Posts Tagged Internet-marketing

If you’re an Internet marketer in the process of building your MLM home based business or small business, definitely read on. There’s many ways to market online, more than you know. And there are many sites where you can use one method, like social networking, to market online. I always usually recommend people to use social networking since it’s a free method of marketing that pays dividends if used right, but if you like to make your presence know even further, definitely check up on using banner advertising as well as a marketing method.

The first reason banner ads are very powerful are because they have 15% click through rates on average, which is more than text ads. They’re more effective than text ads since they have graphics, color, and limited text. People buy into the quality of the graphics and if the text is specifically giving them a benefit for clicking on your ad, then it’ll do well. Sites look at placements of the banner ads, and the quality of banner ads. Since some people don’t like to scroll down on websites unless they’re intriguing, it’s best to have ads on the top right hand corner of a site. That way your ads are more likely to get clicks.

Get this, and it’ll probably have you convinced to use banner ads after I tell you this. With banner ads, you can get 10 times the traffic for a fifth of the cost than pay-per-click advertising. Pay-per-click ads can be very expensive since you’re targeting several keywords that people search for offerings similar to yours, and you pay for every single click. However, you’re more likely to get tire kickers with pay-per-click ads, and if not used right, can lead to several hundred dollars for every single click!

To maximize results when doing banner advertising, make sure you split test your banner ads. Have at least two versions of your banner ads that display on the same websites. You’re still going to get tire kickers when using banner ads, but if you’ll know for sure which ad is getting people who aren’t serious and which ad is making you money. Be sure to have an opt in form on your website people can sign up for free information, especially if you have a information product. Google in particular likes lead generation.

My last tip for you is to make sure that you aren’t making flashy or bright ads that don’t go well with the websites you are putting them on. First off, you want your banner ads to not look like banner ads. If they do look like banner ads, then they’re most likely not going to be clicked on. Secondly, you want your banner ads to look like the website. If they look like they’re part of a website, they’ll do really well.

A couple of weeks ago I was a part of this telephone seminar, and the speaker of the call was Perry Marshall. Perry is an expert when it comes to using Google Adwords to market your business. He knows the ins and outs of how Google punishes those who aren’t familiar with Adwords, and rewards those who are smart. He’s also an author of a few books regarding Google Adwords. You can find out more about him by clicking on this link.

The seminar I was a part of was about Google and how they go on a Adword ban rampage for anyone that doesn’t follow Google’s rules. It’s a good idea to use Google’s services to market and communicate with others, especially with the new Google Wave around the corner. However, Google is hard on people who don’t follow the rules. What you may also don’t know, however, is that Google resents affiliate marketing in general.

This was the main thing I learned from that telephone seminar with Perry. Google has banned several Adwords accounts, one reason being from being an affiliate marketer. No questions asked. If Adwords is the sole of where your income is coming from, and they close your account, you’re out of luck. Anyone that they have suspected of doing anything shady, they straight out ban their accounts.

So why does Google ban people’s accounts that are search affiliates? Google doesn’t see search affiliates of any value at all since they are who promote others company’s products. Google treats some promotions of affiliate products as duplicate products or spam. Google would rather have you promote your own products and services that are of value to consumers than referring prospects to other products to buy and get paid for every paid customer. Google wants to get rid of search affiliates, and if you’re one that’s also using Adwords, expect to be a victim of the Adword ban rampage.

So now you know Google doesn’t see affiliate marketing as valuable. You also know that Google is looking to eliminate affiliate marketing in general. So if you’re looking to use Google Adwords, but have been promoting affiliate programs, should you stop promoting those products? If you want to be safe you can.

One option you can do is have two Google Adwords accounts. One account will be your main account for pushing your product line.  The second account would be for testing affiliate programs. So that way, if Google shuts down your second account, you can still have your main Adwords account intact. When testing affiliate programs, be sure to do that on a blog, where you can write your own experiences with some of those affiliate products. This way you’re helping others, instead of merely just selling products you don’t own.

When you’re in business for yourself, you have to make the right moves at all times to make sure you convert prospects into paying customers. First you should gain their consent through communicating to them, and then when you have their attention, get them to buy your product or service. Most people in sales know that through effective communication and from asking for the sale often, you can get sales. How about when you’re not working and resting for eight hours a night?

That’s the beauty of having ads. Whether they’re magazine ads, banner ads, or Google Adwords Ads, they do the work for you 24-7. However, traditional marketing tells you to make the best-looking ad that talks about how great a product or service is. This used to work in the past when ads were first used, but not anymore. One of the main reasons why this method is ineffective is because everyone is doing the same thing, shoving their products and services down prospect’s throats.

