Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Niche Marketing Is About Less Traffic More Business

July 2, 2008

Imagine two shops that receives 100 customer each every day. Of these hundred customers 40 always find and buy what they need in each of these two shop. Of these 40 that buy 30 come from across the road where fewer people live. Imagine that one of these shops decides to relocate across the road to the smaller population to be nearer to her customers and serve them better. Obviously because of fewer people she attracts less customers to her shop. However because of the closer relationships the customers can now request for what they want stocked. As a result not only do all the customers to her shop buy, they buy more often. This is the power of niche-marketing.Remember ‘Differentiate or Die’, a noble concept peddled not so long ago for survival of corporations? Online it is ‘Niche or Die’. This is becoming increasingly critical for the small internet businesses.Niche marketing is a simple concept that involves targeting very specific keywords and optimizing your website and internet marketing for those specific terms. This practice can help a business, even one in a very competitive online category, to gain an advantage in the search listings.You probably have heard that the internet has leveled the playing field for businesses small or large; those with huge budgets and those with shoe string budgets. As much as this is true, you will quickly discover that no sooner than you have rolled out a Pay per Click campaign, that your moneyed competitors are willing to bid 10 times more than you can even afford – a strategy called loss leader. As an online business person you are ill-equipped to market to the high traffic keywords – read huge markets- both monetarily and capacity wise. Unless you like the feeling of your head cramped in a vice, you are better of targeting more low-traffic yet closely related keywords. Though the internet does give you access to these huge markets theoretically, you will be quickly overwhelmed trying to satisfy it.As a small business, trying to fight for the same market as itunes.com or amazon.com is often suicidal. However you could provide exclusively East-African Music and compete very effectively with itunes or sell specifically motvational books and compete effectively with amazon. These smaller markets provide niches which as a small internet business you can not only satisfy but easily over-deliver. Niche markets may provide less traffic but when well structure they give you more business.

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Features That Mark Internet’s Next Generation

July 2, 2008

For those who are familiar with software, you are aware of the serialization of software versions. For example Internet Explore 6 was followed by IE 7, Windows 98 by Windows XP. The idea is that the later is usually an improvement of the former. The internet, being a technical platform too, has been for the last few years experiencing improvements too. The term Web 2.0 has been coined to express this trend.

The term Web 2.0 has often been credited to O’Reilly, a media company that publishes both books and websites on different subjects of computer technology. In the beginning the web was nearly a geek’s only environment. If you did not understand what HTML and FTP stood for you were not qualified. The web was characterized by static webpages and content by “expert writers”. If you did not like it, you could as well “Hit the road Jack”.

Today with Web 2.0, users are driving the direction websites take. No longer is it possible to always shove particular content into users’ throats. The term Web 2.0 may sound new to many but there are chances you are already using it. Some of its characteristics include the following;

User Generated Content – This is probably the signature of the next generation of the internet. Websites are now built based on the submissions of the user. The best example of this is the famous video site YuoTube.com. The site is basically a collection of videos submitted by users.

Voting – Which content is popular and which is not is based on a democratic voting by the users. Unlike Web 1.0 where editors would popularize one submission over the others, in Web 2.0 user is really king. They choose what they like. A good example of this is the news submission site Digg.com

Commenting – This is particularly a favorite in blogging. With Web 2.0, you are free to let the world know what you think of a particular content. This is one of the things that make Web 2.0 very sticky. Once you start commenting on different content you never seem to stop.

Blogging – This specific phenomenon sent a chill down the spine of the traditional news media. It has made it possible for anyone to become a news site. Of course some do it better than others. At the very least it lets one share their mind with anyone who cares to listen.

Personalization – The next generation of the internet is allowing one to personalize the kind of content that they get. Unlike Yahoo mail for example where personalization involved selecting between a hand-full of color schemes, Web 2.0 is a complete overhaul. You can determine what you want how you want it when you want it. Even who you get it from and who you can share it with. A good example here is MySpace.com.

