Fishing & Lead Capture – Part Two of Three

The second in a three part article series about lead capture and email marketing – from a different perspective.

Keywords:
lead capture,email marketing,network marketing,list building,internet marketing,direct marketing

In part one we skimmed over the basics of fishing for leads, and turning them into customers. Now let’s break that down and get into a little more detail.

Bait & Presentation

Traffic isn’t all that easy to get. You will have to either pay for, or work hard for traffic to your website. You don’t want to waste it, do you? Of course not.

When a visitor hits your page, you don’t want him to just look around and swim away, right? No. You want him to buy. However, that doesn’t happen often enough on just one visit. So, you need a way to stay in touch with your visitor so you can pull them back from time to time. Getting him to opt in to your mailing list is a great way to keep in touch.

But how do you get someone to give up their contact information to you when they don’t yet know and trust you?

Well, while your visitor is at your site… while the fish is in your pond – offer the right bait.

What type of fish are you after? …and what do they eat?

You know your niche better than I do.

What are YOUR visitors interested in?
What are their biggest problems?
What keeps them awake at night?
What do the want the most?

Find the right bait, then present it in the right way and I guarantee they will bite.

Through a joint venture, a little search time, or some desktop publishing, locate or create a product that your visitors will bite on.

…and setup a lead capture page using this product as your bait.

Fishermen know what bait to use for different fish because of experience, their own or someone else’s shared wisdom.

Take a look around. Someone else may be selling in your market. Who am I kidding? Someone else IS selling in your market. Find them. How are they fishing for new leads?

A little research will reveal what the fish are biting on at any given moment. Find or create it something similar, then bait YOUR hook and start fishing.

Good baits – Nearly anything related & free.

Viral software, articles and ebooks
Prizes (contests)
Product samples
Valuable tips
etc…

The right bait STILL must be presented in the right way. Portal sites, link & banner farms – they have their place, but the best way to present you bait when fishin’ for leads is with a simple lead capture page.

You’ve seen them many times already, I’m sure of it. A basic page with few graphics, some well written copy, bullet points and a subscription form … that’s about all it takes. You may have to experiment a bit with your presentation, but once they start biting – you know you’re on the right track. At this point, make only minor changes (one at a time) and test, test, test.

When they do start biting, you better learn to set the hook with a subscription confirmation to ensure your email gets delivered … and delivered only to those who actually want it.

Confirmation can and probably will lead to a few “big one that got away” stories, but your list will be better… more responsive.

On your ‘thank you’ page, remind your visitor to confirm their subscription. Nothing fancy, just a little something like this…

“In order for me to send your (bait)… please
remember to confirm your request.

The confirmation email should be in your inbox
very soon. This step, though a bit inconvenient,
protects us both from unwanted email issues.

Also – please white list my domain.com and
email@mydomain.com to ensure receipt of the
information you requested.”

Set that hook – get on your reader’s list of acceptable publishers, because you want your email to get through every time you send mail. You want ALL subscribers to receive ALL email. It’s not likely that it’s going to happen, but it’s still a great target.

It’s also a good idea to test your emails to ensure they won’t be eaten by filters.

You can use software for this, or one of the many autoresponder services that have spam testing features built right in.

Now … we’ve baited, presented and set the hook – and I am worn out.

Let’s rest up a bit and land that biggin’ in part three. Don’t miss it.

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Geld verdienen mit Mailtausch und kostenlose Werbung

“Ohne Werbung wдre ich Millionдr” J.P. Getty – Milliardдr

Sie haben sich so viel Mьhe bei der Erstellung Ihrer Homepage gegeben? Und niemand besucht sie? Sie haben sich schon immer gefragt, warum andere Homepages so erfolgreich sind, und Ihre nicht? Hier ist die Lцsung!

Keywords:
kostenlos, werbung, geld verdienen, mit werbung, gratis werben, linklisten, kostenlose linklisten, kostenlose toplisten

“Ohne Werbung wдre ich Millionдr” J.P. Getty – Milliardдr

Sie haben sich so viel Mьhe bei der Erstellung Ihrer Homepage gegeben? Und niemand besucht sie? Sie haben sich schon immer gefragt, warum andere Homepages so erfolgreich sind, und Ihre nicht? Hier ist die Lцsung!

Die richtige Werbung war schon immer der Schlьssel zum Erfolg. Aber als privater Anwender denken Sie bestimmt, dass Sie sich sowas nicht leisten kцnnen. Das stimmt nicht!

Es gibt zahlreiche Angebote im internet um kostenlose Werbung zu machen.
Das Beste an den meisten kostenlosen Werbeanbietern ist, dass man mit ihnen auch noch
Geld verdienen kann.

