Epicenter Network Blog

When I think of Facebook I think back a couple years to when I was in college and a friend showed me a site where you could upload and share pictures from parties and find friends from high school. Initially I resisted creating an account because I didn’t want my personal information plastered on the internet and I thought it was a social trend that would pass.

Now the site has been operating for over 5 years and has more than 175 million active users – definitely not a fleeting social trend.

Over the years Facebook has become much more than just a place to share pictures and keep in touch with friends. Gary Stein from ClickZ believes that it may be a revolution in direct marketing.

It’s hard to disagree with him. The recent changes that have occurred on the site have made it easier for companies to brand themselves and connect directly with their consumers. The changes they made to the way Pages operate combines text ads, RSS feeds, email marketing and consumer-generated media – and it’s still free to use (minus ad space).

A company can now create a business page, post status updates, promote a new product and receive comments from their customers. The best part is when a domino effect is created, as more people become fans and the companies updates are posted as news feeds on their page.

Stein warns that while companies can make the most out of Facebook, that they can also be “publicly dragged through social media’s town square” if they aren’t careful.

The example he uses is a company using their status feed to announce a new version of their product and this message begin received by all their fans. If some of the fans are angry with the last version and think it has too many bugs, then they can broadcast a feed back to all other fans voicing their opinion. On the flipside, if you have fans that love and support your product, then they can choose to click “I like this” have forward the message on to all their friends.

Essentially, if you have a good product and time to devote to social networking, Facebook is definitely your friend.

Check out Epicenter on Facebook and become a fan! I’ll be updating our status with the latest new offers and Epi news.

A landing page is like the store front of your online business. It influences whether people will come in and how long they will stay. You want to make a good first impression and make the consumer feel comfortable so they will stay and click through the rest of your site.

Overall, I would say that copy is your number one priority. Not only does copy provide your visitor with instructions on what to do, but it is also crawled by search engines and helps your page rank so that people will ultimately be able to find it. This is not to say that design is not important, but just to emphasis the key role that content plays in a landing page’s success.

When creating your landing page content, here are a couple things to keep in mind:

• Provide helpful information that offers a solution to the visitor’s needs
• State the benefits of your products – give your visitor the idea that they need your product
• State what you need to say in as little words as possible
• Make it easy to order – keep your checkout process to three clicks or less

Apart from content, other factors in creating a converting landing page include setting goals, obtaining testimonials, adding relevant links, choosing keywords and driving targeted traffic.

To keep your page simple and easy to follow, set one main goal per page. The first page may be informational, with the goal to create an urge to purchase in your visitor. The second page may be to enter their personal and payment information. And the third may be a thank you page and to provide them with additional offers they may be interested in.

Testimonials build trust in your visitor and can help them to believe in your product. This is especially powerful when you attach a picture and a name, giving it the whole human element.

Adding relevant links to your site makes you more trustworthy and a more valuable resource to the customer. If your site can offer solutions to multiple problems, it is more likely that you will create repeat customers and earn more referrals.

When building your page, brainstorm all the relevant keywords associated with your product. Think about what keywords you want to rank for and the words that will bring in the most targeted customer. This links right into driving targeted traffic, as you would use these same keywords with your PPC campaigns while also trying to rank for them organically.

Lastly, work on the design of your site and keep it consistent. Try not to make your site too busy and use color to emphasis action buttons and key areas to draw the eye. It’s also a good idea to take a look at some of your competitor’s landing pages and see how you can offer better solutions and easier-to-use pages.

Want more traffic to your site? Start a blog. Google loves blogs and by adding one to your site you can dramatically increase your page rankings and you earnings.

If you have a well established site that is well-linked and maintained, adding a blog can really help with your SEO and search result rankings. A well-linked site is crawled often by Google, so make sure to keep adding new content to keep the rankings high.

Blogs are also another great way to bring in additional traffic. Be sure to provide your visitors with the option to subscribe to your blog and receive feeds. You should also place sharing tools on each page so that you can benefit from social networking and get your name out there faster.

When you set up your blog, opt to automatically have trackback links posted. This leaves somewhat of a comment on the external blog you are referencing and lets their readers, and author, know that you mentioned them in your post. This is especially helpful if you link to a popular blog, as many of their readers will see your link and visit your blog.

