Eight Steps to Increase Your Newsletter Advertising Revenue

by: Howard Minsky

As the newsletter market becomes increasingly more competitive, it's important to follow several key steps in your pursuit of potential advertisers. Simple steps such as providing basic information and practicing timely follow-up can contribute to the success of your overall advertising revenue.

Follow these tips to quickly boost your advertising revenues.

1. Contact Information - Always place contact information toward bottom of your emails and articles. Include Company Name, Contact Name, Tel, URL, Email, Fax, and Address. Buyers prefer to purchase ad space from companies and individuals that are easy to contact and have a physical location. List an email address for purchasing advertising (Ex. advertise@TheAdStop.com).

2. Target market - List your target market and demographics. If you have not yet performed a survey of your subscribers, then list your perceived target market. To gain actual demographics, email your subscribers a simple survey. This allows you to not only learn about your subscribers, but will also aid in efforts to increase subscriber base. A survey will also help you to develop editorial content geared towards your readers main concerns or interests.

3. Subscriber Numbers - Numbers are important when considering an ad purchase. Don't hesitate to list the number of subscribers to your newsletter as well as the average monthly percentage of growth rate.

4. Follow Up - This may be one of the most valuable steps in increasing advertising revenue. After a sale, be sure to communicate with your advertiser. It's a lot easier to re-sell ad space than find a new ad buyer. If the advertising run is a one-issue purchase, email the advertiser the day before the newsletter goes out to remind the advertiser when it's scheduled to run. Then telephone or email the advertiser after the ad run to learn of the effectiveness. If the advertiser is happy, resell them on the spot for a longer term. If the advertiser was unhappy with the results, ask "why" and then encourage them to buy another advertisement at a discounted rate. If the advertiser decides to purchase another run, be sure they make changes their ad copy. The effectiveness of the ad often depends on the ad copy itself.

If Advertisement is run for multiple months or issues, email the advertiser weekly asking their feedback. Telephone your advertiser once per month. Also, you should always email the advertiser to inform them of an approaching renewal time and attempt to renew their run. If there is no answer, call two or three days later and try to sell over phone.

5. URL Tracking - Have advertisers create a tracking URL to verify advertising was included and allowing analysis of the gains achieved from ad placement.

6. Credit Cards - Allow advertisers to purchase ad space with credit cards. It is inexpensive and presents a very professional organization. Better yet, it is easier to re-sell as the advertiser only needs to say YES. The easier you make it to buy the more sales you'll make.

7. Partnerships - Increase the size of your advertising offerings by partnering advertising sales with similar newsletters and Ezines. Partnering allows you and partners to collectively sell advertising space. The larger subscriber base will attract larger advertising buyers. Provide a 15% commission to the selling party, which could be you or your partner(s). This works well for newsletters with under 10,000 subscribers.

8. Ad Networks - List your ad offerings with one or more Ad Networks. Gain a professional sales force with extensive resources to sell your space. Realize, you will earn less per subscriber, but you will most likely sell-out your advertising space. This also allows you to concentrate on marketing and content which is usually the main interest. Also, many Ad Networks do not require exclusives, so you can continue to sell your own space with an assurance that advertising sales will occur for every issue.

Follow these eight easy steps and you'll quickly see an increase in advertising revenue. Good Luck!

Howard Minsky
Co-Founder
www.TheAdStop.com
List your Internet Advertising information on www.TheAdStop.com Have tens of thousands of media buyers, site owners, advertisers and marketers learn about your advertising offerings. It is always FREE and very easy to do.
5868 North Plum Bay Pkwy, Tamarac, FL 33321 USA
T: 954-722-0454
F: 954-532-2355
Howard@TheAdStop.com

Common Advertising MISTAKES

by: jim Peters

One of the mistakes most often made, is not looking at your productor service announcement from the point of view of your customer.Stand back and look at what you are offering, how can you presentthat service or product in such a way that it will appeal to you. Ifyou are offering a service, why should someone buy it from you,rather than the other 1000 people offering that same service?Sometimes it's a little tough to be objective when looking at yourown ad copy. I look at ad copy everyday and to be honest I'm reallyshocked at some of the things that I see.

I'll save space here by not repeating all of them. Rather I willlist a few ways to get your offer, be it newspaper,direct mail or e-mail, thrown in the trash immediately. There may be some things hereyou don't want to hear or believe, but take my word for it thethings I'm listing can make the difference in success and failure.

