Since I wrote the first edition of this book, the world has learned to buy things a new way. People used to come into stores or make a phone call and make their purchase. Now, they go online to learn more about what they're considering buying. Sometimes, they make the purchase online. But more often than not, they continue to shop around, online and offline; then they make the purchase somewhere, possibly other than the Web site they first visited.
If there's one thing for certain about the Internet, it's that nothing is for certain about the Internet—except that you'll have to continue learning new things about this fascinating method of commerce. Before entering the world of online marketing, you need to know two things. The first is the size of e-commerce: Forrester Research predicted that online retailing will grow from $95.7 billion in 2003 to $229 billion by 2008 and will account for 10 percent of all retail sales. Note that growth curve.
According to Jupiter Communications, U.S. online consumers spent in excess of $632 billion outside of the Internet as a direct result of research they conducted on the Web. Many people first visit your Web site, then purchase by calling, mailing, faxing, or placing their order in person. I have a client who reports that the Internet is by far his most profit-producing marketing weapon in his arsenal. Yet he has never sold one thing online. He merely describes his merchandise, directs people to his store, and marvels at how transactions that used to take an hour now take fifteen minutes. That gives his salespeople more time to sell more merchandise. Do the profits from those transactions get credited to the Internet? In my book, they do.
According to IDC, a subsidiary of International Data Group, Inc., a leading provider of market intelligence, nearly 1 billion people, or about 15 percent of the world's population, used the Internet in 2006. I sense that I don't have to tell you much more to convey the size of online marketing. Yet it is still in its infancy. There's a lot of room for it and you to grow.
The second thing you need to know at the outset is that the Internet is a direct-marketing weapon. The tactics and nuances of direct mail definitely continue to apply to Internet marketing. After all, the Internet did not repeal the laws of human nature. Some Internet marketers fail because they were never involved in direct marketing, so they weren't playing with a full deck when it came to the human touch. Guerrillas succeed online because regardless of their background, they make it a point to learn the art and science of direct marketing, providing them with crucial insights about people. E-mail marketing is all about people, just in case that has slipped your memory.
Given the dazzling array of Internet marketing knowledge, I'm going to try to focus primarily on the things we know for sure, the things that are not likely to change.
First of all, keep in mind that unless you know marketing, you're probably to going to thrive and flourish online. The Internet is only one of one hundred marketing weapons. True, it's the fastest growing. True, it's the most comprehensive. True, it's the most rewarding if you do it right. But unless you know how marketing works, you won't have much of a chance to do it right.
The World Wide Web can certainly help you with your job of effective marketing. It can help in ways that didn't even exist in the fertile imaginations of the marketing professionals of the twentieth century. But can the Web do the job for you? Plain and simple, no. You can automate an on-line business to the point that it does almost everything for you. But the success of the business is hardly the domain of the automation process. That's your turf.
If you've decided to market online, the first rule of which you should be aware is the rule of thirds: You should determine the budget you'll have for online marketing, then invest one third in developing your site, one third in promoting your site, and one third in maintaining your site. Most ill-advised online marketers invest three thirds in developing their site, then wonder why they aren't earning landmark profits.
Guerrillas know that no matter how brilliant their site, it's invisible and powerless unless people know it's there. That's why the moment they think of going online, they think of how they'll promote their online and off-line presence. And once their site is up and running, they think of it as an infant who needs constant maintenance, constant attention, and constant changing.
They delight in the truism that their Web site now makes their advertising job a whole lot easier. Before, their advertising had to sell a product or a service. Now, all it has to do is get people to visit their Web site. That gives their advertising a whole new power and an ultra clear goal.
Before I hunker down with you in cyberspace and go deep on the most important new e-media topics—list building, e-mail, subject lines, landing pages, autoresponders, automated marketing, search engine wisdom, blogs, podcasting, RSS, audio- and videopostcards, webinars, joint ventures, affiliate programs, standard Web sites, subscription Web sites, viral word-of-mouse marketing, e-zines, and e-books—I want you to realize that the Internet is the best relationship builder since the Garden of Eden.
I just gave you a brainful of Internet topics. The one to remember above all is the one about relationship building. The Internet is the pure distilled essence of building a relationship with a person. Although you may be building thousands with each mailing, you are building them one person at a time. At least, that's how your prospects and customers feel.
Although things that fit into nutshells probably ought to stay there, in a nutshell, here's the three-step skinny on Internet marketing.
1. Begin with a wonderful product or service.
2. Create a motivational Web site.
3. Send e-mails with hyperlinks (click and you're there) to your Web site.
The easiest part of this process is the wonderful product or service part. That can be yours or someone else's. Creating a Web site that results in sales is not an easy job. But it's a cinch compared with the difficulty of compiling a list of people who want to hear from you, know your name, have had contact with you before, are cool with the process of checking your offers. How, in heaven's name, do you generate such a list?
You can purchase or rent millions of lists, but the best list of all is the one you compile yourself, a list of your own past and satisfied customers. So save your money and roll up your sleeves. List building is a process of defining your market, setting your objectives, and then figuring how to establish warm and trusting relationships with the people on your list.
Don't simply add names. Anyone with a phone book can do that. Instead, get permission from people to be on your mailing list. The term for this process is opt in. Let your prospects decide whether they want to be on your list. If they opt out, bless them—because you won't have to waste time, money, or hopes on them. If they opt in, they want to hear from you, and they'll anticipate each contact from you. People who opt in will never consider your e-mail to be spam.
Get some of those names by offering a free newsletter subscription on your site. Get others with the offer of a free report or two. Get even more by offering a free e-book. The idea is to offer valuable free information—especially data that is not available elsewhere—and keep a list of the people who sign up or order your freebie. You'll get perhaps ten names at first. Keep it up, and you'll get 10,000. People aren't changing that fast. They still love valuable free information.
Contests, sweepstakes, free e-zines, joint ventures—those are more obvious ways to add names to your list. You'll get a lot more with your blog and your participation in forums, not to mention chat sessions. Lists can grow in many different ways, but they should all start in the same place: at every significant touch point with your current customers. Be sure to ask for business cards at networking functions. Then use a scanner to transform those cards and put their e-mail addresses into a digital format.
By the way, do you know when to begin compiling that list? I'll wait here while you begin right now.
A good way to get quite a few names on that list for no financial investment is to write a brief column on your field of expertise, then offer it to newsletters devoted to that topic. Charge nothing, but be sure they include a paragraph at the end with your contact information, an especially sweet situation for you if they give you a hyperlink. Can you offer a free report to people who send you an e-mail? I don't see why not if you're really serious about this business of list building.
If you are, you'll appreciate these eleven techniques used by people who have amassed large mailing lists.
1. Gather e-mail opt ins throughout your Web site: Ask for e-mail opt ins on every page of your Web site. The more frequent and convenient you make your opt in, the more people will use it. This may seem an obvious point, yet many companies bury their e-mail opt-in forms deep within their sites. Or they grant only one or two chances to optin. According to Silverpop's "2005 Retail Email Marketing Study" of 175 Internet retailers, 23 percent didn't even offer an e-mail opt in on their homepage.
2. Keep your e-mail registration forms short and sweet: The more questions you require at registration, the fewer the number of consumers who will complete it. A test conducted by MarketingSherpa and Netline showed a substantial increase in registration completion—from 50 percent to 75 percent—when the number of questions was reduced from twenty to six. As all guerrillas know, time is not money. It is far more precious. So don't be wasting the time of your potential customers. And respect their need for security. Six questions respects it. Twenty questions doesn't.
3. You've already got a list! Building a list of responsive people is one of the biggest challenges facing you. The good news is that you already have a receptive audience—your current customers. The bad news is that you may not have an e-mail address for each customer. But a host of service firms, called append services, will take your off-line or postal customer list and append e-mail addresses to it from their customer data records. These append services vary greatly, so if you decide to go this route, do your homework. Start with Google, where a list of over 8 million such services awaits you. Make your expectations clear up front when you talk to the one you choose. Make sure it's reputable.
4. Consider coregistration: Allow customers to opt in via a fusion-marketing partner's Web site. Coregistration is one of the fastest-growing areas for list development in the e-mail marketing industry. When users register for the Web site's e-mail list, they'll see your offer and, by merely checking the box next to it, coregister for your opt-in list along with the site's list. Too cool.
