It’s easy to the think of your “Thank You” pages as being the final resting place of website visitors after a well-executed online marketing strategy, but sadly this isn’t the case.

Actually, I shouldn’t use the word “sadly” as it opens up a whole host of new options for those keen to engage their online customers. Rather than saying thanks and holding the door open for them as they leave your virtual shopping area, we should be focusing on:

• Strengthening the relationship
  

  Don't Let Customers Just Walk Away

• Encouraging them to buy more
• Suggesting they sign up for future offers
• Giving them special treatment
• Pointing them to complimentary services

Think of it as the start of a beautiful friendship! No doubt, you’ve worked darn hard to get them to that stage, so don’t go doing anything that might allow them to stray to a competitor website now.

Tweet Me | Like Me | Recommend Me

Start with a simple Quick-Win of integrating your Social Media accounts – suggest users sign up to your Facebook profile, Twitter profile or connect with your business via LinkedIn for mutually beneficial online business networking opportunities.

Dont ask for loads more personal information so that you can bloat your customer database with little demographics that will never get used but if you can get them to click a button to support your Social Media marketing campaign, then go for it!

No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

But you can give away free PDF guides or Wedinars as a final “Thank You”.

Avoid generic Thank You pages, tailor different customer journeys and purchases to make the customer feel like they have been genuinely assisted through the process.

Remember to try it, test it, improve it and never rest on your laurels (they chafe on the butt-ocks!)

Using Outlook to send bulk e-newsletters to your customers? Whoa! Stop Right There!

Ask yourself these vital questions:

• What % of my customers receive my emails?
• What % of my customers actually open my emails?

Now if I was to tell you that out of the 1,000 emails you send each month…

• 110 never receive it;
• 620 never bothered opening it;
• and that only 54 click on anything within the email.

…would you still bother sending it? Probably not.

So? What am I doing wrong?

Well, there’s a chance your mailing list is out of date, that many of the email addresses are no longer used or are misspelt, or have been entered as .com’s instead of .co.uk’s. Then there’s the free email providers such as AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo and GMail all of whom have strict rules and monitoring in place to stop us from getting “spammed” or “phished” so they do two main things:

1.) Block emails from sources they believe to be spammers, based on a bizare and often unpredictable set of rules.

2.) Throw any low risk spam into your  “Junk Folder” so it doesnt upset the bona fide emails in your lovely inbox.

This of course means your beautifully-crafted email doesn’t get through to a vast percentage of your customers.

Even if your email is one of the lucky, triumphant ones and makes it to the inbox like one of those virtual tadpoles you see on sex education videos at school, it then has to convince the recipient to click “open”…

A whole new host of issues then arises:

• Is the subject heading inviting/encouraging/inspiring/intriguing?
• Does it come from a reliable source?
• Is it swamped in a sea of more interesting emails?

Finally, the most important part – once opened, how do you keep the reader engaged and how on earth do you get them to click on that link directing them to your website so they can Buy, Buy, Buy! I’m not going to tell you that, but…

MailChimp Storms the Microsoft Castle!

MailChimp has all the other answers!

We’ve used MailChimp for a couple of years now and honestly struggle to find much fault with it! (Hmmm – Well I guess it could be FREE??)

It stores and manages your entire mailing list, helps you create a sign-up page for your website, gives you email templates, provides detailed reports and most importantly …

Integrates All This “Social Media” Malarky

Ok, so everyones told you how important it is to be a Twit, to have 4,000 “friends” on Facebook, that your meant to “Digg” everything thats “Delicious” on YourSpace or MyTube? Well, MailChimp provides you with a slick way to adhere to all this advice, simply click the buttons once your spanking new email newsletter gets sent and you’ll be taken to all the relevant social media sites so you can make the most of your latest work of litery genius.

Practicing What You Preach

We recently launched our LandingNet Chinwag – our laid-back approach to e-shots, e-newsletters, email marketing…whatever you want to call it!

The results were great, more than doubling the industry averages for the percentage of emails opened and clicked on, whilst receiving a tiny fraction of the average “bounce” rate.

“Hard Bounces” are those where the email address does not exist and is instantly returned by the email provider.

“Soft Bounces” are where the recipients inbox might be full or the email provider has tried to deliver the email but after several attempts it fails.

Our LandingNet Chinwag only  received two “bounces” one hard, one soft and the hard bounce was actually our fault – we entered the email address in wrong! Whoops – hey, no-ones perfect right?? ;O)

Looking to improve your knowledge of SEO or Google Analytics?

Recently we’ve been mulling over the most effective ways to help local businesses promote themselves online and realised we’ve missed one vital area – training courses.

We felt that with finances so tight for businesses at present, paying a digital agency such as ourselves an ongoing fee to manage their websites and/or online marketing may stretch budgets too far. Instead, a one-off charge is far more manageable and invests valuable knowledge in either the business owner or a member of staff who may act as Webmaster.

Over the coming weeks we’ll be talking to website owners to distill their training “wants and needs” into a focused training course.

Our hope is to pass on our combined knowledge of:
•    Website Analytics
•    Search Engine Optimisation
•    Pay Per Click
•    Google AdWords

This will be via either one-day training courses based in Fulbeck, Lincolnshire with gourmet lunch provided or alternatively, at the clients business premises (where the client takes us out for lunch of course! ;O)

The latter would be the more expensive option as it would effectively be one-to-one consultation, with the Fulbeck course aimed at small groups of about 6 people, helping to reduce the cost per person.

One area we feel is vital for any web training course to be successful is the support after the course ends. So all our training courses will come with a minimum of seven days email and phone support, ensuring any problems or questions that arise  after the course can easily be resolved with the trainer.

We’d really love to hear any feedback or suggestions you might have about the correct course content, how long the courses should run and preferred locations?

If all goes well, we’ll put on the first web training course completely FREE so even if you are only vaguely interested, drop us an email and we’ll put your name in a hat (or similar storage device?) to see who gets to come!