MLM The Easy Way - RIm Update http://www.blogmoneymiracle.com en-us EasyRSS
By Kurt Mortensen

Word choice in marketing and advertising is critical. When advertisers spend millions of dollars each year, you can bet they have tested every word they are going to use. They want their word choices to lead you psychologically to believe their product is the best, so that it will change your life. Skilled advertisers can get us to absorb their message unconsciously. They might even package an identical product with different words and phrases to reach a wider segment of the public.

Daryl Benn conducted a study on how advertisers use word choice and catch phrases to sell different, but identical in effectiveness, brands of aspirin. Consider the following:

Brand A: proclaims 100 percent pure, claims nothing is stronger. Benn notes that governmental tests also showed no brand was weaker or less effective than others were.

Brand B: Advertises, "Unsurpassed in speed--no other brand works faster." The same governmental tests showed "B" works no faster than others do.

Brand C: declares it used an ingredient "that doctors recommend." Governmental tests revealed that "special ingredient" is nothing more than regular aspirin.

The words we use can hurt others and cause tension and resentment. Words can even cause wars. Humans tend to create and use words that hurt or label. Hitler used labeling and name-calling during his rule in Germany. He called the Jews many negative things, including "vermin", "sludge", "garbage", "lice", "sewage", and "insects." Labels also extend far beyond the names people are given, into the way we describe things in a negative light, such as, "broken home," "single-parent family," or "blended family." Whereas, we think of theses terms as essentially neutral, the words can carry significant negative weight to those people to whom the terms apply.

As you design your persuasive message, you must consider the emotional impact of each word and phrase. When you want to create emotion, choose words that will trigger feelings. If you want to downplay the event or situation, use an unemotional word. Notice the following words generally have the same definition but carry different emotional weight, for example, calling someone "thrifty" versus "cheap," "traditional" versus "old-fashioned," "extroverted" versus "loud," "careful" versus "cowardly," and "eccentric" versus "strange."

Many words are emotionally loaded and represent different values to different people. These words can get people to pay attention and alert them to know what significance the message has for them. It is hard to find a neutral word. Your word choice will paint different pictures for different people because the way we define words based on our belief systems, our experiences, and our social roles. The beliefs we hold about a word will dictate our actions and will dictate how we respond. For example, some cultures view death as a celebration of life; others view death as a tragedy.

Sometimes, if used improperly, positive words can still lead to a negative response. For this reason, persuaders will often avoid certain words, although generally positive, and instead use words that may still bear positive associations, but are more ambiguous. For example, in the world of politics we hear phrases like "freedom of choice," "fiscal responsibility," or "responsible taxation." When politicians use such generalities, people of differing viewpoints can actually both be appeased. They will fill in the blanks and provide their own definitions.

Words can convey emotional color by how long or short they are. Generally, shorter words are more blunt, direct, harsh, or sharp. Consider words like "kick," "hit," "force," "stop," or "no." Longer words, like "lonely," "depressed or "painful" are drawn out to evoke colors of melancholy or suffering.

Advertisers know that changing just one word in their ad can dramatically increase the response rate. One advertiser changed the word "repair" to "fix" and saw a 20 percent increase in response.

There are other words advertisers employ, which are known as "weasel words". These words confuse their audience and do not allow you to put an exact number on the advertiser's claim. They let you justify and believe what you want. They are called "weasel words" because weasels are notorious for breaking into the chicken coop and sucking out the inside of the eggs without breaking the shell. The eggs look fine but in reality are hollow and empty, just like these words. Watch out for these words:

*Helps
*May
*Possibly
*Improved
*Up to
*Almost
*About
*Approximately

Application Questions

Do the words you use trigger a positive or negative response in your prospects?

What weasel words do you use and do these words detract from your message?

What is the one word in your presentation that is taking away from your message?

Kurt Mortensen's trademark is Magnetic Persuasion; you should attract customers, just as if a magnet attracts metal filings. Claim your success and learn what only the ultra-prosperous know by going to http://prewealth.com/mistakestoavoid and get my free report "10 Mistakes that Cost You Thousands."

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By Alex Cleanthous

I always get the same question when it comes to website design...

"Is website copy really that important?"

Well, if you are interested in actually making a profit from anything you do online, it is CRITICAL that you have killer website copy!

Now I know what you are probably thinking...

What is killer website copy?

Writing killer website copy simply means using words on your website that are SO GOOD that anyone who is interested in what you are selling is COMPELLED to do business with you... right now!

The best way to write copy for your website is to imagine you are right there with your prospect selling him / her on the benefits of doing business with your company over all others.

Here is a quick exercise...

Imagine you have a 'hot' lead that is ready to buy and is enquiring about what you are selling...

Imagine that you only have one chance to convince them that your offering is the best in the market...

What would you say?

How would you say it?

What would you have to say to convince somebody to buy from you right here, right now?

Write down the answers to the above questions. This is your sales presentation.

Now that you have the answers to the above questions, you need to answer the objections as well. Remember, you are not actually there with them, but they will definitely have objections.

You only have one opportunity to get them to buy your offering. In addition, if you leave any objections unanswered, you risk losing them forever.

So what would the possible objections be? Write them down.

In addition, how would you answer them? Write down your answers.

Then combine your sales presentation with your objection handling and you have your core sales pitch.

Now it is time to rewrite your copy.

Go over the entire copy and rewrite it so it flows. In addition, when you are rewriting the copy the most important thing to remember is to...

KEEP IT CONVERSATIONAL!

Do not write as if you are a big institution (unless you are). You will get far greater results by writing as you talk.

Write as you are sitting right there with them 'talking' to them. Use stories, examples, sub-headings, bullets, and most importantly, a headline.

Usually, I recommend writing at least 50 to 100 different versions of a headline and then selecting the best headline from the list.

IMPORTANT...

The headline is the most important part of your website because it is the reason that most of your website visitors will continue to read your sales copy. Without a great headline, hardly anyone will read your website copy.

Alex Cleanthous runs a full service online marketing agency helping businesses generate profits from the Internet. For a free report on The 6 Critical Steps To Generating Profits Online visit http://www.webprofits.com.au..

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By Diana Goolsby

Hey! This is not one of those 'rah-rah' marketing approaches that we are used to listening to in the network-marketing scene. The time has come to step up to the next paradigm for network marketing...and the change is rapidly being made!

One of the greatest points for network marketing is the attractiveness of the proposition model. Who does not want to have a glamorous residual income? Many of us struggle to make any progress of this MLM game. Eventually, either we quit or fail or worst of all, some of us become MLM junkies, jumping from MLM to MLM.

How Do We Break The Bonds Of Failing In MLM?

• Be realistic stepping into a MLM business. Expectation and targets for the average distributor should be $400 - $500 per month as your supplemental income.

• Change your mindset and know that the company you chose to distribute for is ONLY the manufacturer. You are the business owner and creator of your business enterprise.

• Bond and lead with the product, not with the allurement of the instant riches promised by leading with the opportunity. Let go of the opportunity concept. You will attract those individuals, who have a want, need, and desire; and that will deeply become involved with the quality of the product. They will discover the company's integrity, its management, and vision. This will unmistakably make the difference in capturing targeted individuals to join your business, making it a very appealing venture.

• Be understanding, and a bit 'foot loose and fancy free'. Taking yourself too seriously sabotages the creative side of you. Your MLM business takes time to build. Nurture it as a living entity, as a member of your own family. Realize that it is a long-term investment. Tactfully managed, it will produce true fruits of your labor.

• Do not fall into the trap that MLM is easy money. Consider the facts that you must have whatever it takes; mentality and attitude. You must know your product and be certain of your companies' vision. Most of all, understand what the needs are of your customers. Comprehend your leadership position. Implement and empower your down line to learn the art and science of marketing the product. Inspire them to replicate the ultimate purpose of leadership so success is brought to the table: 'all for one, and one for all'.

• Be aware that like the rest of nature, which follows the line of least resistance, we tend to procrastinate. We make excuses after excuses to avoid what must be completed. Og Mandino once said, "If a business day is a social success, it has been a business failure." How convenient to put things off instead of placing yourself in a forward motion to work. Thomas Huxley put it so straight forward, "The most valuable result of all education is to make you do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be learned. And however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly." Therefore, do not put things aside Go, Do, Be, and Have.

• Biggest mistake; "sitting around". Feed yourself. I am not talking about devouring bon-bon's as you sit. I am saying, "Be PRO-ACTIVE," making choices based on principles, not reactive choices based on emotions. Keep the momentum by applying something of substance into your business each day. As your business begins to generate profits, reinvest a chunk into your business of recruiting and selling. One of the wisest best-spent money that you will ever spend on yourself and your family will be to INVEST IN A COACH. This is necessary. This requires thorough investigation so you get the very best for your educational investment.

Could My MLM Business Have a Deliciously Magical Mysterious Agenda?

Absolutely, keep in mind; it is through our life that life is given. As you besiege yourself in your networking business, comprehend that this is a journey of self. Learning of the true power that we have within us, and yet we have not unlocked the doors of our true being.

Realize that you will venture into many brick walls and unopened doors. You will tackle these situations with frustration, anger, disappointments, thrills, competitiveness, etc, thinking that these are just trials of the trade in mastering your business success. However, you have just stepped into the world of illusions. These illusions are meant to offset, bewilder, and make life complicated. The simplest way to untangle and improve the quality of your life is to identify what this game, (your game), in life include. To find what is our true fundamental view of our own human nature, we must first bring alive the basic needs that motivate all people which is love, courage, strength, and wisdom. A quote that resonates within me says, "People are like sticks of dynamite. The power is on the inside, but nothing happens until the fuse gets lit." Focus and listen to the voice within that leads you to the spark that will light the fuse to your dreams.

The most powerful truth and tool for transformation is to investigate the Universal laws and principles of life. Here is a little taste of one of these important gems. You will have to do your due diligence to uncover them for yourself. Know that the principle of patience and discipline gives you persistence. Persistence will carry you through the highs and lows of your business giving you the strength to take your targets/intentions to completion. Learn that process: patience and persistence are your keys to unlock the doors to any destination. You will not find the answers to your life at the end of your journey; they are tucked, interwoven among, and gifted and rewarded to you along the path of each stepping-stone you encounter along your journey. Do not be ignorant and overlook these laws; understanding is to use them.

You made a decision to venture into the MLM world, do not give up, support your decision and know that this is your time to explode the power within you. Never mind where you have been, watch where you are going, and so get out there and get it done! There are fabulous tools of support and training to help you through your network marketing problems, and some with no more substance than cotton candy. The path of your journey will open before you where before there grew weeds and darkness.

