Creative and Profitable Ways to Use Autoresponders

An interested visitor who has been strolling through yoursite has finally come to just what she is looking for and is about to make a purchase. It's a sunny afternoon, and her cat, who happens to be sitting on the moss under the visitor's large fifty-year-old snow-rose bonsai tree, suddenly jumps down, and the priceless tree topples over.

In the blink of an eye, your visitor exits your site, and your sale is dust unless you have had the foresight to utilize an autoresponder that has captured her email address. If you have installed an autoresponder, you can then follow-up with her, and in all probability, make the sale when the poor woman has finished repotting her precious bonsai.

Autoresponders are remarkable, versatile programs that do so much more than just automatically answer your email. Here are a few ideas that will help you to creatively and productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual visitor into a profitable customer. Use your autoresponder
to:

1. Publish a newsletter. Certain quality autoresponders will manage subscriptions and follow-up with interested prospects. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed about your services or products, while building your reputation as a credible expert in your particular
business.

2. Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform them of current sales you are running and of promotional material that your affiliates can use themselves to increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go out and promote your business.

3. Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, e-books, movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder. Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your affiliate's page in your autoresponder.

4. Distribute your articles. Writing and distributing targeted articles is a powerful tool to build your business credibility, bring traffic to your site, and increase your sales potential. If your articles contain valuable information, many editors will print what is known as a resource box for you. A resource box contains your bio and a brief description of your service or product. It can alsocontain your autoresponder address. Let's say you've written fifty articles. Put them on separate autoresponder accounts and create a master list that contains the titles of each article, the autoresponder address, and a brief abstract. Then promote your master list. Additionally, include your publishing guidelines so your affiliates can add their articles to your list, increasing the number of writers who are represented in your article list.

5. Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your articles when you've written new ones that they may want to publish in their own newsletter or website.
6. Automate your sales process. Use an ad to ensure repeated exposure of your message, which has been proven to effectively increase sales. In your ad, put your autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances of converting visitors into customers. For example, if you're selling a particular product, put testimonials about how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a
detailed, enticing description of your product.

7. Distribute advertising. Let's say you sell advertising on your website or in your newsletter or e-zine. Set your autoresponder to send the information about rates and how to place an ad automatically to all prospects' email addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up. It can also send notification of any special deals you are currently offering.<

8. Distribute an email course. Each day, have your autoresponder send out another lesson. Just be sure that each lesson has quality content - not a sales pitch. Your content will do the selling for you, and will do it much more effectively. You can include tips centered on a different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product. Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a purchase.

9. Automate a reminder about your service or product after a visitor has completed your course. This will increase the possibility of sales from visitors who have taken your course but are dragging their feet about actually making a purchase. You can also use these reminders to promote new products or services, and the products and services of your affiliate programs.

10. Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an idea of the type of information you can provide and the quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a potential customer than gain a sale.

11. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be motivated to request your autoresponder, and you will have a record of the visitors' email addresses who took your quiz. Or create a contest and have any visitors that enter send their responses to your autoresponder. Your autoresponder can be set-up to send them a confirmation of their entry.

12. Offer a trial version of your product. Give your prospects a sample of your ebook, course, software, membership, etc. People who are exposed to a little taste often end up wanting the whole pie. You can also capture their email addresses when you offer them a free trial from your website. Set up your autoresponder to give instructions on how to obtain their free trial, and then make sure to follow-up to try and close the sale.

13. Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors that they may have free access to your affiliate page by simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your affiliates.

14. Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request form for visitors to be notified of special offers or discounts in the future. This creates a very effective mailing list that contains the names of people who are
already your customers.15. Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should contain up to fifty links that would be of particular interest to your visitors. Make sure to add your own promotional copy at the top or bottom of this page.

Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used creatively, see if you can come up with some brilliant ideas of your own!

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The Top 5 Uses Of Vinyl Banners

It used to be that vinyl banners were only useful as short term replacements for more "professional" looking signs. But the advent of digital printing has meant that vinyl banners can be printed in full color. And they are very inexpensive compared to the alternatives. This means that vinyl banners have a wide range of uses. Here are some of the most popular.

