Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

10 Nifty Ways To Prolong Your Visitor’s Stay

Saturday, August 16th, 2008

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by Kim and Charles Petty

1. Offer a free ebook that’s published right on your web site. They would have to stay at your web site to read it.

2. Give your visitors a different free bonus for each link they click-through on your web site. Example: “If you click on this link you’ll get a FREE course!”

3. Make your content into a story format. They will want to keep reading to find out what happens at the end of the story.

4. Offer a search option on your web site. People will stay longer because it gives them the option of searching through your web site using keywords.

5. Provide a chat room on your web site. They will want to chat with other people that are interested in the subject.

6. Write your content so it attracts their five senses. Use plenty of adjectives. The will stay focused on your web site and block out other distractions.

7. Add a “FAQ - Frequently Ask Questions” part on your web site. People won’t email you a question and leave. They will stay to find out the answer.

8. Offer easy navigation. People will leave quicker if they have a hard time finding what they’re looking for. Don’t get them lost or they will leave.

9. Give them plenty of things to do at your web site. Allow them to submit classified ads, play interactive games, add their link, sign your guest book, etc.

10. Offer free online tools they can use right at your web site. It could be a search engine submitter, ad or letter templates, ebook compiler, etc. —-

How to Find the Right Email Marketing Solution

Thursday, August 14th, 2008

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by Ray Lam

Since the evolution of email marketing, it has been a troublesome task for advertisers who relied primarily on the Internet for the promotion of their business to determine who their potential customers are, to keep in constant touch with them and to maintain their customer lists. To help these businesses, many firms began offering various solutions to make this process more effective, productive and profitable.

The first thing to know is that email marketing solutions usually involve the use of a campaign. This is similar to the sales catalogs you get in the mail every week. They are sending out a marketing campaign that contains information for that week. The same goes for email marketing as with direct regular paper mail. If you are looking at email marketing solutions then you have probably come across an email marketing service. There are three categories that these services will fall into. These will be High, Mid and Off the shelf.

High end services will focus and even specialize on email marketing. They offer complex marketing technologies and have the capability to do both online and offline marketing strategies to large numbers of clients.

The essence of business (i.e. procuring prospective clients, sending campaigns pertaining to various trades and getting the feedback necessary to make changes in the business? strategies), is achieved more conveniently with the aid of these newly evolved email marketing solutions. Even though there are restrictions due to the abundance of spam, targeting opt-in customers and giving them the ability to unsubscribe render much more popularity to email marketing solutions.

Off the shelf, email marketing solutions are ideal for small businesses that plan to allot their own resources to marketing. They offer things like the basics in tracking, reporting, list management and personalized HTML emails.

Email marketing solutions can be an excellent way to take care of some of the specialized information that is necessary for finding out if a campaign is working for you. These are things like tracking, writing content so that it expresses your message in a way that encourages people to want to visit your website.

Online Business Directories

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

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by Stuart M. Gray

What is a business directory and why do people need to have easy access to them? A business directory is a specialised listing mainly consisting of information about businesses. Both consumers and other businesses are likely to find a company much easily through a business directory and better yet, if the business directory is online.

Some business directories carry information about companies and organisations in alphabetical classification, which means, if you are looking for an electrical equipment manufacturer, you should find a suitable company under the letter ‘E’. Other business directories list company information according to the service type, such as home appliances, electronics, financial & legal services, business services, cars and automotive, shopping, transport etc.

Most business directories are available online now, involving their services for improving the information highway. Online business directories belong to two categories - those which provide their listings for free and the others who charge a fee for listings. There’s not much of a difference between paid and free business directories, but the most significant difference is the directory’s publisher.

The free online business directories are those which exchange links with their listed companies, which means both parties place a link to direct visitors to each other’s websites. These reciprocal links act as web traffic generators for the directories as well as the businesses. These free business directories make money from the advertisers who sponsor them.

There are a few business directories offering more than simple listing services, including features such as job advertising, picture galleries and a dedicated web page for the listed business. These are optional services and any business owner who wishes to use the directory for multiple purposes can take advantage of the offers. The majority of business directories charge for these services, but some directories provide all such services for free.

Submitting a business listing to an online business directory doesn’t take much time. Your business information is compulsory to enter a listing, including the company name, registration, email, telephone, address etc.

