Do you often find it difficult to make time for your marketing activities? Or do you find that when you do market, it's not consistent enough to bring you the results you want? Marketing your business is as important as what it is that you do. If you embrace that, you will stop struggling so much and reach a whole other level of success!
Before my business evolved into what it is now, I was trading my time for money. As a webmaster, I charged by the hour. As a writer/editor, I charged by the hour. As a public relations and marketing consultant, I charged by the hour. Do you see the problem here? There are only so many hours in the day, right? And if I wanted to pay the rent, I needed the majority of them to be billable hours, which left little to no time for marketing. As you can imagine, I struggled to get clients.
But I don't struggle anymore, and here's why: it's called passive income - multiple streams of passive income - that enables me to work with fewer (but more of my ideal) clients one-one-one, and gives me much more time for marketing and growing my business with a lot less effort.
Here are 3 steps to implementing this model into your business:
1. Use the funnel method of marketing. I talk about this constantly, but it's such a powerful model (that actually works) that I want as many people as possible to embrace it. If you set your business up within this system, it will automatically do your marketing for you. And it's the best kind of marketing - the "set it and forget it" kind!
2. Stop trading time for money... and start creating products that will bring you passive income. You can create products from knowledge you already have, in a way that is easy to package and deliver, such as an eBook. Taking your expertise and bottling it actually allows you to help more people than you ever could one-on-one, and it lets those prospects who might not be able to afford your rates an option of still working with you, just in a different form.
3. Raise your fees. Once you start offering products, and start bringing in passive income, raise your one-on-one fees. Now don't gasp! What will raising your fees do? It will allow you to gracefully let go of some of those less than ideal clients and let you work with more of those whom you are best suited to serve. The increase in fees will, at the very least, offset the loss of revenue from the clients that have dropped off, but ultimately you will bring in more revenue by taking your business to a higher level of quality and commitment. It will also give you more time to create more products!
Structure your business around this model and you will enjoy working with more of your ideal clients and customers, create more income by way of packaging your knowledge into products, and give yourself more time to spend building your business to the highest vision of it you can imagine.
Friday, July 31, 2015
Thursday, July 30, 2015
How To Edit For Mass Appeal
Web copy that's intended to sell or generate leads needs to quickly reach out and grab attention and build rapport with a target audience. You can connect with your audience more effectively if you understand something about how people process information, and how they think.
Every one of us is constantly sorting, distorting, and generalizing what we perceive, just to stay sane.
As a result, different people see the world differently. You probably want to appeal to as many of them within your target market as possible. Here are three simple tips you can use when it comes to editing your web copy.
1 - An idea can be made to appeal to more people if it is expressed in both a positive (moving toward), and a negative (moving away from) fashion.
Look how it's done in this famous lead..."TWO YEARS FROM NOW, your business could easily be worth 2.5 to 25 times what it's worth today...Or you could fall into the list of business also-rans... " Some people are motivated by the desire for gain, and others by the fear of loss. With a statement like this, it doesn't matter which, you're speaking their language either way.
Another great example of this is in the life insurance industry. Rather than try to force a square peg into a round whole, the insurance companies came up with the idea of "cash value". Now the sales pitch could be re framed to appeal to both types of people. Those that moved toward pleasure could be sold on the idea of early retirement, and those that moved away from pain could be sold on the more traditional idea of income protection.
2 - The second idea is internal versus external frame of reference. Some people do things because they see others doing them. Some people want to relate things to their own experience. The former is impressed by testimonials and success stories, while the latter is moved by deductive reasoning, analogy, and metaphor. You can see this requires two very different kinds of selling.
Here's another way to look at internal versus external orientation. The internally directed person values a sense of achievement while the externally directed person values recognition. Two sides to the same coin.
So you might say in your copy, "Picture the smiles of appreciation your family will reward you with when they begin to enjoy the new lifestyle this knowledge can afford you. Imagine the sense of achievement, and how confident you'll become!"
The first sentence appeals to an external bias, while the second one targets an internal bias.
3 - And the third tip is to use phrases that appeal to multiple modes of perception in your copy. Like everyone else, you perceive the world with a bias toward seeing (visual), hearing (auditory), or feeling. Naturally your copy will reflect this bias. By going back through it and editing it to include all three biases, you will connect with more readers.
I am a very visual person, so I might write something like, " You've got a clear view of it in your mind's eye now, don't you? Suddenly, it appears you'll make your decision." I might go back and edit this passage to include a mix of the modalities. Perhaps..."This is really resonating (auditory) with you now isn't it? You've grasped () all of the important points and you can see (visual) your choice."
By understanding people's patterns of perception, and how they view the world, you can make more of them feel comfortable when they arrive at your website. Your sales message will click with more buyers, and you'll see more sales!
Every one of us is constantly sorting, distorting, and generalizing what we perceive, just to stay sane.
As a result, different people see the world differently. You probably want to appeal to as many of them within your target market as possible. Here are three simple tips you can use when it comes to editing your web copy.
1 - An idea can be made to appeal to more people if it is expressed in both a positive (moving toward), and a negative (moving away from) fashion.
Look how it's done in this famous lead..."TWO YEARS FROM NOW, your business could easily be worth 2.5 to 25 times what it's worth today...Or you could fall into the list of business also-rans... " Some people are motivated by the desire for gain, and others by the fear of loss. With a statement like this, it doesn't matter which, you're speaking their language either way.
Another great example of this is in the life insurance industry. Rather than try to force a square peg into a round whole, the insurance companies came up with the idea of "cash value". Now the sales pitch could be re framed to appeal to both types of people. Those that moved toward pleasure could be sold on the idea of early retirement, and those that moved away from pain could be sold on the more traditional idea of income protection.
2 - The second idea is internal versus external frame of reference. Some people do things because they see others doing them. Some people want to relate things to their own experience. The former is impressed by testimonials and success stories, while the latter is moved by deductive reasoning, analogy, and metaphor. You can see this requires two very different kinds of selling.
Here's another way to look at internal versus external orientation. The internally directed person values a sense of achievement while the externally directed person values recognition. Two sides to the same coin.
So you might say in your copy, "Picture the smiles of appreciation your family will reward you with when they begin to enjoy the new lifestyle this knowledge can afford you. Imagine the sense of achievement, and how confident you'll become!"
The first sentence appeals to an external bias, while the second one targets an internal bias.
3 - And the third tip is to use phrases that appeal to multiple modes of perception in your copy. Like everyone else, you perceive the world with a bias toward seeing (visual), hearing (auditory), or feeling. Naturally your copy will reflect this bias. By going back through it and editing it to include all three biases, you will connect with more readers.
I am a very visual person, so I might write something like, " You've got a clear view of it in your mind's eye now, don't you? Suddenly, it appears you'll make your decision." I might go back and edit this passage to include a mix of the modalities. Perhaps..."This is really resonating (auditory) with you now isn't it? You've grasped () all of the important points and you can see (visual) your choice."
By understanding people's patterns of perception, and how they view the world, you can make more of them feel comfortable when they arrive at your website. Your sales message will click with more buyers, and you'll see more sales!
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Adword Newbie Mistakes
Without doubt the biggest mistake a newbie to Adwords makes is compiling a long list of less than targeted keywords and whacking (technical term) them into a single ad-group.
Using broad match only
The unholiest of the trinity ñ not tracking results.
#1 The Single Ad group
Although at first it may seem tempting ñ collecting all your keywords and lumping them into a single ad-group for ease of administration is not a good idea for a multitude of reasons.
First off, lets say you have managed to find 1000 keywords for your campaign and you pop them all into a single ad-group. Yes, you get a single point of administration (or more accurately a single point of failure) but look at what you miss:
The ability to group tightly cohesive keywords (which are the mindset of your prospects) and construct targeted adverts which are more likely to gain a click through to your site.
The ability to have specific landing pages on your site for specific customer demographics. This alone will greatly increase your chances of getting a prospect respond to your call to action ñ be it an email address capture or a sale.
The ability to keep tight control over the budget of your best keywords (where best are high traffic/high conversion). Sure you can adjust individual CPCs within an ad-group, but the granularity and control is not there and the problems inherent with grouping too many loosely assembled keywords will ensure your efforts are thwarted and money wasted.
Have you ever had your account slowed? It is a pain for sure but the more keywords you have administered in a less than disciplined way, the more of your keywords will be put on hold/in-trial and/or disabled.
Remember Google rewards good advertising performance and looks at all advertiser histories & your advertising history when determining how well you are doing.
Adwords is not a fire and forget medium (unless you have a very niche market with very little competition ñ but the days of such markets are numbered).
Active campaign management is required to ensure you have not just a return of your investment but a positive return on your investment.
#2 Using Broad Match
Consider the keyword widget.
How many ways can you search for this keyword? In theory there are infinite number of searches that can be conducted but in practice there are considerably fewer thankfully.
However, how should you specify your matching options within Adwords?
Option 1: Broad Match
This specifies the keyword in an unadorned fashion within your list like so:
Blue widget
What this means is that should somebody search for the keywords:
Blue widget
Red blue widget
Widget blue
Widget who searches for these things blue?
Don't need blue widget
Then, your advert would show for all of these. This is all very well when broad match (Iíll not talk about expanded match searching for fear of confusion!) shows your advert for terms relevant to you.
For every term relevant to your market there could be 10, 100 or 1000 others which are not (which is why when you utilize broad matching you should use negative keywords exhaustively).
The upshot of this is two-fold:
Your advert will have more untargeted impressions which will result in a lower Click Through Rate
You will receive more clicks from visitors who are not in the least bit interested in your product/service thus increasing your costs.
Option 2: Phrase match
This specifies the keyword by surrounding it in quotes like so:
blue widget
What this means is that should somebody search for the keywords:
Need blue widget
Blue widget
Blue widget where are you
Don't need blue widget
Then your advert will show because the phrase is found within the keywords. This is the next most highly targeted form of search matching and is an improvement on broad match ñ in terms of specialization.
Option 3: Exact match
This specifies the keyword by surrounding it in square brackets like so:
[blue widget]
Now, your advert will only show if and only if the keyword
Blue widget
is searched for.
In an ideal world, you will know exactly what every keyword is that your prospects are searching for and you could therefore have an exact match for a keyword search. This would serve to both minimize your advertising expenditure and increase your return on investment simultaneously.
But, to get to a point whereby you know the keywords (or at least know as many as possible) which are profitable to you, you need to conduct some research within your adwords campaigns.
So which is the best matching options to use?
Starting off, it is best to utilize all 3 matching options within your ad-group because:
You get to know if there are keywords out there you have missed in your research and can dig further to find out if they should be specified with more targeted matching or added to your negative keyword list.
The assignment of your keyword status (on hold, in trial, disabled) is delayed because the impressions are spread between the variants of the keywords.
More targeted terms (using exact match) generally have higher conversion rates so you can assign different more cost effect cost per clicks accordingly.
Eventually, as your campaigns mature in time, you will have more and more exact match and less phrase & broad match. As a result your advertising costs will decrease whilst your return on investment will naturally increase.
