AffSphere is a relatively new article directory, that has made it to the list of top article directories.

But what makes it stand out is that AffSphere allows you to earn 8 different ways for your articles! All you have to do is what you already do, submit your great content to the directory (that’s it).

AffSphere is a service of Affiliate Classroom, Inc., and on August 12th they are going to release a report that reveals exactly how they earn over 6 figures a year just from article marketing.

Learn more and watch videos about this new article directory at the AffSphere blog.

What’s your market? Hire a consultant to help you with your Web-business problems and one of the first questions he or she will ask is, what’s your market? How about eighteen to thirty-four year old, single male college graduates with a dog named Spot; or maybe forty-five to fifty-nine year old married women, who hate their husbands and can’t get their adult children to move out of the house. Maybe, just maybe, they’re asking the wrong question.

The Web isn’t about markets, it’s about audiences. Audiences need to be entertained, enlightened, and engaged, and if your website doesn’t, you’re never going to achieve what you want.

Time to rethink how you’re delivering your marketing message. Start treating Web-visitors like an audience not a market, and you might just find what it takes to be successful on the Web.

2. Think People Not Customers

You know all those visitors you attract to your website with your brilliant search engine optimization schemes, how many actually purchase anything? Stop treating visitors as if they are already customers and start treating them like what they are – people. That’s right, people. You know the two-legged funny creatures with wants, needs, desires, and maybe even a few bucks to spend.

Customers are always looking for a deal and they’re leery of websites that only want to take their hard earned cash. Treat your Web-visitors like people who can satisfy their wants, needs, and desires with your assistance and guess what? Maybe it will make a difference: one small step for Web-credibility, one giant leap for Web-success.

3. Think Experiences Not Features

Bought any good features lately? Didn’t think so. You would think the way business pushes the whole feature-frenzy thing that features are exactly what people are looking for, but nobody buys features, they don’t even buy solutions – boy doesn’t that whole solution provider nonsense really get to you after a while.

What people really buy are experiences, hopefully positive ones. Whether it’s soft ice cream or a new accounting program, what people are paying for is the experience your product or service provides.

Does your website offer an experience? Does it explain the experience your product or service delivers? If it doesn’t, then you really haven’t got anything anybody wants.

4. Think Emotion Not Logic

Think you’re a logical person, always making rational decisions based on practical criteria, and bottom line results. So tell me what was the functional thinking that went into the purchase of those leather pants you bought last year, or that sixty inch plasma television you bought just to watch the big game?

Let’s get real. You make purchasing decisions based on what you want, and then justify them with seemingly sensible rationalizations, just like everybody else. So stop trying to appeal only to the practical, logical, aspects of bean-counter sales, and start pushing the feel good aspects of emotional marketing.

If you’re trying to appeal to an audience that gets its only satisfaction out of acquiring the most features for the least cost, then your marketing to the wrong audience.

5. Think Memories Not Promotions

Most animals live in the moment, whereas human beings live in the past. Our here and now and our plans for the future are based on our experiences, our histories, and our memories.

We take pictures of our kids, holidays, and special events; we commemorate birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, and milestones of all kinds. Even the significance of our prized possessions is centered on the fact that those mere objects represent memories of the people, places, and events that shaped our lives.

Real marketing, the kind that creates long-term clients and customer relationships, is not about coupons, sale promotions, or deep discounts; it’s about delivering memories.

6. Think Marketing Not S.E.O.

Okay, here’s one you’ve heard from us before: think marketing not search engine optimization. Sure you’ve got to drive as many people to your website as possible, but if your marketing message is so confused, unfocused, and hard to comprehend because of all the keyword density and S.E.O. tricks, then what have you really accomplished other than wasting people’s time? And people really get upset when you waste their time.

7. Think Stickiness Not Hits

It’s not about how many hits you get on your website, it’s about how long people stay. If visitors remain on your site long enough to get your marketing message then you must have said something worth listening to, and if visitors get the message, your site has done its job.

