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5 Compelling Reasons to Choose a Wellness Opportunity
Copyright 2003 Priya Shah I actually have two separate online businesses - 1. Selling wellness products and 2. Selling digital information products (eBooks) Because I can look at things from both perspectives, I often tend to compare the two...
Are You Happy Being an Affiliate?
The success of affiliates has a lot to do with their happiness. Ask any affiliate that has made decent money with affiliate programs whether they enjoy what they are doing and they will all answer ‘YES'. You need to enjoy what you are...
Autoresponders = Automatic Internet Marketing Success
Copyright 2005 Glenn McDonald
What if you could send out all the information that your potential customers have requested without checking your email or answering a phone? While this may seem impossible, it is becoming more and more popular among...
Five Questions You Must Answer To Build An Effective and Responsive Opt-In List
If you seriously want to make a living from the Internet, no matter what you intend to market, you simply must develop and cultivate your own mailing list. That list should contain names and addresses of people who have expressed at least a...
Your Newsletters Are Pretty Lame If You Are Doing These 7 Things
I remember the good old days of the internet when it was a real treat to subscribe to someone’s newsletter and receive all their wonderful information through the convenience of your email.
It’s still like this today - for the publishers that...
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Is Your Online Storefront Open For Business?
Keeping your website online 24/7 is one of the keys to ecommerce success!
When you advertise online, what is the next worst thing that can happen besides getting little response?
Imagine spending $5,000 on a permission-based email marketing campaign that generated an excellent 10% response - sending you an avalanche of targeted prospects. But your website goes down exactly at that very moment!
This is a scenario that most online marketers experience at least once in their marketing career. I went through it a few times in recent months due to bad service from my previous web hosting provider.
What exactly does your business lose when your website goes down?
Loss #1: Sales
Take your total annual sales and divide it by 8,760 hours in a year and you will arrive at the sales volume lost per hour of downtime.
For example, if your business generated sales of $100,000 online last year and your website goes down for 18 hours, you would have lost sales worth at least $205.48!
This figure will be even larger if you exclude non-working days.
Loss #2: Advertising Dollars
If your website goes down after a major marketing campaign, it is almost certain that you will lose every dollar invested. When your potential customers cannot access your website immediately after they click to it, don't expect them to try 24 hours later.
Loss #3: Goodwill
If your website is down often or your visitors frequently have trouble accessing it, they lose faith in your business credibility. In this highly competitive online market, your customers can easily become your competitors' customers!
What can you do to prevent your website from failing you? Here are some practical tips.
Tip #1: You Get What You Pay For
If you pay $9.95 monthly for your web hosting package, you're not likely to get first-class technical support. Don't expect your hosting provider to have support staff available to take your call after office hours.
They will probably take 12-48 hours to restore your site - if you manage to get through their online support system - which probably would be down too.
Tip #2: You Need Live Phone Support
Use a hosting provider who have real support staff available 24/7 to take your phone call anytime.
Don't be fooled by some hosting companies who say they have phone support when it is actually just a "Leave a message after the beep tone" voicemail option.
Before I switched to my existing hosting provider, I didn't get much of a support from my previous hosting company.
Each time my site went down (due to their faulty systems),
they took 30 hours to get it back on. I was pissed. And worst, it usually happened after a successful marketing campaign!
So I decided to invest a little more into a hosting provider who would provide better customer service. I surfed extensively for good hosting packages and checked out comments on several web hosting forums.
Finally I decided to switch to Hostway: http://www.internetmarketingfocus.com o.cgi?l=hostway
What impressed me was their live phone support. During initial site setup, I telephoned them a few times at midnight and they had real live staff picking up the phone and attending to my requests!
And I'm not even paying them big bucks. I'm only paying a little more than my previous provider. Is it worth it?
Yes! The amount I spend with them is only a fraction of the income my site generates when it is online 99.9% of the time!
Tip # 3: Look At The Fine Print
One of the factors that you must consider when buying a hosting package is their uptime guarantee.
The difference between 95.0% and 99.0% uptime is 14.6 days in a year. Never go for uptime guarantees of less than 99.0%.
For a list of good hosting providers, go to http://www.internetmarketingfocus.com/links.php?op=viewlink&cid=6
My personal favorite is Hostway: http://www.internetmarketingfocus.com o.cgi?l=hostway
Tip #4: Monitor Your Server
Don't expect your hosting provider or your visitors to tell you that your site is down. Be the first person to know!
