E-mail marketing is a cost effective way to build your business leads and get prospective customers to your small business. Adhering to ethical standards and making sure you are not spamming by allowing potential customers to actively sign up for the e-mail marketing newsletter is important and necessary. The trick to increasing your subscribers is to make your newsletter sign-up prominent on your website. Do this by adding repetition. Make sure the subscribe feature can be found on various pages throughout your website. For example, you can place the feature on a prominent section of the site and make sure it is eye catching enough for user interface to guarantee the reader takes notice, and then reiterate it on the footer section of your site for added effect. Some websites even have pop-ups that automatically appear once a site loads but be careful with this tactic as people often find pop-ups to be aggressive or annoying.

Another way to increase your e-mail marketing list is by offering something of value. People will be more willing to join a list if they get something out of it that they feel benefits them. Offering contests, discounts, or even a link to a free e-book is a great way to give back to a potential customer by letting them know you appreciate them. In doing so, you also give the positive impression that you give valuable information that will help entice and bring trust to your subscribers. A great relationship builder all around.

Make your content interesting. Your goal is to garner and keep people’s interest so that they will stick around. Content is king. Provide good content and success will be inevitable. Many services offer great e-mail marketing software including Constant Contact, Aweber, Graphic Mail, etc. Decide what you want to focus on for your e-mail marketing campaign to get a better idea of which service will best work for you.

A friend recently gifted me an item that I mistakenly called “antique.” It’s properly termed “vintage,” and indeed, that one word makes all the difference. You can never be too up on what’s out. Antique is a relic; vintage – that’s hip. Tip #1: Clever marketers keep abreast of the language, the presentation style and minute-by-minute evolution of what – or who – is popular.

Recently, when reviewing a body of ads purchased by a client for “good will”, I was struck by the way the client’s business was slapped into these publications without apparent regard to appropriateness. “But we need to reach the locals, and be supportive of the community.” But you also are paying precious marketing dollars for your ad. Don’t consider it charity. Consider it marketing. Place an ad in the senior citizens’ activity newsletter if you must, but be cognizant of the reader. If you sell running shoes, don’t run an ad that says, “Hey, we sell sneakers in downtown Akron.” Say “10% off all phone orders and free gift shipping in December!” Tip #2: Don’t dismiss the potential of any audience. Adapt.

Just as the words, “But we need to have this in the left-hand navigation” are leaving my mouth, data is coming in that says, web visitors don’t really read the menus. They scan – this we’ve known for years now – and even more surprisingly, they click. And click, and click. That vital piece of information isn’t right there on the menu bar? Not to worry. The trend is to embed the most important information in links within the body text. This enable the search engines to scour the site, from link to link, more effectively cataloging the references of key words that your potential audience will type into a search engine. Tip #3: You can never know much about web marketing; be alert to the data.

Ever run across one of those web sites that has just about every bell and whistle that’s ever been coded? Thankfully, at some point web site designers got over the thrill of adding flashy thingies, huge take-forever-to-load ani-graphics and totally irrelevant background music that broadcast when you least wanted your boss to know you were surfing the ‘net. And aren’t we all glad frames are a thing of the past?

All those gizmos had their day, but the web is an evolving creature and a never-ending source of new ideas. So how do you know what’s so yesterday, and what you really should pay attention to?

The simple guidelines to follow are those that eventually weed out the useless clutter-tech and let the really good stuff grow at warp speed.

We’ve all got one, had one, or encountered one: the next generation of world leaders, current household opinion leaders, and affluent spenders. You got it: the American teenager.

Who is this stranger and how can you get their attention? Teens today are more affluent than ever. Responsible parenting has given them access to cash – through their own savings and checking accounts meant to teach them fiscal responsibility. Teens are more technically savvy and discriminating than ever. They are not as brand loyal as they used to be. They care about the environment; they look for companies with social conscience.

