Let's revisit the restaurant analogy one last time: You've got your restaurant all ready to go.
A really catchy name and theme for your establishment has been chosen. The menu has been set, and the
décor of the place is fantastic. You've gone out and hired the best staff possible to provide top of the line
service and food. Your place of business will make any customer who walks in that door a happy diner. Think
you are done? Remember, running an online business is a never-ending process. There are always tasks to be
undertaken, and in this case, a finished web site will not attract traffic by itself. For our fictional
restaurant owner, advertising in food magazines and other related publications is a necessity for attracting
more diners. You cannot merely depend on customers who just happen to come across your site; you must
aggressively go out and put your marketing message in front of the millions of people who log onto the Internet
everyday.
Net Fact:
According to popular opinion from online advertisers, your site should have at least 10,000 visitors a
month before they would seriously begin talking with you about advertising. Note that we said 10,000
visitors, not impressions, not hits.
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Listing and Submitting Your Site
Did you know that out of the hundreds of search engines online, the top 10 controls most of the Internet traffic?
Google, an extremely fast search engine, alone has over 1.2 billion
indexed pages, according to Search Engine Watch. Start with
the major ones - Alta Vista, Yahoo,
Infoseek, Lycos,
Hotbot, Excite,
Webcrawler, and of course, Google
(where our site is incidentally number one in our respective field) - and then carefully research and submit to
other search and directory services specific to your industry, such as AsianMall. For example, if you have a
site that sells Asian arts and crafts, you would definitely want to advertise with us at AsianMall, along with
other art directories. Beyond this, you may wish to submit to numerous other submission services currently
available or pay someone to do this for you.
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Submitting Yourself
- Promotion World
-- go to their "Online Tool" section to access their free site submission program which automatically submits
your site to the top 30 search engines and directories. Fast and free service.
- uSubmit
-- free service automatically submits your site to 29 of the top search engines and over 2,500 link listings.
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Getting Assistance
- 1st Place Ranking
-- specializing in "increasing traffic to your website," they can optimize your web pages for top search engine placement.
- 1st All Web Site Promotion
-- they have several promotional packages "guaranteeing" high placements on top search engines and directories.
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Exchanging Banner/Swapping Link
Look for sites that are likely to attract the same kind of customer that you are looking for
(but not carrying similar or exactly the same products) and arrange a banner swap with them. Those web sites
carrying content that complements your own are ideal candidates to provide the best source of traffic.
Typically, you'd have to surf the Internet looking for these sites to link with, but there are services online,
some free, that host banner exchange programs. All you have to do is sign up and they can take care of the rest.
Also, while designing your own unique banner through applications such as Photoshop is ideal, there are other
solutions for those of you who either don't have Photoshop (or similar) applications or have no time.
Transacting reciprocal banner advertising is most successful when both sites deliver about the same
amount of traffic. Obviously, you are going to have an uphill battle arranging a banner swap with a bigger
site with visitors a hundred times greater than your own. Think of it this way: if a small electronic store
called Joe's Electronic Stuff wants to partner with another small store, like Earl's Cheap VCRs, the deal has a
good chance of going through. However, if the owner of Joe's Electronic Stuff has in mind to partner with a
giant like Good Guys!, then the chances are really slim for that happening. In these kind of situations, often
times advertising becomes relevant topic of discussion.
Here are a few Banner Exchange programs that we highly recommend:
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Link Exchange
-- get your banner on the world's largest banner network.
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Web Union
-- get your banner on a specific, highly targeted network of similar merchants.
This way, the traffic you can drive to each other will be relevant and useful.
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*note : for tips on banner creation or automatic banner generator services,
visit the Catalogue and Layout tools section.
Advertising Your Site
The good news is that in the online world, the larger sites usually offer other sites advertising opportunities,
from banner ads to text links. The ad rates can be based on ROS (Run of site), Fixed impressions,
pay per click, or a flat monthly. Minimum advertising budget can run from $100 to $5000 on various highly visited
sites. There are so many ways to get your marketing message online and companies are constantly figuring out new
methods to cut through all the advertising clutter. Fortunately, there are services available online that can
assist you in buying and swapping advertising space, most common in the form of banner ads, with a host of
different sites.
AsianMall.com has partnered with many quality content sites which can be the perfect medium to reach your
desired audience, depending on what business field your site belongs to. Feel free to contact them today and
inquire about an interactive advertising program.
- Astyle
-- the definitive source for finding more about Asian celebrities. With almost 3 million hits a month, this site is a perfect channel to the young and trendy Asian demographic.
- www.asian-america.com
-- NOT just another Asian American site. They promote the intellectual, exciting, and daring
issues that come with living as an Asian in America.
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Setting Up Affiliate Program
Allow other web sites to sell and/or advertise your products. You will still fulfill all orders but pay
your affiliate commission on each sale generated. This is a great, low cost way to spread out your name
and reward those helping you reach maximum visibility. Setting up an affiliate program for your site is
an easy, automated, and trouble-free. Of course, for the tech-savvy who wish to design their own affiliate
program, there are tools readily available to do so.
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Affiliate Shop
-- sign up today for their easy-to-integrate affiliate services. No technical hassles;
get your own affiliate program with just a couple of clicks.
