At long last, technology and value have caught up to the home karaoke machine industry. You can now get a karaoke system that has it all - a host of the latest features, 53,000 in built karaoke songs, quality, and value all rolled into a karaoke machine the size of a slim-line DVD player! Wow! What is this marvel? It’s called The SongStation Karaoke Machine.

The ultimate in convenience, the SongStation Karaoke Machine is also a DVD player, CD player, and karaoke player in one unit. A plug-n-play system, it hooks up to your home TV or entertainment system in five minutes flat.

And that’s just the beginning. When you step up to sing karaoke, this little wonder has the power to make you sound like a star! Now you’re probably saying, “Yeah, right, it has magic powers. Let’s see ‘em.” OK, let’s look at how it does it.

This karaoke system gives you the controls to alter the pitch, key, and tempo of each song to best complement your voice. Then you can set the echo to just the right amount of reverb to make you sound like a professional. Want to sing duets? The dual microphone inputs let each partner have their own microphone, each with it’s own separate controls for volume and pitch. It doesn’t matter if one of you sings loudly and the other one has a soft voice. Simply adjust your controls of your karaoke machine for a perfect harmony!

Want to host a karaoke contest at your next party? The Songstation Karaoke Machine also scores your contestants. The score is based on how well the singer controls his volume, pitch, intonation, tempo, and tone consistency. You can also use the scoring feature to improve your own performance, and watch your scores get higher and higher as you practice to perfection.

Speaking of having a party, you can pre-program your own selection of your favorite 99 songs, or set the karaoke machine to run the private compilation of 540 hit tunes. You can even set it to welcome your guests for you with a customized Welcome Message or greeting. How cool is that?

What if you want to learn a new song? This karaoke system also comes to your rescue with a Vocals On/Off control. You can play the vocals with the music until you have it down pat, and then turn the vocals back off to practice your karaoke.

The only negative is you don’t have a hard copy chord book but at this price, you can’t complain much!

Yes, this latest trend in home karaoke machines can certainly provide you with hours of nonstop fun and entertainment for your family and friends. You’ll be the host with the most. And you can turn on the smiles with just a click of your remote control.

Ease, convenience, fun, and great value. No wonder more people every day are discovering the joys of the SongStation Karaoke Machine.

While you can learn a lot about potential voice talent through face-to-face interviewing and listening to demo tapes, you will also need a sample script that will help you gauge if an applicant is the right fit for the job. With a well-chosen sample script, you can get a sense for the tone and style of the voice actor or actress you are interviewing, and hear an example of the kind of work they do.

There isn’t a hard and fast rule as to how long you should give your applicants to rehearse the sample script. In most cases, an hour or two should be sufficient. This is because this type of reading is most commonly conducted in a studio setting, in which the applicant is free to read off of the script. Once the actor or actress has had time to familiarize him or herself with the script and practice lines, he or she should be ready to perform a reading.

Many companies struggle with determining what type of tone and style they are looking for. The best way to start is to narrow down who you are marketing to . Learning the demographics of the target market will help you narrow down the different types of voices that would be most appropriate for your advertising or other promotions. This approach can also help eliminate most of the voice over talent applicants during the initial stages, making your hiring process much easier.

No matter what type of business or industry you’re in, you’ll need to compile a collection of different types of scripts to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of each applicant. The best way to do this is narrow down your field to a few key themes. Is your business producing a comedic advertisement? A serious monologue? A public service announcement that requires a more journalistic or reporting tone? Once you’ve established the general theme and tone of your campaign, the next step is tracking down a similar script that encourages the talent to adopt, or in some cases create, the unique voice.

To find a suitable script, all you really need to do is log on to the Internet. The databases available (often for free) online invaluable resources, and you can perform searches based on subject, theme, or keyword, to find exactly the script you need. With these resources at your fingertips, you’ll be able to find a sample script that matches the tone and style of your marketing, as well as selections that will challenge your potential hires. Don’t discount the helpfulness of online resources if you have elected to write your own, original script; you’ll still find plenty of useful scripts that you can reference as you write.

Last of all, you are going to want to obtain a demo script of each applicant. These demos should allow yourself to compare and contrast the performances of the applicants side by side. To this end, you shouldn’t just have your potential voice actors read one script; have them real several, with varying tone and subject matter, so that you can judge the versatility of your applicants, and the styles to which they are each uniquely suited. If you do not want to record these demos in your studio, you can request that applicants submit them with their initial applications.

