Newsletter Power!

    Ok, so it was not a newsletter, but it was an informative piece of communication between our current members and site users, and us here in the mighty fishbowl!

We ran our first of a 6 part email marketing series on Tuesday night, and I am proud to say that we have been resoundingly successful.

Our users have not all entered email addresses ( yet ) however of the people we contacted, 30% have come to visit , and 11% have completed one of the actions we set forth for them. I for one am incredibly proud of these excellent results, of the team that collaborated to create this campaign, and also of our members… who have followed the carrot and led us to prove unequivocally that Email Marketing and Lifecycle Campaigns are an integral part of any great Internet Marketing and Management cycle. We are now working on the remainder of the 6 part series, as well as two new campaigns, the iCanBenefit.com Billy Mays email Blast, and the Critical Illness Protection Email blast. I will keep everyone posted as we run these thru the system! On a Personal note… I have actually been able to get approved for a home! That’s right, my first time home buying experience (ugh!) Either way , it’s a great property , and I will be adding a new section to the blog in regards to the home purchase process, the companies I worked with to make it happen, and the Before and after of my Demolition and rebuilding of parts of the house!!!!

 

Thanks again for reading everyone! ( This includes you JESSIE!- [analytics at work… I SEE YOU!])

Greg Matthew Chernoff – Florida SEO and All around Madman!

 

While I know that this is not a very widely accepted opinion of the current PageRank over position debate, I wanted to give my 2 cents!

Page Rank, or the little green bar on the Google toolbar which gives your site a ranking from N/A – 10 has been around for a good long time now.

Originally it was clear and apparent that Google PageRank was a direct correlation to how Google viewed your site, your positioning, and overall just how well your site was performing.

Then, after (roughly) a year long period of algo changes, google decided it was time to lay the final blow on spam sites, porn, pharmacy, and link farming.

Here is what I believe was the outcome of those changes, and where I expect to see PageRank end up in the future.

    Google has stopped allowing us as SEO’s to use page rank as a determining factor on sites position, and while having a 7PR is still a notable accomplishment, it is not the end-all be-all for SEO any longer.

It is clear that there is a wedge driven between your sites PageRank and the position that you achieve in the SERPs for instance, Post Florida update, after all the pharmacy and junk got purged from google, you can see that even sites with a overall low (2,3,4)PageRank were crawling to the top. Essentially, the linking structures which were causing the bloating of PageRank began to fall away, leaving sites that were more about the content richness and quality of information… exactly what google wanted. Now , Years later , there are still debates as to how important PageRank is to your website. I am going completely against the grain , and stating that PageRank has become a way of determining link popularity… but not in any way directly correlating to your SERP placements. I know I KNOW all the Search Marketing pros out there are most likely going to behead me for this… but you can get great rankings by just coding cleanly, and creating regular, unique and compelling content before you ever place a single reciprocal link. That being said, there is nothing wrong with same “niche” reciprocal linking … SEOs can link anywhere within the “house” of web development and gain PR, however it wont always determine your Authority or relevance in your industry. For those of you who want to argue this point out… and show me how many large PR sites they have WITH position … ask yourself, if you just stuck to subject, knew your Sh** and never got a single reciprocal or 3way link to your site … would it really change your positions?

GmC – Seo Guy

Over the past week, we have been preparing our first set of email marketing campaigns. Charlie, our lifecycle expert and I have been hashing out the do’s and don’ts of email campaigning, and I feel that everyone should be involved in the conversation.

