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Marketing News
I'm very interested in marketing and all that is involved in marketing. Here, I'll pass along news, resources, and information about marketing that I think will be of interest to small business owners.
New political campaign products at CafePress
Posted by johndilbeck on Wednesday, October 3 2007 at 9:58 AM
Category: marketing
As you know, the 2008 elections are heating up much earlier than normal and this should provide you a real opportunity for selling your designs through CafePress if you reach an audience who is politically motivated to campaign for their favorites.
CafePress recently announced the upcoming availability - on or around October 10, 2007 - of political yard signs and 3.5-inch buttons.
Because of the printing method used, the yard signs are printed on both sides with no second location surcharge.
The larger buttons have the same aspect ratio as the 2.25-inch buttons so you may be able to use that design on them.
Other changes noted are the switch from off-white paper to white paper in the perfect bound books.
You can read more information on the announcements page.
If you are not already a CafePress Shopkeeper, let me invite you to join for free and sell or buy your own custom designs. I get regular commission checks from CafePress and love selling my designs at John Dilbeck's Shirts, Mugs and Hats.
Even if you only want to make products for yourself and your friends, you can open your own store at CafePress.
Act on your dream!
JD
Do you want to become an Ultimate Rep?
Posted by johndilbeck on Friday, June 2 2006 at 4:45 AM
Category: marketing
If you are interested in building multiple streams of residual income from your own online marketing business, I urge you to visit Ultimate Rep to learn how you can have your own home business.
You can read more about why I recommend becoming an Ultimate Rep.
Free Linkscout Marketing Suite
Posted by johndilbeck on Friday, June 2 2006 at 4:42 AM
Category: marketing
If you do any type of online marketing, or if you are interested in getting more visitors to your websites or blogs, you should get your own Linkscout Marketing Suite.
You can read more about why I recommend getting your free Linkscout Marketing Suite on my new John Dilbeck Recommends blog.
Affiliate Marketing: More ways to market products online
Posted by johndilbeck on Thursday, May 18 2006 at 1:51 PM
Category: marketing
Earlier in the month, on John Dilbeck and Friends, I recommended LinkScout, and it is becoming one of the central hubs of my affiliate marketing efforts. I upgraded to the pro version and I'm already seeing some results. Not bad for such a small investment.
Today, I want to recommend a new form of advertising I've adopted at John Dilbeck and Friends and which I'll be rolling out to many of my other sites over the coming weeks.
I'm also going to recommend another free marketing portal to you.
First, let's talk a moment about advertising space on your websites, blogs, forums, and other online real estate.
I'm a huge fan of Google Adsense, and I'm happy that it is paying my overhead and making some profit for me. But, Adsense may not be the best advertising method for every site or even for a few pages on a site.
I've been watching Affiliate Power Ads for several months and today I implemented their ads on the top of every page on John Dilbeck and Friends. I'll be adding them to several of my Internet marketing and affiliate marketing sites over the next few weeks.
Why? Because Adsense pays only a few cents per click and my visitors have to leave my site. Affiliate Power Ads markets products from ClickBank and several other affiliate programs. Some pay 50% or more of the selling price to the affiliate (me, and you, if you want). Some of the products are membership sites that pay monthly residuals. So, instead of earning a few cents and losing a visitor, I stand to earn hundreds of dollars and there is no visitor loss, because the ads open in a new page.
Affiliate Power Ads should be okay to use on the same page with Adsense ads, because they are not contextual, but I don't think I want to use them on the same page, anyway.
I've been hesitant to use the Affiliate Power Ads on my sites because I'm hesitant to recommend many of the products being sold through ClickBank. Some of their products are outstanding, some are garbage, and some can get you in trouble if you don't do your own individual research before using them.
I've decided that I can't police everyone's buying habits, so a general Buyer Beware should suffice. Do your homework before you pay good money for any ad that says you can get rich with no effort if you buy their product. It just ain't a'gonna happen!
Now that I've made my peace with advertising products through ClickBank, I want to recommend another free portal: CB-Top. This free portal offers over 10,000 products through ClickBank and several other affiliate programs. You can get a free site for yourself, and, after you update your affiliate links, you will earn good money for every product or service bought through your portal.
The check I received from ClickBank today is more than enough to upgrade my CB-Top portal to a pro version. You only have to sell one or two products a month through your portal to earn a profit. Sell more, and it becomes another income stream.
I'm working on several other products I'll be recommending to you in the next few days.
There are two keys to earning a profit with affiliate marketing:
1. Sell good products (yours or the merchant for which you advertise)
2. Send enough visitors to your site.
By centralizing your affiliate marketing through LinkScout (or a similar service of your choice), driving traffic to that portal, and letting that site send visitors to your marketing sites, such as CB-Top, you will start earning a profit.
