Replace Your Lost Income with a Successful Online Business

With the economy in constant turmoil, many are experiencing a financial crunch with lost jobs or at the very least, lost income due to slow business. Fortunately, you don’t have to settle for less income. There are many income opportunities online to fit your schedule, business budget, and skills. Let’s explore two main ways to replace lost income with online profits.

Work from Home through Online Marketing

Marketing online and helping others promote their business is a great way to get started. Thankfully, there are companies that will help you with minimal cost. You can automate your business to sell services for you while you’re away or asleep. Also, you can promote products and services to your potential customers through e-mail automatically with a follow-up system.

With this type of business, the marketing company that provides the service usually charges a one-time sign-up fee or an ongoing monthly or yearly fee to help you start and operate your business. All you do is set up your home business website, and then start promoting their services or products. The business will run on autopilot to sell and provide customer service to your new clients. Usually, this type of business operates similarly to an MLM business, but may also offer products or services for sale. Many are earning 6-figure incomes with this type of set-up, but they do work hard at promotions and marketing on a day-by-day basis as with any other type of business.

Replace Income with Your Personal or Business Skills

Think of the skills you have developed over the years. Can you type, sew, cook, write, design Web pages, or conduct research? Can you make crafts, design graphics, or offer counseling in some area? The possibilities are endless. Only you know what you love doing the most and what skills you possess. These can be turned into an amazing business earning a 6-figure income once the business starts to grow.

To start a business based on your skills, determine what you will offer, how much you will need to charge, and how you will handle customer service, shipping, and so forth. Then, create your own website to promote your products or services. Make sure your website offers plenty of useful content pertaining to your products. Also, create an e-mail newsletter (or e-zine) to follow up with your visitors. This will boost your income more than any other technique. With some services, you might also offer your talents through freelance websites to find new clients.

Promotion Tools to Replace Lost Income

Once you determine the type of online business that’s right for you, it’s time to promote your website. Some promotion tools can help you replace income while others may only cost you more money. Methods that are costly but might not be targeted include banner ads, pop-up ads, and classified ads. These three methods can be targeted to certain types of websites, but be sure the marketing company allows you to specify the audience you’d like to reach. Otherwise, it’s a waste of advertising dollars.

Promotion methods that are affordable and effective include pay-per-click search engines, e-zine advertising, and content-based ads. These can reach your target audience without breaking your wallet because you’re able to select the very audience that would be interested in your products.

Full-Time or Part-Time Income Opportunities

The Internet offers many income opportunities for either full time or part time, depending on your schedule and income needs. For part time income, it’s probably best to sign on with a company that can set up a business for you. This will save you much time and energy so you can focus on promotions only during your limited hours.

Many entrepreneurs start out online as part-timers, but end up quitting their day jobs once established. You can earn a great income online too by allowing others who are already successful to lead the way!

Cross Promotiion Techniques That Work

Cross promotion is not a new idea. It has been used by businesses for a very long time. For example, a real-estate company may promote a certain lawyer to close a sale. In turn, the lawyer will promote that agency in his firm. The system is somewhat similar to the primitive barter system where people traded items rather than using money. But how can anything primitive fit into the online world of Internet Marketing? Very easily!

A cross promotion is, simply stated, the trading of ad space. Instead of paying for advertising space on a site, you simply place someone else’s business ad on your page and your ad on theirs. There are many ways to use cross promotions in your internet business that can equate to effective and cost efficient advertising.

One way is to use link exchanges. This is very effective when considering cross promoting with a
company that is similar to yours. However, you should avoid linking to a page that is in direct competition with yours. One of the biggest pluses for using link exchanges is that some search engines are factoring in hits from the sites that are linked to your page when determining the ranking. Therefore, linking to a more popular site can not only increase your advertising and traffic, but also your search engine ranking.

When customers or potential customers subscribe to your ezine, you can use this as an opportunity to use cross promotions. On the same page that the customer subscribes to your ezine, make available the opportunity to subscribe to another company’s ezine. You can even exchange ad space in ezines and provide recommendations for those with whom you cross promote. You may even want to exchange column space in one another’s ezines.

