Virtual Marketing in a Tangible World

Virtual Marketing in a Tangible World

by: André Bell

One of the greatest challenges facing business owners and managers is finding a way to costeffectively communicate frequently and consistently with their target markets.

It is nearly impossible to remain profitable while employing enough people to maintain frequent contact with existing clients, let alone seek new clients.

And even for companies with deep pockets, hiring outside sales reps, trainers, and speakers to communicate monthly, weekly, and in some cases daily with all clients in the organization is just plain ludicrous.

The high cost of humantohuman contact makes it impractical to attempt to implement a steady stream of consistent communications with everyone.

A common solution is to regularly communicate with the companyกs ‘ideal client’ and neglect all others. It becomes agame of economics.

There is a better way.

A better solutions for maintaining regular communication with your clients and prospects while at the same offering a valuable service is to adopt Internet eCourses and eSeminars in place of inperson courses and seminars.

Electronic seminars (eSeminars) are similar to real seminars or real courses that you attend at a local college or meeting facility.

Just like real courses you have a fixed term or time period in which to complete the course, and a fixed subject to discuss.

For example letกs say you sell automobiles and you want to maintain regular communications with your automobile buyers.

What you could do is conduct an electronic seminar every month which discusses a new facet of maintaining the vehicle or informs the course participant of new developments in the industry that may affect them and that they may be concerned with.

The purpose of the eCourse is not only to provide a valuable service by keeping your clients educated, but to insure that they remember you now and into the future when they are ready to buy again or refer business to you.

The more contact you maintain the less likely they are to forget you. The less contact you maintain the more likely they are to forget you 🙁

A side benefit to regular communications is that within your course you can refer to other products or services that you offer, provided the discussion remains within the theme of the electronic course.

If your course drops into hard selling or hucksterism then most people will drop out of your course or add your email address to their spam filters.

That’s bad!

So keep the discussion centered on topics that are of real value to your course participants and they will remain with you for as long as the course continues.

These virtual seminars eliminate most, if not all, costs ordinarily associated with communicating with clients on a regular basis.

You can now afford to reach all clients, not only those considered to be ideal.

This is possible because your electronic messages will be available online 24 hours, seven days a weekwithout the need for any employees to maintain the contact.

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that the Internet can completely replace people, especially in areas where high personal contact is necessary. I’d forego a virtual handshake for a real one any day.

However the strength of the Internet is such that it can decrease the common costs associated with communicating to large numbers of people on a consistent and regular basis.

This is important because the more frequently you communicate with your target market the greater the chance of their remembering you, and the greater chance of their buying from you again in the future.

Even if they don’t buy from you right away, communicating regularly helps maintain the relationship you worked so hard to build.

You are able to eliminate losing your clients to your competitors as a result of letting even one person slip through the cracks.

To keep things simple communicate your electronic course or electronic seminar via email. Though MS outlook or other email client could do the trick, I don’t recommend that.

The workload of conducting an eCourse with hundreds or thousands of clients via a normal email client would be tremendous. It could easily become a fulltime job to send messages, subscribe members, unsubscribe members, avoid sending duplicate messages, and so on.

All this is completely unnecessary.

There are several standalone programs that are designed specifically for electronic courses. However I do not recommend any of them right now.

This is because you can simply accomplish exactly the same thing by using an inexpensive autoresponder instead of spending several hundred dollars on a customize software program.

Autoresponders are ideal for conducting eCourses because once the autoresponder is setup it requires no daily maintenance from you. Ever.

Software that you run on your computer requires you to start the software daily, import and export contact info of subscribers, process subscribe requests, process unsubscribe requests and other general daily maintenance tasks. Yuck!

A real drag, which is truly unnecessary.

Just keep in mind that you can load a series of sequential lessons or messages into your autoresponder, set the frequency of communication whether that be daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly and sit back and let your messages get communicated to your market.

Your autoresponder handles all the tedious tasks for you.

The beauty of this is that whether you are communicating with one person or one million, the daily workload to communicate with the course participants is exactly the same.

Zero.

Another way that you can implement eCourses or eSeminars is to tie your autoresponder messages in with multimedia formats like MP3 files, flash animation, and even live video.

You simply preload your autoresponder with instructions on where to access the next lesson, set it and forget it.

Each day, week, month, or quarter your course participants will receive instructions and you will maintain regular communications with them. All on autopilot.

This is a win/win for everyone.

The choice to use email, flash, streaming audio or video is best decided upon your circumstances and your technical ability.

