Gaining new clients that are excited about developing a corporate Web site, and are gung-ho to get started is a dream come true. Trust me - as a creative individual with a keen understanding of what the Web can do for a business - I know what I’m talking about.

But oddly enough, I’ve found that clients falling into this category seem to be missing out on other essential branding fundamentals. They are ready to get started building the empire of their dreams via a snazzy new Web site. They truly believe: build it, and they will come. Maybe so, but a Web site alone won’t increase sales.

It’s as if there’s an imbalance, and rarely do you find a client that fully grasps both ends of the branding spectrum and how they should work together.

There are several keys to developing a winning brand for your company, and an effective corporate Internet branding strategy is only part of equation If you are going to take the time to develop a brand for your company, you may as well do it right the first time. Having to do it over again and again will cost you in consultant fees, lost clients, lost sales and lost earnings potential.

In order to ensure that you are on the right track (and that the consultant you’ve chosen to work with knows her stuff), you need to understand what these keys to branding success are.

In a nutshell, an effective brand encompasses many things, and not just an eye catching look. Consider the list below and ask yourself how much of this you were aware of already (feel free to print and use as a checklist when you hunt for the right consultant - or feel free to call us!):

This is the information age. Understand that your target market is most likely well informed - even before they find your product or service, they know what they are looking for. Relating to your customers and your target market via your brand is more essential than the visual appeal of the brand itself (think Saturn).

When you are conducting all of that endless research, make sure someone carefully considers the emotional attachment your brand should create with your target market - if your business is all about quality + affordability, find a way to communicate the feel-good experience of getting a really good product or service at a great price (perhaps through imagery, perhaps through a tag line, or perhaps through your offline and online marketing messages).

Never discount the power of consistency in a brand. When it comes down to visual appeal, nothing is more detrimental than being all over the map with color and design. It’s amazing how many companies actually use their logo in several different color combinations. Make sure your logo, colors, design and presentation are consistent for print and Web. Variations may work but they must be complimentary.

Never regurgitate your printed marketing material into your Web site. If you are going to take the time to extend your corporate brand to the Internet, make sure your Web site uses compelling text (Web writing is very much unlike the corporate brochure), and isn’t just a repeat of your marketing material. After all, you want to refer others to your Web site via your business card, brochure, special promos, etc. Those on the receiving end will expect a greater benefit if they take the time to check out your company Web address (what…you didn’t realize your URL should be printed on everything, including your corporate vehicle??).

It seems like such an insurmountable task - how will I ever develop the right brand for my company?

That’s where we come in. We specialize in working through all these aspects with you. Our job is to understand your target market, based on the information you provide about your business. From there, we can put together a complete strategy to develop a successful brand for your company that encompasses print and Web.

If you want to attempt this yourself, remember - you must understand the key branding fundamentals. Take your time, do some careful research and read as many case studies as you can get your hands on. Take a good look at your competitors and see what they are doing (especially the most successful ones).

You’ll soon realize that there are all kinds of opinions and theories out there on what successful branding is about. Keep focused on what you already know about your company, your current clients and your target market. Make sure you understand what they want; not necessarily what they need.

Above all else, understand that in order for a brand to work you need to put together a complete branding strategy. One that encompasses the best forms of marketing to reach your target market, and most often this involves a combination of traditional methods and the Web.

Here’s to your continued business success!

Amanda Ayles is President of AmandaMarks Business Solutions, and helps businesses of all sizes develop their unique identity on the Web. Services include custom design for print and Web, content development and on-line marketing strategies. Visit her corporate Web site at http://www.amandamarks.com

Buyers Don’t Rely on the Yellow Pages Like They Used to

Customers’ buying behavior has changed - for good. If your business depends on most categories in the Yellow Pages to attract new customers, you’ve probably seen a decline. Traditionally, people headed to the Yellow Page directory precisely when they were ready to buy. They’d check the listings to find their options, or "let their finders do the walking." Now they’ve got more choices.

New research by The Kelsey Group in March, 2005 found that 70% of US households now use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally for products and services. These buyers aren’t going to the Internet for online purchases, nor to find distant providers. They intend to spend their money in their own community.

