Boosting Site Traffic with Email Marketing, by Martin van Hemert

My name is Martin van Hemert, and my website Utah3D.Net has seen tremendous growth in the past year, almost solely through email and other social media. The site is a showcase for spherical panoramas. So what's a spherical panorama? The best explanation is an example. Click on the image below, then click and drag directly in the panorama after it has loaded. You will be able to move in any direction, including up and down:

If you experience any motion sickness, you're moving too fast!!

As our traffic has grown, we've paid attention to the sources of that traffic. Here's where things get interesting. Less than 1% of our visitors come through search engines. Reports show large percentages coming through email links, and other social media links. These same reports show the largest percentages as "direct". In other words a URL entered into an address bar. If we had a catchy, short URL, people might be manually typing it in, but here is the URL to our most visited panorama:

http://www.utah3d.net/panoramas/SulpherCreek_swf.html

Not very easy to type, is it? It even has a misspelled word in it! Yet, this page has had over 6,000,000 page views this past year, a number we can hardly believe, and for which we are grateful. We feel a very large percentage of this direct traffic is actually through email referrals.

Here is where FeedBlitz comes in, and no, Phil did not ask me to say this. For our audience, the best way for us to get the word out about a new panorama is through email. We view this as the kick the ball needs to start rolling. I started with another email update service (which shall remain unnamed), but after checking with 6 email addresses and finding only one was receiving anything, I quickly switched to FeedBlitz, and am glad I did. The service is great, and the emails get through. When I have a question, the answers have been quick, and they've even come directly from Phil. We currently have a little over 3400 subscribers.

The next time you need to take a trip, but can't book a flight, I hope you'll visit Utah3D.Net.

About the Author

Martin van Hemert is an architectural and fine art photographer based in Utah. Much of his early work was produced on 4x5 inch sheet film, and he has been involved in many phases of photography and custom photo printing. Over the past several years, he has become obsessed with creating spherical panoramas. In fact, he is probably thinking about panoramas right now. When he’s not shooting or fine tuning photos, he can be found feeding his wife’s horses, growing alfalfa to feed his wife’s horses, and taking long walks on the beach.