Hier finden Sie kostenlose Werbeanbieter mit denen Sie Geld verdienen kцnnen:
Hier zu finden http://linkland.zweipage.de

Werbung im Internet muss nichts kosten. Es ist ein Leichtes kostenlose Werbeangebote
zu finden. Auf meiner Seite finden Sie solche Angebote. Die auf dieser Seite aufgefьhrten kostenlosen Werbeanbieter
sind allesamt Geldmaschinen. Man muss nur wissen wie!

Nach einer kostenlosen Anmeldung bei einem oder allen Werbeanbietern empfehle
ich sofort mit dem Punkte verdienen und Ref sammeln zu beginnen.
Je mehr Punkte Sie haben desto mehr kцnnen Sie kostenlos werben und je mehr
Refґs Sie haben desto mehr Punkte haben Sie.

Um jetzt damit Geld zu verdienen, kцnnen Sie die verdienten Punkte nun bei Ebay oder
bei anderen Auktionshдuser zum Verkauf anbieten. ebesucherpunkte z.B.
sind sehr beliebt und nicht ganz so billig wie es scheint!

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Get More Marketing Value From Recruitment Software

Offering high levels of process automation, recruitment software plays an indispensable part in reducing a staffing agency’s administrative burden. However, today’s recruitment applications are designed to do a whole lot more than just reduce paperwork. They can make a significant contribution to a company’s marketing and sales activity.

Effective client contact management and timely, personalised business communications are essential to the success of any recruitment comp…

Keywords:

Offering high levels of process automation, recruitment software plays an indispensable part in reducing a staffing agency’s administrative burden. However, today’s recruitment applications are designed to do a whole lot more than just reduce paperwork. They can make a significant contribution to a company’s marketing and sales activity.

Effective client contact management and timely, personalised business communications are essential to the success of any recruitment company. The first step in getting more from your marketing and sales activity is to better understand your existing and prospective client base.

In today’s frenetic business environment it’s simply not enough to send generic email shots to everyone on your database and hope they generate some interest. With numerous demands on their time and attention, your existing clients and prospects surely won’t appreciate another bland missive to an already bulging Inbox. Worse still, they might simply block all future email communications from you.

An audience of one

The days of “load and send” email campaigns are long over. Today email marketers are focused on increasing response, conversion and retention rates using a combination of personalisation, segmentation and triggers. Increasingly segmented and triggered emails are driven by behavioural data, such as which links a recipient clicked, whether someone did or did not open an email, what pages they visited on the sender’s website or whether they did or did not take a specific action.

Design matters

Something like 95 percent of all commercial email campaigns are sent in HTML today. As a result, design has become critical for a number of reasons. Recipients might have their email setup to block images. Many people now use their Outlook “preview panel” as a handy filtering tool to weed out unwanted emails. Designers also need to consider inconsistent rendering by different email clients. The way an email looks on Gmail differs from Yahoo, for example. Some designers have adopted a purely graphical approach to email campaigns in an attempt to bypass content filters, but this brings us back to where we started.

Bombarded by evermore junk mail, most people will only read about 15-20 commercial emails per day, and in many cases much less. As a result, layout, readability and usability are critical to differentiating your emails from everyone else’s. In reality your email will have just seconds to provoke interest, convey value and trust, and prompt action.

Democracy at work

Email has been described as the ultimate democratic form of marketing communication. After all, it’s the recipient who decides whether they want to opt-in or opt-out of your mailing list; if and when they open, read and act on your email; how much information they wish to share with you; and when they want to unsubscribe.

Recruiters who do not wish to fall foul of increasingly stringent anti-spam legislation and want to build genuinely lasting client relationships will learn to deploy various tactics to increase trust and build brand loyalty, such as ensuring only permission-based emails are sent from your company, switch to a double-opt in subscription process, and publicise your privacy policies. Those recruiters recognised and trusted by clients and prospects will be able to mine for more information. In turn, this will enable them to deliver higher value emails through ever-greater personalisation and segmentation.

Recruitment software mail centres

Today’s sophisticated, made for purpose recruitment applications, such as Bond Adapt, RDB Pro and Eclipse integrate with third party email clients and offer a range of contact management or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) features.

Chris Pawsey, Business Development Team Leader at Bond International Software (UK) Ltd, explains: “Bond Adapt integrates email via Microsoft Outlook. Since Outlook is by far and away the market leading product we (Bond) make use of many of the functions therein. It is also possible to integrate Bond Adapt with other email clients.”

