By: Evelyn Lim
Selecting the correct keywords can make or break your website. Potential customers search the web for desired sites, and if your website doesn't have the keywords they're looking for, they'll miss you.
Determining keywords is an art; it's best to work backwards. What would a customer search for if they were looking for your site? You literally have to put yourself in the consumer's place and let go of your preconceived notions about what you think your keywords are. You should remember when writing your site that you need to use words that are not only related to your content, but are popular search words as well. This is called keyword optimization, or choosing the most searched keywords related to your content.
Spend some time listing all of the words and phrases that are related to your website content. Get ideas from everyone you can think of and list them all. Visit competitors' sites and see what meta tags they use. After this research, you are ready to develop your own keyword phrases.
There are several sites designed to assist you in keyword optimization. Here are a few of the free ones:-
The Overture Keyword Tool (http://www.inventory.overture.com ) lists searches related to the keyword you provide. This took is great for expanding your list.
Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) helps identify keywords that will help your ranking on search engines. Wordtracker also gives you other keyword combinations that you may have overlooked.
The Keyword Tumbler (http://www.keywordtumbler.com) takes your existing keyword phrases and mixes it up to form new phrases and variations that you can include in your meta tags.
A great website is not so great if no one finds it. Remember to research your keywords carefully from the consumer's viewpoint and then sit back and watch the traffic roll in!
Evelyn Lim is a publisher of the popular newsletter "Mapping You to Success" aimed at the aspiring home based internet business owner. She also hopes to educate her readers on acquiring multiple sources of online income. Please visit her site at http://www.e-BizMap.com for more information.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
How I Use Email Automatic Responders
By: Jeff Schuman
An email automatic responder or autoresponder is the second most important marketing tool I have to make money online. The first would be my hosting company. Without these 2 tools my internet marketing business is dead in the water.
In the world of internet marketing, millions of sites are fiercely competing with each other to gain new clients. For any ecommerce site to succeed, it must capture the interest and the trust of its visitors. It is not enough that your site is perfectly designed or has the latest in animation of content.
You should focus your efforts not only in attracting visitors but also in leading them to make a purchase. There are dozens of marketing strategies you can use to attract more buyers and pump up your sales. One of them is by establishing an excellent and professional reputation for prompt and efficient response.
As more potential customers visit your site, you should expect a flood of inquiries and requests for information. This is an excellent opportunity for you to capture more clients and lead them to buying from your site. Thus, it is important that you carry out an efficient and prompt response to every email you receive. The fastest and most effective way to do this is by utilizing an email automatic responder.
Autoresponder services use a computer program that automatically return a prewritten message to anyone who sends an email to your site. It is widely used for responding to consumer inquiries and visitor comments and suggestions.
Follow up automatic responders are also used by e-zines in responding to people who subscribe or unsubscribe to their online magazines. Companies, who send out their e-newsletter regularly, also use utoresponders.
How can effective autoresponder services help boost your business? The answer lies in its ability to return a prompt response to any e-mail the site receives. By responding rapidly and efficiently, you create a very good impression on your potential customer. Good email autorespondrs help you get important information back to these customers immediately. An effective autoresponder service helps you communicate your message promptly, creating a sense of professionalism and efficiency that your clients will definitely appreciate.
Another very important advantage of email automatic responders is that it saves time with multiple marketing tasks. Certainly, you do not have enough time to personally make and send all correspondence. Autoresponder services allows you to send thank you letters, newsletters, product information, brochures, orders etc. to hundreds of clients almost immediately and simultaneously. Autoresponder services are also indispensable in any email marketing campaign.
Choosing the right autoresponder is very important. What makes the best automatic responder? First, you should pick an autoresponder that is reliable and can give you 24/7 service. You cannot afford to lose a customer because your autoresponder failed to answer his query or request for information. The ability to respond promptly is the first thing you must look for in any automatic responder.
Another key factor you should consider when choosing Autoresponder servcies is flexibility. Good autoresponders allow you to customize unique responses that will have maximum effect on the customer. You should avoid creating an impression that the customer is communicating with a machine instead of a real human being.
An excellent email automatic responder lets you provide the information that is specifically targeted for what the potential customers are looking for. Because any email from potential customers essentially represent the customer's intent on getting more information about your product, which can ultimately lead to direct sales, all emails are important. Thus, a top Autoresponder servcie must fulfill all these duties to help you boost your business.
For all of our autoresponder needs we prefer Aweber. They are very reasonably priced and have proved to be reliable and easy to use.
