How many businesses do you know that are effectively using viral marketing to build their web site traffic

According to The Kelsey Group’s (www.kelseygroup.com recent report Online/Offline Integration: The Next Phase, “targeted e-mail is a key part of the retail solution, but the uneven quality of local e-mail lists remains an obstacle.”

What is targeted email, and how does it compare to traditional advertising methods you may be employing in your business promotions?

Currently, most small firms in North America advertise through traditional avenues like telephone directories, community newspapers, and direct mail or newspaper inserts for coupons and information sheets. Under two percent of marketing budgets is devoted to online promotions, despite the incredible benefits available from making sure email gets routed around to the customers that count as cheaply as possible.

Consider the cost of a direct mail insert to your local newspaper with a circulation rate of 20,000 and a two-cents-per-insert mailing cost only. To simply insert your mailer you are now at $400. Include the costs of the physical piece at a three cents per copy regular paper home-produced info sheet, you’re now at $1000 – and you haven’t included your time to create the piece. So let’s say for a low-budget self-produced mailer you’re now at approximately $1100 to reach that circulation of 20,000.

A common ratio on direct mail is around one to two percent, meaning of 20,000 copies of your mailer circulated, only 200-400 consumers will read it and take an action such as saving it for the future, telling a friend or buying your product.

That’s a pretty big and broad expense for a very small and highly targeted group of consumers. Just think: perhaps as many as 19,000 of your inserts are hitting the landfill or recycle bin! Not only are you not getting a great return on your investment, you’re creating a big pile of trash to boot, just in case environmental values also play a part in your business decisions. It’s the equivalent of sending diaper coupons to a college dorm or senior citizens community. Not very targeted, is it?

Now, let’s evaluate email. Aside from your time in creating an email message, it’s free to send out an email from anywhere in the world to the list of interested consumers you have been collecting in your brick & mortar store, or through that complicated signup form on your web site.

So, score one for email.

Oh, but I can hear you saying already, “How do I build a list if I haven’t got one or it’s very small – I bet that’s expensive!” Well, not really, even if you’re buying a targeted list at five to 15 cents per address of people who have “opted in” to receive mail about a product just like yours. Every person receiving that email WANTS it, unlike the 19,000 mail inserts that just got trashed in the offline world.

Score two for email.

But wait – it gets better. On your web site and in your own small mailing list you have already got a whole bunch of people who love your product or service and can’t believe the value of what they’re getting. What if you could get all of those people to tell all of their friends and colleagues about you, and for less than having to buy each and every mailing address from them? Not to mention it won’t be you blowing your own horn – it will be your customers and visitors, gaining you that much more integrity with your offering.

Well, that’s what Referral Blast does (www.referralblast.com With no scripting required, only a small strip of code emailed to you for copying and pasting into your site, you can add a megaphone to your site that lets everyone who visits tell as many people as they know about your product or service. There are no annoying ads, no email addresses are harvested in the process, and no spam is ever sent since you are just enabling happy visitors to tell their own circle of friends about you. Plus, unlike many other online refer-a-friend services, you’ll be notified when someone recommends your web site so you can track how it’s working for you. You can even add a link to your tell-a-friend service to all of your outgoing emails and newsletters to help the process along.

Now, if you can find a newspaper insert for less than a hundred bucks that can hit unlimited numbers of consumers with a highly targeted and personalized message AND you’ll know when they get it – well, then that’s the fighting comeback of this century, because for now it’s a TKO for email.



How many businesses do you know that are effectively using viral marketing to build their web site traffic - To learn more about this author, visit Steve Zap's Website.

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