Marketing Tips for the Information Superhighway
by Jennifer Ann Wiggins
As with anything in life, there's a right and a wrong way to use the Internet for marketing, and it's especially important to know the difference at the beginning.
Develop a comprehensive marketing plan, or you may just make some mistakes that could jeopardize your chances of ever effectively using the Internet, for your online adult business. It's happened before. Don't let it happen to you -- promote your business the proper way, and you'll have a far better chance of finding success on the Internet.
Marketing Via E-Mail
E-mail is by far the easiest method of Internet marketing, for the beginner to understand, as it is so similar to "traditional" marketing methods. You're sending the prospect a marketing message, but instead of sending it through the regular mail, you're e-mailing it directly to them. It's quicker, cheaper, and more efficient.
Where do you find the people to whom to send your e-mail your marketing message? Well, from other Internet marketing techniques that will be discussed later in this article. There is, however, one particular technique you should avoid. In the "real world," it's easy to rent a mailing list of people with a specific interest in the type of product or service you're selling. You can send your marketing materials to the people on this list, feeling relatively sure that they may be interested in what you have to offer.
It's hard to do this on the Internet, because of the sheer number of people accessing the Web. There are however, companies that will do mass e-mailings, for a price. One particular company advertises that they will send your marketing message to 6,000,000 e-mail addresses for under $200. Naturally, this sounds attractive to the marketer in us -- how else could you contact so many people at such a low price?
Let's stop and think about this, though. Is this a good deal? Maybe. This is akin to sending your marketing message to everyone in the phone book. Probably 95 percent of the people will have no interest whatsoever in what you're selling. It's highly un-targeted marketing, which will result in low conversion percentages.
More important, though, is the following question: Is it the right thing to do? The answer? An emphatic NO! Mass e-mailing is called spamming, and it is the number one offense you can commit on the Internet. Most people have to pay for their Internet access, and many of them pay by the hour (some by the minute).
A large percentage of them have to call long distance, since they have no local access phone number. In other words, a large number of the people you send your mass e-mail to are paying to download it and read it, without having requested it, and they get pretty mean about it. (Example: How would you feel if you had to pay the postage on every single piece of mail you received at your home? If the majority of it were junk mail, or mail you had no interest in, it wouldn't take long before you would be mad and upset, too.)
Now, most levelheaded people will see the first few lines of the e-mail, recognize it as something not requested, and delete it without thinking twice. There are people out there however, who take this as a personal affront, an invasion of their privacy, and a waste of their money to receive your spammed e-mail. They will respond vigorously with pranks and threats, and even complaints to your ISP and Web host.
If you've put your phone number in your e-mail, you will receive a ton of phone calls at all times of the night. If you've included your mailing address, you may find that your address has been passed on to military recruiters, religious organizations, and all kinds of other people from whom YOU may not want to receive mail. At the very least, you should expect a flood of e-mails, full of complaints and vulgarities, to be sent to your own e-mail address.
I've even heard of people replying to spammed e-mails with hundreds of pages of the same four letter word, repeated over and over, so the "spammer" could get a taste of their own medicine. It's up to you whether you want to market your business this way. I acknowledge that a marketing message going out to 6,000,000 people is bound to bring in some sales. However, you take the risk of receiving a lot of complaints, wasting time, and the possibility of losing your Internet access completely.
How? You could receive so many replied e-mails that your service provider's computer system would jam up, preventing other customers from being able to use the Internet. Your provider will politely ask you to go elsewhere for your Internet access, and your name will go on a list of spammers, circulated amongst Internet providers. Do this one too many times, and you may find yourself unable to get Internet access in the future. It's up to you.
Marketing Via Usenet Groups
Usenet newsgroups are individual, special interest bulletin boards. You can post a question, an answer, information, whatever, to a newsgroup, and anyone else can read it. Likewise, you can read anyone else's postings. This is a heavily used area for information sharing. Used correctly, it can also be a successful marketing opportunity.
Before we go on, you should know that very few newsgroups accept blatant advertising. This is a very subtle technique that may take a few tries to perfect. The key is to frequent the newsgroups that have a connection to your products or services (for an online adult entertainment business, you might peruse and post to alt.sex newsgroup, or others in that area -- any newsgroup which people interested in adult entertainment or sex, would read) and present pertinent useful information or answers to questions, and include a short marketing message in your signature line.
Your signature line, also called your "sig," is at the end of your posting. It can be up to six lines long (though a four line maximum is more universally "acceptable"), and can contain information on how to contact you (e-mail, telephone, and otherwise), as well as some brief information about your business. Readers who are interested in hearing more about what you have to offer can then contact you. At that point, feel free to give them whatever marketing information you'd like -- they did request it.
You will have the most success with this technique if you:
1.) Stay "on-topic" in your postings -- don't answer someone's question with a one-line answer, only to launch into a two-page sales letter, let your sig do the work.
2.) Don't you over-do it -- you should have the frame of mind that you are trying to help the readers of the newsgroup, and, afterwards, get the word out about your business, not the reverse.
A good idea would be to request and read the FAQ (frequently asked question list) from every newsgroup you plan to post in. That way, you will know their exact policy on advertising, information that may be included in a sig, the exact topics they cover, etc. This will prevent any postings that are "against the rules."
Marketing Via the World Wide Web
The World Wide Web offers the most flexible solution for marketing on the Internet. You are free to put up whatever information you'd like, in whatever quantity you'd like. After all, you're the one paying for the space. Plus, you can put links on your pages so people can instantly send an e-mail to you for more information- you can have forms for them to fill out, and you can even take orders on your pages.
Preparing content for the Web can be very easy. In many cases, you can use the same materials you use in your printed mailings. Of course, they will have to be converted to the HTML document mark-up language that Web pages are made of. Being a sophisticated adult webmaster yourself, this won't be difficult to do! You can even provide forms and product order-taking and/or delivery capabilities on your Web site! But, of course, you may already be familiar with those things.
As you probably already know, there's a lot more to it than just putting up your Web site: you need to promote it. Luckily, this is easy to do. There are over a dozen "search engines" (databases of Web sites) on the Web, each of which you can submit information to, about your Web site. All it entails is accessing the Web site of each search engine, and reading the details on submissions.
But, don't confine your publicizing to online, just because you have an online business. Be sure to promote your Web site in the "real world" through paid advertising, press releases, etc., just like any product. You will need to ensure that people who visit your Web site will want to come back frequently. Do this by changing your content on a regular basis.
For example, rotate those free pictures, so new ones are available at least every two weeks. Contests can be a good idea, too. For example, give a free product (maybe one month free access to your site) to the person who collects all the clues that you sprinkle throughout your Web site over a two-month period. Put these techniques together, and you'll have an Internet marketing machine!
|
Printer
Friendly Version