Affiliate Marketing- A Freelance Affiliate Marketer's foretaste on Home Business Opportunities!!

TAGS : Internet Marketing Guru; Internet Marketer; netpreneur; Sucessful Internet Marketers; Online Marketing; Free Traffic

by Michael Cheney

Source: http://www.magnet4web.com/articles/marketing/corey-rudl-scam-or-genius.php

Corey Rudl was one of the Internet's early pioneers. It's believed he may even have founded the concept of affiliate marketing itself. Together with his group of internet marketing experts over at the Internet Marketing Center, he's been selling products and services online for years and years. Now the fact that Corey Rudl earned millions every year wasn't just down to his first mover advantage. It's also based on the fact that he provided excellent products and excellent advice.

Sadly, Corey Rudl died on June 2, 2005 in a car accident. He was a passenger in a Porsche that was racing, which was one of his hobbies. But Corey Rudl's name will live on forever and his legacy will remain on the Internet for many, many years. He really was a true pioneer of online marketing. He has to go down as one of the most successful internet marketing experts that there's ever been.

His training course "The Insider Secrets" has been selling by the bucket-load for years and years. Now the course "Insider Secrets to Internet Marketing" was one of the first that I actually bought and it really had a profound affect on my online business. A lot of the things I do to this very day, in terms of earning revenue online, are done through what Corey Rudl taught me.

Now when I first came across this site I thought this might be a Corey Rudl scam. I really did think it might have been a scam, because the way that the sales letter was written on his website made it seem as if it was all just hype. But that was the thing about the Corey Rudl style. He told it like it was and it really is remarkable because Corey Rudl and the Internet Marketing Center people have sold over 14 million dollars worth of products on the Internet. So they know arguably more than anyone else online about website promotion.

When I started going through the course, I realized that it wasn't like all the other things that were on sale on the Internet. To begin with, it's a physical product so it actually arrives in the mail. It comes in two massive binders that are around 5 inches (or 10 cm) thick and you get CDs with it. It took me hours and hours to work through it. On virtually every page I found something of value; something that I could actually use to get more revenue into my business.

So I changed my opinion that Corey Rudl was not a scam artist and that he really is a marketing genius. That is the reason why his name is still bouncing around the Internet today, even though he is sadly no longer with us. So even if you're not interested in buying his products I urge you to take a look at his website, try his free email course and just look at the style that the website is created in to see what you can draw from it to improve your own website.

Michael Cheney
About The Author: Related Links:
Click Here to watch the 7 FREE web marketing videos right now

TAGS : Internet Marketing Secret; Internet Marketer; Affiliate Marketer; Internet Wiz; Corey Rudl; Internet Marketing Blueprint; Affiliate Marketing Blueprint;

Author: Tim Knox
Source- An Entrepreneur And A Life To Be Remembered


I was reminded of my own mortality today. I guess you can say I had a near death experience, though the death I experienced was not my own.No, I was never in any danger, nor was my life ever threatened.In fact, I was sitting in the air conditioned comfort of my home office sipping a nice cup of coffee and watching the dogs
run around the yard when the moment came.

The sun was shining. The birds were chirping. Life was going along just fine.Death was the furthest thing from my mind. Then the news came that Corey Rudl had been killed in a high speed crash at a race track in California. At the moment of his death at the young age of 34, Corey was a passenger in a Porsche that hit a retaining wall at over 100 miles per hour, killing him instantly and the driver shortly thereafter. The track had been rented by a local car club so that Corey and his buddies could take their expensive, powerful cars to the track to see how fast they could go.

Corey died doing what he loved. Those closest to him say he would not have had it any other way. Corey Rudl was not a professional race car driver. He was an entrepreneur, and one of the best of his breed. Most of you who read this column probably have no idea who Corey Rudl was or what he accomplished during his short life, and that’s OK. You also have no idea of the imprint he made on me and millions of others who make our living (at least in part)
as online marketers. Again, that’s OK. For all his accomplishments, those who knew him well have said that Corey
was more concerned about building his businesses than being a public figure. By those accounts, Corey never really cared about being in the public limelight, even though he was probably the most visible and successful entrepreneur in his field.

