Podcasting Secrets Unleashed

Understanding the Podcasting Technology




Podcasting has become a common term nowadays, though there is actually only a selected number of people who are aware of its sense and function. The meaning of podcast is still unknown to a large number of people. The word –podcast, has been coined by juxtaposing broadcast and ipod.

These specially designed broadcasts were initially formed exclusively for the ipod. However, later they were made accessible for people who did not own an ipod because of the increasing fame of the podcasts. Thus, an ipod is not essential anymore to know about a podcast- you can hear it on your computer or in your music player.

Podcasting is a method by which media files such as audio or video are advertised and circulated over the internet.

Podcasting as well as advertising are gradually turning into successful methods of commodity promotion for the various corporations. Podcasting costs less and is also a proficient way to attract attention.

The media files mentioned before can be in mp3 format and the videos can be movies, music videos or even promotional videos that advertise some products for the corporations. The podcast extends through either the RSS feed or an atom syndication on the Internet.

People can download the podcasts and then use their music players or their computers or ipods to play them. The podcasts will upload on the internet in a short while right after they are made public much like the T.V. soaps.

People all over the world can exchange their ideas and opinions in the form of audio files via this brilliant system. Also, all those people who have registered to a particular podcast can hear the opinions and then send in their reviews via emails in the sites for podcast discussions. Thus, podcasts facilitate a 2 way communication.

The podcasts can also be just heard on the internet and it’s not compulsory to save the file into your hard disk. This saves both time and bandwidth of the person who is interested in listening to the podcast.The components essential for the recording of a podcast are:

1. A microphone with high sound clarity

2. A computer which has the software necessary for editing and completing the podcast. Once the podcast is complete, it can be put on the internet such that people get to hear it and mail their opinions.


The Reason Behind the Podcasting Hype




Podcasting is a method of transporting audio files with the help of RSS. It is gradually turning into one of the most efficient modes of interaction. Podcasting is not limited to transferring only music files but is slowly growing to be a proficient method of promotion of products for companies.

Hence it helps to accelerate trade and business prospects. Podcasting, now, is just a techie obsession but it will slowly creep into trade and commerce as corporations are using it to generate amazing as well as spectacular results.

Podcasts are generally available with important Meta facts and these contain definitions of the individual audio file. Thus users can choose their desired audio files. In case the users are utilizing a new aggregator (which should allow podcasting), then they will instantly get all the facts regarding the audio file in their feed reader or the news aggregation software, whenever a new feed is added to their registered podcast.


Why is Podcasting Beneficial to the Subscribers

In podcasting, it is the subscriber who’s in control of the situation. This is not the case with the radio. The subscriber can select the materials that he or she gets according to his or her desire. The user can download the required facts and then hear them at his or her leisure. This makes podcasting significant to the subscribers.

Once the content is save in the hard disk of a specific user, he or she can hear it and also watch it on a wireless electronic gadget. Thus, subscribers can listen to a podcast even when they are commuting.

People can now select the talk shows as well as debate programs that they wish to listen to and the time as well as the location can also be determined by the user. This is rather helpful to people who wish to learn many languages as they can listen to them while traveling.

Additional lessons, point by point tutorial classes as well as strolling instructions can be listened to with the help of podcasts. Podcasting is also helpful to all those who are blind and also the old because plenty of books are available in the form of podcasts, so that the visually impaired or elderly people can easily listen to the podcast form of their favorite book.

Podcasting can easily be manipulated by the subscribers. They can keep feeds and also remove them according to their demands. The subscriber handles podcasting completely by himself or herself and can also mark the podcasts that are most famous. This entire system applied by the subscribers ultimately form a layer which marks the creative and exciting podcast feeds from those that are not so popular.

This method is slowly gaining a lot of popularity among businessmen. Podcasting provides new types of audio material to be transported. Podcasting is famous as a mode of interaction as it is cheap as well as time friendly.

How Can Podcasting Be Used




The techie freaks have now taken interest in podcasting. But do we, here, really know how it works? It is actually a form of transportation for online audio files with the help of an RSS feed.

Though podcasting is compared to radio, however a podcast provides more choices in material as well as programs in comparison to the radio. Podcasting allows the user to access that very program which he or she wishes to listen to. Users can choose their desired talks, enable that and hear it as and when they feel like.

The users can also save the audio files such that they can retrieve them at their chosen time. Podcasting has successfully made people into radio celebrities in a manner similar to the method by which bloggers have now become reporters.


The Various Ways Podcasting Can Be Used:

1. Strolling trips that are self-conducted: Facts and materials. Rhythm and Blues: Advertising bands, hence videos as well as talk shows.

2. Discussions: Corporation and institutional news, stocks news, sports news, other forms of news as well as views.

3. Coaching: Lessons and guiding facts.

4. Narrative plot: Stories for young ones as well as the handicaps.

The syndication of audio medium via RSS feed is Podcasting. It functions in a way that resembles the conventional RSS feed reader or news accumulator. Well, the distinction lies in the fact that this involves the transportation of an audio file.

Here you do not have to input material into the RSS feed reader or aggregator. You can simply hear all that is stored in the feed with the help of a reader or accumulator (often called aggregator), provided it allows podcasting. You can also hear them with the help of your ipod or your computer or even your music player. It is not necessary to use an ipod just because the term was coined mainly for an ipod.

Websites often contain podcasts and hence it requires just a click on the link. Certain conventional RSS readers such as FeedDemons most recent beta now supports audio files.

The enclosure mark determines the podcast nature of the audio file and distinguishes it from a feed. Consider this simply to be a mail attachment.

The "enclosure" mark is not a fresh invention and it has been for years since the mark has been incorporated in the RSS v2.0 version. However podcasting became a rage only from the month of August, year 2004.

Webmasters are looking for innovative methods to enrich the internet with more facts and media files. The most striking bit is the syndication factor as well as rise in the number of users.

People who listen to the podcasts benefit from this entire scheme as it is a method via which materials can be uploaded and the person who downloads it can completely negotiate the facts just the way he or she wants. It is quite like the RSS. It gives you space to exercise your own discretion.



Is Your Business Ready for Podcasting?




Podcasts were thought to be the hobbies of computer freaks and people who spend hours in front of the screen trying to do everything possible with the available range of options. Nowadays this medium has garnered sufficient attention in the corporate world with business concerns taking note of this unique device of communication and using it to the fullest to create advertising effects like never before.

Podcasts serve the basic cause of promoting your enterprise. But this promotion can proceed via several avenues without making it look like too brazen an attempt to advertise your firm. What is possible is intensive information sharing via podcasts that help your firm pass on all the relevant information to the customers without running the risk of over advertising.

Thus, podcasts can serve the dual role of advertisement for the company and service for the customer. Examples would include medical firms offering health related advice and educational institutions providing weekly advice to students on podcast.

The further use of a podcast in a commercial enterprise is that it can be used to train employers and all they will need is an mp3 payer or a laptop to access the training information and thus go through it right there without going through elaborate training schedules. This saves your money and your employee gets some time.

Like any other device, podcast comes with costs and expenses to be borne. The nature of these expenses is particular to the product and in case of podcast you will need people with technical know how and along with people who will be the content on the podcast. This cost could be managed by attaching costs to the podcast the customer views on your website.

Or you could start a service for which the customer receives podcast updates from you for a fee. These measures really depend on the success of the podcasts or else the customer might just bypass it if he or he has to pay a price for it.

Podcasts are amazing innovations that you can put to good use to help your enterprise. They could be used for advertising, passing on information, training employees or even for bonus customer service that you want to offer.

Given this wide range of things that a podcast could do for you, it can only be an asset to your firm and nothing less. But key to a better functioning of such apparatus is that you maintain high quality content on such devices and also do not really hold back the initial expenses that you have to bear on this. The more promising the start, the better the results and consequences involved. Use this device creatively and efficiently to get the best returns possible.

Podcasting for Online Business




When you are offering a product or service to prospective clients, the client should be acquainted with what you are offering as well as its traits or characteristics. If minute details are given, the client’s decision can be faster. This is why advertising is indispensable for generating sales and subsequent gains from sales.

The period for which an advertisement can be sustained on a visual medium like the television is greatly restricted because of the expenses. The process of remembering can also not be relied on because of the limited duration of the commercials. Podcasting for online business is a blessing for advertisers, internet marketers and web masters.

Extended functions for podcasting for online businesses can be applications like employee training, information dissemination, or even product demonstration. Since podcasts can carry audio and picture files, they are remarkable aids for all business purposes and not just marketing alone.

Podcasting for online businesses is relatively much cheaper and most businesses can create in-house podcasts. The only tools needed are a personal computer and some software, most of which can be downloaded free of cost. Novel ideas and gadgets for podcasting are discovered almost daily and the internet serves useful in keeping us updated about these upgrades.

· Develop True One-on-One Relationships: Though traditional advertising owns a very respectable place in the media world, podcasting allows the target client to get an idea about the face, voice and life of the product. If a podcast is developed even moderately well, it gives the company an opportunity for genuine one-on-one face time with new as well as old clients. The only effort is to give that primary amount of time required to develop and release the podcast. Customers become acquainted with the company through that individual and a greater level of trust can be established.

· Create Anticipation for Future Communication: We only need to witness the success of YouTube to understand how much the level of anticipation for more correspondence from the same distributor. Average people are offering numerous opinions on sequential podcasts and videos. Messages that are more creative reach hundreds of people within days because they become popular so fast. This popularity has what is called a “viral impact” that traditional media can only dream of achieving.

· Measurability: depending on which platform you need to host your podcast on, there are many ways of devising the client’s behavior in reference to the message displayed. Like HTML email where links can be visited and judged for follow-through to the main offer, podcasts too can be scrutinized statistically to check how many people watched them and at what times. Unlike the TV or radio that has passive recipients for the message, podcasts have an active audience that have voluntarily selected your display and are examining it attentively with genuine interest. Measuring conversion rates for podcasting is relatively easier than for other kinds of mass media.

· Immediate Call to Action: Though statistics case analysis are still being built, many anecdotal cases record a rise in scales, contact from prospects, people sought out for speaking appointments and rising mass media exposure due to podcast communication. The justification for these triumphs is that for the 1-3 minutes that you engage your prospect, you have the chance to generate a compelling message that is not in competition with any other advertising agent.

Therefore, if you’re planning to develop your own podcast from the very beginning, the first effort you should make is to browse the internet to attain the latest features that have been added to this wonderful technology. Once you are done with podcasting for online business, be ready for the shower of orders that will start coming in.

