Online social  networks are vital to the growth of any business in today’s rapidly changing  online marketplace. They are designed to  foster human interaction, which in turn can build trust for you and your  business. You can coordinate social  media, Search Engine Optimization, and paid search marketing through one single  marketing platform. With a little time  invested, some of the benefits you will see are increased revenue, powerful  customer relationships, increased traffic to your website, and brand presence.

The newest way to tap into the online social network is by the use  of Facebook. Like a college fraternity, socializing is the key to success. Originally created for college students, it  is now open to anyone. Recent statistics  show Facebook grows by about 3% each week with 25 and older being the fastest  growing segment of its users.

Your Top Facebook Strategies:

- Create  a fantastic profile. Enter as much  professional information as possible, and make sure your profile relates you to  the same group as your target audience.

- Join a  network and a group. Facebook puts  people into social networks based on workplace, region, or school. Your regional network should be based on the  area you want to target.

- Post  relevant content. Build credibility by  adding content to your page and links to articles you have written or link to  your blog.

- Create  your own group. By starting your own  group you have complete control over the content as well as who it reaches.

- Interact  with others online. I said it before and  now again, socializing is the key to Facebook. Start a new topic in the discussion board, comment on profiles, play games,  etc. This will increase your exposure to  other members.

- Continue  relationships beyond Facebook. Facebook  is a great beginning, but your focus should be on extending past that. Try  www.linkedin.com

  Marketing on Facebook is very similar to marketing through other  online networks. You can build your  brand, drive website traffic, or sell  products. Facebook is an open-source  application, which allows any programmer to create an add-on. You have the  ability to add onto the site and customize your applications.  Some have created drop-down menus or added music  capability. Having the ability to create  add-ons will allow you to reinforce your branding. You will have the  opportunity to market yourself by creating tools others might find useful. Another  way you can market is to create a flyer or banner. You can post your ad for a small fee on  different networks. Your ad will be  served 2500 times a day per $5 investment. You also have control over the  target it reaches. It even allows you to target based on keywords or utilize performance  based pay per click programs.

With some careful planning, you can become involved in many social  groups. Thankfully, you avoid the hazing that some encountered in college, and  you can still be part of the popular crowd.

A new blog is launched every second. If you somehow have not yet had the pleasure of reading one, they are online publications in the form of a log or journal where the writer can voice their opinion and information of the topic on hand. We read marketing blogs, blogs about shopping, kids, dogs, home-selling, entertainment news, and more.

People write blogs to keep in touch with family members, to have a creative outlet, to have an extension of their already existing website, and (but not limited to) to make money on referrals. Due to their popularity, blogs are also being used as an Internet marketing tool. Corporate blogs can be a viable tool in effective communication to the corporate community.

Mistakes to avoid when blogging:

1. Never launching your blog. Enough said.
2. Using a sub domain. You are going to want full control over your website URL later, and it will be more difficult to fix if you have it separate. You can even map your own domain to a blogging site.
3. Spending too much time on the design. Pick a template and stick with it. The focus should be on the content.
4. Keeping your blog to yourself. When a new blog is launched, there has not yet been enough time to get links to you or be ranked by a search engine. You have to do a lot of word-of-mouth marketing.
5. Getting discouraged. It is hard to get everything up and running and successful overnight. Everything takes time. Give yourself one year.
6. Biting off more than you can chew. While Google offers many advertising possibilities, hold off until you have an audience. Once you have readers then work on making money.
7. Update in a regular, timely fashion. Your readers want to know what to expect!

Cyber Monday is right around the corner. Affiliates and retailers are preparing themselves for, hopefully, a very lucrative holiday season. Are you getting ready? Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) sets the pace for physical retail stores nationwide. Cyber Monday gives online retailers something to look forward to. Or at least, this is what is believed. Actually, according to Business Week, Cyber Monday is only the 12^th busiest online shopping day of the year. A term named in 2005, Cyber Monday is not thething to start planning for, but the entire holiday shopping season.

Many holiday shoppers log on to search for the best deals. They may possibly go to their favorite sites or hit shopping comparison engines, such as shopping.com, or bizrate.com. However your online shoppers find you, the best way to prepare is to fully track and analyze which page they are on and what they are looking at on your site. But most importantly, don’t forget to track your shopping cart abandonment rate and improve your check out process.

