SBBM #12 – Strategies to Help People Find You Online
If the idea of creating a blog for your business is anywhere on your marketing radar but the idea of actually keeping it current and interesting does your head in then stop reading this and start listening to episode 12. In it, we interview James Duthie, blogger extraordinaire and online marketing strategist. He tells us how to get blogging plus how to get found in the largest haystack of them all which we all know as the world wide web.
Duration: 27:24
Small Business Big Marketing Podcast
Mentioned
SEO Book
Perry Marshall’s Google Adwords eBook
Get Drop Box
Aweber
Big Response
How to blog almost every day
SEOmoz
SEOland
Get Abstracts
Podcast Transcription
Tim: Lukey, Lukey, Lukey, look at you, you have got hat hair, haven’t you, true?
Luke: Yes, it was a sunny day yesterday, Timbo, and it’s, you know, still stayed in that position. I must have a shower.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, you’ve sort of got that Elvis sort of flickback thing happening. Very nice though. Sorry, it’s not a visual medium so we probably shouldn’t talk too much about what we can see and our listeners can’t. Hello, listeners, welcome to Small Business Big Marketing episode, about 12 or thereabouts.
Luke: Yeah, thereabouts.
Tim: Yep, exciting stuff. So Small Business Big Marketing a show, if you’re a small business owner or someone responsible for the promotion and getting more customers for a business or a charity then you are so in the right place.
Luke: Indeed you are. We’re here to motivate you about your marketing…
Tim: Yep.
Luke: …endeavours.
Tim: Endeavours, successes, you know, quit that jibber jabber.
Luke: Quit that jibber jabber, fool.
Tim: Yeah, well that’s an ad from Australia.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: So it probably doesn’t work for our overseas listeners. It’s a Mr T ad promoting a chocolate bar, but that’s by the by really, isn’t it. So, Luke, today, a couple of things before we introduce our guest.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: Came across a ripper, and I mean ripper, website that everyone in business should subscribe to. It’s called…
Luke: Great for those people who are time poor, Tim.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, yeah, big time. Time poor and don’t want to read pages and pages and pages of business books.
Luke: Sounds like me.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, and me. And probably most people. This website must be doing a roaring trade. What they do is…it’s called abstracts.com.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: And we’ll put a link in the show notes to it, but this website summarises business books and they’ve summarised about 5000 business books so far, all the biggies. And they summarise it down to five pages. So just get the, you know, like the nub of the idea.
Luke: Mmm.
Tim: And I’ve always had this sort of theory that says that a lot of books that you read, particularly business books, they could have written it in a page.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: It’s like, you know, here’s the idea, next.
Luke: Just give me the punch line.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, that’s right.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: But it’s like…great example is that book Malcolm Gladwell’s…
Luke: Tipping Point.
Tim: Tipping Point, yeah, yeah.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: So Tipping Point was like this notion…no, I’ll tell you the one I was thinking of, that is a Malcolm Gladwell book, but I was actually thinking of Blink.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: Which was another book that he wrote. And the concept behind Blink was that as soon as you saw something or were presented with something, you either knew that it was a yes or a no. Yes, I like it, no, I don’t, type stuff. Yeah?
Luke: Yep.
Tim: In the blink of an eye. And this book went for about 400 pages. And I think that that book could have been summarised in a paragraph. The rest of it was kind of…it was interesting.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: You don’t agree, do you?
Luke: I like…I like the case studies that he presented actually.
Tim: They were good case studies.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: But the actual concept…
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: …was quickly easy…easily…easy to understand.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: So, look, this is a great source. You get them in PDF form, you can download them to your iPhone, you can download to your Blackberry.
Luke: So audio books as well.
Tim: Audio books as well.
Luke: Fantastic.
Tim: It is, it’s really good. And so we’ll put a link to that in our show notes. But you will look really smart if you become a member of Abstracts. The other thing, drum roll, we are launching a new product, listeners, for you, dedicated to you, and it is called…
Luke: Small Business Big Marketing Spotlight.
