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Entrepreneurial Resources:

Our mission is to help make a difference to people’s lives by offering impartial advice and the most valuable self improvement resources available. Whatever challenges you face we have the tools to help you.

This is leveraged learning. If you can learn from the masters on this page, think how much quicker you will reach your destination. You are literally standing on the shoulders on giants.

Bottom line, unless you are prepared to build enough equity in YOURSELF that others are IRRESISTIBLY sold on YOU as their leader, you will never experience massive results. Your income is just a by-product of others people's belief in YOU as their leader, mentor, and coach.

You can count on us to give you straight answers and the bottom line. Even though the sugar-coated versions feel better to the ego, they do nothing to assist you in building a life of YOUR dreams, by design.

Committed to your success!

 

The Secret

The power of the Law of Attraction. Featured on Oprah, Larry King, and just about ever other major news program...Watch it here: www.thesecret.tv

 

212 degrees

It takes 211 degree to heat water, but 212 to make it boil. This separation of ONE DEGREE is enough to produce the steam that can power a Locomotive. Watch the movie here: www.212movie.com

 

Napoleon Hill

As a young journalist early last century, Napoleon Hill interviewed one of the richest men in the world, the famous industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie offered Hill an unpaid job that would take many years to complete – to interview the richest and most successful men in the world and establish the common factors that made them so successful.

Napoleon Hill took his challenge and it made him a huge success. More than 20 years later he wrote the pioneering work, Think and Grow Rich that remains one of the most influential works of personal development and success ever produced, and a cornerstone of the entire self improvement industry to this day.

Hill proved that success could be modeled and duplicated. The practical techniques the book outlines for achieving goals, maximizing the power of your mind and creating the life of your dreams are just a valid today as when the book was first published in 1930’s.

Think and Grow Rich has been read by and inspired millions, and helped more people make more money than any book ever published.

Click here for your free PDF copy of "Think and Grow Rich" (New window will open with your FREE Copy)

 

Evan Carmichael

Evan is an entrepreneur and international speaker. At the age of 19, he became an owner and Chief Operating Officer in Redasoft, a biotechnology software company. The company quickly grew to over 300 organizations as clients, including NASA and Johnson & Johnson, in 30 countries. He started Evan Carmichael Communications Group with the goal to give entrepreneurs the Inspiration to follow their passion and the strategies they need to succeed. Evan has delivered over 100 keynote presentations to entrepreneurs in North America, Europe, and Asia. He has been featured as an entrepreneurial expert for magazines, newspapers, radio, and television and is a recognized small business authority.

Evan also has a background in the venture capital industry working with Northern Crown Capital to help entrepreneurial companies raise between $500,000 and $15 million to grow their businesses. He is an active Board of Director for Junior Achievement, an organization that helps elementary and high school students acquire the knowledge resources to reach their full potential. Evan graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelors degree in Commerce and Finance.

“Evan’s passionate delivery was very awe inspiring, most especially for the entrepreneurs who came to learn from his personal perspective in the entrepreneurial pursuit for success. He certainly made a positive impact both on and off stage, and his enthusiasm certainly made it all the more an interesting presentation. This was further more confirmed through the various requests made by participants during the conference, who would like to see more of Evan and his insights, in future conferences.” – Fauziah Talib, organizer, YEAB, Brunei Darussalam.

Evan is available for speaking and media engagements. To contact Evan, click here.

About EvanCarmichael.com

EvanCarmichael.com is the Internet's #1 resource for small business motivation and strategies. With over 110,000 monthly visitors, 850 contributing authors, and 11,500 pages of content no website shares more profiles of famous entrepreneurs and inspires more small business owners than EvanCarmichael.com.

www.evancarmichael.com

 

Mike Dillard

Mike Dillard is a professional marketer in Austin Texas. After struggling in the MLM industry for over 6 years, he discovered the strategies and tactics of "Magnetic Sponsoring" and "MLM Traffic Formula" and went from waiting tables to Millionaire status by the age of 28....