I will talk only about your initial contact advertising, follow upcontact takes a completely different tack. Listed here, notnecessarily in their order of importance, but rather in the order inwhich they can get your message trashed are just a few of thoseMistakes.

1. Not addressing your offer to the recipient. (I know, you can'ttake the time to address all that mail)I would say at least 50% ofthe people receiving e-mail not addressed specifically to them, willimmediately hit the delete key. If your offer is so fantastic thatyou can loose 50% of your audience right out of the gate, by allmeans send out mail with your self, both as the sender and therecipient. Or addressed to friend@whatever.com. You get the idea.You will also find this tactic addressed in the anti spamlegislation. ( Note: This does not apply when sending mail to an optin list. )

2. Using a vulgar or unrealistic sender address, I'll leave thevulgar to your imagination. As far as the unrealistic,dontmiss@this.com or just4u@me.com again you get the idea. You willalso find this tactic addressed in the anti spam legislation. Forthe sake of ease (math was never my long suit) let's say this tacticlooses you another 10%.

3. No Subject or a subject that causes an immediate delete. Now whatcould be a subject that could cause that? Well, how about. EARN AMILLION DOLLARS WITH JUST 1 TIME INVESTMENT OF $20. 00 or anyvariation of that theme. Again you get the idea. Now you may well besaying to yourself, but that's what my program offers. That'swonderful, but in order to get someone interested in that program, adifferent approach is needed. Something like:Income Opportunity 5minutes of your time could be the difference. or:Home businessopportunity! Let's Talk. What can a grandiose subject line cost you,we'll say another 10%.

4. The cc: field filled with dozens of addresses or the To: fieldfor that matter. If you need to send the same e-mail to more than 1recipient use the bcc: field. If your mail program does not offer abcc: field GET ONE THAT DOES! There are so many reasons for this itwould take another entire article to address all of them. But themain one in my opinion is you do not have the right to advertisethose addresses to the world. It is very bad netiquette. You looseanother 10%

5. HTML other than url's. There are many, many people out there thatdon't have the $10,000 set up that you have, and their mail programsDO NOT translate HTML into anything but gibberish. If you want yourmessage to be read, write and send it in plain text. The percentagehere is probably higher but again we'll say 10%.

6. Sending e-mail the size of War and Peace. Here again there are anumber of reasons not to do this. Besides the main one, there are alot of people out there that are limited in the amount of spacetheir mail server will allow. Mine (yes, I still maintain one ofthose free addresses) for example is 2000k. When my inbox, savedmail and drafts exceeds that amount my mail STOPS. Not 1 day goes bythat I don't receive at least one 75 to 100k e-mail. 20 of those andI'm out of business. The other important reason, the recipient justwon't take the time to read a book in there e-mail. A message ofthat length needs to be on a web page. Opp's we lost another 10%

Ok, let's examine what happens when we make all those mistakes insending out 1000 of our e-mail ad's. Right off the bat we loose 50%by not addressing our offer to the recipient. That reduces ourmailing to 500. We loose another 10% for our return address. Weredown to 400. 10% more for no subject, now were at 300. We decided toadvertise those addresses our up-line sent us to the whole world andlost another 10%. Now were down to 200. Our new e-mail program isreally neat and we put flowers and red, white, and blue stripes onour outgoing messages, now were down to 100. We had such a greatstory to tell and we were just so excited about all the neat stuffwe spent 2 whole hours writing down every detail. You just lost yourlast 100 potential customers.

Granted, I have never received a single e-mail that contained all ofthose mistakes, but it only takes 1 or 2 to significantly reduceyour response rate. You can't afford to let all your efforts andhard work go to waste by making these easily correctable mistakes.

"Your Success Is Our Success"

jbp

About the Author
[ jim Peters is Manager of HREF="http://NetServeInt.com">NSI "SOLUTIONS". NSIspecializes in custom website design,promotion, maintenance, HREF="http://registeryourdomainforless.com">domainregistration ,sitehosting ,site and graphic design, as well as e-commercepackages for small to medium sized companies. In other words"SOLUTIONS".]

Cheap Advertising Methods That Work!

by: BB Lee

Advertising is necessary to get name recognition for your business and attract customers. But, what steps can you take to advertise your business if your promotion budget is limited?

