Pyramid Schemes, Multi Level Marketing MLM's and Affiliate Marketing Exposed

December 23, 2011 By Kyle Clouse Leave a Comment

Original post can be found here.

Understanding the difference between Pyramid Schemes, Muli-Level Marketing or MLM’s, and Affiliate Marketing is crucial for anyone wanting to add an additional income stream or starting their own business.

In this weeks show we cover:

The Alternative Business Model
Starting a Business

How to start a business without large investment capitol or grow new revenue streams for your existing business.

Pyramid Schemes

We’re covering this first so you can recognize them, stay clear of them, or make sure you are not creating one.
What is a Pyramid Scheme?
Why are they illegal?
Warning signs to stay clear and questions to ask.

MLM, Multi Level Marketing

What is the difference between a Pyramid Scheme and an MLM organization?
The idea behind MLMs
How bad MLMs are run
The problem no personal reputation control
How good MLMs are run
What to watch out for if you start you’re own MLM
The principle I disagree agree

Affiliate Marketing

What is the difference between Affiliate Marketing and an MLM organization?
What really is Affiliate Marketing?
What to watch out for.
What to look for.
The best service to market
How to establish and grow your portfolio.

New York Shop Exchange Affiliate Program

We just launched our affiliate marketing program. We want to give our listeners an edge to build recurring revenue streams for the New Year.
Payouts
Material
Signup at: nysepromo.com

Male: Preparing Business for Business is on the air. Join hosts Marcia Hawkins, President of the New York Shop Exchange and Kyle Clouse, Vice President for insightful and creative strategies to prepare your business for business. Listen in for great guests and great offers from our guests and sponsors, as well as thought-provoking dialogue. Preparing Business for Business offers usable content, insightful ideas and resources to jumpstart your business in an effective, economical manner and to prepare your business for growth and challenges. And now, your hosts for Preparing Business for Business, Marcia Hawkins and Kyle Clouse.

Marcia Hawkins: Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Business Preparing for Business program on the Preparedness Radio Network. I’m Marcia Hawkins along with my co-host, Kyle Clouse. Today is Wednesday, December 21, 2011 heading in to the last weeks of December and rounding the corner into the final weeks of 2011. On this week of holiday celebration, lots going on this week for sure.

I want to welcome you to the Business Preparing for Business radio program tonight. The theme of our show is to provide you tools, contacts, products and services to best prepare your business for more business or to assist you in challenging times.

Now we invite hosts on our program that through experience, problem-solving, they can share with you their methods or ideas and their strategies that have worked for them and allow you to apply them in your business. Now, many preparedness listers tune in to hear helpful tips on natural disasters and so forth and information on Preparedness products. We essentially do the same thing, the difference is we apply ours to business. Whether you’re starting a business or trying to expand and grow your business. Our needs – are helpful needs during challenging times with running the business.

So Kyle and I do welcome you to our program and invite you to e-mail us at info@newyorkshopexchange.com if you have any questions or comments or if you want to share some ideas with us, we’d love to hear from you. Again, info@newyorkshopexchange.com. Now, without further ado, let’s bring in Mr. Clouse. Hi, Mr. Clouse. How are you?

Kyle Clouse: Hi. I’m doing great, Marcia. How about yourself?

Marcia Hawkins: I’m pretty good. Now, I’m going to have you tell the listeners about our guest tonight, would you like to introduce…?

Kyle Clouse: Well, first I want to start off by saying that you did not mention and probably don’t want to be the star on a tree but you did not mention that your son is home for the holidays, he’s been away for a couple of years. And I just want to recognize you as a military mom, you did serve a couple of tours in Iraq, and how is that having him home?

Marcia Hawkins: Oh, unbelievable! I was so excited, I was squealing. And yes, I was very, very excited. It’s been too long and he looks great and yes it is, it is wonderful to have him home so thank you for mentioning it.

Steve Mistretta: Marcia?

Marcia Hawkins: Yes?

Steve Mistretta: This is Steve. I’m just checking in on the show and I would also like to say thank you to your son. I did fours years active duty army and it’s people like your son that give us – well, quite frankly, that protect us and allow us to have the freedoms that we have. So a warm welcome home to him and safe travels.

Marcia Hawkins: Oh, Steve, thank you so much. I’m glad that you came on to the program to say that, that means a lot to me. I thank you and I will make sure I pass it along to him. Quite an exciting hour, he showed up about an hour before the show. It’s been emotional to see him so thank you, thank you both.

So Kyle, let’s move on to tonight’s guest, we have Paul Koenig who’s been on our show before. Would you like to give the listeners a little background about Paul?

Kyle Clouse: Paul Koenig, he is a co-founder of GoMarketer, one of the co-owners and on the last show that we had him on it was back on November 9. We went over exposure Marketing, self management and coaching. And you know, people are also welcome to look at our past shows, I mean, if you will go to PreparingBusinessforBusiness.com, we have an archive of our past shows. He was on November 9, we went over exposure Marketing, self management and coaching. Paul, he has a very keen understanding of branding and you know, that’s powerful impact on a plants customer base. And especially in today’s business environment, every company needs to drive more customers to their business and Paul is very proficient at attraction Marketing, driving new – sales to new customers and making sure that businesses succeed in what they do.

Marcia Hawkins: That’s so important to – you know, people do need many avenues in which to grow their business and you know, just service a business. And I think Paul, after we had him on our show last time, I was just so impressed with the level of tools that he was able to download for listeners and things that they – just useful, useful tools.

So let’s bring him on. Hi, Paul! How are you tonight?

Paul Koenig: Oh yeah, I’m doing great. How are you guys? And thank you again, Marcia and Kyle for having me on the show again.

Marcia Hawkins: Absolutely, absolutely. So I know Kyle’s got a laundry list of questions that we prepared for you so I’m going to let Kyle take his first crack.

Kyle Clouse: Well, tonight’s show you know, we’re going to be talking about alternative business models that I think that especially today in economic times and we’re seeing kind of the crunch of the economic market right now, it’s important that we recognize – that people recognize the alternative business models but more so, you know, when the economy is in a slump like it is, people start looking for additional ways to earn additional income or to supplement their income. Maybe they’re only able to work a part-time job at this point so they have to supplement that. And they start – you know, they hit the path on looking for other means of income and how to generate additional income and kind of fill in those gaps. And along with that comes you know, there’s people out there and companies out there that kind of don’t practice – don’t have the best ethical business practices and they prey on the weak and so it’s important that we expose some of that and talk about what people should ask or looking for to increase their income and to supplement their income, that they understand the different models, the negative of some of the models and can really make an educated decision as they look for ways to which they can supplement their income. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about with Paul.

So Paul, if you’d like to first off, let’s get into the first area of topic that we have down which is pyramid schemes.

Paul Koenig: Oh yeah, absolutely. Now, pyramid schemes as everyone know is a very negative way for a business, it’s also very a big thorn of almost every single country in the world and it’s something especially economic times like this, you know, they tend to crop up and one other thing that we’re going to do is find that for you so you can look to stay clear of it.

Now the definition of a pyramid scheme is a business that’s based off of recruiting other people for that business. So by definition, what it means is say, you got a ABC pyramid scheme and you’re showed to talk about oh, you got a great business opportunity, you can make a lot of money and you came on it to join up in the promise that you can eventually get a lot of money promoting it. But filing a claim with them in the – what actually is a kind of self-destructive is business model itself and what a pyramid scheme is a business that is set up where the only way to make money or the primary method is to recruit other people to promote the business rather than an actual product or service.

Marcia Hawkins: It’s so funny because I’ve been approached many times, people wanting me to get involved in these types of programs and what has struck me about it and I think that most people really don’t – really identify with is when they’re pitching it to you. What I find interesting and I’m sure you can expand upon this, is the fact that they want you to pay them to sell their products.

Paul Koenig: Exactly. And what’s even worse with the pyramid scheme is usually they’ll try to mask exactly what it is you’re doing. You know, they’ll try to make it into like oh yeah, you’ll be selling this product or this service, it’s just so much to sign up, so much a month and then you can end up making a lot of money and they try to really get around the fact that you’re paying money, a, to be able to sell the service or product, b, you’re paying it every month and then c, the only real way to make money in it is to recruit other people and of course the big problem with that is eventually, you run out of people and then it collapses upon itself. And the unfortunate thing for people that realized that when they get in to one of those or involved in one of those is that everybody ends up really getting hurt by it. Even the people that is running it almost everytime that happens, they get caught. There’s a collaborative effort with all the countries or the majority of the countries around the world where one of those is identified, they will go after the people who were running it, whatever country they were from.

But not only that, if you’re in business, if you’re a marketer and you start promoting your scheme and then it ends up being exposed as such, it’s really, really detrimental to your own reputation as a business professional. And on top of that, all the lives that they can hurt and that’s one of the reasons why it’s really important to stay clear on those and I would not ever recommend getting involved. And again the main thing is if you’re looking at a business model and somebody approaches you with this, hey, you can make a lot of money doing this, you know, costs money upfront and if you look at it, the only way to make money is really by recruiting other people, chances are it’s a pyramid scheme and I would stay clear of it.

Marcia Hawkins: Right. And I do know that there are several companies out there that their business model may mimic these types of organizations and I do want to stress and I’m sure you’ll chime in and let me know if I’m off base here but I really do believe that there are some bonafide businesses that are set up very similar but the difference is in my opinion, and I’m sure you can clarify this, that most of those businesses that we’re referencing are the ones that are looking for a rags-to-riches type thing where they’re telling you you’re going to go from making nothing to making $10,000 a day or whatever and they always say that they’re not supposed to talk about how much money they make but they’re quick to photocopy checks and show you them. As opposed to a slow growth company where it may be modeled that way but they’re actually pushing the products, not the people.

Paul Koenig: Yes, exactly and yet – the difference is that, and similar – and this brings me to the second alternative business model. And this one is a legal business model, would be MLM which stands for Multi Level Marketing. Now with this business model, it is similar in the fact that you can recruit people and if you recruit people, those people can sell the product, you get a percentage of what they make, if they recruit more, you get a small cut on that. And the idea behind it, with that structure is set up like – a sales structure that you may see in some organizations like in the cellular industry and other types of marketing we have like a regional manager, district manager, you know, manager of the territory and it kind of filters down to the levels. But you know, again, it is based in a pyramid type of build which is why sometimes those are mistaken for – but sometimes they also disguise them as well. But with the MLM, you still are going to be paying money upfront to build a product or service unlike a pyramid scheme though, you can make money and build a living by selling the product or service exclusively and not recruiting other people.

