Email Marketing

Recently I have been reviewing email marketing tools, often called autoresponders for my own business. For those that don't know the term autoresponder is confusing to many: there are the simple autoresponders in your email system and email marketing autoresponders. Most email accounts will enable you to set up a simple autoresponder that for example replies to any received email when you are away on holidays, but no more than that.

For internet marketing and ecommerce much more sophisticated email marketing tools are needed and readily available - at a very reasonable price. These tools enable you to for example, set up entire sequences of emails to be sent out at set times to your email lists, to collect users email addresses in an opt-in form and to enable people to unsubscribe from your lists - all automatically! These tools will also comply with government standards for anti-spam. They also enable you to track your email newsletters to find out if users/customers/members are reading them or not.

In the next few posts I will discuss several of the main systems available and today I will start with one called Get Response.

Here is what you get with it:

- Personalization of emails
- Unlimited follow-ups
- Complete import and export features
- Send a broadcast email to your entire list all in one shot
- Attach files to any or all of your autoresponses
- Track your leads and responses
- Your choice of 19 different domains names to send from
- Send HTML-enhanced messages
- Your own "confirmation" screen
- Selective broadcasting
- Block unwanted email addresses
- Bounce-back management
- Full activity reports via email
- Free, unlimited technical support
- and more!

To see the full feature list with demos click here or on the icon below.

And for those in the affiliate marketing business you will be surprised that GetResponse allows you to purchase their products for yourself on your own affiliate link and still be rewarded for it! Most companies do not allow that at all. I believe GetResponse is being very smart with that approach and they have a great product. So check it out. I did, and bought it for my own business and am using it every day.




I will discuss some other well known email marketing tools in later posts.

Owen

Finding a Niche Market - Long Tail Marketing

Lately I have been spending a lot of time trying to find some new niches for our online business and if you have done that you will know that it isn't easy. I know some people who seem to have that skill naturally. You know those people that just seem to have a good hunch as to what is a good market niche to get into at any time. But it doesn't come to me that easily or to many people. So just what I have been doing to do that?

First I come up with some different ideas of product or service areas or hobbies or topics where there may be a need. Sometimes I get ideas from the news or magazines or topics of conversation. The key there is to always be looking and asking the question: "I wonder if there is a niche there?". Then I do some searches on the net in those areas to see what is available. I use the fantastic Google Keyword tools to help me understand just how many people and in which countries are looking for those products or services. The Google Keyword tool can be found at http://www.googlekeywordtool.com. I use these tools everyday and am continually amazed at what you can do with them.

Most often of course I find a market already full so I move onto the next one until I find one where there is a niche that is not too full, where people need something, and where I can add some value to those people. Then I set about supplying something for that niche market. This can take a lot of time and I find is quite an iterative process with a lot of trial and error. I have to browse around quite a lot at times. Often I start looking in one product or service area, and notice an adjacent market that I hadn't thought of where I can put together an offer that satisfies a niche. So I often start down one path but find others along the way that offer me some chance of success.

For instance I am currently marketing great products in areas that I certainly had no intention of marketing originally but I found them, loved them, found a niche and so promote them and feel I am adding value by presenting different markets with products they love but didn't already know about. Of course even if a market is full you can still be successful if your product or service offers something that others don't and if your marketing is better.

To really analyse what looks like a promising niche market I use additional tools to Google and I also have some spreadsheets and processes of my own. There are many commercially available tools out there, just do a search and you will find them. Personally I have found the "BrainStorm It" tool that comes with my Web host to be one of the very best in fact and I have written a previous post on that. To be honest I think just their analysis tools almost pay for the cost of the hosting.

Of the many other tools out there one of the most widely used is of course the legendary Wordtracker. Try Wordtracker for free.

