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Table of contents Facebook Mobile Marketing
Pg 3
Why More Web Site Content is Good for Your Business
Pg 4
Three Reasons Why a Good Looking Web Site Will Attract More Visitors
Pg 5
Building Your Business Through Blogging
Pg 6
Internet Statistics
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Online Reputation Management
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Yelp for Your Business
Pg 11
How to Get Your Web Site Indexed Quickly and Get More Traffic
Pg 12
Email Marketing Secrets
Pg 14
The Local Business Marketplace
Pg 16
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Welcome to this issue of Local Web Marketing Magazine. Here, we will cover many aspects of the Internet and mobile technology as a whole. Use the statistics within the centerfold to realize that the Internet has grown and continues to grow and evolve every single day. Social Media, how we access the Internet, our shopping habits and how we keep connected, continues to influence the growth of the Internet. Know that we, as a society are creating this change. It is because of business owners like yourself that progress has taken shape so quickly. Continue to discover the vast power of the Internet and mobile technology, and harness its usefulness to grow your own business. I hope you enjoy this month's issue of the magazine, and please email me if you have any comments, contributions or feedback. Enjoy,
Edison R. Guzman
>>> Talk to me Keep your valuable feedback coming. I try to reply to every email. I appreciate your input as it helps to make LWMM the best magazine possible.
Local Web Marketing Magazine www.LocalWebMarketingMagazine.com Published 6 times per year. Advertising inquires: LocalWebMarketingMagazine.com/advertise sales@LocalWebMarketingMagazine.com Edison Guzman: (845) 940-5369 Subscription inquires: LocalWebMarketingMagazine.com/subscribe Publisher: HowToAttractCustomers.com, LLC Editor: Edison R. Guzman Advertising: Edison R. Guzman July/August 2013 CopyrightŠ 2013 HowToAttractCustomers, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated or converted into machine-readable form or language without the written consent of the publisher. Articles express the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily those of the publisher. Please note: The information contained within this magazine is for educational purposes only. Every attempt has been made to provide accurate, up to date and reliable complete information. No warranties of any kind are expressed or implied. Readers acknowledge that the author is not engaging in rendering legal, financial or professional advice. By reading this magazine, the reader agrees that under no circumstances we are responsible for any losses, direct or indirect, that are incurred as a result of use of the information contained within this magazine, including - but not limited to errors, omissions, or inaccuracies.
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Facebook Mobile Marketing acebook Mobile is one of the fastest growing aspects of the world’s largest social network, and business owners are quickly realizing the incredible opportunities for low-cost, effective marketing that Facebook’s mobile features offer. With millions of users accessing Facebook from their mobile phones, Facebook mobile marketing is hot! Today’s mobile phone users rely on their cell phones as their primary connection to the world for personal and business use. In fact, many cell phone users are ditching their old-fashioned land lines and using their cell phones for all of their communication, including accessing the internet and popular online social networks like Facebook. Facebook has made mobile access of its features easy and its popularity has soared, with hundreds of millions logging on every day. For business owners, Facebook Mobile means lowcost and highly effective marketing that gets noticed. To take advantage of the marketing opportunities available with Facebook Mobile, it starts with a Facebook “Like” page for your business, product or interest. Using one of the many proven ideas about how to get Facebook fans, grow your fan base in simple and affordable ways and start interacting with your fans via Facebook Mobile. Facebook Mobile’s greatest advantage is how effortlessly it incorporates into the average cell phone user’s regular texting habits. According to a recent study from marketing research experts at ComScore, nearly 2/3 of all Americans are regular ‘texters’ and the average user sends and receives dozens of messages each day. It is simply a habit to check any incoming message when one receives notification that a text has arrived. That is why mobile marketing LocalWebMarketingMagazine.com
through Facebook is so effective! The benefits of Facebook Mobile marketing are clear: instant connection with fans, communication that is consistent and timely, highly affordable and simple to do! Business owners with even the smallest marketing budgets can use Facebook Mobile to connect with fans, and these are just a few of the many ways to reach out to a fan base with mobile messages that capture their attention:
Poll your fans about issues relevant to your product or service. People love to be asked for their opinions!
