One of the strongest advantages of e-mail is its ability to leverage segmentation. Here’s how the NFL uses e-mail to reach millions of devoted fans.

For a quarterback, getting the football to reach the targeted receiver's hands is the key to winning the game. For the National Football League, reaching the right target — a variety of enthusiastic fans — is also essential for marketing success. So, as football fans gear up for the new season, the NFL has made better e-mail segmentation a top priority.



Tim Maloney, director of NFL direct marketing says, “Email is strong because of its ability to target. Our fan base is tech-savvy and it's about getting the right product to the right people at the right time, which e-mail does very well.”

The NFL fan database includes about 20 plus million names and, obviously, not all of these football aficionados are alike. For instance, loyalties are spread among the league's 32 different teams.

So, the NFL segments email recipients based on their personal profiles, including favorite team, demographic and location. An average NFL email, for example, is only sent to about 342,000 people, despite the huge number of fans in the database. This type of segmentation makes the information more relevant and helps avoid over-sending, which can lead to an increase in unsubscribes.

New segmentation strategies

While the league has segmented by favorite team for some time, this year, it has honed in on new ways to break up its e-mail list. One way is to send e-mails in conjunction with specific events.

For example, an e-mail was sent to football fans in the New York area to promote the America's Game series, an event at which highlights from last year's Super Bowl were screened. The e-mail was segmented by location to make it relevant to area recipients.

“The NFL is really trying to tie in a fan's favorite team and location to an event to make it relevant to the recipient,” explains Matt Hart, account director at eDialog, an email service provider that works with the NFL to send e-mails for various programs year-round. These include NFL.com newsletters, Fantasy Foot¬ball e-mails, NFLshop.com emails and co-branded partner emails.

The NFL also segments its lists with its welcome messages. Recently, the league began to send introductory emails branded with the NFL's loyalty credit card, Extra Points, to fans that opted in to a database of consumers who shop at NFLshop.com. Once a month, new subscribers receive a welcome email and an offer to sign up to for the credit card.

Fans can use their Extra Points card to earn loyalty points that can be exchanged for football-related products and experiences, including autographed memorabilia, sideline passes, golf games with players and Super Bowl tickets.

Even with those tantalizing options, credit cards can be a tough sell in today's market, Maloney says. “People don't look at an ad in a magazine to sign up for a credit card, but with e-mail, a recipient can click back to a site to learn more about the benefits of a loyalty card program,” he explains.

In July, the NFL sent out an email promoting the Extra Points card in advance of the upcoming new season. This email saw a 24% higher open rate than the average open rate of an Extra Points e-mail. “We only targeted people who have previously shopped online and segmented by favorite team, which is why it went so well,” Maloney says.

Another segmented e-mail was also sent in July, targeted towards people who had visited NFLshop.com, but who have never used their Extra Points cards to shop at the online store. This e-mail, which was meant to build interest in team merchandise for the upcoming season, offered football fans a chance to save 20% on products if they used their Extra Points credit card. It was sent to 395,000 people and saw an 18% to 20% open rate.

As the season moves forward, the NFL will test different campaigns through the season. “One of the benefits of e-mail is its speed to market,” Hart says. “A marketer can look at the response rates and analytics from a campaign within a day.” And, email programs can always be mildly tweaked based on how customers respond. This can help make email more relevant and make content more dynamic, resulting in greater performance.

Email is an effective tool if used properly.

Post provided by DMNews

As times get tough more and more businesses are turning to ebay. Whether you’re trying to sell your own inventory, or trying to make big money selling products or services from other manufacturers, ebay is thriving in these uncertain times.

There are a variety of marketing programs to help you succeed on ebay. Here are the most popular:

1) SaleHoo Wholesale/eBay Directory. Stop spinning your wheels and join one of the largest, safest wholesale communities on the internet. Over 50,000 other online sellers, retailers and bargain hunters have discovered the best place to find legitimate, pre-screened wholesalers, drop shippers, liquidators and manufacturers for every type of product imaginable.

2) Build A Niche Store. Succeed as an eBay affiliate. Build A Niche Store (BANS) is a store / website development platform which enables you to create content based sites that generate income through the eBay affiliate programs. Over the past year and a half our "Niche Store" concept has really evolved and BANS has grown into a "proven" product with lots of positive feedback and success stories scattered across the web.

