A prospect’s mind is an intimate place where something I call The Inner Score Keeping System dwells.

Simply put, it’s a fundamental model that you can use as a metaphor to help explain the way prospects govern their inner decision-making.

It’s true that a potential buyer will profile several things in the background while evaluating an offer. Many little decisions are made along the way that lead up to the BIG yes or no final decision.

Some of these are subconscious thoughts while other times one may even notice their own mind chatter. However, in any case, a decision process is in action.

In the situation where a prospect is evaluating a sales offer, here is an overview of events going on deep inside the prospect’s mind.

While responding to the offer, the prospect instinctively invokes a scoring system, which helps in evaluating the offer.

We ALL have this judgment system inside of us that we respond with.

This Inner Score Keeping System occurs mostly behind the scenes as we don’t focus on the inner process. Although it is transparent to us, it’s still there.

It deals with the balancing scale of acceptance and rejection. When we buy, it assists us in weighing our decisions based on emotions and logic.

When positive emotions are triggered in a sales offer, they theoretically score acceptance points, which are intended to collectively add-up over rejection. Rejection points always lean toward discouraging the buy.

Thus, in this virtual score-keeping setting, points equal positive or negative measurements of emotions (or logic) in proportion to the sales offer. This inner-judgment that we invisibly process, determines the outcome of the offers we evaluate.

We, as the prospective buyer, keep calculating this inner score in the background. The sales copy attempts to win us over by scoring maximum acceptance points, provoking the action to buy.

You know when you get a gut feeling ‘to buy or not to buy’, this is our inner score keeping system I am talking about. It regulates our buying behaviors and helps us make buying decisions.

Thus, when a prospect interfaces with a sales letter offer, it instinctively prompts this decision making process. It all comes down to a final response to the offer.

Ultimately, the prospect will either accept the offer to buy… or reject the offer and leave.

Hence: The Inner Score Keeping System.

The overall message I am suggesting here is to learn to think like a buyer if you want to get on the other side of the sale… the selling side.

Of course we all have plenty of buying experience. But, since we do no not usually think about the process when we buy, we miss the boat on knowing what actually makes us buy.

In other words, when we buy, we are not considering all of the elements that add up to the final buying decision. We just buy or pass on the offer.

However, there is much to be learned from this and thinking like a buyer is by far the best way to unlock your prospect’s mind to make the sale!

(c) Michael Nicholas, 2004

Michael Nicholas is the author of, Order Button Triggers. His ground breaking ebook focuses on how to get prospects to click the order button to buy. Featuring over 30 years of Internet marketing experience combined, Michael brought in top marketers to tell how they do it. Click for more info==> http://www.orderbuttontriggers.com

Currently the holy-grail of internet marketing is search engine optimisation (ranking high in the organic or natural results of search engines for popular keywords related to your business, market sector, or products). Closely followed by Pay Per Click Advertising (sponsored results). Not knowing what search engines to concentrate on can lead to much wasted time, effort and money.

Below are the latest search engine usage stats for the UK:

Google: 32%
Yahoo!: 26%
AOL: 19%
MSN: 17%
Ask Jeeves: 2%

Well as you can see Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN should be the main focus of any search marketing campaign, but are these figures accurate?

Google, Yahoo, AOL, Ask Jeeves and MSN make up the heavy weight division of search, with the highest market share held between them (around 98% of all UK based search queries). But Google provide search results to AOL and Yahoo provide Wandadoo’s results? Knowing this information changes the above results significantly.

True UK Search Engine Usage Statistics:

Google: 51%
Yahoo!: 26%
MSN: 17%
Ask Jeeves: 2%

Google now has over half of the market share and should be the main focus of any search marketing strategy. Combine these figures with the fact that 80% of products purchased online derived from a search engine. You can say out of every ten items sold online, Google was the starting point for four of them. Ignoring this information would be a very bad idea for any business looking to use the internet to increase turnover.

The Future of Search

Search has become a multi-billion pound industry that is constantly changing. Which is hardly surprising when you consider each person using a search engine is estimated to be earning them £50 per year from sponsored clicks and ad serving.

Competition to be the number one provider of search is tough but open to any company able to provide better results than the current champion. Searchers will use the best tool for the job careless of who is providing it. Currently 51% of people feel Google is providing the best results and choose to use their service. But for how long?

You don’t have to look back very far to see the internet without a Google. Which means the current situation of one search provider dominating the entire industry will probably change with time. With companies like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo each pushing the industry forward at great speed. The top spot of search will probably be a forever changing affair.

