Online Marketing Tricks of the Trade
A question you may be asking yourself if you run an online business is: who exactly are my customers? Sometimes it’s shocking to think that hordes of people want your service. You get that “they love me, they really love me” moment so typified in Hollywood movies. But think about it like this, you’ve done your research, planted the seeds of your business, and are now reaping your due harvest.
You may not need to use Anywho’s reverse phone number finder to learn every possible customer detail on record, but you do want to stay knowledgeable as to who your customer base is. The reason for this is that the market is changing constantly. Social media and search engine customization is always in flux, forever waiting for the next big game-changer or the next big algorithm. Here are a few tips that will help you as you move forward with your online marketing endeavors:
Separate your personal profiles and your business profiles on social media sites.
First of all, you don’t want to harass your friends and family with every detail of your business. Yes, of course, a few times a month it’s acceptable to toot your horn and use your personal profile to discuss an element of your business. But any more than that and you risk seriously annoying your most loyal brand ambassadors.
Increase your exposure.
Configure your site for social bookmarking so that your customers can pass on news of your service to sites like Delicious, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon. Also, create a Wikipedia page for your business. Contribute as much to conversation marketing as you can by taking part in relevant forum discussions and participating in Google groups.
Optimize your site.
Nothing leverages you for Internet success more than SEO. Become friendly with search engines by creating a sitemap, XML if possible, and good internal linking structures. Not only does this make search bots more likely to find you, it makes your site more structured.
If you have the budget for it, create accounts on pay per clicks networks like Google and MSN.
If you’re running a cheaper campaign, look for quality impressions on lower tier networks.
We’re just scratching the surface here. There are hundreds of tools and strategies for beefing up your online marketing endeavors. A successful campaign will require a lot of research and scouring the marketplace for the best models in your industry. No matter what field you’re in, social media etiquette, social bookmarking and SEO are going to be major components to a healthy campaign. Figure out your budget and create a game plan.
Read MoreTechnology and Today’s Social Interaction
Guest Post by Pat Tate
Two sides of the same coin
We all enjoy spending time chatting with friends. It is such a wonderful world, isn’t it? It is such a pleasure reading through micro-blogs written by our friends and looking through the photographs on Facebook. It probably makes us happier than anything when our display picture is ‘liked’ by so many people.
Board games were fun, but that was a long time back when there wasn’t much interesting online. But today, the world is different! Information sharing and networking has never been easier. E-bay is such a boon, when you can pretend like you have spent days looking for that perfect gift for your girlfriend!
And then comes a point in time, when you lose all the fun abruptly! Your mother asks you to get yourself out of that room and go along to the vegetable market. The heat outside makes you wish you could shop for vegetables also online! However, tough times do not last, and you get back into the protected and very comfortable zone of the air-conditioned room with your very own laptop!
Things get better with each passing second in from of the laptop with you over whelmed in the extraordinary world of Internet while you conveniently forget that you were going to purchase Lego Hogwarts Board Game for your best friend’s birthday!
This surely is not an uncommon event. Everyone must have had a similar, if not exact occurrence in life. And surely, we all try and ignore it as stress and infrequent absent-mindedness. But there is something else that researchers have to say about it.
Well, for one point, the scientists working on theories that explain about stress and depression hold an opinion that the high levels of stress are directly related to their addiction to Internet and computer based life. They say that slowly but surely the whole world is turning into a place of web-addicts.
They say that a group of people classified as ‘heavy users’ of computers in general and Internet in particular, are found to have severe stress and also in a lot of cases acutely prone to depression. They find it extremely difficult to mingle with the normal social groups and show a variety of signs of a consistent unhappy life. Of course, this is only in regard with people who are heavy users.
Also, taking into consideration the fact that this research was done was back in 1998, when Internet was a treasure for a limited lot, we have to be forewarned that these symptoms would have grown more common in today’s world. We need more surveys and statistics in order to know how the world today is faring against the Internet invasion.
