Advertising on the Internet can play tricks on you, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the rules. While there are no magic formulas, it is a good idea to learn from others who have gone before you to avoid the dangers they have encountered. It is extremely wise to use good judgment about any information that may influence you or your online business decisions.

What you are about to read and understand directly impacts a web user’s capability to communicate with you. Ten of the most popular web advertising methods still maintain their independence, but come with certain technical flaws and disabilities.

1. Video Ads

I’m a firm believer of utilizing videos to advertise a product or service. Actually, I think it’s the best overall affluent tactic ever invented. But, Web videos have their technical limitations with multi-user support. There will always be one user who cannot view a video properly, or not at all. If support is not built in, a blank window will appear. Developers must remember an estimated 25% of the world still use old machines and outdated browsers. What’s more shocking, those same users must deal with slow dial-up Internet connections.

2. E-zines

Advertising with ezine publishers can be very productive providing the list owner has a target market. The old, “Fan Zine” market typically has its information embedded within a realm of influence. These skillfully crafted publications offer a specialized interest. But, one false positive exists in ezines – The quality of the list. Or, is it?  Advertisers who are smart enough to test realize this and try hard to overcome shotgun marketing failures. It could be a number of things that didn’t pass inspection by the readers. Obviously, return on investment remains in the forefront. Calculating profits will often be delayed due to unfamiliar expectations of the publisher’s audience.

3. Banners

People use banners to advertise on the Web, plain and simple. The main cycle of operation is to increase the persuasiveness of a message with graphics. Banner usage has remained steady for businesses that use the kinds of graphics that are appropriate to the role of an audience. Their subtle ways of communicating emphasizes a customer benefit in every message they produce. Why? Because it works. Or, does it? The downside is compression and it doesn’t blend in with the rest of the page. Web graphics should be oriented on the page with an active caption that is quick to load.

4. Affiliate Programs

Voted the top of its class for generating web site traffic and sales, affiliate programs offer a cluster of activities for resellers. The vast majority of e-commerce systems configure routed orders to their appropriate sales partners. Program owners virtually maintain influence over sales and enhance customer experience. However, a good working affiliate program should have the proper cookies, IP, and sessions in real time operation. This is what makes it real, because there are programs which have difficulty delivering on performance.

5. Press Release

The power of news crafted into a good story has a phenomenal affect over driving visitors to your web site. Distribution knowledge (plus) a well written and newsworthy document (equals) media attention to interested public viewers. Most importantly, if you deliver the right angle to an editor or reporter in a courteous, yet professional manner, then you have succeeded in separating real news from promotional jargon.

6. Articles

The correct use of articles have stood the test of time by being a permanent fixture to targeted audiences. This encourages problem solving at its best, however, article marketing methods designed to establish you as an expert can quickly misrepresent any business qualities. If I’m so amazed at your knowledge and so curious about what other problems you can solve for me, then be prepared for my visit to your online enterprise.

7. Blogging

A widely popular term for people with a mission to engage personal or business dealings online. Bloggers from all walks of life manage to express their own beliefs and opinions in a vibrant way. While blogging can be entertaining and a great learning resource, there’s a limit on what you can say, how you say it, and where you say it that can be detrimental to your job or business. If you plan on using blogs for personal or business reasons, write on the facts and learn how to react to any post where it involves your credibility.

8. Email Marketing

If you think email is king over any method of web promotion, you’re 100 percent correct. You can communicate instantly with family, friends, business prospects, and customers. If every email marketer can grasp the fascinating facts about the technical aspects behind their operation, things will run much smoother. All major ISPs implement a form of content filters and personal response systems that has resulted in creating a “brick-wall” effect on any sizable amount of incoming email from a single source. Ask any successful email marketer, ‘what their main responsibilities contain’, and 99.9% will say it’s what you send, clean bounces, manage unsubscribers, manage complaints, and keep the followup process active. Lot of work, isn’t it?

9. Pay Per Click

If every web marketer could understand all the intricacies of search engine optimization and page ranking, they wouldn’t need PPC. The harsh reality is if you can get it right, you’ll generate loads of targeted traffic to your site. Newly updated web applications offer users the ability to control campaigns in real time. But, in order for everything to work properly, the account manager must also become marketing manager. You don’t have to be a marketing metric statistician, however, you don’t need to pay for something you can get for free, either! Search Engine organic listings earn more quality traffic and exposure than sitting in a side bar on the page filled with other ads.

10. Podcasting

It is a client side browser activity. The type of service it provides is very similar to Radio, with the exception to being a web based learning tool or entertainment resource. Podcasting is also a rarely NOT supported system. It’s a bandwidth eater and can interrupt frequency levels and can serve you with a non-existent, or very low quality audio file. However, millions of users remain loyal to their favorite stations and individual personalities. Listeners have the power to tune in while surfing the web, thus, steering attention away from the main show. Throw ads into the mix and you now have reduced attention span levels by 50 percent.

Advertisers must have common knowledge before seeking out under-tapped opportunities, under marketed products, services or markets. Only a handful of Internet Marketers can massively increase their sales and marketing methods. Fewer still can add lucrative new income streams, products and services to a business mix. Anybody can personally engineer ways to get enthusiastic applicants. Effective Web advertising can quickly, significantly and continuously multiply profits. However, this will not stop anyone from coming up with ingenious new selling systems. It’s inevitable!

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I sat down with Internet marketing professional, Abe Cherian to grill him on what makes his Internet Empire so unique and profitable. I wanted to get a real, in-depth approach to his many long hours of hard work.

With fluctuations in the economy, business decision making becomes critical to survive. What Abe shared with me about his unique selling advantage and his profitable enterprise with powerful management tools paved the way to critical elements of modern Internet business thinking.

Steven: Millions of people from various cultures feel they need to know more ways to survive. One such way, as you mentioned earlier, is for them to take their own entrepreneurial journey. What do you say to someone who comes to you asking for this type of advice?