From this article you know where to concentrate your search marketing campaign but it will pay dividends to keep a keen eye on this ever changing medium.

James Anderson is an Internet Marketing Consult working for Podium Solutions Web Design Manchester. Podium Solutions is also the company responsible for the trolleytech eCommerce Solution. Please include this short bio and links when reproducing the article, many thanks.

Do you want to reach millions of potential customers for FREE? Well you can if you know how. The Internet, that massive network of thousands of computers around the world, also known as the "Information Super Highway," is your ticket to generating free leads and sales.

As with any other medium, there is a correct way and an incorrect way to advertise online. One correct way is to post your message to various newsgroups that welcome advertising. If you dig around, I’m sure you’ll find a couple of newsgroups that fit this description. Posting your ad to these newsgroups is a good way to start your advertising campaign because they are seen by millions and it didn’t cost you a dime. Your ad will last for about two weeks and then you will need to repost your ad. Keep track of your ad response and focus your efforts on the ads that bring you the best results.

Another source of free advertising is publishing articles that others can reprint freely. People such as webmasters and e-zine publishers are always in need of fresh content. Write about something you are interested in. If you have a certain area of expertise, write an article about that. Place a resource box at the end of your article with all of your pertinent contact information. Don’t attempt to sell your product here. Do that when you get contacted for more information.

One more source of free advertising is ezines. Some ezines allow their subscribers to advertise for free. Different ezines have different rules regarding their advertising. There are a lot of directories online that list ezines that offer free advertising. Just go to any search engine and type in ezines and you should find a considerable amount of ezines listed.

You can also create what is known as a signature file. A signature file is a footer that goes at the bottom of any email that you send out. Your signature file contains information such as your company name, email address, and website. You should also include a short sales message in your signature file.

Now that you know the correct ways to advertise for free online, here are a few incorrect things to do when advertising online. Don’t be tempted to post ads in any newsgroup that you see. Follow their posting rules to the letter. If they say NO ADVERTISING, don’t advertise. This is a good way for you to get thrown out of the group. Additionally, don’t write articles that serve as sales letters. Editors will spot this rather quickly and they will not publish your article. There are many places to advertise for free online. If you utilize them, you will be well on your way to building your business online.

DeAnna Spencer is a virtual assistant that helps entrepreneurs run a successful business by providing affordable administrative help. She also publishes a blog for small business owners. Visit this small business resource today.

If we take a look at traditional export process for a new company and its products you may start by defining the niche market, and then finding the customers.

The usual method is contacting Commerce Departments on the embassies or consulates of diverse countries, find the most relevant companies that can be interested on importing, and get valid contact information.

Other used method is to travel to the desired countries and present your products to local importers or distributors and hopefully get a deal.

I cannot say those methods are inefficient, however they can be certainly risky, time consuming and very expensive.

Now let’s analyze the SEM choice for international commerce: Using the power of the internet, a professional SEM company can develop for you a web marketing strategy to recognize your niche market(s), find out what your competitors and possible buyers are doing in order to be updated of the current market behavior, and then elaborate a marketing plan to get your potential buyers to contact you when searching for the products you promote.

If your idea is to have an aggressive campaign, an SEM strategy can include contacting potential clients (online and offline), letting them receive information about your offered merchandise and your possible advantages in your field (reliability, price, technology, special delivery, guarantee, client support, etc.).

Besides these points, the most important reasons why to choose Search Engine Marketing for your export planning still are:

It is faster and more accurate to find active potential customers.

Possibility to create a direct bridge to retailers and final consumers instead of selling to intermediaries, which will raise your margins and lower the final costs: a win-win deal.

The cost of an SEM strategy can be much lower than traditional marketing and –if professionally managed- will generate a fast ROI and will increase your sales volume, eliminating unnecessary risks.

If you have questions of how SEM can work for your business please click here.

Mr. Daniel Katz is the Business Development Manager at Compucall Web Marketing Ltd - http://www.compucall-uk.co.uk - experts in International Web Marketing and Marketing Strategies.

Viral Marketing is allowing people to giveaway and use your free product or service in order to multiply your marketing quickly over the internet. The idea behind viral marketing is that you include your ad with the freebie people giveaway or use. Below are ten high impact viral marketing strategies:

1. Allow people to reprint your articles on their web site, in their e-zine, newsletter, magazine or ebooks. Include your resource box and the option for article reprints at the bottom of each article.

