Getting Started With Coupon Marketing

Coupons can be used in just about every business. I’ve sat and

thought and thought about it, but I can’t think of any business that

coupons can’t be used in.

Coupons can be used to drive traffic to your site, reach new

customers, entice past customers to purchase from you again, to sell

big ticket items by offering a discount on them, to get customers to

buy more from you, and so many other different ways.

Coupons can also create a “buzz” about your business. There are

people who specialize in what is called “buzz marketing”. I’m sure

you’ve buzzed about a product. Have you ever bought a product and

been so delighted with it that you told your family and friends, or even

complete strangers that were standing in the grocery isle next to you

thinking about buying this product. Then you have “buzzed”. That’s

exactly what coupons can do for your business. If you are offering a

coupon for your product or service, and you get one happy customer

you can bet they are going to tell others. This will set off a viral buzz

that will bring more and more people to your busines.

Are you starting to see how these coupons can be used in several

different ways to create more income and/or prospects? Well then

keep reading because I’ve got a lot more information about this super

marketing tactic that’s really going to get you excited.

Now, I want you to take out a sheet of paper or open up your word

processor and think of the products or services in your business that

you could offer a discount on.

Here’s what my list looks like:

I could:

1 - Offer a discount on my consulting services

 2 - Offer a buy one get one free offer on advertising services I offer.

3. Offer a coupon for free stuff when someone joins one of my

membership sites.

4. Offer a $X discount on my ebooks, and software.

I know your business may be different than mine, but you can still find

at least one thing to offer a discount on or a free offer for buying what

you are selling.

If you can’t think of anything, compile a list of everything your

business offers, then go back over that list, and I am sure you will find

something. If you STILL can’t find something, then my advice would

be to develop or buy something inexpensive that you can either give

away free or offer a discount on to achieve the goal you have for using

coupons.

We’ll talk about why and how to use coupons in the next sections, so

you’re going to get even more ideas. I suggest you take out a note

pad right now so you can jot down anything that may come to mind.

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Wife's dying wish for husband's new family touches hometown

(CNN) -- Brenda Schmitz knew she wouldn't live to watch her four boys grow up. Diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer, she was told she would die within months.

A month before her death, Brenda did something that now -- two years later -- has brought tears of joy to people throughout her town of Des Moines, Iowa, and across the country.

She wrote a letter addressed to a local radio station's Christmas Wish program. Brenda had a friend keep the letter until her husband, David, found a new woman to spend his life with.

In September, David asked Jayne Abraham to marry him. Brenda's friend pulled through, and the station recently received the letter.

"About a week and a half ago, an anonymous letter was sent to Star 102.5 Christmas Wish. We've been granting Christmas Wishes for over 20 years and I've never read a letter like the one I received from Brenda," station manager Scott Allen says. "Everyone, no matter the age, was moved."

The station decided to grant the wish Brenda laid out in her letter. The station told David only that someone sent in a Christmas wish for his family and asked him to come to the studio.

"I tried to quiz them to ask who it was from, but they wouldn't tell me anything besides it was a very personal wish," David said.

On Thursday, radio host Colleen Kelly read Brenda's letter to David.

"My reason for writing is this. I have a wish. I have a wish for David, the boys, and the woman and her family if she has kids also. I want them to know I love them very much," Brenda wrote in the letter. She added that she wants them to "always feel safe in a world of pain."

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How to Succeed in Personal Finance MLM

Personal finance MLM is a great opportunity and if you are armed with the right skills, you can go far in this business. For this reason many people fail in this business. Let’s face it, business structure, compensation plan, product and training systems etc are important but without the right attitude, these tools are useless. They can’t help you to build any real-time personal finance MLM. It makes sense for those who are just new to building personal finance in MLM to focus on this all-important aspect. The four primary keys to develop an attitude that will lead you to your personal finance MLM success:

• Be Open to Learn
If you are not ready to learn things from others, chances are that you may fail in the MLM business. It’s always wise to learn from those who have been there. Find out those who succeeded in personal finance MLM and ask them how you can make your business work, listen to what they say, and then follow through on their advice. If something does not seem to be working, contact them again and discuss the issue again.

