How To Using Affiliate Marketing To Make More Sales

Even if you are already using the Internet to market your business, you should consider adding affiliate marketing to you Internet marketing campaign. Affiliate marketing, when done right, can yield a great deal of positive results for your business. Furthermore, even when affiliate marketing is not done right, it will not likely be financially detrimental to the business. This is because affiliate marketing is essentially an advertising program in which you only pay the affiliates when their marketing efforts yield financial results for your business. This article will take a look at affiliate marketing and explain how it works and how you can maximize the benefits of affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing essentially involves having website owners, known as affiliates, post advertisements for your website on their own website. You can lear more about affiliate marketig by checking out the Internet marketing blog at www.jeremyburns.com for weekly updates. Affiliate advertisements encourage visitors to click on the link and visit your website. The advertisements are specially coded to allow you to determine how many visitors enter your website through this advertisement. Unlike other types of Internet advertising where the business owner pays for the opportunity to place the advertisement on the website, an affiliate program does not work this way. Instead the affiliate is paid when the advertisement yields a desired result. Affiliate advertisement can work on a pay per impression, pay per click, pay per lead or pay per sale basis. Pay per impression means the affiliate earns a profit each time the affiliate advertisement is served. This means for each unique visitor who views the advertisement the affiliate is given a predetermined amount of money. This amount will depend on a number of factors and will be agreed upon by the business owner and the affiliate before the advertisements begin appearing on the affiliate’s website. Pay per click programs reward the affiliate each time a visit clicks through the advertisement. Pay per lead programs reward the affiliate when a visitor not only clicks on the advertisement but also performs a desired action such as filling out a survey or registering with the website. Pay per sale programs reward the affiliate each time a visitor clicks through the advertisement on the affiliate’s website and also makes a purchase during this visit. The compensation plans associated with affiliate program s are so desirable because the business owner can have a number of affiliates and they only have to pay these affiliates if the advertising on the affiliate’s website is effective. Affiliate marketing does not always work. When seeking out affiliates it is important to look for a number of different factors. An affiliate with a great deal of experience, a website with high traffic and a proven track record for producing positive results will likely be a good choice for an affiliate marketing program. These affiliates rely on their advertising knowledge to promote the businesses and do not necessarily have to understand the business they are promoting. Another excellent choice for affiliate marketing is to select another business that is closely related to your own business but does not compete with your business. This is a good idea because they may share your target audience and their website visitors will also likely be interested in visiting your website as well. For example if you sell running shoes you may wish to run an affiliate marketing campaign on a website that promotes road races such as marathons, half marathons, 10Ks and 5Ks. This website does not directly compete with you r business but they are likely to attract an audience that would be interested in and have a need for your products or services. Deciding whether or not to implement an affiliate marketing campaign is easy. As we previously mentioned there is very little risk in this type of campaign so it is worthwhile in just about any situation. A more important decision to make is how you plan to compensate your affiliates. The compensation for pay per impression programs is typically pretty low because your business is not necessarily generating a sale from each impression. Conversely, pay per sale programs usually compensates the affiliate better because the business does directly generate a profit from the advertising on the affiliate’s website. This amount may a flat fee or a percentage of the sale depending on the affiliate agreement.

Two Types Of Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing can be classified into two types based on the technology involved. The more traditional form involves marketing on the move like moving billboards and road shows. The second type refers to marketing on a mobile phone like cell phone. Since the onset of millennium, mobile marketing though cell phone has become very popular. Short message service popularly known as SMS has made marketing by this method a lot easier.

There were some problems in the beginning as unwanted information was being sent to the people. Most of the SMS that were passed around was spam and it received negative media response in all parts of the world. This was because a sector of the advertisers bought list of mobile users and began sending them unsolicited messages. They were later stopped due to strict security measures and laws passed. Marketing industry recognized the potential of mobile marketing and utilized it to the full extent. The mobile service providers coded guidelines and laws. It then became a legal advertising channel. The Mobile Marketing Association and Interactive Advertising Bureau also have laid down guidelines for the proper functioning of mobile marketing.