#3 The Unholiest Error
Ok, this isn't an adwords tip per se as it should be adopted and applied to each and every part of your online and offline advertising.
It ís time to be honest ñ for each and every piece of advertising/PR you have on the go, how well are you tracking results?
I mean can you categorically put your hand on your heart and say, yes, by handing out business cards, I
In the world of Adwords, you need to know what keywords are giving you results and focus your budget and efforts accordingly.
If you have an advert that shunts prospects to a generic landing page, which is not tracked and you have no idea as a result whether they signed up or bought a product/service.
Then, you are wasting tens, hundreds, thousands (bigger companies are some of the worst offenders wasting millions) of pounds every year.
Now you can no longer claim ignorance on the biggest mistakes made with Google Adwords. And I shall make sure my next batch of business cards are traceable!
Using broad match only
The unholiest of the trinity ñ not tracking results.
#1 The Single Ad group
Although at first it may seem tempting ñ collecting all your keywords and lumping them into a single ad-group for ease of administration is not a good idea for a multitude of reasons.
First off, lets say you have managed to find 1000 keywords for your campaign and you pop them all into a single ad-group. Yes, you get a single point of administration (or more accurately a single point of failure) but look at what you miss:
The ability to group tightly cohesive keywords (which are the mindset of your prospects) and construct targeted adverts which are more likely to gain a click through to your site.
The ability to have specific landing pages on your site for specific customer demographics. This alone will greatly increase your chances of getting a prospect respond to your call to action ñ be it an email address capture or a sale.
The ability to keep tight control over the budget of your best keywords (where best are high traffic/high conversion). Sure you can adjust individual CPCs within an ad-group, but the granularity and control is not there and the problems inherent with grouping too many loosely assembled keywords will ensure your efforts are thwarted and money wasted.
Have you ever had your account slowed? It is a pain for sure but the more keywords you have administered in a less than disciplined way, the more of your keywords will be put on hold/in-trial and/or disabled.
Remember Google rewards good advertising performance and looks at all advertiser histories & your advertising history when determining how well you are doing.
Adwords is not a fire and forget medium (unless you have a very niche market with very little competition ñ but the days of such markets are numbered).
Active campaign management is required to ensure you have not just a return of your investment but a positive return on your investment.
#2 Using Broad Match
Consider the keyword widget.
How many ways can you search for this keyword? In theory there are infinite number of searches that can be conducted but in practice there are considerably fewer thankfully.
However, how should you specify your matching options within Adwords?
Option 1: Broad Match
This specifies the keyword in an unadorned fashion within your list like so:
Blue widget
What this means is that should somebody search for the keywords:
Blue widget
Red blue widget
Widget blue
Widget who searches for these things blue?
Don't need blue widget
Then, your advert would show for all of these. This is all very well when broad match (Iíll not talk about expanded match searching for fear of confusion!) shows your advert for terms relevant to you.
For every term relevant to your market there could be 10, 100 or 1000 others which are not (which is why when you utilize broad matching you should use negative keywords exhaustively).
The upshot of this is two-fold:
Your advert will have more untargeted impressions which will result in a lower Click Through Rate
You will receive more clicks from visitors who are not in the least bit interested in your product/service thus increasing your costs.
Option 2: Phrase match
This specifies the keyword by surrounding it in quotes like so:
blue widget
What this means is that should somebody search for the keywords:
Need blue widget
Blue widget
Blue widget where are you
Don't need blue widget
Then your advert will show because the phrase is found within the keywords. This is the next most highly targeted form of search matching and is an improvement on broad match ñ in terms of specialization.
Option 3: Exact match
This specifies the keyword by surrounding it in square brackets like so:
[blue widget]
Now, your advert will only show if and only if the keyword
Blue widget
is searched for.
In an ideal world, you will know exactly what every keyword is that your prospects are searching for and you could therefore have an exact match for a keyword search. This would serve to both minimize your advertising expenditure and increase your return on investment simultaneously.
But, to get to a point whereby you know the keywords (or at least know as many as possible) which are profitable to you, you need to conduct some research within your adwords campaigns.
So which is the best matching options to use?
Starting off, it is best to utilize all 3 matching options within your ad-group because:
You get to know if there are keywords out there you have missed in your research and can dig further to find out if they should be specified with more targeted matching or added to your negative keyword list.
The assignment of your keyword status (on hold, in trial, disabled) is delayed because the impressions are spread between the variants of the keywords.
More targeted terms (using exact match) generally have higher conversion rates so you can assign different more cost effect cost per clicks accordingly.
Eventually, as your campaigns mature in time, you will have more and more exact match and less phrase & broad match. As a result your advertising costs will decrease whilst your return on investment will naturally increase.
#3 The Unholiest Error
Ok, this isn't an adwords tip per se as it should be adopted and applied to each and every part of your online and offline advertising.
It ís time to be honest ñ for each and every piece of advertising/PR you have on the go, how well are you tracking results?
I mean can you categorically put your hand on your heart and say, yes, by handing out business cards, I
In the world of Adwords, you need to know what keywords are giving you results and focus your budget and efforts accordingly.
If you have an advert that shunts prospects to a generic landing page, which is not tracked and you have no idea as a result whether they signed up or bought a product/service.
Then, you are wasting tens, hundreds, thousands (bigger companies are some of the worst offenders wasting millions) of pounds every year.
Now you can no longer claim ignorance on the biggest mistakes made with Google Adwords. And I shall make sure my next batch of business cards are traceable!
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Sure-Fire Methods Proven To Convert More Customers
If you're a marketer your number one concern is customers. You've probably read and heard a million and one ideas about how to build relationships, retain customers, create a list of potential customers, and inspire consumer loyalty. But the tough question is, "How do I convert prospects into customers?"
There are a lot of people out there who see your ads, think about them, and maybe even say, "I ought to..." They're just waiting to be convinced to to do something about it. There is something you can do to get them moving!
1. Improve Your Offer
No on can pass up the deal that's "too good to resist." Think about it... how often do your customers want your product, but just want something else a little more? That leaves you with a long list of "almost sales" that have the potential to be converted into real sales and profit. Sweeten the deal. Make the offer so good they can't resist it.
Now, I'm in no way suggesting that you drop your prices to sweeten the deal. You can just as easily load it up with bonuses to increase the perceived value without cutting away at your profit. Bonuses motivate sales, maybe even more than cut prices.
Don't let them lollygag. Yeah, get them into the store pronto with a deadline. They may have to put a competitors purchase on hold to get your deal, but hey... what's wrong with that?
2. Follow Up
How would you like to increase your sales by more than 50 percent? Yeah, it sounds good! There's really a very simple tactic that you can implement... follow ups.
Chances are, prospective customers aren't going to buy your product the first time they see or hear about it. Maybe it'll be the third or fourth, but they have to hear from you that third or fourth time before they actually become a customer. Do you have a follow up system in place?
Simply contact the "almost customer" every month with a new offer, or give them more information about the product they are showing interest in. It doesn't have to be an intricate process. Keeping the contact there goes a long way toward building trust... the key to finding life-long customers.
Internet Marketers experience a high number of customers who browse their site, then click away. You can't follow up without some form of contact information. A great way to gather the info you need is to offer a free eBook or informative report that consumers will find of interest. Once they've given you the information to email them the product, you have what you need to keep in contact, and work on converting them into loyal customers.
Personalize as much as possible. If you can get the first-name of your customer... great! Personalized messages have greater appeal than "addressed to occupant" messages.
There are a lot of people out there who see your ads, think about them, and maybe even say, "I ought to..." They're just waiting to be convinced to to do something about it. There is something you can do to get them moving!
1. Improve Your Offer
No on can pass up the deal that's "too good to resist." Think about it... how often do your customers want your product, but just want something else a little more? That leaves you with a long list of "almost sales" that have the potential to be converted into real sales and profit. Sweeten the deal. Make the offer so good they can't resist it.
Now, I'm in no way suggesting that you drop your prices to sweeten the deal. You can just as easily load it up with bonuses to increase the perceived value without cutting away at your profit. Bonuses motivate sales, maybe even more than cut prices.
Don't let them lollygag. Yeah, get them into the store pronto with a deadline. They may have to put a competitors purchase on hold to get your deal, but hey... what's wrong with that?
2. Follow Up
How would you like to increase your sales by more than 50 percent? Yeah, it sounds good! There's really a very simple tactic that you can implement... follow ups.
Chances are, prospective customers aren't going to buy your product the first time they see or hear about it. Maybe it'll be the third or fourth, but they have to hear from you that third or fourth time before they actually become a customer. Do you have a follow up system in place?
Simply contact the "almost customer" every month with a new offer, or give them more information about the product they are showing interest in. It doesn't have to be an intricate process. Keeping the contact there goes a long way toward building trust... the key to finding life-long customers.
Internet Marketers experience a high number of customers who browse their site, then click away. You can't follow up without some form of contact information. A great way to gather the info you need is to offer a free eBook or informative report that consumers will find of interest. Once they've given you the information to email them the product, you have what you need to keep in contact, and work on converting them into loyal customers.
Personalize as much as possible. If you can get the first-name of your customer... great! Personalized messages have greater appeal than "addressed to occupant" messages.
Monday, July 27, 2015
Getting Free Publicity for Your Business
Advertising is telling the world how great you are, while publicity is having others tell the world how great you are. Companies and organizations that understand the importance of publicity are generally more successful than those who use advertising alone to reach their target audiences.
Newspapers, magazines and radio and television news programs are filled with stories about businesses and organizations. Those who know how to present materials professionally to the right people will get media coverage for free, while those who don't understand how publicity works have to rely on large advertising budgets to reach their audiences, usually with less impressive results.
"If you can get a news organization to report about your event or praise something you're doing, you have gained an enormous amount of credibility that simply couldn't be generated through paid advertising," said David Forman, a public relations veteran and author of "Publicity Professor," a workbook that teaches business owners how to get free news coverage.
The first step in reaching out to media professionals is to create an appealing press release. Its main purpose is to get an editor or producer interested in what you have to say or in what you are doing. It should contain enough information, specifics and quotes that a writer can craft a story from it without ever having to call you.
A media alert is another tool for getting press coverage. Its purpose is to give news assignment desks the specifics about an event in a way that entices editors or television news directors to send a reporter or camera crew.
There are dozens of other ways to get news coverage, such as placing feature stories or writing pitch letters offering your expertise in a subject for quotes or on-air interviews.
Forman says you don't have to hire outside help to get publicity.
"Nobody knows your business like you do," Forman said. "You simply have to reach the appropriate person with your message, in a format that media professionals expect."
Using real-world examples, "Publicity Professor" shows you how to give editors and producers exactly what they're looking for to get your story covered for free.
The guidebook includes easy-to-follow templates of press releases, media alerts, feature stories and pitch letters; suggestions on creating newsworthy special events and awards programs; and resources for contacting local, regional and national media.
Newspapers, magazines and radio and television news programs are filled with stories about businesses and organizations. Those who know how to present materials professionally to the right people will get media coverage for free, while those who don't understand how publicity works have to rely on large advertising budgets to reach their audiences, usually with less impressive results.
