There is a certain credit card company that is famous for the slogan
"We’re Everywhere You Want To Be!"

That is a darn good slogan for Power Linkers, because it hits the
nail on the head. When you are marketing anything, of course your
best bet is to reach every possible customer for your product with
your message, right?

But if you are not a big multi-national corporation with millions of
dollars to spend on flashy advertising, what are you going to do?

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Well, the internet is where the little guys have had equal footing
with the big corporations from the beginning. Remember the big tech
company crash when thousands of over-financed upstart internet
companies went the way of the dodo? Who could forget that, right?

Those guys thought they could dominate on OUR turf if they threw
money at the problem like they do in the offline world of
television, radio, magazines, and newspapers. And the experiment
failed miserably. Only a few companies got through that fiasco, but
not without some deep scars.

All the while, people like me were watching and learning. And I
realized then and there that the battle for monster profits on the
web was going to be waged guerilla fashion.

Low budget, no budget, the less money and more creativity involved,
the better! And that is how Power Linking was born. And that’s why
Power Linkers are "..everywhere you want to be."

If you put the science of linking to use in a massive, systematic
way, by studying your potential customers’ habits and using this
knowledge to be "everywhere they surf," you cannot help but blow
your competition out of the water.

There are billions of web pages on the net. There are fewer
super-high traffic places on the net, but still a pretty
mind-boggling amount. How many of them are you on?

How many sites with over 1 million visitors a month link to your
website? Did you even think that was possible until I asked the
question?

How well do you know your customers and their surfing habits? If you
sell horse blankets and many of your potential customers surf the
Number 1 horse lovers site online, what can you do to get exposure
for your site there?

And if you say "Spend money on advertising" I am going to ask you to
re-read what you just read above!

Get it out of your head completely, right now and for good, that you
have to have money to make money. That you have to make a huge
investment in hard cash to get the exposure your site needs. That
point could not have been made clearer by the tech crash!

And when you don’t have money to lose on the mistakes already laid
out before you on a silver platter, it is a cardinal sin to spend a
DIME on advertising!

Power Linkers show up everywhere our customers go. At least, that is
the goal. On your way to showing up absolutely everywhere your
potential market will see you, you will become a millionaire. That’s
a flat fact. So I doubt many people get to test the theory to it’s
absolute end.

There’s too much world travel, deep sea fishing, and shopping for
2nd and 3rd homes for millionaires to be bothered with wondering
whether they got themselves into every corner of the web that their
market surfs!

Do YOU Have What it Takes to Make it Online?

I have a test for you to complete. If you saw "Spy Games" with
Robert Redford and Brad Pitt, you will remember that Redford was
training Pitt to be a spy, and a darn good one at that. In one scene
during Pitt’s training, Redford and Pitt are standing outside a big
apartment building.

Redford turns to Pitt and says "You know anyone in that building?"
Pit says "No." "In five minutes, I want to see you standing on the
outside balcony of one of the top floor apartments," Redford told
him.

Pitt was clearly taken aback. You see, Redford was teaching Pitt to
befriend people almost instantly, gain trust, and go places and do
things no one else would dream of doing to be the best spy he could
possibly be.

His life depended on it. The scene cuts away, but we are left with
the feeling Pitt had no trouble with this task because the next
scene was of Pitt as a full-blown professional spy!

I want you to pretend right now that your life depends on getting a
very highly prized link from one of the biggest sites in your niche.
Either through an article, a plain reciprocal link, or other means,
WITHOUT spending a dime on it. And I want you to do it in 24 hours.

Taking what you know right now, and realizing that now your life
depends on how good a marketer you can be, come up with a plan that
requires you to "befriend" a webmaster, CEO, whoever the person in
charge of your "target" site is. And I want to see you standing on
THEIR "balcony" waving to me (with your link) in 24 hours.

Think you can do it? Seems almost trivial when put in the
perspective that if your life depended on it, and you HAD to find a
way to get onto a site with some sort of free publicity, that you
could certainly find a way. I mean, in the big perspective, this
certainly is not an impossible task by any stretch whatsoever.

I want to see what you are made of. How bad do you want the prize?
Because after you complete this task, the Power Linking world is
going to open before you and you will start to see internet
marketing in a whole new way, from that day forward.

If you do this and succeed, you are on your way to becoming a pro,
and a very rich person indeed.

You now have 23 hours and 56 minutes to complete your task!

