I invite you to dissect an excerpt I just created in order for you to understand how important it is to create copy that stirs up your readers’ emotions – (in a positive direction and without undermining your competition to show your strength).
Take a look at the article I wrote discussing Joe Sugarman’s approaches to eliciting emotion, and also the article on the importance of delving into other languages and cultures to enhance your own writing skills before reading further.
Emotions stir us to action, and for this reason the best copywriters are fans of psychology. They are interested in the inner workings of the human mind to see what makes people tick, what makes them type into a Google search one keyword over another.
I wrote the following piece in an effort to include wrong approaches to successful copy. I invite you to see for yourself where the negatives of the piece lay so that you stray away from doing the same in your copy.
Here’s the excerpt:
“There’s a moment when you make an impression, or fail to be captured in the memory of your audience. Cultivate a thirst for atmosphere and excitement in your online business. Don’t miss the opportunity to get noticed.
You can’t go wrong if your marketing goal is to get noticed – but regrettably business owners all too often are found stuck in the midst of competition, dry without a client to their name – and all because they used the wrong marketing tools. Experience the positive approach with a company that chooses the right tools. Feel exhilaration with every completed lead form… and experience the positive with every phone call.
Our reputation management strategies capture unwanted pests before they spread online, and our marketing consultations are a phone call away; we are Global Local Online Marketing Professionals, assisting all the time, anytime with positivity and exhilaration.
Invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Pay-Per-Click (PPC)? What about social media, is it really for you? What’s your question? We’re here to devise a marketing plan that works, with a positive experience that exhilarates.”
What mistakes can you point out within this copy?
If you’ve already noted it, I’d like to point it out as well. Look at the line “but regrettably business owners all too often are found stuck in the midst of competition, dry without a client to their name – and all because they used the wrong marketing tools.”
Words like “regrettably” and “dry” illicit negative emotions. A major technique that most copywriters use is to downgrade their competitors instead of focusing on the benefits of their own products and services. The truth is that you will never gain a client by downgrading your competition; prospects are all too familiar with this technique. In fact, this dogma is already dead. Information marketing is the new form of selling which entails nothing other than creating a positive experience for an audience.
Try to create a positive experience by outlining the benefits of your product or service and stray away from negative language that focuses on undermining competitors. The focus has shifted to the consumer, so always remember to illicit positive emotions from those you are talking to by focusing on “what’s in it for them”.
Until next time,
Anna @ Toronto
The What?! and Who? of Newsletters
A newsletter is the best way to keep your product constantly in front of the eyes of your audience. A newsletter is also a necessary part of a proper product launch.
If you’re starting a new online business and looking to attract visitors to your website or blog, rest assured that email marketing is bound to become your most important ally in reaching out to new audiences and staying connected with current clients. As you move forward in your business, you will see how necessary it is to reach out to prospects and clients on a regular basis via email marketing. This way, when you’re launching a new product you would’ve already had enough time to establish trust with your audiences – making them more inclined to purchase.
I haven’t looked into your email box and don’t know which internet marketing gurus you follow, but if you glance into mine you will see that the best internet marketers are consistently sending me updates and newsletters. Everyone from John Carlton, to Jeff Walker, Yaro Starak and Eben Pagen, use newsletters to keep in touch with prospects, to announce new product launches, and keep their networks alive.
The same way you would employ follow-up calls with existing leads is the same way you should use email marketing. Keeping constant contact with prospects and clients is a powerful marketing tool that will eventually naturally fall into your marketing agenda – as you will see, it is an integral component of forming a relationship between producer and consumer. However, if you prepare for an email marketing campaign, or what’s called drip marketing, you are bound to reap large rewards with your efforts.
There are two reasons for email marketing campaigns:
1. You must always keep your company name on your prospects’ mind so that the first chance they get to think of someone they should contact for specific help – it will be you.
2. Use email marketing campaigns for promotion.
A good rule of thumb for the first point is practiced by a l read more…
You can welcome this new age of social media with a new thought if you are looking to use the web as a medium for reaching out to your consumer.
