Utilizing Signature Files to Increase Web Site Traffic 183

Utilizing Signature Files to Increase Web Site Traffic 183
Talk to Jane Doe about our new lease incentives!
101 Main Street, Woodstock, New York 10010
Tel: (800) 555-0000
Cell: (800) 555-1010
Fax: (800) 555-1020
www.bug.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Another mistake that people make is that they try to make their sig
files too flashy or eye catching. Using a lot of large symbols might catch
people’s eyes, but the impression it leaves will not be memorable. Here
is an example of what not to do:
✻✻✻✪✪✪☛✪✪✪☛✪✪✪☛✪✪✪☛✪✪✪☛✪✪✪☛✪✪✪☛✪✪✪✻✻
✻ !Sunnyvale Volkswagen ! ✻
✻ !Jane Doe, Marketing Assistant ! ✻
✻ ! jdoe@bug.com ! ✻
✻ 232 Main Street (800) 555-0000 ✻
✻ Woodstock, New York ✯ ✔ (800) 555-0002 ✻
✻ 30210 ☞ ✻
✻ “Test drives @ www.bug.com” ✻
✻✻✻✪✪✪☛✪✪✪☛✪✪✪☛✪✪✪☛✪✪✪☛✪✪✪☛✪✪✪☛✪✪✪✻✻
Here are some examples of what sig files should look like:
=======================================================
Sunnyvale Volkswagen
Jane Doe, Marketing Assistant
mailto:jdoe@bug.com
101 Main Street, Woodstock, New York, 10010
Tel: (800) 555-0000 Fax:(800) 555-0002
“Our once-a-year sales event is on now @ http://www.bug.com”
=======================================================
_____________________________________________________________
Jane Doe, Marketing Assistant
Sunnyvale Volkswagen
jdoe@bug.com
101 Main Street Tel: (800) 555-0000
Woodstock, New York, 10010 Fax: (800) 555-0001
Check out our online contest http://www.bug.com today and WIN!
_____________________________________________________________
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184 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Jane Doe, Marketing Assistant
Sunnyvale Volkswagen
101 Main Street jdoe@bug.com
P.O. Box 101 Tel: (800) 555-0000
Woodstock, New York 10010 URL: www.bug.com
“1999 Winner of the Best Dealership Award”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Internet Resources for Chapter 9
I have included a few resources for you to check out when developing
your signature file. 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.
Coolsig Signature Files
http://www.coolsig.com
This site contains signature files in a variety of categories.
Esther’s Massive Signature File Collection
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~moose/sigs.html
A massive collection of sig files to review—the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Internet Strategist
http://www.techdirect.com/strategy/sigfiles.html
What to do and not to do on sig files and mailing lists. Learn how to
create your personal sig file and what the different types are used for.
Siglets.com
http://siglets.com
Siglets are short notations, humorous or serious, placed at the bottom
of an e-mail, usually in a sig file.
Signature Files
http://www.smithfam.com/news/n8.html
Signature files are an absolutely vital way of promoting your Web site.
Learn how to market your product on the Internet from the leading
Internet marketing experts, and it is all free.
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Utilizing Signature Files to Increase Web Site Traffic 185
Webnovice.com
www.Webnovice.com/sig_files.htm
“Everything You Wanted To Know About Signature Files…But Didn’t
Know Where To Ask.”
Creating Signature Files in Outlook Express
http://www.webterrace.com/outlook/signature.htm
Promotion World
www.promotionworld.com/tutorial/504.html
This tutorial will teach you the basics of creating signature files.
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186 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
186
10
The E-mail Advantage
E-mail is rapidly becoming one of the most crucial forms of communication
you have with your clients, potential customers, suppliers, and
colleagues. E-mail is now a widely accessible and generally accepted
form of business communication. We are seeing a huge increase in commercial
e-mail volume. The reason for this significant increase is understandable
given that e-mail is a very cost-effective, time-efficient tool
that has a high response rate. E-mail is used to build your community
online, sell products and provide customer service, reinforce brand awareness,
and encourage customer loyalty.
In the online community, e-mail is an extremely efficient way to
build and maintain relationships. As a marketing tool, e-mail is one of
the most cost-effective ways to maintain an ongoing dialogue with your
audience.
However, with the overabundance of spam, spam detection software,
filtering of e-mail, and the new anti-spam legislation, things are
changing rapidly in the e-mail world. It is becoming a challenge to make
sure that your e-mail is received, opened and responded to.
