The Income Streams Site

Copyright (c) 2008 Acey Gaspard
A Touch Of http://Business.com”
http://www.atouchof business. com

Finding a product to market takes effort and several defined
steps. You could go after the wrong product and end up with a failing business.

I’ll discuss my view on this subject and if you take the advice,
then you’ll be headed in the right direction and find something
fulfilling to put your time and effort into.

Doing what you love to do will dramatically increase your chances
of success. Don’t waste your time and effort on something that’s not for you.

Alex loves computers; he can talk about them all-day. He keeps up with the latest trends and technologies. Computers are his
passion. Alex has a successful career in selling computers. He’s
doing something he loves. He could market computers with little
effort and he could go nonstop because of his passion for
computers. Alex is blessed, because he’s doing something he
loves. Do you have a passion like Alex?

Many of us may be unaware that we can do much better by marketing something that we are passionate about. Don’t look for the hottest products or latest trends to market just because of the
money. If you want long lasting success you have to market
something you enjoy, something that captures your interest.

Here are a few reasons you should market something you’re
passionate about rather than just doing it for the money.

When you’re marketing something you’re passionate about, then
you’ll find new ideas easily. If you face a setback, you’ll
always a find away around it. You’ll be creative. You’re focused
and you won’t jump at every unrelated opportunity that shows up.
You’ll be happy while you’re working. You’ll be working at your
peak performance. You’ll feel satisfaction when you’re
successful. You’ll enjoy your work.

When you’re marketing something you’re NOT passionate about,
then you’ll think of giving up when faced with any glitch as
opposed to looking for a solution. You’ll be jumping from
opportunity to opportunity, cutting your resources short. If
you’re successful you’ll feel a void, because this is not your
true purpose. If you work long hours, you’ll ask yourself, “Is
this worth it?” You’ll feel overwhelmed when you need to give it
all you’ve got. Your efforts and creativity are limited.

Here are some simple steps to help identify your true interests

Step 1: Consider the following questions:

What are you good at?
What are you interested in?
What are passionate about?
What do people ask you about a lot?

Step 2: Write down ONE answer for the above questions.

Step 3: Is there a product or service that you THINK the
marketplace wants? Write down your answer on the next line.

Step 4: Go to Step 1: and repeat the steps until you have
eliminated all other interests.

Step 5: Go over the list and do a little research on what’s
going on in the marketplace. You can do this by typing in a few
keywords in your favorite search engine. For example: Your
interest is art. You could type in any of the following: art
business opportunity; affiliate program art; art; business art;
starting your own art business

Step 6: With a little more knowledge of what’s in the
marketplace, you now have a better idea of what you want to aim
for and what the marketplace wants. Follow your feelings and
choose the area that interests you the most.

There is still work, but you are now on the right track. You can
put your time and effort into something that you’re interested
in. Now you can develop or find the best product for the
marketplace. You have just dramatically increased your chances of success, because you have a solid foundation and you’re pointed
in the right direction. Your passion will guide you and push you
through any hard times you may face.

That’s the way I see it.
To Your Success!
Acey Gaspard

Action Steps When Looking for a Great Product to Market

1. Think about your passions, what brings you enjoyment, what you would do all-day without getting paid for.

2. Take some quiet time and do the exercise above.

3. After you have identified your passion and interest, then you
must do research to find or develop a product or service for the
marketplace.

Important Points to Keep in Mind When Looking for a Great Product to Market

* Doing what you love to do will dramatically increase your
chances of success.
* Don’t waste your time and effort on something that’s not for you.
* Many of us may be unaware that we can do much better by marketing something that we are passionate about.
* Don’t look for the hottest products or latest trends to market just because of the money.
* Follow your feelings and choose the area that interests you the most.
* Put your time and effort into something that you’re interested in.

———— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— -
Acey Gaspard has over 20 years of business experience. His site,
A Touch of Business.com, http://www.atouchof business. com is
steadily growing with well over 1,100 original pages to help you
run and market your small business. Get Tips you can use today!
http://www.atouchof business. com/tips. html

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Super Bowl Marketing: How To Market Your Business by the Month
Copyright (c) 2007-2008 Tammy M. Ratcliff
the Phantom Writers
http://thePhantomWr iters.com

Marketing your business can be as easy as looking at a 12-month
calendar. There is some kind of holiday or sporting event during
each month of the year. Even if the event has nothing to do with
your field of expertise, you can still take advantage of it by
using a little creativity. Below are some ideas to get you
started.

