Forging Ahead In Tough Perilous Financial Times

These are days where economies are being tested and strained. As one great American economist wrote about the American economy, “This is a once in a hundred years financial problem.” Who could have fore seen the economic crisis that has plunged so many, so deeply into corporate and personal crisis? While the ear marks of shaky financial ground was recognized, who would have thought the dominos would fall in such a loud, vivacious, and tragic manner?

As news anchors bemoan the colossal deprivation of the economy, and spread the woes of a nation, how does one place his or her self in the race to succeed? How does one forge ahead when many are simply trying to hang on, or living numb in a reactive manner?

As every great warrior knows, in winning a war, there are often many battles—many skirmishes—where the losses in the battle ground are high. In war, many battles are won and loss, but individually they are not indicative of who will win the war. In the midst of a battle, the cost of lives and resources can be great, but a true leader painfully knows and understands the importance of staying focused on winning the war. American Civil War leader Gen. U.S. Grant was such a leader. So many men died under his leadership, he became known as “The Butcher”. His personal diaries shared of his inner torment in sending his friends to their deaths for the greater cause of preserving the unity of the United States of America. Gen. U.S. Grant new and understood the importance of not becoming hung up on the “now” but holding fast to a focus on the future.

Forging ahead in tough perilous times requires forward vision. It requires a mindset that looks above the “now” and to the future.

In the midst of a battlefield where bodies abound, the scent of human blood fills the nostrils, the cries and moans of the dying torments the inner being of those who stand—leaders know how to look across the field at a higher level. Leaders while conscious of the immediate circumstance, with heavy hearts for the immediate, know to look higher and forward to the horizon. True leaders know the importance of mustering courage in those who can still fight, picking up the flag, and moving them forward to victory.

Forging ahead in tough periless times requires the mustering of courage, the ability to see today for what it is, but fasten our focus on nothing less than true personal victory.

In the face of tough times, when all seems to be in doubt, believing in one’s self remains one of the hardest things for many people to do. There is fragility in the “I need to do something about this” mentality. There is courage and strength in the “Come Hell or high water…I can do” attitude. John Wayne, in an interview once described bravery as “knowing you’re out-manned and out-gunned, but choosing to saddle up anyhow.”

In the face of tough perilous times, victory is not far away. One only needs to look to the horizon.

In the face of your tough moments, don’t be fooled into “hanging on”, instead “grab hold of the excellence life has to offer you”, and fasten your focus on the horizon.

About the Author,

James C. Tanner of www.jamesctanner.com and www.silent-wonder.com is a writer, business mentor and speaker. He specializes in showing people who want to succeed in life how to take $400 to $500 dollars and within six to eight months turn it into a full-time home based income.

Copyright 2008 James C. Tanner. All rights reserved.

New Changes For The Fall Of 2008

We are very pleased to be announcing some new changes which are now in effect, and still coming into effect.

As public interest increases in the opportunities to work from home, or work at home through a home based business opportunity, we have gone out and RADICALLY created a collection of materials to help people learn more about how to succeed while working at home.

To make this material readily viewable face lift's have been made to two of our websites. The first website http://www.silent-wonder.com has now been totally revamped for this purpose.

Secondly, a new web page is being built at http://www.jamesctanner.com . While many of the pages on this site are now up and being tweaked as we go, some are still being built and will be added shortly.

As we move forward into the Fall season of 2008, we will remain dedicated to helping people strike out in a life direction of self-employment and independence. We will continue to provide the resources to fuel innovative thinking.

With summer holidays now over, continue to watch as we once again get back into our regular pattern of blog articles, here at this site.

Respectfully,

James C. Tanner
Blog Moderator

Staying On Top Of Changing Trends

As humans continually evolve, so too do our patterns of internet use. As internet users who are continually focusing on new strategies to stay out in front, it is imperative for us to notice and embrace those changing trends.

While many internet marketing strategies will advise you to write and publish articles online, and it’s a strategy that does it’s job, there is an even more effective way to get the word out about you, your business, and your product—video.

Recently I took the time to conduct a test between the use of articles and the use of videos. Over the course of 10 days seven carefully crafted articles were launched on the internet with many differing publishers. I gave the articles a few weeks to circulate, noting small traffic numbers from those articles everyday. Last week, I prepared a small two video series, shot in the back corner of my basement, under the most primitive conditions. The videos were launched this week online and to my utter amazement, I discovered that within 24 hours my videos were being viewed by four times the number of people than my articles were. The consistent pattern of traffic generated in my video to article comparison remains a constant ratio of 4:1.

