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5 Key Steps To Increase Web Sales

By admin in Featured

No matter how experienced you are there are some key ways to easily, quickly and effectively increase sales that you may be overlooking. In the current climate you can’t afford to miss a trick so check you are fully utilising each of these important steps.

Step 1 – Set Up A Shopping Cart

You can have the best product in the world but unless you make it easy for the customer to buy it you are shooting yourself in the foot. You must create a shopping cart page where the customer is led through an automatic process to buy your product.

How to Make a Transparent “Walk-on” Video, Part 2

By Richard Day in Featured

Website marketing is extremely competitive. If you use videos on your website, you will do much better against the competition. The slickest type of video to use now is the transparent video.

People like to watch short, to-the-point videos. Statistics prove that using video on your site helps greatly.

A transparent video lives in a dynamic html layer. As you can see, you can scroll up and down and the transparent video stays in its position.

Making transparent videos is becoming easier to do. The tools you will use to accomplish this task are becoming more user-friendly.

As a quick overview of how you make this type of video: First, you need to record the video against a green background. Next, you need to key out the background which makes it transparent, or invisible. The process of keying out the background is covered in another one of my videos. The Keylight Keyer(1,2) is simple to use and very effective.

The settings to use when your render your video are very important. Your intent should be to make the file size of the video very small so that it will load quickly.

Most beginners don’t know the secret about how to make the correct settings. They render their video at a high resolution with stereo sound.

Consequently their video is bloated and it won’t load quickly. More importantly, when it does load, it is likely to stop and go. It will need to buffer repeatedly to transfer all those bytes.

Consider the settings you will make in video editing software. It uses the a special codec. What is a codec? This is a compression / decompression type of software product.

In non-technical language, it removes the unessential information from the video file. In a sense, it compresses the video by taking out information that doesn’t show in the video — it isn’t unusual to see a reduction ratio in the range of 100 to 1.

As an example, a walk-on video was saved as an uncompressed AVI file. It was 251,081 kilobytes in size. After this was run through the On2 codec, it was compressed down to 1,567 kilobytes. That reduction was in the range of 160 to 1…quite incredible.

Here is a review of what it takes to make a transparent walk-on video:

We encode the alpha channel that includes the actor but doesn’t include the background. Remember, we don’t want the background.

The frame rate can be reduced to one-half the source’s frames per second without much reduction in quality. By the way, a screen capture video can be shown at 8 or 10 frames per second without noticeable change in quality. The source’s fps was 29.97, which is typical. If we divide that in half, we get 14.987, not 15. If you use 15, you will lose lip synch if the video is long enough.

Don’t concern yourself with the default settings in your software…choose the maximum data rate of about 220 KBS. Consider the audio settings next. We don’t need stereo and we don’t need any more than 32 kilobits per second. If you add the video’s kbps to the audio’s kbps, we get only 252 kbps.

The vast majority of internet users, about 85%, can show a video properly without starting and stopping if you make your video small.

Making these type videos is fun and rewarding. Everybody should be able to make a walk-on video with a little study and work.

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Transparent videos are being implemented more frequently. What are the secrets to making a transparent video? Learn about how to make transparent videos and more at http://www.TrafficBumper.com

How to Effectively Use Twitter for Book Marketing

By admin in Featured

The three main keys to an effective Twitter strategy are transparency, engaging conversation, and sharing information. If you do all these three, you will be in a great position for people to know, like, and trust you. And people buy from people they trust.

Before you start using Twitter for promoting your book, you need to do several things.

Transparency – setting up your Twitter profile correctly

To be taken seriously rather than as a spammer on Twitter you have to correctly fill out your profile. Your real name goes in the NAME line in your account settings. For example, if your name is Claudia Windward and your username is cwindward – Claudia Windward goes in the name line.

This is the transparency – you are on Twitter as a person even if you are representing a company. If this person’s username was AjaxCompany, her name in her profile should still be Claudia Windward. Your Twitter username answers the question of who’s behind the veil.

