Launching Your Yahoo! Business

Using Yahoo! Properties to Promote for Free

Keep in mind that unless you have substantial resources (or happen to be a relative of Bill Gates), promoting your new eBusiness takes a lot of hard work and time to see results. So make the most of your time with these basic grassroots marketing strategies.

Promotion does not mean advertising. So, before you go out and spend a bundle of money advertising, start your marketing first on a grassroots level. Yahoo! has a set of free promotion tools that you can use to help your grassroots marketing endeavors.

Sow Your Participation and Reap Site Visitors

One of the best ways to get the word out about your company and what it offers is to join in the community gabfest that's on the Internet. By monitoring and participating in newsgroups and discussion lists, you have the opportunity to respond to potential customers and promote your product or service. Participation in newsgroups, discussion boards, industry appropriate blogs, and chat rooms on the Net is a great way to gain visibility for your eBusiness, and it's free!

Caution: Newsgroup Etiquette

You should not post an advertisement stating that you are open for business. That's not how it works, and if you do you will be flamed for spamming the list. To avoid this, first read the postings of the group for a few weeks to get the general nature and feel of the list. This is called lurking.

The trick is to choose the right community participation vehicles and make a contribution to the discussion. Let's take newsgroups and discussion boards for example. Before the birth of the World Wide Web, online marketers relied heavily on newsgroups. Although they have waned as a marketing vehicle, they still are an important free promotional resource.

A good place to start is Yahoo! Groups at groups.yahoo.com (see Figure 11.1). With a little time and energy, you can find Yahoo! groups and newsgroups on the Net where your product and expertise can lead to visitors and sales. Though Yahoo! Groups is not a discussion board as such, you can post messages to the group to gain visibility for your business. A great place to find actual newsgroups is at Google Groups at groups.google.com. It's the easiest way to navigate the Net's newsgroups without the use of a newsreader program.

Make sure you read the FAQs (frequently asked questions) for the lists you want to participate in. The FAQs will tell you what you can and cannot post to the group. You might find that some groups do allow you to post a message that reads like an ad. Remember, what you're looking for is an opportunity to respond to individual posts for help or enter into an ongoing discussion where your product or service might add to the discussion. If done right, when it's time for those on the newsgroup to buy, they'll remember you first.

For example, if you sell home alarms and are participating in a Yahoo! Groups home security discussion group (groups.yahoo.com/group/SecuritySystems/), be prepared to offer advice and news about the security industry in general and perhaps home security devices in particular. If you have a legal service, offer to answer specific questions on legal issues.

In addition to Yahoo! Groups, there are good discussion board sites that have numerous discussion boards on just about any topic that you can monitor and participate in. The best of the lot is Delphi Forums. Delphi Forums, at delphiforums.com (see Figure 11.2), is one of the largest discussion boards on the Net and has more than 500,000 individual discussion forums to participate in.

Tip: Don't Forget to Tell Them Who You Are

Remember to add your signature or sig file to each message you post so people can contact you or visit your web store off the board or list.

There are three elements of a sig file that will pack the punch of a promotional ad. The first is a good tag line that conveys your value proposition and summarizes the benefit of your product, answering the question "Why should I care? (WIIFM)." Second, provide a direct link to your offer. And third, provide multiple ways to contact you. Remember to keep your sig file to no more than 4-5 lines.

Discussion Lists and Live Chat

Besides newsgroups and discussion boards on the Net, there are email discussion lists. A discussion list is the email equivalent of discussion boards or newsgroups. But instead of posting your message on a website, you send an email to the list. Every Yahoo! Group has the capability to send emails to the entire group with just a click of the Send button.

So how do you build such a list using Yahoo! Groups?

When visitors come to your storefront, ask if they would like to be placed on your mailing list. If so, ask them to submit their email address to you, and enter them as members of your Yahoo! Group. This is not only important for building an email list, but also for your blog. We'll discuss blogging in the next section. A good resource that takes the daytoday hassle out of managing your mailing list is Constant Contact at www.ConstantContact.com. They have a very inexpensive, easytouse, and effective system for collecting, managing, and conducting email marketing campaigns.

