Internet Marketing

Chris Coffman
1900

Suppose you could launch an online business in the next ten minutes? Suppose that this business did not require your own website, dealing with customers, refunds, product development or maintenance? This is the ideal world of affiliate marketing.
Made popular on the internet by Amazon.com, marketers can now earn a referral fee for directing visitors to countless merchants?website. According to Forrester Research, affiliate program earnings will represent $53 BILLION of all e-commerce sales by 2005. How could you earn a sizeable piece of this pie? Here are some powerful tips that would get you rolling in those big commission checks and laughing all the way to the bank.
1. Know what programs and products to promote.
Of course you will want to promote those programs that will bring you the greatest profits in the shortest time. There are several factors that play into selecting such a program. Choose programs that have a generous commission structure, products that fit in with your target audience and a solid track record of paying their affiliates on time. If you cannot recoup your investment, then prune such programs and keep looking for better ones. There are tens of thousands of affiliate programs online so you can afford to be picky. This is a case where you will want to choose just the cream of the crop and so reduce the risk of losing your advertising dollars.
2. Write free reports or short ebooks to distribute from your website.
Most likely you will be competing with other affiliate marketers who are promoting the same program. If you write a short report on a related topic to the product that you are promoting, then you can distinguish yourself from all other affiliates. In this report you can provide valuable information for free with a “recommendation?of the product. This is often referred to as a ’soft sell?
The report or ebook allows you to develop credibility with your audience and your readers are more likely to follow your recommendation. There is less resistance to this type of selling because the prospect doesn’t feel ’sold? just informed. The next step is to make this ebook ‘viral?by allowing those who bought the product through your link to ‘brand?the ebook for their own promotional use.
3. Collect the email addresses of those who download your free ebook.
Research has shown that over 60% of the sales of any product are made after the fifth exposure to the sales message. In other words, most people do not make a purchase on the first solicitation. You may need to send your marketing message over six times before a sale is made. This is the reason why you should collect the contact information of those who download your report. You can then follow up on these contacts to gently remind them to make the purchase.
4. Never send prospect directly to a vendor’s website without collecting their contact info first.
Affiliate marketing is ideal but not perfect. You must keep in mind that you are providing free advertisement for the product owners. The merchants only pay you when you make the sale. If you send prospect directly to their website then these prospect are lost to you forever. If you collect these names instead, then you can always send other marketing messages to them and earn an ongoing commission instead of making a one-time sale.
5. Publish an online newsletter or Ezine.
It is always easier to recommend a product to a friend than to sell to a stranger. This is the philosophy behind publishing your own newsletter. A newsletter allows you to build a subscriber list and develop a relationship of trust with this list. Your subscribers will then trust you to recommend products that will benefit them.
This strategy requires a delicate balance of providing useful information along with a ’sales pitch? In other words, if you send out frequent advertisement to your list and little valuable information you are likely to lose credibility with your audience. But if you write informative editorials you will build a sense of reciprocity in your readers that will lead them to ’support?you by purchasing your affiliate products.
6. Ask merchants for a higher than normal commission.
If you are very successful with a particular promotion you should approach the merchant and negotiate a higher percentage commission for your sales. If the merchant is smart he or she will likely grant your request rather than lose you. Keep in mind again that you are a zero-risk investment to the merchant, so don’t be shy in your requests. Just be reasonable.
7. Learn to write strong Pay Per Click (PPC) ads. One of the most effective means of advertising online is through PPC search engines. As an affiliate, you can make a sizeable income by just managing PPC campaigns on services such as Google Adwords and Overture. Monitor your campaigns to see which ads are pulling their weight and trim those that are not.
You can use the ClickBank?Market Place, for example, and just choose a hot-selling product and start promoting. Once you are earning a decent return on your investment then you are in profit! Just this strategy alone can make all the difference to your commission checks.
Affiliate marketing is an entrepreneur’s dream come true. Minimum investment, zero inventory, no employees, no product development-just BIG checks!
(c) Copyright 2004 by Chris Coffman