3) Auction Acrobat - eBay Delivery Automation Software. The most viable solution to eBay's digital product ban. Auction Acrobat is not just a software but an automated sales machine that delivers CD/DVD's, build a buyer list, and much much more... Now you can make long term residual income on eBay without selling!

4) Make Money On eBay And Your Own Website. Access 500 true drop shippers! This free turnkey ecommerce website is stocked with 200,000 drop ship products, allowing you to sell online without purchasing any inventory of your own. Free hosting and free domain names are available.

5) Content Website Builder. Create a website in 2 easy steps for eBay. Content Website Builder is an easy to use website creation software. You can make websites with hundreds of self-updating dynamic pages with keyword rich text, images, and videos. Integrated eBay, Adsense, Amazon, Yahoo!Answers and YouTube.

6) Auction Classified Cash. This product shows you how to create the perfect eBay classified ads that put more cash into your pocket and more subscribers on your lists. This program is most effective for those new to eBay or looking to improve the profitability of their sales.

7) The Silent Sales Machine Hiding On EBay. This top selling products is approaching 100,000 copies sold. Called one of the "most creative eBay ebooks ever written" by leading affiliate magazines, The Silent Sales Machine Hiding On Ebay is your key to eBay success. The product includes free upgrades (version 6 Releasing Soon).

8) Money Animal. Don't let the name fool you. This product just launched and includes an exceptional member network and affiliate support. Learn to work from home by following step-by-step instruction for traffic using Adwords and EBay for online income. Full support is provided. See there sales page!

9) Auction Inspector. Niche software for eBay. If you are struggling to find profitable products to sell on eBay, then the Auction Inspector is for you. They guarantee to find you products that will make you money and that you can actually sell on eBay.

10) Become An eBay PowerSeller In 90 Days. This program has helped 1000s of people gain eBay PowerSeller status and achieve their online goals. Work from the comfort of your own home and earn the income you deserve.

Selling on ebay is a great marketing solution in today's tough economic times. Learn to sell on eBay and your business will thrive even though the market continues to tumble. Marketing on ebay is easy to do and requires little or no startup costs.

You’re at a dinner reception. The stranger next to you strikes up a conversation.

It only takes a few minutes before you realize: “This guy’s completely self-absorbed.” No matter how hard you try, every topic leads back to him. Soon, you find yourself inching away.



Guess what? You can find the same thing on the web. Sites that are egocentric. More interested in talking about themselves than solving customer problems. However, unlike the dinner reception situation, your escape from a self-absorbed website is quick and painless.

(Although there are offenders across the board, the biggest culprits seem to be business-to-business companies and small- to mid-sized firms.)

To heck with product benefits or helping prospects and customers solve their problems – the narcissistic website dwells on the company’s spectacularly engineered offerings, their superior manufacturing techniques, the brilliance of their people, the company’s offices. Is there a place for bragging? Sure, but it’s secondary to the customer’s issues. Too many websites forget this.

When you consider that the average visitor has an attention span measured in seconds, and that he scans the web instead of reading every word, a narcissistic website has the same effect as a narcissistic tablemate: it turns people off.

In contrast, an intelligent website doesn’t leave a visitor stranded, searching for the customer benefits of the company’s products or services. It:

¨ Provides clear statements that are customer benefit oriented

¨ Supports its claims (often using customer and third party support)

¨ Proactively addresses potential objections

¨ Ushers the visitor into a dialogue

Let’s look at a very simple before-and-after example.

We’re at the website of a widget manufacturer. Their target market? Widget buyers from manufacturing firms.

The homepage leads off with:

"Since 1908, Acme Widget has precision-manufactured more than 10,000 varieties of widgets. What’s the Acme difference? State-of-the-art technology – including the latest laser manufacturing techniques – along with six sigma processes to ensure the highest quality."

Sound good to you? Where does the customer fit in?

While prospects and customers care a lot about the companies they deal with, they care first and foremost about their own needs. In this instance: “How will Acme Widget solve my problems?”