If you really want to get into blogging and drive up your traffic even more, it is helpful to join a few social networks and become active in your niche’s blogosphere by leaving comments and interacting with other bloggers. Blogs and social networking work really well together and essentially build your online presence and add a human element to your site.

These are just a couple ideas for increasing site and blog traffic, but I know there are many more. If you care to share your tips on driving blog related traffic, I’d love to hear from you!

When it comes to email marketing, choose your words wisely. This is especially important when it comes to crafting your subject lines.

In marketing and PR first impressions are important and the subject line of your email plays a large role in your overall open rate. Bottom line – it doesn’t matter how good the content of your email is if your subject lines are not effective.

The first thing to keep in mind when composing your subject lines is that you should stay within 38 to 47 characters, as this is the average amount of text that will show up in the recipient’s email program. The next step is to extract the most important information from your email, sum it up in a catchy way and place the most important keywords in the beginning, to the far left.

Once you have you key information selected, write out a few subject lines. Then go back through them and make sure that you have stated your message using the least amount of words or numbers. Keep in mind that the sentence should make sense, but it doesn’t have to follow perfect grammatical rules.

To keep your email out of your recipient’s spam box, make sure to avoid words like “FREE”, use too many exclamation points, too many symbols or too many numbers. Avoiding these words, numbers and symbols also helps increase your open rate, as people are less likely to associate your mailing with spam.

Another way to enhance your subject line is to add personalization. This makes the email seem as if you sent it specifically with that person in mind and may make them more inclined to open it.

After you have crafted several different subject lines, it may be good practice to test them individually. This way you can view the subject lines effect on open rate and learn what works with your audience.

Essentially, try to write your subject lines around one of these three approaches:

1. Make the reader curious
2. State how the reader will benefit from opening your email
3. Make an announcement or share news

Once you state the benefits of opening your email and create curiosity from your reader, you will begin to see your open rates increase.

In science, a niche is how an organism makes a living, including what it eats and where it lives. It describes how an organism, or group of organisms, responds to the distribution of resources and how it deals with its competitors.

In many ways an ecological niche is no different than a marketing niche.

Finding your marketing niche means finding a targeted portion of the market to promote and sell your product. Affiliate marketers can use niche marketing to become specialists, focusing on a targeted audience and building a loyal customer base.

Sometimes, like in nature, finding your niche takes some trial and error. The first thing to consider when finding your marketing niche is your interests. If you are really passionate about something it will show in your content and in the amount of work you put into it. This also needs to be matched with search trends and what is currently in demand. If you love it but its not in demand, then you probably need to find something else.

There are a couple ways to determine if your niche is in demand. The first thing you can do is some keyword research to see how many people are searching for your product or area of interest. Try using wordtracker or the Overture suggestion tool. Also try using Google trendsand look at the top Internet searches over the last few months.

Your next move is to examine your competition. Check out their sites and see what they are doing to stand out from the crowd. Then find your own unique angle and begin promoting your site. You can do this through writing informative and captivating content, blogging or getting involved in social networking.

Once you’ve found your niche you’ll need to stay competitive. Keep refreshing your content and ask for feedback from your customers. Always think of new ways to enhance your site and build customer loyalty.

Here is a video with some tips for finding your marketing niche. It’s a bit monotone, but it’s only 10 minutes long and can help get you started.

watch?v=fVPzjyaRJWk

If you’re looking for a way to boost your web traffic and capture your targeted audience, pay-per-click is the way to go. There are tons of PPC search engines and directories to choose from and many online tools to help optimize your keyword selections and ad content.

Pay-per-click search is exactly what it sounds like – you pay a set amount every time sometime clicks on your ad. You begin by setting up an account with a ppc search engine, bid on keywords that describe your business, product or target audience and then create captivating advertising content. Depending on the search engine or directory you use, the higher you bid on a particular keyword or phrase, the higher your ad will appear on a search results page.

When it comes to choosing a ppc search engine it’s all about preference and performance. There are a lot of different options out there and each one uses a slightly different bidding system, monthly fee and method of placement. Here I will examine a few of the top players.

Google AdWords
I put AdWords at the top because I like it the most and it was what I started out on. AdWords displays their search results in several search engines including Google, AOL, Ask Jeeves and Teoma.

Another reason I like AdWords is because they use your click-through rate and cost per click to determine where your ads are shown – so you can never get locked out of the top. This means that if you can write really great ads, optimize your keywords and phrases and at least stay competitive with your bids, you have a good chance of staying on the first page of results.

