Affiliate Marketing and Promotional Materials

In preparing the affiliate marketing program, the online businessman must first find professional affiliates. One affiliate is not enough. Therefore, there should be a sizable number of affiliates that will create a significant impact on the sales of the online business. But once the affiliates have been recruited, the next important step for the online business is to provide his affiliates with promotional materials.

A promotional material is a feature in the website or Internet system that can be utilized by the affiliate to advertise and pre-sell the products of the online company. Without such promotional materials, the affiliate marketing will be slow or will come to a stand still. But one affiliate is different from another. Thus, the online businessman should be able to identify the type of promotional material that will meet the unique needs of the affiliates.

Here are some promotional materials that an online businessman should consider preparing for his affiliates. These promotional materials are quite basic and the online businessman may try other methods that are less conventional and more revolutionary. In the meantime, these are great for any affiliate marketing program on its first steps.

1. Effective email ads – This type of promotional material is ideal for affiliates who have e-zines or newsletters that they send their consumer/visitor base. In fact, most professional affiliates have their own newsletters.

Therefore, a shrewd online businessman must place email advertisements that will be included in the newsletters. He should create several email ads with varying lengths. Some affiliates like these ads to be short, while others prefer longer email ads.

In writing email ads, the online businessman should remember to use animated words that trigger emotional responses from the readers. The reason for this is that buying is mostly an emotional action.

2. Signature Files – This type of promotional material is sought by some affiliates who have signature lines. Thus, the online businessman must submit several clever lines to his affiliates. When the affiliate finds a signature file that he likes, he will include in his own signature line.

3. Articles – This type of promotional material is needed by affiliates who wants good content in their websites, and even in their newsletters. The online businessman should have good articles that can be posted in the affiliates’ websites. Such good articles can also help the website’s ranking in search engines

4. Banners – This type of promotional material may not be the most effective that it can still attract visitors. The online businessman must be ready with his banners that will fit various parts of the website, such as the toolbar, the sidebar, the top, and the bottom.

5. Product Images – This type of promotional material is attractive to affiliates who wanted to display the images of the products that they are promoting.

Peter Garant’s affiliate marketing site sells affordable unique website content to webmasters that understand the need for unplagerised and high quality content on their websites.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_Garant

How to Win the Advertising and Promotion Game

I am certain that, as a business owner, you have often entertained the question as to how much to spend and where to spend your advertising dollars. For most small business owners, these questions can add to the headaches suffered in the course of normal everyday operations of their business.

THERE ARE NO SIMPLE ANSWERS

The how much to spend and where to spend it questions have no easy answers.

Depending on your type of business, many people suggest that the *how much* should be equal to anywhere from 4% to 10% of your gross receipts.

The quandary is that a business cannot survive without a fresh flow of incoming customers. But, a business can seldom generate a fresh stream of customers without spending money to get the word out about their business.

THE CHALLENGE OF DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE ADVERTISING

Have you ever paid for advertising and sat back to await the fresh flow of customers, only to find yourself sitting and sitting and then sitting some more?

Don’t feel bad about that. It has happened to many of us before.

See, knowing where to spend the advertising money is not enough to get the job done.

Where to spend the money only begins to highlight the other issues connected with advertising:

· Marketing Plan
· Advertising Strategy
· Headlines, Ad Copy and Visual Presentation
· Tracking the Success of Your Advertising Campaigns

THE MARKETING PLAN

The Marketing Plan is used primarily to identify your own products and services, costs, strengths, weaknesses and the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors.

To learn more about constructing your own marketing plan, visit the Small Business Administration website for a comprehensive study of the elements of a Marketing Plan:
http://www.home-business.com/nav/articles/links/sba_plan.html

ADVERTISING STRATEGY

It is important to understand what you expect to gain from your advertising.

Do you simply wish to get your name known so that when your customer will need you, they will think of you first? Or, do you wish to get your customers in your front door on Saturday?

Do you want your customers to come in and take a look around to discover the next object that they cannot live without? Or, do you want them to come in and buy a specific widget?

