SmartStep is a company that I have come to trust that they can get the job done.  They do not just deal with SEO.  This company has a robust selection of services that they specialize in and are very good at.  The first service I would recommend is their internet media consulting. They properly devise a plan for you to compete and win in your target market area. That plan will outwit the competition, capture more customers, and increase the overall value of your company.  Their strategies are like nothing I have seen before and work better than any other that I have found on the internet.

Their SEO services come with something that not many SEO companies offer.  A GUARANTEE! They also offer a free trial for those that have been stung by so called SEO experts in the past.  This company fully understands what it takes to get your website seen on the major search engines and gets you high quality visitors to your website.

Google Places Optimization is another great service that they offer that will get your business noticed on the web.  They properly optimize Google maps, relevant citations, video marketing and website relevance for you so your business gets seen.

They can also teach you how to properly utilize your social media efforts to get you the best results possible from these campaigns.  They can create and maintain powerful social media campaigns for you that will bring not just visitors to your website, but paying customers that are truly interested in what your company has to offer.

Another great service that they offer is Video Marketing.  They will help you create and properly place your video ad in order to brand you as an expert in your field and ultimately drive more customers to your website.  This is a highly effective form of marketing that has started to become a front runner in the marketing side of business.

Experts in content and media publishing.  They will write articles about your business as well as press releases.  They will distribute those articles to directories and this will help to get your name out to the masses and distinguish you as a true expert within your target audience.

They also handle email marketing.  If you want to send your message to  consumers who want to receive daily deals from them and ultimately you.  Get your message to people who will actually open the email and read it.

One of the best services I think they offer is their Reputation Management services.  They maintain and manage your online presence by protecting you from negative reviews from your competitors who may try to spam your page.  They take positive reviews from satisfied clients and transfer them to your place listings and other local directories. This is a service that everyone should have.  I personally have had to take the option of comments off my site.  There are just too many people out there that will try anything to damage your reputation just to boost theirs.

This company is one I know and trust.  I know that you will get the best results possible for your business. You can click their logo below to visit their website.

1st major mistake in the design

There are a total of 19 different backgrounds on this website. Yes 19, a different background on every page. That is the number one no-no for website design. You want your website to be uniform so not to confuse your visitors. When you have different backgrounds and colors on your pages people get confused and think they have left your website. Use the same backgrounds and same colors and fonts on each page of your website.

2nd major mistake in the design

Patterns, patterns, and more patterns. Wow, that is all I can say about this website. There are so many distractions due to the different patterns that you can easily miss the information that you came to this site for. People do not go to a website to see pretty pictures and patterns unless they are looking for pictures such as landscapes on a photography website.

3rd major mistake in design

Not showcasing the product. The product on this website is the dogs. These images of these dogs are so poorly displayed that it makes the dogs look bad. When you want to sell a product weather it is an animal or a computer, you want it displayed tastefully. These images are poorly displayed with cheesy boarders and strange blending and shapes. If you want to display a product use a great looking slider. With sliders you can add to the photo instead of making the photo look like it was just thrown on the page.

4th major mistake in design

The so called navigation at the bottom of the page is so hard to see that you can easily miss it. The text is a light grey-brown color and is barely visible against the patterned background. You want your text and links to be highly visible for your visitors, especially your navigation. If people can’t find the links they won’t click on them. And if people can’t read the text what is the point of it being on the page?

5th major mistake in design

There are no interactive features on this website. There is no lead gathering system for the visitors. This website is not taking advantage of the people that are interested in the dogs and information about the dogs that the website has to offer. As with any business the best way to gain and keep customers is to gather their contact information to keep people up to date with what is going on with your business. You can’t expect your visitors to remember you are there when there are millions of websites on the internet and I like many others am searching on a daily basis for many different subjects on the internet.When I find a website I like that has information that I need I like to add my name to their newsletter just to be able to know when there is new information that may be helpful to me. You as a business owner need a lead gathering system if you want your business to thrive.

I have only used one website as an example in this article, but there are so many others online. If you own the site that has been discussed in this article, or one that has any of these mistakes please fill out the consultation request and let me help you showcase your products or services the way they deserve to be showcased. This is not an attack on the owners themselves, it is an example of what can be fixed to enhance this site and boost the business.

