Read Start Your Own Business Online
Authors: Inc The Staff of Entrepreneur Media
Start Your Own Business (96 page)
Affiliates place merchant promotions on their websites to sell goods or services. They control the type of promotion, location on the site, and the length of time it runs. In return, the affiliate earns commission on click-throughs, leads or purchases made through the site. For example, your town’s Big Bank is the affiliate looking for local merchants to advertise on its site. It has a restaurant, an office supply store, a realtor, a law firm and an accounting firm with ads or promotions on its site. Depending on what they negotiated with Big Bank, they’ll receive commissions on sales that initiated from their website. For every click-through that results in a sale, you’ll earn a commission, anywhere from 1 to 10 percent for multichannel retailers, or 30 to 50 percent in the software sector.
You may want to consider joining an affiliate program network, which provides all the tools and services affiliates and merchants need to create, manage and optimize successful affiliate marketing programs. Sites that offer quality programs include
LinkShare.com
(
linkshare.com
), which offers deals with Dell Computer, 1-800-Flowers. com Inc., Foot Locker, and Commission Junction, a Value Click company (
cj.com
). Crave more obscure programs for your site? You’ll find them at ClicksLink (
clickslink.com
), which provides a searchable directory plus tools for signing up with everything from astrology vendors to watchmakers. If you’re an affiliate, you can join these networks for free.
LinkShare.com
(
linkshare.com
), which offers deals with Dell Computer, 1-800-Flowers. com Inc., Foot Locker, and Commission Junction, a Value Click company (
cj.com
). Crave more obscure programs for your site? You’ll find them at ClicksLink (
clickslink.com
), which provides a searchable directory plus tools for signing up with everything from astrology vendors to watchmakers. If you’re an affiliate, you can join these networks for free.
Another route is using your favorite search engines to find companies that have potential as affiliates. For example, if you own a gym and sell workout products, you might want to affiliate partner with nutritionists, personal trainers, sports drinks, and vitamin and health-food partners. If you decide to run your own affiliate programs, Infusionsoft (infusionsoft. com) offers a complete e-mail marketing system and everything you’ll need to run a successful affiliate program.
REACH OUT AND E-MAIL SOMEONET
he Direct Marketing Association offers some practical advice on how to be more successful at reaching current and potential customers through e-mail:• Encourage customers and prospects to add your e-mail address to their personal “approved list/address book.” Being an “approved” sender yields higher response rates and generates fewer complaints and blocking issues.• Carefully consider the content and presentation of your marketing messages because recipients are increasingly labeling any e-mail communication that’s not relevant or looks suspicious as spam.• Click the “spam check” button in your e-mail program to see if your e-mail is at risk for being marked as spam. A growing number of ISPs use spam-filtering software. This technology uses algorithms to determine whether incoming messages qualify as junk e-mail and filters them out before they get to a client’s inbox. In addition, you should register for all mailbox provider feedback loops. In general, aim to keep complaint rates (total complaints divided by total delivered e-mail) below 0.1 percent to avoid temporary or long-term blocks.• Adopt good list-hygiene and list-monitoring practices that help facilitate message delivery. Monitoring campaign delivery and open and click-through rates is essential because low open rates or high bounce-back rates may indicate a delivery problem.
A good website design and strategy for attracting visitors takes you three-quarters of the way to success. The final step is getting people to try your offerings and to come back for more. The best way to do that is to treat each customer as unique. Fortunately, the web lends itself to the kind of personalization that’s relatively easy and inexpensive for even the smallest business.
SAVEJim Daniels of JDD Publishing advises teaming up with other sites in your niche by forming joint ventures. Search for sites that serve a similar customer base, and get their mailing addresses. Then mail them a letter offering to send them your best product or service at no charge so they can try it out. If they like it, you’ll pay them a commission if they’ll recommend it to their site visitors and newsletter subscribers. If you found them easily on the web, chances are, they have lots of website traffic.
With a little effort, you can address each site visitor’s needs effectively. Combined with offline strategic work—such as hitting customers every other week with a free newsletter or offering them a two-for-one special if they haven’t visited your site in two months, readily available e-commerce tools enable you to personalize as nothing else can.
The basis for customization is the cookie—a morsel of information that lets sites know where customers go. A cookie is a piece of data that’s sent to the browser along with an HTML page when someone visits a site. The browser saves the cookie to the visitor’s hard drive. When that customer revisits the site, the cookie goes back to the web server along with his new request, enabling your site to recognize the return visitor.
Here are some ideas for marketing programs you can create from an analysis of stored cookies and e-mail:
• Send a postcard to customers who haven’t bought anything online in three months, offering a $10 or $20 reward for shopping online.
• Send an e-mail with a new promotion a few weeks or months after a customer makes a purchase.
