Internet marketing tips for Primerica

2005-08-30T19:05:00.000-07:00

Froogle? Will you get your financial services & insurance products listed?

As A Primerica representative, the first question you need to ask yourself is: "Where do customers shop?"

Consumers frequent places that are convenient
Consumers frequent places they trust
Consumers frequent places with fair prices
Consumers frequent places that are well advertised
Consumers frequent places they ve shopped at in the past.

So what does all this have to do with the comparison shopping engine called Froogle? Well simply put; many people are familiar with Google's Foogle and they trust Google because they've been there before, it's well promoted, and as always it is convenient. While Google's Froogle doesn't price or sell anything themself, they do allow shoppers to search for good prices. While many other comparison shopping engines are good, when it comes to helping small merchants get their products in front of customers "ready to buy", Foogle has hit the consumer's nail right on its head.

It seems to be a rare exception to the old expression, "there's no such thing as a free lunch". At Froogle, if you're attempting to promote your products or services, lunch is on them. It's 100% free!

After some few facts about Froogle, I'll cover the steps for uploading your products or services information.

Froogle, Google's Comparison Shopping Engine

Froogle is on the Google home page.
Millions of people come to Google each day, and many are actively looking for the products you're selling. Froogle connects shoppers with merchants.

You can list your products on Froogle for free.
Unlike other online shopping sites, Froogle costs nothing. There's no spending account to set up and maintain. No cost-per-click. No cost, period.

At Froogle you control your product information.
Simply upload a new product feed at any time to ensure Froogle displays the most accurate descriptions and promotions for your products.

Froogle is forever free to merchants who wish to participate.
Upload your product info (data feed) and you'll be listed overnight. The entire system is supported by 'Sponsored Links' which are paid advertisements Froogle displays along side the regular Froogle listings.

Help. I need to know if financial services & insurance can be added to Froogle.

Next are some important instructions toward getting your financial services & insurance products added in Froogle using their data feed system:

Sign in to the Froogle Merchant Center
Create or use your existing Google Account to enter the Froogle Merchant Center.
Create an FTP account
Set up your FTP account, which you'll later use to upload your 'product info' feeds to us.
Specify your feed's settings
Set your feed's filename and other parameters.
Create and upload your feed
Create a feed according to Froogle's instructions and upload it to them. Be sure to name your feed using the filename you chose in Step 3 (above).

Are you learning valuable ideas? We recommend you check out our previous blog posts for many other marketing ideas. In fact, why not add our RSS feed to your "Feed Reader" so you don't miss future trainings?

Technorati:
Primerica | Froogle | Dan Hollings | financial services | insurance
Other recommended blogs:
Silpada Designs | Southern Living Home | Stampin Up

2005-08-23T22:51:00.000-07:00

Mompreneurs at Primerica? Let's See...

Source: Direct Sales Association

Have you been looking around you? Moms, moms everywhere! Yes, according to figures available from the Direct Sales Association, 79.9% of people in "direct sales" are women. Do the math and the boys total a paltry 20.1%. Many of the women in our industry (and site visitors we seek) are current or future moms. It was only a matter of time before a new term has come on the scene: Mompreneurism.

Mompreneurs Online: Using the Internet to Build Work@Home Success Yes, you're reading it right. According to authors Patricia Cobe and Ellen Parlapiano, who trademarked the term "mompreneurs" and were recently featured in Time magazine and various other programs like Oprah; their mompreneurs online site and Message Board draws millions of visitors each month.

In reading through the Mompreneurs Online web site you'll find that they've interviewed hundreds of moms running their own business from home. Their interviews revealed that these work at home women share certain secrets for success when doing business online. I borrowed a few points about mompreneurs from their site... below is a sampling of why and how mom-owned businesses are surviving and thriving on the web according to Ellen and Pat:

Web Wisdom. Work-at-home moms understand that a dot.com name alone is not enough to power success. But the Internet can be a very valuable tool when used in conjunction with more traditional business strategies.
A Natural Niche. Cyberspace opens up a wealth of business ideas, allowing moms to tap into their talents, skills and passions to create products and services for highly targeted audiences.
Team Work. Mompreneurs® forge powerful alliances--both online and off! Together they harness technology to build an instant network of personal and professional support through online communities and marketing cooperatives.

