• 9 out of 10 consumers use the Internet to find local products or services. Of these,
• 86% follow up with a phone call or in-store visit. And with more than 1 billion local searches every month, this translates into a huge opportunity to attract new customers.

As part of this package, we are excited to be doing the following:

1. A local business listing on Google Places, guaranteed to be on the first page.
2. A Youtube Video featuring a professional narrator, a custom script, search keywords, and pictures from that companies business. A video alone like this usually costs several thousand dollars.
3. Local Profiles Setup on:
1. Yelp
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. Manta
4. Submission of your website to a combination of 45 search engines, search portals, and web directories.
5. If you are hosting with us, installation of a toolbar on your site which integrates all of these things into one marketing machine! (CHECK OUT the toolbar on the bottom of this site, connecting our facebook, twitter, and youtube marketing material, it’s awesome!)

We are aiming to make this extremely affordable, at $149 a month

For those of you who picked up our card, feel free to have a look around and contact us if you are in need of web development services.  We are working on a new CMS based on CodeIgnitor which is interesting – never a dull day in the IT field!  We can develop a website from start to finish and help with marketing it too.  For advanced tactics, we have a network of experts for fields such as advanced systems administration, python development, and social media campaigns.

Check it out at www.odsnow.com

Is your Insurance treating you fairly?

We have been working hard on some pretty killer sites.  Check this one out!

MCA is a full featured site which allows anyone to become a subscriber for a mere $2.99 a month (Auto) or $4.99 a month (Premium).  What MCA will do is take your side when the inevitable happens and it is time to file an insurance claim.  Believe it or not, Insurance Companies do not always have your best interests in mind when it comes time to pay a claim – they are looking out for their bottom line as well.

The minds behind MCA are licensed insurance professionals that know what to look out for and will make sure you are treated fairly in your claim.  The site features an interactive communication system between insurance professionals and clients, a full featured login system which allows subscribers access to tons of content and dirt on the insurance industry, and the ability to update or cancel your subscription at any time.

Check it out at MyClaimsAdvocate.com

Seriously though, as the lead developer in this company I have seen what a good group of people can do.  Thanks to all the BNI members who were kind enough to show me the ropes.  I’ve joined a few other ‘networking’ groups that offered empty promises of success but this is one that really works.  There is no silver bullet, if you want to make your business work you need to put the time and effort in – so few people understand that.  So far we’ve been able to both give business and get it, which is how it’s supposed to work.

The great cliche rings true:

It’s not what you know it’s who you know… and who they know.

Who We Are

If you’ve clicked on our ad or stumbled across our website you are probably wondering what M5Media is… We are a web design and development business who market our services almost exclusively to other businesses, most of them small or medium size businesses. We are new to the Minneapolis area and looking to expand. We have over 8 years experience with web development and design and offer significantly lower prices than most of the local competition.

What We’re Offering

M5Media is offering a way for you to make a quick buck (or quite a few bucks) by offering sales commissions on web site referrals. The idea is this: You can use any means at your disposal to recruit potential customers. You can go door-to-door, telemarketing through salesgenie.com, or just refer ‘someone you know’. Any other means you can think of (as long as their legal) are fair game too. Here’s what we are looking for in our sales force:

• A Working Knowledge of how the Internet Works and how it can benefit a business (technical background a plus)
• Good People Skills
• A Friendly Demeanor & Go Get ‘Em Attitude

See the ‘White Papers’ section of our website to learn more about how a website can help a business.

Why We’re Doing It

It’s pretty simple really. We are simply looking to expand and are willing to pay you to help us do it. You don’t even have to make a real effort if you don’t want to, it could simply be someone you know who wants or needs web development or design services. Here is what we are looking for (again, pretty simple):

• A Qualified Lead – someone who is genuinely interested in our products and services and would like to know more specific details about them.
• A Local Business (Twin Cities Metro Area or at least in Minnesota) connect us with someone we can meet in person with or work with over the phone.

Sound too easy? It’s really not but we do have one thing in the fine print. If the deal never happens you will not get your commission, that’s pretty easy to understand right? That means that submitting leads to us that are bogus will only hurt you and waste our time. We understand that not every deal will work out, but if you’ve done your job and sold them on the idea and benefits, it will rarely not happen.

Please don’t report leads that lead nowhere, it wastes everybody’s time and if you do it too often we will simply stop taking referrals from you. We are an honest business and also understand that you are taking a small risk in trusting us.

Summary

So to sum things up you are in the business of referring qualified leads to us, and you don’t need any special skills to do it. When you report a lead to us for someone you recruit (or just happen to know) we will set up an appointment with them to discuss their project. You don’t need to know anything technical about the project (that’s our job) although as much detail as you can provide is a plus.

