Advertising @ Home

Customers would rather not lose something than save something. If offered the choice to not lose $100, or to save $100, the customer will choose the not lose option. This is an important marketing understanding. Always communicate the consequences to the customer of going without your product. The fear of loss is a much stronger buying motive than the potential to save.

For example, take the storm window manufacturer who claims its double-paned windows “Will save you $2.00 a day in reduced energy consumption.” It is more effective, more memorable, and more compelling to say, “You are losing $720 a year with your old single-pane windows. Try ABC Double-panes.” The gauge and controls company that says, “New Spillex Controller prevents overfilling, saving you hundreds of dollars in cleanup costs,” would generate more inquiries and more sales using, “Overspilling spills your dollar bills on the ground. New Spillex Controller stops your loss.”

Every benefit for every product can be dollarized. Every benefit for every product can be expressed in the dollars and cents and delivers to the customer. Every benefit can be calculated to show the economic value to the customer. The benefit can be presented as a saving for the customer, or as the cost of going without the solution.

It is always more effective to influence the customer by showing the cost of going without, along with any other consequences of not buying your product. Few customers knowingly ignore consequences and then deliberately buy an alternatative product just for a lower price.

The super marketer dollarizes the product benefits and then shows the customer what it is costing him per year, per week, per hour to go without the product.

Fewer than 5 percent of all marketers ground their product claims on benefits to the customer. Fewer than 1 percent of all marketers dollarize the value of their product and sell with numbers. Only the super marketer dollarizes and sells on the consequences of not buying.

Customers don’t want to lose. Do customers a favor: Warn them what they will lose if they don’t buy your product. When they buy, everybody wins !

For more information on the Inside Secrets Of Advertising, please visit http://www.insidesecretsofad.com/

Tags: Advertise, advertising, copywriting, earn, Marketing, money, prospect, sale, sell

“A powerful agent is the right word” –Mark Twain

And what true words those are! Your marketing efforts have the ability to succeedor to failbased on the words you choose to represent your products, services, and yourself in your ads.

You have the ability to choose any words you desire. The problem is, sometimes, we draw a blank. Our minds seem amiss of anything creative to say. This is when a diverse collection of pre-written phrases, designed to bring miraculous changes to your ads, comes in handy.

A collection of pre-written phrases, which you can drop right into your ad text, offers a lot of magic, a good deal of choices, and an incredible journey through words which develop warmth, color, and add texture to your ads. With pre-written buzz-word phrases, you can bring your ad to life – immediately.

So how do you come up with these phrases and buzz words?

Step one is to become aware of every advertisement you’re exposed to, whether it be on television, in a newspaper, in email, or in a magazine. Just pay attention and study those ads.

Step two involves gathering your pre-written phrases. Write down words which make an impact on you. Make a notebook, or a computer document, and as you are exposed to the ads around you, jot down those phrases and buzz words. Here’s some phrases and words I jotted down recently:

Accept nothing but the best
Because you’re worth it
Consider it a gift from youto you

The third step is to take these phrases and integrate them into your ads. The best way to do this is work with an ad which you’ve already written. How much impact does it have? How much sparkle and pizzaz does it possess? Does your already-written ad grab your attention? If the answer is NO, then it’s time to input some marketing miracle phrases – sprinkle them about your ad, pick some from your list which fit with your product or service – and revise.

Let’s take a look at an ad I found written by someone who is not using marketing miracle phrases:

“New ladies brown leather coat. Size XL.”

The ad for this item really didn’t capture my attention. The photo of the item did – it’s a nice product! Let’s see how the actual ad can be spruced up with the use of some marketing miracle phrases:

“Give radiance to everything when you wear this exquisite, full-length, chocolate brown leather coat. For lovers of fine quality everywhere, you’ll experience comfort and luxury, for just a fraction of the retail price. Handsomely crafted, it will make a chic addition to your winter wardrobe. Ladies size XL.”

See the difference? Using marketing miracle words gives you a new way of impacting your buyers with words and phrases designed to bypass the mind, get your product deep into their heart and soul, and reach the core of their deepest desires.

