>>>FEATURED WRITER<<<
Alexis D. Gutzman, Managing Editor of
Reports for e- marketing dream machine MarketingSherpa is
metrics mad. She's a talented, award winning author. She's
a 100% web-savvy doer. And she's also gorgeous. However, I've
heard that she's not very good at soccer. This makes me feel
a lot less insecure and gives me reason to carry on :-) Thanks
Alexis for this excellent insight.
FIVE TIPS TO AVOID BEING DELETED.
If you've gotten this far, then our tips
for making sure your own message isn't deleted when it arrives
in a subscriber's box may be of interest - since they work!
As it is, if you publish a newsletter
of any kind, you're already trying to dodge inbox filters
- 21% of email users now report that they're using some sort
of desktop filtering software. Then, there are the blacklists
that will add your IP address without a hearing.
Email users are busy people - busy people
who receive too much email.
According to Jakob Nielsen, 27% of requested
newsletters he studied for a recent report get deleted without
being read. How, then do you distinguish yourself to your
readers, without being so distinguishing as to merit filtering?
Tip #1: Compelling Subject Line. Sixty
percent of email users make the read-or-delete decision based
on the subject line. Realize that not all email software permits
users to see the entire subject line. Make sure that you've
included your selling points in the first 30 characters.
Notice that the title of this column is
32 characters. It didn't start off this pithy, but "Five
Ways to Make Sure Your Readers Read Your Newsletter"
wouldn't have fit as well.
Because people are filtering email to
such a large degree, consider including your newsletter name
in square brackets at the beginning of the subject line. We
include [Sherpa] at the beginning of most of our newsletters
so that readers can filter them into a specific folder - as
many have told us they do. We used to begin the subject line
with "CASE STUDY:" but the use of all capitals started
getting our issues filtered, and a few of our competitors
adopted the style. Make sure, however, you don't waste too
many characters on the beginning, or no one will ever see
the subject line.
Corollary to Tip #1: Don't use the issue
number, the date, or the company name alone in the subject
line. Unless you publish daily news, you won't be making your
case very well.
Tip #2: Be FROM someone familiar. This
is a tough change to make. If your publisher is well known
or highly regarded in the industry, that might be a good choice
to make. MarketingSherpa sends out all special notices and
alerts under the name of the publisher, Anne Holland, because
readers recognize the name.
If you have a familiar brand, use that.
If your company name actually means something to readers,
use that. Overstock.com sends out each campaign with a unique
FROM address that ties in with the theme of the campaign.
Keep in mind that AOL doesn't show the
FROM name that you provide. It only shows readers the FROM
address, so make sure you aren't sending from sales12345@mydomain.com.
What about using a woman's name in the
FROM address? This used to be considered a good way to get
your email opened, but spam so consistently comes from "Desiree
Yu" or another
punny name that many people open messages from unknown women
with trepidation.
Corollary to Tip #2, don't be FROM service@mydomain.com
or promotions@mydomain.com or anything else that's equally
unprovoking.
Tip #3: Optimize design for the preview
pane. Sell your issue in the preview pane. Most email users
see the first three inches or so of your issue in their preview
pane - even while they're trying to decide whether to read
or delete. Don't waste that space on a huge header or banner.
Move the header to a small square on the left, and put your
first headline right at the top so that they're sure to see
enough to read on before clicking the delete key.
If your designer is testing email design
on an 800x600 screen, fire him. Most email readers never even
open up the message to full screen. We've noticed that several
email newsletters we used to read as text have recently gone
to HTML, and have made the mistake of optimizing for the *screen*
instead of optimizing for the *preview pane.* Scrolling vertically
is to be expected, but scrolling horizontally is too much
to ask.
Tip #4: Solve a problem. Many books and
speeches use the formula, "How to X with Y." Consider
"How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying"
or "How to Win Friends and
Influence People." If length is an issue (ad in the latter
example), drop the method of achieving the goal. This column
could have been entitled, "How to Avoid Being Deleted
in Five Easy Steps."
