Nigerian Newspapers Online

Ask anybody who has been in business for a long enough and they
will tell you how newspaper advertisements have for decades
helped to build countless small businesses.

The advantages of a newspaper advertisement are many, but what
has attracted small business entrepreneurs for decades is the
speed at which a struggling entrepreneur (short of funds as many
starting small businesses always are, and looking for customers fast)
is able to get a very quick response.

Many extremely successful businesses today started off booking
tiny classified newspaper advertisements, grew into larger
display advertisements (that were still very tiny) and today
are multi million dollar enterprises commanding lots of
respect. If folks were laughing then because of the tiny
advertisements, you can be sure that they are no longer
laughing today.

Many of those who know all this stuff are not aware of an
amazing new development. That there is an equivalent of the
highly effective newspaper advertising online. And what's more
it is FREE.

Most people know that free articles posted at relevant web
sites with a good detailed resource box leading back to your
web site or free course or whatever works for you, is the
most effective way of advertising online. However there has
always been one very important missing link. And that is high
readership.

Newspapers tend to have very high circulations and that's how
small businesses would manage to get such a good response
from those tiny advertisements placed. The problem with online
articles is that in order to have a high enough readership, you will
need to post an article at numerous different sites and you may
require quite a number of articles to get the good response you
seek. It usually takes a while for the articles posted and the viral
effect (that good articles enjoy of being reposted over and over
again) to take effect and give you a good regular response similar
to good offline newspaper advertisements.

Not any more. Smart entrepreneurs are now combining their free
articles with the amazing Ebay site to reproduce an effect that
is even better than the newspaper in the old says. Better because
it is mostly free and yet has the potential of pulling in the
sort of targeted traffic that no daily newspaper on earth can
even dream of. The key words here are "targeted traffic."

All you need to do is register with Ebay. And you don't even
need to sell anything. You just have to use your Ebay about-me
-page.

Ebay has well over 1.5 billion page views per month. There are
well over 40,000 people who sign up for Ebay every day - Sunday
included.

Of course there's serious money to be made from the auctions or
by selling something with a fixed price. But you can profit on
Ebay even if you are not selling anything. You can use the About
me page to put in all sorts of information including a link to
your article or web site. Just by learning how to do this, you can
dramatically increase traffic to your posted articles or even to
your web site. This highly targeted traffic is bound to yield
sales for you, whatever it is you are selling. The traffic is targeted
because you select your section in Ebay carefully.

I found Brian McGregor's ebook, "The Ebay Formula," extremely
useful in helping me understand how to use Ebay to drive my
traffic and profits. You can get the ebook now at the following
link:-

http://www.workwinners.com/ezGaffurl.php?offer=ckyalo&pid=19

Despite all the hype on the net these days, there are a few
really amazing things that you can do with the internet, this
has to be at the top of the list because it gives one the
potential to earn some of the incomes the hype guys are
throwing around. Those are the figures I'm going for myself
and I dare admit that I'm getting there quite fast.

When you do get those high numbers please remember that you
First heard of this amazing secret from me.
will tell you how newspaper advertisements have for decades
helped to build countless small businesses.

The advantages of a newspaper advertisement are many, but what
has attracted small business entrepreneurs for decades is the
speed at which a struggling entrepreneur (short of funds as many
starting small businesses always are, and looking for customers fast)
is able to get a very quick response.

Many extremely successful businesses today started off booking
tiny classified newspaper advertisements, grew into larger
display advertisements (that were still very tiny) and today
are multi million dollar enterprises commanding lots of
respect. If folks were laughing then because of the tiny
advertisements, you can be sure that they are no longer
laughing today.

Many of those who know all this stuff are not aware of an
amazing new development. That there is an equivalent of the
highly effective newspaper advertising online. And what's more
it is FREE.

Most people know that free articles posted at relevant web
sites with a good detailed resource box leading back to your
web site or free course or whatever works for you, is the
most effective way of advertising online. However there has
always been one very important missing link. And that is high
readership.

Newspapers tend to have very high circulations and that's how
small businesses would manage to get such a good response
from those tiny advertisements placed. The problem with online
articles is that in order to have a high enough readership, you will
need to post an article at numerous different sites and you may
require quite a number of articles to get the good response you
seek. It usually takes a while for the articles posted and the viral
effect (that good articles enjoy of being reposted over and over
again) to take effect and give you a good regular response similar
to good offline newspaper advertisements.

Not any more. Smart entrepreneurs are now combining their free
articles with the amazing Ebay site to reproduce an effect that
is even better than the newspaper in the old says. Better because
it is mostly free and yet has the potential of pulling in the
sort of targeted traffic that no daily newspaper on earth can
even dream of. The key words here are "targeted traffic."

All you need to do is register with Ebay. And you don't even
need to sell anything. You just have to use your Ebay about-me
-page.

Ebay has well over 1.5 billion page views per month. There are
well over 40,000 people who sign up for Ebay every day - Sunday
included.

Of course there's serious money to be made from the auctions or
by selling something with a fixed price. But you can profit on
Ebay even if you are not selling anything. You can use the About
me page to put in all sorts of information including a link to
your article or web site. Just by learning how to do this, you can
dramatically increase traffic to your posted articles or even to
your web site. This highly targeted traffic is bound to yield
sales for you, whatever it is you are selling. The traffic is targeted
because you select your section in Ebay carefully.

I found Brian McGregor's ebook, "The Ebay Formula," extremely
useful in helping me understand how to use Ebay to drive my
traffic and profits. You can get the ebook now at the following
link:-

http://www.workwinners.com/ezGaffurl.php?offer=ckyalo&pid=19

Despite all the hype on the net these days, there are a few
really amazing things that you can do with the internet, this
has to be at the top of the list because it gives one the
potential to earn some of the incomes the hype guys are
throwing around. Those are the figures I'm going for myself
and I dare admit that I'm getting there quite fast.

When you do get those high numbers please remember that you
First heard of this amazing secret from me.

About The Author

Tags: nigerian newspapers, nigerian-newspapers-online, magazines-online, nigeria news

Nigerian Newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers Online

Prospects are basically the foundation of any business as they are the "potential" customers to the business. So just how do YOU find good MLM prospects?

Let's start out with a definition of the word promote which is the most important word in finding prospects for your MLM business. The word promote means: to make known.

I was recently helping a person in my downline with her MLM business, which was not growing. As I asked various questions I finally found the "nasty bug" that was stopping her network marketing business from moving forward. She didn't want to come off as being or sounding sales-y. This stopped her from promoting.

How does everyone else promote?
A politician promotes how he/she can make a whole community's life better - so he's/she's making herself known to the public by promoting and making known to as many people as possible what he/she can do for them. If you've noticed, politicians promote on TV, radio, signs stuck in the grass or on telephone poles along a busy street or maybe speaking at various group meetings.

A college promotes what courses it offers. It might promote on radio, might promote to high schools or through sporting events. A stockbroker promotes that he can help his/her prospect make money. A local restaurant will promote via radio, or mailing brochures or discount coupons.

The worst thing you can ever do in your MLM business career is to think, ponder, worry or even get the idea that it's unprofessional to promote!

You really need to know and understand promotion. The only way you can have prospects, therefore customers or distributors - is to promote. The only way for you to make money in network marketing is to promote. You can write down your dreams and goals and study them every night. But you're as effective as a billboard in the middle of the desert. No one knows you exist until you make yourself known. So if you ever find yourself where your business isn't growing or you don't have enough prospects, enough customers, or enough distributors - what do you do? Promote!

