Addressing the Canny Investor

The Internet is a pretty exciting place to learn a lot of different things. One could spend several months even several years just trying to figure out what part of the Internet as their favorite.

When I first started out on the Internet order to start out with the basics when the infrastructure, so web design was where I began my journey. When you learn how to build the websites you kind of get an insider look at how the web is stitched together.

In a lot of ways learning how the websites are built you have an easier time figuring out everything else.

Our member when I first got on the Internet and saw how websites seem to hold the power of Marvel, and intrigue, but most of all interactivity.

I knew when I started out that I was going to want to know how to build these websites that I was so intrigued by.

After only a few months to plan around the Internet I started looking for sites that would teach the web design. Within about a year I was building some of the most innovative websites and they’d ever seen.

It just goes to show that you never know what you’ll learn on the Internet they get in there and figure out what you like.

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Marketers/advertisers usually focus their efforts on the people responsible for making the purchase. In many cases, this is an effective approach but in other cases it can make for a totally useless marketing campaign.

Virgin Mobile took a more effective approach in marketing their cell phone service by focusing not on the people that would be making the actual purchase, but instead focusing on the influencers of the people making the purchase. To make this campaign work, Virgin developed a viral website called Parental Enlightenment Kit which offers many tips (often fairy funny ones) to convince their parents to purchase a Virgin Mobile phone for them. By enlisting the teenagers Virgin has multiplied the effectiveness of their marketing campaign for 3 reasons:

1. The teenagers will continually mention the phone/service to their parents until they get it - Virgin’s campaign will continue to work long after the teenager has left the computer.

2. This approach is exactly the type of thing that spreads virally. As teenagers tell their friends about it, it will increase exponentially in it’s effectiveness.

3. They have targeted the most likely decision maker rather than the person responsible for the purchase.

Companies in other industries have take the same approach and achieved amazing results. For example, Pfizer targeted men with erectile disfunction (a more PC term for impotence) rather than the doctors who would actually prescribe the drug (Viagra) to treat it. You can take the same approach to market your product/service and reap tremendous rewards.

Jeremy L. Knauff is the founder & CEO of Wildfire Marketing Group, a full service Marketing Firm specializing in helping small companies compete with larger companies.

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With the holiday season here it is a good time to let your customers know you care.

Here some tips for the business owners among you to show your appreciation. After all these are the people that have helped you come to this stage!

Showing appreciation is also a good way to remind them of your services, especially if it has been a while since they used your company. If they are regular customers you may even increase your business intake as everybody likes to know somebody is thinking about them.

Remember: What you send out there comes back!

Top Tips:

Handwritten card

Send a card and make it personal. It is rare to receive a card that is not computerized and sent to 100 others. Personal is memorable.

Telephone

Call your regular clients to wish them a Happy Holiday. If you are at the beginning stages of setting up your company and you have the time, call all of your clients. It is also an option to contact those that have inquired into your services. Again personal is memorable. A telephone call from you - the owner - beats a mass email.

Mini Gift

Send something that is cost effective to you and that is small enough for the regular mail. Examples are small chocolates, a keying, and company pen or sample product.

Coupon

Create a ‘money off’ or ‘free’ coupon for one of your services or products. Send this to your regular clients with a thank you note for their business.

No matter what you send or do your customers will be touched by your gratitude for their business. This is your chance to form or build on a bond with your customers. People like to spend money on the familiar and a company they like. Happy customers are returning customers!

Kerry Bannigan is a Personal Life Coach in New York City. She specializes in adult children of divorce, relationship, career and weight loss coaching. Kerry Bannigan Life Coaching motivates you to step outside of society’s conditioned environments, encourages you to express your own core values and challenges you to step on the path to your desired destiny. http://www.kerrybannigan.com

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Examining the failures of the web content design of many enormous consumer corporations.

When you think of the world’s most successful businesses, what names come to mind? Most likely, consumer-oriented giants such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Sheraton, Disney, IBM, General Electric, and IBM. Not only have they spent billions on advertising to buy their way into your head. They offer convenient products and services that have made them a part of your life.

But when you think of the most successful web sites, what names come to mind? Names like Google, Yahoo! Amazon, AOL, Kazaa (for better or worse), and Hotmail.

The late-1990s mantra about the web being a disruptive technology that would destroy traditional companies may have been overstated. But a decade and a half into the web’s existence, it is clear that the world’s leading corporations have been sidelined on the web.

The biggest shopping site is not walmart.com but amazon.com. The biggest map site is not randmcnally.com but mapquest.com.

