When you compose an email for marketing purposes, keep these points in mind:

• Create a title for the email that will cause readers to want to open your email. People glance at the first few words of the email title to even decide if they are going to open it or delete it.
• Write interesting headlines. So you’ve gotten the reader to open your email, now give them a reason to read on. Glancing at the headlines should make you want to read the news item.
• Keep main articles concise, interesting and to the point. Get to your point quickly, whether it is an offer of some sort, or any other call to action. People’s attention spans are very short, especially in email.
• Create links back to your website when possible.  Readers will click on the links if they want more information.

There are many places you can source an email list for marketing purposes. Most of the time you must buy a list and the prices and quality of the lists you purchase may vary. A good place to start is by exporting the contacts from your email or address book.  They are most likely current clients, business associates and friends. The first time I exported my address book years ago, I was surprised to end up with a list of over 400 email addresses.  If you would like to purchase a list of email addresses, there are many options available to you. Remember to decide upon a target market for your purchased email list. For example, are you trying to source a list in Las Vegas of Small Business owners on the west side of town or specific to zip codes or is your target a national audience of dog owners let’s say.

Websites you can purchase email marketing lists from:

The process is fairly simple. You need to find an online company, set up an account, pay a monthly fee depending on how big your list is and how many times a month you email your list. They will have instructions on how to import email addresses from your address book or the list you’ve purchased.

Building your company’s first website can seem overwhelming at first.  It takes a bit of strategy and planning and really should be something you find blocks of time to work on during your work week or on the weekend. Be pro-active, not reactive.

Just keep in mind these simple rules and ask yourself the following questions to keep you on track:

• Do your have an online marketing plan?
• Do you have a logo, colors chosen and a corporate identity?
• Have you purchased a domain (URL), and a hosting plan? (It’s best to consult with a professional first)
• Do you have a basic outline of what will be on your website?
• Do you have copy written for your website pages or do you need the assistance of an professional copy writer?
• Do you have product photos, corporate headshots?
• Do you have collateral (brochures, flyers, etc.) available as downloads on your website?
• Research competitors near and far for ideas and figure out how you can make your unique selling proposition stand out.
• Create a clear and appealing call-to-action for your website (i.e. Call for free evaluation, 10% off first time order, etc.).
• Will your website require any special functionalty (i.e. ecommerce, shopping cart, flash animation, photo galleries, forms, etc.)?
• Do you have a professional company in mind to build your website (professionals companies know what they are doing, won’t close shop overnight and can help guide)

Focus on one piece at a time, and create a timeline for yourself for completion.

Here are some resources to help you out:

10 Tips to Planning Your Website

8 Simple Steps to Planning Your Website

Ecommerce & Shopping Cart Tips

Perkolate – Las Vegas Professional Website Design & Development

E is for Email, E is for Effective.

A great way to gain followers of your business and regular customers is through opt-in email mailing lists. People will get news about your company, your products–and they won’t forget if they are hearing from you once a week or so. What does this have to do with coupons, you ask? If you make it so your coupons are only available in the newsletter, you can keep customers’ attention to your business: customers who really need your coupons will also be updated about your new location, the midsummer sale and your business’s philanthropy and community services. They can forward your coupon to friends, even also print out emailed coupons to bring into your store. If you are going to require coupon recipients to sign up for your newsletter, though, you should try to always offer at least one coupon (even a small one) in every issue.

How Much Off?

Make it clear to your customers that the coupon is worth taking the extra time to use by showing them just how significant their savings will be. A good way to do this is, for less expensive items (under, say $25) do not give a percentage off, give a dollar amount: say “$5.00 off!”, not “20% off”. For more expensive items with considerable savings, percentages are fine.

Don’t forget that you can also use coupons for “buy one get one”, rebate and other types of great deals.

Team Up.

This is especially easy if you have total control of your web store’s design and transactions. You can use coupons to cross market with other businesses willing to partner with you in a joint marketing campaign. Find a business that offers a complement product to the one you are promoting with coupons. Give access to the online coupon for their product on the page where you sell yours, and have them do the same.

Another way to use third parties as a great coupon marketing tool is to get your company onto “coupon-clipping websites”, where businesses post coupons for customers to print off; some popular coupon sites are Groupon.com, where businesses post coupons and deals on Facebook, Twitter and other microblog newsfeeds for customers to clip for themselves, repost and forward to friends; CouponClippingMom.com, a blog style site where coupons for various businesses are shared as individual posts (best for chain, not local businesses); and CouponCabin.com, which offers online and printable coupons (separately from each other) for businesses ranging from the local to national scale. You can link to them on your own website, blog, or online store, and customers across town or beyond the sea will be able to find them.

Looks Matter.

You want your coupons to be as eye-grabbing and attractive as they can be. Make them stand out but remember that visual, non-verbal assets of graphic design can say just as much as the words you lay over them. The coupon’s overall design should be clean, not cramped with too much or vacant with not enough information. Noticeable colors are great as long as they are not an eyesore, and large, bold fonts work best, though the most pronounced words should be the ones that will first grab attention. Some of the most effectively designed coupons feature a cleanly drawn, realistic illustration or a photograph of the product being offered.

