1. Multiple offers. One way to earn more lifetime value is to make multiple offers to your customers over time. Whether they are products you’ve created yourself, products you’ve purchased reprint rights to sell, or affiliate program products, you can increase the amount of profit per customer by selling them multiple products.
   

   NOTE: What works especially well for multiple offers is to “graduate” your customers to higher priced items. They may initially buy a $20 ebook from you, but could easily be convinced to buy a $47-$97 video or membership. Then, you could work to get them to buy a $297-$497 home study course or reprint rights package. From there, you could move them on to personalized coaching or 2-3 day workshops for fees from $997-$4997 or even more. What started out as a $20 ebook could easily be turned into hundreds or even thousands of dollars being spent with you.

2. Residual offers. Another way to earn more lifetime value is through residual offers - where an existing customer pays you for the same offer over and over again. These are primarily service-based offers. Online examples include web hosting, autoresponders, match-making, private membership sites, paid newsletters, etc. The customer pays a monthly fee for the service for as long as they remain an active member.

It takes much less effort to get an existing customer to buy something additional from you than it does to go out and find more customers.

And, as you begin to saturate your market (I.E. Finding all of the customers who might do business with you), it will become more and more important to have “backend” offers in place to increase your profit from the customers you get.

As you “run out” of new customers available, it’s critical to continue profiting from the database of folks already doing business with you.

Of course, as with the other two keys we’ve identified here, it’s important that you schedule time and action steps each week in order to grow this area of your
business.

Note: This is the easiest of the three keys to do and will always result in additional profits with minimal work if you do it correctly.

So, let’s look at a sample day’s activities for raising the lifetime value of your customers as you get them to spend more and more money with you.

And, again, you need a systematic approach. There are some things you can do on a weekly basis in order to increase the number of list members who buy and the number of site visitors who buy.

Let’s take a quick look at an example of one day’s activities you can begin implementing into your own business-growing checklist…

Wednesday:

• Create or promote additional products.
  • Find an affiliate program that relates to products that my customers have already purchased from me.
  • Write an article or create a short interview to send to my customers to promote the product.
  • Mail to my customer list.
  • OPTION B: Create a “Part 2” for an existing product they’ve purchased and offer it.
• Organize a teleseminar with a “special guest” to promote their offer as an affiliate.
  • Find a potential interviewee who has an affiliate program. (Preferably a “high ticket” or “recurring” offer)
  • Make a proposal to them for the interview.
  • Schedule the interview and arrange the technical stuff.
  • Contact my lists with call details.
• Add a freebie to one or more of my customer lists to promote an offer.
  • Either my own free ebooks, articles, excerpts, audio/video – or someone else’s that I have permission to give away.
  • Create a special discounted offer for my customers.

Again, these are just some example ideas. Obviously, this report isn’t designed to give you a comprehensive list of what you’re to do each week to build your business, but rather it’s intended to give you a strategy to follow.

It should, of course, be custom-tailored to your own business.

Include some of these things in your weekly schedule for getting customers to spend more and more money with you:

• Create and promote additional “related” products.
• Develop a “physical” version of an existing digital product.
• Start a monthly newsletter or paid subscription site.
• Host a teleseminar, webinar or other interactive “live” event.
• Offer personal coaching or consultation.
• Create a low-cost special report.
• Interview an expert and sell the completed product.
• Hire a ghostwriter to create additional “related” products.
• Partner with someone to create a “service”. (I.E. “Web hosting”, etc.)
• Co-author a product with someone.

IF YOU DON’T READ ANYTHING ELSE, READ THIS:

If you want to consistently grow your business – and ultimately make a six-figure income online – then you must have a plan. And you must have some kind of action steps in place in order to accomplish that plan.

Ya gotta have a system!

Once you have a system, it’s simply a matter of repeating things (and watching your business grow as you do!) over and over.

If you focus on doing the three things we’ve talked about – and you identify and implement some specific action steps into a weekly schedule to accomplish those three things – then you WILL succeed.

If you want to grow your online business and, ultimately, the profits you can actually spend each month, then those are the three things you need…

• Increase your market reach.
• Increase your lead conversion.
• Increase your lifetime value.

There’s your four-year marketing education all boiled down into a simple action plan. If you do those things, you will grow your business and multiply your profits. Guaranteed.

1. Find more of your potential customers.
2. Convert more of those you find into paying customers.
3. Get those paying customers to spend more money with you. That’s how you grow your business.

That’s how you grow your profits.

It all comes down to List And Traffic.

It all comes down to growing and profiting from opt-in lists and website traffic.

