With So Many Affiliate Programs, Which One Should I Choose?

The number one thing you need to do when looking into the myriad of affiliate programs available is to ask questions first before you join any program. You have to do the research about the choices of each program that you are thinking about joining. Get the answers before joining because they will be the deciding factors of what you will be achieving later on.

I have listed here some of the main questions that you need to ask any retailer offering an affiliate program.

"Will it cost me anything to join?" The majority of affiliate programs offered today are free of charge, so why pay for those that charge you something before joining? Unless there is only a very small fee and a very large ROI (Return On Investment), paying to be an affiliate just doesn’t make sense.

"When do they send out the commission checks?" Each program is different, so this is an important question. Some issue their checks once every month, every quarter, etc. Find the one that is best suited to your payment schedule choice. There are many affiliate programs that are setting a minimum earned commission amount that you must meet or exceed in order for them to issue you a check, so be sure to ask if they have a minimum.

"What is their hit per sale ratio?" This very important question tells you what the average number of banner or text link "hits" it takes to generate a sale. A "hit" occurs when someone clicks on the banner or text links. This is based on all affiliate statistics. This ratio is extremely important, as it will tell you approximately how much traffic you need to generate before you can start earning commissions from the sale.

"How will the referrals from my affiliate’s site be tracked and also how long do they stay in the system?" You need to have the confidence that the program will track the people you refer from your site. This is the only way that you will get credit for the sale. The period of time that your referrals stay in the system is also extremely important. The reason is because some visitors do not initially buy the product, but may want to return at a later time to make the purchase. You need to know if you are still going to get credit for the sale, even if it is done a few days or months from a certain day. Most programs track between 45 and 60 days, though some programs track referrals for as long as a year or more.

"What are the kinds of affiliate stats available?" The affiliate program you choose should be offering detailed statistics for your review. These should be available at anytime online. By constantly checking your individual stats, you know how many impressions, hits and sales are already generated from your site. "Impressions" are the number of times your banner or text links are viewed by the visitors of your site.

"Besides the commissions on sales, does the affiliate program also pay for hits and impressions?" It’s best if you can find a program where impressions and hits are also paid, as this will add to your earnings along with the sales commission. This is especially important if the program you are in offers a low sales point to be able to hit any ratio requirement they may have.

"Who is the online retailer you’ll be dealing with?" You need to find out whom you will be doing business with to know if they are a really solid company. Check out the products they are selling and the average sales amounts they are achieving. The more you know about the retailer offering the affiliate program, the easier it is for you to decide if that program is really the right one for you and your site.

"Is the program a one tier or two tier affiliate program?" A single tier affiliate program pays you only for the business you yourself generate. A two-tier program pays you for the business/sales you bring in, plus it also pays you a commission on the sales generated by any sub-affiliate you sponsor under you in the program. Some two-tier programs even pay a small fee for each new affiliate you sponsor. This is a recruitment fee, which usually only goes down one level.

Lastly, "what is the amount of commission paid?" Depending on which market you get into, you’ll find that 5% - 20% is fairly standard commission that most programs pay out. .01% - .05% is a typical amount paid for each hit. If you find a program that also pays you for banner/text-ad impressions, the amount paid is usually not much at all. As you can see from the figures above, you now understand why the average sales amount and hit to sale ratio is a very important fact to know about before getting into any affiliate    program.

These are just some of the questions that need to be answered first before you join an affiliate program. You should also become familiar with the many important aspects that your chosen program has before incorporating them into your marketing campaign and website. Ask your affiliate program choices these questions. They can help you select the right program for you and your site from among the many available.

My recommendation for one of the best Affiliate Commision sites going is Commision Junction. They have a wide variety of both affiliate programs and payouts. CJ is certainly worth a look if you want to get serious about this type of Affiliate Marketing.

To your continued success!

Why Your Leads Aren't Working - And What You Can Do About It Now

You placed ads all over Google, you bought leads by the thousands from a service, you even had a sales letter sent to a big opt-in list. Then you couldn't believe it when nothing much happened.

Your site probably got a LOT of hits, but nobody bought anything. How could that happen?

Experts have been arguing over that one for years. If you had that experience, you're not alone. Adsense, opt-in, and purchased leads often deliver poor results. Why? Most often the reason is these leads aren't NEARLY as powerful as leads you build yourself.

Send out an article like this one, get people to read your good information, then come to you as warm leads -- and you'll have a HOT lead that WILL buy something. What's the difference?

The prospect read your information, got to know and trust you, THEN came to you sales information. At this point, the prospect has created a mental bond with you and your ability to help them achieve their goal. This lead, gathered with YOUR lead building system, is FAR more prepared to buy than any other kind of lead.

Don't believe me? Look who is making good money online year, after year, after year. It's people who have a big weekly newsletter, have sites filled with good information, spend a lot of time talking with prospects on the telephone, offer an e-book, or send repeated autoresponder messages. These methods all build a RELATIONSHIP with the prospect, making them 20 times more likely to buy. While Adsense might get you thousands of hits, building your OWN leads can get prospects who will actually BUY something.

"But I can't write an article and don't like to talk to prospects on the phone," you say. No problem. Today there are lead building systems that pull in huge numbers of prospects, then use advanced Flash web movies to convert the best of these prospects into hot, pre-sold leads.

These systems are the new cutting-edge of online marketing. They have become so highly developed and easy to use that thousands of people just like you are earning big commissions non-stop with them.

It's not at all unusual to set the lead building system in place, then watch the sales stack up at $1,000 per pop.

Clearly, building your own leads, then using an advanced Flash selling system is the easy way to profits these days. Don't pass up this marketing method for your business.

Work and Preparation Equal Success and Confidence

You have decided to start your own business on the internet. The first question is what do I do? What kind of service do I offer or what product do I sell.

What field are you knowledgable in? What do you have to offer others? Am I qualified to help others?

Most everyone has the knowledge and ability to help others. The problem is that most do not have the confidence to share that knowledge. We question ourselves and the abilities that we possess.

Years ago when I was in the United States military, I learned some valuable lessons about people. The majority of people are content to follow. There is nothing wrong with this and the world needs followers as well as leaders.

The world also needs leaders and the confidence that goes with that role. To be a successful leader, you must have the confidence in your own abilities. And to be successful in the marketing world, you must be a leader.

You must have the confidence that you can help others and have the ability to convey that confidence to them. You must possess the knowledge to allow you to portray this confidence to your clients as well.

If you cannot convey this confidence to your potential customers, you will have a very difficult time being successful in any type business. People come to you for help, you must project a sense of confidence or you have little chance of attaining that success.

A few years back when I was in the advertising business, a client told me one day that I seemed so confident that the ad campaign I has just written would be a rousing success. He asked me how I could be so confident when we had yet to even test the campaign?

My answer to him applies to almost any task or any field. I told him that I was confident because I had spent many hours studying the market that we were targeting. I had also spent many hours looking at other ads, both successful and unsuccesful. I had then spent a lot of time putting together the campaign and when I finished, I went back and spent even more time ensuring that everything was just right.

The key here was preparation. I was totally prepared and felt like I had exhausted every possible means to ensure that the ad campaign was the best that it could possibly be. How could I not be confident.

It reminds me of school. When I spent the time studying, I always felt confident when test day arrived. The times that I did not spend the time studying, the confidence was just not there, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself.

Back in those days, confidence seemed to come because you were driving the fanciest car on campus and everyone looked up to you. Or you were the captain of the football team or the head cheerleader. At that point in life, most looked up to you for the wrong reasons. Well, I am here to tell you that those things mean nothing in the today's world.

You have the ability to start your own business and turn it into a successful venture. What does it take? You are going to have to have the confidence to pass along to others. How do you acquire this confidence? Well, it does not come because you are good looking, popular or inherited a million dollars. It comes from work and preparation.

Do you have the ability to make it happen? Of course you do. The question is, are you willing to put forth the time and effort that it takes. Success and Confidence take work and preparation.

What is Multi Level Marketing?

Multi level marketing is known as network marketing. This is a kind of business where franchising and direct selling are combined. This business makes a person associated to a company in an independent transaction approach. It is an approach where the company creates a contactor relationship to the person who wants to expand his business.

The members make their earnings based on the sales they have reached in that particular product or service. It also includes the sales of the person that they have recruited to join the business. Most of the time the individual who has recruited more members and provided a good sales output on the product compensate higher because of the effort to transact in two different fields.

There are “pyramid schemes” or Ponzi schemes, which are considered illegal. Most people associate multi level marketing to these kind of schemes because they also recognize themselves to be a legitimate networking business. Because of the bad image brought up by these schemes, many prefer to use their names for their businesses as “home based business franchising” or “affiliate marketing”.

