Four Free Marketing Methods
Every successful entrepreneur knows that the most important part of any business plan is the marketing strategy. Too many would-be business owners get so caught up in product development that they overlook the importance of how that product is going to get into the hands of consumers. The question investors ask budding business owners is what’s your distribution? which is a way of asking how will you market this?
In the 21st century we have so many different means of communication available to us that it is overwhelming at times to try to choose which medium will best serve your business. People are hit by marketing messages 24/7 and tune out over 95% of what they see or hear. More money is wasted on bad marketing strategies than almost any other part of business, so for young start-ups, it’s best to test with free marketing methods.
One free method of marketing is to affiliate yourself with a business network such as your local chamber of commerce. When there are events, you can share your business cards and brochures with all the other members present. They in turn will likely give you their information, but you may be just what one of these people is looking for or find a partner to joint venture with that will give you leverage to get more exposure for your product.
A second free method of marketing is to write and submit press releases. The internet has made this method so easy, cheap, and fast that offline papers often turn to the online databases to find news. The announcement of your new product and how it solves a problem is definitely newsworthy. Never write them to sound like commercials, it should always sound like news or it won’t get published. Once you’ve written it, you can send it to any of the many online press publication sites, such as OpenPR.com.
Free marketing method number three is to participate in online forums and utilize your signature line to talk about your business. Never openly talk about your business in a forum unless it’s to directly answer somebody else’s question, and never post garbage like ‘me too’ just to get your signature seen in a thread. Contribute good quality and choose a forum that interests potential clients so you’ll know you’ve got a winner.
A fourth and one of the best ways to market for free, is to simply offer some free incentive for people to try your product. This can be entry into drawings for hot prizes, gifts that bear your company logo or message of some sort, free memberships, consultations, information, or bonus additional products with purchase.
Giving things away for free tends to enhance the perceived value of what you offer while at the same time winning the trust of your clients. As people see your interest in delivering real benefits and not just taking their money, you will see more buyers and more frequent action from the same buyers.
Marketing doesn’t have to cost big money, often the best solutions are very inexpensive. Test your strategies for free as often as you can until you are sure of the market’s response, so that once you know how much it costs you to get a buyer you can spend that amount over and over while always gaining more and more profits.
Tyler Ellison is a successful entrepreneur who teaches automated marketing strategies at his site http://www.youcanworkthenet.com and encourages others to join the community at http://www.littleguyco-op.com .
Big Profits With A Little Marketing
Whether you’re starting a business, struggling to keep it afloat, or enjoying steady profits, a little marketing can go a long way toward growing your market share. I should know — I’ve used article marketing to grow my business, and I’ve been amazed at the results.
Marketing yourself with articles is easy, but it does require a little time and effort. Spending an hour a day once or twice a week at your computer writing about your website, product or service can suddenly mean a huge influx of profits!
There are a few things to keep in mind when you write your articles. One of the most important things you can do for yourself when you start your marketing campaign is speaking to your market.
There are literally thousands of content sites on the Web that specialize in a particular area, and it’s almost guaranteed that some of them are posting articles about the very things you do. Still other sites are divided into sections that allow visitors to search through headings and subheadings to find what they’re looking for.
Since specialized newsletters, e-zines and content sites have already done this hard work collecting people interested in a particular topic, why would you want to go and rewrite the Constitution?
It’s very important when you submit your article, whether through a service or using your own software program, you spec it accurately to represent what you’re writing about. One day you may write about business management, and the next about keeping the books. Each of these articles will fall under the category of “business,” but you have the option to further specify “management” on one and “accounting” on the other. These more detailed specs will allow people who are looking for advice on how to track their income and expenses a greater chance of finding your article among dozens of others.
You also need a catchy title. The title is the first thing a person sees when he or she looks at your article. The title will often be the link that a viewer will (or won’t) click before she even sees your first paragraph. Think of your inbox. If you have 100 emails, how do you decide which to open first? You look at the title or subject line. The very same principle holds true in article marketing.