Here’s another take on the copy:

“Whether you are looking for red, green, purple or color matched widgets, no other company offers a wider selection, faster delivery or more production-friendly engineered designs than Acme Widget.

Independent tests show that using the Acme ViperWidget can result in improving your production speeds by as much as 35%, while significantly reducing defective rates over traditional widgets.

Great selection. Fast delivery. Increased production speeds and reduced defectives for lower overall manufacturing costs. One name. Acme.

Download our free white paper, ‘Increasing Your Production Speed while Lowering Defectives with Better Engineered Widgets,” highlighting the recent tests of more than five hundred widgets conducted by independent testing laboratory, International Widget Laboratories."

This time, the copy speaks to the interests of the customer. Customer problems – and Acme’s solution – stand front and center. Note, I still referred to the Acme's engineering abilities. The difference here is that the reference to engineering is now linked to customer benefits.

Imagine a widget buyer visiting two sites: one with the first copy, the other with the second.

¨ With the first site, the buyer learns a little about the company, but not enough to differentiate it from the competition. And not nearly enough to understand, and appreciate, the benefits of doing business with the firm.

¨ At the second site, the buyer learns about the company’s wide selection, fast delivery, exceptional production speeds and lower defect rates. All strengths she can quickly grasp. What’s more, the white paper provides third-party support – validation – for the company’s claims.

The underlying concept is simple and an underlying marketing communications truth. The most effective marketing communications puts your customers and prospects first, not your company. By focusing on customer and prospect needs, you are more likely to fulfill your company's needs.

As obvious as this statement would appear, it is similarly obvious that many marketers don't really follow it.

A Quick Check-up to Find if Your Company Website is Doing the Job

Pretend you are a customer visiting your company's website for the first time. Write down five key concerns you have related to purchasing these kinds of products or services or choosing a company that you feel (or marketing research indicates) reflects the key concerns of your target market when researching companies like yours. Spend up to one minute at your website. Close the browser. How many of your five key concerns were addressed? How well did they address your concerns? A brief amount of copy addressing a key concern and a link to more detail is fine; no mention of these concerns is not.

Did the web page copy get to the heart of your concern or was it focused on the itself instead of the prospects needs? Use what you have learned to further test your website in front of real prospects and customers. Find out their most important problems they are hoping your website will help them answer and re-design your website around helping them.

Post provided by Mr. Peter DeLegge, the publisher of Marketing Today. He has more than fifteen years experience in marketing and marketing communications management and marketing consulting with Fortune 500 to medium size corporations. He can be reached at peterdlAThotmailDOTcom.

A newsletter is a periodically published document that informs, reminds, advices, advertises or communicates news and data on a specific topic. It can be either printed or have electronic format. Electronic newsletters are also known as Email Newsletters or eNewsletters and they are an excellent means for communicating with small to large audiences.

In short, a newsletter is an advertising instrument that provides companies with the possibility to improve their corporate identity and public perception, thus increasing sales.

How Does a Newsletter Work?

The promotional newsletters are free and should be used to motivate consumers to react to an offer made via direct mail or email.



A well-written newsletter builds trust and confidence on a company and a brand. Each article within it should answer the five basic questions – Who, What, When, Where, Why.

A promotional newsletter can increase your image with prospective and presented clients. By providing valuable info in a professional layout, the readers will recognize you as an expert in your field.

Why Should You Write A Newsletter?

If written well, newsletters can be more far-reaching than an article or radio program. You are your own editor, being able to determinate the number and length of your articles, the content, what pictures you use, how many graphics. This allows you to control content and target your information, delivering quality content to the readers.

Newsletters are great way to advertise and serve as reminders of products or services that would be beneficial for your audience. As magazines, they are periodical, so you can contact your clients at regular intervals – keeping your brand in front of them.

How to Effectively Write a Newsletter

Know Your Audience

This is probably the hardest part and also the reason why many companies hire professional PR agencies. Know your audience – this is the first and most important rule. That means knowing their interests, their comprehension of the area under discussion and their reading level.

Write for Your Audience

- Once you know what your public is interested in, don’t deviate from the subject.

- You can get your ideas from personal contacts, phone calls, competition newsletters, press releases (see how many times a press release was downloaded – many Internet outlets provide such information), newspapers, television reports.

