 Successful eMarketing - Internet Phase II
How to successfully market your products or services in this new era. Published
in the October edition of
Computer Link Magazine
We are now well past the dot.com failures and beginning the Internet Phase II. This transition, evolution, maturing, or whatever you think of it as, requires new approaches to achieve marketing success. The strategies of the 90’s are no longer valid. The Internet is now at a time when traditional businesses use the Internet to reduce costs and extend competition of existing businesses through the advantages it provides. Distinctive competitive advantage will be key to success in this upcoming era. The ability to communicate one-to-one with your customers will now become the key to successful eMarketing in almost all business and organizations.
Communicating one-on-one with your customers over the Internet utilizes many traditional direct marketing principles that are deployed in new ways. The compelling reasons to use them are that they are highly effective and, most importantly, they have no incremental cost of distribution. Therefore whether you communicate with 300, 3,000, or 3 million customers, the distribution cost is extremely low.
We have been using the techniques described here with our clients for some time and have achieved success better than originally anticipated. Our clients using these techniques include Fortune 500 companies with very strong brands, medium and small companies, and one-person organizations. What we have learned is that these eMarketing techniques are highly scalable and can be used very effectively and inexpensively in almost any business or organization.
Internet Marketing Database
The core to a good eMarketing initiative is an Internet Marketing Database. The Internet Marketing Database is the repository of marketing profiles of individuals with whom you communicate. This is similar to a traditional direct marketing database except that all of your marketing efforts are targeted at expanding the size of and communicating through this database. These efforts should be designed to entice users to opt-in and stay opted-in. Opting-in and opting-out should be at the complete discretion of the end-user (aka: your potential customer). This is the crucial difference between SPAM and good eMarketing.
Some
mis-intentioned marketers want to force people to stay in and that attitude is typically the first reason for people to opt-out, or if they are unable to, then filter responses directly into the trash in their email client software. The basic goal of your eMarketing campaign is to provide information of value that your audience wants to receive. This is the critical mind-set required to be successful with this type of eMarketing.
Initial Database Load
With the Internet Marketing Database as your core tool, how do you get started? First, gather up the email addresses you may have in other systems or places within your organization. They can be collected in something as simple as an Excel spreadsheet and will be the foundation of a good Internet Marketing Database.
One of our clients had been collecting names and email addresses of their customers for over ten years. The information, approximately 8,500 entries in total, was stored in six separate databases within the organization. This was a great start but they needed to clean up the list that had most likely become stale over that same timeframe. To solve this problem we aggregated the databases into a single database and prepared a one-time email message to the complete list offering a subscription to their new newsletter and special offers. Within 72 hours, over 850 or 10% of the customers had opted in to a brand new Internet Marketing Database. All of the information associated with invalid email addresses was trashed and the database was now clean, opted-in, and ready to go!
Sweepstakes
Another very effective way to begin your Internet Marketing Database is to offer a sweepstakes. Sweepstakes can help acquire new prospects very quickly if done correctly. Offer a sweepstakes prize that qualifies your audience instead of offering something that everyone would want.
Other Media
Other media can drive the development of the Internet Marketing Database. The use of direct mail such as a postcard can work very well. Purchase a list and devise an offer to drive prospects to your Web site where they can opt-in. Any other form of advertising should also present an offer at your Web site that would entice your audience to opt-in.
One-to-one Communication
To begin communication gather up information of value to send to prospects and customers. Remember your audience; they want information that is important to them, not sales pitches. By providing valued information and not overselling, you will get their attention. Keeping their attention will require an ongoing effort to market in this medium the way your customers want, while remembering that they can opt-out anytime they like. The pressure is on you to become a value to them.
Start by laying out a strategy that has a compelling offer to get attention and register users. This compelling offer must be directly targeted at a market segment with which you want to communicate. It has to be interesting and provide value to the user. For example, one of our consumer product clients received a 16% click-trough rate for an article on how to clean one of their products. The article was timed at the start of that product’s seasonal use period.
Newsletters
Newsletters can be particularly effective if they are not overused. They provide information of value and the ability to refer the audience to additional information while tracking the number of people that click on those links. We generally recommend a monthly newsletter as the most effective interval. Anything more frequent can be perceived as too much contact. However, there are times when a quarterly, weekly, or even daily newsletters work for some audiences.
Stop sending paper-based newsletters in PDF format because they lack all the features of a newsletter conditioned for the Internet. Newsletters designed for the Internet are now frequently HTML based so they can deliver graphically elegant information. Additionally, they have the inherent ability to provide functionality such as product ordering right through the email itself or redirecting the user to tools and information on your Web site.
Special Offers
Special offers can be communicated to your audience easily and swiftly through your Internet Marketing Database. The offer of products on sale or free shipping promotions can create a compelling reason to purchase your product. In the services market, the offer of a discount for services or a free consultation can call into action possible customers who are undecided about your services.
Viral Marketing
Viral marketing provides power to leverage your information of value and build additional opt-ins to your Internet Marketing Database. Viral marketing is simply requesting the reader to forward your message, special offer, or newsletter to someone they feel would appreciate it. In my monthly newsletter we indicate that the newsletter is not free and, in turn for receiving the information contained within it at no charge, we request that our readers pass the email on to someone else. This has been one of the largest contributors to the growth of our Internet Marketing Database.
One of our clients that sell a food related product distributes recipes and a viral marketing message with their newsletters. This strategy has consistently resulted in their Internet Marketing Database growing by 8% within 72 hours of each quarterly mailing.
Surveys
Once you have a reasonably sized Internet Marketing Database you can begin the mining of information from those people through the use of surveys. Electronic surveys are a great way to ask your customers and prospects about what they are thinking or what they need. This can provide direct valuable insight into what you are doing, or want to do. Surveys against your Internet Marketing Database will have a higher response rate than traditional surveys because you are targeting them at people you know are interested in the types of products and services you provide.
Receive
Feedback
From these aforementioned activities, you will receive feedback from your audience in the form of email messages, survey results, and other traditional types of communication via telephone or in writing. For example, every time we send our monthly newsletter, in addition to the new opt-ins, we receive emails and telephone calls containing comments like “I’ve been meaning to call you…”
The Results
The rewards of this process can be significant. However, like almost everything else you do, you will receive benefits in direct proportion to the effort put forth in this marketing model. A well planned, compelling offer that lives up to its promise and is executed timely and consistently will work the best.
Your results will include increased sales and revenue, more customers and prospects, improved customer support and communication, heightened brand awareness, and better marketing research influenced by your customers. All of these contribute to the overall success of your business.
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