» Management

Track And Measure Your Advertising, Customer Acquisition Costs, And The Lifetime Value Of A Customer

Albert — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:24:32 +0000

As business owners and managers, we need to look at a variety of numbers to gain a better understanding of our businesses. In this article, we are going to consider two very important metrics in business marketing – Cost Of Customer Acquisition and Advertising ROI (Return On Investment).

One of the most important numbers we need to always be mindful of is the “Cost of a New Customer” or “Cost of Customer Acquisition”.

Understanding Customer Acquisition Costs

If you are unfamiliar with this concept, let me give you a quick tutorial on this advertising metric.

Suppose you run an advertisement in your local newspaper for your furniture store. Suppose for the sake of this example that you paid $1000 for your display ad in the newspaper.

Now, suppose your advertising brought 4 new customers into your store, who bought from you. Suppose also that the average spend for each customer was $1500.

With the example I am drawing, your $1000 display advertisement in the newspaper brought in 4 customers who spent a total of $6000 in your store.

I am going to keep this example simple, so that more people can keep up with the numbers.

On the basic premise of our example, you generated 4 customers after an outlay of $1000 in advertising. So your basic Cost Of Customer Acquisition was $250 per customer.

If your business received fewer customers, from your outlay of $1000 in advertising, then your Cost Of Customer Acquisition is more expensive.

But, if your business earned more customers who spent money, then your Cost Of Customer Acquisition would be much smaller.

In its simplest form, the Cost Of Customer Acquisition is the money spent to get the customer to your store divided by the number of new customers acquired. We will look at this in more detail, later in this article.

The Best Way To Measure Sales And Marketing Performance

Entrepreneur Magazine in a 1999 article reflected on the Cost Of Customer Acquisition in the dot com world. The article suggested, “the cost of new customer acquisition is one of the best ways to measure sales and marketing performance.”

In 1999, the Cost Of Customer Acquisition for the following companies were:

BarnesAndNoble.com – $42
Amazon.com – $27.60
Priceline – $32.30
Beyond.com – $29.30

On the surface, these numbers may seem small. But, Amazon’s Average Sale is in the $17-range! This makes the challenge that Amazon and other major retailers face fairly transparent. If these retailers could only count on one purchase from the newly acquired customer, then these businesses would be losing money by the truckload.

Fortunately, Amazon continues to perform well in Repeat Business from a single customer. The following calculations reflect additional numbers that we business people should also factor into our Cost Of Acquisition metrics.

The Real Value Of A Customer

Amazon’s first-sale may only be $17, but in 1999, Amazon’s Average Sales Per Customer was $116, up $10 from the previous year. Unfortunately, Amazon isn’t very forthcoming with these numbers, so after two hours research, I was unable to come up with more up-to-date numbers for you to consider.

The point of mentioning this is that it is important for business owners and managers to recognize that the Value Of A Customer is not how much sales revenue is derived from the initial purchase, but more importantly, from the Lifetime Value Of A Customer.

If we looked at Amazon’s Cost Of Customer Acquisition only in terms of that first sale, then they will be losing money hand-over-fist. With a Cost Of Acquisition of $27.60 and the first sale of $17, Amazon could not stay in business long if they were continuously producing numbers at that level. However, once you factor in the Lifetime Value Of A Customer, then Amazon is spending $27.60 to acquire a customer that is worth $116 in sales for them. Therefore, by measuring the Lifetime Value of a Customer, Amazon is spending only 24% of their revenue in order to acquire one customer.

Few businesses invest 24% of their revenue in advertising, but Amazon hopes that the Lifetime Value of a Customer will eventually exceed the $116 value, known to have existed in FY2000.

As the Lifetime Value of a Customer increases, the overall Cost of Customer Acquisition will fall, as an overall percentage value of Cost Of Acquisition divided by the Lifetime Value of the customer.

The Compounding Lifetime Value Of A Customer

If you have a hair-cutting salon and your advertising budget for one month is $1000, and you get 30 new customers through the door, who will spend an average of $20 for a hair cut, then your basic Cost of Customer Acquisition is roughly $33.34 to gain $20 in new sales.