5. Viral marketing can help you build your list simply by encouraging the folks on your list to forward your messages to friends and coworkers. They had better be cogent, fascinating, informative, funny, or unique messages.
6. E-mail change of address is quite common. Keep your list of e-mail addresses up-to-date as customers change Internet service providers (ISPs) or companies. Many firms can scan your bounced customer records and provide you with updated e-mail addresses.
7. Direct marketing can also add names to your list. Be sure to include your e-mail registration Web page URL on all your traditional direct-marketing campaigns. The same goes for TV, radio, and print advertising. Lots of guerrillas include it on their phone answering message.
8. Create a point-of-sale sign-up form. Capture e-mail addresses with a sign-up form at cash registers and other visible locations in your stores. Customers making a purchase are already interested in your brand. What's more, you have their undivided attention. They are presenting you with a perfect opportunity to get them on your list. So, what are you waiting for?
9. Use real live customer service representatives. Have your sales, customer service, and technical-support people ask for e-mail addresses in the course of customer communications. A 2004 Shop.org study by Forrester Research found that only 50 percent of catalog retailers have their customer service representatives ask for e-mail addresses—a "shocking oversight," Forrester said. Guerrillas should never fail to ask for an e-mail address.
10. Capitalize on product registration. Ask for e-mail addresses on your standard product registration mail-in card or Web pages.
11. Become an expert in Web traffic conversion. It's great if you have a gargantuan mailing list. It's terrific if you can draft compelling e-mails that get your opt-inners to speed-click their way to your Web site. But it's depressing if you can't do something, sell something, establish something with all those people who visit you. If you can't convert those people to paying customers, you'll have failed at one of Internet marketing's necessities—converting visitors to customers. Online marketing may be fun, and it is a game, but it's a game you play for real money, and you won't get your fair share if you can't play by the rules the grown-ups use.
Not every method outlined here will work for your company. Try several elements from various approaches until you find the list-building techniques that best complement your brand strategy. Don't rely on any one of them. Use them all.
Great lists aren't built in a day. List building takes time, and it requires integration with every one of your endeavors both online and off line. As you gather names and ask for permission, you not only add to your list but also preserve it. E-mail addresses "churn" continually, and as soon as you stop building your list, it will begin to shrink.
Marketers who invest in their own lists reap the rewards. According to October 2004 Direct Marketing Association figures, the response rates for e-mail sent to a house list outstrip those for prospect lists across direct mail and catalogs. The return on investment for e-mail has eclipsed that of every direct-marketing medium except telemarketing. I hope that single salient fact motivates you to compile a large and responsive list. You often hear of six-figure incomes. Many of them come from six-figure mailing lists.
A list is a wonderful thing to build. But a blog is a more enjoyable word to say. In simplest terms, a blog is a Web site in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of Weblog, or Web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog, or adding an article to an existing blog is called blogging. Individual articles on a blog are called blog posts, posts, or entries. A person who posts these entries is called a blogger.
A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links to other Web pages and to video, audio, and other files. Blogs use a conversational style. Many of them are not only informative but also entertaining. As good as a book or movie? Sometimes better. And less costly. So don't look shocked when you learn that blogs are revolutionizing the publishing industry. Everybody can be an author and a publisher, an editor and a reviewer. Everybody can market intelligently and establish many rewarding relationships with a good blog.
Usually, blogs focus on a particular area of interest, such as the political goings-on in Washington, D.C. Blogging has emerged as an increasingly popular and important means of communication, affecting public opinion and mass media around the world.
Some blogs discuss personal experiences. I'm tempted to write one about living in an RV full time, but I'm too busy marveling at it. If you haven't got the time to author a blog, don't even think about it. But if you have the time, expertise, and writing ability to sell powerfully but subtly, on a regular basis, have a go at writing a blog. It can be a highly enjoyable way of generating income by providing readable information.
Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog-hosting services, or they can be run using blog software on regular Web-hosting services.
A blog entry typically consists of the following:
• Title—main title of the post
• Body—main content of the post
• Permalink—the URL of the full, individual article
• Post date—date and time the post was published
A blog site typically contains something called blogroll, which are other blogs that the blog author reads or affiliates with. Unlike traditional Web sites, a blog allows for easy creation of new pages. Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, e-mail lists, and bulletin board systems. In the 1990s, Internet forum software created running conversations with threads, topical connections between messages.
That was the birth of the blog. The modern blog evolved from the online diary whereby people would keep a running account, or blog, of their personal lives. The first of these personal blogs started in 1995.
No one knew it was a blog until the term Weblog was coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997. The short form, blog, was coined by Peter Merholz. He broke the word Weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his Weblog in spring of 1999. In 2001, there was a revolution in consciousness and awareness of blogs. Daily, people around the world are learning more how valuable and versatile they can be—and how potent they can be as guerrilla marketing weapons.
In 2002, blogging helped to create a political crisis that forced Senator Trent Lott to step down as majority leader. The shaping of this story gave greater credibility to blogs as a medium of news dissemination.
Since 2003, blogs have gained increasing notice and coverage for their role in breaking, shaping, and spinning news stories. In 2004, the role of blogs became increasingly mainstream, as political consultants, news services, and candidates began using them as tools for outreach and opinion forming.
Around the beginning of 2005, amateur blogging took off in a big way. Well-informed bloggers soon shot into prominence by their sheer ingenuity and the clarity of their content.
In January 2005, Fortune magazine listed eight bloggers whom businesspeople "could not ignore"; 2006 was the year of years for blogging. And the blog beat goes on.
Blogging is becoming easier all the time. Cases in point: w.bloggar allows users to maintain their Web-hosted blog without the need to be online while composing or editing posts. Blog-creation tools and blog hosting are provided by some Web-hosting companies, Internet service providers, on-line publications, and Internet portals.
Cultural blogs, which are among the most read blogs, discuss music, sports, theater, other arts, and popular culture. Neighborhood reporting is ideal for blogging: Locals are the best witnesses of local events.
Topical blogs focus on a niche. For example, the Google blog covers nothing but news about Google.
The stock market is a popular subject of blogging. Both amateur and professional investors use blogs to share stock tips. Business blogs are used to promote and defame businesses, argue economic concepts, disseminate information, and more.
Many blogs are written by more than one person, often about a specific topic. Collaborative blogs can be open to everyone or limited to a group of people
An Internet forum is not a blog, but a blog can function as an Internet forum. Internet forums typically allow any user to post into the discussion. Blogs typically limit posting to the blogger and approved others.
Naturally, if you're devoting a few hours each week to your blog and want to make it profitable, you've got to make it popular. Guerrillas do that by
• Paying sites to put up links to their sites
• Getting noticed by Doc Searl (doc.weblogs.com/whoIsDoc)
• Mentioning their blogs in their URLs and on e-mail signatures
• Marketing their blogs as they market their Web sites
Guerrillas have learned that a successful blog needs these five attributes:
1. Personality. It must be clear. Readers must feel as though they know the writer or writers. Readers ought to get a feeling of intimacy that's missing from the mainstream media.
2. Usefulness. The information must be either useful or very enjoyable to read or both. It should make readers think, laugh, or click. It helps if there are handy links to other places.
3. Writing style. Be honest here. Your blog better not be a sales pitch disguised as a blog. It better be a concise, slightly informal blog and not a long-winded column. If it's news briefs, it better have analysis or insight, or you're going to lose readers with your shallowness.
4. Usability and design. Make sure that the typeface is easy to read. Be certain that readers can find links to archives. The writing should be easy to skim. Subheads help a lot. So do graphics that are either useful or fun.
5. Return appeal. Face up to the reality that your blog must be useful or engaging enough for visitors to visit it again. If they don't come back for more, maybe you ought to invest your time somewhere else.
If you can't commit to writing good, short posts two or three times a week, and if you're not open to inviting and continuing dialogue with your potential customers, blogging might not be for you. Better not to start than to create a blog that has only a few articles posted and lies dormant like an abandoned saloon in a ghost town. A neglected blog can make your company and your professional identity look like the doors and windows are all broken and no one cares. That transfers like quicksilver to your company. People without scruples, brainpower, or writing ability should forget the idea of writing a blog.
A blog won't be read if the writer can't get the message across clearly. If you treat an entire blog like a mini-press release, count on few visitors and maybe even blogosphere backlash. Many top-notch blogs are updated three times a week or more, which is why people refuse to clutter their reading lists with blogs lacking frequent new posts. A business that can't make the commitment to three entries a week doesn't need and shouldn't have a blog.
