Would Your Sales Increase If Charmelle Prospects Wore Loudly Colored Blue T-shirts?

Would Your Sales Increase If Charmelle Prospects Wore Loudly Colored Blue T-shirts?

Since the launch of my "Internet Marketing Tips Blog", I recall from time to time having the pleasure of consulting directly or indirectly with Charmelle consultants. No matter how many tips I blog, articles I write, or trainings I teach, I still sometimes get people that say, "promoting with a pay per click strategy might be good, but not for my jewelry & fashion accessories."

I'm certain that one of the reasons I hear this is because the "idea" of promoting with a pay per click strategy is still not understood. Below is my attempt to shed a little light on why this idea is so powerful.

Imagine if you could camp out at the front door of a Home Depot or Blockbuster and immediately spot customers who were looking for your product? Lets say they wore loudly colored Blue T-shirts shouting out what they were after. And what if they knew to go straight to you rather than wander the store aimlessly looking?

With Google AdWords, Yahoo's Sponsored Search or a Major Second Tier PPC Player, you connect with your customers the very instant they want to hear from you.

It gets even more interesting if we take it a step further. What if you could have tens of thousands of little helpers at the door of every market center in the country. What's more, you'd have to pay them only if they located an intersted customer and began marketing to them your jewelry & fashion accessories.

Now, even if your competition has posted huge ad banners, hovering over everyone, it doesn't matter. Few shoppers care for a general ad when something more targeted to their wants and needs is more readily available. All the while, your "agents" are constantly reaching out to every single prospect that seems targeted for what you have.

Running a pay per click ad is like deploying a team of super sales "agents", except that these search agents won't require breaks and they will work without pay until a customer is delivered to your doorstep. Your "agents" will be waiting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for customers looking for your products or services. As soon as prospects start search, you'll be the first to know.

Of funds budgeted for search engine marketing this year, marketers said they would spend 51% on paid search ads, 6% on paid inclusion, 10% on contextual ads, 12% on search marketing agency fees for paid search, 11% on search marketing agency fees for optimization, and 11% on other areas of search marketing. (Source: Forrester Research 02/2005)

Check back next week for the next in this series of pay per click and online marketing tips...


Technorati:
Charmelle | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Yahoo Sponsored Search | Dan Hollings | jewelry | costume jewelry
Other recommended blogs:
Premier Design Jewelry | Primerica | Princess House

Mompreneurs? Charmelle? Are they two peas in a pod?

Mompreneurs? Charmelle? Are they two peas in a pod?

Source: Direct Sales Association

I recently checked the "gender stats" available from the Direct Sales Association, 79.9% of people in "direct sales" are women. Any way you look at it the guys total a paltry 20.1%. Many of the women in our industry (and customers we seek) are current or future moms. It's know wonder a new term has marched to the forefront: Mompreneurism.

Yes, you're reading it right. According to authors Patricia Cobe and Ellen Parlapiano, who trademarked the term "mompreneurs" and were recently featured in Time magazine and various other programs like CNN; their mompreneurs online website draws millions of visitors each month.

In reading through the Mompreneurs Online web site you'll find that they've interviewed hundreds of at home mompreneurs. Their interviews revealed that these at-home business women share certain secrets for online results. Of the many things mentioned, below is a sampling of why and how mom-owned businesses are surviving and thriving on the web according to Ellen H. Parlapiano and Patricia Cobe:

• Web Wisdom. Work-at-home moms understand that a dot.com name alone is not enough to power success. But the Internet can be a very valuable tool when used in conjunction with more traditional business strategies.
• Team Work. Mompreneurs® forge powerful alliances--both online and off! Together they harness technology to build an instant network of personal and professional support through online communities and marketing cooperatives.
• A Natural Niche. Cyberspace opens up a wealth of business ideas, allowing moms to tap into their talents, skills and passions to create products and services for highly targeted audiences.

Maybe you think Charmelle is a good place for moms? Maybe you're hoping to attract at home mompreneurs to your site, blog, product or business? Or, maybe you already have lots of moms and a true mompreneurial ground swell in the works?

Whatever the case, these "mompreneurs" working from home are an important niche and your internet marketing can target these moms. Moms are both a consumer and a business force to be understood and admired.

