Tạp trí Internet Marketing Số 17 - NOV 2012

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>> THE ORIGINAL AND BEST INTERNET MARKETING MAGAZINE DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR THE IPAD, KINDLE FIRE, ANDROID AND THE WEB

november 2012

VIRAL CONTENT MARKETING

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ZEKE CAMUSIO

> HOW MUCHIS YOUR SITE

WORTH?PAGE 10

> 3 THINGSMARKETERS

SHOULDAUTOMATE

PAGE 12

> GENERATE MORE SALES FROM

EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

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> RECIPE FOR HOLIDAY PPC

SUCCESSPAGE 23

> BEAT THETOP HURDLESIN ONLINEMARKETINGPAGE 25

> NINJA’S GUIDE TO GOOGLE ALERTSPAGE 27

> UPSELL TRICKSPAGE 31

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THE STATE OF THE INTERNET> INTERNET UPDATE

Microsoft Releases Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8

Microsoft has made its latest big play to try and stay relevant and ahead of the curve in the modern web era by releasing Windows 8.

It certainly didn’t have the same amount of buzz about it as an Apple launch but on closer inves-tigation the Windows Phone 8 has some pretty cool features such as:• Skype deeply integratedinto the phone so that you can receive chat notifications andskypecallsevenwhenyoudon’thave the app open.• Windows Phone Pandorawill offer one year of cost-free, advertising-free music. This feature won’t be available until early 2013.• Kids Corner – a section ofthedevicethathasallthekid’sgames in it so that they are not messing with the rest of your phone.• SkydriveIntegrationsothatyourcloudbasedfilesarewithyou no matter which Windows 8 device you are on, including your phone.

Amazon Offers a New Prime Plan

Amazon has made a recent deci-sion to offer shoppers the option of paying $7.99 per month on a month-by-month basis for Amazon Prime rather than a single $79 an-nual fee.

Tobrieflyrecap:AmazonPrimeof-fers subscribers free two-day ship-ping as well as access to its online streamingvideolibraryandKindlelending library.

This is really taking a swipe anNetflixasitseemsAmazonishop-ing that consumers will notice it’s thesamepriceastheNetflixser-vice but also includes all the other perks.

Amazonisalsomakingitveryeasyfor consumers to choose them for alltheirChristmasordersbecauseconsumers can pay $7.99 to get all their Christmas orders deliveredthis December.

All in all Amazon is a very clever companythatkeepsevolvingandis very hard for other online retail consumers to compete with.

Apple Follows Market Pressure for the First Time

Last month’s launch of the iPad minimarksthefirsttimeinApple’shistory that the technology giant is playing catch up to its competi-tors.

The smaller, cheaper iPad marksasignificantshiftinApple’sstrat-egy, principal analyst at tech-nology consultancy Ovum, Adam Leach, says. “For the first time in its recent history it is responding to market pressures from its com-petitors, namely Google and Ama-zon in bringing a smaller tablet to market.”

Inthepast,Applehasdefinednewproducts with new form factors andwaitedforthemarkettofol-low, Leach notes, whereas in this instanceit’sfollowingthemarkettrend towards smaller cheaper tablet form-factors. Apple is as-suming that a lower cost iPad will allow them to sell more units.

As Android Hits 75% Market Share is it like Mac vs PC All Over Again?

The latest IDC numbers are out,and Android is by far the undis-puted leader of the smartphone world.

The Android smartphone operat-ing system was found on three out of every four smartphones shipped during the third quarter of 2012.

In this section of Internet Marketing Magazine we cover the low down on what are the big plays that have happened online recently and how they affect you.

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IOS had 15%market share followedby Blackberryat4.3%.

The Apple ecosystem is still the best mobile/media/apps ecosystem in the world. It punches way above its weight with the amount of revenue raised with it’sintegratedecosystemputting30%ofeverythingthatisspentthroughitsseriesofstoresandmarket-placesintoitspockets.

Android is a defragmented ecosystem because of all the different carriers and phone providers in-dividual requirements, so it may never be as pure andcleanastheIOSone.Althoughthisdoeslooklike a blast from the pastwhereApple is provid-ingahigherqualityproductbutiskeepingitseco-system closed whilst a big competitor (Google this timeinsteadofMicrosoft)dominatesthemarketbyproviding an Operating System solution to all thehardware technology partners.

Author of Rich Dad Poor Dad files for Bankruptcy

Many an entrepreneur, myself included, learned great business and entrepreneurial lessons in the Rich Dad Poor Dad series as a beginner.

There seems to be a progression from Rich to Poor at the moment as Financial guru Robert KiyosakifiledforcorporatebankruptcyafterlosingacourtjudgmenttoTheLearningAnnex,TheNewYorkPost reports.

MrKiyosaki’scompanyRichGlobalLLCwasorderedtopayalmost$US24milliontotheLearningAnnexanditsfounderandchairman,BillZanker.

MrZankertoldtheTheNewYorkPostthathewasresponsibleformakingRichDad,PoorDadintotheglobal name it is today

“I took Kiyosaki’s brand and made it bigger. The deal was I would get a percentage and he reneged,” MrZankersaid.

Mike Sullivan, CEO of Mr Kiyosaki Rich Dad Co.,toldreportersthatMrKiyosaki,wasstilldoingwellthankstoinvestmentsinothercompaniesbutthatthey thought the judgement was unfair.

Responsive Design Drives the Web Forwards

A few short months ago responsive web design was aconceptthateveryonewastalkingaboutbutnotmany developers were building with, but now that all seems to be changing.

Responsive web design (often abbreviated to RWD) is an approach to web design in which a site is craft-edtoprovideanoptimalviewingexperience—easyreading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning,andscrolling—acrossawiderangeofde-vices (fromdesktop computermonitors tomobilephones).

Many of the common tools and framesets that are popular amongst web developers are now becoming responsive, and in so allowing developers to build responsive sites for their clients.

InternetMarketingDoneForYou.com, which is the sis-ter business to Internet Marketing Magazine, nowbuilds all new wordpress websites for its clients with a responsive design. How we are achieving this is by using responsive themes and responsive sliders.

The main advantage of responsive design is that no matter what browser or device your site visitor uti-lises, you will be able to provide them an optimal viewing experience. It also then does awaywiththe requirement to build a 2nd site which is a mo-bile site.

An Example of Responsive Web Design – The Boston Globe

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Facebook to Roll Out New ‘Want’ Button

Rumours of a ‘want’ button on Facebook have been confirmedwiththesocialnetworkannounc-ing it is testing a feature that will allow users to declare their in-tention to buy products featured in pictures.

Facebook announced that it hasjoined forces with seven retailers –includingPotteryBarn,VictoriaSecret and Neiman Marcus – totest a platform that allows users to ‘want’, ‘collect’, or ‘like’ aproduct.

The button will be attached to images designed to be discovered in the news feed, which appear for non-followers of the brand when their friends ‘like’ an im-age. Users will be able to clickwant to signify to their friends

theywouldliketoowntheprod-uctandclickthroughtobuytheitemsviaFacebook.

From the Desk of the Editor

Last month was an excellentmonth for Internet MarketingMagazine with the ‘Lifestyle De-signwithBlogging’featurearealtalkingpoint.

