Are you Froogling? Are your particular products or services listed?

Are you Froogling? Are your particular products or services listed?

As A Direct Sales professional, the first question you need to ask yourself is: "Where do customers shop?"

• Customers shop at a place that s convenient
• Customers shop at a place they trust
• Customers shop at a place with good prices
• Customers shop at a place that s well promoted
• Customers shop at a place they ve shopped at before.

So what does all this have to do with Google's Froogle? Well simply put; many people have been to Google or Froogle before, it's well promoted, and as always it is convenient. People are basically familiar with Google's various search engines and they trust this newer comparison shopping engine because it's backed by Google. While Google's Froogle doesn't price or sell anything themself, they do allow shoppers to hunt down good prices and merchants to set whatever pricing they prefer.

As comparison shopping engines go, Froogle is hitting a home run for entrepreneurs. We all want our products in front of targeted customers and that's just what Froogle does. Foogle has hit a homerun for merchants and at the same time, they've hit the consumer's nail right on its head.

It's one of the rare exceptions to the old expression, "there's no such thing as a free lunch". At Froogle, if you're looking to marketing something, lunch is on them. It's 100% free!

First some interesting facts and then the various steps (below) for adding your products or services to Froogle's comparison shopping engine.

Google's Foogle...

You can list your products on Froogle for free.
Unlike other online shopping sites, Froogle costs nothing. There's no spending account to set up and maintain. No cost-per-click. No cost, period.

At Froogle you control your product information.
Simply upload a new product feed at any time to ensure Froogle displays the most accurate descriptions and promotions for your products.

Froogle provides store ratings and product reviews.
Google's technology scours the web to identify relevant information about listed stores and products. This information is in the form of review 'snippets' from independent ratings sites.

Froogle is forever free to merchants who wish to participate.
Upload your product info (data feed) and you'll be listed overnight. The entire system is supported by 'Sponsored Links' which are paid advertisements Froogle displays along side the regular Froogle listings.

Regardless of your particular product or service, do you know how it might be listed in Froogle.

Next are some helpful steps toward getting your particular products or services listed in Froogle using their data feed system:

1. Go to the Froogle Merchant Center and sign-in
   If you do not have an account, open one and enter the merchant area.
   
2. Set-up an FTP account
   Set up an FTP account so that later you can upload your 'product or service' feeds in the Froogle system.
   
3. Adjust your feed's settings
   Your feed will have a filename and other parameters. You must set this up as well.
   
4. Upload your feed
   After you create a feed according to Froogle's instructions you'll upload it by FTP. Check that your feed name matches the filename you chose above in Step 3.
   
5. Final content review
   We will review your feed to ensure that its content is consistent with our program policies.

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Mompreneurs in Direct sales?

Mompreneurs in Direct sales?

Source: Direct Sales Association

Based on statistics available from the Direct Sales Association, 79.9% of people in "direct sales" are women. Figure it another way and the boys total a paltry 20.1%. Many of the women in our industry (and customers we seek) are current or future moms. Just when we thought the dictionary had all the words we needed a new term has appeared on our horizon known as 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 Fox News Channel; their mompreneurs online site draws millions of visitors each month.

In reading through the Mompreneurs Online web site you'll learn that they've interviewed hundreds of work-from-home mothers. Their interviews revealed that these work at home 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 Parlapiano and 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.
• Money Smarts. Moms don't overextend their financial resources and are less likely to use outside funding during start-up. So they don't have to worry about venture capitalists pulling the plug on their businesses.

Perhaps you think Direct sales is a wonderful place for moms? Maybe you're hoping to attract work-from-home mothers to your site, blog, product or business? Or, maybe you already have lots of moms and a true mompreneurial mindset?

Whatever the case, "at home" business moms are an important niche and your pay-per-click marketing strategies can target these moms. Moms are both a consumer and a business force to be understood and respected.

Think optimistically that your particular product or service will be just the thing these mompreneurs are desiring? Now, let's continue (below) with more tips in our series on how to best implement a successful pay-per-click campaign. Maybe you can get some moms clicking!

Search engine marketing strategies:

• 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.

Becoming Relevant to Mompreneurs...

Here's one way you can be relevant and attractive in reaching out to work-from-home mothers:

MAKE IT VIRAL: Viral marketing is huge among mompreneurs. Easy-to-forward articles, mini-ebooks and cards are perfect. But low-tech solutions can be equally effective. For example, Clorox offers a new mop which includes several postcard-style coupons that let happy customers share the handy product with their friends.