Ask trivia questions related to your business to get people thinking and interacting in a fun way.
Offer coupon deals only available to those receiving the text.
Notify fans of special events and happenings connected to your business or Facebook page.
Make your mobile marketing campaign engaging and entertaining and watch it go viral!
Facebook Mobile is a simple and affordable way to reach out to fans and connect with them wherever they are in the world. With a simple text, business owners can maintain relationships with their fans, share ideas, send special offers and create a sense of community that reminds people about products and services they love. Connect with fans through Facebook Mobile with effortless ease and find out what a simple text can do for your bottom line. LWMM
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Why More Website Content is Good for Business eople typically go online in search of information. Adding targeted content within your web site helps you get found online. There are two main ways to increase your content. You can write it yourself or have a search engine optimization company provide you with keyword rich articles. Regardless of how you create the content, there are three major reasons why more website content increases your website traffic. The first reason it increases traffic is that content articles tend to be focused on a topic. This focus will then lead to the repeated use of a keyword or phrase. That repeated use leads to higher search engine rankings as long as you don’t over do the repetition. If someone searches for the term “dogs” they will get thousands of pages of results. The order of those results are displayed depending on a number of factors including how frequently the term is mentioned, and where it is mentioned on the site. The second reason more website content increases traffic is a bit more complicated. If you have strong, well written content on your site, you increase your credibility with customers. Suddenly you are no longer a company selling homemade dog food; you are somebody who can offer knowledgeable advice about anything a responsible dog owner needs to know including house training, leash laws, and sleeping problems. This increase in credibility not only makes people believe what you have posted to your site, it also makes them want to stay at your site 4
to read the rest of your content. The more content articles you have at your site, the longer they will stay. Keeping them there as long as possible is the key to selling your product to them. You have a much longer time frame in which to pitch your product or services and close the sale. Not only will they stay at your site longer with more content, but this also means they may come bookmark your site and return the next time they go online. For example, if you are selling refilled printer ink cartridges, and you have content on your site related to all things printers, you have a good chance that someone might stay to look at the content. However, the next time they need digital photo printing tips, chances are good that they will remember what great content you offered them, and they will return directly to your site. This means you have their complete, undivided attention for an even longer period of time. They may recommend, “like” or share your site. The final way more website content increases your web traffic is that your web site will be a resource to your targeted market. Resources are shared and commented on. These are sign of a great web site in the search engine algorithms. Whether you have your content written for you or write them yourself, be sure they are wellwritten. Poorly written articles will only work against you. LWMM
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Three Reasons Why a Good Looking Website Will Attract More Visitors f you really want to attract more visitors to your website, you may want to step back and take a look at your web site from a visitor’s point of view. A good looking website increases its traffic naturally because those who visit it will likely return and tell their friends about it as well. The presentation of your website says a lot about your business. If you want to have a highly successful business, then it is necessary to have a professional looking website. With over 2.4 billion people world-wide accessing the internet, it is important for today’s businesses to maintain interesting and effective websites. If you are interested in learning why a good looking website is important when trying to increase traffic, take a look at these three reasons. Professionalism
customers to feel comfortable ordering from you. If they do not think your website looks professional, they may not feel comfortable doing so. It is not necessary to have your website professionally created in order to appear professional. All you need to do is test different designs to see which templates work best for your business. You can also educate yourself on web site creation. The more you read and learn about website creation, the better your site will look. If you find yourself overwhelmed, then you can always turn to a professional. Entertaining Not only should your website look professional, but it should also have an entertaining value.
The first time someone visits your website, it will make an impression, and it will say a lot about your business as a whole. If your website looks unprofessional and self-made, then it is likely the visitor will not think your business operates in a professional manner. When it comes to dealing with customers on the web, you certainly want to look professional on all levels.
Entertainment is something that will draw visitors into your site in a deeper way. If they see an interesting link, they will likely examine your site in more detail. By offering things like contests and free giveaways, you can easily draw in more traffic.
