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Internet Marketing Strategy For Home Business Promotion
Sat 14th Oct '00
In this issue:
1. INTRODUCTION
==>Stealth Marketing, MValue won't pay.
2. PLACES TO VISIT
==>Web sites for you to visit.
3. TIDBITS
==>Business news and other interesting snippets.
4. TOOLS AT NOW SELL!
==>Useful tools to make your life easier.
5. MARKETPLACE
==>Check out special offers and deals here.
6. FEATURE ARTICLE
==>"Pay-Per-Click Secrets for the Budget Entrepreneur"
by Azam Corry.
Scroll to the end for subscription details.
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X INTRODUCTION X
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Hello,
First off this week I want to tell you about a free ebook
download that you can't afford to miss. The book is Jay Abraham's
"Stealth Marketing: How to Outmaneuver, Outwit and Outmarket Your
Most Formidable Competitors ...Before They Know What's Hit Them."
If you don't know the name, Jay Abraham is one of the most widely
respected marketing experts around.
When first released, this book sold for $1,000 per copy!
Now Jay is offering it free!
'Stealth Marketing' was Jays first book. Whilst not new itself,
the concepts and strategies it contains will be to most readers.
They are still extremely useable. I've only had chance for a
quick flick-through so far, but in this case, that's enough to
recommend you get it.
"'Stealth Marketing' carefully details the foundational concepts
that underlie Jay's revolutionary marketing philosophy. A
philosophy that has created well over $6 billion of documented
increases in sales and profits for his clients.
"Jay doesn't give any dry theory here. 'Stealth Marketing' covers
specific, no-nonsense, straight to the point tactics and
strategies that you can read and use immediately.
Of course nothing is really free. What Jay wants is your email
address, although you are free to opt-out at any time. You'll
receive newsletters from both Jay and Paul Myers of TalkBiz News,
and be asked to participate in one or two short surveys each
month. These too are entirely optional. However, by taking part,
you're entitled to receive free summaries of what was learnt from
each questionnaire. Information for which I would happily give my
address in any case - even without the book!
Go and get it from: http://www.freemarketingbook.com/
BB
A few weeks ago I mentioned AllAdvantage was losing money and
laying off staff, and that most programs of the 'paid-to' variety
had reneged on their original promises regarding support of both
the Mac and international users.
On September 29th, one of these programs, MValue, shut down. In
an email to members, MValue cite the sudden withdrawal of a major
new investor, and its inability to raise additional capital, as
the reasons. Fair enough. These things happen.
What I find objectionable is that MValue will not be paying
commissions owed to members (not that I'm owed much!):
"Because the operating expenses of running the business through
September exceeded our revenues, we will not be able to make any
MValue or SweepSurf payments. This is a very unfortunate
situation and we sincerely apologize to you. At this point,
unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done."
Yet according to the same letter, MValue was already facing
closure in August, had it not "Fortunately ... signed a deal" to
put "a significant amount of capital" into the company. And am I
supposed to believe that September was the only month that
expenses exceeded revenues, and as such was unexpected?
Personally, I think this is disgraceful. The email notification
wasn't even sent until October 7th, a week after the site and
service went down. Meanwhile, countless members were wasting
their valuable time, promoting a service that didn't exist.
MValue say its email server was also down, and that there were
problems accessing the membership database. I find that hard to
believe. The message creates the impression that members are
simply no longer important. Plus, the letter begins, "As many of
you know already," which - reading between the lines - appears to
indicate MValue's email server was capable of receiving mail!
There's too much of this kind of thing online. Why didn't MValue
take steps months ago when it knew it was in trouble, and still
had money?
Here's my take. MValue didn't want to close whilst there was
still hope - however slim - of raising capital. So why not
suspend the service? Because should it later re-start, many
affiliates would have lost interest. Instead, to keep its options
open, MValue chose to leave members using and promoting the
service, knowing full well that without a last minute injection
of cash, closure was inevitable and members simply wasting their
time. I wonder if those responsible for this decision worked
their last month for free as well?
