E-mail VS The Web

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A valuable lesson learned. My response dropped and I found out hard way there are literally millions of people who use email but DO NOT surf web. Many simply do not care to surf web and there are a good number of folks who do not have access to it. My autoresponders immediately went back into my ads and since I was paying for each word or line, I decided to stick with ONLY AR's. The extra few bucks to add my web site address was probably not worth it, I guessed. Wrong again. Luckily I had my own email newsletter to do a little more experimenting. I changed my ads so they contained BOTH my autoresponders address AND my URL. Bingo. The perfect mix. My total inquiries (autoresponder plus page hits) went up by about 20% and remained there as long as my ad contained both contact methods. Along with these increased prospects came increased profits. Another valuable lesson learned. I know, a lot of you are saying hey, that's not a tough decision. Well to you I say take a look at classified ads in almost any ezine on net. Count number of ads that have both an AR and a URL. You'll find that about one out of every three of them qualify. Point made. I hope I've managed to shed a little light on YOUR marketing campaign today. If you're not marketing with both AR's *and* a URL, you're missing out on some revenue! Remember, as many have said before me, marketing is now, and always will be, a numbers game. The more numbers you reach, more numbers you'll count! I hope this helps in your future marketing decisions.

David Bell is Manager, Online Marketing, at http://www.wspromotion.com/ , a leading Search Engine Optimization services firm and Advertising Agency.

Increase Sales with Payment Solutions

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Since this article is focusing solely on online payment solutions for your e-business, I will focus on real-time. How real-time works is when your customer is finished shopping and is ready to pay, they simply go to secure order form page where they type in their credit card information. In a few seconds, a message appears on their screen, showing whether their card was accepted or declined. A few days later, money will appear in your business checking account. With real-time, you will be provided with an online database containing all of your credit card transactions so you can balance your account at end of month. There's a second, and probably more unfamiliar way, to accept payment online, and that is accepting checks by email. Until recently, service bureaus have been responsible for check drafting, but now any business can do it. Federal banking regulations and Uniform Commercial Code permit this process. How it works is: a customer submits his checking account information and authorization to draft their account; then merchant takes information and enters it into a check printing program on their computer. From that point, merchant can print it on special check paper (available from software provider) and take check "draft" to their bank and deposit it as if check was mailed directly to them. Not only can a merchant accept checks by email with program; they can also accept them by phone and fax capabilities, also. This is a great alternate solution to credit cards as you will find some customers who aren't interested in putting their credit card information on your site. If your interested in this type of payment solution many merchant account providers can help you get this solution along with a merchant account for credit card acceptance. In summary, I would highly recommend obtaining a merchant account for your business. As Internet continues to grow, more businesses come online and more people decide to make purchases on Web, it will become essential that your business accept payment online (especially credit cards) in order to survive in today's business world. I hope this helps in your future marketing decisions.

David Bell is Manager, Online Marketing, at http://www.wspromotion.com/ , a leading Search Engine Optimization services firm and Advertising Agency.