So because apple don’t want you to do it, it won’t be something you can just download from the app store.  You need to get around their strict screening rules.

What you need to do is ‘jailbreak’ your iphone and install a non-apple approved app called mywi.  Mywi turns your iphone into a wifi hub (with wep security) so your iPad recognises it as a wifi connection (you don’t even need bluetooth on).  Your iphone then uses 3G.  It also gives you an upload and download counter live on screen so you can see how much data is being transferred.

It takes about 5 minutes to do both, you don’t lose anything and it works flawlessly.

Apple don’t want you to do this because they won’t make extra money selling a 3G version but more importantly they won’t get a cut from all the monthly contracts people sign to get 3G to their iPad.

Jailbreak sounds bad but it works like this:

Basically Apple have a strangle hold over their app store.  They dictate who or what gets accepted.  This is good in that they control quality, security and reliabiity.  It’s bad because there are some things that apple purposefully ‘dumb down’ in order to give them more revenue potential down the track - something ‘extra’ they can offer in a future release.

The Canon 5D camera did the same thing (brilliant camera that can do so much more than the manufacturer allowed, so someone made new firmware to give people access to these other features) but that’s another story.

So what someone did was create an app called Cydia.  Cydia sits on your iPhone and behaves exactly like the app store, only it lets you buy apps that have not been approved by apple.  Obviously you can’t get Cydia from the app store either.

So you have to get the Cydia app onto your iPhone through a back door and this is called jailbreaking your iPhone.

There is a danger here.  From what I’ve heard there have only been 2 instances of a virus reported on an iphone.  And they were both jailbroken.  The temptation is to get impressed at all the new things you can now do and start downloaing and installing all these new apps.  I wouldn’t do that, but the temptation is there.

The bottom line is that you can always reformat your phone and take it back to vanilla iphone firmware and reconnect to your itunes and get all your apps and music back.

All I’m saying is that there is always a risk of dying in surgery, even with the best of intentions and the best doctors.

So having cleared all the formalities and disclaimers…

If you’re still interested here’s what you do…

Presuming you keep your iphone connected to itunes and you have the latest update of your iphone software (3,13) go to this link.  At the bottom of the page, click on the download link for PC or Mac.  Install the program on your computer and upgrade your iphone.  That’s the jailbreak part. You’ll now find an app called cydia on your phone.  Go there and look up mywi and download it to your phone.  There’s a free trial period or you can buy it for $10 (I bought it).  That’s it.  Then just go to your iPad and check wifi in the area and you’ll see your iphone.  Connect to it and bobs your uncle.

http://www.redmondpie.com/download-spirit-for-iphone-3.1.3-ipad-3.2-ipod-touch-3g-9140718/http://www.redmondpie.com/download-spirit-for-iphone-3.1.3-ipad-3.2-ipod-touch-3g-9140718/

So one more time.  It worked for me (and heaps of others), but you take your own risks.

Enjoy…

On the rim of a clay pot which held a plant, a biologist lined up several caterpillars so that the leader was head to tail with the last caterpillar.

The tiny creatures circled the rim of the pot for a full week. Not once did any of them break away to go over to the plant and eat.

Eventually, all caterpillars died from exhaustion and starvation.

The story of the processional caterpillars is a kind of parable of human behavior. People are reluctant to break away from the rhythmic pattern of daily life. They don’t want to be different.

If you want to succeed in business, that is, to reach horizons and goals you haven’t reached yet, you need to change the things you’re doing now. Start doing things that are different and monitor your progress.

One of our clients who runs a retail water irrigation business changed its direction not so long ago. It did something radically different to anything it had done before. The result? Almost triple the result of its last campaign.

This business was a seasonal business and irrigation just isn’t on people’s shopping list during winter when it’s raining. And even though they were the best in their industry, they did have competition - and their customers didn’t really care which shop they were in - they just wanted their ‘bits’. The public didn’t always recognize the difference until they became a customer.

Establish An Identity
They needed to establish an identity that would make them stand out from the crowd. A lot of major corporations have some sort of identity or character that people relate to. McDonalds has a clown, Dulux has an old English sheepdog. Monier roofing has a black cat, Toyota Camry has a chicken and so on.

