Marketing Blog

How to Choose Good Affiliate Program

2007-09-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

Affiliate Marketing has developed into an Internet marketing specialty. Not everyone can do it effectively. It's not real hard, but it is tedious work and requires some attention to detail. The best affiliate marketing programs all have certain characteristics that make them successful. Here are a few of the most important characteristics of an affiliate marketing program:

Pays monthly - This is a big one. If you don't pay often enough you'll lose affiliates and you can't grow without affiliates.

Pays generously - This is perhaps the most important determinant of whether an affiliate marketing program will succeed. Pay your affiliates well and they will stick with you. Don't, and they will leave.

Two-tiered structure - Two-tiered affiliate programs are under rated, but the best affiliate marketing programs pay people for recruiting other affiliates. The second tier doesn't have to be much. It can be about 10% or even 5% of the affiliate commission (which I highly recommend be about 50% for most products), but at 5% of the affiliate commission your affiliates will recruit others to join their sales team and you will succeed all the more.

Provides support materials - Banners, sales pages, other resources. Whatever will help your affiliates be better affiliates, that's what you need to do. Support them and they'll support you.

Communicates with affiliates on a regular basis - Really. Don't leave your sales team hanging. Either write a blog just for your affiliates, start an e-zine just for them, or both. But you have to communicate with them on a regular basis so that they don't feel abandoned.

Offers specials - Every now and then you need to run a special, or a contest. This is motivational. It gets people excited and motivated, excited affiliates work harder to sell your products.

If you want your affiliates to be successful, you've got to give them the tools to do so. Otherwise, they will abandon you like a sinking ship and you'll be left selling your own cold, stale products.
About the Author

Nick Stamoulis and Brick Marketing provide companies with Internet Marketing Services . He writes daily in his blog the Search Engine Optimization Journal

How to Combine Affiliate Marketing with Other Home Businesses

2007-09-03T00:41:00.000-07:00

Home business owners have a lot of options for what they want to do. They can run fairly traditional businesses out of their homes, such as network marketing, daycare or bookkeeping, or they can use their skills in the newer businesses the Internet has made available, such as website design, virtual assistants and affiliate marketers.

However, you can combine affiliate marketing with many of these opportunities. It's a way you can offer the most complete options to the customers you come into contact with.

A website designer, for example, may offer hosting or can simply recommend hosting through various companies, and be paid for referring the customers. A network marketer can offer products and services that are related to what he or she is selling, but aren't available through the network marketing company.

All you have to do is think about what more you can offer your existing client base. There are probably plenty of items that are related to the things they trust you on anyhow that you could recommend and earn money through the affiliate program.

You never want to overdo this. Pushing too many products to loyal customers is a good way to scare a number of them off, and possibly irritate the rest. Your recommendations need to be genuine and useful.

Affiliate programs are quite widespread. Take a look at sites you shop at regularly, and you may see a link to the affiliate or associate on many of them. Others may have them, but the link will not be so obvious.

Consider whether your clients would be most interested in information or in physical products. Information can be a hot seller, although you do need to be certain that what you recommend is indeed high quality and well written.

Perhaps the best part is that you may or may not need a website to be an affiliate. Having a website makes some things easier, but there's nothing keeping you from making recommendations in person if that's how your business is run.

Adding another stream of income is always a good thing for a business when you do it right. It can even improve your reputation as a person who really knows what his or customers need. You just have to keep your eyes open for opportunity and make the most of it. Discovering new things to offer your clients can be a lot of fun and potentially profitable.
About the Author

Stephanie Foster runs http://www.aspectsofhomebusiness.com/ to help people wanting to run a home business. She offers more tips on affiliate marketing at her site.

Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan

2007-07-21T06:59:00.000-07:00

I have heard it said that most people don't plan to fail. They just fail to plan.

I suspect that many who are working on the internet fall into that great heap of mankind. Yours truly is right in there with the rest of you.

Starting out with a great plan of promotion is one of my weekly goals each Monday morning. Before I know it the time has slipped away and it's 10 AM.

