Cathy Stucker - The Idea Lady

Attract Customers and Make Yourself Famous

Using an Email Signature

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One of the most effective Internet marketing secrets is also one of the easiest–and it’s free!

Do your emails include a signature file? A signature file is a standard block of text you include in each of your outgoing email messages and postings to forums.

Most email systems (including Gmail, Outlook and others) allow you to create a signature file which will automatically appear at the end of every message you send. Search the “Help” function in your email program to learn how to do this.

Your email signature may include your name, tagline or slogan, URL and other contact information, such as your telephone number, links to social media profiles or IM and Skype IDs.

To make your signature most effective, include a call to action. Your call to action may drive people to your website to sign up for your newsletter or download a free report. Or you may ask people to follow you on Twitter or call you for a free consultation. Or include a link to your sales page where they can buy your flagship product.

It is best to keep your signature file to no more than 7 lines. You can’t tell your whole life story, just give the basics of who you are, how to contact you and why they may want to contact you.

Keep it simple. Don’t use HTML in your signature. Many mail programs won’t read it properly, and recipients will see a jumbled mess of codes instead of your beautifully formatted message.

Do put any URLs in your message in this format: http://www.IdeaLady.com/. Most email programs will read the URL as a hotlink, making it easy for readers to click through to your site. You can also make your email address a hotlink by entering it as mailto:email@example.com. 

This is a strategy you can implement today. It’s easy, it’s free and it really works. Many of my customers originally found me through my signature file. How many customers will find you with yours?

Fast, Easy and Free Ways to Build Your Online Presence

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You have a website, but no one seems to know about it. Traffic is light, and sales are non-existent. How can you make people aware of you and your website and start attracting customers?

There are online advertising programs, such as Google AdWords, that will put your advertisement in front of searchers looking for keywords you choose. Paid search brings visitors to your Web site, sometimes within minutes of setting up the ad. Of course, that traffic comes at a price. You pay each time someone clicks on your ad. Costs per click can range from a few cents to $100 or more, depending on your keywords. Pay per click advertising can be a way to get visitors and customers quickly, or it can be a way to burn through a lot of cash with no results to show for it.

Whether you are looking for an online marketing method to use instead of or in addition to paid advertising, the ideas here will bring targeted visitors to you. Best of all, they take no money and little time.
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Why Building Your Own List Is Important to Succeed Online

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email-list

Why you need an email list, and tips on building one. This post is by David Smith of Conversion Optimization company Invesp.

You’ve a great product which you want to sell online. So you created a stylish website with some great content, you’ve written a great sales letter covering all the reasons why one should buy the product , But still you are not getting sales?  Why, because you don’t have traffic. Your target audience doesn’t know about you. And to get traffic you have to buy it through PPC campaigns or by investing in SEO activities.

In early business stages, you may have to rely completely on search engines and PPC campaigns for traffic. But, if you want to be successful in long term you must have direct access to your customer base. And, there comes the importance of list building. It doesn’t matter what products/service you have to offer building your own list of potential customers and their contact details should be your top most priority from start.  Below are the few benefits of having your own list.

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Domain Registry Scams

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If you own any domain names, you may receive letters and emails that try to frighten you into sending money to protect your domains. Don’t fall for them.

Here is one of the most common of these predatory practices:

You get a letter that looks like a bill that tells you that your domain name is about to expire and,

“You must renew your domain name to retain exclusive rights to it on the Web, and now is the time to transfer and renew your names from your current Registrar to the Domain Registry of America. Failure to renew your domain name by the expiration date may result in a loss of your online identity making it difficult for your customers and friends to locate you on the Web.”

A careful reading shows that they are not billing you to renew your domain name registration, they are trying to get you to transfer your domains to their registry. However, many people who do not fully understand the domain registration process, or who do not know where their domain names are registered (e.g., domain names were registered for them by their web designer) have been tricked. The letter has a lot of talk of saving money, but their fees are about three times what you would pay elsewhere.

The FTC already obtained an order barring DROA from making false or misleading representations in connection with the advertising, marketing, and promotion of domain name services, so I guess this is the new and improved letter. It does say that it is not a bill, and it mentions the “transfer” of the domain, but the overall effect of the letter is to imply that you need to act now to avoid losing your domains.

