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AATCC honors Top Textile Scientists of 2008

2009-02-17T11:16:00.000-08:00

The American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (AATCC) will honor the world’s top textile scientists next month, March 10-12, during AATCC’s 2009 International Conference (IC) in Myrtle Beach, S.C., USA, at the Hilton Myrtle Beach Resort. The awards will be presented at the association’s Conference Awards Luncheon on Thursday, March 12.

The article published January 2007, “Describing Color Differences," written by Carol Tomasino Revels was selected as the best paper published in AATCC Review in 2007. A report on “Capillary Channel Polymer Fibers as Structural Templates for Ligament Regeneration," written by Philip J. Brown, Kristofer D. Sinclair, and Charles Kenneth (Ken) Webb, and published December 2008, has been selected as the best paper published in the peer reviewed journal of the AATCC Review in 2008.

The authors will be honored for their contributions to textile literature with The J. William Weaver Paper of the Year Award, a framed certificate signed by the president of AATCC and the chair of the Publications Committee. The Weaver award will be presented to both the 2007 and 2008 winners at the AATCC International Conference.

Revels holds a BS in textile chemistry and a Masters degree in Textiles from North Carolina State University. She is currently the director for global color services for Gap, Inc. Revels joined AATCC as a student in 1985. She served as chair of the Color Measurement Test Methods Committee, and is currently chair of the Color Guidebook subcommittee.

Brown holds a BSc Hons in Textile Chemistry and a PhD from the University of Leeds. He is currently an associate professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Clemson University. Brown joined AATCC in 2002. He has served as vice-chair and is the current chair of the Materials Interest Group. He is also a member of the Fiber Society. Brown has published four books and monographs, and 20 peer-reviewed papers.

Webb holds a BS in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from Clemson University and a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Utah. He is currently an assistant professor at the department of Bioengineering at Clemson University. Webb is a member of the Society for Biomaterials. He has published 18 peer-reviewed papers.

Sinclair holds a BS from the University of South Carolina. He is currently engaged as a graduate student research assistant at Clemson University. Sinclair joined AATCC in 2006, and is also a member of the Society for Biomaterials. He has published two peer-reviewed papers, both in AATCC Review.

In February 1979, the AATCC established an award for the best peer- reviewed paper published annually in the Textile Chemist and Colorist (now AATCC Review). In 1990, the award was named for J. William Weaver (1916-1990), who was chair of the Textile Chemist and Colorist Editorial Board at the time of his death.

American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists

NCC says cotton industry to face difficult economic climate

2009-02-17T11:06:00.001-08:00

In presenting the NCC’s 2009 Economic Outlook to delegates attending the NCC’s 71st Annual Meeting, Adams said, “For the 2009 marketing year, reductions in cotton production will be evident in more countries than observed in previous years.

Also, mill use is expected to recover based on independent economic projections calling for recovery by calendar 2010.” He reiterated, though, that these projections are dependent on the wildcards of overall global economic performance and impacts of policy changes.

In describing the world outlook for 2009, Adams said world cotton production is projected to fall 4.3 million bales to 105.5 million bales – the smallest crop since 2003. World mill use will recover to 113.8 million bales. The smaller crop and increased mill use would allow stocks to decline to 56.3 million bales from 62.2 million in 2008.

Looking at the 2009 world cotton market, Adams said China and India will continue to be important players. He said both countries governments have made policy decisions that have moved significant amounts of the 2008 crop into government stocks – and how they handle those stocks’ release will affect U.S. exports.

For example, China is estimated to end the 2008 marketing year with 19.4 million bales of stocks, with a significant amount in government reserves.

“If the Chinese government decides to aggressively liquidate those reserves in the coming months, it could dramatically alter their import requirements,” Adams said. He noted that for the 2009 marketing year, a slight recovery in China’s mill cotton use to 47.2 million bales is expected along with a cotton crop decline to 32.6 million bales from 36.5 million in 2008 – which would result in China importing 9.6 million bales in the 2009 marketing year.

On the other hand, he said India may return as a more significant exporter in 2009 as that country’s production is expected to be near current levels with only a slight recovery in mill use.

The economist told delegates the NCC sees a slight contraction in U.S. cotton offtake for 2009 with U.S. cotton exports projected at 11.2 million bales and U.S. mill cotton use at 3.9 million bales.

“Heading in 2009, the U.S. textile industry remains under pressure from a combination of factors,” Adams said. “Retail purchases declined in calendar 2008 and likely will fall further in 2009. In addition, the limits on imports from China in 34 textile categories expired at the end of 2008.”

On a positive note, Adams said the much-needed economic assistance included in the 2008 Farm Bill has been implemented and textile mills are submitting the necessary documentation to receive 4 cents per pound on their cotton consumption.

Also, the United States’ government has begun monitoring certain U.S. textile and apparel imports from China in a move aimed at preventing a repeat of the disruptive surge of Chinese textile/apparel exports to thiscountry following the discontinuation of quotas in 2005.

B2B International expands into US

2008-05-25T02:49:00.000-07:00

LONDON - B2B International, the specialist business-to-business market research consultancy, is making its foray into the US with the opening of an office in New York.

The firm is parachuting in staff from other markets to work in New York, including the UK, France, Spain, Germany and China.
The US office will provide a complete B2B research offering, with particular expertise in the fields of chemicals, oil and gas, engineering, finance and construction.

The company will also be holding two business-to-business marketing workshops in New York in October.
The workshops will take an interactive format, headed up by B2B International chief executive Paul Hague.
The new office will be headed up by Matthew Harrison, director of International Operations.
He said: "In keeping with our strategy of globalisation, this latest office is designed to meet the needs of our many existing US clients as well as appealing to a broader American audience.
"It will also provide clients from other areas of the world with the chance to explore the States in more depth."

Six Mistakes B2B Marketers Continue to Make With Organic Search

2008-04-10T12:11:00.000-07:00

By now, many B2B marketing professionals know the basics of content optimization and how to make a site search-friendly. With that complete, their focus turns to link building. While that's an admirable pursuit, it may not yield the maximum results if unaddressed website issues aren't resolved. Here are some of the most common mistakes we see.

Inadequate site architecture

I'm surprised how often even large B2B companies fail to have organic landing pages on their website related to key revenue streams (e.g., product or service lines). It's usually not that they forgot key segments of their business, but rather that they failed to get specific enough. For instance, a leasing company promotes leasing of office equipment but fails to have a page focused on copier leasing. One of the reasons for this may be that many B2B marketers have often taken a minimalist approach to site architecture, incorporating only that which is necessary to establish initial credibility.

To be found for a specific keyword, there needs to be an optimized landing page on the website that revolves around that search term. Simply put, this means you need to review your business and ensure your site has at least one page that promotes each specific revenue stream. However, the complexities of B2B keyword strategy—which include the lack of shared lexicons in most B2B verticals—mean that you may have to create and incorporate several landing pages for each revenue stream. For instance, an accounting firm promoting litigation support services may have a page on expert witness services, but it may do well to also consider having a page on forensic accounting.

Simply put, most B2B websites need more content, both to respond to likely organic search and to be seen as being by the search engines as an authoritative site on a given topic.

Lousy meta descriptions

That is if any have been specified in the first place. It seems like B2B marketers often leave meta descriptions blank or simply leave it to the IT department to fill something in. This leads to poor descriptions in the search engine results.

When B2B marketers actually specify the meta descriptions for site pages, they often write from an internal standpoint, using corporate and internal lingo that doesn't speak to the searcher. Typically, B2C marketers are much better at writing meta descriptions that promote click-through. When you write meta descriptions for B2B, think about what will entice the searcher (your prospect) to click on your search result versus all the others on the page. While you can write as much as you want, Google will only display about 165 characters. Make sure you use those characters wisely to create a keyword-rich, compelling message. You've only got a few seconds before searchers decide on which results they will click.

Not analyzing organic landing pages

Many B2B marketers don't bother to evaluate, let alone manage, organic landing pages. Test your organic landing pages for all significant, ranking keywords. You may rank highly in the search results for a given search phrase. You may even have a meta description that drives click-through. But is the page searchers land on the page you want them to land on? If not, optimize a different landing page or make changes to the content at the current landing page.

Not monitoring analytics

The analytics associated with PPC landing pages are often scrutinized in great detail. Bounce rates are analyzed. Alternate landing page versions are tested. Ad copy is tweaked. Yet organic landing pages rarely see the same rigor, despite the fact that B2B purchasers tend to first look at and click on organic results almost twice as often as they do paid search results. So, dive into your analytics, and do the same for your organic visitors. Isolate your organic traffic. Look at the organic landing pages. Analyze the bounce rates. Adjust landing page content. Tweak meta descriptions. You'll be glad you did.

Failing to optimize printed marketing assets before converting them to the web

B2B marketers are frequently guilty of mindlessly posting lots of print marketing communications to their websites, often in lieu of html content. Hundreds of hours and great sums of money have been spent creating these pieces, yet most people won't spend even an hour to optimize these pieces before posting them to the web. These often include PDFs of brochures, case studies, technical or white papers, and product and spec sheets. While these represent valuable, influential information, if you don't optimize them, they won't show up in the search results; the only people that will find them are those who actually visit your site. Why not make sure searchers can find them, too.

Some will wonder why anyone would want to bother optimizing PDF files. Who wants to click on a PDF search result when there are plenty of html results? Well, the types of information mentioned above are some of the assets most desired by B2B purchasers. Savvy B2B searchers (and savvy B2B marketers) know that they can quickly find these rich resources using Google advance search to search for PDFs only. For more information, see this previous Search Engine Land article and also this more in-depth article on optimizing PDFs for search engines, searchers, and site visitors.

Duplicate title tags and meta descriptions

B2B sites are often rife with duplicate title tags and duplicate meta descriptions. In addition to decreasing the chances that more of your site's pages will rank well, this practice will likely lead to less of your site's pages being indexed by the search engine. Moreover, it's a clear sign that you haven't optimized you site for searchers. Title tags and meta descriptions help determine whether a searcher is actually going to click on your search result. Today, there's really no excuse for this. You can easily check for duplicate title tags and meta descriptions using Diagnostics>Content Analysis in Google Webmaster Tools. If you currently don't use this or don't want to wait for someone to upload a meta tag or html file (so Google can verify the site is yours), you can use Aaron Wall's Website Health Check Tool.

Source: searchengineland.com

eCommerce segment too big to be ignored in Asia

2008-02-03T11:40:00.000-08:00

Two years ago, B2C (Business-to-Consumer) eCommerce sales for the five major markets in the Asia-Pacific region totaled a little over $59 billion, and Japan actually accounted for the largest share of that total. However, this situation is in a constant state of flux and is expected to change soon.

Overall, eCommerce sales in Asia will grow at about a 23.4 percent annual rate, reaching over $168 billion in less than three years from now, according to eMarketer. Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer Senior Analyst said that "on average, Japan was by far the largest market in the region, with about a 62 percent share of online sales in 2006."

Grau added "however, in three years from now, Japan and South Korea will potentially lose market share to two online markets: China and India. Both China and India are growing rapidly, but they are far from reaching their vast potential."

On any given day, the top reason that Internet users in China do not buy online is uncertainty about the security of the online shopping process, this according to a China Internet Network Information survey.

Smaller developing countries in the region, such as Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia, are also on track to become viable B2C and e-commerce economies.

Grau said "for Western e-commerce firms with global aspirations, the challenge is to decide what to do in this region and how to do it. These markets are usually very different, so prospective entrants must seek local solutions."

"A number of problems must be solved to ensure sustainable long-term growth. Such problems include immature online payment systems, poor delivery networks and distrust between buyers and sellers, to name just a few," added Grau.

In addition, in developing countries, the online shopping process is often at odds with traditional business practices. B2C transactions in China and India are conducted on a cash-basis, requiring eCommerce companies to provide alternative-payment methods, such as cash on delivery and wire transfers.

"Nevertheless, and no matter what the obstacles really are, the markets in Asia are simply too big to be ignored," says Grau.

He added "overall, most countries in the region, particularly China and India, lack a nationwide credit card system or an efficient delivery network. These are essential infrastructures that have greatly facilitated e-commerce and B2B sales growth in more advanced countries."

However, before jumping in, companies should be warned that it will take a lot longer for e-commerce to advance from its formative stage in India and China and other developing countries in the region than it did in advanced industrialized countries like the U.S., Japan and most of Western Europe.

Business To Business Marketing

2008-01-09T11:00:00.000-08:00

No one enjoys blind dates. Whether introduced by friends, the Internet or your neighborhood matchmaker, it's nerve-wracking to meet for the first time. Conversely, everyone loves weddings. The flowers, the tradition, the drunken dancing at the reception, you can find something you like.

Everything that comes in between is the interesting part. You're learning about each other: what you like to do, the things he doesn't eat, the stuff she does on Saturdays. And you're discovering the things that you do well together.

You need to deepen your relationship with prospects over time, interacting in a variety of settings, learning more about each other's needs and capabilities while progressing seamlessly from one interaction to the next. And you need to know when to commit more resources to the relationship as well as when to pull back and give the prospect some space.

As in life, B2B marketing can be described in five stages:

The introduction
The first date
Dating
The proposal
The wedding
The introduction

The introduction is the first time your future betrothed hears of you. It is up to your friend, online profile or matchmaker to make you seem interesting and attractive. You don't have direct control over the introduction, but the more you can do to influence it, the better.

Discover your ideal prospect. The first step should be to determine your ideal prospect. Just as you know you like tall, dark and handsome, you should also know that the best prospects for your products and solutions are companies in the United States with 100 or more employees, in the pharmaceutical and healthcare verticals. It's not usually this simple, but having an idea of what your ideal prospect looks like will help you focus your marketing. If you know that tall, dark and handsome is often at your alma mater's tailgate parties, you'll probably want to be there, early and often.

Build your brand with thought leadership. Brand matters because B2B buyers are still people and emotions impact economic decision-making. B2B buyers are overwhelmed with choices and information—more than any buyer could evaluate rationally. This means that no matter how disciplined a buying process is, emotional brand impressions do influence vendor selection. One way B2B companies can build their brand is by helping buyers research early in the sales cycle, demonstrating they are trusted advisers who understand the prospect's problems. By using thought leadership to engage prospects early, you build awareness and increase your chances that the prospect will respond to future demand generation efforts.

The first date

The first date is all about making a good first impression. Don't come on too strong or you'll scare your prospect away. And don't talk only about yourself. Use the first date as an opportunity to learn more about your prospect's wants and needs, as well as to share some relevant information about yourself.

In B2B marketing, this means you should deliver some form of premium content that is worth registering for. While thought leadership content should influence and guide people before they are in a formal buying cycle, the content here should be targeted to those who are just beginning to look for solutions, such as self-running video demos and customer case studies. Either way, they should be short and to the point. You're trying to make a good first impression.

Dating

In the B2B marketing world, the dating process is called lead nurturing, defined as the process of building a relationship with qualified prospects who are not yet sales-ready, regardless of budget, authority, or timing—and of ensuring a clean hand-off to sales at the right time.

Your prospect has shown at least some interest in you. You don't want to ruin a good first impression by calling too often or asking for too much commitment too soon. Instead, develop the relationship by sharing additional information at the right time. If tall, dark and handsome responds to your overtures, you want to talk to him and try to gather more information: Is he single? Is he interesting? In B2B relationships, it's much the same: make offers of more information at respectable intervals and determine the level of interest at each stage. The goal, of course, is to date exclusively.

Two tips:

Share relevant third party information. You don't need to create all the lead nurturing content yourself. You can demonstrate how well you understand each prospect's wants and needs by sharing relevant third party content with then. This can be as simple as emailing a news article and saying "Based on our conversation last week, I thought you'd find this interesting."

