MKLINK Internet Marketing Tips

I’m just messing about with some SEO and wondering if the SEO friendly URL’s on my forum about Marketing Tips would really make that much difference.

Looking at deep links in IBP may be worth a punt…

Did you know that loads of .uk sites are actually owned by comanies abroad like China and some are decidedly dodgy…

Checkout :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/business/8178959.stm

Google Insights appears to be a more focused version of Google Trends, the service that uses Google search data to produce visible graphic trends, and comparisons of trends for any terms you type in. Insights is intended to have much more of an actual commercial use, and is primarily aimed at anybody who needs to conduct research or advertise.

It uses the same data as Google Trends gathered from worldwide Google web searches. You can search as far back as January 2004, but Google only provides information for terms that have been searched for in numbers over a certain threshold. In other words, for some more obscure terms you’re unlikely to find the information you’re looking for.

Insights basically offers much more scope in how you can search, compare, and contrast information. Google gives examples of how Insights can be used e.g. to choose better advertising messages by checking how much interest there is in certain search terms, to gain valuable information when entering a new markets by looking at the popularity of the use of your product name in different geographical areas, or even to examine seasonal trends for key phrases. The hope for Google Insight seems to be to help you to make marketing decisions drawing on the considerable sample of data that Google has collected via its search engine, and it’s possible to see that this could be another good (free) value adding facet of Google’s services.

You can however only get the detailed figures associated with the graphs produced by using your Google account, so this is another way to keep you visiting and using Google Tools.

Extracting the information you require, and finding the best way to drill down the data is likely to take a few practice attempts. For example, there’s a search box with tips on how best to use it e.g. use a comma between terms to compare them, or a minus sign to exclude a term from a particular search .

You can compare information by items, locations and time ranges, and there are a series of drop-down menus for regions, the time period you’re interested in, and the type of search – image, news, product and web search. Google also offers some current examples of searches to click on.

Try Google Insights for yourself by going to http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

What is it?
As you’ll know by now, it is important to “touch” your customers and prospects regularly.
Whilst that statement might sound almost lewd, it carries a lot of weight.

Online, the obvious choice is email because it’s fast, free and extremely efficient. Yet it is important to remember that there are many ways to directly communicate with your market including faxes, telephone calls, letters and mailshots.

I have tried this myself and and confirm the countless studies that show that contacting people in multiple ways really does help your ramp up your conversion rate, customer retention and brand awareness.

For a site generating leads, a typical combination might be :

Step 1 Capture contact details via a contact form on the website.
Step 2 (Immediately after Step1): Email a Free Ebook, download, Quote etc.
Step 3 (Immediately After Step 2) : Post out a Welcome Pack.
Step 4 (3 Days After Step 3) : Send a Follow Up Email, offering a bonus.
Step 5 (4 Days after Step 4) : Follow up with a Phone Call
Step 6 Repeat sending emails & follow ups.

This is just an example and the variations of faxes, letters, calls, emails, mailings are almost infinite. Yet so many people simply have a website and a contact form and virtually no follow up system, which is crazy because that’ just leaving money on the table.

A lot of this you will know already because I keep harping on about how important it is to follow up. However, you might not realise how important it is to PERSONALISE your follow-ups or indeed how easy it is to do so OFFLINE as well as ONLINE.

How many more sales could you make if you sent your prospects a “Thank You” card with a personalised message inside it thanking them for their enquiry, perhaps with an offer or a coupon inside it?

I think that a lot of people don’t do this because they think it will be a lot of hassle but they don’t realise that it can all be automated. MKLINK offers this as a service

So you can have CD’s. DVD’s, flyers, mailshots, catalogues, samples, letters, cards and mailers of all descriptions posted automatically so you don’t even have to lift a finger. And each one can be personalised as much as you like.

By the way, personalised mailings out-strip non-personalised ones typically by 40%, often much more.

Obviously, what you send out is dictated by the profitability of the prospect or client. Someone interested in placing an order for a light aircraft would probably warrant more frequent and expensive mailings than someone considering buying stationery. (That said, don’t forget the LIFETIME value if the prospect or client)

How does this Link to The Internet?
The next dimension to personalising mailings is to link them in with personalised URL’s, or “PURLs” for short. So, if I sent a mailing to JohnSmith then I could ask John Smith in the mailing to have a look at www.mklink.com/JohnSmith for example.

All of a sudden, my conversion rate increases even higher and of course I can then track his activity online and personalise his experience even further and build a profile of him.

So the upshot of all this is that if you are not sending personalised mailings to your prospects and customers then you will most likely be missing a great opportunity.