If you are an online retailer, you want
Anyone would rather visit a fun and
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Offering games to play on your site that may pertain to your business, can help keep the traffic flowing as well.
entertaining site than a boring and plain website. If you offer enough excitement it is likely the regular visitors will refer your site to everyone they know! Naturally, if gaming does not help promote your product or services, then keep them off your web site. You can also offer interactive calculators, measuring devices, metrics, and many more entertaining ways to keep visitors coming back and telling others about it. Easy On the Eyes A good looking website will also increase traffic because it is easy on the eyes. This essentially means that it should be attractive as well as easy to navigate. Choose colors and an arrangement that will appeal to your target market. The right color will appeal to your target market, yet the wrong colors will turn them off. Create an interesting layout, that it is easy to navigate. If your website is easy to look at and visitors can navigate easily around it, they will want to return. If you focus on these three reasons, your traffic will surely increase. Don’t be afraid to do it yourself, but know when it’s time to call in the experts. LWMM
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Building Your Business Through Blogging logging will allow you to create a website for your business from the very beginning, while being thoroughly optimized for top search engine ranking. With just a few clicks, you can instantly install a blog and begin to add in high quality content, to attract subscribers and prospects for your specific niche market. You can start by using the most popular and easy to use blogging platform...Wordpress. Since Wordpress is a free open source platform, your overall costs are limited to only needing a domain name and a hosting account when you do it yourself. When it comes to creating your online blogs, you have a few options available. For those who are unable to register a domain name and set up a hosting account, choosing a free blog hosting option sounds like a good idea. The problem with this, is that if you truly want to establish a professional presence online, housing your website on a free hosted account not only puts you at risk for not being taken seriously, but since your website is hosted on a third party server, you are also unable to fully control and manage your website. Worse, there is no guarantee that your website will not be removed or suspended without notice. This means that you could put a lot of time and effort into building a website that is at the mercy of someone else. Instead, if at all possible, try to register your own domain name and set up your hosting account so that you are given full control and creative freedom over how your website is created, what content is offered, what forms of monetization are integrated, and how much traffic 6
is directed to your website from various sources. You can register a domain name at services like www.aeDomain.com. and can also set up an affordable hosting plan at www.GVOToolKit.com Creating Profitable Blogs The first step is to identify the theme of your blog so that you can find a relevant domain name that will work well with your market and integrate your primary keywords into your domain name. Once you have written down a few ideas, as well as keywords that relate to your topic, you can use the services of aeDomain.com to locate domain names that are available to register. One thing to consider, regardless of the domain name you choose, is that it is memorable, easy to spell and can be used to build a brand. Also, be careful not to choose a domain that is not a top level extension (.com), as it's the first domain name that a visitor will type into their browser when trying to locate your website. When it comes to choosing a hosting account, one thing to keep in mind is that if you plan on creating multiple websites, you are better off selecting a hosting account that allows you to add more than one domain name to your package. This ends up being far more affordable than creating individual hosting accounts for every website you create. With GVOToolKit.com, you can add multiple domains to one account, so be sure to thoroughly evaluate your options and carefully consider your long term objectives before moving forward. After you have your domain name
and hosting account set up, it's time for you to install the blog software that will power your website and allow you to set up a fully functional, feature laden community where your visitors can interact by posting comments regarding your posts and content, and give feedback on the information you create. To start, depending on your hosting provider, you may be able to use cPanel's built in Wordpress integration, where you can click on a single link and have Fantastico install a fully functional copy of Wordpress. If your hosting provider doesn't come equipped with Fantastico, you can manually install a copy of Wordpress by downloading it from their main website, www.Wordpress.org and uploading the files to your server. Installing a blog is exceptionally easy, regardless whether you use the automated install feature or manually create your blog, but it's only the first step in an important process that you need to follow if you want to ensure that your blog is fully optimized and tweaked so that it's functioning at its best performance. This includes taking advantage of pre -created plugins that will enhance your website and optimize it for search engine rankings, as well as help automate content creation and management. Optimizing Your Blogs Let’s take a look at a handful of other elements that you need to pay attention to in order to create the best website that you can. Template Customization With Wordpress, there are literally hundreds of free templates and themes to choose from, giving you the opportunity to use different themes relating to niche markets that you are focused on. LocalWebMarketingMagazine.com
