Global Marketing Plus

Did you know that effective email campaigns deliver sales at an average cost per order of less than $7, compared to $71.89 for banner ads, $26.75 for paid search and $17.47 for affiliate programs? (According to Shop.org’s “State of Retailing Online 2007″ – September 2007).

Tip #6 is about the often neglected subject line.

According to Jupiter Research, 35% of email users open messages because of what’s contained in the subject line.

After the From line, the subject line is the second most important part of an effective email. If you forget to include a subject line, your message is much more likely to go into a junk mail folder, or just not be opened. Email marketing professionals live and die by subject lines. A good subject line will sum up what the message is all about, but still entice someone to open the message, read it, and take action.

Personalizing a subject line with your company’s name or the recipient’s name or other information can also lead to higher message open rates Including the company name in the subject line can increase open rates by up to 32 percent to 60 percent over a subject line without branding. (Jupiter Research)

I hope my 12 Step Program is helping you communicate with email more effectively

Has your web designer moved, but forgotten to leave a forwarding address? I can help.

Thanks, Ron

On May 1st, I was invited by Bonnie Whitlock to attend a musical called “Wizard of Odd” at Deseret Star Theater in Murray, Utah.

What a fun night!  We laughed until our sides hurt!  This was the first time I had the opportunity to attend a play at Deseret Star and was very surprised at the professional way the actors entertained.  I would suggest that anyone go!

What also amazed me was the way they took a very famous movie and applied local flavor to it to appeal to the audience.  By using local names and places, it drew the audience into the play and everybody could relate to the new jokes.

Tip: Pull your visitors into your website by including words and phrases that people can relate to.  For example, it is suggested we do not write using terms used in your industry unless your readers are already in your industry.  Write on a 7th to 9th grade level and you will not loose as many readers!

If you have never been to Deseret Star, you should go.  Thank you Bonnie for the opportunity to experience the fun.  Our whole group said you stole the show and made it fun for all of us!

Recently Kris and I had the opportunity to attend a concert at the Hawaiian Cultural Center in Midvale, Utah. Wow! talk about fantastic. It was like attending a family reunion. Everyone was happy and most dressed as if we were in Hawaii attending this function!

The main event was a “slack guitarist” from Hawaii that played the most
fantastic music and kept us entertained for over an hour!

Several local people were on the program, including some fantastic hula dancers!

When it was over and we stepped outside to go to the car, I was disappointed to see we were not really in Hawaii!

When the Hawaiian Cultural Center asked me to build a website for them, they wanted to create the look and feel of Hawaii. I think we did that. Look at their website and judge for yourself. Go to Hawaiian Cultural Center and look (www.hawaiianculturalcenter.org). I think they did a wonderful job making visitors feel the Hawaiian spirit just as I felt I was in Hawaii at the concert.

Tip: Remember to make your visitors feel your passion when they come to your website. That is one way to stand out from all your competition!

Check out the Hawaiian Cultural Center’s website to see what other activities they have. For
example, they have Hula Lessons! Check out their calendar and visit the center at 741 West Smelter Street, Midvale, UT or call them at (801)562-5642

The single most important part of an email message is the From line. If the person you’re sending to doesn’t recognize your name, your message will be at best skipped over. At worst, it will be simply deleted without opening.

Most email programs show a friendly display name instead of the plain email address.

The From line of your email (friendly display name) should have your full name and organization in it.

For example, when I send out an email, my from line reads: Ron Coleman– Global Marketing Plus. When someone receives an email from me, it’s pretty clear which person named Ron the message came from. And if they don’t know me, but know my company instead, they won’t completely ignore my message.

But at least a couple of times per week I get an email that was meant for someone else named Ron, but works at a different company.

The culprit is that many people have only their first names listed in the friendly From display line. Most of the time the messages aren’t too racy, but with email programs that automatically fill in an email address when you start to type a first name, it’s easy to email the wrong person something that could be seriously career limiting.

This week’s effective email strategy will certainly increases the amount of email that you send out. But it can also be extremely effective.