Despite the fact that it is a very small fraction of people who suffer this syndrome critically, it is important to note that a large majority of us are prone to it today. Most of the users of computers already show typical signs of stress and depression though the effects are very mild.
Carnegie Mellon University was one of the foremost places in the world where the issue of computer addiction was taken up seriously as a matter of mental illness. Lots of work in terms of study, research and documentation has been done since. Also, surprisingly, even without Facebook or Twitter still active in the plethora of online applications researchers at the university had found an abject need to study the negative consequences of computer addiction.
Today, computer addiction has overgrown to a stage where it has become a threatening possibility of an epidemic. Think about a time when pastimes were still playing a game of chess with a neighbor or practicing music. Surely, they would have thought it lame to imagine a world obsessed with the electronic machine, trying to make friends with people you don’t even know.
An addiction beyond anything that man had ever known before!
They said alcohol was the root-cause to all problems in life. With alcohol came instability, monetary loans and losses, losing track of personal life, irresponsibility, gambling and other vices. Trust me, Internet addiction leads to all these vices; in fact, only more directly. With Internet addiction, you tend to lose track of life and most importantly social responsibilities and the tactics to deal with the society.
A medium of communication that keeps you from doing it!
Yes, isn’t that exactly what the computer communication is doing to us these days? Yes, we agree the social-media is in itself a massive tool for communicating what you think to the world. It gives us a variety of options through which you could speak up your mind to the world. You could speak to people; make friends, exchange information and shop on the web. You could actually even look for Top Toy Christmas 2011, right a click away on the Internet, instead of going all the way to the store!
However expressive the ‘smileys’ in Facebook might get they surely cannot bring forth the expression that dwells on your face. Communication in the face-to-face mode is often a mixture of facial expressions, mannerisms and mild modifications in voice and tone. All this cannot be accommodated into the set of words that make up your conversation during the online networking.
Scientists say that meeting people everyday makes one a more confident person in general. Face-to-face communication on a daily basis apparently, also serves as a magnet to pull you away from web-addiction. And then, there is of course the advantage of making real friends that know you better than just your words.
In fact, some scientists also claim that friends made over Internet break up too easily. They say that these bonds are based on unreliable factors which make them weak and easy to lose. In turn, a life full of such empty relationships tends to become superficial and fake. It doesn’t take too long for a person to feel distressed about being unable to make real friends and the end-result without exception is low confidence and depression.
Smart bloggers- Shy speakers
The young mind is often the devil’s workshop, because it is so easily influenced. Parents have relentlessly found a problem with their kids’ addiction to a lot of things- junk food, television- and now the Internet. It is not surprising that there are so many under-age owners of Facebook profiles today!
We shouldn’t forget that it is often more serious an issue than just ‘sticking to the laptop always’. What is more important is the adverse effect of this inappropriate addiction.
Youngsters today often suffer from under-confidence and lack of focus. In working environments they find solace in closed cabins instead team building activities. This is not checked in the right time could lead to isolation from social circles, which is not such a good thing, after all!
Real problems need real solutions
Life is never fair. Life is imperfect. You might feel that you are a little too heavy for your height. You might think you do not have the most perfect face. You might think your more successful colleague is a fake. You might not want to face embarrassment, failure or disgrace.
The Internet, in these problems, offers a quick and short-term solution- escape. Social-networking sites offer you a new world. In this world, you can afford to be everything you actually wish you were in real life. You can be your hero, and can hear everyone sign your praise.
However, what is not in place is the fact that however much we choose to run from real problems, they keep chasing us back. Solutions lie not in the glorified fake world of social media but in the dull and boring everyday life full of challenges and questions.
Realize that escaping to a virtual world will never solve your problem. Find the nerve to tackle your situations with smartness and positivity, life in reality is much more beautiful than any glorified fake.
The common-place thing
This has over the past two decades become the in-thing. Back then, there were board games for people to play. And they would have expected that we would be playing better versions of the same board game in the years to follow. What we did, is buying a Lego Hogwarts Board Game online or rather playing an online version of it, altogether!
