Viral Marketing

Once upon a time, viral marketing consisted basically by email . But now it has progressed far beyond that. You need to have a marketing strategy and be able to accomplish your goal of creating a successful viral marketing campaign. There are several ways to accomplish this task and when you utilize all of them together it will be truly unstoppable.

Email

Blogging

Newsletters

Chat Rooms/Forums

Videos

Web Casts/Pod Casts

RSS Feeds

Invite people to tell their friends

Traffic Exchanges

E-Zines

EBooks

There are many other ways as well and this is just the tip of the iceberg. As you go on you will find many other useful ways to make your campaigns explode virally.

I will discuss each of these in more detail as we go along, so please check back often.

10 Cool Ways To Attract People To Your Web Site

1. Give people a free subscription to your e-zine.
Almost everyone is publishing a e-zine nowadays
so it's important to give something extra with the
free subscription. You could offer a free gift or
advertising when people subscribe.

2. Provide your visitors with free content. Your
content will be more attractive to your visitors if
it's up-to-date or original. You could also offer
people the option to reprint the content in their
e-zine or web site.

3. Offer a free online directory. The directory
could be full of interesting ebooks, e-zines, web
sites etc. If people find your directory to be a
valuable resource they will visit it over and over.

4. Give your visitors a free ebook. You could
also include your own ad in the ebook and allow
other people to give it away. If you don't want to
take the time to write one, you could ask other
writers permission to use their articles.

5. Hold free online classes or seminars. They
could be held in your web site's chat room. The
idea of "live" information will definitely entice
people to visit your web site. You will become
known as an expert on the topic.

6. Give visitors a free entry into your contest or
sweepstakes. The prizes should be something of
interest or value to your visitors. Most people
who enter will continually revisit your web site to
get the results.

7. Let visitors download free software. It could
be freeware, shareware, demos etc. You could
even turn part of your site into a free software
directory. If you created the software, include
your ad inside and let other people give it away.

8. Offer free online services or utilities from your
web site. They could be search engine submitting,
copy writing proofreading etc. The service or
utility should be helpful to your target audience.

9. Give free consulting to people who visit your
web site. You could offer your knowledge via
e-mail or by telephone. People will consider this
a huge value because consulting fees can be very
expensive.

10. Give your visitors a free membership to your
online club. People want to belong to something,
why not your online club. You could also give
away a free e-zine for club members only.

Quote of the Day:

"Forget the resolutions. Forget control and
discipline...too much work. Instead try experimenting. Go
in search of something to fall in love with...something
about yourself, your career, your spouse." -- Dale Dauten

10 Proven Ways To Accelerate Your Profits

1. Make copies of your web site in many different
languages. This'll allow foreign speaking people to
read your web site and advertisements.

2. Give your customers a surprise bonus for buying.
When you give customers more than they expect,
there is a good chance they will buy from you again.

3. Send greeting cards offline or online to customers
on holidays. You'll get the chance to increase your
orders by including your ad inside the card.

4. Market your products or services to your target
audience. For example, don't try to sell a football
in a cooking magazine.

5. Give people the option of buying other products
or add on products when they decide to buy your
main product or service at the point of sale.

6. Think of new ways to attract people to buy your
products or services. You could add on extra free
bonuses, delivery options, payments options, etc.

7. Give other businesses the option of selling your
product. It could be a simple joint venture deal or
an affiliate/associate program.

8. Follow-up regularly with all your prospects and
current customers. When people see your ad more
than once they are more likely to buy.

9. Learn sales ideas from reading and studying other
business' advertising and marketing material. It
could be ads, brochures, tv ads, sales letters, etc.

10. Educate yourself with new strategies to increase
your sales. You could take classes, subscribe to
e-zines and magazines, read books or ebooks, etc.

Quote of the Day:

"Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is
something for you to do in the world. So long as you can
sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain." -- Helen
Keller

Making money online is easier than you think...