2. Allow people to use any of your freebies as free bonuses for products or services they sell. Include your ad on all your freebies.

3. Allow people to use your online discussion board for their own web site. Some people don’t have one. Just include your banner ad at the top of the board.

4. Allow people to sign up for a free web site on your server. Since you are giving away the space, require them to include your banner ad at the top of the site.

5. Allow people to add their link to your free web site directory. Just require that they return a link back to your web site, advertising your directory.

6. Allow people to provide your free online service to their web site, visitors, or e-zine subscribers. They could be free e-mail, e-mail consulting, search engine submissions, etc.

7. Allow people to give away your free software. Just include your business advertisement inside the software program.

8. Allow people to give away your free web design graphics, fonts, templates, etc. Just include your ad on them or require people to link directly to your web site.

9. Allow people to place an advertisement in your free ebook if, in exchange, they give away the ebook to their web visitors or e-zine subscribers.

10. Allow people to give away your free ebook to their visitors. Then, their visitors will also give it away. This will just continue to spread your ad all over the internet.

Julia Tang publishes "Smart Online Business Tips" Newsletter which helps people to start, run and grow Internet businesses. To get tips, tactics, reliable business opportunities and promotional tools, plus over $200 free bonuses, you can visit http://www.best-internet-businesses.com

What is web-marketing? Why does your business need it?

The best web site and the best web-marketing strategy will not reap the highest possible results, if they are not tightly integrated. Not only do you need a well-designed web site with relevant content and user-friendly navigation, but your site needs to be found by your target audience (prospect customers).

A well-thought web marketing strategy drives traffic to your site through search engines, and other methods. Search engine strategy helps in getting the highest visibility in the search engine ranking, then helps pull the visitors to your web site if your listing is relevant to their initial query. After that, your web site or web page needs to communicate and be relevant in a targeted fashion to what your visitors had in mind when they clicked on your listing or search result.

How does a web site communicate relevancy and targeting? Here are 7 habits a well-thought web-marketing plan needs to include to increase its efficiency.

Habit #1: Keyword strategy

Keyword research must be done to find out what people are actually typing into the search engines.

Of course, it will be important to analyze the competition and your current keywords on an ongoing-basis.

The really important number is the amount of traffic each keyword generates.

Since search engine algorithms and methods are bound to change and are diverse, it is important to revisit your keyword strategy on a regular basis.

Habit #2: Targeted pages to channels or main audience constituencies

The key is to know your audience and address what they are looking for, rather than presenting what your business can offer.

Rather than sending all visitors to your home page and then letting them wander through your web pages, hoping that they will find what they were initially looking for, why not point them in the correct direction and offer them the content they were initially looking for by doing this search query?

Habit #3: Integrating keyword strategy and web content

Also, it is important to point out that keywords need to be re-used in the content itself of the page, and this is done by striking a careful balance between selling to prospect customers, optimizing for search engines, and making the text interesting and useful to your visitors.

Because search engines want repeat customers, they try to return relevant results, so this content cannot be artificially crafted for the purpose of search engine ranking only ; but rather, one must take into consideration the importance of contextual relevancy and content usability.

Habit #4: A call to action

The web page needs to have a call to action, and you need to have some ROI measurement in place to establish the success of your search engine marketing strategy (whether it is paid or unpaid search engine keywords).

Habit #5: Content creation and freshness

Your site needs to grow its content to increase its search marketability, relevancy and ranking.

Indeed, the more fresh content your site has, the more likely it will come up in search results, and the more your audience will come back to your web site.

Habit #6: Integrating your online and offline marketing campaigns

Think about ways of reinforcing the conversion of new prospective leads to consumers.

This can be done through reminders via emails, brochures, coupons, seminars, newsletters, etc.

Habit #7: Link Campaign

You need to get relevant sites to link to your web site. Partner with sites that have good relevant content related to your business and that are the authority or are popular in your field.

These 7 habits will help in increasing the success of your online presence. It is important to ensure you have the right resources committed to your web site and allocate the appropriate budget to maintaining and promoting it.

Don’t just build your web site and wait!

##### Publisher’s Box #####

©Valerie Prigent, Speron Inc, MyPrivateCoach d/b/a 2004. www.MyPrivateCoach.com Valerie Prigent is the Web Marketing Coach at MyPrivateCoach. She can be contacted at info@myprivatecoach.com. Get a taste of coaching FREE today, schedule your first free session! This article may be published without the consent of the author so long as the publisher’s box is included in the post.