You can download these templates from various directories online and use them 'as is', or take it a step further and hire someone to customize the templates, so that no one else has the same design as you. Take some time to explore the different themes that are available before making your selection and don't be afraid to download multiple themes and installing them to see exactly how they look and function. From within your Wordpress administration panel, you can activate and de-activate themes on the fly, making it exceptionally easy to change the templates instantly should you wish to update your website's scheme or evaluate different themes until you find one that will work for you. From within the “Design” area you can access different controls including Widgets, Themes and the Theme Editor (I do not suggest editing your themes code unless you are familiar with HTML and CSS). Go ahead and download a theme, and upload it into your Wordpress wpcontent directory. I would suggest sticking with one theme so that you can begin to brand your website so that when visitors return to your site they instantly recognize that it’s your blog, rather than confusing them with different styles or color schemes on a frequent basis. Any time you would like to log into your Wordpress’ administration interface, you would visit: http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin If you install your blog into a different folder other than your root directory, you simply include the folder name: http:// www.yoursite.com/blog/wp-admin Using Plugins To Enhance Your Blog In addition to customizing the look LocalWebMarketingMagazine.com
and feel of your blog, you can also choose to add plugins to your Wordpress blog that will enhance your website and work as extensions of the blog software that can make your blog more interactive as well as easier to manage. In order to put these plugins to work for you, you simply download them from the developers website and upload them into your wp-content/ plugins in the same way that you uploaded your themes. And just like a theme, you need to activate each plugin from within your Wordpress admin center before it becomes active and visible on your blog. Plugins are exceptionally useful, especially when optimizing your website for the search engines. I have created a swipe file of the top plugins that I add to every blog that I create, and I suggest that you add these to a folder on your desktop so that you can use these on your websites as well.
Here they are, in no particular order: All In One SEO Pack This plugin ensures that your blog is well optimized for the title, meta description, and meta keywords. It should be a required plugin with every installation of Wordpress. Google XML SiteMap With every blog you create you will want an auto-generated sitemap. This is important so that the search engines can get a clear guideline regarding the pages from your site that you would like indexed. Contact Form 7 This plugin allows you to create fillin forms on your web site in order to generate leads from prospective customers. You can also explore other plugins at http://Wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ If you need step-by-step instructions on building your web site using Wordpress, go to www.BusinessU.co. LWMM
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Online Reputation Management s a small business, you are responsible for marketing your business – and that means identifying your most viable marketing avenues. Whatever size your business is, there is no denying that it should have an Internet presence, as the Internet is the arguably the most powerful marketing arena there is. A large part of establishing a strong online presence is managing your online reputation. What is online reputation management for small businesses all about? Here are some things you should know: Where your reputation is formed. There are a number of review sites that exist solely for allowing your customers and clients the opportunity to post their experiences with your business, and these sites are where your online reputation can be made or broken. Online review sites include Foursquare, Yelp, Bing, and Urban Spoon, among others; even Google Places provides a dedicated space on your Places page for customer reviews. In addition to the review sites, your online reputation is also affected by comments in industry forums, threads on social media sites, online articles, blog posts, public record documents, and more.
not proactively managing your own business reputation, then it will be managed by the actions of others. Taking into account the previously mentioned statistic, consider the implications of even one negative review about your business, especially if that is all people find when searching for you.
page.
