Taking it to Amazon and the ‘Big Boys’How your bookstore can compete in the digital

world

Clayton Wehner - Blue Train EnterprisesM: 0438 925 613 E: contact@bluetrainenterprises.com.au

Scope7 sections:

Context – the here and nowWebsitesSearchSocial mediaEmailAnalyticseBooks – Jon Page

The Vibe Relaxed, chilled out Lots of video and stuff Ask questions at anytime

Don’t need to take copious notes…you can find this presentation at: http://www.bluetrainenterprises.com.au/

takingittoamazon Recommend you print it off and use it as a guide

The context in which we’re operating…

Aussies going online…

28% of users are spending > 3 hours online a day

A further 23% spend > 1 hour online a day

Aussies going social…

10 million Australians use Facebook each month (Mar

2012)

Nearly two-thirds of Australians have a Facebook account

Aussies going mobile…

There are more than six million more mobile subscribers than there are people in Australia. 

Aussies using apps…

In January 2011, Amazon sold

115 Kindle eBook Downloads for every

100Paperback Book sales

Aussies using tablets & readers…

Aussie organisations lag behind 75% of Australian small-to-medium

enterprises DON’T do social media

30% of Australian SMEs rarely update the content of their business website

78% of Australian SMEs don’t use their websites for e-commerce (ie. selling stuff)

Only 14% of SMEs use email marketing

And book retailers under pressure… Aussie dollar still very high Interest rates still biting A slew of overseas buying options with cheap shipping

arrangements Big retailers up in arms about overseas operators

avoiding GST Universal access to fast internet connections Growing trust in the security of online shopping Emergence of mobile shopping Greater complexity in life means that people seek

convenience Copyright protectionism on Australian books makes

pricing uncompetitive

‘Amazonification’ of books The ‘long tail’ = ‘make everything available and

help me find it’ (Chris Anderson)

Early Amazon innovations: 1-click ordering (patented) You might also like… Customers who bought this, also bought… Recommendations for you Frequently bought together

And more recently: The Kindle

The Big Boys – Redefining the landscape

Google eBookstoreGoogle Play Store

Google Preview / digitisationGoogle AdwordsGoogle Shopping

Android / Nexus / Chromebook

iPadiPhone

iTunes Store

Keep your eye on…

And the rest…

ONLINE ONLY

CHAINS

OTHER RETAIL

$24.70 AUDFree Shipping to

AustraliaDispatched within 24

hours

How do we compete? Differentiate! Offer a different value proposition to customers Specialise in a niche Offer unparalleled customer service Broaden income streams beyond just books Be more than just a store with shelves Multi-channel retailing – bricks & mortar, online,

mobile

…and that’s what we’re going to talk about today…

Case Study: Dollar Shave Club

Case Study: Dollar Shave Club Person in the video is the CEO, not an actor 7 million + views on YouTube Dollar Shave Club sells razors by subscription ‘Big Shave’ companies manufacture razors for a

very low cost and then mark them up 4000%

From the About Us page: Like most good ideas, The Dollar Shave Club started with two guys who were pissed off about something and decided to do something about it…

Could you apply that same logic to your business?

Websites

Websites – tell us about yours…

How many of your businesses have a website?

How many of your businesses sell products via the site?

How many of you are happy with your website?

Get your website right first… Your website is the core element of your web

presence and your principal digital asset If you are serious about multi-channel retailing,

then you MUST have a website

Why? You own it (unlike other online properties, eg. Facebook

Page) You control it You can change it It is discoverable in search engines It has a unique, memorable address and is the place to

direct visitors to from your off-site advertising

Considerations for new websites I have a ‘methodology’ that I use for website

project management – acronym BPADCOSM Business Requirements Platform Architecture Design Content Optimisation for Search Engines Social Media and ongoing content production Marketing and Measurement

Business Requirements Frequently overlooked! The mindset is ‘I’ve gotta get a website’,

without considering the needs of the business Typically a web designer is engaged and

produces something pretty, but often ineffective

Doing some detailed thinking first and articulating your requirements will ensure that you get a better result

Business Requirements

P is for PEOPLEO is for OBJECTIVESS is for STRATEGIEST is for TECHNOLOGIES

Forrester Research

Business Requirements – POST method People

Who are you targeting? Certain demographic, multiple demographics?

Objectives What do you want to achieve?

