Jere answers:

Basically, both email and postal mail are used as a marketing method to keep your connection to customers (either b2b or b2c). However, since the objectives for b2b marketing and b2c marketing are different, there becomes different decisions on your email & direct mail marketing campaign.

When marketing a b2b business, your objective is to generate interest in your products and services, to try to pre-sell and lead receivers to your sales team. So usually it will be done by free offerings. In this case, emails become more cost-effective. You can put downloads links like white papers, reports about your products or services, etc. And people will actually take them as valuable. While in b2c marketing, the objective is more of a “Buy Now!”, “Coupon Available!”, “Sales Today!” kind of thing, where you plan to inform and have them commit purchase in a short time. In this case, emails also have a lot of advantages, such as highly customized, efficient, environment friendly, etc., but an official information that comes in some well-printed direct mail can also be appreciated by people.

I personally prefer email marketing since it seems more beneficial (check the benefits out in below source if you are interested) than direct mail these days.

Jere answers:

Aaron,

Marketers use this information all the time. If you have an opt-in list which is nothing more than consumers saying that they give you permission to send them email then it is fine.

If you already have a list of 20k I would strongly suggest that you do send out some marketing to them. Here is the thing. Usually on the terms and privacy policy, when soliciting an item to someone there is a statement mentioning somewhere that they are giving you the right to send them email. However, you cannot sell, trade, etc. And it should be for your own use.

Here is my suggestion, if you are going to use a resource such as iContact. What you should do is set up your iContact account while still maintaining the list that you have already achieved. Once you have created your iContact account then just send a simple email to your list explaining that you are moving over your list set up and that you would like to make sure that it is alright with them to send them email. They will do one of two things, sign up (preferrablly double opt-in) or they will ignore your email. If they ignore your email then that is someone who does not wish to receive future emails from you.

Think of it this way. If you were to buy a physical product from a company such as Bed, Bath and Beyond, wouldn’t you be more likely to use the coupons related? It is the same concept, just do not overstep your boundries.

I hope this helps you out some.

Jere answers:

Email Marketing is a cost effective way of doing a marketing.But it will only work if it has designed well and the content in it is worth reading.

Jere answers:

There are lots of programs for email marketing but most are geared toward opt-in due to the SPAM laws. Two of the more popular ones are Constand Comment and Mail Chimp.

Jere answers:

When you inform others about your product or services by sending emails, then it is called email marketing. It is important to note that it would be considered marketing when you send out emails to the people you know or who have subscribed to you; sending promotional emails to unknown people would be considered as spamming.

Jere answers:

I would think so. The opening up of the market, immediate response, and the 24 hour news channel has resulted in direct market driven news.

So we get endless stories catering directly to the lowest denominator. Endless celebrity gossip, murders, and partisan shouting.

Jere answers:

ING Direct is owned by ING Group which is no relation to HBOS. ING Group is based in the Netherlands and is one of the largest financial institutions in the world and currently has a stock market valuation of EUR36bn. Have a look at this

http://www.ing.com/group/showdoc.jsp?docid=092825_EN&menopt=abo%7Cfct

Jere answers:

You can probably find an ETF or mutual fund that covers Canada

Here’s some other ideas

http://www.smartmoney.com/etf/?nav=dropTab

http://www.smartmoney.com/news/ON/index.cfm?story=ON-20061018-001272-2305

http://www.smartmoney.com/etf/etftickertracker/?nav=dropTab

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/etf

http://finance.google.com/finance?cid=700263

http://www.bylo.org/ipus.html

http://www.etfconnect.com/select/fundPages/sectors.asp?MFID=3653

Here’s a list of Canadian stocks
http://fxdd.com/trading_platforms.html

Jere answers:

4 rules to be a smart investor
Everyone is talking about the share market. Of how they made or lost money. Even those who have not invested have an opinion.

So what must you do now?

Here we tell you how to be a smart stock investor. Do note, all the information we provide is based on the assumption that you are a long-term investor who is willing to hold on to the stocks for five years at the least.

What you must do: Enter the market via a mutual fund
What you must not do: Directly plunge in on the basis of stock tips

A friend of mine is an avid stock investor in India. A few years ago, he shifted residence to the United States. When there, he wanted to start investing in stocks in the US but did not know how to start building a stock portfolio.

He began by investing in equity funds.

He selected a diversified equity fund. This is a mutual fund that invests in various stocks of various sectors. He would constantly look at the portfolio and then individually track the stocks and the sectors. He would read up on these stocks and sectors and keep tabs on their performance. Not only would he read the financial dailies and watch the relevant programmes on television, he would also go through a few finance Web sites to get updated.

He would then compare his observations with the way the fund manager handled the portfolio.

He would also look at the portfolios of a few other funds that were performing well to see which stocks they were investing in that his fund had not invested in.

This is how he slowly got entrenched into the stock market.

You can experiment with this option because investing in a diversified mutual fund is a smart way to get into the market. You have a fund manager and his team who will research and pick up stocks.

What you must do: Your homework
What you must not do: Be lazy about your investments

Do you have access to a website? Start surfing.

You can look at Web sites such as Yahoo! India Finance, Moneycontrol, Sharekhan, ICICI Direct, Equitymaster, Myiris and India Infoline.

If you do not have access to the financial dailies, you can even check them online: The Economic Times, The Financial Express, Business Standard and Business Line.

Watch business news on television and and check out the channel, CNBC.

Maybe you could subscribe to a business magazine. There are a number of them in the market: Business India, Business World, Business Today, Outlook Money, Capital Market.

Talk to your friends, colleagues and family members who do invest. Find out which stocks they are bullish on for the long-term and ask them why. Start reading about those stocks and their sectors.

What you must do: Start small but be consistent
What you must not do: Be erratic and keep postponing till you have a ‘lumpsum’

Once you get into it, keep a list of stocks you would like to invest in for the long-term. Then, buy them regularly. A friend of mine used to regularly invest in Arvind Mills while another picked on ITC.

Every month, they buy a few shares of the company.

People are always under the mistaken notion that, if they have to buy shares, they must do so with a huge amount. This is not true. In fact, it makes sense to start small but be regular.

A friend of mine who trades online started by buying a few shares on and off when she had the cash. She did this with Infosys. Her first buy was just five shares. She kept buying over the years. When the price was high, she would buy a few. When it was low, she would get more. Over time, Infosys declared bonuses (free shares to the shareholders) so the number of Infosys shares in her portfolio kept increasing.

When you use this strategy, you sometimes buy the stock at a high price and sometimes at a low price. Over time, this evens out.

To see how this works, check out the example in Why you must buy shares gradually.

What you must do: Spread the risk
What you must not do: Place all your bets on one company

Always diversify.

Amongst stocks: When investing in stocks, make sure you do not put all your money in one single stock, however bullish you may be about it. Always spread your investment among a few stocks to reduce your risk.

Amongst sectors: Ensure all the stocks you are investing in are not from the same sector but from different sectors. Should one sector do badly, chances are the others will balance it out. If you invest in one stock only and that fails miserably, you will lose all your money. There is safety in numbers.

Let’s say you decide to invest in five shares. And you pick on Cipla (pharmaceuticals), Infosys (information technology), Procter & Gamble (FMCG), ICICI Bank (banking) and Arvind Mills (textile).

The above selection is well diversified between sectors. But, if you had picked up on Cipla, Ranbaxy, Wockhardt (all pharmaceuticals) and Infosys and Wipro (information technology), you would have been focusing on two sectors only and a large portion of your investment would have been in pharma.

My friend, whom I mentioned above, was putting in large amounts of money into Arvind Mills every month. When she put in all the figures in an Excel spreadsheet, she realised it amounted to almost half of her entire stockmarket investments. After that, she began to focus on other stocks and stopped investing in this one stock.

Lesson learnt: keep monitoring your investments.

Amongst mutual funds: If you are investing in diversified equity funds to get started, ensure you have invested in at least two funds from different fund houses.

Amongst type of investments: Finally, don’t invest only in stocks. Consider other fixed return investments like Kisan Vikas Patra, Public Provident Fund, National Savings Certificate, RBI bonds, bank fixed deposits.

Also look at debt mutual funds. Unlike equity funds which buy shares, these funds invest in fixed return instruments.

All the best!

Finally, there are two things you must remember about stocks and equity mutual funds.

1. Get ready to stay in for the long haul and ride the ups and downs in the market.

2. While they have the potential for the highest return, they are more risky than other investments. So, however cautious you are, you may lose.

Jere answers:

No sane, rational, educated person believes in the myth of the free market.
There’s no market on Earth that doesn’t have some form of direct or indirect government activity.
The drooling idiots that sit around pretending otherwise need to give their heads a shake.

Jere answers:

Here are some top online strategy games.

Travian – Travian is a massively multiplayer resource management game where macro management is key to winning. Travian feels like a game of Risk, but with thousands of players online at any given time. With Travian, you will find a game in which MMO staples like fighting, levelling and resource-management sit alongside hanging around, lingering, and generally killing time.

Ikariam – An online civilization type mmo based on ancient Greece that reminds me a lot of Civilization or Age of Empires – except that you can play it in your web browser for free and you don’t have to download any software to your computer. It is also a micro-managing game of city expansion, alliances, residents you must keep happy, and resource managing, all in a multiplayer world.

Lords Of Evil – Lords of Evil is a browser based MMORPG where players take on the role of a tactician and lead their nation from rags to riches. Play as one of three races; Human, Orc or Demon. Construct castles, barracks and mines to amass enough gold, lumber, and ore to hire soldiers and assemble an army with which to raid other cities. Lords of Evil also features a nifty guild system and an auto levelling system, which allows your character to continue training while you are away.

If you need more, http://mygame.mmosite.com is the right place.

Jere answers:

Come on you made the game who said you need license to sell it. You made it you earn it and must earn what it worth’s. You have your own website put on it and put the right price of it what you think is right and i bet if people like it they will buy it and no one will stop you from selling it nor stop them from buying it.

Jere answers:

If you would like a realistic online business simulation I’d recommend you check out www.business-smart.com
Their simulations are not ‘gamesy’ like the tycoon games they are much more business like and are used in educational training such as universities and business training.
Hope this helps
Alford

Jere answers:

When naming your business don’t overlook the legal requirements. Ie you can’t use offensive words or words such as royal. Plus if you operate as a sole trader and your business name is not your own name (ie, if it’s not Joe Bloggs web design) then you have to make sure that your own name is on any letter headed paper, invoices etc.
See this link for more info http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?r.l1=1073858805&topicId=1073859929&r.l2=1073859131&r.s=tl
And for a short course in starting a small business & business planning which you can study from home with excellent tutor support, try http://rebecca-swift.co.uk/courses.aspx

Jere answers:

There are a ton of “Tycoon” games. It really depends on what industry you are looking at. There is Monopoly Tycoon which is a sort of general industry one. But depending on what you like, I am sure there is a Tycoon game that addresses it.

Jere answers:

Just take the help of internet to search for the related degrees, good luck

Jere answers:

If you do not have any education in the events management side of things I would think your best bet would be to go to school,Most company’s that you work for require a degree of some form.Once you have a degree you can go to job fairs and things like that to find a job i n that field If you are interested in marketing a product of your own I would search the internet until you found something that I think would be worth marketing and then I would get the training from them.
Amber

Jere answers:

There are many career paths for someone with a journalism/communications degree, and perhaps surprisingly you don’t need a master’s for a lot of them. While it is true that the media industry is going through a sea change brought on by the growth of digital publishing and the Internet, the keyword you should take note of is “growth.” We are in an information economy, which means that people who are skilled at packaging and presenting information in a compelling way are going to be valuable in the workplace. This is true for reporters, editors, authors, public relations and marketing professionals, advertising creatives, graphic designers, public speakers, public information officers, and the list goes on.

True, journalism is not the most lucrative field you can be in, but there are opportunities to make good money with the right experience and area of expertise. This is what you would want to consider in pursuing a master’s degree; focus on something specific such as a economics, science, technology or politics, so you can combine that with your more general journalism degree. I would recommend first getting your bachelor’s out of the way and trying to land an internship doing whatever it is you might want to do. That experience will be worth almost more when you start out than a piece of paper from a master’s program in journalism — unless your goal is to become a journalism professor.

The cost of your education can be whatever you want it to be. You can start cheaply at a community college or go large at Columbia School of Journalism. Credentials could make a difference in some fields, but that’s more a personal decision based on your goals and budget. Speaking strictly as a newspaper editor who got into this gig with a B.A. From a state college, I can tell you that my employer would take a serious look at someone who is aggressive, curious and has current digital and social media skills. There is a bright future in this field for someone who fits that profile.

Good luck with your education.

Jere answers:

Because a Communications degree gives you a range of skills, including writing, research and critical thinking, it will set you up to work in a variety of fields, including media, journalism, public relations, marketing, and advertising. These are all solid career fields where you can make a solid salary, especially as you advance your career and get more experience under your belt. Here are some details on each career, including day-to-day activities and salary information, to help you explore your options and decide which is best for you:

Advertising Careers
Advertisers must determine how to attract consumers to products/services and to ultimately stimulate purchase of them. Depending on your background (editorial or design), you could play one of several different roles in the production and execution of ads. For example, art directors and copywriters design advertising materials, account executives communicate with clients to determine their objectives and devise strategies, and media planners determine which media outlets the ads will appear in and also buy/sell media space. According to the U.S. Burea of Labor Statistics, the median annual salary for advertising executives is approximately $64,000. On average, entry-level advertising jobs start at $31,340. Those with 1-4 years of experience typically earn $41,739 and those with 5-9 years of experience earn $49,024 on average. For more information, visit http://www.myfootpath.com/career-profiles/advertising/.

Journalism Careers
A journalist may follow any number of career paths. Besides filling writing positions in the print media-newspapers, magazines-one can work as a news broadcaster. At the main desk as a news anchor, in the field as a general correspondant, or specializing in a specific area of the news, such as sports or weather, newscasters give a face to the news on television. In recent years some journalists have found a home in internet blogs; though they often pay little if anything, some blogs have grown to have as much influence as more traditional media. The average salary for a journalist is $33,470 with the middle fifty percent earning between $24,370 and $51,700 a year. For broadcast journalists, the average salary is $46,710, with the middle fifty percent earning between $30,080 and $83,370 a year. For freelance journalists, income is wholly dependent on the number of articles published, the rates paid by publishers, and the demand for that journalist’s writing. For more information, visit http://www.myfootpath.com/career-profiles/journalist/.

Marketing Careers
Marketing professionals measure the demand for products and services and identify potential customers. They also design pricing strategies, track and analyze industry trends, and monitor product development. They work with advertising and promotion executives to promote products/services and attract new customers. For additional information, including salary information, visit http://www.myfootpath.com/career-profiles/marketing/.

Public Relations Careers
PR specialists play a key role in helping institutions develop a positive image. Main job components involve research, writing, responding to outside inquiries, and establishing meaningful contact with the public. For example, they often compose favorable publicity materials and seek out media outlets in which their pieces are featured. For salary and additiona career information, visit http://www.myfootpath.com/career-profiles/public-relations/.

Jere answers:

Hi there

Yeah, definitely keep in mind to start with internet marketing, this is a great opportunity the earn money from home and have passive income.

There is a great company that has a whole suite of internet marketing tools, all
under one roof, for a really low monthly fee.
You get
– autoresponder, lead generation and mailing platform
– video conference/webinar software (similar to GoTo Meeting)
– video email service
– video producing and storage platform
– authority blog system

Jere answers:

Hello Just me,

This must be an exciting time for you. The Equinox is a great vehicle! I am providing a link that compares the Equinox to other similar vehicles. Http://www.chevrolet.com/tools/comparator/compareVehicle.do?pvc=10015&snType=model&year=2013. If you have other questions, we can be reached if you Email us.

Regards,

Laura M.
GM Customer Care

Jere answers:

100% scam.

That is a scammer trying to hi-jack your email address to spam all your contacts and then use the account to spam hundreds/thousands of others.

Yahoo and all email companies, all banks and all companies in the entire world will NEVER ask for your password, pin or date of birth. No Exceptions Ever.

Ignore and delete that email and any others demanding such information.

If you have responded to a scammer, you are on his ‘potential sucker’ list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of needing your password, great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.

Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don’t bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn’t worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.

Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money, email address or identity to a scammer.

If you google “yahoo email phishing scam”, “email hijacked viagara porn spammer” or something similar you will find hundreds of posts of victims and near victims of this type of scam.

In fact, if you check out the section here at Yahoo Answers entitled “Yahoo email, spam and bulk mail” you will find hundreds of questions from victims who have had their email address hi-jacked or spoofed by scammers sending out porn and viagra spam.

Jere answers:

Top 18 Free Email Services

If you are looking for a free email service, you can be picky.

You’ll be rewarded with plenty of storage, effective spam filtering, a fast interface, desktop email program and mobile access, and more. Find the top 18 free email services to choose from reviewed here.

1. Gmail – Free Email Service
Heinz TschabitscherGmail is the Google approach to email and chat. Practically unlimited free online storage allows you to collect all your messages, and Gmail’s simple but very smart interface lets you find them precisely and see them in context without effort. POP and powerful IMAP access bring Gmail to any email program or device.
Gmail puts contextual advertising next to the emails you read.
Gmail Review | Gmail Resources | Top 50 Gmail Tips | All Gmail Tips
.Sponsored Links
Stop Spam Now
Protect your Exchange Servers Try Vircom’s Email Filtering Free.
Www.vircom.com

Email Marketing Service
Try This Simple, But Powerful Email Marketing Tool. Get Free Trial.
Www.iContact.com

Send Personally
Personalised group mailing for Outlook.Free trial available!
Www.mapilab.com/
2. AIM Mail – Free Email Service
Heinz TschabitscherAIM Mail, AOL’s free web-based email service, shines with unlimited online storage, very good spam protection and a rich, easy to use interface.
Unfortunately, AIM Mail lacks a bit in productivity (no labels, smart folders and message threading), but makes up for some of that with very functional IMAP (as well as POP) access.
AIM Mail Review | AIM Mail Tips
.3. GMX Mail – Free Email Service
Heinz TschabitscherGMX Mail is a reliable email service filtered well of spam and viruses whose 5 GB of online storage you can use not only through a rich web interface but also via POP or IMAP from a desktop email program.
More and smarter ways to organize mail could be nice.
GMX Mail Review | GMX Mail Tips
.4. Yahoo! Mail – Free Email Service
Heinz TschabitscherYahoo! Mail is your ubiquitous email program on the web with unlimited storage and RSS news feeds, SMS texting and instant messaging to boot.
While Yahoo! Mail is generally a joy to use, free-form labelling and smart folders would be nice, and the spam filter could catch junk even more effectively.
Yahoo! Mail Review | Yahoo! Mail Resources | Yahoo! Mail Tips
.5. Zenbe Mail Personal – Free Email Service
Heinz TschabitscherZenbe Personal organizes your emails and attachments (from Zenbe and existing POP accounts) with labels and search — and integrates calendar, to-do list, twitter and Facebook updates, too.
With a focus on elegant simplicity, Zenbe provides many sweet shortcuts but also shows quirks and omissions in others. The spam filter is good, but it would be great if IMAP access was possible for all folders (not just the inbox).
Zenbe Personal Review | Zenbe Tips
.6. Gawab.com – Free Email Service
Heinz TschabitscherGawab.com is a speedy, stable and very usable free email service with 10 GB online space, POP and IMAP access as well as many a web-based goodie.
It’s a pity Gawab.com’s IMAP implementation does not give you access to labels, and full message search is missing from the web interface.
Gawab.com Review
.7. Inbox.com – Free Email Service
Heinz TschabitscherInbox.com not only gives you 5 GB to store your mail online but also a highly polished, fast and functional way to access it via either the web (including speedy search, free-form labels and reading mail by conversation) or through POP in your email program.
Unfortunately, IMAP access is not supported by Inbox.com, and its tools for organizing mail could be improved with smart or self-teaching folders.
Inbox.com Review | Inbox.com Tips
.8. FastMail Guest Account – Free Email Service
Heinz TschabitscherFastMail is a great free email service with IMAP access, useful features, and a stellar web interface.
It’s a pity FastMail does not offer truly effective spam filtering for free accounts, and more storage space for all users.
FastMail Review | FastMail Resources | FastMail Tips
.9. Windows Live Hotmail – Free Email Service
Heinz TschabitscherWindows Live Hotmail is a free email service that gives you 5 GB (and growing) of online storage, fast search, solid security, POP access and an interface easy as a desktop email program.
When it comes to organizing mail, Windows Live Hotmail does not go beyond folders (to saved searches and tags, for example), its spam filter could be more effective, and IMAP access to all online folders would be nice.
Windows Live Hotmail Review | Windows Live Hotmail Resources | Windows Live Hotmail Tips
.10. Yahoo! Mail Classic – Free Email Service
Heinz TschabitscherYahoo! Mail Classic is a comfortable, reliable and secure email service with unlimited storage. A pretty good spam filter keeps the junk out, and you can send rich emails using Yahoo! Mail’s HTML editor.

