Marketing Tips Advertising

Marketing Tips Advertising

by: Sue and Chuck DeFiore

Typical methods of advertisingnewspapers, radio and television are effective if used properly, but there are other, less expensive ways to get your companyกs name out.

Local or cable television is an inexpensive alternative to the traditional forms of advertising. Even if you have no experience advertising in this medium, there are companies who specialize in lending a helping hand. Even if finances are a concern (as they are for most of us), youกll be surprised to discover a 30 second spot television ad can cost as little as a few hundred dollars.

Many areas have public auctions on local stations that will advertise your product, if you donate up to a certain dollar amount. The number of advertising spots will depend on how much you donate.

Remember also to send press releases to your local television and radio stations. Many times they will come out and do a story on you, if it is of interest to the public.

We volunteered to do resumes for people out of work and sent releases to all the radio and television stations. One of the three major networks in our area, sent someone out to interview us, and we were on the 6 and 11 oกclock news.

As for radio advertising, check your local stations for rates. Youกll be surprised at how low some of them are. Again, if you send press releases to the stations, sometimes they will call you as an expert in your area, or for an interview. We sent releases to all the stations in our area when we started our support group, and this generated three times the number of people we expected for our first meeting.

Since most major newspapers are expensive to advertise in, check with the smaller local papers. You can advertise in many of these for as little as $25 a month. You could also offer to write a column for these publications, as an expert in the area, if appropriate.

We all need to advertise in one way or another. Which medium you choose will depend on your particular business.

Copyright DeFiore Enterprises 2000

About The Author

Interested in having your own successful, home based creative real estate investing business? Chuck and Sue have been helping folks start successful home based businesses for over 19 years, and we can help you too! To see how, visit http://www.homebusinesssolutions.com for the latest FREE tips and tricks, educational products and coaching in creative real estate investing and home based businesses. No time to visit the site? Subscribe to our กhow toก Home Business Solutions Digest, itกs like having your own personal coach: mailto:[email protected]

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 17, 2004

by Sue and Chuck DeFiore

Internet Advertising Options

Internet Advertising Options

by: Nial Robbins

Your online business will likely require more advertising than a contemporary business downtown, yet some new to the world of online business do not spend the time and money to advertise their business appropriately and are, in turn, loosing money. Your online business is crammed into the world wide web along with thousands of others selling the same product or service as yourself. Consider this scenario: In your hometown you want to open an art supply store. In that same town there are thousands of art supply stores. In order for your business to be successful, it will have to stand out in some way from the others. This is exactly what is happening when a business is opened online. There is so much competition, that you must take drastic measures to ensure that you are getting noticed. Advertising can be done in so many ways online. These are some of the most successful ways that you can promote your online business.

Advertising in ezines is a popular way to promote your online business. Ezines are the magazines of the internet; they written on a particular subject and read by those interested in that subject. Therefore, ezine readers are already potential customers and advertising your site in ezines that are related to your business is almost guaranteed to help drive traffic to your site and increase sales for your product. You should be sure when advertising in ezines that you are not advertising along side competitors. Ask the ezine producer if there is a policy concerning posting competing ads. It is also a good idea to subscribe to the ezine before making a decision about whether or not to advertise in it. An ezine that runs fewer ads is a better choice than one that runs many ads. You can look at the online Directory of Ezines to find publications that are relevant to your company.

Payperclick programs are an excellent way to advertise your business without taking a risk that you have advertised in the wrong place. With payperclick, you can advertise you site and only pay for those who click the link and go to your site. Another popular payper program is the payperlead program that allows you to only pay for leads. Usually this means that you pay for only those who download a trail, fill out a form or enter a sweepstakes; whatever you choose. Lastly you can display payperclick banner ads in which your company would be allowed to place a banner on their site and you will be charged for every click that your banner receives.

OptIn email is a great way to advertise your business, however it is expensive and it can be misused very easily. Using optin emails, you would submit your sales copy to the company that will in turn email it to those on their mailing list. You should be very careful since some of the companies that advertise their mailing lists as optin email service is sometimes really SPAM. It is essential that you have a perfect and effective sales letter when using optin mailing lists. Without and effective sales copy your money and time have been wasted.

About The Author

Nial Robbins can help YOU start your own profitable business on the Internet within the next 24 hours… To learn more, visit: http://www.NDRHomeBiz.com/pips.html.

This article was posted on September 08

by Nial Robbins

Guaranteed Sign UpsWhat Are They?

