With some sensible planning and diligent work you can lift your site high in the search engines’ rankings. But make a few crucial mistakes, and your site may never leave the bottom. There are a few common mistakes that people make when optimizing their websites with on page SEO. So here are four examples of what NOT to do:

1. No Alt Tags

Perhaps the most common mistake people make with on page SEO is leaving alt tags out of images. The alt tag is the text that shows up when a cursor hovers over an image. It’s also displayed when an image fails to load, so visitors have a good idea what the image is. Best of all, an alt tag is the perfect place to optimise your keyword, because alt tags count as text to the search engines.

2. Duplicate Titles

A web page’s title is one of the most important factors of on page SEO, yet so many people use the same title for multiple pages. This practice will hurt your site’s chance at ranking high. Search engines hate duplicates. Also, a page’s title is the perfect place to optimise your keywords, so take advantage of it. Always include your main keywords in your titles.

3. Keyword Stuffing

In the old days of the search engines, you could achieve a high ranking for your website just by stuffing keywords into your content as many times as possible. This maneuver no longer works. In fact, it will likely achieve the opposite effect — a drop in rankings. Even worse, your site might be blacklisted. So avoid keyword stuffing and only use your keyword naturally.

4. Overusing Flash and JavaScript

It’s tempting to enhance the appearance of a site by using Flash and JavaScript. They can make everything look fancy and professional if you know what you’re doing. But too much Flash and JavaScript will slow your website down, and they won’t help you in the least if you’re trying to optimise your site for the search engines. Neither Flash nor JavaScript uses text that can be read by search engines, and reviewing a site’s text is how a search engine ranks the site. So if you do choose to use Flash and JavaScript, use them very sparingly.

After spending a lot of time and hard work on a website, it would be a shame to let a few mistakes sabotage all your efforts. Especially if the mistakes are easy to fix. When you’re optimising a site, always keep factors like alt tags, titles, keyword density, and Flash and JavaScript in mind. Once you learn to identify SEO mistakes on your site you can take measures to correct them, and give your site the chance at a high ranking it deserves.

To find out more about the services offered at Digital Pacific including web hosting and domain names, visit our website or give us a call on 1300 MY HOST for a friendly chat.

SEO Tips is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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Receive. Read subject. Delete. These actions can be carried out by your user in less than two seconds. So why did you spend 20 minutes preparing what you thought was a carefully worded email that tackled all the right points?

Read on to find out more.

Increasing Importance in E-Commerce — Get it Right!

Understanding how your readers think is vital to getting your email opened, read and actioned. There are many traps to avoid when crafting your email communications in order for them to cut through the overwhelming amount people receive daily. The ease at which emails can be sent by businesses often attributes to the low quality of the communications.

People’s time is increasingly limited and when they do read a message, it needs to be relevant, fact based, of interest and high quality. If you are sending mediocre emails to your newsletter recipients, they are going to learn that their time is possibly better spent elsewhere. Eventually they will stop reading them and potentially unsubscribe, never to return.

So how can you write effective marketing emails?

Start with the three most important items:

• Subject Line – Be focussed. A relevant subject line identifies what the email is about and should entice the reader to open it. If you don’t get it right at this stage, it is all for nothing.
• First Line – A strong first line in the email body will summarise its content and highlight exactly what the reader will gain from investing their time in the rest of the communication. This is where the ‘point’ of the email is made.
• Post Script (p.s.) – Here, you can offer the reader a special gift, discount or recap an important element of the communication.

If we consider the above mandatory, the following are strong suggestions.

14 Further Items for Consideration

• First things first – The most important idea should be mentioned first and ultimately capture the main benefit the recipient will receive by reading the email.
• One subject – Email marketing messages should ultimately be based on a single subject. For instance, one that runs through an entire range of products is likely to be too long, contain irrelevant information and possibly be convoluted.
• Formatting – Use bullet points, bold, italics, underline and colour etc to make the important details stand out. It breaks up blocks of text which can turn readers off. It also makes the message less dry and more visually stimulating.