"If you can get a news organization to report about your event or praise something you're doing, you have gained an enormous amount of credibility that simply couldn't be generated through paid advertising," said David Forman, a public relations veteran and author of "Publicity Professor," a workbook that teaches business owners how to get free news coverage.
The first step in reaching out to media professionals is to create an appealing press release. Its main purpose is to get an editor or producer interested in what you have to say or in what you are doing. It should contain enough information, specifics and quotes that a writer can craft a story from it without ever having to call you.
A media alert is another tool for getting press coverage. Its purpose is to give news assignment desks the specifics about an event in a way that entices editors or television news directors to send a reporter or camera crew.
There are dozens of other ways to get news coverage, such as placing feature stories or writing pitch letters offering your expertise in a subject for quotes or on-air interviews.
Forman says you don't have to hire outside help to get publicity.
"Nobody knows your business like you do," Forman said. "You simply have to reach the appropriate person with your message, in a format that media professionals expect."
Using real-world examples, "Publicity Professor" shows you how to give editors and producers exactly what they're looking for to get your story covered for free.
The guidebook includes easy-to-follow templates of press releases, media alerts, feature stories and pitch letters; suggestions on creating newsworthy special events and awards programs; and resources for contacting local, regional and national media.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Don't Get Caught With Google Adsense Click Fraud
Many web site owners are getting their Google Adsense account terminated when they have done nothing wrong to deserve the punishment. Considering the money that they are getting from Adsense, they would certainly want to get back into it, and no wonder as the money that can be made over time is huge!
It is that same consideration why the Google Adsense click fraud is thought of and why many people are getting into it.
Click fraud is the act of clicking on ads for the purpose of costing the advertiser money. It is simply the same as paying out cash for false leads. Many people website owners are aware of this fraud and are sharing the same sentiment that this is the one big problem that Adsense is facing.
How do you prevent being involved in this fraud?
Majority of web hosts are offering access logs. Once this is offered to you, it is necessary that you hand it over to Google as well. This allows them to look for any suspicious activity on your site. Problems like this are very serious and giving it to them is saying that you would want to help them in any way you can in solving the problem.
It can also help if you have a click monitoring software. If you do not have one yet, you should try and get one. There is absolutely no major factor preventing you from having one because most of this software is free.
As usual, all the information you have received should be turned over to Google. This is showing Google that you too are fighting against click frauds and that you are not a part of it.
Study your server logs and watch for any activity that seems suspicious. Report anything that you may find odd, may it big or small thing.
You may want to consider disabling ads for your own IP address and local geographic area. This will certainly prevent accidents and will not make Google mistake another user as you. You can do through an htaccess file. This will avoid Google mistaking as clicking on your own ads and be kicked out because of it.
Keep your Adsense off on pop ups and pop unders. Your ads should not be displayed on content sites that promote illegal activity or tampering of the legal rights of other people or business, these include content that is considered adult and of a gambling nature. If you think that you may be breaking this rule, immediately remove your content or Adsense from the web page.
Be truthful and confess up to Google about times when you might have clicked on your own as, whether accidentally or intentionally. Or the times when you have done something that is against the Terms of Service that they are implementing. Be honest about anything that you may have done that is wrong. Confessing is way better than Google learning about it eventually. It would mean eventual termination and no getting back what you have worked so hard for.
Do not tell your family or friends about Adsense on your website. Chances are they may start clicking on them to help you make money without you knowing it. They may be doing more harm to you than help by trying it in the first place.
If ever someone you know chanced upon your Adsense, ensure they understand that they cannot click on your ads under any circumstances. It would be wise to brief them on important things about Adsense and what not to do with them.
Most pay per click networks have different measures in hand to protect website owners against click frauds. Other search engines can track more than 50 data points, IP address, browserís information, userís session info and pattern recognition. They also have ìsystemsî available that detects fraud. Not to mention the specialized teams monitoring how things are going and helping advertisers stop click frauds.
Google offers suggestion on how to avoid click fraud. Using ìnegative keywordsî can be used to keep your Adsense showing on products and services that are in no way related to yours. Consider adding tracking URLs to your links so you can track the traffic coming from Google.
Do not be caught in the Google click fraud. Be aware and be wary.
It is that same consideration why the Google Adsense click fraud is thought of and why many people are getting into it.
Click fraud is the act of clicking on ads for the purpose of costing the advertiser money. It is simply the same as paying out cash for false leads. Many people website owners are aware of this fraud and are sharing the same sentiment that this is the one big problem that Adsense is facing.
How do you prevent being involved in this fraud?
Majority of web hosts are offering access logs. Once this is offered to you, it is necessary that you hand it over to Google as well. This allows them to look for any suspicious activity on your site. Problems like this are very serious and giving it to them is saying that you would want to help them in any way you can in solving the problem.
It can also help if you have a click monitoring software. If you do not have one yet, you should try and get one. There is absolutely no major factor preventing you from having one because most of this software is free.
As usual, all the information you have received should be turned over to Google. This is showing Google that you too are fighting against click frauds and that you are not a part of it.
Study your server logs and watch for any activity that seems suspicious. Report anything that you may find odd, may it big or small thing.
You may want to consider disabling ads for your own IP address and local geographic area. This will certainly prevent accidents and will not make Google mistake another user as you. You can do through an htaccess file. This will avoid Google mistaking as clicking on your own ads and be kicked out because of it.
Keep your Adsense off on pop ups and pop unders. Your ads should not be displayed on content sites that promote illegal activity or tampering of the legal rights of other people or business, these include content that is considered adult and of a gambling nature. If you think that you may be breaking this rule, immediately remove your content or Adsense from the web page.
Be truthful and confess up to Google about times when you might have clicked on your own as, whether accidentally or intentionally. Or the times when you have done something that is against the Terms of Service that they are implementing. Be honest about anything that you may have done that is wrong. Confessing is way better than Google learning about it eventually. It would mean eventual termination and no getting back what you have worked so hard for.
Do not tell your family or friends about Adsense on your website. Chances are they may start clicking on them to help you make money without you knowing it. They may be doing more harm to you than help by trying it in the first place.
If ever someone you know chanced upon your Adsense, ensure they understand that they cannot click on your ads under any circumstances. It would be wise to brief them on important things about Adsense and what not to do with them.
Most pay per click networks have different measures in hand to protect website owners against click frauds. Other search engines can track more than 50 data points, IP address, browserís information, userís session info and pattern recognition. They also have ìsystemsî available that detects fraud. Not to mention the specialized teams monitoring how things are going and helping advertisers stop click frauds.
Google offers suggestion on how to avoid click fraud. Using ìnegative keywordsî can be used to keep your Adsense showing on products and services that are in no way related to yours. Consider adding tracking URLs to your links so you can track the traffic coming from Google.
Do not be caught in the Google click fraud. Be aware and be wary.
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Deciphering Marketing Lingo for Small Business Owners
Maybe you've heard these different marketing terms, maybe you haven't. Either way, let me help to clarify the difference between them, because you should have all three if you want to market successfully. And knowing what they are may be your first step to accomplishing all three for your business.
Unique Selling Proposition
A unique selling proposition, sometimes referred to as a USP, is the one thing that is unique and valuable about your business, product or service? And it must be unique and valuable to your prospects or ideal clients, not just to you.
It may be an inherent attribute of your product or service (it's the only blue widget available and blue is the color your ideal customers prefer) or it may be something you create. I created the USP for my business, 10stepmarketing.
There are many marketing training programs and educational products available. But there were none I could find that taught small business owners how to create and implement their own marketing plan using a simple, step-by-step, question-and-answer method.
So I created my marketing training program (name and all) to fill this void in the marketplace. And it became my "created" USP. It didn't exist when I first started training 5 years ago ó I created it and built my business around it.
Your USP is an idea or a concept. It is not the exact words you feature in your marketing. You will however use it to write and create your marketing messages.
Single Message
This is what you say about your business, product or service when you market. It is the one key idea or message you include in all of your marketing. It may be very closely related to your USP, but it may not be exactly the same.
You will determine your single message AFTER you determine your USP. Additionally, look at your single message as the one thing you could tell your prospects to change their mindset about your product or service, from what they currently think to what you WANT them to think.
It is usually written in the form of a short statement or sentence. Its job is to take your prospects from what they think now to what you want them to think. Most likely you will NOT feature your single message in your marketing materials exactly as you have written it in your marketing plan.
The idea will be communicated, but you will very likely use different words in your actual marketing materials. For 10stepmarketing, my single message is "If you can answer 10 questions, you can successfully market your business." (In my case, I turned my single message into a tagline because it was succinct, it communicated exactly what I wanted, and frankly, it just WORKED!)
Tagline
Your tagline is an actual line of marketing copy you write to sum up what you do, or what you want your prospects to know about your product or service, or a key benefit they will reap if they purchase. You will draw on your USP and your Single Message to help you craft your tagline.
This is the only one of all three (USP, Single Message, Tagline) your prospects will see exactly as you have written it in your marketing plan. As stated above, my tagline for 10stepmarketing came directly from my single message. This is not usually the case, but it just happened to work out that way.
You may have the same situation. Your USP or your Single Message may be so spot-on you choose to use it as your tagline. As long as your tagline communicates a customer-focused message that's great.
Always ask yourself the question "What's so great about that?" when you are thinking of putting a tagline or any other message or copy in front of your prospects. If "what's so great" is obvious, your copy or tagline is probably already very customer-focused.
If you can further drill down to a more specific customer benefit when asking this question, then you are still in business-owner "feature-land" and you will want to keep asking "What's so great about that?" until you can't drill down any further.
Unique Selling Proposition
A unique selling proposition, sometimes referred to as a USP, is the one thing that is unique and valuable about your business, product or service? And it must be unique and valuable to your prospects or ideal clients, not just to you.
It may be an inherent attribute of your product or service (it's the only blue widget available and blue is the color your ideal customers prefer) or it may be something you create. I created the USP for my business, 10stepmarketing.
There are many marketing training programs and educational products available. But there were none I could find that taught small business owners how to create and implement their own marketing plan using a simple, step-by-step, question-and-answer method.
So I created my marketing training program (name and all) to fill this void in the marketplace. And it became my "created" USP. It didn't exist when I first started training 5 years ago ó I created it and built my business around it.
Your USP is an idea or a concept. It is not the exact words you feature in your marketing. You will however use it to write and create your marketing messages.
Single Message
This is what you say about your business, product or service when you market. It is the one key idea or message you include in all of your marketing. It may be very closely related to your USP, but it may not be exactly the same.
You will determine your single message AFTER you determine your USP. Additionally, look at your single message as the one thing you could tell your prospects to change their mindset about your product or service, from what they currently think to what you WANT them to think.
It is usually written in the form of a short statement or sentence. Its job is to take your prospects from what they think now to what you want them to think. Most likely you will NOT feature your single message in your marketing materials exactly as you have written it in your marketing plan.