So why not try it with your own ads? Just follow the three steps in this article to add warmth, color and texture to your ads. See the change in your ads, and the change in your bottom line sales figures. Good luck!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michele Jai Johnson is the author of 777 Marketing Miracle Phrases. Multi-published, her articles and short stories have appeared in many online publications, as well as national print magazines and newsletters. She is also the author of instructional courses and has written many short reports and tips booklets, in addition to 777 Marketing Miracle Phrases. You can pick up your own copy of her handy booklet here: http://www.michelejanine.com/777mmp.html

Tags: ads, Advertise, advertisement, advertising, b2b, copy, copywriter, copywriting, Marketing, pr, write

Introduction:

This is a series of articles about marketing and advertising. There are different ways you can reach an audience of millions of individuals all around the world. I show you on this series how to implement profitable strategies in your marketing career.

It has been said that “what matters is not what you sell but how you promote it.” So, the secret to success lays within your marketing techniques. That’s why it is very important for business owners to develop skills which allow them to increase the sales of their products.

One of the most important skills you must have is the ability to reach a lot of people quickly. To do this you need to realize how powerful media is an how it can drastically increase your revenues.

- Classified ads -

Free classified ads are another way you can advertise online at no cost to you. They represent on the Internet what a newspaper ad represents on the streets. You can post ads to thousands of web sites and reach millions of internet users.

The drawback of this strategy is that it is time consuming, but once you get used to it you will realize which are the easier ad sections to post to and the most effective ones. It may take some time though before you discover those that fit you well.
You can post your ads to the following websites:

http://classifieds.excite.com/

http://finditclassifieds.com

http://washingtonpost.com

Among others.

- E-zine promotion -

You can post an add to a vast amount of individuals by submitting it to many different e-zines at once. This is simple and free. Just go to http://www.subscribeme.net/ read the information they provide for you there and complete their form.

Your ad will be displayed in hundreds of e-zines all over the Internet. There is a combined amount of more than 1,000,000 subscribers at those web sites, so you will gain a lot of exposure from them.

I think it is better if you use an alternate e-mail address for this purpose. You can get a free email address from Yahoo. When I joined the list I received many messages every day.

This technique could bring you additional traffic. The only problem I see is that most other individuals also join the list to advertise to other people as you do. So, the goal of most subscribers is to sell products, not to buy them.

I think though it is a good way to diversify your trading strategies. You could give it a try and see if it works for you. Remember to use an alternate email address and read their terms and conditions first.

- Safe lists -

Safe lists are lists of e-mail addresses from people who have requested to receive messages and information about a specific topic. As you probably already know to deliver comments or advertisement via e-mail to others without their consent or authorization is called spamming and is illegal.

Also if you spam others do not expect to receive a reasonable response rate from them. What do I mean? I mean that you can send a message to millions of individuals, but if they are not interested in what you are selling and they didn’t requested that information from you, then you will probably make very few sales, plus you will receive a lot of complaints from hundreds of them.

Then what is the smart way to advertise using e-mail addresses? The answer is safe lists. Think about it. This people are looking for information related to the products or services you are selling. Many of them are even getting paid to read your messages. This technique is also called advertising to targeted opt-in mailing lists. You can create your own list of subscribers.

You can join Yahoo groups http://groups.yahoo.com/ or Google groups http://groups.google.com/ and start your own newsletter. The way you get subscribers is by posting valuable information there that your visitors would like to read. You can also join any of the companies bellow:

Bravenet
http://www.bravenet.com/

Topica
http://www.topica.com/

Zinester
http://www.zinester.com/

Your mailing list provider
http://www.yourmailinglistprovider.com/

Coollist
http://www.coollist.com/

Now, keep in mind that building your own list of subscribers takes time. Some people prefer to pay others for the privilege of advertising on their lists. For example, www.e-mailpaysu.com offer you the opportunity to advertise to their subscribers for a fee. This is just an example. There are many other companies like these on the Internet today and their prices vary.