I’ve given you the three basic things you need to do, and even provided you with some ideas for each of those keys.

A second key to business growth is to “increase your ‘lead conversion’ “.

That is, you need more of your website visitors and list subscribers to actually buy something from you.

You’re getting subscribers. You’re getting traffic. Now, you need to get them to spend money with you … as many subscribers and visitors as possible.

The more subscribers and visitors who buy, the more money you make. No big surprise there.

In simple terms, if you have 1,000 visitors to your site and 3% of them buy a product that you profit $20.00 on, then you just earned $600.00.

But, without any additional traffic, if the number of visitors who bought the product (lead conversion) was 4%, then you just earned $800.00. That’s $200.00 more without any additional traffic.

Growing your website traffic and your lists alone will not bring in more profits. You must have a system in place that converts more browsers into buyers. You want a larger number of visitors and subscribers who actually become paying customers.

That’s another aspect of growing your business and profits.

And, again, you need a systematic approach. There are some things you can do on a weekly basis in order to increase the number of list members who buy and the number of site visitors who buy.

Let’s take a quick look at an example of one day’s activities you can begin
implementing into your own business-growing checklist…

Tuesday:

• Add a message to one (or more) of your follow-up sequences.
  • Insert a solo mailing for your product.
  • Insert a special, limited incentive for ordering your product.
  • Insert an ezine article that promotes your product.
  • Insert a testimonial for your product.
  • Insert a case study and real results for your product.
• Tweak your salesletter to make slight improvements.
  • Test a different headline.
  • Test a different price point.
  • Test a different layout. (Background color, graphics, etc.)
  • Test a different payment structure.
• Create highly targeted “landing pages”.
  • Create landing pages for specific audiences. (I.E. Stay at home moms, senior citizens, real estate agents, Christians, etc.)
  • Create landing pages for specific sources of traffic. (I.E. “Special offer for subscribers of XYZ ezine”.)
  • Create landing pages for specific “hot buttons”. (I.E. “Only $10”, “Results in 24 hours”, “No experience necessary” and “Try before you buy”.)
  • Create landing pages for specific events and occasions. (I.E. “Lose 10 pounds by spring break”, “Lose 10 pounds by your class reunion,” and “Lose 10 pounds after having a baby”.)

Again, this is just a small sampling of the various things you can schedule into
your weekly routine in order to convert more of your subscribers and site visitors into paying customers.

This is the most important thing you can do to build your business.

I can’t stress that enough.

Develop a checklist.

Note: And, trust me when I say that you’ll tweak the list from time to time to make it better. I routinely remove things that are either completed, become outdated or could be replaced by something that better uses my time.

As new ideas and technologies surface, you’ll find different (and better) ways of ccomplishing what you’re after.

In fact, I actually SCHEDULE time each week to work on my schedule!

Seriously, I schedule 1-2 hours each week just to update my system so that I can continue to do what’s best for my business.

I repeat…

Just get some things on a regular schedule that you can follow week after week to gain some momentum and steadily grow your business.

Include the following in your action steps to convert more of your leads into paying customers…

• Add to all of your follow-up sequences (Including your customers!)
• Make changes to your sales process.
• Adjust your offers. (Upsells, downsells, cross sells)
• Recycle your traffic.
• Use exit strategies.
• Use surveys (Find our what your leads want and why they aren’t buying)
• Create landing pages.
• Conduct teleseminars, webinars and other interactive events.
• Regularly create more free content (ebooks, mini-courses, articles, etc.)
• Add audio and video messages to your site.

The list could go on and on and on. Just make sure you get a list and stick to it.

Tomorrow, we’ll have the final installment of the series and you’ll be good to go

Let me give you just a quick example of what your “Monday” might look like
when it comes to “building lists” and “generating traffic”.

Monday:

• Write an Ezine article to promote your list, product, site or affiliate link.
• Submit the article to your “Ezine distribution network” for results:
  • Publish article to your own opt-in lists.
  • Load article to a page at your web site.
  • Submit article to major article directories.
  • Submit article to your list of ezine publishers.
  • Inform your affiliates and JV partners of your article
• Publish your weekly newsletter, including your newly written article.
  • Make personal remarks about a specific product or service and offer an incentive for anyone purchasing.
  • Cross promote one of your free reports, blog posts, mini-courses or existing articles.
  • Refer to any contest, joint venture project, sub-list or other business-building activity currently available.
• Setup a joint venture partnership to (a) build your list, or (b) grow your traffic.
  • Option 1: An “all-inclusive” project with multiple partners.
  • Option 2: An “exclusive” project with one partner.