You will learn, as I have, that if you keep the doors open, the greatest treasures are the best friends, the people, the joy, respect, and care that will come into your life through your network marketing. What I have enjoyed, shared and experienced have far surpassed the bounds of the network-marketing world. So be inviting to open the door that is knocking. See clearly within you that life is not only about getting what you want, but also learning that the standard of success is absolutely feeling the exhilaration in what you get. Permit your unlived network marketing to live, thrive, and achieve that which you once thought impossible.

Diana Goolsby is a certified mentor in the art and science of marketing through a marketing company headquartered in Phoenix, AZ. She is also a worldwide-certified spiritual motivational life coach and resides in beautiful Idaho. To learn more about Diana Goolsby and her mentoring and coaching, she can be contacted at diana@goolsby.myrf.net or 208-837-6578

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By Diana Goolsby

The mind is such a powerhouse. We do not honor and use that power to its true potential. We over look who we really are...we become such busy bodies of how others are succeeding in the MLM world.

From the minute that we are invited to join a network-marketing venture, we are asking, "Is this working for you?" "How many people are you bringing into the business?" "How much money are you making?" In addition, on and on we go. Attend to your business and quit comparing yourself to others. One of the biggest setbacks to your success is concentrating on and asking yourself, "Why is this networking business not working for me? Why is it taking me so long to get what I want?" "What am I doing wrong?" Doubt! Doubt! Doubt!

It is not because:
• You are not intelligent enough
• You do not know the right people
• You are not worthy enough
• Bad karma
• You got into this MLM too late
• You do not have a good networking team

You have to quit imagining and creating the negative images. Realize the reason you have not already received what you desire. You are holding yourself in a vibration holding pattern that does not match the vibration of your desire. You must start stimulating the creative imagination. "What is that?" you ask. Good question. You do not recognize it within you because you are in that 'feel stuck' mood. You have been acting like a couch potato instead of utilizing the mindset of a marketer and have become weak through INACTION.

Get out of your our way; recognize and release the resistant thoughts such as fear, doubt, envy, resentment, low self esteem, etc. Break the bad habits and thoughts. You begin to recognize the baggage attached, and what it is holding you down. Release your resistance and forge forward to hold the highest levels of imagination, visualization, and creative powers. The greatest achievers have always exercised these powerful secrets to achieve their personal targets/goals in life. They use a four-step thought pattern that leads to the habit of persistence:

• A Definite Purpose Backed By A Burning Desire For Its Fulfillment.
• A Definite Plan, Expressed in Continuous Action.
• A Mind Closed Tightly Against All Negative And Discouraging Influences.
• A Friendly Alliance With One Or More Persons Who Will Encourage You To Follow Through With Both Plan And Purpose.

View yourself through the window of opportunity. Tell yourself and put action behind the words that describes who you would like to be and do. Putting power words that move you forward and allowing the choice of strong words to bring worth back into yourself will shift you into a vibration that is closer to your desires. The most important way to shift that vibration is the enthusiasm you feel in setting your pace, but persistence will carry you through to your target. "I will persist until I succeed."- Og Mandino

Remember, other people do not determine your possibilities. Who told you, you did not have the potential? Who told you, you were small? Who told you that no one succeeds in network marketing? Shake off the disappointment and let those negative vibrations roll off you like water off a ducks back.

Do not fall into the doubts; they rob us of our dreams. From out of our greatest rejections come our greatest directions. When one door closes, always know that another one opens. In addition, (not to be cut off due to discouragement of the network marketing scene), look for the windows. They are also great openings that bring in the light.

Someone said, "few things are certain in life, that people rarely fail...the only failure that does not lead to success is the failure that makes you stop". People tend to have no patience, and view their networking as if it is going to be an overnight success. If you examine those overnight successes closely, you will come to find that it took many years of preparation.

Your MLM business is like building a home; it requires a strong foundation with the patience to see it through its completion. Systematically, lighten the burden you have placed on yourself. The best targets to aim for are those you can handle in the next week, the next day, the next hour, or even in your next step. Reach a target and you will realize the next one is right around the corner ready to begin. You are the only one that has given this nasty illusion its limits. Begin to understand that you are not on a destination; you are on a journey of self that never ends and that is unlimited.

Diana Goolsby is a home school mom with three fantastic kids and husband. She is a certified mentor in the art and science of marketing through a marketing company headquartered in Phoenix, AZ. She is also a worldwide-certified spiritual motivational life coach and resides in beautiful Idaho. To learn more about Diana Goolsby and her mentoring and coaching, she can be contacted at diana@goolsby.myrf.net or 208-837-6578.

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By Theresa Cahill

After spending the past decade talking with individuals wishing to promote their products and web sites online, one theme appears to repeat itself and may be at the root of the marketer's problem.

Wikipedia states that:

"Real-life marketing primarily revolves around the application of a great deal of common-sense; dealing with a limited number of factors, in an environment of imperfect information and limited resources complicated by uncertainty and tight timescales. Use of classical marketing techniques, in these circumstances, is inevitably partial and uneven."

The average advertiser often perceives himself or herself as a full-fledged "marketer." This, too often, is far from reality. The quote above shows there is an abundance of misinformation and limited, trustworthy resources on which one begins to build a marketing base. Choose the wrong ones and you are running around in circles, with little to show for your efforts.

Developing the best internet marketing strategy can be difficult. It must encompass a wide variety of services, methods, and techniques to begin to show results. Often, the web site owner chooses one particular method, applies it to that task for a short period and then puts it on the back burner. They find that either the technique they decided upon was too hard to implement or too time consuming to pursue.

Then it is off to find the next "biggest and best" idea.

The lack of follow thru, compounded with life pressures, forces many to give up effectively working their online marketing strategy. Reviewing their plan of action, often it is discovered that there really is no method - just a hit and miss approach to try to gain web site recognition from a virtual world full of competitors.

Cost effective internet marketing and a solid online marketing strategy are key elements to your online business success. Following the latest and greatest fad becomes an all-consuming monster. Reality tells us there is just not enough time in the day to work a fully developed online marketing strategy... not if you are going it alone. To hinder one's efforts further, many try to discover the "secret" from one online source or another. This, too, can chew up time and money without shedding any real light on effective marketing.

Individuals, small businesses, and large corporations running successful endeavors online have one thing in common - a solid marketing strategy and effective ways to implement their plans.

Remember, there is a good reason sayings like "Rome wasn't built in a day!" remain true even today. Haphazard marketing brings haphazard (and frustrating) results.

Theresa Cahill has over two decades of online and offline marketing and puts that experience to use assisting businesses and store front owners in promoting their websites. FREE online marketing strategy analysis at http://www.market-for-me.com.

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By John Foley

Ebooks are part of the new frontier of cyberspace.

They are an entirely new medium for sharing marketing information, ideas, techniques, and expert knowledge.

Each day the number of people accessing the Internet grows, causing the exposure of your ebook to increase incrementally. It is obvious why electronic self-publishing has quickly become so popular.

The publishing industry, I hope, does not intend to banish the printed word forever to the dustbin of history. Books in print have their own special qualities and merits, and the world would be diminished by their disappearance.

Having said that, let us look at what makes ebooks so important and so unique. Ebooks have certain abilities and qualities that other mediums do not possess.

For example, ebooks are easy to produce, and their production cost is inexpensive. Just think about it: you do not need a publisher, an agent, a printing press, offset film, ink, paper, or even a distributor.

You just need a great concept, the ability to write it or to hire a writer, and the right software.

Additionally, ebooks are rapidly and are easily distributed online, and easily updated. They do not require a second print. All you do is go into your original creation and modify the text or graphics. Because of this flexibility, ebooks can change and grow as fast as you can type.

Ebooks are also immediately obtainable. You do not have to go to a bookstore or search through endless titles at an online bookstore. All you have to do is download it from a website, and presto! It is on your computer, ready to be read.

Ebooks are interactive. This is one of the most unique and specific qualities that ebooks offer. You can add surveys that need to be filled out, order forms for customers to purchase your products or goods, sound and video that draw your reader into the virtual world of your ebook, even direct links to relevant sites that will expand your ebook outward. The potential is virtually limitless.

Ebooks have a particular kind of permanence that other mediums do not possess. Television shows and radio shows air once, and then may rerun a few times. Ebooks remain on your computer for as long as your choose, and they can be read and reread whenever you choose. They can even be printed out and stored on the shelves of your traditional home library.

Another wonderful quality is that ebooks have no barriers in terms of publishing. You do not need to go through the endless process of submitting your manuscript repeatedly, and then once you land an agent, having the agent submit your manuscript repeatedly. Nor do you have to shell out thousands of dollars for printing a self-published book. All ebooks require is a writer and appropriate software.

Figure out your market, write your book, post it on your website, and with the right business insight, your audience will come to you.

Finally, you have creative control over your ebook.

You do not have to compromise with an editor or the publishing trends of the time. You do not have to haggle with a designer or wait for copyedited galleys to arrive by snail mail. You are in complete control of the design and the text.

How to Use ebooks for Marketing and Promotion

There are innumerable ways to use ebooks to promote your business and drive quality traffic to your website. Once posted on your site, you can turn them into a daily course, which brings your customer back to read the next chapter. You can use them as a gift for making a purchase or for filling out a survey. Put your ebook on a disc, and you will have an innovative brochure. Blow your competition away by inserting the disc into your sales packages.

The most effective marketing products are those that are unique. Copyright your ebook, and immediately, you have a powerful tool that you and you alone, can offer to the public. People will have to visit your site to acquire your ebook, which increases the flow of quality traffic and the potential of sales and affiliate contacts.

Make sure that you keep your ebook current. Update it frequently as the market and trends change. Add new advice and techniques to show your prospects how your goods or services can enrich their lives. By constantly keeping abreast of new trends and techniques, you can continue to see profits from your ebook for years after your original creation.

Another phenomenal advantage of ebooks is that you can test their marketing potential without putting out hardly any cash. You can even produce an ebook one copy at a time, each time you receive an order, eliminating the need for storage and inventory. By this method, you can gauge the salability of your ebook, and make adjustments as necessary until the orders start pouring in. Ebooks allow you to learn about your market and customer habits and motivation over a period, without risking your precious financial resources. They also provide you with an invaluable way to gather marketing information, which you can use in many different facets of your business.

Use your ebook to discover what the specific goals and problems are in your specific industry. Then figure out how to solve these problems, and publish an ebook with this invaluable information. This will increase the value of your business, upgrade your reputation, and get you known as an expert in your field.

