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Freedom is a gift and inherent to mankind - We want to live our own "online" and "offline" lives and don't like to see sanctions imposed. In this article my focus is online freedom - Yes bypassing internet filters applied in our offices, schools and universities or simply bypassing restrictions on internet surfing without anybody knowing your activities. This article is for unblocking websites and also for unblocking voice calls, in any part of the world. The technique is VPN account available at Pure VPN. VPN or Virtual Private Network as it is called is basically connecting to a secured remote server and exchanging data between just on physical IP, thus bypassing websites that are blocked by their IPs or their domain names. VPN work around is smart enough, even if the websites are blocked by domain name or even the DNS zones, it bypasses all kind of censorship and enables one to surf internet uncensored and unblock. Apart from the websites, it also unblocks VOIP, or voice calls. All voice call software is work with VPN. You just need to connect to the VPN server and that’s it - Now you will use your voice call software as if it was not blocked from ISP! Basically VPN opens up the blocked ports of voice and thus unblocking VOIP, thus VPN is for VOIP. There is no device required to run VPN on your system, no software installation is necessary on your PC or MAC - All you need is to follow simple manual steps and you configure VPN connection on your PC or MAC just the same way as you configure dial up connection or LAN. Shared IP package is enough and it is the cheapest in market. So I think this article may helpful if you have no idea that how to unblock sites.
Five Steps to Success For E-Tailers Looking for Holiday Growth
shipwire delivers “Five Steps to success” for e-tailers looking to
Grow Sales this holiday season in the
International
Order Fulfillment Service Offers Step-by-Step Getting Started Guide, Holiday
Promotion and New Features to Help Develop Sales in the
SUNNYVALE, Calif.,
August 18, 2008 –
For online retailers, the bright spot for 2008 holiday sales is predicted to
come from a 14.3 percent growth in U.S. e-commerce over last year (eMarketer, May 2008); and, expansion of online
sales abroad, giving e-tailers additional markets to pursue. In preparation for the busy holiday season, Shipwire Inc., a leader in e-commerce order fulfillment services, has
released “Five Steps to Holiday E-commerce
Success,” a special promotion offering free international order fulfillment
to support e-tailers’ overseas expansion and celebrate enhancements to the Shipwire Store-Sell-Ship™ platform
(http://www.shipwire.com/holiday).
“Large international
retailers offer online buyers local shipping options that guarantee timely
delivery of orders at ground shipping rates. Shipwire levels the playing field
and gives small e-tailers access to a global order fulfillment service
specifically modeled on successful Fortune 500 fulfillment and shipping best
practices. Online retailers have a great opportunity for international growth
this holiday season - Shipwire’s ‘Five Steps to Holiday Success’ promotion
provides a risk-free opportunity for small businesses to expand into new
markets,” said Damon Schechter, founder and CEO of Shipwire and best-selling
author of Delivering the Goods: The Art of Managing Your Supply Chain (Wiley, 2002). “The Shipwire
Store-Sell-Ship™ platform allows e-tailers to focus on growing their business
in the
International Markets Bring
A number
of variables make the current environment ideal for online retailers to grow
sales in the
Established
e-tailers are using e-commerce tools and sales processes honed in the
Currently, shipping
from six warehouse locations—with the most recent addition servicing Europe
from the
Mark Carlton of
http://www.Rockgardn.ca states, “We knew our products would sell well in
Five Step Guide and Shipwire Order Fulfillment Promotion
Gears E-tailers Up for a Successful
For
e-tailers that want to
automate order fulfillment and expand into the U.S., Canada or Europe this
holiday season, Shipwire has created “Five
Steps to Holiday E-commerce Success” guide and promotion that includes a
free trial, free logistics consultation with a Shipwire expert and a
limited-time offer of 50 orders fulfilled free-of-charge from any Shipwire
warehouse. For more information visit: http://www.shipwire.com/holiday
According to Schechter, “The Shipwire holiday promotion is
intended to eliminate cost concerns and demonstrate to merchants that Shipwire
is their partner for
New Shipwire Features and
Integrations Further Automate Sales
Building upon the proven success of the Shipwire
Store-Sell-Ship™ platform, Shipwire is also
launching new features and service enhancements in time for the holidays,
including:
Shipping Optimization: Now available for free in all Shipwire accounts. A one-button
selection in an e-tailer’s Shipwire account ensures a shipment will be sent
using the most cost-effective shipping method available from the major parcel
carriers. Don Chernoff of Skyroll.com, maker of carry-on garment bags, states, “The shipping
optimization feature will make sure that I always get the best shipping rate,
without me having to judge which carrier should be used. More shipping savings
with less time.”
