Following are 20 keys to successfully marketing your product, service, and business online.

1. Have a professional, easy-to-navigate, quick-loading design. Hire a professional design firm or at least use a good site template.
2. Have lots of quality related content.
3. Build lots of links to your Web site.
4. Build credibility and rapport.
5. Start an e-mail newsletter with quality content and send it out at least once per month.
6. If you are selling a product, have an affiliate program.
7. Once you have an affiliate program, don't forget to promote it.
8. Do whatever you can do profitably to attract large affiliates and form key strategic alliances.
9. Position yourself advantageously in the search engines.
10. Use cost-per-click (CPC) engines, but make sure you know the lifetime value (LTV) of your customers and that you do return-on-investment (ROI) checks often.
11. Supplement your affiliate advertising with both online and traditional advertising, but track results and always do ROI checks.
12. Advertise using CPM channels to build brand recognition, but put profitability before brand recognition.
13. Offer yourself as a resource to the media as an expert in your niche.
14. Hire a great publicity firm or bring an experienced publicist in-house.
15. Use autoresponders to maintain constant contact with prospective customers.
16. Remember that business is all about relationships and communication. Always work to build more relationships, and once they are built, make sure you are in continuous contact with your prospects, customers, strategic alliances, suppliers, investors, and the media.
17. Encourage word of mouth among your customers.
18. Have superior customer service and have staff to answer all incoming e-mails within 24 hours.
19. Send out periodic e-mail follow-ups making sure your customers are happy and asking them for feedback on your product and the service your company has provided.
20. Blog frequently with quality content.

from the book Zero to One Million by Ryan P. Allis

Here's how it works, for example, if a user is browsing for hybrid cars in Yahoo Autos and had previously selected San Francisco as his or her default location in Yahoo Weather, Yahoo's SmartAds platform can assemble and deliver a display ad in real time to showcase a hybrid vehicle from a major auto brand, as well as local dealer information and current lease rates.

Yahoo SmartAds will utilise demographic, geographic and behavioral targeting to create more relevant advertisements for the user. Using the new technology, ads will be created on the spot, utilising several known factors about a user, including recently-visited sites, location, age, and income. The search engine's recent $680 million acquisition of Right Media will allow SmartAds to appear on the ad provider's extensive advertising network

For a complete overview, visit the Yahoo! SmartAds web site and check out it's demo.

Here's Yahoo's Press Release on SmartAds.

Why CSR? Here are some benefits of CSR:

1. Enhanced reputation and brand image:

Reputation is an important sustainable competitive advantage, because it is very hard to build and cannot be easily mimicked by competitors. A organisation's reputation results from trust by its stakeholders. A strong reputation in ethical environmental and social responsibility can help a organisation build this trust. Several major brands, such as The Body Shop & the Co-operative Group are built on ethical values

2. Increased profit and customer loyalty:

Several academic studies have shown a direct correlation between socially responsible business practices and positive financial performance:

• A 1997 DePaul University study found that organisations with a defined corporate commitment to ethical principles do better financially (based on annual sales/revenues) than organisations that don't.


• An 11-year Harvard University study found that "stakeholder-balanced" organisations showed four times the growth rate and eight times the employment growth when compared to organisations that are shareholder-only focused.


• According to the Millennium Poll on CSR, the majority of 25,000 people interviewed in 23 countries want organisations to contribute to society beyond making a profit.


• Research has shown that there is a growing desire by consumers not only to buy good and safe products, but they also want to know that what they buy was produced in a socially and environmentally responsible way such as “sweatshop-free” and child-labor-free clothing, smaller environmental impact.

3. Creating new business opportunities:

Experience gained through addressing CSR challenges also provides opportunities for organisations to create new business opportunities.

4. Increased ability to attract and retain employees:

A organisation's dedication to CSR can be an important aid to recruitment and retention compared with competitors. People want to work for a organisation that is in accordance with their own values and beliefs.

• 78% of employees would rather work for an ethical and reputable organisation than receive a higher salary. (The Cherenson Group, www.csreurope.org)


• In interviewing 150 top employees in 24 organizations, the UK consulting firm, Stanton Marris, learned that employer reputation was a key factor in accepting a job offer.


• 76% of those polled by the Cone/Roper Corporate Citizenship Study said a organisation's "commitment to causes" was an important consideration in deciding where to work.

5. Increased productivity and morale:

Committing CSR internally to improve working conditions, lessen environmental impacts can lead to increased productivity and staff morale where the workforce are more reliable, enthusiastic and efficient.

6. Attracting investors and business partners:

Organisations addressing ethical, social, and environmental responsibilities have easier access to capital through investors and better conditions for loans on international money markets. It is also easier to do merger/acquisition negotiations, finding business partners and suppliers as well as smoother workforce integration.

A 2001 study showed that 12% of total investment in the USA was of a socially responsible nature. Likewise, there are were 313 green, social and ethical funds operating in Europe in June 2003, showing a 12% increase in the last eighteen months.