How to Record a Podcast




Before you can start thinking about recording a podcast, you need to get a few simple things ironed out. What you need to figure out is what the basic structure of your podcast will be like, and the kind of content you are going to have. Decide if you need to do interviews or record outdoors. Plan well because it pays off in the end.

One of the important things that will play a role in the success of your podcasts is where exactly you are doing your recordings. You will need to find a nice, quiet place which is free of noise and distractions.

Also, try and record in the same place every time as it will be far more convenient to keep all your expensive equipment in one place. In case you are recording away from your office, you will need to find ways to cut out noise. It is advisable to record in a quiet place, and use directional microphones.

Spending a little money on your equipment will help greatly in enhancing the quality of your recording. In case you can’t find a noise-free physical environment, you can use a noise reduction software.

Before you go into your final recording it is advisable to do a few test runs to check if all the levels are set optimally. When you start off, you may need to tweak your volume settings and microphone distance before you get the best configuration.

Many states have their own legal stipulations on audio recording. You should find out about these before you start, so you don’t land in trouble. At the same time, it is best to make it a general ethical principle to ask for consent before you record.

While you may have gotten your hardware in place for an interview recording, it is not enough. You should also put in some preparatory time for the content of the interview itself.

Try and gather as much information on your interviewee and prepare a tentative list of questions. But don’t restrict yourself to these questions alone and be willing to diverge, keeping in mind the need for an interview to flow smoothly.

And lastly, try and make your recording fun and lively. Use some sound effects, voice inflections and an interesting program format that will ensure your audience does not get bored.

Use songs as fill-ins, develop a signature intro and outro theme that is easily recognizable. Remember, more than anything else, podcasting is ought to be fun. It should be a personal expression that is fresh and unique and a labor of your love.

Making a Video Podcast




A video podcast was always available as an option. What happened with Apple was that such video podcasting got moved into a totally new dimension. This new level of podacsting was invented on the iPod. Now apart from audio podcast video podcast thus has become extremely popular and anyone can share any videos they want to.

What you need initially to make a video podcast is primarily a video camera to shoot with. In fact it helps further if you have a digital video camera so that you would not have to convert the footage to a digital format.

You have to make sure that what you are shooting is really worth shooting. On the quality of the footage depends the success of your podcast. What kind of footage works? Try and go in for as many close shots as possible as the essential nature of the podcast video has to be compatible with pod screens.

The wide screen mode is thus best avoided and the standard mode the most preferred one. There is no point in trying to build in some insane amount of details on your video as the small screen might not support it just as it would not support fast motion and high contrast video. Try and shoot many short length features rather than a full film. Thus you make proper use of bandwidth and battery on the camera.

How to compress your film for web viewing or pod viewing? With a MAC you have everything you need for such purposes on which you could use iMovie HD6 by following the set of links, FILE, Export, iPod, Share. On a regular PC one could install QuickTime Pro- 7.0.3 or higher versions.

To proceed, follow links Export, Using Quick Time Conversion. Now you have a *.m4v file which is easily uploaded on the web. You could use other software like, Spasm Software's Podner or Sorenson Squeeze.

It is essential to fit your movie with a description. This will help viewers to search for your movie. On the latest iMovie software you would merely have to drag the file to iTunes and join the Info Tab. File the necessary information after this. On a PC you could proceed via creating an XML document or file. Upload your file online after this.

Now, you are ready to reach out to huge numbers of people with your video podcasts. You could do this via iTunes or a blog. Choose a preferred way and go on sharing and video podcasting your way.

Podcasting Tools




You need several tools to create a successful podcast. What is special to podcasting is that it is essentially a tool-managed process. For example, you need a computer to start with. Then obviously you need some recording apparatus like a microphone. Nowadays, there are variants of recording tools in the Apple iPod or even the Griffin iTalk microphone. Thus, a computer and some recording device are essential for you to carry on with podcasting.

Other than these tools, nowadays with technological availability, mp3 recording and editing programs aid you in editing what you have managed to record. Along with these there are also available software that help you correct errors made in the course of recording.

After having managed the composition and framing if podcasts you can resort to some hosting facilities to center your distribution. There might be several avenues through which distribution can proceed and the most usual ones could be your blog or website or even through iTunes or RSS feed. But to root all of this you have to have a host.

In fact if you choose RSS feed as the as the preferred mode of distribution and thus do not want the section of the audience population who do not use mp3 players to not be excluded from the feed, then it is ideal that for you have an RSS reader that’ll enable all of that. This way you can also update your audience regularly via the RSS feed.

If in case you are trying to provide your audience with the option of listening to podcasts on some website, then you could use a streaming jukebox podcast player, thus allowing your audience to receive the feed in an mp3 format rather than switching to time-consuming downloads. Thus direct access to the podcasts is available on your website itself with this tool.

The one tool that has revolutionized podcasting is iTunes. It is not necessary to have an iPod to use iTunes. Through iTunes both the distribution of podcasts all over the world and the reception from a wide variety of sources becomes a possibility. Try and find out opinions about your podcasts from close friends who will tell you frankly what they feel about them.

Apart from other tools this is also a necessity because only through this will you see the point of doing all this or find out if the tools are working in the way you thought they would. It should thus be an imperative to collect as much of opinion you can in the podcast before launching it.

Must Have Podcasting Tools




In today’s evolving technical market, a new tool is created nearly each day. Podcasting happens to be one of them. If you’re not already acquainted with them, then wait for a while, in a few days they will hold you in awe.

People have certain private favorites regarding podcast tools. There is no one tool that is the best. Only the creators of the tools can make such claims.

People with varying likes want varying kinds of tools. If the tools function as people want them to, they are perfect. In that case people are not concerned about considering other tools.
Following are the kinds of software you need must have as a business podcaster. One version will suffice.


Audio Editor

The software arrests tones and converts them into digital pieces in the hard drive. Very sensitive refined acoustic software lets you revise sounds, intensify sounds, remove superfluous parts and unite melodies and other sounds into recording.

A no cost and multipurpose acoustic editor is Audacity.


Flash Audio Player

Each podcast chapter leaf must have flash audio player. Then users may test the chapter that they want. It is vital as some guests are not registered users.

Maybe they found the website by online searches or through some kind of advertisement. When they cannot test the podcast content, they may not want to invest their time to download the whole chapter to simply get introduced.

Flash audio players are admired since around ninety percent of web browsers keep a test and guests could see the podcast on the page itself.

An example of a popular Flash audio player site is 1pixelout.net.


Stats Package

Metrics are essential for any trade. Free stats package like Google Analytics lets you check the way people relate with your site. With proper tracking, you will get a fair idea about the source and nature of your traffic which is absolutely essential for bringing in further development to your business.


RSS Reader

It can be Google Reader or Bloglines or FeedDemon, podcasters are data tools, which take in a huge amount of data. Once you figure out their proper use, you cannot do without them.
RSS or newsreader is a great tool for finding product titles. Then you will need to figure out the details of news and the blogosphere. You may want to interact with those who talk of you.

Publishing Your Podcasts




Making and distributing a podcast needs apart from footage and uploading acoustic files to the website, receiving a web attendance for podcast. You need to have a podcast feed for the podcasts.

The entire method may seem to be difficult but if you check it closely, it is not the case. Also consider yourself lucky that today you have a number of incorporated podcast publishing platforms to select from, which makes the process pretty simple.

To begin with, you have various kinds of podcast hosting platforms. A very common one is the characteristic web-hosting platform. Blog software could be fixed on the server to get it in a point and click podcast publishing platform.

An incorporated platform like the podcast hosting services includes blog software with disk space and bandwidth. Superior platforms include metrics that are essential for podcast promotion.

A podcast publishing platform has three major fractions:

1. Podcast folder administration
A website server has to offer a minimum of one way to upload and control files. A very common method is by File Transfer Protocol (FTP), or website based file controller, WebDAV file structure or included file controller, which is contained in blog software.

2. Podcast location and page administration
Any web publishing platform will do this, but a blog solves the hassles and keeps you from handling HTML codes. If you know how to use email, you know more than enough to publish a podcast episode page using a blog. Another benefit of a blog as a publishing platform is that it is automatically archived, indexed by blog search engines and includes an internal discussion for individual posts as well as remotely through track backing.

3. Podcast data production
The last section of a podcast publishing platform is for producing data that are podcast compatible. This is done automatically by the blogs. Several bloggers don’t they are generating a feed with their blog but this is the key aspect of every podcast.

For this reason, blog has become the most popular podcast publishing platform. With the one-click blog installation feature on most hosting accounts, now everyone can build a podcast blog easily.

After that, as a podcaster, all you have to do is just uploading the podcast file, typing episode notes, and specify the file you want to enclose as a podcast. Click publish, and you are done publishing the notes and also the podcast feed.

That's it. While you can take the hard ways to publish a podcast, a blog allows you to achieve exactly this -- perhaps with fewer errors than to do it manually -- more easily.

The Many Formats of Podcasts




Like radio or TV programs, podcasting can take many forms. In fact, as it is still been experimented with, a podcaster can get away with formats which would be considered unacceptable in radio or T.V. Some of these forms are:

The interview, where you can interview a single, or several person(s) who are expert in the subject your podcast involves.

The call-in show, where people phone in and the host talks to them. This is good for themed shows. For example, callers can ask for help with studies or medicine or cars, and, though the host is answering their questions, the information given out is likely to interest those who are interested in the subject.

The monologue works well if you are a good speaker with interesting things to say, because this format allows you to basically speak about any topic. However, in a lecture hall, your audience has the option of simply not listening. So, though the monologue is possible only in podcasting, it can also quickly wane.

The dialogue, which is a more enjoyable form of the monologue, is also popular. Though a monologue can convey the same information a dialogue does, the dialogue, with two or more people, and several opinions involved, can break up the monotony and make debates and question/answer formats possible.

The conversation differs from the dialogue as it is more informal and free-flowing. While there are some great samples available on the Internet, it should be remembered that as conversation-style shows are unscripted, it is harder to maintain high-quality.

In podcast versions of seminars/conferences, when the speaker talks into the microphone, it is transferred into MP3 format and made available for downloading. If the seminar requires a lot of images, the audio is not much help, and, in fact, this format is pretty hard to listen to, but they help if one has not attended the real thing.

The quiz show is an interesting format. Some podcasts tell you the question, play music while you think of the answer, and then reveal it.

News magazine format is interesting, with channels like CNN putting their headlines in podcast format. Like TV and radio news broadcasts, the podcast reel off the headlines and have one or two feature stories followed by smaller stories.
There are, of course, many more types of podcasts. But a combination of these is likely to guarantee a good show.

Different Ways of Using Podcasting Transcripts




The transcript of your podcast can be very useful.