And more on following link…

Jere answers:

You can combine the two. Use a blog to display banners with your affiliate link for your affiliate products as well as post reviews on the affiliate products you are promoting.

Have a sign up form on your blog so you can do email marketing on products you are promoting. Also you need to join a RSS service ie Google’s Feedburner for new posts.

Jere answers:

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Worst Act! Ever, October 15, 2009
By Gary M. Sheppard (Granbury, TX USA) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
I recently purchased the new ACT! 2010 edition with high hopes that this would be a great new upgrade from previous editions. I have been an early adopter of ACT, having first used the product in 1987 and have used subsequent versions since. I stopped using ACT when they wouldn’t run on Vista when Vista first came out. At the time, I was surprised that a company like Sage would not have properly planned for the launch of Vista to at least have a product that would work with it.

Fast forward to now and my latest experience with ACT! 2010. What a disaster! At first, the downloaded version seemed to install correctly. But then I wanted to link my Outlook database with ACT and that didn’t work properly. Simple fields like “State” and “ZIP” were incorrectly matched so that “State” showed up under the “City” field in ACT and “ZIP” showed up in the “State” field.
Then another problem happened. I opened up my Outlook 2007 program and found a major fault. In short, Outlook was no longer able to send emails out, but I could still receive incoming mail. Somehow, ACT was forcing you to send emails within ACT and not through Outlook directly. I then re-started my computer hoping that the problem of not being able to send within Outlook would be resolved, but when I tried to open up Outlook again, it had become completely corrupted and was asking me to set up Outlook as if I was using it for the first time!

I immediately called ACT tech support and the solution they suggested was to uninstall Outlook and reinstall it. In other words, the solution was to wipe out every email I had ever sent or received and start over again. I have now spent the past several days reloading backed up versions of Outlook and trying to delete every instance of ACT 2010 on my computer.

This new ACT product does not have its act together and if you use Outlook at all, then ACT 2010 will become your living nightmare. My recommendation is to stay far, far away from ACT 2010 and avoid the aggravation and hassle of having to rebuild your Outlook files.

5.0 out of 5 stars Outlook Works Fine, October 23, 2009
By Karen Rankin (Boston, MA) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
I have installed ACT! 2010 on my laptop which has Outlook 2007 and did not have any problems sending or receiving emails in Outlook after the installation.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am an ACT! Certified Consultant. However, I did not do anything except run the installation file which uninstalled ACT! 2009 from the laptop and installed ACT! 2010. My database updated with no problem and Outlook continued to work with no problem.

My clients who have installed ACT! 2010 have not reported problems with Outlook either. There are many reasons why a user could have issues with Outlook and it seems unfair to blame the ACT! Application which might not be the cause of the problem.

The ACT! 2010 version has an updated user interface, a social media component and ACT! E-marketing capabilities that can be a huge benefit to businesses. For an independent review, check out PC Magazine at […]

Jere answers:

Hello there,

Congratulations on starting your own business! I hope you are very successful. Nice to see you are already thinking about marketing.

I am a list broker so I know exactly what you are looking for. Yes, most list companies sell mailing lists with a minimum of 5,000 names at a time. This can be very frustrating for small business owners who do not need this many records.

We have an online service where you can sign in with your username and password and take out as few names as you need every month. It is very reasonably priced.

No matter how you get your mailing list, I strongly urge you not to get random, untargeted names. You will waste your money.

As far as postage goes, if you mail first class, you will be able to track any that get returned, then you can take them off in time for your next mailing. Make sure you have your return address on the postcard!

Also, make sure your postcard has a strong call to action, like $50 off before the end of May. You must make people want to act.

Good luck to you! Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Suzanne Doyle-Ingram
Strategic List Services

Jere answers:

Good for you that you’re so goal directed at such a young age!

There are so many disciplines within the world of marketing, however if working in advertising is your goal, consider which aspects of that industry appeal to you– the creative, dealing with clients, brainstorming with a team, working through financials. Digital or social media. This is more for your own personal edification as it will narrow down your options when forming a game plan.

Once you get in the door of a place, you may surprise yourself discovering skills and interests you didn’t even know you had.

So all this aside, probably good to get a scope on the main places you could possibly work in advertising. There are others, but I’d say these are your primary categories:

– boutique ad agency
– small idigital marketing company
– funded internet start-up
– mid-to-large Madison Avenu-type agency (Saatchi,etc) or specialized agency (sports marketing,etc)
– mid-to-large digital marketing firm
– advertising or marketing communications dept. Of a large company like AT&T
– advertising or marketing department of a not-for-profit, education or government office

What’s the best way to get in the door? That’s a big question. A few suggestions in no particular order:

– internship while you’re in HS and college with a small agency
– offer to work for free for 2 weeks at small agency to prove your worth (side note: I mention small agency/company twice because I think you learn more faster at a small place. Plus you’ll figure out what you like to do and don’t like to do faster than you would at a large company possibly saving years you’d squander at a big company )
– get on linkedin and ask people in your field to have a 20 minute phone conversation with you about their experience
– get on blogs of marketers and ask questions, start conversations. Connect, connect, connect
– volunteer to help local organizations (ie. Animal shelters, etc) with their marketing for free to build resume
– if you like social promotion, you can probably get a low paying job out of the gate with little effort. This is biggest area of growth right now.
– Pick up phone and call some small companies that have big name accounts, offer to work for dirt pay so you can get these client names on your resume.
– for preparation, buy yourname.com and build it up. I would do this now. Also pick up your name on Twitter, blogger, tumblr. You can even join Linkedin now. Why not? I know a 14-yr-old developer who’s already establishing his reputation and getting work!
-reach out to friends, parents friends, casual contacts and ask them to pass along your name.

So that I’ve shotgunned these ideas, but there are some ordered steps to take:
– build your resume up with free/almost free work
– build your online reputation by getting involved in professional social sites, interacting on blogs. Keep your Facebook page clean and make it private. 95% of hiring managers will research you online.
– start off with a smaller company to figure out what you like to do faster
– start getting connected to influencers who will put in a good word for you

And of course, go through the traditional means of submitting resumes, calling, etc…and since you want to go into a creative area, get creative. Make yourself standout without doing goofy stunt-like stuff. You can google plenty of ideas for this.

A few words of warning… Don’t work for free for long, don’t believe the old myth of starting low on non-related rung of ladder (mailroom, admin assistand,etc)– it’ll only waste your time. Employers are more than willing to take advantage of young, cheap, capable labor. Be your own advocate. Once you’ve put in your time and worked hard, ask for what you want. Your employer will respect you for it.

Hope this helps. I’ve been in marketing for 20+ years and worked my way up from a copywriter to a VP of Marketing and now run own own small agency. Feel free to contact me if you want to pick my brain. My company is www.repaz.com

Jere answers:

Hi there,

Direct marketing is when a company contacts through e-mails and telephone calls the final consumer, i.e. The person who will use the product. What you do is just personal selling. I suppose you are also involved in sales.
The reasons why companies would like to do that is mainly costs and timing issues.

Theocharis Katranis

http://theos-taekwondo.blogspot.com/

Jere answers:

Marketing and getting sponsors is not always easy. Persistence and loads of patience is needed, as you have already discovered. Some marketing tips:

1. Direct mail. Prepare a well-crafted brochure and send it to your target markets in Sunnyvale. Find a vendor in your area renting mailing lists of business establishments or take the time and go over the yellow pages and get their contact information. You can read more of how to use direct marketing strategies here http://www.powerhomebiz.com/marketing/direct.htm

2. Publicity. Publicity can oftentimes be more effective than advertising. Not only is it cost-effective (oftentimes you are paying for nothing), but also people are apt to remember an article about your business rather than advertising. People find a write-up or special feature about a business more credible and objective than a paid advertising. Publicity also reaches a wider audience: if you are lucky, the national media might even pick up your story. Contact an editor of your local newspaper and pitch your story. Read the article “Leverage the Power of Publicity for Your Small Business”
http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol27/leverage.htm

3. Press releases. Send out press releases through your local newspapers about your business. Whether it is about your story or about a sale you are offering, press releases can be very good exposure for you. You can read more about how to harness press releases for your business here http://www.powerhomebiz.com/marketing/public%20relations.htm

4. Use the Internet. The Web can be your online brochure. You can use it to refer your potential clients for more information about your business; and it could also generate clients for you directly. Some of your potential clients may be looking to the Web for a floral designer, and you need to have a strong presence there as well.

5. Network. Join and be active in your local business organizations, chamber of commerce, etc. Increase your visibility in the community. You can find more information on networking here http://www.powerhomebiz.com/marketing/networking.htm

6. Word of mouth. This is the best form of advertising for your business – afterall, it is free. Read “Secrets of Word Of Mouth Marketing” http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol154/wordofmouth.htm

7. Cold calling. I think this is one of your best bet, especially if you have already been sending proposals to prospective sponsors. Here are some practical tips to increase your cold calling success http://www.powerhomebiz.com/blog/2006/05/tips-to-successful-cold-calling.html

Jere answers:

Both internet marketing and direct mail marketing are good strategies depending on the company/product/service you are promoting. It is also faulty to think you have to choose one or the other. Most successful marketing campaigns use multiple media in a coordinated strategy in order to maximize reach and frequency. For example, you may have a website that has a lot of details about your company, order forms, etc. A postcard mailer letting a targeted audience know about the website and potentially a special offer, will help to boost traffic to your site. Likewise, you could use an e-mail campaign to get people to sign up to get a catalogue of your products. The interenet is attractive because your business is an internet-based business. However, many potential customers will never find you on the internet if you don’t tell them via some non-internet means (direct mail, radio, print ads, etc.) I hope this helps! Good luck!

Jere answers:

True Image is good, but it can be a little flakey in my experience. I wouldn’t use it as my only backup system, as I don’t have complete confidence in it restoring my PC. Also, support is a bit weak.

If you use Vista Home Premium, Business or Ultimate, the built in backup is really good. You can schedule backups for all your files, or take an image or your PC like you can with Acronis TI.

Another good backup program (if you don’t have Vista) is Backup4All – http://www.backup4all.com Costs about $40.

Finally, as both of these measures might not be enough if your house burns down or you’re burgled, I use Mozy online backup ( https://mozy.com/ref/982Q8F ). This is a great program. You install it and it saves your files to a website over the internet. If the worst ever happens, you just download all your files again when you get another PC.

Mozy offer a 2Gb account for free (which is quite a lot – enough for hundreds of files or photos) but also unlimited backup for $4.95/month, if you have a lot of files. I’ve been using it for about 6 months, and it works great.

Jere answers:

Recommend Sugarsync. It is best backup provider that will send backup online from one mac to another. See how.

SugarSync is a Cloud storage application that lets you share and store file across multiple computers, hand held devices, and even online. SugarSync’s compatibility to multiple operating systems is what makes SugarSync a distinct and the most widely used storage solution.

As Mac is considered as a versatile business computing machine, SugarSync for Mac allows users to readily share and store files from their Mac computers. SugarSync for Mac allows users to define the files they want to save online and then through the highly functional console present in the desktop application, it places the data in exceptional cloud environment.

In addition SugarSync Mac also allows users to synchronize their files across multiple devices, however, it does not show how much time will it take for a file to sync.. Users can use the advanced synchronization ability via the desktop application or through the web application that SugarSync maintains online.

SugarSync for Mac also allows users to share their data with multiple users. Not only can Mac users share the data with other Mac users but they can also let users from other devices access the data through public and private compartments on their Cloud storage.

Jere answers:

I’ve been using Mozy for Mac in beta for about two months and just love it. Its seamless, works in the background and dirt cheap imo especially as I use it for my business. No issues whatsoever. Its really the only offsite Mac backup solution available right now and I’ve searched everything.

Jere answers:

Some of the items you mention are already sold through various MLM organisations. They will give you the backup of a big organisation.

Drop shipping means that you don’t have to handle the actual product at all – you sell it, the manufacturer does the packaging and despatch.

Ebay has got very greedy recently and is about to put up its fees again, severely penalising low volume sellers who don’t qualify for the discounts. There are other online auction sites – just google for them.

I would tend to say – stick to just one or two items that you know are something that everyone uses and needs, and don’t diversify too much. Don’t get into anything that involves YOU holding stock if you can avoid it.

Jere answers:

My friend it is not telling about the space of your computer but it is telling about the space (Online storage space) that Symantec people gave you when you bought that product. The Norton will automatically backup photos, videos and others from your computer to your Symantec account. Normally they give you 2GB of online storage for you (other than your PC) So that if accidentally your computer crashes and lost the whole data, then you can download those lost data from your Norton account which was backed up before. So Norton has filled up this 2GB space and to back up more data it’s asking you to buy more storage. So if you think that your computer doesn’t crash or You have no important data on your computer then change the settings of the Noton Backup. Change the Norton Backup from Automatic to manual and Don’t buy more storage.

Jere answers:

A few guidelines:

1. Make sure you are not spending more per lead than you make on a sale. Seems obvious but you’d be surprised.

2. Figure out of how many leads you need to finalize an actual sale and how much profit you make from that sale.

3. Make sure you are not spending more per lead than the amount you make on a sale divided by the number of average leads you need to make a sale.

Example:

You’re selling a product that costs $5.
For each item sold, you make a $3 profit.
After analyzing the number sales that resulted from people clicking your ads against the total number of people who clicked on your ads, you realize that for every 10 people who click on your ad, you make 1 sale on average.

If your data is solid and spanned over a long period of time you can eventually assume that for every person who clicks on your ad you make a $0.30 profit.

Therefor you should be spending less than $0.30 per click or you’ll be losing money.

I’m assuming the only purpose of those ads is to generate sales and not brand awareness.

As for the daily budget, it depends on what your company can afford and its marketing strategy.

Jere answers:

There are several marketing techniques that are in use today.

#1 You can purchase leads from a lead provider normal cost is approximately $25.00-$35.00 per lead and there is a minimum purchase amount like about 100 per purchase. Some of these are retreads, so you are really guessing which are real or is this someone that just like talking on the phone.

There are cheaper ones but they have been around the block a few times. So you are really guessing on these leads.

#2 There is telemarketing, but then there is the “Do not call list” So you have to be careful there and not make a mistake or you will be sued.

#3 Advertise in the local newspaper that you are now in the business of doing loans

#4 You can direct mail to individuals that you are in the business of doing loans.

I suggest you secure your own leads by leaving the office and spending time in a area that you want to work and get to know the people that could be your future clients.

Find an area in your city that you want to work approximately 5,000-10,000 houses. Make you enough flyers to cover your area. If you have children this will be a good weekend activity for them as well as yourself. While walking the area passing out your flyers, if you see someone out doing the lawn or just out introduce yourself, give them one of your cards. See if they are willing to give you their name and email address so you can email them, on a monthly basis, things about the mortgage industry as well as your monthly newsletter. Place any information you collect in a data base that you should start.

Your flyer should tell them a little about you a few of the loan programs that you will be offering and introducing. This is an introductory flyer that you can make on your computer. You can get them ran off at Staples or Office Depot.

You should pass these type flyers out at least 3 months in a row. This will let them know that you are sincere and look as if you will be there for them.

You should also visit the local commercial places in the same area. Find out if they will allow you to place a flyer holder in their business, give them one of your business cards, find out their
name, write it down you never want to forget it because they will become one of your partners. Buy something even if you are gonna give it away and don’t need it. Do this to as many commercial businesses in the area as will allow you to place a flyer holder in their place of business. You will find the flyer holders at Staples or Office Depot..

Call the post office and inquire about their bulk mailing stamp. Get one and learn the system of bulk mailing.

Also call your title company and get them to provide you with the names of the people in your area that you have been passing out your flyer.

Remember your data base you were starting and now should have over a thousand names that you alone should have been able to get if you have been walking the area.

Once you have passed out the flyers for at least 3-4 months start you a newsletter covering topics on the mortgage business. Get articles from your local newspaper as well as off the internet. Just remember to give credit to the author of the article. You might have a doctor, lawyer or some other professional to help you on your articles. Charge them for the articles, about 50% of the cost of the newsletter.

Now remember the businesses that you had your flyers in and you now know their names because you have been there to change your flyers about 2 times per month. Place your news letter in these businesses also.

The best thing about these businesses is now you want to see if they will advertise in your business newsletter being sent to the local area in which their business is located. You should be able to charge them about $45.00 to $50.00 per business size card advertisement. Try and get them to place a coupon in the flyer offering some type of discount if the customer bring the coupon in to their store.

Now you will need a professional team to assist you in your business. You will need an attorney, a notary, a title rep, an insurance agent that sell homeowners insurance policies and a real estate agent. You should pass out their cards to your clients that need their services and they should pass out your business cards to their clients that need your services. This should give you a steady supply of referrals. This should not be a one way street, they should be helping you as much as they are in the habit of helping you. So you might have to change your professional team to get what need to be accomplished.

Now that you have your bulk stamp, your newsletter and your data base that you have now added from your title rep to the names you had already. You are now ready to mail or email your newsletter each month.

Don’t forget to offer your clients a FSBO package, where you will qualify their possible buyers if they are not pre-approved already. You will want to assist them in setting up an open house where you will be there to assist potential buyers and most importantly pre-approve all those that come to look at the house that aren’t. This will give you a steady source of leads also. This should always be in your monthly newsletter that you will assist all those that want to sell their own property. You can charge them $500.00 for providing escrow service, title services, appraisals and other services they will need to close the transaction. With the $500.00 you should be able to place an ad in the local paper of all open houses you will be conducting on the 2nd and 4th weekend of each month or whatever weekend you chose to have open houses.

What ever you do, don’t try to talk them out of selling their own home, you are there to assist and get to the clients that need pre-approval for loans to purchase homes. They would not be at an open house unless they were considering buying. Always have an ample supply of 1003’s on hand.

I hope this has been of some help to you, good luck.

“FIGHT ON”

Jere answers:

You want to talk about a very effective and efficient way of creating new business for smaller to mid-size businesses with a limited budget….simple cold call them.
Reason why so many like yourself avoid cold calling is simple because you don’t do it correctly and if you are like most, myself included, you have contact reluctance.
Dollar for dollar, the telephone is the way to go, but you have many different avenues open to you, including Internet, mail, media.
What ever you choose, make sure you know who your customer is going to be first….otherwise you are destined to get stuck in the muck.

Jere answers:

Here are the top 10 marketing strategies to help boost your websites.

1) Start with a web promotion plan with effective web design and development strategy.

2) Get ranked at top search engines, & practice Search Optimization Techniques.

3) Learn to use Email Marketing Effectively.

4) Dominate your marketing niche with affiliate, reseller, and associate programs.

5) Request an analysis from an Internet marketing coach/ consultant.

6) Build a responsive opt-in email list.

7) Publish articles or get listed in news stories.

8) Write and publish online press releases.

9) Facilitate and run contests and giveaways via your web site.

10) Blog and interact with your visitors.

Jere answers:

1. Television
2. Internet
3. Crowdfunding

Jere answers:

Wow, sounds like you are a bit busy at the moment!

I have written a few business plans for small businesses and could help you by reviewing your draft and giving you some feedback if you’d like? Just email me or give me a link to download your draft.

Also, I have some tips and templates for writing business plans on my blog that might be useful to you: http://www.katrinasarena.com/2009/08/25/killer-business-plan-in-9-easy-steps-incl-template/

All the best!
— Katrina

Jere answers:

Hi there

You can use some of the following methods to improve traffic to your blog:

– PPC (like google adwords, but there are lots of other PPC services) – paid traffic
– Video Marketing (especially YouTube)
– here at Yahoo! Answers
– do SEO
– submit articles about your topic
– Squidoo and Hubpages
– Blog commenting
– Forum posting
– Craigslist
– email marketing
– Ad Swaps / Solo Ads – paid traffic

Jere answers:

You want a print-on-demand service, not a publisher. The main ones are lulu.com and createspace.com. There isn’t much to choose between them – Lulu is a bit easier to use, but CreateSpace is a bit cheaper.