You can extend the value of single ebook by breaking the book down into chapters for a serial course, into special reports available on your website, or into audio or visual tapes. Ebooks can be broken down into several different promotional materials by excerpting some of the articles and using them to promote your product. You can include a catalog in your ebook to promote all the products or services you sell. You can include a thank-you note for reading your book and an invitation to download a trial version of your product. Alternatively, you can include a form for your audience to contact you for further information or with questions, thereby building your business relationships and your mailing list.

Using ebooks in this manner helps to cut the cost of individually producing separate promotional materials.

You can use a single ebook to entice new prospects and to sell new products to your current customers.

No other medium has this kind of flexibility and ability for expansion. Think of your ebook like a spider spinning a beautiful and intricate web. Now go and create that web, and see how many customers and prospects you can catch!

John Foley PhD MBA
http://www.marketing-growth.com

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By Jonathan Leger

Have you noticed that most of the big product launches usually go through a "pre-launch" phase? Have you ever wondered why?

I decided to give pre-launch a try on my latest product release, Article Builder, to see if this process really does sell more products. The numbers are in. Let me tell you, the pre-launch made a huge difference in my bottom line.

Pre-Launching Creates Buzz

Pre-launching a product means notifying people about the product 30 to 60 days ahead of the actual date before they can purchase the product. There is nothing new about doing this. Movie studios have heavily advertised their films many months before you go to see them. Recording artists promote their upcoming albums before they are ready for purchase to the public.

Letting people know ahead of time about your product creates buzz. It gets people talking about the product in the forums and to their friends and family. This causes more people to go to your pre-launch site to read about it, and builds anticipation for the actual release date.

Pre-Launching Allows For User Input

With software products, pre-launching gives you a chance to show people how the products work and get feedback. For Article Builder, I collected as many opinions and comments about the software during the 30 day pre-launch phase. I applied many of the suggestions prior to launching. When it actually launched, it was three times as good as, what I had first created!

The best way to sell a product is to find out exactly what your customer base wants, and then sell it to them! Making the product the absolute best it can be, before the actual sales date, ensures a much higher conversion rate and a lot more sales.

Pre-Launching Helps You Build a List

If you supply a -"subscribe for more information"- box on your pre-launch page, notification of the product launch, and people who desire to get more information, opt-in to your email list. This is great for keeping them 'up to date' about coming changes and improvements in your product just before the launch date.

To make sure you get a good number of subscribers; be sure and give them a reward for giving out their email address. With Article Builder, I sent people the URL to a video where they could watch the software in action, if they were willing to get on the pre-launch list.

The benefit of having the person on that list does not stop after the product launches. If the person chose not to buy, you can still send other offers their way for their consideration. It is a great way to continue to earn from people who may not have purchased your pre-launch product!

For Article Builder, I was able to get over 2,000 people on the email list! You can imagine how that has helped me in selling additional back-end products. Therefore, you certainly will want to offer an opt-in box on the pre-launch page.

Summing It All Up

These are great reasons to pre-launch your next product: it creates buzz, it allows you to get feedback, and improve the product, and it builds an email list of people interested in the subject area. All these are key points that boost your bottom line.

For me personally, I will not be launching any new products without a pre-launch first!

Jonathan Leger has a blog on Internet Marketing where you can find other informative articles like this one. You can find it at http://www.jonathanleger.com/

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By Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D., The Blog Squad

Recently a client who was frustrated that her marketing efforts were not producing results like she expected contacted me. In an attempt to address her concerns, I realized how many other professionals are in the same boat. What follows is an open letter to professionals everywhere who are struggling to attract new clients and make money online.

Dear Entrepreneur and Professional:

First, let us address the issue of finances. I understand fully what it is like to invest in your own business, work hard, and see little income. Sometimes it seems as if you work for pleasure, and indeed, there is much pleasure involved. It is not unusual for entrepreneurs to be passionate about their business and services and many would do what they love free.

However, it cannot work that way, and you must see the money or your business will perish. Finally, after a couple of years of trickle income, we are now seeing results in our own online business, and are making a comfortable living solely from information and services sold on the Internet.

It takes time. In addition, it involves having lots of digital information products people can buy and download instantly. In order to sell them, you have to have a powerful web presence and be easily findable to the millions of people who Google for solutions to their problems.

People cannot find you with just a web site. You need a blog, and you need to write on it frequently - daily is best; two to three times per week is good. An electronic newsletter, or ezine, is also a great marketing tool, and you need to post it on the Web, or on your blog.

You need to write and submit articles to article directories so people can find you better. Your articles need to include contact information and links back to your website and products.

You need the infrastructure in place so you can follow up with automated email messages to people who contact you requesting information, purchase your products and register for your events.

It is a good idea to do teleclasses, some free, so you build your list, connect with people and get them into your higher priced seminars.

There are other business models, and I am most familiar with what I have done myself, and helped other entrepreneurs to do.

When Denise and I joined Tom Antion's Mentee Program, it was a considerable financial commitment. We send him a check every month out of our earnings, which are steadily increasing thanks to his tutelage. It is worth it to learn and model what works from one who has been there and is a multi-millionaire.

As the saying goes, you cannot get to Carnegie Hall without lots of practice, and that takes an investment of time, patience, and money.

There are no easy solutions. Continue doing what works and invest in those areas of your business that provide the biggest payoff. Get training. Invest in the infrastructure and tools that allow you to save time and market effortlessly. Implement tools slowly, get used to one, and observe your results before going to the next step. Building a business on the Internet is not about getting rich quick. It is about hard work and persistent effort that will pay off in the end.

Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D., The Blog Squad. For more leading edge Internet Marketing tips go to http://www.biztipsblog.com. Subscribe to The Blog Squad's ezine Savvy eBiz Tips at http://www.savvyebiztips.com. To learn about using Internet Marketing tools like blogs, go to http://www.buildabetterblog.com. Denise Wakeman & Patsi Krakoff are known as The Blog Squad.

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By Jerry Bader

Everyone Has an Agenda

When we watch our favorite television programs like 'CSI' or 'House', we knowingly and even gladly allow ourselves to be manipulated. When we watch the evening news, we are manipulated by the selection and presentation of stories that have been filtered through a series of network agendas. These range from the benign time constraints of a thirty-minute broadcast to the more suspicious dictates of network and sponsor interests.

Websites are vehicles for communicating content to an audience. Like your favorite television show, or evening news; that communication is not neutral; it comes with an agenda and that agenda should be yours.

If your website designer is not developing your site within a framework created to communicate your marketing information, then you are not getting the website you need. If your website designer is merely a technical programmer and not a communicator, then you have picked the wrong supplier.

Whether you are selling an idea, a product, or a service does not matter; it matters that you are trying to convince your audience your offer will benefit them in some way. You are manipulating your presentation to your advantage. That does not mean you should be dishonest or deceitful, but rather just skilled in getting your message across.

To manipulate, as defined, in part by wordreference.com, means to 'control or influence skillfully, usually to one's advantage'. That is the job of a professional website designer: to influence an audience skillfully to the website owner's advantage.

Defining an Appropriate Website Agenda

Build your website to be an affective marketing communication vehicle that accomplishes these tasks:

1. Attract interest
2. Focus attention
3. Convey attitude
4. Enhance understanding
5. Generate confidence
6. Stimulate desire
7. Motivate action

Attract Interest

Check your website logs, if you find people are leaving your site as fast as they are arriving, then you have a problem. The time and effort you spent on optimizing your site, for the search engines to attract visitors, is wasted if those visitors do not stay long enough to get your marketing message. Visitors will leave your site within seconds if your splash page is confusing or irrelevant to their needs. The initial contact with your audience must capture their attention and quickly establish that you are the source of the information, products, or services they are looking for.

Focus Attention

Your established site has the information your audience wants, so you must make it easy for people to find it. Organize information, products, and services for quick access and easy navigation between options and alternatives.

Visitors focus on finding what they came for; and locate it. Now they will be more receptive to notice the items you want to direct them to. The moment when visitors are ready to focus on your pitch, Jared Spool, of "User Interface Engineering", calls this the 'seducible moment'.

Enhance Understanding

Design the presentation of your information for human understanding, not the search engine robots. People absorb more information, have better comprehension, and retain more of what you want them to, when information is presented by a real person.

If you want to see the future of the Web, visit Wyeth's menopause related website at http://www.knowmenopause.com. This site provides visitors with these options:
- going to a text-based version that is index-able by search engines and where visitors can print out the material;
- and a multimedia version that features video presentations by doctors discussing the medical issues,
- and interviews with ordinary women discussing their personal experiences.

Generate Confidence

Since the Web is a remote environment, it is important to create confidence in your company, the products, and services you provide. Easily create this confidence by providing visitors with email addresses, phone numbers, physical locations, and contact names. Many websites fail to provide this kind of information. If you do not provide proper contact information, it looks like you have something to hide.

Relating people with people is critical in building confidence. The Wyeth knowmenopause.com site does a brilliant job of providing expert video advice from qualified professionals, as well as, video commentary from average people relating their personal experience with the subject matter. In addition, you do not have to be a multinational pharmaceutical company to do this. Every business has access to expertise and knowledge. If you stop pitching and start informing, you may find you are further ahead.

Convey Attitude

Every business conveys a personality to the clients through their experiences with that company. When you rely on your website as your main point of customer and prospect interaction, then your website has to present an attitude appropriate for your audience. You convey this attitude via the graphics, copy, and multimedia presentation of the information, products, and services you provide. When it comes to 'attitude', the medium is very much the message. The Web is such an impersonal environment. It is important to design your presentation so that it delivers the attitude and personality that will relate to your audience.

Stimulate Desire

The desire to buy a particular product or service is based on more than functional utility; no one really needs a Rolex or a Lexus. People buy most of what they buy based on emotional and psychological desire rather than functional need. Functionality often comes into play merely as a justification for the purchase. Part of your website's job is to create the emotional and psychological desire for the product in question.

Motivate Action

Your website should be designed to motivate people to action, but do not construct your site to limit that action to a sale or to nothing. Many sites obviously design the website to entice you to purchase items with little or no attention to enhancing understanding or generating confidence. This 'all or nothing' approach is severely anti-productive and conveys the impression you cannot be trusted. Customers need to have confidence in you and your offerings; and need some reassurance that you are legitimate.

You want a website visitor to do something; anything that demonstrates some interest. That expression of interest could be a phone call to ask a question, signing up for an e-newsletter, requesting a catalog, responding to a survey, poll, or promotion - anything that displays they have some interest in what you are offering. If you can motivate your audience to action, even if that action is not directly sales related, you are on your way to building a relationship with that prospect.

Communication: Turning Content Into a Memorable Experience

In order to achieve your marketing goals, you need to know how to manipulate, or if you prefer, 'seduce' your audience to your advantage using the seven tools of website persuasion.

