Posts Tagged ‘Christmas’

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Improve Up-Selling and Cross Selling During the Holidays

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

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Up-selling and cross selling help create more sales. During the holidays, this is especially true. Consumers are looking for the best price, best deal and best overall bang for their buck.

A Few Up-Selling and Cross Selling Ideas

Linked Items: Display photos and descriptions of items that are closely related to the item your current customer is viewing. For example: Customer is looking at hats, show related hats, scarves and gloves.

Display linked items as lists. Bullet points and photographs always draw the reader’s eye. Name your list something catchy like “Others who bought this item also liked,” or “Check out these other great deals on related items.”

More Expensive Item with Perk: Up-selling is the ability to sell a more expensive item than the one your visitor is currently viewing, or selling something in addition to the item. Include photos and descriptions of items that work well with, or are an upgrade to, the one currently being viewed.

Linking a more expensive item is tricky. Be very specific in the description of the more expensive item. Make the reader want to check out the better features of the more expensive purchase.

Items in the Same Price Range: People often stick to the same price range while shopping for gifts for family members. No one wants it to be obvious that they spent more on one person’s gift than someone else’s. Include a section of your online store to group items within the same price range.

Decorate Your Online Shop

Holiday decorations give your customer the feeling of real holiday shopping from the comfort of their home computer. Today’s holiday shopper doesn’t always have time to browse the mall or really get into the holidays. Your holiday decorations may inadvertently help the customer decide to purchase from you.

The most popular holiday decoration is a snowflake. Snowflakes decorate many online shops from Thanksgiving through the New Year. Some shops incorporate snowflakes as a full-winter decorating option instead of just the holidays.

Red hats with fuzzy tassels remind people of the hat Santa Claus wears when riding his sleigh and shimmying down chimneys to deliver toys. Cartoon-like reindeer with big red noses give people a pleasant holiday feeling and remind them of a group of playful reindeer from beloved children’s songs of youth.

Snowmen are a fun reminder of playing in the snow as well as the magical holiday snowman from songs and cartoons. Try decorating your website with a snowman wearing a scarf and a top hat. The addition of a corncob pipe, button nose and a broomstick in his hand isn’t a bad idea either.

Promote Special Affiliate Offers

Affiliate marketers have the best of both worlds during the holiday season. They have the opportunity to market their own website as well as that of their affiliate merchant partner. Successfully promoting the wares of an affiliate merchant is how affiliate marketers earn their commission.

Affiliate Marketing During the Holidays

Nearly every merchant jumps on the holiday bandwagon every holiday season. Promoting sales as an affiliate marketer becomes very easy during the holidays. Consumers are diligently looking for the best deal, the best sale and the best value for their money.

Affiliate marketers receive promotional material in their e-mail or directly from the website of the affiliate merchant they promote. Materials often promote a specific product or service offered by the merchant. Make your list, check it twice, and discover special promotional incentives you can pass on to your readers and visitors.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

About the author: Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for affiliate marketers

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

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Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Article Marketing | 1 Comment »

Affiliate Marketing with Holiday Themed Articles

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

The holidays are a very busy time for marketers, and as an affiliate marketer you need to stay on top of your game. By making extra efforts during the Christmas season, you can make sure to reap the benefits of attracting holiday shoppers. One great way to draw in new customers and reach your target audience is through specialized holiday article marketing.

Whether or not you are already using article in your affiliate marketing efforts, you can take advantage of it during the holiday season. Article marketing is the process of using articles full of original content that display your knowledge and expertise to attract customers. Thousands of content publishers look for quality, relevant articles for their directories.

Further focus your efforts by taking advantage of what consumers need during the holiday shopping season; valuable information. Create quality content that addresses the reader’s concerns as well as provides the information they need to make an informed purchase. Treat each individual article you write like it is the one that will generate your next sale.

Knowledge and Expertise

Some aspects of article marketing don’t change whether it’s spring, summer or Christmas time. It’s always important to highlight your knowledge and expertise about the items you’re marketing. Your knowledge as an affiliate marketer becomes even more valuable during the holiday shopping season.

