SuperTips Ezine: Issue 05
IN THIS ISSUE
2. "Internet Marketing Tips Of The
Week" 3. Readers Forum 4. Publications of Interest
5. More "Super" Tips
6. Next Issue
1. Greetings! Hello folks, When I started out on the Internet over 2 years ago the first newsletter that I subscribed to was the Bizweb Gazette by Jim Daniels. It's impossible to escape from Jim's name these days on the Net, as his circulation has grown to over 25000, so I am pleased to present one of his articles today. He's the master of promotion so listen to what he says. And read what happened when I didn't ! Regards, Harvey
2. "Internet Marketing Tips Of The Week"
Six popular "Internet Marketing Tips Of The Week" from recent issues
of "The BizWeb E-Gazette"
Tip #1 "Hot Newsgroups" Before the birth of the World Wide Web, online marketers relied heavily on newsgroups. Although many have slowly wandered away from this method of net marketing, newsgroups are definitely surviving (and thriving). I recently made a trip to some business related newsgroups to check out the traffic. What I saw was a steady flow of posts, some numbering over one hundred per day. These raw numbers alone, lend support to the rationale that newsgroup marketing is worthwhile. With that said, we've decided to give you a bit of a jump start. If you're interested in trying newsgroup marketing, the following list should keep you busy for a little while. Below you'll find 34 of the most popular newsgroups among online marketers.
alt.ad Remember, if you're new to newsgroup marketing, it's always a good idea to "lurk" or read some other posts before you post to any newsgroup. Many newsgroups DO NOT accept blatant advertising. You CAN market in these newsgroups, but you must do it by posting helpful messages, marketing only with the aid of a short effective signature. If you're not ready to spend time reading and posting to these newsgroups right now, you may want to at least consider saving the list for future use. Although the world may not beat a path to your offer, newsgroup marketing is free. When used regularly, it can become an integral part of your online marketing campaign. Tip #2 Using META Tags. It is very important to insert META tags into all of your web pages since some of the more popular search engines rely on these tags. (AltaVista and Infoseek to name a couple.) The META tags you use tell the search engines two things...
1) The description of your web page(s). If you know html, you probably know how to use meta tags. However if you're using one of the many web authoring software programs now on the market, inserting META tags can be tricky. As a Microsoft Frontpage user, I fall into that category. Therefore I'll use my own experience as an example. The newest version of FrontPage lets me edit html code from inside the program. No problem. However the previous version and many other web authoring programs do not offer this option. Here's how I accomplished the feat. Using Windows Notepad, I opened up each .htm file in my Web and inserted the following lines of text between "<head>" and "</head>".
<meta name="description" content="My Page Title"> Naturally, you'll be replacing "My Page Title" with "your page title" and "my keywords" with " your keywords" relevant to your pages. Leave the rest of the text as is. If you haven't done this on your web page(s) I suggest you do it today. There's no doubt you'll receive better ranking in the search engines that use META Tags to index pages.
Tip #3 "Get Listed!" In this fast paced internet environment, it seems that people change ISP's more often than their socks! Many times people lose valuable contacts in the process. With this in mind, here are a few URL'S to jot down. Although there are plenty more, we've listed some of the services that allow you to search AND list your business for FREE. When you need to find a business you've lost contact with, now you have a great place to start. WED World Email Directory. Estimated access to more than 12 Million email addresses and more than 140 Million business and phone numbers worldwide! http://www.worldemail.com/ The Global On-Line Directory. A "Yellow Pages" Guide to the Internet. http://www.gold.net/gold/gold2.html 555-1212.com is an easy way to find telephone numbers, area code and country code information, e-mail addresses, and website locations. http://www.555-1212.com/ Yellow Pages Online, Inc. More than 18 Million Listings Of U.S. businesses "Search by category, keywords, company name and associated brand name. http://www.ypo.com/ If you're business is on the net, not only should you save these URL's, it's a good idea to take a few minutes to visit these sites and list your company. You never know when one of your valued customers will need to find you. Heck, one of them may be jotting down those URL'S right now!