I have accomplished little except some surfing and opening and reading email messages from friends and the latest great ri*ch offer from several marketers.

If you have read any of what I have written, I have mentioned that I had a friend, a lady, who had as her motto: "Plan your work, work your plan". She was very successful in business.

I do pretty good on the first part of planning my work, but I seem to stumble on the second part of working my plan.

Here are three suggestions for staying on task when it comes to implementing an on line plan of promotion.

1) Have a checklist with time limitations that you follow each day of the week.

Monday- Visit forums- 1 hour Tuesday- Work on website- 30 mins Wednesday - Add messages to autoresponders- 30 mins Thursday - Write new article & submit- 1 hour Friday - Read new information- 1 hour

Well, you get the idea. Have a plan and stick with it.

Now I know it's easy to get involved and let the time slip away from you. So instead of having to write the time down and keep up with when it has expired, you may opt to use this next item.

2) Use a simple Fr*ee program like "Alarm Me" to remind you when it's time to move on to the next task on your checklist.

qytec.com/alarmme

It sets in your tray and pops up whenever it is time to alarm you about your notice that you have scheduled to do. It also has a timer you can set to remind you to stop on something.

You can also schedule a time to shut down your computer and other neat events with this thing and there is a calendar included too.

I personally have this in my tray and it works great if you will use it.

3) Automate as many of your routine tasks as you can by using autoresponders, and software systems like one I use called "Biz Automator".

It automatically types responses to tedious routine support emails for you in seconds.

I use this thing every day and it is great. It saves me hours of repetitious typing.

It is very simple to set up. No scripts to upload, no files to modify, etc. I highly recommend it.

So there are three suggestions for implementing your promotional system.

Now it's time for you to Plan your work and work your plan.

Best of luck with your promotional efforts.

- Larry
About the Author

SAVE HOURS OF TEDIOUS TYPING Automate your responses today... Simple & easy to use each day Get It Here

3 Strategies To Get More Traffic And Money

2007-06-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you need to get more creative; produce something unique and exciting and you will get noticed. You'll get more traffic, more ad clicks, more subscribers or more money; it works for all types of online businesses.

Differentiate yourself from your competitors and see how your business will improve.

The way you market, the way your website is designed, the types of products you offer, the way your content is conveyed are all elements that you can alter to add more creativity to.

Produce something creative and unique, advertise it to the correct channels and you will get traffic.

*Press Releases (free and paid)
*Social Bookmarking sites
*Write articles and submit them
*Create a viral movie and place on Youtube
*Use traffic exchanges like Trafficswarm
*Email websites in your niche which allow you to submit new stories
*Submit to general and niche directories

Remember this If your website has something really viral to it, use as many of the above methods as possible! You never know who will come across your site. It could be the owner of a large web organisation if they find your website interesting you never know who they tell or what they will do

3 Tips to be more creative:

NOTETAKING I know this seems unexciting and you may think it's not worth it, but it is, so do it! You need to write down all your ideas on a notepad and then sleep on it for a few days and reassess them. If you are like me, you may forget your ideas the next day, so do yourself a favour and write them down!

BRAINSTORM/MINDMAPS A useful tool to think of new ideas is a mindmap. Basically think of a key word and write it on the middle of a page. Then write down the first 5 thing that come to mind when thinking of that word. Then do the same for those 5 words you just thought of. You can come up with many ideas this way and you'll be surprised in how many great niches you come up with that have been barely tapped into!

OBSERVE OTHERS Copying is copying but observing is smart! I'll keep this one nice and short but basically observe other popular websites and see how you can implement their ideas into your business, but add a unique twist! This is an easy way to come up with completely original ideas too. Take the site ratemybody dot com, you could copy the rating aspect of the site but apply it to something that hasn't been done before, for example ratemysneeze, or ratemyknittingskills or whatever. Not saying those ideas are good but see how easy it is to come up with something original.