More than any other time of year, the holidays bring consumers searching for products they may not know much about. Many people are searching for gifts that the recipient is knowledgeable about while they themselves are not. Use your expertise to give them confidence and ideas will draw them directly to back to the sites you are marketing.

Recycle and Use New Keywords

One great thing about article marketing during Christmas is that you can recycle articles you’ve already written. There are several ways to change your focus and re-write articles so that they appeal to the holiday shopper. One way is to highlight Christmas and holiday traditions that are related to the products and services you’re selling.

Another great way to promote your products to gift-buyers and increase sales is by grouping items together. Many people love giving holiday gift baskets or themed packages. Focusing on products that complement each other lets you upsell. Upselling generates more revenue while at the same time providing exactly what consumers are looking to give.

Take advantage of your usual keywords and add targeted holiday keywords. Potential customers will be searching for gifts, holiday themes, and festive merchandise and ideas. By adding specific Christmas keywords, you attract shoppers who are specifically looking for gifts. Once they’ve found your article, they will be further impressed by the information you provide.

Christmas is a great time to draw new customers into the sites you’re marketing. By using articles to show off your expertise and the quality of your products, you attract new shoppers. They pass along great gift ideas to their friends, who will and pass the information along to their friends.

Article marketing is a great way to get the message out there for all of the products you include in your affiliate marketing business. Create a marketing strategy that includes article marketing and take advantage of the opportunity to create high quality content for consumers. Providing information they seek is the best way to turn readers into customers.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

About the author: Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for affiliate marketers

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

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Effective Article Marketing that Encourages Christmas Sales

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

With the Christmas season upon us, it’s time to go after those extra sales. As an internet marketer promoting affiliate programs you must encourage cyber shoppers to head your way this holiday season. You can do that quite effectively with an effective article marketing strategy.

Consumers browsing the Web this Christmas season are looking for information to help them make smart buying decisions. They’re comparing products and need quality information to differentiate between them. Through your articles, you can educate them on topics related to your affiliate products.

You can also write product review articles. You provide objective and informative articles highlighting features of different products. Of course, within these objective reviews is information concerning the affiliate product you’re promoting. Consumers crave this information and make time to search for it.

Your articles, distributed via a quality content distribution service, are your ticket to more website traffic this Christmas. Here are five tips to help you employ an effective article marketing campaign:

Know Your Target Market

Before you even write and choose an article submission service, you must understand your target market thoroughly. As a content producer, you need to be in accord with your readers. Don’t assume you know what your audience wants in terms of information.

Check out blogs and social forums dealing with topics related to your niche. Read market reports. Visit other websites dealing in the same or similar products as you’re promoting. Get the gist of what your niche needs in terms of information. Research topics they’re interested in and get that kind of content to them.

Write For Your Reader

Quality content writing means having your audience’s best interests at heart. That may sound trite and part of a Writing 101 seminar, but it’s something affiliate marketers can overlook. In the rush to get articles out promoting their business, they write with “selling”, not “informing” in mind.

This tends to make their articles sound like commercials. Publishers don’t want sales type articles and neither does your target audience. Give them excellent information that’s relevant to their concerns and build your credibility at the same time.

Choose the Right Content Distribution Service

Upon completing your writing, you’re now ready to distribute your articles. Your next step is to choose a reputable content distribution service. The best services offer article marketing automation, allowing you to schedule content distribution well in advance.

A good service also offers article submission guidelines. This ensures your articles meet publishers’ requirements. In addition, a good service has a broad article marketing network. This gives you great choice in publishers across a full complement of categories.

When looking at publishing articles, look for a service that doesn’t require you downloading article submission software. You want the ability to distribute your articles from any location. Software on your PC means you can only submit from your home office.

Follow Up on Your Submissions

A quality content distribution service offers useful reports to their members. This allows you to track where your articles are going. You can analyze which articles are receiving the best response from publishers. This helps you understand what topics are generating interest. You can then focus on those topics for other articles.