I strongly recommend keeping things simple. Stick to email autoresponders. However if you hate typing then instead of typing your course materials you can record the information with an audio recorder such as All Sound Recorder.

That way you communicate the same information with less typing involved. The downside is that all multimedia files will increase your monthly bandwidth far in excess of what will be accomplished through using just email.

So if monthly bandwidth is an issue stay away from multimedia. Especially if your web provider charges a premium.

Stick to simple email eCourses and you will be able to provide valuable information to your market and remain in touch with them, all while keeping your life as simple and stressfree as possible.

For free autoresponders that you can run from your own hosted domain check out http://willmaster.com

He offers both free and paid versions of his autoresponders. If you use AOL or a web host that prohibits custom CGI scripts your next best bet is to use one of the remotely hosted autoresponders such as provided by http://besent.com and http://sendfree.com

Each of these solutions allows you to communicate as frequently as you wish and with very little administrative headache to all of your clients, not just those considered to be ideal.

And best of all this can be accomplished without the need to hire a fulltime staff, even if your clients number into the hundreds of thousands.

About The Author

André Bell is principal marketing consultant with André Bell Consulting Group. A free copy of his new book ก101 Marketing Secrets Revealedก is available through his site at http://www.economicbooster.com

This article was posted on April 07, 2004

by André Bell

Transforming A Site From Good To Excellent

Transforming A Site From Good To Excellent

by: Richard Lowe, Jr.

One of the challenges of moving a web site up from good to excellent is transforming it from just a bunch of web pages and graphics to an interactive experience. Another term for this is community a place where people can come to communicate with others. The very best web sites have mastered this transformation, thus attracting return visitors again and again.
The whole point of a web site is to communicate ideas and concepts to other people. If you are just putting up pages and graphics, then you are performing half of a communication. You are telling people what you think, want, desire or need.
The other half of communication is listening. Thatกs why merely adding an email form (or link) and a guestbook go a long way to improve your visitorกs experience with your web site. You are giving them the opportunity to tell you whatกs on their mind. If you also take the time to answer their messages and perhaps even get involved in an online communication then you may very well have a friend for life.
You can add even more value (and get a few more visitors as well) by adding a "tellafriend" capability to your site. This adds a third and very interesting (although seemingly trivial) element to your site: the ability to add others to the communication.
Look at it this way. Someone surfed to your site and actually found something that was interesting. Thatกs actually not an incredibly common occurrence on the internet (consider how many stupid, boring or just plain silly sites youกve visited). Okay, theyกve found something interesting, perhaps very interesting, and they want to tell someone. You would be very wise to give them this capability. This is not just because it gains you another visitor, but it makes people feel better. Why? Because people like to share good experiences with each other.
You want to increase the ante? Include a message board! Now youกve added another form of conversation to your website. People can jump on your board and leave messages for each other, answer questions and generally have discussions about whatever subject appeals to you. Some advice about message boards: be sure and actively moderate the board. Why? Some unscrupulous people have a tendency to leave advertisements, pornography, curses and flames on message boards. Unless thatกs what your board is about, none of this serves your purpose: to get people to talk about your subject and come back to your website.
Another good reason to moderate the board is it puts you in control, which is where you should be. Itกs your board and naturally conversations should be about subjects in which you are interested. The purpose of the board is to improve your site and your visitor experience not ruin their good time.
Another great interactive feature which is not so obvious is running an awards program. What this accomplishes is simple: you are inviting people to submit their sites to you for review. By giving them the opportunity to apply for the award you are increasing the value of your site to them, and improving your chances of getting them back for more.
Perhaps one of the very best interactive features is hosting your own custom made ecards. These are extremely popular and greatly improve your visitors experience on your site. Better yet, they give your visitors an opportunity to communicate (by sending cards) with their friends and their friends may visit your site also.
Other features which increase your siteกs desirability even more is polls and surveys, interactive stories (to see our own interactive story, visit http://www.internettips.net/cgibin/story/story.pl and add your own chapter), ezines and even chat rooms.
By adding these and other features, you are increasing your value to people who visit your site. If there is one thing that people like to do (and must do to survive well) itกs communicate. By giving people many different ways to communicate, you are making it more likely that they will visit your site, stick around, and recommend it to their friends.

About The Author

Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets. This website includes over 1,000 free articles to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.
Web Site Address: http://www.internettips.net
Weekly newsletter: http://www.internettips.net/joinlist.htm
Claudia ArevaloLowe is the webmistress of Internet Tips And Secrets and Surviving Asthma. Visit her site at http://survivingasthma.com

This article was posted on January 17, 2002

by Richard Lowe, Jr.

