A Coach For All Seasons

If you interview just about any successful real estate investor youll typically find they have drive, determination, and stamina, but every good investor also has a strong advocate in their corner, watching and encouraging them every step of the way. The most prolific investors have a coach-or mentor-giving them solid advice and helping them to avoid some of the roadblocks, detours, and traffic jams that can delay or prevent their coronation as successful investors.

There are four stages of investing where coaching makes sense:

1. Before You Get Started-At this stage of your career you have more questions than answers. Youre invigorated and excited about the future, but youre also afraid of making costly mistakes. A lot of investors fear failure so much they delay investing-spending thousands on one real estate investing course after another-trying to convince themselves that theyre investing in their futures, when in reality theyre hiding from it. A coach can help you adequately assess your preparation and see if you need more education or a gentle nudge towards the playing field.

2. After you get started and youre doing well-You may have left the gate with the zeal of an Olympic sprinter, but you need to realize that real estate investing is like a marathon. If you dont pace yourself you can get winded, slow down, and drop out. A coach can help you to find opportunities you may have overlooked-and to avoid mistakes that could throw you off track. Starting strong can generate income, but good coaching can help you build sustainable wealth, instead of a quick infusion of cash followed by extended periods of inactivity. Whats the best way to segue from one stage to the next How do you evaluate the current market and accurately decide what the future holds A good coach can tell you that-and more.

3. After you get started and youre struggling-An immediate stumble out of the gate can cause some investors to question the wisdom of their decision. This problem can be compounded by listening to family and friends who are married to the idea of earning just enough to get by. Accustomed to failure-or at least mediocrity-they assume that you are, too. The worst thing you can do is elevate all the Doubting Thomases in your midst to positions of influence. A real estate investing coach doesnt have the mindset of finding you a graceful exit strategy from real estate investing. Theyll show yow new ways to face your fears, assess your strengths, and turn things around. It wont happen overnight, but a coach can give you the guidance you need to turn around and get headed in the right direction.

4. Any time youre ready to move to the next level-Regardless of where youre at in your investing career, youll face moments of self-doubt and confusion about the best move for your career. Youre traveling in what is to you uncharted territory. An investing coach knows the lay of the land and how to reach your financial destination. Are you taking advantage of every opportunity to advance your career What could you be doing better Whether its learning advanced investing techniques or better utilization of your credit, an investing coach can show you multiple options for getting where you want to go. You may have considered some and discarded them due to misunderstanding their significance. A coach will help you see the light without shoving you into the path of an oncoming train.

As you can see, a coach is needed no matter where you find yourself on the real estate investing success track. You can easily falter or stumble, but with an investing coach there to guide you, you can plan on reaching your financial, personal, and investing goals more quickly. A coach cant guarantee that youll never falter or stumble. What they can do, however, is help to ensure that a stumble doesnt precede a painful fall to the rear of the pack. Hire a good coach to catch you if you fall, to direct you when you stray, and to celebrate you when you succeed.
About the Author

Peter Vekselman has been successfully investing in real estate since 1996.He has completed over 1000 real estate deals, owned a construction company, been a private lender, and owned a property management
company.To learn more about Peter please visit

Relaited Links:

• What are Executive Compensation Agreements
• Writing Online Testimonials To Boost Your Sales
• Optimizing Your Wholesale Video Games Script: Answered!

Commuting And Marketing

Seven Tips for Successful Keyword Research
Time management improvements

There is a great article in the April 16 New Yorker magazine on commuters. The writer put in a few facts — which got my salesman’s mind reeling — and a lot of Studs Terkel-style “man in the street” profiles… which offer a psychological portrait of an increasingly average Americann consumer.

As a marketer, you should always jump on info like this. It’s priceless demographic knowledge, explained in a way that keeps the humans involved at the center of the story.

Here’s the gist: According to the Census Bureau, one of every six Americans now commutes more than 45 minutes each way to work. Over 3.5 million travel 90 minutes or more… each way. (That’s double what it was in 1990, when the last census was taken.)

That’s a LOT of time in the car, sitting on your ass.

My take: They can’t read, can’t watch DVDs, can’t watch TV, and have limited patience for learning while crawling through jams.

Still, a good percentage are going to be YOUR customers. A literally captive audience, potentially.

This used to get radio advertisers all excited… but radio ad revenue is plummeting, after years of cramming so many obnoxious ads into each hour that people just stopped listening to commercial radio. (Radio does this slow-suicide dance every decade or so — recently, the average talk radio station had more ads than talk each hour. They just push it until they lose listeners, and then scramble to become “relevant” again. Dumb. But it’s the way the biz is run.)

People learn to zone out, or jockey around the dial, or escape to commerical-free satellite radio and CDs. (Or NPR, which is hit-and-miss on being interesting.)

Think about it: Frazzled, frustrated people hating thier lives, forced to stay awake during a routine drive that is too unpredictable to lose focus while you’re suffering through it.

These are people with a problem — essentially, wasted hours that cannot be replaced. It’s purgatory. Quiet desperation.

For savvy marketers, this could represent an opportunity to be the most exciting part of your prospect’s day.

Back when I worked for The Man, I had opportunities to sit in “parking lot” traffic jams in Silicon Valley (on the 101 between Palo Alto and Santa Clara), and the 405 nightmare between the SoCal beach cities and the Sunset Blvd offramp (which includes LAX). Two of the most notorious and horrific commutes in the country.

If you have NOT experienced true traffic psychosis, you probably should go sample it.

Just to understand what it is many of your customers are going through.

Why? Because, for most information products (and even many services), you can and should be providing audio options. (There is also a place for audio with retail products… if you do it right. Most physical products — especially high-ticket items — are only purchased after information is digested.)

But there’s a caveat: You need to understand your prospect’s state of mind, in order to create a CD or mp3 that doesn’t create a disconnect in his head.

And this goes for both audio products, and for audio pitches.

Most smart direct marketers know that providing audio versions of their products can increase sales dramatically. Many people simply prefer audio over visual (whether it’s reading or watching video).

Very few entrepreneurs, however, have yet realized the opportunities for putting your pitch into audio format. That is changing, as test results come in.

But I know of few marketers who tailor their audio for commuters. And thinking about how commuters digest audio input will help you in EVERY effort to communicate clearly and effectively, regardless of the format.

Here’s the key: Your presentation must be in short, identifiable chunks – because your listener’s concentration will be constantly interrupted by sudden braking, the need for snap decisions, and occasional outbursts of road rage.

Keeping things in chunks means any rewinding is brief, and there are no long, delicate trains of thought to be shattered.

Most of the audio I’ve heard — both in products, and in the few audio pitches I’ve seen marketers produce (mostly via podcasts, but sometimes through downloaded mp3 or snail-mailed CDs) — make the outrageous assumption that your listener has the luxury to “sit back, relax, take the phone off the hook, and listen to a tale…”

I’ve actually critiqued a LOT of ads over the years that use pretty much that identical language.

So get straight on this: Online and offline, your prospect is never in a place where he can — or wants to — sit back and listen to you ramble.

Both pitches and products should be as long as necessary to deliver what is needed for your prospect or customer to get the desired result. So, yes, I still write very long emails, Web site copy, and print ads… but they never RAMBLE.

And I present very long workshop seminars, teleconferences and Web conferences. And this “never ramble” tactic is the key to making them all work.

It may require some time to make your point… but in all cases, you still need to GET to your point immediately. And stay there, without wandering off on tangents.

Even long-copy ads — when done right — deliver bite-sized chunks of info… tied together in fascinating ways that ensure your reader stays with you. (The “Bucket Brigade” technique of holding interest.)