In the profile URL field, put your website. If you do not have a website, put the link to your Facebook or LinkedIn profile.

Because you have so few characters available (160 maximum), you have to carefully decide how you want to portray yourself. And a random piece of information might cause someone to connect with you. Dog lover? And the good news is that it’s very easy to change your bio whenever you want.

Do include a location. Perhaps because Twitter is global, people like to know where you are. Someone might start a connection with you because of where you are.

And choose a clear headshot for your profile photo. People want to see what you look like – see your face clearly – in order to have a more personal connection. And, yes, some people use little icons for their profile photos. In some cases these icons make sense; in others they don’t.

Yet if you really want to effectively use Twitter, choose a clear headshot photo that you use in other social media so that people can quickly recognize you.

Engaging in conversation – whom do you want to “meet” on Twitter

Let’s say you’re interested in promoting a fiction or nonfiction book. What is the subject area of the book? You should use tweetbeep.com (like Google alerts for Twitter) to track conversations related to book marketing and to the topic of your nonfiction book or something about your fiction book.

When you get a tweetbeep alert, make sure you’re signed into Twitter. Then click on the usernames provided by the alert. If the people sound interesting, follow them. If appropriate, engage in conversation with them BUT don’t push your book. You can mention your book but don’t push it.

Sharing information – provide valuable content and learn from other people’s valuable content

Share information (not necessarily your own) in your tweets. If you read a terrific blog post about book marketing, share the link in a tweet. Of course, share info that’s connected to the “spine” of your Twitter presence along with info that makes you interesting as a person. For example, if you’re a publisher, share publishing news. And also tweet about a great movie you just saw.

If someone else shares a link to a blog article or website that you find valuable, send a public reply thanking the person who shared the link and include in this thank-you tweet the original link.

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Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is an Internet business consultant whose company website has lots more useful advice like this. Grab her free report on “The Top 3 Internet Marketing Elements” to maximize your own Internet marketing experience – claim your report now from www.QueensofBookMarketing.com

Identifying a Marketing Message that Works

By Anton Pearce in Featured

In your consulting business, chances are you have spent a lot of time thinking about the specific services you can offer to clients. You’ve probably spent a great deal of time and effort working on processes, so that when clients come to you you’re able to offer them real solutions.

Unfortunately, many solo professionals don’t put the same kind of time and thought into their marketing message. They put up a website, perhaps, that goes into great detail about how it is they can solve their clients’ problems. Then, they can’t understand why no one is buying.

How-To Videos Convert Viewers Into Buyers

By Jerry Bader in Featured

One of the fastest growing areas of website marketing is the ‘how-to’ video business sector. With the epidemic of layoffs, plant closings, and cost cutting, the growth of how-to-material covering everything from how to start a business, to how to improve a business, to how to survive bankruptcy, is assured. No matter what the subject matter, how-to-do-it-better is in demand, and it’s big business.

The desire to be the best you can be is one of our innate needs, but the shear volume of demand seems to be the result of rapid and fundamental changes in technology, the economy, and society. This has led to a massive inferiority complex resulting from an, improve or perish, mentality delivered by a constant barrage of information, metrics, and analysis.

The Web is an ideal environment for using a video how-to-sales-strategy to increase site conversions but as always, the devil is in the details; you need to understand the underlying desire in order to make the strategy work. Whether your approach to sales is to sell-by-teaching or, what you sell is teaching, the fact is, the way you do it is what will make or break you.

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

About MRPwebmedia

People ask, “What do you do?” You could say we inform, enlighten, innovate, and create; you could also say we deliver our clients’ marketing messages in memorable ways using video, audio, webmedia campaigns and websites; all created in-house from concept to implementation, from graphic and motion design to Web-design, from script writing to video-production to post-production, from music composition to signature sound design.

What do we do? We motivate action by speaking to your audience’s real needs. We tell your story so your brand, your message, embeds in the minds of your clients. We are corporate storytellers.

Tips on Delivering Email

By admin in Featured

Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.

Permission

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.

Subscriber Addresses

When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

List Maintenance

Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.