It is this contact management or CRM functionality that allows recruitment agencies and staffing professionals to create and retain email, letter and fax templates; conduct email marketing campaigns; and record response data. However, what these applications cannot do is prepare marketing materials, or ensure promotional activity is properly monitored and measured to ensure continuous improvement.

Matter of design

If you want your emails to succeed in generating interest in your services then they must always look professional. Don’t make the same mistake many applicants do when sending CVs/resumes in response to job advertisements i.e. fail to spell check and proofread them properly. If you send an email full of spelling mistakes, it will cost you sales and could permanently damage your credibility.

Next, send test versions of your emails to yourself. You can sign up to any number of free email account providers such as Yahoo, MSN Hotmail and Google’s Gmail. Include these email accounts in your test mailings. The point here is to catch any formatting errors that might show up in the different email programs. It’s quite common to find a HTML email that looks great in Outlook and is missing all of its images in Yahoo or Gmail.

Before you send your email you should also ask yourself one fundamental question: “How relevant is this email to the recipient?” Don’t assume that the recipients will automatically see why your email is relevant to them. Often it needs to be spelt out. Succinctly explain how your recruitment company can help them and why now is such a good time to spend money on your services. You might want to consider using a professional copywriter to help you.

Two of the most effective ways to highlight the relevance of your offer are to put a strong emphasis on the benefits and make your offer exclusive. Tailor any promotions you run so that they are exclusive to your recipients, giving them a strong reason to act immediately.

As well as facing an avalanche of commercial emails every time we visit our In-boxes these days there’s also the ubiquitous spam, much of which comes with the added threat of viruses. In fact, a recent article in London’s Metro daily newspaper suggested that as many as one in every 43 emails received world-wide is infected with some harmful entity. So, not only does your email have to compete for the recipient’s limited time and attention, it also has to overcome their fears and apprehensions.

Even with a good understanding of your target audience, establishing which email design elements work will be a matter of trial and error. To help you identify weaknesses and build on strengths, it’s a good idea to take one email design and then produce two or three variations (split test). For example, you might use the same headline and supporting image, but change the subject line. Response levels and email tracking will enable you to identify strengths and weaknesses of your promotion.

Email Design Tips

Effective subject lines

Subject lines should be clear, direct, attention grabbing and benefits related, such as “Reduce your recruitment spend by 60%.”

Get your hooks into ‘em

Just like other forms of advertising, emails have to capture the reader’s attention within the first couple of sentences. Otherwise, it’s all over. The hook should be a distillation of your email’s overall message and strongly appeal to the reader’s self-interest e.g. what do they get, how do they benefit.

Sign posts

Generally it’s considered best practice to keep your emails text length to about 250 words. The body copy must support your “hook” with a clear focus on benefits, and then close with a clear, direct call to action. It’s extremely important that there is no ambiguity about what you want the recipient to do e.g. “click here,” “register now,” “reply.”

Mind your language

A well-written email message uses the active voice and short, concise sentences. This is critical as the stark reality is that most readers won’t progress beyond the first couple of lines. You have to be clear, direct and focus on how your offer benefits the reader.

Readability

Almost as important as what you say is how you present your text to the reader. Try to keep your paragraphs short – no longer than five lines. Use 1.5 or double line spacing, and a font that’s easy on the eye and big enough to read. Use bullets to emphasize key points, but avoid text in all caps or multiple exclamation marks. Set text width at 68 characters or less per line so it displays correctly in e-mail applications. Also, avoid breaking or wrapping URLs into two lines – it may cause technical problems. The more barriers you eliminate the better your chances of a positive response.

Keeping track

Having segmented your audience, prepared your marketing message and sent your email out, you’ll want to know it has been received and acted upon. Tracking email responses is essential if you are to identify and eliminate weaknesses and build on the strengths of your campaigns. Here are some suggestions that will enable you to monitor and analyze the effectiveness of your email marketing for free. For accuracy, be sure to use a unique tracking code for each of your different email test variables and keep accurate records.

MS Outlook provides you with a simple tracking facility which informs you when a message was sent, when it arrived and when it was opened. The downside here is if the recipient just glanced at your email in the panel view of their Inbox and then deleted the item you’ll only know because you will never receive a corresponding “read” message from your Outlook tracker.

To switch on MS Outlook 2003 email tracking:

1. Launch MS Outlook
2. Click on the Tools menu at the top of the page, scroll down and click on Options.
3. Click E-mail Options, which is top-right of the Preferences page.
4. Next, click Tracking Options.
5. Select the Read receipt and/or the Delivery receipt check boxes
6. Click OK.

