Posted on September 10th, 2008 — in Marketers Den, Marketing, Web Center
I am trying to find a way to make money from home, and so far the thing that seems most promising is affiliate marketing. It looks like it is possible to make money online with an affiliate program, but I am wondering if this takes a lot of time, and what exactly is involved? Can anyone tell me where I can learn more about these programs, and which affiliate programs are the best ones to use? I would really appreciate the information, since I want to find something before too long so that I can make some money for Christmas.
I am going to start trying to find a good way to earn or make online money. I know there are a lot of different things that people do, and I am wondering where I can find out more about the different systems and the typical amount of money that people earn. I want to find one that has a high rate of return if such a thing exists, since I won’t have a lot of time to put into this. I am hoping that I can find something that I can do to make a little extra money in my spare time.
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Posted on June 10th, 2008 — in Marketing
Marketing is a broad business subject that encompasses a
range of activities including advertising, public relations,
sales, and promotions. Generally, you will find that people
often confuse sales with marketing, when in fact the two are
quite different. Marketing is all about getting a product or
service into the market, promoting it, influencing behavior,
and encouraging sales turnover. Sales, quite distinctly, is
the actual transaction of getting a product or service into
the hands of your customers.
With so many messages being propelled towards all of us
these days, it is more critical than ever for a company to
get their product noticed. This means marketers have
evolved to being creative. Marketing is not an exact science
and managers who know little about it are afraid that the
marketing staff within their firm is often wasting valuable
money. The truth is that marketing is an investment that
always pays off; it just may come back in ways that are not
necessarily measurable. So even though one campaign
may
bring moderate results, another will bring astonishing
profits.
Companies not committed to a marketing program are at a
disadvantage in today’s business world. Those who are still
focused on their products, rather than their customers, are
doomed to experience lots of failure. Knowing what your
clients’ expectations are and working to exceed them is
the key to ultimate business success.
There are millions of marketing ideas just waiting to be
spawned. If you need to generate ideas, start by
brainstorming on paper or on the computer. One small idea
usually leads to many other ideas. Alternatively you can
do a web search for the specific marketing ideas you are
looking to use in your marketing program. If you lack the
talent or time to be creative and generate your own
marketing ideas, there are marketing agencies that can
assist you to build a complete marketing program.
When you are planning your marketing program, keep in
mind
the hurdles you may face, and think of ways to eliminate
them. Some things that may hold you back from
implementing
your marketing ideas include budget shortfalls, lack of
skill, or being understaffed. Think of ways around this as
you plan your strategy for the future.
Finally, think about the specific actions that you can use
in a marketing campaign. Your marketing actions might
include advertising, sponsorship, branding, and public
relations. Or, you may want to stick with direct mail,
product packaging and creating promotional materials such
as
pens or caps. Whatever method you choose, make sure you
are pointing excited energy in that direction. It will
be reflected in the results!
The author has discovered one of the secrets to getting the
word “out there” regarding your product or service. She has
shared this information with hundreds of business owners
over the last 20 plus years and helped them to improve their
business.
Andrea Lee Churchill is passionate about marketing and
is the webmaster of FWS Marketing
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Posted on June 6th, 2008 — in Marketing
I have a major secret to success…
Not just success in the self-storage business. Not just the secret to financial success. But the secret to success in every area of our human lives. And - as you’ve probably guessed - I’m going to reveal it in this article.
But before I do, I want to warn you that it will appear extremely simple at first glance. In fact, you’ve probably heard it a few times before. You’ll probably read it, your brain will translate a meaning to you based on your background or previous experiences and you might completely miss the relevance of this secret.
So, before I tell you what it is, I would like you to commit, right now, that you’ll read it, re-read it and re-read it again. Then think about it before continuing.
Okay, here it is:
Make people offers they can’t refuse!
Simple enough right? Maybe, depending on how you think about it. Allow me to expand that thought to help you understand the point I’m trying to make.
See, our life is spent making offers to people and considering offers presented to us. We must offer something to somebody before they’ll hire, date, marry or befriend us. And, we must make our offers irresistible. Offers so strong that the person would feel foolish for not taking you up on it.
I offer my wife the satisfaction of romance and love. I offer her a good father to our children and an extremely close friendship.
When we go out to dinner with friends, we offer friendship, laughter and sometimes a shoulder to cry on or support with a challenge in their life.
