Tips To Reducing Your Advertising Costs

Do you feel like you’re spending more and more money on advertising, without getting the results you expect?

SEO expert Roy Montero, WahmTalkRadio host Kelly McCausey, life coach Aurelia Williams and I chatted about advertising tips we’ve learned during our internet marketing journeys.

We answer questions including:

• Do banner ads work?
• What are my options other than advertising?
• How do I advertise without throwing money away?

Listen to the recording of our live chat at Wahm Talk Radio.

Four Steps To Ridding Your Inbox Of Spam

Spam, otherwise known as junk mail, or mail that you did not ask for, has jumped to an all time high of 92.6 percent of all email, according to Information Week. Just two years ago, the BBC reported that spam comprised only 70 percent of all email.

Needless to say, the number of spam messages being sent has exploded in a relatively short period of time.

What does this mean for you?

It means that you need to take specific steps in managing your email to get rid of spam.

The steps you need to take include:

1. Set your default email address to :fail: (the only people who send email to an address that doesn’t exist on your account are spammers).
2. Create all your existing email accounts as POP accounts.
3. Do not post your email address on your website. Instead, use a contact form with anti-spam measures).
4. Turn on the spam prevention software in your hosting account. (Watersweb servers use mailscanner/Spamassassin.)

What techniques do you use to keep your inbox clean?

What’s On Your Home Page?

I do 99.9 percent of my online browsing in Firefox, so I have about five different sites set to open in their own tabs when I start the browser.

Those sites include:

1. Mom Masterminds forum
2. Watersweb Helpdesk
3. Watersweb Shops Support Forums
4. My Google Homepage (used to be Google Calendar, but I switched since I can load the calendar on the homepage site. Hmmm… I may just make them both homepages…)

How about you? What’s you’re homepage?

Where Do Your Customers Find You?

If you don’t know the answer to this question, you need to stop what you’re doing right now and find out.

This information is critical to the success of your business. It’s even more important than having great products, a unique selling proposition (USP) and cash. After all, none of the first things are going to matter if no one can find your website to buy from you.

So that brings us back to the original question: Where do your customers find you?

A survey released this week by iCrossing, called “How America Searches: Consumer Packaged Goods” revealed that a growing number of adult Internet users in the United States are searching for packaged goods online, such as clothing, food and personal care products.

In terms of the frequency of search activity among online adults in the U.S., 39 percent confirmed they have performed a search for CPGs online. This puts CPGs in the same rank as real estate and financial products and services.

And of those 39 percent who use the internet to search for packaged goods, 67 percent use search engines to shop for the products they want or search for information. Sixty-one percent searched retailer sites while 60 percent searched product and company sites.

Twenty-six percent of the searchers go to shopping comparison sites while just 19 percent go to product ratings sites.

What does this mean for the average WAHM product seller?

It means that you need to concentrate your efforts on getting the pages of your site high rankings in the search engines for the keyword phrases that your target market uses to find your products.

Does that mean you can abandon other methods of marketing or advertising, such as word of mouth, or advertising on community forum sites?

Perhaps not. Or maybe so… the correct answer depends on your market. If your target market of handmade jewelry connoisseurs prefers to gather in community forums and is responsive to banner ads on the forum, advertising products made by members, then you should most definitely take advantage of that opportunity. If it ain’t broke…

On the other hand, if your target market is made of women that an article in Entrepreneur.com refers to as “yoga mamas,” this might not be the way to go. Yoga mamas are typically highly educated, health and eco-conscious, affluent and want the best for their kids. They will search high and low, from one end of the Internet to the next for information about products. And when they’re done, they report their findings (and experiences with the product or company) with friends in online forums, chat rooms and weblogs and community sites.

Word-of-mouth marketing is key: The Yoga Mama trusts other moms’ recommendations above anything else, according to the article in Entrepreneur.

The moral of the story?

Research your target market and be where they are. If your target market uses an active and widely known message board to research products, you need to be there with them, both advertising and as an active member, an expert in your field.

If your target market uses weblogs and their related search engines to create their communities and product information networks, you need to get involved. Start your own business weblog.

In any case, do your homework. Let your target market tell you where they want to find you and make sure you are right there with them.

Should I Upgrade To Windows Vista Or Just Pass?

One of my clients asked me today what I thought about upgrading to Windows Vista, the newest Windows operating system that is slated for final release at the end of this month.

She said she’d normally pass on the upgrade, but has a chance to take advantage of a free upgrade on her laptop.

Generally speaking, I’m always leary of installing software that has JUST been released to manufacturing (meaning it has just left the release candidate stages and has not been extensively tested by the masses in normal internet conditions) or is still in release candidate or beta stages.

And considering that major security flaws have already been found in this version, i would not touch it with a ten foot pole.

Why Is My Email Being Reported As Spam?!

A woman recently signed up for a mailing list my friend owns. She received the verification email and clicked the link inside which told my friend’s email system that it was OK to send mail.

Now, let’s stop for a minute.

By following the directions in the email, the subscriber opted into the mailing list twice: First by filling out the form with her name and email address on my friend’s site and then by clicking the link in the email. This is called confirmed or verified opt-in and it is the current industry standard for insuring that only people who ask for emails from your list receive them.

So, back to the story.

The woman received the first email from the list — and promptly reported it as spam, using the spam button inside her email account (this “feature” is available on Yahoo, Aol and Hotmail accounts, among others).

A few days later, the subscriber emailed my friend and asked her why she had not received any mail from the list. My friend chuckled to her self (I imagine!), explained to the woman what had happened and helped her fix the problem.

The next time the woman received an email from my friends, list, she reported it as spam too!

