Does Your Small Business Marketing Suffer From The Bulldog Effect?

If you're an entrepreneur responsible for your own small business marketing, there's a marketing method you should avoid at all costs, which I've coined the bulldog effect for reasons you will understand shortly. Keep reading to find out if you're guilty of using this technique in your own marketing and learn how to fix it.

After a recent weekend jaunt to San Diego, my husband and I arrived back in Los Angeles tired and hungry, so we walked the small handful of blocks to a local all-night diner to grab a quick bite to eat. And it was there that we were smacked in the face with an example of unusual small business marketing, to say the least.

We live near a shopping district where small businesses cater to everyone from people like my husband and myself to the elderly from the retirement homes nearby. And it was one store catering to this population of older citizens that had us in hysterics when we should have been concentrating on finding some grub.

Your products sell themselves? Think again

You might think a shop selling wheelchairs would have it easy in such a neighborhood -- a huge target audience planted right there, a captive audience if you will. And you'd be right. During the day, you see almost as many disabled elderly individuals out shopping as you do younger/able-bodied people.

So from the sounds of things, maybe small business marketing tactics aren't as important for a shop like this because the products practically sell themselves. Right? Wrong.

Despite the fact that I am not the target audience, I am a marketer and take notice of new marketing approaches so that I can try them out myself and share them with subscribers to my small business marketing newsletter. But that night, my husband and I just wanted a bite to eat.

Some things you can't ignore

As we walked, however, there was no way to miss the latest marketing efforts of the shop in question. This shop, which features very little in the way of shopfront advertising, had put an oversized poster in the window to promote a new model of wheelchair ... complete with a grumpy, overweight bulldog planted right in the middle of it.

Sure, it's lovely that the dog's fanged underbite finally got the recognition it deserved. And of course the wheelchair came across loud and clear as the other "hero," the main focus of the image ... other than the dog sprawled across the seat, smiling that is. (I am also almost certain that a wheelchair wholesaler created this poster and not the store itself.)

And you bet the poster got our attention. However, displayed as prominently as it was, the poster overshadowed any credibility the store might otherwise have had in terms of their expertise in finding less-able people the right wheelchair for their needs. Why? Because apparently, they also help pedigreed pooches do the same.

Of course I say this in jest, but use this as a lesson for your own small business marketing materials. No, I'm not suggesting that you have an image of a bulldog on your homepage or in your catalog -- and if you do and it makes sense, by all means continue to do so.

Rather, take this bulldog story as an analogy to your own marketing and think of ways to make your small business marketing message clearer and more meaningful to your target audience.

Rid your own campaigns of the bulldog effect

Here are some questions to get you thinking about your own small business marketing:

1) Whether we're talking about a simple website, a brochure or even just your business card, are you marketing yourself the way you want to be perceived by your customers?

2) Some use of characters (comic book characters, superheroes, etc.) is effective when used appropriately. Are you using the right type of character to set the tone for your business? Think critically about how others might perceive your campaigns.

3) Trusting your own instincts is dangerous without a reality check. Ask some of your customers what they think of your current marketing. Bear in mind that if they are customers, they are, in fact, buying from you despite any protests they may have with your marketing approach, so take their feedback with a grain of salt.

4) Ask strangers to your business what they think of your current marketing. These should not be people you know or else they will not be as candid.

5) Test everything! Regardless of what approach you take, test one version against the next to see what sells more. Experiment. Mix and match. But measure your results so that you know that your bulldog should be removed. Or not.

In closing, first impressions count, and you need to ensure that the message you're broadcasting to your prospects is the right one. Use this tail -- I mean, tale -- to see if there's anything you can improve in your own small business marketing.

Are you a coach, consultant or other solo service professional who's struggling to grow your business? Small business marketing strategist Jennifer McCay will show you how to attract more clients more easily. Get her FREE audio course and FREE weekly small business marketing lessons at http://AvenueEast.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jennifer_McCay

Offline Marketing Vs Online Business Marketing

This article is really to give you an understanding of the offline business marketing world and how it has now transformed to the online business marketing world. Come with me on a short journey from back in history to modern day and into the future.

Offline Business Marketing:

The world of offline business marketing is soon to be become redundant. Since advertising first began, smart business owners were always on the lookout for that something new that was going to give them the edge over their competitors.

In the beginning there was word of mouth advertising. A vendor sold a product or service to a customer who then went out and spread the word to his personal circle of influence. Word of Mouth Advertising in those days had only two possible endings. One, a positive referral was made that resulted in more customers and more sales. Secondly, a negative referral was made and that resulted in less customers and less sales.

Obviously, knowing the importance of their only advertising medium, good vendors looked after their customers especially well and were rewarded in return. As in today's modern business, those that didn't look after their customers suffered the penalty that followed.

Clever vendors then moved on to Poster advertising. Posters were placed strategically around the areas promoting their products and services. Now they had two modes of advertising. Those that didn't look after their customers so well, were now able to exploit the Poster advertising strategy. The better the Poster, the better the results of bringing in customers and making more sales.

And so the world of advertising and marketing began. Now since those days we have had a host of other marketing and advertising strategies come and go. Some lasted longer than others, while some were so brief they blew out with the next gust of wind.

I won't go in to all the mediums that we have seen over the many years. The important thing to note is this, THERE WERE CHANGES. Those that moved with the changes were able to stay ahead of their competitors, those that didn't took so long to pick up the change that they lost fortunes in their business or lost their businesses completely.

Today's world still has a great deal of off line marketing and advertising. Television, radio, newspapers and magazines would have to be the main form of media used. And in the main, successful for those businesses who have the thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars to pour in to their advertising.

Large multinational corporations have had offline marketing campaigns that ran in to the millions of dollars and obviously their return on investment had to remain high for such commitments to continue.

What about the small and medium enterprises? What do they pay in advertising and marketing? What is their return on investment? Well let me tell you, they are the business models that are struggling and close to collapse.

Why? Because they are continually paying for advertising and marketing campaigns that are useless.

Here's an example:

If you are a small or medium business, ring your local newspaper and ask to place an ad in the Classifieds Section. What will you get? You will get a consultant on the other end of the phone who will ask what Category you wished to be placed in, how many lines or lines and columns you wish to include.

You will be asked to read your ad content and they will check the spelling, and how you want it to look. You agree and that's it. Do you get to look and preview your ad? You can look and make one minor change, that's it. You then pay for what you get.

There is no consultation about your marketing strategy, your target market, your product or anything that will help give you an edge over your competitor. The consultants are not marketing specialists, they are telephone specialists who fill in a form.

Your ad comes out in the newspaper and you don't like it. Bad Luck, that's what you get.

Cross that over to "The Yellow Pages" advertisements. Depending on the size of the ad, which also means the amount of money you are going to spend with them, dictates the amount of help you receive. Now understand this, the average consultant in "The Yellow Pages" is not a marketing specialist. They specialize in "selling advertising space".

So the question that begs to be asked is," Why would you go to someone who is not a specialist marketing agent to do your marketing?" That's like asking a dental receptionist to do your filling or an extraction. It doesn't work.

Small and Medium enterprises generally have no idea what they are doing in relation to marketing their business, product and service. They have no idea of how to structure a successful marketing campaign to bring their business more customers. Business owners need to go to a specialist who is an expert in that field, someone who knows what they are doing. Someone who is going to build a marketing strategy that is successful in achieving the objectives set by the business owner.