————————–
Jack Humphrey is the Author of "Power linking 2: Evolution"

If you have been on the internet for awhile, you know that there are
millions of people trying anything and everything to get your
attention. They want in your wallet. It’s a great big money grab out
there folks, and the net has become the biggest marketing arena on
the planet, driving whole industries and generating Billions of
dollars in sales.

So what’s the problem? Well, none if you are one of the small
businesses with focus. A whole lot of problems if you lack focus.

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There are myriad small business opportunities on the net today. And
if you do your research and find something you want to associate
with, or you create a product for a well-researched target market,
you are well on your way to financial success. Or are you?

You see the more you become active on the net as either someone
looking for the right opportunity, or as someone who has found the
right opportunity already, the more you are bombarded with choices.
Everyday you get emails saying that the next best thing since sliced
bread has come along.

The new "thing" demands your attention and you get nervous that you
might be missing out on another opportunity for financial success.

But don’t you already have one? At least, haven’t you been presented
with several great opportunities in the last week? So why on earth
take a serious look at yet another? Why fragment the time you need
to spend on your current business with all the marketing it takes to
get yet another off the ground and profitable?

What I am talking about here is something I call "Sign-up-Itis."
(Not to be confused with Sinusitis, which can be just as
debilitating.)

It goes like this: You find your focus, you are fired up. All is
good and you are ready to start working on the hundreds of little
things you need to do to get traffic and make sales. You need to get
good search engine positioning, you need a links campaign, you have
to research ezines in your niche and place ads, you need to set up
joint ventures, you need to create and update content on your site,
set up a merchant account, a delivery system, and the list goes on
from there.

Then you get an email from a friend or associate telling you that
you HAVE to check out the latest and greatest. You do. It’s an
awesome opportunity. You look at your plate and it’s already full
with your current project, but the plate has a lot of things on it
you really don’t enjoy doing. It’s a lot of work to make any
business pay off, as you can see from the short list above.

"It’s Much More Fun To Think About Success Than It Is To Do The
Work It Takes To Achieve It"

But this NEW thing is exciting, fresh, new. It draws you in and it’s
MUCH more fun to think about success than it is to do the work it
takes to achieve it, so you buy in. You get a ton of tools to start
this new venture. It’s all overwhelming, especially since you have
gone back to your first venture and realized you now have TWO great
things that can both make you money, but they BOTH need your
attention on a grand scale in order to see profit.

Now, here is the part where most people give up. They say to
themselves "Internet marketing is nothing more than a series of
steps that I cannot complete. I am always excited when I get started
on something, but when it comes down to DOING what I start, it gets
hard and doesn’t happen as fast as I would like it to."

Let me make one thing clear right now: It is not the net’s fault for
not providing us with real opportunity.

Opportunity abounds and is right there for us to snatch up and
achieve success. Never let yourself fall into the trap of reasoning
your way out of success. "It’s not for me." "I can’t do this – it’s
for people much better with computers and internet marketing than
me."

The problem lies with your focus and your fear of success. You must
CHOOSE the opportunity you are passionate about, or create a product
you stand behind and love, and then hunker down for the long-haul!
Make yourself do everything you are taught to do to build your
business and build it – all the way or not at all.

It should be no surprise the next time you get an email with the
next best thing inside. You should say to yourself "That’s great!
Another opportunity for someone has just been born! But I am busy
with MY business and cannot take on another venture at this time."

We Do It On Purpose

Lack of focus is sometimes a purposeful self-defeating tactic your
subconscious uses to keep you from success. Success is NOT a
destination. It’s a journey.

And that journey scares the hell out of 99% of normal, everyday
people. So be it. It IS scary to think of radical life changes, even
if they are for what you consider to be far better than your current
situation!

But don’t let a lack of focus and your fear of success tear you away
from your dreams. USE your fear and confront it, right now. Today.

Make hard decisions and stick to them, then begin the process of
working on a focused, tight marketing campaign to make whatever
venture you choose the venture that sets you free.

Wear electronic blinders. Keep lean and mean and only take on new
responsibilities that will be good for your CURRENT business. Throw
the rest in the trash.

We all know there are tons of opportunities out there. That is a
fact. It’s time now to get the stars out of your eyes, choose your
niche, your product, your affiliate program or your MLM, and get to
work. Make a vow not to stop until you are where you want to be
financially.