Plenty!

The following methods are some of the best and cheapest ways to promote your business online.

-Start An Ezine That's right! Start your very own ezine. This is an excellent way to get immediate recognition for your business without spending a dime. It's easy to start a special interest ezine on the Internet. Several free list hosting services will handle all the emailing duties and subscribers. Here's one source below:

http://www.topica.com

Ad Swaps...Once you have an ezine start swapping ads with other ezine owners. You will score big time if you swap ads with a major player.

-Trade Links..trade links with similar sites. Your search engine rank will increase if your site links with many sites. Leading to more website visitors.

-Search Engine Submission. Submit your site to the top search engines. Pay close attention to meta tags and headings to get a higher listing. Sprinkle a few keywords in your web page copy. Here's a few sources to automatically submit your website to search engines.

http://www.addpro.com
http://www.urlsubmitter.com

-Write Articles. Compose articles on popular topics. Submit your work to online article directories. If your articles are popular, you will get immediate free promotion, and recognition as an expert in your field. Here's a good guide to writing articles for the Internet.

Confessions Of An Ezine Writer:

http://hop.clickbank.net/?xy123/johncolanz

-Write An Ebook! Great free promo idea. Need I say more? Write an ebook on a unique topic and give it away to website visitors. Encourage them to distribute to online associates. Include links in the ebook leading to your website.

How to Write your own eBook in 7 Days! http://hop.clickbank.net/?xy123/7dayebook> Click Here

-Signature Files! This is your opportunity to promote your business or affiliate links. Include them in all your emails. Example Follows:

----------------------------------------------------------------
BB Lee is the editor and publisher of SmallBizBits Newsletter.
Visit: http://www.angelfire.com/zine/smallbiz
----------------------------------------------------------------

-Free Classifieds are more important than you think. They give you experience writing copy before you plunk down hard cash on more extravagant ads. Many marketers still manually post their ads and browse the free classified afterwards. A few interested readers will visit your site.

-FFA Links are important too. When you submit to the ffa pages your website's search engine position increases because it links to more sites. (Although it is temporary and you'll have submit on a regular daily basis.) This will circulate your name to a wider Internet market. And before submitting to the ffa pages, get a free email account to receive the multitude of ffa responses. You certainly don't want these responses mixed with your regular email account.

That's it! Experiment with the methods above! And have fun learning what works for you!

BB Lee is the editor and publisher of SmallBizBits Newsletter.

Join SmallBizBits Today And Receive Your 5 ebook bonus package.

To Subscribe!...mailto:Smallbiz-subscribe@topica.com

Visit: http://www.angelfire.com/zine/smallbiz

Contact BB... mailto:smallbiz@angelfire.com

Can Knowing The Basics of HTML Boost Your Email Advertising

by: Treci Cauthen

Thousands of Internet marketers are using email as a major part of their advertising campaign. This is not the most effective form of advertisement due to the fact that there are lots of websites that offer online email software that allows promoters to reach thousands to millions of prospects using their safelist programs. Due to overwhelming response from promoters to use their lists we now face the issue of Spamming (emailing in bulk or by single mailing, about a product/service to anyone who has not specifically requested the information directly from you or flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it).

But no need to fear their is a proper way to reach lots of interested buyers and co-afiliates without becoming black listed as a spammer. You need to deal with companies that will sell you fresh email lists that haven't been sold to hundreds or thousands of people. Email list websites

http://www.email-lists.biz/
http://www.thetrafficstream.com/?source=k
Now stands the battle between Text vs HTML email formatting tactics for the fall 2004. Tests have been conducted and Ross-Simons' Internet Marketing Director Anne Driscoll said "We tested HTML when years ago just like everybody else, and it was four-times as effective as text. However now we're testing to see if text can convey an urgency that's not necessarily there in HTML."
Turns out it's "as effective or even more effective than standard HTML" for an urgent reminder that a sale is about to end. "It's less to do with deliverability and more to do with the way a customer interprets a message," notes Anne.1
What's the difference?
When you see colored text, graphics, words that are underlined (besides hyperlinks), bold text, etc., in an email, you are looking at an HTML email message. HTML allows you a variety of ways to format your message text, graphics and color.
plain text message looks like something written in a basic text editor. Notepad, which comes loaded with your PC’s operating system, is a great editor for sending text messages. Most professionals who send text messages use Notepad to edit their copy.
"Both formats can work very well in email marketing. A well-written text message without any graphics can perform very well and deliver results. Text messages are easy to create and closely follow the format of a professional sales letter which many marketers are already familiar with. HTML campaigns can capture their audience with a few well-placed visual focus points."
"Well-written copy sells better than weaker copy with fancy graphics. If you’re new to online marketing, my suggestion is to start with text. If you really want to use HTML, you need a good designer. Collect some examples of HTML email advertisements you have responded to and model your campaign after them."2

