Monthly Archive for August, 2007

email marketing

Published on August 18, 2007 in internet marketing. 2 Comments

Moses Kemibaro

Most if not all of Internet users in Africa have access to email in one form or other – whether via the desktop or even on their mobile phones. As a result, email continues to gain widespread adoption as a preferred communication medium for lots of people in Africa even as SMS remains king. Both people and organisations are finding email to be a cost-effective, convenient and reliable way to stay in touch with anyone for as long as they have an email address. To this end, it is for this very reason that email, even in Africa, is also rapidly being used as a key channel for marketing and customer service initiatives. Email, used correctly, can strengthen client relationships, builds brand, and ultimately generates sales.

Email marketing by simple definition is “the marketing of products and services via email”. Today, permission-based email marketing is a white hot topic. The key difference between permission-based and SPAM email marketing is that in the former, the recipient can opt-in or opt-out of email communications whereas in the latter, one does not have a choice – they simply keep receiving unsolicited email even if they never signed up for it. SPAM has become such a problem for email users that the United States passed the CAN-SPAM law in late 2003 which makes it a criminal offence to send SPAM. There are several flavours of email marketing that are available:

Direct email marketing.

Direct email marketing involves sending a promotional message in the form of an email. It might be an announcement of a special offer, for example. Just as you might have a list of customer or prospect postal addresses to send your promotions too, so you can collect a list of customer or prospect email addresses.

Retention email marketing.

Retention email marketing, unlike direct email marketing, is designed to encourage the recipient to take action (buy something, sign-up for something, etc.). These usually take the form of regular emails known as email newsletters or e-newsletters. An e-newsletter may carry promotional messages or advertisements, but will aim at developing a long-term impact on the readers. It should provide the readers with value, which means more than just sales messages. It should contain information which informs, entertains or otherwise benefits the readers.

Advertising email marketing.

Advertising email marketing involves putting your advertisement in e-newsletters published by others and paying them to appear in the emails they send to their subscribers. Indeed, there are many email newsletters that are created for just this purpose – to sell advertising space to others. As people tire of getting sales messages via email, it’s these quality communications that perhaps hold the most potential for the future.

Going forward, there will be many challenges for the African Enterprise to achieve the full benefit of email marketing. Some of these challenges are well known such as the lack of reliable and fast internet connectivity or the general limited uptake of the internet even as it has grown exponentially over the past decade or so. However, the benefits of this medium as a marketing channel far outweigh the limitations owing to the following:

  • Price – the cost of sending an email message, even in Africa is much cheaper than most of the other communication channels available today. It is possible to email an email list of thousands for no more than a few US$ Dollars.
  • Personalisation – most of today’s email marketing software and systems provide for personalisation of email messages distributed. This means that each recipient receives each message as if it were just to them and them only. Personalisation essentially engages the recipient in a dialogue which results in higher conversation ratios for marketing campaigns.
  • Reporting – Email marketing is highly targeted and traceable so that campaign reporting and analysis is practically done in real time. This enables a business to modify and reorient its email marketing campaign in record time to maximise performance.
  • People – Most of the people on email in Africa do represent something of an elite minority. For organisations marketing high value offerings, this is probably therefore an ideal channel to reach this target cost-effectively with a substantial return on investment.

All in all, Email marketing is undoubtedly here to stay and the future of marketing in Africa may well depend on it as a key channel as Internet usage gathers momentum throughout the continent.
This article was first published in the May 2006 edition of Marketing Africa Magazine.

About the Writer:
Moses Kemibaro is an internet marketing professional and founder of Dotsavvy Limited (www.dotsavvyafrica.com ). He can be reached on moses@moseskemibaro.com

branded email

Published on August 18, 2007 in internet marketing. 0 Comments

The Internet and Market changes have driven radical innovations to the global business environment over the last ten years. Companies leverage these innovations to build sustainable competitive advantage by enhancing their brands, customer service, sales, marketing, and core operations. Branded email is one of the ways that companies globally are building top of mind positioning with customers and strategic business partners.

Globally, companies are faced with the need to effectively and professionally communicate with their clients and partners via email. Such communications provide a valuable opportunity for it to market products and services – at very low cost compared to other communication channels. As a result of this, companies are leveraging corporate e-mail communications as key marketing and brand-building channel.

The Case for Branded E-mail.

  • Branding – Maintains consistency with branding strategy and visual identity.
  • Impressiveness – Enhances the professional appearance of communications by branding the hundreds, or thousands, of messages a company sends daily.
  • Interactivity – Recipients can click on template links to reach online destinations.
  • Results – Drives qualified visitors to relevant pages on a corporate web site that therefore increases return on investment (ROI).
  • Measurability – Tracking and reporting measures the impact. A branded email system can include simple web-based reporting of key metrics, such as clicks and v-card downloads.
  • Ease of use – If outsourced, a basic template can be ready to deploy in days. Additional features include customized logos, a drop-down menu of optional elements the sender can include, and other tools available companywide.
  • Compactness – A basic template adds less than 1K to messages.
  • Innovation – For companies whose brand and image are linked with tech-savvy, style, or design, a branded email template sends the message the sender really does “get it.”
  • Quality assurance – You’re in control of your brand. A centralized, web-based admin system hosts the template.
  • Prudence – Like paper letterhead, cost is measured in fractions of a cent per message. Price models are generally per employee. Volume discounts can apply based on the number of licenses.