Make it personal. Remember, the goal of dating is to build a relationship with a real person. B2B buyers are people, so the human touch matters. Lead nurturing is a conversation, not a series of disjointed campaigns. Personalize email responders and landing pages. Make sure each step connects with the prior one. And except for webinar invitations, don't make the same offer twice in one email flow.

The proposal

When creating your ideal customer, marketing and sales must work together to determine the best indicators of success, in terms of what the customer looks like (demographics, etc.). During this discussion, you should also determine the lead score that results in a sales-ready lead. For instance, if a prospect fit your demographic target, clicked on one of your pay per click ads and watched a short demo, then downloaded an eBook from your email follow-up, you might consider him to be moderately qualified (a 7 out of 10, for instance). But if he then attended a webinar from an invitation you sent and went to the "pricing" section of your website, you might consider him a 9 out of 10, which tells you that he's ready for a contact by your sales team. Your sales team would then go to work (with your help, of course).

The wedding

The deal. The close. The win. Ultimately, making the sales is up to your sales team, but by implementing a sound nurturing and scoring process, you have helped them by establishing a relationship and positioning your company as a leader with the prospect.

The tools

Just as a nice haircut and a manicure prepare you for that first date, every marketer should prepare for that introduction. You'll need easy to use tools to help you nurture leads, including email, landing pages, forms and lead scoring.

Triggered emails. Send a series of emails as part of a drip marketing campaign, or triggered based on specific prospect activities. Each email offers a document (or webinar, or trial software, etc.) that helps move your target along in their decision-making process.

Custom landing pages. Don't forget that custom landing pages can increase conversion rates by up to 48% during your lead nurturing as well as your lead generation activities. You only have eight seconds to get their attention, so use bullets, short forms, and no external navigation. And have only one call to action!

Smart forms. Why use the same form with the same fields over and over? Just like you wouldn't ask your date for his or her name every time you see them, you shouldn't ask for contact information again and again. Smart forms recognize known visitors and can fill in the fields you already know. Since you don't have to ask for this, ask for other info, such as company size, time until decision, etc. Building the profile over time will help you in scoring the lead.

Lead scoring. Knowing which pages your prospects visit on your site can be very beneficial to determining their interest as well as their level of engagement. Being able to connect anonymous visits to actual prospects? Priceless.

Automate and measure. As busy marketers we need to automate the everyday tasks of building and managing lead generation and lead nurturing campaigns. We also need to more objectively score leads according to their company demographics as well as their activities on our websites, landing pages, emails and other campaigns. And a single lead source doesn't cut it when lead nurturing. It's great to know where we first encountered the prospect, but knowing what happens between that first meeting and closing the sale is imperative in these days of marketing accountability.

Finally, as you work through the nurturing process, you'll probably discover that some of the assumptions you made are incorrect; for instance, that downloading a particular white paper means that they are close to buying or that sending a particular email would elicit a good response. Don't forget that lead nurturing—and marketing in general—is constantly changing. You'll want to stay flexible and be ready to change your lead nurturing process as you experiment with new tactics and learn what works

Source: http://searchengineland.com

e-Commerce to Hit $100bn in 2008

2008-01-04T11:34:00.000-08:00

A top industry official has said that e-commerce transactions in the country are expected to hit $100 billion next year, as companies increase their use of Internet to cut down costs, and improve speed and efficiency.

Bikky Khosla, chief executive officer of Tradeindia, a B2B portal, was quoted saying that with e-commerce transactions currently growing at the rate of thirty to forty percent, they're expected to cross the $100 billion mark in 2008.

Khosla explained that with the advent of Internet, far-flung global markets have shrunk to form one seamless market. That B2B portals have generally succeeded in breaking geographical and other conventional barriers involved in trading. They've succeeded in cutting down on time and costs involved in businesses such as export-import, etc.

Khosla expressed the view that B2B portals are a must for enterprises of all types and sizes today. The advantages of having the assistance of a quality B2B portal are many.

Meanwhile, some of the leading portals in the B2B space include: Tradeindia, Indiamart.com, Tradeget.com, and Indianexporters.com.

8 Tips B2B Mobile social networking

2007-12-24T21:28:00.000-08:00

OV op je mobiel, datingsites, Hyves op je mobiel, aanbiedingen, tips en lokale zoekers naar toilet, taxi of winkel-in-de-buurt. Je moet de mobiele networker verrassen en zeer waardevol 'lastig' vallen op hun Smartphone. Denk daarbij wel aan de verschillen tussen b2b en b2c social networks. B2b gaat namelijk niet om entertainment maar om zakelijke contacten. En vooral: het moet zakelijk van waarde.

Acht stappen, acht tips voor meer 'engagement' met je b2b mobile social network. Vaak heel logisch, maar als stappenplan altijd handig:

1. Define your goals

- Do you want to improve or build better customer relationships?
- Do you want to increase your knowledge management capabilities?
- Do you want to facilitate sales or recruitment?
- Do you want to increase your personal and corporate visibility to gain more brand awareness or business opportunities?
- Do you want to build a community in which ideas and information can be exchanged and discussed?
- Do you want to hold one-on-one or engage in multiple conversations at the same time?
- Do you want to use certain tools or applications?

2. Determine available resources

What kind of resources do you have on hand to build this initiative, and do you understand what it takes?

3. Blend with your brand

Next, integrate your mobile social network with your brand positioning and strategy. Consider where your customers and your competition are and whether a mobile social network will improve your positioning and competitive advantage by making you more immediately visible and accessible.

4. Determine how you will get customers to use it

Customers, partners and colleagues will require tools to enable them to interact with you and one another. You will also need to come to grips with what will motivate them to use mobile networking.

- People will need something to talk about. This might require you to begin the conversation, to advertise an event or product, ask a question, set up a competition or encourage interactivity.

- You might have to allow customers to set up their own groups, blogs and community forums within your network based around common areas of interest.

Members of a custom-made B-to-B mobile social network, for example, might want to co-create or share information within an open or closed environment. B-to-B social mobile networks are more sophisticated than consumer social networks. “You want to meet somebody, discuss with somebody in a forum or post a blog” says Thomas Power, CEO, ecademy.com.

5. Understand cultural sensibilities and legal obligations

People in different countries interact with each other in different ways. Some accept certain types of content; others don’t. Consider who will monitor and censure conversations and what the legal implications and community guidelines are. Always be transparent.

6. Find the appropriate mobile social platform

You must determine the mobile social platform you want to use. Start by looking at those that complement the objectives you want to achieve.

7. Have a viral marketing strategy in place

What will make people flock to your mobile network? You’ll need to find evangelists who can influence others. Keep them informed about what you are doing. Much business is gained through referrals, so make sure people can connect with you and each other. Be prepared to respond and participate in conversations.

8. Integrate with other social networks

Look at your marketing strategies and channels from a tactical perspective: What are you going to do apart from the obvious?

Two typical measures are:
#1. Return on investment. How much time have you spent using it and how many sales have been generated, or how much has it cost to create your own in comparison to brand awareness or sales?

#2. Return on relationship. What did you get out of the relationships you’ve created in terms of customer loyalty, retention, referrals and new sales? You need to invest time in learning how your customers, partners or colleagues use the network.

Via Marketingsherpa

Make your Website Work

2007-10-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

Though the webmaster may have worked hard enough to put up the website, certain things may have been ignored. These things may be small but have a huge impact n the websites performance with the customers and stakeholders. Be it, a B2B or B2C website there are several things that need a look at before finalizing the website. The United States web design and the content come first in any case but the web design may not be the end. There are constant developing needs that emerge with the changing times. These needs can help the target customers to return to your site.

Index.html file- put it to use

Web servers are put up to broadcast default files if a browser requests an URL. Well, the server will perhaps send a file named index.html or default.html. It is a fine suggestion to include an index.html in every index of your website. If it is absent, what happens when the client desires a URL devoid of a filename? The server cannot hurl a file, as it does not locate index.html, so it might send an error message saying that the file cannot be found or it may send the index message, so that the visitor can observe a catalog of file names stored in that index. Ensure that the foremost page in each directory is the index.html folder, and visitors will still be able navigate through your website.

Fix the basic structure

Sketch the basic configuration of the website design and then try to bond with it. If you keep mixing up stuff around you may probably end up with the broken links inside the site. However, a high-quality authoring agenda will robotically update links when you shift or rename a folder. You may also perplex visitors who may have bookmarked a sheet formerly and currently find it missing..

Provide different ways to find things

You are already providing links to the web pages with your websites. However, there are a few other things you can do to facilitate your visitors find their way around.

- Provide a table of content or index

Consider building a link that holds all the web pages of your business. Systematize a table of contents in an alphabetical index possibly.

- Add a search engine

Users can type certain keywords in the search box provided by you and can see a list of all identical pages. Front page also helps you to create a search page rapidly.

- A site map helps

A site map may make it easy to navigate and may attract your customers to the other pages of your website as well. Some companies provide an actual image or map of the site to make it easy for the users plugged in to their website.

In the end also ensure that the page headings given by you sum up the page contents and are logically arranged for easy navigation

Source:http://www.articlesbase.com

CPA, CPE courses, 100 CPE titles, B2btradeworld, on line, disk-based, CPAs Ethics

2007-08-21T13:04:00.000-07:00

Hardwick Publications - Onlinecourses and CPE in accounting, tax, and management.

Illinois CPA Society - Professionalassociation representing more than 25,700 accountants. Offers resources andinformation.

JN Productions Self-Study CPECourses - Courses include Excel, Office, Word, PowerPoint, andQuickBooks.

MicroMash - More than 100 CPEtitles to choose from, available in downloadable, on-line and disk-basedformats.

NASBA Tools - Enables CPAs tosearch for CPE courses (including free self-study courses) and findinformation on state CPE requirements.

National Center for ContinuingEducation - NCCE offers continuing education training for professionalsincluding financial analysis, mergers, acquisitions, understandingfinancials, business valuation, and project management.

Positive Systems, Inc. - Offersinteractive self study courses.

Purtill & Company - Provider ofprofessional services, counseling, education and software tools. Offers bothlive and self study courses to CPAs and small business owners.

Restaurant Accounting andControls Seminars - Offers a one day program designed to help therestaurant owner, manager or accountant implement controls needed to insureincreased profits. Provides 8 hours of CPE credit.

RigosProfessional Education Programs - Offers several CPE courses for CPAsincluding Ethics and Loss Control courses, and review courses for the CMAand CFM exams.

SmartPros- Online and video continuing professional education (CPE) for accountingand finance professionals.

Southern Federal Tax Institute, Inc. -Continuing education seminars offer topics on current federal taxlegislation and issues for tax attorneys, accountants, trust officers,financial estate planners.

Surgent McCoy CPE, LLC - ProvidesCPA CPE seminars throughout the country through state societies of CPAs.

The Tax School - Providescourses for Certified Public Accountants, Enrolled Agents and the CaliforniaTax Education Council. Features online ordering and payment, contactinformation and customer testimonials.

UltimateCPE - Offers self-studycourses for both CPAs and IRS enrolled agents. Includes an online testingsystem.

University of Illinois TaxSchool - Provides tax education to tax professionals from an accreditedsponsor of CPE. Site includes lists of schools by location, instructor teamand date, daily agenda, specialty workbooks and important supplements.

Vern Hoven Tax Seminars - Offers onlinecourses synchronizing a) streaming video seminars, b) PowerPoint slides, andc) course manuals containing links to important code sections and rulings.Specializing in Federal Tax Update courses.

Western CPE - Providesinstructional conferences at exciting resort locations, as well as in-houseand self-study materials. Sponsored by the University of Montana School ofBusiness Administration.

WiseGuides Cpe for CPAs -Self-Study Cpe for CPAs. Over 100 courses to choose from. Use online ordownload.

Source: http://b2btradeworld.blogspot.com

The Difference Between B2B and B2C SEO

2007-02-09T11:04:00.000-08:00

by Galen De Young
February 6, 2007

To date, most adopters of search engine optimization have been B2C companies operating in an e-commerce environment. However, as business-to-business marketers recognize the potential of search, many are seeking ways to implement an effective B2B search engine optimization strategy.

To be successful, however, one needs to understand the critical differences between B2C and B2B SEO, and the implications of those differences.

A Difference in Goals

While the ultimate goal of both B2C and B2B marketing is to create a sale, the goal of B2B search engine optimization couldn't be more different from its B2C counterpart. SEO's goal in the B2C environment is usually to generate an online sale in a single visit. Ideally, searchers find a high-ranking site in the search engine results and navigate quickly from the landing page through a prescribed channel, and ultimately through the shopping cart and checkout process.

This, however, is unrealistic for most business-to-business marketers, whose products and services are generally not acquired in an e-commerce environment. The goal of search engine optimization for most B2B marketers is not an immediate sale but, rather, inclusion in the consideration set, the short list of preferred suppliers from which the ultimate provider will be selected.

Conversion in the B2B realm is usually not immediate; nor does conversion typically occur online. In B2B search engine optimization, getting found is merely the beginning.

Because driving site visitors through a prescribed conversion channel is often not applicable in B2B, your focus should be on "stickiness"—getting visitors to delve deeper to other relevant, confidence-building content. Often, the primary motivator in B2B purchase decisions is risk, or, put another way, fear of making the wrong decision. Therefore, one of the key objectives of B2B searchers after they click through to your site is to evaluate both your company and its offerings.

Although searchers ultimately seek a solution to a need, their predominant behavior during the purchase research phase is to separate wheat from chaff. Their purpose in clicking deeper into a site is one of vetting.

Companies that make the initial cut move on to the next round of consideration. Make sure that your landing pages have carefully chosen links to other content that will build credibility and get you in the consideration set.

In addition to creating strong content, use a good Web analytics program to help you evaluate stickiness factors, such as length and depth of visits, time spent on specific pages, and whether the number of return visitors is growing.

Greater Importance of Copy

The words that you use both in on-page and off-page copy have a tremendous influence on rankings in the search engine results. However, nowhere is the nature of copy more important than in B2B search engine optimization. Not only does Web-page copy need to influence ranking in the search engine results, it must also persuade the business purchaser. Yes, of course this is true in the B2C environment as well, but the nature and purpose of B2B copy is vastly different.

The typical consumer good on a Web site gets evaluated on things like product specs, available colors, pricing, and perhaps a short blurb extolling the product. As noted earlier, however, business purchases are most often driven by risk avoidance. Just because you offer the product or service or have low pricing doesn't mean you're the best source for it.

B2B purchasers do much more research as part of the buying process. Your ability to establish confidence and credibility by writing intelligently and persuasively about your product and your company—and your ability to clearly articulate complex selling propositions—will determine whether you continue to be considered as a potential supplier. Therefore, not only the landing page copy needs to be compelling—so does copy on every other page.

One Searcher. Multiple Searches.

In B2C, the typical sales cycle may be as short as 10-20 minutes from search to sale. In the B2B world, the buying cycle may last months or even years. That's because B2B purchases undergo much more scrutiny throughout all phases of the buying cycle—and in those phases the same person may perform multiple searches, each with a different intent.

In the first phase (research), the purchaser is seeking alternatives, seeing who's out there to potentially fill the need. During this phase he may use generic search terms related to the product or services sought in order to form a short list of potential providers. Later, in the evaluation stage of the buying cycle, the purchaser's focus turns from researching potential suppliers to researching specific issues related to the product or service, such as performance, efficiency, maintenance, ergonomics, whitepapers, etc. Different search terms will be used and different sites will be found—and different suppliers may be unearthed, supplanting those previously identified. Late in the process, just prior to the purchase decision, the searcher has by then a thorough understanding of specific needs, wants, and issues affecting the purchase decision. One last round of searching will likely ensue to confirm the purchaser's intended direction, and again different search terms may be used.

