ON-SITE MARKETING TECHNIQUES

How do you keep your customers coming back for more? On-site marketing of your website involves search engine submissions, strategic links, optimizing your copy, banner ads, opt-in email, client retention services, affiliate programs, press releases, and much more. In other words, it’s whatever will work to draw potential customers to your website then converting them into paying customers. You want to build brand awareness, foster relationships with your customers, encourage repeat business and return visits to your website.

Established brick-and-mortars that have moved their business (or elements of their business) online must take care to reflect the essence of the brick-and-mortar brand, work with the brand, and make sure that you take the brand online appropriately. In other words, don’t jeopardize your product by using marketing gimmicks online that you would not do use for your traditional business.

To keep your customers coming back for more, include in your marketing plan strategies for:

• Targeted opt-in email, which means that the recipients have specifically requested email relating to a particular topic.
• Online newsletters.
• Content Updates.
• Incentives, contests, and surveys.

Some examples are a newsletter for registered visitors, a free gift for answering a questionnaire or for a referral, or a monthly drawing for one of your products. All of these suggestions (out of many that can be implemented) not only build traffic but also start you well on the road toward collecting data on your customers’ demographics and offer the opportunity to amass your customers’ email addresses for use in future marketing campaigns.

Solicit Customer Feedback

Aggressively solicit customer feedback. It’s a great marketing tactic. Here’s a suggestion on how to create a good customer feedback campaign:

Create a short, say 25-question, customer survey that has a prominent position on your website. When customers take time to fill-out the survey, thank them by issuing a $5 gift certificate or some other giveaway. Compile the information obtained from the survey and then use the results to fuel growth and change so that your site is always new and exciting. Surveys also can indicate what your customers like and dislike about your site.

Another benefit from using the survey method is acquiring your customer’s information —name, email address and maybe even their snail mail address — all very useful for sending out future promotions. But be careful not to annoy your customers. It is advisable to mitigate the possible irritation caused by direct-mail (either email or snail mail) by including something your customers will appreciate such as a newsletter or a certificate for redemption of a small gift or gift certificate; which can, in turn, result in customer appreciation.

Another way to use your survey form is for testimonial feedback that you can then use as content on your website. For example, if you offer a certain brand of shoes, in one of your surveys you can ask for opinions or comments about that brand. Use those comments on your website, such as, “I didn’t need these shoes but they reminded me of when I was a child,” or “I just wanted them because they were different.”

Links

As mentioned earlier, numerous search engines use link popularity when ranking websites. Thus instituting a strategic linking program is a must for any new website. When a search service sees a website that has a lot of other websites linking to it, it naturally assumes this profusion of links means it is a site with compelling content and is well-regarded in the Web neighborhood.

Begin by negotiating reciprocal links, especially with websites that appear consistently in the “top twenty.” Having a good base of incoming links from other websites is as important as providing links to the “top twenty” on your website. Remember this can also include your competitors’ sites. Why? If any of your competitors’ sites are one the “top twenty” returns when a search is done for “shoes” leading customers to that site and they don’t find what they are looking for on your competitor’s site, but see your link, guess what — they will end up on your site. You will be surprised how many of your so-called competitors will be very glad to link to your site in return for a link back. Why? Because the next time your website may show up in the “top twenty” when a potential customer uses a different search criteria.

Work hard to develop link partnerships with websites that are popular with your customers. How can you know what’s popular? Use those surveys!

Quality links — links that provide a valuable resource your customers will appreciate — are the only links you should consider when developing your links strategy. These links give you the opportunity to provide a useful service for a potential customer even if there is no sale made at that specific time. Customers remember the websites that enables them to accomplish their goal — even though they may have made their purchase on another website. But because you took the effort to provide your customers with a valuable service — links to quality websites that target the same niche market — they will come back. Eventually, they will make a purchase from your website.

There are many ways you can exchange links. Links can be banners, links can be placed in emails, links can be placed within informational text on yours and others websites, links can be an award, links can be provided within a buyer’s guide or directory.