- Write clear, concise and interesting news. Keep your readers up to date.

- Include in your newsletter testimonials from some of your clients.
Underline their success and your role in it.

Create a Newsletter Strategy

- Research what the market needs and plan ahead what articles you are going to write. This way you have enough time to collect ideas by talking to your clients or from other sources.

- Make a connection with your reader.

- Use a personal approach – this is how you develop a trustworthy relationship with your clients. Clients need to feel that behind a business there is a person. Write your newsletter as though it was going to one individual directly from you.

- Be self-aware and don’t exaggerate when describing your business. Draw your reader into the article by using words that sell, and don’t mislead your readers. Avoid telling your company provides the best services. Try instead to underline what benefits the client can get when choosing your products.

- Self-critique shows you are aware of your borders. There are always borders nobody is perfect. If you made a mistake, admit it. Don’t lie to your clients.

- Humor can help you get to the heart of the reader. Yet, don’t exaggerate. Use it carefully. Many people have no time for clowning around. You wouldn’t like to lose the essence of your message. Sarcasm is very easy not to be taken figuratively when written on paper.

Create a Reader Friendly Layout

- Write titles and quotes that grab the reader’s attention. Use the first paragraph to intrigue and excite. You have less than three seconds to convince a reader that your newsletter is worth the time, so use your chance. If you have a meaningless lead, the clients won't take their time to assimilate the information

- Use correct grammar and spelling.

- Try to avoid jargon. People are not supposed to learn the specific terms of your business just to please you. You have to write for them and not for yourself or your staff.

- Use white space or graphics and photos to break up the page. Don’t exhaust your readers with too much text.

- Have someone else to read it too. Try finding an impartial person. Accept criticism. Don't use the ones who tell you that it is great. They aren't helping you. Ask the person who finds the errors and makes suggestions.

- Publish the newsletter regularly – this is how the readers will come to expect it. Don’t lose your credibility by failing to deliver.


Pay Attention when Publishing the Newsletters

- For printed newsletters choose quality paper and good resolution photography and graphics. If possible, do it on recycled paper – help saving our environment.

- Stick with the schedule. If your readers are waiting for the information they will be disappointed when they don’t receive it when expected.

- Be consistent in the layout. Consistency is the key to building a reliable image.

Newsletters are a great way to engage your audience and deliver true value. If you don’t provide a newsletter today, consider adding one to your arsenal or marketing tactics. Be sure to include a sign up form on your home page to attract the largest possible audience.

This post provided by Mihaela Lica, profitimo

Dealing with website development issues can be an overwhelming task. There are many things your marketing team must consider, in fact, there are so many things to bear in mind that many of the most important ones never get dealt with, or are buried under competing interests.



To avoid project paralysis you should focus on certain key areas of concern from which all other issues flow. Whether upgrading your existing website or developing a new webmedia initiative from scratch, consider these four vital questions that need to be answered:

-What content should be included?
-How should content be delivered?
-How is your website going to be marketed?
-What will visitors remember?
-What content should be included?

Content is a function of purpose. Unfortunately many websites don't have a clearly thought-out realistic purpose; and orders alone, is not an adequate website objective. Obviously every company needs sales, that's a given, but sales are a result of all the marketing elements you put in place, and the degree to which your presentation distinguishes you from your competition.

There is a prevailing view that traffic translates into sales; this viewpoint may be valid for websites whose economic model is commodity or advertising-based, but businesses that don't compete on price alone, or are more than an excuse to deliver advertising, must be structured around a purpose that is more meaningful, and far more compelling than 'give me an order or don't bother me.'

An over-emphasis on search engine friendly site design ignores the fact that when someone does a search for what you do, they'll not only find you, they'll also find many of your competitors as well. And even if you appear first in the search, nothing will stop potential clients from clicking on any of the other organic or advertised listings, or even the numerous Adword links on the side of the page.

The biggest website design problem companies have is not the amount of traffic generated from search engines, but rather how visitors react to your content. Are visitors engaged, enlightened, and entertained so that they stay on your site long enough to get your marketing message, and is that message compelling enough for them to remember it?