During the Christmas season, if you see an article getting a significant response, get another one ready to go. Submit a new article on the same topic. Gain further distribution of your links heading into the final holiday shopping week. You never know how many readers will convert to customers as the final shopping frenzy unfolds.

Take Advantage of Advice

Ideally, your articles are always top-notch. However, life happens and sometimes your article writing efforts are less than stellar. Avoid sub-par article quality through choosing an article submission service that offers live editing. A service that provides human editors is making a commitment to their members’ success.

You want an experienced editor going over your work. This extra set of eyes ensures only professional articles reach your target market. Offer your readers intelligent, informative articles, professionally presented. Take advantage of expert editorial help so your articles read smoothly and help you build Christmas sales.

Start the article writing process now and distribute your articles in the next few days. You still have time to get quality information to your target market and your links circulating throughout the Web. The next few weeks will see the Internet busier than Santa’s workshop. Take advantage of that and let article marketing garner you those extra holiday season sales.

To your success,

Carol Palmatier

About the author: Carol Palmatier is a freelance consultant offering internet marketing advice to businesses and non-profits. She knows article marketing is the best way to build backlinks, traffic and expert status. Why does she use Content Crooner article distribution service? Because it works!

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

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Offer a Quality Website at Christmas

Monday, December 21st, 2009

When it comes to shopping online, consumers want quality. This is true throughout the year. It’s especially true during the holiday season, when people are buying more for others than themselves. Growing an online business demands a commitment to always offering this quality to your customers.

However, consumers are not looking for quality products only. They’re also looking for a quality shopping experience. Your website is your platform for making their shopping experience a smooth and enjoyable one. With that in mind, here’s a stocking full of suggestions for offering a quality website at Christmas:

Make Your Website an Easy Read

When visitors arrive at your site, what do they encounter? Is your site ultra-busy, with flashing lights, graphics, and video and more bombarding visitors’ senses? Does your site consist of large unbroken blocks of text? Is there very little white space, with tons of information packed onto each page so they resemble overloaded Christmas trees?

Remember, consumers are under more stress at Christmas time. All day long, they are subject to media blitzes promoting the latest holiday shopping offerings. Don’t contribute to their overwhelmed feeling by presenting an over-hyped chaotic website to them. Have a clean and streamlined looking site.

Have short blocks of text, with information clearly and succinctly presented. Have elegant graphics and video that present useful information. Make your website a welcome oasis of information where consumers can comfortably garner this information to make buying decisions. An easy-to-read website encourages them to stay awhile and have a serene shopping experience.

Make Your Site User-Friendly

An easy to read website must go hand in hand with a user-friendly website. User-friendly means having a site with clear navigation bars. It also means having a clear purpose for each page. Of course, a user-friendly site means having a search function as well. A search function allows your visitors to find precisely what they need, fast.

Make Your Site Seasonal

You can have a website with an attractive holiday season them. Many people enjoy celebrating Christmas and want you festive as well. Make your website appropriately festive without being tacky.

Colors of the season, combined with just the right amount of seasonal pictures and graphics work well. Audio consisting of Christmas music is fine too, as are video presentations celebrating what’s best about the season. Just don’t let too much of this take away from the focus of your site, which is to encourage product sales.

Have Quality Content on Your Website

When doing website content writing, think as you do when engaging in article writing for article marketing initiatives. You already know how to write articles that contain useful information. Apply this kind of knowledge to your efforts as a content producer for your own site. Visitors to your portal want this same useful information, albeit often in smaller doses.

Content considered bland and uninformative does nothing to enhance conversions on a website. Your potential customers become bored and even annoyed with trite, trivial content. They are certain to click away to sites that are more useful. Therefore, give them the same helpful information you provide as an article marketer.

Include a Sitemap

A quality website also means having elements in it that make your site easy to find. Web searchers want to know where you are. They rely on you to help the search engines find you. You can help the search engines find you and list you higher via a site map. A sitemap notifies major search engines every time there’s a change or something new added to your site.

Make Your Customers Comfortable With You

People like to know whom they’re doing business with when they shop online. This is because the Worldwide Web can often seem so impersonal. If you haven’t already done so, write a friendly “About Us” page for your site this holiday season.

