Social Media is all about inviting your audience to take some sort of action, even if it does not lead directly to a sale. Many marketers don’t want to dedicate resources to handling the responses solicited. But, it doesn’t have to be so labor-intensive.

For a slightly twisted but effective example of a large brand inviting participation, look at Burger King’s recent “Whopper Sacrifice” campaign on Facebook. It gave a coupon for a Whopper sandwich to anyone who defriended 10 Facebook friends. The company gave out 23,000 coupons before ending the promotion. LC

The Internet Marketing Tip above originally appeared in Larry Chase's Web Digest For Marketers which you can subscribe to at no charge at www.wdfm.com.[Terms and Conditions]

Many Internet Marketing cognoscenti “pooh-pooh” old-fashioned email marketing. It’s not hip enough. It isn’t hip anymore. But, do you want to be hip, or do you want to sell products or services? Email marketing does a lot of heavy lifting, because it’s pretty reliable and inexpensive to produce and execute.

Whether you’re comparing B2B or B2C rate cards and response rates, you’re going to have a tough time beating the ROI email marketing offers. Of course, building your own email house list legitimately is a no-brainer, no matter how unhip it might seem. Remember, the smarty-pants people who thumb their noses at email marketing are probably not your target audience . LC

The Internet Marketing Tip above originally appeared in Larry Chase's Web Digest For Marketers which you can subscribe to at no charge at www.wdfm.com.[Terms and Conditions]

But, behind those clicks are people with their hands on the mouse. Some of those people are at the top of the sales funnel. Some are ready to buy, and some are your competitors.

You could easily say, “Not all clicks are created equal.” It’s helpful to create “personas” for each segment you can identify. Each segment comes with different agendas.

Naturally, the most sophisticated way to track clicks is all the way to the back end, where they convert to a buyer, sign up for a newsletter, or what-have-you.

Yes, it gets wonky and time-consuming. In a B2B situation, it can take up to 18 months from click to purchase. But, it’s the only real way you’re going to know if your budget is spent properly. LC

The Internet Marketing Tip above originally appeared in Larry Chase's Web Digest For Marketers which you can subscribe to at no charge at www.wdfm.com.[Terms and Conditions]

If you have worthy content on your site, it isn’t so far-fetched to ask the sites that point to your competitor to point to you, too. The worst they can say is “No.” The best that can happen is you improve your link neighborhood, which should impress the search engine crawlers the next time they come around to index you. LC

The Internet Marketing Tip above originally appeared in Larry Chase's Web Digest For Marketers which you can subscribe to at no charge at www.wdfm.com.[Terms and Conditions]

Sales people are where the rubber meets the pavement. It’s where your organization often makes the conversion to sale or loses it. Sales people can sense emotional shifts in a phone call or face-to-face encounter with a prospect. They see how target audiences respond to marketing campaigns.

So, why do so many marketers not listen to their sales departments? Beats me. I get some of my best ideas from talking to sales people on trade-show floors, the phone and in stores. Try it.

Talk to a sales person today. Better yet, take one out to lunch. You’ll learn something you can use in your marketing efforts. LC

The Internet Marketing Tip above originally appeared in Larry Chase's Web Digest For Marketers which you can subscribe to at no charge at www.wdfm.com.[Terms and Conditions]

So long as people get great search results that please them, they’ll not switch search engines. So the crawlers want well targeted content that is relevant and fresh, like vegetables . In other words, your good content, be it video, text, podcasts, make search

The Internet Marketing Tip above originally appeared in Larry Chase's Web Digest For Marketers which you can subscribe to at no charge at www.wdfm.com.[Terms and Conditions]

Make sure you’re getting found for the keywords your target audience uses, not the ones you use, unless you are just like your target audience. LC

The Internet Marketing Tip above originally appeared in Larry Chase's Web Digest For Marketers which you can subscribe to at no charge at www.wdfm.com.[Terms and Conditions]

This means you should look at the response rates long after transmission. No need to obsessively watch them daily or weekly if the message went out months prior. But, do check in to see the increased number.

People will save an appealing offer. Or, they might bookmark the landing page for when they have more time. If you held a real-time Webinar, put a link to that event’s archive on your landing page for latecomers. LC

The Internet Marketing Tip above originally appeared in Larry Chase's Web Digest For Marketers which you can subscribe to at no charge at www.wdfm.com.[Terms and Conditions]

It is this user happiness that drives Google’s search results pages. That goes for the organic, or natural, results, as well as paid listings. Part of that user happiness equation is how satisified the user is with the landing page he/she jumps to from those search results. The more users like your landing pages, the more Google should like you, and you, hopefully, move up higher in rankings.

Instead of always thinking about Search Engine Optimization, it would serve you also to think about “User Happiness Optimization,” or UHO. LC

The Internet Marketing Tip above originally appeared in Larry Chase's Web Digest For Marketers which you can subscribe to at no charge at www.wdfm.com.[Terms and Conditions]

Many copywriters think this technique insults the reader’s intelligence. When done wrong, or overdone, it can. But more often is the case the reader feels reassured or reminded of a key point you’re trying to establish. LC

The Internet Marketing Tip above originally appeared in Larry Chase's Web Digest For Marketers which you can subscribe to at no charge at www.wdfm.com.[Terms and Conditions]