Marketing Informations

So you have got a great medium to reach your audience. Your ad has all the graphics spiffed up to attract attention and you have a great eye-catching photo. You know people are looking at it. But no one is responding. What’s going on?

Your copy is falling flat, that’s what. You need to use active language, and powerful words that get and keep attention. Here’s how.

Use your headline. Headlines are the most important copy-related parts of print ads. If you have a dull headline, like the name of your business, you’re wasting precious space and money. That space could be used as a call to action or to give a benefit of your product. Keep your business address, phone number and other boring, but important, information in smaller font and towards the bottom of your ad. By using the space to brag about your largest, most impacting benefit, you could increase response by 300 percent.

Focus on the customer. Use “you” rather “we” or “I.” People want to know how you can help them, not about your great employees. Of course if your business is a service that employees provide, then yes, tout your employees. But tout what they can do for your customer, and what they’ve done in the past for similar customers. Show the customer that you have something that they need that will benefit their lives.

Include a call to action. People won’t visit your store if you don’t ask them to. They won’t be motivated to visit your Web site unless you tell them you have one and give them the Web address to get there. Word your call to action as a command: “Visit our Web site today.” “Call today.”

Use power words. Use sexy words that will stay with readers. Words that evoke movement and excitement work best. Concrete words will also give you a leg up. Use “erase wrinkles” instead of “get rid of wrinkles.” Use persuasive words such as “give,” “hurry” and “invite.” Use words that evoke trust: “tested” and “proven.” Use words that flatter the reader like “wise” and “special” when describing them.

Avoid overused words. Don’t use words that people have heard over and over again in advertising. Generally these words have only held false promises in the past. People remember words that burned them before. A few to avoid are “quality,” “value,” “service,” “caring” and “integrity.”

Do not waste your budget on commercial printing materials that are boring and that aren’t going to work for you. Spend more time and money on creating your message upfront, perhaps even hiring a freelance marketing writer or a consultant that can help you create a powerful message before you choose your color scheme or photo.

Most affiliates new to affiliate marketing find the Affiliate Marketing Terminology they come across rather overwhelming. The enthusiasm with which they started sometimes ends up in despair simply because they are clueless about the terminology used.

The sooner you learn and understand the Affiliate Marketing terminology commonly used the faster you will be able to promote the products or services in the most advantageous and beneficial manner. The other terms can be picked up as you go along.

Affiliate Marketing:

Also known as Performance-Based Marketing is a system where referring sites receive a commission from merchants on leads or sales generated.

Affiliate Program:

This is also known as Associate Program, Partner, Referral or Revenue sharing program. In this program the merchant rewards the affiliate for web traffic, sales or leads on a pay-per-click, pay-per-sale, or pay-per-lead basis.

Affiliate Agreement:

Terms between a merchant and an affiliate that governs the relationship. This specifies the terms on which the affiliate will be rewarded for the visitors sent to the merchant’s website.

Affiliate Link:

This is a unique URL tracking link that identifies the affiliate and sends traffic to the merchant’s website. These links can be simple text links, images or product links, etc.

HTML Code:

This is the lines of code that affiliates place on their web pages for linking to the merchant’s site. This HTML code contains the unique characteristics that identifies the traffic as originating from the Affiliate’s website.

Pay Per Click:

Merchant offers money often a small amount, to the affiliate every time a visitor is sent from the affiliate’s website to the merchant’s website. A payment is made even if the visitor he referred does not purchase anything from the merchant’s site.

Pay Per Lead:

Merchant rewards affiliates for conversions to leads. A lead could be filling a signup form, software download, participating in a survey, contest, signup for a trial, etc. Pay Per Lead generally offers midrange commissions

Pay Per Sale:

Merchant pays money each and every time a visitor sent from your website actually buys some product offered from the merchant’s site. The money paid is much higher than in Pay Per Click or Pay Per Lead programs.

EPC:

Earnings per hundred clicks.:This is the most commonly used terminology for determining the financial return provided by an affiliate programme. It refers to the average earnings of affiliates for every hundred clicks they deliver to the merchant.

Click Through:

This is when a web user clicks on an affiliate’s banner or link and is directed to the merchant’s site.

CTR: Click Through Rate:

This is calculated by dividing the number of clicks an ad receives by number of impressions made. Thus if a banner ad was shown 100 times and received 15 clicks it would have a click through rate of 15%.

Google Adsense:

This Google programme offers website owners the opportunity to include ads from its pay per click advertisers. Website owners are paid a percentage of the click cost to advertiser when one of these Adsense ads is clicked.