Why do you promote?
The reason you promote is to create desire for your product. If you don't create a desire for your product, it's very difficult to achieve MLM success. How would you know that someone desires your product or business? Well certainly if you sent a post card and someone called the number - that's someone showing desire in your MLM business or product. Even if a person called and asks, "How much is this?" - it would still be someone showing desire, or at least slight interest. If you called a friend and asked them to look at something and they said, "Send it to me." That's showing a desire. People sometimes refer to desire as "responses," as in, someone responded to my promotion.

Different types of promotion
So now let's talk about different types of promotion that create desire. You could promote your MLM business in:

* The Help Wanted, the Sales & Marketing or the Business Opportunity sections of a newspaper

* Advertising section of magazines

* Direct mail, such as sending out post cards to everyone in your zip code

* Door hangers

* Email, banner ads on the internet

* Networking. I'm sure you could have guessed that I would name that one. But you would be surprised at how many people when mentioning all the ways to promote, miss that one. In fact, if you use traditional promotion with the mindset of just finding a network of people to work - you will fare far better than most who only measure their responses with how many people respond to their advertisement. You can turn one response from a promotion into thousands if you properly network.

One other place to find prospects for your MLM business is to promote to MLM leads you purchase from a lead company. The advantage of this is you're only paying for those who've responded and you're not paying for all the people who didn't respond. If I send out 10,000 post cards and get 20 responses then I paid for 9,980 post cards that didn't get a response.

The advantage of writing your own ads of course is being able to target your specific audience with your specific network marketing product or opportunity message. Which is VERY important and should not be underestimated.

In contrast, when you buy generic MLM leads, you're buying general ads - perhaps people who've responded to wanting a home based business. The other down side to buying leads is that very often, lead companies resell their leads to more than just you - so you've got extra competition to deal with.

Three broad ways to promote
Now, it probably sounded like I just contradicted myself; I didn't. I just saved you years of running in circles trying to figure the advantages and the disadvantages to generating your own leads or buying leads. This is the game. You must promote. There are three broad ways to promote.

1. Networking - which costs the least. You're going to have costs of meals with prospects, costs of joining clubs and associations. So I have rock climbing club fees, I have mountain climbing association fees, horseback riding fees, mountain biking fees..these are like $50 to $100 dollars a year.

2. Buying leads is more expensive than networking and less expensive than generating your own..but has some advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes you get some hot leads and sometimes you swear you're calling a graveyard.

3. Generating your own. Most expensive, but has the advantages of targeting your prospects. Here's a list of advertisements that I've run to promote my own MLM business opportunity.

* Some people earn Ten thousand dollars a year. And some people earn One million in the same year. Click here to see difference.

* Need more money; NOW!

* Does it ever break your heart to leave your kids at daycare?

* Looking for a FUN business?

* Go to the golf course when it's not crowded.

* The truth about making money. A lot of it.

* WEALTH FORMULA. Click here. (Use with banner ads)

* Wealth formula that takes a lot of effort - but retires you in 4 years.

* Extremely well paying position available to right person. Must have sales & marketing experience. Sales training a big plus.

* Immediate Need for Effective Sales Person. Unlimited earning and growth potential. Self-starter, sales writing skills and team player will be keys to success in this growing, high tech organization. Will be responsible for generating sales leads, preparing and giving presentations on company products and training sales team for development company. Great benefits. Great FUN TEAM! Fax resume to:

Be "in" business
The bottom line is you must be using at least one of these three methods to achieve MLM success. If you're not, you're not in business - you're out of business. What you should be doing, if you see the big picture and want the very big income is you need to be doing all three. All the time. Ideally you start out by networking, which will create enough money to buy MLM leads, and then you'll generate enough money from the leads you purchased to generate your own leads. My point is, as soon as you start making any money in your MLM business, reinvest it in promotion.

One other thought. Don't measure your success by just your immediate responses. Any marketer who is of any value knows that how you measure return on promotion investment is based on the "life of the customer." NOT immediate return. Get one leader from a MONTH or 6 MONTHS of promotion and it can pay you for the rest of your life.

People often ask me, "How much money did you make your first year in network marketing?" I tell them, "I don't know, I'm still earning it."

Tim Sales helps network marketers gain the confidence and skills to be an MLM success. Learn how to become a true network marketing professional and sign up for his free MLM training newsletter and listen to free training at www.brilliantexchange.com

Tags: nigerian-newspapers, nigerian, nigerian-newspapers-online, nigerian news

Nigerian Newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers Online

Internet usage has sky rocketed since the 90s and peoples work schedule is very busy and time consuming. It's very hard to find time during the day and even at night to sit down and read the paper. Those of us that work in offices during the day generally want to find out the latest news by browsing the web.

Some may say that the dramatic decrease in newspaper circulation is not due to the Internet. They may be right in part but not in whole. With dual incomes and very busy work schedules, people are finding it easier to get the top stories of the day during their breaks at work by browsing the Internet.

In order to increase your papers readership, you need to also be able to put the paper in front of customers while they are at work. When it comes to ranking high on the search engines for a particular topic, content is king. Newspapers have the content but lack what is needed to rank high in order to get readers. Everyday editors write up articles on current events as well as historical. If you were to do a Google search on a term such as ?Iraqi War?, you would think you would have all the search results on the first 2 pages being from major Newspapers. This is not the case at all.

Just by having content online nowadays is not enough. You must optimize your website page for the subject being talked about. This optimization is referred to as Search Engine Optimization or SEO.

Performing SEO of your websites will give the search engine crawlers more specific details of what you are writing about. Each search engine company such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, all have some type of search engine algorithm. These algorithms will determine where you would show up on the results page of a search. Unfortunately their algorithms change frequently so sometimes you will rank within the top 10 results on page 1 and the next time you could end up on page 2. This generally is not too alarming because with a well optimized website, you will end up back at the top.

What needs to change on your site to increase Search Engine Ranking?

Well, again, newspapers have plenty of content, good content at that. You need to outline what exactly the content is about and generate some keywords or key phrases from this.

The meta tag section within the section of your html page contains some key tags that are important to your optimization. The title, keyword and description meta tags are what I am talking about.

Lets say for example you were writing an article about David Beckham moving to California to play soccer for the Los Angles Galaxy. Then an appropriate TITLE meta tag for your webpage would be: 'soccer Player David Beckham | Los Angles Galaxy?.

The KEYWORD meta tag phrases to use would be something like 'david Bechkam, los angles galaxy, British soccer star, bechkam soccer?. And perhaps a DESCRIPTION meta tag like this, ?British soccer star David Beckham signs on with the Los Angles Galaxy soccer team for $10 million a year.?

Even though this was an example, I hope you get the point. Content, keyword/phrases then your title and description should include 2 of your top keywords.

Once your site is optimized and once the search engines crawl your site. You should have a very good search engine page ranking. However, the search engines must know that your webpage even exists. This leads us to another portion of website optimization.

You optimize your website or webpage because you feel you have something that others want to read. One way to have the search engines know that your page exists is to have your webpage link added to someone else's webpage that is already established on the Internet. Why do this? Well if a website is already established and is already being crawled by search engine spiders. The spiders will see your link from this site and then spawn off to crawl your site. This is a very critical piece to SEO because 1), you will now be index faster by the search engines and 2), if the site that had your link on it has a high page ranking with the search engines. You will get extra points if you will, when the search engines calculate where to place you on their results page.

All of this may seem like a lot of work and quite frankly, it is. Luckily there are tools out on the Internet that will help you to optimize your webpage and to find other sites that will add your link/webpage to their site. Some of these people will want you to add their site to your page as well. This is known as a Reciprocal link and generally is free.

