Niche Info Online Business

Publishers at marketing meeting say newspapers have to be aggressive innovators to fend off competition.

By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor

ORLANDO, Fla. — It’s not easy reinventing a newspaper when the newspaper itself is the one spreading the bad news.

But that’s just one of the obstacles Brian Tierney faces as he attempts to revitalize The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News.

“If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about newspapers, it’s that there isn’t an industry out there that doesn’t kick itself in the rear end more frequently and more dramatically than this business,” said Tierney, chief executive officer and publisher of Philadelphia Media Holdings.

Tierney, along with Michael Reed, president and chief executive officer of GateHouse Media Inc. and William Dean Singleton, vice chairman and chief executive officer of Media News Group, were the keynote speakers at this year’s NAA Marketing Conference.

Their message: Newspapers need to be aggressive innovators to fend off stiff competition in their quest to achieve local news dominance and ad dollars.

Tierney, the former advertising executive who implemented a number of new initiatives at the Philadelphia papers, said that newspapers are doing a disservice to themselves by focusing too much on the negative business and not enough on the positive.



Burying the lede

Case in point: When The Inquirer reported its first circulation gains in a number of years, the story was buried on page 3 of the business section.

“You will never see Brian Williams begin his broadcast by rending his garments and saying that a third of the people who used to watch me aren’t even watching me anymore,” Tierney said.

What newspapers are dealing with is more competition and it’s important to maintain their local audience.

“Let’s talk about the assets that we have,” said Tierney. “There are all kinds of challenges out there but I really see as an outsider the strengths of the industry and we need to understand them, focus on them and invest in those and get over it.”

A key part of Tierney’s strategy is to attract women aged 35 years and up.

To that end, Philadelphia Media Holdings launched several programs geared toward wooing that demographic, programs involving targeted advertising and promotions (see sidebar).

He also stressed papers should launch low-cost experiments and explore e-commerce initiatives.

But more importantly, he said, newspapers need to promote the value they provide their communities.

“We’re proud to put on the front of our Sunday paper (that the paper) contains $722, or $638, worth of coupons inside,” he said. “The journalists don’t exactly love that but I’ll take them anyway I can; If that’s what it take to get our consumers to come out with a little bit of kibble like a deer in the woods.”



Moving ahead

Singleton stated that while the United States is poised to enter a recession, now is the time for newspapers to move forward with the right strategies.

The key focus for newspapers is to protect and serve the core printed product and to expand the online business and develop new niche products, he said.

“Right now we are facing a secular and cyclical downturn and it’s important not to get the two mixed up,” said Singleton. “We’ve been going through secular change for several years. Our core has been smaller, advertisers have been shrinking while our online has been growing.”
Real estate and job listings may never come back to printed newspapers, but newspapers can still attract these revenues in their electronic editions, Singleton said.

He said he expects online revenues to contribute 20 percent of MNG’s sales by 2012 while sales from print advertising generate 65 percent. The remainder, he said, will come from niche and specialty products. According to a memo he issued in late 2007, Singleton said MNG currently gets 89 percent of its revenues from display advertising while online contributes about 7 percent.

Reed, meantime, said the industry has to continue to invest in and train its sales force.

“We have gotten increasingly complex compared to 20, 30, 40 years ago when we just put our daily newspaper on the street,” Reed said. “That’s not the case anymore. We have a plethora of niche products, weeklies, monthlies, special sections, and our daily and online products.”

Newspaper sales reps must know the product mixes, the community and the competition and be willing to change. Singleton stressed feet on the streets, while Reed said his company’s strengths lie in knowing the community and integrating the newspaper within that market.

As a result, GateHouse, which largely owns newspapers in small and mid-sized markets, has been able to avoid some of the classified revenues meltdown and cyclical downturn that’s affected its larger counterparts, Reed said.

As for feet on the street, “You can’t sell what we have to offer if you don’t have people to sell it,” Singleton said.

“We need to sell to the advertisers and more importantly, the customers we don’t have, and find out what problems we need to solve, what solutions we need to provide for them.”

Still, Tierney said, the severe cost pressures newspapers are now facing won’t end anytime soon. Trimming staff, he said, is a consequence of the current business environment.

“Quite frankly, there’s a sense of entitlement and lamentation about the past and the core of our employees (is) not stepping up to the game the way we need them to,” he said.

“We are changing that mindset. We have been able to redo our contracts with union leaders to get that and they’ve been helping getting people up and out who do not want to step up to the game.”

Yet even as newspapers are forced to resize their operations, publishers still must be open to new ideas and take chances when appropriate, Tierney said.

“The key is to experiment, to make a lot of small bets. Don’t bet the house on any one thing, but why not try something with a small investment but high potential down the road,” he said.

by Brian Brus

The Journal Record April 1, 2008

OKLAHOMA CITY – Kimberly Smith is expecting a bigger Christmas this year than last. Even though the holiday is still more than eight months away, she's already planning new ornaments to decorate Christmas trees. Baby birth announcements, anniversary dates, company logos, beloved pets, favorite football coaches and team mascots – the possibilities are constrained only by marketing avenues, said the owner of Oklahoma City-based Picture This Ornaments.

"It's harder to limit what I want to do than actually doing it," she said recently. "For example, I'm getting ready to talk with a firefighters union about a union logo and a firefighter design plus fire trucks. … Firefighters wives as a market are huge into this.

"Sometimes it's a matter of finding the right fan bases. Like the Bob Stoops ornament," she said, referring to the bauble with University of Oklahoma football coach's signed image. "That was so customer-driven. It's been one of our number-one sellers. It just cracks me up."

Smith produces glass bubbles decorated with whatever design the client wants. She has an in-house graphics team to help create custom art when none is immediately available, and her company can mass produce large orders or as few as 18 at a time. Manufacturing is handled in Oklahoma so she can oversee quality control.

"When I ran a gift shop, pricing was my focus. Because you don't always have the big bucks to get something special and unique," she said.

Many of her ornaments don't even end up on Christmas trees, Smith said; they're given as gifts throughout the year and often remain boxed as display knickknacks.

"When I started scratching the potential of the collegiate and state centennial licenses, I realized this could be a huge business," she said. "The popularity of the OU and OSU ornaments really surprised me. … We want to expand regionally, so we're looking at the Kansas market next with all the Kansas schools, and Texas of course."

She doesn't want to grow too quickly and without direction.

"If you get too many legs too fast, you're not expanding smart. So I want to go regionally first so I can work with my sales reps personally," Smith said. "I want to go deep before I go wide. I think that's what sabotages a lot of businesses. I have to fulfill each market before I move on."

The pet market, too, has vast potential with little risk of dilution. For example, Smith will be marketing breed-specific, "Best in Show" ornaments to dog lovers this year in a major pet supplies catalog; she's working with the Westminster Kennel Club's photographer for materials to use. Niche sports and hobbies have the same sort of valuable niche access, she said.

The three-year-old company hired sales representatives for the first time last year, she said. Smith has no doubt that she's ready to move to the next level in production, marketing and sales, and she said her first inclination is to look into a Small Business Administration loan or angel investor with limited leverage.

Then she reconsidered: "You know what? I'm open to almost any growth strategy. … Sometimes when you're in business, it's smart to admit that you don't know what you don't know. So instead of thinking that I know what I want, I'm open to letting someone who's done this before come to me with a better idea," Smith said.

"With a little bit of wisdom and experience, what you think you want changes. I would rather keep my options open rather than say there's only one way I absolutely want to do it."

Nike, P&G, J&J Have Adopted to the New Digital

RealityBy Richard Rawlinson and Christopher Vollme

In the evolving digital environment, the central issue is that the skills and capabilities required to succeed as a marketer have changed significantly. While every marketing executive recognizes the pervasive pull of the internet, most allocate only 5% to 10% of their ad budgets to digital media. And unfortunately, many marketers -- by their own admission -- have not adapted to the new reality. Fewer than one in four of the participants in Marketing & Media Ecosystem 2010 -- Booz Allen Hamilton's cross-industry study completed with the Association of National Advertisers -- consider their organizations "digitally savvy." The principal impediments are lack of senior organizational support, lack of experience in new media and the dearth of digital talent.

Leading marketers such as Nike, Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble are indeed recognizing that digital and interactive are no longer niche capabilities; they are a requisite skill set for all marketers. In response, there's a lot consumer marketers have to do: prioritize internal training in digital marketing; hire technologically savvy talent; cultivate a progressive culture that embraces -- and uses -- new technology and media; institutionalize flexibility in responding to customer needs; and create and formalize processes for integrating consumer insight into products.

The problem for many companies is that this is a journey without maps. Most marketers will have to stretch beyond their comfort zones to figure out the answers.

People are the first place to start. The new marketing uses data to select and integrate a wider range of tools more precisely to smaller groups of consumers. It places a premium on the ability to access, integrate, analyze and apply data. That means recruiting people with data-analysis skills.

Companies will still need generalists, of course, perhaps more than ever. Most marketing departments need fewer vertical people trained within a discipline and more flexible operators. It's better to have someone who knows how to integrate customer-relationship management with digital or retail communications.

Marketers must also cultivate and train their existing ranks. Reverse-mentoring and rotational programs can help. Companies such as J&J are using externship programs to enable selected executives to spend time directly with their advertising and media partners and thereby accelerate the development of digital-marketing capabilities.

Beyond experiments with new marketing techniques and tactics, most marketing departments remain structured around organizational legacies, chiefly the output of TV and print advertising. What they need is to integrate analysis, thinking and planning across all communications and media technologies. In practice, that means media must become strategic, rooted early in the fundamental architecture of brand planning.

To build and invest in new ways of communicating, more communication will be needed, internally across finance, IT, marketing and the sales organization and externally with communications agencies and retailers.

The second big change is in incentives. Successful companies will align key incentives around overall brand or business objectives. The incentives can also reflect the development of marketing analytics.

People, process and organization: These must change. Marketers know their world has been altered. What they need more quickly is the corresponding action around both human capital and the marketing processes and organizational structures within which they work. The companies that get those answers right will find future success.

With Baby Boomers moving closer to retirement, entrepreneurs and community groups are looking to serve niches within that huge demographic group.

One such niche is retirement communities for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Nationwide, dozens of groups have tried to build retirement communities for gays, but only three have opened thus far, according to Gerard Koskovich, who tracks the subject for the Lesbian and Gay Aging Issues Network.

Aging experts, entrepreneurs and nonprofits say the need is there, but the challenge is more complex than build it and fill it. They have to raise money; find an affordable, attractive, gay-friendly locale; and motivate people who, like all seniors, might want or need anything from Pilates classes to nursing care.

In the past decade, at least 40 ideas for gay senior housing have come up, but many stalled in the planning. So far, an upscale project in Santa Fe, N.M., that opened in 2006 has had difficulty filling. An affordable complex that opened in 2007 in Hollywood has had more success.

Despite that national track record for gay senior housing, three Bay Area projects are moving closer to reality after years of planning.

Each of the three - Barbary Lane in Oakland, Openhouse in San Francisco and Fountaingrove Lodge in Santa Rosa - has a different business model. Nevertheless, each is premised on the concept that many gays want to spend their retirement years in places where they're comfortable being themselves.

Accustomed to being out of the closet, they don't want to go back into it for fear of rejection or discrimination at a retirement center. They go along with Barbary Lane's motto, "Closets are for clothes, not seniors."

Because of anti-discrimination laws, none of the projects is exclusively gay. Straight people may move in, too, but the projects bill themselves as gay-friendly.

San Francisco's Openhouse

Openhouse expects to take a big step forward Tuesday afternoon when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is tentatively scheduled to approve its land-use plan.

"This represents three years of getting the project through the city process," said Moli Steinert, executive director of the nonprofit organization.

Openhouse will be part of a larger rental project being developed by AF Evans on the site of the former UC Berkeley Extension campus at 55 Laguna St. Evans is preserving three buildings there and converting them to housing.

New construction will include Openhouse's eight-story building with up to 88 independent living studio and one-bedroom apartments for gays and lesbians 55 and older, Steinert said.

Although earlier plans had called for only some of the apartments to be affordable, now all of them will be affordable because the Mayor's Office of Housing is financing the long-term ground lease. "The city made an extraordinary move," Steinert said. Other financing is expected to come from low-interest bonds.

Exact income figures for affordability are undecided, but Steinert said they will be no more than 50 percent of the area's median income.

Evans also will build 328 apartments for people of all ages, whether straight or gay. Most of the units will be market rate, but 20 percent will be set aside as affordable. A community center, small park and public garden are planned, too.

Work is tentatively scheduled to start this fall. Openhouse's building, foreseen in the second phase of work, might start in late 2009 with the hoped-for opening in 2011.

Besides the apartments, Openhouse wants to provide services like meal and day health programs for its residents and neighboring seniors.

To serve residents who need in-home health help, Openhouse is working with the Institute on Aging, which has case-management services.

For the benefit of other gay seniors who need the in-home services, Openhouse is cooperating with the city's Department of Aging and Adult Services to teach service workers "LGBT best practices," Steinert said.

Finally, Openhouse has started a community outreach program for isolated seniors. It began in Bernal Heights, where gay people of all ages were invited to a meeting and asked to be aware of gay senior neighbors who might need help, such as referral to the Bernal Heights Senior Center.

The outreach program will move to the Castro district and Noe Valley, which have many gay residents. "People are fired up," Steinert said.

In the process, Openhouse can see where gay seniors are clustered into "naturally occurring retirement communities," she said.

Oakland's Barbary Lane

The Bay Area gay retirement community that's closest to welcoming its first residents is Barbary Lane, an independent living center in the historic Lake Merritt Hotel at 1800 Madison St., Oakland.

Barbary Lane Senior Communities at Lake Merritt, a for-profit company, is transforming the 81-year-old Art Deco gem into 46 studio and one-bedroom apartments for people ages 55 and older.

After introducing Barbary Lane to the public in June, the developer had hoped to welcome the first residents in November.

That projection proved overly optimistic. The developer had planned to keep the original kitchens, but it convened a focus group that said people want updated kitchens.

Going along with that recommendation added four months to the construction schedule and $1 million to the budget, said Dave Latina, president of Barbary Management Group, the developer and operator. Renegotiating the construction loan took four months, delaying work on the kitchens until last fall.

The developer had already planned to replace the six-story building's elevator to meet accessibility standards, but that work took three months longer than projected because the state required extensive upgrading for the elevator shaft, he said.

Latina expects the state to approve the elevator work in early April, allowing the nine people who have reserved apartments to move in to them in May and June. He expects two or three move-ins each month after that. He added that the number of people who have reserved apartments meets industry standards.

Because of the delays, the developer isn't actively marketing the project, "but we're still getting calls," Latina said. "We see people coming to us."

Barbary Lane is named after 28 Barbary Lane, home of the fictional central character Mrs. Madrigal in author Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City," a popular Chronicle series that started in 1976. The series was followed by six "Tales of the City" books and updated in Maupin's newest book, "Michael Tolliver Lives."

Barbary Lane residents will have two meals a day in the hotel's restaurant, which overlooks the lake. Among other basic services will be weekly housekeeping, utilities, social activities and transportation.

Santa Rosa's Fountaingrove

Fountaingrove Lodge is not as far along as the other two projects. This continuing care retirement community is planned by Aegis Senior Communities, a for-profit company that develops and operates dozens of retirement facilities in the West. Fountaingrove Lodge will be its first for gays.

Aegis has submitted its development plans to the city of Santa Rosa, but no date has been set for them to go to the Planning Commission. Aegis hopes to start construction within the next year or so. The project will have 148 cottages, apartments and flats for independent living.

As residents' needs change, they can have health services in their homes or in an on-site assisted living center. Fountaingrove also will provide Alzheimer's and dementia care. Therefore, residents won't have to leave friends and familiar surroundings if they require more care.

New residents pay entrance fees that could range from $350,000 to $1 million, depending on the type of residence, The Chronicle reported in October 2006. Up to 100 percent of the fee is returned to the resident or his estate when he dies or moves out.