Okay, now you get the idea, so go for it. Try any variety of these links or all of them — just do them tastefully and don’t let the links distract from the presentation of your products/services. Links not only help with search engine ranking, they feed traffic to your site directly, and they help to create name recognition. All good things!

Now, how to go about generating links? First decide:

• Which websites do you want as link partners?
• Which websites would be of value to your customers? For example ask your customers, in a survey,
  • Where do they go for information and resources?
  • Where do they shop in the traditional world?
  • What other websites do they visit when seeking the same product/service?
  • Which websites offer products/services that compliment your offerings?
  • Which websites do they consider to be your competitors?

When vacillating on whether to establish a link relationship with a specific competitor, remember that if you offer a quality product that is competitively priced, a link to a competitor’s site won’t hurt you. It can actually help by providing your customers the information necessary to make a purchasing decision. Your customers aren’t stupid; the Internet is a great venue for comparison-shopping, so customers will probably be visiting your competitors anyway. Make it easy for them; they’ll appreciate it. Remember Miracle on 42nd Street — Gimbles referring customers to Macy’s and vice versa — same theory here.

Before searching for link partners, consider what kind of partner you want and what you have to offer the potential partner. Be diligent, be open to opportunities, and always be on the lookout for a potential quality link relationship. If you are on a website that you think might have potential, act immediately, send an email, use their feedback form.

Banner Ads

Banner ads are just small digital billboards that one website pays (in one way or another) to be placed on another website. When potential customers click on a banner placed within another website, they are sent to your website.

Various studies have shown that the most powerful word in a banner ad is “free,” that simplicity sells, and graphics enhance a message. If a banner is designed correctly, it doesn’t distract from the message. Other elements you need for a good banner design include:

• An attention-getting element, but not one that is antagonistic.
• A call to action.
• A reason to click through.
• Content that ignites clicks, i.e., it tells them to give the banner a click.
• Placement of your website’s logo somewhere within the ad.

When a potential customer clicks on your banner ad to visit your website, it is called a “click-through.” The ratio of impressions to click-throughs is called the CTR (click-through ratio). An effective banner ad design and astute placement on a compatible high traffic site contributes to the obtainment of a high CTR, which can double the click-through rate of your ad, thereby doubling your return on investment (ROI). A study by Doubleclick.com found that:

• After the fourth impression, response rates dropped from 2.7% to under 1% (banner burnout).
• You need to focus on four important issues (creativity, targeting, frequency, and content).
• The use of simple animation can increase response rates 25% — just be sure that the animation doesn’t slow downloading of the ad.
• The use of cryptic messages can increase CRT by 18%, but probably do not attract potential customers or reinforce branding.
• The use of humor is very effective.
• Using a question within the ad can raise CRT by 16%.
• Using phrases such as “Click Here” tend to improve response by 15%.
• Offering free goods or services generally improves CRT.
• Using bright colors in the design is more effective.
• The use of a message that gives a sense of urgency actually decreases the CRT.

If you aren’t careful, banner ads often fade into the digital woodwork — even if you use animation and other special effects. If not managed right, banner advertising can be expensive and ineffective. Be very careful with your ad placement and make certain that you do not overpay for ad placement on websites that do not produce real customers to your site. Place banner ads on websites that you know your target customers visit. Targeting equates to better-qualified customers, or potential customers that are more likely to complete the sale. How can you know — via your online surveys.

Note that a study by ZDNet found that animated ads generated CTR at least 15% higher than static ads, and in some cases as much as 40% higher. However, animation does not take the place of response-driven copy and a creative idea. Avoid animation that takes a long time to download and offers poor copy. But with simple, creative animation more potential customers notice and pay attention, even if they don’t click on it. Also, potential customers are more likely to click for more information if the animation effectively emphasizes what product is about. However, the animated ad must have a strong, well-crafted message and a clear call to action.

