Tag Archives: Ebooks

Email Marketing A To Z PLR Ebook

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Introduction

You finally realize that you need a good opt-in list. After reading countless articles and sought expert advices and have read many success stories of people creating a small fortune with opt-in lists you finally decide to have one of your own. Then it happens, you think you have known everything there is to know about opt-in lists and have followed their advices to the T and you still weren’t able to make a profit.

In fact, you may be losing money. You maybe hiring writers to help you out, or there are some expenses incurred, even if you have a big list, but only a very small percentage actually buys from you, your still losing profit. You’ll realize that after a few months when you see your statistics and sales figures.

So what could have gone wrong? Why have others succeeded where you have failed? The most common mistake is that you dived straight right in. You chose a topic where you think could be quite popular and would earn you money. This just not the case. Just because you wrote people from the list doesn’t mean they are going to buy instantly.

Here I will offer more advice, for those who have started an opt-in list and have failed, you can rejuvenate your failed venture. For those who are starting, here are three quickand easy ways to build a profitable opt-in list.

1)Get your customers to trust you and your products first. Just launching your opt-in list would not make you an expert and a believable seller. Put many articles first before you start an opt-in list. Writeabout the topic you know and have started and used for your site. Try to put forums first to gain knowledge about your customers about their wants and needs and target those wants and needs.

Join forums from other sites as well. Provide expert advices and recommendations. When you feel that people trust you already, you will be able to start your own opt-in list. You can build a base as well with other forum users. You can ask them to join your list. Friends are always good customers. Put up a link to your site so that they may be able to see what you're business is all about.

The certain truth is, the money will only come in when the consumers and subscribers believe and trust in you. They want a product or service that could be a good exchange for their money. People are not going to buy something out of your recommendation if they don’t know you.

2)Find a product or service that people want and need. Although it may not be your forte, if you provide a service and product that you have researched and learned about well, you can carry it on forward. Invest your time, effort and money that you could sell as well as the buyers or subscribers of your opt-in list can use.

While it is true that it is best to sell something that you have interest in, there arenot many people who have the same interest as you if you decide to sell something that is not entirely popular or profitable. Do your research well and you would see the profits come in. Also provide your subscribers with promotional material that they could actually use and spread around.

3)Make friends with other opt-in list users. This is basically beneficial especially if it is someone who has already launched a successful opt-in list. These are people that have the experience in this venture and experience is still the best teacher. While there are many articles available for you in the internet to use, there is nothing like getting a first hand account from someone you trust.

Experienced opt-in list users will be able to tell you what to do and what not to do because they have gone through it. While different situations occur for different people, the general concept can still be very helpful. There are many things to avoid and these people will be able to tell you which ones.

Building a profitable opt-in list don’t just happen overnight. There are many preparations and effort to do. Opt-in lists are built from scratch, as your list grows, you should also maintain the quality of your list. Keep it organized and manageable. Get or hire help if need be, just make sure that your subscribers are happy and satisfied and they will be willing to buy from you.

4 Crucial Things You Need To Do To Build your List

Online marketing may have developed a sudden surge these past few years, but many in the know how have felt its rise even from way then. As more internet based businesses are put up, the need to develop new marketing skills and knowledge based on this new medium have arisen. More and more marketing strategies are being discovered and developed to cope with the changing face of business the business world.

The demand for online marketing tips and strategies have drastically grown and a new form of business has been born, internet marketing strategies. While there are companies that are all too eager to help your site and business build a clientele for a fee, there also many ways that can spread the word about your sites subsistence in a more cost free way. One of this is Opt-in email marketing, also known as permission marketing.

Opt-in marketing requires the permission of a willing customer to subscribe to your marketing materials, materials that take form in newsletters, catalogs and promotional mailings via e-mail. The more opt-in marketing mail is sent, the more chances there is to bag sales and more sales. To do this, you must build a list of all those who wants to subscribe to your opt-in marketing list.

From your list, you will get your targeted customer, this is a good list since they already have shown interest in what you have to show and sell since they have willingly signed in for your list.

These are the people who have liked what they have seen in your site and have decided they want to see more and maybe even purchase what ever product or service your company and site has to offer.

Many people would think that building their lists would take hard work and a lot of time to build and collect names and addresses. This is not so, it takes a bit of patience and some strategies but in doing this list, you open your site and your business to a whole new world of target market. Take the effort to take your business to a new level, if traffic increase and good profits are what you want, an opt-in list will do wonders for your business venture.

There are many sources and articles in theinternet available for everyone to read and follow in building a list. Sometimes they may be confusing because there are so many and there different ways. Different groups of people would have different approaches in building an opt-in list, but no matterhow diverse many methods are, there are always some crucial things to do to build your list. Here are four of them.

1)Put up a good web form in your site that immediately follows the end of your content. While some may say this is too soon to subscribe for a website visitors application, try to remember that your homepage should provide a quick good impression. If somehow a website visitor finds something that he or she doesn’t like and turns them off, they may just forget about signing up.

A good web form for subscribing to an opt-in list is not hard to do. Just write a simple short statement about how they would like to see more and get updated about the site. Then there should be an area where they could put in their names and e-mail address. This web form will automatically save and send you the data’s inputted. As more people sign in, your list will be growing.

