Internet Tip of the Week
by Bob Osgoodby
by Bob Osgoodby
Today is Saturday, September 16, 2006
It is 259 days since the first of the Year
There are 106 days left in the Year, and
There are 99 days until Christmas
Today is . . . International Peace Day
On this date . . . American
Legion established (1919)
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In this Issue
** Internet Tip of the Week by Bob Osgoodby – Penny Wise and Pound Foolish
** In the News – LSU To Provide Identity-Theft Insurance
** Featured Article - Writing Effective Catalog Copy or Web Copy Can Be Fun! by Marcia Yudkin
** Biz-Tips by Dr. Kevin Nunley – Simple Ways To Track Ezine Ad Results** Humor to Start the Weekend – First Day of School
** Something to Think About by Jan Tincher
- 11/23
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Welcome
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Penny Wise and Pound Foolish
by Bob OsgoodbyWe've all heard the old saying "Penny Wise and Pound Foolish”. It never ceases to amaze me that someone will join an income opportunity program, but not effectively promote it and scout out new customers. Most people join programs of this type to generate income, and they pay a monthly fee to be involved.
They first might try all the free advertising available, and that may or may not generate some income. However, they are using the "tried and true", but very "tired" ads supplied by the affiliate, and wonder why they don't do better.
Then they try some paid ads using the same tired ad copy in newsletters, ezines and on web sites with similar results. At this point, they might do one of two things, and sometimes both. The first is they discount this type of advertising as not being effective, and/or quit the affiliate program. After a program gets saturated, thousands of people have used these affiliate supplied ads, and potential customers have seen them a "jillion" times. Once an ad gets "tired", it is a waste of time and money to continue using it.
However, many people rely on ezine advertising to sell these affiliate programs that others are failing at, and do very well. So what are they doing to be successful?
They do not just post an ad, and wait for the dollars to arrive in their mailbox. They have not fallen into what is referred to as "the earn while you sleep" trap. You know, you throw up a few ads on the web, and at night people all over the world are sending you their hard earned money. They realize that like anything else, if they are to succeed, they have to work at it.
The first thing they do is write some original ad copy, and back it up with their own web site. With the cost of registering a site AND a full year of web hosting for about $35, which is probably less than their monthly fee to the affiliate program, this is a must.
They next seek out newsletters or ezines, whose subscribers fall into their general target market. There, they place their rewritten ads and keep them going. It takes usually 5 to 7 exposures to an ad to get someone's attention. The really successful keep their ads in front of potential customers on a regular basis.
Ezine advertising is one of the most effective, inexpensive forms of advertising available on the web. You can get your message out to thousands of prospects for a few dollars. If you can't afford to advertise like this, you can't afford to be in business.
The old "saw" that "it takes money to make money" certainly holds true when conducting a web based business. But the beauty here is that you don't have to invest thousands to get started.
Many people trying to earn income on the web will fail, however a well thought out program will make money. Is there any "magic formula" which will guarantee success? Yes, but some are either too busy with their regular job to pursue this like a business, while others who do have the time, would rather spend it in other activities, and are simply taking a "shot" hoping to get something for little or no effort.
In order to succeed in any business, online or off, you have to give it the proper attention, and approach it in a business like fashion. And at the risk of using a "dirty word" you have to "work", and approach it like a regular job. If you hope to build an online business, you cannot sit back and hope the world will beat a path to your door - they won't. You have to promote your business to get the prospects interested in what you are trying to sell.
People will invest their hard earned money in a program, but don't take that next important step and spend a few bucks to promote it. They search out inexpensive programs to work with, and they are being "penny wise". But they don't spend the few extra dollars to promote it. That is being "pound foolish".
If you are "penny wise and pound foolish" in your approach to running any business, you will not succeed. If you approach it in a business like manner, you will achieve success. If you don’t, you can’t afford to be in business.
FYI -----
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$3 per editionTo submit your ad, go to our web site at: http://www.adv-marketing.com and click on Advertise in our Newsletters"
If you submit a FREE ad to our web site, you will receive a confirmation when it is received, and also be notified when it is posted to the web. Ads are normally placed on the web on Thursday morning. Confirmation that your ad was received is no guarantee that it was placed on the web. If you submitted one, you will receive a notice on Thursdays that they have been posted. Check your ad on the web to be sure it is there, and is correct.
Don't forget, it takes 5 to 7 exposures to an ad before you can expect someone to reply. Ads must be renewed each week, but you can join our auto-renew program and we will post the ad for you.