The third thing to remember is, writing is fun and you can do it! Everyone knows something about something, so the secret is writing about what you know. Many people fear the “blank-page” syndrome — when they site down to write that little cursor just blinks at them accusingly and they quickly get up to do something more fun, like the laundry.
There are plenty of tips about how to get over these fears, but the most important thing is to just forget you’re “doing a chore” and start by writing one paragraph describing your business. It’s likely you’ll be surprised how easy it is to keep going.
Do you have a website? Talk about how you started it. Do you offer freelance writing services? Tell readers about projects you’ve completed recently, and maybe give them pricing information.
When you start writing and submitting your work, once or twice a week, consistently over time you will see more visitors to your site. We all know that ultimately, that means more sales.
Johnny is a musician and writer, and a big fan of www.articlemarketer.com, an online article distribution service. For more smart ways to speak to your market, visit http://www.beatintheblues.blogspot.com and http://www.articlemarketer.com/smartway.php.
http://www.articlemarketer.com
Marketing Made Easy: Let Your Fingers Do the Talking
As the owner of a small website, I know how easy it is to get lost in the mix. Sometimes you just want to throw your hands in the air and say, “I give up! Pass me a margarita.”
But before you go reaching for the tequila and salt, let me tell you something. It’s not as hard as you think to get links, get noticed and start actually “doing business” with your online business. That’s the idea after all, right?
Here’s how I approach the problem: I write two or three short 500-800 word articles a week about my business, and then I submit them using an online submission service. The service is budget-friendly, super-easy to use and extremely effective. After just two days, I looked for my article and it was posted on more than 50 websites.
That means each of those sites contains a link back to my site, and more inbound links means — you guessed it — better search engine results positioning. Before I knew it, I was getting more than 200 hits a day on my site. “Unbelievable!” I thought, but it was true.
Here’s the idea. You write a few short articles each week — or as many as you can churn out, the more the merrier — and submit them either using a service or software you’ve purchased that serves this purpose. (Psst! Guess what? A service is a thousand times easier.)
You can select a category for your article, such as Business, Fashion, Marketing, etc. and then select subcategories that will pin your article to even more specific needs if you like. The benefit to categorizing your article is that it will show up in front of people who are looking for your product, service or website. If you write about Children’s Fashions and you turn up in a newsletter about lawn care, people aren’t going to read your article or click on your link.
The way you choose to submit your articles is also important. Software is an option, but I don’t like it because it is quickly (some would argue immediately) outdated, clunky and hard to use. First you have to install it, then you have to figure out how each aspect of the program works, then you have to write your articles — the fact is, most people aren’t going to bother once they’ve got the thing installed.
The thing I love about online submission services is that they do the heavy-lifting for you. All you have to do is write your articles and submit them, and they do the rest. Different services have different features, of course, and you should do the research to see which one is right for your needs.
iSnare is one service that offers “distribution credits” to its authors. Submission is free, but in order to have your article distributed, you must purchase these credits. It’s $10 for five credits, $18 for 12, $38 for 28 and so on. They distribute articles to more than 150 article email lists and over 40,000 publishers, plus hundreds of article sites. They have good reviews from satisfied customers on their website.
ThePhantomWriters is another option. Be sure to include “the” in the title, because there is another website called PhantomWriters that offers writing services, not article distribution. ThePhantomWriters service operates on a sliding scale. It costs $35 to submit one article, and then the next three are $27.50 each, on down to $20 apiece for 10 articles. This is a little steep for my budget, so I moved on pretty quickly from Phantom.
The service I prefer is Article Marketer. They are very professional and courteous, and they tell me when I have something to fix about an article before it can be distributed. At $79.99 for three months or $239.99 for an annual subscription, I can afford to write as many or as few articles as I want. I get unlimited submissions with my subscription price.