• Use the right tone of voice – You don’t want the message to be too formal or too casual. The feel of the email needs to be established to suit the company’s image and the idea being conveyed.
• Ensure you hit the target audience – What is the age and demographics of your readers? The way you communicate with a 20 year old will differ to an individual 50 and over. It’s highly unlikely that ‘everyone’ will be your target audience so this needs to be clarified.
• Use the word ‘you’ a lot – It’s all about ‘you’, the customer. What benefits ‘you’ will receive and how ‘you’ can enrich your life. It’s not about ‘us’ or ‘we’ the business.
• Headlines – By containing headings and subheadings, people scan for parts of the message that are relevant to them. With limited time, the person viewing can ‘get the gist’ of the message by reading the headings and subheadings.
• The offer – What do you want the customers to buy? Explicitly tell them (and early on) instead of them having to unnecessarily wade through the entire email.
• Identify the benefits – Hook them in. What are they getting? Why do they care? How will their life be better by reading your email and purchasing what you have to offer?
• The communication should be succinct – Not necessarily just short in length, the communication should convey the message using as few words as possible.
• Introduce a special offer such as a FREE report or sample – Everyone likes something for FREE and people are attracted when they believe they are getting more value.
• Add an offer deadline to create urgency – Eg. Domain name sale – one day only! This offer expires this weekend so act now! It will advertise a ‘window of opportunity’ for getting this ‘great deal’ instead of the email being forgotten in their inbox.
• An obvious call to action – You want people to do something so tell them ‘how’ they can do it. Phone, email, come into the shop, click the order button etc.
• Unsubscribe – If emailing a newsletter listing or group, always ensure there is an unsubscribe link in the message. Readers should have the option to stop receiving communications. No one likes SPAM!

p.s.  The power of email marketing is huge. But like anything, incorrectly used and it produces less than spectacular results. By following the above guidelines, you can experience a better result from a more focussed marketing email.

To find out more about the web hosting and domain name services offered at Digital Pacific visit our website or give us a call on 1300 MY HOST for a friendly chat.

How to Write an Email Marketing Letter is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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Getting your website noticed online can be a difficult proposition. Beyond choosing a catchy domain name, what tools are at your disposal to increase your online exposure?

One of the best tools available for this purpose is SEO — search engine optimization. This process works by creating web content that contains a certain number of keywords. When you’re content is properly saturated with these keywords, the chances of your website popping up in relevant search results is greatly increased.

Here are eight SEO tips that will boost your websites online exposure:

1. Keyword Selection

Keyword selection is the most important aspect to increasing your websites SEO. Make a bullet point list of 5-10 words that best describe your site. Then pick the three most relevant. These are your keywords and you should include them in your content, headers, titles and meta tags.

2. Evaluate the Competition

Are you trying to rank high with the keyword ‘iPad’? Then your chances of success are very slim. Millions of websites are competing for this very common keyword. Try to pick something a little more specific, like ‘green iPad leather case’.

3. Target Local Businesses

Although the internet isn’t contained by geographic boundaries, targeting your SEO content towards local businesses can really help boost your exposure. Having a local mindset means that you interact with regional businesses, and hopefully they will help to market your site both online and offline.

4. Domain Name
Your domain name has a big impact on your website SEO effectiveness. It can really be the difference between a trickle and a flood of online traffic.
Say that you want to create a website about dog food. Be sure to include your keywords in the domain name. For example, www.dogfood.com. This will greatly enhance your websites SEO.

5. Use Social Media

Social media is an inexpensive way to improve your websites SEO. Not only can you extend your websites reach to the social networking sphere, but you can also add a more personal touch to your content. Tailor your content for social networking just like you would if you want to optimize for Google — use your keyword in every wall post or tweet. But be sure not to overdo it.

6. Develop a Trusted Reputation

One of the fastest ways to destroy your websites credibility is to engage in spam-like SEO. Don’t post meaningless spam comments on blogs. Instead emphasize quality over quantity, choose a reputable web hosting service, and don’t let your site fall prey to cheap marketing gimmicks.

7. Quality Content

Remember, people will be the ones reading your content, not search engines. Therefore, write your content in an easy to understand and entertaining manner. If you’re bored writing the content, it is quite likely that people reading it will be bored as well.

8. Links

You can increase your websites online exposure through quality links. Start listing your site on various directories and begin to develop relationships with sites and blogs that are similar to yours.
Optimizing your site for the big search engines is a complicated affair, but with these eight SEO tips, your website will be ranking well and drawing thousands of new hits!

