The Power of Internet Publicity: Reaching your Target Successfully While Avoiding Backlash Kim Bayne President wolfBayne Communications Designing a Web site without proper promotion is like throwing a lavish party without sending out the invitations. In order to advertise that you're on the Internet, you must create and implement a detailed and successful program of online publicity for all your Internet activities. But by now, you've probably received plenty of advice on what to do (use newsgroups, email discussion groups, Web forums, etc.) and how to do it (keep it brief, useful and appropriate). Best intentions aside, you're bound to make some awful mistakes anyway. Here are some tips on what to avoid. Email Discussion Lists Lately, I've been receiving duplicate spam (unsolicited bulk email) posts to the email discussion groups or lists that I moderate. I know how they got these addresses. Some pseudo-list broker with an email address harvester found the posting address to the HTMARCOM list on a Web page and added it to his database. I feel sorry for the unsuspecting businessperson who purchased these poorly qualified sales leads. I know what they wanted. They wanted to reach people who fit a certain profile (maybe, maybe not) and they wanted to send them an unsolicited bulk email advertisement. What a waste of time and marketing budget, specifically for the sender. Advertisements are easy to spot, especially when you're the owner of a moderated list. As the recipient of several spam posts per day, not to mention the mounds of poorly targeted junk email directed to my business address, I've become immune to these wasteful messages. The list server bounces all posts back to me for approval and I barely read the first few words before I delete them. Nobody on my high tech marketing communications discussion list ever sees them. Automated Registration Sites Some Web sites promise to register you with one hundred or more online locations in order to publicize your Web pages all at one time. It's cheap! It's easy! It's incredibly lazy! Whether you can afford to pay one of these automated submission services, or you prefer to take advantage of the free versions available, my advice is simple: don't! Consolidated automatic submission sites are the Web's equivalent to spamming. Many online catalogs have configured their Web server to dismiss or delete submissions sent from such services. These submission sites are usually inefficient, anyway. They often fail to submit registrations in a timely manner or take into account the uniqueness of each search directory. There's no getting around it. If you don't have the budget to hire a professional online publicist to announce your Web site, you'll have to do it yourself. You could rely on robots and spiders to find you on the Web eventually, but they won't index your site in the most efficient and best way. Imagine being a high tech marketing communicator and finding your company catalogued under multi-level marketing. The real solution is to submit your URL (Web site location), description and other data yourself. Many of these low-cost to no-cost site submission programs are boilerplate substitutes for a customized promotional program. Would you pay an agency,any agency, to handle your account using dated materials from someone else's brochure or news releases? Granted, there will always be certain aspects that are universal, such as including a contact person, company name, and email address, but the remaining company and product information should be personalized. And so should the places where your announcement is heading. Those automated submission services can brag a hundred or so contacts because most of them don't apply to your company anyway. It's like sending a news release on digital signal processors to the editors of Better Homes and Gardens. The only way you're going to get listed correctly on the Internet, be found by customers easily, and be visible consistently in these directories is to visit each and every one, or have your publicist do it for you. Yes, this is time consuming, but it's well worth it. It's the only way you can scope out how your industry colleagues are catalogued, allowing you to complete your site registration in a competitive manner. Web Page Coding For those search engines that don't take your indexing word for it, you'll have to take a different approach: programming and copywriting. Web sites that use robots and spiders to index your site use at least one of the following: 1. succinctly crafted introductory paragraphs found on your Web pages, 2. industry, technology and product keywords found hidden in the HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language) META tags (descriptive fields) of your Web pages. You've probably seen advertisements that guarantee to improve your ranking in search engines and online directories. Understand that top ranking doesn't last forever, and that any promotional program is ongoing, regardless of initial results. And just how are these companies getting you listed at the top? If they suggest 'keyword loading,' that is, adding the same keyword a hundred times or more at the bottom of your Web page, slowly turn around and run away very, very fast. Those same directory Webmasters who ignored your consolidated submission entry have also programmed their sites to reject 'keyword loading' tactics. If you're contemplating using your competitor's name in your META tags, in hopes of steering his customers to your pages, don't think that no one will peek at your source code to see why customers are being led astray. Another poorly conceived tactic includes registering a domain name variation on your competitor's name and aliasing it to your site. An acquaintance of mine boasted this strategy until recently, when I pointed out that he was putting his company in legal jeopardy. Recent court rulings have indicated that using your competitor's trademarks and copyrights at your Web site without permission may be interpreted as fraudulent, depending on their context. It's tantamount to installing a sign outside your physical world store that says Walgreen's when your store is named Longs Drugs. The safest approach to Web site registration includes pulling that print thesaurus or product directory off the shelf and making copious notes for your Webmaster. You probably won't have to do that, if you're been in the industry for long. Experience marketers know their industry and technology keywords by heart and probably don't need any prompting. They certainly don't need to be accused of cagey Internet marketing practices by misdirecting customers to their site. Traditional Marketing Helps The most promising promotional strategies involve an integrated effort with all your other marketing communications programs. Start with putting your Web address in every print and broadcast promotion you initiate. Include Internet contacts in every news release that hits the business newswire. Whenever your engineers contribute an article to a trade publication, remind them to include the company's Web site address and an email address in the author's endnote. You may notice that I include mine whenever I write, subject to editorial guidelines, of course. Look for real opportunities to inform business and trade publication editors and reporters about your Web presence, such as associating it with an upcoming article focus or special issue. Most publications print an editorial calendar in advance, which you can obtain easily. Save that editorial follow-up call for when you have something good to offer, such as an interactive Web site tool that fits in neatly with that upcoming January cover story. Some final tips on announcing your Web site to the world. Don't ever re-date an old Web site announcement and publish it again in order to attract more page hits a second time around. If you do, you're guaranteed to lose a Web surfer's interest and trust. If you've substantially revamped your site, or added something incredible, unique and useful, then feel free to toot your horn again, by singling out this new feature. You'll position your company as one that's serious about keeping its presence up-to-date. Publicizing your Internet marketing presence involves strategic planning and execution, the consistent use of many marketing communications tools, and a professional marketing effort dedicated to breaking out of the Internet wolf pack. Mrs. Kim M. Bayne is host of the internationally syndicated weekly radio program, "The Cyber Media Show with Kim Bayne" and author of "The Internet Marketing Plan: A Practical Handbook for Creating, Implementing and Assessing Your Online Presence," New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. She can be reached at kimmik@wolfBayne.com or browse to http://www.wolfBayne.com to visit her Web site. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://www.clickz.com/archives/1107977.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -