The Market Outfit

Flash movies are great favorites of Web designers, as they can have moving pictures, games, and interactive displays on pages that download in a reasonable amount of time. But what is a flash player? It is a plug-in that helps your browser play flash movies. Anyone who has visited websites with games, cartoons or interactive activities all on the same web page has knowingly or unknowingly used flash.

You can do quite a few things with flash. A flash-built web page might have cool buttons, or menu bars that change as you make choices. It could let you play a game, or do a drawing. It is even possible to have fully interactive web pages that look more like video games than the web.

The use of flash is very common on company websites. Design and media companies in particular prefer the use of flash because they want to impress visitors. Many newspaper and magazine websites also use flash to make interactive maps of places that are in the news.

Flash is the program used by web designers to make the pages, games and special files - or ‘movies’ - that this program creates. The movies are added to web pages just like pictures or other extras, like Java. When the page is sent from a web server to a browser, the movie file is sent too. The flash player, a special program, reads these movie files and displays them properly inside the web pages.

Although not a standard part of the world wide web, ever since flash was launched in 1995 it has become the most common way to add cool extras to websites. Many computers are sold with the flash player already installed. In fact, over 97% of Internet users have already got flash on their computers.

Flash gets a new version at frequent intervals, and you may need the latest version of the flash player in order to see pages created using it.

As flash animations have reasonably small file sizes, larger and more complex animations can be put online and downloaded reasonably quickly. They can also have interactive ability built into them, which is extremely popular for online games and special effects on web pages. The problem with flash is that it can make sites hard to look at and slow to download if it used too frequently.

Animation provides detailed information on Animation, Free Animation, Flash Animation, 3D Animation and more. Animation is affiliated with Wholesale Art Supplies.

The number of internet users is increasing at an enormous rate. They are looking for relevant information and resources, and any offline business without a website is losing business to their competitors who do have one.

Reasons To Have Your Own Website

Professionalism for your offline business
Make Money !
Reach a new and different market of internet users

Increase your exposure - worldwide
Passive selling
Establish yourself as an authority in your chosen field
Pre-selling tool
Teach people about your area of expertise - informational
Accept payments
Multiple income streams
Online brochure
Marketing resource
Collect email addresses, to market to those targeted people on a regular basis
Gain new clients
To communicate - eg announcing new offers or events
Customer Service resource

There are an increasing number of people who only buy online through the internet.

Reasons Why People Buy Online

Time Scarcity - it’s quicker to locate what they need on the internet, and have it delivered, than it is to drive to a store or go through the Yellow Pages and make phone calls.
Convenience - Can be done wherever their computer is - at home or work, anytime they choose, 24 hours a day

Price Comparisons - Check the prices on the same item from different companies
Finding the right item - Detailed descriptions help the buyer identify which product they need
Huge Variety - Items can be purchased from anywhere in the world, widely increasing the number of choices.
Informed choices - usually a website will have a lot more information about an item, than a salesperson will tell you.

Every business, company, partnership, freelancer, consultant or solo operator with a product or service to sell needs their own web site.

This is not to say the ‘old’ marketing methods should be discarded. The internet is to be considered as another, powerful way to get your message out to the public. Your own website is a marketing medium that should not be ignored, even if it seems to be an alien subject. There are plenty of experts around to help you.

Written by Margo Courtney, author of the ‘How To Build Web Sites’ tutorial. It explains in plain english, and step by step, how to create, host and market web sites. The tutorial can be viewed at http://www.how-to-build-web-sites.com and its aim is web page success.
She also designs and builds web sites, and offers other web site services.

This article could also be titled ‘How much is this going to
cost me?’ There are actually several parties you have to pay
when having a website designed. I tend to use the analogy of a
house, so I’ll run with that analogy here.

First off, you may or may not realize that there are both
one-time and recurring fees involved in getting a site online. I
will differentiate between the two as I go through the three
major parties.

Web Designer

The designer is a combination of an architect, builder and
interior designer. And really a number of other things. The
designer ends up handling (or helping you handle) everything
from the purpose of the website to its organization, layout,
design, good coding and plenty of other things that you may or
may not see just by looking at the website.

Like a good house, a lot of things, when done well, will not be
noticeable. And in a lot of cases, that’s the point. When a menu
on a site is well designed, you really just use it without
paying too much attention to its exact location, font, design,
etc.