Perhaps that’s why Corey Rudl was so successful. He knew what was really important when it came to building a business. The limelight came easy to him, but his focus always seemed to be on making his business stronger, serving his customers better. He also knew that there was life beyond business, and he pursued that life with a passion and energy that most of us can only imagine.

Corey Rudl’s story is the classic entrepreneur’s tale. He started his business from his kitchen table just a few short
years ago selling a homemade booklet he had written on how to get the best deal on a new car. From that modest start Corey built an internet marketing empire that has generated $40 million dollars in revenue in just a few years.

Corey was the definitive internet marketing guru. He was young, energetic, and highly passionate about his business and his industry. He wrote and spoke frequently on the topics of internet marketing and business success and that’s where he and I briefly crossed paths. We were both expert columnists for Entrepreneur.com and exchanged several polite emails, nothing really personal, mind you, mostly swapping compliments of each others work.

Much of Corey’s time in recent years was spent teaching others how to do what he had done: build a successful online business from scratch. For a man of just 34 years, he packed in decades of expertise and knowledge and he shared it with anyone who would listen, including yours truly. I never personally spoke or shook hands with Corey Rudl, but I was his customer, his student, and ultimately an admirer. I can attribute much of the success of my own online business to Corey’s teachings and principles. He was one of those rare birds that you didn’t have to meet to feel like you were on a first-name basis with him. Everyone in my little circle of internet marketing friends simply referred to him as “Corey” and we spoke of him warmly, as a friend and mentor. He set the bar for all of us. We wanted to achieve his level of success. We wanted to hit his heights. We wanted to be the entrepreneur
that he was.

Corey had just recently married the girl of his dreams. He was a millionaire many times over. He had a big house and fancy cars and a future so bright he had to wear shades. His business was thriving. Life was perfect. Corey Rudl truly had the world by the tail and there was no chance he’d ever let go. I imagine he was holding on tight until the very end. The lessons we learn from the death of Corey Rudl are the same lessons we always learn when someone so young and vibrant is suddenly taken from us. As entrepreneurs we should take those lessons and apply them not only to our own lives, but to our businesses, as well. Lesson One: live everyday as if it is your last, because it just might be. As entrepreneurs we often think that our businesses have to come first on our list of priorities. It’s not until a tragedy reminds us that life is too short that we think about making time for the things in life that are really
important. Get out from behind your desk. Go play with your kids. Hug your wife. Call your mother.

Lesson Two: be passionate about business, but never let it eclipse your passion for life. Corey was a true ntrepreneur
whose passion for business was unparalleled, but by all accounts he also knew that a life devoted strictly to business
was a life not lived to its fullest. Corey died doing what he loved. Some will argue that his passion killed him and in a way that’s true, but I have to believe that before he knew he was in danger Corey had a smile on his face a mile wide. He would not have lived his life any other way.

As I finish this column my oldest daughter has come in to ask if I’d like the honor of taking her out to Sunday brunch.
She’s seventeen now. She has a job, a car, and a life that is very much her own. Chances to be graced with her presence grow rarer with each passing week. Still, any other day I might have weighed her invitation against the eight million business-related things that need my attention.

Today, however, the decision is easy. I usually end my column with the words, “Here’s to your success.”

This week let me end with, “Here’s to your life.”

Tim Knox
About The Author: Related Links:
http://www.timknox.com/

TAGS : Search Engine Optimization; SEO; Keyword Density; Link Popularity; Competitive Keywords; Online Marketing; Website Submission

By: Ref-Dem

Search Engines are all the time HIGHEST FREE TRAFFIC generators. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the core for any successful Online Marketing Odyssey. Just designing a niche and good content site with plenty of highly competitive keywords staffing never deludes the responsibilities of a webmaster. Rather his responsibilities starts here! The webmasters have to take into account of some of the broad-based factors like- PageRank, Link Popularity etc etc. After designing and developing a website, the most critical buzzword that brainstorms the webmasters is the SEO. Giving importance to some of the on-page SEO factors and becoming more SE friendly, every webmaster can overlap the Brainstorming and never have to loose money in hiring a professional SEOer.