I see the future of guerrilla marketing, and podcasting looms large on the horizon. I hope that you have already added podcasting to your list of guerrilla marketing weapons. It's the cutting edge of guerrilla marketing and is one of the most powerful new tools for developing leads, increasing brand recognition, developing new customers and clients, expanding your reach, building customer loyalty, developing new sales channels, and launching a permission marketing program. You can get a preview of the future of guerrilla marketing by seeing how our Guerrilla Marketing Radio program is now being podcasted on Yahoo! and iTunes. Find it on our Web site at gmarketing.com. While you're there, learn how the process works by rating and subscribing to the program.
The word is out about podcasting. Twenty-two million American adults have MP3 players or iPods, according to a 2006 Pew Internet and American Life poll—a vast potential audience. Chris McIntyre, founder of Podcast Alley in Nashville, Tennessee, has seen double- to triple-digit growth over just a few months in the number of podcasts being produced and the number of people listening to them. "One of the most popular podcasts has about 28,000 subscribers from my site alone," says McIntyre.
Steve Rubel publishes a blog about persuasive technology (microper-suasion.com). He says that entrepreneurs may find value in creating their own broadcasts and sees multiple marketing opportunities in podcasting, including
• Sponsoring a popular podcast, much like a company might sponsor a radio broadcast
• Using giveaways, contests, and other promos that have proved effective in traditional broadcast media
• Incorporating short ads within podcast feeds, which would be visible as the program downloads
Podcasting is the distribution of audio or video files, such as radio programs or music videos, over the Internet, using either RSS or Atom syndication for listening on mobile devices and personal computers. Guerrillas already know that the essence of podcasting is about creating content—audio or video—for an audience that wants to listen when they want, where they want, and how they want.
Podcasters' Web sites also may offer direct download of their files, but the subscription feed of automatically delivered new content is what distinguishes a podcast from a simple download or real-time streaming. Usually, the podcast features one type of "show," with new episodes either sporadically or at planned intervals, such as daily, weekly, or whenever.
Subscribing to podcasts allows a user to collect programs from a variety of sources for off-line listening or viewing, whenever and wherever is convenient. Traditional broadcasting provides only one source at a time, and the time is broadcaster specified.
The word podcasting was coined in 2004 by combining two words: iPod and broadcasting. But neither podcasting nor listening to podcasts requires an iPod or other portable player, and no over-the-air broadcasting is required.
The editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary declared podcasting the 2005 word of the year in December, defining the term as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player."
A podcast is analogous to a recorded television or radio series. Podcasting enables guerrillas to offer downloadable episodes that can be played, replayed, or archived as with any other computer file. I love seeing joggers wearing IPods and thinking that they're listening to my guerrilla marketing podcasts. We have enough of them and have been doing them long enough, beginning early enough, that my fantasy may be real in some cases.
The word about podcasting rapidly spread through popular blogs, and technology columnist Doc Searls began keeping track of how many hits Google found for the word podcasts on September 28, 2004. On that day, the result was 24 hits. There were 526 hits on September 30, then 2,750 three days later. The number doubled every few days, passing 100,000 by October 18. A year later, Google found more than 100,000,000 hits on the word podcasts.
The top podcasting programs gave further indication of podcast topics: four were about technology; three, about music; one, movies; one, politics; and—at the time number one on the list— The Dawn and Drew Show, described as "married-couple banter," a program format that USA Today noted was popular on American broadcast radio in the 1940s. In March 2005, John Edwards became the first national-level U.S. politician to hold his own podcast. In May 2005, the first book on podcasting was released, the award-winning Podcasting: The Do-it-Yourself Guide, by Todd Cochrane. Later in the summer of 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush became a podcaster of sorts, when the White House Web site added an RSS feed to the previously downloadable files of the president's weekly radio addresses.
Yet some experienced Internet users declared podcasting to be either nothing special—just a variant of blogs and MP3s—or already past its peak because of growing exposure and adoption by unsavvy Internet users. Time is already proving the naysayers to be short-sighted. In June 2005, Apple staked its claim on the medium by adding podcasting to its free iTunes software and building a directory of podcasts at its iTunes Music Store. The term podmercial was coined in early 2005; poditorial, in July 2005.
In February 2006, the first official Guinness Book of Records World Record for most popular podcast was awarded to The Ricky Gervais Show. The show maintained an average of more than a quarter million downloads per weekly episode. That's an impressive number if you're a guerrilla marketer.
Podcasting's initial appeal was to allow individuals to distribute their own "radio shows," but cutting-edge entrepreneurs see huge marketing potential there, and many guerrilla marketers have already embraced it as part of their marketing toolkit. They've invested a few hundred dollars and are already depositing the dividends.
"The marketing takes care of itself," says a podcaster, who as an attorney, has reaped new clients worldwide with his podcasts. He adds, "All the podcast does is give information. If you like the style of writing and speaking, then you're getting to know me. Then you might call me. It's not a hard sell." Heed well his words. People listen to podcasts to avoid the hard sell of the commercial media.
Podcasting has the unique ability to serve as a potent marketing weapon for businesses of all sizes. Some say that the technology may have the most to offer entrepreneurs. Small businesses can get their names before a worldwide audience, which can lead to financial fulfillment.
Podcasts provide businesses with fascinating marketing opportunities. Unlike traditional ads, which come with entertainment, podcasts must offer listeners educational or entertainment value in itself—or else they'll click it off and download a more interesting program.
Remember at all times: Your podcast is part of a permission marketing campaign. At first, you're not likely to send your sales curve skyward with your podcasts. But you are likely to plant the seeds of relationships, get names for your list, and cultivate candidates who will read your e-mail and who already demonstrate serious intent by listening to your podcasts.
In keeping with the tone of the medium, keep your podcasts listener friendly. Many listeners will play it while they multitask or during their commute or workout. All along, it will convey your personality more eloquently than a conventional ad.
The medium can give potential customers a chance to sample your wares. When Jeff Kowal started a record label, he sought exposure for its growing list of artists in the progressive ambient music realm. But he sure couldn't afford expensive marketing.
He decided to start a podcast featuring chats with the label's artists, announcements of forthcoming concerts, and music clips from CDs, as well as original music specifically made for the podcast. He describes it as an audio newsletter.
Mr. Kowal promoted his offering, dubbed LotusCast, with an e-mail campaign. He also posted the podcast on Apple's iTunes as well as other directories and packed the description with such keywords as "ambient music," "relaxation," and "meditation" to make it easier for interested listeners to find. The result: Traffic soared at Lotuspike.com, and online sales of its CDs and other products doubled, Mr. Kowal says.
You're a guerrilla, so you probably want to get in on this medium before your competitors do. All you need is a good microphone, a computer, and podcasting software to capture the audio file. You can find a good tutorial on the process at PodcastTools.com, and you can download a free editing and recording tool from audacity.sourceforge.net.
With your few-hundred-buck investment, you can produce an infomercial or broadcast and distribute it through aggregators, such as Ipodder and FeedDemon, or Web-based directories, such as Podcast Alley. These podcasts are sent via topic-specific feeds to subscribers, who can download them to their digital music players or computers.
The cost depends on what kind of microphone you choose. A good one will cost $100 or more. Because the choices are overwhelming, M-Audio, a unit of Avid Technology Inc., bundles starter kits for podcasters: The Podcast Factory, which includes a microphone, a host of software, and other features, retails for under $200.
You'll need a Web site to build your brand, post your podcasts, and give your listeners a central location for information about your company. A site will cost about $40 a month in hosting fees.
Have a structure for your podcast. Keep it brief—from five minutes to a half-hour, though some of mine are one minute. I advise writing a script beforehand to prevent awkward pauses and wandering from the topic. Ask yourself: Will the podcasts consist mostly of interviews, a monologue, or a panel discussion?
The big question is how to attract listeners. Start by making sure that your podcast has good sound quality. You may want to invest in a sound mixer that can eliminate crackles and pops.
Says one podcasting maven: "Your podcast needs to be educational, inspirational and entertaining—but stop yourself from selling too hard. Don't be an audio equivalent of a brochure. Forget it; nobody wants to hear that. It may be better to have two people be in a podcast, because a conversation sounds more natural than only one person reading copy."
