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Dear Reader,
The site and newsletter are now about 3 1/2 months old and Traffic
to the site continues to grow. WebSiteMarketingPlan.com now ranks
59,829 according to Alexa.com. This is a rise from 17 million in
February. Alexa recently changed its tracking procedures - filtering
out shady rank padding tactics and other changes. I was happy to see
that some of my favorite sites are holding their own as well (Marketing Best Practices,
eMarketing Association,
lexiconn, and
Booklocker to name a few.).
For those of you not familiar with Alexa, it is a service that
"provides traffic rankings, reviews and more for every site on the
Web." To see your own or your competitors' rankings, surf to
http://info.alexa.com and type in
the site's domain name. When the search results come up, click on the
site title or image and you will be taken to the Alexa page for that
site.
Today's articles:
The feature article today contrasts email marketing with direct mail.
Many business people venturing into online marketing assume direct
email advertising is the same as direct postal marketing. They
mistakenly assume the only difference is the means by which they
deliver the advertising message. Not so. Treating postal and email
advertising the same way can get you in deep trouble. Learn why in "Direct Mail Advertising;
Email Is Not Like Postal Mail.".
The S * P * O * T * L * I * G * H * T articles address another type of
roadblock some encounter when venturing online. Whether online or off,
it is easy to get caught up in your own company's acronyms or
technological "lingo". What is perfectly clear to us may be confusing
to our readers. June Campbell's articles "Don't
Gimme No Solutions!" and "Internet
Marketing or What's That You Said?" offer some advice and
education.
Thanks and enjoy,
Bobette
P. S. To help spread the word about the WebSiteMarketingPlan
newsletter and site, please forward this to two friends or associates.
Thank you.
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WebSiteMarketingPlan.com climbed from a ranking of 17 million to
a top 1% Alexa ranking in less than four months.
I did it by following my own advice, as detailed in
How
Much for Just the Spider? Strategic Website Marketing.
Order Via Secure Server
Paperback, PDF ebook
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***
Contents
Welcome from Bobette
(above)
Feature Article:
"Direct Mail Advertising;
Email Is Not Like Postal Mail."
by Bobette Kyle
S P O T L I
G H T
"Don't Gimme No Solutions!" and
"Internet Marketing or What's That You Said?"
by June Campbell
Site
Adjustments and Additions.
Free Stuff - List Building Tutorial, Submission Software, Excerpt,
Ebook
Administrative - Subscribe, unsubscribe, etc.
***
***
Direct Mail Advertising.
Email Is Not Like Postal
Mail.
by Bobette Kyle
One of the most popular and potentially effective
advertising methods is direct email. If you deliver a well-written
message and execute delivery properly you will be rewarded with new
leads, sales, and traffic to your Website. If the message is poorly
written or you commit a netiquette faux pas, however, your efforts
could end in disaster.
If you are new to Internet marketing, you might equate direct email to
direct postal mail. The concepts are very similar; in both you
broadcast a standard message to a large number of individuals in hopes
of receiving positive responses. To the uninitiated, it is logical to
assume you can approach the two in the same way. It seems like the
only difference is the means of communication. If you are thinking
this way, STOP! STOP! STOP!
Many people perceive unsolicited commercial message (UCE) - spam -
differently than junk mail from the postal service. The sender pays
for direct mail sent through the postal service. Not so for UCE. Spam
on the Internet ties up the recipient's resources by using storage
space, slowing down systems, and sometimes crashing equipment. For
this reason and others, many abhor spam. Some assertively condemn
spammers. If you spam you will undoubtedly be reported to your ISP and
email provider. Depending on the circumstances, your accounts could be
closed and your Website may be shut down. Need I say it? This is NOT
the result you are looking for from your email marketing program.
Some email advertisers feel that as long as there are unsubscribe
instructions in the email or they only send one message it is okay. A
few use never-passed legislative proposals in their defense. In
marketing, perception is far closer to reality than loophole
rationalizations. Some recipients are offended whether the unsubscribe
phrase is there or not and they are offended even when they receive
only one message from you.