There are many misconceptions about advertising content, one of the biggest is that people hate it, but the truth is, what people hate is bad ad content; qualified clients actually look forward to good advertising because it presents a relevant problem, and provides a believable solution, in a distinctive memorable presentation.

If your content doesn't engage your audience with a persuasive, memorable presentation then you'll never achieve whatever website marketing goals you've set.

How should content be delivered?

We know the vast majority of people don't like to read text on a computer screen, so they scan for relevant information concentrating on bulleted points, captions, and headlines, but does that truncated information really get your message across? Website text is really designed for search engine spiders, which is fine, but how about paying a little attention to people and how they absorb and remember information?

We also know people are impatient and are ready to abandon your website with the click of mouse, often in mid sentence before they ever get to the point you are trying to make. Your clients are sophisticated media consumers raised on video games and television, and are used to making quick decisions on limited information; this kind of leap-of-logic protocol demands a clever focused presentation.

Your audience will be gone in seconds no matter how convincing you think your content is, if it is not presented in a media-savvy manner that holds viewer attention, otherwise your website is nothing more than a glorified Yellow Page ad.

Audio and video has the potential to deliver information in a form and format that attracts and holds viewer interest while it makes a memorable impression. But even audio and video will fail if it is badly conceived, poorly written, and amateurishly performed.

How is your website going to be marketed?

Everyone is concerned with traffic and how to drive it to their websites. Search engine optimization is only one marketing technique, and it's one that ignores the impact of content on your audience in favor of attracting the attention of search engine robots. By all means, build search engine friendly elements into your site but don't ignore people-friendly elements as well.

Having text-based articles on your site is an excellent way to provide search friendly information, but presenting that same information as a professionally produced audio option, or a lively video presentation is certainly more memorable.

An entertaining webmedia presentation makes a lasting impression that viewers are more likely to recommend to colleagues, thereby increasing your traffic and reputation. Word-of-mouth is the best way to generate qualified traffic, and the best way to generate interest in your site is to make your site's presentation a rewarding experience.
What will visitors remember?

In a brick-and-mortar environment, visitors are more likely to make a decision to purchase on the spot, simply to avoid driving halfway across town to save a few dollars, but on the Web jumping from New York to California is as easy as the click of a mouse. People are just more likely to shop-around because it's so easy.

Of course what people think they want is the lowest price, but providing the lowest price only attracts the least profitable buyers and ignores the biggest obstacle website businesses need to overcome, and that's credibility. Who are you, and can you be trusted? And after visiting ten different websites all selling the same thing, can they even remember who you are?

Your presentation has to be memorable and establish credibility so that when all the searching and browsing is finished, your site is the one they remember and go back to; your site must be the one visitors can trust to deliver what's promised.
How to Hire A Web Video Firm

The ability to produce an effective video or audio presentation requires more than the possession of some cool hardware and software. Owning an expensive camera doesn't make you a producer, and even the technical ability to edit doesn't qualified you as a commercial marketing expert. When the time comes to hire someone to add video and/or audio to your website what should you be looking for? Below are eight things you should consider when hiring someone to create webmedia.

-Can the webmedia provider deliver a turnkey solution from concept to implementation, or do you have to act as your own producer hiring different people with different skills complicating the project and creating both technical and conceptual implementation problems?

-Can the webmedia provider produce everything from scripts to custom music in-house, or do they have to farm-out some of the work increasing costs?

-Does the webmedia provider understand how to use verbal and visual performance to create a convincing, memorable presentation, or do they substitute expensive production techniques for cost-effective psychological persuasion?

-Does the webmedia provider just shoot video, or do they have the ability to analyze your offering and purpose, and focus it into a consistent, meaningful, branded presentation?

-Does the webmedia provider have the ability to think strategically as well as tactically? Can they implement and repurpose your investment into your existing website, create a targeted mini campaign site, and provide alternative versions ready for ad implementation?

-Does the webmedia provider have the ability to create lasting campaigns that can be rolled out and built upon, or are they just interested in making a quick buck from a one-off effort? Are they willing and able to be your ongoing webmedia marketing advisor?

-Does the webmedia provider have the ability to turn advertising into content, and content into an experience, or can they only produce nondescript infomercials?