The Kelsey Group also found that interviewed individuals felt the search engines were a "better source of purchasing information than Yellow Pages, newspapers and magazines." The trend is being driven entirely by Internet users. Related data from other sources show that consumers who search online for purchases spend more than those using the printed directory.

Demote the Yellow Page Ad to a Smaller Portion of Your Budget

The Yellow Page industry is a Fifteen Billion Dollar industry in the US. While there are more choices of printed Yellow Page directories than ever, the buying habits of the public have moved away from using them. Computer-savvy buyers know the easiest way to find the information they want is through search engines (and since May they can do searches on the run, on their cell phones). But many small or local businesses aren’t even listed.

The Kelsey Group’s data is consistent with other statistics showing that the Internet has overtaken the newspaper for cars and real estate (major purchases). And it’s becoming the "go-to" place for information. A study by imedia Connection found it’s "second only to spouses for finding referrals."

To stay competitive, small and mid-sized businesses will be compelled to make sure they’re included in search engine data bases. While it’s not necessary to have a website, it helps to be listed on someone’s (like a local portal or professional group). Enterprises that can’t be found by online searchers risk losing sales to businesses they find instead.

Where did the Customers Go?

Many factors influence where and what a person decides to buy. Although the Yellow Pages are no longer an automatic part of the loop, many buyers consult both the Internet and the directory, not relying on either one alone. However, many shoppers only call Yellow Page ads that show a website, even it they don’t intend to visit it. It goes to the credibility issue.

What’s different?

- Buyers are less trusting and more willing to shop around

- Availability of Internet Yellow Pages (IYP)

- Expanded options and more ways to find them

- Aging population uses the Yellow Pages differently than young people

- Development of unique, narrow niches and specialties

- More choices for a "better deal"

- Increased immigrants and those from other cultures, unaccustomed to Yellow Page use

- Larger cities with multiple directories, rather than one large one

- Local search, whereby the search engines locate suppliers by zip code, state, city, region

Time for a Reality Check - Can You Find Yourself?

The next time you go online (or have a friend walk you through it), see how you rate in some local searches. Conduct a query in Google (then Yahoo, and MSN). Enter your type of business + Your town (“Pet Stores” + Scottsdale, Arizona).

Does your business show up? How many of your competitors are on that list? How many are ahead of you? That list is what your “missing customers” are likely to see when they’re ready to spend their money. Does that experience motivate you to make a better Local Search showing?

Next, check out whether your business appears in various Internet Yellow Pages (IYP). Work your way down the list:

http://www.yellowpagesage.com/localsearch.html

Start noticing how visible you are to customers researching their local options online. You really can’t afford to miss the boat.

Dr. Lynella Grant Author, Yellow Page Smarts: Make more money from your directory ad in tandem with your website http://www.yellowpagesage.com

Smarter ways to attract more YP customers. Local Search resources Off the Page Press (719) 395-9450

Advertising online is very similar to advertising in any environment. You really are trying to get your message or your product out there by the most cost effective means possible.

Advertising online really is unique in the sense that you have the means to advertise anywhere in the world, almost instantly.

I have found through many years of advertising and research that it can get quite expensive and take many hours finding what works and what does not.

However, the most effective methods of advertising I believe, happen to be through search engines. Having them index you, and paying per click seem to be the most effective methods of marketing.

Advertising in ezines are also effective for short term sales but really have nowhere as much traffic as you will find in search engines which account for the majority of website traffic on the internet.

It is better to let a search engine index you rather than submitting to it, this way you will obtain higher rankings.

You must update your site and even trade traffic with other websites if possible if you want to improve your indexing chances and your ranking.

There are also directories you can look into that will possibly charge a fee to get into, but are well worth it.

By: Mark Shay

(C)Mark Shay

Where entrepreneurs earn $2,700 and more daily. http://www.therealincome.com (C) Mark Shay

The most common way to drive people to your business site is advertising. You cannot succeed without advertising, this is a fact.

You should advertise almost everytime and almost everywhere using a very pleasant, smart and persuasive manner if you want to accomplish your final target: Making Sales

But what to do when clear and noisy advertising is not allowed (e.g discussion lists, discussion forums, etc) or you just send emails with no connection with business?

Should you give up? Should you leave hundreds of members of a discussion list with no information about your product? No way! You may promote your site with no accusation of unfair behavior using Signature File(s) because, as far as I know, this method of advertising is everywhere accepted without complains.

