What The Heck Is Attraction Marketing Anyway?

In today’s fast-paced, high-tech world of Internet marketing, there are many techniques from which you can choose that will benefit your business by increasing your reach, boosting your online presence and bolstering your sales. And while there is a large debate about which method is best, there is certainly no denying that attraction marketing has become one of the biggest and most successful online marketing strategies to date, by and large. But what makes this a little bit confusing is that attraction marketing in and of itself is a little confusing to define. That’s because so many people have different interpretations of attraction marketing, mostly because of its versatility.

Attraction marketing can be tailored to just about any business and business model you can think of, adapting its core values to help individuals and corporations attain their marketing goals. From multi-level marketing strategies (MLM) to inbound marketing campaigns, attraction marketing is defined so differently because it is used so differently. Still, there are a few basic tenets of attraction marketing that we can use to help define its essence, if not pin down its exactness.

The Many Faces of Attraction Marketing

To start off with, it should be noted that attraction marketing is not a new concept. Overall, the basis of attraction marketing is to reach new customers and leads through the demonstration of value through affiliates and spokesmen. Perhaps one of the most classic-and successful-examples of attraction marketing would be a company hiring a celebrity to endorse their product or service. To this day, this marketing strategy is still used, though mostly in print and television.

But with the integration of online marketing strategies, companies have refined their techniques and thus, redefined attraction marketing. While the message of value is still at the underlying core of the strategy, it is now done in a manner that is far more cost-effective, utilizing the viral capabilities of the internet instead. In a nutshell, the social aspect of the internet has taken the cost-and the celebrity-out of attraction marketing and replaced them with webpages and sales representatives.

Inbound Marketing versus Outbound Marketing-The New Attraction Marketing

Still, the ultimate goal of attracting leads to your business or website rather than going out and actively recruiting them is the main focus of modern day attraction marketing on the internet. For example, rather than cold-calling customers or sending out individual emails (or even email blasts), it has become far more prevalent to create content that attracts leads to your site. This can be accomplished in any number of ways.

For example, affiliate marketing is a great way to leverage the work of others to boost traffic to your site. Essentially, you provide your affiliate partners with personalized links to your site and when they drive traffic to your site that results in a conversion, you pay them a commission. The affiliate partners will then go create their own sites, content and social media pages which increase not only your perceived value, but also your reach. In a nutshell, your attraction rating is instantly extended by extension of your affiliate sites.

Overall, the point here is that your marketing dollar is going to be better served by inbound marketing than outbound marketing. Given that internet searches mainly bring in your targeted audience (thanks to search engine algorithms that promote relevancy over bulk traffic), it’s generally accepted that spending money on attraction marketing is going to spend your marketing dollar on your targeted audience, rather than say a print ad which would reach more people, but not necessarily more potential leads that are high-conversion customers.

Becoming a Thought Leader and Authority Figure in your Industry

Another method of attraction marketing is establishing yourself as an industry leader in your particular niche. Once again, there are many ways to go about this, but some of the most popular are blogging and social media sites. Both are equally effective when utilized correctly, but for some businesses, blogging fits better than social media-and vice versa-for establishing authority. In the end, it really comes down to tailoring your message across multiple mediums to get your brand across in the manner that you want it to.

With blogging, there are many goals, all of which are served simply by creating keyword-centric blogs that provide value, interesting and fresh viewpoints, and are consistently churned out. When this happens:

You rank higher in search engine result pages (SERPs) thanks to increased keyword reach and fresh, relevant content. This means more incoming traffic and higher perceived value because of ranking position on the SERPs.
Your content has a higher chance of going viral because of value and viewpoint, thus further increasing your reach and attraction fact.
With social media marketing, your attraction factor is spread through organic and paid reach, giving you a better chance to not only recruit potential customers, but also establish stronger bonds with your current ones. Social media is all about interaction and engagement, both of which serve to give you a chance to get your value-based message out there to your potential leads and current customers. This is integral to attraction marketing. Plus, when you engage your fans, followers, etc., you also show up on their friends and family’s social media sites, further increasing your reach. Because they are closely related to your target audience, there’s a good chance they are part of your target audience as well.

How to Get Started

As you can see, it’s hard to pinpoint the exact definition and usage of attraction marketing because it is so fluid and wide-ranging a concept. No matter what your business is, what your goal is or what your current online marketing strategy is, attraction marketing can fit right in, helping you to boost sales and achieve all of your current and future goals.

