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How Niche Markets Can Increase Online Sales

One of the best ways to increase sales is by targeting specific audiences that are interested in the products you have to offer. This form of marketing is called niche marketing. In order to target specific groups, you will need to evaluate the types of people who will most likely buy from your site, where to find these groups, and how to market to them. Evaluating niche groups You can evaluate niche groups by first deciding who you want to cater your business towards. Knowing your products or the affiliate program’s products should tell you plenty. If you have created an email list, sending a short survey to your customers asking them a little about themselves (average age, income level, purchase preferences, family, and hobbies) is a great way to learn more about the types of people who are buying from your site. Niche groups can be determined in many ways. Customers may be found in multiple groups, which can make choosing a niche group more difficult. The best way to cater to these groups is to choose two or three at a time, market to them, and see what happens. Finding niche groups The great thing about niche groups is that they are everywhere! Niche groups include hobbyists, political groups, gender groups, career groups, artists, writers, and others. Niche groups are usually attracted to similar web sites, blogs, and open forums. For example, soccer enthusiasts usually shop on similar sports web sites and sports news sites. When looking for niche groups, visit forums that cater to these groups and ask questions. You will be surprised by all the responses. People enjoy talking about their hobbies, careers, and lives. Visit web sites that are offer products that are similar to yours and see if other businesses have posted ads. Chances are, these businesses are frequented by the same niche groups. If you have created an email list, sending a short survey to your customers asking them a little about themselves (average age, income level, purchase preferences, family, and hobbies) is a great way to learn more about the types of people who are buying from your site.Marketing to niche groups Marketing to niche groups is slightly different from marketing to everyone else who finds your ad online. You will have to be more specific about what you’re selling and where you place ads. If you write articles that are going to be read by a specific group, you need to write on a topic they are interested in. The same goes for blogs and posting comments on forums. Try marketing to several niche groups in order to get an idea of which ones are the most interested in what you are selling. Tracking where visitors are coming from is very important when marketing to certain groups. Testing niche groups Testing niche groups is the only way to see if they are the right ones for your business. You will have to allow some time for your marketing efforts to pay off, however. When marketing to specific groups, give it your all and try to boost sales as much as possible. If, after a month, you do not see an increase in sales from a particular niche group, then focus your energies elsewhere. Focus on other groups until you find a few that show interest in your web site. Market more aggressively and enjoy the increase in sales.

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Free Photo Editing Makes Photo Stories Fast

Life is so busy these days and it often seems there aren’t enough hours in the day. Keeping in touch with family and friends via the internet helps people stay in touch even during the busiest times. A quick email isn’t always enough, however and creating online photo stories with free photo editing software can be the answer. Your stories help your friends and family to feel closer to you as they keep up with all the activities in your life. From the soccer game to the third grade school play your photo stories can help family and friends feel like they were there.
Fitting in one more activity into your busy life may seem impossible, but free photo editing software makes creating your photo stories quick and easy. There are so many options in free photo editing programs for stories that allow you to simply click, click and go. Drag and drop in your photos, click the mouse here to reduce redeye and there to cover a pimple. Crop the photo to remove the garbage can in the background and resize it so everyone can see the cute little faces better. Click again and add your story in the text box. Click to choose your background and theme and choose the font you want. In just a few minutes you have created a priceless treasure to share with family and friends everywhere.
You can create photo stories for every occasion or none at all.
Maybe you catch a priceless shot of the kids helping each other with homework or the cat eating the cereal that got left on the table. Within minutes your great aunt on the other side of the country could be getting a chuckle from the scene in a creative and quick photo story you created with free photo editing software. Stories help your photos create meaningful memories that will last forever for you and the people you care about. Why not send create photo stories instead of plain old emails when it is so quick and easy to do?
Microwaves gave us meals in seconds instead of hours. Email gave us communication at the speed of light and photo editing gives you stories in just a few minutes instead of hours spent creating a scrapbook. Not only is it quicker and free, but you can share your photo stories with as many people as you would like to, no matter how remote or distant the relation. You can even use free photo editing software to create Christmas photo stories instead of sending Christmas cards or newsletters. People can view them whenever they like and never have to decide whether to throw them out or stuff them in a box somewhere.
In short, free photo editing for your stories helps you keep up with your high-speed lifestyle while still keeping your friends, family, acquaintances or even complete strangers up to date on the latest news in your life. There is no reason not to get started right away to create these lifelong memories.

