In 2004, more than 14.2 billion dollars was spent on cable TV advertising. In that same year, corporations spent close to 17 billion dollars on promotional items, according to the Advertising Specialty Institution (ASI).

But does spending precious marketing dollars on promotional items really pay off?

A survey conducted by LJ Market Research for the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) revealed utilizing promotional products is a powerful way to build brand awareness, and increase both interest and sales of product and services.

This research project was designed to measure how end users responded to organizations that distribute promotional products as part of their marketing strategy. In a survey conducted by interviewing business travelers at DFW airport, more than 71% of the respondents had received at least one promotional item in the last year. Many of us receive magnets, pens, calendars, and even travel mugs with logos from local insurance companies, realtors, travel agencies and the like. Perhaps this statistic does not surprise us. However, the study also revealed that 76% of these same travelers remembered the name of the company on the product they had received. Impressive, particularly compared to their ability to recall the name of an advertiser from a print publication they had read in the last week, which came in at 53%?

Another survey of five U.S. Universities included 180 college students. This survey revealed that promotional products are not only appreciated but are indeed influential. Of the students participating in the survey, 95% mentioned appreciation at having received the items. Additionally, 85% could actually name the advertiser of an imprinted item in their homes or currently in their possession. Further, an impressive 83% of those students said that these promotional products would motivate them to act on purchasing a product or service, patronize a particular business, enter a contest or donate to a charity.

The fact is that an impressive number of people who receive promotional products do, indeed, remember the advertiser’s name. Gifts and give-away items to the public or customers that have the company logo, theme or services imprinted on them prove to increase both interest and sales.

There are, however, literally tens of thousands of different products available to help promote company and brand awareness. Additionally, there are so many different campaign approaches to get these products in the hands of the end users. Mailing campaigns, trade shows, business to business gifts, give-aways to the general public. It can be a daunting task just to choose the items and the method of delivery.

Keep in mind that you need to know your target audience. If your promotion is for young adults and teens, for instance, don’t give them refrigerator magnets. They probably don’t own a refrigerator yet. Go with something cool and usable. CD holders, electronics, creative key chains, or something trendy and colorful. With executives, go with nice executive accessories like writing sets, and items that you know they wouldn’t be ashamed to display. No matter how classy, unique, or trendy your promotional item is, if you give it to a target market that has no use for it they will have no use for you.

Try to be creative, even in the delivery of your promotional items. Mailings and trade shows are great, but don’t forget drop-ins, business to business gifting and rewarding your best customers. If your budget allows, let the professionals handle it. They can advise on appropriate product purchases and even help you develop a creative promotional campaign.

Ellen McCarty enjoys helping businesses build brand awareness through promotional products with Logo Expressions, Inc., one of the fastest growing promotional products companies in the United States.

Popularity: unranked [?]

What is Twitter

SMS Text message marketing is growing at a tremendous rate. More and more businesses are beginning to realize the power of mobile marketing. Twitter.com provides a free and effective way for a business to get into mobile marketing.

Twitter.com is a free service that allows you to quickly set up a mobile text message marketing campaign. You can use twitter from either a, handset a web browser or both. It is scalable and dynamic and can be effective for any size or type of organization.

Twitter is designed as a way for individuals to tell the world “what their doing.” The service can be improvised by organizations to communicate with their members, employees and clients.

On its site twitter.com, has a public timeline of every message sent. You may choose to have your message displayed in this timeline or not. If your messages are not in the public timeline, you must manually approve each person who requests to follow your timeline (receive your messages). If you access your account online you can see every message you’ve sent and you may also see every message sent to you. It’s advisable to make your timeline public so that evryone, including those who do not follow you, can see your updates.

You can follow the timeline/messages sent by other twitter users of your choice. Others may choose to follow your timeline/messages. The service allows you block who receives your updates/messages and who you receive updates/messages from. These capabilities provide the foundation of how Twitter can be used to establish mobile campaigns.