The teen population is most likely to go online and research a company before making purchase. Teens are influential in their parents’ purchases, too. Your web site design, email marketing and web marketing campaigns should have teen appeal, even if your product is aimed at the head of household. Here are a couple tips:

• Be sure your web site is rich with key words that will be indexed, so when teens Google a product, your site will hit their radar. Think like a fourteen-year-old. What words would they use?
• Add a blog that speaks their language. If you are selling a product that a teen would want (clothing, jewelry, music, entertainment, for example) help them out with compelling reasons that will persuade their parents, too. Even better: hire a teen to blog for you.
• Teens are bombarded with email. Add an irresistible offer to your email marketing campaigns to grab their attention. Be sure to keep in touch with teens who have purchased before and keep making offers that will get them back.
• Personalize! Know your teen customers and what’s important to them. Let them customize their offers!
• Play up your social responsibility. Whatever you do to help the world, be sure you let your teen market know.

Be sure you know the fastest growing, most culturally diverse group of consumers in the United States. 

Your marketing plan has to be committed and connected in order to get the results you want. Everything must come together as one cohesive unit in order to function properly and effectively. For individuals or small businesses just starting out, a business plan is essential. This is the building blocks for your success and can become a stepping off point, or springboard, for your marketing plan. The purpose of a business plan is to target your focus and hone in on your mission and goals. In essence, it is your first step to branding and identity by defining who you are and where you want to go in a clear and concise way.

Internet marketing is just one piece of the marketing puzzle but it’s certainly an important part. Achieving good results through your internet marketing plan takes patience and focus. Internet marketing success does not happen overnight. There is no quick fix strategy to get you results you strive for. Think of marketing as an investment. You are investing your money rather than spending it. For results to happen, you have to be in it for the long haul, and don’t get discouraged when things start out slow. Building a name for yourself and your internet marketing plan takes time and repetition for people to start to realize your company as established and credible. Make sure your plan and branding is consistent and you’ll be on your way to exponential success.

The main function of the web is to provide information and connections among human beings – what a perfect scenario for marketing! One of the best things about the web is how it serves as an incubator for new ideas and applications. Just as quickly as we become accustomed to applications for grabbing attention, like Twitter, a new service comes along to bolster the benefit and make it more effective. Blogs, like this one, and social networking services like Twitter, Facebook, and so many more are loaded with conversations and feedback about everything you can imagine.

If you could only aggregate the comments by topic and get a look at today’s buzz on your favorite topic – say, your product. How valuable would that be?

You guessed it – someone already thought of that. Amidst the onslaught of marketing messages now flying in all directions, people are creating applications to sort out the stuff they actually care about. One such application is Backtype. This is a nifty, simple tool that allows you to track conversations through more than a dozen (yes, there are more than that!) applications including Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, Reddit, Blogger and WordPress. Backtype is basically a search engine that crawls social media networks and offers a simple interface. Enter a search term, like “social media marketing” and you’ll see, in this case, over 500 comments, which you can filter by date to get the freshest perspective.

Another spinoff of the social media frenzy –- use it to understand your audience, your product appeal, and enhance your web site marketing strategy.

There are many platforms for which a website can be built apon such as Flash, Dreamweaver, Drupal, Straight HTML/CSS, WordPress, Zen Cart etc.. The list goes on and on with new platforms becoming available all the time. With the exception of Dreamweaver, any of these platforms could be used for a great website that can have a successfull SEO campaign. OK, yes you can even make it work with Dreamweaver, as lame a design crutch as it is.

A good search engine optimization company will know the strengths and weaknesses of the platform of a website and make sure to adjust the campaign to the specific site. Let’s take Drupal for an example. This is a platform that we happen to really like. We have worked on several successful SEO campaigns utilizing this platform. However, the “out of the box” Drupal package is not a very search engine friendly platform. This does not mean that Drupal is a poor choice for building a successful website. It just means that specific methods will have to be utilized to make sure that search engines can properly interpret the sites content.

The point is this, if you are launching a new site, it may be worth researching the cost, coding timeline, search engine friendliness and over all usability of your web design platform before moving forward. But, if you have an existing website, you can still greatly benefit from a properly planned and executed search engine optimization effort no matter what platform your site was built on. (Let’s just hope it is better than Dreamweaver.)