Do you hope that enough people will come in to buy enough products or services to pay for your single ad? Or, do you expect to gain a lifelong customer who will help pay for your advertising over the course of several years?

When you know what you want, then you will better understand just how to do it.

HEADLINES, AD COPY AND VISUAL PRESENTATION

You might be surprised how many business owners put out advertising without regard for the quality of the sales pitch or presentation. The quality of your distribution outlet or the amount of money you spent to get there will do little for you if the advertising vehicle is a junker.

Test all of your advertising materials in smaller markets before blowing your advertising bank roll on it. You must absolutely know the value of your advertising before putting large sums of money behind it.

TRACKING THE SUCCESS OF YOUR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS

Tell your customers to save another 10% when they tell you they heard or saw your ad in such-and-such location. Suggest that they can register to win a free widget if they fill out a form and have them to tell you how they heard of your business. Advertise a specific widget in your ad and track the sales of that widget.

It does not matter how you track your advertising — just make sure you do it!

IN SUMMARY

The ideal way to spend your advertising budget is to buy a rifle with a high-powered scope and to only shoot your targets in the light of day.

If you are not tracking your advertising, then you are shooting a pellet gun without an attached scope, with blinders on, and shooting in the dead darkness of night.

Even with a bigger gun, the blinders in the dark constitute the single largest mistake made by advertisers. If you are unable to track your advertising to learn what is working well, what is working somewhat, and what is a money pit, then you are condemned to repeat your mistakes over and again.

By relying only on gut instinct, you may be choosing to spend more money in the money pit and to lose all of your money in the process.

When you get down to the nuts and bolts of making money from your advertising, you should plan, prepare, track and study your results. You must have factual information on which to base your advertising decisions. When you are making the right advertising decisions, then making money from your business might just come easy.
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Increasing Your Search Engine Ranking

The methods employed to increase your search engine rankings may seem like rocket science to you, so you have probably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tell you – the time has come to face your website! A high search engine ranking for your website is so essential that if you have the slightest desire to actually succeed in your business, there is no way you can continue to avoid this issue.

At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on the Internet find websites through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will be more than likely to make a purchase. The higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your website. That's what search engine optimization is about.

You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available online to figure out how to optimize your web pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a few simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments, and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The first item you should examine is the title bar on your homepage.

The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page. Look at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your homepage's title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your company name.

Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other.

The next item to put under your microscope is your website content. Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The text on your site must contain the most important keywords – the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your site.

Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines, this text is essential. However, the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.

To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case, ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in order to increase your search engine rankings.

Next we come to what is called meta tags. I know this sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is really just simple code. Many people believe that meta tags are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect. Still, it's worth adding them in the event that a search engine will use meta tags in their ranking formula.

To find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you must access the code. To do this, click the "view" button on the browser menu bar, and select "source." This will pull up a window revealing the underlying code that created the page. If there are meta tags, they usually appear near the top of the window. For example, a meta tag would read: meta name="keywords" content=. If you do not find code that reads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. This may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any little boost helps.

Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of search engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page.

If you type in "free link popularity check" in a popular search engine, the search engine will then show you what sites are linked to your site. In the case that there aren't many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites that are linked up have low search engine rankings, consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially, this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that they exchange links with your site. Of course, this requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website.

Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet marketing campaign. Before you go out and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can't boost your rankings yourself. Don't ever ignore this all-important factor in Internet marketing. Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality customers will be directed your way.

Michael Rasmussen is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant and author of many top-selling eBooks. Michael has been marketing online since the early days and he knows what it takes to make money and succeed online. Stop by his Web site and subscribe to his Free monthly newsletter full strategies and techniques for successful web site promotions that can help YOU!

Learn More, Go to Search-Engines-Revealed.com

Can You Choose Your AdSense Ads?

AdSense delivers great click-throughs and high revenues for one reason: the ads are targeted to what the user wants. Google's robot picks out keywords on your page, gets a grip on what your website is about and delivers links that take users to sites that interest them.