BB
Please rate Biz Bits at the Cumuli Ezine Finder.
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BB
Tell me what YOU think! Send your feedback, comments, what you
like, what you hate, etc., to me at: mailto:azam-nowsell.com
TTFN
Azam
PS - I forgot to mention that Ken Evoy has completely reworked
and expanded the Affiliate Masters Course. There's now over
100 pages of great information you can use. Get it. It's
Free. Send a blank email to: mailto:timsinfo@sitesell.net
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X PLACES TO VISIT X
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http://www.ScreamingMedia.com/
Buy content for your Web site or distribute (and get paid for)
content you have.
http://www.freedomlist.com/
Locate Free ISP's Worldwide. Also covers free phone and fax
services (on and off-line). Simple and useful.
http://www.linkstoyou.com/
Doubt the effectiveness of this Link popularity program, but a
number of useful tools. See the email updates of sites linking to
you.
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/home/sxw/robots/check/
Handy online robots.txt syntax checker examines the contents of
your site's robots.txt file for errors.
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
W3C CSS Validation Service. Check your Cascading Style Sheets
online, via URL, copy-paste, or file upload. Techie types can
download the application.
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X TIDBITS X
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STUDY: ONLINE SHOPPING IN U.K. LACKS SERVICE
England's Trading Standards Institute made online purchases from
102 companies based in the U.K. It found that 38 percent of
orders did not arrive on time and 17 percent did not arrive at
all. http://www.wh5.com/ncmi/c.cfm?I=3361
STUDY: DMERS LEAD ONLINE LOYALTY
Companies versed in direct marketing in the offline world are
outperforming retail giants such as Sears, Target and Kmart in
terms of online loyalty, according to Digital Idea's Dialscore
results released yesterday. http://www.wh5.com/ncmi/c.cfm?I=3337
SWEEPSTAKES SITES TOP LIST
Cash prize and sweepstakes-style Web sites are heavily
represented on the Media Metrix list of top-10 newcomer Web sites
in August, released Tuesday. Excite's Fastfreefun.com topped the
list, with 1.96 million unique visitors. Two other promotional
sites on the list are UproarLotto.com, with 1.26 million unique
visitors and Microsoft's Winmesweeps.com, with 882,000 visitors.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles2000/001010-3.shtml
FREEI CLOSES, NETZERO MOVES IN
Freei Networks, the free ISP that allowed users to surf the Net
while viewing advertising, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection Friday and announced that competitor NetZero would
acquire its assets. A week earlier the company, formerly the
nation's fifth-largest free ISP, laid off 90 employees.
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,19204,00.html
LISTEN, DON'T LOOK
The market for voice portals will be $1.6 billion by 2005,
according to Cahners In-Stat Group. Frustrated with the small
screens on their mobile devices, wireless Net users are expected
to turn to voice portals to get news, weather information and
stock quotes. http://www.thestandard.com/
TICKETS TAKE FLIGHT
The 10 major U.S. airlines will generate $8.7 billion in revenue
from selling tickets online this year, an increase of 85 percent
from 1999, according to PhoCusWright. Online ticket sales will
make up 9 percent of overall passenger revenue in 2000, up from
just 2 percent last year. http://www.thestandard.com/
WIRELESS ADVERTISING GETS SUPPORT FROM CONSUMERS
Wireless phones may indeed join newspapers, radio, and television
as a sponsored delivery medium for information, shopping, and
entertainment services, according to a study of voice and
wireless commerce conducted by The Kelsey Group and ConStat, Inc.
http://cyberatlas.com/markets/wireless/
article/0,,10094_481481,00.html
SUN OPENS STAROFFICE CODE
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,39452,00.html The
Solaris company puts the source code of its office-productivity
software on the Web. Sun now relies on the kindness of strangers
in the programming community and standards like XML to improve
its competitor to Microsoft Office.