In earlier blog posts you'll find several installments of my PPC tips.



For additional internet strategies visit:
Internet Marketing Tips for Direct sales

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


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Direct sales | mompreneur | mompreneurs | mompreneurism | entrepreneur | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Dan Hollings |
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Regardless of your particular product or service, do you know how it might be successfully promoted via Google or Yahoo

Regardless of your particular product or service, do you know how it might be successfully promoted via Google or Yahoo

Perhaps your product or service is not widely known by consumers, but your method of marketing (Direct sales) may be known. This can be a positive or a negative depending on the mindset of your potential customer. What's important in all cases, is that you provide the features and benefits that your product or service offers and focus on that. If your customers like what you offer, they will naturally want to recommend it to others.

As A Direct Sales professional 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 customers.

Can your particular product or service be sold via Google or Yahoo or not? That's your first question, right? But equally important, can you put together a search engine campaign that creates more measurable results than expense?

Exciting news, the answer is: "definitely yes."

PPC Tips list continued from previous weeks:

• On the subject of ad copy (the words which will comprise your numerous different listing titles and descriptions) we can sum it up briefly: RELATE your listing to the keyword the searcher has typed, SPARK curiosity in their minds to encourage a visit, be TRUTHFUL, be BRIEF, be CLEAR, don't HYPE, and FILTER out bad clicks.
• FILTER OUT BAD CLICKS? Yes, if your product is NOT for certain searchers, be clear upfront before they click. Example: If you bid on the keyword 'herbal shampoo' because your product is an herbal dog shampoo, make sure your ad copy reads: for dogs, pets, or animals. If you only fulfill orders in Canada, state this upfront in your listing ad copy. There is no need to pay for a visitor click if you cannot service a particular customer's needs. Use words to filter out bad clicks.
• There are many good resources to help you with ad copy, writing, and knowing what to say about your product. We recommend the eBook by Kim Klaver, "If My Product's So Great, How Come I Can't Sell It". Click here for a complimentary 'Mini-edition' of this eBook.

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


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Direct sales | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Network Marketing | Yahoo Ads | Dan Hollings | AdWords |

Yahoo or Google or Both? Pay per click for Direct sales.

Yahoo or Google or Both? Pay per click for Direct sales.

When comparing the primary pay-per-click search engines, you might be challenged to figure out which is best for you. The top two are Google AdWords and Yahoo Sponsored Search. It's a good idea to start your search engine marketing strategy 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 suggested approach is to begin 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.

Keyword Matching Options with Google AdWords
https://services.google.com/marketing/stats/tutorial_redirect

Improve your AdWords targeting and cut down on 'lookie-lou' clicks.

Understanding PPC Conversion Tracking
http://services.google.com/marketing/links/cvt_tutorial
Learn which pay per click ads work and which do not.

Bidding Rules Are Different at Google and Yahoo:

Yahoo Sponsored Ads

• Yahoo adjusts your bid to 1 cent 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

Google Ad Bidding Policy

• Google keeps secret what 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.

NEWS: 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' New Policy

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.

PPC Tips:

Pay-per-click advertising tips for the Direct Sales professional continue below:

• Sometimes people type in web addresses in those search boxes! So bid on those if the search engine allows it: 'www.website.com', 'website.com', 'http://website.com' and every combination full or partial you think a searcher might actually type.
• Match up keywords with words in your ad copy. Even though a 'spa', a 'hot tub', and a 'whirlpool' might mean the same thing in your mind, if a searcher types in 'hot tub' and your listing says: "Relax and save in your new Spa", you will miss out on many interested customers.
• Think negative... yes, people search for herbs that can kill, plastic surgery pitfalls, mlm scams and sundry other peculiar things. Invite them to explore your related listing. Do you offer cosmetics or skin car as an alternative to plastic surgery? Is you mlm a beacon of light in a sea of seemingly dubious scams?
• Get creative with interest spikes in the news. 'Mad Cow' might be a great keyword for your all vegetarian product line. The 'SARS' outbreak might have generated millions of searches that your 'immunity booster' could have benefited from (just don't make any false claims). And where were all the bra ads when a gazillion people typed in 'Janet Jackson' after the 2004 Super Bowl surprise?

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


Hopefully you're learning valuable tips. Study previous blog posts for many other marketing ideas. Perhaps you should add our RSS feed to your "Feed Reader" so you don't miss future trainings?


