Don't Move On Before Reading This Article About Internet Marketing

By Ivry Alfred


You really have nobody to blame but yourself if you fail at implementing your Internet marketing plan? Ideally you have prepped yourself for any issues that might occur. Take time to read this article and you will discover some of the best advice that is available for this subject.

For better results, promote products that are unique. If you are promoting the same thing as a thousand other sites, you'll find less results coming from those items. Your customer may be interested in your product, but they've probably already gone to it from a different site. Find items that are unique and less heavily promoted by other sites. Set yourself apart and see bigger results.

Before you begin to set up a marketing campaign for a new product, throw some feelers out to your current customers. See if they like where you're heading with your new product choice. If they seem to be receptive to the idea, then you know you have a winner on your hands and that you should pursue the idea.

If you would like to attract new customers without spending a lot of money, you should research referral marketing. Most referral marketing systems offer their services for a low cost and the amount of money they can make your website is significant. Because the internet makes tracking customer behavior easy, you can market products to customers in a hyper-specified and effective way.

Surround yourself with the items you sell. You don't always have to provide a link to everything you talk about in a post. You'll have readers asking you what products you are using. If you keep your items in the discussions, readers will seek out the information and earn you some money.

Make sure you read a lot of informative resources online and work up a list of your top-10 tips and pieces of advice. After you figure out the top-10 things you want to try or follow, go down the list and do them all systematically. This is like receiving an assist to your overall business plan, and it can pay off in a big way.

To market successfully on the Internet, be able to answer this question: What is your primary goal? In order to be successful selling anything, you need to have a specific target. So quantify exactly where you're aiming. Know whether you want to sell 5 copies of your e-book a day, if you want to make sure 80% of your customers visit and read a certain Web page or if you want to grow your mailing list to 300 subscribers in the next three days. Once you know your goal, you can make a good plan for getting there.

To improve the exposure that you have, search some of the most important questions being asked on sites such as Yahoo Answers and provide a respectable answer. Try to make your name identical to your brand name, as this can serve as a free way to help increase the exposure of your company and increase page visitors.

Starting a blog for your online business will help you to have discussions with your customers. Readers will be able to comment on your articles. Those who comment on your articles are potential customers. Comments are great, and will help you to be able to discuss things with your customers or potential customers.

Find topics in your niche that are under-examined. The best way to quickly be noticed is to find a gap in the current literature and fill it. If everyone is talking about vacuum cleaners, and you are the only one discussing a new magnetic duster, you will be the one who everyone begins to focus on.

In summary, there are some obvious ideas that have been tested over time, as well as some newer techniques that you may not have considered. Hopefully, as long as you follow what we suggest in this article, you can either get started with internet marketing or improve on what you have already done.




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Convert Sales Where Sales Pages Fail

By Kamil Hamad


For sure there is nothing wrong with sales pages; however, videos convert sales much better than sales pages and can help you succeed where you have failed with regular landing pages. The first thing you need to realize is that people are much more willing to listen than to take the time to read through a bunch of information. You can make the landing page look as nice and as exciting as you wish, but a video is always going to win over the customers' attention.

1. You can actually show how the product works. There is a reason why infomercials exist. By showing the value of your product, people will better understand why they should buy. 2. You can add a personal touch to your site. People like to buy from a real person. By adding video to your site, your visitors get someone they can relate to as opposed to a giant wall of text.

3. It takes less time. Most people are not speed readers. By using a video, you can get your main points across quickly before your viewer gets bored and clicks away. 4. Videos are easier to share. No one wants to share a long, dry article or a list of product specs. However, by setting up social media along with your demonstrations, you can exponentially increase your potential audience.

5. It is easier than you think. It might take a few practice runs, but you will learn to make great product videos in no time. Since you are in sales, you are already used to engaging people and pitching a product. On the other hand, writing product briefs is an art unto itself, and you will likely need to pay a writer if you want great content. 6. You can post to multiple locations at once. Google will punish you harshly if you use the same article on multiple sites, but you can host your video on YouTube and embed it anywhere you want without reprisal.

