Direct Methods for Increasing Website Traffic ― Lesson 2: Newsletters: The Key to Repeat Customers Welcome back.
In yesterday’s newsletter, we talked about how to give your website a top ranking position with Google, Yahoo! and MSN. We talked about on-page optimization. And off-page optimization. And how combining these two aspects will lead to a high ranking website. We started with the subject of Search Engine Optimization because, when done correctly, it has by far the biggest potential to improve website traffic.
Of course it may happen that the effort needed for a top-ranking website is more than you want to make. Or you simply don’t feel the need to have all the traffic that comes with a top-ranking site. Fortunately, there are plenty of other ways to increase traffic to your site. And one of these ways is to make return customers out of the people that do see your site. As logical as this sounds, many businesses tend to overlook the potential of return customers. Return customers are an overlooked and very low-cost way of increasing business. And the best way to do this online is by having a newsletter.
Newsletters
First off, let’s take a look at what a newsletter is.
A newsletter is nothing more than a group of pre-written e-mails that are sent regularly to potential customers who ask for them. For example, if you offer financial advice, you could
write an informative four part newsletter that gives the reader some insight into potential investment opportunities for 2007. If you have a sporting goods store, you could write a five-day look at the best ways to go about starting a new sport. The content of the newsletter can be anything you’d like. But the promise of an informative newsletter tends to increase the number of people that request it.
You can choose to send your newsletter once a day for four days straight or once a week for two months. Any combination will work. The idea here is to use the newsletters you send to establish yourself and your business in the mind of potential clients. If you know what you’re talking about, and you give that impression, your readers are very likely to think of you the next time they look to buy.
The beauty of a newsletter is that it’s only sent to people who ask for it. This means that the people that request your newsletter are already interested enough in what you offer to give you their name and e-mail address. (We’ll talk about the details of collecting this information later on.)
Along with establishing yourself in the eyes of potential customers, newsletters have another big advantage: they allow you to create a list of people who are highly interested in what you offer. This can be an enormous business asset.
Because now, each time you have a new product or service to offer, you also have a list of interested customers to contact. When you contact your list, not only can you tell them about your new offer. But you also have a chance to pre-sell them before you send them to your website.
This list of potential customers will have a big effect on website traffic; and overall business. And it will have this effect for one important reason: because it’s always easier to sell to someone who knows you than it is to sell to someone that has never heard of you. In the end, this is what makes a newsletter so valuable ― it allows you to build a relationship between you and potential customers.
So, now that the benefits of a newsletter are clear, let’s see what we need to do to make it work.
Newsletters ― Tools of the Trade
From the start, there are two tools that are essential for running a successful newsletter: the first is an opt-in form and the second is an auto responder.
An opt-in form is a small box you place on your website that allows people viewing the site to request your newsletter. This box usually has a space where users give their name and another space where they give their e-mail address. It’s a very basic feature and easy to put on a website. On top of this, it’s a free part of auto responders.
Knowing that opt-in forms are a free part of auto responders, let’s go to the heart of the matter and take a look at the second essential tool for running a successful newsletter.
Auto Responders: What They Are & How They Help Increase Traffic
An auto responder is kind of like a glorified e-mail responder. You’re probably already familiar with the idea of e-mail responders whether you know it or not. For example, if you’ve ever e-mailed someone and then received a generic automated response like “Sorry, I’m out of the office until next week. Sincerely, Jon Doe.” Then you’ve already experienced a very low-level responder.
What a high-level auto responder does is allow you to send multiple pre-written newsletters to customers who request them over a particular period of time. An auto responder does this in three steps:
1) It collects the e-mail addresses of people who ask for your newsletter using an opt-in form.
2) It stores these e-mail addresses and the other information you ask for in a database.
3) It automates the job of sending your newsletter to these people.
What’s most valuable about an auto responder is that, once the newsletters are written and the auto responder is set up, everything runs automatically. People request or “opt-in” to your newsletter. They receive your first newsletter right away. They receive your second newsletter the day after that, etc. And it’s all automated. A relationship is built with potential customers and you don’t have to do anything after the initial preparation. Auto
responders also allow you to send e-mails to your whole opt-in list or any part of the list. They’re really a very effective way to increase website traffic and business.
One helpful bit of advice: when you ask for information on your opt-in form, try to ask for the smallest amount of information necessary. If you only ask for a first name and an email address, people are much more likely to opt-in to your list.
An auto responder my not dramatically increase the number of people that view your website. But the people that do receive your newsletter will end-up coming back to your site over and over again. By opting-in to your newsletter, these potential customers are showing you that they‘re interested in what you offer. And if you write an interesting informative newsletter, their interest is likely to grow. They’ll see you as an expert concerning your product or service and because of this, they’re very likely to become regular customers.
Auto Responders: Where to Find Them
Auto responders can be found in many forms and places on the web. Some auto responding services cost a flat monthly fee but there are plenty of free ones available on the internet. I’ll give you a list of some free ones below.
But I’ll also give you this advice: Free auto responders can sometimes be more troublesome than helpful. The problem is, with free auto responders, newsletters sometimes end up being sent to the SPAM box of the person that asks for your newsletter. When this happens often enough, it’s known as “low deliverability”. And it can obviously
affect the results of your newsletter. Free auto responding services also have no obligation to help you if something goes wrong because you’re not paying them for their service. With this in mind, there’s little risk in starting with a free service.
In fact, if you don’t see newsletters being an essential part of your business, start with a free service and see how it works. Then if it becomes profitable, you can always move to a more reliable auto-responding service.
If you’d like to start at the top, AWeber Communications has a reputation for being the best-performing auto responder service on the internet. Their service costs $19.95 per month but they have a 99.3% deliverability rate. They also have an online help service and a free 30-day trial period. It’s the auto responder I use and I highly recommend it. I’ve listed AWeber among the paying services below.
Free solutions: http://www.freeautobot.com http://www.getresponse.com http://www.responders.net
Paid solutions: http://www.aweber.com The top notch solution for remotely hosted auto responder service. http://www.autoresponseplus.com http://www.emailaces.com http://www.intellicontact.com
Even if you don’t intend to choose a paid auto responder, I’d encourage you to go to AWeber’s site and sign up at the bottom of their homepage for a free demonstration of their auto responder. This will help give you a better idea of what an auto responder can do. The demonstration does not oblige you to buy in any way and it will give you something to measure the other auto responders by.
Tomorrow we’ll spend some time looking at a free way to bring very targeted traffic to your site. It takes less time than search engine optimization or newsletters but can still bring thousands of new customers to your site. I think you’ll find it worth your while.
All the best,
Eli Pedelty Online Business Adviser EliPedelty.com