Market Research
Research showed that women aged 25-39 were the ‘motivators’ behind purchasing irrigation for the home, so we needed to look at creating something that would appeal to this group.

Research also showed that women could more easily relate to their childhood memories. They relish in their memories of such shows as Thunderbirds and Bill and Ben the flower pot men. In fact of 100 people surveyed, over 87 percent remembered these shows - even though they hadn’t seen them on TV for years. And 99 per cent had nothing but good memories of them. It was a powerful response.

Develop A Difference
We created two personalities that people could easily relate to. We gave them names and a personality. The boy was called Ric and the girl Tic. This was a cute name derived from a popular term used in irrigation - ‘Reticulation’.

The characters were designed to be interactive, warm and friendly. Once made, we initiated some more research to find out how people reacted to the new characters. Again the result was very favorable.

As you might be able to see, Ric and Tic are marionettes with a sprinkler body. Their legs are garden hose and they are two very happy characters.

Once Ric and Tic were a reality, it was time to make the commercial. Naturally a good offer was needed (always have an offer)and a script written to introduce them.

Saturation
It was important to saturate the market to introduce Ric and Tic, but, as with any business, we had a reasonably tight budget. We decided the best use of our budget was to use only one TV station to get this message across. No other supporting media was used. We ran 300 commercials over a two week period.

Before we ran the campaign we asked the media to provide figures showing what they expected reach and frequency figures would be. The Media research showed 95 per cent of our market would see the ad (reach) and the would see the ad an average of 13 times (frequency). This is total saturation.

We needed saturation for two reasons. Firstly we needed to get Ric and Tic established in the market and secondly we were encouraging people to install irrigation in winter! We needed all the exposure we could get.

Focus & Measurement
An easy recall 6 digit ‘13′ number was installed to measure results and focus all calls to a central location where the quality of each call could be monitored and controlled. This made sure all inquiries were handled professionally from one location, leaving the stores to handle their own local traffic.

Success
Ric and Tic tripled the result of any of their previous winter campaigns. The success of Ric and Tic has shown that something different and some good focus can achieve incredible results. The store customers now know when they walk into these stores that they’re in ‘the right store’ because of Ric and Tic.

They’ve created an identity - a personality for themselves that people can identify with. It helps make them unique and gives them an exceptional way to demonstrate their high customer service standards - and without the need to pay royalties for talent!

And yes, you can even look forward to Ric and Tic toys for the kids!

So next time you’re thinking about what to do with your business, think about the processional caterpillars and do something different. Break away from the every day. Chances are you’ll be munching on lush greens long before anyone realizes you’re gone.

Good luck with your next advertising campaign!

This one key will help you save money on advertising while generating more leads and making more money. Understanding your customers will not only help reduce the amount of money you need to spend on advertising, but it will also help you streamline your product selection and your entire business focus!

The industry refers to this as your TARGET MARKET or DEMOGRAPHIC. It might sound all very technical, but stick with me – this would have to be one of THE most important areas of your business that you MUST get right.

Who is buying from you? And please - don’t be fooled by thinking it’s ‘everyone’. This is simply not true.

Start keeping records of who buys from you. Once you have a few weeks of results go through them and work out which one person best describes your ideal customer. Write down as much as you can about that person. Age, Sex, Suburb, Marital Status, Kids, Income, Work, Likes, Dislikes and so on.

You’ll find that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers. Find out who that 20% is. Don’t focus on the bulk of your customers. Focus on who you want that will produce the income you need. This is your target market.

Once you know who your target market is, you can focus all your efforts trying to reach more like them, rather than reaching ‘everyone’.

Any money you spend on advertising before you know this is wasted! Let me show you what I mean with this illustration;

Think of trying to shoot a tin can off a pole. The best solution is aim a rifle with the right ammunition and shoot. If you’re a good shot, you’ll knock the can off the pole with one attempt. Many people also use the shotgun approach. A shotgun blasts many little bits in a much wider area, hoping one of the little bits will hit.

A lot of people are persuaded by mass media reps to give this “shotgun” approach a go. Sure, this approach does reach a lot more people (which can be a good thing if that’s what you want) but you end up paying for the full reach, even if they aren’t all your potential customers. You end up paying to reach people who are NOT your ideal customer as well.