When you signed up to receive these articles, I offered you valuable tips on self-storage marketing. The real offer I’m making to you is more money through increased expertise and knowledge. I offer my clients more money and more time through more effective marketing strategies and turn-key systems.
When you market your self-storage facility, what are you offering your prospects?
If your marketing looks like most self storage marketing I’ve seen, you really don’t communicate an offer at all. You offer “matched prices” or “secure access”…
Is that really an offer? To a degree it is, but you’re not offering something that people really want. You see, people don’t want matched prices, or gated access. Those things are great compliments to the real offer you’re making.
The bottom line is this…
Whether we realize it or not, everything we do is based on what we offer others and what others offer us. It sounds selfish, I know, but even charity work offers us something. When I do charity work, I get the feeling of self-worth and the satisfaction of helping somebody in need.
Make sense?
So how do we tie this into self-storage marketing?
Well, there are a lot of ways that this thinking is relevant and can help you make more money at your self-storage facilities.
But there are two things that I’d like you to think about as you read this article:
1. What is it that you really offer people as a self-storage marketer?
2. What offer can you make to lower or reverse the risk for people to accept your main offer?
This brings us to the 4th and final step of the marketing success code. Offers or Action is the final step.
To review all 4 steps here they are:
1. Interrupt/Attention
2. Engage/Interest
3. Educate/Decide
4. Offer/Action
If you follow those 4 steps properly, you can’t fail at marketing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s impossible to hit a home run every single time. But it’s not the equation that fails, it’s us as marketers that don’t follow it properly.
We might think we interrupt but we miss the boat. We might think our offer is right, but it’s completely wrong. The world’s best marketers and advertising geniuses strike out more than you’d think.
This is why testing is so important, which we’ll discuss later.
For now, I want to keep your focus on your offers. Think about that everyday and your level of success will only get better.
And before today is over, make somebody an offer they can’t refuse. Be it your spouse, boss, customer, employee or child. Think about what they want, what their self-interests are and offer them a way to fulfill that interest.
You’ll be amazed at how easy it is to get what you want…
In our next article we’ll discuss offers in more detail and why making wimpy offers will only hurt you in the long run.
Copyright 2006 Derek Naylor
Derek M. Naylor is the President of Storage Marketing Solutions (SMS). SMS has created, and proven many turn-key marketing solutions for the self-storage industry.
Additionally Derek has helped thousands of businesses increase their profits by helping them implement elite marketing strategies and tactics. For a complimentary marketing strategy session, call SMS at 800.941.4805 or visit http://www.storagemarketingsolutions.com to sign up for their newsletter.
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Posted on June 1st, 2008 — in Marketing
Is your company’s messaging and positioning caught in the same ho hum features and benefits trap that many companies face? If so, it’s time to consider shifting your strategic marketing plan and going up market with your company’s messaging and positioning. Doing so can have a transforming effect on your companies ability to compete and successfully win in its target markets with its target customers. Going up market with your messaging and positioning is not a difficult task. What it does require, however, is rethinking of your messaging from being framed as “features and benefits” to your customers and basic product and company descriptions, through to answering the fundamental question of what’s in it for me, from the standpoint of the customer. When your company shifts its messaging positioning from “here’s what we do”, to “here’s what you get”, fundamentally, your message has a much better chance of resonating with potential sales prospects and customers.
As markets become more and more competitive, reframing your messaging in order to put your company’s products or services in the context of how your customers gain is a requirement in order to win in your market place. A good example of going up market with your messaging positioning is as follows: we have a metal fabrication client that we did some work with before, who’s old messaging on their website used to say, “X company provides sheet metal, stamping, cutting, forming, shaping, and fabrication services to companies in the aerospace and automotive industries.” After we reworked the company’s message to, “We provide integrated supply chain management services to our customers to help them improve their engineering, reduce their product lifecycles, and cut their inventory costs, while increasing their ability to respond to changing market demands.” As you can see, those two messages are completely different from each other, even though they come from the same company. One message is framed in terms of what the company does, and the other message is framed in terms of what their customers get when they buy from them. Which company would you rather buy from?
About Cube Management:
Cube Management provides sales acceleration services to emerging growth and mid-market companies in the technology, manufacturing, healthcare and business service sectors. The experts at Cube Management work across the entire spectrum of marketing, sales and business development to provide customized solutions that drive revenue and profit growth. Cube Management combines Strategy, Process & People to produce winning results.
