Why is Advertising a dirty word?

The word “Advertising” or the politically correct word “Marketing” has gotten a bad rap
over the years.  People think they are tired of all the “Marketing” they see every day
and it is rather overwhelming.  We see advertisements everywhere we look, we simply cannot
get away from those pesky ads, Online, offline, TV, Radio and Telephone, what a drag.

But when we want to purchase a new bike or see a new show marketing becomes necessary.
Without the marketing we might never find the right model or the best price.  If there were
no advertisements life as we know it would just shudder and halt.

If we had no marketing we would have no TV, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines, Google, Yahoo,
cell phones, MP3 Players because all of these wonderful things we depend on would not be
financially able to exsist.  They are all paid for through the advertising income from other
businesses that want to showcase their product or service.  So, Advertising or Marketing is
not really a bad deal.

What is bad Online Marketing?

Some people think sending large volumes of email marketing ads to your inbox is a good way to
advertise their product or service.  This simply makes your prospect mad and they will not
do business with you under any circumstance.  They may even report you for spamming them and
believe me that is not good for business.

Marketing online in bad taste always turns your prospect away from your product or service.  Vulgar
language or images may seem cute but they are killers for your business. Never set yourself
up for failure in this way.

Placing your ad on a website or service that uses any of the above tactics will make your prospective
customer assume that you have no objection to the use of bad advertising techniques and you
are by association responsible for those tactics.  Choose your associations wisely.

What is good online Advertising?

If you are going to market your product by email be sure your leads have agreed to receive an
email from you.  This is difficult if you purchase your leads.  Most lead sources that advertise
leads will tell you they are double optin leads.  This simply means that the lead has agreed
twice to allow emails to be sent to their email address, however many of these leads are looking
for something free.  They have agreed to receive emails because that is the only way they will
get the free widget they want.  When your email arrives they will never remember that they gave
their permission for you to send it and you will be hard pressed to turn them into a good prospect.
The best solution is to build a list of your own that you are confident as been built with people
looking for your product or service.  Build a good solid reputation with them.

Place relevant content on your site.  Answer the question as to why your “widget” will solve THEIR
problem, save them money or make their life easier.  Remember that your prospect is not interested
in why you are in business or where you went on vacation.  They want a solution to a problem and
they want it now.

Never ever look down on your prospect.  It is bad business to make your prospect think you do not
respect them.  If they are uneducated about your product or service get down on their level and
do your best to educate them without making them feel stupid.

“Advertising” or “Marketing” is simply telling someone about something in which they are interested.
A prospect that wants to buy a dishwasher is not going to be interested in purchasing a new
car and no matter how much you badger them it is not going to happen.

The moral of good advertising is just like the value we have all been taught at one time or
another “Do unto your prospect as you would like your prospect to do unto you”.  Nothing more,
nothing less will do.

Jerry

SEO-What the heck is it and why should I care?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and you should care because it is the foundation
of building a steady stream of prospects to your online business site.

When you type a search term into Google or Yahoo the results that you see on the first page
of the results are the top ranked sites for that search term. There may be millions of sites
listed for that search term and they are listed by page rank, 10 sites per page from
the top ranked to the gazillionth rank site.

Now, if your online business site is ranked in the top ten it will be listed on the first page , if it is ranked 50th it will be on the 5 page and so on.  This is extremely important as most people will only look thru the first 2 or 3 pages to find a site that is offering them information satisfying there search term.  If you are not on the first few pages your site will most likely never be seen by the majority of prospects interested in your
product or service.  If it is never seen you will never make a dime and that my friend is the
name of the online business game.

So the question of the day is “how do I get my page ranked in the top 20″?

That is the question every website owner asks themselves every day.  There is no easy answer
to the question and every website owner has a different solution.  Some are good some are
not so good.

Seo Tips:

Submit to directories:

Some website owners submit their sites to as many directories as possile and this is time
consuming. It is really not a good use of your time.  Submit your site to Google, MSN and Yahoo as they are the big hitters.  Once the site is ranked on these they
they are the big hitters of the search engines, the other search engines will find it automatically.

Build back links to your site:

This should be your focus.  The website seo experts are all in agreement that the seach engines
love back links and the higher they rank the better.  Here are several very good ways to get
back links:
Submit original relevant articles for publication
submit ads on an ad service
post comments on blogs or forums

Maintain original content on your site:

Add original relevant content to your site as often as possible.  The search engines love to see new
content on your site every time they “crawl” your site so be sure to add something for them
to find.

