Blog about recent Web Designs, Web Development, Online Marketing & IT Industry News » Marketing

PennyCentAuction.com – Commercial Advertising, Web Design & Development

Mark Burke — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 09:29:03 +0000

A redesign in progress for PennyCent Auction to be launched by the end of 2010. It’s pretty cool if I say so myself.

This leading Penny Auction website has grown and as such requires a new design in keeping with the designer and high end auction products available. Browserweb created an elegant and beautiful design for this project which is under development for launch just before the end of 2010.

The actual web site design has an easy on the eye, casual and relaxed feel as visitors and members alike are on this hot Auction website for sometimes several hours a day!

We are also redesigning the current blog for news, support and information as well as a themed twitter account to feed latest auction news.

Email Marketing with Instant Mailing Lists

Mark Burke — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 08:10:28 +0000

A Typical Scenario:

You’ve got a product or a service that you wish to promote but you’ve not been actively ‘list building’ and have not focused on email blasts to your customers. You’ve been relying on existing customers, print and online advertising to promote your business. You’ve noticed a remarkable decrease in conversions using Pay-Per-Click advertising but rising costs to find those all important key-words.

Well, there’s another alternative marketing technique that can bring your business measurable results. Purchase an Email Opt-In list from a reputable and affordable data firm.

A leading source for email lists including: opt in email list, business email list, email lists for sale, consumer mailing lists, realtor list, sales leads & email marketing software. To remain competitive in a constantly changing market, reaching consumers directly is essential for any business. At Browserweb, we recommend Data Depot. They are affordable and can tailor a list to your specific demographics which is essential in a successful email marketing campaign.

Data Depot’s services encompass many aspects of the direct marketing spectrum including data scrubbing, data sources and custom lists. In addition, they have compiled an exhaustive collection of buy sales leads along with an impressive business address directory. Their opt-in email lists are of great quality in our experience.

So now you’ve purchased your custom list, what next?

You just have to set it up correctly and within compliance of the rules of CAN-SPAM act. Spamming is hated by every business and individual including us so you have to make sure your email blast has clear disclosure:

It bans header information that is false or misleading. Your email’s sender, recipient and routing information which includes the originating domain name and email address must be accurate and explicitly identify the person who initiated the email.
It prohibits false subject lines.The subject line cannot mislead the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the message.
It requires that you give your recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism allowing email recipients to ask you not to send future email messages.
WARNING:You must honor the requests. You may create a “menu” of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.
Any opt-out mechanism you offer must have the ability to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after the commercial email is sent. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the recipient who sent the request. You cannot help another business entity send email to that address or have them send commercial email on your behalf.
NOTE:You cannot help another entity send email to that address, or have another entity send email on your behalf to that address.
It is illegal to sell or transfer the email addresses of recipients who choose not to receive your email, even in the form of a mailing list, unless you transfer the addresses so another entity complies with the law.
Commercial email must be identified as an advertisement and include the sender’s valid physical postal address. The message must contain a clear notice that the message is an advertisement and the recipient can opt out of receiving more commercial email from you.

What software should I buy to send my newsletter out to my list?

There are many web based companies like Constant Contact, AWeber and Vertical Response that charge a monthly subscription to send out newsletters. They have great tracking tools and email templates for the newbie to use.

When we setup an email campaign for a customer, we generally use PHPList which is an open-source solution. In other words, it does not cost at all to purchase and has all of the necessary features required to do the job.

Next, import the purchased email list (which you have downloaded in zip format) into the PHPList database. Then you should setup a cron job to ‘throttle’ your emails. What this basically does is send out a batch of emails hourly (automatically). What’s really important here is to talk to your web host and find out how many emails you can send daily (SMTP Relay). The number may be very small and you’ll have to apply to your web host for an increase to suit your requirements.

So 30,000 per day max (1,250 per hour) is what we generally recommend. That’s still a whole lot of emails!

Now when you buy these large lists we recommend you ‘slow release‘ to the list so you can adequately track conversions, opt-outs and see if your newsletter is actually working. If it’s not, then you should try adjusting your email newsletter and again record and track how the revised newsletter is compares to the original newsletter.

Design a powerful email newsletter with strong “Calls to Action” (CTA) is essential to the success of your email blast and conversion to sales. An example of a Call to Action would be perhaps a discount coupon on a product or service or even highlighting that your subscriber “Like Me” on your Facebook Fan Page.

As stated, you may need to try several styles of design to find out which one(s) work best for your product or service. Browserweb.com can provide you with a full design and marketing service for your email marketing needs.

If you select your mailing list based on your business demographics, comply with the disclosures and send out interesting and appealing email newsletter then you’ll have a new client list that will convert to sales. Good luck in your campaign!

Do You Have a Product to Sell?

Mark Burke — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:55:16 +0000

In this tough economy, I’ve had clients approach me and tell me heart-wrenching stories. I’m sure it’s world-wide but I am talking the good ole U S of A.

I am also talking about clients that were cash rich in 2007, either via their self-employed business or they were employed full-time and had part-time internet driven businesses that they dabbled in, hoping to become the next garage to Inc. success.

Unfortunately, as 2009 reaches the last quarter, news is not so good. This week alone I’ve been approached by long-term clients telling me:

(1) Mark, I’ve got no cash-flow to feed the family, I need to get an employed position. Can you help me with an online Bio/Website about my skills and awesome PDF /Word Doc version of my resume. We’re talking an ex-stock-broker turned entrepreneur. I was shocked to learn of his situation, he just seemed so together and successful.

