Courtney minimizes the process to four basic steps:
Decide Where Exactly You Want to Be Online
Come Up With Multiple Options
Implementation
Search the Web
All in, I think Courtney did a good job of summarizing the basics. I would have liked to see a little more meat, particularly on the Implementation stage. But all in, not a bad summary.
If I had to focus in on one area, it would be the sections that speak to the resources needed to "maintain" the effort. Unlike other marketing channels that may be somewhat forgiving, social media is one that can truly require anywhere from weekly to daily to hourly effort once the campaign is launched. The media is so fluid and interactive that ignoring it could result in lost opportunities or reputation risk. Think Community Manager when you roll out an effort to ensure you give the appropriate attention to the plan.
Give it a look and provide Courtney your two cents.
Govt. Loan -- Government or Federal loans can be availed through different government programs where you can pay off multiple debts by consolidating them into a single loan instead of paying off each one individually. As government bodies are non-profit making they understand the needs of the customers. They aim to fulfill the needs of the citizens. There are some people who believe that you should get a government debt consolidation loan to pay off multiple debts. Most individuals who qualify for these types of loans are consolidating student loan debt, not personal credit card debt. Other government debt consolidation loans are usually reserved for corporations and small business. Government agencies such as the FHA, the FmHA, and the VA can insure or guarantee loans. The FHA is a part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and insures residential mortgage loans made by private lenders. The FmHA provides financing to farmers and other qualified borrowers who may have trouble getting loans. VA loans are for veterans or members of the military and can have a lower down payment. Under government consolidation loans there are four types of plans namely standard plan, extended plan, graduated payment plan and contingent repayment plan.
Advantages of Govt. Loan are:-
1) Very low or no down payments, like for student loans. 2) Low monthly mortgage insurance. 3) No credit score requirements. 4) Low closing costs. 5) Can qualify for a loan, two years after bankruptcy. 6) Can qualify for a loan, three years after a foreclosure. 7) Typically one isn't required to pay a fee to initiate the loan. 8) One need not pay the extra charges such as fees or other hidden charges. 9) There are no penalties for prepayment. 10) The terms of repayment are also flexible. 11) One can avail the facility of deferred payment. 12) One can also avail discount under certain circumstances such as paying through auto-debit plan.
Disadvantages of Govt. Loan are:-
1) Govt. loans aren't available for personal credit card debt. 2) Huge amount of loan can't be availed. 3) Depending on one's specific situation, govt. loans might not be available to everyone.
Conventional Loan -- Conventional loans were the first traditional mortgage loans made by local lenders. A conventional loan is any mortgage which is not guaranteed or insured by the federal government. Loans not guaranteed or insured by these agencies are known as conventional loans. These loans adhere to Fannie Mae guidelines. Fannie Mae, or Federal National Mortgage Association, is a corporation created by the federal government that buys and sells conventional mortgages. It sets the maximum loan amount and requirements for borrowers.
Advantages of Conventional Loan are:-
1) Lenders may be more willing to negotiate or eliminate certain loan fees. 2) The lender may allow to choose the kind of collateral. 3) A lender may be willing to finance for personal property (such as appliances and furniture) with the real estate loan. 4) Lenders may be willing to keep the loan in their own lending portfolio, thus allowing more underwriting flexibility because the loan will not have to meet secondary market guidelines.
5) If the loan is held in portfolio, appraisals will only need to meet the lender's guidelines (or the secondary market's if the loan is sold), instead of the strict appraisal standards of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Veterans Administration (VA). 6) If a borrower has difficulty obtaining Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI), the lender may self-insure the loan, increasing the interest rate of the loan to compensate for its greater risk. 7) For the cash-short borrower, the lender may be willing to fund a portion of the closing costs in exchange for a higher loan interest rate. 8) If the loan is to be held in portfolio, the lender may allow some creative financing options for the buyer.