In this chapter, we cover:
• Strategies for creating effective e-mail messages
• E-mail netiquette
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• E-mail marketing tips
• Sending HTML versus ASCII (text-based) e-mail messages.
Making the Connection
E-mail is a communication medium, and, as with all forms of communication,
you do not get a second chance to leave a first impression. E-mail
must be used appropriately. People receive large amounts of e-mail each
day, and the tips in this chapter will help to ensure that your e-mail is
taken seriously.
One of the greatest benefits of e-mail is the speed with which you
can communicate. E-mail takes seconds rather than weeks to send a
message around the world. The cost of this form of communication
is negligible, compared to making a long-distance
phone call or sending a fax. The economies of scale
are significant. One e-mail message can be sent to millions
of people across the globe simultaneously. This type
of mass mailing is done at a fraction of the cost and a
fraction of the time (and internal resources) it would take
with snail mail.
All kinds of files can be sent via e-mail, including sound, video,
data, graphics, and text. With an autoresponder, information can immediately
be sent automatically to customers and
potential customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,
365 days a year in response to their online requests.
E-mail is interactive. Your current and potential
customers can immediately respond to you and carry
on an ongoing dialogue with you. E-mail is seen much
more like a conversation than a text document. It is
perceived as being more personal than snail mail and can go quite a
long way in building relationships.
E-mail Program vs. Mail List Software
The time has come where mail list software is essential for sending mass,
permission-based, marketing e-mail. In this chapter we’ll talk about regu-
Snail mail
Slang term for the
regular postal
service.
Autoresponder
Program that automatically
responds to
incoming e-mails.
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lar, day-to-day e-mail. See Chapter 14 for the discussion on marketing
e-mail sent to a group or private mail list marketing.
Effective E-mail Messages
Most people who use this medium get tons of e-mail, including their
share of junk e-mail. Many use organization tools, filters, and blockers
to screen incoming e-mails. The following tips will increase the effectiveness
of your e-mail communication to ensure that you have the best
opportunity to have your e-mail opened, read, and responded to.
The Importance of Your E-mail Subject Line
The first thing most people do when they open their e-mail program is
start hitting the delete key. They have an abundance of mail in their
inbox and they want to get rid of the clutter, so they delete anything
that looks like spam or an ad. How do they determine what is junk?
The subject line is usually the deciding factor. It is essential that your
e-mail subject line not look like ad copy.
Never send an e-mail message without a subject line. Subject lines
should be brief, with the keywords appearing first. The longer the subject
line is, the more likely it will not be viewed in its entirety because
different people set the viewable subject line space at various widths.
The subject line is equivalent to a headline in a newspaper in
terms of attracting reader attention. When you read a newspaper,
you don’t really read it; generally you skim the headlines and read
the articles whose headlines grabbed your attention. The same is true
with e-mail. Many recipients, especially those who receive a significant
number of e-mails daily, skim the subject lines and read only the
articles whose subject line grabs their attention. The subject line is
the most important part of your e-mail message because this phrase
alone determines whether or not the reader will decide to open your
e-mail or delete it.
Effective subject lines:
• Are brief, yet capture the reader’s interest
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• Don’t look like ad copy
• Build business credibility
• Attract attention with action words
• Highlight the most important benefits
• Are always positive
• Put the most important words first.
Effective subject lines should grab the reader’s attention, isolate and
qualify your best prospects, and draw your reader into the subheads
and the text itself. Avoid SHOUTING! Using CAPITALS in your subject
line is the same as SHOUTING AT THE READER! DON’T DO
IT!! Stay away from ad copy in your subject lines—it is the kiss of death
for an e-mail. When most people open their e-mail, they delete all the
ads as the first step.
E-mail “To” and “From” Headings Allow You to Personalize
Use personal names in the “To” and “From” headings whenever possible,
to create a more personal feeling. People open e-mail from people
they know and trust. If your message is coming from 257046@aol.com
rather than Jane Doe, will your friends know it is coming from you?
Most e-mail programs allow you to attach your own name to your
e-mail address.
If you are using Microsoft Outlook Express, the following are the
steps to set up your name in the “From” heading:
1. On the menu bar, click “Tools.”
2. On the drop-down menu, click on “Accounts.”
3. Click on the “Mail” tab.
4. Click on your e-mail account, then click “Properties.”
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190 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
5. Click on the “General” tab.
6. Under “User information,” type your name and organization in
the appropriate boxes. It is the name from this area that will be
seen in the “From” field in the user’s e-mail program. Then click
“Apply,” then “OK” and “Close.”
For all other e-mail programs, consult the Help file included in the
program.