You can view my two test videos on the marketing subject of “Speaking The Right Language” by going here:

Video #1

Video #2

Is article writing important? Absolutely! The writing of articles helps to create many web pages with links pointing back to your website. Article writing does generate traffic to your site and any traffic at all is important as it all adds up.

Is video creation important…absolutely! It’s been a long known fact amongst copywriters that people do not read all the content on a web page. People skim over web page content focusing on the highlights or bulleted points, titles, and sub-titles.

Video creation does not require much effort as to content. In researching other’s videos I was surprised to note that most videos were two and a half minutes in length, or less. From a scripting perspective, it is really difficult to communicate a solid message in less than three and a half minutes as most people will speak at a rate of 50 to 60 words a minute. In creating short videos, inorder to get your message out, the careful writing of the script is critical. While a script can be varied from slightly, one must be careful to not stray entirely as your timeline lengthens with every “add-lib”.

Video creation does not require expensive equipment. I personally use a 8 megapixel digital camera with a built in microphone on a tripod. The video is then edited in Windows Movie Maker software and it’s ready to go. While some video creators utilize a green screen behind the speaker, it isn’t necessary to provide a professional quality video. The one thing that both articles and videos have in common is the rule “content is the key”!

No matter how we evolve, or our internet useage habits change, we must all, in everything we do, remember to grab hold of the excellence life has to offer.

About the Author

Copyright © 2008 James C. Tanner. All Rights Reserved.

James C. Tanner of http://www.magneticinternetmarketingstrategies.com is a published writer, business course creator and trainer. His newest books include, “Secret Magnetic Internet Marketing Strategies”, “Let Loose The Promotional Genius In You”, “The Encyclopedia Of Traffic Building Tactics”, and “Website Monetization And Paid Online Opportunities”.

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Recession Proofing Your Online Presence

With the United States showing a slow struggle in shaking it’s recession style economy, the question arises, “How does a person or business recession proof their online business, or online presence?”

Everyday I received tons of email from people and organizations offering this latest $97 or $147 solution to traffic flow to my websites. I chuckled yesterday as three different parties contacted me to offer the exact same marketing strategy program. It’s becoming very clear that much of what’s circulating on the internet today is re-hashed or an affiliate related program. Multiple approaches regarding the same product cheapens the psychological value of that product, so it’s imperative that approaches be fresh, original, and current.

As I study the internet, and global economics, there is a trend cmoing clear. As the price of oil rises, the reality of a global recession grows stronger. When oil hits US $200 for a barrel of crude, many European banks believe the world will plunge into a global recession. Financial forecasts predict oil will top the US $200 price within the next year and a half. There is not enough oil capable of being produced right now to meet current demand levels, and it would take 10 to 12 years to increase production enough to maintain current levels. The only way for the globe to avoid a recession is to reduce oil consumption to match or be less than current production levels. Our dependence on oil at this time is too great to be able to accomplish this in time, on a global level.

So how do we adapt and how do we adjust?

There is a very clear marketing problem on the internet today. Most websites are being published in only one language—the language of English.

Today’s hot economies are located in India, China and Russia. These are non-English speaking countries.

The internet provides is with access to a global clientelle, and yet most of us are limiting ourselves to the English speaking only populace.

One way you can help to stabilize your presence online during a recession, is to begin to think globally. Most of our webpages have menu bars which read “Home”, “About”, “Contact”, “Products”, and possibly “Services”. Imagine the impact, if your menu bar also included links to copies of your main web page in foreign languages. Links could be written in their foreign language for Russian, Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, French, Ukrainian, etc.

If we are going to position ourselves on today’s internet, then we must begin to accept a larger client base. Google Translator provides an excellent tool whereby your web page can be quickly translated into a specified language, and all you would have to do is simply cut and paste that new translation into a web page. One important tip to consider is that some languages such as Russian do use more characters than the English language and as a result, blocks of text may require a little bit more room.

Why don’t you join me! This week I’ve made the decision to take my web pages global, and in the weeks ahead, you will find my web pages changing to become multi-lingual. It’s a modern twist on internet customer service.

In all you do, take time to grab hold of the excellence life has to offer.

About the Author

Copyright © 2008 James C. Tanner. All Rights Reserved.

James C. Tanner of http://www.magneticinternetmarketingstrategies.com is a published writer, business course creator and trainer. His newest books include, “Secret Magnetic Internet Marketing Strategies”, “Let Loose The Promotional Genius In You”, “The Encyclopedia Of Traffic Building Tactics”, and “Website Monetization And Paid Online Opportunities”.

