Boost Sales Revenues by Effectively Promoting Your Brand Online

Promoting a business in the virtual world is much like promoting a business in the physical marketplace. Marketing practices such as networking, exchanging information and promoting the brand name are key to both the online and offline mediums. The difference however, is the financials. Online Marketing in comparison to offline marketing doesn’t require you to bust your marketing budget; businesses ranging from corporation to start-ups can use the Internet to promote themselves at relatively lower costs. Here are a few of those tactics that should be deployed:

• Search Engine Optimization: as a process, is often overlooked when launching a promotional blitz of a business online. However, as you have read in our previous issues, Search Engine Optimization is critical to bringing traffic from all search engines to a site from relevant searches. A survey by the market research firm suggested that around 97 per cent of searchers use only the first 30 results, while around 40 per cent of shoppers use Google to locate stores and shop comparatively. So it is imperative that businesses work towards achieving their targets by trying to break in to the top 20 or top 30 most viewed sites within their business sectors. An important thing to remember before deploying SEO is writing unique content. Content is the key to search engine rankings. While there are numerous factors involved with the search engine algorithms, content remains a constant, as search engines have become increasingly more efficient at weeding out websites that plagiarize content from other third-party sites.

• Back Linking: which is the process of creating links between sites, is a fairly old standard of promoting a business online. The back linking process includes posting your link and site information to forums and blogs that match your business. An important point to remember here is to avoid spamming the forums, which can result in getting you banned from the forums, thereby leaving a bad impression about your business. The idea with these forums is to post your website and invite people to visit your website and provide reviews. It is also beneficial to develop contacts with forum users so that links can be sent to them with their consent rather than posting bulk mails to all forum users.

• Avoid Pop-Ups: To understand better why not use pop-ups, let us put ourselves in the shoes of web users. How annoying is it when we visit a website and the resulting pop-ups start clogging up the task bar? How many times have you left a site primarily because of the number of pop-ups? How trustworthy do you consider a website in today’s Web 2.0 environment if they incorporate pop-ups in to their marketing strategy? Ask around and you will realize that you are not alone in thinking that one of the most annoying things on the entire web for advertising is pop-ups or back pop-ups. A recent survey by Forrester Research revealed that 81% of broadband users now have pop-up blocking software installed. Avoid using pop-ups for important information. Instead: o Place any special offer, surveys and promotional items in a dominant area on your home page and color-code it for recognition if you plan on repeating it on sub-pages. o Make effective use of banner advertisements on your home page but make sure you don’t have too many banners on a specific page or use too much animation on your banners. Remember, the simpler a website is to navigate and read, the greater the chances are of repeated visits.

• Website Directories: One of the first things any business should do after going live is to list themselves on website directories. In comparison to search engine directories, website directories are monitored much more closely to validate the content of the site in order to guarantee that the site submitted is a legitimate. While a lot of the website directories charge a fee to be listed on their site, there are other directories that let you list your business free of charge. However, it would lay in your best interest to review the policies of all these sites before deciding which directory listing fits your needs the best.

• Yellow Pages: Also referred to as SMARTpages, Yellow Pages are a great way to help you promote a business to a targeted consumer base. Advertising on Yellow Pages enables businesses to target both local and national audiences and thereby helps in promoting a business on a global scale. • Small Business Networking Another important aspect of generating a buzz about your business is to become a part of local online networking rings. Being a part of such networks will enable you to generate new business ideas, get answers to business questions, find customers and most importantly, get the business name and brand out there!!

• Internet Branding: is about the name and recognition of a company, along with the products and services it sells. While developing your Internet branding strategy, keep note of the following points:

1. The reputation of your company as a whole, along with the way you maintain your customer relationships. Try to ensure that your customers get the same level of service in the online medium as they do in the physical medium.
2. Quality and safety of a company’s products and services is an important attribute of branding. This is important primarily for businesses that are in to ecommerce. Always ensure that the goods you deliver are in the best of quality, starting from the packaging all the way to the product itself. Product branding is very important for a company today, because of the global implications of the Internet.

Internet marketing and branding cater to a global society. A company must maintain a positive brand image on the Internet to increase sales or products and services. Ernst and Young recently reported that 69% of respondents from a recent survey stated that brand names play a significant role in their online buying decisions. As a result, marketing through established brands are required on the Internet, even though consumers’ cost of information gathering seems quite low.

To sum up, always remember that most important points to remember about promoting your business online are TRACKING, TESTING & OPTIMIZING. The most important thing is tracking, testing, and optimizing. Set up a tracking system to figure out how your visitors found you, which marketing campaigns are bringing you profits, and which ones are losing you money. Chances are that after testing everything on this list plus your own ideas you will keep two or three strategies and discard the other ones. And that’s fine.

