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SiteProNews Blogs

• Editor's Corner
• Darren Dunner
• Jerry Bader
• John Sylvester
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• Mel Strocen
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Is Google’s New Email Filtering For You?

By Jerry Bader in Featured

So Google wants to decide for you what emails are important and what emails aren’t. See MediaPost’s ‘Around the Net’ at http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=134756.

From what I’ve read one of the key filtering factors will be addresses or people it recognizes. It seems the Web has spawned this notion that the only people you should communicate with are people and businesses you already know. Linkedin and many other social networking sites follow the same principle only allowing you to connect to people you already know; or to those that you can get introduced to by existing contacts.

Sure spam is a problem, we all know that, but an obsession with spam that is not destructive can be easily dealt with by hitting the delete button or by using spam filters properly. Yes we all get lots of emails that we have to go through every day, but the idea that you should only deal with the people you deal with seems to me counterproductive and frankly, downright foolish.

We are all in business and we all want to grow and expand our businesses by not only selling our current customers more, but by selling new customers. Can a business survive in the long-term without new customers? Of course it can’t.

Anyone who has studied psychology, and when you get right down to it, sales and marketing are all about psychology, knows that ignorance, as in lack of knowledge, leads to poor decisions.
Everyone makes mistakes, the difference between successful business executives and failures, is the ability to learn from mistakes; the problem according to the Dunning-Kruger effect is not knowing what you don’t know creates an ‘illusory superiority’ – in short keeping yourself ignorant makes you feel that you know more than you actually do, and that’s what leads to poor decision-making.

I for one don’t want Google or Linkedin or anybody else for that matter pre-filtering what I should see, hear, read, listen to, or whom I should communicate with. We owe it to our selves and our businesses to think for ourselves, listen to as much as we can, and use our brains to decide if the information is valid or not.

Clients pay us to create Web videos that generate leads, emails, and phone calls that help build working relationships, sales, and long-term customer loyalty. If you don’t answer your phone or read your emails you may have just missed closing your next big client, and that’s not good business.

Thanks Google, but I’ll pass.

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design and marketing firm that specializes in Web-video Marketing Campaigns and Video Websites. 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.

How Will You Handle Customer Support for Your Site?

By Paul Smithson in Featured

There are many ways to deal with customer support at your website. Which method you choose will depend on how large your company is, what your customers want, and what you feel most comfortable with.

One of the classic ways of handling customer service and support is via telephone. This is often the preferred methods for customers, because they can usually get their problems resolved much faster than they might using other methods.

Unfortunately, providing telephone support probably isn’t realistic unless you have the staff to handle it and your product or service is selling at a price that covers the often huge additional cost of staffing an inbound call center. If you’re a solo operation, phone support may well be out of the question. So what other options are available to you?

The two major alternatives are e-mail and support ticket systems.

Email support lets you answer support requests in your own time, but it may upset some of your more impatient customers. There will always be people who will fly into a rage if their email isn’t answered within 5 minutes, even at 3am on Sunday morning!

The other problem with e-mail support is spam. If you make an e-mail address available for support it won’t be long before you’re starting to receive significant qualities of spam and ultimately the e-mail address can become completely unusable. Even with spam filters installed it’s difficult, even bordering on impossible, to stop at least some spam coming through. The last thing you want is to have to spend more time deleting spam than helping your valued customers and that’s exactly what can happen if you’re not careful.

On the plus side, e-mail is easy to handle for both the sender and yourself. It’s easy to set up standard replies for commonly asked questions and it’s also possible to reroute e-mails to different addresses should the need arise (e.g. when someone hasn’t received a shipment and you need to bring this to the attention of your shippers).

An alternative to e-mail that is well worth considering is a support ticket system.

More and more people are starting to turn to support ticket systems, or help desk software as it is often known, to handle their support requests. Although this is generally one of the best methods for the companies that use them, they can be troublesome to the customer.

