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.

Crowdsourcing Web Design Changes Everything

It used to be that designing for a site meant selecting a web designer and being limited to the talents, ideas and inspiration of that web designer. Then came crowdsourcing . According to Wikipedia.com , crowdsourcing is taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an “open call”.

This works great for web design! You can also use it for Logos, Stationary, and even T-Shirt designs!

Before you start Crowdsourcing Web Design

1. Decide which design crowdsourcing site to use. The choices right now are 99Designs.com or CrowdSpring.com . Browse through each site, checkout the categories you will be listing in and see where you think you can get the best value for what you are looking to get.
2. Be ready to go public. This is a public process. 99Designs.com allows you to set up a private contest, but it costs more. Ask yourself if your competitors really have nothing better to do than find your contest, and if they don’t, will they actually do anything about it after they see it?
3. Have a clear vision of what you want your design to convey. You should also be clear the objective of what online presence. The key here is for you to be clear on what you what to convey through the design.
4. Make sure you have the time to write a good design brief. The design crowdsourcing site you use will walk you through this, you just need to make sure you take the time to fill it out thoroughly. Remember, designers will only give you what they think you want, so that is what you need to communicate to them. If you have a Marketing Summary already, use it!
5. Research how much you should spend. Take a look at contests similar to the one you will be creating. How much are they offering to the designer. You will notice that the greater the reward, the better the contest entries. This is already the “cheap” way to go, don’t be cheaper!
6. Know there will be additional “middle man” charges of around 20% on top of what your set the contest for. You need to factor this cost in when you set the amount the design contest winner receives.

Create a Design Contest

Now let’s walk through the design crowdsourcing process I used to get the eMarketing Matador web logo and header image you see in the header area of this site. For just over $200, I got 7 very talented designers to submit 27 designs, and compete to win the design contest.

In this case, for the logo/header contest, I used 99Designs.com . At the time, I was more impressed with the logo/header designs I saw on 99Designs.com , and they appeared to be going for about $50 cheaper.

In submitting my contest, I did not select a lot of the options available, which all cost extra. Some of these make sense, such as promoting the contest in the forum area of the site, especially if you are in a hurry and want the attention of the best talent. For me, I give the design period about 5 days, ensuring me time to work with the designers through feedback etc. You can also highlight the contest etc and make it stand out. All these things might work, but how much more than just throwing the additional costs into the contest reward is debatable. I personally would rather see the extra money go to the Designer.

Here is my Design Brief for the eMarketing Matador Web Logo/Header

In the Design Brief , there was 4 key points I wanted to make;

#1 – I gave the address of the site so they could see where the logo/header image would live.

#2 – I “sweetened” the pot by offering to recognize the designer and link to their site. You can see this in the footer of this site.

#3 – I wanted the design or part of it, to have good icon appeal. If you look at the address bar, you will see the icon for this site.

#4 – I pre-paid the prize money. This showed I was serious and that someone was going to win.

Once published, a Design Brief looks like this to prospective designers

You can see that the summary is just that. I used it to give the basic and vital information, as well as provide the incentive related information of what I was going to do above and beyond just the contest.

Below are the different entries I received.

You can see I got a lot of variety to select from. It is amazing what 7 different designers will come up. Each has their own style and interpretation of your design brief. This is where crowdsourcing design excels. With a single designer, you get one set of “vision” and “talent”. A single designer also does not have brainstorming access with other designers trying to achieve the same task. Let one talented designer see anothers work, and the clients feedback to that work, the quality and direction of their own work will end up being more targeted and what you want. This is where you win!

Tips to Getting the Best out of Design Crowdsourcing

1. Give Timely Feedback – I try to check my contests at least twice a day and provide feedback for each design. I rate the ones I don’t like and the ones I do like, I let them know. If I see something with potential, or going in a direction I like, I let the designers in the contest know so they can all go down the right path together. Design feedback is crucial.
2. Get a good start – If you don’t see at least 5 designs submitted after a couple of days, review other contests and see what the bids are there. You might need increase your bid a bit. For this contest, I raised the bid by $20 once and saw better results after.
3. Build a relationships – If you see someone with talent, keep in touch. You may want to go direct to them in the future, cutting out the competition and middle man. Going direct to the designer will easily cut costs by 2/3′s. Worse case, you can let the designers know of your next competition and have them “raise the bar” a bit.

The Winner

In the end, the winner of the contest was UaLz, a university senior taking time out of studying for finals to made some much needed money to pay rent etc. If you’d like to use him, his email address is

To visit the contest I hosted for the eMarketing Matador logo/header image, simply visit 99designs.com here.

Related Article on Landing Pages

I recently wrote a post on Landing Pages, which are perfect for Crowdsourcing. One page, simple goal. Its a good place to start!

Listen to Seth

I’m a big Seth Godin fan. He’s a great Marketing author, blogger and Entrepreneur. He wrote an article “How to live happily with a great designer” that captures the essence of working with a designer, web or not, crowdsourcing or not. I recommend reading it before working on any Web Design Brief to any Web Designer.

Remember: You can do this!