Roger Haumann is a self-employed contractor by day, and blogger by night. He is a regular contributor to http://www.articlemarketer.com, an online article distribution service. Visit http://www.articlemarketer.com/howto.php to learn how to get noticed online.
http://www.articlemarketer.com
7 Factors Of An Effective Advertising Campaign
You’ve probably heard the old saying - I know that half of my advertising dollars are wasted, if I only knew which half! Although it’s not possible to know all the factors that go into effective advertising, there are a few elements that are crucial to an ad campaign that is profitable. If you strive to achieve as many of the following 7 factors as possible, you can be confident that you’ll have a winning campaign.
1) Choose an appropriate medium to convey your message. This is so obvious, but you’d be amazed at how many people don’t use common sense when buying media. If you’re trying to reach a 14 year old, don’t buy an ad in the daily paper - buy the radio station that plays hip hop music! Try to target your advertising as much as possible. Think about the person you’re trying to reach with your message. The more you know about that person, the easier this will be.
If you’re selling clothing to working women, buying TV is probably not a good idea. They’re probably so busy doing household chores and taking kids to various activities, they probably don’t have time to watch much TV. But billboards and radio are great because she’s probably on the road a lot and those media fit for that audience.
2) Don’t believe that everyone uses media the way you or your spouse does. Just because you don’t like a certain program on TV doesn’t mean that your potential customer doesn’t like it - they may be big fans and never miss an episode.
Don’t assume that everyone reads the newspaper because everyone you know does. Ask for information about the medium’s audience - let your rep show you exactly who is watching/reading/listening/driving by/surfing their medium.
3) Don’t judge the price of the ad by the dollar amount alone. Just because an ad is expensive doesn’t mean it isn’t a good buy - and the opposite is true also. If an ad is cheap, but no one reads or sees it, it’s worthless to you. If an ad is reaching tens of thousands of people for $1,000, it might be a good buy if those are the people who are in the market for your product.
Try to gauge the real value of an ad by the cost per thousand or cost per rating point (for TV, radio & cable). If you’re not familiar with those terms, ask your ad rep - they will be happy to fill you in. (And if they aren’t, find a new rep.)
4) Develop a relationship with your customers and prospects. This is another thing that should be obvious, but very few companies actually do this. Proctor and Gamble has found that this is what makes them money. And it makes sense. If people trust your brand and feel that they know your company, they’re far more likely to buy your products. This is actually easier to do as a smaller business than a large one - and many local businesses have done this for years.
It may be schmaltzy, but when the local furniture store owner is on camera for all his TV commercials, people develop a relationship of sorts with him or her. They feel like they know that business. Anytime you can link a personality - even if it’s not a celebrity - to a business, that makes that business stand out. This is an important element that there’s not nearly enough room to cover - so think this one through for your business and come up with ways (and they can be very simple) to develop a relationship with your customers and prospects. An email newsletter is a simple, cheap and very effective way to do this, by the way.
5) Have a hook. Give people something that makes them remember you. Big companies spend millions on this - and for a good reason - it sells stuff. Whatever you do, don’t say “for the best in service and quality” - no one will believe you! If you want to convey that message, have one of your customers give a testimonial on camera - have them describe how you provided them with great service and quality. Give details.
A hook needs to be simple, memorable and if possible, fun or heartwarming. The Taco Bell Chihuahua is a good example - the Pillsbury Doughboy is another one. Do something different and let people know about it. Give them a reason to choose your company over your competitors.
6) Be relevant. Talk to your prospects in your advertising - let them know that you feel their pain and are going to help them make it go away. If you’re talking about something they can’t relate to, they’ll ignore you. There are way too many advertising messages in the world today - and people have learned to tune them out unless they click with something that is important to them. You know how this works - you do the same thing.
If you’re sick of how your car is nickel & dimming you lately, you suddenly are much more aware of ads for cars. Find out why people buy your product and talk about how you will give that to them. It’s really pretty simple - but an overwhelming majority of businesses totally miss this.