The idea will be communicated, but you will very likely use different words in your actual marketing materials. For 10stepmarketing, my single message is "If you can answer 10 questions, you can successfully market your business." (In my case, I turned my single message into a tagline because it was succinct, it communicated exactly what I wanted, and frankly, it just WORKED!)
Tagline
Your tagline is an actual line of marketing copy you write to sum up what you do, or what you want your prospects to know about your product or service, or a key benefit they will reap if they purchase. You will draw on your USP and your Single Message to help you craft your tagline.
This is the only one of all three (USP, Single Message, Tagline) your prospects will see exactly as you have written it in your marketing plan. As stated above, my tagline for 10stepmarketing came directly from my single message. This is not usually the case, but it just happened to work out that way.
You may have the same situation. Your USP or your Single Message may be so spot-on you choose to use it as your tagline. As long as your tagline communicates a customer-focused message that's great.
Always ask yourself the question "What's so great about that?" when you are thinking of putting a tagline or any other message or copy in front of your prospects. If "what's so great" is obvious, your copy or tagline is probably already very customer-focused.
If you can further drill down to a more specific customer benefit when asking this question, then you are still in business-owner "feature-land" and you will want to keep asking "What's so great about that?" until you can't drill down any further.
Friday, July 24, 2015
Creative And Affordable Way For Small Businesses To Attract New Customers
One of the biggest challenges that any small business faces is finding creative ways to attract new customers. Without the marketing clout of a Fortune 500 brand, it's hard to get the word out about a product or service. Yet, with so much competition in the marketplace, a business can't afford not to.
The most effective marketing campaigns include a combination of different media. The more places a potential customer sees a brand or message-from TV, radio, newspapers and online-the more likely they'll remember it. However, small businesses tend to rely primarily on local print and Yellow Pages advertising because they believe TV advertising is out of their reach.
Now there are new companies using technology to make TV advertising easy and affordable. One such company is Spot Runner, a unique new ad agency that has dramatically lowered the cost and complexity to develop an ad campaign. By putting the entire process online, the agency can provide a complete TV ad campaign for as little as $500 a month.
Creating the campaign takes just a few days. Clients start by logging on to Spot Runner's Web site and selecting an ad from a library of thousands of professionally produced ads. The agency personalizes the ad with the business' specific information and then, using its proprietary technology, creates a customized media plan. Clients can advertise on any broadcast and cable channel available, such as CNN, ESPN and Lifetime. Once the client approves the ad and the media plan, the agency gets it on air.
"We're a small boutique firm and TV advertising allows us to compete on an equal footing with the larger firms in town," said Ryan Lapidus, founder of the Lapidus & Lapidus law firm. "To see our ad on TV, side by side with Fortune 500 companies on major channels, is really exciting."
Spot Runner offers these five important tips to creating an effective marketing campaign:
1. Understand your audience and the messages that will resonate with them. A campaign geared towards homeowners is very different than one geared to teens.
2. Pick a campaign to fit your objectives. A campaign to raise brand awareness will require a different strategy than one to promote a new product or sale.
3. Choose an ad that reflects your company's brand values and image.
4. Make it easy to understand. People are thinking of other things when they see your ad. Don't make them think. Make them act.
5. Invest in your company's growth through a sustained marketing campaign. Advertising works over the long term by increasing awareness of your company among new customers and serving as a reminder to your existing customers.
Whether you're a professional, a retailer or a service provider, television advertising can fit into your budget and be an essential part of your marketing activities.
The most effective marketing campaigns include a combination of different media. The more places a potential customer sees a brand or message-from TV, radio, newspapers and online-the more likely they'll remember it. However, small businesses tend to rely primarily on local print and Yellow Pages advertising because they believe TV advertising is out of their reach.
Now there are new companies using technology to make TV advertising easy and affordable. One such company is Spot Runner, a unique new ad agency that has dramatically lowered the cost and complexity to develop an ad campaign. By putting the entire process online, the agency can provide a complete TV ad campaign for as little as $500 a month.
Creating the campaign takes just a few days. Clients start by logging on to Spot Runner's Web site and selecting an ad from a library of thousands of professionally produced ads. The agency personalizes the ad with the business' specific information and then, using its proprietary technology, creates a customized media plan. Clients can advertise on any broadcast and cable channel available, such as CNN, ESPN and Lifetime. Once the client approves the ad and the media plan, the agency gets it on air.
"We're a small boutique firm and TV advertising allows us to compete on an equal footing with the larger firms in town," said Ryan Lapidus, founder of the Lapidus & Lapidus law firm. "To see our ad on TV, side by side with Fortune 500 companies on major channels, is really exciting."
Spot Runner offers these five important tips to creating an effective marketing campaign:
1. Understand your audience and the messages that will resonate with them. A campaign geared towards homeowners is very different than one geared to teens.
2. Pick a campaign to fit your objectives. A campaign to raise brand awareness will require a different strategy than one to promote a new product or sale.
3. Choose an ad that reflects your company's brand values and image.
4. Make it easy to understand. People are thinking of other things when they see your ad. Don't make them think. Make them act.
5. Invest in your company's growth through a sustained marketing campaign. Advertising works over the long term by increasing awareness of your company among new customers and serving as a reminder to your existing customers.
Whether you're a professional, a retailer or a service provider, television advertising can fit into your budget and be an essential part of your marketing activities.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Creating a Buzz on a Budget
When starting a new business most people are trying not to overspend. So one of the places they cut back on is in advertising which is actually very important when starting a new venture. We all can't afford a 30 second spot during the super Bowl but there are a lot of things that we can do that won't cost us a lot.
If you have a vehicle of some sort, whether a car, truck, or van, why not use it as a travelling billboard? You can start with magnetic signs, they are very inexpensive and if you do a lot of driving then a lot of people will see your signs. Now if you have a very nice car and your worried about the finish then what about plastic letters adhered to your window(s)? This can be very effective and very low in cost but you gotta think about this, when people stop for traffic lights, railroad crossings or just for a stop sign their eyes will scout the area. This is a very common thing that almost everybody does. Did you ever stop at a railroad crossing and see these signs that are stuck in the ground with advertising for a mortgage company? They're not being put there because they don't work.
In fact, I know of several companies that are selling the service of putting up these signs for small businesses. Again with window lettering you need to use good ad copy have the domain on my back window of my car. It aroused curiosities when people saw this that they came to my website just to see what they would save up to 90% on. With any advertising you don't want to give them everything, you want them to have questions in their mind so that they will visit your site, your store, or call you to have these questions answered. It's like when leaving a message on an answering machine. If you say to much then why would these people call you back?
When I had a retail computer store I wanted to build a mailing list of possible customer's so I started a raffle. When someone first filled out an entry they got a mouse pad with my banner on it. These cost me less than a dollar each which I figured that meant that I had a dollar into each customer. The raffle was for a $1,000 shopping spree in my store and i collected entries for a year before I held the raffle. i then had the winner, which was an eleven year old boy, announced on the local radio. This kid's name was Andy and he is responsible for so many referrals. The $1,000 shopping spree maybe only cost me about $400 but I did so much new business because of this promotion.
Business cards, another low cost advertising mechanism. don't just put your name and phone on them put your website if you have one, your email address, and a one line description of what your business does. Now the next thing that needs to be done with your business cards is a visit to your local book store. if you are a Real estate agent or a mortgage broker then go to the section where all the real estate books are and put one of you cards in the bindings of each of the books. somebody who wants more info on buying a house or obtaining a mortgage is going to go to the bookstore and start looking at all the books on this subject. then they will see your business card. If you sell to small businesses then put your biz cards in the section where people go for books on business.
another area is the magazine section. besides your local book store's what about in your local grocery store/ Do you have a store that sells gift's, what about the local airport, bus terminals, doctors office's? the ideas are endless but you have to figure that somebody will be reading these publication's and they might see your business card.
Regarding radio advertising, did you ever consider AM radio? I used to pay less than 45 per spot for six second spots. it was a news talk radio station that also played CNN headline news. People driving in traffic, listening to AM radio were all hearing my commercials. when doing radio advertising it is still expensive if you target certain shows but what i did was called blanket advertising. i would buy a certain number of spots per 24 hour period.
what about advertising at your local movie theater? In between movies, while you are waiting for the next movie, you see advertisements on the screen. These cost maybe a few hundred dollars but a lot of people were seeing them. In Nashville, TN. you could advertise in bathrooms. You have to figure that men using the urinals had nothing to look at but the tile wall in front of them. In Nashville their was a company that sold signs, billboards, in the stalls and above the urinals. it was very effective. i discovered this method when i was at a good restaurant and had to use the Men's room.
All the local Chinese restaurants and pizza places hire people to hang flyers on all the doors in a certain area. What about having these people hang your flyers at the same time? If your business doesn't compete with the local pizza or Chinese restaurants a lot of them will do this for you at a very minimal, if any, charge.
If you have a website and don't want to spend the money for advertising then make sure your site has good content. Articles about specific topics, Search engines love these sites and you will still get great ranking's. it may take a little longer than paying a company to promote your site but it does work.
If you have a vehicle of some sort, whether a car, truck, or van, why not use it as a travelling billboard? You can start with magnetic signs, they are very inexpensive and if you do a lot of driving then a lot of people will see your signs. Now if you have a very nice car and your worried about the finish then what about plastic letters adhered to your window(s)? This can be very effective and very low in cost but you gotta think about this, when people stop for traffic lights, railroad crossings or just for a stop sign their eyes will scout the area. This is a very common thing that almost everybody does. Did you ever stop at a railroad crossing and see these signs that are stuck in the ground with advertising for a mortgage company? They're not being put there because they don't work.
In fact, I know of several companies that are selling the service of putting up these signs for small businesses. Again with window lettering you need to use good ad copy have the domain on my back window of my car. It aroused curiosities when people saw this that they came to my website just to see what they would save up to 90% on. With any advertising you don't want to give them everything, you want them to have questions in their mind so that they will visit your site, your store, or call you to have these questions answered. It's like when leaving a message on an answering machine. If you say to much then why would these people call you back?
When I had a retail computer store I wanted to build a mailing list of possible customer's so I started a raffle. When someone first filled out an entry they got a mouse pad with my banner on it. These cost me less than a dollar each which I figured that meant that I had a dollar into each customer. The raffle was for a $1,000 shopping spree in my store and i collected entries for a year before I held the raffle. i then had the winner, which was an eleven year old boy, announced on the local radio. This kid's name was Andy and he is responsible for so many referrals. The $1,000 shopping spree maybe only cost me about $400 but I did so much new business because of this promotion.
Business cards, another low cost advertising mechanism. don't just put your name and phone on them put your website if you have one, your email address, and a one line description of what your business does. Now the next thing that needs to be done with your business cards is a visit to your local book store. if you are a Real estate agent or a mortgage broker then go to the section where all the real estate books are and put one of you cards in the bindings of each of the books. somebody who wants more info on buying a house or obtaining a mortgage is going to go to the bookstore and start looking at all the books on this subject. then they will see your business card. If you sell to small businesses then put your biz cards in the section where people go for books on business.
another area is the magazine section. besides your local book store's what about in your local grocery store/ Do you have a store that sells gift's, what about the local airport, bus terminals, doctors office's? the ideas are endless but you have to figure that somebody will be reading these publication's and they might see your business card.