You may use it to remind yourself what you said, for a blogpost, for comments, for further research. Often it is hard to remember everything that was said during an interview. So, in all these situations, a transcript of the show helps.

Reading a transcript of the show helps you realize the mistakes you made, be they grammatical errors or flaws in your interviewing skills. A transcript can also help you see whether your ideas flow logically. So, after reading a transcript, you can improve your diction and technique, preferably before your next podcast.

You can also use the text of the transcript to promote your podcast. Quote a guest who said something interesting, use segments for comments, generally publicize your podcast by using bits of the thing itself.

You can also sell the transcripts as premium content, either individually, or as an e-book; or offer it to your paying subscribers.

Reading transcripts makes it easier for you to avoid repeating topics or questions on your show.
Reading is usually faster than listening to audio files. So organizing shows by topic is faster if you are reading the transcripts.

Potential guests who may not have the time to listen to your show may prefer to read transcripts to realize what awaits them.

The transcripts, rich in relevance, can also be used as content on your website.
You can e-mail your subscribers the transcripts, along with information about your products and website, thus further connecting with them.

The deaf people, who use the Internet, need not be ignorant about your show if you present it in a format accessible to them-the transcripts.

You can send the transcript to non-web-based publications and get it published as an article-thus increasing your audience and getting paid.

Uploading the transcript will make the audio-content accessible to search-engines, which often cannot ‘read’ it.

Listening means that your audience has to remember or jot down the information you provide about url-s, etc. But reading your transcripts means that they can immediately click on a link if they find it interesting. And this, in turn, will make them more active.

As podcasting grows more active and popular, you may find that maintaining transcripts of your shows allows you to be more efficient and erudite, build your audience, rank higher with search engines, and even earn extra money.

Promoting Your Podcasts




Once you have recorded a podcast and created a highly quality production, the next step is to promote it and take it to the people. The most recommended way of doing this is to join a podcast directory where your recording will be listed. But given the number of directories out there on the Internet, the important question is which ones are the best? Where should you list for the most effective promotion?

iTunes, which is the media player for the iPod, is undoubtedly the best and most important place to get listed. It is a very popular service amongst computer users and will ensure your podcast is available to the greatest possible number of listeners.

Other podcasters suggest many other sites which are effective places to list your podcast. But each has their own set of suggestions, so which should you pick? My suggestion would be to list on all of the sites, because the more the merrier.

Podcast directories send referrals to your podcast. So, while most of your traffic will still come from the major search engines like Google, listing on a directory cannot possibly do you any harm. Moreover, you will get hits from referrals on podcast directories on a regular basis, irrespective of how minuscule the numbers might be.

Podcasting directories also provide your site with high quality inbound links. This is very important because it helps determine the relevance of your site for certain keywords. It is best to put in the primary keywords of your podcast in the title itself because that is how directories will list podcasts. Now, links from these directories will help increase the popularity of your podcast.

Having your podcast listed on a premium site like iTunes helps build brand value for your podcast and is likely to catch the attention of anyone you mention it to. The more people you reach out to, the more likely it is that your podcasts will gain popularity through sheer word of mouth.

Try and make yourself as visible as possible by listing on multiple podcast directory listings. While directories may not be getting podcasts too many hits just yet, it is best to beat the competition to it in the race to the future. Get listed on a directory with heavy traffic. The best options today are Alexa and PageRank.

So what are you waiting for? Start promoting your podcasts now!

Mistakes to Avoid While Podcasting




In this chapter, I will be discussing certain mistakes that you should avoid as a podcaster.
In order to be an efficient podcaster you need to be good not only with the technical aspects of your work but also at entrepreneurial skills. Being interested in something is different from being good at it and making a business out of it.

For example, if you are interested in graphic designing, the first and foremost thing that you should do is find out what you want to do with your interest and what you want to get from it.

If you want to establish it as a business you should look into the podcasting facilities available on the Internet that would help you do it. It is important to keep in mind the advantages and disadvantages of using the Internet for business purposes. Internet offers exhaustive information on a variety of matters. It is entirely up to you to channel your interests and process the information to meet your ends. It is easy to get lost in an ocean of attractions that the Internet sets before your eyes. You need to be prudent and selective while processing the facts available on the Internet. It is important to make a distinction between your personal interests and business interests.

You need to know to what extent you are planning to transform your personal interest into business purposes. There are a lot of things that need to be taken care of when you enter the podcasting business.

Podcasting requires a lot of planning and co-ordination. If you want to make it big in the podcasting business you should first educate yourself in your area of interest. You can make a list of mistakes that you made as well as problems that you encountered while doing the research.

It is necessary to learn from your mistakes and improve your skills by concentrating on your weak points. You should keep in mind the target audience as well as the target market and work out your ways accordingly. The work can be started in a group or individually.

Once the business is established and you realize that there is a great demand for the product, you can hire more people to work with you and manage the business. You can outsource the work to students or virtual assistants.

Later, you can even hire full-time staff for the job. You can do a variety of things in podcasting, ranging from arranging workshops for the customers to creating a low-cost product that can be easily accessed by your customers. It is better to work around your own ideas than borrow someone else’s.

Originality in work would attract a lot more people than just a random few looking for work. This kind of business can be very fulfilling as a job as you are not only exploring your field of interest but also expanding your field and earning money out of it.

The Dos and Don’ts of Podcasting




The following guidelines should be considered in order to achieve the maximum from your podcast and make it distinct from other podcasts.


The Do’s

· It should be Professional

Where you are podcasting from— be it your garage or a corporate boardroom— is not a factor at all. There is no reason for your podcast not to have a professional sound and feel. Software that can be used to filter noise from the background of your audio clip and increase its clarity is easily available on the internet. Hearers will not bear with bad sound quality. With the wide range of cheap software and hardware offered nowadays, there is no justification for you not to offer good quality audio podcasts.

· Transcription
You should always provide a transcript for your listeners or an option to view detailed notes in the description of your podcast content. This will assist your prospective clients while they listen to your podcast. If you do not wish to waste space on the main page with detailed descriptions, make sure you have alternate pages where these details can be viewed. The link or option must be provided on the main page.

· iTunes Support

With new automated gadgets like FeedForAll it is easy to add iTunes in the podcast support system. By adding your podcast to the iTunes media gallery, you will ensure a huge exposure for your product. With the massive audience and distribution that iTunes has, most podcasters who do not target this option are big fools.

· Content

Though audio quality is extremely important, the matter should not be neglected in the effort to rectify that. What you need to communicate is equally significant. You must offer content that is detailed, informative, instructive or engaging.

· Subscription to your Podcast Feed
In order to remain informed about how your audience will react to your podcast, you must subscribe to your podcast feed.

The Don’ts

· Straying

Make sure you don’t stray away from your topic of discussion much. If your podcast deals with cooking it would be inadvisable to make it a raving outburst about your political perspectives. You might interest a few listeners, but since your podcast should ideally deal with cooking as it would claim, most of the visitors would be interested in that. There are innumerable podcasts about political opinions. You will simple lose clients. Focus is indispensable for keeping listeners hooked on.

· Rambling

Don’t linger unnecessarily on a single point. No one will tolerate redundancy and rambling. Unfilled silences or unsure “umms” and “errs” will only bore listeners and you will lose them fast. You have to keep the show active. Always use audio editing software to remove dead air or repeats. It will give your podcast a professional feel.

· Forgetting Meta-Data

It’s essential to include appropriate keywords and jargon in your podcast feed title and description. This will assist listeners in locating your podcast.

· Skimping on Bandwidth

There is nothing more humiliating than networking a large listening audience and then failing to manage the bandwidth loads. Ensure you have a dependable web host that can handle your show’s bandwidth. Bandwidth and accessibility are essential to a podcast’s success.

· Ignoring your Audience

Never ignore your listeners. Create an interface where you can communicate with them and vice versa, whether it is a blog, through emails or even a forum. Always heed to what they say, and more importantly, to what they are not saying.

Constantly regulate and observe your web logs and subscription levels and bandwidth to find out when a show becomes a hit. By using good podcasting methods, you will definitely be a success in the field. These simple guidelines will assist you immensely when you start out.

Webinars A-Z

What is a Webinar?




Do you detest those excruciating seminars which you have to attend in order to sell your products?

Do you want to update yourself and try being technologically advanced, a techno-geek? We’ll tell you exactly what you could do to be one.

Ever heard of a webinar?

Well, many people haven’t so if you don’t know anything, it’s just fine! A webinar is basically a seminar which is presented over the internet, or Web. Web seminars, web conferences and internet meetings are all synonyms for this new technology and are used in sales and marketing applications, to influence potential customers.

Unlike webcasts, where the audience can only watch and listen, webinars are presentations where the members of the large audience can interact with the presenter via the internet. Hassle free and sleek!

Webinars are used for a variety of purposes – internet-based meetings, remote training and one-to-one meetings sharing details over their computer desktops. Hosting such webinars require knowledge about specific software that configures the presenter and the audience’s computers for easy communication. If you are keen on keeping yourself up-to-date with the world of technology, you might just want to know more about the various features of this web wonder!

We guess you might just want to present seminars using this software rather than having to present product via a webcast!

Well, we guess an integrated net telephone conferencing for audio seminars, the ability of the audience to view the presenter’s screen during live product demos, a continuous streaming video and scope for animated and interactive presentations, the unique features of recording and playback options, the option of segregating the audience into subgroups to help interact better, to be able to present questionnaires and polls to the audience and even manage question and answer sessions during the seminar, all seem to be a boon to you to boost your career options!

Isn’t the software just the thing you were looking for to cut down on the hassles of hosting a seminar?

Imagine a conference in another city while you are sitting at home sipping on coffee and using this software. It would mean cutting down on the travel expenses, a huge benefit, and it would also ensure that the webinar goes off without the slightest glitch.

All you need is systematically planned webinars, trained personnel to handle the software and a whole lot of practice! Webinars welcome you to the future.

Web Conferencing




Conferences over the World Wide Web, you must be kidding?

No, we aren’t joking any more, the future of conferencing is here and taking the world by storm. No more travel fare hassles for you, no more tiring sessions – web conferencing is just a click away! Want to know more about web conferencing and how it’s done? Just read on…

Web Conferencing is a meeting or seminar held over the internet. One can use almost anything – audio, video or even text-based interactions – which are conducted in real time! Cool huh?

In its simplest form, web conferencing can be via a medium of text based ‘chats’ using Yahoo Messenger or Microsoft NetMeeting or inviting others to converse and being able to communicate in real-time. Such ‘chats’ can be enhanced by the addition of a simple web camera, and bingo, you have your very own amateur web conferencing setup.


