The Jeffrey And Tracey Info Emporium

Copyright 2006 Sandra P. Martini

It’s that time again. You send out invoices and sit and wait, and wait, and wait for your clients to pay you. Sometimes it’s a matter of cash flow on their end, sometimes they are just too busy and forget and other times it’s something little that they are unsure of, but haven’t found the time to contact you.

* Put terms on your invoices. How can you be paid on time if your clients don’t know what “on time” means. Whether you select “net 15″, “net 30″, “due on receipt”, or other terms, be sure to tell your clients when to pay you.

* Accept credit cards. Being able to accept credit cards is critical in today’s world and if you’re not doing it, you’re not getting paid as quickly as you could. I highly recommend using a Merchant Account Service such as Card Service International, but if you’re not ready to do that, at least get a PayPal account. It’s free and it allows anyone to pay you via credit card.

* “Request Money”. If you have a PayPal account, make it easy for your clients by sending them a “Request Money” link from your PayPal account. Your clients won’t have to stop to get a check, write the check, address an envelope, stamp and mail it. They can click a few buttons and you get paid.

* Email your invoice. Software products such as QuickBooks allow you to email directly from the software with the email address coming from you. Do this even if you have sent a PayPal funds request so your clients have the proper backup.

* Unique invoice numbers. Make it easy for your clients by including unique invoice numbers. There’s nothing worse than having your clients toss out an invoice because they think it’s a duplicate.

* Be available. insure your contact information (or that of your accounts payable person) — physical address, email address and phone number — is on every invoice. If your client has a question, you want to be able to answer it quickly and remember that the person who pays the bills may not be the person you work with.

* Invoice off cycle. If you invoice on a regular basis and not “per project”, invoice at a time other than the end of the month. At the end of the month, you’re competing for your clients’ cash at the same time as most other vendors.

Online Business Manager & Entrepreneur Sandra Martini publishes the weekly e-zine ‘Effective Entrepreneur’, coaches and consults with small business owners to more efficiently manage their businesses while increasing profits and having more fun. Sandra’s coaching programs are delivered via teleconference calls, email and telephone. Please visit www.thebostonvirtualsolution.com for more information or to sign up for ‘Effective Entrepreneur’.

No matter how well you write, or even if you have a professional writer create your web site copy, you’re going to have errors. Misspelled words, awkward sentences, phrases that don’t make sense, and words that are used incorrectly run rampant through many sites. And it’s no wonder. Writing well is hard work. Even a good writer will be too close to the copy and won’t see ALL their mistakes, even when re-reading the copy carefully.

Mistakes in your copy can sink your web site. The online audience who accounts for most of your customers are a rather literate group of people. Studies show a large percentage have a good knowledge of spelling and punctuation. If they find your copy has several errors in it, prospects will figure you do sloppy work.

The solution is simple. Get a proof reader to carefully check your copy. You can enlist the help of a friend who has a sharp eye for spelling and punctuation. Better yet, get a professional proof reader to read your copy. Proof reading is almost always affordable and the investment will pay off big time in avoided embarrassment and missed sales.

Don’t get too comfortable with spell checkers. Many have limited numbers of words they recognize, and will skip past some misspelled words. One of the most common problems is that a spell checker can’t help you if you use the WRONG word.

Don’t feel like I’m picking on you. I worked in the TV and movie industries for many years. I can tell you from personal experience that even Hollywood’s writers struggle with typos and other errors in their copy. None would dream of turning in a script without first having a capable proof reader go through their drafts and revisions.

Janet Gratz is founder of www.ProofYourCopy.com. She can proof and edit your web site, ebook, sales letters, and more — all at very affordable rates. Reach Janet at janet@proofyourcopy.com or
818-901-0035.

Don’t Let The Competition Get An Edge On You

We’ve all seen [and maybe bought] the Ebooks that promised to teach you the “magic words” or “hypnotic phrases” that will guarantee the sale of your product.

Do they work? Possibly. These magical words are usually nothing more than words like Free, Amazing, New, Breakthrough, Secrets and so on. It is true that these particular words will work better than others in your copywriting and they will help you make money online if you use them properly.

