Viral Marketing At Its Best

Writen by Sorna Devadas

You may have heard of this before and for those that haven't, it's where you give away something for free that someone can also give away for free. If successful, your piece of information can spread like a virus, enticing thousands to buy from you.

So what's the secret. You need to release something valuable that can compare to another course selling for at least $100, for free. It really has to be exceptional for people to pass it on to their friends. Quality not quantity, the report needs to be excellent and if it's long, that's a bonus. Ellaborate as much as you can. It's the awesome principle, "you have to give before you get", in action.

You can start with a free report or develop a complete course. Keep your competitors in mind and write your material for them. If they can send one of your articles out to their database and put their affiliate links alongside it, their chances of making a sale are increased. In the same token, if the reader likes your article and clicks on your link, you have a chance of signing them up to your mailing list.

Work alongside your competitors and see them as partners rather than competitors. They have abetter chance to earn money by promoting your products and receiving a share rather than their own product all the time. Lift up your competitors and customise your material so that it adds value to what they're doing. By keeping in mind how you can promote them, your potential partners will be more excited about partnering with you. Make sure their product adds value to your customers and vice versa. You'll make a lot more money by working alongside partners in the same industry than you will alone. Think of all competitors as potential partners, find out how to add value to them, work on your free material and watch your profits soar!

To find out more about how to do Joint Ventures and for more powerful concepts, visit http://www.internetprofitmentor.com. Here I found a wealth of useful and free information with over 12 hours of video and a 120 page e-book. There's also a comprehensive free course, that explains all about building your own profitable websites.

Chasing New Business

Writen by Aaron Snider

As well you should. New business is what makes the world go round. Your business relies on new business to survive. To get new business you must constantly change your marketing efforts. But what about old business? Have you made a business crippling mistake? Have you forgotten your previous customers while looking for new ones?

There are many ways to advertise your business. What kind of response do you get from e-zines, safelists, startpages, etc? Email is a great way to advertise your business, you can email so many people its hard to not get a response. E-zines are nice, better response cause you can target your promotion a little more than normal email. Start pages are good for Alexa ratings, but not much more. What kind of response do you really see though? 0.2%, 0.5%, 1%, 2%? If you get even 1% response you are the most fantastic copy writer and have the best product in the world. For the rest of us we are ecstatic when we get a 0.2% response or any at all.

Well what about the people that do buy from you? Do you even email them anymore? After you send your thank you for purchasing whatever they purchased from you, do you ever email them again? Well you should.

Lets take one person as an example. He/she buys an ebook about making minisites from you for $19.95. What can we tell about this person from their purchase? Well if they want to make mini web sites, they must have a webhost. Maybe your an affiliate for a webhosting company. Maybe they need products to sell on their minisite. Maybe they need an ebook about copywriting for their new minisites. Whatever else they need, they will buy it from somebody. They have already bought from you once, why not buy from you again?

When you make sales, make sure you have other products available to make the one they bought perform better or easier to use. If you sell one product to 100 people, then you sold a second product (that made the first product easier to use) to 50 of those people, you just sold 50% more products. You also just made 50% more profit, and didn't spend any more on advertising as you did before.

The point is, don't forget your previous customers. You will make more sales on a monthly basis with 1-2 simple emails to your previous customer base, and will significantly build your current business. Your previous customers trust you, like you, have money, and will buy from you again.

What the heck, let's all make a million.

About The Author

Aaron Snider

Support@something-big.com

http://www.thecustomermanager.com

Aaron wrote the Customer Manager Program

Internet Marketing 101

Writen by Greg Cesar

Starting an online business does not have to be difficult. Mostly, it is a matter of knowing where to go to get the information needed to get started. Internet Marketing is the term used for marketing your business effectively on the Internet.