7) Make sure you know what you’re trying to get your prospect to do. Do you want them to come to your store and buy a specific product? Or do you want them to call your business to get an estimate on a project so your sales person can close the sale in person? The more specific you are in your call to action (please make sure to include one!), the more likely your audience will do what you want them to do.
All of the elements that go into your advertising - the media, the creative, the copywriting, the call to action - create a synergistic result. The more focused you are with any of those elements, the better your results will be. It’s always crucial to measure your ad results. Determine what you want to achieve and include devices that will allow you to determine whether or not you achieved your goal. Then you can tweak results from there.
Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of Be Successful News, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business. http://www.besuccessfulnews.com/
Real Estate Email Marketing
Email marketing for real estate agents is one of the fastest growing fields in both the email and real estate spheres. It’s like a match made in heaven: as a real estate player, you need to promote your homes for sale, your real estate courses, housing finance products, and much more. Meanwhile, thousands of potential customers are looking for those offers. And, according to a recent study cited by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, 75% of people check their email every morning, even before they get to their voice mails.
There’s more. People seeking real estate want to see pictures of the properties out on the market. Real estate email marketing is perfect for that, in that you can send pictures of available properties in your messages. Technically, you can include as many pictures as you’d like. However, it’s ideal to include between 1 and 5 pictures, so your real estate email isn’t too long, too crowded, or too large in file size.
The best email marketing campaigns include one large picture of the outside of the property, and 2 or 3 smaller pictures of the inside of the property. The top real estate email marketing programs offer pre-made templates with sample pictures in the right spots, so all you have to do is click and replace with your own property picture. You can also feature several properties in your email. The great thing about this approach is that the emails are highly customizable, and you can change them as often as you’d like, so as to achieve the perfect fit for each campaign.
But real estate email marketing is not just for realtors looking to sell properties. Maybe you run a real estate course; maybe you provide financing; or maybe you supply a different real estate service all together. Whatever the case, the great thing about email marketing is that it integrates your online promotion and sales process in one step. For example, say you teach a course on how to make the most commission from your sales. When you use email to promote your course, your potential customers can click a link right on your email, and be directed straight to course signup form on your website.
Don’t sweat if you don’t have a website. The best programs offer full, end-to-end solutions. So in addition to propelling your email campaigns, these services will also help you create and maintain a professional-looking website with all the features you need. Best of all, you won’t need to break the bank or learn any complicated programs to get your website and email marketing up and running.
Another great benefit of this is that it helps you identify qualified leads. For example, say you sent out a message featuring several properties recently made available. First, you’ll be able to see exactly who opened your email, and who went back to see it several times. Clearly, if one of your customers opened your message several times, he or she is at least partially interested in one of the properties featured. For you, that means it’s time for a follow-up call. It gets better. With the top programs, you’ll even be able to see exactly which property this person is interested in. For example, if you included pictures of properties A, B and C, and you included a link under each property saying “Click here for more pictures of this property,” you’ll be able to see that your customer, John Smith, clicked to see more pictures of of property A at exactly 3:45 pm. Now, indeed, it’s time for a highly educated follow-up call, perhaps offering an exclusive early tour of property A.
When it comes to real estate email marketing, the benefits are endless. On top of it all, with the best programs, you’ll have a dedicated account executive who knows the email marketing industry inside and out, and has lots of experience working with real estate professionals. Couple your own industry marketing savvy with your account executive’s email savvy, and you’re sure to have a winning formula. You’ll soon be seeing more sales and more customers as you learn, first-hand, about the effectiveness of such a powerful online sales channel as real estate email marketing.
Sources: Microsoft Inc.
Robert Burko, President and CEO of EliteAnswers.com, helps real estate agents create, send and track professional and effective email flyers through the EliteEmail.com platform: http://www.eliteemail.com/. EliteEmail.com is proudly part of the EliteAnswers.com (http://www.eliteanswers.com) family.