2)As mentioned in the first tip, make your homepage very, very impressive. You need to have well written articles and descriptions of your site. Depending on what your site is all about, you need to capture your website visitor’s fancy. Make your site useful and very easy to use. Do not expect everyone to be tech savvy. Invest in having good programming in your site, make your graphics beautifulbut don’t over do it.

Don’t waste your time making the homepage too overly large megabyte wise. Not all people have dedicated T1 connections, the faster your site gets loaded, the better. Go for a look that borders between simplicity and sophisticated knowledge.

Ezine Marketing A To Z PLR Ebook

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Introduction

On the Internet, it is very possible to make money without selling any product. One way of doing so is through starting your own eZine, also known as an electronic newsletter.

In a nutshell, you send out your eZine issues on a periodical basis to your subscribers. The good part is that you have a flexible choice in automating the process of sending out your eZine issues for you or manually sending them on a periodical basis.

As an eZine publisher, not only can you easily achieve the benefits a conventional newsletter publisher enjoys without having to chop down several trees in the process, you can easily and conveniently spread your marketing influence and expertise to your base of subscribers from the shoes of an ordinary individual.

In other words, you do not have to invest in expensive printing equipment, brick and mortar business, and hiring staff just to run your own newsletter publication, resulting in a lot of time, money and effort saved.

Basically, all you need to start your own eZine are an auto responder and broadcast feature to go with, enabling you to reach out to your massive subscribers whom you can regard as your prospects, too.

All in all, if you do not have the commitments of creating your own product for sale, then publishing your own online newsletter can be one of the wisest decisions you will ever make, given the benefits of impressive marketing power and influence it can offer to you.

Making Money from Selling Advertising Space

If you would observe the company that delivers the daily paper to your doorstep for a business case study, you will come to learn that the newspaper publisher hires reporters, writers and other important staff to create the contents and deliver the papers to their readers.

In addition to the above mention, the publisher has to invest regularly in heavy duty machinery and tons of papers in printing tons of newspapers on a daily basis.
And in order to ensure that the newspapers are delivered on time, the publisher appoints agents at every part of the covered territory.

So, how does the newspaper company make money? It is obvious that selling a copy of the papers at less than a dollar would not even be able to even fund the operations.

The answer? Selling advertising spaces! You have definitely seen lots of advertisements in the newspaper. The publisher simply sells advertising space in the papers to advertisers who want to leverage their advertising efforts on the paper’s high readership.

On the same analogy, you can make money the exact way from your newsletter: simply by selling advertising space to prospective advertisers!

If your mailing list size exceeds 1,000 (5,000 is recommended) subscribers and beyond, you can start selling advertising space for say, $10.00 per sponsor ad.
In this manner, you turn every issue you send out to your subscribers into a profit-pulling device. And since there is virtually no end to the stream of advertisers as products, services and businesses are cropping every single day in every industry imaginable, so are your money making opportunities.

Mailing List for Affiliate Marketers

If you are an affiliate marketer who wants to make a comfortable living from referring your prospects to other people’s product or service for decent commissions, then you must consider building your own mailing list.

Building your mailing list of hungry prospects can be one of the best investments you will ever make, as it is time and effort worth spending on. When you strike on a Joint Venture and have a new product or service to endorse, you can look no further than your own mailing list.

Granted, that most affiliates, as in more than 90 percent of them, are not making money from affiliate programs, but this often results from the same amount of effort focused on least effective methods.

While having your own mailing list is, by a long mile, not the only effective affiliate marketing method, you can make affiliate sales very quickly even in the next few hours after sending a sales message, provided that your mailing list is huge and responsive.

This is often true, because owning your own mailing list for you to endorse products and services to is one of the fastest-producing results, beating other affiliate marketing methods imaginable.

In a nutshell, the affiliate marketer who gets ahead of the pack is the one who owns a huge and responsive mailing list of prospects.

Which is More Important – Product or Mailing List?

If you would ask this question, “Which one is more important – the mailing list or the product?” any savvy marketer would answer you, “The mailing list”.

Principally, any wise business person puts the importance of hungry demand (and not just any demand) in front of the product. In other words, there is no product if there is no demand! And a mailing list represents the demand or your business if you would like to call it.

If you frequent the Joint Venture forums and membership sites of any kind, you will find that product and service owners need mailing list owners more than the other way round.

This is because the mailing list owners have the prospects that the other type of partner is looking for to sell to.

And if you are a mailing list owner, you do not have to necessarily make money from selling your own product. You can sell advertising space or craft a Joint Venture with product owners in return of commissions, recurring or not.

Most of the biggest success web businesses on the Internet today often establish the mailing list (or subscribers) first before the product. One fine example is Friendster.com which NOW is no more...

Friendster.com, in the nutshell, was a website that connects friends and potential friends from around the world through a free membership access.

While Friendster.com did not make money from the number of members who joined the site, the business made money from selling advertising space and partnering with other big time merchants and businesses, owing to the established number of members Friendster.com had recruited.

This business is perfect example that demonstrates why every business should establish a need or demand before the product itself, and why you should do the same, whether you run a friends site or not.

