Would You Have An Advantage If Potential Multi-level marketing Prospects Wore Bright Blue Jerseys?

Would You Have An Advantage If Potential Multi-level marketing Prospects Wore Bright Blue Jerseys?

In recent months, I remember quite often having the privilege of consulting with Multi-level marketing entrepreneurs. No matter how many tips I blog, articles I write, or trainings I teach, I still sometimes get individuals that say, "internet search marketing might be good, but paying a buck a click scares the pajeebers out of me and I'm thinking it is not for my particular product or service."

Even though these comments surprise me, I'm certain that one of the reasons I hear this is because the "approach" of internet search marketing is still not understood.

I'll attempt a little analogy to see if I can get everyone confortable with the concept...

What 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 announcing what they were shopping for. Imagine if these shoppers knew to go straight to you rather than wander the store aimlessly looking?

With Yahoo's Sponsored Search, Google AdWords, a top 10 pay per click search engines, or perhaps even one of the minor league PPC engines, you connect with ready-to-buy 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 1000's of advertising agents at the door of every market center in the country. What's more, you'd have to pay them only if they found prospects and began selling them your particular product or service.

Now, even if other big companies have made giant billboards, hovering over everyone, it doesn't matter. Few customers are going to pay that any attention. All the while, your "agents" are continually monitoring every single prospective customer.

Using search engine ads is like deploying a team of workaholic "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 people begin the shopping process, you'll be the first to know.

Search engine marketing will grow by 33% this year, with growth slowing to 10% annually by 2010, when spending will hit $11.6 billion. (Source: Forrester Research 02/2005)

Until next week, happy internet campaigning...


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Multi-level marketing | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Yahoo Sponsored Search | Dan Hollings |
Other recommended blogs:
Body Wise | Carico | Charmelle

Mompreneurs and Multi-level marketing; Is it a match made in heaven?

Mompreneurs and Multi-level marketing; Is it a match made in heaven?

According to statistics obtained from the Direct Sales Association, 79.9% of people in "our industry" are female. Where does that leave the guys? Well, the men total only 20.1%. In addition, we find that many women in our industry (and perhaps the customers we seek) are the proud parents of lovely children. As a result, just when we thought the dictionary had all the words we needed, a new term has come on the scene: Mompreneurism.

Source: DSA.org

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 Good Morning America; their mompreneurs online site draws millions of visitors each month.

In reading through the Mompreneurs Online web site you'll find that they've interviewed hundreds of mothers managing kids and a business from home. Their interviews revealed that these at-home business women share certain secrets for their savvy web strategies. Don't miss the interesting points they offer. For example, below is a sampling of why and how mom-owned businesses are surviving and thriving on the web according to Ellen and Pat:

• The Control Factor. Moms start home businesses for family flexibility, so they grow their enterprises slowly and steadily to retain control over their work/family time. The 24/7 availability of the Internet lets them work when THEY want to.
• 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.

It's possible you think Multi-level marketing is a ideal place for moms? Maybe you're hoping to attract mothers managing kids and a business from home to your site, blog, product or business? Or, maybe you already have lots of moms and a true mompreneurial team working toward your goals?

Whatever the case, work at home 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 admired.

With any luck, 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!

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

• 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 Appeal to Mompreneurs

Here's one way you can be compelling and relevant in reaching out to mothers managing kids and a business from home:

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 marketing help visit:
Internet Marketing Tips for Multi-level marketing

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


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Multi-level marketing | mompreneur | mompreneurs | mompreneurism | entrepreneur | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Dan Hollings |
Other recommended blogs:
Big Planet | Binney Smith At Home | Body Shop At Home

Can you list techniques so a particular product or service can be successfully marketed by Google AdWords or Yahoo Sponsored Ads

Can you list techniques so a particular product or service can be successfully marketed by Google AdWords or Yahoo Sponsored Ads

Perhaps your service or product is not widely known by the public, but your method of marketing (Multi-level marketing) may be. This can be a positive or a negative depending on the predisposition of your potential new 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 a customer likes what you offer, they will naturally want to recommend it to others and it is at that time (no sooner) that your marketing approach becomes relevant.

As A Multi-level marketing entrepreneur 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 visitors.

Can your particular product or service be sold by Google AdWords or Yahoo Sponsored Ads or not? That's question #1, right? But equally important, can you come up with a search engine campaign that produces more profits bottom-line results than promotional expense?

Encouraging news, the answer is: "most likely."

Search engine marketing strategies:

• 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?