Regarding radio advertising, did you ever consider AM radio? I used to pay less than 45 per spot for six second spots. it was a news talk radio station that also played CNN headline news. People driving in traffic, listening to AM radio were all hearing my commercials. when doing radio advertising it is still expensive if you target certain shows but what i did was called blanket advertising. i would buy a certain number of spots per 24 hour period.
what about advertising at your local movie theater? In between movies, while you are waiting for the next movie, you see advertisements on the screen. These cost maybe a few hundred dollars but a lot of people were seeing them. In Nashville, TN. you could advertise in bathrooms. You have to figure that men using the urinals had nothing to look at but the tile wall in front of them. In Nashville their was a company that sold signs, billboards, in the stalls and above the urinals. it was very effective. i discovered this method when i was at a good restaurant and had to use the Men's room.
All the local Chinese restaurants and pizza places hire people to hang flyers on all the doors in a certain area. What about having these people hang your flyers at the same time? If your business doesn't compete with the local pizza or Chinese restaurants a lot of them will do this for you at a very minimal, if any, charge.
If you have a website and don't want to spend the money for advertising then make sure your site has good content. Articles about specific topics, Search engines love these sites and you will still get great ranking's. it may take a little longer than paying a company to promote your site but it does work.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Contextual Advertising
There are several ways people can make money online. From selling products to advertising. In this article I am going to explain the concept of contextual advertising.
First I will explain what contextual advertising is. Contextual advertising means the advertising of products on a website according to the content the page is displaying. For example if the content of a website was information on a Ford truck then the advertisements would be for Ford trucks for sale, or Ford servicing etc. It picks up the words on the page and displays ads that are similar to those words. Then when someone either performs an action or clicks on your page you will get paid.
Who can use contextual advertising on their website? Any one with content. Real content. Meaning not links or pictures but word content. There are several companies out there that offer contextual advertising programs. Some of the big ones include Yahoo and Google. Although Yahoo contextual advertising is currently only open to US publishers.
Contextual advertising programs sometimes have strict policies that need to be adhered too. Letís take Google as an example. As mentioned above Google ads can only be placed on pages that have content on them. The most important rule when using contextual advertising is DO NOT click on your own ads. Google has terminated many publishers accounts due to this rule not being followed and have gone to court several times regarding this ìclick fraudî.
Contextual advertising can be profitable. It can either pay for your hosting and maintenance costs for your website or it can pay for a lot more. There are several people that are making thousands a month from contextual advertising. It all depends on the amount of traffic your website has and the manner in which you place the ads on your page. If you place them in prominent places on your pages then you can expect to earn more.
First I will explain what contextual advertising is. Contextual advertising means the advertising of products on a website according to the content the page is displaying. For example if the content of a website was information on a Ford truck then the advertisements would be for Ford trucks for sale, or Ford servicing etc. It picks up the words on the page and displays ads that are similar to those words. Then when someone either performs an action or clicks on your page you will get paid.
Who can use contextual advertising on their website? Any one with content. Real content. Meaning not links or pictures but word content. There are several companies out there that offer contextual advertising programs. Some of the big ones include Yahoo and Google. Although Yahoo contextual advertising is currently only open to US publishers.
Contextual advertising programs sometimes have strict policies that need to be adhered too. Letís take Google as an example. As mentioned above Google ads can only be placed on pages that have content on them. The most important rule when using contextual advertising is DO NOT click on your own ads. Google has terminated many publishers accounts due to this rule not being followed and have gone to court several times regarding this ìclick fraudî.
Contextual advertising can be profitable. It can either pay for your hosting and maintenance costs for your website or it can pay for a lot more. There are several people that are making thousands a month from contextual advertising. It all depends on the amount of traffic your website has and the manner in which you place the ads on your page. If you place them in prominent places on your pages then you can expect to earn more.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Banner Advertising: How Does It Work?
So you are an internet marketer and you want to make money right? Or maybe you are just somebody with a product or service to sell that is looking for innovative ways to get your stuff in front of more customers eyes and increasing the size of your market share. Either way you have come to the right place to read about an excellent form of advertising called banner advertising that takes advantage of the wave of the future of he internet. The internet allows your market to instantly be any where in the world that there is a computer and that you can then ship your product or provide your service. Now some of the more traditional type services like doctors, plumbers, etc. will be limited by the geography naturally but this is still a great way to advertise in your area as more and more people are getting on the internet daily.
What is banner advertising you say? Well it is an ad that is placed on a website that is not related to the ad but preferably is one that lots of people will hit. It is an ad that usually is in some sort of image file and often contains typical words and pictures as well as animation and sound which are becoming popular hooking techniques. The ad is usually short and wide or tall and narrow and this is why it is referred to as a banner. When a customer wants to see more they simply click on the banner and are taken via an embedded link to another page which is typically the sales page. If the product is something that you can purchase online or download it is done through this page. Otherwise it is just more exposure for the advertiser.
Another good question is why would the host website allow the ad to be on their page? Well just like any form of advertising the advertiser pays for time or in this case space. Most often with banner advertising the deal is worked out according to how many click throughs happen in a given amount of time. Usually the cost is five to ten cents per click.
How would I get my advertisement on a page? Well again just like other forms of advertising there are many ways to do it. You could personally contact the owner or operator of the site and work out a deal, or you could hire and advertising firm that does all of that work for you. Most often it is this second form that is used and these advertising companies will place the ad on multiple different sites and collect the fees, and paying the site's owner or operator.
What is banner advertising you say? Well it is an ad that is placed on a website that is not related to the ad but preferably is one that lots of people will hit. It is an ad that usually is in some sort of image file and often contains typical words and pictures as well as animation and sound which are becoming popular hooking techniques. The ad is usually short and wide or tall and narrow and this is why it is referred to as a banner. When a customer wants to see more they simply click on the banner and are taken via an embedded link to another page which is typically the sales page. If the product is something that you can purchase online or download it is done through this page. Otherwise it is just more exposure for the advertiser.
Another good question is why would the host website allow the ad to be on their page? Well just like any form of advertising the advertiser pays for time or in this case space. Most often with banner advertising the deal is worked out according to how many click throughs happen in a given amount of time. Usually the cost is five to ten cents per click.
How would I get my advertisement on a page? Well again just like other forms of advertising there are many ways to do it. You could personally contact the owner or operator of the site and work out a deal, or you could hire and advertising firm that does all of that work for you. Most often it is this second form that is used and these advertising companies will place the ad on multiple different sites and collect the fees, and paying the site's owner or operator.
Monday, July 20, 2015
Adwords Keywords Research
When you embark on your first PPC journey, you need to keep a small number of keywords at first. Keyword lists that are thousands of words long should be left to the more experienced PPC marketer. Ideally, a beginner should use around 100 targeted keywords, anything more will probably prove too cumbersome for you to manipulate. If you can't harness the power of large keyword campaigns, they will suck your bank accounts dry. There are some very simple free techniques that you can use to find targeted keys words with low competition. One process of finding low competition niche keywords utilizes Google and excel. More specifically you want to use Google's keyword tool, just type this into Google, and it will appear in the search results.
Upon landing on the main Google keyword tool page, you will find a white box(field) where you want to enter your particular keyword(s). Enter one keyword for now to get an idea of how this works, and press enter. After pressing enter, you will be directed to a page of keywords that will be closely related to the keyword that you entered. For the purposes of what we want to do, you will need to scroll to the middle of the page where the text Add all 150 is highlighted in blue bold text. Below these words you will see the words download all keywords with text,.csv(for excel) and .csv. You want to click on .csv(for excel). By doing this, you will export this data into an excel spreadsheet. The data, which only appears as green bars on the main Google page, will be transformed into numeric data that has much more value for you.
Once the data is in the excel spread sheet, you can begin some simple analysis on it that will benefit your PPC campaign a great deal. In the excel spreadsheet, there are going to be columns of data, A-D. The columns are going to be, from A-D, Keywords, Advertiser competition, the previous month's search volume, and the average search volume.The two columns we are interested in are the advertiser competition and the Average search volume. What we want to do is merge the data from these two columns to give us a number that we can work with. So what we need to do is take a generalized average of these two to get a number which we will compare to a predetermined benchmark. Sounds a little odd, let me explain a bit more completely, and hopefully you will understand. All of these numbers are in decimals on a scale ranging from .00 to 1. The higher the number, the more competition there is(as expressed by the advertiser competition numbers) and the higher the search volume(as expressed by the average search volume). Ideally, we want low competition with a decent search volume to target lower cost high converting keywords. So, to find these keywords we use a general benchmark number that will determine their competition and volume level. If the keywords exceed the benchmark, we leave them be, if they hit right around the benchmark, or fall below it, we want to capture them and include them in our PPC campaign.
To get our figures, which we are going to compare to a predetermined benchmark, we are going to take an average of the advertiser competition column and the average search volume column. We want to do this for all the keywords that have been exported to the excel file. And the way we do this is by typing in a simple command in excel and copying the command down throughout the related boxes. So to start, we find box E2 which should be blank, this is the first box to the right of the first value in the avg. search volume box. So, within this blank box you want to type=average(D2,B2). This will automatically give you an average of those two numbers in this E column row when you close that last ).Now, to get all the averages for every keyword you simply want to click on that box(E2) and pull down on the box while you hold in right click. The boxes should fill in with color when you drag down to the last box(nothing will be in them yet). Then, when you have filled in the boxes with color up to the last box you want to lift your finger off the right click. When you do this all the averages will appear in the boxes. You basically just copied the function down through the boxes. So now we have all these averages. What do we do with them, what do they tell us?
Well, a good benchmark average is around .50. This will give us a reasonable competition level with good search volume. So we compare these averages to anything that falls around .50 and below. Anything that goes above .60 we want to avoid to start out with, because it will probably be too expensive to bid on. So now compare all the averages in column E to the predetermined benchmark of .50. Whatever falls below .50 or, .55(to possibly get some more data) we want to keep. Take all the keywords that meet this criteria and copy them into a notepad .txt file. (There are faster ways to do this but they take some learning of excel functions that you may not know yet.)
So now we want to take these keywords that fell below or right around the benchmark and plug these back into the Google keyword tool and hit enter. Now go back through the entire process that we just did to get the keywords we just plugged into the Google keyword tool. You are going to want to take the average again of the two columns mentioned above, then get all the averages of all the keywords by draggin the first box down, and then compare again to a benchmark of .50 or .55. But now, because we found some more targeted keywords to work with(as a result of the first exporting of data to excel, and taking the averages to compare against the benchmark) we should have more keywords that hit right around the benchmark and below it. This is because we are working with more targeted and hopefully lower competition keywords. We are finding yet more targeted keywords related to the first set we found. This should produce a larger list of keywords that meet our benchmark. So now we can take the words that meet the benchmark here, and we can use these in our targeted PPC campaign. You will want to sort through this list of course, and make sure the keywords are well suited for the particular items that you are selling. This method will get you headed in the right direction for your PPC campaign.
