Friday, March 30, 2007 - How to market your business using social networking.

How to Market Your Business Using Social Networking (Ezine Ready)

Recently, I read several complaints by marketers who had tried using sites like My Space and other social networking sites to market their businesses.

They complained that these sites didn't really bring them any real traffic, and they really weren't making sales by using these sites.

In essence, these sites were a waste of time to market on because they didn't produce any immediate marketing results.

As someone who uses My Space, as well as several other networking sites to market my business, I believe that these marketers missed the point.

Blatant marketing on these sites won't work. Your approach has to be far more subtle. Your goal should be something different: increase your presence on the internet, build backlinks from a major traffic site, and build your brand so that potential customers find you.

1. Increasing your presence on the internet

This is especially important if you are new to marketing your products and services on the internet. You have to build a presence, and a big one, if you want to be found by your market.

"Build it and they will come" is the mantra of those who are so overcome by their egos they think their sites will be found without any marketing effort at all.

Successful marketers know this isn't true. You have to get out there and promote yourself if you want to sell your products and services.

Because social networking sites are high traffic, you have a better chance of being found if you get out there and build a presence.

2. Building backlinks

The search engines are constantly spidering these sites. Want to get your site spidered? Then building a profile on these sites will help the search engines find you and then ultimately, your customers can find you.

Remember, though, don't blatantly sell on these sites. Create a profile that tells everyone about you and your products or services. Include links to your website, or if you have more than one site, all of your sites.

Make your profile keyword rich with keywords from your topic.

3. Branding yourself

Whether you are a writer, or you are simply selling your own products and services, you will need to resort to shameless promotion if you want to make the sale.

When you brand yourself, you are attaching yourself to a specific topic. You become an expert on the topic.

Writing articles and posting them on your blog on these social networking sites can help others become aware of your products and services.

This builds value, and by contributing to these sites, you are not only building value for them, you are building value for you.

What's key is to use a soft sell approach. Establish your credibility and expertise. Get others to trust you and believe in your products. Then you will make the sale.

Source: Submit Articles at ArticlesBase.com

RSS us. http://www.bizzyblogz.com/rss.php?u=zeus8894

Global Business Networking

Monday, December 18, 2006 - How to deal with late winter slumps.

Hey folks,

  This time around in the training forum I would like to share a few tips and get some feedback on how you handle the dreaded winter drop off.

Things to expect in mid-December and early January.

1. Sales and new sign-ups will slow to a virtual halt during the middle to late part of December, unless you sell gift type items.

2. In late december and early January you may even see a decrease in downline size as members withdraw.

The causes:

  The main cause for sluggish economy is a no brainer, people focus money on gift buying and not busines investments. They are gone on winter vacations and away from the computer and there is always an increase in internet fraud. People trying to fund their Christmas at your expence. The early January shrink is because many resolve to try soomething new the first of the year. New Years resolution anyone?

The action plan:

  The first is a must for webmasters and professional bloggers. Generate your income to support your site with a different type of affiliate program. Look to progrms like CJ Affiliates and Pay.com where you have a wide selection of stores offering winter gift ideas and massive sales. Sell big named physical gifts from known retailers and win.

   Now as for your beloved programs. to sustain the winter months and make the best of the season, you will find desperate webmasters offering some amazing deals. Yes I too am a desperate webmaster who has offered some recent doozies as expemses for the pre-launch of ZTCUSA.com are mounting. those deals spell a great investment in 2007. Right now you can buy traffic for pennies on the dollar, and start stockpiling for January promotions.

  You should spend what promotion time you have in December building a mailing list of prospects, give away to earn tommarrow. You should also look at co-promotion opportunities and building up websites and blogs with hot new content. Build a reader base for January promotions. As for co-promotions, your downline shrinks around this time a year because people are tired of trying and failing, or they don't think they are earning enough.

  We held the launch off on ZTCUSA.com an added 2 weeks to meet the start of the New Year to capitolize on just that. the first month of the year is always the best for start up sites, and new members are able to be recruited with ease. These members often upgrade when they fie early returns in Febuary meaning fresh cash in your pocket. Since they are looking for something new, and many times they are leaving your downlines to do it, use the member info you recieved, if you have it to recruit them into something else. Don't get into trouble, be sure they want the advert and have them contact you for it.

  Search for something new, something that's sound, and check the who' what, when, where, and why. Be sure you're right and then go ahead. But never give up on your old program either, as March and April have rulled out the flops, those folks will turn to stability in known companies around June or July.

The 5 W's of program offers:

Who: Who owns and opperates it, are there any scam alerts etc..

What: What is the product, the market, and how do they fit into it.

When: When is or was the launch, is it new enough to make serious money, or established for long term earnings from fewer sign-ups. rember, most pre-launches will make you a lot of money fast, but only good program with a plan for sustained growth will result in long term gains.