What is Keyword Density ?

Keyword Density is just an on-page SEO criteria that determines the Page Rank of a website. Keyword density is a measure of the number of times your keyword appears on a page expressed as a percentage of the total word-count of that page.

Keyword Density = Count of a particular keyword or keyphrase / Total number of keywords or keyphrases in the page.

Suppose, your keyphrase "affiliate program" occurred in your webpage 5 times and your total number of keywords or keyphrases is 225. Then your keyword density = 5/200 or 0.025% only. There are lots of elaboration regarding the Optimum Keyword Density among the SEO experts, as there is no written documentation. Till the date of writing the article, this is what I am fanatically looking about. But my regrets, I couldn't find out accurate answer till date. Can anybody acknowledge me??

While surfing the net, however I got an article submitted by respected SEO expert Wayne Hurlbert at Webpronews.com, where he coins out 2% as the Optimum Keyword Density level for Google and 5% as ideal Keyword Density level for Yahoo and MSN. He adds that exceeding the limit of 2% is subject to penalty by Google! However, this is a halftone picture of the whole landscape.

GoRank.com, GoogleRankings.com, Webconfs.com, SeoChat.com are a few of the free keyword density analyzers -all that I can recommend for your better analysis. I have used and found results out of them. You can use Alexa.com or PubSub.com. The advantage of PubSub.com over Alexa.com is that, you can use the first for indexing your blog or sites with sub-domain name.

Five Easy But Effective Tips for Better Search Engine PageRanking :

First, before writing content pages search the most competitive keywords matching your theme keyword through SBI Search-it tool developed by Ken Evoy. Suppose your theme keyword is "Free Affiliate Program". Plant the keyword in the Title and Meta tag of the webpage. Now search the other competitive keywords relevant to the Keyword "Free Affiliate Program" through SBI Search-it. SBI Search-it will provide a list hundreds of keywords according to their competitiveness in descending order based on your theme keyword. ( In my instance of selected keyword- "Free Affiliate Program", a list of competitive keywords will crop up like - best affiliate program, affiliate program software, casino affiliate, online affiliate program, pay per click affiliate program , Internet marketing affiliate program, affiliate marketing program ,web master affiliate program, free online affiliate program etc.)

Now choose any two most competitive but closely related keywords relative to your theme keyword. Plant the keywords overand over again in every prominent place of the webpage, including Meta Tag, Description, Title, Anchor Text, ALT tag etc. While plastering the keywords in the page be cautious, so that it is not hampering the flow of your content.

Second, use a site map page and see that every webpage is cross-linked to the main page. Some Search Engines like Google weighs this kind of inbound linking. Use some extra formatting on the selected keywords according to convenience. Some reputed SEOers suggests formatting on the keywords and placing of the keywords on the start of the page.

Third, if you have successfully plant the first range of most competitive keywords, select the second range of less competitive keywords and sprint on the newly created webpages. Never apply Door-away strategies or any other kind of Keyword manipulation. This would rather bring you to trial by Google or other major SEs.

Fourth, analyze your keyword density and Search Engine ranking regularly, at least after every posting. Measure and keep track of changes in the ranking accrued out of every consecutive posting. In case of any declination of Search Engine ranking, please verify your keyword placement strategies instantly. Otherwise you are loosing money and traffic. For maximum free targetted traffic from the SEs, you must have to work planfully, so that your site is linked on the first page of the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

Fifth, keyword density and link popularity are not two different contravening factors of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Rather, they are complement to each other. Proper blending of content rich webpages, with highest keyword proximity and link popularity can propel your site's ranking at SEs undoubtedly. Link popularity refers to the number and quality of the incoming links that are pointing to one site. If the pointing site is from an authenticated and high ranked site, more popularity points will be credited to your site by the SEs. The importance of inbound or in-pointing links from some credible site is growing more and more these days, as some of the major SEs are factoring inbound links as part of formulating ranking algorithm. To know more about link popularity please refer to the previous post at my blog : http://refdem.blogspot.com/2005/10/want-google-ranking-increase-your.html.

