Time and time again, internet marketers have mentioned how “gold can be found in your mailing list.” It has become a cliché or sorts, so it seems, given the many times the maxim has been repeated over and over again, in many channels, in many articles, in many eBooks, and in many newsletters.But there’s a reason why it’s a cliché. It’s because it’s true.The bigger the size of your mailing list, the higher your chances are of bagging some sales. It’s a numbers game, one which you could easily manipulate to your advantage.Why Your Need A Mailing ListLet’s go to the specifics.As an online businessman, a mailing list is almost an indispensable requirement for your success. Here are the reasons why:* Experts say that it takes 7 to 12 contacts with a prospect, at the average, before you could convince him to make a purchase. A mailing list would allow you to keep in touch with the said prospect.* Your prospects have to be warmed up before they could make a purchase. You have to win their trust and confidence before they could part with their hard earned money. A mailing list opens the doors for a variety of strategies that would allow you to prime them up for your sales pitches.* A mailing list would likewise make it easy for your customers to contact you whenever they need answers to their queries. In a way, a mailing list can also become an excellent vehicle to provide post sales support for your customers.* The size of your mailing list reflects your credibility as a joint venture (JV) partner for profitable undertakings requiring a partnership between two or more internet marketers. Your mailing list is not only a well for potential customers, it’s also your badge of how much you have achieved in the industry.Few are the internet marketers who do business online without a mailing list. This is a testament to how valuable your own subscriber base can be.The Trick Is In Flooding Your Mailing List With SubscribersClearly, success with your mailing list depends on how many subscribers you’d manage to garner. The more people who will sign up for your follow-up system, the higher your chances will be in earning a lot of profit.The question is, how do you explode the number of subscribers for your mailing list?Driving traffic to your opt-in page is the number one strategy to implement. Online marketing tactics such as search engine optimization (SEO), article marketing, forum posting, direct advertising and reciprocal linking are keys for your traffic generation purposes.But there’s one other strategy that would provide an almost instantaneous arrival of signups.We’re talking about ad swaps.Ad Swaps?Ad swaps is an inexpensive but highly effective technique that involves two or more online businessmen with sizable mailing lists. One marketer would simply have to exchange ads with another marketer in their respective mailing list.The result?An exchange of ads that would result in an exchange of subscribers.For example, marketer A has a mailing list composed of 5,000 members. Marketer B has a mailing list composed of 4,000 subscribers.An ad swap simply means that marketer A would run marketer B’s ad in his newsletter, which would lead marketer A’s subscribers to marketer B’s opt-in page. Marketer B would have to do the same favor for marketer A.Marketer A potentially stands to earn 4,000 new subscribers. Marketer B potentially stands to earn 5,000 new subscribers. Such would be a profitable exchange of members that would increase the size of their respective mailing lists!Ad swaps usually are free. All you have to do is to find a willing partner, which would be easy once you have built a sizable subscriber base.Offering freebies as rewards for signups would also ensure the success of ad swap campaigns.

In a perfect world we would all be eating the right food, exercising, sleeping well and just generally enjoying life.In the real world most of us manage a percentage of the healthy lifestyle and muddle through as best we can with the rest of it. Part of the problem is we are encouraged to think, mostly by the media, that we should be doing everything possible towards a healthy lifestyle, all of the time. For most of us this is just not possible.Constant concern about what we should or shouldn’t be doing causes our stress levels to go up and that negates any good work that we’ve done. Yes, we should certainly try for a healthy lifestyle, but the two key words are “moderation” and “balance”. By applying these criteria to achieving a healthy lifestyle we won’t be beating ourselves up for failing another diet or dropping out of the latest exercise regime.A common mistake that many people make when they decide to adopt a healthy lifestyle is to try to do too much too soon. They then give themselves a guilt complex when it all falls apart. It is also easy to be influenced by others, when we should only be adopting a healthy lifestyle plan to suit ourselves.Ah! Did I say lifestyle plan? Do you have one, or do you just try the next thing that is in your magazine or Sunday supplement? By all means read these articles and take them into account as you plan how you want your healthy lifestyle to take shape.Leading a healthy lifestyle doesn’t mean you have got to run a mile before breakfast, eat seeds and think pure thoughts. Great if that’s what you want, but for most of us “healthy” means being in reasonable shape, eating our fruit and vegetables and generally having a feeling of vitality.Decide on your definition of a healthy lifestyle, and then plan a strategy that works for you.As part of my health plan I decided I wanted to walk in the mornings before breakfast, but there was no way I wanted to get up at the crack of dawn to do it. So I planned a ten minute circuit that includes a short flight of steps and a not too steep incline. I power walked that route every day and felt really good. Sure l wouldn’t make the City to Surf marathon, but I compromised and made it work for me.Today, much is made of organic foods, but the reality is that organic food is generally more expensive and well out of the range for most budgets. Yes organic is probably the best option, but it doesn’t mean that if you’re not eating all organic you are not eating right. If you’re concerned about general produce, be a bit discerning when you shop. Look for fruit and vegetables that are fresh and unblemished. You