Affiliate Programs "R" Us !

Top 5: Internet Marketing News/Articles

Featured Article
Marketing Tips
Webmaster Tips


Featured Article

Look Before You Leap ... Is A Home-Based Business
REALLY For You?


By Elena Fawkner

Working from home sounds wonderful, doesn't it? No commute;
no boss breathing down your neck; no fixed schedule; reward
for effort; control; work/family flexibility; not having to
worry about being laid off; leaving the office politics way
behind; not having to get dressed up; being with your
children. Is this what comes to mind when you think about
what it would be like to work from home? If so, take a
good hard look before you make the jump from paid to self-
employment.

Although these are all indisputably strong benefits of
running your own home-based business, they need to be
weighed against some pretty harsh realities if you are to
make an informed decision whether a home-based business is
truly right for you. These realities can be grouped into
three main areas: personal, financial and situational.


PERSONAL REALITIES

- Commitment - you must be totally committed to making a
success of your business. It is important to distinguish
between commitment and mere interest. If what you want to
do as a business is only an interest, your enthusiasm and
motivation may wane over time. You must be absolutely
committed to the success of your business if you are to
achieve the success you desire.

- Risk-Taker - one of the benefits of owning your own
business is that you don't have to answer to a boss. The
other side of the coin is that there is no-one to fall back
on if things go wrong. If you make a mistake or suffer a
loss, you wear it. For this reason, you must be comfortable
taking calculated risks. If security and stability are very
important to you, perhaps paid employment is a better option.

- Self Motivation - again, there is no boss to wave a carrot
under your nose to get you moving. You must be able to
motivate yourself to do what needs to be done and that
includes the stuff you don't particularly enjoy doing.

- Self Discipline - being your own boss means exercising
personal discipline to ensure that the work gets done.
There will be no end of distractions to tempt you away from
the task at hand when you're working from home. You will
need a healthy dose of self discipline to ensure you stay on
track.

- Patience - starting a home-business is one thing; turning
a profit is quite another. You will not make a profit
overnight. Be prepared to be patient and frugal during the
first few months of your new venture.

- Reasons - closely related to the need for self-motivation,
your reasons for wanting to work from home will keep you in
the saddle. If your reasons are to get rich quick or work
fewer hours, think again. A home-based business will
definitely not deliver.

- Flexibility and Adaptability - you may have come from a
corporate environment where you enjoyed a certain status.
You may have had a secretary or assistant to take care of
the more routine aspects of your job description. In your
home-based business you will need to be prepared to wear
many hats, at least in the beginning. This means being
flexible and adaptable, being prepared to learn new skills
and willing to take on new tasks.

- Willingness to Sacrifice - especially in the early stages
of your business, be prepared to make sacrifices in terms of
time and money to get your business off the ground. You
will need to be prepared to put in long hours and, more
likely than not, get by on less money than you were bringing
home from your paid job.

- Work Ethic - the backbone of all of the disciplines you
will need to practice in your home business is your work
ethic. If you have a strong work ethic then the need for
personal discipline and sacrifice will come as no surprise.

- Stress Management - the burden of your business's success
or failure will rest squarely on your shoulders. That's a
lot of responsibility. Consider your capacity for stress
management. If it's not high, learn ways to increase it.


FINANCIAL REALITIES

- Cash Reserves - if business is slow to start, do you have
sufficient cash reserves to see you through? If not,
perhaps you should consider starting your business part-time
until it is bringing in enough of a profit to sustain you.

- Retirement Planning - say goodbye to the employer-
sponsored pension plan and hello to the world of IRAs
(Individual Retirement Accounts). You need to think
differently about your retirement plans and should seek the
advice of a qualified financial planner in the early days of
your new business.

- Health Insurance - say goodbye too to the perks of paid
employment such as free medical, dental, life and disability
insurance. You will need to take out your own cover for
these risks.

- Vacation - no-one's going to pay you while you take that
two week vacation any more. And, while we're at it, who's
going to run your business while you're away?


SITUATIONAL REALITIES

- Hard Work, Long Hours - if you think that working for
yourself means you won't have to work as hard or as long,
think again. Most likely it will mean more of both.