Many help desks require the user to register in order to submit a request. This takes time out of the customer’s busy schedule, and may annoy them further if they’re already upset about something related to your product.

Some of them even require the user to verify their email address before they can log in to submit a request. This could be particularly upsetting if your server happens to take longer than a minute or two to send out the confirmation request.

Customers can be very impatient, especially if they haven’t received something they paid for or if they have a problem with something they did receive. Once people reach their maximum tolerance level, the hassle will usually no longer be worth it, and they’ll ask for a refund and that’s obviously something you don’t want to happen.

Support ticket systems do have some advantages and these can easily outweigh the downsides.

Ticket systems are an excellent way of managing the support work-flow. They keep everything in one place and make it very easy to see all the previous messages relating to any support issue. This is useful for both the customer and yourself as it saves having to search through old e-mails (some of which may well have been deleted) to find previous correspondence.

Ticket systems can also help you to get a real handle on what the major issues are. In an e-mail support system it’s easy for this to be hidden in the deluge of e-mails whereas in a ticket system it is usually possible to categorize incoming tickets so that matters pertaining to a specific subject can easily be monitored.

Ticket systems also usually offer far more robust reporting than a standard e-mail system. This makes it easy to see how many tickets are opened/closed each day and who dealt with them.

Another benefit to ticket systems is that they can avoid the issue of non-delivered e-mails. The problem of valid e-mails not arriving at their destination is one that all companies face on an increasingly frequent basis. By providing a ticket system that people can view whenever they like means you don’t have to rely solely upon e-mails getting through.

No matter which method you choose, it’s important to respond to requests as soon as possible. Due to the very nature of the Internet, people expect immediate gratification. Since the Internet is available 24/7 in most places, people tend to think Internet businesses are also open 24/7 and that is rarely the case, even with very large companies such as Microsoft and Apple.

These expectations may be unrealistic, but that is the reality you face as an Internet marketer. Some people will expect you to be available at all hours of the day, even on weekends or holidays. You can’t alleviate this problem completely, but by dealing with incoming support requests as promptly and efficiently as possible you will go a long way to satisfying the needs of the vast majority of your customers, and that is what’s important.

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Paul Smithson is the creator of the XSitePro Web Design Software, XHeader, the free tool for designing web site and blog header graphics and XCommentPro, the web site commenting tool. His areas of expertise include business strategy, ecommerce, online and traditional marketing,
software development and maximizing the potential of online businesses. Visit www.xsitepro.com and www.xheader.com.

More Information About Email Click-Through Rate

By Pilar Torres Wahlberg in Featured

Because of the available analytics tools today, it is now very possible to track virtually your visitor’s behavior. Having easy access to detailed data, marketers have become used to the thought of tracking consumer attitude in other aspects of marketing. For example, the information they can obtain from email marketing campaigns, can be really helpful.

But it is important to take note that there is actually no benchmark for the email click-through rate (CTR). This is because CTR depends on a variety of factors including the industry you’re in, frequency of sending, the opt-in process, and the relevance of your message to the audience. Additional factors include how effective your system is in getting around “spam filters”. These software programs can send your message into the garbage folder even if the subscribers signed-up to receive your offer.

Aside from that, companies also calculate email click-through rates differently. Companies can calculate CTR differently (ie. unique clicks vs. total clicks). Subscribers will usually click on one or more links which means that CTR that is based on the total would be twice higher than those based on unique clicks. It may even be significantly higher. With that being said, there are certain industry averages you should take note of depending on the industry (based on unique clicks):

B2B Email Marketing – email click-through rate can range from 5 to 15%. The audience is highly targeted and trust is usually already established between the company and clients in a B2B business. So if your CTR falls below this level, then there’s something that you have to improve in your campaign. The problem may lie on the email’s content or your message may simply not be getting through.

B2C Email Marketing – in this type of business, the click-through is usually between 2 to 12%. Most businesses would be somewhere in between. 12% would be on the higher end and it is the result of trust between the business and customers. If your email click-though rate falls below 2%, something needs to be done. Either you have to improve your mailing list by targeting more relevant customers or the title/content of your emails should be changed.