If you decide to go down the mass media ‘shotgun’ path, you need to look at the cost a little differently than you may have in the past. Ask your mass media rep to help you work out what you will pay to reach ‘only your potential customers’ - then compare this real cost with other mass media (you might be surprised how much it’s actually costing you).

Here’s what happens. What they need to give you is the numbers of people watching or reading their media who fit into your ‘target market’ category. For example you may be told that 1,000,000 people read the general newspaper and a small ad may cost you $1000. When you ask the question about your target market, you may find that only 200,000 of you target market read this paper. So now it’s costing you $1000 to reach 200,000 people.

The next thing to consider is WHERE your customers come from. There’s very little point advertising to the whole state when 80% of your money comes from customers that live within 5 minutes walk from you.

So in the above example, the 200,000 people in that mass media may reduce down to 20,000 people that live within 5 minutes walk from you. So now you’re paying $1000 for 20,000 people who are your target market.

Some media may not be able to break down to this level, but some can, so it’s worth asking.

Do the same exercise with each mass media you want to look at advertising with. DO NOT look at their total audience figures because you don’t care about their total audience.

Then consider this…. a ‘bit’ from a shotgun hits the target with less force than a single focused rifle shot, so in most cases you will need to hit your target many times to make your impact. Be prepared to advertise in the same medium at least 3 times if it’s a newspaper or magazine or at least 30 times in a week if it’s radio or TV.

But don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying mass media is bad. In fact it’s a very powerful media if used correctly. What I am saying is that if you have a small budget, you really want to focus in on who your ideal customer is and find what they watch, what they read, what they listen to and where they go. Then measure carefully what it costs to reach them.

You may find a more direct approach - something which is more personalized and measurable like direct mail, email, SMS - has a lot more impact for a lot less money.

The more you can fine tune who your target market is, the more cost effective your advertising and marketing will be and the more leads and sales you’ll make. Knowing who your target market is will not only help reduce the amount of money you need to spend on advertising, but it will also help you streamline your product selection and your entire business focus.

I hope this helps you grow your business. Good luck with your next ad campaign.

This means the average Australian businesses spends more than 50% of their advertising budget on Direct Marketing.

Either a lot of people are deceived, or there’s some reason why it works for some and not for others. What’s the secret? Why do so many business people say direct marketing doesn’t work? How can this be?

We thought it might be interesting to find out why a huge number of business people say direct marketing doesn’t work. What is it that makes them say ‘been there, done that, didn’t work’.

Over a 6 month period we conducted an anonymous survey of 138 companies who, by running an ad with a coupon response, indicated they wanted our business and wanted us to respond by giving them our name and address.We responded to all sorts of businesses. From clothing to funeral homes, cars, computers, lonely heart clubs, finance companies, religious organizations and more.

Before I tell you what we received back from these companies, here’s what I would expect from a company who wants my business.

[1] A friendly, thankful letter, personally addressed and personally signed.
[2] If available, a brochure, or some other form of information.
[3] An time limited offer to motivate me to ‘act now’
[4] A response mechanism such as a coupon or form.
[5] A reply paid envelope and/or a web site that I could visit.

I would also expect:
[1] A response within a reasonable time, say, a week.
[2] A ‘follow up’ of any description, preferably within a week but certainly within a month.

Here’s what we got:

Response Time:
*58% took longer than 7 days to respond
*31% took longer than 21 days to respond
*1 took 45 days, 1 took 52 days, 1 took 56 days, 1 took 63 days and 1 took 84 days! (amazing! why bother?)
*After 6 months, still 18% hadn’t responded

Follow Up:
*76% of those who did respond, didn’t follow up at all.
*5% put us on a mailing list and followed up more than twice (although these were predominantly religious organizations).

Personalized:
*50% just sent a brochure. That’s it. No letter, no ‘how do you do’, no thank you for responding.
*Of those who sent a letter, half of them had a standard letter with a printed signature instead of a real one.

Unusual:
*Only 4 companies sent something unusual like lollies, a coaster, a tea bag or sample with their response (that’s less than 3%!).

So what does all this tell you?