Do you think Primerica is a perfect spot for moms? Maybe you're hoping to attract moms running their own business from home to your site, blog, product or business? Or, maybe you already have lots of moms and a true mompreneurial spirit?

Whatever the case, work at home moms are an important niche and your internet marketing can target these moms. Moms are both a consumer and a business force to be understood and admired.

Think optimistically that your financial services & insurance will be just the thing these mompreneurs are wanting? Now, let's continue (below) with more tips in our series on techniques to assure a successful PPC search engine campaign. Maybe you can get some moms clicking!

Tricks of the trade for the successful PPC campaign...

If your product or service is something that can be related to a locale, like a city, state or region you may be able to find some ripe tomatoes in phrases like: 'retirement homes in Florida', 'Mississippi flat rate phone service', 'herbal sunscreen for southwestern sun', 'indoor air filters for Los Angeles'.
Discover more keywords by narrowing down to extreme specifics. People can be VERY specific when they search. Use names of months and years like '2004 tax savings', 'May flowers', 'Christmas of 2005' or 'September back to school supplies'.

Let's say you are marketing a broad line of herbal products... why not get a list of all herbs (there may be thousands) and use that list as a keyword list. Maybe your product doesn't contain every herb on the list, but people searching for any ONE herb specifically may be interested in others. Try specific model numbers, makes and designs if your products are sometimes referred to this way: 'Epson stylus CX6400', 'Apple G5', etc.
Add adjectives to your keywords like: big, purple, new, cheap, affordable, soft, aromatic, healthy, etc.

How to Appeal to Mompreneurs

Here's one way you can be relevant and compelling in reaching out to moms running their own business from home:

SOCIAL SYSTEMS: Social system technology is a new and exciting technology comprised of blogs, tags, photos and the sharing of many other things. Find ways to connect like-minded women. Use technology if you can. Being a mompreneur can be isolating, so business owners are eager for information, resources and social connections.

2005-08-17T23:42:00.000-07:00

Help. I need to know if financial services & insurance can be promoted through a pay per click approach

Whether your goal is saving for retirement or funding a child's education or both Primerica's Financial Needs Analysis (FNA) can help you create a program to put your goals and dreams within reach. Your personalized FNA will provide a complete review of your current financial situation and offer solutions in the following areas:

Income Protection
Debt Elimination
Asset Management
Education Savings

After a thorough review of the areas above, the Primerica "Building Your Financial Future" summary will pull it all together by outlining specific steps to get your "financial house" in order.

As A Primerica representative you know your product and you've set your goals. Your web page, site, or blog is up and you're pondering methods to get visitors to your site.

Can your financial services & insurance be sold through a pay per click approach or not? That's your first question, right? But equally important, can you put together a plan that produces more results or profits than lost money?

Encouraging news, the answer is: "YES!"

Search engine marketing tips:

Expand your keywords by asking your spouse, friends, neighbors, relatives, existing customers and strangers to look at your web page and offer their keyword suggestions. In this phase you cannot have too many cooks in the kitchen.
Put your biscuits in the oven and watch'em rise... That is, use web based 'keyword expanders' and research tools to expand your keywords beyond what you can come up with on your own.
Remember, searchers may type in something that describes your product, but more often than not they will be typing in words describing their problem. If your product or service solves, fixes, heals, masks or even distracts them from their problem, you want those keywords on your list.
"In-house" keywords (those used frequently by others in your industry or business) are often the most costly because lazy business owners don't often think beyond their own nose. The result is these limited keywords get bided-up sky high. Customers on the other hand seldom search using "in-house" keywords. Your goal is to find keyword niches popular with customers but less popular with your competition.

For additional tips that might improve your pay per click ad campaign review the tips in my previous posts.

Are you learning valuable ideas? We recommend you check out our previous blog posts for many other marketing ideas. In fact, why not add our RSS feed to your "Feed Reader" so you don't miss future trainings?

Technorati:
Primerica | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Network Marketing | Yahoo Ads | Dan Hollings | AdWords | financial services | insurance

2005-08-09T19:51:00.000-07:00

Google and Yahoo Advertising Tutorials (Flash) for Primerica.