What can I do with Web Conferencing?

It all depends on the type of job you have! You could pitch sales or even train your staff through this medium. This sophisticated software allows seminars or presentations to be hosted for a large audience, without the slightest problem. Fully interactive meetings, sharing of files and important documents, slide shows and question-answer sessions are all made easier.


What is Online Collaboration?

Online Collaboration is helpful when your team members are located in different cities or countries. This medium helps you share files easily, manage documents and projects effectively and even edit documents online or in real-time!


What are the benefits of Web Conferencing?

This feature is for those who’ve got sick of traveling around for seminars! Web Conferencing not only saves money but time. No more traveling, air-tickets or accommodation hassles. It also means that employees would be at their desks for a prolonged period of time, raising the productivity. Enhanced communication and the ability to talk with people via the web whenever required is a great boon to any corporate firm.


How much does it cost?

The costs depend upon what type of application you are looking for. It’s always better to bring together a broad estimate of what web conferencing system would suit your needs, and then scout around for either low-grade or high-grade models that fit into your budget. The low-level, one-to-one systems are virtually free, that is, they’re dirt cheap. However, advanced level systems, as expected, can cost thousands of dollars.


Video Seminars




You are well aware of the importance of communication if you run a business. It is important when dealing with current clients and potential prospects you are trying to for business. You definitely know the different methods of communication even if you are not a business owner.

Communication is important if everyone wants to be successful at their job. Video seminars are one of the newest ways of communicating with others in the business world. They have a lot to offer, though they are not right for every industry.

While in the office, your communication with everybody you want like clients, home based employees, potential prospects and others is the primary simple benefit of a video seminar. Without leaving the office, you can thus you can use a video seminar for giving your viewpoint without heading out into traffic, or purchasing an expensive plane ticket.

Another obvious advantage of video seminars is that they can be set up on a dime. It can be often very difficult to book a flight or reach your destination by car in a reasonable period of time if you run into a disputable issue. You would be much better off depending on a video seminar instead of fighting this flow.

Likewise, the only thing that you have to do is get everything set up on your end and then, simply informing others of what is going on. To use whenever necessary, a lot of businesses keep their video seminar equipment set up at all times. If you know that you will be making presentations on a regular basis, then this is a great idea.

The money that can be saved on video seminars by businesses is one of the main reasons that of their growing popularity. You need to view this as a future investment as some money will be cost on the initial outlay to set up the technology. You will save more than the amount used to pay now in the form by not having to travel nearly as much. When people are deciding whether or not to get involved with video seminars, they often forget the long turn investment.

Video seminars may or may not right for you, your business and clientele as it is evident to you from above. Let this innovative technology work for your advantage if you think these can save you both time and money.

Pre Webinar Preparations




Are you stressed for the upcoming webinar for a new product launch?

Relax, there are some tricks that would save you from such a situation!
If you follow them you would find yourself go through the situation without much tension and headache. In case you’re a planning for a big event which is not your specialty, then you have to prepare for the big picture.

The picture will include certain minute details which might not consider as important but are essential for a successful seminar, webinar or any such event. When the product is on board it is for another team. It is important to map out your schedule as this would help you to prepare for the main event, starting from planning the advertising campaign to moments the webinar ends.

The preliminary schedule of the product is decided then that is followed by the advertisers taking over for them to work out various strategies. The training personnel are up to the task of designing training programs. The finance personnel are up to the task of allocating sums to determine the entire budget for the product launch.

Preparing for a product launch can be very demanding. But if you are aware of what to do and prioritize them according to their importance things would look easier. You may find that there is a great difference in planning an event virtually and really.

It’s important to get the right and responsible people signed up for the task. it would be wrong if you expect cent percent attendance. The task of getting about 70% attendances depends upon you and your advertising team.

You must have enticing strategies for people to sign up for the webinar. For this you should keep in mind that your team has to provide with maximum information. Without adequate information the audience may feel that it was a waste of time. Make sure that registration is accessible to all.

You may do two things either form a new website just before the seminar or just add a registration form on your company’s website. Make a point to see that there is all available information regarding the product for the audience.

While sending invitations you could send them e-books or other freebies that would be appreciated.

Get the best speaker and the best people to conduct the webinar. Brief them and make everything convenient for them. The best thing to do is to have an overall run through so that you can get rid of the pre webinar blues.

How to Profit From Webinars




Do you want to cut down on your corporate expenses?

The easiest way to do so is to cut down on conference costs by holding your conferences on the internet. Webinars or web-seminars are a fantastic method to hold an interactive session all over the world at very little cost. Gone are the days of flights, hotels and conference halls.

Replacing conventional seminars and meetings with webinars can only work out if there is adequate preparation for it. It is technically not too difficult to arrange and almost any business which needs a long distance conference can afford it, but for the webinars to be successful you need to prepare well.

Expanding your business demands that not only should your customer base grow, but at the same time your portfolio of products and services should become more diversified in order to accommodate the differing needs, requirements and specifications of your clients.

Solutions which enable you to do these things, like solutions for effective lead generation and revenue stream maximization are dependent on technology and use it to its maximum benefit to help you cut costs and improve bottom lines.

A particular method, which has been gaining in popularity, is the use of the webinars or the web seminar which allows the participants to view and hear both the presentation as well as participate in a group video conference. Its major advantage is the fact that it can help you to reach out to people all over the world without the expenses and hassles of traveling and arranging for local accommodation.

Before you decide to setup a webinar, you need to consider five key factors to determine what platform you will be using to host the webinar:

· What technology do you want / need to implement the webinar?
· Will you be web-casting the webinar live?
· Will your clients be able to access the webinar through their corporate firewalls?
· What are its associated costs?
· Would you want to reuse the webinar content later?

To ensure your webinar is successful, you should consider the following things as well:
Pre-plan what you want to share with your client that would generate sales leads or generate profits. Then try to translate this information into content appropriate for a webinar before showing it.

Go over the five points before settling on a technological solution for your webinar.


Webinar for Better Communication




One of the most important skills in today’s corporate world is the art of communicating effectively. As an employer, it would pay rich dividends for you if you pay attention too the communication skills of your managers and employees, and take measures to hone them to perfection.

Improved customer services, smarter presentations, speaking abilities and strong writing skills are things that can put your company at the head of the pack.

While there are a number of formal methods to deliver communication to your employees, the use of webinars is becoming increasingly popular. Webinars can go a long way in improving your employees’ interpersonal communication skills.

What is a webinar, you might ask. A webinar, basically is a seminar that is transmitted live over the Internet. The webinar’s greatest advantage is the flexibility it offers in shaping your program modules, etc.

The webinar is a great idea especially if you have a large company with locations spread across a wide geographical area. With a webinar, you can reach all your employees without all of them having to come to a central location, at great personal or company cost. Given the convenience of the webinar, it is also possible to invite almost any speaker no matter how busy they are, as they can speak without having to take the trouble of attending the seminar.

Webinars can be developed to meet the need for almost any kind of communication skills. From ways to combat stress, to optimizing delivery performance, to developing language skills, webinars can be designed around any theme with excellent interactive features like visual aids and interactive Q&A sessions.

You can use webinars to enhance your contact with your managers, and to help them improve their skills. You can reach out to your customer service executives and help them with a webinar on, say, how to handle tough customers or how to increase calling success rates.

A webinar can also be conducted on something like writing skills, with special focus on one particular kind of writing that a worker might need in his work. Many companies also conduct webinars on improving listening skills, which gains importance particularly in sectors that involve a high degree of contact with the client. Improving listening skills helps streamline work both within the office and outside it.

The advantages of webinars are many, as we can see. So, it is only a matter of time before the largest companies shift to this format for good, utilizing the Internet to suit their business needs.

Webinars for Successful Training




Employee training is a job that generally comes under the supervision of managers. Every department, whether it is accounting, advertising, sales or customer service has needs specific to the service they render for the company.

One needs training seminars that teach the skills necessary for your employees to become more adept in their jobs, and that help foster cooperation and communication. One delivery option that provides flexibility in training are webinars. Webinars can be one’s key to successful training for one’s employees.

A training Webinar is an online seminar. One logs on at a particular time, and one can get to observe and participate in a seminar on the Internet. Several webinars are offered with a telephone number included, so that one may also call and have the scope of interacting with the trainer.

Webinars put up many advantages to in-person presentations. One is not bound to only regional speakers for instance. Geographical limitations are no longer imposed because with Internet access one can avail of nationally recognized trainers.

An Internet presentation can be cheaper, for example, when one wishes to have those trainers give a presentation, who live across the country from one’s own office and having them in the office would make the training too expensive. Anyone having Internet access can take part in a webinar.

Several managers are gratified by the pliability that comes with online management training. One can provide a specialized training for a specific chosen group of employees, or even individual trainees, or one can train a big group when one uses an online training. All one needs is a computer linked to a projector and an amplified speaker telephone.

This simplicity makes online seminars for large groups easy to facilitate. Training of many employees together also has the added advantage of facilitating greater cooperation and communication among employees, an excellent outcome when the trained teams use the leadership skills learned at the seminar to more effectively operate in a small-group dynamic.

Employees who undergo this training get much more out of a presentation that has been not only been shown live, but is also recorded. Many experts in the educational field feel that learning is best affected in a circular rather than a linear manner. Students have the need to take in one new idea more than once for it to become permanently implanted.

Webinar is different from a live presentation where one sees it only once; in a webinar material can be repeated several times according to the wish of the participants when it is recorded and available to one’s employees online. Employees can therefore learn at their own speed, an added advantage for increasing the efficacy of the delivery method for all employees.

Various learner types can be easily fitted through the webinar delivery method. Employees or trainees who learn by listening, watching or doing themselves will have sufficient scope for learning with webinar training.

Your Webinar Agenda




Set goals
Though it is apparent, you have to consider handling a webinar. Then you can figure out your achievement and have ROI to it. Check whether you want the following?

· Have cues and get fresh products for sale

· Teach present clients for a fresh piece of work

· Get material and responses on a present opportunity.

In case you want cues, a proper move will be to concentrate on intermediary alternative email catalog leasing. An allowed interior email program can be a very good idea if you want to create understanding about a fresh item or do a survey in present clientele


Make opportunities
When you have made aims, organize prospects, which are ignored often. If you want to meet expenses like endorsing colloquiums, artistic and progress expenses of organizing the listing micro-site, moving webinar software and distributing souvenirs then be practical, particularly when produce limits are there.

Sometimes gaining operations are farsighted, which make fresh cues. This may require 3-12 months to launch by email, telephone and private appointments prior to recovery expenses.