With incredibly bad follow up disciplines like these, it’s no wonder a large number of business owners say ‘been there, done that, didn’t work’. They just don’t care. (Which makes me wonder why they’re even in business in the first place).

The truth is, they’ve been there and missed it.

A large number of businesses using direct marketing principles seem to have little idea or don’t care enough about fulfillment or following through. The end result is a loss, not only for the company who failed, but also for the industry itself.

It’s not all bad news though. This widespread problem opens up a huge amount of opportunity for those that do it right.

So here’s the key; If you follow through well, you’ll stand out so much, people will find you not only memorable, but almost irresistible.

Direct Marketing works. It’s something worth considering. Good luck with your next ad campaign.

Are you looking for a benefit headline that will draw people to your ad?

Do you want to know what motivates people to part with their hard earned cash?

Well here’s a real simple list of reasons that motivate people to ‘buy’. Use it to develop a new niche product, develop a headline or at the very least just consider these things before you spend any money on advertising or marketing. I hope it helps.

1. To make money
2. To save money
3. To save time
4. To avoid effort
5. To get more comfort
6. To achieve greater cleanliness
7. To attain fuller health
8. To escape physical pain
9. To gain praise
10. To be popular
11. To attract the opposite sex
12. To conserve possessions
13. To increase enjoyment
14. To gratify curiosity
15. To protect family
16. To be in style
17. To have or to hold beautiful possessions
18. To satisfy appetite
19. To emulate others
20. To avoid trouble
21. To avoid criticism
22. To be individual
23. To protect reputation
24. To take advantage of opportunities
25. To have safety in buying something else
26. To make work easier

When you consider these items in your promotions or advertising, you’re honing in on some of the key motivators that make us humans respond. And that’s what advertising is all about; finding the ‘what’s in it for me’ motivation in your product or service that will stand out above all the other ‘noise’ competing for the same attention.

Be sure to develop one single clear and persuasive message. Show your prospective customer a benefit, a promise or an offer - something that will persuade them to deal with you instead or your competitors.

Many motivators and trainers use the term WIIFM because it sounds like a radio station call sign to help you remember this. WIIFM stands for “What’s In It For Me”.

The WIIFM benefit should be at the top of an ad, the beginning of a letter, the start of a commercial. Research shows you have less than 10 seconds to get and hold someone’s interest before they move on. Some say it’s even as short as 3 seconds.

Write down all the features and benefits about your product or service, highlighting the one or two that really make a difference. The benefit will be what you need to focus on in your advertising. For example; A TV remote has the ‘feature’ of changing channels from the comfort of your lounge. The ‘benefit’ is that you don’t have to get up out of your chair. Always focus on the benefit and you’ll motivate people every time.

Good luck with your next advertising campaign!

How do you get the most out of a small advertising budget?

One of the most important things to know about advertising (regardless of how much money you have) is that you need be advertising your product or service to the people who want or need your product or service.

That just sounds too obvious right?

Well, not everyone thinks about this.

A lot of people just listen to the sales rep from their local newspaper or radio, but unfortunately this isn’t always the best solution. The sales rep is only interested in selling one product - their own.

It’s highly unlikely you’ll get an unbiased opinion from a sales rep selling one product.

The best solution is to find council from a marketing consultant or an advertising agency.

But this costs money! Sure.

It also costs money to get your car repaired - but you wouldn’t do that yourself would you? Some might… And some can.

Most of us can’t AND most of us shouldn’t!

An incredible 80% of businesses fail in the first 5 years of starting. This shows that even though most people think they know everything they need to know, they actually don’t know much at all about getting new clients.

And in their desperation to try anything new, many might have copied their competitor ads thinking their competitors have the answers - all the while their competitors were probably doing the same thing, or maybe listening to their local sales rep.

Where and how you spend your advertising or marketing dollars could make the difference between staying in business or closing down and losing everything you own.

Sound dramatic? Sure! With an 80% fatality rate, you need to have both eyes open!

So where do you start? If you can’t afford professional help all is not lost. Thanks to the internet, there are a lot of things you CAN do quickly and easily on your own.

Here are 10 different, inexpensive ways to promote your online business.

1. Write an eBook on something that is relevant to your business and distribute it for free. By distributing a free product with your brand in it you will garner the trust of those interested in your product thus bringing you free targeted traffic to your business.