should also buy product brands that you can trust. If you shop wisely, you can have a well-balanced healthy diet that won’t break the bank.Basically living a healthy life means looking at your lifestyle as a whole, it is not just about diet and exercise. It is not always necessary to make major changes. Most people know their weak spots, and are happy if they can make a few changes that show results.A friend of mine was drinking several cans of soft drink a day. She was feeling tired and generally under the weather. When I read an article about the health risk of soft drink I copied it and gave it to her, whereupon she decided to give up the soft drink there and then. A week later she got back to me and said she couldn’t believe the difference, her energy levels were up and she was feeling great. Just that one change was able to make a difference and she feels good about the healthy choice.Sleep and leisure time play a big part in a healthy lifestyle, and for the most part people underestimate the value of good sleep. Our bodies aren’t designed to operate at peak performance twenty four hours a day. Anyone in industry knows that machines that have to work continuously need a lot of maintenance. When we are sleeping our body is healing and regenerating itself and we should wake up feeling refreshed and revitalized.We can go without sleep for extended periods, but we can’t do it indefinitely. The amount of sleep an individual needs varies a great deal, and there is no such thing as the right time to sleep. Obviously most people sleep at night, but if you are one of those folk that comes alive in the small hours, you might need to catch up with your sleep during the day.A big part of healthy living is being comfortable with yourself. Don’t be pressured into trying to attain a certain look, or push yourself down a career path you are not suited to. Constant worry about what you are doing will only have the opposite effect on your health. Don’t get paranoid about your diet, about what toothpaste you should use or about expensive exercise equipment you need to buy.Allow a common sense approach to dictate when you are making lifestyle choices, and remember, there is nothing wrong with compromise if it means your healthy lifestyle plan will work for you.

The Working Capital Journal is one of several commercial financing resources which should be reviewed regularly by small business owners to assist in keeping up with the imposing difficulties posed by rapid changes in the business finance funding climate. As noted below, there have been some surprising actions taken by lenders as a direct result of recent financial uncertainties. The increasingly complex and confusing environment for working capital finance is likely to produce several unexpected challenges for commercial borrowers.The working capital finance industry has primarily been operating on a regional and local basis for many years. In response to cost-cutting that has permeated many industries, there has been a consolidation that has resulted in fewer effective commercial lenders throughout the United States. Most business owners have been understandably confused about what this might mean for the future of their commercial financing efforts, especially because this has happened in a relatively short period of time.Of course, for some time there have been ongoing complex problems for commercial borrowers to avoid when seeking commercial loans. But what has produced a new set of business finance funding problems is that we appear to be entering a period which will be characterized by even more uncertainties in the economy. Previous rules and standards for commercial financing and working capital finance are likely to increasingly change quickly, with little advance notice by business lenders.Business owners should make an extended effort to understand what is happening and what to do about it due to this realization that substantial changes are likely throughout the United States in the near future for commercial finance funding. At the forefront of these efforts should be a review of what actions commercial lenders have already taken in recent months. The Working Capital Journal is one prominent example of a free public resource that will facilitate a better understanding of the responses by business lenders to recent economic circumstances.By publicizing actions taken by commercial lenders, this will contribute to these two goals, both of which are likely to be helpful to typical business owners: (1) To highlight controversial bank-lender tactics with a view toward reducing or eliminating questionable lending practices. (2) To help business owners prepare for commercial finance funding changes. To assist in this effort, sources such as The Working Capital Journal are encouraging business owners to report and describe their own experiences so that they can be shared with a broader audience that might benefit from the information. Some of the most significant commercial financing changes reported so far by commercial borrowers involve working capital loans, commercial construction financing and credit card financing. A notable situation of concern is that predatory lending practices by credit card issuers have been reported by many business owners. Some specific businesses such as restaurants are having an especially difficult time in surviving recently because they have been excluded from obtaining any new business financing by many banks.One of the few recent bright spots in business finance funding, as noted in The Working Capital Journal, has been the continuing ability of business owners to obtain working capital quickly by business cash advance programs. For most businesses accepting credit cards, this commercial financing approach should be actively considered. Business cash advances are literally saving the day for many small business owners because most banks appear to be doing a terrible job of providing commercial loans and other working capital finance help in the midst of recent financial and economic uncertainties. For example, as noted above, restaurants are virtually unable to currently obtain commercial finance funding from most banks. Fortunately, restaurants accepting credit cards are in a good position to obtain needed cash from credit card receivables financing and merchant cash advances.