Residents also pay a monthly fee, which, in conjunction with the entrance fee, covers rent, most meals, housekeeping, utilities, upkeep and maintenance of buildings and grounds, transportation, and use of services and amenities. It's expected to range from $2,700 to $4,900, plus $700 for a second person, The Chronicle reported.

Barbary Lane's Latina said that even though relatively few gay retirement projects have opened thus far, he believes the demand is there. Despite the delays at his project, "we have not seen people's interest decline."

One of the problems nationally is that unlike Openhouse, which is deemed affordable, most of the projects are geared to middle- and upper-income gays, but there's a demand for more-affordable models. "You can never build enough" of them, Latina said. He added that his company hopes to build five more Barbary Lane communities in California and to make some of the units affordable to lower-income gays.

The Market Common, nestled in the core of the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, will debut this week with the hopes of becoming one of the beach's commercial hubs.

Though many shoppers have been abuzz with excitement about the new stores the complex will offer, The Market Common's location on land invisible to major highways could be a challenge as the development launches.

The location makes for a prime urban village because of the amount of open land available for redevelopment. Because the base has been closed for more than a decade, however, many Grand Strand residents have grown accustomed to zooming past the site, which is tucked between Kings Highway and U.S. 17 Bypass.

"A major challenge for The Market Common is to capture the attention of potential customers as today it lacks visibility and familiarity," said Brad Dean, president of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. "People do not see the progress unfolding unless they happen to be driving through that area. Even though redevelopment has been under way for several years, many residents remain unaware of what has transpired on the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base."

The base has been closed for 15 years, but is being resurrected as a shopping hub that incorporates a live/work atmosphere where apartments and townhouses are mixed with shops. The concept was the only successful idea in a string of redevelopment plans that cropped up since the base closed.

Advertising and the buzz about the shopping complex's debut will help The Market Common overcome any hurdle the location might create, developers said.

"We will be advertising in enough places to direct people down there to use that road," project manager Buddy Styers said. "Farrow Parkway has become a real thoroughfare for people wanting to go from the beachfront to the [U.S. 17] bypass."

TUCKED AWAY

Unlike Broadway at the Beach, which is positioned to catch traffic off U.S. 17 Bypass, or the Hard Rock Park, where towering roller coasters peek out at U.S. 501, The Market Common is more off the beaten path, Dean said.

It has been difficult to make the 250,000 Horry County residents aware of this project, Styers said.

"The whole community should know by now since it's been going on since 1995," he said. "We have got billboards all over town ...and I've probably given 30 presentations to civic clubs. ... I don't know how you get to everybody."

It's important people know that an urban village "is not an exit off of a highway," said Clayton McCaffery, vice president of leasing for McCaffery Interests, which is developing The Market Common.

"We would have never done this project on Highway 17 or Bypass," he said. "There is no room for creativeness that allows for a downtown, urban village development."

Not every resident along the Grand Strand knows about The Market Common, but people are talking about it.

Carolina Forest resident James Strangler said he's been hearing radio commercials about The Market Common.

Strangler's talked with a few of his buddies about The Market Common, but they mostly discuss whether they can afford to shop and live there - not where it's located.

Myrtle Beach residents Rick and Pat Ward drive by the site often. "We may check it out once it's open," Rick Ward said. "It's going to be interesting to see what all is going to be out there."

Spreading the word

Signs are going up around town promoting The Market Common.

A billboard directs drivers on Kings Highway to turn onto Farrow Parkway, which leads to the development.

In addition to billboards, ads will appear in newspapers and magazines and on radio and TV. The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce also stops there on tours it gives to travel writers.

A long wait

Philip Pecora, owner of Toffino's Italian Bakery & Deli, moved his restaurant to the former base a year after it closed because he knew something good like The Market Common would come - it just didn't come as fast as Pecora thought it would.

For the 13 years Toffino's has called the former base home, the eatery has struggled as redevelopment officials tried to find the perfect project to revitalize the area. Ideas for a theme park and other large developments failed.

Pecora said he's paid the price. "Put it like this, if I had to do it over, I wouldn't have done it," the 48-year-old father of three said. Pecora said his business was a niche, so he didn't rely on foot traffic. "Most of my customers came looking for us," he said.

But once construction started on the base, Pecora ran into a slew of problems such as having to shut down several times because of water and electrical outages.

Now that The Market Common has arrived, and more houses are in the works, Pecora plans to expand.

Officials envision this area - once a collection of old military buildings with little traffic - becoming one of a half-dozen major, commercial hubs in Myrtle Beach.

Raising the bar

It's unclear how much business The Market Common will take away from other area shopping centers. There are three major malls on the Grand Strand as well as outlet centers and other shopping/entertainment complexes that are all competing for shoppers.

"In the short term, other retail establishments might feel the impact of these additional offerings, especially considering the economy," Dean said. But in the long term, he said, "The Market Common will help raise the bar on retail growth."

Coastal Carolina University research economist Don Schunk said The Market Common will lure customers from the other shopping complexes, but it won't hit any one of them too hard.

"It sort of has to take business away from other places," he said. "I don't expect a very dramatic drop-off in business at any one of those places."

Officials with the nearest mall, Coastal Grand, aren't concerned about the competition. Marketing director Deb Bramlett said shoppers might stop at both Coastal Grand mall and The Market Common in one trip because they're so close.

"Competition makes us all ... strive to be better," Bramlett said.

The addition helps elevate the Grand Strand shopping environment, Dean said.

"I don't think we can announce that this puts us at the level of an Atlanta or a Charlotte, even though we're growing quickly and gaining notoriety," he said. "As we grow more diverse, we are better positioned to compete with other major markets in the region."Contact DARRELL HUGHES at 626-0364

Contact JESSICA FOSTER at 626-0351.

By MELODY M. AGUIBA

The possibility of preserving coconut sap’s inositol, a Vitamin B complex component that prevents prostate cancer, is offering the Philippines a new niche for coconut in the international market.

Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) Administrator Oscar Garin is focusing a research and development (R&D) effort on the preservation of inositol on coconut sap amid numerous studies proving the significant presence of this cancer-preventing substance in the sap.

First, PCA is contracting Ateneo de Manila University or the Food and Nutrition Research Institute to document inositol content on coconut sap.

Following this, the government agency will develop products that can ensure preservation of a significant amount of inositol on the sap which may be possible through the production of fresh coconut sap juice.

"Admin Garin is enthusiastic about developing technologies and methodologies that can preserve inositol," said a PCA official in an interview.

Inositol, a dietary phytochemical present in cereals, soy, legumes, and fiber-rich foods, has long been known to suppress hormone-refractory prostate cancer growth.

And its presence on coconut sap will maximize marketing of coconut sap and is expected to likewise boost the market of a related product, coconut sap sugar, a sweetener good for diabetics which is already sought after as a health product in the United States.

Moreover, the Philippines may strike a deal to supply coconut sap to Canada and Japan while an international trader engaged in organic food distribution, Tree Crops, is also looking at sourcing coconut sap from the Philippines instead of from Indonesia.

PCA is further boosting marketing prospects of coconut products by accrediting producers and traders of coconut sap and coconut sap sugar.

PCA is also coordinating with the Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Products Standards (BAFPS) to come up with a quality standard for coconut sap in order to protect product quality and likewise protect their producers.

An expansion of coconut sap production in General Santos; Aroman, South Cotabato, and Zamboanga is already on-going. Each of these three production centers should yield three metric tons of coconut sap per month.

While only 375 trees are productive sources of the sap and only from Aroman at present, PCA believes volume can readily be stepped up once markets will have been established in Japan and Canada.

While aiming to give livelihood to farmers originally under the Asian Development Bank-funded International Coconut Genetic Resource Center (Cogent), PCA is also ensuring that farmers will get their fair share of profit in this envisioned sustainable entrepreneurial project.

The export market for the country’s coconut sugar has started expanding since the completion last year of scientific studies showing that coconut sugar is a low glycemic index (GI) food. GI is a numerical system of measuring the effect of a carbohydrate on the circulating blood sugar.

While the Low GI is at 55, coconut sap sugar’s GI is far lower at only at 35.

A PCA investment model shows that a P329,000 per hectare investment on coconut sap sugar gives an internal rate of return of 28 percent over a 3.21-year payback period.

A one-hectare land is assumed to have 100 coconut trees. This will have total toddy (coconut sap) yield per hectare per month of 7,500 liters and a total sugar production of 1,250 kilos at a sugar-toddy ratio of one kilo of sugar for every six liters of toddy.

PCA is linking investors to farmers who are planting hybrid coconut under which the farmers belonging to a cooperative will eventually own the facilities while investors also get their money back.

Coconut sap sugar is foreseen to create numerous livelihood opportunities in rural areas as the process involves a simple farm level technology, but it is labor-intensive due to the coconut sap harvesting activity.

The entire Mindanao is seen as a big potential source of coconut sap sugar since it is where most hybrid coconuts have been planted. Hybrid coconut, which yields three to five MT per hectare compared to the Laguna variety which only gives about one MT enables high recovery rate for the granulated sugar.

A coconut sap or "tuba" contains 12 to 18 percent sugar.

PCA first came up with coconut sap sugar from a poverty reduction project in Balingasag, Misamis Oriental through Cogent. Farmers from Misamis Oriental were the first ones to produce the low GI food that is being exported to the US through a marketing effort of a Filipino doctor promoting the food’s health benefits. But PCA hopes to expand its production all over Mindanao .

Indonesia and Thailand also produce a certain type of coconut sap sugar but has not marketed the product well as much as the Philippines does market it as a doctor-recommended health food.

By Jane Phare

A wealthy New Zealand businessman topped the list of Lufthansa's biggest private jet spenders last year.

The businessman, who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on more than 30 private jet flights, is part of a growing number of rich, successful New Zealanders who don't want to queue in crowded airport terminals to fly short destinations.


New Zealanders are now ranked the biggest users of the German airline's private jet service from the Asia-Pacific region, an area that includes India, China, Japan and Australia, making the German company's head office take notice of what was thought to be an insignificant market. Wealthy Kiwis travelling to Europe for the America's Cup and World Cup Rugby helped to boost business. In Europe and the Russian Federation, they are the fifth-biggest customers, holding their own with countries like Germany, France, Italy and the United States.

Anton Musin, Lufthansa's sales and marketing manager based in Auckland, says Kiwi affability and informality have been an enormous advantage as he has built up the New Zealand client base.

The "who's who" of wealthy, successful people in New Zealand is small enough to make networking, once there's a foot in the door, reasonably straight forward. In Europe, he says, he would be unlikely to be at the same party as potential clients, or spot them at a restaurant or cafe.

Tap someone on the shoulder and offer a business card in Auckland and it will be accepted with good grace. Try that in Europe and the reception might not be so friendly. And once well-heeled Kiwis have tried the private jet travel option, and liked the product, they open their contact books and offer another half dozen names of potential users.

But Kiwi affability aside, his clients are no less demanding. Musin knows he needs to be available on his mobile 24/7 for booking flights, sometimes with less than a day's notice. That will include preferences for catering and champagne on the flight, and limousine transfer.

Lufthansa targeted the private jet niche market two years ago, initially operating the service in partnership with American company NetJets, using its fleet of 200 aircraft. The service has been so successful that Lufthansa this year invested in its own fleet of luxury aircraft, seating between six and 12 passengers.

Prices vary depending on the aircraft size and the distance travelled, divided into four zones covering more than 1000 destinations. A flight in the seven-seater jet between London and Dublin is $11,446 one way; between London and Cannes is $20,000. The same trip in a 12-seater jet costs $40,000.

Auckland socialite Gilda Kirkpatrick and her husband James used the jet service last year when they went to Europe for the America's Cup in Valencia and the Millennium Yacht Race in Palma, Majorca. "It's definitely the way to travel," she said. "It's easier and quicker. You can share with two or three couples."

Avoiding crowds and queues at airports was an advantage, she said, and you arrived quickly at a European destination rather than taking most of the day and feeling exhausted. A growing list of New Zealanders own their own jets, or use private jets to get around.

They include newspaper magnate Barry Colman, who owns a Cessna 501 Citation jet; New Zealand's richest man Graeme Hart; movie director Peter Jackson; and businessmen Trevor Farmer and Craig Heatley.

Thanks to 7,000 entries from around the world, a small, sweet apple variety has a new name: Frostbite.

Apple naming, generally, is left to the experts.

Honeycrisp, SnowSweet, Zestar -- all thought up by a couple of University of Minnesota horticulture scientists. But this time, with this apple, the public had a say. During a contest this fall, people suggested about 7,000 names for the apple formerly known as MN447. "It was a little like letting your friends at work choose the name of your child," Prof. Jim Luby said.

After months of narrowing down the "huge pile" to 60, to 10, to one, the small, cold-hardy breed bears a name suggested independently by eight Minnesotans: Frostbite. One winner, Eden Prairie resident Lisa Rolf, entered 12 names and took all of them seriously: "It's like writing a one-word novel," she said. "You have to capture the character and the drama of the apple-breeding process itself." In addition to submitting names, the stay-at-home mom and part-time poet submitted slogans. Frostbite's: "If you want to reach for one of these apples, you better protect your extremities."

The name is new, but the apple is not. Frostbite has been a part of the U's breeding program since the 1920s and is best known for its superstar grandson, the Honeycrisp. Never meant for the grocery store, the apple is small, often cracks at its top and has an odd flavor. Like Hawaiian Punch, perhaps, or "raw sugarcane on steroids," David Bedford, the U's apple breeder, has said. In fact, the breed performs "terribly" in taste tests: One or two testers in 20 might give it high marks. But apple breeding now focuses on those one or two. It's their version of niche marketing. And Frostbite's good for cider.

Although the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum offered samples during the contest, Bonnie Winzenberg didn't try it. She had requested her single entry form from her home in Brainerd. But she knew the apple "wasn't real red and fresh and bright," she said. "It had a look that was almost like, gosh, if it's winter and somebody's got frostbite, it might look like that."

Nurseries will begin grafting Frostbite trees this summer, selling them in 2009 and planting them by 2010, Luby said. Their fruit won't make it to the farmer's market until 2014.

This e-book would not have even gotten a second glance from me if it had not been recommended by a friend. It was, and I bought (and read), Niche Marketing on Crack, by Andrew Hansen.

The title of the book is very unfortunate, and the 'Miami drug dealer' photo on the cover and website aren't much better, but the author presented a compelling argument in his sales copy. That, plus the recommendation, pushed me to swipe the credit card.

The book is actually a hype free read that promotes a very focussed application of respectable Internet marketing techniques. You could learn about them all by scouring forums and websites then cobbling together all of the information into your own system. But, Andrew presents a step-by-step action plan that doesn't gloss over any of the important details - which saves a lot of trial and error. (How much is your time worth?)

The basic idea is to create small niche topic websites that catch people who are looking to buy a product rather than searching for information. Hansen describes how to identify profitable topics and affiliate products. Next, he shows readers how to quickly build an easy to manage, search engine friendly niche website and promote it for quick and long term traffic.

Hansen uses an overall blend of blogs and social bookmarking sites combined with article marketing to get these new sites listed in search engines and get the traffic flowing.

Niche Marketing On Crack is a good book for newbies who want a detailed outline of what to do to create and promote a niche website and also for more experienced marketers looking to refine their work process.

I have been working online for more than 10 years now, and actively building an online business of my own for over 14 months. One of my strategies is to create sites like those described in Niche Marketing On Crack. I eventually settled on a site building system much like the one outlined in the e-book. I could have saved a year of trial and error with these instructions.

I also tested the promotion strategy on a pre-exisiting site with low traffic. I saw immediate results gaining inbound links to the site and generated the first traffic and Adsense revenue from this activity less than 48 hours later.

I recommend Niche Marketing On Crack for anyone interested in developing niche websites to promote affiliate products and generate revenue from Adsense and other PPC systems.

