American and International Info Resources

As a self-employed professional, you have two basic strategies for your marketing efforts: Writing or Speaking.

No matter whether or not you do both of these activities or only one of them, you need to know what messages you want to convey to your audience.

That’s why you need to create a list of your 10 Most Important Business Principles (MIBP). Without them, your marketing efforts will be too diffuse to really grab the attention of your intended ideal clients.

Your 10 Most Important Business Principles inform, expand, and provide clarity for your business vision. For example, the vision statement for my company, SoloBizVille is:

Through collaboration, community, and continuous learning,
any professional can create a joyous, sustainable, and
profitable one-person services business.

For me, as a Business Coach for Solopreneurs, my 10 MIBP are:

• Nobody needs a stronger weakness.
• If you chase 2 rabbits, both will escape. Focus is power.
• Ideas are “a dime a dozen,” but right action is rare and worth millions.
• Mistakes are the stepping stones to success. Embrace them.
• Success and integrity are not mutually exclusive.
• Embrace the goal, not the plan.
• This is your life, not a dress rehearsal.
• At least 5% of your clients and projects are from Hell. Always. No exceptions.
• Success comes by doing what you do magnificently. Delegate everything else!
• Your strengths are so easy you think everyone can do them. They can’t!

As you can see, some of my MIBP are reasons why solopreneurs are frustrated; while others are principles for business success. But all of them are principles that I believe in and use when I coach solopreneurs.

For a contrast, these were my 10 MIBPs when I was working solo as an Independent Technical Writer and Publications Project Manager:

• The client is always right, even when he isn’t. Always respect and honor the client’s objectives.
• Project risk is always reducible.
• Success requires mistakes but make them small ones! And always correct your own on your own time and dime.
• The client wants options and possibilities.
• Never surprise the client.
• Always communicate cleanly, regularly, appropriately, and proactively.
• Use an editor!
• Keep all boundaries professional, clean, and open at all times.
• Hold the client as accountable as I hold myself.
• Manage the client’s expectations at all times.

Once you know your 10 MIBP you immediately have at least 10 topics for promoting your business. You can write a series of articles like this one, or use them as topics for speeches or seminars, or create checklists and worksheets based on your MIBP for use by your clients, or print them on the backs of your business cards, or write a book or ebook about them. You get the idea.

Using your 10 MIBP in your marketing ensures congruency in your business messenging strengthening the image of your business in the minds of your potential clients.

Copyright 2004, Rose Hill, Inc

Rose Hill, Founder and Owner,of Biz Whiz Expert (http://www.SoloBizVille.com) and Team Member of Solo-E.Com (http://www.Solo-E.Com) has been self-employed since 1990. Knowing how to run corporate departments and how to market corporate entities, products, and services did nothing to prepare her for successfully running and marketing a one-person business. That is why Rose created the SoloBizVille and SoloBizU community to specifically to help solo entrepreneurs jumpstart their business success without all the trial-and-error learning.

Find more articles like this at http://www.Solo-E.com, the lifestyle-inspired online learning and connection community. Visit now to receive a free copy of our special report, The Four Secrets of Solo Entrepreneur Success, plus a complimentary 30-day membership.

Caution! After reading this article, you may need to adjust your product or service, your advertising, your website, or your target audience a little (or all of them). Fortunately, none of these are set in stone and can usually be changed quite easily.

I’m sure you realize it’s impossible to meet everyone’s needs. So you need to select a target group and attempt to appeal to them and them alone.

This may seem simple at first glance. But, take it to heart; it really is a sure-fire way to increase your sales. Just focus in on one specific area. It is impossible for any one product or service to fill everyone’s needs.

You may be a little skeptical. If this is the right way to do business, why don’t more (or any) of your competitors do it? It’s a good question, and here are a few answers.

1. Your competitors are probably greedy, so they don’t want to take a definitive stance. They want all the customers they can get. Their business is plain vanilla. There is nothing unique about them.

By targeting a select audience, it does seem like you will have to turn away some clients. But the reality is you can’t appeal to everyone anyway. By trying to appeal to everyone, it is likely that you won’t appeal too much of anyone. Differentiating is the key to success in business.

As Jack Trout put it in “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing”, “When you try to be all things to all people, you inevitably wind up in trouble.”

2. Many businesses are afraid to set themselves apart. This is due in part to being afraid to step aside form the pack. Different scares them. Unique is risky. They have the “follow the herd” mentality.

3. It can take some effort to come up with a well articulated message. And, if it doesn’t work, they will have to revise it. So this takes even more effort.

4. Some of the best messages include a promise. Promises are risky. Therefore,
most people won’t make them.

You stand a better chance of becoming an acknowledged leader in a smaller niche than in a larger one. If you look around at your competition, it is likely that no one has segmented the market and gone after a smaller niche. That means there is a prime opportunity for you if you give this a try.

Copyright © 2005 by L A Parmley. All rights reserved.

