"Cross Promoting Techniques" that Work

By David Hudson
Dotcomology

”Cross Promotion” is not a new idea. It has been
used by businesses for a very long time. For example,
a real-estate company may promote a certain lawyer to
close a sale. In turn, the lawyer will promote that agency
in his firm. The system is somewhat similar to the
primitive barter system where people traded items
rather than using money. But how can anything primitive
fit into the online world of Internet Marketing? Very easily!
A cross promotion is, simply stated, the trading of ad space.
Instead of paying for advertising space on a site, you
simply place someone else’s business ad on your
page and your ad on theirs. There are many ways
to use cross promotions in your internet business that
can equate to effective and cost efficient advertising.

One way is to use link exchanges. This is very
effective when considering cross promoting with a
company that is similar to yours. However, you should
avoid linking to a page that is in direct competition
with yours. One of the biggest pluses for using link
exchanges is that some search engines are factoring in
hits from the sites that are linked to your page
when determining the ranking. Therefore, linking to a
more popular site can not only increase your advertising
and traffic, but also your search engine ranking.

When customers or potential customers subscribe to
your ezine, you can use this as an opportunity to use
cross promotions. On the same page that the customer
subscribes to your ezine, make available the
opportunity to subscribe to another company’s ezine.
You can even exchange ad space in ezines and provide
recommendations for those with whom you cross promote.
You may even want to exchange column space in one
another’s ezines.

Writing free articles that inform customers or
potential customers with information that is useful
and accurate can create a reputation for you and your
business. Readers will quickly come to know you as an
expert on that subject. In these articles, the author
uses a byline to help promote his site. Bylines are yet
another way to use cross promotions. You can use
part of the space in your byline to recommend
someone else’s product.

If you have been considering writing an ebook, a joint
venture could mean increased profits for you and the
person you are partnering with. Cross promotion
through ebooks is an excellent way to allow for a
wider topic and promote both your business and your
partner’s business. The ebook should contain
information that will benefit both businesses but
remain helpful to the reader. A good example of
using cross promotions through an ebook is a site
selling used video games partnering with a site
selling gaming devices: two subjects that would
interest the same reader and most likely lead
the reader to both sites.

You should keep in mind that the recommendations
you make are a direct reflection of you, so choose
your’ cross promotional businesses carefully. Also
keep in mind that it would be nice as a shopper to be
able to link from one site to another as a way to
“shop around”. Also, never link or recommend a site
that’s in direct competition with you, since this is not
usually beneficial to you. Instead, recommend those
that are similar, such as health and life insurance.

About the author:

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Do you have what it takes to be an e-entrepreneur?

Copyright © Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy
Author of "Dotcomology - The Science of Making Money Online"

These days, it seems like everyone wants to work
from home and make money on the Internet. But
before you even turn on your computer, the first
question you have to ask yourself is whether
you’re cut out for this kind of work.

The fact is, building a home-based business isn’t
for everyone. Some people like the commute. They
really do enjoy having a boss who tells them what
to do, and they like the routine of working
nine-to-five for an ordinary salary that can
barely pay the mortgage. Personally, I think
they’re nuts.

More reasonably, there are people who are
concerned about the risk of starting up their own
business. They’re not sure it’s worth the
investment of time and money, and they’re scared
of the responsibility that comes with running
their own company. They wonder if there is
another way to escape the rat race.

I’m sure there is. You could win the lottery or
wait for your Aunt Sue to keel over and leave you
her condo. Or maybe you could sit down with a pen
and paper and draw the blueprint for "The Next
Big Thing". Anything can happen... Right?

For me, what happened was creating a successful,
self-running Internet marketing system. It didn’t
happen without effort. It didn’t happen without
at least some initial investment of both time and
money and, of course, it doesn’t happen now
without me making sure that the taxes are filed
and the paperwork is done. But it happened.

I’m my own boss. I work from home according to my
own schedule and I get to pocket all the cash my
business makes. If you’re prepared to give an
e-business the time, the work and the money it
needs to get started and get growing, it can
happen for you too.
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Your Home Business: Turning Pennies into Dollars

Copyright © Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy
Dotcomology

Henry Ford taught us that to simplify the
manufacture of automobiles, that the best way to
do so was to install the assembly line. That one
change revolutionized the auto manufacturing
industry permitting the industry to build cars at
a cost whereas the average person could afford to
buy one.