Abe: Great question, Steven. Entrepreneurship is not really a means to survive, but an opportunity to thrive. I mean, no body dreams of just ’surviving.’ Often times, dreams are about huge successes.

To be an Entrepreneur means turning ones dream into reality.

Being an Entrepreneur also means, a person who organizes and manages any enterprise. An employer of productive ideas and labor. A person who creates further prosperity, jobs, and opportunity in the community. A person who brings in value to the marketplace.

To me, that is a huge responsibility.

The good news is, Entrepreneurship is ‘initiated’ by a person. Nobody is born as an Entrepreneur, but any one can ‘initiate’ it.

The good news is, anyone can learn the skills necessary to run an enterprise and bring value into the marketplace.

Today we as humans have a tremendous opportunity to use powerful communication tools, and access to great information for little or no money.

Sooner or later, you will learn that, ‘knowing’ is one thing, but having the tenacity to ‘act on that knowledge’ is what makes every day people turn into entrepreneurs.

I would say to any one, who is pondering on the idea of starting a business, act on it quickly. Once you decide that this is the path that you want to take, then it becomes a journey. But, what a journey it will be.

Steven: Thinking back when you first started your business, did you have any idea you were going to become successful by doing what you are passionate about?

Abe: I have heard from other successful people, that when you do what you love to do, you will most likely enjoy success. Like most people starting out, my goal was financial freedom, but I did not have a clue that it could happen so quickly.

Success means different things to different people. I think success comes in stages. When you reach your goal of financial freedom, then success means something much greater than money.

I have a lot of work to do.

Steven: Realizing that we are still in a recession, and that millions of workers are out of a job, what impact have you seen in the Internet advertising industry as a whole from online companies going out of business? And, does it actually impact you at all?

Abe: Jim Rohn said…

“Life and business are like the changing seasons. A major lesson in life to learn is how to handle the winters. Winter time allows you to get stronger, wiser, better. The winters won’t change, but you can.

Think like a Farmer. For a farmer, springtime is his most active time. It’s then when he must work around the clock, up before the sun and still toiling at the stroke of midnight. He must keep his equipment running at full capacity because he has but a small window of time for the planting of his crop. Eventually winter comes when there is less for him to do to keep him busy.”

Fortunately, following the turbulence of winter comes the season of activity and opportunity called springtime. It is the season for entering the fertile fields of life with seed, knowledge, commitment, and a determined effort.”

Jim’s attitude and philosophy has a lot of Impact on me, and how I run my business. Watch out, spring time is coming soon! And then harvest time, and winter again for sure. The cycles are never going to change. It hasn’t for over 6000 years.

Steven: With so much business creation, start ups, and product development information available on the Internet, what sets your business apart from other Internet media marketing companies? I mean, you’re one of the leading experts in this field, what has been the key to lasting this long?

Abe: During the California Gold Rush in the 1840’s, a lot more entrepreneurs made money by selling ‘picks’ and ’shovels’. The Internet is still in the gold rush period, and my business sells them ‘picks’ and ’shovels’ that makes it possible for entrepreneurs to make profits, (tools and channels necessary for the wealth miners on the Internet).

When I started this business in 1998, I knew it was going to be a Journey of a lifetime for me. Quiting was not an option for me. I guess that is the main reason, why my business lasted over 10 years. It is one of the best things that happened in my life, so I feel no need to stop now.

Steven: I’m going to switch gears on you and would like to know your thoughts about building relationships and the core to your lead generating success. Without displacing any secrets, what core model would you consider vital to your business?

Abe: I think ‘consistency’ and ‘discipline’ is probably the best practice for building relationships and generating leads. If you are consistently searching and providing the best solutions for your clients, in a highly disciplined way, then you will see growth in your business.

The models that we use are no secret. It’s about working on strengthening the pillars that hold up the fort. The pillars are your model.

For a business to sustain and bring value into the marketplace, the first and most important model to put in place, is your ‘Cash Flow Model.’

The “cash flow model” we use are as follows, in order…

1. Front end lead generation product
2. Relationship building and support
3. Subscription products
4. Advanced relationship building
5. Up sells and one time offers
6. High ticket services
7. Constant improvement in systems and products

Pretty basic stuff. But, it is powerful if you apply it in a consistent and disciplined manner. That is why I value ‘Consistency’  and ‘Discipline’ as the core practice. Models may change from time to time, but with any model, again, consistency and discipline is the key.

Steven: I remember one conversation you and I had years ago about social networking. It was lengthy and full of ideas. What is your take on the social networking craze, and what adjustments have you made in your business to fit in?

Abe: Social Networking is one of several ‘Pillars of Marketing’. It is powerful, but it is only one of several channels to keep your ‘lead generation funnel’ stocked.

At Multiple Stream Media, we use almost all major Social Marketing channels, like Twitter and MySpace — but we have realized that ‘hosting’ a Social Networking platform gives you the most leverage of time. We launched http://www.startupnet.com with that in mind, and have been experiencing a viral growth because of it.

Anyone can start a social networking website that is geared toward a specific market with the help of Social Networking platforms like the Ning Network, (ning.com).

It’s Exciting.

Steven: You are the true pioneer of multiple stream media. Many other Internet marketing firms still believe email is the driving force behind the success of their online business. What challenges have you faced and overcome using email as technology advances?

Abe: According to a survey we did on our blog, (Msmediablog.com) a month or so ago, email marketing still rules the roost. Here are the results:

Question: What 3 Internet Marketing tactics will you emphasize most in the next 3 months?

