Netpreneur Blog - Making a Living on the Web in Australia

Recently the Australian Domain Administrator (AuDA) changed its rules to permit the buying and selling of .AU domains.

Previously it was not legal to transfer .AU domains for a fee, the justification being that AuDA wanted to avoid the blatant cybersquatting and spiralling domain prices that have occurred in other unregulated markets.

Now, it is possible to trade .AU domains, albeit with some limitations - for example, you are not permitted to trade a domain until six months has lapsed from its time of registration.  The full guidelines can be found here:  http://www.auda.org.au/pdf/registrant-transfer.pdf

Over time I have accumulated a number of domain names that I had intended to develop, but have not got around to doing anything with.  Now that it is legal to sell them, I am going to consider putting them on http://www.netfleet.com.au/, a new trading platform which has been set up by Netregistry.

Whilst AuDA guidelines preclude the purchase of domain names purely for resale, I am sure that a small buy/sell industry will emerge, although not to the extent that we have seen with .COM domains, the trading of which is completely unregulated.

In the meantime, the loosening of the rules provides a good opportunity for netpreneurs to clean out their domain name portfolios.

Tags:   auda · cybersquatting · domain registration · domains · netfleet · netregistry1 Comment

• Need a good feedback tool? Try Kampyle
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• Inside the new Google Search
• Eyetrack - where do people look when they view your home page
• 25 places to find awesome stock photos - free and cheap
• How do I get more people to view my YouTube videos?
• 99designs - run a crowdsourcing design competition online
• 10 Wordpress Plugins guaranteed to save you time
• 10 free digital tools for start-ups

Tags:   99designs · eyetrack · google · kampyle · prezi · qik · stock photos · twitter · wordpress · youtube1 Comment

Do you use Google Analytics?

If you don’t, it is a free tool for tracking and improving how visitors are interacting with your website. To register you can visit www.google.com/analytics and set up a free account. Once you have set up an account you can add your website address as a profile you will then be provided with some code to place within your home page so that analytics can track what is happening and generate a series of reports.

Perhaps you already have an Analytics account but it collects such a large amount of data and reports (over 80 reports plus the ability to generate custom reports) you really just check the basic dashboard summary every now and then.

Here I explain just some of the useful features and data to help you make the most of Analytics to improve the effectiveness of your website:

Website Profiles
You can use a single analytics account to measure more than one website through adding multiple Website Profiles. This is useful if you have more than one domain name registered or you manage more than one website or blog.

Goals
Apart from just more traffic, you can set more specific online marketing goals and Analytics can help you measure these goals. For example: you may want to increase the number of visitors who complete a sale, subscribe to your newsletter, download your e-book or simply fill in the enquiry form on your site. Analytics lets you set these goals within your account, then provides the code to place on the relevant page to allow tracking and reporting of the results.

Benchmarking
The benchmarking feature allows you to get some idea of how your website data compares to other sites of a similar size or in a similar industry category.

Visitors
Apart from measuring the total number of visitors to your site you can also see how many pages each visitor is viewing, how long they are spending on your site and the number of new visitors versus returning visitors. If the main goal of your site is to attract new business then you’ll aim for the maximum number of new visitors but if you are trying to build a loyal subscriber base then you may want a higher percentage of returning visitors eg. on a blog.

Bounce rate
The bounce rate measures the number of single page only visitors. That means the number of visitors that left your site from the page they arrived on. If this percentage is high then your site doesn’t encourage people to look further, browse or take action. In this case, one action you could take is to look at the most common entrance page visitors arrive on, tweak this page to make improvements and then check whether your bounce rate is reduced.

Connection Speeds
If you are introducing large downloads such as video files to your site you might be interested to see the connection speeds of those visiting your site. For example: at the time of writing I was able to see that 4.47% of visitors to my website in the last month were on a dial-up internet connection!