Here are some hints to improve the task of Signature files:

1. Be concise. A Signature file must point the essential, the most important thing about your product. There is no introduction here, there are no follow ups. You have only one second to describe its best performance. So try to include the key information that will make customers want to contact you.
2. Be short. When you send emails in HTML format use only one line, the link to your site must be viewed by moving the mouse over this line. When you’re in text format use a two lines signature with a classical headline and the link below. At a minimum you should be able to provide is your product/company/site name and URL but ideally you would use and some appropriate words
3. Be relevant. A post about search engines shouldn’t end with a signature file about copywriting.
4. Use the context. To be truly effective your signature must be as closest as possible to the content of message or topic of forum. For example if you answer postings in a forum to do with any aspect targeted advertising you can provide a signature such as "Get 10,000,000 hits to your website".

Let’s learn something here. It is not difficult to find ‘forbidden’ places for blatant advertising, they are everywhere. The biggest problem, and challenge as well, is to be very effective using a very small space.

Valerian Dinca is the owner of the newest online business tutorial. Everything you need when you need it. http://www.valerianplanet.com

There are a number of great ways to promote your online business offline. Combining offline advertising with your online presence will create momentum and increase your profits. There are a number of ways to promote your business offline.

Generate traffic. Produce sales. Increase profits.

Those words are gold to every business with a Web site. But an overwhelming majority of entrepreneurs don’t ever reach their goals of gold.

This is mainly because there seems to be an unwritten code of Web advertising. It states you can only be successful on the Internet if you are using online advertising methods like search engines, banner ads and buying online ad space. True, this should be a factor in any company’s marketing efforts but there’s an old rule of advertising you should Consider… offline.

There are three main offline-advertising mediums worth investing in to drive people to your site. Print, television and radio ads are fairly inexpensive and have the power to promote your dot com presence effectively.

It’s cheaper and more effective than you think.

Print

Newspaper advertising

Newspaper advertising is an easy way to get your message in front of a large audience. When placing these kind of ads you want to put them in the business opportunities or work at home section of the classifieds. If you are only going to run them one day a week focus on the Sunday edition as this normally has the highest circulation. If possible run the ad consistently as this will build some familiarity with the readers and will lead to better response. Be sure to find out the circulation and compare the cost with the circulation to find the best deals. I would also suggest you “test” a few different ads and keep track of the results of each. Here are some examples of ads I have run recently:

STOP reading classified ads make money from them instead… If they’re making money you can too:

For example:-

We recently signed up to the affiliate program at www.cashloopholes.co.uk, They pay 50% commissions on their product. In the national exchange and mart it costs just £80 for a one week advert in the business opportunities section. There were other betting guides in there and they have been for a long time so I knew they were making money. This one guarantees to win, 100% of the time. None of the others can do that so we was one step ahead already by promoting such an exceptional product.

The ad read

FREE MONEY LOOPHOLE
If You Could GUARANTEE, With Absolute Certainty, The Outcome of an Event BEFORE You Placed a Bet… How Much Money Would You Invest? HTTP://WWW.CASHLOOPHOLES.CO.UK

As it’s in the business opportunity section this ad immediately captures the attention of the reader, it’s intriguing and causes the reader to want to know more

We placed the ad for 4 weeks and we set up an ad tracking service so we knew how well we were doing with it.

In all we received Approximately 500 hits a day and made on average about 10 sales a day. Do the maths and you will see how profitable offline advertising can be.

During the 4 week tester period we also had 46 people sign up as an affiliate under us earning us 15% of whatever sales they made.

I am not saying this is the only or best product to sell, This is what we first used when we first started advertising off-line and it paid of extremely well for us. We have increased the ad size now costing £290 a week but the increase in traffic makes up for the extra cost 10 fold. Its always good to start small and cheaply first though. Always test the market before ploughing all your advertising budget on it.

Lastly I would recommend trying at least three different papers with three different ad copies and expand from there as your budget allows.

Direct Mailing

put yourself in the shoes of your direct mail recipients. Avoid direct mail deadly mistakes or your materials will end up in the trash too.

Before you even begin to put your direct mail campaign together, you’ve got to know who your target market is. Are they women? Parents? Young? Old? Understand what motivates them. What are their likes and dislikes?

