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Are you an online marketer? Or do you simply promote affiliate programs? Marketing is truly the most misunderstood word in use today on the Internet. Let me see if I can clarify this issue just a bit.

In Marketing 101 at your local university, marketing is actually the process of Product, Place, Price and Promotion.

PRODUCT

No business can exist without a product or service to sell.

In a nutshell, entrepreneurs are the people who believe in a product, service or idea, so much that they are willing to invest their lives into the development of their dream.

Historically, every major corporation in the world was started by an entrepreneur with a dream and the drive to make it a reality.

However, there comes a time in the life of every corporation when those who fear the gambling nature of their founder, squash the entrepreneurial drive that made the company a viable concern in the first place. The entrepreneur will either submit to the careful nature of the stockholders, or he will be forced to leave the company he created.

The only entrepreneurs who withstand the pressure to move more carefully are those who have maintained majority control over their companies.

PLACE

In the offline world, place is defined by location. On the Internet, place is defined by domain name and the web hosting service chosen.

Both online and offline, place can make or break a company without respect to the quality and value of the product, service or idea.

PRICE

Selecting a price is determined first on a basis of whether the company wants to be seen as a discount or a value company.

Take for example Wal-Mart and Staples.

Wal-Mart is the lead discounter in the marketplace. Staples on the other hand is the specialist in office supplies.

Both sell a significant number of office supplies despite the fact that the lowest price can usually be found at Wal-Mart. As a value dealer, Staples can afford to charge more for their products than Wal-Mart.

So the question for you is whether you want to position your company as a discount or value company.

Testing has shown that products and services can be sold at any number of prices and still reach a significant number of people.

The challenge of selecting the best price for your product or service will require a certain amount of testing.

UNDERSTANDING THE PRICING EQUATION

Let’s assume we are selling a product. Let us also assume that we know that the product can be sold for $10 or $50. Let us also assume that if the price dips below $10 or rises above $50, then the product sales fall off significantly.

Our challenge is to determine the best rate at which to sell our product.

Testing has shown us that we can sell 1000 items a week at $10. Testing has also shown that we can sell 500 items per week at $50. And testing has shown that we can sell 650 items per week at $45.

At $10, our projected weekly earnings are $10,000. When we sell the product at $50, we know that we can earn $25,000 per week. Most importantly, we know that we can earn $29,250 when our product is priced at $45.

With the imaginary testing we have done on our imaginary product, we can easily see that selling our product at $45 per item will earn us more money over the long haul.

Thus, when we make the decision for a national rollout of our product, then we will price our product at $45.

Of course, this is a very simplistic analysis of the point I am trying to make. Though simple, I believe this analogy will help you understand the methods of developing a product’s prices.

PROMOTION

Promotion, on the other hand, is the process of notifying the consumers for your product or service of your availability to serve them.

Methods of promotion vary distinctly and should be arranged to meet very specific goals.

As with product, place and price, promotion should not be left to chance. You should test every ad, every media, and every price point to determine the best bang for your promotional dollars.

HEADS UP!

If you are an online promoter or marketer, please factor in the most important element concerning the cost of your promotions.

What element is that? Your time!

Value your time at a certain dollar amount, and figure in your time into the cost of your promotional accounting.

I say this because too many online promoters lose sight of this concept and spend 20 hours to generate one sale while using free advertising. Even if you rate your time at the federal minimum wage, then you will have invested $105 of your time for one sale that might only net you a gross sale of $45!

ARE YOU TRULY A MARKETER OR ARE YOU JUST A PROMOTER?

Most people who run a business on the Internet call themselves marketers. Yet, most of these same people are really just promoters wrapped in the label of a marketer.

True marketers do not promote without a lot of advance work. They spend time planning, testing and measuring their actions and results to get the most out of every dollar spent and earned.

Entrepreneurs finesse the art of marketing as they build their company into a major enterprise.

If you are a promoter who does not keep an eye on the total marketing equation, then you are bound to fail.

If you do call yourself a marketer, then do what a professional marketer does. Make sure that every dollar spent is spent well. Make sure that every dollar earned is put to good use. Market well so that when the people of the next generation look at your life, they will see a fine example of a successful entrepreneur that they will strive to emulate.

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Reprinted with permission from the Plug-In Profit Site Free Website Builder.

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Did you realize there are only three types of online promotion?… This statement may seem odd and even untrue in your mind, but I am speaking in more general terms than you might be thinking.

Let me explain.

The three types of promotion are Junk, Active and Passive promotions.

JUNK PROMOTIONS ARE MONEY PITS

Junk promotions are those that seem to produce results, but by their very nature are really only illusionary promotions.

For example, let me begin with FFA (Free For All) pages. You might find yourself subscribing to a submission program that tricks you into believing you are submitting your links to tens of thousands search engines.

