John Dilbeck Musings

There are two approaches to advertising:

1. Put your ads everywhere you can and hope for the best.

2. Carefully plan where you will advertise, track all clicks each ad produces, and test each ad to make it even more effective.

There are several ad tracking services available, and each has its strengths and weaknesses.

I’ve been unsatisfied with what was available until recently, when Dan Moses introduced ProTrackerPlus, which offers full tracking features at an excellent price, starting at free.

Dan Moses offers other quality services, including PageSwirl, which I use to control the advertising I put on dozens of traffic exchanges.

Without PageSwirl, when I wanted to promote something new or discontinue promoting something, I had to go to every traffic exchange and change the websites I wanted to show. This could take hours of work.

With PageSwirl, I simply login, go to a page showing all the websites I’m promoting and add or delete from the list. This takes only a few minutes and automatically updates all the sites I promote on all the traffic exchanges where I’m a member. Yes, it took some time to set it all up, but now I save hours of work every month and it only costs me $10 per month to upgrade to Pro membership in PageSwirl.

But, that’s only part of managing my advertising. I promote products and services on quite a few websites, blogs, Squidoo lenses, social networking sites, and advertisements. Without tracking those links, I have no way of knowing where my prospects and customers are coming from.

ProTrackerPlus provides the ability to track every link I place. I can see in a few minutes where my prospects are coming from and that allows me to more effectively advertise the products and services I choose to promote.

It even emails me a daily update, if I want.

By tracking your links, you can learn where your advertising is effective so you can invest more time and money advertising there. You can see in a short time where you are wasting your time and money and stop doing it.

As with PageSwirl, you can track up to 5 links with ProTrackerPlus with a free account. Learn to use the system and prove to yourself how valuable the service can be for you. Then, at your convenience, you can update to a pro membership and track the full range of your advertising and promotions.

I’m in the process of transferring most of my advertising to using ProTrackerPlus tracking. It will take some time, but, as with PageSwirl, I’m sure it will pay off over time. If I can identify just one ad that is working well and use it more effectively, ProTrackerPlus will more than pay for itself.

The same is true if I can find just one ad that isn’t paying its way.

Plus, if something happens and a product or service is discontinued, or if I choose to stop promoting it, I will no longer have to find everywhere I’m promoting it and change or delete the ad. With ProTrackerPlus, I’ll be able to change the destination for the ad to a similar product, or I can point it to a page that explains why the product is no longer available or why I no longer promote it. Then, I can recommend a substitute, if one is available.

All of this is much easier to do if you are just starting out with your online marketing. If you join PageSwirl as a free member, you can use the page rotator on the free traffic exchanges you join. Then, as your marketing efforts bear fruit, you can easily upgrade your membership in PageSwirl and a few of the traffic exchanges you like best. This will leverage your marketing efforts for only a few dollars every month.

If you use custom splash pages on the traffic exchanges, it would be worth your time and effort to use tracking links through ProTrackerPlus. Then, over time, you’ll be able to find the ads and traffic exchanges that are producing paying customers. Those are the ones to promote more heavily.

Or, if you want, you can continue to just throw up ads here and there and hope for the best.

The choice is yours.

Act on your dream!

JD

The more I participate at Squidoo.com by building lenses and adding those lenses to groups, the more I see pages on Squidoo referenced in my traffic stats on various sites I have.

What?

I mean that Squidoo is sending an ever-increasing stream of traffic to my sites, blogs, and forums.

Thinking about that, I took a little time this morning to create a new Get A Free Marketing Site lens on Squidoo.

Then, I found several related groups and submitted my new lens to them.

This morning, my lens is ranked at over 180,000. I’m guessing it will jump to about 30,000 or less in the next 24 hours. Then, who knows where it will end up.

To make it a bit more interesting, I added a Plexo module where you can vote for your favorite marketing book on the lens, and I added an RSS feed for marketing articles from 21st Century Articles, my article directory specializing in business, communications, technology, and self-improvement articles.

If you don’t see your favorite marketing book on the list, please feel free to add it.

