Who should be paying the professional content providers? News media players know they have to be online, generations are abandoning traditional papers by the thousands. So traditionally this means abandoning the subscription mindset and this income channel. Ironically cruel is the delay in online advertisers jumping on board. Naturally this process is occurring gradually.

Thankfully, distribution is cheaper online, no printing presses here or trucking tones of trees throughout the city. But wait consumers themselves are now a threat. Who would have thought that an individuals daily activities would become news in sites like Facebook and Twitter. This news is not only relevant, it’s personal and this is a powerful and addictive attention grabber.

So who Is getting paid? Downstream the ISP controls the tap and they are technically getting paid for the service but really for content. The grand filters such as Google, Bing, Yahoo etc have carefully managed advertising models that ensure they get their piece of the pie as users are in transit. So again technically they are getting paid for content. Unfortunetly, the media content provider is at the end of this sales cycle and it shows. Whats the answer?

One option is to move closer to the start of the cycle cutting out the intermediaries. NZherald are developing closer relationships with consumers thanks to sexy applications on the likes of new devices like the Ipad. Here the relationship is simpler and the journey more consistent with traditional brand loyalty equations. Delivery of content is fast, direct and potentially controllable. This is where I see the greatest benefit for news media at this time and the expansion of news ready handheld devices will drive rapid growth.

So dear news media you have served us well, and while we may be excited about sharing our own personal news and views it’s not the end as long as you can see the potential in mobile devices and the new web 2.0 interface. Now if only we can convince the service providers to give us the data.

For years people said “knowledge is power”, and they were probably right. Knowledge and information used to be reserved for a special few. Then came the internet and for many years access to knowledge was indeed power. We all marveled at how much information was available and how much more was on the way. Today even access to knowledge is not enough, there is simply far too much of it. Now power comes to those who can filter knowledge from the vast quantities of information. Thanks to the modern search engines like Google we now have the tools that serve us up large degrees of information. The ultimate race, power goes to those that can effectively filter this information. Search Engines are the ultimate filters at the forefront of a new power. The makers of the big search engines know this, they are in a new race, a race to relevancy, a race to serve filtered useful information to users. They do not need to own the information, they do not need to control it. They just pass it on, filter it for the rest of us. Every search and every request requires an answer, I guess one question remains, “what happens when all the questions are answered”…

If you want to be considered in the list of website pages to be presented, your website page must contain in the page content one or more of the keywords contained in the search words used by the search engine user. So the first thing you need to do is to check that your website pages contain keywords that would likely be popular keywords used by your target market.

The goal of the search engine is to give the user access to the most relevant website page that most closely matches their search request or access to the information they are looking for. You need to convince the search engines that you have that information and that your website page contains information that is of great use to the search user.

The next stage of this process is where the search engine decides what order to present these results. It is in this stage that website pages compete for final placement. This ultimately determines whether your website page finishes at number 1 or 100 or anywhere else. Having a well designed CSS web standards compliant website will help you get a step ahead of your competition. You can also ensure a higher placement by growing the number of links into your website and building a greater Google “page rank” than your competitors. You can build links into your website by negotiation and exchange of links with other websites and by advertising your website online. Industry specific and relevant links are of much higher value to you in contrast to links that do not relate necessarily to the content of your website pages.

As a website owner you need to replicate the items that are critical to a successful sale offline and combine these with what works in an Internet Store.

It is difficult to develop an online relationship based on trust when consumers do not get to meet or interact with a real person. Your website must stand up and communicate why the consumer should trust you and your business.

Here’s how…firstly, look at developing items that represent trust. These could be graphics displaying any physical premises or real people, badges representing New Zealand owned or operated, quality guarantees or money back guarantees. Once items like these are clearly communicated to the consumer they will feel more comfortable that they can indeed overcome the trust barrier of the Internet and trust your online business.

