Hardware Productivity Tools

1. iPhone

The iPhone is one of the best productivity tools available. Not only can you check your emails, manage your calendar and check your social media accounts, but you can do it in your dead time such as waiting in line or getting a coffee. Additionally, many of the software tools I recommend in this article are beneficial because of their iPhone apps.

2. iPad

When I first got an iPad I didn’t really know how to use it to get the biggest productivity benefits from my day. What I finally understood is that the iPad is not a replacement for your laptop or your phone. But when you use it in conjunction with the apps listed in this article, such as Things and Flipboard, you really start to see its benefits.

3. Mac

As a die hard PC fan it was a hard decision to convert to Mac, which I did in January 2011. The transition was a bit hard at first and re-learning all of the shortcuts took a bit of time, but once the transition was over (which took me a month or two) I gained significant productivity improvements. Not only does my Mac start up and shut down in less than 20 seconds but features such as Spotlight and custom keyboard shortcuts save a considerable amount of mouse clicks (more about that later).

Advanced Tip: Don’t use your mouse to open any programs or documents. Instead use COMMAND + SPACE to open spotlight and then start typing the name of the application or document you want to open. When you see it at the top of the list, just hit ENTER and it’s open.

4. Smartpen

Anybody who attends a business meeting takes handwritten notes (at least if they want the meeting to be effective). Usually these notes include action items, key points and other pertinent information. The question is, what do you do with those notes after you’ve taken them? If you’re like me, you probably have alot of notebooks full of notes from various meetings. Using a Smartpen is a great way to get your handwritten notes onto your computer. You handwrite your notes using your Smartpen, then sync your smartpen with your computer, and all of the handwritten notes are automatically transferred to your computer available to browse or search. The best part about this software is that it can transcribe your handwritten notes into text (and it’s very good at it) and you can search through your past notes using keywords.

5. Amazon Kindle

At first, the feeling of reading a book on a Kindle was a little jarring, especially because I enjoyed the feeling of holding a book and turning pages. But in less than a week the benefits of reading on a Kindle far outweighed any nostalgia I had towards physical books. The main benefits of reading on a Kindle are that you can set the size of the font you want to read at (ensuring a consistent reading speed), fast turning of pages, instant availability of nearly any book you want to read, the ability to send documents and web pages to it, and carrying all of your books with you wherever you go.

Software Productivity Tools

6. Things

Things is by far the best piece of software for managing a to-do list that I have ever used (and I have used a lot). Things is a software application that runs on Macs, iPhones and iPads. You can quickly add to-dos using keyboard shortcuts from wherever you are on your Mac, you can create categories and assign to-dos to categories, and you can schedule to-dos for the future. The iPhone and iPad apps synchronise with your Mac so you have the same list on all devices, and you can quickly add new to-dos through your iPhone or iPad when you’re on the go.

Advanced Tip: take your iPad to meetings, create a project name for the meeting and add to-dos for all action points and notes that come out of the meeting.

7. Gmail

If you receive more than 100 emails a day then finding a way to manage your emails in a time effective manner is critical. Of all the email applications I have tested, nothing is better than Gmail for productivity. You can create filters, labels and rules for how emails are handled and probably the best productivity feature of Gmail is the ability to Archive the current email and Open the next email with a single key.

Advanced Tip: clear your Gmail inbox daily. Use the Things ‘Show and Autofill’ feature to automatically add to-dos that include links to individual Gmail messages so you can go back to the message when you need to (ie after prioritising all of your to-dos).

8. Flipboard

If you need to stay abreast of all that is happening in your industry there’s nothing better than Flipboard. Originally an iPad application, it’s now also available on iPhone. With Flipboard you add your Google Reader, Twitter and Facebook accounts (as well as any other that you use) and browse through all of the articles, stories and updates in a magazine style format. You can send articles you like by email or share them on Facebook or Twitter.

9. Instapaper

Instapaper allows you to save web pages to read later. So wherever you are on the web, you can save an article, web page or blog post to read later. While this may seem like a simple thing to do, it’s the functionality that really makes Instapaper a productivity tool – Instapaper integrates with your Internet browser (eg Firefox), iPad, iPhone and Amazon Kindle.

Advanced Tip: Install the Instapaper Kindle App. Then, when you find an article in Flipboard that you want to read, send it directly to your Kindle from Flipboard and then read it later when you have some time.

10. Concept Draw Mindmap

If you have a lot of projects on the go, many areas of responsiblity, or brainstorm a lot, using mindmapping software is one of the best tools for managing it all. Mindmaps are one of the best ways to take complex or difficult subjects or problems and quickly generate new ideas and structure them intuitively. Mindmapping software takes mindmapping to the next level by allowing you to quickly develop mindmaps and adjust their various components.

Advanced Tip: Create a master mindmap that links to other mindmaps on your computer. Put everything you’re working on in the mindmapping software and then take the key actions you want to implement and add them to Things. Review your mindmap weekly.

11. Evernote

Evernote is one of the best tools created for sharing text, screenshots, images, audio, photos and literally any other digital file between your various devices and with other people. The desktop application allows you to capture anything from your computer and send it to Evernote. The iPhone app allows you to do the same from your mobile.

12. Dropbox

Where evernote can store text, screenshots, video and audio, Dropbox is a cloud service that acts like your virtual hard drive. You can upload any type of file you want and access it from anywhere. You can also share specific folders in Dropbox with anybody you want.

13. Google Docs

If you use Microsoft Word or Excel then you’ll love Google Docs. Google Docs doesn’t have all the features of Word and Excel but the features it does have more than makes up for it. The most impressive feature of Google Docs is that you can collaborate on any document or spreadsheet with as many people as you like, which means that multiple people can work on the same document at the same time. The fact that all of your documents are online and backed up in the cloud is another bonus.

14. 1Password

If you don’t already use a password manager then you’ll love this. 1Password stores all the passwords for your various logins (and if you use the Internet, there are A LOT). What most people do is use the same password over and over again, which is a major security issue, or record their passwords somewhere on their computer, which is a huge waste of time. With 1Password you can create a different password for every site you visit and store it for easy retrieval when you need to login.

Advanced Tip: Use the password generator feature to create 12 digit passwords that use letters, numbers and symbols and create a new password for every site you need to login to. Then use the keyboard shortcut to automatically fill in forms when you need to.

15. Snagit

Trying to refer to a particular section on a web page or within an application is very difficult just using words. With Snagit you can take a screenshot of anything on your screen, annotate it and then send it by email to whomever you need to communicate with.

Advanced Tip: If you need to make instructional documents, take screenshots with Snagit and write instructions that refer to the screenshot.

16. Camtasia

If screenshots aren’t enough to get the point across, Camtasia allows you to record both the screen and the audio, which means you can walk through a website, an application or anything else and explain what you’re doing while you’re doing it. Anybody who watches the video will know exactly what you’re talking about.

17. TypeQuick

If you don’t know how to TouchType (and I mean using ALL of your fingers without looking at the keyboard) then you need to learn right away. With all the typing we do all day, one of the biggest time wasters is not being able to touch type. TypeQuick is touch typing software that actually teaches you how to type. When I was first learning to touch type I locked myself away for 6 hours a day over a Saturday and Sunday and pushed myself to finish the program. Then, I forced myself to use the new technique (even though it felt uncomfortable) until it became natural.