For more information visit: Niche Marketing On Crack, by Andrew Hansen

Andrew Seltz
The Go-To Guy!
www.AndrewSeltz.com

Are you mesmerized by the prospect of making money over the internet? Tantalized at the thought of sitting at home and working in your PJ's? Sitting in front of your computer monitor and earning cash while only exerting the effort of clicking your mouse? Before you jump blindly into this arena, make certain you are aware of which side of the equation you find yourself.

Take another look at the title of this piece. Make no mistake that internet marketing is a business. Just like a dry cleaner who provides a service, or the grocer who sells a product, the internet marketer does the same. And in all cases, success is generally a function of the effort put forth. In other words; work more, make more money, work less, make less money.

A lot of people are drawn to the world of internet marketing by the promise of quick, easy cash. Maybe you've heard stories of people making thousands of dollars each month  through the internet. Or those that who only spend a few hours each month doing little more than surfing the web to generate a monthly cash flow.  But before you can consider any of that, you must first determine if you are a vendor or a consumer.

There are many individuals who make a substantial amount of money online. The idea of making thousands of dollars each month is not far-fetched. Even tens of thousands is possible. Those are the stats of some successful, full-time internet marketers. You can also find people who do this on a part-time basis to make extra income to supplement their lifestyle. Imagine what you would do with an extra $300 each month. That's how much I made in my first successful venture. The simple fact of the matter is that these people are approaching internet marketing as a vendor. They intend to provide a product or service to others at a price to earn a profit.

A true vendor in the realm of internet marketing has a routine. Out of that routine they have certain expectations. They are looking for a return on their investment of time and capital. A full-time marketer may spend $1000 a month for advertising knowing that it will return $4000 in sales. This person has a system to reach customers who represent income.

There are many ways to generate income online. You'll find a wide range of people involved in various aspects of this business. There is the individual who dabbles in marketing, the professional who makes a living with a thriving business, and then everybody else in between. As I mentioned earlier, generally these people provide either a product or a service. They host websites where the consumers come to interact. They maintain mailing lists of customers and prospects. They analyze the effectiveness of advertising. They provide incentives to attract customers. Their primary goal online is to generate income.

Internet marketing can be rewarding work. It can be very profitable. But remember it is work. At times it can be hard work. It may take months before you see a profit, or years before you are truly successful. But there are ways to make the process a bit easier. Knowledge and education of the business is required. It is essential to have a plan and follow that plan. You need to know what you are expecting and how much work it takes for that outcome. If you are lucky, you'll find a mentor to guide you. You'll start small and work your way up. There are a number of resources available to the beginner, but always remember "caveat emptor," let the buyer beware. Due diligence certainly applies to this subject. We all know; "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

 
 

Internet Marketing Advertising is everywhere online. You're living in the age of the internet, in which you're spending a great part of your life online. You are - shopping, buying, selling, banking, and doing a lot of business online. The internet has really become a popular medium for doing business.

The internet has widened the horizon of world business. In fact, Internet has squeezed the world into a global online marketplace. It connects sellers and buyers from Texas to Tokyo, from Boston to Bali. It helps business owners to market, promote and publicize their products or services using texts, interactive graphics, videos and audios, and that's what internet marketing advertising is.

This medium is all about marketing and advertising products or services over the Internet. It is also termed online marketing or e marketing. With ever increasing popularity of online business, the popularity and importance of internet advertising has also surged. In fact, advertising has become an important part of internet business strategies.

Internet marketing has a number of benefits and advantages over the traditional way of marketing. One of the top benefits of internet advertising is that it is considerably cheaper than traditional business marketing; low costs in distributing information and media to a global audience makes this marketing and advertising extremely popular.

Internet marketing is more interactive than traditional business marketing. The unique qualities of this medium is highly interactive in terms of instant response and in eliciting response. Indeed internet marketing and advertising offers a superb convergence of creative and technical aspects of the internet, including design, development, audio, and video.

In simple terms, internet marketing advertising is a way of growing and promoting a business using the power of the internet. It involves all aspects of marketing that promotes a business through websites, blog sites, articles, press releases, online market researches, email marketing, and advertising banners etc. Internet advertising methods include search engine marketing, display advertising, e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, interactive advertising, and blog marketing.

Internet marketing is really marketing and advertising through the World Wide Web. It is aimed to deliver marketing messages and attract customers. Some examples of internet marketing advertising are Google adwords, pop ads and e-mail ads.

Online video directories for brands are one of the finest examples of interactive marketing and advertising. Complementing television advertising, the online video directories allow the viewer to view the commercials of a number of brands.

Rich media, generally Adobe Flash, is highly used in the display portion of internet advertising. Making overt use of color, imagery, page layout, and other element, Rich media techniques really help to attract viewer's attention. Some of the common examples of rich media advertising formats include Banner ads, Interstitial ads, Floating ads, Expanding ads, Polite ads, Wallpaper ads, Trick banners, Pop-ups, Pop-unders, Video ads, Map ads, Mobile ads, and streaming video or streaming audio ads.

Banner ads offer internet marketing advertising using graphic images or animations displayed on a website. Initially, Banner ads were only rectangular GIF images 468 pixels wide by 60 pixels high, but now these marketing tools come in a number of standard sizes defined by the IAB.

Interstitial ads are the wonderful internet advertising tools that facilitate displaying page of ads before the requested content is displayed. Floating ads are the online ads that slides across or floats above content on viewer's screen. Other ads keep expanding or changing their sizes on screen.

Polite ads are the internet tools in which large ads are presented in small bits to prevent obscuring the displayed content. Wallpaper ads change the background of the page being viewed. Trick banners are the banner ads that look like dialog boxes with buttons. They simulate error messages or alerts.

Pop-ups are the stunning internet marketing advertising tools in which new windows open in front of the current ones, displaying advertisements, or WebPages. Similar to pop-ups, Pop-Unders operate loading new windows that are sent behind the current windows so that users don't see them until they close one or more active windows.

  
 

Video ads are the marketing ads in which actual moving video clips are displayed. However banner ads use static or animated images, they are similar to video ads. In fact, streaming videos or streaming audios have become very popular tools in marketing and advertising. They are more interactive than any other advertising tools.

Hence, if you own an online business, you must run an internet marketing campaign to promote your business products/services. You can have your advertising campaign designed and planned by any of many internet marketing advertising professionals and experts offering their services online.

Commuters will be able to get real-time bus arrival information at 20 more bus stops by May. This comes after a survey by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) found that over 90 per cent of commuters voted for more of such panels.

The additional panels will be installed from Monday at bus stops with a high volume of commuter traffic. Ten of the bus stops will be in the Central Business District and the rest around Singapore. Seven panels will be installed at bus stops outside the Bedok, Bishan, Clementi, Commonwealth, Kovan, Tanah Merah, and Toa Payoh MRT stations. The other three panels will be installed at the bus stops at Cencon Building, Parkway Parade and after Rifle Range road. Last July, the LTA rolled out a pilot project at 30 selected bus stops.

From this July, to help commuters making transfers between rail and buses, panels at the bus stops near Bugis and Chinatown MRT stations will also display the arrival times of rail services at those stations. Two panels with the same information will also be installed at both stations' entrances from July. The LTA is extending another well-received feature, the Key Bus Services Maps, which details bus routes and places of interests, to the Chinatown vicinity and to more areas on Orchard Road by the second half of this year. Eight out of 10 respondents in LTA's survey found the maps useful.

The E-consultancy/Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census of over 600 email marketers highlights the real cost of deliverability for the first time - marketers are wasting around 11% of their budget. This entry investigates what they can do about it. Deliverability problems are most commonly the failure of emails to be delivered to the inbox, and when received distortion of messages when received because of image blocking and more.

 

Charges of scare mongering have been levelled at the DMA, ESPs and deliverability firms such as Return Path, Goodmail and Habeas. These organisations stand to gain the most from investments in deliverability, but the research finally shows how much marketers may gain too. The E-consultancy/Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census shows some interesting findings.

 

• Deliverability is wasting many marketers' budgets: email marketers estimated they were losing 11% of their budget and agencies put this figure higher at 14%.
  
• A blind spot for many: 60% of online marketers say they don't need to improve deliverability, yet 80% cannot measure how much they are losing through poor deliverability. Without measurement techniques it is difficult to justify and quantify benefit or risk.
  
• Adding to a sizeable sum: the value of sales generated by direct marketing is running at £125billion, and of this total online sales via the internet is reaching £52billion (source: DMA Economic Impact Analysis 2006). Assuming email marketing contributes around 10% of the latter figure, the real monetary loss of poor delivery that this equates to is significant.
  

 

There are a number of proven methods to understand your deliverability rate - the first and most important step is to investigate your present sender reputation and the factors affecting it.

 

You also need to set your own benchmarks for open rates, click rates and conversions. It's a complex task. Deliverability strategies can lead to changes in data collection, targeting strategies, message design and campaign planning which is why we've built a team of deliverability specialists who help both our clients and those email marketers broadcasting their emails through other means. Your sender reputation is influenced by the feedback from recipients who have received your communications before. If they have complained to either their web mail hosts or a blacklisting firm, this will count against you.

 

Your complaint rates are affected by:

 

• Data Management: Is the way in which you capture, clean and suppress your email contacts encouraging low complaint rates?
  
• Campaign metrics: what are your average bounce, complaint and unsubscribe rates?
  

 

There are also other factors that affect deliverability:

 

• Technical set-up: is your sending server configured for bulk sending? Are appropriate accreditation and certification schemes in place? Is your IP address and domain strategy building you a positive reputation?
  
• Campaigns: how are the major spam companies handling your messages and how do the main email receivers display your designs?
  
• Monitoring: are you monitoring the major black lists and spam organisations to ensure any problems are picked up?
  

 

Conducting an audit helps you understand your deliverability situation, and build an action plan. One final thought. If you can achieve an uplift of 11% by preventing deliverability problems, it should be easy to estimate the maximum amount to spend. If you take your revenue from email marketing (e.g. £100k), and increase it by 11% (e.g. to £111k) you'll have incremental revenue.

 

Then, dependent on your business model, if you take the profit margin (e.g. 35%) from these incremental sales (e.g. £11k), you'll have a maximum figure to invest on deliverability (35% * £11k = £3,850). As long as your investment is less than this figure, then it is a good commercial decision.

The link between pharma major Wockhardt, Akbarally’s , one of the country’s earliest departmental stores and Monginis, a chain of bakeries, may not be obvious immediately . A quick background check establishes the common factor — they all are a part of the Khorakiwala family. Fakhruddin Khorakiwala, 90, who was a former sheriff of Mumbai, inherited Akbarally’s in the early 40s when it was still a pharmacy, and inspired by American pharma company Parke Davis, he decided he needed to backward integrate his business from retail to manufacturing .

As a result, he acquired Worli Chemical Works (which was later renamed Wockhardt) and eventually, in 1957, he expanded the pharmacy into a departmental store; acquiring the Monginis bakery at the same time. “There was an economic consideration to these decisions The business environment was very different then,” says Khorakiwala who continues to remain actively involved with Akbarally’s . “There was an opportunity to do something new with the businesses which catered primarily to the British.”

Every corporate with a history, it seems, has an offbeat ‘other’ business that’s far removed from it’s core operation. DCM Shriram Industries, for example , has long been in the business of making country liquor, while the Thapars are major exporters of gherkins. Tata Power makes fine bone china on the side, Vijay Mallya’s UB group also makes fertilisers, while fertiliser major GNFC is into IT.

The Mahindra group has always been famous for it’s hidden jewels — companies tucked away behind its larger automotive operations that come into the limelight only when they’re ready. Today , Anand Mahindra counts among his hidden jewels a defence systems project for making torpedoes and a five year old grape export operation, which is now one of India’s biggest. “We’ve exported over 500 containers of Mahindra branded grapes,” he says. “We may not be famous for it yet, but it’s not secret either.”

The Mahindras also have a hugely profitable steel trading operation that was started by Anand Mahindra’s grandfather after the world war. JC Mahindra spent much of his early career with Tata Steel, after which the government appointed him as the controller of iron and steel. Using the contacts he made, JC Mahindra later started a steel trading business, today known as Mahindra Intratrade. Grandson Anand realised the global reach of this line of business when he was at Harvard and a fellow student, from Mitsubishi Corporation, Japan, invited him and his wife Anuradha out to dinner.

“We were so glad to be taken out for a free meal that I didn’t even ask the reason for the invitation,” recalls Mahindra. “It later turned out that our new friend had read the Mahindra name in the Mitsubishi manual. We were one of Mitsubishi’s first partners in the steel trading business.”

It is not unusual, especially with business groups that were coming of age in the post-independence era, to have a slew of subsidiaries which may have nothing to do with the core business. Jayesh Desai, national director - transaction advisory services, Ernst & Young, says that a majority of these subsidiaries which are present in unrelated sectors were set up a long time ago, and their legacy continues till today: “Most of these businesses would have been established at a time when having a license was of more value than the actual value one could create out of the business.”

Clued-in folks may know that the Singhanias of Raymond make the KamaSutra brand of condoms, but few would be aware that the company also makes steel files. Harshal Jayavant , president-engineering business, Raymond, says that when the company was set up in 1949, it was only one of two organised local Indian companies in the segment, with a large portion of the country’s requirement being imported. “Today, JK Files is leading the consolidation that is happening globally in this industry, with a market share of over 30 %” he says.

But instances like this are more an exception than the norm. If it’s not a conglomerate, then the business generally remains a marginal one, where the possibility of continued investment is always uncertain. “In most cases, if it is not a related business, it does not have the ability to make a success on its own,” says Desai. In some cases, private equity funds have stepped in , and often, managed to make a success of it. A few years ago, cement-maker ACC sold its refractory business to ICICI Ventures. Around the same time, Ranbaxy divested its fine chemicals unit.

The logic is simple: if an enterprise is a marginal part of the group’s business, it will receive marginal resources and attention, whereas a venture fund would be fully focused on making a success of it. But this does not always happen as these businesses were initially set up based on emotion or non-business reasons, and not pure business logic, and as long as it is a cash generator, organisations would not really think of selling it.

Of course, not all companies are looking at cashing out. Wipro’s earnings from its consumer goods business may be a fraction of what the IT division brings in, but Azim Premji has made it clear that he would not let go of the business which the company started out with. While Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting may have been sidelined for a few years while Premji focused on the IT services division, the attention is now back on the consumer business. The FMCG company announced the acquisition of Singapore-based Unza Holdings, earlier last year, giving it an international presence as well as a larger brand portfolio, along with signalling that the company was not for sale, as has been often speculated.

Of course not all companies that were set up in the early days of the Indian economy have remained on the sidelines. Atul, the chemicals arm of the Lalbhai Group, has a wide product portfolio, with interests ranging from polymers to fragrance chemicals. Sunil Lalbhai, MD, Atul, says, “The companies under the umbrella of Lalbhai Group operate in varied businesses such as textiles, engineering and chemicals. These businesses naturally call for different and distinct vision and strategy though wshenever required we discuss particularly major initiatives.”

The older, textile business, Arvind Mills, meanwhile has also expanded into being a ‘farm to fashion’ retailer, with rights to international brands like Nautica, Kipling, GANT and Polo in the country. Sanjay Lalbhai, CMD, Arvind Mills, adds that all the group companies, including others like Amol Dictalite and Anup Engineering are held together by a loose arrangement and that there is no governing body which regulates the companies.

In many instances, the newer businesses could be a small venture which is tagged on to an existing business, to simply avoid the hassle of setting up a new company. Till a few years ago, Tata Power also housed Tata Broadband, a company under which the group had first entered the broadband internet services market . Set up in 2001, Tata Broadband was primarily meant to provide services to other service providers like data centres, cable operators and cellular service providers among others.