Team-Schuman.Com contains the best make money online and make money websites available today. If you want to make money check us out here: http://www.team-schuman.com/email-automatic-responder.html
An email automatic responder or autoresponder is the second most important marketing tool I have to make money online. The first would be my hosting company. Without these 2 tools my internet marketing business is dead in the water.
In the world of internet marketing, millions of sites are fiercely competing with each other to gain new clients. For any ecommerce site to succeed, it must capture the interest and the trust of its visitors. It is not enough that your site is perfectly designed or has the latest in animation of content.
You should focus your efforts not only in attracting visitors but also in leading them to make a purchase. There are dozens of marketing strategies you can use to attract more buyers and pump up your sales. One of them is by establishing an excellent and professional reputation for prompt and efficient response.
As more potential customers visit your site, you should expect a flood of inquiries and requests for information. This is an excellent opportunity for you to capture more clients and lead them to buying from your site. Thus, it is important that you carry out an efficient and prompt response to every email you receive. The fastest and most effective way to do this is by utilizing an email automatic responder.
Autoresponder services use a computer program that automatically return a prewritten message to anyone who sends an email to your site. It is widely used for responding to consumer inquiries and visitor comments and suggestions.
Follow up automatic responders are also used by e-zines in responding to people who subscribe or unsubscribe to their online magazines. Companies, who send out their e-newsletter regularly, also use utoresponders.
How can effective autoresponder services help boost your business? The answer lies in its ability to return a prompt response to any e-mail the site receives. By responding rapidly and efficiently, you create a very good impression on your potential customer. Good email autorespondrs help you get important information back to these customers immediately. An effective autoresponder service helps you communicate your message promptly, creating a sense of professionalism and efficiency that your clients will definitely appreciate.
Another very important advantage of email automatic responders is that it saves time with multiple marketing tasks. Certainly, you do not have enough time to personally make and send all correspondence. Autoresponder services allows you to send thank you letters, newsletters, product information, brochures, orders etc. to hundreds of clients almost immediately and simultaneously. Autoresponder services are also indispensable in any email marketing campaign.
Choosing the right autoresponder is very important. What makes the best automatic responder? First, you should pick an autoresponder that is reliable and can give you 24/7 service. You cannot afford to lose a customer because your autoresponder failed to answer his query or request for information. The ability to respond promptly is the first thing you must look for in any automatic responder.
Another key factor you should consider when choosing Autoresponder servcies is flexibility. Good autoresponders allow you to customize unique responses that will have maximum effect on the customer. You should avoid creating an impression that the customer is communicating with a machine instead of a real human being.
An excellent email automatic responder lets you provide the information that is specifically targeted for what the potential customers are looking for. Because any email from potential customers essentially represent the customer's intent on getting more information about your product, which can ultimately lead to direct sales, all emails are important. Thus, a top Autoresponder servcie must fulfill all these duties to help you boost your business.
For all of our autoresponder needs we prefer Aweber. They are very reasonably priced and have proved to be reliable and easy to use.
Team-Schuman.Com contains the best make money online and make money websites available today. If you want to make money check us out here: http://www.team-schuman.com/email-automatic-responder.html
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
E-marketing Strategy: 7 Dimensions To Consider (The E-marketing Mix)
What is e-Marketing?
e-Marketing is still quite a controversial subject to talk about, since no one succeeded to unify the various theories around it; however there is one thing upon which there is no doubt – that e-Marketing first appeared under the form of various techniques deployed by pioneer companies selling their products via the internet in the early 90's.
The frenzy around these new marketing techniques created by e-tailers and supported by the internet rapidly gave birth to a new dimension of what we knew as Marketing: the e-Marketing (electronic Marketing).
There are many definitions to what e-Marketing is, the simplest and shortest one being formulated by Mark Sceats: e-Marketing is Marketing that uses the internet as manifestation media. A working definition is that coming from a group of CISCO specialists: e-Marketing is the sum of all activities a business conducts through the internet with the purpose of finding, attracting, winning and retaining customers.
e-Marketing Strategy
The e-Marketing Strategy is normally based and built upon the principles that govern the traditional, offline Marketing – the well-known 4 P's (Product – Price – Promotion – Positioning) that form the classic Marketing mix. Add the extra 3 P's (People – Processes – Proof) and you got the whole extended Marketing mix.