It is also a great example of why you need a website designer that has the proper education. Website design is a science and is specific in what needs to be done and how. It is not just the coding of a web site. If you do it yourself you can, and most likely will end up with a website that people will log into, and right back off. Yes, hiring a website designer can be expensive, but in the long run it will pay for itself. Do your research, and if you need a website update or new build fill out the consultation form and be assured that I have the proper education to make your website one that will be noticed, responsive, and easy for your visitors to use.

The first step to sales when customers visit your site to see the products they were looking for. Of course, search engine optimization and better rankings can’t keep your customer on your site or make them buy. The customer having visited your site, now ensure that he/she gets interested in your products or services and stays around. Motivate him/her to buy the product by providing clear and unambiguous information. Thus if you happen to sell more than one product or service, provide all necessary information about this, may be by keeping the  information at a different page. By providing suitable and easily visible links, the customer can navigate to these pages and get the details.

Lead gathering system with mass email

You want an opt-in newsletter form on your website.  You will want this to be on at least the first page or landing page of your website. This will allow you to gather your visitor’s information to send them offers, discounts, and updates to your products and business.  This lead gathering system should also be integrated with a mass email system.  This will make it very easy for you to write one email and send it to all of the people on your list with one click.  Save yourself time and money.

Understanding Your Target Customer

If you design a website you think will attract clients, but you don’t really know who your customers are and what they want to buy, it is unlikely you make much money. Website business is an extension or replacement for a standard storefront. You can send email to your existing clients and ask them to complete a survey or even while they are browsing on your website. Ask them about their choices. Why do they like your products? Do you discount prices or offer coupons? Are your prices consistently lower than others? Is your shipping price cheaper? Do you respond faster to client questions? Are your product descriptions better? Your return policies and guarantees better than your competitor’s? To know your customer you can check credit card records or ask your customer to complete a simple contact form with name, address, age, gender, etc. when they purchase a product.

Does your website give enough contact information?

When you sell from a website, your customer can buy your products 24 hrs a day and also your customers may be from other states that are thousands of miles away. Always provide contact information, preferably a contact page, complete with mailing address, telephone number and an email address that reaches you. People may need to contact you about sales, general information or technical problems on your site. Also have your email forwarded to another email address if you do not check your website mailbox often. When a customer wants to buy online provide enough options like credit card, PayPal or other online payment service. Myself, I like PayPal.  They are the most secure and flexible payment gateway available.  You can make custom buttons, send an invoice by email, and many other merchant services are available.  Their customer service is also second to none.

Understanding of the functionality your customers expect

Functionality such as contact forms, shopping carts, online catalogs or product pages are very important to your customers in terms of functionality.  These must be easy to navigate and links must be clearly visible and easy to distinguish from the rest of the text on your page. Understanding what functionality your website needs is essential to making sure your customers get what they need when they visit your site.  It can also be a way that you can gather information from your visitors such as adding polls in a sidebar or adding a star system that your visitors can rate your website or posts.  The added functionality helps keep your visitors on your website longer and helps you get to know what your visitors want and need from your website and your business.

First, go to the Yahoo website and choose Search Marketing under Yahoo Advertising Solutions. Scroll down to and click on Sponsored Search. You will see a section that says “How many searches can your business get?” where you will type in the main keyword of your decided niche. This will bring up a list a of words that have your niche subject in them and tell you how many people searched for that particular word the previous month.

To get an idea of what the competition is like, take each word that had a substantial amount of searches and input it into the Yahoo search engine using parenthesis. This will give you a good idea of how many people search for a particular keyword and how many sites you will be in competition with for the top spots on the first two pages.

This will of course take a lot more time than a paid software program and it may not give you all of the great ideas that a program might. On the other hand, it will be free and give you extra funds for other parts of your website.

If you can do this for free on your own, search engine optimize your site on your own, and write your own content, then the only thing you will have to spend money on is a website URL , possibly website design if you don’t know how to code, and web hosting. This is a great idea for those who have little to no start up cash, a lot of time on their hands, are quick learners, and can wait for the profits to start coming in (which will pretty much be pure profit).

However, if you prefer to go the easy route and utilize a keyword generating software program, you can find many online. Some are more popular than others and have been a proven way for people to dig up valuable keywords for their niche sites.
The following are some links that you can visit to get free keyword generators:

Keyword Optimizer Pro 2 (Highly Recommended!)

Market Samurai

SEOBook’s Free keyword phrase generator tool.

