I know a way to increase your business through eMail. It is not the "trendy" way like social media, or the best known way like SEO. But strategically (I am an Internet Strategist after all), it is the most effective over the long run.

Why eMail?

1. Everyone has eMail.
2. It is the primary form of communication for the majority of Internet users.
3. eMail offers "instant" communication, perfect for timely messages.
4. People will give your "non-junk" account if you offer them legitimate & unique value.
5. Most people check their primary email account several times a day.
6. Once trusting a source, people will click through emails at the same rate as return website visitors.

Building It, and They Will Come

I walked into The Red Trolley (Coffee / Ice Cream Shop in the Highland Neighbourhood of Denver) and saw they were now collecting names and emails for "Coffee Events".  I saw about 50 names added in the last week and am sure the place will have a 1000 emails within its 1st 3 months of collecting them.  They are are building their own list.

Just like the Red Trolley, any local business can build its own list of emails.  Customers who come in and sign up are highly relevant and targeted.  Now, each event they host has a potential audience just waiting to hear about it and come pack into their doors.  Powerful!

Relevant, Valuable & Unique

You may not be a local hang out like The Red Trolley, but you can still build your own email list.  In order to build a "home grown list" you need to have something unique and valuable to offer in exchange for the person’s email address.  You’ll recognize most newsletter at least try to fall into this category, as a newsletter hold promise the information in it will be unique and of value, and if that is true, it works as a home grown list technique.  Other common offers are Tips, eBooks, coupons etc.  As long as what you offer is unique (only you are making it available) and valuable, you can ask people to sign up.

The last piece of the sign-up puzzle is relevance.  The thing that is unique and of value has to be relevant to the site audience and targeted at the type of person you want to be your customer.  Offering a 1 in 4 chance to have your teeth whitened is great, but not for the audience of a local hardware store.

Segmenting

I battle this all the time! Sitting in a client company meeting, listening about how the company wants to create a new email campaign to target such and such sub group of customers in such and such market, for such and such product or service.  When I ask how they have segmented their email data I just get silence (I likely get blank stares too, but with national accounts, most meeting are over the phone).

Segmenting email data means knowing details related to that email owner.

1. What did they sign up for originally?
2. What is their interest in what they signed up for?
3. What market are they in?
4. What is their occupation or role as a prospect in that market (do they have buying authority?)
5. What other products did they show an interest in?
6. What other emails have they been sent lately?
7. What stage of the buying cycle are they current in?

You can answer all those questions if you collect them up-front, when prospects are signing up originally.  You don’t HAVE TO ask them all these questions directly, but can still collect good data based on the circumstances of their signing up.  What offer got them there, what product are they requesting info on.  Was the offer for information or did they buy last time.  When you add that information to the info you collect in a registration form, you have a lot of data that can be segmented so the prospect can be targeted in the future.

Form Collection

You can collect ANYTHING in a registration form as long as it is;

1. Relevant
2. Offers to serve the registrant in the future
3. Falls within website registration convention.

Asking for credit card information right away is not following convention, nor is asking for a Social Security Number for example.

eMail Blasts & Auto-Responders

An "eMail Blast" is sending out an occasional message. Saying you want to tell everyone of your customers who signed up to be notified about specials, then emailing them all about your next big sale is an eMail Blast.  These should be as targeted and relevant as possible or people are going to request to taken off your eMail list.

An Auto-Responder is sending out automated messages. You also want these "planned messages" to be highly relevant and targeted.  If someone signs up to be notified of sale and another has purchased from you in the past, they should not be on the same eMail list to recieve notice of your next event, unless that past customer explicitly agreed to be notified of future sales.

CAN-SPAM

There are laws that govern what you need to provide email recipients with each time your email them.  The big one is a way to quickly un-subscribe.  Another is to place a physical business address on email.  If you don’t know the rules than you need a provider like AWeber to keep you playing within the rules.

