When you hear the term “internet marketing“, what do you think of?
For many, that term conjures thoughts of websites or spamming or search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. For others, it’s all about graphical design, writing fancy code or even affiliate programs. All of those answers are somewhat correct, but the essence of internet marketing is much simpler.
At its core, internet marketing is about these 5 things:
* Understanding the target market to which the product/service/cause you’re marketing will appeal (Picking a niche)
* Determining exactly how your target market interacts with the internet (Are they buyers or readers?)
* Positioning your content on the internet to attract the attention of your target market (SEO)
* Collecting information about your target market (also known as “leads”) for follow-up and conversion into sales (Lead generation)
* Design of offers or incentives to induce the desired actions from your leads (Like Project payday)
Since there is insufficient space in this article to give all of these topics adequate attention, let’s focus on just one specific topic with the realm of internet marketing: Email Marketing.
My best payoff has always come by focusing on permission-based email marketing. Permission-based email marketing refers to the practice of collecting information (including email addresses) from website visitors and communicating with them via e-mail with their direct consent. The “permission” aspect of permission-based email marketing is what separates legitimate email marketers from the spammers that everyone despises.
My love of email marketing is strong for one reason: It works very well. Email marketing has been much like a never-ending goldmine: It enables us to produce income on demand simply by sending a good offer to our list. When you have thousands of loyal subscribers – as we do – and you put a strong and compatible offer in front of them, income becomes nearly automatic.
However, the key to successful email marketing is the development of a legitimate trust relationship with your subscribers. If you opt to send your subscribers a request for purchases every single day, they will likely tire of your badgering and cease reading your emails altogether.
Alternatively, if you take the time to provide good content to your readers on a regular and frequent basis, you’ll discover that your readers take all of your emails far more seriously, and as a result your emails will be opened, read and acted upon with greater frequency. Essentially, email marketing is really an exercise in trust.
While there are many more aspects to internet marketing than just permission-based email marketing, email has definitely been the cornerstone on which our business is built.
Its time for you to upgrade your PC. Actually if you don’t want to that’s just fine. The price to do it may be beyond your imagination. Do people really want to pay over $100 for Windows 7? Times are changing, and the web has become even more free when it comes to applications. Google has given us Google docs which is just if not better than the Microsoft suite.
One positive thing that Microsoft is doing, is giving discounts to students who purchase Windows 7. For those with multiple PCs in the home Microsoft has also created a special package deal allowing for Windows 7 to be installed on up to three PCs.
After testing Windows 7, it is pretty sweet. But justifying the needed upgrades for the older computer after purchasing the software is pretty much a joke. Why wouldn’t someone just go out and buy a brand-new PC with Windows 7 already loaded on? It seems logical that if people are going to spend money, it is not on a program like Windows when people are just satisfied with XP.
Most Windows users will probably be afraid to spend more money after all the crap that they’ve been through with Vista. Most Windows users were happier with XP as it not only needed less memory, but also provided security that Vista showed to be a second nature from its launch. I think Microsoft is trying to move on from views that many users have on Vista and begin with a fresh user experience on the new platform.
Is Windows 7 worth it? Personally I wouldn’t pay for it, at least not right now while everything available as far as software is concerned is pretty much compatible with XP which I use now. Sometimes it seems best to lag behind the rest of the pack and make sure you have all the security updates after those leading the pack have been hacked and burned a few times.
That’s my review of Windows 7, so let’s see where it goes from there.
