Test Your Direct Response Marketing Using two Steps

Test Your Direct Response Marketing Using two Steps By Abe Cherian - Copyright © 2005 Of all the mistakes a small business owner can make, possibly none will cost more than failing to test one aspect against another. In order words, testing one price against another. One headline against another. One ad against another. There is an "A-B" test. That's the common terminology for testing your offer, headlines, pricing, ads, or services. We create two different ads, an A and a B, two different headlines, and two different mailings to determine which obtains the greater response or sales or referrals. The key to an A-B test is to set it up so you can quantify and measure it properly and track those results with the goal to zero in on the one or two choices that are Preferable over the others. Then you roll out a new untested product or marketing strategy in this manner, and by mailing to a small test area, say 500-1,000, you can save yourself in the event of a failure untold thousands of dollars. Most of the time you can conduct multiple A-B tests simultaneously on the same product, ad, headline, price, etc. before selecting the final strategy. I recommend if your product or service is conducive to this type of approach, in other words, creating a modest direct mail campaign for conducting the A-B test to do it. Direct mail is the method of choice because it can be put together relatively quickly and inexpensively. The prospects to whom you direct your mailing to in a one-step approach will either respond or not respond with a purchase or inquiry. No intermediate steps, calls or visits. That way it involves a fairly standard set of steps or procedures to take. Your two other major goals should be in using A-B tests to verify what people will actually buy and determine whether you are able to reach these individuals with the marketing campaign that you intend to launch so that they will buy from you. You must be able to think of the purpose of an A -B test as a way to uncover the best and most profitable mix of products, services, price incentives and guarantees that will encourage your prospects to buy. A word of caution: many organizations try to determine this information by sending out surveys. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. There are statistics that show that people rate the Bible as the highest read book and the National Inquirer as the least read. When you look at purchase statistics, they show that more people read the Inquirer in one week than all other books or pamphlets. You don't necessarily want to determine. who will buy things just by a survey. You want them to vote with their dollars. About The Author: Abe Cherian is the founder of Multiple Stream Media, a company that helps online businesses find new prospects and clients, who are anxious to grow their business fast, and without spending a fortune in marketing and automation. http://www.multiplestreammktg.com Web's #1 site to find "free resources to Plan, Build, Market, and Maintain your website": http://www.multiplestreammktg.com/resources.html

A Practical Method To selling Customers What They Want

A Practical Method To selling Customers What They Want By Abe Cherian - Copyright © 2005 Almost all of the marketing and referrals we see is based on a numbers list of what you think prospective customers should care about. This is probably why no one responds. Just in case you can't figure out why the numbers game creates no curiosity, and therefore no response in most cases, is due to poor ads and not targeting your market. Thinking about how you promote your business is the first and foremost objective you should be doing. You must get rid of the illusion that your products, services, or company, or self, are so good that people will be compelled to read about them. The fact of the matter is that no one cares. It is still a mystery to why we are all trained to believe that, because we think we have such wonderful ideas, and the "best company," and so forth, that everyone is concerned. Anyone who has tried to impress someone with bragging knows that is one of the fastest ways to turn people off. Try walking up to a complete total stranger and start the conversation with, "Hi. I just wanted you to know that my company has the best track record over the last three centuries, and that we offer more services than anyone else. As a matter of fact, I have been in the business for three decades, and have won every award my company has How about pulling your checkbook out, and writing me a check for this product". After the person brushed you off, you might have wondered what went wrong. Is that the kind of phrase that gets people to buy? Could it really be that no one wants your company's products or services? Is it possible that your interrupting someone with your pitch was unwelcome? Can't this person see how important it is to have a proper representative? What other company could possibly help people as much as I can? Not hardly. It might just be your fault. You see, there isn't any law that states that people must think about you, and they won't until they are ready to. So why does everyone send mail, or make calls, or send emails, or run ads that assume prospective customers have been waiting for your pitch? Because that's what you have been taught to believe. For example, have you ever sent out postcards for your product or service that said something like this exterminator said: (Dear Resident, Owning a home is a mixed blessing. It's probably your greatest asset... and your greatest expense. As an experienced exterminator, I can help protect your home's valuable wood and foundations with professional exterminator treatments. With my services, you'll feel more comfortable living in the house you own...) These types of marketing pieces are not affective. Here's why. Because you are assuming that your prospective customers care. Because you are assuming they think like you. Because you are saying nothing different. Because you are bragging about yourself without displaying any empathy. Because you are not attracting attention. Because you are stimulating zero curiosity or interest. Because you are trying to convince people of something they don't believe. If you are interested in getting responses, you might want to try to understand what it is that your prospective customers do think about. Try to get a real handle on what they feel and what they want. About The Author: Abe Cherian is the founder of Multiple Stream Media, a company that helps online businesses find new prospects and clients, who are anxious to grow their business fast, and without spending a fortune in marketing and automation. http://www.multiplestreammktg.com Web's #1 site to find "free resources to Plan, Build, Market, and Maintain your website": http://www.multiplestreammktg.com/resources.html

Nine Things to Consider When Starting Your Internet Business

Nine Things to Consider When Starting Your Internet Business
How 3 People Selling Similar Products Online can Have Dramatically Different Levels of SuccessWe see this happen all the time. In one of the most recent examples, two people, Sheryl and Marge started similar Internet businesses. A few years later - Sheryl is making $500 a month - Marge us pulling in $30,000 a month.

