SixChannels, SixChannels Next Generation Multichannel Marketing Solutions Company

How to add Google Custom Search Engine to your Blog- SixChannels

2009-07-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

SixChannels guide on How to Add Google Custom Search Engine to your blogger

Google Customized Search Engine for any Blogs to make easy search for all your visitors. As soon as entering your blog any one can search the topics they are looking forward inside your blog in very less time.

All we got to do is need to use gmail id and password to log in Google Search Engine & than enter the title name, discription, web link & keywords. After by clicking on control panel go for the left side menu bar & hit on the Get Code option than copy the snippet code paste it on your blog edit html part and save it. It hardly takes 10 to 15 minutes to add this widget to your blog, now your custom search engine is ready. You can customize according your blog background by opting the option in control panel called Look and feel.

To add this custom search to your blogger through Gadget option just go click on customize option and Page Elements and add Gadget called Search Box pops at second position & done with the process. You can search in your blog using this Search Box which appears in the blog home page.

Content Duplications issues becoming very serious now a days- SixChannels

2009-06-23T21:30:00.000-07:00

SixChannles voice on Duplicate Content Issues:

The usage of website is growing very much to sell each and every products, this has been resulted in a large number of websites to be live. Due to the billions of websites many people easily stealing content to their websites to fill with more details, this is now has became very serious issue and Google is penalizing such websites in large numbers which is very sensible thing.

SixChannels feels the reasons are hundred why search engines hate duplicate content. One is that they don’t want to show the same pages in their search results. Another is that they don’t want to spend the resources in indexing pages that are same carbon copies.

GoogBlog domain from Indian teen regained by Google - SixChannels

2009-05-29T05:54:00.000-07:00

A post by SixChannels:SixChannels got stunned that GOOGLE The best search engine in the the world of internet has managed to get back the domain name, Googblog.com from Gujarat school boy who owned this domain. Google had to move the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to get the domain name from Surendranagar based 17-year-old Herit Shah, who owned the domain.

The internet search champion claimed that the word 'Goog' in the domain was it's stock sticker at the NASDAQ. After
studying on this issue by WIPO this week found merit in the claims of Google and asked Shah to transfer the domain name to the US company.

This teenager had received a letter from a Google's legal representatives based in Gurgaon asking him to return back the domain to the US search company under IPL norms.

But Shah defended his position, therefore Google filed a case at the WIPO in March, which finally took decision that he had to handover the domain name to Google.

Herit, who is writing XII exams this year has initiated the process of reverting the Googblog domain name to the internet giant. He expressed no declination and said that this incidence with Google had made him realise his worth.

SixChannels appreciate this young boys brave heart to face this type of incidence in his teen age....

SixChannels found New SEO Tool: Website Health Check Tool

2009-05-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

SixChannels while reading some SEO related blogs had found The Website Health Check tool aims to provide a simple and intuitive interface to seeing if your site has any major SEO issues. The site queries Google to grab pages you have indexed in Google, and looks for issues amongst the first 1,000 results.

If your site is exceptionally large, you can use the date based filters to view a sample of recently indexed pages in Google to see if there are any duplication issues amongst those pages.

For More Info visit: http://www.seobook.com/new-seo-tool-website-health-check-tool

Some Important On page factors that helps website visibility on seacrh engines - SixChannels

2009-05-26T00:02:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Optimisation is to make that your website maximum search engine friendly. If your website is not exactly optimised then you have less chance of getting good results in the search engines, here is a quick guide towards good on page SEO:

* It is very important that All of your web pages can be indexed by search engines - make sure that they all have at least one link from somewhere on your site.

* Unique & fresh content on every single page plays an important role in crawling and getting indexed by search engines.

* The meta-tags are arrangement plays one of the important role - your page title tags and description tags should describe the content of your different web pages. The page title tags should be less then 68 characters and the description tags more detailed but less then 148 characters.

* Make sure you label the different headers on your web pages using H tags.

* Make sure that your web page URLs are SEO friendly, use mod re-write for Linux and Apahche hosting or use IIS redirect for Windows. Ideally make it so that the URLs describe your content i.e. use domain.com/blue-widgets.php as apposed to having something like domain.com/product.php?cat=146. Use hyphens or underscores to separate words in the URLs.

* Use descriptive URLs as much as possible for your images i.e. use blue-widget.jpg as apposed a bunch of numbers and or letters .jpg.

* Make sure that you label all of your images with descriptive alt attributes.

* Make good use of anchor text links within your content - if you have a page about blue widgets, use the phrase blue widgets in the text that links to it.

* Make sure that there is only one version of your site - 301 redirect all non www. URLs to the www. ones or vice versa.

* Make sure that there is only one version of your homepage - 301 redirect the index or default page back to domain.com.

* Don't waste PageRank on pages that you don't need to be in the search engines or that you don't think will bring you traffic, possibly your terms and conditions page or even your about and contact page. Use the rel="nofollow" tag in the links to these pages.

* Use the rel="nofollow" tag in the links to websites that you do not trust, you think maybe using spamming techniques or you do not want to help in the search engines.

* Make sure that your code is valid, in some instances bad code can lead to search engines not being able to properly read a page. Use the W3C validator to check your markup.

A post on Hub Finder is web based software which looks for hub pages fom SixChannels

2009-05-25T23:56:00.000-07:00

About Hub Finder

SixChannels : Hub Finder is web based software which looks for hub pages using the Yahoo! API. It allows you to find sites which link to common resources that you manually enter, or resources that rank well in Yahoo! for a specific term.

* You can manually enter sites you want to cross check, or grab the top ranked results from Yahoo! Search.
* The depth limit acts as a noise filter since Yahoo! places some of the better backlinks near the top of their results.
* Hub pages which link to related resources may provide powerful links which are given a relevancy boost in community, topic, or authority based search algorithms such as TrustRank, Teoma's Topic Distillation [PDF] (Topic Distillation available less academically in this Mike Grehan PDF), Hilltop, and Topic Sensitive PageRank [PDF].
* 403 errors means the API queries are used up for the day. Please contact us if this becomes an issue.
* Questions or feedback? Please ask in the forums.

Why is Hub Finder Powerful

Many links are simply nepotistic or spammy or hard to replicate. But a site that links to many competing sites in the same field stands a good chance of having editorial integrity and being willing to add new links to other related sites. As this TouchGraph image shows, search engines see the relationships between topics and ideas.

Some algorithms (like LocalRank) may give a boost to links from websites which are well linked to amongst their community.

There are a lot of ways to use a tool like Hub Finder. For example, if a website related to yours moves, you can contact anyone linking to them and competing sites and let them know to update that link. While you are sending them that email you can pitch your site (and other related sites, to look less self-promotional).

For more info : http://training.seobook.com/hubfinder

An interesting post from Ann Smarty on Captch and difficulties in filling it many times - SixChannels

2009-05-21T22:01:00.000-07:00

sixchannels agrees with Ann Smarty's new post CAPTCHAs present a very controversial topic: you can’t do without them as a webmaster and you can’t stand them as a user.

Some CAPTCHAs are just impossible to figure - no matter who you are (a robot or a human), you won’t pass the test. Here’s Ann's gallery of impossible CAPTCHAs: really an eye teaser, its not only eat the time also strain our eyes and brain. SixChannels suggestion is to go for very simple font CAPTCHAs

SixChannels personally faced many problems in filling CAPTCHAs to test human not the automated tools filling up the directories or website forms there fore we had opted very simple font CAPTCHAs to help out our visitors...

Google Labs Relaunches With Two New Must-See Projects

2009-05-21T02:12:00.000-07:00

Google Labs, the company’s experimental playground where users can test out new features, has been quiet lately with the exception of Gmail Labs. This is unusual, especially for a company that prides itself on innovation and its famous 20 percent rule.

