Hot New Website for Coupons at Ask.com
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Oct 7, 2009
Coupons for any business and any product are getting hotter and hotter. Not only should every business owner be looking for a coupon before buying anything, we should also be offering coupons for practically anything we sell. This importance of coupons is evident in Ask.com’s launch today of Ask Deals, which apparently scours the web for you to find all available coupons and posts them for you.
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New Web Site Announcement DenverActs.org
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Aug 22, 2009
Denver Colorado Food Bank DenverActs.org has just launched a new Web site featuring its programs including food bank, hot meals, drug and alcohol rehab, free clothing room, and non-denominational church services in both English and Spanish. They also offer back to work training programs. If you have a website or blog, please add a link to http://DenverActs.org and a mention to your Twitter followers and Facebook friends would be a huge help.
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Small Biz College Launches Today and Worth a Look
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Feb 2, 2009
So Darrell is finally launching what could be the largest business resource the web has ever seen, short of a search engine I suppose, but without all the garbage. I’ve been hearing about this project for months and was wondering if it would ever happen. Well, it not only happened, but it’s going to be publicized starting tomorrow morning in a very real way. Inside of a week, an estimated 500,000 will know of this new resource called the Small Biz College. I just hope their server doesn’t crash! Check it out at YourSmallBizCollege.com as it’s definitely worth a look.
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Jonas Brothers on Every AIM
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Nov 25, 2008
Why is it that AIM showcases the Jonas Brothers band every other day? I use AOL’s Instant Messenger program (AIM) to communicate online with up to 9 helpers, often many of them at the same time. AIM takes up one of my five computer screens every day, all day, and often a few hours at night too. With that kind of drive-time, you can imagine I see just about every marketing attempt AIM makes. But, one thing has me puzzled. Why does AIM feature a photo of the Jonas Brothers 3-4 days per week?
When one fires up AIM a home page comes up on screen. This is where they have a bunch of photos of celebrities and what dirt of the day is being dished. Obviously, the target here is adults. And, that’s why I am so confused with the Jonas Brothers photos all the time. What do 25′s and 30 somethings care about the Jonas Brothers? Isn’t that a band that targets junior high school girls?
What is your feeling?
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Email Advertising Without Spamming Is it Even Possible?
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Nov 19, 2008
Okay, so I’ve been in this Internet marketing world for like 13 years now right? For years I have been among the many anti-spam people. If anyone even started talking to me about sending promotional emails to people who didn’t first choose (opt-in) to be on my list to receive something from me, I would run the other direction as fast as I could as if being chased by a wild rabid grizzly bear!
But, my friend, times do change. And, sometimes they change quickly, abruptly, and profitably too! I’m still a big anti-spammer. Don’t get me wrong. I have no intention of buying lists from a mail house and sending emails without welcome. But, if someone has bought a product online and somewhere and they have opted to receive similar promotions, or email from similar parties, then why would I NOT take advantage of that?
One of the projects I’ve been working on for the past few months is a business credit card affiliate program promotion which you are welcome to check out at www.SBCAlliance.com. Kicking an screaming to the partners “against” sending out thousands or even potentially MILLIONS of emails to people I don’t even know, they finally did it anyway. 5 MILLION plus e-mails sent over a period of 3 weeks or so.
Know how many death threats we got? Zero.
Curious how many weeks the FTC shut down our website for? Zero.
Want to know how many sales we got after emails went out to 4,900,000 people? Ha, well, let’s just say enough to cover the $120 mailing fee!
So, I’m a believer now and I’m ramping up 3 email campaigns for next week alone. Want to know how it works?
1. Here’s the company that provides email advertising without spamming.
2. What you’ll see when you get there is this screen shot where you’ll see steps 1 and 2. First you just fill in your email address. But, this is NOT the email address that is used in the email campaign. So, don’t worry about having your email address going out to 5 million people! I did!
But, the more important thing to check out is how many of each category this company has in their opt-in email lists. You could just pick one category or have a mixture of others.
3. Scroll a little more and you’ll see steps 3 and 4. Step three is a really cool feature to rotate the subject lines of your ad. It’s like automated split testing to see how many people will open your emails depending on what subject lines you choose. Genius!
And, then I just wanted to show how easy it is to create an ad using this system. Using familiar MS Word functionality, you can easily create a simple text post. Or, what we did with SBC is add a small text message alone with a graphic ad. That way the system would determine which one to display based on the type of email system the recipient is using. Another ingenius idea!
4. Finally, you’re in step 5 and 6 where you’re able to choose a country. So far I haven’t done any out-of-country promotions using this system or any other. Have you? What have your results been?