That’s just a sample of what you can do. The important thing is to actually
establish a routine. Get your own list of activities to do every single week. Plan
things out into daily assignments. You don’t need to try it all at once, or attempt to do too much.

Just get some things on a regular schedule that you can follow week
after week to gain some momentum and steadily grow your business.

Include the following in your action steps to build your lists and grow your traffic.

• Write ezine articles
• Create viral reports
• Conduct and / or participate in joint ventures
• Bid on pay-per-click search engine listings
• Experiment with SEO tactics
• Purchase solo mailings and other paid advertising
• Exchange links, articles, popups, ads, etc. with other marketers
• Post questions and answers to relevant forums
• Work with your affiliate program
• Get your list members involved in marketing for you

There are countless ways to grow your lists and generate web site traffic. It’s
critical that you develop a plan here to work your way through each week. Hit
and miss tactics just won’t work. You need momentum. You need to get a
system in place. And you need to get started today!

Tomorrow, we’ll look at more ways to get organized.

Now, I’m not one of those folks who says “here’s a problem, but I don’t
have a solution.” I DO have a solution. And it’s fairly simple…

1. Do the math. You only have so much money and so much time to invest. Where will it be? If someone is bombarding you with new programs to join and new products to buy every single day, then unsubscribe and find someone else to teach you the ropes. You can’t join and buy them all. I don’t know about your financial situation, but I do know that every single one of us is only allotted 24 hours a day. You can’t effectively do everything!
2. Get a Plan. I don’t care if you join my program or your buddy’s program or nobody’s program — just decide what you want to do. Make a decision. Form a gameplan. Where do you want to go? How much do you want to earn? How can you do it? Find someone who is willing to invest THEIR time in YOU. Now there’s a plan. How many of these folks bombarding you with their offers are actually available to answer your questions and guide you along the way and mentor you? And how many cut you loose once they have your money. Find a mentor. Find someone who is willing to invest in YOU before you invest in them.

   [Note: I’m going to give you a plan later in this series. You’re about to discover exactly what you need to do in order to build your Internet business. So, read on.]

3. Stick to it. Please, please, please — don’t jump on the bandwagons as they come passing by. I promise you there will be more bandwagons. There will be new programs and products coming your way every day. Resist the temptation to continue going from one to the next. You’ll never get any momentum at all if you quit one thing to start the next. All you’ll do is waste time and money. You’ve got your plan — you may have to modify if from time to time, and even add to it — but stick to it. Do you realize that EVERY TIME you quit one thing to begin the next that you have WASTED your time and money that you spent on the previous one?

Earning an income online isn’t difficult — but it can be confusing if you don’t follow these three simple rules. There are times that I have to simply tell myself “no” when a new offer comes by — and I just stick to my plan. I know where I’m going and I’m not going to be derailed by the latest and greatest to come down the pike.

How about you?

You need some MOMENTUM. You need to push and keep pushing. You need
to get that car — your business — moving down the road. Sure, it will be slow at first. But, if you keep pushing, sooner or later it’s going to start rolling forward.

I challenge you to do the math, get a plan and stick to it.

You can thank me later. J

Now, having said that, let’s talk about your plan.

“What does it take to grow my
business and earn more profits?”

In carefully examining my own business - and in studying the successes of
hundreds of my colleagues and clients - I’ve discovered that there are three
simple keys to growing any business and making more money from it.
And here they are…

Key #1: Increase Your “Market Reach”

The first key to making more money from your business is to “increase your
‘market reach’ “. That is, you need more exposure among your targeted
audience. Your business needs to be in front of as many potential customers
as it possibly can be.

Out there in cyberspace somewhere are all of the customers who would ever
possibly be interested in your products.

There is a maximum number of people out there who have the potential of
doing business with you.

Your job is to find as many of them as humanly possible. You want your
marketing to reach as many of those who might do business with you.

Now, there is a simple formula that you can use to measure how well you are
reaching your potential customers.

The formula for market reach on the internet looks like this…

Site Traffic + List Size = Market Reach

Just on sheer numbers alone, growing your business is based on how many
visitors arrive at your website and how many subscribers you have on
your list.

For example:

All things equal, 10,000 website visitors will generate
more profits for you than 1,000 visitors.

All things equal, 25,000 opt-in subscribers will generate
more profits for you than 5,000 opt-in subscribers.
You need more market reach than you currently have. More website traffic and
a larger list. That is one aspect of growing your business and profits.

So, what needs to be a priority in your weekly activities?

Building your opt-in lists and increasing your web site traffic!