18. Keyboard Shortcuts

This tool is the most underutilised yet most powerful productivity tool you can use. Moving your hands from your keyboard to your mouse, then finding what you need to click on, then moving it back to your keyboard – and doing this hundreds or thousands of times a day – is a huge waste of time. There are keyboard shortcuts for nearly everything you need to do on your computer, and learning how to use them will give you a massive productivity boost.

Tip: don’t try to learn every single keyboard shortcut in one go (it will be pretty much impossible to do so anyway). Instead, when you find yourself moving between your keyboard and mouse, do a search on Google for “(action) keyboard shortcut” and start using it right away. Over time you’ll learn hundreds of keyboard shortcuts that will save you a ton of time. And if you have a Mac, create your own custom shortcuts for frequent actions you take in any program you use.

Implementing any one of these 18 productivity tools will give you a productivity boost. However the real power lies in implementing all of them at once. That’s when you’ll really start to see significant productivity improvements.

Enjoy!

With the current state of the global economy, more and more businesses are diverting their marketing budgets online to maximise sales and their return on investment. IAB Australia recently announced that the online advertising market is on track to surpass $3 billion in 2012.

Simply having a website or an Adwords campaign is no longer enough to keep up with the increasingly fierce online environment.  Your online marketing strategy needs to be robust and multi-pronged to ensure you are successfully reaching your target market (wherever they are) and then effectively selling your products or services.

Here are 5 ways to drive sales and grow your business during these difficult economic times.

1. Develop a website that sells for you 24/7

What member of your staff would work for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?  Certainly no-one I know.  An effective website should be viewed as part of your team, it’s there 24/7 and allows you to sell your products and services even whilst your company sleeps.  Spending money on your website to improve or update it is a long term investment and pales in comparison to the annual wage of one of your staff members.  Potential customers and clients can instantly assess, judge and act without you having to lift a finger.

2. Engage with prospects on their Smartphone or Tablet

It’s predicted that in only six months time 1 in 2 people in the USA will own a Smartphone (Inside Retail). In Australia we’re not quite at this level yet however a day does not go by without seeing people on the move connected to their smartphone or iPad… browsing, shopping, sending emails or sharing photos.  Not having a Google places listing, or a mobile-friendly web design, a Facebook page or for that matter simply zero online presence will impact your business’ ability to effectively deliver to the growing market of mobile search users.

3. Capture market share through top SEO rankings

Online search offers opportunities for businesses of all sizes to get ‘a foot in the door’ – ranking at the top of Google is not dependent on being one of the high street or big brand names.  Any business can succeed and reach Page 1 of Google with the right SEO strategy in place.  Unlike a print ad or a TV advert, investing your marketing budget in an SEO strategy means you can have visibility endlessly.  Undoubtedly SEO is both competitive and ever changing but the key here is to ensure you are investing the right amount to get Page 1 rankings and having the right online advice to keep your business at the forefront of SEO.

4. Build relationships with social media

Facebook is now the most visited website in the world, with 48% of the Australian population having a Facebook account. Social Media platforms offer brands personality and a voice within a competitive market. For many businesses there is a reluctance to embrace these platforms due to lack of understanding – but the right strategy can pay dividends.  There’s not only an SEO benefit created by sharing links from your website on social platforms but individuals can actually assist you with your marketing by ‘Liking’, ‘Recommending’, ‘Retweeting’ or ‘+1ing’ your website.

5. Drive sales fast with Pay-Per-Click

Advertising using Google AdWords campaigns (Pay-Per-Click) can generate instant revenue for a business.  The adverts are tuned directly to a users search terms and instantly sell a relevant product, offer or service.  The adverts also allow you to achieve a Page 1 paid position on Google and leverage off large search volumes in a prime position.  If the landing page is well designed, the Ads will generally offer a high conversion rate as users clicking the ads are more likely to act instantly.

Achieving success is unquestionably the goal of any business and in this current global economic environment every business needs to use all the opportunities available to them to drive sales and stay ahead of the competition.

First let’s look at an example that shows how small improvements in the conversion rate can result in greater increases in profits.

How Your Conversion Rate Affects Profits

Example: Assume you are an online retailer buying traffic on Google AdWords. Your average profit on one sale is $100 excluding advertising cost.

Scenario 1: Your monthly advertising budget is $5,000 and your metrics are:

• Cost per click: $0.50
• Clicks: 10,000
• Conversion rate: 1%
• Sales: 100 (= 10,000 clicks x 1%)
• Cost per sale: $50 (= $5000 budget / 100 sales)
• Profit per sale: $50 (= $100 sale amount – $50 cost per sale)
• Overall profit: $5,000 (= $50 x 100 sales)

Scenario 2: Now let’s assume your website conversion rate is 1.25%, – a conversion rate increase of 25%. Your advertising budget remains the same at $5,000, but the metrics become:

• Cost per click: $0.50
• Clicks: 10,000
• Conversion rate: 1.25%
• Sales: 125 (= 10,000 clicks x 1.25%)
• Cost per sale: $40 (= $5000 budget / 125 sales)
• Profit per sale: $60 (= $100 sale amount – $40 cost per sale)
• Overall profit: $7,500 (= $60 x 125 sales)

Conclusion: What’s the impact of the conversion rate increase on profits? In this scenario a 25% improvement in the conversion rate leads to 50% more profit! If you are currently running a Pay Per Click campaign, any improvement in the website conversion rate will lead to a proportionally higher increase in profit.

5 Ways To Improve Your Conversion Rate

So here are five fast ways to improve your website conversion rate. In order to evaluate whether your changes actually produce better (and statistically significant) results, we recommend using the free Google Website Optimizer, a Google tool that allows you to split test changes on your website.

1. Improve The Headline On Your Landing Page - The headline is one of the most important elements on your page. It needs to grab people’s attention and convince them that they have landed on the right website.

2. Split Test The Copy On Your Page - If your visitor has read the headline on your page and hasn’t left yet, the text on the page has to convince the prospect to take the desired action (signup, enquire, buy). Make sure that it is easy to read, well structured and always include a call to action at the end of the page.

3. Test Different Images - Images support the message on your pages. Just because you like an image doesn’t mean that your target audience will also like it. Test different images in order to find out what your customer demographic responds to best.

4. Establish Credibility - Why should someone trust your business or buy from you? Especially online, it is important to establish credibility. Are you a member of an association in your industry? Have you won an award in the past? Do you have raving customer testimonials (video testimonials are best!)? Wherever you can include evidence that proves your credibility.

5. Test Different Offers - Testing different offers is a great way to improve conversion rates. You may want to test adding a special guarantee (365 days versus 30 days), increasing or decreasing prices or offering free shipping. There are many ways to re-package your offer to make it more attractive to your visitors.

So, isn’t it time you start working on your conversion rate?

So, how well is your business doing online? And just how effective is your online marketing strategy?

Here are 5 questions you should know the answer to…

1. What Keywords Are You Ranking For And Are These Of Value?

Are the keywords you are ranking for on Google high value keywords for your business? And do these keywords bring traffic to your website?

There are three keyword types that people refer to in regards to search engine marketing. These include:

• Navigational: this keyword type is used to define when someone is looking for a specific web page and has some knowledge on the result they want their search to find.
• Informational: this is a keyword people will use when researching or looking for information on a particular topic.
• Transactional: a keyword commonly used by consumers when they are looking to purchase a product or service.

An effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy will focus on keywords that are relevant to your business, are transactional keywords (rather than informational) and have the highest monthly traffic volume on Google. There is no point ranking on Google for keywords that are informational and have no search volume as it will not drive traffic to your website to convert into sales.