Write as if you’re talking to them. And even use terms these types of people would use.

But all the fancy graphics and the most beautifully created sentences in the world won’t do you a bit of good if you don’t carefully select the people on your mailing list. If you’re selling adult diapers, you want to target senior citizens…not 23-year-olds.

Tighten your mailing list as much as possible to be sure it’s tailored to your needs. It’s tough to make people believe they need your product and even harder to convince them they need it now. But if you’ve researched your list, you have a higher chance of hitting potential customers instead of the trash can.

You’ve made your list and checked it twice, so-to-speak. It’s the perfect list. Now it’s time to write. Define your objectives before you start writing. Stay focused and hit the points of your objective. If you get off track, your reader is going to stop reading.

Spend a lot of time on your headline. Just remember how you feel when reading mail that comes to you. After you read that headline, do you keep reading? The headline can make or break your direct mail campaign.

Does price really matter? Not unless you know what you’re getting for that price. Hook your reader with all of the product benefits. By the time they get to the end, they should be saying, "I can’t live without that!"

And then you let them in on the price. Even if the price is extremely low, you have to tell potential customers about the product first.

Disclosing this price shouldn’t put people into shock. Is your product priced according to the market? If you’re selling a new teddy bear, it should be priced within reason. Not many people will pay $90 for a tiny teddy bear, right? Truth is, a lot of direct mail goes unanswered because the products are unreasonably priced.

Success! Your potential customer read all the way through your mailing. Now what?

Did you tell the reader what you want them to do? You can’t sell if you don’t tell.

Your readers need a call to action. Tell them to send in the card, call you, etc. Then tell them again.

Once your direct mail is ready to go, test several smaller mailings before sending out a huge chunk. Test each of these mailings by changing a few items when you send them out.

Have two or more sales letters you test against each other. By testing, you will find out which of those mailings are bringing in more responses and - hopefully - more orders.

Stick with the clear winners. Remember the saying, "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it."

Direct mail is a waste of money for a lot of people. But it doesn’t have to be for you. Understanding direct mail deadly mistakes — and avoiding them — will lead you to sales success!

Flyers

The next offline advertising method I am going to talk about in this article is a simple flyer. These are a great way to get your website in front of a wide audience. Make 1000 copies and dedicate yourself to handing out all of them in the next 7 days. Here are just a couple of places to hand these out: around your neighbourhood or a large neighbourhood nearby, place stacks at local restaurants, dry cleaners or other places of business, or go to your local college campuses and find areas you can place your flyers.

Novelty advertising

There are loads of novelty ways to advertise. Use your imagination and be original.

Depending on the product you could have your web address printed on t-shirts and give them away to tourists. If you make them bright enough they will wear them with big smiles on they’re faces all day advertising your website

Try printing on mouse mats, pens, balls or any other novelty item. It doesn’t even always have to be related to your product to get good results although a related gimmick can work wonders.

Million Dollar Bills are another great way to advertise offline. If you haven’t heard about these before you can check them out at "http://www.milliondollarsource.com." These can be used a number of different ways including as an attention getter, door opener, response generator, networking device, or simply to get a smile out of the recipient. I would recommend ordering a minimum of 2000 and handing them out as quickly as possible. You can even hire someone to hand them out for you if you are short on time. As strange as this may sound to some of you this method works great and is worth the cost.

Statement inserts

Even huge corporation’s send statement inserts. You’re going to send a statement to your customers anyway, why not throw in some advertisements for yourself?

This can also be done when paying bill, you think all them people sat at there desks all day don’t want nothing better from life.

You get all the advantages of direct mail without paying extra for a separate mailing. Take a look at these numbers:

Complete direct mail packages run between $200 and $600 per thousand. In contrast, statement inserts are only $6 to $15 per thousand. A huge savings for you.

You can also use statement inserts to test a new product. If your product doesn’t generate much interest, you can easily change your advertising angle. But if you’ve pumped all your ad dollars into commercials, print ads and a solo direct mail campaign without results, changing direction is much harder and more costly.

Now the bad news. You get your statement and there’s an insert for a high-ticket item inside. Chances are, you’re not going to shell out the big bucks for something knew when you’ve just received this blow to your billfold in the same envelope.

