How to use Twitter to grow your email list

I have not yet tried to grow my email list with Twitter. I've thought about it but never took any action. Here is a guest post by Donna Gunter about this subject. Read and employ.


List Building: 7 Steps to Grow Your Email List With Twitter

Author: Donna Gunter

Copyright (c) 2008 OnlineBizU.com

Twitter is a microblogging platform that has taken the business world by storm, 140 characters per post. The purpose of Twitter is to post short updates (not to exceed 140 characters) about what you're doing at the moment, read the updates of others whom you're following (in a non-stalker way), and comment and reply on what they're doing.

All kinds of applications have been developed for Twitter, and I've discovered that people either love to tweet (i.e. submit a Twitter post) or the whole concept drives them crazy. I admit that seeing all the tweets exchanged among those I follow can be overwhelming (like being in a big instant message universe where everyone can see everyone else's messages), but I am having success in getting to know my fellow Twitter peeps and in getting the word out about my business and in growing my list.

As I became accustomed to tweeting daily, I began to wonder if I was missing a key business marketing strategy in the process, and then a colleague told me about her strategy of sending a direct message, or DM (this is a private message goes directly to your Twitter pal via email and can't be seen by others) thanking them for following her, as well as a short introduction to her business. I thought that was a wonderful idea, began to implement that strategy, and saw results immediately.

Then I read a great post by Denise Wakeman of The Blog Squad on building your list with Twitter, and knew I had to incorporate this idea into my marketing strategy. Here's the steps I took to maximize my use of Twitter to grow my email list:

1. Create a Twitter account. Your Twitter ID can be your given name, or you may want to use your Twitter ID to brand yourself, i.e. OrganizingQueen. Just get the basics set up at this point. In the setup, check both options of "Email when someone starts following me" as well as "Email when I receive a new direct message."

2. Have a freebie to give away. You may want to create a unique electronic giveaway just for your Twitter followers, or you can use the same giveaway that you already use on your site. Once you've decided what to give away, create a squeeze page and insert sales copy and an opt-in form so that you can direct your Twitter followers to this page for them to join your list and receive your free giveaway. For tracking purposes, you may want to set up a unique page to see just how many subscribers join your list from this invitation.

3. Twitter bio: You have 160 characters to describe your business as a part of your Twitter bio. Describe yourself and your call to action. Here's a sample: "Houston Professional Organizer. Follow me for free ebook to learn how to clear your clutter in 30 days."

4. Set up TweetLater.com account and welcome message: The aspect of this service that you'll be using is the ability to send an automatic message to new followers, which you should turn on as a part of setting up your account. You can choose a public or direct (private) message. Choose to send the private message. This message is limited to 140 characters, as it's a tweet, so here's a sample along the same lines as the sample mentioned earlier: "Thx 4 following. Get free ebook to help clear clutter in 30 days @ ." I have also turned on the ability to automatically follow new followers.

6. Twitter email address. When you create your Twitter account, use an email address that is attached to an account or software that will enable you to forward all new follower notifications that you get from Twitter. My email software doesn't offer that forwarding capability, so I changed my Twitter email address to my Gmail address, and used the filter capability to create a Twitter label and to forward all of my follower notifications to my TweetLater.com account.

As a part of the account setup, TweetLater gives you the email address to which you forward those notifications as well as instructions on setting up your rules for your email forwarding. What happens when this is set up correctly is that anytime anyone decides to follow you in Twitter, they automatically get your direct email message to join your list without you having to do anything.

If needed, be sure and update your email address in your TweetLater account. You can also forward these messages manually to your TweetLater email address and achieve the same purpose. In order for this to work, the email address in your TweetLater account must match the email address in your Twitter account.

7. Test your setup. To ensure that this setup was working for me, I set up a "fake" Twitter account just for testing, using one of my free account email addresses. In my "fake" account, I found my "real" Twitter profile and clicked "Follow". Within minutes I got an email message that my "fake" account is following my "real" account, and then at my "fake" account email address, I received my TweetLater direct mail message about getting my free ebook, and a second email that my "real" account is following my "fake" account.