What did they do differently?

It wasn't marketing, advertising expenditure, SEO or any of the obvious answers. What Marge did to out-earn Sheryl by a factor of 60 was simply deciding to present her product in a unique way.

In this lesson, I'll show you 9 such unique 'touchs' you can add to your product to really make it fly. This isn't about rocket science - it's about being creative.

Let's take a look at 3 ways of selling an online product. The basic way, the better way, and what we call the brilliant way. These three examples will help you understand what you could fix about the way you present your product.

The Basic Way
As an active user of online dating sites, Sheryl notices that many men struggle to write a decent introduction and profile to post on a dating site. As a consequence, they get hardly any responses from prospective dates.

Sensing an opportunity to start an internet business, Sheryl writes a 50 page ebook targeted to men on how to market themselves better in the dating market. Because Sheryl does not have any previous knowledge on how to start an internet business. She prices the book at $6 and sells it on Amazon.com. She makes $2.70 per sale as the distributing site, Amazon.com, takes 55%.

Selling 100 copies a month, she makes only $270 a month.

Later Sheryl also decides to advertise the book herself on Google and Yahoo!. To afford pay per click advertising rates in the busy online dating market she has to increase the price of her book to $15.

At the higher price, Sheryl now sells only 50 copies a month but by selling them on her own and not on Amazon.com she now makes $750 a month. Nice?

Perhaps - but after paying her advertising bills on Google and Yahoo!, she earns an income of only around $500 a month.

This is good...but far from great. Sheryl could have been a lot more innovative.

Let's take a look at Marge's story, which is what we call the better way.

The Better Way
Marge also wants to set up her own online business. Marge writes a book on dating, just like Sheryl, but because she has done some research on how to start an internet business, she knows that selling it online will not bring her much more than $500 a month.

So she tries something different. She decides to give away the contents of her book for free online.

Marge sets up a website dedicated to dating tips. The 50 page book is broken into sections and she designs the site according to search engine optimization rules so she gets a steady stream of traffic from Google, Yahoo!, bloggers and fellow site owners who link to her site.

How does she make money? By giving away her book for free she now has traffic coming to her site. Better yet - this traffic is highly targeted and consists of people looking for dating tips and advice.

Marge makes money by reviewing and recommending various dating sites to her audience. Since the online dating industry is ultra-competitive, many websites will pay Marge affiliate fees between $10 and $50 for every customer she sends to them.

By offering free advice, her audience comes to trust her and to appreciate her honest reviews. She in turn makes money every time a visitor signs up for a site she reviews.

Does this system actually work? Well, we know one site that is successfully replicating this model. That site is Sage-Hearts.com. In an interview with SecretsofSuccess.com, the owner of Sage-Hearts.com, Rosalind Gardner, revealed that she's making over $30,000 a month just from affiliate fees. Pretty darn sweet!



Screenshot of www.Sage-Hearts.com

But why stop at $30,000. A bit more thinking can you help develop an even bigger strategy. Let's see how a group of guitar-enthusiast turned their hobby into a solid business.

The Brilliant Way
In the summer of 2003, a very passionate and professionally trained guitar player named Quincy approached us with an idea that he had. Quincy's idea was to help people learn to play their favorite songs on an acoustic guitar in a fun, simple, and intuitive way.

Quincy told us that he had never seen any product online that made learning to play guitar fun and easy. He said, ?Every guitar instruction book and DVD on the market is not teaching people how to start playing their favorite songs, they all focus on music theories and boring practice lessons!? He asked us to help him put his product on the online market based upon our experience on how to start an internet business

Quincy definitely had the passion and enthusiasm. He convinced us that it was easy to create professional looking books and DVDs at home, and that he could come up with the single best book and DVD bundle for beginning guitar players. Because we were intrigued and loved the passion that Quincy had for his idea, we told him we would go into business with him if he could deliver a killer product.

When we did some research on the potential market we were stunned by the results! There were literally hundreds of thousands of people searching online for how to play guitar! That's when we decided to help launch iPlayMusic.

Next we needed to figure out how to market the product that we initially wanted to sell for $19.95. We decided to market our product in two ways. One, we got the book and DVD listed on Amazon.com, and two, we hired a web design company to build us a fancy site so we could sell directly to traffic that came from Google.

