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What is the most powerful and effective marketing strategy?

Undoubtedly, it is word of mouth marketing or publicity - the sweet little WoM. But it is not so small either. By November 2007, it has grown into a 981 million dollar industry. And experts believe that we are yet to see a bigger boom.

WoM had always been in the corner - a lot of bellow the line advertising actually tried to cash on this WoM factor. Research and surveys show that, around 80% people actually trust recommendations from friends and family members. Undoubtedly, this is a huge percentage. And the best thing about WoM factor is that - it does not have any recurring investment and spreads faster than anything (even virus).

And undoubtedly, the WoM marketers do not beat around the bush. They try to figure out the power center of a community or a group. For example, think about your college group and think about the most influential person in your group. (Mr. Geek may be very influential in latest technology but Ms. Shop may prove herself more influential in case of cheap shopping.)

Now, if Steve Jobs, needed to market iPhone in your group, he would simply convince Mr. Geek and convinced Mr. Geek, to keep his peer position would eventually pass the information to you in a more convincing way.

In this process, Steve has actually saved a lot of Dollars in advertising cost that he would have spent to inform and convince each member in your group.

Just a note: an advertisement (TV, Print, Radio or Online) does not actually sell a product. It informs the target audience about the latest arrivals (Inform and Convince - the result of Steve’s interaction with Mr. Geek).

Now, who is Steve Jobs?

If you take a look around the blogosphere, there are different classes of bloggers. Think about Om Malik, Danny Sullivan, Seth Godin - do you find any association between these people with the job role of Steve? Can we call each of them Mr. Steve?

However, every community is actually a group of different micro communities and each micro community has its very own Steve Jobs.

You are a Steve Jobs - I am a Steve Jobs and we are very important part of the WoM matrix with individual shares in that 981+ million dollar industry.  Let’s explore our capabilities to claim the money.

After you’re finished with your research on your target market’s technical know-how, you have determined the kind of technology you will use for your banner ads and other promotional materials over the internet. This is certainly a great start but you need to consider their “sensibilities” as well. For example, it is up to you to find out what kind of words, colors, and graphics will appeal to them to that you can achieve a high visual impact the first time they look into your ads. Some people are actually attracted to hard-sell antics but there are also those who are instantly turned off by them. So what exactly should you do to achieve great visual impact? Well, start with the hard facts:

Use Internal Data

If your business already has an advertising history, use it as a reference to know which ads appeal to your target market and which one don’t. Even if the materials you used aren’t tested online, there is a good chance that it will be successful if it was successful offline.

Use External Data

Gathering external data is not as complicated as it seems. You just need to develop rudimentary questionnaires about your banner design and look for a sample group and effectively represents your target audience. To know their sensibilities, show them existing ads and use their feedback to guide your future design.

Test Your Ad

Finally, testing your ad will help you asses the preferences of your target audience and know its technical effectiveness. You will be able to find out which ads are actually usable in the real marketplace.

Advertising using banner ads is not as easy as designing eye-catching graphics and placing these on the website you want. It is first essential for you to look into the feasibility of placing these ads of these websites; otherwise, this endeavor would only be a waste of time and money.

A lot of advertisers seem to prefer the (120 by 60 pixel) button banners and the (88 by 61 pixel) micro banners. The “prime” space in the web page is actually the top of the webpage because this is the area that the visitor will immediately see without the need to scroll down. If you can put your ad on these type of space, good for you. It is also essential for you to look into the website thoroughly before deciding to place your banner ads there.

Inspect the area – you need to determine which other ads will compete with your banner ad once you decide to place it on the website. Other advertisements are competing with you for the audience’s attention. You need to make sure that your ad will stand out and get noticed by the target audience.

Page content – look into the content of the website you want to place the ads on. People visit websites not for its advertisements but for information. Make sure that the website you are interested in has high quality content that complements your products or services.

