On your website you sell three things: a book on baseball for $39.95; a report on similar subject matter for $19.95 and a set of videos for $99.95. Make a special offer that for 72 hours only, (give a deadline and stick to it) if people order video package, you will throw in either book, report or both. You will see your sales increase dramatically with this approach.

Here is how it could be done even better:

Offer this deal: let your prospects know that this offer is available to them only if they collect a coupon and present it at time of sale. This is not a printed coupon like you would find in a supermarket, rather it is an electronic coupon that prospects must enter their names and email addresses in order to claim. If they don't order immediately, don't fret, you can then use their email address to send them follow-up reminders until 72 hour period has expired or they ask you to stop (I always advocate smart opt-in email, never unsolicited email).

This is correct way to use a time sensitive offer. Put together a package, set a deadline, offer an electronic coupon and follow-up until deadline.

However, as I mentioned earlier, some people have always used time sensitive offer as a marketing ploy. They use a deadline that always changes, or you'll sometimes find that same offer is available 2 or 3 days after it was supposed to expire. These practices are highly unethical and will cause you to lose sales, not to mention your credibility.

But remember, if you use time sensitive offers appropriately, you will see your sales shoot through roof.

And don't try to argue that this is, after all, "better than nothing" - it's seeming familiarity of language presented, fond illusion of "at least getting gist of it" that's really nasty part. Because it can (and most certainly will!) lead you astray in ever so many subtle ways, and in end you may be worse off by a long shot than if you hadn't understood a single word in first place. Simply ask yourself if you would sign a million dollar contract of this linguistic "quality" ...

With current US dominance of WWW clearly waning (as all major studies and analyses will show), getting linked internationally will become ever more critical. World wide, surfers aren't content with sticking to local or localized search engines in their own language: rather, English language is rapidly gaining ground everywhere, even in former communist states, not mention in formerly French or Spanish dominated regions. These people, more and more of whom are well educated, bilingual and fairly well versed in English, are increasingly making use of stateside search engines. It is only a question of time until even All-American engines will have to adapt to this situation, if only to accomodate their international advertisers. Hence, it stands to reason that only link popularity based on real world web demographics (as opposed to mere wishful thinking and established political and cultural prejudices) will be able to satisfy advertisers' and users' demands.

So do it right or do it not! Either employ a bona fide professional translation service or get someone to revamp your online copy to accomodate all those international clients whose command of English, while fairly well informed, is not quite up to par with your US or UK biased industrial lingo, er, parlance.

This holds true vice versa for non-English sites as well, of course: don't even dream of relying on one of translator bots doing a good job and permitting you to cut one single sale! And while your English teacher at school may have lauded your enthusiasm over and again, don't delude yourself that this makes you a native speaker.

If you are interested in English or American or Australian or New Zealand clients at all, don't give them impression of amateurish incompetence by refusing to acknowledge fact that your command of English may be less than perfect. This is, after all, nothing to be ashamed of - whereas trying to get by this problem on cheap very well should be! If there's one thing you want to avoid in marketing it's getting laughed out of court.

The following sites offer "translation" services or, rather, pretend to do so - use at own risk: http://babelfish.altavista.com/ http:/ ranslator.go.com/ http://www.dictionary.com ranslate/ http://www.voila.com/Services/Translate/