SuperTips Ezine: Issue 16
IN THIS ISSUE
2. "Save time and win customers...by
HIDING your Email address" 3. Readers Forum
3.1 The importance of
your home page
4. "18 Low-Cost Marketing Tools You
Can Use To Promote Your Web Site Offline!" 5. More "Super" Tips
5.1 Offline promotion
with business cards 6. Publications of Interest 7. Next Issue
1. Greetings! It's a common complaint. How to cope with the relentless bombardment of Email. There's a short tip in my article below and there's lots of ideas from Paul Myers further on. I've taken his advice and done a purge of many of the Ezines and mailing lists that I receive, keeping just the best - including the discussion lists where readers have their questions answered. Not only can you learn from these but they are a great way to promote yourself and you'll see how with a real example. The Emails that I do enjoy however are your letters to me about any aspect of this newsletter - so please keep them coming. Harvey
2. "Save time and win customers... by HIDING
your Email address" It is always advisable to welcome questions from visitors to your web site, so that you can provide a personal touch and establish a good relationship. But as your traffic inevitably increases you certainly don't want to be swamped by Email queries. Here is what you do - and it brings lots of benefits. First, you accumulate a list of common questions and set up a FAQ (frequently asked questions) page. This is a common solution but at this point most people make the same mistake - they provide a link from their sales page to the FAQ page but keep their Email address on the sales page. The secret is to remove the address and only put it on the FAQ page. Why ? This will force your visitor to read the FAQ first, hopefully eliminating 90% of the questions you would otherwise receive. But don't just put a series of questions and answers. * Take the opportunity to surround every question with a positive benefit. * Introduce additional material that may have been too much to include on the original page. * And finish up with some motivating copy to get your reader to order. The result ? Your reader will have gained by finding answers to questions he had not thought of and discovering extra benefits offered by your product. And you will have fewer messages in your Email box.
3. Readers Forum 3.1 The importance of your home page Reader Sophie Tenner wrote to say that she liked the new design of my home page. There's no need for me to tell you how important your home page is. I'm continually experimenting to improve the layout and the appearance of mine. So I was interested in a tip that I came across saying that 'Verdana' is proving a popular font for web pages. I checked it out and it looked good. I've now redesigned my home page using Verdana , I've put borders around items of coloured text, and used silver background boxes for click on links to make them more tempting. Have a look (www.supertips.com) - let me know what you think about this page, or if you have any useful suggestions about web page design in general, and we'll publish them in the next issue.
3.2 Promote yourself in discussion lists Several readers were quite amused by a recent posting I made to a discussion list so I've reproduced it here. Making contributions to such lists is a powerful way of getting your name known. If you offer good advice to questions from readers and make sure to include an effective signature you have yet another avenue for promoting your business. It's surprising how often you can find an opportunity to make a posting, even if you are not an expert on the subject as was the case with the posting I made to the I-Sales Helpdesk moderated by Eva Rosenberg. The background was that there had been a long running discussion about a site which had pirated (made a complete copy of) another site. Many ideas had been proposed on how to deal with this with contributions from lawyers, ISP owners, publishers and so on. When the debate had almost died down I could not resist submitting the following suggestion titled "Web piracy: an alternative approach "
Imagine the effect on our pirate if everyone on this list sent him an Email. Abuse, hate mail, spam ? No - exactly the opposite ! On a given command from Eva we all march over to his web site, send a letter of CONGRATULATION about the excellence of his design and content, mention that we are very interested in one of his products but need some clarification about certain features. He will then find a few thousand messages in his Email box which will all have to be answered as they may be genuine potential customers. That should keep him busy for a while and when we receive his reply we answer , with another few thousand messages, "Thank you for the information but I now find that I do not need this product. By the way I was recommended to your web site by the I-Sales HelpDesk"
Harvey Segal <Moderator: Harvey, you really are wicked! Eva> OK - it was partly mischievous but as you can see I managed to add a different variation of my signature at the end and I am sure the moderator's comment helped catch the eye. Maybe some of you reading this now found my Ezine through that very posting.