Would you like to create a profit pulling unique selling proposition for your small business or professional service? Discover how by visiting Positioning Tactics and sign up for our free ecourse (Value $37)

Today’s small business owners are smarter than ever about strategic and tactical marketing. They are becoming more and more comfortable with its cumbersome terminology and are familiar with concepts such as customer “touches”, or contacts.

Unfortunately, however, many small- to medium-sized business owners are spending way too much time concentrating on the frequency of their messages, rather than developing the right message.

For example, how many ads have you seen from dentists who proclaim to give you a “better smile”? Yes, the actual size, orientation, color, graphics and the like may be different, but the message is the same-old-same-old. Have these dentists, then, differentiated themselves and become memorable? The obvious answer is “no”.

However, is any impact better than none at all? Marketing experts and business owners alike often debate this issue. On one hand, even a so-so ad can generate name recognition… an important objective. Alternatively, others argue that poorly-designed marketing communications is at best, weak and at worst, damaging AND memorable.

It is reasonable to expect that a marketing consultant or advertising agency will create a distinctive and positive ad and message every time? Yes. Assuming you’re developing it based on a solid strategic plan.

Also, should you expect that every ad is original in both content and look? Again, yes. Any talented marketing professional can help you create a look, feel and message that achieve both of these objectives.

For example, wouldn’t a dentist’s ad be more memorable if it emphasized the idea that dental procedures - braces, teeth whitening, caps - produce far better results in your overall appearance than above-the-neck plastic surgery?

Here are four great questions to ask yourself as you consider whether the image and message you’re creating will achieve the “bang” you’re looking for:

1. Is your message unique, positive and memorable?
2. How many other companies in your industry communicate the same thing? If your answer is, “None” you’re well on your way!
3. Does your message create an image that fits your company’s personality?

4. Does your message increase the chances of creating the impact you want?

Remember, generating favorable responses to your marketing communications happens when your strategic goals and standards are turned into flawless execution!

Mary Eule specializes in helping small and medium-sized businesses get and keep profitable customers. Formerly a Fortune 500 marketing executive; founder of two successful small businesses and award-winning speaker, Ms. Eule is President of Strategic Marketing Advisors, LLC. and co-author of a new book, “Mandatory Marketing: Small Business Edition”. She holds a master degree in marketing from Johns Hopkins University. Log onto http://www.StrategicMarketingAdvisors.com for free articles, newsletter and helpful tools, tips and templates.

“Do not answer a fool according to his folly” Proverbs 26:4

One of the sad realities of owning an ezine is that from time to time you will encounter fools.

Fools that take offense to something that you have written and decide to send you horrible, abusive messages.

When This Happens You Have Three Choices.

Lets examine each one and see which has the best merits.

1. You Can React.

Someone sends you a profane, abusive message. They rave on about how much they dislike you - or your website - or your newsletter.

I even had one guy write and say; “I hate your ezine. I hope that you and your family all get cancer and die!”

Now the human reaction is to think: “Who does this guy think that he is? How dare he send me stuff like this” I’ll give him a piece of my mind…”

The problem with reacting is that you end up giving precious ‘mental energy’ to dealing with a fool.

It just isn’t worth it.

Fools cannot be reasoned with.

If they could, they would not have sent you an abusive message in the first place.

Writing back and saying something like; “Oh Dear! Does your Mommy know that you are off the medication again?” might make you feel better - momentarily - but it could add fuel to the fire and you could end up with some complete lunatic whose only purpose in life is to think up new ways to annoy you.

Besides, you have better things to focus on.

2. You Can Respond.

Here is what I do. I check their e-mail address against my subscriber base and simply delete them.

I remind myself that the good book says: “Do not answer a fool according to his folly” and I make a “decision divorced from emotions” to not give the fool a nanno-second of my precious time.

The result?

I experience less stress and focus on the good aspects of my life.

Oh, did I mention that I add them to my blocked senders list so that if they try to contact me in the future, their message simply goes into my deleted items folder?

3. You Can Report Them.

Lets say that someone sends you a life-threatening email. (I’ve had it happen) What should you do then?

I report them.

I contact their ISP (Internet Service Provider) I go to their website, look for the contact button and explain what has happened and that I will hold them legally responsible should they allow the individual in question to continue using their service to harass me in any way via e-mail.

The Result? Most ISP’s worth their salt will immediately delete the individuals account.

I also would report their threats to the police.

React
Respond

Or Report.

The first will only lead to stress.

The second will deal with 99.9% of the situations you will ever face.

The third is the best way to deal with any serious threats.

I hope that this helps.

Remember - look at things in perspective. At the time of writing I have tens of thousands of opt-in readers to my various online newsletters and can count on the fingers of one hand the number of fools that contact us with abuse and hate mail each month.

Look on the bright side.

Focus on the positive!

Copyright © 2005 Chris Bloor

Chris Bloor the ‘Walking Idea Machine’ Lives in Western Australia. His ambition in life is to become the person that his dog, Spike, already thinks he is. Get his ezine at
http://www.SucceedAtMarketing.com

Marketing with booklets is an excellent way to reach new customers and maintain contact with existing customers.

Booklets are such powerful marketing vehicles because they allow you to educate your customers and maintain long term contact.

