However, the big game is as much of an advertising event as it is a football game, where big-time advertisers jockey to see who can make the most memorable ad. Among them was Audi, who ran a commercial for new LED headlights. No matter that bright lights disrupt other motorists’ night vision, LED’s are almost as bright as the Sun!

Capitalizing on vampiremania, they showed an Audi driving up to a vampire bonfire party and accidentally frying the vampires with its powerful headlights! The vampires immediately turned to ash, (unlike TrueBlood vampires who for the most part slowly burn to death once exposed to the Sun).

From a marketing perspective, one of the most interesting things Audi did was running a Twitter hashtag, #SoLongVampires, on the screen after the commercial. Here’s a look at what effect the video campaign had on social media:

Highlights:

• Audi used #SoLongVampires to bring the ad to Twitter. This pushed it to rank as the 8^th most popular Super Bowl ad on USA Today’s Admeter.
• Mentions of Audi quadrupled during the week before the Super Bowl; Audi released the TV ad online first and it got picked up before it aired during the Super Bowl.
• The commercial got more than 4.8 million views on YouTube by the Monday morning after the Super Bowl, and had over 6 million by Tuesday, February 7^th. Watch it here.

Mentions of Audi related to their Super Bowl #solongvampires campaign

Graph by Alerti social media monitoring and management

How do you ensure that those who have signed up to your email list actually read the emails that you send, let alone that they continue to subscribe? And how do you ensure that you benefit when people actually read it. Most problems that occur in email marketing for blogs are the result of a few key mistakes as I will now outline.

1- Too Many Updates

The biggest mistake of all is both the most obvious and the most frequently made. Regardless of how interested your readers are in your blog, they are unlikely to want constant updates about it. Not only does sending too many emails to your subscribers make you look like a spammer, do you really admire yourself to such an extent that you think that you have something amazing to say every single day.

The best way to ensure that your subscribers both read your email and continue to subscribe is to only send them the highlights. Therefore I recommend only emailing people once per week with extracts of your best posts.

2- Frequent Changes

Both offline and on, people don’t really like change and this is especially true when it comes to email inboxes.

When people open your email, you want them to immediately be familiar with the layout, style and colour scheme and therefore recognize that the email is from a trusted source that they have received correspondence from in the past. Decide on a particular style and quantity of content at the beginning and stick to it.

3- Patronizing Content

If you have signed up to enough email subscriptions, you are likely to be familiar with the whole “I love you” routine used by many internet marketers. Everybody knows that email subscriptions are sent out to hundreds if not thousands of readers, therefore don’t insult the intelligence of your readers by trying to sound like you genuinely care about them individually.

Your emails should encourage loyalty by illustrating the worth of your blog not by showering them with insincere compliments.

4- Broken Promises

One way of getting people to sign up to your mailing list is to promise specific updates on certain aspects of the niche you are writing in. Or perhaps, in one email, you promise to answer a particular question in the next email. Failing to keep such promises not only leads to a feeling of disappointment being associated with your blog, it also leads to resentment for being lied to.

Therefore only promise to include things that you definitely will include. Any advantages of undelivered promises are almost certainly short lived.

5- No Unsubscribe Button

Many people don’t bother with this and it is a significant mistake. Failing to include an unsubscribe button will never get you more readers.

People either want to read your emails or they do not, therefore not incorporating an unsubscribe option only leads to two things. The first is more unopened emails which benefits nobody and the second is significantly lower trust in your blog.

6- Recommending Poor Products

With so many products offering commissions nowadays, the urge to include them in your emails can be a large one.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with attempting to sell to your subscribers but you need to make sure that what you are selling is both a good product and one that you have reviewed and tested in detail. People enjoy being recommended high quality products and at times, this tactic can even increase the perceived value of your newsletters.

But sending out random product recommendations of poor products that you haven’t even tested is a sure fire way of losing both subscribers and respect.

In conclusion, my final piece of advice is to always ask one question when deciding what to send to your subscribers.

Would you like to receive this information in your inbox?

If the answer to this question is no, you are not only wasting your subscribers time, you are also wasting your own.

Image © NinaMalyna – Fotolia.com

Starting your own web design business can be exciting and rewarding. In a stagnent economy, entrepreneurial activity tends to increase. There is nothing better to use your talents and passions in order to create a lasting source of revenue. But starting a business takes effort, and careful planning. So, once you have established the talent and the idea, what is the next step?

Create a business plan

A business plan or model defines the core activities of the business and some basic strategies for deploying them. Businesses that can maximize their online practices and business dealings have much less overheads than traditional retail locations. Less overheads equals higher profit margins. Web design services can begin with some home office space, software, and online promotion.

As you develop your business model, you will want to define your ideal customer and develop a company slogan to be used in conjunction with your marketing efforts. Think about how you can reach potential clients in the most effective manner. Part of developing your business model should include research on potential competitors.

An important mantra in business is not to reinvent the wheel!

Take the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of another business, and to alternatively, piggyback on successful strategies.

A word of advice here (that comes after years of making mistakes): try to compete in terms of quality of service; don’t try to compete in terms of price.

Develop an online presence

Once you have your business plan, you need to open up shop. If you are going to be developing websites, you should be able to refer customers to your own website. Remember that your website serves two functions – promoting your business and presenting your product. Your website will show potential customers what type of product they can expect.