One method that is taking off in the Newspaper industry is the pay per click or PPC. Pay per click advertisements are usually text ads placed near search results. When a site visitor clicks on the advertisement, the advertiser is charged a fee ranging from $.02 per click to as much as $20 per click but this is your choice. Think of this as an auction for keywords and the highest bidder gets the highest placement on the Sponsored Links section of search engine results pages.

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal on January 12, 2007 talking about how battling UK newspapers are buying PPC advertising on Google and others for about $.19 per click to increase traffic to their online newspaper in hopes to win more subscribers.

In this article, the WSJ said the UK newspaper 'the Telegraph?, had hired consultants to boost its Google news appearances. The Telegraph also stated 'the most important driver of all readers [to our site] is Google, except for people who know us and come directly?.

Finding what keywords your competitor is using and trying to figure out how much to pay per click can be a challenging task. However this is a task that must be done if you are trying to increase your readership. I use a windows program designed by Brad Callen called SEO Elite and Keyword Elite. This program can be reviewed and purchased at Keyword-SEO-Elite.com.

One of the very nice features of both SEO Elite and Keyword Elite is that they have a way for you to spy on your competition to see how well they are ranking for certain keywords and how much they are paying per click on Pay Per Click sites such as Google and Yahoo.

If you write for a newspaper and want to increase your readership, you must adhere to the SEO techniques and improve your web site's link popularity. This can be achieved by getting as many inbound, one-way links as you can from already established quality sites. Use the tools mentioned to increase the amount of traffic to your site in the least amount of time.

Tags: nigerian-newspapers, nigerian news, all-nigerian-newspapers, nigeria news

Nigerian Newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers Online

Back in my teaching days we were always looking for ways to make education entertaining on a low budget. However, the idea that follows is not just useful for educators but also anybody who is looking for something to pass a rainy day indoors without having your children glued to the television.

You will need:

As much newspaper as possible
Tape
Some picture books / magazines showing clothing

The first step is to be realistic. Choose a picture of a costume that will present a challenge but is within the abilities of the age range carrying out the project. It may be a supermodel's latest fantastic showpiece from Milan or a historical outfit: a Samurai, a Geisha and a Victorian lady's crinolin were all examples my students produced. The realm of fantasy has countless possibilities: Neptune, Medusa, a werewolf or a harpy are just some suggestions that immediately come to mind.

This works best in groups of three or four, but can be done with just two people. One will have to be the model, the others the designers. By rolling, crinkling and folding the paper and connecting sections together with tape the most fantastic costumes can begin to take form.

For the more adventurous, other everyday household items can be used. Sponges or potato printing for painting the costume, or incorporate other household items like empty yoghurt pots and bottle tops.

A basic costume can be built in under an hour, a more complex one can provide hours of entertainment for all involved. If you want to carry it even further why not hold a fashion show? This project can be as fun and as involved as you make it!
About The Author

Andrea is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Creative Writers. Her online writing portfolio can be found at http://astephenson.writing.com .

Tags: nigerian newspapers online, nigerian-newspapers, nigerian newspapers, nigerian

Nigerian Newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers Online

No matter how many times I see my writing published, it never stops being the best adrenaline rush ever.

Yesterday one of my articles appeared in a national newspaper. No big deal, really: I mean, I am a freelance journalist, so you'd think I'd be used to seeing my name in print by now. Not so. Rather than waiting for a break in my workload and taking a leisurely stroll to the newsagents to collect said paper, I hot-footed in down there as soon as I was dressed, like a kid at Christmas.

I had located the page with my by-line before I even reached the checkout, and I really had to exercise enormous self-control not to thrust the newspaper under the check-out assistant's nose and say, "Look! That's me! That's my name! In the paper!" I managed to restrain myself, and just did that to my fianc? instead, but the fact remains: for a freelance writer, there's no rush greater than publication.

So how do you do it?

Well, in my case, I do it mostly through contacts. I started out as a staff reporter on the local paper, and I've kept up with the people I met throughout my journalism career, whether they be fellow reporters, editors, or the woman who used to empty the rubbish bins at the end of the night. In this business you have to do that. You have to keep in touch with people in the industry, you have to make sure your name remains fresh in their minds, you have to keep on plugging away at keeping that contact book up to date, adding to it, and maintaining friendships. This is a business that functions, to an extent, on "who you know" rather than "what you know", and it doesn't hurt to keep that in mind.

I also do it by being persistent. You need a thick skin to be a freelance writer. You spend a lot of time being rejected, being snubbed, and even being ignored. (Actually, I prefer being ignored: it stings less!) You have to keep at it. Remember that for every query you send to an editor, they probably received one hundred others. You're up against a lot of competition, but sometimes sheer persistence pays off. Remember, it was the tortoise that won the race: keep chipping away at it, keep on sending in those queries, know that it can only get easier.

Thirdly, I do it by being in the right place at the right time, and what I mean by that is that anytime an editor contacts me with a job, I jump at it, even it means staying up all night and missing the next episode of "Lost". A little-known fact for you: in newspaper journalism, excellent writing isn't the most important quality to have. That's what sub-editors are there for. What many editors are looking for are writers who will respond instantly, file copy on time, get the facts right, and get the story. Being always-on call may not be the most relaxing way to live, but it's one way to make sure that the editor who just commissioned you for one story will come back for more.

About The Author

Amber McNaught runs WritingWorld.org -
for for freelance writing services and freelance writing jobs.

Tags: magazines, nigeria news, nigerian news, magazines-online

Nigerian Newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers Online

Copyright (c) 2006 Michael Senoff

Several weeks ago I had an absolutely fascinating conversation with a newspaper advertising expert.

In our meeting, he laid out some of the best newspaper ad tips I'd ever heard. There were tips that can save anyone money and make things go a lot more smoothly when dealing with newspapers and other publications.

And one of the best secrets he told me - which sounds really obvious, but is still a secret to most people - is when you are looking at buying newspaper advertising, one of the things you should do is form a relationship with a representative.

In other words, deal with one person and get to know them. Let them know you and what you are doing, and try to have a real business relationship with the person. It seems such a simple concept but you would be surprised that it actually requires planning as well as good "people skills" when forming the relationship.

Ideally, this person should be a supervisor or manager of the department. But either way, that representative that you have a relationship with is going to be your best ally and will assist you in getting some great pricing. Additionally, he or she will keep you abreast of anything that may help you out such as current or upcoming specials on advertising that you may want to take advantage of.

Now, if you can't seem to get along with the first person you deal with, you should literally ask, "Who else can I work with? I want to spend some money with you. Who can I work with?" If they won't help you with that, go above their head and talk to their boss.

Really, the higher up you can go in the advertising department chain the better. They will be more likely to be able to get you better deals, or make exceptions for you. Especially if you are a good customer and are spending money with them on a regular basis.

So the bottom line is this:

If you do newspaper advertising - or are planning to - start trying to form good business relationships with the newspaper sales representatives of the publications you are planning to run your ads in. Keep those "people skills" in mind as you try to form relationships. Creating and maintaining a good dialogue with the other person is really the critical aspect here.

It will take a little bit of time and effort, but it will be more than worth it for you in the long run when you see the savings and advantages that result.

About The Author

To hear the full 60 interview with a newspaper advertising expert go to
http://www.hardtofindseminars.com/audioclips.htm

Tags: nigerian, nigerian newspapers, nigeria news, magazines

Nigerian Newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers Online

You could say I have a God-given love for the Jews and the nation of Israel (Isaiah 62:6-7). That sacred bond has been strengthened over the years by the fact that I've been blessed to have lived all over Israel, getting to know its land and people quite well.