Open space – your banner ad will be easier to, notice if there is a certain amount of “open” space that surrounds it; this is the white space that make some ads stand out.

Aside from the standard text link ads that Google AdWords is usually associated with, there are also various other formats that an online marketer can take advantage of if they do decide to use AdWords, some of options are summarized below:

Image Ads/Flash Ads

These are the regular banner ads displayed in a variety of shapes and sizes. For maximum exposure in the content network, it is recommended for you to use all the allowed sizes.

Mobile Text Ads

Millions of users use their mobile phones to find products and services on the internet. You can offer users the option to connect via telephone or through a mobile web page. For example, if you enter a telephone number, the call link will come out at the end of the ad. In addition, there is the “click-to-call” technology wherein people can call the advertiser when they click on the phone icon found on the ad.

Click to Play Video Ads

This is a great method to deliver multi-media information to the user. These ads look very much like YouTube videos wherein users can click on the “Play” button to activate the multi-media ad.

Text Links Ads

Currently, this type of advertisement is only available in pay-per-action campaigns. These ads are simple text links that are distributed in Google’s content network. Text links are admirable in its simplicity and its ability to blend with the rest of the content seamlessly.

Local Business Ads

These are Google Maps’ listings. When you search for businesses in the local area, Google will identify local advertisers with active business ads and provide you with the list. Local business ads are a great way to get foot traffic.

Gadget Ads

One of the newest ads option from Google, gadget ads are exciting because they are “mini-sites” within websites. A sample of this rich media ad is an ad that has multiple actions integrated such as RSS feeds, movie clips, text, and outside links. It provides a more interactive experience for the user.

You could be one the greatest Marketers of all time, have a shrine to the amount of awards and recognition you have been given. You could have written some of the best content available to mankind on your Market, Product or Hobby or pretty much anything you can think off. Designed and Marketed some of the best Adverts seen in the world. The sad fact for You is I can beat all of your hard work, months of research, teams of experts who work with you, using one single Powerful Marketing technique that wins every single time!

This big underused technique (not by the Porn industry) is Boobs, large or small, fake or real and the Good looking Sexy Woman that they’re attached too. In general they command almost 99% of the male consumer level. Men are dumb in general really, especially when it comes to Beautiful Looking Women and I am one, so I know what I’m talking about. I love women, but I have rarely used this technique to its full advantage and maybe I should start. It does leave me feeling that I’m lowering my marketing standards by using these techniques but I know they work time after time.

We all know this, just look at the shelves in newsagents for Mens, Bike, Tattoo and Car magazines. I used to buy Car Performance magazines in my youth. Those were the days when they didn’t have to use these techniques to sell their magazines, they could sell them without the use of sexual influences.

Now, it’s used by all the big names in the Magazine Industry. Not just mens but womens Magazines always have a front cover with a beautiful Celebrity on the front cover.

Why?

Because it sells the Product time after time…

This is such a simple but powerful technique and can be used effectively without being seedy. Look at GoDaddy (I’m not endorsing these guys as I do not like their service) but they do know how to market well. Look how they use women in their advertising and on their site to lure your eyes away and make you forget about how you’re not too sure about their prices. This just works and relaxes the brain by being visually stimulated by a nice looking person staring at you. It will hit the part of your brain that doesn’t think rationally.

This same emotional influence happens to women when looking at clothing and especially Shoes. Put a women in a shoe shop and watch what happens, desire for a beautiful product that will make you look sexy and improve the way you feel. Which effects the part of the brain (like endorphins which make you feel good) that will encourage impulse purchases without much thought about the price and if they really need this product or not.

They are drawn by their feelings (emotional rather than rational), the benefits, how great they’re going to look rather than the outrageous price of those gorgeous Christian Louboutins Shoes.

If you’ve tried everything and failed or maybe not failed but need a simple way to attract customers why not try this technique. Just do it in a non seedy way…

What’s your business model?

