BCA

By Denise Noel A. Osborne

Whether you have a day spa or any other type of business, one of the main concerns is how to get customers. That’s where knowing how and where to advertise a business comes in. The internet is full of opportunities to advertise a business.

1. Article marketing
Article marketing is one of the best ways to cheaply advertise. How article marketing works is that articles are written using reasearched keword phrases that describe one of your services or products. Those articles are then submitted to article directories on the internet like Ezine, Digg, Hubspot and many others. Members of these sites, and there are thousands of members, search through posted articles to find out how to do just about anything and also what products will help solve their problems. If your articles are in the search results they are likely to read them. They will find out about your business.

2. Social Networking
Social networks like Facebook and Twitter allow you to get new potential customers rather quickly. Facebook and Twitter marketing starts with creating a personal (not business) account. You will then complete your profile, since that’s the way people are going to determine if they want to follow you or not. With both Facebook and Twitter, you are able to make your profile how you want. In your profile, include your logo or your photograph in the background to make it more personable. This will help people to want to follow you because they trust you and you’ve got helpful things to say. Your profile should also include a brief bio that describes you and also what you do.

To maximize your success with both Facebook and Twitter marketing is to use the search feature to locate customers who are interested in what you’re selling. You should always start by posting messages to the group that are helpful tips and not just promoting a product/service. This is an instant turn off if you immediately start posting what services or products you offer. A person may tweet that they want to learn more about chemical peels, for instance. As a spa owner, you will have no trouble answering this person’s questions. Once again, do not start telling them that they can get a peel at your spa…just give them general information about the different types of peels available. Once they respond send them a “friend request” in Facebook or if in Twitter, you should work on both of you following each other.

Then simply contact the person and introduce yourself. Keep in mind that this first direct message shouldn’t include anything about the solution, but it may talk about the problem in general. You may want to hold off for a message or two to pass between the two of you before you bring up what you’re offering. When you present your product this way, they’re more likely be dying to know more about it. You will not only sell more but you’ll get more converts, too.

3. Google AdWords
Google AdWords PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising is a very effective campaign to use. With AdWords, you would create a small ad using the keywords that target your market. When a keyword you used for the ad is searched for using Google, your ad may show up at the top and possibly along the right side of the results page.

It is essential to use the proper keywords in your advertisement to get maximum exposure within Google search results. To end up at your website all someone has to do is click on your ad when they are using the search engine. You only pay Google for each click when someone clicks on your ad. It is recommended to find a company to help you with creating the best PPC ad that will get the most clicks at the cheapest rate.

4. Google Places
Millions of people use Google every day to find places in the real world. Google Places helps people make more informed decisions about where to go, from restaurants and hotels to day spas and hair salons, for example. Google Places businesses are on the first page of results after people type in the keyword to find the product or service wanted. This is a powerful in that 93% of people only look at the first page of Google results for any given keyword searched. The business listings that show up are from businesses that have claimed their Google Places listing. Four million businesses have already claimed their Google Places listing, which enables them to provide their business information to include hours of operation, photos, videos, coupons, product offerings and more.

Since most people go to the internet first to research a product or service, it is necessary that all businesses have a website and advertise using the internet. Using the techniques above will help your business to grow and become more profitable.

Denise Osborne is an internet advertising professional. For further help on how to get your spa marketing plan up and running, please visit advertiseabusiness.net.

By Ernie J. Geeting

Every day thousands of people decide to enter the world of internet marketing. They have heard the stories of others earning fortunes online and hope they might be able to get a piece of that pie themselves. Most have no previous background in sales or marketing. Some will succeed but many will fail. In this article I will expose the main reason people fail and then I’ll reveal to you the single most important thing you must do before promoting any product or service online.

Here’s the most important thing you must know about internet marketing…it is all about the MARKETING. Forgive me for stating the obvious but most people really don’t know what marketing really is or what it involves. So what is it exactly? Marketing is the process of promoting a product from a producer or supplier to a prospective customer in a manner that persuades the prospect to buy. It’s about matching products and services with people who want, and will pay for them. The marketing process requires study of the product itself, researching the potential market, testing, presentation, and promotion. Most people who want to make money on the internet know nothing of the process of marketing, fail to do proper research and are unwilling (or too broke) to do testing. It has been said over 95% of people who try doing internet marketing fail. Now you can understand why. You wouldn’t try flying an airplane without proper knowledge and hands-on training but yet hundreds try to start a home business in marketing without having a clue as to what to do. They are destined to crash and burn.