Twitter is a wonderful tool to help you add your Twitter followers to your list, which is one way you can create deeper relationships with your target market to help them get to know, like, and trust you. Start Twittering today and begin to experience amazing list growth!


About the Author:
Online Business Manager and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com . Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com

Greg Cryns
The Little Black Book of Home Party Plan Business Secrets
All About San Luis Obispo, California

Hot tips to help you find job openings in 2009

I am not a head hunter nor do I work in job placement. But I've had quite a few jobs in my career so I do know a bit about the process finding job openings.

My son, Toby Cryns, has a great website development job in Minneapolis. Toby told me he obtained that job because he happened to be acquainted with someone who works at the company. This contact put in the good word for Toby. After a couple of interviews he was hired.

Toby is a master networker. He does it naturally without thinking about it. He loves to chat with intelligent and exciting people. Those are the people you need to help you find a job.

I think you will need to do a hurricane of networking to find a good job in 2009. Leave no stone unturned in your search. Do the things other people find too awful to do, like visiting businesses without calling first to make an appointment.

Put much less value on your resume than on your ability to make a valuable contact through networking and then somehow, some way, by hook or by crook, get in front of the decision maker wearing your best Sunday suit. Rev yourself up. Get that job. Be positive. Be special.

Once you get the ball rolling, and you will eventually, learn as much about the company as you can. Interviewers can be very impressed by people who know some little facts about their organization. Trust me, they do. They also appreciate people who shine. That is, people who have IT are impressive. What is IT? You know it when you have IT.

So, I would tell you to think way outside of the box for now. If you think a well constructed resume will get you a job by itself, I think you need an immediate course correction.

That is not to say that a resume is not important. You will need one sooner or later so spend some time and maybe some money to create the best and brightest resume you possible. A head hunter said that it takes only 7 seconds to decide if the person behind the resume is worth a phone call. He looks first for reasons to avoid calling the job prospect.

If I was desperate for a good job (or even not so good) I would hit the streets, baby. That means I would work out a map and walk into businesses unannounced. Be bold and be respectful.

Have your own business card printed up. You can get a bunch of them online for about $7.00. Put together a blog or website where you can send people to see your resume. Make them shine.

Here are some good links I found to help you land a job:

Check out Twitter's job search every day - this is a very cool tool for getting job offers and up to date news and tips

Making acquaintances on Twitter can be a great way to find a job

Hiring managers use Facebook too!

Top 3 Social Media Tips for Job Seekers

Advice and guides

Eight Tips for Job Hunting During the Recession

To KEEP your current job: How to keep your job during a recession

Frankly, I am glad I am not in your shoes. Your task is difficult but you can make it happen.

I am not going to tell you to try to earn your living on the Internet. I think your chances are better in real life no matter what you hear or read on the Internet or on those hokey TV commercial about working from home.

Be your own best friend.

Greg Cryns
20000 Credit Card Debt

Allowing COMMENTS on Blogger

If you use blogger make sure you set up the comment section so people do not have to be a Google member to post a comment.

I was wondering why I was getting so few comments when my visitor count went up every week. Well, bust my buttons, I did not know enough to change the settings!

Don't let this happen to you. It takes about one whole minute (or less) to make the change.

Click this link to read more about how to make setting changes on comments:

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=41443

I made the change a few minutes ago. Please leave a comment to test this out. If your comment does not show up or if you have any other problem, please let me know.

Greg Cryns
20000 Credit Card Debt

The Power of Twitter - a few examples

Picture by host, Greg Cryns - want to know how I put this picture on my blog? Call me at 805-226-8354. I'd like to chat with you in real life. ;)

Can Twitter make a significant difference in your life?

Possibly.

Here are some results of people like you an me. They all joined Twitter without expecting too much, I am sure.