Everybody loves chatting online and creating profiles on Facebook. Each one is busy interacting with a large bunch of online-friends. Everyone loves doing this, so this must be the right thing to do. With so much inspiration, we all definitely know what is right. Right?
Sometimes, it might also be the easier thing to do, to sit online, than go out and play basketball with a bunch of friends.
A good thing after all!
It is common sense to understand that if something were to get as popular as the Internet and other forms of computer usage, it had a reason why it did.
The Internet is a big mass of information. It connects you to knowledge and people from different parts of the world. It creates a platform over which you could connect to a diverse range of people from different countries and languages. This surely gives you an edge over the non-users when it comes to the variety of friends you make.
The Internet is a place that connects people. It connects people with friends, buyers with sellers, actors with fans, writers with readers, and you with the world! You could get anything by booking it on the Internet- from a fresh pizza to Top Toy Christmas 2011.
There have been researches, which say that people connected through the Internet to a wider population have shown to recover from ailments by mutual understanding and connection due to similarity.
So, what should you do? Is the Internet good, or is it bad?
It doesn’t take extreme smartness to understand that everything in the world comes with advantages and disadvantages. It is always a package of good and bad and in the end, it is for us to choose what proportions of these qualities we choose into our personalized pack.
- Time limits are often easy ways to analyze your Internet usage. Once you know how much you are using today, you have your solution. They say, half the solution to the problem lies in understanding the problem itself.
- Read, write and listen to music. Try and list out what you used to do way before the Internet became such an indispensable part of your life. Make them a part of your life now. It’ll help you de-stress in addition to getting you rid of your web-addiction.
- Did you ever spend hours on the Internet changing pages and not sticking to anything in particular? It could be because of boredom. Maybe it isn’t really what you want to do, but end up doing as a mere matter of lethargy to think of options. Answer this question, and find a solution for many other unasked ones.
- Make a detailed time-table as to how you would rid yourself of the addiction. Like de-addiction from alcohol or drugs, Internet-de-addiction also needs a serious forethought a plan. Make it a point to plan easy steps and achievable goals and begin the program right away. Tomorrow never comes!
- Get yourself some exercise. Often it might happen that you might get stressed out working on the computer. Your mind might be tired, but the body not-so-tired. This is when it leads to insomnia and restlessness. Find the sport you enjoy most and engage a couple of friends to join you play it. This way, you’ll reduce stress and make friends; two birds in one catch!
We must always know and understand that the Internet got to our doorsteps all the knowledge in the world. It is a symbol of information and communication. It got to us people and places that would never have touched our lives otherwise.
We must take Internet as a boon and use it responsibly. Choose what part of it helps us become better people and carefully filter out the over-dependency. That is the key to a great, informed and happy life!
—
As a senior Pat Tate started to explore Internet Marketing. She uses her blog as a journal to keep track of the people and programs that she has met along the way. Grandma’s Internet Marketing/blog. She is an avid golfer and invites women to join her to talk golf at Women’s Golf Center. She has always loved toys and as the proud Grandmother of five beautiful Grandchildren she gets to play with new ones at Grandma’s Toy Review.
Read MoreAffiliate Marketing Fanatics 58: Suicide by Cough
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A couple of hyper-caffeinated affiliate marketers (Mike Buechele) and (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more!
Like the great prime time dramas of yore, we’ve done a crossover arc episode with the guys at Geek Dads Weekly, Daniel M. Clark and Drew Bennett. Our fun started during Emo Wolverine Feels Nothing – Geek Dads Weekly 101 and continues here. In in this episode we discuss:
- Ad:tech NY & Mike’s experience there last week. It seems more folks are more directed at building mobile networks instead of mobile content, necessarily.
- Using the broader point of reference of Internet Marketing instead of Affiliate or Performance Marketing.
- Some Affiliate Summit West 2012 info, talking about our Affiliate Improv! panel with Mike, Daniel, Eric Souza, and myself. The panel will be at 3:30 Sunday January 8th in the Augustus V room.
- We’ll be manning a speaker booth Tuesday January 10th at 2:00 pm for any follow up!