If your website delivers the message, then you can expect the email inquiries and phone calls to start flowing, but it’s still up to you and your sales staff to close the sale: people close sales not websites.

8. Think Stories Not Pitches

Did you hear the one about the farmer’s daughter and the search engine optimizer … Stories, everyone loves stories. In fact before the invention of the Gutenberg press, oral story telling was the way knowledge got passed down from one generation to the next, and how news was sent from one region to another.

Now that we have this multimedia Web-environment, we can continue the tradition of real people delivering creative audio and video presentations that capture the imagination and drive home the marketing message so your audience won’t forget who you are. Nothing informs, engages, and entertains, like a good story: sounds to me like one heck of a way to sell to an audience desperate for meaningful communication.

9. Think Focus Not Confusion

There you go again, telling everyone who will listen all the wonderful things you and your company can do. Trouble is, telling them all those things just confuses them.

What is the product or service that is most important to your company, the one you are determined to sell to your audience? That’s the one you want to talk about. That’s the one you want to devote your marketing effort to promoting. That’s the one you want people to think about when they hear your name or see your logo. Focus your communication or your message will just be a forgettable, incomprehensible blur.

10. Think Campaigns Not Ads

Isolated one-time advertisements are like one-night-stands: exciting for a while but ultimately unfulfilling and devoid of meaning. Your audience is looking to get married, not a short-term fling. Your marketing has to woo your visitors with long-term campaigns that tell your story and deliver your focused message; audiences expect to be courted and counseled with meaningful communication. And that takes time and commitment.

If you’re spending money on just ads, you might as well be throwing that money down the drain. There is a better way. So if you’re looking for a long-term relationship with your audience, think campaigns not ads.

11. Think Message Not Hype

What message are you delivering to your online visitors? Are you telling them you’ve got the best product, at the best price, with the best staff, and world-class customer service? Is that what you saying? Guess what? Nobody cares, because nobody believes you.

There is only one way to show people you’re the best and that is to prove it, but here’s the catch, you can’t prove it until they become customers. Whoops. Okay, so what’s the solution? How about a real marketing message that speaks to what your audience really wants. It’s not about you it’s about them.

12. Think Personality Not Banality

Does your website just lie there like a lox; you know that cold, dead fish that often comes with a bagel? No personality, just more of the same tedious, dull, dreary, mind-numbing, tiresome, lackluster, monotonous, stuff everybody else has. Boring! This is the new Web, so if you can’t get with it, you’d better get out because you’re wasting your time and everybody else’s.

You’re so worried about downloading times that you forgot to put anything on your site worth seeing or hearing. Check your logs. If people are jumping ship faster than rats on a burning ship, it’s time to try something new; like, maybe some compelling content.

13. Think Branding Not Copyrights

Hay, I love the Beatles. I grew up with them, and I have all their records – ya records, like vinyl dude, not CDs. And guess what, I’ve also got a Mac, in fact I’ve got a bunch of them, not to mention iPods and other assorted Apple gizmos and gadgets. And you know something, I’ve never once got John, Paul, George, or Ringo confused with Steve Jobs. Amazing!

Worry just a little less about all that small print stuff and more on building a memorable brand that people will remember, and that nobody will mistake for some johnny-come-lately imposter.

14. Think Positioning Not Slogan

It’s funny how people have a position on almost everything: you name the issue and people will have a definite opinion on what they think, except when it comes to their businesses. Just because you have a cute slogan that you print under your logo, doesn’t mean you own a position in your audience’s minds.

It seems businesses can’t stand to make a definitive statement about who they are and what they do. Why is that? Afraid they’ll lose a customer I guess, but if people don’t understand exactly what you do, and why they should be doing business with you, then they’re never going to be customers anyway.

No company can be all things to all people and companies that try, never go anywhere. Tell people who you are and what you do and forget about all the other stuff, it just gets in the way.

