ePlus Notes: Internet Marketing | SEO | Website Globalization BLOG

2009-04-21T10:21:00.001-05:00

Ok so I didn't get back to work just yet. Added Plaxo to my Ping.fm and am not sure I want my Blog updated from this tool or not.

2009-04-21T10:17:00.001-05:00

Now that I've gotten connected my 3 top social networking tools. I need to get to work. Back to PPC strategy overview for clients.

2009-04-21T10:12:00.001-05:00

YES!! This worked!! Ping.fm updated Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and my Blog -- all with one tool!! @perrybelcher GREAT TIP!! THANKS!!

2009-04-21T10:06:00.001-05:00

@perrybelcher Thanks for the ping.fm suggestion This may save me alot of time!

What You Don’t Know WILL Hurt You: Intellectual Property and the Internet

2009-04-15T10:45:00.004-05:00

Recently, I attended an extremely interesting and valuable seminar held by the Business Marketing Association The seminar, titled Where the Internet and Intellectual Property Law Collide, was presented by Don Kelly, an intellectual property attorney with Gallop, Johnson and Neuman. As his title implies, Don specializes in, well, intellectual property—things such as trademarks, copyrights, and patents—and how those things apply to Internet marketing.

Don’s topic provided me and the other seminar attendees with some insights that I’m sure will help us—and our clients—steer clear of potential legal trouble related to Internet marketing efforts. As you might imagine, there were a lot of questions—way to many to cover in this short blog. So, I thought I’d share a couple of those that seemed to garner the most interest, along with a paraphrased or high-level answer:

Q: What are the laws pertaining to videos, audio, and other information I pull from other sites to use on my site or blog?

A: A lot of companies and bloggers are posting videos created by artists and companies other than themselves. Even though these videos have been taken from the Internet, they are OK to use as long as you do not claim the work is yours, i.e., acknowledge the creator, and that the purpose is to teach and inform, i.e., this is an example.

Q: Can an employee or contractor who performed work for me, for which they were paid, claim it as there own?

A: If someone works for you as an employee or contract worker they cannot claim work they’ve done for you as their own—in most cases. They should not be using these creations in any manner, on or off-line unless they have written and signed permission to do so. Unfortunately, we all know there are people who are deceitful, desperate or just plain ignorant and will use this work and portray it as their own. In many cases since it reflects so poorly on them, these companies usually stop these practices. In other situations they only stop when forced to do so in court.
One company was more or less being extorted from their graphical design company for extra payment and rights over a logo. The design company felt that they “owned” the trademark they designed for another company. Here’s the law: unless they have a document relinquishing rights and clearly saying, in writing, that they own the trademark, they do not. The company that hired the design company owns the trademark. It appears that in this case the design company may soon be faced with some legal problems. If they’re smart they’ll stop using it – immediately.

Q: Do I need to include a physical address on all of my marketing oriented emails?

A: You are required to include a physical address on all general solicitation emails you send—especially if you acquired the email address to whom you are sending from a third party. You don’t have to have it of course if you are just corresponding to a client, friend, associate, etc. with whom you have an existing business or personal relationship. However, as a matter of best practice, I suggest as a company you should have a standard email signature (see our article on this subject).

Unfortunately, there was not enough time to go deeper into some of the other areas. Nearly everyone I talked with left wanting more. I know I still have many questions pertaining to Google Adwords, email, and some trademark questions. So, due to overwhelming response, ePlus Marketing will be sponsoring another event on this topic in the near future.

If you’re registered for our newsletter you will receive a notice of this presentation. If you’re not on our newsletter list, you might want to sign up now. In addition to being advised and invited to this event, we’ll provide you with all sorts of other tidbits of useful information..

Video Marketing Increasing - Tips on B2B Videos

2009-03-30T09:25:00.000-05:00

Great article today in eMarketer on Video Marketing. The article talks about how online video marketing and advertising is increasing, except in B2B. They concluded that the biggest factor in B2B video marketing is the lack of audio in the office.

I’m sure you’ve seen all types of videos online. To me, the most annoying ones are the ones that pop-up automatically and can’t be turned off. Last week I was on several conference calls and during the conversion we were going to various Websites. One conversation in particular was regarding vendor selection. A particular vendor had a pop-up person.

