Posted by Fione Tan, head Internet Marketing Coach 

What is branding? Does your company have a brand strategy? During the Malaysia Branding & Marketing Forum 2008, I was invited as a speaker on Digital Branding topic, on how to use the Internet to enhance your online brand. Participants of the event came from different industries and multinationals corporations. Apart from Case studies of digital marketing were shared, everyone agreed that Online Branding is undeniably one of the most important part of your Branding Strategy. 

Branding is the “image” you convey to others. This means how your company or product / service is perceived. It’s an extension of your Corporate Marketing plan, and can be based on your company or product’s Unique Selling Point (USP).

Branding is not just advertising, so this is the intangible characteristic of your company and allows you to charge a price premium over your competitors. In the event the brand’s overall image does not sync, then this conflict will jeopardise your brand strategy. Make sure that the message is Consistent.

If your market is only local like Malaysia, then you can find a branding consultant in Malaysia, but if you are looking at expanding internationally, then you can attempt to find a global brand consultancy firm or by region such as brand consultant Asia.

Here are some important points about Branding:-

- logo is NOT the brand

- branding is not just advertising 

There are 7Ps in the Branding strategy context including:-

1. Brand Positioning - what are the core values

2. Perceptual mapping (what competitive advantage is offered, who are the competitors and how they stand)

3. Promotion

4. Place (not just your physical location, but also matching your overall image with your blog and website)

5. People (the behaviour of your staff is also an extension of your brand, so ensure that the expectations are met)

6. Process

7. Physical evidence (the way that you dress., the overall outlook of the company’s interior, etc)

Additionally, understand who is your target audience, and what does your company want to be an expert in?

Your positioning statement, tagline, slogan and logo should be matching the entire branding strategy. One of the popular airlines company in Malaysia (and now Asia), is the slogan of the budget airlines, AirAsia. Their slogan is “Now, everyone can fly” and since they introduced very low cost air tickets, that slogan matches their company’s positioning.

Now, can you recall the tagline of these airline companies? Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific? No wonder AirAsia is one of the most successful branding case study in Asia.  

Website domain name tips posted by Fione Tan, head internet marketing coach.

Have you got your own .com name? Why is buying a dotcom name better than your local domain name, such as .com.my and .com.sg ? First of all, using a .com domain name potrays the idea that you are going for worldwide business, and this type of domain name is available for purchase by any person via the Internet. To check if your name is available, you can use domain registrars such as http://www.FreeDomainsRegistration.com 

Another business idea is to sell your domain name. Here are some of the most expensive domain name transactions.

1. Sex.com - sold for US$12 million dollars in 2005.

- the domain name was originally registered by a software salesperson, Gary Kremen, in 1994.

2. Porn.com - sold for US$9.5 million dollars in May 2007 to MXN Limited in the highest domain name sale in cash transaction

3. Business.com - sold for US$7.5 million dollars in 1999

4. Diamond.com - sold for US$7.5 million dollars in 2006

- sold to Ice.com by Odimo Incorporated (and included the sale of the website inventory too)

5. Beer.com - sold for US$7 million dollars in 1999

- originally owned by a web developer, Bill Fisher and sold to Interbrew company

How is the value of the domain name now? Well, looks like the idea of having a great domain name is still very much alive, and in June 2007, these 2 domain names were sold at a handsome price too.

1. Seniors.com - US$1.8 million dollars

2. CreditCheck.com - US$3 million dollars

I wonder how much would our company brand be worth in the coming years?

So, have you done a check for some domain names this year? Might you be the seller of the next multi-milli0n dollar domain name?

Posted by Fione Tan, head internet marketing coach

Internet marketing ebooks, website marketing tools, and more internet marketing tips are something that internet entrepreneurs have experience of buying. Last week in one of my Singapore internet marketing seminars, one of the participants told me that he has bought over US$1,000 worth of books, digital books or internet marketing softwares up to date, but he has still NOT started any internet business. His reason being, too busy reading the books and it’s still not getting him anywhere.

Does this sound familiar? Yes, in the internet edge, it’s no longer the problem of lack of access to information. Most people get an overload of information and they become more confused than before being started. It’s pretty simple, last week i was surfing an auction site and found many resellers selling tonnes of ebooks for just cents. If you were me, which would you choose:-

- 90,000 ebooks for US$1 or 5 ebooks for US$10? At the end of the day, i believe it’s the quality of the information and not the quantity.

If i could read a book that summarised all the information that i need, then why should i bother to read 10 books to find the same information right? If you already have gained some knowledge be it from attending seminars, surfing blogs or reading books, then it’s time for you to put your ideas into practise. Only through practise and actual selling on the Internet will you learn how to start making money online. It’s not what you know, but what you do! 

Posted by Harrace, Senior Internet Marketing Coach

Last week, we received an order for e1Net Wireless mouse rechargeable for 7 units, from a customer in Taiwan.