The overall look of your website is important as it showcases your abilities as a web designer.

The actual content of the website is important in order to maximize web searches. It is highly recommended that you research SEO (search engine optimization) as well as social media promotion as you design and build your website.

You should be working on your website every single day! Not only should it be constantly improved in terms of design, speed and usability, you also should be constantly writing quality articles for your blog and promoting them as the best way to attract clients is with content marketing and SEO.

Establish referral relationships

Simply putting up the “open” sign on your shop does not guarantee business. It is also a good idea to partner with existing businesses who have established customer bases. This can be accomplished with some creative negotiating and leveraging. Think about strategic business relationships, and move forward from there.

There are a lot of designers hanging around on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+. Spend a bit of time engaging with other people in your field in social media. If you build enough trust you will win referrals this way.

Once you build a website for a client, they will need that website hosted. Partner with an established web hosting company, and use that partnership to generate referrals back and forth. If done properly, these types of relationships can become mutually beneficial, and they can help a new business establish a customer pipeline. Remember that as you establish a customer base; add a page to your website highlighting testimonials, and links to completed websites.

It’s a good idea to ask past clients to write glowing testimonials and to recommend you to their friends and associates.

Sell, sell, sell

Now, it’s go time. Often in a business, the first few sales will have a snowball effect on operations. Think about promotions for the first 50 customers. Offer reductions for up-front payments. The goal is to get a small base of satisfied customers as quickly as possible. Remember that both good and bad products and services generate word of mouth advertising. Solicit referrals by offering discounts, and refer customers to your business partners as often as you can.

What do you think?

Are you running a design business or thinking about starting one? Was this advice useful to you? What barriers are there in your life or the marketplace that are stopping your success in this field? I would love to hear what you think in the comments below

They are simple and easy to implement, and the first one is:

1. A Star

A star of a sales letter is the main character that will be used to present the problem, agitate it and then, finally, deliver the solution.

This character is extremely addictive and attractive so that the prospects always want to find out what he’s going to do or say next. That curiosity is what keeps them glued to the screens when the character opens his mouth.

It’s important for you to also understand that the character is usually present in every marketing message that’s put out. Emails, offline advertising, videos, social media…

…everything.

Below, you’ll find examples of some interesting characters that guru marketers take advantage of to get fat wads of cash.

Frank Kern – His character is a slacker beach bum who does as little work as possible, jokes around all the time and curses a whole bunch. He’s just a regular guy who’s able to get what we want: freedom to do nothing, and a flood of cash coming in almost effortlessly.

David DeAngelo – David DeAngelo is the pen name Eben Pagan uses in his work. He has a hugely successful, $20,000,000 a year information business where he provides dating advice to guys who want to learn how to pickup women. He usually stars his own sales letters and tells people how he was able to solve his own problems with women to the point where he gets more of them than he can possibly handle.  Again, he relates to the market because he understands what his market wants.

John Carlton – Lastly, you have the “One-Legged Golfer”. This sales letter was what turned John into an online copywriting star  he is today. He was able to use it to position himself as a top league copywriter, and…

…you can’t blame him for that as that particular letter generated millions of dollars in sales. The star of the message was a one-legged golfer who was able to hit longer drives than pretty much anyone else.

He discovered how to use his handicap to gain an edge over his competition, and the people loved it.

So…

The one thing to keep in mind is that your character, the star of the show, can’t be boring. When you create him, you have to keep in mind what your audience thinks about when they meet him and…

…make him as outrageous, addictive and easy to relate to as possible.

2. A Great Story

I remember back in the day, when I was in high school, what I’d do is come to school, sit in the back…

…and sleep.

That’s right. I’d sleep through a good chunk of my day because I was terribly bored. The classes were full of dry information that I’d need to learn, and my brain just couldn’t take it.

But there’s one class I loved, though.

My history teacher was an incredibly powerful storyteller and he used his skills to get us involved in his class. I can still see those kids’ faces eager to find out what’s going to happen in the story.

That’s exactly what you want when it comes to your copy . You want people to be stoked to find out what’s next.

Now, how do you do that?

The best way for me to get that accomplished is through utilizing nested loops. The concept is really quite simple and it’s used all over the entertainment industry.

What you do is start two or three different plots and as you finish one, you start another one, so that there are always unfinished plots. Of course, whoever will read your sales copy will want to get the plots closed, and to do that, they’ll have to…

…keep reading!

Just to give you a quick example, take a look at this short story:

I was walking down the street, when I saw this man with a baseball bat in his hand. I did not pay much attention to him, except for the fact that there was a tiny speck of blood on the bat that I couldn’t take my eyes off of. There really was something weird about that blood…

The man was looking at me kind of strange and I actually had a feeling he was going to start running towards me to show me what’s up. Instead, he just stood there, more and more afraid of what’s going to happen…

Now, I’d like you to notice how we opened a few loops in those few sentences. First, you have a guy with a bloody baseball bat, then you have the fact that he was angry and scared at the same time and lastly you have that something that’s going to happen at the end.

You could take those loops and close them however you want. It’s extremely easy. Try it.