According to the Open Directory website, they have only approved 1705 search engines and directories for inclusion in their database (http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/).

I like using the DMOZ directory as an example because submitted links are tested by human beings with integrity, for the honesty used in site description. Search Engine Watch and other search watchers tend to show fewer than these 1705 engines, primarily because a lot of the engines provide very little value.

Yes, you can submit your URL to a FFA page, but FFA’s usually only permit 100 or 1000 links on their page at any one time. So, if ten thousand people are submitting a link to an FFA page on a daily basis, then the average life of your link is between seven minutes and 144 minutes. I suspect the actual number of submitters is much higher and the results are much worse. Given that few people surf FFA pages, the chances of your submission being of any real value is practically nill!

Most of the people telling you that you can submit your site to tens of thousands of search engines are truly only submitting your site to FFA pages! Beware of the false promises.

Another junk promotion method is Safe Lists. A safe list is a mailing group that is signed up to be received by people who want to submit their own ads. Now, most safe lists have thousands of subscribers who are able to submit their ads daily or weekly. The person signed up to receive the list will receive anywhere from twenty to 140+ messages a day from the list. These messages will be received by people only interested in promoting their own thing who do not have the right motivation to open, let alone read Your Advertising. As a result, thousands of messages go out daily or weekly that will never be seen by anyone but the sender of the ad. Where is the value in that? There is none.

ACTIVE PROMOTIONS

Active promotions are the type that require you to go out on a daily basis or a weekly basis and put out your advertisements. With active promotions, you will either place your advertising or you will not sell your products or services. Your choice is simple — work or starve.

Examples of active promotions include Pay Per Click Search Engines (PPCSE’s), Direct Email, Ezine Advertising, Solo Ezine Ads, Newsletter Publishing, Ezine Ad Swaps, Classified Ads, Auctions, Site Sponsorship and Banner Ads.

Some people are able to utilize these methods very productively, while others are destined to drop their money into the bottomless pit of failed Internet promotions.

PASSIVE PROMOTIONS

Passive promotions are those promotions that can continue to provide results for you long after you have invested the work to make them available to the Internet community.

Examples of passive promotions include: Link Exchanges, Articles, Ebooks, Content Exchanges and Writing Testimonials for others.

Let’s look at articles as a solid example of my point.

You are reading an article that I have written to promote my own business. This article is timeless and therefore could have been written five years ago and still have been as valuable as it is today.

Due to the fact that the article is timeless, it can and will be placed in newsletters/ezines and their accompanying online archives, on websites and in ebooks for many more years to come.

As a result, this article will continue to serve me well beyond the time in which I wrote it and submitted it to publishers and webmasters for public consumption and publication.

This is the best example I can give you of an excellent passive promotional method.

AVOID THE MONEY PITS

Many try and even fewer succeed to conquer the Internet and to produce their dreams of online wealth.

My hope is that you will be one of the people who conquer the challenges before you and to make a nice living while working online. It will take drive, determination, study plus trial and error, but you can make it work for you.

Please continue to educate yourself so that you can avoid the money pits – instead, strive to find the money barrels. It can be done. I am living proof.

—————————————————————–
Stone Evans will help you setup your very own money making
website today that’s 100% ready to take orders and pull in
MASSIVE PROFITS for you right now…GUARANTEED! Plus, you’ll get
your own pre-written ezine-in-a-box customized and setup for you
absolutely free WITHIN 24 HOURS!! Get started immediately at:

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—————————————————————–

Reprinted with permission from the Plug-In Profit Site Free Website Builder.

http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-20039

No business can survive the long run without some form of consistent advertising. As a result, most business owners will eventually consider using advertising to promote their business.

The toughest part of the advertising equation is in determining where and how to spend your advertising dollars. If you do it wrong, you could plunk down your entire advertising budget and receive absolutely no return on your investment. But, if you do it right, your advertising could continue to bring a nice return for years to come.

HOW DO I MAKE THE RIGHT ADVERTISING DECISIONS

In order to make good decisions concerning how to spend your advertising budget, you must first have a good understanding of the different types of advertising and promotion available and what can be expected to be achieved by each.

• You must understand which markets the different media’s can reach.
• You must understand the demographics of the media’s consumers.
• You must understand the buying habits of the consumers reached through the media.

WHAT OFFLINE ADVERTISING & PROMOTION MEDIA’S SHOULD BE CONSIDERED

The media’s that people think of most often are television, radio, newspaper and magazine advertising. Of course, these are the big boys that big businesses use regularly.

Other methods of promotion include trade shows, press releases, direct sales, telemarketing, word of mouth, branding and billboard advertising.

CONSIDERING THE BIG MEDIA OUTLETS

The big boys of advertising media’s generally cost big bucks. Given certain circumstances, the big media’s can be bought for very little money.