Another source of niche markets are the magazines in bookshops or newsagents or news stands or online. Many people have found profitable niches in hobby areas by noticing that there were a lot of magazines selling on that topic, doing some research and finding a niche within that market. Others find niches by using tools such as Googles trends and insights tools at http://www.google.com/trends or the Google Hot Trends tool http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends and finally the Google Insights tool http://www.google.com/insights/search

Some talk of micro-niches, or long-tail marketing and I have mentioned long tail marketing before in a previous post. It is something that can work on the internet but is harder to make work in the offline world. But for some internet business owners such as myself understanding how to use the Long Tail of the market is crucial to success because we usually cannot compete with the large companies in the mass markets - they will simply outspend us on their campaigns. But not always! Click here to read more about Long Tail Marketing. There is an audio there as well.

Back to my latest campaign

Owen

Google AdWords

Google AdWords information can be found all over the net and of course one of the main places is Google itself at http://www.google.com/adwords and at the AdWords support site.

Today I came across a couple of useful additional items to help out.

The first is a video from the Chief Economist at Google and it explains AdWords in plain terms: Introduction to Google AdWords Auction. There are lots more at the Google YouTube Business Channel.

Google also has a blog dedicated to AdWords: Google AdWords Blog and lots of online help. There are of course many books on the topic that you can get as well. Amazon certainly has plenty on offer: Amazon Books. One book I am reading myself is entitled "Winning Results with Google Adwords" by Andrew Goodman.

And for those of you with a theoretical bent, maybe it is just me, here is a research paper from Standford analyzing the auction mechanisms behind AdWords: Standford Research Paper. This paper is only for those with a mathematical inclination and not for the faint of heart!

It pays to be careful with something like AdWords until you really know what you are doing and then it is a fantastically powerful marketing tool.

Owen

Web hosting for Business and Fun

As we grow our online business I have found that there are many great hosting companies to choose from, so many in fact that it is very confusing. Each offers a different set of features and it depends on which business you are in as to which would suit you.

In Australia we have set up just a small site at Crazy Domains. We have found them cheap and reliable for that site and they have a range of packages. Our ecommerce sites though are based in the US and Canada because that is where most of our business comes from and because we wanted a different package of tools with our site.

So after a long review I chose our main web host as SBI and I previously wrote just a few words about them in a blog a week or two back. Watch the video for more information: SBI Video Introduction

As great as they are they may not suit your particular type of business or hobby or interest. So here is a good review site that will help Hosting Review site. Their top 10 lists organised into categories can be found here: Hosting Directory Top 10 Lists. Another good review site is TopHosts.

And there are many many more web site reviews to choose from.

Depending on which site you choose you may find you still need to install other packages such as WordPress. Maybe you can do that yourself and there is certainly lots of information at their site at http://www.wordpress.org or you may want to get someone to help. Well I came across this useful site earlier today that seems to offer exactly that service for a small annual charge: http://www.simplescripts.com

Back to business, today we are publishing a survey and I will use some PPC to promote that to the correct market. More on that another time.

Stay positive

Owen

Watch the World Internet Summit without having to leave home!

If you have been following you will know this weekend, in fact today, tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday we are on the Gold Coast at the World Internet Summit learning lots of fantastic things from people who have made their fortunes on the net.

You may not want to make a fortune, you might be interested in just a second income, or just curious. Maybe you couldn't get here, maybe you didn't want to pay the few hundreds to come. Well, late this afternoon at the World Internet Summit they made a special offer to allow people who couldn't make it here the chance to watch the event from the comfort of their own PC at home and for under US $20!

Here is the email I was sent and will just pass it on - read on and come and watch and learn without having to leave home.

=================================================
SUBJECT: Can't be here? You need to watch this



Join World Internet Summit Gold Coast in GotAccess

Hi,

This message is extremely time-sensitive. If you don't read this right now, you will miss out on the key strategies that could change your internet business forever.

Here's the news:

The world's biggest internet business event, World Internet Summit happens this weekend - Thursday March 12 through Sunday March 15, in the Gold Coast, Australia.

Tom Hua and Brett McFall are set to blow us all away with their slate of world-class experts ready to teach you their secrets for success. Everyone, I mean everyone, is excited and ready.

After the outpouring of emails from people who wanted to make it to the event but couldn't, a decision has been made that means you can attend the event LIVE from your home!

*********************************************
Just Switch On Your Computer And You're In!!!
*********************************************

Yep, it's true. World Internet Summit Gold Coast is being filmed anyway. So right now the cables are being laid... the website is being designed so that you can watch the entire event LIVE over the internet.