Apart from 5 months as a kibbutz volunteer at Ramat Yohanan near Haifa, I've also served as a kibbutz volunteer at Sdot Yam on the Mediterranean, next to Caesarea, the site of my first ulpan (intensive Hebrew course), and where Israel's heroine, Hannah Senesh, was from; Regavim, near Zichron Yaakov, where I continued my Hebrew lessons amid its rolling green hills; Reshafim, near Bet She'an, with Mt. Gilboa practically in our backyard, and Jordan's mountains in lovely view out front; Adamit, on Lebanon's border, high up on a mountain, from where on clear days you can see all the way to Haifa's Mt. Carmel; Shoval, a rose in the Negev desert, just north of Be'er Sheva; Dan, way up in the northernmost part of Israel, in between Syria and Lebanon, next to the majestic snow-covered Mt. Hermon, where I was living when "Operation Desert Storm" blew in; and Ha'On, with its campground and ostrich farm on the eastern shores of the Sea of Galilee, across from Tiberias; and last but not least, my beloved Jerusalem, next to my favorite spot on earth: the Temple Mount.

It was during my sojourn at Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan, while looking for the home of the widow Simcha Gombo, a Worldwide Church of God member and mother of Michal (who was deaf) - both of whom I had briefly met during the 1980 Church of God celebration of the biblical Festival of Tabernacles in Jerusalem - that I met Ilan Itzhayek on the street and asked directions, as related in Israel Work History (Worldwide Church of God).

Ilan Itzhayek wrote the following full page article in Hebrew that appeared in Hed HaKiryot, a newspaper in Northern Israel, just West of the Sea of Galilee, November 19, 1982. Please note that David Hoover is the name I was born with before I legally changed it to David Ben-Ariel, and forgive the imperfect translation of the Hebrew into English in this attempt to preserve a part of the Church of God history in the Promised Land (and honor Ilan Itzhayek for helping to make it).

The Drug Addict Who Discovered God and the Kibbutz
by Ilan Itzhayek

His name is David Allen Hoover - he's 22 years old and was born in Toledo, Ohio, USA.

David, and other members of the Church he belongs to arrived in Israel last month as visitors in Jerusalem, but David stayed behind as a volunteer at Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan. He doesn't mind any of the work they give him to do - whether it's in the fields, in the factory or in the chicken incubators - he has ideals.

David belongs to a very special Church called the Worldwide Church of God - they call themselves the true Christians and consider the conventional Christians pagan. They believe in the Torah of Moses and observe Sabbath, as well as all the annual holy days mentioned in the Torah. They believe Jesus Christ is the Messenger of God. The Church has 100,000 brethren all over the world. A common belief they have is that they have been chosen by God to join the community of believers. Their leader is Herbert Armstrong, 91, whom they admire and consider that he's come in the spirit of Elijah.

David talks quite excitedly about his Church. He's very patient and ready to explain his convictions to you again if you haven't understood them. His answers are filled with verses from the Bible and the New Testament - verses that he knows by heart. He calls himself "chosen" because in his Church there isn't those "religious and not religious" - there's only the chosen. If you don't agree the Church doesn't want you - which means that God hasn't called you.

Scar in the Heart

David hasn't always been in the Church. He was raised on a farm in Ohio that belongs to his father's family. His parents were divorced when he was 11 years old. A year later his alcoholic father died at the early age of 36. "All I remember about my father," David says with a sort of bitter smile, "is that he was drunk and always messing up the house and arguing with my mom. He was always arguing with her. I was really young then so I really didn't even get to know him. I almost can't remember how he looks."

It was a drastic change - his parents divorced, the move from the farm to the city, a new school and then his father's death that deeply affected him.

Soon, with all of his being, David began to search for a way to help him with his hurt. That's when someone mentioned to him how you feel "high" when you do drugs. So he began to really look for drugs. He tried to find out who used them and where they hung out. Shortly after trying pills, pot and hash, he began to buy them regularly.

"When I was 15 years old I stopped taking them by the mouth and started snorting them" - quickly adding ' "it's far more potent that way and it affects you more quickly..money to buy drugs with wasn't a problem for me. It wasn't hard to get. The man my mom had remarried wasn't rich, but he definitely wasn't poor. The allowances I got I used to buy drugs with instead of clothes or other things. My sister and I kept it secret that we were getting high and so our parents kept giving us good allowances."

It seems like David will never forget a Jethro Tull rock concert that he attended. "I had snorted some drugs, smoked a lot of pot and hash and was drinking beer until I was really high." He remembers, "I felt really strange. All I remember is being sat down by some friends and the chair began to fall backwards..3 days later I woke up in the intensive care unit of the hospital with a heart monitor attached to me. I was in serious condition and it had been getting worse but the doctors worked hard to save me." "Later there was a special agreement between me and my parents," David grins. "I was promised that if I quit taking drugs they'd allow me to let my hair grow long. I promised and I didn't keep it. My hair grew down to my waist."

Wanderings and its Moral

A different stage began in David's life: wandering through different churches. He was in and out of many churches during his search for the true morals and values. He considered the members of traditional Christianity as hypocrites. Those churches had failed to fulfill him.

After failing to find what he was searching for, David came in contact with Hinduism - the Hare Krishnas. He was attracted by its exotic appeal, the incense and vegetarian members of that cult. During a special Krishna festival in Philadelphia, he met a famous leader in their movement who wanted him to become his personal aide and travel all over. David decided not to join because he didn't want to be separated from his family. "I believed in Hare Krishna," David says assured, "I loved the religion because it was physically and spiritually attractive and I was devoted to it. I engaged in their ceremonies, singing and dancing, chanting their mantras and going into a group trance. But even though I knew their religion didn't accept drugs, I still used them, though they were unaware of it. I was around 17 when I began to shoot up drugs."

After awhile David began to seriously question his involvement with the Krishnas. He feared he had been wrong, had been misled in going to the guru. His amount and use of drugs began to dramatically increase, going to the bars every night of the week, getting high and drunk, began to take its toll on his body. By then it seems he had lost any spiritual strength he had.

"God Help Me"

"I really began to think about God," he says. "Suddenly I began to think about him seriously and wondered if I had been deceived or enlightened in Krishna. I begged God to lead me into all the truth. I had prayed about it many times and then one of the greatest miracles in my life happened" - he explains while getting down on his knees to show how he had been praying. "All I remember is that I was purposely praying to the God of the Bible and really hoped that somehow He would answer my prayer. Then it was like a hot brand was put upon my forehead. Two words were forcibly impressed upon my mind: "FORSAKE HINDUISM!" Then I actually wondered whether it was my subconscious that gave me those words. I turned to my Bible that was beside me and, unintentionally, opened it up to Psalms 115:4-8 - David's holding his Bible and reading it out loud: "Their idols are silver and gold; the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; They have ears, but they hear not; noses have they, but they smell not; They have hands, but they handle not; feet have they, but they walk not; neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like them; so is every one that trusts in them." "After that I didn't need any further proof to know that it had truly been from God. That same day I burned all my Hindu books, beads, posters..".

"Dirty needles"

The drugs caused David's condition to continually deteriorate. Everyone told him that he was destroying himself. He knew himself that he was going to die, but he wasn't able to help himself.

"All that horrible time" - David says with a shaky voice - "I really wanted to be free. I didn't want to be addicted to drugs. But I also felt that there wasn't anything in this world worth living for. I didn't have any power but I still tried to get off drugs. I ended up throwing away my needles, hoping to stop, but later I'd turn around and go back and take them out and use them." Even though his needles had been in the garbage, dirty and broken, he said he still used them up to a dozen times, even though you're only supposed to use them once! "I was taking the needles in my frustration and would bash them against the wall so that I couldn't use them, but later I'd attempt to until it hurt me and I was bleeding. That's when I realized that I was addicted." David says, thinking out loud: "All I knew was that only GOD could help me, not man!"