When you use stories in copywriting, you need to make sure they’re short, don’t hard sell, illustrate the problem and also lead into the solution (which would be presented at the end of the story by the character we just talked about a few paragraphs before.)

3. The Solution

There’s a well known truth about people and marketing which makes huge amounts of money to those that can take advantage of it.

We are hard wired to buy on impulse and the decision to make a purchase is completely emotional. Only after we’ve made that decision to buy what we want, do we start to justify our emotions with logic.

Here’s what I mean:

When we buy a Ferrari, it’s not the car we’re mostly concerned about. We want the stories we’ll be able to tell because of it, the prestige it’ll give us and the feeling of being part of that choice group of Ferrari owners.

I mean, up until recently, it was pretty much impossible to just buy a Ferrari. You had to wait in line to get it because they’re all sold out. Now, they’re outrageously expensive, so if you have one, you rock!

And that rocking was what matters.

It’s the emotions that sell, so you have to sell to the emotions.

When you write your copy, you want to let your prospects know how they’re going to feel when they get your product. How awesome their life will be when they buy it and how much better they will be as a result of having what you got to give.

Paint a pleasing picture in their mind and they’ll be all yours…

Below you’ll find a list of emotional reasons why people buy:

• To look better

• To gain prestige

• To eliminate fear

• To show off

• To eliminate pain

• To get rich quickly

• To gain status

Another thing you have to remember is to sell to those emotions in your features and benefits.

When you describe the product, you want to make sure you let your prospects know what it will do for them, but also how the benefits of having what you sell address the emotional needs they need fulfilled.

For example:

• With the Cold Sore Killer, you’ll get rid of cold sores in just 4 short hours which will get you looking great for tonight’s night out.

• This book presents 6 unique ways to make at least $327 a day starting in 5 days from now, so that you don’t only have money for Christmas, but also never have to worry about bills, groceries or even getting that extra car if you need it.

See what I did? I took my product, pointed out some key benefits and connected them to the emotional needs your audience has.

These are the three safely guarded secrets all of the gurus out there use to make more money than they can possibly spend. Use them and you’ll see awesome results and a bunch of cash coming right into your bank account.

Image © digieye – Fotolia.com

Affiliate Marketing is the easiest way to start making money on the internet and is your first step towards the long and intriguing journey as an Internet Marketer. The key to your success in affiliate marketing is a perpetual flow of highly targeted traffic. The higher and more targeted the traffic to your blog, the more profits you make.

But, before getting your feet wet into the “wild-whacky” world of affiliate marketing there are certain crucial factors that you must consider; which will not only help you leverage your sales but also secure your hard earned commissions from commission thieves.

In this post I am going to share some of those affiliate marketing tips that will benefit both newbies and seasoned affiliate marketers alike in making maximum profits out of their ventures

What is affiliate marketing anyway?

I thought I will start off with these 2 easy definitions that I found on the internet that will make it crystal clear what affiliate marketing is all about.

“Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. … ” (Source – wikipedia.org)

“A popular way to make money online where you have a merchant that is willing to let other people (affiliates) sell his own products or services, in exchange for a commission. Commissions can be fixed or variable, and based on clicks, leads or sales.” (Source www.dailyblogtips.com)

Crucial Factors to Consider Before You Start

Consider It As Real Business – Affiliate marketing must be treated as a real business which requires a lot of planning, discipline and consistent hard work to be successful.

There is a myth amongst some first time affiliate marketers and internet users that affiliate marketing doesn’t require any discipline, hard work or ethics and is all about spamming on various platforms like forums, websites, emails or social networking sites. It’s totally baseless and utter nonsense. The marketers who have adopted the path of spamming had to pay a heavy price by risking their business and reputation.

Thorough Market Research – This is the most critical step before promoting an affiliate product and highly crucial for the success of your business.

You must carry out an in-depth research of the niche market that you are planning to enter and ensure that there is enough buyer traffic that converts well to make your business profitable.

Some of the free tools and sites for performing market research,

• Google Insights
• Google Trends
• Google Adwords Keyword Tool
• eBay.com
• Amazon.com
• Dummies.com

All the 3 Google tools are a must for the success of any online business owner and will give you a wealth of insightful information about your market. The Google Adwords Keyword Tool will tell you how competitive a keyword is and whether it is easy to rank for that keyword on the search engines or not. So you must definitely make the maximum out of these amazing tools by Google.

My recommendation is to infiltrate into a market that has a moderate competition. You can easily find that out by typing  your targeted keyword into Google and hitting the “search” button. The higher the number of results (about XXXXX results), the harder it will be to rank for that keyword in the first pages of the search engines.

You can also visit online shopping websites like ebay.com, dummies.com and amazon.com and check whether similar products exist. If they do, you can be dead sure that there is a demand for such products and can definitely make some profit promoting them.

By the way, Amazon.com has a great feature called customer reviews, which will help you study the customer’s perception about similar products.

Try Out Before Promoting – It is always good practice to try out a product before promoting it.

This will help you write reviews that sound more authentic to the readers and there is a greater chance that they will buy it from your affiliate link. If it’s an eBook that you are promoting, you can ask for a review copy from the author, he will be more than happy to offer you one, and if it’s an online service you can ask the vendor to give access to the site for a few days.