Publishing Your eZine – the Pros

There are several advantages publishing your own eZine can offer to you. Thus if the pros appeal to you, then publishing your own paperless newsletter can be ideal for you.

The most obvious reason publishing an eZine can be the most ideal business to you is that it is so easy to start that any individual can do. There is no need to invest in starting a brick and mortar business or even staff and heavy machines for that matter.

In fact, you can do this from the comfort of your home as the most important thing you will need is an auto responder equipped with broadcast feature. Auto responders such as GetResponse.com and aWeber.com are highly recommended when it comes to publishing your own eZine.

In spite of the low start up cost and monthly fees, you can make money from several profit centers within the spaces of your eZine issues. You can make money from selling advertising space, just to name one.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome PLR Ebook

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Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

If you or someone you know suffers from chronic fatigue that never seems to go away and is interfering with the quality of their life, it’s probably CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome). Aptly named, CFS is a chronic condition that is characterized by fatigue or exhaustion.

Often there is no known cause. This can be very frustrating for the sufferer and those who live with someone who is suffering in this way. It’s so much worse than just being tired and unfortunately, people who don’t have it often don’t understand it.

Many people with CFS feel judged, misunderstood and not heard. Worse, some people who experience short-term exhaustion will self-diagnose and say that the latest diet or treatment fixed them, which can complicate issues even more for the sufferer who has undoubtedly tried everything under the sun to get better but can’t. Maybe the next thing will help. Keep trying.

But, like most things that are scary, understanding the issue can often help one deal with it in a new way. You may not find a cure, but you can learn how to deal with it, and stand up for yourself or your loved one who has it.

What Is CFS?

Chronic fatigue syndrome is a very debilitating disease of unknown origin. It’s characterized by persistent exhaustion, reduction of productivity, loss of quality of life, along with depression.

Rather than simply being a symptom of another disease (which it can be), it’s a debilitating issue all on its own that sometimes cannot be properly diagnosed or treated due to the abundance of symptoms that sometimes come and go. But the thing that makes it chronic is the fact that it always comes back.

The people who get CFS are varied, making diagnosis especially difficult. Over one million Americans have it, and many more around the world. In fact, it’s even got a new name since so many people have it. The new name is myalgic encephalomyelitis and it is now often called ME for short.

In this report, we’re going to call it CFS since that’s still what it's most commonly called. However, ME is probably more accurate.

What we do know about CFS is:

* People who get it are often in their 40s and 50s - but anyone can get it.
* Women develop it four times as often as others.
* It's often not serious but for about a quarter it is severe.

If the condition is mild, most people manage it on their own and never even seek professional care about it because they think it’s normal.

People with moderate symptoms tend to seek help because they cannot move around for long periods of time and have no choice but to nap in the afternoons. This is when it starts interfering with jobs or worse, causing additional issues as people seek relief using stimulating drugs.

When symptoms get severe, it’s beginning to affect the quality of life in a bad way - as badly as anyone with issues people deem more serious like lupus, heart disease, multiple sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis.

Triggers of CFS

Right now, we do not know what causes CFS. However, there does seem to be a family genetic history to it in some cases. We don’t know yet if this is just that the family is more susceptible, or that something in the genetic makeup is causing it.

There is also some research to suggest that some people who have CFS also have the Epstein-Barr virus (known to cause mononucleosis) or the Ross River virus (a debilitating virus which affects joints, making them painful and swollen).

In addition, a lot of CFS suffers are found to have Coxiella burnetii - a bacterial pathogen which causes fever, usually when someone is already infected with something else. But we still don’t know what comes first, CFS or another disease such as Lyme Disease which is also characterized by chronic fatigue. CFS goes together with other illnesses too, from MS to fibromyalgia to hypothyroidism and many others.

If you or someone you know gets sick and then seems to take an extra long time to recover or is not recovering, suspect CFS to be an issue. If you know what it could be, you can alert the doctor who can ask the right questions so that you can get the right diagnosis.

Symptoms of CFS

There are many symptoms of CFS, so let’s talk about as many of them as we can. It’s important to note that the main symptom is fatigue or exhaustion for six months or more that doesn’t seem to be getting better, but that isn’t all. Many of the other symptoms can be just as debilitating and made worse piled on top of chronic fatigue.

Fatigue

The main characteristic of CFS is the debilitating fatigue. As mentioned, if the fatigue is lasting six months or more, it’s considered a big indicator that the patient has CFS. Fatigue itself is characterized by a whole host of symptoms too, such as chronic sleepiness, headache, vertigo, aching muscles, muscle weakness, imparted reflexes, judgment issues, moodiness and more.

Mass Persuasion Secrets MRR Ebook

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Introduction

People who are experts at persuasion tend to be seen as sleazy. However, every day, someone uses tactics of persuasion at one point or another. Persuasion can be used as a way to get a raise, land a promotion, or gain extra vacation time. It is used in regular conversations, like when you have to persuade your kids to eat their broccoli before they get dessert.

Persuasion, for some, comes naturally, and for others, it is a skill that they need to develop so they can further their career. For example, entrepreneurs who need to engage in persuasion to succeed in their business have to be able to persuade on demand.

The most successful entrepreneurs should be seen as Master Persuaders. The key for any business owner to being able to gain customers and sell products or services is the power of persuasion.