January

There are two major holidays in the month of January–New Year’s
Day and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. A brand new year is always a
good time to advertise new products or to have a big sale on
them. If you are in the debt consolidation industry, this is a
great time to promote your services since many people go further
in to debt over the holidays. Not all businesses recognize MLK,
Jr. Day, but they should. This is a wonderful opportunity to show
that you are an equal-opportunity company that recognizes the
importance of honoring this civil rights leader. For sports
enthusiasts, the Superbowl is right around the corner. Find a way
to make connections between your business and this very popular
event. Customers always like to do business with people whom they
feel share a common interest.

February

Of course, the biggest event in February is Valentine’s Day.
Flower shops and candy makers are all over this holiday. There is
no reason why a mortgage company couldn’t put a little love into
their marketing. It should be pretty easy for any company to come
up with some clever advertising around this theme. This month
also showcases Groundhog’s Day and President’s Day. Offer
different discounts for customers based on what Punxsutawney Phil
predicts or special prizes for anyone who can guess how old the
Presidents would be.

March

This month is chocked full of reasons to celebrate. Daylight
Savings Time (for those of us not living in Arizona), St.
Patrick’s Day, and the First Day of Spring are all good excuses
to market your product. Springtime brings to mind flowers and
shamrocks, so why not use this occasion to advertise the
spring-like qualities your industry has to offer? March is also a
huge month for college basketball. Use March Madness to lure
basketball fans to your store or website with bracket contests or
other basketball related scenarios.

April

April Fool’s Day is probably the one holiday you should not use
in your advertising. No one likes to be fooled when it come to
their money. But if you decide to come up with a marketing idea
for this holiday, make sure the “surprise” is a good one. April
is also the month of Passover, Good Friday, and Easter. While
these are technically religious holidays, there should be no harm
in advertising products related to them, as long as they are
handled respectfully.

May

May is another great party month. Even though Cinco de Mayo is a
Mexican celebration, Americans are embracing it more and more
each year. This is one holiday that people of any race can
associate with, so get creative and use it to your advantage
before your competition does. May also gives us Mother’s Day and
Memorial Day. Flowers tend to have a monopoly on these holidays
as well, but times are changing rapidly. People today are looking
for new ways to express their feelings. Perhaps your company has
a unique idea they could use. Let them know about it! May is also
the month for high school and college graduation ceremonies. This
is another huge advertising opportunity even if you don’t
personally know a graduate.

June

The month of June leads us right into the First Day of Summer,
Flag Day, and Father’s Day. Besides honoring Dear ‘Ole Dad,
this is a great time of year to get patriotic. The Fourth of July
is right around the corner so start thinking Red, White, and
Blue. The last few years have put Americans through an emotional
ringer. Let your customers know you are proud to be an American
by offering free US flags with every purchase or by publishing
online articles about the importance of supporting our troops. If
there is any way at all to tie your company to patriotism, this
is the perfect time to do so.

July

Since Independence Day comes at the beginning of July,
advertising for this holiday should really begin in June.
However, there is no reason you cannot continue a patriotic theme
throughout July as well. Interestingly, there are a number of
“bizarre” holidays in July that could be great to use for
marketing purposes. For example, July 6th is National Fried
Chicken Day, July 14th is National Nude Day, and July 22nd is
National Ratcatcher’s Day. How’s that for a variety? Center a
marketing idea around one of these holidays and you will not only
educate the public, but possibly create a new tradition for your
company.

August

Everyone knows that August is the month that the kids go back to
school. Students and their parents are notorious for spending
lots of money at the beginning of the school year, so use this
opportunity offer discounts on everything from clothing to book
bags to inexpensive furniture and household goods. Almost any
company can create some kind of special deal for students or
their parents this month.

September

Come up with some way to honor the workingman this month and you
will be all set for Labor Day. If that doesn’t work, there is
always Grandparents’ Day or the First Day of Autumn. Anytime
there is a special day set-aside for a particular group of
people, companies should try to promote it through their
advertising. The recognized group will definitely appreciate your
efforts, and may reward you with new business.

October

Baseball is said to be America’s favorite pastime, so in October
be prepared to do some World Series based marketing. Sporting
goods stores are obviously going to promote their baseball
products at this time, but other companies can get into the
spirit too. For instance, a company that sells insurance could
advertise travel insurance for fans that are going to the game.
Halloween is also a great theme to market around. This holiday
appeals to kids and parents alike so there are multitudes of ways
to approach this scheme.

