By: Martin Lemieux
The way we do business is changing rapidly. From VOIP, video conferencing, email support, telephone answering services, and the almighty internet. As a business owner we are faced with hundreds of decisions our parents and grandparents never had to contend with.
Some of you keep hearing from other business associates that internet marketing is the greatest method of increasing business and building a foundation for customer support. The only problem is, you've just learned how to send emails to people! Never mind learning about SEO, web design strategies, content analysis, pay per click, ROI, etc!
Do you hire an SEO company or do you learn yourself?
Investing time into your company is what we business owners do best but, in many cases, when it comes to learning new methods we quickly open our wallets to anyone out there who seems like the right person to help with your situation. This is the worst possible decision you can make.
Diving into the internet marketing community with your wallet open will result in a disaster if you aren't properly trained on how to spend your money wisely. The key is not to hire an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) company to take your money and promote your business behind your back. Try finding someone who offers you their "training services" in order to train yourself or someone within your organization to learn more about what is required online, how much effort it entails, and what pitfalls to avoid.
As a business owner, if you blindly search online and pick a company, you have no idea what you could be getting yourself into. There are no secrets to promoting your business online, only a lot of hard work. That being said, anyone with a computer can easily learn how to get their company high search engine rankings. Search engines don't look to see whether or not you're running a scam. No, they are concentrated on delivering relevant results for your search terms.
Old Fashioned Marketing Tactics:
In the old days (and still practiced today), business owners would devise their own marketing plan through print media, business cards, postcards, flyers, brochures, newspapers, magazines, TV ads, and radio ads. By doing this, the company could track their results by trial and error and really find out what truly works for their industry.
Old fashioned marketing is a simple trial and error process. So is the internet. Unfortunately, all too many business owners don't have a clue how to start their own internet marketing process and they fail to even put their foot in the water. Instead, many business owners simply hire anyone they can find that seems reputable and then turn a blind eye and say; "Here's my budget, you are the professional, you tell me what to do". This is simply preposterous. You've worked so hard to get to where you are now by learning and adapting and as soon as it comes to marketing your business online, you simply shut down.
I hope that this article has awoken some of you. Don't be afraid to dive into the internet's vast realm of marketing potential. So what if you fail the first time around. When we started out, we had no idea what we were doing, 3 years later our website ranks higher than many other internet marketing companies world wide.
The ULTIMATE secret to internet marketing is simple...
A concept I call "T.I.M.E."
T - Try and try again
I - Internet changes all the time
M - Marketing opportunities are around every corner
E - Eventually you too can succeed
Think of it this way (Illustration only)
Here is a timeline of your internet marketing campaign:
Start date - Research only: June 7th, 2005
Hired a website designer - August 31st, 2005
Website Complete - October 15th, 2005
Website launch - October 20th, 2005
Started an internet marketing campaign - November 1st, 2005
Started a Pay Per Click campaign - November 10th, 2005
Made a sale - November 15th, 2005
Increased our website’s link popularity - January 1st, 2006
Website gets hit by the Google Sandbox Effect - January 20th, 2006
Increased our Pay Per Click campaign - February 5th, 2006
Made some changes to the website - February 21st, 2006
Increase the website’s link popularity - February 28th, 2006
Got listed in the Yahoo directory - March 3rd, 2006
So here you are 10 months out of the gate and your website may still be "locked in the Google sandbox" ( Search for "Google Sandbox" in Google for an explanation). Your link popularity is just starting to grow a little bit. Hopefully you haven't tried to link to everyone you can find and are actually linking to companies that are directly related to your business. Your PPC campaign is doing good. People are finally starting to come through Yahoo & MSN search results. You can sometimes find your company in the 200th spot within search results in Google and you are now wondering why this is taking so long.
Welcome to the world of marketing your company on the internet!!!
This timeline representation from above is just something to show you how "T.I.M.E." is the key of success on the internet and all we are required to do is keep plugging away and keep learning more every chance we get.
For most people who simply open up their wallets, they would have learned nothing in those 10 months and for everyone else starting an internet marketing campaign, those who didn't simply just open their wallets, their websites are probably 10 times further than yours!
In Conclusion:
Learn more about how to increase your marketing campaign on the internet. If you have to, hire someone in-house who can learn for you and give you updates on everything. If you truly need to hire an SEO company make sure it's for the right reasons like "starting and finishing a marketing campaign with you learning in the process", or "enhancing a campaign that is already in place", or "to revise your website’s conversion rate" or "create an impactful key word optimization campaign", etc. Take your time and use "T.I.M.E." to increase your business slowly but effectively on the internet.
