Tips | The Reader Appreciation Project

Avoid Avoiding Affiliate Marketing

05. Aug, 2010 2 Comments

Should you jump into affiliate marketing?

John, one of RA Project readers and commentors, suggested that RA Project also cover affiliate marketing. Starting today affiliate marketing and its relationship to appreciation will become part of the RA Project scope. Everything a blog and a business does online or offline is part of your life and also part of RA Project. If you are online to make money in any manner, you have to figure out whether or not you want to be part of the biggest money making system on the planet: affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is basically the act of sending a customer to any business and earning a commission, or a referral fee, if that customer buys something. This simple, yet powerful, trend has both been improved and abused by different people in order to make money in the long and the short term. People doing affiliate marketing honestly try to do it for the longer term, while those who want to lie and make money by sending people to wrong or useless products try to do it in quick bursts for the short term. You can decide which term works for you and how you can do it honestly and effectively, regardless of it being the long or the short term. But before you do that, you have to commit to yourself that you want to actually be an affiliate marketer.

In order to realize whether or not affiliate marketing can work, you have to figure out the reasons why avoiding affiliate marketing can be a deadly mistake.

5 Reasons Not To Avoid Affiliate Marketing

Misconceptions, Tips

affiliate, business, featured, marketing, mistakes, money, Tips, trends

Things to Include in Your Website Testimonials

30. Jul, 2010 4 Comments

Do your customer testimonials include these necessary elements?

Are you including necessary elements to make your customer testimonials effective?

One of the best things about social media today is the opportunity to see what other people online say or do. Such an opportunity makes websites like Facebook or Twitter very popular. Your website and blog itself usually gains more traction or attention when endorsed by other people who do not get paid to endorse you. The testimonials section of your website can turn a lot of visitors into paying customers.

Your testimonials should not only make potential customers realize that other customers have happily bought from you before, they should also make your potential customers feel completely safe and ready to buy after reading a testimonial. Your testimonials should exist to both make customers feel safe and make your customers ready to buy right away. Testimonials are a form of a social connection between potential customers and existing customers.

In order to make sure your testimonials are effective and do not actually harm your credibility, make sure your testimonials include the following five things.

5 Things to Include in Your Website Testimonials

Tips

business, Customers, featured, testimonials, Tips, website

The “I want to speak to your manager!” Phenomenon

26. Jul, 2010 2 Comments

Are your first level contacts unable to help customers?

You encounter this phrase almost weekly. You see other people saying it and many times you may have said it yourself. “I want to speak to your manager!” Those words, usually spoken when angry, probably stem from a frustrating situation when a customer may feel that someone they are currently dealing with at a business may be unwilling to help them at all. The manager in such situations has to be called so that the customer can either be given what they want or so that the customer can be gotten rid of from the premises of the business with as less damage and drama as possible.

The number of times your customers or blog readers ask anyone at your business or blog to have someone else, besides you or your co-worker, interact with the customer or reader in question gives you a very good way to measure how your business or blog helps solve customer issues. The larger the number, the more problematic your business or blog solving plans and techniques may be. Problems may always happen on any blog or in any business. The trick is not to focus solely on keeping the number of problems to a minimum. The trick is to also keep the number of ways to solve customer problems and the level of satisfaction of customers after problems very high too.

One of the best ways to keep the level of satisfaction in customers high is to ensure that you minimize the number of times customers actually feel left behind by your blog or company. That will help ensure that customers having problem always feel they got the help they needed from interacting with anyone via your blog or company.

Eliminate the chances that make clients upset enough to ask for the manager

Tips

business, Customers, issues, trends

2 Typical and Deadly Trends Your Blog Should Avoid

21. Jul, 2010 3 Comments

Is your blogging avoiding these 2 deadly trends?

Every blog you visit has some things you like, and some things you do not like. Your own blog is also, fortunately or unfortunately, judged or viewed by others in a similar fashion. Everything on your blog usually comes off as a good or a bad thing for your blog readers. While you cannot cater a blog to everyone’s needs, you can try to have good things and avoid bad things that you think may affect all or almost every blog reader who comes across your blog.

Last week we covered the idea of things your blog should have. In addition to knowing the things you should have on your blog, you should realize the things you should avoid on your blog. It can be very hard to do and try new things on your blog, so in contract it may be very easy for you to try and avoid certain things in your daily blogging.

Today we shall go through 2 important things that you should try to avoid on your blog and in your blogging. Avoid these 2 things on a daily basis and in every blog post if you wish to have a blog that wins both loyal readers and customers.

5 Things Your Blog Should Avoid

Misconceptions, Tips

avoid, blog, Blogging, featured, Tips

Things Your Blog Should Have

18. Jul, 2010 10 Comments

Does your blog have these things?

A blog without any content is simply an empty page in the eyes of a blog reader. Similarly, a blog that does not allow people to leave comments is simply also an empty page, devoid of any useful purpose, in the eyes of millions of blog commentors. A blog can be very powerful if it exists to enable people to engage with the blog content and the blogger. A blog should have certain things in order to make it every powerful and effective.

Your blog can survive without having many different things, though some certain things help you as a blogger immensely in today’s socially networking world. You can focus solely on blog content, but if you do not pay any attention to the elements surrounding the blog content, your blog as a whole may suffer or may not reach the heights you want it to.

So how can you make sure your blog performs well outside of the scope of your blog content? Here are 5 things your blog should have in order to engage people.

