I don’t get it. I really don’t.

Marketers wrack their brains to get me to click on their clever Google ads, read bullet-heavy landing pages, and then entice me to sign up for tons of free stuff (whitepapers, webinars, get-rich-quick tips)… only to blow it with their follow up email come-ons.

I mean… c’mon!

Now we all understand the value of capturing a prospect’s email address, right? It gives us the chance to turn that one-shot-at-buying click into a lifelong relationship that can turn into sales again and again.

The key of course is to do great follow up emails.

Here are five important things to keep in mind when sending emails to your prospects:

• Make it personal and not too professional sounding. First of all, make sure the “from” field has the name of a real person not some strange looking email address. And no writing your email copy as if you’re a faceless corporation. Instead, write like you’re having a fun conversation with a prospect. What words would you say… and how would you say it?

• Intrigue (not mislead) with your subject line. Your prospects are busy and bored so grab their attention with a provocative subject line (or they won’t open your email anyway). For example: “Why prospects Do Not want to buy from you” or “5 things you should never ask your boss” or “Your brand is not about branding, it’s about something else”. You get the idea!

• Engage and entertain your audience. We all get way too many emails every day, so engage your prospects with questions, fun facts, and a good story… then tell them why they should call or buy from you. No form letter or boring email copy, please! Keep in mind: if you wouldn’t want to read your email then your target customer won’t either.

• Provide value first when building an email relationship. It takes awhile to build a relationship with someone… especially over email. So do what all great salespeople do – provide value first! Got tips to help them run their business better? How about a heads-up on what a competitor is doing? Better yet, send them a weekly email newsletter with plenty of helpful articles… and a special offer too!

• Not all prospects are the same – so don’t treat them that way. Maybe they live in different zip codes, have varying purchasing budgets, come from multiple industries, or bought from you before. The important thing is to separate your prospect lists so that you can make your emails as relevant and personalized as possible. Over time, this will result in more sales for you!

Just remember to show some personality. Your emails will be much more engaging and interesting to read compared to the zombie-sounding emails your competitors send out.

Got a few email tips to share? Let us know!

And don’t forget we’re here to help. Give us a call at 888-330-3236.

Need fun and engaging photos for your website or blog? Of course you do!  The right pictures can make all the difference in getting prospects to spend more time on your site… and maybe even buy from you!

The good news is that there are plenty of stock photo sites to choose from with lots (and lots!) of affordable and free pictures, plus different payment options depending on whether you’re looking for just one photo or have ongoing picture needs.  Definitely check out a few different stock photo websites to see which is best for you!

Ready to find that perfect image?  Then check out our list of the 28 best free and affordable stock photo websites.

This “best of” list features affordable stock photo sites including iStockphoto, Dreamstime, and Pixmac, where you pay for photos using credits or subscription plans, Corbis Images and Inmagine where you pay per photo, and morgueFile and PD Photo that offer free public domain photos.

The complete list of the Best Free and Affordable Stock Photo Sites can be found on our Leadtail blog – Best Online Advertising Stuff.

Whether you need smiling faces, yummy food, or a unique, memorable image to dress up your website or blog, you’re sure to find tons of options for any budget on these sites.

P.s. This list doesn’t include photo sharing sites like Flickr and Photobucket which can also be good sources (just be sure to check licensing before using).

I must confess… I didn’t (gasp!) do keyword research before writing the copy for our website. And the truth is I should have. But better late than never. So let’s pretend we’re writing our website content today (maybe you are)… and then take it from there!

First of all, why is keyword research so important?

Search engines (i.e., Google) are the number one way that people find your website. Your job is to make it easy for them. There’s much you need to do to make this happen… but it begins with figuring out what words and phrases (keywords) your prospects use when searching the Internet for what you sell. Then you need to make sure your website content includes those keywords. Do it right… and your website shows up in your prospects search results!

Here’s how to get started:

1.  It’s all about your target customers. You really need to understand who they are, what they’re looking for, and why they’d buy from you in particular.

2.  Think about what keywords they’ll use when searching on Google for your products and services. (If you already have customers… ask them!)

3.  Then make a big list of all the keywords you come up with.

4.  Add qualifying terms to your keywords that help better define your market… such as your product features and business location.

5.  Boil your list down to the keyword phrases you’re going to use with your website content. These phrases should best reflect your product offering and be search terms your prospects will use often.

6.  Now write (or update!) your website copy with these keyword phrases in mind.

Simple enough?

For example, let’s say you have an Italian restaurant located in Long Island, NY. You want keywords that target customers will use to find your restaurant. The keyword “restaurants” isn’t specific enough. Maybe: “Italian restaurants”? Better for sure. But we need some qualifying terms to make it even more specific. How about “Italian pizza restaurants” or “Italian restaurants on long island”? Now we’re talking! Just include these keyword phrases as often as you can in your website content.