Hopefully by now, you are beginning to see the power and flexibility of Twitter.com as a viable solution for your mobile campaign. The only limitation is that you may only have one account per handset (phone number) or email address. To overcome this, we suggest creating a free email account at yahoo or gmail. Note: If you access your twitter account from the web you must provide an email address.

Mobile marketing and mobile alerts provide an instant way for your organization to communicate. It is suitable for most any type of organization including: companies, schools, churches and municipalities.

Your message recipients must agree to receive your messages and you must provide a way for them to stop receiving your messages when they choose. Twitter provides a method for both of these functionalities.

Terminology

Here are few a basic terms that you need to know. Followers - these are the people who choose to receive your updates. Opt in – this means agreeing to receive your messages, by sending a message. Opt out – this means stopping the receipt of your messages, by sending a message. In both cases the message sender will receive a confirmation message. Keywords are the words that your recipients send as a message from their handsets. For example they would send the message “Follow darrylgee” to opt in. In this example “darrylgee” is the keyword. Keywords allow you to establish a unique list based on your marketing needs. “Lingo” are the commands used to control your twitter experience.

Tinyurl.com

Tinyurl provides a free tool you can use to shorten your long hyperlinks. This is very useful when you are trying to craft a text message that is 140 characters. You will notice that many messages sent on twitter contain tiny urls. We used the service to shorten mytextad.com from 23 characters to 20 characters - this is the shortened url - http://tiny.cc/fFHTQ . Visit tinyurl.com to shorten your urls’s. No account registration required.

How To Setup A Campaign

Twitter.com provides a cost effective and scalable solution for any sized organization. It is suitable in any situation where you have a group of potential recipients who have a need to receive instant communication from you. We will now explain and provide examples of how to set up a mobile marketing campaign.

Invite people to follow you on twitter. You do this by sending them a text message to 40404 with the message “invite 212-555-1212.” Twitter will then prompt them to accept or join twitter if they are not members.

Place an invitation on your company literature. For example instruct them to text the following to 40404: “follow your user name”

Once you have built up a list. Begin sending updates. 1 to 3 per day is reasonable for marketing purposes, but 10 is not. A minimum of 3 per week is fine, but 0 is not. Keep your updates to 140 characters or less.

For examples on what types of marketing works, join twitter and text “follow delloutlet.com” to 40404. To join twitter just text a username you want to 40404. The Dell outlet store does a great job of using twitter to market. Note - be sure to use expiration dates/times for your specials.

For complete details on how to use twitter visit - http://www.twitter.com.

Copyright 2008- Darryl Gee, mytextad.com

Darryl Gee is the President of mytextad.com. The goal of mytextad.com is to offer a low cost text message advertising solution. Mr. Gee is a frequent speaker and writer on the subject of mobile marketing. Visit http://www.mytextad.com for details. Contact: darrylgee@mytextad.com

Popularity: unranked [?]

Blogging are one of the effective tools for online sharing of thoughts and ideas on a variety of topics. Bloggers attain huge success through blogging, provided they market their blog well.

Generally, blogs consist of core components such as content, frequency and distribution, to increase their success. Nonetheless, bloggers need to make online visitors return time after time to their blog through efficient business strategies.

With mounting number of blogs on the Internet, it is a mystery for many bloggers to make their blog unique among all other blogs on the Internet. There are literally several kinds of blogs and certain strategies are applicable to all of them.

Effective Tips:

Below discussed are some effective tips to get more traffic for a blog site:

1. First, target the audience according to the blog post. This is of utmost importance and bloggers need to consider it before venturing into online blog marketing. It is necessary that offered services satisfy the needs of target audience. There needs to be accurate customer division in blog marketing.

2. After targeting the precise audience, bloggers need to seek all essential sources on the Internet to know what people wish to buy and look for. For this, conducting online survey is of great use. Through surveys, bloggers ask questions about audiences’ likes and dislikes.

3. In addition, bloggers need to read the minds of target audience well. This helps to know what the audience likes to read on other people’s blogs. This determines the usefulness of a blog, which all audiences are likely to read. Thus, bloggers can access different ways and means to update their blogs for grasping constant attention of visitors.

