LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER

It's already feeling like Winter is in the air with yellow leaves and colder nights.

The Winter edition of the here and NOW newsletter brings updates with some of eBay's selling and feedback procedures. Did you know that you can edit your photos online? Adobe has an update to their online Photoshop tools and there's more info on the ever important keywords.

Hope you have a wonderful Holiday Season!
Coach Danny

IN THE WINTER ISSUE

• Sales Pitches Customers Can't Resist
• Photoshop Express Online Photo Tool
• eBay Fixes One of the Biggest Holes in DSR System
• eBay Announces Sunset of Third-Party Checkout
• Do You Trust Google's Keyword Tool?
• Post FREE Local Ads
• Keyword Match Types

You are surrounded by simple, obvious solutions that can dramatically increase your income, power, influence and success. The problem is, you just don't see them.
-Jay Abraham

Sales Pitches Customers Can't Resist

by Kelli B. Grant
SmartMoney.com

Here is an article I found that describes several different sales pitches that marketers use to entice customers to buy more. This article tells customers how to avoid these tactics, but perhaps you could pick up a few ideas to use in your marketing strategies.

The road to the mall may be paved with good intentions, but retailers know just how to get inside that part of your brain that yells, "Buy me!" And this holiday season, they're rolling out more tricky marketing strategies to encourage recession-scarred shoppers to spend.
"Shoppers are dealing with a whole new arsenal of tricks," says Kit Yarrow, a professor of psychology and marketing and Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

Merchants have always used marketing tricks and rotating sales to encourage consumers to open their wallets, but this year, they're pushing every psychological button they can, retail experts say. Competition for shoppers, plus a tepid holiday shopping outlook, means retailers are doing whatever they can to attract deal-hunting consumers' attention -- all in an effort to entice them into spending more than they'd planned. That means adding worry-inducing purchase limits to indicate scarcity, promising free gifts to shoppers who spend just a little more, and offering rewards today to redeem later
just so people will come back to the store.


These strategies work in part because they tap into hard-wired behaviors that go back to our days in caves. Long before we were confronted with half-off Merino turtlenecks or buy-one-get-one-free smartphones, we learned to stockpile in the event of shortage and to compete for scarce resources, psychologists and neuroscientists say. The stakes are considerably lower when you shop, but studies have shown our brains react similarly nonetheless. The effectiveness -- and proliferation -- of these mind games are a big part of the reason you're apt to look back and wonder why you thought that buying three itchy sweaters for $50 or a $200 no-name television was such a good idea.

Get to know these seven hidden triggers, and next time you go shopping you can look at retailers' pitches with a more critical eye -- and maybe avoid blowing your budget:

"Shop Today and Save 50% Next Week."

Aimed at: Your best intentions.

Why you fall for it: The promise of bigger savings in the future appeals to people who think they can game the system, says Lars Perner, an assistant professor of clinical marketing at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. You figure on buying just one or two things now, then returning to pick up a few more. But volume-driven retailers are using the now-and-later tactic this year to steer consumers back to stores when they know they'll have new stock or other promotions that help you buy more than you planned.

It's similar to the "buy a little bit more and get a free gift" promotion, Perner says. Borders (NYSE: BGP - News), for example, offers a $20 bonus to anyone who buys $100 in gift cards -- with the caveat that it can be used only during its post-holiday clearance Dec. 26-31. Similarly, through Nov. 15, Kohl's (NYSE: KSS - News) is offering customers $10 in store credit for every $50 spent, to be redeemed Nov. 16-24, just before Black Friday. "They're good at doing these combo deals," says Paul Swinand, an equity analyst covering department stores for Morningstar. Such promotions are effective at driving traffic and store loyalty, he says.

"Limit Five Per Person."

Aimed at: Your competitive spirit.

Why you fall for it: Limits trigger a feeling that the deal is so great that, if not for that limit-four-per-customer rule, shoppers would be filling their carts to the brim, leaving none for you, says L.J. Shrum, the president of the Society for Consumer Psychology and the marketing department chair at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Setting a limit increases the likelihood you'll buy at least one, and it's even more effective if you were already planning to buy one of the item.

