Affiliate Programs

This program enables you to create a banner for your site that can be advertised on other websites. The banner comes with a tracking mechanism to help you identify hits from a site and whether the visitor filled-in a contact form or purchased something
from your site.

You can offer pay-off based on

1. Purchase by the visitor
2. Visitor filling a lead sheet
3. Per visit

Once the program is created, you will need to contact other websites to show your program, and list your program on sites where other webmasters visit to look for affiliates to add to their site.

E-mail Campaigns

An email campaign is one of the most cost-effective marketing programs available to small businesses. However, the effectiveness of emails has dramatically decreased due to the proliferation of spammers. Despite what these spamming companies say, mass mailing your advertisement to a public list is a waste of time and money. A successful email program needs work from the beginning. Here are some simple steps for developing an effective email marketing program for your business:

1. Build only 100% opt-in list for sending emails.

This will take time to build a substantial list, there is no short cut. Guard that opt-in list with your life and never-never sell it or even loan it to other businesses for sending spam.

2. Make it easy for your customers to sign up for email campaigns from you.

They can sign up at your website, payment counter, store front, business cards etc.; make sure that your prospects can sign up for the emails at every point of contact with your business.

3. Create a targeted list of prospects who have agreed to ccept emails from you.

Make sure that they know what you will be sending in return for their “opting-in” for getting your emails. The reasons for signing up could be:

• Receiving your newsletter regarding issues relevant to your customers.
  
• Receiving ads and specials from you.
  
• Receiving special announcements
  
• Results of drawing
  
• Other similar programs

Whatever is the reason, I want to emphasize that you need to inform your prospects about what they will be receiving from you.

4. Send information ONLY about the reason for which they have signed up.

However, it is OK to do cross-promotion. For example, suppose someone has signed up for your newsletter; it is OK to put a small banner ad about ‘specials of this month”, linked to the page that is about the specials. It is NOT OK to send emails regarding your specials to prospects who have signed up for your newsletter.

5. Quality is more important than quantity –

Send only quality emails. Get help from a professional writer to make sure you are doing the best possible job. However, try to send emails at least once a month.

6. Always ask your readers to forward your mail to others

who they think may be interested in the content. If possible, provide incentive for forwarding it to others by creating a form.

Viral Marketing

When your visitor finds something interesting on the site and sends it to his/her friend, and their friends, in-turn, send it to their friends, it is viral marketing. Viral marketing can be the most effective website marketing tool for reaching an increasing number of visitors. One of the most successful examples of viral marketing is myspace.com; the community site where people create their own profiles and then send the profile to their friends and ask them to create their own profiles. Myspace.com was the most visited site by the end of 2006. You need to provide a compelling value before someone will send your page to a friend.

Some ideas are:

• Letting visitors create their own page – like myspace.com
• Unique information
• Free downloads
• Online interactive games
• Online MLS (multi-level marketing) programs

Simplify the process for visitors to send your page by adding “Send to a friend” feature where the visitors just need to add email addresses in a box and your system emails their comments (with your sales pitch) to them.