But you do not want to overwhelm him with stuff. Give him a little bit of info, help him digest it… and smoothly segue to the next bit of info. Navigating your reader through a pitch (or the info in your product) is very much like running along uneven terrain.

Consider how you would run along a mountain trail next to a river. Lots of rocks, gopher holes, tree stumps, puddles… you can’t rush mindlessly headlong toward your destination, or you’ll quickly stumble.

You can still move quickly… but you’ve got to pay attention to each step.

In copy, each chunk of new info is a step. Present your point, make your point, tamp it down in your reader’s brain… and then smoothly transition to the next point.

That’s the key to making long copy work.

So when you create audio — which is just “spoken” copy — that you suspect (or know) is going to be consumed in the car… don’t construct elaborate arguments or points that require long-term memory. (The all-too-common “I’ll get back to that in a minute… but first, I want to tell you about…” tactic is a sure sign you’re dealing with a rookie copywriter.)

When you deliver your material in short, digestible chunks, you can go on for hours and never “lose” your listener. This is how master communicators command attention fro long periods.

The commuting culture — which ain’t going away anytime soon — is a target audience that hasn’t been fully tapped. These are people who are ripe for certain products and services… if only the info can be delivered in a way that doesn’t make their brains bleed.

Commuters listen to books, and sometimes attempt to learn foreign languages. There’s no reason why they can’t consume your info product, too… or listen to your pitch.

Here’s a nice exercise to do in your spare time: Consider all the products that could be put on audio for consumption in the car (or on an iPod during a train ride).

Audio is different than reading… but the tactics for delivering content are the same.

Okay, I gotta go pack.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton, http://www.marketingrebelrant.com/

Business Articles Catalog

Magnetic clasps - Clever Clasp.
Can You Franchise an Unsexy Concept?

Internet Marketing Directory Submission for Link Popularity

How To Own A Multimillion Dollar Mansion For A Fraction Of The Cost.
Desiring What Is

How to speed up the process of Directory Submission for link popularity and Internet Marketing with a free semi automatic form fill tool.
Author: pixwrh1
0 comments on YouTube.com
Tags: link poplularity directory submission seo internet marketing one way linking form fill
Useful Diet's Tips
The Problem With Unplanned Growth

How To Make Every Ad Dollar Accountable

3 More Ways to Make Money On eBay
Software improvements

I am a strong, enthusiastic advocate of direct marketing. For most businesses, small or large, direct marketing consistently delivers the best results for dollars spent. We need to begin with an understanding of direct marketing versus other types of advertising, promotion and marketing. Let's talk first a little bit about the others.

There is institutional advertising. This type of advertising is often intentionally used by big corporations and blindly copied by smaller ones. It essentially says to consumers and/or to stock holders here we are, here's who we are, here's what we do and we're nice guys but it never asks anybody to buy anything or to take any action. It's image building.

Some examples you're probably familiar with include the Goodyear Blimp flying over football games, the IBM TV commercial seen during the Sunday morning news programs and during some sports telecasts, most bank advertising, Time Magazine's signs in airports, this is all pure institutional advertising.

Advertising agencies, consultants and the media love to sell you this type of advertising because there is no possible way to measure its effectiveness. Is it working? Is it paying for itself? Who knows?

The next slightly more sensible approach is what I call 'Non-Measurable Response Advertising.' This type of advertising is trying to sell something but is still basically unaccountable for its results. TV commercials for a particular brand of car fall into this category. The intent of those commercials is to get you interested enough in that car to go to the show room but there's really no way to tell how many people who came to the show rooms this week we're influenced by those commercials.

Would they have come anyway as a result of the dealers own newspaper ads? Who knows? Many smaller businesses get trapped using this type of advertising. Appliance, record, clothing, department stores all run sales ads - here's what's on sale come on in. But they have no means of determining how many people became because of the ads versus how many might of come anyway or how many came from an ad in one media versus the same ad in another.

They can guess. They can take this weekend's higher traffic less last weekend's traffic and attribute the difference to the ads but it gets worse. They advertise the sale via the newspaper, two radio stations and flyers. How do you tell what works and what doesn't? Again ad agencies and the media like to sell this type of advertising because it's difficult for the advertiser to measure the results.

Another type of marketing is public relations and publicity. There are firms who you can retain to prepare press releases and articles about your products or services and your company and work at getting them placed at various media. These firms may also arrange interviews and talk show appearances. Although you can measure them by how much actual exposure they get for you it's generally difficult to then measure how much business came from the exposure. Also in this category is the sponsorship of everything from a little league team to an Indy 500 race car or a golf tournament.

All three of these types of marketing probably have some place in a businesses total marketing plan. It is my firm belief, however that these methods are grossly and deliberately oversold to clients by media and professionals because of there resistance to results measurement. It is also my opinion that most businesses, the owners of small businesses and the executives of large companies stupidly waste outrageous sums of money on these non-measurable marketing options.

I would much rather see money spent where the results can be definitively and accurately measured so the changes can be made to develop successful response levels for every dollar spent.

Dan Kennedy, http://www.dankennedy.com/

FREE package of Dove beauty products.
Get User Feedback When Designing a Web Site

Is Internet Video Marketing all that ???

Creating sales forecasts for your business plan
Looking for a Guaranteed Investment? I've Got it For You!

http://www.MLMVideoGoldMine.com(206) 350-0765Attention All MLM / Direct Sales Distributors...Pop-Quiz: Why Do You Think The Google Monster Just Recently Bought Out A YouTube Giant For An Estimated Total of $1.65 *BILLION* Dollars? Give Up...?? Because Google Knows That 2007 Will Be The Beginning Of The All New Video Focused Internet! So The Real Question Is......Are You Going To...
Author: Go123Video
8 comments on YouTube.com
Tags: MLM Video GoldMine network marketing free leads traffic generation big money geyser john gregory
My Daily Diets Tips
A Spartan's Guide to Business

Article Marketing Tutorial - Bum Marketing Method

Make More Money With Adsense
Two Possibilities: Happiness Or Suffering

Article marketing tutorial. Internet marketing the "Bum Marketing" Way. www.bummarketingmethod.com
Author: BumMarketer
1 comments on YouTube.com
Tags: article internet bum marketing tutorial course free
Tips And Secrets In Diets
Tobacco's Stealth Marketing

Super Bowl XLI Ad Review Pt 1: SF American Marketing Assn.

How To Find Products To Sell For Your Online Operation
How To Please Your Website Visitors

(More Super Bowl-related information at http://superbowlgame.blogspot.com)I attended this meeting of the San Francisco Chapter of the American Marketing Association on the invitation of my friend Beth. It is an informative and entertaining look at ads from the 41st Super Bowl game, and by ad and marketing professionals based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Super Bowl XLI was the third-mos...
Author: zennie62
5 comments on YouTube.com
Tags: super bowl nfl news k-fed Doritos Budweiser Oprah Letterman Blockbuster ad marketing panel media youtube
Magnetic clasps - Clever Clasp.
Nineteen Copywriting Secrets From Dan Kennedy

Power to Create Profits - Marketing Momentum

Flan man's enterprise typifies small-business loan program's triumphs
Parents save where you can - get $500 in Pampers or Huggies.

The first in a series of free coaching videos from business optimization specialist Stephen Pierce.
Author: impulsiveprofits
5 comments on YouTube.com
Tags: online business internet marketing coaching money rich millionaire
Useful Life Tips
Starting a Second Life Business

Define Your Target Marketing in 5 Easy Steps

Newest Fad In Farming: The Internet
The Origin And History Of Hypnosis

This report is designed for entrepreneurs, small business owners, independent contractors and anyone who needs to build relationships and develop leads or referrals in order to promote and increase their business.