Established companies have usually only been able to buy their way into this market through acquisitions (as with Microsoft’s purchase of Hotmail, which it used as a base for creating MSN).

Why, with few exceptions, were the world’s most successful web sites not launched by the world’s most successful corporations?
Many Big Name Companies’ Web Sites a Vast Waste of Time for Visitors

The McDonald’s web site talks about food, but has no real menu. The Coca-Cola USA web site has no clear ingredients list or nutritional information, no recipes for floats or mixed drinks, no company history, and nothing else useful to people who like Coke. All that information has been inexplicably located on the ” company” page, which on every other web site is used for investor relations. The Johnson and Johnson web site has useful information if you can access itwhen the author attempted to open it, it crashed two different web browsers (Internet Explorer and Mozilla) before finally yielding (to the Opera browser).

Many big-name companies’ web sites offer lessons in what not to do in web design. The biggest lesson by far is not to sacrifice usability in an attempt to look cool, and never forget why your users came to your site in the first place. McDonald’s may be the world’s largest restaurant chain, but it didn’t get that way because of its web site.
Why Big-Budget Websites Are More Often Bombs than Blockbusters

The web sites of many successful corporations (both B2C and B2B) are like big-budget Hollywood movies that spend millions on stars and special effects, and a quarter of a percent of the budget on the script. Worse, the special effects of blockbuster web sites are far more annoying than impressive.

Special Effect that Bombs Number 1: Flash!

When web sites don’t offer any contentany useful information to readwhat do they put up there instead? Spinning Coke bottles. Chicken McNuggets and French fries that zoom out toward you when you position your cursor over them. Changing pictures of generic-looking office buildings and men in suits (on the web site of real estate giant CB Richard Ellisbut that essentially describes the generic look of many corporate web sites).

Of course, Flash can be used as a way to present contentwords, both printed and recorded, and pictures that actually illustrate something. But more often, it is used to impress. And most often, it ends up annoying. Who wants to spend the better part of a minute waiting for a rotation of generic pictures of smiling models?

Special Effect that Bombs Number 2: Splash Screens

You type in duracell.com expecting information on batterieswhich you will find, if you have the patience not to hit the “back” button while the site shows a picture of a battery revolving painfully slowly. On www.mcdonalds.com you’re met with pictures of happy children playing with Ronald McDonald and a menu to select what country you’re from. Johnson’s and Johnson’s web site shows a logo before automatically redirecting you to the main pagethat is if it doesn’t crash your browser first (which happened when the author tried to access the page on May 2, 2004 ).

Another way big consumer corporations’ web sites from Schick to Mercedes-Benz to Thomas Cooke waste your time with splash pages is by making you choose what country you’re visiting from. This could have been detected automatically, or at least, useful worldwide content could have been placed on the homepage, with an option to choose a country prominently displayed.

Splash pages are the internet equivalent of making patrons wait in line out front before letting them inside. Unless a site belongs to a night club or a professional services firm with too much business, this can’t be a good idea. On the web, where the “back” button and the URL bars loom temptingly, making people wait is business suicide.

Special Effect that Bombs Number 3: Overbuilt or Badly Built “Dynamic” Functionality

Every web surfer has a story about a shopping cart that malfunctioned just when they were about to click “purchase” on something they really wanted. Or a detailed form that lost all the information after the “submit” button was pressed. When there are so many good “dynamic” sites out there, why are there still so many bad ones? Part of the problem may be overbuilding and needless custom design. There are already excellent Open Source databases out there, which can be endlessly customized and updated by any skilled designer. Yet many companies prefer to spend their money reinventing the wheel so they can have their own proprietary technology, even if it doesn’t work.

Sometimes, dynamic content can distort the way an entire site presents itself. If the dynamic content is so complex that it presents problems for many users, it is unlikely the dynamic content is worth it. On disney.com, your first greeting is a message that your computer is sufficiently up-to-date (or not) to handle the site. Is that really the magical and fun impression you want to give visitors?

About the author

Joel Walsh is the head writer at UpMarket, internet marketing services, online copywriting services, & website content provider focusing on small and medium-sized businesses and those who serve them.

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There is a great percentage of our population, probably more than 50% of people, who are somewhat afraid of change when it comes down to certain life issues. People have been sleeping on spring mattresses now, for centuries, and there is nothing wrong with that. Don’t get us wrong, spring mattresses have come a long long way, and most of them are extremely comfortable, but there are arguably far superior alternatives such as a foam, memory foam or latex foam mattress. If you suffer from back problems, sleep disorders, you toss and turn or you just want a fantastic
night’s sleep every night, a memory foam mattress or a latex foam mattress may be just what you need. Those are just two examples of mattresses made of foam available to you.