TIP: Use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to gain insight into the monthly traffic for each keyword you are optimising for on Google. Make sure when you do this that you look at the ‘Exact’ match keywords rather than ‘broad’ match. Exact match looks at the traffic for that exact keyword phrase. Broad match will display all traffic for the exact phrase as well as other similar or relevant variations.

2. What Is The Conversion Rate Of Your Website?

A website ‘conversion rate’ is the rate at which your website converts visitors into sales or enquiries. If you are receiving 500 monthly visitors to your website and from this you receive 5 enquiries for the month, then your website conversion rate is 1%.

TIP: Are you ranking in Google and getting traffic to your website but not gaining a return via sales or leads? Rather than paying more money for more visitors to your site, invest in a new website design with a modern look that trumps your competition and has the added marketing science integrated. This will not only give your online business a makeover but also significantly increase the enquiries or sales from your current visitor numbers.

3. How Much Organic Non-Branded Traffic Is Your Website Receiving?

Use Google Analytics to track your visitor numbers, or ‘traffic’. Here are some traffic terms to help you understand three important types of traffic:

• Paid Traffic: This is traffic or visitors you receive to your website through a paid campaign or Google AdWords. If you are currently utilising a Pay-Per-Click strategy, the traffic this generates is viewed as ‘paid’ traffic.
• Organic Traffic: Organic traffic refers to those visitors who have found and accessed your site through a search engine like Google.
• Branded Traffic: This refers to those who have searched for your name or brand in the search engines. For example If someone was to search for ‘Web Profits’ in Google and then click through to the website, this would be considered ‘branded’ traffic.

TIP: Rather than tracking repeat customers or people who already know your brand, it is important to know how accessible you are to those searching for what you do so you can access new markets and customers. Therefore, new customers can be seen through looking at organic, non-branded traffic. This traffic type should be the focus of you online marketing and SEO initiatives.

4. What Is Your Current CPA?

CPA is an acronym for ‘Cost Per Acquisition’ and refers to how much money you are spending for a lead or sale. The CPA determines how cost-effective your Google AdWords campaign is.

EXAMPLE: If your company spends $100 through Google AdWords on 100 visitors and 5 of them contact you through an enquiry, then your CPA is $20. To ensure cost-effectiveness you also need to look at your average sale worth and the profit you receive on each sale or product. If your company has an average sale worth of $1,000, then this CPA is awesome!

5. Do You Have A Social Media Presence?

With the increase in popularity of social media, and 48% of the Australian population on Facebook, having a social media presence for your business is becoming a must. This platform is becoming a great way for you to create a two way conversation with your market, and make sure your business is the name on consumers’ lips when considering your service or product.

TIP: We have reached an age where money really can buy friends – but what sort of friends are you really paying for? Quantity or quality? While 5,000 friends may look impressive on Facebook or Twitter, this would be worthless if they didn’t amount to any sales or future business. Make sure you attract and engage with Facebook Fans and Twitter Followers who are in your target market, are potential consumersor clients and have an interest in your brand to ensure the money is invest is done with advancing your business in mind.

So, how effective is your business online?

Google has recently released Google Analytics v5; their new version of the Analytics product, offering a more intuitive user interface and promising a completely new user experience. It still contains an enormous volume of powerful information, just presented with a fresh look and feel. Whether you’re sold on the new version of Google Analytics or still traversing the old, the point remains…if you don’t know where to look to find the key data that will inform your business decisions then its usefulness is immediately devalued.

A good strategy when first starting out with Google Analytics is to keep it simple. Think about what you’re trying to measure and the information you need to do this. Here are 6 of the most common questions businesses might ask themselves about their online marketing efforts and the reports available in Google Analytics to help answer them.

1. Who is visiting my site and how did they find their way there?

Google Analytics Navigation (New): Traffic Sources > Incoming Sources > All Traffic

Most, if not all, businesses would be interested in the answer to this question; even if the sole purpose of your website is to have an internet presence and nothing more. This report can reveal a lot about where your visitors are coming from. For example, you might realise that:-

• The majority of your traffic is generated organically through Google, reinforcing your marketing spend on SEO and Google rankings; or
• Your PPC campaign is working effectively to drive more visitors to your site; or
• A large proportion of your traffic is being generated directly by visitors typing your site URL into their browser indicating perhaps the success of an offline marketing campaign or an increasing brand awareness of your business online (TIP: You can use the Google URL Builder to track offline advertising performance).

2. What keywords are visitors searching for to find my site?

Google Analytics Navigation (New): Traffic Sources > Incoming Sources > Search > Overview

This report highlights the keywords generating the greatest amount of traffic to your site. This information provides valuable insight into what keywords you should be targeting in your SEO or PPC campaign. Further segmenting the data in the table by Medium, allows you to easily isolate which keywords are performing the best for organic search and which have the highest click through success for PPC Advertising.

3. Which of my online marketing strategies is generating the most traffic to my site?

Google Analytics Navigation (New): Traffic Sources > Incoming Sources > Search > Overview

It is often useful to assess the performance of your SEO and PPC campaigns by looking at the proportion of traffic being driven to your site from each strategy. Adding two segments to this basic report (Paid Search Traffic and Non-paid Search Traffic) gives you even more flexibility to filter your data and analyse the behaviour of your visitors from each of these sources. This can be quite revealing; where SEO may generate more traffic to your site, Paid Search Traffic (PPC) may have a higher goal conversion rate making it a profitable strategy to pursue in the short term.

4. Is my site doing a good job of converting visitors into customers?

Google Analytics Navigation (New): Conversions > Goals > Overview

This should be the key question being asked by any lead generation or Ecommerce site. Regardless of the amount of traffic being directed to your site, if you’re not converting this traffic into sales leads or closing an online transaction, then your site is not generating income for you. The conversion rate (number of conversions divided by number of visits) of your site is the best measure of your online profitability.

It is important to keep in mind though that whilst online sales might be the main goal you are interested in; your website actually delivers many more business opportunities. What about tracking enquiries submitted, phone calls made, and even newsletter registrations? All of these goals can provide you with further valuable data on the performance of your site.

5. What are my visitors interested in when they get to my site

Google Analytics Navigation (New): Content > Site Content > Pages

This report identifies the most commonly viewed pages on your site. These pages offer you the greatest opportunities for split testing and the potential to maximise return from advertising spend. Information in this report is particularly useful to blog sites; providing an instant listing of the most popular posts and what topics resonated with their readers.

6. What could be causing visitors to leave my site

Google Analytics Navigation (New): Content > Site Content > Exit Pages

No one wants to think that their site might be losing business for them. In reality though, this is often the case. This report allows you to consider what areas of your site might require additional work to help retain visitors. There are many reasons why people might leave your site from a particular page:-

• Perhaps the content on the page isn’t speaking to your visitors;
• Perhaps the design of the page is cluttered and confuses the message being delivered; or
• Perhaps the page doesn’t contain clear call-to-actions

All of these reasons can be easily addressed; turning a non-performing page into one which converts well.

This article has only begun to scratch the surface of the information available in Google Analytics. It demonstrates though how even the most simple reports have the power to measure the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts.

Are you using Google Analytics? If not, it’s time to get started.

Any business serious about succeeding in 2011 and beyond, must be aware of the changing landscape and position themselves to ride these new and exciting waves.