But what I will tell you is that they are unlikely to work for someone who has no understanding of basic copywriting technique. How can you use these “magic words” if you have no understanding
of headlines and the techniques of writing them? If you have no understanding of where and how to use a subheading, how can you possibly make use of these magic words? Where do they fit it?
How can you know when you have no idea of the basic structure of copywriting? It would be very much like taking up ice skating and trying to learn the triple loop, the Lutz or the Salchowl if you can’t skate! Someone, of course, will say that we all understand that and yet, over and over again, people attempt to write their own copy without understanding the basics.

Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with the writing your own copy. In fact, I recommend it. But once you know the basics and you ever do decide to hire someone to write your copy, you can evaluate their abilities and what they can do for you by the very fact you have educated yourself. But, of course, we all don’t have that kind of money to be able to hire someone anyway. So, I recommend instead to take a little of your money and pick up some good Ebooks on the basics of copywriting. You won’t be sorry you did.

And once you do learn the basics of copywriting you can now apply yourself to learning more about SEO copywriting. SEO copywriting [search engine optimization copywriting] is the technique of writing the text on a web page in such a way that it reads well for the surfer or visitor but it also targets specific search terms and keywords. The purpose of SEO copywriting is to rank highly in the search engines for the targeted search terms so that people can find your web site. Unlike televison or radio copywriters you need to build your own audience.

But make no mistake. The basics of copywriting techniques are still important because once you get people to your page you still need to convince them to do what you want! That will never change. Copywriting and advertisements are everywhere around us, including the Internet. So do yourself a favor and learn the principles of AIDA. Learn how to avoid “white space” on your web pages. Learn whether to concentrate
on your features or your benefits and how to convince your reader.

If you’re not sure of any of those things then you need to learn the basics of copywriting if you really want to make money online.

Lee MacRae runs a website that focuses on helping people work at home and make money online. Go to http://www.sassyenterprises.com/Writing_ad_copy_to_make_money_online.html

If you are running an online business or researching how to start a home business, then your inbox is likely cluttered with junk (just like mine!) There are oodles of self proclaimed experts, but few have any real qualification or for that matter, much of anything unique to say. I’ve lost count of how many people want my money to get a “top secret” Google #1 web page ranking, or to optimise my web page to receive “millions of new and unique visitors,” I think you will agree it gets very tiresome and down right confusing. Most articles seem to concentrate almost entirely on tweaking a web page to increase the number of visitors you receive, and then the logic of statistics, a directly proportional increase to your sales. If only it was that easy! (if it was easy there would obviously be no need to continually write on the subject.)

Take a deep breath and let’s take a few giant steps backwards together. Not everybody has a web page, not everybody knows how to start a business and not everybody has anything to sell; so from this, it’s relatively easy to formulate a basic business plan. If you start a business without a plan, you are already behind the 8 ball. It’s the same as getting into you car without knowing where you are going, you’ll possibly get lost on the way, or worse still, have an accident and never reach a destination. So the most basic business plan for an online business is something like;

1. What do I want to achieve from my business and what do I expect from by business?

2. What skills do I have, and what skills do I need to gain or outsource?

3. What am I going to do, or what am I going to sell. What am I good at?

4. How will I convince people to buy from me?

5. Seek advice on legal, accounting and government regulations for your area

6. Get the ball rolling and get started. Check in with your business plan frequently, seek professional advice when necessary.

Like I said, it’s a very basic plan, but any plan is better than no plan. But from the simple points above, you will be surprised how much we can glean. I have several very basic rules that I apply to all my business ventures, either online or bricks and mortar. Although I currently operate nearly entirely online and from home, I have started, built and sold several very successful real world businesses. Not that the internet or working from home is not real world, but it requires different and probably better management skills, as ultimately, everything will be up to you. That word again “everything.” Who will run your business, who will manage your accounts, who will pay your taxes, who will answer your phones, who will respond to your emails? We haven’t even started yet, and there are lots of questions to address. Who will do all the above if you are sick? So let’s look at the above points in more detail;

1. What do I want to achieve from my business and what do I expect from by business?

If you are under an impression that you can simply open a web page and sell vitamins, or signup for a few affiliate programs and make “instant cash” I suggest you think again. Or better still, if you do this and actually make money, please contact me as I’d love to hear about it. As they say, “wonders never cease!” The likely hood of making any real income or salary from selling vitamins or joining an affiliate program (designed to make that person money, not you) is negligible. I just searched for “vitamins” on Google and received the results of “Results 1 - 100 of about 9,470,000 English pages for vitamins,” Good luck!