As you can see, this techniques can increase your exposure and help you get more clients. You can read about other effective marketing techniques from my other articles on this series.

EasyWebRiches © 2006

By Nathaniel Tabares – Visit his website at
http://www.easywebriches.com for more details.

Tags: Advertise, advertisement, advertising

If you get an email with a title like ‘Don’t Ever Trust Me Again!’ and continues along the lines of ‘… then you don’t have to take my advice ever again!’

My advice is – Don’t *

Perhaps it’s because I’m skeptical of the number of “miracle” products, “great deals”, ‘limited time offers’ or ‘incredible packages’ that are advertised online every day. Perhaps it’s because I have bought more products than I can possibly use for now. Perhaps it’s because there are probably more people trying to sell this particular package than the number of packages that are available. Or, perhaps it’s because I received an email with almost identical content from too many different sources. Whatever the reason, don’t make the same mistakes as I have in the past.

* It may be a good deal. It may be exactly what you are looking for. But if you receive emails with exactly the same content from different sources, think carefully before you buy.

There are some good internet marketers that I have every respect for. However, there are an increasing number of ‘marketers’ that show little thought or consideration for others. They will take from you but offer nothing in return. You may disagree with the last statement. If you buy a product from them and you are happy with that product and they are happy with the money earned from selling you that product it’s a win-win situation.

That’s all well and good until you look more closely at the process. To do this, other factors must be taken into account. These include cost, value, convenience, time, and most importantly trust. You’ve probably heard of the phrase. “The money is in the list”. I wouldn’t disagree with that and it’s easy to see why many of the “big list” hitters are successful in the percentage game. But unless they offer you something more than somebody else’s ’sales pitch’ ignore them. Many of these people come and go. Make sure they don’t go with your money.

With regard to the email in question, here is a quote from a ‘trusted’ ezine that I subscribe to “This is only of interest to you, Bryan, if you really need some brand new products to sell. If not, don’t bother.” At least, this is honest and straight to the point. I know who I’d buy from. On occasion, time may be more important than trust. If this is the case, then make sure you have a use for the product before you buy it. We are all guilty of impulse buying. It can be all too easy to buy something that will seldom, if ever, be used.

If you subscribe to an ezine or newsletter, it’s often useful to keep tabs on the sender. By doing this you will learn to recognize if the content is original or simply a copy of someone else’s work. You’ll also quickly discover if the sender is only interested in using you as a means of earning a ‘fast buck’. This is obvious if there is little or no content, excessive affiliate URLs, or emails that are repetitive or delivered more often than necessary.

If you like the newsletter or email subscription, that’s great. If you don’t, you can usually ‘unsubscribe’. If this fails, then try ‘whitelist’ filtering to weed it out. If you think the email is from a spammer, then be careful. Don’t click on any URL or ‘unsubscribe’ option, and unless you are absolutely sure of the originator, never open an attachment.

If you use eBay or PayPal, you will no doubt be aware of the fake or spoof emails that are periodically blasted out. Well, the spin cycle has begun again. A good tutorial on spoof emails and how to recognize them can be found at http://pages.ebay.com/education/spooftutorial/index.html

Tip – If you have your own website, don’t use your default address for your PayPal or eBay account. Use a different address and you will quickly spot the spoof email in the ‘To’ line of the email.

Bryan Quinn
ebook-site.com
Offer a variety of useful resources for creating, reading, and publishing ebooks. A members’ area is provided for ezine subscribers where a selection of ebooks and reports can be freely downloaded.

http://www.ebook-site.com

Tags: Advertise, advice, attachment, ebay, email, ezine, Marketing, newsletter, paypal, subscription

People ask me this question all the time! The “Now What” part is what grabbed my attention. There is so much more than just having an online presence. Just because you have a web site does not mean your work is done. You need to constantly promote, promote, and promote.

Is like that old saying “opportunity will not coming knocking at your door, you need to look for it”. The same thing basically applies to your online presence success. You need to practically advertise your online business every day. It is a well known fact that it will take at least seven visits to your site by the same visitor to perhaps make a sale. Ask yourself these questions:

*What are you doing to keep that visitor coming back?