Every single week, devote time to getting more subscribers to your lists and
more visitors to your web site.

In fact, I recommend that you create a weekly activity checklist. That is,
create a list of action steps for growing your lists and traffic and divide them into daily activities to complete.

I learned something important at my very first job, back at McDonald’s®Æ. I was sixteen at the time, and from the very first day learning to flip burgers, I saw a priceless lesson unfold before my eyes that has proved to be invaluable to me in my own business.

And that lesson is this: it’s all about the system. You find something that works and you repeat it over and over again. Sure, you tweak it from time to time to improve it, but it’s the system that you use.

McDonald’s® had it down perfectly. There was an exact sequence in
which I was to “dress” the burgers. Mustard, ketchup, onions, pickles. They
were all in a specific spot on the table and they were all to be added to the
burger in a specific order.

And when it came to cranking out burgers, this system made it so easy.

Listen to me, and listen good – when it comes to cranking out profits for your
business, a “system” makes it easy, and it makes it work.

Learn this: The single greatest thing you can do to grow your business is develop a list of profit-boosting activities that you consistently complete on a weekly basis.

Tomorrow we’ll look at Activities to help you succeed.˝

Introduction:

There’s an old saying that’s been around much longer than the Internet that really does have a wealth of truth to it.

And that saying is simply this:

“Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.”

Now, I’m not some kind of great philosopher and we certainly don’t have the
time to grab some breakfast tea and sit around for hours discussing the great
amount of wisdom encapsulated in this short saying.

Let’s just cut to the chase and say…
… “it’s true”. J

And it certainly is true when it comes to growing an Internet business. If
you don’t carefully plan your business strategy, you’ll likely become another one
in the long line of those who fail.

Some estimates show that as much as 95% of online businesses fail.

And a major contributing factor to that unsettling statistic is undoubtedly the
failure to set a realistic plan in motion.

That’s not gonna happen to you.

At least, not if I can help it. (You’ll have to do your part too, of course).

If you spend a few minutes reading this special report, I’m going to give you a
fool-proof, 3-step system for building a $100K / year business on the Internet.

And – I’ll even give you some very specific action steps you can take
beginning today to begin growing your own business.

You’ll be shocked at how simple a system it is to use. And you’ll probably be
just a bit amazed (maybe even frustrated or angry) that someone hasn’t
shown you all of this before now.

Perhaps the best thing about this system is this: it doesn’t matter who you are,
what “niche” you are involved in, or what KIND of business you are building.

It works for…

• Anyone selling ebooks.
• Anyone selling physical information products.
• Anyone selling subscriptions or memberships.
• Anyone selling services (one-time or recurring)
• Anyone selling affiliate products.
• Anyone selling advertising.
• Anyone selling reprint rights products.
• Anyone selling ghostwritten materials.
• Anyone selling goods at online auctions.

Quite honestly, if you’re attempting to sell anything on the Internet, this plan
WILL work for you if you put it into action.

Now, before we get into the three steps, I want to tell you a story. Yeah, yeah,
I know – but stay with me here, because this is IMPORTANT.

Imagine this: You walk up to a car and are instructed to start pushing. You do.
It doesn’t go very far and someone else comes up and asks you to start pushing
on a different car instead.

Since the first car isn’t moving very much, you decide to push the second one
while a newcomer (John) starts pushing car number one.

Stay with me here.

You don’t have much success with car number two, so at the urging of
someone, let’s just call him an “ezine publisher”, you move on to car number
three while John continues to stay with car number one.

You get kind of frustrated with car number three because the darn thing just
doesn’t move much when you push on it.

In disgust, you move on to car number four, five, six and seven because
someone you know told you that they would be better.

All the while, ‘ol John sticks with car number one.

After a few hours you haven’t gotten anywhere. You were only able to move the
cars just a little bit and you’ve decided to call it quits. You look around and it’s
then that you notice it…

…John and car number one are gone.

They are nowhere to be seen.

You see, while you went from car to car, pushing a little and then moving on
when results didn’t come fast enough, John continued pushing. And pushing.
And pushing.

And car number one started rolling. Slowly at first, but then faster. Soon,
John had some MOMENTUM going. And he moved on down the road.

Now, let’s apply that to YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS…

Every single day I receive new offers from list owners. They send me an email
(along with every other person on their list) for the new “program of the
month” and urge me (and you) to get in while the gettin’s good.