Frequency (the number of times a viewer sees an ad) is an important factor when planning a banner campaign to build your brand awareness. In addition to maximizing your ad dollar, controlling ad frequency can open up new creative doors by allowing you to create a custom banner package for your branding campaign. The correct delivery frequency is necessary for banner ad success and will help determine how successful your branding campaign will be. The right frequency is usually crucial for getting your message across since too few impressions and your message just isn’t seen by enough potential customers, and with too many your banners begin to fade into the woodwork. This is referred to as “banner burnout,” i.e., a banner no longer offers a good ROI. Several companies offer help in managing your banner ad frequency rate. One such company is the previously mentioned DoubleClick.com whose services allow you to control a sequence of banners that can be served to viewers in a specific order.

Banner ads on popular websites (especially those that service the same niche market) can run as low as $249 for 250,000 impressions. An “impression” is the number of times surfers see a page that your banner is situated on. Ad placement services such as BannerCell.com, Insidewire.com, Internet Advertising Solution (IAS) (http://iaswww.com), NarrowcastMedia.com, and ValueClick.com can assist you with specific, targeted placement of your banner ads.

The industry average of CTRs is between 1.5 and 2.5%. If you purchased 50,000 impressions and received a 2% CTR, your website would receive 1000 potential customers. It is possible that with a well-designed and effectively targeted banner ad campaign you could receive a higher CTR, which is why a good banner design is important. When using services such as the ones listed in the previous paragraph, you can easily rotate two or three banners during a campaign, which keeps a single banner from going stale. However, to receive the 1000 potential customers requires a substantial investment on your part. Therefore, for small websites, it would probably be more cost effective to use alternative marketing methods and then supplement that with a few well-placed banner ads.

In a study from another ad placement service, Webreference.com, concerning effective ad placement, it was discovered that the placement of the ad on the side of a web page, next to the right scroll bar, increased click-through an average of 228% over placement at the top of the web page. Of course, as viewers become accustomed to the ad placement along the side of a page, it might lessen its effectiveness. Another study indicates that an ad placed one-third of the way down on a page gets better results than ads placed at the top of a web page.

Don’t forget to factor in the costs of an agency to create the banner ad and another agency or consultant to place the banner ad and to plot your online strategy.

An economical approach is to develop reciprocal relationships with other websites that will cost you only your time (plus the cost of the banner itself). If you do pursue this method, follow these three rules:

1. Create a banner ad with the criteria set out above.
2. Partner with websites that complement your site.
3. Keep your expectations low.

Consider using banner exchange services that enable you easily to advertise your website on a variety of other sites for free in exchange for hosting other member’s banners on your website. Most of these services operate by membership and then provide the means for you to swap banner ads with other members. Some services to check out are ClickEZ’s Banner exchange (www.clickez.com), LinkBuddies.com, TrainX-change Network (www.ntwp.net/trainxchange), and WorldBE.com.

Almost all e-commerce websites can benefit from an effective banner advertising campaign. Here is how:

Stretches your ad budget. Banner ads cost less to create and place than other forms of advertising and they also often deliver a more targeted audience than more expensive advertising venues such as television, print ads, radio spots, and direct mail.

Gets your e-commerce’s brand where you want it to be seen. It is easier to build a higher traffic volume by strategically placing banner ads on websites that relate to your product/service offerings. For example, an e-commerce site that offers trendy sunglasses can place ads on fashion sites, or a software vendor can advertise on tech sites such as ZDNet.com and Cnet.com. Online ads give users immediate satisfaction by allowing them to just “click” and they are at your website — instant gratification.

Provides quality traffic. When a person clicks on a banner, they are interested in what the banner has to say, and thus what your website offers. Since banners tend to deliver highly targeted sales leads, even ads with low response rates can be very effective.

Helps to establish your brand. If you use the same theme (look and feel) for your banners that you use for your website, the ad can serve to reinforce your brand. Even if a potential customer doesn’t click on the banner, they have been exposed to your message, logo, and image. By consistently applying your business’s colors, trademarks, and products in your banner ads, you help your brand’s image stick in potential customers’ minds.