While not CAN-SPAM, a best practice is eMail Marketing is the "eMail Double Opt In".  This is where your eMail Marketing Software needs to offer a way that people are asked to confirm that really want to be contacted by you through eMail in the future.  Ths technique builds a better list and more effective eMail Marketing.

Tools

No one can manage eMail lists with Outlook and excel spreadsheets. Things are way to complicated to take that approach these days, not to mention that takes way too much time and would cost you a lot of emails when your emails got caught in SPAM filters.

You need the right tools to manage your eMails. There are so many great providers of email services these days.  For small business, there are a few companies that specialize and have thus mastered eMails for the "little guy".

1. AWeber – The top Small Business eMail vendor. I use and can recommend them for Local, Niche & Small Business.
2. Constant Contact – I have not used this service personally but hear they offer a good product.
3. Exact Target – I have set some "larger" clients up with this.  They great if you have a serious need for eMail marketing.

I advise you start building your own eMail list and trying to offer real value. In the coming weeks I’ll be sure to create a post that offers how to maximize every eMail sent.

Are Premium Services with the Yellow Pages Worth It?

In Denver there is a guy on radio and TV called Tom Martino, The Troubleshooter .  He exposes scams that prey on honest people and small business.  On the radio today he was interviewing small business owners who claim to have been sold $650/month marketing packages by theYellow Pages (that alone got my attention, I’m still not sure I heard that right), and guaranteed leads from their listings in www.YellowPages.com .  They cited Yellow Pages sales people who said their business would be at the top of the local search results for their respective business etc, etc

I’d be interested to know more about this subject, so I invite people to post comments here and let us know about any experience you might have with getting leads from paid ads or services with the Yellow Pages

Are your advertising dollars worth it with the Yellow Pages? Leave a comment with your experience!

This article is for any Local, Niche or Small Business that is looking for the best online advertising , or wants to learn about the online advertising market (i.e. online banner advertising ). If you are looking to start an online advertising campaign and want to post online ads on an online advertising network , then this article is meant for you. We’ll show you how to place ads online and make the most of your efforts.

Banner Ad Networks

When you see a graphic ad on a site, that ad is probably coming from an ad network that sites use to place advertising on their site. For example, you can see the two small square ads to the right of this, where the sponsors of this Blog show their ads. In my case, I use a popular and effective ad network for blogs called Performancing Ads .

Let’s say you are a local business selling "Guy Stuff". You would want to place ads on sites where the audience is men. You could start by signing up for some ad networks like the ones listed below, and look for sites that match your audience well. Think about who your BEST customers are, then troll for sites that you think would appeal to them. If you see a site on an ad network you think is a match, go to Quantcast.com and see if the demographics for the site are what you expect.

Here is one site you might want to advertise on, and look a great ad spot.

Lucky for you this ad is served my an ad network that allows local targeting, so you can serve your own ad where you see the ad for the BBQ Grill.

Creating an Ad

Prior to placing ads of course, you have to have the ads created, and perhaps a landing page created. To have the best ad possible created, read the post Crowdsourcing Web Design , and to create the best landing page for the ad, see Nail a Niche with Landing Pages.

Before you assign any ad creation work , you’ll need to have a well defined vision of what you will be advertising.  You will also want to make sure the locations you have decided to advertise in warrant the cost of developing an Ad.   I would consider being able to get a minimum of 1000 impressions of your ad each day before considering creating a new ad.

Effective Banner Sizes

When you create ads, you want to make sure you create them in the most common and effective styles.  If you find a great site to place an ad on, but don’t have your ad in the size they offer, then you are going to miss out or have additional work in managing the creation of a new ad.  Here are the most common ad sizes, with "effectiveness" in mind (I did not include some common sizes like regular skycraper because they are normally not effective enough to warrant the time and expense of running).

Here are the sizes I see as being the most effective at the time of writing this article , ranked in the order of effectiveness.