One idea is to simply ask respondents to place something unique in the subject line that acts as a tracking code for your email campaigns. However that puts the burden of responsibility on your respondents, which is something you might to avoid. Instead us the following little trick to automatically place what you want in the subject line of a response email message:

Click on this example:

mailto:user@domain.com?subject=Send-Info.aboutyourcompany

Replace user@domain.com in the above example with the email address you want to use and a unique campaign code.

When the above link is clicked on in your email promotional message, the text immediately following ?subject= automatically appears in the subject line of a new email message. This should work in most email packages.

Vital statistics

If you have access to even the most basic website statistics you can track hits to your web pages by placing a question mark (?) after your web address (URL) when used in each email promotion, followed by your unique tracking code.

For instance, you send 3 email promotions. Each carries a corresponding URL tracking code:

Email Ad 1. http://www.yourdomainhere.com/homepage/htm?EM1
Email Ad 2. http://www.yourdomainhere.com/clients/htm?EM2
Email Ad3. http://www.yourdomainhere.com/applicants/htm?EM3

Hyperlinks with your own unique tracking codes added to the end of a URL don’t adversely affect the ability of recipients to access your web pages in any way, but will show up in the server log files. To determine the exact number of hits that a particular email generates, look at your log files within hours or days of sending your mail shot. You can check with your ISP or web host for access to your log files.

If you don’t mind having other peoples advertising on your website then there is a range of free website tracking services available. Take a look at AddFreeStats.com and FreeStats.com.

By using some of the simple, free tracking and analysis methods explained here you can continually refine your email marketing, measure its effectiveness and get more from your recruitment software. For more information and professional help preparing your next email campaign, sales promotion or advertising visit www.charlie-the-copywriter.co.uk

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Nine Reasons Why Mentoring Matters to You

In this article I’m going to show you why, despite the competition for our time and energy, being a mentor is one of the best things you can do.

Keywords:
mentoring, mentor, mentee, leadership and mentoring, succession planning, legacy, professional growth and mentoring, benefits of mentoring

There are many roles we play or hats we wear in our lives. We are professionals, family members, brothers, sisters, co-workers, leaders, coaches, friends, parents, and neighbors to name just a few. While you may not wear all of the hats I listed, you can likely add several more that I left out! Many of these roles are a given – we don’t have much choice of having the role – they come with being a responsible adult.

Because of these many roles, we find ourselves very busy. Many tasks and priorities find us perhaps busier now than we have ever been before!

With these two factors, many roles and little time, it may seem absurd to write an article that encourages taking on yet another role and adding another task to your over-booked calendar. But that is exactly what I am going to do. In this article I’m going to show you why, despite the competition for our time and energy, being a mentor is one of the best things you can do.

There are many reasons why being a mentor is valuable to the other person. They get the value of your expertise, knowledge, and experience. They get a chance to advance more rapidly and create greater success than they would have been able to without your insight and advice. While these are altruistic reasons, they don’t say anything about how you benefit. And while we all like to help others, sometimes we need to see what is in it for us as well.

There are benefits to you personally to spending your time and energy, sharing your expertise with others as a mentor. In fact, there are at least nine benefits that you might derive from being a mentor. These include:

You’ll develop a close relationship with your mentee. We can never have enough close relationships. And chances are the person you mentor will be someone you benefit from being around. After all, they are interested in improving themselves, care about learning, and are likely excited about the possibilities in their future. Which brings me to the second benefit…

You’ll be re-energized personally. Get around someone enthusiastic, and you naturally become more enthusiastic yourself. Some activities sap our energy while others spark it. Being a mentor is like carrying a book of matches with you. If you want to re-energize yourself to your own possibilities, be a mentor.

You’ll increase your commitment to your own career and organization. This one applies most if you are mentoring in a business situation. You can see how this would happen – as you get more enthused, you see new ways you can contribute. You see how your mentee can make a difference in the organization and this new vision will increase your commitment.

You’ll learn more by talking about and teaching things. It is funny how our brains work. When we teach something or explain something to someone else, we then understand it more clearly ourselves. As a mentor you will relive experiences, teach or share ideas. And when you do this you will learn and re-learn these concepts for yourself. Often you will find yourself “taking your own advice” to your great personal or professional benefit.

You’ll expand your impact in your organization. Not only will your personal commitment grow, but as you help others be more successful, the organization will succeed at higher levels. Think of the satisfaction you will get from knowing you are playing a part in making that happen.

You’ll enhance your self-esteem. It just feels good to help others. You will feel better about yourself and your abilities when you share your wealth of knowledge and experience with others. Your self esteem will rise because you are doing good things for someone else.

