Marketing Help

I've been working on a project at work and yesterday was offered an incentive program for its success. The problem is I'm left to figure out and implement the marketing details for gaining members to a website (not a great time in this economy).

Let's say you have a great product for women of all ages....How do you get the word out? How do you build your email list? What would grab your attention?

I'm not sure, but you can add me! LOL

PS - trying to think of something for you!

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Posted by JBoothIn2008

Is the website free for members? If not, can you offer a discount for a month or something? Or, can you send them a gift for joining? Do you have partnerships you can leverage and give them a gift from the partner?

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I'm sorry, I misread the question a bit. However, some aspects of what I mentioned apply still - do you have partners that have websites? Can you advertise there? Can you do in-packaging advertising with anyone? Can you join message boards and spread the word?

You can buy email lists .... not sure if you want to do that.

Do you have any customer lists at all? Can you draw upon past customers to mail items to them or email them?

Do you have any money/budget?

I was going to suggest google ads. Or you can set up some sort of search engine with google that directs clients to your web link and you pay per click. Sorry - this may not help but just an idea.

You could try targeted web ads that would appear only on website women would frequent, such as Oprah.com, iVillage, or obviously LIW.

You can try targeted direct mail by purchasing mailing list from companies targeted at women within specific ages/locations.

You can start a blog talking about the products hoping to generate a buzz.

Make a YouTube video ad about the products.

Spam all your friends with e-mail and ask them to forward.

Place ads on free websites such as Craigslist. HTH!

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Posted by bonch20

you mean print ads? i was trying to find more web based ideas....

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There are tons of web-based publications. Think of all the magazines that you read. They all have websites. Check out linkedIn groups too.

Thanks girls, some great ideas...we have a few sites we are affliated with and certainly do blast our database. Our goal is to find new members currently not on our list.

I have a small budget and have thought about purchasing an email address list....Has anyone ever done this before?

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Posted by bonch20

Thanks girls, some great ideas...we have a few sites we are affliated with and certainly do blast our database. Our goal is to find new members currently not on our list.

I have a small budget and have thought about purchasing an email address list....Has anyone ever done this before?

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We do this at my job. There are a lot of restrictions to buying lists. There are a lot of SPAM laws and you can't just blast a list. They have to have opted in to receive emails.

Connect with publications online. Did you write a press release? Send one to all the publications so it will show up in their e-newsletters. Can you barter with these mediums to offer them something in return (instead of money)?

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Posted by Mici n KC

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Posted by bonch20

Thanks girls, some great ideas...we have a few sites we are affliated with and certainly do blast our database. Our goal is to find new members currently not on our list.

I have a small budget and have thought about purchasing an email address list....Has anyone ever done this before?

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We do this at my job. There are a lot of restrictions to buying lists. There are a lot of SPAM laws and you can't just blast a list. They have to have opted in to receive emails.

Connect with publications online. Did you write a press release? Send one to all the publications so it will show up in their e-newsletters. Can you barter with these mediums to offer them something in return (instead of money)?

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I agree with Michele- we havent had luck with purchased list because of can-spam laws. We do well with email appends (they take your customer list & match it to email addresses) But ultimately- its better if you can get people to opt-in to your list willingly. you can do this by running a sweepstakes- i.e. 'enter to win a trip for 4 to disney', also if you have sales associates, you should incentify them to collect email addresses. good luck!

we do offer the opt in section on our website, same as you because of spam laws. i've never heard of email appends and will certainly take a look! as i said, we are really trying to build our list verses just blasting who we already have.

again, thanks for responding!

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Posted by bonch20

we do offer the opt in section on our website, same as you because of spam laws. i've never heard of email appends and will certainly take a look! as i said, we are really trying to build our list verses just blasting who we already have.

again, thanks for responding!

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Do you have partners that you deal with that will let you blast to their list? Essentially you would have to send your file to them and they would blast it to whoemever on their list has opted to recieve emails from their partners. I did this with lots of success in the past and because I worked with such niche groups that we really relyed on our partners to gain more subscribers.

Also on your site maybe you can create a memeber-get-member program...meaning create an incentive for your current subscribers or people in your database to get people to join your site or purchase your product...maybe something as simple as a weekly newletter that already exists. You can also send an email to your exisiting datbase to get them to participate.

I would not get into renting email lists...as the other girls have pointed out that can be very hairy with the can-spam laws.

Looks at all your customer points of contact and see where you can collect emails or ask for email's so you can grow your own database email list.

Good luck! If I think of anything else I'll let you know.