Building eCommerce

By Cliff Posey

If you have looked into email marketing, you have probably come across an email marketing agency or two. You may have even encountered the concept of email broadcast software and mailing list lead generation. But, if you are unfamiliar with the inner working of these strategies, they can seem very confusing. In this article, we’ll take a look at each to determine how they work and how they can help grow your business.

Email Marketing Agencies
An email marketing agency can help you to design a direct email marketing campaign to promote your business and increase your sales. Though each agency works differently, most offer advice on mailing list lead generation, introductory emails, email design, email list management, sales promotions, and database marketing. If you need extra help, you be able to find an email marketing agency that can offer you email broadcast software to help you build, send, and track emails.

If you are unfamiliar with building campaigns and email strategies, an agency can offer you the information you need to become an expert on the subject. Most agencies will also provide you with marketing tips to help drive readers to your website and get them to opt-in to your email list.

The price you pay for these types of services can vary significantly. Unfortunately, so can the results. If you are thinking about hiring an email marketing agency, be sure to check their credentials, and ask plenty of questions about how their process works. You may also want to question why the agency stands out among their competitors. If they can’t provide you with a good answer, consider contacting another email marketing agency that can offer you more.

Email Broadcasting Software
All companies should have the ability to communicate with their customers efficiently and effectively. Using email broadcasting software can make this a whole lot easier. With software, you can bring your email marketing management in house. This ensures that your email list won’t get into the wrong hands, and you will not have to worry about unexpected and unfounded surcharges. Software can be used for newsletter distribution, email marketing, promotions, and much more.

Good email broadcasting software has mailing list creation and editing, email message composition tools, and professional email broadcast. Great email broadcasting software has everything mentioned in the previous sentence, plus data-processing tools, link and email tracking, a bounce-back pickup system, mailing list lead theft protection, an integrated sign-up page, and a double opt-in option.

Mailing List Lead Generation
If an email marketing agency or email broadcasting software won’t bring you the leads you need, you can look into the many companies who offer mailing list lead generation. These companies can provide you with qualified leads that you can use to find new customers. However, you will want to be very careful. It is important to get leads suited to your business. If you can’t turn the leads into customers, any work or money that you have spent will turn out to be a waste.

About The Author

Cliff Posey, owner of CRP Marketing, owns and operates http://webbusinesstoolsonline.com. Cliff Posey has also operated several other successful web businesses including Love Song Cards and Radio Career Consultants. The content in this article was developed from his experience in these businesses.

By Glen Hopkins

As you know, word of mouth marketing is all about multiplying your marketing message expenentially, over and over again. In theory, this is done by getting one ‘happy customer’ to tell their friends, who in turn tell their friends, who in turn tell their friends and so on, and so on, and so on.

The problem, however, has always been figuring out a way to actually get this phenomena to happen systematically. You see, in order to have your message passed around in a never-ending, systematic, set-and-forget way, you need to have an actual system. And part of that system has to include ‘buzz curency’.

What’s that, you ask? Buzz curency is the buzz factor that gets people taking about your message and passing it around. There are a number of buzz curencies to choose from. Some include humorous things,unusual things, remarkable things, controversial things and secrets.

But for your message to get passed around, it above all needs to be something that is both entertaining and interesting. Otherwise, the audience who is viewing it will not be inclined to share it with others.

So how do you create buzz currency in a systematic way? Ask!

Lots of software with “tell-a-friend” scripts are now avaiable to help you ask your subscribers to grow your list for you.

Believe it or not, you can easily triple the number of visitors you get to your site and triple the number of subscribers you are currently generating simply by asking for referrals.

Now I know this sounds far fetched, but it’s not. I know because I have actually tested this process and it does work! In fact, it works for me every single day and it has increased both my traffic and my subscription rate by almost 300%.

In the past, I would direct my traffic to a specific squeeze page where I captured their information and added them to my autoresponder. Then, I would immediately send them to my thank you page where I would thank them for subscribing. Often times I would also present them with a special, one-time offer.

This is a simple two-step process that works very well. Howvever, at best, this process only brings in one visitor to my site and adds one visitor to my list. It’s a 1:1 ratio.

Now, I have nearly tripled my incomming traffic and the number of subscribers added to my list by adding one simple step to the process. I send traffic to my squeeze page, then redirect them to a tell-a-friend page, which redirects them to my thank you page.

But it’s not the kind of tell-a-friend pages you’ve seen in the past; it’s one that creates the essential ‘buzz currency’ you must have to give people an incentive to want to tell their friend, such as a bonus report.

So now what I do is send one visitor to my squeeze page. That visitor tells three friends, who in turn visit my site (triples my traffic) and subscribe to my list (triples my subscribers). It’s a 1:3 ratio. But it gets even better.

Each of those three friends tell three friends, who tell three friends and so on, growing my traffic and list exponentially. In therory, this process should continue forever, non-stop.

Which means your list keeps growing without you doing any extra work.

And the number one best traffic source is your list! At every opportunity you should do your utmost to get your web site visitors onto your mailing list. By getting them on your list you gain control.

Studies show that approximately 98% of all traffic that comes to a web site sales page will only stay for a VERY short period of time. Then, they will hit the ‘back’ button and leave forever. Forever. As in, they never come back.

This is because people have a very short attention span — especially on the Internet. They surf from one site to the next and forget about you and your web site seconds after leaving.

Knowing this, if you’re going to send traffic to your sales letter, you better be sure it converts really well. Otherwise all your time, money, and effort spent getting traffic to your site will be flushed down to toilet.

But when you think about it, why should you put everything in the hands of 1) your visitor and 2) your sales copy? Instead, send your traffic to a squeeze page that is proven to convert well and captures your visitors name and email address.

By doing this, you put yourself in control since you no longer have to worry whether that same visitor will come back to your site on their own accord (and they won’t because they forgot about you).

Now you are in a position whereby you can contact your subscriber (your visitor) at will, whenever you want to, over and over again.

About The Author

Glen Hopkins specializes in teaching struggling entrepreneurs how to turn their small Online businesses into thriving money machines all while working less and earning more. To get more information, including Free Reports, Videos and CDs, visit: http://www.GlenHopkins.name