And, then if “LOCAL” promotion is what you’re after, promote to just your state or surrounding states. I love this tool!
So, you’re pretty much done at this point other than paying and waiting. It took us about 3 to 4 days to get our email in the queue and we were still visibly seeing visitation in our stats report 3 weeks after our initial email send.
Now, I gave you the link to this email advertising without spamming company right? Of course, that’s an affiliate link and I’m going to get a couple of bucks if you sign-up and give their promotion system a whirl. But, if you DO use that link, please let me know and I will send to you the steps we used to assure our email campaign was a success.
And, we’re just going to learn more every time. We’ll probably start using this system twice a month for various projects. I’ll keep you posted here hour our email campaigns go and what secret strategies we unveil. But, the good stuff will be reserved for those actually USING this system. And, you must do so through our affiliate link.
Rest assured this is a real company we’re talking about. I’ve talked to their support staff myself and some really good people are behind this email system. Check it out in confidence.
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Home Staging is the Hottest Business in Real Estate
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Oct 29, 2008
I have some real estate investors and agents for clients and friends. As you can imagine, most are having a rough go with the current real estate market. But, there are a few who are doing just fine…and are in fact making money in real estate! Do you want to know what their secret is? They have home staging experts to help them sell.
Home staging involves bringing in a bunch of furniture and decor to dress up a few rooms for show in a house.
What is the secret shared by the best staging experts in America? They’ve learned from the best! And, apparently, Sandy Dixon is the best.
I had the privilege of sitting-in for a few hours on one of Sandy’s live workshops in Evergreen Colorado a couple of months ago and she is in more demand then EVER right now with this economy.
So, why do I bring this up?
Do I want you to go out and start a home staging business? Ha, only if that’s what you want to do…and Sandy’s home study home staging business course would be the one to buy for sure…
But, I have another reason.
It’s to demonstrate how in even the WORST of markets and economies, opportunities present themselves. There are plenty of people out there who are doing just fine in this economy. It’s just a matter of looking at your own business and doing things a little differently.
Okay, maybe a lot differently.
So, I have a question for you…
What kinds of businesses have YOU seen become popular in this down economy? Maybe your own? Tell other readers about it here!
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Twitter Results in 20 Minutes with 5 Steps
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Sep 10, 2008
I finally took the plunge last night and made a concerted effort to build some momentum with my Twitter account. I gave myself 20 minutes and found 350 people to “follow” and out of those 350, at the time of this writing, 80 have chosen to follow MY postings on Twitter. In the time it took me to write that much of this post, I see another person has signed-on be on my list of followers but I’ll stick with the 80 for easier math. In the world of measuring conversion rates, that would be a 25% conversion rate. That also means if I want 1000 followers, I need to find 4000 people to follow.
If it took me only 20 minutes to get 80 followers out of 350 people, that means it would take only 4.1 hours of my time.
Now, these are not quite of the true caliber as opt-ins to your newsletter list, but they are people who have expressed interest in giving you a “try” to see if you are interesting to them or not. If you can generate content in your Twitter messages (known as Tweets), then you stand a decent chance of attracting visitors to your website. I’ll report a little more on that process in a few days.
So, what steps did I take to get 80 people interested in me within 20 minutes? Here are the 7 Twitter Steps:
Twitter Step 1) Create a photo for your profile that’s interesting to people and catches their eye. Most Twitter accounts just have the person making a goofy face. I used my picture of the RUSH dogs that I use for my forum postings. Gotta be a RUSH fan to understand, but it sure does draw attention in a sea of typical portrait photos and gives the idea that I have a sense of humor.
Twitter Step 2) Get back to your Twitter home page inside your account and click on the “Everyone” tab as shown below. This will show you a list of the most recent topic additions that people have made to Twitter…within the past 5 seconds! If you refresh your browser while viewing the “Everyone” tab, a whole new list of comments will display. Yes, that’s how many people are adding new comments that it only displays the most recent 5 seconds worth of posts!
Twitter Step 3) I’ll click on webzeppelin’s photo and I’ll see his profile.
Twitter Step 4) Notice the word Followers? That’s a live link. Click on it to see his followers with links to their accounts.
Twitter Step 5) Click the “follow” link for every account as shown below. 
That means whenever the person makes an addition to Twitter, you will be notified within your Twitter account. You can be notified by email, but I chose to turn that off after I got my first round of a bazzilian emails! Twitter is popular!
How many times can YOU click in a minute? That’s how many people you can follow and therefore attract people to follow you.