You decide what paper size and binding type you want, then download an appropriate template from the site. You copy your book into this template and adjust the formatting as necessary. For the cover, you can supply your own, or bribe another friend to do one for you, or both sites have wizards you can use. Make sure you don’t select any of the extra services, such as editing or marketing support, as those are quite expensive. Order and pay for one copy. (Lulu used to have a deal where they’d give you one free copy of the first book you uploaded to them. I didn’t know this, and ended up ordering two copies when I wanted only one. So check your email for a voucher code before you order your book.)

Unless your book is the size of a dictionary or needs colour printing for the interior, one copy should cost you less than $10 (plus shipping).

Jere answers:

Blogger is unique in that it is owned by Google, so they offer settings to make it easier, to not only get each post indexed, but to communicate with other blogging communities.

These are the most vital settings for your blog.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you click “save settings” after each change you make, and after all is done, don’t forget to republish your blog!

Blogger presents a variety of settings for your blog, available under Settings tab, which makes your Blogger more search friendly, besides just entering the URL into Google search

Basic Description

Be sure to fill this one out properly. The description shows on most of your posts and your homepage (depending on the template), and it is also used in various places like search engines and blog directories. Try to write a brief summary of the main theme or focus of your blog here. Also try to use some keywords.

Add your blog to our listings?

This should certainly be “yes”, unless you’re starting a private blog.

Show email post links?

This puts up a link on all your post that enables readers to send that post to their friends by email. This should also be “yes”, it is a nice feature, and also triggers free “word-of-mouth” marketing.

Publishing
Notify weblogs.com

This feature allows automatically pinging weblogs.com every time you post a new article. It is very useful, and helps improve the recognition of your blog. So do turn it to “yes”.

Archiving
Enable post pages?

Make sure that this is also “yes”. This way, every single post you make has it’s own URL, and can be easily linked to. It also helps with the search engines.

Site Feed
Publish Site Feed?

Again, “yes”. This enables the atom feed subscription service to your blog. Readers who subscribe, receive notification each time you make a new post, and can also choose to read your blog through popular feed reader software.

Just copy the URL of your blog’s atom feed, and paste it into the template in the sidebar section.

Blogger only provides atom feed, but it is also a good idea to include an RSS feed as well, which is a “plug-in” available in the “add gadgets” tab.

Jere answers:

Http://www.befunky.com/
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Your own collage photo effect. Many templates to choose from, very easy to use. Completely online so no downloads required.

Http://www.pizap.com/
piZap is an online photo editor that allows anyone to add objects and text to their pictures to give them a goofy look.

Http://www.pixlr.com/
Pixlr is a free online image editor, jump in and start edit, adjust, filter and much more.

Http://www.imagechef.com/
With ImageChef anyone can create a custom image without any technical knowledge or advanced tools. Modify text in a variety of image templates to create professional quality images with your own personal touch.

Http://www.magmypic.com/
MagMyPic allows users to combine their picture with custom made Magazine covers in the likeness of popular Magazines. MagMyPic is an affiliate marketing effort that works to distribute and market subscriptions to each of the magazines displayed on MMP while providing a fun and entertaining way for users to display their picture.

Www.flauntr.com/
flauntR is a free online photo editor and effects software. Apply 1000s of digital photo effects to your images with just one click. Get images directly from FlickR or your PC. Use the online photo album feature for photo storage, and access your albums online. Share your creations by email, edit pictures online for embedding on your web page and blog.

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FotoFlexer is one of the most advanced online digital photo editor. It performs advanced effects previously only available to professionals using expensive software. FotoFlexer integrates with leading photo sites and social networks. Import and export photos with ease.

Www.phixr.com/
Phixr is a web-based images editor that you can access from any computer. You simply need to upload your pictures and make all the changes you want. After editing your images, Phixr enables you to upload them to Flickr, Fotopic, Livejournal, Photobucket,

http://pixer.us/
pixer.us is a web-based application that will allow you to fix and edit your photo online using only your browser.

Jere answers:

Traditional – Print Ads, TV, Radio, Internet banners

direct marketing a.k.a – referral marketing. Word of mouth. Someone saw a great movie told his family and friends.

Or a great restaurant you recommended to friends….that’s direct marketing

i work for a company that sells traditional advertising or “underwriting for non-profit org)

and I have a business that uses direct-marketing

Best,

leezel
www.AllSmartTravel.com

Jere answers:

In a sense, yes it’s true: Direct Marketing companies have almost no fixed cost for keeping someone on their recruited lists. Thus, it’s up to you whether you sell or no. In that sense, you’re your own boss: you set up your schedule, client visiting strategies, and the like. However, being your own boss means that you don’t have ehlp from your boss either. There are indeed successfulll people among the direct marketing ranks. However, they are very few since it takes a lot of will, courage and stubborness to keep trying to sell on spite of many many failures, to stick to a working schedule, etc.

Jere answers:

Foreign Direct Investment or FDI is the investment by foreign companies/ promoters/ individuals directly in Indian companies so that their investment money can be used by the company for setting up plants/ projects/ factories etc. Let us say when for example Bill Gates or Microsoft brings in dollars to set up a software development company in India, it is foreign direct investment. Or, if General Motors set us a car manufacturing factory in India on their own or in collaboration with an Indian party, it is foreign investment. The dollars generally create new assets and the investment is mostly in equity stake (although they may in addition also invest in the companies bonds/ debetures) and the objective is to make the Indian company grow and give benefits to the investor in the for of dividend. Unlike FDI, Foreign portfolio inverstment (FPI)are mde bu foreign investors/ companies. Fund managers to acquired already isuued shares or fresh shares with the primary objective of making capital gains by selling the shares in the stock market. FPI may also invest in debentures.
Often the distinction gets blurred as FDI may come to buy shares of Indian companies from the existing shareholders/ promoters owning these shares to bring them under the foreign investors’ management control or partial control. And, FPI may come to acquire freshly issued shares or debentures convertible into shares, whther listed or not on the stock exchanges at the time of issue. The key thing here is to distinguish between the objective or motivation: in the case of FDI the interest is in setting up/ running/ managing companies as owner while FPI is a pure financial investment looking for future opportunities to sell the shares/ debentures at a profit because of the good performance or expected good performance of the companies in which FPI takes stake. Thus, FPI of a foreign investor is as part of portfolio investment management and therefore the FPI investor goes in and out of shares by buying and selling and simulateneously holding some small shareholding if a number of companies. On the other hand, the FDI investor is focussed on one or two companies and takes very large or controlling stake and manages the company and ithe interest is not in buying the shares at a low price and selling the shares at higher price later.
Both FDI and FPI are good. But many countries are scared that when there is panic in the stock markets, the FPI investors just sell their shares and take the foreign currency/ dollars to invest elsewhere – they come in and go out. However, unless the entire comapny has become difficult to run anymore FDI investors do not sell their shares and go away. The FPI is terefore susciptible to shocks in the stock market and also impacts the stock market considerably. FDI however is not so resposive to what happens to the stock market nor does FDI get influenced by stock market movements.
Just an analogy, FDI is like Mr, Ratan Tata or his industrial companies investing in a new car company while FPI is like Tata Mutual Fund investing in different companies from automobiles to IT, from cement to stell, from airlines to entertainment – a whole range of stocks.
Since among FPI investors there are many who are short-term investors always looking for opportunities to gain from trading in shares and other fianncial instruments, their investment are short-term in nature and highly volatile in terms of moving into and out of the country. For weak economies such volatility may create pressures on the foreign exchange and the cause volatility in stock market prices. Many policy makers just do not like such speculative investing and uncomfortable to deal with them. So they think that FPI are safer and long term. But when they stock market becomes big and matured enough, the volatile part of FPI becomes very negligible comared with the size of the stock market. So, these fears go away. Moreover, individual FPI investors may be going out and coming in but the overall FPI may remain the same and grow. China had no other alternative but to depend on FDI because even now China does not have local private entreprenurs worth the name, nor did she have many commercially viable public sector companies that can be listed and which are capable of disclosure and corporate governance of even standards India has already reached. It may also be noted FPI’s bring in both foreign exchange and create employment. It is because of the activities of FPI that more and more FDI investors get interested in coming to emerging countries. Equally important, FPI’s also invest in IPOs of companies where by the local companies get resources required to set up their factories, acquire new equipment and employ new people on that basis. FPI also includes foreign private equity funds and foreign venture capital funds which not only foreign exchange to the country and create new industrial / services capacity and employment but also help bringin management and technical inputs to new firms. Unfortunately, the bookish economists, policy makers and all knowing politicians largely no very little about the various dimensions and nuances of FDI and FPI and in the process mislead common people and equally dangerous adopt wrong economic policies due to simple ignorance and fear of the strange.

Jere answers:

Outsourcing is when a something is done on behalf of a company/person by a contractor. The people that are doing the job are not employees of the company that they are representing.

Direct marketing is marketing/advertising that is done directly to individuals. This could be in the form of direct mailings (junk mail), direct e-mail (spam), telemarketing or distribution of fliers/coupons such as placing them on doors, under windshield wipers or passing them out to passerbys.

Just a side note – if you are looking at this as a “work from home” opportunity, it is in all likelihood a scam/con and is usually referred to as “envelope stuffing”. The FTC has issued numerous warnings against these types of frauds.

Jere answers:

You’ve already received some great answers!

Here are a couple of articles that may help:
http://americatakingaction.com/Bookwise/benefits.htm
http://americatakingaction.com/Bookwise/deal.htm

Direct marketing is the ultimate word of mouth marketing and is becoming more and more the mainstream. As Andy Sernovitze points out in his book of the same name (http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=blended&keywords=word%20of%20mouth%20marketing&_encoding=UTF8 ), Companies can no longer ignore what consumers are saying. With the internet bringing the world so close together, if a customer isn’t happy with the product, they can easily tell hundreds, even thousands of people!

Direct Marketing, if you choose the right company, also provides the benefit of giving the sales force residual income. In other words– direct marketing sales reps can build an income that will continue to provide a paycheck even in the event of an accident or illness that prevents you from working the business for a time, or even death.

I believe that regardless of whether or not an individual is engaged in a traditional job, everyone should find a direct marketing company that they can be passionate about and start building residual income that will see them through whatever the future holds. There are many excellent companies, but my #1 suggestion is Bookwise.

Sharilee Guest
Sharilee@americatakingaction.com
mybookwise.com/nonprofits
hookedonabook.wordpress.com

Jere answers:

I would expect the refund to show up by Wednesday at the earliest. Takes 3 to 5 business days ( you did this on a Friday, so it didn’t even start to process until today, Monday I bet ) to get a refund.

Jere answers:

Zero is the minimum deposit for a personal account . It may be different from bank to bank – just shop around.

A corporate account (called here a business account) will want a deposit to open, but I did not need to deposit any particular amount when I opened mine (a while ago now). Again, shop around.

Transit account – never heard of it. What is it?

Safety – pretty good on both personal and corporate accounts. You must not be careless with your banking details – if you are negligent, you become liable for all losses.

Offshore account – in UK, you can have such an account, but you must declare the account, and report income for tax purposes. If you do not, that is a criminal act.

Maximum to transfer in – no limit, but all transfers, deposits in cash, and withdrawals in cash over a certain limit must be explained (because of the money laundering regulations).

Jere answers:

You can do just about anything! I’ve been on-line banking for 20+ years. I never go to a branch (in fact I haven’t used a bank in my home town for almost 20 years).

I have Ally savings and checking.
I can deposit checks using a smart phone or scanner (takes about 2.5 minutes).
I have not tried to deposit cash or checks through another banks ATM…. But have done so with my old on-line bank. I would be surprised if it didn’t work… Call Ally and ask. (Great customer service).

They also allow you to transfer funds between accounts & banks at no charge.
Bill pay is free.
Check out PopMoney with Ally (you can send money via an email or cell phone to others @ no charge).
If someone has a service like PopMoney…. The answer is absolutely! The weakness will be with their bank (not Ally) if it can’t be done.

Unless you need commercial banking (you own a business)…. I can’t think of one reason to use a “traditional” bank.

Jere answers:

The best one is the Pentagon credit union. They do not invest in environmentally damaging industries, have a totally electronic transaction option for customers and excell in providing loans and deposit accounts to ordinary Americans.

Jere answers:

If you see a link that says “Add bank” in your account overview click on that. It will ask for two info, Your routing number and account number. If you enter those, PayPal will send you two penny deposits in random and that takes 3 days. I you notice there have been deposits log back to your account and click the link that says “confirm bank” if the two amounts are correct you get notification your bank has been verified and you get to transfer funds from your bank. If you notice only one amount deposited, that’s a lump sum and your bank mistook it as just one deposit so call customer services and have rep do the verification for you.

Adding funds from the bank takes 3 days but adding a credit card ot the the atm card from the same bank account makes transactions instant. Well not really instant since PayPal just fronts the money and then turns around to take the money from your bank which really takes 3-4 business days no matter what.

Jere answers:

Well first off, if you are not on the web, you are invisble in todays market place I hate to say.

So I would go to www.GoDaddy.com and spend $9.20 for a dot com (per year) and you will also get a free email address and a free forwarding of the dot com (pointing it to an actual site). Most others charge for email and forwarding, GoDaddy is by far the best.

Next get on www.Blogger.com or www.WordPress.com and set up a blog in your company name. You choose the colors, layout, and what it says. Upload some pictures, etc of your business, of work done before and after. Now take this address (sallysmithwoodworking.blogger.com) and put that into your GoDaddy account as the forwarding address. Now when people go to the dot com, they will be transfered to your blog aka your site. Blogs are free.

Now get on YouTube.com and set up a free account again under your business name. Either video tape a few items you do or have someone do it. Then upload these videos to your YouTube account. You can even link these videos onto your blog as well to be viewed there. Blog instructions will guide you on how to do this, real easy.

Next get on MySpace.com and again, set up a free account here. Choose your colors, layout, etc. And again put in info, text of what you do, pictures, video’s, etc.

Now the purpose of all this is to get massive exposure on the internet. For that is how people find you and your business. Since you have a dot com, that will show up in search results. Don’t forget to do the keywords (words that fit your business… Like wood, cherry, walnut, “your town”, “your city”, cabinets, tables, antiques, etc… These “keywords” are what seach engines hunt for, so use words wisely).

But as well as your dot com gaining traffice… That blog will gain traffic through the blog itself and its ability to post items into search engines for you. Each posting you put into a blog can be found via a search say on google.

This again is true with YouTube and MySpace. And since you are already using Yahoo Answers. Again, I would set up an account with your company name and answer questions pertaining to your craft and knowledge. Again, these too will show up in search engine results. Sign each answer with your company name or dot com, to again make it appear over n over again as well.

The more times you show up, the more the search engine realizes this and bumps you up the line of search results. That is how you get near the top or not near the top, by how many times your info is “hit”.

Now besides a night or two of playing w/ premade templates and choosing colors and what you want to say about your business. All you have spent is $9.20 yet you have accomplished what $10,000+ would of done if you paid another to do this and/or print work as well.

Besides this, make sure you are in phone book and online phonebook, same company.

You can run weekly ad’s on www.Craigslist.com about your business. Many people shop that free site. Posting, etc is all free there.

Local papers ad’s in the back are cheap but don’t get much notice. Coupon books and monthly Val Pak’s only work for certain businesses. High investment to “test” the waters.

Jere answers:

I am a professonal Alaskan wildlife and nature photographer and I also run the Photography Division at the Alaska State Fair. Most non-professionals who have 5,000 photos on their hard drive – about 10-18 are totally awesome, 20 or so are pretty nice but need major editing to be marketable, and about 100 that appeal to special interest. You need to first start culling out the photos – get down to your best.

Next – you need to asses the photos. If they are 35mm, large format, or taken with a 6mp or larger digital camera – these have enough resolution for commercial use. Anything smaller you might not be able to sell.

Once you’ve narrowed your photos down to your best – create a portfolio of images at least 13×19 printed on good paper. These you can show to anyone local that may use them.

You need to find a printer in your area that will work with you. Yes, online is cheaper, but, if someone orders a print and it arrives damaged or the wrong tint – you are usually unable to get a refund or reprint. Dealing with a local printer face to face is money well spent. Later on if one of your photos becomes famous – then look online for a mass printing 🙂

You need exposure. Look for events where you can enter into local contests – earn some ribbons for your work! Start getting noticed. Phone books always look for local photos – so submit some to Alaskan ones. Do not enter any online contests – these are usually just people looking to rip off free nice photos. Take some of your best work and make them into enlargements 24×36 or larger – find public places that will let you display them – libraries, city halls, public buildings, hospitals, medical buildings – get your work up on some walls!

Once you get some ribbons and awards – you have a toe hold to start talking and begining marketing your work. Web sites are inexpensive if you do most of your own work – there are ALLOT of web templates specific to photographers you can buy for a few bucks a month that look like an expensive custom site where you can show your work online. These also help prevent your work from being stolen, downloaded and misused.

Do not print up anything you do not want to hang in your house! LOL. Good chance the photos you have printed and like the best………these won’t be the ones people want. I have seen this happen many, many times.

It could take you a long, long time to go through all your photos. Like eating an elephant – just take it one bite at a time. Best to find someone TRAINED or with artistic skills to look over what you think are the best – and suggest crops, changes etc. Have thick skin, and, don’t take any negative critiques personal – this is a must during the process.

One last bit of advice. If you really enjoy photography – don’t turn this into a job. Only work on your photos when you enjoy it – your entheuism will be part of your marketing. You don’t want to end up like some burned out photographers in a little booth at the mall……….

If you have any questions, feel free to email me.

Kevin

Jere answers:

Might help:

Outlook 2007 Best Practices: Write great e-mail: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/outlook-2007-best-practices-write-great-e-mail-HA010387497.aspx?ION_CL=10470

HTML EMail:

G-Lock EasyMail: http://www.glockeasymail.com/

How to Code HTML Email Newsletters: http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/code-html-email-newsletters

How to Create and Send HTML Email: http://www.addme.com/newsletters/issue293.htm

Email Marketing Articles and Guides: http://www.mailchimp.com/articles/stupid-html-email-design-mistakes/

How to Create and Send HTML Email: http://www.addme.com/newsletters/issue293.htm

How to Create Great HTML Emails with CSS: http://www.webreference.com/programming/css_html/

30 Free HTML email templates: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/templates/

How do you typically create HTML email?: http://webdesign.about.com/b/2008/10/02/poll-how-do-you-typically-create-html-email.htm

Google: http://www.google.com/search?q=HTML+Email+software&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Jere answers:

What do you do when your eating? Watching tv, on the computer, going out with friends, boredom?? If you think about it, does everything you do revolve around eating to entertain yourself. I lost 80lbs with Weight Watchers Points system, and a program called, Power 90, P90x, now P90x+. With the Weight Watchers, you can eat whatever you want, you have a set limit number of points you can eat during the day, and incorporate some kind of activity to lose weight, and drink more Water, protein water, flavored water, diet green tea….etc. Here are some websites to help you, if you need more info or help, feel free to email me. Good luck, and YOU CAN DO IT!!! I did!

Http://www.weightwatchers.com/templates/marketing/Landing_1col_nonav.aspx?PageId=1062601

http://dwlz.com/

http://www.sublogic.com/points/

http://www.decreasingdiane.com/slider1.htm

http://www.beachbody.com/jump.do?itemType=HOME_PAGE

http://www.cheapvitamins.com/Product/Xenadrine-Nrg.aspx?gclid=CKaP3PDMsZMCFSUaagodWEfpoA

http://recipes.chef2chef.net/recipe-archive/33/179192.shtml

The Points system and the workouts changed my life….I never succeded at any weight loss program until these came along.

Jere answers:

I set people up on a daily business with their own online businesses and it really is very simple my own thing that i would say is do something that is

a – has a market
b – that you know

i.e. When people contact me the first thing i ask them is what there hobbies are and what jobs theyve had in the past. Instead of doing lipbalms find something that you know a lot about.

I set one lady up that was a fashion jornalist and she now does her thing selling clothes online, talking about what the celebs wear, how to get clothes for cheap etc.