This post was guest blogged by Alan Johnson, the author of The Online Business Handbook.

So you’re ready to spend a fortune on advertising your website? Can you just picture those profits rolling in? But wait a second, is the foundation upon which you plan on building solid to begin with?

A lot of webmasters make the mistake of concentrating on all sorts of aspects related to their future website promotion or monetization efforts and end up neglecting the most important part of any project:the business model. No matter how hard you try, a structure built on a shaky foundation has no chances of lasting.

Without a sound business model, every online entrepreneur will be in for a serious reality check. Let’s take blogging as an example andanalyze things for a moment. What is your business model as a blogger?

What exactly makes you stand out compared to the millions of similar resources out there? Why would a person want to visit your website in the first place? What would he or she have to gain and, most importantly, why would they want to return?

Most people underestimate the importance of these questions and, instead, devote their entire attention to planning their marketing campaign and/or monetizing their website. They don’t realize that they are actually trying to figure out how to market and make money with a
poor product, and that the chances at long-term success are, sadly, slim to none. Wouldn’t working on developing a product which is actually worth promoting be a wiser approach?

When asked why people should visit their website, most bloggers come up with answers such as so that I make money?. But in order to makemoney, your blog needs to provide value to the Web, that’s just the way things stand. Making money as a blogger is definitely possible, but that doesn’t mean that you can succeed without offering anything in return. Why not dedicate a part of the time you spend promoting the blog to creating quality content actually worth linking to and spreading the word about?

If your article is bad, you have to literally beg other people to mention it, you would have to spend hours and hours trying to generate exposure for that article. Couldn’t that time be put to better use?

Wouldn’t investing time in order to create better articles, resources which actually provide value to readers, articles people will gladly link to be a better decision?

You need to take things one step at a time. Don’t fall into the trap of seeing everything in figures, always understand that people, not numbers will be visiting and judging your website. In the end, your ability to provide value to each visitor will make or break you as a webmaster. Think about it this way: what do you do when you come across a useless website?

That’s right, you leave and never look back. Well, guess what, that?s exactly what others will do after visiting your website if the content you provide isn?t worth it. Are you willing to take that chance?

Finding a Wholesaler/Distributor is a fairly simple process although many find this part most difficult. Nine times out of ten you are going to need to call the wholesaler as many of the decent suppliers of a product you’re interested in will not accept emails etc…

With “WebKinz” I decided to use trusty Google and managed to find a distributor in 10 seconds, I then phoned them to be given my area manager. I did the following:

“product keyword” + wholesaler
“product keyword” + distributor

That’s it.

Another very good but it is the longer, harder route (this is what people hate doing) Trade Shows. These shows are a place where you can find the vendors/suppliers you need to work with.

Just search on Google again for Trade Shows that match your business idea. There will, more then likely be a yearly trade show for your product/idea within your area. Some you have to pay for and others are free, you can turn up and speak to so many suppliers/distributors you’ll be spoilt for choice.

So with that part taken care of we now need to study our Competition. First, Basic research with some product keywords (brand name to start) I am going this to be doing this manually and not using any tools/software. So, I would just go to Google and type in “webkinz” don’t make this too complicated and just aim to beat the websites that are on the first page. We want to analyze why they’re there and what we can do to compete with them and improve on our business model to beat them.

I decided to choose three sites from the first page on Google for our brand name keyword:

Actually, some are irrelevant as they are information based sites like “Wikipedia” so I missed them out and choose actual eCommerce based websites selling the product.

1. www.webkinz.com/ -
2. www.hamleys.com/icat/webkinz -
3. www.ukwebkinz.co.uk/ -

One other website which was interesting that I might talk about in detail later seemed to be run by an Affiliate Marketer, niche site builder. I could tell this because of the Amazon and Google Adsense ads splattered all over it. So armed with the sites selling our product, we now need to Analyze the Business Model of the sites I have chosen - Keyword Search, Search Engine Optimisation, Internet Marketing, Site Age etc…

How many people are searching for your product, well, lets choose the brand name to start with and although very broad you should always aim to eventually rank well organically for your main product keyword. To give me a basis to go on I’m going to use WordTracker the results for this product are outstanding just for this one keyword. Enough to give me even more reason to open a store based around this very sort after product.

