Showing posts with label Advertising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Advertising. Show all posts

LIST OF TOP 10 FOOTBALL BETTING SITES (COMPANY) IN NIGERIA

The aim of this post is to provide information about the available football betting websites a Nigerian trader can use in order to start betting on their live football teams.  Please note that am not directly recommending any website in this blog. They are for information purposes only. You should carry out your own due diligence before making any transactions with them.

With the increasing surge of football traders in Nigeria, many are now seeing the opportunity to start making money from football betting right from their homes. The reality of making money online cannot be underestimated as thousands of Nigerians are now venturing into legal, and genuine profitable internet businesses.
Many people have been making money via this platform, hence, i decided to come up with this piece on top 10 sports betting sites in Nigeria.

HOW TO MONETIZE YOUR WEBINAR

Apparently, there is money in webinars that is why it has become one of the top marketing tools today. More than starting or increasing a company’s client base, webinars can also be a business opportunity. There are free webinars being advertised on the internet but at the same time there are those that require fees. To come up with webinars that are worth somebody’s hard-earned money, there are certain tips that could help you do it.

A webinar’s top selling point is content. People buy tickets to webinars because they know that they could get something out of the presentation or lecture. The basic question they would ask themselves is, “what’s in it for me?” Thus, if you are conceptualizing a webinar which focuses mainly on selling something, then you are in for disappointment. If you want your webinar tickets to sell like hotcakes, you should stop thinking about what you can get from your audience but what you can offer them. This way, you can give something of value to your audience which could be additional skills, a solution to a problem or personal development.

Once you have laid out the content of your webinar, the next thing to do is to set your ticket price. It is best to study the prices of similar webinars you are offering. When you are a beginner in the field of webinar hosting, you should set a price lower than the prevailing price in the market. You can raise your price once you already established yourself in the field.

To further get attention to your webinar, it is best to offer incentives to those who buy your tickets. One suggestion is to offer two webinars for the price of one especially when you are promoting your first webinar. You can also give out free tickets to those who register early or cash to those who refer a friend. Or you can start a raffle and give out the prices on the day of the webinar.

To maximize the potential of your webinar to give you extra income, you should schedule your webinar properly. Webinar developers have found webinars are less attended during vacations and holidays because people are busy having fun. It is also not wise to schedule it over dinnertime for obvious reasons. Webinars are best scheduled during the middle of the week because this is when most people have time to spare. 

Mondays and Fridays, on the other hand, are usually the busiest days of the week so inserting a webinar into their working schedule could be close to impossible.

SPONSOR A POST

Hi,

My name is Toyo Theophilus; One of the leading Nigerian blogger. If you want to share an interesting article as a guest post, “submit guest post here”.

If you want to promote your business, product or services, continue reading. My blog, Naijaultimateblog is a great place to promote your business, startup, products or services with a sponsored post which can also include images, contact information etc. The post stays on my blog forever as long as the blog exists.

WHAT IS A SPONSORED POST?

Generally, a sponsored post can be any of the following:

Press release
Advertorial
Video content
Article
Interview

HOW TO EXPLODE YOUR LIST WITH WEBINARS

Companies the world over are taking advantage of the internet to grow their clientele. Internet marketing is starting to catch up with the traditional marketing methods which have reigned in the market for so long. The most common methods to promote products and services in the internet today are email invitations, banner advertisements, search advertisements and press releases. However, another tool is gradually becoming known in the virtual marketplace and these are webinars.

The term webinars are derived from seminars which are web-based. Basically, webinars are intended to transmit information to an audience who may or may not be within the same area as the individual or team who organized it. Thus, webinars are used for educational purposes like lectures. These can also be utilized as companies’ training tools and now for increasing clients, consumers or customers.

HOW TO UNLOCK YOUR MTN, GLO, AIRTEL, ETISALAT WIFI/MIFI MODEM DEVICE FOR A TOKEN of N2,000.00

Normally when you buy a new 3G internet modem/WIFI/MIFI from a service provider the modem/MIFI/WIFI will be locked to the network in order not to support or work on any other network. If you insert another network Sim card on it you would be asked to provide your unlock code all because it has been locked by the service provider. The unlock code allows you to bypass the modem in order to be able to make use of other network Sim card on it.


This simple steps will allow you to unlock your MTN, GLO, AIRTEL OR Etisalat Huawei Wireless Pointer / Huawei E5830 or Others to any network worldwide from Your Home / Office.