Knowing Clickbank Marketplace – If you are an affiliate marketer you must have heard about Clickbank at least once.

Clickbank.com is the best place to start your affiliate marketing journey especially if you are a newbie. You can sign up for free and start promoting from over thousands of digital products under various categories. But while choosing a product, make sure you pick one with gravity of at least 7 and a low refund rate. Gravity indicates the number of affiliates who have successfully made sales in the past week and a half or so.

You can use this free online refund calculator to find out the refund rates of a particular Clickbank product.

Protecting Your Affiliate links – It’s very important to protect your affiliate links from those online thugs prying around to steal your hard earned commissions.

Protecting your affiliate links can be called cloaking. Cloaking doesn’t just prevent commission thefts but also hides those weird looking affiliate links from your readers.

Well, how can someone steal your commissions? It’s easy! When a potential thief finds a Clickbank affiliate link with a “hop=YOURID” at the end, they might sign up as an affiliate with Clickbank.com and buy that product using their affiliate link instead of yours, saving them money and depriving you of your precious commissions.

I personally use these 2 methods to protect my affiliate link.

1. You can cloak your affiliate links by using this free tool called profit protector that you can download and use as a desktop application. I personally recommend this tool for protecting Clickbank affiliate links.
2. You can also use a PHP 301 “moved permanently” redirection for your affiliate links for making it SEO friendly. All you need to do is put the code in a notepad, replace the location address with your affiliate link, save it as a (SOMENAME.PHP) *.PHP file and upload it to your server (preferably under a directory that’s named “goto” or “recommends”). Now, if you want to send your visitor to the vendor site through your affiliate link you can just use this PHP file. (eg. http://www[dot]yourdomain[dot]com/goto/SOMENAME.php). Please click on the link on point no. 2 to learn more about how to use a PHP 301 redirection on your affiliate link.

Review Sites Are The Best – Review sites work very well for promoting affiliate products.

In a review site you can compare, dissect and rate similar products and give your unbiased views about them to your readers. While reviewing affiliate products, you must never sound overly promotional like a snake-oil salesman hard-selling their products. Your reviews must sound un-biased and neutral to your readers. Nevertheless, there must be an easy to spot, strong “call-to-action” link (affiliate link) at the end of each review (eg “click on this link to visit the vendor’s site”) that takes them to the vendor’s sales page.

There are a variety of other promotional methods like article marketing, PPC ads, Social Media Marketing, video marketing and email marketing and so on that you can use to double or triple your sales. Interestingly, you will discover even smarter ways to promote your business if you are a person who always likes to explore new things, a keen learner who can think out of the box and can use a bit of creativity.

Conclusion

I think I have covered some of the most crucial factors to consider before starting with affiliate marketing. I hope these points will help you transform your business into a more streamlined and profitable one! You will surely start picking things up and learn the intricacies of this business as you go. Remember, Affiliate marketing is pretty exciting and lucrative – if done the right way. So all the best and wishing you all the success!

Please do leave your valuable feedback about this post as a comment!

Image © Tomasz Trojanowski – Fotolia.com

Another cool WordPress plugin called  IM Graphics Plugin by Andy Bailey the creator of CommentLuv, this plugin solve a huge problem that most of us are facing while building landing pages or sales pages, which is finding and adding graphics to pages.

We all know that internet marketers are not designers, however there could be few skilled people, but most of marketers do not have the time to learn design to be able to create their own web graphics, however this is possiable, but dosn’t make sense! I mean there are tons of great design elements made by professional designers, so why wasting your time learning something you will use only a few times, it would make more sense if you go for a ready made solution that saves you time.

What to expect from IM Graphics Plugin

let me ask you…

1. What about a plugin that has many pre-made graphics that is ready for your to use on your landing pages or sales pages?
2. Also, what about an extremely easy way to insert these graphics into your pages?
3. And, what about having the ability to even use your own graphics in simple way?

All this can be found and done by the  IM Graphics Plugin.

By the way,

Being a web designer didn’t stop me from buying and paying for web design elements made by others, sometimes because I don’t have the time and I want to get things done quickly, some other times because I like a graphic or a web element and I decide to just have for one of my projects.

A great place to buy cheap and professional looking web elements is GraphicRiver.net

Is IM Graphics Plugin for me?

IM Graphics Plugin is useful for any internet marketer.

Even bloggers need web graphics for their blogs posts, so if you do any sort of marketing online, check out IM Graphics Plugin, it could save you from facing one of the biggest things that always comes up when ever you build a new site!

This plugin worth easily worth hundreds of dollars in saved designer fees. it’s a $97 product, but you can get it now for only $27 , and it worth every single dollar!

Grab this awesome package right now for the low price.

I had just received an email from an old friend Bradley. For as long as I’ve known him he’s been pulling a healthy 6 figures a year working in the international finance division of a major commercial bank. After nearly 15 years pushing a desk they cut him a month before Christmas 2011.

Bradley had been speaking with a mutual friend who had mentioned that I had been making a lot of money online for about the same length of time as Bradley did working at the bank. Let me paraphrase his message for you. (profanity changed to protect the sensitive).