You can easily monitor the results of a banner ad campaign. Most banner ad enablers have the ability to monitor web user response to a specific ad campaign and most will provide their clients with the ability to check web-user response to a banner campaign. By tracking ad performance, you can determine which ads and ad placements work and which don’t. This allows you to quickly tweak your campaigns and media buys to improve response rates. Also after you’ve instituted a banner ad campaign, you can continually test and chart the performance of the banners from the very first day of placement through use of your own log analysis software.

Affiliate Programs

To help drive quality traffic to your new website, consider setting up an affiliate program — sometimes called referral, associate, or partnership programs. No matter what term is used, these programs are attractive to many small websites that want to offset their costs by leasing space for a percentage of the sales made by sending traffic to other online businesses.

Affiliate programs are established by web-based businesses to drive quality traffic to their website. In exchange for a host site sending a customer to your website, you pay the host site a commission based on the sales you generate from the referred customer. These commissions are all over the place and can range from 1 to 30 percent and upwards.

If you decide to establish an affiliate program you should create a system that can do online tracking, so your host sites can count the sales they have generated plus their commissions. The higher you can make the commission, the more likely your host site will actually promote your website in some way so it can send paying customers your way and earn additional income.

It also can work in reverse. With an affiliate program you can make your website more valuable to your customers by offering them goods and services that are likely to interest them. You can earn additional revenue from your site through partnerships with websites that will compensate you for the traffic, leads, and sales you send them.

You can either develop your own affiliate program or contact a service that manages affiliate programs by giving websites access to their own network of affiliate sites and measuring the sales each affiliate generates.

For those that want to go the managed affiliate program path, here is a small sampling of the services you might find when you use your favorite search engine and the keywords “affiliate management”: Commission Junction (www.cj.com), FloppyBank.com, MyReferrer.com, Performics.com, and AffiliateNetwork.com.

Some readers will want to run their own affiliate program “in-house” so they can have total control over the way the program is ran, and avoid escrow fees, per-transaction fees and the like. There are two ways to go about this. Both methods enable you to avoid handing over your affiliate program to a third party.

The first method requires that you have the necessary skills to create your own affiliate program, e.g. craft the CGI script, and then place everything on your web server.

The second method to use a program such as the Ultimate Affiliate (www.groundbreak.com), which is a CGI script written in the Perl programming language that allows you to set up a fully featured affiliate program on your own web server. Ultimate Affiliate’s CGI scripts are easy to install and intuitive to use for the average web developer. The resulting program lets you run a “pay-per-sale” or “pay-per-lead” program where you recruit affiliates to promote your website, then pay them a percentage (or a flat fee) for every sale or lead generated by their referrals. The Ultimate Affiliate program tracks referrals by both cookie and optional IP tracking - making it virtually foolproof for an affiliate to lose a commission. And for the hard-core developers, the script will also create replicated websites for your affiliates to ensure 100% guaranteed referral sales.

Newsletters

Newsletters (whether called eNewsletters, ezines, email newsletters or electronic newsletters) are an effective way to build goodwill and keep in touch with potential customers. Of course, you must provide a form for customers’ opt-in (ask for you to email them the free newsletter on a regular basis). Through the combination of a little public relations, image-building and selling, you can provide your readers (customers and potential customers) with information they will appreciate and find useful. However, information is the key word here.

Through a newsletter (which can also be sent via snail mail) you can inform current and potential customers about different topics while subtly promoting your products/services. Your newsletter must contain a main story, which is informational, and then the secondary stories can target your products and services.

Newsletters, when used as an opt-in/opt-out program, are a great tool for bringing customers to your website, cultivating repeat business and building customer loyalty. A good newsletter is entertaining, while providing valuable, worthwhile information. It must be attractive, well written and relevant. Newsletters that are informative and rich in content can be just the reminder needed to remind customers to revisit your website.

Before taking on the task of writing a newsletter you should ask yourself — do I have the time, aptitude and resources or the staff necessary to write a regularly scheduled newsletter? If the answer is yes, start your research. Find other newsletters that have the style and content that you like; read and study them until you know why each particular newsletter is effective.