• I’ll probably die in my sleep tonight if I don’t jump in today.
• Or maybe I’ll disrupt the earth’s gravitational pull and destroy the world if I don’t send my $39.95 in right now.
• There’s just no time to waste.
• This is a sure shot.
• They’ve had 84 new signups in less than 24 hours.
• This is the newest and latest and best new thing that’s gonna change the way we do business online.
• Forget about everything else that was said in the past, this is the one.

And then two days later I receive a similar email from the same list owner. The
name of the program has changed, but the necessity for me to act fast
hasn’t. I’m to buy and buy now before the whole world finds out and beats me
to the punch.

After all, there are other list owners out there.

And let me tell you what happens to those 84 new signups from two days ago.
They get confused.

“Was I supposed to promote this program or
is it time to move on to the new one?”

“Which one is better?”

“There’s no way I can be a member of 15 programs
and there’s no way I could promote them all even if I
had the money, so which one should I try to use?”

So, they move on and on and on, as the list owner and persons of influence
continue to get rich off the sales they make.

And I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the poor, misguided, good folks who email me day
after day and tell me that they still have yet to see a profit online.

And yet there are “sure shots” and “can’t misses” being promoted every single
day. Whatever the newest and latest program is — everybody’s sending their

emails and playing the game over and over again.

And the only folks making any money are the ones who come up with
the new programs and products and the ones who send out the urgent
messages to their list members.

And we wonder why the failure rate is so high. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that
the overwhelming majority of folks trying to do business online quit without
earning enough money to buy a large pizza in the frozen food section at their
local grocery store.

Tomorrow, we’ll begin looking at the solution.

I know you get “spammed”….Everyone does. Personally, I receive around 50 or so a day of these emails selling whatever product or service they have to offer. I delete most of them with barely a glance, yet they keep on coming.

They are usually (Though not all of the time) poorly written and full of extremely hyped messages. One will be for bulk email products. The next might be for search engine submissions (I wonder why they have to bulk for it if they are so good at search engine submissions?).

The list goes on and on. I get ads for dolls, cars, credit cards, merchant accounts, and more. We won”t even talk about the worst stuff which is sent out. One piece after another has to be deleted…and it just keeps coming.

Why So Much Bulk “Spam” Email…

If everyone is deleting it, then why do they keep sending it? It’’s simple. Although the response rates are extremely low, they still do get orders for their product or service.
Their financial cost in sending it is almost nothing, so it is looked upon as a good advertising vehicle. Some sales are better than nothing…Right?

Wrong…In all of the offers about bulk emailing, notice that you never seem to receive the other side of the story. What happens after you send bulk email?

You could lose your local Internet Service Provider, your web sites, your email addresses, and more. Just a few complaints (Which you will get even if you try to hide) and your server will cancel your account.

This doesn”t even cover your reputation or the legal ramifications of sending unsolicited bulk email. Currently, several states have laws on the books or in the works which can fine you $500 or more for each piece of bulk email you send without a prior business relationship.

Bulk email just isn”t worth the ramifications. If you have considered bulk email, don”t do it. There are SO many other more effective ways to market your product or service on the net that it is not necessary to take the risks that go with bulk email.

“What Should You Do?”

I can tell you in one sentence what you should do instead of bulk email… “You should start building Your Own Opt-In Email List TODAY!”

Email Marketing is effective. That is why so many people are using it in the “Spam” arena. It can produce sales constantly in your business!

Anytime I see someone trying to build a business online without developing any type of Opt-In list I know they are shooting themselves in the foot. It is possible to build a business online without a list, but WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO?

Email is free to send out. Even if you have to purchase a listserver or some other type of application to do your email, we are talking about only a couple hundred dollars a year to send out UNLIMITED communications to your prospects and customers. Go to your local post office and ask them if you can send out as much mail as you want whenever you want for one low lump sum. I guarantee you will be laughed at!

Usually when I tell this to people, they give me One of three excuses about why they can”t do it:

1) They don”t know how.

I usually am the least patient with this excuse, because everyone of us had to learn at some point in time what to do. I don”t think anyone jumped on the internet and all of a sudden knew exactly what to do every step of the way. As a matter of fact, I know they haven”t.

There are many resources online to learn how to start your own ezine. Dozens of ezines come out every week talking about the subject…not the least of which is this one you are reading!

Ignorance is no excuse. You can learn How to do your own Opt-In list and you can learn how to profit from it. Don”t let me hear you use that excuse!

2) They can”t come up with that much content.

Maybe, you don”t believe you can come up with that much content, because you aren”t a writer. First of all, I hope you know a lot about whatever subject it is that you deal with in your business. Whatever you are selling…whatever problems you are solving…can be the basis for much of your content.