Tip #4 "Your Internet Marketing Campaign Should Revolve Around This One Principle!" Just this week, a newcomer to internet marketing asked me a question we all should consider carefully. Her question was this, "Being new to this marketing medium, I'd like to know what you see as the "big picture" or a constant I should stay focused on?" It took about 3 nanoseconds for the answer to pop into my head! My reply was as follows... "The number one reason people are online in the first place is to find information. Specifically, FREE information." Which bears out the following, "Net marketers who provide valuable content will keep people coming back. Keeping people coming back, is one of, if not the most important factor in any marketing campaign. It dramatically increases the chances of someone actually purchasing your wares." So there it is. The big picture. A focus. No matter what you're marketing, you probably know plenty about it. Share your knowledge. Create a FREE report and give it to anyone who's interested. Start a FREE electronic newsletter about the subject. Submit articles to other newsletters. Create an information rich website. These are just a few of the many ways to offer free info online. And remember, not only will you be helping your fellow netizens learn, you'll be running an effective marketing campaign! Tip #5 - The Do's of Net Marketing We'd like to pass along some net marketing do's today. We'll stay positive and forget about the don'ts. If you're marketing on the internet, consider each of the following ... DO- Give away free information. The number one reason people are on the net is access to information! Even if your goal is to sell something, focus on offering some valuable information to your prospective customers. DO- Submit articles and press releases to online AND traditional newsletters and magazines at least once a month. FREE exposure just can't be beat! DO- Visit NewsGroups as often as you submit press releases. Post some helpful information and you may learn a thing or two in the process. DO- Keep the amount of graphics on your web pages to a minimum. Web surfers seem to be a very impatient lot. Text loads much faster than gifs and jpegs. Most won't wait more than 15 seconds before clicking that stop button and moving on! DO- Write down ALL of your new ideas! Are you constantly brainstorming? Don't let a single idea slip away. Keep a running list. Review and act on the best ideas without delay! DO- Take a few hours every week to just surf the web. Focus on learning something new each time. Knowledge is the #1 key to success! Tip #6 "Tell The Real World!" Internet Marketing takes on many faces. When promoting your business, not only is it important to focus on your fellow netizen, your campaign must cross over into the "Real World" as well. Most of you already realize that the best way to get free exposure in the real world is by submitting articles and press releases. Using Newspapers and Television Stations as a primary focus in this area can work wonders. If you have something "newsworthy", your local media may be very interested. In addition to your hometown press, media outlets in your birthplace and any other town you may have lived in may be interested as well. Many marketers agree that the hardest part in doing this is obtaining all the necessary contacts. NOT ANY MORE! Thanks to Gebbie Press: The All-In-One Media directory, this valuable information is now a few clicks away! Simply visit http://www.gebbieinc.com/presto.htm and Presto! USA Weekly papers and TV stations broken down by state. Simply save the file, open with a word processor (created using MS Word 6.0) and print! They're even formatted for instant Avery 5160 type labels! Gebbie Press also offers a complete TV database, a gratis, as well as 1,000 plus emails for Radio and about 400 emails for TV stations, also for free at their site. In short, some terrific resources for publicity, at NO cost. They also have e-mails and toll-free's for about 575 Daily papers, but these are on disk only, and not posted to the website. Another low/no cost publicity avenue. Visit http://www.gebbieinc.com today! I can assure you I'll be there. With my new book coming out late this spring, I feel like I've stumbled upon a gold mine of information!
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3. Readers Forum
Nigel Dixon asks Nigel, I used to subscribe to about 100 ! - so that I could keep in touch with what was going on. I decided that I just had to cut down or be overwhelmed. The first one over two years ago was Jim Daniel's Bizweb Gazette as I have mentioned. This was my introduction to online marketing and I purchased Jim's two early books which were really for beginners. Jim then went on to produce an outstanding book "Insider Internet Marketing" which he has recently revised to a 1999 edition. This includes some fascinating chapters on search engines which describe examples of the actual Meta tags that Jim used (and you can copy or adapt) to get very high rankings. As you know I always declare if I have an involvement in a product I recommend and I do promote this book. It's here. But don't let me influence you. Just reading Jim's enticing sales letter will make you want to purchase it ! You can also promote it as I do.
The book is full of little gems. Sounded useful, when I first read it, but not that important I thought. Well recently someone told me that I was included in their list of Ezines. I went to their web site and after scrolling one or two screens I came to ... Bizweb Gazette. What seemed like 10 minutes and hundreds of screens later I finally came across 'SuperTips Ezine' ! So what chance would the casual visitor have of seeing my entry ? Very little. Back to Nigel's question about favourite Ezines - I have a few and I will include a spot occasionally for them. Here's one for starters: When your latest ingenious idea for getting visitors to your web site hits the rocks there's nothing better than reading motivational articles to get you going again.
