Archives : 2009 : January
E-Newsletter Marketing Proves Worthy Over Traditional Marketing
Our recent SmartGroup, covering everything ‘newsletter,’ became a helpful reminder that marketing online through this method can prove a worthy tactic. Compared to traditional media, 79% of adults visit a website because of newsletters, versus 65% from radio, 83% from TV and 89% from print (Source: ThirdAge.com Baby Boomer Survey, 2007). Given that the newsletter follows some simple instructions and has a backbone of support, it could very well be an inexpensive format for getting your unique message out.
Instructions:
1)Decide who’s responsible.
If newsletters fail, they most often fail due to lack of commitment. The commitment may be likely less frequent then a blog; however, the information infrastructure is something to consider when you’re first starting. Gather troops, create deadlines and follow through to make sure that when you announce to your audience that you’ll be releasing a monthly newsletter that it’s actually, well…monthly.
2)Keep the signup simple.
Providing a simple call to action and simple signup is the key to inviting subscribers to join your newsletter. We recommend you ask for Name and Email…and that’s it. Some of our clients only have a field for email…that’s okay too. Although qualifying your leads and getting information from your audience is helpful, asking for too much just turns them off. The KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) method applies here.
3)Appropriate Welcome.
You are allowed by ICANN spam policy to have a list where you may send one (I repeat, ONE) welcome newsletter to invite your audience to opt-in and sign up to receive future newsletters. We are not in the business of spamming those that do not sign up or are interested. Keep your subjects relevant, content informative and comply with those who sign up and then later may choose to unsubscribe.
4)Follow the ICANN rules and regulations. (i.e. there’s fines and prison sentences, folks)
Most of this is common sense but due to the outcomes, it’s worth noting. You are not allowed to falsify header information. You must have an unsubscribe link on every email. You are not allowed to use deceptive or misleading subjects. You may NOT harvest or buy emails lists; the subscriber must initiate a request to receive information. For more information, visit: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/spam/business.htm
5)Information vs. Sales Content.
Although it’s fun to receive coupons and promo codes in your e-blasts (or newsletters), the retention and long-term benefit goes down if sales content is the overwhelming point of interest in your newsletter. Informative content, content that benefits your audience—teaches them something valuable—is the best for long-term retention. Promotions are great but be sure to balance informative content and sales pitches through the duration of your newsletter schedule.
6)Frequency and Send Dates.
We often get the question, “How often should I send a newsletter out?” This question is entirely dependent on your industry and audience. For some, it’s appropriate to send out announcements a few times a week, others it’s monthly, and even others it’s quarterly. The key is to let your audience tell you when is too much! Follow your analytics data to best understand what frequency is best.
In terms of the best days to send newsletters, statistics have shown that Tuesdays and Thursdays are best. Mondays and Fridays are worth avoiding if possible. Mondays we’re catching up on emails and could easily miss it; Friday is too close to the weekend where our minds are already wandering….
7)Design Layout.
Here’s another popular way to miss the mark on the newsletter. We’ve had clients be so enthusiastic about publishing that they literally publish a BOOK. Posting full articles and many of them dilutes the purpose of the marketing piece. Here’s the trick: Treat it like an newspaper headline and abstract—create a grab-worthy headline, a paragraph or two of informative content and then a CALL TO ACTION! The call to action is the most important step. A link to a full article, a link to a promotional product, a survey form completed…whatever the content, make the link trackable. Chunking information is the best policy. Oh, the other point of links is that driving traffic to your site, where your audience can expand upon their knowledge of your services, is always helpful!
8)Analytics/Reporting
Just like understanding trends in your website visitors, understanding what your audience responds to in your newsletter is imperative. Gauging what links (or topics) are popular is a helpful way of understanding the needs of your audience and likely what’s great to continue writing for. Track your baseline and success by understanding your bounces, your subscriber list growth and boosting traffic due to newsletter popularity.
Happy writing everyone! For a recap and samples, visit the Smartz Forum (http://www.smartz.com/forum)
Evolution of the Mobile Life: Part 1 – The Move
Today, cell phones are commodities. We expect to replace them every 1-3 years, and the reasons vary from breaking hardware to desired new features. Recently I have went through this very process and want to share a series of articles with you detailing my experiences and observations of living in an increasingly mobile world.
Recently both my wife and I found ourselves with mobile phones that were having problems and, due to our cell phone company being acquired by a national provider, the phones would soon cease to work on the network. This time around we decided to shop for phones that fit us rather than settling for the phones available from our provider.