Higher numbers in promotions have the same effect, according to a 2007 study in the Journal of Retailing. Changing the structure of a sale from "Buy two" to "Buy eight" resulted in a 55% increase in sales -- regardless of the price of each option, says study co-author Kenneth C. Manning, chair of the marketing department Colorado State
University. This year, limits are showing up on anything a store wants to get rid of. You'll even see limits on items that might seem absurd to purchase in multiples, Shrum says. In its early Black Friday sale, Best Buy (NYSE: BBY - News) limited sale items -- including $120 Blu-ray players and $280 laptops -- to one per person. The two-day sale was too short to have a big impact on quarterly sales, but likely piqued shoppers' interest, says Michael Pachter, an analyst for equity research firm Wedbush.

"Our Big Sale Ends Tomorrow/Today/in a Few Hours."

Aimed at: Your survival instincts.

Why you fall for it: Fear, pure and simple. This tactic appeals to a basic instinct to grab what's available or be left without, says Noah Goldstein, an assistant professor of human resources and organizational behavior at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles. Think of the crowds stocking up on bottled water and canned goods before a major storm comes through.
In those frenzied hours, it's a matter of survival.

Retailer e-newsletters have made it easy to extend that tactic online, and many retailers send multiple emails to shoppers as the end of a sale nears. And they often respond. On the last day of Old Navy's 25% off sale, the company sent consumers an email saying, "Last chance; Hurry before the discounts drop!" That day, the number of people visiting OldNavy.com increased 8.32%, and those visitors spent 6.42% more time there, according to Compete.com. It's hard to know how much
one impacted the other, says Aaron Smolick, the senior director of marketing for Compete.com, "but something happened."

"Get 23% Off."

Aimed at: Your love of a bargain.

Why you fall for it: Real estate brokers have long known that uneven pricing (say, $524,755 versus $525,000) catches buyers' attention, because those odd numbers suggest a bargain that has already been marked down -- whether that's actually the case or not. This year, retailers have picked up on that tactic this year as a way to separate their sales from the sea of 20% off offers, Yarrow says. Amazon.com
(Nasdaq: AMZN - News) recently advertised discounts of "up to 61%" on its bulk groceries, for example, while Designer Living and Art.com hosted 21% and 22% off sales. Although price-comparing consumers are unlikely to buy if the deal isn't the best out there, just looking opens up the door to impulse buys on other sale items.

"We Have a Great Deal on the Accessories For That, Too."

Aimed at: Your long-term investor.

Why you fall for it: Once the consumer has already made a decision to buy and to pay, it's easier to convince them to add related -- but maybe unnecessary -- items to their purchase, Shrum says. That's because in your mind, you already own the product, making you more vulnerable to pitches for things that promise to make the purchase more useful or less vulnerable. A 2009 Carnegie Mellon study found that consumers were more likely to buy warranties on purchases if they thought doing so would extend the life of their gadget or preserve its value. And shoppers who felt they were being offered an un-advertised deal were 42% more likely to buy. This is particularly common with products that would be expensive to replace, like smartphones or tablet computers. Compared to the $599 price of a replacement iPhone,
the $99, two-year protection plan from SquareTrade looks downright cheap. And in fact from 2008 to 2009, 5% more consumers purchased a warranty for their computer, according to the Service Contract Industry Council, a trade group.

"Save $250! (New Price: $500.)"

Aimed at: Your price-sensitive side.

Why you fall for it: Touting big savings or using a gigantic font in an ad puts the deal at the center and makes the actual price an afterthought. What's more, your brain often perceives the actual price as more reasonable because of that big price drop, says Perner.

Stores have used this tactic more during the recession to sell higher-priced items, hoping that you'll take a closer look at the washer that has the splashy discount, even if it is more expensive than other models, he says. This trick works, experts say. As one small bit of evidence, they point to the rise in retail sales of
electronics and appliances -- up 5.7% in September compared with last year, according to the National Retail Federation.

"Get a Free Gift With Your $50 Purchase."

Aimed at: Your inner child (who wants a present, too).

Why you fall for it: You were already planning to buy one sweater, but you're one additional belt purchase away from getting to get a free scarf. At the store, you don't think about the $20 price tag or about how rarely you actually wear a scarf. Instead, your mind sees the free gift as an additional reason to buy the primary product in the first place. (A 2009 study from researchers at New York University and
California State University found that promotions were more effective if they highlighted the product to be purchased, rather than the gift.)