It's the next best thing to attending World Internet Summit Gold Coast in person!

Tickets sell for $997 to this event. Yet this broadcast gets you in for just cents on the dollar (for a whole 4 days!)

So if you too were disappointed that you couldn't be here in the Gold Coast, Australia, now you can watch the entire 4 day event and get all the latest internet marketing secrets of the experts like:

Sean Roach.
Debra Thompson Roedl
Matt Bacak
Dr.Mike Woo-Ming
Brian 'Koz' Kosobucki
Matt and Amanda Clarkson
Nikhil Parekh
Barnaby de Palma
Raymond Aaron
James Schramko
Scott Letourneau


Plus the famous World Internet Challenge! See how Sean Roach builds a web business from scratch and then gives the money made from it to someone in the audience!

*******************************************
But There Is A Catch!!!
*******************************************

If you want to watch the world's best internet marketers LIVE on your computer, you need to go to this website and register immediately (Note: this registration form is only available for 48 hours and so if you don't register now you'll be locked out)

Join World Internet Summit Gold Coast in GotAccess

This is an amazing opportunity to get the secrets you need to make it in this economy.

So this weekend, Thursday March 12 through Sunday March 15, get the edge that will change your internet future forever - watch World Internet Summit Gold Coast LIVE on your computer.

Join World Internet Summit Gold Coast in GotAccess


Regards


Owen

My chosen Internet Business Host

Those of you who know me, know that I can't just go and buy something like most people do. Oh, no! I have to study it, review all the available data, compare similar products, do an informal cost benefit analysis, look at the risks, the strengths and then and only then do I buy a product! This can be tiring, but that is the way I work. I can't just jump in and buy something, particularly something as important to our business as an Internet Web host.

I spent some weeks reviewing all the big players, and many other players. And I concluded that there were lots of good hosts out there who provided lots of tools to build a web site, but not many that helped you build an internet business, even fewer that seemed to really understand affiliate marketing, and the way a web site should be best structured to take advantage of good keyword design.

In fact, I found one! But it is so much more than any other site I found, particularly for people building a new internet business. This company certainly provides all the usual web hosting packages, web tools and so on, but they provide a complete internet business development framework and training as part of it. They cost no more than most major web hosting companies but provide to my mind at least many times more in real value to someone building their internet business or for someone who is just extending their offline business into the online world.

I could write pages and pages about how good I really do think the people at SBI are and I think they are so good I am setting up our online businesses with them. In fact, they have such a good package, I bought two! I can't say more than that, read all about them yourself, I doubt you will find anyone better to help you grow a real internet business and teach you as you go.

Here are some of their real life case studies SBI Case studies - this could be you too

And an overview video SBI Video Tour.

Or jump straight to the SBI homepage, sit back and watch a short video of how they can help you to build a solid profitable online business, they are helping me, I am sure they can help you too: SBI Video Introduction


Owen

World Internet Summit

Last weekend we had a fantastic two day Internet training seminar on the Gold Coast called the Warp Speed program run by Brett McFall. It really did far exceed my expectations. To be honest being a bit of a skeptic I thought it wouldn't cover much detail, but it really did - I learned so many useful things that I can apply right now to our business. There were some fantastic speakers who shared lots of their lessons learned. Lessons that have taken them years to pick up. I filled an entire spiral bound A4 pad with useful notes!

So those people who have previously asked me how to start building an internet business or even to improve their offline business with some great internet marketing techniques should try to come along. It is not expensive, and will give you 4 days training with different speakers. It is on the Gold Coast in mid March, 2009. It will cover a great range of topics including: how to build a second income with an internet business, SEO, affiliate marketing, AdSence, AdWords, Keywords, and even teach techniques to help your small offline business with Internet marketing.

If you can make it you really should take the opportunity. You would have to buy 50 books and read them cover to cover to get the same information that you can get in a short time for a small fraction of that price.

Check out the details here: World Internet Summit.

We are certainly going and I will be taking plenty of pads with me to keep notes.

Hope to see you there.

Owen