##### End Publisher’s Box #####

It’s no secret that Search Engine marketing can drive significant amounts of very qualified traffic to a web site – as 85% of Internet users utilize search engines to find/research for goods and services. The problem for many companies is the difficulty they face sifting through conflicting information and hyperbole! Here is my top five list of myths that need to be run to ground.

Big Picture Myth One – Search engine ranking leads are not as good as those which originate from other forms of traditional marketing (print, direct mail, PR, etc.) – this is absolute hogwash, the truth is many agencies don’t have a clue about s/e ranking, so they push their clients to ignore this form of advertising. They simply don’t want to recommend anything they don’t understand and/or utilize an interactive marketing vehicle that requires a blend of very specialized technology and processes.

We’ve in fact found just the opposite when we’ve analyzed s/e traffic versus other types of leads for our clients; i.e. search engine traffic can be much better, as it is comprised of individuals who are actively seeking info, not just people whose curiosity has been piqued by an eye-catching publication ad or press release. And, when we’ve analyzed the data by tracking leads via a landing page (on a web site) we’ve discovered that CPL (cost per lead) numbers can be much lower for s/e ranking than other more traditional marketing methods.

Big Picture Myth Two – Effective s/e marketing can be done in house – this is rarely the case, the sheer complexity and online competition (digital warfare!) for rankings makes this extremely difficult for most companies. Based upon our analysis over 73% of corporate accounts don’t understand the basic fundamentals; i.e. how to properly use keywords, meta tags and titles and worse, don’t submit their web sites to top tier Directories (Yahoo, LookSmart, OPD) and the hundreds of second tier directories.

Most companies delegate the s/e submissions to the webmaster or web site development staff and they just don’t have the time to understand the daunting complexities required to generate page 1-3 rankings - or to stay abreast of the shifting submissions and ranking criteria standards, as modified monthly by top tier search engines. And, in many companies the s/e ranking is added to the over worked webmaster’s tasks purely as an afterthought – as opposed to being addressed formally by the marketing department, with dedicated personnel and a budget.

Big Picture Myth Three – off the shelf software that submits a site to thousands of web sites and presents snazzy reports can do it all. This is so inaccurate and nothing can be further from the truth – it takes a tremendous amount of labor and time to identify keyword sets (not just words), optimize the content for these keywords, submit the pages while obeying the rules of the road and then continually analyzing rankings and tweaking to maintain and drive rankings (web site visibility).

Software can certainly help to automate some facets of the process and be used for back end analysis – but you can’t expect any application to make the job easy, there is too much inherent complexity in the processes. And, competition for keyword sets is fierce – as there are an estimated 5-10M registered domains (the numbers vary widely) with 60K new domains being registered every day.

Big Picture Myths Four and Five – Any page listing will help to drive traffic to a web site – this is another misconception. If you are aren’t achieving page 1-3 rankings then your wasting a great deal of time and resources – most people never drill down below these pages. Another common mistake is trying to achieve s/e rankings for a specific URL or product – if people know the name of a company or product they will find your web site easily, it’s a waste of resources to optimize for these specialized terms in 80% of most cases.

About The Author

Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com, a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies. Lee@intelective.com

Lee@intelective.com

Measuring and understanding your Website’s success is a critical process that is sometimes overlooked. Many times, marketing efforts stop at getting traffic to the site. The next step is to evaluate results.

By "connecting the dots" between your marketing programs and end results, you can improve performance. Ultimately, site success depends on how well your site performs with respect to your goals. Measuring actual results against those goals tells you how well your site is succeeding.

Improving results means not only measuring the results themselves but also measuring, understanding, and adjusting the events that lead to those results. Further, having a marketing plan that identifies general strategies and specific programs for meeting your site goals will give you a higher baseline performance to work with when improving upon your site’s success.

Have a Plan

Whatever your Website goals, a marketing plan helps you meet them. By including two or three general strategies to meet each goal as well as specific programs under each strategy, you are better able to evaluate and improve performance.

For example, let’s say you make high quality, custom-made scarves and wish to sell them regionally:

– A Website goal could be to begin selling scarves online and achieve "x" amount of sales in the first six months online.

– One general strategy for meeting that goal could be to get the site known locally by fashion conscious ladies in your community.