Perhaps your jewelry & fashion accessories will be just the thing these mompreneurs are wanting? Now, let's continue (below) with more tips in our series on techniques to assure a successful PPC search engine campaign. Maybe you can get some moms clicking!

PPC Tips list continued from previous weeks:

• When thinking up keywords, use examples of specific things your product is used for: 'clean floors', clean countertops', 'wash floors', 'mop floors', 'polish stove top', 'remove grime', 'shine appliances', 'disinfect bacteria', 'hide furniture flaws' etc.
• Explore variations: 'soy milk', 'soymilk', 'soy-milk'
• Add plurals: 'protein bar' and 'protein bars'
• Use abbreviations and acronyms
• Use US and UK spellings
• Keyword phrases may be questions: 'how to repair bad credit', 'when should I diet', 'how do I lose weight', 'where are discount cosmetics', etc.

How to Reach Out to Mompreneurs

Here's one way you can be compelling and relevant in reaching out to at home mompreneurs:

SOCIAL SYSTEMS: Social system technology is a new and exciting technology comprised of blogs, tags, photos and the sharing of many other things. Find ways to connect like-minded women. Use technology if you can. Being a mompreneur can be isolating, so business owners are eager for information, resources and social connections.

Review my last several blog posts for many more 'tip-set' in this series of PPC search engine tips.



For additional tips and help visit:
Internet Marketing Tips for Charmelle

Are you learning valuable ideas? We recommend you check out our previous blog posts for many other marketing ideas. In fact, why not add our RSS feed to your "Feed Reader" so you don't miss future trainings?


Technorati:
Charmelle | mompreneur | mompreneurs | mompreneurism | entrepreneur | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Dan Hollings | jewelry | costume jewelry
Other recommended blogs:
Pharmanex | Pola Cosmetics | Pre-Paid Legal

Yes, Jewelry & fashion accessories can easily be successfully promoted using Google or Yahoo pay per click

Yes, Jewelry & fashion accessories can easily be successfully promoted using Google or Yahoo pay per click

Charmelle offers high quality European designed costume jewelry at affordable prices. They specialize in an exclusive collection of jewelry and accessories for both men and women.

As A Charmelle consultant you know your product and you've set your goals. Your web page, site, or blog is up and you're pondering methods to get traffic.

Can your jewelry & fashion accessories be sold using Google or Yahoo pay per click or not? That's your first question, right? But equally important, can you orchestrate a pay per click campaign that generates more results or profits than cost?

Guess what, the answer is: "probably yes."

Tips, Tips, Tips... They just keep on coming!

• If your product or service is something that can be related to a locale, like a city, state or region you may be able to find some ripe tomatoes in phrases like: 'retirement homes in Florida', 'Mississippi flat rate phone service', 'herbal sunscreen for southwestern sun', 'indoor air filters for Los Angeles'.
• Discover more keywords by narrowing down to extreme specifics. People can be VERY specific when they search. Use names of months and years like '2004 tax savings', 'May flowers', 'Christmas of 2005' or 'September back to school supplies'.
  
  Let's say you are marketing a broad line of herbal products... why not get a list of all herbs (there may be thousands) and use that list as a keyword list. Maybe your product doesn't contain every herb on the list, but people searching for any ONE herb specifically may be interested in others. Try specific model numbers, makes and designs if your products are sometimes referred to this way: 'Epson stylus CX6400', 'Apple G5', etc.
• Add adjectives to your keywords like: big, purple, new, cheap, affordable, soft, aromatic, healthy, etc.

Last week I posted the another round of search engine marketing tips and even more tips in the weeks before that. Check previous weeks for more suggestions.


Are you learning valuable ideas? We recommend you check out our previous blog posts for many other marketing ideas. In fact, why not add our RSS feed to your "Feed Reader" so you don't miss future trainings?


Technorati:
Charmelle | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Network Marketing | Yahoo Ads | Dan Hollings | AdWords | jewelry | costume jewelry

AdWords? Sponsored Ads? Help for Charmelle.

AdWords? Sponsored Ads? Help for Charmelle.

Sometimes you feel like flipping a coin when choosing a pay per click search engine. Which one is really best for you? The top two are Yahoo Sponsored Search and Google AdWords. It's a good idea to start your search engine traffic campaign with a small budget, spreading it out over a few different search engines to experiment and see where your target market may be lurking.