15. Think Sensory Appeal Not Cents Appeal

Do you want people to sit-up and take notice of what you have to say? Do you want people to actually remember what you’re telling them? While if that’s the case, you better appeal to their senses, and we’re talking about sights and sounds.

Deliver all your juicy, got-to-have content in an audio and video presentation that will stick in people’s heads.

If all you’re doing is appealing to their desire to spend less, then maybe they aren’t the customers you’re looking for anyway. Nobody can afford to sell for less all the time, every time.

16. Think Identity Not Logos

Is your company the equivalent of the invisible man? You’re on the Web, but nobody cares because you’re not saying anything worth listening to, and if they do see you, you are instantly forgettable.

You’ve got to have an identity, a personality, an image, and there is no better way to create that identity than with a video of a real person delivering your marketing message in an entertaining, memorable manner.

17. Think Entertainment Not Biz-speak

Speaking of entertaining, you cannot engage, enlighten, or entertain if everything you present sounds and looks like it came from some b-school text book, or from one of those self-help courses on direct marketing guaranteed to make you a millionaire in only three weeks.

Every business has a story to tell and they can all be presented in a compelling way with a little imagination and creativity. And yes, even b-to-b businesses can rise above the mundane and deadly boring, if only they take the time and make the effort.

18. Think Communication Not Copy

Last but not least, let’s all remember, that websites are about communication. If you’ve got nothing to say, nothing to offer, or are afraid to say what you can do for your audience, then how do you expect to be successful.

Filling your Web pages with keyword density prose and instantly forgettable sale’s copy is not going to win the day.

Whether you are presenting your case in text, audio, or video, it better be interesting and enlightening – even text can be entertaining if written with style and attitude.

When websites fail, they fail because they do not communicate a realistic, believable, convincing marketing message.

- – -
About the Author: Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Tel. (905) 764-1246.

Here’s just a few of the things you’ll discover in these video tutorials:

• Where to dig up an almost limitless supply of re-useable content to create new products.
• How to use Google to find an instant list of customers.
• The lazy marketer’s way to find out exactly how much people are prepared to pay for your niche products.
• Why Amazon should be a first place to visit if your trying to establish what sites to build for Adsense or affiliate marketing.
• How to really use eBay to identify hot, in-demand products.
• Plus how to turn your eBay research into killer info-products and Adsense revenue.
• A little known spot on eBay where you can find an army of instant BUYERS…
• Discover how to find lava hot niches with Myspace (in seconds) And how to use an often overlooked feature to unearth targeted niche goldmines.
• How to use PayPal as a million dollar marketing research tool.

This is a real CD-ROM delivered direct to your door, not a downloadable video. The price is only $17 plus shipping.

Link: Mining Hot Niches

Here’s a simple business model based on this:

1. Research diy key phrases and choose a theme for your future product, for example:
   • diy scrapbooking
   • diy home improvement
   • diy plumbing
   • diy computer repair
   • diy auto repair
   • and so on…
2. Create an info product showing or telling them how they can “do it yourself”:
   • create a video product, or…
   • create an e-book.
   • Remember, you can always hire a freelancer to do this for you. (Click on this link, than go to Web Content > eBook Writing or Other Services > Audio, Video & Multimedia)
3. Create a simple website and drive traffic to it.

That’s it. Just wanted to share this niche marketing idea with you.

Have a nice day!

Andrei

John Reese published a special report called The Rebirth Of Internet Marketing.

It’s a 53-page free PDF report packed with extremely valuable information about the present and future of Internet Marketing.

There’s a massive revolution about to occur all across the world and those that truly understand it can get rich. In fact, this revolution has already begun, but in the next several years it’s going to change everything online.

Here are some topics covered in the report:

• Traffic
• Web 2.0
• Website profitability
• “The Long Tail”
• Competition online
• Google Adsense and AdWords
• Website content
• Squeeze pages
• Sales letters
• Video
• SEO
• King Kong (that’s right, King Kong, no kidding here…)

This report will definitely change your approach to marketing your business online. A must-read. Worth more than the average $97 e-book.