I have been getting tens of thousands of page views to my Get A Free Marketing Site suite of marketing tools at LinkScout, and I know it has been worth the time and effort - and money - I’ve invested in it.

Therefore, I feel confident in recommending it to you, too.

Act on your dream!

JD

PS. I also recommend that you start building as many Squidoo lenses as you need to promote your business, talk about your hobby, or write about anything in which you are interested. It’s free, and you may well get paid by Squidoo. I earn a small check from them every month, and that’s a lot better than buying advertising, in my opinion.

If you have a blog on just about any topic, you should create a related lens at Squidoo, and don’t forget to use the RSS module to syndicate your blog feed.

It brings me more visitors, and I’m sure it will work for you, too.

Scott Boulch, author of Death of Adsense has a new blog for discussing the ebook and topics related to it.

In his most recent post (as of this writing), Scott proclaims The last battle cry of the dying Adsense “Gurus”.

He makes some interesting points, and obviously has more experience than I with earning from Adsense.

If you want to follow this subject, his blog is the logical place to do so.

His follow-up book, Life After Adsense was supposed to have been released yesterday morning, but I haven’t had the time to download it, yet.

Scott sure has gotten a lot of attention with this, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

If you own a business, you already know that all businesses need new customers.

Two months ago, a new online service was introduced with the purpose of making it easy for merchants and business owners to offer special offers to attract new customers (or reward existing customers).

Not only is it easy to do, but it costs absolutely nothing to register your business and create your special offers.

You, as a business owner or manager, can decide what kind of offer you want to make. You can offer a percentage discount on the next purchase. Offer a special price or a freebie. Buy one, get one free. Buy one, get another at half price. Buy lunch and get a free beverage. $500 off at closing when you buy a new home. Whatever kind of offer that works for both you and your customers or clients.

You know all about these kinds of offers.

So do your customers and potential customers.

And your competition.

What’s the catch?

There isn’t one.

You can advertise for free and set all the conditions of the offer. All we ask is that you pay a bounty for each coupon that is redeemed by a paying customer. And, to top it off, you decide how much you’re willing to pay for that customer to redeem the coupon. It’s entirely up to you. You advertise free and pay only for results.

How much are you willing to pay to acquire a new customer?

How much are you willing to pay to get new business from your existing customers?

What is the lifetime value of a new customer for your business? How much are you paying to acquire a customer now?

Are you willing to try something new where you control the offer and the amount you’re willing to pay, and to pay only when someone actually purchases from you?

You don’t have to pay for advertising and hope it works.

You don’t have to pay when someone clicks your advertising link.

You pay only when someone actually redeems your coupon and makes a purchase from you. Guaranteed results.

When you create an offer, won’t you think about making your expiration date at least a year from now? That way, more people will get a chance to try your offer, you’ll have less administrative efforts in renewing the offer, our affiliates (thousands of them) will have an easier time promoting your offer, and we’ll all save time and effort in promoting your business.

Of course, if an expiration date a year from now doesn’t suit you or your offer, you’re free to set the offer and the expiration date to exactly what you want. That’s one of the beauties of this new service.

We’re working hard to promote you.

I’m asking you to give us a try.

If it doesn’t result in new business for you, it won’t cost you a penny - just a few minutes of your time.

I’m also asking you to make an offer that is exclusive to our service.

How many people promote your coupon when you advertise in your newspaper?

We are ready to actively promote your offer. Since you’re saving money by not paying for advertising that doesn’t work, we’d like to ask you to make a offer that is better than your usual offer. You’ll benefit and so will your new customers.

I want to promote your business.

If you go to http://ShowYourCoupon.com you can see our service in action.

To register your business and start creating your special offers, go to http://merchant-info.showyourcoupon.com and sign up for free.

I’ll syndicate your coupon at http://SyndicateYourAd.com and to other websites, weblogs, and other venues — all at no extra cost to you.

Give us a try.

You have nothing to lose, and the potential of attracting new paying customers at a cost you set.

Remember, no customers, no sales, no cost.

Register your business for free and make your offer to new prospective customers.

I want your business and I’m willing to work to help you promote your business and make more sales.