But it seems that Google (Google reviews)’s been hard at work behind the scenes. Today, they announced a relaunched Google Labs, moving it to a new domain and rebuilding it on Google App engine. In addition to the relaunch, Google has released two new Google Labs features: Similar Images and Google News Timeline. Here’s a quick overview of the new features, as well as the relaunched Google Labs:
Mashable the social media guide

The difference between Organic Search Engine Optimization vs Pay Per Click Advertising

2009-05-21T01:22:00.000-07:00

SixChannels explains the major difference between PPC and Organic SEO.

Pay-Per-Click is nothing but getting the clicks to your web sites by bidding certain amount of money with search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and the result is instant

Where as Organic SEO is nothing but getting the higher rankings in each engine by doing onpage & off page website optimization, here one could expect the result only after three or four months. It totally depends on site content quality, key word target and its density and many major factors plays very important role in pulling the website for targeted key words at the top of search engines.

Email Marketing Success or Failure PR WEB

2008-06-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

When you think of email marketing, what comes to mind?

Spam or Customer Loyalty? The common misconception of email marketing by many business owners is that if I send out an email “blast” then sales, leads and website traffic will instantly increase. In many cases this is incorrect.
Spam or Customer Loyalty?

The common misconception of email marketing by many business owners is that if I send out an email “blast” then sales, leads and website traffic will instantly increase. In many cases this is incorrect. FYI, I absolutely, detest the words “email blast” this makes me think of the traditional spammers (the blue pill or online gamming emails).

Today there are so many negative associations surrounding email marketing:

Spam
Opt-Out Rate
TOO MUCH EMAIL!!!!

Your prospects and customers don’t have time to read emails from you only when you want to only make a sale. I have seen some of the best products; offers and promotions fail in an email marketing campaign because the company is trying too hard to make the sale.

Developing an effective email marketing campaign should be more than just a “blast” to your opt-in in house email list (NO I don’t recommend renting lists, unless of course they are from a GOOD and TRUSTWORTHY SOURCE). I will write more about the topic of selecting the right list in a future article.

Think of your email marketing campaign just like any type of offline marketing or advertising campaign. Before you launch any type of email campaign I strongly recommend you plan the following:

1. Goal(s) – What is the goal of the campaign? Sales, Awareness or Communication?

2. Approach – You know your customers and prospects better than anyone (hopefully you do, if not try sending out survey’s to them to learn more about their needs and wants, this will ultimately help better position all forms of online marketing). There are several type of emails: Promotion, Informational to name a few.

3. Timing – Try to develop a campaign or series of appropriately timed emails that are sent out over a period of time, rather than a one time email. I do not recommend sending out email campaigns more than 2 times a week. This will help keep you opt-out rate low.

4. Offer or Promotion – If you are sending a promotion or offer, try to think of something that will have a good approach to your audience. Percent off, dollars off, buy one get one free, etc.

5. Implementation – If you don’t have an Online Marketing Manager to do this for you, I recommend to approach best Email Marketing Company. This will help you manage your list receive statistics from each email campaign and more importantly protect you from any possible spam complaints.

Why Double Opt-In Database is Important?

2006-08-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

Database marketing is key of success for the Sales & Marketing department of any industry or company.
We all know how difficult to make a brand image of company in this competitve market. If we are using a opt-in datbase than there will be not much problem but what if after using the opt-in database we are getting spam complaints. This can ruin the brand image of company & also the credibility.

For this reason, we strongly recommend only sending permission-based email, also known as opt-in email. Double Opt-In Database Marketing can be an extremely effective way to increase visitor-to-sale conversion rates, build strong relationships with your customers, and turn your one-time buyers into lifetime product evangelizers who recommend your organization to everyone they know.

Read More>>>

Marketing Campaigns with Lead Guarantees !!

2006-08-07T08:34:00.000-07:00

Marketing Campaigns with Lead Guarantees is alive and well! Stop being talked into Marketing plans without Lead guarantee's . We are a B2B campaign focused marketer, work strictly on performance with lead guarantees and provide complete response/click tracking details. We aren't looking for shortsighted profits and don't push for campaigns without the end result guarantee. We have an extremely active Business Executive list and rely on its strength to make our money not on the strength of our sales staff to sell you on marketing campaigns. We want to find promotions that we can target to C-level, V-level, and Director/Manager level decision makers at Businesses. We will evaluate your target audience and campaign for possible testing.

Read More>>>

Why Search Engine Marketing?

2006-08-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Marketing is cost effective, if you want to start spending money on search; you need to stop spending on something else. SEM itself is big business so you need to be armed with business impact of your search marketing plans

Search Engine Marketing is everything you do to raise your site’s visibility in search engines to attract more visitors. If your website is part of a for-profit business, then selling products is exactly what you do, or whatever will be the purpose of your website, SEM should be part of the budget for attracting visitors to your site.

Read more

Connect to the Largest Audience of Business Buyers and Sellers!

2006-08-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

I was doing some research on online marketing and identified couple of marketing possibilities to enhance the lead pipeline. In regards to lead generation effectiveness, SixChannels is having potential solutions for companies to increase their opt-in prospect list and append emails to your existing database.

Prepackaged List (Ready-to-use List) of all Business types.
Custom Business Lists built to your target criteria based on profile of your top clients.
Email Appending to existing customer/prospect data without email.
Targeted Opt-in Email Marketing could assist you with growing sales.

I am also glad to inform you that they have promotional price for the following lists:

1) Top American Business Executives List of 1,050,000 Executives
2) S & M Decision Makers List of 158,763
3) Top IT Executives List of 250,000 Executives
4) Manufacturing Industry Mega List of 426,337 Executives
5) European Mega Business List of 223,260 Executives
6) European Top Executives List of 112,783 Executives & Many More!

The list includes contact information like First Name, Last Name, Company Name, Company URL, Title, Physical Address, Phone Number, Fax Number, Industry, Revenue and Email Addresses and most importantly with affordable price. This offer is available till May 15th, 2006.
As a 21st century marketer, are you using some of these solutions? I am unsure if all these would help, but to build your business, you've got to build your business relationships. I said it now, I've said it before, and I'll say it again throughout this course. Don't worry about building your business, worry about building your relationships and your business will build itself.

Google Launches Own Finance Service

2006-03-22T07:02:00.000-08:00

Google has launched a financial information service - Google Finance - that will compete directly with similar offerings from Microsoft, Yahoo and others, reports the New York Times. The service differentiates itself by providing interactive stock charts, allowing users to manipulate them by clicking and dragging (similar to Google Maps). For now, the site carries no ads and will focus on data for public as well as private companies. It will also link to discussions on blogs about specific companies.

Charts can be changed to show stock activity for different time periods and users can zoom in to get more detailed information, explains CNET. News stories that correspond to specific days are displayed adjacent to the graph and automatically display stories from the selected time period.

Like its competitors, Google will purchase financial information and data from third-parties, but it will be using its online database to add material like executives' photos from corporate websites. The new service was developed in India and the U.S., making use of Google News.

User may run into the service when using Google Search - the way Google has shown stock and finance information for years, in a OneBox display at the top of search results, writes Search Engine Watch, which also provides a host of other details.

Merging Acquisition and Retention E-Mail

2006-03-08T06:44:00.000-08:00

Has the line between acquisition and retention e-mail marketing disappeared? A continued increase in spam, wide use of rented e-mail lists, and an epidemic of companies over-mailing consumers have changed e-mail reader behavior to a point where recipients may not notice the difference between an acquisition and a retention e-mail.