If we come down to Earth for a moment, you need to set your own expectation and be realistic about what you want to achieve. E.g. do you want a supplementary part time income or a full time full salary income or to be the next internet millionaire? You need to be sensible and investigate properly the potential for what you want to achieve. For example, if you want to sell Pet Toys or Pet Accessories online, some simple investigations can give you an idea of the size of this market, how many competitors you have both online and offline (e.g. Pet Shops.) Some countries also publish statistical information regarding customs imports and exports, so you may be able to obtain official government statistics regarding the quantity and value of your commodity item that is both sold and purchased through your city or
port” or your country for that matter. If there is only $250 of imported or exported “Pet Toys” from your location, it’s a fairly good bet it isn’t a boom industry. This is obviously just an example, not real statistics. But if you find an industry or commodity in high demand with a relatively low number of competitors, you are 50% of the way there. Its best to be involved in something that you are passionate about, but this simply may not be possible.

Another very interesting way to research a market you are interested in, is take a quick look at any businesses within that market that are being offered for sale. An example of this are “fish & chip shops” they are always for sale and lots of them. Either its hard work, not profitable or they are a dime a dozen. But you can learn a lot from this research, e.g. what do these shops turn over, how profitable are they, which are successful, which are not and how long are they in business. I think you get my point.

2. What skills do I have, and what skills do I need to gain or outsource?

We have all seen the statistics that many small businesses fail in the first 6-12 months, then another chunk within 24 months, and even less are still in business in 3 years time. Typically 3 years is the “decision point” for most investments, either cut your losses or keep on going. Most businesses fail solely through lack or planning and mismanagement. No control over cash flow, bad debts, and poor record keeping. If you can’t collect payment from your customers, then you can’t pay your suppliers and then you just can’t operate your business. Much like a credit card, a “credit account” from suppliers can be valuable, or if could mean your downfall. There is little point buying stock on 30 days credit if you can’t sell the stock within this time. So you need to test the waters before making any large commitments on purchases. Remember, it’s better to start off small, with minimal or few outlays and reduce your initial risk as much as possible. From experience, I’ve dealt with suppliers who advertise “minimum initial purchase of 1000 or 5000 units” just say “I’ll pay you another 2% and take a smaller manageable quantity,” has never been refused in my experience. Sometimes a good supplier may want to work with you as a new customer and offer you smaller quantities or better terms, you don’t know if you don’t ask, so don’t take anything on face value.

Do you have a grasp on proper book keeping, proper accounting practices, reconciling bank accounts, a full understanding of your local tax laws and other government statutory requirements? Ignorance is never an excuse; you don’t want to get to the end of your financial period to find you owe more taxes than you have cash in the bank. Trust me, most small businesses go broke actually owing money to the government! If you don’t understand any of this, speak with a professional such as an accountant or business advisor. Also, speak with several until you find one who is on your wave length.

Contrary to popular opinion, a good functional web page is really only a small part of a successful online business. You may have the best web page on the internet, but if you can’t process and send an order to your customers, or you can’t manage your accounts well enough to stay in business, then your flash and fancy we page is worthless. One of my main online businesses is www.veryownweb.com we specialise in complete turn key web solutions, including online shops and we page optimisation and marketing - without the hype and expensive price tags. Our small businesses packages allow you to basically forget about the internet side of your business, and concentrate on the parts that really do matter - MANAGING & GROWING your business effectively.