Commissions are earned in the process of selling a particular product or service in a legitimate network marketing. There can be no earnings in what they call as a “sign up fee” or for just recruiting yourself alone. This kind of marketing is always criticized because of the questionable recruitment process where they get their revenue and profit. They get their sales from members and new members, which are considered the end users of the product and as the distributors.

These criticisms led to the major changes in the multi level marketing in the early 1980s when many companies have started to allow their members to concentrate only on marketing and not on distributing or stocking the product. Most multi level marketing firms nowadays perform as fulfillment firms by taking the tasks of shipping the product, paying the commissions and taking orders from their clients.

Many people who are victims of the illegal schemes in multi level marketing are required to buy expensive products, but most of these schemes do not last long because most of the sales are not easily resold.

Wholesale Marketing Business

Now you have made the decision that you want to get into the wholesale marketing business, it is now time to start making some money, this is great as it is one of the fastest growing industries on the net, actually it is one of the fastest growing industries period. So, what have you decided to sell? Have you figured this part out yet?, or are you still up in the air with this one? There are some very important things to consider when going into wholesale Internet marketing, capital is a huge issue, but the biggest issue seems to be the storage and product capacity problems. Do your research first and gather all the information you can, try to find out what seems to be working for other people who are working in the same kind of business.

Have you ever considered selling a product that people collect? What about sports cards? This is a very big market, and you could easily find some storage space in even a modest sized home for the product to be shipped in mass quantity. This is a market that is really taking off; there are people in every walk of life that collects these sports cards. From football cards to baseball cards the product is still the same, small and easy to store until it is sold and shipped. You see the problem with choosing a large-scale item such as clothing, or stereo equipment, means that you will need adequate space to store it until you ship it. If you are just starting out, renting a storage space for the product makes for a certain drop in your profits. Not to mention the insurance you will want to take out to keep you and your wholesalers business safe, in the event of fire or theft.

This is why smaller items that are still popular may be the best bet for positive results and a chance to keep all of your profits. The option is there for the wholesaler to keep the product at their storage facility until the sale is final, and it is even possible for them to ship the item to the customer saving you the trouble. The major problem with this is, everything that the wholesaler has to do such as storing and shipping the items eats away at your profits. If they store it, they will charge you for the use of space. and if they ship it for you, they will ship it the way they want to regardless if that ends up costing you more, either way it matters not to them. This is because it will come out of your share in the end. This then takes you from a legitimate business partner to a simple run of the mill salesperson without most of the perks. When starting your wholesale marketing business maybe it really is better to think small.

The Best Time For Marketing

The best time for marketing is when they aren’t buying.

Be realistic. If you aren’t selling the hottest new fashion or gizmo for holiday gift-giving, it’s hard to get anyone to think about buying your product or service from Thanksgiving through Christmas and New Year’s. That’s a six week lean selling stretch for lots of sales professionals. When you are trying to hit your quarterly and year-end numbers that lean stretch can be tough to swallow.

No leader likes to see their team sitting around the office having a pity party. Instead, build this market reality into your schedule and ramp up your marketing activities during sales lulls.

Why should you invest in marketing to your target market when they aren’t buying?

1. To stay front and center on their radar – especially if you target the corporate market.

2. To increase their awareness of you

3. To bring attention to you

4. To highlight the added value you offer

5. To generate a desire to continue to hear what you have to say

What kind of marketing can you do when no one is buying?

Your marketing team can use this time to plan and schedule all marketing strategies for 2015 and get them scheduled and booked.

* If you will be a conference speaker in April, they need to establish a timeline for drafting the speech, shipping handouts to the location, developing the PowerPoint presentation to go with it, the press release, website promotion, travel arrangements, etc.

* If you will introduce a new product, service or program in June, they need to work out all the details for the most thorough and effective rollout with enough lead-time to implement all the pieces, or identify gaps to be filled in a timely fashion.

* If you have increased your marketing budget for 2015 – this is a great time to develop some of those promotional pieces or hire contractors/freelancers to develop them for you.

* If you have a 2015 goal of increasing visibility in a new market, a new niche, or a new country, the marketing team needs time to bone up on the nuances and implications of this goal to prepare successful penetration strategies.

Your sales team does not need to be idle during seasonal sales lulls either. Your sales force can use this time to research growth opportunities for the company and their own territories.

* Sales staff can use the holiday season as an excuse to followup every sale all year long with a brief visit or a phone call: to personally say thank you for the business, to ensure continued satisfaction with the product, service and the salesperson’s work and to bind client loyalty with strong rapport.

* In addition, each client contact is a great opening to query them about their plans for the next year, to identify client needs which your product/service can address in the new year – i.e., scouting for 2015 add-on sales.

* Sales staff can also take time to study the market and their territory vis-à-vis the company’s 2015 goals and start developing sales strategies and tactics to achieve the company plan and reach their own quotas and incentives.

* Sales staff can use this season for supplemental (internal or external) training to refine their craft.

Marketing is not a passive activity. You have to keep the pipeline full. So, periodically, it is important to reflect and assess how to rejuvenate your marketing efforts. This lull between the holidays is a perfect time to focus on all the behind-the-scenes marketing activities that will make next year, your best year yet!

Sell Your Successes: 3 Techniques That Can Lower Your Marketing Costs & Energize Your Business

I attended a seminar the other day at a local trade show and one thing that they mentioned almost in passing that inspired me was the critical concept of “selling your successes”.

Hmmm… “Sell your successes” – What could that mean?

Simply put, when you walk the talk, talk the walk.  Adjust your marketing and sales conversations and materials to reflect how your product or services helped someone achieve what they wanted.

Now how do you do this?  Well here are 3 techniques that when applied effectively can lower your marketing costs & energize your business.

1.  Let ‘Testimonials’ Pave the Way
To best illustrate this technique, let me share with you a line that I use often that goes something like this: “If I tell you that I’m great at what I do, at best you’ll take it with a grain of salt, but if an unbiased third-party tells you that I’m great at what I do, you’ll tend to believe them.  In other words, people tend to give more credence to what someone else says about you rather than what you say about yourself.

So use every opportunity to gain testimonials about you, your team, your product, your service, or your business in general.  Collecting and effectively using testimonials should become a key marketing strategy for your business.

2.  Using ‘Stories’ to Get Your Point Across
Storytelling has been around since the beginning of mankind and when used properly can illustrate your point better than almost any other way.  Stories have the power to capture and engage the listener in a softened manner – not the hard selling approach that people typically run away from.  Stories also have the unique ability to take complex ideas and make them easy to understand – without a dissertation on the subject.

My best advice here is to model other great storytellers.  Take one of my favorites for instance, Mark Victor Hansen.  Just look at his Chicken Soup for the Soul series of books.  Essentially each chapter is a story effectively illustrating a point that touches, moves, and inspires its readers.

So you may be tempted to say, well that’s easy for him, but I’m no Mark Victor Hansen.  Now maybe you potentially are or aren’t, however my point is, that this is a very learnable skill, people aren’t born with it.  They develop it by continually practicing and honing it.

3.  Sharing ‘Case Studies’ to Illustrate what’s Possible
Case studies are a sure-fire way to give your prospect a mental picture of what’s possible for their business should they engage you help.  These are particularly great for those prospects who need to see it themselves in order to believe it.  Case studies illustrate tangible solutions – they tend to instill a deeper level of confidence in your prospect that you can get it done for them.  Essentially, you have a track record of success to draw upon.

Now when using any or all of the 3 techniques just discussed, remember that just like telling a joke, timing and delivery are critical to their success.  For example placing a testimonial in your sales letter in just the right spot where you are looking to establish credibility is key to getting your prospect to keep reading.

These techniques can also play a critical role in humanizing your business and its offerings – placing real people behind your messages.  For example, instead of pounding a prospect with every possible service you offer and the features and benefits of each, try using a short story to simplify a complicated solution that you implemented for a similar customer.  Or how about using a relevant case study in a sales presentation illustrating how your service helped a client with similar needs to the prospect you’re presenting to.


Try integrating these techniques into your everyday marketing and realize the positive residual effects they can bring.

SEO Basics for Small Businesses

In the context of search engine optimization, many people equate an optimized site to a site with impressive search engine rankings. Sprinkle a little fairy dust over here and waive the magic wand over there and wallah... a magnificent dish of first page rankings for the Internet's most competitive keyword terms. [enter annoying alarm clock signaling the end of euphoric online marketing dream sequence]

The fact is, if you think you are going to achieve rankings for competitive keyword terms simply by adding a few keywords to your website, you need to pinch yourself because you're dreaming. Perform a search for your primary keyword terms and you will see a descending list, several pages deep of websites that have been "optimized" with varying degrees of success. The key is to understand the factors that differentiate those that rank on the first page from those that don't.