Traditional advertising through "The Yellow Pages", Newspapers and other print media will soon be of little value. The distribution is localised and viewing is random. Any return on investment is based on luck rather than a measured strategic marketing campaign.

People are sick and tired of advertisements being pushed in front of their faces. It is said that an average of 2000 advertisements are placed in front of us every single day. Ask yourself how many you can remember from yesterday through newspapers, magazines, billboards, t.v, radio etc. The answer, probably half a dozen, maybe if you're good.

So, what is happening to your business ad? Nothing.

Online Business Marketing:

Why? One word, internet. The internet has now changed the world of advertising and marketing forever. The trend towards the internet is moving faster than any other medium in history. The younger age groups, Generation X and Generation Y are using the internet multiple times daily. It is now their chosen form of networking and communicating. We now have phones that communicate on the internet.

Guess what? Now the Baby boomers are getting in on the act as well. Just have a look at Social Networking sites like FaceBook and Twitter. The older generations are now using the internet to communicate with their families around the world. Add Skype and other similar programs that allow F*R*E*E phone and video calls around the world. Any business that is not on the internet now, and not on the internet in the next year or so is seriously in big trouble.

What do you think the modern generation do when they are looking for a product or service? They don't run for the Yellow Pages that's for sure. They run to their computer or laptop and do a Google Search, that's what they do.

What doe this mean for your business? You need to be marketing your business, products and services on the internet.

How do you do this? You need a Website. The Website is your online virtual shop, office or whatever your business front is. It is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. It is open for business while you are sleeping, on holiday, in your shop or where ever you wish to be. It never closes unless you or your landlord close it down. (Yes, even on the internet we have landlords that you have to pay rent to on a monthly basis)

Your business is open for customers to browse, leave their details for followup, or purchase a product or service. And they do all this without you having to be there, how fantastic is that? That is the power of the internet.

How do people find you? Imagine a highway, any highway. Imagine your Website is a store front on that highway. Now imagine we incorporate strategies that were once the powerhouse strategies of offline marketing. Imagine the Word of Mouth which in internet terms is Social Networking, Poster Marketing which we call Article Marketing, Television Advertising we call Video Marketing, Radio Advertising we call Podcasting.

Just as in your offline marketing, we use all these strategies to drive targetted traffic to your Website. Traffic are potential clients. The difference to offline marketing is that online, only people that are looking for you will find you. That means they WANT what you have. They will get to choose between you and your competitors who they find online. When they choose you, they have already got their credit cards out and sitting in front of them. That prospect is now a customer.

You now have the opportunity to get directly in front of thousands if not tens of thousands of potential customers. To win their business you will first need to be online, and second have a marketing campaign that is successful enough to get you in front of them.

Whether you are a local or international organization, small or medium enterprise or multinational, your marketing campaign will have to incorporate your target market. Your campaign will have to target your distribution and servicing area, so if you only do local stuff that is cool, if you distribute and service internationally then that is cool as well. The internet allows you to advertise globally and locally.

Costs:

How do the costs compare? In our experience an internet campaign could set you back a few thousand dollars to set it up at the start. Most good providers will have a payment plan to suit most people. There are on-going monthly fees anywhere from about $10.00US depending on the sort of campaign package you need.

So let's say it costs you $5000.00US to set up your Website and implement a marketing strategy. Add an average of around just say $100 a month. The monthly fee is equivalent to paying rent for your building and costs associated to that.

Compare those costs to an average Full Page ad in a certain directory which could set you back tens of thousands of dollars per year, add in your newspapers ads which you place weekly, as well as any other limited advertisements. The cost to you is enormous in comparison to an online Website presence.

I hope that you have been able to see the benefits and the obvious need to have an online business presence.

I hope this article has been of value to you. I look forward to being with you on the next article where we will share Marketing Strategies that could save your business literally thousands of dollars. You don't want to miss that.

Here's a tip for you, it doesn't matter what industry you are in, what product or service you provide. Your business is about marketing. If you fail to market your business properly, your business will fail.

Till the next session, take care and prosper.

Sene Iafeta is new to the world of article writing. He has been a business owner/operator of a successful Private Investigation Company. Sene is now a full time internet marketer specializing in helping offline businesses make the transition to an online presence.

http://www.solutionstomarketingonline.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sene_Iafeta

How You Can Boost Your Profits With Business-To-Business Marketing Online

Business to business marketing – Internet style – This is not a new marketing technique. In fact, the design of having two or even more businesses help to endorse one another products and services is a tried and true method that has provided profitable results for most entities involved. Knowledgeable business owners and webmasters recognize the enormous value brought to their company by business-to-business marketing. Marketing online offers another dimension with enormous reach that will allow businesses to continue their networking efforts in the virtual and viral world that the Internet provides.

Lets say for example that a brick and mortar company like a dog grooming business will benefit and gain customers from displaying advertisements at the local veterinarian offices. Dog owners, who trust these veterinarians are more likely to take their pets for a professional grooming to a business recommended by an already trusted establishment, like their local vet. On the other hand, the clients of the dog grooming business will be most likely those who need a veterinarian for their pets, and they will most likely trust the vet suggested by the professional grooming business who already has an reputable relationship with them. The same concept applies to business-to-business marketing; The Internet simply adds a new aspect to this method.

If the local pet grooming business and the veterinarian both have a website it will permit for further business-to-business marketing, Internet style. Since the services provided by the pet grooming business and veterinarian only tangentially overlap, they are not in direct competition with one another, but instead will be able to do business-to-business marketing online in the truest sense of the term.

These businesses could then continue with this business-to-business marketing method with other related businesses. For example the Pet grooming business could establish a relationship with pet magazines, animal shelters and other groups that are not in direct competition with each other.

This form of business-to-business marketing has become commonplace online and savvy webmasters and business owners have been taking advantage of this viral marketing method in many different forms. Website owners will cross promote each other's products, services and business opportunities to each others subscribers lists in an email marketing campaign. Or just place ads on each other's websites.

Finding these business-to-business marketing opportunities are not as hard as you would think. Perhaps you are starting a new website promoting your own type of network marketing opportunity and need a professionally designed website. The design company you hire to design your website could benefit from new people you recruit into your new business. Just as you could benefit from people looking for website design that need a business to promote on their new website.

So now you have your new network marketing website designed and need to add content to it. You then hire a ghost writer, establish a relationship and before you know it they are sending you prospects and you in turn send them back to first the website design company and then to the ghost writer. All of related but non-competing businesses start benefiting from the viral nature of business-to-business marketing online. Next you need your site optimized for the search engines, OK, OK, I'll stop now, but you get the picture right?

These are highly viral and lucrative methods that all involved can benefit from. The next time that you do business with another business remember to look for the business-to-business marketing opportunity.

About the Author:

Jeff Houdyschell provides proven income opportunities, information and ideas helping others find the best work at home jobs. Isn't it time to start your own online business? Visit: http://www.eSmartJob.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeffrey_Houdyschell

Network Marketing Business Opportunity A Powerful Model For Extra Income

Networking marketing is still a fantastic business model to provide you with an additional income stream should business slow down. With the emergence of internet based network marketing opportunities the chances of you finding a business that compliments your business activity is even more likely.