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The Interesting World of Online Games

Online games have become very popular in recent years and the reasons are not difficult to find-online games are cheap, fast, and convenient and save much time. Online games bring with it a sense of thrill, excitement. Texas Holdem is a gaming website where you can play a number of games according to your choice. Here you can click any banner to download and play for fun or real against competitors who are online. Certain games don’t even need any download. You just need to click and you can start playing instantly. Many games have 2D format, while others have amazing 3D graphics. You can even customize the characters and the mind blowing actions are sure to take your breathe away. While playing party poker, you can also enjoy super sign-up bonuses. You can also click on the number of links, like poker, casino, sports book, gambling etc. that is provided at their website address.When you click on the poker link of Texas Holdem, you will get access to other links that will provide you with detailed information regarding how to play poker, poker theory etc. Poker players are usually delighted and enjoy a number of articles, humor pieces, resource reviews, juicy details etc. When you click on the casino link, in the same way, you will get to know about online casino and it is assured that you will get to enjoy the best gambling experience. You are fully secured here in this user friendly website where different kinds of casino games are always there to entertain you. The best part is that you can enjoy free bonus .Also, the casino games are regularly updated to keep in tune with the latest happenings. The greatest high is that you can play for free and win real money. You don’t need to purchase anything or deposit anything. Also, you can play casino games online in 16 international languages. So language will definitely be not a problem when you are playing casino games online.The sports book link offers information about horses on which you can lay your bet. They provide you with valuable horse laying tips. Once you login to the website, all you need to do is to open an account there and become a registered member. Then you can take part in different competition that they organize. You can also bet and gamble on a number of games like baseball, basketball, golf, tennis, horses, soccer etc. You can also search the different links provided there and get to know more about horse racing tips, gaming news etc.The games link provide valuable information about online poker, the best places where you can play and the best methods that will help you to win. This page provides other links where you can enjoy online games like pool, billiard, snooker etc. Also, there is the customer service 24 hours who are always ready to help you. This page contains other links where you can access over 2700 games, apart from funny pictures, movies and many other things which you will enjoy very much. So just click on Texas Holdem and open up to a new world that is waiting only for you.

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At your service

Asghar Khan/Gulf News

I want to uplift this spirit of service in everyone I meet all the time, says Ron Kaufman.

Can you grab your customer’s attention in just three minutes? Yes, says Ron Kaufman, the master speaker of service who recently launched his virtual Up Your Service College in Dubai.

Attending a Ron Kaufman seminar on ‘Up your service’ is like being swept away by a mental tornado. Your ideas and creative instincts are stirred, dusted and given such a violent shake-down that you emerge feeling gloriously ingigorated – mentally fresh, your mind brimming over with new concepts and thoughts.

A self-confessed junkie of the speakers cult, I was however blown away by his spontaneous response to a trick question: how can you grab a customer’s attention in just three minutes?

Ron’s answer is just two words: “Pay attention.” Seeing that I am waiting for him to say more, he explains: “You need to genuinely show a sincere, dedicated and present-in-the-moment attentive concern to listen to and care for that person.

“People offering genuine attention are so rare these days that once you offer this to your customer, he/she is bound to get hooked to what you are saying.

“For instance, think about what happens at home,” he suggests.

“How often do you really listen and are totally connected to the person you are speaking with? But establish the connection with the person … and you will get him/her to open up.

She might tell you what is worrying her and you may be able to offer her some help. Or she might tell you what a wonderful time she had and you could share in her happiness.”

Ron Kaufman, internationally acclaimed innovator and motivator for partnerships and quality service, has helped organisations around the world achieve superior service, increase customer loyalty, create strong partnerships and build winning teams.

He has worked with multinational companies, government agencies and industry associations in high technology, financial, professional and medical services, manufacturing, retailing, entertainment, tourism and public recreation.

So, when it comes to the service industry, what separates the boys from the men?

“If you want to stand out from the competition in terms of your [corporate] culture, in terms of attracting the best people to work with you … then you have to show a genuine passion for the experience that the consumer is having,” he says.

You have to look at everything from the customers’s viewpoint … essentially be in their shoes. You need to find out where they came from before they met you, what concerns they have while they are with you and where they are going after they’ve been with you, he says.

“This way you end up providing a much more robust quality of overall service experience not because you are selling them something which happens to be good (that’s part of it) but the experience of being sold something that is also good.