David experienced "almost sure death" another time, besides the rock concert, when he was 18, and was in his bedroom mainlining some drugs. His mother was home at the time but was unaware of what was happening to her son. "Suddenly everything seemed strange to me" - David says trying to remember - "the music started sounding really weird..Later I woke up in the hospital and a doctor informed me that I had damaged my liver and that it was a miracle that I still had a brain and could think clearly."

Goodbye and Good Riddance

"Those were my times of wandering in the wilderness. God delivered me and took me out of Egypt into His light" - David says reflecting on his past. "The inner struggle between good and evil wearied me after awhile. I had been asking God what I was supposed to do. I asked for power because I didn't have any strength and none of the churches I encountered had the power necessary to deliver me from drugs. At the time I opened up my Bible unintentionally to Isaiah 45. The first verse that caught my eye was verse 2: "I will go before thee and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron..". That verse succeeded to do for David what he, of himself, had been unable to do for years.

"No more drugs!" David said and that is how he finally managed to be free from drugs. "Now I felt ready to begin to listen to God. Sometimes you have to first live in darkness before you can appreciate the light. I knew I wanted to live God's ways of life so I said good-riddance to drugs and to my old friends and bad influences - to all of that I said goodbye and good riddance!"

"Drugs are a Lie"

Shortly afterwards, David discovered the Worldwide Church of God through their Plain Truth magazine. The ideas in it seemed so logical to him and not like all the others he had known.

Soon David was one of its excited believers. After a whole year of observing Sabbath and all the holy days of Israel, he was baptized as a brother into the Church.

One of the Worldwide Church of God beliefs is that there will be a politico-military mess that will take place by next year. In their opinion, Germany, and maybe even Italy, will attempt to conquer the world. That attempt will ignite a world war that will take two thirds of the world's population, but that afterwards there will begin a true peace for planet Earth. The members of the Worldwide Church of God will be among those that survive and they believe that eventually their beliefs will be accepted by all the Earth.

The doctrines of the Church are all biblically based. Besides the above-mentioned prophecy there is another one that states the world leaders will sit in Jerusalem and that Israel will become a "Light to all nations." The whole world will have one government.

David is writing a book, from his biblical research, about the two prophets who will prepare the way for the days to come. David is also contemplating about writing an autobiography. He already knows what he would call it - Wanderings! He's convinced that he has a lot of experience to give to others, and he's very interested in warning those who might consider abusing drugs. "Drugs are a lie" - he says - "and it would be a lot better if people would learn form the experience of others. Today I'm alive, very alive - and I feel I have a lot to live for!"

About The Author

David Ben-Ariel is a Christian-Zionist writer and author of Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall. With a focus on the Middle East and Jerusalem, his analytical articles help others improve their understanding of that troubled region. Check out the Beyond Babylon blog.

Tags: magazines-online, nigerian-newspapers, magazines, nigerian

Nigerian Newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers Online

Without the many forms of advertising available, everything would be sold to the same people with the same needs. Marketing strategies have existed and adapted through the ages.

Every person who has become even a little familiar with the Internet has seen some form of advertising on their computer. It may have come as an email, seen as a banner ad, a pop-up, pop-under, or rotation ads placed by companies on your browser. Advertising, businesses, and the brilliant people who create the kinds of marketing choices available have been around in some form or another ever since there were humans around to trade with. And the power of color, size, placement, style, and medium used; or the impact of season, timing, viewers available, and?customers needing the product or service offered?creates staggering variables in statistics. The possibilities are endless when it comes to advertising.

Research and development teams across the globe spend millions of dollars on testing particular advertising methods each year. Internet Marketing is a relatively new concept compared to news print, radio, and even television. To get a handle on the challenges of the new marketing strategists and their approach to eye catching, innovative marketing techniques, we first need to venture back and take a look at how the article writer became a television commercial entertainer.

In the early 1900's, RCA, Westinghouse, and others were in the running to produce a working television for every home in America. The print media was in a frenzy reporting every claim, patent, and testing model rumored or reality. DuMont, GE, RCA, and Andrea were some of the American versions of the television available around the late 1930's to 40's. People were starting to own televisions but what was showing? What were they watching?

Around 1945, wartime viewing was limited to only a few days a week and a couple of shows a day. Interesting and genius was Macy's Wednesday night slot called "Macy's Teleshopping". I credit Macy's with being the leader and guru of advertising brilliance. They took the ball and ran with it and the whole viewing world ran with them. The DuMont television station WABD channel 4 even sent out customer survey cards for market testing to see which shows the audience liked best. An entire marketing industry was born out of the new media. TV Guide was at a circulation of 92,112 by'december 1949, yet another way to get the marketing gurus jumping for ad ideas. Well jump they did, with a reader base so large and a viewer base even larger with the reported number of television sets in operation then being 2,000,000, advertising was the way to fortunes.

Now the problem of what motivated people to buy came into focus. Johnny Olsen? Howdy Doody? Or the sex appeal of Joan Kemp, Miss Electronics of 1949? Better yet, a 20 second song and dance by the cartoon BVD's? The use of animation, sex appeal, honesty, and trustworthiness came into play and used correctly created wealth and released buying power. Speckled among the regular showings of "I Love Lucy" , "The Lone Ranger", The John Daly News", "Wagon Train", "Perry Mason", and "Mystery Theatre", all having their sales spots in place, were "Kraft Theatre", "Campbell Sound Stage",? "Lux Video Theatre", and "Pabst Blue Ribbon Fights".? They all designed selling without the sale.

Everything was surveyed, tested, and tweaked and they did all this without the use of the home computer. Imagine that. Today, we have the luxury of that technology right at our fingertips. Now, what do we do with this knowledge, where do we begin? Do we advertise with real people in our ads, animated figures, or do we use the old standby sex appeal? The initial sale was never the real problem for marketers, it was the long term customer. The product has to eventually speak for itself. I believe anyone has the possibility of marketing anything and selling it once, but if the product does not do what it says in the advertisement, there will be a demise shortly after the first sale. A salesman without a product or service is left then to find another one.

Entertainment, information, need, and curiosity spark a potential client's interest. Start with what first got your attention, what is the one point that sold you. This is the attention grabber. Then, to keep their focus long enough to peak their interest, you need a product or service that people actually need or want. Something that will offer them a healthier, easier, or less stressful future, whether that future is 5 or 20 years, or in an hour or so. Look at your products strong points. What is different, special, or extraordinary about it? Evaluate your products weak points as well, what you think is not a big deal may be the best selling tool you have.

No advertising is the only wrong advertising. Glean ideas from your product or service. People like to be informed of what a product does and is useful for. Let them know and put your own spin on it.

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

About The Author

Tags: newspapers, nigerian-newspapers, all-nigerian-newspapers, magazines-online

Nigerian Newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers Online

Dick Tracy. 3 newspapers in every city. Headlines that made sense. Enough content for an entire family to read.

Today's newspapers are a shell of their former selves.

The biggest problem with newspapers is that they are no longer newspapers. Nearly all local papers have become local versions of USA Today. There are 500 places where I can find all the breaking news about Brad and Angelina and even Natalee Holloway. These include many national magazines and newspapers, a dozen cable channels, and, more recently, the web. What I can't find in 500 places is local in-depth news, local investigative reporting, and non-pandering thought leadership.

Newspapers have to be more of what they can be: investigators, protectors of the truth, and guardians of the little guy. Newspapers can claim to be these things, but the reality is it can no longer be part of the corporate mission statement, since the corporation also owns TV stations, radio stations, and shopper-type newspapers, all of which make pandering to their audience a top priority. It starts at the top folks; if the chairman and the board have guts, the publisher will have guts, the editors will have guts, and they will support the reporters who have guts.