The upcoming holiday season is a critical time for online retailers. In Q4, online retail sales should be in the billions and for many companies that means 20-40% of their sales occur during this time. With the holiday season signaling the countdown to gift-giving, online retailers should execute online marketing campaigns to drive shopping behavior around this key time period.

Here are our top marketing recommendations for the holiday season:

• Launch personalized email campaigns, increase paid search daily budgets and per-click bids, and optimize shopping comparison site placements
• Communicate a sense of urgency and drive customers to shop prior to inventory limitations, high shipment costs, or inability to deliver on time

Throughout the holiday season, you can also:

• Promote top gifts available on your site (use gender-specific, hard-to-shop-for friend, or life-stage searches)
• You can offer e-gift certificates for the hard-to-search-for friend or for convenience for your shoppers
• Try to use gorilla marketing to engage in customer reviews and/or referral promotions

Happy Holidays!

When you have a strong list of subscribers who have agreed that you send emails to, you have a powerful marketing tool that can be leveraged over and over again.

Sending emails with the sole purpose of creating a relationship with your past, current, and prospective customers you have a valuable tool that will ensure repeat business. You can drive them to your website or different landing pages, heighten brand awareness, they can interact with you, and most importantly strengthen customer relationships.

Here are our top five:

#1 Emails should go out regularly. Send them out at least once a month. Even if you have sent out previous emails and did not receive any response, they may still be interested in reading what you have to say.

#2 Email useful information and tips. Focus on providing information to your subscribers with more than what you sell. Give them something that they are interested in reading and that may be useful to them. By doing this, you are going to become a valued resource, and when it is time for them to purchase your services or goods, they are already going to trust you and look to you for answers.

#3 Confirm that you are getting through to your subscribers and track results. Although graphics, flash animators, and videos look great; your email may get blocked by spam filters. By leaving out this information, you have a higher chance of getting through and then you can drive your readers to your website or targeted landing pages.

#4 Create a way for your readers to respond or interact with you. You can do this by having a “contact me” link or a forum section. Any way you can get your reader to be involved only creates a stronger relationship.

#5 Build personalized communication through targeted campaigns. Specific content and

messages that interest your customers are very important to include so that they look forward to receiving your next email. You want to appeal to them and their interests so that you are seen as a valuable resource. By tracking the results you can target your information.

Remember, you don’t have to profit from your email. You are trying to create a relationship with your reader that will grow into something more in the future. If they feel like they know you and have a relationship with you, they are more likely going to buy your services or goods rather than your competitors’.

We recently read an article that talked about getting an email for concert tickets. The subject line of the email was “Korn and Disney on Ice: Princess Wishes Presale.” What do they have in common? Basically nothing. It would be like sending a message stating “The New BMW and Kia Have Arrived,” two things that have a much different target audience. If you are interested in tickets to go see one of these shows, most likely you are not interested in the other. They do not have a direct relationship to each other, and, even more likely, a very small percentage of the readers have a relationship with it themselves.

If the ticket company targeted its audience, its response would have been dramatically higher. I am assuming that most people deleted the email right away. The juxtaposition of the two items in the heading probably diminished the response immediately.

They instead, should have segmented the readers’ interests and promoted relevant events rather than pairing two things that likely don’t match. By advertising rock music concerts with the Korn presale or family events with the Disney On Ice presale to those who have an interest in either of the two, more readers would not only be interested, but may also purchase tickets for multiple events.

• Ask your customer what interests them and gear messages to that targeted group. By knowing what your audience is looking for, you can be more successful in taking steps to connect with that audience.
• Segment your visitors based on their past online and offline behavior
• Segment based on what your viewers are looking at on your website
• Use the results of different offers that you send out to segment who responds to what

Defining, segmenting, and tuning your message to the right audience will give you a higher lift rate than sending out blind messages. The most important tool you have is to understand what your audience is after and, then, finding the appropriate way to communicate your messages and approach.

IN THIS ISSUE:

 

This month’s edition is about using analytics and tracking
your online

conversion rate. Measuring the success of your marketing
efforts is one of

the smartest things you can do as a small business owner.

 

1. An Analytics Consulting Model for Small Business

 

2. Uncovering Both Top- and Bottom-Line Growth for Your
Online Business

 

___________________________

 

Email in your questions and have your business challenges or
questions

answered in the next gWave blog!