(2) Mark, I got laid off last week, can you help me with my online business that you’ve helped design and develop to monetize my business – fast! This man is a strong family man that has supported his family since early manhood. He’s also a very giving person and one that I know would offer you the shirt off his back if you needed his help. A remarkable and compassionate individual.

(3) Mark, I know we’ve got to spend more on advertising but how can I reach an audience on a low budget? I mean seriously, my ecommerce store sales have declined by over 50% this year and PPC costs have sky-rocketed with a lot less conversions? You should know Mark, you helped me set it up!

(4) Mark, I know you tendered for that SEO job and gave me a reference to your old Agency where you were a Consultant. From your discussion, I understand it is a multi-million dollar company, but you were right when you said “Don’t be fooled by the CEO, he’s a salesman and would perhaps try to ‘poach’ your business- he did! Good call and I’ve sent over the NDA and look forward to working with you.”

These are just some of the emails and phone calls I have received. I can tell you, it hurts no matter what. ALL of these people are just struggling to make ends meet.

My clients are generally long term as I run a boutique firm that survives on customer service. Indeed, even though most I never meet as they are nationally and internationally located, there becomes a strong bond during our working relationship and as we all do naturally, that leads to personal discussions about family, life and more.

So how can you survive and make your online business work? There’s got to be some way to get your message out to the audience and on a budget.

Well, I propose you look at Clickbank.com as one marketing alternative if you have a digital or other related product to sell. For $50 you get to launch your affiliate program to over 100,000 budding marketers to help you get your product to the market-place. They are aggressive and you can see them promote your products on social networks like Twitter, FB, MySpace, and others as well as their own web sites.

Just make sure you have your own web site that allows only Clickbank as your merchant. In other words, the website domain or sub-domain needs to meet Clickbank criteria which in layman terms means it should be a landing page or squeeze page that directs buyers to purchase via Clickbank merchant account.

An example is shown below. Here’s to your success!

LB Makeup – Organically Google Indexed in 20 days

Mark Burke — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:52:36 +0000

So you wish to have a flash site, great! However, for a small businesss costs are a key factor and getting noticed on the search engines imperative to keep costs down – ie. organic over paid listing.

Browserweb.com was approached by a new client that found us through google search and we designed the flash site and that was phase I. We strongly recommended a html version of the web site and the client listened and decided to invest in our advice. We designed a html version of the site, optimized content and submitted the sitemaps to the various search engines and waited…of course Yahoo was there fast and then the client wrote asking about google. Yesterday I received the following email:

4th page on google under “profesional makeup artist in houston”, #1 on google msn live and yahoo with “professional makeup artist in sugar land!!

Lindsay Becker, http://lbmakeup.net

So it’s all about keyword and content and how you decide to publish it! Even though it may not have millions of hits for those particular keywords, a small business does not require millions of visitors, just a good visibility on the net should help localize their services and potential inquiries. Remember, this is not the end of SEO/SEM, it’s just the very first step to get your web site noticed! Oh and yeah, a graphically stunning web site helps too!

Landing Page – Squeeze Page Designs for your Online Marketing Campaigns

Mark Burke — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:08:28 +0000

Definition of “Landing” Page or “Squeeze” Page is a page intended to identify the beginning of the user experience resulting from a defined marketing effort. What is the purpose of a Landing page? Well we agree with Seth Godin’s list below:

A landing page (in fact, every web page) can only cause one of five actions:

* Get a visitor to click (to go to another page, on your site or someone else’s)
* Get a visitor to buy
* Get a visitor to give permission for you to follow up (by email, phone, etc.). This includes registration of course.
* Get a visitor to tell a friend
* (and the more subtle) Get a visitor to learn something, which could even include posting a comment or giving you some sort of feedback.

So with that in mind, have a minimum of 2 landing page variations when considering a landing page or pages for your web site marketing campaigns. Ad Variations: Test a variety of your landing page adverts using different adverts on your landing page design to monitor the most successful web page combination – which will be the one that generates leads/conversions.

IF YOU WISH US TO DESIGN OR CONSULT ON YOUR NEXT ONLINE MARKETING INITIATIVE, PLEASE CONTACT US

The Secret to Google, Yahoo and MSN Pay Per Click Advertising

Mark Burke — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:50:49 +0000

Learn Search Engine Optimization Today

Wordtracker is the darling of the SEO/SEM industry, a tool that all serious search marketing firms use to identify keywords for use in pay-per-click advertising campaigns or to help optimize websites for “organic” web placement.

To learn more about keyword research, visit Wikipedia – a very valuable resource.

Click logo for a free trial of the software. Read some testimonials from Wordtracker clients:

Our company has been using Wordtracker for several years now to research keywords for our SEO clients. Wordtracker is the most powerful tool available for keyword research. We specially like the new enhancements on the tool and capability to save results.

Pierre Zarokian President/CEO Submit Express, Inc. http://www.submitexpress.com/

“I just wanted to tell you guys, thanks for the great service. My site’s traffic has grown over 1000% since I started using Wordtracker.”

T Campbell Comic book writer and editor http://www.faans.com/

“I am very impressed with your Wordtracker keyword service. I found the information to be very helpful, and the service was extremely easy to use. I would recommend your service to anyone who is serious about obtaining high rankings in the search engines.”

James Niehaus Business development director http://www.aesop.com

Another great tool that we’ve been using for over 5 years to help Browse R Web and our clients high PR (page rank) and keyword rich placement is a software from Germany called Axandra…you can learn more by clicking HERE

Download the above ebook HERE