Sometimes you feel like flipping a coin when choosing a pay per click search engine. Which one is really best for you? The top two are Google AdWords and Yahoo Sponsored Search. It's a good idea to start your attempts to generate traffic through search engines with a small budget, spreading it out over a few different search engines to experiment and see where your target market may be lurking.

A good place to start is by viewing the wonderful tutorials and flash overviews offered by Google and Yahoo. View the sample tutorials below, you'll find others at Google and Yahoo:

Sponsored Search: Flash Introduction by Yahoo
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/tu_srch.php
Yahoo sponsored search overview.

AdWord Options for Keyword Matching Explained
https://services.google.com/marketing/stats/tutorial_redirect
Perfecting your Google AdWord targeting and filter worthless clicks.

Targeting a Local Market with Google AdWords
http://services.google.com/tutorial/adw_loc_target/adw_loc_target.html
Reach local area prospects by region or locale.

Let's compare how Yahoo and Google handle keyword bidding:

Yahoo Sponsored Ads

Yahoo adjusts your bid to 1 cent over your next lowest competitor. Thus, if you bid $3.00 per click, and the next highest bid is $1.95 per click, you will only pay $1.96 per click.
Yahoo allows you to see who you are bidding against and what they are bidding, so you know exactly where you will rank, and how much you will pay.
Yahoo's maximum bid is $999.99
Yahoo's minimum bid is $0.10

AdWords by Google

Google doesn't tell you how much you will pay per click. Thus, if you bid $3.00 per click, you will pay anywhere from $0.05 to $3.00 per click.
Google does not allow you to know how much your competitors are bidding per click.
An advantage with Google is that you will rank higher if your click-through rate (CT rate) is better (a CT rate is the ratio of clicks on your ad to the number of times your ad is shown). Thus, you may have a better rank than your competitor, even if he or she bids more than you (because of your CT rate).
Google's maximum bid is $100.00
Google's minimum bid is $0.05

New Google AdWords keyword status changes: Simplified keyword states and quality-based minimum bids.

NOTE: Google announced in early August 2005 that they will simplify their keyword status system and introduce quality-based minimum bids, giving us more control to run all keywords we find important.

Understanding Google's New Quality Score

Each keyword will now be assigned a minimum bid that is based on the quality (also called Quality Score) of your keyword in your account. If your keyword or Ad Group's maximum cost-per-click (CPC) meets the minimum bid, your keyword will be active and trigger ads. If it doesn't, your keyword will be inactive and will not trigger ads.

Previosly, keyword statuses were called normal, in trial, on hold, and disabled. Under the new rules, this will be replaced with active (triggering ads) or inactive (not triggering ads). No more slowed or disabled keywords if no do not have a minimum clickthrough rate (CTR) threshold.

Tips, Tips, Tips... They just keep on coming!

Pay-per-click advertising tips for the Primerica representative continue below:

When cooking-up your keyword phrase list, use an extended "keyword discovery" phase. Your competition, like you, will do basic keyword research. You can only beat them if you take it to the next level, and that won't happen in the first day. Having a large number of targeted keywords in your campaign is a side effect of an extended period of brainstorming, discovery, research, or whatever you want to call it.
Not very wood with gords? There is a hidden target market of quality visitors who type in incorrect spellings of what they are looking for. Site owners often overlook this. In a recent 30 day period on a major search engine at least 108 people where searching for a 'buisness'? Hundreds more were searching for: 'vitiamins', 'vitimans' and even 'vitamens'... You can bid on misspellings and have very little competition on the search results page.
Assume that at least half your keywords will be rotten eggs, that is, no one will ever look for them and end up at your site. Because there is no extra cost to add as many keyword phrases as you can think up, treat them like biscuits and bake-up as many as you can... 100 or more keyword phrases for each destination page you list in any PPC search engine.

2005-08-02T15:35:00.000-07:00

Primerica? OK, I'm stumped...

Have you ever thought about the public's perception of what you do?

Primerica

Income Protection
Debt Elimination
Asset Management
Education Savings

After a thorough review of the areas above, the Primerica "Building Your Financial Future" summary will pull it all together by outlining specific steps to get your "financial house" in order.