---This fellow made a list of the most used Twitter clients
---Did you know that Twitter posts become a way to find important information?
---Guy Kawasaki (VIP Internet guru) says he uses only Twitter for social networking
---Southern California was hit by a significant quake in 2008. Twitter covered it first
---Janis Krums posted the first photo of U.S. Airways flight 1549 on Twitter from his iPhone
---A group of people raised $25,000 for a good cause in a few days with the help of Twitter.
---His site went down. A post to Twitter saved the day
---Twitter saved Neill's reputation
---The Twitter community got him a Macbook power supply in a hurry
---Read how Twitter has become an effective substitute for "word of mouth"
---Motrin (brand name) apologizes on Twitter
---Bert Decker snagged a live interview with Nancy Duarte
---monitor the most exciting presidental election
---a plane crash in Denver quickly known in the UK
---hey twitter, write a blog post for me wouldja? They did
---first such interaction between an IR and an investor
---Journalist Jason Kristufek tells how someone got a job in an hour
---first time that Twitter had ever been used to place a To-Go Order at a restaurant
---Student 'Twitters' his way out of Egyptian jail from CNN (maybe the most famous tweet)

Those are just a few of thousands of eye opening adventures on Twitter.

Do you have any Twitter experiences to add?


Greg Cryns

Website traffic - getting started

Traffic Generation without breaking the bank

If you are starting out trying to make money on the Internet, the biggest problem you will face is getting targeted traffic to your website or blog.

Using Google's Adwords program, especially in some niches like "making money online" are simply out of the reach of people when CPC costs can shoot as high as a buck or two or more.

It's not something you want to get into with limited funds. So how does one just starting out get traffic to their site without spending a fortune on advertising?

This article is going to go over a few ways that are quite effective and cost very little. At the top of the list is article writing and marketing. Not only is this cheap, it's actually something you can do for free. The only cost is the time spent in writing the articles themselves. The process is quite simple. You write an article for whatever niche you're involved in and submit it to article directories in order to get listed in the search engines. Of course you will also get traffic directly from people going to the article directories themselves.

The best directory for submission is Ezine Articles, but there are many more to choose from. Another great way to get traffic to your site without spending a lot of money is putting up a blog with content. The process is very simple for affiliate marketers.

First, you setup the blog with content. Part of that content should be a review of the product that you're promoting. Most product creators will be more than happy to give you a preview copy if you tell them that you're interested in promoting their product.

After you've written the review and put up the content, simply go to social bookmarking sites, like Digg, and bookmark your blog. This will drive immediate traffic to your site. If you use a free blog like Blogger, this process also has no cost to it.

Finally, there is forum participation. Most forums will allow you to have a signature file promoting your site. While you can't blatantly promote your site through the forum posts, by engaging in the discussions and adding valuable content to them, over time, people will begin to trust you and as you gain a reputation at the forum, they will begin to look to your signature and start visiting your site. Again, this can be done at no cost at all. You don't have to have a lot of money to begin driving traffic to your site.

By using articles, putting up blogs and participating in forums, you can begin to drive traffic to your site literally within days and at no cost at all.

Do you have ideas about how to get free or low-cost traffic? Please share in comments!

Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles

Remembering my best friend, Butch

They Will Not Go Quietly
(by Linda Barnes)

They will not go quietly,
the dogs that shared our lives.
In subtle ways they let us know
their spirit still survives.
Old habits still make us think
we hear a barking at the door.
Or step back when we drop
a tasty morsel on the floor.
Our feet still go around the place
the food dish used to be,
And sometimes, coming home at night,
we miss them terribly.
And although time may bring new friends
and a new food dish to fill,
That one place in our hearts
belongs to them...
and always will.

Butch 2003-2008
I miss you, good and faithful buddy.

Where did I put that...?

It's getting scary. I've downloaded so much material from the web that I really have trouble locating it. I did buy an external hard drive to save the good things but even that is like a black hole of digital information. What to do?


Tell me if this doesn’t sound familiar. You’re surfing the Internet and find this really cool sales page. You start reading it and you think to yourself, wow, this really sounds like it could make me a few bucks. So you whip out your credit card, make your purchase and download the new wonder.


But then the dinner bell rings and you have to go and eat before your wife starts filing divorce papers because you’re spending too much time on the computer. Well, one thing leads to another and you don’t get to go back to look at your latest purchase until the next day; except there’s a problem.


Seems that this little buying frenzy is common place for this person and their hard drive looks like something out of Fahrenheit 451. Burning the hard drive might be the only way to actually find anything on it.