You should target 5 to 10 keyword phrases depending on how many products or services you sell, and the different types of customers you serve. Have lots of products and services? Then you’ll need more keyword phrases.

The good news is there are free tools to help:

• Google’s keyword tool makes it easy to come up with hundreds of keyword phrases to consider. Plus it’ll show you the number of monthly searches for each phrase.

• Wordtracker is another good keyword tool for generating ideas. And it will also show you the popularity of each keyword suggestion.

• Google Analytics is free web analytics software that gives in-depth data on your website traffic… including which keywords send visitors to your site!

Now it’s time for a few cautionary comments (sorry!)

Spicing up your content with good keyword phrases will make it easier for prospects to find you… and also make generic website copy more specific and interesting. But don’t go overboard. Remember, it’s all about making your website helpful and informative for your target customers… not about stuffing your pages with keywords for the search engines. (see our related post)

And the process of keyword research never stops. You need to keep an eye on what keywords are driving the most traffic to your website… since your prospects are changing how they search all the time!

Don’t forget to keep your keyword phrases handy. You’ll not only reference them for your website copy but also for your online advertising campaigns, social media efforts… and even your offline advertising (which also influences what people type into a search box).

Let’s get started with your keyword research!

Btw, did you notice the keyword phrases I’m using for this blog post? Let us know which keywords you used to get here. Thanks!

Whether you’re brand new or a veteran online advertiser, it’s always a good idea to review some of the many reasons why online advertising should be a growing part of your marketing budget.

Here are seven important ones:

1.  Your customers are online. More than ever, consumers use the Internet to research and select products to purchase… even if they plan to buy them offline! Your advertising will prompt them to consider your products and services too.

2.  Your competitors are online. Not only are your direct competitors advertising online, but also many companies that now use the Internet to target your customers. How to fight back? Make sure your customers see your advertising to remind them why they like your products best.

3.  Online advertising is cost effective. You can reach a large audience quickly and at lower cost than many other media. And if you use search marketing for your advertising… you only pay when you get results!

4   No big investment needed to get started. You can launch a simple website for a hundred dollars, and begin marketing it for another couple hundred. And it will be easy to scale your efforts over time as you test and learn what works best.

5.  Everything is immediate. You can test and launch your advertising very quickly and generate responses almost immediately. Said another way, if you need customers tomorrow, not next month, advertising on the Internet may be the way to go!

6.  The Internet has gone local. You no longer need to worry about wasting your advertising dollars on the Internet masses. Just target the community you care about with one of the many options for local advertising such as the online yellow pages.

7.  Lots of ways to reach your target audience. The Internet is a great channel for delivering your message to very specific audiences and in the narrowest market niches. Besides geographic targeting, you can also target based on your customers’ demographic profile, types of behavior, and special interests.

Just keep in mind, when advertising online you’ll still need to develop a good marketing strategy, target your audience, test, measure and improve… just as you would with any other marketing program. And with a good strategy in hand, you will be well on your way to generating the results you’re looking for!

We all make excuses for not testing our online advertising… especially, if the results are not what we hoped for. But the truth is: there’s no good excuse for not testing since it’s the only way to discover which ad will get the best results… before you’ve committed your marketing budget!

Here are 7 things to keep in mind to make testing your ads easy and effective:

1. Decide in advance what you’re trying to achieve. How will you judge the success of your ad campaign? Click-through rate? Conversions? And what results are you looking for? Decide before you start testing.

2. Be clear about what you’re testing. Is it the offer, the copy, or the graphics? Remember, ambiguity is the enemy of testing! Keep it simple by testing one “element” at a time, and make sure the only difference between the test ads is that one element.

3. Get the biggest bang for your buck. Unless you’ve done lots of testing with a particular ad, don’t just look for incremental improvement… focus on getting big results! For example, why test the impact of tweaking a word when a different offer could double your results?  

4. Make sure you’re testing “apples to apples”. Test different versions of your online ad against the same audience over the same time periods. For example, test ads against the same search engine or ad network so that everything is “apples to apples”.

5. Let your ads run long enough to get meaningful results. A month is a good place to start… anything less and you may have a hard time figuring out whether the results were “significant”. Or worse, you could jump to the wrong conclusion! And when in doubt, run the test longer.

6. Review the test results with your goals in mind. See if the results show a meaningful difference between the ads you’re testing. But remember… the “winning” ad still needs to meet your goals; otherwise, you should consider testing another idea.

7. Make testing a way of (marketing) life. Even when your test is done and your best performing ad is running… keep coming up with new ideas to test against so that you’re always improving your results!

Testing is an easy and objective way to determine what ad campaigns will work best with your audience. So no more excuses… :<)