Blend Email With Other Marketing Strategies!

The concept

Whether you choose to do your marketing online or offline one thing does not change: The concept that no single marketing strategy will be as effective as utilizing a blend of two or more marketing strategies. This does not mean that it is necessary to implement every known marketing strategy to promote your business; but rather, it implies that it’s worthwhile to market from a few different perspectives in order to help achieve business-related goals.

In this article we will take a look at the viability, need and practicality of combining email marketing with other types of marketing to create a successful, multi-tiered marketing strategy and in addition, offer a few observations on managing more than one marketing strategy simultaneously in the hopes that they will prove useful to you in your Web marketing efforts.

The adage

There is an old adage which states that, “Two heads are better than one,” and this could certainly be applied to a multi-pronged approach to Web marketing; because although you may enjoy a great deal of success with your current email marketing efforts it does not mean you should refuse to try other types of Web marketing strategies such as, website creation, participation in industry-related message boards, placing banner ads on your website(s), orchestrating an affiliate marketing campaign and generating inbound links to .

It is important to keep in mind that, while the possibility exists that not all of these strategies will be effective for your business, the liklihood that at least one other option which complements your email marketing will help you to achieve your business-related goals. But there is only one way to actually test the blend of marketing types, and that is to test each one in a methodical fashion simililar to the kind of “split testing” that proved to be so effective for many marketers a decade or so ago, and is still utilized by marketers to evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing strategies.

The offline factor

Alternately you even wish to combine your email marketing campaign with more traditional marketing strategies such as radio ads, television ads and the print media. Let’s face it, just because these types of advertising do not take place the Web does not mean they will be ineffective in helping you generate more business and profits.

In fact advertising both online and offline can allow you to reach a larger audience to which you can target your advertising. This is especially true in view of the fact that you can reach Web users around the world, but reaching potential customers who do not utilize the Web for purchasing or researching products or services similar to the ones you offer can only be accomplished using offline marketing strategies.

A powerful statement

Popular marketing strategies to combine with email marketing include banner ads and message board participation, but these are all online activities and each one individually is fairly simple. However, in combination these simple activities can create a powerful statement, in the sense that when you send out emails offering useful information about your products or services, while simultaneously purchasing banner ad space on with content which may also be of interest to your potential customers, you can earn the respect and pique the interest of potential customers.

Furthermore, let’s say you add a third marketing strategy like participation in industry-related message boards. When done right this could well be a powerful representation of your business, even if your potential customers are not currently in need of the products and services you offer; because seeing your business name so often will most likely have a branding effect that is credible and positive in their minds. And branding, which is essentially a process during which consumers see a company name so often that they are more likely to select a product from this company when they are in need of an item the company offers, will go a long way in boosting your reputation and customer base.

The caveat emptor mindset

Of course you must approach your experiment in blending marketing strategies with a “Caveat Emptor” mindset, because if you are planning to combine multiple forms of advertising, you should be aware that this might involve a degree of difficulty when evaluating the effectiveness of each marketing strategy.

This difficulty is especially true when the marketing strategies are implemented simultaneously. When using only one type of marketing strategy, you can generally attribute increases in sales or traffic to changes in the marketing strategy. However, when more than one type of marketing strategy is in effect, determining which strategy is producing the most success can be quite difficult.

Methodical work

But remember, this experiment must be done in a careful and methodical manner. Meaning that the best way this situation can be handled is by not making changes to more than one marketing strategy at a time. By doing so you will be able to pinpoint which changes produce an increase in sales or traffic. The methodical approach can also help you to determine when changes to your marketing strategy have a detrimental effect on your sales and traffic. However, if you are having difficulty determining which marketing strategy is most effective you can consider asking customers to answer survey questions and provide information as to how they learned about the products or services your business offers.

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Practical Steps to Affiliate Marketing Success

Establishing an affiliate business

There are literally hundreds of thousands of affiliate programs available in this eCommerce marketplace, and they all claim to be the best, while many of them try to create the impression that all an individual has to do in order to make money on the Web is use their links and banners, and then wait for the money to start rolling in. That is obviously not the way affiliate marketers begin to make money; although money can, and often does, start rolling in once the groundwork is laid and fundamental steps are taken by new affiliates; so the impression is primarily a false one.

That having been said, an affiliate marketing career can only be successful if the affiliate is ready, willing and able to commit significant time, energy and resources (financial and otherwise) to building the necessary relationships and “following” that s/he can convert into return visitors, referrals and buying customers (traffic) that is the cornerstone of an affiliate marketer’s business. Establishing this cornerstone is not accomplished overnight, and is not made possible by simply placing banners/links on a website and then wait, although links and banners are part of the overall affiliate marketing scenario.

First things first

Individuals who aspire to be affiliate marketers must first determine what kind of merchants (companies that own products which affiliates market and sell) they want to work with from a product-to-website compatibility standpoint; and they must also do the necessary research on a company’s credibility, reputation and commission payout history. Once these two steps have been completed, first-time affiliates can then start thinking about links, banners, buttons, badges and such as well as how they fit in with the design and theme of their websites.

Choosing banners

With most affiliate programs, affiliates are offered a variety of banners to display on their websites; but very few of them will be effective if those banners are not compatible with a site’s content, or if their placement takes away from the sites appeal. The problems with most banners are their size in the sense that if a banner that is overly large (in pixels and kilobytes or kb), it will take a long time to implement (render) and use. Therefore, it is recommended that affiliates use banners that are no more than 15kb in size.

When you, as an affiliate, select any kind of graphical advertising, you should try and keep the theme of your website in mind; because even though graphical ads are meant to stand out and catch the eye of website visitors, they should not be so overbearing that everything else on the page is completely ignored. On the contrary, banners should be placed on website in a way that their presence is complimentary to the site’s design, format and content.

Pop-ups, pop-unders and text link ads

Many eCommerce companies that takes on the role of affiliate merchants now give their affiliates the opportunity to use pop up or pop under ads which, according to popular opinion, are not the way to go; because these types of ads have been known to annoy visitors, and therefore are normally closed before they even have the chance to load. However, if you must use one or the other of these ads, you should opt for pop-unders which only display once per visit, and usually after the visitor finishes his/her visit.

One of the most successful and popular methods of advertising among affiliates is text link ads, because they are easy on bandwidth; they don’t use a lot of space; and they can easily be implemented into most types of page layouts. Good text links provide some information as to why your visitor should investigate some of the offers being made from your website.

Email advertising

The direct promotion via email has really taken off over the last several years, although it has brought tons of spam with it, and was almost entirely responsible for the now famous Can-Spam Act of 2003; so if you plan to use email as a major part of your advertising campaign in promoting your affiliate products, make sure to stand behind what you sell, and make yourself available to answer any questions.

Keep in mind also that many email service providers, including Hotmail (by Microsoft), Yahoo! and Comcast, among others, have installed spam blockers and other software to prevent your marketing emails from getting through to their intended recipient.

Patience

If you feel confident that your website can generate great sales for certain companyies, you should contact them to negotiate an arrangement; but if they don’t seem too enthused to begin with, you should remain patient as companies are approaced every day with affiliates looking to make better deals. The reality remains that most affiliates can’t deliver what they promise, and companies are aware of this fact.

You should always keep in mind that most forms of advertising will take time no matter what methods you plan to use, so devote some time and a lot of thought before you make any type of decision. Although something might not happen overnight, it doesn’t mean that it won’t happen because some things take more time to develop than others; and if you want to get the best out of your efforts, time and resources devoted to an affiliate marketing career, you’d probably be better off if you take your time and get it done the right way, whether it takes a few days or even weeks.

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