Position

Web pages are usually made-up of similar types of information. Standard page elements include:

i. Header information - such as logo, company name, address, and basic contact information
ii. Navigation elements - so visitors can find what they need
iii. Content - such as text, graphics, audio, and video
iv. Sidebar information - that might include additional information or links that relate to the content or advertisements
v. Footer information - that might contain further contact or copyright information

The positioning of these elements is critical to the comprehension and retention of your information and marketing message. Various usability studies carried out in the USA and Great Britain have tracked the eye movement of website visitors. These studies help the designer place the various page layout elements on the screen to produce the maximum effect.

Most studies are consistent with their eye movement tracking results:

i. Middle-Center: Visitors first focus on the center of the page searching for anticipated content;

ii. Top-Left: Eyes then move to the top left corner where a logo or company name is expected;

iii. Down Left-hand side: Eyes then move down the left-hand side of the screen where navigation usually occurs;

iv. Top-Middle to Right: Eyes then move back to the top of the screen and move from the center to the right scanning for further navigation elements or additional company identification information;

v. Middle-Center: Eyes then move back to the middle of the screen scanning for relevant content;

vi. Right-hand side: Eyes then move to the right side of the screen looking for additional information or sidebars;

vii. Middle-Center to bottom: Finally, eyes go back to the center and down the page towards the footer scanning for additional content.

It should be noted that these studies also suggest that website visitors will quickly determine where any advertisements are located and then proceed to ignore or avoid them when moving on to other pages of that website.

Size

The size of the various elements will obviously draw attention to, or away from particular information. Logos, graphics, headers, and body-text should all be balanced and proportionate. The use and amount of white space is as important to readability and comprehension, as any of the other elements relate.

Color

The use of color is another obvious feature that draws attention to particular information; color also conveys personality, mood, and image. Blue, silver, and green are calming colors that convey a cool, if somewhat remote image. Reds tend to convey a sense of excitement and boldness, while yellows are bright and friendly. Browns and beiges are earthy, warm and rich, while black, white, and gray convey a sense of sophistication.

These are all generalizations. You can mix and match colors to provide a variety of moods and personalities. It is important to choose a color palette with care; not only to convey personality, but also to direct and focus attention on particular key elements.

Shape

The shape of elements is another way to draw attention to particular information or content. Traditional computer monitors with their 4:3 ratio and the new more extreme 16:9 ratio monitors create particular challenges when trying to present substantial information above the virtual fold; this means the visible area that does not require scrolling. Sometimes you cannot avoid vertical scrolling. If you have a lot to say, think about adding an audio or video option that only requires the click of a button to present your information with no scrolling required.

Sound

Web-audio is the most cost-effective multimedia-format for delivering large amounts of complex information or instructions to website visitors. Web-audio delivers the information in a meaningful, compelling, entertaining, and memorable way, and helps establish a corporate personality and image.

Movement

Movement helps attract and direct attention to certain aspects of your website. The best way to incorporate some action on your site is with Web-video, which uses a Web-host to present information or direct visitors to where they want to go.


Style

The visual style of your site directs attention and focus. It helps establish your personality and helps the relation to your target audience. Styles range from conservative to funky to downright bizarre; but what really matters is your style choice, it tells visitors who you are and what you are. Your website style will help create the attitude aspect of your website presentation.

Conclusion

Designing a website is more than programming and search engine optimization; it is how you communicate to your future customers. This job is too important to leave to someone who does not understand how to use the Web and its full arsenal of presentation elements to communicate your marketing message.

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in delivering their clients' marketing messages using the latest audio, video, and Flash presentation techniques to create compelling and memorable Web-experiences that enhance brand personality and increase sales and profits. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com, http://www.136words.com http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

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By Andy West

Every business out there is competing hard with others offering like products or services, thanks to the way the world has opened up. It provides consumers with access to many different resources. Thanks to the pay-per-click marketing strategy found across the internet, someone requiring a service in Canada can easily hire a business in Florida, or a product manufactured in Colorado can reach an end user in Australia. This is great, because the opportunities for higher sales and income are vast, compared to previous decades where your business was only locally known or only popular in the surrounding cities.

Stiff competition, however, has also meant that anyone with a business needs to promote and market their company effectively, encouraging and enticing surfers to visit their site and hopefully purchase their product or service. Having a pay-per-click marketing strategy to make sure your website is seen and it receives plenty of hits is integral to your business's success. If you are not receiving traffic to your site, you have a seriously struggling venture on your hands.

There are plenty of ways to boost sales and promote your website. Information is the current trend in tempting surfers to click links and reach your site. Articles posted on your website to teach people something new or give them pertinent information are helpful to draw in clientele. Press releases can also be effective to bring attention to your business or company. Thanks to the way individuals quickly turn to computers and the internet for their information, the written word and fundamental text become the strongest venue to drawing in business.

Pay-per-click or PPC advertising is another growing method of boosting hits to your website. This principle of marketing is a venture of cooperation between websites, as you ask other sites to display a link for your website. When individuals are attracted to an ad displayed on a website, they click to follow the link through to your business portal. The company advertising your link receives income that you supply. In effect, this pay-per-click marketing strategy is paying someone to promote your company.


For someone adept with computers and having great interpersonal and negotiation skills, pay-per-click can be set up by an individual. Most people, however, do not have the expertise or the time to work through the steps needed to set up this type of advertising. The best thing to do is to hire a PPC consulting firm that has all the resources and networking skills to build an effective promotional program. Not only that, hiring a pay-per-click consulting firm means that you do not have to worry about links on dead sites, maintenance, or creating a catchy advertisement.

Companies devoted to PPC consulting will work with you to develop a strong pay-per-click marketing strategy to know what product or service you are trying to sell. From there, they will define your market target, and develop surveys to help with the set-up of the promotion program. Once they have achieved results from these surveys, pay-per-click consulting firms will create advertisement that reaches the people you want it to and test the results. Revisions are sure to come into play, and businesses geared to pay-per-click consulting will compare their marketing against solid results. Considering the amount of work involved in this type of promotion, you certainly do not want to go less than the full distance by trying to set up pay-per-click advertising yourself.


Reputable consulting firms that specialize in creating a pay-per-click marketing strategy for businesses are ones that are geared to website promotion. Every type of industry has experienced and skilled experts and the common jack-of-all-trades individual will not be able to pull off such an intensive networking to boost your sales. If you are serious about a successful business, you should hire companies that provide exactly what you need and you will soon be able to see that the cost of their time and efforts pays for itself repeatedly as your sales increase.

Andy West is a freelance writer for Vertical Measures. Vertical Measures is an Internet Marketing Company that offers quality pay-per-click consulting for your business. For more information, please visit http://www.verticalmeasures.com/pay-per-click-consulting.html.

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By Michael A. Jones

Your online email marketing campaigns can flounder over something as simple as formatting.

Is your email easy on the eyes, easy to read?

Use these seven key points to ensure your emails have a high readability rating:

1. Format the text lines between 55 and 65 characters. Anything more makes it harder to read. It can give the message a ragged look if the recipient's email program configures differently.

2. Use only short paragraphs with plenty of space in between. Hit the Enter key twice between paragraphs so your email is easy to read and absorb.

3. If listing an email address, or a URL, put it at the beginning of a new line. It is much easier for the recipient to see and use. (Example: See the style of the Resource Box below)

4. Use the Reply button to answer email. The previous message is then included so the recipient has the background immediately available. The > symbol appears on each line of the previous message. Insert your comments or answers under the relevant block of text.

5. Use CAPITALS only for effect, to emphasize key words or phrases. Do not write blocks of text in capitals.

6. Use exclamation marks judiciously. Emphasizing statements with !!!!!! cheapens and lessens rather than adding serious emphasis.

7. Avoid the use of fancy fonts and colors unless you know definitely the recipients are using HTML enabled email software. Although HTML formatted, email is now quite common, a huge base of users still use plain text.

Michael A. Jones is a writer and webmaster with over 10 years experience. Punctuation marks used discreetly and correctly can really add power to your emails. Check Michael's punctuation guide here for ideas:
http://www.about-goal-setting.com/punctuation-guide.html

To utilize a highly successful advertising medium at an unbelievably low cost visit this page:
http://www.vitalstop.com/Marketing/post-free-classified-ads.html

See how to choose the right autoresponder and at the same time get a free 7-part email tutorial:
http://www.vitalstop.com/Business/autoresponders.html

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By Keith Baxter

A common saying in the Internet Marketing community is, 'The money is in the list'.

Unfortunately, that is an inaccurate statement.

The line should read, 'The money is in what you do with that list'.

This all begins with a lead (otherwise known as an opt-in).

When you are building your business, you engage in marketing to entice people to become interested in your product.

These people become leads that either buy from you or do not buy from you.

The ones that do buy from you then become your customers.

While this is not rocket science, we are trying to establish your visitor value at this point.

Let us talk about how to determine your visitor value.

First, we want to know what your conversion rate is for generating a lead.

Do this by taking the number of people that opted into your site and dividing that by the number of unique visitors. For example... if you had 50 opt-ins and 1000 unique visitors, your conversion rate is 5%.

Next, if 10 of these leads (opt-ins) generated $10 each in sales, then you made $100... still with me.

If you made $100 and have 1000 unique visitors, then your visitor value is $.10 per visitor.

You are better off determining this value at the end of each month, as it will change month to month.

However, knowing this number is the key to your ad budget for future lead generation.

Let us move on...

If only 10 people out of the 50 leads became customers, then what do you do with the remaining 40 leads?

It is simple...

You get them to do what they have already done in an effort to boost your visitor value!

Confused? Fear not... all is explained shortly.

If you can get the lead to opt-in to another form, (which they have already been conditioned to do) and are paid on that opt-in, then guess what... you have increased your visitor value from a lead that was not going to convert into a customer.

This is the power of CPA Networks. They give you the opportunity to increase your visitor value by paying you on form submissions. An excellent way to promote a CPA offer is by simply adding it to the end of a follow-up sequence.

In this article, I showed you how the money is not in the list, but in what you do with that list... how to determine your visitor value... and how to increase your visitor value with CPA Networks. My goal is for you to determine your visitor value today, take the simple action of adding a CPA offer to the end of your emails, and enjoy the returns that come with this.

Keith Baxter is the president of http://www.ModernClick.com, the fastest growing CPA Network online. Modern Click is the perfect network to use when applying Keith's tactics.

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By George Ishee

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

When I ask most people, "how do you successfully grow your business," they often tell me, "it is by word of mouth or referrals." Yet when I ask them what system (or methodology they use) to obtain referrals, they do not have one. It is a random process at best.