Now one of the things I wanted to mention is the idea behind Multi Level Marketing is a good, genuine idea and we’ll get into this more a little bit, but the main idea behind it is that say I’m subscribed to a service or maybe this is a product that I get and maybe I have an honorship that come in or something, you know, every month. A lot of times it could be like a health product, you know, vitamins, something like that or maybe an interesting service or something to help with like financial stability, something like that.

Now the idea is that – okay, I’m a customer, I’m really happy with it and you know, I’ve talked to other people by word of mouth but wouldn’t it be nice if I could make a little bit of money by referring my friends and family to it? And that’s the idea. What I’ve seen happen a lot with those types of organizations though, and don’t get me wrong, there are good ones but a lot of them still focus on the recruiting and not actually the product selling. They’ll say, oh yeah, you can sell this product but you know, the real way to really make it big in this is to grow a team, recruit other people – and they try to you know, instead of saying recruit, they usually paraphrase that with, you know, team building and team growth but what it really – what a lot of them really try to teach is growing a team. And I’m sure, Kyle and Marcia, you’ve had experiences with that. Somebody coming to try to recruit you to one of those in the past.

Marcia Hawkins: Oh, yes.

Kyle Clouse: I wanted to jump back really quick, Paul. And you know, we’re going into Multi Level Marketing right now but I wanted to step back and one of the questions that I had on pyramid schemes and maybe this will help differentiate the two between a pyramid scheme and an MLM. But what, specifically, what are some key indicators or some warning signs that people should watch for and what makes a pyramid scheme illegal?

Paul Koenig: The precise thing that makes a pyramid scheme illegal is that you can only make money by recruiting other people. And in the United States – in the U.S., there actually is a doctrine where – and this is applicable to an MLM but it relates as that at MLM, you have to have more customers sales that sales from recruits. And if you don’t meet that then you could be classified as a pyramid scheme. And the warning signs with a pyramid schemer, if it’s an offer that seems too good to be true or if there’s really outrageous bonuses for recruiting people like if you recruit five people, you get $1,000, stuff like that are usually a red flag.

It doesn’t always necessarily mean that that in fact is a pyramid scheme but if you hear something like that, chances are you want to stay away from it especially if it’s based on recruiting other people to sell it. And that’s the main distinguishing factor.

Kyle Clouse: Right. So one of the things that you mentioned on that as well, I guess on that same vein is that you know, as it grows, it eventually ends up collapsing or falling apart and so it sounds like it has some of the appearance of a Ponzi scheme as well.

Paul Koenig: Yes, exactly. It can very well have and there – many times they are very similar as well or can be one and the same depending on the definition. But yeah, that is the main thing, the main thing with the pyramid scheme is usually, you’re really not selling a product at all and/or it’s a product or service that’s really useless and it’s – everything is really about recruiting to make money and that’s it. And you know, as you stated, that business model isn’t going to last, once it gets recognized it just falls apart from the bottom up.

Kyle Clouse: Well, I think that’s very important information to get out to the people as they’re looking to supplement their income, you know, scaling any loose gaps or – that they might have on their income portfolio that they’re aware of these types of danger that are definitely out there.

Let’s go back a little bit to Multi Level Marketing and the MLM. Now, what is it necessarily behind the idea of MLM?

Paul Koenig: The idea behind an MLM is that say, if I’m subscribed or have been buying a product for a while rather than just promoting from word of mouth, I can get an incentive to encourage friends of mine, encourage relatives you know, word of mouth people, to purchase or subscribe to a product based off of my recommendation from having used it and being satisfied as a customer. And so that’s what the idea is. The idea is an incentive-based Marketing, cater to the word of mouth to people that you know, people that you’re kind of in league of and that sort of thing.

Unfortunately, a lot of people miss MLM’s tend to kind of disguise what it is exactly you’re doing. And that’s why things look for in a bad Multi Level Marketing organization if that’s somthing that you’re looking to pursue is that a lot of bad ones, they’re still going to focus on like a team building and the recruiting other people, you can still make money selling the product but they’re not going to really tell you that you’re in sales. Multi Level Marketing is always 100% about sales and Marketing but a lot of them will say, oh yeah, you don’t have to do any cold calling you know, you don’t have to do any prospecting or any Marketing, all you have to do is tell some friends and family, get them to sign up and then kind of filter them. They try to make it sound so easy to make a lot of money and they also try to promote to people that they’re kind of lazy and not really aggressive in Marketing. They’ll say, hey, you know, you sign up a couple of people and then if one person signed up a thousand, you’ll make a lot of money which can very well happen but the thing is if you’re signing somebody up on the idea that you’re not going to have to do a lot of work to get a lot of sales – well, sales as everyone knows, you know, sales and Marketing is a ton of work and you’re not going to get those results, those are really very unheard of and very rare expectations.

Kyle Clouse: Now, this is too funny that we’re talking about this because Marcia and myself, we were actually looking at a company that’s an MLM company or a network Marketing company and they offer a Marketing product. So it’s a product that markets that’s supposed to market businesses. But what we’ve noticed is that their – I want to say the members of that network Marketing company, from what we’ve been able to gather, all of them are more focused on recruiting other people versus selling the actual product or service. And as I look at that, I have to ask myself, okay, so these members of this company, if they actually sign on a business, that’s their reputation.

Whenever I help someone with Marketing, I’m putting my personal reputation on the line and I want to make sure that I’m fulfilling what I said to that client that we were going to fulfill. Though as I look at this other model, their focused on simply recruiting other people to do the same thing that they’re doing and they happen to bring on business for the products and services in the interim, how easily that business can get lost or pushed to the wayside and the fulfillment never really happens.

Paul Koenig: Oh, absolutely and that is a problem with those types of organizations that run quarterlies that people focus so much on recruiting they put the actual sale of the product or service on the wayside. And that has a detrimental effect because a, your customer base isn’t going to be happy if they’re not getting support that they believe they should be getting and b, it’s also not good for the MLM organization as a whole because if you do have more people recruiting, then you have actual customers. Again, you can be classified as a pyramid.

And I want to dig in into a little bit on what to watch out for with someone that’s actually interested in starting an MLM organization. I’ve had people asking about that sometime and what I find is a lot of people that want to start an organization like that thinks it’s really good because a, other people will sell my product who could recruit other people to sell my products so it’s really good way to really push it out really fast and make a lot of money really fast. Well here’s the big three problems with that. The first problem is that everybody can smell and just has like a sense that you know that this person is recruiting just to make money or to recruit as a people if that’s the setup. Sales and Marketing it’s a very difficult thing and it’s really, really rare to have somebody that’s experienced in sales and Marketing joining an organization and really exploding a lot of sales growth. You’re not going to have the same level of benefit as you would if you hired a professional or a career salesman. And the second thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that because of how close MLM can be sometimes to pyramid schemes and pyramid schemes is disguising themselves as MLM’s especially in the U.S., the Federal Government will actually do multiple audits throughout the year and usually once or at least once every other year, they’ll actually send the Feds to the headquarters of the organization to investigate and make sure that everything is done the legal way. And I believe a lot of people aren’t aware of that when they go in.

And I – you know, how I ended up learning about that is a good friend of mine, his cousin owns the MLM organization, a financial destination and he was telling me about that. He used to work for them for a time and they’re actually an example of a good one and then because they help, they had some useful services, useful products, generally they do things the right way. But even if you’re doing everything by the book, you’re still going to have to deal with unnecessary audit. I mean typically, a regular business, you might get audited once every three years, once every seven years. If your doing an MLM organization, you can expect that at least once a year if not more frequently and you get checked out by the Feds too, which is quite a lot of pressure for a business.

Kyle Clouse: So one thing that people can look for is to make sure that they’ve passed through some type of FTC audit?

Marcia Hawkins: Why don’t we actually take our quick break and then we’ll get back to that question? As I said we’re going to take a quick break from our fine sponsors. This is the Business Preparing for Business radio show on the Preparedness Radio Network. I’m Marcia Hawkins along with Kyle Clouse. Please stop by and visit us at newyorkshopexchange.com and we’ll be right back.

Alright, everybody. Welcome back. We have Paul Koenig of GoMarketers and we’re talking about Multi Level Marketing tonight as well as pyramid schemes and we’re going to be segueing into a couple of different aspects of a business. Before the break Paul, you were answering a question, we had to take a quick break. Would you like to follow up with that?

Paul Koenig: Yes, absolutely. And mainly with the question in audit is the main thing with Multi Level Marketing if you’re starting a business is it’s generally not a good idea to start one that way because you’re going to end up with a lot of extra work. If you are starting a business, your financial situation might be a little bit tight in terms of your budget for the business and you may not have the resources necessary to have a really good accountant and that sort of thing, which is a very big necessity when starting a Multi Level Marketing organization because a, you’re going to have that audit at least once a year if not more often than that and you will be periodically investigated by the Feds just to make sure everything’s running legally.

Now to segue from this to our next topic, one thing that I find that people are drawn into with Multi Level Marketing is that a, you can start a business or start a business selling, making sales to make money usually for a pretty low cost compared to actually starting a franchise, starting a retail center or starting your own business and developing your own products from scratch. Now there is the idea that is the one thing that I really disagree with with those types of organizations and again there are good ones like Financial Destination, Market America and others and I’m sure everyone’s heard of MYMOS. But my main problem is the principle behind it. If you’re Marketing somebody else’s product, you shouldn’t have to pay to market their product. They should either be paying you if you’re an employee on salary or you should work out a deal with the commission structure where you get a percentage or so much money for every sale that’s generated. And I think you might agree.

Marcia Hawkins: Can I just ask you a quick question before I forget? I’m really – and I know you’re going to be able to really jump on this. What I find interesting about it and it really kind of just rubs me the wrong way is that you have to order a minimum amount every month in order to get your check and that’s what makes me step back and say, wait a minute because I do know that there are very reputable companies that are set up to be paid on word-of-mouth distribution by you Marketing them and you receive a check from that for that. But can you just talk a little bit about that? And to me that’s the fundamental difference, it’s paying them to sell their products and then having to pay and buy their products in order to get paid by them.