E-mail marketing has evolved. It can no longer be broken out by siloed tactics for rented and in-house lists. Retention-based mailers can no longer ignore the e-mail media buys taking place within their organizations. The offers these buys include, the branding they portray, and the type of response they illicit are key. A comprehensive strategy for speaking to the customer using e-mail must be designed.

There are five critical facts that led to my decision.

List Type Isn't As Important

Based on a recent JupiterResearch report, 89 percent of people who receive an e-mail will look to the subject or the product's or service's specific name to determine if they'll open the e-mail.
Why it's important: This means most e-mail recipients don't initially look to see who a message is from before they look to the brand and offer. Readers will most likely not realize the fifth e-mail they received this month featuring your product was really from a list vendor, not the newsletter they opted in for.

Companies Send Multiple E-Mail Messages

Most companies send more than one type of e-mail communication (the average Fortune 500 company executes 35-plus marketing e-mail messages per year). Very few of these companies develop a fully integrated delivery cadence, making the possibility of scattered messaging a reality.

Why it's important: The average e-mail recipient can never be sure whether a message he received is something he asked for, an added value, or a cross-sell attempt from a different group. A recent communication analysis for one client found in a 60-day period, it sent 64 e-mail messages to one person. Over 60 percent of them came from third-party list rentals. From the company's initial analysis, communications to house lists stayed within those guidelines and sent him only the type of messages he asked for. In the customer's mind, he was bombarded with message from the company, some of which he deemed irrelevant.

E-Mail Marketing Usage Continues to Grow

According to a "CMO" magazine report in April 2005, 70 percent of U.S. marketing executives planned for e-mail marketing in 2005.

Why it's important: This is a clear reminder that e-mail continues to be relied on as a cost-effective, responsive channel. Ignoring the reality of the number and type of messages your customers receive from your organization (and your competitors) is no longer acceptable. Understanding exactly which third-party newsletter contest is being sponsored by your company, which third-party lists are frequently being rented by your organization, how the volume of these two elements impacts your retention-based messages, and messaging timing is key.

E-Mail Generates Revenue

JupiterResearch finds targeted e-mail marketing campaigns can generate nine times more revenue than broadcast mailings.

Why it's important: Knowing facts like this makes an even more compelling argument to understanding how every e-mail message your customer receives will affect response rate. Could your organization be missing out on revenues it deserves?

E-Mail Content Is Shared Frequently

A recently released Sharpe Partners report indicates 89 percent of Internet users share content via e-mail on a frequent basis. Seventy-five percent of these people send the content to more than one associate. Of the shared content, 56 percent is news related and 24 percent business and personal finance related.

Why it's important: This means messaging often contained in newsletter sponsorships and third-party lists is frequently shared with others, showing the effect of the message and content over the delivery vehicle. Third-party e-mail content can have a significant impact on results and brand.

What does all of this really mean in terms of responsiveness, customer loyalty, and attrition? I'm not suggesting house list messaging or opt-in efforts managed by an organization are less effective, or that third-party lists will drive the same level of response rate as an in-house list.

What I am suggesting is that, in recipients' eyes, any message they receive that contains your company's logo, offer, or content will be perceived as part of the messaging stream they have opted in for.

It's too early to make any definitive statements about the impact this has, but it's time that we, as responsible e-mail marketers, embrace this merger of media types and leverage it to drive stronger relationships.

My E-Newsletter Malfunction

2006-02-23T06:33:00.000-08:00

OK, it wasn't quite as embarrassing as Janet Jackson's Super Bowl wardrobe debacle. But do I wish I'd taken a moment to think before clicking "send!"

Here's what happened. As some of you know, I recently launched my own e-newsletter, and it's been a great success. I've gotten five or six big new clients as a result, and a lot of people seem to appreciate getting it. (To view an archived Web version of the e-newsletter, go here. The only thing missing is the table of contents.)

So when issue three was ready to go, I viewed it on the preview screen and it looked terrific. I briefly thought about sending a test e-mail but said to myself, "Nah, it's fine."

Famous last words. About 10 minutes after I broadcast the e-mail, my readers immediately alerted me to my glaring mistake. All the salutations read "Dear Personalized!"

What started as a nice personal touch now looked like a form letter gone bad. What happened? There was some sort of glitch with my e-mail provider, which I quickly got fixed. But I probably would have spotted it before sending the e-newsletter to the masses if I'd sent a test out to a small list of friends.

Another case of live and learn. But here's something else I learned: people are forgiving. A few sniped about it. But a lot of other people just let me know about the problem as an FYI. When I told them I was blushing over the error, they just chuckled and told me their own war stories of other mishaps.

Bottom line: In comparison to a real tragedy, a mistake like this doesn't even matter. I went on with my day. But diligence and testing are important, particularly to maintain a professional image. So let my snafu be a lesson you needn't repeat.

Another Thing I Overlooked

When you write an online column, you're out there. People tend to see your mistakes before you do. Here's a good catch from a reader of one I completely overlooked.

In a previous column I mentioned a good subject line should only be 45 characters long to be read in a typical inbox. It was pointed out to me that when this column is sent to ClickZ subscribers, there's a header in front of the article name: "ClickZ B2B E-Mail Marketing." So if the column heading is too long, it's cut off midway.

I've been writing this column for almost four years and every single one arrives in my inbox, yet I never caught this! Again, that's why we all need input from others when sending e-mail promotions. Everyone's in such a hurry to get e-mail out. After all, the medium is built for speed. A lot of errors are missed.

So from now on, you'll see shorter column headlines. Be sure to let me know if you spot anything else I should be aware of (just be kind!).

The Upside of Being "Out There"

Sometimes you have to have thick skin to be an online columnist; people are quick to let you know when you're off the mark.

Yet, writing for ClickZ is a great way to stay current. I'm always interviewing people about successful e-mail initiatives and new technologies. And it's helped me to forge collegial, and often profitable, relationships with people I wouldn't normally meet. Finally, it's helped me encapsulate my own thoughts about copywriting and marketing into real guidelines I can reference and share with others through training sessions.

And, I've found sending my own e-newsletter to prospects often seals the deal. After I've spoken with a potential client on the phone, I'll usually send him the most recent issue of the e-newsletter. Sometimes as soon as an hour later, I'll get a call saying I've been selected for the project.

Isn't it a lot of work to generate all this content, all the time? You bet. But it also generates tremendous ROI (define). Having been in business for over 19 years, it's definitely the best investment I've made in my own marketing.

So if you've been thinking, "I really ought to have my own e-newsletter," you're absolutely right. Get started on it!

Share your e-newsletter successes and snafus with Karen, and let's all learn from your experiences.

Read More >>>

Have You Been Plogged?

2006-02-20T07:45:00.000-08:00

On Monday, I made one of my frequent visits to Amazon.com. On this particular day, however, I got plogged.

Plogged?

Not to be confused with "project blog," this is the newest term for personal logs, as defined on Amazon. Think of it as a blog built just for you, personalized with information you might find useful. Problem was, my autogenerated plog ironically featured Alan Schwartz, author of 1998's "Stopping Spam." If you're smiling, it's because you can see the problem.

To be clear, I love Amazon. I've been an active customer and evangelist for the company since it was founded. Remember when Jeff Bezos personally sent coffee mugs each December as a thank you? We have a bunch of them.

My plog was triggered by my purchase of Schwartz's book, in 1998. As an investor in Amazon, I applaud the fact it recycles old doors and makes its office furniture. But does it recycle its calendars as well? I bought this book over seven years ago, longer even than the IRS requires me to remember stuff. (I worked nights for the IRS to make ends meet when we launched our business in 1994. Trust me on this one: if something isn't relevant to the IRS, it isn't relevant to anybody.) Seven years is simply too long to be useful in suggesting what I might be interested in now. What's more, I've purchased dozens of book since then, any of those would have likely made better guides as to what I'm interested in now.

