Wednesday 30 June 2010

5 Ways to Have a Sound Postcard Marketing


Postcards, if used wisely, can be a great marketing tool. It can transmit your business’ information by just hand transfer. It is one of the most convenient and economical tool that you can rely.

Sound marketing is easy if you just know where to put emphasis. Here are the vital points to consider:

1. Create a good marketing message. You have only a few seconds to attract readers so do not spoil that. Make a brief and easy to read text. Complement it with an attractive graphics. Simple yet catchy that’s the idea behind postcards.

2. Maximize space. Use the space to inform your readers what you can give them. Of course they want to know. That’s the very reason they are reading your postcards. What you can give the and how they can get it are vital.

3. Do not forget the ‘call to action’. The most important content is the ‘call to action’. You must say what you want them to do next. To buy, to subscribe – these are calls to action. Thus, if you have established it you also have to support it. Place in your postcards important details like your phone number, address and the likes. By this, you will be contacted easily.

4. Print and mail the postcards. There are a lot of postcard mailing and printing services available these days. Choose the postcard printing services that are appropriate for your needs. Make the process special. You can inquire with the printer’s services to boost the appearance and result of your postcards.

5. Put some spice to it. One way to build a great business relationship is to make your offer special. You can pass on coupons to your potential customers. If they do not intend to use it, they can pass it on to others. This process can result to new clients, new purchases and repeat purchases as well.

Business industry is growing more and more competitive. Businessmen are getting savvier thus, the need to keep the pool of customers has become even harder – much more is to get a bigger market. Moreover, we have to get the most out of our marketing techniques. Postcards can do us a very good favor. It is affordable and effective. Why let the opportunity pass without taking advantage of its charisma?

Postcards can quickly and inexpensively convey your marketing message. Use them to keep the customers and making them return for more!


Tuesday 29 June 2010

5 Ways to Create Content to Drive Traffic to Your Site


There are many ways to promote your business online. The difference between online marketing and offline marketing though is profound.

Although advertising can be very effective offline, it isn't nearly so effective online. The reason why is that most people surf the internet looking for information. They aren't usually interested in advertising unless the product or service in question can solve their problems.

There are five strategies that you can implement in your business that will not only create a content strategy for you but will also create a very effective marketing strategy. This strategy will only require a few hours of your time each week.

1. Articles
For those who have read my work, you know that articles not only brand you as an expert but are also a way to create quality content for your site, and search engines love content.

If you don't like writing, or don't write, you can find quality articles to post on your site. The larger your site, the more likely you will be found in the search engines.

Here are a few article directories you can use:

http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.isnare.com
http://www.goarticles.com

2. Blogs/RSS
Blogging is another way to create content for your website, and by using RSS, you can easily distribute your content.

Most don't understand what RSS really is, or how it can most effectively be used to drive traffic to their sites.

Basically, RSS is a form of code that's very search engine friendly. With RSS feeds, which you can add to your website or blog, you can create content that updates itself. Because of this self updating, the search engines will spider your site more often, raising your rankings.

Once you've built your blog and added several entries, you need to "ping" it to get it listed. Here are two tools you can use:

http://www.pingoat.com
http://www.pingomatic.com

3. Press Releases
Press releases are news about your business. Press releases are also an excellent way to get high rankings for your site because you can create content rich press releases and submit them to press release directories. Many of these directories are high traffic.

Here are several sites that accept press releases:

http://www.press-world.com
http://www.free-press-release.com
http://www.prbase.com
http://www.click2newsites.com/
http://www.prweb.com

4. Search Engine Optimization

Optimizing your site for the search engines means creating keyword rich content, exchanging links with other sites, submitting your site to directories, which create backlinks pointing to your site.

You can use tools like Web CEO, http://www.webceo.com, to help you optimize your pages.

Although submitting the search engines is often unecessary, since most search engines will spider through to your site from another site, you still need at least one link pointing back to your site so that your site gets spidered.

Submit your site to Alexa, http://www.alexa.com. Not only will this make sure that your site gets spidered, you'll be able to compare your site to other sites, as well as get statistics on traffic to your site.

5. Free Ebooks and Reports
By writing and giving away free ebooks and reports, you give visitors an incentive to visit your website.

You can also submit your ebooks and reports to ebook directories for free.

http://www.ebookdirectory.com
http://www.ebookpalace.com
http://www.ebookjungle.com/
http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/

If you make your ebook brandable, which means others can place their links inside your ebook, your ebook becomes viral. You give others an incentive to share your ebook and spread it across the internet.

Once you implement these content strategies on your site, add streams of revenue to your site like Adsense and Virtual Portals. These sites will allow you to monetize your site.

http://www.google.com/ads/
http://www.virtual-portals.com

Although adveritising, like pay per clicks, can be effective in promoting your website, it can quickly become expensive. By focusing on creating quality content for website, and then promoting that content, you can continue to drive traffic to your website for years to come.