WordStream’s Free Keyword Generator

The benefits that articles provide are putting a site high in the ranking in search results of keywords and keyword phrases that pertains or are relevant to his or her website. They also provide attraction to website visitors when they are appreciated and is linked to your website from another website or newsletter. Articles provide for the increase of the confidence and trust levels of customers to your website and company.

Many articles are also beneficial to both company and its traffic. When the readers like the articles, they would tell more of their friends, family and peers and recommend your site to them, providing for a larger volume of traffic. You get bigger sales if your traffic trusts and believes in you. Your product or services would be much easier to sell when they know you know what you are doing and talking about.

So ok, we have established that articles are very important to a site and to business. Articles are crucial and to keep ahead in the game, a website must have an article, it is imperative. There is one dilemma though, not many people like writing articles.

Many website owners would rather spend their time on something else, and unless you’re a big time company, you don’t have the necessary resources to use on a pool of article writers. Plagiarism or copying of other articles is frowned upon and could easily get you into trouble, worst case scenario; a hefty fine and jail time.

So what are the other options?

Well, for starters if you hate writing articles and you can’t afford to hire people to write for you then don’t. Get free articles. The first place to look at for free articles is the public domain. Here you won’t have problems with copyright infringement and the following penalties and fines if you get caught for plagiarism.

Public domain articles are articles freely given to the public for public use. You can do whatever you want with it. You can place it on your site, name it as yours, put it in a newsletter its you decision. Always remember though that you will have to choose articles that is very relevant to your site.

The downside to public domain articles is that since it is free for everybody, many of your competitors may have access to them as well. Since every site needs to be original and unique even though you have the same niche, this could be a predicament. You may also have to edit them a bit to place more keywords and keyword phrases to make them better.

Another way to get free articles is to allow other sites which have the same subject or topic as yours to submit articles to your site. This would be only to augment your existing content or else all your articles would be leading to other sites since these articles would have resource boxes with them that could link or direct the readers to their site. That’s why it is important to have your own articles; you cold use them to link your site to other sites as well.

But, to truly feel the impact of what a good article is to you, go for original ones. There are many article writers who do part time and freelance article writing jobs that charges only minimal fees. You can get good articles that have all the keywords and keyword phrases you need and people are looking for.

The investment you made for these articles would be worthwhile because you could use them for all the benefits you could offer. You hold copyrights to them and you will be able to use them anyway you want. As your articles help you in building your business and your site, you will have more articles to write and maybe then you wont be having second thoughts about articles.

Author: Julie Rader

But all the same, articles have to be written to be read. It’s just a matter of making them good. Making a good article doesn’t have to be strenuous and straining. There are just some points needed to be reminded of, and some guides to follow. Once you get the hang of it, writing articles could be fun, as well as profitable for you and your site.

Of course, writing articles must be about something you know about, that’s why if you own a site, you are probably knowledgeable about that certain topic and theme. When you write about it, you won’t have a hard time because you already know what it is and what it’s about. It’s just a matter of making your articles creative and interesting.

To make sure that your articles get read and enjoyed, here are six red hot tips to get your articles read. These tips will make your articles readable and interesting.

1) Use short paragraphs. When the paragraph are very long, the words get jumbled in the mind of the reader just looking at it can get quite confusing and too much hard work to read. The reader will just quickly disregard the paragraph and move on to much easier reading articles that are good to look at as well as read. Paragraphs can be a single sentence, sometimes even a single word!

2) Make use of numbers or bullets. As each point is stressed out, numbers and bullets can quickly make the point easy to remember and digest. As each point, tip, guide or method is started with a bullet or point, readers will know that this is where the tips start and are being stressed. Format your bullets and numbers with indentations so that your article won’t look like a single block of square paragraphs. Add a little bit of flair and pizzazz to your articles shape.

3) Use Sub-headings to sub-divide your paragraphs in the page. Doing this will break each point into sections but still would be incorporated into one whole article. It would also be easy for the reader to move on from one point to another; the transition would be smooth and easy. You will never lose your readers attention as well as the point and direction to where the article is pointing.

4) Provide a good attention-grabbing title or header. If your title can entice a person’s curiosity you’re already halfway in getting a person to read your article. Use statements and questions that utilize keywords that people are looking for. Provide titles or headers that describe your articles content but should also be short and concise.