But if only half of your 30 new customers become regular clients, then you can anticipate 15 of those customers coming to your hair salon at least once a month for the remainder of the year. Therefore, the first 15 customers will be worth $20 each, and the next 15 customers will be worth $240 each over the course of one year ($20 x 12 months). All told, your first 15 customers will put $300 in your cash register, and the next 15 customers will put another $3600 in your cash register.

Thus, in the hair salon example, your $1000 in advertising could generate new customers that will generate $3900 in new sales. Once you start to consider the Lifetime Value of a Customer, within the Cost of Customer Acquisition, then you will realize that the Cost of Customer Acquisition – although it might be higher than the initial sale – holds out the possibility and promise reducing itself as the Lifetime Value of a Customer increases over time.

As the end of the year winds down, you will be able to see that a $1000 expenditure was turned into $3900 in new revenue. In essence, for every dollar you spent on advertising that month, your return value was $3.90 over the course of one year.

In the second year, if only half of the original 15 regular customers or roughly 8 people stay with you for the full course of the second year, then the $1920 in revenue (8 people X $20 each X 12 months) you can expect from those customers could almost be considered free money. Of course, you will still have service fulfillment costs, but that second year will give you nearly $2000 in revenue that you will not have to chase.

Even if half of the customers drop off during the following calendar years, then a 50% customer attrition rate will allow you to have customers that could stay with you up to five years. Calculated against a 50% decrease in customers over each calendar year, your $1000 investment in advertising may translate into $7500 in revenues over five years ($3900 + $1920 + $960 + $480 + $240 = $7500), from the initial investment of $1000 in advertising.

The interesting thing about this scenario is that it is based on an advertising budget of $1000 ONE TIME. But, most businesses will continue the advertising process every month in every year. Therefore, the above example could compound month-after-month. Every month should bring the same or similar results to your business for the month and year.

Advertising Is A Process, Not An Event

Many small business owners have a dire misunderstanding of the nature of advertising and the value to be received from the advertising.

When business owners or managers fail to track and measure the new business generated from the advertising, then the business owners and managers will fail to see that advertising is an expense that can return huge dividends to the business.

When businesses fail to track and measure advertising successes, people tend to only see the money leaving the business without every seeing the reward coming back into the business. As a result, many business managers will employ advertising for a short time, then cancel the advertising, under the false belief that the advertising was not returning value to the business.

When businesses fail to understand the Lifetime Value Of A Customer, it is hard to appreciate any advertising method that fails to pay for itself in its first cycle. If Amazon was to only look at the initial sale generated by a new customer, they would quickly cancel all of their advertising efforts. Fortunately for Amazon, its management understands that the initial $17 sale is not the measure to use to determine the value of Amazon’s advertising efforts. Amazon’s management understands that the true Cost of Customer Acquisition should not be measured by the initial sale, but by the Lifetime Value of a Customer. In doing so, Amazon has ensured that it will continue to be one of the largest and most successful retail outlets on the planet.

When business managers fail to understand the Lifetime Value of a Customer, it is hard for them to appreciate and understand the compounding nature of the revenue stream for a business. It is hard for them to understand that money invested into advertising today, can deliver huge rewards over the next several years.

A Wake Up Call For Small Business Owners

According to Scott Shane, author of “Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths that Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By“, only 29-in-100 businesses will remain in business after ten years. That means that a full 71% of businesses started in any calendar year will be out of business in only ten years.

It is sad to say, but the reason most businesses fail is that business owners and managers fail to understand the nature of advertising, the importance of tracking and measuring advertising results, the Lifetime Value of a Customer, and the compounding nature of the revenue stream.

I don’t want to see your business on the trash heap of yesteryear. So, it is my hope that you will take this article as a wake-up call, as to the importance of advertising and its potential to lift your business into profits.

Next, Learn Here More On How To Advertise Online……And Then Watch This FREE 26 Part Step-By-Step VIDEO Course

How to Effectively Work From Home

Albert — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:42:50 +0000

The number one reason I chose to pursue Internet marketing as an online entrepreneur was the freedom it provides. Having an online business allows you to take your business with you wherever you go and work on it at whatever time suits your schedule. Now, that’s the kind of freedom I am after!