3. What am I going to do, or what am I going to sell. What am I good at?

I have spoken briefly about market research, but there is a little more to it than that. It’s a form of science deciding on what to sell. For example, you need a sufficient margin to make a product even worth selling. There is little point having a product that you want to sell at $25 that costs you $23. If you do the maths, after all your expenses, how many would you need to sell to actually make money? Are you physically even able to process that quantity of orders each day? There is what I call a “saturation” point for a home business, which is basically your ability, productivity or potential capacity. Are you looking for cheap products, that you can sell quantities of, or are you looking for more expensive items, expecting fewer sales, but a higher profit value in each sale? You need to understand what you want to sell, and if it is worth selling in the first place. Typically, for a successful distribution type business, you need to look for a product that you can sell for 5x more than it costs. So if you want to sell something at $25, if should cost you no more than $5. This gives you sufficient margin to typically cover costs and make a profit too. Obviously quantity rules apply, it’s just an example. Something you sell at $950 may cost you $500, but there is sufficient dollar margin to make it worth while, you would also typically expect to sell less high ticket items. Remember, look for alternative, you may not be able to get your first choice of product, but there may be something very similar or something from another supplier etc.

Many of the franchised and retail type shops operate on an average profit margin of 30% (commonly referred to as the “typical retail margin”,) when after expenses often gives a net profit yield of an amazing 3%. Wow. So even though they may turn over millions, the owner actually doesn’t have much to show for it at all. DO YOUR MATHS.

Obviously most people dream about a home business being involved in their specialty or what they are skilled at. However, this may not be the most logical choice or it may not give you the best chance of success. I have an extremely strong computer networking background, but it’s not the easiest thing to sell, support or manage from home. Plus there is lots of very well established competition and my market would be extremely localised. You need to make a decision for the long term survival for your business, which may not necessarily be your first choice, but make an informed choice that has a future.

4. How will I convince people to buy from me?

Its all very good having the latest wiz-bang state-of-the-art gadget or gizmo, but if everybody else on the block has it, is better establish and presents themselves to be more professional, how are you going to compete? You need to differentiate yourself, and you need to make it blatantly obvious how you do this. You need to create an entire brand and image for yourself and your business. A few tricks of the obvious trick of the trade include;

• Unconditional money back guarantees

• Customer satisfaction guarantees

• Team up with a credit provider to provide interest free terms

• Solicit customer testimonials from existing satisfied customers

• Make it painfully obvious that you go out of your way to help your customers

• Offer package deals that add value to a customer’s purchase, but cost you little, e.g. buy widget A + B and get $25 discount etc

• Offer free home delivery services, or include freight in the price*

Some of these concepts are heavily applied to my favourite online business at www.beatpsoriasis.com where I supply medical quality home UV phtotherapy equipment - for conditions such as psoriasis, vitiligo, acne and dermatitis. We supply worldwide, at the same price our competitors charge, but we offer completely free express international delivery - making us by far the cheapest supplier.

* So often I’ve been put off buying from some web pages that want to charge me “freight & handling” for the privilege of buying from them. What dimension are these people living in? That being the case, I’d prefer to make my way to my local shopping mall and buy the item myself without having to pay delivery - sometimes at the same or better price too - even excluding the added delivery charge. I may not necessarily make an individual trip; I might just do it next time I go shopping. I can’t see the point charging delivery on internet orders. It’s not your customer’s fault they can’t come to you. If you look at it this way, you aren’t paying rent, you probably aren’t paying many of the other expenses a typical retail shop has, so I accept providing free freight with all my internet businesses, an unavoidable cost of operating online. Or, you could be doubly clever and factor the cost of delivery into your “advertised price” giving the perception of “free delivery” but you are still recouping the expense and your customers don’t think they are paying a premium to purchase from you. I depends on your situation and market.

5. Seek advice on legal, accounting and government regulations for your area

Repeating earlier advice as it is so unbelievably important, thoroughly understand the legal requirements and expectations of operating a business in your area. You may be personally liable for debts of your business. Keep accurate and legible records or all purchases, all sales, all invoices and all customers. Sloppy record keeping = sloppy business practices = no long term prospects.

6. Get the ball rolling and get started. Check in with your business plan frequently, seek professional advice when necessary.

It’s all very well to have a business plan before you get started, but you need to keep in touch with it. It can grow and expand as you do and as situations change. Fine tune and add to it as you go along. Use a diary to keep notes of marketing, advertising, promotions, customer contact, ideas that pop into your head. Have short term goals, middle term and long term. Write down where you want to be in 1 month, 6 months and 12 months and beyond. Put systems and processors in place to ensure you get there. With proper book keeping and reporting you will know at any time if you are on track to achieve your target and goals. Without proper planning, you may not know you financial situation until it’s too late.