The attributes that determine search engine rankings can be classified into two basic categories; "on-page factors" and "off-page factors". In the most basic sense, on-page factors have to do with attributes within your web site and off-page factors have to do with attributes that occur outside of your web site. In a way, on-page factors tell the engines what you think of yourself, while off-page factors tell the engines what the Internet at large thinks of you.

Let’s tackle the on-page factors first, shall we?  The first step is to determine the keywords that people search for when they are looking for the products or services you have to offer.  Keyword tools such as WordTracker and KeywordDiscovery let you know how many people search for a particular search term and provide suggestions for related keyword terms.  Use the tool to match two to three appropriate keywords to each of the web pages within your site. Once you’ve selected your keywords, incorporate then into the various html elements of your web pages including the title tags, meta tags, header tags, ALT tags, and body content.  This will ensure that the search engines categorize your pages for the keywords you are targeting.

OK, so now we've got all the "on page" stuff hammered out, your site should start its meteoric rise to the top of the engines, right? Well, not exactly. It depends on how competitive your keyword terms are.  [enter off-page factors]  Off-page factors have to do with the quantity and quality of incoming links from external web pages. The algorithms that determine search engine rankings depend heavily on external linking in assessing the authority or trustworthiness of web sites. In turn, sites that have achieved "authority status" end up ranking higher than those who have yet to achieve such status.

A quality backlink is a link from a subject relevant web page that contains the keyword you are trying to rank for in the anchor text of the link.  There are many ways to obtain quality backlinks.  Submit your site to Internet directories such as Yahoo or DMOZ.org, ask your business partners or other friendly websites to link to you, or consult with a professional search engine marketing firm who is credentialed in the art of link building.

Seven Tips for Marketing Yourself

Here's our crash course in the art of selling yourself, with seven tips to help you cope with the real estate market's new realities.

Assess Your Soft Skills

In 2004, two years of experience as an agent might have gotten you hired. No longer -- not when you are competing against hundreds of candidates with skills similar to yours. Candidates must now assess their soft skills. "This is about doing a little bit of soul-searching," Wilson says.

Ron Peterson, branch manager at a St. Louis office suggests agents ask themselves about core competencies, especially mentoring and team-building. "Intangibles are going to sell this individual," Peterson notes.

Develop an Elevator Pitch

The elevator pitch is a brief self-marketing statement to be delivered at job fairs, conferences or other networking events. The pitch should echo the summary of a resume, according to Wilson, focusing on four key points designed to attract employers' attention. The pitch should sound informal and unrehearsed. To practice, deliver it to your answering voice mail, Wilson advises.

Learn to Network

As any salesperson understands, who you know is essential to finding leads. Networking is about being able to connect from person to person to person, Wilson says. "It's about building a web of relationships, until you meet someone who's looking for what you do," he adds.

That means attending conferences, classes, broker open houses, realtor organization functions, and special networking events designed for real estate pros. Even civic organizations, such as arts groups and other nonprofits, can be useful. Plan lunches or after-work meetings with former colleagues and others.

"Try to be out there and make an effort to be known," says Wesley Jost, who has retooled his networking efforts after being laid off. "If you sit around and wait for something to happen, you're going to be disappointed."

Seek a Support Structure

In order to learn, or relearn, networking and interviewing skills, look to organizations offering workshops or classes, such as NOVA, a one-stop career-development organization.

Know Your Audience

Selling yourself effectively means learning everything you can about a company, from the time you write a cover letter to interview day. To get an inside track, you "need to have researched the prospect, be able to speak intelligently about them, and offer a skill set to solve their problems," says Barry Mills, national recruiting director for MATRIX Resources, a national staffing company.

Be a Closer

Mills suggests people use a traditional sales tactic for closing the sale. At the end of an interview, ask the interviewer, "Based on this interview, is there anything that would keep you from hiring me for this position?" As Mills notes, "It's very much a sales-type question." What's more, send a follow-up note to the individuals you've met at the company, thanking them for their time.

Practice Patience

Finally, don't be discouraged if landing that client takes weeks or months. "Practice patience each and every day," says Jost. "You won't be handed opportunities like you were a year ago." Put it this way: If you stop looking, you're out of the game. As any salesperson knows, perseverance is essential to closing the sale.

Good luck,

Signing Your Email

You have probably received countless emails with signature files.  A signature file is the file at the end of the email that adds extra information.  Some people use the signature file to include their name, title, and company name.  Others personalize it with their favorite quote.  Whatever your desire, you can make a signature file that works for you.

A signature file is an easy way to market your business.  Setting up your signature file with your website address lets everybody you write to know about your site.  This is an easy way to market your site and its products without incurring any extra cost.

Take time to come up with a good signature file if you are using it for advertising.  Don't forget to put your website and contact information in your signature file.  Add information that makes the person who receives the email care about your site or product.  For example, if you are marketing a site that is designed to make money for others, add a line about the money they could be making now.

A signature file can also include a text picture.  Pictures are generally useful for capturing the attention of the reader, but use caution so that the picture doesn't get in the way of the message.

Don't forget to place a direct link to the product you are promoting.  This seems obvious, but often people make the mistake of providing a website address in their signature file without taking the time to link to a specific product.

Used wisely, signature files can be an effective way to gain business.  They can be used with any email program.  If you haven't set one up yet, what are you waiting for?

The A-Z Of Increasing Your Online Marketing ROI Part I

A - Affiliate Marketing
Merchant products are promoted on 3rd party (affiliate) websites. When visitors click through from the affiliate site to the merchant site and make a purchase then an agreed fee is paid to the affiliate.

If you advertise your products online, affiliate marketing is an efficient way to generate additional business. It is a cost effective form of advertising for merchants, and a simple way for affiliates to earn revenue from their website.

B - Banner Advertising
Banner advertising generally has a low response rate, often yielding about 2 visitors per thousand banner impressions. Despite the relatively poor value of banners for driving traffic, banner advertising can be particular useful in certain circumstances such as raising brand awareness.

C - Categorise
Structuring your site well can be worth its weight in gold, not just to users of your site, but also to search engines. A well structured site in terms of infrastructure (i.e. directory structure, page naming convention) will not only tell your visitor what the page is about quickly, but also provide the search engines with an idea of what the page is about before it is indexed.

D - Differentiation
A unique Marketing Campaign that allows a company and/or its products and services to stand out from its competitors. Having a niche product or service makes the job of marketing your product or service much easier. If your service is not unique, it is often possible to identify a “unique selling point” of your product or service.

Focus on your unique selling points, those products or services that differentiate you from your competitors, and ensure you portray these to your potential customers.

There are many aspects that can make you similar to your competitors, so ensure your unique selling point is clear to your customers. This can make a significant difference between success and failure.

E – E-Mail Marketing
Using e-mail as a means of communicating commercial messages to an audience (Direct Marketing) can be a profitable addition to your marketing strategy.

This could take many forms:

• Targeting your existing client base with additional services or products.
• Targeting your existing client base with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a client with its current or old customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business.
• Targeting your existing client base with the purpose of selling 3rd party products for a fee.
• Purchasing a list of client email addresses for the purpose of marketing your products to a new client audience.
• Adding your advertisements to e-mails sent by other companies to their client base and marketing your products to a new audience.

Direct marketing is popular with companies online as it is:

LOW COST : Compared to direct mailing or printed newsletters the costs are negligible. The advertiser does not need to pay for production, paper, printing or postage.

IMMEDIATE : It is instant, as opposed to a mailed advertisement, an e-mail arrives in a few seconds or minutes.

TRACKABLE : It is easy to track. An advertiser can track hits, conversions and rise in sales. Real-time.

FAR REACHING: Direct marketing can reach substantial numbers of e-mail subscribers who have opted-in (consented) to receive e-mail communications on subjects of interest to them.

F – Focus

Keep it relevant!
There is no point spending hundreds or thousands of pounds on advertising on your site, and then sending a potential customer to a non-related "landing page". There are two scenarios as regards online marketing where this is especially true, namely

• PPC advertising - Send your customers through to a targeted page. Many companies send clients through to the homepage, or worse, a non related page to what the term is. By sending potential customers through to a relevant page, you reduce the number of clicks required to find the product, at the same time reducing the number of exit points, which have the effect of making the money spent on sending the client to the site redundant.