Years ago just the thought of network marketing was enough to scare people away (and it still is even now but not as much!) Rumours of lost income and pyramind schemes saw innocent people robbed and disillusioned but it doesn't have to be that way.

A little due diligence can go a long way towards ensuring that you find a reputable company that will support you in your efforts of building a profitable network marketing business. It's really easy to be sucked in by a flash presentation and big income promises but the real work comes from researching the company, it's management and it's financial position before you sign the dotted line.

Your sponsor should also be an important determining factor and their ability to keep you motivated and on track.

It's also important to remember that it's not all income and glamour, there is a scary statistic that I read recently which shows only a very small percentage (2-3%) actually make a huge six figure income through network marketing with many more leaving before they really get started.

But many people still enjoy a regular ongoing income if they stick with their business for a few years and keep working at it.

Running a network marketing business takes work and commitment. It is no different to running your own business and if you happen to be doing both then it's easy to see why people give up. So it's always good to remember when you are considering taking on an extra business that it's going to take your time, energy and extra money in promotion if you want it to suceed.

For that reason it is important to find a company that you really like, either because of their product or their work ethic. If you can promote your network marketing business to your current clients that can make it even more worthwhile.

It makes it easier when you are feeling like you are tired of promoting or if you have had yet another person say no!

I know a yoga teacher who promotes Herbal Life, a therapist who promotes Tahitain Noni Juice, quite a few Life Coaches who promote Success University and because these businesses fit in well with their current business they are able to enjoy the extra income and even recruit new distributors.

I run 2 network marketing businesses providing different topics but both of them fit into my love of personal development and internet marketing. HelloWorld provides me with an opportunity to promote the work that I do and publish events that I record (all be it briefly) as well as fulfilling my love of streaming digital media (I am becoming quite the geek!) and Success University is an alternative to coaching for people who can't afford it, or for people who just need a "maintenance" program to keep them focused. But I don't only promote these products I use them too.

There are many benefits to running your own network marketing internet based business and I will be talking alot about them over the coming weeks because I believe in it's power as a business model. It has certainly kept my head above water over the last few months as I gave up coaching to focus on building my online business Women Internet Marketers.

Ultimately I want to be known for developing my own business but as I believe in the power of developing income streams from many sources network marketing is still a powerful source to consider.

About The Author Diane Corriette runs Women Internet Marketers at http://www.women-internet-marketers.com and a network marketing business with VM Direct at http://www.vmdirect.com/expandingincome

This article was posted on July 03, 2007

Promotional Products For The Business

In an industry where exposure is important, promotional products are ways to get the word out there about your business. As soon as you inform what kind of services you offer and products your provide, promotional marketing will prove to be a businessman’s best friend.

Promotional product is a way of promotional marketing. The promotional advertising on internet sites have proven to be quite beneficial for the businessman because more and more people are aware of the services they can receive from the company.

Popular promotional products for the benefit of a business are as follows:

1. T Shirt Printing

Imagine the exposure your business will get with random people wearing shirts displaying your company’s logo. If you work on the design hard enough, they might even wear it when they’re out in public which means more exposure for you.

2. Water Bottles

Surprisingly, these have become promotional products as well. If you think that it’s just gyms and sports clubs doing this, think again. Nowadays, even corporations rely on plugging their businesses by asking promotional product manufacturers to have their company’s logo imprinted on these drinking containers.

3. Temporary Tattoos

Some corporations hold events where they hire a tattoo artist who puts the company logos on the guests’ arms, wrist, shoulders or other visible parts of their bodies. It may only be temporary but at least these people know about the company. In fact, they can say they wore the company!

4. Stickers and Labels

Just like tattoo, companies invest in stickers and labels for people to spread the word about their business. Rather, stick the word about the business.

5. Mouse Pads

Darth Vader and Bart Simpson should not be the only ones gracing on mouse pads. Your company logo can do the same. At least with this promotional product, you will be sure that people get to see your company logo whenever they use their computers.

6. Coffee Mugs

Imagine your company logo greeting your target customer every morning as he sips coffee.

Now that’s a smart move.

7. Pens and Pencils

Clearly the most popular promotional product businesses and companies resort to. Pens and pencils bearing company logos are everywhere simply because this is the most accessible. Hey, everybody uses pens and pencils.

8. Refrigerator Magnets

Just like coffee mugs, refrigerator magnets bearing the logo of the company will surely greet the target market a very good morning indeed. It will also greet the target market a very good evening when he grabs a midnight snack.

9. Advertising Balloons

During company fairs, businessmen invest on a budget that will allow them to afford advertising balloons. Clearly, this is more expensive than the promotional product items that were mentioned earlier mainly because this one is gigantic in size. The minute it flies up in the air, people near that radius will see the company logo and know the business.

10. Clocks and Watches

This is also slightly more expensive than the other paragraphs because inputting the logo on these items mean more care considering that this will be placed on clocks and watches. It will take the promotional product manufacturer a harder time in achieving this feat as opposed to putting the logo on mugs, pens or pencils.

A smart businessman knows that in order for his business to succeed, he must get the word out there. This is the first step.

About The Author

Mario Churchill is a freelance author and has written over 200 articles on various subjects. For more information checkout http://www.travelvacationvouchers.com and http://www.salesincentivesblog.com.

Internet Marketing Strategy Planning - The Eight Steps Formula

Before you decide what to sell on the internet. You have to develop an Internet Marketing Strategy that is the essential part of your online success on the Internet.

You have to take into consideration the following:

1. Find a large and easy to reach niche market
2. Find a Product or Service the niche market demands for!
3. Setup your website
4. Have a great sales copy (your 24/7 sales man)
5. Create an opt-in page to collect email address
6. Have a great sales process
7. Make your website scalable and search engine friendly
8. Backend, backend and backend

Each step plays an important to your success in your Internet Marketing Strategy Planning. If even one step is miss out you will not be able to see the results you would like to see as each step is equally important to each other.

1. Find a large and easy to reach niche market

Your first step in your Internet Marketing Strategy planning requires you to do your research and find a large and easy to reach niche market to market your product. What you can do from here is that you go to Free Keywords tools and search for niche keywords that have high click through and low competitions.

Example the keyword “Dog Food For Sale”, when you search that on Google there are actually 5,650,000 which is seriously not a lot of competition but you also have to check is there a demand for it by using tools from www.seobook.com to look at the KEI rate. The higher the KEI rate the better the keyword.

2. Find a Product or Service the niche market demands for!

After you have found 2 or 3 keywords that you would like to target on, you would want to find products that will serve the market that demands for it.

Example like the keyword “Dog Food For Sale”, you would not want to promote Cat Food as it is totally not related to the topic you want to promote about. So find related products like an eBook “where to find great sale for dog food” or dog products that dogs like to eat.

3. Setup your website

After you have decided what product or service you want to sell online, you would want to setup a website to promote your product. The best way to do it is by creating a Blog talking nothing but Dog Food that are for Sale. Because Google and Yahoo search engine loves Blogs so much that you virtually get listed just 24 hours upon updating compared to a normal website, which will take at least a few weeks to be cached into the search engine.

4. Have a great sales copy (your 24/7 sales man)

Do not be mistaken, sales copy is not the sale. A sales copy is a page with descriptions and details to promote your product on your website. When I first heard of this term sales copy I was totally stunted how important it was to have a sales copy.