Key Drivers.

The key drivers for developing a branded e-mail corporate program based are as follows:

  • To generate new business
  • To create strong online branding and enhanced corporate positioning
  • To complement established business development initiatives.
  • To reduce the cost of transmitting promotional information and completing transactions with customers/prospects.
  • To create new types of collaborative communications that can be used to create value-added services and products for customers/prospects.
  • To enhance customer retention and brand recall.

About the Writer:
Moses Kemibaro is an internet marketing professional and founder of Dotsavvy Limited (www.dotsavvyafrica.com). He can be reached on moses@moseskemibaro.com

domain name marketing

Published on August 18, 2007 in internet marketing. 0 Comments

By now, we all pretty much know what a domain name is – we see them everyday as we go online and use web sites to access information, products and services. Domain names such as yahoo.com, cnn.com, nationedmedia.com and google.com have become very much a part of our everyday lexicon. it’s somewhat hard to imagine that just 10 years ago, when the Internet was just starting to take off around the world, most people didn’t know what “dotcom” was at the time. However, back to the subject at hand, what is the impact on domain name marketing as we know it, and how important are domain names as part of your internet marketing strategy?

When thinking about domain names, I like to thing of the analogy of real estate. When it comes to real estate, the best properties are the ones that have the most desirable features such infrastructure, demographics, location, scenery, etc. In very much the same way, premium domain names are those that have the highest current or potential internet traffic. The golden secret behind this trend is known as direct navigation. As it turns out, a good number of internet users do not even bother using search engines such as google.com or yahoo.com to find web sites, instead they use “direct navigation” to web sites that have domain names that best describe the product, service or information they are looking for.

The most valuable domain names are those that capture the most traffic, which internet users directly navigate to using either generic or brand-specific terms based on the product, service or information that they are looking for. For instance, if I directly navigated to sex.com, I would expect to find probably the most authoritative resource on the topic “sex” (by the way, the domain name sex.com holds the highest price for a domain name ever resold for US$ 14 million in January 2005). The same applies to generic domain names such as cars.com, music.com or mortgages.com. On the reverse side of the generic domain name internet marketing trend, is that of brand-specific domain names. This is one area that is hot with litigation, especially in the US and Europe where companies and people have registered domain names that infringe on well known copyrighted brand names (see kenyaairways.com). This is something that not only affects companies, consider where a person is also a well-known and highly global brand as well, how much revenue-generating internet traffic are they losing by not owning their OWN domain name? Probably millions of dollars! (see rkelly.com).

The business model behind high traffic domain names is that the domain owner is an intermediary who may or may not actually provide an offering that is directly linked to the domain name in question. The domain name owner then builds a web site that is rich in contextually relevant web site links to internet advertisers who want to reach the target audience who directly navigated to the domain name. Each time an internet user clicks on one of the advertiser links, the domain name owner is paid a fee for directing traffic to the advertisers’ web sites. This may sound like a fairly simple concept but as the internet continues to grow and become widely accessible globally, lots and lots of money is being made by domain owners and internet advertisers through this approach. This business model basically monetizes premium domain names for the domain owner and internet advertiser, representing a growing internet marketing segment.

Behind the scenes of domain name marketing, is an entire ecosystem of intermediary service providers. The easiest way to get on board is to buy google adwords using keywords and key terms and that are relevant to your offerings. Once this is done, Google will publish your adwords in a contextual manner on web sites that have relevance, including those that were directly navigated via intermediate service providers. Once internet users land on these domain name web sites, they will/could have an opportunity to click on a link to your web site.

However, in practical terms, the most cost-effective way to take full advantage of domain name marketing is to own the domain names that are relevant to your offerings (that’s if its not already too late!) under the global “.com” extension which is the most desirable since it has top-of-mind relevance. If this is not possible, then register your business and/or brands under country-specific domain name extensions such as .ke, .ug or .tz (i.e. Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania) within the geographies where your business operates. In time, as they already do, internet users are directly navigating country-specific domain name extensions rather than a global domain name extension such as .com or .net (see google.co.ke). As mentioned earlier, domain names are like real estate, secure yours now to take full advantage of domain name marketing.

This article was first published in the June 2007 edition of Marketing Africa Magazine.

About the Writer:
Moses Kemibaro is an internet marketing professional and founder of Dotsavvy Limited (www.dotsavvyafrica.com ). He can be reached on moses@moseskemibaro.com

supercharge your search engine marketing

Published on August 18, 2007 in internet marketing. 5 Comments
Having been in the Internet industry for the better part of ten years, one of the questions I am continuously asked by our clients is how they can achieve high rankings on search engines for keywords that are relevant to their business. This is one of those questions that is getting ever harder to answer, since search engine and internet marketing in general has evolved into a complex and multibillion dollar industry.

