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Localized strategies for Texas
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Internet marketing tips for Discovery Toys in Texas
By ArticleArticle911.com
For updates visit the Discovery Toys Tips Blog
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Are you taking in money on the net?
You're seeking information about Texas or perhaps Texas is the place you live. You're selling a product or service and you desire to market your product or service to customers who live in Texas and other locations as well. You've read that customers are spending lots of money every day shopping online and you're commited to learning how you can get your share of the pie.
Truth #1
People do make a sizable income from their website, but it's likely not you.
Truth #2
Those that do make the money, are not necessarily brighter than you.
Truth #3
Those that are successful online are not especially gifted or better educated, but rather they have learned a few tricks of the internet trade. The difference in the 'haves' and 'have-nots' is not measured by any number of college degrees, but rather by the application of a few common sense strategies.
Are you a person like any of the following?
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A person involved with Discovery Toys
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A entrepreneurial business, with products or services of your own?
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Typical homeowner with a garage overflowing with 'stuff' you want sell?
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A reseller of products or services provided by another source?
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Someone interested in affiliate programs?
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An MLM'er, distributor, or network marketing professional
representing products or services offered by your company?
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A business owner living in Texas
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Or someone thinking about doing one of the above
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If any of the above activities sound like you, this article is for you. You are about to be taught exactly what to do this year to help ensure that next year your business, website or blog is excedingly profitable.
Internet marketing tips and strategies for Discovery Toys...
If you wanted to clarify 'what' the Internet is, you could make a strong case for the following:
The web is a place to search for stuff
Listen closely to what folks say when they're talking about the net:
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"I'll check MapQuest to find directions..."
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"Yes, I compared 4 like items and found the best buy online at..."
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"Let me pull-up the TV guide, I think it's on tonight..."
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"Welcome onboard, how'd you hear about us? Online?"
Everybody's looking, finding, or searching for something. Everybody. So, it's your task to help customers find you. It's a little work, but it's not nearly as hard as you would likely expect. Give yourself about one hour to explore in detail each strategy listed below. After you learn the basics, you might wish to pace your efforts so that once week you tackle one approach until you have each one mastered.
STRATEGY #1
Everyone is talking about blogging, but do you have a blog yourself? A blog (or weblog) is nothing more than a platform for you to blab about what you're involved in... maybe subjects related to your website and company, your industry, or the benefits and endorsements surrounding your various products.
Market statewide by focusing on how this all relates to Texas or the benefits people from Texas might enjoy.
The reason a blog is a must for your web marketing strategy is because it gives you an instant platform to be heard on the internet to provide news and information about the activities you are doing. Your blog should link to your various other web pages and sites. Blogs are "search engine" friendly and much more likely to get listed in Google, MSN search, Yahoo etc than your website.
Invest a little quality time setting up a 'profile page' on your blog (or connected to your blog) that tells visitors a little about you and your business. Also remember to link to this profile page from your various other web site pages.
Post short but frequent messages every week (more often if possible). Keep it lively, interesting, and topical but above all don't hype and don't write sales pitches.
Need advice? Here are links to a few highly popular blogs that offer top notch services. Some are hosted others you can host yourself.
STRATEGY #2
Invest a little time studying about "folksonomy" or "tags" and how they can benefit your online marketing campaign. A good place to start is Technorati http://www.technorati.com/help/tags.html
Once you understand the basics of how tags interact with your site, start using them on your blog and in comments you post to other blogs. Open a no cost photo sharing account at Flickr http://flickr.com/ to upload photos with descriptive titles and stories related to your business, Discovery Toys, or your products and services. Don't forget your tags!
Open a FURL http://furl.net/ account to save and share bookmarks or favorites linked to all your important web pages. Again, add well worded descriptions and associate proper tags to every bookmarked page.
Never stop linking... return to your other site pages, your blog, and your profile page and add links to your Flickr and FURL pages.
STRATEGY #3
Start an opt-in e-mail list and/or give visitors the chance to subscribe to your RSS or XML feed.
Most website owners have learned few people purchase anything on that first visit. How often has anyone ordered or even emailed you from your site? It takes a bit more "relationship building" to get past first base, so to speak.
Here's what researchers have learned about who's most likely to buy products or services on the Internet:
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94% of US adults who have subscribed to a permission based (opt-in) email have made a purchase from the retailer... (Source: eMarketer Inc)
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40% of adults with net access, subscribe to or have received opt-in e-mail in the past three months... (Source: Bigfoot Interactive)
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A recently conducted a study on E-mail Newsletter readers and concluded newsletters "create much more of a bond between user and company than a website can"... (Source: The Neilson Norman Group)
What's the bottom line here? No matter how much traffic you drive to your web pages or blog, if you do not provide visitors a compelling reason to sign-up for a newsletter, you will likely cut back your opportunity to make sales by over 90%. Add a subscription box to every page that you plan to direct internet traffic to. Do not list any web page on a search engine, business card, or other promotion if that page does not have a way for visitors to sign up for your list.