Mobile marketing has become popular in Asia and Europe as it is a novel idea and in Europe alone hundreds of millions of pounds have been investing in SMS advertising. Now SMS has become the most famous part of mobile marketing. Because of the popularity of short codes, SMSing has become a lot easier. This has created a new approach to reach out to potential customers. Now mobile short codes are looked upon as mobile domain name, by many of the brands around the world, when the customers message the brand at any occasion.

In America, the first SMS short code campaign was started in 2002. SMS containing short codes are easier to send a message with complete information. Short codes are usually numbers that are assigned to mobile operators of a particular location, which they use for brand campaigning and other purposes. They are very small, like they contain only four to five words. These numbers are always under scrutiny by the service provider and each and every message is monitored to see that they do not go against the original service description.

Like opt-in emails, customers have to opt for SMSes. This is the biggest criterion, which the advertiser has to follow in order to send a promotional SMS. Some of the mobile operators ask for double opt-in form from the receiver. At the same time opting out is made easy for the customer. When the customer wishes to terminate receiving messages, they have to send STOP word by SMS. All these guidelines have been laid by the Mobile Marketing Association consumer best practice guidelines and it’s a compulsion to follow those by all the marketers who wish to do mobile marketing in America.

Now, service providers have started to provide the option of sending SMS to email addresses. Other than this, other services provided are mobile games, mobile tones etc., which are used for promotional purposes. This has lead to the invention of MMS or Multi-media Message Service, through which short promotional videos and animations can be send. Bluetooth is another good technology. It started in 2003, and many companies in Europe have found it useful. When a message is send via Bluetooth, the receiver should accept request from the sender. So, sending messages by this method is legitimate. The message transfer speed is high and is also a free service as it is a radio-based technology.

The method of sending SMS advertisement to mobile phone users based on their geographical location is known as Location based service. The customer is tracked via a GPS chip which is built-in the phone. Radiolocation signals from the nearest cell phone towers are used for this purpose.

Mobile marketing follows a very safe marketing strategy, as it is customer opted. The short message sent through this method is known as mobile originated or MO message. If the advertisement is done through a call, the call is known as mobile terminated or MT message. As there is a phenomenal increase in the number of mobile phone users, this kind of marketing is a sure hit.

What Are Banners?

Business owners who want to take advantage of Internet marketing strategies such as banner ads but are on a limited budget may find banner exchanges to be quite useful. The ideal use of banner ads would include placing your banner ad on a website which receives a great deal of traffic and attracts an audience who will likely be interested in your products or services. Additionally, this website should not directly compete for your business. This scenario may be difficult to find and even when a business owner is able to find this type of situation, purchasing advertisement space may be expensive especially if it is a highly competitive niche. These business owners may find banner exchanges to be an affordable alternative. The most appealing factor of banner ad exchanges is the cost effectiveness of these situations. Most banner ad exchange groups are free to participants. Unlike placing a banner ad independently, there is no financial cost for the appearance of the banner ad on another website but the business owner does have an obligation to fulfill. Most banner ad exchanges will find another website to post your advertisement without charging a fee but they will require you to post at least one banner ad, and sometimes more, on your website in exchange for having your banner ad displayed on another website. Many banner ad exchanges will work to attempt to match your banner ad to a relevant website but this is not always possible and your banner ad may wind up on a website which is not relevant to your products or services. This will likely mean that the banner ads will generate very little interest in your products and services. Similarly the advertisements you are asked to post may not complement your website well. You will likely have the opportunity to reject advertisements in particular categories you find to be offensive but will have little control beyond that to moderate the banner ads on your website. Another very affordable option for placing your banner ads on the Internet may include starting an affiliate marketing campaign. This is an Internet marketing campaign in which website owners, or affiliates, post your banner ad on their website and attempt to promote your products and services for you. The banner ads typically include graphics and text which entice Internet users to click through the ad to your website and also include embedded code which provides you with feedback detailing which affiliates generated the website traffic. This information is necessary because affiliates are typically not paid unless they achieve a desired result such as enticing Internet users to click through the banner ad or make a purchase. The affiliates are typically compensated either on a cost per click basis or a cost per sale basis. Cost per click means the affiliate receives a predetermined amount of money each time a user clicks on the ad. Cost per sale means the affiliate receives either a flat fee or a percentage of the sale for each sale generated by the affiliate. Affiliates may also be paid on a cost per lead basis which means they are compensated when a user performs a specific action such as registering with a website or filling out a survey. Most people favor affiliate programs because it is a cost effective way to place your banner ads online and because they only have to pay affiliates who are successful. PPPPP Word count 573