That's great news… up to a point. As much as you want your users to click on ads that look interesting, you might not want to trust to a robot to pick those ads – and you might prefer to have ads on your page that pay the highest amount possible for each click.

But you don't get the choice. You can do lots of things to improve your AdSense revenue, from selecting the layout of your ad unit to choosing the color and size of the font, but one thing you can't do is slip into Google's database and choose the ads. If you could do that, no one would ever choose the low-paying ads.

That doesn't mean you can't do anything at all though. The fact is, some smart publishers have been noticing all sorts of interesting results after playing with their HTML code and changing some of the text on their Web page. And some of those results have been very surprising indeed.

For example, some publishers have found that placing keywords in certain positions on the page can have an immediate effect on the ads served. The owner of a site about recreation vehicles then would be able to do a little research online to find the highest paying keywords in his area and then – if he knew where those hotspots were – he could place those keywords in the right areas on the page. In addition to the usual ads about camper vans and RV's that his site would receive, the publisher could be certain that at least one of the ads was the highest paying possible. That's the sort of knowledge that's worth money in your pocket.

Why some areas of a Web page should be more important than others is a mystery well kept by Google's programmers. But some of Google's ad secrets are leaking out – and they're being snapped up by smart publishers who understand that knowledge and strategy are the key to massive AdSense revenues.

For more Google AdSense tips, visit Adsense-Secrets.com

Copyright © 2005 Joel Comm. All rights reserved

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Joel Comm is Dr. AdSense, an Internet entrepreneur who has been online for more than 20 years. Joel is co-creator of ClassicGames.com, now known as Yahoo! Games and is the author of the web's best-selling AdSense ebook, "Google AdSense Secrets (Or What Google Never Told You About Making Money With Adsense)".

Is your Adsense Income Stable?

Does it drop to pennies sometimes? Want more Adsense money?
There is a reason to everything. And here it is :

Sample this:
Home Mortgage
Max CPC : $28.09

Truck Accident Lawyer
Max CPC : $40.79

Insurance Settlement Loan
Max CPC : $47.07

Now which one of them is the highest paying keyword?
The answer is – "Insurance Settlement loan". Right?

Wrong!

Now see the complete picture :
Home Mortgage
Max CPC : $28.09
Clicks/month : 27,603
Advertisers : 242 Averagely paying $8.64 per click

insurance settlement loan
Max CPC : $47.07
Clicks/month : 6
Advertisers : 66 Averagely paying $3.58 per click

truck accident lawyer
Max CPC : $40.79
Clicks/month : 12
Advertisers : 43 Averagely paying 2.64 per click

Home Mortgage has 242 advertisers fighting against each other to pay you per click higher than the other. So, thats the most paying keyword here.

98% people rely on CPC as the only criteria for judging a High Paying keyword or industry. And in the end are dissapointed. Obviously, who is going to pay you like $15 per click if there are no Advertisers bidding on a keyword?

Shocked to see what real picture of keywords can look like? Yes! there are many many keywords on Google Adwords system that have high CPC but are not profitable to target. And many keyword tools online are just befooling you.

The good news is, now the complete picture of High paying keywords is just a click away.
I came across this site that offers a 'Keyword Search Engine' that can let you do much more indepth research on High paying Adsense keywords.
Here's the site: keywordcountry.com/video/

It not only shows you high paying keywords, but also pin points you:
- Niche keywords
- Traffic building keywords
- High CTR keywords
- Heavily Advertised keywords
and keywords on which you can build more content.

Want to know more? You can watch the free video on How to choose Real profitable keywords here:
keywordcountry.com/video/

I am sure you wont like to live on the mercy of Google anymore! Join the rest 2% people who do the research – right and get more out of Adsense!

Analyzing Website Traffic

Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to interpret the data.

Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic web traffic information that you then have to interpret and make pertinent use of. However, the data you receive from your host company can be overwhelming if you don’t understand how to apply it to your particular business and website. Let’s start by examining the most basic data – the average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

These figures are the most accurate measure of your website’s activity. It would appear on the surface that the more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate perception. You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site.