Disadvantages of Conventional Loan are:-
1) These typically require larger down payments. 2) Interest rates are set by each lender and can exceed those of FHA and VA loans. 3) There is initiation fee for such loans. 4) Initiation fees and other costs are also determined by individual lenders and may therefore be higher than those of other programs. 5) Because mortgage documents for conventional loans can vary by state and even by lender, the lender could specify that certain clauses be included in a mortgage contract; for example, alienation (due-on-sale), prepayment penalty, or acceleration clauses. 6) Loans with greater than an 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio will require the borrower to purchase Private Mortgage Insurance. 7) Some lenders may require that the borrower pay nonrefundable application or processing fees at the time of loan application. 8) The lender may not allow some creative financing options for the buyer.
The applicant must choose any plan based on his own need. Before enrolling to any program be careful not to choose the wrong program plan.
Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to make money online. There is a merchant who wants to sell his products and services through internet, and at the same time there are affiliatemarketers who help the merchant to sell, by advertising their stuff on their website or through other measures. Affiliate or publisher is the person, who advertises the product on behalf of the merchant. Therefore this involves the merchants and the affiliates who work out a mutual platform and the revenue is shared. They are connected by an affiliate program. When a marketer successfully helps the merchant to sell an item, the merchant will pay the marketers some commissions or share of revenue.
Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to earn money while at home.
Currently the booming sectors in affiliate marketing are adult, gambling and retail sectors. Close on its heels are the mobile phone, finance and travel sectors. With the trend already used popularly in the B2C marketing and the trend is picking up in the B2B Marketing sector also.
Since an affiliate marketing relationship is a win-win situation for both the Merchant and the
Courtesy: Flickr.com
Affiliate, the affiliate also enjoys many benefits.
Couple of them are below:
1) One need not design or manufacture any product, so no need of infrastructure investment also.
2) No start-up cost, since most of the Affiliate Programs are free to join.
3) There are thousands of products and services to choose from. Though its advisable to choose product or service, relevant to one's site.
4)Affiliates needn't care about customers and their agonies.
5) Since no product manufacturing, so no need of inventory and lock up your money.
6) No merchant or account worries.
7) No prior sales experience is required to start Affiliate Marketing.
8) No need to sign any contract with the merchant.
9)Affiliates can do their business sitting in any part of world.
10) Flexible working hrs., with no tension of family and kids.
11) No office rules. You can be your own boss.
12) No shipping of products.
13)Affiliates can join end number of merchants and can dump them if the products chosen by them are not making money.
14) No sales target to be maintained.
15) Loads of money can be earned, with minimum effort.
To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer:
To become a successful affiliate he should have enough internet marketing knowledge. He should choose the products carefully and plan accordingly how to market those. A strong and efficient back office administration is required to keep the online databases organized. He has to aggressively drive traffic towards the selected products or services for higher sales!
Hi viewers do let me know if I've missed on something. :)
By now even the most conservative bank CEO has heard of Twitter. And in some cases, these CEOs have asked the marketing department to build a Twitter following to drive traffic to the bank's Web site.
One problem most bank marketers face when tweeting messages is determining how effective the tweets are in driving traffic to a Web site. A bank may have hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of followers. However, simply having a large following does not mean that a bank's tweets are getting face time with followers that result in click-throughs. As such, a bank needs a process to measure tweet-effectiveness (TE). I am going to describe two similar but distinct methods of determining TE.
The first method involves using a URL shortener with built-in tracking such as bit.ly. This tool allows you to accomplish a couple things. First, bit.ly allows you to create a short URL to the Web site you are seeking to promote. For example, a URL such as widgetmaker.com/12345/widget.asp can be reduced from 33 characters to bit.ly/1234 or 11 characters long, saving 22 of the 140 characters available for use on Twitter.
Second, use of a URL shortener with built-in tracking then provides the bank with some basic analytics such as clicks, referrers, locations, etc.
The availability of the analytics allows the bank to determine the TE by examining the click-through data for the link created using the URL shortener. Another upside is that this functionality is currently free to users.
There is a downside, however, to the use of URL shorteners. The first and most obvious downside is what happens if the URL shortener goes out of business or is hacked and all links die or get redirected to another site. To the extent that the TE was good and producing favorable results, the death of the site or a hack may have a devastating effect on not only conversion but potentially creates reputation risk if a bank link is redirected to a porn site or site containing malware.
