Forgotten Marketing Opus

Tactical marketing processes are once again -
It's probably pining for the fiords.
They are been hunting grandmas pain:
A terrible tastless seemless word.

Forget Conventional Marketing - Embrace the Web!

Tactical marketing processes are once again undergoing fundamental shifts from traditional to web-based processes. Many traditional marketing firms/agencies are still touting the tried and true to their clients; i.e. Tradeshow attendance, Print, Traditional PR, TV and Radio. However, these conventional marketing processes work best for broad market awareness and/or branding, especially for a Fortune 1K company with significant resources to spend on demographic analysis, test marketing and more test marketing. It's much more difficult for a smaller company (startup to $50M per annum) to leverage the economies of scale that are typically available for a larger company for the media buy and operational efficiencies.

It's obvious that lifestyle and business processes are shifting towards a much greater dependence on digital media - people are traveling less due to cost issues and the ever-increasing speed of business is underscoring the usage of the Internet for information and research. If you're a small to medium sized business the chances are that you've probably cut your marketing budget significantly - by eliminating or scaling back tradeshow attendance, trade magazine advertising and/or direct mail in favor of response driven marketing on the web that can be deployed faster and more cost-effectively than traditional marketing methods.

Capturing leads from a web site generated by opt-in e-mail, newsletter inserts, text link advertising and/or other forms of pay per click marketing is still the absolute best way to generate leads that are quantifiable as soon as they are generated. You have the ability to easily track where the lead came from and via what interactive advertising process; assuming this has been setup for you by your interactive ad agency or with the online publisher. And, there are typically no lead times like more traditional marketing processes - we've created and deployed campaigns (creative, media buy, testing, ROI analysis, etc.) for our clients in 3-5 working days in some cases.

There are some pitfalls to web-based lead generation and follow through that you need to be aware of as you deploy an interactive campaign. Here are five of the most important "gotchas" that you need to think about as you build an interactive lead generation program around your web site:

1) Don't make it difficult for people to contact your company - make sure your web site really communicates with your prospects - by "communicating" I mean by providing telephone contacts, e-mail address and/or a lead capture form that is short. Note: this form has to be supported by a published Privacy Policy ("we won't divulge your info to a third party under any circumstances") and it absolutely must be short; i.e. don't request any more than baseline information, name, phone, e-mail and address, augmented with a comment box.

2) Your marketing objectives have to be supported by your sales team - the sales team has to be incentivized to respond to inbound e-mails and requests for information via a contact form in a timely manner, within 24 hours or sooner. If you have a geographically dispersed sales team then make this clear on the web site by providing specific contact points for states, regions and countries.

3) Make sure you IT person/department attends your marketing planning meetings with your sales team - your web site will need some type of a lead capture setup that redistributes leads based on function and/or geographical responsibility. Your IT staff has to create a database solution that captures, stores and distributes leads - this does not need to be done in-house, products like Act (the market leader in contact management software) are now web-enabled, you can capture leads via a web server and share leads with others via a browser and very inexpensively.

4) We don't advocate popup advertising for most of our client's advertising campaigns. But, we have "crossed over to the other side" and we do (highly) recommend using popups on our clients' web sites to present opportunities that in turn capture leads. Studies have shown effective popup lead captures increase lead generation by 40-85% depending on the market segment. Popups can be set so they only launch on a frequency basis per session (visit to a web site) or a number of times for a specific visitor - they don't have to setup so they are intrusive and annoying.

5) Last but not least (drum roll) - make the customer's usability experience the most important aspect of your web site. Create a user interface ("experience") that is pleasant for your visitors; i.e. use standard universal (top of page and local page left) menus, utilize 2-3 sentence paragraphs with lots of white space, don't overload your pages with graphics that slow down load times and make sure your contact points (phone, e-mail) are readily available from every page.

So, to summarize; advertising is shifting from traditional to web-based or interactive if you will - so, to get on board this tsunami build a web site that communicates with your prospects/customers, provide contact points via telephone and e-mail via the site, involve your IT and Sales staff with the lead capture process so they are all stakeholders and utilize popups to accelerate your lead capturing.

Author, Philippa Gamse, CyberSpeaker, is an internationally recognized e-business strategist. Check out her free tipsheet "Beyond the Search Engines" for 17 ideas to promote your Website: http://www.CyberSpeaker.com/tipsheet.html. Philippa can be reached at (831) 465-0317 or mailto:pgamse@CyberSpeaker.com.

E-Mail Marketing Real Ode

Spam e-mail is no longer the mild
Of all aspirations like fish on the bank.
But how could I I'm just a child!
But hey, the fish out of water stank!

New Realities for E-Mail Marketing

Spam e-mail is no longer the mild irritant it once was - it's clogging corporate networks and ISP mail servers and has become a real productivity drain, forcing corporate and consumer e-mail users to spend 20-30 minutes a day dealing with this deluge of junk! According to recent figures, unsolicited bulk e-mail now makes up to 36% of all e-mail, up from under 8% just over a year ago. And, what's worse, more and more legitimate e-mail is not getting through to recipients due to Spam filtering taking place via ISPs and/or corporate networks.

Opt-in E-Mail Marketing 30K foot Picture

Opt-in e-mail marketing is clearly losing some of its effectiveness as a viable marketing tool much to the consternation of those of us who have been advocating its effectiveness for years! This is not to say opt-in e-mail isn't a viable way to market goods and services - but ROI (read response rates) is heading south quickly and needs to be considered when assessing the viability of this marketing process, as response rates have dropped on average from 10-20% to 3-10%.

However, opt-in e-mail is not disappearing off the marketing horizons - Forrester forecasts spending on e-mail marketing will grow from $1.3B (USD) in 2001 to $6.8B in 2006 and Jupiter Media Metrix is even more optimistic, forecasting growth rates from $1B in 2001 to $9.4B in 2006. But, there is a dark undercurrent to these numbers that is fueling the market growth and driving down response rates - some opt-in agencies, brokers and media representatives are "flogging" lists by overselling them - so caveat emptor.

Five Offsetting Marketing Strategies

1) Deploy opt-in e-mail campaigns very selectively (!) - buy opt-in e-mail lists from legitimate top-tier broker/list managers who are well established, are not "over-sending" messages to list subscribers and who are constantly refreshing their list quality by adding new subscribers. Critical questions to ask brokers include: how many messages ("frequency" in ad speak) are sent to each list recipient per month, how are new subscribers added and what is the percentage of new members added per month, are they using "third party" (someone else's list) lists to augment their own, are their lists "double opt in" (meaning, you sign up and then must reply to a signup confirmation to be added to a list) and last but not least, what is their privacy policy and how strictly do they adhere to published industry standards.

2) Utilize plain vanilla text link advertising - find web sites or portals that have traffic that is comprised of customers who are in your market segment. Then, add a text link (banner ad or graphic button if you will) to a page or pages and negotiate a media buy that is based upon a "cost per click" basis; i.e. paying only for traffic that clicks through to your web site.

3) Creating and deploying a "link strategy" campaign (i.e. getting a site listed via other web sites) is one of the best self-sustaining interactive marketing processes available to any company seeking to drive qualified traffic to a web site. This process is not based upon the more traditional "reciprocal links" procedure but incorporates some web-based competitive analysis. You start by analyzing the links that are pointing back to your top 3-5 competitors' web sites and then establish relationships with these sites and also submit your site to top and second tier directories to augment the number of links.