Secondly, you need to offer sales support like a real person. Your website needs to address any questions or doubts the consumer might have as they journey along the sales continuum. During the consumers search phase you need to supply them with the right level of information about your product or service. Too much and they will struggle to make a decision or compare products, too little and they wont take action. The quality of the information is also very important. Ask what questions need answering before a consumer can purchase. What doubts must we address? Another idea is to place an extra incentive in the form of a call to purchase on the shopping cart page, which would help to reduce last minute attrition problems.

There are plenty of things you can do to streamline your website sales. Put yourself in the shoes of the consumer, build trust and give them what they want. If you can do this in a way that is unique from your competitors, you are on to something good.

Don’t forget successful business owners are always looking for ways to improve their business and they take action on ideas if they have merit.

Choosing your domain name is a pretty important marketing decision, because the domain name that you choose will act as your brand online. This is what the consumer will associate with your online presence; this is what they will use to remember you exist online.

The following article is a no nonsense summary of how to choose a domain name.

Rule Number 1, Forget the Gaps

Whatever you do, forget about hyphens, underscores and dashes. Put yourself in the shoes of a potential visitor who is trying to get to your website by entering your domain name in a browser. If you have a hyphen or another complication which is beyond the obvious you are shooting yourself and your website in the foot and writing off a significant amount of people. They just won’t find you! Could a potential visitor guess your domain name? Do the test.

Rule Number 2, Don’t be Common

Avoid choosing a domain name which is a common name like using your words from your trade category for example. A shoe store in the real world doesn’t call itself “Shoe Store” for very obvious reasons. The owner knows that they need a unique name that differentiates it from competitors and helps consumers with identification. This is even more important on the internet. There is no physical store or logo; instead a brand encapsulated in words. Getting this right is essential. So rule number 2 is think unique.

Rule Number 3, Combine Words

A good way to create a unique domain name is to combine words together. Take several word associations with your products or industry and try mixing and matching to see how they sound and read. You might be surprised.

Rule Number 4, Leave the Offline where it is

If you are developing an online store or stand alone internet brand then create something funky and new. Do not consider leveraging your existing offline brand. There are numerous cases where large organizations have fronted their online ventures with their offline brand and failed. Take Television New Zealand for example. They launched the highly successful NZoom.com and quickly flew to the forefront of New Zealand internet news. Masterly building an online brand supported by TVNZ television media. Now strangely they have decided to promote tvnz.co.nz which I am afraid to say just doesn’t cut it on the Internet; simply because the brand doesn’t translate to the Internet. TVNZ has too much baggage; it already means something to people offline. So keep it simple, if your thinking big then it’s either an Internet only brand or not, but definitely not both.

Rule Number 5, Medium or Business?

If you are using the Internet as a device to support your existing offline business then by all means use your offline name. If your business is called “Joes Plumbing” then register the domain name joesplumbing.co.nz.

Rule Number 6, Small is Good

Keep it as small as possible. The larger your domain name the more it is for a visitor to make an error when typing it into the browser.

Rule Number 7, Spelling

Choose a domain name which is easy to spell. Simple isn’t it. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

Rule Number 8, Choosing your location

Do I .com or .co.nz? This is an interesting one isn’t it? If you are thinking international then definitely “.com” it. If you are strictly focused in New Zealand then use “.co.nz”. If you are not operating on a shoe string then preferably buy them both and spend less time worrying.

Rule Number 9, Know your Market

Know your customers. Search engines will find your website based on content and other considerations. If you have good content and online value then it comes down to having a domain name that people are going to remember and talk about. Choosing a domain name that is easy to remember is tough. A good approach is to use a person’s name. Another way might be to create a domain name with two words that start with the same letter like “gingerbreadgeorge.com”.

Choosing a domain name requires you to be diligent and creative, just like coming up with a new name for a product or company except you need to be a bit more silly and crazy in the approach. I hope that this article has given you a few ideas, if you have any comments I would love to hear them.

How often will we email our customers?

An email newsletter will be best suited monthly. A good period of time relevant to gathering information and staying on top of mind without bombarding the customer. A special announcement or tie in with offline media will require special timing.

What will we say?