At first glance having the person pop-up with audio looked interesting. The more interesting ones are when the person appears to be walking in from behind your Web page. It seemed clever to have someone tell you about the Website and company so you don’t have to read. However, during the second visit they become absolutely annoying, especially when you can’t turn them off.

That’s what happened to us during the conference call. In fact, what ended up happening is that we had to leave the site completely and in doing so the vendor dropped off our list. Of course, that’s the worse case scenario and I’ve seen reports where these pop-up people actually increase ROI – but wait, now that I think about it, the reports are always from the video producer – mmmm. We’ll have to do more research on this and get back to you.

Back to the video for B2B marketers. The pop-up audio people or “talking head” videos are not the only method used in when utilizing video. However, the article to us pointed out the obvious. You need subtitles on B2B videos. We’re producing videos for our clients and while the best version of the video is with the voice over, a viewer will be able to get the main points of the video without the sound.

In the article, they state that videos with subtitles were watched 91% to completion, compared with 66% to completion for those without subtitles. While we didn’t have the research to back us up we know how annoying unexpected sound can be in the office. It happens in our office too many times and takes everyone else off task. Plus, we know that many businesses do not have audio available to workers at the office. Its great to have the research data back-up our conclusions. Of course, many graphic artist do not prefer to have text obstruct their work, but just like a Website you must blend form and function with results driven marketing wining every time.

Viral Marketing - Do the unexpected

2009-03-25T13:53:00.004-05:00

We've been doing some video marketing for a few of our clients, and we're looking into a viral marketing campagin. Recently, I found a BLOG that was talking about how in viral marketing, one tip is doing something unexpected. They used that concept in this video as an example.

I'm still laughing at this one.

I found that John West has a series of ads that are all unexpected and have a similar theme "enduring the worst to bring you the best". A series of ads with a smiliar theme is another tip in viral marketing.

This one is the funniest John West video I've found. Its worth sharing.

Increasing Website ROI

2009-03-23T10:22:00.001-05:00

The last couple of posts have been regarding ROI and how to measure it. Once you know how to measure ROI how do you increase it? The simple answering is testing. Testing means different things to different people. Ask a programmer and their definition of testing involves clicking on links and testing the functional aspects of a site. Others, mostly non-marketing professionals, will assume testing is having the client view the Website or page and approve it. However, testing to a marketing professional involves much more than the functional aspect of the site.

Testing involves usability test, A/B split and multivariate testing. For best results you should be using a combination of all three. One of the most common misconceptions about testing is that is expensive. Our answer, is how expensive is it to NOT to test? If you want to put some numbers with this answer find out what your conversation ratio is and determine how much profits will increase by increasing your conversion rate.

We’re going to look at usability testing. First, let’s explain what it is. Usability testing means that you observer how a test subject uses your site. This can be as scientific and high tech as some of the labs we’ve used with two-way mirrors, several observers, multiple cameras and software recording every mouse move and keystroke. Or the test can be extremely low tech by simply observing the testing.

If you’ve been in marketing for sometime, I’m sure you’ve been involved with focus groups. This is somewhat similar. In focus groups you gather in a sample of your target audience and they use and discuss the product. In usability testing you gather a sample of your target audience and ask them to complete several timed tasks on your Website.

Each task it timed and recorded. Since the site owner should not be present at the test it is best to record the session. Designers and programmers also benefit greatly from viewing the testing as well. Many times sites are developed and designed based on our own preferences. You many notice that designers get stuck in “template” mode. The designs are appealing but they all begin to all look very similar. Participating in usability test is one way to stretch the designer’s creativity and sharpen their skills.

Each usability test we’ve done have always uncovered at least one “gold nugget” that made the testing worth doing. Usually there are several areas on a Web project that can be improved as a result of usability testing. The reason is simply. If your target audience can easily use your site the likely hood of them taking action increases.

One of the misconceptions about usability testing is that it uncovers problems with navigation or ease of site use. However, much more than those areas should be tested. One of the first questions we ask the subject is “what is this site about” or “what service/product does this company offer”. Then note how long it takes the subject to answer the question. These questions have nothing to do with design or navigation but rather content. If the subject is unable to quickly say what the site is about how can the site be successful?

A common mistake in usability testing is that the tester fails to test the test. Never conduct a test without first testing the test yourself. The test developer and tester should BOTH take the test.