-Does the webmedia provider understand business, marketing, branding, and what can and can't be achieved so that you have appropriate achievable expectations?

Commercial presentation production requires a multitude of skills and talents. Big companies solve the problem by hiring advertising agencies that drive the cost of production beyond what most businesses can afford. By understanding what's needed to create an effective webmedia presentation, you can look for a firm that possesses all the necessary talents in-house; an approach that keeps costs down, while producing an exciting Web video campaign that achieves corporate marketing objectives.

This post provided by Jerry Bader who is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads
Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Most new online business owners think that Internet marketing is their magic pill to making more money. I have news for you...It's not magic. It's a process. But once you work that process, it can work like magic!

Here's the Internet Sales Cycle Broken Down into 5 Simple Parts

1. Collect Leads. The absolute best way is to get leads online is to write unique, original articles that position you as the expert in your specific niche. And, it's not that hard. All you have to write is a simple 500-word "how-to" or "top tips" article that will solve your prospect's pain. Wonder what a "how-to article" is? You're reading one! Then, you want to submit your articles to the top websites, ezines and article directories that your targeted audience is reading. This way, you will be able to drive more website traffic and build your list.

2. Get Them into Your Sales Funnel - And Build Your List. Once you've written your article, you need a way to get prospects into your "sales funnel." The best way to make this easy is to offer a special report, e-Book, e-course, checklist, audio, video or anything else your heart desires. You will not charge for the product. Your goal is to get names now, and make sales later. You will put this information at the end of your article in what we call the bio box.

In the bio box, you can promote your: - Website - Products - Services - Specific "call-to-action" that leads them to the special product you offer For an example just read my bio box at the end of this article. Most people make the mistake of trying to sell high-priced products and services in the bio box.

Getting visitors on your list should be your number one objective! Why? Up to 99% of your first-time visitors will not buy from you. They'll take a quick look and then they'll click away. If you did not capture their names and email addresses, you will have lost them forever.

3. Follow Up. Marketing studies have always shown that your prospects need to be exposed to your message at least 7 times before they'll take any action! That's why you need to build and maintain relationships with your list. This is where ezines, e-course and auto-responders work like a charm. They will follow up for you automatically.

4. Close the Sale. Your ezine, e-courses, special reports and aut oresponder messages should drive readers to what you have to offer. However, don't forget to provide useful content and information. That's why they gave you their names and emails and that's why they'll stay on your list.

Here are two reasons why you shouldn't make the mistake of trying to sell from the actual email:
1) You don't have the room in an email to fully explain what you're selling and demonstrate its value to the prospect.
2) It can turn people off who aren't ready to buy yet. You'll instantly lose those prospects from your list.

The idea of the email is to get them excited about your offering and to get them to click. Once they click, then they should be taken to a sales page that you set up specifically for that product or service you're promoting. It's there that the prospect will get the full scoop on how great your product, book or service is, why they need it, how much it costs and how to order.

5. Upsell, and Upsell. Again Here's the biggest mistake I made when I started to sell my first information product online, "The A to Z Article Marketing System." It was the only product! I didn't even have a membership club in place. So once people bought my product, I had nothing else in my funnel to sell them. I had to work extra hard at finding new prospects all the time.

It's been said for ages: "It is easier to sell an existing client a new product than to find a new client." That's why you need to continue turning (churning has a bad connotation) out valuable new products and programs that your customers will eat up like crazy. You can simply create new products by recycling the articles you used to collect leads.

Now, you have it -- the Internet sales cycle broken down into five easy parts. Now, you should see the missing links in your own Internet sales cycle. Have patience, keep learning and don't stop writing. You'll begin fill in these gaps, and start to see the magic of article marketing work for you.

This post provided by Eric Gruber who uses the power of articles to create online opportunities for entrepreneurs who want more publicity, prospects and profits. Now, Eric is sharing the exact roadmap, broken into 5 easy-to-follow steps that thousands have used to launch and build their businesses online with articles. And, he's giving this knowledge for FREE, with his new e-Book at: http://www.BroadcastYourArticles.com/freebook

Over the past two years, the rapid adoption of social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace has transformed the way many consumers interact on the Web.

