LM Interactive – October 14, 2005
LM Interactive is launching a new effort to educate their clients on how to increase their businesses through web marketing. Please read the information below regarding web-marketing education at LM Interactive.
The most effective way to increase your revenue is to offer your clients more than they are expecting. Information is an inexpensive and effective way to provide your customers added services. Marketing your business through informative newsletters, articles, Blogs, chat rooms, and other forums, is very effective. By providing this benefit to your clients, you are giving them more for their money. Of course, we all like that. It is also an outstanding way to increase name recognition, and promote word of mouth advertising. These marketing efforts are all effective, but require different levels of commitment to make successful. By breaking them down, you will be able to determine the most appropriate choice to meet your company’s requirements.
Newsletters are the perfect excuse for keeping in touch with your clients. A newsletter can be sent out weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or whatever works best for you. Just remember that the more frequently it is sent out, the more often your client sees your company’s name. Newsletters should be informative, providing information that directly relates the business of your clients. Industry updates, new innovations and product marketing ideas are great ways to assistance your customers with their revenue growth, by presenting real life problem solving steps. The main thing to remember about newsletters, is don’t overdue it. Don’t overload your newsletter with to much information. You want the content easy to read, and not to wordy. An attractive layout to your newsletter never hurts, however content is much more important than a pretty face. Since newsletters are usually emailed to patrons, you want to avoid becoming an irritation. You don’t want your customer to compare you with SPAM. The best way to avoid annoying your customer is by limiting the frequency of your newsletter to no more than once a week.
Articles are very similar to newsletters. They contain informative information that consumers can access to learn more about a product, service, or a new industry trend. Unlike newsletters, articles are accessible through your company website. Articles are a great way to increase your status on the search engines. A good content writer will ensure that your “keywords” are optimized to increase hits on your computer. Again, a nice layout is nice, but solid content is key.
Blogs are a new way to draw people to a website. They provided relevant information pertaining to the site. They are usually written in the style of a diary or journal. When using Blogs it is important that the information is current. People will lose interest, if the Blog isn’t fresh. A great way to promote your Blog is on chat rooms.
Chat rooms are a great way to splatter your website all over the web. Most of the larger ISPs (Internet Service Provider) offer some sort of chat environment, along with many smaller independent websites. The key here is to enjoy carrying on conversations with people that would be interested in the service your business has to offer. Finding these groups isn’t as hard as it sounds. Most websites with chat rooms have the rooms easily divided and named for convenience. Some key elements to remember are, provide informative information, be respectful and polite (remember you are representing your company, if no one is talking about your subject, don’t but into a conversation to interject, move on to a new chat room), and lastly, don’t forget to give your web address (URL) and your company’s name. You want them to be able to find you after they are impressed by your knowledge.
For all of these items, content is key. If your writing skills aren’t up to par, you may find individuals with experience in writing copy for web sites. I highly recommend this. It is hard to impress a client with your articles or newsletters, if they don’t make sense. Chances are they will take the business elsewhere. When choosing a writer for your web copy, ask for samples of their work. It won’t do a bit of good to pay someone, if their writing is not better than your own. When ordering writing for articles, Blogs, newsletters or any content make sure you give specific instructions regarding what you want. It will save additional expenses and time wasting rewrites. Not even the best writer is a mind reader. A professional copywriter will usually charge between $25 and $75 for anywhere from 250 to 1000 words. Before you get started you should agree on a price, the number of articles, etc required and how payment should be made. There are many people from foreign countries writing copy today, and although some may be able to offer great copy at a reduced rate, it is usually best to pay extra for someone of your native tongue.
One last note…
Copy must be fresh to be effective, plan on adding at least two new articles
to a website a week. Blogs should be updated on a daily basis at least,
and newsletters should be sent to clients at least monthly.