I’ve often been asked from new clients how do they know if their current site has been given a usability test. Since I know this important phase of development is skipped by most developers (many are totally unaware of the process) I know can safely say their site was not tested. My response is that if the developer never mentioned it then it safe to say that it was not tested. There is cost involved in testing and no one is going to do extra work and not get paid for it.

How important is usability testing? Well the answer goes back to the earlier topic about how expensive is testing. If you know that a 1% increase in your conversion ratio will yield 300% in gross profits – then you can easily how important testing can be

ROI for Lead Generation Websites

2009-03-13T10:03:00.000-05:00

On the last post we discussed return on investment (ROI) in general, for marketing projects. We’ve been asked how to measure ROI for lead generation (lead gen) Websites. The thinking here is the ecommerce Websites can easily be measured because someone is purchasing something and the cost and profit are clear. With lead gen sites it can’t be done because someone is not purchasing something online.

Lead gen sites and projects can be measured but you need extra information. First, you need to know the number of leads that Website (or all Internet activities) produces. Many people jus look at the leads from “Contact Us” forms but that’s not looking at the entire picture.

So, what else can you look at regarding leads from the Internet? Any other activity on the Internet can produce a lead. If you have PPC campaigns going on you can trace leads to landing pages which should have a form on it. In addition, you can have a service that offers a variety of phone numbers that all go into your main phone line but are traced back to the PPC campaign ad (we offer such a program). Leads from article marketing, videos, Web conferences, BLOGs, etc can all produce leads. How to trace it back is a topic for another post or White paper.

If you want to measure just one project such as your PPC campaign then you just count the leads from that activity. If you want to know overall how your entire Internet marketing strategy is working you need to track all of your activity.

Now that you are tracing all you leads, the next thing you need to know is how many on average, are qualified leads? Of course this number is going to go up and down each month. With each campaign you should test and monitor it for targeted leads. After a few months you should have an average number for qualified leads.

Now that you know how many qualified leads your project is producing, you need to know your average close ratio. As a sales manager or marketing director you should know the sales ratio for each sales rep and overall for the company or division. In some cases Internet leads are only distributed to a select group of sales reps so you just want to know that group’s close ratio and not the entire company’s sales ratio.

Now that you have these numbers you can determine your ROI.

Here’s an example. Let’s say all your Internet marketing projects cost $110,000.00. Your average sales price is $50,000.00. Your Internet activities produce on average, 200 leads per month. Of those 200 leads let’s be very conservative and say only 20% of them are really qualified leads (Someone ready, willing and able to purchase is going to be our standard or definition of qualified lead. You definition may be different.) That means the site is producing on average per month 40 qualified prospects.

Now, let’s say these qualified prospects are funneled to the sales reps and their close ratio is 20%. That means that 8 of the 40 prospects will convert into a sale each month. That means the Internet is producing $400,000.00 in sales per month ($50,000.00 avg. sales price X 8 avg. sales per month). Now take the $400,000.00 per month and multiple by 12 to get your yearly revenue which will be $4,800,000.00 in revenue.

However $4,800,000.00 is only revenue and you want ROI. As a business owner I want to know my gross net profit. So let’s subtract out your expenses and the expenses of the Internet project and you’ll have your ROI. Also, keep in mind that ROI is not just for one year so you need to look at the cost compared to the return over a given time frame.

Increasing your Internet ROI

2009-03-09T11:35:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday I was asked to be on a panel discussion at the BMA luncheon meeting talking about how to increase ROI from your Website. It was a great presentation and I had a lot of fun doing it. Members from the association said that it was one of the best events that they had in some time. I’m still getting emails and calls from the luncheon asking for additional information, so I thought we would address some topics on our BLOG.

First, let’s talk about what ROI actually means. It seems like lately it’s a term that a lot of people are tossing around lately without knowing the definition. Many people just use the term to mean a generally that their projects or Website is successful. But measuring success is critical.

This is an area that separates a lot of marketing professionals, especially those involved with Internet marketing. We discuss this issue with our clients and they’re well aware of ROI and what it means. Also, keep in mind if you’re talking to a financial person the term and calculation is a bit different compared to marketers.

ROI is Return on Investment. It is the return over time that you will receive on your initial investment.