But its hard to have guts when the only commonality between all your media properties is the fact that they depend on advertising. It was easier for papers to stand up to bullies when they had more influence and more readers, but now, the corporate owners audience is in broadcast, and broadcast by nature panders. When was the last time NBC ran as influential a documentary as "If Japan Can, Why Can't We?" The 1980's?

I love newspapers. Growing up in New York, there were nearly a dozen local flavors of tri-state area dailies, each with a very distinctive personality. The only personality today's newspapers seem to have is consensus. There is no good or bad, right or wrong, win or lose. Look at the headlines.. "Support for Gun Control Waning (second line) But Still needed, Some Say." I made this up, but it is fact a very popular style of headline writing. No one is right, no one is wrong, we don't want to offend anybody.

The classifieds remain a vital source of income for newspapers, but it's tough to compete with Craig's List, which runs free classifieds and allows lots of pictures (a much better way to survey apartments, as an example.)

Which means display advertising and inserts remain the paper's growth area. Only relevant, fly-off-the-newstand content will change the sinking of the Titanic.

Which is why to get our content, we have to subscribe to a dozen blogs or more. Which is a shame, because the newspaper has one thing blogs don't- experienced people, strong heritages and product portability.

Chairpeople of multi-media property owners I beseech you: Don't concede the death of newspapers by throwing all your weight behind your glossy. blow-dried, feature-laden 10 o'clock news. Release the hounds, and let papers do what they are supposed to do: dig and report.

About The Author:

Brien Lee is a writer, creative director, and speaker. He is President of Brien Lee VideoStory, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin based national provider of video, multimedia, and web content for business to business marketing. http://www.videostory.com

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Nigerian Newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers Online

All this is not very promising. But one should never forget that the Internet is probably the closest thing we have to an efficient market. As consumers refuse to pay for content, investment will dry up and content will become scarce (through closures of web sites). As scarcity sets in, consumermay reconsider.

Your article deals with the future of the Internet as a medium. Will it be able to support its content creation and distribution operations economically?

If the Internet is a budding medium - then we should derive great benefit from a study of the history of its predecessors.

The Future History of the Internet a a Medium

The internet is simply the latest in a series of networks which revolutionized our lives. A century before the internet, the telegraph, the railways, the radio and the telephone have been similarly heralded as "global" and transforming. Every medium of communications goes through the same evolutionary cycle:

Anarchy

The Public Phase

At this stage, the medium and the resources attached to it are very cheap, accessible, under no regulatory constraints. The public sector steps in : higher educationinstitutions, religious institutions, government, not for profit organizations, non governmental organizations (NGOs), trade unions, etc. Bedeviled by limited financialresources, they regard the new medium as a cost effective way of disseminating their messages.

The Internet was not exempt from this phase which ended only a few years ago. It started with a complete computer anarchy manifested in ad hoc networks, localnetworks, networks of organizations (mainly universities and organs of the government such as DARPA, a part of the defence establishment, in the USA). Non commercial entities jumped on the bandwagon and started sewing these networks together (an activity fully subsidized by government funds). Theresult was a globe encompassing network of academic institutions. The American Pentagon established the network of all networks, the ARPANET. Other government departments joined the fray, headed by the National ScienceFoundation (NSF) which withdrew only lately from the Internet.

The Internet (with a different name) became semi-public property - with access granted to the chosen few.

Radio took precisely this course. Radio transmissions started in the USA in 1920. Those were anarchic broadcasts with no discernible regularity. Non commercialorganizations and not for profit organizations began their own broadcasts and even created radio broadcasting infrastructure (albeit of the cheap andlocal kind)dedicated to their audiences. Trade unions, certain educational institutionsand religious groups commenced "public radio" broadcasts.

The Commercial Phase

When the users (e.g., listeners in the case of the radio, or owners of PCs and modems in the case of the Internet) reach a critical mass - the business sector isalerted. In the name of capitalist ideology (another religion, really) itdemands "privatization" of the medium. This harps on very sensitive stringsin every Western soul: the efficient allocation of resources which is the result of competition. Corruption and inefficiency are intuitively associated with the public sector ("Other People's Money" - OPM). This, together with the ulterior motives of members of the ruling political echelons (the infamous American Paranoia), a lack of variety and of cateringto the tastes and interests of certain audiences and the automatic equationof private enterprise with democracy lead to a privatization of the youngmedium.

The end result is the same: the private sector takes over the medium from "below" (makes offers to the owners or operators of the medium that they cannotpossibly refuse) - or from "above" (successful lobbying in the corridors of power leads to the appropriate legislation and the medium is "privatized"). Every privatization - especially that of a medium - provokes public opposition. There are (usually founded) suspicions that the interests of the public are compromised and sacrificed on the altar of commercialization and rating. Fears of monopolization and cartelization of the medium are evoked - and proven correct in due course. Otherwise, there is fear of the concentration of control of the medium in a few hands. All these things do happen - butthe pace is so slow that the initial fears are forgotten and publicattention reverts to fresher issues.

A new Communications Act was enacted in the USA in 1934. It was meant to transform radio frequencies into a national resource to be sold to the private sectorwhich was supposed to use it to transmit radio signals to receivers. In other words : the radio was passed on to private and commercial hands. Public radio was doomed to be marginalized.

The American administration withdrew from its last major involvement in the Internet in April 1995, when the NSF ceased to finance some of the networks and,thus, privatized its hitherto heavy involvement in the net.

A new Communications Act was legislated in 1996. It permitted "organized anarchy". It allowed media operators to invade each other's territories. Phone companies were allowed to transmit video and cable companies were allowed to transmit telephony, for instance. This was all phased over a longperiod of time - still, it was a revolution whose magnitude is difficult to gauge and whose consequences defy imagination. It carries an equally momentous price tag - official censorship. "Voluntary censorship", to be sure, somewhat toothless standardization and enforcement authorities, to be sure - still, a censorship with its own institutions to boot. The private sector reacted by threatening litigation - but, beneath the surface it is caving in to pressure and temptation, constructing its own censorship codes both in the cable and in the internet media.

Institutionalization

This phase is the next in the Internet's history, though, it seems, few realize it.

It is characterized by enhanced activities of legislation. Legislators, on all levels, discover the medium and lurch at it passionately. Resources which were considered"free", suddenly are transformed to "national treasures not to be dispensedwith cheaply, casually and with frivolity".

It is conceivable that certain parts of the Internet will be "nationalized" (for instance, in the form of a licensing requirement) and tendered to the private sector. Legislation will be enacted which will deal with permitted and disallowed content (obscenity ? incitement ? racial or gender bias ?) No medium in the USA (not to mention the wide world) has eschewed such legislation. There are sure to be demands to allocate time (or space, or software, orcontent, or hardware) to "minorities", to "public affairs", to "communitybusiness". This is a tax that the business sector will have to pay to fendoff the eager legislator and his nuisance value.

All this is bound to lead to a monopolization of hosts and servers. The important broadcast channels will diminish in number and be subjected to severe contentrestrictions. Sites which will refuse to succumb to these requirements - will be deleted or neutralized. Content guidelines (euphemism for censorship) exist, even as we write, in all major content providers (CompuServe, AOL, Yahoo!-Geocities, Tripod, Prodigy).

The Bloodbath

This is the phase of consolidation. The number of players is severely reduced. The number of browser types will settle on 2-3 (Netscape, Microsoft and Opera?). Networks will merge to form privately owned mega-networks. Servers will merge to form hyper-servers run on supercomputers in "serverfarms". The number of ISPs will be considerably cut. 50 companies ruled the greater part of the media markets in the USA in 1983. The number in 1995 was 18. Atthe end of the century they will number 6.