Knowing what an earnest guerrilla you are, you will probably want to create an RSS, or Real Simple Syndication, feed, which automatically sends listeners new versions of your podcast. You can do this easily at such free sites as Feedburner.com or Odeo.com.
Post this feed on podcast directories, such as Yahoo's podcasts.yahoo.com, podcast.net, or iTunes at apple.com/podcasting. This step also involves supplying some information about your podcast, such as a description and contact information.
To get the most out of a directory site, you need to include the right keywords in your description—or else people won't find you when they search the site. To snare the most listeners, use lots of terms and keep them fairly general. Naturally, use your own site to promote the podcast—on the front page and on each interior page. Start a blog and mention the podcast frequently; this increases the chance that people searching on Google will find a reference to your offerings. In true guerrilla fashion, mention and recommend other people's podcasts, which will increase your chances of being cross-promoted. Make sure that your podcast is easily accessible and downloadable from your own site. Brand it. Create a meme for it. Let people know that it's a real thing.
Eventually, if your podcast becomes popular enough, it will reach the rankings of the most-popular podcasts posted at such sites as Podcast Alley.com. This will increase your visibility dramatically and drive up your listener numbers.
I'll be listening for you.
Nanocasting is a model for commercial podcasting, based on established media and direct-marketing principles. I mentioned it in Chapter 1 but want to delve into it here because it's so important to guerrilla marketers.
Nanocasting differs from podcasting by beginning with a clear definition of the target audience, the business model, the revenue model, and the use of a system specifically developed for targeting commercial audiences called RTS (Really Targeted Syndication). There is more to commercial podcasting than selling advertising, sponsorships, or subscriptions. These business models are on the cutting edge of using podcasting commercially. "They're drawing from media fundamentals, marketing fundamentals and a decade of ecommerce experience," says Errol Smith, Emmy Award-winning founder of Jackstreet Media.
Nanocasting is a market-tested approach that blends podcasting, streaming, and e-commerce technologies into a market-tested system for using on-line radio commercially. "Until very recently, the term 'nano' had very little mindshare within the podcasting community, but when Steven Jobs introduced the term to the mainstream, he helped pave the way for the introduction of a commercial podcasting model that is supported by both research and real world business cases," says Smith.
"Nanocasting refers to the programming produced for the most narrowly but clearly defined target audience. This is the audience that is most interested in the type of programming, and from a marketing standpoint, the audience that is most likely to buy related products," according to Smith.
For all the buzz that podcasting is generating, it has been used largely noncommercially by frustrated wannabe talk-show hosts, garage shock jocks, and a wide cast of not-for-profit characters that make up the world of bloggers.
The commercial application of podcasting is called nanocasting. Although nanocasting uses all the same technology as podcasting, the aim of nanocasting is purely and unabashedly commercial.
Said simply, nanocasters focus squarely on how to use Internet radio to make money, expand a business, build a brand, secure new customers, market new products and services, and expand market share.
The International Nanocasting Alliance (INA) was founded by an A-list of media, marketing, academic and legal professionals, media entrepreneurs and advisers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Collectively, the founding group has deep experience in the issues that are impacting this new media. INA has brought together the expertise of industry leaders with the creativity of a new generation of global media entrepreneurs to ensure that the highest level of talent is tapped to address the challenges this fledgling industry will undoubtedly face.
This whole evolution of Internet radio and podcasting is essentially a fast-growing guerrilla phenomenon. It is an unconventional way to disseminate information, entertainment, and education. You can learn more about the INA by going to nanocasting.org. As a guerrilla, you owe it to yourself to not only know what nanocasting is but also use it as much as possible. By its ability to target audiences more precisely, it can markedly decrease your marketing investment while driving up your profits. You watch a TV show about running the Colorado River. During the show, there's a commercial for a company that organizes Colorado River trips. That's nanocasting.
No matter what happens as the Internet develops and matures, e-mail is always going to be one of its most important applications. You can have a star-studded Web site, a too-good-to-refuse offer, unbeatable quality, and a jaw-dropping price, but without e-mail, you'll be flailing in frustration. It's probably the e-mail that's going to get most of your customers to your site.
The idea is to have a wonderfully responsive list of people who opted in to your list, and then to send them a brief e-mail with a hyperlink to your Web site. That e-mail must be readable on one screen with no scrolling. Those who are not interested will quickly click on to something else. Those who are interested will click on over to your Web site. At that Web site, tell them immediately what they're going to get by visiting the site. There is a dire need for you to be brief with your e-mail. There is no such need at your site. Those visitors want information, which they've proved by visiting your site. They do not want glamour or glitter. They want to know how they'll benefit by taking you up on your offer.
You can't make all those salient points in your brief e-mail. If you try, you'll lose much of your audience, because people are busy and can't take the time to read every single e-mail that comes their way.
Your e-mail should even feel brief. Use short paragraphs, short sentences, and short words. Get to the point. The point is that readers will gain if they visit your Web site.
Here are two highly significant things that will not happen.
1. They will probably not visit your Web site—unless you convince them to go there with your e-mail—and they're probably strapped for time.
2. They will probably not read your e-mail—unless you have a subject line that compels them to open and read it. If you have their attention, can you hold it?
As you very well know, your prospects get a lot of e-mail and delete most of it without reading it. They do so because most likely, it looks like other e-mail subject lines, feels like spam, has hints of a high-pressure sales pitch, repeats what they've heard before, is exaggerated, is not what they want, or hints of something boring.
Your job: Create a short subject line that sets off no red flags. If they know you, be sure to mention your name in that subject line. Otherwise, they probably won't know that it's you. Think it's easy to create a short subject line that is different from all the others? You and I both know that it's not easy. But it is possible. Study the subject lines of the e-mail that is sent to you. Write down those that commanded your attention right from the get-go, those that aren't like others you've seen, those that make you want to click and open the e-mail that used them. If you're lucky and conscientious, you'll probably turn up two or three winning subject lines. If you're creative, you'll see a subject line that inspires you to create a similar subject line.
Check out these winning subject lines:
Frankie, seen this yet?
Amy, print this page.
Jeremy, what's your question?
Ginger, sorry you couldn't make it.
Make it this Thursday, Josh?
Christy, your courtesy reminder.
Seth, do me a favor?
Need your advice about this, Sage.
Ramona, all bets are off.
Frankly, James, I'm puzzled.
Remember this, Jeannie?
Steve, it happens in 72 hours.
Ruth, will you test this?
Do I have to stand on my head now to emphasize the point that each winning subject line is personalized with the recipient's first name?
One of the key arts of direct mail is to use an envelope that begs to be opened. One of the key arts of e-mail is to use a subject line that does the same.
Guerrillas know that they must become experts at marketing with e-mail. They realize that their competitors are doing or will do the exact same thing. Guerrillas have heard the reverberations of the huge explosion in e-mail—in both its efficacy and its economy. They're put off by the ever-increasing postal and paper costs. They love the lack of cost associated with e-mail. Don't forget: E-mail is a whole lot like direct mail but with no postage costs and no paper costs.
Unlike direct mail, e-mail does permit censorship in the form of the spam police. As part of a brave effort to protect the world from spam, spamblockers electronically scrutinize the e-mail you send. It will be unceremoniously deleted when the spamblockers examine the keywords in your subject lines and body copy and find any of these offending phrases:
Hello
Your family
Double your
Dear (something)
Online business
For pennies a day
No investment
While you sleep
Additional income
Financial freedom
Be your own boss
Money making
100% guaranteed
Starting now
Take action now
Requires initial investment
As I write this, most e-mail in America is sent on Tuesdays, followed by Wednesdays. Seventy-five percent of it is sent between 7 A.M. and 4 P.M. Wednesdays are the most popular "opening e-mail days," followed by Tuesdays. Very few people open and read e-mail on weekends.
A 2006 study to determine why people open and respond to e-mail listed these factors:
• Products or services featured (54 percent)
• Written copy (40 percent)
• Subject line (35 percent)
• Compelling offers (discounts, free shipping) (33 percent)
All four factors were topics of the subject line—except for the line itself. I still maintain the importance of subject lines; without a good one, the recipient wouldn't know what products or services are featured and what the copy says. I'm also a big fan of personalized e-mail, though barely 5 percent of it is personalized now. You also ought to know that most Americans check their e-mail first thing in the morning, though even more check it throughout the day. The most popular place to check it is in bed, according to Jupiter Research.