The information in this report is given based on the assumption that YOU know your product and service inside and out and you have already defined your business goals and have somewhat of a business plan in order.

The next step would be to narrowly and clearly define your target market, your ideal prospect.

Some people believe that their products or services would be perfect for everyone. For example, Mary Kay Cosmetics - no offense to my MK friends or other people in the health industry who say 'anyone with skin' needs a facial or 'anyone who has stress need a massage. Then there are people in the home improvement industry who say, 'anyone with a house' needs my landscaping, my windows, my furniture or my loan, etc.

For most small businesses however (1-5 employees or even more), I don't believe this is the most effective way to try to generate new leads and customers. If you determine the right target market to fit your business, you figure out the best ways to reach them AND if you figure out the best message to reach them with you will be spending your marketing dollars wisely. Business owners who don't plan ahead to figure out who their target market is before they open their doors end up spending a whole lot more money trying to figure it out by trial and error and that's expensive.

Would you shell out $200 for a pair of shoes without trying them on? Plunge into a steaming bath without dipping a toe in first? Of course not-but people do the business equivalent every day. Many an entrepreneur has found out too late that nobody wants to buy hand-quilted Christmas stockings at $24.99 a pop, or that wealthy customers won't schlep to the unfashionable part of town for luxury stationery.

The irony: Conventional market research is expensive (corporations regularly budget tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for it), but no one needs it more than a startup entrepreneur. A couple of marketing blunders won't put a giant manufacturer out of business, but just one can sink an entrepreneur like a bolt of lightning.

Defining Your Target Market

Your "target customers" are those who are most likely to buy from you. Resist the temptation to be too general in the hopes of getting a larger slice of the market. Try to describe them with as much detail as you can, based on your knowledge of your product or service and how it will benefit them.

Step 1: Ask yourself some questions to get started

1. Are your target customers male or female?
Figure 75-80% of your target customers would be which? If it's split, narrow it down another way but more than likely you can narrow down the gender.

2. How old are they?
Give an age range of 10-20 years max, otherwise you might have two target markets. Remember, the marketing messages towards different age groups will be quite different most likely depending on your product or service.

3. Where do they live?
Is geography a limiting factor for any reason? Can you narrow it down to specific zip codes or counties? The larger the geographical area you choose, the more people you will find but the less likely you'll be able to afford to market to all of them so narrow it down and expand out later.

4. What do they do for a living?
You can get a mailing list by industry or profession and specific title for example.

5. What does their specific profession say about their lifestyle?
Is it very busy with little time to shop? Would they be likely to be familiar with the internet for their shopping, researching, news and event information? Would they be commuting more in their car?

6. How much money do they make?
This is most significant if you're selling relatively expensive or luxury items. Most people can afford a latte. You can't say the same of custom murals. Narrow this down to a specific range also and high enough that you will weed some people out or again, you'll have way too many people to afford to market to.

7. Are there kids in the household?
What ages might they be? How many would there likely be? What does this say about their lifestyle - are they carpooling, or soccer parents where they are rarely home? Do they possibly eat out a lot or have less 'family' bonding time? Or are they empty nesters where they might spend more time at home watching television or reading?

Step 2: Get specific

What other aspects of their lives matter? Here are some examples to think about, see how your target market compares or how you can get more specific with them.

* If you're launching a roof-tiling service, your target customers probably own their homes. In addition, they probably own homes with older roofs like shake roofs; you can get a list of homes by their age.

* If you're a realtor, you might be interested in targeting first time homebuyers in which case you might find them to be likely to live in apartments or rentals of which you can get a list of those too.

* If you're selling your own individual artwork but you can't create multiple paintings with the same picture, you may have to sell the unique pieces at local art shows rather than selling them online.

* If you're planning to open a custom-tailoring shop and need busy executives to come for three fittings, you may need to limit it to your local area.

* If you're a direct jewelry consultant needing women to gather for parties in someone's home, you'll want to go where many women meet like mom's groups, women's professional organizations, day cares or grocery stores.

* If you're a business or life coach and want to coach only over the phone then you'll most likely want to do more online marketing and make sure to have a really top notch website since that's mostly what people are going to see for their first impression. You can network locally too but the more 'known' you are in person, the more people will want to do business with you in person. Step 3: Keep your mind open to any information

Keep a list of primary research questions handy, such as:

* Who influences your customers and how? Spouses, neighbors, peer groups, professional colleagues, children and the media can all affect buying decisions. Look for hints that one or more of these are a factor for you.

* Why do they buy? Distinguish between the features and the benefits your product or service offers. Features describe what it is; benefits are what your customers get out of it. The latter is why your customers pay you. Are they looking for a status symbol, a savings in time or energy, a personal treat or something else?

* Why should customers choose you and not your competition? What can you offer that the competition doesn't?

* How do your customers prefer to buy? Many businesses benefit from the broader market provided by the Internet and mail order, while others do better with a physical presence. Don't assume you fall into one category or the other; customers may surprise you.

Step 4: Identify Your Ideal or Favorite Client

Think about your favorite client - who are they, name them, write down everything you know about them, their family status, age, sex, marital status, where they live, where they work, possible income level, their shopping characteristics.

* Do they like to use coupons or shop on certain days? ? Do they call you at the last minute to get something from you?

* Do they value your service/product? ? Is that type of client the most profitable type you have or the most non-profitable and you just like them?

Step 5: Determine their profitability to your business

Which type of clients will make you the most money, bring you joy and refer you tons of business? These are the types of clients you ultimately want, now where are they?

Ask Yourself:

* Who is the most profitable type of client? The one who will make you the most amount of money the fastest and with the least effort - do you like working with them? If not, you won't be totally happy with only this type of person, maybe you need a combination of the two.

* How often will they be able to buy or consume your product or service? If they can only possibly purchase your services every 10-20 years (getting a new roof for example), do you never market to them again after the sale or do you heavily market to them after the sale by every means possible for at least 1 year to get all the referrals you could possibly get out of them in that time?

* How likely are they to know others like them they can refer to you? Normally, very likely, in which case following up with them before, during and after the sale is huge - and if you don't ask for referrals in each stage of the sale continuously then shame on you.

* What is really important to them when it comes to your product or service? Not what you think they should know or like, but actually what they care about, like, ask for, thrive on, are passionate about, etc. These are your target market's "Hot Buttons" and these are what you should be addressing in your headlines, letters and marketing efforts at all times because these are why the client would choose to buy.

Defining your business' target market is absolutely critical to any small business. Everything you do in your marketing, advertising, design, publicity and networking will depend on who your target market is and what matters to them. Making decisions on your marketing and advertising without fully defining your target market or knowing them in depth could be detrimental to your business and you could be making some costly mistakes!

About the Author: Katrina Sawa, Relationship Marketing Expert, helps entrepreneurs and independent consultants build their database of clients and prospects, determine the best ways to market their business to their target market, teach them how to network, develop follow up systems, marketing and advertising plans and find ways to get free or low cost publicity which all lead to more customers and increased sales! Visit her at http://www.ksawamarketing.com/.

Healthy Weight Lose
Single Mom From Pennsylvania Makes A Living Selling Bookmarks Online

Homeland Marketing Fiasco

Internet Marketing for 2007 - Affordable Efficiency
Are You Stressed Out?