November

Once again it is Daylight Savings Time for almost all of the
United States. Elections are held during this month, Veterans are
honored, and turkeys are carved. This month is split between
politics and thankfulness. This may be a prime time for showing
genuine customer appreciation in some way.

December

The last month of the calendar brings the most celebrations of
the year–Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Years Eve. People
are primed to spend money so make sure they know who you are and
what you do or sell. Online article marketing is a very effective
way to do this, but there are other options as well.

Final Thoughts…

If you use article marketing to promote your business, or if you
use any kind of print media, do keep lead-times in mind.

If you are looking to get an article into a print magazine, most
of those magazines run on a three- to six-month lead-time for
content. What that means to you is that the publisher must
approve your Thanksgiving article no later than August, in order
to make the deadline for the November issue of the magazine.

If you are trying to use article marketing to promote your online
business, lead-time is also a consideration to keep in mind.
While some online publications will use your article within just
a few days of having received it from you, most online
publications run on a 30- to 90-day lead-time for the articles
that they publish.

No matter how you choose to market your business, do not hesitate
to make use of that calendar on your desk. It could be the best
marketing tool you have ever used.

———— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— -
Written by: Tammy M. Ratcliff, (http://www.thePhant omWriters. com)
Stop throwing your money away on Ineffective Article Marketing
Campaigns! Learn the Secrets of writing reprint articles that can
generate thousands of dollars in new sales. The techniques shared
in The Phantom Writers $37 ebook could even help you to get more
effective articles from your ghost writers. Get your own copy of
“Article Marketing For Traffic, Sales and Profit” today, at:
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6 Marketing Landmines To Avoid At All Costs
Copyright (c) 2007 Dan Lok
Quick Turn Marketing International, Ltd.
http://www.WebsiteC onversionExpert. com

I’ve seen it way too many times. Marketers of all skill and
experience levels making profit killing mistakes. The result is
badly performing marketing campaigns. But the good news is that
many of these mistakes are avoidable with proper knowledge,
planning, and continuous testing and tweaking.

Here are just 6 marketing landmines you’ll want to avoid if you
want to maximize your profits and grow your business.

Marketing Landmine #1: Failing To Test Your Headlines. Your
headline, regardless of copy purpose, is the first thing that’s
read. And as you know, your headline and the overall site
impression will make or break you. Statistics generally show that
you have less than 5-7 seconds to grab your reader!

And as I constantly teach and preach… you should always test
your headlines to find the one that works best. It’s not hard.
But it takes effort and action. The good news is that many of
your competition will never do this. So it’s not hard to beat
them if you do test.

Marketing Landmine #2: Failing To Test Your Offer. With the right
offer, your prospective customers and readers WILL respond. Of
course there are other issues that come into play. But if your
offer stinks… you’re definitely swimming hard upstream! And of
course TEST your offers. Time well spent.

Marketing Landmine #3: Failing To Develop A Responsive List. The
success of your marketing campaign will directly correlate to the
quality of your list. There’s really NO excuse anymore for
failing to have a quality list. Unless you have not done your
homework to correctly identify your target market.

Your marketing budget will be well-spent on developing a great
list. And there are lots of professionals willing to provide
their expertise in this area. Don’t skimp on your list!

Marketing Landmine #4: Failing To Have Proper Marketing Timing.
You can have absolutely everything else perfect in your marketing
campaign…but if your timing is wrong your results and profits
will suffer. Lots of things can affect timing. The market can be
saturated with your product being offered by too many other
marketers. This is especially true with online info products. Or
there may be seasonal factors involved. Having the right timing
is often simply the result of “paying attention” to what’s going
on in the world. Doing research and talking to people in the
know.

Marketing Landmine #5: Failing To Measure Your Campaigns. Another
word for this is tracking. It doesn’t matter who you are or how
large or small your business, you simply MUST track ALL of your
campaigns. This is such a complete marketing no-brainer but still
lots of businesses fail to do this. There’s no excuse for it.

Marketing Landmine #6: Failing To Communicate. It’s getting
worse! People are hit with SO many marketing messages that the
time required to convert them is increasing. That’s not good.
But it’s easily remedied. Just scale your marketing
communications to do it. Track everything. Test. And keep the
lines of communication open with your list and potential
customers.

You have an unprecedented opportunity to learn from the marketing
mistakes of those who passed before you. Many of them did not
give up. They learned, adapted, and went on to earn millions in
business. These are just a few of the many marketing landmines
you need to avoid if you want to be successful online or offline.

———— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— -
A former college dropout, Dan “The Man” Lok transformed himself
from a grocery bagger in a local supermarket to an internet
multi-millionaire. Discover how you can maximize your website
profits in minimum time. For a limited time, you can test-
drive Dan’s Insiders Club for 30-days Risk-Free and get
$1,165 dollars worth of bonus gifts. Rush cover to:
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Affiliate Marketing Commissions With eBay Made Easy
Copyright (c) 2007 Jadyn Benjamin
Business That Works
http://abizthatwork s.com/
One of the easiest affiliate programs to make your first
commissions with is the eBay affiliate program.

Here are the three steps you need to take to get started easily.
They are relatively simple to do or have done for you.

1. Set up your Wordpress Blog

WordPress is a blogging platform similar to Blogger, Drupal,
TypePad/Moveable Type, LiveJournal, Blosxom etc. There are a host of options. These blogging platforms all allow users to quickly and easily post thoughts, ideas, snippets of text - whatever - to a website simply by typing into in a simple web-based form.

The number of marketers pushing Wordpress past it’s original design as a platform for journalling is increasing steadily.

Sites built with Wordpress underlying can hold thousands of pages of content and they are very easy to update - you don’t even have to know HTML. It’s really as easy as using a word-processor once it’s all set up.

Wordpress offers an install that takes less than five minutes if you want to do it yourself. Plus there are individuals who will do script installations very cheaply. Many internet / affiliate marketing forums will have a resident installer who will undertake this job for you.

2. Post good content and tasteful eBay ads to your blog

One of the problems with most regular websites is that they
become stale and lose some of their relevance because of their static nature.

Using the blog format however, it is much easier to keep your website ‘fresh’ - and the search engines love fresh material.

eBay provides a tool called the eBay editor kit that you can use to place eBay ads easily on regular websites. Unfortunately this tool doesn’t do anything to add valuable content that is visible to the search engine spiders as it is written in javascript.

What you need instead then is a Wordpress plugin (a file or two that you drop into your Wordpress installation) which will display the eBay listings as regular HTML instead of javascript. This adds search engine fodder to your blog and hence improves your chances of getting higher ranking in the search engines.

Using a Wordpress plugin is also much easier than trying to get the eBay Editor kit to play nicely within the body of Wordpress blog posts.

3. Promote your blog

Many blog owners put up their blog and populate them with
articles and advertising but then fall far short on this step.

You must spend the time to get good backlinks to your site!

At the minimum you should try

* social bookmarking your most useful pages
* listing your blog in directories
* article marketing

Just these three activities will get your blog off to a great
start attracting visitors to your site. The relevant words that are generated by the eBay ads(http://www.abizthat works.com/ ebaycommissions1 01) will be picked up by the search engines and visitors searching for those words will be directed to your site. When they click through and make a purchase on eBay or register for an account you pick up
commissions.

That’s the three steps in a nutshell. You can be up and actually making money as an affiliate marketer with eBay in quick time. If you decide to take the plunge… happy affiliate marketing with eBay and enjoy those commissions!

———— ——— ——— ——— ——— ———
Jadyn Benjamin is a staff writer for aBizThatWorks. com - Get more instructions and the easy-to-use affiliate marketing tool that makes it almost too easy to display eBay listings on your blog! For this free download visit
http://www.abizthat works.com/ ebaycommissions1 02

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The Secret to Making Online Money
Copyright (c) 2007 Vasrue.com, All Rights Reserved
Written by: Clinton Douglas IV
Vasrue Travel
http://travel. Vasrue.com

So, you want to learn the secrets to making money online? You have come to the right place. In this article you will find out these truly guarded secrets to the top internet gurus.

Every now and again, a big deal will go through, and people who have never seriously considered an internet business, start thinking about their own online business.

The Google – YouTube deal is just one such deal.

Chad Hurley and Steve Chen started YouTube “in their garage” likely in their living room office – but a “garage start-up”sounds so cool. Hurley and Chen started their website only 20 months before Google bought it for $1.65 billion. That is $825 million each for 20 months work, or $41.25 million dollars each for every month they were in operation!

All of us dream the big dream, but then reality sets in. Few of us can look forward to earning $40 million per month. While you can probably count the people who have on two hands, there are still thousands more people who have managed to turn their online business into a million dollar a year business.

Most people who start an online business might dream of making one million per year, but most would be happy just to earn enough to leave their day job behind them. Some would even be happy to earn just enough to pay their car payment or to save for their kid’s college tuition fees.

All are worthy goals, and the good news is that all are within
the reach of most people who strive to reach them.

Learning How To Play The Game As with any great endeavor in life, there is a process one must follow in order to be successful.

