Internet Marketing Success - Succeed Now!

Internet Marketing success for entrepreneurs is easy, but involves promoting your products and services in multiple channels. Here's a quick and easy check list:

1. Have a website that is clean, simple, and easy to buy on or generate a lead from.
2. Make sure you're aware of basic SEO best practices: A) include keywords in your copy, headlines, B) blog about your products and services, C) Make sure you're on www.facebook.com, www.myspace.com, www.linkedIn.com, and www.YouTube.com
3. Send out direct mail postcards -- www.vistaprint.com is a great company to execute this. Don't forget to add your phone number as well as website address here.
4. Send out email campaigns -- www.constantcontact.com is a great company to launch this. Keep the message simple, include a limited time offer, and have a strong call to action that encourages a sale or lead through your website.
5. Make sure you're utilizing Search Engine Marketing / paid search advertising on www.Google.com, www.msn.com , www.ask.com, www.yahoo.com -- www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com can help your SEM efforts.

If you have any questions, please feel free to call or email me. Don't forget to ask how to obtain the Marketing Halo Effect through advertising on multiple channels.

Happy Selling!

Jeff Martin
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com
phone: 248.275.5243
Email: JeffMartin@SalesDrivenMarkting.com

Internet Marketing - How To Succeed In 2009

We're in very difficult economic times, and businesses are preparing for a deep, longer than originally expected recession. How will this impact marketing budgets? Well, it's going to shrink, but what part of it will grow -- yes grow, or at least not shrink? Hint...Internet marketing budgets. Let me explain....

All year 2008 I see TV, radio, newspaper, billboard, and event sponsorship marketing budgets shrink. I also noticed the savvier marketers -- the ones who set-up, launch and track the profitability for each marketing dollar spent -- are allocating a greater percentage of ad budgets to direct response ad campaigns, specifically, direct response Internet advertising campaigns.

Direct response Internet advertising allows you to quickly calculate how much revenue you'll get for spending xyz marketing dollars. To survive and succeed in 2009, challenge yourself, advertising agencies and marketing teams to learn how to best allocate your limited marketing dollars. There's no rhyme or reason why General Motors is slashing drastically its offline ad spend, creating websites for most all its Chevrolet dealerships, and funneling dramatically more ad dollars to the Internet. When it comes to survival, more and more marketing dollars within media budgets are heading to the Internet.

Contact me if you want to talk direct marketing or leave a blog comment to offer up your opinions.

Happy Selling,

Jeff Martin
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com

Shopping Cart Abandonment Rates - Stats

Here's a good blog entry on shopping cart abandonment rates:
http://webanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/05/shopping-cart-abandonment-and.html

Happy selling,

Jeff
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com

Reports For Improving SEO & SEM Efforts

Here is a good, quick summary listing various reports to look at when working on your SEO and SEM initiatives.

Cut & paste this link into your browser:

http://www.pandia.com/features/logfiles.html

Enjoy,

Jeff Martin
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com
Get More Leads & Sales From Your Website

Get High Conversion Rates From Search Engine Traffic

Online sales and leads are a function of traffic a website gets month-to-month and how well the website converts its traffic into sales or leads.

Average conversion rates for websites range between 1.5-3%. This, while not bad, is just ok. So what can we do to increase conversion rates? We can focus on the landing page, but we're not going to that here with this blog post, we're going to focus on driving solid traffic through paid search advertising campaigns.

A lot of business owners, product managers and marketers place to high of an importance on traffic, and not about looking which TYPE of traffic converts the best. So how do we do this? It's all in how the campaign is set up. Let me explain.

Conversion rates are dependent upon meeting the right ad to the right keyword and the right landing page.

SEGMENTING customers around their motivations is key to increasing conversion rates above the averages. By segmenting customers, you can TARGET the segments by using the right keywords, with the right ads, and the right landing page.

It's a lot easier said than done, but well worth the time, energy and money.

If you have any questions, please contact:

Jeff Martin
Sales Driven Marketing LLC
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com
phone: 248.275.5243

Internet Marketing's 2 Success Factors

Your team's success in driving sales, leads, phone calls and appointments from your website is dependent upon two success factors:

1. How many visitors your website gets a month, and
2. How well your website converts the traffic into sales or leads.

Without first focusing on the two success factors above, all other initiatives can be a waste of time, money and resources.