It Is Time To Start Marketing Your Business Online

If you are not already marketing your business online, it is time to start. Although there are a few exceptions, just about every business can benefit from online marketing. There are just so many advantages to this type of marketing. First of all, it is extremely affordable to market your business online. Other advantages to marketing your business online include the ability to reach a large target audience, the ability to reach potential customers all over the world and the ability to customize the marketing for different sectors of the target audience. The affordability of Internet marketing is one of many reasons why many business owners are turning to the Internet for advertising. Advertising online is incredibly affordable especially when you consider how many potential customers a business owner can reach with an online marketing campaign. Most methods of online advertising are quite affordable and some of them do not have any direct costs. For example, you may choose to market your business online by participating in industry forums and posting links to your website whenever it is appropriate to do so. In this case the cost of creating and maintaining the website is insignificant in comparison to the number of potential clients you could reach through online marketing. Additionally, the costs associated with posting links to your website are incidental. You could consider the cost of having access to the Internet as part of the cost but you most likely require Internet access for other reasons as well so it is completely worthwhile. Reaching a large target audience is another very worthwhile reason for marketing your business online. You may have spent a great deal of time and energy doing market research and determine who your target audience is. You may have also spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the best way to reach this audience. This is a very sound marketing principle but as it applies to marketing on local television, radio and print media it only allows you to reach a limited audience. However, when you take your marketing to the Internet you automatically drastically increase your potential target audience because you now have the ability to reach members of your target audience around the world. This ability to reach customers around the world is another major advantage to marketing your business online. Regardless of where you live and operate your business, you have the ability to reach those who have an interest in the products you sell or the services you provide no matter where they live. This makes it possible for you to do business with customers around the world. Likewise the fact that the Internet is available 24 hours a day is also very beneficial to those who choose to market their products or services online. Shopping for products and services in person can be very difficult especially for individuals who work long hours or those who work unusual hours. These working conditions make it difficult for these individuals to do business and make purchases of products and services they need during regular business hours. However, business owners who have an online presence are much more convenient because unlike stores and calling centers, the website never closes. This convenience gives potential customers the ability to view products and services, compare these products and service to the ones offered by competitors and make a purchase at any hour of any day. If you are a business owner who is reading this article and you do not already have a strong online presence, you need to immediately start learning more about the world of Internet marketing. This is so important because if your competitors are marketing online, you may find they are gaining a steady advantage and are becoming more appealing to potential customers. Before too many of your potential customers become loyal customers of the competition it is time to start figuring out how you can market your business online and keep up with the competition.