Where to learn the basics of HTML websites:
http://www.htmlbasix/. com/
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4204/html.htm
You also need to have a few sales letters ready to get the ball rolling.
Sample letters
Sample #1
[Date]
[Mr./Mrs./Ms./Dr.] [Customer's Full Name]
[Title]
[Company Name]
[Address] [City], [State] [Zip/Postal Code]
Dear [Mr./Mrs./Ms./Dr.] [Customer's Last Name]:
Don't lose this letter, or you'll lose your free gift!
[Name of Your Store] is having our [Name of the Sale] Sale, and we want you to be there, for outstanding savings on everything in the store.
And a FREE gift everyone will love.
Beginning [First Day of the Sale, Including Month, Day and Year] and Ending [Customer's Last Day of the Sale, Including Month, Day and Year], [Name of Your Store] will have huge discounts, up to [Highest Percentage Customer Can Save During Sale]% on items like these:
[Highest Percentage Customer Can Save During Sale]% off all [First Type of Product On Sale at the Highest Discount]. or [Highest Percentage Customer Can Save During Sale]% off all [Second Type of Product On Sale at the Highest Discount]. or [Highest Percentage Customer Can Save During Sale]% off all [Third Type of Product On Sale at the Highest Discount].
And not only will you save, but if you bring in this letter during the [Name of the Sale] Sale, we'll also give you a [Name of the Free Gift], absolutely free.
Mark your calendar now for the [Name of the Sale] Sale: [First Day of the Sale, Including Month, Day and Year] - [Customer's Last Day of the Sale, Including Month, Day and Year]. Come to the sale early, and don't forget to bring this letter, because our [Name of the Free Gift] supplies are limited.
And there's no telling when we'll run out.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Title]
[Your Company Name]
P.S. Tape this letter to your door--mail it to yourself--put it in the glove compartment of your car--just don't lose it or you won't get [Name of the Free Gift] for free.
Sample #2
[Date]
[Mr./Mrs./Ms./Dr.] [Customer's Full Name]
[Title]
[Company Name]
[Address] [City], [State] [Zip/Postal Code]
Dear [Mr./Mrs./Ms./Dr.] [Customer's Last Name]:
NEW! We've just received a shipment of thousands of new [Name of the Product] and we need to get them moving!
So we've knocked off the price about [Percentage Customer Can Save By Ordering the Product from You]%--you can get your [Name of the Product] right now for just $[Price of Product].
We've never offered [Name of the Product] before, and we don't know exactly how you will respond to them. That's why we're offering them at such a low price.We'll keep this low price for as long as we can, but if the demand is high, we'll be forced to raise our prices.
Sorry, but those are the laws of supply and demand.
So order yours now, while we're still offering this incredible introductory price--just $[Price of Product]. Call [Phone Number Customers Call to Place Orders, Preferably a Toll-free or 800 Number] right now, and give our brand new [Name of the Product] a try.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Title]
[Your Company Name]
P.S. Don't forget about our return policy. Return any product to us within [Number of Days the Guarantee Lasts] days, and we'll refund your purchase price.3 Finally you need to decide which method works best for you. Getting The Big Picture?

reference
1. Anne Holland http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2848
2. Jason Lexell http://www.businessemaillists.com/articles/text-vs-html.asp
3. Sandi Stevens http://www.bizine.com/salesltr.htm

Copyright © 2004
About the Author
Treci Cauthen is a Writer/Internet Marketing Coach.
Natural-Cures-Info
webvillage.bravehost.com naturalcures.bravehost.com
Kevin Trudeau

Can It Be? Is There Advertising People Actually Love?