Therefore, depending on the risk appetite of the bank, a bank can replicate the URL shortener process in-house. By either using the bank's current domain or setting up a shorter domain that is controlled by the bank, the bank can create similar links to those created by bit.ly or other URL shorteners. The bank simply utilizes the "redirect" function available on the Web server. The bank would then utilize its own internal analytics software or rely on a public application such as Google Analytics to track click-throughs.
The second option, while more secure, is also more cumbersome. Increased coordination between IT and marketing must occur every time a new tweet is developed for tracking. IT must create the link and redirect code to ensure that the bank-generated shortened URL points to the proper Web address. Depending on the organization, this may or may not be the smoothest task to accomplish.
Regardless of the option selected, any process that involves the circulation of a Weblink should involve a procedure to measure the effectiveness. Here we used Twitter as the example. However, the same approach applies to the use of Facebook, MySpace or even an email blast.
Debt Settlement (DS) --> It is a process, which involves negotiating with your creditors to settle your debt for amounts significantly less than you currently owe. People not able to bear the burden of huge debts anymore or on the verge of bankruptcy are advised for debt settlement.
Debt Consolidation (DC) --> It is a process in which all the bills and debt whether secured or unsecured are combined together into a single payment, usually resulting in lower monthly payments. Often debt consolidation involves many unsecured loans (such as credit card bills, medical bills, etc.) into a single payment but with collateral backing it up. This is then referred to a secured loan. There are two types of programs under debt consolidation, i.e. Debt Consolidation Service and Debt Consolidation Loan. a) Under Debt Consolidation service, debt solution companies negotiate with the creditors to lower down the interest rates and monthly payments. b) Under Debt Consolidation loan, a lower interest loan is provided to the debtor in lieu of multiple high interest loans and bills, in order to pay off his debt quickly.
Lets come to the differences between Debt Consolidation (DC) and Debt Settlement (DS), which are given below:
1) In DC debt isn't reduced, it remains the same, only interest rate is reduced, but in DS debt is reduced to substantial level and also the interest rate is reduced.
2) In DC interest rate can be reduced to 50-75% depending on the debt, whereas in DS the interest rate can be reduced down to 40-60%.
3) In DC though the rate of interest is reduced, one has to pay the whole amount, but in DS once you repay 40-60% of your outstanding dues, you're legally out of debt.
4) In DC the credit score of the debtor isn't affected and in some cases there is a positive impact on it, if the bills are paid on time, on the other hand DS can severely damage one's credit score.
5) In DC all the secured and unsecured loans are combined together into a single secured loan, which are associated with collateral. So in case debtor fails to pay the loan he has to loose his property. But in DS creditors are at constant risk in loosing their money.
6) Usually, you can be out of short term credit card debt consolidation in five years or less but in DS the payment period is more.
7) If good credit manners are maintained a debtor with DC can apply for fresh loan and can get it, but a person with DS will affect their ability to get credit at favorable interest rates for couple of years. In fact, the Fair Credit Reporting Act states that negative information must remain on a credit report for a minimum of seven years.
Now its upto debtors and also depends on their financial position which plan to go for.
Successful bankers are not born to be, they can be trained to be. If you are able to bring additional value to a banking role, investment banks are willing to train you. Maria Leung is an outstanding female in her career change from advertising to investment banking. After graduating from the University of Hong Kong, Maria held a number account servicing roles at a couple of top ranked
Cookie --> A cookie is a very small text document, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier. When you visit a Web site, that site's computer asks your computer for permission to store this file in a part of your hard drive specifically designated for cookies. Each Web site can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a Web site to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites. Browsers are usually set to accept cookies. However, if you would prefer not to receive cookies, you may alter the configuration of your browser to refuse cookies. If you choose to have your browser refuse cookies, it is possible that some areas of the site will not function as effectively when viewed by the users. A cookie cannot retrieve any other data from your hard drive or pass on computer viruses.
Purpose --> As you visit and browse a Web site, the site uses cookies to differentiate you from other users. In some cases, cookies are used to prevent you from having to log in more than is necessary for security. Cookies, in conjunction with the Web server's log files, allow web sites to calculate the aggregate number of people visiting them and which parts of the site are most popular. This helps them to gather feedback to constantly improve their Web site and better serve their clients. Cookies do not allow them to gather any personal information about you and they do not intentionally store any personal information that your browser provided to them in their cookies.
