Make That E-mail List Grow

Original Article from IntelliSites, the smart choice for web design (and SEO!)
We've talked before about how e-marketing campaigns can help drive traffic to your site.  But the reverse is true, too.  Your website can also include a short form that collects email addresses, which can build up your email list.  And when you have a strong list of email contacts, you have the potential for a lot of repeat visitors to your site - not to mention repeat business.

Of course, having a form on your website isn't going to do much unless you can get people to enter info into the form.  And, truthfully, there just aren't a lot of people out there who spend time browsing the web and generously inserting their contact information into forms out of the goodness of their hearts.  So if you want the form on your website to collect a lot of information, you have to give it a little incentive power.

People Will Do Anything for a Reward

Since people aren't likely to volunteer their e-mail address for no reason, it helps if you give them a little reward for providing their contact information. 

There's a huge difference between asking for someone's email address and asking for someone's email address so that you can send him a coupon.  Restaurants and department stores already use this technique to entice their patrons to fork over their email addresses, so go ahead and jump on the bandwagon.  And if your form-filler-outer uses the coupon, you not only have his email address, but you've also actually made a sale.

Besides a discount or coupon, another "reward" is good content, packaged in the form of an e-book or secret members-only article archives.  If someone has come to your site in search of information, the person might be willing to give out his or her email address as long as it opens the vault of information.  Of course, there are benefits to providing free information, too, so you might not want to hide away all of your factoids under lock and key.  But for businesses in some industries, reserving some information for members will get you new entries in your contact list.

Keep the Circle Spinning

Both your email list and your website are awesome tools that help the internet bring business to you.  So use your website to collect email addresses.  And use your email contacts to bring visitors to your site.  And as this cycle continues, you'll find your business spinning its way to more clients - and higher profits.

E-Marketing Campaigns That Get Results, Part 2

Original Article from IntelliSites, the smart choice for web design (and SEO!)
Okay, we did example #1, so now it's time for Sample Problem #2.

This week, we'll be taking a look at a pretend non-profit organization as it attempts to use e-marketing to collect some paper for its noble cause.  We'll call the nonprofit something a little corny and obvious like Holy Shirts and Pants.  Whoops, that's already taken.  Okay, we'll go with Kollecting for Kids, and we'll say their role in the community is to collect money to buy toys for underprivileged children.  We'll say the NPO has a pretty good following on social networking sites - including 3000 Facebook fans and 500 followers on Twitter.

So, with our background set, let's look at the sitch that Kollecting for Kids was in when their campaign began.

They needed to market their annual campaign to raise money to buy holiday gifts for kids.  Our recommendation to them was to put together a campaign that leverages their social media connections to generate donations.

We encouraged them to start by coming up with five blog entries that each focused on convincing people to donate money to their charity.  The idea was to really pull on the readers' heartstrings and move them to donate.  These blog entries incorporated specific anecdotes about real children who would be helped by this campaign, and every entry included a section specifically asking for donations and linking to a donation site.

With the blog entries prewritten, KFK published one entry every Monday for the five weeks leading up to Christmas.  They connected their blog to facebook and twitter too, so every week the Facebook fans and Twitter followers had another opportunity to hear a compelling reason to donate.

So without spending any money, KFK was able to generate 17,500 impressions.  And if even 1% of the fans and followers were moved to donate, there would be a lot of happy kids on Christmas.

That's right, boys and girls.  You too can use the magic of Twitter and Facebook for free advertising!  And whether you run a non-profit or a for-profit business, you'll be shocked at how effective it can really be.