The lesson we should take from this is that
having the ability to improve the process of
getting the job quicker and cheaper, without
compromising the quality of the job being done,
will help catapult the person who simplified the
process to the top of his/her field.

Pennies saved in your home business can turn into
dollars at the end of the day, and dollars can
quickly multiply into hundreds or thousands of
dollars over time.

Doubt me if you will, but let me ask you a
question. Do you think a saving of two fifths of
a penny could make any real difference in the
profit margin of a home business? Of course
the right answer is "it depends on how many
transactions are done in a year, utilizing the
savings of the two fifths of one penny."

You only have to think back a couple of decades
to really appreciate this question. Do you
remember the nut that lived and died in a Las
Vegas hotel room? You know the one who was a
billionaire, and was so worried about germs that
he died of starvation? If you guessed Howard
Hughes (1905-76), pat yourself on the back.

Now Howard did not make all of his money on his
two fifths of one penny. He did however make a
ton of money from his two fifths of one penny. It
seems Howard owned a can manufacturing company.
And one day, Howard's team figured out how they
could make one minor change in the design of
their food can to reduce the amount of tin
necessary to make a single can.

As the story goes --- if my memory serves me
correctly --- the reduction in tin usage equaled
a saving of two fifths of one penny per can.
Howard --- being the really smart businessman
that he was --- decided that he would not be so
greedy as to keep all of the savings for himself.
What Mr. Hughes did do was to keep half of the
savings for himself, and give the other half
to his customers. The incredible thing about Mr.
Hughes decision is that by saving his customers
an extra one fifths of one cent per can, he
managed to take more market share away from his
competition --- netting his company an additional
and substantial portion of the total market share
in the canning industry.

Let us return our thoughts to your home business.
Have you ever gotten the feeling of excitement
--- when you read something or thought of
something --- that you could not wait to
implement this new idea? This could be one of
those moments...

In every home business, there are certain
processes that we do over and again. Sometimes it
may be possible to trim the time or expense of a
process which in turn will add pennies or dollars
to your bottom line. If it is a process that you
do hundreds or thousands of times per month, then
your savings will multiply into hundreds or
thousands of dollars in monthly savings.

Imagine what running a home business was like
BEFORE the computer...

Before the personal computer, we had to hand type
all letters and invoices. Now, we can setup a
letter or invoice that we send out quite often,
and we can save it in our word processor so
that when we need to use it again, we can print
it quickly and efficiently. There is no longer a
need to type the document again from scratch.

The computer has simplified our business
communications and has provided us the
opportunity to reduce our costs of doing business.

Think about all of the other processes that the
computer has enabled us to do for far less
expense than what we could in the past.

In this case, the computer is a tool that permits
us to save time and money.

So, my challenge to you is to begin examining the
processes in your own home business and look for
ways in which you can save yourself time and
money. It is far better for you to contemplate
on this matter than it is for me to do so for
you. Simply put, you know your business better
than anyone on the planet does. Therefore, you
are in a better position than anyone to find
those extra dollars that will decrease your costs
and increase your profits.

The extra pennies and dollars you could extract
from your business could spell the difference
between success and failure for your home
business enterprise.

About The Author:
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Understanding the Different Methods of Online Promotion

Copyright © Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy
Dotcomology

Did you realize there are only three types of
online promotion?... This statement may seem odd
and even untrue in your mind, but I am speaking
in more general terms than you might be thinking.

Let me explain.

The three types of promotion are Junk, Active and
Passive promotions.

JUNK PROMOTIONS ARE MONEY PITS

Junk promotions are those that seem to produce
results, but by their very nature are really only
illusionary promotions.

For example, let me begin with FFA (Free For All)
pages. You might find yourself subscribing to a
submission program that tricks you into believing
you are submitting your links to tens of
thousands search engines.

Yes, you can submit your URL to a FFA page, but
FFA’s usually only permit 100 or 1000 links on
their page at any one time. So, if ten thousand
people are submitting a link to an FFA page on a
daily basis, then the average life of your link
is between seven minutes and 144 minutes. I
suspect the actual number of submitters is much
higher and the results are much worse. Given
that few people surf FFA pages, the chances of
your submission being of any real value is
practically nothing!