After three labor-intensive months, we had a great product, and a very polished website. We thought the rest would be easy!

But we were wrong.

First, Amazon.com delivered a slow trickle of sales that did not add up to more than a few hundred dollars per month. Not exactly the exciting and thriving business that we had imagined. Second, our professionally designed website was not converting. We were buying lots of traffic from Google but the traffic was not converting into sales. People were simply not buying our beginner guitar books and DVDs.

Because of these disappointing results we decided to go back to the drawing board. From the few hundred customers that had purchased our lessons, we knew that they LOVED our product! They could not stop raving about it.

So we decided to completely change our approach. We realized that if our beginner book and DVD was so successful, why not give some of it away for free? As a small business, it is very hard to get people to trust us and buy from us. However, it is far easier to give them something for free, earn their trust and then convert them into paying customers later. Plus, giving away some of our lessons would cost us next to nothing since ebooks and videos could be formatted into easy downloads.

We added free demos and created a free online course that customers received over two week span. We also made our instructional videos available through iTunes, which got us a lot of publicity.

We then went back to creating more content and started working on the next volume of lessons to help beginning guitar players take it to the next level! In addition to expanding our instructional "Learn to Play Guitar? lessons we also created detailed how-to videos teaching people how to play some popular guitar songs.

Lastly, we came up with the idea to create a "Beginner Guitar Bundle" that combined our lessons with an acoustic guitar. Since we don't make guitars, we contacted a leading guitar manufacturer and struck a deal where we were able to source guitars at over 65% less than retail price.

We now had a $129 product with a profit margin of over $65 per order.

This time, all the changes we made worked and iPlayMusic soon reached sales of over $1,000 per day. We haven't looked back since.



Screenshot of www.iPlayMusic.com

So as you can see - there are 3 very different ways how to start an internet business and market an informational product online. The last thing you want to do is follow the crowd and sell your product on Amazon.com.

Although Amazon.com is the easy way out, it's not very effective and you won't make the money you're hoping for.

We identified 8 qualities that make a product a potential hot seller. Here are the 8 qualities and a comparison of how the 3 different business models we described in this lesson stack up.

Factor Dating eBook Sage-Hearts.com iPlayMusic.com
Easy to Store/Deliver x x x
Low Startup Cost x x x
Easily Automated x x x
Attractive Price Point x x
Upselling Potential x
Free Trials/Downloads x
Can be Resold x x
Creator is Passionate x x

Total Score 3 6 8

You can use this checklist to rapidly identify if your product is worth selling online and if so, to refine your business model to make it more viable. If you are in the process of starting your own internet business, use this checklist as a guideline.

You're at the end of this Free Lesson. For advanced tactics and next steps Try the Full Course

Here's What You'll Learn in the Complete Course
The 8 Qualities of a Hot Product and How to Build them into Your Offer
The Cheapest, Quickest Way to Easily Test Market Your Product - You Must Do This Before You Waste Time and Money trying to Sell Something that Customer's May Not Desire
How to Create Traffic to Your Site - ALL the Top Traffic Sources + What Traffic Myths to Avoid
How to Build Your Site RIGHT and Make it Easier to Tweak, Update and Grow - Avoid the Mistakes Other Webmasters Make

How To Develop an Online Business Using Practical Thoughts.

Starting a business to operate on the internet alone can be a rewarding experience, but it can also be daunting. Many resources are available to assist you, but information overload can cause paralysis and keep you from moving forward.

Keeping it simple is often the best way of maintaining the momentum necessary to get your business started. Every year, several thousand people develop an interest in "going into business." Many of these people have an idea, a product or a service they hope to promote into an income producing business which they can operate from their own homes. If you are one of these people, here are some practical thoughts to consider before hanging out the "Open-for-Business" sign on the web.

Whether you're selling products and services or providing resources and downloads, you need eye-catching content for your Website. You might run a wonderful advertising campaign; develop viral marketing tools and attractive affiliate programs. But unless your Website is rich in content, the traffic that results from your efforts will only be transient. Content that is useful, valuable, informative, educational or just plain entertaining can attract and retain an audience better than anything else. Admittedly, designing a web site can be a complex task, Site aesthetics are important and image and design are probably the first things to register in consumer awareness, but content is the most important part of the online merchandising and sales process.

Write powerful and instructive sales letters by letting it all flow out. Write down everything that enters your mind as you are writing your sales letter. You can edit it later. If you just sit and start writing everything you know about your product or service and how it will benefit your customer, you will be amazed at how much information floods your mind. Write it ALL down. Then read through it - you'll be able to add a lot more detail to many of the points. Edit it after you have exhausted all of your ideas.