If you are unfamiliar with a foam mattress, as most people are, here’s a little basic information as to what they actually are, and what makes them different from a spring mattress. One thing that should be clear is that there are several types. One type is the memory foam mattress, which is a polyurethane foam that is both pressure and temperature sensitive, and has the ability to form to the contour of your body and slowly return to its initial form. Another type is the latex foam mattress, which is made with the sap of the Hevea Brasiliensis, which is a rubber tree. We won’t get too far into this, but this type of mattress has many qualities very similar to the memory foam, and it also has many hypoallergenic qualities. These sleep systems are great for your body, spreading evenly underneath you causing absolutely no pressure points while you sleep deeply.

Before you go out and buy one of these foam mattresses, make sure to try a few of them out, and try not to fall asleep in the store. Buying a new sleep system can be a big investment with many advantages, so you should be alert and pay attention. Don’t be afraid to ask the salesperson questions, such as the different categories of polyurethane foam and the difference that could make for you. Foam density levels also make a difference, so it’s mostly a matter of trying as many out as you can, and finding which one most appeals to you. One thing you should ba aware of is that once you own your latex or memory foam mattress, you will not want to sleep anywhere else but at home, so spoil yourself if you will, but please don’t say we didn’t warn you. Here’s to a better night’s sleep.

Dean Cecere is prevailing author and owner of various websites dealing with everyday life issues. Here’s where you can find out more about Memory foam and latex foam mattresses

Wake up feeling brand new day after day.

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Greetings,

In today’s competitive world every rupee saved is rupee earned
and time is of essence while making critical on-time purchasing
decisions. This makes it difficult for companies to identify the
best products at the best prices and that too in shortest
possible time.

We at InB Value Mart Limited (formerly Atco Weighing Solutions
Company Limited - pioneer in Electronic weighing scale industry
in India) realized the need of industry and came out with
“ATCOMART” - The chain of Industrial & Business Supply stores
that links the suppliers & purchasers. “ATCOMART” reduces all
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roof.

We are pleased to send you our exclusive product catalogue that
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Looking forward to your favorable response and to serve you
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022 24132413 (customer care) or fax us at 022 24180805, or
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Yours Sincerely,

For InB Value Mart Limited. (Formerly Atco Weighing Solutions
Company Limited).

S. Nripendra Singha.

3-A, Lalwani Industrial Estate, 14, G.D. Ambekar road, Wadala,
Mumbai- 31 Ph: 022 24132413 Fax: 022-24180805 E-mail:
customercare@atcomart.com www.atcomart.com

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The model of Epic T60 is manufactured by the group of Icon Health and Fitness. The purpose of this model is meant for the general health maintenance. The cost price of this product is $ 1000 only.

The machine has an immense capacity of bearing about 350 pounds of an individual. The surface of the deck is large and it is comfortably cushioned for the user to land comfortably. It also monitors the statistics of an individual such as the heart rate, pulse rate through the Pulse Sensor Grip, time, distance and speed of the workouts. It is useful for the lightweight loss and well as the intense weight loss. The iFit.com is a technology installed in the machine that helps controlling the speed and adjusts the machine to different angles depending upon the heart rate. The electrical devises such as CD, stereo and computer can be connected to the machine and keep the performer entertained while performing the workouts.

The horsepower capacity of this machine is 3HP and the area of the deck surface is about 20x 60. It has 10 varieties of preset programmes and six LED window displays. This model is made of a 2-cm MDF with 2-sided phenolic coating, 6.3 cms rollers. But there are a few drawbacks present as it is a cheap-priced model. The rollers that are fixed are usually cheap and the deck coating is thin. The keypads do create some trouble while performing the workouts. Therefore when you set out to purchase this model confirm the durability of this model.

But this model is appropriate for the beginners who will use it just for the sake of achieving good body shape and proper health.

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You are welcome to republish the above article only if you add our hyperlinked URL.

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Setting up a pay-per-click campaign is simple, right? Practically all paid search engines especially the top-tiered ones like Google Adwords and Overture provide extensive training materials. It is advertised that in less than three hours, you can select your keywords, write your ads and have a campaign either submitted for an editorial review at Overture or active on Google.

It sounds so unbelievably simple! But have you heard the saying “if it sounds too good to be true it probably is?”