Free For All Sites (FFA) are sites where a person is able to post a link with a short ad to a website, many times it also posts to many other similar sites at the same time, creating free advertising and free backlinks to the poster. When someone posts a link, they are agreeing whether they know it or not, to receive a confirmation email back from the site’s owner.

What seems to happen though is many people see this as free advertising and get angry when, not only do they not see a flood of sales come pouring in, but they start receiving other people’s offers. I know when the first time it happened to me, I couldn’t figure out what was going on and was frustrated at the results.

Let’s back the truck up a minute and really explore what just happened and the true purpose of a FFA site. The real purpose is for the site owner to promote his business or product to you. He’s just just being a nice person giving people free advertising space. If it worked that way, he’d be using it as his own goldmine. This is just the bait so people will post their site, so they can send their offers to you via their confirmation link. Brilliant isn’t it?

These confirmation emails are not spam, as you had agreed to receive them in exchange for the privilege of posting on their site. Who reads these ads? Are posting on FFA’s a total waste of time then? Not necessarily, occasionally you will get a sale or two. People do come back to repost other links and sometimes do look through the links to find where their own ads are located, sometimes finding your posting.

To get the real benefit of FFAs for your business, get your own FFA site so you can promote to those who post to it. Shop around among the many resources of them to find which suites you best. Most have paid and free versions, but the saying “you get what you pay for” comes to mind here. I have done several paid versions that more than compensated for their cost.

You can promote any product through this method; information products, crafts, vitamins, whatever. You could have the very best on the entire internet, but if nobody sees your offer, it’s not going to get the sales you desire. It takes traffic to get sales. These sites are options for driving those numbers to your site. Free classified ads sites are also in this same category with the same purpose and can be worth pursuing.

1. Find a strategic business partner. Look for ones that have the same objective. You can trade leads, share marketing info, sell package deals, etc.

2. Brand your name and business. You can easily do this by just writing articles and submitting them to e-zines or web sites for republishing.

3. Start an auction on your web site. The type of auction could be related to the theme of your site. You’ll draw traffic from auctioneers and bidders.

4. Remember to take a little time out of your day or week to brainstorm. New ideas are usually the difference between success and failure.

5. Model other successful business or people. I’m not saying out right copy them, but practice some of the same habits that have made them succeed.

6. Take risks to improve your business. Sometimes businesses don’t want to advertise unless it’s free, sometimes you have to spend money to get results.

7. Include emotional words in your advertisements. Use ones like love, security, relief, freedom, happy, satisfaction, fun, etc.

8. Ask people online to review your web site. You can use the comments you get to improve your web site or you may turn the reviewer into a customer.

9. Out source part of your workload. You’ll save on most employee costs. You could out source your secretarial work, accounting, marketing, etc.

10. Combine a product and service together in a package deal. It could increase your sales. If you’re selling a book, offer an hour of consulting with it. —-

1. Use a “P.S.” at the end of your ad copy. This is were you either want to repeat a strong benefit or use a strong close like a free bonus.

2. Publish a free ebook and give it away from your web site or in your e-zine. This will increase your traffic, sales and e-zine subscribers.

3. Create multiple streams of income with your web site. You could sell your own products, join affiliate programs, sell advertising space, etc.

4. Give your visitors compliments in your ad copy. This can earn their trust and put them in a good mood, in return they will be easier to sell too.

5. Create new products or services only if there is a strong need for them. You won’t have anyone to sell them to if you don’t have a market.

6. Sell your backend products to your customers right after they order. Take them to a “Thank You” web page that includes other products you sell.

7. Sell a few products on your web site instead of selling a large amount of products. To many choices can overwhelm your visitors and they won’t buy.

8. Include content and free stuff on your web site that promote the products you’re selling. If they don’t read your ads, they may read your offerings.

9. Remind your visitors that you’re human not just a web site. You could publish information on your family life, a picture of yourself , a profile, etc.

10. Provide a “Contact Page” on your web site. Give your visitors as many options to contact you as possible. This’ll add credibility to your business. —

1. When you make your first sale, follow-up with the customer. You could follow-up with a “thank you” email and include an advertisement for other products you sell. You could follow-up every few months.