This infographic outlines 20 things Australian businesses should know about online marketing. Feel free to leave any thoughts you have in the comments section below…

Sources:

• http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/11/marissa-mayer-40-of-google-maps-usage-is-mobile-and-there-are-150-million-mobile-users/
• https://sites.google.com/a/pressatgoogle.com/googleplaces/metrics
• http://www.hitwise.com/au/datacentre/main/dashboard-1706.html
• http://insights.chitika.com/2010/the-value-of-google-result-positioning/
• http://blog.tribalytic.com/how-many-australian-twitter-users-are-there-and-where-are-they-from/
• http://www.facebook.com/advertising/
• https://www.linkedin.com/ads/
• http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/OCR_GOS-oct10.pdf
• http://www.idc.com/about/viewpressrelease.jsp?containerId=prAU22603210&sectionId=null&elementId=null&pageType=SYNOPSIS
• http://www.prwire.com.au/pr/20488/frost-amp-sullivan-australia-s-online-general-advertising-market-worth-568-million-in-2010
• http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/pages/web-hosting-behind-the-scenes.aspx

The time has now come again… with the upcoming U.S. elections in November, Barack Obama has re-launched his online marketing campaign with the hope of achieving similar, if not better, results than in 2008 (of course this time he has the benefit of already being the President).

In this article I’ll cover 10 areas of his 2011 strategy, as well as explaining how you might apply them in your business.

1. A High Performance Website Is Used To Drive Action

When you go to www.barackobama.com the first page you see is a landing page that is focused on one thing… to get your email address and zip code. The main call to action is red so it stands out. It is obvious what they want you to do. They also use the words “I’m In!” in the button to encourage people to follow through.

Barack Obama’s people know that the key to gaining maximum leverage from those who visit his site is to capture their details and stay in touch with them on a regular basis through email marketing… the entire website is geared to drive email subscriptions and donations.

Action: What is the main action that you want your visitors to take? Are you capturing the email addresses of people who visit your website? Think about the best free offer you can make and integrate that offer into your website to drive action.

2. Split-Testing Is Used To Achieve Maximum Performance

Even though the website will be performing well, the Obama team know that the ultimate judge of what makes a good landing page is how people react to it. With that in mind, the Obama team is split-testing various designs of the landing page and measuring which one produces the best results.

And when you consider how much traffic his website will be receiving, an improvement in the conversion rate of just 1% can mean hundreds of thousands of additional voters subscribing to their database.

Action: Use Google Analytics to identify the highest visited and highest performing pages on your website. Then use Google Website Optimizer to split-test various elements on the page to improve performance.

3. An Offer Is Made On The ‘Thank You’ Page

As soon as you join the mailing list you are taken to a ‘thank you’ page that encourages you to make a donation. The ‘thank you’ page is one of the most valuable pieces of real estate on the website because it is the page that is displayed immediately after an action has been taken (in this case the submission of the form).

Notice how Barack Obama is looking at the form? Naturally, your eyes are taken to the top of the form as well… this isn’t a coincidence. The caption below an image is nearly always read by the visitor, and they have used that to sell the benefit of donating to their campaign.

The form also gives you options of how much you can donate, which means that people can donate as little as $10 or as much as $1,000 or more – it takes away any issue that people might face with how much they should donate.

Action: Review the ‘thank you’ page that visitors see after they take an action on your website. What else could you offer on that page to drive additional action?

4. Email Marketing Is Used To Build The Relationship

Once you subscribe, Barack Obama uses email marketing to build a relationship with you over time. He shares updates on what he has been up to, opinions on various issues and he educates you over time. His emails are written from the first person, from him to you, further building his credibility and trust.

At the end of every email is a call to action to ‘donate now’, although this isn’t pushed heavily. The main focus of every email is to communicate a clear message, which is done masterfully.

Action: Do you have a database of prospects or clients? Then implement an email marketing strategy that develops the relationship, builds trust, and establishes your business as the leader in the market.

5. Blogging Is Used To Connect With The Market

Barack Obama uses blogging to communicate with his visitors and supporters. He shares articles, commentary, YouTube videos and Twitter updates.

You’ll also notice that there’s a ‘Donate Now’ button on every page, to drive action (at the date of writing this article the button is blue, but in 2008 it was red and stood out a lot more, indicating that the donations component in 2011 may not be as important as it was in 2008… or maybe they’re just split-testing it).

Blogging aligns perfectly with social media, which I’ll cover shortly.

Action: Setup a blog on your website and use it to connect with your visitors. Sharing educational or informative articles works best when combined with email marketing and social media marketing.

6. Social Media Is Fully Integrated Into The Website

In 2008 Barack Obama had a presence on 16 different social media platforms, and promoted all of them on his website. In 2011 that number has been reduced to two… Facebook and Twitter, which reflects the growth and market share that these two websites have achieved in the last 3 years. Of course he still uses YouTube to stream his videos and Flickr to host his images, but he has limited his social networking to Facebook and Twitter.

Every post on his website lets you share that post on Facebook and Twitter, and you can invite your Facebook friends to the Barack Obama site right from the widget in the sidebar. This is where blogging aligns perfectly with social media, because people are much more likely to share a piece of information rather than an entire website.

The biggest point to take away from this is that if Barack Obama, with all the resources at his disposal, is only focusing on Facebook and Twitter then why would you spend any of your precious time on anything else.

Action: Integrate Facebook and Twitter with your website and, in particular, your blog. The better the information you share, the more people who will also share it.

7. Campaigns Are Segmented By Market

The website is segmented by state so that supporters can stay up to date with what is happening in their state. This allows Barack Obama to use the main website for his national messages and the state pages for state-based messages.

Segmentation drives engagement with his supporters because they only hear about what is related to them (and aren’t receiving updates about states they might not care about)… this is critical to the performance of his website and social media campaign.

Obama has also setup Facebook and Twitter pages for each state, to further drive engagement.

Action: How can you segment your market to drive engagement? Take a look at your website, database and email marketing and think about how you can refine your message for each segment.

8. Facebook Is Used To Communicate With Facebook Users

Barack Obama’s main Facebook page has more than 20 million Fans… and this doesn’t include the fans he has on his state-based Facebook pages. He uses Facebook to share updates on his campaign, ask his fans questions, share YouTube videos and drive engagement.

Importantly, he doesn’t try to sell anything through his status updates (ie he doesn’t ask for donations). He uses Facebook to drive engagement… and with feedback on his status updates regularly exceeding the 5,000 comments mark, he is doing it well.

Action: Setup a Facebook page for your business and start communicating with your market with the aim of driving engagement.

9. Twitter Is Used To Communicate With Twitter Users

Barack Obama’s main Twitter profile has more than 8 million Followers. He uses Twitter to share opinions, thoughts and updates on his campaign. Obama also uses hashtags to participate in conversations.

It’s a great way for Twitter users to stay up to date with the Obama campaign.

Action: Setup a Twitter profile for your business and join the discussion.

10. A Mobile-Friendly Website Connects With Users On The Go

Barack Obama has a mobile-friendly website for smart phones. With the growth of mobile Internet usage, having a mobile-friendly website is critical for delivering a great experience to mobile phone users.

When you visit the main website on your phone, it automatically redirects you to the mobile-friendly version of the site.

Mobile users can stay connected by sharing their phone number and receiving text alerts from the Obama campaign. They can also make a donation directly from their phone.