Guaranteed Sign UpsWhat Are They?

by: Jane Mark Phil Basten

Every business needs customers thatกs axiomatic.
When you work on the net, the only way to get customers is to get them to your website.
There are many ways to do that.
You send send traffic to your site
You can link to other sites
You can exchange banners
You can adveritse by email
You can advertise by pop ups
you can advertise on Google
You can get listed in search engines
You can advertise off line
You can include your url on your business cards
You Can mail out flyers by snail mail
And on and on and on…
These are all proven methods of getting people to your site and, if you want business, you must get people to your site.
However, until you actually have a person reigster or sign up at your site, you do not have a customer, you simply have a visitor.
So…. How do you turn a visitor into a customer?
Well, there is a fascinating new service on the net that lets you do just that.
Itกs called Garanteed Sign ups.
These are not leads.
There are not coregistrations
This is not traffic.
These are actual people who come to your website and sign up to your list or your downline program and you can have them as a customer for life and you can keep selling your product or service to them day in and day out.
This kind of a service is what busy business people on the net have been waiting for. And, at last, it is here…
How does it work?
Itกs really quite simple.
You decide who your target audience is ie international, Us, Canada, Japan, Australia or whatever.
You decide how many people you want to sign up to your program anywhere from 50 to 5000 and you order them up.
We have found that within 7 to 14 days (on the average) you can have a brand new list of people to mail to and you can make them permanent customers.
This is a unique and exciting new way to build a database of real customers instead of just visitors.
We predict that this will be one of the most popular advertising innovations of 2004 going into 2005.
If you would like to know more about how it works, you can find the details at: http://www.jpeadvertising.com/signups/
Copyright Jane Mark and Phil Basten

JPE Advertising

About The Author

For further information mailto: [email protected]

Subscribe to the WebPro Times http://webprotimes.com

Where Professional marketers meet weekly.
Phil Basten and Jane Mark run a well known online ad agency http://jpeadvertising.com They have been helping people succeed on the net for more than 8 years.

This article was posted on July 15, 2004

by Jane Mark Phil Basten

Your Own Business If Not Now, When?

Your Own Business If Not Now, When?

by: Sheryl Clinton

You have wanted to have your own business for a long time. But, every time you sit down to write out a business plan for yourself, you end up discouraged because all you have is a list of things you know nothing about!
For example:
1) If you are going to have a business, you have to have something to sell – either a product or a service and you do not have either one.
2) If you have a business, you have to advertise – and you have no idea how to do that, not to mention you do not have a lot of money for it.
3) If you want to do this on the internet, you will need a website – you certainly have no idea how to make one of those or how to keep it going!
ACK! You are ready to quit now and you haven’t even started! Let’s go through just these three things, shall we?
1) If you are going to have a business, you have to have something to sell – either a product or a service and you do not have either one.
Well, if you want to make any money, this part is true! BUT – the product or service does not have to your very own. In other words, you do not have to have this product in your possession, nor do you have to be the one to perform this service! You can be the one that brings a product or service to other people – explain about it to them, highlight the benefits of it to them. You can simply use other people’s products or services to make money for yourself.
2) If you have a business, you have to advertise – and you have no idea how to do that, not to mention you do not have a lot of money for it.
Yes, you are correct that you have to advertise. BUT – you can learn to do this! You can search on the web for advertising help and tips. There are many out there. You can join a group of people that know something about it and get input from them. You can join up with a company that gives you free training! For example, Strong Future International (SFI) has a free Internet Income Course that is very detailed and you can get it just by signing up with them – and it costs nothing to sign up!
There are even ways you can advertise for free! Doing free advertising takes times, but usually when you don’t have a lot of money to spend, you are willing to spend your time. You can also find some low cost ways to advertise. You can get people interested in the products or services you are promoting by visiting different forums on the web and participating in discussion groups or message boards. Just be careful to always follow the rules of each forum/message board you visit – do not spam them!
3) If you want to do this on the internet, you will need a website – you certainly have no idea how to make one of those or how to keep it going!
This is very true! BUT – getting and maintaining a website is not as hard as you might think! I would never have believed that I could be a webmaster – but I am! There are many good companies that will help you get a website started – they have templates you can use, easy instructions, and many even have phone support.
So, we have been through these three steps and I have shown you how you can get started. Find other people you can learn from; join a team of other successful entrepreneurs; search the web for information.
So now, you really only have one question to answer for yourself: If not now, when?

About The Author

Sheryl Clinton is the webmaster of http://makemoneyonlinehomebasedbusiness.com. She lives with her husband,4 dogs, & 4 cats in SE Missouri. Visit her website to read her work at home story.