Tonight I was questioned for taking a picture of one of the Aqua Teen Hunger Forces's marketing-gone-wrong campaigns. Here's the story.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04ZDrxWSl5Ehttp://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=36f461aa-7cf8-43d0-bc06-df5948a34060http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2007/01/aqua_teen_hunge.htmlhttp://cgi.ebay.com/aqua-teen-hunger-force-mooninites-ne...
Author: Directorian
15 comments on YouTube.com
Tags: Directorian Homeland Security Aqua Teen Hunger Force Questioning Police Marketing Flaw Turner Warner
Healthy Weight Lose
The Secret Power Of Marketing

The Psychology of the $14,000 Handbag

Find Your Niche for Fun and Profits
Time management improvements

What is too much to spend on a suit?

The question weighed on Barry Schwarz as he scanned the racks at Boyds men's store in Philadelphia, which were laden with $3,000 Brioni suits. "Their prices were just out of the world," recalls Mr. Schwarz, a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College.

We've all been there: A window display or a recommendation lures us into a store -- and we face unexpectedly astronomical price tags. It seems to happen more often these days as many luxury brands -- selling everything from $14,000 Ralph Lauren handbags to $899 Bugaboo baby strollers and $6,900 Beefeater barbecue grills -- push their top price points higher than they've ever gone before. What's priced below falls into that ever-expanding category: "affordable luxury."

Some people cut and run when confronted with prices that seem crazy. But many of us experience a sudden emotional-mathematical transformation. We set a new ceiling for a "reasonable" price. Disinclined to go all the way to buy the trophy, we instead settle for a consolation prize. Mr. Schwarz, a jeans-wearing type, walked out of Boyds with a suit that cost merely $800 -- the most he'd ever spent on an item of clothing.

"If you're in that world long enough, $800 stops even feeling like a lot of money," Mr. Schwarz says.

This concept is one of the reasons for the proliferation of $300 designer sunglasses these days. The fact that Ralph Lauren is charging $14,000 or so for an alligator "Ricky" handbag makes it easier for a consumer to justify in her mind paying $300 for a rather simple sweater. Many Chanel sunglass owners are actually would-be owners of Chanel suits. Something similar has happened to many owners of Tiffany keychains, Prada legwarmers, Coach wallets, and Frette tea towels.

When shoppers are confronted with prices they can't afford, a smart retailer will "move you right along to where you can salvage your pride," says Dan Hill, president of Sensory Logic, a Minneapolis consulting company that helps companies explore their sensory and emotional connections with customers.

Pride, Mr. Hill points out, "is a mixture of anger and happiness." That pretty much describes the whole shopping experience at those moments when we're outpriced (anger), then soothe ourselves with a smaller splurge (happiness).

In Mr. Hill's case, this played itself out in the purchase of a sweater when what he actually wanted was a certain pair of Jesus Jeans. A friend of mine remains sheepish about a smashing pair of high-waisted black Prada pants that seemed sensibly priced at $500 only after she had spent an hour eyeballing more expensive versions with the encouragement of a salesman at Barneys.

And yes, it's time to concede to my husband that I spent $87 on that T-shirt at Lost & Found in Los Angeles because I couldn't bring myself to spend $395 on a certain dress.

Given that accessories like sunglasses, fragrances, and logoed belts drive the sales of companies like Gucci and Louis Vuitton, such consolation prizes account for a very sizable chunk of the luxury business these days.

Indeed, this ploy is the soul of Las Vegas -- a town built on people who roll in on Southwest Airlines expecting to play $2 blackjack until they see the high rollers at the $200 tables. Next thing you know, they wake up in the baccarat lounge with their own private casino host and a stack of IOUs. After a while, it just doesn't seem like real money.

As for Prof. Schwarz, with his $800 suit, "I got sucked in. And I knew what was happening," he says. Mr. Schwarz has since written and spoken about this phenomenon to roughly 75 industry groups with audiences of as many as 8,000 over the past three years. He has found eager apostles in Microsoft, Google, the National Restaurant Association, General Electric, the Marines, Time Warner, the Dutch government, several health insurers, and Lehman Brothers.

Mr. Schwarz calls the top-priced goods "anchors." Anchors, he says, set the ceilings on prices of objects that don't have a clear value.

That is just about everything in luxury goods and fashion. In fact, that's one reason why some in the luxury fashion industry are irritated with retailers like Target and Zara: They're seen as setting the ceilings too low.

Retail-consulting guru Paco Underhill says, "This has been a strategy that goes back to the 17th century. You sold one thing to the king, but everyone in court had to have a lesser one." Today, we have Hermes, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, and Gucci. "There's the $500 bag in the window, and what you walk away with is the T-shirt," says Mr. Underhill. "It's the same strategy as putting the sports car in the window to sell the sedan in the back."

Still, luxury brands today have fine-tuned the strategy. The folks at Coach are masters of this. Look for a notably expensive bag in one of the company's flagship stores. Only one or two of them are available for sale, a company spokeswoman pointed out to me. But scores of similar, smaller, less-elaborate bags are nearby, primed to walk out the door. And if you can't even go that far, try the wallet or the keychain.

As convenient as it might be to accuse these manufacturers of gouging when they set prices so high on their top goods, there's nothing nefarious going on here. Clothing is one of the most democratic marketplaces around. There's always another store, another pair of pants to turn to.

[Via The Wall Street Journal] 

Weight Lose Secrets
What To Do When Customers Complain

Who Is Shawn Casey? Is He For Real?

Tapping into mommy market
A Story of Success and The Law of Attraction

http://www.shawncasey.com/

It's just been brought to my attention that Shawn Casey is now giving away hia five hundred dollar e-mail marketing software for free. I grabbed my copy and while I don't feel that it's worth $500, you'd be stupid not to get it for free. This "business in a box" concept if freaking genious. So, who's Shawn Casey?

Shawn—a successful self-made millionaire and Group Leader at SFI—takes readers step-by-step through the process of succeeding on the Internet with an online home-business.

Shawn Casey is real big on teaching about the power of Joint Ventures. I know Joint Ventures are a valuable part of any business persons life, but I also know, just about every marketing guru in the world is teaching them. So I think the topic of Joint Venture is getting over-done to some degree.

When I read what Shawn Casey had to say on the subject of Joint Ventues, the following appeared to be his stance on the topic.

The way I understood him, he says if you do have a product, joint ventures almost eliminate the risk of advertising. You pay your partner nothing until AFTER he's made sales for you. And you only pay in direct proportion to the number of sales he generates!

And then of course, he plugs his own company, name and website by saying "You can even joint venture with ME! (Get all the details when you order "Mining Gold"). Now you see why I guarantee you $1,000 within your first 5-15 days."

He claims to have this one special technique that is only available to a priveledged groups he calls his circle of "power players."

From what I read, he appears to be directly claiming you could be making thousands of dollars for an hour's work, as often as you want. And he loves to tell you how this special "Insiders Only" technique is fully detailed on page 77 of his system, "Mining Gold On The Internet".

But after reading page 77 of Mining Gold on the Internet, I don't see anything very special or new. I wasn't impressed.

Shawn Casey is so focused on joint ventures that I just saw an offer where he says you get his proven super-responsive Joint Venture Proposal form letter.

Then he goes on to say it's so responsive, that when he emails it to potential joint venture partners, 2 out of 3 reply with a strong interest. And he claims that the "average" deal generates about $1,000 profit for both him and the guy he's doing the venture with. But I tested his form letter and I didn't get these amazing results he's talking about. My numbers weren't even half as good as what he's talking about.

Although, I myself wasn't overly impressed with Shawn Casey or his teachings, I'm not going to say this is a bad offer. I think Shawn has a lot of potential as a marketing guru and I plan to keep on eye on what he's doing from time to time.
Alkaline Diet
HubBuzz.Com - Match That Neighbourhood

Many Happy Returns

Hitchster.Com - Taxi Ride 2.0
Get rid of acne! Participate now for a year supply of skin products.