• Affiliate Marketing - These days may clients are using companies such as Tradedoubler and Miva to drive traffic to their site. However, the number of times I have seen companies use the extra functionality such as product feeds that these Affiliate Marketing companies provide, and then under utilise them is staggering. By again targeting the users directly to the product/service they are searching for you are reducing the chances of the customer leaving the site before he/she has even
viewed your product.

G - Gift Vouchers
Gift vouchers can be a good way of influencing users to your site to buy a product/service. Not only can this be a good way of adding conversions, it can increase your customer loyalty as well.

H - High earners vs Low returners
Differentiating what products/services offer the highest return on investment is often one of the best ways of increasing your bottom line, and as a result your return on investment (ROI). This may sound like common sense, however many companies overlook this, and continue offering products or services that never make any positive ROI.

The same applies to search engine marketing as a whole. For example, If you have a pay-per-click campaign, and are using very generic terms, you may find by tweaking the terms, and making these more specific, you decrease the amount you are spending on your PPC campaign, and increase your ROI as a result.

I - Informative
Having a site that is informative, interesting and unique is one of the best ways of keeping visitors coming back to your site, whether they be human or robots. Visitor loyalty is invaluable. This can be achieved via a number of ways whether it be a niche product, well written technical articles, your companies own PR or even just something that is just unique, funny or controversial.

J - Just keep it simple
Over complicating the conversion process is often the biggest barrier to obtaining a successful sale. Many companies place barriers in the way, giving customers more reasons to pull out of a sale before completion, whether it is up-selling, over zealous data capture, or an inaccessible website.

A recent client’s buying process involved 10 clicks from site entry to sale completion. By reducing the number of clicks required to complete the sale from 10 to 6, sales increased by 400%. This involved streamlining the buying process, ensuring that the customer completed in as little time as possible.

In the modern era, time is money. Therefore time can be expensive so keep the time required to make a purchase to a minimum.

K - Keywords
Research thoroughly the keywords that your website can realistically be ranked for. If you have a new website in a highly competitive market then ranking naturally for the major terms will be close to impossible, so consider less competitive and more targeted terms.

Higher levels of visitors do not necessarily mean an increase in sales. A more focused set of keywords may mean lower traffic but the quality of the traffic can lead to a better ROI.

L - Landing Pages
This is another asset of search engine marketers that is either over-optimised for search engines or under-utilised for visitors. Both can have a detrimental effect on sales conversions and ultimately your ROI.

If you are using landing pages for any of your online advertising/marketing, it is highly advisable to keep these landing pages tailored to their requirement. You will find that by sending potential customers directly to the area/product they are looking for, you will significantly increase your sales as a result, and ultimately your ROI.

M - Mod Rewrite
A Mod Rewrite engine is a piece of web server software used to modify URLs, for the purpose of making your dynamic URLs more user friendly to customers and search engines.

A rewritten URL is easier to use if it is short but descriptive. The URL should have some text describing the content, but should not be too long.

The Marketing Mix

• Product

Your Marketing plan has to be built around your product. But before distribution can begin, market research needs to be performed. Analysing the Market place and researching what competitors are doing will bring perspective to your Marketing strategy and vision. It will also provide key indicators on pricing and potential. Something to consider is your product's life cycle which is important in determining when the market will reject your product.

Once a product is launched into the market, a stable growth in sales is common at first. This will eventually stabilise as the product gets older, and as more competitors enter the market it eventually will start declining to the point of elimination. It is difficult to tell where a specific product is within the lifecycle or how long each phase will last. This is dependent on many factors within the market and how they are dealt with. Many companies have adopted strategies to combat a shortened product life by releasing improved versions.

• Price

Marketing Mix:PriceWhen entering the Market for the first time, pricing is something that can either 'make you or break you'. Small businesses tend to think that they need to offer really cheap prices to stand a chance of survival. Thats not the case. It all depends on what you do, what you can do and what you are willing to do. We all know about demand and supply, an abundent supply forces prices to drop because demand decreases. We see it in the UK today, many companies offer the same service in the same area but still seem to make it. How? Its called Value Added Services. Taking a standard product that is available on the Market and adding something that is  unique and beneficial to consumers ensures that your product has a chance. It also allows you more flexibility on Pricing.

• Economic

Price is kept as low as possible. A strategy most associated with Supermarkets who tend to make a very low margin on goods like tin food.

• Skim

This strategy is adopted by companies that have a unique product or competitive advantage and can therefore charge a high price. The strategy does not last for too long because a high price tends to open the door to competitors. This eventually results in increased supply which inevitably lowers the market price.

• Penetrate

This involves setting the price as low as possible in order to gain a substantial share in the market. Once this has been achieved price can be increased. A strategy prominent amoungst Telecoms companies in the UK.

<u>Premium</u>
Similar to Skim pricing, this strategy is popular amoung companies that offer a unique product or service. The difference between the two is that Premium pricing is usually associated with a product that satisfies a niche market.

• Bundle Pricing

A popular strategy where products are combined to form one package.


<u>Value Pricing</u>
Where factors in the market force companies to lower prices to retain sales.

<u>Psychological Pricing</u>
Uses emotive perception rather than rational to persuade the consumer...£1.99 instead of £2.00.

• Position

Many small businesses associate position with location only. It is much more than where your business is physically situated or where your distribution areas encompass. It is about creating a unique identity for your business, a Brand which will act as a platform from which to launch your products. In other words, position applies to your place in the Market. Does you company name reflect what you are about, will consumers be able to instantly recognise you?

• Promotion / Distribution

Who are your customers. If you don't know who they are and what they want, you will not be able to promote effectively. Target, target, target. Most of your information will come from Market Research and analyses. Things like Average age, yearly spend, customer groups, buying habits are all important facts that help make promotion effective and easy. Once you identify your perfect customer, you need to figure out the best way to reach them. Remember...Getting your Marketing message heard! Choosing a communication channel is of utmost importance. The wrong one being chosen will result in the wrong audience being reached.
Check out our Advertising section for more information. Your Marketing plan will act as your mission statement, what you intend to do in order to reach your objective or Vision.

What Is Search Engine Marketing

"What Is Search Engine Marketing
The search engine is a website, which tracks other websites. Deploying a website is no way means of getting any kind of recognition in this world. Web is a reliable source for millions of websites that want recognition.

Once your web site is up and running makes sure to list down all the major search engines. Most customers use search engines to begin searching for a specific product or service. We provide effective solutions for our clients that can have website contents designed around the targeted keywords. We also provide some dedicated web sites, which can promote your web site free.

As per business prospect, the enquiries are generated for the top ten or fifteen websites only. However, the search engine keeps on changing this way in terms of priorities. Therefore, it is vital to realize the use of precise targeted keywords by the users and webmasters for long-term effectiveness.

Every marketing initiative begins with a solid marketing plan; hence, search engine marketing is no different. However, it is quite an unfortunate fact that most of the search engine marketing are conducted without any the firm foundation and clear direction that a good search engine marketing plan can provide. You can also put your own banner ad on either top or bottom of the highly trafficked page.

There is more than one reason for search engine marketing company for marketing your business through the search engines, such as increase of brand awareness, increase in traffic or popularity.

Furthermore, as in world, the search engine marketing company revenues continues to climb, search engine marketing will demand increasingly stable and intelligent management approaches that incorporate time tested methodologies, which are common to traditional marketing.

We also provide the detailed essential components of basic search engine marketing. Every attempt is made to generalize the instructions and examples for developing a very insightful and effective search engine marketing in such a way that its guidelines are followed by a greater diversity of readers. Each numbered item represents a unique section within the plan itself.

 

"

You Never Get A Second Chance To Make A First Impression

Your website is the first thing your new potential customers will see when they meet you. Are you making a good first impression? Meeting someone online is little different than meeting them in person; unfortunately, you have less than a minute to catch their attention and keep them reading. Do they like the look of you? Are you saying what your customers are looking to hear? With the future of your online business riding on your words, are you making a good impression? Here are five ideas to have your customers staying longer and remember you long after the encounter ends:

l. Dress nicely and be well groomed. Have you ever been to a website you were ready to leave as soon as you got there? Me too. Chances are things were too loud and too busy. Though there may have been something there of interest to you, you weren't likely to have found it. So what is the well groomed website wearing this season? Not too many loud flashing headlines. Instead, make sure your site is calm and confident. Your headline and first paragraph should be a summarization of the website theme. Who you are, what you're going to share with them and why you decided to do so. No one likes to read half a page only to find the site didn't deal with their issue of interest. No flashing lights, no neon headlines, no blaring music or boisterous sales pitches blasting away.