In 2005, this company was sold to group company VSNL (now Tata Communications), which was a more a p p r o p r i a t e home for the company. Tata Power though, still houses Tata Ceramics, a small, largely export oriented unit, which makes crockery for brands like Wedgewood and Royal Doulton. The fine bone china from Tata Ceramics even makes it to the dining table at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Tata Group has recently started retailing the Tata Ceramics brand through its Westside retail chain. Whether it grows big enough to finally be demerged like Tata Broadband remains to be seen.

Insiders point out that often there is some amount of step-motherly treatment when it comes to the attitude of the board members when it comes to the smaller company, but Raymond’s Jayavant has no such complaints. “Every quarter, the three business divisions — apparel, textiles and engineering — make detailed presentations to the finance committee, and often, we spent more time on engineering than the others,” he says. Given that engineering, a niche business, contributes about 15% of the group’s total revenue, he agrees that the textile business would take up more attention , but it doesn’t means that the senior management is not involved in the business unit.

Few diversifications by single business companies are done purely as a strategic business move. Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizer Corporation (GNFC) is among the few to enter a new sector on the basis of a carefully planned diversification effort . Jagdeep S Kochar, executive director, GNFC says that the IT division initially started out as a manufacturer of telecom equipment in 1988, when the sector was still at a nascent stage. The spread of globalisation rendered this almost obsolete over time and they realised that to remain competitive it was time for a revamp.

“It was around the same time that the Government of Gujarat was looking for a partner to boost IT in the state. GNFC had the advantage of being partly owned by the Gujarat Government, and was an obvious choice,” he says. Starting with GNFC Info Tower in Ahmedabad , which was the first IT Park in Gujarat, the unit has expanded to offer other services like digital signatures, e-procurement and remote infrastructure management. “GNFC invested in the business in the initial years, but we are now an independent unit and give money back to the parent company,” says Kochar. The company is planning to undertake a large-scale expansion programme later this year, and again, this would involve investments by GNFC.

Another unusual pairing is Mangalore Chemical Fertilizers, which today is a part of the UB Group. From the time UB acquired a 30% stake in the fertiliser company in 1990, it has gone from being a potentially sick company to being a reasonably succesful one. DCM Shriram Industries, not to be confused with DCM Shriram Consolidated has also set up an alcohol unit at its Daurala sugar plant, where it manufactures country liquor, for sale mainly in Uttar Pradesh along with other brands for other states.

Desai says that entering any new business would require full support from the main business, otherwise it is likely to struggle. In recent times, the majority of unrelated diversifications have happened into booming sectors like retail, telecom and real estate. And these are unlikely to remain marginal businesses as the sole reason for the company setting up a new subsidiary would be to cash in on the good times in the sector.

“In India, there will be a lot of diversification as the economy is still maturing and there is a level playing field for entrepreneurs ,” says Sanjay Lalbhai. Meanwhile, as long as the ‘other’ business continues to make money, organisations would naturally be content to hold on. Whether they would cash out when they get a really attractive offer is what remains to be seen.

The definition of spam has effectively changed from "unsolicited commercial email," an idea based on permission, to a perception-based definition — i.e., unwanted email — according to the "Spam Complainers Survey" by Q Interactive and MarketingSherpa, reports MarketingCharts.

The survey sought to determine consumers' perceptions of what spam is, why they report emails as spam and what they think happens when the "report spam" button is clicked. Below, some of the survey findings. Most consumers don't accurately comprehend the term "spam":

• Over half of survey participants — 56 percent — consider marketing messages from known senders to be spam if the message is "just not interesting to me."
• 50 percent of respondents consider "too frequent emails from companies I know" to be spam.
• 31 percent cite "emails that were once useful but aren't relevant anymore."
  

Regarding the use of the "report spam" button — the primary tool that internet service providers (ISPs) provide consumers to counter spam — nearly half of respondents (48 percent) provided a reason other than "did not sign up for email" for reporting an email as spam.

Respondents cited various non-permission-based reasons for hitting the spam button:

• "The email was not of interest to me" (41 percent).
• "I receive too much email from the sender" (25 percent).
• "I receive too much email from all senders" (20 percent).
  

A recent study finds people no longer perceive "spam" as just unsolicited email. They see spam as email they simply don't want.

This makes email marketing a tougher nut to crack. But having a consumer's trust on your side makes it a lot easier. Here are some tips for increasing the likelihood of getting your message read.

1. Make it easy to subscribe. If you have a brick-and-mortar shop, you might have users sign a guest book to keep them up-to-date on events and special deals. On a website, invite users to enter their emails for future discounts or promotions. Remind them you will not sell their information.
2. Use a transparent "From" name. A message from a trusted brand — The Apple Store, for example — is less suspicious than something from "admin[at]apple.com."
3. Don't waste the subject line. This increasingly separates opened messages from trashed ones. If you are a news site, use it for eye-catching headlines: "Google Avails Free Wi-Fi to US and Canada." Marketing a product? Use the subject line to share news about discounts: "Stay sunny for spring. Half off floral handbags this week."
4. Avoid abbreviations, slang and hyperbole. You don't want to sound like a Viagra vendor. Phrases like "Make money fast!" and "$$$" are also verboten. It may help to study your own spam to see what words or phrases convince you an email is spam in the first place.
5. Minimize imagery. An email whose graphics take too long to load is a time-waster. And some people opt not to display images in their email settings.
6. Label the imagery you have. This way, people reading your message in text format know what they're missing if it happens to be valuable.
7. Include a visible call-to-action above the fold. Make it clear what you want the reader to do. Sign a petition? Visit the website for more information? Buy now? If you are ambiguous, they will not take time to guess.
8. Personalize the message. This is crucial if the email begins with a greeting ("Dear [reader]" or "Hello [reader]"). Some marketers avoid using a greeting and signature completely. This isn't such a sin if it is appropriate to the message.
9. Give the reader a clear way to contact you. This is why email signatures are useful. If you omit one, give them open means of contact somewhere in the message.
10. Get in their address books. Remind them to add you to their whitelists or invite them to forward your messages to friends.
11. Nix attachments. Some people will not open an email with an attachment for fear of getting a computer virus.
12. Avoid purchased lists of emails. Chances are high that those people already get plenty of messages they don't want from marketers who bought their names. You are more likely to generate conversions from people who want to hear from you.
13. Make it easy to unsubscribe to your messages. No matter how hard you try, there will always be someone who wants out. Don't give them grief over it.
    

Everything on the Internet starts with a domain name!

I know that may come off as a bit over reaching - but its true. From email to news, search, video or anything else on the Internet - you have to know where you're going which is only achieved by a domain name.

The ABC's of domain names, which as a title may come off as a little corny to you, is an exercise that makes you think about your industry or business, what you're doing in it, and how you go about doing what you do as it relates to domain names. The use of the ABC's format is to provide a simple, back to basics approach to deliver fundamental concepts that provoke thoughts, ideas and questions on domain names and how they are a part of your world.

So, whatever all of that means - lets dive into the ABC's of domain names and find their relevance in your line or work, personal life, hobbies, educational background, experience or special areas of interest to see what jumps out and comes naturally to you:

A: Advertising - domain names offer the perfect venue to advertise your product or services or to provide potential revenue by domain parking and/or affiliate programs.

B: Branding - the brand is in the name. Having a great targeted domain name can really build a brand, or can actually be the brand (eg: Google.com)

C: Community - the Internet is all about an interconnected community. Through domain names, you create a real destination and an identity for what can become a community.

E: Ecommerce - want to conduct business online - you need to start with one primary thing - a domain name. Ecommerce is one of the leading uses of the Internet.

F: Friends & Family - connect with your friends and family with domain names - either by email, your favorite websites, or photo sharing sites and videos, etc.

G: Global - synonymous with the Internet - domain names (particularly .com) have mass broad appeal on a global basis, with global potential.

H: High Returns - where else can you buy a piece of virtual real-estate for $8.00 and sell it within a matter of weeks or months for over $1000? Fund.com just sold for $9.99 Million in March of 2008.

I: Investment - domain names are appreciating more than any investment for the price. Similar to investing in stocks, bonds, real estate or insurance - domain names offer what I believe to be stable long lasting appreciation with the potential to create astonishing returns. Want to learn more about domain investing - you can always check out www.domainprofitsbook.com.

J: Justify - Justify your web presence and online business with a great domain name that demonstrates who you are and what you do.

K: Keywords - domain names can be based upon major key words for your industry or target market. Just the same, the key words you use in your Internet marketing can be generated from the domain name you choose and how it relates to your target industry/product/service/noun/verb.

L: Localization & Location - targeting niche audiences by location and a specific geography has proved to be a very strong, identifiable marketing opportunity for anybody online. Embracing localization for your domain investment objectives is a great path to consider.

M: Monetization - making money and creating multiple sources and streams of income are the cornerstones to the potential and reason why people buy savvy domain names.

N: New Markets to seize - new products and services are always being launched, just as new companies and markets are being formed. Finding with a good strong domain name to capture the essence of your business or target market for your online presence is always a great starting point.

O: Organization - a domain name is the perfect way to identify with your organization. Whether it's a product, service, or brand - your domain name is your face on the Internet.

P: Profits - Domain are a great way to make money and profits. Invest wisely and you can find yourself with a great windfall.

Q: Quest - Like any business venture, you are on a quest to explore, learn and make money.

R: Revenue - domain names offer a myriad of ways to generate revenues. There are numerous ways and avenues to generate revenues with domain names, however, in some cases are closely held ideas and resources. Becoming educated about domain names and being focused on creating a long lasting business is a great path towards generating revenue.

S: Search Engines - Search engines are the gateway to choices on the Internet and essentially, a directory of domains classified by the type of information, product or service they offer. Search engines are a powerful marketing tool and a source of traffic for the domain name owner.

V: Virtual - Domain names are virtual real estate. Some represent ocean-front property while others can represent sky scrapers, apartments or vacant land in the middle of a barren desert. Build your portfolio of virtual real estate for the longer term or flip your domain name for a quick sale and profits.

W: World Wide Web - The world wide web and its beginning started with domain names and/or their underlying numerical identities. With the advent of the world wide web, email, search engines and the increasing convergence of communications and media - business and industry has created high demand and appreciating values for good domain names.

X: The X Factor - there is a mystique and certain unknowns regarding the true value of domain names, how to create revenue and profits, and what strategies are best to create traffic to your domain name or website. The more knowledgeable and prepared you are to dive into the domain name world - the better off you are in managing the X Factor when it rears its head.

Y: You - buying, selling, and owning domain names is a reflection upon you, what your goals are, where your interests lie, and how you want to make money with this virtual real estate. You need to decide what your objectives are and how you are most comfortable in approaching your investment and dedication towards making money with domain names.

Z: Zeal - approach your domain activities with passion and enthusiasm. The more positive your thinking and focus is with domain names - the better you will be able to manage it, be prepared, and have an open mind to seize new opportunities and make money with your domains.

We hope you enjoyed this article and find that each time you read it you take away something new and different that can add value to your world of domain names.

Company intranet portals were a great idea on paper. The prospect of having Web pages containing dynamic company information is attractive to small businesses that need to manage teams and share information between individuals and departments. In the early days, they were the privilege of the few firms that could afford them.

Then, along came products such as Microsoft's Share-Point, which lowered the bar for companies building intranet applications.

SharePoint was designed to run on an internal company computer, meaning an organization would have to buy and run its own server to take advantage of it (although there are some hosted versions available).

Now, a new generation of online portal services has emerged that enable companies to build their community Web sites and host them online for free.

The most recent to launch is Google Sites. The product, which comes with the Google Apps suite, offers users a set of point-and-click tools to build Web sites without knowing how to program.

Both products let employees work collaboratively on documents, share schedules and to-do lists, and engage in online discussions. The interesting thing about them is how they each draw on other tools in the company portfolio.

For example, SharePoint Office Server 2007 has an enterprise search tool, built on Microsoft's technology, enabling users to electronically sort through structured and unstructured data. It also allows server-based sharing of Excel spreadsheets, and has business intelligence functions drawing on both Excel and the company's SQL Server database.

Company staff can share task lists, calendars, and even instant messaging using Microsoft Office Live Communications Server connected to SharePoint.

Google has also been busy developing its products. Google Sites integrates with Google Calendar, Google Talk, and its set of online office tools -- Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Google Sites arguably compares with Microsoft's Office Live service. The latter is a hosted service that offers a one-stop shop for businesses wanting to get online. However, it focuses heavily on public-facing Web sites for marketing, and offers internal Web sites for sharing documents as an added feature.

SharePoint is the most relevant competitor to Google Sites in Microsoft's stable. And its functionality surpasses that of Google.

For example, Google's product doesn't offer much in the way of workflow management, whereas SharePoint draws on Microsoft's InfoPath product (designed to collect information via Web forms) and Workflow Foundation (software to help route information between the right people).

Google's option could be a useful tool for companies with relatively simple information-sharing needs. It's other big advantage: The service is entirely free, whereas SharePoint requires an initial outlay on the software, or a hosting fee if you're taking that route.

Search Engine Optimization is Not Always the Answer

Search engine optimization has a purpose. Keyword targeting lets search engines link their users to your website when they look for your keywords. They will not do this satisfactorily without optimizing your site with proper web design techniques. Unfortunately, however, it is more complicated than that. Have you ever wondered why Google will almost always place Ebay on the first few pages when anything is entered into the search field accompanied with the word buy? The word buy has been targeted from more sites than you could count so what makes Ebay special.

For example, take the word bike. If a person uses Google by searching for the string 'buy bike', a page from Ebay will usually be listed before any of the major bicycle makers. It goes without saying that any of the major bicycle dealers have spent a great deal more time targeting keywords related to bikes than a site that manages hundreds of thousands of different products. The answer to this problem is the nature of this article.

Can My Website Compete?

The answer is to increase the importance of your site in the eyes of the major search engines. Ebay gets searched before many other sites because it has been decided by the search engines to be more popular with internet users. So what I am offering the little guy is a way to do what Ebay and the other 'big dogs' have done to become popular.

The world of search engines boil down to the stereotypical high school hierarchy. Search engines pay more attention to those that are popular. In high school, teens usually become popular by having popular people associate with them. The online world is no different. But how do search engines know that popular sites are associating with you? That is an easy one - they link to your website. The three biggest search engine players all crawl the web indexing links to and from all the websites that they have found. They create a ranking system based on many factors, but the most substantial one is how many sites link to you. It could be argued that an optimized site is key, and my opinion expressed here is based on the assumption that your site has been built with proper design techniques. It is also assumed that you have well written content based on your main products or ideas. If you feel that your website does not currently qualify as well written or properly designed, I recommend that you rectify these issues before attempting to build your popularity as it may turn out to be a waste of time.

Do Not Jump Right into Getting Links

There are many tempting ways to get other sites to link to you that are very unsavory. I choose to address these first. These include:

• sites that promote linking as a primary activity.

• sites that have illegal or inappropriate content.

• sites that are entirely unrelated to your target market

Sites that do nothing more than link to other sites may look like a great option but a site without content is not very popular with the search engines. They need to offer something to internet surfers in order to be important. If they are not important to the search engines then a link from them should not be important to you. Link marketing is based on quality links not the amount of links. I advise staying away from these sites all together. Next, it goes without saying, sites with illegal and inappropriate content are never a safe bet.

Getting a Good Start with Link Marketing

Most of us do not have a lot of expendable income starting out so I do not spend much time explaining the options that involve paying large sums of money. In my experience, webmasters with that kind of money contact a company to handle this for them (I have had enough of them as clients to know). I intend on putting out another article to cover this option more in depth, however this article only covers the less costly options.

There are 3 cheap ways to get get some link popularity:

• Ezine articles

• Field related forums

• Banner/Link exchanges

Ezine Articles

Ezines are online magazines. Ezine articles offer two great benefits. First and foremost, they allow you to link to your site from your article or resource area. Also, they offer a chance to show off the knowledge you have in your field. Although this is essentially a free way to get a quality link, it does come with some work. You must be able to write a content rich article on a topic related to your site. Most Ezine sites do not mind giving you the opportunity to get your name out there but you need to provide them with a well written article that offers something to their users. Searching for ezine databases on any major search engine should provide you with a list of great sources for this linking method. Be sure to consult the guidelines of an ezine site in which you decide to submit articles.