Content is King-Ken Evoy. I do believe on his CTPMconcept. He taught me, building a rich content-based webpage with quality product and after sales service is the only shortcut to ride on the top of SE ranking chart !! Confused? Anybody will be, unless one completely read the "Affiliate Master Course" compiled by Ken Evoy. Starting your own Free Affiliate Program will give you more focus and publicity, which otherwise you were missing through your individual efforts. If you are interested to lounch your Free Affiliate Program right today with minimal investment, please subscribe Terrey Dean's NetOfficeToolbox. Here Dean provides a bunch of very essential Online Marketing tools like AutoResponder, Ad tracking system and many other managerial tools for FREE !!! SEs see Blogs as the bowl of real content and natural links. Hook your website with your weblog and do regular podcasting and ping. Adding a forum on your subject will provide you another advantage to extra keywords. So, get start today and ramify your ideas. HAPPY NEW YEAR......

About the author:

Purna Borkotoki is a part time Affiliate Marketer and blogger. His blog Referral Demagogue is a daunting job from the self-styled blogger, where he unveils every tip and trap of online marketing. His real life online journal is his mouthpiece, where he unveils every facet of online marketing he learnt throughout his three years of online venture. For more Free Affiliate Program resources and articles,Syndicate The Feed.

TAGS : Viral Marketing; Internet Marketing Blog; Earn Money Blog; Blog Promotion; Internet Marketing, Best Affiliate Program

"A weblog (usually shortened to blog, but occasionally spelled web log) is a web application presented as a webpage consisting of periodic posts, normally in reverse chronological order"-en.wikipedia.org.As you add content to your blog, new posts are automatically positioned on top of previous posts, so your visitors can see "what's new." Then they can comment on it or link to it or e-mail you if they choose to do so. A weblog is edited, organized and published often through a content management system or CMS. The blogs are online diaries or journals where blogger expresses his feelings, creativity, research work with like minded surfers through her periodic articles. Or weblog can be resembled to an online diary where blogger submits his frequently visited links for reference of the visitors.

The history of weblog can be traced back to the first website, http://info.cern.ch/, the site built by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN. In the '90s there were a handful of websites and the life was so easy. But with with the cluttering of thousands of new websites each day, things turned to be complicated and it became harder to find relevant information easily. Some novel eWiz like Brigitte Eaton,Jorn Barger,Peter Merholz, James Garrett,Cameron Barrett produced an alternative way to thread a particular topic related websites in a page or link for more convenience of the surfers to find content oriented sites in a single bucket ! The idea grew popularity, and a number of webmasters each day sent their URLs for listing in their websites. The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger in December 1997. The shorter version, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz in 1999. As of March 2003, the Oxford English Dictionary included the terms weblog, weblogging and weblogger in their dictionary. Until '98 there were only a handful of weblogs in the net, but according to a report, more than 14 million blogs being published by the first quarter of 2005 !!

The popularity of Weblog is gaining momentum. As per a survey conducted by Comscore.com,50 Million US population ( i.e- 1 in 6 of total US population or 30% of the total US online population) visited blog sites in the first quarter of 2005. This represents a 45% increase compared to the quarter one of 2004. Blog visitors are 11% more likely than the average Internet user to have incomes of $75,000 or more. According to the study, an average blog visitor spends 23 hours per weak online, while average Internet users spent 13 hours online."The study also found that the blog visitors are 30% more likely to buy products or services online. While less that 40% of the total Internet population made an online purchase at Q1 of 2005, 51% of the blog visitors did"- Comscore.com. This is just a replica of the universal acceptability of weblog these days. If you are an online marketer or thinking to start an online venture, I believe weblog is the best tool of Internet marketing. Do you don't think so??