E-mail marketers seeking to increase their open- and click-through rates would be wise to keep subject lines short and hyperlinks plentiful, according to recent analysis by EmailLabs. The key findings tell us that subject lines shorter than 50 characters in length, as well as an increased number of hyperlinks, led to increased open- and click-through rates. Recipients comprehend shorter subject lines more easily and quickly.
E-mail penetration is at an all-time high of 91 percent among Internet users between the ages of eighteen and sixty-four, as reported by eMarketer. Shockingly, an even higher percentage of users sixty-five or older do the same. In the United States alone, 88 percent of adult Internet users have personal e-mail accounts, and 46 percent of them have e-mail access at work. eMarketer estimates that added together, 147 million people across the country use e-mail almost every day. The only other activity to even approach e-mail's popularity is using a search engine to find information. E-mail marketing is growing, and spam, I'm happy to say, is fading away.
I could fill an entire chapter, even a book, with insights into e-mail. But I've told you the most important things to know, and I'll simply hope that you remember those.
Whenever business slows down or you find yourself with extra time, go through your Web site with the eyes of a cynic, a beady-eyed type who is visiting your site for the first time. The simpler and more user friendly your site is, the more sales it will generate, even from cynics. So always think of how you can remove unnecessary clutter, confusing links, or visual eyesores so that the main idea in your sales copy stands out.
Your site should include these ten critical elements:
1. An attention-grabbing headline. The first thing people see when they visit your site should be a compelling headline that describes the most important benefit your product or service offers. The headline is the key element of your site. It's what will persuade visitors to stick around and check out what you have to offer.
Your headline should be clear, concise, and to the point. It should also be enticing—you want to pique your visitors' interest and make them eager to learn more about what you're selling. You can do this by emphasizing what your product or service can do for them. Don't forget, visitors to your site don't really care much about you, but they care intensely about themselves. That's their favorite subject. So talk to them about it.
Start with your compelling headline. Be sure it stands out from the rest of the text. Use a large font size, bolding, italics, a different color—whatever suits the style of your site—and stand out.
2. User-friendly navigation. Nothing will drive customers away faster than confusing or complicated navigation. Your customers should be able to know where they are on your site at all times and should easily be able to find pages they've already visited.
Make sure that your navigation bar or menu is clearly accessible and easy to understand. It should be exactly the same on every page of your site and be located in exactly the same place. Your customers shouldn't have to hunt for it. When it comes to navigation, consistency is paramount.
3. Great sales copy. The words you use to describe your product and its benefits are the key to the success of your business. Your sales copy is the only contact you'll have with the vast majority of your visitors. That's why you have to make the most of it. Your sales copy should immediately draw the reader in with exciting benefits and enticing copy so you can lead them toward the sale. It should establish your credibility—because nobody will buy from you if they don't feel they can trust you. Describe the benefits of your product or service and explain why your visitors need it. It's easy to be totally honest, which you should be—but it's a bear to be believed. You've got to knock yourself out writing "shirtsleeve English," as ad great Leo Burnett used to say.
4. A clear call to action. If you want people to buy your products or services, you have to tell them how to do it, and you must tell them to do it. They probably aren't inclined to figure it out for themselves. Don't leave them guessing. You have to explain exactly what you want them to do, and you have to make it easy for them to do it.
If you want them to buy a product, present them with a call to action like this:
"CLICK HERE NOW to order your six-month supply of Product X." Say that more than once, more than twice, and say it throughout your site.
Provide your customers with clear, easy-to-understand instructions on how to make a purchase, and let them know what they can expect when they click on the link that leads them to the order page.
5. Graphics with a purpose. Graphics can help people visualize your products or services and their benefits. Be sure to include photos of every product you sell. Attractive product shots can boost your sales. Shots showing the product or service in use are generally very effective.
If you have a lot of products for sale, use thumbnails that link to larger images. This will make your pages load more quickly. If you're selling electronically delivered products, such as e-books or software, you may want to create simulated product shots to represent them. This makes your product more tangible to your visitors.
6. A strong opt-in offer. Most first-time visitors don't make a purchase. However, the fact that they've come to your site in the first place means that they're at least curious about what you have to offer.
In order to pursue a relationship with these potential customers, you should collect their e-mail addresses by encouraging them to subscribe to a free newsletter or a free download. This will give you the chance to send them updates and information, develop relationships with them, and enable them to trust you enough to buy from you.
Opt-in offers like this are a great way to turn browsers into customers and maximize your sales. Your opt-in offer should be clearly linked to each page of your site or, if possible, included on each page. One less click means losing fewer potential subscribers.
7. Testimonials. The best way to establish credibility is to provide evidence that your product or service really works. And the best way to do that is to include satisfied customers' testimonials that explain how your product or service has helped improve their lives.
Be sure to include the names of your satisfied customers and where they live, possibly their vocation. Along with their testimonials, you should also post a small picture of them. This will personalize their messages, add credibility to their statements, and demonstrate that they're real people who've enjoyed real benefits from your product.
For instant credibility, it's a good idea to have a few of your best testimonials featured right on your homepage. But you should also have a separate testimonials page. The more satisfied customers you can show to reluctant shoppers, the better.
8. An "About Us" page. People are often hesitant to buy things online, because they miss the personal interaction of doing business face to face. The best way to overcome their reluctance is to include an "About Us" page that provides information about you, your staff, and your business. Be sure to include pictures of yourself and your staff members. This shows your customers that they're doing business with real people and will help ease any worries they might have.
But keep in mind that visitors to your site still want to read about themselves more than about you.
9. A FAQ page. It's a good idea to include a Frequently Asked Questions page on your site. This is where you'll list the questions most commonly asked by your customers and provide answers. It allows your visitors immediate access to the answers they need before they'll consider buying your product or service.
10. Your contact info. In order to close sales and establish your credibility, you have to provide full contact information on your site. This includes your mailing and e-mail address, as well as your fax and phone numbers. Businesses that post only e-mail addresses on their sites come across as unprofessional and possibly even disreputable.
Make sure that your contact information is clearly visible on every page of your site. This will make it easy for customers to know how to reach you if they want to get more information or buy a product.
To keep your site in top form, review your site regularly, and create a list of must-do actions you can take to optimize its performance. Figure out where you can get rid of nonessential clutter and simplify the sales process. Don't forget: Streamlined sites generate more sales.
Take the time to browse through other sites, especially those of your competitors, to see how your site compares. What do you like about these other sites? What do you find annoying about them? These visits will help you get an idea of what to include and what to avoid on your own site.
After you've made improvements to your site, ask some friends to go through it. How difficult is it for them to get from page to page? Can they easily find their way back to pages they've already visited? Are they confused by any aspect of your sales process? Do they find your site appealing?
Running a subscription Web site can be your ticket to guerrilla profitability. It has been for others. After all, it's usually tough to sell anything anywhere. So you may as well sell a subscription to something on the Internet. Expend the effort once; reap the benefits for a long time, maybe even years.
The dot.com bust proved that you can't give everything away for free. At some point, you have to figure out a way to generate revenue if you hope to stay in business.
A lot of people learned this lesson the hard way. They spent millions developing grand Web sites yet never figured out a way to generate any revenue. And now the money spent and the sites themselves are mostly memories.
But not all Internet sites disappeared. Some discovered that their road to profitability lay in subscription sales. For many of these sites, the revenue generated by subscription sales kept them in business while sites that pursued other business models floundered.
A subscription Web site allows only those visitors who have paid a subscription or membership fee to access premium content on the site. It's the same concept as a newsletter or private club—only those who have paid to join can get in. The main advantage of running a subscription Web site is obvious—it allows the site operator to generate revenue to cover the cost of creating and maintaining it.
Many free sites have a high overhead because of the large number of visitors to the site. With a subscription Web site, you have only a fraction of the visitors using the site and much less maintenance. Fewer visitors sounds like a bad thing, but many site owners have discovered that it is far better to have lost 99 percent of your free visitors in return for the revenue that the 1 percent of paying members generate. What happens is that you lower your overhead and raise your revenue at the same time.
