xMarketing Tip

Last week we talked about drip marketing and how to go about setting up your campaign.  That is all good, except now that you have a campaign, you need an email list to target.

The first thing you need to do is have an automated system of capturing emails. If you use one of the many email marketing services (ConstantContact, iContact, etc.), it is very easy. They all provide a little piece of website code you can paste on your website. This code will put up a form, and when a website visitor fills out the form, their name and email are automatically inserted into the email marketing database. That way, you don’t have to manually grab someone’s email and type it in the database. If you do it the old fashioned way, then a web form can just email you the new subscribers, and you can type them into your email software.

Make sure the form has as few fields as necessary. For an email drip marketing, only ask for name and email. The more data you ask for, the less often visitors will fill it out.

To get people to sign up, you need an offer. Something like “Get my advice on XYZ delivered to your email weekly….Free!” or “Homeowners, before you buy a house, fill out this form to receive a free white paper on the top 10 ways people lose money when buying.” You can experiment with different offers, but make sure you have one.  Visitors will NOT respond to “Contact Us Form” or “Subscribe to our newsletter.”. Tell them what is in it for THEM if they give you their email address.

In the perfect world, all of your drip marketing customers come from your website.  However, that can take awhile, depending on your website traffic and the power of your offer.  I suggest seeding your list with your existing customers. Most of them should be your allies, and they won’t mind getting some information from you. Depending on your existing customer list, that could be a large set of people.  Some of your customers will forward emails they especially like to others, and you are off and running.

Next, I add prospects to the list.  Most of us get prospects from sources outside of the internet as well; referrals, advertising, sales calls, etc. While they are deciding about using your services, put them on the list.  You might as well drip market your active prospects as well as your passive ones.

Sometimes, that still isn’t enough…you want to grow fast. Should you go out and buy a list of emails to email market to? No.  If you do that, you may be in violation of the CAN SPAM act.  In addition, the response from users on unsolicited emails is extremely poor, and you risk getting put on a SPAM black list. However, you can partner with a complimentary business to leverage their email address list.  For example, a marketing company is a good partner to NeoNexus web design. NeoNexus can ask a marketing company to let us do a one time email blast to their customer list.  Ideally, they would send out the email under their name, with an offer NeoNexus provides that routes them to our website and sign up form, but it can work if NeoNexus sends the email ourselves and references the partner prominently.  Why should the marketing company consider doing this?

1. we can exchange email lists and allow them to do the same thing with NeoNexus customers
2. if they trust NeoNexus as a partner, by recommending NeoNexus and having us deliver superior services to their customers, they are becoming a trusted advisor to their customers. This strengthens relationships very fast and increases referrals
3. we can offer them a commission on any work we receive

Building your email list is one of THE most important marketing goals you have in the 21st century.

Green IT Solutions can bring Small Business Cost Savings.

REDMOND, Wash.- Sept. 29, 2008 – Small businesses increasingly rely on technology to help the environment and save money, according to results of a survey released today. Findings show that 60 percent of small-business decision-makers save money by using sustainable technologies.

The telephone survey – conducted on behalf of Microsoft Corp. by KRC Research – of 250 small-business IT decision-makers nationwide discovered a growing focus on environmental concerns. Thirty-eight percent of respondents reported that their companies are more focused on being environmentally friendly than they were one year ago.

An overwhelming majority (69 percent) of respondents reported that environmentally friendly practices are important for their business. When it comes to methods for greening their business, 94 percent of those surveyed also believe technology is an important tool to help accomplish that goal.
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Cool Internet Tool of the Week

Tired of remembering all your different passwords for your banks, insurance, blogs, and all your other on-line options?  Download Password Agent from Moon software
www.moonsoftware.com

It runs on your computer in your quick launch bar at the bottom. Whenever you need a password for a website, you open it up and find it.  The passwords are encrypted, and if you lose the master password, there is NO going back.  The software is free for up to 25 passwords, and then upgrading for $20 gets you unlimited storage.

Tech Tip
What is that Fn key for on my keyboard?

Check out your laptop keyboard and you will find a key, usually with blue print, labeled Fn.  This is a FuNction Key used to get more features or functions from you keyboard.  Some desktop keyboards also have this key.  Anything on your keyboard with the same color, usually blue, is activated by the Fn key.  The most common use is to move your computer display to an external monitor or projection device or to lock your PC when you walk away.  (look for the picture of the screen or lock on one of the other F1- F12 keys)  You can also use the Fn key to create a number keyboard with the letters J, K, L  etc.  Though you may not have a lot of need for the Fn key – you should be aware of its features in case you accidently invoke it.  Fn + Right arrow, on some systems, shifts your screen 90 degrees!  Caps. Lock + Fn on some keyboards locks the Fn which then locks the number pad making it impossible to type the letters J, K & L without getting the numbers 1, 2, 3 instead.

www.yourcomputerfriends.com

xMarketing Tip

What is drip marketing?

Smart Alec Answer: You are reading a drip marketing piece now.

Useful Answer: Drip marketing is a slow but steady stream of information that you provide to prospective and existing customers, hence the “drip”.