Make Sure You Monitor Your Stats of Internet Marketing

As with any marketing campaign you may run to assist your business, it is important to track the results of your Internet marketing campaign. This should be done on a continual basis so you can ensure the strategies you are utilizing are working. It can also help you to determine when a strategy is not working so you do not continue to invest time and money on a strategy which is not beneficial to your business. This article will discuss some of the options for tracking the results of your Internet marketing campaign. Business owners who use banner ads have a simple way to track whether or not their banner ads are effective. This is possible because they can place code in the banner ad which will supply them with feedback each time a user clicks on the banner ad. This information is transmitted to the business owner so he can evaluate which of his banner ads are generating the most interest. If the business owner is currently using two different styles of banner ads on comparable websites he can use this information to determine which design is most effective. This is important because if one style is significantly more effective than the other it might be worthwhile to convert all of the banner ads to this style or to make changes which will make the two different styles more similar. If the business owner is using the same banner ad on a number of different websites, the feedback can help him determine which websites are generating the most traffic for him. If he determines some websites are not generating a great deal of traffic it makes sense to discontinue the banner ads on these websites as they are not cost effective. Business owners who utilize affiliate marketing during their Internet marketing campaign may also be interested in tracking the results of their affiliates. This is necessary because affiliates are often paid according to the results they generate but it is also useful for determining which affiliates are most successful. This information can be useful if different ads are running on different affiliate websites because it can be an indication of which websites are most effective. Tracking the results of affiliate marketing is similar to tracking the results of banner ads. You can place code in the ads which appear on the affiliate’s website to provide you with feedback each time a user clicks on the ad. Another way to evaluate the results of an Internet marketing campaign is to simply closely monitor your own website traffic and sales. This is especially important when it is done in consideration with the type of marketing you are currently running. For example if you launch a new banner ad campaign with ads appearing on numerous high profile websites concurrently, you may notice an almost immediate increase in website traffic and sales. This information most likely indicates the banner ads are successful. However, the problem with using this type of evaluation is it does not pinpoint successes or failures. If you launch your banner ad on five different websites at once you may notice an immediate increase in traffic and sales but will not be aware which websites are the most effective. For example, your advertisement may be running on five different websites but only one of these websites may be attracting attention for your business. Similarly if you are running several different styles of ads, some styles may attract more attention than others but you will not be able to differentiate simply by evaluating your website traffic and sales. The other four may only be generating minimal interest in your products or services. If you wish to use this method for evaluating the feedback on your Internet marketing efforts, it is worthwhile to only make one change at a time so you can more accurately determine what is working and what is not. Alternatively you can ask customers to fill out a survey stating where they s aw your advertisement so you can solicit feedback on your marketing efforts. PPPPP Word count 682

Direct Response Marketing

It was not too long ago that most people had no internet leave alone e-mail address. But internet brought in a new era that is full of unlimited information. Internet gave birth to electronic mail popularly known as e-mail. E-mail opened new avenues to the world of communication. In the beginning e-mail was only used as another means of communicating with other people for personal or business related matters. Now people of every age group have an e-mail address. But, since past few years its potential for marketing has been exploited to its maximum both in good and as well as bad manner. At the same time who can disregard the services of direct mail which has been operating since nearly two centuries? It is still the preferred method of communication for many people.

E-mail is the cheapest method of communicating available as of this date. The advantage with email is that you can send email to many people at the same time just with the click of a mouse where as in the case of direct mails one has to go through putting letters in envelopes for each and every person, make different address labels, mail it and also have to bear the cost of mailing. Time is money and e-mail marketing saves a lot of time.

While e-mail marketing might look easy but if you compare the net result the story is totally different. When you are marketing through e-mail you go to make sure that you are e-mailing the right person otherwise the e-mail would end up going to junk folder. Also you got to be careful that you don’t miss the subject or the body of the e-mail otherwise the net result would be same. In this age of spamming, spammers use variety of subjects, so you have to put the subject keeping in mind that it wouldn’t send your e-mail to the spam folder again. In contract the direct mail gets a better treatment. Studies show that direct mail is more efficient and has better success than e-mail. First, it is not as easy to block direct mail as junk e-mail and secondly the process of blocking mails itself is not automated like e-mail. The other reason why people hate e-mail marketing is due to constant bombarding of e-mails from spammers and illegal marketers from Nigerian money scams to porn to online prescription drugs to sto ck quotes to what not. In addition to that, you also get promotional offers from big companies and who can ignore phishing these days. Due to all these people have developed a negative perception about e-mail marketing and they simply delete or spam the e-mail if they do not identify it as their regular e-mail. In contrast direct mail is seen with respect and people pick their mail as a daily routine and open them with a priority.

Direct mail has a personal feel attached to it, one of the reasons why people prefer mail greetings over an electronic greeting. It takes time to personalize a direct mail where as an e-mail is instant and the fate of e-mail is also instant i.e. immediate deletion. Researchers are constantly puzzled by the mystery surrounding why people are so enthusiastic about direct mail. But no worries this only good news for the marketers that they have something in their tool kit that works. So marketers have the mailing list of potential customers handy and send some nicely composed letters to them about your company and its products.