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

The reason is that there are emotions involved. Most people do not feel comfortable "asking" for referrals. Here is a rule - If you do not ask for a referral, you will not get many. When asking for referrals do you ask like this, "Do you know of anyone that might like our services?", and the answer you get is usually "no not at this time, but if I do, I will be sure to tell them about you".

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

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

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

1) Send a thank you letter or email,

2) Follow up with a quick phone call,

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

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

5) Put a note on your calendar to call them in 4-5 days and ask for the referrals if you did not receive them.

6) Put it on an automated process system. Every new customer that calls you, and purchases from you, it will ask for a referral every time...Without Fail! You need to ask every new customer because:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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By Chuck Ingersoll

I know, "Resonant Congruent Differentiation" sounds like something that immediately scares your ears. Something you learned about and quickly forgot in Psych 101. However, stick with me a moment. I think you will see that it is much simpler - easily understood - and very pertinent to the way people name products, services, and businesses.

Having recently gone through some re-roofing trauma, a lawn sign promoting a contractor grabbed my attention. "Mr. Fussy Roofing" it read. I first laughed at the name because of its seeming oxymoronic message. In addition, it is a name with amusement value. Moments later I thought, "I wish I knew about that guy when I had my roof done."

'Mr. Fussy Roofing' is an almost perfect example of a differentiated product or service name that is congruent and resonates beautifully. When you are coming up with names, this is exactly what you should be striving for: resonant congruent differentiation. So let us break down what that phrase means and into intellectually chewable chunks.

Go Ahead, 'Splain Resonant Congruent Differentiation

Take it to the end first: differentiation means you are not being confused with competitors, so you stand out in a positive fashion. If all the companies that make steel are named after locations or owners, such as Bethlehem or Harris Steel, you will not achieve much differentiation if you are called Rogerson Steel. Choose StrongSteelCo and, at the least, you have demonstrated a positioning and promise in your name.

Now for the resonant congruent part. Congruent, be consistent with the qualities and values personified in the products/services you provide. If you make a high-end speaker system, naming it 'Mickey's Speakers' would not be a good call. People would think you had a "Mickey Mouse" product, and naming it after your own self, sounds low budget and small time. This name is incongruent with the image you wish to convey. This name type starts you off in the weeds, so you have to climb out to establish a quality identity.

Resonant, in a very basic sense, means the name makes the prospect or customer feel in alignment with the key message that the name of your product or service communicates. It is credibility, appropriateness, a connection with your brand.

'Mr. Fussy Roofing': Our Branding Hero

Let us use 'Mr. Fussy Roofing' as our example. For right or wrong, roofing contractors do not always, have the greatest reputations. People are suspicious of getting ripped off or of shoddy work. (A neighbor had a new roof put on. It drained improperly so water went between the siding and the underlayment. This was, as my daughter says, UNgood.) Many roofing contractors are small businesses and do not put a lot of thought into their naming and branding. (Exhibit #1: A local contractor named DBA Roofing.) Many other MALE business owners would find 'Mr. Fussy' to be too cute or feminine a name, and would instantly rule it out.

However, our Mr. Fussy did not. He went outside his comfort zone, possibly, to create a name that resonated congruently with me, his typical audience, and achieved positive differentiation. What do I take away from 'Mr. Fussy Roofing'? He cares, he is different from most, he features attention to detail, he will likely do an excellent job, and he does roofing. All from three words!

Contrast this with 'DBA Roofing'. I know they do roofing, and perhaps could not even think of a name. I do not know anything more about what they stand for, what their vision is, or how they do business. Just two words - Mr. Fussy - tell me so much more. Mr. Fussy differentiated his business. I get it and like what he promises, so it resonates with me. The idea of a roofer being fussy is very congruent and highly desirable to me.

So Why Don't More Companies Create Resonant Congruent Differentiated Names?
There are many reasons: ego, ability to be objective about every company except your own, stubbornness, caution, corporate culture, a desire to take a safe middle road, and on and on. This desire to 'play it safe', not take a chance, applies as often to big corporations as it does in small businesses.

Many people may think that 'Geek Squad' is a great name. It's more fun, evocative and compelling than 'Your Computer Experts' or some other safe vanilla choice. Yet when it comes to their own name, people get scared and go down a safe path. I recently named a coffee shop "Thanks a Latte." Would you rather go there for that experience or to 'Dunkin' Donuts' or 'Herb's Coffee Shop'?

Obviously, you have to take your audience into account. 'Thanks a Latte' is aiming for a Starbucks-type of crowd: more upscale, willing to pay a bit more for quality. Yet, in many cases, a striking, effectively clever, or even surprising name will take you so much further, especially if your marketing budget is limited. (Hey, isn't everyone's?)

Unless you are one of those cavemen from the Geico commercials, you know that a geek is a computer nerd. A geek squad is a whole mess of 'em. Chances are you will find 25 PC repair guys in your Yellow Pages called 'Something Computer Repair'. You'll only find one 'Geek Squad'. Let's say you see three commercials. One for 'Phil's Computer Shack', another for 'Waterville Computer Repair', and the third for 'Geek Squad'. Which are you going to remember? And who YOU gonna' call?

This brings up another key attribute of memorable, powerful names: attitude. 'Geek Squad', 'Thanks a Latte', 'Brains on Fire' (a naming firm), 'Mr. Fussy'... they all bring a distinctive point of view to the name. A name you can connect with almost viscerally. Consider Mr. Fussy one more time. Who has more of a persona in two words: 'Mr. Fussy' or 'Bob's Roofing'? Who conveys more depth of appropriate and convincing meaning in two words? While finding a name that fits is important, creating one that voices a point of view, that you and your business believe in, will go a long way toward developing true differentiation and memorability. You can say this attitude will give you greater resonance with proper congruence, if you do it right.

Do You Want to Describe What You Do, Or Be Memorable?

If you're going to name your company and have, it stand out from the competition, choosing a functional name like 'PhotoCopy Hut' isn't really going to dazzle anyone. 'PhotoCopy Hut' doesn't go any further than simply being functional on a very basic level, but we've seen worse. Ever notice a truck go by you on the expressway that says something like "Kordis." They may even have a tag line, such as "Bringing the World to You." You wonder, what do they do? Are they importers? Are they a global delivery service? Do they manufacture desktop globes? They have this incredible opportunity to create thousands of impressions a day with consumers and they cannot even be bothered to say what they do. This is truly a waste of a great moving billboard.

Big companies are fond of neologisms, (concocted words or terms), such as Claris or Pentium. They get away with it because they have huge budgets. I think you know there's Intel inside by now. Yet have you ever heard of Comergent? And if you did, would you remember it?

There are other types of names: acronyms, evocative, descriptive, alphanumerical, and aspirational and on and on. That's the topic for a future article.

Yes, your name and brand identity need to be more than resonant, congruent, and differentiated. Other essential aspects of your brand include being authentic, connected, able to be lived every day, attention to every detail of customer contact, and so on. But an excellent starting point is the resonant/congruent/differentiated test. Think about those ideas in relation to your name or brand.

If you would like some fresh thinking and branding, naming, tag line, or positioning assistance, please get in touch. 585.746.2320 or e-mail chucketal@aol.com. ChuckIngersoll.com

About the Author
Chuck Ingersoll is a freelance namer, brander and copywriter. He brings over 20 years advertising agency experience to the process, and specializes in creating names, positionings and taglines that are not only clever, but effective. (Otherwise it's just empty creativity.) For 10 years he operated his own advertising agency in Rochester, NY, Ingersoll et al, serving major clients Kodak, Xerox and Bausch & Lomb. As a writer, creative director, and vice president at other ad agencies, his experience covers most industries and every type of marketing communications writing from ads to Web sites.

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By Michael A. Jones

When it comes to your online email marketing promotions, think out your signature file. It is an important feature of your message not an afterthought. It tells people about YOU, or specifically, it tells what your business is about.

The signature file is a little like a P.S. at the end of a message. It nearly always gets attention.

Here are 10 guidelines for creating a signature file that looks professional and gets clicks:

1. Make it brief, no more than about 6 lines, and make it concise. Put briefly, what you and your business are all about along with the URL, of course.

2. Use a single --- or double === divider across the top and/or across the bottom of the signature.

3. Adjust the signature file for the audience you are reaching. Newsgroups or mailing lists, adopt a soft-sell approach so as not to cause irritation. For an autoresponder message, a hard sell signature file may be acceptable.

4. Include your email address and the URL of your home page.

5. Don't go above eight lines including the divider(s).

6. Format to 60 characters so the line endings will appear neat in your recipient's browser.

7. Left justify the text.

8. Proofread it. That is worth repeating - Proofread it!

9. Cut and paste the URL into a browser and make sure it works! How frustrating to stumble on the fact that after you have sent hundreds of emails or you have been using the signature file for some weeks, the link does not work because of a typo or other error in the URL. Test it!

10. Send an email to yourself with the signature file and check the overall appearance and impression. Is it clean and professional?

In conclusion: Labor hard and long on the wording of your signature until it is just right. Sum up your main selling proposition and construct it into a slogan.

Michael A. Jones is a writer and webmaster with over 10 years experience. Punctuation marks used discreetly and correctly can really add power to your emails. Check Michael's punctuation guide here for ideas:
http://www.about-goal-setting.com/punctuation-guide.html

To utilize a highly successful advertising medium at an unbelievably low cost visit this page:
http://www.vitalstop.com/Marketing/post-free-classified-ads.html

See how to choose the right autoresponder and at the same time get a free 7-part email tutorial:
http://www.vitalstop.com/Business/autoresponders.html

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Submitted by Jeff Marsh

Advertising, marketing, website design and hosting all take a toll on your business' budget. An important part of all these aspects is your business' logo design. Do not worry, because the options available to you will help reduce the financial strain on your budget.

You can find free business logo design in a variety of areas. Many logo design companies will design your business logo free, if you purchase other products from them. Some logo design businesses will provide the free logo design with website design, stationary design, and web hosting. For example, you purchase your website design and hosting through them and they will propose a free business logo design for you. The price you pay for the website design and hosting depends on your needs in those areas, but you are able to lump your free business logo design in the package, as well, for no additional cost.

Many logo design businesses will also provide you with discounts on products if you purchase your stationary and envelope design through them. You may not receive a free logo design but you will be able to save a little money on other business necessities. You may also find packages that offer other free services if you purchase your logo design from them. For example, some graphic design businesses will provide you with stationary and envelope design, a black and white logo design and your logo design in a variety of useful file formats. You may not be receiving a free business logo design, but the other services are free or included in the price of the business logo design.

