Marketing

URL, URL, everywhere URL

Marketing / By /

Recently I saw a newspaper ad placed by one of our clients, and I noticed they had not included the URL (some people spell it out, others of us say, “Earl”) for their web site. I called and reminded them that they should always include their URL in ads, and practically everywhere else.

It reminded me of an experience I had a couple of years ago at a Wisconsin Economic Development Association conference I was attending. I was visiting with a group of WEDA members, and a gentleman walked up, looked at me and said, “URL, URL, everywhere URL.” I couldn’t help but smile. Five years earlier, I had given a presentation for members of the Association of University Related Research Parks (AURRP) on marketing their respective web sites. I talked about several strategies, including optimizing their web sites for Search Engines. The only PPC player was goto.com, the predecessor to Overture, now known as Yahoo Sponsored Search. And Google Adwords was only a rumor. I told them that everywhere your logo goes, your URL should go as well. If you have a fleet of vehicles, it should go on the doors, or as a decal in the back window. Use it on your letter head, business cards, email signature, bill boards, signs, water towers, and every ad (including radio and TV) you place.

I finished that presentation by telling the audience if they only remembered one thing from my talk, it should be “URL, URL, everywhere URL.”

It was true over seven years ago, and it is true today. When you think advertising, think, “URL, URL, everywhere URL.”

Why your email “From” is important.

Email, Marketing, Tips / By /

The first thing people see when you send an email is “From:” and then your “Subject” (see “How to avoid email Subject Mistakes). You control “From” in your email client settings. For those of you using Outlook or Outlook Express, it is the “Name” field in your Mail Account “Properties” box. For those of you using Eudora, it is called “Real Name.” You get the idea. The same types of conventions generally hold true for most web-based mail interfaces.

The “From” in your e-mail address can, and often does, make the difference between someone opening or deleting an email. That is if the intended recipient actually sees it.

As we have talked about before (What your email address says about you.), spam filters are everywhere including at the mail server level, the recipient’s ISP, often at the company level, possibly on the desktop as a standalone program, and finally, as a feature in the recipient’s e-mail program. Consequently, your “From” gets looked at several times before your email is (or isn’t) delivered. A “From” that includes a spammy-looking nick name, may make the difference as to whether your email is delivered and/or opened.

Your “From” should include your name (as the recipient knows it) and possibly your company name, your title or department. Couple a good “From” with a well-written “Subject” and your email will get delivered and opened before the others in those ever-expanding in-boxes of your recipients.

Paying attention to both the “From” and your email “Subject” will, indeed, pay you dividends for your time.

Pay Per Click — Not just advertising

Ads - Pay-Per-Click, Marketing, Search / By /

For many of you, I’ll be preaching to the choir. For the rest of you, let’s talk pay-per-click.

For several years now, we have been saying in meetings, seminars and on our Web site, that for all practical purposes, there are two ways to get your Web site found when people use a search engine. One you can influence, and one you can control. The former is through results in the organic or so-called free listings in search results of the major search sites. The latter is to use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising.

Pay-per-click, or PPC, is simply what is says. You pay the search engine company when someone clicks on your ad, landing on the page of your choice on your Web site. Notice I said landing on the page of your choice. You control what your ad says, you control your ad placement (more-or-less), you control what your visitor sees when they land on your site, and you control what it costs.

Oh, and you can easily track the effectiveness of your advertising and marketing campaigns. Not many other types of advertising offer all of those elements.

PPC is also a way to jump-start a new or redesigned site. You can be proximately displayed for your most important search terms long before your pages are indexed and start to show in organic listings.

We recommend starting with a Google Ads campaign and then a similar campaign using Yahoo! Search Ads. There are others (including Microsoft Advertising) that offer PPC. Because of audience reach, we believe it is a good idea to get your feet wet with Google Ads first.

There is much that goes into a successful pay-per-click campaign, and we’ll discuss in more detail later. You do need to embrace the following. It is imperative that:

  • Your search terms (keywords) need to be researched and chosen carefully.
  • Your ads need to be well-written and include your keywords.
  • Your landing pages need to be well-written and include your keywords.

Of course, that just scratches the surface, but you get the idea. It is also imperative that you chose a firm with experience and expertise to manage your pay-per-click campaigns.

Pay-per-click, it’s not just advertising. It’s marketing.

What your email address says about you

Email, Marketing, Tips / By /

Earlier this week, I had a discussion with one of our clients about using their domain email accounts when sending or replying to email. (Domain email is simply an email account using a name of your choice @your domain, e.g., johndoe@yourcompany.com or info@yourcompany.com.)

Although this client uses their domain mail on their web site, many of their employees use personal accounts when communicating with clients and prospects. I, unabashedly, encouraged him to persuade his people to see the error of their ways.

Obviously, they are not the only perpetrators of this costly practice. On sites of all types, small and large, you’ll see contact email such as billybob@yahoo.com, sally312@gmail.com or something similar. Those same addresses get used routinely in emails to clients, prospects, and co-workers. And, routinely, the sender looks unprofessional.

I could rant on with all the reasons not to use personal email accounts for business, but I’ll just offer you:

Three important reasons to use your domain email.

  1. Branding, branding, branding – every time a client or prospect
    receives an email from someone in your company, they will see your domain name (Hopefully it is your company name, abbreviation of your company name, or a product or service of yours.) in the “From:” line.
  2. Get your email delivered and opened. Spam is ubiquitous, and your prospects and clients may hesitate to open an email from a toocutesy@yahoo.com, allnumbers@hotmail.com, silly@gmail.com or inappropriate@someother.com address. Deliverablity can be critical when you are sending a proposal or answering a specific request. Users can easily, and will, white-list email from you@yourcompany.com.
  3. Look as professional as you are. You would be surprised at the number of people who spend thousands of dollars on web sites and nicely-done email campaigns, yet diminish their value by including an inappropriate email address.

Oh, did I mention branding, branding, branding?