Sales? Subscriptions? Engagement? Awareness?

Strategies How do your propose to achieve your objectives?

Content, discounts, competitions, special deals, viral marketing

Technologies Which technologies will you use to implement the strategies?

E-commerce, Content Management System, Email, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, video, etc.

Forrester Research

Platform – the foundation stone Like building a house, it’s necessary to build a

strong foundation for your web presence.  If you get the foundation wrong, then it’s mighty

hard to dig it all up and start again Things to consider here:

Domain name – important to consider up front because it’s hard to change it later on.  The domain also has implications for search engine optimisation.

Hosting – fast and reliable?  Can it cater for the software required?

Software – eg. A content management system, email marketing software, dynamic scripts, contact forms, etc

Architecture – how it fits together Time to consider the components, assets and

functions that our website will contain, and where they will all go. Information architecture – how information is ordered

and ‘discovered’ on the website; what goes where Pages and page hierarchy – what content do you

want to display and how will the pages be arranged Navigation structure – top level navigation,

subordinate level navigation, other navigation Page elements and included content (content that

appears across the site) – eg. News feeds, buttons, widgets, graphics, banners, columns, textual content, etc.

Design – what it looks like This is where most web designers start –

without thinking too deeply about the business requirements, platform or architecture - FAIL

Design is extremely important, but no more important than the three preceding steps.  Corporate logo, colours, fonts and styles HTML/CSS templates – the ‘look and feel’ of the

pages Fixed graphical elements – banners, page graphics Rich and dynamic media – video, marquees,

rotating banners, etc

Content – what users consume Another thing that designers aren’t very good

at – copy writing. 

Compelling copy is critically important for your website.  And not just for human visitors, but also to ensure that your website figures prominently in the search engines.

Content is the reason why people visit – it must be good!

Optimisation for search engines You can have the most attractive website in the

world – but looks won’t guarantee visitors to your site. 

Websites need to be optimised for search engines so that your site can be found by prospective visitors. Keyword analysis – working out which keyword

combinations people should use to find your site On-page optimisation – tweaking the textual content,

metadata to ensure keyword relevancy Inbound link building – obtaining links from other sites Directory submission – submitting your site to directories Technical optimisation – geekery!

Social Media & Ongoing Content Dev Not enough to simply publish a site on the web and

just let it sit there.  Need to constantly add and update content Article production – regular contributions via a

content management system Blogs – a simple way to contribute and syndicate

content Facebook – consider a Facebook Page Twitter – consider a Twitter stream Online video – consider regular uploading of online

video using YouTube or similar And others… Slideshare, Flickr, Pinterest, Google+,

etc.

Marketing & Measurement Once your web presence is ready, then it’s time

to start actively marketing the site.  Search engine marketing (SEM) – pay-per-click

advertising on Google or Facebook Email marketing – an often neglected; it’s free and

targeted Offline marketing – traditional marketing if you have $

$$

Website & all marketing initiatives must be measured

Use insights to make incremental improvements over time

If you were a corporate…

Outsourcing your website development Use BPADCOSM to frame your requirements on

paper Provide a verbal brief to 2-3 designer/developers,

preferably referred by trusted colleagues Ask the designer/developers to respond in writing,

providing information about their ‘approach’ to your project, a detailed project schedule, and their methodology (should be similar to BPADCOSM)

Choose the best designer/developer from the response provided

Insist upon weekly telephone/in-person reports and hold them to the project schedule!

Tips for dealing with geeks Always opt for web systems that you can

maintain yourself – eg. A content management system, rather than a ‘static’ website

Geeks often have no sense of time or deadlines – keep on their back, but be gentle

Geeks often don’t document things – make them write everything down

When you find a good geek, stick with them The best ones will move mountains for you –

but reward them appropriately

Search – Paid and Organic

What is a search engine? A web search engine is a tool designed to

search for information on the World Wide Web (Wikipedia)

Search engines exist to deliver the best possible search results to the user, for any given keyword combination.

Search engines use complex algorithms to index and rank web pages programmatically.