Starting Your Home Business

In order to begin your home business you have to make plans to get started. Without a plan you go nowhere or you go in circles accomplishing nothing. In order to begin your business on the right path you should come up with a business plan, a marketing plan and a home plan.  Your business plan is a necessary item that will be needed for loan applications, the hiring of employees, for business affiliates and personal goal setting. You want to have information such as what your business is named and what the mission of your business is. What is your product or service and who is it being made for. Who is your target customer base? What will it cost to make your product and what can you sell it for? What will be your end profit? These key pieces of information are needed especially when you require start up funds. These can be funds from a bank loan or an affiliate who is willing to become a financial backer of your company. Create a binder or portfolio for your business plan. Make copies and keep this accessible for times when it is needed.

 

Included in your business plan should be a marketing plan or an advertising campaign. How do you plan to provide the consumer public with information about your business, product or service? Will you be renting a billboard, running newspaper advertisements, magazine ads, television, radio and so on? Will you have a website or be running Internet ads such as those sponsored by Google ad sense or Microsoft ad center? What is the cost of each advertisement media? Do you have the funding for these advertising efforts or do you need outside funds? This once again shows any outside parties that you have done the needed research to know how you plan to reach the consumer public for sales. You can also include the percentages or charts that show success of similar advertising campaigns and how well your marketing choices will relate to your business.

 

A home plan is for the benefit of you and your family while your business takes shape. You have to be realistic in the facts that a business does not become a hit success over night. Money, time and effort are needed before you will see a solid flow of income from your home business. You need to be aware of your household budget per week and month. Be sure that you have at a minimum three months worth of savings to allow for household expenses including utilities, food, gas, hygiene items etc. This will allow you to apply other funds to your business without creating strife in your home. You may also want to maintain a part time job position at your current job or elsewhere. If your spouse works this may not be required. The exact plans for a household will vary on the specific family needs. Preparation is key to a successful business start up as well as successful home life as the transition from an outside job to a home based career take place.

Boosting Morale By Allowing Your Employees To Work From home

Are you losing good employees to the work at home market? This is something that many employers struggle with because they have found that people enjoy working from home. They are able to spend time with their families and do the things around the house that need to be done. Also, they can usually get much more done during the day by working from home than they would be able to do by working for you in your office. Therefore, you might have found that many of your employees leave what they are doing for you in order to work from home. You are then left with a bunch of people who aren't very good and who are not able to do the work that you had with your good employees. There are several things that you can do about this. First of all, you can help your employees by allowing them to keep working for you, but do most of it from home.

 

It all depends on your business, but most likely there is going to be something that your employees can do at home. Think about all of the things that they do each day, and unless they are working with customers the entire time they are there, they can probably do some or all of their work at home. Remember that if you can work out a system where your employees are allowed to do some or all of their work from home, they will probably be happier and better able to do the work that needs to be done at the office.

 

If you allow your employees to do what they can do at home, without having to worry about taking a dock in pay for it, you are going to find that you will have much better employees. This means that you will be able to take advantage of the morale that your employees have, and you will also be able to make them much happier with you and much happier in their lives in general. Allowing your employees to do what they can do at home will mean that when they are working in your office they are less likely to be bored or frustrated or burnt out. If you can have them come in several times a week for meetings or to do what they need to do, you will find that they are better able to have the morale that you need for your business.

 

Boosting morale is always a better way to get things done, rather than trying to drive your employees to work harder than they want to work. If you can make them happier with their lives by allowing them to have some time to work at home during the week you will find that they are actually going to produce more for you ,and be happier with the business overall. This might be the best way that you have to keep the good employees you have and attract new employees.

FW: The 10 Deadly Sins of an Affiliate Marketing Article

At this point in time there is not an online entrepreneur left who does not recognize the immense power and promise that the use of an affiliate marketing article offers. Sure, text links and banner ads are great, but when it comes to creating the kind of advertising vehicle that consumers will hold on to and even pass on to others, you cannot beat article marketing! Of course, like any other good thing there are pitfalls to avoid.

 

As a matter of fact, the 10 deadly sins of an affiliate marketing article must be avoided at all cost, lest your company’s reputation will suffer!