Like I said pretty familiar, right? I thought so. Well, it doesn’t have to be like this. I have personally found a perfect way to deal with this problem and I will now pass it along to you. It’s a great system and I am sure you are going to love it. It does require that you keep up with it to make it work, but if you do, you’ll find your purchases flowing like water.


Whenever you make a purchase and go to download it, don’t just dump it into “My Books” or “Downloads” or wherever you put it. That’s why you can’t find anything. You need to put these things where at least you will have a snowball’s chance of locating whatever it is you’re looking for.


What you’re going to do is create a subfolder for each item you download. You can create it under any main folder you choose. Just remember what it is.

You’re going to name the subfolder according to one of the following conventions. You choose the one that you’re most comfortable with.


Date Of Purchase – You’ll name the sub folder with the purchase date of the item. Use the yyyymmdd format so that when you do a sort, the folders appear in the order in which they were downloaded and created, even if you do an alpha sort.


Name Of Author – Name the sub folder the person who’s product it is. This way, if you download multiple products by this person, you simply dump them all into his folder.


Name Of Product – For those who just want to get right to the product itself, and this is the best way, simply create a folder that is the name of the product that you downloaded. This way you know exactly what’s in it when you look for it.

Naturally, you will have to create these folders on the fly as you actually do your download. This way, you have an ongoing process of keeping track of every item you’ve downloaded. Over time, as these items add up, this system will save you a lot of time and aggravation trying to find that latest money maker.

Greg Cryns
All About San Luis Obispo

Interview with top notch Virtual Assistant - Jennifer Jarvis

(Picture: Katy Cryns, actress, writer. VA)

You've got questions. We've got answers. At least Jennifer Jarvis does.

What can you expect from a Virtual Assistant?
What does a VA expect from you?

Read my interview with Jennifer Jarvis. She owns her own VA company.

Learn more about this exciting profession at
http://www.workathomeprofiles.com


Greg Cryns
Instant Niche Emails - This is a fantastic list building tool. It is an incredibly simple way to create a year’s worth of emails for any niche market literally overnight! (also can also be used to create 52 blogging posts.

Kitchen gun - viral video example

I think you will agree that this video will be sent around to lots of people.

Greg Cryns

Work At Home Profiles

Blog what you know about and be an expert

Picture: Riverview Bobs roller coaster in Chicago. Riverview no longer exists but I know a lot about The Bobs - I rode it scores of times and I still have the bruises to prove it.






I made a Twitter post (tweet, damn, I hate that word!) this morning and I regret doing so a bit but I approve the message.

"Observation: The number of Twitter Tippers are gaining on Life Coaches. Will there be PhD's offered for both soon?"

Twitter is an easy way to become an expert at something. Not because it is so easy to learn or to explain. Talking about something that you know well and love makes it much easier to explain and makes you a real expert if you spend enough time on the Twitter site.

Not only that, if you show people the benefit of your experience you are doing more than reporting. That is what most bloggers do, report. There are not enough expert bloggers out there, in my opinion. (I am not exempting myself from that crowd either).


Sometimes I will blog about things I don't really know about as well as I could or should. ("should" is another word I try to avoid entirely). I try to stay focused but I admit that I do stray. It's not that I am trying desperately to fill space on my blog. Lately I've learned to bring in guest posts to handle those times when I don't have the motivation or energy to make a blog post.

What I am trying to get across here is this: sometimes it is better not to post at all if you are not an expert on the topic.

For example, I know a lot about article marketing. I've done research. I've written a lot of articles. I feel I can blog about that and make a connection with my readers.

But I don't know all that much about teleseminars. I think it would not be a good idea to spend time researching that broad topic and passing a short article along to you here, or anywhere. I have little experience with teleseminars except to observe that you better be ready to hear a huge sales pitch at most of them.

I know quite a bit about my home town. I know a lot about raising kids (I have seven of those that I admit to). I know a lot about selling services (I was an insurance agent for many years in the business market). I know a lot about Little Debbie snack cakes (I was a distributor for that company). I know a lot about insurances and mortgages. (I've bought and sold a few of my own houses).

I also know a lot about internet marketing in general but, frankly, there are many areas of that subject I don't know enough about.

If you don't really know much about making money on the Internet, please keep it between you and the wall.

