Volume 1, Number 1 -- July 2007
Welcome to the premier issue of Baptist Advance, the newsletter dedicated to the promotion of Baptist web sites. In this issue you will find articles with tips about marketing or enhancing your web site, as well as promotional opportunities.
by Ron Meldrum
There are many techniques in traditional marketing that are making the transition from paper to Internet. Some, however, have not been used as widely as they could be.
One technique is to use a "moment of trust" to compel your users or customers to take another step in their commitment to you, whether that be signing up for an e-mail list or making an additional purchase.
A "moment of trust" occurs when a visitor to your web site expresses some level of trust or confidence in you by making a purchase or donation, giving feedback, registering as a member, or signing up for something.
When someone buys something from your web site or makes a donation, they have expressed a high level of trust in you. By evidence of the fact that they have committed their money into your hands, you know that particular person, at that particular moment in time, has confidence in you.
What most web sites do at that "moment of trust" is to drop the user cold. They display a "thank you" page and regurgitate the order or donation information -- and that's it.
It would be better to do something with that moment of trust, rather than sending the user on their way. Show them a special offer to provoke them to make another purchase. They've already made one purchase, so you know that they are exactly the type of person you are trying to reach. Give them a deep discount, and get them to do it again, right then and there.
Urge them to sign up for your e-mail list. Get them to tell a friend about your site - right then and there, using an automatic tell-a-friend tool that you provide to them, so they have to do as little work as possible. Get them to take one more specific step.
When you promote your site on the Internet, only 1 in (for example) 1000 of the people you reach are going to actually do a transaction with you. Once you find that one person, don't just do the transaction and drop them. Get them to do a second transaction.
One e-newsletter from which I purchased advertising a few months ago used this strategy well. After I submitted the order, the acknowledgement page came back not with just an echo of my order information, but with an offer for another advertising slot at 50% off. I hadn't planned on buying another slot, but at that moment with that offer, of course I did!
Some web sites actually "trade" customers by entering into reciprocal agreements with other site. For instance, site "ABC" might sell hammers, while site "XYZ" sells nails, so site ABC puts a link to site XYZ on its order acknowledgment page, in return for site XYZ putting a link to site ABC on their own order acknowledgement page.
Take a look at your web site and identify those "moments of trust." Look at your feedback forms and membership forms. Especially look at the acknowledgement pages for orders or donations at your site. Figure out how you can use those "moments of trust" to the mutual advantage of yourself and your visitors.
by Ron Meldrum
A free way to promote your web site is to write articles, which you then give away FREE to other web sites.
How can you freely give away something, yet make a profit on it?
There are countless Internet publishers who are looking for pertinent content for their web site or newsletter. You can supply that content, filling a need for them and getting more traffic to your web site.
Start by writing an article on a subject you know something about. Then, submit the article to a "free content" service on the Internet. Once there, other web site owners will have a chance to see it and, if they like it, use it. Anytime they use your article, your name and web site link appear with it on their web site or in their email newsletter.
It's a win for both of you: they get a good article that they did not have to invest any time or money in writing, and you get free publicity on all the web sites or newsletters that use your article.
To find potential sources for distribution of your article, do a Yahoo or Google search for "free web site content". It will turn up many sites, like FreeSticky.com, which specialize in warehousing articles for free distribution to web site and newsletter publishers.
See also the list of sources shared by one of our members, Joyce at "Glimpses of God":
Since this list initially grew out of the BaptistTop1000.com site, we will often promote opportunities on BaptistTop1000.com. The special we are telling you about this month is only available to subscribers of this newsletter. If both packages don't sell, we'll open it up to general BaptistTop1000.com membership next week.
At BaptistTop1000.com, we sometimes offer discounts on advertising purchases of over $1,000. Never before have we offered such a deep discount on an advertising package of under $1,000.
We are offering two packages consisting of:
Total value of $767. We are offering two of these packages for just $493 (a 35% discount).
Two sweeten the pot, if you want us to, we'll design the banner ads and PixelPanel ad for you.
There are only two catches:
1. There are only two of these packages available at this price, on a first-come, first-served basis.
2. I am asking advertisers who use this package to take a brief e-mail-based survey 30-60 days from now. The survey will ask questions about your advertising experience, how effective it was for you, how you think it could be better, etc. Essentially, we want your feedback to improve our advertising offerings, and we're willing to give you this deep, unprecedented discount in return.
If you would like to have one of these two available packages for yourself, use the link below to get one using a credit card or Paypal:
Below are some places where Baptist web sites might find it desirable to advertise. If your web site accepts advertising or sponsorships, please let me know at ron@ronmeldrum.com so that I can include it here. This listing will appear in every issue, unless it gets too big, in which case we'll put it on a web page and link to it.
BaptistAdWorks
BaptistTop1000.com
FundamentalTop500.com
If you know of others, let me know at ron@ronmeldrum.com.
The editor of this newsletter is Ron Meldrum. You can contact me at ron@ronmeldrum.com
If you have questions, comments, reprint permissions requests, or articles you would like us to consider for inclusion in a future issue, please send them to the above e-mail address.
We will be introducing a "Letters" section in our next edition, so if you write us and do NOT want your letter shared in the newsletter, please let us know when you write.
(c) 2007 Baptist Ministries, Evansville, IN.