Modern advertising methods: do you use Autoresponders?

When we talk about modern advertising methods, we can’t forget autoresponders because they are very important. An interested visitor who has been strolling through your site has finally come to just what she is looking for and is about to make a purchase. It’s afternoon and her dog suddenly jumps down, and the priceless tree topples over.

In the blink of an eye, your visitor exits your site, and your sale is dust - unless you have had the foresight to utilize an autoresponder that has captured her email address. If you have installed an autoresponder, you can then follow-up with her, and in all probability, make the final sale.

Autoresponders are remarkable, modern advertising methods that do so much more than just automatically answer your email. Here are a few ideas that will help you to creatively and productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual visitor into a profitable customer. Use your autoresponder to:

* Publish a newsletter. Certain quality autoresponders will manage subscriptions and follow-up with interested prospects. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed about your services or products, while building your reputation as a credible expert in your particular business.

* Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should contain tons of links. Make sure to add your own promotional copy at the top or bottom of this page.

* Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request form for visitors to be notified of special offers or discounts in the future. This creates a very effective mailing list that contains the names of people who are already your customers.

* Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform them of current sales you are running and of promotional material that your affiliates can use themselves to increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go out and promote your business.

* Distribute your articles. Writing and distributing targeted articles is a powerful tool to build your business credibility. If your articles contain valuable information, many editors will print what is known as a resource box for you. A resource box contains your bio and a brief description of your service or product.

* Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, e-books, movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder. Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your affiliate’s page in your autoresponder.

* Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your articles when you’ve written new ones that they may want to publish in their own newsletter or website.

* Distribute advertising. Let’s say you sell advertising on your website or in your newsletter or e-zine. Set your autoresponder to send the information about how to place an ad automatically to all prospects' email addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up. It can also send notification of any special deals you are currently offering.

* Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure repeated exposure of your message. In your ad, put your autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances of getting the sale back.

Modern advertising methods: do you use viral marketing?

More and more webmasters have the recurring dilemma on how to increase the flow of traffic in the websites. During the past few years many modern advertising methods that been developed to solve this predicament. While most of them can work there are those that would not make even a small impact.

One of the methods that have spawned many success stories in driving traffic into websites is viral marketing (there is a separate chapter on this topic alone towards the end of this book). Viral marketing makes use of the tendency of a person to share something to find informative, entertaining or amazing.

Many companies bank on this behavior to spread their products and increase the popularity of their company or their website. Viral marketing makes use of many mediums in enticing this behavior. It might be in the form of an interesting story, an addicting flash game, an amusing video and many others that may catch a person’s fancy.

This ingenious form of marketing is typically low cost and is a wonderful tool for any company to utilize. The benefit greatly overshadows the cost or efforts to initialize this marketing scheme. Any website would greatly benefit that viral marketing. One of the easiest methods in viral marketing is using a Tell-A-Friend script. This is a simple programming script that you can attach to the programming of your website. Generally, Tell-A-Friends scripts are installed in pages where a media is placed so that a person can easily send the media to any of his friends or his family members.

The concept of a Tell-A-Friend script is where in a person may input his e-mail address plus the recipient’s e-mail address and send the media to the intended recipient. As the recipient receives the e-mail he wouldn’t think of the mail a spam mail because he would see the sender’s name as someone he or she knows and trust.

Tell-A-Friend script eliminates greatly the chances of being blocked because they use the information inputted by the sender. This allows for wider spreading of this modern advertising method. It can be quite sneaky but it is very effective. With the e-mail sent and opened the sent media will either be read, viewed or played. Also along with the mail would be a brief description of the company or site that sponsors the media sent. This allows for the introduction of either the site, company name or its products. The along with it is another Tell-A-Friend script.

Then the process begins and REPEATS again. As more people use the tell-afriend script, more and more people will know of the existence of the sponsoring company or site. People who read the ads inside the mail would click on the link and visit the site. This drives traffic into the site resulting to great number of potential customers.