We have entered an age where puppeteers of products and services have lost their upper hand. Who are the ones that are today sitting atop the product creation market? They have become without a doubt the consumers themselves.
The website copywriter who brings money to the table is the one who understands the consumer as well as he understands himself.
What is the first thing you must internalize as a website copywriter? You must internalize the fact that the language you are to speak is the same language of your reader. What he desires, what he envisions, what he wants in his hands or as an idea from your mouth was already in his thoughts before he ever met you. If he’s found you, and you’re speaking his language, he will stay. If not, he’ll move on to someone who understands him better than you ever will.
As a website copywriter, to be truly affective, you have to become a master of telepathy. Tricking out your weaker opponent is no longer a tactic because, in fact, your opponent is no longer weaker than you. If you’re not speaking his language, he knows.
Think of it like this. The consumer wants to join forces with you. He wants you to speak his language, because he simply doesn’t want to hear 100 other voices who don’t understand him either. No tricks, no gimmicks, that stuff is ancient. Deliver what the consumer wants, and use words as that link.
The consumer has become the producer because I know just as well as you know that the power is no longer at the hands of the newspapers, TV, or radio. Who controls the product? Social media. The consumer himself, and the best website copywriter is the one that listens.
Let’s do some research on who listened in the past. Let’s take the automotive market. Who moved on with the times and started listening to what the audience was thinking. Volkswagen.Think small. And it was indeed what the audience was doing. Who failed? Chrysler. GM. The older timers not rolling with the times.
If your website copy does not speak the same language as the person who is reading it, if it does not send off light bulbs at every turn, you can be sure that your copy will never sell.
To write copy you have to internalize a serious and bona fide paradigm shift. You must start to think with the mind of the person to whom you are trying to reach. How do you do this? Understand one simple equation: your consumer has become the producer. You will never out-smart or out-think him. You have to know him as well as he knows himself. Shakespeare was Shakespeare because he understood the human mind and psyche better than anyone else.
Online marketing has become the new, and increasingly the most important tool to reach a broader audience. A global audience. All the mediums that came before, all those who dictated what clothes to wear, what drinks to drink, what to buy and what to desire are over. No one can out-smart the consumer.
We need to role with the times. As a website copywriter selling the product you are selling, your most important tool is to listen and internalize the thoughts of those searching for your product. Experience a paradigm shift. Accept the fact that the consumer dictates what is true.
Take yourself out of the equation, and speak the words of your audience.
Anna @ Toronto
What any marketing project aims to do, whether it’s for creative design, video production, web development or lead generation, is make a good impression with prospects in the hopes of ultimately translating them into paying customers. If we’re talking about website design specifically, this is done by creating a good user experience.
Whether you are a professional designer or developer, or delve into any other form of marketing, you know all too well how easy it is to lose perspective on the user experience after spending countless hours working on a project and seeing it with a pair of eyes that now only register functionality and engineering.
When I was working with my former marketing company, apart from doing copy I was also responsible for quality control.
This entailed reviewing end result projects to see if they were able to create a positive experience for end users. Once a project was complete, whether it was a website or brochure, I was in charge of simulating the user experience to see how well the product would respond with users.
Watching the developer and designer spend countless hours working on a website, I was able to see how disconnected they eventually became from the final result. In the end, they weren’t able to appraise a product objectively after tinkering with functionality for endless hours. I understood that it’s very hard to shift perspective from development to user experience.
Someone who’s working on a project behind the scenes is a very different judge of character from the person who is experiencing it as an end user. While every design project and SEO job has to be functional for its own purposes, the user experience is ultimately the most important.
How users find your website is a matter of good SEO practice; however, keeping them on the site once they’re in, is a very important factor for financial success. There are two sets of visitors to any site: search engine spiders and robots that aim to index and archive your website in order for it to show up in search engine results pages (SERPs), and the second set of visitors – the people who visit from search engines, directories, and various social networks.