One of the challenges with making a sale is timing. You may have the perfect customer who needs your product or service, but the timing can be off. They may have spent their budget until their next fiscal year. They may be dealing with an employee or customer situation that is taking priority over everything else. They may have been burned by an inferior vendor in the past, and are reluctant to talk to another one in the same industry.  They may be a “cup is half empty” person who thinks all sales people are crooks. They may be going through a divorce and hate life at the moment.  Who knows.

With drip marketing, its not about making a sale NOW. Its about staying on their radar until THEY decide its time to call and make a purchase.  We all love it when we get those type of phone calls.

So what are some drip marketing techniques?   Here are several options:

1. Autoresponders – Sending email automatically by a computer program when a website visitor takes an action.
2. Blogs – Website forums to discuss topics in a message board format (see previous two newsletters at  http://www.neonexuscorp.com/blog/?cat=8)
3. Twitter – Software to follow people’s daily thoughts on their website or phone.
4. eNewsletters – Periodic email newsletters sent to your list.
5. eVideos – Periodic email videos sent to your list.

Today we are going to focus on autoresponders.

An autoresponder is triggered when a website visitor fills out a form.  It can be a simple “Sign up here with a name and email to receive our daily/weekly/monthly information on XYZ”, or they might fill out a detailed application.  Like all advertisements, the key is the “Offer”.  Visitors won’t fill it out unless they feel they are getting something of value in return.

The power of an autoresponder is it can be setup to send emails automatically at timed intervals. For example, a visitor fills out a form for a home builder. Immediately, the visitor gets an automated response thanking them for filling out the information. That automated response confirms that the website didn’t send their data into cyberlimbo, and helps get them past SPAM settings since the visitor will check his SPAM filter immediately while it is fresh on his mind.

Next, the person gets a series of emails (once a day for a week, once a week for 6 weeks, 1 week before every holiday (if you have seasonal products), etc.). These contain the information that you promised them on the website when they filled out the form.  For a home builder, it might be pictures of houses they have built recently, tips on maintenance (like carpet cleaning), rate information on mortgages, information on local school systems, tips on how to prep your old house to sell it, etc.   It can be a series of articles, PDF eBooks (all at once, or one chapter at a time), pictures, video, links to other blogs or websites etc.  It could be the “Top 10 things you need to know before you buy a new home”, with one tip per email.

The key is that while all of this information may be on your website or brochure anyway, by “dripping” out the information in small amounts, the are more likely to read it AND they read it over time.  Remember that “timing” thing we talked about earlier?  If you drip market to them long enough, they will get past their other issues and eventually decide to deal with their problem, which may mean hiring you.

I have had some people read my newsletter for 15 months before they decided to buy a search engine optimization package.  Without drip marketing, they may have forgotten about NeoNexus completely.

So, think about some ways you could use drip marketing to grow your business.  If you want some help brainstorming, let us know.

Next week…how to build your drip marketing list

Company News
Google is going after Apple, Microsoft, and Symbian (Blackberry) offering an open source operating system for smart phones.  It appears they are wanting to get to targeted advertsing on phones similar to their success with targeted advertisting on websites.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology
/7630135.stm

If you have (or want) a website that sells products or services that might interest people when the only tool they have is their phone, NeoNexus can optimize your website to run when viewed with a smart phone.  Call us at (910) 796-0551 for more details.

Internet Cool Site of the Week
Do you have a marketing video and want to find different ways to leverage it?  Check out this new technology from Vestic.  Its like Constant Contact, except you can include video.

http://www.vestic.net/default.asp?Reseller=PGDIRECT

For more information on Vestic, contact David Pendegrass at (910) 520-3346.

Tech Tip

Best Anti-Virus Software?

What’s the Best Anti-Virus software?  Ask ten people and you will probably get ten answers.  Ask me and I will say we like Webroot with Spy Sweeper best because we have seen it remove viruses the others don’t and because it’s easy for customers to use.  You can purchase the 3 user package for all your computers, schedule it sweep automatically and sweep your machine any time you feel a need.  Once your computer already has viruses, it is much more difficult to remove them and a professional may have to step in.  If you have viruses they can cause your computer to slow down or even stop working entirely.  Anti-Virus program load before your other programs and can cause slowness on start up and also suck computer resources.  When you add an anti-virus program you should always make sure that you have enough RAM to run the computer.  We recommend 1G of RAM for the average user with XP.  To find out how much RAM your computer has, and for more hardware information, go to: http://www.yourcomputerfriends.com/upgrade.php

Customer Spotlight

First Choice Gift Baskets

First Choice Gift Baskets is a great on-line source for holiday, seasonal, and corporate gift baskets.  They came to NeoNexus to improve their conversion.  NeoNexus gave the design a fresh look, toned down the home page to make it less busy, improved the text, and improved the navigation so visitors could find what they wanted.  We also performed our basic search engine optimization (might as well improve the visitors as well as the conversion, right?)

The next time you need a basket of goodies to send to friends, customers, employees, or family, check out the website.  It has a little something for everyone!

www.firstchoicegiftbaskets.com