Monday 28 June 2010

5 ultimate graphic design mistakes - Things that graphic designers should avoid at all costs


1. Using web graphics on printed material.
With many young designers coming from a pre-dominantly web design background the transfer over from web design to traditional design for print can bring with it a multitude of design sins. Images supplied at 72dpi and crunched down to load fast on a website are going to reproduce very badly in print you can get away with small thumbnails but blowing things up to any appreciable size is going to be pushing your luck. There are a number of online sites offering free or very cheap quality hi resolution images which are a good source for suitable imagery.

2. Forgetting about or not allowing enough bleed.
A very common error is to send to print a document or flattened image that has no bleed at all. Generally speaking you should allow at least 3mm around every cut off edge. Failing to do so will give the printers no leeway and will either crop off the side of the page or give you a white border. It is always a good idea when supplying image files to save layered psd files then if things need extending or cropping you can do this on the background layer and hopefully cut down your work

3. Using obscure fonts and not embedding or outlining them for output.
We've all been guilty of this at some point and things are generally fine if you are going to be the only person accessing your artwork or documents. However if someone else needs to amend the files or use your vector logo on one of there publications. Unless you package up the used fonts, they are not going to be able to open the files correctly and some software programs may replace any unknown fonts with a default. This is a particular problem when you need to dig out stuff that was created several years previously and you no longer have your old fonts installed.

4. Supplying print ready artwork using spot colours or rgb
There are valid reasons for using spot colours in artwork, logos that need to reference particular pantone colours for example. In general design work however most print is sent through on 4 colour presses CMYK with occasional 5th colour for luminoius or metallic colour or for spot UV varnish. It is very common for lazy designers to just place rgb images into files and expect the vibrant colours seen on screen to reproduce in print.

5. Allowing design illiterate clients to lead you round the houses
The customer is always right, goes the old adage. However it is often said with gritted teeth and a sense of patience that recognizes that these morons will at some stage be handing over a fat cheque for your troubles. It is often a good idea when first submitting visuals to throw in a couple of stinkers to hopefully get them to appreciate the design you would like them to accept. There is the very real danger of course of them loving the piece of absolute arsewipe that you knocked up in five minutes to make them think you've been earning your money. Still it's a living.


Sunday 27 June 2010

5 Unbelievable Secret Facts Of A Sure-Successful Joint Venture.


As you read this article, you'll find that the subject of successful joint venture is certainly no exception.

Joint venturing is the fastest and most preferred way to increase sales and cash flow. It is no longer a secret, business partners are what make a strong company. It is impossible for a person to sit alone and wait for businesses to come, you need to get your influence out there and that is where joint venture partners jump in.

If you have been staying for some time on the Internet, you should know that JV partners are the master key to online success. Here are some reasons of why people are failing to get quality joint ventures:

1. Other marketers will not be waiting for you to reply why they should joint venture with you. Make sure you include the reasons why the other marketer needs to joint venture with you, throw all the benefits in and give a compelling reason why they should.

If you think that giving your product for free to a joint venture partner and expect them to endorse it to their list of subscribers, it won’t work. Even if you offer your joint ventures a greater profit than you do, it still works if both of you get to know each other better and have more joint venture plans in the future.

2. Many JV offers are thrown into the trash bin at first sight. Why? The more famous marketers can receive up to 200 JV offers every week, they can’t afford to just joint venture with any little beings on earth. Which is why, you need to follow-up. It is important that you don’t stop requesting until you are noticed.

Even if they trashed your email for the first time, on the second, third and fourth time, they should be noticing your existence and be urged to open the mail. Be consistent, follow up, and you’re half way there.

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

3. If you think sending an autoresponder series of template emails to your potential JV partners is a good idea, you’re killing your own business. People are very busy and to see that you are not even using your own time to write a proper JV offer, they don’t have time for you as well.

Your JV proposals should be more personalized - if possible you will even want to do a research on them so that you can know more about them and include the points in your JV offers. This makes sure that the both of you have a potential of being serious JV partners in the future.

4. JV partners are not affiliates. They are more than just affiliates, they’re potential super affiliates. You need to give them more commissions on any sales they’ve gotten for you. If you offer a 50% of commissions to your affiliates, your JV partners deserve 70% or more.

JV partners turns you targeted customers, they are hungry for similar products. Their subscriber trusts what they endorse, so it is the best way to promote your product. With a list of 10,000, if only 1% which is 100 who purchase your $97 product, you’ll earn $9700 over night with a single endorsement. 1% is a really low conversion, if the conversion rate increases by another 1% - you’ve already received $19,400.

