Holiday Tips

Although not everyone celebrates Christmas or even when the new year starts, this is the time of year when you'll be receiving a lot of mail, phone calls and emails asking you to spend or donate your money. And although I do support legitimate sale offers and charities, you need to be aware that not every solicitation for money is legit.

The fact is: this is not only the busiest time of the year for legitimate merchants and charities, it's also the one of the busiest and best times of the year for scam artiest.

Now I won't go into details about the newest scams since I can't keep up with them however you can see a list of some of more popular ones here and 1 of the latest ones here.

So rather than try to list the current on and off line scams, I am going to give you some tips on how to protect yourself, your credit cards and your money.

No matter where you live or what holidays you celebrate you need to know these things to...

Protect yourself from becoming a victim.

• Read the "21 tips to protect yourself from being a victim of credit card fraud" provided by ScamBusters.org.
  


• Read the "Security Tips and Fraud Prevention" provided by PapPal.com.
  


• Never, I repeat Never click a link in an email to access any of your online accounts that contain personal information. Always type in the web address yourself to access these accounts.
  


• Do not give out your credit card information to someone who has called you. While many legitimate charities do phone solicitations, you don't really know who is making the call or who may be listening. If you want to make a donation, ask them to send you a donation card or bill.
  


• When you make an online purchase, always make sure the payment site is a "secure" site.
  


• Impulse shopping is at it's highest during the holidays. Everyone and their brother is trying to sell something. And yes, some of them are really great deals and some are things you may really want to buy. However, you need to stay in control of yourself and your wallet and only buy those things you plan to use or give as gifts while staying within your means. No matter how good the deal or how much you really "want" to have it or "want" to give it away, if you can't afford it - don't buy it.
  


• Those convenient "Gift Cards" make nice gifts however:
  
  * Like credit cards, if someone has the card number and duplicates the card, they can use your gift before you've had the chance to give it.
  
  * The stores love you to purchase gift cards because they make money whether the card is used or not. And there was a lot of money made last Christmas with unused gift cards and there will be more made this year.

Please use the above information to protect yourself not only this holiday season but through the next and future years.

Please feel free to leave your comments about this tip and offer any additional suggestion you may have.

Wishing you a prosperous 2008!
Susan

Tags: scam, fraud, credit card, paypal

Affiliate Marketing For The Holidays

With the holidays coming you may find that your usual sales are going down so this week I'd like to give you the free report "Affiliate Marketing For The Holidays." Inside this report you'll find:

• How to think outside the "gift box" to find profitable markets where money is already being spent


• How to use your existing contact list for quick holiday cash


• How to turn your recommendations into pure profit

This is a free report offered by AffiliateCashSecrets and holds some good information.

So this week's tip is:

1. Get and read the free report - no sign up required.


2. Sign up for the AffiliateCashSecrets 7 day free trial and start using some of the free reports to generate some affiliate payments to your inbox.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Comments are always welcome.

Tags: affiliate marketing, affiliate cash secrets, holiday marketing report, free marketing report, holiday marketing free report

How ADD/ADHD Affects Your Business (Part 3)

All links in this article open a new browser window to display the page where the information was found.

Important Disclaimer- Please Read This : The following information is not intended to provide any type of professional advice nor diagnostic service. If you have any concerns about AD/HD or other health issues, please consult a qualified health care professional in your community.

Last week I listed 12 symptoms of ADD/ADHD and included Terry Matlen's, MSW, ACSW statement that, "All adults have some symptoms of ADHD."

Because your site visitors may have some of these symptoms today I'll discuss 5 of them and some of the methods used by online marketers to overcome them.

• Distractibility - When someone visits your web page they may have a lot on their mind or other things going on around them so you need to put things on your page to keep their attention. The use of color, graphics, surveys, lists, audio and video are some of the methods used by online marketers to keep the attention of those reading their page.
  


• Impulsivity - Most of your page viewers are not looking for something to buy or a place to sign up when they arrive at your web site and you need to use this symptom to your advantage. While you don't want to lie to them and you should only make true statements, you need to use the "Wow!" factor to have them do what you want. Making bold statements about what your offer can do for them, showing testimonials and offering samples or demos are 3 of the methods used by online marketers.
  


• Inattention - You've heard you need to grab your page visitor's attention in the first 5 seconds but in addition you must keep their attention. Possible ways to keep the attention of your visitor are graphics, sub-headlines for page sections and telling an interesting story or joke. Also, the content on your page needs to be like a personal conversation... not like a page from a school book. Instant or time-delayed audio and pop-ups, peel-away ads and ribbon ads are also used to grab the attention of your visitor.
  


• Difficulty staying on task - While you may not think this symptom can affect how your visitor reacts to your web page, it does. If you make it difficult for someone to perform the task you desire, most won't do it. Making your payment buttons easy to find, giving easy to understand directions and displaying reminders when a disjoint task like confirming an email request for double opt-in are ways to help your visitor do what you want and do it correctly.
  


• Irritability - When you work online you'll eventually be contacted by someone who gets irritable and down-right rude because they think you've done something wrong - even when you haven't. When this happens the best way to deal with this type of person to to keep the old business motto, "The customer is always right - even when they're wrong" in your mind. Be quick and polite with your response and stay calm. Don't show them that you can be just as irritable and rude. Instead, show them that they have misjudged you with your fast and courteous response.

To be a successful online marketer you need to understand that many who visit your web site display some of the symptoms of ADD/ADHD. And because of this you need to design your web pages, write your content and respond to complaints in a way that will overcome your visitors symptoms.

This ends our 3 part series where we discussed who has ADD/ADHD symptoms in part 1, how you as the site owner must learn to recognize when you have a symptom and know some techniques to overcome it in part 2 and some of the symptoms your site visitors may have and some methods online marketers use to overcome these symptoms in part 3.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. If you have any additional suggestions to help us overcome any of these behaviors please feel free to leave a comment.

Tags: internet marketing, web site design, web design, web page design