12 ALTERNATIVE AD NETWORKS TO GOOGLE ADSENSE

What a nice phrase on an email to start the day! “Your Google Adsense account has been disabled or temporarily banned”.
Well, consider you’re not alone. Everyday, hundreds or thousands of accounts are being banned from Google’s Adsense program. Why? Either there’s something wrong with the web you’re putting you ads on, or you just simply missed one rule from Google’s TOS.
Instead of crying or bashing Google in multiple forums (actually, this is a very bad idea), remember the world is not over yet, and there are plenty of alternatives out there to try.

Types Of Ads
Now let’s briefly take a look at the main types of ads available to publishers looking to shift to an AdSense alternative.
Targeted Text Ads: These ads are text-based and are usually found in groups. They are targeted to match the site’s content or the search phrase that was used on a search engine to bring them to your site’s page.

8 REASONS TO LOOK FOR GOOGLE ADSENSE ALTERNATIVES

Don’t want to work with Google AdSense? No problem. For those who don’t want or can’t work with Google, there are 8 reasons you would consider many alternative ad networks available.

There are many reasons to look for alternative ad networks and other ways to monetize your sites. The most popular reasons I hear are:

1.    Google AdSense rejects many sites for not having enough content or if they feel your site would not be appropriate for their advertisers.
2.    Getting a site approved for Google AdSense is not as easy as it was in the past.
3.    If you read any of the internet marketing or webmaster forums, I’m sure you’ve see thread after thread with a title that goes something like… “AdSense banned me! Why?”
4.    Google AdSense has a lot of rules and they monitor sites constantly. If you happen to break even one rule, they will not just ban the site, they will ban you and won’t let you open a new AdSense account. And even if you manage to open one somehow and they catch you later, they will ban the new account.
5.    Did you know that if you even accidentally click on an ad on your site you could be banned for life?
6.    Many site owners feel that Google AdSense rules are just too strict. Conforming to the many rules often leads to site design issues.
7.    In some instances, you have to redesign your entire site just so you can use Google AdSense.
8.    Contextual text ads sometimes just don’t fit a site’s design and layout. Other ad formats that Google AdSense does not support work better on many sites.
Types Of Ads
Now let’s briefly take a look at the main types of ads available to publishers looking to shift to an AdSense alternative.
Targeted Text Ads: These ads are text-based and are usually found in groups. They are targeted to match the site’s content or the search phrase that was used on a search engine to bring them to your site’s page.
In-Text: These styles of ads popup when you hover over selected text phrases with your mouse. A small box pops up and usually contain either images, text or video as well as the ad’s link.
Display: Display ads contain images, headlines, body text and other elements used to get a viewer’s attention. Sizes range from eighth page to full page ads.
Banner: These are your typical image ads you see on many sites. They can be just the image or an image with a text line above or below it. Sizes range from button size to half page and come in all orientations.

You should also checkout some native ad networks, mobile ad networks, CPM based ad networks and affiliate ad networks to explore alternate monetization options.

12 Alternative Ad Networks To Google Adsense
1. Adsterra is one of the fastest growing premium ad networks and currently serves over 10 billion geo-targeted ad impression per month. They offer various popular ad formats for web and mobile devices: popunders, standard banners, pushups, interstitial, sliders, and direct links.
They work with website from all types of niches and have a great ad fill rate for all countries.

2. PopAds specializes in pop-under ad delivery.
They claim that their average earnings for a site that receives 1000 unique visitors a day is $4.00 a day.
You can select the minimum bid you will accept from advertisers as well as setting the frequency with which the pop-under ads display to site visitors.

3. Chitika is an online advertising network with over 350,000 publishers. They serve over four billion targeted ads per month. Chitika has several top tier advertising partners like Yahoo!, SuperMedia and HomeAdvisor.
Since the Chitika ads are search targeted, they work best with websites that get most of their traffic from search engines.

4. RevenueHits is a fairly new ad network and looks very promising. They offer a nice variety of ad types including banner, pop-under, sliders, top and footer style banners, buttons, and interstitials.
They offer both contextual and geo-targeted ads. They are a performance-based network (CPA), not a CPC or CPM network.

5. BidVertiser pays you on both clicks and conversions. This could help you make more money from your sites.
Text ads, banner ads, mobile ads and slider ads are available. They offer publishers a point-and-click ad builder tool that helps you to customize the ads to fit the look and feel of your site.

6. Media.Net gives you exclusive access to the Yahoo! Bing Network. They are one of the world’s largest contextual ad networks and boast many top publishers like Forbes, ELLE, Reuters, and Good Housekeeping.
Media.Net offers publishers several ad styles. Do note however that they only allow one of each ad type to appear on a page.

7. Adversal is an excellent alternative to AdSense if your site gets over 50,000 page views per month. They have fast approvals but make sure your site meets their requirements before you apply to be a publisher.
They offer various banner sizes and types to publishers. Pop-unders and ministitial type ads are also available for publisher use.

