Internet Marketing

Starting down the road to owning your own business can be exciting, frightening and challenging. It takes a lot of courage to leave behind the promise of a steady paycheck and strike out on your own. One of the keys to long term financial freedom and consistent, steady passive income is running your business with the highest standards of integrity.

You may be surprised to hear that integrity and honesty still matter in the business world today. It seems sometimes that business ethics and integrity are the exception rather than the rule. However, treating customers and employees with dignity and respect is an absolutely vital part of achieving your goal of financial freedom. Without integrity, there is no financial freedom. Any passive income gained through duplicity and dishonesty will be fleeting, and the damage to your reputation and that of your business will quickly erase any short-term gains.

In the end, it is the honest businessperson who prospers. We''ve all heard the horror stories about the sellers in online auctions who rack up tens of thousands of dollars in sales then disappear without delivering the goods to their buyers. These types of stories make headlines, and play on our fears of being taken for a ride. However, you may not hear the less glamorous stories of honest sellers at those same auction houses. The mom and pop shops who have opened their virtual doors and made a great living by delivering quality products and services, not just today but for years to come. These are the types of business people who survive, prosper and achieve the financial freedom they so richly deserve.

As you strike out on the road to financial freedom, remember that generating long term passive income requires that you be honest and focused on your customers. Remember that no matter what, the customer is in charge. If you focus like a laser on serving the needs of your customers, your passive income stream will grow into a raging river, and you will achieve your goal of financial freedom more quickly than you ever imagined.

Erwin Tjong is an Internet Marketer and a member of Elite Team which a Marketing System that specifically to provide SUPPORT and TRAINING for everyone who joined the Financial Freedom Society Inc.) To learn more about his business please visit : http://www.EliteTeamOz.com', 168, 'Financial Freedom Through Integrity and Honesty, Internet-Marketing, Internet-Marketing articles, Internet-Marketing information, about Internet-Marketing, what is Internet-Marketing, Internet Marketing Information', 'Financial Freedom Through Integrity and Honesty plus articles and information on Internet-Marketing

Read More....

The iPods have been a market hit since their launching in 2001. With the appearance of the new iPod video on the market in 2005, the iPod became even more popular, as it achieved high umbers in sales and an increased interest from the public. The sales of the iPod video were, in general, better than the expectations. Considering the fact that the new product brought, indeed, something new to the market, which was never tested before and the customers were used to the idea that iPod stands for music and, in a smaller part, it stands for photos, the sales surprised the producers just like the product surprised the customers and the users.
Basically, the iPod video present 2 variants of the device: the 30 GB model and the 60 GB one, which both play QVGA H. 264 videos. Over the last holiday season, the sales were very high, as people seamed to be more interested in purchasing such an item before taking the summer vacation. Due to this fact, the new iPod video turned out to be a great choice of spending the time during the holiday. In fact, the last holiday season brought a 30 % increase of the sales, which is a consistent amount.  Even more, the new iPod video turned out to be an excellent Christmas present, as the sales indicate the fact that the sales of the iPods increased significantly before this important religious holiday. Another sales hit in the history of the iPods was the Apple iPod + hp, which was launched in the year 2004. In the first months of 2006, Apple reported sales of 565 million dollars, which was the highest number in the company’s history. In fact, Apple managed to ship 6, 16 million iPods during the first months of 2005, meaning a 66 % increase over the same period of time in 2004.

The new range of iPods are supposed to be even more improved and have a new variety of features and new accessories, which will increase even more the popularity of these products. After the famous exposition called Macworld, which was held on the 10th of January 2006, the official speakers reported sales over 42 million dollars, which included a part of 14 million dollars, gained in the first quarter of the year. With even more expectations in sales for the future, the engineer team of Apple is focusing even now in producing a sixth generation of even more optimized iPods.
Till the appearance on the market of the iPod video, the best selling product of the iPod series was the iPod nano, which had great results since the launching. The studies and researches show the fact that most of the part of the consumers want and easy personalization of their video content, meaning quality and inexpensive solutions that satisfy their needs. IPod video brought, at its launching, a new set of features that were about to change the perception that people had about this small, yet powerful device. With a memory that could now include a play list of 15, 000 songs, 25, 000 pictures and up to 150 of hours full with videos and movies, the new iPod was an innovative new product and the market embraced its originality and new and exiting features.