There is often a great misconception about what is commonly known as “hits” and what is really effective, quality traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.

The more visitors that come to your website, the more accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors can distort the analysis.

The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for your visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out what that problem is.

It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.

Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could, for example, consider improving the link to this page by making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors can access the necessary information on that page.

If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less important, you might consider moving some of your sales copy and marketing focus to that particular page.

As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about the effectiveness of individual pages, and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.

Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit pages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on a particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In the case that a significant percentage of visitors are exiting your website on a page not designed for that purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the wrong page.

After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it’s time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor – meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase – the more valuable that keyword is.

However, if you find a large number of visitors are being directed – or should I say misdirected – to your site by a particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands adjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitors to your site who are ready to do business with you. Close analysis of the keywords your visitors are using to find your site will give you a vital understanding of your visitor’s needs and motivations.

Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, break open the champagne! It means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.

Michael Rasmussen is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant and author of many top-selling eBooks. Michael has been marketing online since the early days and he knows what it takes to make money and succeed online. Stop by his Web site and subscribe to his Free monthly newsletter full strategies and techniques for successful web site promotions that can help YOU!

Go to search-engines-revealed.com

Make Big Money With Affiliate Program

Have you ever joined an affiliate program with a great product/service but still can’t make big money (if any)? Then where in the world all these affiliates with a big pay check came from? Can you still make money as an affiliate? The answer is YES.

Money can be made from affiliate program as many people still do everyday. Two major problems people fail to make big money from affiliate program:

- They only get a small percent of commission.
- Too many people joined the same affiliate program. Sometimes well over 100,000 affiliates for a single affiliate program.

Making money from affiliate program is not simple as put up a link in your website and expect lots of people to click on it. Even though, some people do make money this way but most of them are not big money. In order to make big money you need a strategy.

Your own opt in email list is probably the best way to make big money from an affiliate program. Building a list will take time but the reward at the end is well worth it. There is higher chance person in your own list will buy a similar product/service or it is complement with the one that you offer. The best of both worlds if you could capture the potential customer’s email before send them off to the affiliate’s website because you are now own that list and you can promote other products/services in the future. Don’t go crazy by offering anything and think people will buy it. Also, never make people in your opt in list feel you are just an advertiser. Give them some valuable information before recommend a product/service. Never recommend a product/service that you do not like it yourself.

The second way to make big money with affiliate is to find a super-affiliate. What is a super-affiliate? Super-affiliate is affiliate with his/her own opt in email list. If you asked a super-affiliate to join an affiliate program and if he/she does then that means he/she is under you whenever someone from his/her list purchases the product/service you will get a commission from it. It’s a win-win situation. Only a few super-affiliates you already build yourself an army of affiliates. An advantage of the second method is time saving. It’s won’t take as much time as build a list but it is a challenge to convince a super-affiliate to join the affiliate program that you are promoting.

There you have the two best ways to make big money with affiliate program. Making money as affiliate is not easy but at the same time is not impossible either.

Copyright 2006 by Bryan Tran

Bryan Tran is an Internet marketer shows an average guy what the Internet guru marketers’ marketing secrets, http://www.unlimitedpayment.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bryan_Tran

What You Must Know About Google’s Terms Of Service

When you install a piece of software, you usually get an End User License Agreement that you're supposed to read carefully. You're then supposed to click a button to show that you've read it all through, understand it and agree with every word. If anyone but the lawyers who write these things has ever read them I'll eat my hat. Most people just click and move on.

The Google Terms of Service are different.

Before you put Google's AdSense code on your website, you must read the Terms of Service carefully. I'm not just saying that to protect myself legally; I'm saying that to protect your income.

Google's terms are strict but sensible. They stop people from talking users who have no intention of buying from an advertiser into clicking on an ad. They protect advertisers from having their sites promoted in places with objectionable content. And they stop publishers from playing around with the code.