Depending how good your copy writing skills are, you can get people to write your sales copy or simply teach yourself to write one. If you can try to write it yourself as copy writing is a very good skill to learn especially when you are an Internet Marketer who plans Internet Marketing Strategy.

5. Create an opt-in page to collect email address

This is another important step that many do not have and its the most important. Why? It is because they fail to collect email address from their website. With the email address you can design out your sales process in the next step which I will explain further.

6. Have a great sales process

With your opt-in page in place, you can used the captured email address and name to follow up with people who are interested to know more about what you are promoting in your opt-in page. This way build you list of email list and keep sent them information or promotion products to sell those products again in the future.

7. Make your website scalable and search engine friendly

With all that done, you would now need to read up on Search Engine Optimization. Practicing this will allow search engines like Yahoo and Google to spider your website easily. The good thing about Blogs is that you can ping the search engines to spider your site easily and you can listed very quickly within 24 hours.

8. Backend, backend and backend

Upon completion of all 7 steps, you just need to keep on sent backend information to your list from your opt-in emails that you receive and keep on driving traffic your opt-in page to get more email address to sent out promotion to your customers.

If you constantly follow these 8 steps formula for your Internet Marketing Strategy Plan, you will see great massive results after 3 months upon you have setup. So do the math and start planning your Internet Marketing Strategy today!

About The Author
Alvin Phang is the owner of http://www.GatherSuccess.com . Get the right Internet Marketing Strategy for your Internet Business with our free resource of Internet Marketing Strategy Planning, Tips, Tutorials, Videos, Reviews and click the following link for more http://www.gathersuccess.com.

This article was posted on December 06, 2006

How to Use Effective Advertising for Internet Marketing

In order to advertise your products to the largest possible audience you will need to know the most useful ways of promoting your web sites. This is a brief description of the most effective advertising methods for online marketers.

Advertising through pay per click is one of the more effective means of advertising. Listing your web site with a pay per click search engines will allow you to start reaching your targeted customers immediately rather than wait for months for search engines such as Google and Yahoo! to spider your web pages. Your advertising dollars are too important to waste time on ineffective means of advertising.

The three top reasons for advertising with pay per click are controlling your rank in pay per click search engines, reaching large numbers of online customers quickly and inexpensively, and the fact that pay per click advertising gets fast results and attracts traffic to your web site quickly.

Search engine optimization refers to the use of certain keywords on your web pages in order to receive high rankings in the major search engines. Each of your web pages will contain content on a particular subject.

There are certain keywords that are searched the most often by internet shoppers looking for information about a particular subject. Regardless of the subject matter of your web pages, finding the right keywords to include in your content will increase your search engine ranking and drive traffic to your web site.

There are several ways to find the most searched for keywords. There are services that provide keywords to internet marketers for a small fee, usually on a monthly basis. You can learn to research keywords on your own although if you are a beginner it may take some time to become familiar with keyword research and be able to do this effectively.

Affiliate marketing programs are another method of increasing traffic to your web site. Webmasters can create affiliate marketing programs that will link their sites to the web sites of others. This enables an online customer to click on your ad from a web site belonging to an affiliate. You will pay the affiliate a small commission for each sale you make that results from the customer's click. Affiliate marketing programs allow you to increase traffic to your site and advertise your products and services through the web sites of other internet marketers. The small commission you pay your affiliates is well worth the increase in traffic and sales you may receive.

Internet marketing is like any other business. If you want to succeed and profit from your efforts, you must effectively advertise your products and/or services. You cannot expect to simply choose the products you will sell, build a web page, and watch the money roll in.

Advertising and web site promotion are critical to the success of your business. Utilizing the most effective means of advertising will greatly improve your chances of succeeding in your home-based business ventures. The most profitable internet marketers take full advantage of the advertising tools available to them.


About The Author
Eugene Rivera has been an internet marketer for over 17 years. Learn how you can get your Google Adwords Ads for virtually no money by visiting our links at http://www.truewebsuccess.com

Internet Marketing Strategy Planning - The Eight Steps Formula

Before you decide what to sell on the internet. You have to develop an Internet Marketing Strategy that is the essential part of your online success on the Internet.

You have to take into consideration the following:
1. Find a large and easy to reach niche market
2. Find a Product or Service the niche market demands for!
3. Setup your website
4. Have a great sales copy (your 24/7 sales man)
5. Create an opt-in page to collect email address
6. Have a great sales process
7. Make your website scalable and search engine friendly
8. Backend, backend and backend

Each step plays an important to your success in your Internet Marketing Strategy Planning. If even one step is miss out you will not be able to see the results you would like to see as each step is equally important to each other.

1. Find a large and easy to reach niche market

Your first step in your Internet Marketing Strategy planning requires you to do your research and find a large and easy to reach niche market to market your product. What you can do from here is that you go to Free Keywords tools and search for niche keywords that have high click through and low competitions.

Example the keyword “Dog Food For Sale”, when you search that on Google there are actually 5,650,000 which is seriously not a lot of competition but you also have to check is there a demand for it by using tools from www.seobook.com to look at the KEI rate. The higher the KEI rate the better the keyword.

2. Find a Product or Service the niche market demands for!

After you have found 2 or 3 keywords that you would like to target on, you would want to find products that will serve the market that demands for it.

Example like the keyword “Dog Food For Sale”, you would not want to promote Cat Food as it is totally not related to the topic you want to promote about. So find related products like an eBook “where to find great sale for dog food” or dog products that dogs like to eat.

3. Setup your website

After you have decided what product or service you want to sell online, you would want to setup a website to promote your product. The best way to do it is by creating a Blog talking nothing but Dog Food that are for Sale. Because Google and Yahoo search engine loves Blogs so much that you virtually get listed just 24 hours upon updating compared to a normal website, which will take at least a few weeks to be cached into the search engine.

4. Have a great sales copy (your 24/7 sales man)

Do not be mistaken, sales copy is not the sale. A sales copy is a page with descriptions and details to promote your product on your website. When I first heard of this term sales copy I was totally stunted how important it was to have a sales copy.

Depending how good your copy writing skills are, you can get people to write your sales copy or simply teach yourself to write one. If you can try to write it yourself as copy writing is a very good skill to learn especially when you are an Internet Marketer who plans Internet Marketing Strategy.

5. Create an opt-in page to collect email address

This is another important step that many do not have and its the most important. Why? It is because they fail to collect email address from their website. With the email address you can design out your sales process in the next step which I will explain further.

6. Have a great sales process

With your opt-in page in place, you can used the captured email address and name to follow up with people who are interested to know more about what you are promoting in your opt-in page. This way build you list of email list and keep sent them information or promotion products to sell those products again in the future.

7. Make your website scalable and search engine friendly

With all that done, you would now need to read up on Search Engine Optimization. Practicing this will allow search engines like Yahoo and Google to spider your website easily. The good thing about Blogs is that you can ping the search engines to spider your site easily and you can listed very quickly within 24 hours.

8. Backend, backend and backend

Upon completion of all 7 steps, you just need to keep on sent backend information to your list from your opt-in emails that you receive and keep on driving traffic your opt-in page to get more email address to sent out promotion to your customers.

If you constantly follow these 8 steps formula for your Internet Marketing Strategy Plan, you will see great massive results after 3 months upon you have setup. So do the math and start planning your Internet Marketing Strategy today!