Tags : auto internet marketing, internet marketing workshops, web internet marketing, local internet marketing

Read More....

IPod video was a surprising new device at its appearance, due to the new and exiting quality that it could offer: playing videos. Besides this, the iPods have known, since their appearance on the market, a constant evolution, which lead to the fact that the public and the potential customers had more and more expectations regarding this product. With a new offer and design, the new product iPod video had a series of new ads, some authentic and some suspicious, because of their fake or less real aspect.    
Due to the fact that the product was not yet in stores and people didn’t expect such a product to appear, there were a number of teasing and controversial ads (regarding their authenticity) which appeared and circled on the Internet. By bringing a new and relevant feature to the device, such as the video feature, the potential customers were surprised by the evolution of the product and so, the ads purpose was established. One of these ads represents the iPod video in an unreal shape (meaning that the authentic iPod has other optical features and another design). The ad was very short, as it lasted only 15 seconds. The video begins with presenting some corners of the new device, which are revealed in a computerized manner.

This one side of the device turns and the other one presents a screen which played the most recent music video belonging to the band Black-Eyed Peas (Pump it). The music and rhythm were dynamic and fast and so were the characters, who were dancing while driving. Suddenly, the slogan Introducing the new hand held movie theatre appeared and shortly after, the phrase new hand held movie theatre was cut out and the new phrase new iPod appeared on the screen, resulting Introducing the new iPod.

The controversy around this ad is focused on the fact that the actual iPod video doesn’t have the same characteristics as the one in the ad: the actual device looks very similar to the 1st to 4th generation of iPods, meaning the screen is over the buttons, but the one revealed in the ad presented a very large screen, which completed one side of the device.
Still, there are many ads of the new iPod video which are, for sure, authentic. The main idea of these is the fact that music can be seen, as well, besides just being heard. This is why the Apple company opted for integrating famous artists in the ads for their product: one of the ads featured U2's Original of the Species from the Vertigo - Live From Chicago DVD and another two featured Eminem and Wynton Marsalis. The ads featuring these artist were much longer than the usual ones and they basically played famous songs, but not together with their videos; instead, the producers opted for some more authentic images illustrating performances of these artists, which would look natural and more spontaneous. The ads for this new product were focused on the video playing capabilities of the device and the producers wanted, at the same time, to symbolize the new range of possibilities that the new model of iPpod had to offer.

The main idea of the ads was clear, even though these 3 ads had very different targets. Based on the fact that the clients of the new device come from different backgrounds and are of different ages, the producers and the marketers managed to pick some artists that represent generations and symbolize best their tastes and lifestyle: Eminem stands for teens and hip hop music, Wynton Marsalis is representative for adults who like classical and jazz music and U2 is somewhere in between the other 2 opposite styles.
In parallel, the ads with the dancing silhouettes continued with more specified backgrounds, which were representing the video options. The iPod`s video ads show that the product has definitely evolved, has a more mature image and optimized new features.

Read More....

How low can one get? The number of encounters I have had in the few months as a network marketer with liars is astounding. Why do people need to stoop to lying in their attempt to succeed? Do they really believe that they will attract customers by using deceptive means. Hey friends, I''ve got news for you! You are the ones who have been deceived!

When I placed a single ad with the URL of my newly created autoresponder, I started to receive all sorts of strange emails to that autoresponder address. All of them said they had seen my business ad and bla bla bla. Liars! All I advertised was my autoresponder! So what was going on?

Well, I have a confession to make. About seven years ago, when I first discovered the Internet, and got my first taste of spam, I fell for it, and became a spammer myself. But not for long, as my ISP was quick to disconnect me, before I even knew what "Spam" was. Well I soon woke up.

