Traditional Advertising Vs Internet Advertising

In the 1870s a devoutly Christian merchant John Wanamaker from Philadelphia, in the US was credited with starting the first departmental stores and price tags. This, he claimed, was to eliminate hassles and haggling about the price because he held that everyone should be equal before God and price. He also became the first advertiser in the modern era by buying space to display ads in local newspapers. Here again, he remained a true Christian by not advertising on Sundays. His precise business acumen coined a witty phrase that leaned more towards the economics of business; his phrase ‘half the money spent on advertising is wasted’ holds true even in the internet era when advertising techniques have been turned on their head.

The global advertising industry crossed the $500 billion mark some years ago; an estimated $200 billion is lost as ‘wasteful advertising’ i.e. expenses towards advertising material that don’t reach audiences and reach the wrong audience. In his witticism, Wanamaker was quite on target.

However, the coming of the Internet Age has perhaps slowed down the trend of this wasteful advertising. Many entrepreneurial firms are selling new tools to businesses to reduce the waste in advertising. Such tools come in various forms but with one common purpose which is to replace the old formulae of advertising with real actions for consumers and measurable values for business advertisers – sharing videos, purchasing a product, clicking a web link etc.

Estimates by independent firms such as Nielsen figure that in the television media, advertisers may pay up to $20,000 for a 30-second spot at a pre-fixed rate, say, cost per thousand or cost per million (casual estimates for the population of an average city). It cannot be said exactly how many television sets will be tuned in to a particular channel at a given time and so the price may really be astronomical, the proverbial ‘atom bomb’.

In contrast, newer advertising models based online or internet advertising are innovative and compared to ‘spearheads’ that people get impaled on. The idea of online advertising is to allow consumers themselves to take the initiative and voluntarily interact online with what they find.

Here the consumer’s “action” is of more intrinsic value to the advertiser than his “exposure” to advertising material.

The credit for the modern PPC (pay per click) advertising insight goes to Bill Gross, an internet entrepreneur who founded Idealab in 1996, a kind of invention factory.

One of the inventive ideas to emerge from this was GoTo.com (later called Overture) that pioneered the concept of ‘paid search’ advertising. A few years later, Gross met the young co-founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page to whom he put across the idea and the offer of a partnership. Google was an upcoming search engine that had not yet mastered the concept of making revenues online and hence the idea may not have appealed; however in less than a year, Google came up with AdWords loosely based on Overture’s concept of advertising links charged for clicks. This was followed by AdSense, a system that went beyond search results and placed sponsored links on the web pages of publishers, online magazines and newspapers that signed up as part of the network of Google. These “contextual” advertising strategies that find relevance to the content on a webpage are paid for by the advertiser only when a prospective customer clicks on the ad links. Google’s revenues from such contextual advertisements nets revenues in the billions of dollars.

Five Tips for Selling at Live Auctions

Ah, the old-fashioned country auction! The idea of a country auction conjures up certain images for people. The image of a fast-talking auctioneer offering up an antique table or chair is a popular example.

People who are buying household goods or collectibles are looking to get their items at the lowest price possible. However, the people who are selling their items at auction are hoping for the highest price!

Unless a person is in the business of buying and selling antiques or other items, not a lot of thought goes into how goods are prepared for sale via the auction process. However, if you are one of the growing number of people using auction venues to sell your collectibles or other inventory, there are a few things to learn first about how to sell at auction before you bring a truckload of stuff over to the next event.

Tip 1: Make sure the things you want to sell are a good “fit” for the auction house you’ll be using.

Never bring a load to an auction house without actually having been to one of the previous auctions. It’s important to get a feel for the type of goods that the house sells. For example, at one very rural country auction it was common for the owners to sell live chickens, pots and pans, car parts, and farm equipment.

After close investigation, this would not be the right venue for selling your daughter’s “Hello Kitty” collection. On the other hand, the spare John Deere parts that you bought at last week’s yard sale might be just the right thing for the buying crowd at this auction.

Tip 2: Be sure you clearly understand the terms and policies of the auction house.

Visit with the auctioneer ahead of time. Call to find out what the best days and times are to visit. One of the worst possible times to drop in for an informational visit with an auctioneer is the day of the auction. Call ahead and ask. While you’re at it, find out what are the best days and times to drop your stuff off.

Once you have a little time with the auctioneer, you’ll be able to find out what type of commission he or she takes from consigners (which is you), and what type of paperwork might be needed. Some auction houses send out Form 1099 tax forms at the end of the year. An auctioneer may need to see your identification and have you fill out a W-9. Be prepared.