About The Author
Alvin Phang is the owner of http://GatherSuccess.com. Get the right Internet Marketing Strategy for your Internet Business with our free resource of Tutorials, Video and much more...

This article was posted on December 11, 2006

Effective Internet Marketing Plan

Building opt in list and affiliate marketing have become synonymous to online success as an effective internet marketing strategy. For many online sites, building opt in list and affiliate marketing have proven quite profitable. Primarily because most online users are not exposed to any unscrupulous internet marketing strategies prevalent on the World Wide Web.

As an effective Internet marketing strategy, users are given the option to signup for information or service provided by a particular site. Building opt in list and affiliate marketing reduces the risk of spamming since the recipient voluntarily chooses to receive emails from a website. Plus, building opt in list and affiliate marketing provides a direct link to the subscriber that will help shape a formidable customer relationship that will keep on going.

The basics of building opt in list and affiliate marketing

Different websites have different ways of building opt in list and affiliate marketing. However there are some tried and tested formulas to help new affiliate marketers develop their own opt in listing for their site. The first and most important factor to determine in building opt in list and affiliate marketing is to establish the site's target market.

Once the target market is established, building opt in list and affiliate marketing can be customized to meet their demands. This can be done using a variety of methods to convince site visitors to sign up for the site's newsletter or e-zine. After signing up, the customer will begin to receive a variety of newsletters, e-zines and brochures that the customer had registered for.

Strategies for building opt in list and affiliate marketing

There are a number of strategies that affiliate marketers can use for building opt in list and affiliate marketing. One way of building opt in list and affiliate marketing is by purchasing or leasing a subscribers list from third-parties. This is usually done by affiliate marketers in order to get easy access to many people who have consented to receiving e-mails, newsletters and e-zines on various topics.

Although it is the fastest approach to building opt in list and affiliate marketing, this method does not provide a focused consumer group for building opt in list and affiliate marketing. In addition, it may cost an affiliate marketer more than what they expect to receive in sales. Fortunately, there are other ways for affiliate marketers to get the most out of building opt in list and affiliate marketing.

Enlisting for co-registration services is great for building opt in list and affiliate marketing. This service usually costs about 10 cents to 30 cents per subscriber but it easily translates into an average of three hundred subscribers daily to an affiliate marketer's opt in list.

Writing articles is also an effective strategy for building opt in list and affiliate marketing. The articles can be published in various newsletters with specific links to the affiliate marketer's site. This serves as a great introduction to potential subscribers that would encourage them to sign up for an opt in list.

Joint ventures are also a valuable strategy in building opt in list and affiliate marketing. Joint ventures are a hundred percent free and at the same time can add up to hundreds of subscribers to an opt in list daily.

Incentives for building opt in list and affiliate marketing

Building opt in list and affiliate marketing can also be encouraged by offering incentives to potential subscribers. This subtle form of encouragement for building opt in list and affiliate marketing often helps stir the interest of potential subscribers to sign up for the opt in list. There are a number of methods used in affiliate marketing to egg on potential subscribers to sign up.

Offering products and services in exchange for signing up is commonly practiced by many affiliate websites. Products may include special e-books or software that would be of interest to the subscriber. Another way to get subscribers to sign up is to offer them special services that are only available for site members.

Regardless of the incentive used for building opt in list and affiliate marketing, the most important factor to consider is how to keep the interest of the subscriber. Remember, it is just as easy for a subscriber to opt out of the list as it was to opt in to the list.

http://www.simplyrichsg.com/abc


About The Author
Chia Yong Liang
15 years in Multilevel Marketing and own business of telecommunication.

Advertising Your Business Online

How can you get your new online business up and running? It is no good having a product which everyone wants if nobody knows about it. You are working with an amazing system which will encourage and help people to expand their online business, but with no advertising who will know and who will benefit least of all you.

There are many ways to advertise using the internet to expand your business, increase your down line and prosper. If you are unsure of the viability of the internet as a mode for selling any product you have not yet mastered the reality of the population of the world. There are currently over 34 million domains registered worldwide. Industry experts forecast that more than 500 million domains will be registered in the next ten years. In fact it is predicted that in the very near future every personal computer will have its own domain name. That is only domain names, think about the number of computers which have access to the internet and now you are starting to realize just how mind blowing is the potential for creating sales.

Now how do we get our system/business up and running when we are on a shoestring?

Free Advertising.

There is a myriad of free advertising available. The best advertising in the world is free; it is called word of mouth. Tell everyone you know and if you show sufficient enthusiasm they will most certainly tell others. There are many people who make great money via this amazing way of advertising. Email all the people in your email address book, there will always be some takers and even if you only manage one; that is one person you didn't have previously.

Forum Posting and leave your unique 'signature'. Contribute meaningful information to forums and people will click on your 'signature' file which will take them to your website. Always keep in mind that a Forum is a ground for thousands of up and coming internet marketers, hungry for information. Always be consistent and informative.

Classified advertising. There are a multitude of service providers which offer free advertising. Just check it out and use words that would motivate you to buy. Classified advertising will create free links to your website and increase your traffic flow. Advertising is a very steep learning curve and there are many well versed people who can help if you are interested in learning.

Traffic Exchange. There are many traffic exchange companies who almost beg you to advertise with them in exchange for you spending some time surfing the sites of other contributors. All exposure is good exposure.

Article Writing. Everyone has a particular interest or is an authority on something and it is a well judged opinion that the internet is mostly used as a source of information. Write an article about your particular hobby or interest or supply information on a subject which fascinates you. Remember the numbers using the internet, there is always someone who wants to know what you know. Your article creates free advertising for your website. People will read your article and click on your included profile which will take them to your website, your article remains in circulation forever giving you constant free advertising for life. How good is that?

Create your own Blog. To quote from Google "A Blog is like an online dairy. This can be about and be used for anything at all, it can be used for news, reviews, products etc for a business, organization etc. This is great as it helps the user stay in touch with the website with new and up to date information. A Blog is a free automated publishing tool where entries are written, comments passed from person to person", all you need is a Free Google account and you can create your Blog following the published instructions. A Blog can be anything you want it to be and it is a very much favored way of attracting the search engines.

Free advertising, whilst being very useful in obtaining a web presence, will never replace paid for advertising. To quote the Sign-A-Rama slogan "A Business with no Sign is a Sign of No Business."


About The Author
The Author has owned and administered businesses over a period of 30 years. Having achieved many awards for excellence during her years in business, has mentored many new business owners to success. The Author is the owner of http://www.homebusinessadvice.com.au

Advertising Your Internet Business

Every Internet Business will need traffic in order to survive. If people do not know the existence of your website, you cannot expect to sell any product/service to them. Therefore, you need to advertise your website using various methods in order to bring in more traffic.

There are a few ways to advertise your Internet Business. I will talk about paid advertising first. On the Internet, you will remember seeing ads that are displayed on some websites. Those are banners ads. You can pay a company who offers advertising services and have your ads be placed on the Internet. The ads will advertise your product/service that you are offering. Once people click on the ads, they will be brought to your website. Or you can buy keywords to list ads, where each ad will cost from a few cents to a few dollars, e.g. is Google Adwords. Usually buying of keywords to list ads will bring targeted traffic to your site. For example, if someone searches a term "Golf" and you have bought the keyword ad from Google, your keyword ad may stand a chance to appear on the search results listing. For more information, check out www.google.com/ads/

You can also advertise using traditional advertising channels such as placing your website URL on flyers, brochures, business cards, books, TV ads, etc.