What I had done, following instructions of course, was to download a program which "harvested" other emails from web pages on the Net. Then I had also downloaded and used a bulk emailer. Apart from getting temporarily disconnected I also received some nasty replies. And guess what? My second attempt, which was an attempt to avoid unsolicited email sending, I used the addresses of people who had spammed me. Some of them even wrote nasty replies complaining. Hypocrites!

That was an end to my early attempts as a Networker. I gave that up quick, especially after reading about Spam and realizing how unwanted it is. I also realized that bulk email is not the way to market. Recently I have come across the term "Safe lists". A Safe List is supposed to be a list of email addresses from people who have requested information on a business opportunity. But just how safe are these lists?

Here is how I imagine it. John requests from Mary information about her business. Mary sells John''s email address as part of a safe list to Tom, Dick and Harry. John now gets emails from Mary, Tom, Dick and Harry, three of which he did not request. Hence John was spammed, and Mary gets paid. Tom, Dick and Harry get a nasty spam complaint from their ISP who disconnects their account. Thanks Mary.

Amazingly 90% or more of the email coming into my mailbox is spam from people selling bulk email software, or offering some other get rich scheme. They are still using harvesting software (this is how they got my auto-responder address) and the bulk email software (this is how they emailed me) they just paid for. Sadly these are mostly the victims of the master culprits who get these poor suckers to buy into their program. Guess who gets rich, and who doesn''t?

Do you see the untruthfulness in this kind of marketing? Let''s not call it that, it is spamming. They first of all steal the email addresses. Next they sent emails to these addresses totally unsolicited. Consequently they get disconnected. But they seem to expect that. I get many emails from the same people using different email addresses to send from each time. Some, I think, even use false addresses. So the criminal intentions are there.

Here is my message to these criminal spammers: Why waste your time and money on these fruitless efforts? Why go to all that trouble just to get a bad reputation? Get into a real profit making program. There are many legitimate companies helping many people make a reasonable income. If you put all the hard work you are wasting on these deceptive programs into one of these legitimate programs, you will not only make for yourself an income, you will also have satisfaction.

If you, dear reader, are contemplating using any of those enticing offers of bulk email or email harvesting - don''t do it! Losing money and ISP credibility isn''t worth it. How can you build a solid base if your customers don''t trust you? Trust is what your customers are putting in you, and trustworthiness is what you should give them. Tell them the truth, be honest and they will love you for it. And they are sure to come back and bring others with them.

About The Author

Jim Murdoch is new to network marketing. Read what he has to say about "Why you need your own home business" in his autoresponder: mailto:whyahomebusiness@upward-path.com. His web site is at http://www.upward-path.com?64', 168, 'Truth and Lies, Internet-Marketing, Internet-Marketing articles, Internet-Marketing information, about Internet-Marketing, what is Internet-Marketing, Internet Marketing Information', 'Truth and Lies plus articles and information on Internet-Marketing

Read More....

Finding a business opportunity on the net is easy. But evaluating the right one for you, takes a little knowledge. With so many scams, takers and failed ventures you need a little more than the, "highest dollar for the least amount of work" approach. So what should you look for when evaluating an opportunity? Here are 9 pointers.

1. Is it legal?

Do they have a product? Many programs on the net are simply "money movers" with no real products. If this is the case then it''s probably illegal simple as that. If you are serious about developing an online reputation for quality and reliability, then don''t even entertain the idea of quick easy money. It will catch up with you!

Do they know and follow the law concerning matters such as CAN SPAM and other website legalities? There is no excuse for ignorance on the net! Do your home work and check out:

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt9/canspam_comply.htm

http://www.ipcgold.com/ad/112/CD996

Do a search on the names of the owners and founders of the products.

2. Does their product have value and advantage?

Is the product something that people want with the potential for repeat sales giving value for money at a competitive price? Do your homework. Search the net for equivalent products and do a price comparison. Does it offer a marketing advantage of some kind? What are the selling benefits of the product over their competitors? If they don''t have a marketing advantage why would anyone buy their products?