Above the fold:

Means the section of a web page which can be seen without scrolling. Links and ads above the fold are more likely to be clicked especially by webmasters when placing Google Adsense ads.

Two-tier Program:

Affiliate marketing model that allows affiliates to sign up additional affiliates below themselves, so that when the second tier affiliates earn a commission, the affiliate above them also receives a commission. Multi-tier affiliate marketing also works the same way; the affiliate gets additional commission for a wider number of affiliates in different tiers in the affiliate network.

Residual Income:

Here the affiliate gets paid not only once for every customer he has referred to the merchant’s site but also he gets paid whenever the customer he has referred returns to the merchant’s site and purchases other products.

An affiliate who understands the affiliate marketing terminology always has the advantage of comparing the benefits of the different affiliate programs and also promoting them to obtain the maximum rewards for his efforts.

by Kanaga Siva

One of the hardest things to get when it comes to MLM businesses is finding good solid leads that are not going to end up hammering you with spam violations. You could spend a long time gathering leads up yourself. It is the time honored traditional way or you could purchase your leads. Of course, this is where things may get a little tricky. You want to make sure that if you are going to pick leads up from an MLM Lead Broker that you are dealing with a company or person that you can trust. Trust is the main element or plateau to break when doing business on or off the Internet.

There are a couple of ways that MLM Lead Broker companies get the leads that they sell. They are either purchasing these leads from the opt-ins that are checked when a person opt-in to receive information from partners or other opt-in option or they are obtaining it in a different manner which may not be as legitimate as leads that are verified.

There are a number of MLM Lead Broker companies out there but you are going to want to look for one that offers safe leads. Safe leads are ones that are verified and guaranteed. This means you are not going to be getting a lot of information you do not need and email addresses that are simply going to come back to you as spam. MLM Lead Broker also offers tips on how to get started with various aspects of using the leads you have purchase.

There are also a number of different types of leads that can be purchased through an MLM Lead Broker. Just about any type you can think of. The various types of leads are shipped out in batches of a certain size and the cost varies depending on the type of lead you are looking at. New leads, targeted leads, exclusive leads, these are ones that are going to cost more per batch because of the specific nature of the lead and the amount of time that it takes to generate these types of legitimate leads.

There are also leads, which are used by many companies and are more generic along with just basic email leads. These usually cost less because of the fact that they are sold to many different people and are frequently used. The chances of receiving hits from these leads are usually less likely but you can increase the number of leads purchased for a similar price and thereby increase your chances. This is what an MLM Lead Broker is all about.

When you go to increase, your leads there are two ways of doing it. The old-fashioned way, which involves working long hours to pull together leads on your own or you, can hit a lead broker and gain your leads. It is important to make sure that your leads are clean. You do not want your business to have to deal with the hassles of being nailed for spam mail or being constantly blocked.

by Brian Garvin 

If you were celebrating Valentines Day with a candlelight dinner for two at home and settled in to watch a movie, “Sleepless in Seattle” would be a great choice because it provides a pleasant experience and is already becoming a romantic comedy classic.

Your parents or grandparents experienced a similar story line in the now classic “An Affair to Remember” that was released in 1957 and paired Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Their characters fall in love and agree to meet in 6 months at the Empire State Building in New York.

Sleepless in Seattle, released 36 years later in 1993, pairs Tom Hanks as Sam Baldwin and Meg Ryan as Annie Reed. Sam is the recently-widowed father of 8-year-old Jonah Baldwin (Ross Malinger), who calls a nationally-broadcast radio talk show in an attempt to find his lonely father a partner.

A somewhat reluctant Sam talks to host Marcia Fieldstone and thousands of single women across America are suddenly drawn in to Sam’s sense of love for his former wife, each wishing she could be as cherished as Sam’s next special person. To wit:

Doctor Marcia Fieldstone: Tell me what was so special about your wife?

Sam Baldwin: Well, how long is your program? Well, it was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together . . .and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home . . . only to no home I’d ever known . . .I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like . . . magic.

If that dialog does not melt every woman’s heart she would need to go straight to “The Wizard of Oz” and receive a new transplant. Soon Sam is getting thousands of letters from wannabe partners, all of which are read by his son Jonah, who decides that “Annie” is the best choice.

Annie is engaged to marry Walter (Bill Pullman). Should she do so she would be making the first great mistake of her life. Walter is a decent enough chap, but Annie is missing any sparks in their relationship because Walter has the personality of an ashtray.