If You Are Tired of Trying to Build Your Home Business With Dead-Beat Leads, Home Meetings, Cold Calling Lead Lists, And Spending More Money Than You Make, Then Your Troubles Have Ended
Because You Are About To Learn How To Attract Endless New Distributors And Customers Right To Your Front-Door With Credit Card In Hand...

www.mlmtrafficformula.com

www.magneticsponsoringonline.com

 

Patrick Combs

For the past 16 years, I’ve coached solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, artists, CEO’s, small-business owners, athletes and students - to name only a few - to skyrocket their results and succeed at their dream endeavors.
Along the way, I have walked my talk succeeding in my own dreams of inspirational speaking, writing and publishing books, an on-line business, television acting, and performing comedy in the world of theatre.

Are you ready to have a mentor to help you really make your life and success take off? I can help you just as I’ve helped thousands of others.

I was not raised with a silver spoon, nor did I go to an IVY League school. I was the first person from my family TREE to ever go to college. I graduated with a “B” average from a state university. And when I graduated, I had a job but not a PURPOSE.

I started out working for a Fortune 100 corporation (Levi Strauss, Inc. to be specific). But I wasn’t built for having a boss and I wasn’t built for bureaucracy. I had bigger dreams - dreams that were bigger than the $80,000 salary (plus benefits!) they were trying to buy my life with.

So at 25, I quit ‘working for the man’ and set out to accomplish my dream of inspirational speaking. I had no financial safety net, drove a 1978 Ford Grenada, lived across the street from dangerous project homes, plus I had no mentors.

I was not good at speaking when I began, I met with truckloads of rejection, I made countless mistakes, and in a short amount of time I was $45,000.00 in debt.

And then I began to figure out the keys to success.

  • At 28, my first book was published by Ten Speed Press. It has gone on to sell more than 100,000 copies.
  • At 29, I was sponsored by a Fortune 50 company and paid half-a-million dollars to tour the 75 largest universities in the U.S. teaching principles of success to students.
  • At 30, I was hired to be an on-air talent for two #1 television shows and a PBS show titled, Career Advantage.
  • At 31, I was added into the Motivational Speaker’s Hall of Fame along side Zig Ziglar, Anthony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, Stephen Covey, Les Brown and others.
  • At 35, I was interviewed by Barbara Walters on national TV for my advice on success.
  • At 36, I took my first steps into the world of theatre and comedy.
  • At 39, I performed at HBO’s Comedy Festival and Just for Laughs, the two most prestigious, by-invitation-only comedy festivals in the world, along with the likes of Jack Black, Bill Cosby, Drew Carey, Chris Rock, and I played my solo show Off-Broadway.

I’m not sharing this to make myself feel better. I’m telling you so that you’ll understand your own limitless possibilities when you finally give in to your dreams, and employ the true principles of success.

I love my life and I love what I do. I feel everyday of my life is blessed beyond belief. My life is made whole by a magnificent wife and daughter, passionate work, vital spirituality, fantastic vacations, plenty of time for rest and relaxation, and good friends.

  • I used to live across from project housing. Now I live in my dream home in sunny San Diego.
  • I used to have a job. Now I have a passion, a purpose and a mission.
  • I used to work for a company that granted me “two weeks of vacation a year”. Now I go on a luxury vacation every 3 months, and take off work anytime I wish.
  • I used to have a boss. Now I have a company.
  • I used to work 60 hours a week doing what I was told - now my multiple income streams work for me 24/7 so that I can work exclusively on my passions.
  • I used to sit and watch people (speakers) living my dream and think they were the luckiest people in the world. Now I live that dream, and many more.

There was a turning point for me. A point of destiny...

I was a year into my dream of becoming a speaker, but it was summer time and I felt I needed a job to get through the slow season. My brother offered me $2000 to help me be able to keep working on my dream. He said I could pay him back when I “made it.”

I said, “No Bro, that’s really nice of you, but I’d hate to not be able to pay you back.”

My brother seemed shocked, “Oh! I didn’t realize you were unsure about your success. I take my offer back. I only offered it because I thought you were certain you were going to succeed."