8. Infolinks ad network currently serves targeted ads on over 125,000 websites. They work best on sites that contain large amounts of text based content.
Infolinks indexes your pages to determine the best ads to display. Several types of ads are available to publishers for use on their sites.The main ad type Infolinks provides is their in-text ad links.

9. Clicksor offers publishers multiple ad formats including clickable text and targeted contextual banner ads for use on their sites.
All ads displayed to your site’s visitors are context sensitive. This way your site visitors see ads that they will be more likely to click. Clicksor also offers an affiliate program that pays a 10% commission.

10. Intellilinks lets you sell simple text links on your sites to advertisers for a set monthly fee. The more traffic you have and the better your search engine rankings, the higher you can set your monthly charge.

11. PopMyAds is a pop-under ad network that accepts publishers and traffic from all countries.
They provide quick site approval; many times in under one hour.

12. PropellerAds is a large ad network that specializes in pop-under ads but also provides standard banner ads, on-click ads and in-banner video ads. They also have sliders, sponsored links and other ad formats available for publishers.

Now it’s time for you to explore all the options you have and pick the ad networks that works best for you, your sites and your goals.

THE BENEFITS OF ONLINE MARKETING

This post will give you the latest information in marketing trends so that you make the most of your marketing budget.

Marketing rules are the same no matter how big or small your business is:  (1) brand your product, (2) determine who your target audience is, (3) get the sales, and (4) establish repeat customers.  Online marketing is very effective in managing all four of these rules.

Online Marketing Defined

The definition of online marketing is: Placing your business or product on the Internet for millions of users to access so that you can turn your website into a strong tool to maximize your sales and business potential.

But online marketing is much more than putting your advertising online. Marketing online includes such areas as communicating with your customers, promoting your business or product online, and making sure that your website content is useful and up to date.  The great thing about online marketing is that you don’t need to have a huge budget to put together a marketing campaign that is effective. There are tools that you can use to make your marketing techniques easy and profitable such website templates, shopping cart templates, and online marketing templates.

What You Need for Online Marketing to be Successful

There are some important points to consider before you get into the strategies and intricacies of online marketing:

•    Communication.  An important part of online marketing is how you respond to your customer’s e-mail.  You don’t want to lose potential customers after you’ve made the effort to have them visit your website and then contact you for more information.  E-mail is a very effective and cost efficient way for you to generate more sales.  The key to this effectiveness is “consistency”.  You need to be consistent in your response to your customers.  You’ll also want to make sure that the tone of your e-mail corresponds with the tone you’ve set in your website content.
•    Human Resources.  If you’re going to succeed online you need to have enough people working with you.  Efficient websites incorporate a personal touch with a fast response time to customers.  Your goal is to turn the visitors to your website into customers.  The standard time for a return e-mail is from 48 to 72 hours.  If you wait any longer to e-mail back you risk losing the customer.  This means that if you don’t have the man power to return e-mail in two to three days you need to take another look at your marketing strategy.
•    Products people want to buy online.  Before you start marketing online you need to be sure that you have a product or service that people want to buy.  Customers need to find a value in what you’re selling.  There are two motivating factors when it comes to selling online:  cost and convenience.  Ask yourself if customers will find it easier to buy online than finding a local store.  Is it cheaper for them to buy this from you online?

Online Goals

Once you’ve established that there is a need for your service or product you’ll be ready to determine your business goal and whether or not you can meet this goal online.  If your main goal is to sell a product online you should decide how you want to make those sales.  For example, do you want customers to buy from you online or do you want them to come to you to close the sale?  You’ll need to decide what action is needed for the sale to be finalized.  Small businesses need marketing efforts that are targeted and precise.

SEVEN DAYS TO PROFITABLE BLOGGING

Starting a blog is as simple as finding a space online to write – and the time to write. 

To start though, you'll need to work through a brief list of steps to create your space.

Before you even consider your blog though, you have to think about WHAT you're going to blog about.  It’s important to stop and think about your blog, before starting it because, to be quite honest, without purpose, blogs are pointless.  And this pointlessness will dilute your message considerably.

So, you need to think about what you're writing and why.  Consider your theme – and then build some keywords around it, because for the first little while, you should try to include at least some of them in every post.  You'll get archived in all of the right places that way, which will lead valuable NON COMMENT generated traffic to your blog.  You'll also be commenting on blogs similar to yours and hopefully, generating more traffic based on the links you leave.

You can choose your topic, keyword, and theme simply by considering what, in connection to your business you're an expert in.  Once you've looked at that, you can decide whether it’s profitable, or viable to pursue it.  If not, look at a related area that you can cover – your blog should always relate to your business choices, and give you interested traffic.  Having said that, your blog isn't a free advertising system and nothing more – you've got to remember that people will be turned off by blatant advertising.

