Above All Tell it Like it Is!

A reader wrote to me regarding an online multilevel marketing article I wrote and felt I did not do justice to representing MLM properly. Message sent: I read your article on Multi-level Marketing where you state 'We tell it like it is.' You've really missed the mark with this one. There are hundreds of multi-level marketing companies from Avon to Watkins. Companies like Mary Kay, Shaklee, Tupperware, Pampered Chef, Discovery Toys and many, many more all pay on multiple levels. That's what multi-level marketing means. The 'companies' you described in your article are illegal pyramid schemes. True multi-level companies are responsible for millions of dollars in sales every year. Do a real service to your readers. Do some more research and get it right. Start at www.mydswa.org to learn about the real professionals in this industry. Respectfully submitted, "Reader" Response to the message sent: (note: Removed the name of the reader to protec...

Subject: Canadian Pharmacies, Discount Pharmacies, Online Drug Stores, Canadian Discount Pharmacy Message from ML, one of our readers about online prescription drug companies: Website - Affiliate of XL Pharmacy. What would be the cost of getting to page 1 or 2 of the major search engines using 24-30 keywords? How long would it take? Reply: We need some other information before we can give a quote. We need the list of keywords you would like to target. And, the website you mentioned that you own does not seem to be functioning right now. So, we can't tell what you already have on the website because I get an error when I go to it. How many pages from the website do you currently have with information? Who is your target audience? Also, when I look at it with Google Search of the index of web pages, it looks like all the pages you have and XLPharmacy web pages are the same. From ML: You are so kind to get back to me. Long story short, I spent a lot of money on a campaig...

Sounds Too Good To Be True The emails arrive by the hundreds. The promises of guaranteed number one on Google, Yahoo, and MSN search or your money back. If we were to believe these con artists, everyone would be number one for their keywords in the search engine results pages. Let's face it, the numbers don't lie. Not everyone can be number one on Google. Many of these shysters and search engine con artists will promise you the world to get your business. Many will even promise to submit your website weekly to the search engines. This is a bunch of search engine bull. First off, submission to the search engines can be done free of charge by anyone. Google, Yahoo, and MSN all have free website submissions. Google and MSN have a very easy method to add a website to be crawled. However, Yahoo does require registration of a free Yahoo Id for free website submission. Most times a website that has been around for a number of months or years has already been acquired by the search ...

B2C Marketing And Advertising Much has been written about the various aspects of marketing and advertising to the consumer. Here is a story that I first came upon through a Google AdWords Success Story and One On One With Ray Ray Allen, founder of American Meadows , is a company that definitely caters to the B2C, business to consumer market. It is quite facinating to read how Ray has intergrated his AdWords advertising into his marketing and introduction of new products that are sold from their website. He is one individual that has really grasped a hold of the impact an online advertising campaign can have on the bottom line. One of the interesting follow-up items that I see from their wildflower seed website is the integration of using a blog called This Week in Wildflower Gardening to share additional information with the reader since 2003. The blog is customized to reflect the colors of the website in such a way as the website and the blog become very uniquely branded to each oth...

In today's online cynical email times, sometimes the marketing, advertising, and Email messages portrayed seem, too good to be true. Evaluating the website messages to new prospects on the Internet requires continually asking the branding questions: What does this do to my brand? Does it add a plus, minus, or a brand neutral to the overall internet marketing message? Most B2B and B2C companies need to attract new customers in order to profit for the long haul. Capturing leads certainly is an important part of the process. Many times this requires building a trust relationship before someone will commit to providing an email address especially in the B2C world where most consumer email boxes are being filled with junk, unsolicited email spam, and fraud scams on a daily basis. Internet Marketing and Advertising Messages Too Good To Be True Internet Marketing Online Advertising Email Internet marketing Contact "Be number one on Google." "We guarantee placing your we...

Statement: "I am not getting very many e-mails from my online advertising. Oh, By-the-way, a new customer called me on the phone." Question: "How did he find you?" Answer: "Saw my online Ad." Measuring conversions can be very tricky indeed. In the online advertising world a conversion can cover any number of occurrences that are viewed by the Internet advertiser as a positive step in the life of a "click." For example: When a person clicks on the online ad and is delivered to a specific landing page, what happens next could be considered a Good conversion. Tracking a visit through to a contact page, sign-up for a newsletter, register for information, a purchase, and yes even a phone call because of an ad can all be viewed as good Ad conversions. Many times conversions go on un-noticed with an advertising campaign because it may involve the phone call with never any mention of how they found you. If a general phone number is on the w...

So you want to market and advertise to the world? Understanding the cultures of the different targeted countries is important when marketing and advertising globally. Remember all those cultural classes that seemed so boring in high school and college? Well, those classes are more important today then what anyone would have thought of at the time. Even when marketing and advertising with-in a country it is important to take in consideration the targeted audience. Internet Marketing Services, Online Advertising Strategies, and Web Branding Solutions for B2B and B2C Websites. Take a look at colors for example. In some cultures an advertisement in a certain color can have a positive affect while in another country it will be a turn off. In fact, colors can have various mood settings in the different cultures. For instance, the color blue may be viewed as masculine or "the color of cool" in the US while having the meaning of: virtue, faith, and truth in Egypt, villainy in...

Here are Business Marketing and Advertising Ethics B2B + ethics values to live by on the Net. Honesty : (The best policy) When dealing with customers and clients, not following this policy comes back to bite people time and time again. Integrity : Don’t be swayed by shortsightedness. If you see a potential for a quick buck, ask yourself if this really is the proper way to go about doing something. Businesses have been guilty of shortsightedness themselves. They have extracted the quick buck at the expensive of their integrity and consumers' wallets. Trustworthy : Remember, when working with a client he or she is putting their trust in you. Hold onto that trust dearly and don't do anything that would harm it. They are trusting you to help them out on the Net. Internet Ethics in Marketing and Advertising Copyright 2004 - 2007 Professional Web Services, Inc. Resources trustworthiness integrity honesty

I spend a lot of time on the Internet, researching information on different topics, including online advertising. One of the things that is really distracting is the flashy advertising that can be seen on a large number of websites. There are some sites that I will not visit, simply because their advertising is so flashy it just gets in the way of having a good user experience. I believe most of these companies think you have to catch peoples attention with big graphic images in order for a customer conversion to take place. I have spoken with several engineers, in various industries, who have expressed the same thoughts related to extreme online banner advertising. If I do see an article that I wish to read, with an iterating banner of flash ad, I squeeze the ad off the page if I can, by making the browser window smaller. I have even use the no ad display addon options for various web browsers in order to prevent any of these ads from being displayed. All the companies that overuse ba...