I was really taken back by his words. WAS sure I was going to succeed? ... I felt I had to. I felt I couldn’t work another day building someone else’s dream.

So I spoke quickly and confidently, “Bro, I’ll accept your loan because I AM going to succeed at my dream.”

He loaned me the money; It’s the only outside money I ever had to accept. And 3 years later, I paid him back with interest. I wrote him a check for $10,000 and it was the most fun I ever had paying off a loan.

Are you serious about succeeding?
Are you tired of not living at your true potential? Sick of working for someone else? Ready to finally learn exactly how to turn your dreams into dollars? Ready to have a mentor to help really make it happen this time?

If you’re sure that you are finally ready to succeed, I would be honored to coach you to maximize your success, minimize your efforts, and double your happiness.

Sharing Success,
Patrick Combs

www.goodthink.com

 

Business Opportunities Weblog Network
  • Introduction The Business Opportunities Weblog Network currently consists of six blogs: Dane Carlson’s Business Opportunities Weblog Business Opportunities Weblog en Español MLM Business Opportunities Blog Work at Home Businesss Opportunities Business Opportunities Brasil and the under construction Ask the Business Opportunities Blog This is the official blog of the network.

 

Business Opportunities Weblog
  • Happy Healthy Meals Trendwatching.com: As part of the never-ending health trend and obesity obsession, school lunches are a hot topic across the world. Two Dutch entrepreneurs came up with their own solution to the lunch challenge (adding in a bit of convenience as well): Lunch4Kids. Packaged like a McDonald’s Happy Meal, each lunchbox contains sandwiches, a drink (milk [...]
  • A League of Her Own MyBusinessMag.com: Paula Duffy teaches women how to score. Well, how to keep score. As the creator of Incidental Contact, Duffy offers seminars on football, basketball and baseball for sports-challenged females, whether they’re moms, single women, sports widows or businesswomen hoping to level the playing field with male colleagues. The inspiration for the business came from a trip [...]
  • Couple-Surfing: ‘Love Me, Love My Blog’ CNN.com: A man and a woman sit side by side in a New York cafe, drinking beer, sharing food, and not saying a word. Instead of chatting, they are typing on a laptop about the tunes played through a shared iPod. As the Internet evolves — with its Webcams, iPods, Instant Messaging, broadband, Wi-Fi and blogs — [...]
  • Google, Yahoo! Agree To Independent Click Fraud Audits TechCrunch: As the outcry by advertisers grows louder than the assurances from Google that click fraud is not a substantial problem, representatives from Google and Yahoo! publicly announced that they would accept independent click fraud audits. Of course the true independence of any audit will need to be closely watched. The pay per click advertising business [...]
  • After-Prom Business Generates $1 Million A Year Unusual Businesses Ideas That Work: Remember the prom? The limos, the dresses, the late nights spent wandering around town looking for after-prom fun? Yoel Silber has found a way to cash in on that market with Promtix, his one-stop shop for after-prom adventures. He sells tickets to cruises, comedy and dance clubs. Says Silber, “In New [...]
  • 30 Second/One Question Interview with Michael Cage My next participant in the 30 Second/One Question Interview series is Michael Cage. I asked: One man’s trash, is another man’s treasure. What product or service have you imagined would be a good business opportunity, but you’ve rejected because it’s too off the wall? Michael responded on his blog: I have to admit, I had some trouble [...]
  • This Is Not Your Father’s Garage Sale Startup Journal: This year Americans will again set up garage sales and their close cousins, stoop sales, yard sales and tag sales. Gretchen Herrmann, an economic anthropologist who has studied garage sales for decades, estimates that $4 billion is exchanged in nine to 10 million garage sales each year. But in many parts of the country, what [...]
  • Companies Offering Telework For People with Disabilities Wall Street Journal Online: Call-center outsourcing firms will employ agents with disabilities. At least two other concerns, however, specifically target the disabled. National Telecommuting Institute, a Boston nonprofit, has about 250 agents working from home at any given time, and a total pool of about 1,000 agents, says M.J. Willard, executive director. Applicants are asked [...]
  • Motivated To Start A Business? Startup Journal: Successful entrepreneurs are calculated risk takers. They know that building a long-lasting company will be difficult. However, they also know the task is likely to be achievable if they put their energy and intelligence behind it. Setting difficult yet attainable goals is a hallmark of achievers, according to research by the late Harvard University psychology [...]