Newspaper advertisements, for example, allow only a small part of your story to be told. You can only put so much information in that tiny newspaper advertisement. Newspapers are usually kept for recycling, not reading.

Here are four advantages of marketing with booklets:

Booklet Marketing Advantage #1 - Longevity

How long do you think your customers will keep last Sunday’s newspaper advertisement? One day? Two days at the most? Then it’s off to the recycling bin.

Do you think they’ll keep your information filled tips booklet longer? They will if it contains information they find useful.

How many times have you kept a marketing product because it contained helpful information? Why do you think people put calendars on the back of business cards?

Booklet Marketing Advantage #2 - Credibility

Booklets that provide high quality information will increase your credibility. Americans love experts, publishing articles and booklets will help your customers see you as the expert.

Your customers’ know you are an expert because the information in your booklet helped solve their problems. They have proof you know what you are talking about, and that will cross over to other areas of your business.

Booklet Marketing Advantage #3 - Education

Do your product sales depend on your customer having a specific level of knowledge? If so, marketing with booklets gives you the opportunity to provide your customer with enough information to make an informed decision.

Can you say the same about newspaper advertising?

Booklet Marketing Advantage #4 - Costs

How much does each of your current customers contribute to your bottom line? Are they worth keeping? Since keeping a current customer is much cheaper than acquiring new customers, you bet they are!

Booklets allow you to maintain contact with your current customer base by providing them with tangible proof that your business values their patronage.

Conventional marketing wisdom is that a customer needs to see an advertisement up to seven times before they respond. If your booklet provides good usable information, your customer’s will read it and act on it without needing to see it multiple times.
Marketing that helps maintain your relationship with your current customer base or build rapport with new customers is inexpensive and effective marketing.

Conclusion

In my experience people buy from those they trust, and most Americans trust experts. By positioning yourself or your business as the expert you can benefit from this trust.

Marketing with booklets is a great way to establish your expertise with your customer base.

***
Parrott Writing Services, a San Antonio Texas company specializing in web content, ghostwriting, website optimization, online/offline ad copy and technical writing for small businesses.

http://www.rickparrott.com
mailto:rickparrott@sasecure.net

This is the story of a novice internet marketer who has spent a miserable, frustrating and expensive twelve months learning the lessons of selling on the internet - the hard way! However, he believes that he has turned the corner and is now looking forward to, at least modest, future profits. That person is me, and I would like to share my experiences with you in the hope that your journey will be less painful than mine. I am certainly not suggesting that the lessons I learnt are definitive, nor will they apply to every one else who embarks on a campaign of internet marketing. I am merely recounting what happened to me and the problems I encountered.

My journey started in November 2004 when I attended a conference with a speaker who was, by his own admission, an internet millionaire. He, like me, was a professional speaker but he had diversified into selling his products and services to this world-wide market. Like many of my colleagues, I had previously heard bits and pieces about internet marketing and I was hungry to learn more. It is true to say that I was captivated by his story and, especially, by the rich pickings that he said were out there on the net, for relatively little time and expense. ‘Make money in your sleep’ was a phrase he used. I was inspired - well, who wouldn’t be by the prospect of working at home for a few hours a day whilst watching the money flow in 24/7! I bought his pack of tutorials, ebooks, CDs etc for $500 - my first investment in this Brave New World.

Interestingly, I write this article the day after attending another meeting that had a speaker again telling us how easy it is to make serious money on the internet. Whilst I do not doubt that such people indeed do make a very good living for relatively little effort, believe me, it is not easy! Making money selling products or information on the net is not a quick fix! Like any new business (for that is what it is), it takes time and effort to learn all its intricacies. Unless you have a product that people want to buy; a web site that sells it effectively; and a means of driving lots of people to it, you will end up throwing good money after bad. Hence my first lesson

Lesson No 1. Do not believe all you hear from internet experts who tell you how easy it is to make your fortune. It isn’t!

Let me continue my story. So, off I went on my new venture. I eagerly read the information that I had just bought, along with lots of other advice and guidance from internet marketers. Many recommended additional software that would make selling on the web more effective. I took their advice and bought some of the products they championed, for example a programme for making attractive website banners, and another that promised to produce amazingly effective sales pages for the website that I was to produce. However, the banners I made were far from attractive and when I sought advice from the company I bought the software from, they failed to reply. As for the sales page generator, it did teach me some good lessons but was far too inflexible and restrictive so I soon reverted to writing my own copy.

What I did not realise at the time was that the internet marketers who were recommending these products were affiliates: they received a commission from every sale resulting from their recommendation. I now know that affiliate marketing is big business and can produce significant income flows. In fact, let me put my cards on the table: I am going to recommend two products to you later in this article and I will gain a commission if you take my advice. However, these are products that I truly believe in and have been extremely helpful to me. I believe that they are worth every cent to someone serious about making money. You can, of course, take my word for that, or not. At least I have been up-front about it!

Lesson No 2. Beware of advice from ‘experts’ who may be more interested in making money as an affiliate than in helping you.