Upon landing on the main Google keyword tool page, you will find a white box(field) where you want to enter your particular keyword(s). Enter one keyword for now to get an idea of how this works, and press enter. After pressing enter, you will be directed to a page of keywords that will be closely related to the keyword that you entered. For the purposes of what we want to do, you will need to scroll to the middle of the page where the text Add all 150 is highlighted in blue bold text. Below these words you will see the words download all keywords with text,.csv(for excel) and .csv. You want to click on .csv(for excel). By doing this, you will export this data into an excel spreadsheet. The data, which only appears as green bars on the main Google page, will be transformed into numeric data that has much more value for you.
Once the data is in the excel spread sheet, you can begin some simple analysis on it that will benefit your PPC campaign a great deal. In the excel spreadsheet, there are going to be columns of data, A-D. The columns are going to be, from A-D, Keywords, Advertiser competition, the previous month's search volume, and the average search volume.The two columns we are interested in are the advertiser competition and the Average search volume. What we want to do is merge the data from these two columns to give us a number that we can work with. So what we need to do is take a generalized average of these two to get a number which we will compare to a predetermined benchmark. Sounds a little odd, let me explain a bit more completely, and hopefully you will understand. All of these numbers are in decimals on a scale ranging from .00 to 1. The higher the number, the more competition there is(as expressed by the advertiser competition numbers) and the higher the search volume(as expressed by the average search volume). Ideally, we want low competition with a decent search volume to target lower cost high converting keywords. So, to find these keywords we use a general benchmark number that will determine their competition and volume level. If the keywords exceed the benchmark, we leave them be, if they hit right around the benchmark, or fall below it, we want to capture them and include them in our PPC campaign.
To get our figures, which we are going to compare to a predetermined benchmark, we are going to take an average of the advertiser competition column and the average search volume column. We want to do this for all the keywords that have been exported to the excel file. And the way we do this is by typing in a simple command in excel and copying the command down throughout the related boxes. So to start, we find box E2 which should be blank, this is the first box to the right of the first value in the avg. search volume box. So, within this blank box you want to type=average(D2,B2). This will automatically give you an average of those two numbers in this E column row when you close that last ).Now, to get all the averages for every keyword you simply want to click on that box(E2) and pull down on the box while you hold in right click. The boxes should fill in with color when you drag down to the last box(nothing will be in them yet). Then, when you have filled in the boxes with color up to the last box you want to lift your finger off the right click. When you do this all the averages will appear in the boxes. You basically just copied the function down through the boxes. So now we have all these averages. What do we do with them, what do they tell us?
Well, a good benchmark average is around .50. This will give us a reasonable competition level with good search volume. So we compare these averages to anything that falls around .50 and below. Anything that goes above .60 we want to avoid to start out with, because it will probably be too expensive to bid on. So now compare all the averages in column E to the predetermined benchmark of .50. Whatever falls below .50 or, .55(to possibly get some more data) we want to keep. Take all the keywords that meet this criteria and copy them into a notepad .txt file. (There are faster ways to do this but they take some learning of excel functions that you may not know yet.)
So now we want to take these keywords that fell below or right around the benchmark and plug these back into the Google keyword tool and hit enter. Now go back through the entire process that we just did to get the keywords we just plugged into the Google keyword tool. You are going to want to take the average again of the two columns mentioned above, then get all the averages of all the keywords by draggin the first box down, and then compare again to a benchmark of .50 or .55. But now, because we found some more targeted keywords to work with(as a result of the first exporting of data to excel, and taking the averages to compare against the benchmark) we should have more keywords that hit right around the benchmark and below it. This is because we are working with more targeted and hopefully lower competition keywords. We are finding yet more targeted keywords related to the first set we found. This should produce a larger list of keywords that meet our benchmark. So now we can take the words that meet the benchmark here, and we can use these in our targeted PPC campaign. You will want to sort through this list of course, and make sure the keywords are well suited for the particular items that you are selling. This method will get you headed in the right direction for your PPC campaign.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Advertise! Advertise! Advertise!
work at home, work from home, make money online, advertise, advertising, marketing, business plan, internet business, part time, legitimate business, make money, extra income, free website, directory
Article Body:
Many people sign up for affiliate programs with the hopes of making some serious money. They advertise a few places and then wait for the money to start pouring in. When it doesnít, they blame it on the program and quit.
I am convinced the only way to make money online is to have a consistent Advertising plan. A plan you are willing to work hard on and commit to for a selected period of time. When making this plan, you need to do two things. First, you should pick a few affiliate programs that are of interest to you. Second, you need to decide how long you want to work these programs. Once you decide on a time period (I recommend 6 months to a year), you must make a promise to yourself that you will not stop advertising until that time period is up. This is perhaps the most important factor in your success.
Next, you need to consider your advertising options: traffic exchanges, classified ads, e-mail campaigns, ezine articles, posting to forums or message boards, chatting with others who are interested in what you have to offer, and posting flyers around your town. Now you see the many possible advertising avenues you can choose from. I recommend doing all of them. It may sound like a lot of work, but when broken down into a plan, it is not.
One possible plan may look like this: Traffic Exchanges-1 hour per day. Post 15 classified ads per day. Make 5 posts to a message board or forum per day. Submit an article once per week to an ezine. Visit chat rooms and distribute flyers as you have extra time during the week. This all can be accomplished by spending 2-3 hours per day. You will be surprised how much you get done when you have a plan. You may also choose whether you will work 5 or 6 days per week. Make a checklist for each day of the week, and mark each task off as you finish it. That will keep you on focus, and will make you feel good that you are one step closer to reaching your goal.
Make a commitment to your new plan and donít get involved in any other programs until your current programs are making you money consistently. Donít give up. Sticking with this plan will significantly improve your success. Remember, Advertise, Advertise, Advertise.
Article Body:
Many people sign up for affiliate programs with the hopes of making some serious money. They advertise a few places and then wait for the money to start pouring in. When it doesnít, they blame it on the program and quit.
I am convinced the only way to make money online is to have a consistent Advertising plan. A plan you are willing to work hard on and commit to for a selected period of time. When making this plan, you need to do two things. First, you should pick a few affiliate programs that are of interest to you. Second, you need to decide how long you want to work these programs. Once you decide on a time period (I recommend 6 months to a year), you must make a promise to yourself that you will not stop advertising until that time period is up. This is perhaps the most important factor in your success.
Next, you need to consider your advertising options: traffic exchanges, classified ads, e-mail campaigns, ezine articles, posting to forums or message boards, chatting with others who are interested in what you have to offer, and posting flyers around your town. Now you see the many possible advertising avenues you can choose from. I recommend doing all of them. It may sound like a lot of work, but when broken down into a plan, it is not.
One possible plan may look like this: Traffic Exchanges-1 hour per day. Post 15 classified ads per day. Make 5 posts to a message board or forum per day. Submit an article once per week to an ezine. Visit chat rooms and distribute flyers as you have extra time during the week. This all can be accomplished by spending 2-3 hours per day. You will be surprised how much you get done when you have a plan. You may also choose whether you will work 5 or 6 days per week. Make a checklist for each day of the week, and mark each task off as you finish it. That will keep you on focus, and will make you feel good that you are one step closer to reaching your goal.
Make a commitment to your new plan and donít get involved in any other programs until your current programs are making you money consistently. Donít give up. Sticking with this plan will significantly improve your success. Remember, Advertise, Advertise, Advertise.
Ways To Promote Your product or Services
Some guru sells his program because he has 60 ways of marketing. One Dentist was asked about his marketing he said he had 100 ways and use them all. Well I came up with 66 so far. I will work on more sometime after tax season or you can email me with ones I might have missed.
The true is you can't use them all. Some are too costly for many of us. Some won't work. Try as many as you like and find the ones that work and work them till they stop working or you stop working, whichever comes first.
Here they are:
1. Direct to Consumers
2. Party plan
3. Rack Jobbers
4. Wholesalers
5. Mail Order House
6. Resident Buyers
7. Fairs and Exposition
8. Chain Stores
9. Discount Stores
10. Lease Departments
11. Supermarkets
12. Free Publicity
13. Sales People
14. Franchising
15. Co Party
16. U.S. Government
17. Direct Mail
18. Co-op Mailing
19. Trade shows
20. Advertising Specialties
21. PXís
22. Premiums
23. Classifieds:
24. In Papers
25. In Magazine
26. On the net
27. In Special papers
28. Articles
29. Ezine
30. Emails
31. Sig files
32. Radio
33. Television
34. Seminars (paid to You)
35. Bill Boards
36. Flyers
37. Brochures
38. Seminars you give free
39. Telephone
40. Referrals
41. E.books
42. Free Search Engines
43. Paid Search Engines
44. Post cards
45. Yellow Page ad
46. Cross Selling with others
47. Joint Ventures
48. Telemarketing
49. Take out Boxes with ads on
50. Posters
51. Booth at Mails or stand at mall
52. Man or Women with sign about your business
53. Window Display
54. Outside Signs
55. Articles for directories on the net
56. Free downloads with ads about your business products or services
57. Free Recording
58. Free Video
59. Free CD
60. Free Report
61. Free Samples
62. Special Events
63. Contests and Sweepstakes
64. Column in a Newspaper
65. Editorial writing by you
66. Free Phone Messages
The true is you can't use them all. Some are too costly for many of us. Some won't work. Try as many as you like and find the ones that work and work them till they stop working or you stop working, whichever comes first.
Here they are:
1. Direct to Consumers
2. Party plan
3. Rack Jobbers
4. Wholesalers
5. Mail Order House
6. Resident Buyers
7. Fairs and Exposition
8. Chain Stores
9. Discount Stores
10. Lease Departments
11. Supermarkets
12. Free Publicity
13. Sales People
14. Franchising
15. Co Party
16. U.S. Government
17. Direct Mail
18. Co-op Mailing
19. Trade shows
20. Advertising Specialties
21. PXís
22. Premiums
23. Classifieds:
24. In Papers
25. In Magazine
26. On the net
27. In Special papers
28. Articles
29. Ezine
30. Emails
31. Sig files
32. Radio
33. Television
34. Seminars (paid to You)
35. Bill Boards
36. Flyers
37. Brochures
38. Seminars you give free
39. Telephone
40. Referrals
41. E.books
42. Free Search Engines
43. Paid Search Engines
44. Post cards
45. Yellow Page ad
46. Cross Selling with others
47. Joint Ventures
48. Telemarketing
49. Take out Boxes with ads on
50. Posters
51. Booth at Mails or stand at mall
52. Man or Women with sign about your business
53. Window Display
54. Outside Signs
55. Articles for directories on the net
56. Free downloads with ads about your business products or services
57. Free Recording
58. Free Video
59. Free CD
60. Free Report
61. Free Samples
62. Special Events
63. Contests and Sweepstakes
64. Column in a Newspaper
65. Editorial writing by you
66. Free Phone Messages
Friday, July 17, 2015
Headline Writing Tips That Will Instantly Boost Your Advertising Response Rates!