  • Make Millions From Happy Campers Unusual Businesses Ideas That Work: Happy memories from his childhood days at summer camp inspired Ari Ackerman to come up with the idea for Bunk1.com. He originally wrote the business plan for the company for his MBA training, but it seemed like too good an idea to pass up. His initial concept was to provide a Web [...]
  • Private Yapping Booth Springwise.com: Here’s a smart idea that could be turned into a global cottage industry: sound resistant cell phone booths. The Cell Zone, produced by Salemi Industries, can be placed in nightclubs, restaurants, libraries, on airports, train stations, at concerts, and all other places where a bit of peace and quiet is often hard to get. Booths [...]
  • 10 Steps Every Entrepreneur Must Do When Starting A New Venture Rhonda Abrams: So, you’ve decided to start a business. What do you do first? What next? What do you have to do right away and what can you delay? Here are 10 must-dos: 1. Talk to an attorney and/or accountant. Create a simple standard contract or agreement you can use. It’s also a good idea to [...]
  • How To Sell Without Actually Sounding Like A Salesperson Ed Golad at adotas: The best salespeople know that selling comes down to relationship building, and doing it very quickly. And since just about everybody resents being in a relationship that feels disingenuous, it’s crucial that you do NOT sound like stereotypical salesperson. Here are several ways to help you avoid coming off like a used car [...]
  • How to Get a Gig As a Mystery Shopper Startup Journal: When Kim Keenum, 39, walks through the parking lot of a supermarket in Carol Stream, Ill., other customers may be searching for their lists, but she’s counting abandoned carts and looking for trash. “See that crushed beverage cup?” she says. “There’s no liquid next to it, so it’s been there for a while.” Mrs. Keenum [...]
  • Carnival of the Capitalists This week’s Carnival of the Capitalists is up at The Business of America is Business.
  • A Domain By Any Other Name CNNMoney.com: These days, you really can’t start a small business without getting on the Web, but it’s also never been harder to score a snappy URL. There’s reason to worry about a shortage of marketable domain names. To date, more than 70 million domain names have been purchased, and most - if not all - dictionary-word domain [...]
  • New Twist To The ‘Mom And Pop’ CNNMoney.com: The notion of a typical “mom and pop” business is getting a makeover. Yesterday’s image of a family-run corner store is giving way to nail salons, Internet-based auction sites and even motorcycle dealerships, according to the Census Bureau survey of small businesses run by one or more people that range from home-based firms to corner stores. The [...]
  • Business Fills An Itty-Bitty Niche St. Petersburg Times: Last December, Cecilia Sayre went to a shower for a single mom who had recently adopted a child from China. Though she wanted to find a gift that held personal meaning and cultural relevance, she was stymied by the lack of selection. “Though Chinese pajamas are gorgeous, a person only wants so many,” she said. What [...]
  • Scan Photo Albums onto DVD Craigslist: An entreprenuer in Texas is offering to scan family photo albums and place them on a DVD for safe keeping. He offers to organize the photos according to date or subject matter and only charges 25 cents per photo. Any one with a scanner and a computer with a CD or DVD burner [...]
  • Carnival of Personal Finance This week’s Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Get Rich Slowly.
  • Carnival of Business This week’s Carnival of Business is up at Consumerism Commentary.
  • Making Dough Selling to Fratboys Unusual Businesses Ideas That Work:: Reading a business magazine in the doctor’s office inspired Joseph Tantillo to try his hand at online retailing. At the time, he and his wife were expecting their first child and wanted to work from home. An article about starting an online store jumped out at him, he recalls—and, as a [...]
  • What Every First Time Inventor Must Know Inventors’ Digest: In honor of August being National Inventors’ Month, Inventors’ Digest magazine will unveil a compilation of its best and brightest articles from the past two decades, providing the first downloadable volume free of charge now and throughout August, to help novice inventors move from idea to product development success. The 20 volume series contains [...]
  • Entrepreneurship in Europe Venture Blog: I spent last week in Europe meeting with entrepreneurs in Amsterdam and Paris (it is a tough job but someone has got to do it). I met with some very smart people who are working on interesting projects. They are absolutely committed to their startups and are, in varying degrees, having some success in [...]
  • 30 Second/One Question Interview with David Tufte Stealing a great idea from Darren, I’ve started a 30 Second/One Question Interview. My first participant is David Tufte, a professor at Southern Utah University. I asked: One man’s trash, is another man’s treasure. What product or service have you imagined would be a good business opportunity, but you’ve rejected because it’s too off [...]

