72 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site

72 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
Uses of Permission Marketing
Permission marketing techniques can be integrated with many Internet
marketing tools, including newsletters, surveys, contests, and so on.
Chapter 3 covers many repeat-traffic and customer loyalty-building tools
that you can use on your Web site. Permission marketing is an excellent
way to enhance the use of those tools—a few of which are covered in
depth in this chapter.
Newsletters are one of the most popular resources for permission
marketing. You can ask visitors if they would like to receive notification
of new products, updates to your site, relevant tips, advice, industry
news, and so on—whatever might be of interest to your target market.
People who sign up to receive your newsletter do so because they have a
clear interest in what it is you have to say. In your newsletter you can
integrate strategic promotional opportunities to encourage users to come
back to your site or to take some other course of action. If your newsletter
is about recent happenings in your business or new product updates,
encourage users to “follow this link” to see the updates or additional
details and then, when they do, transport them to your Web site. A
newsletter keeps you in front of your target market and constantly reminds
them of your presence. Permission marketing opens the door for
communication with your target market; this is an important step in
building a long-lasting and profitable relationship with them.
Warranty registrations offer you an opportunity to capitalize on
permission marketing. On the warranty registration card or online registration
form for your product, you can include a section encouraging
the consumer to sign up to receive additional information on your products
and services. Many software vendors integrate the warranty or user
registration process into their software and allow the user to submit it
via the Internet once it’s completed. On the registration form, the software
vendor usually asks consumers if they would like to be notified of
upgrades to their product or if they would like to receive additional
information on new products being released. The consumer can then
click “Yes” to receive additional information or “No” to not receive
any additional information. Users usually click “Yes” because they want
to be notified when updates become available. Along with the information
they requested, you can include relevant promotional opportunities.
The simple act of posing the question increases your chances of
capturing your consumers because you have put the idea into their head—
something that might not even have crossed their mind.
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Permission Marketing 73
Contests and sweepstakes represent another ideal opportunity to
put permission marketing to work. In this case, the contest is the primary
motivator to encourage people to sign up. The e-mail notification
sent out to notify each contestant of the winner can also include promotional
material and can encourage people to visit your Web site. In order
for people to sign up for your contest, it must be of significant interest
to them.
Say, for instance, that you are an online electronics retailer. When
consumers visit your site, they could immediately be presented with the
opportunity to enter a daily contest to win electronic-related merchandise
such as a Rio MP3 player. There is a direct correlation with the
prize being given, the target market, and the purpose of the site, and as
a result of the strategic fit, you would likely receive many entrants into
the contests.
Once users enter the contest, they should be sent an e-mail confirmation
stating that the entry was received. Also include in the e-mail a
viral marketing call to action to tell others about the contest as well as a
call to action for the user to visit the site and shop around. Referring
back to the contest window, directly under the e-mail address entry
field should be the option for the visitor to sign up to receive details on
the latest hot deals at your site. This is an excellent example of how to
combine contests, newsletters, and permission marketing and maximize
the opportunity. Not only is the target market encouraged to enter the
contest, but they are also encouraged to sign up for the hot deals newsletter
while their interest is piqued.
Legislation Regarding Permission-Based Marketing
Recently, there have been major changes in the privacy and anti-spam
legislation in Canada and the United States. This legislation affects every
business that does outbound e-mail marketing. Everyone has to be
in compliance with the new privacy and anti-spam legislation. If you do
not know what the terms of the legislation are, then you might unknowingly
be breaking the law and subject to penalty.
The current Canadian legislation revolves around privacy and rights
of an individual to the protection of their private information. Canada’s
legislation, Privacy Law – Personal Information Protection and Electronics
Document Act (PIPEDA for short), came into effect January 1, 2004,
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74 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
for commercial businesses. The latest information on this legislation can
be found at the Web site of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of
Canada (http://www.privcom.gc.ca/legislation/02_06_01_01_e.asp).
The current U.S. legislation revolves around spam and pornography.
The U.S. legislation, Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography
and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM for short) came into effect
January 1, 2004, for commercial e-mail. The latest information on this
legislation can be found at (http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/).
Privacy Concerns
When used correctly, permission marketing can be a very rewarding
and cost-effective means of promotion; however, if you make ill use of
this technique, you can do more harm than good. In order to avoid this
pitfall, remember that you should never send your target market anything
that they did not ask to receive, and you should never use their
personal information for anything other than what they were told they
were signing up for.
If you send your target market information they did not ask for,
they will consider it spam. If you use their personal information for
anything other than what your visitors expect, you could find yourself
in bad public light as well as in significant legal trouble. Misuse of permission
marketing also damages your relationship with your target
market because you have violated their trust. This can also lead to bad
publicity as the target market is very likely to turn around and tell many
of their friends and associates about their bad experience with your
company, ultimately resulting in lost business for you.
Companies that are successful in their permission marketing endeavors
tend to leverage their campaign by prominently displaying
their privacy and security policies. People like to know how their personal
information is handled and are very reluctant to hand over their
details to a company or organization that does not explain how their
information is used. Privacy and security policies help in building trust
and confidence with your target market. These days, people are inundated
with junk e-mail and are reluctant at the best of times to provide
their e-mail address. You miss out on a lot of permission marketing
opportunities if you don’t prominently display and clearly state your
privacy policy.
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Permission Marketing 75
Again, make sure you stay current with privacy and anti-spam legislation.
Always provide the opportunity for any e-mail recipient to opt
out of future mailings.
Personalization
When asking permission to communicate with your target market, you
want to make it easy. Don’t have visitors complete a long form on which
they have to provide all kinds of information. At this point, less is better.