The question is not "Can you really make money online?" This has
been proven time and again over the years by thousands of people,
many of whom you read about all the time.

The question is "Do you really want to be one of those people, or
are you stuck in a cycle of constantly sabotaging your success with
a lack of focus?"

The cure for Sign-up-itis is focus and hard work. Success is
something you decide to achieve one day. It’s that decision that is
often the biggest hurdle any future success story has to conquer.

Jason Zweig wrote a great little article in Money Magazine called "R+U
Lucky? Some Guys Do Have All The Luck. Here’s How to Join Them"
(Money, August 2003 pp85).

In it he describes the patterns that "lucky" people follow and how
to increase your odds of success by basically placing yourself in
the "right place at the right time."

Can you always be in the right place at the right time? Not really,
unless you broaden your definition of that phrase a bit, as I have.

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My Definition of The Right Place at The Right Time: "Putting
yourself in every corner of your market niche in some fashion so as
to be in front of customers and people who can further your business
through partnerships, buyouts, joint ventures and many other
opportunities that only come through the luck you *create* by being
active and involved in your niche."

Zweig talks about the fact that some people seem actually "skillful"
at being lucky. A British psychologist, Richard Wiseman, even wrote
a new book on the subject called "The Luck Factor." (See
www.luckfactor.co.uk)

Wiseman did a study on over 400 people who thought of themselves
as either very lucky or unlucky.

"He found that some are indeed luckier than others, that lucky
people share similar attitudes and that many apparently random
outcomes can be controlled" says Zweig.

Think of the first person that comes to mind who owns an online
business and who you think of as "lucky." Actually, think of about 5
people. Should be an easy list to make – they are your competition,
or business owners you admire, most likely.

Now, what trait would you say your list of 5 lucky people share? I
would venture to say they all share the same trait of being, at one
point or another, "in the right place at the right time."

How did they do it? Was it really blind luck? Are the odds dismal?
The same as winning your state lottery jackpot?

Not even close! Although there are some people who really cannot
explain their luck, and who truly were just "touched by an angel,"
most successful people are successful because they are engaged to
the hilt in their business. They are active promoters of their
businesses in a radical way. They all have a fanatical involvement
in networking themselves and their businesses.

The biggest mistake I see people make with their online businesses
is that they separate their "self" from their business. They let the
products speak for themselves, which is ok as one component of a
marketing campaign, but that’s not enough. They also successfully
market *themselves* as well as their business. They see themselves
as important factors in the success and identity of their business.

"Lucky" people see no separation of the two in fact. Products and
services are inanimate "things." They are nothing really, without
the people behind the scenes who put themselves in front of the
scenes as much as possible and let others get to know THEM.

Why do you think so many people come back from conferences with
stories of how they landed a great partner they never thought they’d
even get to answer an email?

Conferences and seminars are the epitome of "creating luck." The
least important thing about them is the formal ceremonies. The good
stuff happens at the bar in the hotel after the presentations are
over. The "good stuff" is being in the right place at the right
time. You are definitely creating luck whenever you network with
peers and possible partners.

If you let yourself get lost in the day-to-day operations of your
business and you don’t allow yourself time to think about the ways
in which you can get your "self" in front of the people who can
break you into a whole new league of success for your business, you
will be less "lucky" in business.

There are lots of real rags-to-riches stories on the net. People are
succeeding and profiting online like never before, but few do it in
a vacuum. You will find more often than not that a story of success
will begin with a line like "My business REALLY took off when I
met…" or "I was talking on the phone one day with…and all the
sudden an idea was born."

Want to create some luck for yourself? Get involved in your business
at a level in which you are always in the right place at the right
time. Being active in online forums, calling people on the phone
rather than using email, meeting people in person who can help you
get your products in front of thousands of potential customers, all
these practices are used by the ever-lucky, most successful people
on the planet.

Put yourself into your business as part of the product. Develop
relationships. Run far far away from people who want to sell you on
the concept that you can succeed online without having to talk with
or meet others. Success has never knocked on the door of people who
aren’t open to human contact – that’s a ridiculous and
self-defeating practice.

If you are passionate about making money with an online or offline
business, good old fashioned networking will always win out over any
other method of advertising.

So, now you have the formula for "creating luck." If you can sit
down this weekend and figure out all the ways you can put yourself
in the right place at the right time to increase your business -
including a powerful linking campaign for your website – you are
going to start to see that there is a pattern indeed to creating
luck and making things happen for your business.