• Offer a chance to win something and make it easy for visitors who drop in at least once a week to enter the contest.
If personalization seems too complicated, you can still design your website to speak to different groups of people. Let’s say you’re a realtor wanting your site to meet several needs. Create a screen with button bars like these:
• If you’re a buyer, click here.
• If you’re thinking of listing your house for sale, click here.
• If you’re a realtor from outside the area, click here.
• If you want to join our team, click here.
This form of customization addresses the needs of different groups. You have made an effort to provide information tailored to each market segment. It doesn’t cost a million dollars yet increases your credibility and efficiency.
Getting visitors to stick around long enough to explore your site is just as important as tempting them to visit in the first place. Here are some tips on capturing your visitors’ attention.
The Ad-Free Zone•
Make connections.
If possible, hyperlink your e-mail address; this means most visitors can simply click to open a blank message and send you a note.
•
Have fun.
People who surf the internet are looking for fun. You don’t have to be wild and wacky (unless you want to). Just make sure you offer original content presented in an entertaining way.
•
Add value.
Offering something useful that customers can do adds tremendous value to your site. For example, customers can track their own packages at the FedEx site or concoct a recipe for a new drink at the Stolichnaya vodka site. While it doesn’t have to be quite so elaborate, offering users the ability to download forms, play games or create something useful or fun will keep them coming back.
•
Keep it simple.
Don’t build a site that’s more than three or four levels deep. Internet users love to surf, but they get bored when they have to sift through loads of information to find what they’re looking for.
•
Provide a map.
Use icons and button bars to create clear navigational paths. A well-designed site should have a button at the bottom of each subpage that transports the visitor back to the site’s homepage.
•
Stage a contest.
Nothing is more compelling than giving something away. Have the contestants fill out a registration form so you can find out who’s coming to your site.
•
Make payment a snap.
If you’re setting up an online storefront, give customers an easy way to pay you. Consider including an online order form, toll-free ordering number or fax line.TIPIf you want to get noticed online, offer to provide content to others. Electronic newsletters and magazines always need new information. One of the best ways to create an online presence is to e-mail sites and volunteer content on a regular basis.
When you design your website’s marketing plan, remember that the internet is a community with its own set of rules that you as an entrepreneur must understand to be successful. The primary rule is: Don’t send spam.
Not only is it annoying to recipients, it is also illegal. In 2004, Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (or Can-Spam Act of 2003) was signed into law. The law requires commercial e-mail messages to be labeled and to include opt-out instructions as well as the sender’s physical address. It also prohibits the use of deceptive subject lines and false headers. A good way to get folks to opt in to your e-mail list—which of course they’ll have the option of opting out of—is to offer a free monthly e-mail newsletter.
Content is wide open, but effective newsletters usually mix news about trends in your field with tips and updates on sales or special pricing. Whatever you do, keep it short. Six hundred words is probably the maximum length. Another key: Include hyperlinks so that interested readers can, with a single mouse click, go directly to your site and find out more about a topic of interest.
Another tip to keep in mind: Don’t post commercial messages to newsgroups that have rules against these types of messages. For example, on the social networking site LinkedIn, don’t post massive messages that sound like sales pitches to any of the groups. However, if you’re offering valuable content and resources or if you’re looking to start a discussion on a topic, then by all means post away.
chapter 35
SOCIAL STUDIES
Social Media Marketing
W
hat’s all the buzz about social media and, more important, why should you be listening? Social media has become a tool to connect and engage with your audience—and in today’s marketing landscape, that’s how brands are built.
hat’s all the buzz about social media and, more important, why should you be listening? Social media has become a tool to connect and engage with your audience—and in today’s marketing landscape, that’s how brands are built.
Social media marketing is simply using social sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube, to market your business. This new marketing medium is more demanding on businesses because to promote and build a brand, you
must
engage in conversations with your target market.
must
engage in conversations with your target market.
The
Social Media Marketing Industry Report
, by social media researcher Michael Stelzner with
WhitePaperSource.com
, the online source for writing and marketing white papers, confirms that 81 percent of businesses using social media marketing indicated that their efforts have generated significant exposure for their brand. Improving traffic and growing lists was the second major benefit listed, followed by building new partnerships. The number-one benefit of social media marketing was gaining those all-important eyeballs; an unexpected benefit was a rise in search engine rankings reported by more than half the participants in the study.
Social Media Marketing Industry Report
, by social media researcher Michael Stelzner with
WhitePaperSource.com
, the online source for writing and marketing white papers, confirms that 81 percent of businesses using social media marketing indicated that their efforts have generated significant exposure for their brand. Improving traffic and growing lists was the second major benefit listed, followed by building new partnerships. The number-one benefit of social media marketing was gaining those all-important eyeballs; an unexpected benefit was a rise in search engine rankings reported by more than half the participants in the study.
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