The big three search engines in Australia are…

About Google Brainchild of two college friends, Sergey Brin and Larry

Page Their search engine was originally called BackRub In 1997 it became Google, a play on the word "googol,"

a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros

Google became the world’s biggest search index in June 2000

Google’s ascent as a ‘second mover’ was remarkable – it eclipsed the likes of AltaVista, Yahoo!, MSN, Lycos

Today Google is a frontrunner in mapping and satellite technology, operating system software, office applications, mobile computing and much, much more…

Why is it important to optimise for Google? ‘Build it and they will come’ doesn’t apply on

the web There are many fancy websites on the web

that never get seen! Launching a website is the easy part… The hard part is getting qualified traffic to the

site Need to satisfy two ‘audiences’:

People or ‘real’ visitors Search engine ‘spiders’ or ‘robots’

Don’t settle for second best… The first result in Google gets as many

visitors as position 2-4 combined The top spot drove 34.35% of all traffic in the sample,

almost as much as the numbers 2 through 4 slots combined, and more than the numbers 5 through 20 (the end of page 2) put together."

Result number 10 gets 143% more clicks than result number 11 The biggest jump, percentage-wise, is from the top of

page 2 to the bottom of page 1. Going from the 11th spot to 10th sees a 143% jump in traffic.

Chitika Report - http://chitika.com/research/2010/the-value-of-google-result-positioning/

Organic vs Paid Google displays two types of results:

Organic results: these are unpaid listings that are ranked by importance/keyword relevance

Paid results: these are pay-per-click listings that appear on the right hand margin and above the organic listings – anybody can bid to display their ad at the top of these listings

Google users generally accord greater worth to the organic results

Google employs over 200 algorithmic factors to determine where web pages rank in organic results

Paid Results

Organic Results

Are you in Google? site:www.yoursite.com

Displays a list of pages from your site that have been indexed by Google

link:www.yoursite.com Displays a sample of external pages that link to your site

cache:www.yoursite.com Displays the cached image of the website that is currently on

file at Google. info:www.yoursite.com

Displays information that Google currently holds about the website.

related:www.yoursite.com Displays pages that are similar to your website.

If you are not in Google, submit your site here: http://www.google.com.au/addurl

Choosing the Right Keywords A keyword combination is used to obtain

search results from a search engine Web pages can be optimised for particular

keyword combinations Before optimising a website, it is necessary to

identify the best keywords to optimise for

Choosing the Right Keywords What is the volume of traffic for different

keyword combination? Have other websites optimised for those

keywords? Would it be hard to get a high ranking?

Who sits in the No. 1 spot for those keywords? What keywords are my competitors targeting? What do the keywords say about the searcher’s

intent/mindset? Surfers Researchers Buyers

Example Consider these search terms for an online

accommodation website Hotels Cheap hotels Hotels in Sydney Last minute Sydney hotel deals Sydney serviced apartment deals Bed and breakfast on george street Sydney Grand Mercure hotel Darling Harbour Sydney

On Site Optimisation On-site factors play a big role in determining

your search engine rankings These are the things that you can do yourself

or that you can task your web developer to do on your behalf

The TITLE tag Include your chosen keywords within the TITLE

tag – preferably near the start of the tag Try to keep it to 70 characters Must be relevant to the page content Very important - each page should have a

different TITLE tag

The DESCRIPTION tag A textual description of what the page is

about Regularly used in Google search results Try to

keep it to 150 characters; must be relevant to the page content

Each page should have a different DESCRIPTION tag

Body Text Google loves original, high quality textual

content Body text is extremely important for search

engine rankings because this is what human users come to see

Keywords, synonyms and variations of the primary keyword combination should be included in the body text, but not so that it reads ‘artificially’. It should read naturally.

Keywords in URLs URLs that contain keywords are better than

those that don’t Quite easy to do if your website is static, a

little more difficult for database-driven sites Don’t make the URLs too long because this

will be seen as an attempt to manipulate the search results

Good and bad: www.mysite.com/hotels/sydney/hilton.html www.mysite.com/search.asp?

hotelID=435&locID=32

Heading Tags Heading tags – eg. <h1>, <h2> - within the

HTML identify headings within the page copy and break up the text

They are used by search engines to determine page content

Use keywords in these tags, but don’t overdo it.