The second thing you can do is use other people’’s content. Hundreds of ezine publishers will allow you to use their articles in your ezine as long as you leave their contact information attached to the bottom of all of the articles. All you have to do is ask and most of them will give you their articles free to use. I know I will!

3) There are already too many ezines and newsletters out there.

Who said your Opt-In Email List had to be an ezine? When I speak of Opt-In Email, it doesn”t have to just mean ezine, although this is the most popular application.

Being innovative and creative in your online business can often be a major key to your success. Ezines are not the only Opt-In lists which I have seen become extremely popular and profitable. To get your creative juices flowing, I want to give you some other ideas for your own Opt-In list.

Besides ezines, a quick mention of other types of Opt-In lists which I have seen which are very successful are “____ of the Day” lists. The most popular of these that I know of is “Joke of the Day.” There are also “Recipe of the Day,” “Business Tip of the Day,” and more. What idea could you come up with in this area?

What about a daily diary of your business? This is one I have started seeing much more recently online. In these, the publisher writes down something involved in their business everyday that happened. They did this or that…whatever they know will be of interest to their readers. This one not only keeps you in contact, it can also help you develop trust even quicker with your prospects.

What about a Free Online Class? You could develop a 6, 12, 24 lesson class on a certain subject and have them receive the next issue every week, every 2 weeks, or once a month. Then, once they complete that class, you may have advanced classes, etc. You could also put them on an updates list for new information constantly.

How could you use any of these ideas in a new way? Don”t limit yourself.

One admonition I want to leave you with though is to get started TODAY! If you don”t get started in one way or another today in either the development of an idea or in the actual set-up of your idea, you by odds will NEVER do it. Owning your own Opt-In list is so important to the effectiveness of your business online that I have to stress you need to get started today if you want to succeed in your online business.

By Terry Dean

Chuck McCullough is the owner of http://AffiliateMatch.com offering FREE articles, tips, hints, and real-world advice on how to make money with your website. Visit his site or join his FREE newsletter, The AffiliateMatch Informer by sending a blank email to mailto:newsletter@affiliatematch.com.
]]> http://gempaper.com/archives/38/feed http://gempaper.com/archives/32 http://gempaper.com/archives/32#comments Sun, 06 Jul 2008 08:15:36 +0000 admin http://gempaper.com/?p=32 Advertising your services or products on the Internet is both extremely effective and extremely competitive. There are several ways to go about attracting traffic to your website; Pay-Per-Click is one of the options you can choose from, along with developing an SEO, or search engine optimization campaign. Both pay-per-click and SEO are targeted to get your website placed as close to the top of search engine results as possible. One of the differences is that it takes minutes to set up a pay-per-click campaign versus months for a good SEO campaign.

Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising that most search engines, including some of the largest ones, now offer. It requires a bid for a “per-click” basis, which translates to your company paying the bid amount every time the search engine directs a visitor to your site. There is the added bonus that when a per-click site sends your website traffic, your site often appears in the results of other prevalent search engines.

As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages and disadvantages. If you understand the process and monitor your pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be very effective. One of the greatest advantages is that you never have to tweak your web pages to change your position in search engine results, as you must do in a typical SEO campaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-click campaign is pay a fee.

Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-click process. You just bid and you”re up and running. It doesn”t demand any specific technical knowledge, though the more you know about search engines and keywords, the easier - and more effective - the process will be.

The downside is that pay-per-click is essentially a bidding war. A higher bid than yours will lower your position on search engine results. This means that you will have to raise your bid to regain your position - which can obviously become quite expensive, especially if you are bidding on a popular keyword.

In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost effective form of marketing for your business, you must do some computing to figure out how much each visitor to your site is worth. You can compute this value by dividing the profit you make on your website over a given period of time by the total number of visitors for that same time period. For example, if your site made $5,000 in profits and there were 2,5000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50 cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors.

The figure of 50 cents per visitor is the point at which your business breaks even. The idea, of course, is to show a profit, not to merely cover your costs. Therefore, you are aiming at a figure less than 50 cents per click. Be aware that the most popular keywords often cost considerably more than 50 cents a click. The only way around this is to bid less for these phrases or you will be paying too much for each individual hit.

The key (pun intended) to success is to learn everything you can about search engine keyword research. The good news is there isn”t a limit to the amount of keywords you can add to your bid because additional keywords do not add additional cost. This translates into a lot less hassle for you because there is no need to optimize your site to index a particular set of keywords.

Obviously, some keywords are much more effective than others are, but they will not cost you anything except time to set-up your account in your pay-per-click bid. Of the popular search engines that offer pay-per-click, one called Overture provides an online tool that will give you the data on how often particular keywords are entered into their search engine. They also offer suggestions for keywords after you enter a description of your site.