Choosing your keywords

Keyword Research

Keyword research is relatively simple – you can undertake basic research at http://www.thetoolman.net/keywordtool/research.php

You can use this to research your general keywords – and check on their general profitability, if you're using CPM advertising.  You might not be – but most blogs make a residual income from Adsense or similar, and it’s not something you should overlook, for your long term stratagem.  Niche blogs can earn well.

Once you've found a profitable overall keyword, you'll need to check out your competition -

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Though considered less effective now – it’s still a good tool for finding your competition levels.  You'll be able to assess your competition – basically, you're looking for a niche that's either tiny, if it’s narrow, or large, if it’s broader.  Your narrower niches can only support a tiny amount of blogs – whereas the broader your definition, the more your niche will support – but the flip side to that, is that you've got more competition.

Once you've worked out your profitability, and competition, you can also use the keyword search at Overture to evaluate your other keywords (and get an idea on where to start blogging from).

You can place that information in a spreadsheet for reference – or use programs like article architect to extend on your research (affiliate link for article architect)

Once you've made a list of your keywords – and paced them into a spread sheet, you can take your research a step further. Article architect does it for you, but if you've not got that piece of software, or a similar one that researches keywords, you can do it manually.

Open up both Google and Yahoo, and start plugging your keywords into it – at the top you'll see a listing 1 of (a number) – you can then divide your 'competition' number by the total of your searches (a number) – that will give you a rating for that keyword – and the keyword with the 'best' ratings are the ones you'll probably want to focus on.

Article architect does this automatically – highlighting the 'optimum' keywords – and there are other pieces of software will do the same.
The reason you're doing this is to see where your keywords will have the best chance of ranking – you'll be able to find the best place to 'position yourself' this way.

Keep those keywords handy – you'll need them when you start writing content.

Got your keywords?  What do you want to blog about?

Once you've got your keywords, you'll have an idea, at least, of the profitable areas of your niche that you can take advantage of.  You'll be able to choose an interesting niche – for both you to write in, and your prospective readers.

You'll find that you can narrow it down pretty easily based on what you've got on your keyword lists – and what YOU feel like you want to write.

While its important to work out what you want to do with your blog, based on your view of profitability, it’s also important to remember that working based on keywords alone is a sure fire way to build an impersonal, and possibly unmotivated blog for your readers.

HOW TO USE ARTICLE SITES TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR BLOG

Article sites are still, stickiness wise, one of the single best ways to drive traffic and build a name as a expert, all at the same time.
So how does this tie to your blog?

Well, for a start, if you're blogging on the same topic as you're writing content on, you should have a fairly good niche to promote into – and can use any of your longer, more coherent posts as article content.  But if you want it to work really well, there are a couple of steps you MUST follow.

1)    Make sure your article is coherent.  Blog posts, by their nature are supposed to be less informal than the standard 'article' – like you're having an intimate conversation with a group of friends, instead of a more impersonal discussion with your readers, but at the same time,  the best blog posts make TERRIBLE articles.  So a blog post that is also going to be used on article submission sites should be both interesting, and slightly more 'formal' than standard blog posts.

2)    Post it on your blog, and add your resource box at the end – you can make it clear that its a free reprint if you want, or you can simply post it in a category for your reprints.  That way, you can offer a feed of your reprints too, and include the link in your resource box.  Also include the permalink to the post itself in your post – which means you will need to edit the post after posting the first time.

3)    Wait a month – in that month, submit the article to any bookmarking sites, and ensure that you maximize its impact by encouraging your readers to 'vote' for it too.

4)    Ensure your post is in the search engines by searching for the first line of your article.  If its not in the search engines, work on getting it there – read up on site maps and other products designed to get you in the search engines.

5)    Submit your content to a maximum of 10 reprint sites.  Make sure your resource box doesn't break any of their rules, and make sure that you leave comments OPEN on these posts (if you close them ordinarily.

Following these five steps won't guarantee your success in using article marketing, but they will eliminate most of the serious beginner mistakes people make when submitting to article reprint sites.

BEST PREPARATIONS TO MAKE FOR YOUR WEBINAR

If you are planning to promote a new product but do not have the budget to launch an aggressive marketing campaign on broadcast or print media, you might want to consider organizing a webinar. With the use of the internet, webinars can now be conducted for participants in different locations all over the world. These web-based seminars have been introduced recently as internet marketing started to become a popular and definitely cheaper alternative to traditional methods. From its inception, webinars are beginning to make its mark as one of the potent means in attracting more customers not only locally but also internationally.