4) Newsletter insert advertising used to be considered rather mundane and not very effective. But, if you contrast the effectiveness of this process versus the new opt-in e-mail response rates the heretofore-lowly newsletter advertising has new and vastly improved luster! Also, in the past it was difficult to track when and if people clicked on a text link ad in a newsletter - but new technology enables virtually any publisher to provide you with this information, enabling you to track your ROI for the media buy. Finally, the real beauty of newsletter text advertising is that it is very targeted and people want to receive the information so you can be confident your ad will at least be viewed by some finite number of prospects.

5) Search Engine Ranking has come of age in the last 12-24 months - you can now easily create and deploy a traditional (title, description, keywords inserts in content, submissions and optimization) search engine ranking process that is augmented with a pay per click ("PPC") process. Deploying both ensures you derive long term (traditional rankings) and short term (pay per click) results, with the latter being driven by the amount of funds you have in your marketing budget.

Author, Lee Traupel, has 20 plus years of marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc. http://www.intelective.com a marketing services company which provides strategic and tactical marketing services exclusively to small to medium sized companies. Lee@intelective.com Reprinted with permission from Intelective Communications - this article may be reprinted freely, provided this attribution box remains intact. (c) by Intelective Communications, Inc.
Lee@intelective.com.

Outsorcing Marketing Verse

Outsourcing

Can your business benefit?

Depending on the project, outsourcing can sometimes be a very cost-effective business decision. Sure, we can all accomplish some of it in-house, but can we do it all, and do it well?

Would it surprise you to know that Compaq Computer™ outsources? How about Underwriters Laboratories™? Gateway Computers™? Yes, even the Chicagoland Area Chamber of Commerce™! I was involved with projects involving each one of these companies. They all outsourced specific portions of their projects. Even Hyperformance Media out-sources specific project requirements! Every business does not know every other business.

What I mean is, your business can not know everything there is to know about printing (for example). Therefore, in certain situations, it would benefit your company to outsource this service to some printing specialists. It could save you time, money, and benefits, leaving your employees their time to continue to do what they do best, their job - with minimum productivity loss!

In this simple example you can begin to see the many benefits.

• You have professionals creating the desired product.
  
• They will do a better job in less time.
  
• No need to buy additional equipment or software.
  
• No set-up, no training, no lost time.
  
• No payroll, benefits, or accounting headaches.
  
• Your employees remain focused on their goals and your business productivity!
  

These are just a few of the many reasons used to justify the outsourcing of some projects versus attempting to do everything in-house.

Your business website is a mission-critical marketing tool. Used properly, your website should be your most outspoken salesperson. Your business should be getting more business from the Web, if not doing business on the Web.

The successful marketing of your business website should NOT be taken lightly. Yes, your company now has a webmaster on the payroll full-time, not to mention the design and development staff, but is your web presence working? Are you achieving results besides just looking good?

Outsourcing the marketing services of your website gives you the experience you desire and the results you need. Your business needs to be found yesterday! Your business needs customers to grow, not just survive! Who has your market share?

Let's talk about getting some of that back! Let's talk about what changes can be put in place to GET BUSINESS from your website.

Today, tomorrow, and every year going forward!

Thanks - and good luck with your promotions!

Author, Scott 'Gears', is the Founder and Sr. Project Manager for Hyperformance Media.com, a Technology Marketing Company serving online businesses since 1996. His 23+ years of experience in the computer industry will help you succeed. Their website offers free education & resources that will assist any business in successfully marketing their company online. ss@hyperformancemedia.com.

Worldwide Viral URL Opus

URL Everywhere

Your URL (www) should be everywhere and more. I know many of you are going to think this is common sense, but how many of these are you using? Your web address should be on every piece of anything your business does, period.

Your customers can come from anywhere, at anytime. Yep, the airport at 3:32 a.m., or how about the car behind you?

Below is a list of some of the obvious and the not so obvious places you should be advertising your website. Some of them cost you nothing, most of them cost you very little. Do you want more customers than your competitors? Then put yourself 'out there' - more than your competition! You'll be surprised at how much traffic you can directly generate.

Hopefully you are using all of this first set...

• Invoices - Make sure, or get it on your next re-order.
  
• Statements - Another one, get it printed!
  
• Business Cards - Every card should have the website address and appropriate e-mail address. Letterhead - Right after your address should be your web address.
  
• Envelopes - This all goes to Branding effectively and getting people to your site.
  
• Company Vehicles - Often overlooked, but I thought I would add it here... don't forget these!
  
• Corrugate Products - Each and every package or product you ship should have your web address either stamped on it (cheap) or printed on the next run.
  
• Everything you publish with your company name should also carry your URL. Your Holiday cards for example...
  
• Advertising - It amazes me not only how much business spends on print advertising, but how many of them do not include their web address in the Ads. It's 'way' better than your phone number at 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning? You already pay to print everything, just be sure you're adding the line: www.we are real.com
  

Do you have all of those? Good job! Now try these...

You never know where your visitors (customers) could come from.

• Your Answering Machine message..."be sure to visit our website at www." Your "On Hold" message..."for additional savings, visit our website at www."
  
• Include your website business card with every bill you pay! You'll be surprised.
  
• On a Bus waiting bench. Just your URL, thousands of people keep seeing these every-single-day.
  
• Engrave the bottoms of your gym shoes. This way, everywhere you walk in the mud or snow leaves your URL impression... C'mon, laugh with me!
  
• Clear window stickers - The greatest invention, removable, for car window, car door, trunk, etc. * License Plates or Frames - If legal, make your "other plate" an Ad for your website!
  
• Bumper Stickers - Don't laugh, - you can make them classy, and they're inexpensive to boot! Use for cars, sponsorships, tradeshows, mail one with every order, etc.
  

Best of Luck in your Business Promotions!

Author, Scott 'Gears', is the Founder and Sr. Project Manager for Hyperformance Media.com, a Technology Marketing Company serving online businesses since 1996. His 23+ years of experience in the computer industry will help you succeed. Their website offers free education & resources that will assist any business in successfully marketing their company online. ss@hyperformancemedia.com.

Bulk Email Marketing Serenade

Bulk Email, Spam, and Email Marketing

Excerpted from PlanetLink's Enews - an email newsletter delivered for FREE to your computer. To subscribe, go to www.planetlink.com

This issue focuses on the effective use of email lists and bulk email for website and business promotion. Bulk email essentially consists of sending the same message to some number of recipients at the same time. Spam is characterized as sending bulk mail to recipients whom you have had no prior contact or permission.

The issue of whether or not to send Spam can be summed up in three words - "don't do it." While it's not currently illegal under Federal law, (although sending bulk non-approved faxes is), it is generally not permitted by Internet Service Providers under their "terms of service" agreement (PlanetLink's terms of service can be found at http://www.planetlink.com/policy.html). Most ISPs will issue a warning on the first occurrence and cancel a client's service on the second. The reason for zero tolerance is that while the responsible party can literally send millions of messages almost for free, the costs associated with sending, delivering and receiving spam are incurred by the recipient whose time is spent processing unwanted mail as well as the ISPs that transport and store email. A recent European Commission report found that the world wide cost is $9.36 billion per year.

The other reasons for not sending Spam are the impact it has on the reputation of the company and the risk of interruption or cancellation of service. The other issue of importance for ISPs whose client's repeatedly send spam is that mail sent from their network can be blocked by other ISPs trying to stop spam from reaching their clients; potentially affecting thousands of customers. Under California Bus. & Prof. Code Section 17538.45, sending spam through a mail server based in California is illegal and allows for damages of $50 per message.