This month’s full expert audiointerview with Zeke Camusio isnow available in the member’s area.Currentmemberswillhavenowreceiveda linktothatnewaudio interview. If you are not a member yet please feel free to join the many thousands who are by registering for it today at http://internetmarketingmag.net/become-member/

Important: We’re working onbuilding the number of reviews we have on the Apple platforms soastokeepdominantrankings

in the search. If you are getting goodvaluefromInternetMarket-ing Magazine I’d really appreci-ate it if you could spare 1 minute of your time and click this linktogiveusaquickhonestreview (click‘viewiniTunes’thenscrolldownandclick‘writeareview’,thanks:).

For the readers with Amazon Kindle Firewe should be in theNewsstandbythetimethenextissuerollsaround.SamsungGal-axy tabwillbe theplatformwefollow on with after that.

Untilnexttime…Wishingyouthebest of success online

GregCassarGreg CassarInternet Marketing Strategist& Editor – Internet Marketing Magazine

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> EXPERT INTERVIEW

An Interview by Internet Marketing Strategist Greg Cassar

Zeke Camusio is the founder of one of the most successful content marketing agencies in the US. Zeke is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and sold four businesses. Following the recent Google Penguin update which changed SEO forever there could not be a better time to talk viral content marketing. Zeke is a regular featured expert here at Internet Marketing Magazine.

You’ve got a very interesting story as a very successful en-trepreneur creating a lot of success and wealth at the age of 18 back in Argentina. How did that come about?

Zeke: I was really lucky fromthe very beginning when I was 18yearsold.Ididn’tknowany-thing about business and when I lookbackat it Imadesomanymistakes,buttherewasalotofdemand for the products I had. I had approached five differentexperts in different fields, andwe created courses that I later burned onto CD roms. I wouldsell thoseCD’s for roughly$20,but it was a very good model be-cause I only had to license the content once. So once I ownedthe copyright to the contents I could burn as many copies as I wanted.EffectivelyIwassellingCD’sthatwouldcostme50centsfor$20.Someofthecourseswesold were different language courses such as Italian, Englishand French. We also had com-puter courses in subjects such as howtouseMicrosoftOffice.

Back in those day email filtersweren’t very sophisticated. Soall I really did was I bought a da-

tabase of people who had pur-chased stuff online in the past - and once I had this database of emails I used mass emailing softwaretomarkettothem.I’vealways had a talent for writing verypersuasivecopy.SoIwrotethese emails and we blast out emails once a week and that’show we’d get our customers.

I was making so much moneybackthenthatitwasbothagoodthing and a bad thing. I was ac-tuallymakingmoremoneythanall my other high school friends combined, and Iwas alsomak-ing more money than both of my parents combined. They weren’t very happy about it. But youknow,IwasreallyyoungandsoIjustdidn’tknowhowtohandlemoney. It came really fast, but

it went away really fast as well. After about a year and a half I wasreallytiredandIwaswork-ing really hard and I just wanted to do something else.

Not every business you did af-ter that was as easy, or was what you would call ‘a walk in the park’. What were some of the learnings and the mistakes you made going into those busi-nesses that followed the first one?

Zeke: Here’s one that really stands out. Fast forward six orsevenyears, Imoved to theUSwhere I met my wife, and we both started an online leather productsstore.Sowehadthingslikeshoes,wallets,handbags–alot of leather products that we imported from Argentina be-cause the leather products there are really good. We ended up losing a hundred thousand dol-lars in four months. It was re-ally hard because it took meabout six years to pay off thatdebt. And it was really frustrat-ing when you pay off your credit card bill every month but your debt doesn’t go down and you’re just paying interest.

VIRAL CONTENTMARKETING

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Greg: That is such a contrast as well from that early success. I wonder if from a mindset point of view, after having such a big win so early on that part of you thought no matter what you touched it was going to end up much the same?

Zeke: Absolutely, and that was thenumberonemistake Imade.I got overly confident and ex-tremely arrogant. Looking backatit Iwassoluckywiththefirstbusiness. It’s almost impossible to have such high success with your first business. Iwas arrogant tothink it was just because I wasreally smartand really skilledatwhat I was doing and I couldn’t re-allyseethatitwasjustluck.

Fast forward to 2012 and you’ve gone on to become a very suc-cessful marketer online - you run a very successful ‘Digital Aptitude’ marketing agency with clients including Chevrolet, Burger King & Subaru.

Google have released their Pen-guin updates and with it the effectively changed the rules of SEO forever where business owners will no longer be reward-ed for artificially building links

to your site as Google sees it as link farming. Sites really are now about a ranking based on quality content and that sort of thing.

Could you please advise the ben-efits you see to content market-ing?

Zeke: Content marketing is cre-ating a really good piece of con-tent that others want to refer to, link to, interact with and share.It could be a blog post, a video, an infographic, interactive info graphic tools, viral games etc. There are a lot of different things that I see as content.

There are two main benefits tocontentmarketing:

One is helping with search engine rankings. Google has started re-warding websites and businesses that do real stuff out there and they get mentioned in magazines, in publications and so, with really good content that’s really what you aim for.

Googlereallylooksatoffpageso-cial and relevant linking factors.Sohighqualitycontentisanexcel-lentwaytogetgenuinelinksandto get social signals; to get people to share your content on twitter; toLikeitOnFacebookandtoPlusOne the content on Google Plus.

The second reason to do content marketingisbecauseit’sthebestway to engage your audience. For a really long time it was all about advertisementsinmagazines,TV,or even the Internet. But if youthinkabout it youdon’twant tosee an ad, you see that as an in-terruption. All you’re there for is the content. With really good content you can actually engage

your audience; keep them inter-estedinyourstuffandkeepthemcomingback.That’swhyIstronglybelieve contentmarketing is thefuture.

One of the main things that business owners and marketers struggle with is producing high quality content – how do they be creative, how do they make it interesting. Do you have any key strategies that you’d recom-mend for business owners and marketers for how to produce high quality, interesting con-tent?

Zeke: I think that you have tostart considering yourself a cre-ative person. Being creative isnot something you either are born with, or without. I believe that creativity is actually something youcanactuallydevelop.Butthefirst step is you have to actuallybelieve that that’s the case.

The other thing that is really im-portant is, allowing yourself to have bad ideas, because when you allow yourself to have bad ideas, you give yourself the permission to start coming up with a lot of ideas; most of which of course are really bad, but also there are some good ideas there. Some-times you combine two bad ideas and you come up with a good idea - or a bad idea leads you into a re-ally good idea.

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“ Being creative is not something youeither are born with, or without. Creativity is actually something you can develop. But the first step is you have to believe that that’s the case.

“

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Beingup-to-datewithwhat’shappeningoutthereonline is really important too - looking at othercontent that people are creating as all of this is food for thought. It doesn’t mean you have to go ahead and copy what your competitors are doing, but you can use those for inspiration sometimes.

The other thing that I believe is really important is you need to be truly unique - you have to do somethingthatnobodyelseisdoingandthinkout-sidethebox.

Youhavetoinvestmoneyingreatcontent.Soforexample,ifyou’regoingtodoaninfographic,youcould do it yourself if you’re really good with Pho-toshop, but if you’re not then hire someone who is really good at that. It’s not going to be free but youhavetothinkintermsofcostandbenefit.Ifit

costs you 200 dollars to do it and then you can get ten thousand dollars in business, it’s a good invest-ment, even though it’s not free.