Expanded International Shipping Options: With the low dollar and high European demand, the
Single-Click Warehouse Insurance: With one click, retailers can add insurance to inventory
stored by Shipwire. No longer will e-tailers need to turn to third-party
insurers and their reams of paperwork to keep their inventory properly insured
against loss. This additional inventory insurance augments the standard
Shipwire warehouse guarantees and provides the retailer with proof of
insurance.
New Integrations:
The Shipwire e-commerce developer partner and affiliate program is continuing to grow. New integrations and partners
include: Miva Merchant®, Amazon® Seller Central, NetSuite®, 1ShoppingCart®, ProStores® by eBay®, Zoovy®, and support
for the PayPal® shopping cart. Each of these integrations have a connection
wizard within the Store-Sell-Ship™ platform, insuring easy and accurate
connections with no custom development needed. For a complete listing of Shipwire compatible
e-commerce tools. E-commerce
developer tools including an API make integration easy; and, the e-commerce partner
program provides lucrative commissions.
For a complete list of new enhancements to the
Shipwire solution, and tips for retailers looking to go international, visit the
Shipwire order fulfillment
blog.
About
Shipwire (http://www.shipwire.com)
Shipwire provides
growing e-tailers with e-commerce order
fulfillment services powered by a global warehouse network and its
Store-Sell-Ship™ platform. Shipwire eliminates the hassle of storage and
shipping, so merchants can focus on growth. With warehouses in
###
Media contact: Press (at) Shipwire (dot) com
Mass Emails to Distributors Should NOT be Obvious!
by Chris Malta & Robin Cowie
Earlier today, I was talking with one of the thousands of Wholesale Suppliers we list in our Product Sourcing Directories.
Our
Wholesaler database, OneSource, provides Internet Retailers like
yourself with personally verified, legitimate Drop Ship Wholesale
Suppliers who will send single products directly to your customers,
from their warehouses, for you. This eliminates the need for you to buy
Wholesale products up front, and stock and ship them yourself. It also
gives you access to verified, legitimate Wholesale Suppliers who will
sell to you in BULK quantities, at very low minimums. This allows you
to get into the Bulk Buying market for very little money.
We
here at Worldwide Brands know ALL the Suppliers we list, personally. We
are in contact with them constantly. We talk back and forth, using
phone and email, and give each other feedback on issues we think are
important. This helps us to continue to provide you with the best
information on Wholesale Suppliers available.
So, I was talking with the owner of one of these companies today, and he gave me some feedback.
In
OneSource, there is detailed contact information for each of the
Wholesale Suppliers we list. That information includes the Email
Address you should use to contact them about setting up an account if
you want to sell their products.
This Wholesaler forwarded me an
email he had gotten today from one of our new members. At the top of
the email, as at the top of most emails, was this Distributor's email
address, in the "To:" field of the email.
Here's an example:
To: WholesaleAccounts@SomeWholesaler.com
From: InternetRetailer@MyECommerceStore.com
Sent: Today, 10:24 AM
Subject: Opening a Wholesale Account with your Company
Well,
in this email's "To:" field was the email address of the Suppliers I
was talking to. That's all as it should be; it was an email from an
Internet Retailer asking about setting up a Wholesale Account with this
Wholesale Suppliers's company.
However, ALSO in the To field of this email were the email addresses of something like two hundred other wholesale companies.