Use titles like, “Tips on making her want you more”, or “How to make her swoon and blush” .You could also use titles that can command people, for example, “Make her yours in six easy Ways”. These types of titles reach out to a persons’ emotions and makes them interested.

5) Keep them interested from the start to the finish. From your opening paragraph, use real life situations that can be adopted by the reader. Use good descriptions and metaphors to drive in your point, just don’t over do it. Driving your examples with graphic metaphors and similes would make it easy for them to imagine what you are talking about. Making the experience pleasurable and enjoyable for them.

6) Utilize figures when necessary and not just ordinary and insipid statements. Using specific facts and figures can heighten your article because it makes it authoritative. But do not make it too formal, it should be light and easy in the flow. Like a friendly teacher having a little chat with an eager student.

Author: Julie Rader

If you aim for success, you must do everything within your means to achieve that. You just don’t go on sitting there in your house complaining about not getting as much profit as you expect. You have to keep moving. You have to pour in and invest enough time, money and effort to have profitable results.

In doing internet business, you must aim just the same. You should maximize all of your internet marketing strategies, given the wide market that your business will be exposed to. Imagine the whole online community as potential clients!

Now, one of the best marketing tools that you can use in your online business is building a list. An opt-in list is the best, most effective and smartest option that you can make. It is one thing to stay in business and it is another thing to have a profitable business. So if you will be allowed to choose, make use of the building list to ensure that profits will keep coming in.

What is an opt-in list?

The opt-in list basically is just a list or a database of names and emails of people who have visited your website or made a purchase through your website. The list will allow the owner to send updates, emails or promotions to those who are subscribed.

It is like an ordinary membership or mailing list in an ordinary shop or club, only in this instance, the opt-in list is done online.

Why should I choose to put an opt-in list?

Any visitor that will come to your web site is a potential client. That potential client means there is a potential sale and that potential sale is a potential profit. Now, let’s say that you’ve made a good internet marketing strategy as a result all these potential things have been translated to actual clients, sales and profits.

The next prudent thing to do is to not let all these productive efforts be wasted. The next best thing to do is to get the email addresses and other contact details of your clients because your present buyers can still be your clients in the future.

Building a list will definitely work for your benefit. This will ensure that you can maintain close contact and a good relationship with your clients, especially the frequent visitors.

This will also save you money, time and effort because once you come up with a new product or new information, you know exactly who you will send updates to because you have a definite market. This is one aspect that you will have to maintain to have a steady source of income at the least. Then the rest of your efforts will be to make the number of your regular clients grow.

Some pointers in building your opt-in list:

1. You should put a ‘subscribe link’ or subscribe form on your web site. It is advisable to put it on all the pages. Then make sure that it is strategically positioned, meaning it has to be easily located by the visitors. The upper right side or left side of the page would be a good position.

2. Promote your website and promote it even more to make give it more exposure and to get more subscribers.

3. Come up with contests or give away freebies and goodies that will require visitors to give out their email ads to be able to join.

4. Give out information, articles and updates to your clients with your links in it. Make sure that the information will be relevant to the client.

5. Offer free courses to your visitors. This will also help maintain a good relationship with your subscribers.

6. Use your signature also to make your opt-in list expand. Every time you send out messages the link information should be included.

7. Do some networking too. Join some forums or discussions and build relationships with the people there. This will also be a good way for you to get more contacts and clients.

At the same time you should also know what you should avoid in building an opt-in list. There is one thing that you should keep in mind as the don’ts of building a list.

Don’t ever spam your subscribers. It is best that you get permission from your subscribers, or else you might end up with a bad reputation.

Avoid pop-ups too. They can sometimes annoy the visitors. There are also pop-up blockers now. Your effort here might end up futile.

You should also refrain from flooding your subscribers with information. You might end up as an annoyance that you might not get an unfavorable result. There may be times that you’ll give relevant information, but your clients may just dismiss it.

The benefits of having many regular subscribers are undeniable. They will definitely keep your business going and you will definitely enjoy the profits that will come in. Just remember that things don’t end there.

Once you’ve build up on a substantial opt-in list, make sure that you maintain it well. Keep in contact with your subscribers. Send them updates. Give out special offers and helpful tips. Freebies will be helpful too.

Just follow this and you’ll see, things can only get better.

Author: Julie Rader

For this reason, even with the technology that covers online businesses, still, it needs highly revolutionized and very effective marketing strategy in order to boost their productivity and sales.