SECURITY BREACH AT BUY.COM
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,39438,00.html The
retail site's system for product returns temporarily allows
customers' personal information to be viewed by others.
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Do Your Bit!
If you haven't already done so, please forward this issue
to one or two of your friends or colleagues. Thanks so much!
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MICROSOFT'S WINDOW INTO LINUX
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,39424,00.html Corel
got a cool $135 million from their former adversary in exchange
for a promise to promote MS' new '.NET' platform. But SEC
documents reveal Microsoft can also have Corel develop Linux apps
for the platform.
DOT-COM CUTS HIT DOUBLECLICK
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,39418,00.html The
online advertising company reports a profit in its most recent
quarter. But executives warn that decreased dot-com ad spending
will take a toll on future earnings.
STUDY: SITES NEED PRIVATE XMAS
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,39398,00.html Forrester
Research finds that if online toy sites want to put their wares
under trees this holiday season, a sound privacy policy may help.
EU OK's AOL-Time Warner Deal
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,39386,00.html The
European Union approves the media acquisition with the condition
that AOL sever links to Germany's Bertelsmann. The commission
wants to prevent the combined entity from dominating digital
music.
WHEN PAY-TO-SURF DOESN'T PAY
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,39332,00.html So-called
'pay-to-surf' companies, which compensate people for data about
their Web usage, have been having a rough time lately. A few have
closed in recent weeks, while others are radically retooling
their business plans.
BEZOS DREAMS OF A WEB CHRISTMAS
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,39341,00.html Amazon's
Jeff Bezos says his company will continue to diversify, even
though a prominent analyst insists the strategy will keep the
world's largest e-tailer from turning a profit anytime soon, if
ever. For his part, Bezos is expecting a boom come the holiday
shopping season.
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X MARKETPLACE X
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X FEATURE ARTICLE X
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"Pay-Per-Click Secrets for the Budget Entrepreneur"
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by Azam Corry
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search engines offer some of the best value
advertising online. Where else can you get targeted visitors from
just $0.01 each?
However, because they aren't sure how it all works, or perhaps
unconvinced that it does, many have yet to take advantage of the
medium. With that in mind, I'm going to explain how you can
benefit from PPC search engines, and spend as little as possible
in the process.
In the PPC model, you write your own title and description,
select a keyword searchers must enter for your listing to appear,
and bid against other site owners for its rank in search results.
Your bid equals the amount you will pay for each click on your
listing.
I use several PPC search engines. Widely acknowledge to be the
best performer, GoTo brings me more traffic - and sales - than
all the rest put together. Being the most important, I will focus
on it here, although the same techniques apply to any PPC SE.
#1 SECRET TO BIG RETURNS ON A SHOESTRING BUDGET
Bid prices for good rankings on very popular, common keywords are
often high. However, the vast majority of advertisers *only* bid
on these obvious terms. They ignore THOUSANDS of other keywords.
Because few people are bidding on those overlooked keywords, the
bid prices remain low. You and I can get good listings here for
just a cent or two!
Of course, less popular keywords aren't searched for as often.
But that *does not* matter. Play smart. Bid on LOTS of keywords.
Hundreds, thousands even. Here's an example of how it works:
# Keywords # Times each Keyword Number of Times
in Account Searched per Month Your Ad is Seen*
------------ --------------------- ----------------
20 1000 20,000
200 100 20,000
*Assume all listings have the same ranking, say the #3 spot.
As you can see, listing under 200 keywords, each of which is only
searched for 100 times a month, can bring you the SAME amount of
traffic as 20 listings for much more expensive, popular keywords
that are searched for 1000 times each month.
RESEARCHING YOUR KEYWORDS
Once you've opened your account, start researching your keywords.
You will probably already have several relevant words and phrases
in mind. Write them all down and head over to the GoTo Keyword
Suggestion Tool with your list.