Writing free articles that inform customers or potential customers with information that is useful
and accurate can create a reputation for you and your business. Readers will quickly come to know you as an expert on that subject. In these articles, the author uses a byline to help promote his site. Bylines are yet another way to use cross promotions. You can use part of the space in your byline to recommend someone else’s product.

If you have been considering writing an ebook, a joint venture could mean increased profits for you and the person you are partnering with. Cross promotion through ebooks is an excellent way to allow for a wider topic and promote both your business and your partner’s business. The ebook should contain information that will benefit both businesses but remain helpful to the reader. A good example of using cross promotions through an ebook is a site selling used video games partnering with a site selling gaming devices: two subjects that would interest the same reader and most likely lead the reader to both sites.

You should keep in mind that the recommendations you make are a direct reflection of you, so choose
your’ cross promotional businesses carefully. Also keep in mind that it would be nice as a shopper to be able to link from one site to another as a way to “shop around”. Also, never link or recommend a site that’s in direct competition with you, since this is not usually beneficial to you. Instead, recommend those that are similar, such as health and life insurance.

Internet Marketing is hot and happening

Do you know television took 30 years to reach a mass audience while broadband has taken just three years? According to estimates, by 2010 most people will be watching TV via high-speed internet.

Understandably, internet advertising is becoming a preferred marketing tool for companies which have an online presence. Today almost every company worth its salt needs to have a web presence, and if your website doesn’t stand out in a crowded market, you won’t sell!

As more and more companies jump on to the online marketing bandwagon, this rapidly growing trend has spun two online revolutions:

• Online marketing, especially search engine optimisation and pay-per-click campaigns, is giving traditional offline advertising a run for its money.
What you need to keep in mind is: If you don’t play your online marketing cards right, you stand to lose out on a huge global market that is within your reach.

• A growing number of internet marketing companies are beginning to compete for a share of the huge and rapidly growing online marketing industry.
What you need to keep in mind is: How you succeed in your internet marketing campaign is going to depend to a large extent on how you choose your online marketing company.

Advertisers are increasingly preferring online media over offline media for their advertising and marketing campaigns. The phenomenal success of the search engine Google is evidence of a clear shift from traditional advertising towards online media.

For instance, Google and Yahoo’s pay per click (PPC) campaigns are becoming the preferred marketing mediums for advertisers, who are now setting aside a significant part of their marketing budgets for online marketing.

Google has rewritten the rules of online marketing and promotions. Other leading search engines such as Yahoo and MSN are also coming up with innovative strategies and technologies to make it easier for users to find what they are searching for.

With competition hotting up between the search engines, companies that have an online presence are competing against each other to gain maximum visibility in these search engines.

The result is that internet marketing has moved on from having merely static websites to highly specialised and competitive strategies and Web 2.0 technologies such as search engine optimisation, PPC campaigns, viral marketing, social networking, internet advertising, tagging, blogging, wikis, and more.

Online media has definite advantages

Online media has some definite advantages over offline media in terms of cost, reach, interactivity, targeting the right markets and measuring responses. For instance, pay per click campaigns provide the most qualified leads and are proven to have highest sales conversion rate.

There are several techniques of search engine promotion such as SEO, PPC, Banner Exchange, Link Building, and so on. Let’s have a look at the advantages of online promotions over offline promotions:

1. Online advertising is relatively cheaper. It includes booking ad space in other websites, launching SEO or Pay-Per-Click campaigns, email marketing, viral marketing.

Offline marketing is expensive. It includes printing marketing material, placing print ads in newspapers and magazines, booking ad space in public places, producing and broadcasting television or radio advertisements, dispatching direct mailers.

2. Online advertisements are more interactive and therefore more likely to really connect with consumers.

Offline advertisements are generally not interactive.

3. Online advertisements do not violate the privacy of customers.

Offline advertisements such as cold calling violates your customer’s privacy.

4. Email marketing enables instant business communication whether the customer or business affiliate is across the street or across the globe.

Offline advertisements have a limited reach in terms of distance.

5. Advertising on the internet is not bound by time limits. Marketing campaigns can continue for as long as you want (often at minimal extra cost).
Offline promotions, be it print ads or radio/TV ads are usually bound by time limits.