Happy Success!

Jeff Martin
Sales Driven Marketing LLC
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com
p. 248.275.5243

Market Better, Economy Worse?

Saying goes, the stock market predicts 6-12 months out. Does this mean all of us feeling pain by living in the economy on a daily basis, but the stock market getting better? Click this blog's title to view a graph of the stock market.

Look to buy consumer discretionary and financials soon based on this article:
http://www.thestreet.com/p/_htmlrmd/rmoney/technicalanalysis/10403128.html

What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger.

Jeff
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com
The Internet Advertising Experts

Who Influences Car Purchases?

My advertising business serves automotive dealerships across the country, and I want to offer you a quick read offering insightful, actionable insight to help you or your clients market vehicles.

Here's the link to an article titled, "Who Do You Trust (When Buying a Car)?"
http://blogs.mediapost.com/research_brief/?p=1633

Best,

Jeff Martin, CEO
Sales Driven Marketing LLC
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com

Article on EBay's Needed Changes

eBay Makes a Bid to Lure Back Entrepreneurs
02/04/08 - 01:17 PM EST
Elizabeth Blackwell


When a company changes leadership, you hear a lot of talk about fresh ideas.
At eBay(EBAY - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), the transformation has started before the lame-duck CEO has even left the building.

CEO-in-waiting John Donahoe (who will take over from Meg Whitman in March) has previewed his plans to revamp the site's core business: the eBay Marketplace.

At the company's eCommerce Forum in Washington, D.C., he announced a series of changes to the buying and selling experience, ranging from a new fee structure to an enhanced feedback system.

The reasons for the changes are apparent to long-time eBay users. Sites such as Amazon(AMZN - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and Yahoo!(YHOO - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) have pounced on eBay's business by offering their own versions of online stores for small businesses. As customers have become more comfortable shopping online, many small retailers have also set up their own sites, cutting out the eBay middleman.

Now, eBay is trying to win those businesses back. That's the reason Donahoe is courting eBay's top-rated merchants, known as Power Sellers. While eBay used to pride itself on keeping sellers on a level playing field, Power Sellers now will be rewarded with better placement in search results, as well as discounts on fees.

"It's a huge break with the old establishment," says Jonathan Garriss, chief executive of the Web site Gotham City Online and executive director of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance, which has long advocated such a move. "Before, we often felt like we were banging our heads against the wall."

Professional-level sellers have complained that the site didn't distinguish them enough from the occasional eBay users auctioning off the contents of Grandma's garage in an online version of a yard sale. The proposed changes, Garriss says, are a step in the right direction. "It gives sellers a carrot to improve the buyer experience," he says. "I've got a vested interest in this. Bad sellers impact me, because they drive buyers away from eBay."

Other relatively simple changes are aimed at bringing eBay up to current online retail standards. Ten years ago, seeing a stark list of text-only search results didn't turn off buyers. These days, visuals count. Buyers expect to see photos of products as they're browsing, and eBay charged an extra fee for sellers to include them in search results.

Effective Feb. 20, eBay will provide these "gallery" images for free, so buyers can scan pictures quickly and efficiently. Saving these potential buyers time will hopefully translate to increased sales.

"Most sellers are cautiously optimistic," says Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, which produces software used by several thousand eBay sellers, and author of eBay Strategies: 10 Proven Methods to Maximize Your eBay Business. "The company hasn't quite hit the bull's-eye yet, but they're a lot closer than they've been."

Wingo points out that the new fee structure will increase costs for some sellers. "The folks who sell at auction will be hit the hardest," he says, as eBay's take of each item's final sale price rises from 5.25 to 8.75 percent. Sellers who list their items at a fixed price -- as many of the most established eBay businesses do -- should actually benefit from the changes, thanks to a reduction in insertion fees (the cost to list an item, regardless of whether or not it sells).

The company is also courting its Power Sellers by working with PayPal to improve security for credit-card sales. Power Sellers will now be protected against unauthorized and nonreceipt claims for international transactions. "It should decrease fraud levels," notes Wingo. That might make businesses less likely to restrict their sales to the U.S., increasing their potential sales worldwide.

"We need to redo our playbook, we need to redo it fast and we need to take bold actions," Donahoe said at the conference. Now it's up to the sellers to take the ball and run with it.