2. Have a nice voice; be friendly and pleasant. Have you ever met someone you initially thought you'd like to get to know... and then they opened their mouth and you realized you knew all you needed to? Your website should speak to your readers like a good friend might. Be easy to understand. Write in short sentences, with short paragraphs. Each paragraph should have a theme, stated in the first sentence, and elaborated on through its conclusion. And though it's so tempting to put some fancy font on your website, you have no idea what they'll see. Stick to the basic Arial, Helvetica, & Sans-serif fonts. They're easy on the eye.

3. Talk just to them; treat them like they're the only one. Rather than talking to the masses as a whole, write to a particular person. Picture them in your mind and write as though you are having a private conversation with them. Be their friend - This is something for 'you', not just anyone. They'll feel like you really like them and like they have your undivided attention. Always use active voice rather than passive.   It will make them feel as though you're speaking directly to them.

4. Always focus on their needs rather than being pushy and trying to move too fast. Nobody likes to be around someone who pushes the relationship too quickly. You want to get to know someone before you get too emotionally involved. There was a reason this person chose to visit your website. Address that need. How can you solve their problem? Don't tell them what you have; tell them what problem of theirs you can solve. Making a purchase is an emotional decision. If you move too quickly, they won't be ready to commit emotionally. Get to know them first.

5. Give them a reason to stick around or come back. Give them something they can't get anywhere else. While yes, they probably won't feel as special at any other website, but on the off chance the competition is also following these five steps, give them a free mini-course. Let them see you care about their success and about them. Show them you value the relationship. Give them a free report; something to help them reach their goal.

If you follow these guidelines, you'll make a wonderful impression and your new friends won't want to leave. They'll appreciate your thoughtfulness and stick around long enough to see what an absolute 'peach' you really are.

You Want To Market Your Business, But Do You Have The Time?

Well, do you? If not, how do you have time to run a profitable business? By profitable, I am not just talking about money. I also include time to do what you want in profitability. Time is money right?

I am going to give you golden nuggets of time management wisdom that I personally use in my direct response copywriting business. To qualify that these actually work...I utilize all of these methods personally, and I &quot;work&quot; no more than 4 hours a day! Use them in your business today!

1) <b>The foundation is your desk. </b>How clean and organized is your desk? Do you adopt the principle of &quot;use it, file it, or throw it away&quot; with every single item that comes across your desk? You either use information (paper, email, whatever), file information (only if you have TIME STAMPED when you are going to use it), or throw it away completely! Some items are just not important enough to waste valuable time on.

2) <b>Magazines, do you read them? </b>Really, do you? Or, like I used to, do you let them stack up in a pile...hoping to get to them someday. When you finally do, they are outdated...or you manage to read a small part of a magazine, then throw it back on the pile you created. Here is the secret: Use the table of contents! Find those articles you like right away, and rip or cut them out of the magazine! Then, read now, or file the article in a folder for that magazine subject or title. It is much easier to read the articles you are interested in only...and it makes sense.

3) <b>Do you find yourself listening to audio recordings? </b>If so, a real timesaver is to listen to the recording at double speed (2x). In 99% of the cases, you can still understand what is being said, and it doubles your efficiency in getting information. This cuts your listening time in half!

4) <b>How organized is your office? </b>No really, I mean it. Is your office chair in easy reach of filing cabinets, supplies, and other necessary items without having to get up? Getting up and down for a few seconds each time adds up quickly...this technique alone can save you an hour a day! What can you do with an extra 60 minutes? Perhaps take lunch?

5) <b>How do you process &quot;interruptions?&quot; </b>Do you end up checking a blank email box 20 times a day, or check it three times at specific times of the day? Do you schedule phone calls, or do you pick up the phone and answer it every time Aunt Mable calls? How you handle your incoming activities (phone, email, people visiting etc...) can seriously take away from your valuable time! Remember one idea here...NOBODY AND NOTHING controls your time except YOU! It is a conscious decision that you make to take a phone call or send another email...attend a meeting...or any other time suckers.

Please don&#39;t take it out on other people when &quot;you don&#39;t have enough time.&quot; It is YOU that made that decision in the first place.

Viral Marketing – Making Your Site Sell Itself

Do you remember making snowmen when you were a kid? Remember how you started with a little ball of snow, and kept rolling the ball until it became a large ball? Did you ever roll your ball of snow down the hill and watch as it got bigger and bigger and bigger!?

Well, that's how viral marketing works. You start a viral marketing campaign, give it a push, and it goes under its own power, getting bigger and bigger. Of course, all the while it is creating traffic to your website and generating sales for you. Quite an attractive setup, huh?

Truth be told, a successful viral marketing campaign requires some time, effort, and investment to get it started, but if you do it right, it's worth it.

A good viral marketing plan could be broken down into three parts:

1- The bait
To start with, you need a free gift that you can give away. It must be extremely valuable, because you want people to share it with their friends, etc. Some examples would be an ebook, a video, a forum, etc.

2- The hook
Once you have created your bait that you're going to distribute to people (and they to others, and they to others, etc, etc), you need a hook. You need a way to bring all of these people who are enjoying your free gift back to your website to buy. If you're giving away an ebook, embed links to your website in the ebook. Depending on the product, you'll have to use different kinds of hooks – be innovative!

3- Marketing
Yes, that's right! You have to market your viral marketing campaign. (This is the push that you give your snowball to send it rolling down the hill.) You have to promote your free gift, so that people start using it and distributing it.

Viral marketing can be an extremely effective marketing method – but it will require some time, effort, and lots of ingenuity on your part. Happy marketing!

Viral Marketing - A Study Of Successful Sites

Viral marketing is a concept which allows word of mouth advertising to spread your message far and wide without ongoing maintenance and promotion from the originator.

Hotmail is the most famous example I can think of to show you the power of viral marketing.

Everyone who used their free email service would advertise the service at the bottom of the each email they sent out.

The types of advertising messages which grow the fastest are services which advertise themselves when being used…such as the Hotmail example.

Another good example is a service such as http://Plaxo.com

This is an online address book. When a user signs up, the service scans the user’s address book in the user’s email client and emails all those users an invitation to join Plaxo. This is done with the member’s permission, of course.

Other services which use this technique of viral marketing are social networking sites such as http://Myspace.com

When users sign up for a free account, the first thing they see is a form to invite their friends to the site.

I've deducted a few tips from following high profile and low profile viral marketing campaigns of many types.

First of all, you can provide incentives for someone to spread your advertising for you, such as giving them money but just the incentive of money will not make something truly viral. Often some of the best viral marketing campaigns are purely accidental as you'll discover in a later example.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the example of a site called “The Interview With Jesus”.

Here’s the url: http://www.interviewwithgod.com

The story of that site, I think is, the owner took a public domain poem and created a website to host the poem. Word got out and the thing just exploded with traffic from friends sending to friends.

So something that is truly viral will spread on its own even without an incentive attached to it.

Another truly viral example is the story of a New Jersey teenager who created an online video with his webcam. In the video, he lip syncs to a popular Romanian pop song called “Dragostea Din Tei,” which translates “Love Among the Linden Trees,”.

He sent the video to his friends and it became so viral that he got some television time and his 15 minutes of fame.

To create a truly viral campaign such as the above two examples is not easy but there are ways to boost your viral marketing efforts from studying those examples.

First, it must have mass appeal. The wider the audience, the better. Second, it must advertise itself. Look at the Plaxo and Hotmail examples.

If you study the examples I've provided of viral marketing, you'll find that some require a lot of programming knowledge and others require nothing but an idea that many people enjoy and like to pass around.

If you're aiming to make money from a successful viral marketing campaign then you have many options.

1.) Capture email addresses and build a target database of prospects.
2.) Place Adsense ads on your site and benefit from the sheer volume of traffic to your site.
3.) Promote affiliate products.
4.) Sell advertising on your site.
5.) Create a product of your own.
6.) Take donations.

Even if your site is purely altruistic, you will need extra money to pay for bandwidth charges so the above forms of monetization will come in handy.

Viral marketing, how it works and how to use it

Have you ever wondered how the people who are at the top for your keywords get there with seemingly little effort? You spend hours marketing and are barely on page 43.. How do they do it? It's called viral marketing. And here's what that is:

Viral marketing is the practice of having other people promote your site. This leads to other people finding it and promoting it, and so it spreads like a virus.

Now, don't get me confused. This isnt going to be a piece of cake, either. But once you've set a good viral marketing plan rolling, it's better than promoting your site 'the old way'.

Now, how to go about getting people to promote you...