I would suggest you Invest in a paid for keyword service though, this will help you identify, organise and optimise your site for at least the top ten searched for keywords used by consumers online.

(I will update this part with some of the Tools I use soon)

I’m going to Analyze the site - http://www.ukwebkinz.co.uk/ -

Quick look at the age of the domain brings up “16-may-2007″ this is great news as they have managed to rank well for their main brand name keyword within a year and in Search Engine Optimisation terms is great going. They could optimise their “Title Tag” much better as at the moment they have “UK Webkinz - Online webstore” nothing terrible with it but it could use stronger keyphrases in the title to possibly rank even better. This would also encourage more clicks/visits to their site.

A better title would be “WebKinz Stuffed Animals and WebKinz Codes at UkWebKinz.co.uk”.

Keywords are important as well and I would take some ideas from what they have on their’s. Oh, on looking they don’t seem to have any other TAGS in their code so this is not fully SEO optimised. They would benefit from an informative Description TAG and a Keyword TAG. Outlined below is how I would set-up an index homepage.

That is a solid structure to use on all your product pages. When we get to the section of using a CMS “Content Management System” we will discuss having a unique “Title Tag” for every product and changing the keywords to match the product on the page. This is very important for SEO and will improve your organic product search results.

Another important factor in your Search Engine Optimisation is incoming links as this shows popularity of the site and is one of the many things Google uses to rank your site for any given keyword(s). They have 4 backlinks to their site which could be very wrong based on using this BackLinkChecker. If it’s that’s a great sign for us.

Very simply you would now need to build up your backlinks using a paid for service or do this or by contacting other related sites within your market asking for a link back to your site.

In 2008 this doesn’t work well so now online entrepreneurs are using Directories by submitting their site to them to build up links to their website. Another way is to purchase web links, known as Text Links which a really frowned upon - with Google anyway.

Read more about whether you should still use the paid for Text Link Ads model in your marketing efforts.

In our next update we will continue with our Competition Analysis and then move onto Choosing the right eCommerce Platform that suits your business model.

So to recap from yesterdays Post - Revealed: “Build Sites that Make Money” eCommerce Store - I now need to find out more about the products people are buying from the categories and keywords I selected.

First off “star wars” this is a no brainer in this category but very saturated as like DVDs its just simple, everyone loves it, so why not sell it? Not to say we couldn’t go into this market as we could easily. Keep your options open for now.

Very quickly I see something interesting after having a quick search about. I took a big liking to “WebKinz” now I have no idea what they are or how popular they are as a product, but after about three minutes I can see why they sell.

WebKinz are very collectable it seems (remember beanie babies?) I was suprised to see they’ve been around since 2005 (you can tell I don’t have kids yet) as I would have said they were a fad and fads are good for so long - this may or may not be a long term eCommerce Store but it is definately a popular product that is selling in droves right now. According to NPD Group the product brought in more than $45 million (USD) in United States retail sales in 2006. That makes me smile a bit more!

So, I can see many eBayers are selling them, up to and over 30 items a day on the US eBay! Retail price seems to be at approximately $4.99 depends on the popularity of the toy. Just as a guess I would say a realistic mark up would be between $2.50 and $6.00 which are low margins especially for eBayers (with all the fees) with your own store you’ll have less overheads but also have to take into consideration less traffic to start with. This tells me this business is going to be a low margin high turnover product. I have been involved in this type of business model before so I understand the need for good traffic before I see any decent sales.

The High margin, low turnover model is slighty easier as you would require less amounts of traffic to make possibly the same profits.