So, if we can't send Spam, what can we us bulk email for?

Bulk email is great tool for keeping in touch with your clients and customers, sending newsletters, service messages, announcing special offers and more. It can also be used to keep in contact with prospects on an ongoing basis and is an effective sales tool for generating new business. Systems can be implemented that make it easy to send automated messages on a regular basis. Systems can also be implemented which make it easy for visitors to subscribe to your list. Subscriber management features also make it easy for you to add, delete, schedule and send messages as required.

PlanetLink can assist you in setting up an effective email list system for your business and can implement anything from a fully automated system to a manual system. For more information, call us at 415-884-2022 or email info@planetlink.com.

Important Tips:

• Create an opt-in email list on your website.
  
• Don't buy a database of email addresses and send them bulk email - this is Spam.
  
• Spam can be reported to http://www.spamcop.net.
  
• Collect email addresses on a "sign up sheet" at public events, trade shows and presentations. Let them know on the form that they will be added to your email list and give them a check box to confirm their participation.
  
• If you send bulk email to your list, make it easy for them to unsubscribe.
  
• In the bulk message that you send, remind them of how and/or why they are on your list.
  
• Be sensitive to your list - people are busy and they get lots of email.
  

Steve Lillo author of Websites That Work! is the President of PlanetLink, a website design and consulting firm which specializes in creating websites which get results. They also provide their Web Rx Service for increasing the effectiveness of existing websites. PlanetLink can be reached at http://www.planetlink.com or by telephone at 415-884-2022.

B.S. of Internet Marketing Ode

Cut Out the B.S. in Your Internet Marketing

Are you getting disgusted with your results as an internet marketer? Staying up until two in the morning looking for that information that will give you that extra edge over everyone else out there? Slowly changing your goal of working for yourself into a dream again instead of the reality you once knew it to be?

Think of the last great idea you had and never used. What made you give up on it? Not enough time? Not enough money to get it up and running? Did you think it just would' nt work? One more question. Who gave you all of these quick answers that made you so sure you were wrong?

I have one suggestion. Go out and get a gallon of gas, dump it all over your living room, and light a match. Now that your house is gone, tell yourself that the only money you can use to buy a new one is from your Paypal account. Now do you know exactly which efforts are working for you online?

Or call your boss right now and tell him you are quitting. Now all you have is internet marketing. I bet you can double your sales in a week.

Okay, I am really not suggesting that you do this, but put yourself in that state of mind for a few minutes. What project would you start on tomorrow? Is your answer different than it would have been before you started reading your article?

Necessity is the mother of invention. It also is the mother of motivation. If everything in your life is comfortable right now, you have no need to go online and rake in those dollars. You may think you are putting in the effort, but, if you are like me, a lot of this energy may be wasted surfing, checking out pyramid schemes, and finding the easy way out.

Once you have a need for the money you could be making, it's amazing how quickly you can cut out the B.S. and go quickly to that one project that you know will make money. The next time you see your sales dropping, put your life in false crisis. You will quickly narrow down your options.

Author, Stephan Miller, is a ebay seller, freelance programmer, writer, and webmaster at http://www.profit-ware.com, Home of Hotbid Auction Market Analyzer.

101 Search Engine Marketing Opuses

Search Engine Marketing 101: What Search Engines See When They Visit Your Web Site

If you have a Web site, have you ever wondered what a search engine sees when it visits your site to add the site to its index? Do you know that it doesn't see the beautiful graphics or the fancy Web design? Do you know that it only sees the source code, or the "skeleton" of your Web site?

Do you realize that knowing this little tidbit of information and doing something about it can make a huge difference in your search engine rankings and, ultimately, the success of your online business?

One very important thing that you need to remember is: the search engines like simplicity. The simpler your Web site is, the easier it is for the engine to determine what your Web site is about. And, if the search engine can determine exactly what your Web site is about, you have a better chance at top rankings under the keyword phrases that are important for your online business.

Let's look at this concept in action with a page I recently created for one of my online businesses: Search Engine Workshops.

http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/search-engine-seminars.html

As you can see, it's a very plain, simple page that was not created to be the "main" or "home" page of a Web site. Rather, it was created to pull in traffic through the keyword phrase, "search engine seminars."

What I really want you to see is the source code of the page. So, when viewing the page, click on View on the top menu bar, then Source or Source Code.

The most important part of a Web page is what appears at the very top of the page. Why? Because a search engine starts at the top of the page and begins moving down as it indexes.

So, what appears in the section of your Web page is very important, because the section is at the top of the page.

Let's look at the section of the source code:

Search Engine Seminars--your path to success on the Web!

There are only three tags in the section of this Web page: the title tag, the keyword META tag, and the description META tag. Because the title tag is in the section, and because of the importance that most engines place on the tag, it is considered one of the most important tags on your page, so it should always be the first tag in the section.

Notice that in the title and keyword META tag, the important keyword phrase (search engine seminars) appears as the first words in the tag. In the description META tag, the keyword phrase is still toward the beginning of the tag, as opposed to the end.

In other words, where you place your keyword phrase in the tags and content of your page is important. If you place your keyword phrase toward the beginning of all of your important tags and toward the beginning of the contents, you're "proving" to the engines that the page is really about that particular topic.

I've mentioned one reason why the title tag is important, but there's another reason too. The title tag is important because it almost always appears as the title of the site in the search engine results. Your description META tag may appear in the search engine results as well and is considered important by the some of the engines. So, when you create your title and description tags, remember two things: put your keyword phrase toward the beginning of the tags, and make the tags captivating and designed to pull in traffic.

Think of it this way. If your site is #10 in the search engine rankings, but if the sites above yours haven't gone to the trouble to create appealing titles and descriptions, a search engine user may skip over those sites to visit yours.

Now, let's go back to the source code. Look for this tag, which isn't far from the tag:

This is the image, or graphics, tag for the Search Engine Workshops banner that appears at the very top of the page. Notice that the engine doesn't "see" the graphic itself. It sees the name of the graphic (banner3.jpg), and it sees the ALT text that describes the image. It sees the width and height of the graphic. But, it doesn't see the graphic itself. So, the engine doesn't know that the graphic says, "Search Engine Workshops."

Next, look for this tag, which directly follows the image tag:

Search Engine Seminars

An tag is a heading tag, and heading tags are very important to a Web page. Try to put a heading tag at the very top of your page, if at all possible, and use your important keyword phrase in that heading tag. When you look back at my actual Web page, do you see the words "Search Engine Seminars" right under the graphic? That's the heading tag.

Now, look for this tag in the source code:

Is your Web site achieving the success that. . .

This is where the contents of the Web page begin. Look on the actual Web page and find the text: "Is your Web site achieving the success that . . ." Notice that the keyword phrase (search engine seminars) appears in the first paragraph.

In other words, with all of these tags and the placement of our keyword phrase in the page's contents, we're proving to the engines that the page is really about "search engine seminars."

So, let's visit your site on the Web. View the source code. What's in the section? Are your title and description tags using the keyword phrase that's important for that particular page? Are your title and description tags captivating and designed to pull in traffic? Each page of your site should have different title and description tags, and those tags should be based on the focus of that page - what that page is really about: in other words, its keyword phrase.

How many graphics do you have before the actual contents of your site? If you have a lot of graphics, navigation bars, or buttons before the contents of your page, the engine has to sort through all of that source code before it gets to the actual keyword- containing content.

Does your page contain lengthy JavaScript or other code that pushes the important contents toward the bottom of the page? If so, it could be hindering your chances at top rankings.

