Stock Photo News from A-Z FOTOS. The first modern ezine combining the work of the creative professional with pictures, stock photography and marketing.

Stock Photo News

The First modern eZine to combine Pictures and Marketing

BIG BONUS+FREE
Stock Photo News
Privacy respected:

Your eMail HERE
Powered by YourMailinglistProvider.com
{Search Stock photos from A-Z Fotos

Find stock photography at Alamy

}

STOCK PHOTO NEWS no. 12

The first Modern eZine combining Stock Photography and Marketing

December 2001
=========================================

CONTENT

* From the Editor

* Printable web pages

* Take better Travel Pictures, Tip # 6:
Get in touch with people

* Guest article: Why test?
- by Mark Joyner

* Do you need more subscribers to your newsletter?

* Learn from free marketing courses

All former issues are available online at
www.StockPhotoNews.com
........................................................

FROM THE EDITOR

Happy Holidays to all readers! Still on travel in Thailand but
mainly being based in Bangkok, I have spend even Christmas in a
workshop without any family members around me. I hope you have
done better. Anyway Thailand is a very charming country with a
mixture of modern life and rural life.

My current more sporadic connection with Internet resources
has opened my eyes for a missing service many of us are not
providing from our websites:

We don't make it easy for our visitors to make simple prints of
our central texts and information. In the case of my needs I
would have liked to make prints of travel information from time
to time to bring with me along my routes. Read more about such
benefits in this issue of Stock Photo News.

You will also find a guest article by Mark Joyner, CEO, Aesop.Com
because the content of it about the value of testing the
performance of your website goes so well together with the ideas
of print pages.

Just before Christmas I could register from an internet cafe?
that we now have more than 1000 professional subscribers to this
newsletter. Welcome to all new readers - and thank you so much
to all 'ol' readers for staying with us.

Still sitting far from my normal office and resources for
producing Stock Photo News, I apologize for not being as well
informed as usual. And I apologize for a missing English
language correction before publication. Anyway, I hope you
will enjoy this issue and find useful information for your work.
The web-based version will be uploaded later.
Enjoy your reading of Stock Photo News.

Soren Breiting

A-Z FOTOS "Find Stock Photos from most of the World"

www.azFotos.com

Comments, tips and relevant articles are appreciated, please
email me at sb@azfotos.com

PLEASE send YOUR FRIENDS an email by a click on Recommend-It

www.recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=848535
(You can win 10.000 dollars)

*** Please note: We will not sell or rent the email addresses
belonging to our subscribers - we respect your privacy. This
mail list will only be used to send you the monthly ezine.

This ezine uses opt in addresses, only. ***
........................................................

PRINTABLE WEB PAGES

It becomes more and more clear, that online presence has to be
viewed as just one side of our total presence in the market
place. One aspect to improve for many websites would be to make
it easy for visitors to make a print. This should be possible
both with longer texts and with pages displaying just overviews.
I can see for myself that I have quite a lot to do with my own
website for A-Z Fotos on www.azFotos.com when the planned
revision without the controversial frames layout shall take
place in the nearest future.

Be aware of the potential of prints from your website as a marketing
tool.

When you have your pages for printing designed take into account
that the standard paper format for North America and Europe is
different. The standard for Europe is the A4 format, which is
slightly less wide and a little bit longer.

Some ideas for print pages
- Full contact information of all kinds on one page, including a
map showing how to find you.
- Catalogue like pages.
- Reviews.
- Schedules for deadlines, publishing dates or the like.
- Annotated lists of useful resources.
- Product descriptions.
- Teasers of book chapters etc.
- Fax and mail order forms.
- Guaranties.
- Instructions in how to use your products.
- Frequent asked questions with answers.
- If you run an advanced customer support system make a
page that shows how easily to find the relevant email address
for a specific inquiry.
- Reports (longer in pdf format or zip)
- Online ebooks.
- Newsletters.

Remember to include on all print pages
- The full url of the page.
- The url of your home page.
- Basic contact information
- A short indication of which kind of product or service you are
offering.
- If needed a copyright notion (but don't spoil the
potential of viral marketing).

Optimize your print pages
- Make your pages look valuable for the customer.
- Make the pages inviting to be filed.
- Avoid heavy graphics.
- I will recommend avoiding all banners etc.
- Make your printable pages look like they are designed to paper,
e.g. make proper use of the space available and use a font that
is good for reading on paper.
- Prints will typical be made without background color or picture.
White text on back background will not be visible.

Please, give me feed back if you have comments to sb@ azfotos.com

Soren Breiting
........................................................

Take better travel pictures. Tip # 6

GET IN TOUCH WITH PEOPLE

When you travel abroad ask people about the permission to take
photos of them.
Are you in a traditional market place buy some fruits or
whatever before you ask for the photo. In that way you are not
only more sure to get the permission, but often you get better
pictures because of the established relationship. If your
request is rejected be glad you didn't try to take the picture
without asking.