The success of your business is ultimately determined by the number of customers you can persuade to buy from you. By improving your ability to convince people to buy from you, you increase your odds of beating out the competition.

To have a successful business, you need to be able to sell your products, ideas, and yourself. You have to persuade customers to say yes to your products, services, and your price point.

Before you can sell your products, you have to compromise with your potential customers on your offer. If you want to give a compelling proposition, you have to prevent people from being able to tell you no. Knowing the ins and outs of persuasion can help you accomplish this task.

To get people to say yes, you first need to know what makes them say no. Accomplishing this isn't rocket science; however, it is neuroscience. Fortunately, you don't need to break out a textbook to understand and learn the information.

It helps if you think of the human brain as though it is operating as an electrical circuit. For you to get people to buy into your business, you have to spark the brain's circuitry into action. A majority of a buyer’s decision to purchase is initiated by this spark, which in turn, creates a desire for a thing.

To get potential buyers to desire what you’re selling, you have to use the power of persuasion.

Activating the power of persuasion will work in every kind of business, whether online or offline, as well as helping you with your regular daily interactions. Utilizing ethical persuasion techniques allows potential customers to feel happy after buying a product or service rather than experiencing buyer's remorse. When customers experience buyer's remorse, not only do you lose money, but you could also suffer a loss of loyal fans and receive bad reviews.
Start learning everything you need to take your sales to the next level and learn how to get customers to know, like, and trust you.

Chapter 1 – Six Powerful Sales Triggers for Persuading Customers to Buy

When it comes to persuading people to buy what you’re selling, there are six powerful sales triggers that you can use in your efforts. Each of the following powerful sales triggers were developed based on extensive study of psychology and human behavior.

Reciprocity

The first powerful sales trigger that you’ll need to gain an understanding of is reciprocity. In business, reciprocity is the idea that if you provide consumers with something that they will feel obligated to give you something in return. This is why you may feel uncomfortable if you owe someone something.

This is also why most businesses will start the sales process off by offering you something to drink. In the right situations, this can be an extremely powerful tool. However, it is essential that you understand that it won't work on those who have an entitlement mentality.

Those who harbor an entitlement mentality naturally expect others to defer to their desires, making any hope of reciprocity a long shot.

Unfortunately, when it comes to your potential customers, you won't be able to tell which ones might have an entitlement mindset. This means that you will need to come up with something that costs you less than its perceived value because you will need to give it out to everyone from the start.

By doing this, you will, at the very least, develop a reputation of generosity in your chosen niche, which can often end up being far more valuable in the long run.

To understand the concept of reciprocity and why it can be so powerful for persuading customers to buy from you, consider the scenario where you and a friend go out to catch up and enjoy a nice dinner. When the bill arrives, you insist on paying, despite your friend’s protests over the cost. Soon after, your friend calls you up and invites you out to a similarly expensive meal, their treat.

If they don’t call and invite you out, odds are they may start to feel psychologically uneasy. This unease would continue to grow until they feel the need to return the favor. Often, this need to return a favor is nearly as strong in people who have just met as it is with those they've known for years, making the idea of reciprocity a potent sales tool.

30 Day Content Marketing Plan MRR Ebook

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Introduction

You’ve probably encountered the words ‘content marketing’ many times. It’s a popular phrase especially now when there are literally billions of websites on the Internet, all competing for people’s attention!

Standing out from the crowd is harder and more complicated than ever. You can either spend tons of money to get your brand and your products in front of your target audience, or you can create a solid content marketing strategy that you can do absolutely free or for minimal cost!

Of course, the trade-off to not spending money upfront is you’re going to be investing a lot of time instead. If you’re willing to put in the time and spending hours in front of your computer, then this guide is for you!

Why Content Marketing?

Before I give you the 30-day step-by-step content marketing plan, here are the major benefits to implementing a solid content strategy for your business:

You’ll establish a strong brand identity

Brand identity is important for businesses of all sizes. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, if you’re a solopreneur or you work for a multinational corporation. How people perceive your brand is essential to your success.

With content marketing, you can inject your personality into your content and make it unique to your brand. When you establish in people’s minds who you are and what your brand can do for them, it’s easier to persuade them to follow your calls to action.

You’ll build trust with your audience

Let’s face it. Trusting random brands on the Internet is hard. How often do you trust brands? Unless they establish themselves as some sort of authority, chances are you’re not going to be trusting any brand. That’s where content marketing shines.

When you implement your content strategy correctly, people will start to see you as an authority. Sooner or later, you’ll be getting people to trust you.

It’s great for your site’s SEO

Content is the cornerstone of a successful content marketing strategy. People are always on the lookout for excellent content. If they like your content, they’re going to be linking to it, which tells search engines your content is great!

Content is also the ‘bread and butter’ of search engines, meaning, it’s what they serve to their users. The more valuable and helpful your content is, the more search engines are going to love your content and reward you with high rankings on their search results pages.

Develop relationships with your audience

You don’t want to create massive amounts of content just to have people view it one time, and then bounce off your site forever. What you want to happen instead is you want people to keep on coming back to your site.