Are you using a heading tag that contains your important keyword phrase toward the very top of your page? Is your keyword phrase used in the first paragraph of the page? Is it used in several places throughout the page?

Look back at my page. Notice that the keyword phrase, search engine seminars, is used as link text to describe several links. Are you using your keyword phrase to describe links that are leaving the page? If not, try to do so.

Study your own site carefully, and apply these guidelines to your pages.

Doing whatever you can to push your important keyword phrase toward the top of the page and toward the beginning of your tags is the first step toward having a successful Web site that's ranked in the top of the search engine rankings.

If you would like to learn more about how to achieve top search engine rankings, visit: http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles.html

Or, sign up for online training at: http://www.onlinewebtraining.com/courses.html or 3-day search engine marketing workshops at: http://www.searchengineworkshops.com.

Author, Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web Specialists, has trained several thousand people in her online search engine marketing training programs: http://www.academywebspecialists.com. Visit the Academy's training site to learn more: http://www.onlinewebtraining.com. She also teaches 3-day hands-on search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe with Search Engine Workshops: http://www.searchengineworkshops.com.

AdWords Selecting Ode

Google's AdWords Select(tm) Groundbreaking Program

One of the absolute best online marketing processes available to any business today is Google's AdWords Select advertising program. It produces immediate results within minutes after being setup, drives highly qualified traffic via selected keywords and can be monitored and modified on a 24/7 basis via Google's excellent online interface. There are no hidden fees - it costs a mere $5. USD to setup a campaign and requires a credit card submission at startup. We highly recommend this interactive marketing process to all of our clients and incorporate an AdWords Select component with all of our marketing campaigns.

Google's Pricing Model

Google charges you on a CPC ("Cost per Click") basis - you only pay for each clickthrough to your web site from Google's, no more no less. You don't pay for "impressions" (number of times someone views your ad) like many first generation Internet advertising models - it's truly a results driven marketing process.

Keywords costs can vary tremendously ranging from $.05 to $11. USD or more per keyword - Google assigns a "minimum cost per click" for specific keywords based on "market value" and "performance history" via Google's AdWords Select program history. Be prepared to pay a much higher rate for very popular keywords and this is a moving target all of the time - the more popular this program becomes the more you will be forced to pay for selected popular keywords.

Creating your Sponsorship Ad

Your Ad's position is based on a combination of the CPC ("Cost per Click") you selected and relevancy of your ad - if your ad and keywords are relevant and drive clickthroughs, then your ad will rise in position on the sponsored column versus your competitors. This is an innovative feature and helps to distinguish Google's program from all other PPC ("Pay per Click") campaigns (Overture and their primary competitors) - most of these programs have an "economic bias" built into them; i.e. whoever pays the highest fees gets the top placement.

Dynamic Ad Placement

Google's unique AdWords Discounter keeps track of your costs per click versus your competitors. You select the maximum amount you want to pay for your keywords and the ranking algorithm keeps track of your keyword costs, ensuring you only pay one cent above the CPC ("Cost per Click") cost you specified when you setup the campaign versus your competitors.

Setup Process - Sponsored Link Ad and Keywords

AdWords Select is based upon driving highly targeted traffic to a web site via a set of keywords that are selected via Google's account management interface. There are two primary components to the setup process, creating your "sponsored link" ad and selecting your keywords. You start by creating a "sponsored link" ad that is subsequently inserted into Google's search results on the right hand column - targeted by keywords that you have selected. It only takes a few minutes to have your campaign go "live" after you've completed the setup process.

It's very important to spend quality time creating your sponsored link as this is the "online ad" that people will view in the midst of search results and competing sponsored links (in some cases). You have the ability to create a short headline coupled with two lines of text with approximately 35 characters per line - the headline must be succinct and hard hitting and the related text should backfill the headline with supporting words that convey what goods or services your company provides.

Keyword selection can be the most daunting task for setting up a new campaign - be prepared to spend some focused time working through multiple keywords to find those that you can afford. It typically takes 1-3 hours to find 10-20 keywords that are relatively low cost - however, if your budget is open-ended and you have sufficient marketing funds to pay $1-8. USD per keyword then it can take much less time. Your market focus is also another important variable that can impact the keyword selection process - if you're in a narrow market niche with only a small number of competitors then it is much easier and faster to setup a campaign.

Finally, be aware you can find some keywords that are very inexpensive, but Google will disallow these if they don't drive a minimum clickthrough amount of roughly less than 1% - you can start off with them, but they will be turned off after 7-14 days if they aren't driving sufficient clickthrough volume.

Wordtracker Keyword Research Tool

You may want to utilize other keyword analysis tools that will give you a broader selection and help you to understand what keywords are popular and searched on, which in turn ensures the keywords you do select will drive traffic and will not be disallowed by Google. Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com) is an industry standard keyword analysis tool that those of us in the online advertising world (and many others) have used for years to help us understand what keywords are popular - their service is very low cost and easy to utilize via their web site.

Author, Lee Traupel, has 20 plus years of marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc. http://www.intelective.com a marketing services company which provides strategic and tactical marketing services exclusively to small to medium sized companies.

Email Marketing Opus

Taking Email Marketing To The Next Level

How to use the latest e-messaging strategies to increase profits.

Many types of Internet advertising don't work as well as they once did. People have gotten used to banners and don't click on them. Some ezines have failed to keep their readers' interest and ads sometimes get less response. Search engines are overflowing with submissions. Getting your site listed high is almost impossible.

More and more businesses and organizations are now turning to email marketing to keep profits rolling in. While an increasing number of people say they rarely surf the Net, the vast majority of North Americans check their email every day.

Email marketing is the most effective and efficient way to influence purchases and keep customers informed and happy. It is also extremely inexpensive. Where you might have mailed out one printed customer update every month, you can now email one every week for a fraction of the cost.

Increasingly, companies need to embrace email marketing in a big way in order to stay competitive. Those who formerly used a service to send out their newsletters, sales info, and consumer updates are now doing all the emailing themselves.

New technology that is powerful yet easy to use allows anyone to handle email jobs that previously required expensive professional help. Many companies are bringing their email campaigns in house in order to have more control, grow their email efforts, and decrease costs.

Here are four features you will want to use in your email marketing efforts:

* Include HTML in your email messages. Most email programs are now equipped to read HTML. Your logo, banner, bullets, and color elements can make your message jump off the screen. You can even include forms that allow customers to order instantly from your message. You take advantage of impulse purchases that can lead to big increases in sales. *Important - Make sure you have pre-qualified your recipient - do they want to receive HTML messages!

* Use a campaign manager feature to schedule when your email messages will be sent out. You can prepare an entire months' worth of messages and tell the manager which weeks, days, or hours to release them to your list.

* Take advantage of a POP import feature. It automatically takes the email addresses from messages you receive and puts them on your mailing list. This insures no one who requests information from you is left out of your next update. This also helps you grow your list as fast as possible. You can even use a feature that automatically unsubscribes those who ask to be removed from your list. Many companies say this saves them hours of work each week.

* Make sure the software you use to send your messages includes a walk-through wizard. You get step-by-step instructions on how to do any task you wish to achieve. Instead of waiting for the tech guy to show up, you can speed through the job on your own.

Author, Karen Fegarty, is with MailWorkZ. MailWorkZ has been instrumental in developing new email technology. MailWorkZ's award winning email marketing tool, is key to reaching your customers in a highly efficient, personalized manner. Reach Karen at karen@mailworkz.com.