Blind Carbon Copy (BCC)
Have you ever received an e-mail message in which the first screen or
first several screens were a string of other people’s e-mail addresses to
which the message had been sent? Didn’t you feel special? Didn’t you
feel the message was meant just for you? This sort of
bulk mailing is very impersonal, and often recipients
will delete the message without looking at it.
A few years ago I would have suggested using the
BCC feature when sending bulk or group e-mails.
Today, a number of Internet service providers look
for multiple addresses in the BCC area to determine
if an incoming message is spam. If your message is
deemed to be spam it will probably not go through
to your intended recipient. This is one of the reasons
I recommend moving to private mail list software for marketing messages
that are going out to a group. See Chapter 14 on Private Mail
List Marketing.
Effective E-mail Message Formatting
The content of the message should be focused on one topic. If you need
to change the subject in the middle of a message, it is better to send a
separate e-mail. Alternatively, if you wish to discuss more than one topic,
make sure you begin your message with “I have three questions” or
“There are four issues I would like to discuss.” People are busy, they
read their e-mail quickly, and they assume you will cover your main
points within the first few sentences of your message.
BCC
When blind carbon copy
is used in an e-mail
message, all recipients’
names are hidden so that
no one sees who else has
received the e-mail.
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E-mail is similar to writing a business letter in that the spelling and
grammar should be correct. This includes the proper use of upper- and
lowercase lettering, which many people seem to ignore when sending
e-mail. However, e-mail is unlike a business letter in that the tone is
completely different. E-mail correspondence is not as formal as business
writing. The tone of e-mail is more similar to a polite conversation
than a formal letter, which makes it conducive to relationship building.
In general, you should:
• Keep your paragraphs relatively short—no more than seven lines.
• Make your point in the first paragraph.
• Be clear and concise.
• Use http:// at the beginning of any Web address to ensure that
you make it “live.” When you provide the URL starting with
the www, the reader has to copy and paste the Web address into
the address field in the browser if he wants to visit your site.
When you place http:// before the www, the link is “live” and
the reader just has to click on the address to be taken directly to
your site. Make it as easy as possible for your reader to visit
your Web site.
• Give your reader a call to action.
• Avoid using fancy formatting such as stationery, graphics, different
fonts, italics, and bold, because many e-mail programs
cannot display those features. Your message that reads: “I loved
the flowers. Love ya” could be viewed as “I loved the
flowers. Love ya” if the recipient’s e-mail software can’t
handle formatting. That kind of loses the impact!
• If your e-mail package doesn’t have a spell-check feature, you
might want to consider composing your message first in your
word-processing program. Spell-check it there, then cut and paste
it into your e-mail package.
• Choose your words carefully. E-mail is a permanent record of
your thoughts, and it can easily be forwarded to others. When-
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192 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
ever you have the urge to send a nasty response, give yourself an
hour or two to reconsider. Those words can come back to haunt
you—and they usually do.
A Call to Action
When you give your readers a call to action, it’s amazing how often
people will do as they’re told. I’ll give you an example of something we
did at Connex Network. We ran a series of ten Internet marketing workshops
for a large organization. Their staff and selected clients were invited
to participate in any, some, or all of the workshops. Their clients
could include up to three employees. Because the workshops extended
beyond noon, lunch was provided.
Because Connex Network was responsible for organizing and managing
the project, we needed to know the approximate number of people
who would be attending each of the workshops to organize the luncheons.
When we contacted each company’s representatives by e-mail
looking for participation RSVPs, we conducted an experiment. We sent
half the representatives one version of the message and the other half a
slightly different version. The only difference between the two messages
was that in one, we included a call to action. In that message we asked:
“RSVP before Wednesday at noon indicating if you will be attending as
we must make arrangements for lunch,” and in the other, this same line
read: “Please let us know if you are planning to attend as we must make
arrangements for lunch.”
There was a 95 percent response rate from the group who received
the first message. This is because we gave people a call to action and a
deadline, and they felt obligated to respond more promptly. Meanwhile,
fewer than 50 percent of the people in the second group responded to
our message. What does this tell us? To improve your response rate,
give your readers a call to action when you send them e-mail. People
respond when told to do something; they act with more urgency when
there is a deadline.
Appropriate E-mail Reply Tips
Do not include the entire original message in your replies. This is unnecessary
and is aggravating to the original sender of the message. However,
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The E-mail Advantage 193
use enough of the original message to refresh the recipient’s memory.