I hope you've enjoyed this article!
About The Author:
Martin Lemieux is the president of the Smartads Advertising Network. Smartads is here to help grow your business online and offline through effective marketing strategies. Visit our network today!
International: http://www.smartads.info/
Canada: http://www.smartads.ca/
For more of Martin's articles, go here:
http://www.smartads.info/newsletter/archive
Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article, just make sure everything remains the same.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
DO YOU KNOW eBay NO LONGER ACCEPT CHECKS AND MONEY ORDERS?
(Shopping Information)
The next time you surface on the official site of eBay to purchase with either check or money order, you will be greeted with an unpleasant surprise.
The announcement came recently from their information desk (FAQ) that starting from late October 2008, payments made by checks and money orders will be bounced or simply not accepted.
Security reasons were said to be responsible for the action and the announcement added that the only acceptable modes of payment would only be:
1. PayPal
2. ProPay
3. Credit or debit card payment to the seller.
4. Payment upon pickup
This, they seem to suggest will give users a more secure checkout experience but how about people that wouldn’t even use eBay or PayPal for the simple reason that they don’t want to reveal their vital card information for the same security reasons that are being mentioned?
The aspect that makes most business sense to me is the fact that mailed in payments normally arrive late and at times bounce when they do.
Exceptions however were made to items such as automobiles, heavy machinery, real estate and mature audiences.
The policy will certainly be favourable to some but bitter to others. Which ever way it is, all of us can’t be satisfied as we may expect. What is your view on this?
The next time you surface on the official site of eBay to purchase with either check or money order, you will be greeted with an unpleasant surprise.
The announcement came recently from their information desk (FAQ) that starting from late October 2008, payments made by checks and money orders will be bounced or simply not accepted.
Security reasons were said to be responsible for the action and the announcement added that the only acceptable modes of payment would only be:
1. PayPal
2. ProPay
3. Credit or debit card payment to the seller.
4. Payment upon pickup
This, they seem to suggest will give users a more secure checkout experience but how about people that wouldn’t even use eBay or PayPal for the simple reason that they don’t want to reveal their vital card information for the same security reasons that are being mentioned?
The aspect that makes most business sense to me is the fact that mailed in payments normally arrive late and at times bounce when they do.
Exceptions however were made to items such as automobiles, heavy machinery, real estate and mature audiences.
The policy will certainly be favourable to some but bitter to others. Which ever way it is, all of us can’t be satisfied as we may expect. What is your view on this?
Friday, October 17, 2008
DO YOU KNOW eBay NO LONGER ACCEPTS CHECKS AND MONEY ORDERS?
(Shopping Information)
The next time you surface on the official site of eBay to purchase with either a check or money order, you will be greeted with an unpleasant surprise.
The announcement came recently from their information desk (FAQ) that starting from late October 2008, payments made by checks and money orders will be bounced or simply not accepted.
Security reasons were said to be responsible for the action being taken and the announcement added that the only acceptable modes of payment would only be:
1. PayPal
2. ProPay
3. Credit or debit card payment to the seller.
4. Payment upon pickupThis, they seem to suggest will give users a more secure checkout experience but how about people that wouldn’t even use eBay or PayPal for the simple reason that they don’t want to reveal their vital card information for the same security reasons that are being mentioned?
The aspect that makes most business sense to me is the fact that mailed in payments normally arrive late and at times bounce when they do.
Exceptions however were made to items such as automobiles, heavy machinery, real estate and mature audiences.
The policy will certainly be favourable to some but bitter to others. Which ever way it is, all of us can’t be satisfied as we may expect. What is your view on this?
The next time you surface on the official site of eBay to purchase with either a check or money order, you will be greeted with an unpleasant surprise.
The announcement came recently from their information desk (FAQ) that starting from late October 2008, payments made by checks and money orders will be bounced or simply not accepted.
Security reasons were said to be responsible for the action being taken and the announcement added that the only acceptable modes of payment would only be:
1. PayPal
2. ProPay
3. Credit or debit card payment to the seller.
4. Payment upon pickupThis, they seem to suggest will give users a more secure checkout experience but how about people that wouldn’t even use eBay or PayPal for the simple reason that they don’t want to reveal their vital card information for the same security reasons that are being mentioned?
The aspect that makes most business sense to me is the fact that mailed in payments normally arrive late and at times bounce when they do.
Exceptions however were made to items such as automobiles, heavy machinery, real estate and mature audiences.