If you’re good designer, do this all yourself, other-wisehirethebestdesigneryoucanfind.Ifyou’renot a copywriter, hire a copywriter. Most people are really conservative when it comes to investing in their own companies. I can guarantee that if you wanttofindagoodcopywriteryou’dknowhowtodo it, or a good designer. Again, those people are normallyexpensive.That’swhyoneofthetrendsI’m seeing is that the big brands are getting big-ger and bigger, while the smaller guys have a hard time competing against them, because they just don’t invest in their businesses as much as the big brands do.

DigitalAptitude.com

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You spoke about infographics, which certainly is a very popu-lar way of producing content these days. Do you find it’s the best one, as far as from getting shared etc, or is there other ways of producing content that you really like and you find are effective in 2012 and beyond?

Zeke: Backin2010andthebegin-ning of 2011 very few people were doing Infographics, so that’s what we started doing, because nobody else was doing it then. Now, ev-erybody’s doing Infographics. So,now we’re doing Interactive Info-graphics, animated medias, viral tools and games. We always want to be a step ahead of the curve. When everybody starts doing this thing you’re doing then it’s time for you to come up with a new way of doing things.

Not every piece of content is go-ing to go viral, but what are the things you can do to stack the odds in your favour for promot-ing your content out on the web?

Zeke: This is a little counter in-tuitive, but what we’ve found is that to increase your likelihoodof things going viral, you need to remove or minimise anything that is commercial about your content. So,forexample,ifthereareban-ners all over the place, or if you say sponsored by the company name is really big, its ok to putit somewhere in the website of course, because you want to give it credit for that, but it has to be very, very minimal.

Another would be, just be willing to take risks.Youcanbecontro-versial, or you can do cool stuff. You can really blend in with what everybody else is doing. I realise

this is a little vague, but to me the wayyouknowyou’redoingsome-thinggreatisthatifitmakesyoufeel a little uncomfortable - just to put it out there.

Another thing we do for our clients is we target content to current events, so for example like rightnow as you probably know theelectionsareonhere in theU.S,so we created this tool where ba-sicallyithelpsyoufigureoutwhoyoushouldvotefor.So,youhaveObama and then Romney and then there’s a gauge that either goes to the left or to the right, but you have to answer ten questions, and based on all that stuff it tells you whether you should vote for Rom-ney or Obama. This is very rele-vant because that’s what every-body’stalkingaboutnow.Sotyingcontent to current events, that’s really important.

We also use press releases and so-cialads,plusFacebookpromotedposts,Stumbleupon&Reddit.Ad-ditionally our PR department iden-tifiesthetophundredortwohun-dredkey influencersand thoughtleaders in that space - and we work with them to promote thecontent.

That’s one of the main criteria for thekindofcontentwecreate-weaskourselves,‘will this be appeal-ing to all these key influencers?’ If theansweris‘no’thenwelookfora different type of content.

A special thanks goes out to Zeke for sharing his valuable knowl-edge in this content space. To find Digital Aptitude visit Digi-talAptitude.com or email Zeke directly at [email protected].

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> WEBSITE

WEBSITE VALUATIONS – HOW MUCH IS YOUR SITE WORTH?

Most people who own a website haveaskedthequestion:“What is my website worth?”

It’s also one of the most common questions we field over here atFlippa and the only easy answer is that it’s worth whatever the marketiswillingtopay.

This is obviously not so useful for someone looking to price theirsitetosell,orforabidderlook-ing to place a bid on a website auction, so let’s dig a bit deeper.

Most website valuations end up takingononeormoreofthefol-lowing approaches:

1. Income Approach: a valu-ation based on the site’s ex-pected revenue after takinginto account items such as risk. If you hear people talk-ing about CAPMs, IRRs, NPVs,WACCs,NCFs,GAAPs,orMonteCarlosimulations,chancesarethey’re using an income ap-proach for valuation.2. Asset Approach: sums the value of the assets – such asheld inventory for an ecom-merce site – to define value

of the whole. Will more often endupatlessthanfairmarketvalue given the interconnect-edness of assets for a given website.3. MarketApproach:thisusesthe transaction values of simi-lar sites that have sold to pro-vide an indication of the site’s value. Anyone saying “sites are generally worth X times month-ly revenue” is effectively using this approach.

TheMarketApproachtendstobethe most popular tool for web-sites based on the buyers and sellers we’ve spoken with. Thetrouble is that it has traditionally been difficult to get sufficientdata about actual similar website transactionsforthisworkeffec-tively.

Thatis,untilnow…

Introducing the Flippa Website Valuation ToolAs the world’s largest website marketplace, we also have thelargest pool of website transac-tion data. We’ve jumped on the

BigDatabandwagonandsentourarmy of propellerheads to run models across our 20 gigabytes of data from over 70,000 web-site sales that have happened on Flippa.

They then did a pile of num-ber crunching that resulted in a powerful algorithm for providing valuation ranges for any given website.Thistakesintoaccountboth third-party metrics – suchasPageRank,Copyscape,GooglebacklinksandAlexa – aswell asowner-provided website funda-mentals such as traffic and rev-enue.

It’s only in beta form at this stage but you can try it out and instantly get a free valuation for your website at flippa.com/valu-ation.

How Does It Work?

Simply go to thewebsite valua-tion page, enter your URL, and hit“Calculate”.

Our algorithm will go off and grab a whole bunch of available metrics for your site and present you with a valuation range based on this information.

If you’re looking for somethingmore accurate, you can then add your monthly uniques and reve-nue, along with your email

By Andrew Knibbe

Flippa Website Valuation Tool

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address. Hit send and the valuation algorithm will re-crunch the numbers and email you the fresh re-sults.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Accurate is the Valuation Tool?We’ve been running this website valuation tool acrossFlippasalesinthebackgroundoverthelast6 months or so. We’re seeing an accuracy of almost 90%.

Why does the valuation tool return a range rather than a number?The tool will always return a valuation range. This isbecausetheretendstobeasignificantamountof variability in both websites and the transaction values they sell for. The size of the range tends to reflectthis.

What does Flippa Rank mean?We’retoyingwiththeideaofaFlippaRank(notatallrelatedtoPageRank)soastoprovidearelativemeasure between website valuations. It runs be-tween 1 and 10 with 1 being the lowest value and 10 being the highest.

We’ll be tweaking the algorithm and adding fur-therfeaturesovertimebutwethoughtyou’dlikeasneakpeekatourbeta.Have a goandletusknowwhatyouthink.

> CHARITABLE GIVING

Building a School with World Teacher AidIn August 2012 Armand Morin and his wife Marianna had the unique opportunity go with World Teacher Aid to Rongai, Kenya in Africa to help build a school and a high school.

The trip was organised by Amy and Stu McLaren of World Teacher Aid.

This is the very powerful video they made.

Visit www.WorldTeacherAid.org for more Information on how to get involved.

www.WorldTeacherAid.org

Andrew Knibbehas held Marketing and Operations Management roles at the Flippa.com website marketplace over a tenure that has seen over $50 million in websites change hands. Andrew authored the popular Flippa Pro Guide to Buying Websites as well as the Guide to Selling Websites on Flippa.Andrew will be speaking at Affiliate Summit West in January 2013.