8 SEO Tips That Will Skyrocket Your Websites Online Exposure is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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Thanks to the internet and digital cameras, you do not need to wait days on end to share your photos with family and friends. All you need to do is transfer your images from your SD Card to your computer and then upload them to a popular image sharing website. Some of these sites, like Flickr.com, are among the most recognised domain names on the web.

But what are the best image sharing websites on the web? Here is our top 7:

1. Flickr

Flickr’s popularity is one of the internet’s greatest success stories. Flickr has developed such a strong community of photographers and art enthusiasts that its popularity is unrivalled on the web.

One feature you will love about Flickr is the uploading interface – it is much easier to use than most of the image sharing websites found on the web.

Flickr also uses dedicated servers, as do many of the websites mentioned in this article, so you can be sure your images will be safe and secure.

2. Photo Bucket

Of all the image sharing websites available on the web, Photo Bucket is by far the most popular in terms of general usage. As well as being easy to use, you will find that you have complete control over your photos due to their intuitive setup.

However, the feature that really makes Photo Bucket stand out from the others is its integration with the major social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, eBay and Craigslist.

3. Dotphoto

Dotphoto is a simply designed image sharing website that is very easy to use. Not only can you create albums, but also slideshows to which you can add narration and music. This particular site also uses a drag and drop system, so managing any uploaded photos is much more efficient.

4. Webshots

Webshots has one of the largest collections of photos online today. However, navigating around this site can prove to be a bit of a problem as there are many elements that require you to have flash installed. Another problem with Webshots is that, unlike many other image sharing websites, they do not allow video uploads

5. SmugMug

SmugMug is a very high quality image sharing website. Uploading photos is as easy as can be and the site allows you to layout your photos in such a way that friends and family can navigate through them very quickly. Better still, you have unlimited space storage with SmugMug.

6. SnapFish

Created by HP (Hewlett Packard) SnapFish is an aesthetically pleasing image sharing website that has all the regular features you would expect. Although the site is geared towards image printing and personalised photo gifts, their photo sharing facilities are more than adequate for the average user.

7. Fotki

Not many people have heard of Fotki, but it is a very good image sharing website. Like SmugMug, you have unlimited storage on Fotki and you can upload videos as well. However, unlike Flickr you cannot form private groups in Fotki.

Image sharing websites are an integral part of the online experience, so if you have been looking for a website to store and share your images, check out our seven recommendations above.

The Top 7 Image Sharing Websites is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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It is important to begin developing strategies to protect your business’ brand as soon as you launch its web presence. A key element of your online brand is a good domain name.

You can find strategies for selecting a good domain name in a number of places. However, some basic principles to keep in mind are to try and keep the domain name simple, keep it close to your business name or how people refer to your business, and make it easy to pronounce and spell by avoiding hyphens, numerical characters and unusual spelling if you can.

Once you have selected a domain name that is available, you should register your domain with a reputable domain name registrar (a service that Digital Pacific provides). It is then time to start protecting your brand. It’s best to start doing this before you launch your presence, as the process will become more difficult and costly as your brand grows in popularity.

Prevent Domain Prospecting

Domain name prospectors buy domains that might be used by businesses that aren’t yet online. They are gambling that once a business decides it wants the domain name, it will be prepared to buy the domain off the prospector for an inflated price. This is also referred to as cyber squatting, and is a practice that has extended to buying similar sounding domain names and obvious misspellings of common words. Prospectors will often set up small portal web pages at a domain and use broadly relevant links to take advantage of affiliate marketing and advertising. These portals generate revenue through page views, high click through rates and affiliate purchases.

Domain prospecting is an issue for you and your business because typos happen all the time. Less savvy internet users may not even realise that they have typed in the wrong address and will think that a domain prospector’s useless page is your business. This is not a good outcome for you as you are unable to control the experience that these potential clients have while they are searching for your products and services.

Strike First

A quick and effective way to stop someone from squatting on variations of your domain name is to register the most likely variations yourself. You should consider registering variations across the major top level domains of .com, .org and .net, as well as the country level domains of your main markets for maximum protection. For example, in Australia this means registering .com.au, .org.au and .net.au domains where possible. AuDA, the body responsible for the governance of Australian domain names, places specific restrictions around registering many of the .au domains. This will reduce the likelihood of opportunistic squatting around your .au domain names, but will not protect you completely.