There are many options available to businesses that will help relieve the stress on the budget. Combining product packaging that your business needs will help you save both time and money. You will be able to find various graphic design packages that include free business logo design with the purchase of other services. Remember that you get what you pay for in the graphic design industry. Before you commit to any package in particular you should research the portfolio and pricing of the graphic designer.

Jeff Marsh is a lead designer with Logo. For a logo or computer logo, design samples for your company contact Logo Design Works on 614 917 2177.

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By John C Vincent

Once you have performed all the necessary steps to acquire an Opt-in Subscriber through proper Opt-in Email Marketing, i.e., created a Squeeze Page with your Opt-in form attached, you will find that after a follow-up email campaign to your list, a percentage of these folks will take the opportunity to join your affiliate program.

If your program has a 15 or 30-day free trial listen up.

I received this email from an individual who had joined my team:

Hi John,

I have a couple of questions for you from my downline.

1. What type of letter do you send to your new trial members?

2. How do we convert the 30-day free trial people into paid members?

I was sending just a short personal email but was wondering if you had an outline of something we could use. The second question is more important as we have one person who has signed up about five free members and we are wondering how to help convert them. Thanks for your help, John :-)

Warm regards,

Hi__________,

LOL ...I have tried every welcome message I could ever think of and I have come to these conclusions. In my opinion, three types of marketers join affiliate programs:

Type1- The "OK ... We'll See" Referral"

This person joins every program and then...DOES NOTHING. Then, he or she (mostly males) never answers your initial welcome email. In addition, because they do nothing, they get nothing in return. And the weird thing...they wonder why the program didn't work...Go Figure :-)

Type2- The "I'm So Excited" Referral"

This person joins and is so over-excited and enthused that you become excited as well but Watch Out For This Person. This individual comes in two categories...the newbie...and the person who moves from program to program, (similar to number 1 above BUT with enthusiasm). Then after two - three weeks have passed and they have not made a mi!ion bucks and it takes a little effort ... they drop out.

Type3- The "Let's Do This!!!" Referral"

This is YOU in other words, someone who is like YOU ...mature and a serious marketer and someone who knows that you have to build in order to make money. Someone who will Do Whatever It Takes to Succeed. This is the individual who WILL Make A Full Time Living from the internet. In addition, it is this type of referral you want to fill your team with.

REALITY
You will get a lot of 1s and 2s and the gems, the number 3s, will come. Type 3s will make you rich. In addition, ________...you are really lucky...your team is being filled with Type 3s...your duplicates. That does not happen often...it did not happen for me at first...and then I started getting less of the 1s and 2s and more of the number 3s and the rest...as they say...Is History.

So the answer to your question: :-)

It does not matter what you send as a welcome message as long as it is warm, friendly and offers assistance.

In addition, to your second question:

You Convert a 30-day trial member by teaching, educating, and The Giving Of Yourself.

Think of the things I have done for you and all who join my Team. My instant responses, my guidance, my tips, tricks, and strategy...I hide nothing from you and there is more to come :-).

But let me ask you: Would you have taken me seriously in my welcome message to you...if I hadn't offered to help you Fr ee Of Charge, with NO CATCHES, No Strings Attached Initially...I was Sincere in wanting to help YOU...and you felt this sincerity and your referrals must feel this from you as well.

The REAL Secret To Internet Success:

Giving NOT Taking...Educating NOT trying to make a deal...Recommending
NOT Selling.

You might try to Sell to a Stranger but you should always Recommend to a Friend.
(yeah I created that phrase and you can steal it, lol).

To Give Of Yourself...Unselfishly! This is how you convert the 30-day free trials. You may not get all of them, but you will get a higher percentage with this very unselfish strategy than without it.

Opt-in Email Marketing and the elements incorporated in this procedure makes it a "Sweet Science" (sorry boxing enthusiasts :-) that ALL Internet Marketers should learn at the very beginning of their marketing career, that is... if they truly wish to Succeed ...

______________________________________

John C. Vincent runs The Opt In Marketing System Web-site, which provides Free Downloads, easy-to-follow free guidelines on how to build a massive Opt-in list that will continuously make you money online. Content Rich.

http://OptinMarketing.net
http://Opt-in-Magic.blogspot.com/
http://Opt-In-Wizard.com/

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By Brad Johnson

The hardest part nowadays is that someone who is in the field of Internet Marketing really struggles to devise 'the perfect website', to attract 'the perfect customers', and develop the 'perfect product'. You do this in order to construct 'the perfect amount of exposure', develop a list, put together 'the perfect email,; and hit the send button. Now watch the magic happen as your account populates with income. It is a wonderful dream, is it not? If only it were a possibility for every Internet Marketer, newbie, or veteran to get the attention needed...Well now you can.

PC-Tutorials.com is a new online resource website designed specifically for the Internet Marketer. Through the site, anyone can submit their promotional product, watch free video tutorials, and look at a collection of articles pertaining to the one thing they want to know more about: Internet Marketing.

Those who are just starting to cut their teeth into the business of Internet Marketing will be impressed to see the help this website generates for them: It gives them exposure to their own website, products, and articles for absolutely no cost.

Even the veterans who have been in the game a long time have a chance to increase their exposure even further as PC-Tutorials.com reaches out to a targeted audience that are visiting that very site to see their products, to view their articles, to interact with the pros. PC-Tutorials.com is literally a haven for the Internet Marketer.

At last, there is no more time wasted or money spent on anyone trying to get his or her site or product noticed. It can all be merged into a site solely created to helping others get the sales, get the leads, and get the results to the offer they want to share with the world.

It is not about membership, fees, or commitments. PC-Tutorials.com is a come as you go environment that welcomes you while your there and encourages you to explore. So if you're an Internet Marketer and want that extra kick to getting some income flowing in your bank account, or you just want to find an online resource to help get you noticed, look no further as PC-Tutorials.com is created solely for YOU.

Brad Johnson is the founder of PC-Tutorials.com and has over five years experience as an Internet Marketer and Information Technology specialist. See the unveiling of this new Internet Marketing Information Technology website at http://www.pc-tutorials.com.

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By John Dow

In the past few months, I decided to re-dedicate myself to increasing my SEO on several of my web sites. Most have been around quite some time and have good page rankings, but have slipped in position on many of my most effective keywords.

Like many, I have Google Adwords campaigns running that produce sales. It's been easy to ignore my basic Search Engine Optimization and keyword positions. Moreover, Google has been up to its favorite pastime of making changes to its ranking algorithms, which has had an impact. In addition, right now Google is the big dog so you have little choice but to listen to the music.

If you have the basics covered (good content, relevant keywords, H1 tags, etc.), that will take you so far. However, in the last few Google updates, the linking (quality of links, not necessarily quantity) has become the dominant factor. Do links increase the value of the site to the searcher? I'm not going there, its Google's playground, so you have to abide by their rules.

Web site promotion is an ongoing battle, especially with the search engines. Web site search engine traffic has a habit of ebbing and weaving due to natural cycles. In fact, the Internet cycles are starting to look more like retail cycles every year. Throw in the different algorithms that each of the big three use and it becomes quite a challenge.

Besides paid advertising, search engine traffic is the only other good source of targeted visitors, and hopefully buyers. Therefore, although I do not depend on search engine traffic, it is still a big source of daily traffic and provides potential buyers. So doing your basic SEO chores is not very exciting but is definitely necessary.

SEO is also a moving, constantly changing target. In addition, thanks to Google's Adsense program, there are 1,000s, if not 100 times that, new web sites created every day. New web sites are as rain drops during a cloudburst.

For those of you who have never heard of it, Adsense refers to publishing Google's AdWords client advertisements on a web site. When someone clicks on one of the displayed ads, the web site owner is paid a fee or commission. Now that sounds easy to do, but there is the small item of getting traffic to click the ads, and hence, all the new competition for traffic.

Just the other day, I was doing some research on one of my keywords for a website that had fallen on hard times in rankings. In the area above the search results on Google, a blue line shows info on how many results came up out of how many possible results. I keep good records and the last time I did some checking that figure was a possible 5,344,882 web sites that have my keywords.

Now 5 million is a lot, but now the info showed 61 million possible web site results. Whoa, no wonder my position has changed. I now have 12 times the number of competitors. I have records back to 2003 on this web site so I went back and I looked, and in 2003, I had a mere 950,000. Therefore, in three years it went from 950,000 to over 61 million.

Holy Cow Batman, that's incredible. However, I have a feeling that is just the beginning. The competition is going to continue to grow. In addition, this is not a major product area; this is a sub niche web site. Thank you Google Adsense. I have to believe that many of these web sites are Adsense oriented without even looking.

Ok, it's time to do some serious resuscitation on this poor downtrodden web site. The fastest way I know to breathe some new life (or initially launch a new web site) is content and links. I've already done the basic on page optimization so more content, and off page, linking is my best bet. Content will be easy, I have a ton of new stuff I can add from multiple sources.

I can write some new articles and post them on some popular article sites too. I could also do some new interviews with industry experts but my niche is limited, so that my not apply to this web site. Google likes both of those methods and neither will take too much time. I can also do some new links (the text on the link is important too - use keywords in the actual link) on my other related sites.

Now links outside of my other sites are going to be an issue. Links always seem to be a problem. Your web site link partners should have both a good page ranking and very relevant content. Then you also have to have something of value to the web site that will be linking to you.

You can join one of the link web sites, although I usually don't since there is an outside chance of trouble. Alternatively, you can do the Google search on your keywords and email to like web sites. My web site has a good page rank so I should be able to pick up a few that way.

I can also buy some links on some directory sites. There are some good ones at reasonable prices. Look for a good interior ranking (on the category page you will be putting your link). The going rate is anywhere from $10 to $50 per year.

In addition, always keep in mind it is the quality of links, not quantity. They need to be PR4/5 and above with matching content. I figure 10 new outside links, and maybe another 10 pages of new content each month for the next 90 days will help my rankings quite a bit.

Therefore, you really should keep an eye on your organic search engine listings. In addition, even though you may not depend on it for all your traffic, it should be a part of your ongoing web site promotion plan. Just getting 10 new links and 10 new pages of viable content a month can have a big impact.

SEO involves a lot more than just content and links but that is a good starting point. In addition, both these are very easy to do for anyone. There are more sophisticated SEO tactics, which I'll cover in another article soon.

John Dow owns http://www.WebSiteBluePrints.com, a website that specializes in web site tools and marketing. Check out a great software tool by clicking here Web Site Blue Prints.