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

Direct sales? If only more folks knew what I did. If only?

Direct sales? If only more folks knew what I did. If only?

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

Direct sales

Perhaps your product or service is not widely known by consumers, but your method of marketing (Direct sales) may be known. This can be a positive or a negative depending on the mindset of your potential customer. What's important in all cases, is that you provide the features and benefits that your product or service offers and focus on that. If your customers like what you offer, they will naturally want to recommend it to others.

Do you know if customers have already heard this about Direct sales?

That's perhaps the first challenge in any search engine marketing campaign; you must decide upfront (as you are preparing your keywords, your ads, and your landing page) what the majority of visitors already 'have perceived' about you and the particular product or service you offer. In most cases you are best to 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 could be clasified as a common commodity (vitamins, shoes, cosmetics, telephone services, etc), then you must differentiate your product from the other seemingly similar items visitors could 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 marketing drive, think like a customer and look 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 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.

In earlier blog posts you'll find several installments of my PPC tips.


Check back next week for the next in this series of PPC tips... Until next week, happy PPC campaigning...


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

Dynamic ads on the seat of your pants! A GPS chip allows FadSense to serve Google ads (even where the sun don't shine :-)

Dynamic ads on the seat of your pants! A GPS chip allows FadSense to serve Google ads (even where the sun don't shine :-)

I guess Google might have to re-work their privacy policy on this one. Google FadSense; going where no man has gone before.

Visit Google FadSense™

As A Direct Sales professional, 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 Direct sales" 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!

To summarize the core of our current discussions, we want to know:

• How to find keywords related to your products and services.
• How to determine "tags" that help categorize your content.
• How to prepare your marketing campaign from the ground up.
• How to create a destination or landing page that works.
• How to write effective ads.
• 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 Direct sales...

This week I shall continue with my PPC search engine recommendations. If you have been following (or subscribing by RSS feed) to these tips, you are aware that over the past few weeks we have hammered away with dozens of valuable tips. This week we continue.

• 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.

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


Check back next week for the next in this series of PPC tips... Until next week, happy PPC campaigning...


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

"For Google, It Took 118 Years But, The Search Is Over..." If Only Bill Gates Could Have Lived Long Enough To Read This Headline. Could it happen?

"For Google, It Took 118 Years But, The Search Is Over..." If Only Bill Gates Could Have Lived Long Enough To Read This Headline. Could it happen?

What started as a search engine using a unique approach to link analysis (initially called BackRub) 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?

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

On this date...

The Woolworth story begins when Frank Winfield Woolworth, son of a potato farmer, decided farming wasn't for him and just before turning 21 in 1873, he started work as an employee at Augsbury and Moore's Drygoods store in Watertown, New York. The experience wasn't the best in the world for him, according to this book, as Frank soon was called "the worst salesman in the world." Because he was "eager and polite," though, the store's owners took a liking to him and kept him on. F.W. Woolworth went on to become one of retail's most successful pioneers and his empire of department stores defined the shopping experience for millions over the course of its 118-year existence. On this day in 1997 Woolworth closed its doors.

Could this happen to Google? Well, yes. In the Fortune story, "Search and Destroy" It states that Bill Gates is leading a charge against Google. Forced to watch Google's stock soar the way Microsoft's used to, while Google's Brin and Page enjoy new roles as tech's rock stars, Gates brings to the fight a ferocity that nobody has seen since the Netscape war a decade ago. Google's popularity gets under his skin. 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 Direct Sales professional

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.

"The market is growing fast, primarily because the ads are trackable and target people who are already interested. The medium is also inexpensive compared with television, radio, direct mail and Web banner ads. Paid-search advertising has become a do-or-die proposition," says Jeff Saville, a consumer direct marketing manager at Deckers Outdoor Corp. (Nasdaq:DECK - news)

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.
• Certain campaigns fail because they are ill-conceived or unsuited to the medium.
• According to WebTrends the data suggests that 60 percent of marketers do not measure sales, leads or key actions resulting from campaigns. [This is a dangerous number because that means you are competing with people who don't know what things are truly costing them. You need to be extra analytical when going head to head with this guy.]

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 :-)

PPC Tips list continued from previous weeks:

• 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.

Looking for more search marketing tips? Check my posts from previous weeks for more ideas and strategies.


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Direct sales | PPC | pay per click | Google | marketing tips | search | Woolworth | Today in history | online advertising