The Finer Points of Internet Auctions

WHAT IS A PENNY AUCTION?

Penny auctions have exploded in popularity with the massive growth of the internet. However, few people know the true origins of penny auctions.Beginnings actually stretch back to the Great Depression. Those were hard times for everyone, but even harder for farmers. Farmers struggled to bring in steady income because of droughts and crops not selling as well as they had previously. As a result, the banks would foreclose on the farmers who couldn’t keep up with their mortgage payments.

The banks weren’t satisfied with just repossessing the house, they wanted to raise as much capital as possible, so they resorted to selling off the possessions of the owners of the repossessed houses. There was not much the farmers could do about it so they began bidding ridiculously low prices, pennies, on the items while threatening others who dared to bid higher than a few pennies.

The auctions of today hardly resemble their tremulous beginnings. Being part of a penny auction today is exhilarating, fun, and addictive. It combines the selling format of auctioning with a little bit of chance factored in.Auctions are a game of strategy but also a game of luck.

The premise behind penny auctions is giving people the chance to win an item at a drastically reduced price.Auctions make that possible by spreading out the cost of the product among multiple bidders. In order for a person to take part in an auction, they must pay a set price for each bid. For example, if a person wanted to bid on a fifty dollar Amazon gift card then he would spend a dollar for each time a bid placed. If he ended up winning the gift card, then he would only have spent a few dollars for a fifty dollar gift card. Usually penny auctions sell bids in packages.

HOW PENNY AUCTIONS WORK!

The main foundation of penny auctions is the pay-per-bid format. It is the key that allows bidders to win items at the fraction of their retail value and allows the auction owners to keep their site profitable. Most y auction sites run on the same premise: people pay a set amount for each bid, whenever a person places a bid within the closing seconds of the auction time will be added, the last person left with a unique bid after the clocks runs out will win the item. There are a large variety of items that can be won, but they tend to be popular electronics or gift cards to popular stores.

There are two types of auctions: lowest unique bid auction and highest unique bid auction. Lowest unique auction sounds confusing but it is actually quite simple. A unique bid is when only one person has a bid at a certain price. Bids usually start at one penny, a bidder can then place a bid at two pennies. Until another bidder places a higher bid, the most recent bidder will be the lowest unique bid because that was the only bid at two cents and nobody bid higher. However, penny auctions generally don’t stop at one penny. It is not uncommon to find auctions that end up at a couple hundred dollars based on the popularity of the item being auctioned. However, the same principles apply for those auctions. Highest unique bid auctions follow the more traditional auction format such as eBay. The person with the highest bid at the end of the auction wins the item.

Auction site owners turn a profit by selling bids. Say twenty people are bidding on a ten dollar gift card at one dollar per bid, at the end of the auction if there were twenty bids placed in total then the site owner would have made twenty dollars with a ten dollar profit.Auctions do seem like a win-win situation:The site owner makes money while the bidder gets an item for dirt cheap. However, not everyone wins in penny auctions. The people who paid one dollar each bid but left with nothing to show for their investments will not be so happy.

HOW TO WIN!

Penny auction has a lot of chance mixed into it, but one can incorporate strategy that will help raise the chances of winning. Playing smart can make all the difference between gambling and auctioning.

The first crucial tip to winning penny auctions is to know how to manage your bids. Your goal should be to win as much as possible without spending a ton of money buying bids. Managing your bids means that you should already know how much you are willing to risk in order to win an item. The amount of capital you are willing to risk will determine how many bids you can use. Once you know how many bids you have to spend on an item, then you will be better able to manage how and when you place a bid. That will keep you from blowing away all of your bids in the first few seconds of the auction.

The next tip is to practice time management. When fighting in the trenches of penny auctions, you have two enemies: other bidders and time. Knowing when to bid is a must if you want to have success. Placing a bid when there is a lot of time left on the clock is never a good idea. You have to remember that the key to winning a penny auction is being the last one standing when the clock runs out and that each bid increases the amount of time left. It would be a good practice to wait until the last few minutes of the auction before you begin to bid.

