7 Foolproof Ways to Increase Your Market Presence
Issue #2249
- WEALTHY: How to avoid a flatlining portfolio (Andrew Gordon)
- HEALTHY: An overlooked Mediterranean staple that’s full of antioxidants (Kelley Herring)
- WISE: Robert Bresson on visibility
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Make 2008 your website’s most visible year (Wendy Montes de Oca)
- 4 steps you MUST take before starting a new business (Jason Holland)
- It’s Good to Know… about tottoos
- Add "rapine" to your vocabulary
Imagine if There Were Only 6 Numbers to Choose from When Buying a Lottery Ticket!
Wouldn’t that be great?! Of course, the fewer the choices, the more likely your chance of success, right?
How many choices are there when buying and selling shares? Errmm… a LOT! Hundreds… One of the reasons I enjoy such consistent success from trading is because I only have 6 options to choose from! Except this is even better in a way, because the lottery is pure luck…
… I only have 6 choices AND have a VERY good idea about which choice to make because of the insider signal. Click here to learn more…
Look Who’s Caught the International Bug
Did you know that 95 percent of the money Americans invest in mutual funds goes into internationally oriented funds? And they’ve been good investments. Many global markets have skyrocketed. In Asia alone, China, Korea, Malaysia, and Indonesia have hit record highs recently.
These markets are now due for a breather. Some have more growth left in them than others - but most if not all will see their growth rates slow.
It would be unrealistic to expect international funds to continue to give you big fat returns, especially since mutual funds have the nasty habit of doing worse than the market they’re in.
To keep your portfolio from flatlining, take out half your stake in international funds and invest it in the strongest individual overseas companies listed on the major U.S. exchanges. The Bank of New York Mellon (adrbny.com) has a comprehensive list of these companies. Use their simple search engine to find what you’re looking for.
[Ed. Note: ETR’s Investment Director, Andrew Gordon, is the editor of INCOME, a monthly financial advisory service that uncovers income-generating stocks that promise safety (first and foremost), along with much-higher-than-average profit potential.]
"Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen."
Robert Bresson
Kicking Off 2008 With ETR: 7 Foolproof Ways to Increase Your Market Presence and Build Your Business
Whether you’re talking about the articles you include in your e-zine or about your sales message, one thing is certain: Content is king. The written word has the power to educate and inform… as well as create buzz about your website, product, or service. That’s why one of my jobs here at Early to Rise is to circulate our e-zine articles through multiple delivery channels. Reaching potential subscribers this way helps us increase our readership and, ultimately, our revenues.
ETR’s publisher MaryEllen Tribby and I are firm believers in leveraging our marketing message too. By circulating it in multiple channels - online, e-mail, print, direct mail, and so forth - we are able to touch our prospects through whatever medium they prefer. And for those who like to receive their information through more than one medium, our message is re-enforced every time they see it in another channel.
I strongly encourage you to take this multi-channel marketing approach with your own online business. Here are seven of the best and most cost-effective channels to include in your marketing plan:
1. Paid Search Ads (Pay-Per-Click)
Google and Yahoo are the Titans of the paid-search ad world, with nearly 70 percent of market share. But there are other search engines that have a loyal following, such as MSN.com (with 16 percent market share), AOL.com (with 9.6 percent), Ask.com (5.1 percent), Infospace.com (1.1 percent), and Lycos.com (0.9 percent).
Pay-per-click (PPC) ads with any of these search engines is a cost-effective way to target prospects looking for your specific product and get broad exposure. You create a text ad, then bid on keywords (the words or phrases your target audience will be searching for) to determine your ad’s placement.
PPC paid search ads are perfect for acquiring new customers. That’s because leads that come in this way are searching specifically for your information (via targeted keywords). This makes them highly qualified prospects. For ETR’s sister publication, Total Health Breakthroughs,PPC represents more than 30 percent of its online marketing mix.
2. Organic Search Results (Search Engine Marketing)
Search engine marketing (SEM) has a nominal cost. Annual fees with search engine networks or directories typically range from $25 to $95 per year.
Some consumers give organic search results more "credibility" than paid search ads. And because they "trust" the results of an organic search more, they are more likely to click on an organic link. A recent survey by Jupiter Research illustrated that 80 percent of Web users seek organic search results. Their rationale is that organic results are un-biased. The marketer didn’t pay for that ad space. So the link’s appearance in the search results is based purely on various search algorithms and Web crawlers.
Your goal should be to balance your online presence with both paid ads and organic search results. Alexis Siemon, ETR’s Search Engine Marketing Specialist, optimizes our efforts by (among other things) making sure we have keywords in all the right places. That includes our title tags, URLs, and inside the ETR articles themselves.
3. Banner Ads
Running banner ads on other websites can be another cost-effective part of your online marketing mix. The pricing model for this is typically CPM - a specified price for every 1,000 impressions/views you receive (usually between $3 and $10).