Guard Against Bad Publicity

Another domain name phenomenon worth watching is disgruntled customers (and sometimes competitors) using variations of your domain name to publish negative impressions of your brand. A common technique is to add the word “sucks”or something similar to the end of a domain name and use the site to publish negative reviews and opinions of a service. A well-known example is the large number of sites that have been created to discuss the service of PayPal (try typing “paypal sucks” into Google for a taste). While it won’t be economical to register every potential offensive domain, it could be to your benefit to own and control the more obvious options if you operate business that focuses on customer service.

Be Ever Vigilant

Protecting your brand through domain name ownership is not a “cheap and easy” task. Less reputable organisations will continue to look for new ways to gain an advantage off the back of your brand, and different techniques will continue to be developed. However, protecting your domain name has clear and immediate benefits for all businesses serious about owning their brand and reputation online.

How to use Domain Names to Protect your Online Brand is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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Attracting people to your web site gets harder every year as more sites pop up on the Internet, all biding for attention. So how do you compete? One way is to implement PPC advertising, also known as Pay-Per-Click advertising.

The principle behind PPC advertising is that each time a customer clicks on the ad link, a small sum is paid by the ad owner to have the Internet surfer directed to a specific web site. As advertisers only pay the host when the ad is clicked, the idea is to carefully focus your advertisements to attract potential buyers from your target market. This should be a strong point of consideration when creating your ad as you will need to select the keywords relevant to your business. Generally, a web site owner looking into PPC will bid on these keywords and use them as the basis of the advertisement.

Note: The price of keywords and phrases can vary depending on the search engine used and the competition for the specific keyword and phrases that you are after. Since there are many companies offering the PPC service, including major players such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and Facebook, you would be wise to do your homework before you commit to one.

While deciding on the wording and / or images for your ad, you’ll also need to consider geographic targeting, set a budget and cap, and decide on an ad format. As mentioned, you may prefer all-text ads or wish to include graphics to create a banner. Graphic ads can be quite popular as they benefit from the detail of text while also providing visual appeal. A number of banner formats exist. Would one of the following suit you?

• Banners — Horizontal ads
• Vertical banners — Vertical ads
• Skyscrapers — Taller version of the vertical banner
• Rectangle Ads — As it suggests
• Buttons — Smaller than a banner ad
• Custom fit – Ads tailored to your site’s look and feel

Depending on your site design, budget and specific advertising requirements, you’ll be able to hone in on an appropriate PPC ad format.

Once your PPC ad campaign is in operation (for instance, using Google AdWords), you will see it displayed as a ‘sponsored link’ at the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Taking precedence over ‘organic’ search listings, they are more prominent to viewers.

If looking into Google AdWords when doing your research, note that there are FREE online tools that are great for getting started. The Traffic Estimator in particular provides some very helpful information once you submit your keywords and phrases. A great resource, it allows you to select target locations and languages, and receive crucial search data including:

• Global Monthly Searches
• Local Monthly Searches
• Estimated Avg. CPC (Cost-Per-Click)
• Estimated Ad Position
• Estimated Daily Clicks
• Estimated Daily Cost

This core information better positions you to make decisions regarding keyword choice, approximate daily costs, budgeting and competition for your keywords and phrases.

The popularity of the PPC advertising method not only sits with search engines but extends to social media such as Facebook. Even when just considering the number of your current Facebook ‘friends’, the ease of networking and the already massive user-market of the platform, the potential and cost-effectiveness of Facebook Ads is quite appealing.

As Facebook Ads highlights, there are:

• Over 500 potential customers
• Tools to control the amount of money you commit to the ad
• Options to target your market according to location, age and interests
• Methods for testing both image and text-based advertisements

Another word of caution – ensure you plan well before starting with PPC advertising. If you choose to implement a number of ads that incorporate different keywords for instance, you run the risk of significant costs — not only for the various keywords themselves but due to the sheer number of click throughs that can potentially be generated.