We tell our clients that they should expect a 3:1 ROI ratio with our projects. What does that mean? It means that for every dollar they spend with us that they receive three dollars in return in profit. Most receive a return much higher than that. However, that means AFTER they get their initial investment back. You also have to keep in mind that the investment should yield profit over time.

For what ever project you undertake you need to look at the return to see if it’s worth doing or if you would be better off investing the money is another way.

Some of the discussion talked about ROI on an ecommerce site VS a lead generation sites. You can and should measure ROI for both types of Web projects. Our next post will discuss how to measure ROI for a lead generation Website.

Twitter Mania for Business

2009-03-04T22:47:00.001-06:00

I’ve just started Twittering a few weeks ago and I’m still trying to figure out the ins and outs of it. So far my experience has been positive. However, I’m constantly researching and testing how this tool could be used for business. Here’s what I know so far.

Can be a powerful networking tool if used correctly.
Businesses need to setup training and policies for employees to Twitter during work hours.
Once a strategy and process is place business should embrace the program.

What to Tweet about:
• Targeted questions or real business problems are very useful. I’ve stated “what I’m working on” and when it was problem solving activity, I found that others will offer suggestions and join the Tweets.
• I don’t care to hear what you had for lunch or that you’re hungry for ice-cream. To me, it just jams up the Tweets. Plus, if all you have to do is tell me what you’re eating and mention your products, I’m most likely going to stop following you.
• Tweets on issues that can be fully explained on a BLOG are great. Link it back to a BLOG or article.
• Ask people questions and engage them in conversion.
• Ask people for help with business problems. Offer solutions to others.
• Become a resource for people. Don’t bloviate (isn’t that a great word – guess who I learned that word from).
• Share information about your company but don’t over do it.

When to Tweet:

Set aside a couple of times a day to Tweet. But if you find that you’re spending too much time Tweeting and not enough time producing – stop it!

That’s all for now on Twitter for business. I’ll be taking notes and dong a bit more research before I put together an article on Twitter for business. Right now it’s always fun to investigate a new Internet tool. I just have to make sure I don’t get lost in Twitter land.

Oh, yes, one more thing. Check out this great page with 140+ Twitter Tools Twittermania

Invited to Speak at St. Louis BMA Luncheon

2009-03-03T12:43:00.003-06:00

I've just been invited to speak at the BMA luncheon meeting this Thursday. It's a panel discussion on ROI (return on investment). Ellen Sherberg, Publisher of the St. Louis Business Journal is moderator of the discussion. The group will discuss ways to improve your marketing ROI.

I constantly tell my clients we are NOT a Web company. We're a marketing company here to get you results. If you want a Web company there are plenty in town and I give them a list.

What's the difference? Well if you're focusing on design you're going to get great design. If you're focusing on results you're going to get results. Why not focus on both you say? Well, you do want great design but if from the bottom up you don't start with understanding a return on investment how do you expect to get a return.

First thing to consider is the organization that is in charge of your projects. Look at their background and accomplishments. Case in point I have a BSBA-Marketing and MBA. Plus, our clients see a minimum of 3:1. For every dollar they spend with us they get three in return.

Our best example is how we took a Website from $8,0000.00 in gross profits a month to $900,000.00 in gross profits a month. Yes, that blows out of the water the 3:1 but return but not everyone is going to achieve the same results.

After Thursday we'll be posting more on ROI and how to increase it.

To read more about the event go to our news story on the BMA and increasing ROI panel discussion.

If you're in town, I hope to see you there!

PPC - Keyword Strategy for High Organic Results

2009-03-03T10:20:00.000-06:00

In managing PPC programs over the years we have always been careful not to include words or phrases where the product or company already ranks high. I have to say I really don’t understand this strategy at all.

If you are ranked on the first page on “widgets” for example, why would you include the word “widgets” in your PPC? Especially considering research and testing clearly shows that organic search results are clicked first and have a higher ROI. Why would you reduce your budget by including keywords that your site already ranks high?

I keep seeing this over and over again and we refuse to have our clients budgets reduced in this manner. Unless someone can explain their strategy I’m going to continue thinking it’s a waste of money.

Along the same line, why do companies purchase their name in a PPC campaign? Unless their site isn’t ranked well with their company name I see this as a waste as well. Just recently I searched in Google for Salesforce. We use Salesforce for our company and many of our clients, but I wanted to see what competitors are purchasing the name “Salesforce” in their PPC campaign.

