Thursday, February 02, 2006

Is Your Business A Secret?

Everyday I get email from subscribers and lately I've noticed that many of them don't provide any information about the senders online business.

Since this newsletter is suppose to help you with your internet marketing I am going to tell you - Don't keep your business a secret. Tell as many people about it as you can.

Maybe you think you are telling as many people as you can about your business because you've bought advertising.

But wait!

Are you using all or at least some of the free advertising methods available?

Since getting people to your site is of primary importance you should use as many marketing methods as possible to promote your site. And because most don't have a marketing budget that allows buying TV commercials or ads in popular magazines, we must do what we can with our limited resources.

That means we must use as many free marketing methods as we can and 1 of the easiest free methods is using a signature file.

From reading my email I can tell which subscribers have either been online for awhile or have at least read some tips about using free marketing methods and which subscribers are new to this whole promotion thing. So today let's cover a traditional free method of spreading the word about your online business.

Signature Files - A signature file is what you include at the end of all your outgoing email and contains at least your name, your web site address and a short description of what your site has to offer. This file is usually 3 - 5 lines long and is called a file because those who don't use an email program that will automatically attach it to all outgoing mail can keep it handy for copying and pasting into their outgoing mail.

Here are a couple of good examples from subscribers' email:

Nita
Nita Helping Hand?
www.NitaHelpingHand.com
For High Quality Proofreading, CopyEditing and Other Administrative Needs

Tash Hughes
Word Constructions
Ph: 0428 376 110 Fax: (03) 9445 9154
E-mail: tash@wordconstructions.com
Web: www.wordconstructions.com
For all your business writing needs

While the examples contain different information and are
different lengths, both promote their site very well.

Whenever these 2 subscribers send email, they are promoting their site to the receiver. And while they may not get a huge response from this marketing method they will get some. And remember, a little targeted traffic is better than no targeted traffic.

Now for those who are thinking, I don't have a web site, I am promoting an affiliate site so I can't use this marketing method, I say - Yes you can.

Many affiliate programs even provide you with signature files and if you're in one that doesn't, write your own and use your affiliate link as the web site address.

Here's an example of 1 of my own signature files - I use this 1 when writing to subscribers since they already know about my site:
--
I'm using a system to add thousands of opt-in leads to my
list for virtually zero effort - and it's all 100% free.
Find out more:
http://www.friendswhocare.us/listinferno.htm

If you click the link in this file that is set up more like a PS than a signature, you're taken to an affiliate page. By the way, PS items in email get read a lot so having a good PS that promotes something is another good free marketing method.

Using signature files and a PS note are both very good marketing methods and both are free. Heck, if you have more than 1 thing to promote you could even use both. So take a few minutes and create your own signature file and start using it. I'll expect to see more signature files from you starting today.

To Your Success,
Susan

PS - You can even use signature files to promote your site offline by using it as part of your return address on envelopes and contact info on your checks and business cards. (If you read this then you've just proven that PS notes do get read.)