That’s why your statement insert should advertise a reasonably priced item. Save your top-dollar items for your high advertising dollars. Those big prices won’t pull in a lot of orders off a statement insert.

Be sure to watch the weight of your mailing too. You can pack a lot in a 34 cent mailing. But anything over one ounce will cost you more in postage.

You should also consider using a large statement insert. Packing your mailing full of smaller inserts may seem more logical but research indicates larger inserts have higher response rates. Three panel is most popular, followed by two panel.

If you choose to send out a single panel, pack it with information. Deliver the offer, product, copy and audience to pick up the slack in size and details.

Order forms must be easy to fill out as well.

Keeping your customers waiting for several months, even weeks will reduce your chances of that customer becoming a repeat buyer.

Consider having a customer service department solely devoted to your featured product. If someone doesn’t receive their order or has other complaints, you need a staff that will handle those concerns immediately. Handled correctly, a good CSR can turn an irate person into a satisfied customer. And that customer will tell a friend about how you solved their problem.

Get the most out of postage rates and your ad dollars with statement inserts. Who knows? Your customers might even start looking forward to receiving your bill!

Radio

A 30- or 60-second radio spot is quite a bargain. Rates vary depending on your area’s population. Even still, you can negotiate a cheaper price and receive a better rate if you buy a bulk amount of commercials.

One of the many advantages of radio is that you can target your audience. Specific age groups and lifestyles are all defined by the station’s format. Ratings also help determine this information and can help you choose the best station and time slot for your company’s commercial.

The key components of your radio commercial include your name, address, telephone number and selling message. But be sure to ask listeners to visit your site. Repeat your URL at least twice and, again, tell them what they’ll gain by visiting.

Television

Get ready to shatter the myths about television commercials. You don’t have to be a major corporation or have tons of disposable ad dollars to hit the airwaves.

Buying airtime on your local television station is actually very affordable. But for an even lower rate, check the cable TV companies in your area. Airtime is significantly lower than broadcast television ad rates.

You also have the added benefit of reaching a specific target audience. If you sell sporting goods, your ad can run on SportsSouth and ESPN for the best possible prospects. Your cable operator can even gear the commercials to a zip code or local community.

Infomercials aren’t too far behind commercials as a low-cost, traffic-building tool. Even a 15-minute infomercial can explain your products/services and promote your Web site at the same time.

Just like with print, make sure your URL is prominently displayed in your commercial and/or infomercial. Keep in mind, not everybody has a big screen TV at home and this can make a huge difference to a potential customer with a 19" screen.

Conclusion

New technology forces us to adapt to new advertising means. But sometimes old school techniques are overlooked when, in fact, they can actually help propel business into the money-making wave of the future.

Don’t just do it once and be happy with your results, if something works keep repeating it and as you make money put more money into your venture.

Best of luck to you all.

Izzy Brewer

Izzy Brewer
22 from the uk
http://www.cashloopholes.co.uk

Lazer Eye Surgery - For all the info you will ever need please visit http://www.freewebs.com/lasik

Free online advertising offers many benefits for online and offline businesses.

Obvious benefits of free online advertising include increased exposure, sales leads, and additional sales.

Some of the less obvious benefits that can be obtained through the use of free online advertising are increased search engine ranking, greater product awareness, and credibility acceptance.

When you use free online advertising you will be receiving in most cases links from other sites.

This links will point back to your site and will count towards your link count.

Most search engines, including Google, use your link count to determine your search engine rankings. The more links pointing to your site, the higher your rankings will be.

Another benefit is that the more ads you receive, the more people will see your site, and in turn they will be aware of your products and services.

Credibility acceptance is another important benefit of using free online advertising.

The more times prospective customers see your ads, the less skeptical they will feel towards your products and services. This assumes that your ads are well written and that your products and services are in fact legitimate.

While many entrepreneurs discount free online advertising, I can assure you that it works.

Free online ads work because your prospective customer does not care of you received the ads for free. As long as he or she is interested in what you are offering, they will respond to your ads.

The question is whether people will actually see all those free ads.

While a majority of those ads might not be seen by prospective customers you will still benefit.

Even if only one sale a day is produced from free online advertising, wouldn’t you agree that it’s worthwhile?