4. It is equally important that bloggers consider the market competition and accordingly modify their blog from time to time. For this, bloggers need to analyze strategies used by their competitors and know how efficiently they carry out the same to achieve business success. Obtaining all these details certainly enables bloggers to develop new strategies for improving their blog, which can receive more clicks.

5. It is necessary that search engines bring the blog in front of visitors, when they search for relevant items. Hence, a blog has to have keywords, which most of the viewers will use for searching and buying things on the Internet. Although this is a difficult task, it is very helpful for maximizing profits.

6. Web links play a vital role in the success of online blog marketing. Hence, paste several web links that are related to the blogs. More the links in a blog better will be its performance. The moment visitors witness that a blogger’s blog is a beneficial resource they return time after time to that blog and refer others to go through it. Bloggers can also access several free tools to help them in this regard.

Overview:

Effective marketing of blogs needs dedication in terms of investment of time, ideas and efforts. Work smartly, invest hard effort in blog marketing and witness benefits in the form of search engine visibility, better customer relationship, increased sales and better brand reputation on the Internet.

David O Connell: How to Start and Maintain Highly Successful Revenue pulling Blogs Blogging for Riches Complete video tutorial.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Helping your clients to have successful trade shows can be as easy as 1-2-3. With the variety of goods available in the promotional industry being an informed distributor with a simple plan can really pay off.

We suggest viewing the Trade Show in three parts and call them the Before, During and After units of creating a successful outcome every time.

The Before Unit is about creating a buzz. This is the first step to ensuring a great trade-show experience. Create a buzz with pre-show mailings. There are a variety of creative ways to insure those who attend the Trade Show will show up at your booth.

Eric Johnson, Vice President of Marketing and Development at Halls & Company, Brooklyn Park, Minn., suggests mailing half of a promotional product to a predetermined customer list. In this mailing you could inform them to stop by the booth and pick up the other half. “You might send them a luggage strap and tell them to stop by your booth to pick up the luggage tag for their trip home” he said.

Another creative approach is to mail a letter telling recipients to bring it along to the booth to receive a free item such as a tote bag or water bottle. As a distributor, this is a wonderful way to showcase your capacity to service your clients. Coordinating the mailing with your clients upfront and then getting the second half of the product to the exhibitor booth positions distributors well in the eyes of the end-buyer.

For the During Unit, it’s all about maintaining the buzz. A great way to do that is with food, of course. This is tried and true in every culture all over the world without exception. In fact, it has been scientifically proven that food is one of the triggers that activate emotion and feelings of joy. Custom printed cookies, popcorn and trail mixes in individual serving sizes can really give a boost to those walking the miles of the showroom floor. With the capacity to print logos on these packages, the treats themselves tell the whole story. Personal care items such as lip balms, mints, and hand sanitizers are also a great bet. Exhibitors would also do well to have a supply of games, pens, T-shirts, hats, and miniature electronic products such as fans.

The After Unit is all about sustaining the buzz. This is where the rubber meets the road.

The Trade Show is over and the goal was to collect names and new contacts. What will you do with them now that you have them? In this model, the distributor can really shine by working with their customers to create a mailing campaign. Suggest sending brochures, letters or even follow-up promotional items to continue the buzz created at the show.

Being proactive in assisting your clients to generate booth traffic will no doubt create value for your clients. An informed distributor with a plan can become an invaluable asset to their clients. When value is received it becomes perception, and that adds up to referrals and repeat business beyond the miles walked at the next show.

Ellen enjoys helping businesses build brand awareness through promotional products. Ellen is an Account Executive at Logo Expressions, Inc., one of the fastest growing promotional products companies in the United States.

Popularity: unranked [?]

There are some people who like to post messages on their own blog or to create websites because it is a hobby to them. For the rest of us, however, we expect to make some money off of our website, even if it is only to cover our expenses. If building websites is your business, whether part-time or full-time, you need to make sure that you are profitable whenever you’re doing so. Since there are so many different things that you can put on your website in order to help you make money, you might get caught in the trap of adding too much advertising. This can hurt you in a number of different ways.

