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How to Get Lexus Results at Chevy Prices from your Marketing
The good and bad of marketing is that price and results are not necessarily connected. You can pay the same price for poor results as you would for great results. The difference is largely based on what you put into your marketing before you...
How to Organize Your Marketing
"I hate sales pitches!" You may have felt this way yourself or heard others say it. If it's such a common response, what's the best way to organize your marketing to attract new clients and customers? While getting all aspects of your marketing...
How to Use Marketing to Add Value to Your Company
Windows of opportunity are fleeting. Once-in-a-lifetime
opportunities are even more elusive. When InSoft challenged AT&T
for a bite of the desktop video conferencing market, effective
marketing had not only positioned InSoft products as...
The Top 10 Marketing Tools to Grow Your Business in 2004
Looking to grow your business? Make sure you have these marketing tools in place: #10 A powerful tagline In 10 words or less, a good tagline reinforces a company’s reason for being. And smaller companies will find it to be one of the hardest...
Unique Internet Marketing Stands Out From The Crowd
Several years ago, I went whale watching in Bar Harbor, Maine, while on vacation. I remained in the large, central cabin with my poor seasick infant son when a whale was finally spotted. The Captain announced, "Whale to the starboard", and a...
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Ecards as a marketing tool
As any successful businessman will confirm, having a great product or service is just the beginning. After all, in this day and age, everything comes down to marketing. The more creative you are in your marketing efforts, the more successful your business is. There are many ways to promote your business without spending a fortune. In this article I will describe one of the most powerful tools on the Internet – ecards!
Ecards (electronic greeting cards) are a great example of efficient marketing on the internet. You have a service open to the Internet users. The ecards they send from your site invariably contain promotion for your company, products or services. They are advertising tools that are immediate, inexpensive, personalized and although sent via email, S.P.A.M.-free.
This form of Internet marketing is extremely effective. More than 50% of the U.S. population and 85% of all Internet users visit a greeting's site annually, according to research firm Jupiter MediaMetrix. Why not use even a small percentage of these potential clients to your advantage? OK, BlueMountain.com has more than 100 million unique visitors each year, but even with less numbers, the potential is there. Remember, with each sent ecard from your site you have at least two potential clients!
If someone utilizes the ecards service on average only twice a day, in the period of a year the service is advertised approximately 730 times. Multiply this number by the number of registered users and you get yourself a healthy advertising stream. Recognizing the huge potential, in 1999 Excite@Home Corp. paid $780 million for the purchase of BlueMountain.com. How much would you pay for that type of advertising?
No need to answer -- you can have an ecard site for a lot less. The concept is the same, and you can use it just as the big boys. You can build a database of qualified prospects and use ecards to: - Promote - promote products and services - Brand - create company awareness among your client base
- Invite - invite people to seminars and events - Remind - send appointment reminders - Inform - send Client appreciation memos, Recruiting/hiring notices, etc. - Reference - send Birthday wishes, Holiday greetings, Thank You's, etc.
OK, so now you know you need an ecard section on your site. What do you need next?
Content: Custom content: If you have a larger budget you can have an well-known artist create custom animated ecards for you. On average, a Flash animated ecard costs $350. Leased content: A much cheaper way to obtain high quality content is to use the services of a company like Cardsup Greetings (http://www.cardsup.com). Their ecards have been used by such sites as Yahoo Greetings, Regards.com, ecards.com, etc. For a very reasonable price you will get:
GREAT CONTENT for your existing web site, made by some of the best animators/cartoonists in the business. TIMELY UPDATES -- you will receive monthly Flash ecards! Each month you will get from 5 to 30 additional ecards at no cost. SCREENSAVERS -- you will receive all additional animations as screensavers too, and you will be able to sell them to your customers.
Ecards software: There are a lot of very good ecard programs on the Internet. I highly recommend the following:
- MyPostCards Platinum (http://mypostcards.com/platinum/) - ECardsPro price U$299 (http://www.ecardspro.com/) - Greeting Card PRO price U$249 (http://www.greetingcardpro.com/) - Greeting Cards Pro price U$249 (http://www.all-yours.net/software/)
Web Hosting: If you do not have a web host for your site, be sure to check out Fullservehost.com (http://www.fullservehost.com). They have plans for ecard sites owners that come with card software.
