Whether you are purchasing your first or your fiftieth online ad, or even using free advertising, there a few things to do to prepare for your advertising campaign. Taking these steps ahead of time will help you determine which ads work and which aren’t as successful. Whether you are spending money or time, know if your efforts are paying off.

1 – What is the purpose or goal of your advertising campaign?
A common answer to this question is “to get website traffic” but is that really all you want? Think about what you want your visitors to do once they arrive at your site. Do you want them to make a purchase, join your business opportunity, or sign up for your newsletter? Setting a specific goal focuses your campaign for greater success.

2 – Get your landing page is ready.
Keep your goal in mind when you decide on a landing page for your campaign. If you want newsletter subscribers, don’t send visitors to your home page or your shopping pages. Your ad invites visitors to do something; make it easy for them to do it by designing a landing page that walks them through the process.

In some cases your landing page may be fairly short and simple. If your ad copy is long enough to presell the prospect you may not need additional marketing on the landing page. For example, a solo ad may provide enough information so that a visitor is ready to complete the offer when the arrive. But a banner ad or text link may have just peaked their curiosity enough to get them to visit, and additional marketing may be needed to get them to follow through.

Whether it’s a short or long landing page, make it very clear what you want your visitors to do, and be sure to ask them to do it. Don’t assume that if they see a form they’ll fill it out. Specifically direct them to complete it.

3 – What is your measure of success and how will you know if you’ve achieved it?
Having a specific goal for your campaign makes it easier to track and measure success, but you will likely need to fine tune your definition of success. For example, if your goal is product sales, you can measure success by dollar value, number of units sold, conversion rate (the percentage of visitors that make a purchase), or return on investment.

Your website statistics or analytic program probably provides all the information you need to track your promotions, but if not, you may want to invest in an ad tracking program or service. Or you may be able to use other methods such as sending results to to a special email address or by using a coupon code to identify the campaign.

Establishing your goals, having a well thought out landing page, and tracking results will help you recognize successful campaigns and determine what needs to be changed to improve results.

Linda Stacy manages several online resources for direct sales consultants. Generate your own leads for your direct sales business with a direct sales directory listing.

Are you planning on working from home? Are you finding it challenging to complete tasks without being distracted? Is time management a challenge for you?

When I started working from home with my internet marketing business, I found it easy to get distracted and lose my focus. I am disclosing some of my best tips, so that you can learn from my mistakes-which brings me to tip #1!

1. Leverage your time by finding a mentor – The easiest way to get good at something is to find somebody who is good at it and copy them. There are many ways to find a mentor. One is by searching online for your business and see who comes up. Read recommendations and download free offers from their site to see who might be the best fit. Check out people who have written good articles about working from home.

Another way is to ask friends who are in the same or related business. If they are very successful, take them out to lunch and ask questions. Most successful people truly enjoy mentoring others, so don’t be afraid to ask.

2. Make a schedule and stick to it – When you worked for a boss, did you have certain hours that you had to be at work? Did you have certain tasks that you needed to accomplish? Now that YOU are your boss, create your own hours and tasks and treat your business like a business!

3. Cut out distractions – Are you distracted by email and social networks when working from home? So was I and I still am if I don’t take steps to avoid it. When I first boot up my email for the day, I delete everything that is not related to what I am doing. This includes offers for the next shiny object and the next magic software. Today, when I booted up my gmail account, I deleted 111 emails and kept 4. If I can’t see it, it can’t distract me.

4. Set a timer – Set a timer for 25 minutes and work with intensity. When the timer goes off, take a 5 minute break and begin all over again. This creates an artificial deadline and it really works. I use a clever little iPhone app called “Pomodoroplus”. It basically is a timer that shows me how much time I have left for my task and how many tasks (called “Pomodoros”) I have accomplished for the day. Currently, I have 5 minutes to go while writing this article so I know that I have to keep focused.

5. Don’t answer the phone – When you were working for a boss, you were probably asked to not take personal calls. Your family and friends have to be trained to understand that this is a business like any other, even though you are working from home. Even a quick phone call will lead to distraction, so turn your phone off while you are working.

Well, I have 75 seconds left and have managed to write an article from start to finish in my 25 minute period. Try these tips and you will be accomplishing more that you ever thought possible while working from home.

As a Direct Sales Team Leader, I often hear consultants say that they have a Phone Phobia. These consultants will avoid making or receiving telephone calls in regards to their home business.

When it comes to making business calls, consultants often fear the following:

1. Fear of not conveying their message correctly.
2. Fear of not getting the results they hope to achieve.
3. Fear of rejection or getting no’s.
4. Fear of not being liked by the person to whom they are calling.

When a person has a genuine case of phone phobia, they will avoid the telephone like it was their worst enemy. In fact, in Direct Sales, the telephone can be a valuable business asset.

Here are a few tips on how you can overcome this problem.