First of all, if you are generating blog posts on a regular basis in order to get people to read them you may be driving these individuals away if you make it difficult for them to find the post. A good example of this is adding Adsense to the blog page. Although it is certainly possible for you to make a lot of money by using Adsense, it is also possible for you to drive some people way if you use it inappropriately. If you want to maximize your income and your visitors at the same time, make sure that you have your ad above the fold and clearly visible but not so much that they have to look around for what you have actually written.

Another reason why using too much advertising may be a bad idea is because too many options is often much worse than no options at all. If somebody comes your website, and you give them the content that they are looking for and then offer them a way to exit your website. Typically, this is done through some form of advertising, either a text link or a banner. If you only offer them one or two ways to exit your website, they will typically take that exit because they are not given any other options. If you have exits all over the place, people will generally just back out of the website with their back button. Remember, a simple website is much more effective than one that is cluttered with advertising for this very reason.

One thing that you want to make sure that you avoid at all cost are full-page advertisements that need to be clicked through in order to actually end up on the content. Although these can make you some money, they will certainly not result in anybody coming back in order to read your content again. The same is also true with multiple pop-ups. If somebody has to back out of two pop-ups every time they come to your website, they will not be visiting very often. If you must use a pop-up, use a cookie so that they do not see the same pop up over and over again on subsequent visits. It’s a matter of common courtesy and an excellent way to make sure that people are happy and continue to visit.

We have tracked different traffic sources… Want to know which ones performed best? You can get live tracking statistics for free at Increased Website Traffic

Popularity: unranked [?]

Since it’s inception, the Internet has been constantly changing. Linking strategies change, marketing tactics are getting increasingly more elaborate, search engine algorithms are constantly evolving, new online opportunities have opened up, but amid all the change and evolution of the Internet, one simple fact has become an undeniable constant. To get large amounts of free traffic directed towards your website, your website must be ranked very high in Google.

This is directed to the confused Internet marketer. To make sure you don’t get large amounts of free traffic directed towards your website, make sure not to stray from the following points.

Firstly, when registering your domain name, don’t choose a domain name that relates to your website. If you are promoting a weight-loss product with the name, “Uber Fast Six Pack Ultra Abs,” don’t register a domain name similar to uberfastsixpackultraabs.com. Instead, register a completely un-related domain name such as peanutbuttertastesgood.com.

When designing your website, make sure you don’t put the your primary keyword phrase in your web-site’s title. Again, if you are targeting the keyword phrase “Uber Fast Six Pack Ultra Abs,” make sure not to include this phrase in your title tag. Instead, include something completely unrelated, such as “Why we KNOW Elvis is still alive,” or “Proof the moon landing was a hoax.”

Make sure the images you upload to your website don’t have names related to your main keyword phrase. Naming an uploaded image to a six pack abs website Six_Pack_Abs.jpg is a big no-no. Additionally, don’t give your images alt-tags that have anything to do with keyword phrase you want to get rank for. Rather than naming an image “Six_Pack_Abs_Fast_Image_1″, name it something like “fried_eggs_and_ham.”

Don’t install a Wordpress blog on your website. If your web-hosting provider has an automated blog installer such as Fantastico, don’t install a blog in the yourdomain.com/blog directory. Additionally, don’t regularly post in this blog and make sure never to submit your blogs’ RSS feed to any RSS aggregators such as such as FeedAgg, FeedFury, RSSMotron, or Feedest.

Another good method to keep your site buried in Google is to refrain from linking to your website from high PR (Page Rank) social bookmaking websites such as Digg, Indianpad, Mixx, and Propeller. Linking to your web-site from these sites will quickly dash your ultimate goal of being buried in Google.

Creating blogs and pages with Blogger, Suidoo, Hubpages, Livejournal and other blog sites shouldn’t cross your mind. Additionally, you shouldn’t submit the blogs’ RSS feeds to any RSS aggregators that you might find on a search engine such as Google.