KieAnn Brownell considers herself a serial entrepreneur, which means she’s always on the lookout for new business ideas. After running her family's wholesale floor-covering business, Columbine Carpet in Greenwood Village, Colo., she decided the time was right to transition from carpets to cakes. After learning that more than 700,000 people celebrate a birthday every single day, Brownell set up her latest venture, GoCakeGo.com, which allows customers to order distinctive birthday-cakes-in-a-box.

"My roots as an entrepreneur go way back to when I was nine. I used to check movies out of the library and charge my friends admission to watch them.

"I first started thinking about some kind of cake business back when I was in college at the University of Colorado. I knew that there was a market sending cakes to kids away at school, but this was way before the Internet, so I kind of just filed the idea away.

"Then, in 2004, it came back to me. I started doing some research and found out that something like 5,000 people search the Internet for birthday cakes every single day. I figured that was enough to qualify as a business opportunity. And while it’s not 100 percent recession-proof, you know everybody has a birthday every year and everyone from kids on up loves cake. And unlike cookies or flowers, a cake really does inspire a celebration.

"Once I realized how big the market was, I started looking for wholesale bakers. I was an accounting major and had no interest in doing the baking myself. So we lined up a few wholesalers who supply us with frozen cakes and then we ship them via FedEx within 24 hours to kids away at school, elderly aunts, and siblings that live in other cities. Our real market is with remote relatives. It really is a business that connects people, and not only the sender with the recipient. When someone receives one of our cakes, they can’t help but invite around them to share.

"Part of our goal is to build a brand with our distinctive lime-green boxes. Along with the cake, we include plates, napkins, forks, a cake server, candles, and confetti. It’s really a party in the box -- everything you need for a spontaneous celebration. We also have our 'Party Online' component, where you can invite people to email their best wishes for the birthday boy or girl for a virtual celebration. When the person opens their e-card, they get to enjoy all the messages their friends have written to them. It's just so much better than just getting a phone call.

"Our real turning point came in January when DailyCandy featured us. After that plug, our page views jumped from 600 to 62,000. Now we’re ramping up and delivering about 1,000 cakes a month, at a selling price of about $70.

"One day I hope someone will see a lime-green box in an office or a dorm room and say, 'Hey, whose birthday is it?' And, to try to build that brand, I wear lime-green clothing every day. It gives people in the Denver area something to chuckle about."

Quick Diet's Results
Is Your Ego Hurting Your Business?

Perry Marshall On The Realities Of Internet Marketing

What Is Google Adsense?
Two Possibilities: Happiness Or Suffering

There are few things with more surface level appeal than selling information, especially selling it on the Internet. You've heard the pitch: "How to sell Ebooks, MP3s and videos on your website 24/7/365 with 95% profit margins and no customer service headaches, sitting on the beach eating bon-bons... and the really cool part is when your laptop goes 'cha-ching' every time a sale is made."

Reality is no match for a good fantasy, is it?

There is definitely an element of truth in this particular fantasy; there are also some less-obvious practicalities. The information business is great for some people. It would drive others into the asylum. Some of my own thoughts about the info biz:

1. Don't get into the info biz "just because" the margins are high or you can make a lot of dough or whatever. Actually the #1 reason to be selling information is one that the seminars and biz-op people tend to barely mention: That you actually do know something that is valuable to other people and you have a commitment to delivering accurate, useful knowledge to them.

Personally I think everyone who teaches others will be judged on the quality of what they've taught and that's not a responsibility to be taken lightly.

If you are up to that task, then the info business could be very good for you.

To that I would add that most people know things that are extremely useful to other people, they usually just don't realize it, and they don't know how to package that knowledge in a way that can be sold. But it is possible to find out how.

2. All the people I know who are good info marketers have a genuine gift and desire to teach and empower other people. And I've seen a lot of strange info businesses: aside from the well known common types, ie "business gurus" and such, there are others in completely different fields. Videos of motorcycle racing events and 4x4's. Instructional videos for musicians. Foreign languages. Guides to building and repairing and buying and selling various kinds of specialized merchandise. Advice on every known form of investment. Instructions for solving every imaginable kind of physical, psychological or health challenge.

3. The world has an insatiable appetite for genuinely useful information, regardless of the topic. More knowledge builds on existing knowledge, endlessly. The market for information never goes away.

4. Reality Check: High margins and low product delivery and fulfillment costs are offset by high cost of acquiring a customer. Some people should just sell physical products; in many ways they're much easier to sell, just harder to fulfill and service. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. That's why I think that if you're going to be in the info business, it should be something you love to do.

5. Can you run your business from the beach? Absolutely, you can. You can run an information business from anywhere. Northern Mongolia. Or parts of Western Nebraska. But is it a "walk away income"? No it is not. It is going to require a level of ongoing attention.

6. That said, I know quite a few info marketers who make low 6-figure incomes (typically in strange and obscure niches) whose businesses are highly automated and require relatively little day-to-day attention. In many cases they're so specialized they're also relatively immune from competition.

7. I also know quite a few info marketers whose incomes rival those of, say, presidents of large universities and Fortune 1000 CEOs - high six to low seven figures - who work their buns off and love what they do. Their lives have a LOT less politics than Fortune 1000 CEO's. And... compared to the politics of a university(!) ANY info business is surely utopia. (No amount of money would persuade ME to be the president of Stanford.)

8. Wanna be a cat on a hot tin roof? If your topic is one that changes all the time, welcome to the club. You can't sit still for long. But hey... if you're a fidgety guy who can't sit still anyway, that's just fine. (It's not like your wife will let you chase her around the house ALL day long.)

9. But if it's all about lifestyle for you, pick an obscure niche where things aren't in a constant state of flux. I know info products whose content and sales copy have barely changed in 10 years.

10. Merely delivering a passive information product (i.e. course, manual, video) has income limitations. A considerable amount of additional growth is possible if you're also willing to offer memberships, coaching programs, consulting and seminars. The nice thing is from one month to the next you can decide what you want to offer. And if you need to take the summer mostly off, you can.

Perry Marshall, perrymarshall.com

Business Articles Catalog

Alpha & Omega In Diets
Your Number One Weapon In Advertising

Banner ads just don’t work … so they say!

How To Make 22 Million Dollars A Year From A Clubbing Website
Mind improvements

If you ask me, this is a huge fallacy – I currently have web ad placements returning over 800% ROI. Imagine being handed eight bucks for every dollar you spend! So obviously it would take a lot to convince me that web media doesn’t work.

But not all web media is created equal. As a responsible web marketer, you can’t listen to what they say. You have to find out for yourself! And this means testing.

As a smart direct response marketer you need to allocate time and money to testing not only ad copy, ad layout, offers and prices. You also have to test media. Because in the web marketing world your media is your traffic driver … the catalyst that brings potential prospects to your doorstep.

Web media can be many things … and unfortunately it’s not quite so cut and dry.

Come closer my child …

To start, we’ll break web media down into two categories. The first category is the more passive of the two … in that these ad types require the prospect to come to the site to be seen.

Passive categories consist of:

Banner Ads

I’m sure everyone knows what a banner ad looks like. They are all over the web and come in many shapes and sizes. Banners ads are sold by the impression on a CPM (cost per thousand) basis so the larger quantity of impressions you can buy the more potential prospects will see your ad. Banners tend to have a lower CPM in comparison to most other web media.

The key with banner ads is to create ad copy that is compelling enough to get the prospect to click away from the site they’re visiting to check out what they know to be advertising.

We’ll talk a lot more about banner ad creation strategies in upcoming issues of In the Net Trenches, but suffice it to say most online big brand advertisers are doing it all wrong.

