If done right bulk email can be an important tool in your marketing arsenal. And if done wrong, beware the wrath of a customer spammed!

There are several ways of classifying bulk email:

• Opt In or unsolicited
• Rich text/html or plain text
• Promotional or educational
• Proactive or responsive

Bulk email can have various objectives. You may be sending it out to announce a new product or a promotion (get more sales) increase traffic to your website or online business, or you maybe sending out relationship building emails that entertain, educate, thank and “keep in touch” with the potential or current customer.

The success of your bulk email campaign depends on several factors:

The quality of your list can make the difference between success and disaster. Whether you have taken the harder path of building the list yourself or you have rented a list from a primary list provider, the success of your email campaign will depend on how well people on the list fit your target customer profile, and if the list is updated and tested. You may be tempted to try unsolicited bulk email because it is so much cheaper and some situations might even warrant it but you will realize in the long run it is the “opt-in” email that is more cost effective and brings you higher ROI.

The second ingredient in the bulk email campaign recipe is the distribution and control system of your bulk email campaigns. It is highly recommended that you use a professional bulk email management company and designate an internal coordinator to manage it. It may seem like a simple task since you have an ace list and you think all you need to do is shoot out an email version of your direct mail piece to 20,000 customers…that can’t be hard. Well, you couldn’t be more wrong. If you don’t want your emails getting lost in cyber space or worse, your company getting black-listed for spam oran even dire scenario where thousands of irate customers “opt out”,then do yourself a favor and hire the pros.

Next factor is the content and format of the emails: The recommended method is both rich text or html and plain text versions of the same email. That being said it is what you say that is more important than how you say it. Get a professional copywriter with experience in direct marketing and writing for the web. From the subject line to the body and call to action, every word and image in the email campaign will literally spell out the success or failure of your campaign.

Last but not the least is another crucial factor that will determine if your email is opened and read – the timing of when you actually send them out. Consider all the factors on your end but most importantly look at research on consumer behavior and buying patterns to decide if Friday, Monday or mid week will be a better time for your target audience. If you have a big list you should break it up based on segmentation and send out the bursts at different times of the week and month.

After all of this is done and you think you have a killer mass email campaign, test it. And the repeat the whole process based on results.

Bulk email is an effective marketing tool and should take proper planning and resources before you roll it out. It should be considered part of your marketing campaign and planned in conjunction with other tactics as a integrated campaign for maximum effectiveness.

- Cherryone

If you have a website, we have news for you. The homepage is dead. Long live the search engines!

75% of visitors arrive at a page on your website via search -

“Basically search engines rule the web,” says, the research Guru Dr, Neilson.

What that means for you is that your landing pages need to be beefed up with relevant material not just stuffed with keywords that bring that visitor to your site. Another relevant piece of news is that people browsing the Net are getting more impatient and savvy. They not only know how to navigate their way around, but also know when their time is being wasted. They want to conduct their business and move on. So you need to give them what they want fast by getting stratight to the point. Be it information or transaction, brevity and relevance is the key. Have your offer ready when they arrive and give them the tools to wrap it up, fast. Otherwise not only will they exit your site but will also make sure to steer clear of it even when it pulls up in future SERPS.

When planning your website pay special attention to all the landing pages that link from your searched keywords and take pains to make them relevant to avoid frustrating your customers. You may also consider hiring a web- copywriter to write compelling offers and calls to action. One who understands marketing, creative writing and web user habits. Often, it is the right offer, expressed with the right words that will clinch the deal while the wrong one’s can confuse. Also it is important to have a natural flowing page continuing from the search result. The look and feel should match your brand image and the landing page should have buttons for the visitor to move to other relevant pages within the website without much effort.

Treat the landing page as a complete location- a one stop shop for the visitor. Remember the single click rule. The visitor should be able to access the information they seek through the shortest, most direct route available.

If the website is the shop and the search engine results page is the show window, then the landing page is the spot where the customer can finally make that informed decision and take action. Remember, the product or offer displayed in that window pulled the customer into your shop.

If your customer had a great experience and found that you had followed through on the initial information or better still surprised them by exceeding on it. Then you have a loyal customer. At least until they find a better deal. They will bookmark your website and spread the word to increase your following. After all, finding great deals on the Net is quite a skill and your customer is an “adept and savvy shopper”. Let them come away with this feeling and your job is done. The home page might be dead but the inside pages will make sure it is not forgotten!

– Cherryone

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Mass marketing can be massive waste when your medium of choice is Virtual.

As a marketer you know that you cannot be everything to everyone. You can however, be everything to someone; which is how you have niche markets. Appealing to the lowest common denominator can backfire as much as hoping for a trickle down effect from the top down.

Even brand Moguls like Coca Cola will create seperate campaigns for different segments of their consumers. The same product with the same positioning is sold to different groups with entirely different message based on what will resonate with them and how they interact with Media.

Same is the case with Email marketing. It might be bulk in the way it is set up, but it does not have to be one mass message sent out to all.The idea is to segment your list based on profiles and customize the message.

In this customize-and-personalize market, advertising still falls into a few categories. That is because there are only certain ways that you can appeal to people. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs* really sums it up. Which means, the markets might be diverse and deeply segmented, they can all be motivated by invoking basic, instinctive motivations/needs. Maslow boils them down to: deficiency needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem, growth, aesthetic and self transcendence (whatever that means). So you can scare people into buying your message, flatter them, tell them they’ll fit in if…, they’ll be loved/liked more if they used the product…, help them do better in some way or simply entertain and amuse them, make them laugh or cry.

