Conversion Marketing

For more than 30 years, I have had the fortune as well as the challenges of working in the marketing profession. During that time, I have worked in a variety of positions in both New York and Florida, and at one time or another have found myself doing just about anything you can imagine in this profession. Feel free to read through my bio page to get a better idea of who I am.

When I decided to start my own firm in 2001, I did so with the intention of building my business unlike 95% of the advertising, public relations and/or marketing firms you run across. By that I mean the main focus of my business is specializing in out-of-the-box marketing.

Most business owners don’t realize just how many ways companies can market their businesses other than simple traditional marketing, such as TV, Radio, Newspaper, Magazines, Trade Publications or anything else along those lines. And when you do advertising in these and other traditional mediums there are numerous things you can do to make your ad stand above the crowd. Actually the best thing to do is find a venue where your competition is not advertising and put your money into that particular medium rather than joining the crowd, and we have the experience to help you do just that. With experience in everything from Tampa Bay marketing firms to Article Writing we know how to get your business off the ground.

That tip is part of what I do in consulting services to businesses, large and small, to help them create greater public awareness, build an even stronger, positive image than they may already have with the community and/or in their industry, and provide (and help them implement) strategies to enhance their bottom lines. But don’t take my word for it. Take a gander at what some of our satisfied customers have to say about our service. Read the free articles that are available, written by me, that will give you free, experienced, tried and true strategies to build your business. Then figure out for yourself if this is something that can benefit your business.

Even though a substantial part of my business is copywriting and consulting, make sure to check my website to see the list of services that I offer in addition to. You’ll find more than 20 different types of PR, marketing, or advertising ideas on my site that have been proven time and again to help your business reach the market you want ti.

Please, keep coming back to my website; I update it from time to time, and you wouldn’t want to miss out. In the coming months, additional features will be added…designed to help you improve your business through out-of-the-box marketing strategies to give your business and edge over the competition. Please visit my website to see how to contact me. Your best bet is to reach me by e-mail. But you’re welcome to choose any of the options I have given you.

Thanks for visiting Dale W. Hutchings, APR, PR, MARKETING & ADVERTISING…a business built on creative copywriting, outstanding marketing consulting services…and more. Be sure to give me a call, or shoot me an email if you have any questions about Appeal Letter Writing in the Tampa Bay Area.

Link building is a major piece of the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) toolkit. Search engine ratings are raised by quality links to your website, and higher ratings lead to more visitors

Top 10 Link Building Tips

1. Participate in discussion groups on forums focused on your topic, to improve your credibility. Adding your website to your post signature will provide a reliable source of backlinks.

2. Press releases can really generate a lot of buzz for your site, so any time you can find something newsworthy to share, get a press release or two out there to invite others to link to your site as a place with good information.

3. Guest post on related sites and blogs, increasing your credibility by having your opinions seem worthy enough to appear on a well-established site.

4. Build up a credible reputation by freely posting quality information on forums related to your niche or business. Your signature can be a hyperlink to your site, attracting additional visitors who have come to read your posts.

5. Free online directories, such as the Open Directory Project, can provide increased site exposure and additional links.

6. Whenever your site is updated with something newsworthy, create a press release to inform the public that your website is a great place to link to for information. Press releases can generate additional visitors.

7. Create a top 10 or top 100 list of tips, resources, or ideas. These often become industry standards and linked to as authority documents.

8. Submit several articles to article directories each month. Great, high quality links here

9. Sponsor a market-related conference, contest, charity, etc. These backlinks are worth the effort.

10. Take advantage of Web 2.0 sites such as Digg, Squidoo, Del.icio.us, or Twitter, to create more links to your site. This will help you connect to your target audience.

Today’s marketers today understand the main purpose of advertising is to get a response. It is to attract qualified prospects; that can, through using other marketing methods, be converted into customers. It makes sense therefore that the more prospects one can attract, the better the chances are that a customer base will grow. No matter what the size, all companies have to accomplish this same goal. How they achieve that goal is what differentiates the successful ones from the short lived ones.

Small to medium sized companies battle one challenge however, that the large companies generally do not have to contend with. That is image. The large companies like Coke, IBM, Microsoft and others all have brand and name recognition. They have the budgets and credentials that allow them to be a trusted name. Anything they have to say, we generally trust, will be factual and we respond accordingly. This is not the case with the small to medium companies. Fortunately there are tested and proven mechanisms that can be used to get their message in front of the people that they want it seen by.