• Understand Your Purpose
There are many people who join MLM because they actually enjoy the challenges of the sales process. Others join it because it had the potential to help them achieve something big in their personal finance and in their lives. The purposes may be different but everyone must have an aim behind joining MLM. And it is this purpose that motivates the people to keep on doing the work that needs to be done in MLM. They always keep their purposes at the forefront of their minds which motivates to work even harder.

• Stay Positive
In order to achieve success in personal finance MLM, you should develop the ability to stay positive. Like anything else, there will be ups and downs in the MLM business along the process. Staying positive through the downs would not just make you relax but will also help you become successful in the long run!

• Be Committed
Commitment is another great thing that determines your success in any niche. You should learn to meet your commitments in order to succeed. Your Personal finance MLM success hugely depends on it.

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How to Use Guarantees to Increase Sales?

While the greater portion of my career has been in business development consulting and professional speaking, I have spent many years (over ten) in Direct Marketing and three years on the Web. My favorite marketing "guru" is Dan Kennedy, dubbed "The Millionaire Maker" . And if there is one lesson he teaches from which I derive the most profitable results (one of many from a system he calls "Magnetic Marketing") is the awesome power behind guarantees.

If you offer a product or service without a guarantee, you're losing a great percentage of potential sales. Obviously, the Internet has opened many doors, including those to many unscrupulous entrepreneurs. Scams on the Internet are rampant and, since there is no "official" police or watchdog, I would even venture as to say that millions of dollars are lost to these scamsters each month.

Guarantees Increase Sales
While there are many regionally accredited entities and watchgroups, it doesn't stop many a crafty entrepreneur to bypass the system by going through some obscure country/site to sell their snake oils. In fact, today on the news ("CBC Radio Canada International") was reported a scheme in which a weight-loss drug, not yet approved in Canada, has been bought by a company and sold in Canada on the Internet. The matter is currently under investigation by the pharmaceutical manufacturer and Canadian health officials.

Nevertheless, because of these tricksters and the multitude of challenges presented on the Web, people are leery and will increasingly seek out more secure means to benefit from offers on the Internet. Guarantees are therefore powerful tools for the prosperity-seeking cybermarketer and can do two very important things that will help grow one's profits: Increase sales and reduce returns.

When you offer a guarantee, you reduce the skepticism around the purchase of your product or service. Consumers are cautious of making a purchase via the Web and guarantees give you almost instant credibility with potential customers. If you have a professionally-looking Web site, an ethical sales approach, and a proven product or service, the lack of a guarantee will still, particularly on the Internet, cause most visitors to perceive your offer as questionable in the very least least. 

Guarantees Increase Perceived Value
Chris Ayers, an Internet Marketer and publisher of the FREE newsletter "Unlimited Traffic!" , gives an astonishing real-life example. Writes Ayers, "One of my first direct mail products years ago was a self-study program that I marketed to engineers preparing for a certification exam. (...) When I first offered the program in a trade magazine, my sales weren't even enough to cover the cost of the ad."

He continues: "I changed my ad and sales letter to include a guarantee and the results were amazing! The number of responses to the same ad increased by a factor of 20. And my conversion rate from my sales letter rose from 10% to almost 40%... Just by adding a guarantee!"

Take for instance the story of the Monaghan brothers. The two ran a pizzeria in order to pay their way through college. While one worked the day shift in order to attend school at night, the other did the converse. After about a year in the money-losing venture, one of the brothers sold his share of the business for a beat-up old car "and drove into the sunset." The other, however, with a good dose of stick-to-it-iveness, decided to make something of his fledgeling pizzeria.

According to some interviews he recently gave, Tom Monaghan said that, at the time, he wasn't quite sure that his decision to put a guarantee on his pizza delivery would change much. But obviously, history tells us that his decision was the greatest one he ever made. By simply marketing the strength of a guarantee, i.e., "Pizza delivered fresh in 30 minutes or it's free,"  became the multimillion dollar franchise operation we know today.