My site is continuously monitored by QwkMon monitoring service 24/7. Whenever my site is down, they send me an email immediately. They can also contact me via my cellular phone.
I can then quickly call Hostway's phone support staff and get my site restored - though after I moved to Hostway, I haven't had the need to do that yet. Their uptime is excellent!
Here is a list of monitoring services that you can consider:
http://www.qwkmon.com (my favorite!) http://www.internetseer.com http://www.netmechanic.com/monitor.htm http://www.serverrat.com http://www.websitepulse.com http://www.siteprobe.com http://www.nfiniteweb.com ools.html http://www.alertra.com
If you're serious about marketing your products and services online, make sure your online storefront is always open for business!
About the Author
Chee Wee is a widely-published marketing consultant. He helps small and medium-size businesses to market successfully online. Learn how a startup site gets over 200 million pageviews monthly without spending a penny on advertising. For FREE info, email him at mailto:publicity@internetmarketingfocus.com
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Email marketing services and email marketing tools from SubscriberMail |
SubscriberMail is the leading provider of email marketing services and technology, enabling clients to send email marketing newsletters and campaigns ... |
www.subscribermail.com |
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ClickZ Internet Marketing Experts |
You are in the: ClickZ Network arrow. ClickZ Network Navigation, ClickZ Network Home, News, News Blog, Experts, Stats, Features, Search Engine Watch ... |
www.clickz.com |
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Email Marketing Solutions from Constant Contact |
Email marketing software that makes it easy to create professional HTML email campaigns with no tech skills. Sign up for a 60-Day FREE trial. |
www.constantcontact.com |
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Constant Contact Learning Center – Email Marketing Resources |
Articles on email marketing best practices, including tips on building an email list, writing email newsletters, and tracking email campaigns. |
www.constantcontact.com |
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Email Marketing | Email Campaigns |
Online resource for Bulk Email Marketing Services, Email Address List, Email Marketing Campaigns, Email List Builder, Permission Email Marketing, ... |
www.benchmarkemail.com |
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Email Marketing Reports |
Hundreds of articles and reviews on email marketing and advertising. |
www.email-marketing-reports.com |
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MailWorkZ Email Marketing Products and Services |
Full suite of email marketing products and online services. Create effective campaigns, manage deliverability, evaluate and track results. |
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Email marketing, internet marketing tool and bulk email marketing strategies from StreamSend. |
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Email Marketing - About Email |
Email is a very powerful marketing tool. In spite of spammers abusing the medium, email can still be used and is still valued by users for timely, ... |
email.about.com |
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Email Marketing Software - Email Marketing Solutions - Lyris |
Email Marketing Solutions from Lyris - The most popular email marketing software, list hosting services, email deliverability and antispam solutions since ... |
www.lyris.com |
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Direct email Marketing |
eFuse.com is a virtual primer for creating great web sites-offering information, inspiration, assistance and entertainment. |
www.efuse.com |
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Topica: Online Marketing and Sales Solution |
Email Marketing Solutions - Topica's Direct Email Marketing Solution boosts lead generation, increases conversion rates, and shortens the online sales cycle ... |
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Pure ))) Email Marketing and Email Advertising |
Provides web-based email marketing solutions to improve brand awareness and advertising communications. |
www.pure360.com |
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Email Marketing Software & Services from Email Marketing Solutions UK |
Email Marketing Solutions UK: Private label, multi-user mailing list management and email marketing software solution for designers and marketers. |
www.emailtools.co.uk |
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Email Marketing Software from Bronto |
Email marketing software for managing lists and sending newsletters, surveys and other communications. |
bronto.com |
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IntelliContact - We Simplify Email Marketing |
IntelliContact is more than email marketing. It represents the future of ... "We Simplify Email Marketing" and "Intelligent Email Marketing Software" are ... |
www.intellicontact.com |
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Email marketing | Business Link |
How to use email to promote your business in a constructive way that stays clear of anti-spam rules. |
www.businesslink.gov.uk |
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Email Marketing Software: Direct Email Marketing from Listrak |
Email marketing provider, Listrak is a permission-based application that provides an easy and affordable method of managing, sending and tracking the ... |
www.listrak.com |
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Mass email marketing software for email newsletters, email merge ... |
Internet marketing tools that mean business: e-mail personalization and marketing tools for professionals. |
www.arialsoftware.com |
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Email Marketing Software & Services from Emailcenter UK |
Email marketing software solutions and services from Emailcenter UK. |
www.emailcenteruk.com |
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