Message Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If
sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

Content

Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.

Website URL:

Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.

Words/phrases:

Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.

Images:

Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.

Attachments:

With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.

CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honoured to remove the subscriber from future messages.

Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:

• http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
• http://www.bondedsender.com
• http://www.habeas.com

Relationships & White listing

Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific white listing programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.

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Aiham Shujaa – Email marketing made easy with AutoRespondingService! Send email newsletters and autoresponders.  Get top-notch email deliverability with expert toll-free support. http://www.autorespondingservice.com

What Are Meta Tags and Why Do I Need Them?

By admin in Featured

There is no other way to put it; the World Wide Web is big business. As an example, you only have to look at the phenomenal success of the online bookstore, Amazon. In 2008, Amazon brought in over nineteen billion dollars in income, yet only required an operating budget of approximately eight hundred and fifty million dollars. It really is no surprise to anyone then that more businesses are investing in expanded web presence and capability. Yet, not every organization has the same successes. Barnes and Noble was selling books online before Amazon was even an idea, and yet it isn’t Barnes and Noble that people think of when considering online bookstores, it’s Amazon. The key? Amazon took greater advantage of the opportunity to effectively market their product.

Search Engines, Spiders and Websites, Oh My

The most important and often least understood tool for online marketers is the search engine. The primary type of search engine is the web crawler – these are largely automated programs that crawl through available web pages, indexing data according to a variety of parameters. In short, the crawler, or spider, examines each page of a website. Once it has examined the page, it submits it to an index. Then, when a person uses the search engine software, the index provides links to these pages, ranked according to relevance. It is worth mentioning two other points. First, not all engines index the same way. Some use keyword density; others focus on the content of the first paragraph. Second, any changes to a webpage are likely to affect search rankings, so webmasters must carefully consider each change and its possible effects.

I Never Meta Tag I Didn’t Like

One important part of preparing a page for good search engine rankings is effective use of HTML meta-tags. These tags do not directly relate to the position a site will have in a search result, but they do offer webmasters some control over the way their sites are presented when they come up in a search. In brief, meta-tags are additional bits of code added to the head of your HTML document, right after “TITLE.” Because of the tendency for unscrupulous coders to find and abuse loopholes in search technologies, search engines do not rely heavily on these tags for rankings. Their benefits to web users are important, however.

First, there is the Meta Description tag. This is a brief report about the content of the webpage in question. When a search engine presents users with a hyperlink, there is frequently a small description accompanying that result. In many cases, that is the Meta Description tag the Webmaster put in the HTML document so that when a spider visits the site, it indexes this information. This is not always the case, however; Google in particular will generate its own description for a site.

The Meta Description is often the first piece of information someone using a search engine will see. The URL may not mean anything to them, but this description will. If it is poorly written, the user will likely skim right past the site for one that presents itself more effectively. Thus, the key is effective, concise writing that conveys exactly what the site is about.

The second tag is the Meta Keywords tag. This tag is a list of keywords the Webmaster considers most pertinent to each page. Proper use of the keywords tag is also vital. While search engines use a variety of keyword systems, and have in recent years de-emphasized the Meta Keywords tag, it still contributes to website rankings and should not be neglected. The best method is to examine each page carefully, and pick approximately ten keywords that best represent the data therein. Too many nonspecific keywords will lead to inconsistent search results, and too few means missing an opportunity to get a message in front of users. In addition, many sites are actively on the lookout for keyword abuse. Google in particular is known to ban certain pages from its index entirely if they consider the article to be an abusive, loophole-seeking piece.

There are other, less relevant tags that can provide some benefits, though they aren’t as important as the previous two. An example is the Robots tag, which is only useful in making sure certain sites do not index a particular page. This can help a Webmaster keep their content from being associated with undesirable elements, but it does not contribute directly to higher search placement.

No Meta Tag is an Island

Once again, it must be stressed that meta-tags are not a magical solution to the very complex problem of online marketing. They must be regarded as one tool in an inventory of other tools, and should be used responsibly. Properly implemented, they will help complete an effective marketing strategy.