Remember to check the “To” and “CC” before you reply. You would not
want an entire mail list to receive your response intended only for the
sender. The same applies for selecting “Reply to All” instead of “Reply.”
HTML or Text?
Should you send e-mail messages as text or as HTML? HTML messages
allow you to send a Web page via e-mail. These HTML messages
are far prettier and eye-catching than text, and studies have shown that
HTML messages deliver significantly higher click-through rates.
Today, the rule of thumb is that you send text e-mail for your routine,
individual communication and you use HTML for mass, permission-
based marketing communication like your newsletter or e-specials.
You send your routine e-mail with your e-mail program and you send
your HTML marketing e-mail with your private mail list software. See
Chapter 14 on Private Mail List Marketing.
Always Use Your Signature Files
As discussed previously, signature files are a great marketing tool. Always
attach your signature file to your online communication. See Chapter
9 for information on signature files. Remember to be sure that the
signature files are right for the intended audience.
Discerning Use of Attachments
If you are sending a fairly large amount of data, you might want to send
it as an attached file to your e-mail message. However, only include an
e-mail attachment if you have the recipient’s permission to send an attached
file. You would never consider going to someone’s home, letting
yourself in, finding your way into their living room, and then leaving
your brochure on the coffee table. However, people do the online equivalent
of this when they send an unsolicited attachment. The attachment
is sent across the Internet to the recipient’s computer and is downloaded
and stored on the computer’s hard drive. This is considered quite rude
and, in most cases, unwanted.
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Also, unless the recipient of your e-mail is aware of the file size and
is expecting it, don’t send an attachment that is larger than 50K. Although
your Internet connection might be a cable modem or a T1 line,
and a 3 MB file is sent in seconds, the person who is receiving your
message and attachment might be using a 14.4 Kbps modem and a slow
machine. If you send a 3 MB file, it might take the person with the 14.4
Kbps modem two hours to download the file. Needless to say, he or she
won’t be too pleased.
Another factor to consider when sending an unsolicited attachment
is that the attachment you are sending might be incompatible with the
operating system or the software on the recipient’s system. You might
be using a different platform (Mac/PC) or different operating system,
and the recipient might not be able to open and read your file. Even PC
to PC or Mac to Mac, the recipient might not be able to open and view
the attachment if that particular program is not installed on his machine.
Someone using a 1994 version of Corel WordPerfect might not
be able to read a Microsoft Word 2000 document sent as an attachment.
Thus, you have wasted your time sending the file and the recipient’s
time downloading the file.
Finally, it is a well-known fact that e-mail attachments
can act as carriers for computer viruses. You might unknowingly
send someone an attachment with a virus, and even if
the file you send is virus-free, you could still take the blame
if recipients find a virus on their system, just because you
sent them an attachment. Basically, avoid sending e-mail
attachments of any type unless you have the recipient’s permission.
Be mindful of the size of the file you intend to
send, compatibility with other platforms, and computer viruses.
One alternative to sending a large attachment is to post the file on
a Web server, and in your e-mail message direct users to a URL from
which they can download the file.
Expressing Yourself with Emoticons and Shorthand
In verbal communication, you provide details on your mood, meaning,
and intention through voice inflections, tone, and volume. You
also give clues about your meaning and intention through facial expression
and body language. E-mail does not allow for the same ex-
Viruses
Programs that
contaminate a
user’s hard
drive, often with
unwanted results.
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pression of feeling. The closest thing we have to
this online is the use of emoticons.
Emoticon is a combination of “emotion” and
“icon.” Emoticons are combinations of keyboard
characters that give the appearance of a stick figure’s
emotions. They have to be viewed sideways and are
meant to be smiling, frowning, laughing, and so on.
Emoticons let you communicate your meaning and intentions to your
reader. For example, if your boss gives you an assignment via e-mail
and your response is, “Thanks a lot for unloading your dirty work on
me,” your boss might become upset at your obvious defiance. But if you
replied with this: “Thanks a million for unloading your dirty work on
me :-),” your boss would understand that you were jokingly accepting
the assignment.
Emoticons enable you to add a little personality and life to your text
messages. However, their use is not universal and should generally not
be used in business correspondence. Some of the more commonly used
emoticons include:
:-) Smiling
:-@ Screaming
:-0 or :-o Wow!
:-p Tongue wagging
;-) Wink
(-: I’m left-handed
:-V Shout
:-& Tongue-tied
:-r Tongue hanging out
;-( or ;-<> Devilish, devious
Emoticons
Symbols made from
punctuation marks
and letters that look
like facial expressions.
TEAM