In B2B search engine optimization, it's important to understand the search terms your prospect may be using in the different phases of the buying cycle. If you have a good understanding of this, you can use SEO to ensure that you not only get initially found but also get confirmed at every search in the buying cycle.

One Prospect. Multiple Searchers.

While most B2C purchases involve a single decision-maker, the typical business purchase is influenced by multiple parties throughout the buying cycle, each with the ability to easily research and evaluate purchase alternatives. The user-buyer wants to know how the product will improve day-to-day operations. The technical buyer is charged with ensuring the product meets established specifications. The economic buyer is concerned with ROI and other financial matters. The prospect may also have engaged consultants or "coaches" that help the company with the decision-making process.

Today, each of these parties has the ability to quickly and easily research purchase alternatives and vet purchase recommendations with a few clicks of the mouse—and all use varying search terms depending on their role and their specific concerns. Although one person may have spent weeks doing purchase research, a VP who spends only 10 minutes on Google can raise enough questions to dramatically alter the organization's purchase decisions.

Good B2B search engine optimization considers the different influencers and the search terms they are likely to use—and has landing pages that speak to the various influencers.

More Complex Keyword Strategy

B2C searchers often use well-known brand names. Many already have a firm idea of what they want to buy; they merely want to find the best source for it. When B2C searchers do use generic terms, there is often less variance in the terms they use. (A person searching for sweatshirts is likely going to use that term.)

B2B search engine optimization presents many more complexities. A person searching for material handling solutions may search for "material handling," "conveyor systems," "conveyor technologies," "systems integrators," "warehouse management systems," or dozens of other related or more specific search terms. Next, there is variation in what to call things. Take, for instance, the subject of this article. Is it B2B SEO, B2B search engine optimization, business-to-business SEO, BtoB search engine optimization, or some other combination? You'll get different search engine results for each of these queries.

Searchers may use industry-specific lingo or generic terms. Also, B2B searchers often use search terms focused on the need or problem, rather than a product or solution. Add to that the multiple searches during the buying cycle and the multiple parties potentially influencing the sale, and the complexity of SEO keyword strategy grows exponentially—and that can have a huge impact on landing pages and site architecture. You can see that it quickly gets quite complicated.

Keyword strategy is critical to successful business-to-business SEO. Make sure that you take the time to fully explore and select the potential terms that searchers are likely to use in the purchase process, and design your site accordingly.

Knowing the Search Engines Your Prospects Use

People use different search engines, and different search engines use different algorithms to index content and rank search results. If you want a page to rank highly on MSN, you'll optimize it a bit differently than you would for Google.

It's important to know which search engines your prospects use and how to optimize web content for those search engines. Although there is little research regarding B2B search engine optimization, what research there is indicates that B2B purchasers overwhelmingly prefer Google. Absent compelling reasons to the contrary, optimize for Google. In doing so, you'll still do pretty well on Yahoo and MSN, but don't make them your primary focus.

Also, the list of vertical search engines continues to grow. Make sure you know which vertical search engines your prospects might be using, and take steps to ensure your presence in those search results as well.

Conversions in B2B SEO

Conversion ratios in the B2C environment are measured as the percentage of organic click-throughs that resulted in a sale. (Remember, the goal in the B2C environment is usually to generate an online sale in a single visit.) Much analysis goes into conversion ratios, and why and at what point site visitors abandoned the sales funnel, or conversion channel. Because the sales funnel in B2C SEO is so narrow and short, measuring the impact of optimization is quite easy and immediate.

As noted above, however, conversion in the B2B realm is rarely immediate or online. So how does conversion apply to business-to-business SEO? How can we measure the effects of SEO in the B2B environment? In the second article in this series, we'll address those questions and discuss conversion strategies in B2B search engine optimization.

Are your concepts clear to be in business on the internet?

2006-03-07T23:17:00.000-08:00

I have lost track of the number of discussion board posts and emails I have answered about that topic. I admit for those first venturing into the uncharted waters of internet business it can be challenging and more than a little daunting. There is a flood of products out there clamoring for your money and all claim to be absolutely essential to your success on the internet. Don't buy it, they are all selling snake oil!

There are some essentials you will need (assuming that if you are reading this that you already have an emailaccount and internet access) but you really can start out at the ground level with nothing but an idea and build your internet business up from there. You can start your business on a shoestring budget of just $10 a year. If you are ready for the fast track then you can start with as little as $10 month. If you are aiming for the penthouse then you can up your monthly budget to $30.

What are the essentials?

Ground level approach:

Create a blog account at one of the free blogging sites available online (we used to use Blogger.com but there are many other good options). This will serve as your internet base. It really is the cheapest and easiest way to get online today. Yes, you could create a free web site at one of the many available but blogsare more attractive to the search engines. Plus they offer you the ability to personalize it but most of your energy will be spent on content which is the king of the internet and the real reason you want an internet presence.

Now sign up for a free ClickBank affiliate acccount which will give you immediate access to something to sell --and the added advantage that many products also come with some handy content you can use to fill out your new blog. Sign up for a contextual or pay-per-click advertiser such as Google's Adsense or Chikita and you'll start earning from visitors as well as customers.

That's it! You are now in business. Keep filling your blog and promoting it as well and you will soon start earning!

Shoestring approach:

This method is similar to the previous approach with one crucial difference -- you purchase your own domain name. A domain namewill cost you between $5 and $10 a year depending on whether you go .com or .info (or one of the many other options available). You don't need to find a web host or create a site. Simply point the domain at your blog for now and continue with the development and promotion of your blog. The advantage of owning your own domain name is simply that later when you have the money, time, and knowledge to develop your web site that domain name will already exist and have filtered through the search engines. It also offers some marketing advantages that a free blog cannot.

Fast-track approach:

You host your own domain and offer your blog either as the site or as an addition to the site. You should be able to do this for between $10 and $20 a month with a reputable host that offers all the tools and utilities you might need for your current site. Maybe down the line you'll need to upgrade but by then you'll know your income and your needs.

Penthouse approach:

You add one final tool that will make your internet business complete -- a mailing list tool. You can do this for just $20 a month and it will be worth every penny for sales, customer service, and promotional tool.

That's it for just $90 you can have every tool you need to make hundreds or even thousands from your internet business and you can actually get by with a lot less than that for your initial startup.

Two final notes.

First, I did not include any budget in here for advertisingbecause there are a lot of free ways you can get started advertisingand promoting your site and I would recommend exhausting those options before you begin looking into spending money on advertising. By that time you may well have started to earn a profit from your internet venture and so you can have a better idea of the size of your advertising budget.

Second, if you plan to sell products yourself then you will need a payment processor. You can sign up for free with PayPal so that is no additional expenditure (you pay a percentage of each sale so it is self-funding) or you can sign up for vendor account with ClickBankwhich will cost you a one-time fee of $50 plus a percentage of each sale. I would not lay out a lot of money for a shopping cart program or one of the other programs that charges a monthly fee. I have done business with PayPal and ClickBank as my exclusive payment processors since 1999. Every so often I will investigate my other options and every time I stick with these simple, effective programs.

How To Create Multiple Streams of Online Income E-course

2006-02-27T03:33:00.000-08:00

By: Tim Knox

Do you know what an E-course is? An E-course is an "electronic course" that you receive by emailor take at a website.

An E-course is the modern day equivalent of the old correspondence course concept. The difference is that instead of taking the course by mail, you do it online or by email.

E-courses are one of the best ways to continue your education, especially if you are interested in making money online.

I love the E-course concept because it gives you the opportunity to learn from the comfort of home. There are no heavy books to lug around, no rushing off to class, no smelly dorm roommates :o)

I am putting together an entire series of free E-courses for my subscribers on topics like:

* How To Create Multiple Streams of Online Income
* Setting Up Your Own eBay Business
* How To Make Money With Affiliate Programs
* How To Build Your Own Website For Next To Nothing
* And More...

All of these E-courses will be online soon and I will keep you posted. The great news is the first E-course is online now and you can start your education today. All it takes is the click of your mouse.

The "How To Create Multiple Streams of Online Income" E-course will teach you how to create multiple streams of online income quickly and easily, with little or no out of pocket cost to you.

The How To Create Multiple Streams of Online Income E-course includes:

Part 1. How To Create Multiple Streams of Online Income
Part 2. Making Money With Affiliate Programs
Part 3. How To Choose An Affiliate Program
Part 4. What Is The Best Product To Sell Online?
Part 5. How To Create Your Own Info Product
Part 6. How To Start A Successful Ebay Business
Part 7. How To Dropship Your Way To Online Success

To receive this 7 part E-course click the link below to subscribe.

http://www.prosperityandprofits.com/ecourses/multiplestreams/

Part 1 will be delivered to your inbox right away. If you do not see it there check your Spam or Junk folders as most ISPs now filter automated emails without the user's knowledge.

You should also add the emailaddress the following email address to your address book or accepted senders list:

--> ecourses@prosperityandprofits.com

Signup and learn today!

Here's to your success!

Tim Knox

Article Source: http://www.articles-galore.com

How To Create Multiple Streams of Online Income E-course

2006-02-27T03:31:00.000-08:00

B2B Marketing: How To Create Multiple Streams of Online Income E-course

2006-02-24T03:38:00.000-08:00

Do you know what an E-course is? An E-course is an "electronic course" that you receive by email or take at a website.

An E-course is the modern day equivalent of the old correspondence course concept. The difference is that instead of taking the course by mail, you do it online or by email.

E-courses are one of the best ways to continue your education, especially if you are interested in making money online.

I love the E-course concept because it gives you the opportunity to learn from the comfort of home. There are no heavy books to lug around, no rushing off to class, no smelly dorm roommates :o)

I am putting together an entire series of free E-courses for my subscribers on topics like:

* How To Create Multiple Streams of Online Income
* Setting Up Your Own eBay Business
* How To Make Money With Affiliate Programs
* How To Build Your Own Website For Next To Nothing
* And More...

All of these E-courses will be online soon and I will keep you posted. The great news is the first E-course is online now and you can start your education today. All it takes is the click of your mouse.

The "How To Create Multiple Streams of Online Income" E-course will teach you how to create multiple streams of online income quickly and easily, with little or no out of pocket cost to you.

The How To Create Multiple Streams of Online Income E-course includes:

Part 1. How To Create Multiple Streams of Online Income
Part 2. Making Money With Affiliate Programs
Part 3. How To Choose An Affiliate Program
Part 4. What Is The Best Product To Sell Online?
Part 5. How To Create Your Own Info Product
Part 6. How To Start A Successful Ebay Business
Part 7. How To Dropship Your Way To Online Success

To receive this 7 part E-course click the link below to subscribe.

http://www.prosperityandprofits.com/ecourses/multiplestreams/

Part 1 will be delivered to your inbox right away. If you do not see it there check your Spam or Junk folders as most ISPs now filter automated emails without the user's knowledge.

You should also add the email address the following email address to your address book or accepted senders list:

--> ecourses@prosperityandprofits.com

Signup and learn today!

Here's to your success!

Tim Knox

Article Source: http://www.articles-galore.com

B2B News: B2B software investments in the UK

2006-02-17T03:34:00.000-08:00

On average, the United Kingdom invested about 13 billion pounds in its economy in B2B software for the year 2003. At first glance, that number seems like very old news.

However, consider that until yesterday, the U.K.'s Office of National Statistics (ONS), believed this figure to be only 2.5 billion pounds.

The ONS has since made the adjustment in the numbers, which now shows U.K. B2B software investment to be 2 percent of GDP, "pretty similar now to that recorded in the U.S.," according to Richard Holway.

As such, the 2 percent figure may reflect a built-in commitment on the part of major industrialized economies, arguing for a permanent place for software (and e-business) at the macro level. The implication is that, as goes any particular economy, so goes IT investment in general.

The ONS readjustment ought to correct a number of flawed impressions about the U.K. in particular, notes Holway.

"The UK Government can boast a higher GDP, can refute criticisms of lower productivity and can say that the UK can hold its head higher in terms of investment. Trade bodies can show how much more important to the UK economy investment in software actually is."

B2B News: Online survey sees B2B spend increase

2006-02-10T03:28:00.000-08:00

This year will see increased budgets, significant growth in online marketing and the launch of
new ad campaigns in the world of b2b marketing, according to a survey by BtoB online.

The report, 2006 Marketing Priorities and Plans surveyed 366 senior marketing executives at the end of November and beginning of December last year and found that 60.7 per cent will be working with bigger budgets in 2006, compared to 49.7 per cent in last year’s survey.

In 2006, 72 per cent of marketers intend to increase their online budgets. The survey found that these budgets will be distributed between websites, email, search and sponsorships.

Over half of the survey’s respondents said they plan to increase direct mail in 2006, 40 per cent intend to increase event marketing and 33 per cent propose an increase print advertising.

The survey also found that 81 per cent of marketers do not plan any changes in their broadcast spending, 80 per cent will not change outdoor spending and 46 per cent will not make changes in their print and event marketing budgets.

Other primary marketing objectives identified were entering new markets, generating leads and increasing revenue. The survey also found that 69.8 per cent of marketers plan to introduce new ad campaigns in 2006.

For complete results of the survey, please click here.

Source: BtoB online

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Case Study: marketingsherpa.com

2006-01-30T05:44:00.000-08:00

How to Impress Conservative Fortune 100 Business Prospects by Allying With Academia

SUMMARY:
Are you in charge of demand generation campaigns targeting top execs at very big companies? This Case Study is for you.

Learn how a previously little-known software company became a trusted and admired brand in a couple of short years. The trick? Alliances with nuts-and-bolts professors in America's heartland.

Includes creative samples, and tips on partnering with academics:

CHALLENGE
Executives at giant manufacturing companies in the Fortune 100 are exceptionally careful when they pick new enterprise software. Part of it's due to the industry having been burned during the gung-ho days of the not too distant past.

"People were a little embarrassed stuff didn't live up to hype," explains Glen Margolis, who founded Steelwedge Software five years ago to provide more reliable alternatives.

His problem -- how do you gain the trust of conservative prospects in huge companies, especially when you're a new company? And then, how do you turn trust into demand?

CAMPAIGN
Margolis didn't want to wait the years (or even decades) it could take to get Steelwedge established as a highly trusted brand on its own. He needed a demand generation campaign that got him a foothold more quickly.

Why not latch the Steelwedge brand onto an already-trusted expert, such as a leading professor and academic researcher in the field?

Thing is, US-based manufacturing executives don't tend to trust advice from Ivy League academics. "It's pretty ivory towerish." Instead, Margolis looked for professors in "heartland places where they're very practical, focused on the nuts and bolts, such as the Universities of Wisconsin and Tennessee as well as Missouri State."

The goal was to find professors who would be willing to conduct research in partnership with Steelwedge into best practices, ROI forecasting, and financial benchmarks related to Steelwedge's field. Steelwedge would provide access to customers and prospects, ideas for research topics, and -- key -- a publishing platform for formal papers and speeches.

However -- another key -- Steelwedge would not influence the content of the papers unduly, nor would any papers serve as overt marketing pitches for the company. "The research is not biased toward us, however hopefully we're an example of a leader doing something that not many other companies are doing."

No money changed hands directly between Steelwedge and the professors. "They're already heavily incented because as professors they have a quota to put out a certain number of publications. Some of these guys jump for this."

In addition, some professors hoped for consulting gigs on the side. Having their papers appear in Steelwedge's newsletter and giving speeches at relevant Webinars or live events certainly could help market them in turn as experts. The universities were also delighted with the additional visibility.

Next, Margolis and his marketing team used the content the professors' research created to put together a comprehensive demand generation program. "It all has to fit together to drive demand," he notes. "If campaigns are done in isolation, we won't get strong, qualified participants."

Not only were campaigns calendared carefully to work as a whole together, all campaign measurement was fed into one main platform (link to vendor below). Steelwedge could track who signed up for a newsletter, when they clicked on a link, what links were clicked on, which events attended, which areas of the site visited, etc. The sales team then got a complete profile of each prospect's real interest.