If you’re a business owner or sole trader then almost certainly you have had to consider the possibility of using advertising photography in some way to help boost sales or brand awareness. Advertising photography is clearly an important aspect of promoting and marketing a business, but it is also a solution fraught with a range of problems and challenges.Not only that but any cursory search online will inevitably result in a wealth of sites offering advice on how to go about advertising photography, yet much of this information conflicts. For example there are businesses, marketers and sole traders who swear by using in-house solutions rather than professional photography services.Perhaps if the company or business just happens to be a photographic studio then this sounds like a good idea, but for anyone else the chance of being able to create advertising photography that really sells is somewhat farfetched.Let’s not forget that advertising photography has been around for decades, but the concept has changed in that period of time. It has had to, simply because of the wealth of advertising and marketing messages to which we are all exposed on a daily basis. When there were only a handful of photographs advertising products, businesses or brands it was reasonably easy to achieve success simply because there was relatively little to compare it to, and little competing with it.But today so many companies are distributing so many advertising messages that there is a huge amount of competition. Every image has to compete against hundreds or thousands of other images, and so its chance of making an impact is very much diluted.But the problem doesn’t stop there, because if you do manage to capture the interest of consumer, the image then has to achieve much more than simply portraying what the product looks like. This is the real difference in advertising photography today compared to photographic marketing of even a few years ago.Today every image has to communicate so much information and so many ideas and often in just a fraction of a second. Sadly a photograph, no matter how good, that simply includes the product is often not enough. Advertising photography is different from photography, yet often business owners tend to focus only on the word photography, perhaps assuming that any photograph of a product is, by default, advertising photography.However the truth is that it is not. A photograph of a product is simply a photograph of a product. It always will be, and is unlikely to be anything else.So what has to be done in order to turn a photograph into an advert? Essentially it’s about communicating something, saying something to the consumer. It may even involve communicating grand concepts or stimulating emotional responses in the consumer, and it is only by achieving this that advertising photography can really be accepted as being distinct from merely a product photography.But how do you communicate concepts, stimulate emotional responses or otherwise actively engage the consumer on a much deeper level than merely one of retail?The first challenge is to make sure that you fully understand the consumer. Only when you have a crystal clear understanding of who your target audience is can you begin to understand how your advertising photography needs to be tailored to target them effectively. This is another shortcoming many business owners fail to appreciate.Advertising photography doesn’t just mean coming up with a bland please-all solution that will appeal to everyone. Many of the leading names create advertising messages which specifically target different parts of their target audience so that they’ll have more impact. If you’re targeting 30 something professionals then your whole approach needs to be different from an approach that would more effectively target teenagers.But whilst it’s easy to see how advertising photography needs to take into consideration the target audience and understand what are the most effective ways to market your products to them, appreciating what the tactics and tools are that will achieve this is quite another matter. How do professional photographers create a photographic image that sells a product rather than merely showing people what it looks like?To answer this would require many years’ of experience, and reams of article content to even scratch the surface. Far better than trying to blunder through the process in house is to make use of a professional photography studio and a photographer who has years of experience creating images that sell rather than merely creating images which show what things look like in an unimaginative way. Advertising photography is about selling, and it’s important to make sure that the camera is your marketing friend and not an impartial outside superficial assessment.