Posts Tagged ‘Using’

Using Newspaper and Magazine Advertising for your Internet Business

Newspapers/magazines are, of course, two of the most traditional methods to advertise businesses both big and small. So why should you use a newspaper or magazine to advertise your ONLINE business? A bit contradictory isn’t it?

Not really because despite the fact that these mediums are losing out to some online advertising they are nevertheless still important.

As internet marketers we should consider all options and this is one that tends to be overlooked by the internet fraternity.

What then are the advantages and disadvantages of advertising by these methods? Let us take NEWSPAPERS first:-

Advantages:-

Leaving aside the use of articles or press releases (excellent tools but not the subject of this article) the advantage of using a newspaper is that you can use either short “to the point” classified ads or long descriptive text. Obviously there is a different price structure and it depends how deep your pockets are, the type of product and the market you are aiming at but the possibilities are there.

You are able to reach a large number of people in a given geographical area either locally or even nationally.

An often overlooked advantage is that the reader can return as many times as they like to study your advertisement again and again.

In most cases the ad can be in the hands of your potential customer very quickly.

There is a wide choice of newspapers in different areas and depending on various factors (such as the size of readership/market penetration) there is a large choice of pricing possibilities.

Disadvantages:-

Using this method of advertising can work out expensive especially when compared with some of the internet methods.

Your ad is usually put in with a lot of others which means it can be overlooked.

Despite my comments above about the reader returning to read your ad again in most cases newspapers have a short “shelf life” and are often only read once.

Your advertising is of the “shot gun” type in that many people will not have an interest in your product.

Often the reader skips over the advertisements preferring to read articles.

MAGAZINES have certain advantages and disadvantages when compared to newspapers

Advantages:-

Because they tend to be more focused on a specific area e.g. sport, fashion etc. it is possible to target your advertisement. For example if you are promoting a product of interest to snowboarders you can choose a snowboarding magazine. Alternatively you could consider one based on winter sports in general. The choice for targeting is much greater.

As the reader is specifically interested in articles written in an area of great interest to them they are more susceptible to ads for products in that niche and therefore more likely to respond.

In general magazine ads tend to be better presented on more quality paper and hence look more professional.

Disadvantages:-

It is likely to work out more expensive than newspaper advertising particularly if choosing a prominent position in the magazine.

There can be a greater lead time before your ad is published and therefore it could be overtaken by events.

As with all forms of advertising the art is to experiment with strict controls in place.

So certainly newspaper/magazine advertising should be considered for your campaigns especially since these methods seem to be overlooked by many of your competitors.

To YOUR success

John Beaumont Internet Marketer

Sell CB Affiliate Products Using eBay® Classified Ads.

Sell CB and other affiliate products using low-cost, no cost eBay® Classified Ads.
Sell CB Affiliate Products Using eBay® Classified Ads.

Using Sizzle Reels to Brand and Market Your Business

Using Sizzle Reels to Brand and Market Your Business
11 tips for producing short videos that will captivate your audience, spread your message and increase sales

Read more on Entrepreneur.com via Yahoo! Finance

Basic Internet Marketing Strategies Using Google Adwords to Market Your Small Business Online

Using these Internet Marketing Strategies to market your small business online will get the best return on investment and allow you to dominate your competitors plus you will be paying less for your clicks than your competition.

You don’t have to be afraid of the Google slap when you apply these basic rules when using Google Adwords.

When you are using Google adwords for an affiliate campaign your job will be to pre-sell the prospect before they go to the company sales page. There are several ways to do this.

When you are writing copy for your pre-sale landing page keep in mind you are helping someone find a solution to their problem or pain. People will always move away from pain into pleasure, you just have to show them how.

If you always keep solving the person’s problem your focus you will never have to sell them, they will want the solution you are offering them.

Google is doing the same thing. Their concern is on the millions of eyes that read their search results and ads. These are the people they are trying to please by giving them what they are searching for. So if you always keep your solution as relevant and targeted to the problem of your prospect the easier it will be to sell the product.