[email protected]

This article was posted on June 06, 2004

by Sheryl Clinton

Time Wasters and Energy Suckers

Time Wasters and Energy Suckers

by: Dianne Salmon

Stop wasting your time and having your energy sucked dry! What do I mean by this statement? You’re all over the internet trying to find out where to promote that new business you entered into, or trying to promote your own business. Youกve been told by so called experts to promote your new business to free classified ad sites or FFA pages.

They even told you that you will get a ton of traffic to your new site. And you will have 100กs or even 1000กs in your downline if you advertise your business this way. กKeep at it,ก they say, and within a couple of weeks you will see exponential results.

So you follow their advice. Night after night you come home from work and advertise your business to free classified ads and FFA pages. You just know that sooner or later your efforts will pay off.

And then reality hits like a ton of bricks! Youกve been advertising your business for two months now. To your dismay you find that you don’t even have one lead or one referral.

What you might have though if you upgraded to the PRO version of the FFA submission is a credit card bill. The bill can be anywhere from $20.00 to $40.00 US dollars.

What you definitely do have is your email client filled with tons of counter ads. So whatกs the best way to advertise your new business?

Submit articles to ezines and promote your business with the help of others. This is the most cost effective way to promote your business. All it costs you is the time to write your article, and you don’t receive a ton of counter ads in your inbox.

If you like this article and know of someone who may benefit from it, please feel free to forward it to them.

About The Author

Dianne Salmon is the author of Time Wasters and Energy Suckers, and is the owner of http://www.choiceresources.com Dianne offers free tips advice and information on starting, growing, and expanding your internet business. Subscribe to the Choice Resources newsletter by sending an email to กmailto:[email protected]

[email protected]

This article was posted on March 02, 2003

by Dianne Salmon

Advertising doesn’t cost…it pays!

Advertising doesn’t cost…it pays!

by: Robert Kennedy

Well this has been a busy day. I am truly fatigued. So I may cut my writings today short, but not cheap. We set a sales record today and entered more new printing orders than any other day since our inception in 1989. Today was a banner day…great.

What I want to write about today was advertising…

When should I advertise?

How should I advertise?

How much of a budget should I allow?

These are the three BASIC questions each business needs to answer before listing in any advertising campaign, online or offline. I will address each of these points very briefly in a matter of opinion.

When should I advertise? When you’re busy. Many businesses make the mistake of advertising when they are not busy. This will often lead to the ‘feast or famine’ result. The time to advertise is always. If you need to start somewhere advertise when you are busy and watch the peeks and valleys level out.

How often should I advertise? Repetition is good, it helps create brand awareness. Find the venue that works best for you and stick with it. Keep flow charts running so you can calculate return. Advertising, done properly doesn’t cost…it pays.

How much of a budget should I allow? This answer usually comes from your business plan. Work your plan and plan your work. If you come in under budget and achieved or exceed projected results put the funds into growth of your business.

Here are a few free tips that may help you:

Tip 1

Do me a favor. The next time you are shopping at your local WalMart, Home Depot or Tops, create a third eye for ADVERTISING. Walk the isles you would normally walk and buy the items you would normally buy. At the same time, keep your third eye opened. You will begin to recognize some common factors. Signage colors, placement of merchandise, free sample booths or aroma of baked goods. Allow these corporate giants to show you some advertising psychology that has proven success and apply these concepts in your world.

Helpful Links

Psychology of color http://www.weprintcolor.com/moodofcolour.htm

What do you see? http://www.cs.toronto.edu/%7Emoraes/illusion.html

How does color affect your mood? http://www.weprintcolor.com/usingcolour2.htm

Tip 2

If you are an online business, exposure to search engines is becoming increasing difficult. Search engines are where most websites receive visitors from. Once your website is completed and ready for business submit it to search engines, guides and directories. Especially the more prominent ones such as Google, Yahoo, MSN. You may even want to consider a paid listing at Yahoo. Google offers AdWords and AdSense, great programs. AdSense offers you revenue opportunities fir running text ads on your site. Every time the ads get clicked Google will pay you. On the other side there is AdWords. AdWords offer you an opportunity to advertise your product offerings in the text ads that appear on there search pages. In both cases all you need to do is apply:

AdWords https://adwords.google.com/select/

AdSense https://www.google.com/adsense/

How to make money with AdSense http://www.createonlinebusiness.com/adsense_index.html

Tip 3

Design and print quality marketing material. So many businesses try to cut costs in the wrong areas, when it comes down to your image don’t cheap out. Also do not forget to print your website address all of your company’s printing and marketing material. It would surprise you the amount of times I see this being overlooked. Keep all of your expensive, high quality printing brief in content and more about image. Why, you might ask? Unfortunately, in my business I have seen my share of wasted printed matter because someone didn’t proof read the properly, product information changed or prices changed. Display all of this information on your website, changes are far easier and cheaper to implement.