It can be automated so that all you do it test the results and see the increase in conversion without any extra effort once the system is set up.

If you would like more information about this, just go to http://www.mklink.com/getstarted and start the ball rolling.

’till next time,

Mike Knight. MKLINK Internet Marketing Tips

Reduce Your Bounce Rate – A Quick Tip
Checkout http://www.mklink.com/getstarted for more internet marketing tips

What is your Bounce Rate?

If you have a bounce rate of say 40%, then this means that 40% of the visitors that you tracked that went to your site went no further.

i.e. They did not click another link. They came, they saw, they cleared off.

Bounce rates vary from site to site and genre to genre but obviously, the name of the game is to make your bounce rate as low as possible for most people with websites that have more than one page and with a desired action to be achieved. (e.g. buy something, download something, sign up etc)

Now there are loads of factors affecting bounce rates and I want to keep this very simple as otherwise you might not get what I’m trying to say and get lost in unnecessary diversions about deep linked traffic or repeat visitors etc.

Just Do One Simple Thing.
I’m simply trying to suggest that you do at least ONE thing to reduce your bounce rate – dramatically. Put, at the top of your homepage, your IBS. That is, your Initial Benefit Statement.

Far too many people have at the top of their sites “Welcome to ABC Services Ltd” etc. This is an utter waste for a couple of good reasons.

Firstly, the first bit of text that Google “sees” on the page should contain a key-phrase that you want to be found in the search engines for because I have personally noticed that this helps hugely with search engine optimisation.

Secondly, this same headline should convey an attention grabbing benefit that the visitor will get if they continue to read the page and indeed the site.

Remember, remember, remember: Your visitors are on the web to look for information, not to read welcome messages or other generic, weak and largely ineffectual “padding”.

So, you need to focus immediately on either what your website can do or what your key difference is that will be keeping your visitor retained.

If you have an ecommerce shop, do have have the largest range or cheapest prices(or most exclusive) or quickest turnaround or best customer service or best returns policy or most product experience or best track record or qualifications or highest customer satisfaction etc? (Don’t be an “Also-Ran”)

If you offer a services, try offering some initial tips. e.g. for an accountants’ practice in Bristol, rather than :

“Welcome to ABC Services Ltd”

you could try

“6 Overlooked Investment Tax Tips for July 2009 for Bristol Entrepreneurs” etc.

i.e. It’s specific, engaging and relevant. I’m sure given 5 minutes you could think of an better one. The point is that you think about it and DO it!!!!

Relevance here is key – and offers another compelling reason that you want to have multiple headlines, each aimed at a specific portion of your target market, either within the sections of your main site or on micro-sites that you own.

The whole point of an Initial Benefit Statement is that it gives the visitor a REASON to read your website.

Welcome messages are NOT a reason. When you read a newspaper, does it have a welcome message at the top? Of course not – people want to read the NEWS (benefit) that the paper offers.

I know this sounds simple and I keep harping on about it, but take a good look at your own website and ask yourself whether the first thing that people see on the homepage (and other pages too) is a specific benefit or generic waffle.

If you would like more help about how to use the web to increase customer retention, please visit http://www.mklink.com/getstarted today
or call 01454 852414.

’till next time,

Mike Knight. MKLINK Internet Marketing Tips

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

Get listed in DMOZ

Checkout http://www.mklink.com/training/ for more internet marketing tips

What is it?

DMOZ has been around for years and anyone who knows about search engine optimisation will know all about it. It’s called the Open Directory Project. The URL is www.dmoz.org

The name originally came from directory.mozilla.org with Mozilla(Netscape) being the company that owned it.

Why Bother with it?

Because search engines love it. So get your website listed there!

Having a listing on DMOZ should help your rankings because the site is edited by humans. You can become an editor yourself if you want to.

It’s not as easy to become an editor of DMOZ as it is for say Wikipedia because you have to be “accepted” and can only edit a specific area that you are selected for.

The open directory is the largest human edited directory there is. It’s basically doing what Yahoo used to do a few years ago.

Because it is edited by humans, it is considered to have more clout than lots of others automated directories and this is why having a link there can help with your search engine optimisation.

Another reason is that because it’s free, the site in theory gets edited only by people who are interested in a particular category and therefore again the search engines value it more than sites that are automated.

However, I know from experience that getting your site listed can take ages because there is such a backlog of sites waited do be added. The queue is so long because of so many submissions from spammers and automated services which have made it awkward for bona fide businesses.

My advice is to ensure that you have at least tried to get your site listed under the correct category and don’t submit your site multiple times as you can get black listed.

