A Beginners guide

Part 3
Using email, e-books, letterhead and magazines

By Raymond Laubert
MCSE, MCDBA, MCT

http://www.rd-webhosting.com

Using Email to market your web site

This is a very touchy subject. One that needs to be addressed and that you need to understand. Email marketing falls into three categories. First is simple, you place a signature line in your email program that automatically adds your signature block to each out going email. This signature line identifies your web site and a brief tag line or catch phase. Every time you respond or send an email, your signature advertises your business, no problems with that. However, the next two types of email marketing are very touchy.

By now, everyone has heard of SPAM. Your definition may be different from mine and from the governments. However, you look at it, SPAM is unwanted email. Now email marketing requires that we send emails to our potential customers. This can be done either with or without their permission. Sending email without the permission of the recipient put us in a bad light. Often resulting is negative feelings and responses from the recipient. This is bad for business. If you piss off the potential customer, well, they are no longer a potential customer as they have deleted you email and won’t be visiting your site. You have wasted valuable time and money. So, the only people you will be sending any marketing emails to will be those that have requested information from you or have agreed to receive information from you. This is called permission-based email.

Where can you find people who are willing to receive your emails? First provide a place on your web site to gather the names and addresses of your visitors. Offer them something in exchange, such as a free publication, or your newsletter, or something else of potential value to them. Let them know when they sign up that you will from time to time be sending them information. Include in the email a means to unsubscribe at any time. As people sign up you are building your email list, which you can market to as often as you like. I wouldn’t recommend more than twice a month.

There are other web sites that maintain a list of people who want to hear from your. This permission-based method is usually based on a particular subject matter. Such as hobbies, business ideas, childcare etc. You can find them on the web by searching for mailing list.

Emails are an inexpensive way to keep in touch with your customers. If you have a brick and motor store, try to get the email addresses of your current customers and add them to the list as well. You will be surprised at how much extra business can come from a personalize email about a special you are offering for their support over the last year etc.

Using E-books to market your web site

What can your own E-zine or E-book do for your business or web site? How about:

* Sell more products or services. An e-zine/e-book can increase your credibility, making it easier to sell your product or service as well as those of others in which you have a stake.
* Attract more affiliates to help sell your products or services. This form of advertising is viral in it approach. E-zines and e-books get passed from person to person. Creating more interest which makes people want to jump on board and become part of that success.
* Establish yourself as an expert in your field, creating more ‘believability’ and trust. People don’t buy from strangers. With you e-zine or e-book you become better known to them. When the time comes they need or want your products or services, there’s no question who they’ll buy them from — YOU!
* Show your visitors and clients everything you can really do for them, maximizing your sales efforts.
* Build a base of customers who are ready to hire you, buy from you, evangelize for you and create more fans for you.
* Effortlessly spread the word about your business via “viral marketing.”
* Create new revenue streams from selling ad space and recommending other products that you’re an affiliate of. See our affiliate page for more information.
* Become a recognized publisher. Have others writing your articles, advertisers paying for exposure in your publication.

Here is an IMPORTANT point, capture the email addresses of your Web site visitors, gaining permission to market to them over and over again and multiple chances closing the sale. Not to mention the sales of other products or services.

Keep in touch with all of your customers, prospects, and associates on a regular basis.

Simple tips for creating e-zines and e-books

Package your knowledge on a regular basis into tips and articles that can be reprinted in other publications for tons of additional exposure and traffic. There are thousands of e-books and e-zines in publication today. Most are specialized in a particular segment of the web or interest. When you find an e-book/ezine that reaches the people that may be interested in your product or service. Contact them to see if they take outside articles. If they do, send them an article or two that you may have written. Include information on your business and your web site If they publish your article, your name and web site will be listed. This is a great way of getting free advertising and traffic to your site.

Another way to get articles for your e-books is to find someone to write them for you. Much like the process above but in this case you are the one publishing the material. Use your web site, chat rooms, forums etc to advertise for articles.

Save thousands of dollars printing and postage by producing your newsletter online instead of printing it. Adobe Writer is a good program for your e-books and any email program can be used for e-zines.

Using Letterhead to market your web site

Every business uses paper to correspond with its customers, vendors and other businesses. Many small businesses and home based businesses today use the computer a and a word processor to generate this correspondence whether it is printed or electronic we all do. So how can we use this correspondence to market our business? Simple, create a letterhead template and make it your default document when ever you create a business related correspondence.

In your letterhead template make sure you have your website address and you company slogan (if you have one) prominently displayed. I have even seem some letterhead lately that simply has the website address listed and no physical address as many companies are Internet based or figure that you will have access to the Internet and can visit their site to look up the street address if needed. This is actually a clever move, in that it get you to visit the site, which is what our marketing is trying to do to begin with.