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3 THINGS MARKETERSSHOULD AUTOMATE TODAY

> BUSINESS SUCCESS

Moreandmoremarketersarelookingtomarketingautomation technology and behavioral marketingto help provide the personal, relevant touch their customers and prospects want without draining precious time and resources. According to a recent Forrester study, eight of 10 marketers feel thatmarketingautomationwill increasetheefficiencyof theirmarketingprocesses,andmore thanhalfplan to increase their number of automated cam-paignsduringthenext12months.

What’ssocoolaboutmarketingautomation?Imag-ine alleviating the burden of trying to manually process and respond to so many customer and pros-pect behaviors, and instead being able to use your understanding of your buyers to deliver a unique experiencewithyourcompany,scalingmultitrackmessagingacrosschannelsinrealtime.Thisisex-actly what behavioral marketing and automationdeliver.

Therearelotsofplacesformarketerstostartauto-mating, but in this post I’ll dig into three common areas of implementation that yield high returns: welcome programs and activation series, nurture campaigns and lifecycle messages.

1) Welcome Programs and Activation SeriesSendingapersonalized,automatedwelcomeemailisanexcellentwaytoquicklyengagenewcontactsby educating them about your value proposition, asking them to tell you more about themselves,and providing resources and helpful information personalized to their point of entry or interests. Depending on the business, many savvy market-ers are even moving beyond welcome messages to activation or onboarding programs that guide the prospect or new customer through the process of getting the most out of your product, free trial or online services.

Forexample,let’ssayyouofferafree30-dayprod-uct trial. Inevitably, some prospects will sign up but then not return to log in. In this scenario, you might set up an automated email, triggered after “X” days without login, that features a service-orient-ed message such as, “Hey, we noticed you haven’t done these three things yet. Here are the reasons youshouldtrythisout,here’saSlidesharetutorialtohelp,andhere’salinkifyouwantsomeonetocall you for assistance.” The timing of the message and the content itself are based entirely on the in-dividual’s behaviors.

2) Nurture ProgramsWhat’s your story? When sales cycles are long or price tags are high, nurture programs enable you to educate prospects who aren’t yet ready to en-gage a sales resource and gently guide these buy-ers through the purchase process by delivering rel-evant content such as white papers, articles, and event and Webinar invitations. Nurture campaigns can also be used to upsell within a product line or cross-sell complementary products based on your customers’expressedinterests—soit’stheprefer-ences and behaviors that drive relevance.

By Bryan Brown

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With marketing automation technology, you canset up programs that gradually help you collect data, build the relationship and are responsive to your contacts’ behaviors. Using a visual campaign builder, it’s easy to build nurture campaigns that route contacts down numerous different paths based on whether they opened your email, down-loaded your content and/or shared it with their socialnetworks.Dynamiccontentcanalsobeusedwithin these messages to automatically populate them with the most relevant content based on the recipient’s actions or preferences.

As an added bonus, robust automation platforms offerintegrationsthatenhancesalesandmarket-ing alignment. These systems give sales visibility into a prospect’s behaviors (site visits, downloads, link clicks, form submissions, video plays, etc.),which salespeople can use to have more effective conversations with prospects, and enable sales to drop contacts into a nurture program.

3) Lifecycle MessagesThe same music you love to listen to at a party mightnotbesoappealingfiveminutesafteryouwakeup.Likewise,buyerscravedifferentcontentatdifferenttimesinthebuyingcycle.So,considerorganizing campaigns by stage of the relationship, specifically tuning different email messages andoffersbasedonbothexplicitandimplicitindica-tors of your customer’s readiness to purchase. For example, messaging might change throughout acustomer lifecycle as follows:

• “Interested” Phase: Welcome messages, educational and best practices content, promo-tionsforfirstpurchase• “Engaged” Phase: Reminders of upcoming events, targeted content based on website page visits, loyalty program information, pricing and feature comparisons, testimonials• “Lapsed” Phase: Surveys togainabetterunderstanding of the buyer’s needs, incentives to revisit website, promotions to encourage re-engagement/purchases• “Post-purchase”: Info on how to get the most out of your product or service, cross-sell/upsell offers, review requests, anniversary mes-sages

By “listening” to buyer cues and delivering theright content at the right time for each prospect, you’ll nurture more relevant dialogues and build stronger connections, enabling you to more effec-tively acquire, convert, grow, retain and re-acti-vate customers.

Formoretipsonmarketingtasksyoushouldcon-sider automating, including form abandonment follow-ups, product review and testimonial re-quests, and birthday and anniversary messages, downloadSilverpop’stipsheet,10 Things Market-ers Should Automate to Drive Leads and Revenue.

Bryan BrownAs the director of product strategy, Bryan Brown is responsible for defining the broad strategic vision of Silverpop’s family of products and helping marketers grow revenue. He is a sought-after marketing thought leader, having helped hundreds of businesses adapt and thrive in the ever-changing digital age of marketing.

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Make Your Website Easy to Read& Effective on all Mobile Phones

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HOW TO GENERATE MORE SALES FROMYOUR EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

> EMAIL MARKETING

Comparedtosocialmediaandcontentmarketing,email is a mature channel for engaging online con-sumers. Its longevity is a testament to its ability to convert leads into buyers and buyers into repeat customers.

In fact, according to a Forrester report put out on September24,2012emailcontinuestobethetopfactorininfluencingrepeatpurchases:

RegardlessofwhetheryourbusinessisintheB2BorB2Cspace,youremailmarketingeffectivenesscanbe optimized.

You already know you should be conducting a/btesting on your landing pages and website to in-crease conversions, but did you know the sameprinciples apply to your emails?

ConductA/BTestingonYourEmails

When it comes to email campaign optimization you can test and optimize many of the same compo-nents you do on a landing page. For example, itis a good idea to test the call-to-action, offer and layout of the email. However, there are some com-ponentsuniquetoemailmarketingthatyoushouldalso test. These include:

• Subjectline• Sendername• Dayoftheweektosend• Timeofthedaytosend

Subject Line:According to research byDan Zerella ofHubSpotandMailChimp’sEmailGenomeProject,therearespecific words that tend to increase open rates.Youshouldconsiderthesekeywordswhenputtingtogether subject lines to test:

Sender Name:Another important aspect to test in your email campaigns is the sender name. The most common sender names include the actual name of a person within your company or the name of the company itself. Test both to see if one increases your open rate.

Day of the Week:Next you’llwant toa/b test thebestdayof theweektosendyouremails.AccordingtoMailChimp’sEmail Genome Project more emails are sent onTuesday and Thursday than any other day of the week.

By Peep Laja

Forrester Research report showing email’s positive influence on repeat customers.

HubSpot chart showing best keywords to use in email subject lines.

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You should test sending emails on one of the other days to see if lesscompetitionforinboxspaceincreases your open and clickthrough rates. Research by Za-rella at HubSpot suggests thatdoing so can impact your results pretty drastically:

The team at What Counts de-cided to test what the best day of the week to send their e-newsletter was. Traditionally they would send it on Thursdays; however, they wondered if send-ing on Tuesdays would be more impactful.

When the team ran their test they learned that sending on Tuesdays increased their open rates; how-ever, sending on Thursdays re-sultedinhigherclickthroughandconversion rates. If they had simply started sending the e-newsletter on Tuesdays without A/B testing the send day theywould have missed out on con-versions.