Those really are all the steps. As people see you’ve decided to “follow” them, they will reciprocate and follow you as well. That’s the conversion rate I was mentioning earlier. Some people have only 5 or 10 followers. Others have well into the thousands.
In a future post, I’ll go into some more detail about making an attractive Twitter post to get more people to take an interest in what you’re writing.
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Big Seminar Oct 3-5 2008 is a Must Attend
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Aug 22, 2008
Whenever the conversation turns to Internet Marketing one name comes up more often than any other name…Armand Morin. Armand is the Expert that the experts turn to and watch for direction.
I first met Armand in 2000 at a conference where he was NOT a speaker. Yes he too was once an “attendee” sitting in an audience learning form other speakers. And, that’s my point. People are always asking me, “Marty, HOW do you learn this Internet marketing stuff?” And, I tell them how much I spend a year on attending conferences and buying educational materials.
In the BIGinning
The BIG Seminar is the place where it all starts. It’s the only Internet marketing conference I attend EVERY time. Why? Because Armand only picks truly cutting edge presenters and gives them plenty of time to deliver tons of content I usually begin implementing throughout the weekend of the conference! Yes, I don’t even wait until I get back to start. I’m too energized to wait! While others are partying at the bar, I’m up until 3am trying out what I learned on my laptop.
Who Attends Big Seminar
The audience is made up of about 40% that are brand stinkin’ new to the web, but you could be sitting next to a multi-millionaire who has dozens or even hundreds of websites. And, that’s one of my favorite things about Big Seminar. You just never know who you’re going to meet.
Money Tight?
If you are strapped for cash, Big Seminar is the ONLY conference I would recommend you attend coming this October 3, 4, and 5 in Atlanta Georgia. And, if you can’t afford a couple thousand dollars toward your own education, you NEED to attend more than others! It’s the only conference I can honestly say pays for itself, for me, within the first week after the conference. It’s that good.
Now, let’s be real…
Big Seminar has an affiliate program. That means if I refer others to attend, I get some of the bucks. Basic sales and basic Internet stuff. And sure, when you register, of course I want you to Register Here through my affiliate link. But, there’s something more…
I always offer to my clients that when they attend the Big Seminar, if they’ve registered through my link (which they always do), they will get to meet with me as a small focus group on Friday and Saturday night in a private meeting room where we can go over what was covered during the day. I answer any questions they have and it really helps to have someone to put everything together into a summary of steps and fill in the blanks. Then, when we get back (because I always fly home on late Sunday afternoon), we schedule a conference call to go over what was covered on Sunday.
See, going to something like Armand Morin’s Big Seminar is not only overwhelming from a content and learning standpoint, but just the sheer experience of it all requires some savvy to navigate through. After all, you’re in an audience with typically 500 or more people. Just meeting the one right person you needed to meet could change your whole life…and your income! But, how do you navigate through Big Seminar?
You need a guide. Someone who’s been there. Someone who knows most of the presenters, staff, and a good chunk of who will be in the audience too. Let me be your guide.
Not Sure Yet?
One of Armand’s trademarks is having phone interviews with the speakers leading up to the conference. Would you like to sit-in as Armand talks with other experts and they discuss their Internet Marketing Secrets?
You can…and it’s free.
Every Tuesday and Thursday up until the BigSeminar Armand will host a FREE training call with one of the expert Faculty from his upcoming Big Seminar. They will discuss what they’re doing on the Internet and how they do it.
The calls are FREE…click here now to register for the calls.
Calls times, phone number Passcode etc. will be immediately sent to you via email.
In Summary:
If you’re wondering where all those Internet marketing folks go to learn what’s new and what really works to build a business and increase sales, Armand’s Big Seminar is the place to be. I hope you’ll join me and take me up on my invitation to attend the after-hours meetings to go through things. After you register, be sure to let me know. You can contact me through the Ask Marty contact form.
And, I hope to see YOU at Big Seminar October 3, 4, and 5 2008 in Atlanta!
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Best Online Chat Software
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Aug 22, 2008
Online chat is not only the communication mode of the future it’s the sales conduit of “NOW!” Sure, it’s great to be able to offer 24/7 support to your customers but the right online chat program can also allow you watch visitors as they arrive on your website. You can actually watch them migrate from page to page. Then when they get stuck, you can send them a little pop-up message that invites the to talk to you online.
At first thought, this is scary! But, once you get a feel for your audience and the questions they’re asking, it’s really not that hard to guess the right way to approach your website visitors. Do it right and it pays off!
