Archive for December, 2006
eMarketingBlog.com Goes Video!
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve decided to start with my video blog, too. It will cover the same topics like the topics that you can find on eMarketingBlog.com
Stay tuned!
How to Make a “Sticky” Web Site with Web Forums
Posted by: | CommentsInternet is all about communication between people. Those people belong to some groups. People with similar interests form groups where they are able to discuss about their area of interest, to help each other and to learn more about other members. One of the most used ways for communication between like-minded people are web forums. How this can help to your business?
In order to have success on the Internet you have to have repeat visits. In order to people visit your site on a regular basis you have to constantly make your content fresh, to make regular updates. You can post articles relevant to your business, you can post the latest industry news and you can have a web forum.
One of the main advantages of web forums over before mentioned techniques for having a “sticky” web site is that after some time, web forums are “self going”, at least in some way. In other words, you won’t have to spend your time in creating fresh content – your forum members will do that instead of you! This doesn’t mean that you won’t have to do anything. Depending on the size of the forum, there are people called moderators who take care that the discussion is going on the right way. Companies have management, web forums have moderators. Some popular web forums have more than 50,000 members, and anytime you can find at least 200-300 people online. Corporate forums don’t have that many members but you will also need at least one person who will be responsible for your forum.
Web forums are great because this is one of those ways that help you to stay in touch with your visitors and customers. Visitors need to complete the registration form so this way you will have their names and email addresses. This way you can offer them to subscribe to your email newsletter. Like in subscription forms for email newsletters, don’t require too much information from your visitors. Every member of your forum will have an unique username and a password.
Web forums are consisted of categories. So if you are in Internet marketing business your forum can have categories like Email Marketing, Search Engines, Domain Names, Web Hosting, Web Services and etc. For the start, it is better to have fewer categories that will be more general. Later you can make more categories that will be more specific. Every category should have a moderator who is usually very knowledgeable person about that category who will start interesting discussions and, therefore, engage other members to post their answers.
The most important thing in having a successful web forum is quality of posts and then number of posts. Quality and only after that quantity. When you start your forum, you will probably have a low posting activity. That’s why you will have to “persuade” your forum members to be posters and not only lurkers. This won’t be so easy.
At first, in lack of discussion, maybe you will need to post interesting news about your industry and to post smart tips that you know that are of interest of you members. Later, with increasing your forum membership base you will have more and more posting activity. In order to build your membership base you can ask your members to invite their friends to join the forum. Also, you can offer a contest based on quality and number of messages. For example, you can start with choosing the Member of the Month. Winner will be chosen by other members based on quality of his/her posts. It is great for increasing loyalty. Another good thing for increasing your forum activity is to say, for example, that people with more that 30 posts will get an e-book and members with more than 100 posts discount on your products. Usually web forum software categorize members in groups so new members with less than 10 posts can be in Newbies group, with less than 100 posts in Juniors category and with more than 100 posts Addicts. Forum software usually offers a so called Avatars feature so your members will be able to place an image below their username. There they can place their photos, too. Also, quality web forums software offers that members rate posts.
Web forums are great supplement for articles and email newsletters, for getting a better feedback. For example, when you post an article on your web site or in your email newsletter, at the end of your article you can make a link to a discussion about that article and topic on your web forum. Also, you can include subjects of your most popular threads on your main page.
Having a corporate web forum is a value-added service to your visitors. If you build a quality web forum they will appreciate it very much because you are the one who provides them with source for gaining new knowledge. Also, with web forums you are building ongoing relationship with your members. Some of them are your clients and many of them can be your clients. It is up to you. With providing great answers in your forums you will increase your credibility that can persuade your members to buy your services. People buy from companies they trust.
Web forums are very useful for companies in one more way. For example, if you are a software company, you can (and you should) make several categories in your forum for your products and services. There, your members will be able to ask about your software, to give tips for maximizing its possibilities, to give suggestions for future upgrades… So this way, many of your forum members will serve as your technical stuff. Did I say free of charge?
Quality web forum makes the web site very “sticky”. People are coming back to read new messages, to check if they have private messages, to post new messages… They will be notified each time someone replies in thread they watch, if they chose that option.
Actually, the only disadvantage of web forums is the amount of time to get it up and running, to have an ongoing conversation and good members activity. Later you will have to spend your time for moderation, in order to make sure that members post appropriate messages, that they are not spamming and that the discussion is on the right track. However, good news that your reward will be higher profit, as well.