Of course, to make money in any business you have to have a product that people want to buy. What was I going to sell? Well, I have always been fascinated by quotes - words of wisdom from those who can add so much meaning in so few words. Indeed, my first book is entitled ‘Leadership Quote Unquote’ and contains a host of quotes from, as my publisher added to the book cover, ‘world figures - the famous, the infamous and the downright dastardly!’

Imagine my excitement when I researched how many people were looking for quotes on the internet. Google estimated that over 5,000 people every day searched for an appropriate quote. I estimated that if I sold my book for $25 and one in a hundred people who clicked on my website bought my book, I would make $369,014 profit a year. Wow! Even if only a modest one in three hundred bought it I would still make $61,684. Wouldn’t you be excited by that income earning potential?

To cut a long story short, whilst lots of people do regularly seek out appropriate quotes, I now know that very few are prepared to pay for them! Why should they, when they can get them for free on other websites? I am now just about breaking even with this particular campaign - a situation I am prepared to accept for the time being as the website does provide me with other spin-off benefits. However, I have subsequently diversified and am now selling a number of other information products, using a different website for each - some more successful than others. Inevitably, not all sales campaigns will be initially successful, hence you have to continually fine-tune several aspects of the marketing process to gradually improve their effectiveness.

Lesson No 3. It might sound obvious - but make sure that you sell something that people want to buy.

Note: The purpose of this article is for me to share my experiences with you. It is not designed to be an internet marketing tutorial. I am not, therefore, going to go into detail about technicalities such as website design, Google AdWords, Google AdSense, market testing, copy writing etc. That said if I have whetted your appetite and you do want to learn more, email me at alan@leadershiptalks.com and I will send you a free ebook all about creating successful sales websites, entitled ‘The Three Page Site Builders Manual’ ( I make no money by doing so!). Also, if you are really serious about creating a profitable internet marketing campaign consider checking out the specialist guidance of Perry Marshal, especially his ebook entitled ‘The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords’. This is one of the two products that I really believe in and that I mentioned previously. A link for you to learn more about him is provided at the end of this article.

The next step on my journey, having deciding that selling quotes was to provide the basis of my pension fund (!), was to design a website to sell my ebook. The most well-known website design software, and the one that was recommended to me, was Microsoft FrontPage so that is what I bought. Unfortunately, I found it to be extremely confusing, frustrating - not at all user-friendly. I did make a website but it was far from professional. In fact, a friend of mine who is a successful internet marketer politely commented that he would certainly not buy anything from a site like mine!

He went on to tell me that he had recently discovered a new website design programme called XSitePro that is two thirds the price of Front Page and infinitely easier to use. In fact, he was in the process of redesigning all his many sites using it. Having faith in his advice, I shelled out $197, bought the software and was absolutely blown away by it!

XsitePro is designed specifically for people who sell on the internet. It is so easy to use that I am now churning out professional-looking websites in less than half a day - and they work. In fact, having not sold one of my ebooks for weeks beforehand on my FrontPage site, I launched my new site, using XSitePro, and sold one within half an hour. I could hardly believe it!

Hence, my fourth piece of advice. I make no apologies for being so direct - if you want to produce easy websites that sell, click on the link at the end of this article and check out XSitePro. The link takes you to a web site that I have made to tell the world about, what I believe to be, the best web site design software available today.

Lesson No 4. Don’t waste you time with other website design software, buy XSitePro.

So, once you have designed your website, you will need to ensure that your potential customers can find it. Essentially, you have two choices: work hard at driving it up the search engine rankings or pay for the privilege by using Google Adwords. Perry Marshall’s ebook ‘The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords’ goes into great depth about making the most of Adwords but, essentially, you bid to have an advert promoting your website featured on the right-hand side of a Google search page as a ’sponsored link’. However, you only pay when people click on your ad.

Most experts will argue that using Pay Per Click (Google Adwords) is the best way to promote websites of limited size like the ones internet marketers use to promote their products. And that is what I did.

Unfortunately, though, I did not pay sufficient attention to setting up my sites. I accepted Google’s recommended daily budget; set my pay-per-click rates too high; advertised in too many countries and advertised in its content network as well as its search network. Perry Marshall’s ebook explains all these settings in fine detail. I only wish I had bought it in the early stages because I ended paying much more than I needed to.

So, I had set up my Google AdWords campaign and was up and running - but was not selling any products. I was, however, getting hundreds of clicks a day, so was ever hopeful. My wife and I then went away on holiday and I put my internet marketing campaign out of my mind, in the confident knowledge that when I returned my In Box would be full of orders.

Imagine my horror when I returned to find no product orders but a $700 Google AdWords bill. It doesn’t take much time to accumulate those costs when you are getting hundreds of clicks a day; you are selling no products; and your daily Google budget is set at $50!

The lesson here is crucial. In the early stages at least, you MUST keep a close, daily eye on your Google Adwords account. As time goes on and you have fine-tuned your account you can leave it for a day, or two, but initially you must not let it get out of control.