2. You could upsell to your customers. When they’re at your order page, tell them about a few extra related products you have for sale. They could just add it to their original order.

3. Tell your customers if they refer four customers to your web site, they will receive a full rebate of their purchase price. This will turn one sale into three sales.

4. When you sell a product, give your customers the option of joining an affiliate program so they can make commissions selling your product. This will multiply the sale you just made.

5. Sell the reprint/reproduction rights to your products. You could include an ad on or with the product for other products you sell. You could make sales for the reproduction rights and sales on the back end product.

6. You could cross promote your product with other businesses’ products in a package deal. You can include an ad or flyer for other products you sell and have other businesses selling for you.

7. When you ship out or deliver your product, include a coupon for other related products you sell in the package. This will attract them to buy more products from you.

8. Send your customers a catalog of add-on products for the original product they purchased. This could be upgrades, special services, attachments, etc. If they enjoy your product they will buy the extra add-ons.

9. Sell gift certificates for your products. You’ll make sales from the purchase of the gift certificate, when the recipient cashes it in. They could also buy other items from your web site.

10. Send your customers free products with their product package. The freebies should have your ad printed on them. It could be bumper stickers, ball caps, t-shirts etc. This will allow other people to see your ad and order.

You can learn many things you didn’t know about your business by getting valuable feedback from your customers. Your customers may buy your main product just to get the free gifts. Your visitors may think it’s to hard to navigate through your web site.

By knowing this type of important information you can improve your web site, products/services, advertising, and marketing. Below are nine techniques you can use to get valuable feedback from your customers. -Use surveys and questionnaires regularly to improve your business. Publish them on your web site, e-zine, print newsletter, direct mail material, include them with product shipments or inside product packages. Post them on appropriate online message boards, e-mail discussion lists and newsgroups on the internet. -Create an online community for your customers. Include a chat room, message board, e-mail discussion list on your site for customers to participate in. You can regularly moderator these communities to see what your customers are saying about your business. -Give away your products to a group of your customers. Ask them to use and review the product. Ask them to fill out an evaluation form and send it back. Some customers may fill them out, some may not, but the feedback you do get will be valuable.

-Offer your web site visitors an online product or service from your web site at no cost. It could be an ebook, search engine submission, consulting via e-mail, web design, etc. In return, ask them to fill out a short survey about your web site, products or services you’re selling, customer service, or your web site.

-Create a customer focus group. Invite ten to twenty of your most loyal customers to meet regularly. They will give you ideas and input on how to improve your customer service. You could pay them, take them out to dinner or give them free products.

-Stay in contact with customers on a regular basis. Offer them a free e-zine subscription. Ask customers if they want to be updated by e-mail when you make changes to your Web site. After every sale, follow-up with the customer to see if they are satisfied with their purchase.

-Make it easy for your customers to contact you. Offer as many contact methods as possible. Allow customers to contact you by e-mail. Hyperlink your e-mail address so customers won’t have to type it. Offer toll free numbers for phone and fax contacts. This will make it easy for your customers to voice their opinions. -You could regularly contact customers on birthdays or holidays. Send thank you gifts to lifetime customers. E-mail them online greeting cards on holidays or birthdays. Call them personally to wish them a happy holiday. You could them follow-up with a survey or ask them if they’re happy with your business.

-Invite your customers to company meetings, luncheons, workshops or seminars. Create special events for your customers like parties, barbecue’s, dances etc. Make a point for yourself and your employees to interact with them at these event to get valuable feedback for your business.

You could use a couple or all of the techniques listed above to get valuable customer feedback. These aren’t the only ways, be creative and come up with some of your own. —-

How To Successfully Joint Venture Your Online Business With Offline Businesses

There are many advantages joint venturing with offline businesses. You could increase your target market by reaching audiences you couldn’t advertise to before. You could get referrals from the offline businesses you joint venture with.

The key to joint venturing with offline businesses is to find ones that have the same target audience. If you’re selling business software, you wouldn’t want to joint venture with a store that sells candy. You won’t be very successful. You would want to joint venture with an office supply or computer store.

Below are three possible joint venture deals you could set up:

1. Write a tip booklet that is related to your business. Make a deal with an offline store where they giveaway your tip booklet to their shoppers with each purchase. The store you pick should attract your target audience. The store could have something free to giveaway to attract shoppers and you could have your web site ad in the tip booklet.