Throughout our lives we have all been conditioned to respond to certain things. We respond to smiles with smiles. We respond to anger with anger. The word FREE has always been an attention getting trigger. Although it is not always easy to get those interested in your product or service to contact you and leave you their contact information, it must still be the objective of all of your advertising and marketing. One of the most effective methods of achieving this objective is to offer a Free Report in your advertising material. This method works because it can be done in a non-threatening way that allows people to get access to what they want most; information that will help them deal with an issue they need to address. The Free Report requires that the prospect leave their contact information allowing you to stay in touch using other marketing tools to convert them to a customer. The report means they don’t have to deal personally with an individual whose job it is to convince them to purchase even if they are just starting the process of information gathering.

There is a company today that not only has incorporated this form of marketing into their products and services but they also train companies on how to build their own special Free Reports. That company is Automated Marketing Solutions or AMS. AMS provides a full suite of marketing technology tools and processes that allow any company to deliver a comprehensive marketing program using tested and proven methods including Free Reports. Their twelve years of experience in Direct Response Marketing ensures that even the beginner can quickly integrate and take advantage of the benefits of this technique. AMS also provides the capability for a company to place their ENTIRE Marketing Program on Auto-pilot. Once a business marketing program (including voice messages, e-mails, faxes and other broadcast and mail out collateral) is compiled and sequenced, their Lead Management System or LMS provides the unique ability to manage and control that program without any further human interaction. The benefits to this system are significant time savings on what would otherwise be labor intensive tasks and consistency in marketing messages. It also means that businesses never need worry about loosing customers who misinterpreted your lack of contact for apathy.

If you would like to hear more about Free Reports and how it can benefit your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions today. You will be surprised at how quickly and economically you can implement and start benefiting from AMS tested and proven technology and experience.

Back in the day, aspiring authors hoped to have a book published, get a big advance, and become a best selling author. But that’s old school!

Now you can build your own publishing empire since the birth of digital printing and self-publishing businesses. In fact that has changed the whole playing field. Now you don’t need the “big boys” to establish yourself as a credible expert or profitable author. Even non-writers are getting in on the action!

If you know how to solve the problems of people in your marketplace and can write simple articles explaining how to do just that, then you have the serious makings of an information publishing mogul! Here’s how to do it step by step.

I’ve designed this article info-publishing product pyramid based on cost to the client. For example, the first product is free for the client, but the cost of each product increases as you continue - making the most expensive product the weekend workshop. As your customers follow along the pyramid, you grow your empire, and best of all make more money. All originating from articles.

Product 1 - Write an ezine or newsletter.

This is a free monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly source of information centered around your niche. This is important because people will probably make a decision whether or not to buy more information from you based on the quality of information they receive for free.

Product 2 - Write a traditional print book

This is where most people are surprised, but don’t be. Not too many authors are making a decent living writing books. Don’t let Harry Potter books fool you! The story of JK Rowling is exceptional. That’s why you should use a traditional book as a marketing tool for your info business. This qualifies the reader as someone who will pay to learn more from you.

Product 3 - Write an ebook or ecourse

Once you have several articles (at least 5-10) based around one particular topic, you can create an ebook or course that you can easily charge way more for than a traditional book. Think about the last infoproduct you bought? Did you pay for it then a supermarket paperback? The answer is probably - absolutely yes! People will pay more for specialized information. That’s what an ebook or ecourse can do.

Product 4 - Home Study System

Take your articles, audios, videos and organize them into a great multimedia home study course for your prospects. If your readers bought your lower end products, they are probably ready to learn a lot more from you and a home study course is a great way to do this. Again - you can create this system using content that you have already written. Think editing.

Product 5 - Build A Membership Program

All membership sites or programs are created with the first essential ingredient - content a.k.a. articles. You are simple delivering spoon-fed doses and holding members hands as they move through your program. I use this model in my article marketing training program - Articology. It’s a great way to learn and a great way to build a community of “fans” who are interested in learning all that you deliver to them.

Product 6 - The Weekend Workshop

I just love live events! That’s because I love getting tons of content in a live setting where I have the opportunity to ask the coach questions. This is what many of your devoted students or clients will eventually want from you. A chance to really dig into the content you have in a face-to-face setting. Again - all you are doing is taking your existing content and delivering it in another way.

*Optional Product - Specialized Coaching

As an information publisher, you can create information packed or curriculum based coaching programs for your clients. Instead of working with the clients one on one, you can group coach several clients and coach them through a series of lessons that you create.

Remember that you have an additional option of selling a physical copy of your home study program once you no longer offer the coaching program or you offer a new version of the program every year.

While you may not be able to complete all of these products overnight, you can absolutely get started creating your first product if you have at least 5 articles on tap.