Establish a marketing method and a advertising campaign. While it’s agreed that the best e-commerce site in the world is worthless if no one can find it, but, too often, e-commerce start-ups either rely on search engines alone or use shotgun marketing, simply by advertising everywhere, to everyone, in the hope that a fraction of a percent of those who see the ads will respond. Promotion on the Internet has many methods, is complex, yet as with more traditional advertising requires that you understand where and how you will spend your marketing budget and what results are to be expected, as with any marketing campaign.

Create your own newsletter and start building your database. To be successful with a newsletter, you have to specialize. Your best bet will be with new information on a subject not already covered by an established newsletter. Regardless of the frustrations involved in launching your own newsletter, never forget this truth: There are people from all walks of life, in all parts of the world, many of them with no writing ability whatsoever, who are making incredible profits with a simple newsletter. Plan your newsletter before launching it. Know the basic premise for its being, your editorial position, the layout, art work, type styles, subscription price, distribution methods, and every other detail necessary to make it look, sound and feel like the end result you have envisioned.

In Conclusion- all successful businesses offer their customers something of value, but that's not enough. Customers constantly evaluate what they get against what they pay, and their criteria for making repeat purchases are very simple. They want everything: better, faster and cheaper! Even if you're clever enough to build a perfect business the first time and your product or service is ideal for your customers, your position will eventually erode because the marketplace is not static.

Your product or service may be unique, but it's not as though someone blew the whistle and stopped innovation. Sooner or later, and very soon if you're noticeably successful, other businesses will copy you. If they can provide a similar product or service better, faster or cheaper, they're going to surpass you.

Never forget that as a business owner you'll be in a constant race against an ever-improving marketplace and no matter where you are in the hunt, making improvements is a daily necessity.


About The Author:
Andy Cooper is the owner and operator of a successful online business. Andy has over 15 years in corporate business operations which include savvy marketing skills, customer service and Professional networking abilities. http://www.marketersemporium.com

Five Steps To Successful Web Marketing And Sales Process

ARTICLE: Five Steps To Successful Web Marketing And Sales Process by Abe Cherian The basic principles used successfully by brick and mortar storefronts in moving your potential clients through a successful sales process is also the most effective way on the web. But how? You do this by following the five step process in your marketing strategy by attracting potential clients, building trust, helping them choose the right product, presenting the product, and then closing the sale. Step One- Marketing / prospecting: Prospecting is the delivery of qualified visitors to your website. It can be achieved by many forms, such as, search engine marketing, pay-per-clicks, and e-mail advertising that draw people to your site. Once they are there, it's your responsibility to show them how your product can fill the void in the marketplace and what sets your product apart from the rest. Deliver your 'Unique Selling Proposition', USP. Step two- Building trust: Just like in a brick and mortar business where you greet a person when they walk in the door or physically help them find what they are looking for, you can build trust by doing similar things on your website by the elements that surround the design and development of your website. Your visitor is unconsciously judging your credibility by asking themselves the following questions: Does the website have the feel and look of a legitimate company? Is it easy to find the company contact information? How is the copy on the site? How fast does it download, and are there any broken links? Is there a privacy policy posted on the site? Is it easy to navigate? Step three- Help the buyer: If you have done your prospecting right, the visitors coming to your website are hoping to find a solution to their problem. The solution can be a product or a service. Internet marketing studies show that 7 out of 10 visitors are ready to buy. They are only looking for a vendor who they find more helpful. Ask yourself these questions? Are you helping your visitors to identify and find the solution to their problem? Are you guiding them to find the solution by easy to find information, and navigation? Step four- Present the product: Before you present your product, make sure that you have already helped the buyer by identifying with their needs in the previous stage. When you present your product or service to your visitor be sure to keep their attention and their interest by motivating them to continue with the sale. Step five- Successfully close the sale: Look at each of the products that you offer and ask yourself these questions: Are you assuring them by giving guarantees? Does your description answer all their questions? Are you giving them feed back and testimonials from your clients? Do you take credit cards, if so which ones? What happens after they purchase? Take the guess work out of the purchase process. If you court your visitors by the five steps above, you'll see better conversions, and increased profits. Resource Box: Abe Cherian is the owner of Multiple Stream Media and publisher of weeklytips.com newsletter, where you will find hundreds of Internet business building tips. Visit www.weeklytips.com to read more tips like this one.

Web Marketing Tip - One-Step Marketing, A Costly Mistake.

One-step marketing is the most common marketing strategy used by webmasters online.

You send an advertisement by email, or a flyer, and expect people to immediately purchase your product or service. This strategy totally disregards the 'psychological buying sequence of consumers' - and is regarded as the least effective way to market online.

