GET YOURSELF SOME FREE BUZZ. STOP THE PRESSES!

photo courtesy of fredvidal 

Writing the Perfect Press Release:

Are You Newsworthy?

Press releases are a great way to get some free (or low-cost) exposure out there on the web. In fact, well-written, well-positioned press releases should be a key aspect of any conventional marketing plan and a definite “must-have” for a viral marketing strategy.

There are companies that will distribute your press release using their email database to make sure your newsletter finds its way to the right people. Or, you can distribute on your own through content syndication sites or free “press release” sites where site owners and editors look for content to fill their web pages.

Problem is, an awful lot of newsletters fail to get picked up. They languish in the inbox of some site owner who gets dozens of press releases everyday. So, how do you make sure your press releases receive the most notice?

Stop the Presses!

A press release is a news story – about you, your products or services, your business model, discovery, web site, areas of interest, site topicality – whatever it is you’re trying to promote. These informational news stories are used to introduce you to potential customers or clients. They can be distributed by snail mail or sent directly to previous clients’ email addresses.

They can be a stand-alone piece or part of a larger “media kit” that could include brochures, a sales letter, product information or samples and other elements designed to capture the attention of a site editor – most often the site owner in the case of smaller sites. (Larger sites usually maintain a writer/editor on staff to develop content for marketing, site text, blog posts and other written communications.)

What makes a press release valuable? Newsworthiness. Look, another site owner isn’t interested in sending traffic to your site. However, she is interested in keeping her site up to date and her readership informed. So, if you send out a hypey sales letter and call it a press release, it may look like a duck and quack like a duck but it ain’t no duck. And, as such, it won’t get much (if any) exposure.

In order for your press release to have the desired effect – raising awareness within the web community – it should have lots of news value and go "lite" on the hype. Of course, you can mention the qualities, features and benefits of a new product or concept but the text can’t sound like a sales letter.

Formatting Your Press Release

While there are no hard-and-fast rules about formatting a press release, there are certain conventions that are followed. Employing these style and format conventions more easily identifies the text as a press release, and when a site owner is going through 150 emails each morning, the easier it is to identify a press release the more likely it will be picked up.

First, use letterhead stationery for your press release. The letterhead should include the company name and general company contact information. Next, provide complete  information for the company’s contact point – the person to reach for additional information, limitations on use and other editorial and legal questions. This person may not be able to provide immediate answers, but he can at least direct you to the person who has the information you’re after.

Indicate when the press release can and should be released to the public. In most cases, press releases are sent out “For Immediate Release,” which should appear in the upper-right corner of the press release. If, for some reason, you want the release delayed, indicate when it’s okay to publish the release.

The press release itself should start off with a big, attention-grabbing headline – something that piques the curiosity of the reader. A second subhead should appear directly under the headline providing the reader with an indication of what the release is about.

Next comes the body of the press release. The first paragraph of the release should answer the standard Journalism 101 questions: who, what, where and when. Some readers will never get past the first paragraph so it’s the most important text in the entire release. Succinctly (no more than two sentences) provide all relevant facts upon which you will elaborate further as the readers move on.

Again, structure the press release to be newsworthy. It’s not an advertisement. It should provide useful information in order to receive wide distribution.

Keep paragraphs short for easier eye scan and remember, web users scan left to right and up to down. If you use a sidebar – a story within a story – it should appear on the left side of the release in a separate box with its own headline. In fact, a sidebar is another opportunity to place a headline above the fold – always a good thing for readers and spiders who calculate the importance of information using type size as one of the criteria.

Don’t use a the three- or four column format used by print newspapers. Your press release should look more like a letter than a newspaper.

Use quotes from authority sources – people, institutions, associations and other “reliable” sources. This not only adds credibility to what you’re saying, it also adds to the “newsiness” of the piece. Pictures, if they somehow clarify or amplify the text, are also useful. Carts and graphs are eye-catching and, when structured and labeled clearly, these illustrations can convey a lot of information in a small space.

Always write in the third person. Never use “I”, “me” or “my.” It’s not about you so leave your ego at the door and pick it up on the way out.

Avoid anything that smacks of hype – words and phrases like “The Best,” “AN ABSOLUTE MUST” and “Leading Edge.” Not only are these kinds of phrases clichés (they’ve been so overused they’ve lost all meaning), they also give your informational press release a sales letter feel. Avoid at all costs.

Use a style manual. There are lots of them. The New York Times style manual is used by press release writers to answer questions such as whether “like-minded” (an adjective) should or should not be hyphenated. It should be according to the NYT's Manual of Style and Usage. However, “businesslike” doesn’t get hyphenated according to the Times editorial handbook.

Keep the release short – two pages (500-600 words) max. Less is more in the press release realm so say it fast, make it complete and know when to get off stage.

To let the reader know that she’s reached the end of the press release, use ### three of these “number” signs. That’s one of those conventions mentioned earlier. It’s just the way it is in journalism.

Finally, you can provide a second contact after the ### end symbol – a contact for a specific purpose. For example, “If you would like to book Ms. Smith for a speaking engagement please contact Ms. Jan Jones, VP of Media Relations, XYZ Corporation, (123) 555-1234.

Writing a good press release is no simple task, and if nouns and adverbs aren’t your thing, outsource the writing to a professional. You can find plenty of freelance writing talent on the web.

It has to be newsworthy, informative, properly formatted, written in the third person and short on the grandiose hyperbole, aka, hype. It has to deliver all information in the shortest space possible. Use graphs and charts to deliver a lot of information in a small space.

It must have complete contact information for those with questions and it should appear on company stationery with company logo if you have one.

If you think you can do it, do a few drafts and let an impartial set of eyes read it. Accept criticism graciously and listen to suggestions for improvement. With a bit of practice, you can develop a PR a week to keep your subscribers or buyers up to speed.

Practice makes perfect and a picture is worth a thousand words.

One final thought: avoid clichés like the two in that previous sentence.