Snail mail has a potential of going through the hands of gatekeepers and administrative assistants before actually going to their boss which can end up being thrown in trash. The survival chances are rare unless its subject is business oriented and has some important information. But e-mail wins in this regard, as it reaches directly the person to which it is intended to go, after that its fate is left to the person whether to read or send it to spam folder.

A more scientific explanation of why direct mail is dearer to people than e-mail is the sensory perception of people. A direct mail uses three of the four senses of a person i.e. visual, verbal, listening and touching where as e-mail does not use sense of listening and touching. But this can be achieved by adding appealing graphics, text reading ability and streaming audio to the e-mail.

The statistics show that direct mail has not died and in fact the volume has grown by leaps and bounds in past few decades. A typical example is the fact that we receive more magazines, journals, mails from universities, DVDs etc. than we used to receive few years ago. This leaves the marketers with a dilemma about which method to use. The answer is simple, use email to contact only those people who you know and use direct mail for the people who don’t know you.

Importance Of Email Marketing Campaigns

If you plan to do some Internet marketing to promote your business endeavor, you should seriously consider email marketing as at least one tier of your Internet marketing campaign. Many business owners shy away from email marketing because they believe all email marketing campaigns are purely spam. However, this is not true and not partaking in this type of marketing can cause your business to lose out on a great deal of business. By not appealing to potential customers via email, your business may lose a great deal of business to competitors who are using email marketing campaigns to reach customers around the world. However, the first step of an email marketing campaign should be creating an email distribution list. This article will discuss some popular options for doing this and should help to the reader to learn more about what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to email marketing. Once you have made the decision to start using email marketing to promote your business you are likely facing the dilemma of compiling an email distribution list. This is essentially a list of email addresses to which you will email your advertising and promotional materials. One common way to gain a list of email addresses is to purchase a list from distributors. However, this method is not very effective at all and we do not recommend it. The problem with purchasing an email list if you have no way of knowing whether or not the members of the list would have any interest at all in your products or services. This is very important because while you want to reach a large audience with your email marketing you also want this audience to be members of your overall target audience. When you purchase an email list you may be sending your email messages to some users who might be interested but this is largely coincidental and is not likely to be well received because the message was not solicited. Internet users are very quick to delete materials they believe to be spam without even opening or reading the emails. In fact some Internet service providers include spam filters which may automatically delete your emails if your messages are deemed to be spam. These filters run complex algorithms on the subject heading and content of the message to determine whether or not it is spam and are quite adept at weeding out spam. Therefore you run the risk of having your email marketing effort turn out to be a complete waste if the majority of recipients never even read or receive the message. A far better way to create an email distribution list for your email marketing campaign is to ask current customers as well as interested potential customers to register with your website to receive additional information and periodic updates about your products and services as well as other information which might be of interest to them. This provides you with a database of email addresses from current customers as well as potential customers who have a genuine interest in your products and services and who are interested in learning more about these products and services. Once you have a list of interested customers or potential customers you can send emails or create e-newsletter for distribution to the members of your email list. These documents should contain a wealth of valuable information as well as a soft sell pitch for your products and services. This information will be valued by the readers and may help to persuade them to try your products and services. You might also want to include useful links to either your website as well as other websites which may be of interest to your readers. Your content should also contain a portion which urges the reader to take a specific action such as making a purchase or at least investigating a product further.

