No one seems to know this better than Land’s End. For the second year in a row my mailbox has been stuffed with barrages of Land’s End catalogs featuring Men’s wear, Women’s wear and kidswear. By prank or by computer mishap, the catalogs don’t stop coming in names of people that I’ve never heard of, and apparently the only way to discontinue the mailings is with a C code that’s on the back of every catalog.

Last year around this time I spent approximately a half an hour on the phone with a customer service representative reading off numerous C codes in order to remove them from their mailing list. There must have been more names because this year the catalogs are back.

I called the 800 number again this morning to have two more names removed and requested that no more catalogs be sent to my home. The customer service rep told me that there was no way to remove the mailings
by address and suggested that I call them back when I get more catalogs to have them removed. Not exactly the most user friendly way of doing business.

Knowing a little about databases, it seems hard to believe that a techie whiz at Land’s End isn’t able to delete entries by an address field.

In today’s cash strapped world, I wonder why any company – big or small – wants to waste money on advertising that won’t ever earn a return?

Sadly, the only destination for Land’s End advertising dollars is going to be the local recycling center, where it will at least do a bit of good..

The more targeted your website traffic is, the more likely you are to sell your product or service to your visitor and increase your website profitability. So you ask, where exactly does this ‘targeted traffic’ come from?

There are many ways to build targeted website traffic. An advertising campaign is one way to build targeted traffic through Pay Per Click advertising and directory submissions. Both of these methods allow advertisers to purchase affordable advertising on keywords that they are targeting and when an interested party searches for those keywords they find you.

Companies or individuals that don’t have the time or the knowledge to incorporate these techniques oftentimes use professional Search Engine Optimization firms to oversee their advertising campaigns on a contractual basis. Although SEO services might cost a bit more than doing it yourself, these managed campaigns are handled by firms that specialize in driving targeted traffic to your website at a fixed cost, so your advertising dollars are ’set’ and aren’t likely to skyrocket if you forget to log into your advertising account.

Ideally, all of your advertising dollars should produce enough revenue to cover the expense of the ads and produce a profit. Targeted website traffic will help to achieve the goal of profitability.

1. Know your visitors. The more you know about the people that visit your website, the better. Demographics are everything! For instance, if a large proportion of your website visitors are females aged 12-17, chances are that an affiliate program that sells films that star Bruce Lee is likely to be less successful than an affiliate program that sells books by Stephenie Mayer.

2. Know what action your visitor is expected to take. Not all affiliate programs are the same – some affiliate programs pay based on generating a sale, while others might pay for generating a lead or a ‘click.’ Have an understanding of what your visitor is expected to do in order to generate revenue so you aren’t surprised when payout time rolls around.

3. Research the affiliate program. Before plastering advertisements and banners all over your website be sure that the affiliate you’re considering is reliable. Longstanding programs like Google Adsense and Amazon are pretty safe bets for non-obtrusive ads. These programs allow you to control the look and feel and don’t require a maintenance to keep them up to date. In the case of Amazon, some offerings expire and old ad code must be removed. Both of these programs have a minimum payout that must be met before you’re eligible for payment.

In the case of ’second-tier’ advertisers, it’s wise to do a quick Internet search and find recent feedback from other publishers regarding timely payments, overall performance and satisfaction. Are other publishers reporting problems with functionality, performance or payouts? If you find an excessive amount of negative comments on a program, you might want to think twice before running their ad code.

I hope that these tips for finding the best affiliate programs are helpful as you build your successful website!

How you treat your customer could be the difference in whether or not a consumer decides to patronize your business again in the future. It’s a well known fact that repeat customers are the bread and butter of a lot of businesses.

A good offline example of this would be a mom and pop diner. You know the type of place I’m talking about – you walk in and the waitress knows your name and automatically knows that you take your coffee with cream and sugar. You know that when you eat there you can expect a decent meal at a fair price and the proprietors are happy that you stopped by. The level of product and service is enough to make you want to eat there again and again.

Customer relationships in online business are a little different, but still follow the same basic principles.

Trusted customer relationships are probably even more important when conducting business online because you don’t really get a chance to meet your customer face to face and introduce yourself. The only interaction you’re likely to have with your buyer is by way of a telephone call, an Email and/or delivering your product or service, as described, in a timely and accurate fashion. These things will be determining factors in whether or not a customer will buy from you again.

If you offer prompt and courteous customer care and accurate order processing in a world where this has fallen to the wayside, the chances to sell more products are much greater. If a consumer knows that they can depend on you to deliver the products and services they need, you’re likely to be the first retailer they turn to one when they need to purchase again.

Along with excellent customer care, you might also offer additional incentives or bonuses to repeat customers.