Traffic sources
This group of reports can give you an overview of traffic to your site or more specific reports for Direct Traffic (that is someone who either typed in your web address or had it bookmarked), Search Engines, other Referring Sites or Adwords. This is particularly handy if you are working on your search engine optimisation, building up links with other websites or paying for online advertising.

Content
The content reports show which pages on your site are the most visited as well as the top entrance and exit pages. A common website problem is a large percentage of visitors arriving on the Home page and leaving without going any further. One of your goals might be to improve this by tweaking your home page to make it load faster, look neater and have clearer calls to action. If you are launching a new product or service you might add a new page to your site and then work to increase it’s popularity and the number of people arriving on this page.

Site Overlay
The Site Overlay feature opens a new window with your website shown inside and overlays data about the percentage of people that click on each active hyperlink. You can navigate your site as you normally would and see data for each page on your site. This is a really handy feature to see where you visitors are clicking.

Advanced Segmentation
This new feature allows you to split your data into segments to do more meaningful analysis. For example: you may be running a marketing campaign to increase sales from outside Australia. You can segment out all visits that resulted in a sale and were from outside Australia. You can also view data side by side on the same screen and compare it. So in this example we would be comparing conversions outside Australia against conversions inside Australia.

Adwords Integration
If you have an Adwords account, you can use Google Analytics to learn which keywords are most profitable to your business and which ad campaigns are working best.

Once you get the hang of Analytics you can create custom reports to track what you need to. You can also customise the Dashboard so you can log in and see a summary of the stats you need to in one quick glance.

Tags:   conversion tracking · google analytics · improve websiteNo Comments.

Where possible, all direct mail marketing should contain some form of response device. A response device provides the recipient with a means of getting back in touch with you, either through a return mail coupon, website, email address, telephone number etc.

A response device is very useful because it allows you to acquire new business, to capture prospective client details, and it gives you an indication of whether your mail campaign has been successful or not.  Indeed, you can determine a response ratio if a response device is included in your communication.

Here are some tips for good response devices:

• Incentivising your prospect to respond is a good idea - eg entry in a competition, a free brochure will be mailed out
• Reduce the amount of work that the recipient must do to respond - eg. include a reply-paid envelope, pre-populate all known fields on the contact details coupon so that the prospect doesn’t need to fill them out
• Make the response device easy to find and apparent.
• Provide clear instructions and clear choices on the response device.
• Ensure that you capture the necessary information with your response device.
• Make sure that you response device is consistent with the creative attached to it.
• Include a closing date to instil ‘urgency’ in your prospect.

Tags:   direct mail · direct marketingNo Comments.

The seminar covered a host of words that you should NEVER use in copywriting and words that are WEAK and shouldn’ t be used, where possible.

The source wasn’t attributed.

NEVER USE

• Access
• At this point in time
• Define
• Despite the fact that
• Due to
• Etc.
• The fact is
• For (instead of because)
• Frankly
• Has got/have got
• However
• I mean,
• Impact
• Importantly
• Indeed
• In terms of
• Meaningful
• Muchly (didn’t even know that was a real word myself!)
• Needs
• Prioritise
• Remember,
• Thusly (is that a word?)
• Utilise
• What’s more
• Wise
• You know

AVOID USING

• Available
• The fact that
• In fact,
• Feature
• One of the most
• Quality
• Receive
• Value

Tags:   copywritingNo Comments.

The Direct Mail Seminar focused on a 15- point checklist for writing powerful copy from Drayton Bird.  The checklist is as follows:

1. Is there a letter?
2. Does it read like a letter?
3. Does it look like a letter?
4. Does it waffle?
5. Is it simple?
6. Does it use boring jargon?
7. Are there too many words?
8. Can you edit?
9. Is it active (not passive)?
10. Is it complete?
11. Are you worthy?
12. Is it warm and friendly?
13. Is there proof?
14. Does it ask for action?
15. Is it idiot-proof?

This is a useful checklist to run through prior to sending out those thousands of marketing letters.