Guarantees Reduce Returns
Guarantees will increase sales. And the stronger the guarantee, the larger the increase. But unbeknownst to many marketers, one of the most important benefits of using a guarantee is the fact that it can actually reduce returns. According to certain successful cybermarketers such as Ayers, a strong guarantee results in fewer returns. For instance, Ayers got fewer returns with a 90 day guarantee than he did with a 30 day guarantee. Others got fewer returns when they offered to let clients keep some bonus items if the product was returned.

The parallel obviously dictates. While people order from the Web do so because of the convenience it offers, a site that offers a no-hassle return policy (or risk-free promise) adds to the convenience factor and instills a greater confidence in the buyer's psyche.

If you offer a product or service, find ways to offer a guarantee along with it. Rather than taking a risk by removing it from your potential clients' decisions, you will likely be decreasing it. In other words, use guarantees to guarantee your success.

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How to Convert Hits into Sales?

One of the common questions asked by web site owners is: "I’m getting plenty of hits but no sales – what is going on?" This article will give you some tips on how to address this issue.

Your Product

The first area to review is the product or service that you are offering. Does a market exist for it? To answer this question you need to find out whether similar products are being sold on the Internet successfully. If not, you may need to rethink your Internet strategy. If others are selling a similar product successfully, then this would tend to confirm that there is a market for your product.

Next, look at the strategy and pricing being adopted by your competitors. How do you compare? Why should your visitors buy from you rather than one of your competitors? Answering these questions will provide you with valuable information you can use to improve your situation and generate more sales.

Also, take a critical look at your product quality. Does it live up to the claims you are making on your web pages? If not, improve your product so that it does or modify your web page to be more truthful about it.

Provide Solutions

Your visitors are looking for a solution to a problem. Do you know what problems your visitors are looking for solutions to? Does your web site show how your product will solve your visitor’s problem? You will need to put yourself into your visitor’s shoes to better understand what they are seeking so that you can provide the solution they need.

One way to better understand your visitors is to monitor where your visitors are coming from. If they are coming from the search engines, knowing what search terms they are using can provide some clues. You may find some surprises when you review this information about your site. The tool I use to capture this information is WebPosition Gold. More information can be found at the URL: http://www.ksinclair.com/sengine.htm

Once you understand the problem your visitors want solved, revise your web pages to show that your product will provide the solution they need.

Site Design

Your site needs to look like it is a commercial web site rather than an amateur home page. The design needs to be consistent from page to page and it needs to be easy to navigate. Contact details including physical address, phone numbers and email address need to be shown.

Graphics need to be minimized to ensure that your page downloads quickly. Also, ensure that your web host provides a fast connection to the Internet. Most people will not wait for a page that takes a long time to download. They will just move on to your competitor.

Make it easy to order. I recall seeing statistics recently that suggested that a large number of people abandon a web site in the middle of the order process. A common reason for this is that the order process is too time consuming and complicated. Make yours simple and quick and you will lose fewer sales.

Ensure that your web page has a strong headline that grabs your visitors and makes them want to read more. Your headline should in effect say "You have this problem, here is the solution". Your web site should then demonstrate that you understand the problem and that you can in fact provide the solution.

Testimonials and Guarantees

Testimonials and guarantees can have a huge impact on your level of sales. On the web, a key priority is to build credibility. The common methods used are having a privacy statement, publishing a newsletter, publishing testimonials from satisfied customers and providing a strong guarantee.

Take every opportunity to gather comments from your customers about how your product has helped them. Get their permission to publish these comments as testimonials. If need be, provide them with a gift for giving you their permission to publish their comments. A way of getting comments is a customer feedback survey. This can be used for the purpose of gaining testimonials as well as seeking ways to improve your product or develop additional products your customers may need.

A strong guarantee will provide your visitor with greater confidence to purchase your product. Try to make your guarantee simple and without too many conditions. Always honour your guarantee without question or delay.