These business directories keep the basic information brief and if you need more information about a particular company, you must follow a link to either the web page within the directory or the company’s main website. After your business listing is submitted to a directory, all visitors can easily find it by navigating through the main page index.

Most business directories, whether online or offline, focus on listing a particular region’s businesses. Usually, these regions are selected based upon neighbourhood, city, district, province, state etc. Country-wide and international business directories are very rare, especially online

Watch This Free Video To Increase Your Sales and Conversion

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

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Five Tips to Improve Your Postcard Marketing

Friday, July 11th, 2008

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by GV Custserv

Galleria Ventures has provided postcard marketing services for over 10 years. From that experience we have developed a few key tips to help our clients with their campaigns. Here are Five Ways to Improve your Postcard Marketing Campaigns’ Response Rate.

1. Know your mailing list. The quality level of the list of customers or potential customers you are sending your items to is an important factor to being successful with a direct mail campaign. You need to know if your list is made up of customer’s that you have done business with or is it mainly new potential customers you do not know? If it is new potential customers, do you know the demographics of the list to be able to give some focus to your advertisement? For example you will have more success with a postcard ad that is targeted for women if you know the list you are sending to is also focused on women. Therefore, you need to match your message to the right group of people (and if possible, the right group of people at just the right time).

2. Make your headline “readable with a glimpse”. A postcard advertisement only has a brief moment to capture the reader’s attention. That brief moment, which has been referred to as the “golden glimpse” — is the moment when your postcard comes out of the mailbox and either lands on the desk or in the trash. An attention grabbing headline which highlights a primary benefit for your targeted recipients is the key to getting the potential reader to read on. After you hook their attention with a successful headline then some “skimmable” bullets after the headline adding up more benefits should build enthusiastic interest. To make this happen sit down and list the features of your products or services. Then list the benefits each of these features bring to the customer. Prioritize which benefit has the greatest importance to your focused list of recipients. The benefit that you chose to have the highest importance should be used to make the headline and the other benefits should be used to make the supporting bullets. If a photo or artwork can help increase the impact of your primary benefit, then use it.

3. Use a Child Should Understand It Test. Your potential customers will never know your product or package to the extent that you do. They are not around it everyday and hence cannot have figured it out as well as you. Consequently, the best way to continue is to be distinctly childlike in the message you communicate. This is not a simple task, as there is a probability that you will have knowledge you take for granted and use but your focused potential customers will not have the knowledge to easily understand your message. You will probably only have one chance to hook their attention so quick understanding is essential to achieve successful results. Therefore, your message should be very simple to understand in a plain clear language. Additionally, use images when it will reinforce the understanding.

4. Complete the advertisement with a compelling offer and a call to action. The offer and call to action is the conclusion of the marketing postcard’s statement. It’s the culmination of what the complete postcard leads to. This is where the reader finds out whatever he or she should do to discover more or the reason they should take action. Be confident your proposition is pertinent and captures the reader with a deal they will not want to turn down. As the recipient is absorbed in your offer then you present your call to action so it is not lost!

5. Continually Measure and Track your direct mail results. The number one rule for success in direct mail marketing, is to TEST. Test the offer. Test the message. Test the mail piece size. Test the postage stamp. Test everything you can think of which might persuade the reader. To find the elusive “formula” of success you will need to keep testing your direct mail marketing results. We recommend a split test of each new marketing postcard. By splitting the quantities of each campaign mailing with one thing that is different in each. Then measure the results of each and pick the one that gives the best results for another split test in another mailing. This process will allow your marketing message to evolve to the most desired performance.

Search Engine Marketing - Search Engine Optimization is Important

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

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by Terry Stanfield

Search engine marketing is the process of using search engine optimization to make sure that your webpage consistently is at the top of the heap when customers and client do an Internet search for terms that are related to your product or service. When search engines send out spiders or bots to collect information about different websites that is then used to decide which web pages show up first in search listings these spiders and bots are looking for search engine optimized content, or SEO content. SEO content drives search engine marketing by repeating certain keywords or key phrases a certain number of times.