Find out what happens to your items if they don’t sell. For example, some auctioneers may have a minimum starting bid. If, for some reason, one of your items does not sell, it may be grouped with another one of your pieces. Know the auctioneer’s strategy beforehand so that you aren’t surprised on pay day.

Tip 3: Make sure the auctioneer knows what you’re selling.

It might be perfectly obvious to you that the signed print you are consigning is a rare and valuable piece of art. However, the auctioneer may not know this particular artist. Make a note of anything particularly special about your items, and leave the note with the piece. Be sure to tell the auctioneer about it as well. He or she might determine that this is something to highlight on the company website or in the newspaper listing.

Tip 4: Present your items neatly.

No one likes to have to dig through a box full of grimy and greasy car parts to see what treasures might be in there. Separate the parts and lay them out on a flat, or use more than one box to de-clutter the lot.

There is no need to buy fancy display boxes. It’s easy enough to go to the local convenience store or supermarket and ask if you can have the emptied boxes or flats that they are discarding.

While it’s good to present clean items, take care not to ruin the value of anything by over cleaning. For example, if you find some old cast iron cookware, clean the obvious dirt and grime, but don’t scrub it to its original finish. For many people, this ruins the value of the item. So, clean and tidy and organized is the key here.

Tip 5: Don’t complain to the auctioneer if your stuff doesn’t sell for as much as you’d like.

The phrase to remember here is, “You win some; you lose some.” That’s just the way it is. There are some days where an auction house is loaded with people who all seem to want what you’re selling. There will be other days where the crowd is sparse, and the bidding is simply not competitive.

Remember that it’s in the auctioneer’s best interest to sell your things for the highest possible hammer price. But sometimes, it’s just not going to be a stellar sale. The auctioneer is only human, and is also disappointed if a sale doesn’t go as well as planned.

If you notice that every time you bring a bunch of goods to sell that you’re not realizing as much as you think you honestly should, try another auction venue and compare apples to apples. That is, bring the same types of items to the new auctioneer and compare the results.

Unless the auctioneer is particularly disagreeable or inconsiderate to you or buyers, there is no reason to confront him or her about a sale. If you find you just don’t care for an auctioneer’s style or methods, find another one. Believe me, there are plenty of them out there!

The primary thing to remember as you learn how to sell at auction is that the business is unpredictable at best. You will have good days, some not-so-good days, some great days. The more you sell, the more experience you will gain, and the more enjoyable the business will be.

Is a Home-based Business Right For You?

If you are searching for a great way to have a successful income and you like the thought of doing it from the comfort of your own home then a home-based business could indeed be right for you. Many people think of home-based businesses as being easier than an outside of the home business, but the truth is this is not so. Home-based businesses bring their own type of stress and challenges.

The only way to know if home – based businesses going to be right for you and your lifestyle, is to weigh the pros and cons that it brings. Every year more and more home-based businesses startup. There are over 15 million people the describe themselves as being self-employed, meaning that they basically own their own business. The good news is that working from home with your own home base business is now accepted as a viable and lucrative alternative to working outside the home for someone else.

Thanks to the constant changes and improvements in technology, working from home has become easier and easier. Basically, people from all over the world can network, and this makes a home-based business even more of a lucrative possibility. Of course you have to be technology minded in order to succeed in a home-based business. You need to at least have the basics down. You also need equipment, which would be a computer, a high-speed Internet connection, and the phone. Depending on the work at home business that you have, will depend on how technologically advanced you need to be.

Some of the immediate advantages of having your own business are the freedom that you will have. Plus, you have the ability to make your own decisions and not have to rely on a boss that tells you what to do. You can set your own hours, you work when and how long you want. You get to choose the people that you work with, or in this case, don’t work with. Many people find that having a home-based business allows them to fulfil their potential. If you don’t feel that you are able to achieve everything that’s possible for you in an outside the house job then owning your own business lets you aim as high as you want. You are in charge of your own life.

The disadvantages of having a home-based business must be realized as well, because if you’re unprepared you could find that your business will fail. The first and the most obvious risk is going to be financial uncertainty. If for some reason the worst happens and you either don’t find clients, or find clients that don’t pay you, you need to determine if you can afford to lose the capital that you have invested in the business, or that you need to live. Having your own business generally will mean the you wont have benefits. If you’re going to have benefits than you have to determine if you can afford that.

Running your own business takes a lot of time and energy and some people get burned out. Work at home business owners are particularly susceptible to this because they generally handle all aspects of the business. The fact that you are home alone and working by yourself most of the time can be a negative aspect for some people. Some cannot handle the isolation factor. Another con to home-based businesses is an unsupportive family. If you cannot make your family understand that you actually are working, or if you work so much that you never spend time with your family this can cause many difficulties.