Until here, there are no much aspects to differentiate e-Marketing from the traditional Marketing performed offline: the extended Marketing mix (4 3 P's) is built around the concept of "transactional" and its elements perform transactional functions defined by the exchange paradigm. What gives e-Marketing its uniqueness is a series of specific functions, relational functions, that can be synthesized in the 2P 2C 3S formula: Personalization, Privacy, Customer Service, Community, Site, Security, Sales Promotion.
These 7 functions of the e-Marketing stay at the base of any e-Marketing strategy and they have a moderating character, unlike the classic Marketing mix that comprises situational functions only. Moderating functions of e-Marketing have the quality of moderate, operate upon all situational functions of the mix (the classic 4 P's) and upon each other.
1. Personalization
The fundamental concept of personalization as a part of the e-Marketing mix lies in the need of recognizing, identifying a certain customer in order to establish relations (establishing relations is a fundamental objective of Marketing). It is crucial to be able to identify our customers on individual level and gather all possible information about them, with the purpose of knowing our market and be able to develop customized, personalized products and services.
For example, a cookie strategically placed on the website visitor's computer can let us know vital information concerning the access speed available: in consequence, if we know the visitor is using a slow connection (eg. dial-up) we will offer a low-volume variation of our website, with reduced graphic content and no multimedia or flash applications. This will ease our customer's experience on our website and he will be prevented from leaving the website on the reason that it takes too long to load its pages.
Personalization can be applied to any component of the Marketing mix; therefore, it is a moderating function.
2. Privacy
Privacy is an element of the mix very much connected to the previous one – personalization. When we gather and store information about our customers and potential customers (therefore, when we perform the personalization part of the e-Marketing mix) a crucial issue arises: that of the way this information will be used, and by whom. A major task to do when implementing an e-Marketing strategy is that of creating and developing a policy upon access procedures to the collected information.
This is a duty and a must for any conscious marketer to consider all aspects of privacy, as long as data are collected and stored, data about individual persons.
Privacy is even more important when establishing the e-Marketing mix since there are many regulations and legal aspects to be considered regarding collection and usage of such information.
3. Customer Service
Customer service is one of the necessary and required activities among the support functions needed in transactional situations.
We will connect the apparition of the customer service processes to the inclusion of the "time" parameter in transactions. When switching from a situational perspective to a relational one, and e-Marketing is mostly based on a relational perspective, the marketer saw himself somehow forced into considering support and assistance on a non-temporal level, permanently, over time.
For these reasons, we should consider the Customer Service function (in its fullest and largest definition) as an essential one within the e-Marketing mix.
As we can easily figure out, the service (or assistance if you wish) can be performed upon any element from the classic 4 P's, hence its moderating character.
4. Community
We can all agree that e-Marketing is conditioned by the existence of this impressive network that the internet is. The merely existence of such a network implies that individuals as well as groups will eventually interact. A group of entities that interact for a common purpose is what we call a "community" and we will soon see why it is of absolute importance to participate, to be part of a community.
The Metcalf law (named after Robert Metcalf) states that the value of a network is given by the number of its components, more exactly the value of a network equals the square of the number of components. We can apply this simple law to communities, since they are a network: we will then conclude that the value of a community rises with the number of its members. This is the power of communities; this is why we have to be a part of it.
The customers / clients of a business can be seen as part of a community where they interact (either independent or influenced by the marketer) – therefore developing a community is a task to be performed by any business, even though it is not always seen as essential.
Interactions among members of such a community can address any of the other functions of e-Marketing, so it can be placed next to other moderating functions.
5. Site
We have seen and agreed that e-Marketing interactions take place on a digital media – the internet. But such interactions and relations also need a proper location, to be available at any moment and from any place – a digital location for digital interactions.
Such a location is what we call a "site", which is the most widespread name for it. It is now the time to mention that the "website" is merely a form of a "site" and should not be mistaken or seen as synonyms. The "site" can take other forms too, such as a Palm Pilot or any other handheld device, for example.
This special location, accessible through all sort of digital technologies is moderating all other functions of the e-Marketing – it is then a moderating function.
6. Security
The "security" function emerged as an essential function of e-Marketing once transactions began to be performed through internet channels.
What we need to keep in mind as marketers are the following two issues on security:
- security during transactions performed on our website, where we have to take all possible precautions that third parties will not be able to access any part of a developing transaction;
- security of data collected and stored, about our customers and visitors.
A honest marketer will have to consider these possible causes of further trouble and has to co-operate with the company's IT department in order to be able to formulate convincing (and true, honest!) messages towards the customers that their personal details are protected from unauthorized eyes.