When the search engine spiders and bots pick up those keywords or key phrases then they put that webpage higher in the search listings then pages that don’t have SEO content. SEO has become very important to businesses in the last decade because no matter how much you spend on advertising when you’re doing business on the Web your webpage needs to be at the top of the search listings page. Search engine marketing can target the major search tools that people use like Google or Yahoo so that you can be sure your webpage will show up somewhere near the top whenever anyone searches for a keyword or key phrase that is found on your website.

SEO content needs to be original though, just copying and pasting the same paragraph over and over won’t help you with SEP. The spiders and bots are programmed to not list sites that repeat the same word or the same phrase over and over. So if you were planning on taking one paragraph or one page of content and using that for search engine marketing it won’t work. For effective search engine optimization you need to have original SEO content.

If you want your website to really be successful good SEM is the key. Lots of companies place online ads and online ads can be effective at reaching particular target markets but when it comes to sheer numbers the highest number of hits that you will get to your site will come from SEO content and using search engine optimization in creative ways to get your webpage listed higher up in the search rankings.

Studies have shown that a majority of people will never click past the first page of search results when they search for a certain keyword or phrase so you have to make sure that your webpage is at the top of the search results page in order to get the most visitors to you site who are looking for the product that you sell. Using search engine optimization can be tricky until you get the hang of writing SEO content and using search engine marketing but once you figure out how it all works or hire a professional to show how it all works you’ll be amazed at the increase in traffic to your website that you will see.

Mistakes of Pay Per Click Advertising: The Terrible 10

Saturday, July 5th, 2008

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by Josh Prizer

Vigilance, micromanaging and attention to detail can help you avoid some common and costly mistakes of PPC advertising. What are those mistakes? Here are the terrible 10 that are typical to most pay per click campaigns.

Too Many Keywords Per Ad Group

Creating relevant, targeted ads are important. Avoid placing all your keywords into a couple massive ad groups. Build them tighter. With tight ad groups you can control more of your ad customization to increase relevancy.

Ignoring Negative Keywords

Pay per click advertising has placed more importance than ever on click through rates and quality scores. It is vital to fine tune your impressions by getting rid of the non-relevant phrases that are lowering those CTRs. If you are selling an item such as “software for widgets” then be certain you also have those negative keywords like “-free” if you don’t have a free trial version. One way to find irrelevant keywords that are costing you is to check your log files of your site.

Not Doing Enough Testing

Split-testing your ads is critical. Even the smallest of changes can boost results. In addition to testing your ad copy’s “call to action” or value statements, every ad has multiple variables to test. The titles, the two lines of copy, and display url all can be optimized. If you don’t have time for hands-on testing, a good professional pay per click management company can run daily split testing for you. You’d be surprised how well this can pay off.

Poor or Non-Existent Tracking

If you do get into testing ads and fine-tuning your keyword lists, it’s only as effective as your tracking. Any PPC search engine will give you your ad spends and click through rates, but what about the bottom-line success? Knowing that you made $14,000 off of a $7,000 ad spend is fine, but if you dig deeper with your tracking you might be able to make that same $14,000 with only $6,000 a month in spend. That savings ads up.

Not Getting Keyword-Level Tracking

Good analytics or a good pay per click management company will get your data down to the keyword level. Why pay for keywords that are not performing? That money could be better spent on keywords that are doing well or on other marketing expenses. If one keyword has an earning per click of 45 cents and another keyword has an earning per click of $1.45, you need to know. You can lower the bid on one and raise the bid on the other to drive more profits. If you aren’t doing this, you likely have under-performing keywords that are leaking your account daily.

Keywords That Are Too Generic

Negative keywords may not be enough to keep you from trouble on too generic a keyword. While these generic keywords are often more highly searched and can even be among your best…they can also be riddled with bad traffic. Users who perform a search on a generic keyword may often be at a very early stage in the purchase process. Are you able to turn an effective profit on them? Once again, this is yet another reason why you need keyword-level traffic. It’s especially vital on a generic keyword.

Avoiding the Dirty Work of Building Long-Tail Keywords

This dovetails into the previous item. Building out lists and ads for long-tail keywords can be a time-consuming process, but worthwhile if done right. You are going to have different earnings per click for the keywords “dvd player,” “sony dvd player” and “sony dvd player model DVP-NS57P/B.” One consumer is doing research, while the other is likely pricing for the specific model they want and is ready to buy.