The traditional method of marketing can be very expensive for an individual marketer, and will surely put them out of business. However, when ads are used right, they will get you the right prospects calling or emailing you asking how you can help solve their problems. In fact, your ads can go as far as to getting you sales without ever talking to the prospect. How great is that? Very great.

If you already know your target market and what their biggest problem is that they need help solving, then writing the ad copy will be much easier, for what you need to do then, is convey the problem in the ad, then talk to them about what you can do for them and the benefits of working with you or buying your product. If you don’t know much about your target market, then the best place to start is through interacting in discussion forums or through reading product reviews from your target market.

By hiring a copywriter, you can make sure you have someone who will be able to write a set of effective ads for you. One site you can check out for hiring a copywriter is www.directresponsejobs.com. When looking to for the right copywriter, make sure he or she has some experience in writing ads. That way you don’t have to spend as much time training him or her on how you want your ads written and how to make them appeal to your target audience.

In order to best make sure your ads are giving you big results, be sure to have more than one version of your ad. This way you can find out what works and what doesn’t. For Internet advertising, you can have two banner ads running on one site, with both of them popping up at random times for prospects to click on. If prospects are clicking on one ad more then the other, but the other ad is converting prospects into customers, which ad are you going to keep? You’re going to keep the one that’s getting you sales, and get rid of the one that isn’t. That way, the ad that was getting you more sales can get you twice as many profits since it’ll be displayed more often.

There’s marketing messages everything in the form of ads, emails, brochures, and television commercials. In the MLM industry, there are a lot of people posting marketing messages of their primary opportunities and links to click on their company sites. Being that there are several people doing that strategy to get prospects interested in their opportunity, it’s no wonder why one person is exposed to between 1,500 to 3,000 marketing messages daily.

If you listen to any expert in marketing, they will tell that there is a lot of clutter. And I mean a lot. But how some people are trying to get through the clutter are through blogs and articles. A blog is the central hub that contains one person’s library of information, while articles are topics containing valuable information for the proper audience. These are two methods people are using to also increase their search engine optimization (SEO) rankings, with some achieving success. While many are familiar with what SEO is and how it can benefit them by implementing it into their marketing strategy, many may still not know about Digital Asset Optimization (DAO).

Digital asset optimization is a very fast growing trend right now in online communications. DAO is about having your content spread across several sites, or “channels,” which then contain back links and keywords linking the content back to the place it came from. It’s like how a spider finds a place to set up shop at, and spreads it’s web everywhere so that it sticks to plants or walls while making sure everything stays connected. The same goes for your content. You can have a blog that you use to post content, then post that same content to several article submission directories with a link in the bottom of your blog, allowing search engines and prospects to find where the content originated from.

Articles are one form of DAO. Beyond that, news, images and videos are also what make this method of marketing valuable. You need your content everywhere in order to break through the clutter. People can better find out about what you do if you have images and videos of what you do and how you help others.

Websites, including blogs, are digital assets. Websites containing videos, images, RSS feeds, bookmark sharing features, and podcasts can all be applied into a good digital asset optimization strategy. A company or individual can be able to use all these formats to quickly spread the valuable content out to several sites like YouTube or Delicious, and also allow prospects to spread that content as well, while also allowing them to easily access it. RSS feeds, for example, is an excellent way for one person to easily subscribe to several websites that contain valuable marketing information to their liking, while having all of that content in one place for them to access it.

So how does all this help you to gain the awareness that you need? Easy. First you need a central hub, like a website or a blog. Second, you provide the valuable content for your audience. Third, you make your website user-friendly so people can easily find your information, subscribe to your information, and share it with other people. Lastly, you blast your valuable content all across the Internet that contain keyword rich descriptions of what the content is about, how it’ll help them, and links back to your site.

Follow these steps, do them consistently, and you should get traffic in no time. Beyond that, you will get people ready to opt into your newsletter, your RSS feeds, calling you wanting to learn more about you, or ready to buy. There’s nothing like having a prospect you don’t even know call you out of the blue saying, “Hi. You don’t know me, but I know you. I enjoy your valuable content, and I believe you can help solve my problem. I’m ready to work with you now. Here’s my credit card. When can we start?”

If you are looking to get prospects ready to take action, you have to make sure your message is a real grabber. You can do that best with a video. People can look at your posture, your enthusiastic voice, and your self-confidence. Make a video asking prospects three to five questions of their current situation they can say yes to, then tell them what they need to do next to get their problem resolved. This can be opting into your newsletter, giving you a call immediately, or purchasing a specific product you sell.

Lastly, if you’re looking for an easy and cost effective way to get your content out there quickly, here’s two products I recommend. I recommend Automatic Article Submitter and I recommend Traffic Geyser. Automatic Article Submitter allows you to create different variations of one article so that it looks like you’re sending three or more different articles to three hundred directories. That way, that means more content is blasted through the Internet, which means more traffic to your website through SEO.