New Yearกs Netiquette Resolutions

New Yearกs Netiquette Resolutions

by: Judith Kallos

Happy New Year! New attitude? New habits? How about 10 Little New Yearกs Netiquette Resolutions?

Almost every New Yearกs resolution is based on improving attitudes and changing habits. From loosing weight to getting out of debt to trying to live a happier life, almost each of us has some sort of conversation with ourselves in regard to the New Year and changes we have the control to make. If we follow through on 50% of them, we’re ahead of the pack!

So, here is your online version of New Yearกs Resolutions. Everyone can improve on their skills, if they are willing. I am constantly working on my grammar and writing style to ensure my points are clear and that my emails are received and understood in manner in which they are intended. Remember, perception is the only reality online! And, whether you agree or disagree with this topic, perceptions are made all the time which are within your control positive and negative alike.

For whatever reason, these issues in particular, are those that I notice are not practiced on a daily basis. Make a commitment to improve on the issues below. It won’t hurt; rather it will only add to the positive impression you will make with those you communicate with. The perception of the type of person you are, and whether you are a fish out of water online or not, will certainly be apparent by efforts made in these areas:

1. I will not forward a single email unless it specifically applies to the person I am sending to. I will include a personal note to that person so they know why I am forwarding that email their way. If I must send or forward the same email to a group of contacts, I will be sure to put their email addresses in the BCC: field to protect their privacy.

2. I will take the time to make sure that my sentences are complete, capitalized and include the proper punctuation. This goes a long way to making communicating with me easier and has the added benefit of helping to avoid misunderstandings.

3. I will not send a large attachment of any kind, even the ones I think are very special photos of [insert here: my grandbaby, my child, my pet, my car, my vacation…] until I ask when would be the best time to send it to the intended party first. This way, I do not fill their email box without notice causing all their other email to bounce. If I do not know how to determine an attachmentกs size, Iกll learn how before I send it by email!

4. Every email I send will be courteous and include a proper greeting and closing which includes my name. My extra effort in this area, when many feel these details are not necessary, will ensure I am viewed as someone who กgets itก and is a pleasure to communicate with.

5. I will understand that not everyone will have the same opinions as I do and that is A.O.K.! I will make a point of only sending email clearly states my opinions without personalizing the issues at hand. Constructive conversation and exchange of ideas is one of the great things about being online and not everyone will agree with my POV. Boy, wouldn’t that be boring!?

6. There is no place online for profanities, accusations or rudeness. If I run into problems with another onliner in a chat room, message board or by email who does not communicate with clarity and courtesy, I will simply cease communicating with them. If I need to respond, I will take the high road and not stoop down to the level of personal digs and innuendo. I will report ongoing abusive emails or threatening behavior to my ISP for proper handling.

7. I will be very respectful about how I use my employerกs technology resources understanding they are paying the bill and I am on their time. I will make a point of reviewing my employerกs policies then following them to avoid any problems.

8. I will avoid formatting my emails with colored text, bolding, italics because I know it may not look the same as I intended when received on the other side. I understand that many prefer plain text in their communications and that if I communicate with clarity formatting really is not necessary.

9. If I do use my กleave mail on serverก feature of my email program, I will be diligent about unchecking it and clearing my email accountกs inbox so that my email box does not become full and bounce/return emails to those making an effort to communicate with me.

10. I will make a point of understanding each online service or Web site I choose to use by reading their Frequently Asked Questions or Help area. I understand that if I do not review these areas, I could misunderstand or do something incorrectly and need to eliminate my actions or lack thereof as a possible cause of a perceived problem before pointing fingers at others. If in fact something does appear amiss, I will email with courtesy asking for their assistance in resolving my difficulties rather than making blunt demands or accusations.

There you have it! Your 10 Little Netiquette Courtesies to work on for the year ahead so that folks don’t cringe when they see your name in their inbox. Just imagine if everyone online made these efforts? Joy, joy! 😉

About The Author

Judith Kallos is an authoritative and goodhumored Technology Muse. Check out her new book: กBecause Netiquette Matters! Your Comprehensive Reference Guide to Email Etiquette and Proper Technology Useก @: http://www.BecauseNetiquetteMatters.com.