How to manage your online reputation. Once know what is being said about you, you can form a plan for managing your reputation, based on what you know. You will need to take a multifaceted approach to your reputation management. For example, if most of what you find is indifferent (or, if you can’t find much at all), then How to assess the current state of your online reputation. Simply search you need to work on building your Why you must manage your online the web for your business name and see brand; also, respond to positive and reputation. If you don’t do it, what results you get. (You may also negative items accordingly. someone else will. Even if your want to search your name, the names of Online reputation management is a business is a small mom and pop shop your high-profile employees, your complex process, but it is also with only a very basic website, you brand, and your product/service.) You paramount to your business success. have to keep this statistic in mind: 90 To make the most of your online need not look past the first page of reputation, you may want to enlist the percent of all consumers research the search engine results, as 99 percent of help of qualified and competent Internet when looking for businesses to your customers will never get past that professionals. LWMM deal with. That means that if you are 10
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Yelp For Your Business here is a lot of talk in the business potential customers want to find world about Yelp lately. But what is businesses of your type in your area, they type their search terms into the Yelp? search engine, and Yelp returns their The definition of Yelp suggests the idea options – your business being one of of help or yell . . . and the truth is, Yelp them. (the website) may be any of the two for your business. So, what is it about What determines your business’ Yelp Yelp that could garner so much search engine ranking? Your business listing is ranked on Yelp attention for your business? search returns in accordance with Here is a guide to understanding Yelp: several factors pertaining to its number What is Yelp? First, it helps to of reviews and customer scores (from understand that Yelp is a kind of social one to five stars). You can also networking site, centered on customer purchase advertising space on Yelp, to reviews of local businesses. Anyone increase awareness of your business can post a review on Yelp, and anyone listing and improve you Yelp search searching the web can use Yelp to find engine ranking. and evaluate local businesses. Can a review be removed? No, you How does Yelp work? The idea is cannot remove a review from Yelp. very basic: you register your business However, you may request that Yelp listing with Yelp, and then you invite evaluate the review to see that it fits your customers to share their reviews within their content guidelines. Just via the Yelp online community. When remember that every business gets bad
reviews occasionally, and that it is how you respond to those reviews that matters the most. What is included in a Yelp business listing? In addition to seeing your customer reviews and ranking (in terms of one to five stars), people who visit your Yelp listing will be able to learn much more about your business, including hours of operation, business website address, physical location (or mailing address, if you prefer), and telephone number. Yelp also allows you to upload photos of your business to improve the visitor experience. Does it cost to use Yelp? No, it won’t cost you anything to register your business with Yelp, and to have your customers post reviews. If you opt to advertise your business using Yelp advertising, you will have to pay a fee. LWMM
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Visit www.aeDomain.com for more information. LocalWebMarketingMagazine.com
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How to Get Your Web Site Indexed Quickly and Get More Traffic ou’ve created your web site, optimized it for the search engines, and now you have to get it indexed.
other content that will make your page look established and complete, and then include information about your site (and your company) so that those visiting Being indexed simply means that your your feeder page have a clear idea as to website begins to show in search results what you are offering. with the major search engines. The objective of creating your page on There are a number of different ways to feeder sites is to funnel in free, targeted quickly get your site indexed including: traffic by piggy-backing off of the authority and existing ranking that these Creating Feeder Sites websites carry within the search Feeder sites are free websites hosted engines. with authority sites. Since these websites are already indexed within the Prominent linking to your main search engines, by creating a website of website is the key! your own on their server you will be You can also get your site indexed by able to get your site indexed as well. using other free channels and popular
engines if you enable search engine listing from within your Facebook profile. Commenting On Blogs Seek out high ranking blogs in your niche market and post relevant (and informative) comments. Do not just post comment spam (useless plugs to your site) but take the time to post something useful that is likely to be left intact by the blog owner. Post your sites URL within your comment post only if allowed. Yahoo Answers
By posting answers to current questions within the Yahoo Answers community, There are a number of different feeder communities including: you can include your website in the sites online, with the most popular ones "Reference" box. This is a super-fast Digging Your Website being: way of getting your site indexed, and Digg.com is a very popular community you can include multiple websites www.Squidoo.com that users visit daily to share content and within a single post. post new site discoveries. You can www.Blogger.com simply submit your website to Digg, and Social Networking For Traffic www.Wordpress.com with the frequency of crawling and Social networking requires a very popularity within sites like Google and Not only will these sites help you get different approach in order to your website indexed quickly, but you'll other search engines, it's likely going to consistently drive in traffic, build brand also be able to build solid backlinks that index your site relatively quickly. awareness and ultimately, become an will generate even more exposure for authority in your niche, but once you've Facebooking Your Site your site! set it all up - you can have it generate Just like Squidoo or Digg, Facebook is unstoppable traffic, all on complete auto All you need to do is quickly create a also a popular community and with it, one-page site on these feeder resources, the ability to post links to your websites pilot! and feature a direct link back to your or blogs that can be seen by anyone on All of the following social networking site. Consider adding in a few articles or your friends list and also be the search sites carry remarkable branding power
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and will help to generate instant traffic to your site: Twitter www.Twitter.com With Twitter, you can instantly find and interact with your target audience, and with a handful of free resources, you can actually automate the entire process of communicating with your following, and systematically generating fresh traffic to your websites without ever being online! You do this with services like www.SocialOomph.com where you can set up automated campaigns that do everything from thank those who choose to follow you, to posting automatic updates to your Twitter timeline! Facebook www.Facebook.com
boost your search engine ranking!
your forum signature.