Al Martinovic
778
12:30:14

There are several ways to advertise and get the word out about your business online and the best of them include f-ree search engines, pay per click search engines, writing articles, utilizing press releases, doing joint ventures/ad co-ops, and posting to message boards and forums related to your target market.
But one advertising method that’s neglected by most online marketers is off-line advertising.
There are several low/no cost ways to advertise off-line and I want to share 3 of them with you.
1) Business Cards
If you are serious about your business you must have business cards. They are cheap and are a great way to attract potential prospects or customers. Simply hand them out to people who you feel may be interested in your business.
Also, whenever I visit a restaraunt, bar, or club, I’ll leave my business cards in all of the bathroom stalls. (Just make sure nobody is in there of course… lol!)
And don’t laugh at this! It really works. When I visit the bathroom an hour or two later, I’ll find that all of my business cards are gone and I’ll have a fresh new set of sales the very next day.
You can get f-ree professional looking business cards at VistaPrint.com, all you have to pay is shipping and handling:
http://www.vistaprint.com
2) Flyers
With today’s technology, flyers are very easy to make. You can simply design a flyer online and just print it out and make copies. Then you can post them in area businesses where you feel your potential customers may hang out. (Just make sure you ask permission from the business owner.)
Or simply hand out your flyers to people you meet on the street. Many bars and clubs don’t have a problem with posting flyers in their establishments either, especially if you are a patron.
And don’t forget about supermarkets! Many have bulletin boards, at least here in New Jersey where I live, and you can post your flyer there. There are hundreds of people walking into supermarkets everyday and they are in a buying mentality. Take advantage of it and post your flyers often.
Here’s a site that lets you create and print flyers or brochures online for f-ree:
http://www.mybrochuremaker.com/
3) Automobile Advertising
What… ? Yes you read that right! Your car is not only a driving vehicle but a great advertising vehicle as well. You can stick magnetic signs or plates on your car with your company name and/or domain name for all to see.
Your business can be exposed to hundreds, if not thousands of people everyday whether your car is parked, you are driving, or even when you are stuck in traffic. It’s fairly inexpensive and a great way to “drive” home your message.
Here are a couple of sites to check out for this very sort of thing:
http://www.iditplates.net
http://www.magneticsigns.com
Those are just a few of the ways to advertise off-line. I’m sure you can come up with other clever ways as well.
You’ve got a brain… use it!

David Badurina
2132

When you hear the word “leech”, most often you think about squiggly, squirmy, slimy little bloodsuckers that don’t really offer you very much in return for using your body as a twisted sort of beer-tap. After all, that’s what leeches do, and while they have practical applications (such as assisting in the re-attachment of various appendages – eeeeewwwww), for the most part, these are creatures that you’re better off avoiding. If for no other reason than they’re just really creepy members of the animal kingdom.
In business, leeches exist as well. Both in human form, and in an intangible form. “Resource leech” is a term often used in the programming industry to describe an application on your computer that somehow saps it of every bit of energy. “Resource leeches” in the business world are people or things that take up huge amounts of your time without offering you anything in return. And they are downright dangerous.
When you deprive your business of YOU, you might as well be draining your business’ life blood indefinitely. Resource leeches do that. By no means should you abandon good customer service at any time, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t realize a situation where someone is taking advantage of your kindness and sapping your business of precious energy. A resource leech doesn’t necessarily have to be a customer – after all, many great business relationships are created with people that have never bought a thing from you, and perhaps never will. A resource leech will, however, keep taking your time and energy as long as you’re offering it.
Here are three common signs of a resource leech:

Being repeatedly queried about free giveaways, free resources, and anything else attached to that four-letter word.
Getting drilled with off-topic questions not related to your products, services or business, even though it may have started that way.
Individuals intent on actively discussing everything with you, regardless of the availability of the information elsewhere.

While all three of those might be considered mere nuisances, consider the consequences of their constant presence. By allowing someone to latch on and drain your time and productivity, you’re not gaining anything. There comes a point where you stand to lose – and lose big. Real squiggly, squirmy, slimy little bloodsuckers can be removed by lighting them on fire, or pouring salt on them. The trick here is that you can’t exactly do that to someone who’s only offense is asking you lots of questions through email.
Here are three ways you can deal with resource leeches, without setting them on fire or pouring salt on them:

Make the meal short! Answer questions directly and efficiently. Don’t compose emails for hours and over-indulge someone who’s simply looking to squeeze information from you.
Offer alternatives! Point them in the direction of resources that they may not know are available. This not only saves you from having your business sucked dry, but it’s also fantastic customer service, and is a winning situation for everyone. Comprehensive FAQ pages and forums are perfect examples.
Backbone! If someone is continually asking for freebies, or free copies of your products and is not willing to have any sort of alternate exchange, it’s okay to say no. Reasonable people understand that when you’re running a business, you can’t afford to run it without gaining income in return. Explaining this kindly is one way to give great customer service, and get your point across.