Donny Lowy is the CEO of a free educational advertising resource.

http://www.advertisingcellar.com

If you are interested in earning income from your website, should you consider using the Google AdSense program to place targeted ads on your web pages? When I first considered this idea, I wasn’t sure if it was right for me. You see, I have a number of websites that promote affiliate links to products and services in my market. I felt that if I put Google ads on my pages they would compete with my affiliate sales. Sure, I knew you got paid when visitors clicked on these ads, but could it be a significant amount? Eventually, I saw that many other top marketers were using these ads on their pages. So I decided to dive in and give it a try, and after a year of using these ads here is what I can tell you.

The first thing I noticed was the ease of use in using Google AdSense. Once you have joined the program for free, you can start creating your ad codes. And the neat thing is, you can customize the ads to your web pages. You can choose the color of the ads so that they match the color theme of your pages. You can choose from many different size ad blocks. For example, they have 468×60 regular banner size and 120×600 towers. This way, you can choose the size that is right for your page. Once you have made your selection, you simply cut and paste the html and place it where you want on your page, and your part is done!

You can track your ads with ‘channels’. Let’s say your website has 10 pages. You can give each page it’s own channel so that when you log in to check your ad stats, you will see how many ad views and clicks you are getting on each page. This is helpful because it shows you where your ad revenue is coming from.

I haven’t really noticed any competition with my other affiliate programs! I’ve realized that Google ads don’t compete with my website, they are an additional income stream. My sales and sign-ups didn’t plummet once I started using the ads. What I believe now is that a certain percentage of visitors aren’t going to convert into customers, so the ads are simply another way to generate revenue from visitors who weren’t going to be customers anyway. As long as your own offers are well laid out on your site, if a visitor is interested in what you have they will still become a customer.

A good thing about Google ads is that they are ‘targeted’. This means that the ad content normally matches the content of your site. For example, if your site is about Boston terrier dogs, you will mostly get ads about Boston terrier dogs, or at least dogs. I can’t explain how they do it, but the ad html you post on your site picks up the keywords on your pages, and ads are generated that match the site keywords. This is good because the ads will match the target market for your website. And since the ads rotate on their own, it gives you ‘fresh’ content.

Another bonus is that you are associating with a trusted source in Google. They are presently the number one search engine, which means that people know them and trust them. Having their presence on your website will therefore not lose you credibility.

Yes, but how much can I make, you ask! That depends on how much traffic your website gets, and the subject matter of your website. Generally, the more visitors your website gets, the more clicks you will receive on the ads. Since you get paid per click, your earnings go up with more clicks. Secondly, the subject matter of your site plays a large part. Advertisers have to bid on the keywords for their ads, and the bids generally go higher if there are more advertisers bidding on the same keywords. Likewise, subjects that deal with highly profitable industries, like loans, mortgages, and home business, tend to get higher bids. The higher the bids, the more you get paid for click. To sum up, if your website deals with popular subject matter in a profitable field, and you get steady traffic, you should do well.

In closing, if you decide to join the Google AdSense program, make sure you read their terms of service so that you follow all the rules. They have recently added some extra features to allow members to earn more, such as paying for referrals and toolbar downloads. The growth in online advertising keeps getting bigger and bigger with no signs of stopping. The AdSense program is an excellent way for you to benefit from this and earn an extra revenue stream from your website. I highly recommend it!

Robert Borhi is a freelance writer who operates a marketing website at http://www.HugeGrowth.com. For information on free advertising and online opportunities, visit his website at http://www.HugeGrowth.com

I grant permission to publish this article, electronically or in print, as long as the byline is included, with a live link.

It certainly pays to have professional help when it comes to running advertising campaigns, but with some tips and good creatives, you should be able to run your own advertising campaigns effectively.

Running Your Own Advertising Campaigns

Follow this step-by-step guide to running your own advertising campaign to ensure success:

1. Conduct a Market Research

Identify your target market as mentioned in the article Choosing Websites to Place Ads at http://www.momtycoons.com/promotion/advertising-websites.shtml. Conduct a thorough research on where you will find your preferred customers. See where your competitors are advertising.

A simple way to see where your competitors have incoming links from is to go to http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/ and type in your website address and 3 of your competitor’s URL’s. You will see a chart showing comparisons between your link popularity and yours. Click on each Search Engine name to see all the inbound links of the 4 websites (including yours).