Highly Segmented Market – if the industry you’re in is more personalized, expect a higher CTR. It should be in the 10-20% range. Meanwhile, trend-type newsletters usually receive 10-15% even if the list is “unsegmented” because of the general interest in the content.

Apart from the email click-through rate, the actual sales conversion should also be considered. After all, at the end of the day, improving sales is still the main reason why email marketing campaigns are conducted.

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Pilar Torres – Take a look at our Free Jargon Free Web Marketing Strategy videos aimed at beginners. Check out our Professional Website Hosting Services website at www.pickaweb.co.uk. We also offer Reseller Hosting and other services such as Online Website Builder, Dedicated Servers, Domain Names, Data Backup, Web Design, Web Design Templates, Email Marketing, 0800 Numbers and VPS Hosting.

Online Brand Management – 5 Benefits of Viral Videos

By Enzo F. Cesario in Featured

Viral video is simultaneously the most entertaining and the most infuriating element of online marketing. Let’s clear the air quickly: No one can promise you a viral video success. Ever.

Viral videos succeed because the audience likes them and spreads them on to other people. If the audience doesn’t get it, the video doesn’t go viral, and there is nothing that can guarantee the response you want.

That said, there is every reason to continue developing video content with the aim of going viral. In terms of investment-to-value ratio, viral videos remain some of the most economical efforts a brand can put out for itself. If even one video you produce hits the entertainment nerve and goes viral, you’ve done your brand a world of good. Let us consider the success of one particular viral series to see some of the benefits available from this branding tactic.

Benefit 1 – Funny and Factual

Blendtech is a company with a fairly simple business model: Sell blenders so powerful and reliable that they will destroy just about anything you put in them. The company’s big success story came with the “Will it Blend?” series for its new high-powered blender. The videos are simple – a charming man with an amiable manner puts something unexpected and expensive into the blender and turns it into its constituent elements.

In very brief, powerful videos, Blendtech ended up demonstrating both that destroying expensive electronics in a blender is entertaining and that its blenders were incredibly powerful. People’s immediate reactions were, in order, “He just blended an iPhone!” and “I want one of those blenders.”

So a good video can get the information about your product out there in a compelling, dramatic way that can’t be argued with.

Benefit 2 – Cheap, Cheap, Cheap

Viral video is incredibly cost effective. The costs of many videos are incredibly high, especially for television advertising during prime marketing hours. Just consider the sheer volume of investment that goes into Super Bowl halftime commercial extravaganzas.

On the other hand, the Blendtech commercials apparently were shot on an utterly shoestring budget: perhaps $500 for a reasonable-quality video camera, the wages for a decent cameraman, the blender the company is selling and however much the gadget of the week cost. In the case of the iPhone Blendtech demolished, say $600 depending on where they got it. Either way, the production costs of the video probably didn’t exceed a few thousand dollars, and that’s at the outside.

Benefit 3 – Free Transmission

Once you have the video up and going, and people find it entertaining, you don’t have to devote much effort to keeping it going places. If it hits that funny bone like the Blendtech video did, people will show it off repeatedly to just about everyone they can, because they want to see other people laugh and enjoy it too. Just make sure the video has a dedicated YouTube or video link that people can reference.

Benefit 4 – Specialization

Have you ever looked at most commercials? They’re rather generic, and seem to cast their nets fairly wide. This is particularly true of infomercials, which try to make the whole of humanity into bumbling incompetents unable to pack their drawers, cut their food or clean their homes without the aid of some wundergadget. The result is bland pointlessness. On the other hand, a good viral video allows you to ignore all that and focus your efforts specifically on reaching a certain audience. Take Blendtech – they wanted to go after people who wanted a good, strong blender. They built an advertisement that therefore does nothing BUT promote the strength and efficacy of their blender, and does so in a shocking, eye-catching manner.