Sponsored Headlines

Sponsored headlines are one of my favorite ad positions and can work very well for a product that is topical or newsy … such as ones in the financial or health markets. Sponsored headlines typically appear on more news oriented sites and simply mimic a headline that might appear on a website for a news story. Often, they are relegated to a section of a website that is classified as advertising, special offers or sponsored offers.

The power of a sponsored headline is that it is static for a specified period of time, so it is not shown on an impression basis … this means they can get huge amounts of viewership depending on site traffic. And because sponsored headlines look like news headlines, they are often mistaken for website editorial and so they have much higher click through rates than banners.

Sponsored headlines are typically sold on a flat rate basis based on how long they run – such as per week or per month. But note: some sites may actually classify their headline ads as a text ad.

Text Ads

Text ads tend to be the smallest ad size on a site and the cheapest. They are often relegated to the bottom of a page like a classified ad. They tend to have the look and feel of a Google pay-per-click ad and can usually be found in groups. As the name implies, they consist of all text. Some text ads will also allow a small image to be displayed next to the text.

Text ads are typically the least expensive web media available. They are sold on an impression and a flat rate basis. They are most often static -- which means they have the potential to get very high viewership.

I will stress that text ads can be a mixed bag as far as performance. The benefit is they tend to look like editorial and because they are in-expensive it may take far less to make them break even.

If you love him set him free …

The next category tends to be more active in that they are pushed out to the prospect.

Active categories consist of:

Newsletter Sponsorships

Newsletter sponsorships or newsletter ads are found in a company’s e-newsletter or e-zine. The e-newsletters are sent to the websites opt-in subscribers by e-mail. The ads appear within the actual newsletter issue. Ads can take the shape of a banner ad or a text ad depending on the newsletter.

Newsletter ads are often limited to one ad sponsor per issue. So there is far less competition for attention in an e-newsletter. Plus, with only one ad sponsor per issue you get a measure of implied endorsement from a company that your prospect may already trust or even be doing business with.

Open rates tend to be higher for e-newsletters than for other types of paid e-mail. But the downside is you are in competition with the e-newsletter editorial, so it’s important to have interesting and compelling copy to entice the reader to click away from the newsletter.

Newsletter ads run the gamut in pricing from extremely cheap to extremely expensive and are typically sold on a CPM (cost per thousand) or flat rate basis.

Newsletter advertisers can expect to have the majority of their ad responses within about 48 hours of the newsletters delivery. But, e-newsletters tend to hang around in prospects inboxes and I’ve seen orders from newsletter sponsorship ads as much as 3 months later.

E-Mail Marketing

There are two different types of e-mail lists – response and compiled.

Response e-mail lists tend to be the most expensive of all the categories we’ve covered today and the most effective. They are also one of my favorites and the closest to direct mail.

Response e-mail lists are made up of customers or opt-in subscribers that have all responded to a specific offer. They have either purchased a product, opted-in to receive an e-newsletter or to receive special information from one particular business.

Response e-mail lists are sent from the list owner to the prospect on behalf of the advertiser, thus are immediately recognizable as being from a company the prospect is familiar with. This makes these prospects warm to your offers.

Compiled e-mail lists tend to be dirt cheap in comparison to response lists. They are made up of broad categories of people across specific demographic or psychographic categories. Since prospects often don’t know how they ended up on a specific compiled list, e-mails can easily be mistaken for SPAM. This makes these prospects very cold.

Low cost and mass quantity are the key to making compiled lists work in your favor.

E-mail lists are typically purchased on a CPM (cost per thousand) basis but some compiled lists are also sold on a CPA (cost per action) basis.

One key to making e-mail marketing work for you is getting prospects to open your message. Subject lines are an extremely important factor in e-mail marketing and should not be an afterthought in creative development. We’ll spend more time on subject lines in upcoming issues of In the Net Trenches.

One huge benefit of e-mail marketing is that it’s virtually instantaneous -- you will start seeing response immediately and the majority of orders will come in within the first 24-48 hours. Also like newsletter sponsorships, e-mails tend to hang around in your prospects inbox for some time and I’ve seen responses continue to trickle in months later.

Clayton Makepeace, www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/

Right Pills
Easy Way To Get Quality Contents for your Google Adsense Site

Online Business Ethics

Low prices are no guarantee of profits
Headache And Migraine Pain Relief Through Hypnotherapy

Very simple: Be a source of integrity. Don't be phony, people will know and not come to visit your site again. Even worse, they will post a bad review somewhere on the web and others will not even come to see for themselves. If you don't know about something, don't pretend that you do.

Respect your customers, or prospective customers, and offer them something of value. Give good information that will draw your customers' attention and this will help to build trust. It also gives them a reason to stay or come back again for more. Follow-up with your customers, but don't be a pest. Basically, don't spam, don't steal, and don't lie.

Just as in an offline business, there are ethics and standards that should be followed. If you are starting an online business, you've probably spent some time online already and can see that there are hundreds of thousands of businesses trying to sell their products and information and services to you. Study how they do it. Spend some time visiting the websites of your competitors, much like you would when preparing a business plan for an offline business. Look for and evaluate the following characteristics to determine the integrity of the business as a whole:

What are they selling?

When you first come to their index page, can you quickly and easily figure out what they are selling? Is it a real product, an information product, a membership or a service? Do they offer something of real value right off the bat for free such as informative content or a related ebook? If you cannot determine within the first 30 seconds what they are selling or why they are in business, chances are that they are just a hodgepodge of links put together to make the owner affiliate revenue. However, if you do see something of value, stay a bit longer and evaluate further.

Can you contact them directly?

Look on the main page. Contact information could be in the top nav bar, on the side nav bar or at the bottom of the page. Also, look for a direct link such as Contact Us. Click this link and see where it takes you. Do they provide a physical address, a contact name or email, and a phone number? These three things are a must for a legitimate business. If an owner is not confident in his business enough to put an address and contact phone number on his site, he must be hiding something. The final test is to send an email to the company and see who responds and how long it takes to get a response. Most one-person web businesses should be able to answer your email within 1-2 business days.

Is the content valuable and correct?

One of my biggest pet peeves is spelling and grammar. If the owner has done his research and knows what he is talking about, this should show in the quality of the information on his site. A professional image depends on attention to details. Presentation is everything. If you are going to put out information, it has to be presented in an organized fashion with no mistakes. When I see more than one misspelled word or grammar mistake on a website or page, I move on. If the owner has not proofread his own material or verified the information on his site is correct and presented professionally, I won't be trusting that his products are much higher in quality.

Is there a free trial or guarantee on the products and services being offered?

Those businesses that have developed a quality product or service and are confident in it will not hesitate to put a guarantee on it. They will stand behind it 100%. Even better are those companies that let you try the product or service for free. This way you can test it out to see if it is indeed what you need and meets the quality standards of a legitimate business.

How do they advertise?

Look at the other links on the website. Visit some of them to see the quality of partners associated with the first business. Do the links take you somewhere valuable and helpful? Is the business partnered with other legitimate businesses? Also, how did you find out about the website in the first place and what in their ad drew you in? Did the ad lie to you? Make sure that when you advertise that you don't misrepresent what you are offering. In addition, don't be a spammer. Make sure to develop a double opt-in email list that you can use to send valuable follow up information to your customers. This will help to build loyalty as well as word of mouth referrals.

Visit forums and pay-per-click sites to see the companies who are advertising the same products and services that you are to find out what promotion methods they are using. Use them as a starting point and try to set your standards of quality and honesty a step above when developing your ads.

The bottom line is, there is good karma and bad. Even though we all know those people in life whose bad karma hasn't caught up with them yet, don't join the crowd. Be a leader, be a source of integrity, and provide a quality product or service that you can stand behind. In the long run, this will help you build a profitable, long-standing business rather than a fly-by-night get rich quick scheme.