The first link was a from a PPC campaign – from Salesforce. Guess what the first organic result is when you search for Salesforce. Yep, it’s Salesforce. And Salesforce had the second organic listing as well. I don’t get it. They must have money to burn. It looks like Oracle and other CRM companies are also purchasing “Salesforce” so I guess I get their logic. But when your company has the first two organic results I guess you want to really make sure that your site is found.

I did click on the PPC result for Salesforce because I figured it had to be that they purchased their own name in a PPC campaign because they have a killer landing page. They do have a landing page but it’s my favorite – one option only landing page. (See post for 2/28) They did have their logo hot linked in to their home page which is nicer than most “one option” landing page, but still only one option – complete the form to view a demo or try Salesforce for free for 30 days. What if I didn’t know anything about Salesforce? Why would I want to waste my time watching a demo or trying it for free until I know that the program is a good solution for my situation? It may not be what I want.

I suspect that Salesforce is testing their landing pages and PPC campaigns but I am extremely curious to find out the ROI on just purchasing their name. I would love to see the comparison between conversion rates on the PPC listing compared to the organic listing. It would be interesting.

PPC Campaign Tools

2009-03-02T11:03:00.000-06:00

Currently we’re researching tools to manage multiple PPC campaigns. If you’re working with multiple clients who have multiple campaigns and several people in your organization who are managing the campaigns you need efficient tools to help.

As a manager, I need the ability to review my employee’s PPC campaigns and it’s extremely time consuming to go into each group campaign for an overall review. Google offers some nice tools, but we’re not always just using Google. Next, add in international campaigns with country specific search engines and you can see how complicated the problem really can be.

Right now we’re researching various tools. If you have any suggestions feel free to comment. We’ve gotten some great advice from our Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networking friends, but we’re opening our research for additional comments, suggestions and advice. Yes, we’ll even consider a shameless plug for your PPC tools. (But don’t over do it.) ;)

Landing Pages with only One Option

2009-02-28T10:39:00.001-06:00

Did you ever search for something and click one of the links that were using a PPC campaign? Then, when you land on the page it seems to match what the ad stated so you start reading. The page wants you to take the action THEY want you to take. However, it’s not the action YOU want to take. So you begin to look around the page to find out more information before you take their suggested action, but there is no other action offered to you. They’ve completely striped out ALL navigation, the logo isn’t hot linked to the home page and the footer doesn’t have any links back the site either. You’re trapped. You’re only out is to delete the URL down to the root and only leave www.whateversite.com. Some sites have even gone as far as putting their landing pages on a one page site. YUK!! You’re trapped.

If you’re really interested you could perhaps Google the name of the company but why bother. Instead you leave and never return.

Why are people doing this? Does their split test really show that strategy increases their conversion rate? If I’m annoyed with these tactics other people have to be as well. I hate to waste ad dollars to test, but I might have to just to satisfy my own curiosity. What do you think? Do you like the landing pages that give you only one action to perform and no other links to their site? Except perhaps when it comes to elections, I don’t think people are lemmings and follow directions blindly. We’re conducting more research on this topic and I’ll keep you updated

Boost Sales in a Down Economy

2008-12-15T11:21:00.001-06:00

Gee, is this headline getting old already or what??? Well before this is all over – and I’m sure it will get worse for many before it gets better – you’ll see the headline to this post again and again.

I’m sure many of you have been reading articles on marketing in a down economy. There are a lot of great tips and advice but really, it’s nothing new. When a sports player gets in a slum what do they do? The coach always has the player go back to basics. It’s no different in business – go back to the basics and do them RIGHT. No fancy get rich fast schemes. No “hidden secret that will make you millions”. It’s the basic marketing principles done right.

But here’s a tip that many people are forgetting. As a company that deals with international Internet marketing we know that people make decisions based on culture. Culture is based on attitudes and beliefs. If your belief is that things are going to get tough what do you do when you spend money? You make sure that every penny spent is giving you value back. So, how would you sell to someone like you -- eliminate risks as much as possible.

How do you eliminate risks? It’s going back to the basics to over come uncertainty. Give people guarantees, proof of your claims, and assurance that you can solve their problem. Don’t increase the hype – increase the proof of your ad claims. Use testimonials. Use real numbers to explain how your product or service increased profits or contributed to solving their problem. Be specific and back-up your claim.