__________________________

 

For a FREE 30 minute
Internet marketing

review contact us today.

www.gwaveconsulting.com

___________________________

 

gWave Consulting 

350 11th Ave

Suite 330

San Diego, CA 92101

p: 619-224-2455

 

f: 619-330-1977

 www.gWaveConsulting.com

 

June 2007

 

An Analytics Consulting Model for Small Businesses

Dr. Ralph
F. Wilson,

Editor-in-Chief Web Marketing Today

 

I came back from the <a  href="http://www.emetrics.org">Emetrics Summit</a> in San Francisco, May 7-9, 2007, hopeful that small businesses can
find a way to get in on the tremendous benefits of web analytics and
testing. I am convinced from my five years in the Total Quality Management
(TQM) Movement in the early 90s of the following: "What you
don’t measure, you can’t improve."

 
How Things Stand for Small Business Web Analytics

 
Here’s how I see it in a nutshell:

 - Nearly all small businesses have a measurement system in
place for their

website (though too many aren’t aware of the analytics data
available from

their web hosting service for no additional cost).

- Good to excellent web analytics tools are now available
for small

businesses for free or at low cost, so no one can say these
days, "I can’t

afford the software." In particular, <a href="http://www.google.com/analytics/">Google Analytics</a> (www.google.com/analytics/) and <a  href="http://www.wilsonweb.com/afd/clicktracks.htm">ClickTracks</a>

(www.clicktracks.com) are within reach of nearly all small
businesses.

- But small businesses just aren’t able to do much with the
data at their

fingertips.

- Because larger businesses use analytics and testing and
small businesses seldom do, the performance gap between large and small
business profitability becomes greater every year.

 

Why Consultants Are Needed

 

The gap, in my opinion, is because small businesses don’t
have a person on staff who has the training, the time, and the focus to
gather, analyze, and fact on the data, resulting in improved efficiency of the
website and higher conversion rates. 

Here’s my conclusion. Small businesses that "get
it" and really are

willing to pay the price to improve must find and engage
competent and

creative web analytics consultants for several hours per
month.

 

Reports. Frankly, you don’t merely need expensive analyst reports
on

what’s happening on the site or in sales. They’re important,
but that’s

merely maintenance. Google Analytics and most other
professional analytics

packages can be set up to e-mail you regular reports.
Reports, properly

configured, may alert you to problems, but reports alone
will not move you

forward.

 

Analysis. Consultants need to be engaged to:

 

- Study your data regularly over a period of many months,

- Make recommendations for how to improve your site and
online sales,

- Design and implement tests that can determine whether
these hypotheses

are accurate, and then perhaps

- Help you implement the changes on your website, if you
don’t already

have a web designer or webmaster who can do that for you.

 

A Consultant Model

 

Here’s a possible shape that a web analytics consultant
contract might

take:

 

Hourly rate: $75 to $200 per hour. This may sound like a lot
of money, but

we don’t flinch when we take our cars for repair. Well, we
may flinch, but

we do it because we must. A consultant’s hourly rate will
depend upon

experience, the number of hours contracted for each month –
and, frankly,

exposure to large companies that expect to pay higher hourly
rates. If it

makes you feel better, compare consultant costs to the lost
opportunities

and the potential gain. Getting a good consultant should
make you many,

many times more than you pay, so long as your business has
potential.

 

Set-up Phase. When you first engage a consultant, he or she
will want to

set up your analytics package so that provides the data that
will be most

helpful to your kind of business. This might include
determining

appropriate KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for your
company and setting

up reports that can be generated automatically. This phase
might take 4 to

6 hours, more or less, depending on your business and the
current state of

your analytics.

 

Monthly Analysis. I recommend that you engage an analyst for
4 to 10 hours

per month to study your data and make recommendations. This
is time

consuming, hard work. Unless you have the training, you
won’t be able to

dig deep because you won’t know from experience where it is
most

productive to dig.

 

Testing Cycles. Two to four times per year you’ll want your
analyst to run

tests that you and your analyst agree upon. These tests will
typically help

you optimize your landing pages, navigation system, user
interface, etc.