Download now from John Reese’s new blog: The Rebirth Of Internet Marketing

by Michel Fortin

In the competitive marketplace of the new millennium, the demand for specialized products or services will increase. If your site sells everything or to everyone, chances are that your audience will not perceive any greater value in shopping from you than anyone else.

The more generic you become, the greater your competition will be, since you’ve placed your offering in the same ring as the Wal-Marts, Targets and eBays of the world.

In other words, cast a wider net, and the likelihood that more competitors who are trying to go after the same “fish” will occupy the same marketspace.

Unless you are trying to be another Wal-Mart, there’s no use competing with them. The sheer size of such Goliaths gives them a sizeable competitive advantage — purchasing power.

That is, they can buy their stock at considerable bulk discounts, giving them the low price advantage with which most small businesses cannot compete.

Keep in mind that price is never an issue — what’s important is the value behind the price.

Price is an arbitrary figure that merely represents the value of an offering. Here’s an example: you walk to your local home furnishings store. You ask the sales clerk, “How much for that washer?” to which he responds, “$600.” “Wow! That’s a lot of money,” you exclaim. “The price is way too high for me. I just cannot afford that.”

This is a typical knee-jerk response.

Moments later, you walk by a car dealership and notice that favorite new car you’ve been itching to buy for the last month and a half. You walk in. “It’s $25,000,” says the salesperson. “Wow! That’s great!”

You drive it off the lot that same day.

If you could not afford the $600 washer, why could you afford the $25,000 car? So, price is never an issue. In the case of the car, the perceived value matched or surpassed the price, which wasn’t the case with the washer — i.e., the washer was too pricey based on its perceived value.

Therefore, if your value is perceived as equal to that of others, naturally the cheapest alternative will win. Price is only a metric — a currency to which most people can relate.

Take the weather, for example. When you meet someone for the first time, the weather will likely be a topic of discussion. In terms of degrees or temperature, the weather is the same for everyone. But “hot” and “cold,” however, are different.

Similarly, price is only used when there’s nothing to which one can compare your value. (Of course, price is not the only metric, but it is the most common one. Most people easily understand units of dollars rather than value. Value is more subjective and personal. It cannot be measured.)

Therefore, if you’re too similar to your competition, price will always then be (or become) an issue.

However, the more unique you are, the less competition you will have. And the less competition you will have, the less substitutable you are (or your product is). And the less substitutable you are, the less elastic the demand for your product will be (i.e., the less important price becomes, in this case).

So, if you try to copy your competition, or trying to promote your offering as one that’s better than your competition, like it or not you’re only reminding people of that which you are better: your competition!

It’s better to be different than it is to be better.

Being all things to all people will likely help you to stumble onto some people who will visit your site and respond to your offer — it’s the law of averages. Increase your hits and you will increase your sales.

But that’s not the problem. The problem, with such an approach, is the fact that you must generate a large quantity of hits in order to produce a certain result.

It is absolutely true that, if you want a lot of hits, you want your site (or access to it) to be in front of as many eyeballs as possible. But what about quality? Would it matter if your site generates an incredible quantity of uninterested visitors that will simply never buy from you?

Would you prefer less than 1% of 10,000 visitors? Or 10% of 500?

For those who wish to find more effective and cost-efficient ways of selling online, then attracting a higher quality stream of website visitors — that is, attracting interested, pre-qualified visitors that are genuinely interested in the website’s offer and ready to buy — is definitely a better alternative.

The more general or broad you are, the more you will need to paint your website or content with broad brushstrokes in order to appeal to everyone. In the end, the traffic you do generate will be just as general or broad.

Even if your product is a perfect fit for some visitors, it will only be a fit for a small percentage. Additionally, the broad nature of your offer and the image you project will likely convey that your value is equal to that of others and that there’s no added value in buying from you than in buying from others.

This is when price becomes the metric with which people will measure your value.