Internet Search, Like Politics, Is Local
Local search is all the rage. At the 2007 Search Engine Strategies event in New York City there were presentations and exhibitors touting the importance of local search strategies and tactics.
It’s like the presenters and exhibitors just discovered that people are really mostly interested in finding products and services nearby.
I guess what’s really going on is that finally technology, or its application, has caught up with what people really want Internet search to do for them.
I use Internet search for everything - especially local! We haven’t had a copy of the Yellow Pages (or white pages) in our apartment since we got high-speed access.
We Google directions to the Gap across town. If a movie is playing in Brooklyn we Google directions to the theater and buy the tickets online - so we can get in after we make the trek.
As a user we know all we need to know about local search. We type in what we want and where we want to get it and bingo - here it is and a map’s included. It just doesn’t get any better than that.
So, what’s the big deal for business owners when it comes to local search in 2007?
It’s leveling the field - putting the Main Street Companies we love doing business with right up there with their big box rivals.
How’s that possible you ask? Well, here are three simple ways to maximize your over all search results using a local search focus.
Differentiation:
What makes your company different? What are the local aspects of your business? That’s how you differentiate yourself from your competitors. Local search ads and placement provide the opportunity.
Would you rather eat spaghetti at a local franchise of a national chain or a locally owned Italian restaurant that’s supported the community since 1963 - who supplies pizza for the area football team parents night and whose grand daughter won the state’s citizenship award competition?
We do business with our friends. Local search provides us with the information we need to do so.
Reach Buyers When They’re Ready To Buy:
Let’s say I was looking for a health club membership to begin addressing my 2004 New Year’s resolution. OK, so I’ve put it off a bit - but now I may be ready, so what’s my number one criterion?
Location. It has to be as close to me as possible - so I’ll be more likely to show up.
I may have been introduced to a certain company via their TV commercials. In our many walks around the various communities in New York I may have passed dozens of their health clubs. I may even know people who have a membership at one of them and swear by it.
But if I’m going to join one - it has to be in my neighborhood.
So I go online, do a local search, and find that they have a brand new heath club only a few blocks away. They even have printable coupons for various membership types. I’m doomed - my last really good excuse is gone.
Leverage All Your Touch Points
If your online goal is to simply drive people physically into your place of business you can provide them with directions to your place, a map, when you’re open, etc. with your local search strategy.
Perhaps more importantly you can offer your customers additional options for doing business with you - which they did not know about.
Let’s say you sell cement to contractors and homeowners. Your customers get it delivered to the job site or in their driveway - most of the time. No one ever comes by, even though you have people working there twelve hours a day seven days a week.
Local search can be used to tell people that you’re open in case they need to pick up a few extra bags of Quickrete over the weekend. Or they can place an order online or on your 24 hour a day voicemail for next day delivery.
Effective local search tactics reaches local searchers when they are ready to buy - with every way that it is possible for them to buy from you.
At the Search Engine Strategies event the experts told us to adopt a search marketing strategy that has global reach (hey, you never know), regional implications, and connects with our local buying audience.
How is that possible? Let’s take a top down look.
National Campaign:
For most companies this is best left to their manufacturers. Let General Motors create the buzz, show the new models, pitch the extraordinary value, and the environmental friendliness of their vehicles.
Let them do national TV and spend a bazillion dollars on search engine optimization, just push them to link to your company while they’re at it. Hey, it’s their brand; so let them do the branding.
You spend your money and energy with actions that result in sales for you.
Expanded regional Area Keyword Search:
There is an Auto Mall on I71 North of Cincinnati. I bet the dealers there sell most of their vehicles to folks who live north of downtown all the way up maybe 25 to 40 miles north of where the Mall is located.
People living a little farther north of that line may turn right when they get on I71 and head toward Columbus. People south of downtown Cincinnati cross the bridge into Northern Kentucky. On the east side of Cincinnati there is at least one huge Auto Mall siphoning off potential business as well.
