How to launch your site with a (Google) bang! - Part 2

May 31, 2007

For a complete guide to marketing your website, please check out my updated special feature on StartupNation: 5 Steps to Marketing your Website.

Part 1 in this series discussed using forums and online communities to give yourself a traffic boost. In this installment, I will give you some ideas on how to use your e-mail and personal network to get your PageRank off the ground when you launch a new website.

Your Personal Network

Everyone has a network - it’s that circle of family, friends, colleagues, business contacts, alumni, and former employers that you have met along the way during your life. While I don’t like the idea of hitting up your friends for money, I do like the idea of using your friends to spread the word about your business. After all, who would be more enthusiastic about your current pursuit than those who love you the most?

The difference between spam and a good viral marketing email is your call to action. Calls to action are for direct marketing campaigns, so leave it out here. All you really want to do is announce your new business venture and spread your ideas so they can roam around e-mail servers everywhere. Keep it simple, keep it positive, and don’t forget to put your contact information and URL at the bottom of your email. I also add a line that says something like “Please feel free to forward this to a friend!” on the bottom.

After sending this to people in your address book, consider which mailing lists you could try sending your announcement out through. I belong to several mailing lists that I could make an announcement to, including my alumni group and several networking groups.

E-mail Signatures

A colleague of mine was selling some tickets to a sporting event on a local classifieds web site. When a purchaser contacted her, she replied back with her full business signature at the end. He bought the tickets - and went to look at her site, later contacting her about some work he needed done. The moral of this story is that you never know what might be a potential networking opportunity, so include your signature on all your correspondence.

Typically, an email signature consists of a short bit of data that is placed at the end of your outgoing emails. This usually includes your name and/or company name, and contact information such as your website, phone number and email address. In addition, you can put a short marketing blip such as a tagline, a link to a recent project, or perhaps something you currently have on sale.

E-mail Etiquette

The last thing you want to do when you are starting out is offend someone or chase people away, so follow these guidelines to prevent problems:

Only send the email once.
In your email, give people a way to sign up for future updates, but don’t automatically send monthly emails to people who didn’t ask for it.
Limit the announcements to mailing lists.
Most networking lists ask that you only make business announcements once a month or a certain number of times per calendar year.
Remember the rules of copywriting.
Don’t take up too much of other people’s time with wordy emails that they won’t want to read.
Make your message clear, but not spammy.
Avoid saying “buy now!” and having a call to action that asks for a purchase. Think of it more as an announcement or press release, and less of a sales pitch.
Be polite.
Remember that when you use your e-mail signature for all correspondence, you are attaching your business name to everything you send out. E-mail is not confidential! Your message could be forwarded all over the entire country within days, so think before you hit send. (You can’t take it back later!)

Hopefully this article has given you some good ideas on how to use e-mail to launch your business and build traffic. Stay tuned for our next installment, in which we will discuss press releases.

Filed Under Marketing, Technology and Websites
Tagged: building traffic, e-mail, entrepreneurship, Marketing, netiquette, Networking, small business, website

Comments

2 Responses to “How to launch your site with a (Google) bang! - Part 2”

casinoitaliano on October 25th, 2007 9:51 am

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casinsuinternet on November 6th, 2007 6:46 pm

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