To increase conversion rates, you must develop a sales process which involves multiple contacts with your prospects. An example for this type of multiple step marketing would be:

Step One: A way to capture qualified leads
Step Two: A way to follow up with these leads
Step Three: A way to introduce other related products to your clients and potential clients.

A good place where you can setup your marketing process would be www.imediatools.com.

ARTICLE: Five Revenue Boosting Web Marketing Strategies

ARTICLE: Five Revenue Boosting Web Marketing Strategies! - Abe Cherian To maximize the selling power of your web site you need more than just a professional web site and great products -- you must implement strategies that produce more dollar revenue per customer. Here are five strategies that you can use to boost sales from your web site. 1) Upsell at point of sale: The easiest time to sell more is at the point of sale, when your customer has already decided to purchase your main product. This is when your customer is in a purchase mode. The customer has already opened his wallet and is ready to pay you. You can ethically capitalize on this by offering your customer more products that will compliment the product that he/she is about to purchase. Make sure that you offer the special product for a cheaper price than what it normally sells. Up-selling is the easiest way to increase your profits. You'll see that 25% to 40% of your customers will take advantage of your special offer. 2) Present higher packages before less expensive packages: If you are selling multiple products or services, present the higher package before your less expensive package. It's a proven fact the if you present your higher packages before the less expensive packages, more customers will go for your higher package. 3) Add an interactive Communication Platform: Initiating interaction with visitors and customers and supplying helpful information before they leave your site you can dramatically reduce shopping cart abandonment and increase average order size. www.liveperson.com chat service is a good service where your visitors can chat with you if they have questions. 4) Use a lead-capture landing page: Most people just send visitors to their main splash page, which is probably not the most effective way to market if you want more conversion. A better way to get more out of your visitors would be to use a lead-capture landing page instead of your splash page. A lead-capture page is a single web page that highlights the main benefits of your product without giving any more information other than creating interest in your product. It then prompts your visitors to type in their contact information to proceed further. Your visitors are then redirected to your main web site. You can now follow-up with qualified prospects and convert more visitors into paying customers. Using a lead-capture page has proven to increase conversion rates by up to 35%. You can create a lead-capture page or use a third party service to create and manage all your leads. One major advantage of third party services like www.imediatools.com is that you can manage and follow-up with your prospects automatically. 5) Add a comparison chart: You will close more sales quickly by showing your visitors how your product stands out from your competitor's. There are many strategies that you can use to increase sales and conversions, but you can be sure to increase revenue from your web site by using the five strategies above. Resource Box: Abe Cherian is the owner of Multiple Stream Media, a company that helps online businesses find new prospects and clients, who are anxious to grow their business fast, and without spending a fortune in advertising and automation. www.multiplestreammktg.com - www.imediatools.com

Five Basic Web-Design Mistakes

ARTICLE: Five Basic Web-Design Mistakes- Abe Cherian
In the e-commerce industry, there are two types of websites:
Resource driven websites: When you list tons of resources on a particular topic, or categorized resources on various topics.
Direct Selling Websites: When you are selling one or two products and want your visitors to signup, purchase, or subscribe to that particular product or service.
"The effective design is which is maximum simplified"

No matter what type of website you are developing, these are the 5 factors you should avoid to make your presentation more effective.

Factors Damaging The Website Design Effectiveness:

Slow loading contents.
Your pages downloading time is extremely important. Your users will shut your website down very quickly if you make them wait more because of your slowly downloading pages. The other sites are on a mouse click away from them.


Badly written content
The text that is ready for print has nothing to do with the text for the Web. According to Jacob Nielsen, Web usability guru, users have more difficulties in reading the information on computers rather than on printed editions. They rather scan it
than read it profoundly. Huge text blocks are unreadable and couldn't allow them to do it. Means to make text more readable and effective could be effectuated by using:
--Separate paragraphs
--Titles
--Subtitles
--Indentations
--Bullets
--Hyperlinks
--Different fonts and sizes


Complex design, abundant in elements
Don't complicate users work by complex and abundant design making the website not to be clear in terms of its downloading and its appearance on their screens.

-- Avoid frames. They could seriously damage your website usability.

-- Having a site, made on FLASH you can't explain fast and clear to users what his content is about, what it would be useful with, what they could win, using your services. If you insist however on including FLASH elements, much better variant is to insert them in a detached small file, with definite size, but inserting it, you have to possess some clear purpose. It refers much more to your home page, which is your website main portal.

-- Don't leave your pages without comprehensible title tags, clearly explaining what is your page about (title tag is the page title you see on the top of the browser).

-- Don't leave your site home page without text, explaining to your users who you are and what you are talking about on your site.


Difficult navigation, incomprehensible for user

-- Don't upset user by bad navigation, making him feel lost. He could enter your site by each of its pages, not only by the home page. If he/she enters by another one, he/she must understand what is his/her position on your site, where he/she could go by
clicking the corresponding link.