Bluetooth-based proximity marketing systems have proven to be especially popular. These systems generally involve setting up Bluetooth broadcasting equipment that sends information to Bluetooth-enabled devices in the area. Users will get messages and advertisements in the form of text, audio, or video messages sent to their devices. The only caveat to using Bluetooth-based marketing is that many Bluetooth users often have their devices either powered off or not set to “discoverable,” which makes them unable to receive signals from marketing systems. Many advertisers have solved this problem with “calls-to-action,” or using traditional advertising such as posters and television monitors to tell Bluetooth users to turn on their devices.

A GSM-based system can also be effective in proximity marketing. This allows messages to be broadcast to all mobile users in a specific geographical area, although the accuracy of this method can vary from one location to the next. This system is often used not only by advertisers to get the word out on a product, but by government agencies and emergency services to convey important messages.

One innovative use of GSM-based proximity marketing was employed by the UK shopping center Bluewater. Bluewater used a GSM system to track shoppers through the center via their cell phones to monitor what they are buying. The info take from this has been used in market research. Shoppers also received specific special offers and coupons over their mobile phones as they were shopping.

Now that practically everybody has at least one mobile device on them at all times, proximity marketing has proven to be very effective in advertising and marketing. Users received special offers from stores when they happen to find themselves nearby, coupons can be sent to users instantly by phone instead of by mail, and up-to-date news reports can be sent to cell phones and computers about nearby events. Proximity marketing is the wave of the future, and while it will probably never replace traditional advertising methods it is a surefire way to get the word out on any product or event.

Online marketing methods are low cost, allowing businesses to draw in customers with something as easy as a Twitter update. Online marketing gives businesses more control over the sales funnel. With traditional marketing, businesses have to generate their own lists of customers and then market directly to them. With online marketing, customers discover online businesses simply through a search engine or through a friend on Facebook, providing the business with free marketing. However, some work is required to maximize online traffic.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Customers mostly click on the first couple of links generated by the search engine organic results, which are search results generated based on the webpage’s relevance to the keywords. After looking at the first couple of links, customers usually type in new keywords. The key to getting an explosion of traffic is to maximize your website’s organic search engine rankings by including keywords in text of your website that customers are the most likely to search for, a practice known as SEO. However, do not include too many keywords. Otherwise, search engines like Google will give you a less favorable PageRank or even remove you from their search engine results. The keyword density should be at 3-7%.

Adwords Campaigns (SEM)

When you are using organic rankings, you are competing with other websites to get the ideal keyword density. However, if you are willing to pay for an Adwords campaign, you can create an advertisement that will appear at the top of the search engine results regardless of how your website is set up. While Adwords campaigns cost money, they are effective when the profit generated from product sales justifies the advertising costs. When setting up your Adwords campaign, you must include keywords that will help Google effectively place your advertisements where your most likely customers will see them. Choose keywords that are specific enough to get your advertisements placed in the most appropriate locations.

Social Marketing

Customers sometimes develop ad blindness, failing to see advertisements. However, when customers interact more with your business, they are more likely to take your advice. Social media are programs found on websites such as Facebook.com and Twitter.com. Through social media, you can ask your customers what they want, helping you create the products most likely to appeal to them. Your business can provide status updates through Facebook and Twitter about new product developments, instantaneously, with immediate customer feedback.

Social media marketing is one of the hottest topics in the online advertising world right now. You hear people in Las Vegas throwing out all these buzzwords in reference to the marketing medium. You’ve heard of people raving about it and attributing it to their businesses’ successes. So how exactly does it work? Why are people praising this form of advertising? How can a business use it to take their sales revenues to another level?

You can find the answers to these questions and more through the following three benefits of social media marketing:

Awareness

From a consumer’s perspective, you want your information and updates right away. You want to hear what’s going on as they’re happening. While newspapers and television broadcasts have been the norm, these same companies in Las Vegas have been utilizing social media to get the information to the masses in a much quicker fashion. These news companies resort to tools such as Facebook and Twitter to keep audiences updated right then and there in the moment.

For more sales-oriented businesses, these social media outlets can be used to announce seasonal sales, arrival of new items or services, and also coupon codes to entice consumers to check out their site and make a purchase.

Social media marketing is quite powerful, and when companies are constantly informing their consumers with valuable information and services through these outlets, then the consumers create a bigger buzz amongst themselves.

Networking

The groups of people gathering together in these online hubs are the fuel for social media marketing. If people of similar interests and intentions were not involved, this online revolution would not exist.

As a result of recent events or news for particular niches, people will want to discuss about this amongst fans of these niches. Word spreads through forums, wall posts, and blog comments. Really successful social media marketing campaigns experience this viral effect, and the best part of it all is the price tag of this type of marketing – it’s free.

Business Leads

The buzz created through the people interested in that particular niche can turn into leads or traffic towards a business’ site. The potential for sales increases the more a product or service is talked about.

As long as discussions amongst peers in a niche continue, then there should be a steady flow of traffic to these business sites. It is up to the businesses to maintain the content on their social media outlets in order to keep the traffic flowing. More consistent traffic equals more consistent sales.