Time of Day:Thefinal key aspect for testingand optimizing your email cam-paigns are send times. According to the Email Genome Project,subscribers are most likely toopen email between the hours of 2pm and 5pm. I asked the

MailChimp team is these hoursare time zone specific and wastold they are not; the times rep-resent the best times to send in whatever your local area is.

That being said, Zarella’s re-search suggests that while open rates may be highest in the af-ternoon,click-throughratesarehighest in the early morning, peaking around the 5 to 7ammarker.

To find the best send times foryour emails the best thing to do is to run a/b tests. You’ll want to tracktheemailandclickthroughrates of course, but even more important the conversion rate on those emails.

Your email marketing softwareshould come equipped with a/b testing capabilities. If it does not I recommend switching to a platform like GetResponse, MailChimp, Aweber or CampaignMonitor.

To take your campaigns even astep further you could tailor your send times to each individual recipient based on their history likeMint.comdid.Mint’s seniordirector of marketing workedwith her email provider to ana-lyze recipient behavior on a roll-ing basis and predict the best de-livery time for each address on the mailing list.

According to MarketingSherpawhich put together a case study around Mint’s behavioral target-ing:• If recipient A displayed atendency toopenemails at 5p.m., Mint.com’s campaigns, alerts and triggered messages would be sent at that time.•IfarecipientBoftenopenedemails at 3 a.m., all messages would be sent at that time.•Ifrecipientsstartedopeningthe emails at different times of the day, the system adapted and began sending according tothisnewlyexhibitedbehav-ior.

This approach lead to a 7% in-creaseinopenratesand13%in-creaseinclick-throughrates.

Another company called eBagsalso took this approach andtheysawa20%increaseinclick-through rates, 65% increase inconversion rates and 45% in-crease in average order value.

Create a Dedicated Landing Page for Each Email CampaignA/B testing your email market-ing campaigns on the email side is really important in your effort to increase revenue. However, it’salsoimportanttothink

HubSpot Chart Showing Best Day of Week to Send Email for Max Clickthroughs

MailChimp Graph Showing Best Time of Day to Send Emails for Max Open Rates

HubSpot chart showing best time of day to send email for max clickthrough rate

17internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

beyondtheemailtothelandingpage–theplaceyoulinktofromtheemail.

There are three typical places you might choose to sendyouremailtraffic:• Yourwebsitehomepage• Adeeplinkinyourwebsitesuchasaproductor features page• Adedicatedlandingpage

The best option and the one that will convert the highest is the dedicated landing page.

MarketingSherpa’s2011LandingPageOptimizationBenchmarkReportshowedthatdedicatedlandingpages are highly effective when it comes to email marketing:

Why are dedicated landing pages so effective? The answerhaseverythingtodowithvisitorexpecta-tions,increasedrelevanceandreduced“leakiness”of a page.

This means the messaging on the landing page shouldreflectthemessagingintheemail,theoffershouldbespecificandrelevanttothesameoffermentioned in the email and the page should have limited or no navigation so that the visitor cannot click-awaygetlostinadifferentpartofyoursite.Whenyousendemailtraffictoyourhomepageoradeeplinkinyoursiteyoumissoutontheopportu-nity to tailor your message and offer. Additionally, when sending visitors to the homepage you put the burdenontheconsumertofindtherightpageonyour site to take action on. Doing any of thesethings will result in reduced conversion rates.

TheVPofmarketingatTaffordUniformsknewthat1:1 message match between the email offer and the landing page would increase conversions but

he didn’t have the resources to create a dedicated landing page.

Asaquickfixhestartedcreatingabannertoaddtothetopofeachproductpagethatreflectedtheoffer mentioned in his email campaign.

AccordingtoacasestudycompletedbyMarketingExperiments this lead to a 10%+ increase in Taf-ford’semailconversionrates.IftheVPofmarket-ing had the resources to create a dedicated landing page with controlled or completely removed navi-gation his conversion rates would be able to soar even higher.

Encourage Social Sharing in Your Email CampaignsOptimizing your emails and their landing pages is important to convert the subscribers you already have – but don’t forget about their friends. Veryoftenthecompanyyourcustomerskeepwouldalsomakegreatcustomersforyou.

InastudybyGetResponseasreportedbyeConsul-tancy, email messages that include at least three social share buttons generated 55% higher click-through rates than messages with no social share buttons.

Additionally research conducted by BrightedgeTechnologies, shows sites with Twitter buttons drive“7timesmorelinkmentionsonaveragethansites that did not have a button.”

MarketingSherpa Chart on landing page optimization effectiveness for email campaigns

BrightEdge Technologies chart showing social buttons in-crease online mentions.

18 internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

While you should not use social share buttons on your actual landing page because it introduces a competingcalltoaction,thethankyoupagepres-ents a great opportunity to increase awareness through social sharing.

Conduct A/B Testing on Your Offers – OftenIn order to continuously push the envelope by learning more about your audience’s desires while simultaneously increasing revenue you need an on-going a/b testing cycle.

It’s not enough to conduct one a/b test showcas-ingtwodifferentoffers(e.g.freeshippingvs.$5off)inyouremailcampaignandthinkyou’redone.Your first test is only the beginning! You shouldtest different offers and different ways to present those offers over the course of time to truly opti-mizeformaximumconversions!

Here are just a few a/b testing ideas for your spe-cial offers:• Pricing($30vs.$29)• Placementoftheofferonthelandingpage• Freeshippingvs.percentoff

Here’sanexampleofana/btestinboundmarket-ing softwarecompany,HubSpot, ran inaneffortto increase the number of people who sign up for their free trial:

Thetreatment,orversionB,inthistestincreasedconversions by 110% simply by extending thelengthoftimeforthefreetrial!Wouldyouhaveguessed that the treatment would have performed somuchbetter?That’sthebeautyoftesting–youdon’thavetoguess,youcanexperimentandknowforsure!

The really important thing to remember is that your email offer must match the offer on the land-ingpage.So,forexamplepeoplewhoreceivedanemail about a free 7-day trial should be sent to the landing page for the 7-day free trial.

When there isn’t clear message match between the email (or ad) and the landing page you lose trust with your visitor and introduce the oppor-tunity for confusion. Cohesiveness in your emailcampaigns is really, really important.

Use Landing Page Segmentation to Qualify Your Email LeadsYouprobablyalreadyknowthatemaillistsegmen-tationcanleadtobetterresults,butdidyouknowthat segmentation on the landing page can help you further qualify your leads while increasing email conversions? It’s true.

JessicaCollier,DirectorofOptimizationationin-teractive,statesthereare4keywaystosegmentvisitors on the landing page:• SegmentationbyAudience• SegmentationbyPlaceinBuyingCycle• SegmentationbyNeed• SegmentationbyBusinessSize

Herewe see a B2C example of segmentation byneed:

Version A: Try HubSpot free for 7 days

Version B: Try HubSpot free for 30 days

Example of landing page segmentation for B2C

19internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

The visitor can select whether he or she is an own-er, renter or commercial business and receive high-lytargetedinformationbasedonthatsimpleclick.AndhereisaB2Bexampleofsegmentationbybusi-ness size:

Segmentationon the landingpagenotonlyhelpsyouprovide specific information tovisitorsbasedontheirself-identification,butalsoallowsyoutofurther qualify them.