I offer this week's column in the spirit of good old-fashioned candid reflection and constructive criticism. After all, the people at Amazon are smart enough and deserve full credit for recognizing the way consumers find, process, and use marketing information is changing. Consumers are using blogs, podcasts, and similar forms of media to create and share stories on the Internet. Many of these have marketing implications, something I spoke about at last week's American Marketing Association (AMA) Ahead of the Curve seminar. To its credit, Amazon is experimenting and sorting through the issues of using social media to better inform its customers and proactively present items they may find interesting.

How could this program be made to work better? Here are my top five items for any social media e-marketing campaign:

Make it relevant. Only a small fraction of mass advertising messages will be relevant; that's the nature of mass advertising. In comparison, messages must be relevant in personalized social media. Seven-year-old data aren't relevant. By failing on this account, Amazon has effectively said it hasn't a clue as to who I am. Savvy marketers will take the time and effort to be sure when the opportunity for personalized conversation presents itself they know to whom they are talking.
Make it a two-way conversation. Amazon's plog is a beta program. But how can I tell anyone what I think about it if there isn't a simple, upfront, connected feedback mechanism? I'm not talking about an off-in-distance "e-mail customer service" link. Someone took the time to put this program together and roll it out to me. Does this person want to know what I think? If so, I can't figure out how to let her know. If not, it's not much a of beta program. As marketers, we have the entire blogosphere available for a customer feedback resource. Let's tap it and get where we want to go more quickly. Enabling a conversation enables a marketer to tap the collective intelligence. That's huge.
Let consumers own it. At this point in Amazon's plog program, my ability to tune what I see is limited to allowing or blocking authors whose books I have purchased (I'm currently allowing all). Hopefully, the tuning ability will increase. By tuning my settings, I'm conveying very valuable information as to who I really am. And since I'm the one sharing it, it's OK by default if Amazon uses it to improve this new channel. Ownership is a core aspect of remixability: making a message my own by adapting it to the needs and sensitivities of my personal social circles.
Remixing brings social media to life.Make it sharable. I know people who would like Schwartz's book, but where's the send-to-a-friend button? How cool would it be if I got something from a trusted friend that introduced me to a neat new Amazon service? Unlike awareness and point-of-purchase advertising, social media is uniquely capable of penetrating social networks, provided consumers can control the message. Once inside, people must find it easy to tell others your message. By encouraging sharing, marketers encourage participation. If there's a golden key to effective word of mouth, participation is it.
Make it scalable. In Amazon's program, the idea of sharing includes sharing with authors whose books I've purchased. Note that I'm allowing all authors to plog me. Of the hundred or so books I've purchased, evidently only Shwartz has a blog and participates in this program. A button that says, "Tell others authors whose books you've purchased to get with the program" would be helpful, not only to Amazon in its quest to provide a richer experience for me, but also to those authors wanting to sell more books. Isn't that the basic idea of Amazon in the first place? By making me an evangelist for the program, the program is made scalable. Simply put, tap Metcalf's law and get the network to do your distribution for you.

I look forward to the progression of Amazon's program and in general to the day when well-intentioned experiments like this one are the rule rather than the exception. Kudos to Amazon.

Tips for Testing Personalized E-Mail Salutations

2006-02-14T06:30:00.000-08:00

If you run into someone you know walking around town, you probably greet her with a hello and use her name. Doing this reinforces your relationship; it tells her you value her, whether she's a friend, colleague, prospect or client.

The same holds true for e-mail; it's a relationship, and you should treat it as such. Often a salutation, whether generic or personalized, engages your reader and lifts your CTR (define). Here are a few tips for testing salutations, along with a tale of three different e-mail salutation tests and the results.

Don't Despair If You Don't Have Names for Everyone

If you have names for everyone on your e-mail list, you're lucky. Many companies don't. But don't let this keep you from using personalization. In the short run, you can use a slug in place of the name. In direct marketing, "slug" refers to a generic term, such as "customer" or "reader" you can use when you don't have a name ("Dear Customer" instead of "Dear Jeanne").

What if you don't have names for anyone on your list? You may still see a lift from using a generic salutation ("Dear Reader"). See an example in the first test case below.

If including a generic salutation provides a lift, consider gathering names for everyone on your list. Check out my column about a successful project where we did just that.

Don't Assume Testing Is Expensive

This type of testing involves a small change to creative, a simple A/B split of your list, and basic personalization. Most e-mail programs can handle this out of the box; if yours can't, it's time for an upgrade. It's a small price to pay for a potential lift in your results.

Compare CTR and CTOR

Though a comparison of standard CTRs usually tells you which creative performed better, I prefer to look at click-to-open rates (CTOR) when comparing elements in the e-mail body (not the sender and subject lines). The CTOR will adjust for any differences in each group's open rates and provide a faithful apples-to-apples metric to compare.

Follow Testing Best Practices

Best practices include ensuring your test groups are of a significant size (usually, 5,000 or more addresses will do it) and keeping everything but the test variable consistent. There are ways to adjust results and try to control for differences, but it's a lot of work and adds a level of complexity to the process.

The only time I break this rule is when we have a control that's really fatigued, with low metrics all around. Here, creating a second version with a variety of new elements (akin to testing a completely new package in the direct mail world) can be a quick way to get the metrics back up. Just realize you'll need to make the entire new package the control if it wins, because you won't know what percentage of the lift was caused by which changed elements.

Test Case One

With a recent client, my first salutation test was in an e-mail to current customers. It was a free offer, a no-cost upgrade of their existing service. The control version had no salutation or personalization; it jumped right into the message.

Although the test version was originally to have a personalized salutation, we had a last-minute glitch, and all the messages were sent with the generic salutation, "Dear Customer." We were disappointed but hopeful the generic salutation would provide some lift. It did. The test version, with the generic salutation, provided a 4.1 percent lift to the CTOR.

Test Case Two

After hearing the results of the above test, another marketing team decided to conduct a salutation test. It was unable to get first names, so it pitted a test version with a generic salutation against the control, which had no salutation. Instead of an upgrade, this was a cross-sell effort. The e-mail was sent to current customers who hadn't yet purchased the service being marketed.

The results were surprising. The control version had the better CTOR; the generic salutation, which lifted response by 4.1 percent in the first test, decreased response by 13.0 percent. What happened? We're not really sure. One thought is the salutation was well-received with a free offer but seemed phony with a sales offer.

Another hypothesis is the relationship's strength made a difference. Though both lists comprise current customers, test case one's customers are perceived to be more involved with the company than those in test case two. Some of that has to do with the services they've bought from us, and the competition and decision process involved with the purchase.

Is it worth repeating this test with the same list? Probably. If the generic salutation depresses response again, we have confirmation. If not, we can test a third time to break the tie and get a read on whether to use generic salutations in the future.

Test Case Three

Finally, I had the opportunity to test a personalized salutation ("Dear Jeanne") against a control version with no salutation. I could have used the generic salutation as a control or mixed in a third version with this element, but I didn't. There was just too much going on.
This e-mail went to the same list used in test case one. It was another free offer, this time a sweepstakes. The test version, with the personalized salutation, provided a 13.0 percent lift to the CTOR. This was over three times what we'd seen when we tested a generic salutation against the control in test case one.

Moral of the Story

There are a few lessons to take away from this story. First, you always have to test. What works in one instance may bomb in another. You can't read a case study and know your results will be the same. Test everything with your own lists and offers before you make a change.

Second, double-check and back-test. It never hurts to confirm results. You shouldn't just do this once, but periodically. What works today may be tired six months or a year from now.