 

Vic Johnson: Motivational Speaker and Author
  • The vision of Jay Leno and President Clinton The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart - this you will build your life by; this you will become.
  • Everything happens for a reason Whether you already believe that things happen for a purpose, or are unsure about this notion, here are some points to consider to get the maximum results from this principle.
  • Persistence is a state of mind When defeat overtakes a person, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to QUIT. That is exactly what the majority of people do.
  • Forget the mistakes Letting our "sins and mistakes of yesterday" dominate our thinking today robs us of our present joy and our future happiness. It causes us to miss the real opportunity of TODAY!
  • 3 days with 2 legends Are you ready to accomplish more in the rest of this year than you have in the last five years --- combined!
  • Acres of Diamonds Only by much searching and mining are gold and diamonds obtained, and a person can find every truth connected with his being, if he will dig deep into the mine of his soul.
  • Plant corn and you get corn Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results. This is but saying that nothing can come from corn but corn, nothing from nettles but nettles.
  • Cherish your vision “You’re not on this Planet to live someone else’s dream.”
  • The 52-word formula for success We have the choice to live our life on purpose or without a purpose. Life does not make the distinction, it simply rewards our choice.
  • It’s Never Too Late Part 4 What have you got planned for your next birthday?

 

Reverse Direct Marketing - Search Engine Marketing Blog
  • Flavor of the Week

    Well, it’s more than just the week and more than one flavor that is attracting attention from the media and marketers alike. The first is mobile marketing. iCrossing unveiled its mCrossing mobile unit this week, an announcement that piqued the interest of both advertising and wireless industry publications. We even got some play in the mobile blogosphere!

    As a digital marketing agency with strong roots in search, the search portion of our mobile offering naturally was the focus of a lot of the inquiry, but the bigger story is how mobile marketing stands to be a powerful tool for truly connecting brands with their audiences. And as I said in an interview with ClickZ, we want to make sure we are in a position to go to our clients and recommend and then implement a full-fledged mobile solution without waiting for them to come to us.

    The second trend is word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing. The acquisition of Ammo Marketing, a WOM marketing firm, by the Aegis Group’s Isobar unit, attracted considerable attention from the press this week. And let’s not forget that BuzzMetrics generated its fair share of…buzz last month, first when it wooed away JupiterResearch analyst Gary Stein and then, not long after, when the company merged with Intelliseek. Given the complexity of online media and the speed at which opinions are disseminated, the interest in WOM is not surprising. Marketers need to be able to track brand value and monitor evolving marketplace perceptions.

    These two growing trends – mobile and WOM marketing – have in common something fundamental: they are the latest attempts to develop deeper relationships with consumers. And there are increasing signs that mobile devices are a key platform for WOM exchanges. That’s why it’s time to put money where the word-of-mouth is.

  • Frost & Sullivan Internet Marketing Strategies Interactive Symposium Wrap-Up

    Last week I had the distinguished opportunity to be part of a panel of search optimization experts at the Frost & Sullivan Internet Marketing Strategies Interactive Symposium event in Phoenix, AZ. The session topic covered when to use paid or organic (natural) search or both. It has always been my belief that both paid and natural techniques should be used in any website marketing campaign. Paid search offers speed to market and distribution channels beyond the search properties. Natural optimization provides long-lasting effects for the search rankings of a site (not to mention the fact that many studies find it provides more traffic than paid campaigns).