7. Sales Promotion
At least but not last, we have to consider sales promotions when we build an e-Marketing strategy. Sales promotions are widely used in traditional Marketing as well, we all know this, and it is an excellent efficient strategy to achieve immediate sales goals in terms of volume.
This function counts on the marketer's ability to think creatively: a lot of work and inspiration is required in order to find new possibilities and new approaches for developing an efficient promotion plan.
On the other hand, the marketer needs to continuously keep up with the latest internet technologies and applications so that he can fully exploit them.
To conclude, we have seen that e-Marketing implies new dimensions to be considered aside of those inherited from the traditional Marketing. These dimensions revolve around the concept of relational functions and they are a must to be included in any e-Marketing strategy in order for it to be efficient and deliver results.
About the author:
Otilia is a certified Marketing consultant with expertise in e-Marketing and e-Business. She developed and teach her own online course in Principles of Marketing (http://class.universalclass.com/emarketing). You can contact Otilia through her Marketing resources portal at http://www.teawithedge.com
What is e-Marketing?
e-Marketing is still quite a controversial subject to talk about, since no one succeeded to unify the various theories around it; however there is one thing upon which there is no doubt – that e-Marketing first appeared under the form of various techniques deployed by pioneer companies selling their products via the internet in the early 90's.
The frenzy around these new marketing techniques created by e-tailers and supported by the internet rapidly gave birth to a new dimension of what we knew as Marketing: the e-Marketing (electronic Marketing).
There are many definitions to what e-Marketing is, the simplest and shortest one being formulated by Mark Sceats: e-Marketing is Marketing that uses the internet as manifestation media. A working definition is that coming from a group of CISCO specialists: e-Marketing is the sum of all activities a business conducts through the internet with the purpose of finding, attracting, winning and retaining customers.
e-Marketing Strategy
The e-Marketing Strategy is normally based and built upon the principles that govern the traditional, offline Marketing – the well-known 4 P's (Product – Price – Promotion – Positioning) that form the classic Marketing mix. Add the extra 3 P's (People – Processes – Proof) and you got the whole extended Marketing mix.
Until here, there are no much aspects to differentiate e-Marketing from the traditional Marketing performed offline: the extended Marketing mix (4 3 P's) is built around the concept of "transactional" and its elements perform transactional functions defined by the exchange paradigm. What gives e-Marketing its uniqueness is a series of specific functions, relational functions, that can be synthesized in the 2P 2C 3S formula: Personalization, Privacy, Customer Service, Community, Site, Security, Sales Promotion.
These 7 functions of the e-Marketing stay at the base of any e-Marketing strategy and they have a moderating character, unlike the classic Marketing mix that comprises situational functions only. Moderating functions of e-Marketing have the quality of moderate, operate upon all situational functions of the mix (the classic 4 P's) and upon each other.
1. Personalization
The fundamental concept of personalization as a part of the e-Marketing mix lies in the need of recognizing, identifying a certain customer in order to establish relations (establishing relations is a fundamental objective of Marketing). It is crucial to be able to identify our customers on individual level and gather all possible information about them, with the purpose of knowing our market and be able to develop customized, personalized products and services.
For example, a cookie strategically placed on the website visitor's computer can let us know vital information concerning the access speed available: in consequence, if we know the visitor is using a slow connection (eg. dial-up) we will offer a low-volume variation of our website, with reduced graphic content and no multimedia or flash applications. This will ease our customer's experience on our website and he will be prevented from leaving the website on the reason that it takes too long to load its pages.
Personalization can be applied to any component of the Marketing mix; therefore, it is a moderating function.
2. Privacy
Privacy is an element of the mix very much connected to the previous one – personalization. When we gather and store information about our customers and potential customers (therefore, when we perform the personalization part of the e-Marketing mix) a crucial issue arises: that of the way this information will be used, and by whom. A major task to do when implementing an e-Marketing strategy is that of creating and developing a policy upon access procedures to the collected information.
This is a duty and a must for any conscious marketer to consider all aspects of privacy, as long as data are collected and stored, data about individual persons.
Privacy is even more important when establishing the e-Marketing mix since there are many regulations and legal aspects to be considered regarding collection and usage of such information.
3. Customer Service
Customer service is one of the necessary and required activities among the support functions needed in transactional situations.
We will connect the apparition of the customer service processes to the inclusion of the "time" parameter in transactions. When switching from a situational perspective to a relational one, and e-Marketing is mostly based on a relational perspective, the marketer saw himself somehow forced into considering support and assistance on a non-temporal level, permanently, over time.