Using variations of these simple techniques is an easy way to deal with your productivity being drained from your business into the razor-sharp maw of the bloodsucking resource leech. Now, if none of it happens to work, and a resource leech is still determined to stick around, just be increasingly firm in standing up for yourself and your business.
If that still doesn’t work, try not to resort to setting them on fire and throwing salt on them.

Rachel Phillips
1778

It seems everyone is trying to make a living working from home on the internet now a days. It’s kind of like the starving artist syndrome. I am one of those people.
I have been dabbling in different ventures on an off for about 3 years now and I figured I would share with the world what I found works and doesn’t work. I’m no expert, just a regular girl from the South trying to be a stay at home mom.
I will tell you that I do make enough, FINALLY, every month to compensate for what I would make at a regular 40 hour a week job. This pleases me and my family because it is also eliminates a $1000 a month daycare bill. (Sound familiar)
In the beginning, which is probably where you are now, I worked my regular job and then came home and did more work for another 4 or 5 hours every night trying different things.
That is how I started and it was grueling. There is no magic wand and work is work, regardless of where and how it is done. Working from home is no different.
There are several main goals to achieve to make a decent living from home.

Find you niche. What are you going to sell? If you don’t have a product, sell a service. If you don’t have a service, sell somebody else’s service. Affiliate marketing might be a way for you to go if you don’t have your own product or service to sell. This is the way I went.
Own your own website. If you know nothing about building a website, which I didn’t visit, my home page for help on building a FREE website.
Market that website. (This is part of the “real work? If you built a Wal-Mart the middle of the West Texas desert, which is hundreds of miles of nothing, how many customers would you get. Not many, because nobody would know the store was there. I equalize a website to the same thing. If you build it, they will NOT come, unless they can find you. You must be willing to learn marketing skills if you are going to survive on the internet, plain and simple. I learned from the best.
This is the most important. Multiple streams of income! In other words, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. I get checks every month from 10-15 sources on the web. 2 or 3 hundred dollars a month from 10-15 different sources adds up and that is the key. Sell a product or service, feature Google ads on your website for a small string of income, build a mailing list, and offer Amazon books on your site relating to your product and/or service. These are just a few examples of multiple streams of income.
Read everything you can get your hands on, (free articles and e-books)