But, in order to make your work at home, online business a success, you must possess a certain amount of self discipline so that you can properly use your energy and time productively.

Here’s a few of the most important elements that I learned that will keep your confidence, focus and productivity strong as you pursue your own dream of working at home…and succeeding.

The most important thing I learned was what things produced money for me and what things didn’t. For me it was no question…article marketing and list-building were the two most important elements to pursue for my business.

In other words, they were the best use of turning my time into money as they provided the best results.

Hanging out in forums and chat rooms…although very entertaining, was simply not cutting it. Forums can be productive for you if you monitor the way you use them and don’t just hang out killing what could otherwise be productive time.

Another important step to take is to cut yourself off from the noise…cut off the world that takes you away from your focus.

For example:

1) unsubscribe from your thousands of mailings. That is a chore in itself, but if you don’t do this, you will continue to be bombarded with offers that will only distract you from your goals. Choose to follow 1, 2 or possibly 3 mentors at a time…and no more. Trust me, the others aren’t going anywhere and will still be around when you’re finished with your present ones!

If this idea scares you, then create a separate email account and resubscribe for those hundreds of promos you will be getting and check it occasionally.

2) Do those things that make money for you first such as sending an email to your list, writing articles for the directories, checking your support desk for any help needed etc.

3) Shut your computer down and accomplish any offline tasks that are nagging at you to complete. I have found that if there are things that I am not tending to in my offline life, they will continue to nag me and unconsciously I am not getting the most out of my mind energy because of this subtle disturbance to my peace.

Value your time: Learn to say “no.” Sounds easy enough doesn’t it and yet there are those that have trouble saying “no” to anyone or any offer that comes their way. You need to choose what and whom gets your valuable time…you only have so much of it. Use your time to enjoy your family or to benefit your business in some way.

Learn to say “no” to time wasters. Learn to say “yes” to your life (family and business)

Set up your work hours and stick to it. For me, this was early in the morning. I would get busy on my business…coffee in hand while most everyone else was sleeping.

If you’re busy writing an article or blog post, time yourself! That’s right, buy a typical timer and set the alarm for the amount of time it should take you to complete this task. This will keep you honest with yourself but more importantly it will keep you accountable for your time!

Don’t spend 3-4 hours on a short report or blog post that should be written within 20-30 minutes. After timing yourself for awhile you might be surprised at what you find. Use this information to improve your time management skills.

Create a daily action list. I create mine the night before so that it is ready and waiting for me when I sit down at my desk in the morning and I never have to guess at what needs accomplishing. It is simply a compilation of tasks that I want to accomplish that day. Better to keep it simple…especially at first until you get comfortable with your own time frames. Don’t make the list so long that you are defeated before you begin.

I move from one task to the other until I’ve completed them all. If I have miscalculated my timing and everything does not get done that day, whatever is left undone goes to the top of my “to do” list for the next day.

Don’t forget the breaks! We need to take 15 minute breaks to stretch our body and give our minds a rest. Ideally you should never work more than three hours straight without some sort of break. But, come right back after your break!

And, last but not least, take ACTION. This is the most important step of all. If you don’t take action, your dreams an ideas remain just that…dreams and ideas. Combine your dreams with action steps…persistently and consistently…and watch your dreams manifest before your eyes!

Becoming an online entrepreneur is one of the most exciting opportunities that has ever come along. Becoming a success at it, is all about your self discipline.

Next, here you will find more tips on “How To Work From Home”… and then watch this FREE 26 Step-By-Step VIDEO course

Over Analysis Will Kill your Business

Albert — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 08:54:10 +0000

Have you ever come across the saying “analysis – paralysis?” This is a superb phrase that ideally describes the processes and difficulties faced by a large number of entrepreneurs in this day and age. Just about anyone can easily end up spending most of their time thinking to themselves “what if”, and going over – repeatedly, the very reasoning behind their endeavours, or they can press on ahead. You can ask yourself whether your marketing campaign will yield real results, or you can go for it and see what happens. Most of the time, the aspiring entrepreneur falls short and will turn away from his or her targets due specifically to this kind of analysis.