I wish you all the best for your online or home based business!

Nick Balgowan is the winner of several Australian sponsored small business and entrepreneur awards. Since 1995 he has build and sold several successful online businesses. His current online businesses include http://www.beatpsoriasis.com offering medical products worldwide and http://www.veryownweb.com.au offering unique and cut price web hosting to the Australian market and now the international market at http://www.veryownweb.com. He can be contacted at info@veryownweb.com

Testimonials are quotations from satisfied customers and clients. They are one of the simplest and most effective ways of adding punch and power to web site sales letter.

How do you get and use testimonials? Here are some tips for using testimonials:

1. Always use real testimonials instead of made-up ones. Even the most skilled copywriter can rarely make up a testimonial that can match the sincerity and credibility of genuine words of praise from a real customer or client.

If you ask a customer to give you a testimonial, and he or she says, “Sure, just write something and Ill sign it,” politely reply: “Gee, I appreciate that, but would you mind just giving me your opinions of our product in your own words?” Fabricated or self-authored testimonials usually sound phony; genuine testimonials invariably have the ring of truth.

2. Long testimonials are usually better then short ones. Many copywriters are hooked on using very short testimonials. For instance:

“…fabulous!…”
“truly funny…thought-provoking…”
“…excellent…wonderful…”

I believe that when people see these ultra short testimonials, they suspect that a skillful editing job has masked a comment that was not as favorable as the writer makes it appear. In my opinion, longer testimonials, say two or three sentences versus a single word or phrase come across as more believable. For example:

“I can’t say enough good things about the quantity and quality of products at such a low cost. Not to mention the super service and fulfillment of our purchase requests. I think I’ll stay! Thank you again.”

Sure, its longer, but it somehow seems more sincere than a one-word superlative.

3. Specific, detailed testimonials are better then general or superlative testimonials. Upon receiving an email of praise from a customer, our initial reaction is to read the email and find the single sentence that directly praises our company or our product. We extract the words we think are kindest about us, producing a bland bit of puffery such as:

“We are very pleased with your product.”

Actually, most testimonials would be stronger if we included more of the specific, detailed comments our client has made about how our product or service helped him. After all, the prospects we are trying to sell to may have problems similar to the one our current customer solved using our product. If we let Mr. Customer tell Mr. Prospect how our company came to his rescue, hell be helping us make the sale. For instance:

“Hi Brian,
I just signed up for your “RESALE RIGHTS COOP”.
I’ve been searching the net for almost a year looking for something that combined value and affordability. Your package is truly the best of both worlds. Keep on keepin-on.
Wow what a package.”

Again, don’t try to polish the customers words so it sounds like professional ad copy. Testimonials are usually much more convincing when they are not edited for style.

4. Use full attribution. We’ve all opened web sites and direct mail packages that contained testimonials from “D.W. in Nevada” or “Ron V., Self-Made Millionaire.” I suspect that many people laugh at such testimonials and think they are phony.

To increase the believability for your testimonials, attribute each quotation. Include the persons name, city and state, and (if a business customer) their job title and company (e.g., “Ada Dittli, President, Cedar Ridge, Inc.”).

People are more likely to believe this sort of full disclosure than testimonials which seem to conceal the identity of the speaker.

5. Group your testimonials. There are two basic ways to present testimonials: You can group them together in one area of your web site or ad, or you can scatter them throughout the copy. A third alternative is to combine the two techniques, having many testimonials in a box and a smattering of other testimonials throughout the rest of your copy.

I’ve seen both approaches work well, and the success of the presentation depends, in part, on the skill of the writer and the specific nature of the piece. But, all else being equal, I prefer the first approach: to group all your testimonials and present them as a single block of copy. This can be done in a box or on a separate web page. My feeling is that when the prospect reads a half dozen or so testimonials, one right after another, they have more impact and power than when the testimonials are separated and scattered throughout the piece.