Paul Koenig: Yeah, absolutely and with almost every single Multi Level Marketing organization, what really builds the foundation of it is what Marcia just mentioned is that in order to be able to sell it, in addition to a one-time fee, which is sometimes yearly, you also had to either subscribe to the service and pay so much a month or you have to be ordering auto shipment of the product every month. And the problem with that is if you don’t have a lot of money and you’re looking to add another revenue stream, this is an immediate deficit for you and especially with the auto shipment of products. You know, if you Google on the Internet, you can find videos of people that have full rooms and warehouses of products that they weren’t able to push. And you shouldn’t have too get in my opinion, if you’re selling a product yes, it’s great to have samples of it if it’s a physical product. But you’re not going to want to have samples to that, so to speak. You shouldn’t be forced to have to get them every single month. It should be something that can be ordered when it’s needed. You go to – say you’re selling to a retail store or a gas station, you’re trying to market a new widget. You should be able to go in, the order goes through the main company and then you got a cut of the sale, it shouldn’t be that you have to buy all the products ahead of time and the market to it. Of course that would be different if you are a distributor but that’s a whole different type of ballgame if you’re like a fuel distributor, something like that.

Kyle Clouse: What I’ve seen is what – Paul, you have someone that will end up with a garage full of product and an empty bank account. And it’s just important that people take a hard look at the entire business model, the commission structure and make sure that what they are getting into is going to be something that they can turn a buck at and not be stuck with a bunch of product and an empty bank account.

Paul Koenig: Yes, absolutely. And to segue, the better option is what if they take a product or service that you want to sell and either pay one little time fee for like exclusive Marketing rights for a region or not pay anything up front at all and be able to sell it to whoever you want without necessarily a rigid structure of how you sell it. A lot of MLM organizations are really stringent on how you’re able to market and they want you to do it a certain way.

And this segues into what’s called Affiliate Marketing. So what Affiliate Marketing is and how it’s different with an MLM organization is you’re still Marketing a product or service but you’re not focused at all on recruiting anybody to also sell it. All you’re doing is selling it to customers be it business, businesses, business owners, retail or people that you know or individuals. And there’s a lot of different ways you can do it and with Affiliate Marketing, the great thing about it is you don’t need to pay monthly to be able to sell it and it’s one thing – if somebody joins an MLM organization, one thing they’ll be able to, if they’re looking for another product to sell my question to them is well, why don’t you find a similar product that you don’t have to pay money for to be able to sell? And I’ve stumped a lot of people with that question in the past because it’s like what Marcia was saying, the main principle behind it is you shouldn’t have to pay monthly to be able to sell a product. You should just be able to sell the product and get money for it.

Marcia Hawkins: Oh no, it’s great because it’s true. Imagine using a product and I’m telling you when I love something, you won’t shut me up about it. And it’s so great that you would be able to have an avenue that you’ve either used a product or service, you love it and you know you’re going to be telling everybody about it, why not receive a commission for that?

Paul Koenig: Exactly and that is what Affiliate Marketing is. Affiliate Marketing and generally there’s two types of programs, they can be a close program or an open program. A close program would be only a select few have the privilege or are allowed to sell it then an open program would be anybody who’s interested in selling and Marketing it, can give it a shot and go in and get some sales even if it’s not a huge volume of sales, you can get yourself some more revenue.

Now with Affiliate Marketing, again with any type of other sales product, organization that you’re starting, there are good ways and bad ways to go about it. And the first important thing is to check the reputation of the company, whose product or service you are selling.

One big example of that and I’m going to use this as an example, just through personal experience. There’s a – well, I’m not going to mention the name of the company but there’s a company, it’s not GoDaddy, it’s another one that does web hosting and you can buy domain names from it. My organization purchased a domain for about $5 on a sale, way really early in the year. And then out of nowhere in the middle of the summer, we got hit with a $70 charge that happened again in the next month. And I had no idea where that was coming from. I ended up having to call, dispute it, go through all that effort, stop payments from the bank and that sort of thing, which is a real hassle. Well, what I discovered is that that particular company does things in unethical manner and they would just subscribe customers to services that they didn’t even asked, which isn’t a good way to run the business. But had I checked the ranking on a Better Business Bureau or checked around on the Internet, I would’ve discovered all the components and this particular business have an F ranking on the Better Business Bureau, which is all an achievement but not in a good way.

But the reason I mention this is that that company did have an Affiliate program and imagine if I had been promoting that company. Imagine if I had put my reputation on the line and sold that to 50 or 10,000 customers and they all ended up with that same issue. That would’ve completely destroyed my company’s reputation and not only that, they might have been coming after me for the money or just angrily if they were getting put off from that original one.

So the one thing that’s really important is to check out the reputation of the company, do your homework. If it seems like it’s good or a great service or product, that’s awesome but just make sure that the company’s doing things the right way, check in, make sure they have good customer support, they’re willing to answer questions when you call in, you can even fake calling in that you have a concern with something, see how they handle you. And the one big distinguishing fact with the company is what happens when you sign up if you have a question or an issue, how good is the customer service? How good is the bottom line? And that you know, that’s something that applies to all business as a whole. If you’re starting a business and not just looking for an extra revenue stream, you want to make sure that you put your customers ahead of yourself because that’s going to build a great word-of-mouth reputation for you and people are going to talk about it. And if you’re not doing a good thing, if you blow people off, ring people out of the phone, so on and so forth. They won’t beat to it but it has the same effect, only in the opposite way because people are going to say, oh I had this, you know oh, I had to go to this dispute, I had to go to the Attorney General over to this charge and they didn’t help me on this. What happens is it destroys your company reputation if it’s set up that way, which will have a negative impact on customer growth and retention.

Marcia Hawkins: I’m so avoiding that.

Kyle Clouse: I’d just like to comment, Paul, that I know the company you’re talking about. They have two numbers on the ends of an ampersand sign and they look like the Eiffel Tower so I just think it’s important to put that out there and people can watch for that because we definitely don’t want people getting into business with an organization that takes advantage.

Paul Koenig: Oh yeah, absolutely. And then now that we’ve gone over – well, the first thing to look for, so the first thing to look for is the company itself, the reputation, are they in good standing, do they treat their customers well? The second thing is to make sure that you’re selling a really good product or a good service because I don’t know about you but if I’m promoting something, I want to promote the best thing that’s on the market for whatever niche it is that you are selling, the best project, the best widget, the best service. And the secondary thing to look for is if it really is a good service, if it is the best, how much is it going to make you? Are you going to get a certain percentage per sale? Or is it something that if it’s a product, you’ll get that percentage if the customer reorders? I don’t want to sell a product to a customer where they’re going to probably reorder where I just get a cut the first time and then I don’t get anything continuing because I’d like to build a revenue stream, not a one-time sale.

And then the part of Affiliate Marketing, if you own a business and you’re looking to create more revenue growth for yourself or if you do own the business and you’re looking to build another revenue stream, a revenue stream is going to be recurring income after a sale. Now the best type of product or service is a service with recurring billing. So if you’re looking to Affiliate market the company’s product, if they have a service that charges may be monthly, may be quarterly, may be yearly depending on how they’re set up, that’s the best type of service to market. You want to look at something anywhere from – payout might be 5% to 15% or so but if it’s residual and you’re going to get a percentage every time the billing gets processed for that customer, you saw the 10 customers this month and the next month and the next month, by the end of the year, you’re getting paid every month for 120 customers, not just the 10 that you sold for the current month. And that’s the big thing to look for because you can really build an extra revenue stream so you have more money for the holidays, for next Christmas or to kickstart the new year with growth.

And one of the things and this is something that I got some really good news for you guys. So what if you want to promote a really good product that you know, they’re really knowledgeable about their industry and it is residual income, would you guys want to promote it? And the answer is probably going to be yes. And I want to be as a holiday present for you guys, let you know that New York Stock Exchange we recently started our Affiliate program. We just launched within a few weeks and it’s something that we’ll be putting a link on so if you want to sign up on it and promote it, you can earn 10% for the lifetime of a customer that subscribes to New York Stock Exchange services. And I’ve been working a lot with back-and-forth with Kyle, with Marcia, with her team and I came on – I first, a back story. I met Marcia during the summer, I had some really good meetings with her, really good meetings with Kyle and I was really blown away with just the level of exceptional with their service they provide. There’s a lot of other companies that do business directory, none do a video. I haven’t seen one do the geo targeting, the local SEO, the guarantee that you have a really good ranking on Google and have really good feedback from customers.

Marcia Hawkins: And we’re very passionate about that, Paul. Kyle and I really pioneered what we do and by offering up our Affiliate program, it’s a way of us being able to have everybody be compensated for helping us grow the company. And that’s really, really important. And my sole mission and my whole desire in starting this search engine if you will, for small business is just finally being able to take back – the small businesses, 2/3 of the workforce and yet the economy being what it is, it’s just so difficult for a small business to spend or have the budget to spend their weight in the first page of Google. We said, you know what, if we all cooperatively band together, we can do it on our own. And that’s essentially what we’ve done. And I got to tell you, Kyle and I are all about the service.

Paul Koenig: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s one of the immediate things that blew me away with New York Shop Exchange and I approached them and was interested in working with them and as you may have known of what I’m doing is managing their Affiliate program form so I’m creating Marketing material, that includes e-mail – if you have an e-mail list with a lot of customers, maybe a membership site where people subscribed to you, you could shoot out a quick e-mail to them informing them of New York Shop Exchange’ great, exceptional service. If they click a link and buy it, it automatically gets tracked to you and you get credit for the sale. Likewise there’s about 25 to 35 images and banners that you can use and what I want to wrap up on is different ways that you can promote Affiliate Marketing.

So I’m like the typical business where you’re demanded, this is how you have to market, there’s so many ways you can promote it and a lot of them don’t take a lot of time. You could set it up in just a couple of hours really if you wanted to. The first thing is that if you own a website, all you need to do is put a banner up. Put a banner of New York Shop Exchange, describe what they do a little bit and if anybody clicks on that link, if they end up purchasing and subscribing to their service, then you’re going to get that checked, you’re going to get a cut every single time the billing cycle goes through.

The other thing is again, you know, e-mail, you don’t necessarily even have to have a full e-mail about it. You can just mention that that the end of the newsletter if you have one like, hey, here’s a great service that can help jumpstart your business, get you to the first page of Google, have a link that will be provided for you when you set up for the Affiliate Marketing program. If somebody clicks it and they sign up, you get a cut of the sale.

