As the end of December comes around and the beginning of January nears, people in general start re-evaluating their budget.  A popular new years resolution is “saving money”.  So if this is a common goal why is it so hard to accomplish?

Due to the economic recession many households are making less then before, making it hard to bank extra money.  We also live in a society that thrives on promoting or advertising what you must have!  The line between need and want often become crossed and we end up overspending for the month.

So how can we save?  The answer lies in each one of us.   We don’t have to strive for the moon – to overshoot and miss all together.  If we take baby steps we can be successful, and if one month you fall down, don’t let it stop you!  Get up and start over again.  Here are a few money saving tips that can help you get started:

1. Set up a separate savings account and actually use it to save money.
2. Split your direct deposit so that $25.00 out of each paycheck goes into your savings account.  (out of sight out of mind)
3. Save any change that you receive after making a cash purchase. (you will be surprised how fast this adds up)
4. Plan a monthly budget, start with you needs first i.e. Rent/mortgage, electricity, car payments etc. and then budget in an allotted dollar amount for wants and stick to it.
5. Write out your grocery list before you go shopping and only get what is on the list

If you start implementing even a couple of these suggestion you will be surprised by what you can save!

Happy Savings!

According to research conducted by ZenithOptimedia in 2010 over $64 Billion was spent in 2010 on online advertising. Over 64% of this revenue went to only five companies; Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Facebook, and AOL. You can see the graph below for the full breakdown showing the percentage that each controls.

With such a large percentage of the market being cornered by a small number of businesses where should smaller businesses be putting their online advertising budget? Marketing via social media seems to be a popular choice as businesses are starting to allocate more of their marketing budget in to this portion of online advertising. Facebook is already #4 on this list, how much and how quickly will they be taking over market share in online ad spending?

We are immersed in a very fast paced industry, where training and education are extremely important to our success. Internal meetings should be effective and educational. Regardless of whether your team has new members or you have been working with the same people for some time now, sharing thoughts and analyzing specific case studies will take your team to the next level without a doubt. Empower your team to talk about about their experiences and even their challenges in their job. Communication, and most of all unity, are key to succeed.

One of the biggest brands out there has to be Starbucks. Well they must think so themselves because they are now going to be giving their Starbucks logo a pretty big facelift by removing their name off the logo. The company is about to celebrate it’s 40 year anniversary, and it seems that they find the best way to do that is to make a logo change.
According to the Associated Press, “Starbucks leaders say the changes to the logo are in some ways a metaphor for the company dropping the boundaries of its own business and growing into new areas. Marketing experts agree.” Starbucks is looking at other big name companies who have successfully dropped their name from their logos. Hopefully this new facelift will be as successful for Starbucks as it was for companies like Nike and Apple. You can truly say you have made it as a company if you do not even need to show your name on your company logo or any other advertising. We hope it works Starbucks!

Home loan lenders generally represent financial services agencies and bankers who offer dedicated home loan arrangements to prospective home owners. They can easily power through the home loan needs of one and all in no time. Home loan lenders work under the compliance and guidance set out by the state governments. The financing solutions which are powered by reliable service providers can provide longer term benefits to prospective home owners. Generally, the interest rates that are associated with home loans are competitive in nature. Secured mortgage home loans are most sought out after by debtors in the financial arena at all times. However, financing cost would matter a lot on the income sources, risk assumptions and risk profiles associated with a debtor. They can easily gain through custom made home loan rates in a sequential manner. Stiff competition exists in the market space of home loans. Therefore, competitive landscape of solutions can be expected by debtors. Reliability and expert advice should always be on the mind of a debtor while they are trying to avail home loan solution to meet their financial needs in a gradual manner.

How To Secure Competitive Deals Through Home Loan Lenders?

Competitive solutions can be offered by leadings service providers based on prevalent interest rates and risk assumptions. Online channels can provide fair solutions to debtors while they are trying to benefit from a home loan solution. Competitive solutions can be traced and tracked by debtors in a seamless manner in no time. Third party home loan agencies can also provide competitive home loan solutions. They work as intermediaries between a debtor and financial service provider. They generally maintain stronger nexus with the services provider and make money through commission basis from both the sides. Such competitive home loan solutions have in fact powered the growth of financial sector in last quarter.