Picture: Bubble Gum Alley in San Luis Obispo CA - home of Cal Poly and avery cool place to visit.


Greg Cryns
All About Paso Robles (I know some about this town too)

Viral - fantastic example

There are some things that you feel you just must send to your friends. These presentations are known as "viral". That is, they spread like wildfire and they can help you promote your business.

This is one of them. It is presented in shockwave and produced by Adobe. Simply marvelous.



Click on the link below and a playing card will appear on your screen...wait a few moments for it to load

Then scroll down below the card and you will see a line that has a little red slider bar in it.

Move the slider gradually to the right and stop and watch the show take place, then move it a little more

To the right and stop and another show will take place and keep doing this

Till you are to the end. The marvels of technology.
Sound ON

http://www.adobecards.com


Photo by Michiel


Greg Cryns
Instant Niche Emails - This is a fantastic list building tool. It is an incredibly simple way to create a year’s worth of emails for any niche market literally
overnight! (also can also be used to create 52 blogging posts.

Twitter hashtags explained

20 Ways To Make $100 A Day Online

Instant Niche Emails - This is a fantastic list building tool. It is an incredibly simple way to create a year’s worth of emails for any niche market literally overnight! (also can also be used to create 52 blogging posts.






If you've spent some time on Twitter you will see hashtags in some of the tweets. The hashtag is the pound sign (#). Placed before a few letters it signifies a group of tweets about the same subject. Often hashtags are used to tell people about events that are happening at that moment.

For a crisp explanation of hashtags try Denise Wakeman's blog.Here is a good video about hashtags by Facebook expert, Mari Smith:

Twitter Hashtags - What Are They, How To Create Your Own - by Mari Smith

Photo by jarrellish

Greg Cryns
Get your great domain name

Social Networking in Plain English

Instant Niche Emails - This is a fantastic list building tool. It is an incredibly simple way to create a year’s worth of emails for any niche market literally overnight! (also can also be used to create 52 blogging posts and more!)


Here is a nice video about social networking for dummies (like me)

Mortgage refinance: Negotiation Pays Big!

Instant Niche Emails - This is a fantastic list building tool. It is an incredibly simple way to create a year’s worth of emails for any niche market literally overnight! (also can also be used to create 52 blogging posts and more!)

I am at the end of my journey to refinance our house. The papers are signed. Just a few T's to cross and it is done.

We scored, IMO, with a 4.25% - 30 year fixed mortgage.

Here is why the rate is especially important to me.

Over the years I have been loathe to negotiate with the sellers of things I buy. Cars? I am a pushover. Water softeners? I overpaid about $300 for one years ago. The guy was such a good salesman. Appliances? I paid whatever the sticker said.

Now I am older. I am wiser. When I started to look for a mortgage last year I decided to play the numbers game rather than the "isn't she a great banker" game. I told my banker, Jessica, that I would be shopping around for rates. I wasn't trying to be mean, just truthy. Plus, I figured she would work harder for me knowing that I would not buy her mortgage just because.

Toward the end of the search process Jessica truly did have a good rate for me at 4.85% with one point (I would pay 1% of the total amount of the mortgage to get that rate). She also offered 5.35% with no points. That was two weeks ago.

But Jessica made a mistake that she could not forsee. I had all of the papers signed to bring into her office. She needed our homeowner policy declarations page so I stopped by my insurance man's office to get it. Lo and behold, his company, State Farm, offered mortgages at 4.5% that day. When I did the math quickly in my head I decided playing him against Jessice would make for a profitable day.

When I called Jessica I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was miffed. She was already counting her commission when I threw the monkey wrench into the issue. Bad me!

"Let me see what I can do," said Jessica. "Fine!" I said.

Pushing my luck, I called another mortgage company for their rate. Lo and behold! They made an offer of 4.25% with two points. More expensive, for sure, but sure worth considering.

I called Jessica back to tell her the bad news. This time she was resigned to fight to the bitter end.

"Ok," she said, very alert. "I can match that offer!"

I could tell by reading the financial news and by the way all of my mortgage people were talking, that 4.25% was about as good as I could get that day.

So, I told Jessica to redo the paperwork. I was going to buy her latest offer.