The other thing that was – this can also work really well in the business environment. Say you’re with the company and you do business to business sales and promotions or maybe you own a business and a lot of your business comes from other businesses, you have a pretty good network. New York Shop Exchange is a great cross sell. Say you provide like a CRM system, maybe cell phones for businesses. You can say, oh hey, you know, by the way, we’ve got this great service that we can offer to you guys right now. It’s New York Shop Exchange and it’s going to drive traffic to your website and get you more exposure and you can even include video in the listing which no other directory really does. And the great thing about it is those are all different avenues that you can promote and you can still promote the old-school word-of-mouth, cold calling, however it is that you prefer to do business.

And that’s the great thing with Affiliate Marketing is you can really choose how much you want to work it and how you want to work it you know, if you just want to throw in – maybe you read a couple of articles online, through a banner on a website, yeah, you can do that. But if you want to be really aggressive, do calling, Marketing, do business-to-business presentations, pay for advertisements, you have advertising on Facebook and stuff that link to your Affiliate link, you can do that too.

Marcia Hawkins: And there are many Affiliate programs out there that are just a great way for other businesses to augment their income.

Paul Koenig: Exactly, absolutely and that’s one of the things too. If you’re looking for an Affiliate program, you want to make sure that a, we’re wrapping everything up. It’s a good business, it’s reputable business, it’s a reputable company, b, the customer service is excellent and again one big sign of that is customer testimonials. If you’re on a company’s site, if you’re looking at a company, if they have regular customers, they should have spent some money some of those customers and with New York Shop Exchange, if you go on, you can see that they got some of their customers were so happy with the service that they actually shot a brief video to send over that they’ve got on their site including countless, I believe there is dozens of written ones as well.

Kyle Clouse: Let me ask you something really quick, Paul. The difference between Affiliate Marketing and Multi Level Marketing, now isn’t it historically, the commission payout on Affiliate Marketing much larger because with Multi Level Marketing, whatever payment or percentages left over to go to the marketer, it’s basically spread off – you know, spread out over a downline or upline or however else they have that structured?

Paul Koenig: Yes absolutely and that’s a great point that I had missed earlier and that’s true. With Multi Level Marketing, it’s the commission of the sale is broken down. However many levels the organization goes, so the same percentage may be going out to seven people or could be going out to 50 people.

With Affiliate Marketing, you get the full percentage and that’s the biggest difference. With Affiliate Marketing, you don’t have to worry about okay, I got to recruit a lot of people before I can really be making money from sales and just hey, I can just sell this, build that up, even a couple sales a month or more, you’re going to see a steady income increase for your portfolio and it really lets you build a customer relations portfolio.

And the other thing is that they can bring more business for your business itself, say you end up having somebody, they read an article that you wrote or they heard that you’re promoting New York Shop Exchange, they see the link, they’ll buy it, they’re really, really happy with the service, they’re going to think really highly of your business for referring you to your excellent service and that will be more likely to purchase your products as well.

Marcia Hawkins: Well Paul, I must say, we’ve had you on the show twice now and I think the common denominator that I absolutely love about you is the integrity that you have. You really do your homework, you have a very simple business model that you run your business by and I just so appreciate that. And I know why we get along because Kyle and I are of the same clock. We keep it simple and keep the integrity into the business and I just love that about you.

But unfortunately we are out of time and Kyle and I wish to thank our guest, Paul Koenig of GoMarketers and of course, you, our listeners. Please visit us at newyorkshopexchange.com and grab your video business channel to advertise your product or service. We would love to host your business video but more importantly, we promote you. We’re on a holiday next week but we will return the following week in the new year. But until then, I sure hope you have a wonderful, happy, healthy holiday season and of course, a great night.

Male: You’ve been listening to Preparing Business for Business with your hosts Marcia Hawkins and Kyle Clouse. Questions or comments? Email the show at info@newyorkshopexchange.com. Also, find them on the web at NewYorkShopExchange.com. Until next time for the best tips on how to manage and grow your business, tune in again for Preparing Business for Business with your hosts Marcia Hawkins and Kyle Clouse.

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Filed Under: eMarketing, Entrepreneurship

Video Marketing Explained by New York Shop Exchange

December 15, 2011 By Kyle Clouse Leave a Comment

Original Post can be found at Preparing Business for Business.

Today on Your Preparation Station with Donna Miller (of Millers Grain House & Grain Storehouse) we welcome Marcia Hawkins, President and Kyle Clouse, Vice President of New York Shop Exchange a video business guide and video shopping mall. Marcia and Kyle help to explain what NYSE can do for new and small business owners. It is a vital tool to consider in the changing economy. Join us to learn more and see if NYSE is something your small business can use.

Male: Your Preparation Station with Donna Miller is on the air. This is your call to Preparation. Listen in for encouragement and insight, for living the preparedness lifestyle and how to handle those who give you a hard time about preparing. And now, please give a warm welcome to your hostess for the Preparation Station, Donna Miller.

Donna Miller: Greetings and good evening. Welcome again to your Preparation Station. I am your host, Donna Miller. Very glad to have you with us this evening. This is October 15, 2011 and the show is airing at 8 p.m. Eastern. If you’re listening to this later and downloading, thank you so much. Glad to have you taking the time to download and listen to the shows that we offer here on Preparedness Radio Network.

I do want to kind of give you a little bit of housekeeping, I do this every single time and if you listen to my show every week, you’re probably getting sick of this but it’s something I kind of standby so I got to keep saying it. If you are new to the preparedness movement and/or you’re not new and you need a booster shot and that’s why you’re listening, that’s fine too. Gosh, it’s awesome.

Please be very careful about whose voice it is you’re listening to. Things are different now, things are changing, they’re always changing but there are people who like to kind of fear monger folks into doing things that maybe don’t fit their family, don’t fit their philosophy for their family. So do some background checking and kind of – I don’t mean like FBI fingerprinting but this is background checking on what voices you’re allowing to speak into your life. Those that encourage you, those that uplift you, those that let you make up your own mind and make your own choices because you get them the preparedness road, you don’t want to turn around and think you can blame someone else. This is completely all in our own hands.

So I’m going to give you some websites to do a little checking up on me. That’s kind of how it is. If you’ve never heard my voice before, you might wonder who on earth I am. Our business that we do that actually came out of the way we live and found out that it was much more suitable to do business based on what you love.

And so MillersGrainHouse.com is our primary business. We have all the kitchen tools and some tutorial videos and different things like that to share on cooking with the basics of food to have a long-term storage life that are healthy. And that’s like a number one priority for me. And then secondly, we have on the YouTube channel, which is out there called The Wheat Guy. Been out for a couple of year – well, about three years now and that’s out there as well. And you can kind of get a little bit more personal face and voice and you know, visual aids of some of the skills that I hope that you’ll pick up and it’s free of course. And then last but not least, very important and this is more heartfelt, you can go to grainstorehouse.com, that is our preparedness outreach to hopefully just give you encouragement, to give you kind of that take a deep breath, if this is your first exposure to people who live like this, relax, don’t worry, don’t listen to all the fear, just because you’re not going to react correctly out of fear, you need to be able to react out of peace and understanding and what works best for your family.

Preparedness is not a one-size-fits-all and that’s kind of what we preach, you know, you can’t prepare out of panic and you need to be able to prepare out of peace. So that’s where we do a lot of that outreach. So those are that the three main websites of course, we have a lot of others that were on and this kind of brings up my guests for this evening. Because they have agreed to work with Preparedness Radio Network and I know that I’m kind of – I’m really delighted in it because of what it is they do because of the kind of the more outreach aspects of what we do with our work and that is to kind of – and hopefully inspire people that if I can do some of these things, anybody can do them.

So without much further – I’m going go into a little bit about each of our guests and what they do with the New York Shop Exchange, which is – well, I will let them explain it to you but my guests are Kyle Clouse, he is the Vice President of New York Shop Exchange and he’s a video marketing specialist and authority on Social Internet Marketing and as a speaker and a mentor of these video marketing practices, Kyle demonstrates that beginning on the first page of Google really doesn’t have to be that difficult. What they do with New York shop exchange is help with increasing the client exposure and the traffic up to 600% and Kyle has taken his proficiency and his appetite for excellence to partner with them at New York Shop Exchange as their Vice President of everything online. He’s got a trademark, straightforward and retentive approach. Kyle offers weekly webinars and increases exposure and helps build a brand awareness for each client that works with them at the New York Shop Exchange.

And then also of course, we have Marcia Hawkins, she’s the President of New York Shop Exchange and she’s referred to as the brainchild of entrepreneur. She successfully built small business centers amassing a small fortune and in – sorry, I’ll get my date, 2007, Marcia founded Walk a Mile for a Soldier, which is featured on NBS, ABC, CBS and Marcia walked 500 miles from South Deerfield to nation’s capital in remembrance of the past and the current military and it is absolutely fantastic. She takes a no-BS-get-out-of-my-way approach here with launching the New York Shop Exchange, which is a video business guide and a video shopping mall. So as President, she has built a foundation that small business marketing should not have to be expensive in order to be effective.

So we are very glad to have both of these people here as my guests for the New York Shop Exchange and we’re going to kind of get into why they are here and how it connects to Preparedness Radio Network. So after all that of me talking by myself, Marcia do I have a good connection with you on the line?

Marcia Hawkins: You do.

Donna Miller: Okay, fantastic. And Kyle, I’ve got you as well?

Kyle Clouse: Yes, you do. Glad to be here.

Donna Miller: Okay, great. Glad to have both of you with me in this evening. We’re just going to kind of get into and let you guys fill this in your area of expertise. Some of the questions because you guys have started to do some – in fact, work with the host here on Preparedness Radio Network so we want to get out the word because this may be a very effective tool for others to use as our economic climate changes. What is it that the New York Shop Exchange is exactly? And how did you guys get started?

Marcia Hawkins: Thank you so much for having us. I guess I’ll take that question. New York Shop Exchange kind of evolved over several years. I mean, I’ve been in business for, oh gosh, about 20 years now and out of frustration with my own small business, you know, I felt that there was just three fundamental problems that most small business owners were challenged with on a daily basis. And of course out of frustration becomes the master of invention and really trying to identify exactly what it is and what I could do for my own business. Somewhere along the way I realized that it would be a useful tool for other small business owners and hence that’s how New York Shop Exchange got started.