Take viral marketing for example, and you’ll easily be able to fit anyone of the popular videos on YouTube into one of these categories. All marketers need to do is match the target audience profile with the appropriate appeal and the specific advantages of the medium where the message will appear, and there you have it, a viral marketing campaign! If only it was that easy, real work starts once you get your campaign off this rack that Maslow setup in 1943.

The success of a well-planned viral campaign depends on how vested the audience is in the original message (no matter how wacky it maybe) and how it is delivered to them. With proper seeding this well planned and decently executed message will reach the audience and will take your media budget so far that you’ll forget how little you spent.

These days since it takes very little to produce a campaign, we see all kinds of half baked efforts that end up “friend-less”. Our internet savy audience has become immune to anything that in not out of the ordinary. If you want to be memorable, no, viral, you have to do more. No one wants to share mediocrity!

- Cherryone

*Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation,[1] which he subsequently extended to include his observations of humans’ innate curiosity. (wikipedia)\par

Don’t forget to check our other Cherryone blog on Blogger:

http://cherryonewebdesign.blogspot.com/

Thanks,

- Cherryone

What is PPC? Well, it stands for Pay-Per-Click. These are online campaigns that you may run with Google, Yahoo!, MSN and other search engines. The three most known services are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Marketing Center and MSN Ad Center. PPC management is alos one of the services offered by Cherryone Web.

Why should we use PPC?

PPC, together with Search Engine Optimization, creat the pillar of any Search Engine Marketing campaign. The most basic reason behind SEM (and internet marketing in general) is to create wealth for your business. This can be accomplished by generating leads or selling products and services online.

The main purpose behind SEO is to drive relevant traffic through the organic listings in Search Engines. PPC on the other hand drives this traffic through the sponsored search results. These are usually the slightly grayed-out results on the right-hand side of the SERP (Search Engine Result Pages).

When engaging in a PPC campaigns, the marketing specialist creates different ads and keywords that will trigger the diplay of given ads. Then, through a process of bidding, the system determines the placement of the ad and the account is charged for every click made to the ad by the internet users (thus the name, Pay-Per-Click).

PPC is a great way to reinforce one’s SEO campaign and get immediate gratification for ones efforts. Where SEO ma take weeks or even months to bring results, PPC can drive traffic instantaneously. PPC can also provide us with valuable data for keyword research. By monitoring keyword and ad performance, we can learn what the internet users are looking for and what works for them, thus we can increase our conversion rate and hit higher ROI.

PPC management is one of the services offered by Cherryone, so if you want to engage in a PPC campaign, Cherryone Web Design may help!

Thanks for reading!

-Cherryone

Enjoy the Cherryone Promotional Video! Web design, SEO, PPC, eCommerce… when it comes to the World Wide Web – We do it all!

-Cherryone

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a series of processes of tweaking a website to make it more search engine friendly and show up higher in Search Engine Result Pages, also known as SERP for short.

Why should one do SEO? Well, the main reason behind all Search Engine Optimization activities is to generate sales or leads online by driving relevant traffic to a given website. The idea is that if a person is looking to buy a certain product or service online that a company provides, he or she types the name of the product/service into a Search Engine, then the website of that company shows up on the first page (ideally the first position), clicks the link and makes a purchase on the website (or at least uses the contact information from the website to call or email the company an further inquire about the product or service).

How is it done? SEO involves a pool of on-site and off-line activities that aim at increasing the Search Engine popularity of a given website.

An alternative to SEO (or should I say complement) is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) which is a way of paid advertisement on Search Engine Result Pages. More about PPC in my future posts!

Thanks for visiting the Cherryone Blog hope you found answers to your questions and will come back for more!

- Cherryone

We are in the 21st century now, time called by some an Age of Information or Age of Technology. With the rapid growth of the World Wide Web a concept of having a website became more familiar to business owners around the world. Rather, I should say that having a business website is a prerequisite to operating a successful business venture.

Some less internet savvy business people may have a website already or think about obtaining one but don’t really know what do they need it for. Arguments such as “Everybody has one” or “We just need one” don’t really answer the question, now do they?

Developing and maintaining a for-profit website is a business activity, right? So what should be the end of all business activities? Ultimately it should be increasing the wealth of the shareholders (business owners). But how can a website generate that wealth? Ways are multiple.

If you are running a service company, you may advertise your services online. If your website is seen by the right crowd and describes your services in an interesting way, people may look up your contact info on your site (always have it placed in a visible spot) and call you or shoot you an email, which earns you a lead.

Same works if you are selling products. You can display them on the web or even sell them through your website (eCommerce), which if done right may eliminate the need for having a brick-and-mortar storefront.

Also, you can generate revenue on your website by displaying other people’s ads or otherwise generate leads for them. All it comes down to is driving relevant traffic to your website. This can be done by effective Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing in general. I will describe these practices in more detail in my future posts.

Thanks for Reading the Cherryone Blog!

- Cherryone

Hello Everybody!

I’m one of the engineers at Cherryone Web Design, also known as Cherryone for short.

I will be posting here some educational entries about Website design, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, and Internet Marketing in general. Please, feel free to ask me questions if you are interested in the subject and I will try to explain the stuff you might want to know to the best of my ability.

I think I will start by explaining the nature of the World Wide Web, why would somebody need a website, and how to make sure it generates revenue. Later on I will get into more specifics and technicalities of the subject.

Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog and once again, feel free to comment or ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer!

- Cherryone