4. "18 Low-Cost Marketing Tools You Can Use
To Promote Your Web Site Offline!" Here are some low-cost items you can create and give away to attract attention to your Web site: 1) MONEY-SAVING CERTIFICATES/COUPONS - Use your computer to create a discount coupon that is redeemable for $10 or more off any online purchase. Distribute them anywhere where people congregate. 2) NEWSPAPER/MAGAZINE ARTICLES - Create and submit a short "how-to" article that contains useful material to various publication editors. You can reach thousands of potential customers for the price of a few stamps and envelopes! 3) "HOW-TO" BROCHURES - People love freebies, especially ones that can improve their lives. If you're running a computer repair service, for example, you could give away a free computer maintenance guide with special discount coupons. 4) LOCAL CHARITY TIE-INS - Donate a FREE product or service to one or more local charities as a raffle prize. You'll receive a lot of attention and exposure among people who purchase tickets or attend the event. 5) BUMPER STICKERS - Use your computer and some special labels to make bumper stickers that display a brief message and your Web site address. 6) BUSINESS CARDS - Put your Web address on your business cards, and on your letterhead, postcards, envelopes, etc. 7) BUTTONS - Companies such as Badge-A-Minit (www.badgeaminit.com) offer inexpensive button-making kits. Put your Web address and even a discount code on each button, so they can be redeemed when they order online. 8) HATS - Have some hats printed with your Web address and wear one yourself to create some free exposure! You can also give them away as free gifts. 9) I.D. IT! PLATES - These are custom name plates that stick on the back of your car or truck. These plates can display phone numbers, e-mail addresses, or any other business information. 10) T-SHIRTS - Wear the shirts yourself to generate exposure, or give them away as freebies. Use a color inkjet printer, desktop publishing software, and some transfer paper to make them. 11) GREETING CARDS - Use greeting card software and some specialty paper, to make personalized greeting cards as you need them. You could send a customer a birthday or holiday greeting card that displays your Web address and any special offers! 12) RUBBER STAMPS - Have a custom rubber stamp made at a local print shop so you can stamp your Web address on EVERYTHING you use for correspondence. 13) FAX-ON-DEMAND - Use Fax-On-Demand to store info about your Web site. Anyone with a fax can get more information about your Web site, products, and services, 24 hours a day. 14) ANSWERING MACHINES/VOICEMAIL - When you ask people to leave a message, you should also tell them your Web address and any special offers. 15) ENVELOPES - Have envelopes printed with your Web address on the back (along with a short slogan or product/service "plug"). 16) PHONE CARDS - Purchase pre-paid phone cards or create custom-printed calling cards that display your Web address. 17) REMINDER STICKERS - Create "SAVE YOUR DATA!" stickers for computer users to stick on their monitor screens. They'll be reminded to back-up their data and will see YOUR Web address every time they look at their computer screens. 18) CEILING POSTERS -Use a color inkjet printer to create appealing photos or mini-posters of mountain views, beaches, forests, outer space scenes, etc. Print your Web address on the poster at the bottom right corner in a highly visible ink color. Make a few copies and distribute them to blood banks, hospitals, and any other facility (such as a dentist's office) that requires people to lie on their backs for an extended period of time. These are just a few inexpensive marketing tools you can use to promote your Web site. Use your imagination...If you can think of other low-cost marketing tools...Use them!
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5. More "Super" Tips 5.1 Offline promotion with business cards The previous article recommended having business cards printed with your Web address included. "Web cards" are similar to colourful postcards: they include your Url combined with a high quality, full-colour picture of your web site - or any other picture or design you wish. You can get free samples here with a comprehensive list of ways that you can use them.
5.2 How to get more ezine subscribers Last week I mentioned how I received a boost in subscriptions by posting details of this newsletter to NEWLIST at http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/new-list/ There's another publication with a similar name which categorises newsletters into different topic areas rather than using one global list as for NEWLIST. As this Ezine falls under the 'Business' category I used the "Business New-List Announcement List" To join, send an Email to: mailto:join-business@new-list.co
5.3 Hoorah for NoteTab ! I love finding useful tools which help improve productivity - especially if they are free. You may recall in a previous issue readers' suggestions for software tools to simplify cut and paste type operations - these are probably the most common and time-consuming tasks that newsletter publishers have to carry out. I finally settled on NoteTab.
How did I ever manage without it ? Some of the main features include
- Drag and drop editing NoteTab is a free download at http://www.notetab.com By the way if you are looking to purchase software products that you may need for your online business, such as PC utilities, Email programs, HTML authoring, Web management, graphics, animation, then you will find them at the Beyond.Com superstore. They also have lots of other software titles in the categories of Hobbies, Games, Education and more.
You can find them here. 5.4 How to conquer Email overload "Lots of people get buried in email" That's the first line of Paul Myers "Efficient Email" course. This is a series of 7 lessons that explain how to save time with email, cut out the confusion and stress of email overload, automate some of the more repetitive tasks, and generally get more done in less time. It's written for all experience levels, and it's free. To have it delivered to you, one lesson per day, send any email to mailto:emailcourse@privatesites.com
6. Publications of Interest "Cosmo Chronicles Newsletter" mailto:cosmo-chronicles-on@mail-list.com Join this Free e-zine for some of the best marketing articles and tips on working the internet. Free Ad Space for new subscribers. Are you new to the world of online business and Internet Marketing? If so, then you will find Atlantic Bridge's "ABsolutions" very useful. There are many marketing newsletters out there, but not so many about the business side. Still fewer which cover both aspects. mailto:absolutions-request@atlanticbridge.net?subject=subscribe or visit http://www.atlanticbridge.net/pubs/absolutions.htm
7. Next Issue SuperTips Ezine will be with you again on August 18th. 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,
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