In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. You must understand that the object of your description is not to generally attract visitors, but to be as specific as possible so that only those visitors who are likely to buy your service or product go to your site. You must use expert marketing copy to guarantee that your description is both precise and enticing to attract the most ideal candidates to your site. This description is your most powerful tool to insure that your bid is profitable.

Another essential element of pay-per-click advertising is that you constantly monitor your bid. It is very important that you bear in mind that the results of the top search engines providing pay-per-click advertising, which are Overture and Adwords Select, usually appear on other popular search engines. Because of this, the competition for top ranking is intense, and very often you will find that the bidding price balloons too high for pay-per-click to yield a profit.

If this happens, it is advisable to withdraw your bid on that particular keyword and try another one. Remember: when you pay too much per click to make a profit, you are in essence losing the bidding war.

Since losing is not acceptable, you must have a plan in place to closely track the effectiveness of your keyword. It is advisable to monitor your keywords on at least a monthly basis.

Not only is careful monitoring important, but the analysis of visitor behavior can produce invaluable knowledge about consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring and consumer analysis is essential to your overall business needs, and will also insure that your pay-per-click campaign is a success.

The bad news is that people expect prompt replies to their email inquiries. However, unless you can figure out how to work continual twenty-four hour shifts, or hire enough people to constantly monitor incoming emails (while they”re eating up your revenue), you have a problem. The good news is an autoresponder is an inexpensive - or even free - method of quickly responding to emails. What these programs do is automatically respond to incoming emails as soon as they are received.

Emails are essential to your business for many different reasons. Most importantly, these invisible email voices give you their feedback about your website - for free! However, if you spend all your working hours answering these emails, how are you supposed to run your business? The answer is simple: use autoresponders. Autoresponders are programs that automatically respond to your emails without you so much as having to click on your mouse.

There are a number of good reasons why you need an autoresponder besides just answering your email. For example, autoresponders can be used if you need a way to send information about your services or products, price lists, or if there are repeated questions asked across large numbers of emails. Maybe you want to offer your site visitors a special bonus of some kind, such as advice or relevant articles. All of this can be handled by an autoresponder. Additionally, you can advertise your business and then build stable relationships with your customers by using autoresponders.

Autoresponder programs vary from software that runs with your email program to a specialized script that runs on your web hosting company’’s server. This kind of script may use a web page form or simply operate with your email account. This kind of script is programmed to send out a standardized message whenever an email is received. The message is sent to a particular script or email address.

Some autoresponders can do more than simply send out standardized messages. They can send out an unlimited number of follow-up messages sent at predetermined interval of time. For example, you can set your autoresponder to send out a new message every day for as long a period as you desire.

There are numerous companies who offer autoresponders free of charge. Your website hosting company often provides autoresponders as a free service. If this is not the case with your web hosting company, there are numerous companies who offer this service for a small fee, or free of charge, providing you attach an advertisement for their company to your emails.

To personalize your autoresponder messages, you can attach a signature. Signatures in this case are much like business cards. You can include your name, company, all your contact numbers and addresses, and a brief message.

It’’s a good idea to attach a signature to every email that is sent out. This works as a repeated reminder of your business identity every time a customer sees it. The more they look at your signature, the more likely your company will spring to mind when your particular service or product is needed.

You can create a standardized signature that every employee in your business uses, or you can go wild, and let every staff member create their own personal signature. Of course, like everything in life, there are some rules and guidelines to creating a personal signature.

Keep the length of your signature between four to six lines of text, with no more than 70 characters in a single line. Make sure that your email program does not cut off your text! The content should include your name, your company name, your email address, fax number, and any other contact details, such as 800 numbers. Lastly, always include a short personal message about your company. It should be a subtle sell of your services or your products, and possibly your company’’s reliability and longevity.

Another specialized use of autoresponders is to create courses that you can then offer your site visitors for free. You must choose a topic in which you are an expert and that precisely targets your potential customers.

Once you have carefully chosen your subject, divide it into a number of different sub-topics. Then offer your site visitor a free 10 or 15 day course, each day offering a different sub-topic. The first topic should always be a welcome message to your site visitor and an explanation about what is to follow. Your explanation should be enticing, getting the point across that you are offering free, quality information that your target audience will find of great value.

With every lesson, include the number of the lesson, the topic title, information about your company and its services or products. At the end, include a few blurbs about the next lesson to entice the subscriber to continue on.