Internet Marketing Ode Ver.2

The New Marketing Landscape

Many of us in the marketing services and/or agency business are starting to see some real tangible marketing patterns emerging that businesses need to be aware of if they want to leverage their marketing dollars in this "post .com implosion economy."

Good Web Site Design increasingly More Important

It's imperative for a company to have a quality web site today - but many firms are still throwing up web sites that are just poorly designed or overly complex. Poor navigation (menus and overall site structure) when coupled with low quality graphics is really problematical (!) - online visitors think less of your company as a result which will hurt revenue in the long run. Many think just doing a minimal job is sufficient but they aren't factoring in how close your competition is! On the web any potential customer is only one click away from seeing a high quality web site that is well designed and conveys a quality image

A good rule of thumb when budgeting for a web site is to assume you will pay approximately $250-300. USD per page - this should include your graphics design, content development, setting up registration forms, etc. This may sound too expensive for many companies but for better or worse perception is reality in the online world! So, don't short change yourself, put some resources into your web site and be prepared to continue to do so - it's now a vital component of any company's ongoing marketing processes that needs constant upgrading like traditional marcom (PR, print, etc.) materials.

Opt-in E-Mail Trending Down but still Viable

Opt-in or permission based e-mail (meaning people give you "permission" to market to them) response rates for Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer are dropping below where they were a year ago by 30-50% on average. What's happening? The ever-increasing deluge of Spam is negating the throughput (response rates, purchases, etc.) of quality opt-in e-mail.

Opt-in e-mail is still a viable and excellent way to market your company but expect less results, lower costs/fees (more vendors equals more competition which is good) and the need to repeat your campaigns if you want to see tangible results. And don't get dazzled by a design firm or your in house marketing staff that wants to design a fancy HTML e-mail message for you - 65-75% of the market today still doesn't want fancy graphics, they want a short message, delivered concisely with short paragraphs in a text format. Less is more!

Performance Based Marketing on Upswing

Publishers and advertisers are more and more willing to accept advertising which is "performance based" and/or based on a "cost per click" or even a revenue share basis. Meaning, it's not like putting an ad in the USA Today and hoping people respond to the publication - you can now work with list brokers, online publishers and marketing organizations to setup very targeted campaigns that are based on your paying a small cost for an actual response to your message via an opt-in e-mail campaign, text link ad on a web site and/or an insert in a newsletter.

Case in point, companies like Virtumundo, Inc. (they are a pioneer in the performance based market) are now willing to charge nothing upfront in many cases for an advertising campaign and to just do a revenue share with you on the back end; this is typically 20-40% of your SRP, will vary depending upon your goods and/or services. And, they will do a test campaign prior to a full-bore campaign to make sure that the response rates will be worth their investment.

Another key benefit to any business that wants to leverage the shifts occurring in performance-based marketing is its inherent ability to be highly targeted. You can tie a marketing process (campaign) to web site, newsletter or pay per click search engine (Overture and now via Google's Ad Words Program) with specific demographics that are highly qualified and targeted. Contrast this again with the traditional print medium where you can target to a certain extent; but not like performance-based marketing. Consider an add again (for example) in the sports section of the USA Today - it will clearly deliver a sports enthusiast, but not a male who plays tennis that lives in the Western US, etc. And, better targeting will always deliver better results, assuming all other issues are on a level playing field.

Search Engine Marketing still a Mystery to Many

I hate to say it but most of the web sites we analyze still don't have the basic HTML fundamentals (Title, Keywords, Description) in-place so their sites can/will be indexed (reviewed by an automated bot/software agent) properly. Their title is wrong (don't repeat your company name), there are too many keywords (you want 8-12) or the wrong keywords and the description of the company is either poorly written or reads like yet another "mission statement" that has been developed by the CEO/CFO and three Senior VPs. This is basic block and tackling marketing and should be setup properly when a web site is designed.

Be prepared to deploy some marketing resources for quality Search Engine Marketing - it's fiercely competitive for web site rankings; you've got 3-5K web sites coming online every single day of the week and many are trying to drive market awareness via S/Engine ranking. What's a rule of thumb of what to pay for standard S/Engine Marketing Services: i.e. Title/Description Development, Keyword Analysis, Content Rewrites, etc.? Costs can vary tremendously, depending on your market segment, web site size, what type of services you outsource, competitive issues, etc. Generally expect to pay $3-6K for a basic 3-4 month campaign and then some modest fee for ongoing maintenance (say $200-500.per month). There are alternative sophisticated S/Engine processes that cost much more than this, but these are typically suited for companies that have a good sized marketing budget and or a large web site that necessitates a different approach.

Author, Lee Traupel, has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com, a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies.

Digital M@rketing Poem

Marketing Trends from the Digital Frontlines

The web and ways to market on the web continue to evolve at warp speed - we see some positive and negative changes occurring - our observations du jour:

1. Publishers are finally starting to charge for branded content. It's still difficult to do, but we are seeing many newsletter publishers charging from $30-100 per subscriber per annum. And, most importantly, many people are finally starting to accept the need to pay for quality content.

2. Contrary to popular opinion, the web's epicenter is not San Francisco, Tokyo, Washington D.C./northern VA, Seattle, London or Austin. There is no epicenter ... it's everywhere. We now have over 427M (Dataquest & Nua) people using the web and its truly become a global medium/marketing venue/information highway.

3. More good news for e-commerce enabled business models. Recent published reports (Boston Consulting Group & eShop) indicate customer acquisition costs have dropped from $45 per individual customer in Q-4 of 2000 to $18 in Q-1 in 2001.

4. Adobe continues to push PDF format as a web standard. Over 32% of corporate web sites today have Acrobat PDF-enabling their web sites. Why we will never know (?), as it isn't an HTML standard but was originally developed to facilitate printing of documents. And, it doesn't work well on many web sites, especially for those coming in with slow connections or when you are trying to view more than a couple of pages.

5. Surprise, surprise! Splash pages are still increasing in popularity, with an estimated 18% of web sites today incorporating them. Let's be clear: we think they are really lame (to use a technical marketing term). They slow down the user experience and cause many people to click away from a web site in annoyance with no bookmark and no return visit.

6. Opt-in e-mail continues to grow in popularity and to reflect the web's ability to handle rich media content. The HTML format is rapidly becoming standard in many e-mail campaigns and we are starting to see streaming audio and video plug in components (running in the background) and even integrated voice mail, as just announced last month by YesMail. But, watch those conversion rates fall; opt-in e-mail is in danger of becoming this year's banner advertising.

7. Newsletters have become mainstream ways to communicate with customers, generate revenue via ad inserts and drive a brand into the marketplace. Now there are ASP (application service provider) solutions being brought to market by Microsoft and many others than enable a small or large company to manage all aspects of newsletter marketing via a browser.

8. No secret the web is maturing. There's been a media firestorm the last few weeks about how only four companies (AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo and Napster) commanded approximately 50% of the overall traffic on the web. Most disturbing to those of us not with the aforementioned companies (Sidebar: am sure Steve Case and Bob Pittman are very happy), eleven companies commanded this percentage about a year ago.

9. Traditional media is experiencing the same market downturn that interactive ad agencies have been getting. Look at your recent Newsweek, Der Stern, Time, Business 2.0, Upside, Fast Company, or Wired and you'll see they would do Jenny Craig proud - they've lost a lot of ad weight.