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Multi-level marketing | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Network Marketing | Yahoo Ads | Dan Hollings | AdWords |

Will Google or Yahoo Pay Per Click Ads Work for Multi-level marketing.

Will Google or Yahoo Pay Per Click Ads Work for Multi-level marketing.

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 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.

Bids, ranks, and costs with Google AdWords
http://services.google.com/tutorial/bpr/bpr.html
Tips to improve your AdWord ranking while managing your campaign funds.

Local Targeting with Google AdWords
http://services.google.com/tutorial/adw_loc_target/adw_loc_target.html
Reach new prospects in specific regional or local areas.

Yahoo and Google Handle Bidding a Bit Different, Let's Look...

Sponsored ads at Yahoo

• 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

Google AdWords

• 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.

UPDATE: 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's New Rule

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 Multi-level marketing entrepreneur 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.

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


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?


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Multi-level marketing | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Network Marketing | Yahoo Ads | Dan Hollings | Sponsored Ads | Contextual Ads | AdWords

Multi-level marketing? Is it perceived in the way I think?

Multi-level marketing? Is it perceived in the way I think?

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

Multi-level marketing

Perhaps your service or product is not widely known by the public, but your method of marketing (Multi-level marketing) may be. This can be a positive or a negative depending on the predisposition of your potential new 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 a customer likes what you offer, they will naturally want to recommend it to others and it is at that time (no sooner) that your marketing approach becomes relevant.

Do you expect that potential customers already know this about Multi-level marketing?

That's an important point you must not overlook 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 particular product or service you offer. You might consider playing it safe and 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 seems like a common commodity (vitamins, shoes, cosmetics, telephone services, etc), then you must differentiate your product from the other seemingly similar things the public possibly will 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 pay per click ads, put on the eye glasses of your customer and take a hard look at your landing page.

PPC Tips:

Below are this weeks tips for better search engine marketing (using pay-per-click):

• 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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Multi-level marketing | PPC | pay per click | Google | Network Marketing | mlm | Dan Hollings | internet marketing | Contextual Ads | AdWords

FadSense! I'd like to see Bill Gates in those "Google Trotter" Tennis Shoes!

FadSense! I'd like to see Bill Gates in those "Google Trotter" Tennis Shoes!

In fact, I'd like to see ME in those geo referencing FadSense sneakers!

Check out the site: Google FadSense™

As A Multi-level marketing entrepreneur, 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 Multi-level marketing" 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 create a destination or landing page that works.
• How to write effective ads.
• How to manage your advertising budget.
• How to create eye catching headlines for your ads.

My Continuing Tips To Help You With Multi-level marketing...

In my last few blog posts 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.

In earlier blog posts you'll find the first, second, third and fourth installments of my PPC tips.


To make certain you don't miss this series of PPC tips, you might consider subscribing to my RSS feed.


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

Today in History... After 118 Years, Google Inc. Closed Its Doors.

Today in History... After 118 Years, Google Inc. Closed Its Doors.

What started as a a unique approach to solving one of computing's biggest challenges (retrieving relevant information from a massive set of data) and 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."

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. Bill Gates is on a mission to build a Google killer. What got him so riled? Google, the darling of search is moving into software and that's Microsoft's turf. Fortune story here. For now however, it's all fantasy thinking as the titans of search (Google, Yahoo, & Microsoft) battle it out in cyberspace.

People searching for information on the Internet are driving some of the fastest-growing profits on the Web, whetting advertisers' appetites by signaling what they want. By typing in search terms, users are also sending advertisers a clear message about merchandise they might be interested in buying, and search providers like Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG - news), Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) and Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) MSN are cashing in. (Source: Reuters 2005)

Good news for the Multi-level marketing entrepreneur

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

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know where to spend your advertising dollars... $8.50 for search, $20 for Yellow Pages, $50 for online display ads, $60 for e-mail and $70 for direct mail. Those are the average cost-per-customer numbers based on research by Piper Jaffray.

"Paid-search advertising has become a do-or-die proposition," says Jeff Saville, a consumer direct marketing manager at Deckers Outdoor Corp. "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." (Nasdaq:DECK - news)

Are there dangers or flaws in search advertising?

• Some worry that new advertisers are rushing blindly into paid search and inflating key word prices -- a concern underscored by WebTrends data.
• 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.]
• Certain campaigns fail because they are ill-conceived or unsuited to the medium.

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 :-)

Search engine marketing tips:

• 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.

Last week I posted the another round of search engine marketing tips and yet more in the weeks before that. Check there for more ideas.


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Multi-level marketing | PPC | pay per click | Google | marketing tips | search | Woolworth | Today in history | online advertising