Overlooking Alt Tags

2008-11-18T10:18:00.000-06:00

Years ago when I started out in Internet marketing – I can’t believe I’ve been at this game since the mid-‘90s – Alt tags where a big deal. Of those of you that forgot or just don’t know, alt tags are those text boxes that pop-up when you mouse over graphic. After awhile, alt tags seemed to be a bit of a nuisance except when experimenting with SEO tactics. There always seemed to be more important issues to concern our staff with than alt tags. However, they shouldn’t be overlooked.

Years ago when most people where on dial-up to connect to the Internet, alt tags where very useful. (That’s when you connected to the Internet through a phone line and modem which for me started with a 14k download. Yes, back in the olden days.) Alt tags where important if you created a site with the end-user in mind because they gave the site visitor valuable information.

Many people turned off their browser’s graphics display because downloading graphics slowed surfing the net to a snail’s pace. You could literally go grab a cup of coffee and snack and when you returned a Web page was still downloading. If you had graphics turned on, the alt tags gave you a clue to what the graphic was about and was waiting worth it. Or at least they were supposed to give you a clue. Back then most site where strictly done by programmers and most graphics where just labeled such creative and useful names like “pic1.jpg” or “graphic2left.jpg” and the alt tag, if any, was the same name such as “pic 1”. Why bother with an alt tag like that?

Today we have high speed Internet connections and computers are faster than ever, but alt tags are still important and for the same reason. Alt tags are important as a visible clue to inform and persuade the end-user, to help in SEO efforts and if you want to comply with the American with Disabilities Act as it applies to the Internet.

Consider emails with graphics. Many times you have to right click to see all the graphics and correct and interesting alt tags can help inform and persuade the end-user to view the email with graphics.

Many mobile devices don’t show graphics by default. Alt tags give the reader a clue as to what your graphics are about. Entice and inform the reader to turn on the graphics to view your message.

Don’t overlook the importance of alt tags. They are worth the time adding a brief but complete description of the graphic.

Online Slow in 2009?

2008-11-14T17:00:00.000-06:00

eMarketer Daily research shows that local online advertising will grow but not as likely as it was during the past few years. Online advertising spending in 2007 was $8.7 billion, in '08 it was $12.9 billion - a 47% change. In 2009 it is expected to be only 13.9 -- only a 7.8% change.

As an Internet marketing company I hav say, I hope eMarketer is wrong. Currently our business is great and continues to grow. In fact, 2009 looks to be our best year. Not only are our current clients spending more but we're adding new clients faster than we've ever done in the past.

Most of the growth is due to the economy in that smart buiness people know that they need to be smarter about how they market and that includes doing more on the Web. Of course they wouldn't continue with that if they weren't getting great results.

Fee VS FREE

2008-10-28T14:22:00.002-05:00

eMarketer Daily's email today talked about Fee VS Free in Tough Times. They asked a question if content owners put a renewed emphasis on subscription fees? According to their research 52% of respondents will pay for Google compared to only 22% that will pay for Yahoo on only 19% will pay for YouTube.

It's interesting to think about. In my opinon once something is offered for free and then taken away you have just created an opportunity to fill the void for the free version.

It would be interesting to watch to see if YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, MapQuest etc. start charging for what is now free.

Tips to Build Your email list

2008-10-25T13:55:00.000-05:00

Email can be one of your most valuable marketing tools. But growing and maintaining a list can be costly. Here are a few tips.

1) Leverage

The most powerful way to crease profits is to leverage your existing clients. One of the ways to do that is to improve your list with any one that has purchased from you and asking them to refer others.

Developing a strategy for a refer program would not only help in building your list but also to increase sales. Keep in mind when asking for referrals if you are too general in your request people usually don’t respond. Instead of saying “please forward this message to a friend or colleague” say instead “please forward this to anyone you know in the service industry, who is in charge of marketing”. Of course you need to re-word it for your target audience.

2) Website subscription form

Be sure to have a place on most every page of your site for your site visitors to join your subscription. The best way to do that is to have a GREAT offer. A contest, free download, etc are all great offers to join an email list. Some of the pop-under scripts are also getting a good response rate. They are not as intrusive as the pop-up ads.

3) Test offer

When you have an offer to join your email list, test a variety of offers. The free download may not be an attention getter, but the 25% off next order may be the key to having people sign-up.