There are other tools that come with LinkScout and CB-Top, such as banner and URL rotators, but I'll talk about them another day.
So, how do you get visitors to your portals? I use a variety of methods, including blogging, linking from my sites and forums, and I'm starting to use more traffic exchanges, such as Traffic Syndicator 25.
I've been testing several traffic exchanges, and, so far, TS25 is one of my favorites. While I'm reading my email, working on websites, and blogging, I keep my TS25 surfing window open and click on the next site when I have a spare moment. When you are online as much as I am, you can earn lots of visitor credits as you go, without much extra effort. Since I want to get all the value I can from this exchange, I upgraded to a pro account. You can build traffic with a free account, but it is more efficient with a paid upgraded account.
I've done my homework and I've read the opinions that the sites I describe here range from useless to outstanding. My opinion is somewhere in the middle, tending to the very useful area of the scale. So, now, I'm testing them to see how they perform. With more data, I don't have to rely on opinions and hunches.
As long as they earn a profit, I'll continue with them.
Michael Lemm, Distinguished Expert Author at 21stCenturyArticles.com
Posted by johndilbeck on Wednesday, April 5 2006 at 5:12 AM
Category: marketing
Context: Michael Lemm, Distinguished Expert Author, 21st Century Articles, business, communications, technology
I am happy to announce that Michael Lemm has been recognized as a Distinguished Expert Author at 21st Century Articles.
Michael Lemm
To be recognized as a Distinguished Expert Author, one has to have at least twenty-five articles accepted for publication. Most articles that are submitted are declined, and it is a real achievement to earn Distinguished Expert Author status.
Congratulations, Michael!
You are invited to view Michael's Profile or to browse Michael's Articles.
Chris Bryant, Distinguished Expert Author at 21stCenturyArticles.com
Posted by johndilbeck on Wednesday, April 5 2006 at 5:09 AM
Category: marketing
Context: Chris Bryant, Distinguished Expert Author, 21st Century Articles, business, communications, technology
I am happy to announce that Chris Bryant has been recognized as a Distinguished Expert Author at 21st Century Articles.
Chris Bryant
To be recognized as a Distinguished Expert Author, one has to have at least twenty-five articles accepted for publication. Most articles that are submitted are declined, and it is a real achievement to earn Distinguished Expert Author status.
Congratulations, Chris!
You are invited to view Chris's Profile or to browse Chris's Articles.
Lots of new discount offers at SyndicateYourAd.com
Posted by johndilbeck on Wednesday, December 21 2005 at 6:43 AM
Category: marketing
I'm busily posting new discount offers at SyndicateYourAd.com.
A new feature starting today -- most discount offers will now be categorized by country, and by state in the United States and by province in Canada.
You can register your business for free and start advertising your special offers in only minutes. Advertise for free; pay only when a paying customer redeems one of your coupons.
Shoppers, save money by using the coupons at NiceOffers.com.
Merchants -- Advertise free and pay only for results
Posted by johndilbeck on Tuesday, November 1 2005 at 1:33 PM
Category: marketing
Merchants -- either online or offline -- how would you like to advertise your service or products for free and only pay when someone actually redeems your coupon?
Well, now you can.
NiceOffers helps you do just that.
You can register your business for free, create coupons online offering discounted offers to attract new customers or to reward your preferred, repeat customers. You decide on the offer and post it online.
I hear you asking, "How much do I have to pay for this when someone redeems my coupon?"
That, too, is up to you. You decide the amount of the bounty you're willing to pay for more business. It depends upon your business category, to some extent. Restaurants probably couldn't pay as much bounty per coupon as a car dealership could. But, you set what's comfortable for you. $100, $25, $10, $5, or even $1.
Then, our network of over 100,000 affiliates will help you promote your business. The SFI Marketing Group has thousands of active affiliates who will be driving traffic to the NiceOffers website. Of course, it's only natural that offers with higher bounties will be promoted more. On the other hand, your local business offers may be promoted actively by our affiliates who live near you and who would be happy to spread the word around town.
Free advertising. Active marketing and promoting. Pay only for results.
What could be better?
Customers save money.
Just visit NiceOffers, find an offer that interests you (there will many more over the coming weeks), print the free coupon, and redeem it when you make your purchase.
Businesses make more sales -- without wasting money on advertising that may not produce the results you wanted when you paid for your ad.
You can decide when the offer expires. You can set any restrictions you like. If you're wanting new customers, restrict it to new customers only. Or, you can reward your preferred customers with special "repeat business" offers. Want to allow only one coupon per household? No problem.