Tags:   copywriting · direct mail · direct marketing · drayton birdNo Comments.

I attended the second workshop in the Australia Post Direct Mail Marketing series on Tuesday this week.  Unlike last time, I didn’t ‘live-blog’, so I am writing this after the fact.

I was very pleased when the course convenor approached me during a break and asked whether I was the one who had been blogging about the course the previous week.  He said that a prospective client had seen the blog posts on the web and had engaged him in discussions about running the same courses in Victoria and New South Wales.  The power of blogs!  A great case study.

The second workshop was all about producing great letters and copywriting.  Research shows that letters are the best medium for direct mail because they look and feel very much like personal letters and there is a greater chance that the recipient will read mail if it is enclosed within an envelope.  So the first lesson is: always use letters!

Your letters need to be REAL:

• Relevant
• Easy to read
• Australian
• Logical experience

Why Australian?  Well, Australians are culturally and socially different.  Most Americans receive 8-10 times as much direct mail as we do here in Australia, so they suffer from cognitive overload.  Australians enjoy reading mail and we enjoy stories and scenarios that we can relate to - that said, Australians are also generally more sceptical (less gullible?) than our friends from the US of A.  Our letters need to nuanced especially for Australians if they are to be read and achieve ‘cut through’.

Copywriting is all-important.  David Barratt identified some of the leading figures in copywriting and I have provided some links to there here:

• Siimon Reynolds - he’s the guy who created the award-winning Grim Reaper ads in the late 1980s
• Drayton Bird
• Herschell Gordon Lewis

Here are some of the lessons that came out of the seminar in relation to copywriting:

• Always write to ’somebody’, not ‘everybody’ (Drayton Bird)
• Organisations don’t write letters, individuals do - make your communications personal
• Use clarity, benefit and versimilitude (Herschell Gordon Lewis).  Verisimilitude is the appearance or semblace of truth - that is, your copy should include stories that may not be 100% factual, but which seem to be so.
• Pretend you are writing to a person you know - that way you will ensure that the copy is appropriately worded.
• Use you, you, you - not I or we
• Use active voice, not passive voice - subject verb object, rather than object verb subject (eg. ‘you get a money back guarantee’, rather than ‘a money-back guarantee is provided’
• Ask yourself what you want the reader to do?  The follow-up action needs to be clear, apparent and easily actionable
• Get rid of the big words - replace them with simpler words
• Use serif fonts (fonts with ‘feet’, like Times New Roman) - studies prove that serif fonts are more comprehendable - see this book by Colin Wheildon
• Younger audiences are more visual and can cope with ‘busy’ creatives
• Include a response device (eg a mailback coupon) and reduce the amount of work for the recipient)

Tags:   copywriting · direct mail · direct marketing · drayton bird · herschell gordon lewis · letters · page copy · siimon reynoldsNo Comments.

In last week’s federal budget the government announced that it will increase the business tax break for assets purchased before the end of 2009 from 30% to 50%.

The tax break applies to all companies with an annual turnover of less than $2 million.

Under the new 50% tax break, a business will be able to claim a tax deduction of up to $15,000 (that is, 50% of $30,000) in the year of purchase.

The rebate is designed to stimulate the economy by encouraging small business to bring forward their capital equipment purchases.

Here’s an example of how a business could use the tax break, from the government’s budget papers:

Maria runs a retail clothing store and meets the definition of a small business entity. On 7 June 2009 she buys and installs six new mirrors for her fitting rooms. The mirrors cost $200 each and are substantially identical, so the cost of every mirror can be amalgamated for the purposes of meeting the $1000 threshold. Maria’s total investment is $1200 and she will be eligible to claim a $600 bonus deduction (being 50% of $1200) in her 2008-09 income tax return.

Budding netpreneurs and small business operators should take advantage of this scheme - if you need a new computer, office furniture or even a company vehicle, now is the time to buy.  Speak to your accountant for further information.