1. Banner Signs - Outdoor Banners

Banner Signs are often used in the place of more rigid signage. Because they are outdoor banners, they are printed on very rugged tear-resistant vinyl, and then seamed around all four sides for added strength and wind resistance. Grommets are applied where necessary for easy hanging.

Banner signs can be tied down, or screwed down, and will last for years without tearing or fading. You can also mount your banner sign without grommets by asking for "pole pockets" instead. This way they can be mounted on poles at either the sides or top and bottom. The poles can be part of a mounting bracket arrangement, or, if it is made of wood or plastic, can be screwed directly to a wooden surface (such as a fence).

2. Trade Show Banners

Vinyl banners are ideal for many trade show applications. Since they are lightweight and very flexible, they can be easily rolled and unrolled, and can be used for many years. They make perfect banner backdrops when hung from the appropriate hardware, or can be used as a sign hanging on the front of your display table.

Vinyl banners are especially appropriate for trade show applications because they are lightweight and can be easily shipped or transported. They can also be use in other products such as Banner Stands, Retractable Jiffy Rolls, or X-Banners.

The printing on digitally printed vinyl banners is bright and colorful, and very durable, because they are made for outdoor use. Trade show banners are printed on a very smooth, soft vinyl material with solvent based inks. When buying trade show banners, always insist on true solvent-based inks because they are much, much more scratch resistant, and UV-resistant; and are completely water-resistant as well. Banners printed with dye-based or pigment-based inks will fade very quickly in bright light.

3. Convention Banners, Conference Banners

Every special event can use an Event Banner. These normally function as focal points or as backdrops. A typical event banner is used at a conference or convention where there is a stage or podium. A banner can be hung as a backdrop in order to emphasize the convention theme or display a corporate logo.

Event banner backdrops can be any size or shape, varying from your typical horizontal long and narrow shape to a more square backdrop shape. Large backdrop banners can be hung from cords attached to the ceiling either to a curtain rod style pole (using the pole pocket technique) or to a number of grommets in the top of the banner.

4. Event Banners, Birthday Banners, Anniversary Banners

Event banners can be either Indoor or Outdoor Banners. The cost is virtually the same, since only the material is different. In the case of Birthday Banners that are used indoors, the vinyl material is often softer, and less tear-resistant. Even paper will work, although it is much less durable, and not significantly less expensive.

Many Event Banners are meant to be hung or mounted outside, like a Sign Banner. For instance many churches use event banners to announce programs like Vacation Bible School, or golf courses to promote a special tournament. These banners are usually printed on a more tear-resistant material, and should include seams and grommets where requested. If you need your banner to last for more than one event it is best to print it with durable outdoor inks to make it scratch, water, and UV resistant.

5. Streetscape or Boulevard Banners

Vinyl banners are perfect for adding atmosphere and identity to streetscapes. Special hardware allows you to hang your banners vertically from utility poles. Pole pockets top and bottom make it easy to put up and take down your banners. Streetscape banners are made more durable and weather-resistant by welding two banners together to make a two-sided banner. And of course solvent inks are essential for this application since streetscape banners are fully exposed to the elements.

Be sure your vinyl banners are printed with full color outdoor resistant printing using solvent inks. Because the printing process is a digital one, banner designs can include photographs, logos, and special artwork. You can normally use your own vinyl banner design, or your supplier can create a banner design for you for a small charge.

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3 Steps to Increasing Your Marketing Effectiveness

In the quest to increase results from marketing, companies tend to focus on tactics. They worry about creating a better brochure, upgrading the website, or running a new ad campaign. However, often the greatest leaps in marketing effectiveness come from focusing on how it all ties together. Here are three steps for business leaders to improve their marketing effectiveness by fine-tuning their marketing processes.

1. Know what you need.

Marketing's main job is to feed the sales force with nice, warm leads. Step one towards better marketing is to understand how much and what kind of food they need.