Option 1: Email Marketing – 63%
Option 2: Pay-per-click – 57%
Option 3: Social Networking – 48%
Option 4: Blogging – 34%
Option 5: SEO Optimization – 31%
Option 6: Offline Advertorials – 8%
Option 7: Video Marketing – 8%

Email marketing has it’s challenges; but with any challenge, there are other sub-industries who take advantage of the opportunity, and come up with solutions. Email companies can now take advantage of ‘Certified Email’ services like Goodmail.com to obtain more deliverability.

Entrepreneurs who wish to profit from Email Marketing without worrying about major deliverability issues and spam, can use the list management service that we provide, http://www.imediamarketingtools.com to boost sales and build relationships.

Steven: Obviously, the best website with the best offer doesn’t necessarily mean people will purchase from you. How do you know what tools online business owners want?

Abe: True, creating a great offer is only the first stage in marketing. In order for people to purchase your product, you obviously have to find strategies that will give you maximum leverage in reaching your target audience.

Entrepreneurs now have a tremendous opportunity to use powerful communication tools, and access to great information for little or no money.

Testing is key, and there are many tools available to test and determine what will work for you. We offer tracking and survey tools with the iMediaMarketingTools.com service.

Tools are available for every stage of marketing your website.

Steven: I understand you are accepting one-on-one consultations with people who haven’t quite discovered their dreams or aspirations. How do you manage to nurture someone new to the Internet business model where they learn to empower others to become good at it, too?

Abe: For years, my team and I have been helping many aspiring entrepreneurs understand and take advantage of the Internet Medium to grow their business.

We offer free phone consultations, and one-on-one webinars on how to correctly use the tools to profit from their efforts. Anyone can call us and seek help. (845) 247 2565 Ext2.

I am working on publishing a book that will nurture, and empower, hidden dreams, and aspirations, from within people and motivate them to take action toward the first step (Stage One) in their Entrepreneurial Journey.

As you already know, Steven, I approached you for help with this book. Your experience in Marketing, and as a Journalist and writer, I realize that we can make this information available to thousands of people globally.

There are many business books available about success and self help.

What I want to share with others in this book, is my own experience in building an online business from $0 to 1 Million in sales. It’s a combination of my story and a how to book.

Steven: In closing, online advertising has challenges like any other business. Where do you see promotion on the Internet headed to in 2012?

Abe: Business owners in any Industry face challenges. Challenges are opportunities to learn. Without obstacles, no business will know what to avoid. The online advertising business is no different.

In 2012, it will be the same. Marketers will still want to find ways to promote their products. Consumers will still buy and consume goods and services. Authorities will still put in place rules and regulations that creates a safe environment for online surfers. Nothing will change. There will be huge opportunities, there will be challenges.

The only change that will happen is within YOU.

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Most businesses have no idea what it takes to get just one customer. They are so busy trying to include their marketing budget into a percentage of their sales, that during a recession they cut their ad budget. This is a huge mistake.

The very principle to continue advertising at their current level, they will eventually get their customers. But, how well do they know what one customer is worth? Calculating your customer’s worth is basically done by taking the average sale number, your profit per that sale, how much additional profit a customer is worth to you, and determine how many times they come back and buy. You will want to be very conservative when adding this up.

Next, figure out what a customer costs by dividing your marketing budget by the number of customers it produces. If you spend $1,000 on marketing and you get 1000 customers, they are costing you $1 a piece. Prospects are the same. Maybe out of that $1,000 you get 10,000 prospects for $.10.

Calculate how many sales you get for so many prospects. The percentage of prospects that actually become customers. This will be your closing ratio. If you get 10,000 prospects and you have 1,000 customers, it’s a 10% closing ratio.

Additionally, the marginal net worth of a customer is figured by subtracting the cost to produce that customer from the profit you expect to earn from them over their lifetime. Your goal should be spending less to get customers through your acquisition cost. However, this method is one way to generate customers in a short term.

The key is to try and do business for free on a front end sale where you will be attracting new customers. This will ultimately be the driving force to cut back back and reduce how much it cost you to get them. Every business right now wants as many new customers as they can get, but noody really knows how much a customer is worth. So, they end up NOT knowing how much they can spend to get one.

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As tough economic conditions have caused general advertising revenue across the board to diminish, newspapers across the nation are closing their doors entirely. Some are willing to take a chance of converting over to the Internet in hopes of keeping the local news in front of their loyal subscribers. Others who are currently using the Web to generate ad revenue have already experienced low volume ad sales.

The thing is, a local newspaper that once filled neighborhoods with the community news in print is NOT going to reach that same audience with the Internet. Why? Not everybody has the Internet that reads the newspaper. And Not everyone who does will read the online version. In fact, 23.7% of the World still does not have Web access. What’s more, 32% still uses dial-up from their remote or rural location. This makes it difficult to view all of what the media has to offer.

Newspaper owners have NO idea what they are about to face when it comes to Internet advertising. With all due respect to the industry I love, calculating profits and measuring metrics is venturing into unknown territory for most publications. With little or no way to know if online news or ads even reach their target audience, it’s shotgun marketing at its best! The only way to know is to measure it.

Online Advertising Analytics

More Web staff will be needed to help process log files for measuring and analyzing the effectiveness of their web site in terms of customer experience, return on investment, and site effectiveness. They must learn how to collect massive amounts of site visitor and usage data to provide a better customer experience and determine ROI. Employees will have to adjust with greater intelligence regarding how their online publication operates. Everyone will need to know how to execute precision marketing, effective sales, and real-time customer service. This will be extremely important in the current economy when they can’t afford to waste time, resources, or money.

Understanding Data Collection

Various niche publications that choose to place their entire operations online must enforce a niche concept that rests on the importance of customers to its company. They must determine the needs of their customers. Develop their competitive advantages. Select specific markets to serve. Determine how to satisfy those needs and analyze how well they’ve served their customers. Online sales and conversions are not enough. They need to find out who the customers are, what the customers want, where and when they want it. This type of research can also expose problems in the current news service, and find areas for expansion of current services to fill customer demand. This should also encompass identifying trends that may affect sales and profit levels.