Conclusion

Getting plenty of hits to your web site is a very positive situation to be in. By implementing some of the hints provided in this article, you can convert these visitors into being your customers.

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Advertising on Your Site: When, How & How Much?

This has been a question I've been hearing a lot from my clients, as more and more of them start looking at their traffic analysis and think to themselves that there may be some income involved :)

First of all, there are a few do's and don'ts when taking advertising on your site, although these can depend highly on what type (industry, target market, traffic volume, etc.) of site yours is.

Do's

• Find out what your competition is doing in regards to advertising on their site. ***Note*** This must be followed with caution, however, since the fact that someone in your industry is doing it may not mean it's a "good" thing to do (See don'ts list)
• Get some rate sheets. Ideally from sites in the same industry as your own, but if not, from major traffic sites (There is a caveat to this, as well, see "Pricing")
• Keep track of your Web stats Even though your Web stats may not be 100% accurate (look for the article "Server Caching: When hits don't count" on Networld), the numbers that your server does log are vitally important, especially to those who may be about to pay you for space within your site.
• Keep your site updated, fresh, interactive, etc. In other words, keep the traffic flow up. There's nothing worse than selling an advertiser on one set of traffic predictions only to have them fall short because you let the site go stale.
• Choose carefully between who you allow to purchase space on your site. I'm sure I don't need to think of examples of ads that would actually drive traffic *away* from your Web site!

Don'ts

• Don't use link exchanges or banner exchanges if your site is a 'real' commercial venture. With due respect to these organizations, the ads are rather tacky at times, and every Tom, Dick and Jane has a banner exchange on their personal sites. This is not to mention the fact that the only money flow is in the banner owner's direction, since your 'paychecks' from hosting these ads can quite literally be in the decimals of a cent. (And coming from a Canadian, that's REALLY small change!)
• Don't take ads from adult sites, unless your site is of an adult nature, as well. Like banner exchanges, everybody has 'em, and they do nothing for your commercial site other than slow the download.
• Don't charge the same rates as Lycos or Microsoft, unless
  a) your traffic is upwards of one million hits a day,
  b) your target audience is so specialized that you are one of the very few serving the market.
• Don't put a link or banner with the words "Your ad could be here!" on your site. It looks tacky and basically tells people you are hurting for money. Put a small link near the bottom of your page titled "Advertising Info", or similar, with contact information for the person selling the ad space on your site.
• Don't try selling ads without at least three months of Web stats to back up your traffic claims (that's an absolute minimum, unless you have other publications in which you have advertisers already).
• These are only a few of the typical do's and don'ts, but they're the most important. Much of it is (I hope) common sense. I have, however, seen many a Web site plummet down the black hole of forgotten Web sites due to tacky, tasteless or grossly inappropriate advertising. Remember, in marketing, all money is *NOT* the same!

Pricing

What can I charge for my ads? This is the question I hate the most, because I have to give the most annoying answer: It depends.

It depends on things like; how long has your site been up? How much traffic actually goes through your site? How many other sites link to yours? Do you already have advertisers in your other publications (magazines, newsletters, etc.) Is your site generally open to the public or closed to members or clients only? How much time do you have to guarantee (as much as possible) the continued traffic patterns?

Aside from that, this newsletter is international in nature, so there may be many factors in your home countries that are different from here (Canada).

One of the best solutions to pricing (on any item, service, advertising, etc.) is the simplest: Ask a valued client what they would pay for such a service. It stuns me how many people think their relationships with their client's are one way only. For example, the client asks you questions/requests services and then pays you for it. ASK. Tell one or three of your client's that you are thinking of allowing advertising within your site and what they, if they were interested in such a service, would be willing to pay for it.

Most will give you an honest answer, or a slightly low-balled one (After all, they may well be interested in the idea!) Most clients will also appreciate tremendously the fact that you value their advice and/or opinions and not only their checks!

What else do I need?