Out of area local search can target these buyers telling them to come by your dealership for a comparison before they buy. If they do you guarantee to make it worth their time.
Tell them how long it will take on I275 from different parts of the metro area. And if they buy a new vehicle you’ll give them an extra $500 off if they live more than so many miles away. You get the idea.
What’s it worth to your business to increase your traditional marketing area by another 25 miles in every direction?
Local Relevance Promotions:
Don’t forget the importance of dominating the market you’re already in. A local search marketing strategy will help you solidify your base with a reminder that you’re still there.
As a local business owner you are sought out by every community endeavor for your support. Local search provides an opportunity improve on your local relevance - why people should support your business. Local search gives you a chance to remind people of your commitment to them.
As with the Italian restaurant - I’ll pay more money for new tires if given the chance to buy them from the nice people who sent the local high school band to New Orleans to play in the Sugar Bowl parade - even if it was a decade ago.
Compare that to saving a few bucks from a giant store where I am just a number and actually had to be there before 10am to qualify for the special price anyway.
Here are three things to keep in mind when considering your local search marketing strategy.
What do you really want?
How far can you haul gravel and still make money? How far can your service technicians travel and still at least break even? Do you simply want to dominate your traditional selling area or do you see local search as a way to gradually and systematically expand you company into a wider and wider area? Knowing this will help you when it comes to budgeting the resources required.
Who’s willing to help you?
Will you highly respected manufacturer link to you in a way that helps raise your status with the search engines? Or will other companies join you in an effort to build your presence online collectively? Consider the Auto Mall - there must be a dozen of more dealerships all in one place. Working together with ad buys and pooling resources to hire SEO experts will benefit them all.
What’s your budget?
Where’s the money going to come from - your major distributors, your manufacturer, our your wallet? What’s your stomach for online advertising? Do you have the people and the interest to do pay for performance ads? Or do you feel more comfortable with the idea of doing whatever SEO you can do easily, buy ads on a fixed rate basis like in the Yellow pages - and move on?
What it all boils down to is what’s important to you.
For some maybe reading this article is enough. When they do whatever marketing and/or advertising they do in the future they’ll factor some of these thoughts into their decisions.
Others will want to know more, this will have opened their eyes to some real possibilities they are missing - stuff they want to be doing before their competitors start doing them.
If that’s you, visit our directory of over 300 search engine marketing and optimization articles at http://www.ibizresources.com/seo_articles/index.html Wayne Messick’s web site http://www.iBizResources.com offers business owners a wealth of free information and business insights.
What Does Your Business Card Say?
A good business card means a well structured marketing plan, not only it has to pass the trash test but it also has to say a lot of things about the person and the company it represents.
When you choose a business card you must have in mind the fact that it must say something about the company or contain something that defines it. So in order to impress your clients you must carefully choose your business card; of course not everything suits for example you can’t have a pink business card with little ponies and work for a well respected company but on the other hand you can’t have a black business card and have a company that organizes kids parties.
Let’s talk a little about the size of your business card: in the US the common size is 3.4 x2 in (89 x 51 mm) but for example in other countries the common size is 85x 55 mm (3.346 x 2.165). If your card will travel distant lands or your company is international I recommend using the international standard size which is 85.60 x 53.98 mm (3.370 x 2.125 in) to eliminate any further problems about the size of your card.
You can choose to print a picture of your face or a drawing to help people remember you better but this is not recommended in all situations because many of these cards may be considered kitsch by a lot of people.
Another catchy thing that can be added to your business card to improve its originality is maybe an unusual shape or fold. This is usually very appealing to many people and will help you get noticed. Although these cards are more expensive than average cards they sure worth all the money especially if you care about your business and how it’s represented.
Of course when it comes to originality people can make business cards out of chocolate or marzipan but nowadays the elegant and trendy type of card is the simple two colors card. You can also try to have a card with another purpose, for example if you are a doctor you can place your schedule on the back of the card and so on.