A good place to start is by viewing the wonderful tutorials and flash overviews offered by Google and Yahoo. Check below for a few examples, you'll find others at Google and Yahoo:

Pay-per-click Yahoo Search: Overview
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/tu_srch.php
Flash presentation explains Yahoo sponsored search.

Google AdWords: Getting Started
http://services.google.com/marketing/links/awsignup_tutorial
How to fast-start a Google AdWords account.

Targeting a Local Market with Google AdWords
http://services.google.com/tutorial/adw_loc_target/adw_loc_target.html
Reach local area prospects by region or locale.

Let's Look at The Google and Yahoo Bidding Rules:

Yahoo Sponsored Ads

• Yahoo places your bid at 1 penny over your next lowest competitor. Thus, if you bid $3.00 per click, and the next highest bid is $1.95 per click, you will only pay $1.96 per click.
• Yahoo allows you to see who you are bidding against and what they are bidding, so you know exactly where you will rank, and how much you will pay.
• Yahoo's maximum bid is $999.99
• Yahoo's minimum bid is $0.10

AdWords by Google

• Google doesn't tell you how much you will pay per click. Thus, if you bid $3.00 per click, you will pay anywhere from $0.05 to $3.00 per click.
• Google does not allow you to know how much your competitors are bidding per click.
• An advantage with Google is that you will rank higher if your click-through rate (CT rate) is better (a CT rate is the ratio of clicks on your ad to the number of times your ad is shown). Thus, you may have a better rank than your competitor, even if he or she bids more than you (because of your CT rate).
• Google's maximum bid is $100.00
• Google's minimum bid is $0.05

New Google AdWords keyword status changes: Simplified keyword states and quality-based minimum bids.

NOTE: Google announced in early August 2005 that they will simplify their keyword status system and introduce quality-based minimum bids, giving us more control to run all keywords we find important.

Google Pulls The "Trigger"

Each keyword will now be assigned a minimum bid that is based on the quality (also called Quality Score) of your keyword in your account. If your keyword or Ad Group's maximum cost-per-click (CPC) meets the minimum bid, your keyword will be active and trigger ads. If it doesn't, your keyword will be inactive and will not trigger ads.

Previosly, keyword statuses were called normal, in trial, on hold, and disabled. Under the new rules, this will be replaced with active (triggering ads) or inactive (not triggering ads). No more slowed or disabled keywords if no do not have a minimum clickthrough rate (CTR) threshold.

Tips, Tips, Tips... They just keep on coming!

Pay-per-click advertising tips for the Charmelle consultant continue below:

• Expand your keywords by asking your spouse, friends, neighbors, relatives, existing customers and strangers to look at your web page and offer their keyword suggestions. In this phase you cannot have too many cooks in the kitchen.
• Put your biscuits in the oven and watch'em rise... That is, use web based 'keyword expanders' and research tools to expand your keywords beyond what you can come up with on your own.
• Remember, searchers may type in something that describes your product, but more often than not they will be typing in words describing their problem. If your product or service solves, fixes, heals, masks or even distracts them from their problem, you want those keywords on your list.
• "In-house" keywords (those used frequently by others in your industry or business) are often the most costly because lazy business owners don't often think beyond their own nose. The result is these limited keywords get bided-up sky high. Customers on the other hand seldom search using "in-house" keywords. Your goal is to find keyword niches popular with customers but less popular with your competition.

For additional tips that might improve your pay per click ad campaign review the tips in my previous posts.


Until next week, happy PPC campaigning...


Technorati:
Charmelle | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Network Marketing | Yahoo Ads | Dan Hollings | Sponsored Ads | Contextual Ads | AdWords

Charmelle? What the heck do they do?

Charmelle? What the heck do they do?

Have you ever thought about the public's perception of what you do?

Charmelle

Charmelle offers high quality European designed costume jewelry at affordable prices. They specialize in an exclusive collection of jewelry and accessories for both men and women.

Do you believe that potential customers have already learned this about Charmelle?

That's a mystery-factor in any search engine marketing campaign; you should consider upfront (as you are preparing your keywords, your ads, and your landing page) what the majority of visitors already 'have heard' about you and the jewelry & fashion accessories you offer. Not sure? Then If at best you're guessing, then assume they've never heard of you. That's always the safe bet.