When you do this Google will reward you by charging you less for your clicks. The people in the number 1 spot of the Google sponsored links are paying less than the people below them. It is all about relevancy.

Give the people what they want and Google will give you what you want.

The best way to do this is to keep your keywords, ad copy, ad groups and landing pages, all congruent. If you do not follow these simple principles Google will raise your cost per click, ban your ads and slap your pages. Google can suspend your account for as long as they want also.

This is not a good thing because Google is really the only game in town for advertising if you are talking reaching the major part of the market. It is much more effective to learn to give Google what they want, which is to satisfy the people searching.

Buyers know what they want and are on Google searching for it. There are also other ways to use Google Adwords in the content network. Most marketers just focus on the search network because the buyers are more aggressive. The content network can be a goldmine if you write your ad copy with thought streaming in mind.

Keeping these basic ideas in mind when using Google adwords to market your small business online will help keep your expenses down and keep you from being banned by Google. These internet marketing strategies will greatly increase your ROI when you market your small business online.

Still Using Classified Ads To Build Your Home Business?

Are you still using classified ads to try and build your home business. Well I’d hate to break it to you but classified ads do not work when trying to build your home business. Well you may be thinking why do classified ads not work when trying to build a home business? In this article we will go over why they do not work and what other techniques you can use in order to be effective. Classified ads may work for selling cars and even some products but they sure do not work when trying to build your home business.

Posting your home business on classified ad sites is a waste of time. Why? Everyone is posting their ads on these types of sites. The truth is most home business owners do not know how to market their product so they do the most convenient thing and that is post on classified ad sites. Hoping and praying someone will buy. They may get a few inquires but nothing substantial.What is going to separate your home business from the other thousands and thousands of home business opportunities posted on these sites? Nothing. Most of the people who go through these sites are looking under the home business section, are looking for two reasons and they are not looking to buy what you have to offer. The two reasons are, one they are about to post their own ad and two they are looking to reverse market you and sell you their own product. You do not have people actually interested in starting a home business looking through these ads. So it makes no sense at all to post there. Yes you may get one or two sales maybe but it is not worth your time or money. There are far better solutions than posting in the classified ads.

The best way to market your home business is through gaining the top spots for keywords in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. This is probably the best bet hands down. It does take work to make this happen. Next you could also use article marketing, which is a really great way to gain exposure for yourself and your home business. with article marketing you will have to write and submit your articles to article directories on a consistent basis. Writing one or two articles a month will not get you the results you are looking for.

Now if you have the money to spend on your advertising. PPC is a great way to build your home business granted you know or you have someone who knows what they are doing. With PPC you must know what you are doing or else your money will be going down the drain. You must know which keywords are returning the most results and then focus on those keywords. You must also know which keywords are not performing for you. I see many people choose irrelevant keywords and they keep spending money on those keywords with no results. When it comes to PPC advertising you must have a good size monthly budget. You can start with 500 dollars a month but in order to be truly effective a monthly budget of 3,000 dollars a month is much more suitable. And with PPC you must closely monitor your stats to make sure your money on your home business is being spent properly.

These are just a few of the ways to advertise besides using classified ads. These other methods of advertising are much more effective than using classified ads to build your home business.

How to Increase Sales, Recruiting, and MLM Leads Using a Funded Proposal Marketing System

www.trafficonsteriods.com hubpages.com When it comes to effective network marketing lead generation training online and making money, there is nothing more sweet than a using a funded proposal sales funnel formula to make it more easier for your prospects to make the right decision and…

Using Public Relations to its full potential

When people think about public relations (PR), images of schmoozing with clients and excessive amounts of champagne may come to mind.  But professional, properly-executed PR activities involve much more than a free lunch, and have the power to gain enormous exposure for your business, build your brand, attract new clients and customers, as well as improve internal relations between staff and management.