-- Don't leave your site without a site map. The site map gives user the possibility to orientate fast and easy on it.

-- Always put on each of your pages a link to the home page plus the firm's name and logo, making them also a link to the home page.

-- Don't allow the existing of a orphaned page, where a user could find lost.

-- Don't change the default color of the hyperlinks, because users are expecting to see them exactly that way. When a text is blue, the user is used to thing it is a link, and if it is purple, that it is a visited link. The different colors from the default ones will throw them into confusion.

-- Don't make blue a text that is not a hyperlink. That will also confuse them.

-- Don't put a link that leads to the same page, except these that go to other page sections.


No validated program language
The code your site is written in is validated depending on browsers from different types and versions.

-- Incorrectly written program code will make your site users close it immediately due to its bad appearing in their browsers.

-- The correctly written code is the best way to ensure on your pages the properly appearing of as more as possible browsers. It includes old versions and versions that will be published.

The biggest mistake made by lots of web designers is to project their activities from their own point of view, without thinking about user.




Resource Box:
Abe Cherian is the owner of Multiple Stream Media and pulisher of weeklytips.com newsletter, where you will find hundreds of Internet business building tips. Visit www.weeklytips.com to read more tips like this one.

EXECUTE PLAN FOR ONLINE MARKETING

Execute a Plan for your Online Marketing By Abe Cherian - Copyright © 2005 Introducing an online business today requires attention and most of all perseverance. In terms of success there are basically three groups of people involved in Internet marketing. There are those that learn, but fail to act on their knowledge. There are those that try, but fail to succeed. There are those with very successful online businesses. Those that never act will never succeed obviously but what about those that are sincerely trying, putting forth an honest effort, but failing to make substantial amounts of money? They may have the same tools, the same knowledge, and the exact same resources available to them as the successful entrepreneurs, but for whatever reason unable to create profitable online businesses. Their actions don't lead them to their desired result. Obviously, logic indicates that the problem is that they simply are not acting on the actual solution. Too often online marketers become obsessed with only what appears to be the solution. These marketers desire more traffic, better sales copy, more bonuses, more articles, better headlines. But these efforts only bring about a slight improvement. How much traffic can one possibly get in a given niche market to become successful? An online marketer can only improve this aspect of their business so much before they reach their potential. These things which are all pawned as solutions to creating wealth are really only methods of marketing a website more effectively. Having a high conversion rate does not guarantee wealth. Neither does having a high visitor value. The best headline in the world will only make so much difference if only a few people see it. Ezines, headlines, traffic, search engines, writing articles, psychological persuasion tactics, bonuses, testimonials, autoresponders, upsells, backends, recurring billing, pop-ups, opt-in forms, viral marketing tactics, etc. are only a variety of pieces to a much larger puzzle. We can't put the pieces of the puzzle together when we are focused on a single piece of the puzzle because we fail to see the larger image that we are trying to make. As Internet marketers, the information we absorb on Internet marketing narrows our scope to the point where we feel that these "puzzle pieces" are the big picture when, of course, they aren't. Because of that, an online marketer's efforts can easily become misplaced. Their time is then wasted on unproductive solutions. Their goals of fame and fortune go unrealized as a result of failing to focus on the right thing at the right time. The actual solution is a recurring message in business strategy, self improvement products, and even religious doctrine. The ultimate edge on your competition is the determining factor in your success, and the guarantee that you will make large amounts of income. Those who try but don't succeed are simply unable to conceive and formulate a plan that will lead them towards success. A superior plan is one that is formulated based on an aerial perspective. Perspective is the barrier that separates those who try to be successful from those who become successful. The truly successful are consciously or unconsciously looking at things from an aerial perspective. >From a high vantage point they see exactly where they want to go and have a clear view of the beginning, middle, and end result of their efforts and are then able to plan accordingly. With the beginning, end, and everything in between, in mind they are able to formulate. This is consciously or unconsciously an organized, methodical, and logical plan of attack that will yield their desired outcome. Then, all they have to do is act on that plan consistently and what began as a plan becomes reality. Plans and strategies based on superior, aerial perspective. When you start taking action based on a superior plan becoming successful is only a matter of the time it takes to execute it. About The Author: Abe Cherian is the founder of Multiple Stream Media, a company that helps online businesses find new prospects and clients, who are anxious to grow their business fast, and without spending a fortune in marketing and automation. http://www.multiplestreammktg.com Web's #1 site to find "free resources to Plan, Build, Market, and Maintain your website": http://www.multiplestreammktg.com/resources.html