It's the retail equivalent of finding money on the ground. And shoppers equate added value with a discount -- even if they're spending extra money to get a freebie they wouldn't have otherwise purchased and might not even use, says Yarrow. That mindset is why stores have brought back the gift-with-purchase this year, as an alternative to big discounts. What's more, this sort of psychological trick makes you feel less guilty about buying -- or getting for free -- a little something for yourself. "It helps you justify the purchase," she says.

ONLINE RESOURCE OF THE MONTH

by Josh Lowensohn
news.cnet.com

Adobe Systems pushed out updates to both its Photoshop Express online photo tool and
photo-editing app for Android devices that bring some noteworthy improvements.

The biggest change, besides an increase in overall speed on the Web version of Photoshop Express, is that the site no longer requires users to register in order to
use it. Unregistered users can now upload their photo, make edits, then download it
without any administrative barriers. Adobe has also separated each tool into its own
unit, similar to what it does with the library and develop modules of its Photoshop
Lightroom software.

As part of the re-organization, Adobe has given its slideshow tool a dramatic facelift, with the inclusion of customizable themes. By default, users get only one, called "midnight," which is a simple one-color background for your photos to sit atop.

Other tweaks to the site include a more thorough look at a photo's EXIF metadata, a
way to post your photos to Facebook and Twitter, the inclusion of user ratings and
comments that users can see within the photo organizer, and a simpler way to find the
company's tutorials.

Adobe continues to compete with a handful of other online photo editors, including Picnik, which was acquired by Google earlier this year, Fotoflexer, and Aviary. Behind the scenes, all of these sites make use of Adobe's Flash technology.

photoshop.com/tools

eBay Fixes Biggest Holes in DSR System

When eBay launched the DSR system, we were always concerned with the fact that sellers that offer free shipping generally received 4.8 on the shipping and handling cost DSR. It proved that the system sets up unrealistic expectations with consumers.

Last August, eBay somewhat quietly (no AB post, just a tweet+post from their blogger?) rolled out a significant improvement to the system.

If a seller offers free shipping, and the buyer chooses that option, then the seller automatically gets a 5 star on the shipping and handling cost DSR.

eBay Terminates Third-Party Checkout

ChannelAdvisor Provides Next Steps and Advice for Customers Using Third-Party Checkout

In response to eBay’s announcement that it will terminate third-party checkout next year, ChannelAdvisor, a solution provider that enables online retailers to improve efficiency and increase revenue, announced steps to guide its customers through the transition in advance of the official termination on June 30, 2011.

“A consistent, familiar checkout experience benefits eBay sellers and buyers alike, so over the coming months we will transition to a single eBay Checkout process on the site,” said Dinesh Lathi, vice president of Buyer and Seller Experience at eBay. “Service providers like ChannelAdvisor offer invaluable solutions beyond checkout to help retailers take full advantage of the eBay marketplace, and we will continue to collaborate closely with ChannelAdvisor to support these contributions to eBay sellers’ success.”

eBay is still refining its checkout and has not yet released the full-featured version.

Trust Google's Keyword Tool?

from SEroundtable.com

Google provides a very popular Keyword Suggestion Tool that many SEMs rely on.
But, a HighRankings Forum thread questions how trustworthy the tool is.

Many SEMs use the tool because it is convenient and Google provides the estimated search volumes. At the same time, many SEMs know how to take Google's estimates and apply them to their campaigns. Experience and campaign history helps SEMs learn this trade.

In fact, did you know that the keyword tool allows you to adjust the type of query based on match type? After you run the tool, you can then click on a drop down menu to select the match type, broad, phrase, exact or negative match.

Research Results

I believe you get "better" numbers when logged in to Adwords and use exact match.
As we know that these are not actual numbers but more of a index against the set of keywords being researched. I tend to go with Global versus Local as well.

One of the big issues, is that if you run the report for a word that is not on an
advertiser list yet, so there is no competition for that word, it gives you a totally wrong amount of queries you can get per day.

Like any keyword tool, the Google Keyword Tool needs to be taken with a grain of salt. There are always going to be irrelevant queries, and for that reason I would never simply add them without taking the time to scrub them and identify other expansions. However, the tool is generally valuable for identifying head terms and modifiers.

No keyword tool is perfect.

All of you are not believing on the tool provided by Google because it's free. If Google were charging you for their tools like: KeywordExternalTool, Google Trends, Google Insights, SKTool (Search Based Keyword Tool) etc... you would appreciate them.