Since Google loves videos, don’t make a video related to your niche and upload it to video-supporting websites such as YouTube, Myspace, Vimeo and Google Videos, and whatever you do, make sure not to but a link back to your website in the info box, or in your profile box.

Don’t write articles related to your niche and submit them to various article directories. Since Google loves article directories, submitting well-written articles is the last thing you want to do if you want to keep your web-site buried.

Above all though, remember that keeping fresh related content on your website should be a very low priority.

And that’s about it. If you want to make sure Google keeps your web-site buried, follow the above steps and you have my personal guarantee that you will not fail

-Paul Ciaramitaro - SEO expert and Internet marketer. The Internet is saturated with a large number of mis-leading ebooks on SEO and search engine strategies, but amid the rough, there are a few diamonds such as Google Manipulator.

Popularity: unranked [?]

There certainly are a number of different ways that you can boost your website traffic without paying any money but one of the easiest ways to do so is through word-of-mouth advertising. Not only is this a free way to get traffic to your website, it is also one of the most effective.

The reason why this is the case is because whenever somebody recommends your site to a friend, it is more likely that they are going to visit in order to see what they are talking about. After all, even if they are not interested in what the website is about, they may still visit so that they can tell their friends that they did so.

Although most webmasters are familiar with the fact that word-of-mouth advertising is a great thing to have happen, very few of them take the time to make it easy to do. The fact of the matter is, if you leave it up to chance as to whether somebody will pass the news around about your page or not, you are simply leaving money on the table. The easiest way for you to make sure that your pages are being passed around and referred by others is by using a tell a friend script. These scripts are relatively easy to set up and they can produce like crazy if you have the correct type of content.

One thing that you want to make sure about whenever it comes your website content is that you are providing information that people are going to want to pass around. Many times, this is a matter of setting up what is typically known as link bait pages. Link bait pages are usually written in one of two different ways. Either they create controversy, which people tend to love to pass around to others or they use comedy in order to draw attention to themselves. Another great way for you to get traffic at your website is by using greeting cards. By having an online greeting card section on your website along with using a tell a friend script, you would be surprised with the number of people that will come through your website on a regular basis.

You have two basic choices when it comes to tell a friend scripts although there will be several different options that are available within each of these choices. You can either set up a script that it runs on your own server or you can use a remote script. I have personally used each of these and they both have their good points and bad points. As long as the script is easy to set up, it is usually a good idea to be able to control this yourself. That way, you will be able to use all of the options that are available in order to get the most out of this excellent way of pulling traffic to your website.

Raykes tests a lot of software and gives reviews about new released software. He recently reviewed a new web 2.0 tell a friend script, named “viral inviter”. You can check out his viral inviter review at: http://www.viralinviterreview.com

Popularity: unranked [?]

Online Classified Advertising is what you need to be doing. Finding the right classified advertising website to place your free online ads is another story. We show you where to place your free online classified ads.

Online Classified advertising is a way to promote and present your business to the market. The main idea behind this is that the more people knowing your business, the more popular and successful it could be. Traditional classified ads could only be seen in newspapers, magazines and other printed materials. However, since the technology is now fast advancing, so as the corporate world, traditional advertising seems not enough anymore. That is why people have thought of using online classified advertising to cover up the entire market.

Online classified advertising is one kind of marketing strategy. It is highly effective to use in advertising a business since most people spend more of their time in the internet. It is also a way to reach the online market, not only the local ones. What’s great about this online classified advertising is that it involves lower rates than printed ones, so, most businesses could meet the expense of this strategy and could earn more.

Another important thing that online classified advertisements do is that it allows the companies and businessmen to know how many people visit their site. This gives them a rough number of the probable market and could also warn them whether or not the site catches people’s interests. In this way, they would know when to add promos and how to make the site more catchy.

There are some effective ways to make this marketing strategy an effective one. First in the list is to use popular target keywords. You could use search engines like Google or Yahoo. By doing this, you could augment the popularity of your page and have many links. You could also use free online sign up forms so that you can keep track of the interested people who visited the site. Another thing that would make online classified advertising efficient is by making your site as interesting as possible. Your ad should catch the people’s attention to heighten the status of your advertisement. It should also contain all important information about the business, as well as feedbacks and contact information.