Activation fee: $5
Minimum bid amount: $.05
You set your daily budget and only pay for the clicks you receive.

Overture
Overture, or Yahoo search marketing, is another top choice for pay-per-click. Their results are displayed on Yahoo!, Lycos, HotBot and MSN search. Overture is one of the most expensive ppc engines and also one of the most competitive.

Overture works differently than AdWords, as they place the highest bidder’s ads on top. If you have a big marketing budget, place your ads here. The number one listing may receive three times the click through rate of the number two listing and Overture provides the top three advertisers links to several web portals and search engines as the top three results on each page.

Activation fee: $50 non-refundable initial deposit
Minimum bid: $.10
Minimum charge per month: $20

Adhere (formerly Enhance)
If you were part of Enhance Interactive, you are now part of Marchex Adhere. This network is easy to manage and displays ads on Metacrawler, Dogpile and Ask and has over 200 distribution partners.

Adhere works similarly to Overture, as ad placement is determined by bids and the more you pay, the higher you will be displayed. Personally, I’ve never used Adhere, but have heard some great things about it and know that they have excellent chat support if you ever need assistance.

Activation fee: $50 deposit
Minimum bid: $.05
No monthly service fee.

MIVA (FindWhat)
MIVA is a pretty popular ppc engine, as it costs less than many of the larger ones and has a great user interface. MIVA is not a destination site, but a network of partner sites, including memolink.com, InfoSpace, eurekster and search.com to name a few.

MIVA places ads based on bids and works similarly to Overture and Adhere. You choose your position, price and how much you want to spend. Additionally, you only pay for results, so it’s a safe place to start.

Activation fee: $25 to open an account
Minimum bid: $.05

Here are some other worthy pay-per-click networks to check out:

Lycos InSite AdBuyer
Look Smart
Rocketlinks.com
Kanoodle.com
Live Search
7search.com

Create an account, share some links, post your thoughts, make new friends, increase your customer base and expand your sales. All this takes place through a number of online social networking sites and costs virtually nothing except for your time.

More and more businesses are jumping on the social networking bandwagon as an easy and effective way to brand their product, reach a targeted audience and provide a higher level of customer service. This ranges from big names like Target and Comcast all the way to individual affiliates and bloggers trying to increase their traffic and conversions.

If you haven’t joined the online social scene, I encourage you to start. One of the easiest places to begin is with Facebook. Using their Page Manager feature, you can upload photos, videos, share links and post your latest offers. People can become “fans” of your business and their membership will be displayed as a status update on their account, further promoting your company. Become an Epicenter fan!

Another to create an account is StumbleUpon – one of my favorite sites. Once you create an account, a toolbar is added to your browser where you can easily bookmark and review web sites you like and share them with your friends or “subscribers”. Once you have posted new links, other members can vote them up and the more votes you get, the more recognized your account becomes. This is also a great place to connect with people in your realm of business or areas of interest and share resources and ideas.

Twitter has been getting a lot of buzz lately, especially with the story about Comcast using Twitter to view customer comments and complaints and react to their needs. Twitter is a bit different from other social networking sites and works like an instant messenger where you can share “tweets” of what you are doing, cool pages you found or what your company is up to. I must admit that it took a while for me to catch on, but I’ve found that it can become a bit addictive. Follow me on Twitter!

Other sites to check out are Digg, Newsvine, Reddit, Delicious and Linkedin. I also highly recommend starting a blog (try WordPress) and cashing in on building content, responding to comments and becoming active in your niche’s blogosphere.

The key to successful marketing and making sales is listening, and this is the exact reason why social networking is so effective. Social networks help you connect with your customers, listen to their needs and complaints and to reach out to new customers. Offer them exclusive offers for becoming a fan or following your tweets and watch your sales rise.

The economy is down, electric bills are up and you’ve still got to make ends meet. Maybe you are looking for another source of income or a new job entirely. Have you ever considered making the switch to affiliate marketing? If so, there are a few things you should consider.

First of all, what are your motives and how much time do you have to devote? For some people money alone can be enough of a motivating factor, but for others they must also enjoy what they are doing and have the patience to watch their “business” grow. Do you enjoy updating content? Searching online trends? Maintaining your web site or checking for new offers to promote?

