Advances in alternatives and the decrease of associated costs have taken search engine marketing techniques far beyond the optimization of written content, blogs and articles. One of the most visible and well-known of these advances is YouTube, the video sharing site purchased by Google for $1.65 billion in 2006. A second advance, though not as ubiquitous as YouTube, is the podcast. A podcast is a digital media file which can be distributed over the internet using syndicated feeds for playback on portable media players, laptops and personal computers. Despite their name, podcastare not the exclusive domain of the IPod, a popular misconception.

Podcasts are also not the exclusive domain of the major media players such as CNN, The Wall Street Journal, and other large distributors of news and media who make their content available in podcast format. Open access, the ease of broadcasting, and the affordability of necessary equipment have made it possible for podcasts to be created and distributed by any individual or small company. With a miniature video camera like the Flip Camcorder and USB condenser microphone, anyone can join the ranks of podcasters for a total tab of approximately $300. These media files can then be uploaded to video broadcasting sites like YouTube or Vimeo.

Audio only podcasts can even be done be done using a mobile phone with sites like Blog Talk Radio (www.BlogTalkRadio.com). This is the simplest of podcast formats, allowing for a podcast to be uploaded to the site simply by logging in and speaking into the phone. Done in this manner, the quality of the audio can vary so upgrading to higher quality broadcasting gear is recommended.

The importance of podcasting for businesses is that it not only provides another medium to deliver content, it delivers that content to a demographic which is highly educated and highly paid. According to a study by Arbitron and Edison Research on podcast consumers, 63% had attended college and 21% had earned advanced degrees. In the same study, almost two- thirds of podcast consumers who stated income levels earned over $ 50,000 per year. Podcast consumers in an older study also cited their interest level in content as a reason for preferring podcasts over written material. A KnowledgeStorm survey of 3900 IT and business professionals found that 60% of B2B buyers preferred their research in podcast format over white papers and analyst reports because podcasts made the material more interesting.

In summary, podcasts are a relatively simple and cost effective venue to reach out to targeted and valuable demographic groups. Additionally, these groups have shown a desire for communications to be delivered in a podcast format. For a free evaluation on how podcasting should be integrated into your business marketing strategy, call GMR Web Team at (714) 731 9000.

For more details on creating and uploading podcasts read this old blog post. It is relevant even today.

Visitors who has arrived at your site, like what they see, and go to your shopping cart to make a purchase are much like patrons at a restaurant who have perused the menu and have decided on what they want to order for dinner. While the order is being placed the restaurant’s waiter or waitress usually plays one of two roles; that of an order taker or that of someone who is trying to enhance the experience of the diner by suggesting appetizers, side dishes, and/or a bottle of wine to complement the main dish. This activity continues after the meal is finished with dessert, coffee, and after dinner drink suggestions. Done properly, the patrons of the restaurant don’t feel like they are being ‘’sold” into buying anything. The feeling is that their server is genuinely interested in making their experience as positive as possible. Needless to say, these subtle suggestions result in bigger tabs and bigger revenues for a restaurant, especially when practiced on a consistent basis.

This type of activity, known as ”push marketing”, should be taking place on your website as well. What this means is that instead of playing the role of order taker, your site should be suggesting additional products which are closely related to the product or service being purchased. The timing of these suggestions is critical and should take place when your customer is taking an action such as making a purchase, leaving contact details, or signing up to receive information from you. Amazon conducts this type push marketing when someone buys a book with their ”Customers who bought this item also bought…” list of books by either the same author or with similar themes.

Websites which offer these types of upsells through their push marketing efforts generally see increases in their average per-transaction amount of 15 to 30 percent. It’s a significant increase, made easier by the fact that the additional sales are being generated by customers who were already in the process of making a purchase. If you’re not already offering upsells, here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• The cost of the additional item being suggested should be less than the cost of the item being purchased. Test for upsells at approximately 20% of the value of the initial purchase and make adjustments based on your level of success.
• Don’t go crazy with it. Suggesting upsells on every item can confuse the buyer so start slowly with a couple of items on a few of your most popular products.
• The upsell suggestions should be highly relevant to the primary item being purchased. Do some testing, make adjustments, and expand your upsell offering once it’s warranted.

It’s likely that the shopping cart on your site has the capability for upsells. Start slow, test for results, and make changes accordingly. Stay with the process and you should see a gradual increase in your average transaction size, much like dinner tabs with an additional bottle of wine or two.

Direct marketing has been an important part of the marketing mix for small, medium, and even large businesses.