Related forums

Forums are another great opportunity to get your site out there without paying up. Again, it does take some time. Find forums that cater to questions about your field. For instance, if you sell natural supplements for joint pain, search for forums related to arthritis. Find strings that are talking about different options for arthritis or ask about what works. This opens a perfect opportunity to link to your site. It is important to know that most forums are not keen on letting sales pitches post for long. The trick here is to offer up quality information on these posts. You could compare your arthritis product to others, you could even provide a plug for a competitor (attempting to prove yourself superior, of course). This makes your post look less like a sales or link pitch and helps make the internet more content driven like it was intended to be.

Banner/Link Exchanges

There are usually two main ways you can get a banner or link on another site without offering any content. You can pay them a fee, or you can offer a trade. Like the other two options, only target sites that are related to you in some way. Exchanges require a little research on your part. You want to search for your potential link partner to see that they are worth the trade. A easy rule of thumb is to check their pagerank compared to yours. You can use this free tool to compare at CheckPageRank.net. Put your web address in and check your pagerank as well as theirs. If you are paying for a link and they have a pagerank of zero it would be wise to save your money. If you are trading links, use your better judgment. If they have a quality site it may be worth the exchange in hopes that their site takes off and they can share a little of their success with you.

Take note that a link from no single site will boost your website's importance significantly. Every quality link helps a little bit so you need to practice all methods for some time before you see the results you want. Stick with it and be patient.

The computer science and technology trivia challenge will gather 50 competing schools to a fun and interactive activity to promote the development and education of the country's next generation of technology users. Fully supported by platinum sponsor Samsung Electronics and key sponsor Canon, the event will accept two nominated teams from each participating school, comprised of students aged from 8 to 12 years old.

The Challenge will consist of three rounds of technology trivia on computer history, basic technology concepts, computer technologies, internet basics, and general knowledge. The three teams garnering the highest scores at the end of the three rounds will proceed to a final round to determine the final ranking and the overall champion. Cash prizes will be awarded to all three final-round contenders.

'Human capital development is vital to ensuring the formation of a prepared workforce that will contribute to sustainable economic growth. This unique competition seeks to initiate development at the grass roots, by encouraging young students to gain both a deep appreciation and basic knowledge of key technologies and technological trends. These children will soon become the new users of technology; they should be both capable and eager to acquire technologically-oriented skills,' said Bud Keegan, General Manager, PC Magazine.

The competition is open to UAE school students, with light refreshments to be served and lucky door prizes to be raffled off.

'We intend the PC Magazine Technology Challenge to be a well-patronized and highly awaited event that will inspire the country's future computer scientists and technology developers and implementers. The UAE currently leads the Middle East in computer and internet use, so its technology users should likewise lead the region in technological ability and innovation. Young students have the perfect mindset when it comes to knowledge acquisition, since they are inquisitive and enthusiastic; this competition will capitalize on this youthful exuberance to mould tomorrow's leading technology users,' concluded Kylie Meagher, Associate Publisher, PC Magazine.c

Before relocating to Dubai, Richard was the Regional Director at Lloyds TSB Asia where he was also responsible for International Mortgage Service. He has been with the Lloyds TSB Group for 26 years and has held many senior roles including Island Director for Lloyds TSB Guernsey, Head of Offshore Personal Banking, Head of the Offshore Treasury & International business and was also responsible for Business Banking across part of the East cMidlands in the UK.

Bert de Ruiter, Managing Director of Lloyds TSB Middle East said, 'I am thrilled at Richard's appointment and welcome him to our growing business in the region. He has an excellent track record and I highly appreciate his outstanding contributions in Asia. Richard brings a wealth of knowledge to our Dubai based regional operations and will play a major role in the further development and implementation of our Middle East strategy.

I would also like to extend my appreciation to Richard's predecessor Chris Balfour for his hard work and excellent achievements during his tenure in this region. I am committed to continuously building and growing our team here and bringing in the best international expertise to service our customers in the region.'

Commenting on his appointment Richard Musty added, 'I am excited to relocate to Dubai and look forward to working with the talented team and contribute to the growth of our regional business. I am privileged to be in a dynamic city like Dubai and am determined to continue offering the best of banking products and services to our customers.'

The main branch of Lloyds TSB is in Jumeirah, housed in a custom built landmark building, located on Al Wasl Road opposite Safa Park. The bank also has Customer Service Centres located at the Arabian Ranches, Healthcare City, Green Community and UPtown Mirdiff.

Lloyds TSB Middle East employs over 300 people providing a full range of financial services including: Personal Banking, Commercial Banking, Corporate Banking, Offshore Banking, Private Banking, Treasury Services and Trade Finance Services. In addition to market leading car and home loans, credit cards, personal and commercial loans, current and savings accounts, and fixed term deposits, Lloyds TSB Middle East also offers easy accessibility to telephone banking and secure internet banking 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

OUT-LAW News, 18/03/2008

Some of the UK's biggest retailers are failing to fulfil their legal obligations in their email marketing, a study has found. CD WOW!, Game, Topshop and Waterstone's were amongst the companies which failed the tests set by an internet marketing consultancy.

The Companies Act of 1985 demands that business emails include a company registration number, place of registration and the registered office address of the business, but almost half of the marketing emails analysed by dotMailer failed to do so.

"This should be set out in the email footer in a clear, concise  manner," said the report by consultancy dotMailer. "Incredibly, 21 retailers in our survey did not include all of this information, therefore potentially breaking UK legislation." The company surveyed emails from 46 companies.

A new Companies Act is being introduced in stages and an updated set of regulations governing what information companies must disclose in communications was published last month. The new regulations, the Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations of 2008 are not materially different from those amending the 1985 Act and will come into force on 1st October.

It is these rules which require companies to include the company's details in emails, called trading disclosures. The requirements apply to limited companies and Limited Liability Partnerships. Failure to comply can result in a fine of up to £1,000 and, from October, an additional fine of £300 for each day that the contravention continues.

The 1985 Act was amended in 2007 to make it clear that business emails were subject to the law. The information must also be published on a company's website, though the rules do not apply to sole traders or standard partnerships.

DotMailer conducted an analysis of 46 retailers' email marketing and awarded each company a score out of 100. It said that TopShop, STA Travel, ASDA and M&S were the best overall performers across the 20 assessed categories, which covered aesthetic, practical and legal concerns.

The report assessed the performance of the companies against the 20 criteria. "The unsubscribe process should be as easy as possible for customers to avoid them reporting messages as spam, but many retailers are making this too hard to do," it said.

"Ideally, email landing pages should not only repeat the offer outlined in the email, but also match the look and feel of the email to reassure customers," said the report. "The survey found that just four brands had created a microsite to match the design of the email, while 40% of the retailers studied scored under 50% in this category."

The consultancy said that it was a good idea to target emails at people who have interests in the area covered by the email, but that most of the companies surveyed did not attempt sophisticated targeting, even when they had already gathered relevant customer information.

"Targeted emails generate higher open rates, but just five brands used the information given on sign up to make the content more relevant. Getting useful information from customers when they sign up is one way to achieve this – something only 15% of retailers in the study are doing, while 91% achieved less than half marks for targeting," it said.

See:

• The report (39-page / 3MB PDF) 
  
• Email notices and email footers, an OUT-LAW Guide
  
• The Government's new regulations on trading disclosures (6-page / 53KB PDF)
  

I’m sure by now you’ve heard of the social site stumbleupon.com This site can be an extremely powerful traffic source! Especially if you know some blackhat tricks! Let me clarify that blackhat techniques are not illegal. This is simply a way to exploit the system that is already in place.

I’m going to show you a simple way to get traffic to your site using stumbleupon.com and then I’ll show you how to automate it and start driving some serious traffic!

The manual way to get traffic is to mutually stumble a person’s site. In other words, you stumble a person’s site and then they stumble your site. To find people who want to trade stumbles, simply go here: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=105

If you haven’t joined stumbleupon.com, go now and sign up for a free account and then activate your toolbar. The system is very simple and will only take you about 15 to figure everything out if you’ve never been to the site before.

Blackhat Stumble- Before we get started on this technique, let me say that it doesn’t matter which method you use if you site has poor quality information on it. If you are trying to promote affiliate programs, I would suggest you write a high quality report and publish it nice and neat on an .html page.

The whole purpose of stumble upon is to get a “thumbs up” for your site, so more people want to look at it. Getting a “thumbs down” is going to defeat the purpose of implementing these techniques all together. So make sure your content is up to par before starting this method.

In a nutshell, what you are going to do with this technique is bribe other people to stumble your site and give you a thumbs up. You will need a bonus to give them after they’ve stumbled your site. This can be some software, a free report, free videos, ebooks, etc….

What’s going to make this technique explode is using a blackhat script that automated the entire process! Here’s how it works…..

1. You download and install the script on your server (it takes less than 10 minutes to install the script on most servers)

2. You create a bonus that people can give away as a bribe

3. You ask people to stumble upon 3-4-5 pages on your website (You can ask people to stumble on a maximum of 10 pages on your website. But asking for 3-5 stumbles is suggested.)

4. After stumbling, they submit their stumbleupon.com username through a form that the script generates.

5. The script then crawls their stumbleupon.com page to verify that they have indeed stumbled upon pages on your website.

6. On successful verification, the person is forwarded to your bonus bribe page

That’s it! Very simple huh? You will need php and mysql database to install the script. If you don’t know how to install the script, you can get someone to do it for a measly $15 bucks. Go here for the script: http://www.suhack.com

Congratulations. If you’ve read all of the information up to this point, you have a thorough understanding of how to find email addresses, how to write convincing emails, how to send them and finally how to track the progress of your campaign. Now it is time to discuss what types of programs work the best with email marketing.

You might be thinking, “Uh-oh… why didn’t you tell me this in the first place? Am I wasting my time promoting my affiliate links or website?” The answer to this question is of course not. Technically, anything can be promoted with success through email programs, so if you are promoting something that doesn’t fit in the recommendations of this section, don’t worry about it. The upcoming information is to serve as a supplement to your existing campaign. It can also provide ideas for individuals who have just joined an affiliate network and are unsure what programs they should begin promoting.

1. Free Samples

Have you ever heard the saying that there’s no such thing as a free lunch? Well, this is one of the reasons why if a person is alerted to something that is legitimately free, more than likely they will want to try it out. For example, earlier in this e-book you read about StatCounter, a web tracking service that is 100% free for traffic that contains less than 9,000 page loads a day. Weren’t you interested enough to at least consider checking it out? The same thoughts you had towards this service are the same types of thoughts others can have if you present them with a free sample that is 100% free and of substantial value. One hundred percent free means that they don’t have to enter in any credit card information. This is a very important point because many companies claim that their samples or trials are ‘free’ yet they require credit card information. Supposedly, a person can cancel if they don’t like the product or trial service, but a lot of people won’t feel like going through this process. Therefore, if they see something that requires credit card information, even if it is an otherwise good sample or trial, they will bypass it. The exception could be if the product or trial is something that is extremely hard to find, has received a lot of positive testimonials and is very low-cost. An example is Freelance Work Exchange, a website that offers real work-at-home job opportunities from various companies. To join, a member has to pay a monthly fee. However, Freelance Work Exchange does offer a trial membership, where a person pays only $2.95 for a week’s worth of access. This offers a high conversion for them, because their service is somewhat unique, (since most of the work-at-home sites on the Internet tend to be scams) and their trial price is cheap. Even this can be refunded if the person doesn’t like the service, but most people won’t worry over such a small amount of money.

2. Merchandise that is significantly below retail value

Auction sites and wholesalers are examples of companies that tend to offer merchandise that is ridiculously low in cost. If you are promoting one of these, or you own this type of site, you are on the right track. This is because many people are ‘impulse buyers,’ meaning that even if they didn’t initially have interest in a product, if they see that if they buy it they are getting a tremendous bargain, they might be tempted to make a purchase. It should be noted, though, that this principle only applies to general types of merchandise, such as CDs, books, video games and lower-priced electronics.

If you’re trying to promote the newly released L.G. Phillips 100-inch plasma flat screen, you might have problems. It has a retail price of $20,000, but even a discount as high as 50% would not make the television affordable enough for the average person. If you have to promote a high-ticket item such as this, you will have to make sure that your list contains emails of people that are more likely to afford it. For example, if you create a site that talks about how to buy an island, and you get people from this site to subscribe to your newsletter, you can be assured that more than likely they would be interested in something so expensive. However, if you got your leads from a paid email service, you almost guarantee that they will not be interested in buying things that are that elaborate. So, all it takes is just a little common sense.

When you create your email, part of your content should talk compare the cost of the merchandise you are promoting with the cost of other retailers. Do this while not requiring your reader to visit the website… you can do this at the end of your email. If you need help trying to find the prices being offered by other retailers, you can use what are known as shopping comparison sites. Shopping comparison sites give information on different types of retailers, with price being one of the key pieces of info. Popular shopping comparison sites include: Froogle, Consumer Search and Biz Rate.

3. Services requiring just a lead

If you are heavily into affiliate marketing, it shouldn’t be too hard to find companies that will pay good money for just a lead. Examples of these types of enterprises include: credit card companies, mortgage companies, banks, job boards, real estate brokers, colleges, paid email/signup services, social networking sites and insurance companies. Lead promotion tends to be easier than trying to acquire a sale because leads only require a person to give information, not actually purchase anything. Leads that do not result in a future sale, (such as those with colleges, paid email/signup companies or social networking sites), do even better than those with other types of goals.

Remember, just because a program is ‘lead-based’, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t require a financial investment on the part of the subscriber. It may not be upfront like it is when someone buys a cheap piece of merchandise, but in the long run money will have to paid, often times a lot of money. That is why companies can offer so much money to their affiliates just for leads; they know in the long run they will get their investment back ten-fold.

However, despite this leads still tend to do better because well, they often fill an intense need possessed by the subscriber. For example, many people, due to mortgage problems, need to refinance. So, if they see an email that offers information on a mortgage refinancing program that will accept people with bad credit, more than likely they will be interested. This is in contrast to seeing an email about a product or service that, even if cheap, is something they didn’t necessarily need. Yet, this does not mean that you can slack off and think just because you’re promoting a lead-based program, all you have to do is say “Click here.” You will still need to put in as much effort as you would with any other type of program, and create email content that is intriguing and informative. This means following the P.A.S.S guidelines stated earlier in this e-book as well as paying attention to your length and formatting.

4. Informational sites requiring no action of the email reader other than visiting the website

Other types of sites that do well are informational ones that only require the reader to visit them. Wondering why even bother if you’re not getting a sale or lead directly? It is because informational sites still provide revenue potential. This potential can be seen through banner advertising and pay-per-click advertising. Pay-per-click advertising are ads that, if clicked on, will generate a revenue for you, usually a few cents. Google Adsense is a very popular pay-per-click advertising program, with some members making thousands of dollars a month.

Granted, in order to see these types of results you will need to generate a great deal of traffic. However, if you place these links on an informational site, and promote this site through email marketing, you have a better chance of getting more traffic than you would if you tried to get a sale or lead directly. This is because in all reality people just don’t like making purchases unless something is just that interesting. However, visiting an informational site doesn’t require anything on their part. In fact, they are actually benefiting when visiting a site like this because they are obtaining information that they didn’t have knowledge of previously.

If you need help trying to determine what type of information you would like to put on an informational site, you can start by using a keyword analyzer program to see what people are looking for. These programs tell you not only how many people are searching your desired keyword, but also how many people are searching other keyword combinations derived from the original one. Once you get an idea of what you should write about, you just have to figure out how to write it. In Chapter One of this e-book, you were introduced to the idea of using ghostwriters. You can revisit that idea for creating an informational site or you can obtain free content from an article directory.