The three fundamental problems that I have with my business was with the involvement of the Internet. I started out as a resale boutique. I had a 4,000-square-foot store and along came eBay and you know, recognizing that that was a wonderful tool to sell online, I quickly found out that the profit margin for selling within an eBay type format simply was not there. The unfortunate thing with a manless site like eBay is once you decide to work in that type of venue, to pay the upload fees and to take the time to photograph the items and type all the text out and then upload it to the website and then of course, within a short amount of time, you end up on page 68 for that particular topic or category, I should say. So I was very frustrated by that.

Then of course, if the item did happen to sell, I’d have to fork over a good chunk of my profit to eBay. So that quite wasn’t working. The next problem I had was I decided that well, geez I definitely as a small-business owner need to have a web presence. So after spending tens of thousands of dollars on a website were I could sell my own stuff, I quickly also realized that well that’s great, I’ve got this beautiful website but by the time the website was completed, it was outdated.

So my third problem was – I’m not a web developer. And most small-business owners aren’t and this is where it gets really tricky. Because even if you can find someone to create a beautiful website for you, you essentially don’t have the keys to the car. So again that was my second problem. My third problem was even if I did know HTML coding and I knew how to keep my website current and relevant to my customer, I didn’t know how to market it. And you know, the thing is as a small-business owner, you know, you have to prepare every single day for your customers, your clients, whatever it happens to be that you call them. And the bottom line is most people go into business because they are very good at what they do. They love what they do. And they want to be able to conduct themselves in their business every day. Most business owners, especially small-business owners, have to wear many hats. And I have found time and time again that the marketing and the advertising aspect is one of the things that really hangs up small businesses. Small businesses struggle to just day-to-day do the day-to-day operations of the business. And then of course you’ve got to try to find a way to get in front of the masses.

So there was just those three fundamental problems. Being able to have a significant online presence, being able to keep a website current and relevant and being able to market it. So a couple years ago, recognizing that I could never quite figure out why I was spending all this time taking pictures and typing text, when people really, I mean, people really don’t read all that text. They don’t take the time to go through and read paragraph after paragraph so I kept thinking to myself why are we not using videos? So you can see where I’m going with this. So clearly I felt there was a much better way and hence, that is how New York Shop Exchange reinvented itself as a video marketing platform.

So we have two components to it. We have the video business guide, which is a way for small businesses to create a listing within our portal and be able to make a significant impact on the Internet. And the beauty of that is is that they can simply update their listing or their advertisement anytime they want by changing out their video or the small amount of text that they have that is associated with their listing. And then we have another portal developed right within the site which is our Video Shopping Mall. And that’s where a product-based business would be able to sell their goods. This is for all those eBay sellers that are looking to have an online presence, an online storefront, if you will, and instead of taking pictures and writing all the text, they simply shoot a video.

And the best part about it is we’ve decided that we wanted to create a cooperative-based community. So you know, you think of a lot of those cooperative markets that are popping up all over the country. Well, we’re the video version of that online. And by doing that we keep our costs really low and that allows small businesses to come on and advertise and sell their goods and services for basically $1.36 a day. So that’s a brief – brief, I haven’t quote, an overview of what newyorkshopexchange.com is all about and how it can benefit all be small businesses, online sellers that are out there.

Donna Miller: Well, that’s fantastic. You kind of answered what my next thought process is where it actually came from and it grew out of frustration and seeing – I also did start on eBay and I know what left every time there was a sale and a shipment and the time investment and so video is a fantastic venue to be able to kind of really connect with the customer and the product that you get behind. So I think that’s a fantastic idea.

So now you mentioned the two services but I kind of love to get a little bit more information on the differentiation between kind of a shopping mall aspect and maybe a little bit more compartmentalized on what services that the New York Shop Exchange offers.

Kyle Clouse: Sure thing. Oh, sure. So the difference between the video shopping mall and the video business guide is that basically the nature of the business. So in the video shopping mall, that’s more for your eBay type sellers, people that are selling products. And the video business guide are for people who are selling services, lawyers, doctors, attorneys, landscapers who have a business service that they’re offering and so on. And that’s basically the difference between the two.

But what’s important is what New York Shop Exchange does with each of our individual listings and videos because we not only host a person’s – a customers video, we actually promote that via across a network of marketing platforms. So we take each individual listing and business and we syndicate it or push it out across a myriad of marketing platforms that all point back to the New York Shop Exchange listing and drive additional traffic to their listing. And so what I am so much concerned about a person’s business being found that directly on New York Shop Exchange, our main goal is just to make sure that they’re found on the Internet and that we get them blanketed across the Internet. And we do that through key terms and keywords and what their business or product or service is about for so that they’re found for their niche market. We want to make sure that our customers get in front of their customers and get their products or services sold.

Donna Miller: That’s fantastic, that clears that real clearly as far as services do. They sell of course, new promotion and people who offer service of something that is not a tangible good. This is viable for a small business as someone who has a retail outlet of their goods so you’re actually catering to any and all businessed regardless of how they operate.

Kyle Clouse: Absolutely and it comes back to a lot of people when they start a business or they have something they want to sell or they have a website, well they don’t have a website. They are not sure exactly how they get their name and their service out into the masses. And so we’ve taken the guesswork away where they just simply shoot a quick video or we have software links on our website, we’ll take them to a place that they can create a quick video that’s very compelling and powerful. They upload it to their listing and then we take the guesswork away from them. We actually get to work on our end and make sure that that video in our listing is syndicated out. And it comes down to – as well as our customers are able to get as aggressive as they want to with their own campaigns. Every time they upload a new video to New York Shop Exchange, we syndicate it out to the marketing platforms so they can be as aggressive as they want to and know that all they have to do is upload a new video. And everything else is taken care of.

Marcia Hawkins: If I could just add something to that, what’s really unique about New York Shop Exchange is that typically, a website, a lot of people have asked when they decide to become a member of the site, well, how much traffic does newyorkshopexchange.com get? Even though we are a very heavily trafficked site, I don’t want people to lose sight about exactly what we offer by becoming a member of New York Shop Exchange.

What we do is sell unconventional. What we do is we market the listings within our website. We could care less whether or not people come to the first page of New York Shop Exchange. What we do is specifically and strategically market the listings, the members’ listings so that those listings are actually found not only within Google but off across multiple media platforms. And what this does is that when the potential customer of that member clicks through to their listing, there’s three direct links back to their website. We don’t hold your traffic hostage. We don’t care whether or not people stay within New York Shop Exchange. All we are are traffic directors on the search engine, say, this is exactly where you want to go.

So we’re really – we’re just an absolute groundswell of traffic for your website or your business. And this is so unconventional because most people decide to sell on eBay or something in that nature based on the traffic that goes to eBay. Well, that’s great. eBay gets a ton of traffic but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to find you. What we’ve decided to do is to make sure that your customers and your clients find you and your website or your business. That’s all we care about. So we’re actually marketing from the inside out, which is very – like I said, not the conventional way that most people think about business on the Internet.

Donna Miller: Yeah, that’s fantastic. Now I have kind of a side note question because it’s talking about the two different types of a business. What do you do with a business that it actually kind of does both? They have goods plus they teach classes? Or what do you do if this person that kind of bridges the gap between the two?

Kyle Clouse: Well, first we have two types of businesses. They can either purchase additional listings or the listings they can adjust their listings depending on if it’s – you know, let’s say for instance, a landscaper, does landscaping at summertime and does snow remover in the wintertime. So they can adjust their listings and upload the new video and then it will be syndicated out across according to the nature of the business and what they load up as far as their description, the business description, video description, the video title and any keywords that they add, it will be syndicated out for that. And so someone has multiple products, they can either have multiple storefronts or they can upload different videos and target each video according to the specific product that they have.

Donna Miller: Okay.

Marcia Hawkins: A good example of that Donna, would be like a car dealership where they may want to have a listing for the video business guide to highlight their dealership but they may be selling actual inventoried cars within the video shopping mall. So they could do it on both sides. I always like to reference the video shopping mall is kind of like if you can think of businesses that are actually in a mall and in then the video business guide would be more applicable to say an office or a service trade industry or an actual you know, a brick and mortar business. So that kind of gives you an analogy of the difference.

Donna Miller: And there are companies which – I’m one of those that we tangibly have products but we also teach classes either with that product or no product, whatsoever. So we have kind of a both approach to serving our customers because you can hand somebody something but if you haven’t taught them how to use it at least in my line of work, you haven’t done them a full service. So I was just wondering how you handled because I know there are a few businesses – some, not a lot of us that kind of cross the gamut between service and goods. So that’s fantastic.

Well now, just for the sake of people listening and I know a lot of people might be going, well, how does this do with Preparedness? We are going to get into that in the last half of the show. Give us an example. As a business, if we sign up, give us kind of just by step-by-step example of what would happen when one of us uploaded a video to New York Shop Exchange?

Kyle Clouse: Well first and foremost, if anyone has any questions on setting up a listing, I mean we are here to help, that we’re here to facilitate and help them do that effectively and then also to walk them through the process. So if anyone has any questions, they can send an e-mail to members@newyorkshopexchange.com. We also have a support ticket form on the website, it’s on the upper right-hand corner that they can submit the ticket to. When someone signs up on New York Shop Exchange, we have step-by-step videos where they will walk them through the process of filling up first and foremost, their e-mail address choose a username and password, their business information, their business contact information, their video information, uploading a logo, entering the website and then uploading the video.

And once that’s completed, once that video is uploaded, we get to work on our end and we immediately take that video and we syndicate it out across out marketing platforms to make sure that that business is being found for what their – for the audience that they’re looking target. So what’s really important that when someone fills out their business information that they’re really specific on – okay, what is it that my business offers? And they get really specific about that because that allows us to take that and get in front of their specific audiences so that they’re just not being found on the Internet, they’re being found in of these people that are looking for their products and services.

Donna Miller: They’re targeted and they actually get the most attention for what their expertise is, so that does makes sense. Well, now things are changing in the economy. How do you guys see New York Shop Exchange sitting into the new economy type and the changes that are on economic comet right now?