- Interruptions - if you have children at home, be prepared
for constant interruptions. Being with your children, of
course, is one of the main advantages of working from home
but you will need to set limits if your business is to get
sufficient attention. The same goes for your spouse!

- Distractions - beware of the temptation to take care of
household tasks during the time you have allocated to your
business. It's very tempting to run a load of washing or
vacuum the carpets instead of facing up to that business
task you don't feel like doing right now. Self-discipline
is crucial if you are to avoid procrastination undermining
your productivity.

- Isolation and Loneliness - if you come from a busy
corporate background, at some point after the novelty of
working from home begins to wear off, you may begin to feel
isolated and even lonely. Be prepared with strategies to
keep the isolation blues at bay. See "Overcoming Isolation
in Your Home Business" at
http://www.fawkner.com/Overcoming_Isolation.html for some
suggestions.


As you can see, although there are many wonderful reasons to
work from home, there are also many strong reasons why a
home-based business may not be the right choice for you.
Take a good hard look at the above realities and your own
personal qualities and motivations. Do you have what it
takes to make a success of your business? Are you prepared
to do what has to be done? Whatever that is? If so, a
home-based business may very well be just what the doctor
ordered. But, if you have any doubts, look very hard before
you make the leap from paid employment to your own home-
based business. You could very well be jumping from the
frying pan into the fire.

=========================================================
Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based Business Online,
a free weekly newsletter for work-from-home entrepreneurs
and those who would like to be! Subscribe at
http://www.fawkner.com/subscribe.html
=========================================================


Marketing Tips

10 Scorching Ways To Heat Up Your Sales!


By Larry Dotson

1. Email each visitor a satisfaction questionnaire
after they purchase. This will allow you to improve
your order system, customer service, site, etc.


2. Give a percentage of your profits to a cause your
customers would like. It could be a charity, school,
environmental improvements, etc.


3. Take harsh criticism the right way and improve
your online business. Don't get down in the dumps,
improve the situation so it doesn't happen again.


4. Try bartering before you buy services, supplies
and equipment for your business. You can use the
extra money you save on advertising your business.


5. Give away a follow-up email course on an auto-
responder. Include your ad with each lesson. People
will buy quicker when they see your ad repeatedly.


6. Make sure your classified ads don't sound like
an ad. Don't ask people to buy anything or they
won't click, give something away instead.


7. Give your free bonus products extra perceived
value. Don't use the phrase "free bonuses" use the
phrase "you will also get".


8. Keep your visitors on your web site longer. The
longer they stay, the greater chance they will buy.
Just hold a treasure hunt contest on your web site.


9. Make sure you're always creating new products
and services or improving old ones. Most products
or services won't stand the test of time online.


10. Split the cost of online advertising and marketing
by sharing a web site with a similar, non-competing
business. You would both put up half the cost.
----
Over 40,000 Free eBooks & Web Books when you
visit: http://www.ldpublishing.com As a bonus, Bob
Osgoodby publishes the free weekly "Your Business"
Newsletter - visit his web site to subscribe and place
a FREE Ad! http://adv-marketing.com/business


Webmaster Tips

"How to Quickly Drive Targeted Traffic to Your Website"


By Michael J. McGroarty

How to Quickly Drive Hundreds if not Thousands of
Targeted Buyers to Your Website

Hits. Hits, hits, hits. Everybody wants more and more hits.

I'll let you in on a little secret about hits. You can't eat
them, nor can you take them to the grocery store and trade
them for twinkies or nutritional food items.

Hits don't mean a thing. The only accurate measure of how
well your website is doing are dollars. How many dollars
did it bring you yesterday? That's how well it did.

In order for your site to deliver you dollars, you must
deliver "Targeted Buyers" to your website. A targeted
buyer is someone who has a very keen interest in buying
what you are selling, even before they arrive at your site.
Finding targeted buyers on the internet is a little tricky,
but it can be done.

However, there is another way to drive targeted buyers to your
website that is extremely effective. I use this technique all
the time, and I can assure you when these people sit down at
their computer, they are on a mission, and that mission is to
get to my website as quickly as they can, and find the order
form as quickly as they can, because they desperately want what
I am selling.

There are three key points in that last paragraph. One, they
desperately want what I am selling, two, they already know that
before they go on-line, and three, having a product that people
are desperate for. (It's easier than you think.)