4) Co-Registration

Join forces with complimentary companies. If you sell shoes and they sell hats why not have a Thank you page that has an offer to join the hat company’s list. Of course the hat company needs a great offer and needs to put a reciprocal link to their email subscription thank you page to make it work.

5) Email address from point of sale

The most obvious way to grow your list is through your point of sale. Regardless if it’s online or offline there should be a process that is followed to add all emails to your list from a sale.

6) Purchase a list
There are several ways to purchase a list. Search for a list broker but be sure to find out where the subscribers are coming from. You need targeted email lists. First, you might want to determine how valuable a subscriber is too you.

Why Focusing on SEO is Not Enough

2007-08-08T09:06:00.000-05:00

We have been talking about Web site conversion on our last couple of BLOG entries. I just want to emphasis again, that if you’re just focusing on SEO and getting traffic to your site you’re missing the boat. Traffic is great. Don’t get me wrong on that, but what is your traffic doing on your site is a question you should be asking.

Many may think that more traffic to your site means more sales. Yes, that is true. There is a direct correlation to site traffic and results, but what would it mean to you if you got more results first from the traffic you have now?

Look at our July 27th entry and you’ll see how we explained that if you could increase your site conversion ratio by 1% you could increase profits by 160%! Before you spend a dime more on SEO or Adwords first take a look at the performance of your site.

What should you look at? That’s a good question. We have clients that many times want to review their site statistics on their own. We encourage everyone to be actively involved with their own site, but many times we find that most people have no idea what they are looking at when it comes to site statistics. Who can blame them when many stat programs can produce hundreds of reports?

Let’s first consider some simple things. First, what are you trying to accomplish? That’s different for everyone and the type of site you have. We take a look at for now, a lead generation site.

Most lead generation sites have some type of Contact Us form. We’ll start with that page. Find out how many unique visitors you have on your site in one month. Eventually, you should know how your reporting tool counts unique visitors but we’re going to keep it simple right now. Keep in mind that we are going to consider trends over all. Don’t get too hung-up. Trends can tell you a lot of information and it’s a good place to start for beginners.

Next, look at how many unique visitors came to your Contact Us form page in the same month. That number is your first conversion number. Let’s say you get 1,500 visitors to your site in one month. Of the 1,500 unique visitors 120 come to your Contact Us form page.

To get your conversion rate take 120 divided by 1500 and you will get 0.08. So your conversion ratio for the page is 8%. That sounds pretty good. But let’s look a little closer at that number and what is going on.

Next, let’s see how many people completed the form. Depending on your statistical package the only way you may know this number is to look at your responses in your database or email – however your form is programmed. We’ll say that you have 30 responses.

What is conversion ratio now?

From visitors on the page to completed form your conversion ratio is 25% (30/120= .25). That looks great, doesn’t it?

What is your conversion ratio from site visitors to complete form? That is only 2% (30/1500= 0.02).

The questions you should be asking include:

How many people started to complete the form but didn’t finish it?
If they started the form and abandoned it, where in the form did they stop?
Why didn’t more people complete the form?
How do I get more people to complete the form?
How do I get more people to the form page?
Are the people filling out the form quality leads?
Where are the people that complete the form coming from? How did they find out about the site? How often did they come to the site prior to completing the form? What else did they look at?

Those are all good questions and I’m sure you can think of more questions. Let’s consider the first question. How many people started to complete the form but didn’t finish it?

I’m always surprised when people don’t think to ask this question. In fact, I have clients tell me, at first, that if site visitors are interested in the product they’ll complete the form. They’re thinking that the only reason someone didn’t complete the form is because they don’t have an immediate need.

Well that may be part of it. Then I ask them this question: How many sites have you been on where you are highly interested in the product or service and for some reason didn’t complete the form or stopped in the middle of it. Everyone I’ve talked has abandoned a Contact Us form for one reason or another even when they were highly interested in the product or service.

You may not have the tools or program that can tell you where in the form a site visitor stopped. Depending on what you’re selling and how important a lead is to you, getting that information may be extremely valuable to you. Most sites do not have the capability of giving you that information but there are other ways to find out the pit falls of your form.