**Remember that if you have articles written and published on the web, you can repurpose these into any of the products in this easy article infoproduct outline.

When most beginners start learning how to sell on eBay, they focus on the usual things like how to create auctions and ship items. Although these things are important, your eBay business is much more than that. If you plan to sell many items on eBay, you’ll soon discover that the selling fees add up quickly. Learning about these fees will make you a more savvy eBay seller.

When learning how to sell on eBay you will need to learn that there are three categories of fees. There are the eBay listing fees, the eBay commission fees, and then the PayPal fees. While you may skip out on PayPal to avoid having to pay fees to them, you will probably quickly find that most of the buyers on eBay want to pay with PayPal. There are buyers on eBay that will skip out on bidding on an auction simply because the seller does not accept PayPal. It’s unlikely you’ll be able to avoid using PayPal.

The eBay listing fees range in price based on the price of your item and the options you want to include. These listing fees could range from a few cents to twenty or thirty dollars. For example, if you want your auction to appear in bold or highlighted, that will cost extra.

The eBay Final Value Fee is a percentage that eBay charges as a commission after your item sells. It is based on the final selling value of your item. This is the fee that most eBay sellers complain about, because they can add up to hundreds of dollars per month. However, this is a cost of doing business, and if you run an eBay business correctly, those hundreds of dollars will turn into thousands of dollars in profit.

Some beginning eBay sellers wonder if they should sell only on eBay, or if they should consider other auction websites that offer cheaper fees or maybe even allow their sellers to list for free. While this might seem great, the problem with these other websites is that many buyers are not aware of them. That is why eBay is a good place to start, because everyone knows about eBay, and eBay is spending millions of dollars in advertising to make sure that more customers come every day. The more people that come, the better chance you have to sell your items at a profit.

As an eBay beginner learning to sell on eBay, it’s important that you are aware of what your seller fees will be. Instead of waiting until the end of the month and being surprised by a bill from eBay, keep track auction-by-auction or week-by-week. That way, you’ll never be caught off guard.

Security of payments when conducting online financial transactions is the most common apprehension that is raised by shoppers who want to buy wholesale products from Chinese wholesaler at cheap prices. The increasing number of frauds that are associated with manipulative China wholesale vendors trying to dupe the customers has further made things difficult for potential customers to execute a safe and stress-free purchase. Thus, it becomes necessary to understand the basic features that should be offered by a Chinese wholesaler site offering discount prices and invites orders through the online mode. Among the numerous wholesalers offering Chinese stock products, B2CStock has emerged as the favored option due to its attention to detail to ensure a secure and cooperative payment interface for the customers.

International User Interface: being a global provider of China wholesale goods, B2CStock recognizes the need of listing product prices in different currencies to address the calculation that would be sought by a global audience. Hence, it has created a simple option of viewing prices of the same good in various currencies in an easy-to-view Drop-down mode. Further, to avoid confusion of any sort and to make things uniform when conducting a financial transaction, B2CStock uses a standard of seven international currencies that have global acceptance.

Payment Flexibility: B2CStock understands that various customers have varying preferences for making a payment. Hence, instead of forcing just one standard medium of accepting payments, it endorses three of them, i.e. ” PayPal, Western Union Money Transfer and Wire Transfer. However, in order to further its endeavor to support the best payment policies, it recommends the use of PayPal. Customers making payment though PayPal are automatically re-directed to the PayPal site for securing their payments.

Post-payment Tracking: B2CStock uses a unique tracking methodology wherein a customer can track his order of merchandise after having made the payment. For starters, every customer receives a confirmation of the payment received along with the details of the dispatch status of the ordered items. Further, since every purchaser at B2CStock is also a registered user at the site, the order of goods can also be tracked by logging into the individual user account and periodically checking upon the status of payments received/sent and goods ordered. This is supported by the provision of a unique Tracking Number that is generated against each shipment that has been set on course for delivery.

Safety of Financial Transactions: B2CStock follows a systematic configuration wherein a customers personal details are sought just once, at the time of registration and is not shared with anyone else. The payment information is strictly guarded and is not stored on the host website which helps to keep it safe from web-based hackers that are on the lookout to poach such sensitive information. Further, payment-related details are not discussed with any affiliated or third party associates. B2CStock can be simply understood as the safest of Chinese wholesalers as it does not even record the consumers credit card number and this negates any chances of unauthorized access to financial details of an individual.

As you can see, there are many reasons to buy products through a excellent Wholesaler. Are you sold? If so, find a quality wholesaler and strike up a business relationship.