Using Magazines to market your web site

Those articles that you wrote or had written for your business can also be sent to magazine and newspapers for publication. Each one that is printed is free advertisement for your business that lasts for years. Just think how many issues are passed around from person to person before they end up in the trash. I saw several magazines at the Laundromat that were from 1996-1998 that people were still reading. You can do a search on the web for publications in your area of expertise. Visit their web sites and find the editors email address. Be sure to find out the policy for submitting an article for publication and follow it. Some editors don’t like it when the mailbox is full of unsolicited articles that do not conform to their policies and will just trash the email instead of replying to you.

This is part one of a multi-part series of marketing you web site. Please visit us at http://rd-webhosting.com for the rest of the series. In the next section we will cover marketing you web site using newsletters, search engines and the yellow pages.

What is a domain name? Domain names are human recognizable names assigned to websites. On the Internet the machines talk to each other using what is called an Internet Protecol Address or IP Address. This address is a set of numbers you have probably seen that looks something like 123.45.123.45. For machines this makes it easy to locate the host or destination machine they want to communicate with. But for us humans remembering hundreds of IP addresses would be very difficult. So a naming convention was devised to make it easier. The domain name and it’s associated IP address are linked together in what is essentially a big database (think phonebook) called a Domain Name Service (DNS). When you enter a domain name in your web browser, your computer sends a request to the DNS to find the IP Address it needs to talk to.
Why is it important to have your own domain? If you are not in business, it probably is not that important. However, if you want to put up a website whether it is for personal use or business you will need a domain name of some sort. Many people will use a free or common ‘host’ (place to store the website) and others will rent space on a web hosting provider like rd-webhosting.com. Besides cost the main difference is in the name. On a free host, your ‘domain name’ is often a combination of the host name and a unique name (your name perhaps) combined in some fashion. For example: If the host was rd-webhosting.com and your name was Jane Smith you could have a domain name of janesmith.rd-webhosting.com or rd-webhosting.com/janesmith. For email you would have janesmith@rd-webhosting.com if it was offered by the hosting company. Many free host do not offer email support. If you use a paid hosting service, you will need your own personal domain name, IE janesmith.com. In this case you would almost always get email accounts at well that you can set up, so your email address could be me@janesmith.com or anything that you wanted it to be, If you are starting a business, domain names make you look more professional. They also establish more trust. Think about this, who would you rather buy from, Company A with a website address of CompanyA.com or Company B with an address of rd-webhosting.com/companyb? In the second case, who are you really dealing with rd-webhosting.com for company b? Also the cost of a domain and web hosting is almost nothing.
What will it cost to have your own domain name? Well the prices you will find on the Internet will range from $1.99 if you purchase other services to as high as $24.99 a year to register your domain name and post it in the DNS. Remember all domain names are posted in the DNS. So a service that charges $7 is doing the same thing as a service that charges $25. Sometimes you may find extra services or features available but if you are just registering a name, go with the cheaper service. Also, you want to make sure that YOU are the owner of the domain name. I have seen some registrars that claim ownership of the name and require you to host your website with them. This is usually the case when hosting is free. They charge a steep fee if you want to ‘buy’ your own domain name back from them and move to a different host. So ask questions first. Once you get your own domain you will need a place to host or store your website. There are thousands of web hosting companies. With prices ranging from $1 a month to hundreds of dollars a month. Some have contracts however, most do not. If you are putting up a business website, I would recommend not using a free web hosting service. Support, availability, features, disk space, data transfer and email accounts of free hosting usually will not meet your requirements.
How do you get a domain name? First you need to find a domain registrar. These are companies, like rd-webhosting.com, that are allowed to register domain names and place them in the DNS. Once you find a registrar, you need to enter the domain name you want to register. You will also need to enter some personal information, such as your name, address, and phone number. One very important piece of information is the IP Address of the server where your website will be stored. This is important as it will be entered into the DNS so people can access your website or send you email. When you purchase (whether it is for free or a fee) web hosting space you should be provided this information.
Once you have registered your domain name it will take a little while, up to 72 hours before your new domain name will be able to be used. This is because the registrar has to enter the domain name into the DNS and then it has to be copied to all the other DNS servers on the Internet. In most cases your domain name will be registered and you will be able to access your email/website usually within 24 hours sometimes less. But to be on the safe side 72 hours is usually stated.
That’s it. You registered a name, found a place to host the website and email. Total cost, from a couple of bucks on up.

Raymond Laubert is owner of http://rd-webhosting.com a web hosting provider specializing in home based business web hosting. He has written many articles related to web hosting and home based businesses which can be found at http://rd-webhosting.com.