First, write a free tool, and make people who use it link to you. This is what got the people at statcounter their PR 10. Now, I'm going to assume that you can't write a free useful tool easier than normal marketing, so lets go on.

You could also try writing articles. Write them and submit to 100 article directories, the ones that give out free articles. Wait, why give out content? because of the link you can put in the 'resources' box. That's 100 links to your site from the directories. But that's the tip of the iceberg. Assume that 10 people use the article in their own page from each directory. You now have 100 * 10 = 10000 additional links, plus the 100, meaning 10100 links to your site, and all you worked for was 100.

Also, you could have good quality content on your site, have things people will come back to, games and free information are very good. This will be slower than the articles, but will also help in the long run, because who cares about 10100 links if everyone who clicks hits their back button?

Viral Marketing - Spread The Word

As the search engine world becomes more competitive and the fight for website traffic deepens, web site owners now resort to other means and methods of attracting visitors to their websites.

The concept of viral marketing offers website owners and managers a real opportunity to bring in new and unimagined volumes and types of visitors with what can be a comparatively modest amount of investment.

The concept is relatively simple.  A photograph or video is produced which will appeal to a particular target group and the media is then distributed on a number of key websites.  These include YouTube and Yahoo Video for videos and Flickr for photographs.  Social network sites such as MySpace and Bebo might also be considered as a means of initially seeding the media to show others.

This process is called viral seeding and represents the initial effort required to start the ball rolling.  In theory once the videos are out in the public arena and rather like a biological virus, they spread amongst communities by word of mouth, e-mail, and publication on other people’s website via easily downloadable players which embed readily onto most websites.

One example of the successful viral marketing campaign is the Does it Blend? campaign whereby a blender manufacturer came up with the original idea of testing their blenders with a variety of different and rather eccentric objects to blend.  The site of mobile phones and garden rakes being blended in their blenders is fascinating to most viewers and the somewhat stylish videos have developed a genuine cult following.  This hitherto unknown blender within a matter of a few weeks became a household name and hence traffic to the website rose dramatically.

The viral marketing system depends very much on careful targeting of the client group and distribution of the right viral message or media.  For example, there is no purpose in distributing a viral promoting women’s beauty products that would not appeal to women.  Once particularly successful viral was a campaign for Dove Soap which was promoted by the use of videos showing how cosmetics can completely change the look of a woman  making her a false vision and illustrating how important the simple natural beauty of a woman can be.  This campaign aimed at illustrating the importance of the real woman inside was highly successful and has been viewed many times  improving Dove Soap’s image with women as being on their side and celebrating natural beauty.

A more recent campaign has been launched by ManOfTheMatchdotnet, a website offering sports fans the opportunity to vote for their man of the match, either on the website or via SMS text message.  The challenge was to get the site known in the market place and a series of spoof interviews with look-alike sports celebrities has been launched to promote the brand among sports fans.  The first group of videos involved a spoof David Beckham and has proved a great initial success.

It is therefore appropriate for the new website owner to seriously consider Viral Marketing as a genuine and valid alternative to promoting their website - a new way to spread the word.

Viral Marketing 101 - Not Using It Could Kill Your Business! Here's How To Capitalize On It

Creativity.

This is one virtue a site must possess to lead the race in the ruthless competition in the Internet based business. With so many competition and rivalry going on, every method of marketing must be employed and utilized.

It doesn’t matter if you have a killer product or a fantastically designed website, if people don’t know that you exist, it doesn’t matter, and you are not going to make it big. Worse of all, you business could just get killed.

While there are so many methods and schemes used by so many e-commerce sites today, there are still some of those that can help you with an extra boost in the popularity ratings. One of these is the so called Viral Marketing.

While the term Viral easily depicts a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, it is not what it seems. You do not actually use a computer virus to spread your business; on the contrary it just might kill you. Everyone has had enough of all those pop up ads and spywares.

Viral Marketing Overview

Viral Marketing also known otherwise as Viral Advertising is a marketing technique used to build the public awareness of one’s product or company. They use many forms of media to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product by riding on in other forms of addictive means that could get a person hooked and be obliged or amused to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along with it.

In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.

Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pas on the product. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, they won’t block it and open it as well.

Many companies offer incentives such as discounts and rebates when they help in spreading their viral marketing. They rely on the number of recipients a viral marketing gets from one person in determining the amount or number of incentive they can be attributed with.

Using Viral Marketing to your advantage

The main and foremost advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site and your company. You get to generate a flow of traffic that are potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.

Most every site and companies are catching on to the effectivity of Viral Marketing and Advertising. Not using it could kill your business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the rating games.

Viral Marketing could be a sneaky way to get people to know about you and your company. You get them to pass your advertisement along. They are also very low cost that not investing in it could be downright a business suicide. All it takes is a great idea, a good addicting game, a funny story many ideas are still out there. Create a gossip or a buzz, many movies are promoted by using scandals and gossips to make them moiré popular. Remember the movie “The Blair Witch Project”?

Many big companies have tried viral marketing and have had many success stories with it. A classic example is Microsoft’s Hotmail. They were the first known big company to utilize the scheme and it has worked wonders for them.

Now it’s your turn to use viral marketing to work wonders for you. Act now and reap the benefits Viral Marketing will provide for you and your sales figures.

Viral Marketing Scripts

A viral marketing virus acts similar to a biological virus. But, the big difference between a viral marketing virus and a cold or flu virus is that people willingly pass the marketing message on. The biological virus attaches itself to everything it comes in contact with, spreading from person to person either by touch, or air.

A Viral marketing strategy is typically low cost or even free to implement it. Most people are amazed at the effectiveness of viral marketing due to its exponential growth.  One sure form of viral marketing is referral marketing.  Referral marketing happens when one person refers or tells another person about your product or service.  As easy as asking your friend who is a good Doctor, and your friend refers you to a physician.  How does someone refer their friends to a website?

Introducing - A Free Script Called A Tell - A - Friend Script

A Tell A Friend Script is an easy to install script, it’s
just a cut and past into your web page? Your website visitors than can easily send email message to their friends, sharing with them great information and tools they have found.

A tell a friend script offers basic features that makes it easy for your visitors to insert their name, their email address and their friends', email address, and name. Enabling your website visitors friends to send email from your website is not considered spam, because the email came from a friend they know and trust. An added attraction to Tell A Friend Script email Spam filters do not consider the email from the friend to be Spam, and is therefore not filtered.

Where and When to Use Tell A Friend Scripts

Viral Marketing is used by all of the largest companies on the Internet.  If Viral Marketing specifically Tell A Friend scripts were not successful they would not be seen on the majority of the largest websites.  You ask, where do you put these scripts.  Refer a friend, or tell a friend scripts must be put on every page on your website.  With the exception of secured
Web pages such as download pages, and interior pages of membership sites.


You can also put Tell A Friend scripts on your bloggs, and html newsletters, or ezines.  You can also make you text email ads, and newsletters Viral by placing a text message in your emails and articles encouraging the readers to send this message to their friends if they like it.  Hotmail did this for years on the Bottom of their email, encouraging people to sign up for free email service.  

"If you enjoy our newsletter do you think a friend might also benefit from it, please send this to a friend."

or

"Please help us share our message with others by telling a
friend. It's easy, just click here."

That's why it is absolutely critical to include a "Tell-A-
Friend" form on your site. If someone likes your site, you
want to be sure that you've made it easy and convenient for them to tell their friends.

Functionality and Visibility

Ideally, you should make your Tell A Friend as
Visible as possible, and as easy to use.  Visibility is
necessary put your Tell A Friend on the top and bottom
of your pages, in your navigation of your pages, on your
Confidentiality pages.

Basic Do's and Don'ts

Do's
Do make it easy to find.
Do make it easy to use.
Do make it convenient.

Don'ts
Don't consider the sender an enrollee to your opt in list.
Don't consider the receiver an enrollee to your op tin list.
Don't hide your Tell A Friend.

Conclusion

Viral Marketing can bring a tremendous amount of traffic to your website.  It only takes a little effort on your part to benefit tremendously from a Tell – A – Friend Script.

Viral Marketing Tips

Viral marketing is a technique that is used by many people, yet it is still relatively unknown. Many people hear the words “viral marketing” or “viral traffic”, and think that it has something to do with a virus. Fortunately, viral marketing and viral traffic have nothing to do with people spreading viruses via email, etc.

Viral marketing is simply defined. It is any strategy that is implemented to encourage people to pass on a marketing message to others; which in turn creates the potential for growth and more people seeing your message. Viral marketing also increases targeted traffic.