Calculate answers

Answer charges are affected by several factors, among which three are: your proposal (like the value of impartial webinar matter), the inventive (the way you reach out the advantages), and the objective (the work name objective in the emails).

Internet passage is temporary, and instances in the week are vital for email transitions – especially Tuesday to Thursday mornings are best for increased answers as people work at emails.


Decide the aim expense according to the listing
In endorsing equipment hardware or software and online colloquiums to have fresh clients by opt-in email catalog leasing entirely, cost per registration (CPR) for an endorsement, a trade name visitor lecturer and original listing procedure is about $50-$100. The expense is an approximate. If your profit is around $300 each sale and you are close to 1 in 3 pointers in a sale, then the expense in each item will have a cost per acquisition (CPA) of $150-$300.


Increase turnout
The real produce pace in the records is around 40-60%. Then you require a plan to track people who listed but didn't come. Send an email some days after the event, with required links and a duplicate of the program and talk. Attach to it a free item test.

Present the particulars of the program; interrupted with 5-10 minute augmentation, and tell every presenter to guarantee people as to why they should come. Give motivations to register by a date, and data on abiding those reasons when people come to the webinar.

Hosting a Webinar




You need to choose a webinar hosting vendor that is compatible with several operating systems, is reliable and scalable. Consider vendors experienced in the most up-to-date techniques of polling, chat, application-sharing and recording. Opt-in email lists are provided along with webinar hosting by some vendors.

Some Webinar hosting vendors offer the chance to meet consultants as part of the package. The consultant can train you to conduct successful conferences and attend the webinar to deal with problems if and when they arise. So choose a meeting moderator to assist the speaker(s). Intercall is a vendor which provides trained moderators.

Host the webinar at least twice. That way you can accommodate all the time zones. Try to avoid Mondays and Fridays, as these are peak days and, as there are many conferences being held, attendance is likely to be low. Also try to start a quarter past the hour. Meeting usually end on the hour, so this allows your participants to relax a little. Try times like 10:00 a.m. or 2:00 p.m. as most participants are likely to be available at these times.

Invite industry experts to participate. Having a big brand partner will stimulate interest and may double or even triple attendance. You can also use sponsorships to expand your audience or defray promotional costs.

Join the conference early and ensure that everything is working. Set up a welcome slide to announce your meeting is about to start. Before it does, provide some information about the technical details. When each speaker begins, have him/her introduce themselves and add a picture and bio.

Don’t stuff too much information on your PowerPoint slides. And try to use other media as well. Include web-demos, flash, animation, etc. to capture your audience’s interest. Make it interactive by including polls at key points.

During registration, ask qualifying questions which allows you to gain insight about your audience. Tailor your presentation to suit the needs of the particular audience. Afterwards, ask them follow-up questions. The answers to these can provide necessary information to your sales people.
Record the webinar and post it for future consultation.

Create a library of your past conferences for your existing and potential customers. Recorded webinars and Q/A sessions can help you train new recruits and review customer input before launching a new product or before strategy sessions.

Send follow-up emails to the participants and review all feed back gathered from them.


The Best Servers




Since several users are gradually coming to terms with the capacity of employing web casting and online discussions for satisfying their requirements, be sure that these areas are developing fast.


Webcasting

Two methods are there for Webcasting. In active webcasts, torrent acoustics and videotapes are communicated by the newscaster’s video apparatus, into the PC of the spectators who are paying attention. It is well liked by media, and corporations who have to communicate with the clientele and users. A soundtrack webcast is generally accumulated on a server that is used by the consumers, when they want to see the series.

Several of those who create Internet conversation agenda and media procedures utilize a mixture of the two kinds of webcasts to get closer to users with their individual labors. Since both need a big quantity of bandwidth, the employment of a devoted server is compulsory if webcasting happens to be an integral part of the site.


Web Meetings

Web meetings function in the same way as an active webcast, technically, but it itself but has a totally dissimilar role. At a web meeting, several consumers meet and the consumers are simultaneously present, networking on the Web, very similar to what would have been done on a real meeting. Web meetings quite frequently happen at actual time, torrent video, with a web camera that works in everyone’s PC.

Then all users could share thoughts, employ images effects and observes the responses of people who they converse with at the meeting. This kind of online contact needs a very rich quantity of bandwidth, to transmit to all the consumers. This is only completed efficiently by employing the services of a devoted server.

Several of the globe's top worldwide corporations are today employing web networking for their trade reasons. This also lowers journey time and costs for both their own selves and their customers.

You have several kinds of functions for both web meetings and webcasts. It is influenced by the needs and wants of the web program and the target customers who have to appreciate it.

Starting from chat programs to videos giving directions, customer conferences to inspiration meetings, corporations who have an online presence could definitely have an appropriate utilization for all. You only need to have some amount of scientific knowledge, some grand thoughts and a devoted server to manage the work burden.

How Can Webinar Software Help You?




The times are changing, and changing fast. The days when a big company would hold a seminar in the conference room of a plush hotel, where attendance was by invitation only are long gone. This is the age of the webinar. Now, with the aid of the Internet, you can reach virtually anyone, anywhere in the world.

So, if you are based out of New York, and some of your potential invitees are in Washington, you ca actually reach out to them without their having to be physically present, through the webinar. The Internet, and consequently webinar software, have shrunk the world to the size of your office desktop.

Simple and cost effective, webinars offer multiple advantages. Firstly, you save on the cost of organizing a traditional seminar with invitees whose travel and stay is borne by the company. Secondly, webinar software is very easy to use and almost anyone can take full advantage of the many special features available. And finally, webinar software requires minimal initial investment, which again helps cut down costs.

Most webinar programs are quite comprehensive in the services they provide, and almost manage to mirror a traditional seminar. A webinar software can provide features like registration plans, delivering the webinar, recording it, toll-free conferencing calls, email services practice sessions and a comprehensive branding initiative to back everything up.

And the list goes on. So, as you can see, webinars are an excellent, feature-rich option that can make things convenient and cost-effective.

Now, compare this with all the preparation that goes into organizing a normal seminar. You will need to think about providing accommodation for attendees, arranging for their travel to the city and within it, booking space, making arrangements for the speakers, preparing handouts, and having all guests register manually.

Now, in all of this, imagine the amount of time and money that has been simply wasted—your employees’ time, your own time, and the time and cost of arranging everything.

With a webinar software, you can relegate such hassles to a bygone era, and move on to more efficient and convenient means like the webinar. You can broadcast right from your office, and no one else needs to leave his or her seat either!! Simply put, the advantages are many and the hassles few.

So, are you still planning to go with a traditional, expensive, time-consuming seminar in a hotel conference room, or will you do things the simpler, more wired way? The choice is yours, though the decision is probably already made.

How to Run a Successful Webinar




A webinar is basically a web conference with audio only, and is a good method of conducting meetings and training sessions, as well as introducing new products. A webinar is a good solution in any situation where people who are scattered all over the country, or world, need to share data. Some tips for running you r webinar smoothly follow.

When selecting a webinar service, you need to obtain one which supports the software you will use to share data. While most support PowerPoint or Word, if you’re using more sophisticated, ascertain that the webinar service is compatible.

A web conferencing provider can make sure your webinar goes without any hitches, and help you choose the requisite software. BuyerZone is a site where you can get connected to the best vendors, free of cost.

Technical problems that pop up at the very moment your presentation starts are extremely annoying, So you should try a practice webinar, preferably with a couple of colleagues, a day or so before the actual seminar. Though this will mean you pay rather a lot more, it’ll solve technical issues and give you some familiarity with the software.

If you’re the moderator, arrive early. This is as practical as it is polite. You should greet participants as they arrive, and being early also lets you ensure that the webinar is set up properly. On that note, ask first-time participants to arrive ahead of time as well.

Whether the people participating in your webinar are customers, employees or colleagues, you should respect their time. So create a schedule and stick to it. And if the discussion digresses, veer it back on track.

Webinar technology is great, but it’s still not like speaking face-to-face. Include less in your planned talk than you would if speaking in person, especially if you’re inexperienced.

A number of webinar providers allow you to archive at your presentation. So, if you’re a beginner, hunt up the file and watch it. It’ll help you self-assess the areas that require improvement, and judge where what the viewers received differed from what you thought you were providing.
Be prepared to answer some questions that aren’t about the topic of the webinar, but the technicalities involved—about installing plug-and-play devices, downloading the requisite software, etc.

However, stay focused on the topic; your service provider will give you a number to call if you face major technical issues.

How to Have a Winning Webinar?




An ingenuously designed Webinar can work wonders for you. As a profitable stratagem for marketing a product, a webinar increases sales leads to a massive extent. Let us give you some for an exceptional Webinar:

1. Devise a through plan. – Accommodating an agenda and timetable, a prospective mouthpiece and a means of registration in your plan is a must. You should also have a definite budget, endorsements and allow for workable metrics and carry the plan out.

2. Time it right – Choose a time when the maximum number of people will be able to attend for your own Webinar.

• Two weekdays just right for a Webinar is a Tuesday and a Wednesday. Neither is very close to the beginning or end of a week.
• For a Webinar on a nationwide scale select a time when people from various different time zones can view it together. The middle of an afternoon is best for this.

3. Endorsement – Don’t expect audiences to throng to your project in hordes. Chances are most don’t even know about it. You need to create awareness and interest through endorsements.

• Innovation is appreciated. Try out different types of advertisements and agencies to see what makes people tick.

• Networking is important. Authorize prospective audience members to invite others when you converse with them.

4. Carefully examine how your target audience-members’ minds’ work and devise a plan that will best market your product accordingly.

5. Your Webinar cannot be the result of nothing – Your plans to promote and sell must accommodate the Webinar.

6. Grab the viewers’ attention – Your spokesperson will have to combat the combined evils of the Internet, Emails, telephones, and etc.

• Consult your entire staff from the Marketing department.
• The content must be educational and your spokesperson should be able to put it across well.
• Carefully consider any information or help the sales department has to offer.

7. Carry out opinion polls – This makes you understand the preferences of your viewers. To know more about the character, whims and fancies of your audience, you only need to utilize the Webinar properly.

8. Rehearse well and prepare for the worst case scenario – Make sure your spokesperson is well-trained since speaking in real life and speaking at a Webinar are different from each other.

9. Remember – The spokesperson should have a copy of the contents in their speech with him. Only landlines should be used along with headsets.