    I will not go into the arguments for both, but I was pleased with the responses from the other members of the panel. The panel agreed, to some extent, that there is a time and place for paid and organic campaigns, but both should be considered for the job.

    The end of the session opened the floor to questions from the audience. One question posed asked about each panelist's favorite optimization technique. My recommendation was two-fold. First, content: a website without content is no help to natural or paid campaigns. Content that is targeted for search will aid natural optimization, while well-written copy in a paid campaign can mean the difference between your ad getting the click or your competitor’s. Second, track both campaigns. If your current web analytics tool does not allow tracking of paid campaigns, comparisons between natural and paid, conversion tracking and the ability to use that information in your paid management applications, then you need to look for a new tracking system. If you can’t track the information, you can’t quantify the results, and if you can’t quantify, you can’t realistically expect to manage or improve your campaign.

    JJ

  • Record, Watch, Repeat...Search

    With all the talk about Super Bowl ads, the average sports fan might be left wondering whether there is actually a football game to be played on Sunday. But let us face facts: Super Bowl ads have become a form of entertainment every much the equal of the game itself, and they attract viewers with little or no interest in football who might turn their attention elsewhere on game day.

    Super Bowl advertisers, who are spending an estimated $83,333 per second according to today's New York Times, are rushing to capitalize on the multimedia frenzy surrounding their commercials. In an effort to extend the lifespan of the spots, they are making the commercials available online, through video-on-demand cable, on mobile networks, and, to cover all bases (and devices), for download to video iPods. It is a good bet that the best commercials will be replayed more often and by more people than the game highlights themselves. True fans can replay the ads on multiple devices at the same time, and some no doubt will.

    By distributing the commercials across a range of channels both during and after the game, marketers have shown that they understand the opportunity before them to connect (and reconnect) with interested consumers. The next question is: have they prepared for the flood of search traffic they should expect from these interested consumers? Stay tuned for iCrossing's Super Bowl search preparedness report to find out which companies reached the endzone.

  • And Then There was One...

    Blogs around the industry are aflutter with the news that Yahoo! has, in the words of Bloomberg News writer Jonathan Thaw, "capitulated to Google" in the quest for dominance in the increasingly competitive search marketplace. Yahoo!'s CFO, Susan Decker, was quoted as saying: "It's not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share."

    On the face of it, this would appear to be a stunning admission. But pry beneath the surface and you will find little more than an affirmation of Yahoo!'s long-in-the-works strategy to a) become both an aggregator and owner/creator of content, and b) monetize its content through search and usage fees. By contrast, Google, which has taken a sizable lead in overall global search volume, appears content to be the king of aggregators (not a bad thing by any means). I made similar distinctions between the two companies' strategies in my latest iMedia Connection column.

    Does this mean that advertisers should de-emphasize Yahoo! in favor of Google? Not at all. Yahoo! still has a very sophisticated marketing platform, and the key there is platform. What Yahoo! gives up in quantity, it may be able to make up in terms of quality.

  • Mobile Marketing Ready for a Breakout Year?

    Another year has come and gone and once again, the big breakout in mobile marketing has failed to materialize. In the interests of full disclosure, I have to admit that in a report I wrote at the beginning of the year while I was still at eMarketer, I was among those who predicted that the big buzz around mobile marketing would become more than just big buzz in the 2005-2006 timeframe. In my own defense, I did caution that a "hit or miss" environment would prevail in this initial period and that some marketers might become disenchanted with the medium before it grew to maturity at the end of the decade.

    At this point, with a new year stretching out before us, a more circumspect approach seems destined to win out. In its predictions for 2006, wireless blog MobHappy, citing demographic shifts (among both consumers and marketers) and fresh interest in mobile from mainstream agencies (as traditional ad formats continue to wane in effectiveness), stressed that the year ahead will see the beginning of the “sea change” but not an explosion in mobile marketing.