The "how much" is easily answered using basic math. Start with your sales goals and work backward. You'll need to answer the following questions:

• What is our annual new business revenue goal?
• How many new customers does this represent?
• What percentage of qualified opportunities do we actually close?
• What percentage of leads actually become qualified opportunities?

Using this information, you can determine how many new inquiries your marketing must generate in order for the sales team to meet their goals. For example, let's say your annual new business revenue goal is $10M; your average deal size is $100,000; your sales people generally close 50% of the qualified opportunities presented to them; and 5% of your inquiries become qualified opportunities. A quick run around the calculator tells us that your marketing efforts need to generate 4000 leads for the sales team.

With this information in hand, marketing planning becomes much more focused. Every activity in the plan should in some way contribute to generating inquiries and developing leads. If you can't trace a program or activity to this result, don't spend the money.

2. Match your marketing process to the buying process.

Unless you are selling an impulse item, the decision to purchase your product or service is based on a series of small decisions. Marketing helps to facilitate, and hopefully accelerate, the decision process by making the right information available to the prospect at the right time and from the right source.

It is critical to understand the entire process your customers go through while deciding to buy your product or service. Typically companies have a good understanding of what goes on after an opportunity has been identified, but few spend the time to understand the front end of the process.

A typical buying process could go something like this. The prospect:
a) Becomes aware that he or she has a need
b) Identifies options - often a list of vendors that offer a solution
c) Researches the various solutions
d) Creates a "long list" and issues an RFP
e) Creates a "shortlist"
f) Invites vendors for demos
g) Checks references
h) Negotiates
i) Purchases

Information needs are different at each point in the process. A successful marketing program matches these needs. It allows the company to create awareness among the target prospects by engaging them in a flow of communication that helps navigate their way through the buying process. A marketing program that fails to meet the buyer's needs at each step of the process won't deliver as many qualified leads.

3. Get your sales and marketing people on the same page

It is truly astonishing how many companies suffer from a fundamental disconnection between sales and marketing. Here's a sure sign that your company has that problem. Ask the question "which marketing programs result in revenue?" You'll likely hear marketing people complain that the sales team doesn't follow up on leads and won't track them. And, you'll hear sales people say that marketing's leads are worthless. You can't get an answer because no one knows.

Disconnected sales and marketing efforts result in burned leads, wasted efforts, lengthy sales cycles, and low revenue. It is well worth the effort to develop a cross-functional team.

One of the easiest and most effective places to start with is to develop a common definition of the word "lead". If you gathered your sales and marketing teams together and ask everyone for their definition, you'll likely find the sales team has a very different view than your marketing team. (Don't be surprised if you get different answers within the sales and marketing staffs as well.) Now work together to establish a common definition. Use this definition to guide marketing in developing leads before handing them off to sales.

These steps are a good start toward making your marketing initiatives more effective. Of course, there is much more you can do to tighten the process so that your efforts produce greater results; but by taking these three steps you'll be well on your way.

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eBay and PayPal, accuses Google Steal Company Secrets

TRIBUNNEWS.COM - Company services online sales, eBay, and also the company's PayPal unit, filed a lawsuit against Google related to the alleged theft of trade secrets is a mobile payment system.

Reported by Reuters on Friday (05/27/2011), two Google executive who used to work with PayPal, Osama Bedier and Stephanie Tilenius, launched an online payment system in cooperation with MasterCard, Citigroup, and Sprint cell phone company.

This demand becomes increasingly prominent and one of the rising dissension large number of companies from Silicon Valley to be a winner in the mobile payment system and has a market estimated at up to 1 trillion U.S. dollars. Mobile phones are now considered as a digital wallet in the future.

In the lawsuit, eBay wrote that Bedier who worked for nine years at PayPal and last worked as vice president for field platforma, mobile, and venture. He joined Google degan on 24 January this year.

Meanwhile, Tilenius at eBay from 2011 to 2009 and worked as a consultant to the company until March 2010.

Bedier accused of using PayPal mobile payments secret and leaked it to Google and a number of other retail.

News By : yahoo news

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