A basic definition of public relations is the establishment and maintenance of a good image for the company, its products and services.  If you search the internet, you will find many definitions of PR, but the key is to understand that public relations extends to all aspects of how a company deals with and communicates with its potential and existing audiences, including responsiveness, professionalism and presentation.

Public relations activities generally encompass the avenues you use to communicate with both your external and internal audiences.  Your external audiences may include your customers and clients (existing and potential), suppliers, share-holders, external stakeholders, the community, governments or authorities, the media, or the general public.  Internal audiences are usually your employees or contractors.  It is very common for businesses to concentrate on their external relations and ignore those people closest to them, but attention to your internal programs can mean the difference between highly-informed and motivated staff compared to employees who feel “they never know what is going on”.

Externally-focused public relations activities to help build your business:

Websites and online activities Press releases to media outlets such as online publishers, newspapers, magazines, radio and television Professionally-written brochures and product flyers Newsletters, e-newsletters, company magazines Product launches Seminars, workshops, conferences and networking events Forums, blogs, and social media avenues like Facebook and Twitter Evaluation forms and customer surveys Thank you cards or corporate gifts

Internally focused PR activities to strengthen employee relations:

Employee newsletters, memos, notice boards, emails Regular meetings, team training sessions Social club activities Employee feedback and suggestion boxes Staff-only website areas and intranets Company-funded dinners, celebrations, award ceremonies and achievements Employee of the month

Just like planning your business and your marketing, public relations activities, both internal and external, should be strategic and focused on achieving corporate goals.  Be consistent with your messages and activities, know what you are trying to achieve and why.  If you aren’t already doing so, take another look at your public relations activities, make an effort to give them the attention they deserve and you will see beneficial results as you improve your business both inside and out.

Online Public Relations Using Web 2.0 Strategies Proving Effective

Public relations has undergone a rapid transformation in order to take advantage of the power of the internet and Web 2.0 platforms. The internet has evolved from its first stages of development into an environment in which people interact with one another through an expanding menu of tools. In essence, content has largely ceded territory to conversations.

Businesses can use these Web 2.0 tools to not only generate a buzz in their market, but to also develop public relations campaigns that build perpetual momentum. By taking advantage of social media sites, wikis, communities, and other collaborative environments, companies can further propel their PR efforts. Having said that, it’s important to realize that Web 2.0 has dramatically shifted the landscape. Public relations must now focus upon engaging those within a community rather than merely speaking to them.

We will describe a few popular Web 2.0 strategies that are leading the evolution of online public relations. We’ll also discuss the role of your market in your pursuit of increased exposure for your company.

Public Relations 2.0 – PR With A Web 2.0 Flavor

The use of Web 2.0 tools for public relations can be described as PR 2.0. Much of it relies upon the enormous popularity of social networking sites and their tendency to humanize communities within a market. Gone are the strappings of hypebole and spin marketing. In their place, conversations influence goodwill, customer loyalty, exposure, and ultimately, purchase decisions.

For example, sites such as MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn allow your company to construct a social network that creates a connection between you and your target market. Blogger, WordPress, and other blogging platforms let you inject a human voice into your corporate image. RSS feeds further expand your reach to a larger audience, lending momentum to your public relations efforts. Twitter has become the darling of the social communities as companies, politicians and even news anchors use it to micro-blog to thousands of loyal followers.

PR executives have started to allocate a larger portion of their budgets to Web 2.0 efforts. The traditional methods of stoking the marketplace fires with vapid hype and spin have exhausted their usefulness. Social marketing online has become the new frontier of public relations.

Public Relations And Web 2.0 Is About People

The one overriding principle of public relations in a Web 2.0 environment is the need to establish and maintain conversations with people. It is more than merely distributing a press release or attracting fleeting media coverage. It is no longer enough to address or message a market. Companies hoping to leverage online PR strategies must identify and communicate with the communities that represent their market.

They must also reach out to key influencers within those communities. Influencers who maintain their own respective followings will become raving fans if presented with the right opportunity within the right framing. In a way, the power of PR has moved from companies to the consumers they hope to reach.