Helpful links:

Full Color Business Cards with Free Coating http://www.weprintcolor.com/

The importance of Logo Branding http://www.designlogos.net/

Download Business Templates http://www.cardtemplates.com/

Well that’s about it for me today, I’m on my way to Walmart.

About The Author

Robert is the marketing director of a leading online printing and design firm http://www.weprintcolor.com. Robert believes in an educated customer and has created a personal blog, online to help achieve this goal. Learn commercial printing and design tips from the pros http://www.weprintcolors.com.

This article was posted on December 14, 2004

by Robert Kennedy

Online Advertising For The Perplexed

Online Advertising For The Perplexed

by: Dave Collins

One of the more frightening realities of business is that in order to make money, you often have to spend it first. For independent software developers, the costs of doing business are usually very low. There are often no expensive offices to purchase or lease, a limited amount of hardware to buy and maintain, and for most, no stock to tieup precious capital.

For many developers, the first and most obvious option for productive spending is advertising. And for the online business, there is no shortage of options to choose from.

Most websites offer some form of graphic or text advertising, and there is a bewildering variety of mailing lists, newsletters, and regular mailings. And thatกs before you even begin to consider the printed media.

However, before you even start to think about where you want to advertise, you need to consider why you’re advertising in the first place.

For many companies, the aim of an advert will simply be to increase sales and make more money. Other legitimate reasons for wanting to advertise can include raising the profile of your company or product, increasing brand awareness, and testing new pricing strategies or new markets.

>From the outset, itกs important that you are clear about exactly what it is that you want to achieve. From there, youกll be able to choose where to advertise.

When selecting a venue, an important factor will be how targeted the audience is, as this will have a major bearing on the price that you should be prepared to pay for the ad. In general, the less targeted the audience, the less money you should part with. And even though itกs not always the case, you might want to consider spending a little bit extra for a highly targeted advert.

The next obvious factor is the price.

First of all you need to know how much you will be paying, and whether this is a flat fee, a cost per click, paying per exposure, or some arrangement.

You also need to consider the costs involved in preparation. If you’re using artwork, you may wish to use a professional designer to create it, and don’t overlook that the graphic might have to be in a specific format. More importantly, you have to take into account the amount of time that you will have spend on arranging this.

You also need to consider the time period that you’re hoping your advert will cover. If the ad will be on a website, then youกll probably be looking at days, weeks or even longer. If so, then you should find out whether you can change the content of the ads as you go. If this is what you want to do, all the ads should be prepared well in advance, and the total costs of these should also be factored into the budget.

A good starting point in finding a suitable place to advertise is to learn from the experiences of others. As an ASP member, you have access to the private newsgroups, where other members will often be considerably more open, detailed and revealing than they might in public.

When you think youกve found the right venue, read through whatever information you can find on their website or in their publications, and only then contact the person who handles these matters.

Present them with a general introduction to yourself, your products and your needs, and don’t be afraid to ask questions right from the start. Ask about their terms, payment terms, conditions, and whether they offer any form of guarantee or minimum response levels. A little bit of optimism never did any harm!

Youกll also want to find out if there are any deadlines or timescales to consider, and whether they will publish your ad กas isก, or reserve the right to edit it to suit their content.

Bear in mind that whoever you contact is likely to know their audience very well, so make sure that you ask for any guidance, tips or pointers that they can offer. Find out who will see the ads, what behavioural patterns you might expect, what outcome or response rate you might get, and whether they can offer any helpful suggestions.

Also find out who else has advertised with them in recent months, and ask if you can have their contact details. Make sure that you chase these up, and ask them outright about their experiences.

Leave nothing to chance, and find out whether there will be a contract to sign, and any commitments that may be involved throughout and beyond the advertising period. Itกs also a good idea to find out how flexible they may be. For example, if the ad will run for a number of days or longer, can you change the content of the ads with little or no notice?

At this point, itกs very important to keep in mind that you are the customer. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, don’t be worried about bargaining, and make very sure that you’re getting all the information and answers that you need. If not, move on. There are many other places to advertise.

Assuming that their answers meet your satisfaction, you are then in a good position to negotiate. The web is full of advertising, but even the more popular websites and newsletters often find it difficult to sell all their advertising space nowadays.