Finally, always, always test on every send. Testing is the best way to continually tweak e-mail efforts and improve metrics. There are so many things you can test; personalizing and adding a salutation are just the tip of the iceberg. Put a plan in place and go for it. Then, let me know how it goes!

Maximize Trade Show Sales Leads With E-Mail

2006-02-09T06:47:00.000-08:00

Maximize Trade Show Sales Leads With E-Mail

So your tradeshow booth isn't a monster destination that dominates your industry's events?

Don't despair. When it comes to sales, it's not about how much traffic you get, rather how many qualified leads you net.

The Broadmoor Hotel, a five-star resort in Colorado Springs, CO, used online capture and e-mail communications to leverage a modest booth at the Meeting Planners International (MPI) show into sales and leads that far exceeded its objectives. The case study is excerpted with permission from Trade Show and Exhibit Marketing by Ruth Stevens, which I reviewed in a previous column.

Broadmoor's marketing department set a clear objective: 25 qualified leads, resulting in five sales calls after the tradeshow. To capture leads, it used a proprietary online technology, Get Feedback, which also conducted follow-up communications and tracked sales results.

Two laptops with the Get Feedback software installed were stationed in the 10 ft. x 10 ft. booth. Visitors' badges were swiped, populating a profile page on the laptop with the visitor's name, company, and contact information. Visitors were asked to edit the information and add their e-mail addresses, if missing. The profile also pulled up a customized set of seven survey questions for prospects. After they answered, the booth staff could make additional notes on the system.

The marketing department used the collected information to later send three e-mail messages.

E-Mail 1: Instant Follow-Up With a Unique Incentive

The system generated an instant follow-up HTML message thanking the visitor for stopping by the booth. It also resold the Broadmoor's benefits to meeting planners and reminded the prospect of an upcoming drawing for a digital camera. Laurie Meacham, Broadmoor's director of national sales, noted the decision to give away a digital camera proved a powerful incentive. "In the meeting industry, everyone gives away hotel rooms. Our offer was unique to that show."

The e-mail featured a photo of the Broadmoor's splendid façade, considered one of the more dramatic hotel images in the business. It also invited recipients to take a streaming-video tour of the hotel's spa, meeting rooms, and golf courses. This option later proved valuable to the sales force, who tailored follow-up contact by referring to the facility area the prospect had visited.

E-Mail 2: Are You a Winner?

A week later, a second e-mail was generated. This one was signed by the sales rep assigned to the account. It invited the prospect to click through to see who won the digital camera. For prospects who didn't win, the landing page contained a pre-populated contact form, with a submit button.

E-Mail 3: Drawing for a Dream Vacation

Three weeks after the show, a third e-mail was sent to trade show contacts as well as the larger prospect database. It offered a drawing for a four-day "dream vacation" at the Broadmoor. Recipients entering the drawing clicked through to a registration form and a contact form.

Of the 3,100 e-mail messages sent in the third round, Meacham received 350 contact requests. "We sort of overwhelmed the sales force," she noted ruefully. "This campaign educated us at the Broadmoor to the value of e-mail marketing. We now do everything we can to capture e-mail addresses from customers and prospects."

Results

Three months after the trade show, the campaign generated 58 new leads and five closed sales. The campaign cost $15,000 and generated $245,000 in revenue. Cost per lead was $259; and cost per sale $3,000. The ROI (define) was $30 for each dollar spent.

Not bad, especially considering the original objective was 25 leads and five sales calls. Plus, Meacham's detailed reporting served as justification for additional funding from senior management for business event investments.

Want better leads? Forget the bigger booth. Instead, invest in a better lead capture and e-mail program.

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Google Big Daddy SearchQuake About to Rumble Your Ranking?

2006-02-08T05:48:00.000-08:00

Running ranking reports for clients is a standard part of an SEO's job. This week I created a position report for a client - one for which we'd made significant gains in ranking for their targeted search phrase - and proudly sent off the report to them before a scheduled conference call to discuss our progress and status.

The client sent an email upon receiving the report saying "There is something wrong with your report - we rank higher than this report claims." I went back to Google and typed in the search phrases to find rankings exactly where the report showed them the previous day.

I explained to that client that Google has (at last count) nine data centers which serve up search results and that they were getting results from a data center in the Eastern US which showed differing results from results shown to us here in California.

The difference was substantial enough to move the client from page two to page one in the search results and therefore made a dramatic difference in their satisfaction with our work. Differences are rarely that substantial in previously observed ranking reports, so it prompted me to dig a bit deeper into the issue and I sent the note below to the client.

"Take a look at this link where Google datacenter IP addrresses are listed in detail."

http://www.webworkshop.net/seoforum/viewtopic.php?t=548

"Here is an overview of a coming update to all Google datacenters expected in February or March of 2006."

http://directmag.com/searchline/1-25-06-Google-BigDaddy/

"So you ARE ranking better from your area of the country and that particular data center which returns results to you. Things usually update to match in all data centers, but sometimes you may do better in one data center than in others. If you search from each individual IP address in that list discussed in the forum linked above, you'll see different rankings and may find datacenters where you rank at the bottom of page two of results."

You might also search from that new "Big Daddy" data center referenced in that article above, which discusses upcoming Google ranking algorithm changes due soon.

http://66.249.93.104

Where I'm seeing you ranked at #17 (bottom of page two.)

It's a measure of where you might expect to be when Google moves to that new algorithm for all data centers in February or March. (Of course we continue to work to achieve better results before then.)

This upcoming change in algorithm and the interestingly named server "Big Daddy" were publicly posted on Matt Cutts blog for beta testing by SEO's (and other Google Watchers) who read him regularly. (For those who don't know, Cutts is a software engineer at Google & shares SEO tips on his blog)

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

Of course this news was a bit much for the client to digest in one chunk and he had little time to read the articles I referenced in my note above, but it was enough to assure him that I knew what I was talking about and explain the differences in my report and his own keyword searches at his end of the country. It's a bit odd to try to explain to a client "there are different Googles." Few know or understand this.

Another issue cropped up later in the day when I was doing further research for a different client and found, while we were speaking on the phone, that his results differed from my own on specific query operator searches. We were using the "site:businessdomain.com" query operator and the "allinurl:pick-your-own-URL" query operator to limit search results and got vastly different numbers of results and rankings for the same searches.

The first stunning thing in this example was that we are less than 25 miles apart in Southern California. The second shocker was that I tried simply hitting the "Search" button a second time after getting the first results page and things changed again! All of this happening in a single day makes me believe that some percolating of results is going on as Google eases into an algorithm change.

Perhaps this is not all that unusual, but in seven years of this work, I've not seen the volatility noted in January of 2006. Are we about to have a major SearchQuake? Is Google about to split the earth and spew volcanic new results? Stand by for the BigDaddy SearchQuake sometime this month or next.

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15 Shades of SEO Spam

2006-01-27T06:57:00.000-08:00

Spam, in almost any form, is bad for your health. The vast majority of web users would agree with that statement and nobody would even think of the finely processed luncheon meat-product made by Hormel. Even the word itself is infectious in all the worst ways, being used to describe the dark-side and often deceptive side of everything from Email marketing to abusive forum behaviour. In the search engine optimization field, Spam is used to describe techniques and tactics thought to be banned by search engines or to be unethical business practices.

While writing copy for our soon to be revised website, the team put together a short list of the most outrageous forms of Spam we had seen in the last year and a short explanation of the technique.

Please note, we do not encourage, endorse or suggest the use of any of the techniques listed here. We don’t use them and our clients’ sites continue to rank well at Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask. Also, since Google has been the dominant search engine for almost five years, most of the spammy tricks evolved in order to game Google and might not apply to the other engines.