Lesson No 5. Keep very close control of your Google AdWords account in its early stages

I mentioned previously that you must fine-tune your ad campaign if you want to maximise its sales potential. The critical factor here is the Click Through Rate (CTR) - how often people click on your ad when it is displayed on a page of Google search results. If your ad features 100 times when people enter, for example, ‘inspirational quote’ as a Google search term and two of them actually click on your ad the CTR would be 2%. Improving the CTR is important to maximising your sales potential.

This is a very detailed process where specific changes, for example trying out different ad formats or even using capital letters in certain areas of your ad, can make a real difference to your CTR. Perry Marshall is an accomplished expert on using Google Adwords and I have, personally, learnt a great deal from his ebook.

Lesson No 6. Work hard at fine-tuning your Google Adwords campaigns to maximise their CTR and, if your website and your product are attractive, your revenue will gradually increase

And so to the last lesson that I have learnt. Going back to where I started, I have realised that making money on the internet is not, as I told my wife, ‘the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow’. However, I do believe that there is serious money to be made by people like me who are prepared to work hard at ensuring the three essential elements are in place, namely:

• A product that people are looking for and are prepared to buy

• A website that is effective in selling that product

• A sales campaign that directs people towards your website

Personally, over the last twelve months, I have struggled on all three counts, and have thus paid the price. However, I have learnt my lessons and am confident that I will now begin to reap at least some of the riches that definitely are out there on the World Wide Web.

I have been told that my experiences are not unusual. Surprise, surprise: contrary to what some internet experts tell us, very few people strike gold immediately. It takes time and a lot of hard work and determination. It does not surprise me, therefore, that many people who embark on the journey as I did, fell at the early hurdles. My final lesson, and piece of advice, is therefore to ensure that your internet strategy is sound and then work hard at making it successful.

Lesson No 8. Don’t give up - make it work.

Here are the links for the two products that I am happy to recommend. To see the website I made to promote XSitePro, please go to www.diy-websitedesign.org. To check out what Perry Marshall can teach you, please see http://perrymarshall.com/cmd.php?pg=305720

Copyright Alan Cutler 2005

This article is written by Alan Cutler. Permission is granted to copy and use it for any purpose as long as it is not amended in any way.

Being a professional speaker, should you wish me to deliver a presentation developing the content of this article to your colleagues or company, please contact me on alan@leadershiptalks.com

With the advent of the technology age, the Internet has
been used for everything from research to shopping. Record
number of households is signing up for internet access all
over the world and a surprising number of individuals look
to the internet to purchase goods or services. The ease of
use and flexibility of the internet makes this technology
an excellent forum for entrepreneurs to start their own web
business. The thought of starting your own business may be
overwhelming, as many individuals do not have any business
experience. With the advent of the web business, anyone
can easily and successfully begin their own business.
However, money is a major factor when starting your own
business and individuals wonder how they can become a web
entrepreneur with no capital.

The beauty of a web business is the lack of start-up costs.
Instead of a traditional brick and mortar business where
you need to rent a space, pay utilities, and provide other
necessary elements, all you need to begin a web business is
a computer and a website. A web domain can be purchased
for a minimal cost and many online hosts offer web domains
for free. Additionally, you can run your business from the
comfort of your own home, allowing you to tailor your
business to your schedule. Many individuals choose to
begin a web business while keeping their current employment
until the business can get off the ground and running.
Also, many individuals who have responsibilities that keep
them close to home can bring in an income without
compromising their lifestyle or responsibilities.
Furthermore, beginning a web business can save you money
associated with going to work, including car maintenance,
gas bills, and childcare costs. However, with all the
benefits of starting a web business, many potential
entrepreneurs are sidelined by their lack of business
knowledge. The process can be a stressful one, especially
for entrepreneurs who are juggling responsibilities. When
asking the question, “What can I learn about
entrepreneurship,” many individuals will find a wealth of
information, including e-books and websites dedicated to
the topic.

Whether you decide to sell your own hand-made creations or
provide a much-needed service, the internet is an excellent
place to base your business. In addition to reaching a
phenomenal number of clients all over the world, internet
businesses are easy on the budget. Many entrepreneurs
prefer to start a web business for this very reason. They
have learned over the years the amount of capital necessary
for a beginning business is tremendous and out of the reach
to many would-be entrepreneurs. Instead, every aspect of
running and web business is economical. Most businesses
can be started with little to no funds necessary and no
capital needed. You may choose to register a domain name
in the name of your business or utilize one of the many
free host websites on the World Wide Web. Additionally,
advertising and marketing for your business is also quite
economical, as popular website search engines such as
Yahoo! and Google offer advertising for a minimal fee.
Communication is essentially free, as web hosts include
numerous accounts with the cost of registering a domain
name or choose between one of the many various free e-mail
websites such as Yahoo! or Hotmail. Money transfer is not
a problem with many entrepreneurs electing to use payment
services such as PayPal for payment accounts. This service
is quite popular and totally secure, in addition to being
free of charge. Finally, many entrepreneurs have learned
online marketplaces such as Ebay prove to be an excellent
resource. In addition to gaining the reputation and
clientele of Ebay, entrepreneurs have a well-advertised
forum to sell their goods. Whatever your type of business,
starting a web business with no capital is a viable option.

