Friday, October 31, 2008

Franchises and Email Marketing

Franchise businesses can utilize Email Marketing to drive revenues, generate repeat business, and boost the corporate brand.

From fast food to florists, fitness centers to automotive services, cleaners to postal centers, Franchise businesses can use email marketing to:
  • Promote Brand Identity
  • Communicate a consistent message
  • Drive repeat sales
  • Increase ROI 
  • Reduce overall costs for marketing and communications
An automotive services franchise might use email marketing to inform customers of upcoming special offers.

A postal center franchise might use email marketing to send billing reminders or holiday and special event announcements.

A fitness center franchise might use email marketing to send out exercise tips or reminders about upcoming classes.

A nutritional franchise might use email marketing to send out nutritional tips, meal plans, updates, etc...

Each franchise business can easily implement email marketing strategies to build their list of local customers and increase customer loyalty through incentive programs and/or consistent quality communication.

Franchises can easily create a communications calendar, set up email marketing templates complete with branding, logos, and seasonal backgrounds. 

With the TrafficWave.net AutoResponder system, follow up messages can be stored and scheduled for future release or scheduled to go out automatically over time. Typically, monthly reminders work best for this type of communication with an increase in frequency during seasonal peaks.

By implementing open rate and click-through tracking, the franchise operator can easily get a feel for how well their email marketing campaigns are converting and helping support the growth of their business.


Thursday, October 30, 2008

How To Build Your Email Marketing List

How To Build Your Email Marketing Lists

Ok... so here's the thing: There are a LOT of ways to start building email marketing lists. I'd like to see how many we can come up with together. I'll start with a few and then you jump in and share yours. Sound like fun?

  1. Get a free blog (like this one) and add a subscription form. I just copied and pasted the form code from my TrafficWave.net back office and added it to my blog here in the "Dashboard" section. (over on the right)
  2. Get involved in some of the relevant online forums such as WarriorForum. The key is to participate in the discussions in a professional and relevant manner and add links to your profile. This helps create "backlinks" to your sites.
Ok... who's next?

Build Your MLM With Email Marketing

This is an article recently published to TrafficWave.net in our Articles section.

The article focuses on some tips for Network Marketers and how they can use Email Marketing to build their MLM business.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Eighty Percent Of Success

Eighty Percent of Success

You may have heard of the quote from Woody Allen that goes like this:

"Eighty Percent Of Success Is Showing Up"

I couldn't agree more.

Most of the time when I talk to people that are complaining about the lack of results they are experiencing, a quick look in to their situation reveals that they really aren't doing anything to cause positive results.

Anyone that has known me for any length of time will probably recognize that a big part of my "success formula" is just showing up, getting to work, and sticking with it.

The details of "getting to work" will vary with time. You'll learn new technique and strategies, use new tools, and so on. But the basic idea of just getting after it and sticking with it will always be major contributors to your success.

So how do we "show up" when it comes to list building and email marketing with the TrafficWave.net AutoResponder system?

1) Make sure you have actually set up your AutoResponder with your follow-up messages.

A lot of people that have complained to me about not seeing any results haven't even set up their AutoResponder yet. That's like saying "I want to build a house!" and then sitting around wondering why it's not been built yet. We have to get and start using our tools so we can begin building.

2) Make a point (at least initially) of learning something new about your TrafficWave.net tools and account on a daily basis. Learning the AutoResponder features alone could really keep you busy.

Your AutoResponder features include:

  • Personalization options.
  • Custom fields for your subscriber forms.
  • Import capabilities.
  • Ability to send HTML and text messages.
  • The option to upload and use your own images in your AutoResponders.
  • Broadcast scheduling.
  • Unlimited follow-up letters.
  • Open rate tracking.
  • Click-through tracking.
  • The ability to use our hosted lead capture pages.
  • The ability to add subscription forms to your own web pages or blogs.
These are powerful features and professional online marketers are putting these tools together for publishing health related newsletters, internet marketing tutorials, training information, business coaching, sales letters, and more.

3) Make a point of doing SOMETHING on a daily basis that is designed to promote your web site and/or capture page. This could be as simple as

  • creating and running a free classified ad,
  • submitting your web site or capture page to the search engines,
  • writing and submitting an article to article directories,
  • writing on your blog,
  • adding a note to twitter,
  • broadcasting out a special offer to your list as it grows,
  • running an ezine ad, etc...,
  • making sure your email signature includes a link to your capture page,
  • participating in relevant discussion forums (using your signature line),
  • adding videos to youtube (or commenting on relevant videos in youtube),
  • emailing your existing contacts and associates,
  • participating in safe lists,
  • participating in traffic exchanges,
  • participating in the member discussion forum (remember: signature links)
The point is to do SOMETHING every single day. By making a point of doing one or two of these items each day, you will be "showing up" and your success is just that much closer.