If you're selling iPODs or something very well known, you can approach things much differently. Less time explain 'what' you've got and more time explain 'why' they should buy from you.

If your selling something that people consider a common commodity (vitamins, shoes, cosmetics, telephone services, etc), then you must differentiate your product from the other seemingly similar items the public might associate you with.

Much of these consumer 'mindset' challenges must be worked out by setting up 'mindset adjusters' (fancy phrase for good educational content snippets) on the page they hit immediately after clicking your ad; so before you start any advertising effort, stop and think for a moment about what your potential customer might perceive as they arrive at your landing page.

More tips for your PPC campaign:

So as promised, below you'll find this weeks installment of search engine tips...

• When cooking-up your keyword phrase list, use an extended "keyword discovery" phase. Your competition, like you, will do basic keyword research. You can only beat them if you take it to the next level, and that won't happen in the first day. Having a large number of targeted keywords in your campaign is a side effect of an extended period of brainstorming, discovery, research, or whatever you want to call it.
• Not very wood with gords? There is a hidden target market of quality visitors who type in incorrect spellings of what they are looking for. Site owners often overlook this. In a recent 30 day period on a major search engine at least 108 people where searching for a 'buisness'? Hundreds more were searching for: 'vitiamins', 'vitimans' and even 'vitamens'... You can bid on misspellings and have very little competition on the search results page.
• Assume that at least half your keywords will be rotten eggs, that is, no one will ever look for them and end up at your site. Because there is no extra cost to add as many keyword phrases as you can think up, treat them like biscuits and bake-up as many as you can... 100 or more keyword phrases for each destination page you list in any PPC search engine.

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Technorati:
Charmelle | PPC | pay per click | Google | Network Marketing | mlm | Dan Hollings | internet marketing | Contextual Ads | AdWords

Depending on who's in those FadSense jeans, I might follow that kind of Google ad all night long!

Depending on who's in those FadSense jeans, I might follow that kind of Google ad all night long!

Jessica Alba? Jessica Simpson? Who would you click pick, whatever. My mind started thinking about the future of contextual ads and now we have FadSense. It really gets you thinking; and the technology is literally in our hands.

Go to Google FadSense™

As A Charmelle consultant, you might be wondering why I'm talking about a futuristic contextual AdSense (AdWord) program like FadSense. It's partially because it's funny, but more importantly, it's because I feel the type of advertising we have been discussing here at my "Internet Marketing Tips for Charmelle" blog, is critical to your future. What I'm hoping to teach you are skills and tips that will not only work for Google today, but for any similar type advertising in the future. Google FadSense, real or not!

Much of it boils down to learning a few key things:

• How to find keywords related to your products and services.
• How to prepare your marketing campaign from the ground up.
• How to track your traffic, results, and advertising ROI (return on investment).
• How to write effective ads.
• How to manage your advertising budget.
• How to create eye catching headlines for your ads.
• How to use the internet effectively in any marketing campaign.

My Continuing Tips To Help You With Charmelle...

In my previous blog entries (last week and several weeks prior) we have hammered away with dozens of valuable tips. This week we continue.

• Remember that with PPC campaigns, you are not sending search visitors to a site, you are sending them to a web page (called: a destination or landing page). You must discover keywords and set-up ONE page at a time.
• Remember that people search by typing in more than one word:
• The 7 most used word phrases in search engines according to OneStat.com:
• 2 word phrases 32.58%
• 3 word phrase 25.61%
• 1 word phrases 19.02%
• 4 word phrases 12.83%
• 5 word phrases 5.64%
• 6 word phrases 2.32%
• 7 word phrases 0.98%
• Start your "keyword discovery" process by visiting the destination page you intend to send your search engine visitors to. Put on the 'reading glasses' of a customer and look at your page through their eyes.
• Ask yourself this: "What keywords might a person type in a search box where when they arrived at this destination page, they'd say 'BINGO' this is what I was looking for?" Find these keywords and you've discovered your best keywords.

Check back over my last four blog posts for the first, second, third and fourth sets in this series of PPC search engine tips.


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Technorati:
Charmelle | PPC | pay per click | Google | FadSense | AdSense | Sneakers | Dan Hollings | internet marketing | Fashion | Contextual Ads | AdWords

On this date... Google Inc. Closed Its Doors, After 118 Years Searching for Answers.

