Monday, January 29, 2007

Marketing Workshops Scheduled

Hello everyone from chilly Central Florida. To all of you who actually have a real winter you probably think I'm being wimpy but it's not supposed to be 38 degress in Orlando!

That being said I have a couple of workshops to pass along to you that will warm up your Pay It Forward For Profits business. The first is a workshop about e-mail follow up with your prospects. This a crucial but often overlooked aspect of growing your PIF4P business. The workshop info is listed below.

Date: Monday Jan 29 2007
Time: 3:00 PM EST
Topic: Email Follow Up

Registration Link

If you plan on attending please let us know by sending an e-mail using the link below.
Yes I am Attending The Workshop

The second workshop concerns using a nifty viral advertising method called Instant Buzz.

If your business is a little sluggish, maybe you would like to learn how to use InsantBuzz to market your PIF4P opportunity.

At the IB workshop, Janet will be discussing setting up your bar ads along with an open discussion on what text to place on your bar ads. The workshop information is listed below.

Date: January 29, 2007
Time: 8:00 PM EST
Registraion Link

Get Your FREE Viral Advertising Software Now!

Have A Great Day and enjoy the workshops.

Until the next post
Steve

Thursday, January 25, 2007

4 Ways To Maximize Your Advertising Budget
by Steve Casteel

Since the majority of small businesses operate with very small advertising budgets,
it is critical to ensure that your advertising dollars deliver as much value as
possible to the bottom line. Here are four tips that you can use to ensure that you
get the most bang for your advertising buck:

Target your Advertising

In an ideal world the ads you place would be seen only by customers interested in your business. In reality, you'll find most advertising opportunities won't deliver
such an ideal business proposition. The real key is to locate advertising opportunities that will target your potential customers as closely as possible. You should evaluate advertising offers, by asking yourself how closely will this hit my target audience? Could I do better?. For example,If you are advertising a website that offers a new vitamin supplement for dogs, advertising on a pet website would not be as beneficial as a dog related website. A website or newsletter on the topic of dog food and nutrition would be even more targeted, as almost 100% of the visitors to that site would have some interest in dog food and nutrition and that's exactly the audience you are looking for.

Vary Your Advertising Offers

Don't forget that your target market is comprised of certain groups, each with its own motivation to buy your product. On the dog food and nutrition website, you may encounter breeders, veterinarians, and family pet owners. They all want the same thing (a healthy happy dog) but for different reasons. The breeders want their prized stud to live a long life and have lots of puppies while the veterinarians are interested in offering the best possible advice on nutrition to their clients, and so on. When writing your ad copy, keep these different groups in mind and compose an ad that speaks to each groups buying motivations. Then rotate these ads to ensure you cover all the potential buyers for your product.

Don't Over-Commit
Many small business owners jump at the chance to buy ads at a volume discount purchasing 6 months to a year's worth of advertising up front. On the surface this may seem like a good way to maximize on your advertising dollars. However, if you've done a good job of targeting your potential customers, you may be purchasing too much advertising.

Conventional wisdom says that it takes 7 messages from a company to get the average
customer to act and actually purchase their product. As your target market becomes more effectively defined (from pet websites to dogs to dog food), the number of contacts required decreases, because you don't need to do as much convincing to motivate a potential customer to purchase your product. Your advertising dollars, therefore, would be better spent in 3 month advertising programs. After the 3 months, move to another website or magazine, and continue to rotate your ads to maximize the reach of your message.

Measure Your Results

You must track your ad responses and measure your results, or you'll never know how well your ads are performing. Tracking your response rates, primarily though the use of tracking URLs is critical. A tracking URL will still direct surfers to your site but it will also capture the site from which they came, giving you some valuable feedback on the performance of your advertising. There are numerous commercial services available to help you track the origin of your web traffic.

Off-line businesses may use coupons or offer codes to determine the success of their various advertising efforts. Something as simple as a small numerical code in the bottom right corner of an ad can determine where a customer saw your ad. This in turn will allow you to compare numbers monthly amongst your various advertising purchases and weed out those that are not generating any business for you.

Measuring ad placements, is only the beginning. You must also evaluate ad copy, timing, and layout. Your ads may have seasonal fluctuations in responses rates and your potential customers may respond differently to a change in your ad copy. So keep a detailed tracking spreadsheet to record your ad response in all of these areas. This will give you the information you need to make informed decision about your small businesses advertising budget.