Do you honestly think that visitors have already learned this about Primerica?

That's a 'guess-work' element in any search engine marketing campaign; you should factor in from the start (as you are preparing your keywords, your ads, and your landing page) what the majority of visitors already 'have learned' about you and the financial services & insurance you offer. You might consider playing it safe and assume they've never heard of you. That's always the safe bet.

If you're selling iPODs or something very well known, you can approach things much differently. Less time explain 'what' you've got and more time explain 'why' they should buy from you.

If your selling something that might be considered a common commodity (vitamins, shoes, cosmetics, telephone services, etc), then you must differentiate your product from the other seemingly similar things the public possibly will associate you with.

Much of these consumer 'mindset' concerns should be addressed the moment they hit your first web page after clicking your ad; so before you start any traffic generation strategy, put on your visitors shoes and take a fast walk to your landing page.

PPC Tips list continued from previous weeks:

So as promised, below you'll find this weeks installment of search engine tips...

Remember that with PPC campaigns, you are not sending search visitors to a site, you are sending them to a web page (called: a destination or landing page). You must discover keywords and set-up ONE page at a time.
Remember that people search by typing in more than one word:
The 7 most used word phrases in search engines according to OneStat.com:

2 word phrases 32.58%
3 word phrase 25.61%
1 word phrases 19.02%
4 word phrases 12.83%
5 word phrases 5.64%
6 word phrases 2.32%
7 word phrases 0.98%

Start your "keyword discovery" process by visiting the destination page you intend to send your search engine visitors to. Put on the 'reading glasses' of a customer and look at your page through their eyes.
Ask yourself this: "What keywords might a person type in a search box where when they arrived at this destination page, they'd say 'BINGO' this is what I was looking for?" Find these keywords and you've discovered your best keywords.

2005-07-26T18:03:00.000-07:00

Google going to the dogs? Fadsense: Google Adsense for Fashion?

Hey, maybe Google is barking up the wrong tree, but again, maybe there's more than possum up there?

You gotta love it! Google FadSense™

As A Primerica representative, you might be wondering why I'm talking about a futuristic contextual AdSense (AdWord) program like FadSense. It's partially because it's funny, but more importantly, it's because I feel the type of advertising we have been discussing here at my "Internet Marketing Tips for Primerica" blog, is critical to your future. What I'm hoping to teach you are skills and tips that will not only work for Google today, but for any similar type advertising in the future. Google FadSense, real or not!

To summarize the core of our current discussions, we want to know:

How to find keywords related to your products and services.
How to determine "tags" that help categorize your content.
How to prepare your marketing campaign from the ground up.
How to track your traffic, results, and advertising ROI (return on investment).
How to create a destination or landing page that works.
How to manage your advertising budget.
How to create eye catching headlines for your ads.

My Continuing Tips To Help You With Primerica...

Over the past few weeks we have hammered away with dozens of valuable tips. This week we continue.

Forget stupid characters. We are talking search engine listings (not eBay) so cool the clever punctuation it L@@KS stupid!!!!!!!! Don't make SOME words CAPITALIZED; it looks like you're shouting desperately for business. Respect the people who read your search engine listings.
People are by nature often interested in things like 'saving money', 'making money', 'curing something', 'striking a deal', and getting anything of value that is 'free'... but be careful. The addition of such self-interest phrases in your ad copy may skew your clicks upwards while leaving your sales flat. If you're tempted to try such phrases... test, test, test... while keeping an eye on your bottom-line.
Bluntness works: 'Refinance 4.5%', 'Viagra $39', 'No Interest VISA', etc
These are the type words that appeal to searchers: more information, complimentary, love, youthful, safe, new, benefit, gain, money, happy, glad, proven, guarantee, resource, fast, results, discover, how you, how to, your, yours, you'll, healthy, natural, magic, secret, comfortable, save, proud, secure, solution.

2005-07-17T15:30:00.000-07:00

What a day (historically speaking): Google, The Little Search Engine That 'Could,' Couldn't Make It Any More...