Outsourcing your direct marketing campaign is a wise decision as you can get the help of professionals. A number of multi-national and even small companies have made use of these contact centers to get in touch with their customers and have increased their sales. You too can join the bandwagon and opt for the services of contact centers. Direct marketing involves a number of activities like

• sending direct mails (here you’ll need to hire an effective copywriter)
• making follow up calls to tell them about the offers
• responding to inquiries over the offer.

The personnel working in these contact centers have the experience of a number of years as they have been working in the industry and providing these services to other companies as well. 

The result of hiring a contact center for carrying out direct marketing is that with the help of these experienced and confident professionals, you are able to get more customers as the conversion rate increases. Today’s market is highly competitive and you should not compromise with the quality of services that you offer to your customers. There is no better way to connect to your customers but to get contact centers to do that on your behalf. 

You need to know that direct marketing is a very important aspect of promotion and thus you should not have any second thoughts about hiring a contact center along with a copywriter and going further with the services. Reaching your potential and existing customers is easy with the help of such a campaign that focuses on a particular section of people who you wish to target. You can strengthen your relationship with the customers as well as save costs, while increasing the revenue and enhancing the loyalty that the customers have to show. This just makes sure that you will achieve better results. 


The smart work that is put into creating the direct marketing solutions for your company will bring in positive results. Choose a contact center that has served a number of companies varying in sizes and types so that your chances of success are maximized and you can get exceptional results from the direct marketing campaign that you have launched for your business. The use of high-end technology by these companies is also one of the reasons that make these companies worth opting for. a combination of experience, expertise and technology is what makes them offer you best of the direct marketing solutions and give you a competitive edge. 

Online businesses go out of the way to promote themselves. Often the promotion is blatant.

But there is no single step to conversion and after the fist step often nothing happens. So how do you convert your leads into interested prospects?

Simple: Go beyond the usual.

In the offline world we see it happen often. The handyman may thoroughly clean out the garage though it wasn’t a part of the job. Your garage mechanic may use some petrol to clean out an old stain in your car upholstery. What will you do? Next time you ring up his company, you ask for him personally.

How do we emulate such examples in the online business?

Unfortunately in the online business we promise the moon and deliver the moonshine. This has lead to a lot of suspicion, In fact during routine website updates when we added some title tags to the pages have been personally asked by some clients, why are you doing it? They are awry. Am I going to sell them something or am I going to charge them later.

An online homemade chocolate company from whom I regularly order my supply of mint flavored black chocolate recently popped the message "Do you want to order your mint flavored chocolate too?" when I just ordered Almonds wrapped in chocolate for a gift. This online chocolate company kept data of its customers and personalized the experience of the shopping cart. It ensured that I won’t ever go anywhere.

Being in the website marketing field I was impressed. I knew that they had customized the shopping cart and it must have been expensive especially for a small business. And yet they cared enough.

Never thought social relationships are good for business? Use this Three Pronged Twitter Strategy for Your Business and see the results. We have started following it and things are going great. Just thought we’d share it with you.

Share with us some twitter strategies that you apply for your business. We’ll update the list.

Best Sangeeta

The current recession is still raging despite claims of recovery. President Obama recently spoke at the White House and quoted the Department of Labor which estimated that US citizens have lost 3.6 million jobs since recession began.

For most losing a job is a calamity and yet there are some who handle this setback more effectively. The great American spirit of survival seems to exist in them. They look for alternatives to make a livelihood and to live well. They may not have opted out of their jobs, but they certainly can deal with it.

How do they manage it? Are their prepared for it? What’s their gameplan?

Forty eight year old Bob Carlos was expecting a promotion as the Vice President of his company. He was unprepared for the recession and it hit him below the belt. Carlos reeled but rallied back to life. It was then that he decided to do what he enjoyed most in life: sail.  Soon he started using his knowledge to train others and eventually, lead small excursions. Bob Carlos now leads a full life enjoying his job. He is making money in a way he never dreamt of. He now has plans to expand online and increase the scope of his customers.

Bob relied on his talent and expertise to pull his new found business through. Through a well planned strategy he started organizing camps and workshops and hired more people.
 
Bob Carlos was not an entrepreneur by choice. He was a forced entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurship is the ONLY way you can beat the current situation. No one’s hiring, no one’s extending much credit, no one cares; and you need the money and occupation to keep you going.