Your media budget for banner ads will vary by:
- website
- ad unit size/type (300 x 250 typically performs best)
- location on website (home page, inside pages)
- whether the ad is targeted to a specific page or is on every page of the site
- the time of year the ad is running
Online ad networks are a cheaper alternative. Their CPM usually ranges between $2 and $6, and they have a wider reach. Some networks to consider: Advertising.com, ValueClick.com, and FastClick.com. You can find a full list of sites here: imediaconnection.com/resourceconnection/adnetwork.asp.
4. Reciprocal Ad Swaps
Some of your best resources will be your fellow publishers. This channel often gets overlooked by marketers who don’t give it the respect it deserves. In the work I do for ETR and Total Health Breakthroughs, I spend a good portion of my time researching publishers and websites in our industry. I look for relevant connections between their publications (print and online) and ours.
Let’s say I come across an e-letter about marketing that has a list of readers similar in size to ETR’s. Since many of ETR’s subscribers are interested in marketing, they might be interested in a product offered by that marketing e-letter. And that publisher’s subscribers might be interested in one of ETR’s marketing products.
Swapping ads will save you money on lead-generation initiatives. Since you won’t be paying for access to the other publisher’s list of subscribers, you can get new customers for free. The only "cost" is allowing the other publisher to access your own list. It’s a win-win situation. This technique also opens the door to potential joint-venture opportunities.
5. Co-Registration
Marketing expert Andrew Palmer defines co-registration - or "co-reg" - as "the practice of referring leads, subscriptions, or memberships in conjunction with another registration process."
Co-reg ads use a CPL (cost per lead) payment model. You pay for the leads you capture. Your text ad and a small image of your publication appear on a webpage on another publisher’s website after a primary transaction occurs. Your ad shares the page with other publishers looking to build their own e-mail lists with free subscriptions to their e-letters or free e-reports.
To make this work, I’ve found that you need to send special introductory "bonding" e-mails to the people who sign up for your newsletter before they get added to the general circulation. This helps them remember that they signed up for your e-letter. (So when it shows up in their inbox they won’t think it’s spam.) And it helps increase the potential that those subscribers will convert to paying customers.
For more about this channel, check out Andrew Palmer’s ETR article about using co-reg to attract customers.
6. Direct Mail
Direct mail is still a consumer favorite - and another good way to get your sales message out. It can be especially effective used in concert with another effort, such as an e-mail campaign. A recent survey published in DM News indicated that 70 percent of respondents preferred receiving unsolicited correspondence via mail vs. e-mail.
As with any marketing medium, though, you can end up paying a lot. The most costly direct-mail packages are magalogs and tabloids (four-color mailers that look like magazines). However, 6 x 9 postcards, tri-fold self-mailers, and simple sales letters are three low-cost ways of taking advantage of this channel.
Although 100 percent ROI (return on investment) is what you should aim for, many direct mailers are content with 80 percent. This lower figure takes into consideration the lifetime value of the names that come in from this channel, because they are typically reliable buyers in the future.
7. Print ads
This is another channel that’s gets a raw deal. One reason is because it can be costly. To place an ad in a high-circulation magazine or newspaper, you could shell out serious money. But you don’t need a big budget to take advantage of print ads. If you don’t have deep pockets, consider targeted newspapers and periodicals.
Let’s say you’re selling an investment report. Try using the Internet to research the wealthiest cities in America. Once you get that list, look online for local newspapers in those communities. These smaller newspapers hit your target audience… and offer a much cheaper ad rate than some of the larger, broad-circulation publications. You end up getting quality rather than quantity.
I once paid for an ad in a local newspaper in Aspen, CO that had a flat rate of less than $500. My ROI on this effort turned out to be more than 1,000 percent. How’s that for a positive response rate!
The seven marketing channels I’ve just described can help you reach more customers… and eventually add dollar signs to your bottom line. So start the Near Year off with a marketing bang. By leveraging the seven channels of multi-channel marketing, I’m confident you will be amazed by the results.
[Ed. Note: Wendy Montes de Oca is ETR’s Vice President of Marketing & Business Development. You can meet all your marketing goals - and achieve all your personal, social, financial, and business dreams - with the help of ETR’s Total Success Achievement Program. Learn more by clicking here.]
How Top Investors Will Make Millions in 2008
America’s elite real estate investors don’t have time to complain about the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. They’re too busy doing 6- and 7-figure deals every month. And they’ll be extra busy in 2008, because the media has frightened away their usual competition.
Yet their success isn’t remarkable to anyone who knows the secrets of buying and selling in a market like this one. In fact, many of today’s wealthiest investors made their fortunes in similar economic conditions fifteen years ago.
What’s more, you can do exactly what they did… even if you have poor credit and zero savings.
Click here to learn how you can discover the secrets they’re using to make millions right now - a total value of more than $2,300 for a fraction of the cost!