At this point your commitment to the job is done, you’ve identified a potential customer and let us know about it. We then make an appointment with them to discuss the project. If things go through you’ll get a check in the mail, no questions asked. You can feel free to contact the lead you sent us and make sure we are good to our word.

Web Development is a very customized thing and jobs range from $500 to $10,000 or more depending on the scope of the project. Your job is just to bring the developers (us) and the clients (people you’ve identified who could benefit from our services) together and you get paid. On a $5,000 job that’s $500 bucks!, all for just identifying the right person and letting us know about it.

Our commission is pretty lucrative and you only have to do as much work as you want to (or none at all). Just email ‘sales@m5media.net‘, and submit the following information:

• Name and Business of person you are referring
• Contact phone number and email address of the person you are referring
• Notes about the project
• The person’s budget (if applicable)
• Your Name and Phone Number
• Your Address (so we can send you a check)

Paypal:

Pros:

• Easy to setup
• Cheaper for a startup business with low volume sales
• Some people trust Paypal more (owned by EBAY)
• No SSL needed (paypal handles payments)

Cons:

• May cost more depending on the rate you negotiate with a MA
• Takes customer off of your site
• Some people trust Paypal less (to each his own)

Merchant Account (MA)

Pros:

• Often appears more professional
• Keeps users on your site during the payment process
• Can be cheaper if you are doing a lot of volume
• Better customer retention and success rate

Cons:

• More programming overhead to setup
• Have to pay a % + a transaction fee
• Often a monthly fee to keep the MA open
• Need an SSL certificate (for scrambling of CC numbers during transmission to the payment gateway)

Conclusion

It’s a mixed bag really, in my experience few people want to pay the overhead of setting up a merchant account with the fees and trouble.  However, customers seem to prefer that method and your success rates (from surfer to purchaser) are usually higher.  I usually recommend starting with Paypal, then when you are getting a lot of sales, switch to a MA.

Unfortunately, not every email you send in a campaign makes it to it’s destination.  You can expect 10-20% of the emails you spend to inevitably end up in SPAM filters and junk mail boxes, it’s the nature of the beast.  Even if you send email campaigns following all the rules and only to recipients who asked for them you can end up in SPAM filters.

Unfortunately, there are no simple ways to avoid this, best practice is to understand SPAM filters and how they work.

Believe it or not, SPAM filters do not *know* that your email is SPAM or NOT SPAM – they guess.  This sounds scary but they are surprisingly good at it.  However, they occassionally deliver what are known as false positives from time to time.  A false positive is when a message that is not spam is labeled as such and blocked.  This is demonstrated by the familiar conversation:

“I sent you an email, didn’t you get it?”

“No, I didn’t, are you sure you sent it?”

“Check your junk mail box”

“Oh, I don’t know why it went in there”

(the email probably had a subject “OMG!!!!!! DID YOU SEE HOW WE COULD SAVE $$$$ MONEY BY SIGNING UP ON TOTALLYFREESTUFF.COM?? ” )

SPAM filters operate on a set of rules that have been established by people in the know about people who send SPAM a lot.  The SPAM scanner (a program) analyzes each email as it comes into the system and runs a set of rules on it, if it accumulated too many ‘points’ it is labeled as SPAM and sent to the junk folder.  Here are a few samples of numbers that Spam Assassin assigns emails that it thinks look like spam:

• Talks about lots of money (.193 points)
• Describes some sort of breakthrough (.232 points)
• Looks like mortgage pitch (.297 points)
• Contains urgent matter (.288 points)
• Money back guarantee (2.051 points)
• Why Pay More? (1.249 points)

The number of points that send your email to the SPAM dungeon varies from server to server, it is configurable and ranges from very lax to very strict.  What people have their SPAM settings at is usually related to how much SPAM they get and how annoying they find it

What do I do then (or not do)?

Avoid these common mistakes:

• Going crazy with the exclamation points!!!!!!!!
• USING ALL CAPS WHICH IS YELLLING!!!!!! (exclamations thrown in to make it extra spammy)
• Annoying bright colors and dubious offers like Click Here for a FREE VACATION
• Intentionally misspelling ‘spam words’ like vi*gra FrEe HeRE, this might even work but it makes you look like an idiot.
• Having a history of doing these things: a bad rap follows you and the server through organizations like spamhaus.org

How do I follow the rules?

Following the rules is easy – just don’t do anything to somebody else you wouldn’t want done to you.  Here’s a cheat sheet FYI:

• Only send email to people who have agreed or signed up to receive from you.
• Only send email that pertains to your business or something pertaining to your business (everybody hates those affiliate programs)
• Send useful information or tidbits – if you wouldn’t want to read it, who else would?
• Only send out to lists that have asked specifically for the material you’re sending.

And there you have it, SPAM 101