Most of the time, Google’s algorithms do a pretty good job of ensuring that the most relevant results filter to the top of the page. But that’s all done by a robot. Sometimes it needs a little human touch.
That’s where Scour comes in. Scour adds that personal touch. It takes the results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN searches and allows its users to vote the results up or down.
Then, to top it off, they allow the users to earn points for their searching activities and for referring friends to the search engine. When you refer friends, you receive points for their searches, too. These points continue to add up and can be traded for gift cards.
Now, I know, it takes a lot of searching to reach any meaningful return of value, but, hey! What does “big G” give you for using their search? Absolutely nada!
It only takes a few seconds to sign up to use Scour. Then you start searching. It’s that simple.
Imagine a Myspace without all the mindless adolescents and party freaks. Picture an online hangout that is restricted to internet marketers and networkers who are interested in doing business.
Such a place really exists! It’s called DirectMatches. You can network and socialize with thousands of like-minded people, and advertise any product or business for free. In fact, you will be matched with other people seeking the same benefits.
I highly recommend that you give DirectMatches a try and see what it can do for your business. In fact, DirectMatches is a business, itself. It is very useful as an addition stream of income. Although I believe in multiple income streams and don’t turn down what I receive from DirectMatches, that isn’t the reason I use it.
Let me show you a video that was put together by one of my mentors, Dave Dubbs, that shows how to set up DirectMatches. Also, he guides you through some of the primary uses of their system. Just click here to see his video.
One of the things that I did when I first started using DirectMatches was to begin inviting people to be my friends. Let me show you a quick and easy way to get friends. Please note I’m using the Firefox Browser. I use Firefox because I believe it’s the best for anyone involved in Internet Marketing. Click here to see why I feel that way.
If you don’t have Firefox you can pick it up for free by going to www.firefox.com which is their download site.
Gathering Friends on DirectMatches
It’s quick and easy to gather many friends on DirectMatches. With my quick and easy, yet manual system, I can invite 50 people to join my friends list in about 2 minutes. Again, I use Firefox to simplify this activity.
1. Click on the “Search” tab near the top left corner of the page.
2. Uncheck the 2 boxes and click “search”
3. While holding down the “ctrl” key, click on “Add me to contacts” for each of the 10 contacts on the page. Holding down the “ctrl” key will open each page on a new tab in your browser.
4. Close each of the 10 tabs that you just opened, and navigate to the next group of 10 contacts.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for as long as you wish (or until your results pages say “already added…” instead of “your request has been sent…”.)
Welcoming new members
I wrote this HubPage that describes one method of welcoming new members. I’m going to give you another method, here.
This method only works if you are a paid member. It won’t work for their free membership.
1. On your profile page, scroll down to the box that says “My Contacts” and click on “manage”.
2. Go to the bottom of the page and click on “check all” then click on “add to group mail”.
3. Navigate to the next page and repeat step 2.
You are only allowed to send 60 group mail message each day. If you are regularly adding new members as discussed in the previous section of this post, you will get many new members every day. I send a group mail out to a new set of members every day and can’t keep up with all my new contacts.
The letter you send out can be something as simple as a welcome to direct matches and and a generic statement about becoming freinds, sharing business ideas, or an offer of a free gift. It’s better not to spam people with a strong sales pitch of your business. Treat this similar to how you would a personal email account.
I came across this video and had to share it. It is just too funny. I suppose there is some moral to the story, but I’ll let you make up your own.
I categorized it in “Business Ethics” simply because that’s the only category that I blog in that remotely fits. Maybe the moral is that if you act like a rich jerk, you deserve what you get.
At EDC Diamond, we utilize multiple FREE classified advertising sites to promote our businesses. Though classified advertising has its naysayers, the cold hard fact is that free classified advertising works.
Free classified advertising is a way for those with limited advertising budgets to get started. Not everyone has the resources to put up $500, $1000, or $5000 per month for their advertising budget.
