All business owners know and appreciate that advertising is essential for the success of their businesses, from the early days when store owners advertised their store in their local newspaper, on radio stations and in local magazines.
What was wrong with these methods?
Well firstly, once people have read the magazine article or newspaper, they rarely retain the printed copy, this on top of the costs involved with print advertising put an end to how successful this medium was for getting paying customers over the stores door step. Radio advertising was also expensive, but unlike newspapers and magazines they could not go online, like people who still advertise with magazines and newspapers, their ad can be seen online under the classified ads on the newspapers website – as most newspapers have their own website that has lots more content with more ads. [click to continue…]
Information overload is a pretty new term moved into our lives with the internet era. Especially if you are working online, you have to be on top of things all the time.
My regular work day starts with checking my emails and checking my stats on several sites. I have never thought about organizing basic tasks in my regular business day. Of course, for every project or a website we make plans, timesheets, we use project management tools, etc. But how about organizing the very basic daily tasks we do all the time?
Understanding and Accepting the Problem
Since the beginning of 2007, I knew that I was spending so much time on unnecessary things and tasks in my daily life. I didn’t know the solution, but I have finally admitted it was a serious problem for my business and for my daily life. Then, I started looking for a solution. [click to continue…]
Local businesses usually don’t have large advertising budgets. Large franchising chains, and brand names usually use their national advertising channels to compete with local businesses.
Internet advertising is becoming more popular for both online businesses and local small offline businesses. There are some quality local business directories online. One of them I’ve found recently is Kudzu.
Kudzu.com is an Internet venture owned and operated by Cox Search Inc., a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises, one of the nation’s leading media companies and providers of automotive services. So, it’s backed up with a well known brand.
Kudzu is running a special for a limited time. They are offering FREE Premium listing through 2008. I have registered my businesses last week, and already started receiving some quality traffic. I wanted to share this information with my readers since it’s a great value (normally it’d cost you around $750.00).
Click to visit to register your business for FREE (No credit card required, nothing to lose).
Here’s how your premium listing will look like at Kudzu.
Take advantage of this limited time offer and register your business for free. Every visitor helps for your business.
* Important Tip: You don’t have to own a local business to be able to register. One of my websites receives the most traffic from a niche local business directory site.
[photopress:startup_weekend.png,full,alignleft]Have you ever thought about starting a company within 1 weekend from concept to completion? Is it even possible?
If you try to do it yourself, it might be little hard, but a group of highly talented and motivated people might succeed. They are actually doing it.
Founded in 2007 by Andrew Hyde, Startup Weekend is a concept of a conference focusing on learning by creating.
It is free to participate, and founders receive equal shares of founder stock of the company they create. 5% of each company created goes towards Startup Weekend.
It is so crazy, but I love the idea. I have no idea if these startups will live long, but who cares? It’s the idea of learning while you are doing it. You get to read so many case studies at school, at Startup Weekend, you will be in the case study. It never gets better than this.
Startup Weekend already got some national media coverage, and I’m sure will get much more.
[photopress:adtech_ny.jpg,full,alignleft]I spent the afternoon visiting Ad Tech NY today. It was overwhelming with so many company booths to visit. I didn’t know there were these many advertising companies in the market.
My goal for this visit was to do some networking, check out the software providers for PPC management softwares, and meet affiliate marketing managers.
Most of the PPC Management softwares were for SEM Companies, but I have found a solution called Search Force which also targets advertisers like myself who manages PPC Campaigns for multiple websites. They were kind enough to do a detailed demo for me. I’m seriously considering this software now.
I have also met the CEO of a company called Hyper Bidder which has a unique ad concept. Basically, it’s an auction ad network where you bid for CPM by choosing specific sites for your campaigns, and your bid gets you the exposure. They have a patent pending technology and their slogan is; “The higher the bid, the more frequent the ad is served.” I’m definitely planning to give them a try.
Even though we are in the industry and we try to follow everything online, sometimes you need to meet the people face to face, and exchange business cards. You will definitely get some new updates from the industry by directly speaking to the company owners, and reps.