- The discovery of Pinterest, the inundation of crafty folks there, and how it is divided a bit among gender lines between who “gets it” and who doesn’t.
- The Affiliate Summit Newcomer Program – Our code name for Caesar’s will be Castle Greyskull.
- Show our guests some love: Daniel M. Clark is a podcast production consultant at QAQN.com and Drew Bennett is a dad, photographer, and blogger at BenSpark.com.
Find us on Twitter: @AMF_Podcast, @MikeBuechele & @TrishaLyn. Like us on Facebook! Be old fashioned and just leave us a comment!
Special thanks to GeekCast.fm for hosting Affiliate Marketing Fanatics!
Read MoreCJU Course: Consumer Shopping Trends: What makes them tick? What makes them click?
The Internet has become the main purchase path for many consumers so let’s uncover the latest trends and developments in online shopping and learn about what is making consumers click “Buy Now.” How are innovations in mobile, local, and social changing the shopping experience? What is the real impact of coupon and deal sites? Join us to discuss what is driving changes in shopping behavior, who is buying and why, and most importantly, how affiliates can continue to be at the center of these trends. The speaker was:
- Ronan Vance, Director, Business Development
This was a great last session to end on. It was chock full of information – if you were an attendee of CJU and didn’t get a chance to check out Ronan’s presentation, I highly recommend you access the CJUniverse for his presentation PDF. There’s so much more information in the form of great charts that I can’t really include here. I love it when presentations have lots of interesting stats, and Ronan sure didn’t disappoint!
Bullet Point Review!
- Where to buy? Lots of different ways to buy.
- The times they are a-changin.
- Early 20th century: personal, social, immediate, informative.
- Late 20th century: variety, experiential, social, immediate.
- Early 21st century: variety, convenience, transactional, informative.
- Understanding the online shopper.
- Buying more online, 30mil new shoppers online. 5.8% of total retail sales in 2010 (eMarketer). Forrester says if you take groceries out of the equation it’s more like 12%.
- Top reasons us shoppers will shop online: 24 hr shopping, easier to compare prices, free shipping offers, I don’t want to fight the crowds, more convenient to shop online, easier to find iems online, better variety online, I often don’t have to pay tax.
- Three hot trends that continue in 2011.
- Coupons
- Despite challenging economic conditions, people are still shopping online to get the best deal.
- More people are price comparison shopping and printing coupons online than looking for jobs.
- Couponing has become part of our culture.
- Maximize coupon usage: give choices, diversify placement, remove obstacles, promote sharing, go mobile.
- Adult mobile coupon users. About 19.8 mil today, est 35.6 mil by 2013.
- Daily Deals/Deals of the Day
- Fleeting, play into your emotion because people feel they need to take advantage of the opportunity that they’ll never see again.
- Groupon and LivingSocial have ~40% of the group/ daily deal market.
- Very social aspect. Over 80% of Groupon subscribers will share a deal in some way, shape, or form.
- 77% of deal buyers for Groupon, LivingSocial, BuyWithMe, Travel Zoo are new customers, 36% spent beyond the deal value, 68% returned to the establishment and bought again without a coupon, 20% became return customers, 22% were unredeemed (Source: Rice University Survey)
- Social local mobile (SoLoMo)
- F-Commerce? Commerce on Facebook.
- Discovery + eCommerce + community = future of F-commerce.
- Local apps (Foursquare, Gowalla): check-in, find deals, build loyalty, earn rewards, get instant gratification.
- Mobile: check stock, compare prices, find coupons, learn more, read reviews, shop online, phone in order.
- What’s next?: Informative, Experiential, personalized, social, immediate.