3. Is it residual?

The best opportunities are the ones that have a growing industry and ideally repeat sales. Make sure if you are marketing a product that you get the benefit of the repeat sales. This is called residual income. If you are expected to find customers but only get the benefit of the first sale, this is unethical and unfair. It is a good idea to evaluate what % is paid back in commissions for the cost of the product or service. All good opportunities pay back an absolute minimum of 20%. Decide you are worth at least that much to them.

4. How long will it pay?

The world is a fast changing place. The cyberworld is even faster! Ask yourself where will the product be in 12 months, 2, and 5 years down the track? This is particularly important for digital and information products. Ask yourself the same about the company. Are they around for a quick buck or do they have a plan to establish long term commerce? Will they develop or keep up with new technologies to maintain a competitive edge? If this information is not readily available on their website, ask them. If they are not planners then they will not survive

5. How long will it take?

Take a long hard look at their compensation plan and compare it to your own goals. Is it cost effective on an hourly basis for the final outcome. You may have to make a decision by balancing time for outcome. You may consider it worthwhile putting in 20 hours work over and above a regular 40 hour job for a small return initially, if the final outcome is say 10 hours per week total for a 5 fold income. Of course you will have to decide first of all exactly how much time you are willing to work on the proposal then ask yourself is their program sufficiently automated to be worth your while?

6. Do they want your success as much as their own?

What is their commitment to you in terms of training and support? If they are not willing to train and support you for your success, are you willing to carry the responsibility of training yourself and dealing with product problems? In my opinion you must have online support and training for whatever you need to do for the mutual success of both you and the company. This can be in the form of email support, forums and a FAQ (frequently asked questions) page on their website.

7. What are the hidden costs?

Ask yourself, "What do I need over and above their proposal in order to achieve my goals", then factor this in to your decision making process. In this you should include things like further study, tools, web hosting expenses, stationary, travel expenses, accommodation etc. It is also important with some businesses to find out if you have a minimum purchase requirement, frequency of compensation and the time period between sales and commission. All these will affect your cash flow. You should then work out exactly what it takes to firstly break even, then become profitable and finally achieve your goals.

8. Is their a lead generation system ?

What assistance is given for approaching potential customers through to closing the deal? This is often non existent with you left to do it all. The best opportunities are fully automated for efficiency but flexible enough to have the essential personal touch. It can be hard work sifting through the opportunities to find your "Ticket2Success".

9. Do they have a money back guarantee?

Whether the product is digital or hardware people will expect a guarantee. Are you able to return and refund products quickly and easily with out problem? Is it clear who handles the finances and complaints in the event of an unhappy customer? You don''t want to be left with egg on your face after creating a good online reputation!

About The Author

Ray Burton is an internet marketer specializing in affiliate programs, business opportunities, joint ventures and resources to create your online success. He has paid special attention to online training programs for new marketers. You can visit his store and collect a "ticket2success" at http://www.cyberchoices.net The mini site - mega store.

r.burton@clear.net.nz', 168, '9 Pointers for Evaluating a Business Proposal, Internet-Marketing, Internet-Marketing articles, Internet-Marketing information, about Internet-Marketing, what is Internet-Marketing, Internet Marketing Information', '9 Pointers for Evaluating a Business Proposal plus articles and information on Internet-Marketing

Read More....

If you are anything like me, you spend a lot of time researching joint ventures and going through the chore of analysing all the joint venture proposals you get on a daily basis in your inbox. I''ve often wondered if there was an easier way to find successful joint ventures, as serious marketers online all know the power of joint venture marketing.

In fact, some marketers have told me that if they could only utilize one marketing strategy it would be joint ventures fullstop.

If you have got a product or service to promote you know joint ventures are essential to your business. Joint ventures are when two or more people work on the same project. The most lucrative way to benefit from joint ventures is to let other people sell your product or service and share the profits with you. Some examples of cross promotions would be exchanging popups and testimonials.

In my online experience recently I have noticed that some forms of ezine advertising did not pull the results that would have been expected. If you are also spending hard earned money on ezine advertising there is a better and easier way.

An example of a joint venture unrelated to internet marketing would be a gym coming together with a company that produces body building supplements.

Joe Vitale made $25,000 from joint ventures from just one email.