Action: Review Google Analytics and find out how many people are accessing your website via a mobile phone. If it is higher than 5% then consider building a mobile-friendly website for your business.

The Strategy

Barack Obama’s strategy hasn’t changed much since 2008… build up a database, grow social media followers, encourage donations, and build credibility and trust through ongoing and sincere communication. The main difference in his campaign this time around is that he is focusing only on Facebook and Twitter to connect with people through social media.

The most important thing to take away from this article is that the process of achieving success online is the same in every market… even when running for President! Here’s the strategy:

1. Develop an effective website that drives action
2. Drive visitors to your website using marketing and advertising
3. Build a relationship with your prospects through email marketing & social media
4. Expand your reach through mobile
5. Implementing all of these steps together is the key to success

We know this to be true because this is the exact strategy we use for ourselves and our clients to achieve success online.

1. What is the best domain for your geographic market?

Firstly consider which country you are looking to target as your domain will affect your search engine rankings which in turn will determine how many customers find your website. If you are looking to get customers from Australia it is ideal to have a .com.au domain name whereas if you are launching in the USA, .com is optimal. Search engines rank websites by country so if you are looking for an international reach you would ideally have to launch a new website for each country to maximise your search engine rankings.

2. What is the primary goal of your website?

It could be to maximise sales or sales enquires, to generate advertising dollars through maximising page views or to grow a database for future marketing. Whatever the method, the key to the success of any website is to maximise the revenue generated from your visitors. It is crucial to establish the goal before starting the design and functionality of your website as everything on your website should be focused on maximising the conversion rate of your primary goal. If you have more than one goal, rank them in order of importance and use the website design to focus on them accordingly.

3. Once your website launches, how do customers find you?

There are so many ways to market a website, the question is, what is the most profitable way? In general, all traditional method of advertising like radio, television and print media are the least cost effective way to advertise a business as your ad must be seen on average six times before it is absorbed by each customer. Online advertising such as search engine optimisation, pay-per-click advertising, email marketing and social media marketing will get you the best return for your advertising dollar. The challenge is to determine the best may to maximise your website’s conversions at the minimum cost. This can be refined over time through testing new methods and tracking their effectiveness. The best thing about launching an online business is that you can track the effectiveness and profitability of each type of advertising. Every sale, every enquiry and even phone calls can be traced to determine which method is most cost effective. Start small and expand on the methods that are profitable.

4. What is the end goal?

Unlike traditional businesses where companies are valued at 2 to 3 times their annual profit, other factors can influence the sale price of an online business. Additional value can be found in the size of your member database and also the number of visitors to your website. Consider focusing on these elements as secondary goals when developing your website and marketing strategies to get the maximum value out of your business online.

With that in mind, here are our top 10 online marketing predictions for 2010:

1. Mobile Marketing

Over the past few years mobile marketing has had a lot of mention in the press, but the ability of the average business owner to take advantage of mobile marketing has been limited. With the debut and massive uptake of the iPhone by consumers, mobile marketing has quickly become a viable marketing channel for many businesses of all sizes. In fact, we are already seeing some very promising results from some of the mobile marketing initiatives which we have implemented.

2. Facebook Advertising

2008 saw the launch and extraordinary uptake of Facebook. 2009 saw Facebook become part of the every day. 2010 will see Facebook become a profitable advertising channel for businesses. With the combination of keyword targeting and a pay-per-click model, Facebook will become a reliable source of sales / sales leads for its advertisers.

3. Twitter Marketing

In 2009 Twitter really took off creating a mass hysteria on the Internet and quickly becoming one of the most visited online properties. While the usage of Twitter exploded, the ability of the average business to capitalise on Twitter as a reliable source of revenue was near impossible. Now that the Twitter has settled and it has become more part of the everyday (like Facebook) it will become a viable marketing channel for small businesses. With over $100m raised and no clear revenue model our prediction is that they will introduce some form of paid advertising model in 2010, similar to Facebook, where you can target ads based on what people are Tweeting about.

4. Social Media

Social media has taken off in leaps and bounds. A recent report from Hitwise stated that traffic to social media and forums surpassed search engines in New Zealand in the first week of December, and is set to do the same in Australia by the end of 2009. In addition to Facebook, Twitter MySpace and Linked In there are many hundreds (if not thousands) of other social media properties focused on music, videos, photos, social networking, social bookmarking, content sharing and more. 2009 remained a year where the extent and impact of social media was unknown and hard to measure. While social media is a very different medium to search, the exposure available to business is significant. 2010 will see an increase of strategic social media campaigns that produce measurable results.

5. Video Marketing

Since the sale of YouTube to Google, online video has been growing exponentially. In fact, YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, after Google. And while online video has been mainly used for entertainment purposes, 2010 will see a further increase of video used on websites forming part of their sales message. Anecdotal evidence shows that adding video to a website can significantly improve a website’s conversion rate, and in an environment where conversion rates effect the amount that advertisers can spend on online advertising, online videos will quickly take off.

6. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

2009 continued to see huge growth in business awareness of SEO and their subsequent investment in SEO, whether on their own or through an SEO company. While SEO is still within the budget of small business owners, it will quickly become too expensive for many small businesses to effectively compete. Google will still be the main search engine to focus SEO efforts on in 2010 and the profits earned from a top ranking will continue to increase with the increased use of the Internet overall.

7. Bing

To the joy of the majority of the SEO industry, 2009 saw the launch of Microsoft’s rival search engine, Bing. Nobody likes a monopoly, and many believe that Google currently has a monopoly over search and who can blame them with such great products and service. While it is hoped that Bing will become a viable alternative to Google it is still very much in its early stages and won’t come anywhere near Google in 2010… maybe in 2011?

8. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

When you think of PPC advertising you think of Google Adwords. They still control around 90% of the search market in Australia and the USA. 2010 will continue to see a major focus on Google Adwords for PPC advertising but there will also be opportunity to run PPC advertising on Bing, Facebook and (hopefully) on more social media properties.

9. Content Strategy

The success of all of the above strategies will be based on the quality of the content you produce (eg free reports, articles, tips) and your ability to market that content effectively online. As the online market continues to become more competitive every day, the companies that achieve the greatest results are those that base their strategy around what high value content they can give away for free. Online marketing follows the same principles as offline marketing – give significant value upfront, build a relationship over time and then make the sale. The companies that embrace this methodology and create marketing and sales systems about this will be the ones that dominate their respective market online.

10. Cloud Computing

While cloud computing is not really a marketing strategy, it does influence how we market our services online. With a better system for managing sales, marketing, accounts and the business overall, cloud computing will play a much larger role in online business in 2010. We are already using cloud computing in our day-to-day operations and the productivity benefits gained from cloud computing should not be underestimated and importantly will only continue to grow.

Search engine marketing has been used for over a decade to increase sales and build businesses online. What many people don’t realise is that brand awareness can also be built using search engine marketing (ie pay-per-click advertising & search engine optimisation) and can provide additional benefits that may not be achieved through other online marketing mediums. With this in mind, there are specific techniques for implementing search engine marketing campaigns that can also help build brand awareness online.

Generally, the aim of pay-per click-advertising (PPC) is to increase sales proportionally to the budget being spent. In addition, PPC is also a great way to have your ad appear in front of a large number of your potential customers while only paying for performance (ie pay-per-click). And while increased sales is still the end goal, here are some points to consider when using PPC to help build your brand online:

• Communicate the brand message within the ads appearing in the search engines
• Focus on maximising the number impressions by expanding your keywords while using negative qualifiers to ensure clicks are only received from potential customers (ie qualified traffic)

The main benefit of PPC is that you can have your ad appear in front of millions of people within 48 hours while only paying for results (ie clicks on your ads).