Advertiser Experience

Every media kit from every publication is negotiable. One of the best kept secrets in newspaper advertising is how to get better rates than what the publication tell you is available. All will quote you their rate card numbers. And they will offer you a discount if you agree to do multiple runs of the ad. But, what about online ads? Will they be upfront and inform you about the banner impressions you couldn’t track? Or will you ever hear from a visitor who has been bombarded with pop-up display ads? How will they combine news and ads for a pleasurable reading experience without compromising standard business relationships? Clicking Web ads while reading the latest news column weighs heavily on whether the visitor will return to read more.

For once, newspapers hold an edge. While larger publications hire professionals to do their research, smaller ones are close to their customers. They can learn much more quickly the likes and dislikes of their customers and can react quickly to change in customer buying habits. While there is NO safe prediction on where our economy is heading, a decision to go entirely online is seldom a purely rational one. One that can influence your reader’s behavior. As you explore various techniques for presenting your publication online, do not ignore psychological and emotional appeals. It might save your paper!

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Advertising in magazines and newspapers can play a major part in growing your business. But many people go at it the wrong way. In fact, many people conclude that advertising in these type of publications don’t work for their business. However, it doesn’t need to be this way. Most people are so busy they simply don’t have time to understand how magazines and newspapers work.

If you can take a little time to really understand the concept of how to make it work, you’ll be on your way to move ahead of your competitors, because most people truly don’t.

1. Magazine and newspaper advertising is vastly different from all other advertising types, and must be treated as such. This type of advertising can (and should) be a superb lead generator, but remember you are competing head to head with dozens of your competitors. There’s no other marketing or advertising tool where competition is so fierce. Even though advertising in these publications presents you with the challenge of competing against all your competitors, you can guarantee 99% of them have ads that are ineffective. That’s your edge. As long as you follow each of this you’ll steal business from right under their noses.

2. Recognize when people find you, because they’re already looking to buy. People using magazines and newspapers (whether free of paid) are immediately excellent prospects for you. Whenever someone looks at your ad they’re interested at your product or service. This cannot be said in all other forms of advertising or marketing. When you advertise in the local newspaper your ad needs to grab the attention of the reader and convince them they need you.

With magazine advertising your ad still needs to grab the attention of the reader, however, your reader is already interested in your product or service. Therefore, your goal is not to convince them they need you, but to ensure they choose you over and above your competitors. Hopefully, you’ve learned how important it is to use a headline in all your advertising. That doesn’t mean your headline is the name of your business. This is probably the biggest mistake 99% of businesses make with their ads.

3. You must prepare in advance. Many people leave the creation of their advertisement until the last moment. They say, “Just repeat last years ad,” or “Will you create something for me?” – are things that are said all too often. Unfortunately, if you want your advertising to be successful, you have to spend time on it. This has to be just like all your other marketing and advertising tools. If you do you’ll benefit greatly – I guarantee it. And please don’t ever ask the magazine or newspaper reps to design your advertisement. They design about 60% of the ads, and they all look the same. This generally means unsuccessful and they don’t truly understand what makes a successful ad.

4. Your ad must be big enough to get your offer and message across. The owners, directors or partners of many businesses are simply happy to put short or single line entries, semi-display, or in-column ads in the magazines or newspapers, and then conclude it don’t work.

Here’s a reality check: Single line entries, semi-display ads or in-column ads don’t work. They hardly ever cover their cost. Why? Because you can’t say enough about your product services to convince people they should be buying from you or at least talking to you. Don’t fall into the same trap. Your ad needs to be big enough for you to tell the prospect why they should be calling you – and not someone else.

5. Understand the multiple ad rule. Magazines and newspapers group together different businesses in the same product or service page, and people know they are going to have a good selection of companies to choose from. It therefore stands to reason in 95% of cases every person looking for your business will follow this rule. They’ll choose one, two or three companies to call or visit. Therefore your advertisement MUST ensure your company is chosen in this case.

6. You must achieve rule five or else. If you don’t achieve rule Five, your advertisement will sit on the page and blend in with the rest. There will be no hope of gaining interest – it’s as simple as that. The only reason why magazine and newspaper advertising flops is because the ads fail to stimulate the prospect into calling or stopping by – over and above the rest of the competition. It stands to reason that if your ad doesn’t entice people to call – it will fail. I know this is obvious, but when you take a look at most of the ads in these publications it seems most people don’t understand this basic assumption.

7. You must create your ad with one purpose in mind – to achieve your primary objective. This last rule ties all the previous rules together. It’s the “mechanics” of your advertising. Your ad should be created to achieve your primary objective. For many, this is to receive a phone call from the reader, or a website visitor. For others it could be for people to walk into their premises or store. The key is this…your ad should be created to fulfill this one primary objective – and this one objective only.

Many people try to achieve several things with their advertising. You’ll never achieve great success if you take this approach. One objective means one outcome. The outcome YOU want.

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Selecting photographs and artwork is an element that can set the tone or image of your marketing campaign, but you don’t want them to be the overriding factor unless you are selling artwork. Photographs and artwork can make dramatic statements. If they are treated incorrectly, they offer no value and might be costly.

You don’t have to have photographs or original artwork in your marketing piece to get your desired goal. The proper use of typefaces, colors and white space plus simple graphics and clip art can add to the overall effectiveness of your marketing material. Should you choose to include photographs and artwork, there are some guidelines to follow.

Budgetary constraints can often dictate whether or not you use photographs. There are several ways you can incorporate photographs into your marketing pieces. You can use four color (full color), dual-tone (two-color, half-tone, reproduced from a one color photograph where the photo is originally black and white and in the printing process another color is added) which makes it tinted. Or simply use black and white.