5. Targeting the “big fishes” is not a good idea. You should begin from smaller JV partners, slowly build each other’s publicity, and only approach greater marketers when your subscriber lists are huge. This way, the greater marketers will get a more compelling reason in having a JV with you.

Joint venturing is no doubt the greatest way of getting successful in the Internet online venture, be sure to use it to the extreme and you’ll be delighted with the outcome.

To Your Success!


Saturday 26 June 2010

5 Top Product Promotion Strategies


One of the biggest myths of the Internet is the good old line, “If you build it they will come …” So many people throw up a website and sit back rubbing their hands with glee convinced they are going to become supremely wealthy.

Months later they are wringing their hands with regret wondering why they’ve had five visitors, four of which were their friends!

A website does not just automatically appear high in the search engine rankings and get traffic, you have to do some work in order to get this traffic and start making sales. There are thousands, or even more of sites competing for the same traffic you want – depending on your niche and keywords, there could be millions of sites!

You need to promote your website and get it noticed – not only in the search engines, but in other places where you will get targeted traffic who are interested in your website.

Strategy 1 - Directories

There are a whole host of directories on the Internet. Just search for your keyword and “Directory” or “Link Exchange” or anything similar and you will find hundreds of places to put your links. Yeah, it is hard work to do this, but you will get links and traffic to your site. If it’s too much like hard work for you – hire someone to do it!

Strategy 2 - Articles

Articles are an excellent way to gain traffic and promote your site. Submitting your article to directories will get you backlinks and if they are quality articles, will get you known across the Internet as an expert. Newsletter and website owners will pick up your articles and use them as content. This will help to promote your site to a much wider audience.

Strategy 3 – Affiliate Program

Running an affiliate program for your product is an excellent way to promote your site. Instead of you working on promoting your site, you have all these affiliates doing the work for you. And the best thing is – you don’t pay them a penny unless they make a sale. Depending on how much you offer as a commission, you could have hundreds of hungry affiliates aggressively marketing your product all over the Internet.

Strategy 4 – Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is a concept that has been around for some time. It’s a very powerful method of getting traffic to your site. You have all seen those cute or funny emails and videos that people send to all their friends? That is viral marketing. If you can tap into this through a book, a video, games or anything people will want to pass on to their friends, suddenly you have a whole lot of people promoting your site – for free!

Strategy 5 – Forums

Forums are an excellent way to market your website. As you participate in a forum so you can establish yourself as an authority and trusted expert on your chosen subject, which will make people come to visit your website to find out more information. Be aware though, that if you blatantly promote your business without adding value or spam the forums you will do more harm than good to your reputation and your business.

Promoting your website will get you targeted traffic. It will also allow you to organically move up the search engine rankings through backlinks and the use of keywords. If you are someone who is serious about making money online, then you need to start taking your website promotion seriously. Remember though – spam and other unethical practises will harm your business in the long term. Promote your site ethically and responsibly, and you can be reaping the rewards for years to come.


Friday 25 June 2010

5 Tips To Roll Customers Your Way With Promotional Items


Hopefully, you've had a few promotional items that have been total failures, ones that you thought were totally fabulous but turned out to be complete flops.

What, you're asking, I'm hoping you've had some failures in the promotional items area?  What kind of person am I, anyway?

I'm a person who wants you to have some experience being sold promotional items and products that never work so you won't be taken by them again, but are, instead, ready to break the mold and hit it big with your promotions.

Which also happens to be chief tip number one!  Break away from the promotional item pack, and be a leader instead!  I love pens, but the truth is, I have at least a hundred right now with different company names on them, and if yours is one of them, I most likely couldn't find it to call you if I searched all day and night.  And I'm no different from everyone else out there.  But if I had, say, a notepad handy with your name and address on it, well, that I could definitely put my hands on-which means I would be able to call you!

So the very first tip is to do something different with your promotional items that's different.  And as for tip number two, that would be to deliver your promotional items in a different way.  For instance, instead of mailing 1,000 whatnots, have 300 or so hand delivered.  I can guarantee that hand delivering promotional items will earn you enough business so that you can afford to hand deliver the next 300 and so on.

Now, the third tip is to let the professionals handle it.  And I don't mean promotional item manufacturers and bulk distributors.  I mean hire some real advertising and marketing people at a real advertising agency to advise you and develop your promotions and promotional ideas for you.  Yes, you'll spend a little more money upfront, but you'll have a promotion where all the pieces and parts work together to get your message and call to action across to your customers-which means your customers will be more likely to call you rather than the other guy.

And that's tip number four.  Remember that there is more to an effective promotion than handing out one item.  There are pieces and parts to it.  It takes a consumer an average of six to seven times of seeing and/or hearing your promotional message before they “get” it and take action of any kind-even saying no thank you.  No, it's not because your target audience is stupid:  it's because they're constantly being bombarded with marketing promotions from all sorts of businesses.

