ADUTAINMENT: Advertising as Entertainment
JellyBasket.com - JELLY by the CASE or as a GIFT BASKET.

SIPA's 32nd Annual Conference Showcases Latest Internet Advertising Trends And Email Marketing Through Client Newsletters
The Specialized Information Publishers Association Will Feature Leadership Keynote Speakers (http://www.newsletters.org/Events/Annual/2008/index.htm), Jay Berkowitz, Josh Macht, Bob Bly, Chris Schroeder And Fredrick Marckini On June 1, 2008 In Washington, DC

MJM Internet Adds Internet Video Production to Enhance Dealership Websites With Tactical, Online Video Marketing
Automobile dealership website production firm, MJM Internet, has added Internet video products to enhance their clients' online marketing. Produced quickly, and at low cost MJMI internet video's feature online actors, and dealership personnel. They help bring car dealerships' online marketing to life using the site, sound and motion of video seemlessly added to their websites. Flexible and effective, integrated video should prove to give dealerships a competative advantage.

Viral Marketing - The Future Of Advertising?
To understand viral marketing you need to be familiar with social memetics ? the idea of viral marketing is to create a product or advert that encourages the end user and potential customer to also become your promoter.

Dealerskins' Digital Video Viral Marketing Project for Auto Dealers Takes Internet by Storm
Dealerskins, (www.dealerskins.com) a division of Dominion Enterprises and a leading provider of automotive dealer web solutions, has launched a video and viral marketing project to promote its highly successful nationwide user groups. The video can be viewed at; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn09XoUySFg It tells the initially sad tale of a dealership Internet sales team, and ends with a strong redemptive finale at a Dealerskins User Group. There is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Glengarry Glenn Ross with a cameo from company founder; well know ...

Best Email Advertising of 2008 to Be Named by Web Marketing Association
The Best email advertising in 86 industries will be judged as part of the 2008 Internet Advertising Competition awards. Companies or agencies wishing to nominate their work for consideration may do so at IACAward.org (http://www.iacaward.org?gad=CNvQkJkDEgjMICey2iA0NRi6nML_AyCb88Qv) before the deadline of January 31, 2008.

Social Advertising Changing Internet Marketing: Moving From Forced Advertising To Opt-In Ads
SplashCast CEO Helps Define The Emerging New Marketing Field At L.I.S.A Conference - First Forum Dedicated To Social Advertising

Video Email And Its Impact On Internet Marketing
Email is a revolutionary means of communication facilitated by the advances in information technology. With the acceleration of e-commerce as a consequence of these same technological innovations, email is now a significant means of marketing products and services through the internet. Through email, myriad companies and businesses have a convenient means of reaching potential consumers. Through email, marketing copies get delivered directly to a person?s inbox; companies no longer had to wait for consumers to come across their ads in the internet.

Using Viral Advergames For Worldwide Advertising and Marketing
Branded online games are being used more and more as an advertising medium by everyone from small businesses to big worldwide brands, but can branded games really help as part of your marketing efforts Branded online games (or Advergames as they are commonly known) can be one of the most effective viral marketing agents, if used correctly

Internet Marketing and Viral Marketing Techniques
It seems as if viral marketing is one of the most successful strategies that one can employ with Internet marketing. Viral marketing is an Internet marketing practice that employs referrals, recommendations, and reviews in order to quickly spread word about a product or service. Gmail, Utube, and various viral videos on the Internet have all been transmitted by the viral marketing technique. These online entrepreneurs have enjoyed immense success by employing the viral marketing technique. For more details visit to www.paylock-generator.com .Think about it as an exponential effort once launched its benefits and effects only get stronger.

Viral Marketing: Internet Marketing Strategies
First of all, I realize that anything with "viral" in the name doesn't conjure up images of something you want close by, but there is a new type of Internet marketing known as "viral marketing" is worth investigating. Despite its unflattering appellation, it is an effective Internet collaboration marketing tool, and one that is important to understand if you want to expand your business.

Mortgage Marketing - Viral-Email, Referral Marketing Strategy
This is a devastatingly powerful way to extend your marketing reach. For this to work right you need a website that promotes your business.