There are also advantages to subscribers, often called members, who join subscription Web sites. Much like an exclusive gated community or members-only country club, subscribers gain access to unique content within the members-only area, usually not available anywhere else on the Web. This content often includes exclusive articles, exclusive access to an expert, and exclusive access to software and file downloads not available to nonsubscribers.
Our subscriber site at the Guerrilla Marketing Association also includes a weekly telephone call with a top-flight author, a noted authority in a specific field, and me. Visit guerrillamarketingassociation.com to become a member. Be sure to say hi at our first telephone session.
Subscriber Web sites have a social aspect as well. Members find a community of like-minded people who come together with a common focus or goal. Often, members of subscription Web sites make valuable contacts and connections through the private discussion areas on the site.
Here I come with another twelve-step program, just what the world needs. But you do need it if you hope for success with your own subscription Web site.
1. Your site must offer a unique experience and information unavailable anywhere else on the Net. This usually means original material written from a unique perspective. If other sites offer free material recently written by the same author, that can dilute the value of your subscription site.
The winning concept is this: If the visitor to your site wants to read this material, he or she must first become a subscriber to your site. If potential subscribers believe that this material is available free elsewhere, they won't join.
2. Your site must target a very narrow niche market with very specific information on a tightly focused subject. Our market is small-business owners. Our subject is guerrilla marketing. It is far better to have a topic that hits the hot button of just 5,000 people who are intensively interested, even emotionally involved, with your topic than it is to have a topic that everyone is interested in but that no one is emotionally involved with.
Keep in mind that most people make buying decisions based on emotion, not logic. Make sure that your subscription Web site topic has a strong emotion—and logical appeal to potential subscribers.
3. Your site must offer a sense of community. Potential subscribers should be made aware that a strong community of people comes together at this one site to share information, thoughts, and opinions on this one topic that they are emotionally involved with. They need to know that when they become members, they'll be able to network with others in this community.
4. Your site must offer a sense of exclusivity. Potential subscribers should feel that by joining the site, they will be joining a private club where only those inside the gates get to share the benefits of the community. Knowing that joining the site adds them to an exclusive club with benefits not available to the masses adds to the perceived value and appeal of the site.
5. Your site must have a group leader. The site needs a captain of the ship who pulls the community together, keeps it focused on the subject matter, and provides a continual supply of updated information that keeps subscribers coming back.
6. Your site must have a compelling reason for people to join. Even if you have all the preceding going for you, unless your site gives a potential visitor a compelling reason to join, he or she probably won't join. Ideally, you want your visitor to say, "This is exactly what I have been looking for! I want to join immediately!" If you can create that kind of feeling in your target market, you'll do well.
7. Your site must follow a viable business model. If your business model requires 5,000 paying members in order to break even, you are probably doomed to failure before you start. But if you have low overhead and need only a small number of members to be profitable, you have a much better chance of success.
8. The look of your site must be immediately appealing to your visitors. Too many sites are confusing, have no overall theme, are difficult to navigate, and scream out your amateurishness. When visitors reach your site, they should immediately feel comfortable with what they see. Anything else gives them a reason to head for the exits.
9. Every element on your site should give visitors an unconscious reason to join the site. Fine-tune the site so that every element—especially on the front pages—gives the visitor another reason to join and just begs to be clicked.
Usually, visitors come to your site because they are looking for the information you offer. Make sure that your main page gives them a good impression of what's within your site.
10. Your site must be easy for you to build and maintain. If done by manual coding, maintaining a content-rich subscription Web site can be very time consuming. We use a Webmaster who charges by the hour. He's very responsive and conscientious—mandatory personality traits for anyone running a subscription Web site. Thank heavens we decided to pay a Webmaster rather than do it ourselves.
11. Your site must have password protection. If not, beware of hackers changing your site by adding or subtracting copy.
12. Your site must have readily available reporting tools. Knowing what is going on within your subscription Web site is the quickest way to find and resolve problems and to provide better content to current and potential subscribers. Reports should show you where your visitors are coming from, what they are looking for, what they search for, and in general, what is going on at any moment, as well as history and developing trends at your site. And you should be able to view all income transactions and activity records quickly. A good merchant account handles those details for you.
If you get those twelve items right, you'll greatly increase your chances of success with your own subscription Web site. But if you get only one of them wrong, you can expect some severe problems.
But the biggest mistake you can make is choosing the wrong topic. Avoiding this one mistake can mean the difference between success and failure. Make this mistake, and you may never overcome it. Whatever you do, don't select a topic based on what you think people need; focus instead on a topic on what people want.
People don't necessarily buy what they need, but they'll most always buy what they want. Most people who subscribe to your site won't be doing so because it's on a subject they need to know about. They'll be joining because you cover a subject they want to know more about. So clear your mind and think about the things people want, even lust after. Come up with a topic that helps people connect to their dreams, and you'll have more success than having a topic that connects people to their needs.
Growing in popularity are teleseminars—live seminars conducted on the telephone. Unlike webinars, which are growing as rapidly as teleseminars, there is no visual support. Participants dial a conference-line number and then listen to the content presentation live from the comfort of their home or office, even their car. In many cases, participants may ask the presenter questions.
Because I enjoy my RV life, I enjoy teleseminars and webinars. They enable me to disseminate a lot of information, sell a lot of products, even make new contacts. And I don't have to pack, get to the airport an hour early, or go through airport security. No wonder they're growing in popularity. We've had nothing but good experiences with our "bridge line" conference company: accuconference.com.
A webinar is a seminar conducted over the World Wide Web. In contrast to a webcast, which is transmission of information in one direction only, a webinar is designed to be interactive between presenter and audience. In contrast to a teleseminar, it has the added benefit of visual support. A webinar is "live" in the sense that information is conveyed according to an agenda, with starting and ending times. In most cases, the presenter speaks over a standard telephone line or through a computer, using Internet telephony to point out information being presented on screen, with a PowerPoint presentation, and an audience that can respond over their own telephones, probably using hands-free or speaker phones. Many times, a webcam is used so the audience can see the presenter.
One example of webinar hosting is Microsoft Office Live Meeting. You can find out more about them on its Web site: microsoft.com/office.
A key feature of a webinar is its interactive elements—the ability to give, receive, and discuss information. There is nothing to download. Just dial up the audio and go to the Web address provided to view the presentation materials. Because of its format, this live event will allow you to interact with others online, submit questions, and get clarification—all with the click of a mouse or touch of a button. (There is usually time allotted for questions and answers at the end of each webinar.)
Guerrillas like webinars for a variety of reasons.
• They can gain valuable information in a simple, easy, convenient, and cost-effective manner.
• There's no travel or out-of-office time; simply attend wherever you have a computer, Internet access, and a telephone.
• Webinars allow you to deliver an online presentation with Web-enabled text and visuals, along with voice.
• They are structured with predetermined presentation content and objectives.
• You can present to a few people—or a few thousand. I've conducted webinars for 8 people and for 1,400 people. As a presenter, it makes little difference.
Many successful businesses use webinars to
• Hold all-hand company meetings
• Train geographically dispersed customers and students
• Generate sales leads
• Give everyone a front-row seat at their next event
• Conduct sessions from intraoffice to international
RSS is a family of Web-feed formats used for Web syndication. RSS is used by, among others, news Web sites, blogs, and podcasters. Web feeds provide Web content or summaries of Web content together with links to the full versions of the content and other data.
Since mid-2000, the use of RSS has spread to many of the major news organizations, including Reuters, CNN, PR Newswire, and the BBC. These providers allow other Web sites to incorporate their "syndicated" headline or headline-and-short-summary feeds under various usage agreements. RSS is now used for many purposes, including marketing. Many corporations are turning to RSS for delivery of their news, replacing e-mail and fax distribution.
As mainstream media attempt to realize the full potential of RSS, the new media are using it by bypassing traditional news sources. Consumers and journalists are now able to have news constantly fed to them instead of searching for it.
In November 2002, the New York Times began offering its readers the ability to subscribe to RSS news feeds related to various topics. To many, this was the tipping point in driving the RSS format's becoming an industry standard. Using an RSS reader, you can view data feeds from various news sources, such as CNN.com, including headlines, summaries, and links to full stories. Many people use RSS feeds by incorporating content into blogs. This is hardly a U.S. phenomenon. By spring of 2006, 34.4 percent of Chinese Internet users were using RSS.
MarketingSherpa, a lush and trustworthy online source of valuable wisdom, usually comes through with excellent practical tips and timely data, gathered from leading corporate marketers, and their piece on RSS is no exception.