Even the most powerful advertising copy on the planet is useless without an effective headline.
An effective headline determines whether or not your prospective customer will read the next sentence of your sales message.
You must grab your readerís attention with something that appeals to them and forces them to want to learn more, otherwise you wonít make a sale.
Whether you have a successful headline or you are just starting to write your next ad or sales letter, here are 10 Headline Writing Tips That Will Instantly Improve Your Advertising Results:
1. Put your prospects name in your headline. Everyone wants to see their name in "The Headlines". This will definitely grab their attention and get them to read your ad or sales letter.
2. "Use Quotations" around your headline. Quotation marks create the perception that your headline is a testimonial and has credibility. And credibility, in turn creates more believability, and this can significantly increase response to your ad.
3. Don't make your headline to "BIG". Many advertisers believe that bigger headlines get a better response. Bigger is not always better. You want your headline to be in a readable and believable size compared to the rest of your ad. A big headline can reduce your credibility because it looks to ìhyped up.î
4. Don't end your headline with a period. This creates a pause in your readers mind and they may decide to move on to something else. People have been trained to pause at a period. But if you end your headline with an "!" exclamation point you will ad excitement to it and your reader will want to move forward with your ad (this is a good rule of thumb, but it's not a law. I've seen and written ads with a period in the headline and it's worked.) Another technique is to leave your headline open ended or use "..." to get them to move into your body copy.
5. Use one, two, even three subheadlines. Subheadlines below your main headline can be very effective in building intrigue and excitement in your reader. Each subheadline should be smaller compared to the main headline and the subheadline before it; ultimately your reader will end up in the main body of your ad or sales letter before they know it.
6. There are many advanced techniques for producing great headlines but what Iíve found to be simple and effective is to use the best benefit your product or services provides as your main headline, and then ad ìHow ToÖî to it. For example, if your best feature as a web developer is getting websites built and online within 3 days, the benefit of that could be..."How To Attract New Business Worldwide While You Sleep Starting In 3 Days!î
7. If you use "$" dollar figures in your advertising use this tip: If you help people save or make an extra $2,500 with your product or service, attach a decimal point to it: $2,500.00. What looks like more money, $2,500 or $2,500.00? Conversely, if you are stating a price for your product, put as few "0's" in the price as possible. For example, if your product costs $2,500, you don't want to print, "$2,500", or "$2,500.00". You want to print something like $2,499. This looks less threatening.
8. Combine a grabber with your headline and you might get amazing results! Grabbers are small gadgets and trinkets that are attached to your letter or report that get your prospects attention like: million dollar bills, real money, string, magnifying glasses, pencils, fake checks, bubble gum, poker chips etc. The key is to tie in your grabber with your offer in a clever way. Also, if you combine a headline above and/or below your grabber you'll really ad power to your advertising.
9. Make your headline newsworthy. "How To Get Your Tax Refund In 10 Days!" is a pretty good benefit oriented headline, but you could test a newsworthy approach like..."Local Tax Planner Gets Clients Over $1,000,000.00 In Tax Refunds!"
10. Use a testimonial as your headline...Get the most detailed and specific testimonial you have and use it as your headline. For example, "I made an extra $32,000.00 In Six Weeks, and another $10,000.00 in Two Days!" is a prime example of a specific testimonial. This makes it very appealing because it's real, it's newsworthy, and I can attach a real name to it.
An effective headline determines whether or not your prospective customer will read the next sentence of your sales message.
You must grab your readerís attention with something that appeals to them and forces them to want to learn more, otherwise you wonít make a sale.
Whether you have a successful headline or you are just starting to write your next ad or sales letter, here are 10 Headline Writing Tips That Will Instantly Improve Your Advertising Results:
1. Put your prospects name in your headline. Everyone wants to see their name in "The Headlines". This will definitely grab their attention and get them to read your ad or sales letter.
2. "Use Quotations" around your headline. Quotation marks create the perception that your headline is a testimonial and has credibility. And credibility, in turn creates more believability, and this can significantly increase response to your ad.
3. Don't make your headline to "BIG". Many advertisers believe that bigger headlines get a better response. Bigger is not always better. You want your headline to be in a readable and believable size compared to the rest of your ad. A big headline can reduce your credibility because it looks to ìhyped up.î
4. Don't end your headline with a period. This creates a pause in your readers mind and they may decide to move on to something else. People have been trained to pause at a period. But if you end your headline with an "!" exclamation point you will ad excitement to it and your reader will want to move forward with your ad (this is a good rule of thumb, but it's not a law. I've seen and written ads with a period in the headline and it's worked.) Another technique is to leave your headline open ended or use "..." to get them to move into your body copy.
5. Use one, two, even three subheadlines. Subheadlines below your main headline can be very effective in building intrigue and excitement in your reader. Each subheadline should be smaller compared to the main headline and the subheadline before it; ultimately your reader will end up in the main body of your ad or sales letter before they know it.
6. There are many advanced techniques for producing great headlines but what Iíve found to be simple and effective is to use the best benefit your product or services provides as your main headline, and then ad ìHow ToÖî to it. For example, if your best feature as a web developer is getting websites built and online within 3 days, the benefit of that could be..."How To Attract New Business Worldwide While You Sleep Starting In 3 Days!î
7. If you use "$" dollar figures in your advertising use this tip: If you help people save or make an extra $2,500 with your product or service, attach a decimal point to it: $2,500.00. What looks like more money, $2,500 or $2,500.00? Conversely, if you are stating a price for your product, put as few "0's" in the price as possible. For example, if your product costs $2,500, you don't want to print, "$2,500", or "$2,500.00". You want to print something like $2,499. This looks less threatening.
8. Combine a grabber with your headline and you might get amazing results! Grabbers are small gadgets and trinkets that are attached to your letter or report that get your prospects attention like: million dollar bills, real money, string, magnifying glasses, pencils, fake checks, bubble gum, poker chips etc. The key is to tie in your grabber with your offer in a clever way. Also, if you combine a headline above and/or below your grabber you'll really ad power to your advertising.
9. Make your headline newsworthy. "How To Get Your Tax Refund In 10 Days!" is a pretty good benefit oriented headline, but you could test a newsworthy approach like..."Local Tax Planner Gets Clients Over $1,000,000.00 In Tax Refunds!"
10. Use a testimonial as your headline...Get the most detailed and specific testimonial you have and use it as your headline. For example, "I made an extra $32,000.00 In Six Weeks, and another $10,000.00 in Two Days!" is a prime example of a specific testimonial. This makes it very appealing because it's real, it's newsworthy, and I can attach a real name to it.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Ways to Make Your Flyer Stand Out in the Crowd
A flyer is an inexpensive and highly effective way to grab attention in a very busy marketplace. How do you make your flyer stand out in the crowd? Here are some techniques that professional designers use to make flyers "pop."
1. Write a snappy headline or title.
Make it memorable, unusual or provocative using a few carefully chosen powerful words. Popular titles contain one or more of these words: Easy, The Secrets to, Unlock, Finally, Insider, Time Sensitive, How to, Free Bonuses, Now You Can, Discover, Proven.
2. Use colorful or striking graphics.
One large image will have more impact than many smaller images. A stunning photo or illustration grabs attention, creates a mood, and supports your story. This image is your "focal point" and will draw your readers in. You can purchase inexpensive but quality stock photos on the Internet. Download individual photos or purchase a CD with hundreds of images.
3. Focus on the benefits of your product or service.
Your prospects will ask the question, "What's in it for me?" Write from the their perspective using the words "you" and "your." Avoid using the following words: we, us, I and our. Be sure to keep your text short and to the point. Some of the most powerful words to use are: free, save, love, new, results, and guarantee. Break up long paragraphs with bullet points and place them in a separate box.
4. Use compelling testimonials and case studies.
Nothing strikes a chord like an endorsement from a happy customer, especially if it demonstrates the results they've had with your product or service. Be sure to include the first and last name, company name and location of the person providing the endorsement.
5. Organize your page with boxes, borders and areas of contrasting colors.
You don't need to fill your flyer with wall-to-wall text and graphics. Incorporate some white space to make certain elements stand out and to make the flyer easy to read.
6. Make your points easily identifiable.
Highlight titles and subtitles in bold, but avoid using ALL CAPS because they are more difficult to read.
7. Don't get too complicated.
Make it simple with two typefaces, and align items to a grid. Your page layout program will provide non-printing guidelines. Use the "snap to guidelines" function to align items easily to the grid. Be aware of printing margins. I suggest you create your layout with 1/2" margins on all sides, or add 1/8" for bleeds on items that print off the edge of the page.
8. Don't forget to proofread.
Have someone else proofread your work. Check your contact information. Dial the phone numbers on the flyer to make sure they are correct, and type in the URL of your website to make sure it is correct, too.
9. If you are on a tight budget, try this.
Select bright-colored or unique paper, and print with black ink. Use shades of grey to provide tones and contrasting background areas.
10. Offer a discount or special limited-time price.
Design a coupon on the bottom quarter of the flyer. Be sure to clearly state the deadlines and limitations of the offer. If it is a mail-in coupon, be sure to include the payment specifications with areas for filling out credit card information, mailing address, etc.
You don't need to re-invent the wheel when creating your flyer. Use these proven techniques and you will see big results in your marketing efforts.
1. Write a snappy headline or title.
Make it memorable, unusual or provocative using a few carefully chosen powerful words. Popular titles contain one or more of these words: Easy, The Secrets to, Unlock, Finally, Insider, Time Sensitive, How to, Free Bonuses, Now You Can, Discover, Proven.
2. Use colorful or striking graphics.
One large image will have more impact than many smaller images. A stunning photo or illustration grabs attention, creates a mood, and supports your story. This image is your "focal point" and will draw your readers in. You can purchase inexpensive but quality stock photos on the Internet. Download individual photos or purchase a CD with hundreds of images.
3. Focus on the benefits of your product or service.
Your prospects will ask the question, "What's in it for me?" Write from the their perspective using the words "you" and "your." Avoid using the following words: we, us, I and our. Be sure to keep your text short and to the point. Some of the most powerful words to use are: free, save, love, new, results, and guarantee. Break up long paragraphs with bullet points and place them in a separate box.
4. Use compelling testimonials and case studies.
Nothing strikes a chord like an endorsement from a happy customer, especially if it demonstrates the results they've had with your product or service. Be sure to include the first and last name, company name and location of the person providing the endorsement.
5. Organize your page with boxes, borders and areas of contrasting colors.
You don't need to fill your flyer with wall-to-wall text and graphics. Incorporate some white space to make certain elements stand out and to make the flyer easy to read.
6. Make your points easily identifiable.
Highlight titles and subtitles in bold, but avoid using ALL CAPS because they are more difficult to read.
7. Don't get too complicated.
Make it simple with two typefaces, and align items to a grid. Your page layout program will provide non-printing guidelines. Use the "snap to guidelines" function to align items easily to the grid. Be aware of printing margins. I suggest you create your layout with 1/2" margins on all sides, or add 1/8" for bleeds on items that print off the edge of the page.