Creativity and Determination are the KEY ingredients in all online
success stories. So many times, as a moderator and participant in
the net’s most active and lauded online marketing forum, The
Internet Marketing Warriors, I have heard the same questions
repeated by hopeful marketer after hopeful marketer. And mostly they
begin with "How do I…?"

Similar questions, in a dead-heat in frequency, vary around a theme
such as "What tool should I use to…?"

Know-how and tools. Go to any forum on the net, on almost any
subject, and you will find hundreds or even thousands of people
exchanging information on know-how and tools. "What is the best way
to write copy?" "Which autoresponder script is best for my
business?" "What hosting is the best for me?"

Very infrequently will you come upon a marketing discussion that
talks about creativity and determination. Even more rare is a
successful product that shows people HOW to be creative and
determined. This is because tools and know-how are so much easier to
write about.

If this, then that. Such a small phrase, yet it is the bulk of what
internet marketing training is all about if you have read even a
small pile of ebooks geared toward making you a better sales
producer.

And the formula sells – bigtime.

But then, why are there so many people failing at marketing their
business online? What is IT that separates the masses from the
relatively few truly successful online small businesses?

It is this: You cannot teach people creativity very easily. Some
would say it’s impossible. Art classes are simply tools to weed out
people that don’t have IT so they can get busy pursuing another line
of work!

And it is this: Determination (including work ethic, stick-to-it-ivenss,
seeing something through to the end) is even harder to simply
instill in a person with the written word or teleseminar. You cannot
reach through your ebook to slap someone everyday to recapture their
focus for them and keep them on-task.

The problem is compounded when you have one of the above and not the
other. Creative people very often have no business sense or the
drive necessary to acquire it. Determined people fail gloriously in
a gallon of sweat at five in the morning without creativity. Nothing
is probably more disheartening than having one or the other. It must
be like being able to see over the fence, but not have what it takes
to climb to the other side.

Tools are tools. We must use them in any profession to the best of
our ability. Henry Ford used tools to create Model Ts. But did you
ever read a story proclaiming that Ford won the day with his tools?
Of course not. The stories are about determination and creativity
and that’s it.

You can go out right now and get the best software, the most
expensive copywriter, the best programmer, and even the best product
since sliced bread. And you can fail. It’s been done more times than
success by a long margin throughout history.

This article is not about how to succeed at internet marketing. It
is not about tools that will help get you over the fence where the
grass is greener.

This article is an observation. An observation that is seeded with
clues that only creative and determined people will pick up on. And,
despite all the success manuals and training you may have spent hard
earned money on, this article contains the answer to why many people
fail and some succeed at not only internet marketing, but in
anything in life.

Creativity in internet marketing is being able to think beyond what
others have accomplished to date. It’s being able to take the pulse
of the internet and the human condition and react by putting
something together that is needed and desired.

Determination is being able to go out on a limb and work until you
succeed despite obstacles and naysayers. It is fueled by belief in
yourself and your creative ideas.

Do you have these two key ingredients? Can you see what is possible
that thousands of other great minds have overlooked? If so, can you
then take that vision and turn it into reality with dogged
determination and perhaps the hardest work you have ever done in
your life?

If you have "it," then you can go learn about our trade from the
technical (tools) standpoint and you can use them to succeed with
your creativity and determination. The tools are worthless by
themselves.

I hope one day to see a lot more questions about the creative
process as it relates to business and success in forums in the
future. I want to see questions (and honest answers!) about how much
work it takes to create a profitable business online. Then I will
know that a lot more people are on track and are asking the RIGHT
questions. Most of all, I hope to see more training materials from
experts that deal with not only what tools and systems to use, but
with topics on how to think freely, on your own, about how you could
make something better or make something new out of the situation at
hand.

Finally, when you hear that this business is not for everyone, it
means quite specifically that this business is not for people who
cannot think outside the norm and work long hours. That’s why
businesses that people try to sell you that "do all the work so you
don’t even have to think" are so absurd.

No one has ever succeeded at anything without creativity and
determination. Unless they have entered a couch potato contest. But
even then the most successful people are going to be the ones who
think creatively about how to sit on that couch longer than anyone
else and watch more TV than was formerly thought humanly possible.

Here is an example using the above: 99% of the people who set out to
be the #1 Couch Potato will simply start out by sitting in front of
the TV for as long as they can. They think, "I will just out-potato
everyone else by doing it 24/7."