Basically, since the advent of the Internet, people started to flock to this new medium of information without even knowing its fundamental principles, how it works, things that are needed to survive in it, etc. Many people literally bombarded the Internet thinking that life would be a lot easier if they will invest in online businesses.

Indeed, it is a well-known fact that you can find money online, but only for those who know their way around and employ the best marketing strategy there is online.

What people do not know is that online marketing does not have to be very complicated. It just needs the right stuff to keep you going.

Take for example the use of mailing lists, particularly opt in lists. Before, no one ever dared to use opt in lists thinking that it will not do any good for their business. Most entrepreneurs think that building an opt in list is just a waste of time and money. What they do not know is that, according to the “golden rule of the Internet,” money is in the list.

It has been mentioned before, and is worth mentioning again, money is really in the list.

Why? Because with opt in lists, you get to keep your readers on the hook by providing them with information, promotion, and other campaigns in order to entice them to buy again from you.

Basically, opt in lists are lists of email addresses of customers with their consent. This means that after the customer had closed the transaction in a particular web site, there is an option on whether or not they wish to subscribe to the mailing list of the online business for any future promotions, newsletters, or campaigns that they would like to be informed of.

And because it is an option, the customers are compelled to provide their email addresses to the web site. Plus, the web site owners will not be accused of spamming because emails that will be sent to the customers have the consent of the customer.

Creating an opt in list can be very beneficial to your site. In fact, it has been proven that in the two-step concept of selling, follow-ups are important to sustain the interest of the consumers. The other step is to obtain the interest of the buyer.

Hence, in order to sustain the interest of your buying public, it is best to create an opt in list so that you can always give your buyers the chance to remember your products, your business, and your services, in which they have been satisfied with.

To know more of the advantages of creating an opt in list for your business; here is a list that would tell you the reasons why it is beneficial.

1. Opt in lists are the business’ most valuable asset

If you were to ask the owners of some online business about their most valuable asset, they will tell you that it is their opt in list. This is because opt in lists are customers’ lists that can provide higher probability sales in a more consistent and stable condition. Because with opt in lists, all you have to do is to follow up orders or sales through promotions and ad campaigns.

2. It is always available

The best thing about opt in list is that it never grows old. As long as your customer needs something to survive, your contact with them will never grow old. This means that you can always have a fresh, new transaction with them every time you inform them that you have new products or services. Every transaction is a new way of increasing your sales. Simply put, no opt in list = no sales (at the most).

3. Bigger opt in list would mean bigger profits

The more customer’s names and email addresses you have on your list, the more chances you have in increasing your online sales. Every name, every email address can be worth a hundred dollars that can be accumulated with each transaction

Hence, the bigger your list, the more money you will have.

Boiled down, opt in lists are not just ordinary mailing lists. It is the very core of an online business’ existence and survival. That is why for people who value most their businesses, they extend the same value they give to their opt in list. No wonder why most people regard it as the best partnership available online.

Author: Julie Rader

Promotion and advertising can be a heavy expense, especially for a new business that wants to make itself known in a community. A home based business, however, more often than not, has a very limited budget when it comes to advertising. The home business owner needs to make the public aware of his or her product or service at the lowest possible cost.

There are many ways. A pet breeder in a large city was struggling for several years-until he came up with a novel idea. He started giving away customized “birth certificates” for the pets he sold. Almost immediately, his sales rose more than 10 percent.

The owner of a new home cleaning service was trying to attract clients. She couldn’t afford much advertising, so she began offering “home cleaning seminars” to civic groups. After two months of seminars, she was swamped with inquiries and clients.

Promotion often makes the crucial difference between business success and failure. Customers or clients must know about a business or product line before they’ll buy and they must have a reason to buy.

If you are trying to promote your business now, you can move in one of two directions: 1) You can take the conventional route to promotion and mount an elaborate media campaign, spending a considerable amount of money or 2) You can let your creative juices flow and mount a low-cost promotion effort, using a potpourri of attention-getting gimmicks to bring your message to the buying public.

Now, to be sure, conventional advertising is valuable. If your enterprise is large enough or if you’re selling numerous product lines, you may find that a full-fledged media campaign is the most efficient and cost effective way to promote your business. If money is tight, however, or you’re not sure you can amortize the heavy cost of a media campaign over a period of time, the following is a assortment of low-cost techniques you can try. Not all may be appropriate for your particular business, and certainly it would be costly to try them all. But you’re sure to find some ideas that will work for you.