Do a final run-through before the presentation to make sure there aren’t any technical glitches or equipment malfunctions. In the final rehearsal you must consider:

• What to do if you lose access to the net or if the audio device malfunctions
• The timing and arrangement of the Webinar
• Q & A
• Technical devices for a web conference

10. Use the Registration process to your advantage – You can discover more about a user when they register themselves. Thus you can discover their likes and dislikes through this. Emails sent for this purpose must contain options to download blank paper and demos.

Keep in mind - the registration should be more mechanized and automatic. Your metrics should be able to recover each frame of the process and retain these.

11. Pick a reliable dealer for your web conference – Though you may be spoilt for choice regarding these make sure to pick one which will be able to fix glitches easily and swiftly and regulate heavy volumes.

12. Always regard and respect the viewers – Aggressive marketing policies don’t have any takers. Your viewers come to you hoping you may solve their problems. A more muted yet efficient policy is best.

Webinar Mistakes




Webinar basically refers to a web based seminar. A webinar is mostly a one-way conference where a presenter puts forward his/her point to a limited audience. The people involved in this virtual meeting can access it by using a URL or even through a downloaded program.

Judging by the concept of a webinar, it is quite evident that its foundation is the World Wide Web. Some of the important applications used in webinars are Adobe Acrobat Connect, Microsoft Office Live Meeting, IBM Lotus Sametime and WebEx.

There are quite a number of hitches of a webinar.

Since the medium is virtual, interaction between the different members of the meeting is restricted to webcams and/or television screens. Each individual needs to have access to the electronic media to participate in such a meeting.

This can be inconvenient in some cases, where someone is not equipped adequately with the latest technological advancements. Also an excellent and dependable internet connection is probably the primary requisite.

Taking on from the previous point, one has to remember the cost borne by every participant in a webinar. Internet connection, laptops or personal computer, webcams, T.V. screens and particular software applications are some of the requisites of a successful webinar.

Also, if everyone has to remain fixed in front of some sort of screen or camera to interact with each other, it becomes cumbersome, and also hampers presentation of matter. Social interaction involves body language, voice module and other subtle human behavior which is compromised with, since most participants will not be physically present in the same place.

Sometimes superficiality takes over, and participants of the meeting are more concerned about their appearance on camera than the matter under concern.

Since the entire activity is dependent on gadgets and technology, the chances of a complete system crash has a good probability. And once that happens, not only is there a chance of data being lost (say, during transfer of data essential to the meeting in progress), the webinar itself has to be called off until the problem is fixed.

Lastly, if any of the participating members want to “walk out” of the meeting, all they need to do is switch their camera off! That can be quite annoying, and there is little the others can do about it.

Marketing Your Virtual Event




A significant portion of the marketing and publicity budget for any company is taken up by the hosting of trade shows, seminars and other such events. While such events are undoubtedly an important component of any advertising plan, they are very expensive proposition. But small business owners need not be deterred by this as technology comes to their rescue.

Often, you can get the same exposure and market penetration by hosting online events, known as webinars. While webinars will often take as much thought and planning as a conventional event, it does help cut down costs significantly. A little extra effort will help you reap the rich rewards of virtual conferences, while taking you out to an audience that you could never hope to reach before.

Virtual events have a number of advantages, primarily in the form of reduced costs and more effective use of the time of both, the guests as well as the speakers, and possible options for replaying the seminar for those who could not attend the live presentation. Here are a few tips to ensure the success of your virtual event:

Design a clear-cut event plan with precise strategies to meet your primary objectives.
Try and rope in some partners and sponsors who will not only help with funding but also draw higher participation for the event.

Choose a good webinar service provider. A good organizer will help you schedule dates and take care of other nitty-gritty’s.

Choose a date carefully so that it does not clash with holidays or major events. Find out about other industry events that might be going on close to your event date and don’t organize your event when most employees and potential attendees would be busy with their annual budgeting and planning cycles.

Develop a strong working plan to draw traffic for your event. It is advisable to start some amount of up-front marketing to pull audiences up to 60 days before the event. You should design an email newsletter that you can mail to all potential guests. Also, start contacting your potential speakers early and stay in touch, so that you get a date and the person keeps it.

Design a program that will be interesting and can hold attention. Don’t waste the employees’ time with mundane content. They have a number of distractions like the phone and email when they are watching a webinar, and their attention is likely to wander during a boring presentation.
Develop a strategy to ensure live participation and interaction during the event.
Use the event to generate marketing data and then use it in future analysis.

Finally, conduct a thorough returns-on-investment analysis to gauge the efficacy of your event.
Once you are able to nail these few basics, you can be sure of hosting a successful event that will hold audience interest and make them appreciate your efforts to utilize their time well.

Unleash the Power of Ad Tracking

Testing and Tracking Your Business




Before you launch your first advertisement or campaign, before you address your first email, you need to find answers to two very important queries.

Who is your target market?

What makes them buy or sign up with an organization?

The fastest as well as least expensive method for you to find out your answer to these questions is through testing and tracking.


Testing

The intention behind testing is to increase the rate of response to your campaign or offer. For example, you could compose a sales letter and try out different headers for the advertisement. Often a good header can make all the impact that is needed.

Many marketers have had their sales raised by almost 200% just because they altered their headlines. Even if your product yields steady and profitable sales, you should always test and experiment. A slight change can alter your measures from steady to overflowing!


Tracking

You must always keep a record of whatever you do in your business, not only of your profit and expenses, but also your promotional and publicity campaigns.

Let us presume you are conducting the campaign for an E-zine advertisement. The most important information that you need to keep track of are:

· Where you placed the campaign including the name of the E-zine and the date the campaign was launched

· How many subscribers the E-zine has

· Your expenses

· The number of responses the advertisement brought— once you divide this into your cost you will know how much you paid for each reaction.

· The number of sign ups you have achieved as a result of your efforts
· Name, phone number and email address for the E-zine

· The URL of the advertisement you utilized. This terribly important if you promote more than one business

· Any comments or notes that catch your attention— you should retain them, they come in handy later.

· Headlines used in the advertisement

You could also keep trace of other more significant details depending on how thorough you are willing to be. The main thing is to study the numbers. Some ads may invoke great interest but if the interest does not extend to the product and no one buys it, then your profit is zero.

Other ads may produce a handful of click-throughs but they normally generate more sign ups. It is evident that the second ad is the better one.

You may also use other forms of advertising, for example a pay per click program, and it is absolutely essential that you keep an eye on those numbers at all times. Develop a spreadsheet on Microsoft Excel or best, write it down.

Every cent you need to spend on the marketing should be tracked continuously so that you don’t waste precious funds on profitless issues.

Also, if you have prospective clients, make sure you keep in touch. They might not be aware of your address. You must absolutely maintain tracks for all your prospects.

Do not undervalue the power of testing and tracking. If you follow these steps, you will be aware at all times of where and when you’re making money online.

Never Do Business without a Tracking System




All high-performance business enterprises require tracking systems. A tracking system with well-devised coordinates allows everyone to know how well they are maintaining their duties. It helps people evaluate the need for extra or superior actions if and when required.

It should be the primary thing you establish when you begin your business coaching clients because without a lucid set of aims it is difficult for people to be sure about what ends they have to achieve.

Chalk out objectives for your business, configure the necessary means for attaining success, assign appropriate levels for each and then set performance aims for them.

Let’s assume your interest lies in increasing market penetration. The scale for comparing is your venture’s sales divided by the total number of sales in you market. If your market share turns out to be 10% that is a good thing and implies that your next aim should be to reach 25% before the year is over.

A measurable objective is always attainable.

You must always make someone answerable for your project’s performance against each target.
You need to develop a timely tracking system for each metric which will collect the required information.

Create a routine for periodic interim performance objectives and a reporting interface so that everyone involved can know how they are doing.

The tracking system can be maintained on paper or automated on your computer system. Whichever way you implement the tracking system, ensure that it retains simplicity and that you don’t need to spend too much time worrying about it.

Given below is an example for remarkable less troublesome method of tracking page output. Even while the user was writing faster than the speed of change, the system had no problem in tracking the work on its own. The system was on a computer spreadsheet but could just as easily have been pencil on graph plotting paper. Whenever the user was below the line, he was reminded by the tracking system that he had work pending.
You should begin with 0 in the lower left corner, write units of measurement along the left axis and dates of measurements taken along the bottom axis.

Next you must draw a straight reference line from 0 to your target and then plot your performance against that target. Of course the crookedness or straightness of the line isn’t of primary importance. You must ensure that it perfectly reflects the time-length relationships of your targets.

Evaluate Your Online Ad’s Response




Of all the things a marketer has to do, keeping track of the results of the advertisements he endorses is of utmost importance. It is usually seen that in the direct marketing industry, marketers call for responses and links them directly to his mailbox. This enables him to take account of the feedback he receives so that he is aware of the results of his online ads. Thus he is able to tell which ads work, which headlines catch attention and which products sell. In the online marketing world gathering and evaluating the responses to your advertisements are as important as the quality of the advertisements itself. For when you know which of your ads work better and how well they work you can improve your advertisements and capitalize better on them and maximize your profits. When you find out that an advertisement did not have the required impact you can obviously make changes aimed at improving it. You can change the headlines, ad copies, graphics or layout and then put the advertisement to the test again. If you find that there is a problem with the medium that is being used, then get rid of it from your campaign, altogether. It is good idea to test your ads on a smaller scale before launch the ad in a full-fledged campaign. This is a method used by all how successful marketers. Keeping track of your ad results provides another benefit, which is that you can confirm whether the publisher has kept and delivered his part of the deal completely, especially if you are paying on a per-click basis. There are various ways through which you can track online ads and one of the most basic methods is to measure clickthrough, i.e. the number of many people who have clicked on your advertisement. Another useful method is to measure the conversion ratio. But for starters measuring clickthrough should suffice. Here I am outlining two methods of tracking clickthroughs:
CGI Scripts
This is strictly for those who have access to your own CGI directory. You can use LnkinLite, a small but powerful CGI script keeps count of the number of tracks clicks to your site and shows them in the background. Get it at http://www.dtp-aus.com/cgiscript/lnkinlte.shtml While LinkinLite according to me is the best free click-tracking software that you can use, you might also consider another CGI script called Prolinkz. (http://www.prolinkz.com ) It also must be said here that the software will cost you $45.


Online Tracking Services
Online tracking services calculate the clickthroughs by means of their own servers. These services are usually available free of cost although some versions might need monthly fees and requires you to upgrade the software regularly to avail advanced features.
Here is a list of free online click tracking services:
Hypertracker http://www.hypertracker.com Linkcounter http://www.linkcounter.com Here are the paid ones: Statcruncher http://www.Statcruncher.com Adminder http://www.adminder.com Roibot http://www.roibot.com The clickthrough rate for banner ads usually range from 0.5% to 3.0%, for E-zine ads they range from 3.0% to 5.0%, and if you can place the text links strategically the range is between 1.5% to 10.0% Whatever the method you choose to use for tracking advertisement results, it is very important that you keep in mind the primary objective which is tracking and evaluating these results. It is one of the basic and most crucial steps to marketing success!

