In many ways promotional torches are not expected to do much; they are not expected to function on the same level as a much more expensive torch, nor are they expected to have the same level of durability or longevity. In short a promotional torch is really only expected to be a cute little knickknack that your company distributes as part of a larger campaign to get your name and brand out there. Well to some this may seem like a drawback in fact it is not.

While you are deciding on whether or not a promotional torch is worth your budgeting money it is important to remember that you are not purchasing these items for their functionality, but instead focus on the novelty value of the item. When you are purchasing promotional torches, for novelty, then you have just opened up a wide range of creative design options. These creative option would not be available for many of the more functional promotional items, which makes your promotional torch even more unique. A promotional torch should not be thought of as an item that can be utilized by a plumber while he is fixing your sink.. Instead you need to think of the exposure that creativity of your promotional torches will bring your company, while the recipient is shows it off to friends, family and co workers.

If you were a company that would prefer a more serious torch, then you are truly limiting your options. A study promotional torch will limit your creativity and you will never be able to design a hot pink tropical fish. However, as a promotional torch, business that deal with fish, or even a cruise line can design a promotional torch, shaped as a fish to promote their business. With a creative shape and design your promotional torch has just went from a disposable promotional item, to a promotional item that may be keep in draws and brings attention your business.

Beyond interesting and fun shapes for your promotional torches you may wish to consider actually changing the color of the light itself. Because promotional torches are more likely to use LESs than incandescent bulbs in the designer can with relative ease call for a colored LED to take the place of a white one. Naturally for normal torch this would be absolutely ridiculous as a colored LED is much more difficult to use for actually seen something clearly, however since this is a promotional torch, possibly even a key chain, let your imagination go wild and choose any color light that fits your corporate image.

An interesting possibility could even be using a tricolor light that packs a red green and blue LEDs in the same package. These will likely be an order of magnitude more expensive than a traditional white light, however some situations require you to create a bigger impression. If you are passing out your promotional torches at a normal trade show then you’ll probably want to go with a white LED light, however if your company is attending the biggest event of they year then you may wish to invest the extra money and really make a promotional torch that will leave a lasting impression. It can be said with almost absolute certainty that a tricolor promotional torch will not be headed straight for the dustbin at the end of the convention.

You may be interested to buy those traffic blasting software in the market but please don’t ever believe in buying a list. The fact that this kind of head count doesn’t come to you directly and willingly will prove you still can’t sell or please everybody in the list. Worse, you never know whether the people in the list have given consent to their addresses getting sold around, which is normally NOT the case.

The loyalty of your subscribers must be earned when it is a legal obligation to make it very easy for them to opt-out!

Buying expired or unavailable domains is a smart move. It’s like people going to a shop when it has already closed down and they suddenly teleport (redirect page) to your shop. Once you bought it, make sure the web host company doesn’t own it (YOU own it) and you can always transfer the domain to a cheaper host. Do a search for ‘purchase expired domains’ and you get good leads. I suggest WebExpired.com.

Buy domains with the right keywords related to your business. People going to an invalid hair gel site are not going to buy an e-book on viral marketing.

And of course, those cyber-squatters who make a living out of buying and selling domain names (read: GOOD keywords) are playing a different ball game altogether.

In the years I’ve invested myself in dedication to the business of Internet Marketing, I’ve observed that though technologies and different fields of expertise appear and recede overtime like any other ever-changing business outlook, only timeless, universal principles remain.

The first and foremost characteristic of Internet Marketing is automation. Alex Mandossian once said that “Internet Marketing is meant to train us as lazy workers but high thinkers.” We are constantly thinking of better ways to attain 100% automation, which is near impossible, for thinking itself is already hard work.

Despite this, Internet Marketing may not be simple, but it is definitely very systematic in nature, such that it is really an easy business to do due to the availability of metrics software for performance measurement. By knowing and understanding results-by-the-numbers, Internet marketers can tweak and re-launch sales and marketing campaigns for better returns. This is not something that brick-and-mortar businesses are capable of and ready to embrace as part of their daily business handling activities.

Coming back to principles, here are 10 things you can always bear in mind as you go about doing your business online. Even if you are attempting one niche after another (and that’s what some self-employed do these days), following a certain entrepreneurial pattern based on principles can help you get into the thick of action easily and systematically.

1) Provide lots of quality content on your website. The litmus test is: Would you freely publish something that you would otherwise sell?

2) Be tight, comprehensive and cohesive about your site theme. For example, your site may be about dogs rather than dog collars, which is a smaller, more focused niche. Nonetheless, you can design and implement a clear structure with different sections covering dog training, dog hygiene, dog naming, dog psychology, doggy habits, etc. You can aim for a portal or library of information and it can still not be confusing.

3) Setup a blog. You heard this many time: “Search engines love blogs.” Well, go and create one, link it up to your main site, publish snippets of information and send out RSS feeds. Search engines will find you fast!

4) Create a plan of using traffic exchanges, safelists, FFA lists etc. to draw traffic to your site. I, like many people, did not believe that you can funnel targeted traffic from these places, until I came across a few experts in this area.

5) Build a lead capture page offering a powerful freebie, an e-course or a reason visitors can’t refuse…on condition they must subscribe to you.

6) Create free materials like viral e-books to give away. Write articles and e-courses and submit everywhere you can. Reuse your articles to suit every possible form of online and offline media. Just keep your eyes open. What goes around always comes around. You are bound to be famous on the Internet in 6 months if not a year. Or start an article/free e-book directory service yourself! You can attract more writers and material seekers with the most minimal of effort.

7) Get your visitors and subscribers involved with YOU. Give them a role, a stake or control over the content of your site, forum, chat room, online survey or newsletter etc. You can sustain their interest and effectively build up not only traffic volume but also the quality of customer relationships overtime. The noblest yet most challenging thing to do is finding ways to build up their own monetary value. That’s what Jay Abraham, Bob Proctor and many other experts do.
Create an affiliate program for your products and services to encourage affiliates bring new referrals to you! It’s a great way to get targeted newcomers to your site.

9) Create postcards with your e-zine information and business cards to hand out at events. Also print out articles and hand them around at events (which must be appropriate in context). Your signature at the articles’ end leads them to your site. Show them you are the expert here!

10) One great way to multiply subscriber addresses in your list is invite fellow online marketers to swap e-zine ads with you. Many marketers know the benefit of this, and it’s free and easy to implement. All it takes is mutual agreement on how often and how many times to publish each other’s ads!

Yes, there is a lot of work involved, these 10 points are only general and the devil is in the details. But you see, even though I’m no SEO or link exchange techie, I am carrying out all 10 points in my daily work and with continuous measurement of my results my income has nowhere else to go but up as I optimize the monetary value of my effort. Ultimately I am doing what these 10 points say because they can sustain online longevity.

When you seriously put them into practice, turning your actions into regular habits is only a matter of time. In one year, your situation will be much better than where you are today, and all you need to do is create a system of productive action based on these 10 points. This is my encouragement to you.