It’s a waste of time working hard on a project only to see that in the end it’s not interactive. If you’re spending time attracting traffic you should ensure that that those visitors are going to stay and browse your website. This is only accomplished with a user friendly experience.
This is why quality control is so important.
Google approaches this matter with a very clear agenda and objective because it understands how important it is to retain visitors once they’ve arrived.
If you look at the Google page itself, you will notice that it carries a very clean template. In order to tackle the matter of good end user experience, Google has clearly stayed adamant about maintaining a minimalist approach. Don’t be fooled thinking that Google has been easily developed from a design perspective just because it looks simple; it in fact hold heavy duty functionality and tools.
How does Google know that this is the best user-experience?
Every piece of the website and every tool on Google is tested by a human team that listens to what it is that users want to see more and less of. If Google runs a test for a number of people and a good number of them report issues and discontent, Google will make sure to address each and every issue until the testers are satisfied with what they see and satisfied with what they experience.
Unless a tool provides user friendliness and real value, you can be sure that Google will eliminate it.
As Google packs on more features and tools, it simultaneously ensures that more time is spent testing the product – sometimes as frequently as on a weekly basis.
While your website will inevitably be functioning on a smaller scale than something like the Google search engine, you will need to adjust quality assurance and testing accordingly. There are various test companies out there that can give you essential feedback for an amount of money that is relatively minimal and provides real value to your business.
While end users are mostly forgiving if something doesn’t function to their liking on a small scale, you can be sure that they will not forgive larger design and functionality issues that waste time. This is the audience that you could potentially lose and since you’ve been working hard on development, you don’t want your most important possession, the prospect, to bounce out of your website as soon as they find it.
Fortunately, there are many tools that analyse the activity on your website and reveal to you the experiences that users are having. For example, you can track things like which pages visitors stay on the most, and which pages they respond to the least, which search engines and networks they are coming from and how far they are going in your landing pages. This in turn allows you to make appropriate adjustments in order to create a better user experience. And this is exactly what you ultimately want – a responsive audience.
The Key is User Experience
So while you spend a lot of time on design and development, you need to ensure that you focus on the importance of quality control just as much.
Designers and developers are not finicky about the user experience as someone who has perspective from a pair of fresh eyes. Invest in getting a good quality control team to act as testers. How users behave on your website is ultimately the decisive factor of whether or not they will want to do business with you and whether or not they are going to take action and purchase your products and services. (If you’re a Facebook user you could compare how easy they make retrieving a lost password with other websites, and you will see that much of their success is due to the ease of use).
Quality control is vital to ensure that all errors and details that may have been overlooked by designers and developers is caught and avoided.
This is in fact the key difference between features and benefits; what you are offering on your website may be very useful to the consumer but the usability of the website is just as important.
Ensure you have strong quality control that will enable you to make appropriate changes and accommodations on your website in order for the user experience to be enhanced. You visitors are your most important asset, don’t lose them to errors that can go unnoticed by designers and developers. Invest in good quality control, it will pay off.
Cheers,
Anna @ Toronto
In Eben’s video blog, which discusses figuring out into which niche market one should enter in the pursuit of creating a successful online business, Eben exposes the three mega-niches – the three most powerful industries for information products online:
- Health
- Relationships
- Money
Eben urges that you shouldn’t sell yourself as an expert, instead focus on what the benefits for the customer are - what they care about most at the end of the day is what’s in it for them.
If you’ve ever heard of Jill Konrath’s book “Selling to Big Companies”, you may be familiar with what a value proposition is. A value proposition is designed to explain to your prospects what it is you are selling. However, instead of selling on how great your business is, the focus is on where you can help your prospect increase revenue or cut costs with quantitative data and statistical analysis.
As Eben explains, there are many sub-niches within each of the big three, but these are the ones that point toward the direction that could generates profits in today’s online market.
So if you want to focus on your passion when selling a particular product or service, you should still stick within the parameters that work.
Eben himself has built 10 successful companies all working within the relationship and money niches. “Double Your Dating” has been successful for close to 8 years now, while “GURUMastermind” is his current product launch that’s peaked interest and is currently spreading like wildfire.
