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Trade show booths can act as an excellent source for generating sales enquiries in the short run. Companies are able to demonstrate their products or services and get instant enquiries at the booth which on timely follow up can result in sales. Some of the tips on how to maximize the benefits of a trade show booth as a sales tool are mentioned below:

On-Spot promotion schemes: This is an age old trick which works well at trade shows. Firstly it makes the visitor stop at your booth for more than a few seconds. Secondly, a structured promotion method quickly puts the visitor through the benefits of the products (obviously in an attractive fashion) and then a decision making opportunity is thrown at the visitor introducing them to on the spot interesting offers. Offers can range from products sold on the spot at attractive pricing, free gifts with purchases, extended time period of services, lifetime warranty and the like. The more innovative the offer, more the likelihood of success.

Assuming that the product and the promotion offering are attractive for the users, the on-spot promos can recover all costs of the trade show plus earn the company a healthy profit. Quick checks with the organizers need to be done before the event to ensure that onsite sales are permitted.

Get your customers to speak to the visitors: Admitted that this might be a bit tough to execute, but if you have a large enough trade show booth, then it might be an excellent idea to schedule live interaction sessions where you have satisfied customers promoting the product. This can have fantastic results in terms of sales enquiries generated at the event.

A well known software company promoted the client's company during a well known industry trade show and developed content to display on how their software solution helped the customer's business. This 'gimmick' got the visitors to stop and take a look and interested visitors did take a seat and sit through the entire presentation. Needless to say, there is no better sales tool than satisfied customers.

Should getting customers to the event not possible, you should try using client references on your display material for maximum impact. You would of course need to get permission from the clients to be able to put their names on to the display materials.

Free coffee anyone? : Some sales personnel might feel that giving away complimentary food and drink at a trade show booth is a waste of good money. They may very well be right. However, if you have a good prospect in front of you, the chances of stopping him a couple of minutes longer are increased with the opportunity of offering him a cup of steaming coffee.

Another strange thing that happens at stands offering complimentary food or drink is that there is usually some people standing around the booth making it look busy. You will be surprised how people get attracted by seeing a busy trade show booth. It has something to with the human perspective of being attracted to crowds but does work to your advantage in a busy trade show.

Focused communication: Various steps taken towards focused communication at a trade show booth can enhance the chances of on spot sales and generation of genuine sales enquiries. Though this is mentioned in detail in another article, printed hand outs should be of good quality and carry all information about your product or service in a cohesive fashion.

The fact that trade shows are effective can only be further confirmed by noting the increase in the number of trade shows in the past few years.

About the author:
Patty Stripes is an editor for The Trade Show Booth, check out her latest articles about using a trade show exhibit booth, used trade show display and advantages of a compelling trade show booth design.

Finding the successful keywords is crucial in order to get not only a lot but the right quality of traffic to the website. Attractive Keywords are important for both: search engine optimization and CPC campaigns. It is a process of trial and errors and this work needs a lot of dedication. People use keywords in order to search what they need. A keyword can be a single word or a phrase. You need to expose your website with the right keywords in order to attract people.

Preparatory work

You need to find out what people are looking for on your website. What are the relevant terms to search for the information or offers on a certain website? If a website sells e-books, the people might not only type in the word e-book, they might look for a specific e-book and use specific phrases. It makes a difference, if a website offers e-books for business purposes or entertainment. The people could type in either marketing e-book, business e-book, affiliate marketing e-book or star wars e-book, Harry Potter e-book.

If there are famous brand names on your website, you may use them to attract people. An e-book website could be an affiliate of Amazon and thus use the brand as keyword.

Test the keywords!

You will create a list of keywords and you will need to test how popular and useful they are. You may use these keywords on your website, within the meta tags and in the description and keyword list of your submissions to directories and search engines. The internet offers some useful and free tools to test them. Testing keywords is recommendable.

Some useful, free tools for testing keywords

The Keyword Selector Tool of Overture lists a lot of suggestions with alternatives of single keywords and phrases of the tested keyword. It counts a search term that has been used during a month. Thus the popularity of keywords and phrases can be determined.

Google Adwords estimates the possible traffic in clicks per day of a keyword. It displays the possible average position if using Google Adwords. It calculates the daily costs according to a given budget. It finds alternatives to each tested keyword. Google shows the clickthroughrate CTR. This is the percentage of clicks that a website receives in relation to the impressions (the number of times a website is shown). The higher the clickthroughrate the stronger the keyword!

Goodkeywords is a free windows software for finding the perfect set of keywords for the webpages. The software can be downloaded. No registration is required.