There is a downside, however. With free article directories, you are required to keep the whole article in tact, which usually means incorporating whatever affiliate links the author has included. This is a major disadvantage because that link could direct your visitor away from your site, which means the potential of getting a clickthrough is eliminated. On the upside, the more backlinks you have on your site, the more pleasing it looks to search engine robots, which will tend to give you a higher rank. So, basically, it’s you’re call. If you just don’t have the time to write or the money to hire a ghostwriter, in the long run it is better to use articles from an article directory than to be forced to not create a website.

5. Dating Services

Online dating sites can pay by lead, sale or both. Those that pay per lead tend to be free ones, though paid dating sites have been known to offer them to. Usually with paid dating sites a lead is generated when a person completes their profile. You go on to earn a commission if the person decides to upgrade to paid membership, which would allow them full access to the dating site.

In terms of marketing, naturally the free dating sites tend to get more responses because they do not require any funds upfront. However, if you can write your email in such a way explaining why a paid service is better than a free one, you might be able to get a subscriber interested enough to make a sale. If this doesn’t happen the first time, you will have to send them multiple emails, a tactic that is commonplace when it comes to trying to make a sale. You could also advertise the dating site indirectly, by taking them to an informational site that contains an advertisement of the site.

6. Porn and Other Types of Sex Sites

Porn and other types of sex sites are in a funny situation when it comes to email marketing. This market seems to attract many spammers, so if a person sees a subject line that suggests an advertisement for a porn or sex site, they may simply delete it thinking it’s spam. Free porn sites or sex sites designed to provide information about sex in an academic, classify way, however, do get some attention. The main thing to remember if you decide to promote these types of sites is to look at how they differ from the hundreds of other porn sites already out there.

This is especially the case if the site is not offering free porn. Porn geared for women, is an example of a unique type of porn that just on originality alone could get result in sales. However, don’t confuse porn ‘originality’ with something that is lewd, tawdry and illegal. An example could be child porn. Not only is it morally and ethnically wrong, but if you get caught promoting it you could go to jail.

Indeed, not everyone will feel comfortable promoting porn in their email marketing campaigns, but as the old adage says, sex sells. This is one of the reasons spammers like it so much. Of course, you don’t want to be like them but you don’t want to overlook a potential gold mine either, especially if your website or affiliate program was sex-related anyway. Basically, go on your conscience on it… as long as you are promoting porn with actors 18 and over, you are not doing anything that is against the law.

7. Money-Making Opportunities

Money, like sex, is also in an unusual situation in the world of email marketing. It generates a lot of interest, but is dominated by spammers. There are also many, many scams that can be found in this arena. Many people may open an email about a money-making opportunity just because they are curious, but if they see they have to pay a fee, (which is the often times the case even with legitimate money-making opportunities), they will think it’s a scam and delete it.

Therefore, the best way to go about promoting money-making opportunities is first see if it’s legitimate. The best way to do this is to test it out before promoting it. If it’s not legitimate or it takes so much work to make money, you know not to promote it. However, if it does bring a few dollars into your wallet, then you should consider advertising it among your subscribers. You will want your email content to consist of a testimonial. People are intrigued if they read a testimonial that seems honest and heartfelt. If you can give a company a good recommendations because of your experiences, then maybe they can take a ‘risk’ and at least visit the website.

If you find that you are getting results with using your own testimonial, you may want to go a step further and collect other people’s testimonials. You can do this by asking them directly in your series of emails to them, or by asking them to post their experiences through a text box on a website. Make sure you provide some provision that you can use their testimonials in future advertisements. This includes whether or not you have permission to post their contact information, (most marketers will provide the email address and the first name). If you’re asking through a website, you can simply provide a checkbox asking them if this is ok. If you’re asking them directly in an email, just ask them and wait for a response.

Once you get the approval you need, use their testimonials on future websites promoting whatever money-making opportunity you are promoting. You can also use them in your email marketing campaigns. Your testimonial in combination with several others should generate enough interest among subscribers to at least open your email. They may even be powerful enough to result in a sale… it just depends on how convincing they are. If some of your testimonials provide contact information, your advertising campaign might be even more effective, since prospects can ask them directly about their experiences with the money-making opportunity. Remember, if you do provide contact information, try to make sure the emails are hyperlinked. When emails are hyperlinked, they will bring up the reader’s default email program. The email address will automatically be posted in the address section, making emailing that person just that more convenient.

8. File Downloading Sites

File downloading sites come in two varieties: those that share files, (known specifically as peer to peer or p2p), or those that store files on in a database, such as Napster. The latter are commonly used for downloading legal copies of songs, movies while the former are notorious for allowing people to download illegal copies of songs, movies, video games or even books. When it comes to website promotion, more than likely you will find affiliate programs for the more ‘accepted’ file downloading sites since many peer to peers tend to be free. However, there are peer to peers that allow their users to upgrade to paid versions of their services, so you can still see affiliate programs for them.

Does it seem that logically only the free peer to peer filer downloading sites would make better conversions than paid ones? In all honesty there are some people that would be drawn to the thought of downloading ‘free’ songs, movies, video games or books, even if it is considered piracy. These folks do not view doing such things as stealing, though in reality it is. There are other people that use peer-to-peers to download legitimate files, such as abandonware or music or movies created from independent artists. It all depends on what you consciously feel is right. At the moment legally nothing has been done against peer to peers or their affiliates for illegal downloading done on their networks.

What about the conversions on paid file downloading sites? You would be surprised that there are more than you might expect, since these sites are starting to become more popular. Many people don’t like the thought of committing piracy, and even among those where that isn’t an issue, there are still a lot of disadvantages to using peer-to-peer networks. The files you intended to download often times end up being something else. Additionally, it can take a very long time to download files from a peer-to-peer service… sometimes even days. If your download gets cut off for any reason, you will have to start the process all over again. This is not the case with legal downloading sites. With these sites you always get the file that you wanted to download. In terms of time, while even paid download sites will take a little while, usually it is not as long as it would be with a peer-to-peer site. Lastly, the paid file-downloading site offer a moral peace of mind, as people know they are having access to their files legally.

9. Movie & Video Game Rentals

Almost everyone is entertained by movies, and a growing number of people of both genders are becoming entertained by video games. This is why if you are promoting an affiliate that offers low-cost movie or video game rentals you are sure to get a lot of conversions. Most of these offer a trial subscription to entice people onto the site. This puts you as the marketer at a disadvantage since people don’t like having to use their credit cards. However, in this instance what is being offered is so convenient that for many it might be worth trying it out, even if they have to use their credit card.

10. Diet Products

Dieting captures the attention of a large number of people, especially women. Even women who consider themselves ‘normal’ weight often feel compelled to at least tone up. So, if you can find an affiliate program promoting diet products that actually work, you should be able to get a lot of conversions. Testimonials work great for diet products, though they are not as essential here as they would be for work-at-home opportunities. People don’t mind taking a risk on a diet product, as long as they feel that risk isn’t going to put their health in danger. The best diet products to promote are again, those that can provide a free sample without requiring credit card information.

After your email campaign has been established, you need to try to find a way to keep track of how it is working. If you’re promoting an affiliate program, chances are you pretty much are covered when it comes to tracking. This is because many affiliate programs offer tracking reports in the accounts of their affiliates. Commission Junction is an example of an affiliate network that offers very elaborate tracking reporting. With Commission Junction, you can evaluate how well an affiliate link is doing over time through several types of graphs. Commission Junction also gives you a daily view of how your links are doing by letting you know how many clicks, impressions, sales and leads you’ve received.

Figure 7: Commission Junction Graph

However, what if your affiliate program doesn’t offer extensive tracking, or what if you’re promoting your own business or service? Some web hosting services might offer an overview of how many hits your site has received, but this gives an inflated view of the real traffic your site is getting. Why? It is because hits simply refer to how many times your site has been viewed, not how many unique visitors have seen it. You also want to have some idea of where traffic is coming from. Granted, some hosting providers may provide more extensive tracking for a fee, but there are other options you can consider if you feel this is not enough for you.

1. VistorVille

Have you heard of The Sims or The Sims 2? These are a series of computer and video games in which you control electronic people called Sims. You can build them houses,

make friends for them, even make them have babies. With The Sims 2 all of this done is done in a magnificent 3-D setting. Well, what would it be like if gaming principles that founded The Sims was applied to tracking website traffic? You would have VistorVille, a very unique web traffic tracking service that displays traffic information in a unique visual form: that of a bustling city, complete with virtual people that look like Sims.

Figure 8: VisitorVille Urban View

So, how does VisitorVille work? It is a two-step process. First, you put a special HTML code on your website. This code allows for VistorVille to track the traffic with a special counter. This counter is not visible to visitors. Then, you enter in your pages, which the program views as ‘buildings.’ In fact, these actually show as buildings when you log in your account. Traffic is represented by actual people who visit the buildings. They are transported to the buildings by vehicles, which represent where the visitors are coming from or if they are visiting another page on your site. Buses represent the former, while taxis represent the latter. Transportation is the same for both views, whether suburban or urban. If you want, you can also view VisitorVille in 3-D by using VisitorVille 3D, (the 2-D program is simply called ‘VisitorVille).

Vistorville also lists traffic information in the ‘traditional’ way as well through charts and graphs. The types of information you get are many, including: detailed information about visitors ranging from what web site they came from to their nationality, how many visitors came to which page, how long a visitor was on that page and what search terms were used by a visitor to get them onto that page.

Then, there is the most unusual feature that could ever be included in a website tracking service: the ability to initiate chat with website visitors. In order for a chat session to be initiated, the visitor must have Javascript and select ‘yes’ from a dialogue box asking if they want to chat with you. A messenger-like chat box then pops up, allowing dialogue between you and the visitor. The downside to this is that a visitor could interpret such a session as being ‘spyware-like.’

This is because spyware, (which is a type of malicious software that tracks down what a person does on their computer), often results in advertising that can be in a pop-up resembling an instant message dialogue. Other people may not suspect anything and might actually be more curious about VisitorVille, once it’s explained to them that you are using this service to initiate the chat session. While you should be careful using this feature, it can be useful in establishing a more personal relationship with your visitors. Just make sure you are not throwing additional advertisements at them.

Cost-wise, VisitorVille charges based on how many visitors you receive to your website. One thousands visitors cost $14.99 a month, while three thousand visitors cost $29.99 a month. Five thousand visitors cost $49.99 a month. For websites receiving more than five thousand visitors, they will have to contact VistorVille for a quote, as they are in VisitorVille’s Enterprise Plan. At these prices one can track an unlimited number of websites and web pages.

If you are unsure whether you want to pay these fees, VisitorVille allows you to try their service for free for 7 days. This demo is fully-functional, offering all of the features available with the paid version of VisitorVille. If you decide that you do not want to upgrade to a paid account at the end of 7 days, you do not have to worry about going through the work of removing the VisitorVille HTML from your websites. The service will do this for you automatically upon cancellation.

2. StatCounter

Visitorville is a great website tracking service if you want a little bit of fun associated with tracking website tracking. However, the amount of traffic it covers is low. While they do have a special plan available for high-performance sites, it can be assumed that since they do not reveal the pricing for their enterprise plan on their website, it is probably very high. This is why if your website is doing exceptionally well and you want your website tracking options to be low-cost or even no-cost, you will want to consider using another website tracking service: StatCounter.

StatCounter doesn’t have the frills that VisitorVille does, but it is still extremely reliable. Like Visitorville, you will have to put an HTML code on your website allowing StatCounter to track the visitors. This counter can be invisible to your visitors or visible… it all depends on what you want. Visible counters can be an effective marketing tool for sites where you want visitors to know your site is highly trafficked. An example could be a classified ads site… if visitors know your site is highly trafficked, they will feel more confident posting their ad on your site. Other features available to StatCounter are listed below.

StatCounter Features:

• Ability to analyze which keywords sent visitors to your site

• Detailed information about visitors including: their ISP address, what website they came from, what operating system they use, how many times they have visited the website, what resolution they are using to view your website and where they live
• Traffic information that is daily (for upgraded members), weekly, monthly or yearly
• Information on which pages receive the most traffic
• Information on which pages are used as ‘entry pages’, (which basically means the first page that a visitor uses to enter onto your site)
• Information on which pages are exit pages
• Graphs detailing how long visitors have stayed on your website
• Charts showing which search engines are sending the most traffic to your website
• A blocking cookie which helps to ensure all of your visits to your website are not included in the results; this can be turned off if you wish
• A world map that shows the countries from which your visitors are coming from
• Secure tracking, which is a feature available to upgraded members. According to StatCounter, with secure tracking, if you run your site through a Secure Sockets Layer (also known as SSL), your visitors will not get any security alerts.
• Custom Branding Logo, another feature available only to upgraded members. It removes Statcounter ads that are visible in your account manager. StatCounter recommends using this feature to show your own ads in place of StatCounter’s, if you are using the service with several other people.
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So, as you can see, StatCounter offers many if not more traffic tracking features than VisitorVille. All of this is done for free if you get up to 9,000 page loads a day. This means you can get up to 270,000 page loads tracked without having to pay one cent. This is unlike VisitorVille, which at that rate could cost hundreds of dollars. The only thing you have to deal with if you use the free version of StatCounter is having to see ads in your manager account. However, that’s the extent of it, as StatCounter will not display its ads on your website. Indeed, this certainly is not a big sacrifice, especially considering the extensive tracking information StatCounter is offering.

If you are receiving more than 9,000 page loads a day, StatCounter will require that you upgrade or remove their tracking code from your website(s). They will not do it for you automatically like VisitorVille, but since they are free anyway this shouldn’t be that much of a big deal. If you do decide to upgrade, it will cost: $9 a month for 1,500,000 page views, $19 a month for 7,500,000 and $29 a month for 15,000,000. Upgraded members get daily website tracking, secure tracking and a custom branding logo. They also get peace of mind knowing that they are supporting a very wonderful website tracking service.

As a side note, StatCounter is a perfect example of a company that has successfully generated revenue from an incentive marketing model, as they have been in business for six years. They don’t seem to even rely as much on actual upgrades as they do Adsense and advertising revenue obtained from patrons who subscribe to their free service. Keep this in mind when you go about your own email marketing endeavors. Earlier this e-book focused more on creating e-books as a means of incentive marketing, but if you are a programming genius like the creators of StatCounter, you might want to consider distributing a free program instead.

Figure 9: Stat Counter Account Manager

3. Tracking Through Email Marketing Services

VisitorVille and StatCounter are website tracking services that work well if you want to track your website or affiliate links directly. However, these services are unable to tell you exact details on your email marketing campaign. If you want to know more specific information, such as: how many people actually opened your emails, how many emails got delivered, which specific visitor opened the email and who opted out, you will need to use an email marketing service. Most email marketing services also allow you to analyze how your email list is growing, both by providing charts showing growth rate and letting you know what methods are brining about email subscribers. The downside to the tracking available through email marketing services is that they usually do not give as detailed information about visitors as website tracking services do. For this reason, you may want to consider using the tracking ability with email marketing services in combination with a website tracking service. If money is an issue, you can always use StatCounter, if your site stats are less than 270,000 page views a month.

There are four methods you can use for sending out emails: directly from your email account, from email software, from an email marketing service, from an autoresponder or from miscellaneous services. This section will explain each of these options in detail.

1) Emailing from Your Email Account
Emailing from your email account may seem obvious, but if you are limited on funds and you are emailing just a few people it is the best alternative. Most email service providers allow the basics for sending out emails, which includes the ability to send to a multitude of people and the ability to add attachments. Many email service providers will even hyperlink URLs, meaning that when the reader receives the email, the URLS will be clickable. Some also will allow you to add pictures within the body of the email. However, this is pretty much the extent of the ability provided by most standard email service providers. Also, keep in mind that if you bulk email too often you could be flagged by the email service provider for spam. This is why if you’re using this alternative, it’s best to email no more than one hundred people.

