Arran Events, Advertising and Marketing

In order to generate online sales, your business must increase Web traffic and – more importantly – drive targeted visitors to your site. A highly successful method of doing so is targeted pop advertising, also referred to as targeted pop under ads.

With the right Internet marketing and advertising company as your partner, targeted pop advertising is a very cost effective method that allows you to increase Web traffic and send targeted visitors to your website. In essence, this form of marketing allows thousands of people to actually see and visit your website at the same time they are looking for your type of products and services. This is because the visitors have been targeted according to the topic or topics that you select. For example, if you are promoting a home business opportunity, Internet users looking for home business opportunities will see your pop under ads. Likewise, if you have a shopping site, or are promoting medical or legal services, visitors who are specifically interested in those areas will be exposed to your pop under ad.

In order to get the most bang from your marketing buck, choose an Internet marketing and advertising company that:

1. Has established affiliate relationships with popular high-traffic websites. The owners of these sites will have coded their Web pages so that a full-page pop under ad window will open when someone visits their site. This relationship will ensure that your website is displayed to thousands of potential customers or clients.

2. Has time delay technology that ensure that you will not be charged for your pop under ad until it has been on display for at least 20 seconds. Some disreputable companies will count ads that have already been closed by the user before being fully loaded or read, thereby decreasing your return on investment.

3. Has technology that overrides or gets around pop up ad blockers.

4. Offers advertising packages that only count unique visitors in a 24-hour period toward your allotted pop under ad block.

5. Carefully places pop under advertising so as not to overload website and annoy visitors; rather the pop under ads will have maximum appeal.

6. Offers a good value, by guaranteeing a certain number of pop under ads for a low price. You should look for a company that offers pop under ads for less than two cents apiece.

7. Provides you with a unique Web address to view the actual Web visitors who respond to your pop under ads and track your progress.

Research has demonstrated that pop under ads are often more effective than email campaigns. This targeted pop advertising approach works because only those visitors who are interested in your particular category are exposed to your pop under ads.

Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web.
Learn more about Targeted Pop Advertising or Majon’s Computer Software directory

Tags: increase web traffic, pop under ads, targeted pop advertising, targeted visitors

Wouldn’t it be great to have a huge crowd of people lined up outside your business waiting for you to open the doors–like when they release the newest Harry Potter book, or when the summer’s hottest new “blockbuster movie” premieres? Imagine what a boost it would be for your business to have your email inbox filled with queries from potential customers and your phone ringing off the hook with new orders!

A good promotional campaign can do that.

But what if you don’t have big bucks to spend on advertising the way Hollywood and the publishing giants do? What if you need to attract a large number of people, but you don’t have the money to reach a large number of people?

Then you need to get creative. You need to get free advertising.

That’s right–free advertising in the form of publicity.

You don’t have to spend piles of money on TV or radio ads, or pay for expensive newspaper display ads. You do however, have to do something to grab the media’s attention. Something that will make them sit up and take notice.

You want them to write about you, or interview you for a news segment, or invite you to be a guest on their radio show. That way a wide audience learns about you from a source that they believe establishes your credentials. You see, when you pay for advertising, it doesn’t automatically give you the same credibility that an endorsement from the media does.

Even if the news source is just reporting facts about your business, or offering an “inside look” at your industry from your perspective, it still sends a subliminal message to the audience that you’re a reliable businessperson worthy of the media’s attention. If the media considers you an expert, then the public feels safe in assuming the same. In a lot of ways, free publicity is better than paid advertising.

So how do you get free publicity? How do you grab the media’s attention? By coming up with a “news story,” or a human-interest angle on an event or topic the media will want to cover. Then you write a press release, or hire a freelancer to write one for you, so the news reporters and journalists will contact you for an interview, or write about you in their publication. (For tips on writing a press release that gets noticed, check out the Press Releases section on our website.)

Some newsworthy events you can announce are:

• Publication of your new book or e-book


• Sponsoring a fund raiser


• Grand opening of your store/business or website launch


• Participation in a charitable event


• Awards or nominations you’ve received


• New product launch


• A new group you’ve formed (such as Work-at-Home Moms Club, a writers’ group, a new business networking group, etc.)


• A demonstration you’ll be giving (such as cooking, karate, kite-making, dog training, website design, etc.)


• An Open House celebration (in connection with a holiday or store anniversary, etc.)


• An attempt you’ll be making to break a world’s record (baking the world’s largest pizza, jumping on a pogo stick for the longest time, walking backwards for the greatest amount of miles, etc.)

Anything out-of-the-ordinary is worth reporting to the media. Something as mundane as moving your business two blocks to the south won’t cut it, but if you’re relocating to a building that’s been designated as a national or historic landmark and you can tie that in to your business somehow, then you’ve got a news release.