Like Ezine ads, an Affiliate can use weblog as a futuristic tool of online marketing. With a decent and cool content writting, even a starter categorically can create a big blogsphere and use it as a perpetual passive mean of generating targeted traffic. The advantages of weblog over concurrent websites as a tool of online marketing are astoundingly multifarious.

First, weblogs are SE friendly i.e. you never have to submit your blog to any search engine. After you publish, your blog it will be submitted to the common search engines by the blog service provider. You never have to bother about on page criterions. Your META TAGS and KEY WORDs will be set automatically, eliminating the risk of keyword manipulation.

Second, zero designing and operation cost. You never have to hire a web designer for designing your weblog, just choose the right template and publish.

Third, Ping and Podcasting facilities promoting weblog as a viral marketing tool. With single click you are informing the whole world about your latest article updates.

Fourth, the next advantage of weblog over a web site is the trackback facility, an automatic notification between websites of related content—such as a post on a particular topic or one which responds to a post on another blog . Use Trackback links when you quote or refer to other blog posts.

Fifth, blogs are more likely RSS( Really Simple Syndication) integrated. All blog service providers, including Blogger.com provide RSSfeed link. When you update your new posting in weblog and you use RSS feed, the SE crawlers will visit your site and publish your content to across world wide web, all silently.

Sixth, another great feature of blog is use of comment

Seventh, blog is a more personalized form of ezine. In ezines and websites we express either our knowledge or services, but in blog we can express our live experiences as if we are talking to our best friend. Personalisation of postings increases the Conversion Ratio of traffic to customer.

"Let's be honest here... We're all good at justifying excuses to ourselves. I've even done it a few times myself ! But there really is no excuse for not following your dream. You're only hurting yourself." - Corey Rudl. If you are an ambitious online marketer or if you are new to weblog, I can name a few of the best blogging service providers like Blogger.com, Livejournal.com, 360.Yahoo.com, Typepad.com, Blogs.com, Xanga.com, DiaryLand.com where you should publish your first blog to realize your dreams. Choose the write one and publish your own blog today. For more cross reference, content, RSS Feeding and listing of your blog you can use some of the Blog Directories like-Masternewedia,Blogger, Blogrankings, Blogcatalog, Blogsearchengine, Blogwise, Weblogs, Blogrolling, FeedBurner, EmarketingBlogs. Blog advertising related services are provided by-BlogExplosion.com; Prosperall.com,Blogclicker.com. Pluck.comprovides free download toolbar which helps to customize your weblog searching. I highly recommend you to give a glance at their site. If you are dummy, please visit Samizdata.net for blog related glossary and content.

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About the author:

Blogger Purna Borkotoki is a part time Affiliate Marketer.Blogger has tried his best to compile his three and half years of real-life experiences in the field of Affiliate Marketing in his blog http://refdem.blogspot.com. If you are an experienced online marketer, his Free downloadable master course "Net Writing Master Course" is albeit a good choice for review. Join any of his Free Affiliate Programs and earn monthly residual income for the next years to come.

by Willie Crawford

One of the questions I see frequently asked on online discussion forums is, "Can You Really Make Money From Blogging?" People want to know if there's some way to profit from the time they spend maintaining their weblogs or personal online journals.

My answer is an emphatic "YES," because I do it... everyday!

Today I'll share with you how I do it.

Let me begin by saying that I don't make thousands per month from MOST of my blogs. However, I do have many making hundreds. Since I don't put in a lot of time maintaining them, and I enjoy blogging, I consider the money a bonus. I blog while sitting in my yard with my laptop (on a wireless connection)...watching the clouds roll by.

Another bonus I get from blogging is that it helps my regular websites that
are set up as my "money machines."

The search engines visit my blogs more often than they visit my regular sites, and they follow the links from my blogs pointing to other sites. Some of these links point to my sites, and some point to sites of partners. This doeshelp the search engine rankings of these sites MASSIVELY.

How Do I Monetize My Blogs?

I monetize my blogs by creating blogs on topics people are searching for...
and that they are spending money on. I know which niches are hot to an extent based upon what my research proves pay-per-click advertisers are willing to spend their advertising dollars on.