As you can see from the above article, it is no secret that videos are much better at converting consumers into paying customers than a plain old sales page. Use the advice form above to help you get started creating a high-converting marking video.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then you can imagine what a video is worth. This has been proven time and time again with the videos out performing sales pages by leaps and bounds. The question you might be wondering is why that is so, why does a video make such a massive difference and convert so much better than a perfectly designed sales page? There are a lot of factors that come into play in the equation, including psychology, the user impatience, the form of medium that most prefer. A lot of it has to do with the impatient nature of internet users, who will shy away from pages of text, but will gladly listen to a few minuet sales pitches. In many cases the ease of access to the information is key.




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The Wait For Google Analytics To The Iphone Is Finally Over

By Kamil Samara


The waiting for a way to determine how much traffic your site is generating on the go is over. Google Analytics is finally available on the iPhone. This means it does not matter where you are located, as long as you can access the Internet on your phone you'll be able to review the analytics for your website or websites. A lot of business owners and entrepreneurs have been asking for a way to review the analytics for websites for quite some time now.

Think about all of the possibilities this does to open up your brainstorming potential, now essentially anywhere you travel is a place where you can sit back and look at live analytics on the number of visitors that make their way to your site.

It is possible to review how people are finding your website, and to figure out when you get the most views. These types of figures can help you further adapt your strategies for generating more traffic and cementing yourself as one of the more well known entities online. The most popular websites are owned by people who constantly brainstorm ideas for how to establish or maintain a presence as one of the most searched websites on the web.

There is no reason why you should wait to download Google Analytics on your iPhone. Not only can you access analytics on your iPhone, it is also possible to download it on your iPad device as well.

Therefore, you can review analytics on a slightly bigger screen wherever you are, as long as you have access to the Internet through your tablet device. There are also short cuts to help you access real time information so you know exactly what is going on with your website at all times.

While this isn't the first time Google has shared one of its base apps with Apple, it is still big news. Now Apple fans can get one of the most important Google apps onto their devices. Meanwhile, Google is going to make a lot of sweet cash from the deal, as downloads are already skyrocketing to the moon. But they have always known that they would get a lot of money from selling their usually Android-only apps on Apple. Money isn't the point. The point is trying to drive customers away from Apple and to Google, specifically Android.




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Why Google Purposefully Affected Ebay's Organic Positioning Online

By Nazar Bryant


It may be hard to see why Google changing their SEO practices is hurting the bottom line for eBay. Well, that's what you will get some information on below. This is something that not only hurts eBay, but a number of people that depend on SEO practices.

CFO Bob Swan stated that search engine positioning was a major factor in regard to less traffic to eBay's core market places. It was a challenging quarter because of lower conversions and slower active buyer growth.

It's sad that when eBay starts to lose business when they've been doing good SEO practices for as long as they've been around. Their site has been a cornerstone of online buying and selling for quite some time, so when they hurt it hurts their customers as well. When you consider that they're losing a few cents per purchase or more just because their results are getting buried, it's pretty sad that other companies that aren't as established are snapping these sales up. In the end, it's best if Google were to look at their relationship with eBay and cut them some slack!

Once you have a good look at what Google does to SEO and how it harms businesses like eBay, you can really start to see that it's a legitimate concern. Hopefully Google will learn to start working at this and stop hurting people in the process. In the quest to stop people from abusing the system, it's starting to hurt those that don't.

As everyone knows, eBay is one of the largest avenues on the web. The size of the company, in most cases, will determine whether or not a company can bend the rules, so to speak, when it comes to search engine optimization. Google is known for favoring larger companies, especially those that use Google Adwords, paying the search engine giant billions of dollars in advertising to stay in their good graces.

Recently, eBay denounced Google Adwords, stating that it was virtually ineffective when it came to marketing major brands, something that eBay does on a regular basis. Now, eBay is stating that Google's latest updates have hit them very hard.