Forexample,ifyourbusinessonlyprovidesservicesfor small and mid-sized businesses but not enter-prise level ones, you can provide targeted informa-tion for the audience whose needs you do meet, while politely directly all others out the door. There’s very little value in spending time and mon-eymarketingtopeoplewhoareoutofyourzone.Instead focus your time on high quality leads.

SharepointSolutionsallowsvisitorstosegmentbytheir experience with Sharepoint (Just Starting,Immediate or Advanced):

According to their case study, this segmented land-ingpageconvertsat25%–wellabovethePPCcon-versionrateaverageofjust3.5%.

The best way to create these segmented landing pages is to come up with a template. The immedi-ate landingpagewillhaveone lookand feelbuteachofthepagesthatthevisitorclicksthroughtoshouldhavethesamebasiclayout–onlythecopyand images will need to change.

Here’sanexamplefromtheNewEnglandJournalof Medicine:

The visitor lands and self-segments him or herself and the lands on a second page tailored to his or her needs:

Example of landing page segmentation for B2B

Example of Landing Page Segmentation

Example of landing page segmentation

Example of the type of page you would send segmented traffic to

20 internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

You canwork from a landing page template pur-chasedonasitelikeThemeForest.net and then use a/btestingsoftwarelikeVisualWebsiteOptimizerthat allows you to run tests on your own website, oryoucanusea/btestingsoftwarethatworksoffofatemplatedlandingpagesoftwaresystemlikeLander and Unbounce (small business friendly) or LiveBall(enterprise-level).

I recommend Unbounce and Lander because they comes pre-populated with templates that you can edit throughaWYSIWIG/HTMLeditor.Thismeansnon-technical people can get their landing pages set up without hiring a web developer.

Not only does it allow you to start with a conver-sion-focused template, but they integrate with othersoftwarelikeGetResponse,MailChimp,AWe-ber,iContact,Salesforceandmore.

Thisisperfectformakingsureyouremailsoftwarecantalktoyourlandingpagesoftware,sonoleadsfallthroughthecracks.

Final Thoughts on A/B Testing for Email CampaignsBecauseemailmarketingisstillsuchaneffectivechannelforreachingfirst-timeandrepeatcustom-ers it is really important that your campaigns are optimized. Without conducting a/b testing on both the email and landing page side of the campaign youareleavingleads(andrevenue)onthetable!

I challenge you to start optimizing your email cam-paigns this week using the a/b testing methodshighlighted in this article. If you have any questions leave them in the comments section and let’s start a discussion.

A few of Unbounce’s landing page templates

Peep Lajais the face of ConversionXL. Peep is an entrepreneur and internet marketer. He runs a unique web marketing agency called Markitekt, a startup called Traindom and several niche internet business like T1Q and others. He has a free website called Dreaminder.If you want to get in touch with Peep, shoot him an email at [email protected]

21internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

22 internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

23internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

> PPC

RECIPE FOR HOLIDAYPPC SUCCESS

‘Tis the season to start prepping for the holiday season!

Herearesometipsformakingsureyou’vegotalltherightingredientstogetyourpay-per-click(PPC)searchcampaignscooking.

1. Be ready to talk turkey on Thanksgiving. Last year, our online retail holiday shopping research showed that Thanksgiving has become a majoronlineshoppingdayintheU.S.,witha28%year-over-year(YoY)increaseinPPCconversionratesand 40%bump in sales revenue. Some retailerseven started their Black Friday sales onTurkeyDay. This year, get a leg up on things by having your budgets fully juiced for the early birds.

2. Keep stock of your stock. You’ve got enough to worry about over the coming months without havingtokeeptrackofwhat’sinyourcupboard.Leverage real-time campaign technology to sync your product catalog and/or key brand assetswith your PPC campaigns so that keywords andadsalwaysreflectyourup-to-dateinventoryandpromotional strategies.

3. Take the temperature of your competition. In 2011, we saw global retail PPC budgets rise10%YoYduringtheholidays--evenhigherinthe

U.S.(22%)andU.K.(26%)--asadvertiserstriedto heat up Q4 sales. Deploy tools to monitor what yourcompetitionhascookingsoyoucanadjustyour keyword, copy, landing page and biddingstrategies accordingly.

4. Don’t forget the side dishes. With more niche merchants setting up shop online and mass retail-ers offering free shipping, consumers are shop-ping around more than ever. As a result, total on-linesalestransactionsresultingfromPPCduringtheholidayswereup56%globallylastyear,withaverageordervaluedown13%.Takeadvantageofthis trend by peppering in add-ons to your main product dish and create bundles that entice con-sumers to load up their carts rather than just buy things on a one-off basis.

5. Put down the apron. You don’t want to be stuck in the kitchen when guests arrive. Samegoes for your computer. Untether yourself during the holidays by using advanced technology tools to schedule campaign actions in advance. Launch newcampaignsatmidnightonThanksgiving,up-datecopyonChristmasDay,orevenlowerbidsonNewYear’sEve,allwithoutmissingaprecioussip of eggnog.

6. Have special meals ready for the to-go crowd. In2011,mobiledevicesaccountedforroughly15%ofallretailPPCclicksduringtheholidays,andmo-bile adoption by consumers and advertisers has only increased in 2012. Just as you’d never serve ham to your vegan niece Sally, don’t serve desktop cam-paigns tomobile or tablet searchers. Create cus-tomadsandlandingpagestoreflecttheconsumermindset and screen real estate of each device. And adjust bids based on unique metrics and auction dynamics. Don’t hold mobile to strict conversion goals.Thinkofmobilemoreastoolforproductre-search, store directions, social sharing, etc.

By Aaron Goldman

24 internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

7. Remember, you get what you pay for. If you’re an online retailer then you’re all too familiar with Google’s recentmove to turn Product Search intoGoogle Shopping featuring only paid results viaProduct ListingAds (PLA). Turn this shelf tax intoan opportunity by connecting your product feed throughGoogleMerchantCenterandintegratingitwithasophisticatedpaid-searchplatformtotrack,optimize and report on PLA performance alongside textadplacements.Don’tforgettodeploycustombid policies designed for Product Targets.

8. Set your timer. Unless you’re using a Showtime Rotisserie,you’llneedanalerttomakesureyour main course doesn’t get burned.Ditto forPPC.Setupadashboard for your team to mon-itorrelevantKPIs,andschedulereports to be sent regularly on allkeymetricsincludingside-by-sidePPCandSEOperformance.

Also be sure to create alerts to notify you when campaign activity reaches abnormal thresholds.

9. Save room for dessert. Just because the holi-days are over doesn’t mean the party’s done. With each passing year, we see more online search and

purchase activity continuing after Christmas andthrough New Year’s. Whether it’s from returns or gift card redemptions, consumers have money to burn and you don’t want to miss out. Last year, in theU.K.,wesawretailsearchadvertisingbudgetsdecrease by 4% YoY during the last two weeks inDecember, while online sales transactions resulting from PPCwere up 66%, and PPC conversion rateswereup57%.Thisyear,ifyouwantacherryontopofyourseasonalperformance,don’tfillupontheentrée.