Tim: Spotlight. And it’s all about, Luke?
Luke: Putting the spotlight on your business, Tim.
Tim: Yeah, it is. It’s very exciting. So what it is is you just need to send us five questions that you may have about the marketing of your business and up to five pieces of marketing material that you have for your business, that might be your website, stationery, ad, brochure, whatever it may be, send it through and we will put it into the Small Business Big Marketing machine, Luke. That happens to be you and I.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: And out the other end will come a dedicated Small Business Big Marketing episode entirely, entirely, about your business.
Luke: Yes, that’s right. It will be a 20 minute podcast for your ears and your ears alone should you choose it to be.
Tim: For your ears…oh, no, that was that James Bond, don’t go there. So, yeah, like no one else hears this. We send you the audio file and you can play it to whoever you want to, but it is for you, it won’t be put on iTunes or anywhere else. And it’s a dedicated show. So, listeners, send us an email with that information to?
Luke: Spotlight@SmallBusinessBigMarketing.com.
Tim: And don’t forget, five pieces of marketing material that you currently have for your business, website would be good because that gives us a real insight into your business, and five questions about the marketing of your business that you’d like answered and you will have a show coming to you within seven days.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: So get onboard. And the cost, that would be an important factor, Luke, in someone deciding to use us.
Luke: Indeed.
Tim: And it is $497 Australian.
Luke: Yep, Aussie.
Tim: Aussie, Aussie. Which makes it cheap, Americans, and people from the UK and Europe and anywhere else in the world.
Luke: Although the Aussie dollar is on the…
Tim: It is.
Luke: Anyway.
Tim: It’s going all right.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: And that is via PayPal and all the details will be on our website. So go for it, we look forward to doing a dedicated Spotlight on your business. Now, Luke, our first guest.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: Our only guest today.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: Is?
Luke: James Duthie. James is an online marketing specialist.
Tim: He is, yeah, yeah. And after some initial silliness, we actually get serious about how to get your business found online. So there’s a fair bit of gold there. So pen and paper at the ready, listeners, and here’s James.
Luke: All right, today we’re talking to James Duthie. And, James, is an online marketing strategist with Next Digital, I believe, James?
James: Yes, that’s right.
Luke: Can you give us a little bit of background on…
Tim: Can I just say hello to James first, I mean, you know…
James: G’day, Tim.
Tim: Hello, pleased to meet you, James.
James: You too.
Tim: But I also want to introduce a game, right.
Luke: Right.
Tim: Because I am sitting in a room, in a studio, with two Internet marketing geeks, you know, I wouldn’t put myself in that…in that kind of…I love all that stuff but I don’t know how to talk the talk. But you guys have got a language of your own, right.
Luke: So we’re not allowed to use acronyms, is that what you’re saying?
Tim: You’re not allowed to use acronyms and you’re not allowed use any big words that our listeners, who are small business owners trying to do great marketing, and who get all bamboozled by the Internet and its terminology. So you’re not allowed to use any of those words.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: And when you do, Sammy, what are we going to hear?
(Boing.)
That’s…okay? Now, if we get up to ten…
Luke: Gotcha.
Tim: Ten.
(Boing.)
Then…I actually don’t know what I’m going to do, you know, maybe…
Luke: So maybe I owe you.
Tim: You have to donate to charity.
Luke: Donate to charity, okay.
Tim: You have to donate to charity.
James: That sounds good.
Tim: Yeah, okay.
Luke: Both of us or just me?
Tim: Yeah, yeah.
James: Ten each or ten combined?
Tim: Yeah, yeah, yeah, don’t say ten what but just ten each, okay.
James: Right.
Tim: On the table.
James: Too easy.
Tim: There it is.
James: Okay.
Luke: Okay.
Tim: So is that clear?
Luke: That’s clear, it’s all…I’m actually going to let James do most of the talking so I’m okay.
James: Off the hook.