Another lady who lives in the states is a final year student in webdesign and now has her own website selling web templates and it means she’ll now have her uni debts paid off before she leaves.

Its just about finding something your good at and sticking with it. If you want some tips im happy to guide you in the right direction and my email address is in my profile.

Kind regards

sam
X

Jere answers:

Relationship marketing is a form of marketing developed from direct response marketing campaigns conducted in the 1970’s and 1980’s which emphasizes customer retention and satisfaction, rather than a dominant focus on ‘point of sale’ transactions.

Relationship marketing differs from other forms of marketing in that it recognizes the long term value to the firm of keeping customers, as opposed to direct or “Intrusion” marketing, which focuses upon acquisition of new clients by targeting majority demographics based upon prospective client lists.

According to Leonard Berry*, relationship marketing can be applied: when there are competitive product alternatives for customers to choose from; and when there is an ongoing and periodic desire for the product or service.

*Berry, Leonard (1983). Relationship Marketing. American Marketing Association, Chicago, 146. ISBN 0877571619

Jere answers:

Foreign Direct Investment is a long-term investment made by an enterpise that is situated in a foreign country. The following tyes of FDI exist:

Greenfield investment: when a new facility is set up or existing facilities are expanded. In this case the company sets up a factory in another county to produce goods. These type of investments usually benefit both the local country and the investor.

Mergers and Acquisitions are the other form of FDI, which are cross-boarder mergers or acquisitions. In case of mergers ompanies at two or many different countries merge into one company, while in case of acquisitions the control of assets and operations is transferred from a local to a foreign company, with the local company becoming an affiliate of the foreign company.

There are two other types of FDI, based on the type of industry the investments are made. In case of Horizontal FDI the company invests into a similar industry as it is operating in in the home country, while in case of VERTICAL FDI the investment is made into a different industry, either to create imputs (backwards integration) or another industry that uses the outputs of the local industry (forward integration).

The reasons for FDI are:
Resource Seeking: such as cheap labour or resources.
Market Seeking: so as to penetrate new markets or maintaining existing ones. ]
Efficiency Seeking: by exploiting the benefits of economies of scale and scope.

Jere answers:

Market Research is a systematic, objective collection and analysis of data about a particular target market, competition, and/or environment. It always incorporates some form of data collection whether it be secondary research (often referred to as desk research) or primary research which is collected direct from a respondent.

The purpose of any market research project is to achieve an increased understanding of the subject matter. With markets throughout the world becoming increasingly more competitive, market research is now on the agenda of many organisations, whether they be large or small.

The Market Research Process
To conduct market research, organisations may decide to undertake the project themselves (some through a marketing research department) or they might choose to commission it via a market research agency or consultancy. Whichever, before undertaking any research project, it is crucial to define the research objectives i.e. What are you trying to achieve from the research? And what do you need to know?

After considering the objectives, Market Researchers can utilise many types of research techniques and methodologies to capture the data that they require. All of the available methodologies either collect quantitative or qualitative information. The use of each very much depends on the research objectives but many believe that results are most useful when the two methods are combined.

Jere answers:

“Marketing is the set of human activities directed at facilitating and consummating exchanges.”
– Philip Kotler (“Marketing Management”)

Jere answers:

Marketing is one of the terms in academia that does not have one commonly agreed upon definition. Even after a better part of a century the debate continues. In a nutshell it consists of the social and managerial processes by which products, services and value are exchanged in order to fulfil individual’s or group’s needs and wants. These processes include, but are not limited to, advertising.[1]

Contents [hide]
1 Definitions
2 History
3 Introduction
4 Transactional Marketing
5 Two Levels of Marketing
5.1 Strategic Marketing
5.2 Operational Marketing
6 Four Ps
6.1 Seven Ps
6.2 Eight P’s
7 Beyond the 4 Ps
7.1 Resources, Relationships, Offerings and Business Models
7.1.1 Resources
7.1.2 Relationships
7.1.3 Offerings
7.1.4 Business Models
8 Customer focus
8.1 SIVA
9 Product focus
10 Other aspects
11 Criticism of marketing
12 References
13 See also
14 Related lists
15 External links

[edit] Definitions
The term was first academically defined in 1937 when the newly born American Marketing Association (AMA) asserted:

“Marketing consists of those activities involved in the flow of goods and services from the point of production to the point of consumption.[2]”
The AMA has since amended its definition to read:

“Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.”[3]
Widely published authorities such as Peter Drucker have expressed a preference for the original definition. Commenting on that original definition, Kirk Cheyfitz – an entrepreneur and marketing expert, wrote “The ‘point of production’ is too late in the process to start marketing. And the ‘point of consumption’ is too early in the process to stop it.”[4]” Cheyfitz and others believe that marketing must commence prior to the creation of a product, service or concept and must continue past the point of the consumption to foster loyalty and advocacy among the audience.

Philip Kotler, in his earlier books, defined marketing simply as: “human activity directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange processes”.

Adding to Kotler’s and Norris’ definitions, the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s (CIM) definition claims marketing to be the “…management process of anticipating, identifying and satisfying customer requirements profitably”. Thus, operative marketing involves the processes of market research, market segmentation, new product development, product life cycle management, pricing, channel management as well as promotion.

There probably exist as many definitions as there do speakers on the subject but Al Ries and Jack Trout get the prize for succinctness with their quip that marketing is simply “war” between competitors.

[edit] History
The practice of marketing is almost as old as humanity itself. A Market was originally simply a gathering place where people with a supply of items or capacity to perform a service could meet with those who might desire the items or services, perhaps at a pre-arranged time.

Such meetings embodied many aspects of today’s marketing methods, although sometimes in an informal way. Sellers and buyers sought to understand each other’s needs, capacities, and psychology, all with the goal of getting the exchange of items or services to take place. Today’s New York Stock Exchange had its humble beginnings as an open air market located at Wall Street in New York City.

The rise of Agriculture undoubtedly influenced markets as the earliest means of ‘mass production’ of an item, namely foodstuffs. As agriculture allowed one to grow more food than could be eaten by the grower alone, and most food is perishable, there was likely motivation to seek out others who could use the excess food, before it spoiled, in exchange for other items.

[edit] Introduction
A market-focused, or customer-focused, organization first determines what its potential customers desire, and then builds the product or service. Marketing theory and practice is justified in the belief that customers use a product/service because they have a need, or because a product/service has a perceived benefit.

Two major factors of marketing are the recruitment of new customers (acquisition) and the retention and expansion of relationships with existing customers (base management).

Once a marketer has converted the prospective buyer, base management marketing takes over. The process for base management shifts the marketer to building a relationship, nurturing the links, enhancing the benefits that sold the buyer in the first place, and improving the product/service continuously to protect the business from competitive encroachments.

Marketing methods are informed by many of the social sciences, particularly psychology, sociology, and economics. Anthropology is also a small, but growing, influence. Market research underpins these activities. Through advertising, it is also related to many of the creative arts.

For a marketing plan to be successful, the mix of the four “Ps” must reflect the wants and desires of the consumers in the target market. Trying to convince a market segment to buy something they don’t want is extremely expensive and seldom successful. Marketers depend on marketing research, both formal and informal, to determine what consumers want and what they are willing to pay for it. Marketers hope that this process will give them a sustainable competitive advantage. Marketing management is the practical application of this process. The offer is also an important addition to the 4P’s theory.

Within most organizations, the activities encompassed by the marketing function are led by a Vice President or Director of Marketing. A growing number of organizations, especially large US companies, have a Chief Marketing Officer position, reporting to the Chief Executive Officer.

[edit] Transactional Marketing
First assumption

There are a large number of potential customers
Second assumption

Customers and their needs are fairly homogenous
Third assumption

It is rather easy to replace lost customers with new ones

[edit] Two Levels of Marketing
Marketing is understanding that marketing operates on 2 different levels.

[edit] Strategic Marketing
Strategic Marketing attempts to determine how an organization competed against its competition in a market place. In particular, it aims at generating a competitive advantage relative to its competition. When Jack Trout says that marketing is ‘the war between competitors’ and ‘the conflict between companies’ what he is really doing is defining marketing at the business level.

[edit] Operational Marketing
Operational Marketing executes marketing functions to attract and keep customers and to maximize the value derived from them. Also to satify the customer with prompt services & meeting the customer expectations.

This includes the determination of the marketing mix, advertising execution etc..

[edit] Four Ps
Main article: marketing mix
In popular usage, “marketing” is the promotion of products, especially advertising and branding. However, in professional usage the term has a wider meaning which recognizes that marketing is customer centered. Products are often developed to meet the desires of groups of customers or even, in some cases, for specific customers. E. Jerome McCarthy divided marketing into four general sets of activities. His typology has become so universally recognized that his four activity sets, the Four Ps, have passed into the language.

The four Ps are:

Product: The Product management and Product marketing aspects of marketing deal with the specifications of the actual good or service, and how it relates to the end-user’s needs and wants.
Pricing: This refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts. The price need not be monetary – it can simply be what is exchanged for the product or service, e.g. Time, or attention.
Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling, and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company.
Placement or distribution refers to how the product gets to the customer; for example, point of sale placement or retailing. This fourth P has also sometimes been called Place, referring to the channel by which a product or service is sold (e.g. Online vs. Retail), which geographic region or industry, to which segment (young adults, families, business people), etc.
These four elements are often referred to as the marketing mix.[5] A marketer can use these variables to craft a marketing plan. The four Ps model is most useful when marketing low value consumer products. Industrial products, services, high value consumer products require adjustments to this model. Services marketing must account for the unique nature of services. Industrial or B2B marketing must account for the long term contractual agreements that are typical in supply chain transactions. Relationship marketing attempts to do this by looking at marketing from a long term relationship perspective rather than individual transactions.

As a counter to this, Morgan, in Riding the Waves of Change (Jossey-Bass, 1988), adds “Perhaps the most significant criticism of the 4 Ps approach, which you should be aware of, is that it unconsciously emphasizes the inside–out view (looking from the company outwards), whereas the essence of marketing should be the outside–in approach”. Even so, having made this important caveat, the 4 Ps offer a memorable and quite workable guide to the major categories of marketing activity, as well as a framework within which these can be used.

[edit] Seven Ps
As well as the standard four Ps (Product, Pricing, Promotion and Place), services marketing calls upon an extra three, totalling seven and known together as the extended marketing mix. These are:

People: Any person coming into contact with customers can have an impact on overall satisfaction. Whether as part of a supporting service to a product or involved in a total service, people are particularly important because, in the customer’s eyes, they are generally inseparable from the total service. As a result of this, they must be appropriately trained, well motivated and the right type of person. Fellow customers are also sometimes referred to under ‘people’, as they too can affect the customer’s service experience, (e.g., at a sporting event).
Process: This is the process(es) involved in providing a service and the behaviour of people, which can be crucial to customer satisfaction.
Physical evidence: Unlike a product, a service cannot be experienced before it is delivered, which makes it intangible. This, therefore, means that potential customers could perceive greater risk when deciding whether or not to use a service. To reduce the feeling of risk, thus improving the chance for success, it is often vital to offer potential customers the chance to see what a service would be like. This is done by providing physical evidence, such as case studies, or testimonials.

[edit] Eight P’s
As well as the other 7, Packaging has been added to this list by some people. The rationale is that it is very important how the product is presented to the customer, and the packaging is often the first contact that a customer has with a product. Although some disagree because packaging is seen as a subfield of promotion.

“PHILOSOPHY” is the potential 8th P of marketing. Products (or services) should reflect the underlying philosophy or ethos of the organization. It should also be clear what the philosophy behind the introduction of the particular product is, as well. In his book, “Meeting Need”, Ian Bruce explains this concept as it relates to marketing for charities. It also applies to other products and services.

[edit] Beyond the 4 Ps

[edit] Resources, Relationships, Offerings and Business Models
Marketing in the past focused mainly on basic concepts like the 4 Ps, and primarily on the psychological and sociological aspects of marketing. Competitive advantage was created by directly appealing to the needs, wants and behaviors of customers, better than the competition. Successful marketing was based on who could create the better brand or the lowest price or the most hype. Marketing in the future will be based on a more strategic approach to competitive marketing success. [6] Marketers will consciously build and allocate resources, relationships, offerings and business models that other companies find hard to match. This does not mean the four P approach is dead, simply that it has been expanded upon.

[edit] Resources
Companies with a greater amount of resources than their competitors will have an easier time competing in the marketplace. Resources include: financial (cash and cash reserves), physical (plant and equipment), human (knowledge and skill), legal (trademarks and patents), organizational (structure, competencies, policies), and informational (knowledge of consumers and competitors). Small companies usually have a harder time competing with larger corporations because of their disadvantage in resource allocation.

[edit] Relationships
Success in business, as in life, is based on the relationships you have with people. Marketers must aggressively build relationships with consumers, customers, distributors, partners and even competitors if they want to have success in today’s competitive marketplace.There are four type of relationships 1)win-win 2)win-lose 3)lose-lose 4)lose-win.(customer-vendor)

[edit] Offerings
Most companies sell a mix of products and/or services. Today’s marketplace is often too competitive for “one-trick ponies”. Companies that sell the right mix products and services can have a competitive advantage over companies that sell just one product or service.

[edit] Business Models
The concept of product vs. Product in competitive marketing is dying. It’s slowly becoming business model vs. Business model. Business model innovation can make the competition’s product superiority irrelevant. Business model innovation allows a marketer to change the game instead of competing on a level playing field.

[edit] Customer focus
Many companies today have a customer focus (or customer orientation). This implies that the company focuses its activities and products on consumer demands. Generally there are three ways of doing this: the customer-driven approach, the sense of identifying market changes and the product innovation approach.

In the consumer-driven approach, consumer wants are the drivers of all strategic marketing decisions. No strategy is pursued until it passes the test of consumer research. Every aspect of a market offering, including the nature of the product itself, is driven by the needs of potential consumers. The starting point is always the consumer. The rationale for this approach is that there is no point spending R&D funds developing products that people will not buy. History attests to many products that were commercial failures in spite of being technological breakthroughs.[7] 7

[edit] SIVA
A formal approach to this customer-focused marketing is known as SIVA [8] (Solution, Information, Value, Access). This system is basically the four Ps renamed and reworded to provide a customer focus.

[edit] Product focus
In a product innovation approach, the company pursues product innovation, then tries to develop a market for the product. Product innovation drives the process and marketing research is conducted primarily to ensure that a profitable market segment(s) exists for the innovation. The rationale is that customers may not know what options will be available to them in the future so we should not expect them to tell us what they will buy in the future. However, marketers can aggressively over-pursue product innovation and try to overcapitalize on a niche. When pursuing a product innovation approach, marketers must ensure that they have a varied and multi-tiered approach to product innovation. It is claimed that if Thomas Edison depended on marketing research he would have produced larger candles rather than inventing light bulbs. Many firms, such as research and development focused companies, successfully focus on product innovation. Many purists doubt whether this is really a form of marketing orientation at all, because of the ex post status of consumer research.Some even question whether it is marketing.

[edit] Other aspects
An emerging area of study and practice concerns internal marketing, or how employees are trained and managed to deliver the brand in a way that positively impacts the acquisition and retention of customers (employer branding).
Diffusion of innovations research explores how and why people adopt new products, services and ideas.
A relatively new form of marketing uses the Internet and is called internet marketing or more generally e-marketing, affiliate marketing, desktop advertising or online marketing. It typically tries to perfect the segmentation strategy used in traditional marketing. It targets its audience more precisely, and is sometimes called personalized marketing or one-to-one marketing.
With consumers’ eroding attention span and willingness to give time to advertising messages, marketers are turning to forms of Permission marketing such as Branded content and Reality marketing.
The use of herd behavior in marketing.
In an article entititled “Swarming the shelves: How shops can exploit people’s herd mentality to increase sales,” The Economist recently reported a recent conference in Rome on the subject of the simulation of adaptive human behavior. [9] Mechanisms to increase impulse buying and get people “to buy more by playing on the herd instinct” were shared. The basic idea is that people will buy more of products that are seen to be popular, and several feedback mechanisms to get product popularity information to consumers are mentioned, including smart-cart technology and the use of Radio Frequency Identification Tag technology. A “swarm-moves” model was introduced by a Princeton researcher, which is appealing to supermarkets because it can “increase sales without the need to give people discounts.” Large retailers Wal-Mart in the United States and Tesco in Britain plan to test the technology in spring 2007.
Other recent studies on the “power of social influence” include an “artificial music market in which some 14,000 people downloaded previously unknown songs” (Columbia University, New York); a Japanese chain of convenience stores which orders its products based on “sales data from department stores and research companies;” a Massachusetts company exploiting knowledge of social networking to improve sales; and online retailers who are increasingly informing consumers about “which products are popular with like-minded consumers” (e.g., Amazon).

[edit] Criticism of marketing
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Some aspects of marketing, especially promotion, are the subject of criticism. It is especially problematic in classical economic theory, which is based on the assumption that supply and demand are independent. However, product promotion is an attempt coming from the supply side to influence demand. In this way producer market power is attained as measured by profits that would not be realized under a free market. Then the argument follows that non-free markets are imperfect and lead to production and consumption of suboptimal amounts of the product.

Critics acknowledge that marketing has legitimate uses in connecting goods and services to the consumers who want them. Critics also point out that marketing techniques have been used to achieve morally dubious ends by businesses, governments and criminals. Critics see a systemic social evil inherent in marketing (see No Logo, Bill Hicks, Marxism or Commercial Alert). Marketing is accused of creating ruthless exploitation of both consumers and workers by treating people as commodities whose purpose is to consume.

Most marketers believe that marketing techniques themselves are amoral. While it is ethically neutral, it can be used for negative purposes, but it can also have a dramatically positive influence on consumer welfare.[10]

The Observer’s survey among 1’206 UK adult consumers in 2001 highlighted some of the stark changes our society has gone through in the last two decades. This raises a question on the effectiveness of the CIM’s definition of marketing (anticipating, identifying and satisfying customer needs profitably), mainly in consumer marketing. There are similar concerns in industrial markets, also known as business-to-business or B2B. Industrial market segmentation attempts to provide some answers.

Core marketing elements such as segmentation, targeting and positioning are still relevant in the modern (or post-modern) world. [11] However, they are complex topics that need a high level of effort, intelligent thinking as well as resources to be implemented successfully. A definitive statement cannot be made whether the conventional marketing concept is applicable in today’s environment. Its relevance is very much situational and depends on many factors such as the product, the segment, time, location, political and economic conditions and the inner workings of a company.

However, some scholars such as Stephen Brown challenge the marketing concept in an extreme language. Their statements, though self-contradicting and sometimes unfair, are relevant, which is why Post-Modern Marketing 2 was chosen as a key reference point for this chapter. [12]

On the one hand Brown makes positive statements about marketing, e.g. “marketing is endowed with considerable personal charm and has enjoyed more than its fair share of conquests” (Brown, 1998:16); and “indeed, the increasing academic attention that is being devoted to marketing and consumption-related phenomena by non-business disciplines such as sociology, anthropology and history; far from being the second-hand rose of the scholarship, marketing is now something of a fashion leader” (p 17) [13]

On the other hand, he condemns marketing by saying “marketing has to decide whether to expose its intellectual nakedness or press itself against the searing heat of postmodernism” (p 17); and using quotes such as “mid-life crisis” (p 23); “in decline; failing; anachronistic; being abandoned; no longer appropriate; in an unprecedented state of crisis; delivered nothing of value; failure; confusion; misunderstanding; occasional inexplicable hitting of the jackpot” (p. 21).

This apparent love-hate relationship is proof in itself that even a skeptics find it difficult to deny the contribution that marketing has made and can make to customer satisfaction and economic value. It has contributed to both customers’ and suppliers’ quality of life by selecting profitable customer satisfaction as its sole objective. The marketing concept, together with other business disciplines, helped the UK to make the transition from a 19th-century manufacturing economy to a modern model of success in the service industry, creating an economic growth period never seen before in the United Kingdom.

Marketing has helped create value through customized products, no-questions-asked refund policies, comfortable cars, environmental attention, shopkeepers’ smile, and guaranteed delivery dates. Even some government departments address the public not as ‘the Queen’s subjects’ or ‘the applicants’ any more but as ‘customers.’ Of course all of the above is done for economic or political gain, for better or worse. Despite all this achievement, to dismiss marketing as a failure is unfair.