Now I will touch on free advertising. Using free advertising channels may take more time to deliver the desired results but they can definitely help you save a good tons of money if you do it correctly. Some of the channels are as followed:

a. Classified site, where you can post free classified ads on the website to promote your Internet Business.

b. Forums, post actively on forums that are related to your products/services that you are offering, and place your website URL in your signature.

c. Cross linking between sites, by placing your website URL on other sites. In return, you will need to place their urls on your own website.

d. Submit articles to article submission sites. This will boost your credibility as an established writer. It can increase traffic to you site as readers will click on your website URL in your articles.

e. Give away freebies such as e-books, and include your website URL in the freebies.

f. Word of Mouth, by physically promoting your Internet Business between people. This will automatically happen if people think that your Internet Business provides values for them.

I have shared with you some of the advertising channels that you can use. Try them out yourself and see which channels suit best for your Internet Business.

Warmest Regards,

HomeBizGears Team

About The Author

Cheow Yu Yuan

I am a young internet entrepreneurs which has just started up my new site HomeBizGears.com, with 2 other great guys.

HomeBizGears strives to provide the resources and tools for you to start YOUR own Internet Business. At HomeBizGears, you can find lessons on Internet Business, useful links and articles.

Do visit our site at http://www.homebizgears.com for more information.

Ezine Advertising for Home Based Business

Have you ever considered ezine advertising for your home based business? If not, you’re truly missing out on some valuable exposure to your business. Ezine advertising can be a powerful tool if you follow the right guidelines and you will be successful.

Always include quantifiable benefits when writing an ezine advertisement – and actually tell the truth. For instance, if you say “lose 5 pounds in 5 days,” people will actually be interested in that and believe it is possible at the same time. Distorting the benefits wont help at all; it will make the advertisement look like a scam more than anything else.

When creating a solo advertisement, alter the copy so that it specifically portrays the product as a solution to a specific problem. Purchase several solo advertisements to test how well this version converts when compared to other versions. Testing is vital if you want to continually improve the conversion rate of your advertisements.

This is very vital for ezine advertising members to realize. Always look for word of mouth referrals for ezine before you place advertisements. In many cases, no matter how good your copy is, you will find that certain ezine simply will not be responsive to your email. This might be because the ezine isn't actually as big as the owner claims it is – and it might also be because the owner hasn't promoted the list in a year.

Think on a professional level. Make sure you format your ezine advertisement correctly before you send in to a publisher. In most cases, you will have to format your advertisement to 60 – 65 words; and you may even want to perform a spam check. If the text isn't formatted properly, lines will be broken and wrapped unprofessionally; and if you don't perform a spam check, it may never even go through in the first place.

When creating a top sponsor advertisement, avoid making an attempt to sell anyone on anything. Instead, give something away completely free that will up sell the reader later, such as a subscription or a special report. Additionally, make sure you clearly communicate that nothing is for sale – and that you simply want them to take action for free.

Become a software application provider for ezine owners. Ask ezine owners what software applications they need – and then hire someone to create an application for you. Distribute this software to all of the ezine owners who have a use for it. Make sure there is some back-end component build in that will drive users to your site.

Now, moving from our last point about ezine advertising we will now discuss when outsourcing any work you are doing as part of an ezine marketing campaign, remember to carefully check for plagiarism and theft. This is definitely an unpleasant thought, but plagiarism has become quite rampant on freelancing sites. If you own several websites, you can use Copyscape to do this for you; however, each site will be limited to 20 scans.

About The Author

Willie DeJarnette

Simply knowing what you read in this article isn't enough. You have to put it into action to be successful. To learn how to do exactly that - and to learn more about Willie DeJarnette business, PIF4PS, you will want to visit Willie DeJarnette's website at the following URL : http://www.pif4ps.com

FREE Advertising For Your Internet Business

Are you thinking of starting your own internet business? How do you plan on advertising the product or service that you are promoting? The cost of advertising alone can make or break your business and creating an advertising budget is crucial to the success of your internet marketing venture.

Budgeting advertising dollars can be a difficult thing for most beginning internet entrepreneurs. The problem is that your own money is used to fund the business which usually comes in the form of a credit card and if you are not careful you could find yourself in loads of debt later on.

It doesn't take an "internet marketing guru" to tell you that, "you have to spend money to make money", right? Unfortunately, most of us feel that way so we blow all kinds of money on e-zine advertising in hopes that the .1% of the 100,000 that you are advertising to will find your product or service useful. Mind you that .1% of 100,000 potential customers doesn't sound so far fetched but when you think about it 100 buying customers could put you in profit! You see, it's the "potential profit" which makes e-zine advertising so attractive to most beginners and too many bank on it too early in there internet marketing career.

Free advertising has it's advantages and disadvantages. Even though it's more cost effective it can be more time consuming and most beginners don't have a choice. Some forms of free advertising include posting in forums, setting up your own blog, writing and submitting articles to article directories, and using traffic exchanges.

Forums are a great way to advertise because you can use what is a called a sig file or signature. Your sig file can be set up as a link to your website and everytime time you post a message your sig file will always be at the bottom of the message for someone to click!

Writing and submitting articles to article directories and blogs are useful because it creates one way links back to your website helping improve your website ranking in the search engines. Writing articles isn't for everyone but for about $20 per month you can have someone write them for you.

Traffic exchanges are a quick way to increase traffic to your website. How it works is when you click on someone else's ad you earn credits to your account which in turn allows others to see your ad. Most traffic exchanges are free to use with a paid upgrade version available. If you have about an hour a day, you can literally earn thousands of hits per month to your website using traffic exchanges alone. You can also build downlines in these programs and earn a percentage of their traffic which will help you leverage the time that you spend surfing for credits.

Free advertising can be effective IF you have the time and the patience. But more importantly it will allow you to promote your product without spending a dime in your budget and also it will keep your sanity in check when the credit card bill arrives in the mail.

To find the best home based business ideas and opportunities so you can work at home visit: Work From Home Business Opportunities

Copyright © Steve Gitto

About The Author

Steve Gitto currently has his own website located at http://www.home-based-bizzops.com.

How to Increase Your Business by 20% Without Spending a Dime on Marketing or Advertising!

The answer might surprise you - Develop a pro-active "human proof" referral system and use it all the time! It’s that simple.

When I ask most people "how have they grown your business most successfully" they often tell me, it’s by word of mouth and referrals. Yet when I them what system (or methodology they use) to obtain referrals they don’t have one. It’s a random process at best.

Statistics show that today, it takes six more times the effort and money to get a new client to buy from you as it takes to get a second order from an existing customer or a referral. So why doesn’t everybody ask for referrals from everybody they sell?

The reason is because there are emotions involved most people don't feel comfortable "asking" for referrals. Here’s a rule - If you don't ask for a referral, you won’t get many. Do you ask for a referral something like this: “Do you know of anyone that might like our services?” and your answer you get is almost always “no not at this time, but if I do, I will be sure to tell them about you”.

We've found that when you put an automated system in place that asks for a referral every time to everybody that buys, your referrals go up and so do your sales. You can usually expect to obtain at least one new “referred customer” from every five new customers asked. That’s a 20% increase in business without spending a dime on marketing or advertising.