Traffic Geyser distributes your videos to ninety different social media sites like Flickr, Vidder and Podcast sites. You’re also able to allow prospects to download your media by making it iTunes MP4 compatible.  Again this allows your target market to easily access and share your content with other people that they know, which is what you want.

If you’re in the MLM industry, and are looking to dive into Internet marketing, you definitely need to take advantage of this method of marketing. Search engine optimization is constantly evolving, and more people are starting to use it. And with digital asset optimization also entering the fray as a fast growing trend, it’s time to take SEO to the next level. Prospects love various forms of content, so give them what they want. They’ll thank you now and buy from you later.

I just read in interesting article from Hub Spot’s blog. This company provides marketing services that allow people to pull prospects, or attract them to you and your business. You can view the article by clicking here: Outbound Vs Inbound Marketing.

If you haven’t viewed my blog last week, then you didn’t read the attraction marketing interview I had with Kay Hebbourn, an attraction marketing expert. You can view it by click here: Exclusive Attraction Marketing Interview.

What both of these are going to tell you if you read them, is that if you’re using traditional marketing, or outbound marketing that it’s also called, then you’re going to fall flat on your face. We live in a time where prospects are resenting traditional marketing and are fighting back with spam filters, no calling lists, social media groups (to boycott companies), etc. Outbound marketing is all about advertising your products and services to a mass audience in hopes that someone will gain interest and want to buy. A few forms of outbound marketing are buying lists of leads to cold call, online banner ads, TV commercials, & email blasts.

If you want to reel in qualified prospects to buy your products & services, or join your network marketing team, then you have to use inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is using messages that offer value to the prospects and pulls them in to make them want to learn more about you. You are basically asking for their permission to market to them. If they say yes, then you can continue marketing to them through the use of, for example, an email newsletter so they can continue hearing about what you’re doing. Like I’ve said in many of my blog posts, in order to get prospects to find you and learn more about you, you have to offer value.

This method of marketing is a way to build relationships. Building relationships take time. Prospects may wait months or even years before they think about purchasing your products or services. But when you start using inbound marketing now, down the road when you start seeing results, you’ll be glad you did.

For everyone that’s been reading my blog on attraction marketing, you’re in for a real treat. Last week I interviewed a professional that’s been using attraction marketing through the course of her business and has achieved lots of success from it. Her name is Kay Hebbourn, and I hope for everyone that reads this interview will find it enlightening to hear what she has to say.

Interview 11/17/2009

Sheldon Alexander: What is your professional background?

Kay Hebbourn: I started life as a nurse when nursing, but then was a co-director of the Lake Land College and learned some marketing there. I was also getting into personal development. I was teaching and training in personal development, and was teaching and training in business start up. I did a lot of business coaching throughout that time. I learned attraction marketing as a student at Lake Land College. I thought that at that time I was doing very well, but that there was more for me out there. Then I started setting up community websites, and learned how to generate money quickly without putting in so much effort. I knew I could start a career in attraction marketing, and told the company I was a part of that I wanted to post my resignation. I knew I was doing very well locally and nationally through my teaching and coaching, but then was ready to take that leap to go internationally, so I then jumped in Internet marketing. I’m currently doing a project with three other people, and am excited about what impact we are going to make in the Internet marketing industry.

SA: In your words define attraction marketing?

KH: Attraction marketing is about what you feel about yourself. For what you feel about yourself will be reflected and others will get that. If you feel good about yourself you don’t have to be better than anyone else. If you feel good about yourself, you would want others to feel that way as well. You’ll automatically be that person people want to be around. Most people don’t have the courage to truly be themselves and if you can do that, and people catch up on it, they will want to follow you and you can make millions of dollars. The one thing about attraction marketing is that we have to take a risk, to put our money where our mouth is, and to prove to the universe that we’re actually committed to what we say that we believe.

SA: How long have you been using attraction marketing for your business?

KH: 15 Years

SA: What obstacles did you go through before you were able to see results?

KH: A lesson I learned was there been times in my business where I was so busy that I couldn’t keep up. And I was thinking to myself, my goodness I can’t keep up just slow down. And then things did slow down. Then I was going in panic and was like what am I doing wrong? Why aren’t people coming back to me? However, I realized that as things slowed down I could be able to recuperate. In order to give to people I need time for myself. I need to slow down and meditate and learn more about myself. There are times then I can come up with the next innovation, and trust the process.

SA: Why did you start using attraction marketing? What was the turning point at which you decided to try this method of marketing?

KH: I worked as a nurse and worked as a nurse teacher, and then studied alternative medicine. The teachers there that I worked with were teaching attraction marketing long before it was even called attraction marketing. So I learned it from the beginning. One person I worked with, Ian Watson, had a class where he taught attraction marketing, and it was the first class I took in order to learn more about it. So that was my first act of entrepreneurship.