Not Separating Content and Search Networks

You can get stung by poor quality traffic or click fraud if you do not separate your content network advertising from your search network advertising. If you don’t understand those above items, there is a good probability that you are not separating the two in your accounts right now … and you are very likely losing money. A better solution is to build separate campaigns for each and … track with precise analytics the results from each network. Again, not knowing is probably costing you now.

Failing to Geo-Target if You’re Local

If you draw most of your business from a local area, the big three PPC engines allow you to geo-target your keywords to that area. This will bring the local market to your doorstep on non-local keyword phrases. This can be hugely profitable.

Not Continually Monitoring Your Campaigns

Alright, so maybe you do not frequently monitor your EPCs at the keyword level (you should). And, you don’t conduct split tests every day your ads are up (you should). It is still surprising that there are a high number of pay per click advertisers who don’t continually monitor their accounts. The big three PPC engines are cracking down on poor performing ads more than ever. Many advertisers are getting stung with the “Inactive for Search” label on their keywords. If you don’t monitor your accounts, Google, Yahoo and MSN may have plucked some of your keywords off their networks. And, with that, some of your profits.

The Terrible 10 of Pay Per Click Advertising is a lot to consider, but it’s vital for healthy pay per click campaigns. Whether you can actively manage your PPC accounts at this level or you need to hire a pay per click management company to do it, vigilance and precision can make a huge impact on your bottom line.

Mesmerize Audience Using Conversational Hypnosis

Saturday, July 5th, 2008

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by Future Focusinc

Using everyday conversation to communicate with the subconscious mind of someone sums up what is conversational hypnosis all about. The desired results are achieved by motivational speakers who are able to mesmerize their audience using conversational hypnosis. It is practiced by advertisers, businesses and professional speakers who use tones and cues in a casual, unassuming way that will control the actions of those listening.

A hypnotist who masters what is conversational hypnosis has the power to manipulate fellow workers, friends, colleagues and family members. Using subconscious persuasion techniques, the hypnotist can watch as an idea is suggested and implemented without the subject ever knowing they were exposed to hypnosis. All it takes is a rapport with person, and then specific words and techniques can be employed to control the intended subject.

You will develop these techniques as you learn what is conversational hypnosis. Your friends and family will be unaware that anything unusual is taking place when you practice these new skills on them. In fact, they will be utterly oblivious to what is conversational hypnosis and the trance that will be woven over them through the power of verbal suggestion.

Marketers, copywriters, and salespeople will find that what is conversational hypnosis especially useful for is the power of suggestion. It will allow you to subconsciously instill your audience with the confidence and motivaiton to purchase your product. You will also be able to foresee how your clients will behave even before they act.

In case you have a particularly difficult time communicating well or don’t do well at establishing interpersonal rapport, you might want to find out what is conversational hypnosis and how it can help you.. Actually, it could make you much better at person-to-person interactions and make those you care about feel you are a force to be reckoned with. This safe, easy hypnotism technique can totally alter the quality and content of your exchanges with friends, relatives, co-workers and employers.

Conversational hypnosis infiltrates modern advertising, sales letters, and marketing campaigns, and is much more common that most people realize. The power of persuasion hypnotizes the audience and appeals to human emotion. Influencing human behavior by using the power of language is generally what is conversational hypnosis focused on. Conversational hypnosis techniques rely on the fact that words can be powerful. You will see your relationships improving when you use the power of words more effectively.

Conversational hypnosis can be a great way to overcome issues in relationships and to improve your standing in your career or business. By using what is conversational hypnosis in your daily interaction with others, you will find that your communication skills will skyrocket and help you achieve your desired results.

How To Increase Your Online Sales Anytime

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

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by Kim and Charles Petty

Hold a discount sale on your web site. Use the sale to get rid of excess inventory, gain new or repeat customers, and increase your sales. Most businesses pick a theme for their sale, like a Halloween Sale. Below are six unique sales themes you could use:

Nobody’s Visiting Today Sale

Every online business has low visitor and sales day through the week. My days are Tuesdays and Thursdays.You could sell your products or services for cheaper to increase and sales on your slow days. You could have this advertised right on your web site.