So what should you say to get a referral? Here’s the key - People think in pictures so you need to ask for a referral so it paints a picture in their mind of who they can refer. Ask them “Do you have any clients that might like to take advantage of the savings and or quality service you just received? If you could take a moment and scan through your rolodex and see if anyone comes to mind that you could refer, and put their contact information on this form”.

Also you should have a series of 3 – 5 steps mapped out that lead up to asking for the referral. It should look something like this.

1) First send a thank you letter or email.

2) Then follow up with a quick phone call.

3) Next follow up with another email to ensure everything went well after you delivered the product or solution.

4) Finally, send a letter or email with a script saying: “Dear (customer), based on our previous communications, you are happy with the produce, service and follow up. I would like to ask a favor. Would you be kind enough to refer up to 3 people that you think might be interested in receiving the same quality and savings that you have experienced? Check your rolodex or any clients you have dealt with in the last 30 days and put them on the form I have provided. I’ve attached a simple form. Again, thanks for being our customer and putting your trust in us.”

Step 5 – Put a note on your calendar to call them in 4-5 day and ask for the referrals if you didn’t receive them.

Then put it into an automated process so every new customer was asked for a referral every time they purchased from you…Without Fail! You need to ask every new customer because:

• They just made the decision to choose you instead of the competition!

• People want to tell other people about their good decisions!

• You are top of mind and have just provided them with a valued solution!

• You have not had a chance to mess it up yet!

By automating the process of politely asking for referrals at your customer satisfaction stage of relationship you will obtain at least one new customer via referral for every four customers asked. It's like buying five customers and getting one free!

If you want to increase your sales by 20% without spending a dime on marketing or advertising, implement a system that is automated and “human proof”. To learn more, review the digital brochure at www.plumtreemarketing.digbro.com or call 770-352-0662 for a free 30 minute business evaluation to improve your referral system.

About The Author

George Ishee is known as the sales funnel guru and works with mid to small companies to automate the process to increase leads, referrals and sales on a consistant basis. To learn more visit our digital brochure at http://www.plumtreemarketing.digbro.com or call 770-352-0662.

Networking & Business Advertising - Soft Sell or Hard Sell?

Imagine being able to reach 1000s of business people for the fraction of the cost associated with general advertising. Well now you can use online networking platforms dedicated to businesses.

Many online platforms have dedicated areas where business people can advertise their services for free once they are a paying member. In Ecademy we have Marketplace which was a lot more powerful when the adverts were shown on the front page than it is now.

The best way to start on these sites is to participate in the discussion on the blogs page and slowly work your way towards advertising your wares in their marketplace. There is nothing worse than to join a site, plaster it with adverts for a few weeks and then leave never to be heard of again!

The worst thing you can do is to advertise your business in areas that are designated for blogging only. In Ecademy we have the Blogs area where it is OK to talk about business and non business related issues but is frowned upon by the members when they create what is known as a "blogvert" - in essence this is a shameless plug which makes almost no attempt at hiding the advert for their products.

Most of these sites promote "soft selling "as opposed to "hard selling" tactics.

In a nutshell what this means is that when you join do not blast your proposition to each and every member but rather try and entice them into asking about your business and what you can do for them. Do not be too pushy or manipulative. Realise that most people who join these platforms have also got businesses and that they will be trying to make contacts with potential buyers as well.

I believe in the theory of random connections. Basically what I mean by this is that one should not purely base their networking on the basis of potential business but rather focus on making decent connections and contacts. Strive to help other people and you never know who might in turn return the favour... if not now maybe in many years to come.

The art of online networking is to not to expect too much too quickly. The benefits will accrue over time and many years. Some people make the mistake of trying online networking for a few weeks and then giving up because they did not achieve any positive results. It takes time to build trust amongst other members especially the long serving ones who have seen many new people come and go.

I first tried my hand at online networking in June 2006 and quickly realised that normal rules of business do not apply. The best way to enjoy yourself on these types of platforms is to try and make friends. Business will come later... and rest assured it will come if you participate in the blogs and clubs.

Be enthusiastic and helpful, listen and join in the discussions but beware... do not let online networking take over from normal day to day business chores that still have to be carried out. It is far too easy to change networking to notworking!

Do you know any other platforms that allow businesses to advertise their wares? How has your experience been so far of business networking platforms? Have you got any tips for "newbies"?

About The Author

Naz Daud is the Founder of the CityLocal Internet Business Franchise Opportunity.
http://www.citylocal.co.uk
http://www.citylocal.co.uk/frontend/franchiseinfo.php?cityid=79
http://www.ecademy.com/account.php?id=120141

Advertising Is Key To Home Business Success

There is no question that advertising is key to the success of any business – large or small, new or old. Without advertising and marketing practices a business simply cannot succeed or last long. To ensure long and lasting success, a business must engage in marketing and advertising in some way. If you have heard the old adage that “it takes money to make money” then you know that advertising does not come for free. A business must consider an advertising campaign budget to keep their numbers up.

It has been said that the best form of advertising is word of mouth advertising. Word of mouth advertising is free and lends an air of credibility to the business. Usually, word of mouth advertising comes from happy and satisfied customers and clients that wish to share their positive experience. Most of the time, they tell their friends, family, and coworkers about a particular product or service and in turn new customers come to the business.

While word of mouth is a wonderful and free way to get the word out about a business, it is not the “be all end all” of advertising. Advertising with television spots, radio spots, on billboards, and in print are all still very effective ways to get the word out. These methods of advertising are quite expensive and not as realistic for many small businesses.

A more economical yet effective way for a business to advertise is online. The Internet is such an integral part of daily life now that it is hard not to advertise on the World Wide Web. The ways in which a business can advertise online are seemingly endless. There are several types of email marketing campaigns, banner advertising, link advertising, websites, and viral marketing. Usually, to engage in a successful email marketing campaign, a business will send past customers an email to announce new products or specials on their website or in their store.

By large, advertising online is usually very cheap. The key is to find a place online where lots of your customers are going to go. In order to do this, you have to be sure that you know who your demographic is and who is using your business. This might require some work on your part. Once you have identified who the people are that are using your business, you can go to other sites that these people are also going to be using, and you can advertise on these sites, quite easily.

Many business owners engage in strategic networking with other business owners in an effort to advertise their businesses. Strategic networking is a way for business owners to meet each other, get the word out about their company, and even to expand their resources and business prospects.

One of the newest ways to get the word out about your business and successfully advertise is that through social networking. Social networking is much like strategic networking in that it is usually free and occurs through meeting and discussing issues and products. However, social networking is done through modern media such as websites, blogs, and the Internet community. It is highly effective and inexpensive.

Regardless of the method of advertising used, a business must use constant advertising campaigns to keep success on the horizon.

About The Author

Earl Williams will show you how to build an online business from your own home. He will give you a verity of business to choose from. You can learn more by visiting: http://www.netmarketer.org

Why Free Internet Advertising Can Work For Your Business

When you first start your own business at home you are faced with the obstacle of how to promote it. If you don't have one you're going to need a website and you're going to need traffic coming to it. If money is an obstacle then you are going to need to find ways to promote your business for free. In this article we want to talk about free Internet advertising, and how you can do that to get traffic for your new business website.

The first thing to understand about marketing on the Internet is that if you do not have to have money to drive traffic to your website you're going to have to make up for that by investing time. This is one of the great things about the Internet, however. Anybody regardless of their present income status can start their own business at home and make it profitable by doing just a few different types of free advertising methods.