Marcia Hawkins: Oh, I love this question because our price point specifically caters to that. The one thing that I feel so frustrated maybe the fourth reason I started this, was the fact that you know, I don’t think the Internet needs to be expensive. It’s air. And being able to create a cooperative-based community where we kind of band together, it allows us to offer a price point that all small businesses can afford. I mean who could not afford $1.36 per day to advertise? And the best part about this is we do all the advertising for them. They can get back to what they do best, which is run their business.

And think about it. If small business owners and online sellers are creating more profits for themselves and they have one of those monkeys so to speak, taken off their backs, the marketing monkey and they’re able to devote more time and energy to running their business, it’s going to flourish. And what is that going to do? It’s going to allow them to hire more people. It’s going to allow them to grow their business because they know the marketing pieces has been taken care. So you know, it really – it dovetails very nicely with the fact that people are just really small business owners specifically are really struggling to make ends meet and this is just the perfect tool for them to really have an effective, relevant, current online presence that’s fully marketed for them and they can get back to doing what they do best.

Donna Miller: That’s fantastic. I think another thing I see with this if I may, is how so many people’s lives have changed with either a layoff or a job change or something closing and now they might be spacing entrepreneurial ship for the first time to make a living and kind of scared by it. And I think that in a difficult economy I think there are a lot of people that really rise to the occasion to be independent and entrepreneurial because that might be their only avenue. And you guys now offer something that’s a tool that they may have never even thought of before or then maybe intimidated by it and kind of have it set up and ready to plug in and go. So I think that’s another way it fits because a lot of people’s jobs and livelihood has changed greatly in the last few years.

Marcia Hawkins: Yes and what’s great about it is that a lot of our members use their listing at their website, knowing that they can just change the video out and they can simply update their information or their product or, you know for example, on a landscaper if they’re going to be transitioning season to season, they’re able to do that. So you know, just knowing for $1.36 a day, that whole piece of their business, the website, the marketing is taken care of. And what a great way to test the waters for an online seller or someone going in to the business for themselves. And I must say we have a lot of people that are getting laid off and thinking you know, I spoke to one the other day and she said I decided to I needed to think outside the box and I need to prepare for self-employment as opposed to trying to find a job and being able to rely on that. So it’s definitely, it’s a Great Avenue for people who are faced getting the old, dreaded pink slip.

Donna Miller: Yeah. Well, your timing is actually perfect for that I think as far as what you guys offer. Speaking of timing, I do need to take a moment and to have this time set aside for a word from our sponsors, the Global Sun Oven and we’ll be right back with a little bit more pointed questions on how you guys fit with Preparedness Radio Network. So we’ll be back after this message.

Donna Miller: Okay. We’re back here on your Preparation Station with Donna Miller. I am your host and I am very glad to have basically the President and Vice President of New York Shop Exchange and if anyone’s wondering what I’m saying, it’s newyorkshopexchange.com. It’s a fantastic website. In addition to it, it’s just a really great venue for the entrepreneur, small-business owner or the person who’s just really needing to get the word out online about what services they offer for the community and an area.

So I’m not sure, which one of you would like to answer this question but I can pretty much guarantee based on the listener base for Preparedness Radio Network, they are probably wondering how do you guys connect with what we’re doing here? What – I do know that you guys are kind of behind what we do here at PRN. Can you give us some information and the reasons behind your partnering with and promoting the host for PRN?

Kyle Clouse: Sure, yeah. Absolutely. So when we think – the reason that we partnered with PRN and the preparedness arena is when you think of preparedness, one of the aspects that sometimes gets overlooked is the financial preparedness. And Marcia hinted on this, when she talks about someone looking outside of the box and having to – and say you’ll think outside the box and come up with my own way to generate income for myself versus going out and trying to find a job.

And we see that, more so in today’s economy than we ever have before is that people have to start thinking outside the box and generating additional income they can rely on, their 401Ks or the retirement funds like we used to be able to, that’s something that is less viable as it was in the past. And if you think about other countries, say for instance, you know, let’s talk about sometimes at 30 in third world countries, you have a third world entrepreneur where everyone is an entrepreneur. In America, it used to be the same way. It used to be everyone was an entrepreneur. You had your own business and you sold your own services, brand, products. And we’ve kind of gotten away from that and I see a shift coming back were we are getting back into that where everyone has to become some type of an entrepreneur and business owner and se;; their own products and services or what – or what their gifts are, what they’re good at. And so what we’ve done is we provided an avenue for these entrepreneurs and business owners to get their products and services out into the marketplace and I mean at an absolute still but something that is also very, very effective and that will get their message out into the marketplace.

Donna Miller: That’s actually very true when it comes to – because of the economic climate changing. We are reverting back to something that we kind of lost with you know, people who are falling into – very content to work a job, get a paycheck back and kind of just go week to week to week to week, which ever way the payment came in and now that a lot of that is really not as stable as it used to be years ago, this comfort always – my husband always says this, being uncomfortable makes you grow.

If you only seek out the comfort may be of the paycheck, you might not actually grow and become an entrepreneur and enjoy the – sometimes flexibility, sometimes 24/7 hours. But you know, that productivity of producing something and being able to contribute to society, all on your own versus a worker.

If someone’s kind of new in this realm and testing the waters you did allude to that before that this can kind of become their website if they’re not even putting up one. They can have their contact, be their e-mail and their phone number and not even need a website. What are the things specific to New York Shop Exchange would you say are a benefit to someone who is really just starting out in this new realm of self-employment as an entrepreneur or small business or service provider?

Marcia Hawkins: Well, one of the things that I keep running into time and time again and I believe that there is a sleeping entrepreneur in all of us. When interviewing potential members, a lot of times they’ll say well, you know, I work a nine to five job and I always hear. But it’s really interesting because everybody has kind of a hobby or something that they love to do. And the irony in all of that is is that they would love to find a way to make money at doing what they love as opposed to working a nine to five job. It’s unfortunate sometimes though that a pink slip will then force them into doing that.

So what’s great about this is that whether you’re on the edge of the cliff there, you’re ready to throw yourself off into your own business and in the life of self-employment or if you’re forecasting that perhaps a pink slip maybe in your future or if you’ve said, you know what, I’m going to do it, I’m going to jump off that cliff and become my own boss and do what I love and turn my hobby into an income stream for myself. It’s usually – it exists in all of us I believe. I just think that some of us are more daring than others.

And I think that that’s you know, what is key about New York Shop Exchange is that it allows you to kind of test the waters with your business to see what kind of response you’re going to get. And then of course, the people that are already online or have established businesses, well that’s a slam dunk. But it is a great way for people to kind of wiggle her toes across the cliff and say do I want to do this? Because it allows you to put a very small amount of money to find out what type of web presence you’d have. And it also allows you that – you know, if you can think about it in the way print ad, once you’ve placed that ad about your business and it goes into print, you can’t change that. You can always change your video and that’s great and you are allowed to basically audition and have that infomercial in front of potential customers and clients and see what’s resonating with them. So you know, it takes care of being able to have your online presence and we take care of the marketing for you. So it allows you to really hone in on the product or service that you’re actually providing.

Donna Miller: Yeah, I think that’s great. I think it takes a lot of the guesswork and getting out the info to the Internet to the customer and I think video is actually one of the best tools to do that because it is far more personal. It’s much more personal than the print or a blurb or something like that. So in the case of working with the Preparedness Radio Network, and the hosts that we have here, how is it that – if you can explain to the folks listening, because they don’t want to know our tie-in, how is it that you guys work with us?

Kyle Clouse: So what we do with each of the host at PRN is and as we partnered with PRN, people can go to New York Shop Exchange and find – like you mentioned Donna, you have a couple of products and services that you offer and some of you can go to New York Shop Exchange and find you on at New York Shop Exchange with those products and services. And so how we’ve partnered with PRN is by having the host on our website and driving additional traffic to your websites making your products and services more viable and more seen in the marketplace so that customers are finding you and what your products are.

Marcia Hawkins: Well I was just going to add to that, much like the Preparedness Radio Network is a community-based of different types of services and products that offer preparedness, that concept is kind of parallel with what we’re trying to do with a community-based coop of small businesses and online sellers in terms of marketing. So it dovetails where you’re trying to pull a community together, so are we and they just happen to parallel themselves.

Donna Miller: They do. They parallel quite well and I think one of the things that you guys are able to offer us as host is the fact that we are – a lot of us are doing this just you know, because we feel called to help others, we may have a business that some of us, it goes with what we do and some of us, they don’t have that developed yet, or in the midst of developing it and a lot of it is an outreach of have learned the hard way and we want make it a little bit easier for the next person or speak like our – specifically speaks a piece into the midst of people who are panicked or chaotic, because they do look different than they would at this stage of the game. And you guys offer ability for us to connect in a more personal way and kind of in the calmative way for all on New York Shop Exchange, people who listen to the radio then can connect with the items where we stand behind as well as the faces, that you’re the voice they hear and there is a much more sense of community. So I think it’s a wonderful partnership and I think it works really, really well together.

So how long have you guys been really in business from the launch of day one? And what do you see for the future?

Marcia Hawkins: Oh, sure. Go ahead, Kyle

Kyle Clouse: I was going to say – I know Marcia will want to add to this as well but one of the things that we’re adding in the future is an interactive feature where business owners and customers are able to interact with one another through our website so that if someone’s on at their listing, they can receive a notification that they’re logged in, they can receive the notification that someone is on their listing and viewing their video so that they can immediately start interacting with that potential customer.

Marcia Hawkins: Yeah, I would like to add to that is what’s really – say, you’re an insurance salesman and you have an office and you tend to be at your desk at a chunk of the day. You’re going to be allowed to be logged in your listing at any given time – we’re going to be integrating this very soon. And basically what that’s going to allow you to do – now if you can think of someone who goes to – because most people don’t use phone books anymore but if most people go to the Internet and a Google of business or service, so what that is going to allow that particular customer and business owner to do is rather than someone clicking through and getting the contact information and going over to the phone or going into the computer and either emailing or calling that business, what this is going to allow you to do is to immediately click through, it’s going to alert the business owner that there’s someone viewing their listing and you’ll have the ability to say, is there anything I can help you with? And then you can either video or audio chat with that particular customer so it kind of eliminates that step of having to go to the phone or e-mail and hoping that somebody gets back to you so it kind speeds that sales process up for a particular member and it also allows the person who’s soliciting the service or product to be able to do that in realtime. So we’re very, very excited about that.