Write your newsletter to a target audience. If your website serves a specific niche market, then you have no problems. However, if you have a more generalized website, dig into your customer data to find a specific subject your customers will find of interest, and which provides enough material for a regularly scheduled newsletter. Once you have your target audience in mind and the niche subject matter, don’t waiver. Stick to that particular subject matter; don’t ramble. If your subject matter is collectible Barbie dolls, don’t try to work in collectible Hot Wheels. That is another subject. What you could do is a survey and ask how many readers are also interested in other forms of collectibles, if you get a favorable response then start another newsletter for that niche market.

To establish a readership comfort level, create a distinctive style (both writing and layout) for the newsletter, which should be consistent in each issue. Establish a publication schedule (weekly, monthly, bi-monthly). Every issue should provide links to other sites of interest and/or reviews of sites that might interest your niche market. The text needs to be content rich. For example, you can review a new book and give links to sites with other reviews on the book and sites where you can purchase the book. Remember your readership wants a newsletter that informs, educates or helps them in their daily lives, not an “in your face” product brochure.

Create an easy-to-locate newsletter archive on your website so that your customers can find any back issue they might need. Have links to your archive pages throughout your website. In each new issue of your newsletter refer in some way or the other to a back issue; this will lead readers to your archive pages and conversely to your products/services. Additionally, these back issues can help build traffic to your site if you are diligent in registering each issue with the search engines.

A newsletter is a good tool, especially for the small web-based businesses. Incorporate your newsletter into your overall marketing plan. If you produce a high quality, informative newsletter, and let other websites know about it, they will happily provide a link to your newsletter pages. You can also trade your newsletter for links, especially to other websites serving the same niche market (this will help build readership and, in turn, traffic to your site).

Benefits of publishing a newsletter, other than the obvious ones set out above are:

• Your newsletter is distributed via the one item everyone on the Web has in common - an email address. Email is easy, free, and works without a hitch. Readers can look at it at their leisure, print it out, save it, file it, and refer to it when needed.
• You can send potential customers emails (the newsletter) chock-full of informative content about a subject the receiver has shown an interest in (along with a little promo for your website and its products/services).
• You promote not only your website but also its products/services. It is vital that you subtly, but relentlessly, reinforce your website and its products/services brand(s).
• You build trust since familiarity fuels the comfort index. Every time your readers receive your newsletter wherein you have shared valuable information, you build and reinforce their trust.
• A newsletter can become an additional source of revenue. You can sell ads in your newsletter, but you first must build your readership to at least 5000 to make ads attractive to other businesses.

You will find that your customers and readers change their email addresses more often than their physical address. You have to find a way to keep track of everyone’s current email address. One way is to use a listserv program like Majordomo. Also let your customers and readers in on the action, give them a simple form to fill out that allows them to subscribe, to unsubscribe, and to change their email address.

Market your newsletter, not only should you place your newsletter section with search engines but you also should list it in every applicable newsletter and/or ezine database available. For example, Pertinent.com maintains an ezine (newsletter) directory that serves as a centralized source of information for ezines online. You can find specific information within the directory or promote your newsletter by adding your listing. You also can also use the directory to trade advertising with other ezine publishers in order to increase your subscription base. Another site you might want to check out is ezinedatabase.com. Although the website is poorly designed, the database might be better designed. Finally, look at A.U. Publishing’s website’s ezine database (www.aupublishing.com/ezinedb.shtml). Registering your newsletters with such websites may help to bring in more subscribers, i.e., more customers.

If you continually publish a quality product, your readers will repay you through purchases on your website. Finally, ask your customers for feedback and always include an opt-out link in each newsletter.

List Management Software

Sending out your newsletter can be a daunting task unless you take advantage of email list manager software. Email lists disseminate a single message simultaneously to a group of people. With email lists, you can quickly and cost-effectively deliver thousands, even millions, of newsletter messages simultaneously over the Internet. Furthermore, through database integration, messages can be personalized according to each customer’s demographic information and preferences. Email list management software automate tasks such as list creation, subscriptions, un-subscriptions, bounce handling of email delivery errors, and the like. Look into email list management software solutions such as:

LISTSERV (www.lsoft.com). The first email list manager, and remains one of the dominant systems in use today. It lets you create, manage, and control your electronic mailing lists; maintain interactive email discussion groups for customer service; provide technical assistance; forums about any topic of interest; and distribute personalized direct email campaigns with targeted information that the recipients have specifically requested.