Let those clicking around doing online holiday shopping know you and your business better. This builds trust. Trust results in sales and greater commissions from the affiliate programs you’re promoting.

Make Checking Out a Breeze

Upon offering your website visitors quality products and services at Christmas, offer them an easy checkout system. Don’t blow a sale by making the checkout experience a complicated, tedious, difficult affair. Have a smooth, seamless, secure checkout process. Test the entire experience yourself before offering it to holiday shopping enthusiasts.

Consider the above ideas for presenting a quality website at Christmas to your customers. Enhance your website with quality content writing. Promote your website with article writing and distribute your articles through a quality content distribution service. Then watch those Christmas sales soar.

To your success,

Carol Palmatier

About the author: Carol Palmatier is a freelance consultant offering internet marketing advice to businesses and non-profits. She knows article marketing is the best way to build backlinks, traffic and expert status. Why does she use Content Crooner article distribution service? Because it works!

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

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Six Tips on How to Improve Your Holiday Sales Online

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

Increase your holiday sales online this year by following these five easy tips. Owning a sales based website isn’t rocket science but it does require some creative thinking. Design, layout and ease of use are only a few things to keep in mind this holiday season.

Decorate your website with holiday-themed graphics. Holiday decorations such as snowmen, reindeer and snowflakes have proven to increase traffic. Increased traffic turns into an increase in sales and profits.

Consider adding a few small bows or ribbons on the pictures of your products. This gives customers the idea of gift giving. Don’t go overboard with animated graphics, just enough to make the holidays bright.

Improve Customer Relations

Word of mouth is still the best marketing tool available. Treat your customers well and they will spread the word that your website is the place to shop. Social networks allow news to spread much more quickly now than it did years ago.

Social networking allows like-minded individuals to blog and join conversations and groups where they can share information. One single blog post may be read thousands of times. One woman in an online group can influence the buying habits of 20 more.

Design Your Website for Female Shoppers

Women make up about 75 percent of online shoppers. Women often tend to look for the best deals including discounts on items and shipping. Free merchandise with purchase is a very powerful attractant to female shoppers.

Making a purchase and getting something for free attracts shoppers unlike any other promotion. Curiosity about the items they may receive simply for shopping at your website will at least bring more traffic.

Precise Descriptions

Your online customers can’t feel the material or quality of the item they want to purchase. The passing on of information is entirely up to you. The better your descriptions are, the more sales you will make.

Describe the items in your shop in easy-to-read, everyday English. Consumers want intricate details when possible. This is especially important on auction websites like eBay.

Keep the Shopping Experience Easy

Not all consumers are familiar with navigation and shopping carts. Your website should cater to the customer. While they’re looking at a product, display pictures of similar products or products that work well with the one they’re currently viewing.

Up-selling is the process of selling an item that’s slightly more expensive or additional items that work well with items already in the shopping cart. Make it your job to get those items in front of your customer.

Attract New Customers

Promote early to attract new visitors. Compose holiday based articles or newsletters to send to your mailing list. Distribute your articles to as many online publishers as possible.

The idea behind any marketing campaign is to capture the attention of new visitors. Increases in traffic bring with them increases in sales. Every sale gives you the opportunity to build a relationship with a new customer.

Treat every sale like it is important. Make each customer feel like you truly appreciate their business and they will pass that feeling along to others. News about your website will soon circulate due to word of mouth or social networks.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

About the author: Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for affiliate marketers

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

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5 Holiday Season Marketing Tips

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

Looking outside, it’s apparent that the first hints of winter are present. There’s crispness in the air and the days grow shorter. In addition, there are a few stray snowflakes on the wind, or maybe snow’s settling in your region. That can only mean its Christmas season. With Christmas come marketing initiatives to maximize your affiliate sales.

Embracing the holiday season from a business perspective means aligning yourself with quality affiliate products from quality affiliate programs. You then engage in advertising, writing about, and talking up these products effectively. Here are five marketing tips for the holiday season to help you do just that:

Find Some Affiliate Products that are Appropriate to the Season

Sure, you have your regular products you work hard to promote. Why not add some additional lines for Christmas that suit the season. It’s not too late to do so. Contact your affiliate program manager for advice on other products they offer.