1. The Difference Between a newsletter , an e-Zine and a Specifically geared email marketing campaign:
   1. Newsletters – Newsletter campaigning is a crucial part of your communications with your customers, but what is the best way to give them the vital information you need to display, without making them feel like they are getting bombarded with advertising. I personally feel strongly that education of your customer and marketing of your products and services should be kept relatively separate, and here is why. When someone signs up for your newsletter, they are not asking to be spammed, or marketed, they are asking for news and information. They expect to see some advertising, however for the most part they are only casually interested in what you have to say. If you bomb their email with spam letters, after they have filled out a newsletter signup, they will leave. Now this does not mean that you can’t add a banner to your newsletter, just that it should never look like your trying too hard to make money off your newsletter!
   2. E-Zine – E-Zine or online magazines are web pages on some sub domain of your website, they are simply not email marketing. However you can add the high points of your e-Zine to your newsletter and even point the bulk of your email traffic to that location.
   3. Email Marketing – Simply put, this is the bulk of emails you receive from everyone, Simple, to the point emails with a single, or perhaps even dual call to action layout. DO THIS then DO THAT to GET THIS = Direct funneling of your email traffic to the proper location on your site to complete a particular action that makes you money or gives your company something. In the past week our company has gotten the tracking and implementation sections of our new marketing campaign nailed down we have decided to partner with Blue Hornet as our email provider. They have great software, and are well geared for tracking and referral purposes. It is a very verbose admin that you should definitely try out before choosing where to shoot your campaigns from. Adam Ireton is our rep there, so ask for him if you ever want a demo, and tell ‘em iCan Sent you!

Our current members will be receiving the first email, a newsletter and coming soon teaser for the 2009 upgrades to HCCUA.ORG Then we are sending out a Referral Campaign and Trying to get more people to see that the Health Care Credit Union Association “Creates Extraordinary Lives” every Day.

So , Today is the day I officially paid and reserved my spot in the Internet Marketing course at Full Sail. I have been in the SEO/SEM ring for a long time now, and punching thru to become one of the locally “known” search marketing consultants in my area has been a great milestone in my career. Starting January 09 I will be attending classes to learn some of the most bleeding edge SEM skills in my industry, taking what I already know and applying Full Sail University’s rich history of giving their students only the best tools and knowledge. As I grow into this class , I will of course be bringing a few of the juicy SEO hints , SEM Tricks and of course more of my personal nonsense J

Stay Tuned — 09 is bound to be the best year yet!

Greg Chernoff

I wanted to give a quick shout out to our Quality Assurance technician, Skip LaCroix, Happy Spooky birthday buddy. Also, I wanted to welcome back my boss Ghen , the VP of media. He has been travelling Europe in a Stolen M3 … Just kidding!!! Jason, our Benefits manager, got an awesome new car IN Germany, and got a chance to drive it for a bit before they ship it out to the US.

Now that they are back, it’s back to work … crunching and deadlines for a bunch of new products! Our lead artist here in the web department, Ian Hench – Graphic Artist, is working on some sick new designs for the iCan Media website. We can’t wait to show off what he is thinking up for iCan Media!!!

Also, I have been slowly training the office to use their new blogs. Ray Brookstein can now post his thoughts whenever he feels the need. Dr Morgan is rolling along with her blog, and its turning into a great Health Information center! All in all we have made some great progress this week, launching the HCCUA Back Office – Our members love it, and getting ready for the agent template systems and the Agent back office next! On an SEO front I have watched as week by week iCanBenefit.com gain positions in all my major med initiative terms, as well as our group and affordable health insurance campaigns… Still maintaining that Low CPL on our paid campaigns , and getting ready for the pet sites launch and our first piece of Ecommerce Business!

The software is out there, and has been for years. The ability to look at every one of your customers as more than just a view or conversion , but to see what pathways they take , what causes some to disappear, while others become another proud member of HCCUA or an iCan Major Medical Health Insurance customer. Deep granulation is important for all websites, and Google has made it so simple to track your sites like a pro! The Google Suite of Webmaster tools , and services like adwords and adsense round off a great library of information about how to make Ad Revenue and properly spend marketing dollars, and analytics ties it all together , showing you how each campaign ,across e every engine , is performing.

Currently we are running Analytics for every site we have live, as well as in the planning stages to run banner and email campaigns using analytics tracking tags. Now if anyone ever tells you “it takes a professional” to setup analytics systems, they are completely wrong! You can get completely setup for a website in less than 20 minutes, complete with all marketing channels tagged and bagged and ready to present in your dashboard reports.

For a company our size, I still utilize Google for my tracking, as I can implement everything on multiple campaigns easily, and make changes on the fly. Initially, you are given a pretty verbose “report” on your dashboard page, but you can add information from any marketing channel to your dashboard, and produce professional reports in PDF right from the site. Now there are other incredible platforms for analytics, such as Omniture, which incorporates a number of much more advanced functionalities, and are definitely a huge step up from the free Google Tools, but if you don’t have a lot of money to spend… Google can’t be beat!