The Keyword Suggestion Tool tells you how many times in the
previous month people have searched for the keyword you input, or
any phrase containing it. Results are listed in order, with the
most popular searches at the top.
Type your first keyword into the tool's search box. When the
results come up, select "Save As" on your browser, and choose to
save as "Text." This will save your results in a small plain text
file that can be opened by any text editor (like NotePad). Use
the keyword as the file name.
Do likewise with all of your keywords, phrases, and other
potentially important terms within phrases. For example, one of
your main keywords may be "marketing" and one of your phrases
"marketing courses." In this case, search for "courses" as well.
Although the majority of results will be inappropriate, you will
usually find a handful of new terms that you wouldn't have
thought of otherwise.
When you've finished your list, open the first file saved. Delete
all irrelevant terms. From the remainder, identify potentially
good words that you haven't yet investigated. Input these into
the Suggestion Tool and repeat the process. Do the same for every
file and you will soon have hundreds of terms.
For even more suggestions, try JimTools Keyword Generation Tool
at http://www.jimtools.com . Bear in mind however that these are
terms found in Web pages, and therefore not necessarily keywords
used by searchers.
GET DATABASED
Create a simple database for your listing details - it will make
managing your account much easier. You can use Excel or similar;
I personally prefer FileMaker Pro for PPC accounts (thanks to
Vicki at http://www.sitesell.com/info.html providing a basic
template for affiliates).
Essential headings you will need are:
* Search Term
* URL
* Title
* Description
* Current Bid Amount
Optional headings Include:
* Number of Searches per Month (from GoTo tool)
* Title Length (auto calculated function)
* Description Length (auto calculated function)
* Listing Status (New, On, Off, Pending, Rejected)
* Product (helpful if advertising various products)
* Current Rank
* Top Bid Amount (time consuming to update: select terms only)
* Minimum Bid Amount (as above)
* First Page Minimum bid amount (as above)
* Date Last Modified (suggest auto function)
I also have FileMaker assign a serial number, so that it can mark
terms as 'original' or 'duplicate', making the latter easy to
delete.
Once you have your database, paste in the search terms from your
collection of text files (if you have a good text editor, use
'search and replace' strings to batch process, deleting unwanted
information, and tab-delimiting the remainder for direct import,
either individually or merged into a single file).
YOUR TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS
Next compose your titles and descriptions. Remember you are
writing an ad. Make your title catchy. Incorporating the search
term within it usually increases clickthroughs. Beware however
that more clicks doesn't always equal more sales (or more
targeted visitors).
Some searchers will click on the first title they notice
containing the term searched for, thinking it more relevant. What
you are offering may be an exact match to the keyword, or it may
be related. If the latter, think before you automatically include
the term in your title. In addition, writing a different title
for every search term is very time consuming.
Make your description as comprehensive and benefit-laden as you
can within the space allowed (with GoTo, this is 40 characters
for the title and 190 for the description. Other PPC engines
vary, but most have higher limits).
If your budget is tight and you simply wish to sell something,
consider making it obvious from your description. Unless you have
a secondary strategy (like collecting email addresses) save money
by filtering out those least likely to part with any cash.
Concentrate on attracting your perfect prospect: one open to the
possibility of making a purchase.
YOUR MAXIMUM BID PRICE
How much should you bid? Ideally, calculate your maximum bid
limit based on the average conversion ratio of the page you are
linking to. If you don't know what that is, I suggest you
initially base your limit on a 1% conversion ratio (1 in every
100 visitors buys).
Lets say you make $20 on every sale. That means - on average -
for every 100 visitors, you get $20. To be in profit, those 100
visitors must cost you less than the $20 you make. It therefore
follows that one visitor must cost less than $20/100, or $0.20.
This is your break-even point. Always bid below this figure.