For these reasons, we should consider the Customer Service function (in its fullest and largest definition) as an essential one within the e-Marketing mix.
As we can easily figure out, the service (or assistance if you wish) can be performed upon any element from the classic 4 P's, hence its moderating character.
4. Community
We can all agree that e-Marketing is conditioned by the existence of this impressive network that the internet is. The merely existence of such a network implies that individuals as well as groups will eventually interact. A group of entities that interact for a common purpose is what we call a "community" and we will soon see why it is of absolute importance to participate, to be part of a community.
The Metcalf law (named after Robert Metcalf) states that the value of a network is given by the number of its components, more exactly the value of a network equals the square of the number of components. We can apply this simple law to communities, since they are a network: we will then conclude that the value of a community rises with the number of its members. This is the power of communities; this is why we have to be a part of it.
The customers / clients of a business can be seen as part of a community where they interact (either independent or influenced by the marketer) – therefore developing a community is a task to be performed by any business, even though it is not always seen as essential.
Interactions among members of such a community can address any of the other functions of e-Marketing, so it can be placed next to other moderating functions.
5. Site
We have seen and agreed that e-Marketing interactions take place on a digital media – the internet. But such interactions and relations also need a proper location, to be available at any moment and from any place – a digital location for digital interactions.
Such a location is what we call a "site", which is the most widespread name for it. It is now the time to mention that the "website" is merely a form of a "site" and should not be mistaken or seen as synonyms. The "site" can take other forms too, such as a Palm Pilot or any other handheld device, for example.
This special location, accessible through all sort of digital technologies is moderating all other functions of the e-Marketing – it is then a moderating function.
6. Security
The "security" function emerged as an essential function of e-Marketing once transactions began to be performed through internet channels.
What we need to keep in mind as marketers are the following two issues on security:
- security during transactions performed on our website, where we have to take all possible precautions that third parties will not be able to access any part of a developing transaction;
- security of data collected and stored, about our customers and visitors.
A honest marketer will have to consider these possible causes of further trouble and has to co-operate with the company's IT department in order to be able to formulate convincing (and true, honest!) messages towards the customers that their personal details are protected from unauthorized eyes.
7. Sales Promotion
At least but not last, we have to consider sales promotions when we build an e-Marketing strategy. Sales promotions are widely used in traditional Marketing as well, we all know this, and it is an excellent efficient strategy to achieve immediate sales goals in terms of volume.
This function counts on the marketer's ability to think creatively: a lot of work and inspiration is required in order to find new possibilities and new approaches for developing an efficient promotion plan.
On the other hand, the marketer needs to continuously keep up with the latest internet technologies and applications so that he can fully exploit them.
To conclude, we have seen that e-Marketing implies new dimensions to be considered aside of those inherited from the traditional Marketing. These dimensions revolve around the concept of relational functions and they are a must to be included in any e-Marketing strategy in order for it to be efficient and deliver results.
About the author:
Otilia is a certified Marketing consultant with expertise in e-Marketing and e-Business. She developed and teach her own online course in Principles of Marketing (http://class.universalclass.com/emarketing). You can contact Otilia through her Marketing resources portal at http://www.teawithedge.com
Internet Marketing - A Maze In A Haze?
Internet marketing, website marketing, call it what you will, can be a bit like a maze. You charge off down one route......dead end. Someone sends you off down another route with a big smile on their face.......another dead end. Another route looks promising.......until it fizzles out and you reach another dead end. You can't cheat by looking over the hedge, it's about 20 feet high! A big ladder so you can get a good view? No, they've all been hidden. None left on the planet! Except those in the vaults of the internet gurus, you suspect.
So, you keep going around this maze, and at every turn there's advertising, all about the maze itself, telling you about which way to go. Plans of the maze which, if you follow, may get you half way round, only to find you need to buy another plan to get the rest of the way. So what do you do? Carry on around this maze unaided? Or buy another plan? You buy another plan of this maze, and lo and behold, you end up at a place somewhere near the exit into real open daylight (you think), but how do you get the correct final few turns? Anyway, maybe you're not near the exit after all? You could be on the far side of the maze from the exit. Sound familiar?
If you've been researching the internet from a business point of view for any length of time, you have probably found that much of the advertising, the marketing, is about ................. internet marketing. This is partly why it can seem like a maze. If you are not sure what is going to work to market your website, or the products in it, how do you know which advice to listen too, which "offers" to take up?
Why is Internet Marketing Such a Maze?