It is possible to subscribe at Wordtracker.com. They submit regularily lists with the most popular keywords in the internet. This information can help to find out trendy keywords as well as keywords that show a sustainable popularity. Paris Hilton is a very popular keyword, but is it useful for a website that sells e-books about software applications?

Using, supervising and revising keywords

It’s not easy to find and choose the right keyword. The described tools are very useful. The reality has to show the results. It’s important to supervise and track the used keywords weekly and to revise them from time to time. Even a CPC campaign on a small budget can be sufficient to determine the trends and popularity of the used keywords.

About the author:
Lil Waldner is a business economist. She is experienced in project management and marketing. She has worked as editor of newspapers and she has written booklets and essays with economic and public issues. Visit her web site: http://affiliatechain.com

I had the privilege to interview a regular guy
(not a well-known 'Guru') who claims making more
than $200 a day with Google AdSense Program.

Here's an excerpt from the interview I did for my
upcoming eBook - 'AdSense Confessions' - read it and
try to apply what you learn iniside, it should make a
difference in your AdSense income and profits.

---
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
---

My name is John Tulus. I was born in October of 1966
in C?rdoba, Argentina, South America.


---
How did you get started to make money on the Internet?
---

I started with small projects like web sites for friends.

After some time of developing web sites for others, I knew
it was time to start to work on the ideas for developing my
own site, my own online company. I put all my ideas
together, combined them with the experience I had achieved
developing web sites for others, and put in motion the
creation of my site. Once the site was up and running, all
I had to do was start generating traffic and wait for the
money to roll in. I remember the first cheque I received...
what a rush!! $29. That motivated me to keep on with the
project of the life that I desired.


---
Do you prefer AdSense over Affiliate Programs promotion?
---

Yes, I prefer Google Adsense over any other affiliate
program because it has Google guarantee. Thousands of
websites are now applying Adsense to their sites. Not only
do you have the Google guarantee, but visitors to your web
site may also see it as having the Google 'seal of
confidence'. In a certain way, having Adsense on your site
shows visitors that your site has been approved by Google.

Nevertheless, having Adsense on your site doesn?t mean that
you can?t have other affiliate programs combined with it.
You can actually have as many programs as you want, but I
prefer Adsense specially because the conversion rate to
money is much faster with Adsense.

No other affiliate program converts clicks to money as fast
as Google Adsense.

With Google Adsense I may need just 10 optimized clicks to
earn $20. By optimized, I mean clicks on a page that has
keywords that pay the most in Adsense. With other affiliate
programs I need at least 200 visits to an optimized site
with related content and optimized traffic to earn the same
amount of money.

---
What is the 'SECRET' formula for bringing quality traffic
to your Site?
---

In WMXP.COM I apply all my experience acquired during all
these years of investigation, using the best tools, the
best reports, the best products, to offer my visitors the
best of the best so that they have good reasons to return
and recommend the site.

Free tools for webmasters such as ...

Check Pagerank (http://www.wmxp.com/tools/pagerank.php)
Search Engine Ranking Popularity
(http://www.wmxp.com/tools/serp.php)
Search Engine Saturation
(http://www.wmxp.com/tools/index.php)
Popularity (http://www.wmxp.com/popular.php)
Overture Keywords (http://www.wmxp.com/overture)
a complete directory full of free and non-free scripts
(http://scripts.wmxp.com) a classified ads system
(www.adsbe.com) a directory full of products of one of the
most important affiliate systems on the net (FREE CLICKBANK
STOREFRONT - http://cbmall.wmxp.com) ... make of
www.WMXP.COM a site sufficiently interesting for
navigators that really work in the Internet.


---
How do you go about converting your Site traffic into more
Adsense Income?
---

If your Adsense is performing poorly, I have three tips
for you:

1. Decrease the number of Adsense blocks that you are
displaying on a page. I don't know how others have
experienced this, but my income seemed to be less if I had
more than one block of Adsense ads displayed at once - and
your CTR is definitely less if you have more than one ad
impression at a time.

2. Change your link colour to blue. While I cannot disclose
my CTR I can tell you that this one little change more than
doubled my CTR. I know that there are others out there who
advocate that your link colour should be the same as the
other links on your site, but try it out for yourself for a
day or two. I think you will be highly surprised!

3. Set the URL colour to the same colour as the ad's text.
This makes the URL ''melt' in and makes the link colour
stand out more, definitely making it more 'clickable'.


---
What final words of wisdom would you like to pass on to
everyone who is reading this eBook?
---

To trust your abilities, to trust the project, to develop
your ideas fully and that in the end your efforts will be
rewarded.