Many online businesses fail not due to lack of knowledge or resources, but because they aren't marketed properly. The Internet does not respond to traditional marketing methods the way a brick and mortar business would. The bottom line is, if you don't know Internet Marketing, then you need to hire someone that does. This is true because it's better to start your Internet Marketing campaign off right in the first place than to try to go back and correct it once you already have a viable web presence. This can be both costly and time consuming, and, as is the case with most Internet Marketers, you are probably short on both time and money. To start your online business, you must do the following:

* Decide what products or services you want to offer
* Get a reliable, knowledgeable web hosting company
* Design and build your website
* Develop an Internet Marketing Plan
* Implement the Internet Marketing Plan

Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, it is if you have someone to do all that work for you, and the money to pay them. However, if you are short on money, you will need to do some of the work yourself. The fact is that a majority of Internet Marketers do most of the work for their sites themselves, unless it is too technical and out of their realm. Below are some of the steps involved in basic Internet Marketing:

* Optimizing your Website
* Getting Reciprocal Links from other, relevant sites
* Organizing an article/press release campaign (for one-way links)

You will probably be surprised to know that it is possible to get at least some of the above services all in one place. For example, having a knowledgeable web hosting company is one key to effective Internet Marketing. Your web hosting company may also offer web design services , and be able to help you design and build a viable website. Ideally, the company you choose for web hosting should also have Internet Marketing expertise. This is especially important if you are new to the world of Internet Marketing.

Deciding to start an online business can be a daunting task. By enlisting the right professionals to help you, your Internet Marketing campaign will have everything it needs to make your business successful right from the start.

Greg Cesar knows Internet Marketing! Find out how hundreds of Internet business owners benefit from Greg's internet marketing advice by visiting his Internet Marketing website.

Greg Cesar is a successful Internet marketer with over 10 years' experience. He specializes in providing innovative internet marketing services that help business owners make more money online. To improve your online business immediately and work with someone who understands what it takes to make real money online, visit: http://www.hostpartnerplus.com

Avoid Marketing Stagnation Using 3 Basic Methods

Writen by John Magruder

You joined an online marketing program, placed some ads, and then thought, now what? The majority of new marketers pause at this point, and many never come back.

Some years ago, I attended a "bump school" ski lesson in Breckenridge, Colorado. My instructor emphasized keeping the weight down hill on the skis, leaning forward. He said if you fall, better to fall forward, not backward or sideways, but FORWARD. The forward weight, and even the forward fall, indicates advancement. With the earnest determination needed to ski bump runs, stay forward, stay alive in your marketing efforts! Will your business stagnate at this critical time? No! Now commit to sustained focus in your marketing education. Commit to sustained action that becomes second nature. Lock your ON switch in place! Often finding myself in this dynamic, my web business excites me, seeming more like play.

What simple, powerful tools can you use to maintain the forward dynamic?

Start a newsletter. When you first hear that statement, you might think, "Well that's fine for experienced marketing professionals. I would not know where to begin to create a newsletter or get a list of people to send it to." I understand. But do not let these thoughts deter you. You CAN start or obtain a newsletter! With a little searching and reading, learn how. An ongoing email series that you offer as a "marketing tips" newsletter, for example, attracts interested subscribers. Cliché by now, the fortune in the follow up rings true. Your prospects need inspirational, repetitive exposure. Time and time again I see responses from prospects after several contacts.

Get your own website. Most affiliate marketing programs provide referral pages to receive responses from advertising. Your own website enables you to compete with successful internet business owners. It gives you the ability to develop a mailing list, the core of your marketing success. Developing link popularity, many website owners use link exchange or partner directories, linking to similar websites. This not only increases traffic through the added links, but also improves search engine ranking.

Add content to your website. Content consists of useful information that people want to find on your website, often in the form of articles. Web marketers constantly publish informative articles they would love placed on your website. This provides a win-win situation because their articles attract visitors to your website, and bring more people back to the authors' websites as the articles include their links. Ideally, publish your own articles and develop credibility and popularity in your service.