Now,
it's obvious what the new Internet Retailer who sent this email did. He
patiently gathered email addresses from a couple of hundred of the Drop
Ship Wholesalers listed in OneSource, and sent the same request for a
Wholesale Account to all of them at once, in a mass email.
There's
nothing terribly wrong with doing that. It's not a good idea, since you
really should research what products you want to sell first, and then
contact only those companies that sell those products. But, this
Internet Retailer wanted to jump ahead a bit and gather info on opening
as many accounts as he could.
So what's the problem?
The problem is that he let the Wholesaler see that it was a Mass Email.
Most
people don't understand that it takes time and effort for a Wholesale
Suppliers to set up a Wholesale Account for you. If you're selling
online, and you want to sell the products of a particular Wholesaler,
you go through their process for setting up an Account, which is almost
always free to you.
However, it's not free to the Wholesaler.
They have to pay an employee to process the account for you. Somebody
has to sit their in their office and fill out your information on their
computer system, so that the Wholesaler can open your Account.
That's
part of their business, and they really don't mind the time it takes.
As far as they are concerned, they're getting a new Internet Retailer
to work with, and that's just great.
BUT! When it's obvious to
the Wholesaler that you are writing to hundreds of Wholesalers at once,
it's also obvious to them that the time they spend setting up your
Account is probably wasted time. If you're emailing hundreds of
Wholesalers at once, that means you are not focused on what you want to
sell, you do not really care which wholesalers you are getting Accounts
with, and you have not taken the time to become familiar with that
Wholesaler's web site, products, and Account Setup procedures.
There's
a very good chance that most of the Wholesalers who see that list of
hundreds of email addresses in the To field are not going to bother
responding to you!
In other words, you're shooting yourself in the foot before you even get started with your online business.
If you MUST Mass Email a group of Wholesalers, for Goodness' Sake, use the "BCC" field in your Email Program!
For
those unfamiliar with it, BCC stands for "Blind Courtesy Copy". That
means that there will only be ONE Email Address in the To field, and
the rest of the addresses will be hidden from the recipient.
If
you don't have an Email Program that allows BCC, get one! Microsoft's
Outlook Express comes FREE with Microsoft Internet Explorer, and it has
this feature. If you have Outlook express, and you don't see the BCC
field when you Create a New Email, look in the Help files. You'll find
it. Same goes for other Email Programs. If you don't see a way to send
BCC's, check your Email Program's Help files.
Now, a little bit
about how BCC works. When you send an email to a lot of people using
BCC, you put ONE Email Address in the To field. Then you put all the
other Email Addresses in the BCC field. The Email will go out to the
Email Address in the To field, and all the other Email Addresses in the
BCC filed at the same time. However, everyone who gets that Email will
only see the one Email Address in the To field.
Okay, I know
what you may be thinking at this point. What if the Email Address you
put in the To field isn't the Email Address of the Wholesale Supplier
who gets the Email?
That's obviously going to happen. When you
send a Mass Email to 200 people, and you put one of those people in the
To field, and 199 of them in the BCC field, that Email is only going to
look right to one of the Wholesalers! All the others are going to be
wondering why they got an Email that was sent to a different
distributor, right?
Well, chances are that the Wholesaler isn't
even going to look at the To field if there's only one name there. It's
not an obvious thing, and chances are no one will notice, or even care
if they do notice. If it's a slow day at some particular wholesale
warehouse, someone might notice, though.
So, there's something else you can do to 'mask' your Email.
Go
into your Address Book, and set up a New Contact. Name the New Contact
something like "Preferred Wholesale Supplier". In the New Contact's
"Email Address" field, enter your own Email Address.
Then, when
you send your Mass Email, put "Preferred Wholesale Supplier" in the To
field, then put the Email Addresses of all 200 Wholesalers in the BCC
field.
That way, each Wholesaler will get an Email that's
addressed to "Preferred Wholesale Supplier", and they won't see any of
the other Addresses you sent to. Of course, you'll end up getting a
copy of the Email too, because you are "Preferred Wholesale Supplier",
but at least that's a good way to verify that it went out properly,
right?