This program costs an outrageous $1 per week. There is a 13 week minimum.
In The News
LSU To Provide Identity-Theft Insurance
Louisiana State University (LSU) has launched a new program under which it will provide identity-theft insurance to its faculty and staff. LSU did report a minor security breach several months ago, in which the personal information for about 67 students was compromised, but the new initiative is aimed at possible future problems.
Under the terms of the new program, students and faculty can have one year of credit monitoring and $2,500 worth of identity-theft insurance. The services are provided through a contract with credit bureau Equifax, which LSU will pay $150,000 for one year of the agreement.
Brian Voss, CIO at LSU, said the new service might also protect the institution from liability claims in the event that a member of the campus community suffers identity theft due to a breach at the university.
Stupid Quotes
"I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work."
- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asked to estimate the number of Iraqi insurgents while testifying before Congress, Feb. 16, 2005
Writing Effective Catalog Copy or Web Copy Can Be Fun!
by Marcia YudkinOnce you learn a few fundamental principles and techniques, writing persuasive catalog copy, web copy or product descriptions for printed brochures or sales sheets becomes an easy, enjoyable process.
Step 1. List features and benefits, then connect them.
If you've read anything about copywriting, you've heard about the importance of including the benefits of products as well as their features. For instance, when you say your widget is a 2-inch pink plastic paperclip, you are describing its features. When you say it enables you to color-code stacks of papers or it attracts attention on someone else's desk or it makes a great gift for your organized-like-mad teenager, you are describing its benefits.
For concise, interesting product descriptions in a printed or online catalog, it's essential to combine features and benefits, weaving them together tightly yet unobtrusively. Here's a sample excerpt from the print catalog The Territory Ahead, mixing features and benefits:
Over cobblestone or dirt, concrete or causeway, the compression-molded midsole and metatomical footbed provide all-day, all-terrain cushioned support. (In other words, supreme comfort like we've never seen in a huarache.) Keen's patented bumpered toe prevents stubs and smashes. The traditional, tire-styled outsole features linen fabric inlay for additional strength and flex.
The widget's feature X gives you benefit Y. In one way or another (and there are at least 16 different ways to make this connection), this forms the foundation of catalog copy.
Step 2. Brainstorm angles and choose one as your opener.
Almost always, you'll also need an attention-getter for the headline and first sentence of your product description. Use the checklist below, or the expanded one in 73 Ways to Describe a Widget, to come up with an interesting way to think about the item. For instance, The Territory Ahead actually starts the product description quoted above with this answer to the question, "Who is it for?":
Ultralightweight, anatomically logical and muy guapa, Keen's huarache overhaul was done with the global wanderer in mind.
You can weave other elements from this brainstorming into your descriptive copy as space allows.
Step 3. Polish up your descriptions in a consistent voice.
Did you notice the way that the writing from The Territory Ahead has personality? Technically, this element is called voice, and it's what unifies the descriptions at a web site or in a catalog so that they have a corporate identity. When there's a tight match between the writing voice and the customers' interests and needs, the shopper feels the company is speaking directly to them, and that they're looking at the kind of widgets they'd most like to buy.
While the samples above from The Territory Ahead have a kind of masculine romance about them, a catalog or web site's voice could be efficient, technical, playful, practical, compassionate, soulful... There are a zillion possibilities.
Whatever the voice chosen, it must be consistent throughout the catalog or web site, or prospective customers get confused.
Step 4. Proofread, checking details.
As with any marketing or sales piece, the last step consists of proofreading, to make sure that you've included all the elements that people need to know before making a buying decision - size, color, composition, weight, price, etc. - along with making sure that the details provided are accurate.
Four steps - that's all there is to mastering the art of tantalizing product descriptions for catalogs or web sites.
-----
Marcia Yudkin (marcia@yudkin.com), author of Persuading on Paper and 10 other books, specializes in compelling, yet hype-free copywriting. This article is adapted from her report, 73 Ways to Describe a Widget: Never Be Brain Dead Again When Having to Write Catalog Copy or Sales Material, available from http://www.yudkin.com/catalog.htm.
Trivia
In George Washington's days, there were no cameras. One's image was either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of George Washington showed him standing behind a desk with one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and both arms. Prices charged by painters were not based on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were to be painted. Arms and legs are "limbs," therefore painting them would cost the buyer more. Hence the expression, "Okay, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg."