Anna @ Toronto
Information is the best and fastest selling item on the web. The internet is an information source in itself and people log on again and again to acquire new information on virtually any item, product, or service that either already exists (or to their disappointment and your opportunity), doesn’t exist yet.
The information that doesn’t exist yet is what you want to aim for if you want to branch onto the web selling information. This is your opportunity to tap into a new market in which there is marginal competition.
One of the most successful ways to package information online in order to make profit is by creating eBooks. In fact, what a lot of marketers do is resell popular eBooks- either on their website or on auction sites like eBay. If you’re not looking to resell and want to produce your very own eBook you can definitely do so, but it will require a lot of market research first.
In the first article on eBooks entitled “How to sell Successful eBooks Online”, I demonstrated the importance of preliminary research. Tapping into a market that doesn’t yet exit or that hasn’t acquired much competition is the route you want to set your sights on. People who are hungry for information and are ready to buy after getting all their questions answered are the ones you want to target.
Although a product launch like Eben Pagan’s “GURU Mastermind” is not something most of us can afford, the first thing starters need to do is conduct preliminary research to find a niche market in which the audience has already expressed the need for an answer to their problem.
There are a lot of databases of emailing lists that are available online. They are, however, quite expensive. The next best thing for you to do if you want to find a good mailing list is to go to a public library and acquire the market research and statistics databases that hold consumer information by industry and product. These databases can also reveal insightful information on trends and demographics within particular industries and the audiences that are in those niches.
Finding a mailing list is in fact part of your market research. If the people on that mailing list have already purchased something that’s within your market, you know that you are accessing a list of active consumers; and if enticed well, could potentially also buy your products and services.
Pay-per-click keyword research is another place you want to look at to see the density of your market and your chances of success in it. If you type into Google a particular keyword you want to target, and the paid placements on that page return fully used (both across and vertically down around organic searches), you know that the market is saturated and that chances are you won’t find much success.
Acquire this habit and add to it keyword research with tools like Google keywords. As the last article already mentioned, make sure to target a market for which there are a minimum of 30,000-50,000 monthly searches being conducted.
The next article will look at successful niche markets as recommended by top internet marketing gurus.
Stay tuned.
Anna @ Toronto
How to Sell Successful eBooks Online
If you haven’t already heard, Eben Pagan, the creator of “Double Your Dating” and the recently launched “GURUMasterminds” program is making waves online – right now. Eben is reaching out to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to build their very own internet marketing empires – (or looking to build additional income streams).
This blog post is designed to get you started with your very own eBook (either for your internet marketing business or as an additional income stream).
What’s the best way to describe an eBook? An eBook is an electronic version of a book that can be downloaded and read off a computer, a mobile phone or an electronic reader. In order to publish an eBook that sells, you should approach creating an information source that targets a specific audience within a niche market.
If you’re looking to create an online business with your website or blog, you have to think of additional streams that can generate business for you. Although a website or blog can generate business with the right marketing strategy, many of the most successful internet marketers utilize eBooks for more revenue; and for two reasons: 1st – they are not expensive to create. 2. If the information you’re selling aims to solve a specific problem for a specific audience, you can make a lot of money on an on-going basis. If done right, eBooks sell very well.
If this is something that you’re looking into, it’s very important to understand that approaching the eBook industry first entails finding the right information product to sell; an information product that’s geared to address the problems of a particular niche market with an audience that’s ready to buy a solution to a problem right now.
One of the biggest mistakes most people make when deciding on an information product to sell is that they encounter wanting to sell a new idea or a product or service that they think is interesting and that they are passionate about. This, in fact, is the wrong strategy to utilize if you want to create an eBook that sells. You see, niche markets aren’t found; they are discovered. Eben explains how he jumped from one product to the next and was successful with each one. When he offered seminar programs to his customers he often found niche markets within the niche market he was selling to, and after seeing that his specific audience was looking for a solution to a particular problem. He explains how the biggest concern he found his customers had was that they weren’t to balance the amount of tasks they had to get done with the amount of time they had available –time management became a good, sellable approach. So, Eben created another product launch called “Wake Up Productive” in which he explains that it’s possible for busy people to accumulate wealth by working smarter rather than harder.
