American Express

Posts Tagged ‘businesses’

Also known as, AMEX, American Express is easily one of the most recognized names in the world of credit cards.  Even though many people have Visa or MasterCard credit cards, they are still interested in AMEX.  With Visa, MasterCard, and AMEX being the most popular and preferred types of credit cards, they are all great although there are also differences between them as well.

Both Visa and MasterCard are methods of payment.  Both will allow different businesses to accept credit card payments using their systems.  Of the two issue credit cards on their own behalf, instead they rely on banks throughout the world to issue the credit cards for them, provide the credit, and then charge the interest.  Your credit card bill goes to the bank, as Visa or MasterCard does not see any of it.

AMEX on the other hand, is very different.  American Express has their own payment system, and they issue their credit cards directly to consumers.  Unlike Visa and MasterCard, AMEX runs the entire show.  Therefore, when a credit card says American Express on it, you instantly know who has issued the card, what payment system it has, and everything else you would need to know.

Even though MasterCard and Visa will used more throughout the world, American Express is always expanding their networks.  Visa and MasterCard will used in over twenty five million locations over the world, including third world countries, which makes them global credit card payments.  AMEX on the other hand, does not quite reach this degree.  It is a great credit card, although it will not use around the world in areas where the other two dominant credit cards are.

You can get AMEX credit cards with rewards, although you will need to be careful where you look and what you select.  Normally, with Visa and MasterCard, you will have to look at hundreds of banks before you can find the best choice.  With AMEX, you can look at their website and find out what they offer and what type of APR you will have to pay.  Most of the time, you can find a credit card with low interest and a great spending limit – providing you have good credit.

PPC advertising, or Pay per Click, has become an essential part of every business’s online marketing strategy. If you’re reading this book we are assuming you know what PPC advertising channel is, but for those who may not, these advertising channels enable businesses to pay for exposure in search engine results or on various content sites based on targeted keywords and phrases.

Why is PPC advertising so popular? Well, there is a pretty easy answer to that question. PPC advertising enables businesses to put their products or services in front of their target market at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising, which will bring your business a higher return on investment and an increased customer base. Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions , and MSN adCenter are today’s more popular PPC advertising models. Just think of it like this. You could pay a hefty fee to place a two-page ad in a targeted trade publication, but you always run the risk that the ad will generate a low response rate—if any. That has always been the gamble.

Instead, PPC advertising enables you to pay only for the number of times your ad is clicked on by your target market—not the number of times your ad is viewed or displayed. What this results in is targeted exposure for your business. If you implement your campaigns the right way, your return on investment should be significantly higher than that of traditional advertising campaigns; you just need to make sure all the tools are in place to create the conversion.

There is not really a set formula for selecting which communication channels are appropriate for your business, but there is a process that should be followed when determining which channels you should be working . Selecting how you are going to speak to your prospective clients is no different. With all of the different ways there are to communicate with your target market, it is amazing how many businesses are solely focused on using search engines to drive traffic to their site and for good reason. Search engines are  typically responsible for driving 60–80 percent of Web site traffic. With that being said, there are so many other channels available online that are often overlooked—particularly by small to medium-sized businesses. These channels,  can drive an equal amount of targeted traffic to your Web site. But how do you select the right channels for your business?

The first thing to understand is that several online marketing channels require a monetary investment, whereas there are others that offer businesses a more cost-effective way to promote their sites. The latter often require an investment of time rather than money  however, the results can be outstanding.

For example, devoting time to the development of your company’s link strategy can take a significant amount of time; however, the investment of time not only will increase your reach on the Internet to your prospective clients, but it will also increase your link popularity. The increase in link popularity will boost your rankings in the major search engines particularly Google. Linkstrategy development is a technique that should be implemented by all organizations regardless of their budget however, it often is overlooked.

It sounds like a silly concept, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s your business, so you know your own products or services inside out, right? It’s amazing how many
businesses get caught up in the design process of their Internet presence and
lose sight of what it is that they are actually promoting online. Quite often,businesses get so involved in wondering how their Web site looks that they actually forget about what it is they are promoting, whom they are targeting,and why they are even promoting it online in the first place.

Can you see how the key components of the foundation work together? So, what are you promoting? Is it simply your products/services? Yes, this is what you want your customers to purchase, but selling to someone online is a lot different from selling to someone face to face. There are so many factors
that play an influential role in encouraging an online user to take the next step and engage your business and its offerings.