*Why should someone spend their hard earned money on your product?

- Do you offer great customer service?

- Do you offer discounts and or specials?

*What makes your products unique?

*When you do have an order, do you follow up?

*Do you have a testimonial page on your site?

*Do you offer a money back guarantee?

*Is it safe to order at your site?

*Is your site pleasant to visit? In other words, do the colors compliment each other?

*Is your site easy to navigate?

*Do your images download fast? This makes a big difference on whether your visitors will stay, let alone return!

Answer these questions and you’ll be surprised with the results. If you’ve answered YES to all of them, congratulations you’re on the right track. Keep in mind that you need to constantly advertise both online and off to get the word out about your online business.

Also, having your own EZINE is a great marketing tool. Work on it and see for yourself. If you tackle these small but very important areas of your online business, you should have a better chance to keeping your visitors coming back and turning them into potential customers, which translate into SUCCESS!

Sonia Colon is owner of a successful
online specialty giftstore “Jimson Products”.

Visit: http://www.jimsonproducts.com for a
wonderful display.

Get Your Own FREE Mall:
http://www.telebay.com/shopping1/mall.html

Tags: Advertise, business customers, customers, internet business, online business, promote, website

“Did you see that game last night?”

“How about all this rain we’ve been getting?”

“That’s a nice bowling trophy. I love bowling!”

Ever use one of those questions? Thought so. Who are you kidding with that crap? In the words of Jeffrey Gitomer, “All things being equal, people buy from friends. All things NOT being equal, people buy from friends.”

If people buy from people they like, one of your first goals should be to get your prospects to like you.

For a salesperson, this can be tough. People have a hard time trusting salespeople with their time, money and business. Most people don’t even want to talk to you.

Welcome to reality: your prospects are busy and may feel that speaking with you is a complete waste of time. Many of your prospects may not even see a need for your product, or may be content with the version they already have.

Point being, if you want to successfully establish rapport with your prospects, you’ll have to do it quickly, before they get the chance to assume you’re just like every other salesperson. Fortunately, there are 5 keys to help you get this friendship off to a quick start!

1. RelaxHave Fun!

It is your job to create an environment that is conducive to buying. Pointless, scripted, ice-breaking questions only create a cold selling environment. So relax and have a little bit of fun!

As soon as you meet your prospective customer, you will be evaluated. That evaluation will be determined not just by how you feel, but also how you make your prospect feel. The only way to put your prospect at ease is to be at ease yourself. If you’re uptight and contrived, your prospect will remain guarded and cold. If you are having fun, chances are your prospect will, too!

After all, people buy from people, and your job as a professional communicator (a.k.a. salesperson) is to make your customer comfortable enough to grab a Coke from your refrigerator.

2. Lighten Up, Laugh It Up

Nothing is more powerful than humor when it comes to building rapport quickly with your customer. Laughter is the spark that ignites interest and cordiality between you and your prospect; it’s hard to laugh with a person and not feel comfortable around them.

Some salespeople take their job too seriously, and are so focused on the sale that they forget to think about the customer. So, lighten up! If you make them laugh, they may buy from you!

3. Get to the Point

You got them on the phone, you secured an appointment, and you got them in your store now get to the point! State your objective and why they should care. Be careful not to use clich

Tags: Advertise, Don't, Guerilla, Marketing, People, Richard, sales, sell, selling, Skills, Smart, Tom, Training

Charity avails so much as the old adage goes.

Most of us like to help others and you don’t have to go too far out of your way to give. In some cases, you need only walk right out your back door.

Charity is one of the best ways to advertise your business in a low-cost way. All you have to do is give and expect nothing in return.

But be very selective in the charity you give to. Be sure the charity is a bona fide charity with the proper legal paperwork that gives it a charitable distinction. Also, try to find one with a longstanding reputation.

Most charities will list their sponsors and donors in their newsletter or make mention in some other way that provides a public benefit. Ask charities that you consider giving to if they recognize people who donate goods and services.

