Online Incentive Marketing Strategies

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Posted on 5th July 2010 by Susan Venancio in Business Tips |Marketing |Social Media |email marketing

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Online incentive marketing strategies are an affordable and powerful marketing tool. These are the online promotional contests such as, sweepstakes, giveaways and special offers companies use to get their customer’s attention. Going online with this type of marketing is taking over; it is quick and easy for the user and cost effective for your company, saving on postage, paper and printing costs. When planned well with clear goals your return on investment (ROI) is worth it.

Online incentive marketing campaigns can be created for a small or large scale plan, something for any budget. Your promotional contest sweepstake, giveaway or special offer prizes can range from company logo items (pens/pencils) to coupons, gift cards, products and/or services and vacation destinations, just make sure that it is FREE. People love to win FREE stuff! The idea is to generate customer interest and enthusiasm. Campaigns that create a strong emotion (make your contestants laugh) will get recognized and passed along through the various channels; email and social media networks, etc.

Here are 10 reasons to plan an online incentive marketing campaign:

  1. Find future new customers
  2. Increase website traffic
  3. Build your marketing prospect list
  4. Strengthen your loyalty with existing customer relationships
  5. Immediate sales increases
  6. Company gets exposure
  7. Increases new/existing product or service exposure
  8. Increase marketing research survey response rates
  9. Improve product/services using contestant ideas
  10. Testimonial responses

This is a great tactic to generate an online buzz for whatever you decide to promote. As said before: People love to win FREE stuff! This should be a win/win. To be sure of a win/win measure your efforts. You want your efforts to get the attention it deserves. Creating a landing page or a micro site will make it easy to track your measurable desired data.

Best wishes for a successful online incentive marketing campaign. Cheers!

Market your Testimonials

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Posted on 28th April 2010 by Susan Venancio in Business Tips |Marketing |Social Media |Web Design |Web Development

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Customer testimonials have the potential to be a powerful marketing tactic for your business. Collecting letters, cards and emails of positive, believable testimonials can be put to good use to build a glowing marketing portfolio for your company. Constantly be on the look out for that positive, believable feedback. Please ask for it too! See if you can get your customer on video. Most satisfied customers would not take the time to proactively provide testimonials, so just ask.

There are many characteristics that make up a great testimonial. Use a testimonial that addresses a specific benefit &/or addresses a personal situation, overcomes objection, especially where a customer admits to it, the more dramatic, the better. It’s best to show off the detailed and specific ones, but not the overly long ones. Keep it short and sweet.

When it comes time to use your testimonials make sure you put them in a relevant place. The possibilities are endless; ads, direct mailers, brochures, Facebook, Youtube, blog, on-line business directories, newsletters, web site homepage, product page, landing pages or group your testimonials on one page. Anything else?

Remember to get written permission from your customer, quote the lines you are requesting to use and state what media form will be used. To increase your believability, include your customer’s full name, city, state, job title, company. For top rate believability use your satisfied customer’s photo and email address. That’s what I call a “WOW!” factor.

It is a little bit of extra work, but powerful advertising for your company.  You can even encourage your customers to share their success stories by offering rewards for their testimonials.

Have fun with it! Cheers!

What's a Landing Page?

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Posted on 1st March 2010 by Susan Venancio in Business Tips |Marketing |eCommerce |web design

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A Landing page is a single page dedicated to one product or service. It provides your visitor everything they need to know in order make a decision to buy. A Landing page is where your visitor is converted to a customer, which plays a big role in your online marketing strategy. Below are some tips for your Landing page design.

  1. Use the F-Pattern Eye Tracking Principle: Format your page in an F-Pattern, Jakob Nielsen’s research shows a visitor’s reading pattern follows the shape of the letter F. So put your important information and images along the top and down the left side of the page.
  2. Important elements: Give your visitor all the information on the first page. Get right to the point without having your visitor scroll for additional information.
  3. Colors/visual images: Use the same marketing colors and images on the web as you use in print. This will reassure your visitor that they have “landed” on the correct page.
  4. Keep it simple: Use one column with lots white space, having 5 lines per paragraph. Your visitor’s reading comprehension will be faster using this format.
  5. Use standardized form: Your links should be clearly identifiable by using the underline and your description short and specific.

Something else to consider, is your competition. Visit your competitor’s site, discover what their Landing pages are like. Take notes regarding where you found the process to be difficult, even in the slightest way. Their weakness can become your strength.

I see a happy visitor becoming a happy customer in your future. And like I’ve said before, a happy customer means repeat business. Are we all happy now?!?