If you are establishing an online business, you know that you need to use the power of Internet marketing to help you become established, to make people aware of your existence and to draw them to your sales funnel. One of the best ways to do this is to use the power of article marketing. In spite of the fact that this has been proven time and again to be one of the most powerful ways of marketing your online business – and a crucial factor in website development as well, many people still second and third guess its effectiveness.

It is quite common for newcomers to the arena to be exposed to the power of article marketing and to fully understand and comprehend its concept, yet the character sitting on their shoulder whispers some words of doubt. It is not good enough to accept that article marketing has been around for a considerable period of time and has stood the test of that time, but rather the question arises once again whether it is “for you.”

Understand that time does not stand still and neither do your competitors. One of the most important traits that you can possess as an entrepreneur is the efficient use of time. Time management dictates that once you have decided upon a course of action, you put it in place and continue to move forward toward the goal. Over analysis just wastes time. Once you’ve decided, after due diligence and research that you have a course of action, you must be willing to act on this.

There are a lot of people out there who see article marketing as a process which just takes too much time. The actual fact is that this is one of the wonderful aspects of this particular approach. The creation of educational and informative content and the distribution to others can scarcely be a better way of informing people about your authority, expertise and ability to meet their needs. By the time prospects arrive at your website, they may be partly qualified as they will have read through the information that you are putting out and have decided that they need to move towards the next step.

As article marketing is by definition a process that takes time, it is common for people to start such a campaign and then to stop it. If you are creating good content and distributing it accordingly, the odds are that your article marketing campaign will work, but it will take your confidence and ability to continue with the process until you see results.

Many entrepreneurs do not feel confident enough to create the content themselves and this is where a ghostwriter can come in very handy indeed. Consider hiring a virtual assistant to help you create the content according to your requirements, and to help you distribute it to the best authority sites on the Internet. A dedicated approach here and a commitment to success will undoubtedly bring real results.

Ready To Work At Home?
Read Here How and Start Your Own Online Business NOW!

“Why I Love Affiliate Marketing – Part 5 “

Albert — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:35:58 +0000

NOTE: The following is a guest post from one of my favorite internet marketing mentors.

Why I Love Affiliate Marketing – Part 5
By Jimmy D. Brown of “Affiliatenaire”

The word “overhead” is not a favorite among those who run businesses of any kind. Nobody likes the expenses of operating a business. And nobody really talks about them much when it comes to promoting all of the “money-making” products and services online.

But, don’t kid yourself, there’s a lot of overhead.

That brings me to the fifth reason why I love affiliate marketing…

** You don’t need a big budget to make it work **

Do you have any idea how much money is spent running an internet business? There are monthly fees for…

* Autoresponders
* Hosting
* Management
* Advertising
* Scripts
* Much more

There are regular fees for…

* Licensing
* Outsourcing
* Support
* Customer Service
* Maintenance
* Development
* Recruting
* Much more

It’s not uncommon to spend tens of thousands (even hundreds of thousands) of dollars in operational costs — which is fine if you’ve been in business a while and are making the bucks. However, if you’re a newcomer, it can be taxing on your budget!

     SIDEBAR: I paid one girl over $30,000 last year
     just to oversee one small part of my business.
     No one talks much about it, but there ARE a lot
     of expenses involved before you get to the
     “bottom line” of profit.

BUT, with affiliate marketing, you don’t need a big budget to make it work! You can simply use a variety of free and low-cost marketing methods to generate clicks to your affiliate link.

That’s why I love affiliate marketing.

You don’t need a big budget to make it work.

…………………….

Jimmy D. Brown is the author of “Affiliatenaire“, teaching you how to create big-time affiliate commission checks in only 1-3 hours each week. Discover how you can get cash in the bank without a website, experience or even an idea!
Visit “Affiliatenaire” here!