Some customer segments, especially younger ones, now spend an increasingly large percentage of their online time on these sites and primarily use them to communicate with their peers. These same consumers, according to a recent report from JupiterResearch, are apparently spending less time in their e-mail inbox and may be paying less attention to the messages they receive there. This shift is causing some to question, perhaps prematurely, the future of e-mail as the dominant social networking tool.

Many marketing campaigns fail because the outcome is not fully articulated. In fact, when I ask Managers what they are trying to accomplish with their marketing program, many still say, "branding" or "to generate leads." Although I applaud the quick response, it's simply not enough.

When planning a marketing campaign, get perfectly clear on what you want to accomplish by when. If it's leads your after, how many? what qualifies a lead? how will you measure? who will determine lead quality? by when?

The more you think about the type of outcome your looking for... with greater detail, the easier it is to define the marketing initiative, tactics, and budget for your marketing campaign. Keep these questions in mind when planning the next campaign:

1. What are you trying to create? (leads, sales, etc.)
2. How do you know when you've achieved your goal?
3. What qualifies as a lead, sales, etc.? (purchase w/o refund?)
4. How much time is associated with your campaign?
5. What are you looking for in terms of activity (2% open, 1% click, etc.)
6. How much do you want to generate (revenue, ROI, etc.)
7. How will you measure effectiveness?

By keeping these questions in mind, and focusing on the results you wish to achieve with detail, you will find that developing an effective marketing campaign is easier than you might think. Marketing requires attention to detail and specific outcomes to be defined. Happy marketing.

Google does a lot of things that can help local businesses market themselves and become more visible to potential customers. They recently announced a partnership with NBC that will have Google distributing ads on NBC channels while addressing local markets.

The classic local marketing tool from Google though, is still Google Maps and local search. This is especially true as more and more people use the Internet to shop.

Google has just made it easier to get your business listed (and keep it listed) by posting some official guidelines for quality listings. The new guidelines read as follows:

- Represent your business exactly as it appears in real life. The name on Google Maps should match the business name, as should the address, phone number and website.

- List information that provides as direct a path to the business as you can. Given the choice, you may want to list individual location phone numbers over a central phone line, official website pages rather than a directory page, and as exact of an address as you can.

-Only include listings for businesses that you represent.

-Don't participate in any behavior with the intention or result of listing your business more times

than it exists. Service area businesses, for example, should not create a listing for every town they

service. Likewise, law firms or doctors should not create multiple listings to cover all of their

specialties.

-Use the description and custom attribute fields to include additional information about your listing. This type of

content should never appear in your business's title or address fields.

Google is also now offering a re-inclusion request option that will give businesses sort of an opportunity to appeal if their listing is removed. If that happens, and you are unable to get back in, remember that other sites have local search and map features too. Not that I'm condoning spamming those, which is one reason that you will not be allowed in Google in the first place. Either way, make sure not to look past your local audience.

Post provide by Chris, a content coordinator and staff writer for SmallBusinessNewz and the iEntry Network.

The CAN-SPAM Act has now been law in the US for more than four and a half years, yet many marketers misunderstand the law, how it applies to their business, or fail to know where the law falls short of best practices.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has moved to enforce some key measures of the Act by going after those that egregiously use e-mail for fraudulent or deceptive activity, yet spam hasn't abated. Major Internet service providers (ISPs) continue to block 80% to 90% of the e-mail reaching their networks as spam or phishing, much of it actually being CAN-SPAM compliant! This is why marketers should not only seek to comply with the law, but understand how listening to the wants and needs of each subscriber is the best action they can take toward optimizing their e-mail program.

First, do no harm. Follow CAN-SPAM by providing a clear and easy way for your subscribers to opt-out of your e-mail messages, then honor those requests as quickly as possible. The recent FTC rulings say that you can't require the recipient to visit more than a single Web page or provide a password or any other information to unsubscribe, so do some checking to ensure your unsubscribe mechanism is compliant. However, don't forget that the Act also does explicitly permit you to provide a menu of subscription choices to your subscribers, such that they may opt-out of your promotions, for example, but stay subscribed to your monthly newsletter.

Companies who provide this type of profile/subscription page see fewer complete opt-outs since they've provided their subscribers with a way to opt-down.