Don't worry if this all sounds too technical. It's really
not hard, and a good look at your Email Program's Help Files will fill
in the blanks if you're not sure about how to do this.
Again,
Mass Emailing distributors asking for accounts is not a good idea. You
really need to spend time figuring out what you want to sell first, and
then just email those distributors who carry those products. But, you
may have other reasons to Mass Email people, and this approach works
well for them as well.
If you absolutely must Mass Email
Suppliers, this little trick is worth learning, believe me. You don't
want to alienate your product suppliers before you even start!
4 Rules for New Entrepreneurs - Practical Tips for Starting Right
by Chris Malta & Robin Cowie
It’s a great time to be an
entrepreneur—in the last decade, technology has leveled the playing
field and propelled an entrepreneurial revolution. As an entrepreneur,
you now have more access to information that enables you to make more
intelligent choices more quickly. You have an advantage over big
businesses in that you’re lighter, more flexible, and faster on your
feet. You can target new markets more quickly, and you can turn on a
dime.
But being a successful entrepreneur requires that you
look at the big picture and follow a plan through from beginning to
end. Rieva Lesonsky, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine gives
some practical guidelines that can help you when beginning your own
enterprise:
1. Don’t Quit Your Day Job.
Consider
starting your business part-time, especially if it’s online, while
you’re working and have a steady income. It usually takes six months to
a year to get a business going and you don’t want your ability to make
your house payment to hinge upon your company being an overnight
success. Start with what you can manage, financially and time-wise, and
scale up as your business grows.
2. Find Your Niche.
The
days of general stores are over. Particularly online, consumers are
looking for stores that specialize. You have to find a need—something a
specific group of people want, but can’t get at the big chain
stores—and fill it. Advises Lesonsky, “You can’t compete with the big
guys, so you have to find where the big guys aren’t and go into your
niches.”
3. Have an Online Presence.
Even if you’re
not planning to start an online retail business, consider that the
internet can still play a valuable role in your company. Having an
online presence eliminates the limitations of physical location and
broadens your customer base by, literally, millions. It’s also a great
tool for promoting yourself and letting people, even in your own area,
know that you’re there, and what you’re doing.
4. Refuse to Quit.
Successful
entrepreneurship requires creativity, energy, and a drive to keep going
when you fail. Few people realize that before Bill Gates created the
extremely successful Microsoft 3.0, he created a Microsoft 1.0 and 2.0,
both of which flopped—but he kept at it. And that determination and
refusal to give up is what will separate successful entrepreneurs from
unsuccessful ones. Says Lesonsky, “Arm yourself with optimism to get
beyond the ‘No’ or the trouble. There’s nothing wrong in failure—just
don’t repeat the same mistake!”
Virtual Staffing for Your Small Business
by Chris Malta & Robin Cowie
What’s a Virtual Assistant?
Virtual
assistants are independent contractors or entrepreneurs who provide
administrative assistance to multiple clients. Unlike regular
assistants, they work out of their homes rather than at your business’
physical location. Virtual staffing companies match virtual assistants
with small and home-based businesses who need help running things. Many
of these businesses are finding that there are numerous advantages to
using a virtual assistant over hiring traditional help:• Location.
If your office is small, you don’t have to find a place to put another
employee. This is an especially important concern for entrepreneurs
with home offices.
How Do I Know What I’m Getting?
• No Overhead. Virtual assistants provide their own office supplies, desk, computer, software, and phone lines.
• No Benefits.
They’re not your employee, so you aren’t responsible for paying social
security or income taxes, holidays, insurance, vacation or sick pay.
• Lots of Flexibility.
It’s significantly easier to find a virtual assistant who can work
evening hours or weekends — after all, they’re working from home. And
you can give them more or less hours as your needs change.
Gayle
Buske is the president and CEO of TeamDoubleClick.com, a highly reputed
virtual staffing agency. Her clients are often concerned about hiring
someone without ever seeing their face. She reassures them that,
because the agencies don’t get to meet the people they send to their
clients — often they’re in different states — their hiring processes
are a great deal more stringent. In fact, Buske admits, “We turn away
about seventy percent of the people that we interview.” Those who make
the grade go through a nine-part interview process before they're
trained and certified.