Most of the people telling you that you can
submit your site to tens of thousands of search
engines are truly only submitting your site to
FFA pages! Beware of the false promises.

Another junk promotion method is Safe Lists. A
safe list is a mailing group that is signed up to
be received by people who want to submit their
own ads. Now, most safe lists have thousands of
subscribers who are able to submit their ads daily
or weekly. The person signed up to receive the
list will receive anywhere from twenty to 140+
messages a day from the list. These messages will
be received by people only interested in promoting
their own thing who do not have the right
motivation to open, let alone read Your
Advertising. As a result, thousands of messages
go out daily or weekly that will never be seen by
anyone but the sender of the ad. Where is the
value in that? There is none.

ACTIVE PROMOTIONS

Active promotions are the type that require you
to go out on a daily basis or a weekly basis and
put out your advertisements. With active
promotions, you will either place your advertising
or you will not sell your products or services.
Your choice is simple --- work or starve.

Examples of active promotions include Pay Per
Click Search Engines (PPCSE’s), Direct Email,
Ezine Advertising, Solo Ezine Ads, Newsletter
Publishing, Ezine Ad Swaps, Classified Ads,
Auctions, Site Sponsorship and Banner Ads.

Some people are able to utilize these methods
very productively, while others are destined to
drop their money into the bottomless pit of
failed Internet promotions.

PASSIVE PROMOTIONS

Passive promotions are those promotions that can
continue to provide results for you long after
you have invested the work to make them available
to the Internet community.

Examples of passive promotions include: Link
Exchanges, Articles, Ebooks, Content Exchanges
and Writing Testimonials for others.

Let’s look at articles as a solid example of my
point.

You are reading an article that I have written to
promote my own business. This article is timeless
and therefore could have been written five years
ago and still have been as valuable as it is
today.

Due to the fact that the article is timeless, it
can and will be placed in newsletters/ezines and
their accompanying online archives, on websites
and in ebooks for many more years to come.

As a result, this article will continue to serve
me well beyond the time in which I wrote it and
submitted it to publishers and webmasters for
public consumption and publication.

This is the best example I can give you of an
excellent passive promotional method.

AVOID THE MONEY PITS

Many try and even fewer succeed to conquer the
Internet and to produce their dreams of online
wealth.

My hope is that you will be one of the people who
conquer the challenges before you and to make a
nice living while working online. It will take
drive, determination, study plus trial and error,
but you can make it work for you.

Please continue to educate yourself so that you
can avoid the money pits - instead, strive to
find the money barrels. It can be done. I am
living proof.

About The Author:
--------------------------------------------------
Stone Evans Will Personally Build A Money Making
Website Just For You That's 100% Ready To Take
Orders And Pull In Massive Residual Profits Today!
Get All The Exciting Details And Signup Now At:
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--------------------------------------------------

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
as you leave the article fully intact and include
the "About The Author" resource box. Thanks! :-)

David Hudson also endorses Super Affiliate Handbook
by Rosalind Gardner Get Yours Today!

Understanding the Different Methods of Offline Promotion

Copyright © Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy
Dotcomology

No business can survive the long run without some
form of consistent advertising. As a result, most
business owners will eventually consider using
advertising to promote their business.

The toughest part of the advertising equation is
in determining where and how to spend your
advertising dollars. If you do it wrong, you
could plunk down your entire advertising budget
and receive absolutely no return on your
investment. But, if you do it right, your
advertising could continue to bring a nice return
for years to come.

HOW DO I MAKE THE RIGHT ADVERTISING DECISIONS

In order to make good decisions concerning how to
spend your advertising budget, you must first
have a good understanding of the different types
of advertising and promotion available and what
can be expected to be achieved by each.

· You must understand which markets the different
media's can reach.
· You must understand the demographics of the
media's consumers.
· You must understand the buying habits of the
consumers reached through the media.

WHAT OFFLINE ADVERTISING & PROMOTION MEDIA'S
SHOULD BE CONSIDERED

The media's that people think of most often are
television, radio, newspaper and magazine
advertising. Of course, these are the big boys
that big businesses use regularly.

Other methods of promotion include trade shows,
press releases, direct sales, telemarketing, word
of mouth, branding and billboard advertising.