Second, avoid temptation. CAN-SPAM allows marketers to send unsolicited e-mail messages…but don't do it! The Act says as long as you provide a notice of advertising or solicitation, your physical mailing address, and a working reply address or other internet mechanism to manage opt-outs that this is an accepted practice, but it will damage your brand, e-mail reputation, and in turn the ROI from your e-mail channel.

The best practice for deliverability and optimizing the return from e-mail is to send only to those that raised their hands and gave you explicit approval to send them e-mail. CAN-SPAM calls it affirmative consent, and with it, you still have to provide your physical mailing address and an unsubscribe mechanism, but you can do away with that notice of advertising or solicitation, which should aid your ability to avoid content-based spam filters.

Last, leverage your transactions. CAN-SPAM allows you to send transactional or relationship messages without offering an unsubscribe mechanism. The first e-mail you send to a subscriber or new customer is often as a result of something he or she has done, such as made a purchase or subscribed to your publication. This first welcome e-mail is often the most opened or clicked communication a marketer ever sends and can include commercial information, provided that the e-mail subject line is non-commercial (for example Welcome to Widget Co., Order Receipt Enclosed), and that the transactional information precedes the commercial or advertising information.

Even better is if you can make that ad relevant to the product the customer just bought. In fact, learning to plan and optimize each communication with each individual subscriber is the ultimate key to a thriving e-mail marketing program.

Hello All,

Happy Friday. A colleague recently asked me how he can market his small business with little or no money. Sound impossible? Not at all. Keep in mind that marketing isn't just about advertising and trade shows... it's about communicating your message - brand, product benefits, etc. - in all you do.

I suggested three things that could be done immediately to being marketing without money.

1. Change your voicemail. Add you company tag line, mention a new product, or let your caller know about a recent offer. This can be done at zero cost and helps to market your company, products and services.

2. Ask for a Referral. The purpose of marketing is to sell. Why not cut to the chase? After each sale, ask for a referral. Your customer usually knows at least one other person who can benefit from your service.

3. Write a letter. Do you have a short list of prospects that you've been trying to reach but no marketing materials? No matter.... generate a handwritten not that specifically addresses your prospect's pain points and how you and your business can alleviate them. For less than 50 cents, you've created a powerful marketing piece that can generate significant results.

Marketing doesn't have to cost a lot, or anything for that matter. Keep it simple and think about those ways in which you're currently communicating with your prospects and customers. Can you turn these communications into marketing opportunities?

Search engines like Google use links from authoritative sites as a key factor in determining the rankings of their results. Since press releases are published on many authoritative sites and can include lots of links back to your site, they're a great opportunity to improve your site's search-engine rankings.

Very few marketers are taking advantage of this opportunity. Data we collected from over 11,000 press releases show that 99.5% of press releases aren't optimized for the Web.

How do you make sure you're press releases are optimized?Here are a few tips:

First, make sure your releases include links back to your site. When press releases are published by wire services and news agencies, these links will drive potential customers back to your site. More importantly, the links will give you credit with search engines and improve your ranking in their results.

Second, when you publish links, make sure you're linking from relevant keywords. For example, if your company sells custom built homes, the links back to your site should go from keywords like “new homes” and “custom built homes.”

Linked words are important because they help search engines determine what your site is about. When you link from descriptive phrases like “custom built homes,” you'll improve your rank in the results that users get when they run searches on those terms.

One last link-related tip: Make sure you put links to your site near the top of your press releases. News agencies and wire services tend to break press releases into multiple pages when they publish them on the Web. You want to be on the first page because that's the one that counts the most with the search engines.

Link structure is the key to optimizing your press releases for search engines, but don't forget the basics.

Be certain to include your company's contact information, e-mail and Web address in the press release. When reporters find your press release, make sure they know how to get in touch with you.

Also, don't forget to include an “about your company” section. Many people who look at press releases are used to scanning for this particular section of the release to learn more about the companies or organizations mentioned. Make it easy for these people to find what they're looking for. There's no reason not to.

This might seem basic, but it makes a difference. With the right tweaks, you can turn your press releases into powerful online marketing tools.

For more information, visit Hubspot.com