…………………….Similar Posts:

Post from: Home Business and Work From Home Ideas and Opportunities

“Why I Love Affiliate Marketing – Part 5 “

37 Internet Marketing Techniques

Albert — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:23:48 +0000

The 7 Basics That All Sites Need to Adhere To

Basic #1:

Have a great keyword-loaded URL [Get your domain and hosting at bluehost.com]. Create small uris with: Snipurl.com, Tinyurl.com, ICANN.org is the technical coordination body for the Internet (what to do about domain name disputes).

Basic #2:

Easy to use Site Is your site easy to use and navigate? Does it satisfy its intended purpose? Use techniques that are friendly to your customers and prospects. View compatibility with various browsers: AnyBrowser.com. Check your graphics efficiency: Optiview.com ‘s Quickscan, keep track of your site’s performance: atwatch.com, dotcom-monitor.com, Keynote.com or lnternetSeer.com. Make sure your links work: SevenTwentyFour.com or validator.w3.org

Basic #3:

Give Away Value Give back to the community. Give something of value to your audience. Update this information periodically to keep your audience coming back. Examples include resources pages, books page, and white papers pages. [Or an ezine for example Matt's promotingtips.com].

Basic #4:

Satisfy Users Content Needs with External Resources Let your audience quickly find what they need. Valuable content, good navigation and easily accessible contact! feedback mechanisms. Add value to your site, by using some of the “free” tools on the Internet. For example, if you’re a U.S. public company, point to the Edgar database. If you want people to visit you, use [a mapping software] to give directions. If you can make maps.google.com to work for you, that would be great. Add a calendar supercalendar.com. In the language of your user such as Freetranslation.com.

Basic #5:

Put your URL Everywhere. All pieces of corporate literature should contain your URL: business cards, ads, letterhead, e-mail, company vehicles, packaging, promotional items, employees outgoing messages, signage around and within buildings, thank you cards, etc. GotLogos.com [or elance.com] to create a logo altterrain.com puts your url in a number of offline locations.

Basic #6:

Use a Signature Tag on your E-mail. A short description of your product or service should be automatically attached to the bottom of every e-mail. All employees should be encouraged to use it. Target your tag to the group receiving your e-mail.

Basic #7:

Submit Site at Search Engines, Directories, Announcement Spots, etc. Make sure people can find your site in Yahoo! and the top 7 search engines. Also try some of the vertical engines at searchenginewatch.com. Check out: Search.com for other places to submit to. Look at Yahoo’s list and Tucows.com list of search engine submission tools. Don’t forget to submit to DMOZ. Check your listings manually with MarketLeap.com tools (by keyword verification, search engine saturation, or link popularity). Learn everything you wanted to know about search engines from searchengines.net.

30 Techniques (Prioritized)

1. Pay-per-click (PPC) and other paid-for Internet Marketing
Pay-per-click is currently the hottest Internet Marketing technique and it’s only going to heat up from here. Although, Overture (now Yahoo!) started the trend, Google brought it to market. There are other locations to buy “from including Looksmart. Look toward Microsoft to create a service that is purported to leapfrog both Google and Yahoo! later this year. Create and manage the program yourself or use a firm.

2.Blogging
Search for Blogs at BlogSearchEngine or Technorati. You can blog yourself by sharing your thoughts on your site or you can blog on other sites. Create your own blogs with: Blogger, TypePad, LiveJournal, BlogHarbor, Blogger, Blogit, Weblogs, WordPress, and Userland. Check out: eLearnSpace.org’s Blogging Tutorial, Technorati’s Top Blogs,Radio Userland, or get your free Blog at JoeUser. Check out the small business blog center from allbusiness. Corporate examples (List of European Corporate Blogs, Ford, GM, Maytag Skybox, Jupiter Research), also some unofficial examples (Aston-Martin, Google, xBox, Dreamhost, and even John Kerry). Place ads on blogs with BlogAds, CripsAds or read the bloggers blog about it. RSS is a way to easily share your blog content with the world. Read about RSS at XML.