That last point is important. One of the biggest reasons that people get banned from Google is that they play around with the code to improve the way their ads look. They get a bit too smart and think they can do a better job than Google. That's a terrible mistake.

If you break the Terms of Service – even accidentally – you could find yourself banned for life. That's the loss of all your AdSense revenues because of one silly mistake.

The fact is, there are lots of perfectly legitimate strategies that you can use to change the way your ads look. Google itself provides a whole box of tools that you can use – and you should use them. It's precisely how you use those tools that will determine whether or not your site brings in pennies or bucketloads of bucks. In fact, there are so many ways that you can change the way your ad looks that there's no need to touch the code at all.

That doesn't mean you can't use code at all though. One way to increase your click-throughs is to put the code inside a table so that the ads make a better impression on the page. Is that in line with Google's Terms of Service? You bet – provided you know how or do it right. And you can bet that it will have a great effect on your click-throughs and your revenues.

For more Google AdSense tips, visit Adsense-Secrets.com

Copyright © 2005 Joel Comm. All rights reserved

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Joel Comm is Dr. AdSense, an Internet entrepreneur who has been online for more than 20 years. Joel is co-creator of ClassicGames.com, now known as Yahoo! Games and is the author of the web's best-selling AdSense ebook, "Google AdSense Secrets (Or What Google Never Told You About Making Money With Adsense)".

Ben Franklin’s Secrets For Success

Are you overwhelmed by all the advice on the Internet about running a successful small business?

The sheer volume of information is overwhelming and often the "experts" disagree.

Every so often my business will experience a slow down.

This week was one of those weeks. I could easily blame the holiday or the normal summer vacation period, but that wouldn't solve my problem.

I needed to step back and rethink my business plan.

The response for most online business owners is to pick their favorite "guru" or "gurus" and start studying their advice.

That works well for a lot of marketers, but sometimes I like to think outside the box. There are some time tested ideas that are universal and will work if applied to any situation.

I studied Ben Franklin's simple system for self- improvement. The system may be simple to develop, but that doesn't mean it's easy to follow.

In his autobiography Franklin talks about his need to constantly monitor himself. Old habits are hard to break.

Although Franklin used this system to reshape his personality, it can just as easily be applied to improving your skills as an online entrepreneur.

If you're looking for a quick fix, this isn't for you.

Here's a step by step plan for becoming a more successful entrepreneur.

1. The first step is to pick the 13 areas of your skills that need the most work.

Step back and take a look at your business and find 13 skills that would improve your performance.

2. Put the 13 skills you've listed in order of importance.

Label them from 1 to 13.

3. Decide to spend one week working on each skill. Spend time every day for a week working on improving one area of your business.

For example if you chose writing better ads as an area needing improvement, spend a week working on your ad writing skills.

4. After you've spent a week working on your number problem, move to problem number 2.

5. After 13 weeks go back and work on number one again.

Follow through on each skill for another 13 weeks.

6. By the end of one year you've spent four weeks improving each roadblock to your success.

At the end of a year re-evaluate your business and determine which skills still need to be worked on and which ones you've mastered.

I know this seems like a lot of work. It's taking time away from making your first million.

Well I have to let you in on a little secret. Making a go of your online business isn't easy and if you're not willing to work at it, you'll spend your time asking:

Is anyone really making money online?

Well there are small businesses making money online, but they've done their homework and honed their skills.

If you're truly serious about making money on the Internet, this plan is as good a place to start as any.

Don't rely on luck. You'll find the harder you work, the luckier you'll get.

Wishing You Success,
John Colanzi

Copyright (c) John Colanzi.

John Colanzi uses the Plug-In Profit Site to earn multiple streams of income from
home on the Internet. What about you?

Understanding the Difference Between Marketing and Promotion

Are you an online marketer? Or do you simply promote affiliate programs? Marketing is truly the most misunderstood word in use today on the Internet. Let me see if I can clarify this issue just a bit.

