SolveYourProblem
Internet Marketing Series
The Role of "Smileys" In Internet Marketing
This is one of those things that you’d think
as ridiculous and nonsensical at first, but later on, you
would realize the sheer magnitude of its effects. Believe
it or not, though no public discussions have been made about
the topic, Internet marketers have always been baffled by
this question.
To Use Or Not To Use Smileys?
Smileys, of course, are those happy faces formed through
the use of alphanumerical characters to convey happiness
and goodwill. Were it that simple, smileys should be used
in every manner of written conversations.
The problem is, smileys are often associated with informal
colloquies. They are frequently used in discussions between
friends, lovers, and acquaintances engaged in small talks.
To say that smileys are quite informal would be an understatement.
Smilyes have been designed for casual conversations instead
of ceremonious affairs like business talk.
There is always the danger that when you use smileys in
your marketing campaigns, your target market might not take
you seriously. They are the ones who have to part with their
hard earned money after all, and that might not be something
that they are willing to do for a business that does not
project itself in a proper manner.
The Experiment
But a lot of Internet marketers do have the propensity of
using smileys. At first, I thought that they simply didn’t
know what they were doing. Being friends with some of them,
I became privy to their earnings statistics. Lo and behold,
their conversion rate is more than what I expected to see!
These are people who wantonly use smileys in their blogs,
RSS feeds and follow-up messages.
So I investigated further. I was about to launch a special
report about public domain information, you see. I decided
to split test my follow-up messages for its promotion. Half
of my mailing list would receive a straightforward message
advertising the product. The other half would receive the
very same message, albeit, with the usage of a dozen or so
smileys.
After three weeks, I decided to study the results.
Initial Findings
To my surprise, the message that contained smileys fetched
more sales! It was a soft launch, and I manage to garner
17 purchases from the said message. This was more than the
5 sales I got from the other, more professional letter.
Granted that these numbers are by no means determinative
of a trend, they are nonetheless telling for my hypotheses.
Smileys actually help build a connection between people,
whether they be lovers, friends, family members, or sellers
and buyers. Somehow, smileys, albeit informal, make the message
feel more personal and hence more special.
Perhaps this is what is missing from most marketing campaigns:
putting people above everything else, being mindful of their
feelings, and genuinely establishing a sincere relationship
with them. And smileys are perfect tools to establish such.
When To Use And When Not To Use Smileys
Though smileys seem effective for follow-up feeds and other
similar avenues like blogs and RSS feeds, they aren’t really
appropriate for more formal channels.
With sales copies, for example, using smileys is a definite
no-no. People in general expect sales copies to be serious
and formal, though slight humor is almost, always welcome
as long as it is cleverly delivered. Using smileys in sales
copies would just make it seem that it was amateurishly made.
Sales copies are expected to be professionally crafted.
Smileys won’t work well with articles for an article marketing
campaign. Case in point: this article talks about the usage
of smileys but none has yet to be used in these paragraphs.
Articles are long term investments, and any attempts at personalization
might just shorten their market life. Remember, the essence
of an article marketing campaign is the hope that your articles
would get picked up by various eZines and websites over and
over again. Your articles would have a better chance of getting
picked up if they are designed for general applicability,
and this excludes the use of smileys.
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SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
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