One of the main objectives of business owners in using pay per click marketing is to get to the top position of the search engine results page. This is so because ranking high in the listing means getting very good chances of being seen by internet users who will eventually click their ads and visit their website. The higher the volume of traffic going to their website, the closer they will be to getting sales.

The keen business owner who puts his money in PPC should learn that there is more to clicks in this kind of advertising. So what is conversion and how helpful can this be in keeping you on budget and in line with your objectives?

Conversion happens when an online surfer visits your website and takes some actions you are expecting him to do. In pay per click, you do not want site visitors to just click on your ad, take a short glimpse of your site and leave without doing anything on the site.

If for example you have an online store, then the conversions that may happen in the site will involve the users making a direct purchase, the user downloading a service or the user completing the sales inquiry form. Simple visits will mean that the user enters and leaves unnoticed.

Conversion in pay per click is not restricted to getting a sale of your product on your website. Conversion may mean other actions of site visitors that are valuable to you and your business.

This is where you should think about the relevance of pay per click initiatives to your business, and think about measurable outcomes of these online visits. If this cannot be determined, it may not be worth to invest in pay per click at all.

To assess how pay per click works for your business, it is recommended to keep track and monitor conversion from pay per click sources. Major search engines like Google however provide tools that you can use in tracking. Google Analytics is one. With this tool, you can determine the conversions of pay per click in your site.

If a tracking tool is not available, then you can always do it personally using a spreadsheet. You can track the conversions total per day. Was there an increase in conversions right after the pay per click marketing campaign was adopted? If there was no increase, then time to shift to another strategy.

So what is social media marketing and how can you measure your return on investment when it comes to social media marketing campaigns? This article will outline what I believe needs to be said when it comes to social media marketing.

You can take the examples used and apply them to the charity sector, small business, campaigns, affiliate marketers and other entrepreneurs (even those guys in the corporate world will find value in implementing these strategies)

Social media platforms come in all shapes and sizes but have one thing in common and that is in their ability to rank highly in the search engines. What this means is quite simple. If you’re the little guy out there battling to stay afloat online you can leverage the power of social bookmarking sites, forums, microblogging sites and link to your website by providing quality content.

Conversation marketing and the power of personal attraction are all it takes to be successful with social media marketing.

Use good keywords to target your customers with quality articles and a clear article structure within the social media platforms to attract customers to your product or business. Then develop a conversation around your brand to build trust and respect with your customers. This can be done through microblogging sites or facebook groups or within private forums.

So what is all the Social Media Marketing doing for a campaigner. Is it pushing their site to the top? NO not at all sometimes that can give it a little push but really places like Facebook have already done the work of high page rank, so you’re in a community like facebook can go to the top of that area within their searches. That is not nessacarily a bad thing considering the population of places like Facebook have over 200 Million as members. One does not have to rely so much on google, but to google’s credit they have seen this and want a piece of this pie. (That is a whole new topic, they are the masters). Of course this is Attraction Marketing working well then once you have that attraction you then have the Conversation Start.

It all comes down to research when working out what your content should be if you want Google to rank you in the searches. Target your market and use specific keywords to attract customers to your site via the content you put out there.

Are you looking to earn passive income on a regular basis without working long hours? Examples of passive income comprise of repeated regular income in which you can make writing web content for other services on the net. Money earned by sales people is a form of passive income that can be obtained through mortgage sales or other financial means.

Renewed or regular profits earned from payments to a service are known as residual income. To make passive profits you earn it from royalties from sold books, stocks, bonds, sales of property, etc. If you want to make profit selling your books, consider that you must have good writing skills to get published. Most publishers will consider one person out of thousands to publish their books. If you have excellent writing abilities, however you may end up with a published novel you can make passive profits from.

This article provides you with some options for choosing ways to make passive income. Freelance writers can make good money working on the Internet. If you have writing skills, you can open a company online and write articles for others. Designing firms make substantial income but at first, they start out making passive profits.

Real estate businesses are always hiring people to sell homes in which you earn commissions known as passive profit. If you know how to sell, real estate is big business that could earn you lots of passive income.

You can offer services online to make money or write a book. Book royalties will provide you with some passive income. It is often best to write eBooks and publish them on the net to sell to others. EBooks often will make you more money than traditional book publishing royalties will.

Riskier options include the stock market exchange. Some people hope to make residual income in stock trading failing to see the risks. Most times, they fail to research the stock market and keep up with the trends. This mistake often costs them money because they fail to see when to buy/sell or trade in stocks. Some people prefer to make money in Forex trading, but beginners are advised to try penny stocks instead.