You’ll increase your skills. As you mentor others, you will become a better mentor. The skills that make you a better mentor; empathy, listening, caring, building trust (to name just a few), make you more effective in many other parts of your life. Being a mentor is actually great training in itself!

You’ll grow more confident. The culmination of many of these other benefits is that your confidence will increase. You’ll be more confident in many sorts of interpersonal relationships and conversations. You’ll know that you can have a positive impact. You’ll know that you can make a difference.

You’ll leave a legacy. Successful athletic coaches do more than grow their teams and win lots of games. The best also create a linage of coaches that leave their staff to become head coaches as well. This is an important legacy that they leave – a statement of their influence and impact. By mentoring others with care and compassion you will be adding directly to your legacy.

Take minute now to be selfish. Think about yourself as a mentor. Identify what you see as being in it for you. Envision how it will feel to give back to someone else. Then go out and become a mentor – you, along with your mentee, will be glad you did!

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Top 10 Tips For A Successful Network Marketing Presentation

As network marketers, we often have important information to impart and our role in doing so is a major one. Many, many times I have had the pleasure of having people approach me to say how hearing me speak literally changed their lives due to the powerful message and the persuasiveness of the delivery. Most people in MLM are not trained presenters or salespersons but there are a few steps everyone can take to make sure their message has the best possible chance of being well…

Keywords:
network marketing, mlm, sales presentations, sales training, presentation skills, public speaking

As network marketers, we often have important information to impart and our role in doing so is a major one. Many, many times I have had the pleasure of having people approach me to say how hearing me speak literally changed their lives due to the powerful message and the persuasiveness of the delivery. Most people in MLM are not trained presenters or salespersons but there are a few steps everyone can take to make sure their message has the best possible chance of being well received. Here are my top tips:

1. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: Not every pitch will work for everyone so before you go to present the products or the business, whether it’s to just one person or to many, do a little research to ensure you’re presenting at the appropriate level. If your presentation is too lightweight, you’ll bore them; too in depth, you’ll confuse them. Either way, they will switch off and your vital words will fall on deaf ears.

2. WIIFM: Yes, that old chestnut, but it’s worth repeating as it’s so often forgotten. Bearing in mind tip no. 1, what are the challenges faced by this person or this group of people? How does your business opportunity or your product solve their problems? Focus on answering these questions rather than trotting out the mechanics of your offering. Your audience must feel you’ve prepared your presentation specially for them, even if it’s essentially the same one you’re giving all the time.

3. CONTINUALLY LEARN AND PRACTICE PRESENTING: One of the most important skills any network marketer can hone is that of becoming an accomplished speaker. It impacts so many other areas of your life as it massively increases your self-confidence. The more professionally you can deliver your message, the more readily it will be received, the more lives you will touch and the more money you will make in your business. Learning to present well is an investment in yourself and can give you the greatest return on the capital you’ve invested.

4. HANDLE DISSENTERS WELL: One of the major fears I hear from network marketers is that of being faced with doubting prospects or those who dispute what they’re being told. Unfortunately, the tendency is to dig in and fight your corner but this can turn the discussion into an argument and work against you, especially if you’re giving a presentation in front of a group. When you’re faced with negativity, always start your answer with “That’s a very good question…” and continue with your viewpoint. Wherever possible, turn things around to make your audience right. Download a free “one-sheet crib sheet” on this important subject at http://www.laddersofsuccess.com.

5. SHOW, DON’T TELL: Show the products you’re talking about. Let people feel, smell and see for themselves instead of just hearing what they are like. If you’re making a presentation about the business opportunity, remember that your company has probably done a lot to make things easier for you. Make sure you get the prospecting materials they offer, show the pictures of the top distributors, talk about them as if they are real people .

6. LET YOUR GUARD DOWN: People buy from those they know, like and trust. How can they do any of this if you won’t let them get to know the real you. You don’t have to be perfect, you can talk about your own challenges, beliefs, family, hopes and dreams. Doing so gives your prospects more opportunity to identify with you so you can use the similarities to build rapport.

7. STORIES INSTEAD OF FACTS: When we get excited about our products, we often delve into the features of the products, what works and why. This is all very exciting once you’ve had your first wonderful product experience, but it doesn’t make for a very exciting lead-in to your presentation. People want to know about results. They want the bottom line. There’s plenty of time to get to the detail later but to start this way could send most of your prospects to sleep (apart from the professors in the audience, of course). The best way to illustrate what your products or business opportunity can do is through telling stories. Use your own story or a case study of someone you know. Use emotive words. Remember, not just the facts, the feelings too.