6. Get permission. Make sure you get permission from your customer to reprint his words before including his testimonial in your copy.

I suggest that you send an email quoting the lines you want to reprint and ask permission to include them in ads, web copy, and other materials used to promote your firm. Notice I’m asking for a general release that gives me permission to use the customers quotation in all current and future promotions, not just a specific ad or letter. This lets me get more mileage out of his favorable comment and eliminates the need to ask permission every time you want to use the quote in a new ad or letter.

7. Soliciting Testimonials. If your customers don’t send you emails of praise (and many won’t), then you can ask them to give you a testimonial. How? Simply send an email to your customers who are happy with your product or service and ask for their comments. Heres a sample letter (feel free to copy or adapt it):

Mr. George Drake
Dear George,

I have a favor to ask of you. I’m in the process of putting together a booklet of testimonials-a collection of comments about my services, from satisfied clients like yourself.

Would you please take a few minutes to give me your opinion of my consulting services?

There’ no need to dictate a letter. Just email me your comments. If you want to you can just reply to this email.

I look forward to learning what you like about my service, however I also welcome any suggestions or criticisms, too.

Many thanks, George.

Regards, Albin Dittli

P.S. WE APPRECIATE YOUR PERMISSION TO QUOTE FROM YOUR COMMENTS, AND USE THESE QUOTATIONS IN ADS, WEB COPY, BROCHURES, MAIL, AND OTHER PROMOTIONS USED TO MARKET YOUR SERVICES

Note that I am asking for an “opinion” instead of a testimonial, and that I urge George to give me criticisms as well as positive comments. In this way, I’m not just asking for a favor, I’m getting information that will help me serve my customers better in the future. Thus, I’m not the only one who profits; we both do.

If you solicit testimonials from your satisfied customers, and you always get permission to use any unsolicited testimonials that people send you, you will soon build a thick testimonial file. Because you have gotten people to give you a “blanket release” to use their comments any way you choose, you can use these testimonials in any or all of your marketing materials, from ads and sales letters, to catalogs.

Always give a list of your full testimonial file to any ad agency, copywriter, or marketing consultant you hire. It will be tremendously helpful to them when they create ads or web copy for you.

With the wise use of testimonials you can increase your credibility. And with your increased credibility you should have an increased sales conversion rate.

You may freely distribute this article, post it to your or other web sites (where permitted), and publish it in an ezine, as long as you keep the resource box as is with the article.

About the Author

Albin Dittli is the owner of http://www.The-Home-Business-Center.com, where you can get free content and your very own money making website that is 100% ready to take orders and pull in massive profits for you immediately. You can subscribe to his free eBiz Marketing Tips ezine by sending an email to moneystrategies@listwarrior.com.

OCRA Worldwide has opened an
office in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The full name and address of this office is:

OCRA Brasil
Consultoria e Analise de Investimentos, Ltda

Av, das Nacoes Unidas, 12.551, 19 andar Cj 1903, Sao Paulo CEP
04578-903 SP Brazil Phone - 00 55 11 3043 7370 Fax - 00 55 11
3043 7371 E-mail - ocra@ocrabrasil.com.br

Contact - Mr. Jorge dos Santos Marques Paulino. Jorge is a
graduate of Sao Paolo University and INSEAD. He has many years
of experience as a manager/director in the marketing and
commercial departments of major businesses in Brazil. His
detailed knowledge of Brazilian commercial and administrative
procedures and practices will be extremely useful to clients
seeking to invest in Brazil.

This office will provide services in the following two principal
forms:

1. Services for foreign investors who wish to invest in Brazil.

2. Services for Brazilians investors/entrepreneurs who wish to
invest overseas or to trade internationally.

1. Investing in
Brazil is a complex process, especially for those from
common law jurisdictions. Accordingly we can guide our clients
through the maze of local regulation and legislation.

In particular the services that we can provide are:

- Everything connected with the establishment of a company in
Brazil, including legal administrative and fiscal obligations,

- Provision of assistance to set up an office (find a location,
contracts, etc.

- Intermediation with banks, and with commercial, industrial and
professional associations.

- Assistance in all matters in relation to immigration rules.