Which brings us to tip number five.  Know your target audience.  If your promotion is for teens and young adults, for example, don't give them refrigerator magnets-they don't usually have refrigerators!  At least not of their own yet.  Give them a cool key chain or CD holder, or even better, a CD instead. 

No matter how wonderful and unique a promotional item is, if it's given to the wrong target audience that has no use for it, they will have no use for you.


Thursday 24 June 2010

5 tips to invest and do business in China


1. Have clear understanding of China

It is essential to understand the culture of the country before investing in it. Understanding China is vital as China is a land of vast diversity. As such it is important for the company to understand the culture and the society’s values before establishing operations in China. Only through understanding the culture and values strong foundations can be built and higher chance of success can thus be achieved.

 2. Understand local business practices

Given China’s distinct culture differences from the rest of the world, understanding China’s business culture is extremely crucial. What works in one’s country will not be applicable at all in China. Understanding how the local people think and their business practices can allow one to engage better and faster with them. Original organizational culture and practices may have to change in order to accustom to China’s practices. Thus flexibility and adaptability is the key for any organization to be successful in China.

3. Acquire local knowledge and establish local presence

Establishing a representative office in conjunction with a strong domestic private sector partner that has access to all necessary information and contacts in their field is the widely practiced formula practiced by foreign firms who already enjoyed success in China. Another way will be through setting up joint venture. Most importantly it has to be the selection of the correct partner. Finding the right partner may require more time, patience and experience but it is never a hassle to spend more efforts in choosing the partner because a wrong partner will definitely guarantees failure.  Chinese expertise and local talent must also be incorporated into management or consulted during decision-making since local knowledge is essential as a source of information, access to networks and social and cultural learning, especially in China. 

4. Need for establishing business relationships

Guanxi (relationship) is an important element in achieving successful business in China. Top management must learn to nurture close relationships with their local counterparts. This not only helps them to understand the Chinese domestic market, but also creates avenues for help in times of trouble or in need of assistance. Building strong relationships with business partners can aid in mitigating strategic and operational risks.

5. Establish close relations with government officials

Because the China government plays an important role in influencing market movement and administering foreign investments, a strong government relationship remains an important factor to do business successfully in China. Fewer hiccups may be met during paperwork applications or achieving local authorization if a strong relationship with government officials is in place.


Wednesday 23 June 2010

5 Tips to Help You Identify WHO To Market To


If you have your own small business, it's important to decide exactly who you will be marketing your products or services to. After all, you probably don't have the time or the money to market to everyone. And even if you did, it is not recommended.

You'll want to select what is called a "target audience." This is an identifiable group of people you believe will be the best prospects for your business.

But for many small business owners, narrowing their focus to one primary group of people can be a challenging task. They want to help everyone — and very often their product or service CAN help a variety of people.

It also goes against human nature to narrow your focus in order to grow a business. Common sense seems to tell us if we want to grow our business big, we need to appeal to more people.

In reality the opposite is true. When we narrow our focus to a particular group of people we become an expert in solving their particular problems. We get to know them very well and we can develop additional products and services to fill their needs.

So how do you decide who to market to?

Following are 5 tips:

1) Think about the type of people who can MOST benefit from what you have to offer.

2) Think about who you would most enjoy helping, or working with.

3. Think about the type of people who will be easiest to reach, AND who will be most receptive to what you are selling. These will be people who KNOW they have THE problem you can solve and are LOOKING for a solution.

4) Know that just because you select a particular group of people to focus your marketing on, does NOT mean you can't help others who may come to you. It only means you're going to focus your proactive marketing efforts on the target group you select.

5) Lastly, don't over-think it. Listen to your gut, pick a group you feel you can really help and proceed with the development of your marketing plan. Marketing is a fluid process. The important thing is to start. You can always refine your audience and your plan later as you learn more.

(C) 2005 Debbie LaChusa


Tuesday 22 June 2010

5 Tips to Get More Results from Your Marketing Materials


The moment I decided to specialize as a direct response copywriter (which means you get a response directly from the marketing materials, there's no middle person involved, like a sales rep) I knew there would be one thing that would determine if I would be eating steak or eating mac and cheese.

And what's the one thing? The results I got for my clients.

Therefore, improving results became a pretty big focus of mine. You might even call it a passion. (Some people who aren't nearly as nice have called it in an obsession.)

Regardless, here are 5 tips that can help you improve the conversions of your marketing materials.

1. Know who you're talking to. If I hear anyone say "women are my potential customers" or "anyone with skin is my target market" (yes, that really was a direct quote from someone who sold Mary Kay or Arbonne or something like that) I will send my border collies (all 3 of them) to your house and force you to play fetch with them until your arm falls off. Seriously, the quickest way you can end up with the most dismal results imaginable is to try and talk to everyone. Come up with a specific customer -- the more specific the better -- and make sure your marketing materials speak directly to that customer.