Take for example, television, radio and newspapers cost big bucks during their prime times, but can be bought for pennies on the dollar during non-primetime hours.

Television primetime is between 7pm and 10pm. Radio primetime is between 7am and 6pm. With newspapers, the primetime is Wednesdays and Sundays.

If you intend to hit a media during prime time, get ready to drop some bucks. Primetime means that you will be able to hit more consumers during these times. So, in most cases, a primetime buy will enable you to reach more people with your advertising.

Non-primetime hours can still deliver a lot of eyes and ears to your message, and sometimes, these off-hours can be bought for a bargain basement price.

GETTING MILEAGE FROM EVENTS

Trade shows and press releases are more event-driven. The trade show is the event, while the press release generally exploits an event.

Trade shows are an exceptional tool when you deal directly with potential sellers of your products or services. Other shows are directed at the consumer, and those can be very valuable avenues for sales as well.

The press release is aimed towards gaining attention for a business by distributing newsworthy information about the business.

Sometimes the appearance of a business at a trade show or other show can provide the necessary angle for a press release. But most often, a successful press release will actually require more noteworthy information than the appearance of a business at a show.

Yet, even the most mundane of information could be spiced up to give the real air of importance necessary to get your press release read and printed.

The great thing about a press release is that might permit you to get relatively inexpensive promotion on television, radio, newspapers and magazines; for far less than what it would cost you to buy advertising in those same outlets.

UTILIZING A SALES TEAM

Depending on what type of business you run and the consumers you are trying to reach, you might find direct sales and telemarketing to be very lucrative ways to drive sales to your business.

Both are very similar in nature. Direct sales can be very expensive, as it requires a great investment of time to accommodate. Telemarketing seeks to minimize the time expenditure, but it often leads to a smaller degree of respect and attention.

Depending on your product or service — and always depending upon the people you employ to the task — each method will be more suited to each business on an individual basis.

BRANDING YOUR BUSINESS

I grouped branding and billboard advertising together in my original list for a reason. I did this because billboard advertising serves most businesses best by helping to support the process of branding.

Branding is the process of establishing your business as the supplier of a certain product or service, or in emphasizing a certain USP (Unique Selling Proposition) as it pertains to your business.

If branding and USP seems to be a confusing concept, think about Wal-Mart and their tag line: “Always Low Prices, Always.”

Think about Ford Motors, “Quality is Job One.”

Think about the Visa Card, “It’s Everywhere You Want To Be.”

You see, these top corporations have managed to make their USP part of their branding.

Even if you are only competing in a local marketplace, your USP can and should fit snugly into your branding strategy.

NO MATTER THE MEDIA OR METHOD

Whichever method or media you should choose to employ in your advertising and promotion, you should become knowledgable about your market, and the consumers reached by each media. It is important to understand which consumers can be reached by a certain media, and in what quantities.

However you choose to spend your advertising dollars, you should always track the results of your promotional efforts. Failing to track successes and failures will ultimately lead to the failure of a business.

When you know whom you are trying to reach and how you think you might be able to reach them, you will begin to learn how to use advertising and promotion to make your business successful. That is a good thing — after all, that is why you got into the business in the first place, isn’t it?

—————————————————————–
Stone Evans will help you setup your very own money making
website today that’s 100% ready to take orders and pull in
MASSIVE PROFITS for you right now…GUARANTEED! Plus, you’ll get
your own pre-written ezine-in-a-box customized and setup for you
absolutely free WITHIN 24 HOURS!! Get started immediately at:

http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-20039

—————————————————————–

Reprinted with permission from the Plug-In Profit Site Free Website Builder

So what is “article marketing” and how can it impact your world? Glad you asked. What we call “article marketing” is simply writing informative articles and having those articles run in ezines. If that sounds hard, it’s not. Let’s run the numbers for a moment.

There are over 300,000 ezines out there. Estimates say that over 90% of them use free articles in their ezines. That means there is a HUGE market for your articles, no matter what you want to write about.

We like to say it this way. From cat food to Katmandu, there’s an ezine out there for everyone. You included.

The Big Picture

The first step is to understand the goal of article marketing. The goal is to write an informative article and have it run in as many TARGETED ezines as possible. When people read the article they see your resource box at the end of the article, click to your website and buy your stuff. They learn something, and you make money. Very simple.

Notice the emphasis on targeted? Please, please, whatever you do, do not waste an editors time with articles that they don’t need. One of the greatest things about the Directory of Ezines is that you can use it to find the perfect ezines for your articles … fast. Use the DOE, but never spam editors with articles they can’t use.

How to Write the Article

You want to write an informative article about something you know. Once you chose your subject, here’s the magic formula for writing the article. Five easy steps.

1. Be yourself. Don’t try to write like anyone else. Let your personality shine through.

2. Tell a story. People love to hear an interesting story.

3. Limit yourself to 600 words. This is an ideal length for most ezines. Format your article to 65 characters per line with a hard return at the end of each line.