Each of these factors typically tie into your most fundamental (and often overlooked) online objectives.To illustrate, let’s assume that you are promoting Product X, which is a highly specialized piece of equipment with a hefty price tag. You are not the only competitor in the market that offers Product X, but your version of the product is slightly different from the rest. So why should someone buy your product? This is where you have to wrap your head around what you are promoting, while differentiating it from the other options that users have within the marketplace.

To illustrate the importance of defining precise online objectives, consider the following. Throughout the years many businesses have made Web site traffic their primary objective and have invested heavily into various means of getting traffic to their Web sites. These businesses followed the philosophy that traffic would result in increased sales. Well, how can you judge the success of your online activities if your whole campaign is based on a vague objective? Simply generating traffic is not tied to a financial objective of any sort, so how can one judge the success of the campaign with such a loose goal
in mind? Instead, stating an objective like “achieving a cost per customer acquisition of $15 as a result of a targeted PPC advertising campaign” helps a business to put a targeted, measurable objective on a particular activity.

Without defining precise objectives for your online activities, it is nearly impossible to gauge success of any sort. Using the example above, you coulddrive waves of traffic to your Web site, but what if the medium you selected wasn’t right for your business and the traffic you received was not a targeted visitor at all? You received lots of traffic, yes, but you also wasted time and money and had a poor ROI as a result. This often forces businesses to make subjective decisions about the success of the campaign or the effectiveness of the medium in general, but the truth of the matter is that it’s not fair to state whether something is a failure or success unless you can really prove it. By defining objectives that are measurable, businesses can determine if a campaign works or doesn’t work. If it works, you can continue to implement such campaigns, and if it doesn’t work, you can tweak your approach and test it again. The key lesson here is to make all of your objectives measurable.

Understanding what you are trying to achieve online plays a critical role in the planning process for your Web site and your overall online marketing strategy. It seems like a simple concept, doesn’t it? I mean, why would you build a Web site if you didn’t understand what you want it to do? Well, the problem is that even in this day and age, many businesses are developing their online presence simply because it’s just one of those things that businesses need to do. These businesses build Web sites that are online brochures for their business with little or no thought about their customers or what they want their site to achieve.

Any online marketing activities, whether it is the development of your Web site or planning sessions for an online campaign, should begin by documenting the specific primary objectives for the activity. Typically it boils down to one primary objective that is common across any business—revenue generation. But what does this really mean? Do you have to sell products online to generate revenue for your business, or can you simply use the site to qualify sales leads for your internal sales department? Overall there are many different online marketing objectives for a company Web site or a specific campaign. People tend to label their objectives simply as “revenue generation” as opposed to breaking down the objective into more specific terms. Below is a list of common online marketing objectives:

• Generate increased brand awareness
• Generate and qualify leads for the internal sales department
• Increase revenue as a result of online sales
• Provide increased customer service by providing the Web user with more   self-service tools and information
• Increase customer retention
• Decrease internal costs by streamlining the share of information online.

A well-planned Internet marketing strategy distinguishes those businesses that are committed to the long-term potential of the medium from those who are simply marketing online because the market says they should. Typically, the latter can easily be detected. I am sure you’ve stumbled across a Web site that is nothing more than an electronic brochure—a site that does not communicate the promise of the brand to the target market or a site that is stamped “Last Updated . . .” only to display a date one or two years prior to your visit (or more.) These are examples of businesses that have yet to fully embrace the potential of the Internet and how it can not only grow their business, but also reach more users in a more cost-effective manner.

Planning plays a critical role in the success of your Internet marketing strategy with regard to your Web site itself, the online communication channels that you choose, and how you actually execute each campaign you launch to your target market. Those businesses that are capitalizing on the mainstream use of the Internet are those that plan their Internet strategies well in advance. For example, research reveals that the average online marketer that is using targeted PPC campaigns or organic optimization as a means of driving traffic to their Web site are dedicating on average 36 percent of their total online advertising budget to the medium. That represents 15 percent of their total online/offline advertising budget. Does this seem like a surprise? It shouldn’t. It’s not unrealistic for search engine exposure to be able to represent 60 to 80 percent of a Web site’s total traffic.

While we will not see a revolution in the heart of the Internet, we will continue to see rapid evolution that will open the door to new opportunities. Some businesses choose to fight change, but successful businesses are the ones that embrace change and are proactive in keeping pace with changing consumer demands. The Internet will continue to grow; it will become faster, it will become cheaper, and it will become smarter.

As a business going into a 3G environment, you need to be prepared to keep on top of ever-changing consumer demands, and you must take online marketing and using your Web site as a point of business seriously to succeed. In the coming sections of this book, we help lay out your plan to achieve success online. Good luck! The Internet is not going away any time soon; it’s going to evolve and become more ingrained in all our lives.