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Guidelines for Growing the Opt-In List



It requires dreadfully hard work to build a robust, responsive and high-quality mailing list. Just flooding thousands of emails to the list of recipients in the database won’t do the trick. The truth is that acquiring email addresses is just a small part of the large process of email marketing. It is very important to realize that the company should build an individual relationship with every person behind the email address. If the starting is wrong, every chance for building a rewarding relationship with the subscribers is instantly killed. And on the other side, if the company proves itself worthy to its list of subscribers, then many happy years lie ahead for both the parties.  

 For list building some key components need to be kept into account like the method of acquiring the email addresses, how new subscribers should be welcomed, and how the relationship is maintained after the opt-in process. Acquiring the list of addresses is the easiest part of list building. But the basic rule here is to take explicit permission from the owner to send emails. Violation of this rule is going against the U.S. CAN-SPAM law regarding commercial email. This also leads to breaking of the relationship with the customer. 

Addresses can be collected by online and offline means. Links for email opt-in should be posted on every page of the website, including the registration page and every transactional page. Paid search can be used to reach elevate the position in search engines results. The land up page should include a vivid link to the sign up page. Alliances can be searched who have a similar or a complementary business so to promote one’s company in return of promoting the other company. Incentives such as email only discount and free shipping can be offered to increase the subscription list. If the list is being rented from another organization make sure the list contains subscribers which have given permission. Offline means include collecting email addresses from visitors to the company, trade show or on-site. Email addresses can be asked for in appropriate situations by the customer support employees and telephone sales workers. Links for subscription can be posted in all printed material such as newspapers, flyers, magazines, bags, store signs, customer survey and feedback forms, catalogs, etc. 

The next important step is to welcome the new subscriber. Because of the flood of emails filling one’s inbox, it is a tough to make one read the email and trust in it. A welcome message, with appropriate content, helps in building the relationship of trust with the subscriber. In fact, a complete welcome program must be build for this purpose. Welcoming a subscriber actually starts from the website’s registration page. This page should clearly explain the content, benefits and frequency to the subscribers. The opt-in page should be easy to navigate and shouldn’t be bothersome with numerous questions to be answered. For start four fields are sufficient: first name, last name, email address and format preferences. The other information can be collected via optional forms. After sign-up a thank you page must pop up immediately. This doses the confirmation job and leads the subscriber to the optional form. Next, a welcome email should be send to the customer. This email will not only build up the initial trust but will also check the validity of the email address. This email should include links to optional forms and the detailed preference page. It can also contain the subscription benefits and sample of the past best newsletters.

The next step of relationship management is the most important and delicate phase because of the personal relationship with every subscriber. If it is not taken care of properly, all the effort taken to collect email addresses for subscription list will be wasted. The subscriber’s preferences must be honored in order to expand the email program. The trends in bounces, inactivity and unsubscribing can be noted by the list statistics. Occasional special offers and surveys can be created for sustaining the interest of the readers. People who haven’t opened the emails for a long time should be concentrated upon, especially. Send follow-up emails and query messages. 

Opt-in list building takes lots of time, energy and dedication. Certainly all the effort is worth it in the end, which can be seen by the healthy growth of the mailing list.

Facebook Defies Expectations With A Q2 Revenue Of $2.9 Billion

By Musa Mustafa


When Facebook's IPO hit the market, many were excited, but many were also skeptical. It almost seemed as if Facebook had a great run but that as a company and stock offering, it might start fizzling out. After all, it seemed like Facebook had reached its height as far as popularity once the IPO was finally out there.

Boy were all the skeptics wrong. Facebook still is the predominant social media outlet, and they have control over so many aspects of online business. Everything was set up for the company to turn extremely nice profits post-IPO, and that trend has definitely continued.