And they will all fail. Because one person is going to think
creatively and freely. They are going to buy 5 TVs and plug them all
in in front of the couch. They are going to out-potato everyone else
by being able to compound the amount of TV they can watch by 5 times
the amount of everyone else while doing no more work than the other
99%. Through creativity and determination, the person who wins at
anything is going to find ways to succeed that most people never
would have thought of.

In the end, if you want to succeed online, you must ask yourself: Do
I REALLY have the creativity and determination to turn my current
situation into a better one through an online business? Don’t worry
about tools and know-how. Those can be learned and used by anyone.
But there is no need to commit yourself to a big learning curve if
you don’t have what it really takes to succeed in the end.

I love to show people how they can actually get up to 1 million hits
per month using reciprocal links. People are doing it right now all
over the web and have the live server log files to prove it. And you
probably are thinking, “Yeah they are on top of the search engine
lists! Actually, top listing on the search engines is not the cause
of their hits! It’s a side-effect.

Reciprocal links alone put them in the Million-a-Month Club.
Reciprocal links, good ones, can do much more for you than any
search engine ever will.

Wow Jack, that’s a bold statement, got anything to back that up?

How about the server logs of people getting over a million hits per
month who did nothing more than seek out link partners and ONLY
submitted to each major search engine ONCE? Would that convince you?

Well check it out. Here are two sites that use reciprocal linking
almost exclusively with all other forms of advertising bringing in a
relatively negligible amount of traffic. When looking at their live
server log files, pay attention to the following things:

1.) Qualified traffic from reciprocal links.

Look at the Refers Report and check the section labeled ‘/’.
Underneath you will find which links and search engines are sending
these websites traffic.) Search engine traffic to the sites’ Link
Directory pages.

In the Refers Report, find the headings that start with /links/,
with the name of the Link Directory pages directory after. Search
engines send lots of traffic to these pages. These pages were never
submitted to the search engines!

Example 1: CTEX CD Replication holds the number one keyword
placement on Yahoo for "CD replication." How did they get there?
Link popularity! Check out their live server log files at: http://www.ctexinc.com/stats/index.html

Example 2: Toolady.com is a website that has been using
reciprocal links for a long time and her web site traffic was
generated completely reciprocal links! In four months it became one
of the most heavily trafficked bird web sites on the internet. No
other form of marketing was done. Check out her server log files
here:

http://toolady.com/reports/log_bird.html

So you tell me, are search engines the almighty savior you thought
they were a minute ago?

Relevance of Your Links

Relevance has a lot to do with how a search engine robot will treat
you nowadays. That’s why I always talk about the importance of
building a link list or "theme index" for your site (call it a
reciprocal link exchange) that closely resembles the topics or
products you deal with in your site. (But not those, of course, in
direct competition to you.)

Now the FFA and Link Farm people are going to be mad at me, but this
is the truth!

Here’s a test. If I fail it you may publicly scorn me!

Go to any FFA page on the web and look for Yahoo.com. Try Amazon.com,
or CocaCola.com… There must be TONS of their links on FFA pages -
EVERYBODY knows those guys! Go ahead and check it out, I’ll be here
when you get back!

Glad you’re back – how many links did you find? None? Yikes!

Now go to Altavista.com and type link:yahoo.com in the search
window. What happened? Well, I just did it and it said: We found
6,670,578 results. (By the way, don’t you love how the search engine
will report millions of links just like it reports none? Doesn’t it
seem like they would be like "WOW, six million links!!!")

That’s 6,670,578 links pointing to Yahoo.com!!

And not a single one from a link farm. Now don’t go getting ideas in
your head about getting 6 million links. You don’t need that many to
flood your site with enough traffic to keep you selling widgets, or
informing the public on the effects on the ozone layer from methane
gas produced by cattle. (What? hey its late, that was the best
example I could come up with! How do I know what you’re into?)

No, you need far fewer links than that to get 1,000,000 hits a
month. And, with a million hits a month, how many methane
gas-to-oxygen converters do you think you could sell to farmers to
mount on the backs of their cows to protect the ozone layer? I’d say
at least a whole heap!

There is automation software out there that people are using to
drastically optimize their link lists and I highly recommend
checking them out. The best and first of its kind can be found at
webmastertraffictools.com.