6. Managing risk:

The more an organisation is committed to CSR, the better it is able to manage risk. Large corporations and well-known brands are the first target of litigation for CSR misconduct such as the highly publicised "Nike sweatshops". The consequences could be huge in terms of market share or capital loss. A tarnished reputation might require years to rebuild and cost a large sum of money.

7. Preferential government and regulatory treatment:

Governments and regulators are more lenient with organisations that are more committed to CSR. Preferential treatment may be given when applying for permits or permission to do something and less intervention in their business through taxation and regulations.
Some believe that CSR programmes are often undertaken in an effort to distract the public from the ethical questions posed by their core operations. Some that have been accused include British Petroleum (BP) and British American Tobacco (BAT).

8. Increased operational efficiency and reduced operating costs:

Operational efficiency can be increased by reducing waste production and operating costs can be reduced by less water usage, increasing energy efficiency and selling recycled materials. At a broader scale, such CSR actions can result in environmental, social and economic benefits.

9. Innovation in market through cooperation with local communities:

CSR requires cooperation with the local communities and relationships can be improved. This can help organisations in tailoring products and services as well as more rapid acceptance to local markets.

Now, how do you implement a CSR plan/model?

There a few things to think about before you begin a CSR plan. Begin with a big picture, can you do a better job in making our planet, its environment and its inhabitants a better world to live in? If yes, think about how your organisation can impact our world; its people and how you as an organisation can create a better, fair, just and compassionate world.

To achieve success, such ethical social and environmental values need to be embedded in your business culture: business practices, vision and plan which begin at the highest level.

To begin, you need to do a self assessment of what priority areas you need to implement based on your unique business strengths. Key stakeholders should be involved in the process where discussions can happen so that everybody can buy into the concept. First, identify any risk that may cause reputation and/or financial risk to your organisation. Second, identify those socially responsible initiatives that are the most cost effective to implement. Once you have developed your CSR priorities, you need to establish a code of principles conduct, clear value statement where the whole organisation needs to commit. You then need to develop policy to formalise and articulate this commitment, and create programs to implement this policy. To make the programs meaningful, organisations need to provide training and education, and plan visible, memorable activities. The CSR plan should be implemented across the organisation. It should be localised for different markets and it should have measurement techniques. Open communication with stakeholders (community, employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers and the environment) is also vital as they need to feel that they can respect and trust a company's values. Finally, report the success of the programs and measure the progress as your CSR investment needs to be justified to shareholders.

1. THE DISILLUSIONED consistently expresses disappointment with your work even though it is of good quality and conforms to spec. A client who is constitutionally incapable of appreciating your work is not a client you should be involved with.
2. THE SUSPICIOUS consistently expresses a lack of trust, disdain for your work, or questions your integrity. A client who is constitutionally incapable of trusting in your expertise is not a client you should be involved with.
3. THE CHISELER consistently complains about your bill, even though it conforms to the estimate they agreed to. A client who is constitutionally incapable of honoring a deal is not a client you should be involved with.
4. THE BULLY consistently is verbally abusive or threatening to you.
5. THE SOMETHING-FOR-NOTHING consistently increases the scope of the project but refuses to pay for the additional work. A client who is constitutionally incapable of offering additional value in exchange for additional value is not a client you should be involved with.
6. THE SLOW PAY consistently pays invoices late. In any business, cash flow is king. A client who is constitutionally incapable of paying a bill on time for work that was delivered on time is not a client you should be involved with.
7. THE FLAKE consistently is late meeting responsibilities, but still holds you to the original schedule. A client who is constitutionally incapable of understanding that in order for a project to be delivered on-time, everyone must meet their obligations is not a client you should be involved with.
8. THE LIAR consistently lies to you. A client who is constitutionally incapable of being honest with you is not a client you should be involved with
9. THE CLINGER consistently makes unreasonable demands regarding your availability. A client who is constitutionally incapable of applying a "reasonable man" standard to requests for your time is not a client you should be involved with.
10. THE BLACKMAILER consistently refuses to pay an invoice until you perform additional work at no charge. A client who is constitutionally incapable of engaging in good-faith dealings is not a client you should be involved with.
11. THE MONEY PIT consistently is unprofitable. A client who is constitutionally incapable of offering you a fair rate for your services is not a client you should be involved with.

1. Many have said that advertising is dead and public relations is the way for more effective marketing. However, we can still see that advertising is still the most popular marketing medium as compared to Public Relations. [See Trend]
2. So which is more important? Brand, sales or loyalty? Answer: sales is still the most important. Of course, where is the brand & loyalty with sales? [See Trend]
3. Something of interest here for search engine marketers. While Google has a bigger market share than Yahoo. The trend shows here that Yahoo is still the more popular search term as compared to Google. [See Trend]
4. Which is more popular? Email marketing, direct marketing or search engine marketing? Direct marketing is still the more popular one. [See Trend]
5. Which market research firm is more popular? ACNielsen, Forrester or Roy Morgan? Looks like Forrester is the more popular in most countries. [See Trend]
6. Asians are more interested in marketing science than the others. [See Trend]
7. There is an increment on the appointments of chief marketing officer and there are more chief marketing officers in India than in US. [See Trend]
8. Finally, God is still bigger than us marketers :> [See Trend]