The only way viral marketing is similar to a virus is in the way it can expand and replicate at a very quick pace. This can cause for viral traffic to pick up, and your marketing message to reach a lot of people in a short amount of time.

Before you begin a strategy to increase viral traffic or targeted traffic you must understand that some strategies work better than others. But if you put the proper amount of research into your viral traffic strategy you will increase your odds of coming up with a successful program. There are a couple of important tips that you should keep in mind when trying to increase viral traffic, they are as follows:

1. The most important aspect to remember when trying to increase viral or targeted traffic is to give something away for free. Everybody likes free stuff, and if you are giving something away that people like there is a better chance that your recipients will pass on your marketing message. The word free alone will increase your viral traffic. As far as how long it will take to increase traffic is not as easy to determine. Some viral marketing programs take off right away, where as others build slowly. It all depends on your strategy, and what you are giving away.

2. To increase viral traffic you must also make sure that your message is easily transferable from one person to the next. You will never increase your viral traffic if you have to depend on somebody else to pass along your information. It should be automatically done via email, websites, or even software downloads. The bottom line is that you need to make sure your viral marketing message is concise, to the point, and easily transferable.

3. Before putting a strategy in place to increase viral traffic you will want to make sure that you can handle the traffic and requests that come along with it. This goes along with doing your research before starting. If you cannot handle the new viral traffic, all your hard work will mean nothing in the end.

4. One of the easiest ways to increase viral traffic is to use existing networks. In other words, implement your strategy to touch base with people who will be interested, and therefore pass your information onto other people in their network. This will ensure that you get a good group of targeted traffic to take notice of your project. You need to be giving away your free gifts to people that will use them, so targeted traffic is very important. By working within a network you will have a better chance of driving up targeted traffic, which will help your strategy spread.

5. Do not rely on yourself to do all of the work when it comes to attempting to increase viral traffic. Even though you will be putting the overall strategy into effect, you should still be able to use other resources to increase targeted traffic. Affiliate programs and press releases are two great ways to increase targeted traffic without having to put in too much work.

Overall, viral marketing is a great way to get exposure and increase profit. If your strategy does a good job of bringing in targeted traffic there is no reason that you should not be able to accomplish the goals that you have set forth.

Viral Marketing

Creativity.

This is one virtue a site must possess to lead the race in the ruthless competition in the Internet based business. With so many competition and rivalry going on, every method of marketing must be employed and utilized.

It doesn’t matter if you have a killer product or a fantastically designed website, if people don’t know that you exist, it doesn’t matter, and you are not going to make it big. Worse of all, you business could just get killed.

While there are so many methods and schemes used by so many e-commerce sites today, there are still some of those that can help you with an extra boost in the popularity ratings. One of these is the so called Viral Marketing.

While the term Viral easily depicts a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, it is not what it seems. You do not actually use a computer virus to spread your business; on the contrary it just might kill you. Everyone has had enough of all those pop up ads and spywares.

Viral Marketing Overview

Viral Marketing also known otherwise as Viral Advertising is a marketing technique used to build the public awareness of one’s product or company. They use many forms of media to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product by riding on in other forms of addictive means that could get a person hooked and be obliged or amused to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along with it.

In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.

Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pas on the product. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, they won’t block it and open it as well.

Many companies offer incentives such as discounts and rebates when they help in spreading their viral marketing. They rely on the number of recipients a viral marketing gets from one person in determining the amount or number of incentive they can be attributed with.

Using Viral Marketing to your advantage

The main and foremost advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site and your company. You get to generate a flow of traffic that are potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.

Most every site and companies are catching on to the effectivity of Viral Marketing and Advertising. Not using it could kill your business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the rating games.

Viral Marketing could be a sneaky way to get people to know about you and your company. You get them to pass your advertisement along. They are also very low cost that not investing in it could be downright a business suicide. All it takes is a great idea, a good addicting game, a funny story many ideas are still out there. Create a gossip or a buzz, many movies are promoted by using scandals and gossips to make them moiré popular. Remember the movie “The Blair Witch Project”?

Many big companies have tried viral marketing and have had many success stories with it. A classic example is Microsoft’s Hotmail. They were the first known big company to utilize the scheme and it has worked wonders for them.

Now it’s your turn to use viral marketing to work wonders for you. Act now and reap the benefits Viral Marketing will provide for you and your sales figures.

What is Telemarketing

Heard about telemarketing?  I bet you do.  Telemarketing is an age old marketing practice that is commonly used by most companies or businesses which have a planned approach to marketing products with the aim to generate a higher volume of sales from the services.  To put it simply, the term “telemarketing” refers to a way that businesses can advertise their products and offer their services.

The Basics

There are a number of operations involve in telemarketing.  Most of the companies offering this kind of service often employ professional telemarketers or call centers to make telephone calls or send faxes to the potential customers on their behalf, hence the name.  However, in order to obtain a list of the potential customers, the company usually purchases telemarketing lists which are available with vendors based on a preset condition or requirement.  After this, if you are the one running the telemarketing business, you can have your staff or third party companies call these contacts in order to generate the so-called “telemarketing leads”.

There is another thing that is common in the telemarketing field, that is, a “dead air” or “hang up”.  Well, this is actually the situation in which you may receive a telephone call where no one is on the other end.  It can be annoying and frightening on the part of the customer.  But, understand that these calls are often the result of something called “predictive dialing”.   Many of the telemarketing organizations these days employ automatic dialers to place telephone calls or send faxes.  Thus, a dead air or hang up call often occurs, especially if the representative of the business is not available when the call is answered.  It is further worth noting though that companies generally allow sufficient time between calls for a representative to be available.  But, there are some instances, especially when the representative is on another line longer than expected, that the result of the operation is the so-called “dead air”.

Main Categories of Telemarketing

There are two major categories involved in a telemarketing business.  The first is Business-to-Business, and the second is Business-to-Consumer.

•Business-to-Business – This actually refers to the operation in which the company tries to look for other companies interested in high quality business to business calling in sales, appointment setting, lead generation, customer service, and even technical support.
•Business-to-Consumer – Like the call center programs, business to consumer telemarketing needs the special service capabilities as well as considerations.  One thing to note when it comes to this kind of operation is the recent “do not call” legislation which requires that your call center must be very vigilant about the lists they use for their business to consumer programs.  There are, however, some companies out there that accept business to consumer programs simply to extend their calling hours.

Note that within these two categories of telemarketing are two broad divisions: the lead generations, where the main purpose is to obtain information; and sales, where the main object is to obtain someone to buy something.  All of these operations are usually done by professional telemarketers.

More information available at http://www.marketing-00.info

What Is Marketing?

To too many people marketing equates to one of two things:

- Selling: with all that entails such as the dreaded double-glazing or financial salesman.
- Advertising: with all that entails such as the slick young creative and smarmy account person.

Of course marketing also encompasses these functions – though, hopefully not as in the stereotypes that are in so many minds – but marketing is about a great deal more than just selling or advertising.

Marketing is the wide range of activities involved in making sure that you're continuing to meet the needs of your customers and are getting value in return.

It includes:

- Finding out what groups of potential customers or markets exist
- What groups of customers you prefer to serve – your target markets
- What their needs are, what products or services you might develop to meet their needs
- How customers might prefer to use the products and services
- Who competitors are and what they are doing
- What pricing mechanism and approach you should use
- How each of target markets might choose to access the product, etc.
- How much customers / clients might be willing pay and how.
- How to design and describe the product such that customers/clients will buy from the organization, rather than from its competitors – the unique value proposition
- How the company or products should be identified – personality -to be most identifiable i.e. naming and branding
- Ongoing campaigns, which can include advertising, public relations, sales and customer service

All of this was characterised many years ago by Dr. Philip Kotler as the 4Ps:

- Product – making what customers want
- Place – delivering it via the channels they want to use
- Promotion – making them aware of its existence
- Price – making it available at a price they will pay

At the end of the day marketing is really about not losing sight of the basics. You have to be focused on what customers require as the outcome and then find out how to get there by
meeting customers needs over a period of time, in a socially responsible way, whilst making a reasonable profit.

Marketing is really a philosophy and attitude about customer focus that has to run through the whole organisation. If you get that you get marketing.

Easy, of course to say.

Frequently not so easy to achieve!

What Marketing Can Do For You

I thought I would clear up some misconceptions about marketing in this two-part series: What Marketing Can Do For You and What Marketing Can't Do For You. We'll start with the positive.

Over the years, I've had dealings with some business owners who have a rather skewed perception of marketing. They think you throw a few ads out there, get a couple of press releases printed and voila! You’re a big success.