“Hi David it’s Bradley. Those bast*()ds finally f(*ked me. I heard you’re making out like a gangsta on the world-wide web. I need to make at least $150K a year, got anything you can send my way? I needs to make it rain paper up in here yo! I got about 6 months to make it, otherwise I have to get another shi&^ty job. Let me know, peace homie!”

I always chuckle when middle-aged white guys channel their inner rapper. I can only imagine what kind of language investment bankers actually use. Loved it when he called it the world-wide web, so 1995. I was hoping for “information super highway”.

He needs to make $150K within 6 months. What should I tell him?

What would you have told Bradley if you were me?

I phoned him. How non-internet. I asked him to read a book by Harvey McKay called “Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty Dumbass“.

Things got a little heated. He’s my age, and has made over $2 million in salary in 18 years of gainful employment. He has a $800,000 mortgage, 2 car payments, a kid in private school, and a monthly nut nearly in the 5 figures. I told him to get a job, any job as soon as possible. Either that or embrace the minimalist lifestyle and make some drastic, humongous changes.

Of course he asked me about the web. He had heard people were making crazy money online. He had heard that you could outsource to India to ghost write a book for you, then outsource someone to write your ads and run your operations and send you a check once a month. He heard it only took a couple of hours a week.

I was tempted to run the scene from Vegas Vacation with Chevy Chase and the little guy from Princess Bride on him. “You give me ten grand, we’ll go out back, I’ll kick you in the nuts, and you’ll say thanks.” I’ve been to a few internet marketing conferences like that, how about you?

The entire discussion, while mildly entertaining was frankly, terrifying. How can there still be middle-aged guys running around as if it’s still the shiny happy days where the stock market and house prices went only up and jobs were plentiful?

I’ve been making money online since 1994. I’ve ridden out the dark days of the late nineties where everything was theoretical, the Dotcom Bust of 2000, the web 2.0 revolution of the past 5 or 6 years, and now the impending Second Internet Bust. I cobbled together for you 12 predictions for next year based on my observations and belief of what’s really going on out there.

1. The Facebook Fade

Find me 10 guys that are making ads on Facebook convert profitably. No, Shoemoney doesn’t count. He’s a genius. Find the solopreneur that’s cracked Facebook and I’ll show you a guy selling stuff that he won’t be selling a year from now. Ringtones? Acai skinny pills?  Seriously, that’s your long term viable business model?

I was in a conference room about 8 months ago with an angel investor that plays in the invite-only dark pools with other stock holders in Facebook. I asked him if he was worried about the MySpace phenomenon repeating with Facebook. He had never heard of Myspace. He had money in a game that he didn’t understand. I was gobsmacked. This guy was driving towards the edge of the Grand Canyon in a convertible Mustang with Van Halen cranking.

I predict by the end of 2012 Facebook will begin to twitch and smell a bit like Blockbuster Video did in 2006.

Do you make any money with Facebook, or is it just a schnozzle of crapola?

2. The Impending Google – Apple War

Apple loves to give clues if we just pay attention. As network television collapses, will the model slowly become private, paid subscription services?  Apple does something elegant, Google copies clumsily. Google Books, Google Music, Google Movies. Isn’t their core competency serving ads?

When I turn on my AppleTV, Vimeo appears. It’s better than YouTube. No ads. Better quality. Less videos of dogs farting. Apple is giving us a big clue to the future of online video. If you look closely you see subscriptions to watch baseball, football and hockey. The battle over TV will be waged with battle-axe and crossbow.

In 2012 I predict things get heated between the two behemoths, with small skirmishes as a prelude to all-out war.

3. Massive Deflationary Disruptions Accelerate

Music is pricing itself at near zero. An artist gets paid 75 cents from iTunes on a download, and yet has to endure 3500 streams on Pandora or Spotify for the same meagre pennies. My 24-year-old niece’s boyfriend stared in horror when I asked for an iTunes gift card for Christmas. He whispered to her, “does he need help learning how to use a torrent?”

Movies, music, TV, and publishing are all upside down. But so is accounting, payroll, book-keeping and graphic design. The popularity of micro-outsourcing sites like Fiverr.com continue to accelerate. The outsourcing of projects will continue to flow to the lowest possible price point that still gets the job done. Helicopter Ben can print greenbacks as fast as he wants, I still won’t pay more than $5 for a 9 hub link wheel for SEO.

4. Geo Arbitrage Accelerates

Tim Ferriss fan boys who sold all their stuff and grabbed a bag with 50 things and headed overseas a few years ago look like geniuses. While their domestic counterparts get sprayed in the face with orange food products and beaten with billy clubs, the smart ones are sitting on a beach with their Macbook Airs earning in dollars, pounds and euros and eating out in pesos and dinars and whatever the heck they spend doing Ashtanga in MySore India.

With most western democracies struggling with unemployment, corruption, fascism, bankruptcy and social chaos, small towns in emerging markets look like smart choices for extended working holidays in 2012.

If you are smart, and willing to travel, the world is your playground.

5.  People Will Buy Solutions to Problems

My in-laws live in Greece. My father-in-law has had a backyard garden for 52 years. Guess how many of the nephews that live in Athens have gardens? Zero. It’s not cool. The youth wanted to forget the hard days after fascism fell after the war. Getting dirty was part of that. Olives rot on the trees because no one will pick them.