Virtual agencies try to match each client
with an assistant who fits for their specific needs. They look at
qualifications, personality and work style, and hours of availability —
both number and times. Whatever your unique requirements, they’ll work
to find someone who’s a good fit.
Common Client Concerns
• How Do I Know That My Assistant is Actually Working the Hours I’m Paying Them For?
To
allow you to track their progress, many agencies have their staff send
daily reports of their activities. They may say how many inbound calls
they received, how many outbound calls they made, how many appointments
they set, what documents they worked on, as well as how many hours they
put in for the day and their cumulative hours for the week. These daily
reports can help you stay on budget — if you see they’ve already worked
the total hours you planned to pay them for, you can push back other
projects until next week.
• How Hard is It to Work With Someone From a Remote Location?
Buske
points out, “There’s so much technology now that really facilitates
working virtually.” She contends it’s as simple as hitting the speed
dial instead of the intercom, or attaching files to an email rather
than walking them to the next room. Most of your communication will be
via phone, fax, and email. There are also online meeting programs, like
GoToMeeting.com, that let you do demonstrations and presentations, such
as for training purposes.
And their skills run the gamut —
everything from accounting to marketing to graphic design. Whether you
need someone to answer incoming calls and do mailers, or someone who
can manage your entire business when you’re away, you can find virtual
staff with all levels of skills.
Successfully Negotiating with Your Wholesale Suppliers
by Chris Malta & Robin Cowie
The prospect of negotiating with
wholesale suppliers often intimidates online sellers – and not just the
new ones. But it's a critical part of product sourcing, and according
to Skip McGrath, author of The Wholesale Buying System (SkipMcGrath.com), it's not as difficult as most people fear. He offers some simple rules to help you get the best deals for your eBiz:
Build a Relationship with Your Supplier.
In
an online world, this can seem like a big job; but make it a point to
talk to them on the phone, and to establish that there's a human being
on the other end of these transactions. You don't want to be ‘just
another email' if you can help it. If they're located nearby, consider
visiting them; if they exhibit at a tradeshow, attend and meet them in
person. In the end, negotiating is simply asking for things, and the
truth is that we are all more willing to give something to someone we
know and like, than to a perfect stranger.
Be the Sort of Buyer that You Want to Serve.
Your
wholesalers deal with the same customer service issues that you do –
the only difference is that you, the retailer, are their customer. So
putting yourself in their position shouldn't be too hard. Think about
the type of customers that you prefer to do business with: buyers who
aren't rude or demanding... who appreciate your efforts... who follow
your policies and procedures... who bring you steady business. You'll
get a lot further if, in your supplier communications, you try to be
the kind of polite and professional customer that you enjoy serving in
your own business.
Pay On Time.
This may seem like an
obvious point, but it's an important one. First of all, wholesale
suppliers often offer discounts for early payment; and secondly, if
you're seen as someone who reliably pays on time, suppliers will want
to do business with you. They have bills to pay, payroll to meet, and
manufacturers to pay, so they want to work with retailers who will meet
the payment terms they've agreed to.
For new sellers, those
terms may be cash up-front. Once you've demonstrated that you're a good
customer who can consistently move their products, a wholesaler may be
more willing to offer you credit. When you do obtain credit terms, it's
important to honor them. As you build a history of consistently paying
on time or early, you put yourself in a better position to ask for
extended terms, etc.
Prepare Your Case.
You spend a
lot of time cultivating supplier relationships, and you don't want to
damage them with poor negotiating. That's why you need to have your
facts ready in advance. For example, don't just tell your supplier that
you've provided them with steady business – have the numbers to back it
up. This will increase your credibility, and your chances of succeeding
with your supplier.
It's also important to present those facts in a way that's both respectful and professional. You can remind your supplier:• how long you've been with them
Then
ask them to consider what you're proposing, whether that's extended
credit terms or a per-piece price based on your annual quantity, rather
than on the small volume of your individual orders.