This software has a fully functioning demo that will spider the web,
set up your link directory, AND upload it to your server. It also
does a mail-merge function to personalize all your link requests to
other webmasters and mails for you. All in the DEMO version!

You CAN do all this manually, but it is highly recommended that you
at least check out the automation software demo above to see what
the best of the best webmasters are using to get those million hits
per month.

(Author’s note: It has not yet been proven whether methane produced
by cow emissions affects the ozone layer. Example above is
fictional.)

There is nothing on the web that compares to a good link when you
are talking about building steady streams of traffic to your site.

Did you know that one good link can bring you more daily traffic
than a #1 position on a search engine? It’s true!

Did you also know that there are sites out there, thousands of them,
who rely solely on the traffic they get from reciprocal links with
other webmasters? There are! I call the webmasters of these sites
Link Minded people!

No webmaster in their right mind would argue that links aren’t the
lifeblood of the internet. A search engine is only a directory of
links. A link directory on your domain is also a search engine when
you use the proper technique of creating a “themed category listing.

I think the biggest problem on the net today is that so many
webmasters are looking for a Magic Pill that will solve their
traffic problems with The Click of a Button. How many times have you
seen an ad with those exact words in it? 50? 100 times or more?

Well, I am sorry to tell you, there is no magic pill. That I can
absolutely positively guarantee. There is no substitute for plain,
old fashioned hard work and dedication to your website and the
business you would like to succeed in. The internet offers tons of
automation solutions, and even reciprocal linking has had a couple
of valiant attempts and even successes at a certain degree of
automation.

But exchanging meaningful, traffic-driving links with other
webmasters is and always will be a personal, one-on-one thing. It is
like a mini joint venture with other webmasters and you have to
address them without bulk mail or spamming in order to even have a
chance at getting the mother of all links someday!

When you look at reciprocal linking (the oldest original form of
advertising since the web began) it is really surprising how few
marketing experts deal with the topic. I wrote a book about the
whole phenomenon simply because there were so few people looking
into the science of link swapping!

And there is a science to it! There are pitfalls. There are plain
NO-NOs. There are myriad ways to waste your time chasing after
useless links, or worse, links that will get you banned from some
search engines! Reciprocal linking is not link farming or posting to
400,000 Free-for-All links pages. (A most detestable practice used
for awhile by all newbies, then abandoned after the damage is done.)

In short, you really have few choices on the net better than
starting a link directory and asking webmasters with relevant
content to your site for a link swap. Unless you have a huge budget
and can afford to pay someone to get your site optimized and ranked
in the top ten on all the big engines, there aren’t other
alternatives.

Banner exchanges suck visitors from your site. Traffic exchanges
bring you hits, but totally uninterested visitors. Ezine ads are an
important linking strategy, but that is an ongoing process you do to
get quick spurts of traffic, not ongoing, steady streams of it. Plus
it is hard to know where to get the best ads and usually the best
ads are pretty expensive on a small budget.

My recommendation for people who really want their site to be
noticed to the tune of 1000 hits a day or more, who are on a budget
and are just starting: start a link directory on your site and have
clear instructions on how to swap links with you.

Then, search the net for your link partners (relevancy is SO key
here, don’t swap links with Victoria’s Secret if you sell fishing
line!) send them personalized emails asking for swaps, set up top
listings for those willing to be “link partners and keep going until
you have at least 100 links to your site! (Verifiable at
altavista.com by typing in “Link:yourdomain.com)

Then, stop and take a break and start again. It’s work. Even with
automation software. Nothing good comes on the net without work. Did
you EVER in your life see a successful business owner who said “It
really was easy, no real work at all to get where I am today!?

But the payoff here is guaranteed: Reciprocal links will bring you
traffic and increase your site’s link popularity and ranking on the
search engines. Any webmaster willing to do what it takes to succeed
should be willing to work their fingers to the bone to get a huge
amount of traffic through link swapping!

GENERAL IDEAS

Never let a day pass without engaging in at least one marketing
activity.
Determine a percentage of gross income to spend annually on
marketing.
Set specific marketing goals every year; review and adjust
quarterly.
Maintain a tickler file of ideas for later use.
Carry business cards with you (all day, every day).
Create a personal nametag or pin with your company name and logo on
it and wear it at high visibility meetings.