The key to email communications is that you send information that is relevant and contains value for the recipient. Spam has made many people sensitive to overtly commercial propositions via email. Just because you can send 1000 emails to all your customers doesn’t mean you should. Consider ways to appeal to customer differences or sub groups of customers via tweaked email messages so that you can create more relevancies.

Try to get away from sending email advertising. Is your message of enough value to be telling your customers personally via email? Many people receive so much email that low value email advertisements are considered intrusions. If you are sending “buy now” propositions they need to be high, high value

How do I create the email?

If you are talking about 50-100 email addresses you can potentially use conventional tools like Outlook to create and send your message. In this case keep it simple and create a predominantly text based message. Ensure that your recipients are in the BCC field. Break up the recipients into groups of 50 and send away.

Think very carefully about whether your email needs to be a graphically rich html based message. These are usually overkill for this predominantly text based medium. Not to mention the problems images in emails can cause with anti-spam checks. If you must then keep the image size really small ie 100 kb.

Any larger than 100 email addresses and you would be better suited to a more industrial emailing solution. World Cast is a good option for most. Try www.fairlogic.com. This type of solution can better manage the email creation and mailing process.

Getting through

Although you are a legit email sender it doesn’t mean you will make it through all the spam checks. Eliminate embedded and attached images; reduce linked images and hyperlinks in the message. Watch the words you use in your email.

Keeping friends

You may have people who don’t want to be on your list. Easy unsubscription is a must. The low tech option is to write at the bottom of the email: To unsubscribe from the “ “ Mailing List please reply to this email and enter unsubscribe in the subject field.

High tech option is to create a page online and link to it in your email. Either the page recognizes a unique code and un-subscribes them automatically on visit, or they have to enter their email address into this unsubscribe page online. Usually this process occurs because there are multiple entry points to unsubscribe. I.e. webpage and email prompts.

Must do’s

1. Send your email to yourself first to check it looks and reads as you intended.
2. Remove unsubscribed addresses from your list or face the consequences.
3. Only send emails to people that expect to receive an email from you.
4. Don’t buy email mailing lists!
5. Tell people how they may have got on your list.

Now I bet that all seemed like a lot to swallow and it is. Although it’s just the icing on the cake of a very large topic area. If you have any doubts about sending emails to your customers then I strongly suggest you get help sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, many firms utilize one website for all of their needs, combining stakeholder objectives and reducing overall coherency. For example, the information and proposition delivered to consumers will be very different to the information required on a day to day basis by intermediaries or channel partners. Being clear on website objectives is one way to overcome this problem and a well planned site can satisfy the needs of different target markets.

New Zealand firms have always had a geographic disadvantage. Compared to our international competitors we are relatively removed from our export markets. A website can help overcome geographic barriers and the Internet can be used in conjunction with email and other communications to supply overseas businesses with in-depth information that they can source at their own pace.

Your website can be customized according to the needs of different international markets; large firms usually make the most of this opportunity for customization. Creating websites with foreign language options and with localized content is one way to present local know how to an overseas market. This does require you to have local know-how if you are going to pull it off. Research is required before embarking on any sort of international adventures using the Internet to ensure that you are truly addressing the needs of your overseas market.

If you are operating in an international business to consumer marketplace, the Internet is extremely competitive. If you are thinking about launching a business with its primary markets abroad make sure that you conduct a diligent competitor analysis.

Knowing international consumers is the key to success. There is a huge amount of publicly available information on different countries consumer internet purchasing behaviors. You would be very surprised how behavior varies from country to country.

Finally, fulfillment becomes increasingly more challenging when targeting overseas markets. Take China for example. You may be able to make all sorts of delivery promises locally but internationally you are often at the mercy of local distribution systems. This is where a local bricks and mortar partner becomes necessary in many cases; and beneficial for local intelligence.

In conclusion, the Internet is a revolution in international Marketing. Get clear on how you are going to use it, research your overseas markets thoroughly and you will be closer to establishing a successful export strategy online.

So what are you going to do about it? Well in this second installment of Internet Marketing Secrets, I will discuss with you some of the methods used by the best to get the best results.