Most of that money came from mobile ads, which brought in 62% of Facebook's advertising revenue. This is up from 41% this time in 2013. They also made $235 million in revenue from payments and fees. When commenting on the report, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg seemed pleased about the company's growth. He expressed interest in the opportunities the company had ahead of them, particularly global opportunities.

When commenting on the report, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg seemed pleased about the company's growth. He expressed interest in the opportunities the company had ahead of them, particularly global opportunities. Financial growth wasn't the only kind of growth that Facebook experienced. They also saw a dramatic increase in their user base. The company claims to have 1.3 billion active users, which is a 14% increase from last year.

How many people use Facebook worldwide? An estimated 1.32 billion people use Facebook, which is a number that is still growing! Other statistics during the 2nd quarter were better than the previous quarter for Facebook as well, so you can bet that people are excited and buying shares. Facebook recently closed at 71.29. Where is it at by the time you read this?

There are endless results out there showcasing how FaceBook is the largest social media platform in the world. The stock has closed up around $71 and is still rising. This showcases that a downfall is not even remotely around the corner considering how things are transpiring. The expectations at the moment were coming in at $0.32 increases across all shares. However, this has been smashed as FaceBook was able to increase their shares by $0.42. This is a significant amount of money in terms of an increase considering how many shares are out there at the moment.




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Getting Better Email Open Rates



The success of email campaigns can be gauged by the number of email open rates. The more number of readers read the email, the greater chances of people taking the desired action. But for this, the readers must be motivated into clicking on the link.

The very first thing which any reader will notice is the subject line. It is the most important factor which should resonates with the mind of the readers and should compel them to open and read the email. The subject line should be personalized depending upon the recipient’s interest, and other factors. So creativity needs to involve creating words of motivation. The brand should make its mark so much so that the customers must set up expectations for the brand. Recipients should be anticipating the emails. For this the services or products provided by the company should meet their current needs and interest. The recipients should know what to expect when they are opening the email and they should be made to feel that they will miss something very important if they didn’t open your email. 

Apart from the subject line, lot of attraction also lies in the content of the newsletter. The content must be original along with being compelling. If the content of the email can be found elsewhere, the customers may forgo the thought of opening the email and instead going for the one of a kind content. The content should also have valuable information which can be used by the readers. It could concentrate on the free offer, or the big discount. 

Another factor which forces the reader to open the email is his relationship with the company. Email readers fall into different categories. They can be irregular purchasers, potential clients, information hungry subscribers or existing clients. The method by which they decided to subscribe and the reason also tells a lot about the customer’s interest. Did they find the website through a search engine or did they sign up when buying products? The subscribers who have sought for information and then signed up for the emails are more likely to open the email, when compared to subscribers who signed up while buying a product because of a pre-checked box meant for signing up which they forget to uncheck.  

A strong personality is must for the success of the email. If the actual CEO or the marketing director is behind the newsletter, the readers get more interest in the email and the email open rates will boom immediately. The email list should be of high quality and should be well-maintained always. Also, efforts must be made in expanding the email list with targeted audiences which are more likely to open the email and take the desired action. Most of the times, long-time list members become inactive. So the list must be segmented based on list age and the inactive customers must be offered interesting incentive to bring them out of the hibernation. 

The mailing frequency is also a very critical issue. Too frequently send mails will hamper the growth of email open rates as the recipients will get irritated, so does scarcely send mails as the recipients will not remember who you are. The time of sending also is important. Test different time and days for finding out which time works best for every type of audience. The time of the year should also be considered here. People tend to open emails less frequently in summer which means lower email open rates. Holiday season means good email open rates for commercial emails and lesser email open rates for information oriented emails and newsletters. The number of legitimate opt-in emails being caught in the spam filters is increasing by the day. Although the message is being shown as ‘delivered’, the end recipient won’t be seeing the email at all. Care should be taken to avoid certain words and symbols which are the cause of spam filtration. 
 
The bottom line is to do every job exceedingly well in order to achieve higher email open rates. For email newsletters, sixty percent email open rates can be achieved and for commercial emails, about forty percent email open rates can be achieved.