The Internet Offers Many Options to Find Customers. Don’t Limit Yourself…

Where and how should marketers be looking for these potential customers? The key to finding and acquiring customers is to use as many tools as possible. Often companies fail to implement a wide variety of acquisition strategies, capping success—and revenues. A survey by JupiterResearch in 2004 found a wide variety of channels for acquiring customer e-mail addresses—that key first step in building a relationship with a new customer.

What was surprising about the results of this survey was how many companies do not take relatively simple steps to capture customer data. Only one in three companies e-mail contact information from client e-mails to customer service—indicating that two-thirds are letting this valuable information slip away.

Another survey conducted by Forrester Research shows similar results. Interestingly, co-registration—a simple and inexpensive way to gather prospects from third-party sites—is used by only 17% of B2C marketers.

The basic idea that we are trying to impart here is to reach out to consumers in a wide variety of channels, not limiting yourself merely to a link on your Web site or creating a newsletter.

Statistics have also revealed how customers don’t usually like to give their personal details online for various reasons. If anything, they are most likely to have provided information in situations where there is no choice – for instance, when closing a transaction.

However, the statistics below, from Quris, show that many have provided information voluntarily, in order to receive information from the company, or to participate in raffles. Perhaps, the most interesting fact of all is that nearly one-fifth agreed to provide the information because it was asked for. This implies how important permission is to the process of acquiring customers.

The value of customer data erodes over time if it is not kept up to date. Similarly, the value of a customer erodes without regular contact. Once you acquire new customers, don’t neglect them.

Remember to:

• Recognize the challenge before creating your online forms.
• Get permission from your clients to gather their data. Customers always love knowing they are in control.
• Use forms on your own sites as well as on third-party sites to gather customer data.
• Design relevant forms to gather only the data that you need.
• Capture every single bit of information u need.
• Pay attention to privacy concerns.
• Convert prospects in to customers by keeping in touch with them through newsletters, promotional items and so forth.
• Track your surveys and campaigns to determine success rates.

Slow Economy? Now is the right time to make more efficient use of Marketing Technology

Increasing competition and more demanding customers coupled with today’s financial crisis mean that companies today require a more flexible and accurate CRM approach in order to survive. When economic conditions begin to weaken, companies will usually look for ways to reduce operating costs in an attempt to maximize profits.

While CRM may sound like just another techie buzzword, its in fact fast becoming an important growth area in the corporate world, much as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software was earlier this decade. In fact, CRM may be viewed as an extension of ERP. With the current recession, it has now become apparent that the sellers rule the market in comparison to a few years ago, when Developers & Brokers had the freedom to compete. As a result, the use of CRM is many.

Worldwide customer relationship management (CRM) software revenue is projected to surpass $8.9 billion in 2008, a 14.2 percent increase from preliminary 2007 revenue estimates of $7.8 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. The market is poised for healthy growth through 2012 when revenue is forecast to reach $13.3 billion.

Our CRM system that has been created for the real estate market that will enable your business to connect all your office locations, staff as well as clients in to a single unified system. Combining features like Sales Automation, CRM, Financial Management, and Website Management in to single platform will not only optimize your processes, but will also enable your staff to make better informed decisions, take decisive action and get the results your company needs.

The rapid growth of e-business does not only highlight the importance of CRM—but also emphasizes the need for data analysis – since businesses have to deal with customers through channels they might not necessarily be used to, like web sites or E-mail. Companies with Internet exposure have the challenge of figuring out who their customers are, what sites those customers are coming from, where and what type of advertising is working most effectively and the best way to identify potential cross-selling opportunities.

What we are trying to emphasize here is the need to shift from traditional marketing strategies (not completely of course) and making use of not only the CRM but also Emarketing initiatives such as Search Engine Optimizing, Email Marketing & Website Development. There are two distinct advantages in doing so – reduced marketing costs & increased customer reach.

At Heych, we can help you do just that – build you a website and also ensure that your website is visible to the people looking for your products. Similar to the physical marketplace, building your brand online will not necessarily result in increased business. What is essential, is a website, that is user-friendly and also ranked high up in all the major search engines.

What we don’t do is make false promises. Of course, SEO is not an easy process. We cannot guarantee you top rankings in all the major search engines. We cannot tell you that SEO will double your profits in the next 6 months. All we are saying is our SEO services will assist you in attaining your objectives over a period of time. We are all for a healthy relationship and partnering with us will give you the technological insight in to how to leverage your online business.

Now that we have spent some time discussing the use of Emarketing tools, it would be unfair to end this newsletter without talking about the benefits of Email marketing.