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Posted on May 30th, 2008 — in Marketing
Online advertising is necessary for your computer business to grow. An attention-grabbing ad is very important to the success of your web site. An ad written to draw visits to your site must be exciting, appealing, and friendly. The secret to a successful ad is to grab your target market’s attention. Potential customers read ads only when they catch their attention. Plan your online advertising around your ad’s appeal to your customers.
The purpose of online advertising is to create a sense of urgency. “Act Now!” “Increase Your Wealth!” “Limited Offer.” All these phases cause the customer to want to get in on the excitement. Online advertising’s main goal is to get your subject’s attention, arouse their interest, and capture their imagination. If you write your own ads, make sure to make them attention grabbing, not too overboard. Sometimes ads that push a customer too hard result in lost sales. Don’t be too pushy but yet ask for the sale.
When writing online advertising always remember you have just seconds to capture interest. If your ad copy moves slowly or sounds boring, you will likely lose the customer’s attention and surely they will click onto another site. The headline of your ad is the first place that can provide impact. An effective headline will make the reader want to learn more about your product or service. Spice them up and appeal to their emotions.
Online advertising with an effective headline can achieve effective results. There are certain words that attract customer’s attention more than others. Here are some of the words you might wish to consider using in your online advertising. Words like love, health, and safe make the reader response to their basic instincts. New and discovery draw out adventure. Proven and guaranteed make the reader feel at ease about trying your product. In any online advertising campaign, use words and phases that your customer can identify with and feel secure.
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Posted on May 15th, 2008 — in Information Parlor, Marketers Den, Marketing, Web Center
Salehoo: Wholesale As Seen On Tv Toys
With Salehoo you can find anything you looking for a bargain price - mp3 players, mobile phones, clothes, trainer, and much much more. You might find some items in Salehoo that are almost nearly the same price as on eBay, but of the products are much cheaper than on eBay. Salehoo doesn’t have a list like WorldwideBrands however it’s one of the largest and affordable directories on the Net.
Then check completed listings searches on eBay to see what the item generally sells for and the sell-through rate for each one which is the real benefit of Salehoo dropshippers. Just because a wholesale publication or site attracts wholesale buyers does not mean that it will work for you and also the Salehoo Suppliers. Founded in 2003 by New Zealand born entrepreneurs Simon Slade and Mark Ling Salehoo is currently a trusted choice of over 50000 retailers and eBay sellers from all walks of life
Salehoo Wholesale Bulk Perfume Body Oils:
Wholesale Distributors can be Salehoo manufacturers or importers too. Wholesale Distributors tend to sell to several customers including wholesalers and retailers. They are the most popular type of wholesaler and usually sell everything including food, beverage, consumer goods, cars, chemicals, and most products out there. They can have warehouses and trucks or drop ship products. They can sell to restaurants, manufacturing plants, retail stores, governments or to other wholesalers. Ebay powersellers trust Salehoo dropshippers and Salehoo prices.
You also get a list of top secret drop shippers, so try to join the Salehoo forums. While this isn’t a bad thing this sounds pretty easy, which will be the Salehoo customers. See Salehoo Review.
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Posted on May 7th, 2008 — in Marketing
Are you looking to increase your relevancy in the search engines? You probably have heard that increasing the links to your site has an impact on your listing. But did you know you can do it without waiting, or asking other sites to link to you themselves?
If you can write a 500-1000 word article about your business, you can increase your links in 24 hours.
Here’s the secret: Every article submitted to article directories includes a resource box. This is a short sentence or paragraph about the author. By including the link to your site (MUST include http://) you can post YOUR link as many places as you want. There are dozens of free article directories that provide content for websites and newsletter publishers who are just waiting for fresh content.
If your article is used by someone, your link goes with it as they are not allowed to remove the credits/resources. So they do even more advertising for you.
The great thing about article submission is that the major search engines, Google, Yahoo etc. spider the big sites far more often than litte ol’ you and me, so they will find you within a few days when you post at a large directory.
The key to a good article (and you’ll find some sites with more specific guidelines) is that it CANNOT be an obvious ad for your company. Create a ‘How To’ or ‘10 Ways to…’ type article relevant to your business. At the end write something like this:
“So-and-So is running her own business while raising a family. She has been providing services (or product, information, etc.)to the __________ community for over 2 years. You can find more information about _________ at http://www.h*mebased.com.“
Try this out and search for “article directories” at Google, and start submitting your articles to gain traffic.
Wishing everyone success this year!