This is the stage when companies - fighting for financial survival - strive to acquire as many users/listeners/viewers as possible. The programming is shallowed to thelowest (and widest) common denominator. Shallow programming dominates aslong as the bloodbath proceeds.

From Rags to Riches

Tough competition produces four processes:

1. A Major Drop in Hardware Prices

This happens in every medium but it doubly applies to a computer-dependent medium, such as the Internet.
Computer technology seems to abide by "Moore's Law" which says that the number of transistors which can be put on a chip doubles every 18 months. As a result of this miniaturization, computing power quadruples every 18 months and an exponential series ensues. Organic-biological-DNA computers, quantumcomputers, chaos computers - prompted by vast profits and spawned by inventive genius will ensure the continued applicability of Moore's Law.

The Internet is also subject to "Metcalf's Law".

It says that when we connect N computers to a network - we get an increase of N to the second power in its computing processing power. And these N computers are more powerful every year, according to Moore's Law. The growth of computing powers in networks is a multiple of the effects ofthe two laws. More and more computers with ever increasing computing powergetconnected and create an exponential 16 times growth in the network's computing power every 18 months.

2. Content related Fees

This was prevalent in the Net until recently. Even potentially commercial software can still be downloaded for free. In many countries television viewers still pay for television broadcasts - but in the USA and many other countries in the West, the basic package of television channels comes freeof charge.

As users / consumers form a habit of using (or consuming) the software - it is commercialized and begins to carry a price tag. This is what happened with the advent of cable television : contents are sold for subscription or per usage (Pay Per View - PPV) fees.

Gradually, this is what will happen to most of the sites and software on the Net. Those which survive will begin to collect usage fees, access fees, subscription fees, downloading fees and other, appropriately named, fees. These fees are bound to be low - but it is the principle that counts. Even a few cents per transaction may accumulate to hefty sums with the traffic which characterizes some web sites on the Net (or, at least its more popular locales).

3. Increased User Friendliness

As long as the computer is less user friendly and less reliable (predictable) than television - less of a black box - its potential (and its future) is limited. Televisionattracts 3.5 billion users daily. The Internet stands to attract - under the most exuberant scenario - less than one tenth of this number of people. The only reasons for this disparity are (the lack of) user friendliness and reliability. Even browsers, among the most user friendly applications ever -are not sufficiently so. The user still needs to know how to use a keyboardand must possess some basic acquaintance with the operating system. Themore mature the medium, the more friendly it becomes. Finally, it will be operated using speech or common language. There will be room left for user"hunches" and built in flexible responses.

4. Social Taxes

Sooner or later, the business sector has to mollify the God of public opinion with offerings of political and social nature. The Internet is an affluent, educated, yuppie medium. It requires literacy and numeracy, live interest in information and its various uses (scientific, commercial, other), a lot of resources (free time, money to invest in hardware, software and connect time). It empowers - andthus deepens the divide between the haves and have-nots, the developed andthe developing world, the knowing and the ignorant, the computer illiterate.

In short: the Internet is an elitist medium. Publicly, this is an unhealthy posture. "Internetophobia" is already discernible. People (and politicians) talk about how unsafe the Internet is and about its possible uses forracial, sexist and pornographic purposes. The wider public is in a state ofawe.

So, site builders and owners will do well to begin to improve their image: provide free access to schools and community centres, bankroll internet literacy classes, freely distribute contents and software to educational institutions, collaborate with researchers and social scientists and engineers. In short: encourage the view that the Internet is a medium catering to the needs ofthe community and the underprivileged, a mostly altruist endeavour. This also happens to make good business sense by educating and conditioning afuture generation of users. He who visited a site when a student, free of charge - will pay to do so when made an executive. Such a user will also pass on the information within andwithout his organization. This is called media exposure. The future will, nodoubt, will be witness to public Internet terminals, subsidized ISP accounts, free Internet classes and an alternative "non-commercial, public"approach to the Net. This may prove to be one more source of revenue to content creatorsand distributors.

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Nigerian Newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers Online

In this thought provoking article, marketing guru Dale Calvert will share with you proven insights and concepts to help you run success MLM recruiting campaigns using Newspaper Advertising.

Here is an example from our local paper.  A distributor from a well known make up company had a large 3? x 4? space ad inviting people to her home, for an open house.

What is she thinking?  How many potential prospects do you think are going to visit a strangers home, so they can be pitched on buying make up?  WAKE UP! Even if she was inviting people to an office on main street, the results would still be a big goose egg!

I see this type of stupid advertising in newspapers everywhere!  She probably spent around $100.00 on the ad and I guarantee no one who read the ad should up to her home.

So what should she have done? 

Write a report, something like  The 7 deadly sins woman make when applying their make up that makes them look plain an unappealing.

After she has written the free report then she would receive a lot more bang for her book by running CLASSIFIED ads that say something like:

FREE REPORT: The 7 deadly sins woman make when applying their make up that makes them look plain an unappealing. Visit www.UglyMakeUp.com right now

The website should be a lead capture page, designed for ONE REASON, capture the data from visitors who request the FREE report.  They give you their name, address, email and phone number and you provide them the free report.

Depending on the circulation of the paper this type of classified ad could produce dozens of website registrations.

Now you have a group of people who have SHOWN AN INTEREST IN MAKE UP TIPS that you can continually market to via email, or send a personal invitation to the open house.

For the same money spent on the 3? x 4? space ad she probably could have run 6-8 classified ads.

Running ineffective display ads is just one of many mistakes I see network marketing distributors making every week.

Over my career, I have worked in 3 corporate offices of network marketing companies.  In all three companies I have worked very closely with the managers of the compliance departments.

These people are responsible for approving all corporate ads.  I would estimate that 90% of the ads the comply corporately STINK from a marketing standpoint.

I use to contact people and suggest that they don't waste their money and guide them in effective, proven advertising campaigns.

Over the years I have personally recruited well over 100 new team members by running the right kinds of ads in the right publications.

If you are not using newspaper advertising to recruit new members, you are missing a proven effective way to identify potential team members.  If you are running ads and getting little or no results, please get with an upline that knows what they are doing when it comes to newspaper advertising and duplicate what they are doing.

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Tags: nigerian, nigerian news, all-nigerian-newspapers, nigeria news

Nigerian Newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers Online

Many people in business lay-out (design) their ownads. That old adage "If It Is To Be It Is Up ToMe" prevails. Do it yourself and you may get whatyou want. Many newspaper salespeople are poor atconveying customer wants to the design department,and slow are retunring proofs. The result is an adwith errors, not approved by the cusotmer.

If your expenditures will be moderate, you mightbe able to afford a graphic designer oradvertising agency. It costs nothing to find out,call a few ad agencies in the phone book and askfor an account rep. Explain you may be in themarket for an agency and let them ask thequestions. A quick determination will not be longin coming.

There is a lot to be said for finding a way forsomeone else to do your ads so you can use yourtalents for what you do best, running yourbusiness. Designing your own ads (a furniturestore I visited had a complete drafting table,magnifying light and glue pot in the corner) isabout the same as fixing your own leaks and askingthe plumber to come by and inspect it.

Your ad will have less than eight tenths of asecond to get a readers attention. You must stopthe reader's eye in less than a second, and holdit for at least three seconds to make animpression. Think about the ads you pass when youread the paper, You fly by some of them fasterthan you can say "one-Mississippi" (a half asecond).

Collect a folder of ads thet grab your attention.Gather a list of hot words. There are articles andlists throughout the internet of "selling" words.Type "Words that Sell" in any search engine.