1. Cloaking

Also known as “stealth”, cloaking is a technique that involves serving one set of information to known search engine spiders while displaying a different set of information on documents viewed by clients. While there are unique situations in which the use of cloaking might be considered ethical in the day-to-day practice of SEO, cloaking is never required. This is especially true after the Jagger algorithm update at Google, which uses document and link histories as important ranking factors.

2. IP Delivery

IP delivery is a simple form of cloaking in which a unique set of information is served based on the IP number the info-query originated from. IP addresses known to be search engine based are served one set of information while unrecognized IP addresses, (assumed to be live-visitors) are served another.

3. Leader Pages

Leader pages are a series of similar documents each designed to meet requirements of different search engine algorithms. This is one of the original SEO tricks dating back to the earliest days of search when there were almost a dozen leading search engines sorting less than a billion documents. It is considered SPAM by the major search engines as they see multiple incidents of what is virtually the same document. Aside from that, the technique is no longer practical as search engines consider a far wider range of factors than the arrangement or density of keywords found in unique documents.

4. Mini-Site networks

Designed to exploit a critical vulnerability in early versions of Google’s PageRank algorithm, mini-site networks were very much like leader pages except they tended to be much bigger. The establishment of a mini-site network involved the creation of several topic or product related sites all linking back to a central sales site. Each mini-site would have its own keyword enriched URL and be designed to meet specific requirements of each major search engine. Often they could be enlarged by adding information from leader pages. By weaving webs of links between mini-sites, an artificial link-density was created that could heavily influence Google’s perception of the importance of the main site.
In the summer of 2004, Google penalized several prominent SEO and SEM firms for using this technique by banning their entire client lists.

5. Link Farms

Link farms emerged as free-for-all link depositories when webmasters learned how heavily incoming links influenced Google. Google, in turn, quickly devalued and eventually eliminated the PR value it assigned to pages with an inordinate collection or number of links. Nevertheless, link farms persist as uninformed webmasters and unethical SEO firms continue to use them.

6. Blog and/or Forum Spam

Blogs and forums are amazing and essential communication technologies, both of which are used heavily in the daily conduct of our business. As with other Internet based media, blogs and forum posts are easily and often proliferated. In some cases, blogs and certain forums also have established high PR values for their documents. These two factors make them targets of unethical SEOs looking for high-PR links back to their websites or those of their clients. Google in particular has clamped down on Blog and Forum abuse.

7. Keyword Stuffing

At one time, search engines were limited to sorting and ranking sites based on the number of keywords found on those documents. That limitation led webmasters to put keywords everywhere they possibly could. When Google emerged and incoming links became a factor, some even went as far as using keyword stuffing of anchor text.
The most common continuing example of keyword stuffing can be found near the bottom of far too many sites in circulation.

8. Hidden Text

It is amazing that some webmasters and SEOs continue to use hidden text as a technique but, as evidenced by the number of sites we find it on, a lot of folks still use it. They shouldn’t.
There are two types of hidden text. The first is text that is coloured the same shade as the background thus rendering it invisible to human visitors but not to search spiders. The second is text that is hidden behind images or under document layers. Search engines tend to dislike both forms and have been known to devalue documents containing incidents of hidden text.

9. Useless Meta Tags

Most meta tags are absolutely useless. The unethical part is that some SEO firms actually charge for the creation and insertion of meta tags. In some cases, there seems to be a meta tag for virtually every possible factor but for the most part are not considered by search spiders.
StepForth only uses the description and keywords meta tags (though we are dubious about the actual value of the keywords tag), along with relevant robots.txt files. All other identifying or clarifying information should be visible on a contact page or included in the footers of each page.

10. Misuse of Directories

Directories, unlike other search indexes, tend to be sorted by human hands. Search engines traditionally gave links from directories a bit of extra weight by considering them links from trusted authorities. A practice of spamming directories emerged as some SEOs and webmasters hunted for valuable links to improve their rankings. Search engines have since tended to devalue links from most directories. Some SEOs continue to charge directory submission fees.

11. Hidden Tags

There are a number of different sorts of tags used by search browsers or website designers to perform a variety of functions such as; comment tags, style tags, alt tags, noframes tags, and http-equiv tags. For example, the “alt tag” is used by site-readers for the blind to describe visual images. Inserting keywords into these tags was a technique used by a number SEOs in previous years. Though some continue to improperly use these tags, the practice overall appears to be receding.

12. Organic Site Submissions

One of the most unethical things a service-based business can do is to charge clients for a service they don’t really need. Charging for, or even claiming submissions to the major search engines are an example. Search engine spiders are so advanced they no longer require site submission to find information. Search engine spiders find new documents by following links. Site submission services or SEO firms that charge clients a single penny for submission to Google, Yahoo, MSN or Ask Jeeves, are radically and unethically overcharging those clients.

13. Email Spam

Placing a URL inside a “call-to-action” email continues to be a widely used of search marketing spam. With the advent of desktop search appliances, email spam has actually increased. StepForth does not use email to promote your website in any way.

14. Redirect Spam

There are several ways to use the redirect function to fool a search engine or even hijack traffic destined for another website! Whether the method used is a 301, a 302, a 402, a meta refresh or a java-script, the end result is search engine spam.

15. Misuse of Web 2.0 Formats (ie Wiki, social networking and social tagging)

An emerging form of SEO spam is found in the misuse of user-input media formats such as Wikipedia. Like blog comment spamming, the instant live-to-web nature of Web 2.0 formats provide an open range for SEO spam technicians. Many of these exploits might even find short-term success though it is only a matter of time before measures are taken to devalue the efforts.

Search engine optimization spam continues to be a problem for the SEO industry as it tries to move past the perceptions of mainstream advertisers. When under-ethical techniques are used, trust (the basis of all business) is abused and the efforts of the SEO/SEM industry are called into question. Fortunately, Google’s new algorithm appears to be on the cutting edge of SEO Spam detection and prevention. Let’s hope 2006 is the year the entire SEO industry goes on a Spam-free diet.

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10 Better Ways Than "SEO" To Get Web Site Traffïc

2006-01-25T08:10:00.000-08:00

Does your web site clearly tell your prospects why they should do business with you instead of your competitors? Does it have a clear "call-to-action"? Are you set up to track your visitors and conversion rates? And lastly, do you know what a visitor is worth?

If you've done all this, you're ready to bring traffïc to your site. If you haven't, go back and do those things or you'll be wasting money.

Everyone wants "organic" or "free" traffïc, but it's a full time job to try to keep on top of the search engines changing rules. Instead, if you build a good content-rich site and do the things on this list, you'll get traffïc from these things and help your ranking at the same time.

:: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) – Get traffïc in an hour with PPC. Google and Overture (now Yahoo) are the primary ones, but you might also want to consider FindWhat.com. Key to make this work: know your visitor value, bid on hundreds of keywords and phrases that are not too competitive, and track each keyword or phrase separately.

:: Distribute Your Content – write articles of value to your target market. Distribute that content for other webmasters to use on their sites as long as they keep the link back to you in a "resource box" at the end of each article. Distribute your articles through article directories, ezines, and your blog. Key to make this work: valuable content.

:: Submit Press Releases – submit electronic press releases frequently with news of interest to the media and your target market. Since press releases are news, if they get picked up, it will be quickly and you can get hundreds of links back to your site this way. Key to make this work: write 300 – 500 word releases, include a link back to you, and have them written and distributed by experts who know how to optimize each release for keywords (not typical PR firms).

:: Set Up a Blog with RSS – to be effective blogs must have frequently updated content. Base yours on information helpful to your customers, not salës pitches. Don't do it unless you can commit some ongoing time to it. Seth Godin says the keys to a successful blog are (1) Candor, (2) Urgency, (3) Timeliness, (4) Pithiness – be short & to the point, (5) Controversy. Key to make this work: make it interesting to your visitors, submit to all the blog directories, ping the search engines when you post, distribute your content with RSS (others can use on their blogs or web sites without the hassle of negotiating permission and distribution doesn't get caught in sp@m filters like email).