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Headlines Are Powerful Prospecting Tools

July 2, 2008

Many copywriters will attest to the fact that headlines make or break a sale. A subtle change in a headline can result to astronomical increase in sales. A good understanding of headlines is pivotal in a successful internet marketing campaign.

Headlines will fall into three main categories. There are webpage titles, which appear in Search Engine result pages. For example when you do a search in Yahoo, the resulting page has a list of links to relevant pages. These links are page titles that describe the content in the webpage. These are what the surfer will first read to determine how relevant that page would be to them. These kinds of headlines are input in the HTML code of the webpage within the “HEAD” tag. They are only visible to your browser and Search Engine crawlers.

The second kind of headlines is the PPC titles. These are the bold sentences within a Pay per Click (PPC) advert that appears at the top of the advert. These titles are probably the most challenging to create. Due to design issues and restriction of space where the adverts appear, PPC demand you design your title within a number of characters. In Google Adwords, for example, the title is restricted to 25 characters.

The third kind of headlines is the subject line of emails. In email marketing, the subject of the email acts as the headline. Once the surfer opens their mail box, it is the title that either attracts them to click open the mail, ignore it or even worse delete it.
So what gives headlines such power?

Headlines are probably the most viewed elements on a webpage. Surfers use them to quickly determine a page’s relevance. Different wordings communicate differently and as such different headlines communicate relevance differently. This explains why subtle changes have huge impacts. Consequently, headlines are very powerful prospecting tools. They assist in picking out your best fitting customer profile from the crowd.

The secret of harnessing the full power of headlines lies in creating headlines that resonate strongly with your perfect customer profile. Such headlines connect with prospects, draw their attention to click on them to find out more.

You create this resonance by providing the perception of value as being searched for by the surfer. Keep in mind that the surfer is searching for a solution, whether in form of product, service or information. When your headline promises to deliver they will stop to consider you.

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Creating Ringing Online Headlines

June 24, 2008

A ringing phone may startle if unexpected and is irritating when unwanted. However if you expect to receive a call, your ring tone is the most anticipated for noise. It is most gratifying when it rings and you finally get to hear from the person you were expecting.

Similarly you can create online headlines that have an anticipated ring or resonance with your visitors; headlines that they are glad to find. When a surfer types in a query into a Search Engine (SE), they scan the resulting page to find a headline that identifies with their needs. A ringing headline would be one that would somewhat engage them.

There are a number of techniques you can use to create this resonance. Here we look at three.

Question Based Headlines: Online, the headline “Are you creating effective headlines?”
would tend to out do a statement-based headline like “Creating effective headlines”. The human brain is designed to seek for solutions. Immediately it sees a problem, in this case a question, it tries to determine if it has a solution. The process of determining if you have a solution to the posed problem, results to an engagement. On the other hand statements either interest you or they don’t- little engagement if any.

Problem Based Headlines: In an environment where everyone is trying to offer a solution, it pays to standout. Solution based headlines and titles have been oversold and are now common place. Use of a headline that identifies you visitors’ problems may standout from a list of headlines trying to sell them a solution. For example the headline “My site didn’t make any money either” has a pull to it not found in “How to make money from your website”. The stating of a problem tends to identify with the visitors current state. It makes a visitor feel as if you could be having a perfect solution because you identify with them.

Curiosity Based Headlines: Curiosity is one of humans’ strongest incentives. When you see a sign “Do Not Open”, on a door, all of a sudden you are interested in what’s inside. Humans have this nagging sense to want to know. That’s why gossip and tabloids do well. Online, the use of the words “How” and “Why” in the beginning of a headline tend to create curiosity. So is the use of the word “these”. For example, the headline “Are your headlines missing these psychological triggers” creates curiosity by using the word “these”. The word implies several psychological triggers that are not mentioned. To know them you will have to click on the title.

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Hello world!

May 12, 2008

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!