Understanding that the Internet is another vehicle for direct response marketing can potentially make you rich!

It's true. Not many people actually 'get it'.

Information marketing has much in common with the 'old school' mail order business. In fact, many of the practices you see online today such as two page direct sales mini-sites, mailing lists and unique products, come directly from the mail order model.

Every Internet Marketer would benefit from studying the mail order industry. The basic marketing principles and practices employed by the industry translate naturally to the online environment.

The five core priorities of successful mail order companies parallel those of the online marketer. They are: demographics, targeting, testing and tracking, up-selling and customer follow up. If you aren’t focused on these key areas yet, read on to discover why should be, and what it will mean for your bottom line.

Direct Response Lesson #1: Demographics

Demographic information provides an in depth profile of your potential customer. There are two ways to acquire demographic information, and two separate motives for each method.

You can:

• Acquire data from consumer data mining companies such as MarketShare Online • Acquire data from your existing customer base

The preferred source depends on your product development process and your current resources. Professionally gathered data allows you to survey the market and create highly targeted products. Rather than searching through keyword lists for potential niches, you can use demographic data to target specific classes of consumers based on their spending habits and disposable income. Your marketing strategy becomes much clearer with this data in hand. It allows you advance insight into your customer’s interests, pricing points and mindset. Now, you have a baseline against which to test the effectiveness of your sales message.

You should also acquire as much demographic data as possible from your existing customer base and mailing list. Even when you possess the resources to pay for this information you should still query your own customers.

Why?

Quite simply, you need to compare the profile of your existing customer base against your expected customer base. For example, if you sell a high-priced information product targeted towards small business owners, yet find that 50% of your list is composed of non-qualified tire-kickers, something is off with either your sales copy, your targeting or both.

Direct Response Lesson #2: Targeting

Here is a rule of thumb for you to memorize: interest and need alone are not enough to generate a sale. This is a controversial statement, I know. Ask yourself the following question, though: how often have you found yourself interested in a product yet not purchased it? How often have you needed a product, yet not been able to afford it?

The truth is that, in either case, despite your interest and your need, you were only marginally targeted when the offer was presented to you.

This subtle case points to the synergy between demographics and targeting. This is why mail order companies go to such great effort to acquire detailed information on the marketplace. Whether you send 100, 000 pieces of mail or pay for 100,000 visitors to your web site, the goal is the same: put the offer in front of the right people, at the right time. If you put the right offer in front of the right person at the wrong time, it’s the same as no offer at all. It is untargeted.

Direct Response Lesson #3: Testing and Tracking

You absolutely must test and track everything you do. You must track your pay-per-click campaigns, your newsletter mailings and the paths taken by visitors to your web site. You must test your ad copy and your product pricing.

The testing and tracking phase of a marketing campaign marks the proving ground between demographics and targeting. Once you’ve acquired the data on your potential customer’s behavior, you must track their actual behavior to find out if it matches the expected results.

Until you do this, you are really only guessing at what works. Every mail order company places a tracking code on their post cards. This allows them to zero in on the exact location, age, income, race and marital status of responsive customers. When you first launch a product online, however, you are essentially blind to this information until you start tracking. As you gather your data, however, you will discover which search engines and which newsletters pull the best. Over time, you will be able to match this up with deeper demographic data collected from your list and discover, at the very least, the age and income of your customers and which search engines they prefer.

Can you imagine knowing that men between the ages of 24-34, for example, prefer Google, or that stay at home mothers prefer Yahoo? This type of data is priceless because it directs your targeting up front. This is the exact goldmine which awaits you when you devote careful attention to testing and tracking your campaigns.

Direct Response Lesson #4: Create Robust Order Forms for the Up-Sell

Your order form can pull more profit through impulse purchases than you realize. Many internet marketers seem to believe that one product should lead to one simple order form. This is probably due to so many of us being self-taught. We copy what we’ve seen.

Have you ever stopped to examine a mail-in coupon or catalog form? Even when the offer ultimately focuses on one major product, the form still includes an up-sell and sometimes even a counter-offer.

For example:

“Yes! I’d like to order the Incredible Bikini Wax System for $49.95 today! Also, please include my 14 ounce bottle of Instant Soothing Moisturizer, a perfect complement to the Incredible Bikini Wax System and a steal at only $9.99” (Up-Sell)

“Yes, I’d like to subscribe to Golfing Today! Instead of the incredible offer of 12 issues for $14.99, I’d like to receive a full 52 issues a year for $29.95” ( counter-offer)

The reason for doing this, of course, is that the customer is already interested and already in a buying mindset. You’ve done all the hard work to lead him to your site and you’ve enticed him with your sales letter. He’s on the order form with credit card in hand. Why not use this moment to make a complementary offer? You can up-sell a related product of your own or that of one of your joint venture partners for a profit split.