10. Popups, popovers, popunders - whatever the term you want to use for those annoying interstitial types of ads are still continuing to be deployed on more and more web sites. We think they are just bad marketing and are being used by sites or companies that can't figure out how to generate revenue with content (see #1) or, dare we say, real services!

Author, Lee Traupel, has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com, a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies.

Internet Marketing Serenade

Marketing to Today’s “Distracted” Consumer

The average person today is exposed to a never-ending deluge of 1,700 marketing messages during a single 24-hour period. Look around you, we marketers have pasted, integrated injected and/or overlaid advertising in any possible place imaginable! Case in point, NBC will start to digitally insert commercial “billboards” into advertising content to be broadcast during the winter Olympics – in essence a commercial within a commercial.

Marketing messages and processes must be condensed, hard-hitting and presented in formats that are easy to understand and digest – not MBA-speak or techno-jargon. Long mission statements with flowery prose simply don’t cut it in today’s “distracted economy” – customers/clients/partners want to understand what products and services your selling, at what price and how they are supported.

A one-page company Facts sheet is an essential component of any marketing campaign – it provides a snapshot of essentials about your company including markets addressed, contact points, core technology, products or services sold and business partners. A well-written Fact sheet should be one page and provide just baseline information, without any hyperbole.

Power Point presentations by their very nature force you to distill your information down into bullets and short sentences. Enabling you to make a presentation in a meeting, or have content ready for viewing on a 24/7 basis via your web site. You can create several iterations of the presentation which can be tailored for customers, partners, investors, etc. – mixing and matching your core 8-12 slides with others that “speak” to different audiences.

I’ve written several articles on web-enabled marketing and the need for simplicity when designing a web site, with content that is tailored for the online community. Many companies are still spending way too much money on web sites that don’t effectively work as an information resource – unfortunately, many of these sites function more as a testament to the designer’s ability to use cutting edge software graphics tools.

A great number of web sites still utilize text that is just pulled from other marcom materials, ignoring “rules of the road” for content on the web – the online community wants information presented in short paragraphs comprised of 2-3 sentences, with lots of white space.

A good web site should act solely as an appetizer for a four-course meal – whetting the appetites of the viewers and motivating them to take some action that moves them forward in the marketing process such as contacting the company or registering via the web site for more information.

Speaking of web site registration – this too should be optimized for today’s “information overloaded” customer. Only basic requirements should be requested (name, contact points, interest level) with a Privacy Statement linked via the registration page clearly stating your marketing policy; which by the way, you should adhere to without any deviation, or risk the wrath of your customers.

Opt-in e-mail has now become today’s marketing methodology du jour – it works and it’s cost effective. Approximately 50% of opt-in e-mail content is done in HTML (graphics inserted) format and the other 50% in text format. We strongly recommend text format to most of our B2B (business to business) clients – and we utilize a standard format that has generated 8-25% response rates from numerous campaigns we’ve created.

We structure the e-mail message so it is in three short paragraphs, with customer referenceability built in to the message and we utilize at least 10% of the media buy to test 2-3 different messages. The subject line is one of the most critical elements – it has to get the recipient’s attention and cut through the clutter of hundreds (typically) of other messages they will be receiving during a 24-hour period.

So, the executive summary for this article can be summarized succinctly – the most precious commodity in business today is attention – getting someone’s attention and then keeping it is directly proportional to how you structure your marketing messages.

Author, Lee Traupel, has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com, a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies.

Web Site Traffic Verse

Maximizing ROI via Web Site Traffic Analysis

We are clearly well past the innocent “golden age” of the Internet – Darwinian economics have become the order of the day today. Any company worth their salt must maintain a web site as an information resource and/or to generate incremental ecommerce revenue. Qualified traffic is the name of the game, as it’s the oxygen that keeps a good ecommerce web site thriving. Consequently, it’s very important to have an understanding of your web site traffic or visitor activity; i.e. baseline information that includes the number of visitors during specific time periods, originating location (domain), where the visitors went on a site and how long they stayed on specific sections or pages of a web site. The de facto industry standard traffic analysis tool application is Web Trends, manufactured/supported by netiQ, Inc., which we will focus on in this article.

Fundamentals and Jargon Watch

All traffic analysis tools rely primarily upon information that is extracted from log files; i.e. files that are maintained on your server which show where a visitor came from, what keyword(s) they used to find your site (if applicable), what Operating System and Browser versions they are using, etc. There are literally hundreds of excellent log file analysis tools that can be located via CNet’s Download.com or TuCows – both sites are excellent resources for software and information.

It’s critical in today’s bottom line business environment to have the ability to analyze web traffic (visitors) and patterns and then integrate this knowledge with your overall business processes – what do you pay for traffic, is it converting (people are buying your goods and services), how long are people staying on specific sections or pages of your web site, what marketing expenditures are working and which aren’t!

You know your entering the reality distortion field (we marketing types need to justify our fees & services) and need to raise your jargon filters to stun level when you here and/or see these keywords; i.e. clickstream traffic (fancy way of saying traffic or visitors delivered via mouse clicks to your web site), ebusiness solutions (meaning - selling your products/services via an ecommerce site) or my all-time personal favorite, “ebusiness intelligence” (what’s ebusiness and what determines if it’s “intelligent”).

Traffic Counter Applications

First and foremost, do you really need a comprehensive product like Web Trends (more on the different applications later) or can you get by with a click (traffic) counter application like the Hit Box? The latter company provides a free plain vanilla traffic counter which can be easily set up in minutes via your web site. Hit Box is a great product and used by hundreds of thousands of web sites, so it may be sufficient for your business, if you just want very basic info (“Page Views and Daily Unique Visitors) and don’t mind advertising for another company via your web site.

But, there are some downsides to utilizing Hit Box, you must install their “button” on your Index (home) page and it only provides you with basic traffic information (how much per day with a forecast based on these numbers). You can upgrade to their HitBox Professional which is very similar to Web Trends basic application (“Web Trends Log Analyzer”) – but, you have to pay for this service on a traffic basis which can get expensive, depending on your overall traffic.

Web Trends Applications and Interface

Web Trends (the company) was acquired by netiQ, Inc. the parent company about 18 months ago due to their strong market leadership position with web traffic analysis software. Like many good web-focused software companies, netiQ enables you to download all of their apps for a 30 day trial period. Estimates range from 60-80% market share for one of their three primary products; i.e. “Web Trends Log Analyzer,” their baseline $500. USD application which is a good solution for most web sites that have a single domain or under 25 in total; “Web Trends Analysis Suite” (SRP $2.5K USD), which incorporates the functionality of the Log Analyzer product and adds more features for managing bandwidth usage (interior and external), monitoring and alerting an IT Manager or Department for server related problems and handles up to 100 domains (sites); the “Web Trends Intelligence Suite” is their top of the line product (pricing varies depending on bundled services) geared for enterprise customers, it includes integration and training services for integrating the application with Online Analytics Processing Tools (“OLAP” yes another ebiz acronym) or other types of reporting tools.

We’ve been using and recommending Web Trends to clients for years primarily because of its interface and functionality. It’s a browser-enabled app, meaning anyone with a browser (IE or Netscape) can view reports and data. The reports are presented in a straightforward manner that includes basic pie chart or bar types of graphics – you can easily tell at a glance what your visitor traffic was for a given period, where they came from, what pages they visited and how long they stayed on specific pages. You don’t need to be a technologist or a marketing geek to use this application – see below for practical tips.