• how many orders you've placed and how frequently
• how much those orders have totaled
• that you've always paid on time
When
suppliers like you, they'll be more willing to work with you and help
you out. Says McGrath, "I once miscounted my inventory and sold more
products than I had. Normally, my supplier only offered those items in
cases, but they made an exception and drop shipped one directly to my
customer. But if I hadn't developed a relationship with them, I don't
think they would have been willing to do me that favor." Take the time
to build up your supplier relationships and to establish that you're an
excellent customer – your efforts will be rewarded.
What’s a Blog and Why Should I Have One? - Using Blogs to Generate Business
by Chris Malta & Robin Cowie
Most everyone on the internet has, at
some point, run across blogs. Blogs are simply internet journals
recording whatever happens to be on a writer’s mind at a given moment.
Typically written in an informal tone, blogs read as though the writer
is having a friendly conversation with their readers. Though blogs have
exploded in popularity, few online retailers understand that having a
blog can be a very effective way to drive sales for their e-businesses.
Getting Started
The
easiest way to start a blog is with a free commercial service, like
Blogger.com or BlogSpot.com. All you have to do is just set up an
account and start blogging. To create a blog that sits on your website,
you can go to SixApart.com and choose from several software options.
It
takes time to build a loyal base of readers, but you can start guiding
traffic to your site by linking with relevant blogs. Go to
Technorati.com and find blogs whose content ties in with yours. Link
only to blogs with content that’s useful and entertaining to your
customers. Request they look at your blog and consider linking back to
you.
For your product sales site, you don’t have to blog about
your product itself. Blog about things related to your product. If you
sell camping gear, blog about the country’s top camp sites, your hiking
trip in the Appalachians, or the best time of year to visit
Yellowstone. According to Anthony Perry, of BlogAds.com, “You can make
your customers feel empowered if you inform them to make their own
decisions, as opposed to just beating them over the head, saying, ‘This
is a great product! You should buy it!’”
3 Benefits of Blogging
In addition to educating your viewers, your blog provides you with several advantages:
1. The familiar tone of blogging creates a window for buyers to see there’s a real person behind your site.
The internet’s an impersonal selling medium, but the personal nature of
blogs creates an element of customer trust and loyalty to your brand.
2. By sharing your valuable knowledge, you’re giving your customers a reason both to stay and to return.
It’s a proven fact that the more time a user spends on a site, the more
likely they are to purchase something. The more your readers return for
your expertise, the more you increase your sales.
3. Get feedback on your products, your site, and your customer service.
Let your users leave comments, and find out what changes they’d like to
see or what products they’d like you to carry. Says Perry, “Blogging’s
a tool that lets you communicate with your customer base in a way
that’s far more intimate than a monthly e-newsletter.”
3 Things Search Engines Want to See - Using Links the Engines Will Like
by Chris Malta & Robin Cowie
Search engine companies are constantly
changing their algorithms to keep their results up-to-date.
Optimization used to be the primary factor search engines used to
determine a website’s ranking. However, it currently makes up only
about 10% of their total algorithms. What carries the most weight with
search engines now is linking.
Linking is the process of
connecting to other sites that are relevant to your target market and
that are highly ranked, and of getting them to connect to you. Google
has, by far, the largest percentage of the search engine market, and
they’re link-driven. The other search engines tend to follow Google’s
lead, so the market is moving faster in that direction.
3 Tips for Building Smart LinksM
When choosing which sites you want to link to, keep in mind what the search engines want to see:• Search engines are looking for organic results.
According to Bruce Chapman of Linkateer.com, the number one search
engine positioning firm on the web, “One of the things we try to do is
make sure every single one of our links is pertinent to that particular
type of business.” If your website sells makeup, a natural link would
be to a site that gives makeup application techniques. An unnatural
link would be to an actor’s fan club site. Says Chapman, “If it’s not
natural, it’s going to be a problem.”
Achieving Natural Results
• Search engines are looking for consistent results.