Internet Marketing - The Importance Of Content

If you are currently marketing your business online and have not put a great deal of thought into the content on your website, you may be making an incredibly costly mistake. The content on your website is invaluable for a number of reasons. First of all it gives visitors to your website their first impression of your business and the products and services you offer. Additionally, well written content can be instrumental in selling your products and services to your potential customers. Finally, the content on your website can influence the size of the target audience you are able to reach by helping to improve your search engine rankings. With your content capable of doing so much, it is clear you should be hiring a professional content writer to assist you writing the copy for your website. This article will delve deeper into the importance of providing accurate, concise and informative content on your website when you are marketing online. One of the most basic reasons why the quality of the content on your website is so important is because visitors to your website will likely form their initial opinions of your website based on the content on your website. If the copy is poorly written, does not hold the visitors attention and does not promote your products and services well visitors are likely to exit your website without making a purchase. Conversely, if the copy on your website is well written, engages the reader and promotes the products and services you offer the visitor is more likely to investigate the website further to learn more about the products and services and may make a purchase. The content of your website will be one of the aspects of the website which is first noticed by visitors so it is important for this content to be well written. Well written sales copy can also be very persuasive and may compel visitors to the website to purchase the products or services offered on the website. This is important especially if the main purpose of the website is to sell the products or services. The sales copy should accurately describe the products or services offered, stress the importance of these products and services and compel the visitor to make a purchase. All of this should be done without appearing to be blatantly advertising the products and services. Writing this type of copy can be quite complicated and typically requires hiring a sales copywriter who is experienced and skilled at writing this type of informative and persuasive content. Sales copy written by an amateur or an inexperienced writer will not likely be as effective as copy written by a professional with a great deal of experience in Internet marketing. Finally the content on your website is very important because it can greatly influence your search engine rankings. This is critical because high search engine rankings help your business to reach a considerably larger audience. Internet users are typically looking for information quickly and want immediate results to their inquiries. Search engines understand this profile and write complicated algorithms which help them to supply the most relevant websites when a user searches for a particular word or phrase. This is important to business owners because Internet users realize the value of search engines and are likely to only visit websites which rank well in the search engines. This includes websites which rank on the first page or two of search results. Your business might sell football jerseys and you may have a well designed website, a superior inventory and excellent prices but if your website does not rank well in search engines you are missing out on a great deal of free advertising. If your website l ands on the third page or lower most visitors who search for relevant terms will not likely visit your website because they will have found what they were looking for on earlier pages. This is where the content on your website becomes important. Websites containing content which has been optimized for particular keywords will likely rank well with search engines. Hiring a writer skilled in writing optimized content can help to improve your search engine rankings so you can reach more potential customers. PPPPP Word count 710

Branding Your Corporate Image

For any corporation it is very important to create a distinct image in the market. This is known as Corporate Image which distinguishes the corporation from its competitors and provides a picture of it to the general public. It depicts the principles, beliefs, productivity of the company. This image is responsible for increasing the sales of the product and to achieve brand equity. Corporate image creation is a strenuous and time consuming process and is carried out by experts qualifying in perception management. Basically, the creation involves marketing experts who used various kinds of promotion methods and public relations. Since this image is targeted to attract the customers it should be highly appealing. Besides the marketing experts critics play an important role too.

The name of the corporation and its catch line should reflect its belief like Wal-Mart, which says that it sells for less. A logo should also be designed accordingly. Like the corporation FedEx has an arrow incorporated in its logo which depicts its fast and efficient service. Once the image is created by the corporation the next step is advertising and product distribution in the market. Like if the corporation creates luxury products, they should rope in big names in the advertising experts and the models to be featured in these ads should be super stars. Likewise, they should not distribute their products to every other store; instead they should target more hi-fi malls. Time to time, advertising and branding budget should be reviewed to cut down on cost and to be in-sync with the technology. This also helps in revamping the corporate image according to the fast changing demands of the consumer.

Testimonies of news papers, magazines, and labor union can deteriorate a well-created corporate image. Simplest of controversies can be exaggerated by the media and spoil the name of the company. Controversies are born by the interference of organizations related to environment, religion, crime, politics, education and charity. Government, too, is another powerful and influential organization by itself.

Once the corporate image is created, it should be retained. It should not be like here today and gone tomorrow. This image should be reflected in all the brands and product line of the corporation. Even if one of the products isn’t up to the mark, it will lead to confusion among the consumers and will hit the sales of the company. Like recently there was controversy about a particular contact lens solution of a company. It was supposed to be infecting the users with a rare disease. This not only affected the sales revenue of that particular product but also made the customers think and raise question about the authenticity of other products of that particular company.

Another company’s products had hidden non-vegetarian ingredient in a vegetarian product. This led to the decrease of trust among the customers. In such a case the company should either advertise itself as a company selling non-vegetarian food or it should invest in promoting the company as vegetarian by introducing more vegetarian products. So the image of each individual product of the company makes up for the complete image of the corporation. And last but not the least, the image should be very realistic, truly representing its values and should leave a personal touch with the consumers.