Ad Tracking Is Essential To Run A Successful Online Business




Internet offers a wide variety of methods and means to advertise your product or services. It is important to have a clear idea of these advertisement campaigns to increase the productivity as well as accessibility of your product.

Online marketing requires certain skills which you need to acquire before you enter the business. Through advertising you are not only promoting the product but also getting in touch with a target audience.

There are several software that cater to the needs of online marketers and ad tracking software is one among those. Ad tracking software can be used for advertising purposes as it tracks the sources from which the customers have accessed your product.

It also helps you in finding out the different kinds of search engines that have been used by the customers to find out more about the product. When you start the advertising campaign you should also keep in mind the end results. Ad tracking software can be used to verify the results of your campaign.

Based on these results you can analyze the whole program and incorporate the necessary changes. If there is a particular ad design that has attracted the attention of more audience you can format your campaign accordingly. The selling of the product demands a very efficient campaigning system as this immediately brings you in contact with the customers. You also need to sharpen your marketing as well as Internet skills to enhance your campaigning business.

You can display the product using pop-ups, emails, articles, and newsletters. The results would help you find out whether the business is making profit or not. You can also display your product on prominent sites that are often visited by users of the Internet.

If you are using other sites to promote your product you should make sure that you are using the right kind of format and the appropriate keywords so that the audience will not only be tempted to click on the ad but also directly access your services. It is advisable to buy an ad tracking software as this would help you throughout the business from the beginning to the end.

You should also concentrate on the different aspects of the campaigning business so that you don’t falter at any step. The software should be put to maximum effect to produce favorable results and this would guarantee success to a great extent.

Ad-Tracking: A Boon to Web Business




Ad-tracking may be defined as constant in-market research that evaluates a particular brand’s performance in the online market. If you have a web-business it is almost essential nowadays to take recourse to online ad-tracking to monitor your brand’s performance.

Ad-tracking is also intimately associated with affiliate marketing, in which a business (or a brand) rewards one or more affiliates for each visit by a potential customer that the affiliate site brings about. As a web-business holder it is important for you to choose the right tracking method, most suitable for your business.

Among the most important tracking methods are:-

· The hit counter - A program which records the number of “hits” or visitors a particular page has received. It is ideal for people who only want to know how many times a particular page/site has been visited. However, the information is, of course, limited.

· Direct URL Tracking - An effective method to record evaluates immediate sales. It cannot, however, track users who came to your site through a particular affiliate and visited back later to make a purchase. It is a good method to track sales, but mostly useful if you have a single-page website for business. It however entails a higher risk of link piracy.

· Cookie tracking - HTTP cookies or Tracking cookies are parcels of text sent by a particular server to a browser (usually a client) and sent back unchanged to the server each time the client accesses that server. They are easy to read in any form. The referral stored from the affiliate’s link in a cookie gets stored in the orders page of the business site and therefore it is also easier to send commissions to the affiliate who refers the site. Therefore, since later purchases from a particular browser can also be tracked, the affiliate can consequently be rewarded for the later purchases of the customer/client as well.

· CGI/ URL Tracking - Perl or JavaScript enabled method. It serves as an alternative to cookie tracking (for users who have disables cookies for example). It tracks the Visitor from the affiliate site onwards to the orders page of the business/brand site. The affiliate Id is usually embedded in the URL string and is passed on to the next page URL.

· Self-Replicated pages - Affiliates create templates provided by the brand’s website and is stored in the merchant’s directory.

Several tracking methods are out there for successful evaluation of sales for your particular requirements.


Hit Counters




For those who want to know if their website is getting enough traffic/hits, it is very important to track the website’s traffic. It also provides useful information on online marketing. One of the many ways to track online visitors is by using a hit counter. This is a computer program that records the number of hits, or visitors, that a particular web page has received. Every time the web page is accessed in a web browser, these counters will be incremented by one.

With a high-quality hit counter, the web page owner can access accurate statistical data on the activity of the page. It is thus possible to perform a more extended analysis of the overall traffic to find out whether the right kind of visitors (random or targeted traffic) are visiting the page.

Since they require a minimal level of input form the user, hit counters are easy to install and use. They are regarded as a very useful tool by both business-oriented and non-profit online resources.
Therefore, hit counters are used widely on the Internet these days, thanks to their many benefits.

Every hit counter contains numbers, which are displayed in plain text, or as an inline digital image. Though a classic example is the wheels of an odometer, images may be displayed in a diversity of styles and fonts. The hit counter usually displays the date it was set up on or last reset, because it otherwise becomes impractical to guess the time period within which the number of counted page loads occurred.

Trustworthiness is a problem when it comes to web counters. They may not all be 100% reliable. Some webmasters use a traffic generator to increase their hits automatically; others start the counter at a high number to give the impression that the site is more popular than it actually is.

Hit counters are becoming increasingly popular because they are free – all one needs to do is login and select the counter of choice. They are also easy to install, simply copying and pasting the HTML code into the web page results in the counter’s installation.

Therefore, getting a free hit counter is an important step to market one’s website. There are many resources available to effectively help track a website’s statistics, and for a beginner it always helps to know where one’s traffic is coming from. Best of all, it’s free! So go get your hit counter today!

Conversion Tracking




If you are an existing Google Adwords user, then you are likely to already know the importance of tracking your conversions and knowing exactly where these are being generated from. While subscribing to a PPC advertising service, you pay depending on the actual number of clicks your ad receives.

This system has the added advantage that you can integrate it with a Conversion Tracking feature which enables you to track precisely which keywords are generating your productive traffic and which others just lead to unproductive or unconverted clicks.

Your conversion rate is simply a ratio or percentage of the number of people who undertook a designated action on your website (like buying your product, or subscribing to your newsletter, etc) from amongst the total number of visitors to your site, or the total number of clicks on your ad. You can then use your conversion rate to evaluate your relative performance.

For instance, a 1% conversion rate is the usual rate for advertisers who have just launched a sale or subscription campaign; however, attaining even a 10% conversion rate remains rather possible.

Setting up your own conversion tracking system enables you to learn which of your keywords are doing better and also which of your ads is actually performing well and contributing to your profits. To achieve the best results from your campaign, your keywords, ads and your landing page must all be designed to reinforce each other and moreover they must be suitably inter-connected with links and directions.

There are many different factors which are critical for your high conversion rate, and you should be in a position to be able to clearly identify the exact contribution of each factor, the inter-relations among them and all the several means of controlling them so as to improve your conversion rates.

For instance, the main title and the attached description of your ad is highly influential in determining your conversions, so you need to be very careful when planning their content.

So, if you want to sell a product on your landing page and are trying to direct traffic there through Adwords, it would be necessary for you to target and hook your prospects by mentioning in your ad the price of the product and something else about the utility of the product along with the fact that you are selling it.

Unless you can make a visitor think about making the purchase from you, you are likely to waste your clicks and lower your conversion rate to something like one sale for every 200-250 clicks; similarly, if you happen to be using improper keywords or ad layout.

No matter what your product or your ad, conversion tracking helps you to easily find out the efficiency and utility of your campaigns, and regulate your business according to your requirements.

Learn About Several Ad Tracking Software




The growth of e-commerce has led to the inevitable growth of online marketing, which has become an unavoidable and necessary tool for the e-companies. If you want to increase the reach to a larger number of consumers, you have to employ many online advertising gimmicks. But how can you find out which of the online advertisements do really work and which of them don't?

The ad tracking program will help you to understand the comparative advantage of each online campaign. You can not possibly work without this tracking mechanism, because you have to constantly try out various kinds and sources of advertisements to make them effective, that is drawing greater amount of traffic to your website, where consumers can come to know about your product and also make some purchase.

How does this ad tracking device function? To trace the performance of all your advertisements, you have to just put the 'tracking' URL given by the ad tracking program in your advertisement. When a person reads your ad on an E-zine, for instance XYZ, and clicks on the tracking URL, which has been placed in this E-zine, the visitor will be taken to your website and the ad tracking system will register that the click came from that particular E-zine.

There are generally two kinds of ad tracers. The first type is tracking software and the second is tracking service. This tracking software primarily follows the mechanism described previously. It enables you to generate specific web address for each campaign.

In the event that one is using ad tracking software, the visitor can not directly go to your website but their browser goes through a program installed in the web server, an additional counter is created for that address and then only the browser reaches your page.

The tracking software will enable you acquire all the stats via your browser any time with complete details. With the help of this software, it is possible to create more than one tracker. The software will help you find the ROI (return on investment) of your pay per click listings. This will also help yield results on the operations of the auto responders, exit pop-ups, article, affiliate, E-book and reciprocal links, and newsletter, banner and off-line ads.

The use of this software means one time investment. One has to install it only once and it keeps on servicing one for years. One does need some minimum technical knowledge to deal with its installation process. If one is not confident of installing it oneself, the software company can also install it in one’s website for a minimal fee. The tracking URLs carry your own domain name in case you are using an ad tracking software.

There are specific benefits of using the ad tracking software. If you are using software, you need not rely on any another service provider company. Reliance on service provider can make one handicapped in certain situations, for example when their site has a problem or the company shuts off etc.
When one uses the software it requires your site to provide many other system resources like disk space for program and tracking files and so on. Later if there is program up gradations, this software needs re-installation.

Ad Tracking and Budget




Tracking your advertisements, i.e. knowing how your traffic is being generated and where it’s coming from is crucial to your online business. But after preparing and uploading your web advertisement, how do you test its actual efficacy?

How do you assess the whether the ad program contributes significantly to your traffic or converts clicks to sales? How can you gauge what your ROI is? The only answer is by having an effective tracking system in place that enables you to track your ads even over multiple campaigns.

Use a first-rate Service - Don't Settle for a Freebie Ad Tracker!
Don’t compromise on quality and settle for the free ad tracker that allows you to only track one little ad. The free account can only provide you with a faint foretaste of the real difference that quality ad tracking makes to your business.

Only when you upgrade to the real service would it be actually effective, especially if you are running multiple products, services and programs promotions. You have the option of even integrating the ad tracking with your regular system, and you can then keep track of each of your ads and promotional materials.
To find ad tracker services over the Internet, simply search using the keywords ‘ad tracker’ and follow up. If you however, own a website for products/services, it is better to use an automatic e-business system having integrated ad tracking facilities. This allows you to track whatever you want, without any limit to the kind and number of trackers you can activate. You can even track your expenses, which makes calculating the ROI for each of your campaigns that much simpler.