6. Customer queries can be solved instantly and very cheaply in online media as visitors can themselves look up the website for further information.
This facility is often lacking in offline media, or would require expensive resources like call centre staff to service customer enquiries.

7. Customers can look up online advertisements at their own convenient time.

In offline media determines when a particular advertisement should be broadcast or printed. If you miss it, it’s gone!

8. Search engine optimisation and pay per click is demand driven, as your company’s products and services appear at the exact time when the customer is seeking those services. This means you have a much higher chance of converting a lead into a sale.
Offline promotion is usually interruptive and blanket-targets an audience whether they are seeking your services or not.

9. Online marketing can access millions of potential customers across the globe with just a few clicks.
In offline promotion it is impossible to reach millions of customers at one go unless you have an exceptionally large budget (e.g. a Superbowl TV spot).

Choosing a good online marketing company

A number of highly specialised creative and technical processes are involved in online marketing. You will not achieve the desired result unless you select an internet marketing company that has a thorough knowledge of search engine optimisation, pay per click campaigns, website analysis, web copywriting, keyword analysis, code optimisation, link building, and web analytics.

Before you decide on which internet marketing company to use, make sure the company has a thorough professional and updated knowledge of these specialised skills. Check out their processes, find out how they plan to take on your internet marketing campaign step-by-step, and make sure they give you some form of guarantee for their services.

If you are interested in learning more about the detailed steps in a SEO or PPC campaign, visit www.CleverClicks.com.au a leading SEO and PPC services provider in Sydney, Australia which has outlined the processes involved in internet marketing in clear and easy-to-understand detail.

Internet marketing is the hottest and most happening thing in advertising. Don’t miss the boat!

What Is Target Marketing?

If you want to save on business expenditures but need to pump up your marketing efforts, then you must consider target marketing. This pursuit is all about knowing who your buyers are, particularly the groups, who have that high potential of purchasing your products or availing of your services. With that information, any business can focus their marketing on this specific group and have high chances of closing on sales. Besides, big money spent on traditional advertising would be saved for better business development or efforts.

For many businesses, their target marketing involves in depth research of the group’s consumer behavior. This would mean having a clear anatomy of their demographics which gives them a good idea of how to carry on their marketing techniques. While it’s true that a large population would not be included when implementing target marketing, it cannot be denied that there is that bigger chance of success with even being just focused on smaller group of consumers. Another good thing about target marketing is it can be modified along the way, particularly when there are changes in the spending behavior of the identified group. Also, there are economic movements that could very well affect consumers’ spending habits that need to be considered. For each variance and for some periods, target marketing efforts must be shifted to be in sync with such movements.

In target marketing, the common demographics serving as basis include age, gender, economic status or income, location, social and civil status, and lifestyle. For specific products, they would go as far as identifying the groups’ specific spending behavior, even their online activities and purchase or shopping routines. All the major demographics are very important because it directs any business to specific marketing techniques. For example, if your business is about offering gears and gadgets for cars, then men is the likely target. But if it’s about needlework and quick-and-easy dinner recipes, then go for the women. There should also be a very clear delineation of products that are good for both genders.

Promotions and ads are focused on people who are likely to buy, have the capacity to make the purchase and who actually need or desire the products. When it comes to age, the target marketing focus must be on the groups that are capable of making purchases. For this reason, products that aren’t supposed to be sold to minors aren’t advertised online, on TV and on the radio where kids and those below eighteen years are targeted. In the same way, products and services that are mostly bought by teenagers or their parents are heavily advertised on sites and programs where these two targeted age are deemed followers. It is also in this concept that other demographics move about, such as income and social status.

Another factor to key in for any target marketing effort would be geographic location. This enables businesses to determine what the people in a certain area really need. So in a cold region, products like thick apparel and protective gears from cold are likely to sell. Even food and restaurants would know that their target market would want choices that keep their body warm and keep them energized. There’s no point arguing that maybe in such a highland, cold region, there’s a good chance of selling summery clothing, more so with gears and products that are considered unfit for the terrains, weather and lifestyle of the people.

So you see, your business really must consider target marketing. Imagine what a waste it would be to spend too much on advertising and promotions of a product that people don’t need, won’t buy or don’t care about at all. Do think about it because target marketing is all about targeting profits!