What started as a a unique approach to solving one of computing's biggest challenges (retrieving relevant information from a massive set of data) and and grew to become the "five-and-dime" of pay-per-click search engines, pulled the plug on the last server on this date in Mountain View, California. It's a story of a future time that could be soon, or beyond our horizon.

If anyone back in the late 1800's or early 1900's had been thinking ahead to the future of Woolworth Corp., it's unlikely they would have ever predicted that the famous five-and-dime would be a line item on a "Today in History" script published to millions of readers across this thing we call the internet.

Yet today, has I opened my RSS News Reader, there it was. I can recall shopping at the five-and-dime as a kid. It was the "best" store in town. Just like Google; the best. Now, its history. Perhaps the best is not good enough?

It Happened Today...

Insightfully, Woolworth made his customers feel "rich"--and generated immense customer loyalty by offering products at affordable, nickel-and-dime prices. The Woolworth Building in lower Manhattan, the tallest in the world upon its completion in 1913, embodied the strength of the retail empire that, at its peak, consisted of over 10,000 stores worldwide. The corporation was eventually sold in 1997 (actually, on this very day).

Could this happen to Google? Well, yes. In the Fortune story, "Search and Destroy" It states that Bill Gates is leading a charge against Google. Forced to watch Google's stock soar the way Microsoft's used to, while Google's Brin and Page enjoy new roles as tech's rock stars, Gates brings to the fight a ferocity that nobody has seen since the Netscape war a decade ago. Google's popularity gets under his skin. For now however, it's all fantasy thinking as the titans of search (Google, Yahoo, & Microsoft) battle it out in cyberspace.

Research shows global Web search advertising revenue, which is big business for the Internet giants, will be almost $8 billion in 2005 -- more than 20 times what it was four years ago. (Source: Reuters 2005)

Good news for the Primerica representative

The Cost Per Lead using Pay-per-click is Cheap Compared To Other Ads

Your cost per click might run you 25 cents or 50 cents or so, but if the research done by Piper Jaffray & Co. is correct, the only thing that counts is the cost-per-customer and those numbers are: $8.50 for search, $20 for Yellow Pages, $50 for online display ads, $60 for e-mail and $70 for direct mail. PPC search wins hands-down.

According to Jeff Saville, "It's a marketer's dream tool because we can monitor it in so many different ways and watch the effectiveness of it." Jeff is a marketing manager with Deckers Outdoor Corp. (Nasdaq:DECK - news)

Are there dangers or flaws in search advertising?

Some worry that new advertisers are rushing blindly into paid search and inflating key word prices -- a concern underscored by WebTrends data.
At times, advertisers and their online business affiliates find they are competing with each other in auction-style bidding for key words and pushing up their own costs.
Certain campaigns fail because they are ill-conceived or unsuited to the medium.

Adding all this up, we come to two conclusions: 1) It pays to get good at pay-per-click advertising if you plan to do business online and 2) we may only have 118 years left with Google :-)

PPC Tips list continued from previous weeks:

On the subject of ad copy (the words which will comprise your numerous different listing titles and descriptions) we can sum it up briefly: RELATE your listing to the keyword the searcher has typed, SPARK curiosity in their minds to encourage a visit, be TRUTHFUL, be BRIEF, be CLEAR, don't HYPE, and FILTER out bad clicks.
FILTER OUT BAD CLICKS? Yes, if your product is NOT for certain searchers, be clear upfront before they click. Example: If you bid on the keyword 'herbal shampoo' because your product is an herbal dog shampoo, make sure your ad copy reads: for dogs, pets, or animals. If you only fulfill orders in Canada, state this upfront in your listing ad copy. There is no need to pay for a visitor click if you cannot service a particular customer's needs. Use words to filter out bad clicks.
There are many good resources to help you with ad copy, writing, and knowing what to say about your product. We recommend the eBook by Kim Klaver, "If My Product's So Great, How Come I Can't Sell It". Click here for a complimentary 'Mini-edition' of this eBook.

2005-07-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

A Primerica representative promotional strategy for targeting prospects with pay-per-click.

Are you telling me that 192 days have passed since the beginning of our current year?