If and when you are listed it’s a bonus. You could even use the Google alerts service that I mentioned last time when the category that you are under changes either with your listing or that of a competitor.

By no means should you limit yourself to this directory of course as there are loads of other free directories as well. It’s just that this is possibly the best known one. Craigslist is another…there’s plenty to do!

Need some help? Visit http://www.mklink.com/getstarted and try it today…

’till next time,

Mike Knight. MKLINK Internet Marketing Tips

Google Alerts

Checkout http://www.mklink.com/training/ for more internet marketing tips

What is it?
This is a handy little service offered at no charge from Google that lets you know when certain web pages have changed.

Or blogs.
Or noticeboards.
Or forums.

It sends you an email so that you are automatically notified of any changes. You can then link this email to a text-message service if you want to receive an SMS about updates that are particularly important or urgent to you.

Why Have it Set-Up?
You’re probably already aware that you can request that Ebay sends you an alert via email every time an article appears for sale that fits the profile you’ve set-up.

It saves hours of searching and re-searching through Ebay to see if there any bargains of a particular type of product has appeared. You can even do clever things like filter the results so that only items within a certain radius of your house are emailed to you.

Similarly, Google alerts enable you to stay on top of things that are important to you.

It may be that you want to know if your competitor has updated their website (e.g. a price) or whether a blog or article has been updated for example.

Specifically, if you’re keen to stay on top of your search engine optimisation, having Google alerts set up will let you know about changes in your niche so that you can react and update your site content and so make sure you consistently out-rank other people

Use It to Track Your Reputation
I’ve written before about the importance of maintaining your online reputation.

With the recent advances in social networking online, keeping tabs on what people are saying about you can be time consuming.

Simply having your company name setup within Google alerts means you can be notified any time someone is saying anything about your company. So you can make sure your reputation is as it should be!

Obviously there are other applications as well and in fact of course you will have your own unique requirements to be alerted about.

From speaking to people, I get the impression that surprisingly not everyone is aware of this nifty little tool so I thought I’d share it with you in case it had slipped past your radar.

It’s available at http://www.google.com/alerts

Anyway – I’ll speak to you again soon with some more tips. Meantime, if you think you’d benefit from some straight advice, just go to http://www.mklink.com/getstarted

’till next time,

Mike Knight. MKLINK Internet Marketing Tips

More details on how to make your website a seductive sales system coming v shortly…

Some Customer Retention Ideas
Checkout http://www.mklink.com/getstarted for more internet marketing tips

Why is Customer Retention So Vital?

Even if you believe (rightly or wrongly) to curtail your marketing spend when times are tough, it is essential that you market effectively and profitably to your customer base and keep your customer retention as high as possible. It’s all to common to see someone working furiously trying to to get business in the front door but only to lose them again via the back door!

Now, more than ever, it is essential to retain your profitable clients and ensure that they remain loyal. You’ve probably already heard the statistics bandied around that it’s about 5 times more expensive to acquire and sell to a new client than it is to sell to an existing one.

Not only that, but it has been suggested that increasing your customer retention by just 5% increases your overall profits from between 25% to 85%!!! This is usually because people spend a fortune acquiring business but usually once a customer is in place, then running costs are typically a lot lower.

Whilst first time buyers tend to be “tryers” – just testing you out, long term customers tend to be more satisfied with the relationship and consequently less prone to switching to competitors, less price sensitive and offer more word of mouth referrals for you.

They’re usually cheaper to service too as they already know your processes so need less “education”.

Additionally, increased customer satisfaction and retention increases your staff motivation and job satisfaction too. Not surprising really! Who’d want to work for a company that’s only got angry customers calling to complain or leave all the time? Consequently, this can lead to a virtuous circle because happy staff treat their customers better.

If you are in a business with little differentiation, staff service, communication and attitude towards customers is everything!

Some Reason Why People Might Leave You:

Bad Service.
(How can you improve this?)
Pricing Issues.
(How can you help your customer afford your services ?
e.g. Can you offer payment by installments or a slimmed down version of your service?)
Customer has Expired, Retired, Been Fired or Re-Hired.
(How often do yo update your records?)
Customer has Moved.
(Can you still service this or sell the client to someone else?)
Customer no longer has a need for the service.
(Have you listened to your customers needs recently?)
Customer Received a better offer from a competitor.
(How can you keep your customer loyal – see below!)
Of course, while there are many others reasons you can see clearly from this that good, regular communication is the key here!