Good Luck!
Rachel Phillips – Stay At Home Mom

Anik Singal
2053

Everyday I see more and more affiliates making the same mistakes. The worst part is that they’re just doing what they’re taught by the so-called “experts.?
It’s no shock to me that 95% of affiliates make no money. The problem isn’t that some people are just “better?than others ?the problem is just the way the 95% are running their business. That’s why I’m going to diagnose the 6 most common mistakes AffiliateClassroom.com sees affiliates making everyday.
The 6 Mistakes you better learn to avoid like the plague:
1. Not Building For Search Engines:
If you’re an affiliate and want to be successful at it, you better learn to make search engines your best friend. Search engines are a better source for long-term, targeted and FREE traffic. Make sure to build your site in clean HTML coding, provide good content and optimize all your pages (not just the home page).
I firmly believe that all affiliates need to study search engine optimization closely. If you want to learn how to optimize websites quickly without spending years studying, check out my “push-button?system at http://www.DominateSearchEngines.com
2. Not Enough Text ?Too Many Banners:
This might be the #1 problem ?I come across hundreds of these sites almost daily. Think back to why “YOU’RE?online ?to find information right? What good are banners to you? Do banners provide you any good information? Absolutely not.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t discourage using banners ?I just say to only use them after you have content on your website. And stick to just 1 or 2 banners. The goal here is to hook someone with good content, then urge them to click the banner to learn more. Don’t just slop up a bunch of banners and expect to become a super affiliate?
3. Promoting Only One Product:
This was something I learned from Ken Envoy and it made no sense to me until I tried it. Let’s use an example to illustrate: Let’s say you’re looking for a car and you ask someone “Hey, which one should I buy?? Would you rather have the person show you 3, give you the positives and negatives and then “suggest?a car or just shove one of them down your throat and refuse to talk about anything else?
I think the answer is clear ?you much rather have someone RECOMMEND something. So, do the same on your websites ?let your consumer choose what link they click on (your conversions will go through the roof).
4. Not Giving Away FREE Products:
Another mistake I see done on almost 98% of the websites I visit ?they have absolutely no viral marketing build into their system. If you want to hook someone and build loyalty, put some of your best information into a small PDF ?give it away for free and watch your sales and traffic multiply. NOTE: This is a more long-term strategy so be patient?
5. Hard-Selling:
If you know anything about affiliate marketing, then you’ve heard of “PRE-SELL??well it’s a shocker that most people never use it. PRE-SELL is when you warm up to your visitor with some good content and information and then slowly “recommend?them to buy something.
I also never thought this would work until I tried it. Hard-selling is what your merchant should be doing, you, however, should avoid it at all costs.
6. Too Much Going On?
This mistake is a bit related to the “Too many banners?mistake. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I have WANTED to buy something but just couldn’t find the right link to do it.
Some affiliate websites have a million things going on ?the reader gets so confused that they hit the back button and “poof,?never come back. Keep your pages targeted and clean ?go for ONE goal ?to get the click over to the merchant(s) you’re promoting.
Golden Rule: The more you show them, the more confused they get.
I highly suggest reading those 6 again ?they are very important to master if you want to become a super affiliate one day. Even I am going back to my old projects and still fixing my mistakes ?they’re all over the place. But, the second I fix them, I see an enormous difference, you will too.
Copyright 2005 Anik Singal

Bluedolphin Crow
997

Secret #3: Creating an avalanche of sales with Freeware/Shareware sites:
Aho!
Freeware/shareware sites provide a unique opportunity to market your eBooks. This type of marketing method allows the buyer to try your eBook on their computer before paying for it. You simply password protect part of your eBook.
There are numerous freeware/shareware sites on the Internet. Most offer software. There are some, however, which will allow ebooks in EXE format to be listed and sold as software.
After you begin to utilize this avenue of marketing you’ll begin to notice a steady stream of sales. Many of the sites also list the number of downloads you have had, next to the title of your eBook listing, making it easy to track your sales.
Unfortunately at this time you cannot upload PDF ebooks, they are considered documents and not software.
One thing you will have to watch out for are the sites what charge a fee for listing your ebook.
What I do is list my ebook at the free sites first. Then I take some of the profits from those sales and apply it to the sites that charge a fee.
The sites that charge a fee are the larger sites and many people have sold thousands of copies of their ebooks on them.
One more thing to know about freeware/shareware sites. In order to qualify to have your ebook on the sites you must be able to give it away for free.
Now, those of you who are selling your ebook there is an easy way to accomplish this. You simply make another copy of your ebook, and this time you password protect most of it.
You should allow the buyer to see the table of contents and one or two chapters for free. Then when they want to read the rest of the ebook they have to buy it.
I have also found it is better to stay away from the automated programs when dealing with the freeware/shareware sites. They do not include the best sites and many of the sites will not list you if you use them.
Although this is a way to really increase your sales, don’t fall prey to the one mistake many eMarketers make. Many of them list their eBook on a few of freeware/shareware sites, get a jump in sales and then promptly forget to list at the rest of the sites.
Your goal with Freeware/shareware sites is to maintain a large steady increase of sales not just a temporary jump.
Here is one of the Freeware/shareware sites that allow you to list your eBook for free. Plus, they will list you on all 6 of their sites at the same time!
http://www.sharewarejunction.com/submit/
Happy listing!
Blessings,
Bluedolphin Crow
Copyright 2004 Bluedolphin Crow – All Rights Reserved.