A monetary gift is nice but you can get the same benefits by providing your business services for free. If you are a persuasive salesman and able to get people to let loose of their hard-earned cash, you could volunteer to be a fundraiser. A writer? Write copy for the charity’s brochure. Are you good with your hands? Offer to fix something when it breaks.

Depending on the size of your business, you may want to give to a small charity. It is best to give to a charity that is relatively the same size as your company. If you are a small mom & pop shop you won’t get a lot of benefit by giving $100 to a multi-national charity. The large corporations will overshadow you with their huge gifts. But if it is a cause you really believe in, then by all means, give what you can.

But if you want recognition for your business, you are better off giving to a local charity or a smaller charity that lists its small business donors on its web site and newsletter. Consider the level of charitable donation very seriously. It may be to your benefit to be one of the highest givers, or you may opt to go in at the lowest rung on the donation ladder. How do you decide?

Consider this: How many other donors are there at your level? If there are only one or two then you will stand out more. Also, is the cause related to your industry in some way? Maybe you’ll want to give more. Are you a local business that caters to local customers? Give to a local charity. Are you an Internet company that does business worldwide? Then, maybe you should consider a charity with a worldwide scope.

The decision is yours but be selective about your charitable contributions. Put your charitable limits in your annual budget and stick to them like mud on a boy.

Also, don’t be afraid to volunteer your time. Most charities, particularly local ones, are in dire need of helpers. And you never know who you are going to meet.

Allen Taylor is an award-winning journalist, freelance writer and copywriter. He specializes in world-class marketing for small businesses. For more information about how to make your business shine visit http://www.taylor-and-associates.com.
Be sure to check out Allen’s ghostwriting services and sign up for the free e-mail newsletter.

Tags: Advertise, business, charitable giving, Charity, low-cost advertising

The average employee corresponds to other companies via e-mail over ten times a day

Ten times a day is a rather frequently, especially when you look at it over the span of the whole company. Even a small company with 5 people, you are sending out fifty e-mails a day.

Now consider turning your email into a subtle marketing campaign. That is fifty potential advertisements a day, possibly more. Even if you are responding back and forth with the same people, each time they see the advertisement they are more likely to be interested. Think about how many times you see the same commercial on TV before you buy a product/service/etc.

So now the question is what can you do to turn your email into a marketing campaign.

The best way to go about it is to be as subtle as possible. People are very sensitive to spam now days, and if you make an e-mail full of images and HTML they are likely to be turned off quickly.

My best recommendation is to use your signature, insert links to pages of your site where you have affiliate links, services, products, etc for sale. That way every time they read your e-mail they are likely to see them.

However – this is not a new idea, and you may already be doing this. There is a twist, and that is how you are labeling your links and additional text that you can put with it.

Instead of just putting “Joes Plumbing” and linking it to your website, think of some aspect of your website that would interest people into going. Change the link to “Why pay a plumber to do a five minute job?” and link to your page where you have some basic how-to’s.

Further, you can add additional text to help increase the interest of every person who reads your e-mail. Every week put a different quote in the signature below your link, taken from an interesting part of your website.

For example –

Why pay a plumber to do a five minute job?

Tags: Advertise, business, clients, email, free, increase, Internet, Marketing, sales, success

Getting visitors to your site to sign up for your newsletter is one thing, getting them to actually read every issue is another. Research shows that many online newsletters just don’t get opened.

Think about it. How many emails do you get a day? Even if you don’t subscribe to many e-zines or services, you probably get a minimum of 25 a day. Most of us don’t have time to read all those emails, so we either leave the ones we aren’t as interested in or delete them to save space.

If your potential clients aren’t reading your newsletter, they won’t be clicking on your links or buying products that you advertise. To get them reading each and every issue, you need to make your content worth the time it takes to read!

1. Limit solo ads. Solo ads are ads sent out to your email list without any content attached. While your readers will probably tolerate one or two of these a month, you don’t want to overdo it or they will stop opening your emails and may unsubscribe.