#1. Email newsletter (Link to sample below)

Although the newsletter's purpose was to market the company, it was anything but an overt marketing vehicle. In fact, unless you scrolled to the very bottom, you didn't see Steelwedge's logo.

Instead, the newsletter mimicked the feeling of a formal academic journal. Entitled "Perspectives on Enterprise Planning" and each bimonthly issue had a Volume Number just like a journal would. Lead articles were often by famous professors, by well-known industry consultants, or by Steelwedge's own engineers.

#2. Webinars

Naturally the team conducted webinars whenever they had interesting research findings. Margolis notes that it's best to allow plenty of rehearsals for professors who are used to a lecture hall but not the small screen. His guidelines to presenters are to allow 15-25 slides at most for a 45-minute presentation.

#3. Live Events

Next, the highest quality prospects were invited to in-person events, often with a professor as a guest star. These included breakfasts, and even a river cruise. Prospects for these events were hand-picked. "They've already seen or heard of us in three other places. They read an article in our journal. And they are someone likely to buy our software, not just groupies."

(Margolis says 'Groupies' are consultants and lower-level executives who may be great evangelists for the brand, and should be eagerly encouraged to read the newsletter.)

#4. Online "Best Practices Center"

Margolis collected the best content from newsletters, papers, and webinars and put it together on a Web page entitled "Best Practices Center." This helped the Steelwedge site with search engine optimization, and also gave new visitors something meaty and impressive to sink their teeth into.

However, *very* cleverly, Margolis instructed the Web team to put an automated registration barrier in front of a Web visitor the second time he or she clicked on a resource during a visit. So, you could view one great article or download a useful PDF and hopefully thereby gain trust in the brand, but when you went back to the well for more, you were asked for your contact information. (See link below for sample reg form.)

RESULTS
"For the longest time, no one had heard of us, but now we have clients around the globe," says Margolis. "60-70% of leads generated these days are coming through our channels. We have 131 academic papers posted on our site."

He's delighted to report, "It's shocking to me how many CEOs and VPs surf the papers on our site. They use it like a personal library. One time Michael Dell surfed our site and made an inquiry!"

The email newsletter gets a very healthy 14% clickthrough rate (names clicking to read a story divided by total names sent). Depending on subject matter, readers spend 45 seconds to almost three minutes with an issue. (Note: the average for b-to-b newsletters is well under 30 seconds.)

More than 50% of prospective attendees who register for webinars actually end up attending (this is roughly double industry average at this time).

Steelwedge Software's most famous academic relationship is with Professor Tom Mentzer of the University of Tennessee. Mentzer frequently consults for the industry. "He has plenty of self-confidence to walk into a CEO's office. He will not hesitate to make statements to help project managers within a company actually implement best practices and processes."

Naturally this places Steelwedge in a delightful-but-dangerous situation. You have to be awfully secure in the quality of your product to let a passionate academic see behind the velvet curtain

see more:www.marketingsherpa.com

Search engine marketing up 44% in 2005

2006-01-24T05:43:00.000-08:00

Advertisers spent $5.75 billion on search engine marketing in 2005, a 44% increase compared with 2004, according to a report from the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization.

The nonprofit group projects search marketing spending in North America will increase to $7.19 billion this year and reach $11.0 billion in 2010.

The findings in SEMPO's report, "The State of Search Engine Marketing 2005," are based on a survey of advertisers, agencies and affiliate marketing firms conducted by Radar Research and Intellisurvey. The global survey generated 553 responses, 70% of them from North America.

According to the report, the majority of search funding is poached from other marketing channels. SEMPO said the biggest shares of budgets for SEM are being shifted from affiliate marketing, Web site development, print Yellow Pages advertising, e-mail marketing and direct mail.

"Marketers are taking a closer look at media consumption patterns," said Kevin Lee, chairman of SEMPO and CEO of Did-it.com, a SEM company. "Search really shines, and that is hard to replicate in other media."

Bryan Brickley, director of business development at Searchfeed.com, said pay-per-click's effectiveness has motivated advertisers to invest in search. "Pay-per-click offers a way to control spending and pay only for users that visit their site," he said. "These types of factors cannot be as easily controlled and monitored with other advertising methods."

The report tallied payments to search engines and search-related media companies, search marketing agencies and in-house expenditures in support of search. The programs included paid placement, paid inclusion, organic search and search marketing technology.

Paid placement accounted for $4.70 billion, or 83%, of the total spent on SEM last year. Most advertisers use organic search engine optimization, but that accounted for just 11% of spending. Paid inclusion accounted for about 4% and SEM technology for less than 2%.

Google AdWords remains the most popular search advertising program, used by 95% of respondents.

B2B and open-source tools

2006-01-21T08:38:00.000-08:00

More and more, the trend towards open source applications and software is receiving encouragement from certain governments. The eThekwini municipality is now basing its intranet and website entirely on open source tools.

The technical development of the portal was done by Cape Town-based, Jam Warehouse, working with Bytes Systems Integration as strategy partner, and Durban small business, AdaptIT.

"This was an exceptionally complex project with multiple objectives," says Jam Warehouse's Denham Trollip. "Apart from improving service delivery and creating a solid technical platform for future growth, the eThekwini council wanted to demonstrate that open source software and standards can work for enterprise-grade applications, and grow small business capacity at the same time."

Using the Zope Application Server and the Plone content management system, Jam Warehouse has created a stable, highly scalable portal infrastructure that provides a strong platform for future growth.

"A portal is about much more than simple content delivery," explains Trollip. "A good portal provides a single window onto diverse applications and services, both for employees of the organisation and for outsiders."

At eThekwini, for example, there are plans not only to create Web sites for every department of the municipality, but also to link in applications as diverse as payment and electricity supply quality monitoring.

eThekwini Web master, Angela Spencer, says going the open source route was challenging, but has provided many benefits. "The software we were using previously was so expensive that only the wealthier departments could afford to have Web sites; with open source, we have avoided that problem completely."

More importantly, now that eThekwini has invested in developing and extending the software to suit the needs of a large metropolitan municipality, the new software can be used by other municipalities and government departments at little or no additional cost, not just in SA, but around the world.

"The biggest issue," says Spencer, "will be whether other municipalities have the capacity to maintain it. Open source skills are still scarce in this country."

This shortage of skills, says Jam Warehouse's Trollip, is why the eThekwini project placed such strong emphasis on developing local small business capacity. "The objective is that Jam Warehouse will eventually become redundant and Adapt IT will take over all the support and maintenance of the site," says Trollip. "We have a full-time employee in Durban doing skills transfer, so AdaptIT is growing its capacity to take on larger and more complex projects."

From a technical point of view, says Trollip, the project has been a huge success.

"We have built a solid, flexible and highly scalable portal using only open source software and open standards," he says. "This project has proved that it is feasible to build enterprise-grade platforms using only open source tools. We hope it will be an important demonstration project for other municipalities and government agencies."

Early booker rates for international business conference go live

2006-01-18T03:40:00.000-08:00

The fifth international FIPP business magazine and professional media conference, the business media world summit, takes place on 1-3 May 2006. Delegates who book to attend before the ‘early booker’ deadline of 31 March will receive up to a 17 per cent discount.

The conference features keynote addresses from David Levin, chief executive of United Business Media and Lord Heseltine, chairman of Haymarket Group.

Other confirmed speakers include: Helen Alexander, chief executive of The Economist Group; Ruud Bakker, chairman and CEO of VNU Business Media Europe; Tim Weller, CEO of Incisive Media; Keith Jones, chief executive of Reed Business Information; Dan Bagan, vice president and group publisher of Fairchild Publications; David Hill, president of publishing services, IDG; Andreas Haas, general manager, CPL Group, Ukraine; and Erwin Reisch, chief executive of Gentner Verlag in Germany.

Delegates from professional media publishers across the globe are expected to attend the event which has previously been held in Norway, Germany and Spain.

Sessions will address key topics such as leading in the information world; making money online; and leveraging brands.

The conference is hosted by the International Federation of the Periodical Press (FIPP) and organised by PPA Professional.

Programme information and booking details are available from www.london06.com.
Details from Lucy Fairclough at PPA on +44 20 7400 7544 or Helen Bland at FIPP on +44 20 7404 4169 or helen@fipp.com.

Most Billionaires Have Some Formal Education

2006-01-16T23:24:00.000-08:00

by Justin Hitt, Strategic Relations Consultant, http://justinhitt.com/

In an excellent article presented by Forbes magazine called Some Billionaires Choose School of Hard Knocks by Matthew Herper he presents interesting statistics about the some 234 US billionaires today. Mr. Herper presents the fact that 18% of these billionaires never received a college degree; many of them never finished the degree programs they started – a statistic that might make you want to quit school and run off on your latest ideas.

I would ask you first to look at the other statistic he is indirectly presenting – a statistic that says roughly 80% of the 234 US billionaires have completed a college education. Billionaires have attended the School of Hard Knocks to build their fortunes, but it is not hard work alone that produces their greatness, many times college enhances their opportunities for earning their billions.

First hand I learned that hard work alone will not get you greatness, my small business ran great until 1999, three years after I went full-time after running the same business part-time since 1992. Something unexpected happened, customers were not paying on time and I was soon headed for trouble. How did this 23 year old know things were going to be trouble? At the time I had just finished an associates of arts degree in general studies from the local community college, all my math experience was Calculus based, and my business experience was home grown.

What saved me was a college Accounting text book I picked up in the used books store. This text had a great chapter on cash flows – this knowledge kept a roof over my head by providing me enough insight into the numbers of my business, so I knew when to get out.

Well, I am not a billionaire, yet! Maybe saving myself from a half a million dollar business flop from a single chapter in a college text book isn't the most practical example. I was just using something the most successful people in the world have done for thousands of years – seek knowledge outside of their internal circumstances. Biblical King Solomon even had advisors, and it is rumored that he was the wisest man ever in the world. Billionaires of today become successful from hard work and learning from the environment around them – in many cases college.

Many billionaires hire the knowledge they need or seek business partners that can do things better then they can, many times heavily requiting from colleges. The United States most famous billionaire William H Gates, III, better known as the Microsoft giant Bill Gates, did not write Microsofts first Disk Operating System (DOS) he saw the idea and hired someone to do the work for him.

John R Simplot, mentioned in Mr. Herper's article, when obtaining the patent for the frozen potato did not do all the work by himself, he utilized the people around him to make the idea happen. His organization is now the largest supplier of frozen potato products to the worlds fast-food mammoth McDonalds. Even though both of these people dropped out of school, they both sought people with formal educations in the School of Hard Knocks to accomplish their objectives.

Okay, so of the top five billionaires, as listed on Forbes: The World's Riches People, only one Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud has a college education, the other four all dropped out of school. Of the top ten billionaires only three graduated, two dropped out, and the remaining six never
attended college. Recent High School graduates and young entrepreneurs, do not think that if you drop out of your formal schooling you will never need to learn another thing to become a billionaire. If you do drop out, you better be ready to seek learning and knowledge in every aspect of forming your business dreams.

Successful billionaires used hard work and the knowledge of the people around them to accomplish their objectives, they hire the best in every aspect of their businesses, and they keep informed to always be one step ahead of the competition. Mr. Herper in his article Some
Billionaires Choose School of Hard Knocks makes some excellent points, however I would encourage you to stay in school because a degree is essential if only to provide you the background knowledge to know how to work in your area of interest.

Do not get a degree just to have one, but seek the specific education that will enhance your ideas, letting the degree be shining proof of your steps towards your success. Billionaires learn more each day making life a formal education, most have found that college only enhanced their opportunities.

How To Get Your CRM Project To Come In On-Budget

2006-01-16T23:21:00.000-08:00

y Scott Gingrich, The CRM Coach, http://thecrmcoach.com/

Having a project come in On-Budget is the holy-grail of project management, especially when it comes to CRM projects. With their 70% failure rate, CRM projects represent a significant risk to a small business' financial health and warrants more 'measure twice, cut once' consideration before beginning.

Coming in On-Budget does not mean you managed to squeeze your project into whatever arbitrary budget you came up with when you first started. It also
doesn’t mean that you started with an overly generous budget.

It does mean that you develop a budget that takes into account an analysis of 4 critical areas:

Payoff. You need to know exactly how your CRM system is going to generate ROI. This will help you focus your project on the right areas. By knowing how you expect payoff to be achieved, you can plan to achieve it.
Risk. You need to figure out where the risk is in your project because 'risk=expense'. By figuring out what can go wrong, you can take measures to minimize and contain that risk.
Services. Be sure to fully account for the variety of services that will be required. A few often overlooked areas that can increase your services bill significantly include: meetings, testing time, debugging time and 'while you're here...' time.
Technology. Choosing the wrong technology is can be a huge waste of money. From the worst case scenario of a totally failed project to having to spend extra money to make the wrong software do things it wasn't intended to do.

What makes putting together a realistic budget so difficult for small businesses is that it's not what they do and they don’t have the experience of having done several before. It’s not what they do. So, they rely on the Sellers of CRM who have their own vested interest in not scaring off their customers with numbers that are perceived to be too expensive. By putting together a realistic budget, you may very well find that the project is going to cost much more than
you were intitally prepared to spend. It's best to find this out now and before you 'sign on any dotted lines'. If you do find out the project is going to cost more, here are a few ideas of what to do:

Wait & Save. Perhaps you need to wait 6 months until you have a bigger budget. Use this time to get prepared for the project: learn more about the software choices, make sure you're business processes are as fine tuned as they can be, and focus on how CRM software will generate ROI.
Go ahead. It may be more money than you were expecting, but may still be within your budget. If you're clear on how the CRM system is going to generate ROI and you're otherwise ready, go for it!
Scale Down. If you have a very clear idea of how the CRM software is going to achieve ROI and you can't afford the full project, focus in a smaller area to begin with that will have a payback. Use this payback to help fund future projects. It's always a good idea to start with smaller, high-payoff projects first.
Find more ROI. If you have a really clear and compelling business case for how a CRM system is going to improve your bottom-line, it's much easier to find the necessary funds to implement it.
Double Check. Make sure you're choosing the right technology. Cheap software can often be expensive to implement. Double check to make sure you're basing your budget on the right CRM software. You may find that a software that costs more in licensing, ends up being an overall more affordable solution.

Coming in On-Budget means you started with a realistic budget. The "Insider's CRM Success System" goes into great detail on how to develop a realistic budget and provides the control forms and worksheets you'll need.

10 Steps to Success in Direct Marketing

2006-01-03T05:28:00.000-08:00

If you're looking for a lucrative home based business, direct marketing may be just what you've been looking for; Offering you the possibilities of making your dreams come true.

What is Direct Marketing?
Direct marketing is offering a product or service directly to the consumer via mail order, Internet sales, personal sales, etc., with no middleman involved. Many direct marketing companies are now being operated right out of the home. Home based business is the waive of the future and can offer you a wonderful opportunity to actually be able to compete with the large, well established companies with large bank accounts. That's what is so wonderful about the Internet. You don't have to have a large bank account to succeed. You just have to have a little "know how."

10 Steps to insure your success

1. SET YOUR GOALS

What do you want to accomplish? Do you want a new home? Do you want to save for your children's college education? A new car? You can have whatever you want, but you must want it enough to do the things that have to be done in order to get it.

Set your goals, write them down and set a target date for reaching them. Set short-term reachable goals and long-term higher goals; yet don't set them too high. This will cause you to become discouraged if you don't achieve them.

Work consistently towards accomplishing your goals each day, each week and each month until you reach your short-term goals. When you have attained your short-term goals, set them a little higher each time. Ultimately you will achieve your long-term goals. Goal setting is a must in every area of life.

