Web Content, Design, & Promotion

Amazing site makes it easy to say "Thanks" to customers and drive web site traffic

More and more marketers are discovering the power of postcard marketing. In the e-mail age, postal mail gets noticed and attracts immediate readership.

In a blink of an eye, a brightly colored, plastic laminated postcard, like those that AmazingMail can print and mail for you, attracts your prospect's attention and communicates your message.

Today, the best way to drive web site traffic is to go offline and send a colored postcard via First Class mail announcing new web site content or downloadable coupons. 

Visit AmazingMail and learn how to harness the surprise value of colored postcards sent via First Class Mail, but prepared on your computer. Moments after you arrive at the AmazingMail site, your first Thank you cards, promotional announcements, or opt-in registration incentive can be ready for First-Class mailing to your prospects and clients.

Print-on-demand color means no minimum quantities. You can send 1, or 1,000, or 10,000 postcards with a single click...and you can choose from thousands of free illustrations and artwork.

Introducing the easy way to keep your website up to date

Fresh content is the lifeblood of a successful website. New and updated content attracts new visitors to your website and provides a reason for visitors to return.

One of the easiest ways to add fresh content to your website is to add an RSS feed from your blog. Both your blog and your website benefit from this powerful, set and forget, technique, as I explain in the latest issue of my Guerrilla Marketing & Design newsletter.

Are Southwest Airline's Dings really pings?

Southwest Airlines may have taken Business Week's recent endorsement of blogs and RSS to heart, as their aggressive promotion of their new "Ding" feature shows.

Travelers can download a simple software application that will automatically receive notification of special offers for flights from their local airport(s).

Southwest's "dings" sound a lot like "pings" to me!  It will be interesting to see how much their Ding software differs from an RSS reader, as further research shall show.

Did you see what Business Week said about blogs and your marketing?

Should a blog be part of your Guerrilla Marketing arsenal?

Business Week has featured blogs on the cover of its May 2, 2005 issue.

The headline says it all: "Blogs will change your business." The article goes on to conclude: "you cannot afford to close your eyes to them because they're simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they're going to shake up just about every business."

The field is still open, so if you haven't investigated blogs, now is the time! The field is still enough to establish a marketing presence.

Free Roger C. Parker introductory blog resources: (download now!)
 

• 2-page Profiting from a Blog
• 4-page Marketing Information with Blogs
• 2-page Glossary of important Blog Terms
• 1 hour audio, Relationship Marketing and RSS
• 2-page Customizing Your Blog Template

Beyond e-Mail; Blogs, RSS and Subscription Website Success

As Spam filters and stuffed in-boxes take their toll, blogs continue to offer web marketers compelling benefits. Blogs and RSS feeds can often get the through when e-mail fails.

In my recent article for the Subscription Website Electronic Publishers Association, I discuss some of the compelling benefits that blogs and RSS offer membership and subscription websites.

Test Your Blog Marketing IQ

Visit www.NewEntrepreneur.com and take my free blog assessment. Find out how up to date your knowledge of blogs and RSS is.

In addition, you'll also receive a free Scorecard Analysis, a blog glossary, a Special Report entitled Marketing Information with Blogs prepared for the Newsletter on Newsletters, plus a copy of Rok Hrastnik's The Business Case for RSS Marketing, a 28-page excerpt from Mastering the Marketing and Publishing Power of RSS--one of the very best e-books of any type that I've read.

Test your Blog IQ today!

Relationship Marketing with Blogs and RSS

In a recent interview with Rok Hrastnik, author of Unleashing the Marketing and Publishing Power of RSS, I took a exceptionally twist to blogs and gave step-by-step instructions on how to turn them in to a relationship marketing vehichle without spending much. Or better yet, almost without spending anything at all.

When you listen to this free, one-hour interview, you'll find out:

• Why blogs and RSS make relationship marketing possible more than ever before, even for the smallest business?
• What is relationship marketing and what's been really holding it back for so many years?
• What are the 5 stages of relationship marketing?
• How can we apply these 5 stages to blogs? This is the first time that this strategy has been publicly revealed
• How to develop a full blog and RSS powered relationship marketing program?

After the interview, Rok stated: "Given all the exclusive and innovative content, this has to be one of the most interesting interviews I ever did."

Click here to access the interview in the format of your choice.

 

The next step in user-friendly home buying navigation

Most database driven real estate websites share a fatal flaw: you can select homes to view by neighborhood, street, or Zip Code. This is fine, but is best suited to those who already know an area. It doesn't help out of stater's who want to view listings by landmarks such as a bend in a road, a cross street, or proximity to a public park.

As a result, with most sites, you don't really know what kind of environment a home is situated in. So you have to fly blind, and you waste a lot of time in the process.

For a better alternative, visit www.windemere.com, a large and expanding Northwest firm. Their new PropertyPoint interactive map permits you to visually drill down on maps of increasing detail. Homes display in each map are identified by numbered flags, which correspond to listings in an adjacent text box. At a glance, without leaving the map view, you can check the home's price and number of bedrooms, and baths.

Only after you have pre-qualified a home, do you actually access the listing sheet. This saves you hours of wasted time.

Check our Windemere's enhanced navigation, then visit your own site. Is it as easy to navigate?

Where do web sites go to die?

Are websites forever, or does it make sense to "kill" them when they're past their prime?

This problem is especially relevant when the original site still has validity from the creative or emotional point of view.

It takes courage to cut life support from a  popular site, But Dan Pink, whose Free Agent Nation website was the right site at the right time, had the courage to take what remaining traffic there is and use the original site as a pointer, or redirect, to his latest site.

Dan's Free Agent Nation remains one of my favorite and most often given away books, but--even more--I respect Dan's strategy of focusing all his resources on his current project.

Does your website position you as an Object Expert in your field?

Is your website so focused on short-term gains that it neglects to promote your "obvious" expertise?

If you are a coach, consultant, or the owner of any other type of service business, it should be immediately aobvious to website visitors that you are obviously an expert in your field. You possess the background, competence, empathy, and professionalism needed to solve your market's problems or help them achieve their goals.

To learn more, download a special issue of Guerrilla Marketing & Design entitled, Become an Obvious Expert.

Or, even better, visit Elsom Eldridge III's Obvious Expert website and order his pathfinding book, How to Position Yourself as The Obvious Expert in 90 Days or Less Without Spending a Forftune on Advertising. 

It contains hundreds of case studies. There's also space for you to describe the steps you're going to take to become an Obvious Expert in your field.