The first step is learning how to play the game.

The beauty of starting an online business is that the internet is driven by information. If you have a desire to learn about something, then you will find someone on the internet who is willing to teach you about the topic you wish to learn. You can literally find information available on any topic, some of it free and some of it available for a small fee.

Online Business Structures

There are four primary business structures on the internet:

1. Product Sales

2. Service Sales

3. Membership Websites

4. Advertising Platforms

Product sales include both hard goods and digital items. Examples of hard goods include food, clothing, car parts, books and music. Examples of digital items include electronic books and software.

Within these four primary platforms, there are several ways to accomplish each business process. For example, with a Product Sales driven website, you can opt to use: a direct sales website,an online auction system, or an affiliate sales format.

With Service sales, you can use the direct sales website or the affiliate sales format. Affiliate sales systems are akin to Reseller sales systems. There really is one difference between an affiliate sales system and a reseller program.

With an affiliate program, you will direct the buyer to the
seller’s real website – through a special tracking URL that is
only available to you – to make their actual purchase, and you as the affiliate will be paid on a monthly schedule for the sales that you have generated.

With the reseller program, the source company will remain hidden in the background. You will make the sale, collect the money from the buyer, and then you will process the sale through a private access point on the seller’s website.

The concept behind the membership program is that people will rent access to a private area of your website.

The most well known advertising platform of course is the search engine. They make their money when someone else buys advertising.
Other such sites include news or general information websites.

While the big boys make up the immediately recognizable websites based on the advertising platform, many small
publishers are making a good living by providing advertising driven websites.

Low-Cost Entry Point

Forget going out and renting an office for $900 per month. Forget about having to set up utilities in your home and at
your office.
This is another one of the beauties of an online business. You really do not need to have a costly storefront in order to go into business for yourself.

If you go the online auction route, you will not need to have a website at all. But you may need the extra room in your house or in your garage to handle storage of the product you will be selling, unless you go the drop-shipping route.

The idea behind a drop-shipper is that you can register with a wholesaler. Then you can sell single-piece items to your customers, and process the order through the wholesaler in the same way you would through a reseller program. When you buy the product from the wholesaler, you will give them the direct shipping address of your customer, and the wholesaler will put your shipping label on the package. When your customer receives the product, by all appearances, that product will have come from your warehouse. To find drop-shippers who serve your choice product lines, you should sign up for a lifetime membership at World Wide Brands for their drop-shipper locator service:
http://www.myaffili ateprogram. com/u/worldwid/ b.asp?id=3601

In any other business model, you should seriously consider
registering your own domain name, even if you intend to utilize the affiliate sales systems. The costs of pursuing this route are minimal. You can expect to spend $20-30 buying ownership of your own domain name for one year, and you can generally get a web hosting account (where you actually manage and store your domain) for anywhere from $30-50 per month.

Low Knowledge Threshold

Many web-hosting companies offer a HTML editing tool within their domain management interface that lets you build and design your website’s pages.

The beauty of these HTML editing tools is that you do not have to know how to build actual webpages. You simply type what you want into the editing interface, highlight what you want to put in bold print, and then click a little button that converts your highlighted text to bold print. The same processes apply for links to other webpages, and a wide variety of text formatting options. It is so easy, even a caveman could do it.

Mix-and-Match For Best Results

The lowest-cost systems for your first website is between the advertising platform, and product and service sales through affiliate programs. The best benefit for each of these three options is that you will not need to build your own online payment systems. That is a real advantage when you are just starting to get your feet wet.

For advertising systems, many people today utilize the Google Adsense system to put paid advertising on their website. To get involved using Google Adsense, you simply need to get your website approved by the Google staff, and then you copy a piece of code they give you and put that code into your webpages. You can generally get Google’s approval in three to five days. And then, once you apply Google’s code to your webpage, you will be able to get paid for advertising on your website immediately.

Affiliate programs work in the same way. You get registered with the affiliate’s website, and then they will give you a small piece of code that you can copy-and-paste and put directly into your website. Once again, you could be earning money from your visitors beginning the same day you put the affiliate code on your website.

My best advice is to not rely on only one system for making
money.

Google Adsense pays you every time someone clicks an advertisement on your website (don’t do this yourself, or Google will terminate your account with them). Because Google is paying you for traffic that you send to their advertisers, you will only get paid based on a percentage of what Google collects from their client for that visitor. In some cases, we are talking about pennies per visitor.

With affiliate programs, you could literally make $2 or $200 for one sale.

I believe that if you are getting into an internet business on
the adve