Number 1. I sell something that people desperately want,
because my products help them solve a huge problem and fill
the void in their life.

Number 2. They know exactly what they are going to find at
website before they even get there, because I go off line to
find them. I use the most powerful, yet under used marketing
technique in the world of business. And now that we're all
so darn smart with all these new fangled computers and stuff,
almost nobody is using this off line technique. Which is why
it is even more powerful today than it was a few years ago.

Number 3. I don't actually sell any products at my website.
I do have products, and people do buy them. But what I sell,
is a different lifestyle. I sell independence and personal
satisfaction, and a better family life. I sell a shaded path
with chirping birds, that is so far from the fast lane of life
you can't even hear the traffic, or see the smog. I sell dirt
under your nails and holes in your jeans, and it doesn't matter.
I sell a life with few clocks, and never any late night
meetings. I sell my special brand of "Take this Job and
Shove it!"

You can learn exactly how important this is, and how to put
it to work for you by being a regular subscriber to my
newsletter.

The thrust of this article is finding targeted buyers off-line,
so I'll tell you how I bring them in by the truck load.

Free publicity.

I can hear you now, "Yeah, yeah, I know all about that".
Go ahead, click away if you dare. You've got the mouse in
your hand, and it will take you anywhere you want to go.

For those of you who decided to stick it out, I've got a
message for you.

Free publicity can make you rich overnight. It has happened
more than once.

I can't guarantee that it will, but I will guarantee that it
can and will earn you thousands of dollars if you use it. It
sure has made my bank account fat and sassy, and I'm not even
close to being done with it.

Learning how to use free publicity is not that difficult, and
I will tell you a little secret right now. If you weave an
interesting and informative story for the media, they will give
you a ton of free publicity. You won't believe how easy it is
to get a full page in a magazine or a newspaper absolutely free
of charge. I recently got over four full pages in a very
popular magazine, plus the entire front cover, and I won't be
bashful about telling you that the money has been pouring in
rather nicely.

Just stop by http://www.homemadebooklets.com and click on the
link "How You Can Make Thousands of Dollars at Home". I think
you'll be amazed when you see all the articles that I've been
able to get free of charge.

When people read about you in a magazine or a newspaper, they
don't have a mouse in their right hand, just looking for the
least little reason to click themselves out of there like
bewitched. They are tuned in. They are in the mood to read,
and they will read every single word, if you push their hot
buttons.

When they are finished with the article they will go straight
to their computer. Not to surf, but to go directly to your
website. They will not pass go, and they will not be lured
away to collect $200. They are on a mission. They have
already been courted and seduced by the article, and now they
want more. When they get to your website they will be relieved
to learn that you actually do have a complete line of products
they can buy that will help them achieve the lifestyle they
so long for. And they will go directly to the order form and
follow the instructions.

That's what targeted traffic does, and they do it in a very
predictable fashion.

But wait! There's more! Not everyone uses the internet, so
an article in a magazine or newspaper will deliver a lot of
check mailing mail order customers too. Unless you can't be
bothered tearing open envelopes containing money. I find it a
very soothing exercise that I prefer over the treadmill.

I'd love to teach you exactly how I get the media to give me all
of this free advertising. It has almost become a game with me,
I love trying to out do myself with one more big media break.
Stop by my website and I'll share a few tips with you.

Michael J. McGroarty is devoted to teaching others how to
achieve incredible on-line success. He is a living example
of why one person working from home has a better advantage
of being successful on the net than the so called big money
experts. Stop by http://www.homemadebooklets.com and sign up
for his free newsletter today.

Articles Courtesy Of The InfoZone



Hint: It's the opposite of marketing
and is used by every famous
marketer you know.

Top 5: Home

Top 5: Favorite Article Sources


"Top 5©" and "APFWM/N Group©" are the property of :
Mike Merz 110. Fairfield ave. Fords, NJ 08863 USA
Privacy Statement: E-mail addresses are used for interaction purposes only
and will not be given away, traded or sold.
This page is an informational resource, and any claims made by anyone other than myself
are the responsibility of said party(ies) and not of this site.
Thank you, Mike Merz APFWM/N Group ©2000 all rights reserved