I run Google AdSense ads on my blogs. I simply insert these ads in my menu bar and other strategic places on the webpage. I also experiment with other paid advertising on my blogs.

I sell affiliate products from my blogs. I simply find affiliate products at
places like PayDotCom.com and Commission Junction. I incorporate these into my
blogs. I do things like product reviews, how-to articles, etc. You can also locate suitable affiliate products by typing your target keywords + "affiliate program" at any major search engine. This should point out numerous websites with suitable affiliate programs to you.

How Do I Setup/Host My Blogs?

I have blog hosted on some of my own domains using Moveable Type. This is just one of many great pieces of blogging software. You have other choices... my programmer recommended this one to me.

I also have blogs hosted for free on Blogger.com. I have them on Blogger.com
because they are incredibly easy to set up and maintain. A secondary reason have them on Blogger.com is that Google OWNS Blogger.com and they index webpages hosted on their servers OFTEN and FAST!

The secret to getting Google and Yahoo! to visit your blogs often is a technique called "blogging and pinging." It's a method of notifying all of the major search engines, and blog directories, each time that you update your blog. The search engines come to take a look and they follow links from your blog tospider other blogs/sites. It's very powerful.

I won't go into too much details on blogging and pinging here. If you want more information on that topic I invite you to drop by my free, Internet marketing discussion board and ask any and all questions! It's at: http://cure-nail-fungus.blogspot.com
The above site currently ranks Number 6 on Yahoo for the term "cure nail fungus." It's a small niche but one that makes me $2400 per month... just from that one blog.

If you searched on the same term at Google, this site is not very highly ranked. However, THIS page is Number4: http://www.chitterlings.com/no-more-nail-fungus.html
That happens to be one of my pages too :-) I won't tell you what ALL I'm up to on that page... that's another article. The technique involves using your own domains to promote affiliate products rather than advertising someone else's domain... so it improves your link popularity.

I'm not going to show more of my blogs because that just invites competition. Instead, I'm going to answer another question you have to be wondering...

"How do I find time to maintain all of these blogs, even if they are profitable?"

Well, first of all, I don't really need a lot like the "sacrificial lamb" that I showed you above to keep me satisfied.

I do have a number of secret weapons though. One is called AutoBlogger. You can check it out at: http://WillieCrawford.com/auto-blogger.html

What AutoBlogger does is allow me to queue up a number of posts for my various blogs in advance. It lets you queue up "articles" which can really be anything you want. Then you tell the software at what frequency to make a post.

My AutoBlogger account allows me to automatically post to an UNLIMITED number of blogs.

WARNING: A program like AutoBlogger can get you in trouble if you misuse it! If you use it to spam or abuse the search engines, it's just going to get you banned. If you use it to abuse the blog hosts, they're just going to delete your blogs.

Here's how I use AutoBlogger:

I have sites where I discuss Internet marketing... as just one example. On these sites I share many of my articles and tidbits. I simply queue up these articles/tidbits to post at a given frequency. This frequency can be a set number of hours, days, weeks, or months. So theoretically, I can set up a blog, pre-schedule 50 posts, and not touch it in months, while it is automatically posted to for the next 50 intervals.

AutoBlogger even lets you set it to start rotating through the posts again when they run out, if you want to. I personally wouldn't do this since you'd just be posting duplicate content.

AutoBlogger allows you to insert RSS feeds right into your blog posts. So in addition to posting articles you can also auto-update by adding new RSS feeds at
a set interval. Since I HATE sending my traffic to other sites (without reciprocation), these RSS feeds generally pull from MY sites. That way, my traffic is only sent to my other sites.

If you don't even feel like queuing up a lot of posts, you can go to a site like Elance.com and hire someone else to do it for you... or just hired your kids to do it for you. It can be as easy as you want to make it.

OK, I've just proven to you that you can make money off of blogs. In-fact,you can make more money than many people make off of their REGULAR websites. It just takes a little thinking outside the box!