Like any form of advertising, the more users that buy your services, the smaller your advertising outlay will be. PPC is no different. By finding a balance between the relevant keywords to your business and their associated CPC, you’ll experience superior results.

With a well thought out plan of attack, consisting of ad budgeting and monitoring, PPC can be a great way to attract new customers.

What is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising? is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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Successfully marketing your business involves more than just having a website. Traditional (but still effective!) ways to promote your business offline include printing brochures, advertising in magazines, distributing email newsletters and sending out direct mail. To push people to your website, these offline marketing methods are ideal. They help get people talking and generate traffic, increase page views and, ultimately, increase sales.

Streamlining your web copy and offline marketing strategy

For this reason, it’s incredibly important that your offline marketing material and website work in tune with one another. Effective offline marketing will drive potential customers to your site like a ‘hook’; it makes people curious to find out more. When someone sees a brochure or an advert for something they like, their first reaction will be to visit the company’s website for more information.

Consequently, what the customer then finds at your website becomes extremely important. Not only does it reflect your business and make a lasting impression, but more significantly, it is usually the deal-breaker as to whether a customer chooses to contact you or not.

So while maintaining good design and user-friendly navigation, you MUST make the copy on your site as informative, engaging, useful and web-friendly as possible. A bit of a no-brainer really, but it is unbelievable how many businesses get this wrong.

FAIL: How to NOT write copy for your website

A huge mistake that many companies make when creating or revamping their website is that they rerun text from existing brochures and ads. This is a big no-no. You should always use your website as an opportunity to elaborate on your existing offline marketing material.

Don’t take the easy route and just copy and paste what you’ve already got. Add to it; back it up with valuable information. Write about your business, what you do, your product, or any related topic — anything to help convince the reader why they should buy something from you, or simply make contact.

If your site is almost identical to your brochure or printed advert, it adds nothing to what the customer has already seen. Remember that one of the core objectives of offline marketing is to drive customers to your website for more comprehensive information. If there’s nothing else on there for them to read, they’ll most likely lose interest and look elsewhere. A plain and uninteresting site will bore your potential customers and they’ll exit immediately, unlikely to return. Your chances of making a sale disappear, and their valuable visit turns into a wasted opportunity.

Make that sale! The benefit of capturing your reader’s attention

The exciting part for businesses is that if you are successful in generating (and maintaining!) a customer’s interest online, there is a huge chance you will make a sale. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, at least 61% of internet browsers purchase goods and/or services online. Furthermore, 71% of these online buyers are between the ages of 25 and 34, the bracket with the highest level of disposable income — perfect if your target market happens to fit this demographic.

So next time you’re thinking of writing copy for your website, don’t cut corners and rerun what you’ve already got. Double check what’s written on your offline marketing material and build on it.

When executed properly, an optimised website combined with offline marketing can work brilliantly together. Just make sure you add valuable information to nail your customer’s interest if you want to make a sale!

Creating Convincing Copy For Your Website: What NOT to Do is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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You’ve probably been quite busy up until now getting your new website set up. You’ve bought some quality web hosting; researched and registered a fantastic domain name; you’ve even gone through the process of choosing a design. At this moment, however, you’re sitting there twiddling your thumbs and asking, “Now what?”

Getting a website is not the final step in getting a new business presence online. People need to know to find you, and there are a number of ways to make that happen. Just follow this handy list and, soon enough, visitors will be flocking in.

1. Notify Personal Contacts
   The best way to get the ball rolling is to tell everyone you know! This includes friends, family and anyone else you might bump into. They always say that the best sort of advertising is word-of-mouth, so be sure to give people something to talk about! Just think about how many times you have heard about a business because a friend told you about it.
2. Get Listed in Business Directories
   Online business directories are generally a good place to list your products and services, and it also provides a link out there to your website. This can aid in getting your website into the search engines at a faster rate. For Australian businesses, we suggest searching for websites that focus solely on Australia unless you plan to also do business overseas. It’s all about target marketing.
3. Build Up a Link Network
   As mentioned in “Getting in Touch with the Target Market”, you need to find where your potential customers will be hanging out on the Internet. Once you do, these are great areas to start building up a link network, whether that be by leaving a comment on a forum, buying advertising space or doing a link exchange.
4. Get the Press Involved – Getting the press involved in an excellent source of promotion for a new website. Contact your local media and see if they would be interested in a piece about the new launch, or write up some press releases for popular news websites online. Again, it is best to choose a website that deals with only Australian businesses if that is your target market.
5. Social Network
   Social networking tools, such as Twitter and Facebook, are excellent ways to kick-start a new website. These tools are popular, and they have become that way for a reason. Accounts are free of course, so be sure to at least give them a try before passing up the possibilities they offer. New to Twitter? Check out our post on “Twitter Buzz” to help get you up to speed. Don’t forget to add @DigitalPacific to your list because we love new followers!
6. SEO
   Make sure your websites SEO is up to scratch. Check out Google’s very own
   Search Engine Optimisation Starter Guide. Be sure to have a well written page title, meta description and make certain that you have your keywords incorporated in your homepage paragraph text.
7. Submit your website to Google Maps
   