    Sounds reasonable. As brand advertisers look for new and improved ways to engage customers and prospects, there will be renewed focus on creating full-fledged mobile experiences that go well beyond condensing, converting and repurposing existing content. Being able to reach customers (and, in turn, enabling them to reach you) whenever and wherever they show interest entails first building a mobile presence optimized specifically for mobile devices and mobile search, then driving connections with those interested customers using a full arsenal of mobile marketing campaign tools, from messaging to couponing to multimedia integration, and finally quantifying the results and refining the campaign based on insights gleaned from analytics. As cooler heads prevail in 2006, expect to see more emphasis on the create-connect-quantify-refine mobile marketing model.

  • Search Marketing and Christmas Commerce

    As an ex-retail buyer, Black Friday, White Monday and the Christmas shopping season brings back vivid retail memories. The Christmas of ‘87 still haunts me to this day. The Broadway Department Stores had just introduced Black Christmas boxes. I was the poor guy behind the wrap desk trying to convince the horrified pack of stressed shoppers that black Christmas boxes were not the work of Satan.

    As the Paid Search Director for iCrossing, I am often asked what elements are needed for a search marketing campaign to be effective. My best answer remains “the same things you need to do to be an effective merchant”. (This includes offering more traditional Christmas Boxes or avoiding One Day Sales every day of the week). The performance of a search marketing campaign is inherently linked with the customer’s perception of the retailer itself. Successful retailers are not only efficient in their operations but innovative in terms of marketing and merchandising.

    Paid Search marketing is such an innovation. By focusing marketing spend only where the customer has already shown interest in the product or service - the marketing process is inherently more efficient. (Reverse Direct Marketing) Unfortunately a search campaign by itself is not going to make a retailer more effective. Search campaigns add the most value when the following online commerce fundamentals are being executed:


    Commerce Model
    Seems somewhat obvious - but a large number of online companies still subscribe to the popular .com theory of losing a little on every sale but making it up on volume. Today companies that are growing online – are making money online. Unless you have a very healthy retention rate and LTV; paying 50 cents for a customer that nets 10 cents is always going to be a losing proposition.

    Brand Awareness
    Brand has a huge effect on the effectiveness of a search campaign. A company with a known brand is more likely to be clicked and is much more likely to get the sale compared to a company with little or no brand awareness. Paid Search can also be used to monitor the effects of marketing events.

    Paid and Natural Search
    There seems to be some confusion as to whether companies should budget money on natural or paid search. The short answer is that any retailer who wants to dominate online channel needs to be participating in both in a coordinated fashion.
    - Paid search allows for conversion testing to inform and improve the effectiveness of a natural search build-out.
    - Natural search is needed to allow visibility on expensive high volume terms
    Used together companies can deliver a larger number of qualified customers to a site or store.

    Landing Page / Shopping Environment
    Back in my retail days we spent a lot effort devising “race tracks” to best guide our customers through the store and to the cash register. You can imagine management’s horror when they scientifically tested traffic and found the vast majority of our visitors were using the store as a cut through to the mall. Many online stores are the same way. If the site does not do its job and convert visitors to shoppers to buyers additional search traffic is not going to lead to greater sales. Ideally all search traffic:
    - Land on pages that are as relevant as possible to the search query
    - Receives a consistent message on the search ad and the landing page
    - Encourages the visitor towards taking action and making the purchase

    Merchandising
    Timing and speed to market is everything in retail. Had the Broadway brought out black boxes in 1991 they would have been a big fashion hit instead of a holiday nightmare. The difference between what works and what does not work can just be a matter of seasonality.

    Inventory
    I wonder how many online retailers this year are paying for iPod terms when they don’t have any inventory. Apple seems to be faring very well selling the new units directly at the expense of its channel partners who are doing all the promotion for them. The online retail market is even more fickle than the offline one. If you don’t have what your customer is looking for the next shop is just a click away.