by: Scott Rauber

Can it be??? Is there advertising that people actually love? You bet there is! And you are already very aware of it. The type of advertising I'm referring to is promotional items, also known as advertising specialties. It's anything a company would put their logo and contact information on, and then give away. They are used by many businesses all over the world to help maintain, and increase the amount of business they do with their customers every day. Why do people love it? Because we view the item more as a gift from the giver instead of an advertising tool. Have you ever been handed a logoed scratch pad, coffee mug, pen, coaster, calendar, etc. and then said THANK YOU? Of course you have. We all have. When you accept it, an emotional (almost an obligation to do business with) type of attachment is created in you. A kind of warm & fuzzy feeling if you will. For a long time they'll remember the gift you gave, and in order to show their appreciation to you, almost instinctively, they'll try to do more business with you. That's the secret behind this type of advertising!!! And that's why it's The ONLY type of advertising people love. AND it'll work powerfully for you too!! The next time you're pondering ways to increase your business, consider using promotional items. Scott Rauber , Biz Promo, LLC 727-733-8387 getmorebiznow@verizon.net Scott Rauber In the business of helping business get more business. Has started several businesses over the past 15 years and is now focusing on helping others succeed in business. Master in finding prospects using little or no money! getmorebiznow@verizon.net

Buying your way to the top with Pay Per Click Advertising

by: Ed Kohler

Imagine if you could advertise ONLY to people who have actually expressed an interest in doing business with you? That’s basically what happens whenever a prospective customer or client types a phrase into a search engine that’s relevant to your business. But how do search engines decide which sites are worthy of top placement in their search results? It turns out that some of the results are ranked by the search engine’s computers while others are simply paid advertisements from companies willing to buy their way to the top using Pay Per Click Advertising. Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC for short) is an online advertising format that allows you to buy your way to the top of search results pages for search phrases relevant to your business. Businesses buy advertising on specific search phrases, and are then charged each time a person clicks through to their web site. How does this work? Try running a search on a major search engine like Yahoo or Google for a common consumer product like “DVD players.” When reviewing the results, you’ll likely see a set of results labeled as “Sponsor Results” or “Sponsored Link”. Some results may appear in the same format as the main search results on the page, while others are listed within colored text boxes along the site of the page. All of those results are paid advertisements from the sites listed within the ads. The ads are ranked based on how much a business is willing to pay to advertise on each search phrase. In the example search for “DVD players” the current top advertiser is currently paying $0.81 per click – one penny more than the #2 advertiser. The ads are purchased through pay per click advertising suppliers, and the two largest happen to be owned by Google and Yahoo. Google’s program is called Adwords and displays results on Google.com, AOL, Ask Jeeves, many smaller search engines. Yahoo’s program is run by an acquired company called Overture, and the results appear on Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, and many other syndication partners. Why should I pay for traffic? For businesses that have had success with search engine optimization, the idea of paying for visitors is not particularly enticing. However, if you can make more money off a visitor to your web site than it costs to get them there, why wouldn’t you pay for those visitors? Keep in mind that you can choose exactly what search terms you want to advertise on, and you only pay when a searcher actually clicks on your ad, so it generally comes down to deciding how much you can afford to spend for those visitors rather than whether it’s worth doing at all. How much should I spend? The main factors influencing how much money can be spent on a PPC campaign are: 1. How many searches are conducted per month using phrases relevant to your business? 2. How much are you, along with your competitors, willing to pay for those terms? The average monthly ad spend on PPC advertising is a couple thousand dollars, but this varies immensely from less than $50/month for regionally targeted and niche businesses to millions a month by large national retailers. The goal of any advertising campaign should be to bring in more money from the campaign than it costs to run it. Pay Per Click is no different, but the level of detail you can measure in PPC is significantly higher than most types of advertising. For example, with relatively inexpensive (some are even free) tools, you can determine which ads are generating sales or leads for your business. Beyond that, you can determine how much money you spent on a specific ad to generate a sale or a lead. By measuring what’s working, you can aggressively advertise on terms that prove to be winners for your business while shutting down ads that don’t deliver. Tips for Success 1. Advertise on a large number of relevant search phrases. Brainstorm beyond the first dozen terms that come to mind to describe your business. Advertise on the terms used to describe your products, the product names, product codes, and the questions a prospect might type into a search engine that your services answer, and more. 2. Build unique ads for each search phrase. It takes a lot more time to write a unique ad for each search phrase relevant to your business rather than creating one ad for all of your search phrases, but the extra work will definitely be rewarded. Ads that are aligned with the corresponding search term receive more clicks, which will mean more targeted traffic, and in some cases paying less per click (on Google Adwords) due to the intricacies of how the advertising is priced. 3. Send visitors to the most appropriate page of your web site. If you place an ad for a specific product within your online store, don’t send visitors to your homepage and force them to dig for what they just searched. This will frustrate your visitors and increase the chance that they’ll hit the dreaded Back button. 4. Track your results. Spending money without measuring the return on your investment is not a good business practice. At the very least, consider installing the free tracking tools available through Google Adwords and Overture to measure which terms are delivering results for your business. Beyond that, consider using a 3rd party statistics tool with conversion analysis to compile the results of your various pay per click programs into one easy to manage interface. Go for it People are searching for what you sell at this very moment! If your site is not showing up near the top of the results, your competition thanks you. Ed Kohler is the President of Haystack In A Needle, Inc., a web marketing firm in Minneapolis, MN, offering search engine optimization and pay per click advertising consulting services. HaystackInANeedle.com kohler@HaystackInANeedle.com