TARGET MARKET

Stay alert to trends that might impact your target market, product
or promotion strategy.
Read market research studies about your profession, industry,
product, target market groups, etc.
Collect competitors’ ads and literature; study them for
information about strategy, product features and benefits, etc.

Ask clients why they hired you and solicit suggestions for
improvement.
Ask former clients why they left you.
Identify a new market.
Join a list-serve (email list) related to your profession.
Subscribe to an Internet usenet newsgroup or a list-serve that
serves your target market.

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Create a new service, technique or product.
Offer a simpler/cheaper/smaller version of your (or another
existing) product or service.
Offer a fancier/more expensive/faster/bigger version of your (or
another existing) product or service.
Update your services.

EDUCATION, RESOURCES AND INFORMATION

Establish a marketing and public relations advisory and referral
team composed of your colleagues and/or neighboring business
owners to share ideas and referrals and to discuss community
issues.
Meet quarterly for breakfast.
Create a suggestion box for employees.
Attend a marketing seminar.
Read a marketing book.
Subscribe to a marketing newsletter or other publication.
Subscribe to a marketing list-serve on the Internet.
Subscribe to a marketing usenet newsgroup on the Internet.
Train your staff, clients and colleagues to promote referrals.
Hold a monthly marketing meeting with employees or associates to
discuss strategy, status and to solicit marketing ideas.
Join an association or organization related to your profession.

Get a marketing intern to take you on as a client; it will give
the intern experience and you some free marketing help.
Maintain a consultant card file for finding designers, writers and
other marketing professionals.
Hire a marketing consultant to brainstorm with.
Take a "creative journey" to another progressive city or country
to observe and learn from marketing techniques used there.

PRICING AND PAYMENT

Analyze your fee structure; look for areas requiring modifications
or adjustments.
Establish a credit card payment option for clients.
Give regular clients a discount.
Learn to barter; offer discounts to members of certain
clubs/professional groups/organizations in exchange for promotions
in their publications.
Give "quick pay" or cash discounts.
Offer financing or installment plans.

MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

Publish a newsletter for customers and prospects. (It doesn’t have
to be fancy or expensive.)
Develop a brochure of services.
Include a postage-paid survey card with your brochures and other
company literature. Include check-off boxes or other items that
will involve the reader and provide valuable feedback to you.
Remember, business cards aren’t working for you if they’re in the
box. Pass them out! Give prospects two business cards and
brochures — one to keep and one to pass along.
Produce separate business cards/sales literature for each of your
target market segments (e.g. government and commercial, and/or
business and consumer).
Create a poster or calendar to give away to customers and
prospects.
Print a slogan and/or one-sentence description of your business on
letterhead, fax cover sheets and invoices.
Develop a site on the World Wide Web.
Create a "signature file" to be used for all your e-mail messages.
It should contain contact details including your Web site address
and key information about your company that will make the reader
want to contact you.
Include "testimonials" from customers in your literature.
Test a new mailing list. If it produces results, add it to your
current direct mail lists or consider replacing a list that’s not
performing up to expectations.
Use colored or oversized envelopes for your direct mailings. Or
send direct mail in plain white envelopes to pique recipients’
curiosity.
Announce free or special offers in your direct response pieces.
(Direct responses may be direct mail, broadcast fax, or e-mail
messages.) Include the offer in the beginning of the message and
also on the outside of the envelope for direct mail.

MEDIA RELATIONS

Update your media list often so that press releases are sent to
the right media outlet and person.
Write a column for the local newspaper, local business journal or
trade publication.
Publish an article and circulate reprints.
Send timely and newsworthy press releases as often as needed.
Publicize your 500th client of the year (or other notable
milestone).
Create an annual award and publicize it as an outstanding employee
of the year.
Get public relations and media training or read up on it.
Appear on a radio or TV talk show.
Create your own TV program on your industry or your specialty.
Market the show to your local cable station or public broadcasting
station as a regular program. Or, see if you can air your show on
an open access cable channel.
Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper or to a trade
magazine editor.
Take an editor to lunch.
Get a publicity photo taken and enclose with press releases.
Consistently review newspapers and magazines for possible PR
opportunities.
Submit "tip" articles to newsletters and newspapers.
Conduct industry research and develop a press release or article
to announce an important discovery in your field.
Create a press kit and keep its contents current.