– A specific program to support this strategy could be to hold a contest on your site, with the prize being a free, customized scarf. To promote the contest, you could issue a press release, which you send to fashion editors, etc.

By taking this funneled approach - planning down from the broad goal to the specific marketing program - you are better able to evaluate how well each program supports (or fails to support) your goals.

From the start - when you are developing your plan and deciding site structure - think about how to measure performance. Measures will differ, depending upon the situation, but should be both quantitative and meaningful with respect to helping you improve site performance. Choose a set of measurements that will tell you not only how your marketing programs are working, but also how well they support Website goals.

Evaluate Marketing Programs

To evaluate a marketing program’s success, decide your objectives first. You can then "connect the dots" between those objectives and your site goals. Later, when analyzing program results, evaluate not only whether the program succeeded in meeting objectives, but also how well it moved your business toward its Website goals.

It is possible to meet an objective for the marketing program while failing to support site goals. Many traffic generation programs serve as an example. Businesses will often participate in "hit" programs with disappointing results. They reach "hit" objectives, but move no closer to site goals.

Consider Return on Investment (ROI)

One way to evaluate marketing program results is through Return on Investment (ROI) analysis. ROI is a computation that tells you how much you received compared to what you put into a project. You can express ROI in terms of a dollar amount or as a ratio. Either way, the formula itself is simple.

The dollar amount formula tells how much you increased profit in total dollars as a result of the project:

(Cost savings and earnings as a result of the project) minus (Dollars invested)

The ratio formula tells how much you got back, in dollars, for each dollar you invested in a project:

(Cost savings and earnings as a result of the project) divided by (Dollars Invested)

IMHO, things get sticky when you try to define "cost savings and earnings as a result of a project." This is because returns from marketing investments are broader and often more abstract than returns from some other types of investments. Marketing investments have not only direct monetary benefits, but indirect benefits as well. These indirect benefits are often intangible and difficult (if not impossible) to measure directly.

If you are part of a typical small business with limited resources it may feel like you are in a no win situation. Accurately computing ROI requires a detailed analysis for which the internal resources and expertise are often lacking. Outside consultants can spend hours unearthing data and computing an accurate ROI, but this can be expensive on a small budget.

This does not mean, however, that you cannot use ROI as one of several inputs into program evaluation. When figuring ROI and evaluating marketing program success, keep in mind that each project will realize different types of benefits. Aside from direct dollars cost and direct dollars returned, consider other potential project benefits, including how well it supports your site goals. Other aspects to consider:

Improved customer relationships. Happier customers can represent a return on investment. This can be gauged through repeat order patterns, by a change in the number of complaints/compliments, or through customer surveys comparing pre- and post-project satisfaction.

Influence on offline sales. Online activities often have an influence on offline transactions. You may experience sales leads originating from your Internet programs, for example. Customers may also be driven to your offline store as a result of online information.

Brand building. Online activities can mean better long term growth for your brand. Market share changes, online interactions, and brand awareness surveys are some ways you can judge brand building effects.

Company growth potential. Factor in long term growth prospects when evaluating your project. For many businesses, the Internet provides access to new markets and customers. If you have a local business, for example, your Website could extend your business far beyond the city limits.

Take into account these broader implications, pay attention to how well a marketing program supports your site goals, and measure program results. By taking this three pronged approach, you can better choose marketing programs with positive results.

About the Author

Bobette Kyle draws upon 12+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, Marketing MBA, and online marketing research in her writing. Bobette is proprietor of the Web Site Marketing Plan Network, http://www.WebSiteMarketingPlan.com, and author of the marketing plan and Web promotion book "How Much For Just the Spider? Strategic Website Marketing For Small Budget Business." ( HowMuchForSpider.com/TOC.htm )

The Challenge

WebSiteMarketingPlan.com was to be a companion site to the Web promotion and marketing plan guide "How Much for Just the Spider? Strategic Website Marketing." Although the approach was relatively new — marketing plan development integrating traditional and online marketing strategies — the general "Internet Marketing" category was crowded and very competitive. Additionally, I had much offline marketing experience, but zero online credibility.

My initial challenges when launching the Website were:

1.) to gain online credibility and

2.) to be heard in a crowded and often hype-filled category.

By February, 2002 the site was nearly ready. I had fought through a FrontPage learning curve and had a site brimming with content but a bit hard on the eyes (let’s just say I could never make a living as a graphic artist). I signed on for a basic hosting plan with Lexiconn and uploaded my Website. Within days, Alexa found the site. Rank? 17 million and some change.

