Like so many people in North America I live in a city that has too many people living on the streets and who are homeless or in need of financial assistance. So often these people approach me asking for spare change or help. I always just ignore these request and continue on my way, except yesterday.
Yesterday I had an eye opening moment, actually 2 moments, that happens every so often. You see I was minding my own business walking along the sea wall in my home city. I just happened to be walking behind a person asking for spare change from every person he encountered on the sea wall. He was not very successful as most people just pretended they did not hear the request or even see him. But, every 20th person, or so, he would encounter a receptive individual who would indulge in his request for spare change. This man taught me 2 lessons:
1 - Be consistent with your messaging. Im sure this man did not do much scientific testing but he did believe in the message of spare change and he delivered his message to every person he encountered with confidence that it would be successful eventually. I realized I could do the same with my marketing message. Instead of having multiple marketing ads out there I should find a message that works and run with it.
2 - Every no gets you closer to a yes. This man was never deterred by a person ignoring him or a no. He just continued on, knowing that eventually he would receive a yes. I realized this is the same for my business. Not everybody will be interested in my home based business opportunity or products and that is OK. If I believe in my message, eventually I will encounter someone who is.
Later that day I was driving home and I noticed another homeless man standing at a very busy stop light intersection holding a cardboard sign asking for help. As I was sitting there waiting for my light to turn green watching every 7th or 8th car hand him some change I realized this man also taught me 2 lessons about marketing:
3 - A captive audience is valuable. This man realized that standing on the side of the road was no good for him because there was no foot traffic and the cars would not stop to read his story. Once he stood at the intersection he knew that people would be stopped at the location for a couple of minutes giving him time to have his message read and increasing his chances of receiving help. His message was more elaborate than the spare change request of the first man I encountered today. He was able to tell his story on the piece of cardboard and telling his audience why he needed assistance. This type of exposure is extremely valuable to this man. The increased exposure time resulted in him not receiving spare change but I saw people giving him paper money. I realized that I needed to get my message onto locations with a large captive audience to be successful.
4 -High traffic areas are worth the costs. This man did not choose any intersection to stand at, he chose one of the busiest ones in the city. I then remembered yesterday there was a man at this location but not the same person as today. In fact I have never been at this intersection without someone standing there with a sign asking for help. I am sure this location is difficult to secure but for the person who does get there first they will be rewarded. This is not a revelation but it can often be forgotten lesson. Often the high traffic locations can be more expensive or more difficult to secure, but if you are willing to do what it takes to get your message seen in this location you will receive the fruits of your hard work.
Today I gave spare change and help to two homeless men in my city and they both gave me lessons that were far more valuable. I saw these lessons in action with results I would be happy with in my own business and plan on putting them into action immediately!
Copyright 2005 Chris Stirling
Chris Stirling is the owner of and publisher of Work At Home Top Picks Newsletter.His Home Business Directory website is designed to help other people achieve their goal of having their own work at home business.
All industries have their own unique terminology and colloquialisms - Internet Marketing is no different. If youre just starting out, before you get to achieve anything you need to get past this new terminology without letting it blind you or stunt your enthusiasm! Heres a short glossary or guide to 12 key terms youll come across and in some cases disciplines youll master on your way to becoming a great internet marketer.
1. Affiliate Programs - This is an enormously popular way to help other people sell your products or provide you the ability to sell someone elses product. You either give or receive a commission for each sale - 20-50% is the normal range of commission.
2. Auto Responders - Automatically send your clients or potential clients multiple personal emails over a period of time. This is perhaps the most critical tool in your box for relationship building using what is usually referred to as email marketing.
3. Blogging - Blogs (short for web logs) are a relatively new and popular way to publish content on the Internet. They allow the blogger to publish content (thoughts, ideas, tips...) very quickly AND get feedback from the people that read it. Because they are new and content is created regularly, search engines love indexing them - and if search engines love them, you should too.
4. Copywriting - The process of writing compelling copy or content for your web site (or other written medium). Youll see the term sales copywriter or similar ones for those people that are skilled in writing in a way that compels the reader to buy. Hmm, quite important then!
5. Domain Name - Domain simply means area or sphere of influence. A domain name is the name for your area on the Internet - the name that people will use to reach your web site. Its also called your Internet address. There are restrictions imposed on the address - it must be unique anywhere on the internet and must conform to simple a set of rules. Whenever you type the address of a web site youll notice it doesnt contain spaces and has several portions separated by dots. In fact there are two parts to a domain name, the name itself and an ending something like .com, .co.uk, .ca or .au. The ending is intended to denote the country of the site, though some global sites simply use .com originally intended for names in the USA. So, OnlineMarketersChoice.co.uk andValuedClientSystem.com are both examples of domain names.
Sometimes youll want to buy domain names for multiple countries so you can tailor your web site to the needs of the readers country. For example Amazon.com, Amazon.ca & Amazon.co.uk lead to versions of the online store specific to the USA, Canada and the UK.
When you type an address youll often put http:// followed by the letters www, standing for world wide web, followed by the domain name. The http:// piece tells your web browser that youre looking for a web site, rather than say, an ftp site (a different kind of internet model) and actually the letters www mean the same thing - this is a web site were browsing to. Often www is not required, try typing http://www.OnlineMarketersChoice.com and http://OnlineMarketersChoice.com you should find that they both give you the same result.
6. eZines / Newsletters - Electronic magazines are another popular way to create a relationship with your clients. Published regularly - say bi-weekly, entirely electronically, that is online via your web site or blog, this can be a great way to stay in the forefront of your clients mind.
7. Joint Ventures - Do it with a partner. Thats the motto of the Joint Venture. They combine the client base, marketing, skills and products of two or more businesses to create a new business venture. Those business ventures may be small and short - one product, one short marketing campaign or serve as the base for a complete long term business.
8. Merchant Account - In order to process payments directly from your web site, you have two basic choices:use a 3rd party payment processor (such as clickbank.com), who will take a commission and pass on the reminder after a period of say, 30 days. Or, pay for your own payment processor and open a merchant account with your bank to allow you to process credit card payments directly.
9. Search Engine Optimization - Search engines are a key route to free web traffic. Most people use search engines like Google, MSN, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and so on to find web sites. If your site appears early in the often very long list of results returned from a search, youve probably done a good job optimizing your site for search engines.
10. Shopping Cart - The software that keeps track of the many, many products your client is planning to purchase on a particular visit to your site. When theyve finished browsing it will take them though the process of providing their details, like name and address and taking payment details to pass on to your payment processor. Some web sites build their own carts but most choose to use a 3rd party service.
11. Web Hosting - Your web site needs to live somewhere. That place is either your own computer(s) or more typically on a computer managed by a Web Hosting company. You create the content and manage the site and the hosting company provide you the computing power and technical administration.
12. Website - Creating your own website can be both fun and challenging. If you do it yourself, you might create and edit web pages using a tool like Microsoft FrontPage, as in fact Im doing to write this. But you dont have to create it yourself. You may choose to use one of the instant web site creators (try searching on that term) or pay somebody else to create your site for you. Which ever route you choose - your web site is you on the Internet, so make it compelling.
Between themPaul Quirk and Mark Quirk have more than 40 years experience in the IT industry.
is their site to help new internet marketers learn their craft and for seasoned professionals to share their advice.
Copyright 2005, All rights reserved.