========================================== Business Marketing Bulletin ========================================== May 27, 2008, Issue #103 Terri Seymour, Publisher http://www.seymourproducts.com mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com © 2008 All Rights Reserved Worldwide ========================================== In This Issue ========================================== 1. Top Sponsor Ads 2. Privacy Policy 3. What's New? 4. Freebies & Biz Helpers 5. eCommerce Marketing Tip 6. Feature Ad 7. Feedback 8. Article: Website Marketing: Dramatically Increase Your Conversions with a Clear Call to Action 9. Feature Ad 10. This 'n That - Little Bit of Everything! 11. Subscription Management & Contact Info ========================================== Top Sponsor Ads ========================================== Free Download - eBay Workshop Collection The workshop titles included in the ebook are... *From Hobby to Home Business *How to Compete in a Crowded Market *Understanding the Basics to Importing Physical Products to Sell.........and much more! You can download it for free here: http://www.worldwidebrands.com/wwb/kh_freeebookWorkshops.asp?kbid=1028 *************************** Triple Your List is a new innovative marketing system, which actually generates real-time email leads for you... ABSOLUTELY FREE! http://www.tripleyourlist.com/index.php/terriseymour ********** ATTENTION ********** You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to it. As a subscriber you have acknowledged that there will be both in-house and third party advertising as part of our content. This allows BMB to remain free. If you would like to be removed from this list, please see instructions at the end of this newsletter. Seymour Products values your privacy. http://www.seymourproducts.com/privacy.shtml Seymour Products is hosted by ICDSoft Hosting. No set-up fees, 1000 MB of space, $72 per year, plus numerous features! Incredible support system...minutes, not hours! You have a bigger plan option as well. http://www.icdsoft.com/?aff=terriseymour ========================================== What’s New? ========================================== Hello everyone and welcome new subscribers, The weather is absolutely beautiful for this Memorial Day. I hope you all have the same beautiful weather where you are! For all of you who market for things like graduation, weddings, etc., I wish you much success during the season! Time to start thinking of the fall marketing season too! http://www.hvacsellutions.com/members/hvac_sellutions/marketing_sellutions/fall_and_winter_marketing_idea.php In the News Yahoo Postpones Annual Meeting, Battle with Icahn http://www.umbrellanews.com/story/read/D90RG1U03 New Ebooks this Week: Resell Ebooks Just $1.00 Each! Discovering the Power to Crush Your Addiciton(health) How to Make BioDiesel from Veg. Oil (cars/driving) How to Attract Butterflies to Your Garden (yard/garden) Quick & Easy Cooking (cookbooks) Techniques for Online Marketing (int. marketing) How to Potty Train Your Dog More Effectively (pets) Trees & Other Poems by Joyce Kilmer (poems) Keyword Spy (software/scripts) Selling Your Home, Get More Money Faster (money/finance) Maximum Distance Secrets pack (sports) http://www.seymourproducts.com/ebooks-resell **Weekly Subscriber Special** Pick a Number! Pick one of the following numbers to see how many ebooks you get free! You must order five or more ebooks to get the free ebooks that come with your number. Here are the numbers you can pick from: 25 (years I have been married) 45 (my age) 23 (son's age) 16 (other son's age) 5 (day I was married) Choose any number and I will let you know how many ebooks you get free with your order of five or more! One number will have 10 free ebooks! Order up to five times to get more free ebooks, but only one number per order. (cannot repeat numbers) This special is valid from May 27 - May 30. NOTE: New eBooks listed above are not eligible for Weekly Subscriber Specials. Join the Seymour Products Trivia Challenge! Find the hidden trivia question and be the third person to send in the correct answer for a free feature ad in next week's issue of the Business Marketing Bulletin. Send your answer to mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com?subject=answer Congratulations to Andre Lavictoire for being this week's winner of the trivia challenge. Thank you Andre! Last week’s Q: How long during his lifetime, does the average American spend waiting at red traffic lights? Last Week’s A: 6 months Join in the fun and try to win a free feature ad. Good luck all! If you know anyone who could benefit from this ezine, please feel free to forward them a copy in its entirety. Thank you. If you would like to advertise in the BMB, please visit: http://www.seymourproducts.com/newsletter/advertise.shtml for more information. Advertising prices are as low as $5.00. I am also looking for ad swaps from other ezine publishers. BMB goes out to 1070 subscribers. ========================================== Freebies & Biz Helpers ========================================== Free Advertising Directory http://www.ad2go.com/ ****** 45 Marketing Ideas http://www.thewritemarket.com/dotson/index.php?dotson=unique&title=45%20Unique%20Marketing%20Ideas ******* Free Download: Home Credit Card Manager Enter your credit card statements into this Credit Card Software, and let it help you track and budget your credit card expenses. http://www.homemoneymanager.com/creditcardmanager.html ****** Write Better Ads - Do It Free! http://www.WriteBetterAds.com ========================================== eCommerce Marketing Tip ========================================== Word of Mouth is a very powerful way to increase your business. Offer your customers special deals and discounts for referrals. Start a Referral Contest. Whoever gives you the most referrals, gets a lifetime discount or other special deal. Be creative and get those referrals coming in! ========================================== Feature Ad ========================================== Are YOUR Ads Making Money? Competition's High but My Prices are Down-To-Earth! Quality, Affordable & Friendly Ad-Writing Services! http://www.freewebs.com/suz1of6/ ========================================== Feedback ========================================== Please send in your comments, suggestions, questions, etc to mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com?subject=feedback We appreciate all feedback, good or bad! Thank you very much for following up. That's great service. * Norma I have downloaded some of your product and was very happy with the information they contained. * Laurie Fantastic issue, Terri! Loaded with good stuff. Most home-based biz newsletters offer very little. I always read yours. Thanks so much! * Mia Hi Terri, I just had to email you about this issue's ecommerce marketing tip - about selling ads in article bios. What a unique idea! Thanks for a great newsletter! * Anita ========================================== Feature Article ========================================== Website Marketing: Dramatically Increase