2. Design a printed flyer for your online business. The flyer should include a description of your web site, e-mail address, web address and any other important information. Make a deal with an offline store to have them include the flyer in each bag of products they sell in exchange for free advertising on your web site. 3. Make a deal with a computer store to have them display your web site on the computers they display in their store in exchange for free advertising on your web site or in your e-mail newsletter.

Once you find a targeted offline business, contact them and present your joint venture proposal. Tell the business owner the benefits of the joint venture. Tell him or her why it would be a win/win situation for both of your businesses. Give them a lot of compliments about their business, products and services. Using all three methods above will greater your chance of having a profitable and successful offline joint venture. —-

How To Increase Traffic By Offering A Free Course

If you have extensive knowledge on a particular subject, why not create a free course for your web site visitors. The course should be related to the theme of your web site. If you’re selling business related products, you would , want to giveaway a free course about business. You could offer the course in html, autoresponder, and ebook format.

HTML- Your course could be right on your web site. On one web page, create a title page and table of contents. Use clickable chapter links so they can go to the sections easily were they need the most help. You could increase your traffic by allowing people to give away the course to their web site visitors. Just have them link to your web site.

eBOOK-Your course could be in a downloadable ebook format. Include your business ad in the ebook. A good ebook software to use is Editor Pro, you can find it at http://www.e-ditorial.com . You could allow other people to give away the ebook. They could just upload it to their own server. Every time someone downloads it, they will see your business ad.

AUTORESPONDER-Your course could be published on autoresponder from all the free services on the internet.

You can find them by typing in “free autoresponders” in your search engine of choice. Include a lesson of your course on each follow-up message sent. You could increase traffic by allowing advertisers to include their ad in the course. Ask them, in return, to advertise the free course at their web site. Just have them link to your web site.

There are many other formats you can use to create your free course; downloadable text, pdf, print format, fax-on- demand, cassette, video, etc. You can use all the methods above with all the formats to increase your traffic.

1. Specialize your product or service if you have too much competition. If you’re selling an advertising book, rewrite part of it and target it just to pet businesses.

2. Sell a lead in product for super cheap, even if you loose a little money. If people like it, you have a greater chance to sell your higher price product.

3. Give people a free version of your product. If it does what you say they, will pay for the up-grade or deluxe version to get more benefits.

4. Ask your visitors outcome questions in your ad copy like: “Where do you want to be financially the next two years?” This’ll persuade them to buy.

5. Give your product away for free to people that will agree to influence your target audience to buy it. It could be experts, famous athletes, actors, etc.

6. Give your potential customers a bonus that will actually pay for their purchase. It could be money saving coupons, an affiliate program, etc.

7. Make your sales letters or ads sound like it is common sense to buy your product. For example: “Everyone knows you can’t make money…”

8. Make sure your ad copy sounds like you know what you’re talking about. If people sense you or your business doesn’t, they won’t buy.

9. Load your ad copy up with tons of benefits and bonuses. People will think and feel like they are getting a lot for their money if they buy.

10. Assume your potential customer is going to buy. For example: “Dear Future Millionaire”. They will want to buy in order to feel that way. —-

Most of you have seen those little award graphics on web sites. They are given to the web site by another web site or award association to reward the web site for a specific reason. They usually link right to the site that has given the award.

These award sites are drawing tons of traffic to their own web site. The reason is because all the web sites who get the awards are linking right back to them by posting the award on their web site.

What is stopping you from offering other awards to other web sites? You could design a graphic for the award. The graphic could include something that will draw them to your web site. Have an online form at your web site so other people can enter to qualify for the award. You then judge all the entrees and pick a winner. You give them the award graphic with a link included. They post it on their web site and now they’re linking your web site.

You could offer web site awards for many reasons. The web site might offer outstanding and original content. The design of the web site could be very professional. It could have a fast load time. It could include original web features that aren’t found on most web sites. The site may be easy to navigate through.

Let’s say you give out 20 web site awards a week. In a year that would be 1040 people linking to your web site. If you received 2 hits a week from each link, that would be 104 hits a year from each award you have given. That equals an extra 108,160 hits to your web site a year! —-