Webwordslinger.com

REACHING THE SPOILED BUYER

Satisfy This Guy, You Can Satisfy Any Site Visitor

Multi-Channel Product Access:

Reaching the “Spoiled” Buyer

How many ways can consumers buy the products you sell?

The buying practices of many consumers have been changed by the world wide web. The brick and mortar outlets are still top pick with shoppers. However, a recent study indicates that more than half of all consumers consider access to goods in a variety of ways very important. Not just a store. Not just a website. Not just a toll-free number or quarterly four-color catalog. Different consumers want product access through a number of channels. And these aren’t browsers. They’re comparison shoppers, hands-on shoppers, convenience shoppers - people who will make a purchase.

The majority of respondents to the survey indicated that it was important to their buying decision to be able to complete the transaction in the store. Today.

These same consumers indicated that they also wanted access to product information and order placement through the store’s online website and they considered it important to be able to place an order by telephone, whether shopping online or by catalog.

Further, close to 66% of survey participants indicated that they also considered it important to be able to cancel or change an order in person, online or by telephone at any time before the order ships or is removed from the store’s physical plant – the retail outlet.

Consumers have become spoiled with all of the channels available to shop and make purchases. The big box stores like Wal-Mart and Target still rely on flesh-and-blood foot traffic, though many of these operations maintain a significant web presence, as well.

And the individual, small retailer, who owns the local hobby shop in town, still counts on walk-ins to his or her store. However, that same small hobby shop owner should have a website to compliment that real-world outlet. And on that website, which provides global exposure for that small hobby shop, the owner should strongly consider adding a toll-free number to accept telephone orders. In other words, the more channels available to consumers to access your products and product information, the more sales you’ll generate.

The Appeal of Offline Shopping

People still go shopping in the store! Just check out the local mall as the holiday season approaches for irrefutable, empirical evidence. It’s a zoo out there. And given the hassles of driving to the outlets, parking the car, walking to the mall entrance, locating the store you’re looking for on a “You Are Here” map and actually getting to that retail outlet, it might be hard to understand the appeal of this 20^th century approach to buying products. Especially if you’re a site owner wondering why people are going to all that trouble when you sell the same products online.

Consumers dedicated to the mall experience cite a number of reasons for their preference. The reason most often given is “I can get it now.” To some folks in some situations (“Oh no, the television just blew up!”) getting the product today is critical.

Other factors that come in to play? The consumer can touch the product, try out the features and make a well-considered, consumer decision to buy or not. There’s no worries about the security of the transaction. Since it’s made in person, and the item can be paid for with cash, there’s less security risk, though it is important to note that several major retailers have been hacked and sensitive customer data, i.e., credit card numbers, have fallen into the hands of the black hats, so this consumer perception is somewhat unrealistic.

Other reasons consumers give for wading through throngs of caffeinated, stressed-out shoppers include the social aspect of shopping. That’s one reason every mall has a food court – usually a big one. A few hours of shopping, a quick lunch, and more shopping is what the experience is all about. It’s actually fun for lots of people to go to the mall.

The Expanding Appeal of Online Shopping

There’s no doubt that consumers have grown comfortable making purchases on the web. In 1999, fewer than 5% of buyers made a purchase from a website. In 2008, the last time annual consumer spending stats were released, the number of consumers buying online had risen to an estimated 45%, making the web the fastest growing marketplace in history.

And the reasons consumers give for their preference for online shopping aren’t surprising, though they may suggest features you might want to add to your site. The number one reason consumers buy online is convenience. They can shop at 3:00 AM in their PJ’s if they want to. Try doing that at Home Depot and you’ll get yourself arrested.

Another reason for shopping online is the ability to comparison shop. With search engines indexing more and more product pages, it’s a snap to compare prices by make and model number, whether we’re talking digital cameras or a washer-dryer combo.

The web is also a great place to access information about a product, including reviews by previous buyers, magazine and technical reviews and detailed product information. In fact, a large segment of the buying public uses the web to access information on a product before heading off to the local mega-store to make the actual purchase.

There’s also a strong perception among web buyers that prices are lower online. Lower overhead with the savings passed on to the consumer. This isn’t always the case and it’s a misconception that has led to some questionable marketing practices. The giant electronics chain, Best Buy, has been caught offering products at one price through their site, drawing buyers to their stores and upping the in-store price, much to the chagrin of many careful consumers. Not quite the old bait-and-switch but darned close.

Finally, consumers like web shopping because they know, right away, whether the product is available. There’s nothing more frustrating than going to the mall to pick up a sale item, only to be told that the item is sold out “but here’s a rain check.” Great, now you have to go back. Not so when buying online. And many consumers give “product availability” high value when shopping.

The Appeal of a Toll-Free Number

Is there a big, toll-free telephone order number on every page of your commercial site? There should be. Yes, it’s an additional expense every month but it opens another buying channel for potential customers and can you really put a price on that?

A toll-free number allows buyers to talk to a human being. (BTW, those automated ‘press one’ answering systems will send some buyers screaming from the room. When a buyer calls to place an order, a human should answer to take that order.)

If your sales justify the expense, go with a commercial answering service – something that’s now outsourced to other countries to keep costs down. It’s your choice based on your budget. Just make sure that the telephone reps have a well-written script and access to a detailed knowledge base that you (or your product experts) prepare. Don’t expect your telephone reps to rely on a website product description to answer a complex question. Provide the scripts and the FAQs – in bulk.

Marketing Synergies

As you open additional marketing channels, for example email, direct mail catalogs, flyers, brochures and other marketing collaterals, post that toll-free number and your URL on every page.

Invoices, letterhead stationery, automated invoices, auto-responders, downloadable reports and other text-based information should show the URL and toll-free-number above the fold – top of the page.

And be sure to notify site visitors that they can visit your store and then provide a map. Encourage visitors to “Stop on by. The coffee’s on us.” This strengthens the relationship between where the visitor found the product and/or information and where s/he’s going to buy the product – your brick-and-mortar on Main Street.