CONSIDERING THE BIG MEDIA OUTLETS

The big boys of advertising media's generally
cost big bucks. Given certain circumstances, the
big media's can be bought for very little money.

Take for example, television, radio and
newspapers cost big bucks during their prime
times, but can be bought for pennies on the
dollar during non-primetime hours.

Television primetime is between 7pm and 10pm.
Radio primetime is between 7am and 6pm. With
newspapers, the primetime is Wednesdays and
Sundays.

If you intend to hit a media during prime time,
get ready to drop some bucks. Primetime means
that you will be able to hit more consumers
during these times. So, in most cases, a
primetime buy will enable you to reach more
people with your advertising.

Non-primetime hours can still deliver a lot of
eyes and ears to your message, and sometimes,
these off-hours can be bought for a bargain
basement price.

GETTING MILEAGE FROM EVENTS

Trade shows and press releases are more
event-driven. The trade show is the event, while
the press release generally exploits an event.

Trade shows are an exceptional tool when you deal
directly with potential sellers of your products
or services. Other shows are directed at the
consumer, and those can be very valuable avenues
for sales as well.

The press release is aimed towards gaining
attention for a business by distributing
newsworthy information about the business.

Sometimes the appearance of a business at a trade
show or other show can provide the necessary
angle for a press release. But most often, a
successful press release will actually require
more noteworthy information than the appearance
of a business at a show.

Yet, even the most mundane of information could
be spiced up to give the real air of importance
necessary to get your press release read and
printed.

The great thing about a press release is that
might permit you to get relatively inexpensive
promotion on television, radio, newspapers and
magazines; for far less than what it would cost
you to buy advertising in those same outlets.

UTILIZING A SALES TEAM

Depending on what type of business you run and
the consumers you are trying to reach, you might
find direct sales and telemarketing to be very
lucrative ways to drive sales to your business.

Both are very similar in nature. Direct sales can
be very expensive, as it requires a great
investment of time to accomodate. Telemarketing
seeks to minimize the time expenditure, but it
often leads to a smaller degree of respect and
attention.

Depending on your product or service --- and
always depending upon the people you employ to
the task --- each method will be more suited to
each business on an individual basis.

BRANDING YOUR BUSINESS

I grouped branding and billboard advertising
together in my original list for a reason. I did
this because billboard advertising serves most
businesses best by helping to support the process
of branding.

Branding is the process of establishing your
business as the supplier of a certain product or
service, or in emphasizing a certain USP (Unique
Selling Proposition) as it pertains to your
business.

If branding and USP seems to be a confusing
concept, think about Wal-Mart and their tag line:
"Always Low Prices, Always."

Think about Ford Motors, "Quality is Job One."

Think about the Visa Card, "It's Everywhere You
Want To Be."

You see, these top corporations have managed to
make their USP part of their branding.

Even if you are only competing in a local
marketplace, your USP can and should fit snugly
into your branding strategy.

NO MATTER THE MEDIA OR METHOD

Whichever method or media you should choose to
employ in your advertising and promotion, you
should become knowledgable about your market, and
the consumers reached by each media. It is
important to understand which consumers can be
reached by a certain media, and in what
quantities.

However you choose to spend your advertising
dollars, you should always track the results of
your promotional efforts. Failing to track
successes and failures will ultimately lead to
the failure of a business.

When you know whom you are trying to reach and
how you think you might be able to reach them,
you will begin to learn how to use advertising
and promotion to make your business successful.
That is a good thing --- after all, that is why
you got into the business in the first place,
isn't it?

About The Author:
--------------------------------------------------
Stone Evans Will Personally Build A Money Making
Website Just For You That's 100% Ready To Take
Orders And Pull In Massive Residual Profits Today!
Get All The Exciting Details And Signup Now At:
Plug-In Profit
--------------------------------------------------

NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
as you leave the article fully intact and include
the "About The Author" resource box. Thanks! :-)

How To Measure Your Return On Investment

The great promise of online advertising has always been
that advertisers will now be able to effectively track the
successes and failures of their online advertising efforts.
This promise has been met.

Yet, for those of us who still employ offline promotions
and advertising methods, we must consider the various ways
in which we can effectively track our results in the
old-world media.