Biz-Tips
by Kevin NunleySimple Ways To Track Ezine Ad Results
You invest a good chunk of change on ezine ads in several of your favorite newsletters. After a week, some responses come in. Two days later a big blast of responses flood in. Then you get a steady flow, then a trickle that stretches for several weeks.
Where did all those responses come from? You used several different ads in several ezines. You want to duplicate your success, but you don't know what it was that was working so well.
This is the most common problem in marketing. Your easiest solution is to track your ad results, but how?
The two main ways folks track ezine ad results:
1. Create an email address for each ad, all of which are forwarded to you (your website host can often set this up for you). You can tell from the address where the prospect saw the ad.
You can use a mail program like Eudora to filter email bound for different addresses into individual folders.
2. Create a different web page for each ezine. I get a lot of ads that have a link like: mysite.com/drn. Use a website stats tracking package to see which ads are drawing hits (again, your website host can help you with this)
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Quote of the Day
Don't be discouraged by failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.
- John Keats
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- 10/22
A Little Humor to Start the Week
First Day of School
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=On the first day of school, about mid-morning, the kindergarten teacher said, "If anyone has to go to the bathroom, hold up two fingers."
A little voice from the back of the room asked, "How will that help?"
-----
New to the United States, I was eager to meet people. So one day I struck up a conversation with the only other woman in the gym.
Pointing to two men playing racquetball in a nearby court, I said to her, "There's my husband." Then I added, "The thin one--not the fat one."
After a slightly uncomfortable silence she replied, "And that's my husband - the fat one."
-----
Mrs. O'Donovan was walking down O'Connell Street in Dublin, and coming in the opposite direction was Father O'Rafferty. "Hello," said the Father, "And how is Mr. O'Donovan? Didn't I marry you two years ago?"
She replied, "You did that, Father."
"And are there any little ones yet?"
"No, not yet, Father." She said.
"Well now, I'm going to Rome next week, and I'll light a candle for you."
"Oh, thank you, Father." And away she went.
Several years later they met again.
"Well now, Mrs. O'Donovan," said the Father, "how are you?"
"Oh, very well," said she.
"And tell me," he said, "have you any little ones yet?"
"Oh yes, Father. I've had three sets of twins, and four singles -- ten in all."
"Now isn't that wonderful," he said, "and how is your wonderful husband?"
"Oh," she said, "he's off to Rome to blow out your bloody candle!"
-----
Two sisters, one blonde and one brunette, inherit the family ranch. Unfortunately, after just a few years, they are in financial trouble.
In order to keep the bank from repossessing the ranch, they need to purchase a bull from the stockyard in Ft Worth so that they can breed their own stock. They only have $600 left. Upon leaving, the brunette tells her sister, "When I get there, if I decide to buy the bull, I'll contact you to drive out after me and haul it home."
The brunette arrives at the stockyard, inspects the bull, and decides she wants to buy it. The man tells her that he will sell it for $599, no less. After paying him, she drives to the nearest town to send her sister a telegram to tell her the news. She walks into the telegraph office, and says, "I want to send a telegram to my sister telling her that I've bought a bull for our ranch. I need her to hitch the trailer to our pickup truck and drive out here so we can haul it home." The telegraph operator explains that he'll be glad to help her, then adds, "It's just 99 cents a word".
Well, after paying for the bull, the brunette only has $1.00 left. She realizes that she'll only be able to send her sister one word. After a few minutes of thinking, she nods and says, "I want you to send her the word 'comfortable' "The operator shakes his head. "How is she ever going to know that you want her to hitch the trailer to your pickup truck and drive out here to haul that bull back to your ranch if you send her just the word "comfortable?"
The brunette explains, "My sister's blonde. The word's big. She'll read it very slowly ... com-for-da-bull.
----------
If humans' knees bent the other way,
what would a chair look like?
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Something to Think About
By Jan TincherDid you know that helplessness is a learned response?
People learn to feel helpless by developing patterns of thought that hold them back. Most people don't know that.
If someone said to you that you could learn to dance in five sessions, you would believe them, because you know you can learn that.
Mental habit patterns as well as physical habit patterns are learned by following the very same process. Repetition. People can learn to be nice just as easily as they learned to be nasty.
Try this. Smile and think good thoughts every hour on the hour until it comes automatically. See how it feels. Here's an article that will help: Http://www.tameyourbrain.com/bodysmile.htm The guy who said "Keep smiling!" knew what he was talking about. <grin>
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Dumb Quotes
"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future."
- Dan Quayle, former U.S. Vice President
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Best Wishes - Have a Great Weekend
BobCopyright - 2004
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