The policy will certainly be favourable to some but bitter to others. Which ever way it is, all of us can’t be satisfied as we may expect. What is your view on this?
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS BY EARNING TRUST AND RESPECT FROM YOUR CUSTOMERS
In an attempt to make the most out of our day hours, we often post articles promoting our business onto the web without taking the time to cross check on grammatical and spelling errors.
In one of my recent blog posts, I looked at the damaging effects of errors on web pages. If you own an online business and utilize such methods as business blogs, discussion boards and social networks to achieve your online marketing goals then you must read this follow up post.
It is true that the internet is liberal and no one arrests you for grammatical and spelling mistakes but it is also true that whatever you post onto the internet (content) represents who you are and the class of service you offer.
If you have ever been on a discussion board before then you would know what I am talking about.
In today’s competitive marketplace, customers want to deal with businesses that have high reputation. It is therefore necessary to present your product or service in a perfect way so that it will take much lesser time to convince your prospective customer to make a decision in your favour.
Over time, this will enable you to get large volumes of customers that invariably translate into sales and revenue from your business. One should also avoid using complex sentence constructions because your customers are coming from diverse backgrounds and of different understanding patterns. Like I said before, a dissatisfied customer is a bad advertisement of your business out there hence it is important to use clear language since this forms part your customer service.
It is a fact that most word processing programs available today are able to do a lot about grammar and spelling check but they have limitations. For example, you may want to type the word “next” but instead type “nest” which cannot apply in the same context. It might not be detected by the software so the only way to avoid this error is to cross check your article again.
It may not be a bad idea to have a second person glance through for you even if you have to give a reward for it.
I am not a lecturer in English Language and as humans, we all make mistakes but my point is that it will be very sad to allow some of these little things to prevent us from maximizing profits from businesses that we have built over a million years of hard work.
In one of my recent blog posts, I looked at the damaging effects of errors on web pages. If you own an online business and utilize such methods as business blogs, discussion boards and social networks to achieve your online marketing goals then you must read this follow up post.
It is true that the internet is liberal and no one arrests you for grammatical and spelling mistakes but it is also true that whatever you post onto the internet (content) represents who you are and the class of service you offer.
If you have ever been on a discussion board before then you would know what I am talking about.
In today’s competitive marketplace, customers want to deal with businesses that have high reputation. It is therefore necessary to present your product or service in a perfect way so that it will take much lesser time to convince your prospective customer to make a decision in your favour.
Over time, this will enable you to get large volumes of customers that invariably translate into sales and revenue from your business. One should also avoid using complex sentence constructions because your customers are coming from diverse backgrounds and of different understanding patterns. Like I said before, a dissatisfied customer is a bad advertisement of your business out there hence it is important to use clear language since this forms part your customer service.
It is a fact that most word processing programs available today are able to do a lot about grammar and spelling check but they have limitations. For example, you may want to type the word “next” but instead type “nest” which cannot apply in the same context. It might not be detected by the software so the only way to avoid this error is to cross check your article again.
It may not be a bad idea to have a second person glance through for you even if you have to give a reward for it.
I am not a lecturer in English Language and as humans, we all make mistakes but my point is that it will be very sad to allow some of these little things to prevent us from maximizing profits from businesses that we have built over a million years of hard work.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
TO WHAT EXTENT CAN WEBSITE PROBLEMS BE DAMAGING TO YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS?
Everyone who does business online will agree that the issue of website problems can potentially have adverse effect on the success of your marketing business.
The crucial question here is to what extent can this problem harm or drive away your potential customers thereby reducing your income margin?
In a recent survey conducted by a Customer Experience Management software company, it was revealed that about 41% of your visitors just click away when they face a problem and majority of these go to another competitor.
It is estimated that the impact is valued at about $57 billion on shopping revenue loss to online businesses. Perhaps this alone is enough to explain why is important for business owners to keep their sites in good shape and always running.
No problem is too small or too large to produce a dissatisfied customer, be it non availability of specific web pages or miss-selling. Once your customer is dissatisfied, he or she becomes a bad advertisement out there for your business.
Surprisingly, 87% of people buying on the web have experienced website problems in one way or the other and out of this, 75% communicate the problem with friends and relations which re-echoes the bad effect of it. If you think this can not have even further repercussions, then you better think again because the chain may continue than you can ever imagine.
The mode of communication includes the following:
1. 82% use in-person and non-online ways such as phone conversations.
2. 74% use phone conversations.
3. 50% tell friends and families physically.
4. 58% use online methods such as channels or reviews on company sites.