:: Get One-Way Incoming Links – All the above will create incoming, one-way links, but you can also buy links from other sites and from text link brokers. Don't bother with reciprocal linking, it's dead. Make sure you get links from pages with a Google page rank higher than 0. A site Google rates as 0 maybe because they are penalizing it for some reason and if you link to it, you will get hurt as a result. Key to make this work: Make sure links have your keywords in the anchor text and make sure they are text, not graphical links. Make sure they are from other relevant sites, not link farms or FFA sites. Best is links from pages without many other links.

:: Give Other Sites Your Testimonial – let them publish it on their web site as long as they link back to you. This can get you a one-way link from a site that would otherwise not give it to you. Key to make this work: keep it short and to the point.

:: Email Promotions - Advertise in Ezines, place ads in someone else's email newsletters that reach your target market. Key to make this work: track everything carefully.

:: Joint Ventures – Get promoted to your JV partner's customer database by your JV partner. John Reese sold over $1 Million of his information product in 24 hours exclusively by using joint venture promotions from his partners sending his offer to their customer lists. He paid his partners 50% commission on salës. Key to make this work: know your visitor value and have a tested and proven salës page that converts well BEFORE you contact JV prospects.

:: Get Affiliates – If selling a product, offer a commission to affiliates to sell for you. Each affiliate's link to your salës letter conversion page will bring you traffïc and a better search engine rank too. Key to make this work: Make it financially attractive to your affiliates, provide all the promotional and salës materials, give them as many tracking codes as they want so they can track each thing they do at their end, do the work for them and make it easy to sign up. Provide tested emails, banners, and other tools for them to use.

:: Buy Other Web Sites – Find web sites that already rank high on your keywords, verify their traffïc with the site owner and buy their site. Make sure to get ownership of the domain – you can let them still use their content elsewhere. Chëck deleteddomains.com to see what domains you register for a few dollars that their owners have let expire. Key to make this work: Chëck Google page rank, Alexa rank and number of back links for any site before you buy it. (One marketer I know challenged some SEO experts to see who could get ranked highest on a given term in 24 hours – he won, the techies did a lot of things, but the marketer just bought the site that was # 1.)

And lastly, the one everyone usually starts with...

:: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Lots of technical issues and you should hire an expert to do it for you. Anyone who guarantees high rankings is a fraud because no one can guarantëe Google or Yahoo will do anything and the rules change constantly. (They will guarantëe some key word like your company name, but not a competitive word that would do you any good). How your site is designed is the key to this.

The big 3 of SEO are:

Content
Relevant one-way incoming links with good Google PR
Proper site design.

Everything listed in the 10 points above helps with content and providing one-way links, so all you need to add is proper site design. Key to make this work: don't think one page site, think a site with hundreds of optimized pages all tightly themed and relevant to one target market. Make sure to get someone ethical and competent. People publishing articles on MarketingSherpa.com or SiteProNews.com are typically good.

Transitions: A Guide to Switching E-Mail Technologies

2006-01-24T07:31:00.000-08:00

The average length of home ownership is about seven years. We haven't seen similar figures for how long companies stay with one e-mail marketing technology or vendor, but it's reasonable most companies will eventually switch technologies.

At our company, 99 percent of our clients have switched from another technology, whether homegrown software, a purchased software system, use of an agency, or direct use of a hosted e-mail service provider (ESP) solution. Some new clients need more advanced features, while others want to improve their delivery rates.

If you plan to switch e-mail marketing providers in the future, keep this checklist in mind as you make the transition from your old technology to the new one:

Verify IPs. Verify you'll receive either dedicated or shared IPs from your new provider. If your original service had problems managing bounces and unsubscribe requests, a shared IP environment will suit you better in the short term. When moving to a dedicated IP environment, you're more prone to blocking if your mailings generate a spike in user spam complaints.Run the IPs through a spam checker tool such as http://www.openrbl.org/ orwww.DNSstuff.com. Not all listings may be significant, but you should discuss any potential issues with your ESP.
Confirm authentication. Confirm authentication methods are updated to reflect your new outgoing e-mail IP addresses. If you didn't use authentication (SPF, DomainKeys) before the switch, work with your ESP to set it up.
Define reporting. To compare your current service to the new one, make sure you understand how reporting numbers are compiled and any differences in the service you're moving to. Open rates are sometimes calculated from the total number of users sent, for example, and sometimes from the number of users left after bounces are removed.
Establish benchmarks. Save your historical reporting data. To compare accurately, record your reports' actual numbers rather than the ESP's percentage. This will help you compare and evaluate new services and adjust your program as necessary.
Apply unsubscribe and bounce lists. Don't forget to import unsubscribes and bounces from your old system to the new environment. This may seem like a no-brainer, but we often run into cases where this step hasn't been properly executed. Also, understand how your new ESP processes bounces, spam complaints, and unsubscribes. Are spam complaints automatically unsubscribed? Are bounces resent? How many times, and for how many days?
Update your content/forms. Ensure all unsubscribe and member update functions are still active when you move mail providers. If you use the update-preferences and send-to-a-friend functions provided by your current ESP, make sure you update the code on your Web site and in the link in the e-mail. If your sender address changes, be sure to update the add-to-address-book instructions with your new address.
Slowly ramp up e-mail. This is particularly important if your bounce processing was less than stellar or you haven't mailed to your lists in over three months. Try your first send over the course of a few days to a week, and break the list up into smaller chunks. You want to avoid a large spike of bounces and spam complaints that could get you blocked.
Test before going live. Run samples of all of your marketing communications through the new program before sending your first campaign, newsletter, or sales offer to see how images and functionality vary and to find any blocking issues. Test mailings in different browsers, e-mail clients, and platforms: PC, Mac, perhaps even on a handheld PDA or your cell phone.
Get your staff on board. Run informal training or get-acquainted sessions with your staff and anyone else in your company, from the CEO to IT and salespeople who will use, fix, or pay for anything you send through your new ESP.
Talk to your account executive. Make sure your account executive or support staff understands what you're trying to accomplish. They know their systems better than you do and may suggest easier or more efficient ways of accomplishing your goal. Some ESPs offer API (define) functions that can help automate certain parts of your process.
Use your ESP's resource center. Most ESPs offer tools and articles on their sites or support packages that help tune your messages. Some tools available include filter checks, HTML code valuators, and subject and sender line character display counters.
Best practices sessions. Take advantage of your new ESP's best practices training sessions, Webinars, and seminars. These sessions will give you further insight into how to improve your deliverability and increase results from your e-mail program.
Newsletters. Most ESPs offer a variety of communications, including a general customer newsletter discussing new features and updates; a best practices and tips newsletter; and emergency/status notifications. Make sure you and your team are added to those lists.

Following these steps should help you complete the switch without significant shocks to your deliverability, performance, and own stress levels.

Until next time, keep on deliverin'. :)

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4Q Online Advertising Beats Media Execs' Expectations

2006-01-23T07:36:00.000-08:00

Online ad spend increased 15 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005 from the third quarter, according to surveyed media executives who during the previous quarterly survey by Deutsche Bank and MediaPost had forecast a 10 percent increase. The cost of premium inventory increased, on average, 6 percent, while run-of-network inventory costs increased about 3 percent, and pay-per-click prices were up 5 percent, according to the respondents.

Some 72 percent of media execs said clients spent more on internet advertising in 4Q; CPM averaged $16.71 on premium sites, and $8.47 for run-of-network inventory.