All marketers know that email is a great tool to use to reach customers. However, email marketing has many nuances that must be performed correctly in order to run a successful campaign, and these areas are not always clear to companies that are just getting started with email marketing.

As a leader in email marketing, our team at Heych can help you improve your sales and boost your visibility every day. As such, we have devised a step-by-step guide to help you plan, launch, test, and strengthen your email marketing strategies.

Higher Rankings Mean Better Performance

The aspects of managing a website once it has gone live are many and if discussed, this newsletter could go on for pages. It would thus make sense for us to focus on one key area that is absolutely imperative to the growth of any website. To most people, this is known as Search Engine Optimization or SEO.

Based on a survey in 2008 by SLI Systems, a provider of on-demand search services for Internet and e-commerce sites, 91% of the retail companies surveyed cited site search as critical, very important or important to their online businesses. Moreover, 54% of the respondents saw an increase in sales as a direct result of adding new site search capabilities, while 44% experienced greater conversion rates and 40% cited better customer satisfaction.

It is often said, by many Search Engine Optimization experts, that content is king. Others proclaim that a text linking strategy is king. The simple fact is, if you are to be successful in your site promotion efforts, all aspects of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are essential to the mix.

A better definition of SEM would probably be useful at this point. SEM consists of all the elements that are required to successfully promote a website; with the objective being to improve a website’s ranking on Google, Yahoo and MSN and other major search engines. These elements may be classified as:

• On-page Optimization

All the techniques involved in manipulating page content.

• Off-page Optimization

All the techniques involved in website promotion.

A simpler way to differentiate between the two processes would be to understand that on-page optimization is used to promote your product, service or information, whereas off-page optimization is used to promote your website.

So lets try and breakdown the various aspects involved in both these optimization processes:

On-Page Optimization

• Site Readiness – W3C Compliance

The W3C, also known as the World Wide Web Consortium, provide the guidelines by which websites and web pages should be structured and created. The rules they outline are based on the “best practices” and while websites don’t have to comply to be viewed correctly in                 Internet Explorer and other popular browsers that cater to incorrect design practices, there are a number of compelling reasons to ensure that you or your designer ensure that the W3C guidelines are followed and that your site is brought into compliance.

• Site Readiness – Broken Links

Broken links are often overlooked as a problem in terms of search engine optimization. If the search engine robot cannot finish spidering, or in more simpler terms, finish going through your entire site, due to broken links, then some pages will not be indexed. It is thus imperative that websites are created void of any such broken links.

• Site Readiness – Keyword Research

Analyzing your niche market, or business sector, allows you to create an appropriate set of targeted keywords. It must, however, be realized the most obvious ones are not necessarily the best.

• Page Optimization – Copywriting

Once you have decided on the appropriate keywords/key phrases for each page, you need to work these keywords into the visible text on each page to be optimized. Remember that you are writing for users, not search engines, and the text must look natural.

• Page Optimization – HTML Tag Optimization

All the appropriate HTML tags on each page should be optimized for best effect. These include:

• Title Tag
• Meta Keyword Tag
• Meta Description Tag
• Header Tags

Off Page Optimization

Once your website has been optimized on-page, your attention needs to be focused on off-page optimization. The essential components of off-page optimization are:

• Link Building Campaign

Begin a reciprocal and one-way linking strategy. This can be explained as a “measure of how many quality inbound links are pointing in to a particular web site.” The reason why links are important and a good indicator of search engine placement is quite simple.  Link popularity can dramatically increase traffic to a particular web site.  Not only will traffic be transferred from the linking website, but also Google Page Rank which is the measure of importance of your website.  This is rated between 0 and 10 the higher the Page Rank the stronger the website. Common link building strategies include:

• Article Writing
• Bog Contributions
• Press Releases

• Directory Listings

Get your website listed in human edited directories.

• Pay-Per-Click & Banner Advertising Campaigns

With all this qualified traffic originating from search engines, it is more important than ever for B2B marketers, wholesalers, and B2B exchanges to ensure their Web sites are correctly optimized for good positioning in search results.

Developing an Email Marketing Campaign

Email Marketing today is regarded as one of the most powerful marketing tools available to businesses of all types and sizes. According to research conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, Email Marketing generated an ROI of $48.34 for every dollar spent on it in 2007. The expected figure for 2008 is $45.06, and the prediction for 2009 is $43.52. As such, it outperforms all the other direct marketing channels examined, such as print catalogs.