Always Stress the BenefitsA feature is what something is. A benefit is whatit does. Advertise the benefits of your product orservice, not the features. People don't buysomething to get a feature, instead they alwaysbuy to get the benefit produced by the feature.

The jury is still out on the effectiveness ofcolor vs the cost of color. Look at the big boys,most dont use color in display ads (only the cardealers, for some inexplicable reason).

There are Already Enough EgosLook through any paper and count the mug shots ofthe owner, pics of the kids or staff. Not tomention the photos of the business building oraward. Ego is easy to sell to the advertisers, butit doesn't sell the customer. The paper uses egoall the time to sell you more ads. The billboardpeople are especially notorious for this practice.Focus on the benefits and forget your smiling headand shoulders shot.

Put it on the shelfAfter you put an ad together, put it on the shelf,in a drwaer or file it in your computer for a day.Don't look at it or think about it. Wait at least24 hours to take a fresh look. Can you remove atkleast 5 words? It will sell harder with lesswords. You don't read jumbled ads, they don'teither. Does it have to be that big? Cut it by athird and you can buy more for the same money.

Sell the benefits with class and your advertisingcan be very effective.

For more about advertising, get my article"Your Billboard is Showing"
MailTo:Billboards@BigIdeasGroup.com

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Tags: newspapers, nigerian newspapers online, nigerian-newspapers, nigerian

Nigerian Newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers Online

Placing ads in more newspapers and multiplying your success it's important that you keep your focus. What I mean by this is that you need to make sure that you don't slack off and stop monitoring your results.

This is a vital point when it comes to spreading your advertising reach to more newspapers at more cost because with all the of buzz going on around you with all of the new ads, it's easy to neglect your analyzing of your results.

This can and has resulted in disaster for many people who have gotten lazy. If you fail to keep track of your response rates you can lose your success as quick as you gained it.

Doesn't it make sense that you invest the time checking on your results now that you have enough success to start spreading your advertising everywhere? This is the deciding factor between success and failure. The person who continually monitors everything they are doing and keeps close track of every advertising dollar is the person who sees their business explode.

Make sure you understand this because if you keep tabs on what's going on in your advertising efforts your business will grow at astronomical rates. Think about it, your going from just a few papers to dozens and eventually hundreds which will multiply your income by dozens or hundreds of times!

Here's a quick and efficient system for taking your advertising across more newspapers and being safe and precise while doing it:

1) Determine how much profit you have available to place advertising in addition to your already running and successful ads. This means you use the profit calculations you learned in a previous section and determine your profit. You then place as many ads as your profit permits you to place.

2) Make sure that you follow the advise to setup a separate domain for each ad, a separate tracking link for each ad and a separate mailing list for each ad.

3) Closely monitor and analyze the results of the ads that you've placed while making sure to give the ad 14 days after it stops running before you calculate and final profit calculations. Make sure to keep close tabs on your current successful ads to make sure that they are still pulling a profitable response.

4) After the two weeks have passed, use the ?Analyzing Results & Determining Profitability? section to help you determine all of your results and profit calculations.

5) Start back at step 1.

This is the simple cycle you can use to take your advertising reach all over the nation across hundreds of newspapers without spending any money out of your own bank account and while making sure that you get every last penny you can out of each ad.

This system is simple but important because if you get lazy and stop tracking, testing or analyzing profits, you could lose your shirt. The great thing about this system is that after you get used to testing, tracking and keeping track of all of your advertising campaigns it will start to come as second nature.

Tags: nigerian newspapers, nigerian news, magazines, nigerian-newspapers-online

Nigerian Newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers Online

News writing habits have been changing since the dawn of the Internet age. Journalists have no choice but to adapt, especially those who have spent their lives in newspapers.

While the essence of news writing and its principles will not change, how it is presented to the public is ? not so much an evolution but rather redeploying old concepts in fresh roles.

We are talking here about news features. This type of writing bridges the gap between hard-hitting news and softer feature stories.

News-feature writing has been around for ages but now is the time it really must come to the fore. Only 10 years ago, people would look to newspapers as one of their primary sources of news, along with television.

Whatever happened the day before, whether it was a political rally, a tragedy or a sporting event, most people would only know about it after reading the following morning's newspapers.

The Internet has now taken over the newspaper's role. There are thousands of news outlets online that give you up to the minute information about anything. Events can be watched live online and forum participants could be talking about news minutes after it happens.

Its effect on newspapers has been staggering. What was once still newsworthy up to 24 hours later is now old hat because everyone has already read about it on the Internet.

Computers and other electronic platforms have stolen the hard news writing style that was once the domain of broadsheets. The answer for newspapers is to use more news-features. This type of article can still be considered an instrument of news but without the straightforward, hard-edged writing of a bulletin.

The benefits of news features are many.

News ? journalists feel inadequate if they are not delivering news and news features fulfill that purpose. It is not a flowery profile or weepy feature, it is a genuine and powerful tool to tell the world what is happening.

Writing ? news features employ the same structural principles used in news writing that rookies are taught when they learn how to write like a journalist. The difference is you are allowed a tad more dramatic license when putting together a news feature than you can with a news article.

Depth ? writers of news features can delve deep into the story, knowing that the main news points are already out of the way. They can focus on going behind the news and giving readers a much fuller picture of the story.

Journalism is a rewarding profession and gives its exponents a wealth of news writing genres by which to test their creativity and vocabulary. However, because of the Internet, almost anyone can be a journalist because they have easy access to mass media platforms. Still, to be regarded as a true journalist, one must know the writing and ethical principles that go with the job. Fortunately, this is not difficult to do.

Tags: nigerian news, nigerian newspapers online, all-nigerian-newspapers, nigerian-newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers Online

Advertising is integral for any business irrespective or its size of operations. The success of any business lies on its visibility - the idea is that your products will sell only when the consumers can see them. Advertising gives any business this platform. The business strategy plays an important role in all the stages of a company's business cycle, starting from its inception to new product launches and expansion.

Newspaper Advertising:

Newspaper advertising is the oldest form of advertising and is among the most effective. Almost all the businesses till date are keen on applying this tested advertising strategy to their businesses. Success of newspaper advertising lies in its wide reach and great visibility that it offers. For almost all of us newspaper reading is a necessary daily activity, perhaps the first activity during the day. Hence, it is unlikely that we miss the advertisement in the newspaper if it is a famous daily and is framed in a catchy headline and body.

Moreover, you have the flexibility of capturing the target audience by exercising choice, on which column and page would you like to place the advertisement. This ensures that you are able to reach out your target audience. For instance, if you are in the business of event management and want to popularize an event you are planning on a particular day, you can place an ad for the same on the entertainment column/page of a newspaper so that people planning an entertaining evening get to see the ad and buy the passes for the event.

Cost of Newspaper Advertising:

All forms of advertising have costs attached with them and so is the newspaper advertising. Print costs depend on a number of factors such as the size of your ad, the brand name of the paper where you want to place the ad, which section in the newspaper you wish the ad to appear, and for how many days would you like the ad to reappear on the page. You can determine the cost of advertising by getting in touch with the sales representative of the newspaper that you are targeting for advertising.

After determining various factors, you must check if the newspaper's production desk is ready to help you with designing the ad. Many newspapers offer this service for free to their clients. Otherwise, you incur the cost of hiring an ad designer, which is an extra expenditure, in case you do not have someone in-house.

It is best if you are able to get an annual contract with the newspaper, as you are likely to get significant discounts for the long contract. If you think advertising prominently on a page is exceeding your budget, you can place the ads in the local sections of the dailies.

Tags: nigerian, magazines, nigerian-newspapers, all-nigerian-newspapers

Nigerian Newspapers