My suggestion, if you haven’t already, is to go ahead and sign up and get your site traffic really broken down Right away. You will be able to see “holes” in your marketing that is causing drops, and be able to turn a customer frown upside down

Till next time

Greg Chernoff

WebGeek

If you’re a “green under the gills” webmaster or even a seasoned “worked on seo before the phrase was coined” online marketing expert, seeing your rankings climb each and every month is always a thrill!

This month I have watched not only my major corporate product (The Affordable Health Insurance Co.) jump but also I have gotten first page rankings for Florida SEO, Florida Search engine Optimization, Boca Raton Florida SEO, and many others for Codesource-seo.com! (This site is like my son, and I’m so proud!)

Currently we are starting work on some exciting products here at iCan

• Our pet care line of products, which includes a pet discount card, and some awesome added bonuses.
• Our Retail line of health and wellness discounts!
• And a number of niche benefit products that I’m sure everyone will enjoy.

And we have a number of great new initiatives in the works.

• Blogs for Everyone!   �
  • Not only did we setup the marketing team with blogs, but now we have blogs in the works for
    • Dr. Lynn Morgan – HCCUA Presidents Blog
    • Ed Shatz – Member Services Blog
    • Ray Brookstein – Major Medical Health insurance Blog
• New Social Sites!
  • iCan Health Insurance on MySpace!
  • iCan Pet Club – Better then Pet Insurance – On MySpace!

And more on the way so stay tuned!

Now although I have gotten some great rankings , some incredible opportunities and interviews with a couple of hard hitting traditional marketers throughout my many years in the industry, NOTHING compares to working in a market like Health Insurance. From the Hundreds of Excellent competitive websites, to each and every one of the “giants” in health insurance having their own team of web marketers, I have had my work cut out for me. On that note, I wanted to give a small nod to the competition, and give you some pointers for beating the big guys!

1. Never Let the really big guys scare you:

   When I took this position, I knew that health insurance was a mighty large term to tackle, full of both big reputable and well known brands, and Joe the local health insurance salesman, all trying to take those top spots. Not to mention the Gov, and ORG sites dedicated to making my job all that much more difficult J After doing some serious Research into my competitor base, I found that all the top names have huge page indexes on all 3 engines, some serious link back from hundreds of affiliates, ISOs and the like. So let’s just call them all 800 LB Gorillas.

   Each of these gorillas has tens of thousands of indexed pages, link backs and plenty of authority, whereas most industries have SEO holes which are easy to find a “fit” with your current site… they have little if any at all ! But what is it that a big lumbering giant does not have? Speed and flexibility! So with some fleet footing and a handle on my patience (and the patience of my company) we started the task of creating a mountain out of our fresh new little molehill.

2. Make sure you have at least 3 original things that the rest don’t!

   For instance, some large organizations in this industry have no need for social or content based communities and networks. They never got involved in the social scene, and most likely will not start (unless they get to read my blog!) because they feel secure in their placement.

3. Never stop optimizing.

   Don’t expect to get anywhere by the “set it and forget it” mentality. There is always a fluctuation in keyword strength; there will always be another 20 new ways to say what you need to say online, another 50 pages of useful and original content that should be placed to show you know your niche. Remember with each day your optimizing, your 800 lb gorilla is watching their own position and hoping that one of the mid size competitors wont “get smart” and become visible!

In short, always stay on your toes, and don’t let a slow climb to the top discourage you. After all, even the big guys started at the back of the index at some point 

We are proudly beginning the customization process for our new openX banner management system! We have been serving banners thru a number of networks, but required some sort of management and tracking system which we could use to keep our publishers in check.

From all the research we have done, between paid networks, pricey software packages, and other open source platforms, I personally feel that OpenX ( openAds, ETC)  has always been a top contender for banner and RMA management. Now that they have upgraded and renamed yet again, I can see that there team is working hard on providing the most accurate, flexible and free system they can. On that note, in the near future my company plans on offering a nice donation to the guys who are making this all possible!

If your in the Georgia area, look for icanbenefit.com banners on comcast.net!   and if you want to see whats coming for iCan Media … Stay Tuned!