Web 2.0 represents a still-evolving public relations paradigm that lets businesses tap into the raw potency of their market. If harnessed properly, it can yield enormous long-term competitive advantages.

How can a Company Manage its Image using Public Relations

Public relations is no longer something that just happens; how a company or corporation is perceived in the public eye, particularly in the eye of the company’s shareholders or potential customers, isn’t something that’s left to chance. Companies have entire departments and large budgets in place to ensure that they will be viewed in a positive light by the public.

In its simplest form, the idea of public relations is to get the word out to the public concerning all of the positive things that a company or organization may be involved in, and to enhance the company’s overall image, while at the same time downplaying anything that could potential be viewed as a negative action in the public eye.

Public relations is kind of like advertising’s less obtrusive brother. Where advertising’s main goal is to stick a product in the face of a potential customer and give them every reason to buy it, the public relations approach is a lot less direct.

Public relations will let your target consumer know what else you’ve got going on besides your product or service – like what kind of good you are doing in the community and how you plan to help more in the future. Though it’s not as bold as advertising, a good public relations department can aid in building profits just as much as advertising.

There are any number of ways that a company or organization can positively use public relations to enhance their image in the eye of the public:

A company can donate either time or money to a charitable cause or they could hold a charity event to raise money for a particular cause. Potential customers and share holders want to know if a company cares, and they want to know what it is that the company cares about and supports.

Another approach to public relations is to have a company representative speak at an industry conference or seminar. The speaker can go over with an audience, packed with the very people that the company wants to reach, details of all of the latest activities as well as all of the future plans that will be implemented and what kind of positive impact those plans will have on the industry and the community.

This is kind of like issuing a personal press release, where the company representative can get out the exact message that needs to be distributed to exactly the right people, and can then answer any potential questions that may arise. A press release is a great tool, but its content is definitive, any questions that arise from a press release will remain until another company statement is made, with a live statement questions can be addressed and answered appropriately right form the start.

Though I’ve just pointed out some of the negatives of a press release, that doesn’t mean that it’s not a very effective tool of public relations. A press release mat not be personal, and it may or may not leave small questions in the minds of some readers, but what it can do is reach a tremendous amount of people giving them a good idea of your mission statement or telling them of a recent award or accomplishment of the company.

A well written press release can reach thousands of thousands of people that wouldn’t have known of your accomplishment any other way – and press releases come at a much cheaper price than any form of advertising. You’d never be able to reach the same portion of your target audience with public speaking as you would with a high quality press release.

A company’s image can mean everything – one big negative event, even if it’s only perceived as a negative event in the public eye, can literally destroy a company. If a company or organization wants to become successful and stay successful, it has to build up and protect its positive image – the only way to really do that effectively is through good public relations.

Trendsetters Bmw & Gmc Using the Web to Drive Sales

Today’s larger, progressive companies are investing millions of dollars into discovering how to deliver their message effectively to consumers via the Internet. For smaller businesses with smaller budgets, the dollars that larger corporations sink into bolder internet marketing campaigns are like free internet marketing lessons without risk or expense.

While your company may not be as large as those mentioned in this article, the following scalable examples illustrate how moving even a small portion of your marketing budget over to Internet Marketing can translate into noticeable returns for your company.

BMW Takes Hollywood Online

6.5 years ago on bmwfilms.com BMW released and distributed a stunt-filled, action mini-film series called “The Hire” starring actor Clive Owen (Sin City and The Bourne Identity). Guided by such directors as John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Hulk, Brokeback Mountain), Wong Kar-Wai, Guy Ritchie, Alejandro González Iñárritu, John Woo (Mission Impossible II), and Joe Carnahan, this was unquestionably a big-budget Hollywood style production.

The 8-part series, each directed by a different director, won numerous awards and received accolades from the New York Times and Time Magazine. The result: over 100 Million film views translating into approximately 1.9 million film views per month over its 4.5 year run which ended in October of 2005. Though the series is no longer available for download, various websites still sell the DVD 6.5 years after it first debuted at the Cannes Film Festival.