8. MAKE ‘EM LAUGH: When people laugh they feel more relaxed and amenable. Every situation has a humorous side and if you’re telling a tragic story your prospects will welcome the respite that comes with a moment of levity. The golden rule is to move people: make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, then they buy. This is something I aim to do in every presentation because it means I’ve moved my audience emotionally. I appreciate this is an advanced technique, but if you learn how to do it, you’ll increase your success rate exponentially.

9. DON’T TELL – ASK: Instead of telling your prospects everything, get them answering questions. Rather than saying “Did you know that only 1% of people retire financially free?”, ask them “What percentage of people do you think retire financially free?”. This gets your prospects involved and if you word your questions correctly, you’re coaching them to the purchase decision rather than having to push them into buying. This is a technique I teach that I’ve perfected over the years. It works great for network marketers and women and I call it “pull selling”.

10. GIVE A REASON TO ACT NOW: Again, not being salespersons, many network marketers give a great presentation and then wimp out without asking for the order. Your prospect’s motivation will never be higher than it is at that moment so make sure you use this to your advantage. Think of reasons why they should place their order today. Some possible reasons might be because you are offering a special bonus OR prices are about to increase OR there’s an order deadline coming up so they’ll get their goods sooner OR you’re placing an order too so they’ll save on the postage OR you’re offering a discount on orders placed today OR you’re seeing someone else who could become a distributor and will go beneath them. Whatever it is, tell them, and secure the sale.

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Finding the Right Printer

When you need large volumes of brochure or catalogs to be printed, it is perhaps a good idea to let the professional handle the job for you.

Keywords:
printer, cards, design

To produce thousands of copies of a fifteen page brochure at a rate of one page per minute with men working 24 hours a day would perhaps take over a week. But to produce the same quantity of brochures using your desktop printer would take over a decade! Clearly, desktop printing is not really an option in terms of cost, quality and speed. Hence, when you need large volumes of brochure or catalogs to be printed, it is perhaps a good idea to let the professional handle the job for you. There are, however, several things you need to consider in choosing the commercial printer for your particular print job.

Perhaps one of the things you need to consider is the kind of printing process used by the printer. Do they use offset printing or maybe digital technology? Is letterpress and screen printing also available? After you have decided on which printing process to use, you now have to determine which printer has the right equipment. Find out the number of colors they can handle, how long they can do the print job and what other equipment and services do they offer. Also, find out what kind of print job each printer specializes and what types of binding and folding equipments they use.

But aside from determining which kind of printing method and printing equipment is appropriate for you, it is also essential to know what kind of workers will work with the print job. Understand that although the printing company has the right equipment and printing technique it does not mean that the equipments and facilities will make great print jobs. Look for samples of work of these printers and focus more on their printing technique not merely on their design process. Also, look for clean colors, smooth text and focused images and graphics.

It is also a good idea to visit the printer to get a good feel of who you will be working with. And when you meet them face to face, ask them what you want to know about their service. You can ask questions such as how many presses they have and what are the capabilities of each; how long they have been in the business; what software they accepts and what kind of payment they receive. You can also ask their previous customers for feedbacks to know if they are able to meet their customer’s printing needs. It is essential to know this information ahead of time so you would not regret your choice later on. When you are able to find the right commercial printer, they will be able to make your printing job look great.

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How A Ghost With A Blue Ball Can Boost Online Marketing

What does online marketing have to do with a ghost? Plenty. Read this and you will see why. The memory still unsettles me whenever I think back to that night.

The experience taught me that to write about a product, you have to see it at work. You will see how this can help you, also. But first, here is what happened that night.

It was November – almost 3 years ago. My friend and client, Guido, asked me to write a sales letter and a couple of ads for him. He ran a ghost …

Keywords:
online marketing, make money, product, ads

What does online marketing have to do with a ghost? Plenty. Read this and you will see why. The memory still unsettles me whenever I think back to that night.

The experience taught me that to write about a product, you have to see it at work. You will see how this can help you, also. But first, here is what happened that night.

It was November – almost 3 years ago. My friend and client, Guido, asked me to write a sales letter and a couple of ads for him. He ran a ghost busting business.

It struck me as hard to make money chasing ghosts out of people’s houses but he made a good living. Guido convinced me that I had to get a feel for his business. So, he asked me to accompany him on a job.

I agreed and found myself the following Thursday night with him and his girlfriend, Erin, in the home of an art gallery owner. The owner and his family were away and the place smelled of stale smoke and chrysanthemums. We were alone – or almost alone.