Your Conversions with a Clear Call to Action by Donna Gunter One of the things I often notice on websites is that I’m not sure where to go or what to do when I arrive. There are those websites that are simply online brochures that tell me all about the features of a product or service, but don’t ask anything of me. There are other websites that give me a headache, as they try to send me in too many directions at once. When faced with too many choices, I become overwhelmed and ultimately leave the site without taking any action. How do you get your visitor to stay on your site and convert to a prospect? By presenting one clear call to action on every page of your site. Do you want the visitor to listen to an audio clip? How about signing up for your email newsletter? Do you want the visitor to call a toll-free number and listen to a message? Would you like them to subscribe to your blog updates? Do you have a free ecourse that you’re offering to your visitors? Don’t be shy about telling your visitor what to do. Most people don’t want to have to think when they arrive at a site (myself included), and are more than happy to follow whatever directions you provide and actions that you outline. For owners of service businesses, I strongly believe that the most important call to action that should appear on your site is asking your visitor to get on your email list. This information becomes the gold in your marketing funnel. You begin to build a list in this fashion, and can email your contacts on this list on a regular basis with special offers, new programs, or just news updates. The primary way that I capture someone’s contact information is through my email broadcast service, aWeber, which offers me the coding for a subscription form that I can place on any page of my website. Once they have opted in to my list, they begin to receive my email newsletter, as well as emails about special offers, sales, and other pertinent news about my business. Too many times I hear my clients lament that they’re getting traffic to their websites, but the phone isn’t ringing. I think it’s pretty unrealistic for you to expect a visitor to buy from you immediately upon “meeting” you via your website or becoming acquainted with your service, unless you offer a very highly specialized product or service that visitors cannot obtain elsewhere. Think of your own buying habits. I’ll bet that you fall in the 7-10 “touches” category that marketing experts say is needed in order to get someone to purchase what you’re selling. What do I mean by a “touch”? It could be an email newsletter that you send out regularly, a direct mail postcard that you send, a phone call that you make, or a lunch date that you set. It takes roughly 7-10 contacts (touches) for someone to begin to get to know you, respect you, and like you enough to make the decision to buy from you. If your offer is compelling enough, 1%-3% of the visitors to your website will convert, or take the action you want them to take. What constitutes a compelling offer? Once upon a time, it was simply an invitation to subscribe to your email newsletter. However, it seems that everyone is writing an email newsletter these days, and with the levels of spam growing increasingly larger day-by-day, a free email newsletter is no longer as enticing as it once was. Instead, offer a free giveaway that provides a solution to a problem that keeps your visitor up at night. Make it compelling enough that your visitors doesn’t hesitate to give you his name and primary email address. To be effective, your call to action needs to prominently displayed on your homepage, not hidden mid-way down the page in a paragraph of text, or “above the fold”, to borrow an old newspaper term. In this case, your call to action, should be the first thing a visitor sees when arriving at your homepage. In some cases, you may want to have the call to action appear on every page, making it crystal clear to your visitors what action you want them to take. What compelling piece of information can you offer visitors to capture their names and email addresses? Once you have that info, what is your plan to follow up regularly? Creating a clear call to action on your website, along with an effective follow-up strategy, will measurably increase your sales. Isn’t that we all want from our businesses? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com ************** If you would be interested in any of my articles for reprint or reference you can see the complete list at http://www.seymourproducts.com/articles/index.shtml Feel free to use any of the articles you feel are appropriate for your business. ========================================== Feature Ad ========================================== ***Introducing The House of Ebooks*** House of Ebooks - You Have So Much To Gain and Nothing To Lose !!! - Find Great Ebooks with Master Resell Rights at Great Prices. http://www.houseofebooks.ca ========================================== This ‘n That - A Little Bit of Everything! ========================================== Ask Freud AskFreud.org is a meeting place for people who not only want to keep their dreams, but understand and analyse them together with users from all around the world. http://askfreud.org/ Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. * Mark Twain News and human stories from PBS! http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ This week's riddle: What Are We? We are little creatures; all of us have different features. One of us in glass is set; one of us you'll find in jet. Another you may see in tin and the fourth is boxed within. If the fifth you should pursue it can never fly from you. What are we? Answer at the end of the ezine. ========================================== Subscription Management ========================================== Subscriptions to this weekly ezine are free. To receive this newsletter: Send a blank email to: mailto:subscribe@seymourproducts.com Why is Woody Harrelson's father spending time in prison? Please be specific - don't just say he committed a crime or broke the law. Thank you. mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com?subject=answer To not receive this newsletter: Send blank email to: mailto:unsubscribe@seymourproducts.com ========================================== Contact Info ========================================== Terri & Terry Seymour Publishers, Business Marketing Bulletin Owners, Seymour Products http://www.seymourproducts.com mailto:terri@seymourproducts.com ========================================== Legal Disclaimer The Business Marketing Bulletin does not make any warranties, express or implied, regarding the use of the links that we provide in our advertising. We don't guarantee the accuracy, completion, usefulness or legality of any advertisements, resources, information, products, services, income processes or programs. We disclaim any responsibility and/or all liability arising out of, or relating to, any item listed in this ezine, and/or websites. ========================================== Answer to Riddle: We are vowels!