Different individuals define spam differently. Some consider all forms
of UCE or unsolicited commercial postings spam. This means that if you
send advertisements without prior permission from the individuals you
will get complaints. In all likelihood you will be reported as a
spammer. Because service providers generally have user agreements that
are stricter than current U.S. state and federal laws, you are likely
to be reprimanded, have your site shut down, and/or be put on a
blacklist if you send out UCE.
Spam/UCE Law
As of this writing there are no U.S. federal laws governing UCE. Some
states, however, have laws that regulate UCE. These states are
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa,
Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and
West Virginia. Depending on the state, allowable claims range from $10
per message up to unlimited damages. Most state laws allow opt-out
procedures. In other words, companies can legally add a recipient's
email to a list without his/her knowledge as long as a means of
removal is provided. For details by state, go to
http://law.spamcon.org/us-laws/index.shtml.
International laws are stricter. Seven countries - Austria, Denmark,
Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Norway - have opt-in laws. In
order to legally send UCE, you must first have the recipient's
permission. Other countries have opt-out directives or pending
legislation. EuroCAUCE provide details at
http://www.euro.cauce.org/en/countries/index.html.
Worldwide, there is much discussion about UCE and laws are changing
quickly. There are several sites you can monitor for details about UCE.
These include the SpamCon Foundation, the
Coalition
Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE ), and the
spam section of The Open Directory Project.
More Email Marketing Resources
SpamCon Help
for Email Marketers
SpamCon
Links to Blacklists
WebSiteMarketingPlan.com Links to Email Advertising Resources
Wilson Internet Links to Email Advertising Articles
About the Author
Bobette Kyle has over 10 years experience in Corporate Marketing;
Brand and Product Marketing; Field Marketing and Sales; and
Management. Through her
newsletter and
site,
she helps businesses integrate traditional and Internet marketing
strategies.
 Bobette used the process in her marketing planning book
How Much for Just the
Spider? Strategic Website Marketing to bring
WebSiteMarketingPlan.com
from a ranking of 17 million to a 59 thousand+ in less than four months.
Order
via secure server: Paperback, PDF ebook.
***
Don't
Gimme No Solutions! and
Internet Marketing or What's That You
Said?
by June Campbell
Don't Gimme No Solutions!
Do not let jargon and hype get in the way of the
message. June offers sound advice for effective communication.
Read the article.
Internet Marketing or What's That You
Said?
Do you know a CPA or CPC from a PPL? Do CPM and CTR leave you
confused? June sorts it out for you in this useful article.
Read the article.
About the Author
June Campbell owns and operates
Nightcats Multimedia
Productions.
How to Write Business Plans, Business Proposals,
JV Contracts, Human Resource Package, More!
No-cost ebook "Beginners Guide to Ecommerce".
Business Writing by Nightcats Multimedia Productions
http://www.nightcats.com
***
I have added a new
Free
Stuff section. It includes...
This interactive tutorial by Paul Myers is customized
to your situation. Submit the answer to three questions and within
minutes the tutorial will arrive in your email. Includes complimentary
subscription to Paul's newsletter,
TalkBiz News, and my
newsletter, Bobette Kyle's Website Marketing Plan.
If you are already subscribed to one or both
newsletters, simply use the email address under which you are
subscribed for the tutorial. You will not be double subscribed.
Web Position Gold analyzes your pages, generates HTML,
tracks your ranking, helps manage submissions to the major search
engines, and more.
The free trial version allows use with three of the 19
search engines for 30 days.
I used the methods detailed in this book, How Much
for Just the Spider? Strategic Website Marketing, to bring
WebSiteMarketingPlan.com from a ranking of 17 million to 59 thousand
(Source: Alexa.com) in less than four
months.
This ebook, Articles by Autoresponder, contains
descriptions of more than 900 articles in 44 categories, all available
via autoresponder. All are available for reprint on your site or in
your newsletter.
***
If you are not yet a subscriber to this newsletter, go
ahead - take the plunge. I do not share your email address
(Privacy
statement). Thanks
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