Making money on the internet comes from making sales, nothing more. This is done by advertising. The NUMBER ONE REASON why people fail as internet affiliate marketers is that they have insufficient knowledge and experience in selling and advertising. The cause for their lack of success isn’t the product they represent or the companies they choose to affiliate with, the problem is with the prospective marketers themselves. If you want to succeed online you need to understand the sales process and need to be willing to always be learning sales and copy writing techniques. While there may or may not be such a thing as a ‘born salesman’ (or copywriter) there most certainly are personality differences that allow the concepts of selling to come easier to some than others. However these concepts can be learned and applied by anyone desiring to do so. I urge you to seek out good books and courses about selling and copy writing. This knowledge will be extremely helpful to you when writing the content for your advertisements, capture pages and sales pages. Fortunately, most publishers or network marketing companies will provide you with a professionally written affiliate sales page and advertisements. However….

A frequent temptation newbies fall into is taking the shortcut of using a publisher provided affiliate sales page as the landing point for their visitors. A sales page is the main website page for a product that contains the advertising copy (aka: sales pitch). This is a grave error that will cost them untold wasted hours and advertising dollars. Never link directly to a ‘stock’ sales page. Did you get that? This is an important key to success: DO NOT link directly to an affiliate sales page. Why not? Because that sales page is the exact same sales page that everyone else is using. You offer no more than anyone else advertising the same page so customers have no reason to buy from you over someone else. This is the most important thing you must do before you try to market anything online. Fail to do this and you will sabotage your chance to succeed. The same goes for ads and for the same reason. Never use company provided ads exactly as written, but rather reword or rebuild them while keeping the main points emphasized

So what should you do? Here are some options…

1. Make a Capture Page. On you capture page offer a free report series or e-book about a topic closely related to the product you wish to sell. The idea here is to give away some useful information, not a sales pitch. Deliver it via autoresponder in a series with each installment having a recommendation at the end (with a clickable link) for the customer to purchase the item you wish to sell. That link can be to your company provided sales page (embedded with your affiliate id). This approach works the same way for network marketing. Give first, sell second.

NOTE: Sometimes a product you might sell might be from an online store with multiple products. Always link to the sales or catalog page specifically for that product. If you are promoting a business opportunity such as MLM, link directly to the recruiting presentation page.

2. Build Your Own Sales Page. If you are savvy at website creation you can create your own sales page. Sometimes companies will allow you to copy and paste, or even provide you with images of their product or components of their sales page for the purposes of building your own sales page. Sometimes publishers of digital products will offer a Resale Rights package you can buy that contains all the essential graphics and ad copy for creating your own pages. If you do create your own sales pages reword the advertising copy and somehow personalize your pages so they are ‘branded’ to you. Finally, make sure the finalized page is in compliance with the publisher’s rules for such pages.

3. Create a Review Page. This has become a popular way to promote products. You simply write a review (or do an audio or video review) of the product you are selling from your own perspective and then link that page to your sales page. This can be done as a stand alone website or even a a blog. Just a caution here the FTC is really cracking down on sites like these because of their covert approach. You need to make it clear to the reader that you are an affiliate and will profit from the sale of the products reviewed at your site. Be sure to visit the FTC website for the details and play by the rules. Don’t turn your ‘review’ into a sales pitch. The only reason people will read your review is to get an honest opinion and some further detail about the product. While you want to be careful not to give a detailed description of every facet of the product, you do want to give the reader enough information so they will know whether this is the type of product they are looking for and would like to see the sales page on. By the way, it never hurts to also put a link for your autoresponder capture page on your review site, perhaps you could send them review alerts when you’ve done a new review or listings of other products you’ve reviewed, etc.

4. Use Lead Capture Drop-ins. Drop-ins are nifty little tools that allow you to turn any web page into a capture page. You simply use this tool to create an opt-in form that ‘drops in’ on top of the web page you are promoting. You then link the request form an autoresponder for follow up emails. You can use these much as you would a capture page, offering a free report, ebook or just ‘further information’. These are much faster to create than capture pages and work great with company provided sales pages as they allow you to offer something personally that others aren’t while also helping you build your contact list, just like the gurus do. They are the closest thing to a short-cut.

Having read this article you now know why so many fail online and exactly what you must do to set yourself apart from everyone else. Start putting this information into practice today and you will be positioning yourself for internet marketing success.

Ernie J. Geeting is an internet marketer and writer. He loves helping people to experience more success in their lives. You can see his blog and get a free course with insider secrets to internet marketing success at http://earnonlineincomenow.info

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ernie_J._Geeting