2. BE SELF DISCIPLINED

Get up early each day. Get ready for your job as if you were working outside your home. Have a list of all the things you want to accomplish during the day. This will give you an organized approach to each day. It's amazing how much you can get done using a "To Do" list.

3. BE SELF-MOTIVATED

Set up a schedule and stick to it. Be Enthusiastic. Enthusiasm generates its own energy. Energy and good health are synonymous with motivated, happy people. Achievers.

4. BE ENTHUSIASTIC

Positive thinking will literally be your key to success. You have to convince yourself that you can succeed at whatever you desire, because you can.

5. DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF TO BECOME DISCOURAGED

Remember... The more "NO's" you get, the closer to a "YES" you become.

6. SCHEDULE YOUR TIME WISELY

A schedule is your roadmap to success. If you have no direction, you'll travel in circles and ultimately never reach your goals. Plan your work then work your plan.

7. HAVE A POSITIVE ATTITUDE

Success is 90 percent attitude and 10 percent aptitude. Learn the art of positive thinking. You can do whatever you put your mind to. It's mind over matter. Your attitude will either guarantee your success or guarantee your failure. You're only a failure if you give up.

8. SET UP AN OFFICE AREA

Most direct marketers work from their own homes, but it is still essential to set up a specified work area. Take pride in your business to insure your success.

9. HANDLE YOUR MONEY WISELY

Set up a written budget. Set aside a percentage of your business income to put back into your business. This is a must. Failure to reinvest your money will result in the failure of your business.

10. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

Get plenty of sleep, eat right and take some time to stop and smell the roses... Be Persistent... Persistence Pays Off... Don't Give Up... Most Businesses fail Just At The Moment They Are About To Succeed...

Sales is one of the highest paid of all professions. "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime."

Networking Your Way to Business Success

2005-12-30T23:29:00.000-08:00

Running a successful business used to be dependent on what you knew. Then, who you knew became important. In today's economy, it is far more critical to what you extent you know someone. So it's not what you know or who you know, but how well you know them that really determines the amount of business that can be generated by a contact.

Networking is the process of meeting people (also known as contacts), either through a contact that you initiate or through an introduction by a third party. Networking allows you to meet, and establish a relationship with, people who may not have heard of your business through any other means.

Like the name implies, this is work! It's not called Net-sit, Net-talk, or Net-eat. It's Net-work!! In order to make it productive for you, you need to learn proper way to do it. There are some important steps to follow for successful networking:

Pick Your Functions To Attend

Business people like to associate with other business people, so attend functions where these types of people will be. Pick those functions carefully. Make sure that the purpose of the function is to promote business and not just to socialize.

Chambers of Commerce gatherings, trade shows, and networking organizations are excellent sources of business leads. The people who attend these are there for the same reason you are- to meet new people and to develop new business relationships. Social functions are fun and relaxing, but a person trying to do business or make contacts there could be very disappointed.

Be Prepared

Dress appropriately- you are a representation of the type of work that you do. First impression advertising can make you the most money or be the most expensive advertising you will ever invest in if it causes you to lose business.

Always have a supply of business cards on you at all times. I know a man who met a prospective client from a large company while swimming in a pool in a hotel in Hawaii, while on vacation. He landed an account with the firm when he produced a business card (laminated of course), from his swimming trunks.

Make a Good Presentation

Remember that you know more about your business than your prospective client needs to on a first meeting. Save the details of your product or service for a second meeting unless specifically asked about them by the prospect. If you overwhelm them with information, you may never have chance to determine how you can help them with a problem they may have. The key to successful businesses is in solving problems for clients in a fair, efficient and cost effective way.

Mining for Referrals

All-important referrals come from happy clients. A referral from a client is a reflection of their judgment as well as a compliment to you and your product or service. Be sure to send out "Thank You" cards to people who refer you business. Thank them for the opportunity to service their acquaintance and to perhaps help them in the future, as well.

Networking is done at any time of day- morning , noon and night.One of the nicest benefits is the friendships you can make while pursuing common goals.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nancy is the Executive Director of Profnet, Inc. Profnet, Inc. is a professional business leads generation corporation. We bring business professionals together in a non-competitive environment to help each other make more money.
Mailto:execdirector@profnet.org
http://www.profnet.org
Copyright c 1998 Nancy Roebke
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Expand Your Sales by Contraction on Your Focus

2005-12-30T03:44:00.000-08:00

An important aspect of marketing online is the opportunity to achieve targeted, measurable results. However, marketers are told repeatedly by the Internet establishment that traffic is the solution to online success.

Based on the law of averages, this premise is not too far off the mark; the more people hit your site, the more responses you will receive. Quantity is therefore an important aspect of surviving online. If you want lots of hits, you want your site in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

But what about quality? What if these hits are uninterested visitors who will never buy from you? For those seeking a more cost-efficient means of selling more successfully online, attracting a higher quality stream of visitors -- interested, pre-qualified visitors ready to buy - is definitely a better alternative.

The challenge facing many is that they feel they must make a choice: Quantity versus quality. But this is not a choice to be made. Both can be achieved simultaneously by having a better target at which to aim and a better weapon with which to shoot.

It's called "focused marketing," which combines both niche and target marketing. Either will improve results, but by applying both results can multiply exponentially.

Niche Marketing

In the competitive 2,000's, the demand for specialized products and services will increase. If your site sells everything but the kitchen sink, chances are your audience will not perceive a value in buying from you any greater than from anyone else.

Remember price is never an issue - it is the value behind the price that is. And if your value is perceived as equal to that of others, the cheapest alternative wins.

The number of sales will increase dramatically if your site is narrowly centered on a specific theme or outcome. And the need to produce large quantities of visitors will lessen considerably.

Let's say your best client is the corporate executive and that your site receives 200,000 hits per month. If your site's message aims for the public at large, there will only be a small percentage of this ideal market hitting your site.

Let's say that percentage is 0.1%. This means that of 200,000 visitors, only 200 will be executives. And since your site is too general, an even smaller percentage of those 200 executives - say, 0.5% - will be interested in your offer and eventually buy (0.5% amounts to only one client for an entire month).

Now consider another site dedicated exclusively to corporate executives. Assume this site receives only 5,000 hits per month - agreeably, it's not a whole lot. But the percentage of those visitors falling into the target market will be 100%.

Furthermore, the percentage of interested leads will be greater. To be conservative, let's say it is only 5%. This means of 5,000 hits per month, one can achieve 250 sales.

The beauty of it is that it probably took a lesser investment of time, effort, and money to achieve 250 sales per month than it did to achieve one sale per month. Therefore, you definitely get more with less. By narrowing your market or focus, you broaden your chances of online success.

In short, the more specialized your web site or online business becomes, the more qualified, interested leads will come to you and the more sales you will generate.

Target Marketing

If you say your ideal client is a technical programmer, aged between 25 and 35, and earning over $25,000 per year. Your chances of reaching such an audience by plastering your link all over the Internet will be minuscule. And even if your message does happen to appear in front of your specific market, chances are it will go unnoticed due to the general nature of the location in which your message appears. Not good.

Your message should appear in front of people likely to read it and take action. If you promote your online business in places in which your target market is likely to congregate, it is true your costs will likely be higher. However, your cost-per-visitor (or cost-per-lead, even cost-per-sale) will decrease substantially.

Combining targeted and niche marketing can produce substantial improvements over non-focused marketing. By lessening your market as well as the market to which you advertise, you will proportionately increase your sales.

B2B Articles on Search Engine popularity & Web Promotion

2005-12-28T21:11:00.000-08:00

Search Engine Use Increases Sharply, Edging Towards Email as the Primary Internet Application

Search engines have become an increasingly important part of the online experience of American internet users. The most recent findings from Pew Internet & American Life tracking surveys and consumer behavior trends from the comScore Media Metrix consumer panel show that about 60 million American adults are using search engines on a typical day.

These results from September 2005 represent a sharp increase from mid-2004. Pew Internet Project data from June 2004 show that use of search engines on a typical day has risen from 30% of the internet population to 41%. This means that the number of those using search engines on an average day jumped from roughly 38 million in June 2004 to about 59 million in September 2005 – an increase of about 55%.

comScore data show that from September 2004 to September 2005 the average daily use of search engines jumped from 49.3 million users to 60.7 million users – an increase of 23%.
This means that the use of search engines is edging up on email as a primary internet activity on any given day. The Pew Internet Project data show that on a typical day, email use is still the top internet activity. On any given day, about 52% of American internet users are sending and receiving email.

These findings have considerable consequences for the way people gather and use information online and the way e-commerce is conducted.

“Most people think of the internet as a vast library and they increasingly depend on search engines to help them find everything from information about the people who interest them, to transactions they want to conduct, organizations they need to deal with, and interesting factoids that help them settle bar bets and backyard arguments,” said Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet Project.

“The evolution of search engines as everyday consumer Web tools has made them a vital resource for marketers,” said James Lamberti, vice president of comScore Networks. “Search engines are obviously a critical vehicle in reaching consumers during the buy cycle, but they also offer a rich source for consumer profiling, segmentation, and measurement of product demand. To-date, we have only witnessed the preliminary impact of search engines on e-commerce.”
The latest data from comScore show that Google was the most heavily used search engine in October 2005 with 89.8 million unique visitors, followed by Yahoo! Search (68 million unique visitors), MSN Search (49.7 million unique visitors), Ask Jeeves (43.7 million unique visitors), and AOL Search (36.1 million unique visitors).

The Pew Internet Project findings cited in this report come from a nationally representative telephone survey of 2,251 American adults (age 18 and older), including 1,577 internet users, between September 13-October 14, 2005. The margin of error on the internet user portion of the survey is plus or minus 3%. The comScore data cited in this report come from comScore Media Metrix, an internet audience measurement service that uses a massive cross-section of more than 1.5 million U.S. consumers who have given comScore explicit permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing.

Source:www.marketingtoday.com

Website Marketing Strategies:Third Party Guest Articles

2005-12-27T02:47:00.000-08:00

Recent debate started me thinking about how some marketing strategies can be right for one Website, but wrong for another depending upon the site's purpose and the
underlying reasoning behind the action. If an action doesn't directly and logically plug into site goals then there are likely more profitable ways to spend that time and effort.

Publishing third party articles on a Website is one of those marketing strategies that can be right for one site yet wrong for another.

Publishing Guest Articles As A Website Marketing Strategy

Publishing guest articles as one of your Website marketing strategies can help broaden the amount and quality of content on a site, which in turn can lead to a more solid, stronger reputation. James Edwards of Umbrella-Consultancy explains:

"IMO having quality articles on your site will show that you are...someone who embraces the industry and respects the work of others. Most research scientists post links to other respected scientists' work...I think it can only be good to have quality material, by other people in your field posted on your site."

Helping Website Visitors

Another situation where adding others' articles to your site can make strategic sense is when a lot of visitors arrive looking for a solution other than the one you provide on the Website. Rather than have them wander off no closer to an answer to their problem, you can build goodwill and credibility by having articles on the Website that give them more information.

As an example, several types of people arrive at Website Marketing Plan .com through the search engines:

Some are people researching marketing consulting services,
some are students looking to write a paper or finish an assigned project for school,
some are looking for marketing software, and
others are looking to buy printed material (e-books, templates, workbooks, etc.) in order to proceed step-by-step on their own.

The only ones that are going to be interested in what I have to sell are those in the last group. Instead of letting the majority of visitors go "without a fight." I have articles from hand-picked individuals or companies on the site. These are chosen according to quality, how well the subject matter fits, and if I think the information will help site visitors.

Information Sites

If a site (or section of a site) is informational in nature, guest articles can be a viable Website marketing strategy for several reasons:

Repeat, purchase-related visits. A good information library can help potential customers through the decision making process. If they find the information on your site especially helpful they will be predisposed to coming back later when they are ready to purchase.

Increased Website revenue. Publishing others' work can generate more revenue for your own site. For example, when I publish a third party guest article, elsewhere on the page I include one or more of: AdSense; advertisement for my own products; newsletter sign-up box; or relevant affiliate link(s). That way, every path off the page satisfies one of my own goals (direct ad revenue, new newsletter subscriber, or product sales lead).

[Sidenote: I also always include the guest author's resource box at the bottom of the article, with a clickable link to her/his site.]

Increased targeted traffic. Each new page of quality content has the potential to bring in a happy chunk of incremental traffic from the search engines.

Future collaborations or other projects. An indirect benefit from publishing others' articles is future contact with that author. For example, after one author received several new sign-ups to her newsletter through an article published on my site, she contacted me about collaborating on an audio product.

Poor Fit With Website Marketing Strategies

For some business models, including guest articles in a list of Website marketing strategies does not make sense. As an example, it can be counterproductive to include guest articles on Websites where the primary goal is to sell.

Service Websites

If the goal is to generate direct sales and leads for your own services, it doesn't make sense to dilute the message and call-to-action with diversions. Karon Thackston explains: "The purpose of my site is to get those in need of copywriting services and SEO copywriting services to contact me in order to do business. People who come to my Marketing Words site are looking for information about copywriting. They are also looking to hire a copywriter." Therefore, you will find only material written by Karon on her site.

Product Sales Sites

Some sites have a single goal: to sell product. Every page on the site is devoted to product descriptions or copy designed to move a visitor toward purchasing. In these cases, where the predominant call-to-action is "buy the product," articles could hurt sales by diverting visitor attention away from the products.

This poor fit as a Website marketing strategy is indirectly illustrated by the absence of outside articles on many ecommerce sites. Visit your favorite online retail sites and you are likely to find product descriptions, reviews, photos, and other product-driven content, but little or no third party guest articles.

Understanding how different techniques support or sabotage Website marketing strategies can be critical to a site's success or failure. Here in part 1 of Website Marketing Strategies you saw how guest articles can either help or hurt. In part 2, I will take a look at the pros and cons of linking strategies.

About the Author

Bobette Kyle draws upon 15+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, online marketing experience, and a marketing MBA as inspiration for her writing. Bobette is proprietor of the Web Site Marketing Plan Network. She is also author of the marketing plan and Web promotion book "How Much For Just the Spider? Strategic Website Marketing For Small Budget Business." You can search all articles on the network through the marketing directory by going here: http://www.websitemarketingplan.com/directory

Australia : CSD’s interactive webcast for cotton industry

2005-12-26T03:24:00.000-08:00

Commercial cotton seed supplier Cotton Seed Distributors Ltd (CSD) chose a webcast to keep growers informed of the latest techniques for maximising yield and fibre quality for fields planted to CSD’s latest high-performance varieties: the Sicot 71 Family.

The World Wide Web (the internet) has had a successful debut as an interactive mechanism for transferring information between research and extension personnel and growers and consultants in the cotton industry.

More than 60 people from Hillston in southern NSW to Emerald in Central Queensland logged on at some time during the interactive Webcast with many sending in questions and comments via e-mail and fax.

CSD general manager, Adam Kay, said the Webcast technique had been chosen because of its spontaneity, its low cost to participants, and its capacity to allow growers to participate from their farms, or via their laptop or web-based mobile phone if on the road.

Adam Kay informed that they were also mindful that growers are extremely busy at this time of the year tending to their crops, and they judged that creating an interactive internet-based management forum was the most timely and efficient way of bringing them up to date with the latest research and extension developments regarding maximizing the performance of these crops.

Emerald cotton grower Hamish Millar watched the Webcast; “It was an excellent initiative and a great means of extending information to growers. The interaction of the viewers and the expert panel was first class and provided great back-up service for CSD’s product.

The Webcast featured Adam Kay;Namoi consultant Laurie Kaelin; Dr Greg Constable, Program Leader for ‘Cotton Improvement and Production’ with CSIRO; and CSD extension and Development agronomists Robert Eveleigh, James Quinn and David Kelly.