10. Give thanks. Many religious holiday meals start or end with saying grace and calling out everyone who had a hand in preparing the feast. When it comestoPPC,get inthehabitofgivingthankstoeachkeywordthatcontributedtoapurchase.Cre-ateanattributionmodelthatproperlyreflectstheinfluenceofeachadthroughoutthepathtoconver-sionwithinPPCaswell as other channels.Or youcan just go this route.

Aaron Goldmanis the Chief Marketing Officer at Kenshoo, and author of the book “Everything I Know about Marketing I Learned from Google.” Follow him on Twitter @aarongoldman. This article is originally published on MediaPost.

25internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

> LANDING PAGE METRICS

By Alexi Neocleous

TOP HURDLES IN MARKETINGONLINE AND HOW TO BEAT THEM

Okay, everyone’s excited aboutSEO, lead generation, and SEM.All these shiny new objects prom-ise new, innovative ways of pro-moting your business for less. You’ve got your computer, you’re hooked up to the Internet, andyou’re ready to go. It should be easy breezy. After all, everyone’s online, right?

Well, it’s not thateasy…becauseeveryoneISonline.Therearesomanymarketersonthe Internet buzzing with offers that it’s hard to stand out from the crowd. From Facebook adsand pages to deals and offers on Twitter, it’s hard to scream with the rest of them without being borderline “spammy.”

You have to remember that mar-ketingonlineisthesamethingastraditional marketing. Althoughthey are both on different plat-forms, their nature is the same: stop pushing, start engaging.

2 Main Challenges in Marketing Online 1. You need to stand out from…well, everyone! With everyone else selling online, it could get a bit challenging to get your voice heard. Neverthe-less, many people fail to realize that despite the gazillion entre-preneurs promoting their business on the Internet, there are only a

few who focus on giving relevant and valuable content to their prospects, ensuring sustainable business for the long haul.

Forstarters,makesureyourpros-pectscanfindyou.Beatthetopof the search engine results pages by targeting the right keywords.Do your research and find outwhat your prospects are interest-edin.Then,writeaboutit!

It’s crucial to provide valuable content. Always remember: con-tentisKING.Itservesasyourbaitfor all the prospects you are eye-ing to convert into leads.

2. You need to generate leads…lots of them! Leads are not just phone num-bers or email addresses you col-lect. Leads are quality contacts thatfityourproductsorservices.Note that these contacts are not just random people you reach out to. They’re a targeted audience. Without this key aspect, you’re

justlikeeveryotherspammer.

How do you generate leads? Well, youmustperfectitem#1.Bevis-ible to your target market, lurethem in with good content, and drive them to do what you want with an effective call-to-action. This brings your prospects to your offer, which has to be valuable enough for them to provide their information and keep communi-cation lines open. Leads are only good when you turn them into ac-tual sales.

Marketing online requires hardwork, patience, and dedication.Nevertheless, it can be easy and rewarding with the right tools and perhaps,therightpeopletoworkonyourmarketingefforts.

Alexi Neocleousis one of the leading direct response freelance copywriters in the world. Having worked with business owners large and small, he’s known as a copywriter who gets fast results for his clients.

Alexi is the author of some of most well received ad- vertising and marketing courses in the industry, titles which include Advertising Secrets, The 3 Minute Ad Formula (which was co-authored with friend and top colleague Scott Bywater) and The Kaizen Marketing System.

Grab your free copy of ‘The Marketing Domination Report’ to find the one simple change that can grow your profits exponentially.

26 internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

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27internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

THE NINJA’S GUIDETO GOOGLE ALERTS

> GOOGLE ALERTS

By Matthew Woodward

Google Alerts is one of the most powerful free tools available, but it is often overlooked. Itmonitorsthe Web for words and phrases and even sends you anemailorupdatesanRSSfeedeverytimeitfindsa new result.

Soundsprettysimpleright?YouwillbeamazedathowpowerfulasimpletoollikeGoogleAlertscanbe. It has a huge range of uses which are only lim-ited by your imagination.

I’m going to reveal how I use Google Alerts to le-veragebrand,authority,trafficandsales,aswellassharetheexactalertsIhavesetupformyper-sonalSEOblog.

Monitoring BrandJust like John Chow, my name (Matthew Wood-ward) is my brand. Any time my website or name ismentioned,Igetanemaildirecttomyinboxtoalert me of that. This offers a great range of oppor-tunities: I can get alerted to new discussions about my brand or if I have been mentioned somewhere withoutalinkbacktomysite.

Youcanthentakeactionbyaddressingthefeed-backandgettinglinksadded.ThesearethealertsIhave set up to monitor my brand online:

matthewwoodward.co.ukwww.matthewwoodward.co.ukmatthewwoodwardmatthew woodward

Monitoring CompetitorsIn addition to monitoring your brand, you should alsobelookingatwhatyourcompetitionisdoing.You could receive alerts of positive and/or negative feedback about your competitors or even alerts

ofnewlinksthattheyhaveacquired.YoucanuseGoogleAlertstokeepacloseeyeontheiractivityonline and then leverage it to your advantage. I’m not going to publicly reveal who I monitor. :) Just setup brand based alerts for all of your competi-tors.

Monitoring Questions in Your NicheThisisgreatfordrivingtrafficandbuildingauthori-ty and loyal subscribers. You can monitor your niche for a range of question-based terms and then jump inandprovideanexpertanswerwithalinkbacktoyoursite.HerearethealertsIusetomonitorlinkbuilding-related questions (but you can swap the phraselinkbuildingforanythingyouwant):

How*linkbuildingIs*linkbuildingCan*linkbuildingWhen*linkbuildingWhy*linkbuildingWill*linkbuilding

28 internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

IhavealertslikethatsetupforLinkBuilding,SEO,Google Penalty, and so forth.

Every time I create a new piece of content thatanswers questions about a certain topic, I set up corresponding alerts so I can direct people to the answer.

Monitoring Content DistributionIf you have a cornerstone piece of content, then you can use Google Alerts to monitor mentions of the article across the Web. You can get an alert if someonetalksaboutitonaforumorsharesitinablog comment somewhere. Again, this provides you with multiple opportunities to get involved and add to the discussion.

My UltimateGuideToTieredLinkBuilding video tu-torial series has proved to be very popu- lar, and I have alerts to monitor for mentions of it around the Web:

“ultimateguidetotieredlinkbuilding”“ultimateguidetolinkbuilding”“tieredlinkbuildingpart”

Finding New Guest Post OpportunitiesMost blogs that accept guest posts have a page telling you how to get in touch and submit a guest post. You can use Google Alerts to monitor a range of common footprints used on those blogs to let you knowaboutnewguestpostingopportunitiesinyourniche. Here’s what I have set up:

“writeforus”SEO“submitguestpost”SEO“bloggerswanted”SEO“becomeacontributor”SEO“thisguestpost”SEO“becomeanauthor”SEO

Monitoring Link Building FootprintsThere are a lot of platforms out there that you can use to get links from. Commenting onWordPressblogsisagreatwaytoestablishtraffic,authority,andrelevantbacklinks,butwecantakethisastepfurther.WordPressplugins,suchasKeywordLuvandCommentLuv, will let us drop keyword-based an-chortextswithlinksbacktoourmostrecentposts.Thisoffersa lotmorebenefitthanaregularblogcomment,buthowdoweuseGoogleAlertstofindthese opportunities automatically? Here are my alerts:

SEO+”CommentLuvenabled”SEO +”enter yourname@yourkeywords”-intitle:”enteryourname@yourkeywords”linkbuilding+”CommentLuvenabled”link building +”enter yourname@yourkeywords”-intitle:”enteryourname@yourkeywords”

That’sjustanexampleofmonitoringtheKeyword-Luv and CommentLuv WordPress plugins for thekeywordsSEOandLinkBuilding.Therearelotsofdifferent platforms you can target this way, just findacommonfootprintandsetupanalert.