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By Bobette Kye

Marketing online is a critical part of any marketing plan. Here are seven Internet-based marketing ideas you can integrate into your 2007 marketing plan:

Volunteer for Internet Interviews

Podcasts, Webcasts, blogs, RSS feeds and newsletters (ezines) are all venues for online interviews or discussions. You will want to approach publishers who regularly conduct interviews with guests of your caliber, so finding opportunities will take some research. Do this by searching general search engines (such as google.com) or directories. Some directories to get you started: podcast.net (podcasts), ezinehub.com (ezines), syndic8.com (RSS feeds/blogs)

Approach Bloggers Interested in Your Type of Product

Send your product to bloggers as a gift. You are doing this to expose your product to influencers in your category by giving them an opportunity to try it free (not to bribe or beg them to mention the product). If the bloggers like it, they may give it a mention in their blogs. Note that this is a subtle Internet marketing technique. Choosing to mention (or not mention) your product should be solely up to them.

You can find and read blogs by searching blogging directories such as technorati.com.

Join One or More Online Networks

Online social networks allow you to set up a profile page and interact with others who have your same professional (or personal) interests. Each network has different features and may appeal to a different kind of user. As with all Internet marketing techniques, there are dos and don'ts, so you will want to read some of the profiles and learn a particular site's rules before aggressively working the network. Some networks to explore: linkedin.com, ryze.com, myspace.com, orkut.com, friendster.com

Send Out One or More Press Releases

First, the release must be something newsworthy to the media (if you need ideas, read the article here: http://www.websitemarketingplan.com/pr/NewsAngle.htm). Also, be sure to include a link to your Website or blog in the press release. Finally, distribute the release through an online press release service such as PRWeb.com.

Survey Your Website Visitors

Surveys can help you identify opportunities for improvement. Since online attention spans are very short, try asking a single two-part question such as Fred Reichhold's Ultimate Question: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend __________." Fill in the blank with your Website name (or other relevant product). To those who reply with a six or lower, ask why they are not more likely to recommend. You should see a pattern in the comments. These will lead to ways of improving your site. There are software packages to help you set up an online survey. In addition, surveymonkey.com is a popular Web interface for producing online surveys.

Convey Patrick Hanlon's 7 Primal Branding Pieces Online

According to Hanlon, the seven "Primal Branding" pieces -- a creation story, creed, icons, rituals, sacred words, nonbelievers, and leaders -- form belief systems that inherently attract people who want to believe in a product. Those people form the communities that surround successful products and services. Conveying as many of these as you can online can help build followers online.

Study Your 5 Closest Competitors' Websites and Online Marketing Activities

By studying the competition, you will not only gain a better understanding of trends in your industry, but also gain new insights into promotional strategies for your own business. As you research, brainstorm a list of ideas and use that list to plan a new online strategy or technique for your own business.

There you have it -- seven ideas for improving your Internet marketing presence. Integrate one or more into your 2007 marketing plan and you will be on your way to greater success.

Bobette Kyle draws upon 15+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, online marketing experience, and marketing MBA as inspiration for her writing. Bobette is proprietor at Web Marketing Place LLC and runs http://WebSiteMarketingPlan.com -- http://www.WebSiteMarketingPlan.com -- where you will find free marketing planning articles and resources. She is also author of the marketing plan and Web promotion book "How Much for Just the Spider? Strategic Website Marketing For Small Budget Business."

Copyright 2006 Bobette Kyle. All rights reserved. Reprints must have URL in "About the Author" box hyperlinked and clickable.

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By Paul Grant

In a rapidly changing technological landscape, some high profile brands are facing the challenging decision to embrace 'viral' marketing campaigns. As there can be no assurances with each viral project, executives do not have the 'usual' facts and figures to make a well-informed and substantiated decision.

By its very nature, a viral project is unlike anything that has been done before.

This means there is no formula, no statistics, nor guarantees. Results can only be proven retrospectively. It can be too late for those results to have any extra meaning than the knowledge that viral marketing works in principle. The most successful new media viral campaigns would not be able to generate the same results if replicated by another company wanting to emulate that same success.

Viral marketing is a high risk, high gain means of marketing. It is changing all the time. There are no experts who can accurately predict how the marketplace will respond. Fortunately, the cost is not measured in financial terms, but only in the way, the public perceives the brand. Get it right and a brand can suddenly become very prominent in secondary media articles and traditional media. Get it wrong and it affects the brand's reputation negatively. Sometimes this secondary (and free) publicity ends up impacting the campaign more than the viral content itself.

Large, slower moving corporations are being startled into responding to these changes. Smaller and more progressive companies are challenging the old stalwarts of business by using whatever viral means necessary to establish greater market share.

Often the biggest, most well respected brands are unfamiliar to this radical and non-traditional approach to marketing. It took many years to establish an expensive, rigorously consistent, and highly polished corporate identity. Their company identity may have evolved over several decades. For such a company to consider the idea of diluting the brand into something generic, cheap, gossipy, comic, populist, or otherwise remarkable to the masses; raises red flags and executive concerns. These executives naturally fear losing the 'consistency' of their on-brand message, or the particular 'look and feel' of the brand, as predetermined in their own internal corporate style guides.

Those corporations taking risks in the way they present their brand by embracing this viral trend are already observing great benefits, with lower costs and higher response rates from their target market. They are perceived by their target demographic as 'cool', 'hip', 'cutting edge', and 'in touch' with a changing world.

Consider Nike(tm), Adidas(tm), and Pepsi(tm). All three brands have used viral marketing as a mainstay of their digital FIFA World Cup 06 football campaigns.

The power of viral marketing is people willingly pass it on for free. It means there are no manufacturing, packaging, licensing, or distribution costs. The total cost of ownership includes only the cost involved in creating the initial idea and the actual content.

How viral marketing works

In all instances, an initial 'viral' concept must be developed and published either to a website, in an email, as a mobile phone message, or through some new or emerging distribution channel.

Some of the most effective viral content is quite poor in production quality, often quite controversial, offensive to some; but if successful, will be high in public appeal. This can be an obstacle for some executives who build their brand to maintain the highest production and moral standards in all printed and televised materials.

Occasionally the more professional or polished something looks; the less likely the end-user will be to consider the source credibly worth passing on. In some cases, the corporation funding or initiating the viral content will actually distance themselves from the content. They will claim to have no knowledge of how it came to be, nor did they have anything to do with its creation. This is all a public relations angle to improve the chances of the mass market accepting the content as non-intrusive.

People know, only too well, how annoying it is to receive materials that are not directly known beforehand to be of value to the recipient.

If, on the other hand, the recipient or user is actually stimulated to respond emotionally to a piece of viral marketing; i.e. anger, disgust, joy, sadness, laughter etc., they will likely want their circle of friends to experience the same thing. It is the 'much-targeted' nature of a 'circle of friends' that makes viral marketing so effective. The old anonymous saying has some merit in this context...

'Birds of a feather flock together.'

If a company or brand can make a solid impression on any single individual within a selected group, that person will likely share about it with their 'flock', knowing it will also be of interest to them.

A viral campaign could end up affecting several million highly targeted consumers, which to achieve using traditional media would potentially cost as many Dollars, Pounds, or Euros, as the amount of consumers reached. Generating a return on investment using traditional media has a greatly reduced profit margin in comparison to the miniscule investment involved in initially creating a piece of viral marketing.

The importance of embracing viral marketing

Increasing bandwidth is now making possible, for the first times, such things as video on demand, live video, IPTV, and other formats of rich media interactivity. Those companies harnessing these trends in a creative and viral way are finding themselves to be moving ahead of competitors who previously held the greatest market share by spending large sums of money in the traditional media.

The success of a viral marketing campaign can only really be measured in terms of how many people visit or view a viral site, or how many times an email has been read and so on. In some cases, it may also be possible to measure click-through conversion via a call to action, although this level of transparency can often also become an obstacle to the tool becoming viral in an epidemic way.

Currently, there is very little hard statistics that demonstrates conclusively that viral marketing makes a difference to the bottom line. There is no doubt that this type of content is being seen by millions of people. Much like television advertising, it is not always clear whether people are buying product because of the advert or in response to a variety of brand promotions across multiple platforms.

Those large corporations struggling to resolve whether to embrace the idea of viral marketing now have the advantage. They can learn from some of the world's largest and best-known brands. As these brands have been forced to change their understanding of marketing on a day-by-day basis, so too will all companies wanting to compete in tomorrow's world. In the coming years, many more companies with traditional established brands will need to concede; the concepts of marketing are changing right now and very quickly at that.

By apparently diluting their brand in order to create generic viral content, these companies can in fact capture the interest of the next generation of media users, thereby building a massive community of loyal customers that not only buy but also recommend their products and services.

Paul Grant is a convergence evangelist and digital media strategist, having spent eleven years managing and implementing rich media projects. He is now a partner of London-based consultancy Interactive Strategy Ltd (http://www.interactivestrategy.tv).

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By Leah Lee

In many cases, business owners can come up with several traditional ways to improve their bottom line. Some may cut expenses, relocate for cheaper lease options, or even cut back on employees. With many corporate budgets being so tight, consider corporate gifts. How can this expense improve the budget? How can you justify spending money on gifts when it is not necessary? In this article, we will find sure-fire answers to these questions and analyze the facts and benefits behind corporate gifting.

We all know that a business thank you gift is no scientific evolution. Corporate gift giving is a payment, which benefits potential clients, partners, employees, employers, and associates. So far, the benefit does not seem to be for the business owner. In this case, why should corporate gifting be of any value? Well, here some good reasons to chew on:

• To keep employees.

Employees are expensive. Recruiting employees is expensive because you have to spend money on advertising and/or agencies to find the employees and test them for employability skills, personality compatibility, drugs, and criminal background. Training employees costs even more money. A valuable employee knows how things work, because of the years with the company. Finally, employee turnover is bad for morale and occasionally brings with it nasty law suits, not to mention all of the problems caused by understaffing. Therefore, it makes sense to invest a little money in corporate gifting. Go ahead; get your exemplary assistant a fancy leather business card holder or even a nice gift the whole family would enjoy, like a picnic basket. Rest assured, these noble alms will make your employees feel like you have gone out of your way for them and you appreciate them.

• To keep clients.

Finding good clients can be just as expensive as finding good employees. Once again, you often have to revert to extra advertising and/or networking. You may have to go through several new clients to find one, as good as, the one you have lost. Then you have to spend time educating them and breaking them in, or getting used to their policies. In the mean time, your business is less stable, and that can cause all sorts of problems. Losing a client is also bad because they may take their friends with them. Therefore, when you lose one client, you lose a lot. Keep your good clients by treating them well, doing good business, and giving them that grand slam corporate gift basket, or even, company engraved business gifts. It only makes sense.

• For good public relations.

If you are nice to people, they will spread the word, and it will give your company a good image.

• Just to make people feel good.

Some people believe there is no room for altruism in business. That is a shame. When they start to put money first and people second, it withers their souls. They would do best to remember what is important.