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Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. Go to http://www.Brandsplat.com/ or visit our blog at: http://www.brandsplatblog.com/

The Tricky Issue Of Duplicate Content & What Google Says About It

By Titus Hoskins in Featured

Being a full-time online marketer means you have to keep a close watch on how Google is ranking pages on the web… one very serious concern is the whole issue of duplicate content. More importantly, how does having duplicate content on your own site and on other people’s sites, affect your keyword rankings in Google and the other search engines?

Email Newsletter Open Rates

By admin in Featured

Think you know the best day and time to send your email newsletter?

Ever wonder if your fellow email marketers are all sending at the same time you do?

Convinced your open rate is too low (or amazingly high)?

Some recent statistics pulled from all AWeber users may help you answer these questions:

What Kind of Open Rates Are People Getting?

If you’re sending HTML emails, you probably use your open rate to help gauge your success.

Even though it’s not a perfect measure of whether people are actually opening and reading your emails, it’s useful as a relative measure. If it goes up over a short period of time, more people are probably reading; and if it falls over a short period of time, it’s almost certain fewer people are reading.

Plus, all other things being equal, it can give you some motivation (if your open rates are lower than other senders’) or satisfaction (if your rates are higher).

So, here goes…

Average Open Rate Last Month: 13.6%

When Is/Was The Best Day To Send?

You’ll often hear (at least, I often hear) that Tuesday is the optimal day to send, because on Monday people are catching up from the weekend, and that on Tuesday morning you’ll have their undivided attention before they jump into their work for the upcoming week.

Do the numbers back up that theory? Let’s see. The breakdown of open rates by day of the week:

• Monday 13.67%
• Tuesday 13.21%
• Wednesday 14.07%
• Thursday 14.52%
• Friday 13.25%
• Saturday 12.09%
• Sunday 13.26%

Last month, Tuesday was actually the second-worst day to send, at least if you’re measuring by open rates.

(While we’re breaking assumptions, I should point out this, too: the hour of the day that got the best open rate was not 8-9AM, or 9-10AM, but in fact 2-3PM Eastern Time — email newsletters sent during that hour last month enjoyed a 19.1% open rate.) Does This Mean I Should Switch My Campaigns To Thursdays?

In a word: No.

Don’t break with your readers’ expectations just to try to follow the latest day of the week stats. You might actually reduce your open rate by doing so. In both March and February, Thursday newsletters got the 3rd-worst opens vs. the rest of the week.

I hesitated a little to publish these stats, because I’m concerned that people might flock to sending their newsletters at the day or time that happened to get the best results lately.

Please, don’t drastically change your sending times/days just because you see that the average last month, or any month, happened to be higher on a different day or time.

Yes, you might eventually be able to shift your sending schedule, or split test some broadcasts, but if you up and move everything, you may throw off subscribers who are used to hearing from you at the usual time.

“It’s So Busy, Nobody Goes There Anymore”

To get at the other reason for not shifting your sending based on these stats, let’s paraphrase Yogi Berra (see above).

If everyone switches their sending schedule to send on say, Thursday, then recipients will start getting a ton of email that day, and start paying less attention to each individual email.

One possible reason for Thursday’s success last month may be that it wasn’t as popular as say, Tuesday or Wednesday for sending email:

Percentage of Newsletters Sent by Day:

1. Monday 16.0%
2. Tuesday 17.7%
3. Wednesday 16.9%
4. Thursday 16.6%
5. Friday 15.2%
6. Saturday 8.8%
7. Sunday 8.8%

Those higher-volume days mean more emails in readers’ inboxes, which might contribute to reduced open rates. Following that reasoning, some people may look at the low weekend volume (more email newsletters were sent on Tuesdays than on Saturdays and Sundays combined) and see an opportunity to get their audiences’ undivided attention.

My main point in showing these is to point out that our assumptions about what works are often quite wrong, and that you ultimately have to test for yourself to see what best suits your audience.