Offline, many retailers offer loyalty cards that offer the end consumer discounts or other incentives to spend at their stores. Online, you might consider offering expedited shipping at no extra charge or a “buy one – get one” deal. In difficult economic times, these small tokens are worth a lot. Your customer might sing praises of your exemplary customer care and tell five or ten friends, family members or business associates, making even more sales opportunities for you.

The opportunity cost of treating a customer with disrespect or falling short on delivering what you advertise is never worth it and making a customer happy is worth money in the bank.

1. Does the company have more than 7 years in the business?

If you want your marketing efforts to succeed in the present and future, choose a proven long running company. Keep in mind that 90% of multilevel companies fail in the first two years. No one wants to invest precious time and resources, not to mention their future, into a venture that might not be in business tomorrow, next week or next year.

2. Is the multilevel marketing company well capitalized?

Does the company you’re considering have the money and capitalization it takes to grow, to maintain a solid infrastructure and to attract talented leaders? Are they up to date on technology? Most importantly, do they pay their affiliate commissions accurately and in a timely fashion?

3. Does the company offer unique products and/or services?

Companies that offer unique or specialized products and services are more likely to be able to sell them based on the fact that they aren’t available everywhere. This selling point will make if difficult for competitors that don’t have the product or service to sell it.

4. Is there a genuine need for the product or service?

One of my favorite sayings is “Find a need, fill a need.”
Successful multilevel marketers know that product is everything, and if there’s no demand for the product they’re selling, low sales are sure to be discouraging, even to MLM veterans. Lack of demand could be devastating to someone new to the business of multilevel marketing. If you’ve been researching multilevel marketing opportunities, you’ve probably heard horrible stories of people with a garage full of health products, cleaning supplies or expensive water filters. Your product or service must have a real demand at a reasonable price, and it should be an untapped market. It should also offer benefits to the end consumer so that they’ll want to buy it again and again.

5. Is the product or service a trend or a fashion?

Short lived trends or fashions aren’t enough to build a strong residual income, especially if your product or service is only available for a limited time. Think of a product or service being in demand for a long time and build strong customer relationships, instead of trying to sell a fad for a short duration. If you’re trying to build up money for retirement or for savings, being able to distribute your product for many years will have greater success than trying to sell something once, and having the trendy product lose all interest suddenly. Once interest is lost, your customer base stops buying.

6. Can you produce immediate income?

Once you’ve established yourself as an MLM seller, will you be able to recover start-up costs and make a profit within a short period of time?

7. Does the marketing system offer up to date technology and support?

Not everyone is a salesperson by nature. Does the multilevel marketing opportunity you’re considering offer technology to help you track your sales, expenses, working hours, customer order information and when you can expect to restock? Can you easily contact someone in the company if you have questions or need support for the product or service that you’re marketing?

8. Are you committed to the success of your MLM business?

If you are, and you have the backing of a strong company, and a product or service that you think is a “right fit” for your sales efforts, chances are high that you’ll become a success. As with any type of employment, if you have a proven track record there are opportunities to advance within the parent company. A successful multilevel marketer can advance to “sponsor” status. Sponsors responsibilities are to teach, motivate and assist others in the business. Another position is that of recruiter. Recruiters jobs are to find new affiliates to sell the parent company’s product or services.

9. Can you build your business working part-time while receiving a full-time income?

One of the benefits of running an MLM business should be to work part time and earn a full time salary for your marketing efforts. Although this might be difficult to do in the early stages of your MLM business development, a strong, loyal customer base and underlings make this easier to do in the future.

10. What are your current living expenses?

It’s easy to understand why being employed for someone else might be considered more stable. If you make an hourly wage of $15.00 and are scheduled to work 40 hours a week, you know that you’re bringing home roughly $600.00 before taxes.

When you start a business endeavor, this might not be quite as predictable. If you quit your full time job to pursue an MLM opportunity and don’t make quite as much money, will you be able to pay all of your bills and still have money left over in which to live? If not, you may want to consider getting started on your own MLM business in your free time until you can build your revenues to a comfortable level before putting in your official resignation at your 9-5 job.

I hope that these 10 considerations will help you make an informed decision on whether multilevel marketing is a good choice for you. Just like anything in life, MLM marketing businesses take hard work and dedication in order to make them successful and they have the potential for unlimited growth, something that a traditional job might not offer.

While many other offline retailers rushed to sell inventory, sometimes at drastically reduced prices, Amazon posted record sales for the holiday season. The internet retailer reported a preliminary sales figure of 6.3 items shipped worldwide as of December 15, 2008.