Big Advertising Mistake - Don't Do This and It Will Save You

by: Farid Aziz

Advertising plays an important role in your business (every business, actually!). But, there is one BIG mistake advertisers frequently do and this mistake could cost you a bundle!

What is it?

The fact that you don't analyze what type of advertising is working for you and which are not doing so well!

Analyzing the results of your advertising campaigns will help you determine where your money should go. If you skip this task, then you'd probably spending too much money on a lousy campaign! Of course you don't want that to happen do you?

I know that this task is very time consuming and boring, that's why most advertisers always neglect this one. The fact is, it becomes time consuming and boring if you don't create a system for that. This system should inform you the performance of all of your advertising campaigns.

This is what makes online advertising so great. Many online advertising services give you ad campaign reports on a regular basis. They inform you which ads are working and which ones are not. Although not every type of online advertisings have this feature, one of them who does is Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.

But what if you advertise in ezines (lots of ezines) and ad classifieds? What if you put several banners and text links here and there? How to monitor their performances?

Well, in case you didn't know, there are some services in the internet which really could track your ads and make your job a lot easier. To learn more about this service, you can go to HyperTracker

Once you know exactly the performance of all of your ad campaigns, here are some steps that can save a lot of your advertising budget:

o Determine Your Target Market

Who would be interested in your products? What problems do your products solve? Believe me, reaching untargeted market would only hurt your advetising budget. Don't go for quantity, but go for quality! Many people love blasting ads to a huge community and ended up with no sales at all? Why? Because they are simply reaching the WRONG people.

o Set Up a Realistic Budget

How much money could you put aside for advertising? Remember, don't waste all of your advertising budget on a single campaign! You have to test what type of advertising that will work best for you.

o A Great Sales Copy

Make people want to click through your URL. Your target here is to make them click, not to sell! Let your site do the selling for you.

o Test Several Ads

Test several ads at the same time. Tweak your sales copy. You'll be amazed at how a little difference you add to an ad could result in a HUGE difference in the response. This part is a lot easier if you use the good old HyperTracker

o Analyze and Re-invest

Analyze your ads performance. Stick to the ones that give you best results. Now that you know what works and what doesn't, you could re-invest your advertising budget ONLY on the best type of advertising.

About the Author

Farid Aziz is a full-time Internet Marketer. Reveal more of his FREE tips and strategies on Internet Marketing and get a FREE Course on How to Make Money Online with Your Hobby at http://www.InternetMarketerSells.com

Bextra and Vioxx Withdrawal Spawn Advertising Pause from Bri

by: Charles Essmeier

Pharmaceutical giant Bristol Myers Squibb has announced that they will suspend direct-to-consumer advertising for their prescription drug products for a year. This comes in the wake of the well-publicized withdrawals of Merck’s Vioxx and Pfizer’s Bextra, two non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) that were voluntarily withdrawn from the market recently. Studies showed that they increase the likelihood of strokes and heart attacks among patients that take them for prolonged periods of time. This represents an unusual move for a pharmaceutical company, as they tend to spend a large portion of their annual advertising budget on direct-to-consumer advertising.