Moreover, to save more money in online classified advertising, you could search for free classified listings available at certain websites. Just be sure to read all the terms and conditions of the site before you even post an ad.

It is very important to consider and do online classified advertising because it gives you a wide array of market for your business. And generally, it could save you a lot of money. However, this does not mean that you should forget the traditional classified advertising and the people involve in it. What is best to do is that you combine the two. In this way, you get a feel with the people offline, as well as those online making the business more successful.

Place Free Online Classified Ads | Free Online Classified Advertising | Online Advertising

Popularity: unranked [?]

Who is Cache Closed and what can he do for you? Cache is a digital construct created to inform, enlighten, and entertain Web-marketers interested in learning how best to market on the Web.

Now don’t be alarmed, Cache isn’t interested in selling you anything, no e-books, no DVDs, no magic elixirs or potions, no sir, just a pixelated-paranoid, pied-piper of ideas and concepts designed to improve your Web-business.

The Cache-man has put a little something together he modestly calls, ‘Cache’s Web-Marketing Manifesto:’ ten things every marketing manager, business owner, and sales executive needs to know about business websites.

Cache’s Web-Marketing Manifesto

1. If it isn’t working, stop tweaking and blow it up.

If what you’re doing isn’t working, or if it’s working about as well as a 1973 Yugo, then it’s time to start over. You can only make so many modifications and adjustments until your site gets a bad case of digital disconnect: a cyber version of Capgras Delusion where the brain can’t connect the content to the emotional context.

2. If you’re relevant, search engines will find you, it’s their job.

Isn’t it time you stopped chasing the imaginary pot of gold at the end of the Google rainbow, and start thinking of practical ways to connect to your audience.

Search engines are supposed to find you, it’s their job, it’s what they do, what they get paid for. All this stuff about you can’t do this or you can’t do that because it’s not search engine friendly is so yesterday.

If you have something to say worth listening to whether it’s text, audio, or video, search engines will find you. And if they’re not, perhaps you should take a look at what you are saying and how it’s being said.

3 Being relevant means you actually have something to say, something to contribute.

Meaningful content doesn’t mean a catalog of merchandise that’s the same as the six million other guys selling the same stuff. If all you’re offering is an online catalog and order system, all you’ve done is turn whatever you sell into a commodity and commodity sales go to the lowest seller. Say goodbye to Mr. Profits.

4. Retaining your audience long enough to get your marketing message depends on how you present your content.

Having something relevant to say will attract an audience, but in order to keep that audience around long enough to absorb your core, marketing message you must present that message in an entertaining performance that creates an experience.

The Web has matured and evolved over time into a multimedia platform that allows you to really connect to your audience by turning your website into an experience. Just because you’re selling something, a product, a service or even an idea, doesn’t mean you can’t present it in some memorable manner.

If your presentation doesn’t get your audience’s juices flowing then you’ve wasted your Web-investment and your audience’s time.

5. Without creating an experience your message will never be memorable.

You’ve been careful creating your website content, but ask yourself this? Why would anyone remember any of it? And if they do remember it, why would they remember that it was your company that said it? Just because you’re good at what you do, or you sell the best product in your field, doesn’t mean you’re going to get the business.

Memory is based on pattern recognition, association and emotional triggers. If your content and presentation is without context, without some memory inducing experience, then my friend you’ll be instantly forgotten. The companies that get the sales are the companies that turn their presentations into an experience.

6. Creating an experience starts with engaging the audience and the best way to do that is with a signature Web-host that presents your story.

The easiest way to create a memorable experience on your website is to use a website host, a personality that will deliver the content and context of what you offer in a way that penetrates and sticks in the minds of your audience.

7. Treat the presentation of your website material as if it was a performance, not a meeting with your banker or board of directors.

A signature Web-host brands your company by creating a memorable image through the use of verbal and non-verbal performance techniques, clever scripting, and digital presentation enhancements, including music, sound effects, editing, and style.