Have a simple form on which they provide their e-mail address and
their first name. You want the first name so that you can personalize
your communication. Most mail list software programs these days allow
you to easily personalize the text in the body of the message you are
sending and also the text in the subject line. You want to use a software
program that manages all the permissions—the unsubscribes as well as
the subscribes. See Chapter 14 on private mail list marketing for details.
Sell the Benefits
When you are asking permission to communicate with someone on an
ongoing basis, you need to sell the benefits. People are inundated with
junk e-mail and need to be “sold” on why they should subscribe to or
join your communication list. “Join our weekly newsletter” just doesn’t
cut it. “Join our weekly newsletter to receive our Internet-only specials,
coupons, and tips from our pro” will get you more subscribers. You
have to know your target market well and know what is enticing enough
to get their permission (see Figure 5.1).
Data Mining
Data mining is sorting through data to identify patterns and establish
relationships. Over time, you might want to ask a question or two in an
appropriate manner to learn more about your subscribers so that you
can target your communication with them a little better (see Figure 5.2).
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76 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
Figure 5.1. Time Warner Bookmark provides you with a list of reasons to
sign up for its newsletter.
Figure 5.2. Beaver Run Resort asks subscribers questions so the resort can
tailor its future communication.
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Permission Marketing 77
Cooperative Permission Marketing
Cooperative marketing is starting to take hold on the Internet. Look for
opportunities to form an alliance with other sites that are trying to reach
the same target market you are, and then see how you can do some
win–win marketing. For example, if you have a monthly newsletter,
you can allow subscribers to sign up to receive alliance partners’ newsletters
at the same time they sign up to receive yours. In return, your
alliance partners do the same. The same can be done for many repeattraffic
generators like coupons, e-specials, e-zines, etc. Get innovative!
Incentive-Based Permission Marketing
To increase the response to any permission marketing opportunity, you
might consider offering an incentive: “Sign up to receive our Internetonly
e-specials and be included in a drawing for (something of interest
to your target market).
You can also offer a free gift to new e-members or subscribers. It
could be a sample of one of your products or an e-book on a topic of
interest to your target market.
A Closing Comment on Permission Marketing
Permission marketing adds leverage to online marketing campaigns. Once
you are in front of your target market, you want to take every opportunity
to stay there and continue to communicate with them time and
time again. Permission marketing helps you achieve this, but it is a game
of give and take. You give them a reason to give you permission to send
them e-mail—they provide you with the permission and their personal
information—you provide them with valuable content. There is a tradeoff
and the cycle continues. Over time, you will gain more knowledge
about your target market, which will empower you to provide them
with a better overall experience in dealing with your company through
better targeted promotions and better fulfillment of customer needs.
Why should you use permission marketing? To summarize, permission
marketing can return a much higher response rate over intrusive
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78 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
advertising; it can increase sales, build your brand, and help develop
relationships with your target market; and it is cost effective.
Visit Chapter 14 for more tips, tools, techniques and resources related
to permission marketing.
Internet Resources for Chapter 5
I have included a few resources for you to check out regarding permission
marketing. For additional resources on a variety of topics, visit the
Resources section of my Web site at http://www.susansweeney.com/
resources.html. There you can find additional tips, tools, techniques,
and resources.
Canadian Marketing Association
http://www.the-cma.org
The Canadian Marketing Association represents information-based
marketers—those who reach consumers through media such as the
Internet, television, telephone, radio, and addressed advertising mail.
CMA provides a voice for responsible marketers and has earned a reputation
for leadership in the area of self-regulation with respect to consumer
protection, privacy, electronic commerce, and marketing to
children.
ClickZ: Permission Marketing
http://www.clickz.com/mkt/permis_mkt/index.php
You should look at ClickZ’s section on permission marketing, updated
weekly by Nick Usborne.
Seth Godin’s Web Site
http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/index.html
Seth Godin is author of four books that have been bestsellers around
the world and have changed the way people think about marketing,
change, and work. His book Permission Marketing was an Amazon.com
Top 100 bestseller for a year and a Fortune Best Business Book, and it
spent four months on the Business Week bestseller list. It also appeared
on the New York Times business book bestseller list. Check out his site
for lots of info on permission marketing.
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The Direct Marketing Association
http://www.the-dma.org
This is the Web site of The Direct Marketing Association, the leading
direct-marketing organization.
Mandating Permission Won’t Solve Spam
http://www.clickz.com/experts/brand/sense/article.php/2106781
This is an interesting article on permission marketing and spam.
Should You Opt in to Opt Out?
http://www.clickz.com/experts/brand/capital/article.php/1587521
An article about the benefits of opt-in permission e-mail marketing.
Top 12 Best Practices for Permission-Based E-Mail Marketing
http://www.dmreview.com/article_sub.cfm?articleID=4989
An article outlining best practices that should be followed when it comes
to permission marketing.
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80 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
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6
Designing Your Site to Be
Search Engine Friendly
When Internet users are looking for a particular product, service, subject,
or information pertaining to an area of interest to them, how do
they do it? The most common search tool used is the search engine.
Because search engines can bring significant volumes of traffic to your
site, you must understand how the major search engines work and how
the design of your site can influence the indexing of your site by the
search engines. When people conduct Internet searches, they rarely go
beyond the first couple pages of results. If you want to be noticed, you
need to appear in the top 10 or 20 search results. But before you submit
to the search engines, you have to be sure your site has been designed to
be search engine friendly. In this chapter, we cover:
• The methodology to make your site search engine friendly
• The key elements of Web site design to accommodate search
engines
• How to use your competition and industry leaders as guidance
• The all-important content