CUSTOMER SERVICE AND CUSTOMER RELATIONS

Ask your clients to come back again.
Return phone calls promptly.
Set up a fax-on-demand or email system to easily respond to
customer inquiries.
Use an answering machine or voice mail system to catch after-hours
phone calls. Include basic information in your outgoing message
such a business hours, location, etc.
Record a memorable message or "tip of the day" on your outgoing
answering machine or voice mail message.
Ask clients what you can do the help them.
Take clients out to a ball game, a show or another special event
just send them two tickets with a note.
Hold a seminar at your office for clients and prospects.
Send hand-written thank-you notes.
Send birthday cards and appropriate seasonal greetings.
Photocopy interesting articles and send them to clients and
prospects with a hand-written "FYI" note and your business card.

Send a book of interest or other appropriate business gift to a
client with a handwritten note.
Create an area on your Web site specifically for your customers.

Redecorate your office or location where you meet with your
clients.

NETWORKING AND WORD OF MOUTH

Join a Chamber of Commerce or other organization.
Join or organize a breakfast club with other professionals (not in
your field) to discuss business and network referrals.
Mail a brochure to members of organizations to which you belong.

Serve on a city board or commission.
Host a holiday party.
Hold an open house.
Send letters to attendees after you attend a conference.
Join a community list-serve (email list) on the Internet.

ADVERTISING

Advertise during peak seasons for your business.
Get a memorable phone number, such as "1-800-WIDGETS."
Obtain a memorable URL and email address and include them on all
marketing materials.
Provide Rolodex® cards or phone stickers pre-printed with your
business contact information.
Promote your business jointly with other professionals via
cooperative direct mail.
Advertise in a specialty directory or in the Yellow Pages.
Write an ad in another language to reach a non-English-speaking
market. Place the ad in a publication that market reads, such as a
Hispanic newspaper.
Distribute advertising specialty products such as pens, mouse pads
or mugs.
Mail "bumps," photos, samples and other innovative items to your
prospect list. (A bump is simply anything that makes the mailing
envelope bulge and makes the recipient curious about what’s in the
envelope!)
Create a direct mail list of "hot prospects."
Consider non-traditional tactics such as bus backs, billboards and
popular Web sites.
Project a message on the sidewalk in front of your place of
business using a light directed through words etched in a glass
window.
Consider placing ads in your newspaper’s classified section.
Consider a vanity automobile tag with your company name.
Create a friendly bumper sticker for your car.
Code your ads and keep records of results.
Improve your building signage and directional signs inside and
out.
Invest in a neon sign to make your office or storefront window
visible at night.
Create a new or improved company logo or "recolor" the traditional
logo.
Sponsor and promote a contest or sweepstakes.

SPECIAL EVENTS AND OUTREACH

Get a booth at a fair/trade show attended by your target market.

Sponsor or host a special event or open house at your business
location in cooperation with a local non-profit organization, such
as a women’s business center. Describe how the organization helped
you.
Give a speech or volunteer for a career day at a high school.
Teach a class or seminar at a local college or adult education
center.
Sponsor an "Adopt-a-Road" area in your community to keep roads
litter-free. People that pass by the area will see your name on
the sign announcing your sponsorship.
Volunteer your time to a charity or non-profit organization.
Donate your product or service to a charity auction.
Appear on a panel at a professional seminar.
Write a "How To" pamphlet or article for publishing.
Produce and distribute an educational CD-ROM, audio or video tape.

Publish a book.

SALES IDEAS

Start every day with two cold calls.
Read newspapers, business journals and trade publications for new
business openings and for personnel appointment and promotion
announcements made by companies. Send your business literature to
appropriate individuals and firms.
Give your sales literature to your lawyer, accountant, printer,
banker, temp agency, office supply salesperson, advertising
agency, etc. (Expand your sales force for free!)
Put your fax number on order forms for easy submission.
Set up a fax-on-demand or email system to easily distribute
responses to company or product inquiries.
Follow up on your direct mailings, email messages and broadcast
faxes with a friendly telephone call.
Try using the broadcast fax or email delivery methods instead of
direct mail. (Broadcast fax and email allows you to send the same
message to many locations at once.)
Using broadcast fax or email messages to notify your customers of
product service updates.
Extend your hours of operation.
Reduce response/turnaround time. Make reordering easy reminders.
Provide pre-addressed envelopes.
Display product and service samples at your office.
Remind clients of the products and services you provide that they
aren’t currently buying.
Call and/or send mail to former clients to try to reactivate them.

Take sales orders over the Internet.