You might also want to ask them whether some form of trial period may be possible. If they’re very confident of a high click and success rate, then they shouldn’t object to an ad going out to a smaller test group, or perhaps a normal ad running for a number of hours.

When it comes to the actual payment basis, the ideal scenario would be a vendor offering highquality, targeted advertising, with payment based solely on a commission basis, with no signup fee or base rate.

This is, however, a little on the unlikely side. A more realistic option will be advertising that is based on a flat fee, most (or all) of which will be paid for in advance.

When the terms, price and payment conditions have been dealt with, you’re then ready for the content of the ad itself.

The following article will look at the importance of knowing your target audience, what to include in the ad, and how to know when to call in the professionals. Weกll also be looking at the importance of implementing a good tracking system, and how to follow up an advertising campaign to gain from your experiences. In short, weกll be looking at everything else you need to help make your ad campaign a successful one. Until then, be seen, be sold.

Copyright © 2005 Dave Collins

About The Author

Dave Collins is the CEO of SharewarePromotions Ltd., a well established UKbased company working with software and shareware marketing activities, utilising all aspects of the internet. http://www.sharewarepromotions.com and http://www.davetalks.com.

This article was posted on January 31

by Dave Collins

Buying your way to the top with Pay Per Click Adve

Buying your way to the top with Pay Per Click Advertising

by: Ed Kohler

Imagine if you could advertise ONLY to people who have actually expressed an interest in doing business with you? That’s basically what happens whenever a prospective customer or client types a phrase into a search engine that’s relevant to your business. But how do search engines decide which sites are worthy of top placement in their search results? It turns out that some of the results are ranked by the search engine’s computers while others are simply paid advertisements from companies willing to buy their way to the top using Pay Per Click Advertising.

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC for short) is an online advertising format that allows you to buy your way to the top of search results pages for search phrases relevant to your business. Businesses buy advertising on specific search phrases, and are then charged each time a person clicks through to their web site.

How does this work?

Try running a search on a major search engine like Yahoo or Google for a common consumer product like ขDVD players.ข When reviewing the results, you’ll likely see a set of results labeled as ขSponsor Resultsข or ขSponsored Linkข. Some results may appear in the same format as the main search results on the page, while others are listed within colored text boxes along the site of the page. All of those results are paid advertisements from the sites listed within the ads.

The ads are ranked based on how much a business is willing to pay to advertise on each search phrase. In the example search for ขDVD playersข the current top advertiser is currently paying $0.81 per click – one penny more than the #2 advertiser.

The ads are purchased through pay per click advertising suppliers, and the two largest happen to be owned by Google and Yahoo. Google’s program is called Adwords and displays results on Google.com, AOL, Ask Jeeves, many smaller search engines. Yahoo’s program is run by an acquired company called Overture, and the results appear on Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, and many other syndication partners.

Why should I pay for traffic?

For businesses that have had success with search engine optimization, the idea of paying for visitors is not particularly enticing. However, if you can make more money off a visitor to your web site than it costs to get them there, why wouldn’t you pay for those visitors? Keep in mind that you can choose exactly what search terms you want to advertise on, and you only pay when a searcher actually clicks on your ad, so it generally comes down to deciding how much you can afford to spend for those visitors rather than whether it’s worth doing at all.

How much should I spend?

The main factors influencing how much money can be spent on a PPC campaign are:

1. How many searches are conducted per month using phrases relevant to your business?

2. How much are you, along with your competitors, willing to pay for those terms?

The average monthly ad spend on PPC advertising is a couple thousand dollars, but this varies immensely from less than $50/month for regionally targeted and niche businesses to millions a month by large national retailers.

The goal of any advertising campaign should be to bring in more money from the campaign than it costs to run it. Pay Per Click is no different, but the level of detail you can measure in PPC is significantly higher than most types of advertising. For example, with relatively inexpensive (some are even free) tools, you can determine which ads are generating sales or leads for your business. Beyond that, you can determine how much money you spent on a specific ad to generate a sale or a lead. By measuring what’s working, you can aggressively advertise on terms that prove to be winners for your business while shutting down ads that don’t deliver.

Tips for Success

1. Advertise on a large number of relevant search phrases. Brainstorm beyond the first dozen terms that come to mind to describe your business. Advertise on the terms used to describe your products, the product names, product codes, and the questions a prospect might type into a search engine that your services answer, and more.