The online chat software I use on multiple sites I own is not free, but is somewhere around $100 a year, which is a small price to pay for what they offer….
-24/7 online chat support (Ilene knows her stuff!!)
-customization of chat window
-private labeling (meaning your visitors will think it’s YOUR program)
-customizable exit questionnaire (which is a great way to increase opt-ins to your list, if done properly)
-a system worth paying for!
Actually, when I signed up for this system, I bought two accounts.
1) for my paying clients so that they could reach me most times of the day or night (whenever I had my computer turned on) and
2) for visitors checking out my main websites. And, I can assign any of my helpers to monitor chat requests.
Online chat has reduced my email from clients by half and has increased my sales by at least 200% as I’m able to answer questions immediately as surfers have them.
Discover the Online Chat system I use daily and highly recommend.
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Cuil New Search Engine has Webmasters SEO Masters Pretty Hot
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Jul 31, 2008
Maybe it was the anticipation with all the pre-hype. Maybe it was the hope for something better. Mabye some just wished Google would feel some pain (not that they are without challenge anyway). The new Cuil.com search engine (pronounced “cool”) was launched on Monday and all week webmasters and SEO professionals have been in a mad frienzy trying to figure out if Cuil will be the “Google Killer” everyone in the online industry has been waiting for or if it’s just a quick throw-together search system to attract Microsoft to spending a few billion on a new company after a big hit.
Cuil was formed by some former Google employees who helped take Google’s search system to the next level. Classic case of employees getting together and leaving the company to go do their own thing and make a million bucks right? That’s where the questions arose. More on that later. First, check this out…
I’m going to throw my 2 cents into the ring about Cuil. First, let’s use an example to demonstrate what al the fuss is about. If I search Google for one of my websites MusicMates.com which is a national musician referral but based out of Colorado, here’s what I get:
Now let’s take a look at the new Cuil search engine’s results where I also searched for Colorado musician referral. Notice how there are 3 columns results instead of how Google displays only two. That’s actually my first question about Cuil is why they chose three columns? If we’ve been conditioned by all search engines to look in the top left corner for search results, wouldn’t it make sense to just have two column results? And, second, if you have three columns, and I click on one of the three columns, will the most accuarate results be going down the column or across the top? Or, did they figure my Music Mates site has the most focus so, the #1 search result is really in the middle of the page?
The next thing to consider is Cuil’s relevance of search results. Consider the image below where my Music Mates site listing is surrounded by other sites that have links to Music Mates. Now, how could a site that is so well optimized for a state be listed less in relevance than another site linking to it? I mean as a search engine, the whole idea is to showcase the main website that the links point to as the source or, in this case, the online tool.
Then a blowup of the left side of the screen with my MusicMates description in the same spot, just looking at the two left columns below now. How did that “I/disturbing photos” get there? And, how could it be more relavent than my Music Mates posting?
Then, shown to the top is a single musician referral that could arguably be in competition with Music Mates. That’s not a good percentage for Cuil in my opinion.
Now, you might think, okay Marty, so the dudes in the top left beat you out. Stop whining and optimize Music Mates better! Well, when I clicked through that link, here’s what I got. I have no idea where Cuil picked up that “Musician Referral Services” image. It’s nowhere to be found in the site that you get to after the click through. I have no idea why Cuil does not consider Music Mates to be a higher authority since that’s ALL music mates does is “musician referral” whereas this directory gets top position as shown:
Even if you click through the next page Arts & Enterntainment Music link in the top left, you still don’t get anywhere close to finding a dedicated musician referral site, certainly not one better than Music Mates (me biased). And, I can think of a dozen or so organized referrals that SHOULD be listed here but are not. Why is that if they claim to have more istings already than Google does?
Some webmasters are suggesting it’s because Cuil is listing all the crap and duplicate page content that Google has spent all these years trying to get rid of. Personally, I think the Cuil crew knew exactly what would happen. If they launched the best search results they could out of the gate, there would be little room for improvement.
With quite a few imperfections in Cuil, there’s nowhere for them to go but up. Certainly, there could be room for someone to sweep in and buy their technology, but I don’t see that as being very attractive to Microsoft. The MS search is certainly better than Cuil already and Cuil does not “yet” feature a pay-per-click model. And, that’s really what Microsoft is after…the money!
Take a look at Cuil.com and search for your website and maybe a few competitors. Share your views here. Whatever the case, it will be interesting to see what happens to Cuil in 6 months. Eithe they’ll get their act together and really become competitive by offering quality search results, or it could all just go by the wayside. Who knows, at least they got some great press coverage out it although the backlash from users was pretty brutal.
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