Smart Marketing Habits

Jim Edward’s multi-media blog this morning had a wonderful post on some cool new Firefox plug ins that really help with productivity. One in particular caught my eye and my energy: It’s called Speed Dia l . I got super excited on this one - because - this plug in - combined with a program I already use now - RoboForm makes moving around from site to site - a snap.

The best part of this - is that I can now - run a sequence of checking emails, membership sites, and blogs in an order from my Speed Dial page. It’s quick, it’s efficient - and more than anything else - it gives me a visual map of where I am going to.

T he Product: Speed Dial for Firefox 2.0

The Marketing Blurb: "With Speed Dial, you can easily access your most used websites"

The Product Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4810

My Experience: Super Duper!

The Marketer: Mark Joyner

The Marketing Blurb: "I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog"

What it is: A multi-media blogging training course

What it does: Supplies blogging techniques, how to drive traffic to your blog and how to monetize your blog

Product Link: http://www.simpleology.com/training/blogging/

My Experience: Mark Joyner is giving free access to this "Blogging for Fun and Profit" course in exchange for folks mentioning in their blogs - An interesting concept in the way it gets folks to take action towards success. For anyone who doesn’t know Mark - He has some very effective course ware called Simpleology that helps folks to take more effective action towards their goals. In this case, Mark is asking folks to evaluate the product for free - in exchange for links to their product squeeze page. At first glance - this seems like a new-to-me tactic to help them increase page ranking - back links etc. The way Mark is doing this - might indeed be a very good way to create some "viral action" on this blogging training course.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

Here are the details they ask you to post on your blog in exchange for the course:

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

It’s good to be clear on what you are looking for in a virtual assistant before hiring one. For example, there is a distinction between looking for a VA that can be an extension of your brand and one that is doing strictly admin tasks and working on information technology tasks. They have different skill sets. You will also find that a lot of VA’s specialize in a couple different areas.

Here are some online sources of Virtual Assistants:

www.getfriday.com -Overseas assistance - lower cost
www.ivaa.org - virtual Assistant Networking Association
www.virtualassitanceu.com - you can submit a request for proposal and receive info from many different VA’s in training.
www.vacertification.com

Google " Virtual Assistant Training" and you will get a few options - and your biggest assistance would to be to ask for a referral from someone. The very best way to find an excellent VA is to ask for and get referrals.

Expect to pay 30-60/hr and to commit to a retainer for Virtual Assistants.

Here are a couple of Virtual Assistants I have been referred to:’
Virtual Accurracy
http://www.victoriabusinesssolutions.com/
www.assistu.com
deborahc@vascorp.com or her phone number is 905-474-0955.
Peggy Murrah. peggy@onepagewebdesign.com

The Marketer: Henry Gold, Steve Yakim, Heri Rosyadi, Claudia Moncalvo Beltran

The Marketing Blurb: “Get Access to 77 + High Quality Products worth over 15,895.97 for Free”

The Giveaway Dates: Nov 2007 - 12Dec2007 (Gifts must be downloaded by 12Dec2007)

The Link: 117 WorkatHome Gifts

What it is: Give a way - with back end offers for each of the free give away products

My experience: If you want your freebies, some of which are original products in this promo, you need to “opt-in to each one to get them. You will also be offered OTO (back end offers which you are free to decline) You have the option to browse and just request those that most interest you and you have the option of staying subscribed to the marketers list - or unsubscribe at anytime. If you are organized in your email system - these give aways can be an effective way to pick up tools of need.  I did notice a couple of the links are already broken - so I would definately get your gifts soon.

The Marketer: VistaPrint

The Marketing Blurb: "VistaPrint is the easy design and print solution chosen by more than 11 million people worldwide."

What it Does: Anything from Business cards, Corporate Identity items, promotional pieces, return address labels and stamps etc.

The Product Link: VistaPrint

My Experience: If you have been around a while - you’ve probably seen the ads from VistaPrint for 250 free cards and that has prompted you to take a look at some of their templates - and if you are like me - you have probably wanted something more unique and creative.

Something that not many folks know is that you have the option of putting your own business card design in to the online system - and have your cards, brochures or whatever printed. You can do it all yourself if you have a good handle on good design, graphics and branding - or better still - outsource it and then when you get the file back from the designer you can upload it into vista print. Just give your designer the VistaPrint template to work from.

The process is easy to do - easy to follow and at the end you get a very professional product. For example with the business cards, great card stock, coating, cutting and colours make for a great image supported by these cards.

I like to remember that if folks are like me - the save business cards - I have a collection of them from the 80’s that I still refer too.