With a bid of $0.04, the 100 visitors required for a $20 sale
will only cost you $4. You make $16 profit. If your conversion
ratio is in reality 3%, at $0.04 per click you will make $56 for
every $4 you spend. That's a 1400% profit!
Use coded (tracked) URL's for your PPC listings, or if feasible
link them to specific pages that cannot be accessed by a surfer
on your site (can be duplicates with no inbound links). You will
soon have a good idea of your real conversion ratio.
BIDDING STRATEGY
The idea is to bid as little as possible for the highest number
of targeted visitors. Being first on the results page will bring
most visitors. However, as I mentioned earlier, simply getting
more clickthroughs is not necessarily a good thing.
In the top position, you are more likely to attract 'lazy'
searchers that simply click on the first thing they see, and
others who automatically assume that since your listing is at the
top, it must be the most relevant (like a regular search engine).
Although your listing may be highly relevant, it might not be
what THEY had in mind.
How important or not this is, depends on the cost of the listings
and your budget. If the current top bid is, say $0.10 and the
second $0.05. It makes more sense to bid $0.06 and get the number
two position, than pay $0.11 for the top spot.
The further down the listings your ad appears, the less likely it
will be seen. This is not only due to the behavior of searchers.
Web sites that partner with GoTo seldom display all of the
listings. AOL for example only displays the first three. Others
display the first five, ten, or possibly twenty listings.
With this in mind, create various 'cut-off' points in the
listings, in relation to your budget. Can you afford to be in the
top three listings? If not, look at the top five, then ten.
Don't overly concern yourself with individual positions within
these groupings. Your exposure and - all else being equal - the
number of clickthroughs you get will be almost the same whether
you are at, say, number 7 or number 10. The difference in bid
price however can be substantial. Pay as little as possible to
get into the highest group within your budget. That
notwithstanding, increasing your bid by 2 cents to jump five
positions in the top half of the page would be worthwhile.
On popular terms where bids are high, simply try to get into the
first half of the results page (the top 20 on GoTo). If that is
still beyond my budget, I aim for a cheap position right at the
bottom of the page.
My theory is that most searchers who have bothered to scroll more
than halfway down the page will continue to the end. In addition,
most people tend to scroll in 'chunks'. This makes them likely to
miss listings in the middle, as their eyes are naturally drawn to
the white space at the bottom of the page.
If you can't afford page one at all, try and get within the first
five or ten listings on page two.
GETTING YOUR LISTINGS ONLINE
GoTo have a good account manager, and I would suggest using it to
submit your first listings. However, like most online tools, it
can become extremely tedious when you have a lot of work to get
through.
GoTo will happily accept bulk submissions in an Excel spreadsheet
they have available for download. If you don't have Excel, you
can send your listings in tab-delimited text format (other PPC
engines operate the same way, but some don't advertise the fact,
requiring you ask).
Use the account manager to get your first few listings online.
GoTo check all submissions for relevancy (good for your
conversion ratio) so it will be 3-5 days before they go live.
Meanwhile, work up a list of several hundred keywords. Instead of
spending hours inputing these yourself, email them to GoTo and
let them do it for you.
If you don't have an account, here's a special offer for readers
of Biz Bits.
Use the URL below to sign up with GoTo between now and October
31, 2000 and you will get $10 credited to your account - Free!
URL: http://www.nowsell.com/go/to.cgi?l=goto
If you're not yet using PPC search engines, now is the time to
start. You won't regret it. Follow these guidelines and it's
impossible not to profit!
© 1999-2000 Azam Corry "Do it Better, Do it Faster, Do it Right!"
Azam Corry owns Now Sell! A mine of helpful information, tools
and resources for budding Netrepreneurs. Rated 3-star by Go.com.
Recommended by About.com. Visit: http://www.NowSell.com/?PPCSec
==> If you are doing business online, you'll enjoy his Biz Bits
ezine. Subscribe today at: mailto:BizBits@NowSell.com
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