Majordomo (www.greatcircle.com/majordomo/). This freeware is distributed by great Circle Associates. However, Majordomo is not for the fainthearted. The website does not provide technical support for the software, although it does provide links to user support groups. For further help with Majordomo, check out “Majordomo Newsletters for the Novice,” which can be found at www.wilsonweb.com/articles/majordomo.htm. (Bookmark this website as it holds a wealth of information for the e-commerce novice.)

Majordomo automates the management of electronic mailing lists through commands sent to Majordomo via electronic mail to handle all aspects of list maintenance. Once a list is set up, virtually all operations are performed remotely, requiring no intervention upon the postmaster of the list site. Majordomo controls a list of addresses for some mail transport system (like sendmail or smail) to handle. Majordomo itself performs no mail delivery (though it has scripts to format and archive messages).

Petidomo (www.ira.uka.de/~patrick/petidomo/). This product offers one of the fastest mailing list server solutions available along with extensive technical options. Petidomo delivers all email simultaneously rather than one-by-one.

Some of these products (e.g. LISTSERV) also allow you to set up a discussion board or an email discussion group on your website. This enhances your newsletter offering by allowing your customers to communicate with one another.

Email

Marketing, promotional materials, and methodology can be helpful in building a good customer base for your website, but be careful to not burn up your communication pathways. If used properly, email is one of the best ways for a web-based business to acquire new customers and grow and build long-lasting relationships with current customers. Start with monthly emails then slowly increase the frequency and specialization of these emails by responding to your customer’s requests — because you, as a responsible website operator, remembered to ask for feedback. Although the spam crisis continues to affect consumer behavior online, it does not necessarily cloud consumer receptiveness to legitimate marketers: an overwhelming majority of online consumers receive offers by email and have made a purchase online or offline as a result.

It is possible to set up a list quickly, by hand, if it is small or you can use specialized software (as discussed later). Surprisingly good response rates to target email campaigns are achieved because:

• Email hyperlinks allow recipients to go straight to your website.
• The recipient has proactively requested the information and, therefore, is interested in topic.
• The recipient can opt-out if no longer interested in receiving specific email.

With the right email tools, you can have a candid one-on-one audience to get customers to respond to an offer targeted to them. Check out iMailer (www.emailtools.co.uk), Mail Bomber (www.softheap.com) and, DoubleClick’s (www.doubleclick.com) Dart-Mail. While on the DoubleClick website, check out the latest DoubleClick Consumer Email Survey.

One of the great values of a simple email offer is that it has many of the advantages of the over-hyped push technology minus all of its complications. To effectively use an email campaign you must request an email address with each order, each new account, and each inquiry your website receives. However, be sure to ask your customers if they would like to receive email messages with special sales information and news about any new offerings before bombarding them with email offers. If you forego this step, customers may feel that you are “spamming” them, and opt to go elsewhere, e.g. your competitors.

EMAIL “NETIQUETTE”

If you are going to use email campaigns in your marketing efforts, it is imperative that you provide the email recipient with a way to easily opt-out of the email listing. As an additional “trust” incentive, state clearly that you not sell your customer list to anyone without specific permission from the customer (although it is perfectly legal to sell your mailing list to others). However, if you feel it is important for you to have the option of selling a customer list you can provide a clickable button giving approval for the customer’s information to be sold by you, but don’t expect that button ever to be used. Use an email campaign to increase your bottom line, not to alienate potential customers.

Give your customers the option of receiving their messages from you in the form of HTML-enhanced mail since this type of mail can deliver a more persuasive message than a plain-text email. All of the newer email clients can accept HTML email, complete with graphics and layout, so use this technology wherever possible.