Not all webinars are effective. There are those that were unheard of let alone get an audience. In order to avoid this, planning and preparation for the webinar should be given a lot of consideration. As the cliché goes, this can make or break the webinar. Planning for a webinar must focus on three stages which are conceptualization, preparation and promotion.

Prior to the conceptualization stage, you would probably already have a topic for your webinar. It is during the conceptualization stage that you start setting parameters on the topic because you cannot provide a lecture with an all-encompassing subject that would overwhelm your audience. A good seminar is supposed to provide clarifications on a particular topic and not to muddle audience with voluminous information that is hard to process. As an example, if you want to promote a diet program that you designed, talking about all kinds of available diet programs in the market would confuse your audience about what you are trying to sell. Instead, if the diet program does not entail the user to take diet pills, then the natural diet programs should be given focus.

The preparation stage is as crucial as the first since this is where the actual webinar would materialize. Details like who to choose as speaker or lecturer, moderator and assistant would have to be determined. The right webinar format should also be chosen such as one-way style where the speaker conducts the lecture and the audience asks him questions. Or it could be an interview style where there is an interviewer who asks the speakers a set of questions. It can also be a moderated panel discussion where a moderator facilitates the discussion of several people who are simultaneously online and the interactive style where the audience participates in exercises and conversation with other members of the group and the speaker.

The promotion stage is where the webinar is sold to the public. This could be the most challenging and the most exciting part as well because the webinar has already been put together and it is just a matter of delivery. Whether or not the webinar gets an audience depends on how effective the promotional methods used are.

THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF WEBINARS AVAILABLE

Webinars are fairly new innovations but are starting to become a byword for internet savvy people.

Gradually, entrepreneurs, corporate entities and educators are beginning to look towards it to reach their market. Webinars, being proven to be effective as marketing as well as training tools, are now an important part of doing business. As such, there are different types of webinars available today.

The basic classification of webinars is based on whether they are free or not. Free webinars are usually just informational with the audience just being made aware of an important general issue. Basically, free webinars are designed for marketing purposes and are usually conducted to get a market for books and DVD’s or to get a client’s base for consultancy. Paid webinars, on the other hand, are usually for training whereby the goal is to provide audience with additional skills. They are conducted for the personal development of the audience, thus, the need for payment.

Webinars are also classified according to their format. These are interactive, non-interactive and question and answer formats. In an interactive webinar, the audience gets the chance to fully participate in the event with features for telephone conferencing and chat rooms. Interactive exercises and discussion also characterize these webinar types. The non-interactive formats are one-way with the speaker addressing the audience and with limited or no interaction at all from the audience. These webinar types are also called webcasts. The question and answer format, on the other hand, is also called an interview format whereby there is a set of questions posed to the resource speaker by the moderator with the audience being encouraged to pose their own questions.

Another classification of webinars is based on execution. They could either be live presentation or recorded training videos. While the two are the same in all aspects differing only because the latter has a speaker speaking live on schedule, there are pros and cons against either type. A live webinar just like any other live event is prone to mistakes compared to a recorded webinar. However, a live one can be more interesting as it is spontaneous unlike its recorded counterpart so there is room for necessary adjustments.

Whatever type of webinar is chosen, the most important thing is that the message is delivered properly to the audience. So, preparation is the key to the success of webinars. When the right preparations are made, the goal of getting the message across will be accomplished regardless of the webinar type.

AVOIDING NERVES WHEN PRESENTING YOUR WEBINAR

Even expert speakers get the nerves whenever they have a speaking engagement so imagine how nervous a novice can get in his first public speaking engagement. Although webinars do not entail a speaker to be physically in the same place as the audience, the feeling could still be the same. But as they say getting butterflies in your stomach prior to your presentation would pump up adrenaline into your system making you more alert and ready for action. By realizing this and accepting that it is normal, you could begin to arm yourself with the best weapon and that is preparation.

Apparently, preparation could be more important than the actual delivery of the webinar since everything stems from the latter stage. Smooth delivery of the webinar depends upon the preparations you make. So, aside from mastering your material you should make sure that all other aspects are running perfectly such as the web conferencing software, audio, visuals and other tools. Without worrying about these things, you can focus on making a blast of your presentation.

Do not show up in the seminar with some remaining loose ends in your material. Days before the webinar, you should already have put the presentation together. Knowing that you have mastered your material would give you the confidence boost that you need in order to give the presentation of your life. It would also help if you conduct a dry run so that you will be able to assess if there are still aspects that needs improvement not only in the material but also in the other parts of the webinar.