Your customer service scripts should also reference your site. A simple “Please visit our website at (insert your site’s URL here)” will do it. Also, use these reps as sales generators telling callers about on-site specials. With each of these marketing channel interactions, you’re creating a larger presence and increased credibility with potential buyers. And that means more sales in more ways.

The thing is this: create as many channels to your products as you can. It’s what today’s “spoiled” consumer expects. Then, develop marketing synergies between these various channels to see an even bigger return on your marketing investment.

Clueless? Call me.

Webwordslinger.com

Social Media and Building a Web Biz

Socializing Your Site to Success:

Using Folksonomy to Build Traffic

In the Age of Web 2.0, social sites have made great strides, establishing themselves as valuable resources for web site owners and potential customers seeking to match up supply and demand. What are these social sites and how can they help you increase site traffic on the cheap? It’s all about linking up.

Social Sites

These are sites that post personal or social information for sharing. Some of the most popular of these sites include Facebook, LinkedIn, youtube.com, del.icio.us and flickr.com. youtube encourages visitors to upload home-grown videos or clips ripped from main stream media. Visit youtube.com and you’ll see everything from stupidity in the extreme to thought-provoking video vignettes produced by film buffs and kids, some cool, some sophomoric.

Another popular site, del.icio.us (pronounced delicious) is a repository for personal bookmarks or tags. When web users find an interesting site or interesting information, they tag it, categorize it and post a link on del.icio.us. What’s particularly interesting about this social site is that categories for links are being developed by users.

These user-created categories are called folksonomy as opposed to the traditional taxonomy of classification used in science, industry and knowledge management. For example, the well-known Dewy Decimal System, used in libraries to assign books to specific categories, is an example of a taxonomy. At del.icio.us users catalog their own findings, leading to some very interesting classifications.

Social sites encourage group (social) participation dmoz.org, Plurk and Wikipedia, for example, and rely on the concept of extreme trust – that idiots won’t subvert the system with frivolous or misleading posts, but even though these sites are routinely monitored, the idiots do occasionally prevail.

What started as an experiment has now become a movement with social sites for all ages, male and female, families, businesses and even entire industries popping up like mushrooms. It’s a new form of social interaction that can help web site owners get a lot of attention for very little $$$.

Inbound Links

Inbound links to your site, that is links pointing visitors to your site, are very useful in getting your little ebiz noticed by search engine spiders. Spiders look for inbound links and count them up based on the reasonable assumption that the more sites and individuals recommending your site via inbound links, the better your site must be. Those sites with long lists of quality inbound links are designated as authority sites – sites that competitors send their visitors to. So, the more inbound links you have from more sites and more individuals, the more impressed SE spiders are.

Getting inbound links used to be a time-consuming, frustrating experience for online business owners. There were email exchanges, telephone calls and something called “links begging” which is as humiliating as the name indicates. Then, software was developed that enabled site owners to contact like-minded individuals and businesses with a spam-plea for a link exchange. These emails usually ended up in the recycling bin unread.

Today, through the use of social sites, acquiring inbound links is more efficient and a whole lot less humiliating.

Social Sites & Inbound Links

Social sites enable you to create a free presence on the web. Actually many free presences on the web. For example, youtube will display a video you made – a video that shows one of your products in practical use, perhaps? Sneaky but legit.

myspace.com is an extremely popular social site where anyone can create an online profile of themselves, their hobbies and interests and the URLs of their web sites. So, anyone looking at your profile has the option of visiting your site. And, if they like what they see, they may book mark it and even recommend it to other myspacers.

Del.icio.us is a repository of recommended (bookmarked by just plain folks) sites. There are lots of bloggers listed, providing a useful means of contacting bloggers who might be interested in running a story on you and your site.

The ultimate objective is to have your site tagged by as many users as possible. This social tagging indicates a level of site quality simply because so many individuals have tagged it for the benefit of other users. Think of it as digital promos from satisfied customers.

Better Keep ‘em Satisfied

To have satisfied visitors willing to tag your site, you need content – interesting, useful, engaging, non-hype content. Blogs are useful in this regard. In fact, when you start a site blog, you’re on track for lots of inbound links. Blogs, according to the pros in the know, are the quickest way to develop inbound links. Blogs are simply another aspect of the socialization of the w3.

No useful content, just a bunch of sales garbage, is not going to get your site tagged. However, useful product reviews, short how-to articles and other “good-to-know” information will get your site tagged – a lot.

So, grow your business by creating an online presence on every social site you can. Create profiles, upload videos and add book marks to your site on del.icio.us and ask friends to do the same. It’s free advertising and a terrific way to get to know your visitors and what they’re looking for.

Oh, and it’s a lot of fun, too.

Call me,

Webwordslinger.com

VIRAL MARKETING GENERATES MILLIONS OF HITS

Viral Marketing

Looking For a Shot In the Arm?

It sounds nefarious. Maybe even a little illegal but viral marketing has been around for centuries. It just looks and sounds different on the world wide web. And if you aren’t using it, give it some thought. With a viral marketing campaign, you just might like what you come down with.

First, What Is Viral Marketing?

It goes by many names and is defined differently by different users. In its simplest form, viral marketing is any marketing, promotion or advertising that builds on itself, i.e. propagates. Further, viral marketing utilizes the resources of others to spread the message, meaning it doesn’t cost a lot of money, if any at all.

Web experts narrow the definition to the W3 and describe it as an online [only] promotional device that persuades other web users to “pass it on,” and the next thing you know you’ve got the next big thing,

Perfect example. YouTube.com. Anyone with a cell cam and the smarts to upload a video can change the world in 24 hours. We’ve seen law enforcement use alleged excessive force, dogs on skateboards and politicians who can’t remove a foot from their mouth. (Makaka? What was that guy thinking??!!)