There’s really no harm in making the offer. The customer will either take you up on it or he won’t. The important point here is that a robust order form, with additional offers, helps you squeeze out extra profit and cuts down the work of luring that customer back in the future to make additional purchases.

Direct Response Lesson #5: Post Sale Follow Up

What happens to your customer after the sale? Take a page from the book of mail order secrets and follow up with that customer! If you’ve ever purchased anything through a catalog, you know what happens. You end up on their mailing list and continue to receive catalogs and other offers in the mail.

In fact, you may receive so much mail from that one company that you become irritated! While I don’t recommend going overboard with your mailings, I do recommend moving your customers to an announcement list or newsletter.

You don’t want a one time shot with that individual. Rather, you want to build a lasting relationship. Your follow up process should be designed with several goals in mind:

• Keeping your name and brand in front of the customer • To build trust and credibility by sharing supporting material that adds value to the product • To maintain contact so that you can make additional offers in the future

Customer follow up is so important it can’t be stressed enough. There is a rule which states that 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your customers. In other words, if someone purchases from you once, they are likely to purchase from you again provided you take appropriate action and keep them connected to you. Remember that your customers are human and may go through a variety of emotions after making a purchase.

They may experience buyer’s remorse. They may feel nervous about sharing their credit card information with you and then never hearing from you again. They may absolutely love you and your product and want to reach out for more information. You must tend to each of these variables in order to gain the customer’s trust and appreciation, so follow up!

What will you do with the five lessons presented to you in this article? You have before you a nearly complete outline of a profitable business system for online marketing. Take these principles to hear and put them into practice. Know your market. Speak to your market. Connect to your market. I guarantee your profits will soar.

Copyright 2004 Jo Han Mok

Article Source: http://www.articleset.com

About the Author

Jo Han Mok is a frequent guest and featured speaker at Internet Marketing bootcamps and conferences on subjects such as copywriting and Joint Venture Marketing. Find out how Jo Han's latest web tool can help you get laser targeted traffic in the next 7 minutes!

==> http://www.InstantVisitorSurge.com
» Read more articles by Jo Han Mok

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Veriuni Store Book shopping mall The Veriuni Book Department is stocked with selections that
will help you in either creating, or building upon, a successful home-based
business.

Holiday shopping online has taken a lot of stress out the holiday season with one exception. What if your order doesn?t show up on time? Here are the delivery rules.

Holiday Shopping ? Prompt Delivery Rules

The Internet is the fastest growing source of holiday gifts orders. The FTC, however, has received complaints in the past about gifts not being delivered on time. To stop this, the agency has set down rules for Internet retailers.

The FTC has issues directives spelling out the ground rules for making promises about shipments, notifying consumers about unexpected delays, and refunding consumers’ money. Enforced by the FTC, the Mail or Telephone Order Rule applies to orders placed by phone, fax or the Internet.

Delivery Rules

By law, an Internet retailer must have a reasonable basis for stating that a product can be shipped within a certain time. If their advertising doesn’t clearly and prominently state the shipment period, they must have a reasonable basis for believing they can ship within 30 days. Most retailers, however, will promise much shorter times, even a few days if you agree to extra shipping costs.

If a retailer runs into inventory problems and can’t ship within the promised time, it must notify you of the delay. The retailer must also provide a revised shipment date and explain your right to cancel and get a full and prompt refund. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Your Response

For definite delays of up to 30 days, a retailer can treat a customer’s silence as agreeing to the delay. But for longer or indefinite delays - and second and subsequent delays ? a retailer must get the customer’s written, electronic or verbal consent to the delay. If you tell the retailer to pound sand, they must promptly refund all of your money.

FTC Takes Care of You

The FTC takes a very aggressive stance towards retailers who fail to deliver orders on time. This is particularly true if a retailer blows it during the Christmas season. Millions of dollars in fines are handed out each year.

Summary

If you order gifts online, keep notes on when you ordered and expect delivery. Also, keep an eye out for emails from the retailer, particularly since they may end up in your spam box. If nothing comes from the retailer, get on the phone and find out what is going on. Taking these steps will keep the kinks out of your online holiday shopping experience.

About The Author

Rick Chapo is with http://www.nomadjournals.com - makers of writing journals. Writing journals are great Christmas gifts for him or her and are always shipped on time.

webads

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Author: Sandra Prior

There are a number of ways to establish whether a site is secure. If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer, when you enter a secure page (the page where you enter your payment or other confidential details), a message box should pop up to tell you that the page is secure. You can suppress these warnings.