GIVEAWAYS. People love to receive “free” items, especially items they can use to gain knowledge or improve their lives. You can base an entire promotional campaign on this desire. If  you’re running a furniture repair business, for instance, you could give away a furniture repair brochure, free furniture planning guides, or color swatches. Once you begin giving away authoritative information customers will begin to perceive you as an expert in your field.

NEWS CREATION. Want to get names and news from your business in the local newspaper? It may be easier that you think. If you don’t have any news to report to the local media, create some. Maybe you’ve taken on a new associate. Or maybe you’re selling an unusual product line. Or maybe you’ve opened a free advice center for the community. Or maybe you’ve received an award from a civic or professional group. Local Penny-savers and weekly are often quite interested in business news of this sort and can help you attract the attention of thousands of people.

EVENTS. You may be able to attract the attention of the media or a crowd by staging a special promotional event. If you run a fitness classes, for instance, you could stage a celebrity instructor day. If you’re promoting a new real estate business, you can offer tours of a model home in the area. If you’re selling children’s products and it’s springtime, you can offer lunch with the Easter bunny. Get the idea?

CHARITY TIE-INS. Are you launching a new product? Trying to increase visibility among a particular segment of your community? Offer your product to one or more local charities as a raffle prize or for use at a fund raising event. You’ll receive lots of exposure among people who buy tickets or attend the event.

CONTESTS. Offer a desirable or unique item-or even several items-as contest prizes. First, find a contest theme that tiers into your business. A caterer might offer a quiche-eating contest. A photographer might offer a young model contest. A mail order craft firm might offer an “Early American” handicrafts contest. Invite contest submissions and offer prizes to the winners. Do contests attract attention? You bet. All it takes is a few signs, a small press announcement or two, and the word will spread throughout the community grapevine.

COMMUNITY SERVICE. Nothing brings you to the attention of the people faster-or more favorably-than community service. Ask yourself how your enterprise can be a “good neighbor” to your community. If you’re running a lawn care and gardening service, perhaps you can offer one season’s services at no charge to a needy charitable organization or nursing home in your area. Hundreds of people will hear about your work in the process. Volunteer for various community causes. If appropriate, you can step in during community emergency, offering products and services to help an organization or individuals in need.

COUPONS. Americans are very coupon-conscious. Test the market: at what level will coupons increase the volume of various product or service lines? When you get some tentative answers, start distributing coupons that offer  a discount on your services. Distribute them to area newspapers, on store counters, in door-to-door- mail packets (which can often be quite inexpensive), at the public library, at laundromats, at any location where people congregate.

BADGES AND NOVELTIES. You can easily and inexpensively produce badges, bumper  stickers, book covers, and other novelty items for distribution in your area. You can imprint your business name and the first names of the customers on many of these products at little cost and distribute them for free. Or you can tie your novelty program into a contest: once a month, you can offer a prize to any individual whose car happens to carry one of your bumper stickers or badges with peel-off coupons, redeemable at your place of business.

CELEBRITY VISITS. With a bit of persistence, you may be able to arrange to have a local media celebrity, public official, or entertainment personally-even a fictitious cartoon character or clown-visit your service. The celebrity can sign autographs, read stories to children, perform cooking demonstrations, or perform any one of a hundred other traffic-building activities.

CELEBRATE HOLIDAYS. You’ll probably want to celebrate major public holidays with special sales. But celebrate some of the offbeat holidays as well. Almost every business has a few little-known holidays. Ever hear of National Pickle Day, for instance? Or Cat Lovers Month? Once you find the “right” holiday, you can sponsor a special sale or special product arrange special media coverage of a holiday event.

GO WHERE THE PEOPLE ARE. Can you open sales information booths at community fairs and festivals? This promotional technique can work for gift retailers, craftspeople, and personal service firms. If you have the people and the time, can you handle regional fairs or even trade shows?

MAILING LISTS. Once you begin establishing a committed clientele, gather their names on a mailing list. Save the names from your mail orders and telephone inquiries. Eventually, you’ll be able to send product circulars or even catalogs to the folks on your list and you’ll be able to promise your products by mail.