In the pre-web days (some of you may remember) it was called ‘word of mouth’ (WOM) advertising. Anybody remember Pop Rocks? Put a handful in your mouth and they popped in thousands of little CO₂ explosions. One kid tried them, told her friend who told his friends and on and on. Other examples of viral marketing in the real world? ‘Tickle Me Elmo,’ ‘Beanie Babies’ and ‘Cabbage Patch dolls.’

Politicians (especially now) have caught on to the power of viral campaigns. Hillary Clinton had a “Choose Our Campaign Song” competition on her campaign web site that drew a lot of hits. Other politicians have discovered that online adverts are low cost and potent – especially when done with some originality. Every candidate has a web site now and it’s a popular way to raise campaign funds with “the kids” today.

Viral marketing doesn’t stick around long. Its vaporous, here today gone today. But while it’s making the rounds, spreading from computer to computer and media to media, it packs a potent punch – one that draws attention. Global attention.

Second, How Do I Launch a Viral Campaign?

Viral campaigns are cheap. Word of mouth (WOM) advertising is free and extremely effective – if you do it right. So to get your viral campaign spreading like the flu, here are some dos and don’ts.

Because viral marketing is WOM marketing that means you have to go where the people are. Otherwise, how are you going to get word of mouth if you don’t have any mouths? And where do you find people on the web? Lots of places.

Blogs are a good place to start. Post on a few blogs or forums with a back link to your site, but here’s one taboo: Don’t post something that looks like a straight up ad. It’s just so…so juvenile.

Go to “You Tube” and check out some of the comments viewers have left. “Hey, if you think that guy could surf, stop by Bob’s Surf Shack on Rte 118 for the best in surf board buys.” Talk about desperation. Viral marketing, despite its name and the way it can spread globally in just hours (minutes) has to have “something” to say or show to the world. If it looks like an ad, not many people will be stopping by your surf shack because you sound (and look) like a rookie.

Build Your Own Website

Rosie O’Donnell keeps her face (and opinions) in the news through here own blog and each day, people line up to hear what Ro’ has to say. Today, rosie.com ranked 23,036 in the U.S. and 93,576 and in web land that’s better than excellent.

Of course, Rosie had an audience before launching her site. That helps. But, it also helps to have something to say – something different, something controversial. Oh yeah, controversy sells.

Social Sites

They aren’t just for ‘tweens and teens any more. Lots of adults, companies and even products have their own place on My Space or FaceBook. And these places are notorious for WOM marketing. Rumors spread and, sometimes, they’re even true! If you’re looking for name or face recognition, social sites will provide web space free – and you can say (almost) anything you want to say, even if it measures an 11 on the 1-10 Crazy Scale! In fact, crazy sells, too!

Cross-Channel Advertising

The more ways to reach a reader or listener the more successful your viral ad campaign will be. So, for example, if you run 30 second spots on the local cable channels, consider adding a competition that requires TV viewers to log on to your site, fill out a form and win a brand new refrigerator or whatever. (A trip to Barbados would be nice.)

If you run a weekly ad in the Hometown Bee, include your URL and a reason to visit: “Visit us at anysitehere.com, print out the coupon and we’ll take 20% off your next purchase.” You’ve just employed two different media (multi-channel) to spread your message. And friends in the area will tell other friends.

How Do I Create a Viral Ad?

It’s not easy. In fact, it’s darned hard and big companies (Subaru, Coke, etc.) spend millions to create viral ad campaigns. But, now that viral marketing has been around for a few years, the researchers have had a chance to put it under the microscope and come up with several “must have” components to launch a successful viral campaign:

Authenticity is critical. Bob’s Surf Shack (see above) lacks authenticity. It’s just an ad so it won’t catch on as the next big “thing.”

Originality is another must have. Look, today’s key demographics have seen it, done it, lived it. What’s hot today is stone cold tomorrow. So, if you’ve seen it before so have a few other billion people and you’re just not going to hit the ‘buzz’ wave. Creativity – real creativity – is the essence of a good viral campaign. And if you don’t have a lot of creativity, don’t worry, others do – for a fee.

Identifiably helps. If the viewer or reader of your blog can identify with what you’re saying, you’ve got a convert – and someone who will spread the word to others, which is the whole purpose of viral marketing to begin with.

Finally, your viral ad, like all ads, requires a call to action. The call to action tells the reader or viewer what s/he is expected to do next – whether it’s run out to find the Coke can with the red tab or visit your tiny web site for a discount and some free stuff the reader will want and use.

A Couple of Don’ts

Real quick. Some mistakes and don’ts:

The campaign doesn’t fit the product, service or message. The best example is the dancing baby that appeared on the TV show “Ally McBeal.” Because the creator never copyrighted the dancing, diapered cutie, it was picked up by thousands of site owners. For a month or two, it was a hot topic. Now, you can pick up the animated gif on every clip art site on line.

Viral campaigns move quickly (thus the name) so if it isn’t working after a week or two try a different approach.

The campaign lacks relevance to the target market. Mountain Dew, the caffeine king of soft drinks was way ahead of the power drink curve when it introduced MDX – with even more caffeine. Unfortunately, the advertising agency was unable to reach the target demographic the way Rock Star and other energy drinks do (Rock Star sponsors the Girls Gone Wild NASCAR entry). Instant relevance. Good-bye MDX.

Don’t pay. There are a ton of free outlets on the web from the gargantuan, eyes-of-the-world “You Tube” to a little blog on how to tie flies or whip up the perfect soufflé. There’s no need to pay. The web chews up content like a wood chipper, so give the web what it wants – free content in exchange for the free use of someone else’s outlet to the world.

Don’t forget the human who will be reading or seeing your campaign. The same rules apply today that applied 1000 years ago. Appeal to the emotions of the viewer and better yet, make that viewer feel as though s/he’s the one who’s ahead of the pack by “passing it on” to a friend. It could be the latest joke making the web rounds, your funny take-off on a news event or a great new product. Remember, people must be touched to be moved to action. Politicians take note.