With a web designer, there is definitely an up-front cost. This
is the design of the initial site. This fee can run anywhere
from $300 or so to thousands and thousands of dollars. It all
depends on the size and complexity of the site. If you want a
lot of custom programming or Flash work, that type of thing will
obviously cost you more. In the long run, however, many of these
elements like the custom programming can save you money.

There is also the ongoing cost of maintaining the site. At T&S,
you sign a contract for several (generally 6 or 12) months at a
time, and pay up front. You know the cost ahead of time. Many
web designers charge hourly for this type of work. The downside
is that you don’t know how much you will be charged in a month.
The upside is that if you don’t have any work done at all in a
month, you don’t get charged for that month.

Because of anti-price-fixing laws, many web designers do not put
prices on their website. So you would need to contact a given
designer for an actual estimate.

Web Hosting

This can also be called ‘Web Space,’ among other things. This is
a combination of the land and foundation your house is on. A
good designer will help you pick a hosting company and package
that will fit your wants and needs for your website.

Some web hosts do charge an initial setup fee of anywhere from
$20 to $75 or so dollars. The bigger the package you get, the
more the initial setup fee is likely to be.

Not all web hosts charge a setup fee. You will, however, be
required to pay an ongoing fee. If you keep in mind that what
you’re actually doing is renting space on someone’s computer,
this makes a little more sense. The ongoing fees for this range
from around $5 a month to $600+ a month. Most of m clients end
up paying in the $10-$30 per month range.

Domain Registrar

Imagine that you had to pay the post office yearly for your
address. Sure, someone could find you if you gave them your
longitude and latitude, but having a street address makes it
much, much easier.

That is how it works with a domain name. You pay a domain
registrar, and they generally charge you based on the extension.
An extension is .com, .org, .net, .edu and the list goes on.

One domain registrar we’ve had good experiences with is Go
Daddy. Their domains generally run from $7 to $10 a year. As I
write this, .tv is really popular, so it’s quite a bit more
expensive. Still, at $31 a year, it’s way cheaper than domain
names used to run. In the late 90’s, you had to pay $70 or so a
year for a domain.

The charge for a domain registrar is yearly, though you can
generally buy up to 10 years at a time. We’ve only had one
client buy that many, but we’ve had another client buy 11 domain
names in addition to the other one they already owned.

And there you go.

Often zero consideration is given to disabled or impaired users of the internet. Government Acts, such as Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and various other legislation requires federal agencies to be handicapped-accessable. Unfortunately, U.S businesses have been slow to catch up. Approximately 15% of the American population has some sort of disability or impairment. Aside from the moral and ethical reasons why websites should be accessible, 15% is quite a large market of people to ignore.

It is important to note that when discussing disabilities we are discussing more then
blindness, we are also addressing visually impaired users, users with tunnel vision,
far sightedness, hearing impaired and those who are physically disabled. Disabilities
cross multiple generation, sub-cultures and income levels and therefore there is a
high likelihood that disabled users have tried to access your company’s website at
some point.

Why there is a problem

Many interactive agencies ignore important and critical areas like usability, content
structure and content organization. Each of these areas are core components of
good design and development practices. Without these practices accessibility
becomes impossible to implement. Try using a screen reader (http://
www-306.ibm.com/able/solution_offerings/hpr.html) to access your website and
you might be suprised how tough it is to navigate. Screen readers grab just the text
and links in a site, very much like the early pre-browser days of the internet. When
graphics, color, boldness and type-face treatments are removed content
organization and structure becomes king.

How to fix the problem

Use screen readers to navigate your website, it will greatly help in understanding
how those with disabilities navigate. It will certainly make you more sensitive to
using ALT text and text based alternative navigation. Added benefit, it will help you
in those coveted search results.

George Morris

Working in a number of capacities on projects for Fortune 500 clients, George has
gained the experience necessary to understand all aspects of a project. This enables
George to clearly communicate with clients even the most technical details of a
project. George is responsible for keeping projects on schedule and communicating
with clients from initial contact, to project development and post-launch lifecycles.

Prior to Imulus (http://www.imulus.com), George worked at Refinery, Inc. a top U.S
interactive agency
managing projects for Warner Bros., InFlow, GMAC Commercial Mortgage, and Sony
Pictures Classics.

Countdown to Armageddon - at least you’d think so judging from some of the garish copy and blaring headlines screaming at you from so many websites.

At the opposite extreme though, you’ve some sites which don’t even have a single decent headline anywhere that captures visitors attention, let alone leads them into captivating copywriting that’ll get them a sale.