Get the idea? Solve a problem that's on
the readers' minds. If you don't know what's on the readers'
minds, then stop bothering them with email.
If you don't have an X that you're teaching
your readers about, then perhaps your thoughts belong in a
blog, rather than in a newsletter.
Corollary to Tip #4: Use action verbs
with emotional weight. "Avoid" is a good one. Rather
than "throw" (neutral), how about "heave"
(negative) or "fling" (positive). Rather than "collect"
(neutral), how about "entice" (positive) or "lure"
(negative).
Tip #5: Publish at the right time. What
that right time for you is depends on your audience. Check
our new Email Marketing Metrics Guide: Hard Data for 2002:
<
http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/sherpa >
We have companies in different industries
reporting entirely different results with days of week and
times of day - when click-through rates will be the highest.
At MarketingSherpa, we've found that when
we publish between 9am and 3pm EST (GMT-5), we have the best
success - but our audience is businesses. Publishing in the
middle of
the night means your message is waiting in the inbox with
many more messages - mostly spam. Publish too late in the
day, and the reader might be anxious to clear his desk and
his inbox in order to leave. For consumers, however, it can
be an entirely different matter.
Corollary to Tip #5: Track and report
the results of all of the following (if only to yourself):
topic, open rate, click through rate, day of week, time of
day. Look to the feedback that readers inadvertently give
you about your newsletter. Perhaps certain subjects will do
better if they
hit the inbox first thing on Monday or at the very end of
the day on Friday.
Corollary to Corollary to Tip #5: Put
your tracking image at the bottom of the message. If you publish
in HTML, then you or your IT staff or your broadcast email
vendor is including in your message a tiny little invisible
image. Open rates are calculated by counting how many times
this image is requested from the server. A vendor that wants
to inflate the open rate artificially - so that even a fleeting
preview may count as an open - will put the tracking image
as the first thing on the page. If you want real numbers about
who is opening and reading, make sure
the tracking image is the last thing on the page. If you use
much in the way of graphics, they'll all have to load first,
which means that only someone who previews for more than a
few seconds will count as an open.
(c) 2002 Alexis D. Gutzman.
Email Marketing Metrics Guide: Hard Data
for 2002:
< http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/sherpa
>
Alexis D. Gutzman's fifth book, Unforeseen
Circumstances: Strategies and Technologies for Protecting
Your Business and Your People in a Less Secure World, discusses
email
marketing and email security at length. Point your browser
here:
< http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/alexis
>
>>>DOUBLE DISCOUNT TO CELEBRATE
DOUBLE SALES!<<<
Search Engine marketing: The essential
best practice guide (2nd Ed) was a labour of love of mine
for over a year. I'd enjoyed writing the first edition, but
I became completely absorbed in this one. I wanted to put
on record the real facts (or at least as much as is available)
about
how search engines work, all in one place, because I simply
couldn't find this kind of information anywhere else. And
I also knew that many other professional search engine optimisers
wanted to have this kind of information to help them filter
out what is frequently nothing more than idle speculation.
Well, I had a feeling that this edition
would be a better seller than the first. But I had no idea
by how much. To date, the second edition has outsold the first
by a clear 2 to 1. And the reaction I've had from other search
engine optimisers in the industry has been tremendous. You
only
need to look at the testimonials to get an idea of the kind
of feedback I've received.
But more importantly: the feedback from
readers has been absolutely fantastic. Quite a few who have
just started in the SEO game have written to say how delighted
they are to have so much information to bring them up to speed
very quickly. And for those who already knew the optimisation
side, the technical and background stuff in the "how
search engines work" chapter has helped them to understand
so much more about how search engine algorithms actually work.
If you don't have your own copy yet, then
now's the time to do it. As a one-off, special promotion,
I've double-discounted the price ONLY for readers of this
issue. So snap it up right now, all 300+ pages packed with
essential information on how to achieve those all important
top ten hits at the major search engines and directories (before
it goes back to the original price).