With the site up but largely unknown, an early focus was to get my target audience — those looking for strategic marketing and planning ideas — interested enough to visit WebSiteMarketingPlan.com. Making it even more difficult (wouldn’t want to make anything easy on myself), I had decided on a severely limited budget — no consultants and no expensive marketing programs. Just a computer and a truckload of reference books.

Marketing Site Launch Case Study: The Approach

To gain credibility for both the marketing plan book and for myself, I had to show that the approach explained in the book was solid. For this reason, I developed a marketing plan for the site using the same planning process detailed in the book. When done, I had a summary page with four strategies and four to six programs under each. The 20 programs were to be implemented over 12 -18 months, revised as necessary over time.

Thinking in terms of the customer acquisition stages of "awareness," "interest," "trial," and "repeat," I focused first on implementing marketing programs that would build "awareness" and "interest."

Here are some of the marketing programs implemented February through September, 2002:

Getting Listed in Search Engines and Directories

To gain site awareness I manually submitted the site to about a dozen search engines and directories — the large ones plus a hand full of specialty sites.

Because of budget constraints the Yahoo! directory, at $299 a year, was not feasible. I paid a one-time submission charge to Looksmart (this was before they "improved" to a pay-per-click model) and submitted two URLs to Inktomi through PositionTech.

I purposely did not submit to Google because I had read more than once that Google rankings may be higher for sites Googlebot finds on its own. I do not know if it made a difference but Google did find the site, with cheer-invoking results.

Publishing a Newsletter

Early on, I started a newsletter and continue to publish every one to three weeks. Strategically, this was both to gain personal credibility and to have my own publishing and advertising venue. The first issue was published in March, 2002 — with five subscribers, including my mom. lol!

I am adamant about growing a targeted, quality subscriber list so I stayeded away from mass acquisition tactics. Going with slow and targeted methods, my opt-in list at end of September, 2002 was around 600 and growing by 5 -10 daily. Far from spectacular, but in line with my expectations.

Writing Articles

Also to gain both personal credibility and awareness, I wrote and distributed articles. Mostly, I added the articles to content sites. Publishers may reprint an article at no charge as long as the article remains intact and the resource box at the bottom is used. This creates a win-win situation. The publisher gets free content and I get free advertising.

Joining Organizations

I also become a member of a few organizations. Early on, I joined the eMarketing Association. This has become a mutually beneficial arrangement. In addition to the normal membership benefits, several of my articles appeared in the monthly newsletter and article of the week.

In 2003, WebSiteMarketingPlan.com was also accepted into the International Council of Online Professionals (iCop). I also joined the Internet Affiliate Marketing Association (iAfma) and the Internet Warriors.

Communicating

Personal communication with select high-level marketers and specialists garnered mentions of the site as well. Actions that have led to personal communication with several high-caliber personalities include: 1) Answering questions on bulletin boards, 2) publishing guest articles in my newsletter, and 3) publishing others’ material on the site (with permission, of course).

Note that I always initiated contact by giving something of value. I did this for two reasons:

1) More likely as not, I had learned from them through their writing. In my own mind, it was a small payback for that free advice.

2) I am uncomfortable with "selling," so do not push goods/services, etc. on others. If the relationship produces revenue, hooray! If not, refer to #1.

Learning from Others

WebSiteMarketingPlan.com and its companion marketing plan and Web promotion guide are "big picture," planning resources. When it comes to implementing promotional tactics, top specialists have been a tremendous resource. I do not always take their advice, but they are indisputably more knowledgeable than I in their chosen fields. Three of my favorites, in alphabetical order:

- David Frey, MarketingBestPractices.com David’s a former Anderson business consultant and top executive. He now makes his living from home with several successful information products/services.

- Paul Myers, TalkbizNews.com Paul has a rare combination of abilities. He can understand issues from all sides, develop innovative marketing programs, and write with great wit. Don’t let the rough exterior fool you — there are some smarts under that hat.

- *Jill Whalen, Search Engine Optimization at HighRankings.com (See note and disclaimer below.) Jill takes an ethical, common sense approach approach to search engine optimization and marketing. She is also highly visible in the search engine optimization community. Several Jill Whalen articles appear in All Info About Search Engines and other information sites. Jill Whalen interviews appear across the Web as well, on sites such as Search Engine Blog. She also runs a highly successful forum.