How You Can Increase Customer Retention – The Wrong Way.
Some companies try and keep their clients by using contracts that are difficult to get out of. Anyone who knows me will know how much I hate this. In my line of work, other ‘tricks’ of the trade can include owning domain names that the customers use. (Sometimes the customer isn’t even aware that they don’t own their own domain name!)

Or Legacy Code. If you have a shopping cart or some kind of database website using code written by a specific programmer, it can be difficult to switch website supplier so watch out for this!

In a nutshell, no-one likes to be kept by a chain. It will breed resentment and will possibly cost you more than the value of the customer.

How You Can Increase Customer Retention — The Right Way.
Basically, it all comes down to good communication and great customer service! Simple really.
Here’s a few specific things you can do.

Email/Fax/Write/Ring – REGULARLY.
Contact your customers on a regular basis and ask them if they are happy and if there is anything they want help with. Make them aware of your product or service improvements and keep supplying tips and advice that will help them use your services. (This is what I devote a lot of time to and I can say with 100% confidence that it has catapulted my business forward.)

It is why I am writing this right now!!!

Be Personal & Keep Your Service Memorable.
Remember clients’ birthdays. Send Christmas cards. Have an account manager that knows your customers by name. Use decent CRM(Customer Relationship Manager) software to be aware of which customers buy certain products (seasonal items, high ticket etc) and market specifically to them at the right time.

How about this? Offer a personalised website address for them to view your proposal or tips or feedback. So, you are called ABC Trading Ltd and your client is called John Smith, then how more likely is it that they’d read an article at www.abctrading.com/JohnSmith ??

Have Fun.
Life is for living! Unless you work down a coal mine or with unexploded bombs, try and have a little fun and this will filter down to your customers. Happiness, like sadness is contagious.

Pay Attention To Complaints And Compliments.
If someone is happy with your service ask for a testimonial and add it to your website. If they’re not happy, then run through exactly why they’re not happy and try and elevate them to the point where they are happy! Either way, you need to ask.

Offer Loyalty Rewards.
If you have an online shop, offer regular bonuses to loyal customers.

Offer rewards for “long service”. If someone has been a customer for a long time, then even a randomly received box of chocolates to say that they’ve been with you for xxx months or years can be a real shot in the arm for their perception of your business.

Say Thank You!
If someone has bought from you (or even better – referred someone else) then simply thanking them for their business is often overlooked by many busy business owners.

By the way, if they have referred another business, ALWAYS reward them, no matter how insignificant the sale may be to you.

Use Mystery Shoppers.
OK – so YOU know how important great customer service is. But how often do your staff ask the right questions or handle complaints when you’re NOT around! You can simply test it by getting a mate to call up and ask ‘scenario’ type questions.

(Remember to REWARD staff if they do an exceptional job – this is your lifeline to the outside world.)

Give People MORE than they Expect.
The bunch of roses in the boot of your new car is the kind of thing that you half expect. A coupon for your wife to spend the day at a health spa isn’t. So Aim BIGGER.

Remember, 5% increase in customer loyalty means an extra 25% to 85% in profit
- so go the extra mile because it easily pays for itself.

Upsell & Cross Sell
When you have a PERSONALISED relationship with your customers, you can upsell your other products and services and even offer other peoples’ products and services as a way of leveraging the relationship. So if, you sell cars, why not HELP your customers, by getting them a great discount at the local tyre and exhaust place. DON’T just send loads of adverts, they’ll resent it.

Survey Your Customers.
Show your customers that you care what they think by not only surveying them as quickly and efficiently as possible but also let them know AFTERWARDS what other people think and what you are going to do with THEIR tips and suggestions. Taking up a customers time with a survey only to be not appreciated afterwards will have the opposite effect!

A trick here is to use your employees to get the your customer feedback. They have the relationship with your clients (and if they don’t they should) They can speak to your customer by name and should know their history. Leverage that relationship and train your employees to always ask for feedback. Make it policy.

Handle Complaints IMMEDIATELY
This needs no further explanation. No excuses, just do it.

The upshot of what I am saying is that when times are tough, you have to communicate more than ever with your customers.

Look at it this way, if someone was chatting up and flirting with your wife/husband/partner and you weren’t constantly being attentive and trying to keep them happy then you already know what happens next! This is exactly what happens with your customers!

Other businesses are ‘chatting them up’ all the time by offering inducements and promises and so now more than ever you need to keep them loyal.

If you would like more help about how to use the web to increase customer retention, please
visit http://www.mklink.com/getstarted today or call 01454 852414.

’till next time,

Mike Knight. MKLINK Internet Marketing Tips