Hi!
Welcome to my homebase. Feel free to take a look around. Soon, there will be loads of free and low cost IM products available here, so stay tuned! ;-)
Mieke Janssens
I’ve been Twittering away lately. Ever since I found out about Twhirl -a free desktop client that allows you to post messages to Twitter without having to visit and log in to the Twitter site - I’ve been able to see the fun & benefits of being an active ‘Tweeter’.
To me, Twitter has become more than just a way to promote my blogs & biz: it has proven to be an excellent resource for valuable info & sites, a great way to build relationships with other marketers ánd - last but not least - a channel to get a quick answer to any questions I have. I found many of my fellow tweeters to be very friendly and always willing to help.
I’m still far from being a Twitter pro: there are millions of things about Twitter and how to optimize my tweets I still need to discover, but I’m learning new stuff every day.
Subscribe to my free RSS feedand get an "unfair advantage" over your competitors, with access to some of the best IM tools and resources - delivered right to your home or office as soon as they're released.
If you subscribe with your email address, you'll receive a brandable copy of my new ebook in return. To sign up, use the form below or go here for more info.
Every so often, I receive a message with a question like
- How do I add a PayPal button to my site?
- How do I create a PDF- or a zip-file?
- How do I use Facebook?
- How do I register for a Clickbank account?
- …
These messages remind me of the fact that some things that I take for granted, are not obvious to those who are new to the Internet Marketing game.
After all, it hasn’t been that long since I was a so called ‘newbie’ too. When I just started online, I didn’t know about things like PayPal, or databases, or how to register a domain name… To learn the ropes, I kept my eyes open, and taught myself new stuff with every new action I took.
Nowadays, almost every marketer has his own affiliate program. That’s no surprise; after all it is one of the most cost-effective ways to promote your business.
If you are one of those marketers, you’re probably aware of the fact that the major part of the people who signed up for your affiliate program, will never refer any sales… To keep this group of non-productive affiliates as small as possible, it is important to motivate them any way you can.
Here are some tips:
Lead the way
Many affiliates never bring in any sales, simply because they don’t have the knowledge to set up a successful promo campaign. Tell them what to do and show them where to go to maximize their results. You could write ashort, easy-to-follow marketing ecourse, and allow your affiliates to download this at no cost.
Miguel Alvarez is putting on a gigantic contest on his blog: The Blog Boost Giveaway.
On September 20th, one lucky winner (plus 3 additonal winners) will receive 1000s of dollars worth of the most coveted prizes a blogger could possibly desire. The list of prizes is way too long to add it to his post, but you can everything that’s included here.
Entering this contest is easy and free. All you need to do to earn a ticket is subscribe to Miguel’s email list. You can earn additional tickets by:
blogging about the contest
adding Miguel as a friend and following him on Twitter
Dig, Stumble, Twitter, … Miguel’s post about the contest
These last few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time working on my blog(s). During my research, I came across ‘Entrecard‘, a blogging network that lets you advertise your blog for free.
Entrecard claims to be a an internet business card. Just as in ‘real life’, you can leave your business card at other sites. Every time you leave your business card, you’ll earn EC (Entrecard Credits), which you can use to purchase advertisements on thousands of blogs or to shop for hundreds of products and services in the virtual marketplace.
You also earn Entrecard credits when others drop their card on your site, or when they buy advertising space on your site.
The site works through a widget you can easily add to your blog sidebar (several versions of the widget are available). You’ll find my Entrecard widget in the sidebar under ‘Leave Your Business Card’.
I’m spending way too much time in front of my computer…
Tonight, we rented a movie - Untraceable - about some psycho who’s torturing people live on the web. The more hits the site gets, the faster his victim dies. While I was watching, I found myself thinking ‘Wow, what if he had put an ad or two on his site… He would not just be a psycho, he would be a rich psycho…‘
I really need to take some time off…
Anyway, the story illustrated one of the basic laws in marketing: All you need to attract people to your site is an idea that is appealing to many… It doesn’t have to be a good idea - as long as it’s something people WANT to see.
In a nutshell, here’s what you must make sure to comply with -
1. 1 click unsubscribe mandatory.
2. The actual sender must be the entity identified in the from line. Affiliates must not send commercial emails as if they were the company they are affiliated with.
3. Contact requirements are relaxed to allow a valid P.O. Box or PMB at a private store.
4. A "person" can now be defined as an organization, which brings non-profits into mandatory compliance.
5. Incentivized or induced tell-a-friend scripts must comply with Can-Spam rules. Email this to a friend links that are not incentivized or induced don’t have to comply.
That’s it in a nutshell. You can get more info here:
Today, I accidently bumped into a site of a fellow Belgian marketer. Since there aren’t many Belgians around in IM, I was curious and gave the site some extra attention.
I’m glad I did, ‘cos what I discovered was a new form of social networking: ‘Automated Social Networking‘.
The concept is simple: At the site - Scoutle - you can create a ‘Scout’ that will walk all over the Internet for you, searching and indexing interesting websites while at the same time promoting your own website(s). In order to make your Scout walk, you place a small Stage on your own site. This Stage will be used by Scouts of other users that will not only discover your website but will also recommend it to others. The only thing you have to do is every now and then login to Scoutle and see the results.
Subscribe to my free 
Subscribe In A Reader