The making of business gifts have been standard practice in all sectors of business and helps to build and establish lasting relationships for development. When a company has invested in implementing and maintaining a corporate incentive program, it benefits everyone. Employees generally feel appreciated, which in turn increases moral, clients feel important, and you plant a seed of good will. If you are generous in business, generosity will come back to you. Now, take all these factors and add them up. With long term employees, clients that will return to you for services, and the public who will spread the word of good cheer for your enterprise, it all adds up to a black bottom line.

Leah Lee is editor for Corporate Snobs.com. For more unique business gift ideas, visit us today!

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By Tracy Yates

Do you use private label rights products in your online business? If you do not, or have been on the fence for a while, this article will help you hop off the fence and finally get started integrating private label rights into your business.

Before you can fully comprehend the importance of what private label rights products bring to the profiting table, you need to have a clearer understanding of what they are.

A product that offers private label rights is one that places total controls into your hands from the word GO! With them, you can claim authorship of the product, place an abundant amount of affiliate links within them for easy back-end profiting, break them apart, and create smaller portioned products such as electronic courses, bite size ebooks, or even articles. Beyond that, you can also combine them together and make an entire product.

Essentially, you are in control of the product, its presentation, and retain all the credit for it. In addition, you also collect all the profits from selling your new creation. In addition, you get to do this without all the headache of making the product from "scratch". You make a few adjustments to it, and away you go.

In contrast, having a product with resale rights, no matter the status of those rights, simply does not give you the creative freedom that private label rights does. With a resale rights product, of course, you can resell the product, but you cannot make any changes to the bulk of it, except a few select places for your affiliate links or name, as an authorized reseller.

However, with private label rights products, you are free to explore every aspect of change within that product and put your own unique look and feel to it without restriction. Therefore, building your own collection of resalable products you can claim as your own creations is a far more easily established goal.

Beyond that, you could use them to generate almost "instant" content in the form of articles within your business web site, freely available for your site visitors to read, to which you could easily place Adsense codes for multiple profit streams. The possibilities are virtually endless due to the freedom that private label rights provide you.

While some may argue the ease of using private label products, the truth of it is still there. This is as plain as day for you to see. Many people will try and "down play" the importance of what private label rights can honestly provide to your online business by making the process of using them overly complicated. This is simply a "scare" tactic to lower their own competition within their market.

Private label rights are an excellent way to create your own specialty line of products. If you are brave enough to seek them out and put them to work for you, using them will expand your profits, bottom line.

Consider adding them to your online business arsenal.

Tracy Yates is an established Internet Marketer with over 4 popular web sites and more than 25 infoproducts to her credit. Visit her private site here: http://www.tracyyates.com to discover more about her. Her current endeavor is taking the private label rights industry by storm and causing a HOT FUSS. . . All to benefit YOU!

Find out more at http://www.originalprivatelabelproducts.com

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By Scott White

Brand Identity is a promise, one given from business to customer to expect certain things. Whether that promise involves product quality, service, price, or a million other things; it varies from brand to brand. However, the one thing common among all brands is the need to be a strong brand.

Why is brand identity so critical?

A strong brand identity can position a company above its competition all by itself. However, acquiring a brand that strong takes time, money, and effort to develop. It is not as simple as just redesigning a logo or rewriting a tagline. Brand identity is the reason your customers choose you instead of your competition.

How to rework your brand identity.

Successful re-branding involves "evolution," not "revolution." You must impress upon your existing customers that your new brand is just a new and improved version of the same you. It is important not to get crazy with a re-branding effort because you could end up destroying fragile emotional ties and customer loyalty.

Brand identity is much more than marketing.

Having a brand identity that resonates with your market is important, but not at the expense of the people within your company. They need to get it, and be your brand's most fervent ambassadors. Do your employees believe in your company? Do they feel like they have a vested stake in its success? Companies with solid brand identities can say yes to these questions. Can yours? If not, here are some things you can do:

Get every aspect of your company on the same page: Easier said than done, right? Well, that does not mean it is not necessary. Get all your departments talking to each other and understanding each other.

# Promote everyone to the position of brand ambassador: Give everyone a common understanding of the company, its mission, and their part in it. They should feel like they have ownership-even if they do not.

# Reinforce brand values and behaviors: To do this, use the tools you have, such as internal communications...and like a good basketball coach, consistently promote these fundamentals until they are second nature.

Your employees will ultimately determine your success or failure. That is why it is so important to have them buy into your company's brand identity. However, that is not something that you can force. You, as leadership, must earn it. However, once you do, you will have a company that is full of happy, motivated, successful brand ambassadors.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru, a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA. Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

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By Marcia Yudkin

A few months ago, I turned down a naming assignment from a company seeking a business name that would correlate with a domain and a toll-free number, both currently available. Impossible, I thought. Nope, not impossible if you know how to go about it, says Bill Quimby of TollFreeNumbers.com.

The key is to find the vanity phone number first, Quimby says. Many available toll-free numbers spell out something related to your business; more than you would imagine. For instance, when he ran a search for toll-free numbers related to naming, he came up with 888-DR-NAMING (which I immediately reserved), 866-NOW-NAME, 877-PRO-NAMING, 888-WEB-NAMING, 877-TOP-NAMING and hundreds of other options.

Once you find a toll-free vanity number, the next step is to make sure the corresponding domain name is available for registration. 888DRNAMING.com was available, and I reserved that as well for future use. Then I was set for a radio publicity campaign, a national advertising campaign, or just rebranding.

Some points to keep in mind if this sort of naming strategy excites you:

* Although North American phones show letters on the keypad, telephones elsewhere in the world may not. Likewise, toll-free numbers in North America cannot be dialed from other continents. If you have a global business, branding only through a toll-free number that works only in one part of the world may not be a smart idea. However, it can still be a good way to attract North American customers, since you can forward the toll-free number for just pennies a minute almost anywhere else in the world.

* The cost of getting calls through a toll-free number can be as low as 2.85 cents a minute, with no monthly fee or monthly minimum charge. Aside from the one-time cost of getting a vanity toll-free number, it does not cost any more on an ongoing basis than a toll-free number that does not spell anything.

* Although numeric numbers are easier to dial, vanity numbers spelling out words get more calls than numbers comprised of random numbers. In a study done by Bellcore, print ads that had an 800 toll-free number attracted six times as many calls as regular, non-toll-free numbers. In addition, contrary to what you might expect, this held true regardless of the socio-economic status of the caller.

* Older telephones do not show the "Q" (which correlates with 7) or the "Z" (which correlates with 9), but most recent models do. Note also that you will get more misdials if your vanity words include the letter "O," which can be mistaken for the zero key.

* The more you advertise on billboards, trucks, radio or TV; it is important to have a number that spells something. If you are a small company, a vanity number makes you seem bigger and more established. When Bill Quimby tells people to call him at 1-800-MARKETER, few would guess he works from his home. A toll-free number also emphasizes that the company wants to hear from customers.

* Whereas so many great domain names are already taken, many more of the 800YourName.com types of domain names are still available.

Marcia Yudkin is "Head Stork" of the naming company Named At Last, which brainstorms new company names, new product names, tag lines and more for cost-conscious organizations, at http://www.NamedAtLast.com . Download a free ebook on obtaining vanity toll-free numbers at http://www.namedatlast.com/naming6.htm.

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By Verena

There is no disagreement that effective branding through 'use of a name, term, symbol or design, or a combination of these', (Quester et al, 2001), can create brand awareness and recognition in the quickest manner. Companies use different kinds of 'Brand Name', that is: a word, letter or a group of words such as AOL, Intel Pentium III, etc., to project their companies. Sometimes, such words, symbols or marks are legally registered and copy righted to a single company known as trademarks (for product oriented companies), and service marks (for service offering companies), (Perreault & McCarthy, 2000).

However, in any form, use branding to create brand familiarity among consumers in terms of brand recognition and brand preference, (Papers4you.com, 2006). The advantage of using branding effectively is for consumers and marketers. For instance, it becomes easy for a customer to choose preferred brand among 1000s of other items just because of famous well-recognized symbol, word, or trademark that cannot be possible without effective branding, (Quester et al, 2001). For example, imagine you are driving down the road with hunger. Suddenly you see a symbol 'M' on a signboard with red background and yellow font. It is not difficult to realize that McDonalds is waiting for you, easily manifest effective projection of McDonalds' through brand symbol 'M'. Similarly imagine buying a computer accessory from among thousands of unknown brands, suddenly you observe 'Intel (r)' sign. A quick reminder prompts recognition of this symbol. It is a well-known brand symbol common everywhere in media and at your own computer.

Keep these examples in mind. It is obvious that marketers can cash in such advantages as well, (Papers4you.com, 2006). One way to use word and symbols is while launching new products under same brand names, (Quester et al, 2001). Every one is aware of 'Coca Cola (tm)'; any new soft drink introduced under this brand name has a high probable chance to achieve awareness and attention of coca cola lovers. Similarly, no matter if 'IBM' entered into so many IT related services, it initially became famous for IBM computers. Whenever you observe its trade mark of 'IBM' written in horizontal lines, the consumer is not bothered about checking the background of the company. As a result, it also saves huge promotion costs that a company with less famous brand names and symbols needs to incur.

To conclude discussion, see the outcome of effective branding in terms of 'brand equity', that is the value of a brand in terms of its perceived brand awareness, recognition, loyalty, and associations from customers. To give the advantage of effective branding, the brand equity of the Coca Cola brand is valued at $ 43 Billion, IBM brand at $ 18 billion, and Kodak's at $ 12 billion, (Kotler & Armstrong, 1999).

References

Kotler, P & Armstrong, G, (1999), 'Principles of Marketing', Eight Edition, New Jersey: Prentice- Hall Inc

Quester, P, G, McGuiggan, R, L, McCarthy, E, J & Perreault, W, D (2001), Basic Marketing- A Managerial Perspective', Australia: McGraw Hill Book Company Australia Pty Limited

Papers For You (2006) "P/M/457. What is successful branding?" Available from http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/sprtmrk31.htm [19/06/2006]

Papers For You (2006) "P/M/270. A consistent brand identity can only exist because of a well-planned advertising strategy, which has clearly stated communication effects and one, which considers exposure to appropriate target audiences and positioning strategies. Discuss", Available from Papers4you.com [19/06/2006]

Perreault, W, D & McCarthy, E, J, (2000), 'Essentials of Marketing- A Global Management Approach' International Edition, USA: McGraw Hill Companies Inc

Papers4you.com.

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By Lubowa M. Planet

Drawing traffic to a website is no longer a secret. It is believed that with internet marketing, the speed at whi