1. Write 3 business related scripts. You will need one for: party hosts, customers and for pitching your home business opportunity. If you are not comfortable with drafting up a telephone script, ask your team leader or sponsor for assistance.

2. Role Play with a fellow consultant or with your team leader. The more you practice, the more comfortable you will get when the time comes to make your business calls.

3. Tag Team with a fellow consultant or with your team leader. When you need to make business calls, see if your team leader will do a three-way call with you and the person you need to call.

Making and receiving business phone calls is an important part of having a Direct Sales home business. Sit down and make a list of why you are avoiding the telephone. Once you have your reasons, try solving the problem with one of the above tips.

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You can inspire your members to greater heights and achievements with good MLM training resources. These resources are vital components in making our members successful. When we encourage, inspire or develop our members’ full potential, we are creating a viable and vibrant future for them. Their lives will be improved on so many lives; their minds will be focused and ready to work. We must support them at every level, no matter if the question has been repeated 10 or 20 times. There may be concepts that they are having trouble understanding.

The MLM training resources should provide our members a unique learning experience, fun and engaging on the personal level. These courses could be expensive to create but are worth the time, money and energy to create. People will learn in a variety of ways and we need to see which environment works the best. Can we group them together under one roof? Yes but our main resources for the classroom may need to be increased to help answer questions; most trainers will use a conference or seminar to train new members. This type of environment works great for most members.

Our MLM training resources should be fun and engaging to our members. We could use videos, audio and articles to help our members learn the information. The delivery of the training materials is important, while some members are better at learning at home, they can benefit from the social interaction with other members. Interactive videos are becoming popular but may be a bit expensive to use, they allow the members to interact in a scenario. The scenarios offered are numerous and have become some standards across the industries for trainers to use. The video places the member into a certain predetermined scenario and allows them to interact with it to see the results. The video will offer tips and suggestions on how to improve a particular skill. These videos have great life span and are worth the investment.

Seminars are the next best tools in the MLM training resources kit to teach our members the information they need to be successful.  The seminars can incorporate PowerPoint presentations, videos, text and live speakers and tons of successful MLM business owners have received their training through this tool. This tool is very effective and is an affordable alternative to interactive videos. The members can meet new members, establish connections, learn and develop the right skills for the work environment. The live scenarios that the instructors use to train are awesome  MLM training resources, for the fact they are fun and engage your members on the proper levels. They help them get over being nervous about presenting their information to new prospects across the globe. This particular experience that is gained is worth more than buckets of gold in the long run.

The mistakes that are made around fellow members provide great insight to what can be improved upon. This helps the shy members overcome the fear of asking questions, we as trainers can help break the ice by sharing our experiences to these members. We as trainers need to stay fresh and up to date to the current trends in the MLM industry and redesign our training methods to be more effective on the human level and business owner level.

When we provide accurate and fresh information to our newest members, we are encouraging them to learn and to keep up their education. The experiences of a live seminar should not be passed by, the engagement and friendships built there often last a life time.  We can take the learning experiences home with us and refresh ourselves for another beautiful day in the MLM industry.

For years I was a head-down, “git-er-done” sort of chick. If I’m totally honest, I still have a lot of that girl in me and I honestly fight against her fairly often. Let me explain. While it’s great to have that type of drive and determination, what I learned a few years ago was that never getting off the tread mill to look at the bigger picture and create a long (and short) term plan for my business would hinder my growth in the long run. Once I finally lifted my head long enough to realize that I was working much harder than I would be if I actually had a clear plan, setting aside and honoring time for planning in my business got easier.

Consequently, I’ve done quarterly and annual planning for my life and business for the past 3 years and it’s absolutely made a difference! The thing is, next year is almost here, and now is the time to really start thinking about making a plan for 2012.

Let me lay out a few tips and tricks that may make it easier (dare I say even fun) for you. This is what’s worked for me (and I have to give a shout out to my sweet, amazing, rock-star friend Krista Clive-Smith – formerly Krista Green – for teaching me most of what I know about planning. She’s still one of my planning partners).

Plan Time to Plan (and stick to it!) – First and foremost, you have to actually make time to sit down and go through a planning process. That means putting at least a half day on your scheduled dedicated to annual planning sometime before the end of the year, and then scheduling in at least a half day at the end of each quarter to solidify your plans for the next quarter. I’ve actually spent the last three years at a weekend retreat with my mastermind group dedicating an entire two days to this. For the first time this year, I won’t have that luxury so will rely on planning sessions over the phone with a few strategic partners as well as a full day I’m planning to hole up somewhere quiet in December where I’ll unplug and plan. Bottom line – put it on your calendar and honor that time, no matter what.

Choose a Theme For Your Year – This might seem sort of “woo woo” but it’s probably had the greatest impact on me. I get quiet, check in with my higher power, and “ask” for my theme. It always comes through loud and clear. This year, it was “Relax and Receive the Blessings.” That’s fairly counter intuitive to my “go, go, go!” energy, and has transformed my life and business as I’ve stopped trying to push and control and instead moved where I’ve been lead.