2. Make sure you write benefits, not features. This one is probably the hardest one to "get" but also one of the most critical. People buy benefits, not features, so if you only talk about features you're just asking for people not to buy what you're selling.

So what is the difference between features and benefits? Features are a description of a product -- for instance, if we're talking about a diet pill, a feature would that the product is a pill. A benefit would be the solution the product provides -- in this case, losing weight.

As much as you possibly can, write about why someone should buy your product. No one buys diet pills because they like taking pills, they buy them to lose weight. Think of the solution your product or service provides and write about that.

3. Work on that headline. David Ogilvy, famous ad man and author of Confessions of an Advertising Man, has said that people make the decision to read your marketing materials based your headline.

Your headline should: a. speak to your potential customers, b. contain a benefit, c. be so compelling your target market is compelled to read further. That's a lot to ask for from basically a handful of words. So don't rush the process -- take as much time as you need to create the very best headline for your particular piece.

4. Don't forget the call to action. You've got to tell people what to do next. If you don't tell them what you want them to do, chances are they won't do anything.

Don't assume your potential customers know what you want them to do. They don't. They can't read your mind. Nor do they want to. They're busy people. They don't have the time or the energy to figure things out. Tell them what to do next, or don't be surprised when they don't do anything.

5. Use P.S.'s or captions. Postscripts (P.S.) are the second most read item in a sales piece. What's the third? Captions. (The copy under photos, diagrams or other illustrations.) Now that you know that, think of the ways you can use either or both of those items in your pieces. Maybe you put a special offer in there or you highlight a particularly compelling benefit. Or you tell them again what you want their next step to be. Whatever you do, don't waste that space.

If you even do just one of these tips, you should start seeing better results. Work on all five and you might be amazed at how much your results improve.


Monday 21 June 2010

5 Things To Consider When Publishing A Newsletter


Providing a newsletter for your opt-in list subscribers provides many benefits in terms of driving traffic into your site as well as boosting the sales and profits of your site and company. This is a marketing ploy that will not hugely dent your marketing budget and will not also require many man-hours in developing this project.

With a newsletter, you can inform the public about your company and products as well as services. You can keep them posted and updated about what’s going-on with your company as well as many of your promotions and offerings. With these, you keep on reminding your subscribers that you are still here and is willing to offer them good deals and services.

Newsletters also allow you to impress your subscribers. It can show your expertise and knowledge about the topic at hand and the many benefits you can offer them. When you impress people, they will become potential customers and another great thing is that they can recommend you to their friends, colleagues and family. All of them could very well be customers in the future.

If you do not have a newsletter or publishing one for your site, then you may have to consider about researching and be well informed on how to publish one. It is not as easy as it seems but if and when you get the right idea and process, it will be smooth sailing from there on. Try to take the time to learn what you need to learn and get that newsletter ready and good to attract subscribers to your newsletter as well as traffic to your site.

In the next few paragraphs, I will provide you with some things to reflect on when you decide to start your own newsletter for your site. Here are five things to consider when publishing a newsletter.

1) Make sure that the content of your newsletter pertains to and closely associated with your business or the theme of your site. Do not dwell too far on what could be regarded as your field of expertise. You have started a site and your theme for your site will always be something you are knowledgeable about. For example; if you have a site that sells auto car parts, your newsletter must contain articles or content like photos that pertain to cars, auto parts and such. You may also include content about your company and your staff.

Remember that visitors of a certain site are there because they are interested in what the site has to offer. If they sign up for an opt-in list or for a newsletter this means that they want to be updated for that certain theme or subject. Be sure that when you publish your newsletter you are providing for the need of the subscriber as well as their interests.

2) Ensure that you have well written, information riddled and content rich articles. You articles will be the body of your newsletter and that they should be able to excite your readers as well as provide information. Articles should be well written and checked for errors such as spelling and grammatical errors for it to look professional and believable. The trust of your client to you and newsletter is at stake here.

3) Fact-check your articles. Make sure that you provide true facts and figures so that your reputation as an expert and knowledgeable in that field is not questioned. If you lose the trust of your subscribers these may persuade them to unsubscribe to your newsletter. You will lose many potential sales this way.

4) Provide fresh and new articles that can provide new information to your subscribers. If you publish stale and old news in your newsletter, there is a tendency that people or your subscribers already have read and known about them. This will lose their interest in your newsletter and they wont get to read what is most important, your ads. They may not open or read any of your succeeding newsletters losing your intention in writing and publishing newsletters, to get them to visit your site and make a purchase.

5) Never use copyrighted materials such as photos and articles. This is outright plagiarism, you may get into a lot of trouble for this. You can lose your business and get sued over copyright infringement. If you do not have the time to write your own articles, there are many willing and able professional article writers that can do it for you for a reasonable fee. All your investment in writing and publishing articles will be well worth it when you see your list build up and your traffic increasing.