Just as 2003 and 2004 marched forward in the blink of an eye, 2005 is rapidly marching on, yet for may web entrepreneurs few visitors are marching over to see what's up. Are they marching to a different drummer or is it that your marketing drive is just not keeping the beat?

Are you getting your piece of the pie?
Web sales in the retail sector will climb to over $109.6 billion this 2005.
(Source: Shop.org/Forrester 05/2005)

With 173 days remaining in 2005, imagine how much different your business would be if you could get even a single "interested" visitor EVERY OTHER DAY to come to your site.

If you're asking "Please! Tell me the secret?" Maybe a little internet advertising is in order? Seems that's what a lot of successful online marketers are doing. And of all the methods out there, nothing seems to beat setting up a little search engine listing under keywords matching your niche audience and pay on a "per click" basis as they arrive at your site.

Where are people advertising these days? According to TNS Media Intelligence (03/2005) Internet advertising showed the strongest gain (21.4%), followed by outdoor (20.1%), cable TV (13.8%) and national syndication (15.8%).

Every place you read you find stories and statistics that prove "it can be done". Yes, online sales are happening. Reports are continuing, sales are up, and the drum beats on.

91% of merchants ranked keyword search as "very" to "somewhat" valuable, the highest percentage of 39 features that respondents were asked to rank. Other highly ranked features include E-mail as a merchandising tool, 89%; Sales and specials, 89%; Seasonal promotions, 84%; Cross-sells/up-sells on the product page, 78%. (e-tailing group, 2004)

But I'm A Primerica representative, could it be more challenging selling what I sell?

Maybe you are thinking that "some things" sell online but not your financial services & insurance. Nothing could be further from the truth. In most cases, it is not the product or service that hinders a sale, it boils down to traffic, strategy and page presentation. Whether you advertise using Google's AdWords, or do pay-per-click at Overture, Yahoo or MSN search, it's the campaign strategy that's important.

This week I shall continue with my PPC search engine recommendations. If you have been following (or subscribing by RSS feed) to these tips, you are aware that over the past couple of weeks we started our series of PPC search engine tips. These tips will unquestionanly help your marketing campaign and hopefully put some of the statistics on your side. Ready or not, here they come. This weeks PPC tips to make you rich and famous (well perhaps that's stretching it a bit):

Pay per click tips for this week:

Sometimes people type in web addresses in those search boxes! So bid on those if the search engine allows it: 'www.website.com', 'website.com', 'http://website.com' and every combination full or partial you think a searcher might actually type.
Match up keywords with words in your ad copy. Even though a 'spa', a 'hot tub', and a 'whirlpool' might mean the same thing in your mind, if a searcher types in 'hot tub' and your listing says: "Relax and save in your new Spa", you will miss out on many interested customers.
Think negative... yes, people search for herbs that can kill, plastic surgery pitfalls, mlm scams and sundry other peculiar things. Invite them to explore your related listing. Do you offer cosmetics or skin car as an alternative to plastic surgery? Is you mlm a beacon of light in a sea of seemingly dubious scams?
Get creative with interest spikes in the news. 'Mad Cow' might be a great keyword for your all vegetarian product line. The 'SARS' outbreak might have generated millions of searches that your 'immunity booster' could have benefited from (just don't make any false claims). And where were all the bra ads when a gazillion people typed in 'Janet Jackson' after the 2004 Super Bowl surprise?

In addition, I've written a many 'how-to' articles specifically to help get your internet marketing strategy on-track. You might find these internet marketing articles for Primerica interesting or helpful.

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to my RSS feed.

Technorati:
Primerica | PPC | pay per click | AdWords | marketing | search | retail statistics | marketing statistics | sales statistics

2005-07-04T16:40:00.000-07:00

Astronomers Prepare For Deep Impact, Yet Your Site Or Blog May Have Little Impact. Why?

After 172 days and 268 million miles of deep space stalking, NASA's Deep Impact successfully struck comet Tempel 1. The cosmic collision between the coffee table-sized impactor and city-sized comet occurred at 1:52 a.m. EDT.

"What a smashing success for the 4th of July!"

And you're thinking, "Is this the correct blog?" Yes, this is a blog about improving your business by better implementing your online marketing campaign for Primerica. The bottom line goal is to get quality destination page "hits"... not a hit like Comet Tempel 1, but a hit none-the-less from a targeted visitor.