It also takes not being too greedy. What I just showed you works for me because I'm not doing anything that's likely to get me banned from the searchengines,Google AdSense, Blogger.com, or any affiliate program. It's only when you get carried away, and do things that harm the search engines that you "shoot yourself in the foot."

Set up blogs providing useful content. Make regular posts to these blogs but not in a manner that seems unnatural. By that, I mean don't auto-post twenty times in an hour, or post every hour for a month! No human can possible post to a blog at these rates for long, so the search engines detect something is "wrong." They don't generally prohibit you from using tools to make your job easier... just don't get carried away!

There are actually, thousands of people earning a living doing things similar to what I just shared... but with little twists. I'm meeting up with many of them in New Orleans in September. You're invited to join us. We'll basically be sharing how we make a fortune off of niche websites and programs such as Google AdSense. You can register today at: http://WillieCrawford.com/meet-in-new-orleans.html

About the Author

Willie Crawford, Navarre, Florida US

willie@williecrawford.com

Learn more about blogging and pinging

Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author, seminar speaker and
host, tele-seminar speaker and host, retired military officer, karate black belt, network marketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing. He teaches how to actually generate substantial multiple streams of on-line income using very simple automated systems. An example is at: http://sendoutcards.com/willie

Copyright © 2005 Cutts Group, llc

Do you remember your first day as a business owner? You were probably just like the rest of us... pretty darned happy and bit on the proud side. Yeah, back then we thought we could conquer the world. Now we're too busy conquering our own little corner of the world to pay a lot of attention to the rest of the world... unless it's to learn a few tips from successful marketers just like us who have made it big. Tips just like these... that will apply to every market - regardless of the product or service - are a great motivators to try something new. Yeah, you never know when the next idea will be worth a million dollars!

1. Create a Special Offer

A special offer is exactly that... an offer that is special. Normally, customers would not be able to purchase this product or combination of products, and once the products are gone... sorry!

You don't have to go out and order a bunch of new products to put together a special offer. It don't take a whole lot... just use what you've got. Grab a few items that are related, group them together, discount the price, and your customers will be excited to be getting a good deal. Think about it from your standpoint... you've sold three or four items rather than one. Yeah, combination offers are winning deals for everyone!

2. Address the Small Customer Groups

Niche markets are everywhere, right under your nose! Within the customer audience that you serve right now are groups of people who share common traits. Think about it... maybe you have a group who speaks Spanish, a group of teens, and a group of middle class family men and women.

Evaluate these classes of people, and discover the unique needs and desires they share. That will set you up to customize your advertising campaign directly to them. It’s not hard to take your current ads, and make a few changes to adjust to the niches. They’ll be impressed that you understand THEM, and the increase in your profits will be the best thanks you can get.

3. Set Up a Winning Referral Program

Successful marketers develop the ability to turn their customers into advocates. Often, they don't even have to directly ask customers to refer them to others. Their willingness to go the extra wins customer loyalty and support. Naturally, satisfied customers refer their friends and family to the place that will take good care of them.

Quality service and is the first step toward referrals, but you can easily take it one step further. Studies show that every satisfied customer tells three people about you. What would happen with a little incentive added to the picture? Yeah, a lot more. Give customers who refer friends a thank you - whether it's a discount, special gift item, or a simple thank you card - and watch the referrals spiral!

You can get two birds with one stone by implimenting customer surveys. A few quick questions about what the customer does and doesn't like about your product, followed by a request for the names and addresses of friends and family who would benefit from the product, and you're all set to go with the contact information of a prospective customer!

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Who is Allyn Cutts, and why should you care?

Allyn has spent over 24 years helping businesses like yours find new customers and increase sales to current customers. Allyn is a marketing and sales fanatic, providing measurable marketing solutions that drive huge results for small-to mid-size business clients. Allyn works personally with clients to design and deliver off-line and on-line direct marketing strategies that focus on metrics and measurable results. You can learn more about Allyn Cutts at http://www.AllynCutts.com and you can call 610.437.4106 between 10 AM and 4 PM Eastern Time Tuesdays and Thursdays.