Although it’s true to say human emotion hasn’t changed in the last 10 years online, the consumer and buyer reactions have undoubtedly become far more sophisticated over the past decade. Further, with something like 43% of all web shopping carts being abandoned at the point of sale it’s crucial we understand and react proactively to this new buyer sophistication.

In short, todays online buyers are both pretty wired and wised up. Unless you understand this and adjust your offering accordingly your headlines are very likely to drive prospective clients away rather than entice them into your copy for a second look if they’ve even a sniff of hype about them or just plain bore them silly.

Either of the above extremes is obviously counter-productive but rather than opting for a bland ‘middle way’ approach to your copywriting or headlines, here’s a sure fire way to generate intensely gripping copy that rivets even ultra sophisticated buyers to every word you publish. It keeps them spellbound all the way down your pages until they’ve executed your desired marketing action - either opting in, clicking through to a new page or making a purchase without dumping the cart.

If you want these type of results then use “The Psyschology Of Scarcity” and you’ll soon have these new ’sophisticats’ under your marketing spell and more importantly, get them buying what you sell. Here’s exactly how it works…

The basic underlying principle is widely known of course, and springs from the proven psychological response people give when they’re denied or given limited access to something they intensely desire. Basically, when people are told they can’t have something they want it all the more. As a result incredibly powerful emotions are released which go on to drive actions often deemed irrational under normal circumstances. As marketers we can take advantage of this almost primitive reaction (ethically of course) to bypass even sophisticated buyers resistance and go on to make the sale.

Here’s a further demonstration to show powerful this is…

Imagine for a moment tonights TV news announces a grave national emergency and petrol (gas) is to be be strictly rationed to one just full tank for your car for an entire month… but this rationing won’t start until one weeks time. However, you are not allowed to stockpile petrol because that’s bad. Now I don’t know about you honourable folks but almost instantly a picture of my storeroom stacked to the ceiling with Jerry cans full of petrol popped into my mind!

I’m not saying I’d do that if this was a true scenario but I’d probably have a couple of cans laid aside, just for emergencies of course. At the pumps and service stations there would be a stampede, because the psychology of scarcity would release these deep emotional responses. This actually happened here in UK two years ago and there was mayhem.

Now let’s see if we can insert a mechanism deep into our headlines and online copy that’ll immediately invoke exactly the same kind of emotional responses within those who visit our sites. If we can then all the sophistication in the world won’t stop our visitors from reaching for their credit cards to buy what we sell.We’re looking for the response that comes directly from the gut - that’s not filtered out by the sophisticated mind. That’s where we aim our copy at, the heart not the head.

The type of mechanisms we’ve found work best in invoking these emotion driven responses are as follows…

1) Strictly limit the amount of product you are selling in each promotion, put it right up front in the headline or first sentence where everyone can see it and strictly adhere to your statement. If you say you’ve only got 100 widgets to sell, then pull the promo when you reach that point or people will see the whole thing as a facade. Here in the UK the richest sofa and 3 piece suite supplier uses this technique very well, although now after 2 years we’re all beginning to see through these ‘promo weekend specials’, so be wise when you use it.

Make your product scarce… because then you make it valuable and desired in others eyes.

2) Set time sensitive deadlines that really do expire - Set a deadline for the promo to finish and give a special discount on the product if purchased before that time. When you reach that day pull the promo headlines, ad, the lot. People will heed what you say and buy far quicker next time you set a deadline. I’ve done it myself, got to a site with expired deadline and missed out, next time I payed far more attention to their pitch and the website gained credibility in my eyes.

3) Use number limits for recruiting headlines - when recruiting people for sales teams, affiliates etc use figures that limit the amount of people you ‘appear’ to wish to recruit. For example use a headline portion including “We urgently require 5 key individuals for our new IT project…”. At the same time as limiting the opportunity here you also give each individual a glimmer of hope that they’ll be among the ‘chosen few’ to land the rare but rather plum project.

4) Bundle extra products, services, customer support along with your product they’d not normally get, especially from your competition. This is also a good way to get affiliate sales. Your visitors realise they can’t get the ‘extra’s from other affiliate sites so they buy from your affiliate link. Your product becomes ‘value enhanced’ and in the marketplace where there are thousands doing the same thing, yours is perceived as valuable because of the rare extras bundled with it.
Think of it - you’re giving chips (fries) along with the main event for free, your competitors aren’t, who will buyers go with?

