Business and Finance

Affiliate programs involve two key players – the merchant and the affiliate. The merchant engages the affiliate to promote their products and/or services on their behalf.

The affiliate undertakes to promote and sell the merchant’s products/services in exchange for a share of the income from those sales.

Affiliates can be paid on many different bases including pay-per-lead (for each person who signs up to a subscriber’s list), pay-per-referral (for each person who pays as a member of the merchant’s program), pay-per-sale and pay-per-click (paid for each click on a merchant’s advertisement).

Affiliate commissions can be one-off or involve recurring monthly income. For more detail go to:www.clickmagnet-secrets.com. Commissions can also be paid over a number of levels – e.g. you can be paid for a person you recruit to a program and also for each person they recruit. This is described as affiliate commission over two levels (or two-tier commissions). Some programs involve payment over multiple levels.

Continue reading ‘How Affiliate Programs Work’ »

When most people think about marketing, they think advertising. While advertising is a part of marketing, marketing is much bigger than advertising. There are lots of different marketing methods floating around out there, and the challenge as a business owner is figuring out when it’s appropriate to use each one and the best way to use it.

Public relations, or PR, is the art of getting someone else to write or talk about you or your business. Preferably in a favorable manner. Traditionally, “someone else” was the media. In this day and age however, someone else can also be a blogger, a freelance writer, an e-zine publisher or even an owner of a big Web site. For purposes of this article, I’m using the word “media” to refer to all of those folks.

PR is also being able to get yourself on a big talk show to talk about yourself or your business, or writing your own article that’s published in a desired outlet. (Not your own newsletter or Web site.)

PR is one of my favorite marketing methods, but it can also be one of the more frustrating ones. Even when you do everything right, you still might not get the publicity you want. Or for that matter, ANY publicity at all. When a PR campaign doesn’t work, you can find yourself wanting to pull out all your hair in frustration.

Continue reading ‘Is PR Right for You? Six Questions to Ask’ »

According to Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, the fear of being a bad speller is a remarkably common fear for people who want to write but are creatively blocked.

It doesn’t matter that the fear is irrational, it doesn’t matter that every single word-processing program out there comes with a spell checker, the fear of not being able to spell still haunts those would-be writers. And thus, those people remain blocked.

Many people who are blocked creatively suffer from some sort of fear. Some fears are based on creative “myths” (all artists are broke, crazy, alcoholic, dying from AIDS, etc.), some are based on things adults said to us as children and some, like the fear of being a bad speller, appear to be based on nothing at all.

Regardless of where the fear came from, there’s no denying its power. And the harder it is to admit to a fear, the more potent it becomes. After all, imagine trying to explain to someone that you can’t write because you can’t spell. You would sound like an idiot. So you don’t say anything. And because that fear goes unvoiced, it burrows deeper and deeper inside you.

Continue reading ‘Is Fear of Spelling Getting in Your Way?’ »

The other day, a colleague of mine told me about a new marketing agency and sent me a link to their Web site. I checked it out.

Needless to say, it was dreadful.

Oh, it was pretty enough. Very nice graphics. And what little copy there was, was very artfully placed (although so tiny it was difficult to actually read).

Why do I say it was dreadful? Because, even though it was pretty, it had absolutely no personality.

The copy was boring (not to mention full of “we’s” but that’s for another day). The graphics were pretty but boring. There was no life, no energy. Just flat.

It was as though the Web site was trying so hard to appeal to everyone, it ended up appealing to no one.

You see, people want to do with business with people. And they want to do business with people they know, like and trust.

Continue reading ‘How Your Personality Can Grow Your Business’ »

For me, getting Mondays started on the right foot was one of the hardest things to do. I would ease myself into the work week like I ease myself into a swimming pool that is uncomfortably too cold…anxiously, rigidly and not looking forward to it.

Once in the office, I’d start off slow. I just went through the motions of opening the doors, checking email and voice mail, and letting what I found dictate the morning and ultimately the week-yuck!

This is not the way to begin a productive week or grow a business.

I came to realize I could enjoy my business much more and get the high payoff items that I enjoy doing done, by making a few little adjustments.

By moving from a haphazard start of the week to a set routine that fits my personality, I’m now jazzed on Sunday evenings looking forward to the Monday morning lineup.

Here are a few things to avoid doing and a few things to do when setting up your own Monday morning routine…with a bang!

Continue reading ‘How to Banish Monday Morning Blues Forever!’ »

Brands can benefit from advertising in social-media space. The approaches offer a means to engage consumers, enhance brand reputation and image, build positive brand attitudes, improve organic search rankings, and drive traffic to brand locations, both on- and off-line. The steps in any advertising campaign will begin with setting campaign objectives and end with assessing the effectiveness of the strategies and tactics to determine the degree of success in accomplishing the stated objectives and to inform the next campaign. The challenge is to develop a set of measures to assess success and plan for future strategies and tactics.