Try and be more creative from now on and watch your business grow like it's never grown before!
About the Author

For more creative thinking tips and strategies for your onlne business visit http://www.creativecashcourse.com

7 Easy Steps To Creating A Profitable Ad

2007-05-28T01:36:00.000-07:00

Online advertising on the Internet leaves a lot to be desired. There are pop-ups and pop-unders. All of these are developed with the intent to make people notice them. However, many of these ads only end up irritating potential customers.

Marketers with small budgets can't afford to waste money when they advertise. In order to optimize your advertising dollars, you need to concentrate on how you can improve your ads and copy.

Here are some tips that might help:

Step 1: Define clear goals of your advertising campaign

The most important aspect of any advertising campaign is to have a clear objective in mind. You may be targeting a specific group of people, or your initial aim may be to target at least 1000 internet surfers. Have a well defined, clear purpose.

Step 2: Identify the most effective sites for achieving your goals

Sites that are most relevant to your product or service will, more than likely, be your best bet; but also consider larger sites or networks that can target the audience you're trying to reach. They can be very cost-effective. If you have multiple products or services that appeal to various target markets, you'll have to consider sites that reach all of those various segments.

Step 3: Craft your message to fit the needs of the audience you're targeting

This comes down to understanding the audience of the sites you're advertising on. The message you use on a technology site to appeal to technologically savvy customers won't have the same appeal for visitors on a small-business site. Focus your campaign.

Step 4: Content of your Ad

Pay particular attention to the content of the Ad. The content should be such that it clearly distinguishes your product or service from your competitors. Have a catchy headline. The headline is probably the most important part of the Ad - It is what will initially catch the reader's attention.

Step 5: Formulate the specific promotional messages that correspond to your goals

The promotional messages should concentrate on the major selling points of your product or service and have a strong call-to-action.

Step 6: Make the desired action clearly visible

This certainly doesn't mean the desired action should necessarily blink, bounce or do flips, but it should be visible within an accepted format for the media you're using. In the case of the Internet, underlined text links, "click here" text entry boxes, and pull-down menus are all ways you can make the desired action clearly visible.

Step 7: Produce multiple versions of each ad

Create three or four versions of each ad, changing the promotional message, call-to-action, font faces and color schemes. This is especially important if you're doing price testing or gauging reaction to specific promotions. By splitting your advertising buy among the various versions of your creative, you can then start to optimize your advertising dollars on the message that pulls best.

With these tips, you will not only be able to create a winning and profitable ad, but you will be able to create an effective ad that does what it is supposed to do - sell your products and services.

Internet Marketing

2007-04-07T07:34:00.000-07:00

Internet Marketing - Get Your Piece of the Pie by Adam B

It seems nearly all internet marketing websites that you visit these days make promises that you will make money fast - and that you will make alot of it without putting out much effort. And for the most part, most of us use common sense when approaching these online ventures, but in the end, we find ourselves disappointed and frustrated.

The truth is, alot of people make money on the internet. To make quick money, internet marketing is the undisputed king and nothing "offline" can compare to the speed and efficiency of setting up an online business, as everything these days are instantaneous and automated. The question is, how do get your piece of the pie?

Most of us who have succumbed to the so called instant money generating 'systems', have felt the entire process of frustration and disappointment that follows failure. However, most don't realize that people really do make money with these 'systems'. Just because something didn't work for you doesn't mean the same for another. Online success is a 'quirky' business. You see, success at anything in life is 80% mindset and only 20% technical. This explains how two people can have the same information, yet produce different results.