• Despite the fact that marketers still aren't aggressively promoting their RSS feeds, they are seeing their RSS readership take off like crazy. USAToday.com told MarketingSherpa that its RSS traffic is "rising month after month by orders of magnitude," even though it is barely promoting its RSS feeds.
• W. Atlee Burpee & Co., the garden seed company, saw its RSS strategy help increase November sales by four times—just from a trial RSS feed featuring a "seed of the day."
In addition to this being yet another proof of RSS working for sales, it also gives some insight into what works. In this case, it was providing an e-commerce feed with a featured offering on a daily basis.
• RSS is now finally attracting the traditional online consumer, as noted by USAToday. It's now finally clear that you have to go a step forward in your RSS-promotion strategy and start using user-friendly subscribe buttons or face limiting your RSS accessibility to the cutting-edge crowd.
• Travelocity shares its data on its RSS feed promotional campaign to its existing e-mail subscribers, simply breaking down its e-mail list into Yahoo! e-mail users and MSN e-mail users, and then sending them an offer to subscribe to the RSS feed, using one of these online services.
The astonishing part is that two-thirds of the people who opened the e-mail subscribed. These eye-opening stats show that people are in need of the content consumption solution offered by RSS. You simply have to present it appropriately.
Information-packed ads work best. Inform rather than sell. The good news is that you can use images with your ads. The bad news is that there are still no best practices on ad length, except for trying to keep your ads shorter than the feed content.
Experiment with RSS and the Internet by offering an RSS feed right at your Web site. It might turn out to be a big traffic booster.
RSS is still nowhere near the penetration of e-mail. Keep your expectations low as to how many people you will reach. In most cases, you still won't be able to use RSS advertising to reach out to the masses. But if I know you, you'll come up with a way to make it work for you.
An e-book is a digital version of a book. Instead of appearing on paper, it appears on your screen. If you love paper, you can print the e-book and have lots of paper.
An e-book has a number of advantages over a printed book.
• Text can be searched, except when represented in the form of images.
• It takes up little space. Hundreds or thousands may be carried together on one device. In fact, approximately five hundred average e-books can be stored on one CD-ROM, which is equivalent to several shelves' worth of print books. This may be ho-hum to you, but as RV owners, it means a lot to my wife and me.
• Because they take up little space, e-books can be offered indefinitely, with no out-of-print date, allowing authors to continue to earn royalties indefinitely, copyright law permitting, and allowing readers to find older works by favorite authors.
• E-books may be read in low light or even total darkness, with a back-lit device.
• Type size and typeface may be adjusted.
• The book can be instantly copied.
• Once distributed, elimination is difficult to impossible.
• E-books can be distributed at low or no cost, instantly, allowing readers to begin reading at once, without first going to a bookstore.
• At the moment, e-books are commonly published by independent publishing houses, which can mean greater editorial and authorial freedom and more room for experimentation.
• E-books give you a fascinating and potentially profit-producing option: viral marketing. We'll get back to that in a moment.
But all with e-books is not rosy from the standpoint of the reader: They can be incompatible with new or replacement hardware or software, and reading them can be hard on or even harmful to the eyes.
Savvy guerrillas know that the way to grow massive traffic in a short time span is to have something on their site that is viral. It should be something that spreads across the Net on its own, with zero marketing dollars, like a virus, at an ever-increasing rate. That is how Hotmail, Blue Mountain Arts, Napster, the Blair Witch Project, Joke-A-Day, and others gained such large followings so quickly and with so little marketing. The mere act of using these products meant that you had to tell someone else about them, and so they grew. But how do you get the viral power on your site?
Granted, not all sites and products can be made viral. If your site markets tractors, you cannot make the use of a tractor viral. However, you can create something else that is viral. Every Webmaster can, and every site can.
You can create a viral and highly informative e-book. Good e-books, with built-in viral capabilities, keep spreading from person to person perpetually, without any end. In fact, the more time passes, the more they are spread around. Every reader gets to know about your site through your e-book. You can also use your e-book as a method of building your list. Moreover, it costs you nothing for this spreading to happen.
Basically, there are two kinds of e-books. The paid variety is up to 150 pages long and sells in the $10-$20 range. The free—or viral—variety is distributed for free—all 20 pages of it. One kind makes money for you because you are the author and, possibly, the publisher. The other kind makes money for you by establishing your credibility to a point that people want to buy other things that you offer for sale, usually information products. Viral e-books are a relatively new marketing medium, an older brother of special reports. Both have the capability of using their unique and desirable content to replicate all over the globe. But that doesn't happen automatically. You've got to do several things right.
The content is the most important part of a viral e-book. The golden rule is to make it relevant, informative, free, and useful. Do not make an e-book that merely advertises your products. No one finds that useful, and no one will pass it on. People, however, will always treasure and pass on information that is relevant and helps them with some aspect of their life. To make it viral, all you have to do is make that kind of information free and give an incentive for people to pass it on.
The idea is to keep your e-book closely related to your line of business so that it is passed on to people who would be interested later in your business. A viral e-book should be about twenty pages long. Don't worry if you are not a writer. Where do you get the content? Buy books on the topic or go to your library. Get magazine articles from the Web. Tap the treasury of public-domain documents, free for the asking. Let Google tell you the good parts. Compile your research in your own words, and that's it.
One way to find out what topic is popular in your subject field is to see what books are selling the most in that subject on Amazon.com. You must remember that to guerrillas, the end goal of creating this free e-book is to bring people to their sites. So have a descriptive link to your site at the footer of every page.
There are three main things that you will need to remember to make your e-book spread like a virus. First, it has to be free. You don't charge for any part of it. Second, it has to be relevant, informative, free, and useful, not simply an advertisement of your products. It has to be something people will read and feel glad and enlightened that they did. Third, it has to offer an incentive to the reader to pass it on. The fact that it is informative is already an incentive, but you need more than that. The most powerful incentive is money. And that's what affiliate programs are all about.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Two heads are better than one. United we stand. If you get it about those concepts, you get it about affiliate programs. If you are a business owner who wants to significantly increase market reach, break down barriers to entry in your market, or simply generate skyrocketing revenues in a shorter amount of time, these old adages are becoming more and more relevant.
Ask me how I earn my money. About a third comes from book royalties. Another third comes from speaking. The final third comes from joint ventures, also known as strategic alliances. When I first wrote Guerrilla Marketing, zero came from joint ventures.
According to the Commonwealth Alliance Program, businesses estimated that strategic alliances accounted for 25 percent of all revenues in 2005, a total of $40 trillion. Did I say trillion? I don't remember ever typing that word before.
This figure has been steadily growing over the past few years as more entrepreneurs and small businesses worldwide are uniting in a global environment. If you're an aspiring joint venturer who needs to acquire some key knowledge before making the decision to jump into this new world, or if you have already made the decision to start a joint venture but don't know where to begin, pay close attention.
To begin, get into your mind the eight ingredients that make up the recipe for successful joint venturing:
1. The right partner
2. Your timing and vision
3. The organization of the joint venture
4. The plan for your joint venture
5. Your and your partner's people
6. The execution of your plan
7. Open books so there are no secrets
8. Exit strategies
A joint venture is a strategic alliance whereby two or more parties, usually businesses, form a partnership to share markets, intellectual property, assets, knowledge, and, of course, profits. Companies with identical products and services can also join forces to penetrate markets they wouldn't or couldn't consider without investing tremendous resources.
A potential partner of mine sells valuable business education courses at $6,000 each. He wants to offer it to the 40,000 people on my mailing list. For each one who buys it, he'll give me $2,000. We mail a letter written by my partner. Eleven people buy the course. He sends me a check for $22,000. Do I like joint ventures?
Some markets can be penetrated only via joint venturing with a local business. Sometimes, a large company can form a joint venture with a smaller business to quickly acquire critical intellectual property, technology, or resources.
The key to earning profits with a joint venture does not lie in the process itself but in its execution. There are no official statistics on the rate of success of specific strategic alliances, though studies from 2003 revealed that joint ventures fail about 60 percent of the time. Happily, things have changed. Experts today estimate that you have an 80 percent chance of success in a joint venture if you have the right partner and the right people.
If your joint venture fails, you trod the boulevard of dashed expectations just one time. If it succeeds, you can maintain it or repeat it for many years.