About 16 percent of respondents' clients' branded advertising budgets were spent on ad networks, up from 11 percent in the third quarter. Portals AOL, MSN, and Yahoo garnered some 30 percent; niche sites (such as iVillage, Marketwatch) got 33 percent.

Some 65 percent of media execs reported that paid search spending increased in the fourth quarter: 49 percent said spending was up 1-10 percent from the third; 16 percent said more than 11 percent. Of spending on paid search, 57 percent went to Google, 23 percent to Yahoo, 5 percent to MSN; Miva and Ask Jeeves got 1 percent each.

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Google Pushes Ahead with Print-Ad Project

2006-01-17T06:51:00.000-08:00

Google Pushes Ahead with Print-Ad Project

Google is preparing to launch the next phase of its print-media buying program, via which it attempts to extend the reach of its online advertisers by buying and reselling print ad inventory from consumer tech and business magazines, writes MediaPost. The new move is the result of Google's consultations with a council of thought leaders from Google's top ad agencies. Though Google spokesmen would provide no specifics, one confirmed that Google is exploring ways of extending its reach via other forms of offline media, but would not say exactly which.

Another spokesman is quoted as saying magazine publishers and advertisers involved in the testing have been satisfied with the results.

However, many online marketers have not taken the print-ad opportunity, partly because it's not as easy to evaluate ROI from print ads. Still, agencies with experience in both online and offline may be more open to the idea.

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Microsoft's New adLabs Develops Video Hyperlink Ads

2006-01-16T05:52:00.000-08:00

Microsoft's New adLabs Develops Video Hyperlink Ads

Microsoft announced the launch of its adCenter Incubation Lab (adLab), a joint effort between MSN's adCenter and Microsoft Research. It is "a state-of-the-art lab in Beijing with a mission to research and incubate advanced technologies for MSN's adCenter, designed to provide advertisers with rich targeting capabilities based on audience intelligence information," Microsoft said in its statement. The company highlighted one of those innovative technologies: video hyperlink ads.

The technology "can detect product items displayed on a television screen during a show or commercial," Microsoft said. Consumer can then "zoom into products featured on the television screen and click through to detailed product descriptions and information on where the products can be bought," according to the announcement.

"Until now, there is no way for the user to actually interact with these ads in the video," said Microsoft data-mining analyst Li Li, is quoted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as having said.
The company also announced that it would officially launch its adCenter advertising platform in the U.S. by June.

Microsoft wants a bigger piece of the online advertising market and is attempting to catch up with Google and Yahoo. "We are determined to establish Microsoft as the top leader in this space," said adCenter general manager Tarek Najm, according to the paper.

The new technologies were displayed and the adLab announcement made Thursday at the Microsoft adCenter Demo Fest on the Microsoft campus, an exposition of research and innovation in digital advertising technology from Microsoft researchers.

adLab will be headed jointly by Ying Li, Ph.D., of Microsoft adCenter in Redmond and Jian Wang, Ph.D., of Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing, and will consist of a team of dedicated scientists with specializations in the areas of data mining, information retrieval, statistical analysis, artificial intelligence, auction theory, visual computing and digital media.

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Changing Your Position When There's Competition

2005-12-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

Changing Your Position When There's Competition

Are you finding many of your best prospects already working with competitors?
When you pursue a new opportunity, is someone else capturing the prize?

Maybe it's time to re-evaluate your positioning.

Your market position is the place you occupy in the mind of your prospective clients. It's how they think of you as compared to your competitors. Adjectives like established or cutting-edge; high quality or inexpensive; convenient or full-service are all relative terms. When applied to you and your business, they distinguish you from the competition.

Your clients' impression of how your business compares can determine whether they work with you or not. Try conducting some competitive research to find out what it is that clients like about the people you compete with. Are those qualities you can emulate? In what areas are clients not as satisfied? Could you offer more satisfaction there?

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Tools to convert prospects to loyal customers

2005-12-16T07:48:00.000-08:00

Tools to convert prospects to loyal customers

Experience makes it evident that profitability is all about creating and maintaining loyal customers and doing repeat business with existing customers. It is also evident that it is around 12 times less expensive to sell to an existing customer than it is to a new customer.

Statistics show that on average it takes around 5 to 8 contacts to flip a lead into a deal and this 5 to 8 contacts can be time and money consuming. That’s where email marketing can become an essential part of your marketing mix.

Turn prospects into loyal long term customers

E Mail Marketing enables us to proactively communicate with our customers / prospects / suppliers etc. thereby adding to the bottom line and improve the ROI.

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available today. It is easy, affordable, direct, actionable and highly effective. When you add email to your marketing mix, you spend less time, money and resources than with traditional marketing vehicles (e.g. direct mail or print advertising) And, with email marketing, you can communicate more quickly which means your time-sensitive information is disseminated in minutes, not days or weeks - and you can see the results of your efforts instantly.

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A new Business strategy in enhancing revenue- Email Appending

2005-12-07T07:11:00.000-08:00

A new Business strategy in enhancing revenue- Email Appending
Every Business is spear heading in getting new leads and enhancing revenue. In your process of enhancing your revenue do not forget your existing customers and prospects that once showed interest in your products or services. Most probably they would be more eager to hear from you and do business with you.

With ongoing postal and telemarketing pressures impacting marketing budgets for many organizations this year, email marketing could become the "silver lining" for many marketers. But how do you create a successful email marketing campaign if you do not have a substantial email database? That question may be one of the largest Internet-related challenges facing companies this year. Add the missing email address of your existing customer and prospects and communicate with them on regular basis. Email Appending - A new business strategy in enhancing revenue.

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Harness the Potential of Internet Marketing

2005-12-06T07:54:00.000-08:00

Harness the Potential of Internet Marketing

If you're thinking of starting a business—or already have one—Internet direct marketing can play an important role in making it grow. Whether your business is brick and mortar, click and mortar or pure e-commerce, you increasingly will be expected to build customer relationships by understanding, engaging and providing individualized service to every customer. And a powerful way for developing these relationships is personalized Internet direct marketing.
Whether it's a timely email reminder, a suggestion for a bottle of wine for a special occasion or a prompt update of a crucial software program, customers value personalized service because it can simplify their lives, save them time and acknowledge them as individuals. For your company, a communications program that engages your customers' interest can help to differentiate your business from your competition so you can build long-term, profitable relationships.

Six Tips for Effective Email Marketing While delivering customized messages to each individual customer was once too expensive to be practical, the Internet has rendered the incremental cost of contact insignificant. On the Internet, contacting 20,000 people costs no more than contacting 10,000 people. And each "contact" can be personalized.

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New SixChannels Website Published.

2005-12-01T07:23:00.000-08:00

New Six Channels Website Published -

SixChannels leading online marketing solutions significantly improve return on customer relationships. Its advanced reporting and analytical tools provide an unmatched view into targets of opportunity and help businesses meet and exceed acquisition, sales and retention objectives. By creating a deeper understanding of the customer, SixChannels delivers valuable insights that improve customer interactions far beyond the email channel.

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SIXCHANNELS :: NEXT GENERATION MULTICHANNEL MARKETING SOLUTIONS

2005-11-07T06:04:00.000-08:00

Smart marketers build loyalty one customer at a time through targeted marketing. Our services help you through each stage of your marketing lifecycle starting from market research, building prospect database and ultimately developing effective communication strategy to reach them. We help you find high-value prospects, convert them into customers and then increase your share of wallet over a lifetime.

Successful marketers are transforming their marketing efforts into highly productive programs using multi channel marketing services. You will see results much faster using a combination of targeted email, telephone and direct marketing solutions. SixChannels provides full service multi-channel marketing solutions to enable your success.

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