Sunday 20 June 2010

5 Steps To Profiting From News Feeds


Looking at News Feeds, you might think they’re some of the most complex things to set up. Nothing could be further from the truth. They’re actually super-easy to create once you have the system set up properly.

You can break down the news feed system into a fast, low-cost system that you can do once, or several times over.

First I’ll answer a few of your questions about news feeds. Then I’ll reveal the “secret” steps to setting up and profiting from a news feed.

Common Question #1: What is a news feed?
A news feed is an automatically updating list of the latest news on a particular subject. For instance, the news feed on my Web site is on the subject of small business marketing.

Common Question #2: Why do I need one?
Other than being a really cool thing to have on your Web site, News feeds are also really great traffic boosters. Not only do they make your Web site more attractive to the all-important Web crawlers that view what's on your site, but News feeds also inspire visitors to come back to your site for fresh news.

So the benefits are two-fold:

• new visitors, and
• return visitors.

Please keep in mind there are a few things you need to do to see benefits from news feeds.

1. Choose a subject of interest to your audience. I chose small business marketing news. For you, it could be the latest news on a tough problem gripping your industry. The great part about it is that you don’t have to provide answers, just create a forum where your target market can access information about an issue.

2. Find your news feed. There are several services providing news feeds of various pieces of information. In my experience it’s best to locate news aggregators based only on your industry.

3. Place the feed on your Web site. This is where I initially ran into problems, but a programmer friend passed on a rather affordable solution that I was able to easily place the news feed on your Web site. The great thing about it is, once you set up the feed, you never really have to touch it again.

4. Make your site profitable. Consider placing advertisements on the same page as your news feed. No doubt the regularly updating news will be a hit with your audience and as more people come to the site you’ll be producing passive profits. (Say that five times fast!)

5. Drive traffic to your site. Over the years I’ve found the best way to drive traffic to a site is through article writing and distribution. It’s like an instant shot in the arm for quality traffic.

And that’s the “secret” formula to profiting from news feeds. Really, it’s no secret. It’s all about know which resources to use to make the news feed work for both you and your target audience.


Saturday 19 June 2010

5 Steps To Generating Your Own Passive List Building Machine!


How do you build a list building system that funnels subscribers passively into your database day in and day out?

Well, this one question is one of the major questions I get from many of my subscribers who are interested in building a responsive email list. The majority of my subscribers say that they built a marketable email list by using various tactics like ad swaps, articles, and solo ads. But their major problem comes in the area of sustaining their email list growth.

A lot of my subscribers shared with me that they are actually losing more subscribers than they are actually gaining. So how do we avoid this?

Well, that is the focus of this article.

Now let me start off by saying that you will be deceiving yourself if you just think that you can overcome this problem of constantly losing subscribers without any work.

Sitting on your butt and doing nothing is the hogwash approach to online marketing!

It really frustrates me to even think that there are actual individuals who believe that success can come with no work at all!

So before I move forward, make sure you get the lazy approach to online marketing out of your system as soon as possible. If you do not extract laziness from your life and your business, you won’t see any improvement in your life and online business.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me begin describing a legitimate way to passively funnel fresh responsive subscribers into your database.

I will list a series of steps that you can follow below:

1. Generate a content site for your niche

The goal in this step is to generate a website full of useful content that is related to the niche you are trying to build an email list for. A good content site, when organized well, can actually send repeat visitors to your website.

2. Place a Tell a Friend form at the bottom of the pages on your content site

A tell a friend form is a form that allows a visitor to recommend their friends to your website if they find the information on your website useful. A good content site with very valuable information will be virally recommended to a visitor’s friends and family if they find the content enjoyable and full of high quality information.

Therefore, make every effort to select or add the best quality content you can.

3. Add a popup note to every page of your content site

Adding a popup note to your website is an easy way to instantly grab the eyeballs of your visitors and force them to sign up to your newsletter or ezine. The type of popup notes I am referring to have been known to increase the responsiveness of website visitors to a certain offer just by describing the offer in the note.

To see an example of this type of popup in action, visit the link below:

http://www.free-traffic-generation.com

Now do you get the idea!

Just make sure you put a popup note on every page of your content website and you should see some consistent list growth. Also, make sure the popup is advertising your newsletter or ezine.

4. Write an article or press release about your new content website

Writing an article or press release is just a way to jump start the traffic to your website. Just one press release can send you hundreds of links to your site as well as some media publicity.

5. Generate another content website by repeating steps 1 thru 4...or just continue adding original content to your website.

Now this is all it takes to produce a passive list building machine that consistently sends streams of subscribers to your newsletter or ezine. The more content sites you have, the more subscribers you will be able to passively generate.