“The other part of the service experience is that if you have to differentiate, you have to be clear what segment of the market you are aiming at.”

He offers the example of Southwest Airlines, a budget airline. “The aim of their game is to get you there fast, cheap and safely. [They are not spending too much effort on fancy things like coffee, seating area, etc.] They focus on very specific areas which their customers will value and then they’re doing everything they can to accentuate and heighten their value in that clearly defined space.”

So, what can they do to up their service?

Ron offers some plans: “Take the issue of security,” he says. They could offer the exact-sized plastic bag for you to put your lotions, creams, etc into; they could send out a reminder either by email or inform you at the check-in counter about your shoes, your laptop, your belt … They could put up the information on their website and link it to the e-mail that they send you when you confirm your tickets, he says.

“There are things that all airlines can do to offer the guest a better experience. With the new regulations on what you can carry in your hand baggage, lots of the time you hear comments like, ‘Oh I forgot that my scissors are in my bag. And they are $200 scissors because I’m a hairdresser.’ ” Or it’s about a very expensive lotion someone bought on vacation which (naturally) they don’t want to have to throw it away.

An airline could have a tie-up

with a courier company or the post office and respond to such travellers’ woes with a ‘never mind, mail it to yourself’. “The service would then seem so seamless. But airlines go ‘that’s not my business’. Yeah, but that’s not a solution.”

Our service mindset evolves from our academic background, family upbringing, social status, culture … So how does one teach people to be different from the mindset they already possess?

“It’s more about teaching people how they can find the best in the upbringing that they have,” he says.

“Robert Fritz, author of The Path of Least Resistance, once said the people who make the greatest progress are the ones who are very clear about where they want to get to. And they are also very clear about where they are right now. So you got your feet on the ground and you got your head in the clouds. When you hold on to the two simultaneously, the path of least resistance is in the direction of what you are trying to create. So you need to have both – a fantasy and then an awareness of where you are in order to move ahead. My course at the ‘Up Your Service College’ is designed to move up one step at a time and eventually get where you want to be.”

So do nations and countries have a definitive service culture? With close interaction with several countries, Ron has zeroed in on the service culture of a place.The people of one Far Eastern country, for instance, he says are very gentle, kind, compassionate and caring.

Now if they could add speed to the servic aspect, it wuld be great combination.

How would he rate Dubai? “Before I talk about Dubai, I’ll give you another example from the Middle East – Oman,” he says. Their hospitality is so gentle, it’s legendary, it says something about the culture within the Arab world.

“Dubai is a very interesting spot because there’s so much commerce going on here … It is way too multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-industry to be categorised in blanket terminology.”

Raising the bar

We all often have bad days. But how do you get to the level where you rise above your own preoccupation and ask someone else about his/her day?

“This is a discipline,” insists Ron, who firmly believes that his future doesn’t have to be determined by his past. “If I’ve been told off by the boss and I’m carrying that [rebuke] around, [it's not good]. I throw it at my wife and my kids and they are really sad. Ideally, I should sit down with the boss and clear this up or analyse it in my mind and resolve the issue.

“In the service industry you can’t always [sit down and analyse] that because you are on your feet all the time. You get a rude customer, then you handle him and then comes another customer who doesn’t know that the last one was rude. But why should I bring the problem I had with the last customer to the next customer?

“I want to uplift this spirit of service in everyone I meet all the time. It’s a huge objective and there are times when I don’t even live up to it but then if I don’t live up to it what’s my next challenge – to try to live up to it. That’s the essence of how you keep regenerating for yourself this willingness of being nice to the next person. If you realise that, you can be in control,” explains Ron.

Reaching out Ron’s seminars are popular with companies that can afford him. But, keen to reach out to the maximum number of people Ron has, over the past two years, invested huge amounts of time and about a million dollars developing Up Your Service College, a virtual college where his teachings, the course ware, exercises, activities, discussions, role play, debates, all are available on DVDs.

The Training College was launched last year in Singapore where Ron has a number of government and commercial clients. He now has clients in London, the Netherlands, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, China, Finland, India and Indonesia.

Early years

Ron Kaufman grew up in West Port, Connecticut, USA. He studied International political history from Brown University, London and spent two years in Europe while still in College, specifically in the south of France to learn French and understand the culture and “enjoy myself”.