Why all the deep space fireworks talk you ask? Well the truth is, I found this news story fascinating , just as I'm sure many others did and felt it was rather topical for this special blog post for this July 4th day of celebration.

It just so happens that being "topical" and relating what you do with Primerica to news and current events is also a very good marketing strategy. Millions of people are on the internet today searching for information about all sorts of current events. If you're writing about that event or news item, you can increase the odds that searchers will find you. If what you do (or what you market) is related in some way, then "bingo" you'll create some real traffic fireworks at your blog or site.

The kind of hits a savvy marketeer can achieve by riding on the comet tail of current events and news stories can be as spectacular as one might imagine. The impact on your business can be equally stellar.

This week I'd like to continue with the pay-per-click search engine tips. For those who have been following (or subscribing by RSS feed) you are aware that last week we started our series of PPC search engine tips that can help your campaign for better targeted earthbound visitors. Below are this weeks PPC tips (watch for more next week):

Pay per click tips for this week:

When thinking up keywords, use examples of specific things your product is used for: 'clean floors', clean countertops', 'wash floors', 'mop floors', 'polish stove top', 'remove grime', 'shine appliances', 'disinfect bacteria', 'hide furniture flaws' etc.
Explore variations: 'soy milk', 'soymilk', 'soy-milk'
Add plurals: 'protein bar' and 'protein bars'
Use abbreviations and acronyms
Use US and UK spellings
Keyword phrases may be questions: 'how to repair bad credit', 'when should I diet', 'how do I lose weight', 'where are discount cosmetics', etc.

Check last weeks blog post for the first round of search engine tips.

Check back next week for the next in this series of PPC tips... Until next week, happy PPC campaigning...

It happened on the 4th...
1817 - Construction began on the Erie Canal, to connect Lake Erie and the Hudson River.

Hubble captures Deep Impact's collision with comet (EurekAlert!)
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured the dramatic effects of the collision early July 4 between comet 9P/Tempel 1 and an 820-pound projectile released by the Deep Impact spacecraft.

Eyes to skies for Deep Impact (Bangkok Post)
Chachoengsao _ Students at many schools sat glued to TV sets and logged onto the net to watch the ``deep impact'' created when the Nasa space probe rammed into comet Tempel 1 yesterday.

NASA's Deep Impact Kicks off Fourth of July With Deep Space Fireworks (SpaceRef)
After 172 days and 431 million kilometers (268 million miles) of deep space stalking, Deep Impact successfully reached out and touched comet Tempel 1. The collision between the coffee table-sized impactor and city-sized comet occurred at 1:52 a.m. EDT.

Technorati:
Primerica | marketing | search | comet | NASA

2005-06-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

Tips, tips and more tips on pay-per-click advertising.

Because pay-per-click ad campaigns are such a great source of targeted traffic, I've scheduled a series of posts over the upcoming weeks I think you'll enjoy. I plan to share what I consider the best tips for running a successful pay-per-click search engine campaign. I consider a 'successful' campaign one that generates blog or web page visitors perfectly suited to your ad offer and visitors whose clicks don't cost you a fortune.

Unless you have very deep pockets, or you're completely nuts, or you have a solid money-making conversion rate, paying big bucks for clicks that don't pan out is business suicide .

So how might you structure your PPC campaign to assure results without losing your shirt? What follows here and over the next few weeks are my tried and true techniques that can perhaps put your pay per click campaign on solid footing.

Tips for your PPC campaign:

If your product or service is something that can be related to a locale, like a city, state or region you may be able to find some ripe tomatoes in phrases like: 'retirement homes in Florida', 'Mississippi flat rate phone service', 'herbal sunscreen for southwestern sun', 'indoor air filters for Los Angeles'.
Discover more keywords by narrowing down to extreme specifics. People can be VERY specific when they search. Use names of months and years like '2004 tax savings', 'May flowers', 'Christmas of 2005' or 'September back to school supplies'.

