Month: November 2006

I’ve been working with a client recently setting up an email newsletter campaign for his existing customers. In his office the other day, he asked a very straightforward question that I hear from virtually every one of my clients:

The goal of any marketing campaign varies based on the needs of the business owner behind it. In this case, the client sells insurance policies in Grapevine, Texas and wants to focus on auto insurance for teen drivers. His product has three features that influence his most effective advertising strategy:

1. Insurance is a universal requirement for most of the visitors who will come to his website.
2. The insurance industry can be highly competitive.
3. His product is not unique and the primary selling points will be cost, quality of service, and name recognition.

With this in mind, we’ve been working on tailoring an advertising campaign designed to generate new sales leads and bring new insurance customers to his door. For his product, I believe that passive email marketing will yield the greatest results.

Active Selling

To actively sell a product means that your goal is to seek out individuals and a) make them aware that your products exists, and b) convince them that they need to buy it.

Active selling is most effective for new products that people may not be aware of – a new service your company offers, a new invention, or a new website that’s just been released. Actively selling a product is considerably more difficult than passive selling because it’s hard to convince people that they need a product they’ve never heard of!

Some examples of active selling include:

• Cold-calls and phone solicitations,
• sales pitch websites,
• bulk spam mail.

Passive Selling

On the other hand, passive selling is considerably easier and often produces better results. Passively selling a product means that your user base is already aware of what you have to offer, and your only goal is to stand out in their mind as a preferred source to acquire it.

In the example above, the vast majority of Americans need insurance at some point in their lives. By sending out helpful emails related to the insurance industry on a regular basis, my client continually reminds his base that he is an excellent source for insurance and that he is available to help them when needed. All he has to do is be ready to answer the phone when it rings!

Some examples of passive selling include:

• Newsletter mailers,
• follow up phone calls and sales visits,
• content rich websites.

How can I use this to improve my sales?

The difference between the two selling techniques can be subtle and is reflected in things like the wording sent out in newsletter campaigns and the type of website you maintain.

If you’re selling a product that’s not a new idea (real estate, insurance, auto sales, financial consulting, etc.) consider increasing the amount of effort you spend to passively sell your product and see if your results improve. Here are a few simple ideas to improve your passive selling efforts:

• Maintain a content rich website that lends credibility to your expertise. When people shop for your product, they will probably have questions that need to be answered. If you have a website that provides those answers up front, they will be more likely to buy from you.
• Keep in touch with your clients on a regular schedule. Use a calendar or some automated program to plan follow up visits and regular emails to touch base. Providing your existing clients with useful bits of information in your field can be an excellent way to stand out when they need your service or when they need to make a recommendation to someone else.

If you’re in the market to buy a content driven marketing blog, check out this auction over at SitePoint.com:

Here are the details:

PR3 – Business networking site – All original content

MarketingSmallBusiness.net is a content driven web site related to small business marketing and networking.

Content

This site contains 19 professionally written; original articles related to small business marketing and networking that have not been republished or distributed elsewhere.

The contributing author is available to do follow-up work on a paid basis, but that is not included as part of this auction.

Traffic

MarketingSmallBusiness.net is fully indexed by Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. It averages about 20-25 unique visitors per day*.

You can view traffic statistics at:
http://www.marketingsmallbusiness.net/stats/
username: guest
password: guest

* Our traffic numbers are not inflated with bot visits, paid traffic, or links from our other websites. Our statistics program does not count the majority of visits that would artificially inflate traffic.

Revenue

We started using Yahoo!’s YPN program to monetize MarketingSmallBusiness.net in September. Earnings are as follows:

Sep 2006 – $0.09
Oct 2006 – $6.79
Through Nov 17, 2006 – $2.38

You can view a screenshot of the most recent earnings at:
http://www.marketingsmallbusiness.net/ypnstats.jpg

Domain

The domain name is registered through GoDaddy. It was registered as a new domain on 7/14/2006 and is included as part of this auction.

Backend

This site is powered by a fairly standard WordPress installation. All content is contained within the WordPress database.

Terms

The buyer will receive a copy of the site contents, database, and domain name. The winning bidder will be responsible for their own hosting and moving the website to a new home. I’ll be happy to set up one year’s worth of hosting and move the site for you for a one-time fee of $200.

The web site development business is similar in many ways to real estate in that there’s an abundance of land for development, but the greatest demand and highest prices go to the areas with the highest profit potential.

As in the real estate business, many investors have realized that developed web site properties can be purchased for relatively small amounts of money, improved over a short period of time, and either resold for a profit or held to provide a passive income stream.