#6 is the 728 x 90 – Leaderboard which was too large to show on this page.

Effective Ad Locations

Here is a great Ad Placement Chart from Google . Here the darker the Ad, the more likely it is to convert. Don’t get hung up on the ad size, but rather focus on the location, as the ad size could vary.

Anatomy of an Ad

1. Colour Scheme – Blend in with Light Backgrounds, Stand out (contrast) with Dark Background.
2. Logo/Brand – If you have a known brand, brand it.  If not, don’t take up the space.
3. Headline – Should "interrupt" the reader and get their attention.
4. Image
5. Image Caption – Will be the most read part of the ad, must inform and intrigue.
6. Call to Action – Needs to be clear.

Ad Tips

1. Don’t auto-start audio.  If you have audio in an ad, make the user choice to hear it.
2. Sell an Offer, not a Product – Instead of Free Shipping, why not pay them for shipping.  Negative Shipping is an offer!
3. Don’t have anything blinking – it just annoys people.
4. Call to Action should stand out.
5. When trying to blend an ad into a site, don’t give the ad a border.
6. Use Animation if appropriate
7. Stay away from Red.
8. Use the word "Free" if appropriate.
9. Use a short message.
10. Direct Traffic to a custom landing page for that offer/ad.
11. Change out banners often to stop people from getting used to them.

Online Advertising Terms

Channel – The type of sites you want to target. i.e. Automotive.
CPI – The Cost-Per-Interstitial ad, which is an advertising page that is inserted in the site navigation flow like TV commercials.
CPV – Cost Per View
CPM – Cost Per 1000 Impressions.

Ad Networks

Once you have concluded your contest, and have the banners created. You are ready to return to the ad networks and sites you have decided to target.

• AdReady.com – Pre-Made Interactive Ads.  Easy for Small Business to get started.
• Clicksor.com – Friendly, helpful and affordable.  Good targeting.
• MyADMarket.com - Great Tutorials. Good place to start learning.  Great for targeting.
• AdOnion.com – Great for teenager audience, especially boys
• Project Wonderful.com – Targets niche BLOGs & sites with modest traffic.  Inexpensive.
• Tribalfusion.com – Place ads on Niche Sites.
• Advertising.com – For more experience Marketers.
• Doubleclick.com – Higher End Ad Network.  A Place to "graduate to".

Example

Here an an example of a well done banner ad. This is an up-and-coming online T-Shirt company called MyTShirtCompany.com doing a great job with Online Advertising. Notice the choice of Banner Ad, and how well the ad blends into the current site. I am sure this company is experimenting with placement, and their choice of advertising on a job search site is more of a test than a strategic placement. Who knows, it might just work well!

Its also nice to see the website system that drives this site (A project I directed) being used so well. I recently wrote an Internet Marketing Manual for the Application Service Provider (ASP) of this system with much the same information in it as in this post, so it appears my advice is being taken already and applied quite well.

Part of the Mix

I hope this helps businesses start or improve their online advertising.  Now is a great time to be into Ads as the economy has lead to lowering costs and less competition, while at the same time, the ad networks have released better targeting, especially for local ads.

Just remember, this needs to part of your online advertising mix.  For a word on that topic, visit
Banner Advertising Is But One Small Component Of Digital Marketing from Twist Image who is indexed as part of our eMarketing Search Engine as a great place to find Internet Marketing information.

Cause People Under 50 Don’t Use the Yellow Pages Book Anymore.

With most local business searches happening online through local search engines and local search directories, local search marketing and local search advertising are more important than ever. A huge part of local search optimization is the local search directory. There are now dozens of places online to find local businesses, so knowing the best local directories for local search and how to submit to and get listed with all of these local search engines and directories is extremely important to today’s local business.

The Local Search Engines, Directories & Data Sources below are listed in order of importance to a local business, and it is critical to be in as many of them as possible , especially those ranked near the top. That’s why the list below was compiled.