Don’t set high expectations or goals. Viral marketing is a gimmick – a successful one in some cases, but certainly not in all. Set the bar low and you won’t be disappointed. Besides, you’re using free resources to get your marketing message out so you really can’t get hurt too badly.

Finally, don’t bet next month’s rent on a viral campaign. Most flop (Xbox 360, e.g.), and the ones that do succeed don’t make a lasting impression (except that Makaka guy who’s now out of office).

Viral marketing works but it takes ingenuity – a new view and a belief on the part of the viewer that s/he is a part of this “movement.” The need to belong to something bigger than the self has been a tried and true marketing strategy forever so make the viewer a part of the family and kindly ask them to…

…pass it on.

Yeah, you're ready to go viral. Call me. Let's make your site worth "catching." (No, it ain't swine flu.) This stuff really works and my tiny little website is proof (reach up 86% as of this morning.)

Later, budding entrepreneurs,

Webwordslinger.com

CONNECTIVITY = WEB SUCCESS

BUILD YOUR OWN

WEBLET

Weblets:

Join Forces. Make Friends. Build Revenue.

You launch your site, Google your URL and discover that the only site ranking lower is the one selling the Hanta virus. (Really bad business decision on the part of the “Virus for Sale” site).

So what’s a site owner supposed to do to get a little respect? A little attention? And some foot traffic? Easy. Start a weblet.

What’s a Weblet?

There are plenty of site owners in the same boat. No page rank, indifferent recognition by search engines and a site rank over four million. In other words, invisible to potential buyers.

A weblet links together a group of small sites selling to the same demographic but not competing with other weblet members. It’s called parallel marketing and you want to go proactive on this ASAP.

Here’s an example of a weblet:

Site A (you) sell programming services. So, you exchange links with an SEO company, a computer hardware site, a data security site, an FTP site, a web design firm – all businesses targeting the same demographic but not providing competing goods and services.

The benefits of starting a weblet:

• a larger web presence quickly.

• more highly-qualified visitors (which translates into higher per sale ratios).

• consolidation of useful information for visitors.

• lots of reciprocal links.

• self-perpetuating expansion.

• increased traffic = increased sales = increased net profits.

Let’s look at each of these benefits more closely.

A Larger Web Presence Quickly

A weblet is not intended to impress search engine spiders. All of those reciprocal links cancel each other out. But the point of a weblet isn’t to move you up in page rank. A weblet is people-driven. Forget the bots. A weblet drives more traffic by creating a bigger web presence – fast.

Think about it. Your little site, tucked back in the weboonies, won’t see much organic search engine traffic – no matter how much you optimize for search engines. SEO is for search engines. A weblet is for buyers.

By joining or creating a weblet, you cast a wider net over the same demographic. Example:

Site A books cruises.

Site B provides insurance at discount rates for seniors (seniors cruise a lot, FYI)

Site C books adventure travel packages

Site D provides lodging

Site E plane reservations

Straight on down the line. All low-ranking sites. All with zero web presence. But, when linked, the whole, indeed, becomes greater than the sum of the parts. You’ve created (or joined) a useful tool to enhance web buyers’ searches. You’ve created market synergy. Cool.

More Highly-Qualified Visitors

Weblet-driven visitors found your site through a topic-related site. This indicates either more-than-casual interest or a knowledgeable buyer searching the weblet for a number of related goods and services.

The driven visitor, eager to learn more, will ultimately be eager to purchase more. And the knowledgeable buyer (your best customer) knows his or her needs and standards for quality, making the sale and long-term client care easier and less expensive than if that visitor found you via a PPC blue block on Google’s SERPs.

Consolidation of Information

A weblet is a collection of sites that share one thing in common – the same demographic. Whether the web user who enters your weblet is “just looking” or ready to buy, you and your weblet buddies have made it easier for the buyer to meet his/her needs, and for you and other weblet members to make the sale or close the deal.

In other words, weblets work because they make surfing easier for digital buyers with lots of digital dollars to spend.

Lots of Reciprocal Links

Not as good as one-way links into to your site as far as search engine algorithms are calculated, but again, weblets are about buyers not bots. So, you won’t move up much for PR, even with all of this inter-connectivity, though you well score points for having lots of useful links for visitors. You score some points with bots but, again, that’s not the point.

Your little, unconnected site isn’t going to be found by luck. But when you’re linked into 20 or 30 related sites, you have a lot of access points into your online store. That’s a good thing for your bottom line. Bots don’t buy.

Self-Perpetuating Expansion

Once a weblet has been started, it will expand organically as more topic-specific sites want in. This is good and bad. You want lots of related sites all linked together but if a lone taxidermy site suddenly links in you’ve got a problem because the link isn’t useful to your lace collectors’ weblet.

Maintain the role of administrator of the weblet so that you can keep all links on topic. Encourage weblet members to recruit other related sites to join. The more the merrier. And the bigger and more expansive the presence of each, individual site.

Suggestion: Create a simple logo for your weblet that members display on their sites. “Member Coin Collectors Weblet” It’s a badge of membership and a confidence builder, indicating that peer sites give tacit approval of a weblet site, its products and practices.

Increased Revenues

Increased profits.

As a weblet member, you’ll see more weblet-driven traffic – knowledgeable buyers looking for information and the best deal on the web. You’re plugged in to other sites much faster, providing a service to site visitors by providing links to further searches. You build good will and confidence quickly.

And that, in turn, quickly becomes the profitability you’ve been looking for.

Start by making a list of parallel services and products. Google each. Look for lower ranking sites – pages 10 of the SERPs and beyond. Contact these site owners via the contact us page or look up the site’s owner in Whois and get to work spreading the word through your own weblet.

Free and effective. You gotta love that.

Connectivty = web success. Drop me a line and let's get your site hooked into the grid, eh?

Webwordslinger.com

GO HYPER-VIRAL ON LAUNCH DAY

Ummm, no, this is NOT viral marketing, but it could be just plain viral. Wash your hands.

Ready to Launch?