Make sure each topic is packed with essential and valuable information, and leaves the visitor lusting to know more. Otherwise, you may lose them in the very beginning.

Of course, you have to write up your course before you can offer it. Once you have done this, and gone over the material carefully, employing a professional writer or editor if necessary, you must transfer your text to your autoresponder.

There are a number of free autoresponders you can use. Try http:/www.getresponse.com, or http://www.fastfacts.net. Or go onto Google and you will find a long list of free autoresponder companies. Then sign-up for your chosen autoresponder. Once you do, you will receive instructions as to how to set it up and transfer your text.

Email is an excellent marketing tool; it is inexpensive and it is fast. Use it to advertise your business by choosing your email address carefully. Your website should contain different email addresses for different contact requests. For example, use info@yourdomain.com for information requests, or sales@yourdomain.com for questions about sales. It’’s a good idea to set up one for the owner, such as president@yourdomain.com. This presents your company in a personal, approachable light and insures that direct contact is provided.

Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of potential customers. This is an invaluable asset considering how many potential customers you usually have contact with before you make an actual sale. Essentially, an autoresponser allows you to automate part of your marketing campaign.

In the blink of an eye, your visitor exits your site, and your sale is dust - unless you have had the foresight to utilize an autoresponder that has captured her email address. If you have installed an autoresponder, you can then follow-up with her, and in all probability, make the sale when the poor woman has finished repotting her precious bonsai.

Autoresponders are remarkable, versatile programs that do so much more than just automatically answer your email. Here are a few ideas that will help you to creatively and productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual visitor into a profitable customer. Use your autoresponder to:

1. Publish a newsletter. Certain quality autoresponders will manage subscriptions and follow-up with interested prospects. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed about your services or products, while building your reputation as a credible expert in your particular business.
2. Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform them of current sales you are running and of promotional material that your affiliates can use themselves to increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go out and promote your business.
3. Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, e-books, movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder. Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your affiliate’’s page in your autoresponder.
4. Distribute your articles. Writing and distributing targeted articles is a powerful tool to build your business credibility, bring traffic to your site, and increase your sales potential. If your articles contain valuable information, many editors will print what is known as a resource box for you. A resource box contains your bio and a brief description of your service or product. It can also contain your autoresponder address. Let’’s say you”ve written fifty articles. Put them on separate autoresponder accounts and create a master list that contains the titles of each article, the autoresponder address, and a brief abstract. Then promote your master list. Additionally, include your publishing guidelines so your affiliates can add their articles to your list, increasing the number of writers who are represented in your article list.
5. Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your articles when you”ve written new ones that they may want to publish in their own newsletter or website.
6. Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure repeated exposure of your message, which has been proven to effectively increase sales. In your ad, put your autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances of converting visitors into customers. For example, if you”re selling a particular product, put testimonials about how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a detailed, enticing description of your product.
7. Distribute advertising. Let’’s say you sell advertising on your website or in your newsletter or e-zine. Set your autoresponder to send the information about rates and how to place an ad automatically to all prospects” email addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up. It can also send notification of any special deals you are currently offering.
8. Distribute an email course. Each day, have your autoresponder send out another lesson. Just be sure that each lesson has quality content - not a sales pitch. Your content will do the selling for you, and will do it much more effectively. You can include tips centered on a different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product. Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a purchase.
9. Automate a reminder about your service or product after a visitor has completed your course. This will increase the possibility of sales from visitors who have taken your course but are dragging their feet about actually making a purchase. You can also use these reminders to promote new products or services, and the products and services of your affiliate programs.
10. Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an idea of the type of information you can provide and the quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a potential customer than gain a sale.
11. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be motivated to request your autoresponder, and you will have a record of the visitors” email addresses who took your quiz. Or create a contest and have any visitors that enter send their responses to your autoresponder. Your autoresponder can be set-up to send them a confirmation of their entry.
12. Offer a trial version of your product. Give your prospects a sample of your ebook, course, software, membership, etc. People who are exposed to a little taste often end up wanting the whole pie. You can also capture their email addresses when you offer them a free trial from your website. Set up your autoresponder to give instructions on how to obtain their free trial, and then make sure to follow-up to try and close the sale.
13. Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors that they may have free access to your affiliate page by simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your affiliates.
14. Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request form for visitors to be notified of special offers or discounts in the future. This creates a very effective mailing list that contains the names of people who are already your customers.
15. Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should contain up to fifty links that would be of particular interest to your visitors. Make sure to add your own promotional copy at the top or bottom of this page.

Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used creatively, see if you can come up with some brilliant ideas of your own!