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Internet Marketing Strategies That Measure Success

“Email Marketing Is Dead”, the headline touted. It was an ominous start to a carefully crafted work on the effectiveness of market strategy, and in particular the internet marketing strategy of email campaigns.

How do we determine when a marketing strategy is dead or non-productive? In truth there is only one way, to establish clear goals for our promotions, and assign to those goals clearly established measurable objectives.

Perhaps you have set down on your list of website goals to increase income through sales; to provide new information to potential customers; to increase an email contact list; to establish a business presence; to increase income through advertising; or to give your business a more contemporary appearance. All of these are realistic goals.

When an person decides to compete in a marathon, there’s more involved in simply getting up off the couch one day and entering a race. As a person comes to the starting line, there’s already occurred a tremendous process of training, and expanding potential skill sets. As the race is run, there are markers. Check points or markers which provide a measure of the amount of the course completed thus far. The ultimate goal is to complete the competition, but in order to know how close you are to your overall goal, you must see and pass those measurable markers.

Business goals are very similar to a marathon. For every goal we must develop the skill sets that bring us to the starting line. For every goal, there must be measurable markers which upon starting identifies for us if we are on the right course and how much closer we are to accomplishing our overall objective.

To most business owners, the most common measurable marker is found in the R.O.I. (an acronym for Return on Investment). Cash flow projections are also routinely monitored to determine if a business is on course.

The problem many people face is knowing how to break down goals, assigning to them clear and focused measuring points. Many people create measuring points which are too broad, or too vague.

For the goal of increasing income through sales, milestone measurements could include observing your rate of sales conversions, monitoring the average dollar value of a transaction, and possibly identifying the number of purchasers who are repeat customers. These are clear measurements which can help a business determine if a website or particular style of marketing campaign is going to achieve it’s goal.

For the goal of establishing an online presence, a business can monitor the number of site visitors is receives and to which pages. Tools exist which enable a business to monitor and identify referrals to it’s business site. In this case a referral is a link on another web page, blog, article, which a person clicks on to access a new web page or blog. Once again tools exist which enable a business to not only monitor how long a person stays on a site, but which links they hover over, and which links they click through on. The more obvious methods would be to observe the number of transactions which would come from a site only special or discount.

It’s easy to simply declare “Email Marketing Is Dead”. Measurable markers will tell us if in fact that particular style of marketing is dead, or if, in utilizing this form of marketing strategy we have failed to establish realistic, clear and measurable goals. Measurable markers which can tell us, email marketing is very much alive, we are simply implementing it incorrectly.

In every goal achieved–in every measurable marker surpassed–in all things, we truly fail to attain our highest goal when we cease in every exercise to grab hold of the excellence life has to offer.

About The Author

Copyright © 2008 James C. Tanner. All Rights Reserved.

James C. Tanner is a highly published writer, entrepreneur, business course creator and trainer. He is recognized by 85 publishers. His latest releases include “Secret Magnetic Internet Marketing Strategies”, “Let Loose The Promotional Genius In You”, “The Encyclopedia of Traffic Building Tactics”, and “Website Monetization And Paid Online Opportunities”.









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Internet Marketing Strategies Most Common Mistakes

There is no such thing as problem sites, only problem people who create those sites. The beauty of business life on the internet remains that most common mistakes can be corrected. Not only can most common mistakes be corrected, but everyone makes mistakes, and every website becomes a study in gauging response.

One of the premier mistakes made in the arena of the internet today is the lack of planning. The lack of crafting a website based on a previously thought out and researched internet marketing strategy. Before a site can be created, everyone should have a clear understanding as to what their site is suppose to accomplish. Before a site is built, there must be clear goals in mind, as well as a clear understanding of who your target market is, and how your site will best reach that market. Traditional businesses begin with a business plan. Online marketing must also begin with a targeted and researched business plan.

Secondly, a very common mistake made by people who launch campaigns on the internet pertains to understanding the time required to achieve a proper response. Some years ago a movie was made called “Field of Dreams”. From that movie came a commonly quoted line, “Build it and they will come.” Many internet business people approach their website with the attitude, “Build it and they will be here right now!”

Every website requires time to be created, launched, and then comes the real work of promoting that site. In order to reach your target market, your site has to be in place, and an internet presence established. Every sale that is made on the internet typically requires 500 to 1000 of your URL impressions. It takes time to build to that level of traffic volume.