Dr. Lynella Grant
513
12:30:14

Web commerce is all about courtship, not salesmanship. In life, a suitor can’t go from first date to the engagement ring in one afternoon. Courtship is an intricate dance, where each party contributes to the relationship at a measured tempo. Trust grows through gradual exchanges and reassurances.
Yet, the typical sales-oriented Web site urges the visitor to jump to commitment right away. Pushing for them to “BUY NOW!” is not only premature, but a misapplication of the fact that visitors are in a hurry. Developing a relationship can’t be rushed or skipped–not if you intend to lead them to the alter (sale). Buyers want and need to proceed at their own pace.
Each request you make of a visitor “call, read, subscribe or buy” requires a higher level of commitment. So back off the hard sell, and instead weave the steps into a sensuous dance that respects them and invites a lasting relationship. It’s possible, if you follow these five points that buyers care about.
1. How well they’re treated
The mood of the site should be welcoming, geared to assist the customer finding what they’re looking for. Trust grows as you minimize their sense of risk. And make no mistake, the buyer’s risks are greater online. Recognize them and reduce them as much as possible. They’ve been conned, burned, or faced non-delivery of purchases–not to mention abuse of their credit cards or privacy information.
The Internet works because people feel anonymous. People are understandably leery about revealing personal information. So every aspect of the site needs to say, “you’re safe here” along with, “look at all the interesting things we have to show you.” One fast move and that skittish deer will bolt.
Web commerce has several inherent disadvantages–shipping charges, delays until products arrive, lack of hands-on assessment, etc. When buyers encounter other disadvantages as well, whether it’s unacceptable policies, or added costs, they treat them as a deal breaker–even if it’s just a little bit more.
2. How efficiently the buying process went
Assuming your site sells a tangible product, the buyer has to be able to assess its looks, materials, uses, and value without being able to touch it. This can be accomplished much better with some products than others by use of photographs and descriptive copy. But a buyer still takes a chance as to color, size, quality, and suitability. Sales sites need to know their customers’ concerns so well that they anticipate what they need to know.
Design the site for ease of scanning and logical organization that presents information so it will guide and inform.
3. How much aggravation they had to endure
Here’s where poor navigation or slow download times cost you sales. (Navigation problems are a main reason why site visitors leave.) They won’t stay at a site where they can’t easily find the answers they want. And if they have to wait too long for pages to load, forget it. Internet users are extremely time sensitive. The high percentage of abandoned shopping carts (as much as a quarter) proves that the payment process can defeat all efforts to motivate the buyer. These are “almost” sales, where sloppiness got in the way.
Getting through some payment procedures confounds even experienced surfers. How many payment options do you provide–anywhere from Paypal to fax your order? Credit cards are convenient, but not always the purchaser’s preferred choice. How intrusive are the questions (yes, we know about fraud avoidance)? When the goal is building trust (in both directions), how many “we don’t trust you” signals does your site send?
4. How many mind games were played on them
The primary products sold on most web sites are hype and high pressure. Unfortunately, that’s not what buyers are looking to buy, and why conversion rates online are so abysmally low. The quality of typical sales copy is aggressive, designed more to trick than inform. It seems like the sales letters were drafted from the same manual.
Aggressive tactics are so widespread that effective, customer-friendly copy can actually stand out. So get rid of the “gotchas.” Customers dread them, and then relax once they don’t find them. Mind games don’t end after the sale’s complete. Be alert for delivery, security, and privacy lapses that could creep up after the sale.
5. How well the business has its act together overall
Behind the computer screen are untold elements–efficient links, quick loading, glitch-free credit card processing, the respect for the visitor’s time, etc., that reveal the company’s priorities. Unless all the parts work with a consistent goal and degree of care the buyer experiences whiplash. Sour notes (small potatoes signals) are trivial in themselves, but break the momentum toward purchasing. They’re easily eliminated–once you know to look for them. To learn how, read the helpful articles at my site, http://www.giantpotatoes.com
Give yourself extra points for post-sale follow up. Here’s where Internet sellers can shine because of autoresponders and customer-oriented e-mail. Don’t just use such tools for making the sale. Use them to build relationships and added value after you get their money.
Dance Your Way to Profits
Courtship is necessary to develop a lasting relationship.
The pace of the dance should reflect the give-and-take necessary to build trust. Don’t sell the buyer, court him with a well-paced dance.
This is Part II of a two-part series. Part I can be read at: http://www.giantpotatoes.com/article201.htm
© 2004, Lynella Grant