Additionally, out of the small handful of qualified prospects that hopefully hit your site, a large number of them — if not all of them — will likely leave due to your apparent lack of understanding of their specific needs, goals and concerns. In short, the more general you are, the more you are compared to others and therefore the more you dilute your value.

In other words, the more general you are, the less value you have.

However, the sales you generate will increase dramatically if your site is narrowly centered on a specific theme, product, audience or outcome. And niche marketing has an added benefit: the need to produce a sufficient quantity of visitors to produce similar results will lessen considerably.

Offline, being everything to everyone is understandable to a certain degree since, geographically, a niche will likely be small. Online, however, niche marketing can work since a market will expand, even if it is a small niche.

But it’s a double-edged sword.

Since the web increases your target market, it also increases the competition as a byproduct. Again, cast a wider net, and the likelihood that your net will fall into someone else’s waters will be higher.

Offline, location is important. And a competitor next door can be your biggest headache. But online, thousands of competitors have instantly become your neighbors.

Thus, niche marketing is even more important online since, by narrowing your focus, you both increase your niche AND decrease your competition!

Here’s an illustration: let’s say that your best client is the corporate executive earning $50,000 annually or more, and that your site receives approximately 200,000 hits per month.

If your site’s message aims for the public at large, you have a problem. There will only be a small percentage of that ideal market (i.e., corporate execs earning $50,000) that will hit your site. (And an even smaller percentage will genuinely be qualified for, and interested in, your offering).

For the sake of example, let’s say that this percentage is around 0.1%. That means that, out of 200,000 monthly visitors, only 200 will fit your perfect customer profile (and that’s a very optimistic figure).

Since your site is too general or too vague, an even smaller percentage of those 200 executives — let’s say about 0.5% — will be truly interested in your offer and eventually buy. In this case, 0.5% (of 200 qualified visitors) would equal to a mere client for an entire month.

(Following me so far?)

Looking at it in reverse it means that, if you want to achieve at least a single sale per month from this ideal market, your site will thus require at least 200,000 visitors on a monthly basis. So, based on the law of averages your marketing efforts will need to multiply exponentially in order to create a high enough quantity of traffic to yield acceptable results.

Now, take the example of another website dedicated exclusively to corporate executives earning over $50,000.

However, this site receives a meager 5,000 visitors per month — admittedly, it’s not a lot, especially when compared to the other. But in this case, the percentage of those 5,000 that fall into that site’s target market will be 100% — if my math is correct, that’s a 10,000% improvement.

Furthermore, the percentage of interested leads that are in a much better position to buy will be far higher by virtue of the fact that the site centers on their specific needs, goals and concerns. The perceived value of the site, in other words, will be greater in the mind of those specific prospects.

To be conservative, let’s say that this percentage is only 5%. It means that out of 5,000 visitors per month, one can achieve 250 sales — that’s 249 more sales than the other (and, on top of that, with only a quarter of the traffic).

But let’s be a little more conservative for a moment. Let’s say that only 1% buys. It’s still a remarkable 400% improvement over the other, as 1% of 5,000 visitors equals to 5 sales per month (4 more than the other).

Of course, the above example is when all things considered are equal — I agree that there are many variables, here. But the spirit of this illustration is clear: it took an equal if not lesser investment of time, effort and money to achieve 250 sales per month than it did to achieve a single one.

So, there is much truth to the statement that you will get more with less. And online, where there is so much more of nothing, less is indeed more.

Therefore, the paradox is true on the Internet: by narrowing your focus, you will likely broaden your chances of online success.

Although most business owners are aware of clear, target marketing strategies to achieve results that could be far more effective and cost-efficient, the ideology remains: to be successful one must be everywhere. That statement may be true to some degree and should not be discounted…

… But it is far better to be everywhere that matters.

In other words, your message should appear in front of those people who will likely read your ad and take action. If you promote your online business in places in which your target market is likely to congregate, it is fair to admit that your immediate costs will likely be higher.