"You're sure now?" asked Jessica with a touch of plea in her voice. "You won't change again if State Farm or someone else makes a lower offer?"

I assured Jessica that I would stick with her now. I could sense that she was on thin ice by offering a "lock" on that rate. Later I found out that she had to work hard to get that offer since it did not exist for her going in.

What is the moral of this story?

1. With mortgages, at least, the savings by negotiating fiercely can be very significant. In this case, we will save $40,000 by getting 4.25% instead of the $4.85% over the 30 year term.

2. It makes sense for mortgage bankers and any other businesses to provide their best offer up front. If you don't, be sure to avoid sending your client to pick up information on the way to close the deal.

3. I have a friend who negotiated the price on a washer/dryer at Sears. That guy had moxie!

4. The phone is your friend! When buying things, it is much easier to negotiate vigorously on the phone. In person negotiations can be a pain.

5. Mortgage jokes are not very funny. "If you think no one cares you're alive, miss a couple of house payments."

Photo credit: woodleywonderworks

Greg Cryns
20000 Credit Card Debt
Instant Niche Emails This is a fantastic list building tool. It is an incredibly simple way to create a year’s worth of emails for any niche market literally overnight! (also can also be used to create 52 blogging posts and more!)

Prospecting in the local search market

I run a local website for my area called All About Paso Robles. This is a multi-purpose website.

First, the site lends credibility to my work as a search engine expert in my town. I also earn some Adsense income from visitors. As the visitor count rises and awareness of the site grows (it was established no too long ago) I am hoping local businesses will want to buy banner and text ads.

This week I closed a refinance mortgage on my house. The refi was a no brainer with the current rates dropping over 2% from a year ago.

My mortgage banker, Jessica, works for a local bank. She is not a mortgage broker in her own business, but the bank now provides a personal web page for her. This is interesting because my experience with banks is that in the past they are not particularly customer oriented. Banking is one of those businesses that thrive by placing advertising in the right spots at the right time. The sales efforts are limited to offering special interest rates and unique financial services.

Personal sales skills are not a bank's strength.

I gave Jessica a front page button ad and followed that up with an email:

<>

Hi Jessica,

Your ad is up on my website: http://www.allaboutpasorobles.com

As we discussed, it is essential for mortgage companies to get a high placement on the Google page for the search term "mortgages in paso robles". You have a nice web page but if no one visits that page what's the point? People use the web more often now and they also use Google most of the time to find information.

I can make this happen for you but I must charge a fee for that service as it is time consuming to put into effect.The fee is $195 (one time). I guarantee you will be on first page of the Google Local listings and possibly at or near the top of those listings. I will guide you through the process.

Let me know if you are interested. I will be working with other mortgage people in Paso starting next week. I am sure they are not yet aware of the potential provided by the Google listing but they will know very soon.

Thanks for your assistance in obtaining our refi. We are very happy with the result.

greg
|
< /snip >

I don't know if Jessica will take me up on this offer but I do know she is very interested in attracting new mortgage customers. Let's see what happens.

This post is intended to help you see that you can make money on the web in many different ways.

Greg Cryns

Work at home profiles

Targeted vs. Untargeted Traffic

Experiments and Results: Targeted vs. Untargeted Traffic
Copyright (c) 2006-2008 Trey Pennewell
Links And Traffic
http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com


Most webmasters are always looking for new and inventive ways to drive traffic to their website. There are many proven methods of getting the traffic to a website, but if that new increase in traffic does not convert into sales, then is it still worth the effort that you put into getting that traffic?

I had a discussion recently with a colleague about generating traffic from outside of our target market. As a result of our discussion, we decided that we certainly could utilize various markets to get a huge boost in traffic, but since this traffic would likely not result in any conversions, that there was really no point in spending the time and effort on going after that traffic.

In a previous "experiment" on one of my websites, I started
using the social networking tactic to generate traffic. I
bookmarked a page of my site and submitted to many of the
standard sites like, www.digg.com, www.reddit.com, www.furl.net,
www.spurl.net, etc.