Marketing also helps companies avoid unnecessary R&D, operational and sales costs by helping to develop products because customers want them, not for the sake of innovation. Another success is the now commonly implemented value-pricing principle, whereby a product or service is sold for the price the customer is willing to pay, not on a cost-plus basis. This way, both suppliers and customers get a fair deal.

In the context of segmentation, Brown suggests that “the traditional, linear, step-by-step marketing model of analysis, planning, implementation and control no longer seems applicable, appropriate or even pertinent to what is actually happening on the ground” (p. 23-24). If Mr. Brown had studied “the ground” before making his statement, he would have realised that companies are successful the world over precisely because they implement this model.

They segment their markets, relate their products and services to them, define their value proposition and serve their customers accordingly. Examples are General Electric, HSBC, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Smiths Aerospace, BAE Systems, BOC Edwards, Weir Group and the BT Group to name but a few. A brief visit to their websites can make this point clear.

Stephen Brown also has a constructive suggestion: “I reckon we need more passion in marketing, not less; it is time we banished banishing passion from works of marketing scholarship” (p. 256). This refers mainly to promotion, which is only one element within the marketing concept. The truth is that marketing today leads the way in segmentation, innovation, pricing, product management, distribution, and last but not least, promotion.

After all the contribution as well as further potential, to deny its successes and try to reduce it to only promotion is a great injustice to the marketing profession as well as to academic insight. Contrary to Brown’s suggestion in his final paragraph (p. 257), we need objectivity, rigour, quantification, models, relationships, paradigm shifts and (some application of) science.

Marketing is not full of holes, but a management process that has helped generate wealth and satisfied millions of customers for the most part of the 20th century. It can do even better in the 21st provided practitioners and scholars do not lose faith and focus.

[edit] References
^ Adapted from Kotler, Armstrong, Brown Adam & Chandler, (1998)Marketing 4th edition, Pearson Education, Australia.
^ Milestones of Marketing by George Burton Hotchkiss, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1938, page vii
^ “Dictionary of Marketing Terms” from marketingpower.com[1] Last accessed 9 February 2007.
^ Kirk Cheyfitz, (2003) Thinking Inside The Box, Free Press, USA, pg85
^ “The Concept of the Marketing Mix” from the Journal of Advertising Research, June 1964 pp 2-7
^ “Passionate & Profitable: Why Customer Strategies Fail and 10 Steps to Do Them Right!”, Lior Arussy, John Wiley & Sons, 2005
^ “Marketing Management: Strategies and Programs”, Guiltinan et al, McGraw Hill/Irwin, 1996
^ “In the Mix: A Customer-Focused Approach Can Bring the Current Marketing Mix into the 21st Century”. Chekitan S. Dev and Don E. Schultz, Marketing Management v.14 n.1 January/February 2005
^ “Swarming the shelves: How shops can exploit people’s herd mentality to increase sales?”, The Economist, 2006-11-11, p. 90.
^ Marketing Nutrition: Soy, Functional Foods, Biotechnology, and Obesity (2005), Brian Wansink, Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press
^ “The Customer Driven Company: Moving From Talk to Action” R.C. Whiteley, Pfeiffer & Company, 2000
^ Brown, Stephen (1993), „Postmodern Marketing?“, European Journal of Marketing Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 19-34
^ Brown, Stephen (1998), „Post-Modern Marketing 2 – Telling Tales“, Thomson Business Press.

Good Luck!!!

Jere answers:

Most online programs focus on business (accounting, marketing, human resources), health (nursing, psychology), or some other more popular discipline. The closest thing to what you’re describing would be a BA in Humanities. Not too many online programs cover BA disciplines.

I did find a couple of online universities that offer BA Humanities programs:
http://www.universities.com/Distance_Learning/University_of_Maryland_University_College_Bachelor_of_Arts_Humanities.html
http://www.universities.com/Distance_Learning/Ellis_University_Online.html

Your best bet is to contact a few universities that have the specific program you are interested in and see if they offer online courses.

Good luck.

Jere answers:

Online Degree Programs-Accounting is an important aspect of any business to measure finance. This is the element that is required from all business and private organizations are also required to as well. There is a great need for an accountant to manage and keep track of bookkeeping in any industry. To become an accountant, one must obtain a degree and get professional certification. People who are already in the workforce may not have the time available to go to class in College to earn a degree. Therefore, Online accounting degree is an ideal solution.

Online accounting degree of flexibility for those who cannot attend traditional classes for any variety of reasons. Some people may have duties that restrict their time available. Others may have family obligations, which could have short periods of time, but it does not allow for a full day class. Regardless of the reason, Live online accounting degree program can be extremely beneficial.

Jere answers:

There’s a growing number of reputable business schools offering bachelor’s and master’s degrees online. The best source for this information is the AACSB International website. Choose Knowledge Services from their top menu, and then Business School Profiles from the left. This will take you to a search form. You’ll be searching for Degree in Discipline via Vehicle from the Degrees/Programs menu. (I’d also recommend choosing Accreditation from the Basic Characteristics menu to make sure you’re seeing the very best schools.) The list it returns will give you school names and tuition, and will link to more comprehensive profiles of the institutions, which include the programs’ websites.

Another good source, especially if you’re looking for a bargain, is GetEducated.com. They rank the “best buy” programs, which only include reputable programs–no degree mills.

The average full-time student will finish a BBA in four or five years. However, if you’ll be working full-time while you’re studying, you might not want to be enrolled full-time–at least not every semester. For BBA students working full time, 9 hours (3 classes) per semester is a pretty good load. At that rate, the degree could still be finished in 5 years provided you’re taking summer classes as well.

Jere answers:

It depends on what you are getting the degree in and what work you want to do when you graduate. Many MBA and some IT degrees are available online and they are gaining acceptance. There are some psych degrees online, but personally, having taken a couple of online courses, I don’t think you can get the well-rounded experience you really need in that field. There are some degrees where experience under a mentor that you meet with regularly is absolutely priceless.

That said, if the only way you can get a graduate degree is online it can be done. Be VERY CAREFUL to select a school that is accredited by one of the Regional Accrediting organizations if you’re getting a US degree. There are some universities that say they are accredited, but their accreditations mean something different- basically they mean nothing to people in business or academia. You won’t be able to get into a PhD program with one of those degrees (Unless it is also accredited in some weird way) and many places won’t consider it a real degree.

Most of all watch out for the fake colleges that basically offer a piece of paper saying you have a degree for a fee.

Jere answers:

Try to look for schools that offer on line programs but have a traditional brick and motor school as well.

Drexel University www.drexel.com
University of Maryland www.umuc.edu
University of Baltimore www.ubalt.edu
Columbia Union College www.cuc.edu

All of these are examples of reputable traditional colleges and Universities that also offer complete on line degrees in business administration.

Try to stay away from “for profit” on line universities such as University of Phoenix and ITT Tech. They won’t carry the same reputation as the schools mentioned above.

Jere answers:

Right now, in this economy, you would be lucky to get an entry level position in a low level company.

Actually, you would be lucky to get any job!!! And that is no joke!!!

However, you would probably be able to get a position as a telemarketer, but, you really don’t need an associates degree for this job. The fact that you have or will soon get your associates degree does put you in an advantage over those who do not. An employer will tend to give a job to the candidate with the highest level of education, all other factors being equal.

If you are interested in finding out more about “network marketing”, you can find out alot of information online. One nice thing about network marketing is that you can have a successful career with an associates degree, or you can have a successful career with no degree at all. You would have a distinct advantage over the non-degreed marketer, as you have a lot more knowledge at your fingertips. You will most likely have better writing and speaking skills than someone with just a HS diploma, a GED or equivilancy diploma, or no dipolma at all.

The difference between a network marketer and a telemarketer is that you won’t have to annoy people at dinner time! As a matter of fact, you won’t have to annoy anyone at anytime, if you do network marketing right!

Is Network Marketing a Get Rich Quick Scheme??? Definately not, and anyone who tells you so is not being honest with you.
So, if continuing you education is not an option at this time, then send out your resume. If you have any type of experiance, a lot of employers will also take that into consideration.

If you are interested in finding out how to break into the network marketing arena, please check out my website, www.top-network-marketing-companies.org

I am not going to SELL you on my NWM or MLM company, don’t worry about that. What my website is about is helping you to find the “right” network marketing opportunity for “you” and how to develop that opportinity into a successful career. One requirement is access to a computer with high speed internet access. The good news is that most school libraries give you unlimited access at the library!!!

Hope this helps! Good luck in your search! Hope to hear from you!

Jane

AKA Zelda

Find out what Zelda Knows at www.zeldaknows.com

Jere answers:

The logistics job market is booming. Even though manufacturing is on the decline these days, global supply chains are getting more and more complex. As Internet sales increase, more and more companies are creating distribution centres to service online customers. A certificate or degree in logistics will give you a step ahead.

Check out monster.ca and workopolis for logistics specialist jobs. Depending on your training and experience you can make upwards of $75,000.

Jere answers:

All of the above are true. You have a huge range of career opportunities! Website design is HOT, then there is print design (ad firms, magazines, marketing firms, hospitals — yup, they need their annual reports and marketing work designed, post-secondary schools — with the right degree, and I could go on and on . . . ) You need a specialized degree in gaming design (If you don’t have a degree yet, check out SCAD — Savannah College of Art and Design.)

Everything you get in the mail, all the ads and layout you see in magazines and books . . . All the greeting cards you get in the mail . . . All the internet pages . . . They needed to be designed by someone — usually with a graphic design background.

And don’t forget freelance. There are a number of websites (I used Elance.com) that will hook you up with potential clients.

Does it pay well? Depends on your clients and how much experience you have, and how quickly and thoroughly you can get the job done. There are some jobs that I do, and only get paid about $12.00 an hour because it wasn’t as “easy” as I thought it would be. Some jobs I do, I get paid $100.00 per hour! More likely, I average about $25.00 to $45.00 an hour freelance.

I tend to agree with one of the past answerers — you should get another expertise or even a higher degree (Master’s). It’s not only helpful to YOU, it looks great on a resume. Photography, Illustration, etc. Goes well with design. I have my Master’s in Media Studies, which has brought me much success in getting both freelance and full-time work.

Much success to you!! It’s a great field, ever expanding, and you can WORK FROM HOME if you’re lucky and find the right job!

Jere answers:

Use the internet. It’s the international marketplace.

Jere answers:

Please be aware of what you are proposing on getting yourself into. Please do more research first.

Reminder: We are in a World-wide Recession.

Warning> Jobs in the field of Law are drying up fast!! This is just not a good field to invest time and/or money into. This is a SHRINKING vocational field. Many reasons. Many people today (mistakenly) think they can do their own legal work, thanks to the Internet. Also, we simply already have way too many Legal Professionals – we have an absolute glut!! (“Legal Professionals” includes, but is not limited to: Attorneys/Lawyers, Paralegals, Legal Assistants, Legal Secretaries, Bailiffs, Court Reporters, etc, etc)

Cost of law school to be lawyer, approx $150,000+.
Be prepared to take on a lot of debt.

Even if you finish law school, you won’t be able to find a job when you are done. Since this vocational field is shrinking, many new attorneys/lawyers are, themselves, having to work “down” as Paralegals, Legal Assistants, Legal Secretaries, Bailiffs, Court Reporters, etc, etc, to simply try to keep some of their bills paid <that the job market/economy is just saturated with way too many Legal Professionals. Instead the schools will feed you a fairytale and will lie to you. The root of the problem is we have too many law schools. We are in a recession, and the schools are fighting for their own survival – they will tell students anything to get to the students’ money. (Which is why they won’t tell you the truth about the job market for the field of Law.) And these schools continue to recruit and churn out even more graduates………….

If you don’t believe me, then just do a search here on Yahoo Answers to see what other posters are saying about the current status of the field of Law. Call some local law firms – ask to speak to the Manager of Human Resources – ask them if they are hiring; ask them what they think about job availability in the field of Law………………

In the book “So You Want to be a Lawyer?” by Marianne Calabrese and Susanne Calabrese (ISBN 0-88391-136-1): “The United States has more lawyers than any other country in the world. About 38,000 students graduate >each year>>Healthcare! I spoke to a career counselor from Jobs and Family Services, and HE told me that this is where the jobs are, and future job availability! And scholarships!

Good luck.

(This is based on my current knowledge, information, and belief. This was intended as personal opinion, and not intended to be used as legal advice. Please be careful and do your research.)

Jere answers:

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the number of Americans who have looked online for information about a place to live has doubled since 2000. Now, nearly two in five adult internet users in the U.S. (39%) have done this, up from 34% in 2004 and 27%

92% of Internet buyers found their agent on a web site; 63% found them through an Internet search engine; 0% of Internet buyers found their agent through brochures, flyers, yard signs or mailers to their home

Often, REALTORS choose free web site templates, or companies offering real estate templates for a few dollars a month. These sites, in most cases perform badly when trying to achieve top rankings.

It’s no longer just a property’s physical location that matters but also the placement of a REALTORS web site on the major search engines. With proper SEO techniques, search engine real estate placement’ is available.

If you are one of those many agents or brokers who don’t really believe that the Internet is “the way” in real estate today, perhaps the following data compiled and presented by Leslie Appleton-Young, Chief Economist and Vice President of the California Association of Realtors® (CAR®) in her analysis of the Real Estate Market in California for 2006 will get your attention.

If you believe that the Internet is the single most important factor in your future success, here’s your continuing proof that you are correct. Ms. Appleton-Young and CAR® have compiled data of such import and enlightenment that I felt some of it should be shared with you. Pages 62 – 82 of the study compare some distinctions between Internet vs. Traditional buyers and the findings are powerful. These charts show the undeniable trends and the clear preferences consumers have for the Internet approach to buying a home: since the year 2000, virtually every preference that used to favor the traditional approach has been turned upside down and the Internet approach is now overwhelmingly favored. This report is unequivocal evidence that if you are not on the Internet bandwagon and if you can’t be found by people searching for homes on the Internet, you are completely “missing the boat” in the real estate business.

Here are just a few of the report’s findings:
92% of Internet buyers found their agent on a web site; 63% found them through an Internet search engine; 0% of Internet buyers found their agent through brochures, flyers, yard signs or mailers to their home (does this tell you to spend more on Internet marketing and less on print?);

In 2000, 28% of people said that they used the Internet as an important part of their home-buying and selection process. In 2006, 70% said they did;

86% of home buyers started using the Internet as part of their process BEFORE they started looking for a specific home;the other 14% did after they started looking, but BEFORE they contacted a real estate agent; that means that 100% of buyers surveyed started looking at homes first, agents second. When you combine that finding with the already existing one that fully 81% of Internet buyers stay with the first real estate agent they choose to contact, you can see a powerful case for being able to have consumers find you, first;

Internet buyers spent an average of 4.8 weeks doing research before contacting an agent; traditional buyers only 1.7 weeks. That means an Internet buyer is better prepared and twice+ as less likely to waste your time;

Internet buyers bought a home on average after spending 2.2 weeks looking for a home with an agent; traditional buyers spent an average of 7.1 weeks; How high would your productivity be if you could spend 2/3 of the time you now spend previewing with clients and could dedicate it to selling and marketing, instead?

Internet buyers previewed an average of 6.7 homes with their agent (they had already eliminated ones they did not wish to see), traditional buyers previewed 15.4 homes; an average of just under nine fewer wasted showings per customer;

Only 3% of all Internet connections available at the primary computer used for the home-buying process were dial-up: Internet home buyers and searchers are not sticking with dial-up, just as they are not sticking with traditional methods;

The approximate distance between previous residence and new residence for traditional buyers was 25 miles; for Internet buyers, it was 242 miles (you can sell anywhere compared to traditional ways);
Number of agents an internet buyer interviewed, on the median: 1; Traditional buyers? 3. (Why would you want fewer auditions and more certain retentions?)

69% of Internet buyers said response time was extremely important.83% of those buyers chose email as their favored communication method with their agent. 0% chose “in person.” (The Internet is the new “office visit.”)

Internet buyers were more satisfied with their agents: 4.3 to 3.3 for traditional buyers, on a scale of 5 where 5 is “surpassed expectations.”

35% of traditional agents listed “faster response time from my agent” as the one thing they would change, if they could, about their experience; Internet buyers? 0%!

Internet buyers were far more satisfied in every important researched category of satisfaction than traditional buyers were; when asked the number one reason for satisfaction with their agent, 91% of Internet buyers said that satisfaction was because their agent “was always quick to respond.” Traditional buyers? Their number one reason was “worked hard on my behalf”, chosen by 62% of them, leading us to conclude that traditional buyers did not find their agents “quick to respond.”

And, ladies and gentlemen (a little drum roll, here, please), 97% of Internet buyers said they would use the same agent again. Traditional buyers? 50%. (Twice as likely to be satisfied and twice as likely to give a referral, wouldn’t you think?)

I’m not an economist, (I don’t even play one on TV), but it seems to me that these data show clearly that:

Agents who sell via the Internet do not get as bogged down in unproductive chauffeuring to preview homes as traditional agents do;

Agents who utilize online marketing and have Internet buyers are more liked, more highly regarded, more likely to have a repeat sale with the client,

Agents selling to Internet buyers are likely to work only 2.2 weeks with a buyer before selling a property (vs. 7.1 weeks traditionally);

Agents committed to online marketing may be able to expand their market area to an average 242 mile radius of their location and remain effective due to online communication; people find you on the Internet, call you or email you, and use you to help them find a home in an area they may not know.

The money you may spend on brochures, ads, newspaper ads, and the like should be reconsidered and placed into Internet Marketing.

So, unless you are in a state of denial about the Internet’s importance to real estate transactions, you need to do several things in your planning for this year, at minimum, if you want to be on the right side of these statistics.

You need to take most of the money you are spending on newspaper ads, brochures, glossy marketing pieces, etc., and invest it in your Online Marketing. Chances are good that you cannot possibly wisely spend all those dollars online; consider those savings as your bonus this year. It will be tough not seeing your comforting listings in the paper, but think of all the money you’ll be saving! (And as more fuel for that fire, consider this: Ms. Appleton-Young’s data also show that over 70% of people 65 and older read a daily newspaper, but only 35% of 24 year olds do. PRINT IS DEAD TO THIS GENERATION OF HOMEBUYERS!)

You need your own website showing your properties and you. What are you waiting for?
Just having a website or a page on your franchise site won’t cut it; you must be able to be found by people searching for homes in your considerably larger e-neighborhood. The Internet is a really big place and chances are that you and your site may be lost in its hugeness.

And, you must be sure your web site is search engine friendly. Meaning, it can be developed and optimized so that it can out rank other sites. DO NOT be fooled by web site templates that are free, or made in such a way that they cannot achieve rankings. You need a site made by a Search Engine Optimizer (SEO Professional)…otherwise, you are just throwing money into nothing. Remember, you get what you pay for, and going for ‘cheaper must be better’ will not net you those top rankings which result in new prospects and thus, more sales and listings.

Bonnie Burns

Jere answers:

Print this article
Architectural firms no longer can just rely on the perception of potential clients of their excellence to generate business. They feel the need to differentiate themselves from their competitors and win new business by marketing their services and benefits arising out of a commercial relationship with them. Today’s intensely competitive environment dictates that architectural firms attempt to enhance their public image and communicate effectively about their core competencies to ensure continued success.

The Online Presence
The Internet is one the first media architectural firms should consider. A well-designed website replete with images and information about the expertise and how effective solutions were delivered to address special and challenging client requirements have a persuasive force. The website can act as an effective platform for showcasing special expertise and award-winning designs, and provides visitors a view of the humanitarian activities the firm initiates and sponsors.

Brochure’s Influence
Another essential step is the preparation of a brochure highlighting the special expertise differentiating the firm its competitors. Liberal use of views of completed projects and upcoming ones along with relevant information can be sent at regular intervals to potential clients and the peer group; real estate firms, suppliers, other service providers and even competitors to raise the public profile. An e-brochure has the not only the advantage of flexibility of continual updating of information but allows dissemination at relatively lower costs.

Public Relations for Top-of-Mind Awareness
Be alert to what is happening both within the company and its external environment and learn to react swiftly to take advantage of developing situations by harnessing the power of the media. Try to be in the news for the right reasons; award wins, prestigious contracts, public infrastructure development, customer education, community service or corporate social responsibility initiatives and articles in trade journals, newspapers or magazines that help elevate the firm to the status of an industry leader.

