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NOTES ON THE BASIC INTERNET ADVERTISING CHECKLIST
E-mail Things to Do
1. Written plan. Have a written plan that begins with what you expect to achieve, then lists, step by step, how you are going to achieve it, including staffing and costs. Remember: Everything costs more than it costs and takes longer than it takes!
2. Prospects/customers. List, in writing, the reasons your customers and/or prospects want to hear from you—by e-mail. Make a separate list that tells how you know. No fair beginning with, “I won’t know until I try.”
3. Address collection. What will systematically permit the collection of e-mail addresses of value to you, and even more important, to those receiving your messages? The key word here is permit.
4. Type of list(s). Will you begin with a with a single list and, as it grows, divide it into special interests later? How many special interests are likely? Do they have enough in common to make a single-page message work for all?
5. List coding. Assume you want to have specialized lists from the beginning. Can you code them in a way that is practical for your e-mail system to personalize and for you to retrieve any or all? Who is going to do all this?
6. Customer service e-mail. Check Article 9 about the transformation of telemarketing to teleservicing. The same is true of e-mail and other Internet communication. Often it’s what changes buyers into long-term customers.
7. Front line staff. Front line, the staff that has direct contact with your customers and prospects, need help not only in learning their e-mail functions but in wanting to do them well. Include incentives to do both from the very beginning.
8. Staff job fears. Be realistic about job loss fears. Explain that the e-mail effort is part of advertising/marketing and not a plan to cut other jobs. It helps if this is true. Internet Things to Do
9. Written plan. Whether expanding from e-mail or starting with full use of the Internet, begin with a written plan. List your goals, then outline how you’ll reach them. Put time and dollars for every step. Most businesses do not make money on the Internet, so be sure why you’re there.
10. Web marketing supervisor. If you’re thinking of doing this yourself, who will do the rest of your job?
11. Staff addition/training. Train your staff—especially if it’s yourself— well in advance. You won’t turn prospects into customers or customers into buyers by rewarding them with Web site use frustration or unhelpful customer services responses.
12. Web designer interviews. Verify your prospective Web designer’s credentials two ways. Speak with the clients for whom he or she has worked. Even more important, use the Web site(s) he or she produced. Some clients are satisfied with less than you need.
13. Web site test plan. Before design begins, insist that testing be built in as an ongoing part of your site. So learn what is possible—and practical— for you. Hire a consultant, if necessary. Consultants get paid in advance, so check those credentials the same way!
14. Internet advertising. In all probability, there are Web sites, often by the dozen, whose users specialize exactly in what you have to offer. Test advertising there to see who’ll switch over to you and then apply what you learn to improving your own site.
15. Banking partner. Leave Web site billing and collection for comparatively low-cost goods or services to someone else. Find a bank that specializes in this. Use it. Its fee will be less that becoming your own collection agency. (But just in case, get a complete fee schedule, in writing.)
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