The final tip for successful auctioning is to keep your emotions under control.Auctions have a lot of similarities to gambling, and just like gambling, your spending can get out of control. If you keep your emotions level, it will keep you from making rash decisions and blowing loads of cash. Keep your mind clear so that you can gage the behavior of the other bidders and outsmart them.

HOW TO AVOID SCAM SITES!

Penny auctions are a great addition to the web whether you want to win an item that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to afford or if you simply enjoy the thrill that comes with bidding in auctions. Unfortunately, scam sites have tarnished the reputation of the legitimate penny auction sites. However, there are ways that you can protect yourself from scamers and enjoy your auctioning without having to worry about losing your money due to dishonesty.

Checking the reputation of the auction site before you start spending your hard earned money is always a good idea. Chances are other people have tried the site before you and some of them have left reviews. The reviews are your way to gage whether a auction site is trustworthy or not. If a site is getting overwhelmingly negative reviews, then that is a clear indication that you should steer your business elsewhere.

Another tool you can use to protect yourself is checking the Alexia ranks of the auction sites. Alexia rank will give a solid view of how much traffic the auction is getting. If you see a huge difference in the amount of traffic Alexia is projecting and the amount of active bidders on the site, then warning signals should be ringing in your head. Some auction sites have been known to set up robots that automatically bid on projects in order to keep the auction going and inflate the price. That is known as shill bidding. You can sniff out those sites by comparing the traffic the site should be getting to the amount of users using this site.

CONCLUSION!

New legislation may come out later down the road that will officially make penny auctions gambling, but until then, it is a fun, exciting auction that allows one to win the item they’ve always wanted but couldn’t afford.Auctions are also quite lucrative for the site owners because of the pay-per-bid strategy they’ve incorporated. Penny auctions had humble beginnings with farmers who just wanted to get back at the banks who kicked them out of their house. More recently, auctions have enjoyed an explosion in popularity with the rise of the internet.

There are two main formats fora auctions, lowest and highest unique auction, however they both run on the same premise where the last unique bid wins the item. Winning a penny auction will require a certain amount of mental tactic and a bit of luck. However, you can increase your odds of winning by practicing certain techniques such as managing your bids wisely, learning how to work with the time, and keeping a level head and your emotions under control. When you combine those three strategies to your bidding plan, you will find that you win a lot more often.

It is important that you do your due diligence to protect yourself when participating in auctions. Not every auction is run by honest and trustworthy people. There are people out there who just want to take your money. You can protect yourself by ensuring that you only bid on sites that already have a very positive reputation from real users.

Home Based Business Opportunities: Is A Home Based Business Right For You?

All over the world, people are breaking the chains of the corporate business world and taking control of what they do for work. Home based business opportunity after opportunity is being discovered. Do you desire the personal and financial freedom that can come from owning your own part time home based business? Before we go any further, let’s look at a few pros and cons that can help you to decide if starting a home based business is a good option for you.Pros:
• Make your own hours
• Do something that you enjoy
• Work from home
• Financial freedom
• Be your own bossCons:
• Must be self motivated
• Need to be able to deal with setbacks
• May take some time to build up a new businessIf you’re still with me, let’s talk about the type of person that you need to be in order for your home based business to succeed. First of all, you do need to be self motivated. There’s no clock to punch. There’s no boss to yell at you if you miss a deadline. It’s just you, your product or service, and your reputation. You need to be able to get the job done. You also need the ability to market your business, take care of the accounts (including taxes, keeping track of expenses, etc), and provide quality customer service. You may be able to afford to pay an accountant to take care of your taxes, but you’ll still need your paperwork in order, so organization skills are a must.Before taking advantage of any home based business opportunity, you will want the answers to some frequently asked questions that may help you in your decision.1. What training and support is available? – Don’t get sucked into a work from home business that doesn’t provide you any training or support. You should be able to contact someone at anytime. The best digital home based business will be one that is easy to learn and maintain.2. Does the company have a good track record? – How long have they been in business? Are there many success stories of people who gained financial and personal freedom through this business opportunity? Search for the company online and learn everything that you can about them to ensure they offer a legit home based business before making a decision.3. How does the compensation plan pay out? – Will you have to wait to get your money once a month? Are you making a commission? Will you have to earn a certain amount before you see anything? Make sure that the pay out will occur in a way that is convenient for you, and doesn’t require immediate success, since home businesses often take time to start up.