More and more Americans are resorting to forced entrepreneurship. The number of non-employer firms has risen steadily in this decade, from 16.5 million in 2000 to an estimated 21.1 million in 2007. Now is the time to go back to your core competency, by improving hidden skills that have been neglected for years. You may steer away from the specific job or branch that you were previously interested in, but with this newly honed skill set, you can help yourself and others in a way you never thought possible.

Many people are making the recession a blessing in disguise to hone their talent and skills, to spend time with family and community, and to get connected with themselves all over again!

All you need is

1. An exemplary skill set
2. An eye for detail
3. An ability to plan
4. Lot’s of enthusiasm.

BUT before you throw your job out the window and set out to challenge your skills, be aware of the following:

According to the SBA – an estimated 637,100 new employer firms began operations in 2007 and 560,300 firms closed that year.

“Two-thirds of new employer establishments survive at least two years, 44 percent survive at least four years, and 31 percent survive at least seven years, according to a recent study."
These results were constant for different industries. Firms that began in the second quarter of 1998 were tracked for the next 28 quarters to determine their survival rate. Of special interest, the research found that businesses that survive four years have a better chance of surviving long term. After the fourth year, the rate of firm closings declines considerably.

Earlier research has found that the major factors in a firm’s survivability include an ample supply of capital, being large enough to have employees  the owner’s education level, and the owner’s reason for starting the firm.

So where do you begin. Start with your heart and move on to brains.

I. Take a mental printout of these five attitude steps

• Start small if you want to but start today.
• Do not be afraid to fail.
• Everything in life is a learning experience to make a better you
• Enjoy what you do
• Find opportunities on the way.

II. Next start with your entrepreneurship plans. Ask yourself the following questions and write them down

• Your best skills
• Your strengths
• What you enjoy most
• Five years on what you would like to be
• The objective of your business

III. Next jot down opportunities associated with each skill

• Start with broad, then go specific
• Use the internet to search for opportunities. You’ll be amazed at what you’ll find
• Try to identify at least three opportunities

Now you should have a better understanding of what your goals of your business are.

IV. Time to put your ideas to work: brain work

• Begin to plan how you will start your business
• Take into account the cost, time, demographic structure and ROI period
• Think of the area of your business
• Try to find a niche

If you follow this step you’ll identify the most suitable business to start with.

V. Time for research

The strategy for research will depend on your skill set and the opportunity for Get an expert’s advice if you feel a little uncomfortable with where you’re headed. You can either hire an expert to do it or do it yourself. Be thorough and explore all possibilities and start building a complete strategy.

VI. Strategy Time

If you are starting for the first time ask an expert; there are lots of experts online who are willing to give a few minutes of free consultation. Make the most of it.

Opportunities

The opportunities for online entrepreneurship are galore; everyone seems to be moving online and finding their niche.

You can become an infopreneur by packaging your knowledge and selling it. The methodology may vary, but the objective will be to sell.

You have to simply decide a topic. It can be anything: knowledge from your previous work/business experience, a hobby, a passion or anything that interests you; even your grandma’s recipe!

Success stories need

1. Diligent Planning
2. Strategic Information
3. Goal Setting
4. Innovation
5. Contemporary Methods
6. Visibility
7. Good Customer Relationship
8. Identification of Opportunities
9. Sheer Hard Work

If you are one of those who think you don’t have a special set of skills to utilize, all you need to is a website. From that website you can find affiliate opportunities, make ad money, manage content or sell products by partnering with drop shippers.

If in doubt ask the expert.

OnlineBizHq.org is offering 15 minutes of free consultation on online business opportunities. They have also published a book “Plant Your Online Biz Money Tree”. This Money Tree Book is available in a pre- release e-book version for a limited time only. Click for sneak-peek buy for only $10!

With the unprecedented growth explosion of e-commerce, retailing and the expansion of the internet marketplace, an overwhelming number of opportunities for starting an online business have emerged. Yet, the question remains: should you take up a job or start an online business? A working job requires less responsibility than owning an online business, solely because the business’s future is not in your hands as an employee, but does not necessarily allow you to do what you want within the business. A steady income is always welcomed as an employee, for it allows you to map out your future with relative ease, yet a successful business may provide multiple streams of income.

Although starting an online business does not guarantee a steady income, it does allow you to do what you enjoy doing, or what you are interested in. Plus, running your own online business allows for more flexibility in terms of times and working hours as compared to the strict, rigid work hours employees must abide by. But because of the modern-era internet boom, starting an online business has never been more lucrative.