Tim: So anyway enough from me.
Luke: Yeah, look, James, tell us what does an online marketing strategist actually do?
James: Okay, obviously I work at Next Digital which is one of the larger specialist digital agencies in Australia, I won’t give it too much of a plug, that’ll be it. Yeah, so as an online strategist basically I’m in charge of getting to know, we’ve got a whole range of clients, in the hundreds, larger businesses and medium businesses, and basically my job is to get to know their business, get to know their marketing and online objectives and then basically define which online channels are most suitable to achieve their business perspectives.
(Boing.)
Tim: What’s a channel?
James: Oh. Really?
Tim: What is a channel?
James: A channel, okay…
Tim: Hey, like Channel 9?
James: Yeah, no, no, no, not…geez, I’m going to be out of…
Tim: You are, you are.
James: I’m going to get my ten in about five seconds.
Tim: You have created an industry; you are responsible for an industry that has its own language.
James: Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry, I’ll try my best. Okay, an online channel would be a…
(Boing.)
Come on. How can I answer the question without saying the word channel?
Tim: What’s a…
(Boing.)
James: Three, okay.
Tim: What is a channel?
James: A channel is…
(Boing.)
Luke: Please.
James: Okay. The way we define it…
Tim: Yep.
James: Is that okay, it?
Tim: Yep.
James: Yeah. Is okay email is a channel, search engines are a channel.
(Boing.)
(Boing.)
Luke: Come on, Sammy.
Tim: Okay. We’ll give him a bit of breathing space.
James: I think I’m up to ten already.
Luke: Does anyone not know what Google is?
Tim: Yep.
James: Okay.
Luke: It’s a search engine.
Tim: Okay, that’s a channel.
James: An online banner, for instance, would be a channel…or, sorry, display advertising would be a channel. Social media, is that okay?
(Boing.)
Tim: Absolutely not. What is social…
James: Absolutely not, okay.
Tim: No, we know what social…
James: I know you’ve talked about it on this program…
Tim: Yeah, we’ve talked about it a lot actually. Okay. We’re losing focus, Luke.
James: We certainly are so I’ll try to bring it back to focus.
Tim: Yeah, yeah.
James: So essentially…
Tim: Sorry, James, you take over if you could.
James: Yeah, it’s your fault. Essentially my role is to understand their business and their marketing objectives.
Tim: Oh, yeah, what do you do?
James: An online strategist, that’s what I’m trying to explain right now…
Tim: Yep.
James: …without much success.
Tim: Yep.
James: And then essentially understand the business and their objectives and define whether to use email, search engines, display advertising, social media, online promotions, et cetera, which channels, can I say it now, yes?
Tim: Oh, yeah.
James: Which channels are the best…
Luke: Come on, he’s explained it.
James: …and then, you know, how to use those channels to market effectively.
Tim: So if we could bring it back, say, to small business owners, medium business owners, who, you know, they all…if they haven’t got a website, they feel as though they should have a website, correct?
James: Yep.
Tim: You know, like there’s this constant kind of thing about having a website and is it a good website, is it a bad website, how much do I pay for the website. Having a website is one thing but once a business gets a website…
James: Yep.
Tim: …give us your top three or your top five things…
James: Yep.
Tim: …that they should do with the website?
James: The first one would be Google and the search engines. About 80% of Internet sessions start with a search engine, so basically if you’re not in a search engine and if you can’t be…
Tim: Oh, no, go on.
James: What word can I say here? If you’re not in a search engine you’re not going to be found.
Tim: We are going to stop James there for one minute, Lukey. And this is a massive topic and it probably isn’t going to be done justice in this short interruption.
Luke: No, certainly not.
Tim: But I guess the thing is that the answer to that thing about Google and how to be in top of Google, on top of Google, in top of Google.
Luke: In the top rankings for Google.
Tim: That is exactly right.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: You can pay for it.
Luke: You can if you want to be part of the sponsored listings, which is Google AdWords…
Tim: Yep.