Friday 18 June 2010

5 Simple Steps To Setting Up Your Own Profitable Lead Capture System


List building is one of the most important parts of any online business. By building your own list you have the opportunity to try selling your products more than once. You also have the benefit of being able to offer your subscribers other products, and services when they become available.

So just how would you capture those leads and make them profitable for you?
Here are your 5 simple steps to setting up your own profitable lead capture system.

1) you will need your autoresponder setup, ready to accept your subscribers. To make it easy on yourself you can pre-load it with messages to send your subscribers from the outset, to remind them that they are on your list. Useful, informative and educational messages sent once or twice a week automatically will keep your list subscribers interested.

2) Setup an irresistible offer page, giving something of value to your potential subscribers for filling in the form to subscribe. This page needs to be as powerful as any sales page where you are charging for a product, as you will want it to convert as many visitors to subscribers as you can. Outline the benefits of what you're giving away, and even the benefits of the information in your preset messages (you did setup those messages right?).

3) Most autoresponders allow you to set a url (website address) to send your subscribers to after they subscribe, you should send them to a thank you page, and let them know if they need to confirm their address before they receive the first email from you. If they do need to confirm (they should, this is called double opt-in and may help save you from spam complaints), let your new subscriber know they will only get the email with the gift link after they confirm their subscription to your list.

4) Your first email to your new subscriber should contain the download link for the free gift you offered for subscribing. The ideal situation here is to send them to a web page to download. This page can also contain a special offer, sometimes called a one time offer (or OTO). Make this an unmissable deal related to the subject matter of your emails. Let the subscriber know they will only see this offer right now, if you do not have a special deal to offer, you can instead add a link to a product you sell as an affiliate, but make use of this valuable backend sale opportunity.

5) Keep sending traffic to your offer page and keep those subscribers coming. Join JV giveaway promotions which are happening all the time to put your gift in front of more and more people. Make sure you keep your subscribers by sending them regular informative emails, and it helps to give them more free gifts on a regular basis.

Words of advice, your list can be your own personal goldmine, but don't treat your subscribers as your personal ATM. Your list subscribers are people just like you, treat them as you'd like to be treated. Now get out there, and start building your subscriber list, using your new lead capture system, and watch how your profits increase as your list grows.


Thursday 17 June 2010

5 Simple and Easy Ways to Advertise Online


Some people say that advertising is everything!  Regardless if you have a product, a service, a hobby website or just want to share pictures of your wedding, you have to advertise somehow to get the traffic to your site or blog.

But not all traffic is equal. There are services that can help you drive tons and tons of traffic to your site and it won't do you any good at all because it's not targeted traffic.

Take for example all of the many different 'surf for traffic' or 'traffic clicking' programs that are out there. If you have a website that is about your hobby, say model airplanes, then what good is this traffic really going to do you? Who's using these services?

Webmasters and marketers that want traffic on their own site. So they most likely won't spend any more time on your page than is required by the little timer these services use and then they are gone again. Even if your site is about these traffic services (this is about the only time you will see very much benefit from using such a tool) you will still have to spend a ton of time just surfing and clicking around to get a real benefit from these programs. Once marketers realized this they switched gears. They started promoting all the different programs to a lot of other marketers to get them in their downlines, so they could get some traffic as a bonus. This became their new focus. The problem is that everyone else did exactly the same thing, so not a lot of people were surfing the internet anymore.

Bottom-line is this. You need targeted traffic. So here are some tips on how you can generate exactly the traffic you need and bring the visitors you want to your website without having to chase after them.

1. Content
What is your website about? Do you just have a page with a lot of links and not much else?

If this is the case, think about adding some content to your website that will be of value to any potential visitors. You could write articles or find articles at one of the many directories that you can reprint on your site.

2. Talk about your experiences in your subject matter.
You don't have to put up some kind of resume (although that can work too), but rather try writing about what you are doing, as it relates to your topic of choice. Let's look at the model airplanes again briefly, you could talk or write about the latest plane type you built, how the last time flying your plane went, what challenges you run into or perhaps even post some pictures of your plane or of you flying it.

3. Forums and bulletin boards.
You could add a forum or bulletin board to your website where your visitors can interact with each other. There are a lot of free services available out there that you can use to either remotely host a forum for you, or even software you can install on your website's server. To find some of these, just head over to your favorite search engine and you will definitely find plenty to choose from.

And while you are visiting the search engine, why not run a search for any bulletin boards and forums that are already out there for your chosen topic? You could visit those and interact with the visitors there and since many allow you to post a signature or a profile, you could add a little line about your own site with a link (just check the rules of the forum first so
you don't violate any of them).

4. Start a blog.
Blogs are very popular and search engines love them because they provide constantly new and fresh content. Your blog would be a great place to talk about what you are up to that day. So if you spent some time today buying new parts for your plane you could write about where you found them, how much they cost you, why you chose those parts, anything really goes.