If you are not the only speaker in the seminar and the others are already experienced webinar speakers, request for the initial slot. Watching these speakers deliver their presentation might increase your nerves and you might end up not able to present well if at all. Or if there are other novices in the group just like you, choose a slot next to them so that you would at least have the comfort of not being the sole newbie.

Finally, face the things that are making you nervous. For example, if you fear that you are going to make mistakes then make fun of yourself when you do. Make the mistake appear like it’s nothing major or it has been done intentionally so that your audience would be able to join in the fun instead of raise their eyebrows. 

With this, you will appear relaxed and make your audience feel the same and be less critical.

LIVE WEBINAR OR RECORD AND UPLOAD FOR LATER USE

Webinars are fast becoming the trend in marketing due to various reasons. For one, webinars have greater reach than the usual on-site seminars. A company wanting to promote its products and services can use these web-based seminars to spread the news to potential customers anywhere where there is internet. Another reason is that webinars are definitely cheaper than other traditional methods of marketing giving companies huge savings that can utilized for operational costs for example.

Webinars can either be live or prerecorded with each type having its advantages and disadvantages. The choice of which type of webinar does not necessarily have an effect on the results of the marketing campaign. With proper study of the targeted audience, a company would realize that each type would work in certain cases. As such, a combination of both types in the marketing strategy would do well for the campaign.

A live webinar boasts of spontaneity and interactivity. In this type, a speaker can easily capture and maintain the interest of the audience. Its spontaneous nature allows for some necessary adjustments as the need arises. Plus, the speaker can easily insert some humor or an interactive exercise when he notices that he is losing the attention of his audience. Furthermore, this type gives more opportunities for interaction among the participants and the speaker unlike recorded webinars. Questions and concerns can immediately be addressed even during the middle of the webinar.

There are a couple of disadvantages of live webinars one of which is that there is more room for errors and glitches. An important detail might be missed like a set of visuals or a technical problem might occur while the webinar is going on. Furthermore, there are times when people who register for the event are not available at the last minute which could make you miss your targeted number of audience.

A prerecorded webinar’s advantage, on the other hand, lies in the opportunity that it gives to the company to give a perfectly designed and delivered webinar. Unfortunately, this where the waterloo of prerecorded webinars also lie because an audience have high expectations for this type, thus, errors would not be easily forgiven by the audience.

One other benefit of this type of webinar is that unlike its live counterpart where the audience has to convene in the virtual conference room in a specific schedule set by the company regardless of their time zone, the audience could view the webinar at a time convenient to them.

BEST WAYS TO GET MAXIMUM ATTENDANCE TO YOUR WEBINAR

The secret to getting the maximum attendance for your webinar is promotion. To get people to attend your webinar, you must first make sure that they learn about it. The best medium that you can use to promote your webinar is the internet as the same has better reach and is less costly than other medium.  The internet also provides you with more options in designing your marketing campaign.

1.       Articles and blogs. The web is a virtual marketplace and everywhere you look there are products and services being advertised. Articles and blogs are the most prominent marketing tools in the internet and it is best to take full advantages of their benefits. Prior to the scheduled webinar, you should make sure that write ups are scattered over relevant channels on the web about the subject of the webinar providing a link back to your sales page or your url where more information can be found.

2.       Website. If you have your own website, make sure that the sales page for the webinar is designed to attract attention. Weeks before the event, most roads on the web should lead to your website. If at all possible, a link to your website should proliferate in the internet. If you do not have one yet, you should consider coming up with one as this serves as your window to more clients.

3.       Social networking sites. If you want free advertisement, then social networking sites can provide you this and more. These sites are the most visited sites in the internet, thus, making your presence felt in these would do your webinar a lot of good. You can promote your articles, blogs, website and the webinar itself. If you have allocated some budget for the advertisements, consider pay per click advertisements as these come definitely cheaper.

4.       Joint Marketing. Having other people promote your webinar for you would multiply your promotional efforts. If you can partner with people who are offering the same product or service that you are offering, then you can present the concept of the webinar with him and split the income in half later on. You can share contacts for a bigger client base, thus, doubling the marketing efforts.

You can also offer incentives to your affiliates who get people to sign up for the webinar. Giving a dollar for every referral or giving ten or twenty percent of the signup fee would surely pick their interest.

BEST POINTERS FOR PLANNING YOUR WEBINAR

Web-based seminars or webinars are beginning to make their mark as effective training tools. The extent of the effectiveness of webinars, however, largely depends upon good planning and implementation.  As such, companies or individuals intending to conduct a webinar should understand that the planning stage is crucial to the success of the webinar. The planning stage determines how the webinar would turn out. A badly planned out webinar, just like any event, would certainly turn out poorly.