One of the more thrilling aspects of the digital age is the ability to kick back while your technology kicks in. I asked automation and coaching guru Mitch Meyerson (gmarketingcoach.com) for his take on this don't-do-it-yourself mindset. I speak his mind and paraphrase his words here.
Every guerrilla knows that gaining maximum exposure at minimum cost is the name of the game. With the explosion of the Internet, there has never been a better time or technology to do exactly that. Today's Internet technology allows every business—big or small—the opportunity to compete on a more level playing field. It's never been easier to use your time, energy, imagination, and information to automate your online business and increase your profits.
As you better know by now, making consistent money on the Web means excelling in three areas: building your online mailing list, converting prospects into customers and customers into repeat customers, and automating the process through sequential autoresponders and online payment systems to free up your time for other activities. Those are phrases you'd never find in any of my past guerrilla marketing books.
With new shopping-cart technologies, it is easier than ever to offer digitally downloaded special reports, e-newsletters, minieducational courses, or free trials the moment your visitors choose to share their names and e-mail addresses—thereby putting themselves in your gold mine. When their data is entered, it is automatically placed in your database and can be programmed to trigger autoresponders—e-mails that are sent to the subscriber automatically—which contain one or multiple messages.
Below your opt-in box, remind visitors of your privacy policy as well as your assurance that they can unsubscribe at any time. You should make sure that your opt-in box is in the top section of your Web page and is very easy to see. Online surfers have a short attention span, and that chance to make a favorable first impression is both precious and fleeting.
Recent consumer studies indicate that 48 percent of salespeople give up after their first unsuccessful contact and 25 percent after the second. Sequential autoresponders are a perfect way to make sure that your follow-up stays consistent and reaches your target audience. Even better, once you've completed the one-time initial setup, the work is done. Your programmed e-mail series will perform flawlessly for you for years to come.
Another proven way to increase the number of opt ins and build trust with your prospects is to offer a free minicourse that delivers content-rich, relevant information to your subscribers. These automatically distributed e-mail messages not only provide content but also motivate prospects to revisit your site for the latest offers and/or to buy your products and services. And, of course, once they click through to your Web site, you can invite them to purchase additional audio, video, and multimedia content, as well as other products and services. Viewing that process, you can see why you must give credit to automation for the warm relationships you're establishing.
Technology today allows you to set up online payment systems through PayPal or your own merchant account. Once you set up your payment account, it's very easy to sell products or services online by purchasing an on-line shopping cart. A shopping cart will allow you to capture e-mail addresses, automate responses, track leads, and then sell your product to customers around the world 24/7. Visit gmarketingcart.com for the best in shopping carts, Web automation systems, and merchant accounts. We practice what we preach.
When you automate daily tasks, you gain more time to focus on the essential strategic growth of your company. You can work on your business rather than in your business. You'll enjoy more free time without adding staff or worrying that you're interfering with your money-making activities. That's because when your business becomes automated, your presence becomes optional. With most systems, you can quickly and easily check your sales and orders from any Web browser—even when you're on vacation, though I'm not sure I approve of mixing profitability and pleasure. I just thought it over. I do approve, because automation makes it so painless.
The Internet is a competitive marketplace. The right strategy combined with powerful and practical systems gives you an edge over your competitors. Think about it: You'll attract more customers and spend less time, money, and energy winning them over. Automation services and software leverage the best technology available to make you money day and night, whether you're there or not. These days, the sounds of guerrilla marketing include snoring.
This is a simple little marketing book and hardly a comprehensive examination of online marketing, so I'll not dwell much on search engines. Still, I don't want you to go without knowing a few things.
Most Internet searchers visit and do business only with the Web sites that are listed in the top ten or top twenty of the sites in the major engines. Those companies enjoy qualified traffic and higher potential revenue. It is also true that the return on investment from a bright Internet marketing campaign is greater than most traditional marketing efforts. A lot of experts believe that the longer your site isn't represented correctly on the search engines, the harder it will be to gain position later, because of the increased competition.
You'll have to read and experiment your way around selecting the correct keywords, creating a winning title tag, dealing with metatags, your "alt" attribute, things to avoid, and how long you'll have to wait to be listed. You'll have to post articles on the Web sites and blogs of others, because every time those articles appear, you move up a notch on the search engine rankings. The higher you appear, the better—and the ways to climb are both paid and free. To learn what you absolutely have to know about search engines and search engine optimization, consult the two favorites of guerrilla marketers: Google and Yahoo! They're a good place to find your way around the search engine terrain. At this moment, out of 225 million Web sites on marketing, Google lists our dear own gmarketing.com fifth.
According to a recent Georgia Institute of Technology survey, 87 percent of Web surfers use search engines to find new Web sites. Over 100 million searches are performed every day on the Internet. If your Web site is not optimized to rank well within the top twelve search engines, some of your best customers may not be able to find you.
In addition, customers search for you using a wide variety of search terms, so you also need to rank well on a wide variety of search terms. Search engine optimization is the process of designing your Web site, then submitting it correctly to the search engines for the purpose of getting as much qualified traffic as possible from the search engines.
I'm an exception, but 80 percent to 90 percent of browsers do not look beyond the first page of results after a search, so your site must be returned in the first page of results after a search to get significant traffic. To get the most out of search engines, your site should be registered in all the top twelve search engines, where most of the search engine traffic is concentrated. Those twelve search engines change regularly.
A properly optimized site will provide motivated users—those actively looking for information or to buy. Visitors from search engines often convert to customers at ten to one hundred times the rate of banner advertising visitors. Unlike advertising or PR, which gives a short burst of traffic, search engine optimization can increase traffic to your site for months or years.
Search engine optimization can be a very inexpensive way to drive targeted traffic to a Web site. Search engine optimization is also complementary to other marketing you may use, helping customers who have seen your advertising connect with your site. Search engine optimization is a dynamic area and requires knowledge of how search engines work, as well as ongoing learning to stay on top of the way search engines rank results.
The number one factor in search engine optimization is the keyword you choose to optimize. The best keywords are the emotional benefit-filled terms that have such things as the following:
• The most number of searches
• The least amount of competition
• The ability to draw targeted traffic that is ready, willing, and able to spend money on your product or service
If you know what keywords people who want to buy your product are typing in, you are more than halfway done. Test your keyword conversion using a small Google Adwords campaign.
Getting good rankings on a wide variety of terms is worth the effort, however, and certainly a lot cheaper than using banner advertising. At a click-through rate of 0.5 percent, the industry average, and a $30 cost per thousand, visitors cost $6 each, using banner advertising. Search engine optimization can bring in traffic for as low as 1 cent per visitor—not free but very close to free. And many search engines will list you at no cost at all.
The best way to get listed in the major search engines is to have a link from a site that is already listed. When the search engine checks the links on that site, it will visit you and include you in its search engine results.
Here are some tips on what you need to know about search engine optimization.
• Have a unique title for every page.
• Make your title something that describes the benefits you provide and the needs you fulfill.
• Use keywords in your title.
• Get a domain name with your keywords in it.
• Put your keywords in the copy text of your Web site, and make them bold in a couple of places.
• Include your keywords at the very top and bottom of your page.
To be listed high on the major search engines, it's expedient for you to go to your own favorite search engine, type in the words "search engine optimization," then click your way to the best of the options in front of you. Although there are nearly 100 million options, you'll probably hang out at the first few pages, possibly only the first page. The same will happen with prospects for what you sell. They tend to linger at those first few pages, probably only the first page. That's your lesson on search engines for today.
A Web site gives a lot of information that might lead to an eventual sale. A landing page closes that sale. An effective landing page for every special offer you make and campaign you launch can multiply your results. An ad attracts your prospect's interest, but your landing page picks up where the ad leaves off and leads the prospect to complete the transaction. Is that the name of the game or what?
The focused hours it will take you to perfect your landing pages are a significant investment in your success. Failure to invest enough brainpower in your landing pages, especially if you're direct marketing anything, is toxic to your overall marketing. It's very clear what a landing page must accomplish. It must get your prospects to complete their transactions and enable your advertising to do its job.
Although there is now a technical term for this process—landing page—you and I know it for what it really is: closing the sale. Although there are many new facets to marketing, most in the burgeoning world of the Internet, it continues to boil down to getting attention, making your presentation, and closing the sale.