The greatest thing about affiliate marketing is that you are involved in the sales of goods, but you don’t actually have to sell anything. You also don’t have to ship anything, keep inventory or deal with a warehouse. You simply attract the buyer and redirect them to the finish the sale.

While the concept of affiliate marketing is simple, don’t let that deceive you – it still takes a lot of work, some technical requirements and persistence. To lay it out, here is a list of the pros and cons of affiliate marketing.

The Advantages….
• You make money around the clock. People are always online and the internet never closes, so you can earn commissions and make sales in your sleep.
• Your office does not have to have four walls and be locked into one location. A computer and internet access is all you need, so your office can be in your living room one day and on the beach in Mexico the next.
• You are the boss. Work your own hours and take vacations at your leisure.
• Small capital investment to get started. Buy a domain, start a web site, send emails and use creatives that are provided from an affiliate network or a company.
• Good content can keep on giving. A well written article can continue to drive traffic and sales for years to come.

The Disadvantages…
• The downside of working from home is that you miss out on office interactions (ok, maybe you won’t miss the office politics or the commute) and it can be lonely at times.
• Keeping up with the trends can be time consuming and it can sometimes be difficult to find your niche.
• If you aren’t driving quality traffic, be prepared to deal with some fraudulent sales/leads.

Of course I am a bit biased, as I feel the benefits of becoming an advertiser/publisher far out-weigh the disadvantages. Once you get the hang of affiliate marketing you can start making more money and working fewer hours. It can start to feel less like a job and more like a lifestyle.

Still not sure if the shoe fits? Try it on. Opt for the flip flop version of affiliate marketing and start small. Connect with an affiliate network and start driving traffic to a couple offers. If you like, add some more, find your niche and slowly grow your business.

I’d like to begin by welcoming you to the On-Coming Traffic blog, dedicated to the world of online marketing and brought to you by Epicenter. Today is our first official day in the new office – just across the hall from the old one – and we are enjoying the extra space and looking forward to our soon-to-come espresso machine.

I thought I’d start the blog out with a bang and jump right into my first topic – becoming a “super affiliate”, or at least getting close. Of course, introductions are important too and if you must know more about the people and ideas behind this blog, click here.

The basic principle behind affiliate marketing is to take someone else’s product and sell it online. The most frequently used means of driving this traffic is either through search, email, display, SEO or incentive. So if it seems so simple why is it that so many affiliates fail to make a decent profit?

The answer is usually that they aren’t spending enough time marketing or haven’t created a plan that fully optimizes the product.

Becoming a “super” affiliate – those who bring in 5 figures or more a month – does not happen overnight, over a week or even over a couple months. It takes time, experience, patience, persistence and tact. Although only 1 to 5% of affiliate marketers ever reach “super” affiliate status, I always believe that shooting for the moon at least places you among the stars.

On that note, let’s look at five key strategies to becoming a successful, money-making affiliate.

1. Find your Niche
In the world of affiliate marketing it is better to be a specialist than a generalist. Don’t spread yourself thin by offering every new product on the market. Instead, chose a niche to stay within and promote a few offers, and promote them well.

2. Get to know your product
The best salesmen are those who know their product forwards and backwards and who know their audience equally as well. A few ways to go about this can include blogging or writing articles based on your product, place testimonials or videos on your web site. Also, think about who will be buying the particular product and keep that audience in mind while marketing.

3. Try Search Engine Marketing
Search is a great way to drive targeted traffic and produce higher quality leads. Spend some time getting familiar with the techniques and tricks of SEM before you get started, or you could end up spending much more than you make. Alternatively, there are many companies out there that can manage your search efforts for you.

4. Keep up with online trends
Online marketing can be a fickle environment, and what worked one month may not work the next. Stay current with online trends, top traffic driving practices and what the consumer is interested in. The saying ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ doesn’t quite apply here.

5. Be patient and monitor your success
Don’t let weak profits get you down. Closely monitor and chart your statistics, keep track of the changes you made in your techniques and their effect on traffic and sales. Slow and steady improvement often leads to big success. Remember to stay patient but to remain active and always look for ways to improve your business.

A couple more strategies to engage in include social networking, blogging, writing your own ads or creating original content, such as newsletters or ezines.

Thanks for stopping by and reading our first post! Add us to your feed or stop by again to learn more about who we are, how you can improve your online profits and much more!