How to Get 90% of the People You Email to Click Through to Your Product

Chris Anderson is fed up with being marketed to, as is David Meerman Scott.

I've been marketing for the last month now and getting something like a 90% clickthrough rate to my website. How? Great minds think alike: by doing the exact same things that David lists on his site:

1. Find out about your target.
2A. Be interesting to them and comment on their work.
2B. Or write something interesting to them that's not about your work.

In my case, I've been all 2A. I'm contacting people in my field and simply leaving comments on their posts, their work, or their forums with a linkback to my new company's site. My comments are anything from "nice post" to asking a specific question about what they've done.

The site is relevant to the people I'm contacting, and around 90% of the time they click on the link to find out who I am or what it is. Simple as that. Don't forget that the link's title is also something that might interest them, and I'm not even trying to sell it; they just want to know. Plenty of them do more than just click. They ask me for more information or want to sign up to my newsletter or beta test my product.

This is damn slow; only a dozen or so people reached per day. But it doesn't matter. Because if just a few of these people become my customers, I expect them to use the product and start spreading the word. Why?

That's really rule 0 of the above process: have something great to sell.

Yehuda

The Evaluator / Game Indstry Jobs

I've talked shop with dozens of startups in Israel, and researched thousands of companies, and I've begun to see myself as a bit of an evaluator.

Everyone thinks they're idea is the next cool thing. The next Monopoly. The next Youtube. Business plans now begin with the ultimate goal of selling the company for $1.5 billion dollars to Google.

In truth, the overwhelming majority of what I see is incremental. Good products, but only layers in the groundwork necessary for someone else to make it big. That doesn't mean that a good product can't have a successful story. It just means that a lot of people are bound to be disappointed when they don't turn into Youtube.

If you're only willing to talk to people who "drink the Kool-Aid", you're never going to find this our. You have to hear and accept critical impressions.

Better products don't spiral into public consciousness. Social paradigm breakers do. If your product isn't a social paradigm breaker which can spread without any involvement from you, it's not going viral.

I think you need a business plan that doesn't involve "being bought out for lots of money". How about one about making good products or providing a service that people need, being easy to deal with, being adaptable, and providing income for your employees. Gold-rush mentality is for suckers.

As far as my own abilities to evaluate, I'm still not 100% sure that they're entirely accurate, so I'm not about to start selling myself this way.

Game Industry Jobs

Working full time for a company has slowed down my personal Web 2.0 research, so I'm late in my next post of Web 2.0 jobs. In the meantime, I just posted 3500+ Game Industry jobs for your pleasure, instead.

Yehuda

Old School vs New School Marketing

My boss is a traditional marketer. We talk a lot about setting goals, but the differences between our schools of thought are constantly coming up. My problem is I don't know when I'm supposed to be learning from him and when I'm supposed to be teaching him.

One of the tasks he wanted me to do was to prepare the letter of introduction I will be sending to all the bloggers I will have made contacts with in order to introduce them to our new site once it rolls out.

OK, I thought, letters. Uh, wait.

"What letters?"

"Well, you simply expect them to know about your site by clicking on your user name in your blog comments?"

"Actually, yes. But if not, I won't be sending them all letters. I will talk to them one by one, when appropriate, and in the correct context. I won't be sending out marketing letters to them like they're my customers."

Blog marketing doesn't work like this. It's not: define goal, execute action, measure results. Blog marketing is relationships: build product, build relationships, trade information.

I think that last part is one of the most important parts: trade. I will be giving out as much as I'm getting, maybe more. Yeah, my goal is to get: coverage, visits, adopters. But my methodology is to give in ways that have nothing to do with our product.

Where on the time sheet do I put down: had a conversation about how to fix a program on a competitor's blog?

Yehuda

10 Essential Tips for Building Web 2.0 Companies

I've researched over 500 Web 2.0 companies, so far, and I'm working my way through 5000. Screw around with my suggestions at your own risk.

1. Present all the information I need simply

Everyone likes to be different, but don't be obtuse when it comes to handing out the information I need about your products and company. For your information, here are the names of the pages that must be available from your home page, and every other page of your site:

About

This page is about the site and product, as well as (or contains further links to) the company. The information about the site and product should be ridiculously straightforward. It should not be a company philosophy, a treatise on the Internet or communication, or your skeet shooting trip in Albania. It should not make grandiose claims about how your product has just solved the grand unification theory. It should tell me what your product does, it's main or distinguishing features, and why it will help me.

The information about the company should include: Team, Company, Press, and Contact (Press may be included within Contact). You don't need About Us or Corporate Info links on the home page, as well. Just About.

Contact

Feedback is acceptable, but discouraged, as it is too specific a type of contact. The contact link should not be a direct email address, but lead to a page with several types of contact methods, including a form and at least one main email. And, hello? You are a web 2.0 company. I've reviewed over 500 Web 2.0 companies so far, and only two have given any web 2.0 contact information such as IM, Skype, etc...

Don't use munged or picture anti-spam email addresses. You can set up a spam filter. Don't make me work hard when trying to contact you.

Tour

You can skip the video or Flash tour. If you include it, it shouldn't substitute for the simple About page.

Support

You can also call this Help. Support/Help leads to FAQ, user guides, a telephone number, and other contact info.

FAQ means FAQ, not About. FAQ lists are not necessary unless there are FAQs.

Terms

Or, Terms of Use.

Privacy

May be combined with Terms of Use.