5. 39% use email to do the talking to others
6. 23% on ratings and reviews site
7. 16% use an online message board
8. 8% on blogs or social network.
Most of these comments last long and are widely spread across the globe.
The internet has done a lot of new changes never seen before to businesses so that competition is keener but cheaper.
Is it therefore vital for owners of businesses to uniquely differentiate their businesses by putting in place, measures that will help avoid turning off their customers.
Monday, October 6, 2008
ARE YOU PRACTISING AFFILIATE MARKETING EFFECTIVELY?
For sometime now, I have been giving my view on the topic. I wish move a little deeper to talk about doing it the right way in order for an affiliate to succeed.
You will agree with me that it is one thing, acquiring the principles involved in affiliate marketing and its another thing succeeding in a rather competetive market.
THE FULL BLAST COMING SOON!
You will agree with me that it is one thing, acquiring the principles involved in affiliate marketing and its another thing succeeding in a rather competetive market.
THE FULL BLAST COMING SOON!
Monday, September 29, 2008
ONLINE AFFILIATE MARKETING (DOES IT REALLY WORK?)
Yes; affiliate marketing is really the place to be in my opinion. In all the online jobs, you could find an element of affiliate marketing in one way or the other. It has gained so much prominence that hardly would you find a business website that is without a package for affiliates.
What is Affiliate Marketing at all?
In the lay man’s language, I would say that it’s nothing but online lead generation, referral or better still, selling somebody’s products. It is possible to create an affiliate account with an online merchant and place your promotional link somewhere in the web so that if somebody clicks on it, he will be directed to the merchants website, for instance Target.com.
Should this customer eventually make a purchase through your link, Target.com will reward you with a percentage of the sale. The commission varies from one merchant to the other and this program works well for both parties because it is a kind of win-win situation.
I am sure a question that will run through your mind by now is how does the merchant track your sales in order to reward you for your efforts? Pretty simple, a unique web address designed, carrying your affiliate details and is put in the URL solves the problem as it enables the merchant to track that sale to you the affiliate. Interestingly, majority of these affiliate links have got a piece of program called ‘cookie’ which is stored on the visitors’ computer, some for 3 or more days.
Some ‘cookies’ can even last for months or a year.
What the cookie does is that even if the visitor does not buy the product that very day but returns sometime latter to purchase it, the sale could still be identified and credited to your affiliate account.
The only thing I find as a limitation is that, after you have referred the customer through your link, any other thing that goes on is beyond the affiliate. However, I think that the advantages of making money online in this way far outweighs this limitation and it should not be a reason for one not to venture into the affiliate business or online affiliate marketing.
It is worth noting that it’s a genuine and very legal way of making money online and there is no limitation to the amount of revenue that could be generated.
The internet is enormous and an affiliate can actually make a fortune by reaching out to just a small fraction of it.
The most interesting and perhaps economical feature about the business of affiliate marketing is that it is entirely free to sign up with almost all merchant websites.
What is Affiliate Marketing at all?
In the lay man’s language, I would say that it’s nothing but online lead generation, referral or better still, selling somebody’s products. It is possible to create an affiliate account with an online merchant and place your promotional link somewhere in the web so that if somebody clicks on it, he will be directed to the merchants website, for instance Target.com.
Should this customer eventually make a purchase through your link, Target.com will reward you with a percentage of the sale. The commission varies from one merchant to the other and this program works well for both parties because it is a kind of win-win situation.
I am sure a question that will run through your mind by now is how does the merchant track your sales in order to reward you for your efforts? Pretty simple, a unique web address designed, carrying your affiliate details and is put in the URL solves the problem as it enables the merchant to track that sale to you the affiliate. Interestingly, majority of these affiliate links have got a piece of program called ‘cookie’ which is stored on the visitors’ computer, some for 3 or more days.
Some ‘cookies’ can even last for months or a year.
What the cookie does is that even if the visitor does not buy the product that very day but returns sometime latter to purchase it, the sale could still be identified and credited to your affiliate account.
The only thing I find as a limitation is that, after you have referred the customer through your link, any other thing that goes on is beyond the affiliate. However, I think that the advantages of making money online in this way far outweighs this limitation and it should not be a reason for one not to venture into the affiliate business or online affiliate marketing.
It is worth noting that it’s a genuine and very legal way of making money online and there is no limitation to the amount of revenue that could be generated.
The internet is enormous and an affiliate can actually make a fortune by reaching out to just a small fraction of it.
The most interesting and perhaps economical feature about the business of affiliate marketing is that it is entirely free to sign up with almost all merchant websites.
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