Be ready with your equipment before you ask for the permission
and take the first picture immediately.

Avoid offering the person a cigarette to pave the way even if
this is often a used practice by some photographers. At least I
find unethical, and the cigarettes are often visible on the
pictures.

Are you traveling in a group scan the members with a
photographer's eye to identify the most photogenic, and make use
of them in your planned pictures.

When you include family members and friends in your pictures
think of how they would like to see themselves in the final
pictures. Have continued good luck with your travel photography.

Soren Breiting

........................................................

WHY TEST? - By Mark Joyner, CEO, Aesop.Com

Marketing should be treated like a science. If you are serious
about making money on the Internet, it is absolutely crucial
that you spend some time testing your results and refining your
approach.

Let me drive this point home. Say for example you have a
website that gives you a visit to sale ratio of about 200 to 1.
Not really bad as far as web sites go. Most do far worse.

Now, assume that you get 5,000 visits per month. Do the math.
That's 25 sales per month. If your profit from each sale is
$50, you are making $1250 per month profit from your website.

Now, what would happen, if by changing one small thing on your
website, you could improve that ratio to say 150 to 1. It may
not seem significant, but let's see how it works on paper.

Now, instead of 25 sales per month, you are doing 33. Multiply
that by $50 and you are now making $1650 per month. That's a
difference of $400. It's not like you're having to work any
harder for that additional $400. Your website is always there.

Now, the example I have shown you here is quite mild to some of
the drastic improvements I have seen as a result of market
testing. All my life I've heard people say "don't work hard -
work smart!"

This is excellent advice. Working smart means getting more from
less effort.

Well, testing is a systematic way of helping you to work smart.
It's just like the scientific method, really. You may remember
it from school. There are many versions of the scientific method
for different disciplines and many scientists will argue about
which approach is best. For our purposes, let's take a very
bare-boned and simple version. It's really all we need:

a. Generate a hypothesis.

b. Test your hypothesis by performing an experiment and
recording the results.

c. Perform calculations and draw conclusions.

d. Confirm or refine your original hypothesis.

For example, let's say in the above example, we hypothesize that
by adding a money back guarantee, we will get a better visit to
sale ratio. This is our hypothesis. To test this, we make the
change on our websites and record our results. That's our
experiment. After a few weeks (or any period of time we
determine to be sufficient) we conclude the experiment and
perform calculation on our data. We then discover that the
visit to sale ratio did, indeed, improve during the course of
our test run. We can then draw a conclusion that our original
hypothesis is correct. Seems pretty simple, right? Well,
actually no -

* Controls and Statistical Significance*

In the preceding example, we did a pretty straightforward and
simple test. However, the results we have drawn may not be
valid.

For example, what if the majority of visitors we received before
the test run came as the result of a banner ad campaign we were
running? Then, without us knowing it, sometime during the
campaign a company favorably reviews our product and drives
people to our site. It could be the case that people who read
that review were more likely to buy the product.

It could also be the case that they were much more likely to buy
and that adding the guarantee lessened the effectiveness of the
site. Or, it could even be the case that the guarantee did
increase the effectiveness of the site, but not as much as we
thought.

The problem is, we just don't know. To address this issue and
to improve the reliability of our tests, we need to establish
" controls". A control is a measure that allows us to isolate
the factors which are causing the effects we record.

For example, a better way to run this test would have been to
run two websites at the same time. Both of them identical in
every way (promoted the same way, designed the same way -
everything) except for the one element we think will make a
difference. The site without the change is called the control
site. The site with the change is the test subject.

This same principle can be applied to any other type of
marketing. If you want to test the effectiveness of a banner
ad, run two banner ads on the same site for the same period of
time. If you run one banner ad on one site and the other on yet
a different site, you can't be sure that your results are valid.

Using strict control techniques improves the chances that your
findings will be valid.

* Statistical Significance*

Even if we use good controls, we can still never be sure of our
results. There may be something affecting the test we haven't
thought of. That's why we also need to resolve ourselves to the
fact that the results of one single test should not be accepted
as conclusive.

Rather, we need to perform a great many tests and look at the
over all trends. Only after we have compiled a considerable
amount of information can we safely draw any conclusions.

Just how much testing is enough is up to you. You should test
until you are satisfied, but be honest with yourself. Don't
just stop testing out of laziness!

* Turning tests into profits*

The idea here is to test as many different methods as possible,
discover the most effective method, and crank up the volume on
your best method. When you get into serious volume and your
business is really doing well, even minor differences in results
will have a major impact on the amount of money you take home.
And sometimes very subtle and minor changes to a website will
make huge differences in your results.

If you could find out which of your advertising campaigns was
bringing in the most money for you, wouldn't it make sense to
put more effort into that campaign? Or do more of that type of
campaign? Wouldn't you be crazy not to?

In the following chapters...

http://foreverweb.com/cgi-foreverweb/kt.cgi?IM9009

... we'll show you exactly how to track and monitor the results
of all of your Internet marketing efforts. After we show you
the logic behind each method of testing, we'll show you the
physical tools and techniques you need to employ to track your
success.