In the early days on the Internet, you could easily trick a search engine into giving you top positions for search results – it was as simple as stuffing keywords and key terms into your web pages source code, and you immediately shot up in your rankings. Nowadays, achieving top rankings is nothing less than rocket science, and a little voodoo.

Globally, search engine optimization (SEO) companies specialize in delivering high rankings on search engines for their clients, in the process becoming a highly sought after and elite bunch. They are treasured by many Fortune 500 companies for their expertise in generating lots of internet traffic, resulting in explosive online sales. As a result, a top ranking on the leading search engines such as Google, Yahoo! Search, and MSN Search is becoming a quest that companies are willing to invest millions in SEO services to achieve.

I don’t have all the answers for SEO success but I do have ten basic steps that if used effectively will radically improve your web site’s search engine rankings and overall internet marketing success. Here’s how:

  • Site Links – Probably the most important thing you can do to improve your search engine ranking is having as many credible web sites as possible pointing to your web site. The assumption that search engines make is that if you have lots of quality sites linking back to your site, you must be important, and deserve a top ranking. In Kenya, for instance, having a link or banner ad on top web sites such as the Daily Nation (http://www.nationmedia.com) or the East African Standard (http://www.eastandard.net) would ensure your search engine rankings improve. Internationally, you can also try to create a homepage on free high search traffic sites like MySpace (http://www.myspace.com) and then direct traffic from there to your web site.
  • Directory Listings – In the surge of search engines, the two most prominent search directories today are the Open Directory (http://www.dmoz.org) and the Yahoo! Directory (http://dir.yahoo.com). Being listed in these directories ensures that you get found on lots of sites. It also means that search engines will give you a higher position for search results if you are listed in these directories. The Open Directory is completely free and even plugs into Google’s search results. The Yahoo! Directory requires an annual fee to be paid for listing. Its also a great idea to get listed on domestic, regional or industry-specific directories.
  • Content – content is king for search engines. Instead of just having keywords and key terms stuffed in your source code, what you need to do is ensure that the content on your web site’s pages is directly related to the keywords and key terms you may use. Search engines index the content of web sites, determining to a large extent how you will be ranked in search results.
  • Meta Tags – In the early days of search engines, meta tags were the holy grail. People stuffed keywords and key terms into their meta tags and voila! high rankings. Meta tags are specifically located in the source code of web pages and are normally not visible when you browse a web page. Although meta tags are not as important as they used to be, its important to ensure that your web pages have them and that the keywords and key terms used in them relate to actual the content on the web pages. You can find more information on how to use meta tags at http://www.searchenginewatch.com.
  • Page Titles - There is also the page title tag which is the one you normally see at the top of your web browser when viewing a web page. This is an extremely important tag for search engines since they use it to index and place your web site. If you have keyword rich title tags on your homepage and secondary web pages they can massively improve your search engine rankings.
  • Paid Search – Paid search engine listings is another excellent way of improving your rankings. Examples of these are Google Adwords (http://adwords.google.com/select/Login), Yahoo! Sponsored listings (http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/marketing/sponsorlist.php), and MSN Advertising (http://advertising.microsoft.com/home/home). In this scenario, you actually pay for keywords and terms on search engines to be linked to your site in search results. However, by using paid search, you also improve your overall search engine rankings – it’s as simple as that!
  • Submitting – It’s always a good idea to manually submit your web site address to search engines and NOT use automated submission software. This means going manually to the search engines and submitting your web site address and specific content web pages as well. Once this is done, it normally takes anywhere from a few hours or as long as two months to get listed on some search engines – be patient!
  • Enter the BIG 3 – On the Internet, there are literally thousands of search engines on all sorts of genres. However, the only ones that really matter are the big three – Google (http://www.google.co.ke), Yahoo! Search (http://search.yahoo.com) and MSN Search (http://search.msn.com). These three engines attract in excess of 90% of all the search traffic to be found online today. If your site is well listed on them, you will be found. If you are listed on Google, which is the biggest of them all, let’s just say you should start seeing some serious traffic coming to your web site.
  • Get Blogged – Blogging is emerging as one of the most exciting and fastest growing trends on the internet. Individuals and companies alike are using Blogs as a powerful tool of self expression. It also so happens that having a blog is one of the ways you can supercharge your search engine rankings. Its easy to start a blog that can be linked to your web site, and in the process improve your search engine traffic. Two free and great blog services you can use are WordPress (http://www.wordpress.com) and Blogger (http://www.blogger.com).
  • Check rankings – Finally, once your site has been submitted to search engines, check every couple of weeks to see if you are being found for keywords and key terms that relate to your web site. This is a continuous process of checking and improving your search engine rankings accordingly. One of the best free services you can use to do this is Google Analytics (http://www.googleanalytics.com).

This article was first published in the August 2007 edition of Marketing Africa Magazine.

About the Writer:
Moses Kemibaro is an internet marketing professional and founder of Dotsavvy Limited (www.dotsavvyafrica.com ). He can be reached on moses@moseskemibaro.com