He returned to Brown for his senior year and wanted to learn more about how countries that have been at war can forge business alliances almost as soon as the war is over. He was fascinated by the fact that people would wage a war and kill each other and five years later they could be doing business with each other.

Sport, he found out, played an important role in bridging the gulf.

For example, he says, immediately after the Second World War countries that had been fighting with each other were busy playing football.

Ron decided to take up citizen diplomacy in a professional capacity. He took groups of people to China and the Soviet Union, “helping to bring down the walls of misunderstanding”.

His insight into the role of sport in creating bridges between people is perhaps a reflection of the times when he was busy organising Frisbee Festivals in his high school days.

Ron used to play Ultimate Frisbee, which is a bit like aerial soccer, for his school – Staple High School, Connecticut. When he went to Europe he began organising Frisbee tournaments and festivals there as well which were a huge success.

Ron’s organisational role and his high voltage performance in the commentary box led him to his first corporate seminar at American Express and this eventually led to his becoming a specialist in Adult Educational Design or Instructional design.

In 1990, the Singapore government invited him to help establish a service culture across the different government departments. Ron went for a week’s programme, but he liked the place so much that he stayed on in Singapore. He went on to become the Project Manager for curriculum design and later master trainer.

Singapore has also proved to be a good launch pad for doing programmes in the Middle East and he’s been spending a lot of time in Dubai conducting public as well as in-house programmes. His recent visit to Dubai was to launch the Training College, in partnership with Right Selection, Dubai.

So how does Ron integrate his message and ‘up his service’ in personal life?

“It’s not easy,” Ron says. “I have to mention something which I learned from a gentleman whom I admire a lot. I don’t have a commitment to live a balanced life. That doesn’t mean I don’t admire and appreciate balance in my life. It is just not my top priority. I do have a commitment to living an incredibly passionate life. So when I am with my daughter, Brighten, for example, I really want to be with her.

“Whenever I’m in Singapore we have what is called dad and daughter dinner. So she’ll be with me every weekend (as I have got divorced and my daughter lives with her Mum, just two blocks away from my home in Singapore). It’s not easy but every time she has a vacation, I stop working and we take off on camping trips together.

“At 11, Brighten is a very mature kid. And part of the reason why she’s mature is because she’s been travelling with me since she was five weeks old.”

Ron is keen to design a curriculum for kids that teaches them fundamental principles of service at a really young age. “I’d like to share with kids how we need to leave this place better than we found it. That could mean cleaning someone’s dish off the table that you know wasn’t yours; it could be in a larger sense what you do with your life.”

The secret of Ron’s unbounded energy, he says, is several big glasses of mocktails of celery, zucchini, tomato, carrot, cucumber and ginger. Naturally, Ron benchmarks the hotels on how well they serve up his recipe. Happily, Dubai makes it to ‘Desired’.

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Corvettroversy (originally Posted on Talentzoo.com)

Last week, GM pulled a Corvette ad off the air. The ad depicted a young boy staring at a parked Corvette and dreaming of cruising through New York City so fast he gets the car airborne.

Now, I’m sure most people who drive in Manhattan think that even reaching 30 MPH is an unattainable dream. So this spot was obviously not grounded in reality, just another car ad with some cool-looking footage.

There was even a prominent disclaimer on the bottom of the screen that said, “This is a dream. Do not drive without a license.” Still, several auto safety and child advocacy groups complained to GM. And GM acquiesced.

Is it bad business to do creative work that garners complaints? Is it so irresponsible that it’s construed as a form of malpractice? And if it costs the client extra time and money to deal with the trouble, should agencies be held liable?

I think it’s too flip to just say “Oh, those spineless GM corporate weasels bent over because of a few paranoid soccer moms.” Or “GM planned to get all this controversy and they love all the free publicity.” The issue is a little more complicated than that.

I can speak from experience here. I’ve written 2 radio spots that actually generated complaints. We certainly didn’t set out to get that kind of response, nevertheless I received copies of the letters and tacked them up in my cubicle as a sort-of badge of honor. Our client dismissed it as “well, at least the spots are getting remembered.” However, our client was in the gambling business, and there’s not a lot of moral high ground there.

No matter what business our clients are in, we have to live with the notion that advertising simply can’t win a popularity contest. Like music, movies, books and other forms of pop culture, we always run the risk of pissing off somebody. And since most advertising is unsolicited, people are most disdainful of ads they don’t like.

But here’s the paradox: In advertising, there is always a constant stream of new ideas and concepts. That’s where the reward—and the risk—lies.

