Internet marketing tips for Petra Fashions

Google's Froogle? Can you get your lingerie ma...

Google's Froogle? Can you get your lingerie & sleepwear items listed?

As A Petra Fashions consultant, the first question you need to ask yourself is: "Where do customers shop?"

Customers shop at a place that s familiar
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 knowing the habits of a happy shopper have to do with Froogle, the comparison shopping engine? Well simply put; many people are familiar with Google's Foogle and they trust Google because they've been there before, it's well promoted, and as always it is convenient. While Google's Froogle never sets prices on items or markets stuff themself, they do allow shoppers to compare various prices. They've hit the consumer's nail right on its head.

It seems to be a rare exception to the old expression, "there's no such thing as a free lunch". At Froogle, if you're trying to get into a comparison shopping engine, lunch is on them. It's as easy as 1-2-3.

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

Froogle In A "Nutshell"

Froogle is on the Google home page.
Millions of people come to Google each day, and many are actively looking for the products you're selling. Froogle connects shoppers with merchants.

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.

I market lingerie & sleepwear. Can lingerie & sleepwear be found in Froogle.

What follows are some recommended instructions toward getting your lingerie & sleepwear items found in Froogle using their data feed system:

Sign in to the Froogle Merchant Center
Create or use your existing Google Account to enter the Froogle Merchant Center.
Create an FTP account
Set up your FTP account, which you'll later use to upload your 'product info' feeds to us.
Specify your feed's settings
Set your feed's filename and other parameters.
Create and upload your feed
Create a feed according to Froogle's instructions and upload it to them. Be sure to name your feed using the filename you chose in Step 3 (above).
Check your feed for errors
Sign in to your Froogle Merchant Center account to check for any formatting errors in your feed.
Final content review
We will review your feed to ensure that its content is consistent with our program policies.

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:
Petra Fashions | Froogle | Dan Hollings | lingerie | sleepwear
Other recommended blogs:
Premier Design Jewelry | Primerica | Princess House

Mompreneurs at Petra Fashions? Source: D...

Mompreneurs at Petra Fashions?

Source: DSA.org

According to the most recent statistics available from the Direct Sales Association, 79.9% of people in "direct sales" are female. 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 morphed from entrepreneurism and it called 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 Oprah; their mompreneurs online website draws millions of visitors each month.

In reading through the Mompreneurs Online web site you'll enjoy reading that they've interviewed hundreds of work at home moms. Their interviews revealed that these special women share certain secrets for internet success. 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 Mompreneurs® Online:

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.
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.
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.

Do you think Petra Fashions is a wonderful place for moms? Maybe you're hoping to attract work at home moms to your site, blog, product or business? Or, maybe you already have lots of moms and a true mompreneurial revolution underway?

Whatever the case, work-from-home mothers are an important niche and your promotional campaigns can target these moms. Moms are both a consumer and a business force to be respected and understood.

Maybe your lingerie & sleepwear will be just the thing these mompreneurs are seeking? Now, let's continue (below) with more tips in our series on pay per click strategies for gaining highly targeted traffic. Maybe you can get some moms clicking!

More tips for your PPC campaign:

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.

How to Appeal to Mompreneurs

Here's one way you can be appealing and compelling in reaching out to work at home moms:

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.

I market lingerie & sleepwear. Can lingerie & ...

I market lingerie & sleepwear. Can lingerie & sleepwear be marketed by a PPC search engine campaign

Today, Petra Fashions is one of the fastest growing party plan companies in the nation. Their exclusive garment line includes sleepwear, casual wear, clothing and accessories as well as the finest lingerie available. Petra Fashions offer fit-conscious fashions in a wide variety of styles and sizes to meet the needs of our beautifully unique and diverse clientele.

As A Petra Fashions 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 customers.

Can your lingerie & sleepwear be sold by a PPC search engine campaign or not? This is question number one, right? But equally important, can you put together a strategy that generates more solid customers than campaign costs?

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

Search engine marketing tips:

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?

Basics of Yahoo Sponsored Search and Google AdW...

Basics of Yahoo Sponsored Search and Google AdWords for Petra Fashions.

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 Yahoo and Google. 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.

There's no better way to begin than 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:

Sponsored Search: Flash Introduction by Yahoo
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/tu_srch.php
Yahoo sponsored search overview.

AdWord Options for Keyword Matching Explained
https://services.google.com/marketing/stats/tutorial_redirect
Perfecting your Google AdWord targeting and filter worthless clicks.

AdWords Optimization Tips
http://services.google.com/tutorial/opt_tips/google_opt.html
Attract more prospects by editing your Google ads.

Google Vs. Yahoo? Do the bidding policies make a difference?

Yahoo Sponsored Ads

Yahoo sets your keyword bid only 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.

How it works

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 Petra Fashions consultant continue below:

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.

Petra Fashions? Ever wonder what people really ...

Petra Fashions? Ever wonder what people really think about it?

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

Petra Fashions

Do you truly believe that potential customers already perceive this about Petra Fashions?

That's a mystery-factor in any search engine marketing campaign; you might best think through this issue at the outset (as you are preparing your keywords, your ads, and your landing page) what the majority of visitors already 'know' about you and the lingerie & sleepwear you offer. If you're not sure, 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 addressed on the page your visitor arrives at after clicking your ad; so before you start any advertising effort, think like a customer and look at your landing page.

Search engine marketing strategies:

Without any further delay, I'll continue with my tips this week.

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.

Throw on your "Google Trotters" and race over t...

Throw on your "Google Trotters" and race over to see "FadSense."

"Google Trotters?" Yes, tennis shoes from Google with geo referenced google ads. Hard to believe huh?

You gotta love it! Google FadSense™

As A Petra Fashions 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 Petra Fashions" 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 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 Petra Fashions...

In my last few blog posts we have hammered away with dozens of valuable tips. This week we continue.

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.

What a day (historically speaking)... After 118...

What a day (historically speaking)... After 118 Years, Google Inc. Closed Its Doors.

What started as a collaboration between two Stanford University graduate students in computer science in 1995 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?

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

On this date...

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.

Research shows global Web search advertising revenue, which is big business for the Internet giants, will be almost $8 billion in 2005 -- more than 20 times what it was four years ago. (Source: Reuters 2005)

Good news for the Petra Fashions consultant

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

Pay-per-click search listings appear to out perform other methods when it comes to delivering a cost-effective way to get customers. According to Piper Jaffray & Co., the cost to acquire a customer is approximately $8.50 for search, $20 for Yellow Pages, $50 for online display ads, $60 for e-mail and $70 for direct mail. Television data was not mentioned. The choice for advertisers is clear.

"It's a marketer's dream tool because we can monitor it in so many different ways and watch the effectiveness of it," said 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.
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.]
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.

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 :-)

More Pay Per Click Marketing Tips Below:

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.