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a longer term strategy where the aim is to appear at the top of the organic search results to increase sales. Additionally, ranking #1 in Google for a high-volume keyword can build a great deal of brand reputation and establish your company as a leader in the industry.

When using SEO as a branding tool you also need to consider how to maximise the reach of your campaign. Ultimately, the best way to maximise reach is to appear at the top of the search results for a large number of high volume keywords (eg ‘hotels’ or ‘accommodation’) – this can take some time to achieve and costs will vary depending on your market and competition but the results are certainly worth the effort!

Additionally, a long tail keyword strategy can also be used to maximise your SEO reach. Long-tail keywords are far more specific than your main keyword phrases and usually contain 4 or more words. For example, instead of searching for ‘hotel’ or ‘accommodation’ a customer may be looking for ‘4 star ocean view luxury hotel north queensland’. These long-tail phrases may only be searched a few times a month but generally have a higher conversion rate and can often account for more than half of the search volume in any industry. The most effective method for measuring the effectiveness of a long-tail campaign is to check your website analytics.

If you receive traffic from thousands of very specific keywords that each provide only 1 or 2 visits per month you will still be receiving thousands of visits and you can assume that you are appearing for a wide range of long-tail phrases.

Similar to PPC advertising, ensure that your brand message appears in the Title Tags and Meta Tags of your website as this is what your potential customers will be seeing in the search engine.

The bottom line is that there are many ways to build your brand identity online.. Just remember that there is no single method for implementing an online marketing strategy. Strategies like SEO and PPC can provide abundant targeted traffic to your website but can also build your brand identity simultaneously. Always think laterally and make sure you never overlook a strategy’s other potential benefits.

Here is a proven process of growing your business online that we have used time and time again to grow businesses online in a variety of different industries.

High-Performance Website Design

All online marketing begins with a website. Your website provides the foundation for your online marketing campaign, because everything you do to advertise and market your business online will drive people to your website. It doesn’t matter whether you use search engine optimisation, pay per click advertising, affiliate marketing, email marketing or banner advertising, everything leads to your website, regardless of what industry you operate within.

This means your website is the most important element of your online marketing campaign, because as your prospects visit your site, you need to convert those visitors into sales. The better your website is at converting visitors into sales, the more you can afford to spend on advertising, bringing more traffic and more sales – and the faster your business will grow.

Therefore the very key to making money online is ensuring you have a website that is set up and designed to convert traffic into sales. For more information on how to do this, download our free website conversion report.

Search Engine Marketing

The name of the game is to send qualified prospects to your website. A “qualified prospect” is simply somebody who is interested in what you sell, rather than a random online visitor. This is simple to do with search engine marketing, because you specify the keywords that your website will appear for in the search engine results.

For example, if you are a law firm, you would want your website to appear if anyone typed in the word “law firm” or “lawyer” – because people who typed in those keyword phrases would most probably be interested in what you sell. However, if somebody searched for “accountant” you don’t want your site to appear, as that traffic is unlikely to be anyone interested in legal services. Search engine marketing can be very profitable if used correctly and is one of the highest response advertising channels available.

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)

The fastest way to have your website appear when somebody is searching online for what you sell is through PPC advertising. PPC is simply the process of paying a certain amount each time a user clicks on an ad that appears for a particular keyword search.

For example, it doesn’t cost anything for your ad to appear in a Google search for “lawyer”, but it does cost you every time somebody clicks on that ad… which mean you only pay for results. PPC is increasingly becoming more expensive, but it still provides one of the best returns on investment of nearly any advertising channel.

Before you launch your PPC campaign it is critical that you install conversion tracking because this will allow you to drill down on:

• Which keywords are producing conversions
• Which ads are producing conversions

You can also determine which are the most valuable words – because even though they may drive a lot of sales, the cost per action (CPA) for a lead or a sale may be higher then your affordable margin because of fierce competition. These keywords are ideal for SEO.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

After running PPC (with conversion tracking) for about a month, you will have solid information on which keywords are producing sales and revenue for your business, and which are the most valuable keywords you should focus your SEO efforts on.

With this data, you can begin to formulate an SEO strategy. This means targeting keywords that you want to rank your website for at the top of the Google. Of course, SEO research should ideally be done before the web design stage so that your website is properly optimised, but can be started even later by using data from a PPC campaign.

Once you’ve achieved a top ranking for your most valuable phrases, you can then reduce your PPC spend if budget is an issue. Your strategy really depends on your goals. If your goal is to capture maximum sales in the market, then running a PPC campaign and SEO campaign at the same time is the best way to achieve this. One does not cannabilise the other.

For example if your SEO and PPC campaigns generated 50 leads per month each and you stopped the PPC campaign, you would still receive 50 leads a month from the SEO campaign – this wouldn’t increase or be reduced – but you wouldn’t receive the leads from the PPC campaign. Your strategy will depend on your goals and how many leads you can handle… our recommendation is never to stop a campaign that is earning you a net profit.

Split-Testing

The next step is split testing. Split testing is the process of using software to determine which of two versions of a web page will produce the highest response. For example, you might have a particular page on your website that is producing results, but you aren’t sure which of two product pictures would perform better. With split testing you can test one picture against another on the same page. Half the site visitors will see the first picture and the other half the second picture, and through conversion tracking you can identify which of the two pictures produced the best results. Once the split-test is finished, you should then test something else.

Split testing should be done on an ongoing basis with every part of your strategy, including your website and online marketing activities, and it is one of the only ways to continually improve your results over time. Remember, conversions bring in revenue, and the more conversions that you can achieve from the same advertising budget, the more powerful your company will be in your online market. Think about it… if you can spend more than all your competitors and still be more profitable, how will they ever compete?

Blogging

Establishing yourself as an authority is a critical element in any online marketing campaign, and one of the biggest hurdles or challenges in achieving this is proving your credibility. The best way of doing this is with information and content, and one of the best platforms for sharing this information and content is through a blog.

Try to maintain a regularly updated blog where you post an article once a week or fortnight, and ensure this is done consistently. Information here should be 100% informational – no sales messages. The blog needs to come across as helping the reader with no thought of selling them anything.

By doing this, you are educating the reader about solutions to their problems and you are setting up your company as the authority in your field. Of course, every time you post an article to the blog you publicise this by sending an email to your database letting them know the article is there, making the email curious enough that they want to click the link and find out what it’s all about.

Email Marketing

Email marketing allows you to build a relationship with your prospects over time so they feel comfortable enough to do business with you.

As part of your original web design, you should have set up a way to capture visitor information from people who visit your website but don’t buy from your right away. By now, after implementing all of the above online marketing activities, you should have quite a sizable email database. With this database, you can start a hybrid email marketing campaign, split between automated and manual emails.

Automated emails are emails sent at a regular sequence, which you set, and are managed through an autoresponder service such as such Aweber.com The aim is to provide valuable information to your visitors and educate them so that you position your company as the market educator. The general rule is to send a ratio of three informational emails to one sales email.

The manual element of an email marketing campaign is to send your database an email update every time you post something new to your blog or whenever something interesting happens that they should know about straight away.

With email marketing you should aim to send at least one email per fortnight. Once a week of course is better but it depends on how good your information is, as too many sales emails will increase prospects that unsubscribe.