Link Anchor Text The ‘anchor’ text contained within hyperlinks

provides Google with an understanding of what the linked content is about

Every hyperlink on your site should have descriptive anchor text, rather than ‘click here…’

Inline links or contextual links are best

eg. Blue Train Enterprises offers a free white paper on

how to optimise your website for the search engines

Image ALT Text There is the opportunity to specify ‘alternate’

text for every image on your website The ALT text is displayed if the image doesn’t

load in the user’s browser It also can have a positive effect on your

website rankings The ALT tag should describe the image Keep it short and to the point Don’t use ALT tags as a place to stuff

keywords

Inbound Links These are links on other websites that link to your

site Good quality inbound links serve as a ‘vote of

confidence’ for your site – if a good site links to your site, then by association, your site must be good, too

Try and get links from ‘authority’ websites to your site Thematically-linked sites High ranking and well-known sites Government (.gov.au) sites Educational institution (.edu.au) sites

It’s not the volume of inbound links that is important – it’s the quality

Outbound Links There is evidence to suggest that your

outbound links contribute to your rankings Only link to good quality, thematically-aligned

content on third party websites Only link to sites that would be of interest to

your audience Be aware that outbound links take visitors

away from your site – and that is not necessarily what you want to do.

Getting listed in Directories Being listed in major directory-based websites

can boost your rankings considerably http://www.dmoz.org – aka The Open Directory

Project - a difficult one to get into http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html http://www.google.com/places - a very important one

that will see your business plotted on Google Local/Google Maps

http://www.yellowpages.com.au/awu_freeListing.do http://www.hotfrog.com.au http://www.aussieweb.com.au http://www.truelocal.com.au http://www.bigroo.com.au http://www.webwombat.com.au/submit/index.htm

Other ways to get Inbound Links Articles / interviews published on other

websites Press releases Forum posts Blog comments ‘Link bait’ – controversial is best!

The real key is …. great content Search engines are simply a means to locate

great content Does your site have great content? Add content that people want to read and will

pass on to others Text should be in short sentences, compact

paragraphs, be well punctuated, and contain headings to break up the text – time-poor people don’t read, they scan

Pages should not scroll and scroll and scroll… One page per topic (optimised for that topic)

and cross-link; granularity

The real key is …. great content Add content that people want to read and will pass

on – top ten tips, ‘how to’ guides, free white papers Text should be in short sentences, compact

paragraphs, be well punctuated, and contain headings to break up the text – time-poor people don’t read, they scan

Pages should not scroll and scroll and scroll… One page per topic (optimised for that topic) and

cross-link; granularity If your site remains static, then it will lose its

prominence in the search engines (and visitors won’t want to come back)

Add content regularly Some ideas for new content for your website:

Author interviews Book reviews Surveys and Polls Top Ten Lists Book Award Lists Reading Challenges / Book Clubs Giveaways and Competitions Guest posts from authors New release information Bestseller Lists

Other technical things to do…zzzzz Remove multiple ‘instances’ of your site with a

Permanent 301 redirect to elminate dilution of your website standing

Implement a robots.txt file Implement an XML sitemap Ensure that your pages load quickly by streamlining

your code and optimising your images Ensure that your site’s server has close to 100%

uptime – if it isn’t live when the spider arrives, your rankings may be affected

Make your site W3C compliant – http://validator.w3.org

What you should NEVER DO Hidden text (eg white text on a white

background) Keyword stuffing Display duplicate content Cloaking – displaying different content to

visitors and spiders Use Flash alone Use Frames

A final thought about organic search If you employ one of the strategies mentioned

in this presentation, you will get some benefit in the search engine results pages

If you employ a couple, you will get much greater benefit

If you employ all of them properly, then you will most likely go to the top of the results

The little things count and, when you employ them together, they can make a big difference to your site performance

Remember Google uses over 200 different factors to rank websites

Paid Search You might like to try:

Google Adwords Facebook advertising Bing!/Yahoo advertising

Pros of Paid Search You can get customers instantly Pay per click – you only pay if a person clicks

through Motivated visitors – matched to keywords they

have entered Highly targeted – by interest, location, time

(Facebook, by sexuality!) Trackable and measureable Small budget OK Stop/start/edit at any time

Cons of Paid Search ‘Landing pages’ must be good and have a

compelling offer – otherwise don’t bother Needs regular oversight, management &

maintenance Can be a money pit, particularly if you target

generic keywords and ‘fire and forget’ Google et al get richer and more powerful

Social Media

How social media switched on are you? Who is on Facebook?

More than 200 friends?

Who maintains a Facebook Page for their business?

Who is on Twitter?

Anybody got a blog?