What you should do:

Shred the letter.

Learn where your domain names are registered, if you do not already know. Make sure your information, such as email address, is current. Most registrars will contact you via email to let you know your domain names are about to expire.

Set your domain names to automatically renew. Most domain registrars allow you to do this. Or, renew your domains for several years at a time so you do not have to deal with annual renewals.

It is also a good idea to lock your domains so they can not be transferred. (They can be unlocked, by you, if you decide to transfer them or sell them later.)

In another stupid domain trick, you get an email that says something like this:

(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward to your CEO, as this is urgent, thank you.)

Dear CEO,

We are the department of registration service in China. We have something need to confirm with you. We formally received an application on September 3, 2010, one company which called “TEKpower trading co, ltd” is applying to register “idealady” as brand name and domain names as below :

idealady.asia
idealady.cn
idealady.com.cn
idealady.com.hk
idealady.com.tw
idealady.hk
idealady.in
idealady.tw

After our initial checking, we found the brand name and these domain names being applied are as same as your company’s, so we need to get the confirmation from your company. If the aforesaid company is your business partner or your subsidiary company, please don’t reply us, we will approve the application automatically. If you have no any relationship with this company, please contact us within 5 workdays. If out of the deadline, we will approve the application submitted by “TEKpower trading co, ltd” unconditionally.

If you actually contact these people, they will try to sell you a batch of domain names at inflated prices to “protect your brand” in Asia. This is not something you need to do. No one is trying to register these names, and you do not need to do so, either. This is just a sales pitch.

What you should do:

Delete the email. Forget about it.

If you do not want to receive letters and emails such as the above, one step you can take is private registration of your domain names. There is usually an annual fee for private domain registration, but your contact information will not be published on the web, making it less likely you will receive this kind of junk mail.

The best way to avoid getting caught up in these schemes is to be educated. If you get a communication that says you need to do something to protect your domain names, do an online search for a portion of the text in the letter or email and find out what others have to say.

Is It Spam?

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In a recent article on email communication, we talked about email etiquette and how to avoid annoying recipients of your emails. The last point was not to send unsolicited email. But when is email ‘unsolicited’ and when is it actually OK to send unsolicited email? 

There are some gray areas, but here is one hard and fast rule: NEVER send a bulk email to a ‘hot list’ of 10,000 email addresses you bought from someone. It is never OK to send your ad via email to total strangers. It’s bad form, and I can’t believe it works. Frankly, if someone sent me a spam email offering to sell dollar bills for 50 cents, I wouldn’t take them up on it.

It is generally OK to send email to people you know and who know you. If necessary, remind them how you know each other. (Hi! We met at the ABC conference last week . . .)

When sending to someone you don’t know, personalize your message and let them know why you chose to contact them. For example, I get lots of questions from people who found my website and want more information. Or people who want to discuss doing a joint venture or other business.

It is OK to send email to people who have asked to receive it. This is called ‘permission marketing’. Let’s say you’re a travel agent who offers to send bulletins to preferred customers when you have a great price on air fares. When I give you my email address and ask you to send the bulletins, I’ve given you permission to email me. Don’t abuse it by sending messages several times a day (unless that’s what you told me to expect) or by sending a lot of unrelated messages. And never share your mailing list with someone else. That violates the privacy of your list members and violates their trust as well.

I sometimes send press releases to media contacts via their published email addresses for press release submission. Each email is individually addressed (although I use an automated process to do so) and it is something I believe they will find of interest. I only send to appropriate media, and I don’t bombard them with press releases day after day. And, if anyone asks not to receive future releases, they are immediately removed from my data base. Each of these elements helps to keep me from being perceived as a spammer or just an old-fashioned pest.

In summary, don’t send bulk email to people you don’t know who haven’t asked to receive it. When people have given you permission to email them, don’t abuse it.

And always be polite and considerate of your recipients. After all, many of them get dozens or hundreds of emails every day. Using a subject heading which accurately describes your message helps them sort their messages easily.

Email is an important marketing tool–use it wisely and well!