2. Don't assume that I know what you are and do

Some of the sites I visit are so full of themselves that they start by asking me to do something without first explaining what they are. Give me a short description about the site on the top of the home page, and above the fold.

And don't hide your About page!

3. Your company's identity shouldn't be insipid

The first person to use a color and an animal, or a misspelled word, or a lower-case letter in front of a word, as a company name stood out. The rest of you don't. Don't follow the herd, please.

Furthermore, how do you really spell that name, anyway? In the browser title bar, it's spelled "companyName", in your logo it's "companyname", and in your descriptive paragraph it's "Company Name". How do you want me to refer to you?

And what's with the faux-Apple washed out rounded dim or pastel writing? I can't even read it. Don't use light gray, light blue, light pink, or light anything, on white or gray as your text palette. Distinguish between visited and unvisited links.

4. Keep your home Page URL clean

Don't give me http://www.foocorp.com/login.php?sessionid=;JS000000000001 . I want to see http://www.foocorp.com/ or http://www.foocorp.com/index.php at worst.

I'm going to be linking to your site. You don't want me to include a session id in my link, and you want me linking to your home page, not your login page.

5. Don't make your home page primarily Flash

It's large, it's bulky, and it's annoying. Make your home page static, and let me click to open your large Flash application.

I may have Flashblock turned on. Or I want to know what your site is about before I run the software. On slow connections, I don't want to wait for your program to be downloading and I don't want unexpected animation and sound starting up.

Furthermore, your program might not even work in my country. Don't force me to start a big program only to have it complain that I'm not in the U.S. or Canada.

6. Stop with the contextual ads

Unless your company's business model is really entirely contextual ad based, please don't put contextual ads on your site. You're trying to sell me a product. Meanwhile I think you're not really that invested in your product and would rather make some quick cash having me click off your site on the advertisements.

7. Make your product versatile

iTunes may be the most popular music store, but your product should not simply work only with iTunes. It should work with many products, including iTunes.

The same goes for any other proprietary businesses. You shouldn't base your business around someone else's proprietary business. For many reasons.

8. Provide XML integration

Your site should NOT be only an XML source for other sites. On the other hand, Web 2.0 is about integrating the best of what's out there into other products. That's why the best sites have open interfaces. Yours should, too.

Are you really worried that this will mean less visits to your web site? Didn't I already tell you to get rid of the contextual advertisements? Don't worry. The more your site is used, even as a filter, the more you will be able to leverage that usage.

9. Stop with the beta and alpha already

Public sites shouldn't be in Beta for more than a few weeks, and shouldn't be in Alpha at all.

10. Diversify your staff

Want to know something interesting about Web 2.0 companies? I've researched over 500 so far and I haven't seen a single Black or Hispanic person as a founder or executive. Not one. One: Kwaku Yeboah-Antwi of Peekko.com.

In the 500 companies, with between 1 and 4 founders/main executives each, I've seen maybe 20 or 30 women, tops.

Are minorities simply not interested in Web 2.0? Or is this because of whom the venture capitalists pick to fund?

I may be a middle-class white male Jew myself, but I'm pretty sure that I'm not representative of a large proportion of the world's consumers, who may, at least occasionally, want to see someone like them interested enough in your business to be a part of it.

Yehuda

I am not a Blogger; I'm a Customer Engagement Engineer

For some reason, the word Blogger is not only disrespected out of the online world, but inside, as well.

Outside the blogging world, a Blogger is someone who sits and writes dumb articles about his or her cat, partisan politics without research, flames, or celebrity pictures. Bloggers are not journalists. They do no research. They aren't worth reading. Etc.

I could sort of understand that from outside the Web 2.0 world. What I find harder to swallow is that the attitude inside the Web 2.0 world isn't much better.

In this world, Bloggers are millions of faceless and nameless commoditized text and picture generating machines. Frankly, it really doesn't matter what they say or write, it only matters how many links they write and the traffic they bring.

For this reason, Blogging as a profession gets paid nothing but performance. Bloggers have to write posts of certain length. 300 words, 500 words. They have to include certain links. If they're lucky, they'll get $5 and some of the advertising revenue. Most of the time, it's only the advertising revenue.

Good lord, man. That's not what I do. I don't write endless strings of garbage to bring in traffic or increase your links. I am not a Blogger.

I have spent three years honing the art of building client relationships. I measure the conversation about the brand. I seek out and engage you wherever and whenever you are talking about the company's space. I put a good face on the company, not by spamming, but by positioning myself as an expert and a nice guy.

I produce content that is truly useful to you. I create a client community. I straddle the line between you and company; I'm not happy unless you're happy. My job isn't to swallow up the story, but to make it heard. I want you to know that you haven't simply paid your money and bought a doodad; I want you to know that you have bought a responsive relationship with someone who will guarantee that the money you spent has brought you satisfaction.

I will educate you. I will entertain you. I will highlight your complaints, not bury them, to let you know that the company has heard them and that we take them seriously. I will highlight your happy stories, to let you know that we're happy when you're happy, and that others can have that too.

I will work hard, rest little, keep the lines of communication open, give you more than you asked for, keep you going, and give you something to look forward to.

I am a Customer Engagement Engineer. Calling me a Blogger is like calling someone in Customer Support a "Telephoner" because part of his or her job is to answer telephones.

No, I don't just sit around writing stupid posts.

Yehuda

Dell Did Something Right Once

According to this article in Business Edge, about corporate blogging.

Yehuda

How you get my business

Happy birthday, Indexed.

Yehuda