Monitoring Site SecurityIhavehadsiteshackedonafewoccasionsinthepast.Somehackerschosetoinjecthiddenlinksinfooters, while others go all out creating thousands ofjunkpages.Usually,thefirsttimeyounoticethisis when your site completely disappears out of the SERPs.YoucanuseGoogleAlertstomonitorforanysuspiciousactivityonyoursite,soyoucantakeac-tionbeforeyougetpenalized.Setupanalertlikethis to monitor your site:

site:matthewwoodward.co.uk acne OR botox ORcasino OR dating OR debt OR insurance OR mort-gage OR paxil OR pharmacy OR phentamine ORpherimonesORpokerORpornORORroulettesexORviagaraORviagraORxxx

29internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

Obviously, if your site is about getting into debt buying viagra in an online casino, then you need to tweak the keywords in myalert above.

Monitoring ShoppersIf you run an e-commerce store, you can set up a series of alerts that will drop you an email every time a shopper is ready to buy a product in your niche. With the right alerts, you can target peo-ple who have made the decision of buying a product but haven’t actuallyboughtityet.Zing!Herearesomelaptop-basedexamples:

laptop * under ** laptop under *laptop under *cheapest laptop *cheap laptop *buy laptop * cheapbest price * laptop* laptop * price

Regional Based MonitoringIf your a local business, then you can use a range of search terms to monitor for shoppers in your im-mediatelocalareawhoarelook-ing to buy. You can get in touch with them and convert them into a sale without having to move!Hereare someexamples tofindpeoplelookingforlaptopsinLon-don:

london laptop *laptop * londonlondon * laptop

Discovering New NichesHowwouldyoulikealertsofhot,new, and emerging niches land-inginyourinboxonadailybasis?Considersettingupalertslike:

new * this yearnew * 2012will * 2012what will happen *

How to Setup Google AlertsSetting up GoogleAlerts is veryeasy and takes seconds to do.Thisiswhattheformlookslike:

In the Search Query box, youcan enter the term you want be alertedfor.Havealookatmyex-amples above and see which ones you can utilize for your site.

In theResultTypebox, Ialwaysselect to receive alerts for every-thing.

The How Often box allows youtochoosebetweenonceaweek,once a day, or as it happens. I change this based on what I want to achieve. For example,I want alerts about site security as it happens, but only want new guest post opportunities every week.

In the How Many box, I alwayschooseAllResultstomakesureIdon’t miss anything.

The Deliver To box, lets youchoose to have the alerts deliv-

eredviaemailorRSS. I tendtohave things like brand-relatedalerts delivered by email and have link building opportunitiesdeliveredviaRSSinGoogleRead-er.

Once you have set everything up, youwill getnewalerts forever!Itmighttakeanhourorsotosetup, but it is worth every minute of your time, and you can set up as many alerts as you want.

Think Out of the BoxNow that you understand the true power of Google Alerts, take astepbackandthinkaboutuniqueways you could apply them to your business or website. There are thousands of different ways you could use it over and above what I have discussed in this post. Think out of the box andbecreativewithyouralerts!Itisone of the most powerful tools at yourdisposal, somake sureyoutakefulladvantageofit.

Matthew Woodwardhas over a decade of experience online and publishes a series high quality tutorials on his blog at www.MatthewWoodward.co.uk

30 internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

> ADVERTISEMENT

31internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

UPSELL TRICKBOOSTS SALES BY 334%

> UPSELL TRICKS

By Scott Bywater

You learn a lot when you write emails on a daily basis. And one of the things I have discovered is that when I promote new prod-uctsISELLMORE.

Now I can create lots of little

products, but truth be told I am often better off investing my time in writing copy rather than selling $27 or $47 products (you need to sell a LOT of $47 prod-uctstomakeuponecopywritingjob at $10,000.00).

Recently,thatchangedthankstoa little test I did which has al-lowed me to increase each sale from $47 to hundreds of dollars. It involved a little upsell at the point of sale which looks likethis…

32 internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

This is what happens in a nut-shell: At the point of sale, poten-tial new customers have the op-tionofsubscribingtoamarketingnewsletter.Butit’smoreofanaf-terthought –visitorsarebroughtin via the Adwords concept (what really interests them if they are buying) before seeing this offer and decide to give it a shot.

Simplebutpowerful,right?

Especially since I know that ifsomeone starts receiving this newsletter they are going to be worth several hundred dollars.

Want to knowhowmanypeopletakeuptheupsell?

Sofar,it’s55%.

What does this mean?

Let’ssayImake100sales.

The original model didn’t have an upsell,sothatwouldworkoutto100 sales at $47 = $4700.

Forargumentssake,let’ssaytheaverage value of a new bronze member is $200.

It’s more, but its early days with the upsell process - so let’s be conservative.

That would mean that $47 sale turns into a $247 sale.

Based on 100 sales with 55% ofthem taking the upsell, I nowhave…

55salesx$247=$13,585.45salesx$47=$2,115.Total=$15,700.

Soallinall,thatstrategyisworthan extra $11,000 for every 100sales. Or $110 on average, per sale – turning a $47 sale into a$157sale.That’sa…

334% Boost

Not bad, considering it cost less than $1000 for my designer to set it up – and far less for ongoingpages.

Interestingly enough, this is a strategy often used by some of thebigdirectmarketingcompa-nies in the United States. Theirapproach is really quite simple –ratherthansellingthenewslet-ter, they create a timely report ofsomesort–andtheysellthatreport with the newsletter as an afterthought.

For instance, someone selling a health newsletter might promote areportcalled“HowtoFixYourEyesight” and send it to peoplewho have eye problems.

So…howdoyouintegratetheup-sell process into your business?

It’s really quite simple: model the above.

This isn’t a new strategy, but it’s a proven winner.

For instance, the other day I was at Super Cheap Auto and theyaskedme“Would you like a roll of duct tape for $2”. I thought to myself, I’m not sure but I don’t think I have any duct tape athome…whynot?

And I grabbed one (only to find out I had plenty of duct tape at home) ;-)

Buthere’s the thing – that littlestrategy could be worth a LOT of money to them.

Think about it: if they get 200people come through their store eachdayand40%sayyes.

That’s 80 sales a day at $2. $160 profit. $800 profit aweek.$40,000profitayear.

Not bad for simply asking onequestion – last time I checked,you could go on some pretty fan-cy, schmancy beach holidays for $40,000.00.So…

When are you going to integrate anupsell intoyourbusiness… soyoucanspendMORETIMEATTHEBEACH?

Scott BywaterDo you want to learn the easiest way to get more customers fast? Leading advertising copywriter, Scott Bywater, has just completed a set of marketing and advertising “cheat-sheets” to make your online marketing work more effectively. Download it for free by visiting www.adcheatsheets.com/imag

33internet marketing magazinenovember 2012

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