They may have something special they came up with for Christmas. It may be a special gift package of their best products, and such. You can start advertising these types of gifts on your website today. When it comes to holiday shopping, consumers look for these specially priced and packaged offerings.

Use Customer Testimonials to Spur Sales

Ask your satisfied loyal customers to provide testimonials about your business in general or your products in particular. You may have customers who rave about the premium level of customer service you provide. You may have customers who love the excellent quality of your product offerings.

Let them know you’re seeking testimonials about your business for the Christmas season for marketing purposes. Ask them if they’d be interested in expressing why they like your products and service. You can even offer them an incentive as appreciation for doing so. Loyal customers extremely satisfied with all you do for them are often glad to do this.

Have a Consistent Message Concerning the Products You Offer

You no doubt promote your business and your products through various platforms at Christmas. Work to maintain a consistency of message through these means. Communicate information to customers verbally yourself, and through offline means such as pamphlets, brochures, and business cards. Online you can use social forums, banner and text ads, your website content, and blogs.

Work to ensure that information presented is the same across all platforms. You don’t want information on your website about an affiliate product promotion conflicting with what your brochures are saying to your clientele. Make sure you present the same info, prices, incentives, specials, and more through each platform.

Run Contests for Your Customers

The Christmas season has a natural excitement and exuberance inherent in it. It’s just the time of year that people start thinking more about unique gifts. They want to add to the joy of family and friends alike. Promote this natural excitement for the season. Run contests so your customers can win affiliate product gift packs or something similar.

When you give a customer a chance to win great products, you enhance their visit to your website. This builds that goodwill, which is essential to gaining loyal clientele. Contests are a great way to interest your customers in your affiliate or other products. They’re also great for presenting new products to them.

Run a Christmas Article Marketing Campaign

Start today, before it’s too late. If you have experience on how to write articles, get going. If you’re a novice on how to write content, and time is of the essence, hire a freelance writer. Once you have some articles, choose a quality content distribution service to distribute your articles for you.

Content writing involves presenting practical advice, tips, and more to your target audience. This information is on topics related to the affiliate products you promote. This information, especially during the holiday shopping season, helps them make smart gift choices for others.

The article submission service you choose can make or break your Christmas article campaign. Choose a service that has a broad article marketing network of popular publishers. You want your article writing efforts to reach as many within your niche as is possible.

In addition, distribute your articles efficiently through the wonders of article marketing automation. A good service offers this feature. With it, you schedule your content distribution far in advance. This frees your time up for other affiliate marketing tasks.

Take advantage of the above tips to help you grow your business during the holiday season. Embrace the opportunities that this time of year provides you for increasing your sales. Give your customers the quality products and service they desire. Make the holiday shopping season as rewarding for them as it is for you.

To your success,

Carol Palmatier

About the author: Carol Palmatier is a freelance consultant offering internet marketing advice to businesses and non-profits. She knows article marketing is the best way to build backlinks, traffic and expert status. Why does she use Content Crooner article distribution service? Because it works!

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

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Online Sales Expected to Increase Eight Percent Over Last Year

Friday, December 18th, 2009

According to Forrester Research Inc. online holiday sales will increase 8 percent as compared to last year’s online sales. Many bargain hunting holiday shoppers intend to scour the web for the best deals on the products they plan to purchase.

Online business owners take full advantage of every promotional tool available to them. E-mail marketing includes collecting e-mail addresses from visitors and sending them special offers through e-mail. Article marketing includes writing articles and publishing them with online publishers.

Both e-mail marketing and article marketing provide retailers the opportunity to promote their products to people who are already looking for them. Articles allow businesses to share valuable information about the products they sell and promote special discounts in the process.

94 Percent of Shoppers Have Made Recent Online Purchases

“Recent” being the keyword here, 94 percent of shoppers surveyed say they have made an online purchase within the last three months. They also reveal that they will be shopping online more during the next three to six months.