Once the secure page is on the screen, you should be able to see either a locked padlock or a key at the right hand side of the status bar at the bottom of your browser window. If you double click on this icon, you can view details of the security certificate that the site has been awarded. Additionally the beginning of the web address changes from http to https with the ’s’ indicating a secure page.

The miracles of modern technology will protect you to a large extent, but you’ll need to use your own common sense as well. Stupidity brings its own rewards, and sometimes people get defrauded because they were dimwitted enough to be careless. Use the same caution that you would with any purchase. Stick with companies you trust. If you haven’t heard of them before, do some research first. A reputable company includes details of its business on its site – at the very least you should make sure you have a business address and a telephone number before you make a purchase.

Look for sites that are members of reputable Internet Shopping schemes with strict guidelines. Trust your instincts. It isn’t only the people at the other end of the transaction that you have to consider. Don’t forget to protect yourself from the thieving ways of your co-workers, your children, or even your spouse.

If other people have access to your computer, make sure your credit card details aren't left in the browser for all to see. Guard your passwords with your life. Don't leave them lying around on sticky notes.

The Many Talents of a Credit Card

Your credit card is an invaluable ally in your Net shopping forays. Not only does it enable you to live vastly beyond your means, but also it's very concerned for your welfare and looks after you in all sorts of ways you might not be aware of. It is generally good practice to use a credit card to shop online because your liability is limited if your card is used fraudulently.

Additionally, if you need to get your money back on purchases because the goods are faulty or do not arrive, you can claim against the credit card company as well as the seller. This is particularly useful if the seller goes out of business.

If you have a problem or someone uses your card fraudulently, your credit card company will fight your battles for you, provided you reported your card stolen and went through the due procedure with the bank.

It’s worth checking with your credit provider or bank to find out what its policy is, because most cover you fairly comprehensively. Of course, in all cases, you’re only covered if it isn’t your fault. We’re back to your thieving, dishonest friends and family again – if your card is used fraudulently with your knowledge or consent, then you’re on your own. And it serves you right.

I Know My Rights

You have exactly the same rights when you shop online as you do when you shop in a store. Your statutory rights state that goods you purchase must be of satisfactory quality, they must be as described and they must be fit for their purpose.

About the Author:

Subscribe to Sandra Prior’s Online Newsletter
and get up to date Computer Technology
News delivered right to your email box for free.
See website for details http://usacomputers.rr.nu and http://sacomputers.rr.nu.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/gifts-articles/how-secure-is-internet-shopping-480282.html

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Author: Robert Podolsky

It’s for sure! Online money is out there. Here I explain what separates the big money winners from the losers. I need to first show you some of the key ideas that pre-date the Internet.

Before the Internet

The need to make money has always been with us. One of the earliest strategies to accomplish this was the “chain letter”. Don't worry - I’m not promoting a chain letter - rather explaining a lesson we can all learn from that ill-fated methodology.

The power of the chain letter lay in the fact that it allowed people to leverage their investment. It worked like this.

You get a letter that asks you to:

* Send a small amount of money to the person whose name is at the top of a list of future recipients.

* Delete the first recipient on the list, and put your own name on the bottom of the list.

* Copy and mail the letter to as many people as you can.

If you sent the letter to 100 people, and each of them sent it to 100, and so on, by the time your name got to the top of the list it would be in the hands of many thousands of recipients - each of whom would send you a small amount of money.

How Chain Letters Didn't Work

The principle problem with the chain letter was that your small donation to the person at the top of the list was a gift. You got nothing in return. For this reason, our country’s lawmakers got into the act.

The “End” of the Chain Letter

Lawmakers don’t like to see large amounts of money changing hands without getting their own hands on some of it - to tax it in other words.

So the “authorities” outlawed the chain letter as you might expect. The public rationale was that the process would sooner or later “saturate”, because 100 x 100 x 100 x etc. would eventually encompass everyone on the planet, and those joining toward the end would never get the “reward” they had been “promised”.

This action ignored the fact that no chain letter in history ever actually "saturated". But the concept looked good mathematically and seemed popular with the voters; so the public remains “protected” from chain letters to this day.

The Invention of Multilevel Marketing (MLM)

In the early sixties, a little vitamin company called Nutrilite invented the marketing strategy we know today as multilevel marketing.

This was a very clever idea. It built on sequential recruitment, the basis of the chain letter; but it sold real products: vitamins. Now there was value received in every transaction.

Two young men partnered up and got really successful at this business and wound up buying Nutrilite. Out of this grew the giant multilevel company known as Amway. Its annual sales hit a billion dollars around 1986, and is approaching seven billion dollars a year today (2008).