EXECUTE PLAN FOR ONLINE MARKETING

Execute a Plan for your Online Marketing By Abe Cherian - Copyright © 2005 Introducing an online business today requires attention and most of all perseverance. In terms of success there are basically three groups of people involved in Internet marketing. There are those that learn, but fail to act on their knowledge. There are those that try, but fail to succeed. There are those with very successful online businesses. Those that never act will never succeed obviously but what about those that are sincerely trying, putting forth an honest effort, but failing to make substantial amounts of money? They may have the same tools, the same knowledge, and the exact same resources available to them as the successful entrepreneurs, but for whatever reason unable to create profitable online businesses. Their actions don't lead them to their desired result. Obviously, logic indicates that the problem is that they simply are not acting on the actual solution. Too often online marketers become obsessed with only what appears to be the solution. These marketers desire more traffic, better sales copy, more bonuses, more articles, better headlines. But these efforts only bring about a slight improvement. How much traffic can one possibly get in a given niche market to become successful? An online marketer can only improve this aspect of their business so much before they reach their potential. These things which are all pawned as solutions to creating wealth are really only methods of marketing a website more effectively. Having a high conversion rate does not guarantee wealth. Neither does having a high visitor value. The best headline in the world will only make so much difference if only a few people see it. Ezines, headlines, traffic, search engines, writing articles, psychological persuasion tactics, bonuses, testimonials, autoresponders, upsells, backends, recurring billing, pop-ups, opt-in forms, viral marketing tactics, etc. are only a variety of pieces to a much larger puzzle. We can't put the pieces of the puzzle together when we are focused on a single piece of the puzzle because we fail to see the larger image that we are trying to make. As Internet marketers, the information we absorb on Internet marketing narrows our scope to the point where we feel that these "puzzle pieces" are the big picture when, of course, they aren't. Because of that, an online marketer's efforts can easily become misplaced. Their time is then wasted on unproductive solutions. Their goals of fame and fortune go unrealized as a result of failing to focus on the right thing at the right time. The actual solution is a recurring message in business strategy, self improvement products, and even religious doctrine. The ultimate edge on your competition is the determining factor in your success, and the guarantee that you will make large amounts of income. Those who try but don't succeed are simply unable to conceive and formulate a plan that will lead them towards success. A superior plan is one that is formulated based on an aerial perspective. Perspective is the barrier that separates those who try to be successful from those who become successful. The truly successful are consciously or unconsciously looking at things from an aerial perspective. >From a high vantage point they see exactly where they want to go and have a clear view of the beginning, middle, and end result of their efforts and are then able to plan accordingly. With the beginning, end, and everything in between, in mind they are able to formulate. This is consciously or unconsciously an organized, methodical, and logical plan of attack that will yield their desired outcome. Then, all they have to do is act on that plan consistently and what began as a plan becomes reality. Plans and strategies based on superior, aerial perspective. When you start taking action based on a superior plan becoming successful is only a matter of the time it takes to execute it. About The Author: Abe Cherian is the founder of Multiple Stream Media, a company that helps online businesses find new prospects and clients, who are anxious to grow their business fast, and without spending a fortune in marketing and automation. http://www.multiplestreammktg.com Web's #1 site to find "free resources to Plan, Build, Market, and Maintain your website": http://www.multiplestreammktg.com/resources.html

10 things you should be monitoring on your website

Every business needs to know how it is fairing. That's the concept behind exit surveys, customer feedback forms, suggestion boxes and other devices. Without feedback from the customer, monitoring inventory, expenses, revenue and other benchmarks, a business can take a quick slide down a slippery slope, without the owner ever seeing it coming – or being able to stop the slide.

Webmasters should also be monitoring on their websites. Most of these can be classified as traffic related or server performance related. Here is my top ten list.

Monitoring website traffic
Traffic totals. You want to know how much traffic you are generating. If the line on the graph is heading down, you know you have to find out why.

Referrers. It's not enough just to know how many visitors you are getting. You need to know where they are coming from. I discovered I was getting a lot of visitors from a Thanksgiving site. They were all being funneled into my Thanksgiving Happiness article. Suddenly I knew I should get more links from other Thanksgiving sites. Valuable information.

Searches. Much to my surprise, my happiness site started getting a ridiculous number of hits from the search for "hairdressers". It just so happens I wrote a humor column on a hairdresser experience. I was surprised to see it getting so much traffic for such a generic, competitive search term. If that had been a term of a little more relevance for me, this information would have lead me to properly optimize the page and get even more traffic.

Pages viewed per visit. If people visit only one page per visit, you have some work to convince them to visit more pages, like those that make you money.

Pages visited. So you threw up on your site something cool as an add-on. How were you to know that other webmasters would link to it and send a whole bunch of traffic your way? Well, now you know, so add some copy to the page to pull visitors into the rest of your site.

Monitoring website performance
Forms. Are they all functioning? A good website monitoring service can keep tabs on them for you. The last thing you want is to have lost hundreds or thousands of subscribers because a sign-up form stopped functioning

Shopping carts. Slow and complicated shopping carts are responsible for an estimated $25 billion in lost sales. Make sure yours is functioning properly. A good website monitoring service can watch this for you, too.