Donna Miller: That’s great. That’s awesome. So now I do know I’m just going to speak personal because I have a few videos up on New York Shop Exchange, and we do of course have products like the Global Sun Oven, which is the only sun oven. I mean they sponsor the show but I had the sun oven way before they decided to sponsor the show. It’s the only sun oven I will recommend so that’s one great venue that the New York Shop Exchange opens up is when you get behind the product and you really feel strongly that it’s the top-of-the-line, in my case it would be that the Global Sun Oven far outweighs the others, the Wondermill Junior Deluxe is a fantastic manual mill if you’re – people are looking to get into having a manual mill. We have some of these videos up and someone can come by and not only search for the product but search for someone who will teach them on it. It’s a little wider range than just say, hoping they put the right keywords in YouTube and you can find them. You have a real service offering through going through the New York shop change versus a hit and miss like you said on eBay or even YouTube. You know, if you’re new at that, you got to know exactly what to put in so that they find you. So it’s a little bit difficult.

And closing of what you guys have to offer, did I miss anything? Is there something – I want to make sure here’s – especially considering you may have a captive audience just wondering about what they’re going to do about if things change with their economic situation. Is there anything in closing you guys would love to share with everybody?

Kyle Clouse: Yeah, Donna. If I can kind of piggyback off of what you were just talking about and also something that you mentioned at the beginning of the show that I think is really relevant is you gave the warning of the beginning of the show that there is a lot of people out there trying to instill fear to people on – in purchasing their products and services and just kind of bring that into – as you are recommending the sun oven, on the Internet there’s a lot of noise and there’s a lot of people competing for attention. And so what New York Shop Exchange is able to do is help the small business owner break through all of that noise and get their products and services out in the marketplace. And so that’s – I mean in essence, that’s exactly what we do for businesses, we help them break through the noise and all the chatter that’s out on the Internet get in front of their target audience and their target market. And also, what sets us apart from YouTube as you mentioned, YouTube you upload a video to YouTube and you’re lost in millions upon millions of videos. New York Shop Exchange were a video business guide. We’re strictly for business. We are not for someone wanting to upload a video of them scaring their aunt or grandma at a Halloween party. It’s just directed for a video and for business.

Donna Miller: Yep. That’s fantastic. All right, folks. This is – Marcia do you have anything in closing that you’d like to share?

Marcia Hawkins: I think Kyle summed it all up. You know, we just want you to understand that we are here for the small business owner and the online sellers that are finally able to have a current and relevant and powerful impact on the Internet and that’s really what we’re trying to do is a community-based process for all of them. And we invite everyone to go to NewYorkShopExchange.com and we would love to see them on our website.

Donna Miller: Fantastic. Well I do want to thank you on my behalf as kind of being a champion for small business. Like you said like just kind of piercing through and giving the word out there and really focusing the traffic, you know, I think i’ts fantastic. And as a preparedness minded individual, someone who likes to help others, kind of lean and learn and go in that direction, I think this is a viable tool as we face many things changing on the horizon. But it’s good to get to talk to the people behind it because that’s 9x out of 10, if I back up something, it’s because I agree with what the people are doing that kind of get things started. So I think you guys are doing a fantastic job, I’m here at – here, we are all very thankful for working with us and definitely for coming on the show this evening and getting the word out there. Thank you both very much.

Marcia Hawkins: Thank you, Donna.

Kyle Clouse: Thank you, Donna.

Donna Miller: It’s been a pleasure to have Marcia Hawkins, President of New York Shop Exchange and Kyle Clouth, Vice President of New York Shop Exchange here with us this evening. If you are at all interested and even just curious because you may not have a business of your own but you’ve got family, you got friends, you got people you know that they’re struggling with it, I invite you to check out their website at newyorkshopexchange.com.

While you’re there, check out something from Millers Grain House, you can see us there on there, just go on the search and search I think, you probably search both and you’ll find us popping up Millers Grain House, you could stick in Wondermill and find us – lots of different things because of the videos that we use and send over for them to put up. And we have – it’s a great tool, you can see the traffic, you can see you know, kind of if you’re new at this, they give you a lot of tools to get started so it’s fantastic.

This has been the October 15, 2011, edition of your Preparation Station. Please stay tuned and come back next week. We hope to have the American Preppers Network founder, Tom Martin, to come and spend some time with us and talk about how it’s grown. So for now, this is Donna Miller saying goodbye and God bless and have a wonderful rest of your weekend. Bye-bye.

Male: You’ve been listening to your Preparation Station Donna Miller. Questions or comments? Find Donna on the web at millersgrainhouse.com/store. Tune in again for advice for living the preparedniess life. Thanks for listening to the Preparedness Radio Network. And remember, Preparedness saves lives.

Filed Under: eMarketing, Video Marketing, YouTube

3 Main Advantages To Build Your Business Website Today

March 13, 2011 By Kyle Clouse Leave a Comment

No matter the size or type of your business, having a professional website that effectively conveys to your target market who you are, what you do and how they would benefit from working with you or buying your products, will undoubtedly be an added value for your business. The following article emphasizes the top 3 advantages you’ll gain from taking your business online.

Get an Edge over Your Business Rivals

The business arena resembles wild nature. It’s a place where fierce competition is at its peak and where the stronger and faster rip the weaker and smaller. On which side would you likely want to be? Increasing your online presence before your competitors, through a professional website and a good internet marketing strategy will make your business move forward in giant leaps towards eminent success, increase the potential of your business, and turn your website into a 24/7 cash machine. Conversely, it would be a real suicide if you’re still hands crossed, undecided whether internet marketing is worth all the hussle, because at this very moment, your competitors are already reaping the benefit of their internet marketing efforts, interacting with your niche market and getting new orders and inquiries. So, you’d better shake yourself up and start today your online promotional activities and show your potential customers that you’re business or product answers their needs more than any other, and most importantly don’t forget to find your business USP (unique selling proposition) and market it in all your online marketing messages.

Track your profit

One of the main advantages of moving your promotional activities online is that you can track your cost per lead and your ROI with tools such as SEO software. Moreover, since online marketing activities are not expensive compared to other traditional ways, you’ll have the opportunity to diversify your internet marketing strategies for maximum results. No matter what the internet marketing activities you decided to implement, with very basic formulas you can always track you cost per lead, and therefore easily evaluate the one that gave you better results.

Reach your target market

Prominent entrepreneurs are those who know how to identify their potential clients and market and focus their marketing activities towards that niche. The internet is the ideal place to center your marketing activities towards your target market instead of wasting your effort on a dispersed market that will get you back nothing but useless charges and expenses. Nevertheless, when you center your online marketing activities towards your target market, you’ll be able to increase your conversion rate, position yourself as leader in your field and most importantly interact with your potential customer and in result get to know their wants and need and expand your business accordingly.

Statistics reveal that successful and prominent businesses are the ones who have taken full advantage of the wealth of benefits internet marketing provides. What are you still waiting for?

Filed Under: eMarketing Tagged With: business website, internet marketing, internet marketing strategy, lead generation strategy, niche marketing, online marketing strategy, small business website, SME website, whitepaper

Facts About How to Use Magnetic Van Signs, What exactly They Are Usually Made of And Also Ways To Store Them Correctly

February 7, 2011 By Kyle Clouse Leave a Comment

Magnetic signs are a good way of endorsing for organizations. One good reason why they’re an incredibly valuable invention is that they cause it to be unnecessary for small enterprises to get other sorts of high-priced promotion resources. On top of that, they are simply detachable at any time, meaning that you can put all of them somewhere else at any time when you’d like. This unique adaptability means that your business’ marketing will certainly become more efficient and powerful without you being forced to giving up the appearance of your vehicle by any means.

Implementing magnetic van signs enables you to advertise your business in a very close way to the commercial giants inside your own target sector who have large numbers to blow on their own marketing and even advertising ads. This actually makes magnetic signs not just the most affordable choice for amazing and effective endorsing, but also the ideal choice for getting a just in time advertising plan functioning for your own company.

One more valuable attribute of magnetic signs is that you can have employees use them instead of you by yourself. This really saves you the headache of taking the signs on and off of your vehicles. Your employees are able to select which amongst their cars they wish to make use of the magnetic signs upon, or whether they would like to forward them to relatives or other colleagues who are prepared to get the job done. Certainly, the growth of your own company and also the prospective impressions that your services can have are pretty much boundless.

Magnetic signs are made of a particular substance, which usually is a blend of rubber plastic resins in addition to powdered ferrite, which gives it its magnetic capability. Both these constituents are mixed together and then squashed by means of a pressing system. Finally, the finished sheet of smooth, magnetic material is covered with an appropriate adhesive or maybe vinyl and cut down to the actual dimensions needed.

As magnetic signs work based upon magnetism, they cannot be used on aluminium materials. The substance is also ideal for outdoor usage and it’s unchanged by sunlight. The life span of the material is normally around a decade, then the actual magnetic field energy begins to weaken and end up unproductive.

The magnetic van signs are usually designed so that they are convenient to edit; you are able to slice them by using a cutting knife or even scissors quite easily if you want to. This, again, means they are just the thing for marketing mainly because it makes them 100% fittable to client’s rquirements.

To keep magnetic signs securely, it is preferable to place them on a flat area, just like the sides of a filing cupboard, as an example. You must also make sure that your motor vehicle is properly cleaned prior to deciding to use the magnetic signs on it. Ensure that you only use the sign on flat or, at most, really slightly curved surfaces upon your vehicle for it to hang on.

Filed Under: eMarketing Tagged With: magnetic signs, magnetic van signs, magnetic van signs online, van signs

5 Methods For Successful Search Engine Optimization

January 17, 2011 By Kyle Clouse 2 Comments

For a search engine optimization campaign (SEO) to be successful, well done research and preparation are necessary to maximize your results. Look no further for five of the best tips to maximize the success of your SEO campaign.

The Importance of Keyword Research

For the best results in the selection of your keyword phrases, in depth keyword research is of vital importance. This is complicated and in depth research, and it is often advised to look into your options for search engine optimization services that can do the leg work for you, making your job as a business owner much easier. When you want peace of mind that the most qualified and highly skilled professionals are handling your campaign with the most advanced search engine optimization techniques available, SEO services are there to meet this need.

Placement of Ads on Ad Hosted Sites

A great way to increase the revenue of your site is to host high paying ads on your site. To get the most from your ad hosted sites, choosing the best paying ads and placing them in prime locations is a great way to maximize the success of your ad supported revenue stream. Thankfully, since you are not likely to be proficient in SEO and web design, you can find an SEO company available to provide you with the most advanced search engine optimization services offered.