Whoopee! Thanks Mike. I'd like my copy
and my bonus Google report right now:
Search Engine Marketing: The essential
best practice guide.
<http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/sem
>
>>>LEGENDARY INTERNET MARKETER
STRIKES AGAIN<<<
Internet marketing legend, Ken Evoy, popped
a champagne cork or two last month and I joined in with the
launch of the brand new SiteBuildIt. Ken and I also talked
at length on the telephone about "a particular theme"
shall we say.
If you've only just ventured into marketing
on the web and you've never heard of Ken Evoy, then you can
be forgiven. But if you've been marketing on the web for more
than 48 hours and you haven't come across his name yet: shame
on you ;-) Seriously, Ken's story really is the stuff that
legends are made of. In 1996 he started selling what was very
much a niche market item on the web, so he's very much a pioneer.
He encapsulated his experience in what has become one of the
best selling manuals on how to do just that: sell online.
Make Your Site Sell MYSS) is most likely sitting on the hard
drive of thousands of online marketers as it's simply packed
with real world information.
Ken's name now sits proudly on an entire
range of marketing products. But when I spoke to him recently,
he was just thrilled with the launch of the new SiteBuildIt
product. After all the success he's had online, he's still
no less enthusiastic. And he has good reasons for that. He
and his team have taken what was already an excellent suite
of tools to get online, quickly, professionally and successfully
and made it even better.
So what is SBI and what are the benefits?
"Not only does SBI! eliminate the need for the resources
(measured in both time, effort and dollars) to build a profitable
site, it eliminates 98% of the Net-marketing learning curve.
It allows the average small business person to focus on
business... not on technology or the complexities of mastering
the Search Engine algorithms" says Ken himself.
Of course, search engine algorithms are
a subject close to my heart (yes, I know, I need to get out
more :-) So when Ken asked me if I'd mind doing a little consultancy
work on the search engine optimisation side of SBI, I said
I'd be more than happy to 'pitch in' with the rest of the
team.
And that's one of the other major benefits
of SBI, it has a team of real professionals powering it up.
What you get with SBI is a system of no HTML knowledge needed
and no major online marketing experience needed. In fact,
all you need is a good idea for something to market online
and SBI can help you get up and running right from the fundamental
process of registering your chosen domain name, through building
a tightly optimised and focused site ready for submission
to the major search engines: all part of the service!
Of course, SBI doesn't guarantee your
success online. You have to be prepared to "roll up your
sleeves" and work at it. But with this kind of support,
if you're starting from the ground upwards, then SBI really
can give your online business a major boost in the right direction.
(And even if you're pretty web-savvy already, you may still
be surprised at the built-in functionality)
SiteBuildIt - get the full story on features,
benefits and how it works here:
< www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/sbi
>
I mentioned tightly optimised and focused web sites ready
for submission to the major search engines. SBI terminology
for this is 'themed web sites'. Now, if you're involved in
SEO or read other e-marketing newsletters, it's likely that
you may have seen articles about me 'debunking themed web
sites.' So, why do I appear to be supporting them here you
may be asking yourself? Let me explain.
During the research period for the second
edition of my book, on many occasions, I came upon articles
about theming your web site and summing it up in two words.
This is something I didn't agree with: don't now and never
will (and neither does Ken Evoy for that matter). Of course,
I've explained at length in the book where I believe the confusion
started and how the word themes" was being used in a
different way to the way that it's used by search engines.
Enough said about that.
However, I've always believed that your
web pages should be tightly focused around specific keywords/phrases
in order to make it as apparent as possible to a blind machine
(a search engine crawler) what the heck your page is about.
I'm happy to say that, after my recent
conversation with Ken we arrived at exactly the same conclusion,
just coming at it from different angles. In this case, one
mans themed web site is another mans tightly optimised and
focused web pages. I think I just heard the sound of something
being gently put to bed ;-)
>REAL PEOPLE MAKING
REAL MONEY ONLINE. REALLY? <
How many times have you thought how nice
it would be to just tell your boss where to go, open up your
computer at home, and start making money online? Now, be honest,
you
have thought about it haven't you?