2) Emailing from Email Software
You can also send emails from email software, such as Outlook Express. With email software, you can create and send HTML emails, something you cannot do when sending emails directly from your email account. You can also send to several people without being suspected of being a spammer. Some email software even have autoresponder capabilities. Autoresponders send automated email messages. The autoresponders available through email software are somewhat limited, so you may want to use an autoresponder service for more advanced autoresponder features.

3) Emailing from an Email Marketing Service
Emailing software programs allow you to create extremely elaborate HTML emails. These include survey emails, where you can get more of an idea the demographics of your subscribers. Additionally, you can email as many people as you like without getting in trouble. In fact, email marketing services expect you to email thousands of people. Other features common to most email marketing services include ability to track the response of your email campaign and email list management. Some may even have autoresponder capabilities. An example of a very popular email marketing service is Constant Contact. The price for this service is determined by the number of emails you send out.

4) Autoresponders
Once you get your list established, trying to reply to each of them immediately could be virtually impossible. Email software can only do so much, while email marketing services cost money. Each of these may have autoresponders, which will do the emailing for you, but if the autoresponders are limited in what they can do, you may want to consider using exclusive autoresponder services. These can be free or paid. Free ones usually send out an advertisement with each email, but paid ones don’t. In fact, paid autoresponder services offer some of the same types of services present with email marketing services including ability to create HTML emails and the ability to better manage your email list. Get Response is an example of a very popular autoresponder service.

The best way to use an autoresponder is to send follow-up emails to your subscribers. Many email marketers do their follow-ups through a series of newsletters. You will want to try to send follow-up messages three to seven times, with each time equally stressing the importance of the product or service you’re promoting. This is because most people need to be advertised more than once before they are finally convinced to buy a product or service. This also helps to establish a sense of trust between you and the subscriber.

5) Miscellaneous Services
There are some marketing services that allow you to send out emails that can’t be categorized as email software, an email marketing service or an autoresponder, (though many of them may have features common to these emailing options). One example can be found through certain types of groups, with Yahoo Groups being an example. These allow you to send emails to members both via the message board and to their personal email accounts. Usually, these will only allow text-based emails.

Another miscellaneous service is Adsomatic. This service, costing only $97, allows you to market a free online classifieds site. How does Adosmatic work? Basically, when someone visits your classified site, (which is designed no differently than any other type of free online classifieds site), they have to give their email address in order to post their advertisement. This is where the magic of Adsomatic comes in. The email given is stored in a database on Adsomatic’s servers. What effect does this have on you?

This stored email is an extra lead on your subscriber list, which is accessible through your Adsomatic account. You will not be allowed to see the actual email address, but you do get to see how many emails are on your list. You also can send emails out to them. Unfortunately, the emails are text-based but they do make URLs clickable. Adsomatic also offers the option for the user to unsubscribe to the emailing list, something that if acted upon Adsomatic takes care of.

The best way to use Adsomatic is to promote your classified sites on other free classified sites. Advertise that you are offering free advertising, and you should start receiving subscribers instantly. The type of offers that you should think about promoting if you decide to use Adsomatic should be those relating to business opportunities, free things or marketing. Adsomatic offers more advertising space by allowing you to post three banners on your classified site. Two of the banners are button banners and the other one is the standard 468 x 60 banner. These banners can be graphical or text-only. As an added bonus, Adsomatic offers information regarding how many people have clicked on the banners. Unfortunately, at the present time no tracking information is offered for their emailing campaign, but the upcoming chapter will explain other methods of tracking their success.

Figure 6: Adsomatic Email Screen

After you build up your email list, you are ready to actually write the emails. However, right before you start, you will need to decide if you want to send an HTML email versus an all-text one. HTML emails, which can be sent through email marketing services or email software, (both of which will be discussed more in detail in Chapter Three), utilize HTML coding to make an email look like that of a web page. They contain graphics, interactive forms and clickable links.

They are visually more appealing than text-based emails and can increase response rate, since they allow you to cloak affiliate links, (which will be discussed in the upcoming sections). Additionally, it doesn’t take much more effort to make them. How do you do this? Some email marketing services will allow you to make them through their network; otherwise you can use a word processing program such as Microsoft Word to create them. All you would have to do is select ‘Save As’ HTML document once you are finished and you have an HTML email.

Figure 2: A perfectly loaded HTML email

The downside to HTML emails is that sometimes the images don’t load, which can give your email a spam-like appearance. Even if they do load, there’s no guarantee they will look right once it is sent over. Emailing a sample HTML email to yourself can help you determine what it is going to look like, though be aware that just like any other web page, HTML emails load differently depending on the browser that is used.

If you want to make sure that your email will look appropriate, you have the option of sending it as text-only. Text-only emails do not contain graphics or clickable links. They almost always come out looking okay. You also do not need email software or an email marketing service to send them. However, the disadvantage to text-based emails is that you do not have the opportunity to include a clickable link. Readers would have to copy and paste the link into their browser in order to visit your website. If your offer is extremely interesting to them, they will go on and take that extra ‘step’, but it’s still inconvenient, even if it’s for literally one second. Yet, if you must send text-based emails, there are ways to make your link more memorable and ‘catchy’, at least if it wasn’t already. The exact techniques will be discussed shortly.

Figure 3: An HTML email that didn't load properly

Once you have decided whether you are going to write an HTML versus a text-based one, you are ready to start thinking about what could be considered the most important element of your email: the headline or subject line. The headline is what determines whether or not your email will even get read. Headlines that are not attention-grabbing and/or those that look ‘spammy’ will result in your email being thrown away in your subscriber’s online trash bin. Examples of spammy email headlines are those that try to deceive the reader into opening them. The spammer often makes the reader think they are a friend responding through the use of RE: (which is short for regarding). They may also use headlines like: Attention: Important Information Regarding Your Account to make the reader think the email is from a legitimate service they may be a member of. Other spam emails make the reader think they’ve won or received something when they really didn’t. Avoid these tactics because not only are they not professional, they eliminate any type of interest the reader may have had in your content. Worse, the reader may even report you for spam, regardless of whether or not they were on your email list.

So, what’s the best way to write email headlines? Ultimately, you will want to captivate the reader in some way. Using the term ‘free’ for example, will get their attention, but if you do not write it properly could make the reader think your email is spam. In fact, try to avoid using the term ‘free’ in your email headline unless you are offering something that: 1) is a legitimate sample that truly is free and 2) is not commonly promoted by spammers. While spammers technically can promote anything, the things that are the most common tend to be sex-related sites, fraudulent work-at-home schemes and pharmaceuticals.

If your site happens to be sex-related, legitimate work at home or pharmaceutical-related, you may want to consider avoiding using the word ‘free’, or use it in a different way. For example, if you actually did receive a free sample from the company you are promoting you could say, “Learn how I received free sex toys from whatever company.” This is preferable to: “Free Sex Toys”. While on the surface the latter may appear to get more results in practice it doesn’t. First off, such a headline is more likely to put the email into the spam filter, since ‘free’ is the first word. Secondly, it doesn’t make a connection with the reader. A person seeing it sees just an advertisement… a person out to make a buck off of them. The other email is an advertisement, but the approach is more testimonial-like, which people respond highly to.

Another type of headline that people respond to, at least according to Yuwanda Black (who is author of Email Marketing: How to Write Headlines that Get Your Email Opened!), are those containing the word ‘not.’ This is because the word ‘not’ gets people to think a lot more than more positive headlines. It is not often they are told what to not to do to avoid certain types of things, so when they see a headline like that they are more tempted to click on it and see what the email is about. An example of this in practice could be a headline like: “How to Not Get a Job.” The corresponding email would talk about how not to get a job and in some form or fashion include your affiliate links, which in this case would be job-related.

Creating headlines that contain deadline information is another way to capture a reader’s attention. An example could be: “50% Discount For the Next 24 Hours on such and such item,” or “Respond in the next 48 Hours to Receive such and such item.” However, try to not use these when you first email your subscribers, because these are clearly advertisements. Establish a rapport with the reader through testimonial-like emails or informational ones. Once the reader trusts you, they won’t mind as much opening up an email that is a direct advertisement.

Other headline techniques as explained by Bob Bly, (author of The Copywriter’s Handbook) include: news headlines, question headline, command headline and reason why headline. News headlines announce upcoming services or products that might be of interest to the reader. Question headlines ask the reader an attention-grabbing rhetorical question, such as “How much are you spending on your mortgage?” Command headlines ‘demand’ that the reader take action on something, while reason why headlines show why a reader should take action.

Do you still feel confused at what type of headline you should choose for your email campaign? Then you might want to consider buying software that can help you determine what your headline should be. Headline Creator Pro is an example of software that does exactly this. You start by answering only 4 questions, then the program will return 100 recommended headlines. These headlines are derived from the information you give the program and commonly used terms that have been used in successful headlines. It does all of this for only $37.

Once your headline is complete, whether you write it yourself or you use Headline Creator Pro to use it, you need to start creating your content. To make things easier, Microsoft suggests using the P.A.S.S. model created by McGhee Productivity Solutions, (also known as MPS). P.A.S.S. stands for Purpose, Action, Supporting Documentation and Subject line. Since this e-book has already discussed how to go about writing an effective subject line, (also referred to as headline), focus shall now be centered on the other elements of the P.A.S.S. model, which would be Purpose, Action and Supporting Documentation.

1) Purpose

The purpose of your email summarizes what your email is about. Most advertising emails will have the purpose of informing readers of their products or services. State your purpose in your first paragraph in your email. You could do it by simply saying: “The purpose of this email is:” or put it more towards the end of the first paragraph preceded by introductory sentences to arouse interest. Introductory sentences that capture attention can be quotes, humorous statements or compelling facts.

2) Action

The next portion of your email needs to try to compel the reader to take a certain action, though the actual ‘request’ for an action should be put towards the end of the email. This is of course if you want a physical action from your reader. Some emails are designed where the desired action is that the reader just read the email. This is especially the case with newsletters. With this approach the marketer establishes interest through a series of newsletters, then with their final newsletter email makes the request for an action. This method takes longer, but tends to be more effective because it creates trust between the reader and the marketer.

Regardless of how or when you ask your reader to take an action just make sure of one thing: that your email contains worthwhile content before the request is sprung up. Do not under any circumstance create emails in which the whole content is simply an advertisement. Emails that contain messages like: “This is great, click here,” while meeting the requirement of requesting an action, do not make any personal connection with the reader. These types of emails usually end up being thrown away in the email reader’s trash bin.

3) Supporting Documentation

Supporting documentation are attachments that help further aide in the process of the reader taking an action. It is highly common among business emails, though should be used with caution with marketing emails. This is because most email readers are not comfortable opening attachments that are from people that they do not know. Exceptions could be things that they signed up for, such as free e-books. Therefore, make sure to get a reader’s permission before sending an attachment.

Do you have a good understanding of the general idea behind writing email content? With P.A.S.S. hopefully you should, but it doesn’t end there. The next factor to keep in mind when writing email content is length and formatting. You want to make your paragraphs short, with no more than three or four sentences each. In terms of formatting, make sure you put spaces between each of your paragraphs, but don’t put in too much because too much means excess white space, which makes an email look unprofessional.

Also, don’t put spaces within paragraphs, as these should be single-spaced. Additionally, do not indent your paragraphs; make it flush up against the left margin. Most importantly, make sure you spell-check your email before sending it out. Many email providers will even let you spell-check your email as you are inputting it. Emails that are misspelled or have grammar errors are classic among spammers and are quick to be deleted, even if they contained useful information.

The final thing you should remember when writing your email content is how you list your links. If you are creating an HTML-based email, you can do what is known as ‘cloaking’, which is basically when you provide a hyperlink within a word or phrase rather than having to list a full URL. This is especially helpful when providing affiliate links since: many people won’t click on a link that they think is from an affiliate program. Even top-level domain names can benefit from cloaking, because it prompts the reader to take immediate action right there.

So, how do you go about cloaking a URL? If you are creating your HTML-based email in a word processor, HTML editor or email program, there are options available that will allow you to do this. If you want to use straight HTML, you use the following tag:

///Sample///

‘Samplelink’ would represents the URL you want your text to link to while ‘Sample’ represents your text. What would happen is ‘Sample’ would be hyperlinked, so if it’s clicked on it will lead the reader to the samplelink.com. A reader would never even know that what they are clicking on originated from an affiliate link, if of course this is the case.

Figure 4: An Email with Cloaked Links

What about if you’re sending a text-based email? Well, text-based emails do not allow cloaking, so you will have to list a URL. If you have a URL that is short and easy to remember, then it isn’t a problem, but if you’re promoting an affiliate link the reader might not be interested. This is why if you have an affiliate link or really any other type of very long URL, you have to use what is known as a URL redirection service. URL redirection services allow you to create a new domain name that, if selected, will redirect the reader to the true URL. Some, like Tiny URL, are free. An example of a Tiny URL link would be: http://tinyurl.com/3bkztd. Notice, it’s significantly shorter than the original URL which was an affiliate link. To use Tiny URL, you just simply enter in the original URL into a form.

Figure 5: Tiny URL

There is a downside to Tiny URL, despite its convenience. Even though the URL is shorter it still has an affiliate-like look, especially with the number combination at the end of the URL. If you are using text emails and you do not want your URL to appear this way, you will need to use a paid URL redirection service. Paid URL redirection services work just like Tiny URL, with one exception: you can use a regular domain name to hide your affiliate link. Network Solutions is an example of a company that offers this type of service. At a price of $12 per domain name per year, you can register up to 10 domain names that can point to your URL. All you have to do to use this service is enter in the domain names you want and the URL you want them to point them. In the latter step, you have the option of masking the original URL. This means that the original URL won’t even appear in a visitor’s browser… only the redirected URLs do.

Sample Email:

To better help you understand how to create email content, a sample email has been provided along with analysis of how it fits the guidelines you have just learned.

Subject: Are you not paying your debts?

According to USA Today, two-thirds of people in their twenties are laden down in debt. Of this number an alarming 50 percent are unable to pay their bills at all. If you are a part of this percentage, you may want to read on to learn about a way you can legally erase your debt.

How can you go about trying to delete your debt? The answer involves disputing records on your credit report. If any type of data is incorrect, or the credit card company does not have your records on file, (a scenario that occurs often), they are legally required to expunge your debt.

The best way to dispute your credit card debt is to get a law firm to do it for you. Academy Law, a law firm specializing in credit repair, can dispute your debt for a small monthly fee. To find out more about Academy Law please visit:

www.academylaw.com

Notice how the headline makes use of Yuwanda Black’s suggestion of using the word ‘not’. If a person is not paying their debts, (which unfortunately encompasses a lot of people), such a headline will get their attention. The headline also meets Bob Bly’s definition of good headlines by asking a question.

The structure of the email also follows what you have learned. The first paragraph starts off with an interesting fact, meant to compel the subscriber to keep reading. The second sentence expands on this fact, while the third sentence gives mention to what the email will talk about, otherwise known as the purpose of the email. The purpose is implicitly, but if you want to state yours more directly, you are welcome. Note that although on the surface it may seem the last sentence in the first paragraph is requesting an action, (something that is normally a no-no until the last paragraph), it really isn’t, because it is written in such a way to give the reader the choice to read on.

The second paragraph provides content that a person with a debt problem may not be aware of. Hopefully, after reading this paragraph they are interested enough to take the requested action, which is to visit Academy Law’s website. Notice that the link at the end is not hyperlinked nor is it cloaked. If you were writing a text-based email, this is how it would appear if the browser has no hyperlinking capabilities. If the email was HTML-based the words ‘Academy Law’ could be hyperlinked to the Academy Law website.

The first step towards effective email marketing is obvious yet difficult for many: actually finding the emails to market to. Doing this step wrong could not only result in not achieving any results in terms of sales, but may even land you in jail. This is because there has been a recent crackdown by the Feds on what is known as ‘spam’, which is basically unsolicited email advertising. It can also refer to unwanted advertising on message boards and classified ads, though it’s usually the email variety that gets people in trouble.