Four color photographs are more expensive to reproduce than the other ways. They do require four color separation charges by your printer. If you can afford this process think carefully about your selected photograph. If it’s a little out of focus it won’t look any better once it’s printed. Dual tone is less expensive although the photograph will not be full color. It will appear to have color, or at the very least, be more colorful than a black and white photograph.

Black and white photos reproduce the best when they have a lot of contrast. Careful consideration needs to be taken when choosing color, dual tone or black and white. I have found that the most effective choice for an entrepreneur’s business is a simple black and white photo of the owner or a black and white photo of the owner and a customer or client.
This can build credibility.

In addition, if you use a photograph in your material, it draws the reader’s eye to that photo, so you must take that opportunity to put a caption underneath the photograph. This is a mainstay rule. Always include a caption with a photograph. Putting together your marketing material with all the right Ingredients is a lengthy, but worthwhile process. If you have someone else put it together for you, make a checklist for them. Using photographic images with the following will produce the desired results you’re looking for.

Do not use all capital letters – All capital letters will get more attention, but slow down the reading speed of the person and thus their comprehension. It doesn’t give a natural flow to your marketing piece. If you want to emphasize a certain word or a group of words, italicize them or bold them. In your headline or subhead, you can use a bigger type face than the rest of the body text. You might just capitalize the first letters of each word.

Do not fill up all the space you have to work with – If you cram too much information into a given space, it is difficult to read and the reader might lose interest. White space can be an effective design tool that will draw the reader to specific information that you wish to emphasize. However, don’t confuse this with an advertising agent when designing a space ad. Make effective use of your space in telling your story and listing benefits, but you don’t want to pack it together so closely and tightly that when a prospect looks at it, the eyestrain is so bad they don’t want to read it. There is a balance to achieve.

Do not use too much reversed type text where the background is black and letters white. You might use it sparingly to emphasize one idea here and there. Usually, it can be used to draw attention to a particular item. If it’s used for too many things, it loses its effect and nothing will jump off the page.

Do not use more than two typefaces (3 maximum). Too many type faces will cause confusion and slow the reader down. Two will draw attention to different pieces. Maybe one typeface for headings and subheadings, and one for the body text. That’s usually all you need. These two typefaces should have some contrast. The body text is usually in a “Serif’ type font and the headline and subheads are in a “Sans Serif’ type. A common type of font used is a Courier font and a Times New Roman.

Do not waste white space – Wasted white space occurs when there is a hole created somewhere in your layout that is not really part of your design. A white hole of space which has other elements all around it really differs from using white space in a good way and it will draw attention to itself instead of to a headline or a picture or body text available.

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It is extremely important to keep accurate records in any form of email marketing. It is only through these records that you can determine which ads pull the best, which advertising lead is the most enticing, and how well your product or service is selling.

Good records are the follow-up of good testing!

Keep copies of all ads and conversion material in a spreadsheet or a reliable file. You may also include in that file, or a separate folder, a record of all of the addresses you have used. The separate records per addresses or publication will help you to compare which ads are bringing in the profits.

You may have your own way of filing these ad campaigns. You’ll need a separate document for each ad you place. At the top of the document, place the name of the publication the ad appeared in, the issue number or date, the date the issue was placed on sale, the address, the size and cost of the ad, which ad you used, and the price of the product or service. This will be needed to calculate your profits later.

The main body of the document has two main categories – inquiries and sales.

First, the number of days should be listed in a column at the left. These don’t necessarily coincide with the days of the month, rather, start with the first days responses came in.

The subheads under “inquiries” should be:

- Date Received
- Number Received
- Running Total

The subheads under “sales” should be:

- Number of orders received
- Running total
- Cash sales
- Running total for cash sales

These records will help you figure out the responses to ads, orders from sales copy, and how much money you’re making.

To calculate the cost per inquiry, divide the cost of the ad into the number of inquiries received.

To find the cost per order, add the total of sending the sales copy to the cost of the ad and divide that by the number of orders received.

The ratio of conversion is the number of orders compared to the number of inquiries. For example, if you get twenty orders from one hundred inquiries, the conversion is twenty percent.

How To Calculate Profit

This is total the amount of cash sales. That is your gross profit. Subtract the cost of the product or service, mailing, conversion of the ad. That is your net profit, the one that counts. Just stick with it and you can watch your profits grow larger with each ad – each conversion – each sale.

How To Segment Your List

Building a email list for your business should be a top priority. It is the most important marketing tool where you can build a mailing list and segment them according to your geographic, demographics, psychographics and product benefits for your target market.

No email list is ever going to pull as effectively as your own email list created from thousands of prospects that your business will have the opportunity to market to, as well as the hundreds of customers who have tasted or selected or used one or more of your products or services.

Just names and addresses aren’t enough. You need to segment your prospective client email list like the big mailing houses do.

The way you do this is ask your clients and prospects their preferences. Why they purchased? Their reading habits? Their spending habits? You could ask them where they heard about you? TV? News? Interent? Radio? Paper? Other?

As soon as they become a customer, you record their purchase whether it was this particular product or that product, this service or that service. Track every purchase, every phone call you make to them, and everything else you’ve ever talked to them about on your computer.

You need to know how long they’ve been a customer. Whether they’re current on their payments. Whether they respond to an advertisement. What other subsequent purchases they’ve
made? What caused them to make those purchases? Was it a letter you sent, a follow-up? The list goes on, and on.

You want to be able to improve and offer them more things based on the pieces of information you know about them. You can segment your customer file as:

- Calculate the value of your customers. This is the value of every lost name that you don’t capture.

- Capture names through registrations, drawings, coupons, free subscriptions, consultations, charge card verifications, and photocopy their checks.

- Design surveys, registrations, etc. to solicit personal information from your customers regarding those variable, important pieces of information for your business.

Of course, testing your campaigns will allow you to clarify and organize many of the foundational procedures and processes of any business. These concepts and processes, though basic and often lost in routine are ones that, if mastered, could potentially bring you immense wealth very quickly.