Annie goes to great lengths to meet Sam, flying from New York to Seattle only to discover Sam with another woman, whom she mistakes for a love interest. She never mails a letter she has written to Sam, but her friend does. In it she proposes to meet Sam on top of the Empire State Building.

Sam is not interested in going, but his son Jonah is, so, with the help of his new friend whose parents own a travel agency, he is able to book a flight to the Big Apple and ends up on the observation deck of the Empire State Building looking for Annie. Sam, in a panic, to find his son, follows him to New York. The rest you will have to see.

Hanks is very convincing as a forlorn widower and Ryan was at her peak of being cute and innocent. The chemistry between the two, who only share approximately 2 minutes of screen time together, is great.

The role of Annie was originally offered to Julia Roberts but she turned it town. Kim Basinger, who was also offered the part, turned it down because she thought the premise was ridiculous. Just recently in the news, a youngster in Jonah’s peer group did exactly what Jonah did, managed to book flight on a major airline and fly undetected. Life is indeed stranger than fiction.

The screenplay for Sleepless in Seattle was written in part by Nora Ephron, who also wrote “When Harry Met Sally” (another great romantic comedy with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal). Ephron directed the film.

Ephron, David S. Ward and Jeff Arch (who did write the story) were nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay, and the film received another nomination for Best Original Song (”A Wink and a Smile”). Sleepless in Seattle also got Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor (Tom Hanks) and Best Actress (Meg Ryan).

Sleepless in Seattle cost $21 million to film and grossed $227 million worldwide at the box office, adding another $65+ million in rentals.

Tom Hanks is the gold standard in acting. He has been nominated for 5 Best Actor Oscars (Big, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan and Cast Away) and won twice for “Philadelphia” and “Forrest Gump”. Hanks also has won 4 Best Actor Golden Globes for Big, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump and Cast Away.

His films have grossed more than $3.3 billion. He remains only 1 of 3 actors to have 7 consecutive $100 million domestic blockbusters; the other two are Tom Cruise and Will Smith.

Sleepless in Seattle is viewed by many guys as a “chick flick” but not by me. I consider it an outstanding relationship film with a great story line that proves to be a pleasant viewing experience every time I see it again. If a guy has ever been in love and felt the magic, he will appreciate this film a lot more.

by: Ed Bagley

The best role of business online is that of interdependency. We’ve all heard the old saying, “No man is an island.” When it comes to online business this is especially true.

If a business owner who takes their business into the online world determines they will be self reliant and never accept the help of anyone then that individual will not be in business long enough to change their minds.

It is accepted fact that the greatest tool for long-term exposure to your website is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Without it potential customers can’t find you. It is unreasonable to expect that you can adequately develop a website without optimizing your website for the best possible search engine ranking.

Search engines also place a high value on sites that have links placed on existing sites. These ‘backlinks’ demonstrate to search engines that others trust your site. By placing your link on their website these other businesses indicate a trust and recommendation for your site.

In effect the two strategies listed above rely exclusively on what others can do for you when it comes to your online business.

Shirley Temple once proclaimed in her movie Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, “I’m very self-reliant.” American westerns are filled with lines dealing with pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and holding down the fort. Many of us have grown up to believe if we want something done right we have to do it ourselves.

This thinking is in opposition to the rules associated with an online business.

The online world can only exist because people share. Individuals share technology, but the also share links, reviews, blogs, forums and a wide range of other marketing strategies that find a commingling of interdependency.

In online business you are as dependent on others as they may be on you. Unlike the word ‘dependent’, the term interdependent indicates a mutual dependency. In other words you are depending on others to help provide links back to your site while they are equally dependent on you (or others) for the success of their business.

Have you really taken a proactive approach to networking? It’s possible you are reading this today and you’ve never considered asking someone else to place a link to your site on his or her online business site.

It can feel awkward depending on others to achieve online success especially if you’ve been lead to believe reliance on others is also a sign of imposing on their otherwise brilliant generosity.

I suppose it could be a deep-seated sense of pride that makes it hard to consider the need to ask others for help. However, the truth is depending on others is really what has made the Internet possible. The growth of this online world is comprised of a link of computers, networks and servers that are connected in a way that provides the maximum benefit for all.

Building an online business can feel a bit like trying to build a house of cards. Without the ability to rely on the other ‘cards’ around you it is virtually impossible to build.

Interdependence. This is the essence of online business.

 by: Scott Lindsay