Yes, you read right. The ever popular "schemes" you see floating everywhere on the net are making people alot of money. The fact of the matter is, there are TONS of ways to make money online. "Make money fast internet schemes" are just one way, and are truthfuly not 'schemes' at all. They are only schemes if you allow them to be. The key is not really whether the scheme works, but whether it works for you. You can easily make money fast on the internet, as long as you have a positive attitude, the right persistance, and above all a mindset for success. What you bring to any project (your mindset) is much more important than what the project brings to you.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be rich. It's in our nature to desire a carefree life, free from the stress of financial burdens. And being able to do so quickly and without much effort makes it even more appealing. Many marketers exploit this fact to sell their 'schemes'. This is why it is very important to keep your emotions in check when you are exploring new online business opportunities. You will succeed, as long as you stay focused and once you commit to something, do it fully and do everything you can to make it work. If you are having a hard time making it work, contact the person you bought it from. Most likely, if you've bought from them, then others have to, and what they have works. You'll find that often the smallest tweak can make a huge impact on your income.
About the Author

Read more about the Authors successful online business ventures at MyMillionaireSystem

The Future Of Internet Marketing

2007-03-20T10:34:00.000-07:00

If you use the internet to promote products or services, whether you act as a sales rep or affiliate or whether you are trying to sell your own products or promote your own business, you will always succeed if you attract customers. That's obvious right?

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to predict the future? Wouldn't it be nice to know where we all need to be heading in order to make our marketing efforts a success long into the future?

Well it may not be possible to predict the future, but we can certainly determine what current internet marketing methods are likely to be over-shadowed and even evaluate a new trend in internet marketing that could be casting this very shadow over traditional techniques for years to come.

Up until now, the methods used to create a heavy influx of targeted customers are vast but many are likely to become defunct or at the very least, costly and less effective than in recent years. This is due to increasing competition and lower than ever entry points into the realm of online publishing. Anyone can create a fully functional website these days, and with plagiarism on the increase it means cutting above the pack is going to require something other than the mass fed methodical approaches by preceeding marketing experts.

Here's some of those typical methods (at their top level) used to gain targeted customers via the internet -

1. PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising

Great for getting targeted visitors in front of your product.

Downside: It costs money - and if you want to make a lot of money it will cost you a lot of money. Simple as that. Plus, it will cost you even more money if your sales page or website poorly converts visitors into buyers. People use the internet predominantly for information, so to get them to pull out their credit cards is going to require them to shift their attitude and reasons for being on your website.

If they are looking to buy products (which indeed a lot of web users do) you will still need to spend many hours/days/weeks of testing down to the most acute detail. This is essential in order to discover how to convert more people in order to make sales. To cover your (increasingly expensive) advertising costs, conversions need to be maintained and closely monitored. This of course can be become a full time job in itself. In fact, I have spoken to online marketers who have admitted addiction to this service.

Ask anyone who uses PPC advertising and if they answer honestly, like I do, they would say that they check their stats multiple times per day. Heck, I used to check my stats every hour. I've actually seen job vacancies advertised in my local paper for PPC project managers for various companies - suggesting to us all that this can become more than just a 'side channel' of your online marketing efforts.

2. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

If you know how to optimize a website then that's great. You should be able to reach a lot of potential customers for free with this method.

Downside: If you don't know how to effectively optimize your web pages then you will ultimately require the assistance of expensive SEO professionals. It costs a lot of money. It may be worth it, but it may be a huge risk if you eventually find out that your web page doesn't convert visitors into buyers too well. The other major disadvantage of relying on search engines to generate a flow of buying customers is that search engines change the way they operate on a regular basis.

This means that you could potentially pay hundreds, if not thousands of pounds in search engine optimisation to discover you need to reinvest to pay professionals to re-evaluate your website inline with the search engine's algorithm/policies etc. Further more, there are thousands of competitors discovering and using crafty techniques/software all the time to outsmart your web position and push you down the rankings until you are no longer visible. Ouch.

3. Reciprocal Links

This involves requesting reciprocal links from other websites to boost your page credibility and ranking to help you climb the search engines and attract more traffic.

Downside: If you request a reciprocal link, it means you need to provide a link back to the other website from your website. This means before long, you will have a page full of links pointing to other websites. This not only looks bad, but can be confusing to your visitors. Plus, in order to keep Google and other popular search engines on your side, you need to always ensure the links pointing away from your website are highly relevant/useful to your visitors.

This takes a lot of time.