Part of the increase in sales is due to the holiday season. January and February are heavy tax times and people receiving earned income credit will be looking for somewhere to shop. Discounts, free shipping and other special promotions should be taken into consideration during this time.

Set Your Website up for Success

Decorate your website and newsletters for the holidays. Don’t overload the website with dancing snowmen or flying reindeer; just add some fun holiday graphics here and there. Sometimes simply changing the color of bars, backgrounds and text makes a huge difference.

Greet returning customers with information about products they were previously viewing. Show them products that go well with the items they already have in mind. Offer special incentives, like a free gift with purchase or discounted shipping.

Shoppers may need reminding that the holiday season is upon us. Encourage them to act quickly to avoid issues with shipping. Special incentives such as discounted pricing will increase sales.

Contact past customers via their registered e-mail address. Make them aware of special promotions you’re currently running. Invite them back to your online store because their holiday shopping needs are your first priority.

Envelop the power of big brands. Consumers love getting a great deal on top name brands. Promote name brand products in areas consumers see often.

Never run out of inventory. Shoppers often tend to wait till the last minute to make purchases, even online purchases. Backorders during the holidays are not recommended and may lose the sale.

Consider adding additional discounts if they make a purchase during their initial visit. Some shoppers will leave items in their shopping cart for days, sometimes weeks. Discourage this by offering a one-time-only coupon in the form of a code that expires within a couple of days.

Increase Sales, Fun and Holiday Joy

The holidays are a joyous time for old and young alike. Make the most of your marketing campaign by offering your customers great deals on products they love. Everyone loves getting a special deal on products they’d planned to buy anyway.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

About the author: Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for affiliate marketers

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

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Five Ways to Promote Your Website for Christmas

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Today, with most businesses establishing websites, it’s important that your site receive its share of the surfing traffic. This is especially true during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. Your business website is a great tool for conveying to people the uniqueness of your business.

Concerning running an affiliate marketing business, you build your “brand” along with the affiliate parent’s brand on your website. Your website informs visitors on what you’re all about and what products and services you offer. You can also engage in e-commerce on your website in addition to sending people to an affiliate portal. You may have your own products to sell.

The thing is to get people migrating to your site. Cyberspace is a busy place these days. Despite the economic challenges, there is still going to be plenty of online activity this Christmas. There’s a lot of competition for consumers’ attention on the Web. With that in mind, here are five ways to promote your website for Christmas:

Search Engine Optimization

Have the right keywords and keyword phrases on the various pages of your website. You should include these words where they’re not visible. This includes in your Title tag, Description tag, as well as your Keyword tag, and your Alt tag.

Users do not see the Meta Description tag and the Meta Keywords tag. These tags are invisible to users and their role is to provide Meta document data to user agents, including the search engines.

Your Actual Web Page Content

Content rules on the Internet. People search the Web for good information on a host of topics. They want useful, timely, relevant information that speaks to their wants and needs. Provide them this content on every web page you have on your site.

Consider the keywords people are using as they search for affiliate products and other items you offer. Make sure the content on your pages includes keywords and keyword phrases that match search terms people employ.

You increase the chance these webs surfers arrive on your page. You increase the chances that you place higher on search engine results page (SERP) listings.

Create an Informative Newsletter

Keep your customers informed about products you have from different affiliate programs. Do this through an attractive monthly newsletter. You can do article writing for it right now and send out a short newsletter before mid-December.

This can certainly influence the buying decisions of those now engaged in holiday shopping. Promote your products and encourage more visits to your website with a newsletter. However, make sure your newsletter’s as full as a Christmas stocking with useful, practical information.

Newsletters are a great way to build a relationship with potential customers. As they receive excellent information from you on a regular basis, they begin to trust you as a businessperson. You gain a solid reputation as an expert when you provide them quality information in your newsletter.

Therefore, include a subscription box on each page of your website. Make it simple and easy for your visitors to sign up and opt-in to your newsletter. Then work to ensure you provide them great information each issue. You then include your product recommendations for your affiliate products in each issue. Your readers can then link back to your website.