In order for your forum marketing campaign to be a success however, you will need to stay active within the With hvBiz.com, you can quickly create forums and do your best to provide blog posts, generating interest and fresh assistance by answering questions, exposure to your products and services meeting existing forum users and and can also quickly locate local becoming an established member of the customers in the Hudson Valley, NY community. Region. The more helpful you are, and the more In order to create a memorable passively you market your website by hvBiz.com page, consider customizing simply showcasing it within your One of the greatest benefits of building the design and layout. signature (never mentioning it within like pages is that you can provide your posts), the better your forum potential customers and leads with free There are many other social sites to marketing campaign will do. samples or downloads of your products, consider, so do your research and find the sites that are most appropriate for or you can build a list by featuring an Above all else, enjoy the time you spend your business. opt-in box directly on your page! on these forums and not only can you One free method of generating exposure and building a reputation within your niche market is by creating a Facebook “like” page. A like page is similar to creating a new Facebook profile, where you can add notes, messages, download links, and images to your page, while managing your like pages all directly from within your main Facebook account.
hvBiz.com www.hvBiz.com
Start by visiting: www.Facebook.com/ pages once logged into your Facebook account to create your own page!
Forum Marketing
Linkedin www.Linkedin.com
Forum marketing is a great way to not only spread the message about your website, but to build an identity and a brand as an authority on your niche topic.
One of the greatest aspects of creating a To begin, scour the search engines for Linkedin account is in being able to generate organic traffic to your site from relevant forums where there are open discussions focused on your market. the major search engines. Website links featured on your Linkedin profile page will quickly rank within the search engines and by modifying existing labels and tabs to feature relevant keywords relating to your niche market, you will be able to quickly optimize your Linkedin account and LocalWebMarketingMagazine.com
The easiest way to do this is to go to Google.com and search for “your key phrase+forum” Substitute “your keyphrase” with the type of forum appropriate for your business. Then, create an account filling out your profile details and adding your website link to
develop a presence but you can also meet potential joint venture partners or other people within your niche market that you may have the possibility to network with in the future. Forum marketing goes beyond simply generating traffic to your website as well. With forum marketing you are able to conduct market research, find out what people want, what they are looking for and even what your competitors are selling!
While these strategies can take a bit of time, once you've set them up, they can continue to drive in traffic for many months to come! LWMM
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Email Marketing Secrets mail marketing is not just for Internet based companies any more. Many brick and mortar companies are adding email marketing to increase their customer base. Many of the large chain department and grocery stores offer email marketing to their customers as a way to offer sales and promotions that customers who do not wish to receive emails would be offered. Not only do large businesses use email marketing, but smaller businesses are finding this a great way to increase their customer base and to entice return customers as well. There is no other medium that can reach as many customers as quickly and cost effectively as email marketing can. Not only are smaller companies using email marketing to promote products and to keep in touch with existing customers, but they are also creating web pages that will get their products out to the public in different areas of the world that they would not have had the opportunity to network previously. Types of Non Internet Companies that Use Email Marketing
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There are probably more companies than you can think of that are using email marketing. Your local band will use email marketing to let their listeners and followers know when and where they are playing next so that they can keep people coming to their shows.
following. Any business can benefit from email marketing and should begin to utilize this strategy so that they can help their business to grow. How Local Business Owners Can Create Email Lists
This makes them money as the more people that show up to each show is more tickets sold.
It is very easy for non internet based companies to create email mailing lists so that they can begin to use email marketing to their advantage.
More tickets sold means more money for the band. Not only that, venues will offer more money to the band if they know that their shows are going to sell out or nearly close to it. This can be used by local bar bands all the way to the top acts in the music business.