So the first approach to creating an eBook business is by putting yourself where the money is. Remember what Gary Halbert always said: Find a starving crowd. What this entrails is conducting thorough market research. Conduct keyword research to determine the amount of people searching online for a particular niche. You can use things like Pixelfast Site, and Oveture Keyword Lookup Tool. Keyword Discovery and WordTracker are other more advanced tools for keyword research. Try to aim for a market that has at least 30,000-50,000 searches per month (as recommended by Andrew and Daryl, a successful internet marketing duo).
Based on the criteria you discover, find out additional things like:
- What kind of information out there already exists within your niche
- How many competing products and services are already out there
- How many PPC campaigns are currently running on the search phrases
As you can see market research is a good way to gain competitive intelligence. Know your market first and then find the best strategy to conquer it.
Another thing that Andrew and Daryl recommend is sending out surveys and asking a specific audience what it is they are looking for and what problems they need solutions to. This is what your eBook should ultimately entail – a solution to a hard pressing problem for a particular audience within a niche market.
Look out for the next article that will delve deeper into pay per click research for your eBook and include things like explanations to what Eben Pagan explains are two different types of information marketing approaches: Those that offer suggestions, and those that bring in the cash – solutions.
Cheers,
Anna @ Toronto
I’ve been on Twitter since June of 2009. As much research as I’ve been doing on Twitter since then, I’ve still remained largely in the dark about how to leverage the tool to my advantage. Well guess what? All today, that stuff about being largely in the dark has virtually disappeared.
I’ve been doing a lot of research for the past little while on information marketing and eBooks, and simultaneously been getting acquainted with internet marketing mogul Eben Pagan. Eben Pagan has been a successful internet marketing entrepreneur for over 10 years now.
His first product “Double your Dating” generated millions of dollars, and today Eben earns a yearly 6 figure income. If you conduct some research for yourself, you’ll see that he’s succeeded several times since then. He’s discovered niche markets and generating serious cash flow with each. In fact, right now he’s launching a new product – “GURU Mastermind” in which he discusses the importance of finding a niche market and explains in detail how to go about doing so.
After finding this internet marketing behemoth, I naturally went to look for him on Twitter to follow everything he’s got to say. After reading a few of his Tweets, I reTweeted one to the SEOPblog Twitter account. Minding my own business, I went on with my research. One hour later I checked my email box and what I discovered was earth shattering to me:
Within 15 minutes our twitter account gained 80 new followers!
Since this moment, I’ve been adding people to the seopblog.com Twitter account in the hopes of gaining more followers in return. Wrong strategy. That single reTweet from Eben’s account led me to discover the true genius of social media marketing!
I decided to do this with my own personal account; my followers list bumped up from 39 to 103 within 30 minutes!
I think the reason for the huge increase is for 2 main reasons:
First. Eben Pagan is doing a huge product launch right now. Anyone who is in-the-know has heard of it. There are really exciting things happening at this very moment with Eben’s new product that’s got everyone talking.
Second. The actual tweet – [Great psychological studies, insights and surprises. I love this stuff: http://bit.ly/curcUl.] in fact holds interest for a large range of my SEOPblog’s followers; from copywriters, to marketers, to business-owners and psychology enthusiasts, everyone is interested in new found research on psychological triggers explaining how our mind works and how we respond to external stimuli.
Smart social media marketing is much more than just following other Twitterers in the hopes of them following you in return. You have to tweet compelling information – information that everyone is interested in and information that is hot right now.
Lesson: stay in-the-know about your industry, follow people within that industry (including the movers and shakers), retweet interesting sources, and see how changing up your Twitter strategy can gain you a new following!