Luke: …then you can certainly pay per click.
Tim: Yeah, you can. And that’s, you know, that is effective, it’s very effective. But it can get costly if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Luke: It’s a good short term strategy if you want to be appearing for certain keywords.
Tim: Yeah, that’s a good idea. Yeah, yeah, like (11:46) or.
Luke: Yeah, whereas organic listings, which are the ones in the main listings down the left hand side of Google.
Tim: Just on Pay Per Click and Google AdWords we might in our show notes put a link to Perry Marshall’s book.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: Because if there is…there’s certainly not a silver bullet for search engine optimisation which we’re just about to talk about, but Perry Marshall’s book.
Luke: The Guru.
Tim: The Guru.
Luke: Certainly…
Tim: He is the guru.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: Yep.
Luke: At Pay Per Click.
Tim: All right, so we’ll put a link to the show notes in that. And if you want to buy that and read it you will actually learn one hell of a lot about Pay Per Click advertising.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: So your next bit is?
Luke: How do you get in the organic listings?
Tim: Yeah.
Luke: Which is more your long term strategy because you want to be appearing for keywords that relate to your business and essentially…
Tim: What’s organic?
Luke: Well it means you’re not paying for them, like it means that Google chooses your site because it is the best and most relevant website for whatever someone has…
Tim: Nice.
Luke: …plugged into the search area.
Tim: Yep.
Luke: So a couple of things you can do. Firstly, ask you web developer, ask them if your website is search engine friendly. So some of you might have a nice flashy, or be considering getting a nice flashy, animated website.
Tim: Don’t.
Luke: Don’t.
Tim: Great tip, but I think we’ve mentioned in a previous episode was that if eBay or Amazon aren’t doing it…
Luke: Yep.
Tim: …don’t do it.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: And I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen an eBay or Amazon webpage with any flash whatsoever.
Luke: Yep, no.
Tim: So, yeah, don’t.
Luke: If you ask any search…any search engine optimisation expert, they’ll say a couple of things. Good content, so make sure you’re trying to continually add good content to your website.
Tim: Be yourself.
Luke: Yeah, be yourself. And essentially create content that people want to read, people want to link to.
Tim: Yep.
Luke: Secondly, inbound links, it’s…organic rankings are a little bit like a popularity contest, the more inbound links the better is basic, but if they come from a better neighbourhood, so say a link comes from a big media organisation…
Tim: Ooh, yeah.
Luke: …then they’ll certainly be valued more so.
Tim: Well looked upon by Google.
Luke: Indeed.
Tim: Well give me one more, give our listeners one more.
Luke: One more, make sure that your content is original.
Tim: Yeah.
Luke: So don’t go copying content and…
Tim: No.
Luke: …and web publishing it to your site.
Tim: Because they can pick that up, can’t they, they can pick up the fact that you have cut and pasted something…
Luke: Yep.
Tim: …from somewhere else. Pretty amazing.
Luke: One more, I’d write around your core keywords. So let’s say you’re a small business accountant, write an article and add it to your site about income tax, for example.
Tim: Yep.
Luke: And income tax time. And, yeah, essentially write…
Tim: It is a massive, a massive massive area this.
Luke: It’s huge.
Tim: Yeah.
Luke: It’s huge and I’m not going to do it justice.
Tim: No, no.
Luke: If you want to read more about it go to SEObook.com.
Tim: SEObook.com?
Luke: SEObook.com.
Tim: Free?
Luke: Elements of it are.
Tim: Righto, well we’ll put a link in the show notes.
Luke: There’s enough there to keep you dangerous.
Tim: The other thing…keep you dangerous.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: Such a dangerous topic isn’t it.
Luke: Mmm.
Tim: The other thing too is that you can always pay someone to do your search engine optimising.
Luke: Yes, you can.
Tim: So, you know, like you might find someone on elance, for example, who they’re not your web developer, they’re not your designer, they’re just your optimiser. And you might pay them sort of an ongoing fee to be ticking all the SEO boxes.