Choose Your Major Areas of Focus – I outline at least three to five major areas of focus for the coming year, making sure not to neglect anything in my life or business. This supports the harmony in your life and keeps your “eye on the prize” in all areas. My areas for this year were:

• Direct Sales Training
• Spirituality
• Home and Family
• The Undivided Divorce (a new project I’m starting with my ex-husband that’s just about ready to roll out)
• Self Care

Notice that there’s a balance between business and personal. Strive for that.

Identify The Projects In Each of Your Focus Areas – For those of you who, like me, are all about the action, this will be your favorite step. Decide on three to five projects in each of your areas of focus that will move you toward fulfillment in each area. These will truly become the vehicle for getting your goals. Be as specific as you can and take some time to really let this flow.

Make an Action Plan – Now break down your major projects into smaller chunks. Which project will you work on each quarter (maybe all of them, maybe not), and then decide what you’ll do in each area. That way, you’re working intentionally throughout the quarters of each year, the months of each quarter, and the weeks of each month. You’ll be surprised at what you’ll actually come up with when you take the time to sit down and plan your action areas and steps. Then make sure you’re doing short monthly planning at the beginning of each month and weekly planning every Sunday. The more specific you can be with where you plan to spend your time, the better. I use a brilliant free tool called Workflowy for this. Can’t beat it.

Make a Plan and Be Willing To Be Inspired – One last thing…make sure you stay open to inspiration. Even the best laid plans sometimes need to be ignored if you have an inspired idea or a circumstance presents itself that you just can’t let go by. So make a plan and then be flexible and open to take inspired action as well. I hope this excites you and makes you eager to actually plan and implement for 2012?

One of the most powerful ways to build a successful online business is by creating relationships with your visitors so they can begin to trust you and feel comfortable ordering from you. One way of building these relationships is by having a mailing list so you can keep in contact with your subscribers. This helps form a bond and will start to build that foundation of trust and credibility.

Sending out weekly online newsletters or mailings is a great way to solidify the trust relationship. But who do you send it to? Taking the time and effort to build a responsive email list is not easy but it certainly can be done.

The ten tips below will help you get started building that all important list of names and email addresses!

1. Privacy Guarantee – One of the most important things you can do is guarantee the visitor’s privacy. Be sure to let them know their information will never be given out or sold to anyone under any circumstances!

2. Easy Sign-Up – Be sure to put a quick and easy sign-up form for your visitors. You do not want your potential subscribers chased away by having to click through a maze of forms. Make the sign-up as easy and fast as possible.

3. Multiple Forms – Don’t make the mistake of just putting one sign-up form on your site. Be sure to have one on every page. Not everyone will go to your homepage. Also, be sure to add subscription forms to your Facebook page and other social networking sites.

4. In Plain Sight – When putting the sign-up form on every page of your site, be sure to put them on the top of the page on either the right side or the left side. I have read that the left side is more effective.

5. No Life Story – Don’t ask for a ton of information when trying to get people to sign up for your mailing list. You don’t need to know their phone number, address, gender, birthday, etc. The person is going to wonder what you want all that information for and they will be inclined not to give it to you. A name and an email address is all you need.

6. Double Opt-In – Always provide double opt-in for your subscriptions. So after they sign-up, an email will be sent to them to give them a chance to confirm their subscription. This will protect your subscribers from being added to unwanted lists and it will also protect you from being reported for spam.

7. Free Gift – Always offer a quality free gift to everyone who signs up for your mailing list. Show them you appreciate them and are willing to give something to them as well. I usually offer a free ebook with helpful, quality content. Put the download link in the welcome subscriber email you send out so they can access their gift immediately. Don’t make them contact you or wait for it.

8. Email Signature – Be sure to offer a sign-up form or link in your email signature. A lot of people will sign-up directly from an email.

9. Forward to a Friend – Encourage your subscribers to forward copies of your mailings to their friends and associates. Offer incentive contests. For example whoever gets the most people to subscribe gets a free gift or big discount on their next order.

10. Ad Swaps – Contact other newsletter publishers and ask them to do an ad swap. You will run a blurb about their newsletter if they do the same for you. You can also exchange blurbs on your welcome email that is sent to all new subscribers.

Bonus Tip: Be sure to offer quality content and products in your mailings. Add some contests (for example: a trivia challenge), some fun and encourage your readers’ interaction with you. This will go a long way in building that foundation of trust which in turn will bring you much more business!

About the Author: Don’t be one of the 95% of people who fail at their online business. Terri Seymour can help you make money online. Find out how to increase your traffic and sales with her popular “How to Build Your Online Business” ebook for FREE at: ==> http://www.SeymourProducts.com