On this date... Google Inc. Closed Its Doors, After 118 Years Searching for Answers.

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing photos in a set called Woolworth. Make your own badge here.

What started as a play on the word googol, becoming the search engine everybody loved (or envied) and grew to become the "five-and-dime" of pay-per-click search engines, pulled the plug on the last server on this date in Mountain View, California. It's a story of a future time that could be soon, or beyond our horizon.

If anyone back in the late 1800's or early 1900's had been thinking ahead to the future of Woolworth Corp., it's unlikely they would have ever predicted that the famous five-and-dime would be a line item on a "Today in History" script published to millions of readers across this thing we call the internet.

Yet today, has I opened my RSS News Reader, there it was. I can recall shopping at the five-and-dime as a kid. It was the "best" store in town. Just like Google; the best. Now, its history. Perhaps the best is not good enough?

"The perfect search engine, would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want," says Google co-founder Larry Page, "Never settle for the best."

What a day (historically speaking)...

After 118 years, the Woolworth Corp. closed its last 400 five-and-dime stores. Most of today's successful discount retailers began life as five and dime stores. In 1962: Kresge's opened its Kmart stores, Sam Walton turned his five and dime into the first Wal-mart, Woolworth's opened Woolco and Dayton Hudson opened Target stores.

Could this happen to Google? Well, yes. If the thought of Bill Gates over throwing Google interests you, read this Fortune Magazine article: Search and Destroy. For now however, it's all fantasy thinking as the titans of search (Google, Yahoo, & Microsoft) battle it out in cyberspace.

Global search advertising revenue, which was $369 million in 2001, is expected to hit $7.9 billion this year, according to research from Piper Jaffray & Co. Those who work in and cover the industry see further expansion as paid search grows overseas and is embraced by ever- larger companies following audiences to the Web. (Source: Reuters 2005)

Good news for the Charmelle consultant

The Cost Per Lead using Pay-per-click is Cheap Compared To Other Ads

Your cost per click might run you 25 cents or 50 cents or so, but if the research done by Piper Jaffray & Co. is correct, the only thing that counts is the cost-per-customer and those numbers are: $8.50 for search, $20 for Yellow Pages, $50 for online display ads, $60 for e-mail and $70 for direct mail. PPC search wins hands-down.

Jeffrey Herzog, chairman and chief executive of iCrossing says, "When someone conducts a search, only two things can happen. They'll either find your business or a competitor's business. Game over"

Are there dangers or flaws in search advertising?

• An estimated 5 percent to 20 percent of clicks are believed to be fraudulent -- the result of people clicking on ads to drive up advertiser costs or to make a profit for Web site publishers who get a cut of revenue.
• At times, advertisers and their online business affiliates find they are competing with each other in auction-style bidding for key words and pushing up their own costs.
• Some worry that new advertisers are rushing blindly into paid search and inflating key word prices -- a concern underscored by WebTrends data.

Adding all this up, we come to two conclusions: 1) It pays to get good at pay-per-click advertising if you plan to do business online and 2) we may only have 118 years left with Google :-)

Pay per click tips for this week:

• Forget stupid characters. We are talking search engine listings (not eBay) so cool the clever punctuation it L@@KS stupid!!!!!!!! Don't make SOME words CAPITALIZED; it looks like you're shouting desperately for business. Respect the people who read your search engine listings.
• People are by nature often interested in things like 'saving money', 'making money', 'curing something', 'striking a deal', and getting anything of value that is 'free'... but be careful. The addition of such self-interest phrases in your ad copy may skew your clicks upwards while leaving your sales flat. If you're tempted to try such phrases... test, test, test... while keeping an eye on your bottom-line.
• Bluntness works: 'Refinance 4.5%', 'Viagra $39', 'No Interest VISA', etc
• These are the type words that appeal to searchers: more information, complimentary, love, youthful, safe, new, benefit, gain, money, happy, glad, proven, guarantee, resource, fast, results, discover, how you, how to, your, yours, you'll, healthy, natural, magic, secret, comfortable, save, proud, secure, solution.

Check back over my last three blog posts for the first, second and third set in this series of PPC search engine tips.


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Technorati:
Charmelle | PPC | pay per click | Google | marketing tips | search | Woolworth | Today in history | online advertising