Setting up tests is time intensive, and typically includes
test design,

graphics design, page layout, and then analysis of the data
once you have

collected statistically significant data. The results might
then suggests

a couple of other tests to optimize a page. Such tests might
take 20 to 40

hours per cycle.

 

Here’s how this might look in terms of dollars.

$75 per hour	$125 per hour	$200 per hour
Set-up Phase (one-time only), 4 to 6 hours.	$300 to $450	$500 to $750	$800 to $1,200
Monthly Analysis, 4 to 10 hours per month	$300 to $750/month	$500 to $1,250	$800 to $2,000
Testing Cycles, 20 to 40 hours per cycle	$1,500 to $3,000 two or three times per year	$2,500 to $5,000 two or three times per year	$4,000 to $8,000 two or three times per year.
Annual Costs	$6,900 to $18,450	$11,500 to $30,750	$18,400 to $49,200

This model, at least, provides you a way to look at the task
and discuss

it with an analyst, though you and your analyst may want to
change the

approach to suit your needs better.

 

I believe that a small business owner who hires a analyst on
this sort of

basis will look back a year from now with profound
appreciation for how

far they’ve come. Yes, it’s expensive. But the payback for
most small

businesses will be 10-fold to 50-fold or more on their
investment. That

encourages me. What discourages me is that way to many small
businesses

are so short-sighted and cheap that they choose not invest
in web

analytics consulting and are thus doomed to maintain the
status quo — and

fall behind their competitors.

 

The final piece of this solution is finding an analyst who
is both

competent and open to working with small businesses. The

[http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org/] Web Analytics
Association

(www.webanalyticsassociation.org) might be a potential
source of small

business consultants, though their current job board deals
only with full

time employment positions. Google has certified a number of

[http://www.google.com/analytics/support_partner_provided.html]
Google

Analytics Authorized Consultants in various countries

(www.google.com/analytics/support_partner_provided.html). I
can also try

to
[http://www.wilsonweb.com/contact/analytics_referral_form.htm] refer

analysts I trust to qualified small businesses

([http://www.wilsonweb.com/contact/analytics_referral_form.htm]

www.wilsonweb.com/contact/analytics_referral_form.htm).

 

Uncovering Both Top- and Bottom-Line Growth for Your Online
Business

 

Kevin Gold, Enhanced Concepts

 

About.Com:Small Business:

Canada

 

Traffic Generation versus Website Conversion Strategies

 

On Wall Street, financial investors speak of CEOs improving
their

companies’ "top line" by increasing sales volume
or their "bottom line" by

reducing their expenses to expand the margins from their
current sales

volume.

 

For online businesses a similar "top line - bottom
line" approach should

be taken by business owners determining where to direct
their improvement

efforts.

 

Defining Top-Line versus Bottom-Line

 

An online business improves its "top line" by
increasing the number of

unique visitors to its website or its "bottom
line" by increasing its

"visitor-to-sale" or "visitor-to-lead"
conversion rates.

 

Let me illustrate.

 

After an online business establishes its performance
metrics, it is able

to predict with confidence the expected results from its
visitor traffic.

 

For example, an online business’s performance metrics may
show that for

every 1,000 visitors received, 15 sales are completed - a
sales conversion

rate of 1.5 percent.

 

With this understanding, the business can increase its
"top line" growth

by driving more visitors to its website. For example, if the
business

invests money in traffic generation efforts to increase
visitor traffic

from 1,000 to 10,000, 150 sales will be achieved from the
1.5 percent

sales conversion rate - a ten times growth rate.

 

Top-Line Improvements Focuses on Traffic Generation

 

What are "traffic generation efforts"?

 

In brief, traffic generation efforts are ways an online
business attracts

visitors to its website. They may include online efforts
such as search

engine optimization, pay-per-click search engines, affiliate
marketing,

email campaigns, and media or offline ones such as direct
mail,

television, radio, and public relations.

 

On the other hand, the business may decide to spend its
money on improving

its "bottom line" by concentrating efforts on
website conversion

strategies.

 

For example, if the above online business invests money in
website

conversion strategies to increase its sales conversion rate
from 1.5

percent to 2 percent, then for the same 1,000 visitors,
sales will

increase from 15 to 20 - a 25 percent increase.

 

Bottom-Line Increases Focus on Website Conversion Strategies

 

So what are website conversion strategies?

