Two Big Internet Marketing Infractions
Dear Business Builder,
Happy Friday! I missed you last week. My apologies for going AWOL … an upgrade to my electrical service left me without power for several days. The electricity was only supposed to be out for about 8 hours, but things never go as they’re planned.
Electricity, like breathing, is one of those things you take for granted. But when you don’t have it … look out. You’d think I’d be fairly seasoned for this kind of thing, especially with all the hurricanes we’ve had within the last five years.
Once you’ve been without electricity for weeks at a time, a few times in a row, you start to get resourceful. But in the case of a hurricane, almost no one has power, schools are out and once you determine everyone is safe and not homeless … life turns into a rudimentary block party.
You meet neighbors who previously holed up in their homes like hermits … you know, the ones you were convinced are serial killers. And every power crew that rolls down your street is cheered rather than reviled. People are actually helpful and friendly to each other for a while.
But that doesn’t mean you don’t want the power turned back on. After just a few days of trying to consume every single scrap of food in your refrigerator (before it goes bad) and a few more days of peanut butter and canned tuna … not to mention the cold showers … well these are luxuries I can certainly do without.
But when you’re the only one without power, it’s a whole different story. It’s so lonely … you start to feel sorry for yourself. No one wants to visit the only girl on the block without electricity. You spend an ungodly amount of money on a hotel during the height of the South Florida tourist season. You chase WiFi connections in a sad attempt to keep up with your e-mail and stay connected. You go way over your minutes on your cell phone. And you tell your sad story over and over again hoping to get just a sliver of sympathy.
It’s just pathetic … but I digress. 
When I last left you, we’d spent several happy (electricity filled) weeks talking about direct mail. We ran the gamut of DM topics from a breakdown to the types of mailing lists you can choose from and the classes of postal mail all the way through to DM math.
I hope you enjoyed it, because I enjoyed writing about it.
There is one big thing that direct mail marketing and Internet marketing have in common … the customer.
Customer Centric Internet Marketing
In everything we do as marketers, we have to keep the customer center to our objectives. You already know this because it’s common sense. Without the customer we have no sales, without sales we have no marketing budget … you can see where this is going … it’s a slippery slope right into the poor house.
Yet, I see two big common infractions especially with Internet marketers …
- Lack of more than one way to order:
“We promote online and we take orders online. That’s it plain and simple.”
This isn’t a customer centric way of thinking. If you’re building a real business, you need to offer your customers as many ways as possible to order. That means you must not only offer the ability to order online through a secure shopping cart, but you must also give customers both a phone number (preferably toll-free) and a physical street address. Depending on the nature of your business you might also want to include the ability to order by fax.
The more ways you give a customer to order (and the more payment options), the more customers that will order. Not everyone will be able to make the decision to order your product from reading your promotions or visiting your website. They’ll have additional questions. If they have the ability to talk to a real live customer service person, the chances they’ll order from you will rise exponentially.
Plus, not everyone is comfortable with using a credit card online. These numbers are diminishing, but we don’t want to alienate these people. Strangely, I know a web programmer that simply refuses to order anything online with a credit card (perhaps he knows something we don’t). These types of customers are still out there, folks, plus not everyone has a credit card or a PayPal account.
By offering a postal address in your Internet promotions as an order option, you not only skyrocket your credibility but you capture many customers that may not have ordered otherwise.
A side note on the use of an address as a credibility booster in your marketing promotions. A physical street address always trumps a P.O. Box … anyone can get a P.O. Box … but a physical street address signifies you’re a brick and mortar business (even if you’re not).
- Content is not only king … it’s queen, prince and princess:
“When everything is always free, you’ll only attract freeloaders.”
Don’t get me wrong, free content is an important component to your web marketing strategy especially as it pertains to search engine optimization (SEO). The more relevant and keyword optimized content you have on your site, the more likely the search engine spiders will find you and you’ll show up high on organic search engine listings. This is essentially free traffic.
But don’t spend your time creating free content without an objective. You must fully understand your goals for the content before you develop it. You also must understand how this content will ultimately fit in with your marketing efforts and your revenue goals.
Content takes time to create, unless you pay someone to do it … either way this equates to money. When you spend money, you must know how you’re going to get a return on your investment.
I often hear from newbie marketers that have acquired just enough information to be dangerous. They constantly question why we’d offer a free report to acquire an e-mail address and then at the same time try to sell something. Why not just give them what they want as quickly and as easily as possible? Isn’t trying to sell them something bad customer service?
To this I say YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! Why not just give everything away for free and we can all take our toys and go home? Life doesn’t work that way.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying don’t fulfill on the free content you’ve promised, but consider this …
Make every bit of free content you’ve created work hard for you in some way. Position your product as a solution to a problem you’ve presented in your content. This doesn’t have to be a hard sell, but a mere suggestion.