Luke: Yeah. And, look, if you’re in a competitive area too, that’s something you want to consider.
Tim: Righto, back to James, number two.
James: Number two, I would say not so much about being found but an essential online marketing tactic is email. Every customer that comes into your store, request their email address…
Tim: Yep.
James: …when they buy something, start to build a database. A customer database is just about the best ad marketing asset you’ll ever have.
Tim: Yeah, okay. So where would you put those email addresses, whack them in Word or?
James: Into a spreadsheet.
Tim: Yeah, so a bit of Excel action.
James: Yeah, Excel is fine.
Tim: Yep.
James: Just start to build a database. It doesn’t have to be high tech. You know, you can run it…most small businesses won’t have the resources or facilities to run a professional…run it professionally through an email marketing software tool or system but you can still run email through Outlook.
Luke: All right, we’re just going to pause James there for a quick chat about email marketing.
Tim: Lukey, the word spam comes to mind here.
Luke: Indeed.
Tim: But…and I don’t think James was suggesting that whatsoever. However, I think when we do think about email, we go, ooh, you know, are we going to be spamming people and are they going to get cross because we’re sending them email. We were just talking about how the fact that many small business owners like you and I have a large contact list.
Luke: Yes, we do indeed.
Tim: So why not every now and then do a group email to…it doesn’t have to be to all your clients, but create a group that you think, oh, those clients need this particular service of mine and flick them a quick email about…
Luke: Yep.
Tim: …what you’ve done in that area lately.
Luke: Yeah. And there are some good online tools for managing email lists too, which allow people to unsubscribe. And I’d suggest go with one of those tools. I…well we actually use a product called Aweber for Small Business Big Marketing.
Tim: You love Aweber, don’t you?
Luke: Aweber is great. It’s really good. It allows us to do…now, if Sammy was here you’d give me a boing.
Tim: Yeah.
Luke: Auto responders. And that means you’re actually just setting up a chain of six or seven emails to…and they actually start going as soon as someone signs up to your list.
Tim: So a good example is if you sign up to Small Business Big Marketing, top right hand corner of our website, you will get a number of freebies and then over the course of the following days I think there’s about six emails that go out…
Luke: Yep.
Tim: …that provide additional free content value…
Luke: Yep.
Tim: …to our…the people who register. But it looks as though it’s coming out from us maybe sort of personally, oh, you know, like.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: But you obviously can’t do that.
Luke: No.
Tim: Because we have hundreds going out all the time.
Luke: Correct.
Tim: And we just automate it…
Luke: Yep.
Tim: …which is a…
Luke: Another service which I quite like as well is called bigresponse.com. They’re quite cheap and they’re a good service so.
Tim: What’s that do, same thing?
Luke: Similar. Similar thing. But more for the ad hoc emails that go out as well.
Tim: Righto. So Aweber, Big Response, put them in the show notes, back to James. Tip number three to get your website found?
James: Tip number three is social media in the form of Facebook, Twitter.
Tim: Really?
James: A range of these different services. Mainly because of the cost efficiency of them.
Tim: Yep.
James: Basically the big advantage for small business owners for social media is, you know, there’s no media cost. So if you go into search engines and you want to place some ads or alternatively if you want to get into display ads or pretty much any other form of online marketing, you’re going to have some sort of media cost.
Tim: Yep.
James: With social media, basically you invest your time, which shouldn’t be underestimated; it does take, you know, a significant…
Tim: It does.
James: Yeah. Yeah, you don’t get anything for nothing. You’ve got to, you know, the…the way…you know, the trade off is that you don’t pay for media but you’ve got to invest a lot of time into whatever, whether it’s Twitter or whether it’s Facebook or whatever.
Tim: Yep. What’s your favourite social media?
James: Personally…
Tim: Yep.
James: …mine is…well my blog. But Twitter is my service of choice.
Tim: I’m going to pull you up on your blog.