Here are the highlights of the Ad Tech NY for me;
Video, and mobile advertising is becoming huge. There were so many new companies presenting.
All PPC Management Software Providers use Trellian (The company behind KeywordDiscovery.com) for the keyword data. I have tried Wordtracker, and Wordze. Now it’s time for me to try KeywordDiscovery.
I did some partnership connections with some email marketing companies which was worth the time I’ve spent.
A few companies weren’t interested in providing me any info about their products when they’ve figured out I’m not the guy with million dollars a month ad budget. This is something I never get. You pay high rent for these types of shows, and you don’t even want to sell your products?
I have spoken with some affiliate networks and it was very helpful to decide my future affiliate partnerships. Affiliate companies are the friendliest.
Overall, it was a pretty good experience, and networking for me. If you want to improve yourself and your business, you need to attend the industry related events and shows. You might be surprised how much these events might help.
[photopress:rm_logo.gif,full,alignleft]I have been an eBay Powerseller since 2002. Like many other eBay Powersellers, I have so many stories about eBay and eBay customers. Many of you are tired of hearing these stories, but let me tell it again, eBay used to be so much profitable and fun. Just like any other company which grows too fast, eBay has lost some of the main points in its business model. They started caring less about the problems of the sellers (actually their customers). They have become more and more interested in increasing their quarterly profits.
This path has helped many eBay sellers to start their own websites, and sell through their own sites. By making international sellers job easier to sell at eBay USA, it has become almost impossible to compete for small home based US sellers. But we are talking about selling retail on eBay. I have also written about ebay affiliate marketing before.
I will talk about a different business model for eBay selling. Since eBay has become so big, and there are so many success stories out there, now so many people try to sell on eBay. But they have no clue how to find the real sources to buy. eBay has created a new platform called eBay Reseller Marketplace. You can sell wholesale direct to eBay Powersellers.
What are the advantages of eBay Reseller Marketplace?
All the prospective customers are current powersellers (pre-qualified).
You can make money without spending any money from your pocket (I’ll get into this little later).
Your fees will be much less compared to regular eBay fees.
You don’t have to deal with many retail customers, and make small profit. You can have large profits per month with dealing a few wholesale customers.
If you keep your promise, and if your customers like your products, you will be having returning customers. Because they will want to buy more to resell retail.
How to make money at eBay Reseller Marketplace without spending any cash?
I have recently written about creative link baiting. Being creative is great, but do you think there are limits?
I remember the day, when a hot blond girl auctioned advertising rights on her boobs on ebay. It was creative, close to the limit. But a guy named Joe is pushing the limits in creativity.
[photopress:meetup.gif,full,alignleft]It’s been a long time since I first wrote about Meetup Meetings. I’ve attended NYC Affiliate Marketing Meetup Meeting last night. I’ve been a member of meetup.com and have attended a number of meetings in business and IT topics. Yesterday, only 4 people showed up, including me and the organizer. This is the first time I have had a meetup meeting with a small group like this. Depending on your goal, meetup meeting can be very productive for you. You can generate lots of business, or at least do some networking, and exchange business cards. [click to continue…]
[photopress:trademark_filing.jpg,full,alignleft]It doesn’t matter how small your business is. If you want to create your business name as a brand and invest in it, your first step should be to trademark it. As a small business consultant, I hear horror stories about trademark issues from business owners.
How To File A Trademark?
Assuming that you’ve done your research and the trademark you will be filing is not already registered, you will have 3 options.
1) Hire A Lawyer To File Your Trademark
A lawyer would charge you approximately $1,285.00 to create and file a trademark application. This amount may increase, but will not go below $1,000.00 . If you are very busy, and don’t have any time/staff to file the trademark, then this is your option.
2) File Your Trademark Through LegalZoom Online Service
When I started my first online business, I have asked a few friends about trademark filing, and one of my buddiest have recommended this website. You can File Your Trademark Online in 3 Easy Steps at LegalZoom.com and they charge only $159.00 for this service. It has all the information, tips and tricks which you need to know. They are reliable and very well known name in the industry. Their website claims that last year they have filed more trademarks than the 10 largest law firms combined in the US.
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