8. Don’t be afraid to push the limits.

The Web is not a place for the timid. You’re no longer competing just in your local market; you’re competing with the world, where the Web, email, Internet phone service, and international shipping make buying from England or Australia, as easy as buying from the USA or Canada.

No matter what you do or how good you do it, there are other companies around the world that do the same thing, and chances are they do it as well or better than you. So who’s going to get the business: the company that presents their message in the most compelling manner, that’s who.

9. Narrow your focus by turning your brand into a single adjective or short phrase.

The single word “Plastics” from the 1967 movie, ‘The Graduate’ was voted the 42nd most memorable movie quote of the last 100 years by the American Film Institute.

The biggest challenge most companies have in being understood is their ability to narrow their offering down to a precise concept, idea, or adjective. Can you say what you do in six words or less? How about a single adjective or noun?

10. You cannot be something you’re not.

Customers are not stupid; they’ll see through any phony presentation or prevarication. You cannot getaway with misrepresenting what you are, or what you do. Eventually you will be found-out or more likely, people will instantly see-through your efforts to present a false image.

If your marketing problem lies deep within your corporate culture, no matter how clever your advertising or marketing campaign, nothing will overcome it. You will have to change your corporate culture before you attempt to deliver a message that redefines you and what you do. You must be true to yourself and to your company’s culture.

Cache Closed

Cache Closed was summoned from the misused and discarded concepts found in the ditch beside the information highway. His mission is to demonstrate and enlighten Web-entrepreneurs on how to deliver meaningful content in entertaining, informative and even viral presentations. His bizarre behavior and style may not be suitable for the stuffed-shirt purveyors of yesterday’s methods, but he does speak to today’s open-minded Web-savvy marketing manager. For all things Cache, visit his website http://www.cacheclosed.com.

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Popularity: unranked [?]

When it comes to building a website for yourself, you might currently be on the fence about whether to build it yourself or to outsource it to someone else. Outsourcing your web design is something you might be considering if you’re concerned you don’t have the technical skills to make a high quality and professional website that can be a money making website for you. Let’s look at the pros and cons of outsourcing it versus doing it yourself.

Outsourcing Pros:

On the pro side of the equation, when you outsource a service that is not your expertise, the end result will be that site will be done professionally and look really good. You can set standards for what you expect and that can be what you get without major effort or frustration.

Outsourcing is a great thing for non-technical people who want to get a website live but don’t want to deal with learning the technical aspects. Not everyone is cut out for the technical stuff and not everyone enjoys playing with new tools. The frustration can be overwhelming. Some people don’t care how much it costs them; they’d just rather outsource their web design to someone who has a reputation for creating great looking websites.

When you get someone to do it for you, you can express your wishes and wait for them to show you a finished product. You can put a wish list out there and set a timeline for it and it’ll be delivered to you without your having to worry about doing anything other than expressing your wishes and then writing a check. This is where the biggest con comes in: the check.

Cons of Outsourcing:

Money and time are the biggest cons listed in paying someone else to do your website building for you. It can be expensive and you might have to wait until your web design firm has the time to do it. They might be booked or your wish list might be complex and it can take time to happen.

Not just that, but the finished product may or may not be what you were hoping for so revisions might slow the process down even more. The costs can be quite high when you buy a la carte web services. For every item on your wish list, there will likely be a price tag assigned to it.

On the con side another problem might be not getting what you’re expecting. If you outsource web design, you want a well-qualified individual to do it so it’s important to carefully choose the web designer.

Choosing to design your site yourself is the alternative, here. Today, there are great products on the market that can help a beginner create a professional looking website. Products like SiteBuildIt, aka SBI are often chosen because they’re designed for the novice who wants a professional looking outcome. Whatever you choose for your own site, doing homework about the various options available shows you’re taking this seriously and that means you’re very likely to get the results you want.

To learn about things like outsourcing web design, reviews for SiteBuildIt and to get free reviews and online money making tips for internet entrepreneurs, visit TheWebReviewer.

Popularity: unranked [?]