Now that Greece is bankrupt and the nephews are paying tax for the first time since Socrates wore a toga, gardening is entering the discussion again. Except they don’t know how.

Enter an e-book based on relevant keyword analysis. How To Build A Raised Garden Bed. My wife is building raised garden beds in our backyard. So will tens of thousands of people in 2012. Gardening will be very popular in 2012.

People will buy solutions to real problems online this year. Videos showing how to fix things, do home repairs, car repairs, and tips on saving money will all be hot.

6. A 500 Year Old Career Model

When Leonardo Da Vinci was painting and sculpting and inventing, he didn’t cash royalty checks from a publisher or from his rich parents. He had a Benefactor. In the old days, rich people would personally sponsor artists. Apprentices would learn shipbuilding and barrel making and fishing net weaving from masters as well as painting and music. They would work for room and board learning a craft, then head out into the big bad world to make a living.

With the university student debt pyramid scam unraveling, smart young people will begin to seek out internet marketing masters to apprentice with. Paid coaching and tuition models will adapt accordingly. There are already informal campuses in Bali, Thailand and Philippines experimenting with this model.

I have three 20-somethings that I have adopted as apprentices for 10% of anything they make for 10 years. I trade my experience in leveraged blocks of time for future royalties. It’s a win-win for both parties.

7. Obesity Will Still Be A Hot Market

This is a no brainer. It’s a huge playground (no pun intended). The winners will be those that advertise locally and combine service businesses like menu planning and coaching with the latest hot workout. Over half of everyone that lives within 100 miles of you is overweight or obese. Over 90% have failed at a diet. They need hand-holding and encouragement.

8. Seniors Will Be A Hot Market

Seniors are either broke and want stuff done for them, or have money and want stuff done for them. Every 8 seconds someone turns 60 in North America. What do you think this means for driving on roads in the next decade? Think local, think service business. The silver-haired generation is more web savvy than you or I think.

9. Translating E-books in Amazon Will Be A Hot Market

If you or a partner have language and translation skills, then you have a recipe to print money. Amazon has operational stores in German, French, Italian and Spanish, with more to come. What about Asia? I personally am working on this in a big way in 2012. I’m constantly looking to joint venture with partners to get my books to a wider audience. My partners translate and sell for the lion’s share of the royalties. I’m not greedy.

10. Google Redefines Spam

Google’s tolerance for spam is approaching zero. Their patience for spammy niches is shrinking faster than Obama’s approval rating. Goodbye business opportunity marketers, pharma, “Pron”, gambling, and duplicate content. So long thin affiliates, and fluffy article sites. I have seen guys selling bizops with 6-figure monthly purchases of Adwords getting kicked out like a card counter in Vegas. Can your business survive without Google? It’s a great planning exercise and an excellent way to give yourself nightmares.

11. Big or Small. You Choose. The Middle Ground is a Killing Field.

Go big or go home when it comes to your start-up. Scale fast for a takeover play, or stay small. The supply of dumb investors with buckets of cash will vanish this year. When big names like Wikipedia and Twitter are whispered about nervously, you know that a high burn rate is not a good idea. I predict that a major house hold Web 2.0 name will sink by the end of 2012 beneath the waves, shocking many.

12. People With Good Credit Will Be Highly Desirable

Smart companies are building in-house lists of their best customers and are treating them well. Amazon Prime is an example. How many million customers does Amazon have a relationship with that can order with a single click? How about Apple? I bought an app yesterday with 2 clicks and never even thought about the $1.99. Over 100 million Americans have bad credit. But 50 million Americans have wonderful credit. Who do you think smart companies are searching for?

I’m still perplexed about my pal Bradley. He needs to make $150,000 a year within 6 months and has zero internet experience.

What would you tell him to do if he was YOUR friend?

David Ledoux is the author of half a dozen books including How I Went From Welfare To Millionaire Without Winning The Lottery. He coaches entrepreneurs, owns several businesses and writes a witty and irreverent blog at http://davidledoux.com. His newest book, 10 Quick & Easy Strategies For Successful Living is available for free at his website.

image © igor – Fotolia.com

The thing is, building a good list can be quite a challenge and at times, can become a tedious task. So how exactly can you operate a lead generation campaign so that it achieves maximum success?

1. Know your customers

This is the most basic step of all. How are you supposed to sell something when you don’t know who you’re selling to? When you identify the needs and problems of your customer, you can then tailor-make solutions for them so that they will find whatever you have to offer practical, relevant and attractive.

2. Come up with valuable giveaways

There’s nothing like a freebie to get people to notice your business. Who can turn down something they can use and not have to pay for? Many businesses have taken digital downloads and online courses as their giveaways because these are easy to access and provide business owners with a list of email addresses.

Giveaways may also take the form of

• interviews
• videos
• audio files
• eBooks
• worksheets

Don’t let this list limit your imagination. Take a look at what your prospects need and then brainstorm how you can solve their problems with a giveaway. You can also provide customers with things that take time to complete, such as an autoresponder course that entails constant communication with the customer.

3. Create attractive opt-in forms

Opt-in forms are things that people browsing through your website have to fill up. You may place this on your landing page with the option for a giveaway, or you can choose to place it anywhere else on the site such as in a pop-up or slide.

You can even use a squeeze page, wherein customers have to provide an email address before they can enter the website or go to the other links on a page.