For offline advertising, identify local and budget publications that reach your target market. Your goal should be to reach the people who are most likely to respond to what you offer.

2. Decide Upon Your Advertising Budget

It is important to decide beforehand how much money you want to spend on a particular advertising campaign so that you do not end up wasting your precious bucks. Deciding how much to spend depends upon your financial ability and the size of your business.

3. Plan Your Campaign

Plan your campaign in advance. For planning an effective campaign, you will need to mix-and-match various forms of advertising. An example of how to break down your budget into various forms of advertising is shown below:

Total Budget - $1000

Online Advertising

Press Release - $100
Website Advertising - $100
Pay-Per-Click Advertising - $100
Ezine Advertising - $90
Sponsored/Text Links on Websites - $70
Classified Ads - $40

Offline Advertising

Promotional Items - $200
Print Shopping Guides - $50
Classifieds - $100
Flyers - $150

4. Prepare Excellent Advertising Material

Before you start implementing your planned campaign, aim yourself with adequate and quality advertising material. For online advertising, prepare good quality graphic banners in various sizes and compelling text ads of varying word-lengths. Write or get professionally written, an interesting press release. Your ad creatives and text ads are extremely important to your campaign. DO NOT risk designing them yourself unless you are extremely good at doing it. Saving a few dollars here may cost you your entire advertising campaign! Leave this job to the professionals.

For offline advertising, have adequate printed material on hand. This will include form mailers, brochures, flyers, signboards etc.

5. Begin Your Campaign

Send out your press release. I recommend PRWeb. This is not the place to try saving a few dollars so avoid sending only a ‘free’ press release as it will get you nowhere. Go in for their paid press release distribution programs. The extra $50 will be worth a lot more!

Book ad spots on various websites and in Ezines and Newsletters. Buy clicks on relevant keywords from ‘Pay-per-click Search Engines’. Place text ads/classifieds/directory listings etc. in various websites, directories and indexes.

For Offline Advertising, start distributing brochures and mailers, send out mailers etc.

6. Track Results and Work on Your Campaign

Once your advertising campaign gets started, you will need to track the results of each form of advertising. Allow 3 to 6 months time for advertising forms which are performing well to judge their performance accurately. If some means of advertising do not work at all or bring in results that are not at all cost-effective, discontinue them. See which text ads, banners and keywords (in pay-per-click) bring best results and use them again. Try using different keywords and monitor the results.

You must daily track all your ads actively and keep tweaking the ads to get the best performance out of them. Some banners, texts and keywords will perform very well while others won’t. Only through effective tracking will you be able to make your campaign a success.

Hiring an Agency

If you have an advertising budget of $25,000 and more, you should consider hiring an Advertising Agency to work for you. Advertising agencies have experienced staff for writing ad copies, designing compelling graphic ads etc. and they will place your ads on relevant websites and ezines and also provide you with ad tracking stats, thus making work easier for you.

About the Author:

Lata Tokhi is a successful website publisher with a network of popular websites. She shares her internet success secrets with you at http://www.MomTycoons.com

Visit some of her other popular websites at http://www.DotComWomen.com, a Home & Lifestyle website and an online community and http://www.Celebrating-Christmas.com, a complete Holiday portal.

According to branding guru, Jerry Robinson, creativity, profitability and morale all rise when the large file in branding projects are available to everyone involved.

Robinson has been a creative director for 20 years and has managed countless projects for countless companies (Revlon, Marriot, and Citicorp Global Payment Products, to name just a few). Operationally, one thing has consistently driven him crazy: effective management of the files used to create and support brand identity. These files include advertisements, radio and TV commercials, photographs, and design assets like logos and fonts.

“If I had a dollar for the number of times clients have called with the following request,” said Robinson, “I’d be rich. It goes like this, ‘Hi Jerry. Do you remember that logo you configured for the new product roll-out last year? Would you please email it to me? I have a deadline this afternoon.’”

Robinson said that he gets ruffled for a couple of reasons. First of all, why doesn’t the client have a copy of the logo? The client paid for it. It’s an integral part of its brand asset base. Why isn’t the company taking better care of its brand assets? Does it leave its other assets strewn about with venders around the country?