These are 7 great steps in getting the word out after a new website launch. Have any more good ideas? Share them with us by leaving a comment.

Website Marketing – My Website Has Just Gone Live – Now What? is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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An electronic newsletter, also called an e-zine, e-news and a myriad of other names is as its title suggests — an informative letter filled with news in an electronic format. More popular than ever before, it is a convenient way to both send and receive information and stacks up as a truly great business advertising platform.

Ultimately, the e-newsletter is a powerful sales and marketing tool at the tips of your fingers. With minimal fuss, you send it electronically and direct to the customer’s inbox. And as an alternative (or in addition), you can mail it out via hard copy. (This however lies outside the scope of the article).

E-Newsletters are a great, quick way to get core information to your contacts while maintaining the client-business relationship. As your business stays fresh in their minds, the aim is to keep those customers coming back and hopefully spreading the news as your ‘word of mouth’ sales army. It is a form of email marketing that is inexpensive and cost-effective.

Used to provide anything from information, inspiration, motivation and advertisements, the e-newsletter assists in creating a subtle yet powerful bond with customers that makes them feel part of an exclusive group. More specifically, it can be used to announce existing or new services and initiatives, advertise products, introduce new staff, share success stories or case studies, run competitions, highlight changes in business activities, provide images and video links or simply pass on new season greetings.

But let’s step back for just a moment.

Generally when a business collects new customer information, their email addresses are included, resulting in an important piece of data for your contact database. By collecting this data, you are asking for the provider’s permission to opt-in to receiving business communications.

Sourcing these details can also be achieved via other channels such as having a website e-newsletter registration system (the ‘Newsletter sign up’ box). Not only will these participants now be receiving your ‘business news’ but they will also be privy to information about your services and products, hopefully attracting them as new, paying customers.

In an effort to promote this marketing strategy, we should explore further benefits of writing a company e-newsletter:

Position yourself as an expert.

By consistently providing information about a specific topic, service or product, you become an authority on it. You demonstrate that you are the go-to person for this information. Your reputation as a business grows and lead generation increases.

FREE information for your clients.

Everyone likes to receive something for nothing. By providing this value to your clients (or prospects — remember those who sign up out of interest), they realise that you are genuinely on their side. It shows that you are not all about the hard sell but rather building and maintaining relationships. By demonstrating your intent to help your clients, they will be much more open to your products and services.

Make money easier.

It’s a given that remaining a profitable business by way of increased revenue received from existing customers is easier done than pursuing new ones. This can be achieved by targeting both your current and past clients through your contact database. These readers are going to be more receptive to receiving your mail and therefore a better chance at receiving a higher response rate.

Of course, growing your business also needs to be considered. Those prospective clients that you have met through referrals, networking events or social media are prime candidates for your e-newsletter. Now being familiar with you, hit them up with your next newsletter to further expand on your business. Note: you may need to gauge people’s receptivity as you don’t want to be known for spamming.

Track the results.

The great thing about sending out electronic messages is the fact that they can be tracked. Has it been received? Has it been opened? Has it been deleted without so much as a subject read? If it’s digital, you can monitor it. Hardcopy on the other hand — who knows? It could end up in the bin or as lining to the pet hamster’s cage. At least you can receive some indication when going electronic.

Client interaction.