That's why I enjoy "AAvenues 2 Your Success" by Darren Roberts. Alongside
the excellent ideas for improving your online business there are also articles
on success and self-motivation such as As you can see these are good enticing titles, also Darren has chosen an effective domain name 'topliving' to convey what his business is all about. These are the hallmarks of a good online marketeer who proves the point by telling me he'll send SuperTips readers this bonus report for subscribing "The Power of Personal Contact (The In-Depth Benefits of Rapport Building & Personalisation)" Subscribe by sending a blank Email mailto:subscribe@topliving.com?Subject=harvey_ref OR at <http://topliving.com> By the way have you noticed which two letters of the alphabet start the title of Darren's newsletter ? As for advice about starting up an ezine, this will be the subject of a future article but I've got some tips right now for you in section 5.
4. Publications of Interest Here is our weekly selection of newsletters which offer useful free information: Partenon Free Weekly Business Newsletter via <subscribe@partenon.com>. Here you'll discover business success tips, free offers, and business building resources to help you profit -online and off. New Subscribers get a FREE 5-line ad and a FREE E-Book! Discover the easy way to reach new customers! Advertise in the Netified-Classifieds Gazette! FREE Weekly Ezine with Marketing Tips, Featured Articles, Affordable Internet Advertising and Web Hosting. mailto: webmaster@Netified-Classifieds.com Subject=Subscribe "http://www.Netified-Classifieds.com"
5. More "Super" Tips [5a] My Top Tip for Ezine publishers There was one great spin-off from subscribing to 100+ Ezines, as mentioned above. It allowed me to compile a list of do's and don'ts for producing my own ezine. So let me tell you my number one tip. The quality of those ezines varied from excellent to very poor: some of the poor ones didn't even bother telling you the name of the publisher or how to make contact, and consisted mostly of advertising. So naturally I ignored these and just read the quality ones ? Surprisingly... no. Some quality ezines, with excellent content, ruined their good work by failing in the most important area... PRESENTATION. Imagine that you had produced a best selling novel and sent it to a publisher in a battered package containing a hand-written manuscript with crossings out and ink stains. Meanwhile someone else sends an inferior work but in a professional, typed up presentation. Needless to say whose work gets read. Similarly with an Ezine would you to bother to struggle to read huge blocks of text spanning the width of the screen, with no paragraphs, no breaks, no indenting, no index. Before starting my newsletter I looked for the best elements of style in others which I could adopt, but there's always room for improvement. I'd love to hear your comments and criticisms.
[5b] Promoting an Ezine While on the subject of Ezines, a very good method of promotion is to ask other publishers if they would exchange ads with you for your respective ezines. "But I've just started up, I have a small circulation. Why would a biggie have any dealings with a minnow like me" ... I hear you say. You may be surprised to know that I have hardly ever been asked what my circulation is - publishers know that any publicity is good publicity and if they are confident about their own ezine they need not fear that a rival ad will spark a mass desertion of subscribers. However there is a way round this if the biggie does ask. Just offer to post their ad in say 3 of your issues while they post one. Here is an example of how I would approach another publisher. "I publish a weekly newsletter, the "ABC Ezine", and wondered if you would like to exchange ads for promoting our newsletters, which would be of mutual benefit. If you want to see a sample of my newsletter visit <http://www.abc.com/sample> If you are interested then please send me your ad, here is mine: Newcomer to Online marketing ? Learn all the tips every week in our free newsletter the ABC Ezine. Subscribe at <http://www.abc.com/subscribe> " Now for a simple tip which reaps great benefits. Add this one sentence at the end of the above message. "Incidentally, if you can improve on my ad and I can do the same for you let's give it a try." I've got lots of useful feedback using this idea.
What about the subject of your Email message ? You want to make sure that
your message does not get discarded without being read amongst the many mails
that publishers receive. Well, nothing gets the attention more than seeing
your name or the title of your own ezine in the incoming mail, so put something
like this in the title
[5c] Automating your Online Business If you are spending 15 hours a day building your business on the Net (as many people tell me they do) you are facing a dilemma. You want your web stats, your customers, your orders to double, treble etc but how will you cope with the corresponding increase in the requirement of your time as more Emails, orders, opportunities pour in.
Here is my solution to this. I continually ask myself this one question. Consequently I am on the lookout for any tool which can help. When I came across Mailloop I was so impressed with the features that it offered that I decided to promote it. For example, it will maintain your customer database, send out personalised Emails, process website orders, run multiple newsletters, simplify newsgroup postings, provide free autoresponders and more. This is explained fully here
In next week's issue Terry Dean will tell us his "10 Quick Traffic Building Tips for Any Web Business" If you have your own article or tip please feel free to contribute it, with your bio information, and you will receive full credit if it gets published. Also if you have any suggestions to improve this newsletter so that we can make it a great resource for all our readers please drop me a line. Thanks, Harvey
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