Evolution of the web Web 1.0 = ‘one way web’; reading

static web pages; ‘brochureware’

Web 2.0 = ‘two way web’; interaction, community, collaboration

Web 3.0 = The ‘semantic’ web; artificial intelligence; high levels of personalisation, individually-tailored web experience

What is Social Media? Social media is ‘media designed to be

disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques’

Blogs, micro-blogging, social networking, video/file sharing, wikis, social bookmarking, community sites and more

These are all ‘social media’ too… Location-based social networking sites – eg. Foursquare Other social networking sites – eg. MySpace, Google+ Really Simple Syndication (RSS) Social bookmarking sites – eg. Digg, Delicious, Technorati Wikis – eg. Wikipedia, Google Sites Content sharing sites – eg. Flickr, Slideshare, Pinterest,

Instagram Blogs Discussion boards / forums – eg. Yahoo! Answers Crowdsourcing / outsourcing – eg. Elance, 99designs Virtual communities – eg. Second Life Voice over IP – eg. Skype Instant Messaging – eg. ICQ Podcasting The mobile web – iPhones, Blackberry, Android, iPads,

Kindles

Become a consumer first… Join the online book community – learn, discuss

and share info with like-minded people Get a Facebook account and become a ‘fan’ of

book industry pages Get a Twitter account and ‘follow’ book

industry people Get a LinkedIn account and ‘connect’ with your

business associates, suppliers, clients etc Get a feed reader (Google Reader) and

subscribe to industry blogs and RSS feeds

Blogs in plain English… http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=NN2I1pWXjXI

Get blogging Anybody can be a content publisher – not just the

media companies Establish yourself as an ‘authority’; build

credibility Write interesting, provocative posts to engage

with readers Write short articles; write regularly – maybe twice

a week

Start at http://www.wordpress.com for free Transition to a domain-hosted blog later – ie.

http://www.yourdomain.com/blog

No. 1 blog in Australia

“I earn a six figure incomeeach year from my blogs…it’s probably creeping moretowards seven figures peryear now…”

An exercise for you… Pair up Take 2 minutes to come up with one idea for a

blog post that relates to books Share it with everybody…

Facebook it up for your biz

Over 1 billion active users!

Has overtaken Google in US as most viewed website

‘Facebook Pages’ are for businesses (not standard profiles or Groups)

Set it up in seconds at www.facebook.com/pages

Twitter in plain English… http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=ddO9idmax0o

Start Tweet, Tweet, Tweetin’

Micro-blogging; 140 character limit – basically ‘SMS on the web’ (but best done via a mobile device)

You follow people, they follow you; your ‘tweets’ are seen by your followers, you see the ‘tweets’ of people you follow

Many people write off Twitter: who would be interested in this seemingly banal, nebulous information?

What are those weird characters, man?

Hash tag # - designates a topic (eg. #abaconf12)

@ symbol – designates a Twitter user (eg. @boomerangbooks

Allows Twitter users to search for tags and to isolate tweets that contain that tag

I’m entering @Crust_Pizza #CrustFreePizzaFriday

Ocea Beauty Bar, Adelaide

Insurance salesman – 52K followers!

Automate & centralise posting Posts on a blog, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin etc

can be ‘ported’ between one another using a variety of tools, removing the requirement to post manually on multiple sites.

Twitterfeed (www.twitterfeed.com) sends blog posts to Facebook and Twitter

Desktop tools (and mobile phone apps) like Tweetdeck and Seesmic can be used as a central hub for posting to multiple social networks at once

Integrate & enable sharing To grow your social media community, make it

easy to connect/follow by integrating social media elements into your pages and enabling sharing options Social bookmarking buttons FB Like buttons Google+1 buttons FB Boxes Twitter widgets

To implement, it’s normally just a small piece of code that is added to your page HTML – ask your geek!