Marketing is a subject I've been interested in for many years, long before I was partner in an advertising related business in the early 90's. Then, marketing was a quite stable world. The most recent "change" of any significance had been TV, and TV advertising had evolved steadily over several decades. It was glossy, glamorous, and...........very expensive. That was good for the big advertising agencies, and they chased the big advertisers with massive budgets for TV advertising. They had their creative departments to come up with memorable TV ads, often designed to be memorable rather than to sell, and their media buyers to buy time on the commercial TV stations.
The glamour was in TV, but every company and every agency would work on a marketing mix: radio advertising, sales promotions, glossy magazine advertising, newspaper advertising, trade ads, direct mail.....all played their part. These all had one thing in common, though: they had been around for a very long time. Marketing was a stable industry, not in economic terms, but in the "tricks of the trade". There were a few minor variations here and there, but basically, the marketing industry had its accepted, well documented, ways of doing things. Skill levels varied of course, and that's where competition came in between the agencies and between companies in the same industries. The point is, though, it was all basically stable. Good or bad, it was stable.
Then along came the internet. Being involved in advertising in the mid 90's, it was obvious to me that the potential was absolutely enormous. Mind boggling. It was difficult to demonstrate, though, as speeds were painfully slow. You'd try to show someone over a cup of coffee or tea, and you'd finish the drink while the second page was loading. Try coming back in 5 years. Well, they did. With a vengeance.
The internet itself came on in leaps and bounds after that. Technically it developed rapidly. Companies started to realise they "had" to have an internet presence. Why? Well, often because their competitor did, or because they thought they should before their competitor did. They were diving in, pretty much blind; they did not understand what they were getting into. The stock markets cottoned on that something big was in the offing, so .com shares were being touted to ever higher levels. Shares of companies with no substance in most cases.
I used to trade shares on a daily basis in those days, and I never touched one internet related company. I cringed every time I saw the financial figures of a listed .com. Prices of shares were often in the stratosphere while turnover was meagre and profits non existent, then and into the future. The traders in the London Stock Exchange and Wall Street did not understand. The internet was new, there was no history to go on. They simply did not understand. They were excited, and were exciting others too. The buying was frantic. The crash inevitable.
Companies all over the world were realising, though, that they must have a web presence. Companies had marketing departments and/or advertising agencies. So they too had to go along with the the tidal wave of internet anticipation. What did they do? They followed the accepted patterns for marketing in those days. TV advertising. Radio advertising. Big newspaper ads. The massive costs of those methods bore no relationship then to the potential for additional income, for sales. They were throwing money down the drain in most cases. Why? They simply did not understand!
The internet was, and is, a revolution in communications. But the marketing industry had not had a revolution, it was too bogged down in the rest of the marketing mix to realise what was really going on here. The printing press was a revolution in communications, but it took many years to spread its influence. Radio was a revolution in communications; likewise. TV? Likewise.
The internet has been more like an explosion, and after an explosion it takes time for the dust to settle. That's one of the reasons for the maze of internet marketing. The dust is still settling. You can't see through the dust yet. More of a haze than a maze I suppose! No, a maze in a haze!
About the author:
Roy Thomsitt is owner and author of http://www.change-direction.com
So, you keep going around this maze, and at every turn there's advertising, all about the maze itself, telling you about which way to go. Plans of the maze which, if you follow, may get you half way round, only to find you need to buy another plan to get the rest of the way. So what do you do? Carry on around this maze unaided? Or buy another plan? You buy another plan of this maze, and lo and behold, you end up at a place somewhere near the exit into real open daylight (you think), but how do you get the correct final few turns? Anyway, maybe you're not near the exit after all? You could be on the far side of the maze from the exit. Sound familiar?
If you've been researching the internet from a business point of view for any length of time, you have probably found that much of the advertising, the marketing, is about ................. internet marketing. This is partly why it can seem like a maze. If you are not sure what is going to work to market your website, or the products in it, how do you know which advice to listen too, which "offers" to take up?
Why is Internet Marketing Such a Maze?
Marketing is a subject I've been interested in for many years, long before I was partner in an advertising related business in the early 90's. Then, marketing was a quite stable world. The most recent "change" of any significance had been TV, and TV advertising had evolved steadily over several decades. It was glossy, glamorous, and...........very expensive. That was good for the big advertising agencies, and they chased the big advertisers with massive budgets for TV advertising. They had their creative departments to come up with memorable TV ads, often designed to be memorable rather than to sell, and their media buyers to buy time on the commercial TV stations.