Water management and nutrition were key issues discussed in the Webcast, with Greg Constable highlighting the importance of irrigation timing, particularly the first couple of irrigations.

He stated that the objective at this time of the season is to produce as many nodes and fruit as quick as you can, and you don't want anything limiting this.

James Quinn said some of the techniques used in previous seasons to achieve this objective were to avoid waterlogging, and water-run small amounts of nitrogen in most irrigations to keep crops ticking along, resulting ultimately in high yields and sound fibre quality.

David Kelly presented a summary of research work conducted by the CSD team including 119 large-scale replicated trials across the industry over a number of seasons. He also outlined results of extensive grower surveys and detailed 'segmented picking' work designed to better analyse yield and quality components of these specific varieties.

From this data they have seen that the Sicot 71 family will often accumulate fruit a lot quicker than other varieties, and by the end of the season, produce more lint per boll, and that’s where the excellent yield potential is coming from. He statedthat to maximise this, they need to often push these crops to maximise the boll numbers and boll size, and ensure that they don't cut-out prematurely.

Australia’s leading seed producer CSD’s main is to provide to every cotton grower the highest net return potential from the cotton varieties CSD produces.

2005-12-26T03:16:00.000-08:00

Google Pushes Ahead with Print-Ad Project

2005-12-22T02:56:00.000-08:00

Google is preparing to launch the next phase of its print-media buying program, via which it attempts to extend the reach of its online advertisers by buying and reselling print ad inventory from consumer tech and business magazines, writes MediaPost. The new move is the result of Google's consultations with a council of thought leaders from Google's top ad agencies. Though Google spokesmen would provide no specifics, one confirmed that Google is exploring ways of extending its reach via other forms of offline media, but would not say exactly which.

Another spokesman is quoted as saying magazine publishers and advertisers involved in the testing have been satisfied with the results.

However, many online marketers have not taken the print-ad opportunity, partly because it's not as easy to evaluate ROI from print ads. Still, agencies with experience in both online and offline may be more open to the idea.

DoubleClick Study: Email Integral to Consumer Lifestyle

2005-12-22T02:53:00.000-08:00

DoubleClick's sixth annual Consumer Email Study points to a confluence of personal and professional email use, a decline in concern regarding spam along with an increase in anxiety regarding viruses and fraud, and confirmation that email drives commerce both online and in stores. Though 57 percent of survey respondents view work email at work at least occasionally, nearly as many check work email from home, at night (55 percent) and on weekends (54 percent). Also, 48 percent check their personal emails at least occasionally at work.

Some 74 percent point to brand - "a brand I know and trust" - as the element most likely to drive a response to an email.

Some 78 percent have made a purchase as a result of an email; 59 percent have redeemed an email coupon in a store; and nearly one-third have clicked on an email and made an immediate purchase. Moreover, one-third say they have clicked on emails for information and returned later to make purchases.

Nearly half of respondents report owning at least three email accounts, but 95 percent consider one of those addresses to be a primary account and 72 percent use a single address to make purchases online. On average, consumers maintain an email address 4-6 years.

Though spam still concerns most email users (55 percent are very concerned), viruses (75 percent), identity theft (67 percent), spyware (66 percent) and scams (61 percent) are greater concerns. Nearly half check bulk mail folders, and more than 40 percent report finding legitimate emails there.

Google, AOL Deal Finalized; Includes IM, Video Components

2005-12-22T02:51:00.000-08:00

Google's $1 billion investment in a 5 percent stake in Time Warner's AOL was officially announced Tuesday and expands their existing search engine agreement to include advertising, instant messaging and video components, reports CNET. The deal also creates an "AOL Marketplace through white labeling of Google's advertising technology" enabling AOL to directly sell search ads on AOL-owned properties.

The companies said they would collaborate on online video search and would showcase AOL's premium video service within Google Video; moreover, Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users will be able to communicate with each other.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said the agreement "leverages technologies from both companies to connect Google users worldwide to a wealth of new content."

Google and AOL complement each other, according to JupiterResearch analyst Todd Chanko: "Google has locked up paid search, and AOL does really well with the display and banner ads and the other forms of advertising."

The deal leaves Microsoft empty-handed after months of negotiations with Time Warner over AOL.

Online privacy policies

2005-12-20T02:55:00.001-08:00

Internet users seem concerned about how organizations may use or abuse personal information supplied online, whether such information is supplied willingly or without informed consent.
This can be a disincentive to online purchasing: website characteristics that convey security and privacy have been found to be the most reliable indicators of purchase intent. Similar attitudes exist within the business community, albeit for different reasons. The picture is also enduring: in a three year survey of online companies it was found that privacy was consistently the most important policy issue.

Online personal information

There are a number of distinct elements to the fears that people have regarding online capture of personal information. Perhaps the most important is the fear of fraud. Fraud online, as offline, can occur through deception or through data interception. In both circumstances, there has been a failure to apply the principle of informed consent.

Other potential misuses of personal information are not necessarily fraudulent but still represent a failure to apply the principle of informed consent. An organization may collect contact details and other information about visitors to its website in order to profile customers, and use the profile to target further communications for marketing purposes. Although, significant numbers of internet users have falsified their personal details when registering at websites in an attempt to curtail dissemination of their personal data.

Personal information collected by an organization may be passed to other organizations for a variety of reasons. The most innocent is when a host organization has sub-contracted out part of the service on offer, and as a result must pass on some personal information about its customers in order to deliver the service. For instance, many online retailers use logistics companies to make deliveries, which necessitates the transfer of name and address details. Perhaps we should regard this as a case of implied consent, since the requested delivery cannot occur without transfer of data.

Personal information may be referred on to business partners for targeted marketing purposes. It may be sold on to otherwise unconnected organizations for similar use. Current legislation, particularly in Europe and the US, has sought to restrict this sort of activity. However, some reports suggest that the growth in the quantity of personal information held in large databases has made it possible to obtain, for a price, almost any item of information about almost anyone.
Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness is an intrinsic reality that abides in one or both of the partners to a transaction. Its perception, particularly in the beginning, by the other partner depends critically on the perception of certain extrinsic forms (signs, labels, messages, etc) that are understood to represent the presence of underlying trustworthiness. The most important extrinsic form for commercial transactions is control. Over time, trust deepens, and the extrinsic forms become less important. As a relationship acquires its own history, there is more to go on than just external appearances and thus the appearances become secondary.

"Many organizations have been worried about damage to trade if consumers do not feel they could place sufficient trust in online transactions."

The internet as a medium still suffers a relative lack of history, and thus, by association, so do all businesses that transact within it. Therefore the first and least dispensable step for anyone who seeks to establish relationships that involve trust on the internet is to satisfy their partners' needs for control, mostly of security and privacy. Thus trustworthiness is the perception of confidence in the partners' reliability and integrity. It is this that influences an organization's internet strategy.

Organizational internet strategies

Many organizations have been worried about damage to trade if consumers do not feel they could place sufficient trust in online transactions. This is in addition to legislative pressures such as those from, for example, the national laws arising from the European Data Protection Directive. Organizations seek to respond to these concerns in three main ways:

Most e-commerce sites have adopted practices and technologies that give some assurance regarding confidentiality, authenticity, integrity and non-repudiation. These include security protocols, security measures such as firewalls, constant vigilance by network administrators, administrative procedures and physical security of buildings. All help to protect against intrusion, fraud, and other threats to personal information.

Some organizations have joined one or more third party certification schemes, such as TRUSTe and VeriSign. These provide some independent verification that an online organization is trustworthy. Depending on the scheme, some redress may be available if consumers believe they have been treated unfairly.

Many organizations have published on their websites a statement of policy that aims to make explicit how that organization deals with information provided by visitors to its website, including its customers. The adopters of privacy policies hope to reassure the wary, and thereby to overcome the disincentive to trade. A privacy policy also functions as part of the overall branding and image of an organization. Its presence, its location, its prominence, its style and its contents carry explicit and implicit messages about the organization.

The extent of adoption of privacy policies turns out to be quite high but not consistent across different countries. For example, a survey of 149 commercial sites in nine countries found that on average 42 per cent contained a privacy policy. The rate was higher in the developed West, but differences did not follow a simple regional pattern. The USA led with 80 per cent of sites displaying a policy, while both the UK and Canada narrowly exceeded 60 per cent. In the middle range, Singapore scored 54 per cent, China 39 per cent and Venezuela 38 per cent. The rate for some countries was much lower, with Brazil and Germany at only 18 per cent, and none of the 17 Hungarian sites displayed a privacy policy at all.

Recommendations to practitioners

Privacy policies should be made effectively available to all users. This can be achieved by ensuring that:

There is a prominent link to the policy on the main home page.

The policy is readable for a general audience.

The policy minimally covers OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) guidelines. That is, it includes content relating to notice, choice, access, security/integrity and enforcement/redress. Where any of these aspects do not apply, the policy should state this explicitly.

The policy restates (where necessary) compliance with relevant national law.

The policy is tailored specifically to the information processing practices of the host organization, and is regularly audited to ensure that compliance is maintained over time.

There is also an argument to be made that privacy policies should be sensitive to the individual user and the context of use, in the same way that other aspects of website presentation and content are often now customized.

The use of automated online privacy policy tools is not recommended. There may be attractions in being able to create a privacy policy quickly, cheaply and with minimum effort, especially for small businesses, but there are doubts as to the validity of such a policy in any but the most routine circumstances, and it is likely that important aspects of online privacy will not be addressed.

It is clear that many organizations have embraced the publication of an online privacy policy with some seriousness, gauged in a number of different ways. These include the prominence of a policy on the organization's website, its detailed content and length, and other characteristics such as its style and readability. However, some of the most prominent policies are still very limited in their content or suffer poor readability. Overall, many organizations still have considerable work to do, before they can be seen to "walk the talk" in relation to their privacy policies.

Source: www.managementfirst.com

E-asy Does It: Consumer e-payments on the rise, study confirms

2005-12-20T02:55:00.000-08:00

By Maria Bruno-Britz

Bank Systems & Technology

Consumers' love affair with electronic forms of payment is stronger than ever, according to a recent report by Boston-based Dove Consulting, a division of Hitachi Consulting, and the American Bankers Association (ABA; Washington, D.C.). The 2005/2006 Study of Consumer Payment Preferences reports that consumers choose electronic payments for the majority of their payments -- whether in stores, online or for bills. Cash and checks account for 45 percent of consumers' monthly payments, down from 57 percent in the 2001 study.

"Bill payment is the last bastion of paper-based payments," says Melissa Fox, a Dove senior analyst involved with the study. But, she notes, electronic bill pay is gaining momentum. Indeed, Fox relates, consumers' new favorite forms of e-payments appear to be online bill pay and gift cards.

According to the report, checks account for 49 percent of consumers' monthly bill payments, down from 72 percent in 2001. "More people have access to e-payments mechanisms and are more likely to use them," Fox says.

The uptick in online bill pay reported by the Dove/ABA study may appear to contradict other studies that show a dip in consumer confidence in the channel as a result of fraud fears. In fact, Fox acknowledges the increase in consumer fears of identity theft. "Between 2003 and 2005, the percentage of people somewhat concerned by [ID theft] increased while those not concerned decreased," she says. But, Fox explains, fears of online fraud have not overtaken the convenience of online bill pay.

Further, Fox suggests, while consumers may be less likely to make online purchases from unfamiliar merchants, online bill pay typically involves an established relationship. "People tend to trust their financial institution," she asserts. And, "For biller-direct online bill pay, it's your utility company and you have an ongoing relationship with it."

Despite the growing popularity of e-payments, however, checks aren't going away, Fox points out. "We'll see a continued decline [in check use]," she says. But, "There are situations where checks are still the appropriate form of payment."

USA : Lord John's Footwear extends Port City Web's services portfolio

2005-12-16T21:01:00.000-08:00

Port City Web, a provider of web-centric solutions announced that Lord John's Footwear, a leader in online sales of shoes, has extended its contract.

The new contract, which will extend through 2006, has an estimated value of half a million dollars in revenue for Port City Web.

It will continue to cover the eCommerce fulfillment, pick-and-pack, and shipping that Port City Web's fulfillment services division provides, but there will be a significant increase in web services over the course of 2006.

In addition to maintaining Lord John's eCommerce website at www.lordjohnsfootwear.com, a new eCommerce website, located at www.myshoestore.com, has been launched to go after a different market.

Port City Web will be developing and implementing a large-scale eMarketing campaign to promote both Web sites to their respective demographic groups.

" Port City Web did a fantastic job this year helping us convert our website visitors into customers at a rate 3 percent above the average in our market," said Mike Kyriannis of Lord John's Footwear. "They also helped us drive sales to 3 times over last year," noted Kyriannis.

"They've implemented methods and strategies to consistently monitor and improve their search engine rankings, as well as maintain their website with 100 percent uptime to ensure no orders are lost," said Erik Crago, President of Port City Web.

Lord John's Footwear is located online at http://www.lordjohnsfootwear.com/, and at http://www.myshoestore.com/ at http://www.myshoestore.com/.

They offer free shipping and a diverse collection of footwear for men, women and children, from brands like Dansko, Ulu, Uggs, Merrell, Ecco, Cole Haan, Donald Pliner, Mephisto, Earth, Clarks and Timberland.

Port City Web is an award winning, full service eMarketing and eCommerce website development company, that designs, develops and hosts business web sites, and delivers innovative, cost effective electronic marketing tools that are built to work with current systems while increasing company's growth.

Clients include The University of New Hampshire, Born & Bicknell, Columbia University and Service Credit Union, NAPS, K2 and Lonza Biologics.

Singapore : Yunique Solutions & eWarna JV to sell color collaboration tools

2005-12-16T20:52:00.000-08:00

Online color management solutions (CMS) provider eWarna and Yunique Solutions announce an integration and distribution agreement that paves the way for Yunique to market and deliver advanced online color collaboration tools powered by eWarna’s patented Online Color Exchange (OCX) as an integrated component of its popular plmOn solution.eWarna's on demand web services will allow Yunique plmOn customers to seamlessly store, retrieve, compare and share precise digital color information in the eWarna OCX.

Using plmOn’s proven collaboration and workflow tools, users can then communicate digitized color standards, receive/submit color submissions (lab or bulk dips) through industry standard file formats, set approval tolerances and keep detailed records of all color approvals. These color-specific capabilities are critical to driving time and cost out of the product lifecycle of apparel and other fashion-related products.

By adding color management and collaboration, Yunique will extend plmOn’s already extensive suite of industry-specific digital asset (image) management, tech pack management, quotation and bid management, sample and production planning and tracking, pre-concept line management, and materials management capabilities.

Daniel Pak, CIO of Yunique Solutions stated that they recognize color collaboration as a critical component of product lifecycle management in the fashion industries.
eWarna’s leading edge technology allows us to deliver advanced color solutions to our clients seamlessly inside our plmOn solution. ManHon Shiew, CEO of eWarna added that they are pleased to play a role in Yunique’s fast-paced growth in the PLM marketplace.

The companies have begun integration work and expect to begin delivery of the integrated color capabilities in the second quarter of 2006. Yunique plans to offer the eWarna-powered color tools to existing and prospective plmOn customers as an optional module. plmOn users will gain access to the color functions through the standard plmOn interface without exiting or logging-on to an additional color application.

Singapore based eWarna.com Sdn Bhn is the leading developer of online color collaboration solutions for apparel and color critical industries with offices in the Americas , Europe and Asia . eWarna’s unique Online Color eXchange (OCX) is the world’s first and only online color engine that allows anyone to store, retrieve, compare and share precise digital color ‘fingerprints’ at anytime, anywhere.