Oh, if it only were that easy. (Although if it were, I probably wouldn’t have a job.)

But there's no getting around that to have a successful business, you need a solid marketing plan.

So what CAN marketing do for you? Increase your business – no question about it. You need to be marketing if you want to grow your business.

However (and this is a really big however) marketing is NOT going to result in overnight success. Marketing is about slow growth, building on last week's success and forgetting about last month's failures. (Or what you THINK are failures. It's not uncommon that a campaign you think is a dismal disappointment may be what caused the next campaign to take off.)

Marketing is about frequency -- about your target market seeing your offer over and over again until they're finally ready to buy. Without that very important frequency, your business will start to stagnate and eventually die.

Now that doesn't mean you won't have a major success with a campaign. Even a massive, amazing, unbelievable success. You'll run one ad or be featured in an article and wham! You end up with more orders than you know what to do with. While that's a great shot in the arm, it probably won't last unless you keep building upon it. Eventually the orders will dry up and you'll be back to where you were before.

Marketing is also about being consistent. This goes back to building on successes. Your customers need to see your message over and over again. This builds trust and credibility. Plus, your current customers will also respond to that frequency. Not only will they not "forget" about you and go to your competitor, but it will help build their trust in you as well.

Lastly, marketing is about working hard. There's no getting around it. To be successful means putting in the time and energy to continually market yourself. (You can also pay someone to help you with it, but basically it comes down to someone somewhere has to put in the time to continually market you.)

If you remember nothing else, remember this: If you don't implement your marketing strategies, nothing is going to happen.

That last sentence seems obvious, but again, I'm amazed at how many people I run into who aren't willing to do the work. They talk about it, but when it actually comes down to doing something, they somehow never seem to get around to it.

One way to overcome that is to plan on doing one task or a little marketing every day. Then it doesn't seem quite so overwhelming. Me, I make a commitment to do X number of marketing tasks a week, regardless of how much time that takes.

Marketing is a commitment. There's no getting around it. If you have a business, then you have no choice but to make a commitment to marketing on a consistent basis until the day comes when you decide you don't want a business anymore.  

Creativity Exercise -- Make a Commitment

Since I'm interested in having all of you succeed, I want YOU to make a commitment right now to market your business on a regular basis.

Write this statement on a piece of paper, filling in your name in the proper place.

I, YOUR NAME, am making a commitment to market my business on a regular basis from now until I decide I don’t want to be in business any more.

Sign and date it.

I suggest posting it in a place where you can see it while you're working. Or, if you really want to add some accountability to your commitment, tell someone about it. You can even tell me about it -- just send me an e-mail at Michele@theartistsoul.com There's nothing like announcing your intention to keeping you honest.

Work For Results

The internet today comes with promises of wealth and fame. This allows many to dream of riches and notoriety. The opportunity is out there but the fact is that most people don't have a clue how to get there.

So many think that they can achieve this prosperity by just showing up. Unfortunately, that is not the way this ball bounces.

Is there a simple answer? I don't think there is a single simple answer, yet how to be successful on the internet is pretty basic. You have to be willing to work. Work at what you may ask?

First thing is to work hard at learning everything you can about your chosen field. I would suggest to read and study the people who have had success in the past. There is a endless supply of knowledge floating around out there and you want to read as much of it as you can.

When I first started trying to make a living on the net, I thought I was wise enough to do it on my own. It sure didn't take long to figure out that was a joke. When I started paying attention to what some of the successful marketers were doing, I started making money myself.

People pay thousands of dollars to go to college to get the information needed to be successful. Yet most are not willing to pay a hundred dollars for educational information on the net. This is not to say that you should go spend thousands of dollars for an internet education but there is information worth paying for.

Now you have read and you have read some more and you are ready to start working on the internet. It is now time to put in some more of that hard work. Work is the key ingredient to get you where you want to go.

Part of the learning experience is to learn how to work. When I first started on the net, I wasted much valuable time. The problem was that I did not know what kind of work was worth the time. This is part of the education that comes with experience. You will find that managing your time well is very important. May be time to read some more.

The internet is a great place for anyone who wants to work and work is the key word. There is money to be made but it is not going to jump in your lap just because you showed up.

Your Marketing Efforts Sink, Swim Or Soar Depending On How Well You Satisfy

A few years ago I created a to-do list for my business (different from my to-do list for clients). Nearly every day I would add something to the list. Soon, I had over five pages of things to do -- tasks I viewed as important enough to interrupt what I was doing so I could add them to my list.

Before long, every time I opened the document I got depressed. I was always adding to the list, but almost never crossing anything off.

Why? I discovered I had a number of well-worn excuses:
I don't have enough time. The project seems too big. It won't hurt to put it off a little longer. I feel no pressure to get it done. Maybe it isn't important after all.

When I looked at the tasks I did complete, I assumed they would match my highest priorities. Right? Wrong!

I surprised myself to learn that priority had almost nothing to do with it. Instead, the major factor in my decision to complete these tasks was the "Big C" -- Convenience.
I could finish them quickly and easily. I could complete them in one sitting. And I felt really good when the job was done: instant gratification.

So, what did I do with my 5-page to-do list? I deleted it. Now I feel much better.

When your prospective clients need to hire a lawyer, do they hire you? Or are they skilled at finding ways to "put it off until tomorrow" -- or much later?

I encourage you to make every aspect of your law practice convenient for both your prospects and clients -- because if they face any obstacles, they may have all the reason they need to do nothing.
Now, here are 12 smart ways to make your law practice more convenient:

Smart Way #1: Make sure prospects find it easy to learn about you. This includes having an education-based web site that answers their questions and explains in detail how you can help them. Also, I suggest you have an educational packet that contains articles and information about your services, which you can send by mail or e-mail.

mart Way #2: Make sure prospects find it easy to reach you. Do you accept phone calls from prospects -- or do you insist that they come into your office before you'll speak with them? Do you offer a toll free number -- or do prospects have to pay to call you? Do you respond to e-mails from prospects? The more convenient you make it for prospects, the more calls you ll receive.

Smart Way #3: Make sure clients find it easy to reach you. Are you available by pager or cell phone in an emergency? Can a client reach you quickly and easily on the phone? Do you return calls promptly?

Smart Way #4: Make sure prospects find it easy to get to your office. Is your office on or near a major street? Is your parking area close to your building or office? Is your office at a convenient location in the building? If on the second floor or higher, is the elevator close by?

Smart Way #5: Make sure prospects find it easy to meet with you. If prospects have a hard time coming to your office, will you go to their home or office? If weekdays are difficult for them, will you meet with them in the evening or on a weekend?

Smart Way #6: Make sure prospects find it easy to hire you. Can they hire you without having to drive to your office? Can you send your engagement letter or contract by fax or e-mail? If you have an established relationship, can they hire you simply by calling you on the phone? Or by sending you an e-mail? Can they hire you without a retainer?

Smart Way #7: Make sure prospects find it easy to pay you. Will you accept personal checks? How about credit cards? Do you offer a payment plan? Do you provide postage-paid business reply envelopes to make sending their check more convenient?

Smart Way #8: Make sure prospects and clients find it easy to provide you with the information you need. Do you have a form they can fill out and send by fax or e-mail? For larger packets, do you provide self-addressed UPS or FedEx labels?

Smart Way #9: Make sure prospects and clients find it easy to remember appointments and other important dates. Do you send them a calendar of upcoming dates, including what you need from them -- or expect of them -- by those dates? Do you send letters or e-mails reminding them of appointments? (A more tactful way to remind them is to ask if this time is still convenient for them.)

Smart Way #10: Make sure clients know when to call you to update documents. You might provide them a list of criteria or events that should prompt them to contact you.

Smart Way #11: Make sure clients find it easy to refer their friends and colleagues. You might mail to each client your referral brochure, which contains a complete listing of your services and contact information. Consider providing clients with referral postcards they can give to friends and colleagues to request a meeting with you. Offer educational seminars so clients can bring friends to meet you and hear your message in person.

Smart Way #12: Make sure clients find it easy to remember you. You might provide things that contain your contact information, such as calendars and paperweights. Send cordial-contact letters. Mail them your newsletter. Don't overlook greeting cards, gifts and donations given in their name. Also, consider hosting special events like art walks and wine tastings.

In summary: Convenience is a big factor in how prospects and clients respond to your marketing efforts. Don't allow even the slightest obstacle to come between your prospects and you. Instead, emphasize how easily prospects can do business with you. In this way, you melt the ice that freezes many prospects in place -- and help them realize that working with you is an easy, positive, rewarding experience.