Remember, use email marketing to build a relationship with your prospects – don’t go for the hard sell.

Landing Pages

When you speak of a “landing page”, it can be one of two things. The first is the page a user lands on when they do an SEO or a PPC search and they “land” on your site.

The second way to interpret a landing page is that it is a direct response web page with the sole purpose of getting the person to complete a specific action, such as submitting a form. There are no other links on that page, no menu – the only thing that somebody can do is submit the form or leave the site. Landing pages of this variety can be extremely powerful in conjunction with a PPC or banner campaign.

There is a great deal involved in creating good landing pages, but the key points are:

• Strong headline
• Good opening paragraph
• Compelling offer
• Testimonials
• Strong call to action

Landing pages have been proven to improve conversion from 5% to 50%, depending a number of factors such as the copywriting, offer and sale amount. A landing page can be a successful addition to any online marketing campaign as it can substantially improve the conversion rate of your campaign and lower the CPA.

Of course, landing pages must be split tested – to create a landing page without split testing is one of the biggest mistakes you can make because you won’t have any idea about which combination of landing page elements will produce the optimum results. Ultimately, without split-testing, you will be leaving a lot of profit on the table.

Banner Advertising

Banner advertising is used to market to people who are not searching directly on search engines to find your services but may be interested in your offer if they knew about it. They may be reading news, using social networks, reading blogs or checking reviews for products.  Banner advertising is very powerful for getting the message out about a product that may not yet be common knowledge and is even more powerful when implemented in conjunction with a PPC and SEO campaign.

Banner advertising can be very expensive and can cost you dearly if done incorrectly, but it can be an extremely profitable medium if done right, because the number of people browsing websites substantially outnumbers the number of people using a search engine. In fact, the majority of Internet users on a particular day are not on search engines, they are visiting websites.

An effective banner advertising campaign can get your message out there and produce a very good response, if used in conjunction with good direct marketing principles and a solid landing page of the second variety.

Rollout Plan

The key to taking your company to the next level online is to use the following rollout plan:

1. Design a high-performance website
2. Start sending traffic to your website right away using PPC advertising
3. Expand that traffic and dominate the market with SEO
4. Maintain a regularly updated blog
5. Implement an email marketing campaign that educates your prospects, above all else
6. Split test every part of your online marketing campaign
7. Use landing pages to increase response from your paid advertising
8. Implement a banner advertising campaign to expand your reach even further

Of course, with everything you do you must track conversions, work out your cost per action, and continually ensure that everything you are doing generates more in profit than it costs. As long as you remember these rules, you can dominate the online market.

Watching the US presidential coverage on the news always provides entertainment, especially considering how intense the democratic nomination was. While watching one of these segments they mentioned that Barack Obama had raised 100% of his campaign funding through online contributions.

He has not accepted any campaign contributions from large companies or lobbyists. Instead, Barack Obama’s campaign has been one of the most profitable in history, with the majority of campaign contributions made online through over a million small contributions.

In fact, Barack Obama has raised nearly $200 million online, with a record $55 million raised in February alone, or nearly $2 million per day.

That hit my button.

It was a Saturday night and I immediately jumped on my laptop and brought up www.barackobama.com. The next hour was just spent in admiration of the level of detail and expertise implemented by Barack Obama’s online marketing team.

When you know what to look for in a good website and marketing campaign, you can really start to appreciate the level of skill behind his entire online marketing strategy.

Although there are way too many positive elements to cover in this article, here are 6 major strategies which really make the Barack Obama online marketing campaign a raging success:

1. The First Time You Visit Your Site You Are Asked To Join His Mailing List

Before you can view any part of Obama’s site you are taken to a page where you are asked for your name and address:

Notice how he makes it very easy to subscribe, only asking for your email address and zip code. Also notice that the main call to action button ‘learn more’ is in red. This is done to attract the eye to the primary action that he wants you to take on this page. Importantly, you do not have to subscribe to view the rest of his website, you can simply click on ‘skip signup’ to visit the main website – but this is not the focus.

Of course I entered my details in to see what happened, and was taken to this page:

What’s impressive is the wording they use, such as ‘Join the movement’ and ‘this campaign is about you’. They are giving you reasons why you should fill out the form.

So the first step was a small yes, just email and zip code. The next step is to enter your full name, address and phone number. If all of this information was asked of you on the first page, the response would be much lower. Remember, getting people to say ‘yes’ on a higher number of small commitments is better than asking them to say ‘yes’ on one large commitment.

After you enter your details you are taken to this page:

There are 3 main actions he wants you to take on the ‘thank you’ page. The most important, as we can tell from the red button, is to ‘donate now’ (which I will cover shortly). The others are to register to vote and to visit the home page. Every image on the page is a link, ensuring that a visitor will be taken to a different page no matter what they click. The site makes it very easy to act.

Of course, once you subscribe you will start to receive high value emails from him driving you back to his website to take action.

2. Every Web Page Furthers the Primary Action to ‘Donate Now’

No matter what page you are visiting on the Barack Obama website, the red ‘donate now’ button draws your attention. It is essentially the only red image on a blue, grey and white website, which is a very subtle, yet powerful method of encouraging people to take the action.

When you click on the ‘donate now’ button you are taken to the following page:

This is a landing page designed to compel the visitor to donate to the Obama campaign. When you visit the page a very short video automatically starts playing, with very relevant information which explains WHY you should donate to his campaign.

By giving options for the donation amount, it makes it easy for people to make a decision on how much to donate. The website also pre-populates the fields with the information you entered on the previous page so that only minimum additional action is required of the person making the donation. The main call to action button is a red graphic, bringing attention to the action he wants you to take. Again, you have a ‘skip donation’ link at the top of the page in case you do not want to make a donation at the time.

The online donation process is by far his most valuable ‘sales’ system on the website.

3. Excellent Information Architecture

The way that the information is laid out and presented makes it easy to use and, more importantly, to scan. Website visitors have the shortest attention span of any mode of communication, quickly jumping between pages and leaving sites where they cannot quickly find what they are looking for.

When you visit the Barack Obama home page, the information draws you in. You can quickly find what you are looking for, and it is easy to take action to learn more:

A subscription box is included at the top right hand side of the page, to join the mailing list, and a picture of Barack Obama and inspiring quote is included to build instant credibility. Of course, the ‘donate now’ button is visible immediately, as well as additional actions which he wants you to take. All this happens BEFORE you start scrolling down the page.

The main ‘banner’ of the page rotates the main messages and actions of the day. An eye catching banner is used with a strong headline and a clear call-to-action ‘learn more’ to encourage visitors to visit the landing page. Each banner links to a different targeted landing page, ensuring maximum response on every click taken, such as:

“Fight The Smears” Campaign:

And ‘Supporting The Open Convention’ campaign:

Every call-to-action on the site leads to a landing page which is setup to convert.

4. A Blog Is Used To Communicate Messages

Posts are added to the blog multiple times per day to communicate with supporters on a daily basis as well as providing a channel for supporters who only consume news through RSS aggregator software such as Feeddemon or Bloglines.

Blogs are one of the best methods of communicating and building relationships with people, and Obama is using his very effectively.

He is also taking advantage of Web 2.0 websites within his blog posts, such as Flickr, the photo sharing site:

And YouTube, the video sharing site:

Notice the integration of social bookmarking ‘quick links’ at the bottom of every blog post.