Decisions
My wife’s needs were simple, she wanted phone that was easy to use and she wanted to be able to get her Gmail on it. She did not care about Internet access, music or other advanced features. My needs and desires ended up being a bit longer list; however, the main feature I was looking at was stability. My previous phone was a Windows Mobile 5 HTC P4300. While it was a large phone, there were a lot of things I liked about it; however it required frequent reboots and I’d been forced to hard reset the phone about once every 3 months requiring configuration and reinstallation of all of the applications I used.
After looking at the phones available in our area from the various providers, we decided that we would both go for the T-Mobile G1 (HTC Dream) running the Android platform. It seemed to encompass everything that we were looking for. We made the move and anxiously awaited the arrival of our shinny new phones.
Unboxing
Our phones arrived on a Tuesday night. After waiting the prerequisite time to charge them fully as directed by the instructions, we sat on the couch with our handsets and a quick-start guide. My first impression was that it was a very organic interface. All of the press goes to the ease of use on the iPhone, but in my opinion Android is just as natural. I came to this conclusion after a conversation about 45 minutes after the unboxing.
Wife: “I think I’m going to like this thing.”
Me:” “Oh? Why’s that?”
Wife: “Well, it’s much easier than my old ***** (bleeped to protect the innocent) was.”
Me: “Yeah?”
Wife: “Yeah.”
Me: “Really?”
Wife: “I’ve set everything up from Gmail, contacts and calendar already.”
Me: “Cool!”
Wife: “Oh, and I never opened that book once!”
Me: “Sweet!”
Wife: “I even found Pac-Man on the Market!”
Me: “Awesome!”
My experience was similar, I had my basic phone functions up and running in a few minutes and had already began using the browser to go through Google Reader’s unread list. Searching Google was effortless and viewing YouTube videos was almost faster than my laptop! All was looking well!
Next time
The first few days of course are the honeymoon and much joy is to be expected. In my next article I will discuss the experience of daily usage and begin talking about some of the applications that increase the general quality of our lives.
Analytic Confusion – AWStats vs. Google Analytics
Some web site owners or webmasters use AWStats to view and analyze their web site traffic, some install Google Analytics on their site for additional insight, and some use both. What are the differences between AWStats and Google Analytics? One of the main differences is they generate their data using different methods, and each has its advantages and disadvantages. This is why they sometimes generate very different traffic results. Below are some of the reasons for this.
AWStats (AWS) uses log based tracking. Every time users perform actions on your website, the server records or logs details of those actions. AWS puts together log data into a meaningful format. Advantages include the ability to track bots, downloads of PDFs, images and documents, and tracking failed requests. Disadvantages include not tracking some views of cached files, inflated page views due to tracking every file requested for a page because it can’t tell all those files are assembled into a single “page,” and the inability to see the number of users behind firewalls and shared connections.
Google Analytics (GA) uses script based tracking. It relies on JavaScript, cookies, and a remotely-hosted piece of code to collect, process and interpret user data. Advantages include GA seeing a page the same as a user, rather than a collection of files and images (thus giving a more accurate page view count), reports that communicate business value better to the webmaster, and better data collection inside web pages and paths to determine things like where a user abandoned filling out a form. Disadvantages include not being able to track user behavior if they have JavaScript turned off or don’t allow cookies, and the inability to track search engine visits since search engine spiders (in fact, many automated agents or ‘bots’) don’t run JavaScript by design.
The bottom line is that it gets complex, and the only way around it is to make assumptions as to what constitutes a unique user or visitor, and simply accept that inaccuracies are inevitable. Google Analytics reads low, AWStats reads high, and that’s the way it is.
If you would like to explore this more in depth, read our complete article on the differences between AWStats and Google Analytics.
Some of this information was also derived from these articles:
Google Analytics & AWStats Work Really Well Together
Google Analytics vs AWstats log file analysis – the differences
Warning…Warning…The Coolest New Product of the Year Announced!
But you’ll have to be at SMX to see it!
Well, that’s not entirely true – you can also see it at www.pixelsilk.com; but you’re going to want to be at SMX to really get to know the geniuses behind this leading-edge…some would say “futuristic”… SEO-enabled Content Management System.
Pixelsilk will also be hosting the SMX Meet and Greet party at the Santa Clara Convention Center on February 9th; 6 – 7:30pm. Don’t miss the party – especially when Pixelsilk is buying the beer!
Here are the details:
When: Monday, February 9th, 2009
Where: Santa Clara Convention Center, Main Lobby Bar
Time: 6:00 to 7:30 pm
What to Bring: Your SMX Pass, Business Cards…and your drink tickets!
Discount Offer:
We welcome our clients and friends to join us for this special occasion. Use the coupon code: smx10pixelsilk when you register for SMX West 2009.