Stu McLaren
2884

If you don’t have good fresh content to use for new products, your momentum comes to a crashing halt and so does your business.
So the question begs itself, how do you consistently create new content?
Here are your four basic options:
1) You can continually write your own materials…and you should.
2) You can record your thoughts and get them transcribed… and you should.
3) You can hire a ghostwriter to write materials for you… and you should.
or
4) You can purchase the rights to content that you can resell… and you should do this as well.
Each option has its own positives and negatives but in my opinion you should be doing a little bit of each.
Let me explain…
3) You can hire a ghostwriter to write materials for you
Hiring a ghost writer has some major advantages and disadvantages. First and foremost it takes a HUGE burden off your shoulders to create original content. Secondly it frees up a lot of your time. Third, it feels great when you get an email from your ghostwriter and the ebook/book/manual/article(s) are all complete and ready to go – it truly is the magic pill.
There are some downsides however. The first one is the cost.
Depending on your project, it can cost anywhere between $400-$3,000 to get an ebook, book or manual created.
This is relatively cheap when you think about the fact that you can now sell that content and profit from it as long as you sell it, but it still costs quite a bit.
The second major downside is the time it takes to communicate with the ghostwriter. If you are anything like me, you don’t want to be sending out crappy information. So that means YOU DO have to involve yourself in the process.
Forget what all the “gurus” try to tell you about how easy it is to just hire a ghostwriter and wake up with a finished product.
You tell me if this process is as easy as slapping down a check and receiving a perfect book a few days later:
First you send your initial thoughts and plans for what you want. Then they send back their outline, you make adjustments to the outline, and a few days later they send back the proof for the outline.
Once the outline is completed you give the go-ahead and they write the rough draft. Obviously this takes some time (usually between 1 week and 2 months depending on your project) but once they have completed the rough draft its up to you to read the rough draft and suggest any changes.
You’ll want to go over the rough draft with a fine tooth comb to prevent the writer from going in a direction you didn’t want. This isn’t any small task but its well worth the effort because you are ensuring that the product you are creating is of a high standard.
When you finish the edit of the rough draft the ghostwriter makes the adjustments and then sends you a final draft. You read the final draft and give the final ok.
Phew!! That’s a lot more than just placing a bid on eLance and having a book show up on your doorstep ready to sell.
Now, if you care about the quality of the products you create please pay close attention to this next sentence.
You need to actually READ what the ghostwriter has created for you.
It will almost always require you to make some final changes. Make sure you get EXACTLY what you are looking for otherwise it’s a product that you yourself haven’t even completely read.
Would that make you comfortable selling something with your name on it and you don’t know everything contained inside?
I can’t tell you how many products I have purchased only to find it was the same old stuff just rehashed. Read what they write for you. Create quality content!!
So although a ghostwriter does save you a TREMENDOUS amount of time, please don’t be fooled into thinking that once you hand over the assignment your work is done. It’s not… unless you want to create a crappy product.
It still takes work but it’s A LOT easier and takes WAY less time once you have the raw materials to work with. Your job is to polish that collection of raw ideas into the high quality product that would make even your Mom proud
If you enjoyed this article make sure to look up the other two articles in the series dealing with the other 3 methods of creating content: Part 1 – Writing your own materials and Recording Your Thoughts and coming soon, Part 3 – Purchasing The Rights Of Content You Can Resell!