Losing Business? Perfect Example

I was doing some research on Twitter.com , a place where people give short updates of what they are doing etc, and I came across this perfect example of a local business losing business because they were not listed well locally.

In this case, a local franchise of Kona Grill lost business because this person could not find its location via MapQuest.com or her GPS unit. From reading this article, you’ll learn how this incident could have been avoided.

Where to Start Listing Locally

Submitting to all these directories will take about 13 hours, which is a lot of time! Even worse, its tedious.

So start with Universal Business Listing (UBL).   I don’t mean this to be a review of Universal Business Listing, but they are the “big one”. They feed listings to almost everyone else online, as you can see in the Notes area of the table below. Plus they also get you in 411 and GPS directories. The cost is nominal, and included in that is the cost of listing with other paid directories like the Yellow Pages, Super Pages, Dex. You also don’t have to wait 4-6 months to get into InfoUSA which is all important online and off. Do the math and you’ll realize that its well worth it, plus , it gives you one place to make updates with in the future, not 26.

After submitting to UBL, hit at least the top 5 local search directories not covered by UBL. Do the rest too, but you’ll be leaving a lot “on the table” if you don’t hit at least those top 5).

Get Listed With These Local Search Engines, Directories and Providers

The above list was compiled by using a formula based on the popularity of the Local Search Engine/Directory, its recent increase or decrease of popularity, the significance of the sites it “feeds” and where it get “fed” its information from.

The Importance of Online Local Listings

Besides the fact that over 75% of searches for information on local businesses &services occur online, there are other compelling reasons to get listed on as many Local Search Directories as possible:

User experience – People tend to start with a general search online, then go from there. Eventually they locate the information they need, and if they have a good experience, will seek out that information resource (site) again. What this means for local business searches online is someone who searches for “Ice Cream” with a Zip Code, will end up a map of results from the search engine (why you need to be in Google, Yahoo and others) as well as results from local search directory sites like Merchant Circle, City Search and others (see the list above). If a user knows where they want to go already, they will use the map feature, if they are looking for reviews and opinions from others,they will go local search directory instead.

This is the current user experience today. It is not flipping through the Yellow Pages. Yes, the fingers are still doing the walking, only now its more like a tap dance on the keyboard, so you need to be part of it.

Reach – From the above ice cream example, you can see the reach you get from being listed. But data collected and managed online now goes a lot further. Not only is mobile local search picking up steam with the iPhone and similiar devices, but I often find places with my GPS while driving as well. (Gas, Food, Florists, Coffee Houses). Being online as well as on everyone’s GPS is pricless. Its being right where people are already looking.

Ranking – The better your search ranking with search engines like Google, the more often your site will be found, bottom line. When you are listed oline, you have a web reference to your site. The more references that are relevant the better. The more popular the site referencing you, the better. Listing with Local Search Directories provides you a way get popular and relevant sites linking to yours. Things are never really this simple, but you get the point, these links have value to your site ranking, and therefore to your business.

Writing for Local Search Engines & Directories

Steven Brier over at Local Internet USA brought up a good point to me recently, in that the focus on submitting to Local Search Engines and Directories is not so much about the time it takes to submit to them all, but rather the work it takes identify your keywords and create some compelling and attractive copy that will draw your target audience in from these local search engines and directories.  This obviously comes from a professional who see the results of well thought out copy.

Before submitting to search directories, your website should be optimized with your keywords.  You’ll want to make sure these make it into your listing copy where appropriate.  Here is more information on Local SEO for your website .

Note: This list does not cover local niches. If you are a restaurant for example, you will want to list with local directory sites like UrbanSpoon for instance. If there are niche directories with local listings, get in them as well! I’d put such a directory near the top of my list.

Now that we’ve discussed how to do SEO properly and how to get listed locally everywhere online, I’ll put some time into local online advertising (and not the useless opportunities you’ve been approached with by some sales guy).