Practical Usage

So what do you want to measure and what type of custom reports do you want to run once you get the software installed? You will want to measure how much traffic (visitors) is coming to your web site per day, week, month, where they are coming from (country of origin), and where visitors going on your web site; i.e. home page, internal pages and of these what specific pages; i.e. About Us Products, Services your Shopping Cart, etc. Pay careful attention to usage times, how long people are staying on specific pages; too long may indicate they can’t figure out your content, or your content is so good its meaningful and educational. For example, if your “White Paper Resource” section is the most frequently visited and the visitor sessions (time elements) are long (2-4 minutes) then this means your content is being well received. But, if everyone is just reading your White Papers but not filling out your response forms then you may need to alter some aspects of your business processes and how you communicate them via your web site.

Web Trends compliments ongoing advertising campaigns and processes - it lets you capture critical ROI (“Return on Investment”) information by giving you an accurate picture of traffic and usage patterns that should correlate with what your ad agency or marketing partner is telling you or confirming with their own reports. For example: If your deploying an opt-in e-mail campaign and bringing people to a specific “landing page” (specific page where people are directed to that may include an “offer”) you need to carefully monitor if people are clicking through to the page and how long they are staying and/or going to your shopping cart to purchase a product or a registration fulfillment page. If the session times (how long they stay on a page) are short and people aren’t filling out a form or converting (purchasing or taking a specific action) then you clearly have some work to do on your web site content and or business processes.

Author, Lee Traupel, has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com, a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies.

Affiliate Marketing Income Streaming Poem

Creating Multiple Streams of Affiliate Marketing Income

Have you ever heard or read the phrase "multiple streams of income" before? Do you know what this phrase means? For many businessmen, creating multiple streams of income online or offline is one way of securing themselves as well as their businesses in the future. They also believe that it can also save them from the so-called famine effect in the business industry. Once you are engaged in affiliate marketing business, it is advisable if you have multiple streams of affiliate marketing income so that if one of those income streams vanished, it will not upset you the way losing your sole stream would. If you depend on just one source of income and this single stream has been downsized or has lain off, you'll surely find yourself bankrupted and hopeless. Try to ask the most successful online entrepreneurs, and you'll discover that they have established multiple streams of online income.

There is a businessman that said and attested that the very first step you must take in creating multiple streams of income is to assess or evaluate your resources. Start by assessing yourself first. Jot down your answers to the following questions: What are the talents, abilities, strength and gears that you possess? Are you gifted with excellent and creative writing skills? Can you do well at sales? Are you good in communicating with people? Are you born with an artistic skill or unique ability that other people don't have? Through this, you can determine the kind of business where can possibly excel.

Next, look around and write down you assets and physical resources such as computer, color printer, scanner, digital camera, cell phone, CD or DVD burner. Write these all down because it can be used as a resource. Consider also your friends and family. Find out what do they possess that you have access to. Remember that no man is an island. You can use the talents, abilities, knowledge and resources of everyone you know.

That's basically the initial step if you want to create multiple income streams. But if you're already a webmaster or a site owner, you definitely have an edge. Why don't you join affiliate marketing business to help you gain extra income out of your own website?

If you base what you do on inaccurate information, you might be unpleasantly surprised by the consequences. Make sure you get the whole income story from informed sources.

Being involved in affiliate marketing is one of the most desirable ways to make multiple sources of income. It is because affiliate marketing programs come in various shapes and forms. There are a large number of affiliate marketing programs that you can sign on with and start gaining bucks right away. In affiliate marketing, you can make money by promoting and reselling your affiliate products and by recruiting new affiliates. What's good about this is that you can find widest array of training materials that can enhance your marketing abilities. In affiliate marketing, you can be sure that there are genuine products to promote and sell and there is real income to make.

Either part time or full time, being an affiliate marketer is an excellent way to create multiple income streams by means of promoting products and services from web merchants. Here, you can get affiliate commission without investing big bucks in making your own product and without worrying about book keeping, customer support and ecommerce. All you have to do is to promote and resell the products and services in your site and pass on potential customer's the merchant's site.

In affiliate marketing, it is advisable to promote more merchants in your site so that your visitors will have variety of destinations to choose from. Using multiple merchants in the same site or niche means only one thing-you have multiple streams of affiliate income. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this business strategy because this is one of the best ways to protect your business and expanding your horizons. Through this, you can be assured that you won't experience crisis if ever one of your web merchants closed his/her program.

However, you should choose only those affiliate programs that interest you so that you can effectively advertise and promote them. Don't ever be tempted into signing up for numerous affiliate programs in the hope that one of them will bring income. Select wisely and don't be engaged in selling products you know nothing about. Go with the stuff that jives with your enthusiasm; your passion can capture your client by the nose and guide him/her to your affiliate link.

You should also work hard to make your multiple streams of income more stable. You can do this by embracing some strategies and tactics and by developing within yourself, some traits that can help you become successful in any kind of business such as patience, persistence and thirst for knowledge.

Lastly, just remember the adage that says "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." So that if one of them is lost, you can still have some to make omelets. And what do these eggs have to do with multiple streams of affiliate income? Well, it goes without saying that the more streams of income you possess, the bigger and better your money lake becomes.

Don't limit yourself by refusing to learn the details about income. The more you know, the easier it will be to focus on what's important.

Author, Dina Fedorova, finding a Home Business that's Right for You, has a passion to help ordinari people start and run their Own Home Based Business. Visit her site and download "Dotcomology: The Science of Making Money online". Absolutely Free at: http://www.net-plus-profit.com.

Use Affiliates for Selling Ode

How selling through Affiliates works...
You peer into brain and defile mind troll,
Then pull out the heart bottle's cork -
Crazy potato heads, where're the fish rolls?

Don't Overpay for Selling your Products. Use Affiliates

How selling through Affiliates works...

I bet that if you aren't yet into selling your products through Affiliates it's because you didn't look for the benefits. And I can also bet that when you are thinking about doing more sales, you are thinking about hiring a new Sales Manager or paying for some advertisements.

No secret that the newly hired Sales will spend about 6 months trying to understand your products and the market (but, well, he gets paid even if he makes no sales in the learning time) and even when he starts selling it will still take 6 months to get him up to speed. About the advertisements, they are a sure cost and a not so sure result.

If you have been there and have done that (or just thinking on doing it) what about hiring not one but 1000 sales people (and promote your products widely) only paying a commission from sales made? If that sounds good, then you are already thinking to sell your products through affiliates - the pay per performance model.

I'm not sure if you know how selling through Affiliates works. Keeping the explanation on the most basic level, it's about Affiliates (webmasters, companies or individuals) that pre-sale your products on their sites and get rewarded for every successful sale. They promote your products on their sites, and should get a commission from the sales they generate. Each one is a Salesman for your products.

Now, let's talk about the benefits:

• It's cost effective

You don't have to pay 1000 sales people, you don't even have to pay a single one. You don't have to pay for advertisements. You only pay a commission for successful sales. Think about affiliates as "external sales forces".

• It's the best way to penetrate new markets

No matter what products you have on sale, selling in Asia would be completely different from selling in USA. Selling in USA will be completely different from selling in Europe. How many sales people you need to target each market and each country? Well you only need affiliates. They know the niche markets and know how to promote your products there. It's like having a local sales force. Which you only pay on results!

• Have a niche product?

No problem, Affiliates are niche marketers. Actually the best practices in affiliate marketing point that you should follow a niche and get the best Search Engine position for it. That means the affiliate will get a good Search Engine position for your niche product - could help for your position in front of the competition.