In a statement released by Amazon, Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com said, “We are extremely grateful to our customers. We wish everyone happy holidays and the very best for the coming year.”

Amazon operates both domestically in North America (Canada and the US) and internationally with Amazon.co.uk, serving the UK; Amazon.de, serving Denmark; Amazon.co.jp, serving Japan; and Amazon.fr, serving France. The company also operates a large scale affiliate program that allows web publishers to earn a commission on sales generated from visitors to their website.

Scandals on Wall Street, unemployment, credit freezes and home foreclosures are all being blamed as factors for decreased holiday spending in the United States, but Amazon bucked this trend.

Amazon reports their official fourth quarter earnings in January.

Of course you do! Who’d choose to write slowly if they could choose to write quickly and well?

You’re about to read some important writing tips. These tips will help you produce better articles faster, meaning you’ll be able to free up time to do other things.

Relaxing on the beach perhaps or perhaps even writing more articles to help you make even more money.

These are not concepts; they’re tried-and-true methods used by newspaper reporters and journalists the world over. Indeed, these methods are used under excruciating deadline pressure.

Marketers can benefit by learning a few “tricks” from journalists. Reporters frequently are called upon to perform minor miracles of writing — miracles performed while phones are ringing, people nearby are chatting and editors are pacing the room with severe looks on their faces.

With some practice, you’ll be able to incorporate these tricks into your own writing. In a few weeks you’ll notice a marked improvement in your speed with no difference in quality.

In fact, when you commit yourself to these methods your quality likely will improve because your mind will not be cluttered with unimportant details — details that slow you down.

Some marketers will need to unlearn a couple of bad habits and accept the notion that this can be done. Comfort yourself with the thought that it’s done every day in thousands of publishing companies across the globe — by writers who are no more talented than you.

Writing Tips for the Writer

This is the easiest tip to incorporate into your writing, yet marketers often choose to ignore it.

Basically there are two types of writers — writers who “build” their articles for the benefit of busy readers and writers who build their articles as monuments to themselves.

If you commit to becoming a writer who writes for the benefit of busy readers, your speed will improve. Why? Because you’ve acknowledged that readers are busy and you don’t want to waste their time. When you’re not wasting their time, you’re not wasting your time.

Writers who put their readers first do not bury ledes (an old-fashioned newspaper term that means “leads”). In other words, they’re being courteous to readers by not making them wait to get important information. They put the most important information at the top of the article.

On the other hand, writers who build monuments to themselves frequently shield readers from the most important information, burying it lower in the article while thinking they’re being crafty and clever.

Writing is not about gamesmanship; busy readers don’t like to play “Hide and Seek” with the writer, meaning they don’t want to have to hunt for something meaningful.
It’s time to ask yourself a hard question: What type of writer am I? If your honest answer is that you’re the type who builds monuments to yourself, commit yourself today to writing for your readers’ benefit. Your speed will improve because you’ve taken gamesmanship out of the equation.

Gamesmanship is a huge waste of time — for both the writer and the reader.

Article-writing is about economy, delivering critical information quickly to a busy audience hungry for the information.
Commit yourself to serving the needs of your audience and your speed will improve.

Along those lines, recognize that newspaper articles typically are written so the average ninth-grader will understand them. If you use “big words” and hide information, you’re being neither clever nor crafty.

Write for the reader. Don’t build a monument to yourself and your marvelous vocabulary. Grab readers in the first paragraph and don’t let them go. Don’t make them wade through extraneous details to find important information.

Stop building monuments to yourself.

Here’s this year’s GoDaddy Superbowl commercial:

Enjoy!

This method of connecting to the internet has been losing it’s popularity as high speed methods like cable, DSL and even fiber optics have replaced it and what was the once largest ISP, AOL tried to deal with lost subscribers by cranking up their advertiser revenues.

AOL reinstated their free Email program in an effort to lure people back to using their services, but even that wasn’t enough to stop the declining membership rolls. They reported 10.9 million paying dial-up customers as of June 30, 2007, down from a high of 26.7 million paying subscribers in September 2002.

AOL currently accounts for 11% of their parent company, Time Warner’s revenues.

What are your thoughts on AOL? Were all of those free installation CD’s worth it?

The new service will protect users by not disclosing any personal information such as their home or business address or personal phone numbers of the subscriber.

“Online services have brought a new way for people to meet, but the structure of how two people come together hasn’t changed since the beginning of time,” says Greg Waldorf, CEO of eHarmony. “People want to take gradual steps toward an ultimate relationship. The connection starts online, and it leads to a phone call.”

The new service is expected to cost around $6.00 monthly for unlimited phone calls.

What do you think of this move by eHarmony? Do you think it will be a winner for daters online?