2. Build unique ads for each search phrase. It takes a lot more time to write a unique ad for each search phrase relevant to your business rather than creating one ad for all of your search phrases, but the extra work will definitely be rewarded. Ads that are aligned with the corresponding search term receive more clicks, which will mean more targeted traffic, and in some cases paying less per click (on Google Adwords) due to the intricacies of how the advertising is priced.

3. Send visitors to the most appropriate page of your web site. If you place an ad for a specific product within your online store, don’t send visitors to your homepage and force them to dig for what they just searched. This will frustrate your visitors and increase the chance that they’ll hit the dreaded Back button.

4. Track your results. Spending money without measuring the return on your investment is not a good business practice. At the very least, consider installing the free tracking tools available through Google Adwords and Overture to measure which terms are delivering results for your business. Beyond that, consider using a 3rd party statistics tool with conversion analysis to compile the results of your various pay per click programs into one easy to manage interface.

Go for it

People are searching for what you sell at this very moment! If your site is not showing up near the top of the results, your competition thanks you.

About The Author

Ed Kohler is the President of Haystack In A Needle, Inc., a web marketing firm in Minneapolis, MN, offering search engine optimization and pay per click advertising consulting services.

HaystackInANeedle.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 27, 2004

by Ed Kohler

How To Increase Your Affiliate Commissions

How To Increase Your Affiliate Commissions

by: Lawrence Deon

There are literally countless ways to advertise your affiliate links. The real trick to affilliate marketing though is winning the clicks to conversions number game.

Now, since your not in direct control of the conversion process you only need to concern yourself with identifying top selling products and where to advertise them.

Identiying top sellers through the Click Bank marketplace is a no brainer… they’re listed in order of conversions.

Marketing other merchantกs products through Click Bank can be a very lucrative business. The only question remains… where else can I promote affiliate products other than my own web site?

The following are just a few of a multitude of examples that you might consider.

Participate in chat rooms related to the product you’re reselling. Start a conversation with a person without trying to sell to them. Later on, while you are chatting, mention the product you’re reselling.

Creating a free ebook with the advertisement and link to your affiliate web site page can produce really great results. The subject of the free ebook should draw your target audience in to download it. Also submit it to some free ebook directories.

My personal recommendation if you want to be a serious affiliate marketer is to start your own affiliate program directory. Simply join a large number of affiliate programs and list them all in a directory format on your web site. Then just advertise your free affiliate program directory. You can even accept submissions!

Write your own affiliate program ads. If all the other affiliates use the same ads you do, that doesn’t give you an edge or กdistinctionก over your competition. So consider using a different ad to give yourself an advantage over all the other affiliates.

Use a personal endorsement ad. Only use one if youกve actually bought the product or service for the affiliate program. Tell people what kind of benefits and results youกve received using the product.

Advertise the product you’re reselling in your signature file… and always use a signature file. Use an attention getting headline and a good reason for them to visit your affiliate site. Make sure your signature file doesn’t go over 5 lines.

Join a web ring. It should attract the same type of people that would be interested in buying the product you’re reselling. You could also trade links on your own with other related web sites.

Participate on web discussion boards. Post your comments, answer other peopleกs questions, and ask your own questions. Include your affiliate text link under each message you post.

Create a free ezine. Use your ezine to advertise the affiliate programs youกve joined. Submit your ezine to online ezine directories and promote it on your web site.

Start a private web site. Use it as a free bonus if people buy the product you resell. You could also allow people to join for free and you could advertise the affiliate program youกve joined.

You might consider purchasing an optin list or promoting your affiliate links through you monthly or weekly newsletter.

Another powerful way for you to promote your affiliate products is to list your affiliate link in Pay per click search engines or sponsored links!

My personal favorite is Niche PPC search engines. Iกve collected over 25,000 dollars of free PPC advertising. When I join an affiliate program I list my affiliate link in a Niche PPC engine!

Youกll undoubtedly find many more ways to promote your affiliate links but the point Iกm making is the more you do the better your affilliate conversion rates will be.

About The Author

Copyright 2005 Lawrence Deon

Lawrence Deon is a Search Engine Optimization/Marketing Consultant Author and Developer of the popular search engine optimization and marketing model Ranking Your Way To The Bank.

http://www.rankingyourwaytothebank.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on March 30

by Lawrence Deon

How to Profit From Your Ad Space in this Economic

How to Profit From Your Ad Space in this Economic Downturn

by: John Schultz

Recent research predicts that the online ad market will decline by 25% in 2003.**

In 2004, net advertising is a buyerกs market.

Everyone has seen the media spotlight focused on the big dotcoms who, dependent on ad revenues, have either gone out of business or been forced to cut back.