Doubling Promotional Email Revenue and Ecommerce



One of the best aspects of email marketing is that it has the ability to turn out considerable revenue from a promotional email campaign or ecommerce. But the common perception of this type of marketing is that you design your email, forward it to a list of subscribers and then wait and watch the revenue rolling in. But it is not that easy. 

For an ecommerce program to be successful it takes more than just emailing the newsletter. And because of this, companies jeopardize lot of money by not dividing their customers into segments and utilizing more advanced emailing features. Segmentation can be done on the basis of demographics, personalization, actions, customers responses detail tracking and trigger based emails. By considering these variables, a lot of investment may not be made in infrastructure or technology. 

The revenue of an ecommerce program can be doubled or even tripled within few months with a little extra effort, analysis, refinement and testing. The things to be taken care of here are list building, content creativity, list management, segmentation and testing. 

 List building is the most effective means for increasing revenue. The email subscription form must be optimized for growth of the email list. Just a good home page won’t do the trick of capturing new subscribers. An eye catching link to the subscription form must be placed on every page of the website, possibly with an impossible to miss image. Many readers expect incentives when they sign-up for something. Try to offer ‘free shipping’ or ‘$25 off on the first order’, or something like it. The email address of a customer should be captured on the shopping cart form. Then a transaction confirmation email can be sent which includes link to the subscription form. This opportunity can also be used to get additional information from the customer in order to target them better. Demographics such as gender, product interests, and preferences can be asked about. 

Try to use a search engine pay-per-click or PPC program, because search is the most frequently used way for customers to buy products they desire. PPC program increases the traffic towards your website. If such programs are used, the signing up process must be made easier for visitors who have or haven’t bought products from your website. Making the website search engine optimized is the most cost effective method of getting traffic and improving your list. This optimization can be done either internally or by hiring an external SEO consultant. Every page of the website must be optimized to get the top rankings. The ‘Send-to-a-friend’ feature must be included in every eNewsletter as this feature generates a considerable amount of new subscribers. Although the number won’t be big, but it will be enough to satisfy the number of unsubscribes every month. 

If the business or shop is located somewhere, in-store promotion offers can be sent via emails. Sign-up forms can be given at cash registers and subscriptions can be promoted at the point of purchase. 

According to researches, a compelling subject line can increase the open rate by fifty percent. Solid offers and great design are the perfect blend for doubling the click through rate. Give customers options from which they can choose the most appropriate one which suits their appetite. The products must be divided into categories. Personalization helps in increasing the response rate. Emails can be personalized by referring to the customers by their first name or by their past purchase history. Since the email is just an extension of the website, it is better to leverage the website’s navigation. If the website has search capability, it must be incorporated in the email.    

The personality of the company should be reflected in their emails and its designs. Emails main job is motivating the recipients to click on the links to go to the website or subscription form. Some other very important links can be included, but a clutter shouldn’t be formed so that the most important one cannot be located. Graphic buttons and images can be used to draw attention. Great subject lines, top lines and offers just to wonders. 

List should be managed by calculating email churns and fatigues. Incorrect email entry can be solved by including a second email entry box. Send out confirmation to check the validity. Update email address and manage account link should be included in every email.

Testing is very critical in optimizing the email program. Majority of the email variables must be checked before the emails have been send out. 

Email Promoting: Tips And Techniques For Success

By Asch Adrienne


When you are marketing your business on the internet, you have to make sure that you interact with your customers and clients. One excellent way to do this is to have an email marketing plan that keeps you in touch with your target market; here are some smart ways to make your plan a great one.

Create one clear message per email. Keep your content concise and focused, so your customers do not become disinterested. Determine the one message that you need to get across in the email and focus on that idea. A concise email shows respect for the time of your customers.