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Imagine that you’re home alone one afternoon, fall asleep in your easy chair, and begin to dream. In your dream you meet someone who gives you the greatest moneymaking device known to man. It has the potential to create an enormous and unlimited amount of wealth for you.

The stranger gives you the moneymaker at no cost. But he hands it to you with serious look and warns, “read the manual first. The money maker is a two-edged sword. Use it correctly and you’ll become wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. Misuse it and you’ll encounter nothing but misfortune and poverty. It doesn’t come with a warranty and you can’t return it. But with proper maintenance and use, it will only get better. Good Luck!”

The stranger vanishes and you wake up, disappointed to realize that is was only a dream. Oh Boy! it seemed real! You were given the solution to all your material problems, and in an instant, reality took it away.

No it didn’t. The truth is that you already own a money maker. But unlike in your dream, your money maker is capable of much more than just making you rich or poor. It can make you happy or sad, literally take you anywhere you want to go, and allow you to create the life of choosing. In fact, that’s what it has been doing for your entire life. You see, the real money maker is in your mind.

Unfortunately, the real life money maker doesn’t come with a owner’s manual, and that’s one reason why it’s so often unused, misused and abused. Most of us just don’t realize how much potential is lying dormant between our ears. So, we take this tremendous gift for granted. Use it for relatively small jobs, and consider it a cruel twist of fate that a few people have so much while they have so little. We rationalize the wealth of others with statements like:

They’re gifted.
They’re a special case.
They have all the right connections.
They were in the right place at the right time.
They inherited money or can’t miss opportunity.

And let’s not forget the all time favorite, “They’re just Lucky.” Lucky? do you know that 80% of today’s millionaires are self made?

What keeps most of us from acquiring the wealth and freedom we want isn’t our IQ, family history, level of education, race, sex or bad luck. It is the way we think. Life is a game played between the ears. The way we think determines the decisions we make. The decisions we make determines what we do. And what we do determines how successful we become. Change your thinking and you change your decisions. Change your decisions and you change your behavior. Change your behavior and you change your life. Most people don’t realize this, and those who do, how many are willing to change? very, very few.

A lot more of us would be willing to change if we only realized the freedom and riches that come out of it. But that leads to a very important question. “what kind of thinking does it take to become financially independent in today’s world, working a small business with employees?” That’s the question you have to ask yourself with a perfect business mind set. With the right mind set you’ll make more right decisions and success will follow your decisions.

Are you making the right decisions today?

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I have a friendly piece of advice for those who create their own marketing and to those who sponsor it. Often, the ad that generates record-breaking volume for a business one month is repeated the following month and fails.

A campaign designed by the best ad professionals may elicit a mediocre response, yet, the same item skyrockets in sales after a 20-word classified ad with abominable grammar appears on the rear pages of a shopper magazine. It’s rolled up and tossed to homes during a rainstorm! The mystery eludes solution but demands attention.

If we look a little closer at our current economic issue, it seems corporate strength was built on price skimming. This refers to the practice of charging high prices for the purpose of maximizing profit in the short run.

It only works best when the product is unique and people are willing to pay extra just to have it. There are trend setters in society who always are looking for something new and are willing to pay the price. A larger number are followers. They will buy your product if it is accepted by the leaders. The followers however, will not pay the higher price.

It only works when the cost of development is high and there is a chance of early obsolescence or imitation by competitors. Or, you may have a strong patent position, or your product would be difficult to copy.

The real disadvantage of skimming is that it attracts competition. Your competitors will soon figure out what you are up to, and the high profit potential will encourage them to copy you. They may produce cheaper versions of your product or style, referred to as knockoffs in the market.

Once you have meaningful competition on price, your skimming days are over and you run the risk of ending up with an enormous stock of products that cannot be sold at any price. Sound familiar?

The solution is penetration pricing. This is the opposite of skimming. It is made to introduce your product at such a low price that you will quickly gain a large share of the market. The purpose is to discourage competition. However, eventually you will have to raise your prices to start making some profit, and when you do, you will learn much about customer loyalty!

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For many years marketers were in control and advertised their products and services in order to sell as much as possible of what they produced. However, there has been a seismic shift this year and it is now the consumer that calls the shots. This change in the center of control has substantial implications for marketing as traditional marketing practices have been established around the marketer in the controlling role.

At the same time, we have been witnessing an increase in the disenfranchised consumer in developed markets. This shows that marketers now have to take into account a consumer who is knowledgeable about marketing, and in many cases, cynical. They seem to de-construct marketing messages, or in more extreme cases, set up pressure groups to air their views on specific marketers or marketing practices.

The move away from mass marketing towards one-to-one and niche marketing also plays a key role. Consumers will increasingly expect marketers to deliver what they are looking for, and not a product or service that is simply designed to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible. They are looking to direct a dialogue with a marketer, not receive a monologue.

The consumer in control is one of the most important forces of change impacting on marketing today as it is changing so many of the practices and processes that are established. Through the loop has been analyzing some of the implications of this as part of its Knowledge Development Program.

This need for having greater control results from a number of factors. The over riding factor is the rise in uncertainty in life. This has occurred for a number of reasons, some of which are closer to individual consumers and some of which are more intense, but make a clear impression.

Major economic events can impact on consumer uncertainty and lead to buying decisions being postponed or canceled. It is too early to be sure of the long-term impact of the financial meltdown. However, research has shown that short-term uncertainty may not necessarily dampen longer term underlying optimism.

Closer to home, there is frequently less stability in consumers’ lives today. Changing working practices have meant that there is a job no longer guaranteed for life as we currently see it. Work may not provide the security required for consumers and their families. Furthermore, they may find that their journeys to and from the workplace are taking longer due to traffic congestion, or extensive travel miles.