Go Hyper-Viral and Get Noticed NOW!

Viral marketing has been around for thousands of years. It’s nothing more than word of mouth marketing (WOM), but with the advent of the world wide web (W3), viral has taken on a nuanced cachet of subversion – exploiting the system. How cool is that?

Through the centuries, WOM was just that. One person told another who told another about this book or that technology and word spread. It was self-perpetuating. As the band of “in-the-know” individuals expanded, naturally WOM expanded with it.

Today, within the ferocious sphere of e-commerce, viral marketing has changed tactics but the premise is still based on word of mouth. Today viral marketing includes:

• blog posts on topics of a site owner’s expertise with a back link to the poster’s site

• uploading product “how-tos,” movie trailers and endorsements to YouTube and other sites that rely on user-generated content

• syndicating articles to other web sites, providing a back link

• creating connectivity within a smaller, niche market (building a weblet; see below)

• posting to Wiki sites to establish authority within a market or commercial sphere

There are other viral tactics. Create a billboard on MySpace and Facebook pointing to your site; sign up as an expert on Yahoo Answers; list services on sites like Craigslist; make your site book-markable by providing visitors the option to ping you at sites like digg and other social book marking sites. Digital technology has changed the tactics of viral, word of mouth advertising, spreading the news globally in just seconds. We’ve come a long way fast.

Hyper-Viral Marketing

Hyper-viral marketing employs new technologies to expand WOM exponentially. It’s taken a few years for the technology to catch up with demand but today, web site owners have a number of tools and tactics at their disposal to simplify and automate the process of building word of mouth webuzz.

When blogs got hot at the turn of the millennium, posting to one blog at a time wasn’t efficient, though site owners who recognized the viral aspects of this marketing tactic did, indeed, take the time to do just that. Cut and paste. Cut and paste. Over and over.

Now, software tools, like Feedburner are available to automate the process of blog posting. Using this tool and others like it makes it simpler to post content on remote sites, to measure readership and placement of syndicated content and blog posts, to maintain metrics on subscriptions to newsletters, podcasts and other interest-generating content.

Google recently purchased Feedburner. As of the day of this writing, this software was feeding 870,764 publishers (site owners like you) with 1,549,103 distinct feeds.

Feedburner is an excellent example of a tool that has been developed to turn viral marketing into hyper-viral marketing – automatically.

Facebook Goes Hyper Viral

Ever since Facebook launched and social sites went viral, online businesses have employed the resources of these sites to create some free biz buzz. It’s easy to create a digital billboard for your business on Facebook, which makes it an ideal viral marketing tool.

The social website has recently gone hyper-viral with the addition of its “People You May Know” feature. This addition increases the utility of Facebook as a viral outlet by enabling users to search for quality contacts by geography, specialty, schools attended and so on. The idea is to create smaller communities within the larger Facebook universe.

For site owners, the addition of this feature to an already valuable viral marketing tool increases the utility of the site. However, your Facebook space may have to be revisited. New content to attract Facebook’s site search bots can easily be added to link up with old business acquaintances, classmates, neighbors and so on. The result? A higher quality of contact within the Facebook/social site model.

Blog Directories

Blogs are a great way to go hyper viral fast, especially if you post provocative, controversial and bleeding edge content. Getting your blog picked up, however, is another matter. You can submit to blogs but there’s no guarantee that the blogmaster is going to give you some space without something in return – a blog bribe in the W3 trade.

Blog directories build credibility and make it much easier to find your posts. To list your blog, visit toprankblog.com for an extensive list of blog directories. Using automated technology and current blog posting software, you can access dozens of weblog directories and list your blog with a few clicks.

As blogs take on a more significant role in reporting news, identifying trends and shaping opinions and buying decisions, their importance as a hyper viral marketing tool increases. That means good content. Buzz-worthy content. Sites like Spike.com provide a lot of provocative content. (Word of caution: Spike contains content that may not be suitable for all users so be forewarned. Some of the stuff on the site is crude, salacious and downright weird, but that’s the whole point of provocative content.)

Schemes, Scams, Disputes and Deceptions

Whenever a new technology is developed, there are schemers, scammers and other neer-do-wells out to subvert the process and take advantage of the unwitting so tread slowly in this new age of hyper-viral marketing. The snake oil salesman is knocking on the door. Make sure you know what you’re paying for, what you’re getting into and what kind of measurable results you can anticipate. Oh, and does it come with any kind of guarantee?

There are blogging services and press release syndicators that “guarantee” that you’ll get posted on 10,000 blogs within 24 hours. You gotta question the editorial judgment involved in posting to appropriate blogs. Your erudite musings on the Chaos Theory may end up on an anarchist site in Columbia. Be careful. These services are automated and the results aren’t always what’s anticipated.

Oh, and are you going to take the time to determine how many blogs really got your post. Any busy blogger has enough filters on the incoming chute to keep mass mailings headed straight for the DELETE FOREVER file. The finality of the deletion is indisputable. It’s gone without so much as a look. But the PR distributor delivered on its promise by delivering your release to 10,000 sites. What’s more difficult to measure is how many opened the PR and how many ran it on their sites or blogs.

Take care when writing a check for services that are amorphous and difficult, if not impossible, to quantify. If you don’t know how success is measured using a distribution service, man, you got the wrong service.

Also, be wary of “hyper-viral” software coming to market. Some early 1.0 editions are buggy, some over-promise and under deliver and some make promises that may not synch up with your site or server side software. For example, there are several software developers selling RSS to blog software. One of the things that has held back the explosive use of RSS on the web is the hassles of aggregating, monitoring and getting the collected feeds before the site visitor in a meaningful, useful way.

These software packages and associated support services make hyperbolic claims of instant wealth and fame by filling blogs with your RSS feeds. Google “RSS to blog” and enjoy the battle of what works, what’s a scam and what’s worth further exploration.