Cheers,
Anna @ Toronto
The Outsourcing Approach
The biggest subject in online marketing forums over the past few months has been on the matter of outsourcing. If you regularly browse around popular blogs, chances are you’ve already been overwhelmed by a massive wave of content, and you’ve also probably encountered enough heated reactions to see that this issue is quite the debate. Two sides seem to be emerging. Those arguing in the favour of outsourcing are shedding light on some interesting topics, while those arguing against it and deeming it “exploitative” are shedding light on the more negative aspects.
In this article, I intend to provide an objective account on the matter with an argument for the latter, and I do this by sharing the stories of people who have dealt with outsourcing first hand and who may have at times experienced the pleasant aspects, but in the end recommend not to go down the outsourcing route.
First I want to let you in on my own experience.
When I started working with my second marketing company in mid-2009, I came in right when sales were exploding. At that time, the company was experiencing an upsurge in clientele and profits, and the execs were looking for ways to branch out into SEO. This particular marketing company had a unique business model in which the end goal was to provide marketing on all platforms– video, web design, 3D animation and so on, with SEO being just a single service. I came into the company offering copywriting services.
The company hired sub-contractors who would work on creating their own network of clients, and the company would supply the financial means to do so. Also, this company had a good reputation and provided an extensive portfolio. When I came on board, I soon joined a web developer and an SEO specialist and the three of us started working on SEO.
We already had one client on board, and soon after this we acquired 4 more. Having minimal experience with search engine optimization, the web developer and I were sceptical, but were assured by the specialist that it was a sure bet who had the confidence to promise clients pretty hefty guarantees.
Our very first client was a luxury apartment rental on the outskirts of the city of Toronto. Within one month we generated over 5 leads for that business. This was enough to boost our confidence and see that SEO could actually work; but we had another 4 clients to worry about. Getting more clients was not the problem for us – we were working hard on sales. We needed to build confidence in delivering results to our existing customers.
We did everything ourselves. From creating short videos to linking, to placing ads on profitable blogs and websites. (If you have read previous posts on the components of SEO, you would have seen that search engine optimization takes a lot of work). Within 3 months we started realizing that there’s a lot of work on our hands, so we began to seek out different sources for getting help with the work. We looked for the best places to outsource from.
The first place that we looked was India.
We found a company that was guaranteeing keyword optimization. They’re unique guarantee was that if a customer’s website ranks on the first pages of search engines for those keywords – only then does the client pay. We decided to try them out for 3 keywords to begin with. As time went by, on the 3rd and fourth week we noticed that the website was not climbing up as fast as we were able to push it up with our own efforts. At the end the keywords did not get the ranking we were hoping for and trust me when I tell you that we went through a lot of trouble with this company in India who was demanding that we paid even without meeting the requirements.
This was my first hands-on experience with an outsourced company in India.
My second experience was with outsourced copywriting.
We decided to give it a try with a lady in India who was charging $15.00 per article. One of our clients was a high-end fashion store that was selling shoes for no less than $700. The owner of that store would make trips to Milan four times a year and to Vegas at least twice in order to get the latest collection of shoes from hot fashion designers like Gianmarco Lorenzi, Prada and Versace.
Our client was interested in starting a blog on the hottest fashion and gossip on royalty families and celebrities. Seeing as I didn’t have much expertise in this area, (that I was already busy enough with other projects) – we decided to give her a try. Here’s an expert from her article:
““I would like to adorn the necks of all the women of the world with pearls,” Kokichi Mikimoto is said once. Who knows back in 1893 when he open his first store in Tokyo’s famous Ginza shopping district, that the passion self evident in this males simple mission statement would propel his patented, perfectly round and strikingly lustrous pearls for a fame?”
Is it worth $15.00? Probably yes. Can you publish this article under a reputable blog? Probably no.
Like I mentioned in the beginning of this article, my intention is not to bad-mouth outsourcing from my two personal experiences which all in all, don’t account for much. Instead, I’ve been reading up on the subject for the past few weeks and long enough that I felt impelled to write on outsourcing from the perspective of why it is not what it may seem to be, and that it’s not as effective as you might think if you’re considering using outsourcing for your own business.