Home loan lenders can however be ruthless when it comes to payment defaults and foreclosures. Generally, high interest fines and late fee charges are imposed onto debtors when they default on paying on time. Proper research and thorough understanding of home loan financing solutions can provide ultimate advantage to one and all.
Get going and benefit from competitive home loan solution in order to sport a brand new home. A reliable and longer horizon home loan financing solution can provide optimum financing to prospective debtors in just about no time.

How many of us have a Gmail email account? How many of us knew there was an enhancement that was just rolled out to all Gmail email users?
DMNews is reporting that the new “Priority Inbox” will filter your e-mail messages into three sections: “important and unread,” “starred” and “everything else.” The new priority inbox will categorize your messages as they arrive to a consumer’s inbox. Gmail will be using various methods to predict which messages are important, including the people you e-mail most and which messages you open and reply to.
In regards to email marketing, does this mean the possibility of having to change your practices so you have an ability to effectively deliver Gmail emails? Some are saying no this is not going to affect email marketers, however how about those that are not necessarily practicing “good practices”? This new priority inbox might be filtering out those “bad” emails that many consumers will now be avoiding because they will show up at the “bottom” of their inbox.
Good update for Gmail…. or just a wasted effort to make your email better? You decide!

Do you know what makes you unique in this industry? Share with your publishers and partners the offers and tools your company provides in this market that make you stand out. The performance of your offers is great, but the reporting tools, and other company features & benefits, can give you an advantage in this industry. Stand out and be noticed!

How well do you know your clients/partners? Do you ever think about visiting them and learning more about them besides the occasional conference call “talk”? If there is an opportunity for you to meet a client outside of the typical conferences or on the phone, take advantage of that. There is nothing like the old school meeting and handshake with people that you truly value as partners.

Do you know what others in the affiliate marketing world are doing? If not, you might want to pay attention to all those in your industry so you can keep abreast of what is going on. Knowing what others are doing is a great tool for you to be fully informed of your industry for your publishers, but it is also great to know if there is maybe something you or your company are not doing and needs to possibly look at doing. Knowledge is power when keeping up with this industry. Don’t be the one left in the dust……

Email marketing can be tricky and tedious, following the 6 steps below can help you build your lifetime customer base.

Delivered: Once upon a time a valid email address was a sign of success. Fast forward to reality and just having an email address means squat. There are many more variables such as knowing what the consumer likes, when they shop and what offers they respond to so you can target the right message at the right time of day.

Opened: Open rates used to be used to simply optimize subject lines, now advertisers are learning more from this statistic. The consumer trusted your brand to open the email, you reached them at a convenient time and your message was of interest. One must also keep in mind that consumers may just be opening your email to unsubscribe.

Credible: Measuring the read rate of your message is a more accurate indicator of user engagement. A message should remain open for longer then 5 seconds to indicate the user has read the message and not simply clicked your unsubscribe link.

Relevant: Advertisers must use all data such as purchase history, RFM metrics and clickstream reports to build a successful targeted email campaign.

Interactive: All advertisers want their customers to share their positive experiences. The more relevant your ads are to the consumer the more likely they are to blog, tweet or refer new customers to your products.

Engaged: An engaged user is one that continues to respond to your marketing efforts, it’s great to have a consumer purchase once but if a user is targeted correctly by the 5 steps above they will become a lifetime customer.

As we are all now figuring out is that if we visit a website or fill out anything online, a million other people are going to have this information about us. Being in the online lead generation business I know that if you fill out something online you will be someone that most likely will develop a lot of new “friends” that email you. However, visiting certain websites and that being tracked, is something totally different. Should companies be able to track your information online so they can better understand your online behavioral trends? Should this be something that the Federal Trade Commission regulates?
No matter what you think is right or wrong, the FTC is now looking at regulating those that are tracking our online behavioral information. Being in lead generation, we all know that the benefits of lead generation are not the initial requests the consumers are filling out, yet it is the additional remarketing that is the attractive part of capturing the lead information. However, should companies have the right to capture all your internet activity to potentially use to remarket you? Many think the answer is no, therefore this is what is promoting the FTC to look into enacting a new law.
Agree or disagree?