Other ways you can generate publicity are:

• Offering to appear as a guest on a radio show


• Writing a “tips” column for your local newspaper


• Teaching an adult-learning course at the community college or senior center (Introduction to the Internet, debt management strategies, how to find the lowest mortgage rates, etc.)


• Podcasting or blogging

Whatever methods you use, your goal is to keep your business on the media’s radar screen so your name becomes synonymous with “expert in your field.” When used wisely, the power of the press can give you what money can’t buy: positive word-of-mouth advertising. Now that’s priceless!

Angel Brown is the Founder and President of the Women’s Business Gallery (http://www.womens-business-gallery.com), the ART of business specialists, providing women entrepreneurs and small business owners with the information you need to succeed.

Tags: advertising, Press release, publicity

Among those write them and those who read them, there’s a great clamor today to eradicate press releases. The sentiments run deep, but this is the wrong solution.

The real question is: Why are press releases so bad? The answer: Despite their name, bad “press” releases are not written for the “press.” What? How can this be? And what can be done about?

First, let’s clear up a misconception: Press releases do not represent the sum total of public relations any more than a four-seam fastball represents the totality of baseball. Press releases are merely one tool in PR. However, like fastballs that miss the strike zone, they are grossly misused so often that it’s easy to see why many want to euthanize them rather than deal with the underlying conditions that make them horrible.

Here are three reasons why press releases are so bad:

1. Too many are not written for journalists.
The writing process for even a simple product press release often involves a committee. And the release reads like it. Worse, the committee writes for itself and not for journalists. With unintentional and self-defeating good works, members keep adding words, acronyms, concepts and catch phrases to satisfy their internal political considerations. It’s nearly impossible for such a group to write in a way that improves the understanding of journalists, who have only seconds to devote to their release before determining if it is worthy of coverage.

2. Too many of those who determine the content aren’t communicators. The professional qualifications of those who edit press releases are often impressive: lawyers, human resource professionals, accountants, engineers. But most of these professionals have no experience parsing English to entice journalists. Instead, they lengthen phrases and sentences, obfuscate meaning, seriously reducing media pick-up of good stories.

3. Press releases are often not press releases, but political manifestos. A committee writing a press release unintentionally complicates it. But many organizations intentionally issue manifestos that appear to be press releases but are no such thing. These organizations can be quite happy about it, even if journalists consider their work poor excuses for press releases. These manifestos, blogged, burped and “texted” across the ever-expanding ether of electronic communications are not news at all. They are opinion. They may be worthy opinion (or not), depending upon factors that have nothing to do with the judgment process journalists use to sort, sift and identify “news.” Unfortunately, however, the organizations issuing these manifestos hope journalists lump them into the same category as “real” press releases. This never happens, and only poisons the well for those with legitimate news.

So what can be done about the horrible state of press releases, which, despite all the talk, are a bedrock tool of public relations? Here are three solutions:

1. Remember who we’re writing for. Sometimes, a release written by committee is unavoidable. But a good process with a strong team captain can make sure that the press release is something that its intended audience (journalists) will actually read, and that its content is something journalists will use (news).

2. Involve communicators in the communicating. The views of professionals involved in the news behind a press release are essential. But lawyers, accountants and engineers shouldn’t drive the writing and editing of press releases any more than patients should guide the knife during their surgeries.

3. Learn to separate news and opinion for better results. Just because you have an opinion doesn’t mean it’s news. News belongs in press releases; opinions can appear in many, many places, from blogs to opinion articles and statements and interviews. But stamping the words “press release” on a document that has little resemblance to what most journalists consider “news” only worsens the situation for the organization issuing this kind of document — and the rest of us who have real news to share.

Are these the only problems with press releases? Are these the only solutions? Hardly. But I offer them as a start in what should be a vigorous debate among PR professionals and those they work with about the proper use of press releases.

Press releases aren’t going away any more than the four-seam fastball is going to disappear from the repertoire of hard-throwing major league pitchers. That’s all the more reason why we should focus on the underlying problems of bad press releases, so that we can make sure that more of them hit the strike zone the first time they’re pitched.

Paul Furiga is president of WordWrite Communications LLC, a Pittsburgh-based public relations agency that helps companies create, develop and share their great, untold stories with everyone who needs to hear them. A former editor of the Pittsburgh Business Times, he has also covered Congress, the White House, edited magazines and written for publications ranging from Congressional Quarterly to Frequent Flyer magazine. For more information, visit http://www.wordwritepr.com.

Tags: The surprising reason why so many are so bad: They're not written for journalists!