Your business is online and not necessarily offline – meaning that you do not have a brick and mortar store. Customers like to think that your business is approachable. By offering an e-newsletter and reply mechanism, you are effectively saying ‘hey, c’mon in to my digital world and say hello’. It allows clients to interact with you. This is a good thing as people in general prefer to do business with people that they know.

Client satisfaction.

You can see that there is a pretty convincing argument for creating an e-newsletter full of informative, beneficial content that also doubles up as an advertisement medium for your products and services. Consumer sentiment is at an all time high when they feel positive about your business. And customers feel positive about your business when they believe you are there to help them.

Even from a strictly business perspective, with the amount of time invested and cost involved in producing an electronic newsletter, it really is a no-brainer. It is a way of maintaining relations with your current customer base, a vehicle for reaching new clients and more or less instantaneous.

So why not give it a go, you may surprise yourself. At the very least, you’ll surprise your customers.

Have you stumbled across this page while researching the benefits of an online business?
If you’re not already online, jump to our business hosting page to see our plans.

Say ‘Yes’ to Writing an E-Newsletter for Your Business Website. is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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Ok, so maybe the title was slightly misleading. Nevertheless, it’s possibly the reason you decided to read more by either clicking through or scrolling down. Intrigue is a powerful feeling. It’s what makes us ‘push the red button’ when told not to. It also lends itself well to a concept called guerrilla marketing which is the subject of today’s article.

A term defined by Jay Conrad Levinson, guerrilla marketing (aka gorilla marketing) is a way of promoting products and services in surprising, original and unexpected ways. It leverages from creativity and alternative thinking and relies more on unconventional marketing strategies, time and energy as opposed to big budgets.

Favoured by small business, this type of marketing allows companies to create exciting and fresh campaigns that are designed to cause a buzz. For businesses that employ this type of marketing, a well crafted and executed idea is just another opportunity to go viral. By using imagination to connect with customers in new ways, brands can be remembered and associated with potentially ‘bizarre’ situations. This in turn can give rise to continued ‘word of mouth’ advertising. Great when it all comes together!

A Diverse Attack on the Unsuspecting

Incorporating a number of marketing methods including the use of digital mobile devices, social media and street campaigns, businesses can create highly interactive programs in order to maintain interest and continued communication with customers and prospects. With the focus being on individuals and small groups, businesses make the experience more personal which is always going to relate better to prospects.

Having said this, it’s not just for small business. Some of the big boys like Microsoft and Apple have employed these tactics. Companies are always on the lookout for new and unusual ways to attract and retain customers.

But Tell Me More!

A simple example of guerrilla marketing is this article’s headline. Was it highly relevant to the content? No. (Although it did play on words with the whole Donkey Kong — guerrilla — ape idea!) Did it grab your attention or raise your curiosity? Possibly. The point is that some viewers, like you, would have read on which is a good start.

But What Are Some Other Examples?

Another more exciting and larger scale advert featured in the US where the marketing team of the new Jackass 3D movie decided to make things interesting. Instead of your stock standard movie billboard, they expanded on it by incorporating a full 3D ski-style ramp. As it led up to the billboard, onlookers would divert their eyes across the 15 foot gap to find a jet skier half embedded (along with Jet Ski) in the wall ad. Needless to say, the concept made people stop in their tracks and no doubt got them talking. The marketing brains did something a little different while playing on the ’3D’ aspect of the film.

You may also have heard of ‘flash mobs’ which can be used as a technique of guerrilla marketing. Essentially, this is where a group or ‘mob’ of people suddenly flood an area, perform an act of some kind and then disappear. If you’ve ever seen this occur, you’ll understand. The commotion it can cause is quite comical. While some people curiously watch and laugh, there are those more cautious who prefer to vacate the immediate area in a speedier fashion than the mob. However, done well, it can have a strong and immediate impact on brand and business awareness.

Punch Line

So while butchers don’t necessarily have to go out dressed as a cow holding a piece of meat in order to create lasting impressions it will surely raise an eyebrow if they do.

Have a crack and start the process by jotting down random ideas with the ‘words’ relevant to your campaign. You’ll be surprised just how many come to you when you open your mind to the absurd!

Oh and apologies for all those Donkey Kong lovers. No offence was intended!

Warning: Donkey Kong Loses His Pants is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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