 

Web site conversion strategies are website design changes
that connect

with your visitor’s wants and persuade them to take action
to achieve your

goals as well as theirs. There are endless strategies to
increase your

bottom line, although some have greater significance than
others.

 

Depending on your type of online business, different
strategies may

achieve greater results for your website and offer greater
relevancy for

your visitors.

 

If you manage a consumer or business product website, then
website

conversion strategies that focus on reducing shopping cart
abandonment may

provide the greatest website conversion improvement. While a
service

business’s lead generation website will find improvement
from website

conversion strategies focused on "contact us" form
completion.

 

Implement These Website Conversion Strategies

 

There are website conversion strategies that will improve
conversion rates

for all online businesses regardless of their individual
objectives. These

strategies include improvements to…

 

- Website’s sales copy, including writing headlines and
sub-heads with

stronger visitor appeal, defining stronger calls-to-action,
using more

visitor-relevant and benefit-oriented words and positioning
popular

visitor keywords in prominent areas to connect with visitors
and persuade

them to action.

 

- Graphics and layout design to generate visual relevancy
and message

consistency for your visitors.

 

- Guarantees, returns, shipping, privacy, customer support
and security

policies you present to gain confidence and trust from your
visitors.

 

- Navigational structures to make it easier and more
convenient for your

visitors to locate the products and services they desire to
purchase.

 

- Buying or contact options to increase the ways in which a
visitor can

purchase or receive contact from you including alternatives
to a shopping

cart or online form like phone, mail, fax, online chat, and
email.

 

How to Decide Between Top-Line or Bottom-Line Improvements

 

Your decision to pursue "top-line" or "bottom-line"
improvements to your

online business should be evaluated by (1) the objectives
you plan to

achieve, (2) the amount of money you have to spend, (3) the
time-line

established to meet your goals, (4) the amount of visitor
traffic your

website currently receives and (5) the conversion rate your
website

currently achieves for your calls-to-action.

 

Establishing a plan before you make any decisions is
critical.

 

As the old joke goes, "I’m making progress climbing the
ladder of

success - I just don’t know if it’s leaning against the
right wall." The

plan for your online business should include measurable
goals based on

your current performance metrics.

 

Knowing your budget is essential in the selection process.
Certain

conversion enhancement strategies can be implemented for a
small

investment of your time and effort, while traffic generation
efforts may

require greater investments of time, effort or both.
Figuring out your

budget enables you to also forecast the potential return you
may receive

from improving your top-line versus your bottom-line.
Obviously the areas

that provide the biggest bang for your buck are the ones to
start one

first.

 

Understanding your time-line is also essential since many
website

conversion enhancement strategies will offer quick improvement
to your

conversion rates while traffic generation efforts like
search engine

optimization have long lag times before delivering ample
visitor traffic.

 

Identifying your current visitor traffic volume and
conversion rates,

especially for new online businesses, is also very important
when

determining top-line or bottom-line improvement. If you
currently have low

visitor traffic then you will have difficulty in determining
if a website

conversion enhancement strategy had a real effect on
improving your

conversion rates.

 

For example, if your website receives 100 visitors a month,
it will take

you at least a month or two before any real measurable
changes occur to

your conversion rates. In this case, you would be better off
focusing on

top-line (traffic generation efforts) first and then
returning to

bottom-line improvements for increasing your conversion
rates.

 

Likewise, if your website currently has strong visitor
traffic, say 15,000

visitors per month, yet your current conversion rate
produces only 5 sales,

then obviously you need to improve your bottom-line and
focus on conversion

enhancement strategies.

 

Take time to review your "top line" versus
"bottom line" opportunities and

to decide which one offers you the best return for your
dollars spent. If

you concentrate on improving one of the two areas over the
next month, you

can be confident that measurable sales growth is achievable
for your online

business.

Are you
sure you know the intricacies of running an online store?

 

In working
with numerous clients on their ecommerce projects, there has been one thing
that has stuck out. Logistics. Logistics, you ask. Well, we have assisted
handfuls of small business start ups with getting their product online. The
majority of the time, a business owner will ask for a simple website where
people can purchase product and/or using tools like Pay Pal. Sounds simple
enough – right?