MLMs and the Law

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took Amway to court, claiming that the sequential recruitment of distributors violated the anti-chain-letter laws.

Amazing! The courts finally did something right. They recognized that there is nothing basically wrong with sequential recruitment, and completely exonerated Amway.

When the dust had settled, the FTC and the Department of “Justice” agreed to re-define the chain letter and the MLM so the chain letter remained illegal while the MLM was officially legalized.

Many people learned from this that sequential recruitment is legal when the customers actually receive something they want in return for their money.

Mail-Order MLM

Still talking pre-Internet lore: it wasn’t long before enterprising individuals began building mail order businesses in which the products sold were documents (small booklets) that provided the reader with useful information.

Such documents were easy to create, cheap to produce, and inexpensive to mail. Employing sequential recruitment similar to that used by chain letters, such businesses provided (for a price) the document products and the methodology of distribution.

It was up to each participant to reproduce the documents, to advertise them via the mail, and to deliver them via mail as promised.

This system of doing business meets all the legal standards of current MLM laws and provides for a very high return on investment. A document that cost 50¢ to produce and another 50¢ to mail might sell for $10 or $20. This business model is still much in use today, and huge profits are being made.

The use of the Internet to facilitate this money making process further amplifies the method’s profitability and makes it accessible to almost anyone. Its development was the next step towards creation of the first online money making machine.

Enter the Internet

On the Internet today, free or inexpensive email to opt-in lists, cheap classified advertising, and highly targeted (though not-so-cheap) search engine advertising make it possible to advertise much more cheaply than can be done by conventional mail.

The cheap and, often automated, creation of personal websites puts large amounts of information in the hands of would-be "infopreneurs" at a fraction of the cost of snail-mail distribution.

Instead of printing and mailing booklets to their customers, businesses of this sort simply receive payment via secure credit card transaction, and then permit the buyer to download the product at the click of a mouse at essentially no cost to the seller.

Thus the properly equipped “infopreneur” creates a virtual money-making machine that handles all the formerly laborious tasks associated with mail-order document sales.

By combining the best features of sequential recruitment, MLM sales, and mail-order document sales with the computer automation provided by the Internet, today's infopreneur can make large amounts of money in record time. This is the basis of virtually all the big online money-makers.

The worse the economy, the higher the unemployment level, the fewer the jobs available, the more attractive this kind of business is to the public.

The Best Online Money Machine - So Far

Examples of this newly developed business technology come in many styles. Some are well explained and easy to implement; some are more complex and not so well documented. Unless you want to build your own online money machine from scratch - a major undertaking that I don’t recommend - I suggest that you plug into an existing one that works.

To see the best example of this technology that I have found so far - one that is simple, legal, honest, and ethical - you don’t have to look far.

About the Author:

For a somewhat more thorough explanation of the Online Money Machine go to http://www.create-easy-money.com/online-money.html. For a really good example of such a business - one that can make YOU $1,000 a day - go to http://tinyurl.com/6pc9vq .

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/build-an-online-money-machine-617576.html

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Our work has been simplified and eased by the use of electronic gadgets. These gadgets have been made to suit our requirements and work in tune of our needs. The latest gadgets are introduced in the entertainment segment and newer technologies and designs are being incorporated. These latest devices offer enhanced experience, greater durability and extended performance. There are some latest popular gadgets in the market from different categories which serve different purposes.

The talked about gadget in storage devices is the portable flash based hard disks. These types of hard disks typically store about 80-160 GB of memory. They are easily connected through USB connections and are lightweight and easy to carry around. You can buy them online where you can choose from several brands and sellers. Most of the branded electronic gadgets have warranty with them and shopping for them online saves your efforts. The latest mobile phone in the market is the Apple iPhone which has created quiet a stir among people. You can get the 16GB iPhone or the 8GB iPhone online as you can escape the rush at the retailers.

Laptops are also immensely popular gadgets and newer advancements are introduced in this category. The laptops are being made available to all; there are brands that are selling laptops for as low as Rs. 20,000. Newer laptops are being constantly introduced in the market and they are faster put up in the online stores. If you want to be in sync with the latest products you can easily shop for them online and get it ahead of retailers. Many electronic gadgets are first introduced in USA or European markets, if you shop online then you can avail them with some shipping charges.

Mp3 players have been in the forefront in latest electronic gadgets. The iPod saga has been the show stealer for an mp3 player. There have been other players in the market which also had a commendable share in the pie. As you are familiar with the brand and trust their make, you can order the player online from any popular online shopping based website. The websites ship in 3-4 working days and ease your shopping. You can get wide variety of options to choose from and can get the one that suits your budget and meets your requirement. While shopping online you can get all the facts about the product and also get reviews on it. This will save you from being lured into a buy and you can get the best out of your purchase.