You can offer a customer the opportunity to get on your email list by having a sign up sheet near the front door of your business or by offering to take their email while the customers are checking out.
Restaurants are now using email marketing to let their customers know their weekly specials and special upcoming menus as well as email special offers and discount coupons.
Placing a fish-bowl with a sign indicating to drop a business card to win a free lunch will also get you many names faster and easier.
You can also offer a business card with instructions at the same time you are Follow up emails to past customers handing your customer change or make increase the frequency of returning them available at the check out counter. customers, hence increases revenue. Make sure you place your website These are two completely different address on the business cards. Your types of businesses that are using email customers will then be offered the marketing in a positive and productive choice to opt-in when they browse your way to build business and create a loyal website.
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Stay in Touch With Your Customers These customers will not be inclined to visit your site or purchase your Email marketing is a great way for you products so why bother sending them to keep in touch with your clients. You an email that is useless to them? This is can send out a newsletter that lets them a waste of your company’s money and know what is coming up for the month of your manpower. ahead or to advise them of a sale or store closure that may be taking place. By offering an opt-out, only the people who want to read your emails will get You can also use email marketing to them and you will get business from promote specialty items or events that those customers. are going to be happening in your shop or for your industry that your customers The second reason for having a opt-out option is that you will not be accused of may want to know about. sending out spam to customers who do Make sure that you keep these emails not wish to receive your emails any fun and entertaining so that your more. customers will look forward to receiving them when they arrive in As discussed previously, spamming is a serious issue and by offering an opttheir email as discussed above. out, you will protect your company Email Only Coupons from being accused of spamming. One great way to retain loyal online There are more important issues customers is to offer email only companies need to deal with besides coupons. These will be printed out by being accused of spamming. your customers and can be used in your The opt-out option not only protects brick and mortar store. your customers, but also your Your email customers will feel special company. It may be assumed that if because they are being offered a deal you offer an opt-out that your that is not offered to customers who are customers will use it. Some may, but it not taking advantage of the email list. has been established that those You can also offer a two for one customers will not be inclined to visit coupon that your email customers can your site again and so this is not a huge give to a friend who will then want to loss to your company. become a member of your email list so Opt-In Confirmation that they can get in on all the specials Many times when people are trying to that are offered to loyal customers. purchase a product that requires an As expressed earlier, word of mouth is email address to be added will give out one of the strongest marketing tools a false email. that can be utilized. What a great way for word of mouth about the great deals They may feel that they do not want to people get with special deals for email be added to an email list. They would prefer to try out your site first and then subscribers than a two for one deal? make a determination over whether to Offer Opt-Out Options become an email subscriber after they It is important that you give your have received their product or service customers the option to opt-out of from you. emails. There are two reasons for this When you offer an opt-in confirmation option. First of all, you do not want email, the recipient will have to use a customers who do not wish to continue click through link in order to be added to receive emails to get them. to your email list. This will save you They will not be opened and instead time and money on wasted emails will be sent directly to the spam folder. being sent out that only come back as LocalWebMarketingMagazine.com
invalid. When you offer an opt-in-confirmation, your customer will be more inclined to include an active and correct email address as they know they will have the choice to accept or decline the offer after the product or service was found satisfactory. You will have an email list that is filled out with valid email addresses and customers who are looking forward to receiving more emails from you. Finally, an opt-in confirmation email also helps to avoid the spam issue. When your customer has to use the click through to opt-in to your email list, they cannot claim that you are spamming them later. Since they have confirmed that they want to receive emails from your company it will be hard for them to prove any type of spam in the future. Having the right email marketing system is paramount to making this task as easy as possible for you. Therefore, look for the right service at the right price for your needs. You can research it online, or use any of the following:
Aweber
Constant Contact
Mailchimp
SendReach
iContact
GetResponse
My favorite and the one I use most often is at the following address: www.YourEmailMarketingSystem.com. Expect to pay anything from $10 per month to $300 per month unless you use a company like GVOToolKit.com, where they combine hosting, email marketing, web conferencing, and video hosting. Do your homework and decide. LWMM 15
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