The Internet offers such a wonderful opportunity
to escape from the drudgery of working hours and the feeling
of not really achieving your full potential. Have a good idea,
use something like SiteBuildIt (see above) and you're off.
In comes the money by the bucket-load: or does it?
Theres no magic button to press and no
matter how much money you invest in that back-end system which
automates everything so you can make money while you're watching
a DVD, it's customers at the front end you need.
Look at the number of dot-com failures
you've seen over the years. Masses of investment in technology
and "whiz-kid" programmers at high profile online
businesses and they still go "down the pan". So,
is it all talk and BS? If those companies with big investment,
brand-in-your-face web sites cant do it: what chance do you
have? A lot it seems.
Rosalind Gardner in Canada, has a dating
web site which earns revenue based on affiliate commissions
alone. She earns anything between $30,000 to $50,000 per month.
And that's with a 40%/50% profit margin. She started in 1998
and her description of her business is just wonderful: Webvista
Incorporated is located in a small office not too far from
the Rocky Mountains" or my kitchen!
Yes, it's a one woman business based at
home. And she really does make money.
How about Eric Aafedt, he's as real as
Rosalind and he's making it big time online. It's a subject
close to the hearts of many readers, Eric's in the newsletter
business. With over 130,000 subscribers (and growing) he also
started in 1998 and has grown from annual revenues of $80,000
to a whopping great $2 million by 2000.
And there are more like Rosalind and Eric
making a big success and great living from the comfort of
their own homes. So how did they do it? Well, first, they
made a lot of mistakes. That's kind of an essential requirement
when you start an online business. Something you can learn
from. And then things progressively get smoother and you get
more comfortable. And when you get more comfortable, you get
more confident. Confidence leads to greater belief in your
own abilities and that in turn leads to success.
So, imagine if you didn't have to go through
that bumpy ride of a lonely learning curve. What if people
like Rosalind and Eric told you all the mistakes they made
and how to avoid them. What if they helped to fast-track you
through the whole process by telling you exactly what
worked for them... and more to the point, what didn't.
Rosalind, Eric and many others like them
have revealed exactly how they got their online businesses
up and running and how they manage to keep them successful.
I've been
visiting an archive of real case studies featuring these people.
I've grinned when I saw that they made
exactly the same mistakes that I have. And grinned even more
when I saw the mistakes they made that I haven't yet and now
never will.
It's that kind of valuable information
you can get from these people. It's all about business models
which have been tried and tested by real people that do work.
Find out more about the secrets of their
success here:
< http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/stts
>
> ESPOTTING:
THE OVERTURE OF EUROPE Vs GOOGLE <
Overture may be the king of the PPC's,
but when it comes to targeting the UK and Europe, espotting's
the word. Consumers access espotting search listings through
an ever-expanding network of Europe's top ISPs, search engines
and portals, such as Yahoo! UK & Ireland, Lycos, Ask Jeeves,
ntl:home, Netscape, UK Plus and Looksmart. They also have
corporate partners such as Inktomi. I use espotting for myself
and my clients (specifically those targeting UK & Europe)
and rate the service very highly.
Google has just announced the launch of
its AdWord Select product in the UK. The model has been a
great success for them on the international site, particularly
since they linked with Yahoo! and AOL. This is the official
word from Google to support the launch:
The AdWords programme enables UK advertisers
to market products and services through Google, the No. 4
web property in the UK, and Google's growing global network
of syndication partners. AdWords advertisers can now reach
Google's 7.7 million UK users and nearly 60 million users
worldwide (source: Nielsen/NetRatings August 2002).
"The AdWords programme is based on
the same high quality and relevance standards that Google
users experience from our objective web search results,"
said Omid Kordestani,
Google's senior vice president of Worldwide Sales and Field
Operations. "AdWords provides substantial value to our
thousands of UK advertisers and delivers helpful information
to our users."
