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University of Wisconsin Executive Education - Integrated Customer Communications — Madison, WI
Optimize your online efforts
After more than a decade of online marketing, companies are still struggling to find the best ways to use the web to promote themselves and build relationships with their customers. Our proven, practical tips will help you to get higher search engine rankings, make your e-mails filter-friendly — yet compliant! — and deliver relevant customer-focused website content.
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Web content guru Gerry McGovern, author of “Killer Content” - one of the best books on writing copy for the web - says that one of the biggest mistakes companies make in regards to their website content is thinking that customers care one little bit about the company. “Customers care about themselves (their loved ones and their community),” he said in an interview with founder and president of Netconcepts, Stephan Spencer. He went on to add that organizations need to be customer-centric, talk about benefits, and speak the language of the customer.
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So many designers of e-mail campaigns make the fatal mistake of designing the e-mail to be viewed in its entirety. E-mail doesn’t work like that. E-mail is scrolled through and in very small windows.
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Emergency Medical Products Inc. sells emergency medical supplies and equipment to fire fighters and EMS professionals. In other words, each sale isn’t just money in their virtual cash register; it’s as if somebody’s life depends on it!
This online catalog site is powered by our GravityMarket ecommerce platform which means it is search engine friendly out of the gates, with an intuitive feature rich website for customers and a powerful administrative interface for our client. Among other things, the site supports “EZ Ordering” by SKU or item number. They are also embracing the concept that “markets are conversations,” having just started a blog.
[ database | client admin cms | SEO ]
Visit the site: Emergency Medical Products
realestate.co.nz is operated by the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ). The site is a comprehensive meta-directory of listed properties in New Zealand and is currently the second most popular real estate site in New Zealand.
The site boasts a number of Web 2.0 features including RSS, Google Maps, microformats and AJAX. Every page, every search and every field has a corresponding RSS feed as well as email alert to which visitors can subscribe. This new site is of course search engine friendly, allowing spiders to traverse the site fully through text links. Dates and times of open homes can be saved directly to the calendar software such as Outlook, thanks to the use of microformats.
[ database | client admin cms | SEO ]
Visit the site: RealEstate.co.nz
MarketingProfs virtual seminar series — online
For many of you, your email campaign lost the race even before it got out of the gate. Spam filters and email firewalls silently and unceremoniously junk your emails. Research has shown that fully one-third of permission-based emails don’t get delivered.
Even if your message gets past the filters, it doesn’t mean your email will be opened. Your recipients are brutal when it comes to slashing through the commercial messages clogging their inboxes. A split second decision will decide your email’s fate, based squarely on your From line and Subject line, and to a smaller extent, what’s visible in the Preview pane. After navigating these deliverability and openability hazards, you still have to get the recipient to comprehend and act on your message. A pretty tall order nowadays.
This virtual seminar is going to get “hands on” with reviews of actual email campaigns submitted by seminar attendees. Not all will be chosen, so give yourself the best chance of having your campaign critiqued: submit your entry early. Stephan is one of the most popularly and highly acclaimed MarketingProfs seminar leaders.
If you’ve ever wondered what you were doing wrong with your email marketing, or wondered what you could be doing better, then this is the seminar for you.
You will learn:
The 90-minute seminar will include an extended Q&A.
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In this article written by Patricia Moore, author for NZ Marketing Magazine, Netconcepts makes the public scene, not for SEO, but for their marketing success.
Moore discusses how companies have had remarkable success in the competitive New Zealand export market. How are companies succeeding in this market? What or, perhaps more importantly, who should companies turn to in order to fuel their global success.
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Have you considered incorporating content partners and marketing partners into your online strategy? For example, partnering with content providers who could augment your own content with additional related content? Or partering with sites whose visitors match your target market?… If, for example, you wanted to reach women online, you could partner with a site like iVillage.com and build a microsite together, then have them promote it through their site and subscription lists.
Think about the sites you advertise on as potential partners. Join forces and create a microsite together and then promote it to a joint captive audience. Or make a deal with them and syndicate some useful content onto their site. For example, you could develop a whole library of useful tips and, rather than doing standard banner ads, you could provide these tips to your partner, who would then fold it with the rest of their content. Et voila!… “Sponsored content”!
Even better if, between the two of you, you can develop some sort of “hook” or viral component, such as a funny video, an addictive game, a downloadable ebook, worksheet, calculator, widget, etc…
Got an example to share of a site where the whole is greater than the sum of the partners? Post a comment!
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The other day when I was on whitepages.co.nz I kept getting this tasteless banner ad:
Not only did I find the ad irritating and gross, I thought less of the White Pages brand after I saw it. It is an animated GIF banner, where the piece of poo actually flies across the ad from left to right and then hits the spinning fan, making the whole banner go brown. Nice.
Whoever at the White Pages approved that banner ad for publication should be fired.
I have also seen plenty of ads placed in email campaigns that hurt the brand. Here’s an ad in an internet.com newsletter that cheapened the JupiterMedia brand while simultaneously flagging the email for spam filters (the Alt tag associated with this banner ad was “Work From Home” — a terrible thing to say in an email campaign if you want your campaign delivered):
It always amazes me how email ads get approved when it’s so obvious that they are going to cause the campaign’s deliverability to tank. Like this one:
Some people think email marketing is horribly expensive. If only they knew about VerticalResponse. We give you the power to create, send, and track your email campaign, right from your web browser — for less than 1c an email! NO set-up fees, NO contracts, NO hidden charges. And it’s easy, too! See for yourself by creating your own test mailing — FREE. Get started today!
Some big no-no phrases in the above email ad, including: “no hidden charges” and “see for yourself”.
In short, your website and your email campaigns are a reflection of your brand. The advertising you accept for display on your site and in your emails is also a reflection of your brand. So think carefully before you take on an advertiser or accept a creative that isn’t “on message.”
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