So if you want to explore more fully the lucrative world of joint venture marketing how do you go about finding joint venture partners?

Old-fashioned ways of finding joint venture partners:

• Making a post on a forum if permitted by the moderator;

• Visiting individual websites and emailing the owner one by one;

• Spending time making contacts with other internet marketers online.

The new state-of-the-art way of finding joint venture partners:

By subscribing to Joint Ventures Weekly. Once in a while an ezine comes along that makes me sit up and take notice. My good friend Mike Woo-Ming has created such an ezine.

Each week you will receive a list of the TOP joint ventures for the hottest internet products and services.

Each joint venture is carefully screened and analysed before it reaches your inbox. If it doesn''t meet the relevant criteria you won''t hear about it.

Your time is valuable. Each joint venture will include:

• A detailed synopsis,

• Current conversion rates (unless new),

• Requirements,

• Length of joint venture offer.

YOU choose exactly who YOU want to work with!

Finally, a place to find non-internet marketing joint ventures as well. By subscribing to Joint Ventures Weekly you have the power to select the latest products before anyone else in your field.

It is often said that only 10% of small business owners take advantage of joint ventures. You now have the means to be part of that 10% by subscribing to Joint Ventures Weekly today.

To your joint venture success,

Karin Manning

Copyright 2003. All Rights Reserved.

About The Author

Karin Manning is an ezine publisher, writer and ebusiness owner. To subscribe to her ezine Net Wealth and receive up to the minute marketing tips, customer service advice and money making hints simply visit http://www.reprintrights4u.com and fill out the ePackage Newsletter & Bonuses popunder on entry. To be one of the first to hear about the latest joint ventures available subscribe to Joint Ventures Weekly by visiting http://www.reprintrights4u.com/jointventuresweekly.

karin@reprintrights4u.com', 168, 'The New State Of The Art Method For Making Money With Joint Ventures, Internet-Marketing, Internet-Marketing articles, Internet-Marketing information, about Internet-Marketing, what is Internet-Marketing, Internet Marketing Information', 'The New State Of The Art Method For Making Money With Joint Ventures plus articles and information on Internet-Marketing

Read More....

For large corporations, a marketing plan is a huge document detailing strategies for the fiscal year. It may include competitor analysis or a sales forecast. While these elements are important to a large business, do you as a small business owner (without a well paid marketing staff) have the time or energy to devote to putting together a huge document? Unless you are trying to get a financial loan, probably not...

But that doesn''t mean you should totally scrap the idea. A marketing plan can be a wonderful tool to help you refine your focus. You''ve heard the old saying "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." That''s because when you don''t plan you lack intention and attention.

My suggestion is to create a "micro-plan." Open up a new document and take an hour or two to answer the following questions.

"Micro-Plan" Questions

What is your purpose for being online?

• Awareness

• Sales

• Community

What % of your overall marketing to be done online?

• How much time do you expect to spend marketing on internet?

What strategies will you use?

• Contests

• Forums

• Free reports/e-book

• Newsletter

• Pay per click advertising

• Banners

• Articles/content

• Viral marketing

Timeline

Assign a project date to each of the strategies. Will they be one time events (contest) or something you need to do frequently (forums)? While you are thinking about it, schedule your projects in your time management system or planner.

Analysis

• How will you track the success of your marketing plans? What is your ROI?

Budget

• What is your total yearly internet marketing budget?

• Assign a $ to each of the strategies you will use.

A successful internet marketing strategy begins with a plan. The time you take to put together your "micro-plan" will be well worth it to your business.

About The Author

Megan Corwin is an internet marketing coach who helps work at home professionals grow their businesses. For more articles and advice about online marketing strategy and solutions, become a member of Megan''s online community for work at home women: http://www.wahwoman.com/membership.html', 168, 'Creating Your Internet Marketing Plan, Internet-Marketing, Internet-Marketing articles, Internet-Marketing information, about Internet-Marketing, what is Internet-Marketing, Internet Marketing Information', 'Creating Your Internet Marketing Plan plus articles and information on Internet-Marketing

Read More....