One of the hottest outsourcing workshops that exist out there right now is called “Outsource Force – $2.00 Per Hour Formula” By Spencer Jones. If you go to his site, you will see that it is now “sold out”. There has been a massive outpour of objection and outrage regarding this video and what Spencer Jones is trying to teach those who are looking to outsource for their business. After all, what could be more exploitative than finding cheap labour at $2.00 hour on work that would in U.S. or Canada would cost at least 10x more for someone with little or no experience?
Internet marketing is essentially a revolutionary way of doing business- reaching the four corners of the earth, providing economic opportunity where there has been none, and attempting to move closer to bridging the gaps of economic disparity. After all, isn’t that what many of us want to see? It’s no doubt that Jones’ Outsource Force is raising eyebrows by offering outsourcing solutions for as little as $2.00/hr.
I invite you to read another source for “outsourcing gone wrong” as told by Ephraim Schwartz here.
It’s true that there will always be two sides to any coin for any subject, but I would like to take this opportunity to list the reasons why outsourcing may not provide the benefits you are looking for in your business.
1. Communication
As my above example on copywriting demonstrates, writing in the English language, or whatever language your website or blog is written in requires someone with a strong understanding of that language. After all, grammar is the basic component of all good copy. To take it a step further, writing comes from the point of experience. If you’re writing on a subject you’ve never been exposed to, you will never write as well as someone who has. (That’s why I decided not to write copy for the client who was selling high-end clothing. I’ve never worn $900 dollar shoes before).
2. Culture
This point is tied in with the last. What we are exposed to are the things we understand better than anyone else if they haven’t experienced what we have. Writing about the Amazon jungles could only be written by someone who has travelled and explored that region. Even if you spend hours upon hours doing research on the Amazon, you will never be able to understand it quite as well as someone who has experienced it first and has felt deep within.
3. Deadlines
Many people have lost trust in website developers. There are many companies out there that promise to deliver a project in time only to disregard the agreed upon deadline. It often happens that web design companies disappear altogether. A trusted source is one with happy customers. When you consider doing business with a company, don’t you often want to hear about previous work and what clients have to say about the service they’ve received? If it’s not up to par, chances are you won’t want to work with this company again and you have all the right to lose trust in this provider. Working with someone from another part of the world often turns into a disaster story when deadlines aren’t met and projects aren’t completed.
4. Local Economic Health
Takings jobs away from your region and country could result in disastrous effects on your country’s economy. Employing locally means internal economic prosperity. Outsourcing to different regions of the world takes away from local business growth.
5. Honest Advice
In order to get the sale, many companies in different regions of the world are willing to promise you the ends of the world for your business. Look at the example that I stated in the beginning of the article about the SEO company in India that was confident in getting our keywords to the first pages of search engines but never delivered. The quality of work may not be there if you’re not dealing with a company from the States of Canada, and who does not have the same standards as us Westerners. Let’s be honest – our quality of products and services is at times incomparable to others in different regions. If you’re looking for a special design for your website, you are never guaranteed to get the same level of professionalism as someone who would do it here. The standards are simply lower. What ends up happening is that you spend money on something that costs less, but in the end are left unsatisfied by a company that doesn’t meet your expectations. The level of expertise is lower in regions like India and the Philippines, and while they may promise you an arm and a leg, you may lose what you’ve invested in to begin with. It’s often cited that the technical level of those in different parts of the world is 3 years behind. Consider this when outsourcing.
If you are choosing to outsource for your business, at the very least you owe it to yourself to get in touch with contacts of people who know enough about the subject from first-hand experience, and from those that are satisfied with particular overseas companies after getting great service.
Also consider that you don’t necessarily have to employ someone in the States or in Canada who’s necessarily going to be expensive; you can look for students who are looking to work on their portfolios or interns that you can train and in the future keep. (There are serious down-sides to this as well because everyone should be paid for the work they do, but if you come to a good compromise you may find a good solution to your outsourcing needs).