If you can spend that type of money - Great! - you can build a successful business very quickly, if you spend wisely. If you don’t have that kind of money to budget for advertising, use free classified ads.
A word of advice - classified advertising takes lots of time and it requires consistency. That’s the trade-off for the money that you didn’t have to spend. Because you will use a significant amount of your time resources to set up your advertisements, it is wise to spend some time learning some basic skills in writing good headlines and ad bodies.
Here’s some of the free classified advertising sites that I use :
One of my mentors, Craig Garcia, shared with me his “Top 3″ Rules for List Building. They were so good, I had to share them.
Rule #1. Respect your list
One of the greatest benefits of email is that it offers a medium to help overcome buyer resistance because you can encourage your subscribers to trust you.But first, you have to prove you’re trustworthy!
This is critical! You have to respect your list, and think more of THEIR needs than yours. You have to meet their expectations by delivering what you promise.
For example, if they opt into your list because you’ve offered them a free report full of valuable information, make sure you GIVE them a free report full of valuable information — NOT a sales pitch.
Also, resist the urge to hammer your list with promotional emails every single day. The valuable “free info” emails you send should outnumber the purely promotional messages. Otherwise, your subscribers will opt out in droves.
Rule #2. Get PERSONAL with your subscribers
People want to deal with PEOPLE, not faceless companies so you DON’T want your emails to come off sounding like they’re official, corporate-sounding announcements.In order to connect with your subscribers, your emails should be written in a casual, conversational tone.
Write like you’re talking to a good friend. Let your personality shine through.
If you’re a funny person, use humor in your emails. (Without being offensive, obviously.) If you speak with an accent, let that accent shine through in your writing. Include whatever characteristics make you, YOU.
It will help your subscribers feel like they know you…
… And that will go a long way to encouraging them to buy something from you!
Finally, in order to hammer home the point that your emails are coming from an actual person — as opposed to an organization — make sure the return address on all your emails has your name in it (i.e., yourname@yourbusiness.com).
Rule #3. Give first, get second
This is truly one of the cardinal rules of email marketing: In order to “get,” first you have to GIVE.
Never ask your subscribers to make a purchase unless you have offered them something of value beforehand.For example, if you’re gearing up for a major promotion, it’s a good idea to send out a few “no strings attached” emails full of useful information and THEN follow them up with an email that includes a call to action.
The same thing is true of your newsletters. If you want to promote any of your products, make sure you include lots of free valuable information in the newsletter BEFORE you get to the product “plug.”
That way, people won’t mind so much if you ask them to buy something. After all, you’ve just given them a whole lot of useful content for free!
Plus, if your content really is valuable, it’ll convince your readers that your product or service is valuable, too.
I hope these tips help you to monetize your database while humanizing “YOU.”
In my June 2 post and again in my July 8 post, I discussed list building and using a new system called Prospect Blazer. Since I began using this sytem, I’ve got to tell you, my list building has really taken off.
Prospect Blazer has become know as “Pound for Pound, the Best List Building System on the Planet.” With very little time invested, I’m getting more double opt-in subscribers every day than I ever got in any month prior.
Let me tell you about the 1-2 punch that is making the difference.
1. Prospect Blazer
To get the best List Building system on the planet, Go Here.
To see a demo of Prospect Blazer in action, Go Here.
2. Automatic Autoresponder
Now that you have the best tool on the internet for converting traffic, use this simple tool to get traffic to it. I have found a company that will allow you to send 100,000 emails per day…..100K per day!!!! That’s 3 Million per month….
Not only that, but they give you the 100,000 leads to send your emails to. These aren’t “junk” email addresses, either. These are How can you beat that. All you have to do is put in your messages, and they even help you with that.
Every day I send out a new email, with an attention grabbing headline, a small percentage of people open my email and of those people, a BUNCH are subscribing to my regular list and converting into sales.
Yes, it takes time for me to set up the emails and subject line, but after that I just push a button and the system does the rest…..
To get my secret 100K email marketing source, Go Here.