At this stage of development, social-media advertising lacks the standard metrics that have served as a primary advantage for online advertising. Online advertising as a form of direct-response advertising has measurability built into its very existence. Advertisers can measure reach (the number of people exposed to the message) and frequency (the average number of times someone is exposed), and analyze site stickiness (the ability of a site to draw repeat visits and to keep people on a site) and the relative pull of creative presentations (a comparison of the ability for different creative executions to generate response). They can also monitor clickthroughs (the number of people exposed who click on an online ad or link), sales conversions (the number of people who click- through who then purchase product), and viewthroughs (the number of people who are exposed and do not clickthrough but later visit the brand’s Web site). These metrics are applicable to the use of display advertising in social spaces. If L’Oreal buys display ads on Facebook, all of these metrics are available to gauge effectiveness.

Continue reading ‘Social-media Impact: Balancing Metrics and Insight for Advertising Success’ »

Social media encompass communication possible throughout all of the forms of social communities online. Social-media communities include forums, virtual worlds, social news organizations, social opinion-sharing sites, and social networks. Social networks are built around site platforms that enable members to develop identity profiles, interact with other members, and participate in various site activities. Social networks are 2D environments with identity representation limited to one’s profile rather than by visually detailed avatars common to virtual worlds. Although interactions with others can seemingly approximate synchronous real-time communication, the messaging structure is static rather than dynamic. Networks can be thought of as utility-based tools. They are an elegant but fun way to organize content, socialize, and promote one’s self-identity.

Despite this, social networks have grown in popularity from their ability to provide a platform for information sharing, communication, and relationship development and maintenance. In a world where individuals may have reduced physical contact and heightened time spent interacting with electronic devices, social networks have evolved to provide an online platform for personal, intimate, informal neighborhood and office chatter. They offer a sense of “contact comfort” in a society where many of us spend less time with actual people than we do with machines. Contact comfort helps to meet individual needs for affiliation and socialization. Social networks meet our need for contact comfort while also providing entertainment and information sharing.

Continue reading ‘Friendvertising: Advertising and Brand Building With Social Networks’ »

Dear Wendy,

I am brand new to networking. I just joined two different groups, so I’m meeting people, but no one has ever taught me how to build a healthy network. Any advice?

Dear Courageous Socialite;

You have my congratulations.

Not because you are consciously building a network – lots of people do that – but because you are taking the responsibility for whether your network is toxic or effective. Bravo to you!

Here are the first three rules, let me know when you’re ready for more:

Say good things: It doesn’t impress anyone when you share that you had a hard time finding the place, or that traffic was bad, or that your allergies are kicking in. You are impressive though when you compliment a board member on bringing in a great speaker, or thank the president for a meeting well run, or volunteer to serve on a committee. When you’re new you get the golden once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make first impressions. Make them good.

Continue reading ‘I Am Brand New to Networking’ »

Dear Wendy,

My boss made me to join this association, and I hate it. They meet early in the morning, they don’t like me, and I skip as often as I think I can get away with. How can I assert my independence and tell my boss that I’m not going to go any more?

Dear Unhappy Ms. Independent:

We’ll come to several forks in the road on this journey, so keep both hands on the wheel at all times.

First: Why did your boss “make” you join the association?

a: If she wants to brand the company within that organization, then either find a certified morning person who would love to trade you for the evening networking group she yawns through, or find a new job. (You might also see if there is a different chapter of the organization that you could transfer your membership to.)

b: If your boss used to be a member, and liked it, and she thought you would too, you can come to her with an alternative – suggest a particular luncheon meeting and tell the why the people you meet there will be better prospects and GateOpeners. (But be respectful of this group, because if your boss liked these people that means you would be complaining to her about her own friends.)

Continue reading ‘My Boss Made Me Join’ »

Paint-by-number kits first appeared in 1951. By 1954, twelve million kits had been sold.

While there were critics, of course, (“It’s too formulaic”; “It isn’t really art”; “It’s tacky”) paint-by-number kits gave aspiring artists results they were proud of, and bought again.

Richard Hess’s portrait of President Lyndon Johnson as an incomplete paint-by-number work was even exhibited at the Louvre in Paris. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has a current exhibit about this universally accessible art form.

Imagine if you had the template, the numbers, to build a network.

Here are 4:

Be visibly active in 3 different types of associations: That’s the number of people you need to be in regular contact with in order to get and give referrals.

Follow through 5 times with each person you meet: This year’s NASE survey once again found that 80% of all sales or referrals happen after the 5th to 7th contact.

Continue reading ‘Network by the Numbers’ »