5 Things Your Blog Should have

Blogging, Tips

Reach Out to Customers

16. Jul, 2010 3 Comments

Are you reaching out to your customers?

If you work regularly, chances are your work focuses on bringing in a set of services or products that will draw in customers. Your business may be trying regularly to generate interest for customers in order to have the customers inquire and interact with your company. While many customers like interacting with different businesses, many other customers including potential customers usually hesitate before contacting a company for further information. Any competitor who may answer all the questions for a potential customer without having that potential customer ask such questions first may end up winning that customer.

Instead of focusing solely on making the customer come to you, you can also try reaching out to the customers yourself. Surprise them and contact them. Let them know what you have to say directly. Solve their problems before they ask for a solution. Help them out with the issues they are facing. Give them advice about things they may be thinking about on their personal blogs. Offer discounts and specials for services they may be interested in. The more you contact customers before they contact you, the more you show to them that you are there for them and that you are looking out for them.

In order to realize more about customer appreciation and to appreciate both your business and your clients more, you have to reach out to them without waiting for them to reach out to you.

Are You Reaching Out to Customers on Your Own?

Tips

appreciation, business, clients, communication, featured, interaction

6 Things Customers Hesitate to Give You

14. Jul, 2010 1 Comment

Customers Hesitate to Give Info About These Out

Do you ask customers for sensitive information?

Every time you buy something in person from a store like Target, Neiman Marcus or Best Buy, the cashier asks you if you have a membership with their store in the form of a membership rewards program or a credit card. Chances are you either have such a card or you are offered an application for such a card. Many businesses ask you for your personal information in order to sell you credit cards and rewards programs to make more money. While such trends are very popular, businesses also realize that customers are very hesitant to hand out their sensitive information.

Your business and blog can perform better if you asked customers information that they are not hesitant to give to you. You can also work harder to make customers feel at ease when you ask them very sensitive information that a potential scammer could misuse. If you ask customers for their real full names while your competitor only needs their e-mail address for the same product or service, chances are your potential customers may start going to your competition. Similarly, if you only need an e-mail address and PayPal information from your customers, while your competitors need more information in addition to those, potential customers may prefer your business because of not having to divulge too much personal information.

What kinds of information should you ask your customers in order to provide more services and to generate more profits? You can start figuring out the answer by looking at the different levels of hesitation customers have when sharing personal information with businesses.

6 Sensitive Things Customers Hesitate to Divulge to You

Misconceptions, Tips

business, communication, Customers, featured, interaction, list, planning, sensitive, sharing

Your Shopping Cart Should Avoid These 5 Distractions

13. Jul, 2010 2 Comments

Customers can get distracted in shopping carts

Are your customers getting distracted while adding things to shopping carts?

Shopping carts are the main source of income for many websites. In fact, Amazon.com relies mainly on its shopping cart to make almost all of its sales. Amazon does one thing very good compared to many other retailers: it allows customers to have a distraction free shopping cart experience.

Your shopping cart also needs to be an experience that allows customers to dive into the world of the product they are buying. There should be absolutely nothing on your end that can distract the customer when they are ready to buy something from you. The same way offline retail stores try to make sure customers do not have to wait long to pay a cashier, you have to make sure your customers have a quick and distraction-free shopping experience in order to have better sales and more satisfied customers.

Are you doing everything you can to make sure your shopping cart does not distract customers from purchasing an item? Start focusing on such a task by avoiding implementing the following 5 distractions in your shopping carts.

5 Distractions to Avoid Implementing in Your Shopping Cart

Examples, Tips

business, Customers, distractions, experience, featured, list, shopping, Tips

Offer Discounts to Increase Appreciation and Sales

12. Jul, 2010 2 Comments

Are you offering discounts to everyone?

One of the two probably biggest reasons people do not buy anything from you is because they do not feel interested in your products. The other reason is that many people do not see a good value in what you are offering. You can try to convert this second category of potential customers by offering discounts. Discounts are basically a way to offer your same product at a lower price while still making a good profit. It is a win-win situation for both you and the customer.

There are many different ways to offer discounts, though companies like AT&T usually focus on offering discounts and rebates to new clients only. One of the biggest reasons people leave any company is because they find a better value elsewhere. You have to offer discounts and incentives to allow both existing and new clients to benefit from any price reductions.

Here are the 5 general concepts of offering discounts that you can apply to your blog and business practically and immediately.

5 Ways to Offer Discounts

Tips

appreciation, featured, incentives, list, money, sales, Tips

Deliver Your Blog Content in Multiple Ways

11. Jul, 2010 2 Comments

Are you delivering your blog content in different ways?

Your blog content depends on a delivery venue. The computer screens and browsers that your clients use greatly affect the way your site performs and appears in the minds of the blog readers. The same way browsers like Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox deliver your blog to your blog readers, there are several other methods your blog readers can use to get your blog content.

Majority of the blogs on the internet depend upon the trend of having a blog reader visit them. You can take a step further if you want to be very successful. You have to bring your blog to the blog readers. When you bring your blog to a blog reader, you are basically allowing that blog reader to view and benefit from your content at their own preferred venue and time. You also reduce the number of steps many blog readers have to take in order to get your blog content. The easier it is for your blog readers to get your content, the more loyal blog readers you will get for your blog.

In addition to the regular browser, you can deliver your blog to your readers and clients in many different ways, including the following 4 important and powerful ones.