    CRM
    Once you have paid for a new customer it is vital that you keep that customer over the long run. It is obvious that a higher customer LTV leads to a higher ROI on a search campaign. Yet many businesses do not have an effective retention system in place - forcing them to repay for traffic that should already be theirs.

    Testing
    One of the retail lessons I was taught back in the 80’s was “Test, Validate, and Expand”. This is also the ideal mantra for search marketing. Companies that thrive online are constantly testing new keywords creative’s, and landing pages. Search is not just an effective form of marketing but a real time marketing test environment that allows the marketer to see exactly what messages the customer responds to.

    Had there been an internet back in 1987-the Broadway could have tested customer demand for black boxes through search ads...and avoided the mistake that ruined my Christmas season.

  • And the Winner is...Google!

    Google appears to be the winner in the long-brewing contest for a piece of AOL. In what can be seen in part as a very expensive customer retention move, Google reportedly will pay $1 billion to get a 5% stake in AOL and a guarantee of its biggest customer's continued business. While the deal gives new meaning to the term "buying traffic," it also changes the game for Microsoft, essentially complicating the software giant's attempt to break into the top ranks of the paid search business. Although Google certainly would not have wanted to lose AOL's business, and least of all to a competitor, MSN needed the inventory far more than Google. By all signs, Microsoft has a good product on its hands in adCenter; it just needs the inventory to compete with its two major rivals.

    As an aside, before the news of the AOL deal broke, I was gearing up to post about Google Music, a quintessentially Google-ian approach to the concept of the online music store -- really more of store window than an actual store. It is not so much a function of name that tune, but definitely a matter of "find that tune." Great service (and it is decidedly a service, not a product, as Jupiter's Gary Stein noted this week) and a mark of what Google does best: connecting searchers with the content they are seeking. But where is the product? Relationships with online merchants are the source of monetization for now. The only Google-ian hallmark that is missing is the familiar presence of highly targeted music ads.

  • A Pressing Need for Search

    This week I am blogging from halfway around the world. I am in Geneva to chair a UN expert meeting on information and communication technology (ICT) and tourism for development. That sounds like a mouthful, and in fact, it is: a topic too vast to digest in just three days. And if it seems that I am headed off on a tangent that has little or nothing to do with search, fear not. The theme of "winning connections" that I took up a little over a month ago provides the crucial link.

    Although the speaker lineup was quite diverse, comprising representatives from industry, government agencies and non-governmental institutions from both developed and developing countries, the conference primarily was geared towards representatives of destination marketing organizations (DMOs) from the so-called "least developed countries" (LDCs). The goal was to share strategies, case studies and best practices that can help DMOs in these countries adopt appropriate e-business practices and utilize ICT to spur the growth of their tourism industries.

    While the issue of technology implementation (and cost) was a recurrent topic, many participants cited marketing and branding as points of concern, particularly in terms of the Internet. To circle back to the question of search, DMOs, tour operators and travel suppliers down to the smallest hotel or restaurant are all about making winning connections. Establishing and marketing a compelling brand, with the right message targeted at the right audience, lie at the heart of what all of these members of the travel value chain can and must do. And when the goal is to attract tourists coming from abroad, those same tourists that start their travel planning with an online search, site optimization and paid media campaigns become even more vital.

    Application of ICT and search engine marketing techniques will not be a cure-all for the tourism sector in developing countries, but when used effectively, they can help to bring suppliers a littler closer to their desired customers.

 

Additional website resources:

 

http://www.entrepreneur.com

http://www.hbwm.com

http://www.networkmarketingnews.com

http://www.onlinemlm.com

http://www.entrepreneur.com/bizoppzone

http://www.network-marketing-works.com

http://www.workathomeincome.com

http://www.fedbizopps.gov

http://www.sbomag.com

http://www.albertarose.org

http://www.homebusinessmag.com

http://www.work-at-home.org

http://www.incomeops.com

http://www.business-opportunities.biz/

http://www.boconline.com

http://thelazyloadedguy.com

http://alexa.com

 

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