James: Yep.
Tim: Can I do that?
James: Absolutely.
Tim: Because I’m looking at your website.
James: Yep.
Tim: And AdAge Power Blogger 150, whatever that means.
James: Yeah.
Tim: Some kind of blog award. You are in the top 20 Aussie bloggers.
James: Correct.
Tim: But, and I could be wrong here…
James: I’m in trouble.
Tim: You are in trouble. How often on average would you update your blog?
James: Okay.
Tim: Hey.
James: Hey.
Tim: Have you been sick or have you been away or is your computer broken?
James: If you go back through my archives you’ll find that I used to be much more active than I am.
Tim: Yeah.
James: To last year, for pretty much all of the year I was updating it twice a week.
Tim: Yep.
James: Lately it’s been more like once a fortnight, which is clearly not in the bloggers’ handbook, you know.
Tim: No.
James: It should be much more frequently than that.
Tim: Yeah.
James: Don’t have a lot of defence except that I’ve been working hard and…
Tim: Come on, you got engaged.
James: …trying to plan a wedding.
Tim: How often should you blog?
James: There’s no rule. It’s just essentially do it as often as you can as much as you’re comfortable.
Tim: Yep.
James: Basically once you set an expectation with your audience, whether it’s once a fortnight or three times a week, the goal is to stick to that. Now, I’m not the best…
Tim: Yeah. Okay, so everything…
James: …example of that.
Tim: Okay.
James: But I try my best.
Tim: Lukers.
Luke: Timbo.
Tim: This is a massive one. I have many many clients, and I know you do too, about saying, oh, look, should I blog, shouldn’t I blog, if I do blog what am I going to write about, you know. So here are Tim and Luke’s top ten…what would you call them? Stimuli, for ongoing blogging.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: So we’re trying to give you some ideas that will get your creative juices flowing for just being able to blog on a regular basis.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: So number one, this is cheating, number one, guest blogger. Get someone else to write it.
Luke: Get someone else to write it.
Tim: Absolutely.
Luke: Yeah, very good.
Tim: So I’ve done that and it works and it’s nice, you know. It’s like having a holiday.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: Number two?
Luke: Think about the questions that your customers ask you and answer those questions.
Tim: Oh, yeah, yeah, great idea. So, yeah, what are people ringing up about?
Luke: Yeah. And it’s sort of like…a bit like…you might have an FAQ on your website but expand on those with…
Tim: Yep.
Luke: …with explaining.
Tim: Number three, what tips can you tell your clients about your product or service.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: So just maybe expand on ways of getting the most out of what it is you offer.
Luke: Indeed. Comment on something that’s happening in your industry.
Tim: I was going to say that. Yeah, that’s a good one. Yeah, so like a bit of your point of view.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: That’s the thing about blogging, you know, it’s not about releasing press releases, it’s about having your own opinion.
Luke: Yeah, it doesn’t need to be formal.
Tim: No, no, no, no. Write it in your own speak…
Luke: Yep.
Tim: …is a good thing. Whose go is it?
Luke: It’s yours.
Tim: What number are we up to?
Luke: I pinched that one. Number three.
Tim: Number three. No, we’re not; surely we’re past number three.
Luke: I know.
Tim: What are the most common questions you get from your prospects. You’ve done that. Oh, no.
Luke: There you go.
Tim: Okay, your go.
Luke: Pose a question to your audience.
Tim: Yeah, yeah.
Luke: You know, blogging is two way.
Tim: Yeah, it is.
Luke: If there’s something you want to know from your customers or from your readers, pose a question.
Tim: Okay. Number five or number six, whatever we’re up to. Discuss how you got started in the business.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: Like every business has a story. So I think it’s worth revisiting that and sharing it and…
Luke: Humanise your business.
Tim: You could start it with, those were the days. Righto, next?
Luke: This one you’ve got to be careful. Comment on an inferior product that might be competing with yours. I’ve seen it done quite successfully. Because what you’re actually doing in a sly sort of way is that you’re actually including your competitors’ keywords in your article.