 

The first
thing we do is ask a series of questions related to running their online store.
For example, if you were thinking about getting your latest hot product online
for people to see and buy, we would ask:

 

1. what product are you selling
        and do you have an expansive product line?
2. are you able to create a
        product matrix for everything you hope to sell?
3. do you have product ID numbers
        or SKU’s already mapped out?
4. do you have product images of
        every single item?
5. do you have product
        descriptions written, including price?
6. so you have a shipping account
        with UPS?
7. do you have a business bank
        account ready to receive funds?
8. once an order is placed, who
        will fulfill the order – you?
9. where does the inventory live?
10. who will package up the product
         an ship it?
11. how are you handling returns?

 

This is not
intended to scare anyone away from setting up shop online. It’s intended to
assist you in answering the most important business logistics, to ensure you
run a successful online shop.

 

It is an education
process, and a lot of ecommerce newbies may have never thought about these
questions. An experienced web development company should help you think through
these items and provide direction where needed. This is a two street and most of
the items listed above will require planning.

 

Good luck
and here’s to your online success.

Often times we get caught up in the monthly task of getting our email newsletters out. Here are a couple of tips to make them more valuable:

1. Poll your clients or prospects on a hot industry topic. Get them involved and do a follow up to this poll.
2. Ask subscribers to submit a business challenge to be answered in the next issue. Schedule a time to interview the subscriber and provide feedback to the business challenge.
3. Tell a recent client success story, but more importantly what problem was overcome. Back it up with real world business numbers.
4. Segment your current subscriber list into clients, prospects and vendors. Create separate offers and or communications to each audience. More relevancy equals often times leads to a higher response rate.
5. Offer a value add cross promotion with a partner. We saw a great mailer the other week. A local window covering company partnered with a organization company. The window covering company sent out a customer appriciation letter, which included a 25% off coupon for the home organization services. Brilliant!

Take action and turn your email marketing into profit generating results.

After months of working with numerous start ups, I have come to the conclusion that some particular clients think the Internet is going to make them rich over night. What happened to sound business plans and planning for the future? All to often, a client believes they can set up an Internet marketing campaign and double their company revenue in one week with little to no effort.

1. Have proper expectations. The Internet is a marketing channel and not a get rich quick platform. You will lose faith quickly if you think the Internet is your only means of a marketing plan.

2. Realize that your target market will find you in the offline world. I literally had to remind someone the other day to not forget networking in their business community. Face to face relationships are very important - still!

3. Understand that setting up a Google or Yahoo PPC campaign doesn’t guarantee that your target audience will click on your ads and convert into a lead. Markerters can create and write compelling ad copy, but we can’t make people click on your ad. If PPC isn’t right for your business we will know and try something else. Keyword - try something else. Everything Internet marketing avenue is not a for sure thing.

4. Understand the basics of email marketing. No you can’t buy a list of emails from a slime company. That’s called spam. You have to build an opt-in or permission based list. By spamming people you are literally breaking the law and just plain ol standard business ethics. People open emails from senders they trust and more importantly you’ve sent them something in the past that contained value. Here’s a great write up at WilsonWeb on this.

5. Understand the bare bone basics of how much traffic your website is actually getting.I speak to hundreds of businesses a month about improving their online strategy. If you don’t know where you are now, how in the world will you know what to improve.  You may be sitting on a gold mine and not even know it.

We were recently working with a client who was blasting out to 50k subscribers. Over lunch, we were discussing all the steps they were taking prior to sending out the email blast. The content was very relevant to the audience, but the open rate was around 5-10%. Not very good!

After digging a little bit more, I realized that they were not testing different subject lines prior to sending the email blast. The subject line of your email is free advertising. It should be compelling, could have a call to action, a promotion or a the title of a headline article. The existing subject was "Date, Company Name, Newsletter. Not very compelling to say the least. We began brainstorming on the different subject lines they could test. Keyword here is - TEST.

Prior to sending to 50k subscribers we recommended they test 3 or 4 subject lines with a smaller portion of the list. This measures what subject line is resulting in the higher open rate. This way the official newsletter launch date is 2 times more effective when it comes to the open rate of the actual email.  This was pretty important  to the client  as they have some high paying advertisers in the newsletter.

So in closing, try something different when it comes to your subject lines. Test with a small sub group of your subscriber list. We’ll talk more later on how you can segment your lists in order to send even more relevant copy.

Chow!