Jon Evans runs http://www.SuccessAlert.com and has written the book Success Alert - Conversations with Successful Internet Entrepreneurs which has been widely acclaimed. If you want to Learn How to be a Web Entrepreneur with No Capital this book is a must-read!

Niche marketing is more than simply a buzz word for today’s online business owner. When we hear the words “niche marketing” our eyes glaze over and our heads begin to pound. What is it that people keep harping on? Niche marketing, marketing strategies, responsive ad copy and user friendly web site design…what will give an online business the competitive edge it needs to survive. All we know is that…we want traffic and sales. We want it now!

For most home business owners online, we don’t want to take the time to create a marketing plan or even think beyond today. We want to place a few ads, even a ton of ads somewhere and make a sale. Truth be told, it is short sighted on our part to NOT think in the long term when it comes to creating our own niche marketing campaign.

Most of us start out thinking about ways to get free advertising but when that doesn’t pay off into strong web site traffic and sales, we start looking into paid advertising. Once we have to actually “pay” for advertising, we start focusing on the demographics and traffic of the sites we plan to use for advertising.

Remember, yes ~ traffic and demographics are important aspects of a potential place to advertise your business. Yes, you should choose web sites that cater to your ideal customer. Should you simply bite the bullet and pay for advertising on that site? Maybe. If the placement is good, the target market is great and the traffic is there ~ purchase the advertising then track your success rate with paid advertising.

But remember, just because you have found a high traffic website that caters to your target market…you may or may not garner the traffic or sales that you need to build your business.

A much more effective strategy would be to create a targeted article writing campaign.

Article marketing strategies - Where to start

Sit down and look what your business offers your potential customers. Brainstorm the different types of information that your customer might be looking for to solve their problems.

For example, a web site designer can write articles about the difference between a professional business web site and a non-professional looking web site. That same web designer can write a series of articles on all the different challenges of building your own website. Granted, in this scenario…the writer wouldn’t want to give the reader ALL the information they need to build their own web site but enough to show their expertise and talents as a web site designer.

This actually works with all different types of businesses and target markets. Whether you sell candles or computer software, you can create a targeted article writing campaign that reaches your niche market for long term traffic and eventually ~ SALES.

Once you have written a handful of articles designed to meet the needs of your target customer, then return to the same websites that you wanted to advertise on to submit your articles for publication. Long term credibility and branding comes with your articles being published on other similar but non-competing websites. Don’t overlook ezines for possible publication as well. Getting your articles published in popular newsletters can be a great source for visitors, leads and sales as well.

Finally, don’t forget to submit your articles to popular article directories because web site owners and newsletter publishers look for niche focused articles to complement their sites.

As your article writing campaign grows, you will discover that you have built an effective marketing strategy for your online business. At its very core, niche marketing is meeting the needs and wants of your best customers. Show these same customers how YOU can help them solve their problems. Your niche market will come to you.

Tammy Ames is the owner of WAHM Connections. Discover the power of article marketing, read Your Marketing Power then plan your article marketing campaign with tools found at Article Production Strategies

With all the negative Publicity that S.pam is Getting, Permission Based E-mail Marketing is frequently too often overlooked as the Misunderstood step Child of Internet Marketing. Unfortunately Many people confuse Permission Based Opt-In E-Mail Marketing with that Ugly 4 Letter S-Word S.Pam.

Permission Based E-Mail Marketing is Sending E-Mails to People who have agreed to receive them. Many Top Internet Marketers go to great lengths to build an Opt-In Mail List. Creating an Opt-In List is fairly easy. If you know the Right Steps

1. Generate a Lead Capture Page

2. Drive Traffic to Your Lead Capture Page.

Simple yes Easy No. You could spend Years Building Lead Capture Pages and sending traffic to them and still have a List of only a few thousand at Best. Here are a few more methods you can use to help improve your Lead Capture Efforts

1. Pop-Up Subscription Box on All of Your Web Pages
2. A List Sign Box on All of Your Web Page
3. Going Viral by Creating an E-Book or Free Software that you allow everyone to give out. Of course you would require people to sign up for your list before you give them the freebie.

If you haven’t built a large Opt-In E-Mail List or If just want to send some extra E-mail you could ‘Borrow’ Someone Else’s Opt-In List. Here are a 6 Methods to ‘Borrow’ the Opt-In E-mail lists of Other’s

1. Pay a Fee - You can pay someone with a list anywhere from $5 to many Thousands of Dollars to send an E-Mail to their Opt-In E-Mail List

2. Joint venture - This Method is Often used with a Digital Downloadable Product. The Joint Venture Partner would get a Percentage (10% to 75% are very Common) in return for sending an E-mail to their List. The List members would download from a Special Link so that orders could be tracked

3. Barter - A Good Friend of Mine would offer a Free Solo Ad or Solo Mailing in his E-Zine in return for a Digital Product.