CJU Course: Advertiser Best Practices: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Affiliate Marketing
Looking to optimize your program but can’t figure out how? Does the affiliate marketing industry often seem like a giant galaxy without direction? Don’t Panic! Chris and Craig presented a guide on how to jumpstart any new or veteran program and drive results – money! They shared travel-tested principles you can use to offer the right marketing mix, invest your time and money effectively, and engage publishers and customers. Pack light for this trip through the keys to growth in the affiliate marketplace. The panel consisted of:
- Chris Schwass, Advertiser Account Manager
- Craig Cacciola, Advertiser Account Director
I’m not a raging Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fan but I have see the movie and understand the references, which made this a really fun presentation. I really enjoyed using the rules of the book/movie as analogies to affiliate marketing. It was fun and informative – my favorite kind of session! You could tell that Chris and Craig were both having a good time putting together their session, something that’s greatly needed the last day of a conference when people are thinking about going home!
Bullet Point Review!
- Bring a towel – Bring something of value to the table.
- Offer the right incentive. Flat rate vs. Performance incentive. Bigger performers don’t need performance incentives, especially loyalty – they want flat rate. Short term vs. Long term. They want long term.
- Vary your promotions. Give your publishers tools so they can be effective in attracting consumers. Some affiliates build momentum so a long offer is good, but some affiliates hit the moment and short term offers could work better, so don’t ignore either demographic.
- Fix your site. Make sure landing pages are right, close leaks with phone numbers. Optimize, optimize, optimize! Consider it from the publishers perspective.
- Use your babelfish – Speak the publishers language.
- Write to one person. Be more conversational, engage them. Write as if you’re writing it to one person.
- Keep it simple. The rule of 3: 3 words in the subject line, 3 paragraphs max, 3 sentences per paragraph.
- Be transparent. Think of them as your sales force. You’ll build loyalty and rapport with your top publishers.
- Listen to your robot – Don’t ignore the data.
- Test everything. Why? What? How? Not everything fits your conventional wisdom. A/B test publisher emails.
- Find the ROI.
- Set a baseline.
- Analyze incremental lift and cost.
- Organize future opportunities.
- Think long term. There might not necessarily be return in year 1. Diversify. The more investments you put in, the greater possibility of seeing payoffs
- DON’T PANIC!
CJU Course: Doing More With The Traffic You Already Have
Many publishers spend the majority of their time and resources trying to increase the volume of traffic they receive. In this session, the focus was on how to get more performance out of the traffic you already have. The ValueClick Brands division shared the tips and tricks developed during its ten year history; highlighting what, why, and how each optimization can have impact. The speaker was:
- Steve Neufer, General Manager, ValueClick Brands
This was pretty informative. I really liked the direct way Steve presented the information, and it made me realize just how important usability testing is to everyone! Steve was an engaging speaker, funny, and used great analogies to make his points.
Bullet Point Review!
Increasing traffic to an under-performing website is like adding more water to a leaky bucket.- What we say is we want more traffic, but what we mean is we want to earn more.
- Traffic is a tool, not a goal.
- Understanding your traffic.
- A little bit of information allows you to create a hypothesis and do more.
- What percentage of your current traffic is “productive”?
- Where is your productive traffic coming from?
- Resources: Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, session level conversion reporting.
- This is easy, doesn’t necessarily cost a lot of money or take a lot of expertise.
- Understanding your users
- If you’re not observing actual user behavior you are missing the boat. Usability testing is a must!
- Myths: expensive, complicated, requires expertise.
- Resources: UsabilityTest.com, Family/Friends
- Testing Scenario: go to Google, perform search for “Kohls coupons” and try to find a coupon that you can use the save money on your online order.
- Testing Results: tested 20 users, most visited 8 sites, 2 successfully found a coupon, most common initial response was confusion, most common descriptor used was spam (pretty much means they’re weary).
- Designing for Productive Users
- Them not us: you are not your users, your users are asymmetrically savvy, your users are asymmetrically patient, trust is an issue.
- Sophistication level may be very low but apprehension level is high, so we have to talk to them with sophistication to gain trust.
- Unfamiliar terms: SKU, S&H, merchant, related searches, promo, next, sponsored, post.
- Familiar alternatives: item, shipping, store, popular searches, promotion, next page, advertisement, news.
- Be concise: what is the user supposed to look at here?
- Be safe: why do you need my info before you answer my question? Give first, ask later.