The really great part about this is that you can point links from your blog back to your website, so when the search engine stops by to grab and index your latest content, it will also stop by your website and you will start seeing very targeted traffic heading your way.

5. Write articles.
Writing articles isn't hard and can be a great source of fresh, new traffic to your website. There are a lot of ezines on any topic out there and there are also a lot of directories where you can share your article.

Basically, what you do is write an article and then add a small resource box that links back to your website (just like a signature) and then let other ezine publishers know that you are allowing them to print your article in their ezine. And many publishers go to the article directories to find new content for their newsletter and even their websites. And since there are
websites and ezine newsletters on any imaginable topic out there, you can't lose. Write an article every couple of days and post it in the directories (even one a week or every two weeks will start getting you traffic). Very soon you will find new traffic coming from search engines, newsletters and websites.

Best of all, these 5 simple tips will bring targeted traffic, meaning the visitors are coming to you because they are interested in what you wrote.

So there you have it. Whether you have a simple and basic Work at Home Business or a significant Internet Marketing enterprise you can benefit from these 5 easy and simple ways to advertise and drive traffic to your website at absolutely no cost.



Stephen Wright is President & CEO of InternetMarketingUSA.com
Looking for Internet Marketing Ideas, Tips, and Solutions?  Get everything you need to make money online in "Dotcomology: The Science of Making Money Online". Absolutely Free at: http://www.InternetMarketingUSA.com/dotcomology.html


NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this article within your website or newsletter as long as you leave the article fully intact and include the "About The Author" resource box. Thanks! :-)


Wednesday 16 June 2010

5 Proven Ways to Waste Advertising Money


1. Yo Yo Advertising
My friend Dottie can precisely predict her sales peaks and plummets accurately...and no, she's not into fortune telling.  Experience has proven that March, April, and May will bring a lot of money to her account, while September and January will put her in the slumps

Sound familiar?  Have you too been caught in the vicious cycle of high and low sales volumes?  Why?  Most of us tend to advertise heavily while things are slow  - in a desperate attempt to get customers through the door, but back off when things are hopping.

If you're looking for an even-keeled market, develop a steady marketing plan.  Steady advertising produces steady growth...and steadily climbing profits!

2. Single Shot Advertising
One shot ads, rarely get results.  Most customers are just like you, they don't jump on the band wagon the first time it passes by.  They often need to see your sales material several times before they actually make the move to walk through the doors.

 Follow-ups are necessary for success.  We're not just talking about prospective customers now...even your loyal customers need to be cultivated for sales.  How many times have you thought about making a purchase, but just never followed through with it?  Sure, we all do it.  Sometimes it takes a little pressure to get us to part with our hard-earned money.  Make it a point to spend time building relationships with both new customers and your faithful following.

3. MonkeySee, Monkey Do Advertising
How many times have you seen the same advertisement ideas written with just a little different twist?  If you're surfing the Web you've come across plenty of the aped ads! Yeah, you can predict what the next paragraph will cover, because you've seen it so many other places.

 Sure, copy cat ads can be effective for a little while, but the results will quickly die down as others join in the copy mania.  If you're looking for REAL and LASTING results, be original.  Do what only you can do, forget about what everyone else is doing.  Be you.  When a competitor does have a good idea, improve on it.  Don't follow in his footsteps...step out and lead the way to more effective advertisements.

4. Wild Shot Advertising
Ready, aim...yeah aim before you advertise!  Don't be caught up in wild advertising that gets your message in front of a lot of people who have absolutely no interest in your product or service.

Target your market...and get better results for your investment.  Finding the target market that has a specific need you can fulfill takes a little time and research, but you'll feel the effects when you hit the bullseye!

Think about this...there are advertising venues that your competition is overlooking. What about postcards?  These high impact marketing tools are often overlooked.  Yet, they're the perfect low-cost way to generate prospective customer interest.  Keep an eye open for overlooked marketing gems, and get one up on your competition!

5. Me, Me Advertising
What is it that consumers are looking for?  ...Exactly, something that is going to benefit them.  They really aren't interested in the facts about your product...they want to know how it will impact their life or lifestyle.

Take a look at your ad copy, and ask yourself what are you portraying...facts or benefits. Multi Level Marketers have this all figured out.  Rather than tell you they have a business to offer, they spend a lot of time promising you freedom to work your own hours, countless vacations, summer homes and a host of other things you've probably already dreamed about at some point.  Hey, don't knock it...the MLM industry is a steadily growing element in our economy. 

Don't bore your readers with the facts...attract them with exciting elements that will fulfill their needs or desires. 

Are you getting the results you've been looking for?  Take another look at your marketing strategy...are you making the same mistakes many marketers unknowingly make.  Hey, real success may only be one change away!