A third mistake pertains to the area of “I” problems. Many business people craft a website that looks good to them. They look at and see their website through their own eyes, hence the term…“I” problems. It is imperative when crafting a website, that every business person learn to look at their website through the eyes of their targeted market. There are colors which are offensive to certain cultures. There are terms and phrasing which appeal to various demographic age groups. Learn to look at your website through the eyes of your customer.

Fourth among the list of most common mistakes pertaining to internet sites, pertains to the crafting of websites which are not search engine as well as customer friendly. Search engine optimization remains the basic priority in search engine structure. A web site must be properly optimized.

Even as a website is properly optimized it must also be customer friendly. Once a visitor arrives at a website, for every click-through your visitors must make to commit to a sale, your number of visitors will be reduced by 50 percent. A website that is optimized for the customer will require no more than two click-throughs to commit to a sale. If the first click-through takes your visitor from a home page to a sales page, then the second click-through must be on some form of payment processor, such as PayPal, or a custom designed shopping cart button. Two clicks or visitors are gone.

Finally, one of the most disappointing mistakes made by business site owners pertains to an inability to accept and adopt change. One of the true entrepreneurial characteristics that remains separate from a corporate structure is the ability to adapt and change quickly. Website owners must be willing to address non-productive challenges, as well as stay current with the times.

We all make mistakes. The true measure of any business’ strength lays in the way mistakes are addressed and corrected. When we fall on our knees, success beckons us to rise up, dust ourselves off, and grab hold of the excellence life has to offer.

About the Author

Copyright © 2008 James C. Tanner. All Rights Reserved.

James C. Tanner of http://www.magneticinternetmarketingstrategies.com is a published writer, business course creator and trainer. His newest books include, “Secret Magnetic Internet Marketing Strategies”, “Let Loose The Promotional Genius In You”, “The Encyclopedia Of Traffic Building Tactics”, and “Website Monetization And Paid Online Opportunities”.

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Low Cost Online Marketing For the Small Business

One of the greatest realities for people in small business, and by this I’m referring to a typical home based business, is the lack of money for a large scale marketing campaign. Creating the right market strategy or marketing strategies not only requires time, but to varying extents will also require resources.

Reaching your market at the lowest cost possible requires the ability to “think off the wall”, or “outside the box”. Low cost marketing plans, while they can be highly effective, do take time to set up and can be a lot slower to show results. The beauty of a low cost or “shoe-string” marketing campaign is their ability to provide great results over the long haul.

When it comes to creating a successful low-cost online marketing plan, there are four core rules one must follow.

Find and follow your target group. If you’re trying to sell bed mattress coils, you’d be wasting your time trying to market your bed mattress coils to people who are out looking for flower seeds. Instead you would want to spend time looking for people who are interested in better beds, bed mattress coils, furniture makers, bed manufacturers, and market to them.

Seven remains the magical number. A recent survey showed that most business purchasers, irregardless of how many salesmen and saleswomen came into their office, over 80 percent of purchasers still went out to locate the company they made their purchases from. This shows that walking in off the street expecting to make a sale is not a reality based expectation. The priority has to be planting your company name or website address into the minds of potential customers so when they are ready to buy, they can go online and quickly find you. It takes on average seeing an URL 7 times before a person remembers it. Seven remains the magical number.

Stick to the play book. Every major football team has in its possession a secret document known as the “Play Book”. That book contains every strategy the team will use on the field over the course of the season. In small business, your play book is your marketing plan. Your plan must be well thought out, concise, and measurable. There’s no point in creating a plan and then shortly thereafter deviating away from it, even temporarily. Stay focused and work your play book.

The final core rule of marketing has to do with an area where most people tend to be lazy. Always keep track of your results. One of the first things I do in the morning is log onto my web host backroom to view my traffic stats from the day before, and why you might ask? I want to keep track of shifts and recognizable patterns in user traffic to my site. By doing this, I’ve learned that Thursday of every week tends to be my lowest traffic day. I know which back links are working well at driving traffic to my web site and which ones are not working at all. Checking my results helps me to focus on what works, and avoid wasting my time in areas that don’t perform well.

With these four core rules in place, any small business can launch forward in a well focused low cost marketing plan.

The successful creation of an effective marketing plan will always bring people to a place where they can grab hold of the excellence life has to offer.

About the Author

Copyright © 2008 James C. Tanner. All Rights Reserved.

James C. Tanner of http://www.magneticinternetmarketingstrategies.com is a published writer, business course creator and trainer. His newest books include, “Secret Magnetic Internet Marketing Strategies”, “Let Loose The Promotional Genius In You”, “The Encyclopedia Of Traffic Building Tactics”, and “Website Monetization And Paid Online Opportunities”.

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