You now have a complete package. These tools provide the basics to manifest your marketing goals. A website with valuable content attracts visitors interested in your offers, and brings newsletter subscribers. Increased sales give you more time and money to enhance your website content. Improving website content and popularity again feeds back to more sales and a larger subscriber base. This way, successful internet marketers grow their businesses! With patient focus, implement and build with these tools. Maintain persistence and attain your goals!

John Magruder is a successful SFI Team Leader and a Member of the Wealth Online Website system.
Home Based Business Opportunities
http://www.Discover-Your-Business.ws

How Sneaky Links Increase Your Clickthroughs

Writen by Ron Hutton

If you find that your site visitors have developed a high level of resistance to clicking through your affiliate links, you're not alone. What is it that makes affiliate links suspicious to people? They're certainly not meant to be offensive.

I believe that it's the same kind of thing that automatically activates your defenses when you walk onto a used car lot and are promptly accosted by a guy wearing a green and orange plaid sports coat, pink neck tie and white patent leather lowtops that zip up the side.

Do you hate the feeling that someone is "selling you"? I really think that it's the same thing when visitors see what's obviously an affiliate link (or a poorly disguised affiliate link) and start looking for a way to buy "straight from the source" thinking that they're going to get a better deal!

If your website sells affiliate products, here's a simple "Sneaky Link" tactic that will help you with affiliatephobes.

Note: This article has a free corresponding step-by-step video tutorial that demonstrates the exact steps to creating your own "Sneaky Links"...

http://www.gothrive.com/sneaky-link-video.htm

Street-smart webmasters and marketers understand the importance of taking every possible step to get visitors to let down their guard. We seek information but we resist being sold.

So, the following sample source code can be used on any web page to create "sneaky links" that don't have the appearance of affiliate links. You're not running a non-profit organization are you? No? Well, let's just let someone else believe that you are.

Here's an example of source code that will bare your soul to the world. Note: the tags are altered with a period that needs to be removed if you intend to edit and use this source code in your web pages.

No mysteries here:

<.a href="http://www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=100">Plug-In-Profit-Toolbox.com<./a>

Now, let's get sneaky. ;~)

<.a href="http://www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=100" onMouseOver="window.status='http://www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;">http://www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/<./a>

To assist in understanding how the "sneaky link" works, let's do a little link anatomy study. Here are the pieces and parts of our link:

Part 1, Beginning anchor tag: <.a

Part 2, Target URL (affiliate link): href="http://www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=100"

Part 3, "MouseOver" attribute: onMouseOver="window.status='http://www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;"

Part 4, Link Text: http://www.pluginprofittoolbox.com/

Part 5, Ending anchor tag: <./a>

So, what's the trick? It's in part 3, the mouseover attribute. This nifty little piece of source code tells the web browser what to display in the status bar (very bottom of the browser window), and if the "window.status" is the same as the link text, it appears as though there's no trickery going on. But, we know better.

Is it possible that this link could be found out, discovered and revealed for what it really is? Sure. If someone were to apply a single right-click to the link, the web browser will reveal the actual target URL. However, the average user won't know this so the "sneaky link" tactic can be very effective in getting people to let their guard down.

End result... your click-through rate goes up, you make more sales and we all live happily ever after. Go forth and create some "sneaky links" now.

To view this article's free corresponding step-by-step video tutorial that demonstrates the exact steps to creating your own "Sneaky Links"...

http://www.gothrive.com/sneaky-link-video.htm

There's a zip file available for you to download (no cost, of course) with the exact source code that's shown in the video.

Copyright 2005 Ron Hutton

Ron Hutton is a 20 year sales and marketing veteran with a passion for coaching and training. Subscribe to "GoThrive Online", for Free Video Tutorials for Internet Marketing and big juicy marketing tips in small, easy-to-chew, bite size servings. Free Video Tutorial Archives Here: http://www.gothrive.com/free-video-tutorials.htm