Some Inspiration… And Some Help

Are you getting better open rates than this?

If so, GREAT! Give yourself a pat on the back… …but don’t get complacent. Open rates aren’t the be-all, end-all of email metrics. They don’t guarantee that people are reading your emails, only that they have images turned on and that they probably saw your email for at least a moment. Plus, there’s always room for improvement, right?

Some ideas that can help you raise your open rates:

• Ask people to add you to their address books. Some email programs will display images from senders who are in the recipient’s contact list.
• If you are putting pictures in your emails, use the ALT text for those images to pique readers’ interest in what the picture is, so that they enable images. Or, just directly ask readers to turn on images!
• Add a picture of yourself to your emails, near/next to your signature. People like seeing your smiling face, and if they see it in one of your emails, they may be more likely to turn on images to see it again later.

If you found this article of interest then take a free test drive of a reliable Email Marketing service at http://www.autorespondingservice.com Aiham Shujaa AutoRespondingService aiham@autorespondingservice.com

Getting Email Marketing To Work For You

By admin in Featured

Double opt in means that anyone joining your list is sent an email asking them to confirm that it really was them that signed up and they want to join. This method produces a better and more responsive list BUT reduces the numbers. Several reasons for this, including forgetting to confirm, changing their mind, or not really understanding what they are being asked to do. What can you do?

I am a firm believer in telling your customers and prospects EXACTLY what to do. On my website I have a video of me telling people exactly how to confirm that they want to subscribe to our lists. The video allows me to actually show them what to do, and how to do it and anyone signing up to my list is directed to a web page where I show them the exact email they’ll receive and how to click on the link.

This is simple…but very powerful and by using it on several of my lists I have achieved a confirmation rate of over 90% – and that’s virtually unheard of.

5 key tactics to use now Your aim is to get your email through and read by your customers and prospects. Yes it may be getting harder, but these tactics will help you win out over your competitors:

1. Brand your emails so they stand out from the crowd Give your emails a brand name or title so as soon as people see that name they know who it’s from and what to expect.For example, one list I have with my partner Neil Travers is the Junior Soccer Coach Newsletter ‘Tip of the Week’. Now that doesn’t really have impact so we went to ‘Junior Soccer Coach – Inside Tactics’ and further refined it to ‘Inside Tactics’ and that is now our ‘brand’ name for the free tip of the week.
2. Make it a priority to send out a reminder for all of your emails. Your first email is your regular email and you must follow up with another one that briefly reminds them of what you have just sent or to direct them to read a copy online or on your Blog.That second email must give them a REASON to go and find/read your earlier email. How? Give them a teaser of the information your newsletter contained, maybe a free gift or how it can help them…use the biggest benefit.
3. Always, always, run your messages through a SPAM checker It’s essential because it will tell you if your email is likely to be classified as spam or not. If it is spam, then you will know which words you need to change.
4. Your subscribers need to be kept in touch with regularly. I receive better responses to my promotions when I am regularly emailing people in that niche.Coincidence? No, because more contact with your list means you are building a relationship with them, and so they are much more likely to buy from you.
5. Build smaller targeted lists Smaller, targeted, lists are by far more responsive to you and your offers. I would rather have 250 highly focused names on a specific topic than 5000 names on a generic one.

I want people who are positively interested in my specific niche. Your first sub list should be of buyers, people who have already bought from you, and then people who have bought from you more than once. Build sub lists of topics within your particular niche, as your next step.

For example; in our football newsletter we might ask subscribers to email us for more information about a specific topic such as under 7′s or girls football. We would add these people to a sub list with its own autoresponder series. Then target these prospects with specific offers relating to their enquiry.

Use these 5 tips to help you make your email marketing more effective, and to ensure it gets through to your customers and prospects.

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Neil Stafford is Editor and Publisher of the Internet Marketing Review the UK’s longest running PRINTED Internet Marketing Newsletter. ‘Test drive’ the Newsletter for FREE – Visit this special web page for more information: http://www.InternetMarketingReview.com/sya

© Copyright 2012 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

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