Secondly, someone at his firm has to stop what he is doing and hunt for the logo. That person has to put aside paying work and search for something that was last seen 18 months ago. “Of course, I have no choice but to charge the client for looking for an asset that rightfully should be in its possession, but I risk angering the client. Why, the client reasons, should I pay for something that I already paid for last year? Who can blame them?” he said.

Here’s another scenario. The printer has set an absolute deadline for an eight-page positioning brochure at eight a.m. tomorrow.

“My designer is in St. Petersburg, my writer is in Cincinnati, and my client is in Dallas,” said Robinson. “Everyone wants to make last minute changes. The only way I can aggregate the files that the printer needs along with everyone’s input is to spend a fortune on overnight delivery fees (most likely private couriers).”

Finally, workflow can be a nightmare when part of the team is off-site, which occurs more and more with the increasing effectiveness of the internet. If more than one person is working on a file, is it the most up-to-date version? Who has access to it? Who is authorized to make changes?

Sending these files via email can spoil a nice day. According to Robinson, many if not most megafiles are too large to make it through ordinary email channels. And internal networks are hyper-security conscience and can halt a project for a day or more while someone figures out why a file cannot be accessed by the designer from his home.

The solution is online storage, a hard drive on a computer (server) with access to the internet. Anyone with access to the internet theoretically has access to the storage. In actual fact the storage is protected by user-names and passwords.

Robinson said that in order to be effective as a project management and a brand management tool, the storage must possess several features.

First of all it must have a flexible access capability. Say your company is working on an annual report with Ad Agency A and a catalogue with Ad Agency B. What you don’t want is for Ad Agency A’s work to get mixed up with Ad Agency B’s work. Consequently, you want Agency A to have access to certain folders and sub-folders and nothing else; same with agency B.

Second, you want both agencies to be able to upload and download into their respective folders.

Third, team members must be able to see at a glance what the files and folders are. Legible descriptions and thumbnails pictures for graphics are a must.

Fourth, the company needs a place where it can archive it’s brand assets where they will be easy to find and available for future projects as needed.

Finally, the system must be economical.

After exploring the market, Robinson found that some of the digital asset management, licensed- software solutions would work, but were very expensive, well out of the reach of most businesses. Other online storage solutions are cheaper, but don’t offer the features necessary for best practices brand management.

“With a backlog of frustration and a passion for eliminating it,” he said, “I worked for several years to create a solution for managing brand asset and came up with MyBrandVault.com. For the last year MyBrandVault.com has done a great job of making brand management easier for companies and allowing branding professionals to do their job of promoting brand identity rather than functioning as digital asset file clerks.”

Harry Chittenden of Chittenden Communications promotes ideas and companies in the media and on the internet. His a frequent user of MyBrandVault.

The search engine marketing industry has developed into a billion dollar industry and clients expect their agencies to get them involved. Ad agencies are now chasing the increased revenue generated by search engines.

In the past advertising agencies tended to ignore organic SEO as it was seen as a complicated system with results that were difficult to measure as part of an overall media campaign. This changed when they realized the potential of Pay per Click (PPC). This made sense to the agencies because its results were easily measurable and the results were impressive.

Ad agencies need to track and manage advertising results for their clients and there is a constant need to measure value and ROI. Thus the lack of tools for measuring the effectiveness of an SEO campaign was seen as a major draw back. In the present day this is no longer an issue as there is a large choice of measuring options out there. However ad agencies often make use of the SEO firm’s expertise in using these tools and analyzing the results.

To meet their client’s demands many ad agencies have had to dive straight into SEO. Their clients have become knowledgeable of what search engines can offer them. In fact they often have a greater knowledge of it than the agencies. So the agencies have had to learn quickly or risk losing some of their client base. They often chose to outsource to the SEO experts who have the skilled staff and the ongoing commitment to dedicate their resources and energies to SEO.

We are now at the point where advertising agencies are beginning to integrate search engine strategies into their traditional advertising media mix. They are often doing this with the help of SEO experts. This enables them to retain their traditional role of campaign management while outsourcing to the SEO firm. This is often a win-win situation for both sides as they each retain their areas of expertise while expanding their combined market share.

James Peggie is the Director of Marketing for Elixir Systems – a search engine marketing agency located in Scottsdale, Arizona. Their website is located at http://www.elixirsystems.com and James contributes to their blog http://searchblog.elixirsystems.com