It also means that websites try and avoid displaying lots of links out from their own website by tucking them away in a page on their domain. This ultimately means that your link to your website will never be seen and therefore never be clicked on- resulting in no traffic generated from that particular website. Search Engines are cracking down heavily on reciprocal linking and you may even get punished for such 'grey' activity depending on how you approach this particular technique.

4. Writing Articles

This is a great technique that does definitely work. Writing a high quality article can provide credibility and links to your website quite easily.

Downside: It's not easy writing articles, at least good quality ones anyway. It takes time, even if you know exactly what to say. Plus, just writing one quality article will not always produce substantial amounts of traffic (despite what the "experts" say).

You will probably see an increase in traffic which is great but you will soon discover that you will need to be writing anywhere up to 500 articles in order to see any substantial increase in sales or just traffic. You can believe the "experts" or you can try it for yourself and see what I mean. The other option here is to pay someone else to write articles for you, but the average going rate for a semi-professional article is around $5. So if you wanted to hit that 500 mark you will be forking out $2500 just for some "extra internet exposure". It can get very expensive very quickly.

5. Blogging

This is one step up from articles. Blogging has many advantages over writing articles due to the social networking aspect and various technical assets a blog can yield. Bottom line is search engines love blogs and you may find it a lot easier to get indexed by a search engine with a blog over static pages which contain out of date or "stale" information.

Blogs are also useful for visitor interaction where comments can be made on the back of an initial post by the author - this helps to "alert" the search engines by kind of saying "Hey, I'm a blog, I am active, fresh content and I am what makes your pants wet"

Downside: Writing a blog can (and often does) become a full time commitment. You can't simply slap up a new blog entry once a week telling people that you just had a curry and it made your arse sting the next morning. After discussing blogging with many full time bloggers (who earn a full time living from blogging alone) I have painfully discovered that you will need to blog quality, unique and highly useful and relevant content at least once per day. I'm not kidding, it's VERY hard work to make it a success and it will also take you months at the minimum to build up a trusted and reliable base of blog readers. I'm not trying to put you off this, but you need to realise the reality here.

The other disadvantage of blogging is that by its very nature, blogging is not suited to commercial use. What do I mean by that? I mean that blogging is a medium created for social interaction. The blogging community therefore, are probably the least responsive to a disguised sales pitch - blog readers want interaction and free entertainment as a whole. It's about understanding the psychology of various internet users and who to market to and where, and when.

6. Press releases

Ok, this is a good method. A well written, informative, well timed and relevant press release can really boost your business online and offline.

Downside: It can be hard to conceive a relevant, timely, topical press release containing fresh and unique news. You're a business owner, not a journalist. It's a profession in its own right. There are ways to learn how to make use of this strategy, but it will take time, creativity and a strong awareness of your local community or even the global community which is not only fresh and captivating but also a perfectly relevant tie in to your business. Remember, a good press release isn't simply a case of telling a journalist that you've just released new website or range of black socks reminding you which day of the week it is on them.

7. Offline methods

Putting stickers on your vehicle, creating posters, flyers, mugs, t-shirts, pens, labels, sticky notes etc. Downside: Although this may grab the attention of maybe a few people on an irregular basis, this will not provide you with a method to drum up substantial sales by any means. Try it, do it, but don't rely on it to allow you a lifetime of profit inducing, repetitive sales.

There are more methods, but to be honest I am just painting a picture here of the more commonly used, current methods and where they can become hard work and can even become totally flawed. Don't misunderstand me here, I am not suggesting for one minute that the techniques mentioned above are worthless or ineffective. Just realise that they do have flaws and there are elements of each technique to be aware of before you throw money (or worse still time) at them.

The future of online advertising/marketing for any business is to embrace and involve the true essence of the internet. What is this essence?

The internet was created as a means of sharing information and networking with others. You can't just throw money at the internet and expect to become a millionaire. The internet has evolved over the years by one way and one way only. What is it?