Comprehensive suite of business management tools provider Yunique Solutions Inc is a New York-based developer of 100% browser-based product lifecycle management (PLM) and digital asset management (DAM) solutions. It also develops product lifecycle management (PLM) and digital asset management (DAM) solutions for the fashion and related industries

Internet a "Springboard" for Small Business Growth

2005-12-14T03:22:00.000-08:00

How the Internet is Affecting Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs):

According to a survey of 1,000 small and mid-sized businesses, companies are optimistic about the future and confident in the power of online marketing.

The survey shows that SMBs point to the Internet as a primary driver of growth and eighty-three percent strongly agree that the Internet helps them run their companies. The World Wide Web has not only enhanced the channels of communication, but also opened up new markets for business.

Already close to one quarter (22%) of SMBs make use of the Web as a marketing tool using email marketing (62%); search engine optimization (56%); banner advertising (36%); and pay-per-click advertising (25%). Among these SMB net marketers, 74% plan to increase their investments in online marketing over the next six months and their peers seem to recognize the benefits they are receiving as an additional 43% percent of SMBs intend to begin online marketing within the next six months.

The survey was conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates on behalf of AllBusiness.com.

Microsoft and Webmasters

2005-12-13T02:21:00.000-08:00

by Jeff Wyrick (http://www.mi-websolutions.com)

Does Microsoft care for Webmasters

It’s always been a problem with websites appearing exactly the same on different platforms. As a web developer / webmaster it is extremely difficult to make user experiences rich by having the site look the same in any OS / Browser. The biggest problems they have with their famous Internet Explorer browser is security issues and W3C Standards compliance issues.

Does Microsoft have a vision of having the world’s most popular browser still? Yes but currently IE is dropping it’s rate pretty fast as Mozilla and Firefox support CSS2 and PNG Transparent Alpha where’s IE does not support. What’s really interesting is IE 5 for Mac supports both CSS2 and PNG Transparent Alpha but IE for Mac development has been discontinued. Makes me think Microsoft likes Apple more then their own Flagship Product “Windows”.

So why is it important for Internet Explorer to follow the W3C Standards?

• Makes it easier on a developers end to produce 1 website that looks great on other browsers besides just IE

• Provides developers with more choices for design formats a.k.a. PNG24 with Transparency, CSS2, etc. that want to develop for Internet Explorer.

• Make IE continue to be the worlds #1 web browser

A look into Microsoft’s next generation Longhorn with IE

I am sure you have heard of the next big OS that is a few years away from the final release. As IE is only up to version 6.05 there’s not much difference besides the new Longhorn look. I see one day Microsoft will have a fully supported W3C Standards browser. Most people’s wishes on the next version of IE are basically Standards support.

The main issue with IE as far back as IE 5 on a Windows platform has been rendering CSS2 and Transparent PNG24 images. IE does not support Transparent PNG24 files as it will display a grey background with the image.

My list of things Microsoft needs to support/fix

• W3C Standards Support

• Security

• Full HTML 4.01 / XHTML / XML / XSLT support

People may think I am crazy for not being Anti-Microsoft but even though they ether have tons of flaws or don’t support something like W3C Standards in there products I still love Microsoft and there products and always will until the day Microsoft falls or I die.

What happens if Microsoft does not support W3C Standards in there next version of IE?

Well there are ways to fix the compliance problems they have with the W3C Standards. Tonight I thought of a possible development of a plug-in that allows IE users to render content currently supported by other browsers but not IE. As for previous versions of IE that don’t render content the plug-in would be basically be compatible with IE 5.x to the latest in Longhorn as people may not have money to buy a new high-end computer for just Longhorn. I am sure there are other ways besides a plug-in to make IE render correctly but a plug-in is the only thing I could think of.

About the Author:
I own a web site design company and I run a SEO & Webmaster Forum . I am also a networking expert with Microsoft business servers and clients.

Author Name: Jeff Wyrick
Author Website: http://www.mi-websolutions.com

Make a Superb First Impression

2005-12-12T08:36:00.000-08:00

By Arlen Busenitz, Author of

"Conversation Magic", http://conversation-magic.com/

It is extremely important that people have a good first impression of you. Either you make a good impression or you will suffer for it! It is going to effect how your contact views you for the rest of that conversation. It can effect how fast a friendship starts, or how fast business relationships get going. You have got to make a good first impression!

What is a "first impression"?
Simply it is the first thoughts a person has toward you after seeing you or listening to what you have to say. These are made during the first five seconds and then the first few minutes of a conversation. It has been said that a speaker has 5 minutes to convince the audience that he/she has something good to say.

How you act, dress, and talk are all going to effect "the first impression". A customer's first impression of a salesman will have an impact on whether the customer buys. The first impression a manager has of you will effect whether you are hired.

How you act in the first moments of meeting your new neighbor will sharply effect his/her view of you. Yes, you need to make a good first impression! It can stop a sale, or it can help you make an instant friend!

How do you make a good impression? Here is one way which is guaranteed to work. Do this and people will have excellent first thoughts about you! This is the key:

When you meet someone (friend or new contact),
greet them on the phone, or pass them on the street, act ENTHUSED to meet them!

Give them a "winning" smile.
Cheerfully greet them with "hello (name)". Let your voice show that you are glad to see them!
Act like you are greeting a best friend who has been gone for awhile.

If you walk into a group, greet or acknowledge every person. Look them in the eye. Either verbally greet them or at least make eye contact and acknowledge every single person.
Greet your friends, contacts, and family the same way.

When someone calls, say a professional "hello". When you find out who is calling, act glad to hear their voice.

What if you DO NOT feel like it? Who cares! ACT enthusiastic to meet them and you will BE enthusiastic to meet them. They will feel important and will be glad to see YOU. You will make an excellent first impression.

This technique alone will work wonders for you! You will stand out from the crowd. Customers will want to come back. When a customer sees that you are glad to have them buy from you, they will want to come back and buy MORE from YOU.

You have probably realized that puppies make friends very easily. When they greet a person they smile, wag their tail and are absolutely happy to see you. They want to be your friend. The result is that you in turn want to pet the puppy, and be the puppies friend. This same principal works with you social contacts.

Be glad to see them and they will usually be glad to see you. You will make a good impression and they will like you. This is just one technique for making a good first impression. Apply it and it will work!

SunTrust picks B2B agency

2005-12-09T19:11:00.000-08:00

After finding a new ad agency, SunTrust Banks Inc. has now hired Masius as its business-to-business communications firm.

The Atlanta-based banking company (NYSE: STI) also recently replaced its ad agency with New York-based Y&R.

SunTrust said it picked Masius from four finalists in its selection process.

"Masius' proven track record and deep knowledge of financial services marketing makes them an ideal partner for addressing the specific marketing needs of our business-to-business segments," said Craig Kelly, SunTrust
chief marketing officer.

SunTrust said Masius will have strategic communications responsibilities for SunTrust's commercial, corporate and investment banking lines of business.

Masius, with offices in New York and London , is the corporate, business and financial services agency of Paris-based Publicis Groupe (NYSE: PUB).

Source: www.bizjournals.com

USA : Limited Brands picks MicroStrategy's MBIP software

2005-12-07T08:48:00.000-08:00

MicroStrategy Incorporated, a leading worldwide supplier of business intelligence software, announced that Limited Brands has selected the MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform (MBIP) as its strategic enterprise reporting and analysis standard. Limited Brands sells women's intimate apparel, personal care and beauty products, and women's and men's apparel under various trade names through its specialty retail stores and direct response (catalogue and e-commerce) businesses.Limited Brands currently uses MicroStrategy for human resource and category management reporting across all brands and plans to expand its use into other functional areas such as financial reporting and customer analysis. "Company is pleased that Limited Brands is expanding their deployment of MicroStrategy and achieving success with their business intelligence applications," said Sanju Bansal, MicroStrategy's COO. "MicroStrategy is embraced by retailers because of scalable and flexible platform that enables them to analyze volumes of transactional data and gain valuable information on essential areas such as store operations, inventory management, and customer loyalty."Limited Brands, through Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, Express, Express Men's, Limited Stores, White Barn Candle Co. and Henri Bendel, presently operates 3,666 specialty stores. Victoria's Secret products are also available through the catalogue.Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy is a global leader in business intelligence (BI) technology. MicroStrategy provides integrated reporting, analysis, and monitoring software that helps leading organizations worldwide make better business decisions every day. Companies choose MicroStrategy for its advanced technical capabilities, sophisticated analytics, and superior data and user scalability.

MicroStrategy Incorporated

See more: http://www.fibre2fashion.com/

Ecommerce Site Tests How Much Harder Should You Promote Free Shipping?

2005-12-07T08:18:00.000-08:00

SUMMARY:
Have you ever been stuck in a debate with your Web design team?
Some people think you should boost image sizes -- put huge hero shot graphics on home and product pages. Others buck for text- heavy pages the search engines will like. And still others want to push your special offer harder to improve conversions.
Great eretail design is a balancing act. Here's a Case Study about one online retailer who conducted multivariate tests this fall to find the best answers:

CHALLENGEE
very eretailer knows offering free shipping will raise conversions.
But, can you imagine how much of a difference it would make if you’re marketing extremely large and heavy products online? Vintage Tub & Bath’s average SKU weighs 350 or more pounds and has to be delivered by a trailer.
General Manager Allan Dick thought the free shipping offer was prominent enough throughout the site -- but his team felt differently. "We have been offering free shipping for a number of years, but we wondered if we were promoting it enough."
There's a time for committee meetings and strong opinions in Web site design ... and then there's a time for data. Dick decided that time was at hand.

CAMPAIGN
The team decided to run tests via an overlay tool in order to discover the best way to promote shipping offers without having to revamp the whole site or split traffic, which can be cumbersome. And while they were at it, they began to test other design elements they’d long argued about too. Here are test details for two of the most useful ones:
Test #1. Home page images versus text

Vintage Tub & Bath’s default home page was text-heavy, featuring a small product photo on the left that included the words "Free Shipping," next to a large block of text.

Dick's team decided to test something "super splashy." They tried five different creative executions, each featuring a large product “hero” shot that eliminated most of the text. Each product shot included a line of copy. Because there were few variations of the creative executions, it was run as an A/B/C/D/E/F test (the same as an A/B test but with more versions) rather than a multivariate test. These executions were:

a. Default – control using the current home.
b. Large image of a clawfoot tub on a beach, overlaid with the words, "objects of desire."
c. Large image of the tub in the background, with a child wrapped in a towel in the foreground, and the words, "the most precious things."
d. A woman relaxing in a tub surrounded by candles (only head and neck showing), with the words, "indulge yourself."
e. Same image of woman relaxing in tub, but with the words, "hide from your kids."
f. A woman's silhouette, draped in a towel, about to climb into a tub, with the words, "satisfy your dreams."

Each tested image included, at the bottom, the phrase: "Best price. Free Shipping on all orders. Safe and secure ordering."

Test #2. Category page test

The Vintage Tub & Bath category pages had been optimized well for natural search -- but that meant they were text-heavy, and the text was high up on the page. Dick and his team decided to test more tub and bath pictures on their clawfoot tub category page, and to give a better brand experience.
They designed a test that took three elements into consideration:

a. The "main" area of the page
In the original clawfoot category page, the top third of the page consisted of the heading, Clawfoot Tubs, followed by a paragraph of dense text. Dick's team tested that default against a new treatment: a large image of a clawfoot tub on the left with shorter, bulleted text just to the right of the tub. On the far right were two thumbnail images under the heading Top Selling Clawfoot Tubs.

b. Link text
Under the main area of the category page were six images (four over two) of products. Each image included a link to the product page. In the default page, the links were in a small, sans serif, underlined blue text. Dick's team tested the default against a new treatment of the link text: a serif font, larger, and not underlined.

c. Promotion
Between the main area of the page and the product images below, Dick's team tested the Complimentary Shipping promotion reinforcement, which previously was not found on the category page. They added a blue line across the page. The line was interrupted in the center of the page with the words -- also in blue -- "Free shipping On Every Order!"
The three new elements plus the default could have been put together in eight different ways, or "recipes." Using multivariate testing, Dick's team needed to test only four of the eight possible combinations to find a winning version of the category page. They were also able to determine which element of each page contributed the most to conversions.
RESULTS"We did have a clear Home Page loser," Dick says. "We thought the woman wrapped in a towel by a tub, with the words "satisfy your dreams" would give an image of calm and quiet, but that one was a clear loser." Three other findings:
--The image of the tub on the beach ("objects of desire") distinctly beat the image of the child wrapped in the towel ("most precious things").
--The phrase "indulge yourself" drastically beat the phrase "hide from your kids" on the image of the woman relaxing. "We thought the 'hide from your kids' line was funny, so we put it up there. It was more like a joke, but it didn't harm conversions," Dick says.
--The default page was jockeying for position with the "indulge yourself" (woman in tub) and the "objects of desire" (tub on beach) on a daily basis.
For future home page tests, Dick and his team believe that, by combining some of the branded treatments (big images of tub) with the text elements (new link treatments, calling forward the free shipping), they can beat the default by a lot.
"It's valuable information, but it's not always obvious what's next," Dick says. "You refine, move forward and learn something. We're going to be testing like fiends next year."
As for the category page tests: "I was surprised how well the free shipping offer did once we began banging it forward," Dick says. "We saw a huge increase in conversion rates as well as average order size."
In fact, the increase in conversions and average order size could translate to approximately $2 million in increased revenues next year. The free shipping element of the category page tests had the biggest impact on conversions, followed by the link copy treatment (underlined treatment worked best).
After the test had run for two weeks -- reaching an estimated 97% confidence level -- his team halted the test, and then ran it again. The results were verified, though they weren't quite as spectacular. "It went from outstanding to great," Dick says.

Useful links related to this article

Creative samples from both sets of tests:

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/vintub/study.html

Offermatica -- the testing software Vintage Tub & Bath used to conduct multivariate and A/B tests with overlays easily without splitting traffic:

http://www.offermatica.com

Vintage Tub & Bath

http://www.vintagetub.com

Source:www.marketingsherpa.com

2005-12-05T20:50:00.000-08:00

SUMMARY:

How can you lure visitors back to your site once they’ve been there? Even “registered” users don’t always bother to return, and a “come see our site upgrades” email blast won’t get high clicks.

Promoting a site is even harder if your target audience is engineers – who infamously consider marketing messaging not worth reading.

Discover how after focus group research and email testing, GlobalSpec got more than 500,000 engineers to come play a branded online game … and then stick around for a while to check out the rest of the site:

CHALLENGE

Last fall GlobalSpec, a B-to-B search engine serving engineers, was getting ready to launch a major site upgrade.

Luckily the site already had 1.3 million registered users. But, just as every site with registered users has discovered,
just because people register doesn’t mean they’ll return. “Some people hadn’t been back to the site in a lonmg time,” says Senior Director of arketing Chris Chariton.

Chariton was smart enough to realize that while she and the management team were all excited about the site improvements, sending out an email saying “We’ve upgraded!” would make most recipients yawn and hit ‘delete.’

“We knew we needed something that would draw attention to reach out to our audience with.” To get clicks, there had to be more of a what’s-in-it-for-me factor.

President John Schneiter had an engineering background so the marketing team brainstormed with him. What do engineers find alluring? Answer: engineering puzzles and games.

What do engineers loathe? Answer: lame games (anything not devised by an engineering brain) and marketing crap (almost anything from a marketing department.)

CAMPAIGN

The team decided they would test launching a game ... but only very, very carefully. Nothing’s worse than turning your target market off so they never visit you again.

Step #1. Telephone focus groups

Even though the company was founded by engineers,and had plenty of engineers as staffers, the marketing team worried in-house staff would be to close to the brand to give game ideas a fair evaluation.

So, they ran four telephone focus groups, each with 8-10 participants. “We could do it a lot quicker over the phone than by going to cities, and we weren’t limited by who would show up in a certain city. We listened silently while a professional moderator ran the group.”

