Avatar News February 13, 2006

Wooing Your Customers Through Email Marketing

Your customers may just have more in common with the love of your life than you think. Customers like to be appreciated, made a fuss of, communicated with and made to feel special. so why not send them regular love letters? Email marketing is a cost-effective way to regularly keep in touch with your customers' hearts and minds. However, as you work on being the Don Juan of the email generation, bear in mind some of the following:

• Fire Cupid's arrows at willing and receptive targets. Unsolicited emailing is akin to stalking, so don't do it!
• Make sure your customers are in the mood for your overtures and get your timing right. Research shows that mid-week mailings are generally best, between 11am and 3pm.
• Absence makes the heart forgetful. Build up your relationships over time with consistent approaches. Aim to contact your customers at least once a month, but not so often that is seems like spam.
• Don't be a shy Valentine. Use your branding to make it clear who is sending the email.
• Give your customers a reason to love you. Offer them incentives for doing business with you, help them get to know you and your business with useful information about your services, and offer tips and advice on related subjects.
• Start with a successful pick-up line. The subject lines of your emails can make all the difference between your email being dumped at first glance or getting the once over.
• Write with passion about your business. Develop your language of love and arouse your customer into taking action. Think of Cyrano de Bergerac for inspiration, or at least go rent the movie!

Who, when, what and why... now all you need to think about is how to get your email marketing up and running. You can create and send targeted, personalised and compelling email messages and measure the impact they're having on thousands of your customers with Rocket Mailing. It's easy to use and cost-effective — you only pay for what you send. For more information about email marketing and professional design for email templates, send us a love note or simply contact us today.

Balancing Paid and Organic Search Marketing Techniques

Are you wondering whether to spend your online marketing dollar on optimisation or paid search listings?

Paid search listings, such as those generated by Google Adwords or Yahoo! Sponsored Search, can be useful for Web sites wanting to achieve search engine coverage immediately. Paid listings can be viewed just five minutes after accounts and campaigns are set up and top positions can be achieved by outbidding competitors on specific keyword searches.

Web site optimisation is a more long-term online marketing strategy which requires time, dedication and patience, but it can reap great rewards with high rankings on search engine results pages. The listings on these pages are generally known as 'organic', because they are achieved 'naturally' — the search engines award Web sites with high listing positions due to their own measure of relevancy factors, such as Web site content and link popularity.

We at Avatar love just about everything organic and that includes search marketing techniques. Here's a few reasons why:

• Organic listings have been proven to be more cost-effective than paid listings.
• Organic listings are more likely to generate click-throughs from search engine users than paid listings as they are generally considered to be more reliable, having earned rather than paid for their ranking positions.*
• Generally speaking, search engines favour well-constructed, well-written and legitimately optimised Web sites and reward these efforts with high organic rankings.

* According to Jupiter Research, over 80% of clicks on search engine results pages go to organic listings rather than paid ads. The Golden Triangle theory examines the way in which people view organic listings on Google search results pages and reveals that fewer people look at paid listings.

However, paid search listings do have their place and can be extremely useful for getting search engine coverage in competitive industries and for competitive, generic keyword phrases. Setting up a campaign in the most effective way, with dedicated advertising pages and results tracking for example, is crucial to your monetary success. If you are interested in organic optimisation or paid search for your Web site, please read more about our search marketing services or place your service order today.

Whizzy Widgets

Rocket Cart is New Zealand shopping cart software that offers an easy-to-use e-commerce solution for Web sites, of varying sizes, who want to sell their products online.

This is not just another New Zealand shopping cart software system! Rocket Cart is special because it has been specifically designed to enable the optimisation and marketing of every one of your products to your online market through search engines.

Key advantages of using Rocket Cart:

• Every product and category page will be totally search engine friendly and can be optimised for specific keyword phrases. Many other shopping cart products do not have this ability or even take into account its importance.
• Search engine friendly product and category pages mean that Rocket Cart can drive thousands more viewers to your site via product searches alone.
• Intuitive user-friendly design with a marketing focus.
• Top line Web software at cost-effective pricing.