Article Marketing

Article marketing is an excellent way to get links to your website spreading across the Internet. With article marketing, you write informative articles on topics related to your business. At the end of each article is an author’s resource box. In this box, you include a few sentences about your business and a link back to your website.

Website owners and managers, ezine publishers, and newsletter publishers always look for original content. Give them good articles, full of useful information. They publish these on their sites with your business information and website links. Article marketing is an efficient and cost-effective way to spread the word about your business.

If you’re new to the content writing game, choose a quality content distribution service. A good article submission service guides you on how to write articles. They offer you live editing from seasoned pros in the content distribution field. Experienced editors help you prepare articles that publishers’ desire.

Offline Marketing

Finally, promoting your online presence means engaging in traditional offline marketing as well. Word-of-mouth still works. Talk up your website as is appropriate in different situations. Include your website link on your business cards, brochures, postcards, fliers, newspaper ads, and other promotional material.

Consider the above tips for promoting your site and your affiliate products. It’s by no means a comprehensive list on how you can promote your site. However, following the above tips sets you off on the right foot. Consider them to get holiday shoppers to your cyber doorstep at Christmas.

To your success,

Carol Palmatier

About the author: Carol Palmatier is a freelance consultant offering internet marketing advice to businesses and non-profits. She knows article marketing is the best way to build backlinks, traffic and expert status. Why does she use Content Crooner article distribution service? Because it works!

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

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Offer Deep Discounts and Perks to Increase Holiday Sales

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

The latest predictions by Forrester say an 8 percent increase in online sales is expected over the holidays. That’s 8 percent increase across the board, not with a specific company. Put your business in front of holiday gift givers.

Discounts and perks always increase online sales. Focusing on special discounts for the holiday season will land you more sales. Discounted pricing and shipping aren’t the only perks your customers will expect.

Offering something for nothing is always a great way to increase sales. Take a look at your inventory and pair items that go well together. For example: an MP3 player with a gift card to download their favorite songs.

Brick and Mortar Business Owners

This increase in online sales sounds great for online business. What should brick and mortar business owners plan in terms of marketing? Take your marketing campaign online.

The usual printed advertisements just don’t seem to cut it anymore. Physical junk mail is more of a nuisance than e-mail based junk mail. It isn’t good for the environment and those who don’t recycle either burn it or throw it in the trash.

Taking a marketing campaign online isn’t a difficult task. Create a simple website that captures the e-mail address of your visitors. Offer special discounts on your best selling products and a way for people to order online.

Special perks like discounted pricing, gift wrapping and discounted shipping always help increase sales. Once the holidays are over, start an e-mail campaign with all of those e-mail addresses you captured during the holidays. Thank your visitors for their purchases and offer more discounts on best selling items.

How Can You Spread the Word About Discounts and Perks?

E-mail newsletters and special offers increase traffic and sales. The increase isn’t usually quite as large as you may think because many people look at promotional e-mail as junk mail. Put a special note on your website letting visitors know special discounts await them in the form of your e-mail newsletter.

Special holiday promotional banners and links, like those often used by affiliate marketing programs, increase traffic. Any increase in traffic ultimately increases sales. Create and share links or banners on your website and forums.

Twitter allows you to tweet up to 140 characters in a single tweet. Briefly describe a product you have for sale and provide a link directly to it so your followers can find it easily. Soon you’ll notice that your followers retweet, or resend the message to their followers.

Social networking websites like Facebook, Myspace, or Cafe Mom allow you to share information about your products. Some social networks have special areas for advertisements which are broken down into niche categories.

Article marketing is a process in which you write articles, or have them written for you, and distribute them to publishers all over the Internet. Published articles are viewable by the general public and direct qualified traffic to your website.

Make Holiday Shopping Easy and Affordable

The holiday shopping season is stressful for most consumers. The economy has taken its toll on many consumers’ finances. Do everything in your power to make holiday shopping at your website as comfortable, easy an affordable as possible.