It is by creating networks. There is no one central hub by which someone can pay to access all the people they need to simply by paying money or learning how to make these valuable contacts. In order to succeed online, you need to understand the essence of the internet which is that it survives and expands on the notion that people "talk" to or "network" with others. The more people network, the more the word spreads about anyone or anything. This means that you need to network yourself if you wish to reach maximum sales potential and retire young with your looks still intact!

So the best way to network is to be able to reach people on a wide scale, this is done by two methods and two methods alone. One is creating business partnerships - this is being done all the time by the wealthy entrepreneurs and business owners online AND offline.

It is the very essence of growing your business. The possibilities are endless when you enlist the help of someone else who is already established in their field, or has the experience, credibility or know-how to spread the word about your business.

The other, which is even more effective and fast becoming the best way to reach a wide audience who will give you money, is through viral marketing. This may or may not be a familiar term. Viral marketing is a concept that is used to create information/media/messages that spread from one person to the next rapidly because of their unique appeal. It is a technique that separates the millionaires from the broke strugglers online. If you don't adopt a viral marketing strategy sooner or later, your competitors will .. and will outrun you as a result.

The sooner you learn how to create an effective viral campaign, the sooner you can enjoy the worldwide exposure of your business for years to come. Without doubt, viral marketing is the most cost effective way to reach potential customers of your products or service with very minimal advertising/marketing costs. Viral marketing is becoming a real 'buzz word' online these days and this is surely a result of the expanding technologies and community portals that are being developed and released into the main internet arena. For example - You Tube, MySpace, Technorati, Furl, Digg, FaceBook.

Although some of these examples have been around for years, only more recently are they being utilized as a powerful platform for effective viral marketing strategies online.

Literally set it up once and let it go wild throughout the global community. Viral marketing is the way to go, don't let your competitors teach you that lesson before you jump on board this immense marketing technique.

The Benefits Of Using Exclusive Private Label Rights

2007-03-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

Current info about exclusive private label rights is not always the easiest thing to locate. Fortunately, this report includes the latest exclusive info available. You understand that exclusive private label rights products can be explosively profitable once you have a blueprint to use them. You know that quality PLR products in red hot niches can be used to create INSTANT info-products, articles, content based websites, high-profit Adsense based sites & much more. In fact, there's almost no limit to the fast-track profit you can induce with quality private label rights products.

You would benefit from a mix of exclusive products & other popular PLR products in a wide variety of in demand niches. This allows you the opportunity of using highly potent private label rights packages as soon as they hit the internet. You want potent niche products with resell rights strongly related to the PLR content to make your final packages so stunning that targeted prospects feel compelled to buy immediately.

It's really a good idea to probe a little deeper into the subject of exclusive private label rights. What you learn may give you the confidence you need to venture into new areas. You want high-demand private label rights products relating to markets that have millions of prospects, with potential affiliate programs spitting out high paying commissions & niches with excellent adsense potential. Let's face it, some niches are better than others and it's hard to get serious gains with some of the standard PLR's out there in less than fabulous niche areas.

You want instant access to a huge database of the tools, knowledge, software & resources that you need to whip up astonishing info-products in record time using nothing but PLR content. This gives you the power of creating astonishing info-products (with or without resell rights) that you can sell to your customers for $29 to $97 all day.

You're an experienced online business owner or info-product creator who just wants the best quality PLR content so that you can whip up highly unique products to sell very quickly (or to use for list building purposes). You need MORE than just how-to guides. You're looking to build a highly profitable internet business and as such you need quality information on all aspects of using private label rights in your internet marketing business. PLR are known ways of creating wealth online.

As your knowledge about exclusive private label rights continues to grow, you will begin to see how exclusive private label rights fits into the overall scheme of things. Knowing how something relates to the rest of the world is important too. You want MAXIMUM value for your money when using exclusive private label rights. You want this PLR package for just a few bucks. Well, you will get this if you click here.