Information. A lot of it. To close the sale on any of the well-paying (and more importantly, regular) clients, you will need detailed demographics on who uses your site, which sections are the busiest, what your traffic patterns are like, who else is linking to your site, search engine visibility, your own advertising of your web site, the nature of your site and the products, services or information it offers, your update schedule, major events for the future, and so on.

Naturally, you will probably not need to give *all* of this information to each and every advertiser, since they will individually consider certain types of data more important than others.

You also need to make sure your site is as promoted as it can possibly be. Even after you've done that, do it some more. Get the cross-links with other sites, make sure your current advertising contains your URL. Be active in the newsgroups (in a helpful, contributing way, no spamming!) with your URL in the tagline. Make sure your invoices, faxes, letterhead, etc., have your URL on them prominently. Keep registering in the other search engines (no, you didn't get them all the first time around, and you never will, there are more every week )

To shamelessly plug my own firm, InternAlysis specializes in just the above types of information: Competitive Intelligence. If you're considering advertising as a primary or even consistent portion of your income model, it is highly suggested that you hire an outside firm to take a look at your site and it's positioning with the competition. There are many people out there that tend to miss a lot on the competition, simply due to their own bias.

will be on your Web stats, what they mean, how they should be telling you how to edit your site, and how to present them to your CEO's or your advertisers

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Spin Money from Your Web Site with Rotating Banners

Banners can be found in almost every website. Its popularity as an online advertising vehicle is undisputed although its effectiveness has been under scrutiny lately. Just like radio and TV commercials, we are beginning to click past banners without paying much attention to them. The average click-through rate on banners is only 2.6% - about the same as regular direct mail.

If you want to sell banner ad space on your site, you must come up with a winning strategy to increase the banners' click-through rate. Here are some tips to make your banner advertising more effective:

1. Accept only advertisers whose products or services are complementary to your web contents.

2. Encourage the use of animated banners to attract viewers' attention.

3. Place only one banner per page.

4. Your web page should have a light color or white background for maximum contrast with the banners.

5. Entice people to click on the banners with phrases like "Click here for more information!" or "Win a prize!"

The above measures may attract first-time visitors, but definitely not the repeat visitors. Having seen the same banner in that same spot over and over again, it is unlikely that a repeat visitor would ever click on the banner.

This banner burnout phenomenon can be avoided with a good banner rotation engine. Each time a person goes to your site, the rotation engine will rotate the banners stored in its inventory and present a new banner to the visitor.

The rotation engine can also be used to rotate banners throughout the entire site, in effect, increasing your ad space inventory by many folds. With this system, you can actually run as many banners as you like if you accept advertising on a pay-per-impression basis.

Most advertisers want to place their banners on the main index pages for maximum exposure. As a result, it is not uncommon for popular portal to display up to ten banners on its homepage and none on its content pages. With an automated rotation engine installed throughout the entire site, advertisers need not specify where they want to place their banners. Their banners will be randomly displayed wherever the visitor goes.

Obviously, you need a good banner rotation engine to achieve the above objective - one that will let you track vital statistics such as impressions, click-through, and click-through ratio. There are more than a few banner rotation engines available on the net, but their prices of a few thousands dollars would cut deeply into your profit margins. This is where OrbitCycle comes in.

OrbitCycle banner rotation engine is free of charge! It provides real-time detailed statistics on your banners' impression, click-through and click-through ratio. With OrbitCycle, you don't have to know any type of programming. The program is hosted on OrbitCycle's server, which offers an easy-to-use interface that lets you add, delete and track your banners easily.

You can get the banner rotation engine at http://www.orbitcycle.com. There is no catch! For allowing you to use OrbitCycle free of charge, the company will use 10% of your account's banner impressions to run its own banners or its advertisers' banners. This is a low price to pay considering the fact that most banner exchanges offer a 2-for-1 exchange, which represent an effective cost of 50% for using their services.

Note: Aloha-City has installed a similar banner rotation system in Income Online - a classified ad site for work at home and online business opportunities. The same system can be installed throughout the entire site. Click here for more information on banner advertising in Aloha-City.

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