Your coupon will be actively promoted at SyndicateYourAd.com and many other sites that are fed from that weblog.

Sign up today.

(This service does not accept offers for business opportunities. We are happy, however, to help you promote your products and services.)

Thank you, and I look forward to promoting your business.

I hope you have a wonderful 2006.

John L. Dilbeck
Dilbeck Marketing
Murphy, NC 28906

You will find tips, advice, training, and answers to your questions about the NOC program at the NOC Forum and UBC Forum on the SFI discussion board.

If you are not an affiliate and would like to participate in the NOC coupon system, I invite you to sign up as a free affiliate.

To learn more about all the details about NOC, visit the NOC Launch Announcement.

Take advantage of Nice Offers, today.

If you are a merchant who would like to offer your own special offers, learn more and register your business at no cost.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been redesigning my 21st Century Sales site. I’m busily expanding it to offer great resources for people who want to build profitable home businesses.

While there are many types of home businesses, this site is targeted towards online marketing and sales, with an emphasis on earning income by marketing affiliate programs. I’ve found this to be an excellent way to build extra streams of income without having to invest a lot of money.

Of course, as with any business, it takes time, effort and some money to build a business to the point where it starts returning a profit. Normally, I expect to put in three to five years and a lot of time and money before I start earning a profit. This has gone faster than any other business I’ve ever started or helped to start.

In the past, I’ve had to invest many thousands of dollars up-front and then put in the time and effort to make things work.

With this business — my home-based online marketing business — I’ve been able to invest as little as three or four dollars every day (around $100 per month) and I’m already earning a growing profit all without incurring any debt.

It’s not financed by loans or credit cards, and that’s a first for me. I love being out of debt.

Now that it has reached the breakeven point, I don’t even have to invest the small amount I was spending out of pocket each month. Overhead, advertising, and promotional expenses are now coming out of revenue, and as I reinvest a substantial portion of that revenue, I look forward to watching the business grow even faster.

You, my customer, have made this possible and I appreciate it. I’ll continue to offer the best products, services, and opportunities I can find along with tips and advice based on my continuing research.

I appreciate your business. Thank you!

21st Century Sales is one site in my growing network of Dilbeck Marketing websites. There are several more on the drawing board and I’ll be introducing them over the next several months.

Dilbeck Marketing has slashed the prices on all our custom printed business promotion products to celebrate the arrival of spring.

In addition to large discounts, we’ve added many new products that you can use to promote your business, organization, or cause. Our entire selection of business cards, stationery, labels, buttons, magnets, bumperstickers, rubber stamps, and many other items are now on sale.

All prices have been dramatically lowered for a limited time.

Our prices have always been competitive, and now they are even better.

Not only have we lowered our prices, we’ve added hundreds of new items:

* Have you been looking for short run commercial print items? We have ‘em! Buy small quantities of custom designed announcements, bookmarks, full-color letterhead, greeting cards, and post cards. They’re printed digitally for fast delivery and outstanding quality and price.

* We’ve added a new class of stock business documents including mailers, LazerStock, VersaSeal, HCFA forms, and integrated products for all your business document needs.

* This is an election year and everyone should vote for the candidate of their choice! You can get the word out with a wide range of affordable election labels that include bumper stickers, lapel labels, name badges, and bend and peel business cards.

We continue to offer a full line of patriotic labels and American flags — now on sale.

Don’t delay! Take advantage of our dramatically lowered prices while they last.

Promote Your Business — A service of Dilbeck Marketing in association with Clickprint.com.

Will Local Search Live Up to its Hype?

The potential exists for more geographic-specific search results and advertising, but meeting Web users’ needs and getting local businesses to advertise remain challenges, say executives of search and online directory companies.

“About 98 percent of the 22 million businesses in the United States are small or midsized, and they spend about $22 billion a year in local advertising, Greg Sterling, a program director at The Kelsey Group, said in an opening address. While these businesses are familiar with buying traditional ads, such as print yellow-page listings or newspaper ads, many remain unfamiliar with search-based ads that involve an auction method for bidding on top keywords in search queries to return a sponsored link.”

[eWEEK Technology News]