4. Have a clear opening, make three or five points it the middle, and have a brief conclusion.

5. THIS IS THE BIG ONE. Give the reader a few steps he or she can take to make your idea work for them. Tell them what to do first, second, third to accomplish the task you are writing about.

If the reader can take ACTION based on what you wrote (just like you can now apply this formula to your writing) you will have delivered valuable information to them. Do that and, hopefully, they will keep reading your stuff!

How to Find the Right Ezines

The absolute, 100% effective, surefire way to do this is to use the Directory of Ezines. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Look for ezines that have these three things. First, the ezine content matches your article content. Second, the ezine accepts articles. Third, the reader is someone who would be a good customer for you. Once you nail down those basics you have found the perfect market for your articles.

How to Approach the Editor

The BEST way to approach an editor is this.

1. Subscribe to the ezine.

2. Read a few issues.

3. Write a personal note commenting on what you enjoyed about the issues that you read.

4. Offer your article as one that might fit in.

5. Ask to be informed if your article is run.

6. Thank them for their time.

7. Be available if they have questions.

If an editor chooses your article, the odds are they will run your articles in the future as well. Stay in touch and you can develop close relationships with literally hundreds of editors. Remember that each editor represents thousands of readers that you may never reach any other way. Also remember that the editor is a busy person. Keep your email brief.

How to Maximize Your ROI

Include a “resource box” at the end of the article. A resource box is where you sell the reader on going to your website, subscribing to your ezine, or taking any other action you want them to take.

Marketing with ezine articles is truly a win-win-win proposition. The publisher wins because he or she gets great free articles. The reader wins because your article is informative and tells them how to accomplish an important task as easy as 1,2,3. You win because hundreds of thousands of readers see your selling message at the end of your article.

All of this with no out-of-pocket costs. Now THAT’S a beautiful thing!

Charlie Page is the owner of the Directory of Ezines, the first and most comprehensive list of quality ezines that accept advertising available on the Internet. Charlie can show you how to sell more products and earn more affiliate commissions using the Internet’s #1 marketing method … ezine marketing!

If you expect your site to stimulate some form of action, whether it is visitors filling out a form so a representative can contact them, or purchasing a product, there are steps you can take to insure that your website is functioning at peak efficiency. One of the first indicators of how well your site is working for you is finding out the number of visitors in a given period of time. A good baseline measurement is a month in which you haven’t been doing any unusual offline promotional activities.

However, just because hoards of people have passed through your gates does not mean your site is successful. Usually, you want those visitors to actually do something there. It is equally important to monitor the number of visitors to your site who made a purchase. This figure is called the site conversion rate, and it is an essential element of the efficacy of your website. To find the site conversion rate, take the number of visitors per month and figure out the percentage of them that actually performed the action your site is set up for. For example, if you had 2,000 hits to your site, but only 25 of them purchased your product, your site conversion rate equals 1.25%. To get this figure, take your number of visitors and divide that figure by the number of visitors who made a purchase. Then divide that result by 100 (25 ÷ 2000 X 100).

If your website is set-up to get visitors to fill out a form, make sure to then figure out what the difference is between your site conversion rate and your sales conversion rate. This is because not everyone who fills out your form will actually become your customer. However, whether your site is set-up to sell a service or product, or to get the visitor to fill out a form, the site conversion rate will measure the success or failure of your website whenever you make changes to the site.

You may find that you need to implement some additional marketing strategies if you find that traffic to your site is extremely low. There are several effective methods to improve the flow of traffic to your website, particularly launching a search engine optimization campaign. This campaign is targeted at increasing your position in search engine results so that consumers can find your pages faster and easier. You can either research the steps you need to take to improve your search engine rankings, or employ a search engine optimization company to do the work for you. In either case, after your have improved your search engine positions, make sure you keep on top of them by regular monitoring and adjusting of your efforts to maintain high positions.

Another factor to examine is how easy it is for a visitor to your website to accomplish the action the site is set-up for. For example, if your goal is for the visitor to fill out a form, is this form easily accessible, or does the visitor have to go through four levels to get to it? If it’s too difficult to get to, the customer may just throw in the towel and move on to another site. Make sure your buttons are highly visible, and the path to your form or ordering page quickly accessible.

Finally, have a professional evaluate the copy on your website. The goal is, of course, to get your visitor to make a purchase or fill out your form. Website copy must be specifically geared to your online campaign and not just a cut and paste job from your company brochure. The right copy can make the difference between profit and loss in your online campaign.

Michael Rasmussen is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant and author of many top-selling eBooks. Michael has been marketing online since the early days and he knows what it takes to make money and succeed online. Stop by his Web site and subscribe to his Free monthly newsletter full strategies and techniques for successful web site promotions that can help YOU!

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