Networking and Referrals
Actively cultivating professional and commercial relationships is a surefire way of getting leads and the chance to impress potential customers. To promote its status, the firm should consider an active program of participating in professional and trade association events, like seminars and shows. Professionalism that sparkles may convert a casual conversation to a lucrative business opportunity. The best assets are satisfied customers; not only do they generate repeat business, but they can be a source of the all-important referral to a personal or business acquaintance that carries a client stamp of approval.

Read more: Architectural Marketing Ideas | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_8714869_architectural-marketing-ideas.html#ixzz1Yi0bcfFO

Jere answers:

Write a business plan
Look up resources of how to market products through you library, the Small Business Association and use the Internet to research.
Start planning how you will be manufacturing this? Will you be able to meet the FDA standards in your kitchen? Is this a product that you may want to sell over the Internet? How can you guarantee safety and health standards against contamination?
There are many cities that have retired business people in associations that give advice and help others start businesses.

Give me the recipe. Just kidding. Good luck!

Jere answers:

I am not really and expert, but there is a Chilean website with more information in English

www.chile.com

Specific investment information

http://www.chile.com/tpl/articulo/detalle/ver.tpl?cod_articulo=1696

Government information on investment (recommended!!!)

http://www.cinver.cl/index/index.asp

And the National Association of Advertisers (very recommended)

Home

What you are looking for in Spanish is “inversión publicitaria en medios de comunicación”.

I hope it helps

Jere answers:

I don’t think that the Internet is a good way to market most types of business consulting services. While you should have a web site, in most cases this is something you will direct people to using other marketing efforts rather than something that will generate business on its own.

Unless you do something that is highly specialized, chances are good that people will never find you doing a web search -there are just too many other firms out there doing the same thing. You can do website optimization, buy keywords, etc., but in my opinion, this is like trying to win the lottery.

I would suggest some “old-fashioned” marketing initiatives:

-Network with your previous contacts, including former employers and employees – if you have 25 years of experience, you should have plenty of them. This will be your best source of business.

-Join all relevant industry associations and attend their functions, including trade shows.

-Publish articles in relevant industry publications as well as local business papers in your market area.

-If you are a sole practitioner, contact the larger firms that provide the same services that you do, including some of the “Big 5” accounting and consulting firms. Believe it or not, this can be a good source of work. Many larger firms are always looking for subcontractors and also come across opportunities that are too small for them to handle cost effectively.

Good luck with your efforts.

Jere answers:

I’ve recently written a Special Report designed to help beginners get started with successful email marketing campaigns. I have tried and tested a lot of emailing software, and have recommended what I consider to be one of the best (don’t worry it’s free to download and use):

Instantly improve your email marketing results.
Plus get all of the following for FREE:

* Email Marketing Course (9 revealing lessons)
* Mass E-Mailer (full version – software)
* Step-By-Step Instructions (using Mass E-mailer)
* 1000’s of Free Leads – A Steady supply
* BONUS Gift #1 – The best Spam checker available
* BONUS Gift #2 – “Email Marketing Strategies Revealed”
* BONUS Gift #3 – FTP Program (upload/download webpages)
* BONUS Gift #3 – Free Tools, Clean-up, Speed-up Your PC
* Autoresponder (get the best one – that actually works)
* PLUS, so much more (too much to list here)

Visit now to access all of the above (and more):

http://JustRightSolutions.ws

Hope you find all these resources as useful as I have,

Stewart

Jere answers:

It really depends on whether you have a list.

If you have a list that is confirmed double opt in that you either built, rented, bought or something of that nature the there are hosting companies that will allow email broadcasting of a sufficient level to be acceptable. With an account all you would need is the ability to write a little html code to send html emails, or notepad to write generic emails.

Compare Packages

however if yours is a junk email list that is harvested emails that you wish to send UCE emails almost everyone reputable will turn you down. Reason it harms their site and its reputation.

Jere answers:

The software you are looking for is Email Marketing Software, a mass mailer PHP script by ActiveCampaign, Inc.

Here is the link to their web site:
http://www.activecampaign.com/

Here is the link to this application:
http://www.activecampaign.com/emailmarketing/

Jere answers:

Bob, I use a program called SendBlaster: http://www.doitwithcms.com/ap/email-marketing-software/sendblaster

I also have an existing email list (12,000+ clients) and this program works fine on a PC.
I connect it to my webserver, but you can use whatever internet connection you want.
The setup on it is very easy.

For sure, it has all of the features that you are asking about (and more):

– Type up one email and can send to entire list.
– Can also personalize the email so that individuals will find it more relevant
– You can add an unsubscribe link
– You can integrate it with Google Analytics and “TrackReports”
– Comes with a WYSIWYG editor (of course!)
– Use plugins
– Import and export email lists
– So much more

There’s too many features to list here, but it is well worth it. For all of the features it provides, it’s a really good one-time price .

I believe they still have a video and lots of screenshots for you to see.

Jere answers:

Here, i suggest iKode newsletter software for you. It is a web-based email marketing software. With this software, the worry like”poor sending rates” and other nuts can be dealt with perfectly.
In addition, the sending records can be tracked precisely.
More infromation, just go to http://phpnewsletter.org/features.html

Jere answers:

MLM Sof is excellent solution for Direct Saling or To reach end user. Our application provide complete and efficient panel for end user. Sponsor login, and Distributor can trace comission easily. Binary Downline, and Network Level is also embeded in current system at advance level. MLM Developers is providing excellent solution for Direct Saleing, Companies interested in Chain Outlets, and want to provide benefits to their marketers and distributors, DIRECT SALING SOLFTWARE is excellent tool for that. MLM Developers END USER SOLUTION, provide complete and promotional details.

Check – www.mlmdevelopers.com for further details, contact at info@mlmdevelopers.com

Jere answers:

It is not the future. It is the PRESENT. Globalization is increasing at a pace never seen before. If you are interested you should check out the book : “The World is Flat”.
The reason why business choose to outsource is b/c they focus on their core competencies and outsource anything that they believe others can do better. It might not necessarily low direct costs, but it allows the company to focus on more important functions and therefore advance in the market by sustaining their competitive advantage. IMPORTANT RULE, YOU NEVER OUTSOURCE A CORE COMPETENCY.

Jere answers:

Very dangerous to have less than 50% of your calories as carbs. Not to mention fattening. Fat is fat, and protein promotes obesity along with many other health problems in excessive amounts. Stick to wholegrain carbs and beans etc and eat vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes, fruits like bananas and dates and get enough carbs and you’ll be fine. Carbs are our cleanest source of energy which put the least strain on our bodies and release no by-products during metabolism.

Http://www.drmcdougall.com/video/starch_solution.html The Starch Solution
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoAjqu_gZkA Low Carb Diet Makes You Sick
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBzOGEjxV1U What’s Wrong with Atkins? (applies to all low-carb diets) has some info about diabetes
http://www.drmcdougall.com/ dr mcdougall’s site. Has a lot of info there. And recipes.
Http://www.drmcdougall.com/video/diet_drugs_diabetes.html diet, drugs and diabetes.
Http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Diabetes.aspx Spotlight on Reversing and Preventing Diabetes:
Treating Type 1, Type 2, and Gestational Diabetes with Superior Nutrition
http://www.drfuhrman.com/shop/books.aspx#EOD The End of Diabetes

some recipe sites:
http://vegweb.com/recipes
http://veganyumyum.com/favorites/
http://vegan.sheknows.com/category/recipes/

what you’re asking for can’t really be done. Haven’t you ever wondered why veg*ans have much lower rates of diabetes but eat high carb diets? Plant foods are high in carbs. If they’re not, they’re low in calories and won’t sustain you or else they’d be high in fat, like nuts or avocados etc, or are soy products, which aren’t really healthy to live on. Much safer to just eat healthily if you ask me. All you can really eat to be carb-free are green leafy vegetables, cabbage, tempeh/tofu and nothing else. Which really isn’t proper eating. You need foods like beans, wholegrains, vegetables and mushrooms. All of which are starchy foods. And LOWER your risk of diabetes.

Jere answers:

Yeah SIEMENS is providing SAP courses in all METROS.

SAP India Pvt Ltd
Victoria Layo,
30, Vaswani Victoria ,Victoria Road,
Bangalore, 560 025
India
Tel: (91) 80 4136 5555
Fax: (91) 80 4136 5550
E-mail: education.india@sap.com

SAP Education Partners
======================
Source: www.sap.com/asia/services/education/cent…

Siemens Information Systems Limited
5-9-19, 5th Floor
Lakshmi Narsinh Estate
Saifabad, OPP AP Secretariat
Hyderabad – 500004
Tel: (91) 40 23482800/1/2
Fax: (91) 40 23482804
Contact Person: Ms. Chaitanya, V
E-mail: V.Chaitanya@siemens.com

Genovate Solutions India Pvt. Ltd.
A Wing,First Floor
Phoenix House,Senapati Bapat Marg
Lower Parel, Mumbai 400 013
Tel: (91) 22 24901839/ 24982754/ 24901824/ 24981236
Contact Person: Mr.Krishnan / Mr. Fabian
E-mail: krishnan@genovate.com
or E-mail: fabian@genovate.com

Siemens Information Systems Limited
1st Floor, VIPPS Centre
2, Local Commercial Complex, Masjid Moth
Greater Kailash – 2 New Delhi – 110048
Tel: (91) 11 299220694/29220695/29220696/ 29220697/29221248/29216047/29221247
Fax: (91) 11 29214685
Contact Person: Ms.Rochika Bhatia
E-mail: rochika.bhatia@siemens.com

Siemens Information Systems Limited
5th Floor, 144, Mahatma Gandhi Road
Nungambakkam Chennai – 600034
Tel: (91) 44 28334360/28334361/28334362
Fax: (91) 44 28334366
Contact Person: Ms.Sangeeta Arora
E-mail: sapatcchen.in@siemens.com
Siemens Information Systems Limited
43, Shantipally
E.M. Bypass. Rash Behari Connector
Kolkata – 700 042
Tel : (91) 33 24428641-49
Fax: (91) 33 24429930
Contact person : Ms.Debomitra Bose
E-mail: Debomitra.bose@siemens.com

Siemens Information Systems Limited
206, LOGOS , Ground Floor
The Bible Society Building
M.G Road
Bangalore – 560 001
Tel : (91) 80- 25095577 / 25095579
Contact persons : Ms. Shubha Ghargi / Prachi Garg
E-mail: sapatcblr.in@siemens.com
or E-mail: prachi.garg@siemens.com

Genovate Solutions Ahmedabad Pvt. Ltd.
308, 3rd floor, “Aatish”,
Nr. Samarpan Flats, Off. C. G. Road,
Gulbai Tekra,
Ahmedabad 380 006
Tel: (91) 79 66315706, 66315707
Fax: (91) 79 66315708
Contact Person: Mr. J. Figueiredo
E-mail: figi@genovate.com

Genovate Solutions (Cochin) Pvt. Ltd.
1st Floor, E M Commercial Centre,
Kunamthai,Near Milma, Edapally.
Cochin , Kerala – 682 024
Contact Person: Mathews Cherian
Mobile: +91-9847787503
Direct: +91-4843201837
E-mail: mathews.c@genovate.com
Contact Person: Ramchandran Iyer
Mobile: +91-9847245698
Direct: +91-4843201838
E-mail: ram@genovate.com

Cognizant Technology Solutions India Pvt. Ltd.
3rd Floor, Manchester Square,
14 Puliyakulam Road,
Coimbatore – 641037,
Tamil Nadu,India
Tel: (91) 422 6453308
Fax: (91) 422 3984060
Contact Person: Ms. K Yamuna Rani
E-mail: yamunarani.k@cognizant.com

Genovate Solutions Pune Pvt Ltd
Nuclues Mall, 5th Floor, 501/502,
Church Road, Camp, Opp Police Commissioner Office,
Pune 411001
India
Tel: (91) 020-30520219/30520220
Contact Person: Mr Anuraag Kaushal
E-mail: anuraag@genovate.com

Delphi Computech Pvt Ltd
(SAP Online Contact Centre)
Madhura Towers, First Floor,
Untawadi Road, Near Dhonde Bridge,
Nasik, 422002, India
Tel: (91) 0253-2378623/24
Mobile: (91) 9850093179
Contact Person: Mr Pradeep Saggam
E-mail: pradeep@delphicomputech.com

Jere answers:

Hi, Evan, nice of you to be so considered of your relatives’s money. One solution would be to tell them that iPad is too expensive for what it offers and that you already have access (via iPhone) to those 300,000 apps of Apple store that are pretty much the only iPad’s claim to fame. If they still want to give you something and you’d be OK with something twice less expensive, you can get get 7″ Android eReader/tablet hybrid device which combines the better parts of both eReader and tablet worlds. Such device is Nook Color from Barnes & Noble which has USB port (unlike current iPad). Nook Color has a new generation screen which is anti-glare coated and is better performing in sunlight and for reducing eye strain than current iPad’s. The screen is one of the best and sharpest on the market and it’s viewable at wide angles. It is great for PDF’s, much better than Kindle. From the cost side, while more expensive than e-Ink Nook or Kindle, you can buy two Nook Color’s for the price of one iPad. Nook Color has several apps that already come with the device (Pandora Internet radio, QuickOffice, etc.) Also, Barnes & Noble recently released Nook SDK and Nook Developer platform that will allow most of the existing 100,000 Android apps be ported to it.
Also, you can use the Social Settings screen to link your NOOKcolor to your Facebook account and your Twitter account. You can also import all your contacts from your Google Gmail account. Once you have linked to Facebook and Twitter and set up email contacts, you can lend and borrow books, recommend books, and share favorite quotes with your friends.

Jere answers:

Ash,

Starting an online venture can be a bit cumbersome. There is a lot of information to navigate through.

Your best bet is to offer a free listing as well as a paid listing. Most of the directories do this. It is a great way to gain content (which is central to the success of any directory) as well as generate revenue. You can also offer banner ad or premium placed listings as a premium service.

Here are some tips:

1. Add relevant businesses to free listings
2. Offer a paid listing that has more benefits than the free version
3. Promote the directory online

There are some articles on my blog about online marketing and starting an online business. You may find them useful:

http://danimariedesigns.com/blog/?p=33

http://danimariedesigns.com/blog/?p=145

http://danimariedesigns.com/blog/?p=50

I hope that helps!

–Dani Marie, San Diego, CA–
( http://www.danimariedesigns.com/blog )

Jere answers:

20$ wholesale nfl mlb nhl nba jerseys(accept paypal credit card)———————-nflshops.us

accept paypal credit card online store homepage————————.nflshop…
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NFL NEW YOUK JETS,NFL GREEN BAY PACKERS,

—————nflshops.us

Jere answers:

I posted this answer on another question. I think that it is relevant for yours as well. 🙂 You may want to consider creating a stand alone website rather than an ebay shop. You can link to your shop from the site, but it will give you the freedom to really promote your business.

You are on the right track in recognizing the need to optimize your site. Keep in mind that SEO is an ongoing process. There are lots of ways to promote your site and gain more traffic.

Here are some ideas:

1. Add your business to online directories (with a link to your website).
2. Update your site content on a monthly basis.
3. Make sure to use your “keywords” in the text of your website.
4. Make certain to mention your company name numerous times within the text of your site.
5. Create a blog or profile on a social network.

I hope these ideas help.

—Dani Marie– ( http://www.danimariedesigns.com )
San Diego, CA

Jere answers:

For business degrees, the name and quality of the school you go to will make a huge difference in your future career. Employers in the US definitely recognize that some business programs are much more rigorous and stronger educations than others. Most corporate management recruiters will tell you that if you can’t get into a Top 20 MBA program, don’t waste your money going at all.

For both BA and MBA degrees, the top business schools in California are the Stanford University School of Business, Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, Anderson School of Management at UCLA, and Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley.

If you are not able to gain admission to one of these, the next best within California is probably Loyola University in Los Angeles, San Francisco State University, Pepperdine University in Malibu and San Diego State University, although none of these are nationally ranked very highly. Below that, there are probably a dozen more universities that will give you a decent bachelor’s degree to learn a trade, mostly in the California State University system, but are unlikely to ever put you on a corporate management track or help you get a job with a top professional firm. Beyond that, please don’t waste your time and money on non-accredited schools or online “universities”… No reputable employer places any value on those at all.

Jere answers:

I found information on the tuition at California College San Diego for the 2011-12 school year (the one that is about to end) on the web pages of the well-respected College Board:
* https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/california-college-san-diego?q=California+College+San+Diego&searchType=college

The tuition charges vary by the course of study. For the 2011-12 school year they were as follows:

Associate programs:
Business Management & Accounting $40,385
Computer Programming $40,385
Computer Networking & Technology $40,385
Graphic Arts $40,385
Medical Specialties $40,385
Respiratory Therapy $47,165.

Bachelor programs: Accounting $71,180
Business Administration $71,180
Computer Science $71,180
Graphic Arts $71,180
Health Science $30,155
Healthcare Administration $71,180
Nursing $40,385
Nursing Administration $30,155
Respiratory Therapy $78,070

I looked for the information on the school’s web pages first, but it was not easily found. That is a major red flag for me. Plus, the school is a for-profit college (sometimes called a career college), which is first and foremost a business with the main focus of earning profits for its owners/shareholders. The cost of attending most for-profit/career colleges tends to be as high as or higher than many private/independent non-profit schools. That means they are very, very expensive.

Some for-profit schools are fine. Some are not.

Unsolicited advice:

The school is not accredited by the most respected and acceptable college/university accrediting commission for schools in the western part of the USA, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. That is another major red flag for me. (Red flag #2)

Please read this:
Thinking About Going to a Career College or Technical School?
U.S Dept of Education online information
* http://www2.ed.gov/students/prep/college/consumerinfo/index.html
Click on all the links and read all the information in full.

And, then, please read this:
US News and World Report, March 23, 2012
Students at For-Profit Colleges Earn Less, Study Says, by Menachem Wecker
* http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/03/23/students-at-for-profit-colleges-earn-less-study-says
Article is 2 web pages long

The school web site buries the information on student retention and graduation rates (figures that each school of higher eduction in the USA is required by the U.S. Dept. Of Education to report.) Burying the info is another major red flag. (Red flag #3) I finally found that info along with the tuition and fees (finally) on this web page:
* http://www.cc-sd.edu/student-information
The chart with the on-time completion rate (the percentage of enrolled students who actually complete their course of studies and graduate) is the last one on the web page. An on-time completion/graduation rate of 90% or higher is good. Please look at that information on the school and make your own decision. Their record is not good. (Red flag #4)

My personal opinion on the school is that anyone considering attending it should run (don’t walk) away from it immediately. Your best education and cost deal will be a local community college for an Associates degree and for a Bachelor’s degree it will be starting at a local community and then transferring to a CSU to earn a Bachelor’s degree in your chosen field of studies.

Librarians–Ask Us, We Answer!
Find your local Public Library at:

Find your College/University Library at:
http://lists.webjunction.org/libweb/Academic_main.html

Best wishes

Jere answers:

Well , there are lot of dropshippers out there. But you have to be very careful as there are so many scammers out there. If you are not educated enough , then you should read maximum stuff from Internet marketing related forums.

You can check one in my source.

Jere answers:

First, do not listen to the doom and gloom people who can’t wipe their own rear end that wants you to quit before starting.

If you have a limited budget, you need to learn seo as S stated. It is a way for you to slowly build a solid foundation, this is great for long term growth. Do not try to take the short road if you are starting from nothing with nothing.

Do a search for “brad callen, seo made easy” in google, it is a free ebook in pdf format that gives good basics of seo, just DO not do the link exchange. Then, do a search for “5 star affiliate marketing forum” They have good people there that will help you with questions you may have about seo and internet marketing, just a group of good people and well moderated, so it is a top notch pic for info.

S also gave some good info, but just to add to it, king content has nowhere to sit in the seo kingdom without a throne of links to lift him up.

So make sure you focus on links more than content.

Jere answers:

Finding the right Niche is a very important question when starting your Internet/Affiliate marketing business, You can not even think of starting till you know what Niche your products, services or affiliate promotions will appeal to.

