Use Your Digital Army – Part 1

Small Business Tools

There is nothing more expensive to a small business owner than his labor component.  That is why many times you find yourselves doing a lot of the work of what would be a very good assistant or clerical help in general.  If you do the math, even with minimum wages, even the most giving of small business owners cannot hire the necessary help for those tasks without paying out at least $18,000 a year after you include payroll and related taxes.

Much of what you find on a store shelf for email and contact management does little to help when the need requires precision.  Many small business owners have ventured into retail stores to buy an email solution only to find it very “manual” despite its claims of automation and autonomy.  The same thing goes for those credit card processing machines that require manual entry of every sale made. 

But if you as a small business owner just focus in for a minute on a email/subscription solution; you will find that a PayPal and AWeber combination will completely fulfill your marketing and email objectives and automate your sales in the process.

Despite the familiarity with PayPal and its billing capability, it surprises many to find out that besides shopping carts and Buy Now buttons, PayPal also has a recurring subscription tool that lets you setup subscription buttons that you can easily incorporate into your email campaigns. 

These buttons are not like the Buy Now and Shopping Cart functions usually associated with PayPal products.  They are subscription buttons that allow you to choose many options including the giving of a free trial period before billing starts and allows you to determine the length of time for the subscriptions. 

Now incorporate this feature with Aweber’s autorespond and auto email capability and what you have is the ability to send out emails regularly to your clients, prospects, or customers knowing full well that you are not just doing gratuitist mailings that have no way of monetizing your efforts.  Many a small business owner has burned out trying the “newsletter” method of marketing because what they find is that they have put a lot of effort in creating the content for the newsletter, the expenses of printing and layout, and of course postage and mailing (plus labor if you had to get someone to do it).

Continued on Part 2

Yahoo Paid Search $50 Credit Code

This is for your information and pass it on to all those looking to setup a Yahoo Paid Search account.

Many people have said that Yahoo dropped their $50 credit for new accounts and reduced it to $25.  If you click the button below you will see how it says $25.00.  But I happen to know that they are still running the $50 credit just like Google.  In fact, here is the promotion code for those that wish to open a Yahoo Paid Search account and get the $50 credit (make sure you enter the Code below even though the screen says a different code).

From the last time I visited the Yahoo site, the only requirement is that you setup a credit card and then they will charge three times the minimum you set to spend on pay per click.  So say you decide to spend $10 a day, they will charge $30 on the card etc.  So you should be in good shape. 

Once you go through the setup process make sure you look for the promo code window so you can enter it like it is below:

Get a $50 credit

Or call our sales team at 1-866-764-7650

Mon – Fri, 6am – 6pm PST

and mention promo code USPX06

Like I said Google has a similar credit for $50 and they just ask that you setup a minimum deposit of $10 to start things out and you can choose to pay for your ads "prepaid" as in a set amount on your card or pay as you go to be charged later to the card. 

Microsoft Ad Center on the other hand, charges you a $5 setup fee to setup their account and asks you to deposit at least a minimum deposit and offer NO credit.  I guess they don’t want to give you a break.

Once you sign up for either Google or Yahoo, give it a day or two for your credit to appear.   You should find it in your Account settings area.  If not, call them and they will credit you promptly. 

I like these initial credits.  When I first signed up for Paid Search services I used my initial $50 and I  received over 300 visitors that day from the credit.  Not bad for free.

You can make money from PayPal

There are a lot of people out there that have either worked for or are in the industry of selling credit processing equipment and services. Ask any small business owner and they will tell you that they probably receive anywhere from 1 to 4 visits per week by different sales representatives trying to sell them the service or trying to get them to switch. And why not, the commissions can be around $1,000 to $3,000 depending on just how much you buy.