The ghost, Guido explained, was a child who had died in the house 60 years before. He would come back looking for toys. Guido led us to the dining room where he set up his equipment. The only toy I saw was a blue ball under the sideboard that belonged to the owner’s young son.

Guido half opened the door leading to the cellar and turned out the lights. We sat on the floor in the dark wearing night-vision goggles and waited.

It happened a little after 1 a.m. The blue ball hurtled from under the sideboard, hit the table leg and bounced back. I heard a click from Guido’s equipment and the ball stopped short. After a few minutes of stillness, the ball darted forth again. This time, it zigzagged along the wall.

Erin and I exchanged a quick glance and I strained to see what was causing the ball to move. I could only imagine some unseen little feet kicking it and scurrying after it. Again, Guido’s equipment clicked and kept on clicking. The ball rolled out the cellar door and bounced down the steps.

It was over.

Guido didn’t explain how he did it, but assured us the little ghost would not be back – ever. I ran my hand over the bare floor where the ball had been. I was feeling for wires or string, suspecting that Guido had rigged the whole thing. But I found nothing.

I didn’t go to bed when I got home. Instead, I wrote an account of the ghost. I also wrote the sales letter and ads for Guido. The words rolled off my fingertips like raindrops. I set the scene of what it was like to be in the same room with a ghost.

In writing about Guido’s service, I tried to make the readers feel the same things I had. I brought all my senses into it – touch, smell, hearing, sight and taste.

I learned another lesson from that experience that may help you. The lesson is this: write the sales letter for your online marketing right after you see the product at work. That makes your words fresh and urgent.

Oh, and about the little ghost: Guido told me he didn’t stay in the cellar. He disappeared and Guido knows in his heart that some loving arms welcomed him back into that “in-between world” that ghosts call home.

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Words To Avoid Using In Copywriting And Advertising

I could still recall the days of writing telegrams. That was before the fax machine, internet and email. Writing a telegram meant economy of words and so obvious verbs and needless adjectives had to be omitted.

Keywords:
copywriting, ad writing, sales letters, copywriter

I could still recall the days of writing telegrams. That was before the fax machine, internet and email. Writing a telegram meant economy of words and so obvious verbs and needless adjectives had to be omitted.

Today, with the advent of email and other cheap sources of communication you don’t have to be that paranoid about your message-except you are writing an advertisement. When writing a classified ad for example, every word must count in the small space allowed and so word choice becomes very important.

But word choice is not only about being brief.

Even when crafting a long sales letter you should try and avoid using the personal pronouns: “we, me, I, our,us”. The sales message should be about your prospects and not about your company. The “we syndrome” is a common error but it can easily be avoided. A sales message should state upfront the benefit to the customer not parade how many awards the company has received in the past ten years. Whenever possible then the copy should be written in the third person.

There are some other words that are very common in advertising but are just too vague to have any force. Great copy is always specific. “How to make $3,567.23 from your home in 30 days!” has more force than “How to make money from home.” Here are some commonly used words that lack force because their meaning is too ethereal:

It – State what “it” is rather than leave “it” for the reader to figure out. This word can often be replaced by what ‘it’ represents or stands in place of.

Quality – This has a similar meaning to “personality”. We often hear people say that someone has personality. But everyone has a personality whether good or bad. The same holds for quality. Every product or service has some quality which the customer will be the ultimate judge of.

Superlatives such as “tastiest, best, fastest, strongest, superior, minimize, optimize”. The problem with these words is that they instill doubt in the readers because these claims appear unsubstantiated. These words lack power because they are not measurable. Take the word “superior” for example. What criterion or measurement was used to judge this product as superior and by how much?

Solutions – This word cannot stand on its own. If you are selling a product or service it is also obvious that you are selling the solution to a problem, so state what the solution is rather than just using the word.

Technology – This word is commonly used to suggest innovation and newness. But customers have little concern about the technology that is behind the products they buy. They are only concerned about the benefit they derive from these products and services. How many drivers are really concerned about the technology that’s under the hoods of the vehicle they drive? They are really only concerned that the vehicle is reliable and gives them some social status.

Difference – Rather than stating that you are different from your competitors state the difference instead. Just saying “different” means little and is just filling space. The statement “We make all the difference” doesn’t leave the prospect more educated than before reading your sales message.

Consider the following advertiser’s blurb:

“We make all the difference because of our superior quality and solutions we offer.”

It’s like junk food – a lot of flavor but zero nutritional value. This statement means little because it’s not specific at all. It creates more questions than answers and leaves the reader totally confused. And this is the last thing you want to do to a customer.