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My Affiliate Program
-- Powerful software that you can use to customize and build your own affiliate program.
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Commission Junction -- Commission Junction's customers include over 1800 online merchants and 400,000 unique affiliate
content sites that together represent over 5.5 million e-commerce partnerships. Drive Traffic
To Your Online Store by signing up
as an Commission Junction affiliate. Increase your sales, increase your profit, and your online store will prosper.
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Affiliate Zone
-- affiliate tracking and management software complete with dedicated client support.
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Setting Up Mail List
Should your site undergo frequent updates in products offered or simply new information regarding your company,
letting your customers know firsthand is a priority. You should have a list of visitors and customers who have
left their details and requested to be kept in touch with future developments and offers. This list of names is
a most precious resource of information for your company.
You need to judge when you have something of importance to tell your customers; does it warrant their
time? If you send your customers too much mail every week detailing every little thing about your site, it is
called Spamming, and this can cause a lot of your customers to be upset (And, of course, this is the last thing
you can wish to happen). At the same time, if you don't remind your customers
once in a while of your site's activities, they may miss out on a sale or promotion, and get upset at you for
not informing them. Finding a balance is the key. Once every month or two is usually good enough to keep your
customers posted and not overloaded with information.
While AsianMall.com can't give you a concrete answer as to how frequent you should mail your customers;
we can provide links to sites that can get you started on customizing a mailing list for your site. There are
programs out there that you can easily implement into your site, giving you mailing list accessibility. Advance
tools are also available if you want to custom design your mailing list.
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Designing your own mailing list
- Solution Scripts
-- download for free PowerList, a powerful software that allows you to develop and maintain your
own mailing list for your site. Works only with Unix based servers.
Getting Assistance
- List Bot
-- For a low monthly fee, get the ability to integrate their List Builder package into your site. Imagine
having opt-in customer email listings, detailed demographic breakdowns, and easy management of your account.
- Brave Net
-- Join as a member and get free access to their mailing list service. Hosted on their site, now you can
build your own mailing list of customers without much technical expertise.
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Sending Out Newsletter
After developing a mailing list where your customers voluntarily opt-in their email addresses, it is your
responsibility to keep them updated on your site. Now as previously mentioned, it is important to not abuse
your mailing list and bombard your customers with unnecessary information. But when it is time to communicate
with your customers something really important regarding your site, you want to make the message as appealing
as possible. Sometimes a simple email will suffice in getting your message across. Other times you will need
to develop a newsletter to send to everyone on your mailing list. A newsletter is typically a one-page primer
detailing the latest sales, updates, etc. on your site. For assistance online in creating your own newsletter,
click here for some guidelines.
Announcing Your Site via Press Release
Although it is becoming more difficult to get journalists interested in new Web sites, a well-crafted
press release should still generate good results especially if your site has something new to offer. When
writing up a press release, look for a service or section of your site that is unique, offering something of
value to the online community. Ask yourself, "Is it newsworthy? Will the reader of the press release be
interested in finding out more?"
A well-written press release cannot be too long and winded; but it can't be short and fluff either.
The next step is providing as much contact data as you can on the release. If a media contact is interested
in your press release you would want to provide that person as many ways possible to contact you. Never follow
up a press release with a phone call to the recipient inquiring if he/she "got the release". This can be
incredibly annoying to media people, since they are constantly on a tight deadline and don't appreciate wasting
their time. Should they find your item newsworthy, they will every attempt to contact you. See links below for
tips on writing effective press releases.
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Writing it yourself
- News Bureau Tips
-- the Internet News Bureau provides tips on all facets of press releases: from writing up a newsworthy piece
to dealing with the media.
- Promotion World
-- Very useful online directory on web promotion guidelines and tips. Their press release writing help section
is very detailed and neatly categorized.
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The sites below have been very successful assisting web sites in amassing media enthusiasm. They can
distribute your press release to hundreds of media outlets at very reasonable prices. If you can't write your
own release, they also offer PR development services.
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Press Release Writing
-- offers a special web site launch package, with optional press release development program available.
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Click XChange
-- E-Releases helps write your press releases professinally.
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Creating Customer Confidence
Website promotion doesn't just end after you get your name out there in all those search engines,
link directories, and FFA pages. Once a customer clicks onto your online store, you are still responsible
for promoting your site to that person. You want to make it clear to your customers that they can trust doing
business on your site. Some of you may be wondering, "isn't this the same as site security, with those SSL
forms?" The difference is, with security certificates, you are hereby getting the message out that your site
is protected from dangerous outside elements, such as hackers. In this section we are here to show how promoting
the idea to your customers that they can trust you as a merchant is also critical for success.
Customers are always wary of hackers that can break into a site's security system and steal important data.
However, you must remember that most customers are cautious of the merchant being honest with their payment
information as well. The best way in getting the idea across to consumers that your site will be honorable in
all transactions is to display either a BBS or Etrust logo on your front page. Participation in these programs
will not put you site on more search engines or banner exchange links, but it does promote one of the most
important messages every e-commerce site should have: can a customer trust us?
- Better Business Bureau
-- Distributes your press release to targeted media in relevant areas of interest.
- E-Trust
-- offers a special web site launch package, with optional press release development program available.
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> > [STEP 8]
Meeting Customer Expectations: Order Fulfillment