To come up with marketable webinars, the first thing to do is to decide upon a relevant and functional topic that answers the needs of a particular audience. If you choose otherwise, you are certain to gain a small number of followers or none at all putting all your efforts to waste. To be more effective, the chosen topic should be aligned with the speaker’s field of expertise. It is a fact that the speaker’s credibility is one of the selling points of all kinds of training tools like webinars. Choosing the right topic entails both consideration of the audience and the speaker as well.

Once this initial step is made, the actual conduct of the webinar should be conceptualized. At this stage, the members of the team should already be determined starting from the resource speaker, assistants and moderator. For a person starting this venture on his own and working only under a small budget, he could fill out all of these roles himself. If the webinar is to be organized by a company or a group, the tasks could be distributed among several people. Whether the webinar is an individual or a group undertaking, it is important that member or members have the competence and commitment to the goal of coming up with a webinar that would give the audience their money’s worth.

During the planning stage, all the important details should be carefully laid out so there is no need to get stressed out about small details that have been missed out. The format, visuals, web conferencing tools, equipment and space should all be planned out. Everything needs to be ready at least five days prior to the scheduled webinar.

Finally, it is wise to conduct a dry run of the webinar. This is to ensure that everything is working and in place. Having a dry run is not limited to a live webinar but also a recorded one since both has essentially the same concept except that in the latter the lecture or training is not conducted live. The key to the success of any event like a webinar is always preparation.

HOW EFFECTIVE ARE WEBINARS AS A TRAINING TOOL


Today, with most of the world being affected by the internet revolution, innovations in the provision of basic needs like food, clothing and education have been introduced with online shopping and distance learning. Slowly, other services like banking and travel are already catching up with the trend. As such, businesses are beginning to look at the use of the internet as a venue for training their personnel through what you call webinars.

The term webinars actually refer to web-based seminars. Through the internet, speakers are able to give presentations, lectures or workshops to a group of people across distance and time. Webinars allow people who are in different parts of the globe with different time zones to come together in one virtual web conference room to listen and participate in one discussion. With this, companies that have branches all over the world are enabled to give trainings to their personnel without having to physically gather them together in one venue.

The effectiveness of webinars as training tools is now being explored. Are webinars as effective as their on-site counterparts? The answer will depend on how the webinars are conducted which is also applicable to on-site trainings.  However, webinars definitely offer some advantages which can enhance them as training tools.

For one, webinars can be transmitted across distance and time. This implies that participants can attend the webinar in an area where they are most comfortable whether at home or in the office. Usually, the physical set-up of the seminar venue can be uncomfortable to the attendees, thus, limiting comprehension of the training subject. Furthermore, technical problems like the audio is either too loud or too soft depending on where you are seated unlike the webinar audio which can be set based on the listener’s preference.

Another thing is that webinars allow for greater participation among audience. Unlike regular trainings where questions may only be raised at the end of the lecture, webinars allow participants to actively join the discussion even while the lecture is ongoing as there are features for chat rooms and telephone conferencing. There is also an option where the participant may remain anonymous if they choose to be. This functionality helps create an unbiased learning environment where the speakers and participants are not affected by prejudices brought about by race, gender or other factors.

These advantages can make webinars very effective training tools. When properly planned and executed, webinars would not just be mere practical alternatives but would help companies reach their goals in personnel development.

HOW TO CUT DOWN ON YOUR TRAINING COSTS WITH WEBINARS

Whether you are a company who wants to conduct training for your personnel who are assigned in different branches in one city or country or just someone who want to acquire additional training for career development, webinars are practical alternatives to on-site trainings because they radically reduce your budget for the conduct or acquisition of said training.

On-site trainings, when organized by a company for its personnel, are very costly. The cost of gathering your people together in one venue would entail cost for transportation, venue, accommodation and food. How much these will cost your company would depend on how many personnel you are going to train, where the training will be conducted and the duration of the training. This still does not include your costs for the speaker or speakers who you would most likely provide with better accommodation on top of their professional fees.

Individuals who want to attend trainings at their personal expense would probably spend for the same things. But unlike companies who can avail of discounts for bulk services, individuals have to pay singly for everything which could be costlier unless they find someone who is interested in the same training or be lucky enough to get training support from their companies.

Webinars are less expensive compared to on-site trainings for obvious reasons. Expenses for the usual logistics are done away with. For example, instead of transporting the speaker to a particular venue, providing him with an expensive hotel room, good food and some R and R, a company could choose to hire a webinar speaker who will conduct live training or provide previously recorded videos of a particular training topic. With this, the company would save a lot because they would only spend for the speaker’s professional fees. 