SCAVENGER HUNTS. If you want people to buy NOW, offer them an unbeatable deal. If they bring an old product-a small appliance, a book, whatever-to you, you’ll give them a

worth-while discount on a comparable new item. Or stage a general purpose scavenger hunt. Customers who bring in three canned goods for your community’s food bank will receive a discount on products purchased that day.

PARTIES. Everyone loves a party. Why not celebrate the anniversary of your business or some special holiday by offering baked goods and beverages? If you’re running a service business, perhaps you can offer an open house or obtain a small banquet room in your community. Besides refreshments, be sure the place is brightly decorated.

GREETING CARDS. Do you send out greeting cards to major customers or clients? Holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries make nice greeting card occasions. Greeting cards create enormous goodwill and keep your name in front of people.

SEMINARS. In this information hungry age, people love to receive advice, especially about their personal needs and hobbies. If you sell health foods or run fitness classes, perhaps you can offer “wellness”  seminars  during lunchtime to your area’s business community. If you’re an interior decorator, perhaps you can offer one-hour decorating workshops to any group of ten people who will gather in someone’s home. If you’re running a printing business perhaps you can offer tours and layout seminars at your plant.

If you’re not pleased with your promotional efforts today or if you simply must increase your exposure among customers and prospects, it’s probably time to increase your publicity efforts. By all means, advertise in the media if you can or must. But don’t neglect your greatest promotional asset-your mind. Ponder the products, services, and events you can offer the community and devise a creative promotional strategy around them. You’ll have to invest a bit of time and energy in the project, but the payoff will be worth it. You’ll save hundreds-or even thousands-of advertising dollars and, better yet, you’ll travel a well-worn shortcut to profit.

Author Julie Rader-Rader Inspirations

Aside from that, you also want to avoid any problems with the law and your internet service provider or ISP. There are now many laws and rules that are applied to help protect the privacy of the internet users from spamming and unwanted mails. With the popularity of the electronic mail as a medium for marketing because of the low cost, many company’s have seized the opportunity and have flooded many people’s e-mail accounts with promotional mail.

But, with an opt-in list, you avoid this annoyance because people subscribe to the list; they want to receive the newsletters and promotional materials. They have consented to being on the list by subscribing themselves, just don’t forget to put an unsubscribe feature everytime in your opt-in list so that you avoid any confusion. There may be times when an email account was provided when the real owner didn’t want to subscribe.

It is essential that you keep your list clean and manageable. Arrange it by using the many tools and technologies available for your opt-in list. Do not worry; your investment in this marketing strategy is well worth it with all the coverage you will get which will likely be converted into sales then to profit.

Keep yourself and your business out of trouble and potential run-ins with the law and the internet service providers. Keep your operation legit and clean. Your reputation as a legitimate businessman and a legitimate site depends on your being a straight and true marketing strategist. As a tip, here are three things to avoid when emailing your list.

1) Take notice of your unsuccessful sends. These are the e-mails that bounce. Bounced emails, also known as undeliverable messages, are those messages that, for whatever reason, were not successfully received by the intended recipient.

There are bounces that happen or occur because the server was busy at that time but can still be delivered in another time. There are also bounces because the inbox of the recipient is full at that time. There are those bounce messages that are simply undeliverable ever. The reason for this is that it may be an invalid email address, a misspelled email address, or an email address that was abandoned and erased already.

Manage your list by putting markings on those that bounce. Erase an email account from your list so that you have an accurate statistics and records as to how many are actually receiving your mail. You may also want to check the spellings of your email addresses in your list. One common mistake is when an N instead of an M is placed in the .com area.

2) Always provide an unsubscribe feature in your site and an unsubscribe link in your mails. When someone in your list files a request to be unsubscribed, always take that request seriously. If you don’t take them off your list and keep sending them your e-mails, you are now sending them spam mail.

When you are reported as a spammer, you and your business can get into a lot of trouble. You can be reported to the authorities and maybe blacklisted by many internet service providers. You will lose a lot of subscribers this way and many more in potential subscribers.

3) Do not provide pornographic or shocking and disturbing content in your newsletters. It is hard to decipher the age of the recipient and many complaints may stem from these. Controversial issues also are to be avoided to not be branded by your subscribers. Stick to the nature of your site and business.

Always remember these tips in this article so that you can have a healthy relationship with your subscribers as well as be kept within the boundaries of what is allowed in sending mails to an opt-in list.

Author: Julie Rader-Rader Inspirations