"Sellers will have to re-engage," Garriss says. "They have to start advancing and looking at their practices. If they're willing to adapt, there are some very good opportunities for them here."

2/4/08 Technical Chart of the Markets

The New Power House - MicroHoo!

If you want to see what this will mean, check out the market share of various online properties AFTER Microsoft completes its hostile takeover of Yahoo.

http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/combined-yahoo-microsoft-would-make-web-powerhouse-but-not-in-search-3305/#comment-1969

Happy Selling,

Jeff
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com
The Internet Advertising Experts

Microsoft & Yahoo: What's Old Is New - Kind Of

Traffic traffic and traffic. Any website's success is dependent upon:

1. How many visits it gets a month, and
2. How well the site converts the traffic into hardcore business.

For the marketer concerned about making sure every dollar spent in advertising generates at least a dollar of profit, this deal means nothing in the near term.

For the Corporate 500 company and big ad agencies who want scale in placing display ads (brand building campaigns), once Microsoft purchases and integrates Yahoo into the fold, it'll be a lot easier to launch, manage and measure a campaigns effectiveness -- this is a year or two out.

Bottom line: this is a strategic move for Microsoft to make gains on Google's lead, and make sure they're front and center as the online marketing spend increases from $40 Billion to $80 Billion in the next three years.

What's your take?

Jeff
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com
The Internet Advertising Experts

MEAN OLD USA

My personal wish is for those around the world who bash this great country I live in to read the following email I received on 1/31/08. Jeff

Subject: MEAN OLD USA

Mean Old USA....

When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the
Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of
'empire building' by George Bush.

He answered by saying, "Over the years, the United States has sent many of
its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond
our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is
enough to bury those that did not return."
It became very quiet in the room **************

Then there was a conference in France where a number of international
engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break
one of the French engineers came back into the room saying "Have you heard
the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to
Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb
them?"

A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: "Our carriers have three
hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear
powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities;
they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three
meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from
sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in
transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.. We have
eleven such ships; how many does France have?"
Once again, dead silence. *****************

A US. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals
from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a
cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of
Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone
was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French
admiral suddenly complained that, 'whereas Europeans learn many languages,
Americans learn only English.' He then asked, 'Why is it that we always
have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?'

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied 'Maybe its because the
Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to
speak German.'

You could have heard a pin drop!

Do You Need A Widget?

Before even thinking about widgets, make sure you're doing these must have Internet marketing tactics:

1. Effectively advertising on the three primary/largest search engines: Google, Yahoo, and MSN;
2. Measuring how many visits your site gets a month;
3. Calculating the percentage of monthly visitors who either buy or ask for more information (a.k.a. submits a lead);
4. Building (a.k.a. coding) your site with basic search engine optimization (SEO) fundamentals;
5. Posting videos on YouTube;
6. Developing a community of current, past and future customers on MySpace and Facebook; and
7. Blogging and contributing to other blogs relevant to your product and services.

Unless you're already doing all of the above, then don't even think about or pay for widgets.

Happy success,

Jeff
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com
The Internet Advertising Experts

Drive Free Traffic To Your Site By Blogging

Breat article below on how to drive free traffic to your site.

Enjoy,

Jeff
Advertise on Google, Yahoo and MSN now. All budget sizes welcome. Visit www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com

----------------------------

http://www.oldschoolseo.com/2008/01/07/how-30-minutes-a-day-can-result-in-250-inbound-links/


How 30 minutes a day can result in 250 inbound linksJanuary 7, 2008 at 2:11 pm · Filed under Stumble Upon, blogging, link building, inbound links, blog comments, no follow

First, know that the 250 links will come over time - it’s not a one time event. It is actually a pretty simple strategy and will have more benefits than just getting inbound links. I am referring to the practice of strategically commenting on blogs. Sure, it’s been talked about, but the question is are you doing it? And if you are, are you doing it effectively? How do you know if it’s working for you or not?

It shouldn’t take you more than 30 mintues per day to find a new blog to post a comment on. I recommend starting in your niche with the goal of attracting similarly minded subscribers to your site or blog. In the process, you will learn of new blogs in your field, find complementary blogs closely related to your field, and get to know more bloggers in your niche, which could lead to guest blogging on their blogs. A great way to find bloggers in your niche is through StumbleUpon, and blogging guru extraordinaire, Darren Rowse (a.k.a. ProBlogger) just wrote a great article about this.