It is possible that Bristol Myers recognizes that consumers are becoming concerned about new drugs being approved by the FDA and advertised heavily, only to find out later that the drugs have previously unknown and possibly dangerous side effects. Consumers have learned that advertising a drug as “new and improved” doesn’t necessarily mean that it is new, or improved, or even safe. In short, customers are suspicious of pharmaceutical advertising, and the drug companies are to be commended for taking notice of that fact.

Since 1997, drug companies have been allowed by U.S. law to advertise directly to consumers. This has led to an astonishing number of ads on television and radio, as consumers see ads showing one happy person after another. The ads suggest that the happiness shown is a result of the use of the product, and a voiceover quickly mumbles through the known, and sometimes lengthy, list of side effects. Patients are encouraged to speak with their doctor, and they have been doing so in record numbers. The problem, as Bristol Myers know realizes, is that consumers are well aware that the withdrawn Bextra and Vioxx were advertised as being safe. This has naturally led to a general suspicion of all advertised drugs, and Bristol Myers correctly sees that they could be the victims of a drug-company backlash, even if they didn’t manufacture any of the withdrawn products.

This will probably save Bristol Myers a lot of money in the short term, as their advertising would have largely gone to waste. The Food and Drug Administration is taking steps to make sure that the drugs that reach the U.S. market are safe, and in time, the public will again become more trusting of pharmaceutical advertising. In the meantime, TV viewers will be spared from having to watch the sometimes-cryptic drug ads, which often prompt questions of “What does this drug do?”

About the Author

©Copyright 2005 by Retro Marketing. Charles Essmeier is the owner of Retro Marketing, a firm devoted to informational Websites, including Bextra-Info.net, a site devoted to the withdrawn drug Bextra and StructuredSettlementHelp.com, a site devoted to structured settlements.

Balancing SEO and Other Forms Of Advertising

by: Dan J. Fry

Search engines are by and far the largest supplier of traffic toyour web site. Moreover, its targeted, meaning the visitors thatarrive at your site were looking for information that you aredelivering. At least this is the goal of the search engines: todeliver high quality results to web surfers.

Recent major changes in Google, Yahoo and MSN have put theinternet market however in a frenzy. As the search engines battleit out to be the one producing the highest quality results byfrequently altering their index algorithm, search engineoptimization has taken an almost obsessive importance.

The problem I see is that the battle is not going to end soon andrepeatedly trying to stay ahead by optimizing after each re-indexing is truly a never ending battle. A balance must be struckbetween search engine advertising and other online venues.

Starting out with an online home business business isintimidating. There is pressure to build a quality site, offervaluable information, promote, build subscribers,...and the listgoes on and on. Having a few different forms of advertising thatyou slowly utilize can payoff big in the long run. With a marketthat can change on an hourly basis, you musn't focus too heavilyon any single form of site promotion.

Think of it as your advertising bag of goodies. You reach in andpull out one method and give it a try. Don't dump all of yourresources into it. Spread them out. Reach in and pick another,until you have a few in the works. Now pause and see which isworking. Tweak a bit here and there and sit back again.Continuously re-evaluating your advertising campaigns, you willbegin to grow a deep feeling as to which works for your onlinebusiness.

Here are a few types of advertising for your home business youshould consider:

1) Classified Ads - cheap and short to write.
(2) Article submission - write an article and post for free.The rewards reaped can be enormous in the long term.
(3) Paid ads in E-Zines - hit those seldom used small nichemarkets!
(4) Link exchange - can you bring in traffic from anothersite? You betcha!
(5) Newsgroup and Discussion lists - join in on discussionsand pass out a small blurb about your business at the end.
(6) Sig files - after all your online! Make use of all of theemails you send out daily.
(7) Flyers - yep, offline!

The bottom line here is not to stagnate. Search engines areimportant but not the only way to promote. Its better to balanceyour site optimization with other promotion strategies. If onemethod fails you at least have others to fall back on.

About the Author

Dan J. Fry is an independent researcher and owner of e-Kinetic.com, a site devoted to providing resources for small budget home businesses. He has a PhD in Physics and is married with two daughters and two cats. Subscribe to his free E-Zine on home business resources at mailto:
e-kinetic@GetResponse.com or by visiting his site at http://www.e-kinetic.com . He can be reached at mailto:comp@e-kinetic.com .