- Acting as Fiscal representative

- Accounting services

- Provision of virtual office services

2. When advising Brazilian clients on overseas investments and
trade, OCRA
Brasil will utilise the knowledge and experience within the
OCRA Worldwide organisation and will supply to the Brazilian
investor all the services that can be obtained from other
offices of OCRA Worldwide with the added benefit of integration
with the client’s Brazilian organisation.

So you are just getting out of college. You want to earn your living as a writer, and you decide on a career as an advertising copywriter. Naturally everyone wants to write the next great sneaker ad, or be the brainchild of the newest 20-year Vodka campaign, right? Not so fast. While a career in “consumer” advertising has always been the benchmark of the industry, more and more young copywriters are finding their way in the growing world of pharmaceutical advertising. So why would someone want to write about a depression drug rather than a soft drink?

Here are three major reasons for this trend:

Stability:

With Job security as low as it has been since the crash of 1929, young creatives in general consumer advertising on Madison Avenue are finding themselves out of work an alarming rate. Pharmaceutical advertising is generally a bit more stable, as the market is simply smaller.

Money:

Initially, the salaries earned by consumer and healthcare copywriters is roughly about the same. That is to say, not very much. However, successful healthcare writers see larger salary increases and title promotions sooner than their consumer counterparts.

Sense of Importance:

At first glance the content, regulations and demographic would imply that pharmaceutical advertising wouldn’t allow for as much creativity as a general consumer advertising. And while your “creative box” may be a bit smaller in pharmaceutical advertising, the work does allow and lend itself to a more dramatic and strategic end result. Furthermore, many creatives in pharmaceutical advertising love the fact that the message matters, and feel that their work truly is important.

So while writing the dream sequence spot for that new video game is fun, at the end of the day you’re simply marketing a video game.

Pharmaceutical writers are asked to really devour the product; it’s chemistry and most importantly how the condition for which the pharmaceutical product is indicated affects patients. In many cases, writers are asked to interview and meet patients to talk about their condition(s). It has been debated ad nauseam if medication is truly the best therapy. And while I’m smart enough to not opine on that topic, there is no arguing that awareness and education for both patients and healthcare professionals are necessary.

In any case, we can be certain that medicine has historically done more for society than any sneaker, soft drink or video game ever has.

To learn more about a career as a pharmaceutical copywriter please feel free to email me at anthony@dolagroup.com

Anthony Hemsey is a Sr. Trainer/ VP Placement Specialist at Dola Group Professsional Development. Dola Group is a consulting and executive search firm dedicated soley to the medical pharmaceutical advertising and marketing arena. To learn more about Dola Group’s current program and job openings please visit dolagroup.com

To begin a dialogue with one of Dola Group’s professional consultants please send an email to chat@dolagroup.com– and mention this article!

This is what a professional copywriter should think about. Everything seems to be alright: the design is surprisingly attractive, page organization is great, the content is informative and nicely written, but time passes and no customers leave their trace at the website destined to be the main source of information about your company. The point is not only in site building, but in its arranging and promoting. Some experienced copywriters that follow up with all the tendencies of online marketing already are familiar with little cunning that makes content attractive, but some still rely on a happy coincidence. Here are some basic tips for a successful start:

An average reader is not likely to scroll down a long page to find a single paragraph of necessary information; what he is going to do is just leave without even remembering where he had been looking. Therefore be as objective as it is possible and reconsider the volume of a page, making it two three paragraphs long but informative. Use graphic schemes to attract attention to the main point and develop the idea in separate paragraphs with topic sentences outstanding from the general text. If a page is too long, visitors will not read every word till they get to the point they are interested in. This is supported by statistics that shows that an average user consumes 25% less information reading from the web site than from any printed source. Therefore build your site considering the most popular keywords and phrases users look for. Divide information into separate paragraphs, each presented by a headline that gives an idea what the paragraph is about. Don’t make them too expanded or too promising or too exaggerating. Let them be direct reflectors of what you are going to say.