These tips apply if you are using our system to build your own business and if you are working to build an Affiliate income with TrafficWave.net's Affiliate plan.

Email Marketing focuses on two primary activities:

1) Building your subscriber list

2) Communicating with that list effectively.

If you will commit to showing up each day by tending to at least 1 or 2 itmes from each list above, you will begin to experience success.

One of the wonderful benefits of the Internet is that action steps you take today can bring you activity many many months from now.

Just today, I got an email from someone trying to fill out a subscription form on a web site. The form was giving them an error and telling them to contact us.

When I looked in to it, the web site had one of our old subscription forms. I was able to look at the code and identify the account. This user had let their account go more than a year ago.

And TODAY ... someone was at their web site trying to request more information by filling out their subscription form.

The good news: Their web site had attracted a visitor that was TRYING to become an interested prospect and subscribe to their list.

The bad news: This user had stopped showing up well over a year ago and has no real idea how much business they've been missing as a result.

I think Woody Allen had it right: "Eighty Percent Of Success Is Showing Up".

Yours in success,

Brian Rooney
TrafficWave.net LLC

Monday, October 27, 2008

Reasons To Use Email Marketing

Reasons To Use Email Marketing

Brian Rooney, TrafficWave.net LLC

More and more businesses are turning to Email Marketing. In today's economy, it is more important than ever to make sure that any advertising money spent results in good return. Email Marketing has been proven to be tremendously cost-effective and efficient.

Recent figures from the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) indicate that email marketing is now overtaking direct mail in terms of volume.

Regardless of the size of your business, you should consider using email marketing to begin reaching more prospects, attracting more business, and improving customer retention.

Here are a few of the top reasons your business should be using email marketing:
  1. The Personal Touch: Email messages can be personalized to include the recipient's name. When someone gets an email addressed directly to them, they are much more likely to open it.

  2. The Fast Track: Direct mail campaigns can be very time consuming and quite complicated. Typically, a direct mail campaign can take weeks or months to execute. Then there is the added waiting for delivery via postal mail.

  3. The Bottom Line: Postage makes up a significant portion of the overall cost of Direct mail. Then there is the added cost of printing the mailers and/or inserts. With email marketing, you don't have postage costs and you don't have the added paper and printing costs. The end result is that an email marketing campaign can be launched for pennies on the dollar as compared to a direct mail campaign.

  4. The Results: Email marketing campaigns are easily tracked. When you can see exactly how many email messages were opened and how many email messages were clicked on, you are able to quickly gather test results and make changes to improve your response rate.

  5. The Value Of Relationships: Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with existing customers. This enables you to build stronger relationships and increase up-sell opportunities.
In today's economic and business climate, it is important for businesses to be able to adapt quickly. The ability to quickly plan and execute email marketing campaigns allows businesses to track and improve ROI quickly and efficiently.


When will search engines pick this blog link up?

I'm curious as  to how long it will take Google and/or other SE's and directories to index my new blog.

I used a service today called PingMyBlog to let other blog services know about this new blog.

I've seen some of my discussion posts take over 2 years to get indexed by Google.

I've seen some articles get indexed within mere hours by Google.

So let's see what happens with this blog, shall we?



Brian Rooney Online

This is my first official blog post. I know I'm a little late to the blogging game but ... better late than never, right?

I've got a few of goals in mind for this blogging venture:
  • Share some marketing tips I've learned over the years
  • Update and inform friends and associates
  • Meet some new friends along the way
Many of you may know me as the guy that started TrafficWave.net LLC. TrafficWave.net is an Email Marketing AutoResponder company. We're proud to say that we have thousands of clients from more than 60 different countries. I launched this company back in 2000 with my good friend and fellow musician, Stephen Hambright. 

Stephen handles all of our IT, programming and development, while I focus on sales, marketing, and administration. 

Stephen and I both freelance as musicians in and around the Houston area. He's an outstanding drummer and I am an electric bassist and vocalist. 

Thanks for visiting. Be sure to check back often as I will be leaving a lot of great tips and sharing all my insights as I pick up new tips.

(Yes... I learn new stuff all the time, too! This blog is a good example.)