Time Of The Day Sale

Periodically , pick out a time of the day like 5 to 7 pm to lower your prices. With online sales you need tell people the time zone. Announce your scheduled times ahead of time in your e-zine. This will give people enough time to plan when they will visit your web site.

Product Or Service Of The Day Sale

Each day offer different product or service at a lower price. This will draw people back to your web site everyday. This is a high traffic generating sale. If you don’t have a lot of products and services you may want to run the sale weekly or monthly.

Niche Group Sale

Hold a sale for a niche groups of people. Students, senior citizens, single people etc. This really works if your introducing a new product or service for the first time to a new target audience. Announce your sale in a targeted e-zine, e-mail discussion groups, message boards, etc.

Holiday Or Seasonal Sale

Offer lower prices on holidays and during seasonal changes. These type of sales let your visitors and customers know your no scrooge. Be creative and go as far as decorating your web site. You could upload holiday and seasonal graphics. Change the color of your text to match. Get in the spirit!

Get More For Your Money Sale

Give customers more products or services for their money. People relate these kind of sales to getting a bargain or saving money. You could offer a buy one get one for half off sale, a buy two get the third one free, two for the price of one sale, etc.

Know The Answers with the Four Ps of Marketing

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

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by Linda P. Morton

Everyone is always trying to find the new strategy that will allow them to turn their product from blah into Bam!, but it’s harder than it looks. But you can to produce a product that people want, by answering 20 questions about the four ps of marketing.

By determining the answers to the 20 questions in this article, you can start discovering a tried and true approach that thousands of businesses have used successfully - the four ps of marketing.

The four ps of marketing are product, package, price and promotion.

Four Ps Of Marketing: 1. Your Product Is Your First Major Marketing Decision

Creating or selecting your product is one of the most important decisions that you’ll make in your business. It’s dictates the type and amount of marketing that you’ll need to make sales.

Your product is the most important part of your business. It partially determines your markeing and how much profit you get. Ask yourself these questions regarding your product:

1. Who is the target market for your product?

2. How well does its features provide target market members’ desired benefits?

3. Does your product have something that competing products do not?

4. Is this product in line with consumer trends?

5. Is the market strong enough to warrant producing your product?

6. How much volume of product will it take to meet demands?

7. What’s the likely time frame for the most orders?

8. What inventory is needed for the product to meet demands?

Once you’ve answered all the product questions, you’re ready to consider the package questions.

Four Ps Of Marketing: 2. Packaging Is The Second Of The Four Ps

Once you know the product, how will you package it to the consumer? There is a saying that you don’t judge a book by its cover, well people do and when the packaging of a product does not match what the consumer wants, they move on. It’s the 10 second sale, and it has to be done right.

Packaging can increase or decrease expenses so it affects the third P of marketing - Price.

So give your package some thought by answering the next four questions.

9. Does the package provide any advantages over your competitors’?

10. Are the dimensions of the packaging appropriate for the product?

11. Does your package provide enough protection for your product?

12. Is your packaging excessive, requiring increased handling?

Now you’re ready to consider pricing your product.

Four Ps Of Marketing: 3. Your Price Must Match Your Market And Product

The price of the product is important. It has a big influence on whether they buy it. Too high and they pass it over, too little and they buy it, but you don’t make enough money. Ask yourself these questions:

13. What price do the forces of supply and demand dictate?

14. Does the price of producing the product decrease as you produce more?

15. How does your price decrease as volume increases?

16. What is the best price for the product?

Now that you’ve answered the first 16 questions, you can start thinking about promoting your product.

Four Ps Of Marketing: 4. The Final P Is Promotion

Promoting a product is how you sell it, so it has to be done right or you won’t sell one product and your business will go under.

The remaining four questions will then leverage your marketing strategy and tactics.

17. How much do should you spend on different promotion tactics?

18. How well does your promotion mix match your business’ other marketing practices?

19. How does the marketing of the product match its current life-stage?

20. Is the promotion in line with what your customer’s want?

After you’ve answered these last four questions, you’ll be ready to develop a marketing plan.

Four Ps Of Marketing: Synopsis

The Four Ps of Marketing build from answering the 20 questions. Answer all of them before deciding on a product, pricing it, packaging it and selling it.

Your answers establish your marketing budget, generate your marketing strategy and reveal the best marketing tactics to jump start your marketing efforts.