About the Author
While raising two young daughters, Shannon and her husband, Cyprian, are helping others start and promote their own home business with articles, resources and recommended programs. Find more information at http://www.Affiliate-Start.com
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Posted on May 1st, 2008 — in Marketing
Here is your trivia question of the day: What do tsunami, xbox 360, Brad Pitt, Britney Spears and Harry Potter have in common? (Insert Jeopardy theme music here.) The answer: They were five of the top ten Google News searches in 2005. (Yes, Brad’s current flame also made the list.) When I was nine years old, the word “googol” was the answer to another trivia question, this one posed by my older brother: “What is the world’s biggest number?” After I finally learned the answer, he said, “Nope, it’s a googol-and-one.” Aargh!
Today, of course, most everyone knows about Google. It’s a major part of our Internet culture…both a noun (”Go to Google and find out”) and a verb (”Let’s google it”). With their ever increasing offerings, it appears Google is attempting to become much more than simply the world’s largest search engine. While it seldom “invents” a feature, the ones it adds are usually the best. Other services offered by Google include: Earth; Desktop; Image; Alerts; Froogle; Directory; Book Search; Music; Scholar; Picasa; Video; Gmail; Catalogs; and, Maps.
All this from a company founded eight years ago that gives nearly everything away for free! But Google does make money from those small ads on the right side of search pages, and right now those “Sponsored Links” are the golden goose (doubling revenue to $1.58 billion for the most recently reported quarter). And with $7.6 billion in cash, Google has plenty of ways to gather new technology. For instance, their latest initiative is an alliance with Sun Microsystems to take over the office environment dominated by Microsoft, in which you would someday access all your well-organized business information over the Internet, instead of on your servers.
Success Handler Action: Google went public in August 2004, at an offering price of $85 per share. In early 2006, it topped a dizzying $450, and a major Wall Street firm raised its price target to $600. A recent Forbes article suggested the key to Google’s success is “hiring only the truly brilliant” and pursuing “a rapid-fire food-fight strategy that throws out ideas as fast as possible.” Hire the best; act quickly. Good strategy. After you finish reading this E-Newsletter, ask yourself these questions about the speed in your small business:
~ Who among your team members are the smartest and best?
~ What types of new ideas do they come up with? Think big picture.
~ Where do you send them to improve their personal and professional skills?
~ When was the last time someone took the initiative to fix a problem on their own?
~ How often do you find yourself asking more than once for something you need completed?
Google’s stated mission is to “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” They see themselves as an “engineering company” focused on creating many new offerings one project at a time. Employees work in small teams, taking new ideas from inspiration to results in less than six weeks, or dropping them completely. One success in 10 tries is acceptable, and one in five is considered superb.
Success Handler Action: Another key to Google’s spectacular results is never allowing anyone to call an idea “stupid.” Employees spend 10 percent of their time dreaming up new things. As long as sufficient data exits to support a vision, Google teams are willing to explore it. To encourage employees to be more involved in setting the course for your small business, consider these five possibilities:
1. Gather your team for a brainstorming session, and choose six initiatives to pursue in 2006.
2. Choose an easy-to-read business book - like “Who Moved My Cheese?” - and work through it together.
3. Focus on communicating, and helping your employees understand the big picture.
4. Pick a critical expense category, and teach everyone how they affect the bottom line.
5. Ask your team members what they would do, if they were in charge. Their creativity will surprise you.
Last month CNN.com asked users to choose the Internet’s most significant development in the last 15 years, and the leading vote-getter by far was the introduction of Google. This mega-empire - with a market cap greater than Disney, Dell or Home Depot - is expanding at a blistering pace by encouraging employees to play a critical role every day. Allowing your team members to join you in developing the vision for your small business will keep you from becoming the answer to a trivia question.
Copyright © 2006 by Success Handler, LLC. All rights reserved.
The Coach, David Handler, is the founder of Success Handler, (http://www.successhandler.com), and specializes in helping small business leaders find clarity and take action. He understands the challenges of running a business, because he’s been there - as a small business owner, franchisee, franchisor, corporate leader and trainer. Much like sports coaches, his coaching will show you how to compete on a level playing field in your industry.
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Posted on April 28th, 2008 — in Marketing
For every seminar, conference, and annual event held across the world, there is usually a wordy, poorly designed logo to accompany it. It seems that no matter how much the design community does to impress upon people the importance of a good logo design, it seems as though event planners must not hear it.