By doing this, I was able to get a huge increase in traffic to
the site for a couple of days. The problem is, that I did not get
one single conversion from this new traffic. I used a catchy
headline and a good description of the article that I submitted
to the social networking sites, good enough to get people to come
visit the page anyway. But with the lack of getting a single
conversion, it really did not seem worthwhile to me to do again
in the future.

Now I know that some of you might be thinking, "Well, his sales
pitch must be terrible" or that "His website is poorly designed."
If this were the case, I would have no problem admitting to this,
but when I compare the untargeted traffic that I received from
the social book marking sites to the targeted traffic that I see
from organic searches I can see a big difference in conversion
rates. The targeted traffic that comes from organic searches
generally results in a 5-8% conversion rate. The untargeted
traffic resulted in a 0% conversion rate.


How To Talk To Prospects Who Are In Your Target Market

The above results lead me to believe that a much better use of my
time would be to focus more on the targeted market and to stop
wasting time on the untargeted visitors. There are many
techniques that can be used to find prospects in your target
market. Many of these techniques are old news to experienced
webmasters.

Some of these methods include contextual marketing through
programs such as AdWords, posting on relevant forums, improving
your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for the organic traffic,
and submitting articles to article repositories. You can also buy
paid advertising in newsletters that cater to the people who are
most likely to buy your products or services. These are just a
handful of the methods that a Webmaster could utilize to get in
touch with his or her target market.

Each of the above listed methods has their pros and cons.

Time commitment and ongoing financial commitments are two of the
cons that are mentioned on a regular basis.

The pros given with all five typically represent tightly targeted
traffic, suitably primed for conversion to paying customers.


The Dick Cheney Analogy

The Dick Cheney analogy has often been used to talk about this
subject. Should you use the Rifle Approach or the Shotgun
Approach?

The Rifle Approach lets you pinpoint your target and to hit it
with great accuracy and frequency. The Shotgun Approach is
sending a number or projectiles into a flock of birds and hoping
you hit something. Dick Cheney proved that the shotgun sometimes
hits its mark. (tongue-in-cheek people, tongue-in-cheek.)

For example, if you are selling health related products, then a
media buy in WebMD would make good sense. People browsing WebMD
are already interested in health and therefore are more likely to
buy your health related products. People who are browsing on
Myspace are not motivated to think about their own health at the
time they see your ad, so your chances of success with Myspace
ads are greatly diminished.

So, if you are going to expend time and money to attract visitors
to your website, shouldn't you take care to primarily target
people who are most likely to buy what you are selling?


Playing The Odds To Our Favor

Sure, a shotgun approach can sometimes hit its mark; we know
that. But, if your cost for advertising or time expense is
exactly the same, why aim for 1-2% when you know you can hit 5-8%
doing something else?

We still mix-and-match our advertising approach. We aim most of
our projectiles at the 5-8% conversion targets. We still aim a
few projectiles at the 1-2% conversion prospects, because it
allows us to reach people that we may not be able to reach
otherwise. But, any method that we use that consistently turns 0%
is taken off of our plate forever.

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Trey Pennewell is a writer, who writes about online marketing.
Learn more about our Pay For Results SEO services at:
http://www.linksandtraffic.com/seo-services/search-marketing.html
Trey also manages article approvals at the free article
directory located at: http://www.techcentralpublishing.com

Greg Cryns
All About Atascadero, CA

Teleseminar Security Tips

Guest blog post by my friend, Marcia Yudkin

Teleseminar Security Tips
Copyright (c) 2008 Marcia Yudkin
Creative Marketing Solutions
http://www.yudkin.com/teleteach.htm





How do you prevent people who have registered for your
teleseminar from passing around the teleseminar call-in
information to those who haven't paid for it?

This question came in from someone preparing to launch her first
teleseminar. Based on my years of experience leading teleseminars
and my conversations with other teleseminar presenters, this
worry has little foundation in fact. In most niches, this kind of
dishonesty simply does not happen.

Even so, there's no sense in tempting fate, so there are a few
steps you can take to minimize the odds of non-legitimate
participants calling in to your telseminar.

First, provide the call-in number and access code for the
conference-call line by email rather than posting it on a web
page, where some Internet-savvy people and search engines can
find it even when you haven't publicized the page.