The best way to do this is by capturing your visitors’ email addresses via an opt-in form on your site. If you build a mailing list full of interested people, then you can direct them to visit your site every time you publish some new content!

It will generate highly qualified leads

There are many ways you can generate leads, but content marketing offers one of the best ROIs (return on investment). This is because the people who’ll often find you on search engines are those who’re actually interested in what you have to say.

People who find you on search engines are the ones you want to reach out to. They could benefit the most from your products or your services. The more specific and helpful your content is, the more qualified your leads are.

A good content marketing strategy will help you organize your content and make sure everything works together. It’s so easy to get lost in the grand scheme of things. But with a good content plan in place, you can steer your brand towards achieving your ultimate goal, whatever it may be.

This 30-day content marketing plan will help you jumpstart your content marketing activities. Now, it’s important to note that not all businesses are created equal, so do feel free to adjust your daily tasks as you see fit.

The next 4 weeks will be extremely busy for you.

While you can always choose to outsource the work to a freelancer or have people on your team help you out, it’s still a good idea to familiarize yourself with the ins and outs of content marketing.

With that said, let’s begin our 30-day content marketing strategy!

The Muse Case Study Personal Use Ebook

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TAKING A LOOK AT THE MUSE

Overview

The company was founded in 2011 by Kathryn Minshew, Melissa McCreery, and Alexandra Cavoulacos.

The company is privately-owned and is not required to release financial information. There is an entry on Owler.com stating that the company earned $3 million in revenues, but no confirmation seems to exist on this figure.

According to the article for the company on Wikipedia, Tyra Banks is said to be one of the investors in the company. [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muse_(website)]

How the Company Started

The founders were running a blog called The Daily Muse, which provided advice and a forum for job seekers. One of the founders, Melissa McCreary, learned programming to create the job board. She employed the help of professional coders, but wanted to have control over the process, and make it the way the founders had envisioned. The Daily Muse is now part of TheMuse.com. If you type in TheDailyMuse.com, it will forward to the new TheMuse.com. The Muse was created to be much more than a job listing website. It is better to think of the site as a career advice channel. It handles many aspects of a career including interviews, networking, and other services. Minshew wanted to create a website that was a fun place for job seekers to explore.

The company is well-funded. It received seed capital and had access to several rounds of funding. According to Crunchbase.com, the company received $28.7 million in funding across four funding rounds and several investors.

Initial Problems

In an interview with Under 30 CEO, Minshew said she struggled initially, trying to find people to fund her concept. She found a few investors who would give funding but would bail after other funders participated.

[Source: https://under30ceo.com/young-entrepreneur-interviewkathryn- minshew-muse/]

When the company decided to introduce the concept of coaching, many felt it would be a disastrous addition to the services offered by the company. However, after the pilot program and with the help of feedback from the participants, the company determined the program would be a beneficial service which added to revenues. It was a gamble that paid off.

Why it Works

The company offers services in an a-la-carte style of fees. A career seeker can sign up and request the services of a mentor, a coach, and a master coach. The amount the company charges is based on the level of coaching job seekers wish to obtain. Also, it appears that coaches can set their prices.

Job seekers can take courses on the platform, although there aren’t many as of the time of this writing. In fact, there is only one course that is offered that is native to the platform. The others are housed on Skillshare.com and Udemy.com. Still, they are decent offerings for people looking to improve their skills. It’s likely the company will add more as time goes by.

The company started by catering to young professional women. However, they got a flood of requests from people of all ages and career levels. They have since expanded their service to include anyone wishing to get a better job-searching experience.

Job seekers can find useful articles on how to navigate their careers or tips on job-related activities. These are written by in-house staff as well as contributors. Several of the contributors are coaches, which makes sense for them to write about tips for job seekers. According to an article featured in PCMag.com, when asked what an unusual way that people are using the site is, Minshew said that managers of companies were encouraging employees to use the site for career development. [Source: https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2499715,00.asp]

When people are looking for jobs or careers, they should have access to information that helps them learn more about the companies they are considering. That is something TheMuse.com tries to provide. The company also has many articles from internal staff and contributing editors that help the job seekers navigate the job search landscape.

Promotion:

Cofounders Cavoulacos and Minshew cowrote a book together published on Amazon, “The New Rules of Work: The Modern Playbook for Navigating Your Career.” The book may not be directly used to promote the business. However, it does contain the website on the cover of the book. That will lead readers to be curious about the website and likely visit it. The book has several reviews with high ratings. The majority of ratings are 5-star, and there aren’t any 1-star ratings at the time of this writing. The book was released April of 2017. You can find more information about the book on the company’s website: https://www.themuse.com/thenewrulesofwork The company has a refer-a-friend link. However, there aren’t any monetary incentives associated with it. For instance, many companies offer a referral commission. The company does not provide an affiliate program at the current time, or it does not publish it directly on the website if there is one.

Stitch Fix Case Study Personal Use Ebook

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TAKING A LOOK AT STITCH FIX

Overview

The company was started in 2011 by Katrina Lake and Erin Morrison Flynn.

According to an article in Forbes, the company earned $1 billion in revenue for 2017 and had 2.2 million active subscribers.