It will be much easier to give all necessary information dividing it into several pages linked together. This way visitor will not have to look for what he wants for hours. The text might not be very long, but at the same time informative. Adding graphical moments makes it easier to get the general idea of an article. There is the only inconvenience: separate pages make the download slower than it should be and make the print out harder. Make sure to divide your text into logical sections called paragraphs each devoted to the separate topic sentence and develop the idea freely. Don’t get discoursed by fancy language and long statements, they are destined to furnish but when the core information is not seen among meaningless phrases your task is to pull it out and make it outstanding from the content. And finally, all these advice is just a start to a grand project called marketing strategy that nobody is going to give you a hint about. Develop your own way, strategies, techniques to turn visitors into customers. Don’t be afraid to express your own ideas and apply your own projects and success will come to you.

Tyler Benson is a recognized writer at BestEssays.com - Custom Term Paper writing service. At present time he’s working on a guide capable to answer any college essay question that an average student may ask. The guide will be able to cover any detail starting form college application essay question.

Rohit Kochgaway was very upset with his boss for his rebuking him today in office. He was very upset with his job. When he reached home in evening his wife got the penalty for asking to go out in form of bad mood. After one hour at home, he exploded the bomb.

He is quitting the cozy job and wants to go on his own.

Is that the right reason to start a long whirl winding journey of business? Rohit was upset with the present job. Does it make him knowledgeable enough to go alone? Is not it running from present only?

If you want to be in your own business because you are ‘sick and tired of being told what to do’, because you want more ‘freedom’, or because you are unappreciated or undervalued, forget it. These are not reasons for starting a business; these are reasons for running away from your present job. If you want to ‘make a lot of money’, that’s probably not a great reasons either. It is a fine and
worthwhile goal, but if it is your prime motivation it is not going to be enough to get through the lean years.

Before starting our company I was a software engineer by profession and I loved to program and design the software packages. But I certainly do not wanted to live like a programmer battling out there with the machine codes and following someone else order even to why I should design the very codes of my works. I also see a big opportunity coming on my way in my industry. I jumped out and exclaimed “That’s enough, I want to enjoy myself working for myself and enjoy it too. And also wanted to give it a try.”

Enjoy. I couldn’t afford not to give this new venture a try.

This, I believe, is at least part of the motivation of most people who successfully start
a new business: a feeling that if they never tried they would always regret it. It is what gives you the
momentum to get out the front door, to cut the corporate umbilical cord, and what makes it possible. To keep going, even when everything else makes you feel like turning back. Starting a business is a
financial and professional commitment. But even more, it is an emotional one.

I have a friend who, five years ago, started what has become a very successful apparel manufacturing
Firm. He told me recently that if he had known then what the first two years were going to be like, he would have never gone through it.

We never had it that rough, but I could relate to what he was saying. There are so many moments in
starting a new business when the negatives outweigh the positives that any feelings of satisfaction
are very small compensation. There are times when it is the emotion alone that keeps you going.

Arvind Kumar is an Electrical Engineer from a premier Institute, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India. He has 3 years experince in marketing business consulting services and marketing services. He is founder and CEO of nuttymarketer.com

When trying to start a home based business, a lot of people just come up with an idea and they try to implement it. The don’t do any research into the industry and don’t talk with people who are already doing it or already doing something similar. This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make and is one of the biggest factors contributing to the failure rate of start-up businesses.

Experience has shown that the more research you do before starting a business from home the more likely your business will succeed. Research can be done in many ways for a home based business. Some of my favorite resources are:

• Overture.com - They can help you determine the online market.
• Local Government - Often they have statistics on how many businesses exist in a particular industry in your area.
• Home Based Business Site - They review businesses and make suggestions on good home business opportunities
• Google - Find out what the competition is doing in your industry. See what is already working and what isn’t.
• Local Library - Read up on what is going on in your industry. Find marketing books, accounting books, management books. The more you read, the more you know.

Along with these resources for doing research on your own, often local or state governments will have programs that will help you do research. Often these are free workshops guided by people who have successfully navigated the waters of having a home based business before.

When doing research, you might also want to look at your local college or university for resources. Often professors in the the business department are people who have run businesses before and they are teaching for the fun of it. They are often very willing to show you how to do more research.

John Jonas is currently running his own home business doing internet marketing. His recent endevours can often be found on his blog. One of his more recent endevours includes a website with information about car insurance.