You Gotta Go Hyper But Not Be Hyper

There are hyper viral tools like Feedburner (and lots of other blogger distribution software; Feedburner isn’t the only one) podcast and webcast syndication software (growing quickly), automated PR software, newsletter software and a bunch of other spam to hit the fan as hyper viral goes hyper viral – starting now.

Take your time. Choose which outlets will deliver bang for buck, which can be measured with specificity and analyzed in a useable format, which players want your money and which want to help by providing a truly potent service or software that makes spreading the word about your site easier, more automated, more targeted and even more personalized.

Hey, before you launch that site - your web dream - drop me a line or give me a call. You can get free pixels outta the chute. It's a snap.

Webwordslinger.com

SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM

Does E-mail Marketing Ever Work?

Only If You Do It Right

E-mail marketing went out with anti-spam laws, right? No, though many small site owners believe it did. One AOL customer got booted (temporarily) for e-mailing everyone in her address book that she’d changed her screen name. AOL believed that amounted to spamming and AOL’s terms of service (TOS) forbids spamming. Account closed.

The fact is, e-mail marketing is probably the most cost effective way of marketing your business to new customers and keeping your regulars happy.

When can I e-mail someone?

You can’t buy lists of e-mail addresses and spam blast people who have never heard of you. The starting fine is $500 if you get caught and certainly Yahoo, AOL and MSN – the big web portals – will catch you spamming 10,000 of their subscribers. You’re gone. So is the money spent on your e-mail lists.

However, there are several circumstances in which you can contact potential or existing clients or customers – lots of them at the same time.

1. You can e-mail people who have bought from you in the past. You can contact existing customers with the latest news, sales, products and other useful information. No worries.

2. You can contact people who request news from your site by giving you their e-mail address. This is usually done through the ‘About Us’ or ‘Contact Us’ pages.

3. You can also send to opt-ins – people who have downloaded a “free” e-book or some other bonus. In order to receive the free materials, opt-ins must provide their e-mail addresses. They opt-in (choose) to receive e-mail from you.

So, if you’ve been on-line for a few years, or you’ve just completed an opt-in campaign, you have a database full of very valuable information – people you can legally contact via e-mail.

Building Your Customer Base

Building a customer base usually involves contacting those who have sent you e-mails requesting information. These aren’t customers – yet! They’re opt-ins or those who have contacted you for information. And because they contacted you, you now have the opportunity to turn these visitors into customers using e-mail to sell your services, opinions or products. So, what should you include in these messages to convince people your site is the one they want to visit?

First, establish yourself as an authority or expert. If you have an MBA from Harvard Business School, be sure to mention it if your site provides tax advice. It probably shouldn’t be mentioned if you’re selling aroma therapy candles, however, because – well, frankly, your aroma candle customers simply won’t care.

Avoid referring to other “experts” as in, “Many professionals believe blah, blah, blah.” By pointing to other experts you take the spotlight away from you and your expertise. So instead, say “I believe blah, blah, blah” because you’re the authority.

Use client testimonials in your e-mail. Nothing sells success like success.

Offer something free – a free download, assessment, review and analysis – anything free attracts attention.

And be sure to provide these potential customers with information about you and your business. What is your mission? What’s your unique positioning statement (UPS)? Why are you the best in your field of expertise. This is not a time or place for false modesty so don’t be afraid to do a little selling here.

The point of e-mail marketing to non-customers is to pique curiosity, establish your credibility, identify a problem or problems and provide easy-to-understand solutions. The fact is, you’re selling these non-customers on you!

If you can convince opt-ins that you’re the solution to the problem, you’ve made a sale. And, if you actually deliver a workable solution, word of mouth advertising kicks in – so whatever you do, deliver something worthwhile.

E-mailing Regular Customers

These are people who already know how wonderful you are so you don’t need to sell them on visiting your site. Your regulars have your site bookmarked! In this case, it’s not about selling (know when to stop selling) it’s about communication – the basis of all good, long-term relationships, and that’s what you’re going for here. It’s also about the fact that repeat buyers purchase 67% more than first time buyers – something worth your consideration, wouldn’t you say?

Your objective, then, is to provide the latest on special “customer-only” sales and promotions, to provide useful non-sales content and to establish a sense of community around your web site. Share stories from repeat buyers and definitely ask buyers to provide their stories and pictures for inclusion in next month’s newsletter. If it works for Patagonia, it’ll work for you.

Avoid too many calls to action, but not all. If each month’s e-mail is all hype with no solid, useful information your going to end up in the trash without opening. You want your customers to look forward to that next e-mail and to read it top to bottom. It’s one of the least costly means of building and maintaining a strong base of regular buyers. However, an occasional call to action is expected by the recipient so use your e-mail to direct readers to take specific action – “quickly – while supplies last!” That sense of urgency motivates visitors to become buyers (site conversion).

Measuring E-mail Marketing Success

It’s not always easy to develop useful numbers from a marketing campaign. However, you receive instant customer feedback from your e-mail campaign just by counting up the number of e-mails you sent and subtract unsubscribes and bounce backs. You can quickly determine the number of e-mails that were opened and most importantly, the click through rate.

The Click-Through Rate

Absolutely. Every e-mail you send out, whether to potential or regular customers, should contain a link back to your site – either to the homepage or to the page that shows the particular product or service mentioned in the e-mail. Why make it hard for e-mail recipients to access what you mention in the e-mail? One click should do it.

The Bottom Line on E-mail Marketing

E-mail is easy to use, low-cost and it can be personalized using information stored in your database. It’s also an excellent opportunity to build customer good will by providing useful, educational content along with the latest items on sale. And customers will thank you for it – some in the form of return e-mails (always include a return e-mail address and an unsubscribe option), others in the form of increased sales. And, if your e-mails provide good information for your target audience, you begin to build a community of site visitors – visitors who return time after time to make their purchases. That’s called site stickiness.