So, is the arrival of the new service
from the Google giant likely to put a dent in the good fortune
of Espotting? Not really says Seb Bishop, co founder of Espotting:
Google is a late entrant into this market
and their reach reflects this. In Europe, they do not have
'the network effect'. With Google, your ad only appears on
google.co.uk in the UK. With Espotting adverts can appear
across our whole affiliate network that includes Yahoo! Europe,
Lycos, Netscape and Ask Jeeves. With Espotting, advertisers
can reach 72% of UK Internet users through our affiliate network;
through Google they only reach 32% (Nielsen//Netratings).
Ultimately the success of the Adwords
model will depend on Internet users. It's about sending the
right type of traffic to websites. Do users go to Google to
buy products/services or to do research? If it's the former,
the chances of success are higher. If the latter, will Google
advertisers be receiving a high ROI for their spend? At the
end of the day, this model is so accountable and measurable
that advertisers' conversion rates sieve out the successes
from the failures in this sector.
Yep, it's all about ROI and that's what
I get from Espotting. Of course, I'm a "Google-nut"
like many in the SEO business, so I'll give the new service
a "fair crack of the whip". But there's no fear
of any "switching of horses" in this camp just yet.
You can try a test campaign with Espotting
here:
< http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/espotting
>
>>> SP*M FR*E
OR SPAM FREE? WHAT'S IT TO BE? <<<
There's a very odd look to my opt-in periodicals
at the Moment. And no, it's not something I need to see a
doctor about. Unless he's a spam doctor of course.
Because of the deluge of spam (I seem
to be receiving tons more right now) it's so difficult trying
to ensure that people read your mail and not the one from
Julie, who runs her car on free gas (if I ever see Julie when
I'm in my car: she'd best dive into a hedge!) Or there's 100
or so
guys who mail me to see if I want to turn my computer into
a paycheck (no, actually, I want to turn you guys into the
spam cops). And what about the frequent messages asking me
if I'd like to enlarge a certain part of my anatomy? (no,
but if it's a cream, why don't you guys try rubbing some on
your brain!) The list goes on.
Is there really a country where all of
the children are named after their father's car number plate?
There must be. I get dozens of messages from people called:
UFO1069@yahoo.com or something like it. And they really expect
me to open the mail: let alone reply to it.
So, like so many others, I have filters
set up to try and help me a keep a "low spam diet".
But just as in War of the Worlds: "Still they come."
In an effort to get around being mistaken
as spam, many publishers of leading marketing newsletters
have adopted a kind of code to write in. It's a bit like a
game where, when you're reading, you have to guess the word
by removing the asterisk and replacing it with the correct
letter of the alphabet.
I know that it's essential to get your
mail through the clutter and nonsense which we all receive.
But it's such a shame when great publications become clutter
and nonsense when you're trying to read them.
Of course, if you do use filters and utilities
like SpamAssassin or Spamnix etc., you can configure them
to make sure that they let in the good guys and keep out the
bad. So the obvious answer, for myself and other newsletter
publishers, is just to ask you to configure your spam filter
to let us in, to make sure it accepts e-marketing-news.co.uk.
The trouble is, if you didn't do that before I asked you to
just now: you won't have received this message. Yes I could
well already be in the bin with Julie & co. Email marketing,
the direct marketers dream... er... nightmare... er dream...
>>> HOW TO DO
SEO BUSINESS IN YOUR SLEEP <<<
It went off with a bang (no, not my car
this morning) the launch of WebPosition Gold 2. You may have
noticed that I gave a testimonial for the new product which
was used in the advertising campaign in places like Danny
Sullivan's excellent newsletter and many others. And before
you ask, no I didn't get paid for it. I was genuinely keen
to support the new product. I'd been using it in Beta for
three months and was very impressed with some of the many
excellent new features that Brent Winters and his team have
built into it.
Once the bugs were ironed out, WPG2 made
its debut to a very enthusiastic reception from the SEO community.
And deservedly so. There are more than 100 enhancements made
to
the new package, many which help to automate the whole process
of running an SEO business.