Here are a few steps and resources that may help you out.
1. Brainstorming, This is the best method when you are trying to figure out what to build your product or service around as well as choosing the right Affiliate promotions.
Get a pen and paper and write done all the things you are passionate about,

Now Next Right done all the things you are good at
Combine the two lists to find 3-5 matches in from each of the lists. Now narrow that done to 1 or 2 and begin,

2.Your Keyword research, Keyword research will help you to find very narrow specific topics that surround your Niche, Remember, The more narrow the search term the better, these are the people searching for exactly what you have to offer. Narrowing your topic down will also help you get free traffic as well as reduced PPC fees. A great tool I use for Keyword Research is Keyword Elite.

3. Product creation or affiliate promotion, Do you have enough Knowledge of the subject to write your own product?
If so then go right ahead and do it, A good tool helping you to create your own product is Overnight product Creation, By: Brian McElroy and its even FREE!

Affiliate promotions are great, You don’t have to have your own products or services you only need knowledge of the products or services you wish to promote. Some great ways to promote your affiliate promotions are, Blogs,PPC Marketing, SEO Marketing. Social and viral marketing, Really the list of advertising opportunities is endless. One place to find good affiliate products to promote is

4.Build your traffic and email list, Rinse and repeat. Build traffic to your product or affiliate promotion pages by witting articles, participating in forums, and using PPC AND SEO methods.
One tool I use all the time for my PPC campaigns is Speed PPC

Affiliate marketing will make you money, When you approach it the right way with the right systems and a good plan.

Please check out
How to start an Affiliate business internet marketing online

Also, Right now is a great time to gemore then 100of the best Internet Marketing products from the industries top gurus through the Biggest FireSale of 2008. Check it Today!

For more info and Good Luck!

Jere answers:

Hi buddy..

Here are my “Top 7 FREE Traffic/Advertising Or BLOG Visitors Generating Tips”

1)Viral Pictures
Viral is closely connected with something that may spread easily.So i suggest you to create a viral picture which is closely connected with your products and spread it.
Everyone likes funny pictures and they don’t mind sharing it with others.It’s viral.So, If you’re selling a health product, then you may create a funny picture about it and put your website’s name on it.
Next, just forward it to as many contacts as possible using e-mails. Whether it’s a 12 years old kid or 21 years old adult.They would just love and share it with others. Can you see how easy it is?

2)Viral Videos
Videos are the most famous entertainment on the Internet.People would just love it dues to it’s effectivenes in spreading the message. So i suggest you to create viral videos about your product and again put your link in it.
If you got 3 minutes video, then make sure your website’s link is visible throughout the whole 3 minutes.If you don’t have the neccessary tools to create a video, then you can simply collect 5-10 viral pictures and then convert it into video using Windows Movie Maker.
Then just upload it to You Tube or Google Videos. Now using bluetooth everyone is exchanging videos from their mobiles or computers. If your video is viral enough to attract others, it will easily spread to others.

Suggested Link
http://youtube.com

3)Yahoo Answers
I probably won’t be answering your question if i don’t know the answer. And i won’t suggest you any websites link if i think that it’s not going to help you.
So simply answer any questions that you’re knowleadgeable(your niche market) at and put a link to your websites as extra source for others.
If your answer is good and solved the questions, people would also expect for more tips and suggestion from you.If you suggested any website links, there are high chances for anyone to visit it.

4)Forum Marketing
Forum Marketing works just like Yahoo Answers. They would be a lot of tips and questions exchanged in any forums.
So start getting active and contribute to any forum members and they will appreciate your expertise and start visiting your websites fo more up-to-date tips.

Suggested Link:
http://warriorforum.com/

5)Newsgroup Marketing
Promote your expertise and links in newsgroups by contributing your tips to other members.

Suggested Link:
http://groups.yahoo.com/

6)Article Marketing
Write articles within your niche and submit it to article directories.Write good and informative articles and a nice bio box that’ll attract visitors.

Suggested Link:
http://ezinearticles.com/

7)Social Networking
Use social networking sites to promote your products and links. As you know social networking sites are self promotoable. If you got a nice profile with beautiful pictures in it, i bet you’ll get a lot of visits from other members.

Suggested Link:
http://facebook.com

Jere answers:

For job in marketing you can post advertising in http://SamuraisSEO.com . It is in internet marketing forum.

Jere answers:

If you are going to start a LEGITIMATE business then you will need an ID number.

However if you are just going to sell on ebay or on amazon you don’t need such numbers. Infact you don’t even need to register your company.

I think the id number you are talking about is called an ITIN – individual tax payer ID number. You can sign up for that on – http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Individual-Taxpayer-Identification-Number-(ITIN)

That is the official irs webstie you can sign up on.

If you need help starting a business go to legalzoom.com you can register for a business on that website in about 30 minutes for about $300.

Again – if this is not MAJOR, something you will only make $500 – $1000 in revenue, YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO THIS.

You will just need to report this income on your taxes.

Good luck!

Jere answers:

I live in NYC and we have one called “Fresh Direct” – I use it all the time.
You can check out their website (freshdirect.com) but you need to put in a zip code – try 10023.
Good Luck
J

Jere answers:

You can obtain media files by going into partnership with different media companies. When into partnership, these media companies give you the distribution rights for you to distribute the music files and hence you are able to allow download of music on your website according to the terms and condition that you and the other party agreed on.

Jere answers:

If, by official, you mean, for legal purposes, then you may want to reconsider making things official until your business is running successfully and making money. Most businesses fail, and business men and women often start several businesses until they find one that actually makes money. If you make every business official with all the paperwork, fees, etc, that is a lot of time and money down the drain if the businesses fail. If, however, you wait until the business is successful, and then file paperwork, the fees may (but probably won’t) be slightly greater because you filed the paperwork late.

Jere answers:

It depends on many factors:

1) The title to your post discusses the sale of a business but your question addresses the sale of a sick animal (not your business).

2) You must show that but for the posting, Mr/Ms. XYZ would have purchased the animal.

3) You must also show that the animal was not sick and the poster lied.

Jere answers:

Ideally an email marketer cultivates his mailing list with useful informational mailings interspersed with the advertisements, so readers actually look forward to opening an email from you. People too often use the canned pre-written email promotions from product makes, down to the message title.

Jere answers:

Hey here is the website that provides information about Email list management for marketing. You’ll learn the easiest and fastest way on the net to explode your online sales and profit.View the link below

Jere answers:

Email marketing involves sending business/commercial messages to a specific list of recipients, via email. It is used in business to acquire new customers and keep current customers. Email marketing can include emails sent with business sales/discounts, advertisements, newsletters, etc.

Jere answers:

Email marketing is becoming a lot easier these days as the online marketing industry grows. If you are tech savvy you can simply sign up to an auto-responder service & get started. Most email marketing services will provide you with comprehensive training on how to complete your email list building & marketing campaigns.

The process of email marketing is like this:

List Building.

First you will require an email list for people to subscribe to, this is easily achieved by using an opt-in page or form which will be provided by your email marketing service. You will also be able to upload lists that you may already have ie; colleagues, clients, business associates, etc.

Bribing your visitors.

The most common way to build your email lists is to offer something to entice visitors to enter there contact details to your opt-in form ie; free report, free software, newsletter, etc.

Managing your lists.

Depending on your email provider, most should give you the ability to create a variety of lists. This is helpful if you want to separate your subscribers by gender, ethnicity, location, etc.

Mailing to your lists.

Once you have started building your email lists you can send them manual or automated messages. Most services will allow you to create a series of pre-written messages called a ‘campaign’ & set each message to be sent at a certain time ie, 1 day after sign up, 3 days after sign up, etc.

If you are short for time/experience there are tons of services that will actually handle the whole process for you. Online marketing had exploded with hungry internet marketers in the last 5 years which has made it really easy to outsource this kind of work.

Here is a list of popular email services:

Aweber.com
iContact.com
Mailchimp.com
Infusionsoft.com
GetResponse.com

For more information about email marketing, see a link to my personal blog below.

Jere answers:

How many people are you talking about, and do you know them personally?

Contacting a limited number of people you already know about an offer is not spam, but sending someone you don’t know commercial email is.

In order to go about this in a professional manner I would take some content out of the paid offer and turn it into a free version that you can give away in exchange for people’s email address. When they subscribe offer them a special deal to get the whole package. You can get affiliates building your list by giving them a %age of the sale – typically > 50% for digital products.

Hope this helps

Andrew
http://www.SafelistSecrets.com

Jere answers:

This is a good one. First of all let’s define a “market order”. A market order is an order to buy or sell a security immediately at the best available market price. Market orders take top priority on an exchange. The two markets are distinctly differentiated in the sense that the NYSE is a physical exchange with a floor vs. The NASDAQ which is a purely electronic market place (i.e. The buyers and sellers are in cyberspace).

The difference in the execution differs slightly for each exchange. Specialists working on the NYSE have four roles to fulfill in order to ensure a fair and orderly market:

Auctioneer – because the NYSE is an auction market, bids and asks are competitively forwarded by investors. These bids and asks must be posted for the entire market to see to make certain that the best price is always maintained. It is the job of the specialist to ensure that all bids and asks are reported in an accurate and timely manner, that all marketable trades are executed and that order is maintained on the floor. Along with posting the daily bid and ask prices, the specialist must also set the opening price for the stock every morning. This price can greatly differ from the previous day’s closing price based on after-hours news and events. The role of the specialist is to find the correct market price based on supply and demand.

Agent – the specialist can also accept limit orders relayed by investors through brokers or electronic trading. It is the responsibility of the specialist to ensure the order is transacted appropriately on behalf of others, using the same fiduciary care as the brokers themselves once the price of the stock has reached the limit criteria.

Catalyst – as the specialists are in direct contact with the bidders and sellers of particular securities, it is their responsibility that enough interest exists for a particular stock. This is carried out by specialists seeking out recently active investors in cases where the bids and asks can’t be matched. This aspect of the specialist’s job helps to induce trades that may not of happened if the specialist had not been there to bring buyers and sellers together.

Principal – in the instance where there’s a demand-supply imbalance of a particular security, the market maker must make adjustments by purchasing and selling out of his/her own inventory to equalize the market. If the market is in a buying frenzy the specialist will provide shares from their inventory until the price is stabilized. They’ll also buy shares for their inventory in the event of a large selloff.

On the NASDAQ, market makers are actually not at the exchange. They are large investment companies which buy and sell securities through an electronic network. These market makers maintain inventories and buy and sell stocks from their inventories to individual customers and other dealers.

Each market maker on the NASDAQ is required to give a two-sided quote, meaning they must state a firm bid price and a firm ask price that they are willing to honor.

Each security on the NASDAQ generally has more than one market maker, with an average of 14 market makers for each stock which provides liquidity and efficient trading. The market makers are openly competitive amongst themselves and facilitate competitive prices; as a result, individual investors generally will get the best price. As this competition is evident in the limited spreads between posted bids and asks, the market makers on the NASDAQ will in some instances act very much like the specialists on the NYSE.

As far as how these markets are becoming more similar has a great deal with implementation of information technology. With the proliferation of the internet, the entire world now has access directly to these two markets in virtually real time. This has literally globalized the world’s market places. From a professional trader’s perspective, I know that the NYSE specialists are coming under greater scrutiny on how they execute orders. I have heard that some have criticized the specialists for inter positioning themselves between the buyers and sellers. FINRA/NASD prohibits this practice. Imagine how much more efficient a purely electronic marketplace is the pure sense of latency. I have heard many professionals speculating that one day the NYSE may also become a purely electronic market place. We’ve come a long way since it’s inception in 1792, when 24 New York City stockbrokers and merchants signed the Buttonwood Agreement.

Hope this helped.

Jere answers:

Marketing is the broader study of connecting consumers to products and services. This includes product (the good, service, person or idea that you’re selling) price (how much to charge), place (where to distribute) and promotion (communicating the benefits of the product with prospective buyers).

Public Relations a function of the promotional aspect of marketing–it fits within the larger marketing umbrella and is related to sales promotion, advertising, direct marketing, etc. PR’s focus is typically to promote a company or brand image to the public through mass media (tv, newspaper, radio) vehicles.

Larger US universities often offer both majors, although rarely does coursework overlap. Marketing is often housed in schools of business and public relations is often housed in schools of journalism or in deparments of communication. Marketing majors focus on business and marketing strategy, consumer behavior, market economics and research. PR majors often focus on mass media theory, news writing/editing and PR campaigns.

In industry and in academia, there is a slight perception that PR majors are often “marketing light” or business without the math–and that programs are not as rigorous as their business marketing counterparts. Therefore, it is sometimes assumed that marketing is the stronger choice–possibly supplimented with media writing courses.

In my experience however, PR Specialists come from a variety of related majors–English, communication, marketing, journalism, advertising, etc. And some of the largest, most prestigious agencies are keen on hiring seemingly unrelated humanities and liberal arts majors.

Key to landing that first job in PR, is your out-of-classroom experience (i.e., internship, study abroad), proven writing abilities and strategic thinking skills. Any strong course of study should provide those skills.

Jere answers:

As somebody with degrees in econ and finance, who’s taught econ and finance, and has worked on Wall Street, I can tell you that economics can help here. Not all of economics is related to the stock market, but there are definitely several connections.

For example, in an introductory microeconomics class, you’ll learn about supply and demand. Part of this deals with how prices and quantities are effected and calculated under different conditions. And it’s directly-related to the stock market! How? Well let’s take a stock like Apple for example.

Suppose the company reports earnings that beat analyst expectations. In other words, you were anticipating earnings to be lower. But the company had even better earnings, which is good news! How will this impact the price of Apple stock? It’ll result in a higher price. This is a perfect example of supply and demand in action!

The same can be said about GM’s recent announcement that they’re going to pass on advertising during the Superbowl. How will this decision impact the price of GM stock? How much revenue might they miss out on? Economics looks at decisions and their impacts. So an economic analysis, even on an introductory level, can help you see how GM’s stock might be effected. And the reason(s) why.

There is also a relation between macroeconomics and the stock market. For example, there are some stocks that are more closely tied to how well a country’s economy is doing. So if that country’s economy improves, those stocks will tend to increase. A good example of this is what’s happening in Europe. Spain’s economy is in very serious trouble. As a direct result of this, many European stock markets have fallen.

Even US stock markets, such as the Dow Jones, have been impacted by this. Why? Because US companies operate and/or do business in Europe. So if Europe gets into trouble, that can hurt the US. So that’s why we’ve seen US markets fall over worries about Europe.

So there are connection on both a micro and macroeconomic level. However, finance is where you’ll learn more about stocks in particular. And get into much more detail. But the basic financial principles, and even some of the terminology and concepts have their roots in economics. So finance in a sense is an off-shoot of economics.

Economics can be very helpful in reading the tea leaves. And understanding how stock prices could be impacted by a variety of events, situations, and even what-if scenarios. But finance is where you’ll focus more specifically on stocks. And do things like determining the risks and value of a stock. So finance is where you’ll learn more stuff directly relating to the stock market. Yet the basic principles of finance come from econ.

And even if you didn’t take any finance courses at all, just an introductory micro and/or macro class can be helpful because those concepts and principles can be applied to understanding what stocks may do and/or have been doing.

Jere answers:

There are plenty of sites on the internet where people post their screenplays in the hopes that someone will see them and buy them.

The good news for you is that it’s a buyer’s market; none of the scripts found on the internet will be from a professional screenwriter, they’ll be from someone hoping to be discovered. Which means that you can buy the scripts generally for a song.

The bad news is that none of the scripts found on the internet will be from a professional screenwriter, which means that they may not be all that good. Premise may be good, but execution can – quite often – be sketchy.

What kind of flick do you want to direct? That’s an important question, because you’re the guy who is going to have to come up with a budget, figure out shooting schedules, find actors, get costumes, locate sets, get film permits, etc.

If you go period, you’re looking at a much higher budget than, for example, Clerks.

If you need CGI … Well, you’d either better know how to DO CGI yourself, or you’re going to be out a whole lot of money.

First thing you need to do is figure out what your budget is. Once you’ve go that, you’ll be in a better position to know what kind of film you can create.

If you need anything else, let me know.

Jere answers:

4.1% is decent, and better than your local bank. However, you should consider the Vanguard Prime Money Market Fund with a current compound yield of ~4.7% APR. Https://flagship.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/FundsSnapshot?FundId=0030&FundIntExt=INT

If you are in a high tax bracket you may prefer their tax exempt money market funds: https://flagship.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/FundsByType

Sometimes other institutions will have a higher teaser rate, but Vanguard tends to have the highest yields I’ve found over the long run. (Vanguard money markets are not FDIC insured, however.)

Article on teaser rates:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/banks-advertised-rates-dont-always/story.aspx?guid=%7B0A13B6E2-FFB2-4E2B-BD42-E2D1E01C52E5%7D

ING and HSBC often have rates close to Vanguard, and most of their products are FDIC insured. Bankrate.com provides links to CD’s with high interest rates. You can check these at the following links:

http://home.ingdirect.com/

http://www.us.hsbc.com/1/2/3/personal/savings?code=husa

http://www.bankrate.com/

(If you are investing for a long period of time and are willing to accept some volatility, you should consider putting some money into no-load low-expense mutual funds. These are not guaranteed, but over the long run produce much higher returns.)

Jere answers:

Http://www.gonogames.com is the best because it is not blocked by many school and work filters and has a great selection of games. They are no-download games, you just play them from your browser, and Now they just started letting you sign up for free for full membership! They are perfect for the type of game you are describing. All you have to do is search for the game you want in the search box on the top right side! They have loads of other games as well.

Jere answers:

Hot Shot Businesses!
Ah, I loved that game. So much fun.
They have new options, now, too. ^^
Have fun!

Jere answers:

First of all, try out an internet speed test just to make sure it isn’t a ****ty connection and that you are doomed no matter what you do. I like to use speedtest.net, but feel free to do whatever site you like

Quick tip! If you have a laptop, put it right next to where you wii normally sits, and test do the speed test. It’s more accurate that way, as latency (which is what we are testing) increases with distance. I also recommend putting your wii completely off (red light) as multiple things running on wifi can disrupt your connection.

What you’re aiming for here is a low MS Ping. 17> is ideal for smash, but don’t fret if it’s higher.
Ping is basically how long it takes information to travel and how much is lost in the process. So a Ping measure of 100 means it takes information 100 Milliseconds to travel and be received. 17 is considered the best for Brawl, but there isn’t too much you can do about it since it is mainly your internet providers fault. For a more detailed Ping report…

Let’s make sure you are able to log into your router. All you have to do is type in your IP address in the address bar of your internet browser and fill in the user name and password. Before we get there however, let’s get all the information we will need. Go back to the command box as show in step one and type in “IPconfig/ALL”. This will give you your IP address as well as numerous other numbers that will be needed later.

The password and user name are the factory defaults unless you have changed them, so please consult your router’s website for that information. Now, make sure your router has the latest version of firmware (there is usually a check for new versions upon logging in) and we are ready to begin.

First, something simple. Make sure your router’s channel is on either 1 or 11. These do not overlap with other channels, so it’ll help your connection. Next we will look into your SPI firewall settings. This firewall inspects the “packets” or pieces of information that are coming to your computer, or more specifically the Wii. Turning this off helps things run a bit smoother. If you do not have a regular firewall (like what you would get from McAffee or another security program) keep this on! Otherwise, you can go ahead and turn it off.

Next, make sure you have the most up-to-date firmware. Depending on your router, your current firmware could be listed in the router cp homepage, or it could just be in the top right corner of all pages. Navigate your way into the firmware update area, download the latest firmware (usualy found on the router manufacturers site), and then update the firmware. This’ll help general productivity, and depending on how out-of-date your firmware is, it can increase your speed.

The last order of business is to make sure your NAT is set to “open.” Some routers may not have this option, but simply following the port forwarding section of the guide helps achieve the same effect. (Note- The NAT “Open” option also helps with X-box Live connections!)

Jere answers:

All i can tell you is that there in the business of making an online pokemon game right now, but if you just wanna play pokemon, go to this site: pokemoncrater.com you must register first, confirm the email, sign in, and begin ur 2d journey. I will be honest though, the game will get very boring very fast. Also to my knowledge, pokemon can die of old age, or just from being poorly treated by there trainers.

Jere answers:

There are SEREVAL flash-based games that allows you to play sim games (what you are talking about is a business game where you play a businessman – that is called a simulation game, a “sim”).