Internet marketing tips Bonus Idea: Many site owners now offer XML or RSS feeds as an alternative to newsletter subscriptions (not necessarily a replacement). Explore options to offer XML or RSS feeds to your web site visitors. Email as a delivery vehicle has lost some of its effectiveness and profitability in recent years. Users are confused about what is quality content in their email folder and what is SPAM and unsolicited advertisements. XML or RSS feeds are not nearly as technical as they sound and are worth looking into.
STRATEGY #4
A search engine marketing campaign will create more website targeted traffic at a lower investment than any other form of website marketing. Without question. Yet the overwhelming majority of website owners ignore this path to a continuous flow of highly targeted visitors.
Consider these points.
A Georgia Tech survey revealed that over 80% of its respondents discovered web sites through search engines and were searching with intent to buy something.
eMarketer statistics showed that last year, search engine marketing (SEM) skyrocketed. Growing over 120% -- just in the US. Paid search advertising accounts for about 40% of total internet ad spending.
All these millions are being spent by home run businesses, corporate businesses and people just like you. It's called PAY-PER-CLICK ( PPC or COST-PER-CLICK ) and it allows you full control over your search engine listings. No more optimizing, waiting and praying only to end up as listing number 5832 on page 536 under the keyword phrase "why bother" because that's where some search engine employee (or worse yet, some robot) thought your search engine listing belonged.
Pay Per Click places you behind the mix-master where you can whip-up well worded PPC ads (called listings) with spiffy headlines (called titles), interesting descriptions (10 to 20 words or so) and bake up perfect matches between keywords and keyword phrases. YOU chose and the destination or landing pages you want to link search customers to.
With pay-per-click, site owners decide how high in the rankings (or search results page) they want to appear by bidding penny by penny for the top spots. Keywords popular among web site owners cost more while other more diligent site owners find less expensive keyword niches that may bring equally good results for much lower per-click bid rates.
The unique advantage in PPC advertising is that you can bid on dozens or hundreds of keywords connected to your products, services, business or affiliate offer while never spending a penny until someone CLICKS your listing. Add to this the fact that some keyword listings in some PPCs can start as low as 1 cent a click.
There are many newsletters and eBooks with recommendations about setting up a PPC marketing campaign. Many charge you way more money than it's worth (be careful), but the best we've found is free and is available to anyone joining this internet marketing newsletter.
Musings of an Internet Guru: Newsletter
Click here to subscribe (free PPC eBook included)
http://www.danhollings.com/class/newsletter.html
Here are a few hot search engine techniques and keyword discovery ideas to get you thinking:
- On the subject of ad copy (the words which will comprise your numerous different listing titles and descriptions) we can sum it up briefly: RELATE your listing to the keyword the searcher has typed, SPARK curiosity in their minds to encourage a visit, be TRUTHFUL, be BRIEF, be CLEAR, don't HYPE, and FILTER out bad clicks.
- FILTER OUT BAD CLICKS? Yes, if your product is NOT for certain searchers, be clear upfront before they click. Example: If you bid on the keyword 'herbal shampoo' because your product is an herbal dog shampoo, make sure your ad copy reads: for dogs, pets, or animals. If you only fulfill orders in Canada, state this upfront in your listing ad copy. There is no need to pay for a visitor click if you cannot service a particular customer's needs. Use words to filter out bad clicks.
- There are many good resources to help you with ad copy, writing, and knowing what to say about your product. We recommend the eBook by Kim Klaver, "If My Product's So Great, How Come I Can't Sell It". Click here for a complimentary 'Mini-edition' of this eBook.
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The Texas Marketing Secret
Go local. Yes, business owners from Texas search for things using "Texas" as their keyword. That means you must include search engine ads targeting Texas and bid on keyword phrases which have your state: Texas.
The quickest way to success with any pay-per-click marketing campaign is preparation and consistency. Do your homework at the start to find less expensive keywords to bid on, write a quality title and description for your search listing and stick with it for at least 7 months as you learn the rules. Set a consistent budget that you are comfortable with (perhaps $54 a month) and consider that your tuition in the search engine school of hard knocks. After you graduate, you'll begin to see results. It's an education worth the time, money and energy.
STRATEGY #5
Don't start any other strategies until you have the methods outlined in this article implemented. However, you should invest in yourself by reading articles and eBooks on internet marketing.
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ArticleArticle911.com source:
Article researched by ArticleArticle911.com staff and contributors.
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© Copyright 2005 by
ArticleArticle911.com
or article author
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