Here is the order:

As an experienced Internet marketer, I noted something fishy in this order. So I instructed my account person to call this person to verify the order, who managed to speak to the customer on the phone. This customer said he used his friend’s card to pay for the purchase. However, I am still not satisfied and instructed our receiving bank to check with the card issuer’s bank to verify the transaction with the actual card holder. Guess what?

(more…)

One of my internet marketing coaching participant asked when should the website be submitted to search engines. Here are some pointers that you should consider before you submit to top search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN.

Search engine marketing is not about 1 or 2 points only. First, check whether your web designer or web programmer has done any search engine optimization for your website or have search engine marketing experience. It’s best if they can show you real case studies of their own websites or what they have done for their website (which in this case, you should counter check whether this is really their own portfolio).

Here are 4 simple items that you can do immediately before your submit to the search engines & online directories.

1. Hyperlink the home page to the internal pages and vice versa

- your Site Map should have clear details of what pages falling under which section & categories. How and where will you insert / categorize new webpages ?

- your most important Sales / Products / Promotions page must be easily accessed from the Home Page of your website 

(more…)

Affiliate Program tips by Fione Tan, Head Internet Marketing Coach.

During one of my private Internet Marketing coaching sessions, there was a question about whether we should join Competitors’ affiliate programs and if yes, how to choose.

First, decide what are your products’ strengths / advantages compared to your competitors products? Here are some tips on how to join the best affiliate programs of merchants selling similar products.

1. Check the commission payout.

- is it for 1 time sale only or also includes commission on your customers’ future purchases?

- do you get paid based on multi-tier affiliate program? Meaning if your customers become an affiliate and use their own affiliate links to complete the purchase, do you get any benefits too?

2. Choose complementary products / range

- if let’s say you sell ladies crystal watches only so you can join other affiliate programs that sells sporty watches, or other branded watches like Rolex, or Piaget since you do not carry these similar brands.

- also look at what other items / products that your customers might need. If you sell silver jewelry, then maybe you can join other affiliate programs that are selling jewelry boxes, or jewelry care such as silver jewelry polisher.

- if you sell only to Asian markets, then you can look for an affiliate program that can cover the rest of the world, so that your customers can also purchase & send to USA, or Europe.

3. Place the affiliate banners in the proper locations on your site

- if the affiliate programs are meant to be your side income (one website can have multiple sources of income), then you should avoid placing competitors’ affiliate programs banners or text links on your own order page, or sales pages.

- insert on other informational pages, eg articles, frequently asked questions, etc

- you can even choose to feature a specific affiliate program product or link directly to the product page of your recommended product. Sample of linking to a specific product page can be viewed on this blog posting :-

http://eonenet.com/wedding_blog/2007/02/27/wedding-jewelry-accessories/
#more-14

This means that those affiliate programs that you join can appear not only in your website, but also in your other blogs.

At the end of the day, you can always sell or recommend a Book about this product from Amazon’s affiliate program. No matter whether you are selling a diet pill or an online stocks trading software, there are surely some books and ebooks written on the market. Therefore when you recommend books from Amazon itself, then you can also earn some commissions from the order.

:
affiliate programs, internet marketing, internet marketing coach, Fione Tan

Business tips by Fione Tan, Internet Marketing Coach

Is customer service still important? How are you ensuring that the quality of your service is good? Even after running my internet business for over 7 years, i can still find flaws and areas of improvement in order to ensure the customers get a great experience when dealing with eOneNet.

I remembered a story that my American expatriate friend, working in Singapore, shared with me about online customer service. Since she was working abroad, she would regularly shop online for gifts to her friends and family members back in USA. During her mother’s birthday, she ordered some gardening books for her mom, from Amazon.com and then called her mom to check whether her mom was happy with the gifts. However, some glitches happened and instead, her mom were sent Algebra and Calculus books.

(more…)

Posted by Harrace (Hong Kong)

While I was doing research for my last post on Giorgio Armani Fashion Show Video and Internet Marketing, I came across a survey that shows Giorgio Armani, Gucci, and Versace are the world’s most coveted designer brands.

12 percent of global consumers already purchased Giorgio Armani and/or Gucci! How can we make money on these ultra hot products online?

(more…)

Posted by Harrace (Hong Kong)

Giorgio Armani is no doubt one of the most sought after fashion designers for the rich and famous. He has just become the first designer to broadcast a fashion show live online.

I’ve got a video link to his interview at the Giorgio Armani Coulture Collection 2007 here, where he shared why he decided to put his fashion show online and gave some valuable tips to dress up, and also the video of the gorgeous Runway Show! (more…)

Posted by Harrace

What’s Hillary Clinton, Senate of New York and former First Lady, got to do with Internet marketing?

There is a breaking news last weekend that she will be running for presidency. From the TV news, I note that she has posted some videos on her website promoting her election.

I visited her site and note that she is fully applying killer Internet marketing tactics to support and promote her election campaigns.

(more…)