Benefit 5 – Entertainment

As we’ve discussed, the most important element in the Blendtech campaign’s success is its entertaining quality. People tuned into the videos because they wanted to see some guy demolish technology that hundreds of others were probably still waiting in the rain for. The commercials were short, exciting, funny and evocative.

Now, there’s an associated effect. Consider the reality of a blender: Is it really that entertaining? Are you actually going to use it to demolish your priciest electronics or devour your leftover garden rake? However, even if Blendtech’s customers aren’t going to do any of these things, they’ll still think of them fondly when they use their blender to crush up some stubborn ice for a daiquiri.

By putting out a good, entertaining video that goes viral, you’re creating the implication that your brand is itself entertaining and creative. Your audience will want to see what comes next, will want to share their favorite moments with friends. Most of all, they’ll want the thing that you’re selling because it was so funny.

So, while once again we must reiterate that nothing in the world can guarantee you viral video success, there is every reason to devote part of your marketing efforts to developing entertaining, informative videos that can capture the imaginations of your target audience. All it takes is one success to get your brand out there in proper fashion.

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Enzo F. Cesario is an online branding specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a digital content agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles, videos and social media in the “voice” of our client’s brand. It makes sites more findable and brands more recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to www.brandSplat.com or visit our blog at www.iBrandCasting.com.

Five Essential Elements Every Business Website Should Have

By Derek J in Featured

Although business owners and marketer’s are coming to recognize the importance of having a website for their business, how those websites are being designed and built is still very much a problem. In most cases, a website that replicates an online brochure is what most businesses have. The result thereof is ultimately a poor return on investment for the (often large amounts of) money they have spent on the site. Here are five essential elements that every business website should have.

Sign-up Form

Having hundreds or thousands of visitors to your website every month is no use if you are only capturing the details of a small percentage of them from people who actually inquire. What you need is a sign-up form that offers a freebie (a free report of interest to your visitors), a newsletter or something similar. This way, you are able to capture the details (name and email address) of the visitors to your site, as well as build your list of prospects.

Highly Visible Contact Details

The purpose of your a small business website is generally to encourage inquiries, which will ultimately lead to sales. It is therefore essential that your website has your company’s contact details clearly displayed on every page. Ideally, you should place the contact details in the header, or in the top right area of the page. Also, try to provide as many contact formats (telephone, fax, email, Skype) as possible.

Dedicated Sales Pages

This one is a little tricky, depending on your business. Ideally, you should try to have a separate page for each product/service, or group of products/services. This allows you to focus on marketing each product or service’s benefits, features, and so forth to its specific target market. It also gives you the freedom to provide extensive information on each product or service, as opposed to merely providing a product name or model number. Furthermore, this additional content assists in terms of search engine optimization (SEO).

Testimonials

Why should anyone who visits your website trust what you have to say about yourself? You are, after all, trying to sell yourself online. It is therefore always wise to feature testimonials on each sales or product page. Ideally, you want to place testimonials about each product or service on their respective page. I usually recommend placing them down the right-hand side column of your page, but it all depends on your layout.

Blog

You may think that blogging is some weird, new age concept that only the “arty” and creative people of this world indulge in – you’re wrong. Setting up a blog allows you to write about anything related to your business, for example: new products or services, events, how-to’s, insights and opinions. Be sure to feature a “subscribe” option on your blog, so that you can build that database of prospects as well. Blogging also assists from an SEO perspective, by continuously adding fresh, original content to your website, which Google loves.

As an added bonus to these five essentials, I always recommend using an analytics or tracking program, such as Google Analytics (which is free), to track the goings-on of your website and assess how much and where your traffic (visitors) is coming from. As with anything, commit to learning about the topic, in this case, internet marketing, and keep an eye out for new trends that may benefit your business’ website.

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Derek Jansen is an SEO consultant and educator – Sign up for the Free SEO Course @ www.SEOBasicsCourse.com today.

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