The company is publicly-traded and is required to release financial statements. For the first quarter 2018, the company stated it earned $295.9 million, which represents a 25% increase for the quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. If the company keeps up this revenue surge, it can expect to surpass the $1 billion revenue for 2017.

The company started out being run from Katrina Lake’s apartment while still attending Harvard University. The concept of the company is believed to be a business school project, and it took off from there.

How the Company Started

Katrina Lake started the company out of her living room while still attending Harvard University. She has always believed that people should have access to one-on-one styling and wanted to bring that concept to market.

According to CrunchBase.com, the company raised approximately $42 million between 2011 and 2014. The initial startup capital was used to fund inventory. After releasing the concept to the public, it was a success, and the company could operate on the proceeds. The company went public in 2017 and had shown to be a successful IPO.

Initial Problems

Amazon and other competitors are catching onto the concept that Stitch Fix uses for its business model. The company will face increased pressures going forward. This could put pressure on subscription fees and prices. Amazon is likely to put the biggest pressure on the company.

Why it Works

The company uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to improve the customer experience. For instance, the business model of the company is to send sets of clothing each month as part of a subscription. The company acts as the subscriber’s personal stylist. The AI uses the subscriber’s patterns of buying to adjust the algorithm and make a better match for future selections.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/05/25/stitchfix- the-amazing-use-case-of-using-artificial-intelligence-infashion- retail/#5fd664753292 The computing power of AI and ML are also used to analyze trends in the industry. It can use the analysis to shift its product focus to subscribers, or at least offer more choices.

As the company states on its website, it takes a personal approach and couples that with technology. The company mentions that they do more than simply curate collections of clothes. They match likes and preferences and make changes when the customer does.

The company started out catering to women only. However, it has expanded to include a service for men and plus-sized people. Recently, the company has introduced a high-end line for people who want to take their style to a new level.

Promotion:

Subscription models are a fantastic way to generate income from the subscribers for several months and even years. It does require keeping the subscribers happy, though. That can be a challenge as other online retailers, and eCommerce sites will try to steal customers. However, with subscriptions, people tend to hang onto them longer than they anticipated and sometimes don’t get around to canceling until the next period (or even the one after that.) The company has introduced the service to men. This could help boost sales as men are becoming more focused on their styles and want some attention given to help them.

Customers are asked to fill out surveys about their likes and preferences when they sign up for the service. If they specify their social media profiles, the company will use that to view the customers’ posts. If they are related to style, the company tries to incorporate that into the monthly product sends.

Like many fashion companies, Stitch Fix offers an influencer program. This is similar to an affiliate program in that the company will pay influencers cash for customers who sign up through the influencers’ websites. However, influencer programs tend to be more intimate and give the influencers access to exclusive features such as a private Facebook group, etc.

Stitch Fix offers gift cards that customers can redeem and buy directly on the company’s website. These perform better during the holiday season.

Black Hat Seo Personal Use Ebook

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Introduction

If you have a website from which you are trying to make money, you must have visitors to that site in order to do so.

It is a little like having a store in the local high street or shopping mall. If no-one ever finds your store and wanders inside, then it does not matter
how classy your products are, or how competitive your prices, you will never make any sales until you start pulling in potential customers.

The same rules apply in the world of online business. No visitors to your site is exactly the same as no potential customers walking into your real-world store and no sales.

Therefore, you need to adopt tactics and methods that will make sure that your site enjoys hundreds or perhaps even thousands of visitors a day.

There are lots of different ways of doing this, and once your business becomes better established, you should use every traffic generation tactic that you know of to maximize the number of visitors that you enjoy.

However, some of the quickest and most effective ways of getting people to visit your sales page are the ones that cost money as well, and that may be money that you don’t have available right now.

For example, using the AdWords Pay-Per-Click online advertising program from Google will have visitors landing on your page within a matter of hours, so it is extremely effective in these terms. However, unless you know exactly what you are doing when you create your AdWords campaign, it can be a very expensive way of attracting visitors, and the number of new internet marketers who have been severely ‘burned’ by their first few AdWords campaigns are legion.

There is another factor that you need to consider as well. Online advertising program like AdWords are still extremely effective, but they are becoming less so as people become more aware that when they see ‘Sponsored Links’ on a page, it means that they are looking at paid advertising.

People in general and internet users in particular seem to have an increasing aversion to visiting sites that use paid advertising to promote their products and services, perhaps because they believe that sites that pay to advertise will always be those that are trying to sell them something.

Despite what those of us who run internet-based businesses might like to believe, most people do not surf the internet with the intention of buying anything. They do so to seek information and answers to the questions that they have, and as a general rule they are trying to find that information for free. Considered in the light of this factor, it makes sense that people would avoid clicking on adverts wherever possible.

At the same time, however, the way that these information seekers look for the information that they want is pretty much cast in stone as well. They will open up their favorite search engine, type in the word or phrase that they want to search for and hit the ‘Enter’ key.

This will bring up a page of search engine results that shows them the top ten most popular sites that are related to that phrase on the left-hand side of the page, together with a handful of adverts on the right-hand side.

Extensive recent research has shown that searchers almost always click on the top results on the left-hand side of the page, and then work their way through those top ten results to find what they are looking for.