Remember when ordering your business card that you will need to choose something that matches your style and the company style; also, don’t mess with the size, choose the standard size no matter how unusual your tastes are.
Keith Londrie II is the and publisher of http://www.business-card-info.info/ A website that specializes in providing tips on business cards that you can research on the internet. Visit http://www.business-card-info.info/ now!
Make the Most of Low Cost Ads Online
Advertising had long since been a major determinant of a business’ success. This would include the presentation of the product / service to the consumers. What really matters is how it is presented to the target market to be able to capture it.
Whatever the package, the ad media also plays a great role in determining the success of the product or service awareness.
What may be its advantages over other proven medium like the best-selling TV ads?
Advantages
1. Low Cost
Eventhough the Internet ad might be viewed as “classy” or far-reaching, as compared to other medium, this is far cheaper than most. Internet Ad Packages are offered for as low as $29.99 for a one-month run-time period.
2. Capture market
Should your product / service aim to cater to the younger generation or the corporate-oriented ones, Internet ad would be best since they would always be “hooked-up” into the net surfing sites that might have a link to your very own. Result, a great number of “hits” on your site!
2. Hassle free
All you would ever really need is a PC (and some knowledge and bright ideas in forming your site) wherein you could open your site, search for the best Internet Ad package, and check / update the status of your ad. You may actually never have to leave your home to advertise!
3. Updated ads
Unlike the TV ads that need to be updated on a regular basis, Internet ads may run for quite some time without the need for change. If so, change in the site is very minimal and may be done easily at home.
Disadvantages
1. Scope
Limited market may be captured if one would solely use the Internet Ad for advertising. Although most people now are into the use of technology, i.e. surfing the Internet, still, majority of the average consumers still relies on the old form of advertising as a means of gathering information about certain products / service.
2. Additional cost
If one would enlist the help of another professional or establishment to produce the site for their product or service, this would entail additional costs on the part of the entrepreneur.
Given the stated list of advantages and disadvantages about low-coast Internet Ad, an entrepreneur may now weigh in its applicability to his / her product or service.
The aim of Internet ad is to offer the widest range or “Maximum Exposure” of the brand at the least possible cost. Now, does that not sound good or what?
Tyler Ellison is a successful entrepreneur who teaches automated marketing strategies at his site http://www.youcanworkthenet.com and encourages others to join the community at http://www.littleguyco-op.com .
Overture/Yahoo PPC Gets Targeted Website Visitors
Overture or now known as Yahoo because of Yahoo’s takeover, was the original inventor of the use of the P4P or Pay for Performance. Overture saw that the internet was fast becoming the easiest and most convenient way to shop, and advertising was going to hit at an all time high because of the many businesses in the arena.
To get a person to go to a site than others, it needs to be very visible. Providing ads that could direct potential consumers and costumers to their site would allow them to have an increase in traffic as well as sales. Yahoo provides a service that can put a site or company’s ad in their sites that can be shown when certain keywords are inputted.
Yahoo offers a chance for any company to increase their traffic by using their services. With more people being aware of your site, there would be more traffic and visitors to your site given the chance to view your pages as well as your products. With even a small percentage of successful sales, with a high traffic volume this could still be a substantial figure for your company.
Getting a consistent substantial flow of website visitors is every company’s goal. Many methods are devised and utilized to ensure that there would be more people to boost the sales and to be aware of the existence of such a product or service. Website visitors are potentially the life blood of your internet based business.
Yahoo/Overture utilizes the same principle as Google’s Adwords. In fact, they are very similar to each other that they use keyword and keyword phrase searches and to determine which ads to show per search. When a person types in a phrase to search for anything, the search engines gives out the results in a page. Then at the right side of the page, you will see selected ads that have paid for their ads to be viewed with certain keywords and keyword phrases searched.
