About This Blog

This blog provides readers with advice, information, strategies, and tips on marketing and promotion.




31 July 2007 - 20:415 Keys To A Successful Ezine

There are 5 basic keys you need for your ezine to be successful and here they are though not necessarily in this order.

1- Hosting

You need good reliable hosting for your website. You don’t want to lose subscribers because your site is always down. Not only that… it’s unprofessional.

Why should someone listen to what you have to say in your ezine when you can’t even get the basics of having your website operational?

2- Autoresponders

You want to automate everything. An autoresponder will send a confirmation email when someone subscribes. It will handle removal requests and if it has a broadcast feature you can even send out your ezine through it.

You may need multiple autoresponders as you will find that there will be many things you want automated such as when you are offering a free report, or confirmation of an ad someone placed in your ezine… the list can go on and on.

3 - Tracking

You may want to track the ads you place when promoting your ezine to find out what ad(s) pull well for you and which don’t. You don’t want to be wasting your time on ads that don’t work. When you find an ad that pulls well… go all out on it.

4 - Products

As you start to grow your ezine and build a relationship with your subscribers you need to offer them products. After all… you are in this to make money.

You can create your own products around your list, get resale rights to an existing product to offer to your list or you can join an affiliate program.

Now, I admit… 1-4 can get pretty expensive especially if you are on a tight budget.

TIP #1: You can go here and get all of what I just mentioned in one package and it’s super cheap.

http://www.2marketers.com/pbp

5 - Leads

Every ezine no matter how big or small needs no or low cost ways of attracting more subscribers.

You can advertise your ezine by submitting to ezine directories, announcement lists, by writing articles, or doing joint ventures such as ad swaps just to name a few. The problem is… all of this can become time consuming.

TIP #2: There is a software that will automate your entire submission process to everything I just mentioned.

http://www.2marketers.com/ea

TIP #3: There is a site that will bring you new subscribers for only 5 minutes of work.

http://www.2marketers.com/pbl

There you have it. By no means is this a complete list but by getting the basics down and following the TIP’s I just mentioned, you are well on your way to a profitable ezine.

No Comments | Tags: Website

30 July 2007 - 20:405 High-Impact Marketing Tips

Here are 5 high-impact marketing tips you can use to boost your sales quickly. All are simple to implement and they involve little or no new expense.

1. Promote Only One Thing at a Time

Promote only 1 product or service each time you advertise. Many people have difficulty selecting one product when their decision forces them to delay or reject buying something else they also want. When prospects cannot make an easy choice they often make no decision at all …and you lose the sale.

Tip: Offer new customers a related product or service immediately after they buy from you. Many will accept your offer, producing an easy sale without jeopardizing the initial purchase.

2. Provide Multiple Ways for Customers to Buy

Providing choices of what to buy will reduce your sales. But providing choices of how to buy will increase your sales. Offer many different ways for customers to buy from you. The same method is not convenient for everybody. Prospective customers are more likely to act immediately when their favorite way of ordering is available.

3. Avoid Your Competitors

Look for some new niche markets you and your competitors overlooked. You may uncover a market you can dominate with little or no competition.

One quick and easy way to find profitable new markets is to sub-divide your current market into several narrowly defined niche markets. Then customize your advertising to the unique needs of prospects in each niche market.

Tip: You can narrow the appeal of an existing web site without losing its effectiveness with your main market. Just create customized web pages for each market segment you want to target. Then add a link to each of these specialized pages on your home page.

4. Use Alternative Marketing

Look for alternative media your competitors may be overlooking. For example, many internet marketers are beginning to use direct mail postcards to generate traffic to their web sites. It?s a low cost way to bypass the heavy competition online.

A brief captivating message on a postcard with an enticing offer sent to the right prospects will generate a flood of traffic to your website - or a large number of sales leads.

Tip: Postcards are also an excellent low-cost alternative to email. People get so much email today that even legitimate messages are getting deleted unread. But they get few if any postcards. Your message is guaranteed to get their attention when it’s delivered on a postcard.

5. Encourage Questions

You?re walking away from a lot of easy sales if you don?t encourage prospects to ask questions about your product or service.

Only interested prospects will take the time to ask questions. Many will buy …especially if you answer their question quickly and completely. You can even include a promotion for your product or service as part of your answer.

Make it easy for prospects to ask questions when they are at your web site or in other selling situations where there is no personal contact. For example, provide a phone number or an email address they can use to ask questions.