About the author:
Codrut Turcanu is putting his final touch on 'AdSense Confessions' - an info-packed eBook containing 3 in-depth interviews with regular Guys (not 'Gurus') making TONS of Cash with AdSense. To be notified of this release visit: http://www.AdSenseConfessions.com

There are thousands of web sites getting thousands of visits to their websites every week without making a sale!

I can tell you the traffic is not the problem. Well maybe from some traffic providers out there. But, in most cases the web site itself is not able to convert web site visitors to customers.

A visitor most likely will not take the time to find out what you’re offering. Especially since he was not looking for your website and your site popped up (or under). You better give him a reason to not close your pop under!

Remember, you have only a few seconds to make people understand what you are offering before they close your web page.

Some tips for a successful advertisement:

- Start general, keep it short, and make your page fast loading.
- Use a lot of 'white space' on your page.
- Make sure your company logo or name appears clearly in the ad. Sooner or later, your product or name will become known throughout the Internet.
- Do not list features but benefits.
- Have no more than 3-4 bullet points on your ad.
- Have only one specific offer.
- Does your ad look professional? If your page is poorly designed you will not succeed.
- Tell people what to do. Put a “click here” button on your ad. Believe it or not it makes a difference!
- Use a dark background. It contrasts most sites and grabs the attention of the visitor.
- Don't send people directly to a sales page. Use proven marketing strategies like free offers, free reports etc, to generate a lead: Most people will not buy anything on their first exposure to it.


Your landing (or home) page should not be overwhelming and confusing for a new website visitor:

- If he has no idea why he is there or what to do next, he won't take time to figure it out.
- Offer something of value for free.
- Do not list features but benefits.
-Your web site should grab the attention of your visitors. Use headlines, bullets, bright colours etc.
- Does your web page look professional? If your web page is poorly designed you will not succeed at turning visitors into customers or subscribers.
- Make your page fast loading.
- If I have no enticement to sign up or to order, I’ll just read some stuff for a few seconds and leave.
- Have only one specific offer at your landing page.

I have spent years running my own business and helping other businesses. It’s always the same little things that make the difference.

Most small businesses on the Internet do not succeed because they do not know much about running a business online.

Think about it. People go to school for years and companies have large marketing departments because marketing and advertising is not a simple task.

Basically you have to search a lot to find what is most likely to work for your web site. Once you get an understanding for each type of advertising then you can put it to work.

About the author:
John Iacovakis is an Internet consultant and has over 10 years
of marketing experience. He is the owner of CreativeNet Online Advertising:
http://www.popadsonline.com

What differentiates a great trade show exhibit from a so-so one? The booth staff! The best displays are manned by a coordinated team working together to ensure the exhibit’s success, rather than a haphazard handful of employees who happened to be available that week. How do you transform your staff members into a strong team? Just remember your ABC’s.

A: Assign creative, intelligent, and enthusiastic people to trade show duty.

B: Begin early to be adequately prepared for the show.

C: Create goals and objectives for the show.

D: Determine benchmarks for the show, both for individuals and for the entire team.

E: Establish a time-frame for each of the benchmarks.

F: Find ways to make the trade show fun and exciting for all staff members.

G: Get upper management involved to make the show a success!

H: Highlight each team member’s strengths with appropriate job assignments.

I: Identify how team members can support each other to reach team goals.

J: Justify all trade show activities: Are they helping your team achieve their goals?

K: Knock off any practices or behaviors that keep your team from succeeding.

L: Last minute contingencies require advance planning and coordination.

M: Maintain a chain of command. Every staff member needs to know who is in charge.

N: New ideas are valuable: Encourage, capture, and implement the best.

O: Open your mind to creative, innovative displays and approaches.

P: Plan how to convey essential information and skills to your staff members.

Q: Question your staff. What do they know? What do they need to learn?

R: Recognize the need for training. Ensure your staff is adequately prepared.

S: Success is quantifiable. Decide how you will measure yours.

T: Time tables and schedules help keep the team on track.

U: Understand what kind of teamwork will be necessary to put on a top-notch show.

V: Vying for prizes motivates many staffers. Offer great rewards as incentives.

W: Watch out for trouble: Identify where the project can go wrong and plan accordingly.

X: Examine the decision making process: Is it clear and efficient?

Y: Yes men don’t help: Encourage independent, autonomous capable staffers.

Z: ZZZZZ: Trade shows are very long. Adequate rest before the show is imperative!



About the author:
Written by Susan A. Friedmann,CSP, The Tradeshow Coach, Lake Placid, NY, author: “Meeting & Event Planning for Dummies,” working with companies to improve their meeting and event success through coaching, consulting and training. For a free copy of ExhibitSmart Tips of the Week, e-mail: susan@thetradeshowcoach.com; website: http://www.thetradeshowcoach.com

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