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Steve Casteel is the owner and webmaster of The Online Business Center and has been
an online entrepreneur since 2001. If you would like to learn more about a Ad,
Visitor, Clicks, Actions & Sales Conversion Tracking / Split Testing Solutions visit:
http://www.sdcwebbiz.com/recommends/4-ad-tips.html
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Wednesday, January 10, 2007

GDI Workshop Information

The next GDI group workshop is scheduled for Thursday Jan 10, 2007 at 3PM and 8 PM Eastern Standard Time.

GDI is an integral part of the
Pay It Forward 4 Profits system and growing your downline is an important 1st
step on your road to success. So, by all means do your best to try to attend.

Janet Legere amd Morgana Braveraven will be host both workshops and the topics
covered will include your image as an Internet Marketer and Focus. There will also be time for a Q&A session so bring any questions that you may have to the workshop as well. All of Janets workshops that I have attended have been highly informative
and well worth the time to attend. Also remember to to invite your downline members and prospects as well.

If you can attend the workshop please use the links below to pre-register.

I will attend the 3 PM Workshop

I will attend the 8 PM Workshop

See You There!

To Your Success,
Steve

PS
I found a site that is giving away complete niche marketing
packages worth $97. I don't know how long this will last so
I suggest that you hurry and check it out now!
Free Niche Marketing Packages

Thursday, January 04, 2007

How to Write Killer Email Promos That Get Results!

If you have ever been faced with the task of having
to write an email promotion to your list, and then
realized that you didn't know what to say or how to
say it, then this new video e-course "E-mail Promos
Exposed" promises to solve this problem for you by walking
you through the actual process of creating a professional
quality e-mail promo step-by-step.


Here is my review of Michael's videos.

*************************************************
Overall Quality
*************************************************
The first thing I noticed when I opened up the
first video was the stunning production quality.
The audio is near studio quality, and the graphics
are very professional. These videos were made by
someone who KNOWS what he's doing.

Well done!

I also liked how the videos are divided up by
section, and then again by sub-section. For
example, one video is all about the subject line,
and then there are different parts of that video
that each cover a certain area of crafting a
killer subject line.

*************************************************
THE ACTUAL VIDEOS
*************************************************

Here's a brief summary of each video. Obviously
it's impossible to list every single thing here,
but I want you to get a feel for what each one
covered, and how well it covered it.

VIDEO 1 - INTRODUCTION

This video served as an introduction to the whole
course. You get to see a picture of Michael in
his every day life, and he establishes his
credibility right up front by talking about some
of his massive successes online. He even provides
proof of credibility by displaying two checks in
the amount of $50,000 and $25,000 which prove
that, when it comes to the subject of making
money with email promos, he knows his stuff.

This is a good lesson for anyone to get. Whenever
you're teaching people how to do something, it's
good to establish your credibility up front, so
that there's no doubt about whether or not you're
qualified to talk about the subject. Most product
developers either skip or minimize this step.

VIDEO 2 - BEFORE YOU WRITE THE PROMO

This video talks about some things that I have not seen
other marketers even bother to mention. You'll learn
things like:

* The mindset you need in order to write a killer
promo

* The different tools you need before you get
started

* How to keep your emails laser-focused

* How to create an outline that practically
writes the email for you.

This was a fantastic video, and what I learned here alone
was well worth the price. (Which by the way is FREE).

VIDEO 3 - THE SUBJECT LINE

I liked this video, because it talked about one
of MY biggest weaknesses when it comes to writing
email promos... the subject line. The subject
line is a confusing topic, because nobody's 100%
sure what the best tactics are.

Michael breaks it down, and reveals:

* The biggest secret for writing a subject line
that makes people insanely curious.

* Techniques for personalizing the subject line.

* Mistakes to avoid when using personalization.

I was surprised to find that I was making some of
the mistakes that Michael mentioned in this
video, but now I know better.

VIDEO 4 - THE OPENING

This is where a lot of people slack off when
writing their emails. Michael talks about how
important it is to create an opening that is
conversational, and then reveals techniques and
examples on how to do that.

He also reveals:

* How to get people to keep reading your email
once they've opened it.

* How to make your opening interesting.

* Mistakes to avoid when creating your first few
paragraphs.

VIDEO 5 - THE BODY COPY

This is one of the "meatiest" portions of the
course, because it reveals techniques that are
not widely discussed on the forums, blogs, and in
most eBooks. He talks about the importance of
keeping your body copy tight and relevant, and
then reveals how you can do that. You'll also
learn:

* How to write powerful bullets that make people
curious and want to find out more.

* Simple formatting tricks for making your body
copy easy to read.

* The secret of "bucket brigade copy" and how to
use it in your email promos to force people to
keep reading.