 

1. Whatever you do with your affiliate marketing article, do not use it to spam a blog or a forum. Some self proclaimed marketers have attempted to use such articles as forum posts and while they might write different introductions for the article to make it look like an ad hoc posting in response to another forum poster, within a few short sentences it becomes painfully obvious that the post is little more than an unwelcome sales pitch.

2. Unless you are a seasoned wordsmith, have your affiliate marketing article ghostwritten. The sheer volume of badly written articles – be it diction, grammar, or punctuation – is legion and there is little more embarrassing than having your customers point out a number of mistakes and error.

3. Fact-check your articles. This is vital when you use statistical data but also quotes.

4. Keep it pithy. 400 to 500 words are more than sufficient to write a worthwhile piece of non fiction to market your company, good, or service. Exceeding the 800 word count is pushing it.

5. Do not put all of your advertising eggs in one basket but instead commission (if you use a ghostwriter) a number of articles that look at the topic and product form a number of different angles. This puts volume behind your marketing campaign and while one approach may not appeal to your readers, another one might have just the hook you need to get the reader to turn into a buyer.

6. Do not overdo the pitch in your affiliate marketing article. Sure, you want everyone to know that your products and company at the cat’s meow, but unless you tempter substance with advertising, you will not find too many readers.

7. Advertise one thing only per article. Choose your product, your company, or an email newsletter you are offering for free. Cutting down on the things marketed permit for the development of a great strategy throughout the article.

8. Forgetting to include an opt-in link to your mailing list or email newsletter subscription database is perhaps the most egregious of the 10 deadly sins of an affiliate marketing article. Each article that is not offering that option simply is not working hard enough for you!

9. Having too many articles that differ in tone. While some articles may lend themselves to be spunky but intellectual, the failure to have your article ghostwritten by one writer will lead to a number of different skill levels to craft your work. Instead, request that one freelancer be given the assignment to make sure the tone remains similar.

10. Last but not least, cutting and pasting freely available material from the Internet is a deadly sin that might not get you in trouble, but it will show that your company has nothing new to offer. This is not the impression you want your clientele to have of you, your product, or the company you represent!

Online Home Based Business Schedule

In order to run a successful online home based business, you need to create a work-at-home schedule that allows you to get all your work done each day. Even though you work from home, you still need to be productive in order to earn a living. If you are the type who procrastinates, then you may want to reconsider working from home. Those who are able to motivate themselves usually are successful. But this does not mean that people who lack self motivation skills can't learn, it may just be more difficult than for others. Creating a daily schedule may be necessary in order to maintain a steady pace.

 

In order to create an efficient schedule, you need to write down all the daily task that need to be accomplished during the day. Once you have these tasks written down, then you can begin to create a schedule. Based on the number of hours you want to work each day, you should set realistic times for completion so you aren't rushing through them. Instead, you can take your time to make sure they are done correctly. Many people believe they can accomplish more during the day than is actually possible, so learning how to budget time and gauge how much time each tasks takes can help you plan for your day.

 

Investing in a calendar, dry erase board, and other materials to create your schedule will help in the long run. Once you have a list, you can check off items as they are completed, add or subtract from the list, and determine how long you need to work each day. The more time you put into your business in the beginning, the more successful it will be. Online businesses are a wonderful opportunity for you to work from home, but you need to maintain a work ethic that is strong. Because you may have to complete various tasks that others in your previous job may have completed, you will find that there aren't enough hours in the day to get all the work done. This will change once your business is established, but you may need to put in extra hours in the evening and on weekends in order to make your business grow.

 

Online home businesses that sell products to others will require more work than selling services, or digital items such as books and manuals that can be downloaded onto a customer's computer. If you sell products on online auction sites or through a website, you will have to work out a packing and shipping schedule so you aren’t spending all of your time running to the post office to ship an order. Selecting one or two days a week to pack and ship items will help your work load tremendously. Depending on the popularity of your product, you may need to increase these days, especially around the holidays. When you stay focused on running your business and sticking to a schedule, you will find that success is not difficult to achieve.