Label Your Ad Trackers For Lightning Fast Reference!
Remember to label each of your trackers with the exact name of the campaign for increased efficiency and facility of referencing later on. With the labels in place you can tell at a glance the respective and relative performances for each one of the campaigns, and allocate resources accordingly. You will know which of your ads is successful, or which affiliate is doing well; you can then decide which ad sites you would like to contribute to again, which ads you should keep running etc.

Use Ad Tracking to Rescue Your Ad Budget
Try and choose an ad tracking service that allows you to also track your ad expense, called expense tracking. This permits you to know your Return On Investment (ROI) against every ad campaign you invest in. The ad tracker service you select should clearly show you the details regarding your visitors, orders, sales, conversion percentage, expenses, profit, etc.

If it doesn’t you are clearly missing out on a real advantage which can boost your sales, make your investments more efficient and streamlined, identify the advertising mediums best suited to your needs and even help you control your advertising budget.

How Can Ad Tracking Increase Your Profits




As a marketer you might often wonder how to gain knowledge about the effectiveness of an advertising campaign. The trick is to keep track of the responses that you get for each of the ads you run.

Irrespective of the place you operate, be it a retail store, a service business, a mail order operation, or an Internet marketing business, this is a method that can help you evaluate how successful your advertising is.


Which Publications Produce Profits?

In order to understand which publications produce profits here are few things you can do:
When you have new customers visiting or calling you over the phone, you can ask them about how they got to you. Hence you will know whether they found you through your yellow pages ad or your newspaper ad.

You can also keep a record of the responses and resulting sales from each ad. You can then compare and analyze whether each particular advertisement is producing the desired results.
Once an advertisement helps bring in revenues consistently, keep running it. On the other hand, if an advertisement continues to fare poorly, not bringing enough profits or at worst producing losses stop it immediately.

It is easier in mail order as you can key each ad such that the resulting sales from each publication can be measured.

For example, a random marker, say, "Dept. A" can be added to your name or address in an ad to indicate the issue of a particular magazine you have advertised in. If "Dept. A" is for the July issue then "Dept. B" can be used for the August issue of the same magazine. Another marker, say "Dept. C" can be used to indicate the July issue of a different magazine.

Thus, you can track the response and sales made from each advertisement as orders start coming in. And from that information, the effectiveness of each ad in every publication and the amount of profit it brings in can be determined.


Which Ads Produce Profits?

The benefits of ad tracking extends beyond determining which publications are more effective in producing profits, it also helps you to measure the profitability of the ads themselves.

After you have changed an ad, the feedback you get should show is this is consistently performing better or worse than the previous one. You can take then take the required action depending on this data and either continue or discontinue the advertisement.

Experts will tell you to change one thing at a time in any advertisement.

For example, when you change the price, do not change the headline. This is recommended because otherwise, it is hard to determine whether the difference in results was due to the changed price or the changed headline. Especially while testing an ad for the first time, for greater certainty, only one element should be changed at one go.

When on the Internet, tracking software and services can be used to determine the source of your sales and the general effectiveness of your ads, the quality of the article writing, and other activities.

So, in the end it is recommended that irrespective of where you operate, be it a retail store, a service business, a mail order operation, or an Internet marketing business, always use ad tracking for increased profits.

Double Your Online Income with Ad Tracking




There is an old saying in the world of Internet marketing that the people who are learning the business learn a bit too late that you cannot possibly improve what you cannot measure. This is especially true in case of tracking and measuring the traffic that comes to your website.

If you want to be a successful Internet marketer you need to find and install the tools necessary for doing this task since after all it is the people who visit the site who are the lifeline of it. The way to track and measure the traffic is called ad tracking.

You need to understand the basics of ad tracking to realize the value of the process. To use ad tracking to its fullest capacity, unique tracking routes can be created for each traffic source like the banner ads, PPC ads, and email newsletters and so on. When the traffic comes to your website via the provided link, it will come up on the visitor statistics or tracking dashboard.

Getting traffic to your website is an easy task. The difficult part is to earn money by making people visit your website. Not all traffic is the same. What you will be looking for is the targeted traffic, people who are really interested in what you have to offer, down to the very last detail. These are the people who will be your buyers and help you make your money.

Two components that are an integral part of the process of making money through the website are amount of traffic and value of traffic. The higher percentage of targeted traffic you have and the more traffic that you have which is more specifically targeted to your niche, the more amount of money you are going to make.

The value of the traffic is determined by the percentage of the traffic that is making a purchase. This implies that you have to track the source of your traffic to determine its value. This can be done with the help of conversion and tracking software applications that can be connected to your website.

Using an Ad Tracker is the Key to an Affiliate Marketer




Remember all those annoying pop-up advertisements that open on their own when we visit certain websites? Most of us are used to ignoring them, or closing the window with an angry mouse click. However, those pop-ups are one of the most important media of online advertisements.

Affiliate marketing is an online advertisement structure that uses online ads as part of their business campaign.

In the language of Economics, the market consists of a seller and a buyer. In this case, the seller approaches the affiliate marketer to assist him in marketing his product to his consumers. This structure is known as affiliate marketing.

Traders prefer affiliate marketing because they don’t need to bear any other cost other than cost of setup until the method reaps revenue. Amazon.com is such an example. One can use applications like mpa3 to satisfy his own affiliate marketing.

However, this form of advertising can be fruitless unless is tracked well enough. Without an ad-tracker marketers would not know the result of their ads. If they are successful in attracting customers to the products concerned, then they are duly rewarded by the seller.

An ad-tracker is an application that enables the individual who has posted the ad to have an idea of the effectiveness of an ad. It can be used to find the number of responses to online ads, revenue out of such campaigns and which webpage is most responded to. The required data is presented statistically. Date, time and Inter Service Provider addresses, download access estimate, and editing of tracking links can be made with the help of an ad tracker.

Depending on the type of product, an ad tracker can track the ad without a break, or it can do it within specific time intervals known as ‘pulse’. It measures the combined effect of the spending level and the marketing target.

Advertisements can be tracked both through the telephone and the Internet. The data is used in Marketing Mix Models that formulate the benefit of the investment made on the ad.

It is important to know the tools of success to be able to do affiliate marketing effectively. The best part of this form of advertising is that it can be done from home, and the business holds a high return. The ad should be attractive enough for the customer to bother clicking on the window in the middle of other online activities. The campaign should be simple, and demand monosyllabic responses.

· “Have you ever used Product X?”
· “If not, what have you used instead”
· “Are you satisfied with its value for money?”
· “State your personal opinion briefly to help us serve you better.”

These are some ways of deriving an idea of the effect of the product being advertised. An ad tracker gives an affiliate all the relevant information to discern the same. Also, it estimates the changes required in the advertisement to improve its effects. Once an affiliate marketer succeeds in bringing customers to the seller, his job is done.

The Benefits of Advertisement Tracking Services




If you have a product on your hands, which you think might transform the face of the world, chances are- you have often sought for an avenue that would help you publicize it. In fact, the only way people could access your product, or gain knowledge about it, is through property advertisement and publicity.

The product might be indeed a miracle, yet it needs to be in public sight for it to be a success. It is your responsibility to market this properly. What you ideally need is campaigning that reaches the general people.

Recent market studies suggest that almost 30 percent of commercial proceeds are exhausted on advertising campaigns. If you are spending a lump sum amount of money for the ad campaigns, then it is natural that you shall be worried about the success rate of these campaigns.

To rest your mind on this topic, resort to tracking these advertisement campaigns which shall inform you about the success rate immediately. This is perhaps the only way to determine the popularity, and verify the performance of your extensive campaigns.

This is an innovative and fresh way to boost up your sales. If your product comes into the public gaze, then half of the work is done. It is not always about great designing and spending lavishly on your campaigns. A lot of market research has to be done before launching that expensive project, otherwise it might just sink!

Ad tracking services will guide you about the initial promotional responses from the masses and you could change your campaign accordingly. This is because you get feedback 24x7 due to this unique service.

You can either hire an ad tracking corporation to acquire the ad tracking services for your trade or you can integrate this particular ad tracking software within your website. The ad tracking reveals to you whether the advertisement is working wonders for your website and product, or whether it is not working the way you envisaged it would work.

With the help of certain tools, this software can tract every action of the ad on your website. According to responses, you can shift the position of your ad.

The feedback that you get is these. You get to know about the visitors to your website, the number of clicks on your commercial banner, about all the registrations to your website, as well as the number of sales of that particular product you wish to market.

Ad tracking informs you exactly about the figure of people visiting your website. All of this helps you to figure out the decisions you need to take to boost up your sales.

As for obtaining these services, they are accessible at a monthly fee of $50. The payment might also stretch till $67. Some web hosts provide customers with these services for free.



Adjust Your Marketing Strategy with the Help of Ad Metrics




The practice of keeping a track on the impressions of end-users and compiling data on web trends and user habits is known as Advertising metrics. Nielsen ratings and Nielsen boxes are used for doing ad tracking for television.

It is important for advertisers and marketing people to know what works and what doesn’t. This helps them to come up with effective advertising strategies so that they don’t end up spending money on fruitless campaigns. This is where ad metrics come in.

On the Internet, ad metrics is done by using different software as tools so that the user can keep a tab on the people visiting his/her site. This allows the webmaster to determine which campaigns have been successful and which have failed.

Advertising managers contain detailed information about the users including:

1. Where the user came from
2. Which page they left from
3. The link they use to leave a particular site.
4. This helps a webmaster to focus on his traffic generation better. It also enables him to zero in on specific ideas as far as advertising and marketing are concerned.
5. A wide range of ad metric tools on the Internet allows the webmaster to get additional information about the user, such as:
6. The kind of web browser used by the user
7. The operating system used by the user and still more information.

The best part about web advertising metrics is, it even lets you know which key words or phrases a browser used to get to your site. They can determine which key words or phrases are popular on a particular search engine, be it Google, Yahoo or Alta Vista. Once a webmaster is aware of the particular words or phrases used to reach his site, he can utilize the keywords or phrases (that already exist on the site), so that more people can visit his site.

A webmaster can use advertising metrics to gather information about the visitors such as, what kind of Internet vehicle brings them to a particular site, whether it is a link from another site , or as a result of a Google search or an image site. It is significant to know if a user landed up from an image site because sites which these sites convert poorly. It’s a good idea to know about the goings on of the traffic on your site and an ad metrics is the best way of finding out.