Technical features include:

• Product administration, including customisable product options.
• Quick and easy registration for first-time users.
• Fast, efficient cart management.
• Multiple categories per product.
• Full product search facility.
• Advanced administration area with variable levels of security and search engine optimisation capabilities.
• Fully customisable, professionally-designed templates.

Don't take our word for it though, test drive our online demo. Rocket Cart is a quality New Zealand shopping cart software option suitable for a wide range of online store types.

Please contact mark@avatar.co.nz if you'd also like to view the administration area or get your Rocket Cart installation underway.

Interesting Tidbits

• NZTO wins top traffic site. At the start of February, our sister company New Zealand Tourism Online was awarded the number one Web site for traffic in the Hitwise 'Travel — Destinations and Accommodation' category for 2005. Avatar provides the Web design and marketing expertise for New Zealand Tourism Online, so it's a buzz for Avatar to be part of this huge success.
• Google and Microsoft aid Chinese government in censoring the Internet. Internet censorship is prevalent throughout the world, though more recently the National People's Congress of China has been in the news for support of its Great Firewall of China from the likes of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. Blogs, chat sites, forums, international news sites and other Internet content deemed inappropriate by the Chinese authorities have been removed and specific search terms bring up "no results". Check out the difference between results on a search for "tiananmen square" on a Google international engine to results on Google's Chinese search engine.
• Yahoo! concedes to Google. In a recent interview, Yahoo!'s Chief Financial Officer says it's not Yahoo!'s goal to be number one in Internet search. Yahoo! continues to lose its share of global Internet searches, while Google's continues to grow.
• Car giant is no longer beaming at Google. Car maker BMW has had its German Web site blacklisted by Google after it was caught trying to artificially inflate its ranking on the search engine's results pages. Its use of a 'doorway' page stuffed to the brim with the keyword phrase "gebrauchtwagen" (used car) was enough to contravene Google's guidelines.
• Google re-shapes the world. According to Google, the UK doesn't exist. Japan and China are enjoying an unprecedented show of togetherness and Tasmania has finally been embraced by the rest of Australia. One can only assume that the Google store will be getting its geographical kinks ironed out soon. In the meantime, what could be more fun than a Google lava lamp...? Yeah, right.
• Love in unlikely places. A snake in a Japanese zoo refused to eat its hamster dinner and instead befriended its furry feast. It just goes to show love can blossom in the oddest places.
• Don't read this if you're squeamish! Rocket came across this weird story, and although a rabid vegetarian, found it a fascinating tale nonetheless. A headless chicken lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off. He was called Mike and lived in Colorado from 1945 to 1947. Allegedly.

Sites of Interest

Here's a selection of sites we've designed, updated and/or promoted recently...

• Waimak Alpine Jet (design and promotion)
  One of New Zealand's leading jet boating companies offering jet boat tours through the spectacular Waimakariri River canyon. Jet boating trips and 4WD drive tours, horseriding and heli-jet boat packages are designed for visitors of all ages and are suitable for corporate groups and incentive packages.
• Sea Change Rarotonga (promotion)
  Luxury Cook Island beach bungalow accommodation: Sea Change Rarotonga offers beachfront self-contained villas perfect for resort style vacations or honeymoons. An idyllic hotel style Rarotonga resort in paradise.
• CDreamer & CThunder (update)
  You can cruise around Fiji on one of Cdreamer's Fiji cruises or boat charters. Enjoy fishing, scuba or simply cruising the turquoise waters of Fiji.
• Rocket Cart (development)
  New Zealand shopping cart software with the search engine advantage. See Whizzy Widget for more information.
• ARF Rental Cars (update)
  New Zealand car hire with ARF Rental Cars from NZ $28 per day. Affordable rental vehicles based in Auckland, Christchurch and Palmerston North.
• Swansdown Cottage (update)
  Blenheim bed and breakfast accommodation in a delightfully restored 1920s style cottage — perfect accommodation for exploring the Marlborough wine-making district.
• Travel Queenstown (promotion)
  Travel Queenstown are holiday planners with expert local knowledge of the Queenstown area. The team books accommodation, activities, tours and trips for local and international visitors to the central Otago region.