SA: What marketing methods do you or have you used in the past that was most effective?

KH: Externally I did all sorts of press releases, flyers, ads, and everything else. But from what I learned, it’s about mindset that makes the difference. Equally when your mindset is in the right place you know how to do things well, and it’ll reflect on what you do externally. So there’s been times when I said I’m going to get 30 clients a week, or 50 clients a week, and would let my mindset trust that I’ll be capable of reaching my goals, and it happened. It depended on what I needed based on my time and energy. There were times where I felt depleted, and so I would take time off and hope my clients would do good even though I was taking time off.

SA: Yeah agreed, you have to have some time off from your clients in order to work on yourself. Just like what I read from Client Attraction by Fabienne Fredrickson, you should work with clients three days, and take about three to four days off to work on your business or relax.

KH: Yes that’s true you need to have a real balance in your inner spiritual journey, your inner personal journey, the part where you’re working on your business, a time where you’re working with your clients. Then there’s time for your friends and family, and other people that matter to you. However, you should ever neglect yourself.

SA: Why do you think a lot of people don’t want to use Attraction Marketing to boost their business?

KH: Because we’ve grown up with the belief that the external stuff (advertising, flyers, press releases) is what counts most. For example, the people in sales haven’t been taught attraction marketing. They teach you how to do things. They think they can use the leverage of the Internet to make a fortune, and that’s not going to work out for them. They don’t teach us how to be ourselves. We’re not human doings. We’re human beings. That’s the difference between self-confidence, and what I can do. Self-esteem is who I am, so what people try to do is compensate for their low self-esteem and just do do do to make up for the lack of who they are. The best people you need to be around are people that make you feel good about yourself. They know they’re great, and they try to make other people feel good.

SA: In regards to the network marketing industry, what do you think is lacking in the people that sign up and get involved in MLM?

KH: What is really lacking in people is not taking a genuine interest in helping newbies. What’s really lacking are people really meaning what they say when they tell people they sponsor “Look I’m going to hold your hand. I’m going to take you above the jungle. I care deeply about your business. I’m going to really support you and do the very best I can to make sure you’re a success.” Many people say they’ll help you get your business off the ground only to leave you behind and lost. You’re really going to meet very few people that will really help new people to get their business off the ground. I don’t want a relationship with Aweber; I want a relationship with a real human being.

SA: That’s how it is in network marketing, If network marketers realized that it’s the people under them that makes the real money for them, then they would help them more. Do you agree?

KH: Absolutely.

SA: Cause like if you personally get one hundred people sponsored under you, and you make $200 for every person, that’s $20,000 you made. But if they’re not producing, then that’s basically all you’ll get, for all those people will quit knowing nobody helped them out.

KH: Definitely. But if you have fifty people, you take time to help them out, and help them to achieve success; they are going to talk about you. So whatever books, seminars, and products you put out from there, people are going to say aha, this person is great. They will tell the people they know about your future products and services, and encourage them to purchase or attend your seminars. When you do something for someone, you’ll receive back one hundred fold.

SA: Very true I agree. How important do you think it is to have effective leadership qualities in Network Marketing?

KH: It depends on what level you’re working on. If you are looking to manage a team then leadership is crucial. Internet Marketing you can be a one-man band and can tackle it on your own. But if you’re working with a team then you really need leadership qualities.

SA: Where do you see the Network Marketing industry going? Do you see more people looking to learn more about branding themselves?

KH: We’ve come from a capitalist culture in the past. Some companies survived and some haven’t. Some people have become wealthy and many people are hungry. It’s a time of change for us to see what happens next. I don’t know what’s to come in the future. What I would love to see happen, however, is that wealth be spread around the world, and that people would help each other change.

SA: Yes change is very important in the industry. With the success that you’ve had from using Attraction Marketing, how do you plan to use it now to help others in need?

KH: I can’t really describe my current plans right now. I’m working with Nick Mitchell and Paul Brooks, Simon Dawes, and Ashley Smith on a huge project. Except to see something quite amazing.

SA: Is there anything else you would like to say in regards to our interview? Anything you like to tell the people that are reading this?

KH: Advice to newbies. When you choosing a company or somebody to work with, make sure there’s a really person that is a human being, that is willing to give you time, and cares about you, your business, and your willingness to reach your goals. More advice is to once you made a choice to a company it is not the company’s products that you’re selling. You are selling yourself. Having said that, The one thing you should do as a newbie is not get distracted. There are a lot of things out there that will keep you off focus. Stay focused on your goals; keep your eye on the prize. If you want to get successful you got to be successful.

To learn more about Kay Hebbourn and her attraction marketing services, check out her website at http://www.whoiskayhebbourn.com.