Effective marketing strategies take experience, time and effort to achieve worth-while performance. Anyone can write a direct mail letter, buy a list of business addresses, add postage stamps and drop the letters in the mail. The actions involved in direct mail marketing are relatively ordinary. Yet highly experienced direct marketers who send and test millions of direct mail pieces each year achieve about a 1% - 2% average response rate. So what type of response rate would you expect an ordinary person to achieve? Likewise, the ordinary efforts setting up pay-per-click campaigns doesn’t equate to website performance.

The start of a pay-per-click campaign initiates a process similar to those used in traditional marketing. The process involves strategic planning, creative development, measurable tracking and articulate execution. The success of your pay-per-click campaign is dependent on the thought that precedes the efforts and the continual re-assessment of the results following each set of efforts. Let me explain.

Strategic Planning - Knowing Your Target

Before setting up an account in Overture or Google Adwords, consider your target market relative to your product or service being offered on your website.

• What benefits does your product or service satisfy for your customer?

• What are the demographics and psychographics of you primary target market?

• What customer circumstances does your product or service support?

By intimately understanding your target market, you are able to start the keyword selection process. Your objective is selecting relevant keywords that connect your customer’s preconceived expectation with your product or service.

Search behavior (consumer behavior in general) is difficult to predict. Start by reviewing your traditional marketing literature, listen to your sales people perform a client presentation or sales call, research your competitions’ keywords (your competition includes all alternatives to your product or service) and review existing web log files to determine what product or service terms, customer circumstances, or common language your customers react to or attach to your product or service. Don’t be surprised if these terms are different than what you logically expected.

Your goal is to generate a keyword list that tests the bounds of Overture’s and Google Adword’s relevancy standards. A longer keyword list is preferable at the start since you will ultimately filter it down based on performance.

Keywords Open Doors to “Wanting” Customers

Know that the keywords you select are doors that open you to new visitor opportunities - if you miss a door than you miss the potentially huge opportunity waiting behind it.

Do not rely on broad, advanced or phrase matches to catch additional keywords. It’s true that these matching options increase traffic but they can devastate performance if you do not have a sophisticated keyword-level tracking system. One keyword under a broad matching option could represent 80% of your cost and deliver only 20% of the return.

Your Ad Serves as a Magnate Attracting Qualified Visitors to Your Website

By intimately understanding your customer you maximize your ability to write specific ads that attract qualified visitors and reduce click waste. Words are your magnets for attracting your target market to your website. Even one, single word can have an immense affect on your click-through rate.

For example, while working for a client, I ran two identical keyword ads on Adwords except one used the word, “tested” the other “proven”. The “tested” ad pulled a 7% click-through rate while the “proven” one barely reached 1.5%. More so, the “tested’ ad converted at a higher sales rate than the “proven”.

Choosing the most compelling words and associating the strongest customer benefits is essential because the ad space allocated is so limited in Google Adwords and not much better in Overture. Although conventional wisdom dictates how to write a performance-driven ad like include free shipping, pricing or guarantees in the ad copy, it is difficult to know exactly what attracts the highest number of qualified visitors. The solution is testing all variables.

The Pay-per-Click Campaign Structure Sets the Stage for Individual Keyword-level Tracking

Setting up your pay-per-click campaign requires a hierarchical structure that is instrumental to individual keyword-level tracking. The natural structure in Overture enables individual keyword-level tracking under the standard matching option. Google Adwords’ recommended structure however either throws off the ability to track at the individual keyword-level or disables the opportunity to use A/B split-testing per individual keyword.

Unfortunately, pay-per-click search engine’s supply training materials focused on “driving traffic” and not on “driving performance”. The difference between traffic and performance is economically significant. For Google Adwords, an incorrect campaign structure is one of the most common obstacles I have experienced while working with new clients to turnaround their poor to mediocre performing pay-per-click campaigns.

After your keywords are selected, your initial ads strategically written and your campaign structure setup, you have to add a tracking system. Overture’s and Google Adword’s conversion tracking tools are not recommended by most pay-per-click experts but if it’s your only option than it is better than no tracking at all. It is more effective to have some insight to your keyword performance than operating in the virtual dark.

Once your campaigns are submitted to Google Adwords, Overture or any other pay-per-click search engine, your work has really just started. But we’ll leave that for round two.

Kevin Gold is a Partner and Co-founder of Enhanced Concepts, Inc. which specializes in turning website visitors into leads or sales through tested website conversion strategies and performance-focused search engine marketing. To learn how to generate greater performance from your search engine marketing and to turn more website visitors into leads and sales go to http://www.enhancedconcepts.com.

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