2. Create an affiliate program - By creating an affiliate program you get the masses to help you promote your product for free. The promotion is free and you only pay them when they make sales. As the saying goes, it’s better getting 50% of something than 100% of nothing.

3. Join related directories - Find the most relevant directories and submit your business to them

4. Create a joint venture with complementary businesses. For example; if you run a house cleaning business you should JV with gardeners or other sites that are directly related or complementary to your business.

5. Create a newsletter - By creating a newsletter and capturing some leads you will develop a loyal following that would be willing to buy from you in the future.

6. Write some articles - Write some articles or get some articles written on your topic and get them submitted to popular article directories. Articles include links back to your site. This helps you build a reputation and improves your chances of being considered an expert in your field.

7. Issue a press release - Create a press release about your business. You can easily reach people and even news organizations by issuing a press release.

8. Add your business to classified ads - Find related classified ads sections and add your business to them. (Do not spam!)

9. Find a related forum and offer your expertise. Find a popular forum related to your product and promote it there. Be sure to add some value to the forum before you start just adding your link everywhere. If you don’t add value you will be considered a spammer and all of your hard work will go down the tubes.

10. Go viral - Give away something or create something that people will want to share with others. By giving away something you will easily and quickly earn recognition and build a loyal base.

Most of the ideas above will cost you absolutely nothing except a little time. So here’s a challenge for you. Read through the list again and choose just ONE idea that you can action today.

Go ahead. Do it now. You’ll be glad you did!

And as soon as you can afford it, have a chat with a local marketing or advertising professional. Most of them won’t charge you for the first visit.

Good luck with your next campaign!
Rudy…

For those who are not familiar with post-click tracking, you are probably a bit tired of hearing marketing professionals use similar terms that leave you nothing but confused. Let me give you a very simple definition of post-click tracking – and show you why it can be very valuable.

Post-Click Tracking is a method by which you, the site owner, can track the user’s movements and activities on your website. To get this information, you will need to install a small file, known as a cookie, on the user’s computer. The purpose of this file is to gather, and return to you, identifying information about the user including the pages on your site that they have visited and any purchases that they have made.

That’s really all there is to it, in terms of a definition. Sure, implementation is not simple. However, keep in mind that once you establish a tracking system the logistics happen automatically.

How Does this Help to Maximize RIO Measurement?

In general, if you are not already using this technique there is a good chance that you aren’t measuring the ROI for your e-marketing. Therefore, implementing a cookie-based post-click tracking system will give you the information that you need!

Let’s face it, when you are promoting a new website, or a new online service, you need to know whether it is worth the investment. This is a simple technique for finding out how many people are visiting your site – and what they do once they get there. Here are some of the other things that you can determine through this technique:

• Are users easily finding the information that they need on your site? Or, is critical information located in an area of your site that users cannot get it in three clicks or less.
• Are users getting frustrated and clicking away from your site?
• Do you have advertising to outside sites that is more attractive to users than the information that you are providing?
• Are many users reviewing information about your products or services and deciding not to purchase them? Perhaps this will allow you to rethink your site text and the way in which you are framing your products or services.

Now that you know what Post-Click Tracking can give you

Let’s look at how you can get it set up on your site.

The easiest way to implement this measurement device for your website is to either purchase a tracking software or to hire an e-marketing specialist, who has what it takes to get your tracking system up and running with little time or hassle. Your web hosting provider may actually also offer solutions for tracking your site traffic, so checking out their service listing might also be a good place to start.

If you’ve ever been stuck developing ideas to successfully promote your business, services or products, you should take a serious look at adpack.

adpack is an exciting new advertising and marketing ‘idea machine’ for business. It’s revolutionising the way business people tackle the challenge of advertising.

adpack gives you a very cost effective, easy and innovative way to effectively launch, promote and build a business.

In fact, the ‘lateral thinking’ process in adpack helps you develop up to 125,000 different, exciting and innovative ways to promote your business.

All for less than the cost of a small ‘one-off’ ad.

Adpack is also a great brainstorming and team building tool.

It’s guaranteed to make a profound positive impact in your business or you get your money back. You really can’t lose!

Definately worth a look! www.adpack.com