Unfortunately, itกs the same story for small business owners. The economic downturn leaves many potential advertisers much more reluctant to pay the prices they would have a year or two ago.

I recently came across a message board where one advertiser summed it up this way: in these hard economic times, she has read that people are less willing to make purchases. This means that she is much more at risk to suffer a loss rather than make a profit.

Like most people, this advertiser does not have any extra money to spare and certainly none to lose to a failed ad campaign. To turn the odds in her favor, she regularly goes bargainhunting for ad specials.

Frustrated webmasters and online editors are feeling the pinch of lost ad revenues. This is particularly evident with the recent launch of ad auction sites such as WebmasterBids.com and EzineAdAuction.com. These sites are specifically meant to aid newsletter editors and webmasters in selling their remnant ad space space that would otherwise remain unsold, the profits lost forever.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t benefit from your ad space! Quite the contrary. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Encourage Customers to Book Multiple Ad Slots. Offer large discounts on multiad packages. This is a winwin situation your customer receives excellent value, and more of your ad space is booked with less stress.

2. Auction Off Remnant Ad Space. As mentioned above, there are at least a couple of places where you can put your unsold space up for auction. If you prefer you can set a ‘reserveก price, under which you are not obliged to sell.

3. Offer Incentives to Subscribers and Previous Advertisers. Your own mailing list is a great source of advertisers! They’re familiar with your newsletter and know what type of exposure their ads would receive. Previous advertisers also have this type of firsthand knowledge. Encourage them to book with you by offering great incentives free bonuses, significant discounts, or anything else of value.

4. Swap Ads. Approach other editors within your niche market and offer to swap ads. This is a great way to increase your exposure, fill your ad space, and do it all without spending a single dime.

5. Barter. Is there something you need but just haven’t gotten around to doing it? Use your ad space as a bargaining chip. For example, you could ask a graphic artist to create a banner or eBook cover for you in exchange for ad(s) in your newsletter. To sweeten the deal you could offer an กendorsedก ad.

6. Go the Extra Mile. Provide prompt, friendly, and reliable service to encourage repeat orders. A little extra attention goes a long ways!

In the meantime, if your business relies heavily upon ad revenues for profits, start building another viable income stream. For example, one model thatกs becoming increasingly popular is the contentrich, feebased membership site.

Companies that are overlyreliant on ad revenues have a choice: adjust to the everchanging world of the Internet, or risk going out of business.

Weกve all heard the phrase, กNever put all your eggs in one basketก. Thatกs good advice for every online business owner.

** References: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/ 0,4586,5081626,00.html 

About The Author

John Schultz is the brains behind WebmasterBids.com, the place where webmasters can go to auction off their remnant ad space! Webmasters make some extra money, and visitors can pick up some great deals … visit today at http://www.webmasterbids.com/

This article was posted on May 03, 2004

by John Schultz

Ezines Are Effective In Advertising Your Online Bu

Ezines Are Effective In Advertising Your Online Business?

by: Alan Cheng

กEzines are the most cost effective way to advertise your business opportunityก. Iกm sure you’ve heard that phrase many times if you’ve been marketing on the internet for a while. But is that a myth or a fact?

An Internet Marketer once advertised that he can guarantee $1,000 profit for the user within weeks if he used the techniques outlined in his ebook.

And the secret of the ebook advertise in Ezines using $2,000 and you are guaranteed success unless your product is useless. Well I didn’t try it at the time because I couldn’t find $2,000 lying about in the house or in my bank account. However, it does show the belief people have with Ezines.

There are 3 types of ads in Ezines:

Classified Ads

These are small ads which you can find at the bottom of newsletters. There is limited space in these ads therefore your ads have to be eyecatching. Classified Ads in ezines are cheap and sometimes free due to its limited space and location which is at the end of the ezine.

Sponsor Ads

These ads are placed at the top of the newsletter and sometimes in the middle. Some ezines have more than one sponsor ads. Sponsor ads are more expensive than Classified ads and can contain more words so your ad can be more descriptive. Sponsor ads are more effective than Classified Ads as their position in the newsletter is better.

Solo Ads

Solo ads is the most effective way out of the three type of ads for generating response.

Solo ads fills up a whole email which only contains your advertisement. The newsletter is sent on your behalf to its subscribers. Thus your ad will have the biggest exposure. Solo ads are more expensive than Sponsor ads but more effective.