Online video Video is the biggest growth area on the web as

bandwidth and online storage increases Over 72 hours of video every minute is uploaded to

YouTube YouTube is now the world’s second largest search

engine Video can be done cheaply with a handheld

camcorder

Copy the file to your computer and then upload to YouTube within minutes

Embed the video in your website or blog using the special code…

Principles for social media success 1. You have a mandate from the boss 2. You have organisational commitment at all

levels 3. Your strategy integrates with your business

plan and wider marketing strategy 4.Your strategy fits with the organisation’s

website 5. You understand your target audience 6. You understand what your objectives are 7. You are using the correct social media

technologies 8. You have a written usage policy in place

Principles for social media success 9. You have a staff training regimen in place 10. You have an appropriate allocation of resources

– people, time, money, equipment 11. There is central coordination and accountability 12. There is devolved responsibility 13. There are regular coordination meetings (but

also spontaneity) 14. There is a focus on sustainability and long-term

results 15. There is compelling content 16. Content is well-written, error free and keyword-

rich

Principles for social media success 17. There is an appropriate frequency of content 18. There is an appropriate tone and persona 19. There is two-way conversation and

engagement 20. There is ‘authentic’ communication 21. KPIs are monitored 22. There are contingency plans in place if

something goes wrong 23. There is constant learning about social

media in the organisation – because it is constantly changing!

Email

Why does email marketing make sense? It’s very cost effective – the only cost is the

time it takes to put the email together It’s one-to-many, so it’s time-effective Most Australians use email every day so they

can be reached easily via this means It’s easier to do more business with existing

customers than to acquire new ones

Ad-hoc Email Marketing Using your existing email client for email

marketing purposes Use of groups or lists to segment your

contacts Use of the BCC: field to cloak recipients’

details from one another It’s OK for very small mailing lists…but soon

becomes unviable

‘Pros’ of using your email client It’s cheap It’s quick You don’t need to learn how to use another

application You don’t have to duplicate your contact

database elsewhere because your mailings are done from your email client

‘Cons’ of using your email client Spam filters catch a lot of email sent this way

– because it looks like spam There’s a chance that you will accidentally use

CC: instead of BCC: – a privacy no-no Malformed email addresses will result in SMTP

blockages There’s no way to automate unsubscription for

the recipients There’s no way to automatically manage

redundant email addresses on your lists You can’t track number of email opens, clicks

A more robust option Use of a dedicated email marketing software

package

Database driven applications that enable you to manage mailing lists and email campaigns

Two types of email marketing packages that you can use: Software as a service – web-based with ongoing

fee Download / install – single fee upfront

Campaign Monitor

Vertical Response

Constant Contact

iContact

GetResponse

MailChimp – quick video

Subscription forms Email marketing software packages provide

you with online forms that can be implemented on your website

These enable you to gather ‘opt in’ subscribers – you should only send email to opt in subscribers

Place subscription forms on every page of your website

A word on Privacy You must secure all personal data supplied to

you and not provide it to third parties without consent

Abide by the Privacy Act and the National Privacy Principles (NPPs) http://www.privacy.gov.au/law/act http://www.privacy.gov.au/materials/types/

infosheets/view/6583

Make sure that you have a clear privacy policy and it is accessible to your subscribers

Double opt-in v single opt-in Single opt-in adds an email address to a

mailing list immediately after the subscriber submits their details via an online form

Double opt-in requires the subscriber to click a link in a confirmatory email before they will be added to a mailing list

Why double opt-in? Ensures that the subscriber is ‘bona fide’ Stops automated responses

Don’t be accused of spamming – double opt-in is the way to go

CAPTCHA codes

Spam Act Under the Spam Act 2003 it is illegal to

send, or cause to be sent, unsolicited commercial electronic messages. The Act covers email, instant messaging, SMS and MMS (text and image-based mobile phone messaging) of a commercial nature. It does not cover faxes, internet pop-ups or voice telemarketing.

See: http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_310294

Key Elements of the Act Consent - the message must be sent with the

recipient's consent. The recipient may give express consent, or under certain circumstances consent may be inferred from their conduct or an existing business or other relationships

Identify – the message must contain accurate information about the person or organisation that authorised the sending of the message and how to contact them

Unsubscribe - the message must contain a functional 'unsubscribe' facility to allow the recipient to opt out from receiving messages from that source in the future. Unsubscribe requests must be honoured within five working days.

Format: HTML or Text Many subscription forms allow you to specify

whether you wish to receive the HTML version or text version of emails

Most email clients support HTML these days, but some people still prefer text

Email marketing packages allow you to send both HTML and text versions using Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) – the email client determines which format to display

Customer segmentation Create multiple lists for different stakeholder

groups – eg. One list for consumers One list for business-to-business clients

Further segmentation Age Location Education Gender Hobbies Buying preferences, past purchases Best customers (eg. biggest lifetime spend)

Personalisation Which is going to be more effective?