There is much more the expert search engine optimization crowd continues to reveal but you
have to start somewhere.  Just get started building your rank with the top three search
engines, you can add solutions as you go, the important point is to get started.

Jerry

Email marketing isn’t complex or new. But the same mistakes are being made over and over by the marketing executives, sales professionals and owners of small businesses.

Used correctly, email marketing is a very effective medium to generate new leads, and build continuous contact with your customers and prospects. It will help you yield new sales and increase the popularity of your site.

Here are the top 10  mistakes.  Avoid these and you are on your way to increased sales!

1. Never under estimate your Current Customers List – This is by far the biggest mistake you can make.  Marketers just disregard their current customer”s, and leave money on the table. Even worse, many have not set up a way of capturing their customer’s email and contact details in a common list.

A  customer email list can be easily used to market new products to existing customers or to get repeat orders. Existing customers have seen your product and service before, and by maintaining a good relationship are more likely to buy from you again.

2. No specific Niche Target – One big, long message for everyone is no longer smart or effective. Nothing works the fast way. Now the trend is to do personalized, 1 to 1 marketing. If your standard message is for all prospects in all industries, chances are that it does not address anyone needs.  Use all of the email marketing tools at your disposal to locate those interested in your niche.

Here is one of Email marketing tips .

It is best to send several small, targeted emails to niche groups, which you can track to see what works in which industry, and who opened which mail. With this potent arsenal, you can focus your efforts on those chosen few to spend your time upon, and generate sales with a much larger payout.

3. Never use cheap lists – Using 300,000 emails from a $100 CD is bound to fail. These email addresses are mostly defunct, and most are acquired through snooping and email extraction from forums. They will almost never by focused on your niche email marketing groups.  Never send a blatant marketing message!  This is a sure-fire way to get yourself banned from major Internet Service Providers.  I don’t know about you but I do not deal with businesses that fill my inbox with junk.

You can buy a good list of your niche target group from reputed list broker.  This list is focused, fresh and interested in your product.  The very best method is to start compiling your own list of  prospects and customers to the effectiveness of email marketing program.

4. You need a system to measure response – Marketing just continues to send out message after message: No  measurement of efforts, and no mechanism to evaluate the response of past messages will leave you clueless as to the effectiveness of your messages. Without a method to measure responsiveness you are shooting in the dark, wondering why these efforts hardly bring in any results or prospects.

A good measurement system is very important.  With emails, you can tag each and every link, email account and email sent, so that when it is opened or clicked, you can immediately know who is interested, who is keen to buy, what product, and how eagerly.

A good measurement, system allows you to know who has spent time with your message, or on your website, and by knowing who they are and what they are interested in, you can customize future messages for them. Market something that they have shown interest in, and you are closer to another sale.

5. Set a clear goal or strategy – Start with the right goal and marketing strategy. Your first goal should be to establish trust and credibility within your target market.

Secondly, get the prospect interested enough in what you are selling, so that they are willing to give you their contact information.

Thirdly, your marketing message should be sent out regularly so that the prospect expects it, waits for it, and it shows that you are consistent, reliable, and trustworthy.  Build name recognition in your initial emails by providing solid fresh content concerning the problem your product solves.

Remember, marketing exists to generate leads, prospects and help sales.   So focus, and concentrate on these goals to build a solid email marketing solution.

6. It is vital that you adopt the philosophy of “Say what you will do and then do it”  The internet business world is full of empty promises.  Money back guarantees, worthless bonuses, fantastic claims, etc and not fulfilling your promises is a sure way to make an unhappy customer and  there goes another lost sale.

7. Keep your Marketing message consistent -  If you are selling widgets concentrate on information that is relevant to widgets.  Be sure your information is properly linked to your company’s website and always provide a telephone number, fax number and contact information. Just giving an email address is not sufficient to build trust and prove that yours is a genuine offer.

8. Avoid Boring Marketing Messages or Ad copy – A long repetitive message is no way to capture the prospects attention.  Statistics show that your prospect is going to view your message only long enough to determine if it interests them.  About 3-4 seconds, which means your subject line must interest them and the first couple of paragraphs must be good enough to capture their attention.