Targeted marketing is not cheap. However, the bottom-line is the fact that your visitor value will increase substantially as a result. That’s more important.

In essence, it will certainly be cheaper for you to spend the money in these targeted areas than it would be in trying to find those ideal clients any other way.

Remember that your goal should be to attract people to your site who have a genuine interest in what you have to offer. Targeting as many people as possible particularly with a message that appeals to only a portion of them may produce a fair amount of hits. But it will mostly consist of people who will never be your clients anyway — you will attract the curious and not the serious.

With all things being equivalent, if your ad appears on a site that caters to your ideal market, you may get less hits but you will certainly get more sales.

Nevertheless, combining targeted and niche-based marketing strategies can make substantial improvements over general, non-focused marketing. By lessening your market as well as the market to which you advertise, you will proportionately increase your sales.

Jim Banks started selling carpets online in 1998. He admits that, at the time, he knew nothing about it. Says Banks: “I thought that it would be a non-competitive market (‘who would want to sell carpet online?’ I asked myself) and it would allow me to learn about this whole new Internet thing.”

But at first, Jim floundered.

“I showed carpet on the website, sent out samples, and used a wholesaler in Georgia to deliver the goods. I made some money, but it was a lot of hard work. In fact, a lot of hand-holding of customers was required, and my time was a limiting factor in how much money I could make.”

But then, Jim had an idea. He adds:

“I had read one or two of your articles at the time where you stressed the importance of niche marketing. And after thinking about that, and applying it to my industry, I came up with the idea of selling carpets and area rugs with children’s designs (e.g., animals, letters, game boards, etc). Today, things are going very well!”

(By the way, see Jim’s site at KidCarpet.com.)

In conclusion, here’s my advice: if you’re looking at starting a business online, first find a niche and fill it. But if you already are doing business online, then narrow your focus to a specific outcome, audience or product.

And finally, if you do sell everything to everyone already, I suggest breaking your business down by developing several sites, which sell the same things but targeted towards different segments of your market.

Don’t be the best. Be the first. As Earl Nightingale once said, “Don’t copy. Create!”

In other words, don’t duplicate. Differentiate.

About the Author

Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter, author, speaker and consultant. Watch him rewrite copy on video each month, and get tips and tested conversion strategies proven to boost response in his membership site at http://TheCopyDoctor.com/ today.

Adding audio or video podcasts to your blog or web site is a great marketing strategy, because podcasts add value to your site and encourage people to return on a regular basis to see what new content you’ve posted recently.

But trying to find podcasts that are relevant to your niche website is reminiscent of the early days of the Internet. Podcasts have been subjected to the same primitive search through categorization… until now.

Podzinger is a cool new audio and video search engine that allows you to find relevant audio and video podcasts. And you can perform the search right from your Virtual Real Estate Toolbar.

Type in a word or terms into the toolbar’s search box and select Content > Audio > Podzinger to search for audio podcasts, or Content > Video > Podzinger to search for video.

Podzinger not only finds the relevant podcasts, but also highlights the segment of the audio in which they occurred. By clicking anywhere on the results, the audio will begin to play just where you clicked. There are also controls that let you back up, pause, or forward through the podcast. Or you can download the entire podcast.

To show you what I mean, here’s a screencap of the first result I got when I used Podzinger to search for the keyword phrase “green tea diet”:

As you can see, there is the Download button below the controls. Press it to download the podcast. Now you can insert it into your website or blog.

Several other services offer podcast searching, including Podscope and Blinkx.tv, but none offer such sophisticated text conversion along with equally convenient playback options. As the universe of podcast content grows, services like Podzinger are becoming increasingly valuable for niche website building.

• Dedicated Hosting category added with first 4 websites in it, ranging from $79 to $99 per month.
• More Content options:
  • Two Private Label Rights sources added (Article Underground and PLR Pro)
  • 4 places to search for Audio content for your site, such as podcasts
  • 5 places to search for Video content
• Digg added to the  News section

In the upcoming posts we will be discussing these tools.