High Quality Keyword Rich Content

It is of utmost importance that you provide accurate, up-to-date, interesting, informative, and keyword rich content on your site to keep visitors on your site. Through a social media agency or other SEO company, you can obtain high quality, keyword specific content written by other, professional writers, ensuring that you are not responsible for providing content. Article and content writing SEO services are available from a good number of sources, providing you with plenty of high quality content for your site.

Focus On Page Rank

A determining factor as to where you site appears in search engine results is your page rank. Page rank is a huge factor in the success of your site as search engines are where a large percentage of visitors find information. to enhance your rank you must submit content and your site to a variety of directories as well obtain as many backlinks as possible, and this process takes time. Employing an SEO company for search engine optimization services will save you time and allow you to build your page rank quickly through the shared expertise of a professional SEO services firm.

The Use of Analysis to Determine the Success of your Campaign

As important as a well designed SEO campaign, is proper analysis of your campaign over time so as to have an idea of what works, what doesn’t and areas that could stand for further optimization. The huge variety of programs available to help individuals conduct their own campaigns are difficult to use and require a lot of time and effort. As analysis, as important is it may be, is only part of the complex nature of an SEO campaign, the employment of a SEO services firm is an excellent way to keep up with the success of your efforts.

Using the tips lined out above, you are on your way to creating a highly optimized site that will allow you to reach your goals. Hiring professional search engine optimization services firms is an excellent way to keep abreast with your SEO campaign, and get the most out of it, while leaving you to focus on what you do best – running your business.

Filed Under: Blog, eMarketing Tagged With: Search Engine Optimization, search engine optimization company, search engine optimization services, SEO, SEO company, SEO services

SEO Vs PPC Versus Social Media Marketing - Which Method Do I Pick?

December 4, 2010 By Kyle Clouse 1 Comment

Click here to discover how 2 guys figured out how to market any business on the Internet while also putting 15K into their pockets in 90 Days!

It is a real challenge for any company competing on the net. Google has over a billion websites listed alone! All these websites are potential competitors. So how can your website stand out from the rest? A knowledgeable SEO company will be able to assist with SEO services but how about the other methods?

Recently, the way business operates has completely changed. Going back just a bit, the Internet wasn’t where people bought their products and services. Many would go down the high street and choose from the many shops open. The Internet has changed people’s buying habits for ever. While the high streets are still open for the shopper that can’t wait for next day delivery, traditional methods of shopping aren’t utilised as much as they once were. For those businesses wanting to find customers and get their name out there, there are three main methods- using an SEO company, a social media agency, or using pay per click.

Internet marketers tend to pick and specialise in one of the three. There are internet marketing companies that specialise in all three, but they are few and far between. So what exactly is each marketing method, and what are their advantages and disadvantages.

The holy grail of the Internet marketer is search engine optimization. When you type a keyphrase into Google, you are offered two different sets of results. Sometimes at the top, but mostly at the right, are paid adverts, which we’ll move onto in a bit. Organic results appear in the middle. These listings are unpaid and are in a nutshell, what Google deems worthy of being up there! Imagine if you could appear at the top of these results? Even better, imagine being able to appear in the top three. This is where an SEO company comes in. There are a number of different methods to SEO. First you have onsite optimisation which involves getting the title tags and body content just right, amongst other tweaks you can make. Secondly a good SEO company will be very good at link building. Link building involves sending backlinks to your website from others. It is in a nutshell, when website X links to you. So what are the disadvantages? It is hard to find fault, as if you find the right SEO company, you can reap the rewards. You could perhaps point out that Google can be unpredictable. A method that you have been using successfully can suddenly stop working. However a good SEO company will always be up to date with the latest and best methods.

If you don’t have the patience for SEO, then Pay Per Click advertising is worth considering. Pay per click allows you to bid to appear on the right hand side of the results. To an extent, you can therefore choose where you appear. So your title and body text can sell your product and entice the user to click through. This is something you don’t have so much control over with organic results, as Google chooses what is displayed. Pay per click brings instant results- you can be advertising in minutes. Search engine optimisation takes months to get top rankings, and even then you have no guarantees. Pay per click allows you to pay your way to the top right away. On the other hand a good Adwords management company will be able to optimise your campaign to get your money’s worth. However Adwords really is for the big boys and you can end up bidding for more than the product is worth if you aren’t careful. A competent SEO company can be hired for a lot less.

Unless you have been living in an air raid bunker for the last few years, you must have encountered social media! Who doesn’t have an account with the two main social networking sites- Facebook and Twitter? Who has been amazed to find their grandparents adding them on Facebook? More and more companies are using social media to reach their customers. Social media is a very different form of advertising, as it is much more subtle. The worse thing to do with social media, is to contantly pump out promotions and offers. Social media is all about creating fans, who in turn ‘tweet’ about or ‘like’ your company and tell their friends. It’s important to be patient with social media as its more a long term effort than short term gain.

Filed Under: Blog, eMarketing Tagged With: search engine optimisation company, search engine optimisation services, SEO company, SEO services

Do the Mormons (LDS Church) Know SEO?

November 22, 2010 By Kyle Clouse 9 Comments

Click here to discover how 2 guys figured out how to market any business on the Internet while also putting 15K into their pockets in 90 Days!

Do the Mormons Know SEO?

According to Avinesh Kaushik, Analytics Evangelist for Google, the Mormons do know Search Engine Optimization otherwise known as SEO. In fact, they know it so well that Avinesh recommends looking at their strategies and following their lead.

At the Chicago 2010 SES Conference Expo Avinesh, who was the keynote speaker, was interviewed by Byron Gordon who asked Avinesh to explain why the Mormons know SEO. During his speech Avinesh used the Mormons website, www.lds.org, as an illustration on proper SEO strategies and techniques. Avinesh said “They [The Mormons or LDS church] have done a marvelous job, as you reflect on their tag cloud, of doing great SEO.” Later in the interview he said “We could learn from the SEO work the LDS church has done”.

What do Mormons and SEO have in common?

Avinesh decided to use the LDS website as an example after typing in a Google search for the keyword “church” and having the Mormon website show as the first church. The LDS official website is also ranked #1 for keywords “church Jesus” and “Jesus Christ church”. Surprisingly, they even rank before Wikipedia for these two search terms.

Filed Under: Blog, eMarketing Tagged With: Avinesh Kaushik, Chicago 2010 SES Conference, LDS Church, Mormons, SEO

What Happens When You Give 60 Marketing Geniuses Only 60 Seconds to Share Their Vision of the Future?

November 15, 2010 By Kyle Clouse Leave a Comment

Register for the Marketing Event you don’t want to miss. Feel free to comment and share.

Conference Date: November 16, 1 pm EST

Filed Under: eMarketing

64 Ideas for a Press Release

November 8, 2010 By Kyle Clouse 4 Comments

New product or service
New website or significant upgrade to existing website
Involvement with charity work
Making a charitable contribution
Free shipping offer or change to shipping rates
Releasing findings of new study or research
Helpful tips related to your business
News of the weird (e.g. Coffee shop offers excusive $200 gourmet drink)
Commentary on or tie-ins to current events
Interesting trends
Starting a new sister company
Receiving an award
Being singled out for an accomplishment
Offering free information: ebook, newsletter or white paper
Celebrating an important company anniversary (e.g. 50 years in business)
Opening a new office or relocating your office
Changing the company name
Changing a product name
Signing a large, well-recognized client (make sure you have their permission to publish this)
Announcing a media appearance
Inspirational stories of overcoming major challenges
Hosting a seminar or teleseminar
Sponsoring an event or team
Partnering with another business or organization
Hiring a new executive or changing ownership of the company
Announcing personnel change: retirement, resignation or death
Changing the way your products are made
Changing the prices of your products or services (particularly if you’re reducing prices)
Developing a new technology or unique procedure for your industry
Re-branding your business
Reorganizing your company
Hosting a major contest, sweepstakes or promotion
Making an outrageous claim (be careful not to sound to gimmicky or salesy)
Revealing industry scams
Announcing holiday-related sales and events
Making predictions for your industry
Provide expert opinion on important subject within your industry (think sound bites when creating quotes in your announcement)
Publishing findings of a recent report, survey or poll
Filing of a lawsuit
Responding to being name in a lawsuit
New uses for your products
Receiving endorsements from a major celebrity or public figure (make sure you have their permission to publish this)
Offering internship program with local schools
Establishing a scholarship
Hosting a tour of your facilities
New certifications and credentials achieved by your staff
Providing pro bono work
Responding to accusations against your company or industry
Setting a major goal
Launching a referral rewards / affiliate program
Speaking at a conference or event
Providing free consultations or a free sample
Taking major steps to go “green”
Debunking common myths
Taking your company public
Discontinuing a product or service
Filing or Being Awarded a Patent
Merger or acquisition
Celebrating an important milestone (e.g. one millionth customer)
Exhibiting at a trade show
Stock offering
Financial or earnings update
Securing business funding or credit (e.g. VC or angel investment)
Tips sheet or feature story (e.g. Top 10 Valentine Gifts, Effective Tips to Land a Job in 30 Days, Turn That Brown Lawn into a Suburban Oasis)

Filed Under: Blog, eMarketing Tagged With: Free Press Release, PR News, PR Web, PR Wire, Press Release

SEO Local - SEOmoz

November 6, 2010 By Kyle Clouse 1 Comment

This week Danny Dover, of SEOmoz, shared an important video on local search results within Google.

// SEOmoz – SEO

Danny’s Whiteboard:

SEO Local: Behind the Scenes:

Most important: accessibility and content
Second most important: keyword research and targeting
Third most important: links
Fourth most important: social

SEO Local-Specific Features/Considerations

Search engine page
Local directory submissions
- Yahoo Local
- Yelp
- Citysearch
- Urbanspoon
- Trip Advisor
- Judysbook
- Insider Pages
- Niche Data Sources
Links
Addresses
Categories
Reviews

Other Metrics Worth Considering

Title (Business Name)
Photos
Social

Filed Under: eMarketing Tagged With: Danny Dover, Google, Local Search, Search Results, SEO Local, SEOmoz

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64 Ideas for a Press Release

SEO Local - SEOmoz

Danny’s Whiteboard:

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