I know that if I can get hold of a wholesaler I can charge more than ebayers do, why is this? because eBayer buyers go to eBay with a certain mind set (they want a bargain) its been driven into them. That was eBays USP or maybe it was when they started, come to eBay for a bargain like a car boot sale.

Visitors to eBay are savvy enough (just) to know its not a real company they’re dealing with (there are also large reputable companies trading on eBay now) and buying a product from, it’s me and you the normal everyday Joe. It’s worth noting, that even though they will probably get a far better service from an eBay Seller, they will still expect the same product, service, gaurantee etc…but at a much cheaper price. It’s this ignorance that makes many eBay Sellers struggle to be successful on eBay.

This is because eBays business model was started from one mans idea of selling your old stuff and making some money in the process P2P. Then the Auction format was born, which suited this model. Once they introduced BUYITNOW (new goods) it started a frenzy of Retailers and savvy eBayers sellers jumping on board and buying stock in brand new to resell to this hungry, bargain hunter traffic. The one thing that never changed was the eBay Buyers mind set, and that was and still is I’M GOING TO EBAY FOR A BARGAIN!
We don’t want bargain hunters, we want serious buyers!

I’ve been involved with many eBay buyers and sold over $40k worth monthly so I do understand the eBay buyers mind set.

To Our Advantage:

So while some of your competition struggles on eBay we use it to our advantage to scope the market, see how much is selling, copy the model and build our very own store. I promise you will have a different sort of consumer who visits your store usually from one of the search engines.

Their thought process is so different, which makes it easier to sell to them and provide better customer service. Even though we are going to sell the same product (or service) to them, we will make more money and be trusted much more as an eCommerce Store Owner. Ironcially even if I was the same person who ran an eBay Store with the same product.

Ok, there is one thing we will have to pay for to start with, “Traffic” - organic listings and other forms of Marketing, SEO etc, will kick in later. Obviously eBay has this in abundance but you do pay for it. I hear eBay fees are getting higher and higher and possibly this does not reflect the traffic levels they are giving to their eBay Sellers?

Anyway, so far I have been able to indentify a sort after product, highlight its popularity and approximate its sales. I now need to find a wholesaler, understand its consumers, when they buy, what the HOT sellers are and what postage price would be considered as a fair one.

Finding a good wholesaler/distributor could be the hardest part in setting up your eCommerce business so, this should be set out as the most important task you finalise before actually building your store.

In the next installment we will look at Finding a Distributor then our Search Engine Competition, Competitors Website Analysis and how many people are searching for the product (daily/monthly) and more.

In this three of four part series (not sure yet) I am going to reveal how to build a Successful eCommerce Store. I was involved in setting up a very successful eCommerce store in 2003 to 2006 and now that store turns over more than $10 Million per year and is only four years old. (I am no longer a part of the company)

The positive thing about creating your own eCommerce store is that the oportunity to make lots of money is still very much there. In all markets most Stores are ignorant to their oportunity to make lots of money. In terms of their effectiveness, most eCommerce Stores are a complete waste of time.

Seriously, there are so many badly designed, badly structured, badly coded, badly optimised (if at all) eCommerce Stores that this means there is so much room for improvement. You could choose any MarketPlace and still go after the Leader in the competition and make a killing using the correct Procedure.

The wealth of tools available to Internet Entrepreneurs in 2008 are stagering and will make it even easier to compete and take the top spot away from the Top Dogs in any online market. You don’t even have to have much if any knowledge about your chosen market because you can get hold this easily and I am going to walk you through this later in the series.

So, where do you start, what do you sell? and who are going to be your consumers?

Ths online demographic has changed so much in the last few years that its not online geeks and single men that are opening up those fat wallets to spend online. Great news for us. Forrester Research stated back in 2006 that 50% of online shoppers are now females, this opens up pretty much any market you choose to sell too. Talk about spoilt for choice.

Where do you Start?