There are between 50 - 70 million people involved in internet businesses. Guess what each and every one of them needs? They need leads.
Building a list of targeted sales prospects is one of the fundamental building blocks of your internet business. You have to build a list. It’s this simple . . .
Get traffic + Convert traffic to leads +Systematized follow up = Results
That’s it.
It sounds so simple, but building a list is a huge bottleneck for many people. It really isn’t that difficult if you know how to do it.
Your goal is to steal a name from someone else’s list and put them on your own list.
No two people are alike. Everybody has their own hot button. It’s important to market to the people you want on your list. It may be baby-boomers trying to get ahead in life. It might be women in business. It might be people who like to travel. It might be people who are interested in real estate.
You have to build credibility with your list. You do that by providing informative articles and by giving away useful information and tools.
Introducing Prospect Blazer - With this new tool, people are getting as more than 100 leads per day.
I’ve been dying to give something away. Not just anything, but something real good. I wanted it to be something valuable and something useful.
I’ve finally finished packaging up my gift to you. If you are marketing a business on the internet, this bundle has something for you. The best part is that it’s completely free.
There’s no cheap junk here. This is hundreds of $$ worth of valuable information and tools. Don’t miss out. Just click on this link.
I’ve been in so many programs and studied so many systems throughout my internet marketing career. One thing I’ve learned is that the people making all the money are the ones who are successful generating a large responsive list.
Building a good lead generation system was always a big stumbling block for me. I didn’t have the capital to purchase a fancy system or hire programmers to set everything up for me. I wasn’t “geek” enough to do the programming to set one up for myself.
I’ve tried many internet marketing programs that have their own lead capture pages. Some were generic, some were company provided, some branding myself, some had audio and some had video. Unfortunately, with those programs, the company owns the leads leaving little flexibility to properly market to those leads.
Nothing, and I do mean nothing, compares to what I am about to show you. You are about to see a Brand New Online System called Prospect Blazer that creates all the paid leads you can handle (for whatever you sell online) while generating an Extraordinary Income in the process!
To see this, click on the banner below:
Here’s what others have to say about this program.
Jane M from California Wrote:
Last night we had a fabulous webinar with….
Dave Dubbs, who is one of the genius millionaires
behind the new leads site called Prospect Blazer.
In my first 48 hours, I produced $3800.00
Michael C. from Vegas wrote:
This is unbelievable…I’m pouring in traffic
faster than I ever have using my old capture page…
Not only that, I made $2600.00 my first week using it.
Rob P. from Ohio Says…
I haven’t seen a product work so well.
I brought in over 200 opt ins my first day.
I made over $5700 in my first 48 hours using it.
I’m sick and tired of hearing every “Joe-Blow” on the internet bragging about how much money they are making from internet marketing. Who really cares?
I’m not going to tell you how much money I make, because the amount of money I make is completely irrelevant to what you are going to make.
If you do exactly what I do, you are going to make exactly what I make. But, you are different than me and are not going to do exactly as I do. You may work more hours than I work, or you may work fewer hours than I work. Your working hours may be spent more, or less, productively than my working hours. You may invest more, or less, of your finances into promoting your business.
If you really think that you need to know how much money I’m making, you’re asking the wrong question. Here are the questions you should be asking:
Am I joining a reputable, established company?
Does the company offer a product that is in demand?
Does the company offer a business plan that highly rewards their members for their sales?
Are the members willing to share with other members what they are doing that is working for them?
Does the company offer the training and support necessary to equip both experienced and inexperienced members with the knowledge needed for success?
Here’s the bottom line. I can’t tell you what you will make, because I don’t know what you will do once you start your business. That’s why I say that them amount of money I make is entirely irrelevant.
Here’s my promise to you - You won’t make any money by joining this company. You won’t make money by joining any company. It’s only what you do after you join that will reap the benefits.
That’s where Scour comes in. Scour adds that personal touch. It takes the results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN searches and allows its users to vote the results up or down.