About the Author
Dessy Oundian is a the marketing Guru behind etoon.com -- one of the largest searchable cartoon databases in the world. Find T-shirts and other custom apparel, get information about licensing our cartoons or send e-cards.
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KnowThis: For Marketing, Market Research, Internet Marketing ... |
KnowThis.com offers a wealth of information, forums, and resources for professionals, academics and students in traditional and internet marketing, ... |
www.knowthis.com |
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Marketing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
Marketers depend on marketing research, both formal and informal, ... The next big thing is a concept in marketing that refers to a product or idea that ... |
en.wikipedia.org |
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Marketing - Marketing Strategy - Marketing Plan - Marketing ... |
Learn about marketing careers, the stages of developing a marketing plan, how to begin marketing research, create a marketing strategy, and how to market ... |
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Marketing.org - Home of the Business Marketing Association |
Serves the professional, educational and career development needs of business-to-business marketers. |
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Welcome - American Marketing Association - www.marketingpower.com |
Dedicated to serving the educational and professional needs of marketing executives. |
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Advertising, Marketing, Media and PR News - Brand Republic |
Find the latest Advertising, Marketing, Media and PR news from Brand Republic, the online resource for up to the minute advertising and marketing news and ... |
www.brandrepublic.com |
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Marketing Magazine - Marketing News - Brand Republic |
Marketing Magazine - Marketing News - Brand Republic. |
www.brandrepublic.com |
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Marketing (Canada) |
Offers a Canadian source of news and articles on marketing, advertising and media. |
www.marketingmag.ca |
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BidVertiser - Pay Per Click Advertising On Sites Of Your Choice. |
Pay per click advertising - online advertising directly on sites of your choice, internet marketing solution for online advertisers. |
www.bidvertiser.com |
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Online Behavioral Contextual Advertising and Marketing. |
Promote your business with today's most effective online advertising technology, contextual advertising at a cost effective metric of CPC, PPC, CPM or CPV. |
www.clicksor.com |
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Sales Jobs / Marketing Jobs / Advertising Jobs - MarketingJobs.com |
Employment site for marketing and sales professionals. |
www.marketingjobs.com |
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The Chartered Institute of Marketing |
The Chartered Institute of Marketing is the world's largest international marketing professional body and helps with career support and information ... |
www.cim.co.uk |
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Marketing: See what people are saying right now on Technorati |
See all blog posts tagged with marketing on Technorati. |
www.technorati.com |
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Marketing Profs - Marketing Concepts and Strategies: Expert ... |
Marketing knowhow from professionals. Newsletter, articles and how-to's. |
www.marketingprofs.com |
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Guerrilla Marketing Online - The Official Site |
Guerrilla Marketing Online is anonline magazine for small business, entrepreneurs, sales people and marketers of all kinds. |
www.gmarketing.com |
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Business Marketing - Small Business Marketing |
Business marketing - Read everything your need to know about small business marketing. |
www.entrepreneur.com |
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All About Marketing |
Adapted from Field Guide to Nonprofit Program Design, Marketing and Evaluation ... Inbound Marketing Includes Market Research to Find Out: ... |
www.managementhelp.org |
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Pages tagged with "marketing" on del.icio.us |
USA Network Announces a NASHVILLE STAR Marketing Partnership With ... - Yahoo! ... Direct Marketing Association: Telephone, Mail & Internet Marketing ... |
del.icio.us |
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ClickZ Internet Marketing Solutions for Marketers |
Includes columns with commentary and analysis on a wide variety of internet marketing subjects ranging from B2B marketing to search engine marketing. |
www.clickz.com |
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Direct Marketing Association: Telephone, Mail & Internet Marketing |
Trade association for users and suppliers in the direct, database and interactive marketing fields, offering seminars and resources, and lobbying for ... |
www.the-dma.org |
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