Let's say you are marketing a broad line of herbal products... why not get a list of all herbs (there may be thousands) and use that list as a keyword list. Maybe your product doesn't contain every herb on the list, but people searching for any ONE herb specifically may be interested in others. Try specific model numbers, makes and designs if your products are sometimes referred to this way: 'Epson stylus CX6400', 'Apple G5', etc.
Add adjectives to your keywords like: big, purple, new, cheap, affordable, soft, aromatic, healthy, etc.

Keep in mind that if you run any PPC search engine ad campaign over a few weeks and you get embarrassingly dismal sales or sign-up results, the culprit is most likely NOT the traffic you're generating from your ad, rather it is your site, your landing page, your product, your service, your price or some factor other than your PPC visitor hits. The first thing I'd look at ( if things aren't going satisfactory) is your landing page. I've seen many a site that look like a one eyed hooker with fish-net pantyhose. Go figure.

For additional help with your pay per click ad campaign check out the articles linked in my previous post.

Check back next week for the next in this series of PPC tips... Until next week, happy PPC campaigning...

Best of Luck with Primerica !

2005-06-19T17:28:00.000-07:00

Internet marketing strategies for ANY site owner

It's day ONE here at the "Internet Marketing Tips Blog for Primerica ." I'll attempt to keep this first post brief, but since it is my introduction of things to come, I'd like to at least lay the ground-work so that you, my visitor, will know what you might expect as we blog on down the road together.

First, why did this all start?

Well, after writing articles, publishing eBooks and training entrepreneurs for umpteen years (or longer) , my supporters, followers, frieds, enemies and even my pooch, "Herbie" have been biting on my tail so long that I've finally decided to invest the time required (each week) posting helpful tips on all this strange and ever changing internet stuff that continues to possess about HALF of my brain.

Now you're thinking...

What the heck will you gain by hanging out at this tips blog?
-and- If 50% of Dan Hollings' brain is the internet, is the rest hollow?

I might can help you on the first item, but even I am a bit foggy on what dominates that other 50% on my brain :-) So let's focus on marketing ideas to help you promote Financial Services & Insurance .

I started out not knowing any of this tag-vertise-bloggo-tech stuff. In fact, that was about 10 years ago. But today after acting like a loofa sponge for many years, I've mastered a trick or three about generating revenue on the web. My goal is to cut to the chase and offer you hands-on strategies that will increase prospects, customers and visitors to your sites and blogs.

I have helped internet entrepreneurs, website owners, MLM'ers, blog site owners, affiliates, and even large companies with their their internet canpaigns. But what I enjoy most is working with the small business entrepreneur. Hopefully that's that you?

If you decide to hang with me here, I'll be writing, training, and yapping about anything and everything, as long as it works. It is likely that you are doing some things wrong or inefficiently and if you are like most, you're spending far more money than you should on 'stuff' that has questionable results.

Even though this particular blog will focus on strategies for Primerica and how to market Financial Services & Insurance , I may from time-to-time give examples from other industries or areas to demonstrate a strategy or idea. It's your job to apply the concepts to YOUR particular site, blog, product or service.

A preview of the strategies I will cover follow:

Site design (with an eye for profit)
Landing pages
Opt-in list building
Blogging
Content creation
Contextual ads
Pay-per-click search engines
Tag-vertising
Networking through "social systems"
Lead generation
Newsletters
RSS feeds (the why and how)
Press Releases
and Making Money on the Web

In addition, I've written a few 'how-to' articles specifically to help get your internet marketing strategy on-track. You might find these internet marketing articles for Primerica interesting or helpful.

Finally, you may be asking WHY I decided to do a blog specifically for Primerica ? The truth is, I run separate blogs for many types of of entrepreneurs. This is only one of my blogs!

Rest assured I am not a recruiter, I'm not active in any 'company', and I do not sell or share names on any of my opt-in lists. I earn my income ONLY by helping others make money on the internet. I am an internet marketing consultant and I've developed many revenue generating or traffic generating internet systems. Occasionally I offer classes, sometimes I offer eBooks, and I have web systems that many subscribers use to improve their traffic, content and results online. That's the deal.

If you like what you're reading here I suggest you get the RSS or XML feed (look for the little orange feed buttons).

That's it for now, see you again soon (bring a note pad next time :-)