4. Ezine Ads - You could run Solo Ads or Solo E-Mails in E-Zines.

5. Submit Articles - When you submit an article they are often picked up by E-Zines and Republished. Your Resource Box is then seen by all the Members of the E-Zine.

6. Paid to Read - This Method works best with Free or Low Cost Products. Do a Google Search on Paid To read and you will find hundreds if not thousands of them. The Members are often Paid anywhere from 1 cent to 5 Cents to read an E-Mail and Click on a Link. As an Advertiser you would pay $5 to $20 Per Thousand clicks.

Now that we know how to borrow someone else’s list the next question you may want to ask is Should I borrow someone’s list. Let’s do a Simple Cost Benefit analysis

A Solo Mailing to an Opt-In List of 100,000 Members costs $100 is it a good deal for you. In order to decide if this is a good value you need to know 2 Numbers, Your Conversion Percentage and your Profit per Sale. If you do not know your conversion Percentage use a real low number like 1/10 of a Percent or 1 in 1,000. So for a Conversion rate of 1/10 of a Percent with 100,000 E-mails you could expect 100 Sales. If your Profit per sale is more then $1 then this is a Good Deal.

If Your profit per sale is less then $1 it still may be a good deal if you can get some of those 100 Buyers to Purchase additional Products Later.

About The Author:
Mike Makler has been Marketing Online Since 2001 When he Built an Organization of over 100,000 Members using Permission Based E_Mail Marketing Methods
http://ewguru.com/hbiz/amazingoffer.html

Get Mike’s Newsletter:
http://ewguru.com/newsletter

More Articles by Mike:
http://ewguru.com/tips

Copyright © 2005-2006 Mike Makler the Coolest Guy in the Universe

After months of rebuilding your website - adding great content
filled with profitable, keyword-rich copy (all due to Dr Ken Evoy’s
excellent 5-day Affiliate Masters e-mail course, no doubt) - your
site is now ready to be uploaded to the Internet!

But how do you go about promoting this new content?
Well, you need a plan!

===== Side Bar =====
It’s easy to receive Ken’s 5-day Affiliate Masters e-mail course!
Just send a blank e-mail to mailto:tamsshopping101@sitesell.com
and get day 1 of this great course in your inbox TODAY!
===== Side Bar =====

WEBSITE PROMOTION PLAN

Yes, you need a website promotion plan! And you need a schedule
for that plan. And once that schedule’s finished, you need another,
long-term plan - site promotion is never over! Some of the
activities that you should plan to do are listed below; you
can probably think of others, more relevant to your site: do!

===== Side Bar =====
For a long-term plan, and some long-term activities, read my
article called Promote Your Site Every Day!. You can find it :
http://www.shoptour.co.uk/webmaster-promote/promote-your-site.shtml
===== Side Bar =====

1: TELL YOUR E-MAIL SUBSCRIBERS

Tell your e-mail subscribers! This is an easy first step to take,
to promote a site redesign (or new pages on your site). Subscribers
have been expecting an announcement, anyway, because you’ve been
referring to the redesign in earlier newsletters (haven’t you?).

This is your best opportunity to really go into detail about all
the great ways your site has improved, and all the new benefits
your subscribers will find. You could even (cheekily!) run a
competition to encourage subscribers to visit your site, and
find those inevitable bugs, before the rest of the web does!!

===== Side Bar =====
If you don’t run a newsletter, this is one (of many) great reasons
why you should! Listbot, Topica, e-circle are just a few services
that provide free, ad-supported, newsletters:
- http://www.listbot.com
- http://www.topica.com
- http://www.ecircle-uk.com
===== Side Bar =====

2: TELL YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, ANYONE

Tell friends, family and others who are (legitimately) in your
address book. Make your e-mail personal, and friendly. And better
still, just talk about how your site now benefits or involves them.
That is, just discuss:
* your new link to their site
* your promotion of their affiliate program
* their new article, now on your site

Even busy friends and family, need to be ‘encouraged’! Always focus
on benefits, but *get them* to visit!

3: TELL THE NEWSGROUPS

Tell the newsgroups about your new site, but only do this if you
are a regular contributor. Simply announce your site - check
that site announcements are allowed, first! - with a few good
reasons why members should visit! Better still, contribute to the
newsgroup, and simply leave your URL as part of your ’signature’.

A great place to find suitable newsgroups is
- http://www.deja.com/usenet/ (now http://groups.google.com)

4: WHAT ABOUT SEARCH ENGINES?

DON’T just blast your new pages to all the search engines /
directories! This may seem like spam to them, and your new pages
(or even your whole site) may get banned. This is because some
search engines need to be told about new pages, others don’t. And
directories generally just like to know about the main page on your
site (unless you’ve just added a lot of content on a completely
different theme).

Search engine policies change regularly, so find out from others by
visiting a search engine forum, or asking someone you consider to
be an expert. An excellent place to find search engine advice is
http://www.searchengineforums.com [HELP! and New Member Forum].

(So what did *I* do? I just submitted one new page to the major
search engines. This page has links to all of the other new pages,
too, so the search engine spiders should eventually index all of my
new content. I visited searchengineforums first, obviously!)