About the Author: Ruth Harris is a real entrepreneur who has helped many others start and promote their online business. Visit http://www.iprofit.viral-business.com to get over 170 best-selling eBooks and software titles with Master Resell Rights and ready made profit-pulling minisites all for one low price.

Natural Way To Healthy Life
How Human Greed Can Be Used As A Fuel For Your Online Business

Marketing to Moms

A New Twist On Affiliate Marketing
Light Diets

Most of the best businesses and products for moms come from moms themselves. Your experience as a mom should help you identify with your customers, but realize not all moms are the same. How you market to them may be as important as the product or service you offer.

For business owners, the $1.6 trillion "Mommy Market" is well worth pursuing. In the book Trillion Dollar Moms, Maria Bailey and Bonnie Ulman teach you how to take advantage of this lucrative market. They describe three generations of moms: baby boomer moms, Gen X moms and Millennial new moms. If your company is still marketing to soccer moms, you're missing two-thirds of the mom market.

Their book examines how recent generational shifts have impacted the buying behaviors of today's mothers and moms-to-be. Moms today want high quality and are proud to admit when they get a good price. That's part of why you're seeing more designer items at stores like Target and K-Mart. Most moms surveyed by Bailey and Ulman say they feel advertising is not geared toward them and many feel that advertising is offensive.

With all of that in mind, here are some tips for appealing to this key demographic.

• Focus on networks. When marketing to moms, you need to take advantage of the networks they build. Moms love to talk about what they're buying, so if you have a good product or message, the word will spread. Virtually all new moms join some sort of play group or support group, so it's wise to get your message across to these members.
  
  
• Embrace technology. Never before have so many moms researched a product or service online. Moms don't have time to go to stores to shop around, nor do they want to bring their kids to the store if they don't have to. A good website and high search rankings are essential to being found and reviewed by the mommy market. Ideally, moms should be able to easily purchase your product online.
  
  
• Offer education. Moms use the internet to educate themselves. Offer valuable content that moms can reference as a way to bring them to your site. Moms spend more time online than they do in front of a TV.
  
  
• Save them time. Moms will all agree they need more time. Focus on the time savings benefits of your product or service, and it'll score points with moms. Moms are expert multi-taskers and crave the ability to do more in less time.
  
  
• Get to the point. Tied to lack of time, moms want marketing that gets to the point. Offer free shipping or a quick deal, but don't ask moms to spend time reading about your product or service. If you're offering a discount, show the price they'll pay. Don't ask moms to figure out what 10 percent off will be. If you have a product, show a picture; don't give a lengthy description.
  
  
• Market to the individual. Yes, we're all moms, but we're also different. Some moms stay at home, some work at home, and some work away from home. Be careful that your marketing message doesn't make a blanket statement that would leave someone out. Don't assume all moms are home watching Oprah.

Want more information on marketing to moms? There's a Marketing2Moms course offered by Moms in Business. It's a 16-week e-mail course that'll help you understand and market to today's mom. Marketing to moms is becoming somewhat of a science. It's surprisingly well researched and has very concrete solutions. With moms holding the purse strings of household budgets across the country, make sure you're sending the right message.

Lisa Druxman is Entrepreneur.com's "Mompreneur" columnist and the founder and CEO of fitness franchise, Stroller Strides. Druxman is also a nationally recognized speaker and author, and is considered an expert in thefield of fitness, particularly pre- and postnatal fitness. For more information on how to launch or grow your Mommy Owned Business, e-mail her about her Mommy Owned Business Academy atlisa@strollerstrides.com.

Tap Into Your Own Talent
Making a Clean Break
Tricks of the Trade Show

Seven Low-Cost Marketing Ideas

How to Start a 501c3 Nonprofit Organization
It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle - make the change.
Growing companies trying to figure out how to make a splash in the marketplace sometimes pay consultants thousands of dollars for advice on the subject. And they get suggestions that will cost them even more.

But if you're clever and ambitious, there are plenty of ways to get noticed without spending a bundle. If you haven't tried these seven "guerrilla marketing" ideas, you're not really trying:

1. Press Releases. Write and distribute press releases that are newsworthy, and send them to newspapers, magazines, and television and radio stations. If only one media outlet airs the story, you'll have free access to thousands of people. Design the headline to grab readers' attention in as few words as possible. Use active verbs. Get to the point quickly, with a lead sentence that will draw the reader into a convincing piece.
2. Trade Shows. Renting space at a trade show can be expensive, but the best shows are a great way to build your business. Have plenty of promotional materials ready to hand out to interested people. When the show's over, follow up. Call your leads in order of importance, but get in touch with all of them within seven days. Above all, keep every promise made at the booth.
3. The Internet. Establishing a home page for your business is relatively inexpensive and can reach many people. Use newsgroups that focus on areas similar to your line of business to draw attention to the site. Always include a phone number or email address so that interested visitors can contact you. If you are a retailer, consider putting photographs of your products online, even if you're not ready to let people to order your wares over the Internet.
Advertising on Google and other search engines can be an easy and surprisingly inexpensive way to drive a lot of potential buyers to your ecommerce Web site. Read the AllBusiness.com Buyer's Guide The Scoop on Search Engine Marketing to learn how it works and follow a step-by-step guide to getting started.
4. Direct Mail. Direct mail results depend largely upon how much you're willing to spend on finding your target market and delivering quality materials to them. The per-customer cost is much higher than you'll pay for print ads, but if you create a finely tuned list of recipients, you will reach more highly qualified prospects. Few small firms are qualified to do their own direct mailings, so find a reliable specialist to do the work for you. Interview at least three or four mailing list vendors before you commit your money to a direct mail campaign.
5. Yellow Pages. Most ads get turned into fishwrap within days, but consumers hang onto the yellow pages all year. Remember to cross-reference your listing. If you do yard work, for instance, list your business under landscaping, maintenance, and home improvements. You want your ad to stand out, so consider springing for a larger ad or perhaps even hiring someone to design it.
6. Public Service. This is a great chance to do well by doing good. Sponsor the Special Olympics or participate in the annual Rotary Club Christmas Tree sale in your area. Donate your product to local charities or speak to students at area schools about your business. All of these are terrific ways to position your company in a positive light in your community.
7. Games and Premiums. Periodic prize drawings can help create interest in a retail store or other business. Promotional materials like T-shirts, coffee mugs, or pens emblazoned with your logo also help spread the word.

Find more advice on Direct Marketing and Market Research at AllBusiness.com. AllBusiness provides practical information and services for business professionals and growing businesses.

Atkins Diet's Recipes
Clutterbusters Story - How To Make Money Organizing Other People

Website Writting Tips From a Copy Veteran

Dealing with Kid-Related Emergencies
Vegetable Diets

When I joined my first London ad agency 40-something years ago, the copywriting department was presided over by a lapsed genius who beat into me a number of immutable copy principles. These precepts, which are as valid now as they were then and which have helped me shift truckloads of product worldwide, apply to all types of promotional writing. They apply even more so to selling on the Internet, where do-it-yourself copy is the norm rather than the exception. In the old days, very few serious advertisers wrote their own material. Today, they do so as a matter of course simply because the technology allows it.

Anyway, this little article is aimed at those who write their own web pages and also at those who hire a writer and may wish to check that he or she is working on the right lines. Below you'll find just a few principles of good promotional writing. If the editor wants more, I'll gladly provide them.