Doing some research on what kind of opt-in form will be beneficial as you’ll be able to tell which ones are most effective. Keep in mind however that the more blanks people have to fill in, the less likely they are to continue and enter the rest of a website.

4. Market your product/service/business opportunity

With the many available options in online marketing, this should be pretty easy and straightforward.

You don’t even need a huge budget for this. You can use free tools such as social networks, blogs and article directories to spread the word about your business. Or you can come up with a good campaign plan and make sure it’s implemented properly.

Once you have a list, no matter how many people there are on it, take advantage of it right away. Thank all those who signed up and provide them with updates and other offers that will assure them that they made the right choice. When you take care of your leads, you are effectively protecting your assets and in the future, these leads will become the building blocks of your business towards success!

If you market to the wrong people, you do not get the results you want. So who are you targeting and how can you go about reaching them?

Are you targeting people with certain interests? Of a certain age? Who have a certain career?

Some of the ways you can help target are free and not too hard to do. Some of you are already doing some of it, but maybe not exactly how you should be. Here are some suggestions on where to target and how you can target your audience.

Targeting Your Audience With Social Networking

Social networking is definitely a huge way to reach out to others. Facebook alone, has over 800 million users. Most people will admit to being signed up to quite a few social networks, so it means that they are interested in what is being broadcast out in cyberspace. However, it is what exactly is being broadcasted which is the important difference.

The great thing is, social networks can be searched through, by term or keyword. If your niche is SEO, you could be connecting with people who are bloggers, or maybe are business owners not so knowledgeable about the topic.

There are some directories like Twellow and WeFollow that you can search through users on Twitter that have listed themselves in specific categories.

The thing is, you have to be specific about who you are targeting. Pick only keywords relevant to your business, service, or if you are a blogger, what you write about. Just following everyone is not going to cut it as you will end up with empty followers, spammers, and perhaps some complaints. The number of followers are not important, it is the actual people you really are reaching and engaging with that counts.

Targeting Your Audience  Through Your Site Or Blog

Your site or even your blog is your headquarters. If it is not, it should be. You can have Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, but really, where does the content come from, especially if you are trying to establish your authority? It comes from your site. This is where you flex that brain muscle. Your site is where you want to convert people to ultimately go.

If you promote your product on Twitter, people only click on it to be lead back to your website.

Like social networking, pick the keywords that are relevant to your site. Using any and all under the sun will just make the search engines unhappy and confuse guests on why they visited your site, but did not find what they were searching for.

Be sure to write articles in your niche that cover the full spectrum. If it takes doing research to see what others are writing about, do it. If you can present a better article, you have established your authority.

Targeting Your Audience Through Social Bookmarking

While a lot of people may be a member of places like Digg, and StumbleUpon, not all realize how much traffic can be gained from social bookmarking. Much like blogging and social networking, you can specify what categories your posts should be filed under when you submit an article.

A big misconception is that your account can be terminated from social bookmark sites for bookmarking your own articles. That is a yes, and a no. Yes – in the case you are submitting a lot of links and not bookmarking other sites as well. No- because most social bookmark sites know you need to drive traffic to your site. Reddit is a little finicky in their submission policy regarding submitting your own links, but with others, you should be fine.

Targeting Your Audience Through Multimedia

Video blogging and podcasting are great ways to reach out to more people. Some people really have no time to read a blog, but maybe they commute and like to listen to podcasts. This is great because most podcasts can be downloaded to smart phones. Also, most of the podcast directories allow for categorization and tagging so people can find exactly what they need.

As for video blogging, this allows your visitors to see you and because a lot of people are visual, they may connect better. Sometimes reading words is not enough. The tone and inflection of a voice, plus the actual facial expression of a person help eliminate confusion.

Just like most of the options mentioned in this post, if you host your videos on Youtube, on your site, or any other video hosting site, you can submit tags and details about your video… all searchable on most search engines.

Targeting Your Audience Through Newsletter Campaigns

If you have a newsletter campaign (in house, Aweber, Mailchimp, or another), no matter who you have it through, you know that not everyone will click the links you leave on your emails. It does not matter whether you have your site’s RSS feed integrated into your newsletter, or you are promoting a product.

Your emails to your subscribers should be clear and be geared to reach specific people. For example, sometimes you might want to talk about SEO, and maybe another time on general blogging tips.

Targeting Your Audience With Online Advertisements

Many of the advertising companies, like Google Adwords, Linkworth, Adbrite, Text Link Ads, and more, allow you to advertise and specifically target people based on keywords. Remember, keywords is the big key.

However, if you at first do an ad campaign that is not pulling in results, you have to realize that it is you who holds the reins and can change your campaign at any time.

Targeting Your Audience While Offline

While there are millions upon millions of people online, you have to realize that not everyone goes online all at the same time, not everyone is Internet savvy, and not everyone has the time to search and surf online to their hearts content. Sometimes you have to start local and reach people with your services with local area bullentin boards, local newspapers, area newspapers (especially if you live in a small city or town within an hour of a larger city), and by word of mouth.

For example, say that you might be a social media consultant or a web designer. You know there are plenty of small business owners that might not be online yet, but maybe they have considered it. If you shop, as you check out, ask if the business has a website. If it does not, ask the business owner if they have considered it and if they might be interested in hearing how they can have their site online with few frustrations.