As mentioned before the tools availabe to us are almost laughable, I laugh because of how much information I can find out about my marketplace and my competitors I almost feel sorry for them! Just imagine trying to do this in the offline world…It would take forever to find out this type of inforamtion about your soon to be competitors. Now this isn’t the only key to becoming successful you need a few more key ingredients.

This statement is the most overlooked part of what I would say many online store owners fail to achieve - “Customers First, Money Second“. Remember that because I promise you if you get all else a little wrong at first you will beat your competition by Adhering to that Statement. It amazes me how manyt businesses mess this simple task up. Treat them like gold dust. I come from a customer service background and I used to thrive on it so I understand how important this is to any business. If you do not have nay form or customer service experience eithier go and get some by getting a job in the real offline world or seek advice from a customer service agent or employee a top class customer service representitive. It’s the single most best advice I can give you.

Similar to how I think about this blog in that it’s “Visitors First, Content, Marketing, Google, second“.

Start by choosing your market then we can use our tools to study our Market and within possible weeks or months have a store ready to compete if we want it. You have a variety of services you can use to do this or you can do it all manually. For the start of this series I will do it manually which may or may not be to acurrate be we can be almost on target enough to compete with them.

A service I have just signed up to is HitWise and in their own words this is what they can help you do -

Each day, Hitwise provides insights on how 10 million US Internet users interact with more than 1 million websites, across 165+ industries. Learn how to apply the Industry’s most timely and robust competitive insights to your online branding, search marketing, content strategies and online partnerships.

With a service like this at your disposal it makes it simplifies how to identify if you’re able to launch into a marketplace to compete and make a successful business. Back to the manual way of researching your marketplace.

Start with what you’re going to sell:

Forget for a second all you have read and heard about choosing a product to sell online - you can choose almost anything really, it does not need to be the most searched for keyword or keyphrase on Google. So go to eBay Pulse and take a look at what you can start selling.

eBay Pulse will help you identify what is selling but always remember eBay is a place for deals so many products that sell well on eBay may not sell well on your site. I have experienced this first hand. It gives us ideas to work on though so, I’m going to use the click and hit way of choosing potential ideas for You to start an eCommerce Store.

Don’t worry about what you like or dislike right now as unless you’re really are keen to sell something you like it may turn out to be un-successful anyway. It is better to go with something that you know is at least selling items daily. First category I hit on was Toys and Hobbies, again I just picked it with no thought out process, lets see what’s selling within this Niche.

First three Top Searches according to eBay are:

1. star wars
2. webkinz
3. fisher price

So lets drill down a few categories - I have chosen within Toys & Hobbies / Model RR Trains. I already like this so far as we have a number of store ideas.

First three Top Searches according to eBay are:

1. lionel
2. american flyer
3. marx

I do not have a clue what these search terms are at the moment but I need to find out if they are selling and in what quantities at what cost and what type of mark-up (margin) they have.

Looking to the left you can see the Top eBay sellers and their feedback level. This already gives me a good indication that this product sells just by the number of feedback they have. This can still be very misleading, so we need to delve deeper to get a better idea.

That’s it for now, we will recap tomorrow so see you then.

Kontera who I use on this blog, are offering a limited time sign up deal for new publishers. I like them so far and I am Making reasonable money, need more impressions to be honest.

If you’re not sure who Kontera are, they offer content links within any website, this allows you to utilise your great content with an added revenue source that is very unobtrusive for your website or blog. I prefer Kontera to Google Adsense having not used Adsense for a long time on this blog.

Kontera use contextually relevant keywords that are discovered in real-time on a web page from within Kontera´s vast network of publishers, which automatically turn a link into the most relevant ad from amongst Kontera´s thousands of advertisers.

With ContentLink™ publishers generate incremental revenue while advertisers reach their most targeted audience on a Cost-Per-Click basis.

Give them a try…

$25 Sign Up to Kontera (Limited Time Offer)