The glamour was in TV, but every company and every agency would work on a marketing mix: radio advertising, sales promotions, glossy magazine advertising, newspaper advertising, trade ads, direct mail.....all played their part. These all had one thing in common, though: they had been around for a very long time. Marketing was a stable industry, not in economic terms, but in the "tricks of the trade". There were a few minor variations here and there, but basically, the marketing industry had its accepted, well documented, ways of doing things. Skill levels varied of course, and that's where competition came in between the agencies and between companies in the same industries. The point is, though, it was all basically stable. Good or bad, it was stable.
Then along came the internet. Being involved in advertising in the mid 90's, it was obvious to me that the potential was absolutely enormous. Mind boggling. It was difficult to demonstrate, though, as speeds were painfully slow. You'd try to show someone over a cup of coffee or tea, and you'd finish the drink while the second page was loading. Try coming back in 5 years. Well, they did. With a vengeance.
The internet itself came on in leaps and bounds after that. Technically it developed rapidly. Companies started to realise they "had" to have an internet presence. Why? Well, often because their competitor did, or because they thought they should before their competitor did. They were diving in, pretty much blind; they did not understand what they were getting into. The stock markets cottoned on that something big was in the offing, so .com shares were being touted to ever higher levels. Shares of companies with no substance in most cases.
I used to trade shares on a daily basis in those days, and I never touched one internet related company. I cringed every time I saw the financial figures of a listed .com. Prices of shares were often in the stratosphere while turnover was meagre and profits non existent, then and into the future. The traders in the London Stock Exchange and Wall Street did not understand. The internet was new, there was no history to go on. They simply did not understand. They were excited, and were exciting others too. The buying was frantic. The crash inevitable.
Companies all over the world were realising, though, that they must have a web presence. Companies had marketing departments and/or advertising agencies. So they too had to go along with the the tidal wave of internet anticipation. What did they do? They followed the accepted patterns for marketing in those days. TV advertising. Radio advertising. Big newspaper ads. The massive costs of those methods bore no relationship then to the potential for additional income, for sales. They were throwing money down the drain in most cases. Why? They simply did not understand!
The internet was, and is, a revolution in communications. But the marketing industry had not had a revolution, it was too bogged down in the rest of the marketing mix to realise what was really going on here. The printing press was a revolution in communications, but it took many years to spread its influence. Radio was a revolution in communications; likewise. TV? Likewise.
The internet has been more like an explosion, and after an explosion it takes time for the dust to settle. That's one of the reasons for the maze of internet marketing. The dust is still settling. You can't see through the dust yet. More of a haze than a maze I suppose! No, a maze in a haze!
About the author:
Roy Thomsitt is owner and author of http://www.change-direction.com
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
6 Ways To Improve Your Affiliate Marketing Commissions
By: Dawn Drury
Affiliate marketing does not require you to have your own website. This is one of the easiest ways of starting an internet business and earning additional revenue.Here are 6 ways you can use to improve your affiliate marketing commissions very rapidly.
1. Investigate and learn the first-rate programs and products to promote.
Clearly, you would want to develop a program that will qualify you to realize the greatest profits in the shortest amount of time. There are a few factors you should weigh when selecting a program. Select the ones that have an ample commission structure and products that fit in with your target market. You will want to pick a merchant with a solid track record of paying their affiliate's smoothly and on time.
There are several thousands of affiliate programs online giving you the option to be finicky. You need to distinguish the best to avoid the loss of your advertising dollars. If you cannot seem to advance your interest's, drop that program and keep looking for better ones.
2. Author free reports or short ebooks to give away from your site.
Understand that you are competing with other affiliates promoting the very same program. If you write a brief report related to the product you are promoting, you will be able to stand out from the other affiliates and garner trust with your prospects. In the reports, supply some beneficial information for free. If feasible, add some recommendations about the products. With ebooks, you gain credibility. Prospects will see that in you and they will be enticed to try out what you are offering.
3. Gather and save the email addresses of those who download your free ebooks.
It is a known fact that people do not make a purchase on the first exposure. You may need to send out your message an additional six to seven times to make a sale. This is the exact reason why you should gather the contact information of those who downloaded your reports and ebooks . You can make follow-ups on these contacts to prompt them to make a purchase from you. Get the contact information of prospects before sending them to the supplier's website. If you send prospects straight to the suppliers, chances are they will disappear from your income stream forever. When you get their names, you can always send other marketing messages to them to attain a continuing commission versus a one time only sale.