Pirates Don’t Pay, They Plunder!
There is a sinking ship in Whittier, CA called Pirates N Plunder.
The buccaneer-themed costume and memorabilia shop is owned by a couple who are deep into the "pirate" subculture, which has enjoyed a renaissance recently thanks to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. They love dressing like pirates, talking like pirates (Avast, ye scurvy dogs!), and having pirate parties. All their friends do too.
"There just has to be money to be made with this pirate trend," thought the pirate-obsessed couple. "And wouldn’t it be fun if doing it was our job?" So they took over a friend’s shop, expanded the store and… eight months in, sales have fallen off drastically and the business is on the verge of closing. Imagine that.
Michael Masterson cautions against blindly pursuing your passion when it comes to business. "Proceeding with a pragmatic purposefulness, it seems to me, is the best course of action," he says. "By ‘pragmatic purposefulness,’ I mean an ounce of passion and a pound of practicality. I mean facing the facts and making a realistic assessment of the business idea you love so much. Will it really work in the marketplace? Will it really live up to your dreams?"
Michael explains that although "pursue your passion" is the kind of advice he’d love to give, he can’t in good conscience because it doesn’t ring true with his own experience as an entrepreneur.
So if you are thinking of opening a tennis shop because you love tennis, or opening a restaurant because you host such great dinner parties…stop. Go through the following checklist before you invest a dime:
- Ask friends and colleagues what they think of your business idea. Ask them to be brutally honest.
- Look at the marketplace and see if there are similar businesses that are successful.
- Take a critical look at how much you really know about the business and industry you want to get involved in. Do you have practical, real-world experience?
- Do your research. How big, exactly, is your target market? How stable is that market?
If the results of the above assessment don’t look positive, put profits before passion and look for another business opportunity.
(Source: Entrepreneur.com)
[Ed. Note: Get the benefit of Michael Masterson’s 40 years as a business builder with his newest book, Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat. In this book, Michael shows how veteran and rookie entrepreneurs alike can take their businesses to the next level. You’ll learn how to identify and solve the problems that crop up during each stage of a company’s growth… and how to take advantage of profit opportunities along the way. Click here to order your copy of Ready, Fire, Aim now.]
A Garnish Packed with Goodness
The capers that garnish your delectable smoked salmon appetizer and grace your zesty chicken piccata may be small in size - but new research shows they’re a big source of antioxidants that show promise in fighting cancer and heart disease.
A recent study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry evaluated the antioxidant benefits of this overlooked Mediterranean staple. The scientists added caper extract to grilled ground turkey and analyzed the byproducts formed during digestion.
Some byproducts of digested meat have been associated with an increased risk of cancer and heart disease. The scientists found that the caper extract helped prevent the formation of these byproducts. Even better, the benefits were seen even with small amounts of extract.
Keep capers on hand to add a tasty dose of antioxidants to your food. Toss into pasta and salads and mix into Mediterranean-inspired meat and fish dishes.
[Ed. Note: Kelley Herring is the founder and CEO of Healing Gourmet (www.healinggourmet.com), and is editor-in-chief of the Healing Gourmet book series, including Eat to Fight Cancer. Learn more about how simple lifestyle choices can improve your health by reading ETR’s free natural health e-letter.]
It’s Good to Know: Tottoos
The Tottoo is an inexpensive temporary tattoo that is personalized with information that can protect children and adults in a variety of emergency situations. (With proper application, it can last up to 12 hours.) It can help parents and schools find their little ones quickly if they wander off. ("If I am lost, please call…") It can be used for people with special needs. ("I have Alzheimer’s. If I am lost, please call…") And it can be used as an alternative to Medic-Alert type bracelets - to alert paramedics to conditions that require specialized care. ("I have a seizure disorder. Please call my doctor at…")
(Source: Springwise and Tottoos.org)
A Top Business Breakthrough Known Only by a Handful of Insiders Turns Out to Be One of the Best New Ways to Make a Bundle…
Plenty of people make tons of money every day in Real Estate and on Wall Street. But if you’re looking for something different… and if you don’t have $100,000 to invest or even $10,000…
Well, we’ve found it…
Till now, only a handful of insiders even knew about this almost secret powerful business.
What is it? All I can tell you is that more than half of the world’s billionaires have made their money this way. You’ll have to read on to learn more about it.
Finally the cat’s out of the bag… Click here to read more…
Word to the Wise: Rapine
"Rapine" (RAP-in) is the act of plundering. It is derived from the Latin for "to seize and carry off."
Example (as used by P.J. O’Rourke in a New York Times review of Starbucked by Taylor Clark):"… Clark turns from trying to explain why Starbucks is successful to trying to judge whether Starbucks is a monster of capitalist rapine."
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker … build your self-confidence and intellect … increase your attractiveness to others … just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR’s new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2008