5) Give special ‘insider access’ passes or memberships to the first 20 respondents etc or if your visitors order before a deadline. You increase value and evoke quick response by limiting the number of memberships available. Tell folks at the same time - “… in a few days our national advertising campaign will be rolled out and these 20 memberships are likely to be snapped up within minutes, order now to secure yours.” etc.

6) Give forward dated ‘Future Proofed’ Discount Vouchers for future product releases - for example, “Buy a X widget right now at £199.00 and you’ll get our brand new Y software at £99.00 when we release it next month. That’s a whole £100.00 off the Y software retail price of £199.00. Lock this discount in today by buying your X widget NOW and save yourself a whole £100.00.”

Then make this offer even more powerful by number limiting this ‘future’ offer too. Say something like “Obviously we can’t make this offer available to everyone or our profits on next months new release would be affected but we would like to say a special ‘thank you’ to you as a valued client if you’ve bought an X widget. As a result we’re willing to give you a very special £100.00 discount on the new Y software, but sadly we can only offer this to the first 50 respondents for the reason I mentioned earlier. Please act now and purchase your X widget and I’ll be happy to lock in your special £100.00 Y software discount right now.

7) Show dramatic visual countdowns to increase the sense of scarcity - when running a promo that limits purchasers to say 50 copies of a book or manual, special health clinics etc then countdown the progress of the sales before your prospects eyes. On Monday at the start of the promo you only had 47 left, a week later 24, then 12, 7, 3 etc. This is very gripping and effective in any industry.

When you make your product so scarce it literally disappears before visitors eyes they want it all the more. Nowadays you can get little javascript codes to insert into your pages, or pop ups to make this ‘live’ countdown seem very real indeed and it’s extremely effective.

Add value to your product by tying a celebrity name to it - for example “Aretha Franklin swears by our nutritional vitamin syrup because she says it makes her feel like she’s seventeen again and protects her vulnerable vocal chords so she can sing like an angel…” Other nutritional syrups are basically the same but yours would be the only one used and endorsed by a famous celebrity. It may not be possible to get Aretha Franklin but with a little imagination you’re likely to be surprised at the folks you could team up with like this. Their end of the deal is they get extra exposure, or even a share in the sales from the promo you run.

9) Tie up with other related business owners and run a dual promo offering a unique ‘Double Whammy’ product - As an example a specialist seat cover maker could do something along the lines of…

“Order One Set Of Super Soft Custom Leather Car Seat Covers and our friends at Alloy Wheel Kings will give you a full set of alloy wheels at 50% discount. Obviously this is such an incredible deal we can only afford to let the first 25 respondents participate in this promotion which we expect to be sold out by next wednesday. Please book your covers now - click here”

NB: You really need to give such a humdinger of a deal to make this kind of offer fly off the page - 15% off the alloys example above wouldn’t be enough. If the owner of ‘Alloy Wheel Kings’ feels there’s not enough profit in the deal by giving away 50% on the alloys then you’d offer to enhance his profit by building in some extra ‘fat’ in the price of your ‘Super Soft Custom Leather Car Covers’.

You get the picture, but remember the better the offer the faster it flies. The best part about this type of special ‘dual deal’ is you create a very scarce and unique product in your market which your competition don’t have. Sure there may be thousands of car seat cover manufacturers but none that also bundle in superb alloys with their deals. That’d make you stand out in a crowded marketplace wouldn’t it?

Okay that’s enough for now, I’m sure you get the idea.

Hopefully this sprinkling of ’scarcity’ mechanisms will inspire you to employ them in your own headlines and throughout your web copywriting. You don’t need to be garish or loud or use screaming titles etc to get your message across and get serious buyers reading.

If you state simply and clearly, a genuinely scarce commodity is available to a hungry targeted market who you know beforehand want what you have, and you strive as your copy reads on to make it almost literally ‘disappear before their eyes’, folks won’t stop reading, and if you’ve done it correctly they’ll order at the end… sophisticat or not.

Remember, you’ve got to get them ‘in the gut’ bypassing the intricate sales filters of your prospects minds, and this is one of the very best ways to do it - try it and enjoy watching what happens.

Dave Alston is the Author of ‘Revealed: The Hidden Truth About Web Design’ and owner of http://www.aceofwebs.co.uk - small business web success driven by crystal clear copywriting. Subscribe to his ‘Ace Tips’ SME Marketing RSS feed by copying and pasting http://www.aceofwebs.co.uk/rss/wp-rss2.php into your RSS Reader.