Marketing Your Website - Tips and Tricks

There are definitely a myriad of ways to market your website and your web based business. Some of those you might overlook because you may not think of a website as part of a traditional media campaign. Some of the least expensive and yet surprisingly effective ways of marketing your sites are some of the oldest in the book. Some things you can do that are commonly overlooked –

Make sure your website address is on all brochures, business cards, letterhead, email signatures etc. Basically anywhere you print your business address and phone number needs to have your web address as well.

If you have a yellow page ad, newspaper ad, TV and/or radio ads…all these should include your web address. Television and radio ads can be very effective especially in a local market. Newspaper definitely shouldn’t be ignored, and a yellow page ad can often be invaluable.

If you don’t have one already, develop some kind of free gift that you can give to your customers that has your web address on it. Pens, key-chains, refrigerator magnets, plastic squeeze bottles, hats, bags – a nice item that can be fairly inexpensive if you order them in bulk and has great keeper value are small thumb drives. Give these out at every opportunity and have your branding and web address all over it.

Develop magnetic signs and/or vinyl lettering for your vehicle with your web address and your branding on it. Not only does it get your branding and your web address out there, it gives you an opportunity to speak to people about it if you do it uniquely enough to grab people’s attention. It also might give you the ability to deduct business expenses involving your automobile. Check with your tax professional for details.

Ads on local movie theatres ‘between show’ slides can have a surprising return if the ad is effectively done. Other ways to get your site out there are billboards, mobile billboards, flyers, grass roots word of mouth campaigns, ads in trade magazines or specialty magazines can be effective too. The bottom line to advertising and marketing is doing whatever gives you the best return on investment. Keep track of where your customers come from in order to decide in the future where your precious advertising dollars and energy need to go in order to get the best return on your investment. It takes a lot of hard work and energy to make a business work and a website is no different.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

Email Marketing - What Software Should I Use?

E-mail marketing is a great way of reminding your customers who you are, getting your brand in front of them, providing them with useful information and helpful tips as well as great deals you might be offering. How do you implement it though? That’s where a great software program can be invaluable. HIT Web Design has an easy to use and easy to understand piece of software we can install on your site called the Stay-N-Touch. After researching different options out there on the web I would have to say this is definitely the standard that all software should be judged by.

The Stay-N-Touch software tested successfully with 300,000+ mailing lists. All known e-mail lists file formats are supported so compatibility isn’t an issue. The Stay-N-Touch Marketing program includes advanced reports on mailing campaigns, click-throughs, new subscribers and more stats. It also gives you the ability to create custom forms for any mailing group, use custom fields, and custom design- the advanced online editor allows you to build cutting-edge newsletters and emails using both HTML and Text.

I will list the qualities of Stay-N-Touch and say that any software you decide to go with to help you with your e-mail marketing program needs to have these functions to be of true use to you.

• Create and manage highly targeted mailing campaigns
  Mailing list builder, newsletter editor, subscription forms, auto responders, tracking, reports and more. All in one place.
  
  
• Customization and Personalization
  Send personalized and customized emails to all recipients, groups or to custom mix of mailing groups.
  
  
• Custom fields
  Create multiple custom fields and use them in the newsletter body, mailing lists and subscription forms.
  
  
• Advanced tracking and reports
  Track mailing campaigns, click-throughs, and get detailed mailing reports.
  
  
• Automatic bounced emails
  The system will automatically move bounced email addresses to a special folder. You can make these emails active again or delete at any time.
  
  
• Multi-language support
  Supports over 50 main world languages. These include European, Asian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and other languages.
  
  
• Advanced auto responder
  Create a series of unlimited follow-up auto responder tasks. Choose basic, multiple or mailing campaign auto responders. Choose a start point: any date/time or deliver emails once a user joins your mailing list.
  
  
• Full support of huge mailing lists
  This software tested successfully with 300,000+ mailing lists.
  
  
• Easy-to-use interface makes administration a snap

For more information as well as a complete demonstration, please visit http://hitenhancements.com/stayntouch.shtml or call your customer service representative at 1-866-211-0743.

E-mail Marketing - Tips On a Successful Campaign

You’ve decided on an e-mail marketing campaign through your double opt-in, offering bonus services, discounts, helpful information and tips to all your customers. This can be very successful or it can be downright frustrating, and a lot of what happens with it depends on you and avoiding some common pitfalls that can take the energy out of your campaign before it even begins.

One of the first things you want to do make sure you’ve put an obvious “call to action” on your e-mail that cries out to the customer as soon as they open your e-mail; this is the same concept we talked about when creating your website. You want to make it as easy as possible for your customer to buy from you so in order to capture their attention you need to provide them with an easy to understand opportunity to buy as soon as they see your message. If a customer doesn’t see what you want them to do they usually won’t search; they will close that email and go on to the next one. Also make it easy for them to understand what they are getting out of doing what you’ve asked them to, otherwise, what is their motivation?

Another tip is to make the e-mail (if it is an HTML based e-mail especially) consistent with your corporate look, website and other marketing, no matter what media it is. This helps with branding and helps your customer understand immediately it is message from you. Inconsistency in marketing messages can look ‘messy’ and can have a detrimental effect on the message you are trying to convey as well as an overall harmful effect on your corporate image. It makes you look unprofessional, inconsistent and can portray you as an entity that can’t be trusted. A unified look in marketing efforts provides instant branding as well as a sense of security in the reliable look.

You should also be consistent with the times you send out e-mail messages. If you do it too frequently you will run the risk of alienating your customers, but not often enough and they forget who you are. There is no real rule about it but putting your name out there in front of your customers at least once a month should be considered your minimum. Any other kind of time line will have to be determined by you and how often you feel your customers need to hear from you or can tolerate yet another marketing message.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.