Tracking is just recording the results of one campaign or
another.

Testing is the systematic monitoring of these campaigns to
discover what is working and what is not using the scientific
method.

Copyright 1999 Aesop.Com

Article by Mark Joyner, of 1,001 Killer Internet Marketing
Tactics. Mark is also the CEO of Aesop Marketing Corporation.
1001 KIMT is an absolute *must have* for anyone serious about
Internet marketing. It will dramatically boost the results of
any campaign in a very real and measurable way. They are
offering a special right now where it comes with a bonus
database of over 6,000 media contacts (including email and FAX
numbers). This could genuinely be the most important URL you
visit all year:
http://foreverweb.com/cgi-foreverweb/kt.cgi?IM9009

=======================================================

DO YOU NEED MORE SUBSCRIBERS TO YOUR NEWSLETTER ?

Many subscribers to this newsletter have signed up to get it
from a free co-operation we are participating in, we call the
blue sign-up pop-up. Subscribers from this co-operation are high
quality people signing up based on their interest in what your
newsletter has to offer them.

You can see this pop-up in function here: www.azFotos.com , when
you leave the first page. and you will find the sign up details
here:
http://personalizedpartyfavor.com/freenocatch.htm#Popup%20Subscription%20Co-op
........................................................

LEARN FROM FREE MARKETING COURSES

You are offered a number of useful courses in marketing and
other relevant aspects of having a successful website. Just go
to http://www.ALLeMarketingTips.com
........................................................

Please remember !

If you have any idea of friends or colleagues you think would
find this newsletter useful, PLEASE send them a personal email
or send an email by a click on Recommend-It.

www.recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=848535
(You can win 10.000 dollars)

THANK YOU for reading and recommending Stock Photo News. See you
in the next Stock Photo Newsletter!

Soren Breiting
........................................................

Copyright 2001 by Soren Breiting, A-Z FOTOS.
http://www.azFotos.com/ "Find Stock Photos from most of the
World"

Email me at: sb@ azfotos.com

You are welcome to forward this newsletter to a friend or to
post it on your own website as long as you keep >all< content,
including the copyright notion and contact information, intact
and keep all links.

Stock Photo News is a monthly newsletter edited by Soren
Breiting. Due to many travels abroad it is impossible for me to
keep the schedule of the issues strictly fitting to each month.
My intention is to bring quality information which is not
outdated a month or two later.

To sign up for or to cancel your subscription go to
http://www.azfotos.com/AZFOHOME/stockphotonews.html

........................................................

Stock Photo News from A-Z FOTOS Home of A-Z FOTOS "Find Stock
Photos from most of the World"


powered by FreeFind
Archives menu = Home
BLOG of Stock Photo News
Stock photography and newsStock Photo News 38
Stock Photo News 36-37
Stock Photo News 34-35
Stock Photo News 32-33
Stock Photo News 31
Stock Photo News 30
Stock Photo News 29
Stock Photo News 28
Stock Photo News 27
Stock Photo News 26
Stock Photo News 25
Stock Photo News 24
Stock Photo News 23
Stock Photo News 22
Stock Photo News 21
Stock Photo News 20
Stock Photo News 19
Stock Photo News 18
Stock Photo News 17
Stock Photo News 16
Stock Photo News 15
Stock Photo News 14
Stock Photo News 13
Stock Photo News 12
Stock Photo News 11
Stock Photo News 10
Stock Photo News 09
Stock Photo News 08
Stock Photo News 07
Stock Photo News 06
Stock Photo News 05
Stock Photo News 04
Stock Photo News 03
Stock Photo News 02
Stock Photo News 01
Soren Breiting on Twitter: Søren Breiting on Twitter
 

www.StockPhotoNews.com

See examples of people´s online success at the fantastic all in one website and business building tool with unlimited space for photographers and other webmasters with needs of an online presens.

Google


Search WWW Search Stock Photo News

More text

EditRegion4

Stock Photo News is your professional ezine to keep in touch with the trends of the online market for photography. By combining marketing issues with stock photography and how to make the most out of pictures this monthly ezine helps you not to loose on the dynamic market for pictures and how they are used.

Stock Photo News takes the pulse of the stock photo industry and gives you hints on how to search for stock photography and where to get the best pictures.

News about new picture agencies, merging stock photo agencies and other important changes for the creative professional are brought in many issues.

Even for the budding stock photographer or the student of creative productions this photo ezine should be well worth studying as it is dealing with the potential of pictures and offer stock photo news related to marketing and stock photography - including the newest information about stock photo distributors / picture agencies.

Stock Photo News has been published since 1999 and was the first professional newsletter to combine pictures and marketing.

For info about Island Vacation Tips click here

Visit also Royalty Free Stock Photos - Buy and sell royalty free images, stock photos, clipart, illustrations and vector art at Cutcaster.