5. Social Networking Is Used To Maximise Exposure

One of the most impressive elements of Obama’s online marketing campaign is the reach achieved through social networking, which is one of the fastest growing and far reaching methods of online exposure available today.

If you scroll down to the bottom of Obama’s site you will see the following:

Barack Obama has an account with every high traffic social networking site on the Internet. More importantly, each of those accounts listed above are very active and drive traffic to the main website. This type of strategy is not for the faint hearted, and requires a significant amount of management to achieve the levels of success achieved by Barack Obama.

Not only does Barack Obama actively participate in all of the largest social networks online, but he owns his own social network, where supporters can ‘network’ with other supporters:

Of course I joined to see what it is all about:

Giving supporters a voice on his website is a masterstroke.

6. Mobile Marketing Is Used To Further His Message

Barack Obama includes a mobile subscription section on his website where you can join his SMS mailing list:

This links to the following landing page:

Notice how you can select the SMS updates you want to receive. That way, you can keep up with the latest updates on the topics which matter to you.

The best part about mobile marketing is that the deliverability is nearly 100%, that is, everybody opens a text message when they receive it.

Summary

If you have ever wondered what a perfect online marketing campaign looks like, just look at the Barack Obama campaign. Their online marketing team are implementing every online marketing strategy available, including social networking, search engine optimisation, pay per click advertising, email marketing, mobile marketing and a number of other strategies. Not only that, but their implementation is flawless.

The cost of running an online marketing campaign like Barack Obama’s would be outside of the budget and resources of most companies, but we can learn a lot about any particular strategy which we are thinking about implementing.

For example, if you are looking at ways to improve your website’s conversion rate, look at how the Obama website is designed. If you are looking at ways to implement social networking, check out the profile pages on MySpace or Facebook.

Start thinking about how you can implement what I have just spoken about in this article on your own website and online marketing campaign.

And most importantly…

TAKE ACTION!

Of course you’ll hear about the rare online business that doesn’t have to use SEO or PPC to drive traffic, as they have a 100k+ database of people and JVs with other sites which command the same number of subscribers. But for a business starting out online, you want a strategy that is simple, actionable and not reliant on the goodwill of others (at least initially).

We’ve prepared a mindmap of the core strategies essential for succeeding online, whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been online for years.

You can download the online marketing mindmap here.

And I guarantee that even the most experienced of online marketers aren’t maximising all areas outlined in the mindmap… its one thing to setup everything and get some traction, it’s another thing entirely to take your business into the stratosphere utilising the very same marketing channels.

For example, you can quite easily start making $1000 or $2000 per month from PPC advertising, but it’s much harder and requires more expertise and time to increase that to $20k or $30k per month… and that’s exactly what is required to market effectively online.

You don’t need to implement every single strategy available, but you do need to continually work to improve the return you are getting from every action you take.

And it isn’t just about improving your PPC performance… you also need to improve your website’s conversion rate, as well as your organic traffic. And taking what you learn from one marketing channel and implementing it in another.

The businesses which make the most money online are those that maximise every part of the online sales cycle, because they understand that PPC, SEO, website conversions and sales volumes are totally dependent on one another to survive in a fiercely competitive environment.

Download the online marketing mindmap here and start planning your online marketing strategy.

Here’s a breakdown of a typical day of a successful website owner…

1. You Check Your Emails

You wake up in the morning and switch on your laptop (or PC), open your email account and check how your website has produced overnight.

If you sell direct online, how many sales were made?

If the aim is to generate sales leads, how many new leads have you received?

2. You Check Your Stats

You login to your Google Analytics account.

• How much traffic did you receive yesterday?
• Is it increasing or decreasing?
• Where did the traffic come from?
• Are there any areas of opportunity that small effort can result in big payoff?
• You implement.

3. You Check Your PPC Performance

You login to Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing.

• How many conversions did you receive?
• What is the CPA?
• Are you still profitable at this rate?
• How are your text-ad split tests going?
• You optimize.

4. You Check Your Rankings

You either run your ranking software or you manually type in your top keyword phrases.

• Are you still in the top 5 positions for your major keyword phrases?
• How are your competitors doing?
• Who has just broken into the top 5?
• What are they doing?
• You check their linking strategy.
• You review your strategy.

5. You Check Your SEO Strategy

You’re in the top position in Google, but you know that it is fiercely competitive.

• How many articles have you syndicated this week?
• Are you releasing a new press release this week?
• Are you social bookmarking your valuable content?
• Are you contacting other site owners to exchange links?
• What are you doing to maintain your rankings?

6. You Check Your Website’s Performance

You login to Google Website Optimizer.

• How is your website performing?
• What is your conversion rate?
• How is the latest split-testing going?
• Is it time to test a new version of your PPC landing page?
• Is it time to test a new version of your ‘money’ page on your main website?
• You setup new split tests.

7. You Check Your Content Strategy

You know that continually providing valuable content will give you the competitive advantage you need.

• What new content are you adding to your website?
• What new tools are you adding to your website?
• What can you do to build value to your prospects so that they trust you more?

8. You Check Your Emails Throughout the Day

You’ve setup your email account to automatically check for emails every 5 minutes. Expectations have now been set.

• You expect a new sale or a new sales lead every 30 minutes.
• If you haven’t received a new sale or a new lead in a couple of hours, you check that everything is okay.
• Is your website still up?
• Are your forms working?
• You audit.

9. You Review Your Email Strategy

You login to your email management system.

• How many new people have joined your email list today?
• What emails will they be receiving?
• How many people are now on your email list?
• What value-add can you send to them?
• How can you build the relationship with them?
• You write a new email.

10. You Look For New Sources of Traffic

Your sales process is refined. A new sale or lead comes through and it automatically goes into the sales funnel.

• How can you drive more prospects into the sales funnel?
• You research additional keyword phrases you can add to your PPC campaigns.
• You research additional keyword phrases you could be optimising for.
• You design new banner ads and place them on new sites.
• You track everything for ROI.

11. You Manage Your Business’ Growth

You continually try to balance the cost of growing your company vs the profit you are currently making. As your sales increase you need more staff and better systems to handle the growth.

• What are you doing to support this growth?
• What new systems are you putting in place?
• Are they scalable?
• What happens if your business doubles overnight (again)?
• Who do you need to hire?
• What do you need to outsource?

12. You Read Online Marketing News

You have a folder setup in your Firefox bookmarks toolbar with all of the online industry publications you follow. You right click and ‘open in all tabs’. You read all of the blog entries and find out what new developments are happening with SEO and PPC, especially Google.

• What new developments could affect your SEO rankings?
• What new developments could affect your PPC results?
• You review your strategy.

13. You Review Your Marketing And Education Strategy

Online marketing moves at an incredible pace. Staying ahead of your competitors requires strategic thinking and continual education. Your SEO rankings are supporting 5 to 10 full time staff.

• What if you lose those rankings?
• What backup strategies have you got in place?
• What are you doing to stay ahead of the curve?
• What do you need to learn to be successful tomorrow?
• Where is the online market going?
• How can you learn what you need to learn in the most efficient and effective manner possible?

So there you have it. The life in the day of a successful website owner.

It’s not easy, but it is fun.

Of course, if you use an online marketing agency to manage your strategy, you only have to check your emails and bank balance each day, the agency does the rest.

A successful website is one of the most exciting and profitable assets your business can own, because it generates profits and helps your business grow 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year.

What are you doing to make your website successful?