New Design Trends Lend to Better Success Rates
Too often in a prospective client conversation, at the moment when a redesign is discussed, the client is thinking more about all of the information they would like to present instead of how they want to present it. Giving too much user choice as to ‘where to go next’ is a trend that’s dying. No longer are there new sites with multi-level navigation front and center, with an endless plethora of choice.
Smart designers and smart SEOs know better. It’s up to us to guide the client to best understand who’s coming to the site and what they want. Drop down navigation menus are being replaced with two or three call to action buttons, proactively guiding a user through the site…to the ultimate conversion.
Now, each page has a purpose, a placement in a highly organized or siloed structure, a call to action; information combined with a gentle (or not so subtle) push to the next step toward conversion.
Smart sites are designed with the ultimate purpose in mind – which may vary from purchasing product, filling out a lead generation form, calling direct or visiting a particular page. They work backwards internally and create the site around a specific and direct set of keywords and actions they would like to be found for and what products and services they offer.
Recent home page designs are clean and straight-forward, which guide the user to the next step and meets them at the point of their buying process (whether research or purchase driven). Since you have an average of 15 seconds to get your point across and invite a visit to click deeper into your web site, the need for simplicity is imperative.
Does your home page have a purpose? Does your site have a goal or set of goals?
The Pioneers of SEO
There’s never been a good place to learn about the SEO pioneers; until now. How did this all get started and who was behind the wheel? When you see big names like Danny Sullivan, Greg Boser, and Bruce Clay – do you ever wonder how they got started, or why they got in to Search Marketing in the first place?
Now there’s a place to read personal interviews from the best of the best. Check out The History of SEO to learn all about the industry and the people behind it. The site is still growing, with 20 or more interviews to be added next month alone – but you’ll see; it’s the place to go when you want to know!
The Dance of Finding an Internet Marketing Partner
For most companies, small and large, Internet Marketing (typically referred to as Search Engine Marketing or SEM) has become the most important aspect of their marketing plan and of their business livelihood in general.
So how do you ensure you’ve got the right agency on your side? Besides the most obvious; check references, here are a few guidelines that will help you find the right dance…uh…Internet Marketing partner:
1) Check out their moves. The partner you choose should have all the moves, and be able to dance to a variety of music. They should have a working knowledge of all components of Search Engine Marketing, including organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-per-Click (PPC), link building, Social Media Marketing (SMM), and conversion (sale or lead) enhancement experience.
There is so much interplay between the various disciplines of SEM that if you choose an agency that is not well-rounded and well-versed in all the components, you run the risk of being inefficient with your dollars and missing out on many cross-functional opportunities. For example, if your agency is only focusing on your PPC campaign, then you miss out on all the long-term effects of Search Engine Optimization and ranking organically in the top search engine results.
The latest trends in user behavior suggest that most people searching online do their research through organic search listings, but then make an actual purchase through PPC. If you are only engaged in one of these channels, you may be losing out on a great deal of sales.
2) Daily practice ensures a great performance. Dedication turns a social hip hopper into a competitive pro. Look for an agency that is dedicated to Search Engine Marketing. Dedication means that the agency has committed expert resources to this service offering and that the people working on your project will be focused on your overall business, marketing, and sales goals.
Internet Marketing is a constantly changing field, with new research and market modifications monthly, if not weekly. Ask if they have a dedicated Internet Marketing team. What do they do to stay on top of the industry changes? Why do they think Internet Marketing is important?
3) They can optimize, but can they tango? They may have some decent moves, but when it comes down to it, do they know the dance? How much do they know outside of SEM? Do they have experience effectively tying Internet Marketing strategies and methods into a web site that meets your business goals?
Learn about the agency’s experience working with web designers and developers. Do they understand how to interact with your developer or internal IT team, or your marketing department? Are their recommendations in step with web development best practices and usability trends? Best case scenario – your agency will have all of these disciplines in house; offering you the best in single source marketing methods.
4) An intimate dance builds the fire. You want a trust worthy partner that will dance close and build the heat. Meet with the agency in person, or at the very least converse on the phone. Do they explain things in a way that makes sense to you and helps you truly understand what their services offer? Are they excited to help you learn about Internet marketing? Do they make an effort to get to know your company and your industry? Will they be there when you need it?
5) Back that thang up – the bottom line. They may know how to get down and “drop it like it’s hot”; but will they really deliver in the end? As you are getting to know the agency, make sure they’re focused on your business goals. Are they interested in learning about other aspects of your business? Be wary of any agency that talks only about “getting you a #1 ranking”. While it’s great to rank well on the search engines, no one can guarantee a position, and there is much more to succeeding online than a top search ranking.
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