Where: Where is the company based, what laws must they follow, and how does our government interact with theirs? A lot of overseas companies will launch products and packages at the first of the year, and while they take US Dollars they may not all be US friendly and the governement interaction bears strongly on the protection of your rights if you do get scammed.

Why? Why do people need thier product? Is it some thing the will need, currently need, would like to have, or a better deal on all of the above? Ask yourself if there were 2 products similar in nature and you had shelf space in your store for 1, which would you rather sell? Sometimes this means a little more out of pocket but the returns may be faster and better.

I will close this discussion with this thought. If your business performed well in 2006, what is the plan to make it better in 2007? If it din't fair too well in 06, how is it changing to meet the demands of 07? The last thing I would ask is have you personally spoke with your admin lately?

Andy Zeus Anderson

P.S. I will be trying to schedule a live chat in the ZTC Chat room located on our toolbar or by going to Userplane and searching ZTC Chat for Wensday or Thursday. I will update the forums and our memberships at ZTC Trafic.com and PMT Safelist when the time is set. I will share some major developements on the ZTCUSA.com launch and more so please be there if you can.

  You can download the toolbar at http://ztc.ourtoolbar.com .

Andy

RSS us.http://www.bizzyblogz.com/rss.php?u=zeus8894Get our pod cast on the go.http://www.bizzyblogz.com/podcast.php?w=zeus8894Post Your free pixel ads here.http://www.freepixelmall.com

Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - Finding the right affiliate programs.

Attention PLR Auto Pro has launched.

Article 1 Affiliate Marketing
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Making money out of nothing but affiliate marketing

When the affiliate marketing being offered to you seem to be too good to be true, it is probably is.
This is not anymore new. You probably have heard or read the same advice over and over again. The growing numbers of affiliate programs, online or offline are all claiming to be the best from all the rest.

Besides that, they will give you an initial impression that you do not have to do more than just place a banner or two to start earning more profits than you could ever imagine. This is not always the case. This may apply to some who have already built up a successful site and a name for themselves. But for most, affiliate marketing needs a little work and time.

Email can be an effective affiliate marketing instrument. If done correctly, that is.

Promotion by means of email is very rampant. But with it comes spam. If you want to use email for your affiliate marketing, you have to be sure that you stand by what you are offering and that you make yourself available anytime for any questions or queries. 

It is said that adding adarticle to you r email advertising works really well. Putting up a summary about your product or service that can instantly pique up the attention of your readers works all the time.
This summary should contain a link to an adarticle located on your site. By this, you get to promote your business. You also give your visitors a chance to check out other parts of your site.

The advantage to the advertiser is that they get highly targeted clients to visit their site. These people may even become future customers if ever they find the offers interesting and helpful.

Try to differ from the usual. Be unique.

The many existing affiliate marketing made people already blind to the sales and marketing pitch being presented. You cannot blame them. Imagine yourself being bombarded by these things everyday and you will feel the same.

Squeeze out your creative juices and give them something original enough to stop them from leaving and make them stay to read on. You can try and find a hosting company that can do the job well. Having a great one will make you more than comfortable to offer anything from small to big time deals.
Patience is a virtue in affiliate marketing.

Contact a certain company to negotiate an arrangement if you feel that you are confident enough to generate an amazing number of sales for them. If they seem not interested in what you are offering, do not give up yet. Be patient.

Take into account that these companies are bring approached everyday by affiliates only gives out promises. Most of them cannot deliver what they are saying; thus making company owners wary of which ones to choose.

You can always go the extra mile and implement other techniques in order to get more sales. Once you have done this, approach them again for your services. Chances are, they will be more than willing to get into your affiliate program this time around.

Keep in mind that most types of advertising do not give out results instantly. Putting up a banner for your affiliate marketing campaign and getting it off after a few days should not be done. You may think that they are not being effective or that they are not working. It takes time.

Some of the affiliate marketing strategies that have worked successfully for you may not work the same way on other campaigns. It is worth the try but do not expect for things to turn out exactly.

If you are having continuous problems with your affiliate program, get in touch with the company. If they are committed to their business, they will help you in every way possible on which ones work best. They probably have thousands of affiliates willing to teach you what works best.

Affiliate marketing can be exciting and depressing at the same time. The ups and downs you will encounter is never boring; it will always be a challenge

It all boils down to affiliate marketing being the survival of the best of the best, the smartest and the most patient. 

Sincerily,

Andy Zeus Anderson
zeus@freepixelmall.com
Website http://www.zeusteam.ws
Blog: http://www.bizzyblogz.com/zeus8894
Free Toolbar with RSS training and chat. http://ztc.ourtoolbar.com/

RSS us.http://www.bizzyblogz.com/rss.php?u=zeus8894Get our pod cast on the go.http://www.bizzyblogz.com/podcast.php?w=zeus8894Post Your free pixel ads here.http://www.freepixelmall.com