New ideas are always controversial simply because they’re new. We have no prior history to judge them against. And new ideas seek to alter the status quo, which means someone’s current position of power, wealth and status gets challenged. Or, if an idea challenges conventional wisdom, someone will perceive it as a threat, and try to muzzle it. Just ask Salman Rushdie or Mel Gibson.

Every piece of advertising has some consequence and influence—be it positive or negative. The only alternative would be to produce ideas that are completely milquetoast. In other words, guaranteed non-offensive. Tried-and-true. Safe. Dull. Which will lead to messages that are roundly ignored. And creating advertising that’s roundly ignored is a waste of our client’s money.

You’ll have to draw your own conclusions about whether showing an 8 year-old dreaming of speeding in a Corvette is a dangerous idea that may encourage reckless or copycat behavior. To paraphrase William Hurt in ‘Broadcast News,’ “It’s hard not to cross the line. They keep moving the little sucker, don’t they?”

Maybe GM knew the risks when they approved the spot. Perhaps they thought that the disclaimer was legally correct and nothing else needed to be done. (The spot, by the way, was directed by Guy Ritchie, who’s married to Madonna–who Pepsi dropped after seeing her “Like a Prayer” video. Guess it runs in the family.)

There will always be controversy over ads. There will always be resistance to new, unfamili ar or risky ideas. We simply have to keep doing them, and ad agencies have to provide a framework to encourage them. Because the moment we stop, that’s when the ad industry will truly be dead.

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Auto Audio System – Expenditure Limits On Tehcnology.

Ours is a world where technology has become a necessary and regular companion. We take it with us to the beach, we find it at the work place, in the gymnasium, and even our leisure and communication needs are dominated by it. It only makes sense that in our cars we would like to have the best technologically possible auto sound systems our hard earned money can buy. The problem is that new technology especially in auto sound systems is being introduced to the market each and every day at unfathomable rate and many of us feel as though if we hold our breath just a little bit longer something even superior and more impressive will come along. We know that we will absolutely want to kick ourselves if we buy in to “that or this” company’s auto sound system that was exceptional yesterday, just before the next great thing hits the market.
The fact remains that advanced auto sound system technology is already here with us and the question isn’t if it will hit the market but rather when. And when seems to be a pretty big question when it comes to emerging technologies. There are always so many things that control when the actual product will hit the shelves in stores or even how much supply will be available at that point in time. The really good news for consumers is that if you wait until that point, chances are the prices on the system you like now will probably lower significantly almost overnight.
While the tech-savvy in me would love to have the hottest and greatest of gadgetry at all times, the dad in me knows that the kids will need braces, new shoes for soccer, and (ultimately) tuition for college. For those reasons, I will continue using my sadly old-fashioned electronic Machine and secretly long for the brand new notebook while listening to the latest tunes on my iPod Shuffle while secretly longing for one of the new iPods, which is capable of playing video. I will live however, and will enjoy watching others play with their new gadgetary goodies while I learn about them and wait for the prices to drop (just like DVD players a few years back).
I can declare myself at least smart enough to understand that most of the time it is best not to be the first to buy a new product or an emerging technology. Let someone else take the risks associated with buying an essentially untried product while I sit back and listen to what they have to say. This way I can make an informed decision without bearing the scars associated with testing an untried product.
There are many things I’m willing to sacrifice and many more things I give to my children as test objects. The thing I have discovered quite often with them is that if it can survive a few weeks in their care, it is a pretty safe bet and might even be worth purchasing stock in the company. We all have some things that are more important to us than others and while I love technology there are other things I love more including fancy auto sound systems.
Music, however, is a very important part of my life and I do try to keep current with the latest and greatest when it comes to auto sound systems. My favorite at the moment is the Pioneer car stereo. Every piece of this equipment is designed with the idea of making music sound, as it should. You can get the biggest and greatest sound quality from this auto sound system without giving up half your trunk or your entire back seat. Pioneer is one of the more expensive products on the market when it comes to auto sound systems but it is well worth every dime.
While considering your options for an auto sound system be sure to keep in mind that the most expensive product is not necessarily the best product-no matter what the salesman tells you. By learning as much as possible about all choices you may find that one of the less expensive systems is actually better suited for your auto sound system needs. In so doing you wil probably spent many blissful nights knowing that the auto sound system you purchased is the best investment for your money.

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