Secret 6: Don’t sell the family jewels to make a quick buck

Have you stopped to look at the state of the Internet lately? Man there is really some crap out there. Consumers don’t want to be bombarded by advertising, or led to believe that something is free and then told at the last minute there is a hidden fee. Use advertisements wisely, so that they do not detract from your content or you will find your potential customers will never come back. Frustrated developers and entrepreneurs end up with a lot of advertising on their websites usually because their projects have failed to make money. If this is where you are heading start thinking about how to turn it around.

Secret 7: New Content is Key

We touched on this in the first installment. Search engines will compare websites and their rate of changing content. Identify an area on each of your webpage’s that you can change frequently and set a schedule. This could be every day, once a week or even a month. You can use news, event calendars, new products, advice columns and more to create new content. Think carefully before using outside content though. It’s a growing trend for websites to use RSS feeds, and news and media content from other sites. If you can do it, so can your competitors. Unless you really think your customers want this it’s only taking up extra space on your site.

Secret 8: Choose the weapons that get results

Your internet Marketing Strategy should consist of your most appropriate tools. So what are the options? The tools available consist of both website design changes and external marketing. Using keyword analysis review and optimize the text content on your site. Change the design to also improve effectiveness. Externally you can use one or more of “pay for placement campaigns” search engine submission, or work on link popularity through networking with other sites. Your competitors will also be using one or more of these tools. So if you have been concentrating on pay for placement and results are starting to ease off try more networking and vice versa.

Secret 9: Do what you do and do it well.

You cannot be all things to all people on the Internet. It’s just so easy to find someone else who is more specialized somewhere else in the world. Why does your site exist? Is it for commerce, to make money from advertising; to provide information; to create a community of people; to earn money off paid subscriptions or to facilitate brokerage of products or information. This is what you must determine as early as possible. Then every effort can be directed to supporting the purpose of your site.

As you know its great fun to tinker but if you don’t focus, before you know it, you’ve spent thousands of dollars or even years of your life creating a really nifty one minute piece of entertainment for half a dozen people over the age of 80.

The challenge is how to be competitive using the online medium. You need to be able to reach you potential customers and get exposure in relevant search results, and your website must present a compelling proposition which is more appealing than your competitors.

You build exposure by presenting your product to as many online consumers as possible. This can be achieved by firstly submitting to the major search engines, listing with online tourism directories used by your consumers, and through online advertising. The better you can define the characteristics of the consumers you would like to attract the more efficient you will be at gaining relevant exposure to your market online. This consumer definition and proposition should form the basis of your website design.

Tourists will consider several factors before making a decision to purchase online. They will look for products that match their price points and budget within their ideal itinerary. Once potentials are identified they can then compare the features of one product to another, looking for a key advantage that will lead them to a greater visitor experience and better value for money.

Like any product online, you must build trust and clearly communicate your visitor experience. The visual design and ease of use of your website will effect its overall appeal and a consumers decision to book with you or a competitor. If your website looks amateurish and outdated this will be the image of your business and potential experience you present to your customers.

Many small businesses have made the first step and put some information on the Internet hoping that they will reach Internet users. However, it is common for this information to be left, and become outdated in both content and design. This has probably resulted from a range of factors including misunderstanding of the potential of the Internet; greater marketing expenditure on other more traditional mediums, and the abundance of low end, low price web design service providers.

It is in the second step development where a higher quality output is sought and subsequently a lift in performance in areas such as brand impact, customer acquisition and retention.

Our tips for reaching the Internet generation: Make a clear point of difference proposition; move beyond the “we do this” mentality; Forget the hard sell, consumers are sophisticated and more marketing savvy. Lower your yellow pages budget, times have changed. Spend time on researching the needs and language of your market; Respect your business with a modern design that is a compliment online and offline. Finally, understand what information your customers need, to be able to take action and make an initial contact with you.

Our focus at Myth has always been to compliment design and development with an understanding of best practice marketing communications and consumer behavior. We believe that this kind of expertise assists businesses to get the real world results that they are looking for