In Marketing 101 at your local university, marketing is actually the process of Product, Place, Price and Promotion.

PRODUCTNo business can exist without a product or service to sell.

In a nutshell, entrepreneurs are the people who believe in a product, service or idea, so much that they are willing to invest their lives into the development of their dream.

Historically, every major corporation in the world was started by an entrepreneur with a dream and the drive to make it a reality.

However, there comes a time in the life of every corporation when those who fear the gambling nature of their founder, squash the entrepreneurial drive that made the company a viable concern in the first place. The entrepreneur will either submit to the careful nature of the stockholders, or he will be forced to leave the company he created.

The only entrepreneurs who withstand the pressure to move more carefully are those who have maintained majority control over their companies.

PLACE

In the offline world, place is defined by location. On the Internet, place is defined by domain name and the web hosting service chosen.

Both online and offline, place can make or break a company without respect to the quality and value of the product, service or idea.

PRICE

Selecting a price is determined first on a basis of whether the company wants to be seen as a discount or a value company.

Take for example Wal-Mart and Staples.

Wal-Mart is the lead discounter in the marketplace. Staples on the other hand is the specialist in office supplies.

Both sell a significant number of office supplies despite the fact that the lowest price can usually be found at Wal-Mart. As a value dealer, Staples can afford to charge more for their products than Wal-Mart.

So the question for you is whether you want to position your company as a discount or value company.

Testing has shown that products and services can be sold at any number of prices and still reach a significant number of people.

The challenge of selecting the best price for your product or service will require a certain amount of testing.

UNDERSTANDING THE PRICING EQUATION

Let's assume we are selling a product. Let us also assume that we know that the product can be sold for $10 or $50. Let us also assume that if the price dips below $10 or rises above $50, then the product sales fall off significantly.

Our challenge is to determine the best rate at which to sell our product.

Testing has shown us that we can sell 1000 items a week at $10. Testing has also shown that we can sell 500 items per week at $50. And testing has shown that we can sell 650 items per week at $45.

At $10, our projected weekly earnings are $10,000. When we sell the product at $50, we know that we can earn $25,000 per week. Most importantly, we know that we can earn $29,250 when our product is priced at $45.

With the imaginary testing we have done on our imaginary product, we can easily see that selling our product at $45 per item will earn us more money over the long haul.

Thus, when we make the decision for a national rollout of our product, then we will price our product at $45.

Of course, this is a very simplistic analysis of the point I am trying to make. Though simple, I believe this analogy will help you understand the methods of developing a product's prices.

PROMOTION

Promotion, on the other hand, is the process of notifying the consumers for your product or service of your availability to serve them.

Methods of promotion vary distinctly and should be arranged to meet very specific goals.

As with product, place and price, promotion should not be left to chance. You should test every ad, every media, and every price point to determine the best bang for your promotional dollars.

HEADS UP!

If you are an online promoter or marketer, please factor in the most important element concerning the cost of your promotions.

What element is that? Your time!

Value your time at a certain dollar amount, and figure in your time into the cost of your promotional accounting.

I say this because too many online promoters lose sight of this concept and spend 20 hours to generate one sale while using free advertising. Even if you rate your time at the federal minimum wage, then you will have invested $105 of your time for one sale that might only net you a gross sale of $45!

ARE YOU TRULY A MARKETER OR ARE YOU JUST A PROMOTER?

Most people who run a business on the Internet call themselves marketers. Yet, most of these same people are really just promoters wrapped in the label of a marketer.

True marketers do not promote without a lot of advance work. They spend time planning, testing and measuring their actions and results to get the most out of every dollar spent and earned.

Entrepreneurs finesse the art of marketing as they build their company into a major enterprise.

If you are a promoter who does not keep an eye on the total marketing equation, then you are bound to fail.

If you do call yourself a marketer, then do what a professional marketer does. Make sure that every dollar spent is spent well. Make sure that every dollar earned is put to good use. Market well so that when the people of the next generation look at your life, they will see a fine example of a successful entrepreneur that they will

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