Other programs were in progress or "on the back burner" until the timing was right.

The Results

The initial challenges - gaining credibility and attracting attention - were well on the way to being met.

As of September, 2002 (seven months after launch), monthly visitors to WebSiteMarketingPlan.com were consistently growing and numbered about 10,300 for the month. Just over 8,000 of those were unique visitors.

The site had a top-5 Google ranking — usually first or second — for both "Internet marketing plan" and "Website marketing plan." The site was also in the top ten — usually fourth, fifth, or sixth — for "marketing plan" (all terms without quotes).

While the interest level and number of visitors to the site far exceeded expectations at that point, the conversion rates (which had not been a focus) were disappointing. It was time to move to the next stage of implementing the site’s marketing plan — focusing on "trial" and "purchase" through increased attention to improving conversion rates.

*Jill Whalen Note: I am — as of 2004 — one of Jill Whalen’s forum moderators. So , I’m now playing "favorites" and expanded the Jill Whalen section a bit compared to the original 2002 article. - Bobette

About the Author

Bobette Kyle draws upon 12+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, Marketing MBA, and online marketing research in her writing. Bobette is proprietor of the Web Site Marketing Plan Network, http://www.WebSiteMarketingPlan.com, and author of the marketing plan and Web promotion book "How Much For Just the Spider? Strategic Website Marketing For Small Budget Business." ( HowMuchForSpider.com/TOC.htm )

Copyright 2002, 2004 Bobette Kyle. All rights reserved.

Does your business struggle with profitable online marketing? If so, you are not alone. Attracting the right customers to a site and keeping them coming back — while also turning a profit — can be a challenge. Consequently, I’m always on the lookout for ways to demonstrate profitable online strategies.

Last night, as I watched the 2003 Baseball All Star Home Run Derby and visited Major League Baseball’s Web site, it struck me. The league is doing many things to effectively find and attract targeted Web customers, while simultaneously generating revenue.

In fact, I noticed several lessons from Major League Baseball you can use to profitably target your own customers. Here are six of them:

Think Through Your Business Models

Free information and activities are present, but well thought out, revenue generating business models are also evident.

Lesson 1: Make your profit generators stand out.

MLB.com has a separate, prominent navigation menu for profit producing activities — MLB Shop, Tickets, Auctions, Subscriptions — which appears in the upper right on all pages, where potential paying customers cannot miss it.

Importantly, each corresponding area of the site is narrowly focused on the visitors’ interests. For example, the shop sells baseball — and only baseball — items. This is readily apparent from the slogan "For all things baseball".

Lesson 2: Sell subscriptions.

The league generates revenue from a variety of event subscriptions — live video broadcasts, live audio broadcasts, archived clips, and fantasy games. This also help open the door for repeat purchases and add-ons.

Lesson 3: Include advertisements.

Pop-ups and other online advertising are a fact of life on free-to-user sites. Major League Baseball demonstrates taste and intelligent implementation with their pop-under, limiting each visitor to a single impression. Banner advertisements and sponsorships are also apparent.

Develop Profit Pulling Marketing Techniques

Lesson 4: Segment your visitors.

The league uses a "hub and spoke" system, which allows visitors to choose their own interests. There is one general site (MLB.com), with links to several specialty sites. (stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com, etc.)

This portal approach helps segment visitors into specific interest groups. It is a win-win strategy. Visitors find what they are looking for and the league can more easily target its marketing activities.

Lesson 5: Target locally.

Each "spoke" off the MLB hub contains local content, which segments visitors regionally. The league targets products and services accordingly.

For example, the Cardinals team site includes detailed information for Cardinals baseball events, ticket purchasing for Busch stadium games, and auctions for St. Louis related baseball memorabilia.

Lesson 6: Offer tiered products.

MLB offers subscription services at many levels. By packaging fantasy games into progressively larger bundles, they encourage trial as well as repeat visits. The offerings also target customers according to interest level and budget.

There you have it — six lessons in profitable target marketing from Major League Baseball.

About the Author

Bobette Kyle draws upon 12+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, Marketing MBA, and online marketing research in her writing. Bobette is proprietor of the Web Site Marketing Plan Network, http://www.WebSiteMarketingPlan.com, and author of the marketing plan and Web promotion book "How Much For Just the Spider? Strategic Website Marketing For Small Budget Business." ( HowMuchForSpider.com/TOC.htm )

Copyright 2003,2004 Bobette Kyle. All rights reserved.