Tracking Results Before The Internet Age

How long has it been? Ten Years? Believe it or not, it has
been less than ten years since the Internet went
mainstream.

Companies still utilize the same methods to track results
as they did before we laid our hopes on the Digital
Superhighway.

TV advertisers ask you to call extension X. Radio
advertisers offer you additional savings if you tell them
you heard it on XYZ radio station. In newspapers and
magazines, advertisers suggest you clip the attached
coupons.

Why do you think advertisers employ these
tactics?

Simple. They need to know what advertising is bringing
customers in the front door and to their cash register.

By understanding what advertisers are bringing them
customers and dollars, they have a better understanding of
where to spend their next wave of advertising dollars.
Additionally, they can do a side-by-side comparison of
their Advertising Return on Investment (ROI) to determine
which method brings them the most percentage of return per
dollar spent.

How Should Results Be Measured

The truth is that we really do need to know how people are
deciding to visit and buy from our business establishment.

Some consider this idea silly or even a waste of their
valuable time. Far too many people, who think of tracking
in this fashion, end up searching for a job at some point
in their future. Unless pure dumb luck is on the side of
the business owner, a business simply cannot survive if it
does not track the effectiveness of its advertising.

Somehow, some way, a business owner or his marketing staff
must look at their advertising and promotion budgets, and
look at their advertising mediums and find a way to know
which is doing the job for them and which is not.

Discover What Motivates Your Customers

Somehow, we must get our customers to tell us how they
found us and what ad motivated them to come in and purchase
our product or service.

Everyday, businesses motivate their customers to tell them
how they learned of them by having the customer call a
certain extension, offer them an additional discount to
tell them which advertisement they had heard, or to offer
them a coupon to use.

Others motivate their customers to tell them how they had
learned of their business by offering a very specific
product in their advertising. They know that if someone
shows up at their business to buy a certain product, then
they will know how the person had heard of their business.

This is why you should make your radio advertising focus on
a different promotion than your newspaper advertising.
Different mediums should focus on different leader pieces
so that you can see which medium provides the best results.

Why You Need To Measure Results

We measure advertising results so that we can learn how to
not waste our money and to learn how to get the most bang
for our advertising dollar.

Return On Investment or ROI is the key measurement utilized
to determine the value of our advertising.

It is best to show in an example how ROI is measured.

Cost of Newspaper Advertising: $150 Number of Items Sold As
a Result: 60 Retail Price of Individual Item: $ 10 Profit
on Individual Item: $ 3

Gross Income on Items Sold: $600 Gross Profit on Items
Sold: $180

In this example, you have spent $150 to make $180. Your ROI
is 120%.

Cost of Radio Advertising: $ 300 Number of Items Sold As a
Result: 50 Retail Price of Individual Item: $ 20 Profit on
Individual Item: $ 6

Gross Income on Items Sold: $1000 Gross Profit on Items
Sold: $ 300

In this example, you have spent $300 to make $300. Your ROI
is 100%.

Utilizing these two examples, you can quickly discern why
and how we are calculating ROI.

Now, some people would consider both to be good investments
of their advertising dollars. In fact, many believe that so
long as their advertising generates enough sales to break
even as the radio example did, then they consider the
investment to have been in their future rather than their
present. So long as you do not lose money on the
transaction, then you should at least be willing to
continue with the advertising medium that was used.

However, over time, you might find that the newspaper
advertising will continue to provide the 120% ROI. If that
is the case, then your newspaper advertising should take
more of a center stage in your advertising efforts so that
you can develop more profits which can be used to increase
your dollar investment into your advertising.

Tracking Your Offline Promotions

With this introduction, you should now have available to
you the knowledge necessary to introduce tracking into your
marketing efforts. Those who take the time and effort to
advertise and track their results will benefit more than
you can imagine.

Truth be known, a single person with a dream today started
every big corporation in the world many years ago. Each of
these corporations grew from a fledgling operation to a
economic powerhouse by tracking and tweaking their
Advertising ROI.

Every corporation and small business who will remain in
business through the long term will be tracking their
advertising and promotional efforts today. It is an
investment into their future success. If you make the same
kind of investment of time and cash resources, you too will
be making an investment in your future success.

David Hudson, webmaster of webcashlink,
business articles author, and a successful affiliate,
can help you with your online business.
Visit: Webcashlink