Posted by admin on June 30, 2009 at 8:00 am
Watch Your Step.
Checkout http://www.mklink.com/training/ for more internet marketing tips
I re-read a book the other day called “Permission Marketing” by a chap called Seth Godin.
The copy I read was a little dated as it was written about 10 years and was making references to AltaVista for example rather than Google but even so it was great to read it again.
Seth’s whole point is about the use of permission with your marketing. It is about offering the potential customer or client something for free (or at least at a peppercorn price) to start a relationship and then gradually win people’s trust over time and develop a mutually profitable relationship with them.
Now this is a concept I’ve heard again and again from people like Chris Cardell, Dan Kennedy, Cory Rudl and loads of people who’s names I can’t remember. And I know it works because I use it myself.
The average website asks people to either “pay up” or “go away” basically. Blunt but true.
The website that starts a relationship and then follows up with multiple emails and contacts generally does much better. Even for e-commerce sites, capturing contact details by offering the right “bait” usually gives you the edge over people that expect their sites to work simply by selling and nothing else.
Most people’s websites are expecting to sell straight away. Well ok that’s fine for the 1% or 2% that are in that part of their buying cycle, but it leaves 98% of the money on the table.
It’s a bit like a man going into a bar and seeing an attractive woman and asking her to marry him there and then. It may work in a small percentage of the time, but it’s not very effective! There’s no RELATIONSHIP.
Look at my site. I give away tons of great stuff to encourage people to return on a regular basis and tryout our training services.
For example, one simple way of using permission marketing is with a multiple step signup form.
We’ve all seen enquiry forms that have loads of pointless questions. Daunting at the least and usually very poor at conversion.
Far better to offer someone a free guide/whitepaper/e-book etc in exchange for the very basics i.e. a name and an email. Then, on the “thank-you” page, you can ask more questions and this way it doesn’t look too onerous.
In fact I have tried and tested having many questions over several pages and the more pages people go through(as long as they’re suitably motivated by the right “bait”) the more qualified the leads are coming out the other end. You can actually “see” people going though the sales “funnel”.
It’s a bit like a breadcrumb trail. Nice ‘n easy steps.
My question is, what can you do with your sales process to make it very easy to sign up to something and then gain progressively more information (permission) about your visitors?
Once armed with this information, you can run personalised, targeted campaigns for maximum conversion and loyalty. Again and again and again.
Why not let us show you how easy it is plus give you some great, specific advice about your website in loads of different areas? Register at http://www.mklink.com/getstarted now and don’t look back!
’till Next Time,
Mike Knight. MKLINK Internet Marketing Tips
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Posted by admin on June 16, 2009 at 9:22 am
From time
to time I get calls from companies that tell me that they work for Google.They do their best to give the impression that they are a division of
Google and that they can run my pay per click campaign for me at a fraction
of the cost that I run it myself.
Of course, I don’t tell them at this point who I am or how many hundreds of thousands
of pounds I have spent with Google, both for MKLINK and the handful of
clients I still work with in this regard.
The last chap rang me up and told me that he has 5 computers in front of him(!!??)
and that he guaranteed he could save me an instant 30% by optimising my
campaign.
Again, I
didn’t tell him how many hours I had already spent optimising my campaigns
to get both my click through rate and my landing page conversion rate.
Unless you
have a lot of spare money my suggestion is that you run your Pay per Click
campaigns yourself. Or at the very least learn how it should be done so
that if you do outsource it, you can always stay on top of it. Do not
be confused by this.I preach this message exactly the same way that I preach that business
people should be in charge of all their search engine marketing themselves
because it will save you a lot of hassle, complaints and ultimately money.
No-one cares about your search engine placements more than you do!
Remember,
you do not have to do it all yourself, you can train someone to take ownership
of it. Why pay agency rates for something that you or someone you can
hire from the local college can learn for next to nothing?
If you are
confused by it all thenRing Them Up!! Google wants to help you!
It is in Google’s interest that you are happy with your campaign
and that it is working well for you. Many people try it, fail at it and
leave it alone. Which is a shame because people are there to help you.
If you want
help setting up a campaign and are a new customer, try
calling 0844 338 0341.
This is the number taken straight from Google’s own website. (This number
may well change).I spoke to a very helpful chap called Jamie Bain.
Specifically the company is called Google Ventura and the good news is
that they will help you set up a campaign and they don’t charge you any
money. If you already have an account, you will need the more traditional
technical support, which can be found at
https://adwords.google.com/support/As always, if you would like an introductory consultancy to see if we
can help and train you with your internet marketing for better results,
simply sign up at http://www.mklink.com/getstarted
today or call 01454 852414 and we’ll be happy to try
and help.
’till Next
Time,Mike Knight.
Internet Marketing Advice & Training for Businesses since 1998.
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Posted by admin on June 4, 2009 at 9:28 am
Getting the Most from Ebay – Classified Advertisements
Most of us think of Ebay as being essentially an online auction site.
You either need to sell or buy via the website in order to make use of
it. There is however another way to use Ebay to get good quality leads
for your business at very little, without needing to send or receive money
via the site’s normal channels.
Ebay classified ads allow you to tap into the potentially large amount
of “ready-to-buy” traffic that use the site, and yet actually
conduct the ‘sale’ away form the site at a later date. Yes
that’s right – ebay have introduced a service that encourages sellers
to do business away form the website.
Just as the name implies, you are allowed to set up a classified advert
in which you can list your asking price, encourage interested parties
to fill out a contact form, or you can list your telephone number so they
can call you. There is no bid or buy button on the ad, no actual bidding
takes place, and details contained in the classified advert can be changed
at any time.
There is a list of possible categories available to advertise your services
in, but typically this kind of advertising best suits higher value, high
‘involvement’ , non ‘commodity’ products that
require more discussion, negation, and information to achieve a sale.
Since nothing is actually sold on the ebay site using this method, no
feedback is given.
Classified ads are displayed on Ebay for different periods depending
on what you are selling e.g. 30 day listings for many services, 7 day
listings for motor vehicle local ads. In most cases other than for example
real estate and more than 6 listings of motor vehicle ads in a year, there
will be typically no final value fee or notice fee. In many cases you
can expect to pay at most an insertion fee of $9.95 (prices are shown
in U.S dollars). Due to the vast amount of traffic that eBay classified
ads could be a very effective way of increasing your promotional ROI,
reducing the cost of sales, attracting new business, and building a list
of quality leads.
For more information go to ebay.com, go to the selling help pages
at http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/selling-basics.html and type ‘classified
ads into the search box.
Source: eBay.
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