If you don’t have tools that can tell you where on the form someone stopped you might want to try a usability study on the form. You may think your form is simple enough to complete and anyone that can read can complete the form, so why take time and money to test it? You’ll be surprised at how little changes on your form can make a big impact on results. Read our February 14th entry on We Value Your Privacy. You can see how changing a few words increased conversion on a form by over 250%

Next we’ll talk about how to improve this conversion ratio and what a lead means to you in dollars.

Website Conversion - What is it costing you?

2007-07-27T10:40:00.000-05:00

In converting Website visitors to leads/sales, etc. let’s first look at what an increase in conversion could mean to your bottom line.

This information is on our Website under Website Conversion, but we feel it is so important to understand we are going to address it here.

Below is the site production numbers for Sample Site A & B :

Average monthly unique site visitors: 1,500
Average monthly marketing cost for site: $500.00
Average monthly number of customers: 30
Average total purchase per customer: $50.00
Average gross profit margin 50%

Monthly revenue is calculated by:

# of customers x dollar amount of average total purchase per customer
= Monthly revenue in dollars

Gross Profit is calculated by:
(Monthly revenue minus gross margin) minus marketing expenses
= monthly gross profit (profit before fixed overhead)

Sample Site A has a 2% conversion ratio which yields
$250.00 gross profit

30 x $50.00 = $1,500.00 monthly revenue
( $1,500 - 50% profit margin)-500 = $250.00 gross profit

Sample Site B has a 3% conversion ratio which yields
$650.00 a month of gross profit:
1500 site visitors x 3% conversion ratio = 45 customers
45 x $50.00 (average purchase)= $2,250.00 monthly revenue

Profit ($2,250 - 50% profit margin) - $500 = ($1125) - $500 = $650.00 gross profit

That is a 160% increase in profit by increasing your conversion by only 1%

You can plug your own numbers if you know what they are. For many people the first place they need to start is finding out what their traffic is on their site.

Next we’ll talk about looking at some of your site statistics and what they mean in relationship to your conversion and marketing.

What is Website Conversion and Should You Care?

2007-07-26T10:26:00.000-05:00

For years now experts in Internet marketing have been talking about Website conversion, but the message does not seem to be getting through many marketers. Any marketing manager or director I’ve talked to is very familiar with offline marketing conversion. They seem to fully understand conversion when it comes to their print, radio, TV advertising but they somehow miss the connection when it comes to the Internet.

Website conversion means measuring, monitoring and converting site visitors into leads, customers or clients. You want to convert people on your site from just visiting to take the desired action. For example, if you have 5000 visitors to your site in one month and 5 visitors complete your inquiry form you have a conversion of .1%. Divide your number of results, in this case completing a form, by the number of unique visitors.

Why should you care about this? Why not just get more traffic? Maybe the other 4995 people in the above scenario just weren’t interested.

Well, perhaps the other 4995 unique visitors somehow came on your site and found it wasn’t what they wanted and left. Perhaps the visitors are interested in your product or service but didn’t want to complete your form, couldn’t find the form or got lost, frustrated, or confused on your site.

Do you really want to spend more money to get more people to your site until you first find out if your conversion ratio is at its optimal level? If people are leaving your site because they are confused, or lost wouldn't you want to correct those issues? What if site visitors start to complete your form or buy your product and then stopped? Wouldn’t it be better if you first corrected that before you spent more money to have more people fall through the holes? Would you want to at least find out if you have that problem?

Tomorrow we’ll address what your current conversion rate is costing you.

Mobile Marketing Survey

2007-07-18T10:28:00.000-05:00

If you've subscribed to our newsletter, you will receive a link to our newest survey on Mobile Marketing. There are only a few questions so it won't take long to complete.

The best thing about the survey is that your name will be entered into a drawing to win a free mobile webcam.

If you haven't signed-up for our newsletter you can click below to take the survey and enter the drawing for the mobile Webcam.

Click here to take our mobile marketing survey.

The survey will be closed on August 5th. Winners of the mobile marketing survey drawing will be notified by email and announced in our August newsletter.

ePlus Marketing Hires New Marketing & Sales Assistant

2007-06-25T09:00:00.000-05:00

We're proud to announce that ePlus Marketing has hired Ari Fefferman as an Internet Marketing and Sales Assistant.

Ari is joing the staff to help us with our search engine optimization and marketing projects as well as assist with some of our sales projects.

Read our press release on our newest member to ePlus Marketing.