View BMW Films on YouTube

If these films released via non-traditional media such as television, the statistics would have been less accurate and much more time-consuming and expensive to track. Imagine if those films made just 1% or 1 Million of those viewers curious enough to visit a BMW showroom. If even 1% of those 1 Million leads purchased a vehicle at an average vehicle cost (est.) of $50,000.00 USD that translates into $500 million USD of additional sales over 4.5 years; just over $111 Million a year of additional revenue.

Sure, few companies have the budget that BMW has but try scaling it all down and finding a unique way to present your own products online that will excite your target market and leave your competition in the dust. The lesson here is thinking outside the box.

GMC Uses Traditional Media to Support Online Campaign

For the last 3 years, GMC has been working with creative company Digitas – the National Football League (NFL), and the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) – to power an online interactive campaign for GMC.com. Mary Kubitskey, national advertising manager for GMC had this to say about the decision to move advertising dollars online: “Any day I’ll trade traditional media money for something nontraditional. Digitas did a great job in putting together a promotion, and we feed the promotion with traditional media.” The campaign is a direct result of the company moving a larger percentage of its advertising dollars online.

She also added, “As with all our traditional marketing advertising, we’re trying to go more digital. It’s not a surprise that 30-second ads aren’t working like they used to, and this gave us an opportunity to interact with NFL fans and football. I spend too many hundreds of millions of dollars in traditional media and broadcast 30-second spots and it’s getting hard to see that money work for us. So we’re engaging Digitas to keep trying to bring us what’s new.”

Bigger companies are starting to realize that traditional media doesn’t have the same bite as it used to so they’re thinking of ways to use traditional means in conjunction with newer online strategies to advertise effectively. Think of ways you can use your existing locations or marketing mediums to augment or enhance a web marketing campaign.

Benefits of Internet Marketing: What’s In It for Your Business?

BMW chose to deliver its message via a very aggressive, multi-million dollar web campaign and got the attention of the media, potential buyers and non-buyers alike. GMC, instead of funneling marketing dollars into traditional media advertising has decided to use traditional media to feed an online advertising campaign. It may seem like bigger corporations have the upper hand but when you really break it all down, whether you’re a small business or a large corporation, the benefits of moving towards internet marketing are the same.

Measurable – Track visitation stats, conversions, paths through a website and more so you know where to channel your advertising dollars and where you shouldn’t.

Affordable – Internet Marketing is on average less expensive than traditional media, potentially saving your company money.

Wide Reach – Geographically, you can access local, national, or even global markets to expand your potential revenue exponentially for a fraction of the cost of using traditional media to accomplish the same task.

Geographic and Demographic Targeting – Certain types of campaigns allow you to target consumers by age, income levels, education, location and many other factors increasing the effectiveness of your campaigns and website.

Interactive – Allows quick and easy communication between advertiser and visitor via filling out online forms, email, or even live chat that further increase the chance of a sale or conversion. Visitors receive information on demand.

Compare that with traditional “show-and-tell” one-way media such as print, radio, magazine, and television and internet marketing suddenly becomes a very attractive way to get in front of a changing market. As more and more people begin to embrace the web as a rich source of information and entertainment, the importance of achieving an effective online presence and delivering your unique message over this new, digital medium is climbing its way to the top of the priority list.

Your customers are changing their thinking and your competition is starting to adapt. Is your business ready for the revolution?

Official BMW Press Release. “The Hire – The Acclaimed Film Series By BMW – Will End A Four And A Half Year Internet Run October 21st” October 11, 2005. Accessed on: October 05, 2007. http://www.bmwusa.com/bmwexperience/filmspr.htm

Clickz.com News. “GMC Launches NFL Site in Move Away from Traditional Media Buys”, Oct 05, 2007, Matthew G. Nelson. Accessed on: Oct 5, 2007 http://www.clickz.com/3627219