Tags:   federal government · rebates · small business · tax breaks · taxationNo Comments.

Once you’ve come up with your offer, you need to produce your ‘creative’ - the letter, brochure or physical matter/media that is sent to your prospects.

So, what is the best type of media to send?  Think about the types of mail that you like to receive.  The odds say that you prefer to receive personally addressed letters in envelopes, rather than unaddressed brochures or loose leaf flyers.   And so, too, do the majority of your prospects.

In general, letters are much better than brochures for direct marketing purposes, but make sure that you follow these rules:

• Try to make your letter appear like a normal letter - normal letters are well received, whereas letters that are blatantly for marketing purposes are often discarded.
• Choose envelopes over no envelopes - enveloped letters have a better read rate
• The envelope is the first impression - make it look good
• Make sure that the envelope is addressed correctly.  Errors in the address detail will likely see it discarded before being opened.
• Personally address your envelopes and letters - a salutation like ‘Dear Valued Customer’ is an immediate turn off.
• Handwritten envelopes, salutations and signatures will be well received and improve the chances of your communication being read and acted upon (even more so if the CEO or boss signs the letter).  Obviously this strategy might not be appropriate for large campaigns where handwriting will be too time consuming.
• If printing your envelopes, make sure the the address is printed parallel and perpendicular to the edges of the envelope - it will look tacky if the address appears crooked.
• Include a return address on the envelope so that undelivered letters are returned to you - use the returned envelopes to update your database.
• Consider the tactile experience of your creative - try to think of ways to engage the senses of your reader.
• Keep the textual content to a minimum - we don’t read, we scan.  Short and snappy is best.  Paragraphs should be no more than 4 lines.
• Use amplifiers and fixing points, such as underlining, bolding, headings and sub-headings to draw attention.
• There is a natural ‘reading curve’ that most readers follow when scanning a letter.  The ‘reading curve’ starts at the top right then top left of the letter (who is this from?  Is it for me?), then progresses to the title beneath the salutation (what is this about?), down the right hand side of the letter, to the signature block (Who signed it?  What is in the PS area of the letter?) and then back to the top.    The eye typically lingers over the  address area, the title area, the first few words of the first paragraph, key words on the right hand side of the letter body (particularly the last paragraph), the sender’s signature, and the PS area.  It is proven that a PS message is often the first thing read and this is where the question ‘What’s in it for me?’ is commonly answered!
• Include a response device (eg. response slip with a postage paid return envelope)  in your letters so that recipients can act upon your letter easily and quickly.  Most people are time strapped and disinclined to act if too much time and effort is required - make it easy for them.  Including the word ‘YES!’ in bold caps draws attention and acts as an amplifier.
• Pictures in letters and brochures are good, but they should have captions and the benefits of the offer must be contained with the picture. Use pictures sparingly for best effect.  Steer clear of incongruous stock images that add nothing to your overall message.

Tags:   australia post · direct mail · direct marketingNo Comments.

In a lot of ways, the offer is the most important element of a direct mail marketing campaign.  It’s the ‘deal breaker’ - it determines whether your prospect responds immediately or whether they discard your message without further thought.  Your offer needs to be carefully thought out and it needs to resonate with the target audience.

Some of the points that you might consider in framing your offer:

• Free gifts - ‘free’ remains one of the most powerful words in the marketer’s vocabulary
• Free information - consider offering a free white paper, e-book or other free advice as these are well-received - much like editorial content in newspapers is better received by readers than straight advertising.
• Exclusivity - this offer is only available to you exclusively, which makes the prospect feel special and creates a justification to purchase.
• Short time only or inclusion of a similar time-based call-to-action - this offer is only available for a limited time, which creates urgency to act.
• Buy one, get one free - it is proven that this is a more effective offer than other common offers, including ‘50% off’ and ‘two for the price of one’ (which is the same offer, but worded differently).

Tags:   australia post · direct mail · direct marketingNo Comments.