4. Publish an online newsletter or ezine.
It is frequently best to recommend a product to a person you know rather than selling to a stranger. This is the motive behind publishing your own newsletter. An ezine allows you to evolve a relationship based on trust and familiarity with your subscribers. This strategy is a fragile balance between providing helpful information with a sales pitch. If you continue to write informative editorials you will be able to construct a sense of reciprocity in your readers that may lead them to support you by buying your products.
5. Ask for a higher than usual commission from merchants.
If you are already prospering with a certain promotion, you should attempt to approach the merchant and discuss a percentage commission for your sales. If the merchant is shrewd, he or she will likely grant your request rather than lose a profitable asset in you. Keep in mind that you are a no-risk investment to your merchant, so do not hold yourself back when requesting a bump in your commissions. Just be sensible and professional in the way you go about it.
6. Compose compelling pay Per Click ads.
PPC advertising is an extremely effective and profitable means of promotion online. As an affiliate, you can make a decent income just by managing PPC campaigns. There are several places for PPC advertising, Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing being the foremost. You would then want to monitor them to see which ads are effectual and which ones you should dump.Try out these strategies and see how quickly they can improve your commission checks and overflow your bank account. Remember if something isn't giving you the results you desire then dump that strategy or program and find something that does.
Copyright 2006 © Dawn Drury
The author, Dawn Drury, has been in sales and marketing on and offline for years and enjoys helping other people to attain their own financial goals. For more information please visit http://www.attainmoneyonline.com/
Affiliate marketing does not require you to have your own website. This is one of the easiest ways of starting an internet business and earning additional revenue.Here are 6 ways you can use to improve your affiliate marketing commissions very rapidly.
1. Investigate and learn the first-rate programs and products to promote.
Clearly, you would want to develop a program that will qualify you to realize the greatest profits in the shortest amount of time. There are a few factors you should weigh when selecting a program. Select the ones that have an ample commission structure and products that fit in with your target market. You will want to pick a merchant with a solid track record of paying their affiliate's smoothly and on time.
There are several thousands of affiliate programs online giving you the option to be finicky. You need to distinguish the best to avoid the loss of your advertising dollars. If you cannot seem to advance your interest's, drop that program and keep looking for better ones.
2. Author free reports or short ebooks to give away from your site.
Understand that you are competing with other affiliates promoting the very same program. If you write a brief report related to the product you are promoting, you will be able to stand out from the other affiliates and garner trust with your prospects. In the reports, supply some beneficial information for free. If feasible, add some recommendations about the products. With ebooks, you gain credibility. Prospects will see that in you and they will be enticed to try out what you are offering.
3. Gather and save the email addresses of those who download your free ebooks.
It is a known fact that people do not make a purchase on the first exposure. You may need to send out your message an additional six to seven times to make a sale. This is the exact reason why you should gather the contact information of those who downloaded your reports and ebooks . You can make follow-ups on these contacts to prompt them to make a purchase from you. Get the contact information of prospects before sending them to the supplier's website. If you send prospects straight to the suppliers, chances are they will disappear from your income stream forever. When you get their names, you can always send other marketing messages to them to attain a continuing commission versus a one time only sale.
4. Publish an online newsletter or ezine.
It is frequently best to recommend a product to a person you know rather than selling to a stranger. This is the motive behind publishing your own newsletter. An ezine allows you to evolve a relationship based on trust and familiarity with your subscribers. This strategy is a fragile balance between providing helpful information with a sales pitch. If you continue to write informative editorials you will be able to construct a sense of reciprocity in your readers that may lead them to support you by buying your products.
5. Ask for a higher than usual commission from merchants.
If you are already prospering with a certain promotion, you should attempt to approach the merchant and discuss a percentage commission for your sales. If the merchant is shrewd, he or she will likely grant your request rather than lose a profitable asset in you. Keep in mind that you are a no-risk investment to your merchant, so do not hold yourself back when requesting a bump in your commissions. Just be sensible and professional in the way you go about it.
6. Compose compelling pay Per Click ads.
PPC advertising is an extremely effective and profitable means of promotion online. As an affiliate, you can make a decent income just by managing PPC campaigns. There are several places for PPC advertising, Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing being the foremost. You would then want to monitor them to see which ads are effectual and which ones you should dump.Try out these strategies and see how quickly they can improve your commission checks and overflow your bank account. Remember if something isn't giving you the results you desire then dump that strategy or program and find something that does.
Copyright 2006 © Dawn Drury
The author, Dawn Drury, has been in sales and marketing on and offline for years and enjoys helping other people to attain their own financial goals. For more information please visit http://www.attainmoneyonline.com/
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