By and large, interactive discussion lists usually offer better quality discussions than newsgroups and discussion boards. These discussions are in the form of emails and show up in your mailbox every day. When you want to post to a list you have subscribed to, you send an email to the list and the list sends your message out to everyone who has subscribed to it.

Besides Yahoo! Groups, you can locate other discussion lists that fit your market niche at Lsoft (lsoft.com/lists/listref.html). It has the CataList (see Figure 11.3), the official catalog of LISTSERV lists on the Net. CataList has more than tens of thousands of public discussion lists that you can subscribe to. At Lsoft you can search lists by interest or host country, view lists with 10,000 subscribers or more, or view lists with 1,000 subscribers or more. Another good source is Liszt at liszt.com. It has thousands of email discussion lists in dozens of topic categories to choose from.

Finally, don't forget the live chat rooms on the Net. They can be a great free source of promotion for your new storefont. And besides, you'll be talking directly, and live, to potential customers. Some of the best chat rooms for online businesses can be found at Delphi Forums Chat at delphiforums.com.

Tip: Become a Trusted Authority

It is more important to be a quality addition to the group or list than to pounce on every opportunity to plug a product or service. If you develop a reputation as an authority with the group, when you do give recommendations, they will carry more weight. If you just plug products without building a reputation, group members will just see your comments as ads and not recommendations. Also, if you are an authority, group members may begin to solicit your advice on products directly.

Learn to Blog

A somewhat new horse in the promotion stable is blogging. The word blog is a contraction of web log. A blog is updated frequentlymany are updated dailyby one or a few people who post a continuous stream of personal commentary and links, writing informally and in conversational style.

So what does that mean to you? It's a free alternate way to market your storefront.

Building a personal relationship with your customers is the prime way of keeping them loyal and buying from you over and over again. And blogging is built for personal communications. Acting as a commentator, have your blog comment on your industry, products, and services. Give downtoearth onetoone personal observations speaking directly to your customers and prospects as if they were facetoface. You can also link to your newsletter and promote it on your website. You might be pleasantly surprised at the response from your customers and prospects.

Yahoo! has just introduced a blogging tool in the Yahoo! 360 community. With Yahoo! 360, you can create your own blog or online journal and add photos. You can even post photos and text messages from your mobile phone. As a business tool, it's a great way to keep your customers informed about what's going on with your company or industry. Providing a frequently updated blog will not only help generate traffic, but also create customer loyalty and position you as an industry authority.

Yahoo! is also adding blogs to its Yahoo! news index. What does that mean for you? Keeping your blogs updated with current news or keyword searches will help generate traffic to your blog. All you need to create a blog is a web browser. No specialized software is needed. To get started creating your blog, go to 360.yahoo.com.

Another free blogging tool can be found at blogger.com. This is a very popular tool that can get your blog up and running in minutes.

Publish an Email Newsletter

Publishing an electronic newsletter is one of the most cost effective ways of promoting your storefront, and by using Yahoo! Groups, you can do it for free. And here's the kickeryou can send an email newsletter to your prospects and customers who sign up for your Yahoo! Group in either plain text or HTML format. That means you can place images of your product in your newsletter.

Think about it. You have a list of people who have voluntarily given you their email addresses and asked that they be kept informed about your business, your industry, and the product or service you offer. But remember the flip side of this permissionbased relationship: Your visitors and customers have signed up for your newsletter to be informed, so don't use it to hit them over the head with nothing but advertising for your products or services. Also, publishing a newsletter comes with the price of responsibility to produce a newsletter every period.

Deliver useful information and you'll be surprised how many prospects and customers you can build relationships with and encourage to return to your site. It might take considerable time and some sweat to write and execute a quality newsletter, but the payoff in customer retention and response can be huge.

Now, this is important. When a subscriber signs up for your newsletter, that's what he or she expects to getnews. Your subscribers asked to be sent news, not offers. If you pull the old switcheroo on them by sending them an email filled with nothing but product or service promotions, they will only see what your attempts at relationshipbuilding really are: a cheap way to promote your wares. If you want to send 100% product or service promotional emails, make that a separate email list and get permission from customers and prospects to send it to them.

