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Ecards as a Marketing Tool
by Dessy Oundjian
As any successful businessman
will confirm, having a great product
or service is just the beginning. After all, in this day and age,
everything comes down to marketing. The more creative you are in
your marketing efforts, the more successful your business is.
There
are many ways to promote your business without spending a
fortune.
In this article I will describe one of the most powerful tools on
the Internet - ecards!
Ecards (electronic greeting cards) are a great example of
efficient
marketing on the internet. You have a free service open to the
Internet users. The ecards they send from your site invariably
contain promotion for your company, products or services. They
are
advertising tools that are immediate, inexpensive, personalized
and
although sent via email, Spam free.
This form of Internet marketing is extremely effective. More than
50% of the U.S. population and 85% of all Internet users visit a
greeting's site annually, according to research firm Jupiter
MediaMetrix. Why not use even a small percentage of these
potential
clients to you advantage? OK, BlueMountain.com has more than 100
million unique visitors each year, but even with less numbers,
the
potential is there. Remember, with each sent ecard from your site
you have at least two potential clients!
If someone utilizes the ecards service on average only twice a
day,
in the period of a year the service is advertised approximately
730
times. Multiply this number by the number of registered users and
you get yourself a healthy advertising stream. Recognizing the
huge
potential, in 1999 Excite@Home Corp. paid $780 million for the
purchase of BlueMountain.com. How much would you pay for that
type
of advertising?
No need to answer -- you can have an ecard site for a lot less.
The
concept is the same, and you can use it just as the big boys. You
can build a database of qualified prospects and use ecards to:
• Promote - promote products and services
• Brand - create company awareness among your client base
• Invite - invite people to seminars and special events
• Remind - send appointment reminders
• Inform - send Client appreciation memos, Recruiting/hiring
notices, etc.
• Reference - send Birthday wishes, Holiday greetings, Thank
You's,
etc.
OK, so now you know you need an ecard section on your site. What
do
you need next?
Ecards software:
There are a lot of very good ecard programs on the Internet. I
highly recommend the following:
• MyPostCards Platinum
(http://mypostcards.com/platinum/)
• ECardsPro price U$299
(http://www.ecardspro.com/)
• Greeting Card PRO price U$249
(http://www.greetingcardpro.com/)
• Greeting Cards Pro price U$249
(http://www.all-yours.net/software/)
Content:
• Custom content: If you have a larger budget you can have an
well-
known artist like Vlad Kolarov (http://www.vladkolarov.com) create
custom animated ecards for you. On average, a Flash animated
ecard
costs $350.
• Leased content: A much cheaper way to obtain high quality
content
is to use the services of a company like Cardsup Greetings
(
http://www.cardsup.com). Their ecards have been used by such
sites
as Yahoo Greetings, Regards.com, ecards.com, etc. For a very
reasonable price you will get:
GREAT CONTENT for your existing web site, made by some of the
best
animators/cartoonists in the business.
FREE UPDATES -- you will receive FREE monthly Flash ecards! Each
month you will get from 5 to 30 additional ecards at no cost.
FREE SCREENSAVERS -- you will receive all additional free
animations
as screensavers too, and you will be able to sell them to your
customers.
Web Hosting:
If you do not have a web host for your site, be sure to check out
Fullservehost.com (http://www.fullservehost.com). They have special
plans for ecard sites owners that come with free ecard software.
About the Author:
Dessy Oundian is a the marketing Guru behind etoon.com -- one of
the
largest searchable cartoon databases in the world. Find T-shirts
and
other custom apparel, get information about licensing our
cartoons
or send free e-cards.
Ecards as a marketing tool
by Dessy Oundjian
Copyright 2004
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