For example, Let’s say you run a car parts retail/wholesale site. You choose keywords that can prompt or trigger your ads to be shown in the page when a keyword is searched. When a search engine user types in Honda Accord, your ad may come up if you have designated that as one of your keywords. You don’t need to fully optimize your site with SEO methods and techniques.
While some labor so hard to make their site one of the high ranking sites per keyword search, you get the chance to be on the top of the list or at least in the first page of a search result increasing your chance to be clicked on. With that, you drive traffic and website visitors to your site a lot faster.
You will have to pony up some cash when using this service though. There are different ways Yahoo/Overture will charge you. It may be in the number of keywords or keyword phrases your ad uses or in the many times your ad is clicked on. Others offer many other services like having your ad show up not only in the search engine pages but also with some third party sites.
Third party sites support ads that have the same theme or niche as them. With more areas your ad is shown, you increase the chances of people knowing about your site or product. With more website visitors you increase the sales of your site which makes your investment with your ads a wise one.
With so many competitors in the internet based businesses, it is necessary to take a huge leap forward from the pack by advertising. Pay-per-click will be a great place to start. Many have utilized their services and have reaped the rewards of this decision. It’s a marketing strategy that will increase your website visitors as well as increase your sales resulting to profit.
It takes money to make money, while there are some methods that are basically low cost or free, using a marketing service such as what Yahoo/Overture offers will provide results faster and on a larger scale. Many businesses have learned this the hard way, don’t be counted with them.
Tyler Ellison is a successful entrepreneur who teaches automated marketing strategies at his site http://www.youcanworkthenet.com and encourages others to join the community at http://www.littleguyco-op.com .
Viral Marketing For Beginners
Magnetism.
This is one virtue a site must possess to lead the race in the ruthless competition in the Internet based business. With so many competition and rivalry going on, every method of marketing must be employed and utilized.
It doesn’t matter if you have a killer product or a fantastically designed website, if people don’t know that you exist, it doesn’t matter, and you are not going to make it big. Worse of all, you business could just get killed.
While there are so many methods and schemes used by so many e-commerce sites today, there are still some of those that can help you with an extra boost in the popularity ratings. One of these is the so called Viral Marketing.
While the term viral easily depicts a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, it is not what it seems. You do not actually use a computer virus to spread your business; on the contrary it just might kill you. Everyone has had enough of all those pop up ads and spywares.
Viral Marketing Overview
Viral marketing, also known otherwise as viral advertising, is a technique used to build the public awareness of one’s product or company. They use many forms of media to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product by riding on in other forms of addictive means that could get a person hooked and be obliged or amused to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along with it.
In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.
Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pas on the product. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, they won’t block it and open it as well.
Many companies offer incentives such as discounts and rebates when they help in spreading their viral marketing. They rely on the number of recipients a viral marketing gets from one person in determining the amount or number of incentive they can be attributed with.
Using Viral Marketing to your advantage
The main and foremost advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site and your company. You get to generate a flow of traffic that are potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.
Most every site and companies are catching on to the effectivity of Viral Marketing and Advertising. Not using it could kill your business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the rating games.
Viral Marketing could be a sneaky way to get people to know about you and your company. You get them to pass your advertisement along. They are also very low cost that not investing in it could be downright a business suicide. All it takes is a great idea, a good addicting game, a funny story many ideas are still out there. Create a gossip or a buzz, many movies are promoted by using scandals and gossips to make them more popular. Remember the movie “The Blair Witch Project”??
Many big companies have tried viral marketing and have had many success stories with it. A classic example is Microsoft’s Hotmail. They were the first known big company to utilize the scheme online and it has worked wonders for them.
Now it’s your turn to use viral techniques to work wonders for you. Act now and reap the benefits Viral Marketing will provide for you and your sales figures.
Tyler Ellison is a successful entrepreneur who teaches automated marketing strategies at his site http://www.youcanworkthenet.com and encourages others to join the community at http://www.littleguyco-op.com .