Surveys and affiliate programs can offer you ways to make passive income. Certain survey companies will pay you small fees for filling out surveys and offer you products too. The affiliate programs offer money to those who bring them new clients or else to those who convince existing customers to keep buying.

Despite of which passive income choice you make, it is smart to do your homework. Learn as much as you can about various businesses online that interest you. Take some time to research your options to find the best way to make passive profits. Scammers are online waiting to lure you into a scam to take your money. Find legit programs that offer you ways to make passive profit. Remember, nothing is free. You will have to pay money from your pocket to invest in promotion and advertising of products and services you offer.

In 2006 the Internet was second only to television in capturing adult media attention. By late 2008 almost one-third of all Internet users were age 55 and up. These changes, from a younger persons media to a more accepted mainstream media for everyone, means more purchasing power is available to the internet retailer. With the growth in the numbers of older adults using Internet services, escalating gas prices and a more firm movement towards Green, on-line shopping and the many Shopping Carts available to buyers today will only fuel its popularity and use. Although demographic research suggests that the higher the family income, the more likely they are to use on-line shopping, the above trends will no doubt start to affect that as well.

In 2008 over $133 B US was spent over the internet in the U.S. alone and this figure is estimated to increase to over $203 B by 2013. In Canada, by the end of 2007, $13.8 B Canadian of on-line consumer transactions had taken place with this number forecasted to grow to $22.8B by 2012. (eMarketer Feb. 2009) Considering such numbers it is safe to say that any business that has the ability to sell On-line and does not is making a strategic mistake. The good news with these growth numbers is that it is certainly not too late to take advantage of on-line shopping and buying and selling over the Internet.

Although it is easy for anyone to fall victim to the negativity surrounding today’s economic reality, our world is still full of opportunity if we know where to look. The availability of the Internet provides each of us with a worldwide audience ready to see what we have. And the presence of Internet e-commerce or Shopping Cart technology means all of us are just one step away from building our own personal safety net. Multiple income streams are a reality for anyone with an idea or product and the determination to spend the time to understand how it all links together. And even if you don’t have a product of your own, the availability of many excellent Affiliate Programs allows anyone with a web site to use another’s products or services to generate an income as they start up and nurture their own idea. The Affiliate Program is also an excellent way to understand the mechanics of the internet and shopping cart technology while you grow your idea.

In today’s economy cash stretched businesses are moving away from the traditionally more expensive advertising methods of Newspaper and Yellow Page ads and are taking greater advantage of both the Internet and the many new Social Advertising media such a Face Book, U-tube, Twitter and more. And here’s why! No matter how bad the economy appears, and although it may appear that it is bad everywhere, there are always pockets that continue to flourish and even prosper. This is why the Internet is such an important technology in this economy. These pockets will change over time as different influences kick in or depart. The constant is that your presence on the Internet combined with your e-commerce abilities, means that your business is always open, always available to these people that are still ready to purchase today.

In marketing and in any economy there is always one thing that holds up. There will be people ready to buy now and others that are just shopping, collecting information for that time in the future when they will purchase. To take advantage of the now buyer your website and e-commerce solution will determine if you are able to capitalize. This holds true for everyone. But how do you deal with the future shoppers or prospects? A good shopping cart will have a stay in touch capability so you can keep prospects interested until they are ready to act. However, the astute internet marketer will look to incorporate other technologies that work with your shopping cart and e-commerce programs. Using multi-media they deliver on-going campaigns updating your prospects on your products and services. They are proactive so the customer always knows when the next deal or special is coming. For an example of a company with an excellent marketing campaign technology check out www.AutomatedMarketingSolutions.com. Rounding out your platform should be the social networks including Face Book, U-tube, Twitter and more. These networks allow you to test the market for what you intend to sell, they allow you keep in touch with how your product is being received and to be proactive in correcting any emerging negativity. The bottom line is do not limit yourself in how you reach out to your current and future prospects and customers.

The last two years have not been kind to large companies and some of their outdated practices have given rise to significant animosity. Ill mention AIG and let it go at that. However, we can still learn from them. For example, a February 2009 report suggests that CMOs or Chief Marketing Officers, in their list of Top 10 Priorities for 2009, list the integration of their traditional media and marketing programs with internet services as number 2. There are obvious advantages of doing this and they include reduced costs and overhead in the marketing departments. For the entrepreneur and the small to medium business these same benefits accrue. An on-line enterprise combined with an e-commerce capability, if properly thought out and marketed, can be the key to a second income and additional peace of mind. It could be a stepping stone to a whole new business. As with everything else in the world however, how effective we are in using these tools to attract, convert and retain will differentiate us and our success.