Harmony Major
1110

Let’s face it — none of us like to be ignored. But sending an e-mail to a colleague that commits even ONE of these four cardinal sins can mean the difference between a speedy reply … and that big e-mail receptacle bin in the sky. :-/
Here are four common reasons why YOUR mail could be going “the way of the spam”, and how to reverse them to get your messages answered — and answered *fast*:
1. “Can you hear me now? Durn! Can you hear me now? Frick! Can you hear me now? Cripes! Can you…?”
Follow-up e-mails are okay, and quite necessary during these times of overzealous spam filtering. But for the love of all things good and holy … please give your recipient a reasonable amount of time to answer the FIRST message FIRST!
If you haven’t waited *at least* 24 hours — particularly on a first contact — you haven’t waited long enough. People do have to take care of lives, and spouses, and hunger pangs, and bathing, and… (well okay, maybe not those last two if we’re in a REAL pinch ).
2. Please, God … *NO* HTML!
It still boggles my mind how many people ignore this rule.
HTML mail comes to about *twice the size* of plain text mail with equal content. If your recipient can set their mail to skip downloading messages over a certain size, and that size is set low, your e-mail will be cut off in mid-message.
This means the recipient then has to make an extra effort to retrieve YOUR message from the server.
(Annoyance #1.)
And people who send HTML mail seem to always choose a bright blue(??!) hyperlink-colored font that’s WAY too tiny for the average eye to read. Umm…
WHY?!
Just about anything other than Courier New is GUARANTEED to be hard to read in some e-mail programs — and it’s usually blind luck that your recipient will HAVE one of those with this problem.
(Annoyance #2.)
And don’t even get me started on the odd “glow” blue text has when plopped on a white background … please?
3. “NO, Mommy! I don’t WANNA read an ezine!”
It’s inconsiderate to send ezine length e-mails to business people — period.
You’re almost guaranteeing that your mail won’t be fully read, or that you’ll get a half-a**ed reply, because the reader didn’t feel like wading through your verbosity to get to the goods.
“Ezine length” is generally about 9 kilobytes (9k) and above. You can usually tell how large an e-mail is before sending by checking its size in your mail program’s outbox. If not, for your reference, 9k is about 650 words. (Yeesh!)
Unless the recipient is *expecting* a long reply from you, 3k (200 words) is a good stopping point for a first contact.
NOTE: YES, this goes for personal e-mails too. Being “friends” with someone isn’t license to consistently disrespect their time with mammoth e-mails unless they send the same to you — consistently.
So, no saying the same thing 8 killion different ways, or using “flowery” language and “pretty” mental pictures to get your point across.
Just say it, say something else and for Heaven’s sake … KEEP IT MOVING.
4. Umm, seriously … is it really THAT important?
Ugh. Do I really need to explain this one? People who mark ALL of their messages High Priority remind me of the little dude who cried wolf, if you know what I mean.
When I consistently see these from the same people all the time, I start ignoring the priority and answering them LAST in a mail check, just to spite ‘em.
Granted, not everyone is as crazy as me and will do this. But at the very least, you’re still hurting your chances of getting a reply to *seriously* urgent messages quickly, by abusing priority markers.
??
I could go on. I won’t.
(Yet.)
I’ll save the rest for “Part 2.” Until then, clean up your e-mail act if you need to, and watch more of your e-mails not only get answered, but get answered faster — and lots more productively, too.
Commit the above shameful offenses at your own risk!
Copyright 2004 Harmony Major

Barry Gilbert
2363

Ever wonder how the thousands of “under the radar” web businesses that earn well over $100,000/year (many with much higher sales) out of their own home do it?
Over the last year I’ve had the great fortune to speak with many of these true, hidden entrepreneurs at conferences, seminars, e.t.c.
What I’m about to share with you also came true for me, and is outlined in more detail in my Ultimate Information Entrepreneur’s Success Package
Here’s an example of their business model:
1. Information Products. Without a doubt, each one of the successes I know market their own infoproducts. For some, it’s an ebook. Others have special reports. Still others run online coaching programs, membership sites, paid newsletters, teleseminars, or produce digital audio or video products. It’s not their only source of income, but is a MAJOR source of income, and more important, brands them an expert in their field leading to success with #2 and #3 below.
2. Market related Affiliate Products. Again, in almost every case, these online success stories become experts at finding and creating joint venture deals with partners.
But, they work differently than most affiliates.
They start by ALWAYS reviewing the product they will market. Second, they look for a different way to present the product or service – a more beneficial way to show users the real benefit in the affiliate product. Third, they use the branding from #1 to negotiate higher commissions and focus on high commission programs only.
3. They monetize their traffic using Adsense or selling advertising on their sites. For high traffic pages where adding paid ads or Google’s Adsense will not impact their own sales, they will run ads to further monetize their sites.
4. Sell their time. You will find that truly successful people online LOVE to help people succeed. But…for every person who is really dedicated to succeeding there are 10 “tire kickers” who want someone to hand them success on a silver platter. It doesn’t work that way, nothing works that way. So, in order to leave time to help those who really want it, coaching programs are formed. Yes – you have to pay big money, but you should easily be able to get 10X the value for money spent.
So as you can see, there is no ONE single way to build your wealth online.
Instead, you build a diversified, rich and healthy business by focusing on these 4 pillars. Not only will you earn more money, but your business will be stronger and build momentum faster when you do.