3. Establish a free online Newsletter Package content that is of value and distribute it on a periodic basis.
You can build trust and spread the word. Also a good way to gather e-mail addresses that you can market to. Announce everywhere you can.

4. Optimize Your Site Be Positioning in the Search Engines
If your potential customer types in the key word or key phrase that describes your services, you want to make sure that your site is within the first two pages that show up.

5. Podcasting
Podcasting is the fastest growing Internet marketing trend and will most likely jump into one of the top 3 positions in the next year. Read about podcasting at Wikipedia. Check out these directories: iPodder.org, Podcast.net, Podcastingnews, including the father of podding, itunes. Check out how various businesses are using podcasting (Deloitte, IBM On Demand Business, Fidelity, Project Management Podcast, Internet Business Mastery) Also check out some resources including: Yahoo!’s podding service, Podcasting-Tools, Podcasting, web20show.com, Career Builders Monkey Mail, Odeo, Byoaudio, Gcast

6. Find and Fuel Evangelists (Viral Marketing)
Whether it’s an internal employee or an excited partner, empower your evangelists with the tools they can use to help market you in the on-line world. Essentially, find the best way to get word of mouth excitement about your product or service. Alladvantage.com (no longer around), for example, grow to over 250,000 members in it’s first 21 days at 2,000,000 members in 120 days by getting evangelists to push their concept of paying users to surf the net. Create a tell-a-friend program with tell-afriend- wizard or build your own. Combining PPC and viral marketing, many younger entrepreneurs are making money with Google arbitrage. Flash course on making this happen.

7.Establish and Affiliate Program
Allow other sites to sell your products or distribute your value-added content. Lists containing affiliate programs: Adbility, refer-it.com, associateprograms.com, affiliateshowcase.com, sitecash.com, commission-junction.com, clickquick.com. linkshare, 2-tier, affiliatematch, SponsorDirectory. Reference Guide: associateprograms, 10 Do’s and Dont’s, and Information Outlet Running your own program: commissionjunction, linkshare.

8.Email Marketing
You should be collecting e-mail addresses at every opportunity. E-mail people with info they’ve asked for. Annuncio, Microsoft Small Business Center, Bluemartini, Constant Contact, HTML-Email-marketing, YesMAIL, & Vertical Response are interesting services that might be used. Potentially tie in with incentives from companies like: ECentives, ERewards. Build traffic with WebHitsDirect. You can also use MarketersChoice which bundles in e-mail marketing with their shopping cart service.

9. Use White Paper Sites for Lead Generation
Write and publish white papers and collect contact info (e.g. e-mail) from those that pick them up. Can host on your site or use a white paper lead generation site: Tradepub, Bitpipe, or KnowledgeStorm

10. Publish Articles, Books and/or get mentioned in News Stories
Use article distribution sites like Article Dashboard, Article Marketer, Article Sender,Phantom Writers, or Submit Your Article or article submission software like Artemis Pro. Write and publish a tradebook, eBook or Podbook with the book publisher Happy About or have them write and publish one for you. Easily publish eBooks with Fastebooks or use eBookBroadcast. Visit Dan Poynter’s Book Promotion Tips. Speak at conferences and learn more on speaking from speaker net news. Write and publish articles of value. Include your URL in your bio. Contact news people who write about your area of expertise. Check out: MediaMap, Bacons, LexisNexis or News Voyager, Biz Journals, Radio and Records Directory, Web Radio Directory, and the National Association of Broadcasters.

11. Run Webinars
Use tools like Centra, Interwise, Raindance, Polycom, PresentationPro, and Webex.

12. Online Press Releases
Write and distribute press releases pointing back to your site. Check out PRnewswire, BusinessWire, MarketWire, Internet Newsbureau, PRweb, 24-7PressRelease, PressReleaseWriting, PressReleaseNetworking, ExtraPR, GlobalPRMedia, Eworldwire, ProfNet.org/press.html, Pressbox.co.uk,
PrudentPressAgency, Pressreleasenetwork, Urlwire, Webwire, XpressPress. Press release writing tips at press-release-writing.com.