This article was posted on January 03

by Judith Kallos

10 Netiquette New Yearกs Resolutions

10 Netiquette New Yearกs Resolutions

by: Judith Kallos

Happy New Year! New attitude? New habits? How about 10 Little New Yearกs Netiquette Resolutions?

Yep! Almost every New Yearกs resolution is based in improved attitude and habit changes. From loosing weight to getting out of debt to trying to live a happier life, almost each of us does have some sort of conversation with ourselves in regard to the New Year and changes we have the control to make. If we follow through on 50% of them, we’re ahead of the pack!

So, here is your Netiquette version of New Yearกs Resolutions. Everyone can improve on their skills, if they are willing. I am constantly working on my grammar and writing style to ensure my points are clear and that my emails are received and understood in manner in which they are intended. Remember, perception is the only reality online! And, whether you agree or disagree with this topic, perceptions are made all the time which are within your control positive and negative alike.

For the most part, the following ‘resolutionsก are covered throughout my Web site, OnlineNetiquette.comกs Netiquette 101 Courtesies. However, for whatever reason, these issues in particular are those that I notice are not practiced on a daily basis.

Make a committment to improve on the issues below. It won’t hurt; rather it will only add to the positive impression you will make on those you communicate with. The perception of the person you are, and whether you are a fish out of water online or not, will certainly be apparent by efforts made in these areas:

1. I will not forward a single email unless it specifically applies to the person I am sending to. I will include a personal note to that person so they know why I am forwarding the email their way. If I must send or forward the same email to a group of contacts, I will be sure to put their email addresses in the BCC: field to protect their privacy.

2. I will take the time to make sure that my sentences are complete, capitalized and include the proper punctuation. This goes a long way to making communications with me easier and has the added benefit of helping to avoid misunderstandings.

3. I will not send a large attachment of any kind (over 100K bytes), even one I think is a very special photo of [insert here: my grandbaby, my child, my pet, my car, my vacation…] until I ask when would be the best time to send it to the intended party first. This way, I do not fill their email box without notice causing all their other email to bounce. If I do not know how to determine an attachmentกs size, Iกll learn how before I send it by email!

4. Every email I send will be courteous and include a proper greeting and closing which includes my name. My extra effort in this area, when many feel these details are not necessary, will have me viewed as someone who กgetกs itก and is a pleasure to communicate with.

5. I will understand that not everyone will have the same opinions as I do and that is A.O.K.! Constructive conversation and exchange of ideas is one of the great things about being online and not everyone will agree with my POV. Boy, wouldn’t that be boring!?

6. There is no place online for profanities, accusations or rudeness. If I run into problems with another onliner in a chat room, message board or by email who does not communicate with clarity and courtesy, I will simply cease communications with them. If I need to respond, I will take the high road and not stoop down to that level. I will report ongoing abusive emails or threatening behavior to my ISP for proper handling.

7. I will be very respectful about how I use my employerกs technology resources understanding they are paying the bill and I am on their time. I will make a point of reviewing my employerกs policies to avoid any problems.

8. I will avoid formatting my email communications with colored text, bolding, italics (unless I am a professional coder) because I know it may not look the same as I intended when received on the other side. I understand that many prefer plain text in their communications and that if I communicate with clarity formatting really is not necessary.

9. If I do use the กleave mail on serverก feature of my email program, I will be diligent about unchecking it and clearing my email accountกs inbox to ensure my email box does not become full and bounce/return emails to those making an effort to communicate with me.

10. I will make a point of understanding each online service or Web site I choose to use by reading their Frequently Asked Questions or Help area before blasting the site owner. I understand that if I do not review these areas, I could misunderstand or do something incorrectly and need to eliminate my actions or lack thereof as a possible cause of a perceived problem before pointing fingers at others. If in fact something does appear amiss, I will email with courtesy asking for their assistance in resolving my difficulties rather than making blunt demands or accusations.

There you have it! Your 10 Little Courtesies to work on for the year ahead so that folks don’t cringe when they see your name in their inbox. Just imagine if everyone online made these efforts? Joy, joy! 😉

Judith Kallos is a seasoned Technology Muse and Internet Business Coach. She is well known for her very popular Netiquette site, http://OnlineNetiquette.com and quarterly informative newsletter Netiquette Matters. Click here to find out more: http://www.TheIstudio.com/

About The Author

Technology Muse with 10 years online experience and 20 years offline business and marketing experience. Known as an expert in developing successful personalized online marketing programs and her popular Netiquette Web Site: OnlineNetiquette.com.

This article was posted on January 13, 2004

by Judith Kallos