Here’s an example … as you know, I work in the health business. If I write about a natural herb and all the ways it’s going to help you feel better, why couldn’t I suggest that my product contains the herb and give you a bit of information how to order it?
Let your free content build up excitement to a paid event or even use it to sell a higher ticket item.
People are rarely only seeking information … they’re more likely seeking solutions. Make sure you have those solutions and your content will quickly pay for itself.
Consider how you can make your own marketing efforts more customer centric and how you can make your own free content work harder for you.
Next week, we’ll discuss even more ways to become a customer centric Internet marketing business.
Hope that helped.
Have any questions? Have advice or in the trenches stories? Post them to the blog and help a fellow marketer out.
Here’s to a weekend filled with electricity for everyone!
Until next week,
Julie McManus
Editor, In the ‘Net Trenches
THE TOTAL PACKAGE™
And Web Media Goddess
P.S. Are you in the ‘net trenches? Do you need help? Send
me an e-mail to AskJulie@MakepeaceTotalPackage.com and
I just might answer your question in an upcoming issue.
P.P.S. Have you checked out The Total Package affiliate program lately? We’ve added tons of new creative to help you earn cash on any new subscriber you refer and we’ve opened our archives up for the pilfering … Click Here to check it out NOW!
Looking for resources related to this article? Try some of these.
Looking for more of Julie’s articles? Check these out.
Looking for past issues of The Total Package? Click here for our archives.
 |
Want to share or reprint this article? Feel free. Just give us full attribution and a link to our Home Page when you do. |
Attribution Statement: This article was first published in The Total Package. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to The Total Package and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.
Related posts
5 Comments »
Join the Discussion!
Let us know what you think. Or ask us anything. Or offer your own sage advice.
The only rule: RESPECT THIS HOUSE! Postings that contain abusive language and/or personal attacks will be cheerfully VAPORIZED. One cross word and – POOF! – your well-thought-out post will be gone in a puff of smoke.
– Clayton
Comment by Adams — February 29, 2008 @ 12:00 pm
Julie, you’re dead-on with the recital the ‘free’ and ‘priceless’ are NOT the same!
Years ago, I worked with a graphic designer, poor soul, who provided "potential" customers with logo ideas, layout ideas, brochure ideas, et al… but rarely closed sales. His thought, "Hey, I’m providing so much FREE, just think how much more you’ll get if you PAID me?" Good thought, bad execution since most prospects thought they’d gotten MOST of the goods for nothing… so why pay at all?
Subsequent to this harsh realization, the designer showed samples from OTHER campaigns, talked nebulously about specifics to the current client, yet shared glowing testomonials, a few steps and ’how to’s’ (that only he could enact), PLUS easy ways for the client to get started… "the sooner the better" since his scheduled stayed packed.
His closing ratio went up 65%; referrals off-the-chart, and paid what he was worth. Bottom Line: He still "gave" plenty…. just not the whole store.
Thanks for your reinforcement to all of us.
Comment by Delija — February 29, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
Hi Julie
I think that you have a romantic night’s without electricity… ..::))))). It
’s realy terrible to have been several day’s without electricity…
In due your published text here I can agree with you clearly, solution is the goals of everybody ,if you find solution then you have solving your problems…
Regards
Delija
Comment by lawton chiles — March 3, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
Good idea. There was a great cover article in this month’s Wired magazine about the Economy Of Free and how there is a huge difference between different price models. As technology goes mostly free and ad-paid-for, businesses need to start the same model. You can give things away, you can create dynamic content and share it, but make sure there is a back end to profit from.
See Free: Why $0.00 Is The Future Of Business
Comment by Jim Crawford — March 6, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
Ok…I’ve been a business writer for way more years than I want to admit (let’s just say I’m eligible for Social Security), mostly proposals and business plans. It’s boring stuff and pays well, but I’d like to try writing something new and Internet copywriting sounds intriguing. One subject I haven’t seen covered in all the stuff I’ve read (and I read Clayton’s interview in Masters of Copywriting 2007) is how do you attract clients?
Thanks for an informative time.
Jim Crawford
Comment by Joseph Ratliff — March 20, 2008 @ 2:05 pm
To Jim Crawford…
One of the ways to attract internet clients, is to go where they are and fish.
Discussion forums, creating a Skype Live seminar, internet marketing blogs…etc…
Live seminars for internet marketers (Big Seminar by Armand Morin) are a very hot way to meet marketers face to face, build trust…and then gain clients.
Joseph Ratliff
Internet Copywriter
Internet Business Growth Strategist
Author of The Profitable Business Edge 2