13. Participate in Social Business Networking
Have employees in your company participate in the various social business networks such as: Linkedln, OpenBC, Ecademy, Spoke, EveryonesConnected, Ryze, Tribe, Visible Path, Facebook.

14. Determine On-line Communities to Participate in
Use these services to find: user groups Google Groups (deja), mailing lists liszt, and discussion groups forumone of interest. Check out Intersync’s forum list and reference

15. Establish and Lead an On-line Forum / Community
If you can find the time, leading an on-line forum or running an on-line community is a great way to establish an aHinity group and build credibility. Try myfamily, Yahoo Groups for a host of on-line community services.

16. Put a Woo on your site
Wiki’s allows your site visitors to update the Web content themselves. The most extensive Wiki experiment is Wikipedia. This is certainly a technology worth experimenting with. Use tools from: WordPress, WikiWikiWeb, JotSpot, Social Text, or Confluence or look at Protopage

17. Establish a Reciprocal Web Linking Program
Approach appropriate sites in your industry and closely aligned industries to link to your site. Create a link2us page to make it easy. Check out ecnow.com/link2us.htm. Use Link-Builder, LinkLeads, InfoPack’s Alink, LinkAutomatic or SEOlinkExchange. Check your link popularity at Linkpopularity, LinkPopularityCheck, or MarketLeap. Join or start a Webring might work for your site.

18. Use E-mail Autoresponders
If you have key information that you want to share, consider using an autoresponder. This is a good way to gather e-mail addresses for future marketing. Can be used for: Promotional Material, Product/Service Information, Training/Hiring Help, Article/White Paper Distribution.

19. Conduct Surveys
Check out Yahoo’s or try Addaform, Survey, SuperSurvey, SurveyMonkey, Create Survey, or Zoomerang. Writeup your results and distribute them with the tools above in articles, books, blog postings and press releases!

20. Actively Monitor and Participate in On-line Community
Either manually or via on-line services, actively monitor and participate in user groups, mailing lists and discussion groups. Here are some services that can do this for you moreover, cyveillance, ewatch, and CyberAlet. Monitor TV news with NewslQ.

21. Run an Auction
Partner with a software company to run an auction at your site ebay, moai, Andale, amazon. Check out Tucows for Auction Tools.

22. Run Contests, Give-aways
Contests and give-aways are great ways to generate traffic. Just look at iWon. Check out these sites to help you advertise: Contestguide, Contestworld.

23. Give Away On-line Coupons
Here are coupon companies that could help: Coolsavings, Coupons, HotCoupons, RebatePlace, QuickToClick.

24. Participate in a Charitable Web Site
As an example, go to the Hunger Site at the UN, click a button and somewhere in the world a hungry person gets a meal to eat, at no cost to you TheHungerSite (paid by the sponsors). Cisco did a phenomenal tie-in with NetAid.org. Also try: igive, schoolpop.

25. Links in Internet Malls / Portals
Posting links in high-traffic malls / portals is a trend some are trying. Use your best judgment, some are great, some are a waste of money. Absolutely put a link in Yahoo (#7).

26. Participate in Paid-for and Free Banner Advertising
The best sites for paid-for banner advertising are those with traffic. Try any of the search engine companies that offer targeted dvertising. For free banner exchange programs, check out: 123banners, bannerswap or cyberlinkexchange. usww. Paid for service Microsoft Small Business Center, Doubleclick, iNet-Traffic.Have your banner created at Banner4u.net, Flicker.

27. Place Paid-for and Free Classified Ads
Place classified ads: Yahoo!, BestMall, Post automatically with the ClassifiedClub.

28. Host Classified Ads
Host classified ads at your site Excite Classifieds.

29. Apply for and Win Awards
If you have a site worth talking about, apply for, win, and post your awards. Check out: award-me.com

30. Create a free-for-all page
Sites to submit to free-for-all pages: FFAnet, Linkomatic, Submitad. Locations to download software for your own free-for-all page: Linkomatic. Services that will host free-for-all pages for you: FFA.netSimilar Posts:

Post from: Home Business and Work From Home Ideas and Opportunities

37 Internet Marketing Techniques