Tim: Clever, clever.
Luke: And show in a nice way how your product differs…
Tim: Very clever.
Luke: …or might be better. So…
Tim: A bit like coming in the backdoor. I think.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: I’m not sure. Now, number eight or nine or ten, what is the most rewarding thing about your job. So, like that enthusiasm like here is…I love it when a client does this or, you know, whatever.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: And in fact the opposite.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: You can be, you know, you can wear your heart on your sleeve when you blog, I reckon.
Luke: Yeah, indeed.
Tim: Because it’s your personal view on things.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: I think that’s enough. But there is actually a lot more. And what we might do is put a link to a blog post that was written by someone who we like to follow in Chris Brogan.
Luke: Chris Brogan.
Tim: And he has written a whole list about how to blog almost every day. So we’ll whack that in our show notes which are slowly growing. And back to Jimmy. Lukey?
Luke: Can I just go back to email marketing. Now, James, you probably come…you come from a background where large companies, they’ve probably got large, massive, databases of…
James: Correct.
Luke: …of email addresses which is probably why they’re effective.
James: Yep.
Luke: Now, if I’m a small business and I’ve only got 100, well that’s probably not going to be an effective marketing avenue given that the response rate to emails is?
James: It depends on your database, the age of it, the products you’re selling, generally around 2%…
Tim: That’s bizarre.
James: …you can expect.
Tim: That’s 98% of people that it hasn’t worked on.
James: Yep.
Tim: It’s just bizarre, it’s like direct marketing statistics.
James: It’s consistent with a lot of…
Tim: Yeah.
James: …other channels.
Tim: Yeah, I know, it just doesn’t make sense.
Luke: So it would be safe to say that only when you’ve got a fairly large database of people it’s going to be effective?
James: I suppose you could say that. If…it depends how much you’re in…it’s the time versus…a cost versus benefit.
Luke: Yep.
James: If you’re not putting a lot of effort into developing HTML emails…am I going to get a boing for using HTML?
Tim: Oh, mate, that is like…
(Boing.)
(Boing.)
That’s a boing per letter.
(Boing.)
One more.
James: I think I’m up to ten already. If you’re just sending standard emails through Outlook and, you know, sending that out to your email database, you’re probably going to invest less than an hour in it. So, you know, if you make a couple of sales then you…it’s a good investment of your time.
Luke: Yep.
James: I would…I think you’re right, if there’s a small pool of customers then it’s going to be less effective. At the same time I think one of the primary goals should always be to build and grow that database…
Luke: Yep.
James: …if you can.
Tim: I’m going to wrap it up because it’s been…there’s a fair bit of information to go and digest there, with some very big words, Luke. I’m going to leave you with a question for our listeners and that is our listeners are getting a website developed, it all looks pretty, it all looks beautiful, it’s all online…
James: Yep.
Tim: …what question should they ask their developer to ensure it gets found?
James: Well search engine, however you optimise this site, what search engine optimisation have you done. It’s going to be hard for them to assess the answer of that because it’s a relatively technical field. What I will say about search engine optimisation is there’s a whole lot of information resources out there that are free and available.
Tim: Yep.
James: If you…you know, that have 20,000 plus.
Tim: What’s a good site to go to?
James: SEOmoz, S-E-O-M-O-Z, is one of the biggest SEO sites in the world.
Tim: Some fancy name, SEOmoz.
James: Search engine land is another one. You know, those are two of the biggest resources in the world. SEObook is another.
Tim: Okay.
James: They’re all giving out really high quality…
Tim: Easy to understand?
James: Look, I’m not going to say yes…
Luke: They both…a lot of those have beginner’s guides.
Tim: Okay, all right.
Luke: Yeah, the ones that James has mentioned.
Tim: James Duthie, been a pleasure.
James: Thank you.
Luke: Thanks, James.
James: Thanks for having me.
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