Try following up an email to your customers with a notice that tells them not to procrastinate. Insert a suggestion that tells them to purchase now onto the reply. The ending could tell them not to miss this incredible opportunity by waiting. Instead, they should act now to reap the full benefits.

If you buy a list of emails to send to, check and make sure it is up to date. Sometimes lists for sail might match your target demographics but be woefully out of date. The number of addresses now defunct can be as high as 25% of the overall list.

Data mine your email list and bucket your audience into various segments based off of any profiling data you have. This will allow you to be more strategic with your messaging and effectively increase your chances of higher open and click through rates. Even if you don't have profiling, look to geo-targeting. Various regions respond differently to different types of messaging.

Make your emails content rich. Put some helpful information in emails and don't just put in information related to sales. Provide subscribers with special access to informative articles not available elsewhere on your site. In addition, include an exclusive offer for your products. Don't forget to send out emails that aren't directly marketing related. Holidays, birthdays and other special occasions also warrant emails.

Remember that your email list is meant to increase your business profits. Every email should be a way to get clients to make a purchase. Use your emails to tell people about new products, remind them of existing products, or offer a special deal or discount.

Make it easy for people to unsubscribe from your list. This might seem counter-productive since you don't want your customers to lose interest and leave. However, if your customers aren't interested in your newsletters anymore, they might get annoyed if they can't easily unsubscribe. Provide a large button or link so that customers who have lost interest can find it without an extensive search.

You must be persistent with your email marketing strategy. It is crucial to be persistent, while delivering a message your readers will find beneficial. Persistence while targeting the wrong audience will simply waste your time and energy.

Do not restrict yourself just to email marketing. As you identify your core clientele that trusts you, see if you can get phone numbers and physical addresses. Build on your relationships by expanding your communications with your loyal core base by contacting them through these mediums as well as email.

Now that you've read the tips above, you should be better equipped to start your own email marketing campaign. Use what you've learned here and seek out new knowledge so that you can build the largest list possible. With a ready list of interested customers, your business will be booming in no time.




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Zillow Bought Rival Trulia For $3.5 Billion In Stock

By Abu Dawood


There was a rumor recently on Bloomberg that Zillow, the real estate information company, was going to purchase it's chief rival company, Trulia. Then the rumor was proven to be true, when the board at Trulia approved a $3.5 billion stock deal. It amounts to a stock transaction for that amount.

However, Zillow doesn't plan to eliminate or absorb Trulia. They intend to continue on with Trulia as it was before. Both sites will contain their current design, and many of Trulia's employees will retain their position. Why isn't Zillow opting to merge the two sites? Apparently, the amount of visitors who go to both sites is small. Each site attracts its own audience, and Zillow doesn't want to risk alienating the Trulia audience. Instead, they want to profit off the customers they were once unable to track.

Both Zillow and Trulia have been prominent helping consumers find a value for their homes based on comparisons in local markets, as well as listing their homes. The two companies have some market overlap, but essentially cover two separate markets.

A lot of people use sites like Zillow to figure out how much property costs and which properties are for sale. It is an easy way to look things up. You can go to the website or you can use the app. If you are looking for a house to buy you will use it to get an idea about a home or even the neighborhood you want to move in to. It is a great way to keep tabs on the houses and see what they are doing. It gives you a little more information than a regular real estate site would.

Zillow told the New York Times business reporter that the goal of Zillow is to create a more robust and interactive real estate portfolio that consumers can count on even more for their marketing information and property analysis. The price of the purchase, $3.5 billion is a premium of 25% above the closing price of Trulia on the prior Friday. The stock had jumped quite a bit on rumors of the takeover.

There are have been rumors that Trulia would be purchased by Zillow for some time now, but those rumors have finally been confirmed. It's been announced that Zillow will be acquiring Trulia in a $3.5 billion stock deal.In this deal, Zillow will officially own both sites. However, Trulia will remain independent from Zillow. The site will exist independently as it always has, and it will continue to be run by its CEO. For the time being, the only major difference will be the company that owns the site.




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