Ever since the advent of the internet, it has been evolving at an exponential pace and has attracted more and more people every year. As of March 31, 2009, approximately 6,710,029,070 users access the internet on a regular basis – over 99% of the world’s population. This drastic figure only emphasizes the innumerable opportunities that have emerged for starting an online business since the dawn of the internet, and marks a time of a more technological and computer savvy world that relies on the computer more than ever before. But before you click your mouse and begin building your online business, you should know that researching is vital and essential to having a successful business; you must become intimately familiar with whatever facet of business you envision. This requires dedication, commitment, and passion on your part. Books, e-books, magazine articles, and online articles are among the plethora of resources that can and will help jump start your business and allow it to compete in the real world. On the other hand, self-employment offers you more chances to explore and challenge your limits, without having to deal with the pressures of running your own business.

In a way, to become self-employed successfully you must adopt a system, a sort of scientific approach to your job: hypothesizing, researching, testing, re-testing, analyzing, drawing a conclusion, and finally and most importantly, communicating that conclusion with the rest of the world. To become self-employed successfully, you must learn the advantages of becoming self-employed, and weigh that with the other options you have and choose which is best for you. Only then will you be on your way to becoming a successful individual.

What most people fail to recognize is that you can be self-employed and own your own business, simultaneously. Owning your own business while at the same time working for someone is a beneficial way to gain valuable experience that will assist you in establishing your business. There are several tools that you can utilize to help automate your online business, thus taking a major workload off you so you can manage your own business as well as be self-employed satisfactorily. The first is the auto-responder. This nifty program will automatically reply to en e-mail that is sent to a certain e-mail address. It can be programmed in such a way that it sends one e-mail the first day, a different e-mail a second day, and so on. This resourceful program will allow you, the owner, to salvage valuable time spent on responding to the same e-mails that would normally fritter away hours of precious time.

Another handy way of taking a workload off of you is by hiring drop-shippers. In a nut shell, drop-shippers hold products that are being sold through your website in a warehouse and when purchased, ship it directly to the customer. This way, your company does not have to be the retailer and the manufacturer, thus reducing expenses and increases profits. Your only job is to pay the drop-shipper for the shipping costs and they will do the dirty work for you. In addition to auto-responders and drop-shippers, if properly executed, search engine optimization (SEO) will attract customers to your site, without you having to go to them. Ideally, you want your company’s web page to appear in the first page of a search engine’s page when a certain term(s) (the broader the better) is entered into the search engine. These simple tools will drastically improve the amount of clients you have, while still allowing you to focus on something more important than responding to e-mails, shipping to clients, and having to physically go to a potential client to get them to commit.

Planning is the most crucial aspect of online business. The plan should include short term and long term goals. You should always be clear about your business objectives and purposes. The goals should be effective in generating new customers and keeping the existing ones. While setting goals it is important to keep in mind to know the visitors or customers you are expecting at your site. You should be flexible enough to adapt to the needs of your changing traffic or visitors.

Online business is both, very easy and very difficult to manage at the same time. Though this is a contradictory statement, it is a reality. You can easily set up an online business to sell a product but bringing customers to your site is a big task and difficult one too!! So instead of gaining money, you are actually losing money because of the monthly rent that you’re paying to have your website hosted in cyberspace. The best way of getting the attention of people is through advertising. There are various methods to market your product online or generate traffic. Some of them are CPA(Cost Per Action) campaigns, PPC(pay per click) campaigns, Private Ads, CPM Ads, Article Marketing, Viral Marketing, Marketing on forums, Word of mouth Advertising, Social Media Marketing or Media Marketing and Referral traffic and SEO. Put together all this refers to website marketing.

Now let us discuss some of them. One of the most easy and effective way to get noticed is Pay per Click campaign or PPC. This is based on keywords or phrases related to the online business and whenever a person types this and searches the net he gets a listing by the search engines which lead to your site. These search engine listings generally appear in a box above the natural listings. Whenever a person clicks on this listing the company or organization pays a certain amount to the search engines. In fact you have to purchase these ‘keywords’ making monthly payments to the search engines. The less known phrases cost less and the more popular keywords are expensive. The trick is to purchase less expensive keywords and use them judiciously and at the same time, smartly.

But the flip side of PPC is that it sends both non-business and business traffic to your website and you end up paying for non-business traffic too. It is also expensive as your competitor may outbid you. So monitoring the PPC listing daily is an important daily schedule. Professionals are hired to take care of PPC campaigns who keep in mind the goals, asset and objectives of the online business in mind while designing such campaigns.