Some companies have been looking to down shift, opting out of the normal working environment for a different type of life. Others will look to change how they work within traditional employment. Employers and employees have to work together to find ways to bring a level of personnel control back into the workplace.

Time and pressure is increasing. A reduction in working hours was supposed to lead to greater leisure time. Have working hours actually been reduced? In addition, there are an increasing number of activities that make demands on precious leisure time. Consequently, there appears to be less time to relax and take things easy. This adds to the level of stress experienced and a perceived loss of control.

On a smaller level, the personal information that is being collected from consumers whenever they use a credit card, visit a Web site, or telephone a call center leads to a degree of uncertainty about how that information will be used by the company. Consumers will look for confirmation about what is collected, how it is stored and how it is likely to be used. They want to retain control of their own personal data.

The current economy is also changing social patterns, which includes the fact that more women are working in increasingly senior roles. This leads to a shift in how household roles and childcare are allocated between parents. This means that there is an opportunity to help consumers maintain control over their home lives.

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You would think spending $3 Million for a 30 second ad would bolster spending sprees from the 100 million viewers. But in today’s financial slump, a prime time Television program like the Super Bowl has difficulty persuading the marketplace to purchase their products or services.

When we look deep into their marketing plan we typically find objectives and strategies that may seem appropriate during seasonal demands. unfortunately, this is where most plans begin to lose steam and become weak.

Objectives are often written for failure. Not on purpose, but due to the lack of understanding of how to develop, implement, measure and modify the objectives and strategies as the marketplace changes or new information is found. The most common error when writing objectives is that of vagueness ? making broad statements that cannot be measured.

After all, if you are not able to measure if you met the objective, how do you know if you arrived where you want to be? What indications are there to know if your plan was solid and the strategies and tactics implemented were correct?

The answer is you do not know unless you are able to measure the results. Simply stating that you want quality Super Bowl ads to improve or sales revenue to grow does not give you the ability to measure the results of the investments in your business.

How do you know if quality improved after many survey results? How long do you continue with the same strategy to improve quality? Is it improving fast enough? All of these questions can be answered by creating specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-based objectives.

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Your marketing plan should recognize the various segments of the market for your product or service and indicate how to adjust your product to reach those distinct markets. Instead of marketing a product in one way to everyone, you must recognize that some segments are not only different, but better than others for your product.

This approach can be helpful in penetrating markets that would be too broad and undefined without segmentation. No matter what you are making or selling, take the total market and divide it up like a pie chart. The divisions can be based on various criteria.

Demographics- This is the study of the distribution, density and vital statistics of a population, and includes such characteristics as:

Sex.
Age.
Education.
Geographic location.
Home ownership versus rental.
Marital status.
Size of family unit.
Total income of family unit.
Ethnic or religious background.
Job classification, blue collar versus salaried or professional.

Psychographics- This is the study of how the human characteristics of consumers may have a bearing on their response to products, packaging, advertising and public relations efforts. Behavior may be measured as it involves an interplay among these broad sets of variables:

Predisposition- What is there about a person’s past culture, heredity or upbringing that may influence his or her ability to consider purchasing one new product or service versus another?

Influences- What are the roles of social forces such as education, peer pressure or group acceptance in dictating a person’s consumption patterns?

Product Attributes- What the product is or can be made to represent in the minds of consumers has a significant bearing on whether certain segments will accept the concept. These attributes may be suggested by the marketer or perceived by the customer.

Some typical ways of describing a product include:

1. Price/value perception- Is the item worth the price being asked?

2. Taste- Does it have the right amount of sweetness or lightness?

3. Texture- Does it have the accepted consistency or feel?

4. Quality- What can be said about the quality of the ingredients or lack of artificial ingredients?

5. Benefits- How does the consumer feel after using the product?

6. Trust- Can the consumer rely on this particular brand? What about the reputation of the manufacturer in standing behind the product?

In conclusion- Life Style. Statements consumers make about themselves through conspicuous consumption can be put to good use by research people who read the signals correctly. By studying behavioral variables, such as a person’s use of time, services and products, researchers can identify some common factors that can predict future behavior determining which marketing segment relates directly towards the products or services being sold.

The real key to successful marketing is to identify the market segments you wish to reach and then tabulate the results of your marketing efforts until you find out what works best for you, and then keep repeating your successes.

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Market research doesn’t have to be sophisticated and expensive. While money can be spent to collect research data, there are many inexpensive ways to collect this data that are easily accessible to the small business owner. Several of these methods are:

Employees

This is one of the best sources of information about customer likes and dislikes. Usually employees work more directly with customers and hear complaints that may not make it to the owner. They are also aware of the items customers request that the business doesn’t offer. They can probably also give a pretty good customer profile from their day-to-day contacts.

Customers

Talk to the customers to get a feel for your clientele, and ask them where improvements can be made. Encouraging and collecting customer comments and suggestions is an effective form of research. By asking the customers to explain how the product could improve to fill their needs, constructive market research is done, as well as instilling customer confidence in the product.

Competition

Monitoring the competition can be a valuable source of information. Their activities may provide important information about customer demand that were overlooked, and they may be capturing part of the market by offering something unique. Likewise, small business owners can capitalize on unique points of their products that the competition does not offer.

Company records and files

Looking at company records and files can be very informative. Look at sales records, complaints, receipts, or any other records that can show you where your customers live or work or how and what they buy. One small business owner found that addresses on cash receipts allowed the pinpointing of customers in his market area. With this kind of information he could cross reference his customers’ address and the products they purchased. From this information he was able to check the effectiveness of his advertising placement. However, realize that this information represents the past. Present or future trends may mean that past information is too obsolete to be effective.

Your customers’ addresses alone can tell you a lot about them. You can pretty closely guess your customers’ life-style by knowing what the neighborhoods they live in are like.  Knowing how they live can give you solid hints on what they can be expected to buy.