Short and simple is the rule here.  Most people market themselves and very few prospects are interested.  The key is to market a solution to THEIR PROBLEM. Very few are interested in how long it took to develop your product, how much you spent to bring it to them or which how many gurus are tripping over each other to buy it.  They want to know how it is going to make THEIR problem go away.

Once you establish a bond by acknowledging that you know about their problems, they will be more amenable to your message, and products.

9. Patience is the key to developing sales – It is a proven fact that a new prospect will take an average of 5-7 different interactions before they build enough trust in you and your products or services before thinking of buying from you. So if you stop marketing to prospects after sending messages to them once or twice, thinking that they  do not seem interested, you are losing sales.  Remember each lead you have developed has cost you time and money develop them as a key resource to your success.

Continuing to hand hold them and stay in constant contact will help you in the long run, as you will be familiar to the prospect. People love to do business with people they know, and not strangers. Email is the most cost-effective way to stay in touch.

10. Demonstrate a willingness to Educating the prospect – The marketers are so focused on sales, that they do not spend enough time with their prospects to educate them. Remember that if you service a prospect well, they will most likely convert to a paying customer sooner or later.  Have patience.  Use email to market to them regularly with information, education, free offers etc. until they build enough trust to buy from you.

Conclusion:

Email marketing has been proven time and again, if done correctly.  Big companies like IBM, Amazon, HP are using it effectively, and smaller companies are depending upon it to build dependable, profitable and reliable prospects.

With its lows cost, and effectiveness, email marketing helps to build long term relationships with your target audience. Use it wisely, and you will continue to reap its rewards.

Jerry

Affiliate marketing has become one of the most effective ways to advertise online. It is also
one of the easiest ways for anyone with a website to make a profit online. Affiliate Program Marketing
is an agreement between a merchant and a website owner. The website owner, or the affiliate, allows
the use of their site for the promotion of the merchant’s products by linking to the merchant’s website.
In exchange, the merchant pays a commission to the affiliate on all sales generated by the affiliate.
Every time someone clicks on the link on the affiliate website and proceeds to make a purchase, the
affiliate gets a commission. The merchant will pay the affiliate only when a customer clicks on the
product link and makes a purchase.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing programs are described as a win-win situation for both the merchant and the
affiliate because of the pay-for-performance scheme. Both the merchant and the affiliate enjoy some
benefits in affiliate marketing. There are many benefits on the merchant’s side. It gives the merchant
a wider market in which to advertise a product or service. Affiliate marketing will give the product
or service the maximum exposure that it may not get with other traditional advertising techniques.

The more affiliate sites a merchant has, the higher the traffic, which can convert to sales.  Affiliate marketing on the internet is the equivalent of having an army of sales people who will do the advertising and will only get a commission if a customer purchases.

Meanwhile, since an affiliate marketing relationship is a win-win situation, the affiliate also enjoys
many benefits. Foremost among these is the easy way to make a profit. The affiliate can earn by having
an ad or link to the merchant’s website, which prospective customers will hopefully click and proceed
to make a purchase. As soon as the customer clicks on the ad on the affiliate’s site, is redirected to
the merchant’s website and goes on to buy that particular product, the affiliate earns a commission.
The more referrals there are the more profit for the affiliate.

Niche affiliate marketing is an excellent way to earn money while at home. There are virtually no production costs. The product is already developed and proven by the merchant, and all you have to do to find, asmany prospects as you can that will bring in the profit for both the merchant and the affiliate. Affiliate programs are usually free to join, so affiliates do not have to worry about start-up costs. There are thousands of products and services you can choose from. You can find affiliate programs for every product under the sun.   Surely, there is a product or service out there that is relevant to your website.

In addition, there is absolutely no sales experience necessary. Most affiliate programs offer excellent support when it comes to providing marketing material. The simplicity of affiliate program marketing allows you to be an affiliate marketer at the least cost and the most comfort. You can even build a successful affiliate marketing business right in the convenience of your own home. In niche affiliate marketing, your responsibility is simply to find prospects for the merchant; you do not have to worry about inventory, order processing, and product shipping. These, along with customer service support are the duties of the merchant.

Because of the global reach of the internet, you can easily find thousands of prospects. You can intensify your advertising campaign by exploiting more aggressive and productive strategies such as viral marketing. By attracting more prospects, you also maximize your potential to earn. Another benefit of an affiliate marketer is the minimal risk involved. If the product you are advertising is not making money then you can dump it and choose another. There are no long-term binding contracts tying you to products that are not making enough money.