• Increase your sales

If you are in the race of increasing sales, the affiliates do just that: they bring multiple sales from multiple sources. And actually, these sales will be made through your site or payment solution. With Affiliates, sales can only go up.

• Increase the awareness of your products

What would you say if your products will be listed, mentioned or at least linked from thousands of sites? Not so bad. It's called Affiliate Marketing.

• Create Added value to your products

Some of your affiliates might be experts in your field, and with a genuine interest in testing and evaluating your products. You don't have to pay for it, because they expect to be paid a commission from sales.

Still not convinced? Amazon is doing it (and thousands others) so they must be doing something right.

This article was written by Cristian Dorobantescu, Affiliate Network Coordinator at Avangate B.V. Avangate is a complete ecommerce provider for shareware sales incorporating an easy to use and secure online payment system plus additional software marketing services and sales tools:
http://www.avangate.com. Copyright © 2007.

Web Marketing Success Ode

5 Reasons Why Headlines Are Crucial To Your Website’s Success

Without a powerful headline, your message stands little chance of being noticed in an increasingly competitive marketplace. If your headline doesn’t capture attention and pull prospects into your sales copy, than your marketing effort is a total waste of energy and resources.

Nothing is more important to getting your message noticed than your headlines. If you’re not allocating a sizable percentage of your time and creative effort to the headline used on each page of your website, you could be losing out on a large chunk of business.

Top copywriters understand this concept well. They know how essential it is to capture attention by literally stopping pre-occupied prospects in their tracks.

Here are five good reasons why your site headlines deserve greater emphasis and attention:

1) Headlines Are Natural Attention Getters. The majority of online prospects are quick scanners. No one reads the body copy of a page without first reading and being pulled in by the headline. Headlines are the first thing your visitors see. They jump out visually and command attention. Headlines are leads set distinctly above the rest of the text. Often the typeface, size, and style used for headlines contrasts with that uses in the body copy. It’s a proven approach that naturally attracts eyeballs, virtually forcing interested prospects to grasp the message of the headline and to read on.

According to advertising legend David Ogilvy, 5 times more people read headlines than body copy. Although Ogilvy was talking about print advertising in general, the observation is certainly applicable to websites as well.

With 5 times the readership, headlines have the power and capability to make any message many times more successful.

2) Site Headlines Serve As Valuable Guides To The Busy Surfer. Headlines reveal key details. They tip off readers as to what follows. They provide clear signals to help readers decide whether they should stick around for the full message, or dash off to something else – something better suited to their own special needs and interests.

As a quick summary of the entire piece, headlines either attract continued interest and readership, or they repel it. Without a headline, the reader is forced to wade through a portion of the text to understand the meaning. Forcing readers to do this is to risk losing them altogether. It’s sales suicide. In effect, having no headline will cost you at least 80% of your potential audience.

3) Headlines Prepare The Reader For What Is To Come. Headlines stimulate interest. They captivate, arouse curiosity and stimulate the desire for more. It’s the headline that starts the reader’s motor running. A good headline sets up a feeling of expectation as the reader anticipates discovering more -- and can’t wait to get it!

Successful headlines address specific audiences. They open prospects minds to new possibilities and expand their level of enthusiasm and interest. The best headlines involve prospects, virtually guaranteeing their sustained attention for the time being.

4) Headlines Simplify The Learning Curve. Every headline serves to introduce whatever follows. As an opening or lead-in, the role of the headline is to succinctly communicate the essence of the message it precedes in a n interesting and compelling way.

Effective headlines and sub-headings reveal key bits of information -- often with the added power of emotion. A review of the various headings alone can often provide one with the gist of a given message. This makes it faster and easier to understand, remember, and review.

Use your headings to generate emotional involvement and you increase the chances prospects will go back and read more of your copy. When you make it easier to read and comprehend your messages, you increase the chances of making the sale.

5) Headlines Allow You To Deliver Your Biggest Bang Right Up-Front. Capture attention and interest at the outset, by using your most appealing selling point. If your strongest, most desirable product attribute (benefit) fails to pull prospects in, surely nothing else you could ever say would do the trick, either.

The stronger and more compelling your headline, the more readers are likely to read on and spend more time at your website. Create every headline to grab attention and inspire interest. The more alluring and irresistible you can make it, the more genuine prospects you’ll attract and ultimately, the more sales you’ll record. Headlines are powerful marketing tools when used effectively. Take a good look at your site headline. Could you add more intrigue, curiosity, or interest?

Test different headlines by trying various appeals and offer combinations. Keep an eye out for additional headline opportunities throughout your sales letters, as well as on other pages on your site. Make your headlines impossible to miss and difficult to ignore... then, watch your results soar!

Robert Boduch, author of Great Headlines Instantly! - How To Write Powerful, Attention-Grabbing Headlines That Pull In More Prospects, More Customers And More Profits, NOW! This full-length manual features hundreds of helpful tips, techniques, strategies and hands-on formulas for writing successful headlines of every kind. Visit the author’s site at http://www.headlinesecrets.com.

Search Engine Cash Ode

Companies Cash In on Your Search Engine Ignorance

This article will cause many companies to stir, but it's about time someone started speaking against these services.

It really angers me when I see the numerous services that boast they will increase your traffic by submitting your web site to umpteen different search engines.

When I first started promoting my site, I used to buy into these claims and purchase such services only to be disappointed when my traffic did not increase.

FACT: The search engines can do wonders for your traffic. I attribute over 80% of my total Internet income from being found in the search engines.

FACT: Over the past couple of years, the search engines world has had a major overhaul. It used to be that most of the popular search engines were independently run. Now many of them get their search results from larger directories like Yahoo, Open Directory and LookSmart.

So if you're not listed there, then you may not find your site in many of the popular search engines these days.

FACT: The majority of these multi search engine submission services use some type of automated software to perform the submissions.

Most search engine programmers have designed their engines to IGNORE such automated submissions.

What does that mean for you?

Yep....you probably aren't getting most of the submissions that you pay for because the engines are rejecting them.

FACT: These submission services could care less about where your site ranks. They'll just submit it for you, collect your money, and move onto the next unsuspecting Internet marketer, while you sit back and wonder, "Where is all the traffic I'm supposed to be getting?"

FACT: Spending hundreds of dollars on these multi-submission services is a WASTE of MONEY. If you want to get real benefits from the search engines, subscribe to Danny Sullivan's newsletter at http://www.SearchEngineWatch.com and learn how the engines work and rank pages.

The BIG Yahoo Myth!

Don't ever let any submission service make you believe they can get you into Yahoo with the click of a button.

First of all, Yahoo is not even a search engine. It's a directory and it's run by a group of human editors who decide whether or not a site will be accepted.

The ONLY way to get into Yahoo is to submit yourself, and if your site is commercial you'll have to pay a fee.

FACT: You should submit to all the search engines yourself. Simply go to each engine - http://www.alltheweb.com for example - scroll down to the bottom of the page and look for the "Submit Your Site" link and submit from there.

Just keep in mind that several major engines now get their results from the BIG 3 - Yahoo, LookSmart, and Open Directory. Getting listed here will eventually get your site into popular engines like MSN, AOL, Netscape, and more.

The key to receiving search engine traffic is:

1. Educating yourself on exactly how the engines determine web site rankings.

2. Develop your site accordingly. (selecting an appropriate domain name, including relevant content, keyword phrases, etc.)

3. And by all means, submit yourself!

Lisa Irby is the author of 2 Create a Web Site -- a site that encourages you to plan accordingly and GET THE FACTS before diving into the web site creation process: http://www.2createawebsite.com.


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