Viral Marketing:10 High-Impact, Viral Marketing Strategies,To Explode Your Sales
Hello, do you have any website that is not bringing in a lot of sales?Would you like to know a few smart and sharp viral marketing secrets to turn it around and explode your sales?If yes, may I offer you 10 high impact viral marketing strategies to increase your sales!Viral Marketing is allowing people to giveaway and use your free product or service in order to multiply your marketing quickly over the internet. The idea behind viral marketing is that you include your ad with the freebie people giveaway or use.

How to Incorporate Viral Marketing Techniques to Your Internet Marketing Arsenal
Viral marketing is not the last disease found, nor a virus to your desktop

Free Web Advertising: Chat Room Marketing Secrets Of Internet Marketing Gurus Exposed
Have you ever been to a chat room?Have you ever posted a message?If yes, now you may learn some free web advertising secrets on how to market your products and services in chat rooms.Chat Room Marketing is the use of online chat rooms to promote your product or service.

Viral Videos: Lethally Effective Advertising Carriers
Are you one of those millions out there hooked on the viral video craze? This article describes the opportunities that viral videos offer to internet marketers.

Before the Business Plan

Purveyors of conventional wisdom would have you believe that the very first thing you ought to do when setting up a new business is to create a business plan.

It doesn't matter whether you are selling odds and ends on eBay from your living room or something larger and more complex,

Business plans are excellent and necessary. Far too few of us self-employed and freelance people use them.

They force us to spell out our objectives. We have to assign numbers to our expectations and assign a time-line to our goals. They become our roadmap keeping us on track.

But I suggest that you can't make a business plan that is worth anything until you've done your homework.

And that means knowing what you want to do and how you want to do it. And determining that there is sufficient demand for your product to generate enough income to cover your costs and allow a profit.

In other words, before the business plan comes research.

If a body of knowledge already exists, it makes sense to tap into it and save yourself some work. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics and other such sources, for example, publish a great deal of demographic information. Some of it is very useful.

But it is also likely that as a creative sole-proprietor, meaningful statistics don't exist about your specialty.

Many micro-businesses target a very specialized niche. And many owned by creative types exist to sell a product or service that don't follow well-worn prototypes.

It is particularly difficult for such people to find meaningful published data.

If you fall into these categories, you'll have to generate your own information.

There is more to your research than just the purely business information. You are building a life as well as a business.

Are the demands and conditions of your proposed business compatible with the life you want to create?

For example, illustrators often work on short deadlines - meaning that sometimes they have to work far into the night to complete a project on deadline. Plus, some clients are demanding and not all pay on a timely basis. After all of that, can you still "love it" enough?

Or, maybe your business is such that sales fluctuate during the year. How will you make it through the lean months? Can you handle the uncertainty?

So, how do you find information?

First, if other people provide services similar to yours, talk to them. You can gain a lot of information quickly. Their answers to your questions will save you a lot of legwork and open your eyes to factors you may not have considered.

You can find them through trade associations, schools, word-of-mouth. If the locals are reluctant to share information - perhaps because they see you as direct competition, consider finding similar people in a different locale.

Second, create the information you need.

Mimic and simplify what the 'big boys' do. Reduce their methods down to a level that is practical and affordable.

For example, perhaps you want to survey potential clients and customers to get feedback.

It will probably be neither affordable nor practical to commission a focus group. But you may be able to speak to potential targets informally or use direct mail to send a simple survey.

Eventually you'll have to 'put your toe in the water.' Try it out in a small way - so you won't lose much if it doesn't work - and observe the results. Then experiment and modify as needed. Once it works to your liking you can plunge right in.

This approach, known by the technical term "trial and error" can be applied to any facet of your business.

After all, even the largest producers test market new products before rolling them out.

Put some parameters around your efforts. Decide, in advance, how much time you want to allow and how much you want to budget.

Then test, test, test.

Use trial and error for every aspect of your business. Experiment with different ways of packaging your services, different rates and prices, different types of marketing, etc.

You'll soon find that certain approaches work better than others. Eventually your data will suggest your strategies.

And then you'll be ready to create your business plan.

Ellen Zucker's website http://www.selfemployment101.com is designed to help the creative sole-proprietor earn a living and have a life.

Have Ellen's articles delivered to your in-box. Subscribe to her ezine The Self-Employment Lady.