With the huge volume of spam, it’s tough to know if your message got through. Right now, four out of every five emails sent over the Internet today is spam. With so much junk, it’s easy for your message to get lost, trapped in a junk mail filter, or simply piled up in someone’s ever-expanding inbox.So you start to worry when you haven’t heard back from someone that you emailed a couple of days ago. Hmmmm, you say. Did that person get my message? Should I send it again? If I do, will that bug them? Am I being too pushy?

So when you’re on the other side of the email message, it’s really important to reply early and reply often.

What you’re doing is letting them know you (a) received the message and (b) that you care. Even if you’re not able to take action on their message right away, replying back with a quick message indicates that you’re not ignoring them.

Replying early to a message could be as basic as something like this:

Bob-
Thanks for sending this over. I’ll work on this later today. Thanks,

Ron

We’ve found that replying early and often dissipates a lot of anxiety and tension, and allows the person who sent you a message to know that they don’t have to worry about it.

Let me know if you need help with an upcoming web project or email campaign.

Ron

A: Over 70% of online users search for products to purchase online. (Even those looking for local goods and services).

The more visible your small business is online, the greater your chance for sales. SEM and SEO campaigns can be targeted only to your local area and may be more cost-effective and farther-reaching than traditional local advertising. You can also easily track results, something that can be difficult with other types of advertising.

Lately I have been getting lots of questions concerning search engines. So I thought I would answer some of those questions.

Q: What is search engine marketing (SEM) vs. search engine optimization (SEO)?

A: Search engine marketing (SEM) refers to “paid” or “pay-per-click” listings on search engines such as Google and Yahoo. These listings are essentially paid ads that show up as “sponsored links” or “sponsor results” on search engine results pages when someone searches for a keyword/phrase that your company has bid on.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is also called “organic” marketing and is free if you do the research and work yourself. It involves modifying your Web site to be more search-engine friendly.

More questions will be answered from time to time in this blog.

You can test just about anything, but here are the four most important things to test, in order of importance.

The Market. Who you market to is most important. A mediocre offer in a mediocre package can do reasonably well, if delivered to the right audience. No offer or creative genius can make the sale if it goes to the wrong person.

The Headline. It’s number two because if it isn’t right, your audience will never see the rest of your offer. It captures attention and converts it into interest. Without a powerful headline, you’re dead in the water.

The Offer. That unique combination of conditions and appeals that leaves your prospect saying to herself, “I’d be crazy not to order that thing.”

The Price. It’s the least-powerful motivator. People want value. You test price to find out exactly how the public values your product.

Autoresponders are one of the top promotional tools available online today. They are also known as mailbots, automatic email and email on demand. (Remember the very popular fax on demand?) Autoresponders are designed to automatically respond to any email message sent to it with an automatic response.

Why are they so popular? Some reasons are:

· Autoresponders have a vast variety of uses.

· Autoresponders eliminates the need to manually answer every response, saving hours of your valuable time.

· Autoresponders make your information available to your prospective customer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

It is very satisfying to get your best ad copy ready, load it to your autoresponder and know that your business is set to autopilot. When your prospective customer sends a message to your autoresponder address, your information will be instantly delivered to their email address.

There are many ways of utilizing the power of autoresponders:

· Autoresponders can be used to tell a prospective customer that you have received their message and will get back to them soon. Such messages are important because it reassures your customers that their support request has arrived at its destination and will be attended to when you are available.

· Autoresponders can be used to send prospective customers information like product lists, the price list of your products, your FAQ (frequently asked questions) and other fixed information. People emailing that address will automatically get that message in reply.

· Autoresponders can be used to send free email course modules.

· Autoresponders can be used to send free Articles and reports.

· Autoresponders can be used to send order confirmations.

· Autoresponders can be used to send online brochures.

Advantages:

There are many advantages associated with the use of autoresponders. Not only do they automate the daily task of manually replying to requests for information, but they provide instant gratification for the recipient. They also enable you to track your ad responses and gather the email addresses of potential customers.

A good autoresponder service will automatically send you an email notification informing you each time someone requests your information.

Autoresponders can assist you in putting a lot of your day to day tasks on autopilot. Use it to your advantage.

You have autoresponders with your Global Marketing Plus package. Be sure you use them! If you have questions of how to access them and use them, call Ron now at 801-298-2336 or email me at ron@globalmarketingplus.com