The morale of this story: Allowing users to determine what is spam sounds like a great idea. Most of us who have been online for awhile and involved in ecommerce know what spam looks like when we see it. The problem is that some people out there do not know what spam really is and mistakenly report legitimate emails. Some people hit the spam button when they really mean to hit the delete button. And then there are people who receive your email, decide they don’t like what they are reading, or are in a bad mood or don’t like the color of your website, so they hit the spam button.

Next thing you know, your emails are landing in all your customer’s spam boxes! And if the spam reporting service blocks the IP associated with your email, instead of the domain name, everyone on the server where your site is hosted will find their emails landing in spam boxes!

What does this mean? Incorrect usage of spam buttons by anyone with an email account may contribute to why you can’t send your legitimate non-spam email.

What does this mean for the average product seller, who just wants to keep in touch with her customers?

1. Do unto others… When you receive an email that you asked for, it is not spam. Please do not report it as spam. Just click the unsubscribe link at the bottom and remove yourself from the list. Only report email that you know for sure you did not ask to receive. Only unasked-for email is spam.
2. Please note that unwanted email is NOT spam. If you asked for it, it is a legitimate email, even if you decide you don’t want it now, or if you decide in five months you don’t want it. Unsubscribe or delete. False spam reports hurt everyone. (I know…I can’t say this enough!)
3. Teach your customers to add your email address to their contact list (also know as safe or whitelist) or address book, so that their email filter/spam blocker knows that they want to receive the email.
4. Report any spam notification messages you receive (messages stating that your email has been rejected) to your ISP or web host. If you are a Watersweb client and you are sending email from your domain account, report your issue to the Helpdesk, including the rejection message you received.

[tags]mailing list, confirmed opt-in, verified opt-in, spam, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail,safe list, whitelist[/tags]

25 Top WAHM Business Ideas

Yes, I know. There are a bazillion sites out there where you can find information about work at home business ideas. I am going to make my own anyway.

This list will be a little different from some though, in that I will not include any MLM business ideas or envelop stuffing gigs. This list will only contain business ideas for people who want to sell product online, either their own or someone elses.

So, let’s get started, shall we?

1. Cloth Diaper Sewing
2. Candy Making
3. Baby Slings
4. Jewelry Making
5. Candy Wrappers
6. Custom Stationery and Invitations
7. Custom Party Favors
8. Kids Craft Kits
9. Cross Stitch Patterns
10. Baby Supplies
11. Homemade Bath And Body Products
12. Craft making
13. Knitting Supplies
14. Baby Clothes
15. Pet Treat Business
16. Natural Products
17. Gift Baskets
18. Diaper Cakes
19. Candles
20. Bath Products
21. Ceramics
22. Custom Embroidery
23. Embroidery Patterns
24. Knitting Patterns
25. Personalized Books

Before And After Children

I was just thinking tonight how my attitudes about children and their behavior has changed dramatically from before I had kids to after I had them.

So, I thought I’d share a few of my observations:

Before children:
My child will NEVER do that!

After children:
All kids do that and it is perfectly normal.

Before children:
If you were a good parent, your children would behave themselves, even when you are out of sight.

After children:
Children can write all over their bodies with the permanent marker you lost underneath your office desk — in the time it takes you to pour yourself a glass of water in the kitchen.

Before children:
Children should be seen, not heard.

After children:
Children who cannot be heard are most certainly doing something they shouldn’t, like pulling the tape out of your old cassette collection or shearing their hair with the manicure scissors kept in the cabinet over the bathroom sink. Noisy children can be easily located and you can tell exactly what they are doing from the other end of the house.

What are your Before And Afters?

How Will Shop Kit Plus Users Fare With The New SSL Certification Requirements Of IE 7?

New SSL Certificate requirements could harm sales for many small business owners who cannot obtain the proper certification. But will this affect Shop Kit Plus users, whose secure pages are certified by Mals Ecommerce?

I have sent an email to Mal Stewart, owner of Mals Ecommerce, requesting information as to whether or not he plans to comply with the Extended Validation SSL Certificate requirements, as set out by SSL certificate authority leaders and Internet browser providers, who formed the Certification Authority/Browser (CA/Browser) Forum.

The introduction of EV SSL Certificates will tighten the security of Internet transactions as certificate requestors will be subject to a thorough, standardized vetting process which all issuing CAs must adhere to, according to the Certification Authority/Browser (CA/Browser) Forum.

Sounds good? On it’s face yes. According to Kristie T., work at home mom and online branding expert, alerted the WAHM world of a new requirement, that has the potential to bar small business owners from online commerce.

[The certificate will display] a green address bar to indicate that it’s “safe” for people who visit a web site. Microsoft plans to activate this green light feature in a future update of IE 7 expected in late January, according to Kristie.

This is bad for the small business, because this certificate will only be available to large businesses, according to a Yahoo news story.

Businesses that are too small or too new to be verifiable will have their address bars appear in white, instead of green. According to the yahoo story, this could result in buyers opting to purchase from “safer” sites with the green address bar instead.

Mals Ecommerce though, has been in business since 1998, possibly making it verifiable under the new standards. I’ll update you when I know more…

Twelve Days Of Christmas: Don’t Break A Sweat, We Have Fast Gift Ideas!

Merry Christmas!!!

Here’s hoping you received everything you wanted — and gave everything you wanted to give.

But in case you’re still looking for a VERY last minute gift — for yourself or the product seller in your life — here are a few ideas:

• Subscription to Internet Marketing Prescriptions
• Easy Article Marketing downloadable course
• Mom Masterminds membership

Happy Holidays!

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