If you’re interested in flipping a web site for profit, keep the following in mind:

The Value of Experience

The saying in the real estate business when it comes to flipping houses is that you make your money when you purchase the property – not when you sell it. The same is true with websites. When flipping web sites, always look for those that can be purchased with minimal investment and turned for maximum profit. Investors with experience in online marketing and web site ownership will have the greatest advantage because they’ll have a better idea of a site’s profit potential based on their own experience.

Start Small

If you’re looking for your first web site to flip, start small. Investing a small amount your first time out is a great way to minimize your risk. Use the profits from your first small flip to finance your next larger one.

Go With What You Know

Look for web sites that appeal to you. The key element in a web site flip is the investor, and if you have no interest in the product it will be difficult to improve or even maintain the site. Start out by looking at sites themed toward your profession, your hobbies, your pets, or your social life. Having experience in the same genre as your website automatically gives you an advantage in making it more profitable.

Ask Questions

When purchasing a web site, it is important to learn as much about the site as possible before investing. Ask the seller how much money the site is making currently, the number of unique visitors to the site for the last three to six months, the number of page views per day, the hosting arrangements and the bandwidth requirements of the site. Consider using our web site buyer’s checklist to make sure you’re asking the right questions

Watch Out For Inflated Traffic

When it comes to traffic, more is better. Watch carefully for web site owners that inflate traffic statistics artificially by manipulating log files, counting web spider and bot visits, high traffic incoming links that will expire after the site is purchased, and large amounts of paid traffic over short periods of time

Get the Business Plan

If you’re purchasing a web site that already turns a profit, make sure to get all of the information you’ll need from the buyer to duplicate their results. Are they using banner ads or text links from another source? Are they contributing regular articles? Do they purchase paid traffic from a search engine? What keywords do they target? Any reputable seller will be happy to share this information with you when they pass on the site. Often, it’s best to have them lay out a business plan on paper. Don’t be afraid to question them about any part of the process and follow up with them later on if you have a question.

Move the Domain Name

Ownership is nine tenths of the law. Always transfer the domain name to a registrar account under your own control. Never leave it in the original owner’s name.

Previous Engagements

Be sure to ask the original site owner if there are any previous engagements you’ll be expected to honor once you purchase the site. Think about things like ongoing contests with promised prizes, memberships that have already been paid, text links that have already been purchased, etc. Be sure to ask all the questions outlined in our buyer’s checklist.

Use Your Network to Promote the Site

If you’re flipping multiple websites or if you own a network of web sites already, you have a distinct advantage over your competitors! Use sites in the same theme to boost traffic, search results, and reputation while waiting for your sites to sell. Avoid artificially inflating traffic statistics, but use multiple sites to promote those in your own network. Purchasing and flipping multiple websites in the same theme can add instant value to each of the sites involved. You may even consider consolidating content and membership to a single site.

Improve the Web Site

Lastly, before purchasing any website you should have a clear idea of how you are going to improve it. Do you have a plan to increase advertising revenue or bring in new members? Do you have an affiliate program membership that would work well with your potential purchase? Do you have an existing website you can use to boost traffic to the new purchase or vice versa? Whatever your plan, make sure it is outlined carefully and within your means. Avoid purchasing a website simply because it looks cool and figuring out how to flip it later on.

If you’re interested in purchasing a website, make sure you’ve done your research. Here are some questions you should be asking:

1. What is the purchase price of the web site?
2. What domain names are included?
3. Will the domain names be transferred to the new owner?
4. What are the traffic statistics of the web site?
5. How many unique visitors a day/month does it receive?
6. How many page views?
7. What portion of the traffic is artificial (bots and search spiders)
8. Where does the site’s traffic originate from?
9. Will there be substantial changes to incoming links once the site is purchased?
10. How old is the website?
11. When was the domain registered?
12. When was content first placed on the site?
13. How is the web site being hosted?
14. How much bandwidth does it consume?
15. What programming language(s) does it use?
16. Is there a database involved?
17. Is there an existing member database?
18. Is contact information available for members?
19. Does the site make money?
20. How does the site make money?
21. How long has it been profitable?
22. What previous arrangements exist with other vendors?

With some of the larger and most influential search engines, the age of a website is used as a key indicator of relevancy. Websites that have been around for a long time are considered more authoritative than short-lived ones. You can use this to your advantage when starting a new website by registering an expired domain.

I use snapcheck.com to locate expired domains for my projects. Try to look for ones that are more than two years old and have some incoming links. This can be a trial and error process as expired domains become more and more popular with domain name resellers, but I’ve managed to manually pick up a few good ones here and there.

Here’s a good tool from webconfs.com that will give you an idea of how old a website is (when it’s first content was published) and ties into the Internet Archive to show you what content was posted there originally.

Tip: Search engines are concerned both with the age of a website and its current length of registration. Consider registering your domain name for five or ten years to maximize its appeal.