Here are a couple webistes you can play online for FREE (no downloading). Just make sure you have Flash enabled on your browser).

Http://www.flash-game.net/

http://www.2flashgames.com/newgames.htm

http://www.kongregate.com/?gamereferrer=DTD

I also suggest you have update anti-virus and anti-spyware and a firewall program installed to prevent risks to your PC. You have to be safe when surfing online. If you have no $$, go for the AVG anti-spyware and anti-Rootkit and SpyBot and Ad-Aware which can be downloaded LEGALLY for free at www.downloads.com

Have fun!

Jere answers:

It’s great that you are following a career path that you are excited about, and yes, journalism is a bit sticky. With new media forms like the Internet affecting publications’ content and revenue stream, and the fact that media companies are shrinking their reporting/editorial staffs (and expecting more reporters to know how to produce multimedia pieces), the industry is in flux.

A starting salary for a new journalist who has had several internships and published pieces could be *around* $21k-29, and definitely more or less, depending on a size/location & your expertise level. So many job candidates with 4-year college and/or masters degrees in journalism apply to the limited number of available positions, and they are also competing with reporters who’ve been laid off.

Do prepare yourself for the possibility of freelancing while working a ‘day job’ or also using your degree skills to work for a few years in PR or marketing. To be frank, there’s an excellent possibility that, with a 2-year CC journalism degree, you may start out doing clerical work, and you might not even find any position at a publication. But try to blog! Many veteran and new journalists blog about news events—just remember to practice the same journalistic integrity that you would working under a publication.

I hope this wasn’t blunt, and good luck—you’ll find something!

PS: if you do choose a journalism program, a worthwhile one will teach you how to shoot and edit video, even if you don’t plan to focus on video.
Source(s):
http://journalism.about.com/od/careersin…

Jere answers:

Communications is the degree that I have. I am in Marketing it is pretty fun. My sister is also a Communications major and she got into advertising. She has been all over the World to film commericals. Communications can also get you into radio broadcasting and production or television broadcasting and production. You can do Public Relations, you can do Human Resources. You can get into journalism, you can get into electronic media, ie internet stuff. You can be a copywriter or someone who writes commericials or magazine ads. You can get into media buying where you actually place ads for companies. Communications is a pretty broad degree. There are literally dozens of things you can do with it. I hope this helps. Take care and good luck.

Jere answers:

Hello Achilles,
First of all know your interest subjects, whether you like development or database administration. I think you are 12th students and then if you have given engineering entrance exam you can take admission to B.E or B.Tech courses where you can study maths, and some technical subjects. Computer science is 3 year degree course is normal B.Sc degree. There are many short term courses which you can do while pursuing your regular degree such as software testing, DBA courses, and programming languages (C, C++, C#, Java, .net) etc. And once you want to be hacker then you should be well versed and must be netizen who knows each n every basics of internet , computer field. To be a great hacker you have to be clever and must be able to code and crack coding of software which you wanna hack.
Still if you have doubt regarding course, college, visit www.way2k.com or else Call Academic Expert on 9767001122, they provide free online counseling that you can use and clear all your doubts by asking your queries to the expert counselor.
Best of Luck
(Visit & Join Way2k.com’s Official Facebook Page)
http://www.facebook.com/way2knetwork
Regards
Manisha

Jere answers:

I’d recommend you lean towards the marketing side. Especially internet marketing.
Most companies today still do not have this down correctly and need the help because they
are being left in the dust by their competition.

Jere answers:

For information on obtaining U.S. Certification and work visas for foreign-educated nurses, contact:

Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools, 3600 Market St., Suite 400, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Internet: http://www.cgfns.org

Jere answers:

I just got some business cards from this place here

http://stores.ebay.com/Big-Boo-Stationery_W0QQsspagenameZMEQ3aFQ3aSTQQtZkm&refid=store

They were good price and quality and very accommodating. I actually liked there designs, but wanted something specific, so I just emailed them and told them what I wanted and they created something for us. Actually did a couple of different versions and they did the size that we wanted.

Jere answers:

Absolutely free you may not find. VERY cheap you can. Vista print offers 250 “free” business cards, you end up paying for shipping and handling at about $5 – $6 dollars which is still a good price. I know at the “Newport Mall” in New Jersey there was a machine that made you instant business cards with clip art for 5 dollars as well (check out your local mall). The only other low cost option is to hit Office Max or Staples, grab a pack of perforated business card stock and create them at home, you can go on their sites and use their free business card templates. You can check the prices online.

Good Luck

Jere answers:

You can avail customized cards that suit your specific needs on the internet from the available business cards online. You can either design the cards yourself or choose from ready-made templates. They are available at very low price along with print and delivery facilities.

Jere answers:

Well to create a business card i think u would like to know a site where we can create and design our own B-card for free.Just log on to www.toolvid.com.Its really awesome.

Jere answers:

I use the free Avery business card software (the downloadable one, not the online program which is too limited for me). Using the Avery ‘Clean Edge’ card stock available at places like Staples, I’ve never had a problem with it, and there are a zillion different styles you can use. Or you can just make your own design from scratch. You can also import graphics or photos as well. And the cards themselves look just like they were professionally printed. The perforated edges are so fine that you can’t even see them at all. After they are printed, you just break them off the page like cookies.

Also, when I am setting up the layout, I print one or more test pages on regular paper and then line that up on top of the (more expensive) card stock to see if I’ve gotten it just right before I make the final run. Of course I’m sure you’ve probably already tried all that. Anyway, good luck and hope it works out!

Jere answers:

Go out and get connected, get people to remember your name. The best way to get noticed is people recommending you. Build a solid portfolio if you don’t have one. Do family and friends for cheap or free and build it up that way.

Check out your local competition and find out how you will provide something they don’t. Usually you can do better in “service” and “price” If you’re just starting out you’ll have to work for cheaper than your competition to get more people checking you out.

A website is key, if you don’t have time to learn to make a good one ( not easy) or you don’t have the money to pay someone. At least join a photo sharing website like www.webshots.com (what I use) it’s better than flikr or photobucket because they let people view your pictures full size and ful rez while with flikr and such make you pay money for that. Also webshots.com is really easy to work on and you can allow people to check out your work. If you’re editing someones wedding then you can upload some shots you’ve worked on or even webshots lets you email albums so your customers can get a quick look at their pictures before you finish editing them all.
Also you can check out www.webs.com and set up a free website. Your web address has to include ” .webs.com” in the name but it’s a good way to get some sort of website up, you need to get your info and pictures out there. Google search website templates and you’ll get good sites, look at the first 5 searches. Google search ( 4 Images Gallery ) or (website gallery templates)

As far as postcard prints, get that done at at Costco cuz it’s cheap and pretty good quality, or maybe Walmart. But you really should get your own printers eventually; Epson is the best brand printer for your type of business.

Good Luck!

Jere answers:

Hyper-linking.

Just one of the many ways to market your products or services. You can check out more at http://www.youronlinebusinessheadquarters.com

Jere answers:

There are numerous marketing methods which are prevalent in today’s economy, but five of them are dominating the world market as a whole; digital marketing, Internet marketing, affiliate marketing, multilevel marketing, and global marketing.

Digital Marketing:
Digital marketing or direct digital marketing, is a type of marketing in which a business uses purely electronic means to advertise their products and services. This type of marketing can be implemented through television, the internet, and even electronic billboards. Not only does this save a company in mailing costs, it also ensures that more people will be exposed to their products. Digital marketing has erupted from television commercials to the internet, then from the internet to phones and other portable digital devices such as the iPad, Kindle, etc.

Internet Marketing:
Like its relative digital marketing, Internet marketing uses electronic means to advertise to the public. Internet marketing employs email, banner ads, those annoying pop ups, etc. The internet is an ever-growing übermarket of seemingly limitless advertising space, and it continues to grow with evolving subsections of marketing such as affiliate marketing.

Affiliate Marketing :
Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing in which online advertisers and merchants share revenue with online salespeople or website owners through a compensation model that is based on certain performance measures such as Pay per Click, sales, registrations, or a model that combines any or all of these forms.

Multi-Level Marketing :
Multi-level marketing, or MLM, is a type of marketing in which consumer products are generally sold by individuals either in consumer’s homes or in a designated area of meeting. For instance, Avon, Tupperware, and Mary Kay are all forms of legitimate multi-level marketing. Multi-level marketers set their own hours and can earn money based on sales.

Global Marketing:
Global marketing is a form of marketing in which various international business allies form relationships and develop networks on a global scale. They work closely with one another’s home countries, their government officials, and the industry competitors in order to gain and develop a target market. In this type of advanced market, stakeholder benefits outweigh that of the company’s personal organizational objectives. In this case, stakeholders would be employees, the society in which a business is entering, the companies’ respective governments, etc.

Basic Marketing Strategies:
Inside the company’s marketing strategy is closely related to 3 main basic strengths including; Customer, Company /Corporation and Competition.A good marketing strategy includes three of the following:

1. A clear market definition.
2. A good collaboration between the company’s strengths and needs of the market.
3. Company performance is superior, active and responsive to various conditions of competition.

Basic Marketing Tips:
You are not what you sell
Set your goal
Don’t just stand there, show off
Keep them coming back
Grow. Change. Be better

Jere answers:

Email marketing campaign is best for you.
1. You can reach thousands of interested people in your service in short time.
2. Its cheap and very cost effective copaired to other marketing methods.
3. You can control all advertising campaigns.
4. Fast and effective.

Here are some best email marketing compnies,

http://email-marketingtips.blogspot.com/

Jere answers:

The best way to approach is email marketing, where you have a huge database of prospects, using some tool you will send the proposal. The person who is looking for it will get back to you. The second best option is classifieds posting.

Http://www.nichesuite.com/

Jere answers:

Currently Dish Network offers 30 Channels in High Definition in addition to local market networks in High Definition (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and PBS). . Dish Network bought the VOOM High Definition satellites / programming which provide them with more High Definition programming than anyone.

DirecTV offers just 9 Channels in High Definition in addition to local market networks in High Definition (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and PBS).

DirecTV will eventually add more satellites for High Definition – sometime in 2008

DirecTV and Dish Network non-DVR (Digital Video Recorder) receivers are equal.

DirecTV’s DVR’s are garbage.

I couldn’t live without a DVR – the Dish Network High Definition DVR is excellent.

The best DVR’s are made by TiVo. TiVo announced at CES they will offer an HD DirecTivo (DirecTV TiVo).

If the HD DirecTivo were available now that should strongly influence your decision.

Picture quality is a matter of bandwidth. Not every High Definition channel receives the same bandwidth. The more Bandwidth allocated – the better. The Pay-Per-View Channels get the most, followed by Showtime, HBO, etc. Only the best Displays can differentiate picture quality difference – currently Dish Network has far more bandwidth capability – but unlikely to be noticeable.

Dish Network was the logical choice for me.

Good Luck

Jere answers:

Marketing Communications
All strategies, tactics, and activities involved in getting the desired marketing messages to intended target markets, regardless of the media used.

Marketing communications (or marcom) consists of the messages and related media used to communicate with a market. Those who practice advertising, branding, direct marketing, graphic design, marketing, packaging, promotion, publicity, public relations, sales, and sales promotion are termed marketing communicators, marketing communications managers, or more briefly as marcom managers.

Traditionally, marketing communications practitioners focus on the creation and execution of printed marketing collateral; however, academic and professional research developed the practice to use strategic elements of branding and marketing in order to ensure consistency of message delivery throughout an organization. Many trends in business can be attributed to marketing communications; for example: the transition from customer service to customer relations, and the transition from human resources to human solutions. In branding, opportunities to contact stakeholders are called brand touchpoints (or points of contact.) Marketing communications is concerned with the general behavior of an organization and the perceptions of the organization that are promoted to stakeholders through these touchpoints.

Integrated Marketing Communications is accepted as a goal of a marketing communications strategy.

Jere answers:

MARKETING is “The performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer or user”
That is the text book definition of marketing

Jere answers:

E-Marketing or electronic marketing refers to the application of marketing principles and techniques via electronic media and more specifically the Internet. The terms e-Marketing, Internet marketing and online marketing, are frequently interchanged, and can often be considered synonymous.

E-Marketing is the process of marketing a brand using the Internet. It includes both direct response marketing and indirect marketing elements and uses a range of technologies to help connect businesses to their customers.

By such a definition, e-marketing encompasses all the activities a business conducts via the worldwide web with the aim of attracting new business, retaining current business and developing its brand identity.

The benefits of e-Marketing over traditional marketing
Reach
The nature of the internet means businesses now have a truly global reach. While traditional media costs limit this kind of reach to huge multinationals, e-Marketing opens up new avenues for smaller businesses, on a much smaller budget, to access potential consumers from all over the world.

Scope
Internet marketing allows the marketer to reach consumers in a wide range of ways and enables them to offer a wide range of products and services. E-Marketing includes, among other things, information management, public relations, customer service and sales. With the range of new technologies becoming available all the time, this scope can only grow.

Interactivity
Whereas traditional marketing is largely about getting a brand’s message out there, e-Marketing facilitates conversations between companies and consumers. With a two-way communication channel, companies can feed off of the responses of their consumers, making them more dynamic and adaptive.

Immediacy
Internet marketing is able to, in ways never before imagined, provide an immediate impact.

Imagine you’re reading your favorite magazine. You see a double-page advert for some new product or service, maybe BMW’s latest luxury sedan or Apple’s latest iPod offering. With this kind of traditional media, it’s not that easy for you, the consumer, to take the step from hearing about a product to actual acquisition.

With e-Marketing, it’s easy to make that step as simple as possible, meaning that within a few short clicks you could have booked a test drive or ordered the iPod. And all of this can happen regardless of normal office hours. Effectively, Internet marketing makes business hours 24 hours per day, 7 days per week for every week of the year.

By closing the gap between providing information and eliciting a consumer reaction, the consumer’s buying cycle is speed up and advertising spend can go much further in creating immediate leads.

Jere answers:

Actually, there are many ways to define MARKETING…. In Russia we have 3 main points of view: 1 Marketing as concept of activity at the market,including set of sales methods, choosing channels for movement of goods, giving a boost to demand etc.. 2 Marketing as concept of business management, including set of methods to create the new product, produce that product and sale it. 3 Marketing as a philosophy of business, directed to satisfy consumer’s needs through exchange.

Jere answers:

Open a biz together is legal hassle.
One or other needs to be owner.
Visit library to learn about running biz.
U do not need a course in ‘business mangement’ unless u going to run a big company for some one else.
Visit library info is valid and ‘free’.

Jere answers:

After you complete the FAFSA, maybe you just need to add your new school’s FAFSA code on there.

If you want an online business degree, I strongly advise looking at the universities that have a physical campus and AVOID for profit garbage like University of Phoenix, DeVry, and others. I believe Northeastern University’s CPE arm may offer an online business management degree. University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business offers an online BBA, University of Florida has something, Arizona State, University of Illinois, and there might be some out there that I dont know about. Look for universities that at least have AACSB accreditation and try to stay away from universities that are largely unknown.

Jere answers:

There are tons of online programs. I personally attended American Intercontinental Univ. And Capella University, and I have taught for various online schools over the last five years. All are accredited and solid programs. Online courses tend to vary in price, so we could say they are more expensive, but that is relative. Of course they are more expensive than a community college, but less expensive than Harvard. The price range varies.

The key is to find a program that is fully accredited. Is it worth it? YES. My career has boomed since my MBA at nearly 5 years ago. I am close to finishing my PhD through distance education, and I am at the job that I want. I know I wouldn’t be here without the education. If you are looking at work in the U.S., then you need a school that is accredited and recognized by the Dept of Ed. I can give more info on that later.

You should market yourself and not the degree or university. There are many traditional universities offering degrees that can be earned through online methods. Distance Learning Alliance has a list of these traditional online schools. Look at that if you are truly concerned with the name of the school. Good luck on your search!

Jere answers:

Hi Jordan! It looks like Texas A&M offers graduate level online statistics courses: http://www.stat.tamu.edu/dist/students.php Good luck! 🙂

Jere answers:

My only suggestion is for you to take business online courses while working.

Jere answers:

If you are serious find your market’s trade association and plan on exhibiting at their annual and local shows. This is where the buyers come in and find out about new products. It costs a little but you can’t find a better place to get your product in front of the buyers at one place.

Jere answers:

Network marketing is absolutely legal. Not sure if you understand correctly what network marketing is. It is legal business model with multilevel network of consumers and distributors. It’s also called MLM and it’s actualy an offline business and doing MLM on the internet isn’t really network marketing. It’s more like internet marketing with network marketing reward system. All legal network marketing comapanies are registered with DSA ( direct selling association). Check DSA.org for more info. I don’t know anything about gamma network but network marketing must have periodically consumable product(s). Beware of bad companies. There 4 main groups of MLM comapanies:
1. Fake ones. Illegal schemes trying to look like network marketing companies. (not registered with DSA, registered in off-shore zone, have no product or product doesn’t suit for MLM etc)
2. Flat liners. Legal companies with slow growth.
3. MLM giants making over 1 billion a year in sales
4. Young emerging companies with high potentialto become a network marketing giant. Good company must hit the exponential growth after first 5 years and stabilize at 10th birthday. People joined company within first 5 years earn most.

Choose company wisely because you can loose your money, good name and friends.

Here’s an example of good company:
http://betterlife.ateamcentral.info/en/?page=video_cashflow

Jere answers:

Just try Facebook ads, Email ads and google adwards. In sri lanka I am running my own Email marketing firm. I have over 5.6 millions of Asian email address data base and over 980 active clients including Institutes, Companies, Firms, Governments and Associations. If you wish to do your internet campaign in Asia region, just let me know. According to my experience, Facebook is the Best for internet campaigns.

Jere answers:

Personally, I would opt for a different domain name. If you had to sell the domain name in the future, the new owner would NOT want any association with your designated brand. By creating a unique name, you will also add value to it IF you decide to sell.

Jere answers:

I would not put much credence to anything on the Internet. People can say anything they want about a company, good or bad. I don’t know anything about this company but if you have any doubts or concerns then I would suggest you spend some time contacting your local Better Business Bureau. Another resource is your state Consumer Affairs Office. Most states have a consumer affairs office but it may be under another name. If there have been many complaints then the BBB should have some sort of record. Anything serious could have a file with the state. A good rule of thumb is that if a job requires you to put money up front or purchase anything before starting to work then it is probably not legitimate. Most industries have trade associations. I would see what trade associations they may belong and check with them. There are some good companies and others that run scams. I have no idea which this company falls. If your Dad feels that it is a scam then I would at least investigate the company further. I would also ask your Dad why he feels that it is a scam. I am not saying that he is right in his assumption, but he has much more life experience than you and may see something that you don’t. In any case, you owe it to yourself to check them out thoroughly.

Jere answers:

Charity Accounts Donations Received
Charity Accounts Payable to Charities

Jere answers:

Sound systems for cars speakers etc.., computer software, mp3 players. That list can go on for days.

Www.150fast.com

Jere answers:

Depend on the kind of business you want to start. You can find buyers for local businesses and resell domains, web hosting, and advertising. You can join for free and you get a free website after you sign up . Send an email to e@culx.net for details .

Jere answers:

The best two book resources I’ve read are :-

– ‘How to Set Up an Online Business’
(a Magbook by a Kevin Partner)
– ‘Starting & Running an Online Business for Dummies’.

Hope these will help. Take it all very slowly and ensure you plan everything beforehand. You are entering a highly competitive market where the discounters dominate. You need to offer something special that is ‘added value’. Good luck…

Jere answers:

Starting an online business could be very tough especially if you have no idea about internet marketing. Not only time and money are needed to build a website that targets more customers but also your perseverance and intelligence combined together to top your website among competitors.

I have read some useful and updated information at Ms.Valeries website. Http://www.ValFlint.com .I would also suggest building links to wherever you would like searchers to land. If your category pages are the most useful, link there – if the articles are most useful, link there.

The main purpose of these links is to get higher ranking with search engines when someone types in a relevant keyword phrase.These keywords will send visitors searching for information on a specific topic to your website and allows you gain a new reader or make some money from whatever affiliate program or ad scheme you are running.

I’ve recently set up several websites for some friends and link building was my main concern because I needed links for the webpages to be indexed and start showing up in the search engine. I did also use the free ebook course i got hhttp://tinyurl.com/237cvqj to optimize my list building