More links aren’t necessarily better. In fact, getting too many links
at once, such as by joining a link farm, can actually hurt your
rankings. Gaining 20,000 links this month and 13 links next month is
going to trip their filters and, for all your work, you’re going to
find yourself dropping in the rankings. With links, the search engines
are more concerned with quality than quantity.
• Search engines are looking for one-way links.
Reciprocal links are often just people exchanging links to mutually
increase their link counts. The search engines have grown wise to this
practice and adapted their algorithms. Says Chapman, “When one website
wants to link to another website, that’s showing that the second
website has got something of value… The one-way link is probably worth
20 times as much as a reciprocal link.”
It
takes time to achieve good positioning in the search engines,
especially with the more competitive keywords. Any attempts to trick
the engines may work for a while; but they’re getting more and more
sophisticated, and they’ll eventually catch up with you. Not only will
your trick no longer work, but you may get blackballed or be penalized
in your rankings. The best way to achieve high rankings is to give the
search engines what they’re looking for—good fresh content and relevant
links.
What’s Affiliate Marketing - Forming Marketing Partnerships
by Chris Malta & Robin Cowie
Affiliate marketing is advertising for
someone else in exchange for a cut of the sales you generate. You’re
sharing your traffic for a price. It’s a great way to capitalize on the
traffic your website’s already producing.
Being an Affiliate
If
you run a small, home-based eBiz, you can join an affiliate program and
get paid to share your traffic with another merchant. You’ll want to
look for sites that tie in with yours—things your customer base will be
interested in. Choose sites whose products are complementary to yours
without overlapping.
Before you join any affiliate program,
look closely at the merchant you’ll be promoting. Find out if they have
an affiliate earnings history—can they prove their site converts at a
specific rate? Do they have an affiliate manager you can talk to about
your marketing efforts and any problems you have? Is their program
well-established? You want to make sure they’re honest and will pay you
for the conversions you bring them.
Your goal is to make
customers want to buy their product, and then pass the customers along
so the merchant can complete the sale. Don’t just paste a link to a
merchant’s webpage and expect it to magically produce sales—tell your
customers what makes their product better than other similar products.
According to Jonathan Miller, of Team-Affiliate.com, “The sites that do
better are the ones that select one or two offers, tell people why they
recommend these particular offers, and then provide them with a link.”
Using Affiliates
You
can increase your own traffic by paying a commission to other merchants
to bring you leads. As a merchant, you should scrutinize the affiliates
who advertise for you. You’re attaching your brand to their website, so
look at their reputation—are they someone you want to be associated
with? Also look at their relevance to your target market—are they
someone that will drive the right kind of traffic?
There are
software programs that track visitors when they leave an affiliate’s
website and click through to the merchant’s site. If they convert to a
sale, the affiliate that referred them gets paid a commission. You can
track your visitors in two different ways, and each has its own
advantages:• You can purchase stand alone tracking
software, like My Affiliate Program, and integrate it into your site.
You decide what you can afford to pay marketers to promote you and make
offers based on your budget.
Says Miller, “An affiliate program can be very
lucrative for both an affiliate marketer and a merchant… But it takes
time and effort to deliver consistent results.”
• You can join an affiliate
network, such as LinkShare or Kolimbo. This is a more costly route
because the network determines the commission percentage you pay, but
they also bring you offers from the inside and give you access to their
pool of affiliates.
Email Marketing for Your Small Business - Selecting the Right Server
by Chris Malta & Robin Cowie
There are many different methods for promoting your business online, but one of the most effective is still the email campaign.
Weighing Your Options
For
emails, you have three choices of software, each with distinct benefits
and drawbacks. You can install software on your desktop and be your own
server. You can install software on the web server you’re using. Or you
can join an ASP hosted service.
The most obvious benefit of a
hosted server is that getting your emails delivered is your host’s
concern. Says Dr. Ralph Wilson, of Wilson Internet Services, “With
desktop or web server software, basically you’re responsible to get
them delivered… Whereas if you’re paying someone else for that service,
it’s their job, and many of them take it very seriously.” A hosted
server starts with a monthly fee for 500 or 1,000 emails and the price
builds as your email database grows.