Keep it very simple

All copywriting should speak to its audience in everyday, uncomplicated language. People don't like to be talked down to. And they grow tired of clich's and buzzwords. Also, keep your sentences short and punchy, with the minimum of clauses. Long and involved sentence structure is death to readership. (The six sentences above are examples of what I'm talking about. They are easy to scan and understand.)

All web pages should carry a headline

But this must be a pertinent headline. A selling headline. This headline will be, or should be, powerful enough or intriguing enough to draw your target into the compass of the body copy. If it can do that, you are on a winner.

It may go without saying that the entire thrust of your webpage should revolve around an offer or a promise. This offer or promise will be unique to you - it's your unique sales proposition. It's the one thing that sets you apart from your competitors; and it can be price, performance or service related. Given this, the headline should be a snapshot of the sales message - a pr'cis of your offer or promise. In other words, a headline that says: Buy this product and get this benefit. I'm sure you already know that people don't buy products, they buy the benefits of owning those products.

And when I say that every page of your site should carry a headline, I mean every page. Experience shows that a person will read a headline before looking at any accompanying pic or body copy. They do so preparatory to scooting off to someone else's site. But if your on-going headlines tell them things of interest, they will almost certainly hang around to explore the site more fully.

Keep headlines relevant

Around 30% of all headlines on the Net are both useless and irrelevant. The worst of them are so convoluted, so desperate to say everything all at once, that they are unintelligible. The offending lines also employ tired buzzwords. The word leverage, for instance, in completely ungrammatical context; and words like solutions and focus are thrown around like generous confetti. The moral is this. State your sales proposition cleverly, wittily, stridently or emotively, but never, ever employ a clich device simply because it's the easy thing to do. If you can't be original, at least be positive. And if you honestly don't have very much to say, there are some really clever ways of saying nothing that will endear you to your audience.

Emphasise the benefit

Copy should be more than just a description of your product. All body copy should make some kind of selling proposition. If it doesn't, it isn't advertising - it's an announcement. So many writers these days fail to understand that copy is nothing more than salesmanship in print. They describe every conceivable facet of their product, what it does, how it does it and why it does it, without once producing a decent argument for buying the damned thing! They lose sight of the fact that they should be trying to sell something.

Thus, copy must use the psychology of the salesman; and it must say, right up front: Here's what's in it for you. Nobody ever went broke promoting the benefits of owning their product.

Raising value

All copywriting should be geared to fulfilling one very important task. And this is to raise the value of your product or service in the potential customer's mind. This has nothing to do with a policy of low pricing or, indeed, cut-price offers. But it has everything to do with making a sales pitch that immediately demonstrates the outstanding value of your goods and services - no matter how much you are charging for them.

Look at it this way, a gallon of petrol costs around 5, but if your car runs out of gas on a lonely, rain-swept moor in the middle of the night, with the prospect of a 30-mile walk to the nearest filling station, how much would you pay for a gallon of petrol from a passing stranger? 10? 20? 50? It all depends on how badly you need it and how the circumstances have raised its value to you.

Raising value isn't difficult to do when people are in the market for your product. They come to you with certain preconceived notions, they are excited about owning whatever it is you make, they can already picture themselves using it, they want it now. All you have to do is exploit their desire. Bear in mind that advertising doesn't create desire, desire creates advertising.

Say it, then say it again

It has been scientifically proven that most of us take in only around 40% of what we actually see. Our brains edit out the other 60% of visual information as unimportant. On these grounds, if you have a serious proposition to make in your website it would be wise to repeat it. And not just once, but several times.

Just because you are deeply immersed in your offer or promise, it doesn't follow that your market will be likewise informed after only one reading. Websites are the most negligently read materials on the planet. Aside from you, nobody has any real or abiding interest in them. Always remember that you are preaching to the indifferent.

Resist the urge to talk about yourself

A lot of website writers seem compelled to talk about themselves. They talk about their business, when it was founded, why it was founded and by whom. Not content with this, they tell us all about their employees one by one; about the size and location of their offices or plant; and about the lengths they go to in order to satisfy their customers.

A little of this sort of thing goes a long way, but a lot of it goes right over people's heads. And they lose more customers than they gain with such naval-gazing.

The simple truth is that nobody gives a damn about other people's achievements. All most of us are interested in are our own achievements. Good enough reason, then, when writing your next website is to talk more about your potential customers and what you can do for them, than about yourself. Six-to-four, you?ll get a bigger response.

If this has been helpful, maybe you'll let me know.

---

About the Author: Pat Quinn is an award-winning UK copywriter who also operates a search engine optimisation service. Because it's all in the writing! Here: http://www.search-engine-mechanics.co.uk.

Rapping Dollars
5 Online Millionaires You’ve Never Heard About
Hitchster.Com - Taxi Ride 2.0

Ad Choices Made Simple

How Any 13 Year Old Kid Can Become A Millionaire
Cool Healthy Tips

Every entrepreneur from New York to Los Angeles faces the same daily dilemma--a finite marketing budget and an infinite number of advertising options. After all, your customers are bombarded with hundreds of advertising messages each day. From the moment they wake up, they're exposed to advertising on television and the radio, in the morning newspaper, their favorite magazines and their e-mail inboxes, and on websites, outdoor billboards and subway signage. There are even ads on fruit in the supermarket, corporate signage on secluded nature trails and marketing pamphlets promoting products in dental and medical offices.

This flood of marketing messages will only continue to increase, and that leaves you with critical choices to make about how you'll reach your prospects and hold their attention. Since every business is different, there aren't pat answers regarding what'll work for everyone. What I can provide are four great questions. Answer these, and they'll point you toward the right media.

Question 1: Where do your prospects look first?
People who already know they want to buy what you market are your top-qualified prospects. They need what you offer and are actively shopping in what are called "marketing search corridors." Will your prospects use search engines, the Yellow Pages or both? Are they looking for you in trade magazines or in a particular section of the newspaper? Identify exactly where your best prospects look first when shopping for what you sell, and place your ads there.

Question 2: Which media touch your prospects most often?
Each of us is touched by media at various points throughout the day. The key is to discover the media with which your prospects have meaningful interactions. Find out which TV programs they watch and which radio stations they listen to, and at what time of day. If your customers read a newspaper, which one is it? And if you're targeting B2B prospects, identify the industry publications they rely on for information. Then construct an integrated marketing campaign using a mix of media that will consistently reach them during their daily routines.

Question 3: Where will your message be best remembered?
Putting your advertising message in the right context is critical to success. In fact, your prospects are probably touched by all kinds of media that would be completely inappropriate for you. When evaluating your media advertising options, look for opportunities to communicate with your prospects when they're in the right frame of mind.

For example, your customers may often dine in restaurants where they're exposed to the posters on the bathroom walls. But while this particular advertising form may reach your best prospects, if it's inappropriate for your message, you should discard it as a marketing option. On the flip side, a website your prospects turn to for information on a subject related to a product or service you market would reach them when they're in exactly the right frame of mind, making advertising on that site a good choice for you.

Question 4: Can you stick with it?
Effective advertising requires frequency for your message to be remembered and acted on. As you construct your list of advertising options, choose a mix of media you can stick with for the long haul. It's preferable to choose media in which you can afford to advertise frequently, rather than to advertise just a few times in a larger range of media. Start small with sufficient advertising frequency in a cohesive group of marketing vehicles. Then, as your company grows, you can expand into additional media.

---

Kim T. Gordon is the "Marketing" coach at Entrepreneur.com and a multifaceted marketing expert, speaker, author and media spokesperson. Over the past 26 years, she's helped millions of small-business owners increase their success through her company,National Marketing Federation Inc.

E-Coupons 101: Offering Digital Discounts
Is Affiliate Marketing the Home Based Business for You?
105 Service Businesses to Start Today