Affiliate Marketer 101

2007-03-10T21:15:00.000-08:00

The fun and simple way of making a living on the Internet is through affiliate marketing. No need for payment processors, inventory or selling hassles. Even though it is a popular business to start with, there are still some points to be considered for you to make the maximum amount of money. Here are some of them:

* Your own website: Do not rely on your sponsor's mirror site. You need to stand out among the others to do well. When you have your own website, it will allow you to collect email addresses by means of a free newsletter and build your business as well as your sponsor's. Website promotion is much more cost effective than direct marketing. You can pre sell and warm your visitors to the sale before they click through to your sponsor's sales page, with a lot of interesting content.

An auto responder is a must for effective email marketing and setting up informative mailers to get the click through. You should be careful to choose this wisely as it is a very useful tool for your business. You will also use it to send out your newsletter and manage your lists.

* Driving targeted traffic to your website: This is one of the keys to succeeding in affiliate marketing. One of the several ways is article distribution. You can either have articles written or write them yourself.

If you want a free website providing lots of resources, visit www.moreniche.com. MoreNiche offers a guide about best hosting and web designing help for your business and free weekly content that can serve as reference for your articles in your site promotion.

Autoresponder

2007-02-27T01:34:00.000-08:00

If you are running an online business, then I guess you are pretty aware of online marketing. Through online marketing your business can progress to full measure. One of the primary things needed in an online type of marketing is sending promotional and updates. With thousands of email address embedded in your mailing database, a lot of work is required - from sending opted-in promotional, to answering questions, to following up requests, or even just the confirmation of their subscription for your mailings.

Autoresponder is a computer program (message can be structured in any way you want) that automatically answers email sent to it. With this type of software, answering same questions or requests time and again can be eliminated. Autoresponder can either reply immediately to emails of your clients so that they will know that you have received their message and you are going to tend to it when you're available. Or you can send price listing of your products, answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ) and other fixed information about your business. Just make sure to place a message informing your clients why they are receiving such mailings. This will prevent them from reporting your message as spam.

If you just need an autoresponder that will send a single message such as assuring your clients that you have received their emails, then you can used the autoresponder that comes along with the web hosting package. The set- up might vary from one web host to another, but the activation usually involves your host's control panel. In some cases, more than one message are to be sent in a definite time interval, with this you can use a commercial or a free autoresponder which can meet the magnitude of the service required. These free autoresponder services serve as a third party, which means that you don't have any control over them. These services are freely offered in exchange of the advertisements which will be placed in your autoresponders.

Another consideration is making sure that your autoresponder message will not be considered as spam. A simple tag such as "I'm on vacation" might not appear as spam, but that is not the case most the time. To ensure you of a correct tag message try visiting prohostingreply.com

Using Chat Rooms To Gain Massive Website Traffic

2007-02-24T10:17:00.000-08:00

Spamming chat rooms or instant messaging systems with undifferentiated marketing messages is certainly not a very good idea.

But if they are used the right way, these channels can be great to communicate with the market - especially to establish a dialogue with customers.

Have you ever been to a chat room and posted a message. If you have then you may learn some free web-advertising secrets on how to market your products and service in chat rooms.

Chat rooms are usually broken into categories. You will need to find the right chat room where your targeted audience would gather. If there isn't one, them you may need to create one.

It will be of no use to create one that is obviously for the sole purpose of selling your product or service. Rather, it needs to attract people who would be interested in your product or service.

For example: If you sell garden products, your chat room should be on the subject of gardening and not the brand name of the products you sell.

Another way to use a chat room to promote your business is to include a chat room on your web site. Host a free online seminar in your own chat room about a subject of your expertise.

Use your chat room to meet with your current customers and answer any questions or address and problems they may have. Regularly schedule free events in your chat room and be certain that your customers are made aware of when they will occur.

For example, you might have an expert in the field available to answer questions on a certain day and between certain hours. You might, also, host other people's chat rooms as an expert yourself.

Site Promotion Tools: Let's Get Creative

2007-02-21T20:27:00.000-08:00

Some websites provide a squeeze page to encourage visitors to register while others offer free membership to encourage new site visitors to pass along their contact information for a free gift.