Second, tell your paying participants exactly what to do if they
know someone else who's interested in the teleseminar. Even when
it's a free teleseminar, I tell registrants to direct friends to
the signup page rather than give them the call-in information,
because there are a limited number of slots for the call.

(Studies show that if you provide a reason for something, people
are more likely to comply with your request.)

Third, you'll most likely be able to see for yourself whether or
not unregistered people are calling in to your teleseminar. Most
bridge line providers either routinely provide you with a list of
those who called in or will do so upon request. You can simply
compare the number of people signed up with the number of people
who called in.

What you'll see, I predict, is that there are people who paid
for the call but don't show up (and do not ask for a refund)
rather than people who called in but did not sign up and pay. You
thereby come out ahead, not behind.

One firm that has a teleseminar admission fee in the hundreds of
dollars told me that they once noticed an unauthorized company
dialing into an event. If I remember correctly, they noticed it
because of an unfamiliar area code showing up in the participant
list. After investigating, they approached the interloper
afterwards in a low-key manner, telling them that someone had
called in from their company without registering, and the
offender quickly paid up - probably never to try to pull that
move again. Note that while this situation did occur, it happened
only once for this company that presented a couple of dozen
teleseminar events each year.

A last bit of advice: If you're concerned about teleseminar
gatecrashers, provide your handouts by email also, rather than
posting them on the web. Otherwise the handouts can become
accessible in web searches. See this for yourself by typing
"teleseminar handout" or "teleclass handout" into Google.
Thousands of handouts come up, some of them for courses that cost
many hundreds of dollars to attend. I believe that most of those
who posted those handouts did not intend them to be publicly
available.

Generally, however, all you have to do is simply provide the
call-in information and handouts to registrants via email and
then concentrate on delivering the very best program you can.




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Veteran teleseminar presenter Marcia Yudkin specializes in high-
ticket, high-value teleteaching courses. To find out more about
your teleseminar options, download a complimentary copy of "66
Ways to Use Teleseminars to Promote Your Business or Your Cause,"
go to http://www.yudkin.com/teleteach.htm . Discover how to plan,
promote and deliver profitable teleseminars, whether you're an
entrepreneur, business or health professional, nonprofit
organization or corporate marketer.

How to get good referrals

Picture: incredibly good looking man from Wisconsin

10 Tips to Getting Referrals

Getting referrals is not as hard as you think. It is actually very easy and can increase your business by 80%.

1. Make Your Customers Happy: Unhappy customers will not refer you. Deliver a superb product or service on time. Don't make promises you can't keep, in fact promise very little so that you can over-deliver. Incorporate a Quality Assurance Program into your business to track and improve customer satisfaction.

2. Keep Your Customers Informed: If your customers are updated periodically about your company, products and specials, they will be more likely to buy from you again when they are ready and refer you to others.

3. Make It Profitable For Them To Refer You: Why should they refer you? Because they can get a new car! No really, maybe not a new car, but perhaps a commission or a coffee mug. Make it worth their while to refer you.

4. Be Giving: If you are not right for a customer but you know another company that is, send that customer their way and let them know you did. This will be remembered by the customer who will tell others how unselfish and wonderful you are. And the other company may do the same for you.

5. Turn Your Customers into Business Partners: If you are able to add an affiliate program to your company, convert your customers into affiliates.

6. Get Your Customers Involved In Your Company: Invite your top customers to join a Customer Advisory Board at your company. This will give you insight into the minds of your customers and your participating customers will rave about you because they will feel like they are part of your company.

7. Get Your Employees Involved: Offer bonuses and contests for employees that bring you more business through referrals.

8. Ask Your Vendors and Suppliers for Referrals: They will know others in your industry who may be of need of your services.

9. Socialize in Real Life As Well As Virtually: Take your customers to lunch, go to networking events, and throw a Christmas party. But don't forget to ask for referrals while you are having fun.

10. Ask For The Referral: Before you make the sale, during the sale and after the sale you should be asking for a referral. While making the contract ask if they know anyone else who can use your services. After the deliver of the service or product ask for a testimonial. You won't get it if you don't ask.

See, getting referrals is easy. You just have to do what you should already be doing plus ask. But remember; be prepared to handle all the new business or you may end up with unhappy new customers.

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