Dear Book Enthusiast,… Dear Steven,…

Personalised emails can improve your reading and clickthrough rates up to 650%

Subscribers feel like they have a relationship with you if you address them by their first name (even though this is automated when you send your email)

Unsubscribe links Email marketing software enables you to add

an link that automates unsubscription if the recipient chooses

One-click unsubscription will ensure make recipients feel more comfortable with your marketing – how do you feel towards a business when you cannot unsubscribe from their messages?

Unsubscribes are not a bad thing – they help to clean up and improve the quality of your database over time

Bounce management A bounce is the email equivalent of ‘return to

sender’ Many email marketing packages have

automated ‘bounce’ management The software detects when there is a hard

bounce (email address doesn’t exist) or a soft bounce (mail box is full)

Hard bounces are removed automatically from the mailing list

Helps you to keep your email lists ‘clean’

Statistics Email marketing packages embed tracking

links in your emails so that the following metrics can be measured: Unique opens Opens Clickthroughs Unsubscribes

Steps to success Define your target audience Determine your objectives Produce your offer and message Test and measure

Eg. Split tests - a split test allows you to send different versions of the same email campaign to your list and see which gets the better open and click-thru rates.

Repeat

Just like building websites, blogs, social media campaigns etc

Periodicity Maintain consistent frequency – every day,

every week, every fortnight, every month Too frequently will annoy people Monthly or once every month is probably best

for B2C email marketing – but depends on your business!

Fortnightly or monthly is probably best for B2C email marketing – but depends on the business!

Try and maintain consistency so that your readership knows when to ‘expect’ your communications – ie. Email newsletter is sent every Thursday at 10am sharp

Best time to send It has been proven that recipients are more

receptive to email communications on Tuesdays and Wednesdays

Monday is generally too hectic (and depressing) for most people at work

There’s a case for sending your emails on Friday, as people are less guarded just prior to the weekend (they’re more likely to be in a good mood).

WIIFM – What’s in it for me? All content, whether it is sent via email or

published on a website, needs to be written from the visitor’s perspective – what’s in it for me?

With email it is even more important because you are intruding upon the recipient’s email box – they need to ‘do’ something with the email (read it, delete it, unsubscribe)

Design Clean, uncluttered, simple is best – the email

will render differently in different email clients Lots of white space Don’t overuse images or colour Consistency – keep the design the same each

time to strengthen your brand

Subject Line Perhaps the most important component of an

email marketing campaign – you have half a second to convince people to open your email

Get this right and you will dramatically improve the number of ‘opens’

Get it wrong and nobody will open your email 49 characters is best, as many email clients

will truncate subject lines

Consider these subject lines… Newsletter 3, October 2010 October promotion New diet program available How to feel younger, have more energy and

look fantastic

Body content Deliver good content – relevant, unique, valuable,

educational, timely Catchy stuff needs to be ‘above the fold’ Use headings that delineate the content clearly Don’t just use images – many email clients will not

display images by default (the user typically needs to ‘allow’ images)

Small chunks of ‘teaser’ text - not big swathes of text Link through to content on your website – contextual

links, ‘read more…’ One of the principal aims of your email marketing

should be to direct qualified traffic to appropriate landing pages on your website

Images off by default

With images turned on…

Another example

Avoiding spam filters Minimise use of words that may trigger spam

filters Free, save, discount, sex, click here, viagra, etc

Check your IP address isn’t blacklisted on major black lists databases – eg Spamcop, Spamhaus

Don’t send attachments with your emails

More tips… Don’t SHOUT or use lots of exclamation marks Have your business name in the From: field for

credibility Use a personal signature within the text for

credibility Try and stir up curiosity and sense of urgency with a

personalised salutation Fred, looking for discount books? Fred, a quick question for you Discount Day – details inside Today only – 20% discount

Use standard blue hyperlinks Opt for editorial over blatant selling

Analytics

Analytics Measure, measure, measure – particularly

paid activity Implement Google Analytics tracking code on

all pages Visitors, page views, location of users, device

used, operating system used, browser used, time on site, entry/exit pages, referral source, search terms used, conversions, click stream, real-time stats, etc

And that’s it… This presentation can be found at:

http://www.bluetrainenterprises.com.au/takingittoamazon

My email: contact@bluetrainenterprises.com.au