The majority of holiday shopping online is done by women. Your website should be aesthetically pleasing and promote like items. Women shop for great deals more than brand names.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

About the author: Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for affiliate marketers

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Jazz Up Your Article Marketing at Christmas by Using a Quality Content Distribution Service

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Are you “holiday season ready” concerning your article marketing initiatives? Are you still engaging in manual submission of articles? Alternatively, are you using article submission software with its attendant bugs and such?

If so, it’s time to go 21st century state-of-the-art this Christmas season. It’s time you engage in cost-effective and efficient article marketing. You can jazz up your article marketing at Christmas through using a quality content distribution service. The best one offers unlimited article submission, live editing and more to those engaged in affiliate programs.

If you’re reading this there’s a good chance you know how to write content. Article writing may be your forte, while inconsistent marketing of that writing is something that plagues you. You can market articles properly through aligning yourself with a good article submission service. Here’s what to look for in a content distribution service that can help you achieve this:

Look for One with a Broad Article Marketing Network

Gaining extensive exposure for your articles, and hence your links, requires reaching numerous publishers. Therefore, you must choose an article submission site, which has a huge publishers list. In addition, this list must contain publishers from a variety of categories and sub-categories.

Why is this important? It’s important because you have a unique niche you’re trying to reach. This niche reads certain publications. They expect quality articles in these publications.

They don’t search out general interest magazines. They go to specialty publications dealing in topics they find fascinating. Your job is to write those fascinating articles, related to your affiliate products. Publishing articles attuned to specialty publishers’ and their readers’ needs are your ticket to pre-sold traffic.

Look for One that Offers Article Marketing Automation

You’re no doubt going to be wearing many hats this Christmas season. There’s holiday shopping to complete. You have personal and family responsibilities. You may have another job on top of your affiliate marketing enterprise.

You probably have several holiday season marketing efforts underway. This could be a blog to maintain, email and newsletters to write, and more. There are only so many hours in the day. Therefore, you don’t want to worry about article distribution each day.

Article marketing automation means you schedule content distribution well in advance. First, you go through the article submission list and choose your destinations. You then schedule articles to go out over the Christmas season and beyond. There, you just alleviated some of the stress of marketing this holiday season.

Look for a Service that Guides their Writers

If you’re new to article marketing, you want support that helps you run a good campaign. A quality content distribution service offers experienced editors who help you fine-tune your work so it’s clear. They also offer article submission guidelines so you know what they and publishers expect from you.

Additionally, a good article submission site offers instruction on how to write articles. This is especially helpful to those new to the article writing discipline. This instruction is in the form of articles, reports, best practices guides, and live editor feedback.

Look for a Service that Requires No Software Downloads

Article marketing should be easy to do. Some article submission services require you to download software to submit articles. This means you can only use the computer where the software resides.

Mobility is important in our fast-paced society. It’s much easier to use an article submission site that you can sign into from any location. This allows you to submit articles from a handheld device, laptop, a hotel Internet kiosk and such.

Anytime, anywhere article submission is article marketing done efficiently. You could be doing a lot of traveling over the holiday season. It’s comforting to know you can maintain article campaigns on the go during Christmas.

Look for a Service that Offers Unlimited Article Distribution

Look around the Web and you’ll find content distribution services that charge a per article fee. Some limit how many articles you can submit in a subscription period. The best article distribution services charge one set fee, once. They don’t apply extra charges.

This means you can write and submit as many articles as you’re capable of this month. You can submit them knowing your costs upfront. This allows you to budget properly. With extra expenditures part of the Christmas season, knowing your exact article marketing costs is a good thing.

Make a commitment this holiday season, while there’s still time, to distribute your articles efficiently to your niche. Christmas is definitely a time when consumers need vital information to help them buy wisely. Give them this information through quality content writing, delivered expediently by a quality content distribution service.

To your success,

Carol Palmatier

About the author: Carol Palmatier is a freelance consultant offering internet marketing advice to businesses and non-profits. She knows article marketing is the best way to build backlinks, traffic and expert status. Why does she use Content Crooner article distribution service? Because it works!

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“Crooner Rocks”

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