8. Don't forget to proofread.
Have someone else proofread your work. Check your contact information. Dial the phone numbers on the flyer to make sure they are correct, and type in the URL of your website to make sure it is correct, too.
9. If you are on a tight budget, try this.
Select bright-colored or unique paper, and print with black ink. Use shades of grey to provide tones and contrasting background areas.
10. Offer a discount or special limited-time price.
Design a coupon on the bottom quarter of the flyer. Be sure to clearly state the deadlines and limitations of the offer. If it is a mail-in coupon, be sure to include the payment specifications with areas for filling out credit card information, mailing address, etc.
You don't need to re-invent the wheel when creating your flyer. Use these proven techniques and you will see big results in your marketing efforts.
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Creating Publicity For Corporate Events
Organizing corporate events can be exciting and interesting but simultaneously stressful and nerve-racking. This is especially true when corporate event managers are faced with a dilemma in balancing the need to create an enjoyable and beneficial event, and at the same time entrusted with the responsibility to create publicity for it.
Nevertheless, if the right approach is used, creating publicity for corporate events will become an easier task to manage. The following tips will provide you with an insight on some of the best practices used in creating publicity.
1. Itís always a good idea to work in a team, and delegate the task of creating publicity to a particular team member. This way, you won't be caught up in the legwork, but rather be involved from an event manager perspective. Your responsibility then is to make decisions and guide others in getting things done for you.
2. Selecting the right person to delegate this task to is also an important factor in making your event a success. It is essential for this person to possess the necessary contacts with media companies, such as television stations and newspapers, way before the event kicks off.
3. Use short copy-writing for direct mailers or newspaper advertisements. Good editing and good writing go hand-in-hand to create impact for your publicity pieces. Also, thick information packs are out of the question, unless specifically requested by the recipient.
4. Try not to use copy-writing that may be a tad too creative or flowery. Your audience has no time trying to figure out your message, and it is best that you send them something direct and concise.
5. Although it may be common sense to include a contact number or an email address in your publicity pieces, you may be surprised that many corporate event organizers actually overlook this. Keep this in mind so that you can be contacted for further information.
6. No one wants to read outdated information. That is why your press releases should be kept as relevant and up to date as possible.
7. Always stick with the truth when you are answering questions from the media, or holding a press conference. Many corporate event managers tend to exaggerate and end up presenting an event that falls short of expectations.
Nevertheless, if the right approach is used, creating publicity for corporate events will become an easier task to manage. The following tips will provide you with an insight on some of the best practices used in creating publicity.
1. Itís always a good idea to work in a team, and delegate the task of creating publicity to a particular team member. This way, you won't be caught up in the legwork, but rather be involved from an event manager perspective. Your responsibility then is to make decisions and guide others in getting things done for you.
2. Selecting the right person to delegate this task to is also an important factor in making your event a success. It is essential for this person to possess the necessary contacts with media companies, such as television stations and newspapers, way before the event kicks off.
3. Use short copy-writing for direct mailers or newspaper advertisements. Good editing and good writing go hand-in-hand to create impact for your publicity pieces. Also, thick information packs are out of the question, unless specifically requested by the recipient.
4. Try not to use copy-writing that may be a tad too creative or flowery. Your audience has no time trying to figure out your message, and it is best that you send them something direct and concise.
5. Although it may be common sense to include a contact number or an email address in your publicity pieces, you may be surprised that many corporate event organizers actually overlook this. Keep this in mind so that you can be contacted for further information.
6. No one wants to read outdated information. That is why your press releases should be kept as relevant and up to date as possible.
7. Always stick with the truth when you are answering questions from the media, or holding a press conference. Many corporate event managers tend to exaggerate and end up presenting an event that falls short of expectations.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Free Online Advertising Channels For Your Business
If you would just take your time to know your way around, you could discover a lot of premium products and services being offered for free. What's best is that there is a seemingly endless number of these wonderful finds, what with the Internet being a vast network of constantly evolving ideas and all!
Among these magnificent benefits is the chance to be able to promote your business, any business, online, free of charge! It doesn't matter if your enterprise is a purely online or offline venture, the World Wide Web is home to a great number of marketing opportunities that you could avail of, with no damage to your business' budget whatsoever.
Advertising can be a big problem otherwise. A lot of companies reserve a big chunk of their budgets to cover marketing expenditures. Sometimes, these gambles pay off, but there are occasions when they fail miserably, putting to waste some good money that could have been used in other areas of development for the business involved.
But with the many channels available online, marketing has become a less risky course of action. There so many avenues available online where you could advertise your business for free and attain more exposure for your products or services. Here are some of them.
1. You could advertise through your own website. Ordinarily, you should pay a nominal fee for web hosting and your domain name. A paid web hosting service is more reliable. Your own domain name would impress upon your visitors an immediate sense of professionalism. But if you don't want to spend for them, there are a lot of free web space providers on the Internet!
2. You could advertise through other people's websites. And you could do this in a lot of ways too! You could create a banner that would summarize your business' offers and have it displayed on existing pages. Or if you have your won website for your business, you could use the said banner to link to your pages, or you could even settle for simple links. Additionally, you could have other webmasters rave about your venture and they could talk about it in their own websites.
3. You could create your own affiliate program. By giving commissions as incentive, you could invite a lot of Internet users to become your affiliates. Each affiliate would work to help you make a sale. It's like having a battalion of sales representatives that you'd only have to pay if they manage to refer a willing customer!
4. You could try viral marketing. Viral marketing is the online equivalent of word o mouth advertising. By giving away something for free, for as long as that something has a link or a simple reference to your business, you're encouraging the recipient to spread the word about your business to the people he knows. This would result in the exponential expansion of your business message like wildfire.
5. You could advertise in online communities. Forums and mailing lists are popular venues that could likewise convey your business message. Membership to these groups is usually free. Additionally, you could also create your own mailing list and start capturing leads for future sales by doing some helpful follow-ups.
The Internet is a great place for promoting your business. There are five million people online at any given time and the world is, quite literally, your market. It would be best for your business to capitalize on this wonderful opportunity and expand your audience a thousand fold bigger!
And you wouldn't even have to spend a penny while you're at it.
Among these magnificent benefits is the chance to be able to promote your business, any business, online, free of charge! It doesn't matter if your enterprise is a purely online or offline venture, the World Wide Web is home to a great number of marketing opportunities that you could avail of, with no damage to your business' budget whatsoever.
Advertising can be a big problem otherwise. A lot of companies reserve a big chunk of their budgets to cover marketing expenditures. Sometimes, these gambles pay off, but there are occasions when they fail miserably, putting to waste some good money that could have been used in other areas of development for the business involved.
But with the many channels available online, marketing has become a less risky course of action. There so many avenues available online where you could advertise your business for free and attain more exposure for your products or services. Here are some of them.
1. You could advertise through your own website. Ordinarily, you should pay a nominal fee for web hosting and your domain name. A paid web hosting service is more reliable. Your own domain name would impress upon your visitors an immediate sense of professionalism. But if you don't want to spend for them, there are a lot of free web space providers on the Internet!
2. You could advertise through other people's websites. And you could do this in a lot of ways too! You could create a banner that would summarize your business' offers and have it displayed on existing pages. Or if you have your won website for your business, you could use the said banner to link to your pages, or you could even settle for simple links. Additionally, you could have other webmasters rave about your venture and they could talk about it in their own websites.
3. You could create your own affiliate program. By giving commissions as incentive, you could invite a lot of Internet users to become your affiliates. Each affiliate would work to help you make a sale. It's like having a battalion of sales representatives that you'd only have to pay if they manage to refer a willing customer!
4. You could try viral marketing. Viral marketing is the online equivalent of word o mouth advertising. By giving away something for free, for as long as that something has a link or a simple reference to your business, you're encouraging the recipient to spread the word about your business to the people he knows. This would result in the exponential expansion of your business message like wildfire.
5. You could advertise in online communities. Forums and mailing lists are popular venues that could likewise convey your business message. Membership to these groups is usually free. Additionally, you could also create your own mailing list and start capturing leads for future sales by doing some helpful follow-ups.
The Internet is a great place for promoting your business. There are five million people online at any given time and the world is, quite literally, your market. It would be best for your business to capitalize on this wonderful opportunity and expand your audience a thousand fold bigger!
And you wouldn't even have to spend a penny while you're at it.
Monday, July 13, 2015
Affiliate Marketing Without a Website
Having your own website to promote your affiliate products is a good option. But it is not necessary. There are many methods available that can be used to do your affiliate marketing business. The list is long, but the most important methods are email marketing, writing articles to e-groups, joining online discussions etc. Let us discuss some important methods that can be used to promote your affiliate products without having your own website.
Email Marketing
In this method you can promote your affiliate links and you don’t need your own website. People can click on your affiliate links present in your emails and can go directly to the merchant website to purchase the products.
Your email should contain the introduction about the product you are promoting and your affiliate links. Try to make your emails interesting and brief.
Try to expand your contact list. Use as many methods as you can to grab the email addresses of new people. Use online forums, chat forums etc to make new friends. Your email list must contain a few hundred contacts, at least. But don’t spam. Don’t send emails to the people who don’t know about you or who don’t want to receive your emails. Otherwise they will just block your emails and you will lose your contacts. As I said, your emails should be interesting to get the reader’s attention.
Offline Promotion
You can use the offline methods of promotion, like the classified ads, flyers etc. The best choice is the classified ads because its exposure is largest.
Writing free e-books
It is similar to email marketing. But in this method you will write the informative and interesting e-books and will send to the people via their email address. These e-books should be easy to read and helpful for their readers. The topics should be related to your affiliate products so that you can recommend the products in the body of e-books. Alternatively you can add a brief note about your affiliate products and affiliate links for promotion. If the readers like your e-book, they may visit the merchant website and make a purchase.
Writing in Forums
Search for some forums, at least three, that are related to your product and have high page rank. Register on these forums and start some discussion in the forum where maximum people are involved. Just post your questions there or answer some questions of other members. But don’t add any promotion text in the body of your posts. You are allowed to put your signature at the end of your post. Here you can write you name and your affiliate links.
When you become an active member of this forum then you may get some traffic from these forums to your merchant website through your affiliate links. This will ultimately result in more sales of the products you are promoting.
Writing Articles
You can write articles and publish them in the free article directories. You can embed your affiliate links in the text of your articles. If your articles are well formatted, informative and the article directory has large traffic then you can expect some good traffic to your affiliate links. And you know that more traffic on your affiliate links will result in more sales through your affiliate links.
Conclusion
The use of a website to promote your affiliate products is a good idea but it is not necessary. You can use the alternate methods to promote your affiliate products and links. The most popular among these methods are email marketing, writing to forums, article writing and offline promotion like classified ads. The main idea is that instead of promoting your website you will directly promote your affiliate links and people will directly go to the merchant website by clicking your affiliate links to purchase the products. This way you do not have to pay extra for your website creation and maintenance.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)