Tip: If you find yourself personally answering a lot of questions, add a Questions and Answers section to your web site or your sales brochure. Include the answers to the most frequently asked questions. It will reduce the number of questions you have to answer personally.

Each of these 5 marketing tips provides a simple way for you to boost your sales quickly …and for little or no new expense.

No Comments | Tags: Marketing

29 July 2007 - 20:395 Effective Ways to Promote Your Website For Free Online

1. Generate Targeted Traffic from Online Discussion Forums.

Online discussion forums provide an excellent way to promote your website without paying any money. Nowadays, you don’t even have to lurk around before you begin to post. Just browse the messages and you can start posting. There are basically three different ways to participate. You can ask questions, respond to requests for help or just post any useful information that fits with the general topic of that discussion forum. To promote your site in online discussion forums, all you have to do is enter your website address or ad in your signature line at the bottom of each message. Every time you post or respond to questions your ad will be displayed. If you post good content, people who read your threads will also check out your website. This is an excellent way to drive targeted traffic to your website at no cost to you. You can take this type of site promotion a step further by identifying the active members in each forum and contacting them for joint venture arrangements.

2. Write Articles or Free reports for other webmasters to publish.

Another effective way to promote your website is to write articles or free reports for ezine publishers and webmasters to use. If you write good content, your articles will be published and many readers who like your article will go on to visit your website. You can also write simple research based articles and allow others to publish these freely on their websites. The traffic from these free articles will come from your byline. The ‘byline’ is the short paragraph that goes at the bottom of each article and describes who the author is and what they do. The good thing about writing this type of content is that it establishes you as the expert and therefore increases the chances of people visiting your website and signing up for whatever you’re offering.

3. Do Joint Ventures with List owners and Webmasters.

If done correctly, joint venture marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote a product or service. A Joint venture can take many forms but it’s generally an agreement for some kind of partnership between one or more parties working together to their mutual benefit. It allows you to leverage highly targeted lists or traffic with no risk. Joint ventures are excellent for new product or service announcements because they allow you to reach a wide customer base very quickly.

4. Leverage the power of your email Signature.

One of the quickest and effective ways to start driving traffic to your website at no extra cost is to add your ad or website address to your email signature. This way, every time you send an email, you’ll be advertising your website. You can take this a step further by asking your friends and associates to put your website address in their email signature. Most people don’t use their email signature facility in their email program so you can easily get 10 or more people to agree to do this. If you and your 10 friends each send out 10 emails per day, that’s 110 exposures of your ad every day without any extra effort on your part.

5. Exchange Links with Other Webmasters.

This is another effective strategy for generating targeted traffic to your website for free. It involves contacting other webmasters for a possible link exchange partnership. All you have to do is locate websites that are related to yours but that are not in direct competition and contact the webmaster to swap links. There are various free ebooks and articles available online on this topic.

No Comments | Tags: Promotion

28 July 2007 - 20:374 Ways In Which You Can Achieve Critical Mass

Critical Mass Website Promotion is the elite goal rarely attained by website marketers in any industry. Reaching critical mass and getting targeted website traffic on autopilot (meaning you don’t have to promote your site for 6 months and the traffic NEVER declines) is the Holy Grail of internet marketing.

When you hit critical mass in your market, things change drastically for you and your business. Your marketing efforts go down in direct proportion to your customer support and sales going up. It sounds awesome. It IS awesome. But only a tiny fraction of websites on the net every achieve critical mass. Here’s a nutshell version of what it takes.

1. Work Hard

Internet marketing is no game to be manipulated by using software and quick fixes to a very large problem, which is long-term, steady traffic coming to your site.

There is no magic pill, silver bullet, or guru secret that will help you to achieve critical mass in your market. Hard work and intense study of the internet and how people surf, what they want, and how you get in front of them while they are surfing is the only answer.

The internet marketing game is for professionals and you MUST make yourself a professional marketer of your “shop” just as you would in the real world.

2. Understand Your Market

Understanding exactly who you are selling your products or services to is the crucial first step in achieving critical mass.

The worst thing you could ever do is put the hard work in and achieve critical mass in the wrong market for your products and services!

Know your market. Know your best, ideal customer inside and out. Get your links in front of them, ideally, everywhere they surf for related information to your site.

3. Be Vigilant

Over the years I have watched people listen to what I have to say about website promotion and then take one of two paths:

1) They work their tails off and do what I tell them, with great results and rewards for their efforts (more sales, more traffic, more branding and recognition).

2) They buy my book, take a half-hearted shot at the easiest things in the book, get bored, tired, or impatient, and then they go back to chasing down quick fixes.