Keep on the lookout for various outsourcing stories and case studies as they emerge on the web. This is a very serious subject that is being looked into with quite the magnifying glass and telescope. There are many things to consider, and as someone who has had a few experiences herself. and also as someone who has read many sources of information on the matter, I encourage you to delve deeper into the subject before implementing a strategy for yourself and your business.
Cheers!
Anna @ Toronto
Top Mobile Apps. for Business Owners
Here is a list of 10 that are very useful along with prices and where to buy directly
1. Check your web site stats from your cell phone.
Analytics App (iPhone) $5.99
Mobile GA (Android) free from Android Marketplace
Keep an idea on how your business is doing, any time, anywhere, with a cell phone interface to your Google Analytics data.
2. Access CRM.
Salesforce.com mobile lite (Blackberry 8000 and 9000 series, Windows Mobile 6 iPhone) free to Professional Edition (or higher) license holders
Oracle Business Indicators (iPhone) free, requires Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Plus or Oracle Business Intelligence Applications
3. Access and control your desktop computer remotely from your phone.
Logmein Ignition (iPhone) $29.99
Jaadu VNC (iPhone) $24.99
VNC+ (Blackberry) $29.95
Mocha VNC (Windows Mobile) $20
Very useful for those occasions when you need to run or shut down an application or check data stored on your computer when you are out of the office. A large screen device (such as an iPhone) is essential for these applications to be practical.
4. Edit Office documents.
Documents To Go (iPhone, Blackberry, Windows)
Mobile, Android, WebOS coming soon) from $4.99 depending on platform A portable productivity suite, Documents To Go lets you create, open and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents on your cell phone, including files received as attachments.
5. Update your web server on the move using FTP.
FTP On The Go (iPhone) $6.99
MobyExplorer (Java J2ME enabled phones) $14.99
Handy for those times when your web site needs updating or you notice a typo on one of the pages when you are away from your desk.
6. Make credit card sales at trade shows, exhibitions, or outdoor events.
iTerminal (iPhone) $0.99
Paytech (Blackberry) free
Intuit GoPayment (iPhone, Blackberry Curve, Palm Pre, Motorola Razr) free
Use your phone as a credit card terminal for instant transactions anywhere. Intuit GoPayment can also be used with a Bluetooth card reader for added speed.
7. Access project documents created by anyone in your team from your phone – even if computers are switched off.
Sugarsync Mobile (iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Windows Mobile) free
After installing Sugarsync Manager software on team members’ Windows or Mac machines, project files or folders are sent to Sugarsync whenever changes are made. A Sugarsync Mobile client enables you to access those files directly from your phone.
Note: Requires a free or paid SugarSync account from www.sugarsync.com.
8. Turn your wi-fi enabled phone into a wireless hotspot using its 3G connection.
Joikuspot (Symbian S60) $21.48
WMWiFirouter (Windows Mobile) $29.99
A simple way to connect your laptop to the Internet anywhere where you have 3G cellular coverage.
9. Run your company’s XenApp hosted Windows applications from your cell phone.
Citrix Receiver (iPhone, Windows Mobile Pro, Symbian S60) free
Use corporate applications directly from your cell phone without the risk of losing or compromising confidential corporate data, since the applications and data run in your corporate data center. XenApp sends only screen display updates to your phone.
10. Hold online meetings from your phone.
Fuze Meeting (iPhone, Blackberry) free
Cisco WebEx Meeting Center (iPhone) free
Host audio conferences with full dashboard controls, see files and presentations, chat via IM, without having to return to your office of carry around a laptop.
Note: WebEx and Fuze Meeting conference services are not free.
Popular provider
Apple – # 1 provider with more than 50,000 apps.
http://www.apple.com/iphone/apps-for-iphone/
http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/apps-for-iphone/intelligence.html
Blackberry
http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/appworld/
http://na.blackberry.com/solutions/needs/intelligence/#tab_tab_partner-solutions
Droid
http://www.android.com/market/
Resellers
http://www.golivemobile.com/golivepartner.htm
http://www.spodtronic.com/radioapps/index-en.html
http://www.idera.com/partners/default.aspx?ThisAction=Resellers