With desktop server
software, the biggest advantage is the price. You can pay a one-time
fee for a desktop server and run it forever. Leasing a web server is
also fairly inexpensive.
Beating the Blockers
If you
use desktop or server based software, there are some general guidelines
you can follow to help your emails make it to your customers’ inboxes:
1. Avoid signs of spam.
There are specific characteristics that trigger spam filters. You can
increase your deliverability by avoiding certain pitfalls in your
subject lines:• Don’t use all caps.
2. Consider sender certification
• Don’t use HTML messages that are primarily graphics.
•
Don’t try to trick filters by replacing letters with asterisks or
breaking words up with punctuation marks. Filters are getting smarter,
and you could end up on a black list.
• Don’t use sloppy HTML.
• Don’t use large or small fonts. Stick with H1, H2, or H3 heading tags.
Bonded
sender companies as Habeas.com and BondedSender.com have relationships
with internet service providers. Legitimate businesses can go through
these companies to get safe passage past spam filters. There’s a cost
for this service, but it’s an effective way to ensure your emails are
getting delivered.
What to Look for in a Hosted Server
If you choose to use a hosted service, there are a number of things you should ask before joining:•
What precautions do they take to prevent spammers from enrolling? A
good host company will have measures in place, such as confirmed
opt-in, to make sure that they’re not allowing spammers to join.
However you choose to promote your business,
don’t overlook the power of email marketing to increase your customer
base and improve your sales volume.
•
Do they offer conversion tracking? Similar to an ad tracking program,
many hosted servers now let you see how many of your e-mail recipients
clicked through to your site, how many click-throughs resulted in
sales, and how much money you made from your campaign.
• What
kind of customer service do they provide? You can often tell the answer
to that question simply by how long it takes them to respond to your
inquiries. Ask if they offer full phone support and if they charge
extra for the service.
Marketing with RSS Feeds - Creating a Direct Link to Your Customers
by Chris Malta & Robin Cowie
What’s an RSS feed?
Due to the
overwhelming amount of spam on the internet, many users are turning
from traditional newsletter subscriptions to RSS feeds to get their
information. RSS is Really Simple Syndication. Besides connecting you
directly to your customers, feeds are advantageous for several reasons:
• They update automatically. Anytime you publish a new
article or blog, your readers receive it with no effort on their part,
or yours.
Where Is This Going?—The Future of RSS
• Unlike an email campaign, they don’t force you to contend with costly black lists and spam filters.
•
They’re a 100% opt-in marketing tool. Your documents are transmitted in
a mark-up language that requires your subscribers to download a reader,
like Bloglines or FeedDemon, to translate them. So all your subscribers
really want the information you’re providing.
Bill
Flitter, founder of RSS analytics engine Pheedo.com, suggests, in the
near future, feeds will become much simpler and more user-friendly.
Says Flitter, “Once RSS becomes a little bit easier, I think we’ll see
a huge surge in its use.” Firefox and Safari are already RSS-enabled,
and Internet Explorer and Outlook will be soon.
Expect to see
individualized RSS feeds gain popularity—customized feeds where a user
can choose what kind of content comes through to them. Flitter
projects, “I think we’ll see… individual subscriptions increase so you
can send information that’s more relevant to that end user… like Tivo
for the web.”
Another likely change is that news readers will
allow you to customize the look of your feed, rather than translating
every one alike. You’ll be able to brand your feed, change its style,
and differentiate it from every other feed so your customers can
recognize it easily.
How Can I Use RSS for My EBiz?
Use
feeds to send newsletters, product promos, blogs, and special offers.
You can create your content using any blog platform—Type Pad, Word
Press, Movable Type. They all generate RSS feeds—your only job is
choosing the content. The important thing is to keep your content fresh
and relevant to your audience, because with one click they can
unsubscribe. Try to balance generating sales with sharing interesting
info and useful tips.
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