following web addresses are for example only.)

Home Builder:
Look at our model homes at: www.GreatUtahHouseBuilder.com

Restaurant:
Save even more with our special offers at: www.GreatUtahRestaurantDeals.com

Mortgage Broker:
We can save you up to 20% off your monthly payment. Free quote at: www.GreatUtahMortgageBroker.com

You want to always look for ways to increase your email list, build trust with your list and send them special offers when business is slow. These strategies will help you effectively promote your local business on the Internet; all you need to do is apply them.

If there is an Internet Marketing topic you would like me to cover, submit your question/topic at: www.AskDionJones.com.  I will focus future columns on the topics you suggest.

Experience has shown that when Web site managers take the time to implement this one strategy they see a dramatic increase in the effectiveness of their advertising. And the interesting thing is, it really isn't all that complicated.

If you know your numbers, you'll know how to make money with your online advertising. By knowing what your numbers (metrics) are, you will be able to make your online marketing efforts more predictable.

It takes the guesswork out of how much to spend and what is a normal response for your product.

Here are the most important metrics for you to know:

• Response rate — This is the number of responses you received from an advertisement. For example, if you advertised to 1,000 people and 100 clicked on your ad, your response rate would be 10 percent.

• Sales conversion — This is the average percentage of people who buy from your Web page. For example, if three out of 100 people who visit your site end up purchasing your product, your sales conversion is 3 percent.

• Visitor value — This is the amount of money an average visitor spends on your site. For example, if three out of 100 people purchase your product, and your product sells for $100, each visitor is worth $3 because 100 visitors equal $300 in sales. This is a critical number when you are buying traffic by the click.

• Per lead cost — This is the amount of money it costs to generate a lead. If you spent $100 on an ad and you generated 100 subscribers/leads to your mailing list, then your lead cost was $1 per lead, or $100 divided by the number of leads generated.

• Per sale cost — This is the amount of money it costs to generate a sale. You figure this number by taking the total dollar amount spent on the promotion and dividing it by the number of sales generated. For example, if you spent $100 and had 20 sales, you would divide $100 by 20 to find out that you were experiencing a $5 per sale cost.

Knowing these numbers will give you a benchmark to use against other advertising campaigns. If you see something going wrong you can stop the promotion before it gets out of hand. This is what most people who are running online businesses fail to do.

They keep running ads and have no idea what they can afford to pay. If you know your typical response rate is 6 percent in an ad and your conversion is 2 percent, you will know exactly what to expect from your advertising and how to create new ad campaigns that will reach the same type of audience.

If there is a Web marketing topic you would like me to cover, submit your idea at www.AskDionJones.com, I will focus future columns on the topics you suggest.
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Dion Jones is a Web marketing specialist and is affiliated with the BYU Center for Entrepreneurship.