Second, the tools provided by Google are not for Publishers but are for Advertisers.
So if you want to use these tools for your keyword research, you will have to learn
the whole process of Keyword and Market researching.

Tell me one thing. who knows you better than you? YOU youself, have you any doubt
on this fact? Who knows exactly which keywords have been searched mostly on GOOGLE?
It knows only Google exactly.

You believe on WordTracker which is depending on DogPile and MetaCrawler that cover
only 2% market of the US and UK. What about for the other 98% market and rest of the
countries of the world?

You believe on the data of KeywordDiscovery, and on what it depends? Near about on
200 small search engines.

All keyword tools capture their data from Google, Yahoo and MSN and after normalizing that data, they serve you and you believe on them because they charge you while Google, Yahoo and MSN are not charging you a penny, you can't believe on their results.

Profitable Market and Profitable Keyword Research is a Step by Step long process.
You can't make decision in 10 minutes about which keyword is good and which is not.

Second thing is, which keyword is looking best, have you ever checked the Complexity
Factor of the keyword, Search Volume and Actual Competition count of the keyword?

If you don't know properly about all these 3 most important factors, you can never
capture right market and right keyword.

Don't blame on the Tools given by Google. All the tools are giving their best results offered by Google. The problem is not in the Data given by Google. The problem is we don't know how to use the data properly and efficiently and how to make right decisions on the basis of this data.

Be Positive.

No other site or company gives you results and tools like Google, Yahoo and MSN for free. These are the biggest Search Engines at the current time. Why would they give you wrong results which can hurt their reputation?

The problem is not in Data given by the tools, the problem is in our Researching Process. If an external tool is saying 3000 searches per month for any keyword it means 100 searches per day and each SERP has a minimum of 15 links: 10 for Organic and 5 for Sponsored.

Top 3 results captures 60% clicks. It means only the top 3 results are getting 60 clicks and the rest of the 10 to 12 links get 40 clicks. If you are getting 5th position for any keyword and you think that you will get 100 clicks per day, it's a problem of your mind because you are going to get clicks from rest of the 40 clicks and 10 other sites that are in your competition.

The summary is that if any keyword is getting 3000 clicks per month and you are
not in the top 3 on SERP, you are not going to get more than 2 to 5 clicks per day.

Yes, I trust Google's Keyword Tool. In fact, I think it's so great, it can be used to determine ideas for successful domain names. I wrote an entire blog about how this tool helps you accomplish this:
www.themasterblog.com

Google's Keyword Tool

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Keyword Match Types

From ChannelAdvisor

Keyword Match Types are commands that advertisers can use to control the range of distribution that a Provider can deliver the ads to. Match type options vary by Provider.

Google

• Broad Match will deliver an ad if the user query includes all of the words in the keyword. It can be in any order or combination

Command: Entered manually as keyword

• Phrase Match will deliver an ad if the user query includes the search terms in the specific order. For example, "tennis shoes" would show up for a user typing in 'red tennis shoes' but not 'shoes for tennis.'

Command: Entered manually as "keyword"

• Exact Match will deliver an ad if the user query includes the search terms in the specified order and without any additional terms

Command: Entered manually as [keyword]

• Negative Match will not deliver your ad if the specific keyword is in the user query

Command: Entered manually as -keyword


Yahoo


• Standard Match will display your ads for exact matches to your keywords. This includes singular and plural variations and common misspellings.

• Advanced Match will deliver your ads to relevant searches that include your keyword within the search query.

• Excluded Match will not deliver your ad if the specific keyword is in the query (see Negative Match). This match type does not work on Standard Match keywords.


Implementation


Our Full Service Search Team utilizes the following Match Type Strategy for Managed Clients:

1. 1 Word Keywords on Exact Match. Since the query-matching probabilities are virtually endless for a keyword with one word, we recommend starting with Exact Match before opening the keyword up to all queries.
2. 2 Word Keywords on Phrase Match. 2 word keywords provide the Search Engines with a little more information on the type of query you are targeting, which will in turn improve the accuracy of the queries they are matched to. However we recommend putting these terms on Phrase Match since there is still a fairly large opportunity for poor mappings.
3. 3 or more Word Keywords on Broad Match. We recommend putting keywords with 3 or more words on Broad Match. Having three or more words will really trim down the possibility of poor matchings and tend to give the Search Engine mapping algorithms with enough information to connect the keyword to relevant queries.