VIDEO 6 - THE CALL TO ACTION

This is where a lot of people wimp out in their
email promos. They start out strong, but when it
comes time to ask the reader to click the link
and take action, they don't know what to say.
Michael talks about some of his favorite
techniques for making that happen, and also
reveals:

* The "magic question" to ask yourself that will
make your close much more powerful.

* The secret of the "unanswered question" and why
handling this is a surefire way to get people to
act right away.

* The structure of a powerful close.

* Mistakes people make when creating their close.

VIDEO 7 - CREATING AN EFFECTIVE P.S.

Some people say that the P.S. is one of the most
important parts of the email, because it is often
the one thing that gets people to click the link
at the end. In this video, Michael talks about:

* Why you should including a P.S. at the end of
your email.

* The 4 different kinds of P.S.'s you can use
(this section really opened my eyes).

VIDEO 8 - COMMON MISTAKES PEOPLE MAKE

This was my favorite video, because it showed me
some mistakes that I was making that I wasn't even
aware of. Unless you're a seasoned pro, you're
probably guilty of some of the things that
Michael talks about in this video as well, and
that's why it's so valuable. I've shaved years
off my learning curve, because now I can avoid
some of the costly mistakes that I was bound to
make in the learning process.

VIDEO 9 - HOW TO CREATE FOLLOW-UP EMAIL PROMOTIONS

This video alone is going to make me a lot of
money. Why? Because I used to only send out one
email promo for each affiliate promotion I was
doing. Michael showed me in this video how
important it is to send a follow-up promotion,
and he showed me exactly how to do it. He covered
things like:

* The psychology of follow-up email promo's.

* The 2 main types of follow-up promos that make
the most money.

* How to overcome readers' objections in your
follow up emails.

* The 2 most common mistakes people make when
writing follow-ups and how to avoid them.

VIDEO 10 - HOW TO WRITE BACK END EMAIL PROMOTIONS

Every marketing guru out there says that the REAL
money is on the back end. I'd have to agree with
them, but the problem is... most people have no
idea how to set up a back end system that makes
money. This video will teach you how to set up an
automated back end that's loaded with killer
promos that make you lots of cash on autopilot.
He reveals things like:

* The big difference between regular and back end
email promos.

* How to prepare a back end promotion sequence.

* Common mistakes people make when creating back
end email promos.

VIDEO 11 - CREATING AFFILIATE EMAIL PROMOTIONS

This could be the most important video of the
entire package for a lot of people, because most
people email their list to promote other people's
products as an affiliate. Let's face it, if you
only have 3 products, can you really afford to
only email your list 3 times a year? They'll get
bored hearing about the same old products over
and over again. This video sheds some light on
how to create killer affiliate promos. Michael
reveals things like:

* The two main types of affiliate promos.

* What makes affiliate promos different than
regular promos (and why ignoring this huge secret
could cost you big money).

* Michael's favorite tactics for creating
affiliate promos that no one else is doing.

* 3 different ways to add scarcity to your
affiliate promos (this is the most important
section of the video, so make sure you watch it
over and over again).

*************************************************
CONCLUSION
*************************************************

As you can see, Email Promos Exposed really packs
a lot of punch! Most of the courses out there
offer only watered down, weak content. Not this
one! These videos are going on my "A-list" for a
long time.

I've already watched them twice, and plan on
reviewing them every couple months to make sure
that I have the principals, techniques and
tactics burned into my mind.

If email marketing is an important part of your
business (and in my opinion, it's the most
important part of ANY online business), then you
owe it to yourself to check out Email Promos Exposed.

Here's the URL where you can get instant free access
to the videos right now.

FREE Email Promo Course

Sincerely,
Steve

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

The Top 10 Web Page Design Mistakes

If you are creating web pages, landing pages, affiliate pre-sell pages, or name squeeze pages, there are certain mistakes that you must avoid!

Design Mistake #1
Using too large of a graphic header on the top of your page.

Design Mistake #2
Using washed out colors that make your web site feel drab and lifeless. Or using colors that are WAY too bright.

Design Mistake #3
Using more than four colors (one of those being black!)on your web site.

Design Mistake #4
Using more than four different TYPES of fonts on the same page.

Design Mistake #5
Displaying your sales message on a dark colored background!

Design Mistake #6
Using too many tricked out
scripts at once which causes browser freeze,

Design Mistake #7
Cramming way too much content into too small of a space.
(Not enough white space.)

Design Mistake #8
Using busy or watermarked background patterns.

Design Mistake #9
Specifying fonts that are TOO SMALL!

Design Mistake #10
Not clearly identifying your offer.