Using the same example, you could even try holding local events. If you know of a hotel that has a conference room, plan a date, invest the money, and you can put out ads to the community to put together a workshop to educate business owners on how they can have their own site and get more exposure for their business.

Another way to target while not online is if you speak at conferences. Make sure to put together topics that can be understandable and somewhat useful for most people. Normally those types of lectures are ones that will have a bigger turnout. Those attending your particular lecture are already showing that they are interested, making them practically at your door. Put your contact information in your presentation and do not forget to bring your business cards. Be prepared to engage because those face to face interactions will definitely bring in new clientele.

Marketing does take time and money. You might fail, and you might succeed. However, you do hold the control in your hands at what pace and where you will find the right audience. Make sure you know yourself, your brand, your product, what people want when it comes to your product, blog, or service, and your overall niche when putting together the right keywords towards your own marketing campaign.

How have you marketed?

Are there any cool methods that have not been mentioned to better reach your audience? Or have there been methods mentioned in this article that have especially worked well for you?

Networking: How it can help Marketing?

Networking is about sharing quality content with other people (and caring about them). When you share others’ content (and communicate/network with them), they will also be willing to share your content (and communicate with you). That’s common knowledge. A wise blogger uses this common knowledge to get more out of less. The primary reason for article marketing is exposure and traffic. And networking – I think –  is the best way to gain more exposure by reiterating yourself.

Networking, in a way, is collaboration. Let me give you a simple example:

While you were doing your regular routine check at Twitter, you happened to notice a catchy tweet. You liked that tweet and you decided to contact the author (that’s networking).  Soon enough you guys will become friends and help each other out with promoting stuff (That’s the power of networking).Now, this is a benefit for both you and the person you are networking with. Both of you guys get something in return for what you give.  Since, both parties work together, networking can be defined as a collaborative effort (Well, it is).

If used effectively, Networking can save you a lot of time and effort.

Note: Another benefit of networking is that you are interacting with people. This helps you to improve your blogging and communication skills. Now that I have explained what networking can do, let’s take a look at how you can apply this to your own style.

Marketing with Networking – Twitter

1. Find Great Networkers and Others Who Share Content

You can do this through different ways:

• Look for interesting tweets.
• Look through people who followed you recently.
• Look in other peoples’ timeline.
• Look in blogs, blog forums and blog communities.

2. Start Talking

• Respond to a tweet. Do you agree or  disagree with the tweet?
• Tell them why your tweet was interesting.
• Check their blog articles. Respond and Re-tweet.

3. Keep Talking

• Develop a close circle of networking friends that you can work with. Network with these guys at least once a week.
• Collaborate with your networking buddies. Conduct experiments and do different projects.

4. Repeat the Steps

• Allot some time for networking. Stick to your schedule.
• Decide and Do!
• Experiment on your own.
• Use different techniques (form your own).

Marketing with Networking – Google +

1. Create Circles and Add People to Them.

• Create circles for people with whom you network the most.
• Another thing that you can do is have discussions and debates within your circles. Just select the appropriate circle when you want to share something just with the members of the circle.
• You can also create a circle for your clients/subscribers (this helps you to share exclusive tips, coupons and techniques with your clients/subscribers).
• Circles can be a lot of help. Use them according to your purpose. For instance: You could create a circle to bookmark posts that you can read later. Just create an empty circle and share the items with just that circle. Note: I saw this tip in G+. Credit goes to the original thinker

2. Share, Recommend, Plus, Comment and Share!

Share yours and others valuable content. Don’t limit everything to your niche. Share stuff from other niches too. Recommend people. For instance: if you are writing a short blog post in G+ and got inspiration from someone, mention them in your post. This will help you to get them talking and sharing your post.

Comment on posts that you have something to add. Repeat these steps again and again.

3. Meet New People and Network with Them!

Check others circles for great people, start networking with them. Make use of G+ Suggestions (Google Plus suggests to you, people to add to your circles – based on the people you already have on your circles).

4. Rinse and Repeat!

Motivation to Networking?

When I used to be active in Twitter (I am not that active nowadays), I used to have a lot of motivators to keep me in check. Here is the list:

• I considered Networking as a fun activity. When you are networking, try to make it more casual (Just Talk!).
• Consider social media stats as my motivator (like CrowdBooster and Klout). I understand that these sites may not be accurate. But, I still use them to motivate me to act.
• Dagaloo! I am sure that most of you guys are familiar with @Nicholas_Cardot. He is the guy behind Social Media Game called Dagaloo. Dagaloo takes everything to a new level. For me, it really helped me to network more (just because I love the game!). You can try Dagaloo at Dagaloo.com. Just login with your twitter credentials and you are ready to play!
• Finding a good motivator helps you to stay focused on the networking with your friends/clients.

Conclusion

Well, if you want more networking tips, just keep up with my blog. I will be publishing an eBook on Networking and Marketing (the stuff on the eBook is more dense; focused on specific techniques/methods that you can use). Anyway, thank you for reading! I will appreciate if you leave your thought provoking opinion about my article. Thank you!

If you really like this post, please do help me out to promote this post. Thanks!