All the same, the best benefit of being an affiliate marketer is the opportunity to increase your income; and you can make a profit even if affiliate marketing is only a sideline business. With your own affiliate business, you can earn easily earn extra income, although you do have to exert effort and use your imagination to maximize your earning potential.  Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the simplest and most effective business opportunities on the web today.

Jerry

What is niche marketing and why should you care.

Niche marketing is the process of stepping away from the crowd and marketing to a special
group of prospects.

For example, I wanted to buy parts for an old gravely tractor that I was restoring and I
wanted to find a source for the parts.  I went to my Google search and typed in the word
gravely.  I received over 3,000,000 sites dealing with Gravely.  If I typed gravely tractor
I received over 72,000 as I eliminated those sites dealing with Gravely products that did
not relate to Tractors.  I typed in gravely tractor parts and google displayed over 83,000
sites.  That is still more than I want to look at so I refine my search to “Gravely Tractor
transmission parts” and there are only two sites listed.

If I had some transmission parts for an old Gravely Tractor I would build a site to reflect
the parts and use the keyword phrase “Gravely Tractor Transmission Parts”.  That is my niche.

The same holds true for any idea for a product or service you may have.  Build a site around
the niche and refine the keywords for the search engines so that you have a narrow niche
of prospects.  These are the people that are ready to buy not those just killing time looking
around the internet, those are the people you want visiting your site.

This is a recent example of someone capitalizing on a popular comment in the news and building
a niche site to capitalize on it.

During the last election, President elect Barack Obama promised his daughter a dog if he was
elected but they needed a special dog.  One of the daughters was allergic to dog dander so
they needed to find a dog that was hypoallergenic.  Someone picked up on that and built a
site for hypoallergenic dogs and sure enough the public became so interested in those dogs
that the site received many thousands of visitors in a short amount of time and the site
owner received a handsome profit for his fore sight.

Niche Affiliate marketing is simply building a site around a popular niche and adding affiliate
links on it.  There are affiliate products for almost all possible niche marketing ideas.

Tonight when you listen to the nightly news listen for possible items that will interest the
public and move them to find out more on the internet. These are great ideas for niche affiliate
marketing sites.  The late night shows are also very good places for finding the best niche
for internet marketing.  If the late night hosts are joking about something it is in the news
or will be soon.  They are almost like a niche marketing reviews.

Building small niche marketing sites builds a virtual real estate empire and can return a very
nice income for anyone making the effort.

For more information on building niche affiliate marketing sites go to
Build a Affiliate Marketing Empire

Jerry

Ok, you have decided to give this online business a go.  But you need something to sell.
You don’t have thousands of widgets sitting around the house so you need something that
someone else has developed and will allow you to sell on your site.  You need to find
something that you think will sell.  This is called Affiliate Marketing and it is one
of the easiest ways to make money on the internet.

Most people set up a website and then try to work affiliate programs into it. I know I did.
I bought a domain name that I thought was clever, hosted it and built a website that I
considered a real winner.  Then I started to find affiliate products to put on the site.
Problems, Problems,Problems, I could not find programs that made sense for the site

If you want to go into the Health industry there are thousands of affiliate programs available
to you but if your site is called “maryjanes hobbies.com” they will not fit very well.  A good
solution to this problem would be to buy a domain name like “Mygoodhealth.com” and then
find the health products for the site.

There are many places to find great products for your site no matter what the subject.  These are free to join and want you to use their products for your site.
Here are several of the best around.

Commission Junction:  http://www.commissionjunction.com
Clickbank:  http://www.clickbank.com
Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com
Pepperjam:  http://www.pepperjam.com

There are many more out there but these are the most popular and the best as far as service
and reliability.

You will also find individual companies that want you to offer there products on your site.
Simply go to www.google.com and type “yourproducttype affiliate programs”.  For example
health products affiliate programs.  You will get thousands of site offering good money for
selling their products.  Let me explain what selling their products means, you simply put a
link to their site on your site and when someone goes to their site and buys the product you
earn a commission.  Cool right.  You never physically handle the product, they do all
the heavy work for you.

Why not spend some time shopping for some products for your site?

Jerry