These are the top ten design mistakes that are being made on sales web pages. How many of them are you making? Watch the video below to learn how you can easily avoid these mistakes on your site and pages.

Website Design Video

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Top 3 Ways To Generate Low Cost Website Traffic
(c) Copyright 2006 by Steve Casteel

Did you know that...
there is only one hard and fast rule in generating income for your website:

A steady flow of website traffic.

If no one goes to your site, it stands no chance of
generating any income. It takes money to maintain an income
generating site;

But, how do you generate website traffic without busting
your wallet? The big hitter sites are spending tons of money
to drive the traffic to their sites. They invest in many
advertising campaigns and different forms of marketing
schemes. This works great for them because, well, they are
what they are, high earning, big hitting websites with huge
advertising budgets.

I am going to share with you the top five low cost ways that
I use to generate a substantial amount of traffic. They all
take time and essentially what you are doing withthese
traffic methods is trading time for money.

Tip #1 Exchange Links
Exchanging links with similar themed websites is a sure and
proven method of generating traffic to your website. You
will get two direct and powerful benefits from having a
robust link exchange program.

The first is that your page rank will increase as the number
of other sites linking to you increase. Your increasing page
rank will have a dramatic effect on your search engine
ranking, and as your search engine rank increases your
traffic will also increase. There is no better traffic than
the traffic you receive from search engines. It is highly
targeted and it is free! As far as traffic goes, it doesn't
get any better than that!

The second benefit of a strong linking strategy will be the
traffic that actually receive from the links pointing to
your site. Developing a reciprocal linking program is the
best thing that you can do with your new website to increase
your traffic.

Tip #2 Write and Submit Articles
With all of the websites, newsletters, and ezines out there
searching for content, writing and distributing articles are
another great way to get quality traffic to your website.
You should make sure that your articles are well researched,
and relevant to the theme of your site. If you are not
comfortable with your writing ability you hire a ghost
writer to write articles for you or take advantage of the
many private label rights websites that have sprung up
lately.


Tip #3 Join Online Communities and Forums
Being active in online communities forums in your niche
market is an excellent way to get traffic to your site. If
you are not familiar with online forums they are communities
of people sharing common interests on all types of
subjects.

You advertise your website or prduct with your signature
file that is placed at the end of every post that you make
in the forum. Spend some time reading other members posts
before you start posting. An effective method is to find a
common problem in the community and provide a solution to
it. This will also allow you to establish yourself as
someone knowledgeable about the subject which will help your
credibility in the community.

------------------------------------------------------------

By using the methods outlined above you can begin to
generate a substantial amount of quality traffic to your
website for little or no cost. Once you begin to get traffic
sales will follow and with sales you will have money to
start advertising to generate even more traffic.

Don't wait. Put these methods into action now and sooner
than you think you may be one of the big hitter websites
that everyone is loking for!

------------------------------------------------------------
About The Author
Steve Casteel is the webmaster and owner of The Online
Business Center where you can fnd many more tools, tips and
resources to start or grow your online business.
Visit The Online Business Center
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Monday, November 06, 2006

The 5 Benefits Of A Funded Proposal

What Is A Funded Proposal?

A funded proposal is a type of marketing where you market a low cost, but very useful product on the front end in order to get prospects or leads and then selling a more expensive product on the back end. It is an incresibly effective and smart marketing method and is used by all of the big money makers in the network marketing industry. A funded proposal allows you to make immediate profits so you can afford to pay for advertising.

Funded Proposal Benefits

1) The sales of your low cost product allows you to increase your cash flow immediately so that your expenses are dramatically reduced.

2) Sponsoring an exisiting customer is much easier and cheaper than than trying to sponsor a stranger. You should never try to sell a prospect on your business opportunity the first time you meet. Instead, pitch them on your inexpensive front end product which will help as well as build the level of trust that you must have with prospects in order to be successful.

3) Funded proposals allow you to position yourself as an expert with your prospect by offering them a solution, a system and your help.

4) You get a chance to educate your prospects that might just might be future business partners instead of just trying to sell them on hype and a dream which in the long run is extremely short sighted. Why not sell them a product that will turn them into a better business owner right from the start?

5) Funded proposals also allow you to get your newest reps into positive cash flow almost immediately. This create confidence and momemtum in your team which can't ever be anything but positive.

As you can see using, a funded proposal marketing system can really make a difference in your bottom line. If you are not using this method in your business now you may want to think about starting. It can make a huge difference for you.

If you like to learn more about funded proposal marketing systems take a look at Pay It Forward 4 Profits and get the real skinny on how to use funded proposal marketing systems to turn around your network marketing fortunes.

Funded Proposal Marketing