There are quality free and fee based web forum software. Recommendation for free forum software goes to Simple Machines – http://www.simplemachines.org and for fee-based forum software for vBulletin http://www.vbulletin.com
When Flash Animation Fails :) - Great stuff!
Posted by: | CommentsI highly recommend you to watch these Flash animations. Here you can see what happens when Flash animation goes out of control.
Click here for Flash animation no. 1.
Click here for Flash animation no. 2.
How NOT to Appear Like a Spammer
Posted by: | CommentsUnless you use the Internet only for surfing and never use your email address you’ve probably received something that is called spam. There are different definitions for spam but I will say that spam is unsolicited email commercial. Many people harvest other people’s email addresses on email and web forums and send them info that they didn’t request. This is very frustrating because you loose your precious time deleting those unwanted messages. In this article I will explain how NOT to appear like a spammer.
Opt-in
If you have an email newsletter it is very important that you don’t appear like a spammer. If you want to stay long in email publishing business your newsletters have to be based on opt-in method. It means that a subscriber chose to receive your newsletter and that you have their permission to send them your newsletter. It is called Permission Marketing. I would suggest that your list be double opt-in. Now what is double opt-in? Double opt-in means that your subscribers have to confirm
their request to join your list. Confirmation is done by replying to the message that you send to everyone who had initiated subscription. Beside replying, people can confirm their request by clicking on a certain link. This ensures that one person can’t subscribe another person against his or her will. Also, never buy so called opt-in lists and also never sell or rent your members base.
Welcome message
I would suggest you that you ask your new subscribers to save your welcome message. There you can put the necessary info about your list and list management: list description, subscribe/unsubscribe address, digest address, owner’s email address, list rules…
This is important because of the following. Many people promote their newsletter for some time, until they get enough subscribers and then publish the first issue. However, it is most likely that someone who had subscribed to your list several months ago forgot that he or she actually requested to be a member of your list. And then, they can accuse you that you are a spammer. If they save a welcome message they can see that they required to be your subscribers.
Subject line
Subject line is very important in email newsletters. Beside, From field it is the most important thing for someone to decide whether to open your newsletter or not. I would suggest that your subject line consists a title of your article, issue number and date. If your From or To field doesn’t consist your
list name than you should put your list name in Subject line, too. Preferably in brackets. If you have your subscriber’s first name in your database you should definitely put their name as the first
thing in the Subject line. Then it is more likely that they will open your newsletter. Never use spam techniques like putting Re: at the beginning of your Subject line so that people think that they sent
you an email and you are sending them your reply. Nobody is fool.
Filtration
Many people use email programs with powerful email filter options. Many people set their filters to delete messages with get-rich-quick-schemes, porn and similar content so it is wise that you don’t put that kind of text in your messages if you want that people read it. Also, don’t
capitalize your words like FREE, MAKE MONEY, GUARANTEED… I wouldn’t suggest that you use this or similar words in the first place beacuse these words are often used by spammers.
If you have an option that in To field be your subscriber’s email address and not, for example your list name, that would be ideal because some mail washer programs automatically flag messages which don’t have a recipient email address as possible SPAM.
List management
Always provide very clear information regarding list management in your newsletter. Very important thing is that your list management provides very easy way of unsubscribing. For example, some email newsletters have at the very bottom an unique unsubscribe address for every subscriber. It can be something like leave-yourlistname-111327893L@yourlistserver.com This way, your subscribers can unsubscribe only with one click and they don’t have to worry if they sent unsubscription request from address which is in your subscriber list. Good list management is, also,
useful because you won’t loose your time explaining to your subscribers how to do something, for example unsubscribe or set receiving messages in digest mode.
Also, it is wise that if you use advanced email marketing software like Group Mail to include important information about your subscribers in every issue of your email newsletter. In other words, to personalize your newsletter.
For example, you can make a section at the beginning of your email newsletter where you will write several text lines so that your subscriber see that he or she really chose to be your subscriber.
Many email marketing software have an option to include a code in your issue that will be automatically parsed after sending so the subscriber will see his or her info.
Something like this:
_____________________
MEMBERS SECTION
Your name: !*COMPLETE_NAME*!
Member since: !*MEMBER_SINCE*!
From IP address: !*IP_ADDRESS*!
_____________________
And in your Editor’s Section you can start your writing with:
Dear, !*COMPLETE_NAME*!…
That’s why personalization is very important.
At the end, you can read several spam messages and - do the opposite in your email newsletter.