In addition, check returned items to see if there is a pattern. Check company files to determine which items sell best, and which sell poorly.

Use creative methods to collect information. All market research doesn’t have to be done with numbers and surveys. It can be done with peanuts, as one creative discount merchandiser discovered. During a three-day promotion the merchant gave away free to customers…” all the roasted peanuts you can eat while shopping our store.” By the end of the promotion the merchant had litter trails that provided information on the traffic pattern within the store. Trampled peanut hulls were littering the most heavily traveled store aisles and even heaping up in front of displays of merchandise of special interest to customers. In short, the merchant learned how they acted in the store and what they wanted and observed their behavior.

The key to effective marketing research is neither technique nor data – it’s useful information. Customers likes and dislikes are shifting constantly so this information must be timely. It’s much better to get there on time with a little than too late with a lot.

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Most small business owners and entrepreneurs, online or offline, chose not to plan. Planning sounds difficult, time-consuming, and downright boring. After all, running a business consumes all of the daylight hours and most of the night as well – there is no time for planning. Although this point about “no time for planning” has a lot of truth to it, the risk of flying blind is too great to leave to chance. While your competition would like its activities to generate a return, your written plan turns your marketing into a planned investment rather than a hopeful risk.

Creating a marketing plan can be done relatively quickly and provides for a clear direction for your business.

The 7 Quick steps include:

- Define the purpose of your marketing
- State the benefits of your product or service
- Select your target audience
- Describe your niche
- Identify the marketing tools you will use
- Articulate your identity
- Create your budget

The purpose of your marketing defines what you will use to measure the success of your marketing efforts. It is usually a measurable item such as the number of new clients in the next three months, or the number of new business leads generated. When you assign specific numbers to your marketing program, you have the ability to see if what you thought would be a good idea really is a good idea – in other words, “How effective was your marketing program?”

When stating the benefits of your products or services, be sure to focus on benefits that your target audience will experience. Many companies confuse features with benefits. Features are inherent in your product or service. Benefits are what the buyer gets from your products or services. Your bookstore may be open 24 hours (feature), while the buyer sees convenience (benefit) that motivates them to be your customer.

Planning is all about anticipating future events and defining a direction for your company. A good plan is easy to understand, clearly links objectives to strategies, is specific and measurable, and has flexibility. As pointed out earlier, an effective yet brief plan can be written in just seven sentences. Using this approach, planning is straightforward and relatively quick.

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One great need of small business managers for 2006 is to understand and develop marketing programs for their products and services. Long term small business success depends on the ability to maintain a strong body of satisfied customers while continually increasing this body with new customers. Modern marketing programs build around the marketing concept, which directs managers to focus their efforts on identifying, satisfying, and following up the customer’s needs – all at a profit.

THE MARKETING MIX

Before the marketing mix decision is made, determine what purpose these marketing efforts are going to serve. Are they to:

¤ Deepen the customer base?
¤ Increase the market share? If so, by how much?
¤ Increase sales? If so, by how much?
¤ Reach new geographic markets?
¤ Increase customer traffic?
¤ Sell remaining inventory to prepare for a new product line?

After these objectives are established, determine a date for accomplishing the objective.

The marketing mix allows owner-managers to combine different marketing decision areas such as products and services, promotion and advertising, pricing, and place to construct an overall marketing program.

MARKETING PERFORMANCE

After the marketing mix decision is implemented, the next step is to evaluate performance. With a detailed list of company objectives, monitor how well the decisions are developing. Evaluate objectives such as:

- Market share. Has the increased share been captured?

- Sales Volume. Was the increase reached? Strategy. Did  the combinations of target markets and strategy work  effectively? Which ones didn’t? Also, evaluate the following decisions and others:

- Did advertising efforts reach the target groups? Were promotions timely?

- Did customers respond to sales, coupons, or rebates?

- Additionally, consider the following:

- Is the company doing all it can to satisfy the customer?

- Do the employees make sure the customer’s needs are truly satisfied, leading to the vial repeat purchase and customerloyalty?

- Is it easy for customers to find what they want at a competitive price?

What to look for:

Market research should investigate four areas: customers, customer needs, competition, and trends. The research conducted should answer questions like: Customers. Identify their age, income, occupation, family size, marital status residence,interests and hobbies.

Customers wants:

- Is the product needed for a limited time (diapers, for example)?
- Are customers looking for quicker service?
- Do customers want guarantees with the products?
- Will customer come frequently (for example a grocery store) or seldom (a car dealership)?
- Are customers looking for a wider distribution or more convenient locations?

Competition:

What is the competitions’ market share?
How much sales volume do they do?
How many similar firms exist?
What attracts customers to them?
What strengths do they advertise?

Trends. Are there:

- Population shifts? (Baby boom, for example)
- Legal or regulatory developments?
- Changes in the local economic situation?
- Lifestyle changes? (single parents, working women, smaller family size)

Where to get it:

There are two general sources of information that can be gathered: data already available and data that can be collected by the business.

The following sources may provide already accessible data:

- Department of Commerce
- Local area Chamber of Commerce
- Trade associations in the line of business
- Professional market research services
- Local library

Data can also be obtained by the business’ own research efforts through the following means:

- Telephone surveys
- Local and national newspapers
- Surveys sent by mail
- Surveys sent by e-mail
- Questionnaires
- Local TV and radio stations
- Interviewing
- Customer service cards

If these objectives were not reached, what were the reasons?  If they worked well, what elements were most effective?  By evaluating performance after decisions, there is reference for future decision-making, based on past results.

In addition, periodically assess customers’ feelings and opinions toward the business and how well their needs are being satisfied. This can be done through surveys, customer comment cards, or simply by asking them, “How are we doing?”

Assessing performance and asking for customer input brings us back around market research again. Your marketing plan is a continuous effort to identify and adapt to changes in markets, customer taste, and the economy for the success of your small business.

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