I was explaining to Brent Winters that
I have clients based in many different parts of the world;
America, Mainland Europe, UK even in new Zealand. So I'm kind
of working across a lot of different time zones. Of course,
this means a 9.00 am start for could quite well be bedtime
for one of my clients. Yet, they all need to have ranking
reports and other specific information I provide them with,
at the time of the day it suits them best.
This is where I've found some of the simple
but extremely effective automated functions of WPG2 come in.
I've always been able to use the scheduler feature, which
in itself helps to run the business 'in the background' as
it were, while I get on with running the business.
But the new automated upload and email
features with WPG2 are just a dream for me. When I'm in bed
asleep, but I have a client sitting at the desk waiting for
information, I simply program WPG2 to do it for me. While
I snooze away, WPG2 fires up in the middle of the night. It
runs a ranking report. It automatically uploads the HTML report
to the server and then... and this is the great bit... it
automatically emails my client and tells them the report is
ready along with anything else they need to know. Reports
bang-on-time, fresh as a daisy and not only featuring my company
logo, but even the HTML can be configured to reflect the company's
corporate colours.
No matter where my clients are in the
world, when they're awake doing business, I'm awake doing
business (or so it seems :-) So, there's a lot of work to
be done... and I'm
off to bed!
WebPosition Gold 2 supports even more
engines now, in fact more than 80. Check the new features
built into WPG2, the number 1 SEO tool here:
< http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/webposition
>
>>> A ROUND
WITH RICHARD GAY <<<
I've
just finished the latest book by Jim Sterne, which is an essential
read. You can read my review towards the end of this column.
But, first, here we are, the summer holiday is just a memory
now. And while the rest of Europe seemed to be getting washed
away, I found a small corner of southern Brittany where the
sun shone and the Muscadet flowed. Unfortunately it's back
to reality with another restructuring at the University, freshers
excited and last year's placement students about to descend
upon us.
The placement students are a fascination.
They venture out with anxieties about holding down a job in
a corporate environment, wearing work clothes and being coherent
five days per week at 8:30am. They return 6 ft taller in confidence
armed with the latest web marketing techniques, pleasantly
surprised that the 'stuff' I'd disseminated in years 1 and
2 wasn't total garbage. Bless them!
As you know, it's near to impossible to
keep up with technology developments and their implementation
for marketing purposes. Looking back over recent years, we've
discussed the different stages of web development, reasons
for going online, web design and usability issues etc. etc.
These issues are all still relevant, especially
to late web arrivals or perhaps those reflecting on their
recent online marketing experiences and performance. Why did
you come online? What were your specific objectives (if any)?
However, one hot potato for students of
online marketing is the role of e-mail marketing linked to
permission and opt-in, which many writers see as the answer
to response problems faced by direct marketers.
Let's think about it, you get a prospect
or customer to opt-in and they have shown their enthusiasm.
Sure it increases your chances of success, but does the customer
view it as a commitment in the same way e-marketers see it?
Is it really that much of a commitment when you subscribe
or opt-in to something? After all it's just one twitch of
an index finger. Does this represent genuine interest in your
product and the beginning of a wonderful relationship?
I don't know if I'm typical, but in this
24:7 time starved world that that we're told we're in, I've
subscribed and opted into a number of things in the past 12
months with little more than a passing interest. How many
have I read? Very few, even when I've ticked a few boxes to
personalise as much as possible.
It only seems like yesterday that mass
advertising was being criticised for its failure to target
and tailor. "DIRECT" was the answer, but what have
we done with the technology? Yes, e-mail marketing has provided
speed, cost reduction and the measurement, but as usual it's
been used and abused by many racing to implement it. Apart
from clogging up the ether with mass e-mails, evidence already
suggests growing public resistance to the information deluge.
The traditional marketing skills of targeting
the offer with good copy and design are fundamental. However,
e-mail economics make it all too tempting to blast out bland,
loosely tailored, "quick hit" messages.