Perhaps surprisingly, “phone focus groups weren’t that different from in-person groups. People do reveal personalities
and reactions.”

The groups were asked to evaluate GlobalSpec’s two best ideas for an online game. Sadly, neither game won any fans. (Thank goodness the team hadn’t launched their game without asking prospects first!)

However, by asking the participants why they hated both ideas, the team learned the principals of creating a game that engineers hopefully would love. Here are their five rules of games for engineers:

Rule #1.

No easy wins.Engineers don’t want to play with something that’s slick and easy. They like to struggle a bit and really apply their brains. The game has to be a challenge.

Rule #2.

Lots of details.Engineers love to tinker. Your game has to have loads of little facets they can play with for different results.

Rule #3.

Educational (but still fun.)“ It was really important to them that it have a learning element. It had to be engineering related, but not too over the top. They want to play a game at work, but have to justify that playing a game at work is useful.”

Rule #4.

No engineering mistakes.If you get the math, or the physics, or any one of these zillions of little details wrong, engineers will “call you to task in a heartbeat if you’ve got something wrong.” They want to test their own engineering brains with your game, not discover your faults.

Rule #5.

Variable time to play.Since the team was hoping to get at-work plays (thereby increasing the chance that their site would be used and remembered more consistently at-work), game play had to be contractible to just two minutes. On the other hand, for sincere fans, it could expand to fill hours.

Step #2. Creating the game

The team selected game developers who also had engineering backgrounds to increase the chances of the game appealing to engineers. The new concept – build your own trebuchet. (A trebuchet is a medieval war weapon. See links below for more info.)

This time the team did ask engineers on staff at GlobalSpec to play iterations of the game to make sure the play was intuitive, fun and the engineering details were correct.

At the same time the marketing department made sure the game contained enough branded elements including logos and related links to GlobalSpec site content. “Don’t get so caught up in the game aspect that you dilute your brand,” notes

Chariton

Development time was a couple of months including extensive testing.

Step #3. Getting the word out

Although GlobalSpec had a huge opt-in list, the team didn’t blast out a “we’ve got a game” message to everyone on it. First they sliced off four 10,000 name segments to run a/b/c/d tests with.

They tested two subject lines: a. Trebuchet: The Sport of Engineersb. Take the Treb Challenge

They also tested two submit buttons in the email creative: a. Play Now! b. Test Your Skills!

In addition, to keep the game going for longer than the pop it would get from an emailed announcement, the team:

- posted a link well above the fold on the main site’s home page

- included a viral tell-a-friend option in the game itself

- started an auto responder email to be sent in the first 30 days of every new registered user’s account to let them know about the game (the site gets thousands of new registrants a week.)

RESULTS

Since the game launched a year ago, more than 500,000 people have played it.

“If we had not done email testing, we would have had a 1-2% lower click rate,” notes

Chariton

. The test that won was the subject line “Trebuchet: The Sport of Engineers” with a click button reading “Play Now!”

Chariton figures the clarity of the message made the difference – the word ‘engineers’ and the word ‘play’ are awfully
obvious to understand even if you’re just skimming an email in seconds.

Sadly the viral element didn’t work – only 2.8% of game players use the button to tell a friend. On the other hand, the
game has what President Schneiter calls “astonishing legs” and still pulls hundreds of plays a day.

Much of the new traffic is driven by the blogging community. According to today’s Technorati stats, in just the past 75 days (a year after the game launched), 19 different bloggers linked to the game.

However the biggest lesson was the value of sending a special game invite to new site registrants. At the time of the game launch, the big email invite to all registered users got a 8.2% clickthough rate. However, emails to new registrants throughout the past year have averaged a 10.2% click rate.

So newbies are more likely to click and get re-involved in your site than past registrants. (Note: We’ve seen this data
hold up across multiple marketplaces.) Makes you wonder, what emailed invite could you automate to send to all your newest opt-ins from now on?

Useful links related to this article:

Creative samples from GlobalSpec campaigns for the Treb ame:http://www.marketingsherpa.com/globalspec/study.html

Past MarketingSherpa article, ‘How to Market to Engineers: 5 Must-Know
Strategies Plus 2 Surprises’
http://library.marketingsherpa.com/barrier.cfm?CID=3004

Heffernan Market Research – the firm that moderated GlobalSpec’s focus
groups
http://www.hmresearch.com/

Buck & Pulleyn – GlobalSpec’s creative agency
http://www.pulleyn.com/

JRVisuals LLC – the game developers GlobalSpec used
http://www.jrvisuals.com/

GlobalSpec
http://www.globalspec.com

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marketers:

B-to-B vs. B-to-C data

Eyetracking "heatmap" tests of email creative

Open rates, click rates, conversions

what’s working for newsletters & alerts

source: www.marketingsherpa.com

The Simple B2B Directory and Buyers Guide

2005-11-29T23:29:00.000-08:00

Global B2B Marketplaces
4 Trade
Alibaba
Business Dubai
BuyUSA Global Trade Village
Offer 21
Terrecom
T Page Trade Boss
World Bid
World Trade AA

Continents and Countries
Africa
Asia
Australia & NZ Europe
India Latin America
Middle East

Directories and Resources
BuyerZone
Executive Planet
FITA
Global Sources Import Export Guide
Kompass
SkyMinder
Trade Attache Trade Worlds
Wand
World Preferred

B2B Small Business
All Business
B Central
Chamber Biz D & B Small Business
Office.com
Skeleton Star Yahoo Small Business
Your Office

Resources
Biz Reference
Business Week Small Biz
BuyerZone
Entrepreneur
Netbusiness
Small Business Admin..
S.F.S.B.
Work Z

B2B Directories
1st Industrial Directory
A2Z of B2B
fiber2fashion
BizAhead
MSN Yellow Pages
Thomas Register Brint.com
Dmoz: Marketplaces
Industry Link
B2Business
Wasters Online Jayde
MNI Guide
Biz Hwy
Business.com

Source:http://www.bocat.com/

Leading B2B Portal List

2005-11-28T22:34:00.000-08:00

merc.mcmaster.ca
McMaster E-commerce Research Center, McMaster
University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

www.fibre2fashion.com
Premier B2B Marketplace for World Textile, Apparel & Fashion Industry,
Best B2B Textile Portal and e-Trade Marketplace

www.6-6.com/66/paper/edi.html
Article about EDI costs.

www.animal57.com
Offers database based web application
development.

www.b2btech.com
Offers e-commerce development, infrastructure
setup, evaluation and consulting.

www.b2business.net
Resources and discussions for the business to
business industry professional.

www.bizwiz.com
Marketplace and resource network which is a
highly interactive business environment that connects business to
business.

www.bonasource.com
Provides offshore web software development, B2B
portals, content management, project management and related services.

www.buyerst.com
Business to Business Procurement from Millions
of B2b Buyers and Sellers.

www.commerce.net
An industry consortium for companies using,
promoting and building e-commerce solutions on the Internet.

www.commerceone.com
Global leader in providing e-commerce solutions
that deliver applications and commerce services to dynamically link buying
and selling organizations into open, ...

www.d2c2.com
Focused on consulting, developing, training, and
hosting e-commerce solutions.

www.eceurope.com
A business to business trading hub for Europe.

www.ecominfocenter.com
A one-stop e-commerce reference center and an
e-commerce meta directory.

www.ecommerce-digest.com
Concise and independent guide to all aspects of
ecommerce, from initial planning to running the online business.

www.e-global.es
Specialized in electronic commerce initiatives. In English and Spanish.

www.eni-net.com
This environmental procurement portal offers B2B
commerce solutions for leading environmental organizations.

www.line56.com
Features business-to-business e-commerce news,
analysis and profiles of major players.

www.menabusiness.com
Online business community for the Middle East
and North Africa providing business news, information, e-commerce, job
information, investment services, ...

www.mesteel.com
Online steel marketplace, wherein traders,
manufacturers and buyers find a common platform to buy or sell steel
products, both primary and secondary, ...

www.rusbiz.com
B2B exchange with catalog, trade leads and
directory. A global network.

www.spiritone.com/~jimoc
An e-commerce consultant specializing in
Microsoft Internet technology.

www.thesteelhub.com
UK. B2B site for the steel industry. A trading
exchange for all steel related products and services.

www.traderfirst.com
Traderfirst.com is the leading Internet
business-to-business (B2B) exchange and application service provider (ASP)
for electronics parts industry in Asia.

Free rank checking software for Google

2005-11-28T00:26:00.000-08:00

Free Monitor for Google is a free Web promotion software designed for search engine specialists and webmasters. With it, you can find position of your web site in Google Top for popular keywords and get more traffic from Google. Google Monitor will query Google and show you the position of your site by your target keywords and also how well your competitors are doing. It keeps statistics for several URLs and several lists of keywords. You can add notes.

Google is the most popular search engine. Monitor Google with our free software.

What's New (version 2.0):

Completely new interface
Google Monitor performs query to Google faster
Added option to work through Google Web API
Can work with 16+ countries now
Supports Unicode

Free Monitor for Google is useful, but simple software. Want more features?

Try our Accurate
Monitor for Search Engines!

See features comparison

Perhaps you want to increase a profit from your pay-per-click campaigns?

Take a look
at AdWords Clever Wizard.

A free tool to check back links:

BackLinks Master

Source: www.cleverstat.com

SISCOM powers TradeKey.com

2005-11-27T20:20:00.000-08:00

SISCOM, a regional provider of information technology and marketing consulting solutions, today announced the launching of Version 1.1 of its business-to-business portal Trade Key.com

“SISCOM has launched a new version of TradeKey boasting 35 new features and powered with the instant ability to be launched in any country around the world. This marks a new era in our ability to be first in pioneering state-of-the-art B2B marketplace software. It is important to note that we are one of the very few worldwide companies that successfully mastered to package B2B Marketplace software,”

said Mr. Waleed Abalkhail, SISCOM President. "The growth of our own knowledge capital and our gifted people are the cornerstone of our continued growth," he added.

Since 1989, SISCOM has helped Saudi Arabian companies and organizations in both the public and private sectors leverage the benefits of emerging technologies for their business. In 2005, SISCOM carried out a strategic reorientation of its e-Commerce division. The leader of e-Commerce in the Middle East intends to focus increasingly on the development of new and future-oriented business ideas offering high sales potentials.

In its continual effort of improving its services to better address client needs and meet their
expectations, SISCOM, has today launched a new version of TradeKey.com. TradeKey is the World's Fastest Growing Global Online Trading Space, with a database consisting of thousands of members.

Source: www.ameinfo.com

Digital Hub signs €118m B2B property deal

2005-11-25T21:02:00.000-08:00

The highest bids in a tender for the development of two sites of 5.6 acres located in the Liberties
have been announced, as part of a deal that two property development firms will provide to the
Department of Communications, with a combination of cash and offices to accommodate the Digital Hub.

Manor Park Homebuilders emerged as the successful tenderer for the Crane Street site while P Elliot & Co was the successful tenderer for the Windmill (Thomas Street) site. The tenders were be required to make a planning application within six months and on receipt of planning construct the office space offered.

The acceptance of the tenders was approved by the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources Noel Dempsey TD. The Minister said: "This is an enormous opportunity for the surrounding Liberties area. The Digital Hub will act as a driver for the on-going social and
economic regeneration of the entire area and the development of a digital content industry cluster in the hub."

The break down of the tenders means that the hub will receive more than 13,000 square metres (140,000 sq ft) of office space.

The office space will facilitate the future expansion of the hub by accommodating digital media enterprises. Some 50 digital media companies are already based at the hub, employing 500 people.

Emphasising the importance of the digital media sector to Ireland, Minister Dempsey said: "The global market could be worth more than US$400bn in the next few years."

An architectural development guide was prepared for the lands on behalf of the Digital Hub Development Agency and the Office of Public Works providing an architectural vision for the development of the lands.

The guide suggests mixed-use developments on each site for apartments, digital media offices, retail and public spaces totalling circa 60,000sq m (650,000sq ft) in a mix of new and refurbished buildings.

The selling agent, Nicholas Corson of Finnegan Menton, commented: "This is the first time that such an innovative approach has been used in a sale of State lands.
We received excellent interest from the market and received very strong competitive bidding for the lands. These are hugely important City Centre sites their development will make a dramatic impact to this area of the city and should create a vibrant new quarter."

Source: www.b2bnews.org

On demand now a powerful moniker in B2B

2005-11-25T03:04:00.000-08:00

In the B2B segment, the moniker "On Demand" has now become a strong buzzword to accurately describe B2B, eCommerce and modern eBusiness applications.
From technologies such as Internet-based "on demand storage" and computing utilities to hosted CRM (customer relationship management) applications, business people have become really familiar with the "on demand" concept.
Additionally, On Demand technology represents a low-cost and high-flexibility way of delivering software and various online services to the B2B community.
Notwithstanding all of that, there are many areas in which on demand has not been as popular. One of these is the telco industry.
As a whole, telephone companies still charge per phone call (except when it comes to fixed, limited rate plans).
This is changing, though. For example, there is a company called AwakeTel that offers unlimited local and international dialing for a fixed charge of $29.95 a month.
AwakeTel is a new service -- indeed, represents a new kind of service altogether -- and there are still some kinks. For example, it appears to connect better to larger foreign cities than to smaller ones, at least in my experiments with the service.
That said, I have been a VoIP phone users for fourteen months and I have found that quality has improved over that time. New services and technologies always go through a ramp-up period.
The important point to keep in mind is that on demand is sweeping across everything like a tidal wave. In this case, I am greatly curious as to how the existing telco model can survive based on competition from an on demand service like that of AwakeTel.

Source Link: http://www.b2bnews.org

B2B Marketing magazine is launching a new directory

2005-11-24T00:27:00.000-08:00

B2B Marketing magazine is launching a new directory product, which will provide business-to-business marketers with an essential guide to key suppliers and services.

It is the first and only directory specifically
designed for B2B marketers, and as such will prove to be an invaluable tool.

‘The Little Black Book of B2B Marketing’ will be distributed to 10,000
specialist business marketers and contain details of service providers from a
diverse range of specialist areas; including specialist agencies, data suppliers
and promotional merchandise companies.

A basic entry – including company name, contact name and phone number
–are free to relevant suppliers. There is a charge for enhanced entries.

For a basic entry, please input your details in the fields below.
For an enhanced entry, call 020 7798 2136 or email directory@b2bm.biz.

Source : www.b2bm.biz

Textile News, Fashion News, Apparel News Updates, Textile News Headlines

2005-11-23T22:37:00.000-08:00

USA : Sportswear marketer Cutter & Buck's Q2 announcement
November 24, 2005

Leading provider of high quality sportswear Cutter & Buck Inc will hold its quarterly conference call to discuss second quarter results on Thursday, December 8, 2005 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time (8:00 a.m. Pacific Time).This call is being webcast by CCBN and can be accessed at Cutter & Buck's web site at www.cutterbuck.comThe webcast is also being distributed over CCBN's Investor Distribution Network to both institutional and individual investors. Individual investors can listen to the call through CCBN's individual investor center at www.companyboardroom.com or by visiting any of the investor sites in CCBN's Individual Investor Network. Institutional investors can access the call via CCBN's password-protected event management site, StreetEvents (www.streetevents.com).Cutter & Buck is one of the nation’s top makers of upscale sportswear, selling primarily to golf and specialty retailers, corporations and international distributors and licensees. Fortune 3000 companies are using Cutter & Buck products for employee incentives, customer giveaways or special events. The company stands apart from its rivals by designing apparel with natural fabrics, rich detailing, and a casual look. Using Scene7, Cutter & Buck is able to streamline catalog production by producing a single online catalog that is re-purposed across both its B2B and B2C sites. The online catalog is highly segmented using real-time product feeds depending on the user and channel.

Cutter & Buck Inc