Every day as I browse the logo news I find at least one article about a logo being launched for some type of event. When I see the design, I am almost always disappointed with the lack of creativity and general skill level. I’m sure that a logo is one of the last things on a person’s mind when they are trying to secure a venue, attract attendees, fill speaker openings, and make sure everything goes just right. But at the same time, having a killer logo for any event makes it more attractive to potential attendees. The event will have better attendance, build more trust, and perhaps most importantly, sell more promotional products.
This is especially important for large-scale, repeated events, such as the Olympics. Everyone recognizes the five interlocking ring design. But most host cities design a logo for their city that becomes the main logo used to promote the event.
Today one of three logos being used for the Beijing 2008 Olympicsknown as the “Green Olympics” designwas unveiled, and is a big disappointment as well. I’m sure a lot of time and money were spent to come up with this design, but the logo seems very amateurish and lacks visual balance, in my opinion. I would never buy anything with that design on it. Hopefully the Olympic organizing committee will do a better job with the other two logos, which have yet to be revealedthe “People’s Olympics” and “Hi-tech Olympics,” or they may have a plethora of mugs and hats when the final anthem plays.
For anyone thinking about getting a logo designed for their event, read up on LogoWorks in the Wall Street Journal.
Jonathan Munk writes articles for major Logo Design companies such as LogoDesign.com and LogoWorks.com.
Visit LogoDesign.com, an excellent resource for Logo Design news, articles, tips and information.
Read what CreativeLatitude.com says about LogoWorks.
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Posted on April 10th, 2008 — in Marketing
The use of tracking links in the following scenario puts you in complete control when someone else makes a change that affects your webpages, your links on other peoples’ sites, or your links in ebooks or ecourses already in circulation. Additionally, the potential time savings in editing the pages that are within your control can add up to hours and hours saved for you.
NOTE: This article has a free companion video tutorial that demonstrates how to quickly and easily put yourself in complete control of your hard earned traffic. The video can be viewed here: http://www.gothrive.com/tkii.htm
Here’s the scenario…
1) You’re promoting someone else’s product as an affiliate.
2) You’ve built and uploaded multiple web pages with this affiliate link long ago.
3) You’ve written an ecourse with the affiliate link included in multiple messages.
4) You’ve created a viral ebook that’s been downloaded 5,000 times in the last 9 months and it includes this affiliate link.
Now, everything is rolling along quite nicely and you receive an email message from the owner / creator of this affiliate program advising you that they are launching new affiliate software on a new server and it will mean that your old affiliate links will no longer work - effective tomorrow. Ouch.
Without the use of tracking links, you’ll need to…
- Find every web page where this affiliate link is located, edit the pages and upload the updated versions.
- Edit your ecourse messages with the new revised affiliate link and update your autoresponder.
- Forget about all your hard work invested in creating your viral ebook because you can’t recall the ebooks and there’s no way to remotely fix the affiliate link.
Not only is this all quite unfortunate, but it’s going to cost you time and potential income lost. So, how can you avoid getting in this situation in the first place? Here’s the good news…
The solution that puts you in complete control is the use of tracking links. Instead of using the affiliate URL to link directly to the product or service, be the middle man with your own tracking link. Here’s how the traffic will flow…
1) Traffic lands on your web page and clicks the link you provide, which is a tracking link.
2) The visitor is directed to your tracking program, which in turn redirects the traffic to the affiliate program.
Simple enough, right? Absolutely.
The real beauty of this is that when you get the message from the affiliate program administrator announcing the news of their wonderful new affiliate program and your updated link, you say “Hey, cool. No problem.” You log into your tracking program’s admin panel, edit the target URL for your tracking link and your work is done in 60 seconds flat.
No editing and uploading of web pages. No editing or updating of autoresponders. No lost income from broken links in your viral ebook. It’s a beautiful thing.
The scenario will happen. It’s only a matter of time. Will you be able to successfully make all necessary adjustments in 60 seconds or will you be scrambling for hours? The answer is in your decision whether or not you use tracking links.
To view the free companion video tutorial that demonstrates how to quickly and easily put yourself in complete control of your hard earned traffic, go here:
http://www.gothrive.com/tkii.htm
Copyright 2005 Ron Hutton
Ron Hutton is a 20 year sales and marketing veteran with a passion for coaching and training. Subscribe to “GoThrive Online”, for Free Video Tutorials for Internet Marketing and big juicy marketing tips in small, easy-to-chew, bite size servings. Free Video Tutorial Archives Here:
http://www.gothrive.com/free-video-tutorials.htm
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