กGreat. Super. Fantastic. So whatกs your advice Alan?ก My advice is advertising in Ezines do work. And they work very well. Some people don’t think so because after placing some ads and seeing very little or no response they think they have proven that Ezine advertising is a lie used by Ezines Publishers.

Well I can tell you now that they are getting poor responses because they have not followed the rules for advertising successfully in Ezines.

Rules in Advertising in Ezines Successfully

1. If you can, save money and advertise using Solo ads. They have the best chances of being read by the subscribers and they have no other ads distracting or competing against.

2. Work on your subject line. Even with Solo Ads, people will not open your email if the subject is of no interest to them. Subjects which promises massive fortunes in a few days will get deleted with second thoughts.

3. Work on your Content. After the subscribers open your email, your next task is to try and get them to read the content. So make damn sure your content is interesting and enticing enough for them to take some action. Believe the saying ขContent is Kingข.

4. When you’re advertising other peoples’ products using affiliate programs do not send the visitors to the product’s website. I think people are crazy when they do this. The reason is that you are sending traffic to other peoples websites and if they won’t buy you’ve lost that lead for good.

Therefore the aim of you ad is to capture their email address so that you can advertise to them again and again. If they don’t buy product A then you can advertise Product B to them. Now don’t you think that makes more sense?

5. Advertise in well known Ezines and which are related to the topic you are advertising. Advertising stock recommendations to Golf enthusiasts will surely give you a terrible response rate.

6. For Classified ads, make sure you are advertising in large numbers such as 100,000. Not many people read Classified ads and you will be listed among other ads as well. However, you might get lucky if your headline is attractive enough.

To end this article I’m going to share a secret with you on what I think is the best and cheapest way to advertise in Ezines. That is to write your own articles and ask the Ezine Publishers if they are interested in sending out your articles in an issue of their newsletter.

Now let’s think about this for a moment. Your own article is published in ezines and placed on their websites. People who write articles are given more respect and are trusted more. Plus your articles will stay on some websites for years which also means that it will generate traffic for years. The traffic is generated with a resource box you can put at the bottom of your article. You can put your URL here and also write a little bit of background about yourself.

You are creating a name for yourself on the internet scene and you are also generating leads which you can email your recommendations to. There is no cost for you when Publishers decide to include your article so the only cost coming out of you is the time needed to write the article.

In my opinion, writing articles for ezines is the most effective way to advertise using ezines. Not to mention it’s cheap and will generate traffic even after many months.

If you want to know which ezines to advertise in, the cost, number of subscribers and what services are available that can help you in publish your articles, please send an email to my autoresponder at mailto:[email protected]

About The Author

Alan Cheng, is the owner of http://www.onlinemoneymachine.com the membership site to help beginners setup a profit generating online business. With all the right tools to setup your website and advertise effectively. You can contact Alan at mailto:[email protected].

This article was posted on November 25, 2004

by Alan Cheng

Should You Advertise on TV?

Should You Advertise on TV?

by: BIG Mike McDaniel

When people discover my background in advertising, the questions flow. One of the most frequent questions is กShould I advertise on TV?ก

I can’t answer that questions until I ask a number of questions first.

Do you have an advertising plan?

Are you working on a firm budget?

What are you trying to accomplish with your advertising?

Where are you spending your money now?

Usually by the 4th question the happy face becomes one of disappointment.

Contractors don’t build a building without a plan, and you shouldn’t advertise without a plan. The first action is to determine what you want your advertising to do. Most small and medium businesses do not have the bucks for long term image, so they focus on a call to action or proclaiming benefits (not features).

Can TV do that? Probably. Can you afford it? Probably not. Local TV ads even in the smallest of television markets are expensive. You can buy cheap ads, but the cost is factored to the number of viewers. The cheaper the ads, the fewer the viewers. How many folks do you know are glued to the tube at 5:45 AM?

You can get on TV by using the Cable TV in your market. With Cable, you can buy a package thatกs spread over 15 or more cable channels. Beware the number of viewers and the shoddy production. Get my article กCable Ads 5 Bucksก by sending a blank eMail to MailTo:[email protected].

Some people in business believe you haven’t กarrivedก until your business is on TV or on a billboard, or both. Funny, I know of hundreds of businesses making big bucks that don’t use either.

About The Author

© 2005 BIG Mike McDaniel, All Rights Reserved

[email protected]

BIG Mike is a Small Business Consultant, Professional Speaker and former Major Market TV News Anchor. http://BIGIdeasGroup.com

Subscribe to กBIG Mikeกs BIG Ideasก Newsletter

MailTo:[email protected]

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 02

by BIG Mike McDaniel