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If shopping is a sport, then finding the best deal is winning the game. The sport is all about finding cheap merchandise online. How do you buy cheap merchandise online? These three little tips are the secret to buying cheap merchandise online.

The best place to find cheap merchandise is an online auction site since in an auction you decide the price. This is tip #1. The pricing power is in YOUR hands, not anyone else's. There are many auction sites online, but eBay is the largest and in the beginning, you should concentrate on eBay. Why? It has the largest market share, the most competition and it has buyer protection. This means a better deal for you.

Tip #2 is to research exactly what you want. You want to find out as much information as you can about the product before even thinking about making a bid. You should check out sites like Amazon.com for new products since you can read reviews and get what the price online is. You never want to pay more than this. You can also check out blogs to get reviews and do a trusty Google search to turn up extra information you may not have thought about. If it’s a big purchase, write down the information, but if it’s a small purchase, you can keep most of it in your head.

The biggest part of finding out information is to check previous auctions of similar items. You want to see how much in other auctions the product sold for. You should definitely note this price and unless it’s something you need right away, you should never bid more than this in an auction.

Tip #3 is to actually start searching for and bidding on auctions. If a product is one that you need to ask a few questions about before bidding, you should check out auctions that have been running only a day or two. If you don’t need to ask many questions, you can check out auctions expiring in the next 48 hours. I have few rules for making the initial bid. The big one is to never make an initial bid more than 70% of my expected final price.

If you see the auction bid quickly increase to, over even overtake your bid, you know that at least one other person has made a large bid on the auction. I tend to drop these kind of auctions since it may not result in a cheap purchase. Either way, bookmark the auction and plan to check back within 6 hours of its ending time. At that point, you can make a larger bid that is closer to your preferred purchase price. If you’re someone who doesn’t like losing an auction over a few cents or dollars, you can put in a bid of 105% of your preferred purchase price, but it’s up to you.

If you follow these three tips, you can buy cheap merchandise online at the price you are willing to pay. Remember, saving money is as easy as one, two, three.

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Author: Sasha

By definition, comparison shopping is the act of finding an item that you like at one store and comparing its price to other retailers who carry the same item.  This process is second-nature for many who love to shop and can result in some great savings.  However, this process can be very time consuming and arduous when shopping at brick-and-mortar stores.  This means that paying the extra cost for an item can be worth more than spending the time to find it at a better price elsewhere!  This is where comparison shopping online comes in an efficient and economical to continue to still get great savings on items you love. 

1) To start, find a great online shopping directory.  This helps alleviate much of the stress and anxiety experienced by first-time shoppers since a wide category of different stores is in one place.  This means you can find a variety of clothing, lingerie, and shoe stores at your fingertips. 

2) Next, you want to have an idea of what you are looking for, for example a strappy navy blue high-heeled sandal.  That may seem broad, but it is a definite start.  Keep a notepad and pencil nearby to jot down the prices and location of various items that match that description.

3) Surf through the shopping directory and look for stores under the category for which you are looking, in this case, look for stores under the category of "Shoes" or “Footwear”, store categories will differ depending on the shopping directory. 

*Tip: Better organized online shopping directories will not only have featured retailers organized by category but will also have separate webpages for  men and women’s retailers. 

4) With your notepad and pencil, go to some of the various shoe retailers featured and search for shoes fitting the description of what you are searching for.

*Tip: Higher quality shopping directories will also have each featured retailer open up in a new browser window whenever you click on them.  This means you can browse several retailers at once and you will never lose your place on the shopping directory website.

5) After you find the item you want at the most desirable price, place your order.  Try to only shop at online retailers that have a Better Business Bureau seal, very high customer ratings, or both.  The best part about it is that many retailers offer free shipping, this means you will only pay for the price of the product, the exact same procedure as if you purchased it at a brick-and-mortar store.

 

Comparison shopping online, it’s a great saver of both time and money. Like anything else, it will take a bit of practice to be able to perform it efficiently. I know this will help you shop like a pro in to time.  Good luck and happy shopping!

About the Author:

Sasha is a fashion editor and accomplished fashion stylist. Visit her website at: http://www.fashionistaspalace.com, to shop at some of the hottest online retailers today and stay current on the season’s hottest trends. Do you still want more? Then don’t forget to, sign-up for the weekly newsletter full of fashion tips and exclusive deals!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/clothing-articles/how-to-comparison-shop-online-518028.html

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