I have watched people who had the answers they needed in their hands, and drop them for more glamorous-sounding, fast solutions. Which we all know don’t work.

I will say this again - THERE IS NO WAY TO TO QUICKLY OR INSTANTLY ACHIEVE CRITICAL MASS IN YOUR MARKET!

You must work like anyone in business who is in it to succeed works. If you do not know everything about your business and how to market it, your competition will eat you alive because they WILL know everything, I guarantee it.

Just like in the real world, the one who works harder, smarter, and is vigilant about his or her business is going to come out on top every time.

You owe it to yourself and your family to learn your craft and do it better than most people in your market if you want to succeed.

4. Achieve Critical Mass

In order to hit critical mass, you must be everywhere, or nearly everywhere your best customers surf.

This means linking back to your site from reciprocal links, articles, press releases, joint ventures, forum participation, and good search engine positioning for your best keywords.

In order to have literally thousands of links pointing to your site in high-profile areas where human beings actually go and read/surf, it takes pure time and effort.

You must submit your articles to the best free content directories. Over and over until you have published everywhere you can that is relevant to your market.

You must secure deals with high-profile sites in your market to swap QUALITY links. I am talking about links that people will click on, not just links that only search engines will see.

You must be everywhere that is a good place to be on the net in your market. This takes time. This takes hard work. This is what it takes to have a viable, long term website traffic solution for your business.

Reaching critical mass, or even sitting down and deciding a plan of action to pursue critical mass in your market, takes maturity and a final realization that you can have anything you want in the world if you want to work for it. The day you stop chasing quick fixes to drive spurts of unqualified, un-targeted traffic to your site is the first step in achieving your goals as a professional internet marketer.

No Comments | Tags: Marketing

27 July 2007 - 20:364 Simple Secrets for NetMarketing Success

Starting an internet based business when you have zero marketing experience is, to say the least, bewildering. I speak from personal experience as I started out with no specialized knowledge. I gradually weaved my way through what seemed like hundreds of sites selling just about everything and tried to resist buying every white elephant that was offered.

In the interim, I purchased my first package which turned out to be of little practical use. While I was doing that, I somehow went off in another direction and bought another “package deal”, hardly stopping to think that I did not have the requisite skill and knowledge to make this programme work either.

To cut a direct path through the dense forest, I’ll tell you now that I spent much more that I originally intended. Thankfully, I learnt a few lessons along the way.

1. Stay Focused

It is easy to become swamped and distracted trying to run several programmes at the same time, on zero experience. Leave diversification to the pros until you have garnered some experience and at least have some sales/profit (whichever you prefer) from your first venture. Needless to say, you will find yourself floundering around aimlessly, watching your money burn, having done no research before making a purchase. If you feel a burning urge to buy anyway, read the material again, do some research, sleep on it and then make a decision. Twenty-four hours delay won’t kill you and remember, one venture at a time.

2. Allow some “Opportunities” to pass you by

As God is my witness, I believe I became a member of at least fifty programmes that promised me anything from “massive profits” to “dramatic sales explosion, traffic, profit, great downlines”….you get the idea. Unless you have twenty-four dedicated hours to spend on your e-business each day, you cannot market all these web sites; and without the ability to create traffic to each site (and you get one for just about every programme you join), you are back where you started. …And, by the way, did I mention the sea of email from other members? That’s right, I didn’t get beyond the hype at the top of the sales page either. So then, limit yourself to a manageable number of traffic generation ventures. Better to pay for leads or hits even if on a tight budget than to try to do the impossible. Allow some opportunities to pass you by. If they are too good to be true, they are!

3. Free Information….A hidden gold mine

I have hundreds of pages of free information (yes, I have printed them out, this works for me) received when I bought something or subscribed to an ezine. I have two words of advice…Use them! They are valuable, even if you have to wade through tons of information for a few golden nuggets. If your business is to grow, you have to be learning constantly. If all else fails, you can always rebrand the books, give them away to your subscribers or make some money from them by reselling the information. I read somewhere that a great percentage of ebooks remain unread by those who receive them. What a shame! Do your best to use that information, it is there to help you get ahead.

4. Keep at it, Rome was not built in a day

If you (1) stay focused on one or two manageable ventures, (2) channel your marketing energies wisely (pay where you can and forget the freebies), (3) read the complimentary material you get and (4) develop some stick-to-itiveness, you will eventually begin to see rewards from your investment. You may never make millions, but you will at least derive a steady income from your efforts.