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.

A lot of people do not understand Internet marketing fundamentals . So, for the local, niche and small business people reading this blog, I think it is vitally important to cover the fundamentals around internet business strategy and make sure they are understood and valued, as successful internet marketing strategies will not happen if each Pillar is not given its due attention.

The 4 Pillars of Internet Marketing Success

When I do internet strategy consulting, developing a client’s best internet marketing strategy, there are 4 Pillars of Internet Marketing Strategy I consider.

#1 – Good Web Design

#2 – Good Website Coding

#3 – Driving Relevant Visits

#4 – Maximizing Conversion Rates

Good Web Design

My 1st Internet profession was as a Developer. After 5 years of programming, I thought I knew something about good web design.  I KNEW NOTHING! It was not until I moved to the business side and was charged with increasing conversions, in that case B2B leads, that I started to really consider what good web design is.

Good web design is not making things look pretty .  Good web design is achieving the objectives of the site or page.  Normally the objective is to drive conversions, and the disconnect is on this point.  Sure, things need to look good and professional or they hurt convertions, but this is only part of the Web Design equation.

Business objectives need to drive the design of a website or landing page. There has to be careful consideration of what information is present where, and how it is presented.  The information that the use wants to know must come first with anything you are trying to sell or tell them being secondary.  Good Web Design can place focus of the user better, but its primary role is to answer the immediate questions, and get them where they and you both want them to go.

Take a look at the following website for a curtain shop in my area of Denver, Co. The design is good as far as look & feel goes. I know EXACTLY what this site does and if I am looking for curtains, I get the all important “ah ha!” a visitor needs to stick around a site more than 8 seconds (its like riding a bull). Not only is the top navigation clear, but so is the sub navigation. I could dig deep and pick on the “scent” of the site due to it not telling me “where I am right now” , or the page title not following the same font style as the top menu, or the menus not changing state when mouse over them. I could, but won’t because the architecture of the site, the layout of the pages, and the presentation of the navigation options make this site better than  80% of other sites right off the bat.

To learn a bit more about Web Design, and the importance of it beyond (or better said, before) “look & feel”, see Nail a Niche with Landing Pages and Homepage Strategy & Tips .

Good Website Coding

As a former developer, this is the area I mastered early on, but was all I really knew .  Not only do people have a hard time following things like navigation “image maps” (several links in one menu), but so do search engine “bots”.

Another mistake is drop down menus (this is poor web design as well since people can’t “see” the options without having to take an action based on the limited information they get from a main menu title).  Drop down menus are often done with Java Script and search engines don’t read this type of coding and with therefore not follow the navigation.  With the search engines looking at internal links as a factor in ranking a site, sites with image map and java script drop down menus miss out on being more attractive to search engines and the result is less inbound traffic from the search engines. aka, You’re not being found.

Take a look at the site above again. Windows Dressed Up has image navigation. That is killing the site’s search engine rankings. In fact, I was searching for the site, but could not remember its name and tried a few searches like “Window Coverings Denver ” and “Drapes Denver ” and could not find them.  They did not turn up noticeably in the search results.

These searches could have turned up Windows Dressed Up by this business doing 3 things.

1. Make the navigation images into text links.  You could make them look identical with HTML.
2. Optimize the navigation links names  for search.  To learn more about this, see Know Your SEO.
3. Optimize for Local Search .

There are also so other opportunities to improve search engine rankings.

1. The images to the right could be separated into separate images, each with its own ALT tag providing a keyword rich description of what the image is.
2. They could use better page title tags, and add keyword and description tags, focusing on a Local SEO strategy .
3. They may also want to submit to all the Local Search Engines, Directories and Data Providers since currently they don’t have any incoming links to their site, this would at least give them a start, not to mention help being found by those people using those sites to search locally.

Drive Relevant Visits

This is the one Pillar most businesses focus on despite really needing to first handle Good Web Design and Coding first .  Nonetheless, it is a key Pillar when considering strategy and internet, and where I spend a lot of my time as an internet strategy consultant.  Driving people to a site that is converting poorly is a waste of money if the traffic is paid and a waste of effort if the business is engaging in social media or SEO efforts.

Once a site is ready to recieve traffic and can convert well, it needs to start driving relevant traffic to it. To drive relevant traffic, a business needs to know it audience, where they are online and how to best engage them.  For instance, if you know your audience is interested in “home decorating”, are women between the ages of 30 and 60 and reside in the Metro Denver area ( in the case of  Windows Dressed Up ), then you could target them with Pay per Click, Online Advertising, Social Media Ads and a few other tactics that allow you to target by demographics and geography.  You just want to make sure your traffic is relevant and highly targeted, as Internet Marketing is very unforgiving to those who don’t target well.

Maximizing Conversion Rates

To achieve success online, you need more than good Web Design, Good Website Coding and Relevant Traffic. You need to to focus on convertions.  You’re site has at least one objective.  It might be to generate a lead, to make a sale, or have someone donate to your cause.  Whatever the site objective, you need the following to start achieving them;

1. Make it easy – Don’t have too many steps to achieve something.  Registration for example should only collect essential info.
2. Keep it simple – Don’t overwhelm people with too many options.
3. Relevant Offerings – If someone is seeking information about cooking, don’t try to push lawn equipment on them.
4. Good Placement – Make offers
5. Clear Calls To Action – Don’t have a button that says “submit”.  Make the button have meaning like “Book your package today”.
6. If possible, offer things that are unique and valuable, preferably both.
7. Have special or free offer your site audience would really want.  See #6 above.   This is related to nurturing business and something we’ll go into at a later date.

Streaming

Streaming is identifying an audience and taking them through your site in the way you want them to proceed , but more importantly, the way they want to proceed.  Lets say Windows Dressed Up in Denver had Interior designers as an audience.  Calling out to them and leading them into a part of the site that addressed their needs, separately from regular customers would be streaming.  As long as you provided all the information the audience wants, they will be where you can offer them relevant offers and in a place dedicated to your selling to them.  Streaming audience types to areas meant for them will increase conversions.

Test & Tweak

All the best practices in the world will not make the best website.  You need to analyze your site statistics, talk to your customers, learn from it and try new things.  Try a new Headline or image.  Move an offer up.  Take out offers that are not performing.  There is always better results with testing. I think what and how to tweak is a future post as well.

I hope this offers a foundation on Internet Marketing.  It is important to understand the value of each Pillar and approach your web presence from the 1st to the 4th in order to save time and money.

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.