5: DON’T FORGET PAY-PER-CLICK SEARCH ENGINES!

Add more keywords to your various pay-per-click accounts. This is a
great way to make new content available, quickly. (You just have to
wait for keyword-approval by the pay-per-click administrators).

Choose profitable keywords (high demand, low supply), identified
when you began creating new content. But, as you pay for each
click, it’s important that you only get clicks from your potential
customers; so choose your keywords, title & description carefully.

===== Big Side Bar =====
Don’t know what Pay-per-click search engines are? They are search
engines, like GoTo, that allow you to choose how highly your site
ranks for a particular keyword. So you make a bid on a keyword. And
if your bid is highest, your site features highest on that search
engine’s ranking, for that keyword. And for each click your listing
generates, you pay the amount that you bid to the search engine.

Pay-per-click search engines are proving to be an excellent way to
get extra traffic. Especially when you consider that results from
GoTo, the main pay-per-click, feed into highly-placed sponsored
links on many of the major search engines.
===== Big Side Bar =====

To learn much, much more about pay-per-click search engines visit
this excellent site: http://www.PayPerClickSearchEngines.com/

6: FIND OTHER PROMOTION SOURCES

Search engines are not the only way to promote your site. There are
webmaster resource sites, freebie sites, and even Britney Spears
fanclub sites, all of which depend on new content! You name it,
there’s a site resource dedicated to it!

So use your favorite search engine to discover these resources,
and check out their linking policy. Then, if possible, get a link!
(You may even want to visit some of the links on the resource site,
and get links from those sites too!)

With some persistence, this should bring you a lot of well-targeted
traffic. (Free Sites, for example, get most of their traffic from
one such resource: The Free Site - http://www.thefreesite.com )

7: WRITE AN ARTICLE

Writing an article (like this one) is a great way to promote your
new content. There are so many sites willing to accept articles,
and so many editors willing to publish them in their newsletters.
Just write about your new content (but not about your site), making
it interesting and informative to a general audience. Then, in the
author-byline, refer to your new content, and provide a link to it.

For example, I found a great site, Find Sticky, just from reading
an interesting article about sticky content, written by the site’s
webmaster. I enjoyed the article and checked the author bylines to
see who wrote it, then visited his site - http://www.findsticky.com

===== Side Bar =====
Don’t know how to write an article? Just write about what you
actually do, and the sites that you visit. Then read a few good
articles on ‘how to write an article’, and compose away! It *isn’t*
difficult, and it can be very rewarding (not least because of the
contacts you make with those that actually publish your articles!)
===== Side Bar =====

The following sites accept free articles for publication:
http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.ideamarketers.com
http://www.marketing-seek.com
http://www.certificate.net
http://www.web-source.net
http://www.theukmarketer.com
http://www.MakingProfit.com/articles

8: GET VIRAL

Viral marketing is that elusive creature that can literally,
*literally* create a STAMPEDE of traffic to your site; just on the
continued recommendation of others. Think Am-I-Hot-or-Not? or
Hotmail or Hampsterdance or ICQ or Napster…!

So how do you go achieve viral marketing?

Simple! Come up with a completely original, innovative, easy-to-
use, easy-to-talk-about Wow!-of-a website… OR

Try one of these more common easier-to-achieve approaches:
- allow visitors to create virtual greeting cards on your site
- create free ebooks that include content (or articles) from your
site, and then heavily promote the free ebooks
- put free e-mail on your site
- put ‘recommend-this-site’ links on your site
- etcetera

Back to the article from Find Sticky. I actually found that article
in a newsfeed from Moreover! It seems that if you write articles on
a weekly basis, then it’s possible to get your articles syndicated
via Moreover. So, with no effort from you (apart from writing
regular articles) you can get a link to your site (and your
article) on hundreds, even thousands of other websites!
http://w.moreover.com/site/publishers/index.html

As for Moreover - the newsfeed company - a link to their site goes
on *all* syndicated content. Clever, eh!?

~ ~ ~
Viral marketing brings more traffic to your site than any other
method! But it’s a lot easier talking about it than doing it!

BONUS: WRITE A PRESS RELEASE

Writing a press release is a good idea, but only if your site
redesign *is* newsworthy - and only you know that! - your release
will be pretty much ignored, otherwise. If you insist on writing a
release, why not submit it to PRWeb (http://www.prweb.com). They
check the releases before submitting them to interested parties.
They’ll reject your release if it isn’t properly written (or
newsworthy). They do all of this for free, too!

CONCLUSION:

You’ve worked so hard on developing your website further, with new
content or a site redesign. And now you need to work just as hard
to promote this new content! So get a promotion plan, and work
through it, and then continually promote, promote, promote!

Enjoy your journey

About the Author

Steve Nash is webmaster of http://shoptour.co.uk - a new-look UK
shopping directory: find shopping sites quickly AND save money. He
also edits a newsletter called Promote! Promote! Promote! Subscribe
by sending a blank e-mail to mailto:pppromote@getresponse.com