2. Personalize. Studies show that people are more likely to open an email that has their name on it. It also gives you a way to connect with your readers. They will feel like they have more than just a business relationship with you. The idea here is to build confidence and trust so you can keep your clients.

3. Relevant ads. Any ads that you place in your newsletter should relate to the material presented. If you send out an email on dog clothing, for example, you shouldn’t include an ad for infant safety equipment. Your readers will be confused as to why you included it and it looks very unprofessional. Take the time to search out affiliate programs that relate to your topics.

4. Great Content. “Content is king.” Is the new e-commerce catch-phrase. Even though it might seem overused, it’s still true. You need to have interesting articles jam-packed with information that is relevant to your readers in order to hold their attention. You can find free content online, but you can also hire writers to write original content for fairly low prices. Try www.freelancewriting.com or www.elance.com

5. Pay for an auto-responder. “You get what you pay for.” My mother always said and in this respect, it is very true. Free auto-responders are great to start off with, but they usually include an ad in your newsletter (how else are they going to make money?). This ad is usually at the header of your newsletter, otherwise known as your most valuable ad space! Just taking on a paid ad for this space will easily pay an auto-responder fee! If you really can’t afford it right now, start with a service that gives you a free trial or that allows you to upgrade later.

Good newsletters require a bit of time and effort, but once you get your readers actually reading and responding to your work, it will all be worth it.

Genesis Davies is a freelance writer who currently runs 2 websites and an ezine. Check out her business site. Sign up for her free Create a Sizzling Ezine course

Tags: Advertise, email, ezine, newsletter

Once upon a time in Marketing Square, there lived a tortoise and a hare….

The tortoise was slow and steadfast and persevering and all those other things that are very commendable in a turtle. He bought a PC, an internet connection and joined a referral program. Soon he realized that without advertising his program, he would not make any money. So..the tortoise went to a search engine and typed in the key-word ‘marketing’. All he saw on the page were links and more links offering advertising campaigns of all types and price ranges. He chose one of them. He purchased 50,000 hits to his website from a very high ranking traffic exchange. Then he sat back and waited patiently while the prospects flocked to his webpage. He got out his pad and pencil and began to add up the commission he would make from all these visitors if they joined his program. He smiled at the results…

Each day, he checked his referral stats, and each day he wondered why no one had signed up.. after all the page had been shown to nearly 45,000 people… and his credits were running low. Perhaps he should purchase some more. This time he bought 100,000. He smiled to himself at his cleverness.

Day after day, the turtle visited his website, checked his downline and was disappointed by the stats. Then one day he looked and wow! he saw a member in his downline. He was very excited. He hurried over to the traffic exchange and bought 200,000 visitors this time…’after all’, he thought, ‘this is really working’…..

Meanwhile in the other corner of Marketing Square, the hare was working on his advertising campaign as well. Unlike the tortoise, he wasn’t steadfast at all…he was impatient, excited, and in a hurry to get word of his program out to the masses. He began hopping around like a… well, like a rabbit…..

He hopped from the traffic exchange, over to the safelists, then on to the search engines; he even hopped around posting his ad on all the “Classifieds” pages. He sent it out to some newsletters and ezines…he called up all his friends and told them about his great program….his ad was splattered everywhere…he even plastered his banners all over his friend’s website…

Then one day, he remembered to check his downline. He was shocked when he logged in, for the page was full of names and email addresses of his new members. Immediately, the hare went back to his inbox and composed an email to his massive downline. The email subject read…”How To Market This Program…”

After he taught his downline to market the program, the hare moved to a swank retirement village where he lounges around all day counting his money.

The tortoise got three more members and bought more credits from the traffic exchange.

Moral of the story? Traffic exchanges are great, but they aren’t everything. The internet offers many great and different types of advertising. Learn to do it all and do it well….then share your knowledge with your downline.

© WordCrafterSmart. This article may be reprinted if done in total with the source box and links kept intact.

Tags: Advertise, advertising, banner exchanges, Home-Based Business, MLM, network marketing, traffic exchanges