To get these emails, spammers use a variety of methods including: simply guessing an email address, using a harvesting ‘bot to scour Usenet, message boards, social networking sites and other types of websites for email addresses, phising, (the process of getting information by making the victim think they are visiting a legitimate website) and buying bulk email lists. Once they get their hands on hundreds, sometimes even thousands of email addresses, they start sending out their advertising. Most of the time these advertisements are poorly written and have the characteristic look of spam. Others are more deceptive, and may even use phising techniques to get you to enter in important information such as credit card numbers, bank accounts and social security numbers.

In terms of what is advertised, they can be an ‘innocent’ affiliate advertisement to something more sinister, like the infamous Nigerian email scams. Of course, there is a possibility that people could become victimized by legitimate email marketing techniques, but it is usually far less common. You should desire to be on the legitimate side. Besides, when you send advertisements on people who actually don’t mind receiving them, you have less of a chance of your email getting put in the ‘bulk folder’ used by most email providers to help
eliminate spam.

Figure 1: An example of a spam email

So, how do you go about legitimately building an email list? You must first create something that can serve as a ‘draw’ for your potential subscriber. Most people have no problems giving away their email address if they are going to receive something in return. Affiliate marketers who do not have much money make free e-books or newsletters the incentive to subscribe. Companies and/or affiliate marketers with more money can experiment with more elaborate draws, such as sweepstakes entries or giving away a ‘free’ prize. Some do a combination. What should you do? It depends on your situation. If you’re promoting a business, you can offer free coupons as an incentive to subscribe. If you’re simply an affiliate marketer, you should consider promoting information.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. The thought of promoting information sounds like it’s a lot of work. In truth, it is, though there are ways to avoid doing the work yourself. Ghostwriters, who you can find through a general Google search or sites like Elance, can write e-books for you for a few hundred dollars. You can also see if you can find someone willing to volunteer their writing services in exchange for being able to promote their links in your book or on your site. Freelance writing boards are the place to go to post these types of volunteer jobs. The other option is to try to write the e-book yourself.

How do you go about writing an e-book yourself? The first step is to brainstorm. Think about what you know. General information can work, though the more specific your e-book is the more likely it will get read all the way through. Once you get a topic in mind, you will want to consider writing an outline to help assist you in the writing process. Although outlines can be somewhat time-consuming, in the long run you’ll be glad to have them because they let you know what direction you’re going when you start your writing. They don’t have to be elaborate.. just stating what you want to talk about in each chapter could be a good enough outline. Keep in mind that the more detailed your outline is, the less likely you’ll get writer’s block once your e-book is started. The outline format that is most popular in academia is shown below:

I. Topic One

A. Sub-topic One

1) Supporting point one

a. sub-point one

b. sub-point two

2) Supporting point two

a. sub-point one

b. sub-point two

B. Sub-topic One

1) Supporting point one

a. sub-point one

b. sub-point two

2) Supporting point two

a. sub-point one

b. sub-point two

II. Topic Two

A. Sub-topic One

1) Supporting point one

a. sub-point one

b. sub-point two

2) Supporting point two

a. sub-point one

b. sub-point two

B. Sub-topic One

1) Supporting point one

a. sub-point one

b. sub-point two

2) Supporting point two

a. sub-point one

b. sub-point two

III. Topic Three

A. Sub-topic One

1) Supporting point one

a. sub-point one

b. sub-point two

2) Supporting point two

a. sub-point one

b. sub-point two

B. Sub-topic One

1) Supporting point one

a. sub-point one

b. sub-point two

2) Supporting point two

a. sub-point one

b. sub-point two

With this format, remember that you need at least: three main topics, two sub-topics and two supporting points. Sub-points are optional, but if you have one you must have another to keep consistency. If you wish you can use the above outline as a template when creating your own or find out how you can make outlines with your favorite word processing program.

After you create an outline, you are ready to start writing-your e-book. You may want to think about what format you want it to be in. Since many people have Microsoft Word, you can write it in that if you wish, but PDF e-books are a more common format. You can use an e-book creator, PDF creator or Word Perfect’s ‘Save as PDF’ feature to create PDF e-books. There are also some e-books creators which will make your e-book a stand-alone program. This means that a person can read it without needing a word processor or Adobe Acrobat, (the program that is used to read PDF files).

Style-wise, e-books do not have to be ‘formal’, though they can if you want them to be. It is acceptable to address your reader through ‘you’, and refer to yourself as ‘I’ or ‘me’. Catch phrases and clichés can also be used since the writing can be informal, but only use these if you think it’s going to make a profound impact. The main thing you want to keep in mind is that you want to write as if you were talking to the person directly.

If you refer to any outside source when writing your e-book, make sure you reference it either in the section you use it or at the end of the E-book. If you want to be extra safe you can even say directly that you got whatever piece of information from such-and-such site, while still citing the information. In terms of how you cite, again since an e-book is an informal piece of writing it doesn’t matter, just as long as you include the essentials, including the name of the author and the name of the work you are using.

You can conclude the e-book writing process by editing your work. Make sure that everything is grammatically correct… don’t rely on the grammar checkers that have become popular with many word processing programs. This is because often times they see grammar mistakes in sentences that don’t contain any. Yet, word processing programs are still reliable when it comes to spell-checking, so make sure you run the spell-checker before doing anything else with your e-book. You may also want to have someone else read your e-book. Other people are able to catch mistakes that you might not be able to catch yourself.

Once the e-book is done, you will need to create a website to capture the emails of your subscribers. What will happen is on this website you will advertise that you are offering an e-book for free; all a person has to do to receive their e-book is provide the email address to which they want the e-book sent. There should then be a textbox where the person can enter in their email address. On the bottom of the page there should be a checkbox asking if the person is interested in receiving information from your affiliates and/or subscribe to your newsletter. This can be jazzed up if you can convince they should receive advertisements or newsletters from you. If possible, this checkbox should be checked automatically, though the person should have the option to uncheck it if they want to. With this you risk losing them as a potential subscriber, but you can try to make up for this by again advertising in your e-book the opportunity to become a part of your email list or newsletter.

If your e-book contains unique and specific information, the reader might be convinced that you can offer them even more inside information if they agree to be a part of your list. To do this, make a separate web page that would capture their email address…still include the checkbox described above just to be on the safe side. Include the link to this web page in your e-book, so your reader can subscribe just by clicking on the link. This extra step is a little bit more work, but if you choose the lazier way, which would basically ask the reader to email you directly for inclusion onto your email list, they might not do it. Remember, even though you’ve piqued the reader’s interest enough to download the book they are still in a more passive mode when it comes to action. In fact, there’s no guarantee that they will even be interested enough to subscribe, but at least it’s a shot.

Once a visitor subscribes to your email list, you will receive an email from your website giving you information on their email address. Make sure that with any email you send out you give them the option to want to opt out of the list if they want to. If you are using an email marketing service, (which will be discussed more in Chapter 3), you can provide a special link in the email that can allow them to do this. Otherwise, they will have to email you requesting that you remove them from your list. If you receive a request like this, make sure you delete them and don’t send them any more email. Continuing to send email to a person that wanted to opt out is still considered spam even if they initially agreed to be a part of your list.

Okay. So, at this point you are aware of using one type of incentive marketing to generate your email list. While this method is the most commonly used, it can take a lot of time trying to get contacts. In addition, you still have the same pitfalls associated with Internet marketing in general, since you have to promote your website in order to try to get email leads. If time is of the essence, you can try a less popular yet highly effective approach: getting leads off of paid email services. Paid email services, while viewed lowly by some Internet marketers, lessens the chance anyone can be accused of spam. People request to view advertisements because they are getting paid to do so. In fact, if you wanted to you could just email your advertisement directly through these services, but in the long run you will want to try to use them to build your email list instead.

Why? It is because it normally takes 7 times before a person decides to act on an offer advertised to them. You want to have the freedom to advertise that many times to people on your own list… not by having to pay the paid email service each time. So, instead of advertising your offer directly, you would advertise the website offering your free e-book and hope that the visitor subscribes. Just make sure that when using a paid email service to find subscribers, that the service is reputable. Entering their name in Google along with the word ‘scam’ or ‘didn’t pay’, are the best methods to determine if it’s worth doing business with them. Sometimes members on freelance boards will offer information on which paid email services are legitimate.

Paid signups are a corollary to paid email services. Just like paid emails, they tend to be controversial. However, they work. Basically, the marketing company will pay people to sign up for a program. The only thing that they ask is that the program is no-cost, doesn’t ask for credit card information and doesn’t ask for one’s Social Security number. As long as your website just asks for a person’s email address, you would not be breaking these rules. Once you submit your website, the company gets to work advertising your site to the people in their network, with the network usually consisting of several paid email sites or sites dedicated to paid signups. You receive all of your signups a few weeks later, (sometimes it will take a few months if you order a lot of signups).

Sounds good enough, so why is there any controversy at all surrounding paid signups? Marketers criticize paid signup programs because they feel that the leads generated won’t be interested in making a purchase. However, as an email marketer your goal is to try to generate a purchase after sending a series of emails, not before. So this wouldn’t be much of a problem for you. The only other concern you should have when it comes to paid signups is the cost. If you are interested in building a small list of less than 50 people, you can find signups as low as $37, but if you want a list of thousands, be prepared to pay exactly that. Cabezasr, one site offering bulk signups, charges $28,000 for 50,000 country-based signups. This is a lot of money to pay, especially when there’s no guarantee all of the signups can be delivered.

That’s right… sometimes signup companies won’t be able to fulfill the whole order, though many of them will offer refunds if they don’t. Others won’t do anything with the claim that they will keep working on it until you get the signups. For this reason, it is suggested to try not to buy so many at one time unless you know for sure that the company will deliver. Like what was suggested with paid email programs, make sure you Google in the name of the company along with the keywords ‘scam’ to see what comes up. If you get a lot of complaints, you know to stay away from the company. Unfortunately, paid signups do have a notorious element attached to them, so it is essential you perform this step before dealing with any paid signup program you don’t have direct experience with, or that does not have good testimonials. Also, if you must purchase a larger amount of signups, do a test purchase first. Buy a small amount, maybe 25, or whatever is the least they will let you buy. Take note of how long it takes for them to deliver the leads. If it takes forever for such a small amount, then more than likely you will want to stay away from them and not buy a bigger amount next time.

You can also try to get subscribers from safelists and autosurfs. Safelists are websites where people agree to see advertisements in exchange for being able to post their advertisement. Autosurfs work on the same principle, though they tend to be more elaborate. Working through a credit system, a person earns a certain amount of credits each time they view an advertisement. The more credits they earn, the more they can advertise their own site. Both of these methods are controversial, especially autosurfs. However, it’s only autosurfs offering cash that you should be careful of. This is because many of them are ponzi schemes, paying old members from new member money. Yet, credit-based autosurfs are ok because they are not offering money. People are getting compensated with advertising time.

The other option to try to build your email list quickly is one that oddly enough is not as controversial as paid emails, safelists and autosurfs but is still relatively risky. It involves actually buying emails from marketing companies. Why is this risky? It is because you don’t know how the marketing companies actually generated their list. You also don’t know if their prospects truly agreed to seeing your advertisements. This is why if you do decide to buy leads, it’s best to avoid buying emails directly. There are marketing sites that allow you to advertise through their network. You simply enter your email into the network, and they will send it out to their subscribers. Some of these are glorified safelists, others aren’t, (though the latter can be somewhat hard to find).

A variant of this practice are website owners who decide to sell advertising space in their email newsletters. You do not have as much exposure when trying to buy leads through this method, since most website owners would put your link at the bottom of their newsletter. However, if the newsletter is interesting enough the reader will reach towards the bottom of the page, making it likely they will at least see your advertisement. Also, just like with the other lead-generation tactics discussed, make sure your ‘advertisement’ is simply providing the link to the webpage offering your free e-book. This way you get a chance to try to gain the newsletter subscribers for your own email list.

Article marketing has become very popular and for good cause. People come to the Internet for one of two reasons. They either want to buy something or they want information on something. If you provide a product and then in depth information about that product, then you are going to be helping yourself gain twice the amount of traffic for your site. Article marketing can be used in a variety of different ways including:

• Adding articles to your site for fresh content

• Adding articles to a blog to drive traffic to your site

• Adding articles to article directories to drive traffic to your site

It is important to remember that your articles need to have useful information in them. You also do not want your articles to be salesy and pushy. These should be informative articles that leave your readers wanting more information from you and will then cause them to want to visit your website to find out what you are all about.

Search Engines Like Fresh Content

There are tons of websites on the Internet and many of them are stagnant and useless. The search engines do not like these sites, so they are often indexed at the bottom of the rankings. If you throw up a website and never change it, then it is likely that your stagnated website is also going to end up at the bottom and nobody will ever know it exists. This is obviously not the way to generate web traffic. To keep the search engines interested in moving you up the page ranks, you have to provide them with fresh meat in the form of fresh content. This is where useful articles come into play.

If you post informative articles on your website, then you are adding fresh content to your site. It is best if you do this slowly. You can add a page a day or a couple pages every few days. This will depend on how much time you have to update your site. You are always better off feeding the search engines slowly rather than overwhelming them with several pages all at once. By feeding them slowly, you keep them lingering around your site. This is one way that articles can help you to gain traffic.

Blogs

The search engines also like blogs, especially WordPress.com. This service allows you to set-up as many free blogs as you want and Google loves this site. They index blogs very quickly and if you provide useful and keyword optimized content on your blog, then you are going to find that you attract a lot of attention from the search engines. Always be sure that you have a link to drive people to your actual website and you will begin generating traffic in no time. Because the popular blog suppliers are ranked high in the page rankings, everything they are associated with gets spidered and indexed as well. The search engines love the fresh new content and they hang around on blogs for extended periods of time. Plus, anything else that you have linked into your blog will get spidered as well. Every time you update your blog, you will be bumped to the top of your section for the category or tags that you have selected. If you select your tags carefully and use popular keywords, you may be receive sudden surges of traffic. You can then channel that into your product pages and the main site of your blog and website.

Blogs are very popular and easy to maintain. The website portion is already taken care of for you and all you have to do is use the forms to add posts. Microsoft Office 2007 also makes it easy to update your blogs. You can choose new blog post, type it up and supply your login information through Microsoft Word 2007. The program will then post your blog onto your blog without you having to actually go there. This is a great way to add several blog posts to your site quickly. The ease of updating a blog is one reason why they are such a popular form of promotion. You can post blogs within a matter of minutes and search engines love this new and fresh content.

Many people will add to their blogs several times per day. A blog is similar to a website. The more you feed it consistently the more attention you will attract from the search engines. However, don’t forget that you need to have at least a concluding paragraph in your postings that will then send people to your site to learn more about you. Another great way to get attention on your blog is to post comments on other blogs. By doing this you can include a signature file that links to your blog or your main website. You can also post comments with links that suggest visitors check out another page if they are interested in learning more about a particular subject.

Another way to create traffic through blogs is to have multiple blogs on different niches. Each blog can be optimized for a different keyword. You can use each blog to promote for that keyword only and then find a way to funnel that traffic into your main site or product pages.

Article Directories

Another great way to get noticed is to publish your articles in article directories. These articles must be very informative. You also want them to be around 300 to 500 words. These articles should be easy to read and should have a conclusion that leaves the reader wanting to learn and read more. At the bottom of the article you will have a resource box. This is a box that tells a little bit about you and your business. It should also include a link to your website so that people can click on it and find out more about your products or services.

When writing for article directories you have the option of keyword optimizing or not. Many people choose not to, but by optimizing your articles you are increasing your chances for generating traffic for that keyword. Article directories are popular and the search engines spend a lot of time indexing their information. If you are using good keywords, then your articles are going to get noticed. Also, the keywords will also be picked up by the actual directory’s search engine, which increases the chances of someone reading your article.