Better customer profiling and targeting
is a must for better results and longer term relationships.
Yes the front end effort is certainly greater but it should
be viewed as an investment. For some direct marketers, the
old 'Spiral of Prosperity' model has some value as we learn
more from every customer contact and refine our offers and
rewards accordingly. e-mail marketers must be seen to be more
responsible and self-regulate themselves by reducing spam.
And with that "gripe" about
spam (it gets a lot of mentions in this issue) out of the
way, last month I found myself sampling the Ouzo and marvelling
at the Acropolis (also known as the "Sacred rock of Athens")
in Greece while I was on a business trip. I've long admired
the work of marketing guru Jim Sterne. Many people are gurus,
or superstars if you believe their own PR, but I find him
to be the most readable and knowledgeable web practitioner
to commit himself to print. The latest offering, Web Metrics
(which I mentioned last issue) is aimed at providing the reader
with all of the current tools for measurement of ROI
The fundamental thrust for the text is
the perception that the experimentation and dabbling that
took place during the dotcom frenzy has been replaced by more
effective implementation of web technologies and business
models. With evidence from The Benchmarking Exchange:
< http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/industry
>
and Price Waterhouse Coopers, Sterne argues that many top
companies have few internal measures in place to value individual
and collective Web activities. It's not just about achieving
some well-meaning objectives in a broad sense but more measurement
of the individual components that combine to produce the results.
Sterne provides measures not just for log analysis, but every
aspect of web site advertising and promotion. Click through
rates, e-mail promotions, site and content performance, site
navigation tracking, analysing personalisation and loyalty
techniques plus the effectiveness of online customer service.
And it's not measuring for the sake of
it. Sterne is very much aware that marketing decision-makers
are screaming out, not just for information, but 'usable'
information and therein lies one of the major benefits of
the book: with his ability to cut through the no-matter and
get to the
does-matter.
Whilst he writes (mainly) with the bigger,
corporate site in mind, the tools are undoubtedly relevant
to any aspiring web business. Its certainly on my recommended
reading list.
Well that's all for this issue. You'll
have noticed, no golf references this time. I'm currently
injured with a damaged rotator cuff (see various medical websites
for explanation) but I am getting a lot of sympathy from my
wife ;-)
Find out more about this must read text
by Jim Sterne here:
< http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/sterne
>
>>> STUFF
YOU MAY HAVE MISSED <<<
In amongst the dozens and dozens of newsletter
we all receive, there are bound to be little items we miss.
Little things which could make a... well... little difference.
Here's a couple that I spotted which I
thought were worth a mention:
Avant Marketer have a free report (Doh!
I said free - I meant fr*e ;-) It has some good stuff about
brand building on the web, which formats return the best ROI
and a lot of other stuff which you may find useful:
You'll find the report here. What works
in Internet Advertising:
< http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/avant
>
Allan Gardyne described this as: "Awsome
404 script fixes problems on your site." And he was right,
I got in touch with Andy Ling, the guy who developed the script
and tried it myself. Boy does this blow the dust off and find
the cobwebs on your site.
I'm still working with it right now on
one of my client's' very large sites. There are pages up there
with information dating back to Noah. And there are pages
which have been moved, but the old links to them still are
still in search engines. Yes, 404 time. It's not too difficult
to have a custom 404 page installed on your server. But this
nippy little thing actually takes a guess at the page you're
really looking for and delivers it.
Say you have a page with a HTM extension,
but someone types a HTML - the script figures that out and
delivers the correct page.
It has, as they say, a multitude of useful
purposes. Strongly recommended. You'll find out more here.
EasyClick404 Software:
< http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/404script
>
Editor: Mike Grehan. Search
engine marketing consultant, speaker and author.
http://www.search-engine-book.co.uk
Associate Editor: Christine
Churchill. KeyRelevance.com
e-marketing-news is published selectively on a when it's ready basis.
At no cost you may use the content of this newsletter on
your own site, providing you display it in its entirety (no
cutting) with due credits and place a link to:
< http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk
>
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