Now these statistics are old you may say, but according to a more recent survey by comScore, online sales soared for the first week of the 2008 holiday shopping season. According to comScore, Cyber Monday 2008 showed a 15 percent increase over 2007 and the first week of December remained strong with a seven percent increase over last year. 33.4 percent of these e-commerce sales were generated from referral traffic with direct Email Marketing campaigns accounting for 16.1 percent of the business, up from last year’s 11 percent. While companies are cutting back their advertising spends in print media, television, and radio, Email Marketing and Internet marketing budgets are on the rise. The DMA forecasts that Email Marketing will see a 20.7 percent increase in 2009, which is the highest percentage of spending growth across marketing channels.

It is thus quite apparent that Email Marketing is an excellent tool to reach customers. However, Email Marketing campaigns must be deployed correctly in order to maximize return on investments:

Step 1 – Find a Partner

Like any other software, companies always have the option to build the software in house or buy the software off-the- shelf. Our recommendation to you would be to purchase your Email Marketing software off-the-shelf software for various reasons.

Each option and functionality provided in Email Marketing software requires a full team of IT and marketing specialists. Tackling a complex business function solely in-house demands a great deal of time and dedication, not to mention a substantial up-front financial investment.

However, with such a decision comes the need to ensure that you link up to a service provider who doesn’t just make promises but delivers on proven methodologies. There are many Email Marketing solutions available that offer different feature sets, different services, different tracking capabilities, and different price points. In order to choose the right partner, you must first carefully define what you would like to accomplish through Email Marketing, as this will determine what sort of solution you need.

Step 2 – Define Strategy & Audience

Once a solution has been agreed on, it is important to decide who the target audience is and how they are to be approached. A few questions to ask at this stage are:

• What type of Email campaigns do you want to send?
• What is the purpose of your message?
• Who is your target audience?
• How will you reach that audience to gain subscribers?

Defining what you want to do with your Email marketing solution will help you set up for success. People are used to using Email as an informal communications tool, but in order be successful with Email marketing, you must run the campaigns as detailed and methodical as you would a print an ad campaign!!!

Step 3 – Set Goals

Before contemplating the design and content of your campaign, it is important to determine the goals of the Email Marketing campaign. Determine at this stage whether you would like to strengthen brand awareness, increase website traffic and so forth.

Step 4 – Create a Segmented Database

In order to build a strong marketing campaign, it is important to define the type of data that is required to personalize a message, who your subscribers are, what they want to see and how their needs can be satisfied.

In order to segment a database, clearly define the data fields that are required to capture new customers information. While it is important to ask specific questions about customers, it is equally important to ensure that no irrelevant data is being captured, as customers often prefer to remain reserved about their personal information in the online medium.

Based on the design of the form that is being put online for customers to fill, such data acquisition can be segmented as users can highlight their interests and preferences thereby enabling companies to deliver information-specific content to individual users.

Step 5 – Create Appealing Emails

Always ensure that the first Email that is being sent out to customers is one that welcomes and thanks them for joining your Email list. This gives the subscriber a greater sense of added trust and integrity with the company to which they have entrusted their personal details.

Secondly, ensure that the information being sent out to clients are relevant to the content that they have subscribed for. Other factors to implement when creating an email are:

• Include a Compelling Subject Line
• Address Emails With a Personal Tone
• Deliver Timely Information
• Highlight All Key Points in the First Paragraph of your Email
• Keep Content Brief and Concise
• Integrate Call-to-Actions in your Emails Directing Users to your Website
• Use Fonts and Colors That are Relevant to your Branding

Step 6 – Review and Pre-Launch testing

Once the Emails campaign been has been strategized and developed, perform a series of tests on the email prior to sending it to your subscribers. Doing so will ensure deliverability while providing you the opportunity to tweak the message.

One very important step that many Email Marketers forget to deploy is ensuring that the message complies with the CAN-SPAM act. For a message to be compliant with the act, it must contain four things:

• An Opt-out Feature
• A Valid Subject Line and Header
• The Physical Address of the Mailer

Step 7 – Launch the Emails

The time and day when the email is sent out to clients is an important factor to consider as well. Always consider your recipients’ time zone, making adjustments to the schedule as needed. Also, maintain a certain level of consistency in the time and date of each Email deployment if routine Emails to customers are being sent out.

Step 8 – Track Results & Follow-Up

Having launched your campaign, it is now necessary to track your results. Gather information on:

• When you receive the most traffic on your website
• Which articles yield the highest read rates
• Which offers generate the most sales

This final step is probably the most important step in the entire Email Marketing campaign as it not only affects the success of the current campaign, it also makes or breaks future campaigns as well.

Email Marketing is often considered the backbone or driving force behind a successful Emarketing campaign. However, as mentioned previously, it is imperative to maintain certain standards that place you above your competitors.