I am often approached by prospective clients who want to achieve top search engine rankings in time to capitalize on the holiday shopping season. Even in this year’s tough economy, online merchandise sales have increased by 10%. The growth of online shopping, or ecommerce, is without a doubt the fastest growing method of commerce. In order to successfully take advantage of the holiday season marketplace, businesses need to plan way ahead of time. Depending on your area of business, you may need to be moving forward on your SEO plans now in order to reach the rankings you need to succeed for next years holiday shopping frenzy.

Not every business expects the holiday season to be the height of their annual sales. There are many companies that experience seasonal trends to their sales. An ecommerce website that sells suntan lotion probably isn’t going to do as well in December as in June. However, there is still going to be some qualified traffic searching for these products at all times of the year. Having great search engine rankings is the best way to get a strong share of the available online sales. Once strong rankings have been achieved through a solid search engine optimization (SEO) effort, websites can expect to improve on their historically successful seasons. Equally as important, these businesses can expect to increase their sales during times of the year that are traditionally slower for their industry.

The feds finally made official what most of us felt early last year. Marketing experts wrote about “How to run a business in a recession” in January 2008. Now, a year later, we are all looking at the world through recession-colored glasses. Marketing budgets are slashed or eliminated. We know; we work in marketing.

Take off the glasses and come out of the fog. Web marketing remains the most cost-efficient tactic you have in your toolbox. It’s time to squeeze the most you can out of the web – in fact, there is no better time than now. Your clients and customers need to hear from you now, more than ever.

One way to reach out is by adding a blog to your existing web site. Just like this one. A blog can be about any aspect of your business, updated frequently (once a week is ideal), and as fresh as this morning’s coffee. A blog gives you the chance to speak personally and directly to your audience about what is going on in any aspect of the world in which you do business. Blog updates also give you an excuse to contact your email-marketing list with a message, which drives traffic to your site.

Plus, a well-crafted blog will help elevate your search-engine rankings. An experienced business blogger will include key words about current topics that your customer base may be searching for. That’s the blog bonus.

Here’s one consequence of not keeping in close touch with your clients and customers during a recession. An email recently made the rounds discouraging people from buying gift cards for their holiday giving, listing a number of stores that it claimed were going out of business by the end of 2008. Much of the information in the email was bogus or incomplete – in fact, it neglected to clarify that some of those businesses were closing locations while opening others. (Read the email and the Snopes.com report).

Bogus or not, imagine the impact if that email was the only communication your customers had about you during the holidays?

Anytime in the month of January is the appropriate time to post a 2009 message on your own business blog. Remind your customers that you are there for them, recession or not.

A colleague recently posted on Facebook that she was, sadly and after many years of devotion, no longer a loyal customer of a certain big box retailer. She was refused the right to return an item for even a store credit, for what was apparently a policy not even the store manager understood.

When you, a small business working to promote your online services, products or real-world storefront, hear a story like this, your wheels should be turning. You can compete with mega-stores because you have something they will never have: the ability to take care of each and every customer as a unique and important individual. You’ve got the opportunity every day to to market directly to your competition’s customers – but even more importantly, you have the chance to catch the golden moment a dissatisfied mega-store customer declares, “I’m NEVER shopping at there again!”

Here’s how you can swoop in and save the day:

- Extend a price matching offer. It doesn’t have to be on every item in your store. It can be on a certain product line, or for a limited period of time. It’s a lure you are dangling in front of a customer who is ready to bite out of sheer frustration.

- Publicize your niche. Go after the customer who wants that one special thing that you do SO much better than a big box retail chain. They’ll love your personalized attention. They just need to know you are there.

- Shout your success. Post your favorite customer stories that illustrate how choosing you over a mega-store made it a win-win.

- Blog, blog, blog. Write every week about your competitive advantage, share a story, talk up a new product, make a special offer to anyone who mentions the blog.

All those dissatisfied customers have been desensitized to what it means to be actually “served” in a retail establishment. Give them a wake up call. Let it be you that gets their attention.