So what's the difference between a promotional email and newsletter? First, it's in the percentage, and second, in the format.

Let's take percentage first. Your newsletter should have at least 80-90% news, consisting of links to thirdparty information and articles about the product or service you sell and the concerns of your prospects and customers. That is, your newsletter should contain information your subscribers can use, such as movie, book, or music reviews or upcoming updates to the product they've purchased. You also can enhance your reputation and get business through wellwritten articles in your product or service subject area.

Customers and prospects are always looking for information that can help them use or purchase the products and services they need. This is where you can shine as a helper and facilitator for your clients. Here's a tip: Think like a soap opera writer and write a series of articles that build on each other. At the end of each one, include a "teaser" promoting what comes next. You also can archive these informationtype newsletters on your site, adding more content for shoppers to view when they visit.

The remainder of the newsletter should be about your company and its products or service. In other words, 80-90% of your newsletter should be focused on your subscribers' needs, the rest on yours.

Now on to format.

First, how long should your newsletter be? If you have valuable information to say in your newsletter, don't be afraid of its length. Give subscribers valuable information on a topic they're passionate about and they'll read every word. Besides, your newsletter should have as many of these elements as possible:

• A welcome

• News to use

• Customerfocused news

• Feature article or tips

• Tell a friend

• Subscribe and unsubscribe instructions

• A link to your website

First the welcome. Thank your readers for subscribing and give a quick summary of what is contained in the current issue. And remember you're speaking to one, and only one, person at a time. Write as if you're speaking only to him or her and keep the tone causal and personal.

Second is news they can use. Link to current news items about your product or service and market niche. If you're selling gaming software, for example, give brief news summaries of articles that review the latest games and the gaming industry, then link to them in your newsletter.

Third, if you're a B2Bbusinessestobusinesswhy not profile one of your customers in each newsletter? You might even explain how your services or product helped them solve a business problem. Oneonone interviews are another way to spotlight your customer and the challenges your industry faces. These interviews could be made with industry experts in your niche. For example, what competitive pressure is your industry facing or what's the future of your product or service?

Fourth, write a short useful feature, or better yet, supply a series of tips that your customers can use. Think about packaging your message. People like to think in terms of numbers. Package your message in terms of "The 10 Tips for ..." or "The 6 Secrets of ..." or "The Seven Mistakes of ....." Another way to package your content is in the form of "Did You Know" or "Frequently Asked Questions." Also, try to get guest authors to write an article for you. It's a good way to build credibility and have someone else do the work for you.

Fifth, ask readers to tell a friend about your newsletter. If they like what they read, ask them to forward the newsletter to friends, family, and colleagues, and build in the referral code in your newsletter to do it.

Sixth, make sure you supply simple and easy instructions on how to unsubscribe, and to those who have been forwarded the newsletter by friends, family, or colleagues, how to subscribe. And finally, make sure to provide a link in your newsletter to your website.

Should you send your newsletter as plain text or in HTML?

Many of the popular email programs today can read an HTMLformatted email. An HTMLformatted email appears, when opened, as a web page instead of lines of simple ASCII text. That means you can display images, photographs, colors, and graphics in your email, which makes for a much richer experience for your reader. But remember, many people are still on dialup. That means it will take a 1 megabyte email one hour to download. So consider the size of your HTML newsletter when creating it, or write it in text with a link to the HTML version.

More advanced email marketers who need to track their email campaign's success might consider using Campaigner, powered by GOT. We'll talk more about Campaigner in the next chapter. Campaigner will allow you generate realtime reports with open rates and even show which customer clicked on which link or advertisement. The detailed reports will help you determine what your readers' interests are. This will help you refine and improve your email newsletter. You can signup for Campaigner in the Store Manager under the Promote column.

Other email newsletter software companies

• Constant Contact: constantcontact.com

• BlueHornet: bluehornet.com

• Exact Target: exacttarget.com

So there we are. If you follow the suggestions in this chapter, you are well on your way to promoting your online storefront, without spending a penny to start. In the next chapter, we'll discuss how to use Internet search engines to further promote your company as well as the marketing value of your eCommerce website statistics.