If they cannot find the information that they are seeking by doing this, then they might click on an advert, or they could move to the second page of the results and look at the natural (organic) search results that are featured in positions 11-20 for the term that they searched.

If you can get your site pages into the top ten or twenty of the natural search engine results, the chances of your being able to pull visitors are very good. Of course, that is everyone else’s objective as well, so the competition for those coveted top ten spots can be extremely fierce.

Despite that competition, you must do everything that you can to get your page featured, and one of the ways that you do this is through the application of what are known as search engine optimization (or SEO) tactics to the creation of your pages. Some such SEO tactics are known as ‘white hat’ tactics, while others are sometimes called ‘gray hat’ and then there are ‘black hat’ SEO tactics. It is with the latter in particular that this book is concerned, so the first thing to look at is, what exactly are black hat SEO tactics?

Just like the movies…

As in the ‘Western’ cowboy movies of old, the concept of black and white hat tactics is supposed to differentiate between the good guys and the bad.
However, it is important to understand who it is that defines those who are the good guys wearing the white hats and the baddies who wear the black.

The first and perhaps most important point to make about those who use black hat tactics is that they are not doing anything that is illegal (at least, the majority of them are not) and in most cases, the tactics they adopt to make sure that their website features well in the search engine results are not even unethical.

However, the search engines have rules about what they deem to be acceptable promotional and marketing practices, and they deem anything that falls outside those rules to be black hat. In other words, those who are using black hat tactics are not necessarily doing anything wrong, it is just that they are breaking or bending the rules that are imposed on the way that they use the internet by Google or Yahoo!.

It is therefore reasonable to ask a few questions here.

First, why do the mega-rich corporations like Google or Yahoo! believe that they have any right to impose rules on other internet users? They do not own the internet, although behavior such as imposing rules might suggest that they believe otherwise.

Secondly, who are these rules that are fairly arbitrarily created by the search engine overlords designed to benefit?

Of course, the search engine people will proclaim that they impose these rules to protect their users, and to ensure that they enjoy a high-quality experience whenever they use that particular search engine.

There is some truth in this, because the quality of the results that the search engines return has definitely been improving over the past couple of years.
That being said, however, there is no doubt that the major beneficiaries of this imposition of rules and regulations have been the owners and shareholders of sites like Google and Yahoo!

For this reason, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with applying black hat tactics to the site optimization process, although it is, of course, up to each individual site owner to decide what is acceptable to them and what is not.

As intimated earlier, there are some serious black hat experts whose practices and behavior do border on the illegal, but this book is not concerned with those sorts of tactics, simply because they are way too dangerous for any black hat beginner to get involved in.

Squarespace Case Study Personal Use Ebook

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Anthony Casalena started the company in 2003.

The company is private and is not required to publish information about its financial position. According to a 2016 Entrepreneur article about the company, it stated the company made $100 million in 2015. [Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/274486]

If you consider that the company has at least one million customers, and all those customers subscribed at the base rate of $12, the company is easily earning $12 million per month, which equates to $144 million per year. It’s likely many customers are using the higher-priced tiers, so this $144 million is a conservative estimate by all measures.

How the Company Started

Casalena started the company as part of a college incubator program. He wanted to create hosting and a web development tool that he could use to create websites. As part of the incubator program, he signed on several beta testers and gave them access to the system for a discounted price.

His reason for choosing this type of business was the lack of tools available to blog back in 2003. He felt the tools that did exist weren’t easy to use and you had to use different websites for different aspects of the job. He wanted a complete set of tools that he could use for his development use.

Casalena’s father lent $30,000 to get started with the project. Because it was part of the incubator program, the college allowed him to build the business using school resources, as that is the point of an incubator program. By the time Casalena graduated, the company was making millions of dollars and attracted the interest of several venture capital firms.

Initial Problems

The company received negative press by allowing hate groups to use the Squarespace service. It has since removed those groups and created a policy to disallow any groups of this nature.

WordPress started the same year Squarespace did. At the time, the market for bloggers was still in its infancy. The tools were hashing out the best ways for average bloggers without tech skills to create and maintain a blog. WordPress eventually became quite popular to the point of being the de facto standard among software of it’s kind. However, Squarespace and WordPress are not quite the same. The WordPress standalone software gives its users free reign on how they want to set up their websites. Of course, that requires more knowledge than drag-and-drop. Developers started developing themes and plugins which helped the platform accelerate into the stratosphere. This is something that is still prevalent today.

Squarespace does not offer a free plan, and it doesn’t seem like that is ever going to be an option. The company’s major two competitors, Wix and Weebly, both offer a free tier on their subscription plans. This is likely to attract more users initially. It should be noted, however, that Squarespace’s features are more robust than both its major competitors.

Why it Works

The beta program Casalena set up while at school was quite successful. By the time he graduated in 2017, venture capitalists were interested in advancing the company. He obtained capital easily.

The concept of Squarespace breaks away from having to code modules for websites. It uses a drag-and-drop component mechanism. This makes it easy for others who are not technically savvy to create websites. While other tools now exist, he was an early adopter of the concept. As such, he has been able to transform the company into what it is using several years of experience.