In contrast another website marketing strategy  tries to divert traffic to your website through natural high rankings in search engines. This method is called or Search Engine Optimization and the traffic sent through this method is called organic traffic. It is not free but relatively cheaper than PPC. SEO does not aim at clicking the site link. It is a simpler technique which aims at getting a higher rank in the listing of search engines(Yahoo,MSN,etc.) whenever a person types in a keyword to search his desired result. The experts make sure that your site is compliant with Search Engine Algorithms and no spamming or “black hat techniques” are used to rank your site.

Certain tools are used for SEO such as article posting, forum posting, press releases and blog postings. These send referral traffic to your website. Additionally, search engines help you divert the online traffic to your site. It also helps to establish goodwill for your site and build visibility with other webmasters which helps the sustainability in the long run. You can take it from there and build website strategies such as pay-per-impression or pay-per-action or blogging to monetize the traffic diverted by search engines.

B2B referral traffic consists of the incoming links from businesses which are related to your kind of business. You place their link on your website and they place yours on their site. These businesses are then visited by online surfers or visitors. That brings traffic to your site and vice a versa. So in a way incoming and reciprocal links are form of advertisement of your business on the basis of mutual understanding of businesses.
According to a recent online study, over 50% of Internet users have visited websites through referral traffic. These can be bogs, directories, forums and search engines.

Blogs and forums are compared to communities. You must then invest the time and effort into getting your target audience opt-in to receiving future specials and updates – Newsletters, enzines, new product reviews or free offer etc.-Something for them to come visit your website over and over again. According to one survey 43.2% of online traffic is Direct traffic, 36.1% is through Search engines and 20.7% is through referring sites. Referral traffic is more interactive way to generate traffic to your bog or website.

It pays to apply different strategies and not just simply cost cutting when business hits ‘bad weather’. While SEO may be economical in the long run, PPC generates instant traffic. For a new website referral traffic is hard to come by. Online or offline what is most important in a business is to build a relationship with the people and make them trust you. Once they start trusting you, they will become your loyal customers and talk about you and your service getting you more traffic.

A turnaround in internet strategy is the use of press releases to reach out to millions of users who have internet access and subscribe to RSS feeds.

Gone are the days when press releases depended upon a handful of journalists. You can now communicate with your customers directly through Google, Yahoo and other such verticals. Your customers and potential customers should reda about yourproduct on the internet and reach your website directly.

You can write a press release about anything in your company. Do not wait for something big to happen.

Make sure that your press release contains terms and phrases that customers use to find you. This way you may be picked up by search engines.

Tips for Press Release

• Always write your press release in third person.
• Include a quote or two for authenticity.
• Keep the headlines of your press release interesting.
• Add a date to a press release only if necessary.
• Add a follow-up URL in a press release; if necessary create specific landing pages. Try to track the visits from a press release to your website. It provides a useful insight into your customer behavior and is useful for further press release strategies.
• Keep the press release length at about 350 to 500 words
• Release the press release on your website and for submission simultaneously
• Check for spelling mistakes
• A press release that offers a new solution to an existing problem is likely to be picked up by readers.
• Add social bookmarking tags to your press release, this makes it easier for a person interested in your product refer the product to his or her group. In short, it helps in viral marketing.

Press Release or Media Section on Website

It is helpful to have your own press release or media section on your website. It has been proved that journalists or even customers often visit the media or press release section on your site to try and get latest information about your company and its product. Additionally, press releases will live on your site forever, but will get deleted from other sites, most probably after three months. You media section can also include informative videos and audios that a customer may enjoy seeing.

A word of caution however. DO NOT ignore the traditional media. They have their own role to play especially in attracting local business. Use the internet aprt from the traditional press.

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List of Press Release sites

PRWeb

PR Leap

Web Wire

PR Web Direct

PR News Wire

Fast Pitch Networking

1888 Press Release

Business Wire

PR Log

Free-Press-Release

PR

Market Wire

Majon

24-7 Press Release

Press-Release-Writing

eReleases

Send 2 Press

Pressbox

EMail Wire

Internet News Bureau

Prime News Wire

USA News

EWorld Wire

Press Flash

Soft Press Release

Press Release Network

Mass Media Distribution

News Wire Today

Press-Releases

News Press

Corporate News

Exclamation PR

Company Press

Press Release 365

Trans World News

Free-Press-Release-Center

Rush PR News

DP Directory

PR Free

Exact Release

PR Urgent

PR 9

Mopress

Online PR News