There is another method that can help you build your list. The use of a sweepstakes can be an unusually strong enticement for some visitors to register. This article isn't intended to delve into the psychology of why it works, but a lot of people do enjoy the element of chance. These individuals are more than willing to pass along their contact information for a chance at something that intrigues them.

If you are a writer you might offer a copy of your latest book through random drawing. If you are a recording artist you might put together a grouping of signed CD's to pass along and if you are a business owner you can provide a pack of products you offer that will be shipped to the winner in a sweepstakes drawing.

You don't have to provide a new car or a Caribbean cruise for individuals to be willing to sign up. From a purely practical standpoint the odds are in your favor that the long-term list building benefits far outweigh whatever expense you may have in your sweepstakes.

Some sites find these sweepstakes so successful they often conduct new sweepstakes quarterly or even monthly.

Some websites have even found a way to maximize site visitation by holding contests that invite the creativity of their site visitors to be the springboard for site registration.

For instance, a national snack chip manufacturer invited their customers to come up with a thirty second commercial that they'd like to see used in the Super Bowl advertising. An incredible amount of videos were submitted. That's when this creative marketing strategy went into overdrive. Visitors could go the company website and vote for the video of their choice. The proviso was that you had to sign up to cast your vote.

As you take the total number of video submissions times a concerted grass roots voting recruitment effort by these amateur video producers it's easy to see the registrations for this site increased by multiplied thousands.

A canned soup company promotes a 'vote for your favorite NFL team' event each year that includes a philanthropic twist. For every vote for your team they will give one can of their soup to feed needy individuals in the US. In this case the business taps into a different type of consumer who is willing to help others in every way they can. In this case it involves registering to send a can of soup to the needy in their community while allowing them to show team spirit.

Get creative in discovering new ways to promote your website. Use existing tools or create something that fits your own unique personality and business style.

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with HighPowerSites at: http://www.highpowersites.com. Start your own ebook business with BooksWealth at: http://www.bookswealth.com

Myspace Marketing for Those with Hearts

2007-02-15T11:11:00.000-08:00

So, you understand the power of the insanely massive community called Myspace, but would rather not get indicted for phising like all the other "marketers" out there? Well, then I think we are going to be friends, as I know the simplest, most legitimate way to advertise on Myspace: simply use it the way it is supposed to be used.

First, you need to set up a profile. You can do that for free on their homepage. When registering with Myspace, you can either decide to use "yourself" as the subject of your page or you can develop an alter ego, either way is works.

Then, this really ties in with the first step, you need to personalize your new profile with information about yourself or your alter ego. It certainly wouldn't hurt to use one of the many Myspace profile editors out there to "jazz" things up a bit.

Next, which is the most important step, in your "about me" section, you need to put a link to the website you are promoting somehow. The easiest, and might I add most effective, means of achieving this is to make it short and simple, something like: "Hi my name is Gonzo. I'm from Philly and I LOVE cheesesteaks. In my free time, I love to cook and work on my website: " Of course, you are free to do this however you want.

Finally, just use Myspace like it is supposed to be used. Add friends (you are welcome to use one of the various automatic friend adders, such as badderadder), leave comments, post bulletins, etc.. Eventually, you will have a lot of friends, and, provided you treat them like you would a friend (read: actually talk to them a few times and DON'T make them feel like a tool), you have the potential to generate a lot of traffic to your site.

I have found this method to be much more effective than the "spam them with bulletins" approach used by a lot of people because, honestly, nobody reads those things anyway. Using this method, if you place a bulletin, after gaining the peoples' trust, the likelihood of them reading it is much higher. Furthermore, contrary to the other method, this method helps to strengthen the Myspace community, rather than to deface it with spammers and phisers. Its a win-win situation!

About the Author

Steve Bruno lives in sunny San Diego, CA. In his spare time, he enjoys surfing the net, making music, and working on his Internet Marketing Site