When we talk about getting traffic to a website we're talking about a visitor and a potential paying customer. Once they are on your site they can make a purchase therefore earning you a commission on that sale. So it only stands to reason that the more visitors that you have coming to your site the more opportunities you have to make a sale.

One effective method that has worked over the years and is continuing to work is known as article marketing. When you do article marketing you target a primary keyword and write your article around it. You then submit those articles to article directories where they are published online for other people to view.

The way that this can benefit you is when you write a quality article, at the end of the article you're allowed to create a bio box. This resource box is a short classified ad promoting yourself, your website and your new business. You're allowed to list your website address, and when people click on that they are taken to your website.

For article marketing to work you need to write a lot of articles and get those submitted to as many quality article directories as possible. If you don't have money to pay to use a submission service then you're going to have to manually enter those articles 1 at a time. This brings us back to what we talked about earlier, in terms of investing more time you do not have to have money to spend promoting.

Your goal with article marketing is to get your website address on as many potential pages as possible. This is known as getting a link back to your website or a back link. A back link is another free Internet marketing method. You need to get as many back links pointing back to your website is possible.

You can do this through free classified ads, forum marketing, blogging, social networking, and anything you can think of that allows you to get your website address on somebody else's website.

This summarizes free Internet advertising. You are going to have to be creative and you're going to be ambitious, but the more backlinks pointing to your site the more potential traffic you will have. The good news is when you start your own business at home the internet can help you promote it inexpensively.

About The Author

William Hutchinson invites you to visit his affiliate marketing information website for the top affiliate marketing programs available today. If you need help to help start your own business at home please visit his website here now: ----> http://www.hutchesaffiliatemarketing.com

Learn How to Use Zero/Low-Cost Advertising Methods for Your Online Business

Every smart online entrepreneur knows that an online home based business needs to have a strong SEO and a web presence in order to be successful. If you are an online entrepreneur then you will be well aware of the fact that if you want to make your online business a success, you will need to market it effectively. Advertising is a key strategy for marketing and creating an online presence. However, advertising can also be a very expensive option and end up depleting your funds before you have earned any.

So how do you market the product that you are promoting and the website that you have created effectively while using the least amount of funds? One of the best and most economic means of accomplishing this is to use social media tools to create a web presence for yourself and work up a following. The internet has several social web media advertising tools that one can use for advertising. Some are expensive, while others are low cost like Zango, Google Adwords, Yahoo and MSN and some others like Twitter, Squidoo, Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, Craigslist and Ustream are zero cost or free.

Selecting the zero or low-cost advertising methods is advisable, especially if you are a beginner. This is because in the case of the internet, low cost or zero cost products and offerings attract the most traffic as compared to those that you have to pay for. Sites like Facebook and Twitter, Squidoo, Myspace, Youtube, Craigslist and Ustream call for no expense on the part of the user and can be far more effective in roping in traffic than sites like Zango.

If you feel that you do not have enough time to manage social networking and work the social mediums like Twitter and Facebook to secure more traffic, then you can sign up with network marketing systems like CarbonCopyPRO that will do all your marketing for you, using such advertisement mediums.

Facebook and Twitter are by far the most successful online advertising mediums that you can use. Even businesses that have been largely successful for many years still resort to these mediums for advertising.

If you are an online business entrepreneur, it is imperative that you create a web presence for yourself or advertise your product on these social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Youtube, Craigslist and Ustream. After you have becomes successful, you can then opt for low cost and then perhaps later high cost advertising mediums.

About The Author

Brian Dinelli is a business coach and mentor that assists serious entrepreneurs in building a profitable online business with multiple incomes streams. Brian and his team have assisted hundreds of people in generating profits that exceed $250K or more in their first year. For more information and to contact Brian, visit: http://www.TheFriendlyMillionaire.com

A Few Basic Laws for Small Business Advertising

They say there’s no excuse for ignorance. In the same manner, when advertising your business with collaterals such as print greeting cards for example, not knowing and understanding the fundamental laws of advertising can make you fail miserably in your efforts.

As a business owner, you can never miss out on the opportunity to understand some of the standard laws when it comes to promoting your business effectively. Knowing the laws of advertising can help you reap big rewards indeed.

To help you have a flawless advertising process that allows you to achieve the goals you’ve set for your campaign such as printing greeting cards, here are three of the basic laws you should consider:

The Law of Making-it-Easy-for-your-Clients-to-Contact-You

The objective of getting the word out about your business is for your target clients to be able to get in touch with you after reading your message. Whether to call you, click on your website, or even to visit your shop, the bottom line is to have your full contact information available in your marketing collaterals, be it print greeting cards, flyers, print notepads, and especially the small but significant business cards. This fundamental law is very simple, but often forgotten by many marketers. It’s as if readers have magic wands where they can just make your phone numbers appear out of nowhere.

The point: make sure that you have your tagline as well as your contact information everywhere in your collaterals.

The Law of the Right Ads to the Right People

Don’t waste your time promoting to those people who have no need for your particular business. It’s more productive and lucrative to spend your time, effort and resources convincing those prospects who have the most inclination to purchase your product.

The point: be sure to target one market only and tailor your ad such as your print greeting cards to the particular prospect you’re aiming at.

The Law of Curiosity

In addition to having the right message in your ad, be sure to provide your target clients with information that creates curiosity to your business. Successful ads are often those that pique the interest of its prospects which made them ask for more information from the company.

The point: make sure to provide ads that generate interest and make your target clients ask for more information.

It takes a lot from small businesses to mount a successful marketing campaign such as printing greeting cards. But with planning, testing and repeat exposure, your marketing campaign can be effective communicators of your message which can provide you with much bigger returns.

About The Author

For more information, you can visit this page on http://www.printplace.com/printing/custom-greeting-cards.aspx

Online Marketing Help: Advice for Getting a Custom Web Design

Right now, you might be asking yourself if your business needs a website. Maybe you are worried about the cost, or the time it will take to manage it. Perhaps you think your customers aren’t using the Internet, or that your leads come primarily from word of mouth referrals. The bottom line is that whatever it is that you do, your business needs a custom website because your customers expect you to have one.

Once you have accepted the fact that you need a website for your business, the next step is to find a web designer. Those stuck in this position have lots of options, and selecting the right web designer and technology for your project can make or break your chances of success. The question becomes, how should the business person with no practical knowledge of web design or Internet marketing proceed with the task of picking a designer and building a unique website?

Since times are relatively tight right now, the first thing most businesses are going to consider is the cost, so it is a logical place to start the discussion. Luckily for businesses, there is heavy competition for web designers, you can find sites anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. What is important to consider is what you are getting, and for how much?

If you are going to go the route of hiring a web designer to do it for you, consider most what happens after the site is built, including the fees for hosting and who will manage and improve the site? In addition, you should think whether the site is going to be built from scratch and customized to your business, based off a template, or built using open-source software. Be careful to find a designer that can explain the benefits and drawbacks of each solution.

Once you have found a few designers that are willing to work within your budget, the next item you should use to make a decision is concerning management. Generally, you want to pick an option that will allow you to manage your site independently because frequent updates and content additions is what it takes to make your site a success. Extra points for custom website designers that are willing to provide their online marketing help free of charge!

Get online marketing help from Scott at http://www.bizdetail.com