In your quest to comment, I suggest subscribing to a few blogs and really getting involved in the community aspect by becoming a top contributor as this can lead to others eventually subscribing to your blog (and that is one of your goals right?) Also, help promote those blogs by Stumbling, Digging, or whatever flavor of Social Media Marketing you utilize. As Darren points out, they will take notice.

And of course, who says you need to only post one comment per day? The more you comment, the faster you will see results. Try kicking it up to 4 a day and see what happens.

Of course, some bloggers will use the (evil) “no follow” tag which will reduce the effectiveness of this tactic, but it will still get your name out there and may even solicit a few clicks, especially if you use a unique name as opposed to “Mary”… you know, something like “Old School:

I have made a goal to do this myself and in fact even have a spreadsheet where I am tracking it (what a geek!) so I can make sure that I meet my goals. In a year, I almost guarantee that you will make huge strides in the blogging community if you practice this daily.

That’s me for now, but stay tuned for more hot blogging tips!

2008 To Do: Change To New Google Tracking Code

If you advertise on Google, set up your Adwords tracking code. They made changes to their tracking code beginning 2008, which means we have some updating to do. Here's a good blurb on what needs donw.

Enjoy,

Jeff
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com
Advertise on Google, Yahoo and MSN. All budget sizes welcome.

------------------------
January 4, 2008

Should You Join the Migration? urchin.js Migrates to ga.js
By Caitlin Minteer, Google Analytics Support Tech

In mid-October Google announced the beta release of the new tracking code: ga.js. Then, in December, they released the new code to all Google Analytics users. So you might have noticed, within Google Analytics, that there is now a tab labeled 'New Tracking Code' within the Profile Settings > Tracking Code section.

You may be thinking, "Why should I care?" Well, here are a few reasons why the migration to ga.js is practically inevitable for those of you who want to remain on the cutting edge of the latest and greatest technology. And why, for those of you who don't want to rock the boat, it may not be necessary to switch over... yet.

With the upgrade to ga.js you will have access to several new features including Event Tracking, and Outbound Link Tracking.

Event Tracking will be especially useful for those who have Flash based sites, or for those who use multimedia on their site. An "event" is an action that a user takes on a webpage that doesn't necessarily involve a new pageview. Examples include clicks on buttons or images, navigation in embedded Flash, or Ajax events, like moving a map in Google Maps, or applying a label in Gmail.

Outbound Link Tracking will tell you which links visitors clicked on your site that direct them to another site without the manual tagging. This means that instead of adding urchinTracker to each and every one of your outbound links to see where visitors are going once they leave, you don't have to do anything.

A few other benefits of the updated ga.js include:




Faster, smaller source file - which will allow for a faster download time

Object oriented - instead of using functions

Automatic detection of HTTPS

Increased namespace safety


One question seems to keep surfacing about the migration, so I will go ahead and address that now. The new Google Analytics tracking code (ga.js) will NOT work with the previous tracking code (urchin.js). They are not compatible, so all pages on your site should be updated with the new code.

So the bottom line: Should you switch to ga.js?

Google is still supporting the urchin.js tracking code, and sources predict that that they'll continue support for another 12-18 months, so if you're happy with the current features and you're not worried about any new releases to ga.js (and the potential discontinuation of support down the line), then you're probably OK for another few months, at least. Eventually, though, you're going to need to switch to ga.js.

If you want event tracking and automatic outbound link tracking, as well as any new features that are released in the future, and you're willing to spend a little time and resources on getting everything set up properly, then you might want to consider joining the migration.

If you're looking for help, Google has written a reference guide for switching over to the code in pdf format, and if you need any assistance from ROI Revolution, an Authorized Google Analytics support partner, be sure to take a look at our Google Analytics support plans and we'll get you on the path to a seamless migration.

Shopping Compare Sites Retailers Need On In 2008

If you're a retailer, you need to be on:

1. Shopzilla,
2. Shopping.com,
3. Yahoo Shopping, and
4. Nextag.

I hear negative results about PriceGrabber's CPO. Have you? Leave a comment if you have or haven't.

Best,

j. Bruce
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com
The Internat Advertising Experts