Expectations? If you get a conversion rate of 5% you’re doing well. So, if you send out 1000 e-mails to existing customers, expect 50 of them to actually visit your site and make a purchase. Now, that doesn’t sound like a very big return but think about this – you know the junk mail you receive in your mailbox each day? Well, in these cases marketers look for a conversion rate of between .5 and 1.0% because they’re doing an industry-wide mailing.

You’re mailing to people who have contacted you so you can anticipate a return rate of 5% or better because your mailing is much more targeted to people interested in what you sell. So, do the math. Add up the costs (your time) and look for a conversion rate of 5% or better. If you don’t get that kind of return, it’s back to the drawing board to determine why your first e-mail didn’t pull. But that’s the great thing about e-mail marketing – you can do it until you get it right.

And it doesn’t cost a bundle.

E-mail auto-responders can be annoying, or they can be helpful, providing useful information and lite on the hype. Used properly, auto-responders DO work. Used poorly and they don't even get read.

Call me when you're ready to start your next e-mail campaign, okay?

Webwordslinger.com

WELCOME TO MY LITTLE CORNER OF THE WEB.

Yep, that's me. Handsome little devil, eh?

Welcome to my little chunk of digital turf.

Is it time for you to stake a claim to some pixels?

Then you need a blog. Hey, something like this one.

Webwordslinger.com

Is It Time To Jump onto The Blog Bandwagon?

10 Reasons to Build a Blog

Getting noticed on the W3 is difficult what with keyword selection, site architecture, search engine bots (dumb) and all the other aspects of getting a little recognition and respect from Google and the web-o-sphere in general.

One thing anyone can do is add an off-site blog to their marketing strategy. In fact, the blog band is growing by leaps and bounds. Here’s why.

1. Blogs are free.

When you’re marketing your site using the loose change you discover in the couch, finding free outlets to express yourself and demonstrate your expertise is critical to long-term site success.

There are a lot of free blog platforms. Blogger, from Google, is popular. So is Word Press. And Typepad only costs $5.00 a month for a robust blog-building package. Give up one latte vente a month and you’ve covered the cost of a Typepad blog. Cheap is always good. Not as good as FREE, but still good.

2. Blogs are easy to build.

Blogs are template-based. Once you’ve created your account, you’re ready to choose the template that suits your taste and your industry.

Adding widgets – blog features like a site search box – is also easy. Just click on Add Widget, choose the appropriate box (HTML, text, picture, etc.) and cut and paste the HTML code snippet or upload a product picture and bingo – it’s there on your blog’s first page.

3. Blogs are easy to update.

Write your post in a word processor. DON’T use the blog platform’s WYSIWYG text editor. These text editors aren’t super powerful like a full-blown wp.

Once the blog post has been written, rewritten, spell-checked and proofed, simply copy and paste your expertise into the blog’s text editor. Here you can format the text, add keyword tags (you make them up), add pictures and links.

One key point: keep your blog current. Post new content at least twice weekly. Three or four short posts a week is even better. Keep posts between 500 and 1200 words. If you can’t say it in that amount of text, break the content into PART I, PART II and so on.

4. Blogs provide the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise.

If you’re an optician, write about vision problems and provide solutions to those problems. If you’re a plumber, talk about the importance of fixing that dripping faucet.

It’s your blog so sell your services, products or message within the context of an expert. After all, you have a blog on the subject. You have creds.

5. Blogs create search results.

Each time you post, you’ll discover another link on SERPs. The more often you post the more SE results. This creates a bigger target to hit as site visitors search for your services, products and the latest advice.

Make sure that each blog post includes a link back to your web site. If you keep more than one blog (I have three), link all of these customer contact points to create an even bigger target for web surfers.

6. Blogs create linkage.

Link to other blogs that relate to the topicality of your blog(s). If you’re an attorney, for example, you can link to home-buying blogs, mortgage blogs, tax-information blogs and a host of other blogs.

Notify the blog owner that you’ve added a link to your blog and ask for a link back to your blog. (A link swap) In no time, you’ll be part of a web ring of lots of blogs. Yep, you’re getting bigger – at least as far as search engines are concerned.

7. Generate passive revenue.

There’s only so much “you” to go around; only so many hours in a day that you can work (we all need sleep sometime), only so many places you can be at one time (one).

Monetize your blog by opening a Google AdWords account. Create a “channel” for your blog, post AdWords on each blog page and collect passive income. You may be getting a little shut-eye but your blogs are still working for you.

You won’t get rich (that’s a fact) but you can easily pick up some “walking-around money” each month, and again, it’s passive income, meaning you don’t have to put in more hours to generate that revenue.

8. Editorial freedom.

No cranky editors or clients, no limits or restrictions on content (be sure to read the blog platform’s TOS), you’re in total control of the look and feel of your blog. You’re also in control of the blog’s content.

It’s all yours. So, post your poetry, post your art, post your diary – you have editorial freedom to post whatever you want – even if it’s some crackpot theory on alien space craft resting on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. If you believe it, write it and post it.

9. Learn more about your market.

What do your clients want? What’s on their minds? What are their opinions on the topics posted on your blog? When readers start adding their comments to your posts, you learn more about what prospects want and need. You also identify emotional hot buttons useful in creating calls to action on your site or blog.

Free market research. I always like free stuff.

10. Blogs are fun.

Even if you aren’t real good at stringing words together, who cares? It’s your blog.

Post family pix to share with distant relatives and friends. Create an event blog for the upcoming college reunion and get your RSVPs all in one place. Hook up with old chums and make a name for yourself. Even if it’s just a little name for yourself.

And, because you’re blogging about topics that interest you, you’ll learn more about relevant subjects as you research new posts. That’s always fun.

So, what are you waiting for? Free marketing, credibility-building, market research, a larger web presence, more on-line friends around the globe, no editorial limitations (within reason, of course), and fun.

Join the millions of bloggers out there posting in the blog band. Yep, jump on the blog band wagon.

You’ll love it, and it’s all yours.

Don't have time to build a blog? I do.

Drop me line and let's get you more pixels and more web friends. This ain't rocket science.

Webwordslinger.com