Go to any website and you’ll see statements such as “can save you time and money”, (well how much?) “creates website in less time” (less than 2, 4, 100 hours?), “maximize your gas mileage” (by how much 1%, 5%, 40%?). All these statements will triple their effectiveness by using numbers (note that I gave a quantity, ‘triple’).

The more specific your message is the more believable you will appear. Using a bunch of superlatives only makes you seem self-serving. Customers are immune to this type of hype and filters out these claims like a squirrel discards peanut shells.

When making any comparison in your sales letter state the baseline, use numbers and give a time period whenever possible. In this way you don’t have to use superlatives because the numbers will speak for themselves. If you follow this simple rule your sales conversion rate will increase by 4.7% within 29 days of putting this into effect.

Even though that last statement was hypothetical you can sense its power because specific numbers were used instead of just saying ‘your sales will increase’.

I think it’s time to review your sales message and sweep away the chaff words leaving the pure wheat behind.

You’ll be 9.9% happier that you did!

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Why you should write articles to promote your business

This is one of the most popular methods of back-linking and subtle advertising. There are some good article submission websites and directories that will allow you to submit
your article free of cost.

So don’t just sit there write an article if you: -

Need traffic to your website
Need new sales
Need to establish your brand

Keywords:
articles, advertising, article submission, increase your website traffic, submit articles

Writing articles can do all of these and more. You can vital get exposure for your web site, or the product / service you are promoting by writing articles.

This will not happen over night, but if you write one article a week the number of links you can build up for your site will grow steadily, and each one of those links helps you
become more visible on the internet, helping your potential customer base find you rather than your competitors.

Why go the all the trouble of writing and submitting an article, well these are some of the benefits of submitting articles

Increased number of back-links to your website
You can targeting different keywords and key phrases
Ge links back to your site from your article content
Authoritative back-links – establish yourself as an authority on your product or service
Increase traffic to your website
Increase your search engine position

Why we need to Write and Submit Articles?

1. Free advertising
Promoting your web site by writing and submitting articles is the best way of creating more visibility for your website, product or service. It is free to do and all it takes is your time to write the article. How often do you get the chance to advertise your business free of charge and at such length?

2. It isn’t hard to write an article about something you know as well as your own business
Writing an article about your business is not that hard, after all you talk to your customers about every time you have a conversation with them, so why not make a few notes about the these conversations and then turn it into an article.

3. Increase the links to your website
Once you have published your article you will immediately gain incoming links to your site making it more visible on the web and in search engines, an article about painting equipment from an artist would be considered to be highly relevant by the search engines.

4. Establish yourself as an expert
Giving your opinion and views, especially when backed up by facts and figures set you up as an expert in your field.

5. Articles last longer than adverts
Article you have published in directories will be around for a long time, so an article you wrote two years ago comparing the qualities of different oil paints will still be driving traffic to your website today.

6. Multiple links from one article
Articles also encourage others to promote you and your website by using your article, including the link to your site, on their web site, or blog, another way to increase traffic to your site

And did I mention that it’s free!

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Electronic Cards: A Winning Business Solution for Keeping the Attention of Prospects and Costumers

E-cards, being a very good example of tradition and innovation fusion, are today’s Marketing Professionals’ lucky charm in attracting new clients and retaining the old ones.

Keywords:
Electronic card, business solution, clients, marketing

Embracing the same age-old adage of keeping people together, greeting cards have become invincible in the business and communication industries.

If cards are yielding power in keeping distant friendships and relationships stronger and longer, why not apply the same principle to our clients and business partners?

That is exactly what many successful businesses are doing. They make use of anything that is proven effective, and then try to apply it to another area.

E-cards, being a very good example of tradition and innovation fusion, are today’s Marketing Professionals’ lucky charm in attracting new clients and retaining the old ones. They use electronic cards to boost sales by sending them to clients: old and new, as a substitute for newsletters.

Since the web is chalk full of free e-card websites, this strategy is unarguably less-costly than any other marketing means. And since these cards are grouped according to occasions, we can bet there is an appropriate card for every single event. For instance, we can come up with a send-to-all card for important occasions such as Christmas, Summer vacations or Thanksgiving. Or we can personalize it by sending Anniversary or Congratulations cards to companies. We can even send “thinking of you” cards to old clients.

Being remembered and valued is on top of everyone’s list. Few other happy feelings can replace the euphoria of being remembered and valued. And this is made even more special because e-cards often come with pictures, music and poetry lines. No person would say no to something that is sure to add a smile to his day.

Think wisely. Do business passionately. Do it with e-cards.

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