Squarespace saves people time. That is the appeal of the service. When you compare to other services like WordPress where you have to look for themes and plugins and hope they work, Squarespace gives you out-of-the-box functionality. While it’s true that is less customizable than the WordPress route, few nontechnical people will be upset with this. With Squarespace, bloggers can concentrate on blogging and eCommerce owners can concentrate on selling.

The monthly price is reasonable, which will keep people interested in subscribing. At the time of this writing, users could subscribe for $12/month for a personal account. Businesses could subscribe for $18/month. The eCommerce options cost more, and there are transaction costs for the payment processor. But, that is standard in the field, i.e., the payment processors would charge the same irrespective of the selling platform.

Promotion:

During his college days, Casalena was responsible for marketing his service. He used the free offers from Google Adwords ($100 credits) and was able to build up a customer base. The business model is subscription-based which means recurring income. A subscription in a service such as Squarespace usually has low switching costs due to the amount of time and resources invested by the users. It was not easy for non-technical people to transfer websites. It was easier to continue using something that works and did what they needed.

It’s likely that the company received positive attention when they received venture capital. When that information hits the wires, it gives the company credibility. Bloggers and developers were likely thinking that if venture capitalists were willing to give the company money, it is a worthy service for them to use.

Waze Case Study Personal Use Ebook

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Waze was founded by Israeli computer programmer Ehud Shabtai and Noam Bardin (CEO) in 2006.

The company was bought out in 2013 by Google. Google is a public company, but revenues of a parent company are usually consolidated into the parent. As such, there isn’t a published breakout of the revenues for Waze. According to a report from Harvard Business School, Waze has 100 million users. This suggests the company is highly profitable. Google (parent company of Waze) does not break out its advertising dollars per user.

[Source: https://digit.hbs.org/submission/show-me-the-waze-to-go-home/]

The company started out as FreeMap Israel and used the concept of crowdsourcing to populate the data needed by the network.

The company calls its users Wazers.

How the Company Started

Ehud Shabtai wanted a map of Israel to be displayed in Hebrew. He needed the data from users of the app and made the app, and usage of the app, free. He considered it a community-based traffic app.

When the company was called FreeMap, it caught the attention of venture capital firms. Waze has secured three funding rounds, for a total of $67 million. When Google acquired the company, it did so at an amount just shy of $1 billion.

Initial Problems

Concern has been ongoing about drivers updating their information while actively driving. While the app is useful to drivers, it is believed to contribute to more accidents, or at least, the possibility of them happening due to app usage. In 2017, the company addressed this by allowing users to record voice navigation prompts. It’s unclear what impact this will have on the problem.

[Source: https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/did-google-just-buy-a-dangerous-driving-app.html]

In 2014, an article by CDNet.com wrote about a lawsuit against Shabtai. It specifies that Shabtai profited from community-based software which does not allow for the community to benefit financially. This is much like the open-source concept in the development community. However, Shabtai did add value to the data. The outcome of this lawsuit is unclear.

The app has a feature for locating where the police are. There is growing criticism that this could hinder the ability of the police to get their jobs done. It could allow criminals access to this data that would not be available without the service. Google’s position is that knowing where the police are located promotes safe driving. There is no indication of any further developments on this issue.

Several years ago, the major mobile data providers (Verizon, AT&T) switched to limited service plans. For apps that rely on data to be free flowing with unlimited plans, this could limit use by customers. The industry has since reintroduced unlimited plans, albeit at a higher cost.

Some towns are complaining that GPS-based programs are turning tiny streets into traffic nightmares. The apps often redirect traffic
to these tiny streets, and when people follow the advice, it creates a traffic surge for these streets.

[Source: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Waze-Google-Maps-San-Francisco-reroute-12898001.php]

Los Angeles is considering taking legal action against Waze for redirecting Wazers to residential streets. [Source: https://www.govtech.com/fs/LA-Considers-Legal-Action-to-Stop-Waze-from-Routing-Commuters-Through-Neighborhoods.html]

Why it Works

Users who want real-time traffic data can download the Waze app for free. They can also participate by submitting data in real-time about gas prices and traffic info.
Waze users can also find the lowest gas prices, again with the help of other users in the network. These other users submit gas prices when they observe them.
Waze has formed several partnerships with companies who want access to the network.

When people find the best routes where they aren’t stuck in traffic, in a small way, they are helping the environment. When you multiply that by the number of users who use the app to avoid traffic jams, that savings can be significant. The savings on money from not being stuck in traffic is an easy sell, too.
Waze has expanded its data by partnering with many governments. Both entities (Waze and Governments) benefit by provided each other with traffic data, road closures, updates, etc.

The company has been test-marketing a carpooling feature of its app. The aim of this initiative is to reduce the amount of traffic by getting people to hook up in real time. It’s an answer to the problem of differing schedules for regular carpoolers. The company hopes to use this initiative to eventually change the patterns of buying cars in the future. It feels that it should prompt people to not need cars as much. That is an aggressive goal and one that requires changing people’s perceptions about the need for having a car. However, this initiative could save people money on parking, which is huge and could be a selling point.

[Source: https://soundcloud.com/cbinsights/a-conversation-with-noam-bardin-founder-of-waze]

The overhead for the company is quite low. It uses crowdsourcing for data acquisition, which means little-to-no costs. The biggest costs are the network and app development and maintenance.