Syndicate your ad -- register your business today -- totally free. Your new coupon can be online in a matter of minutes.
This is a brand new way of promoting your business. NiceOffers was launched on the evening of October 31, 2005, and already thousands of SFI affiliates, including me, are actively promoting it. We'll be happy to promote your business and your special offers, too, should you decide to participate.
You can sign up as a merchant right now. Go to http://www.niceoffers.com/info and enter my SFI Affiliate ID: 7759324 and then click the GO button. There is no cost or obligation to see what it's all about.
Let us help you get more customers. Syndicate your ad, today.
(Context Tag: marketing, advertising, affiliate marketing, free printable coupons, save money)
It's time to order personalized holiday cards for your business!
Posted by johndilbeck on Monday, October 10 2005 at 6:51 AM
Category: marketing
(Context Tag: holiday cards, greeting cards, Christmas cards, Thanksgiving cards, personalized cards)
The next ten weeks, or so, is a great time to reconnect with friends, family, customers, clients, suppliers, and other business associates. This can be done in many ways, including calling, visiting, sending gifts, and sending holiday cards.
One of the most popular, and the most economical, ways to reconnect is to send a personalized holiday card.
With the introduction of email, many of us got away from sending real cards to people and opted to send free greeting cards through email. This was quite a novelty for a few years, but now I just don't enjoy receiving a e-card nearly as much as going out to the mail box and finding a card from a friend, relative, or business associate. Even though the same sentiment can be sent both ways, it takes me back to the days of my childhood excitement over the coming holidays to receive a real card in the mail.
I don't have any of the emailed greeting cards saved anywhere, but I have hundreds of real holiday and birthday cards saved. Many are from people who will never be able to send another and it is a joy when I run across one that reminds me of a dear friend or favorite relative.
I know Halloween hasn't even arrived, but I'm going to suggest that now is the time to think about, and order, your personalized cards for Thanksgiving, religious holidays, winter scenes, and the new year. Order now, before the rush, and you'll be well on your way to getting them sent and delivered on time.
I've ordered non-personalized cards from Walter Drake , and I've been happy with them. Of course, Walter Drake is known for offering a variety of personalized items at very reasonable prices, including greeting cards, pencils, calendars, and others, and you don't have to purchase in the quantities that would be expected from your promotional products dealer. Walter Drake also offers a wide variety of inexpensive gift items.
For the last couple of years, I've been recommending that you purchase personalized holiday cards from my website that features over 775 cards from the Birchcraft Studios collection of holiday cards. Prices are reasonable and their service is great. The only real draw-back to this site is that support questions may come to me and I am not a holiday cards expert. It's something I like to help with, but I don't devote full-time to the subject.
For someone who does devote full-time to the subject of Christmas and other holiday cards, let me recommend you to Debby Sibert, a stay at home mom who was looking for a way to send her kids to college.
"I just wanted to help put my three kids through college," says Debby Sibert when asked how she got into selling Christmas cards. Knowing that Christmas is one time a year that businesses have a budget set aside to send Christmas cards to all their clients and customers, she figured it would be a lucrative business and would only last a few months so she wouldn't have to work all year long. She started selling to local businesses by making appointments then lugging two heavy bags, each containing three albums of sample cards to show to the customers. She would usually come home with three or four sales and feel good about her time. But it did take a lot of time and wear and tear on the body carting everything around.
Her son, a freshman in high school at the time said, "Mom, you need to have a presence on the internet." To which she replied, "That would be great, but how do I do that?" He said, "I'll build you a website." And that he did.
Over the years, the Design Crafters website grew and evolved. From a small, family business, it has grown to be a woman-owned business that sells its own cards and represents other lines of cards. You can learn more about them by clicking the link above and then going to their About Us page.
Check out their huge selection of over 1200 beautiful, premium holiday cards that can be customized with logos or pretty much whatever you may want at Design Crafters.
Wherever you purchase them, or if you make them yourself, now is the time to get ready to remind people that they are important to you.
A growing number of businesses are starting to send Thanksgiving cards to tell their associates they are thankful for them. It also has the advantage of getting your messages out earlier and avoiding the crowd. Perhaps this would be an idea that would suit you, too.
New niche marketing link added to directory at JohnDilbeck.com
Posted by johndilbeck on Friday, February 25 2005 at 12:13 AM
Category: marketing
I just added a link to a marketing site on the Marketing Resources page in my directory.
In the Niche Marketing section, I added:
NicheHunt.com -- Make More Money Marketing to Niches - Niche marketing strategies for small and home-based businesses. Succeed online by finding and marketing to a small, prosperous niche market.
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