Download speed. Clear your cache and test your pages. Hmm. Maybe those images are a bit large. Time to compress them, or even remove some. Remember that some people are on a much slower connection than you are. I use a satellite connection sometimes, but when I don't, my connection speed is 28K.

Server speed. re there problems with server speed? Maybe not where you are, but on the other side of the world. Global website monitoring can alert you to a transatlantic connection problem, so you can take it up with your web hosting service.

Server accessibility. All the web hosts promise 99% accessibility. But is that for real? Who monitors them? By one estimate, 75% of inaccessibility is not on the hosting server, but rather on the Internet's backbone network and in global routing. A global website monitoring service can help identify the problem, so that you can work with your web hosting company to resolve it before too many sales are lost.

Fun. If you are not having fun, audition for that drummer position in the local band. There is no point spending your life doing something that bores you. Webmastering should be fun.

About The Author:
David Leonhardt is a creative freelance writer and author of one of the best self-help books. He wrote this article for an executive class website monitoring firm. Get free website monitoring , and pick up a website monitoring stamp. Read also more on topics related to web site monitoring

The Power Of Repetition

You can't succeed at most things if you try them just 'once.'

It would be silly to say, 'I tried playing the piano once. I wasn't very good at it, so I gave up.'

The same thing applies to marketing your products and services.

Obviously, you can't just sit next to your phone and wait for it to ring. You have to be proactive. You have to 'do something' if you want your to ring, or get people to place an order.

You need to contact your prospects and customers with an
appealing offer that asks them to take immediate action.

That's pretty basic, and I'm sure you are doing that from time to time.

But did you know that most people don't respond to marketing offers until they have received them at least 5 times?

It's true. Most sales are made after the 5th contact. Repetition is everything. But most small business owners and salespeople 'stop' and give up after the first contact.

Mary, the owner of a 3-year-old small business told us that she had very good success by delivering her marketing offer to some of her local residential neighborhoods.

She had created a simple flyer, and had placed them in the homeowners' newspaper boxes. Just in case you don't know, it's illegal to put flyers in US Mail Boxes, but you can put them in the newspaper boxes or rubber band them to the homeowners' doorknobs.

For certain businesses, this method of delivery works well.

Mary shared that on average she got two new clients for every 100 flyers she distributed in this manner. She didn't realize it, but we assured her that she was getting an exceptional response.

Mary was looking for some new ideas for getting even more sales.

I asked her how many times she had delivered her flyer to the local neighborhoods she had targeted.

'Just once,' she said. 'Why do you ask?'

'Well, if you are getting such great results from a marketing process, doesn't it make sense to maximize your results from that effort?'

'I guess so,' she replied.

I told her that at least every 3 months, she should go right back to the same neighborhoods where she was so successful and distribute the same flyers again.

Mary was a little skeptical.

'But I already gave everyone in those neighborhoods my flyer. If they were going to buy, wouldn't they have already responded?' Mary asked.

'Absolutely not,' I said.

This is a common and costly misconception held by many small business owners.

The fact is, most of the people who have an interest in what you are offering 'do not' usually respond the
first time they receive your offer.

They may have every intention of doing so, but for one reason or another, they don't respond.

They procrastinate.

They get side-tracked by something else.

They need to think about it--and then forget it.

They don't have the money right now.

They have a million other things that they have to do first before they seriously consider your offer.

Their circumstances won't allow them to respond now, but those circumstances may change completely in a few months.

And on and on.

I always have flyers, emails, letters, post cards, etc. of offers that I am genuinely interested in. But I put them aside with every intention that later I will study them more closely and make a decision then.

More often than not, those letters, emails, etc. eventually get misplaced or tossed.

However, those marketers that are smart enough to send me the same offer multiple times, keep bringing their offer to the top of my mind. They don't let me forget it. Those are the offers that I eventually respond to.

And the same is true for you and your prospective customers.

Repetition is powerful.

Sending your marketing message once rarely does the trick. You need to keep reminding your prospects and customers again and again about your business, your products and your offers.

If you don't, there's a good chance your competition will.


Now that you know about the power of repetition, you have an incredible tool to help you grow your sales. It works.

But it only works if your message and your offer are designed to get immediate action. Send a weak or ineffective offer and it doesn't matter how many times you send it--you're not going to get any response.

Our Give to Get Marketing course is designed to give you the knowledge to create enticing and compelling offers that get immediate results.

Think about it, if you don't know how to create simple offers that break through your customers' tendency to procrastinate, and get them to take immediate action, how can you hope to succeed?

http://www.givetogetmarketing.com/cgi-local/go.cgi?pt009b