Web-based seminars would give the company even further options to cut on costs by giving them the choice to gather the trainees in one area or schedule the web conferencing during their regular work schedule. In any of these two options, the company has already cut down on training because the fact that the speaker does not go on site but does the training through the internet alone is already a huge source of savings. Still the first option is costlier than the second since fare, accommodation and food would still be at the expense of the company. The second option is apparently the better choice if the company really wants to cut training costs.

These very same parameters are the reasons why individuals who opt to get their training through webinars would spend less. Since webinars are less costly to organize, then the training fees would also be lesser.

WHAT ARE THE COSTS INVOLVED IN RUNNING A WEBINAR

Internet technology has paved the way for the birth of non-traditional modes of education and training like distance learning and webinars. While distance learning has long been introduced into the educational system, webinars or web-based seminars are just beginning to gain popularity. Webinars take learning to a higher step because these allow lecturers to conduct lectures, presentations, workshops or seminars to an audience who may be in different cities or countries simultaneously through the internet, thus, eliminating learning barriers like distance and culture.

With the increasing acceptance of webinars nowadays, more and more individual or corporate educators, lecturers, trainers are taking advantage of its benefits.  However, although webinars are generally less costly than the traditional seminars on locations, these also would entail some costs for the organizer. The common areas in which costs will be incurred are services, technology and promotion.

Service costs refer to the payment that you will incur in case you decide to hire the services of a webinar planner or organizer. If you do not want to bother with the little details in the planning and execution of the seminar and opt to just show up on schedule and conduct the lecture or presentation, then getting a service provider that would take care of all these details will be the right thing to do. For this, you should expect to shell out at least $1000. It would cost you less if you do not get full services like if you do the planning yourself and hire a technical assistant or a facilitator to assist you during the actual webinar.

The next area where you will definitely have to spend on is, of course, technology. Free web conferencing services are available but attendance to webinars that are transmitted through these services are limited only to a maximum of 20 people. If you want the webinar to have the greatest impact, you will need a bigger audience than that.

The choice of doing a live webinar or a recorded one will affect how much you will spend because the latter would cost less. Both of these webinar types, in order to be effective, should provide opportunities for the audience to interact with the lecturer and participate in the discussion. This would entail telephone conferencing and chat rooms among others. Web conference platforms may either charge a monthly or annual fee or on a per person per minute basis. Depending on how large the audience and how interactive the webinar is, costs on technology may range from $100 to $3000.

Promotion is also another aspect that would require cost depending on what methods you choose. Press releases, search and banner advertisements or email invitations are just some of the options that you can avail of if you want your webinar to be known by your target market. You can spend as low as $100 to as high as $20,000 for this.

CONFIGURING YOUR UNLOCK WIFI/MIFI MODEN TO WORK WITH MTN, GLO, AIRTEL, ETISALAT APN

An APN (Access Point Name) is like a gate or portal from the 3G or GPRS network into either the public internet or a private customer gateway. It's important that you connect through the right one, otherwise the service might not even work.

If you find information here that is no longer valid and need to be changed or you have new APN information, please let us know and we will update the page. Hopefully this user-to-user collaboration will benefit the whole mobile broadband community in Nigeria!

If You experience any problem to connect to internet, please contact your sim card network provider to get the correct settings.

(the illustration below will be used with MTN MIFI Admin Page)
Open your WIFI/MIFI MODEN app icon
OR on the WEB ADMIN PAGE: Type into Your Browser web bar: http://192.168.1.1
Password to log in :    admin

To create NEW PROFILE for your network go to:
Web admin page (192.168.1.1) -> Log in -> Settings -> Dial-up -> Profile Management
And click NEW (See Image below)


Profile Name - Whichever you want (e.g. MTN MIFI)

User Name & .Password - your network operator’s USER name & password (or blank)

APN - change from dynamic to static and then Your network operator’s APN

Then the IP Address Should be "Dynamic"

And click "SAVE" 


APN (Access Point Name)
For MTN
APN: web.gprs.mtnnigeria.net
Username: web
Password: web
For Etisalat
APN: Etisalat
Username: (leave it blank)
Password: (leave it blank)
For Glo
APN: gloflat
Username: flat
Password: flat
For Airtel
APN: internet.ng.airtel.com
Username: (leave it blank)
Password: (leave it blank)
To select profile that You created go to
Click Settings-> Dial up -> Mobile connection -> Select your new profile from the 'Profile List' drop down menu (e.g. Glo NG Profile) And Click "Apply" (See Image below)


You should be connected to your network by now.

RELATED TOPIC: CONFIGURING YOUR APN
HOW TO UNLOCK YOUR MTN, GLO, AIRTEL, ETISALAT WIFI/MIFI MODEM DEVICE