Into the Ether

Get Customers: Sell Content

2008-04-14T15:41:00Z

Not everyone wants to talk and sell over the phone and that is ok; Ether also gives you the tools to succeed by selling digital content via Ether Buy Now Buttons. Ether Buy Now buttons allows customers to receive pre-packaged emails from you whenever they click the button. They're perfect if you want to take orders for prepaid services or have content ready to sell.

There are two kinds: Payment Mail Request and Pay to View Mail. You can place a Buy Now Button anywhere on the web, whether it's in your listing, on your personal website or in an email sent directly to customers.

Learn more about Selling Content.

Get Customers: Get Calls

2008-03-11T22:07:00Z

Another way Ether helps you sell what you know is through advanced calling features that let you market your listings both on and offline. Here are a couple of options:

Use your toll free Ether Phone Number and unique extension
Put an Ether Call Button anywhere online (site, emails, blogs, etc.), which dynamically displays your availability status (Taking Calls, Arrange Calls via Email or Not Taking Calls).

Learn more about Getting Calls.

Get Customers: Featured Listings

2008-03-04T21:18:00Z

You can use Ether's Featured Listing program to bid on top promotion spots in your category to increase exposure to potential customers. If you bid and secure a top spot, people looking for services in your category will see your listing first. You pay only for clicks from potential customers who have registered with valid payment information (e.g. a valid credit card or debit card), and who click when you're available to take calls.

Ether makes managing your Featured Listings easy with Auto-Ranking and Auto-Bidding.

Learn more about Featured Listings.

Get Started: Manage your Business

2008-02-07T22:31:00Z

Ether gives you tools to better help manage your business. For example, the Availability Manager makes it easy for you to manage your time. Even when you can't take calls, you won't miss out on the opportunity.

And although talking on the phone is a great way to make money using Ether, email is better for certain types of communication -- written articles, tax returns, photographs, computer code, instructional videos, and any other digitally-based information, to name a few. Ether lets you send email that contains information that's better read than spoken, and set a price for customers to open it.

Ether also gives you several different reporting tools to help you analyze and understand your ROI. Reports like: My Featured Listings Results, My Customers, and Activity History offer details on all your individual calls, paid mails, transactions and time sold, helping you to analyze your business and make more informed decisions about how to run it.

Get Started: Price your Services Effectively

2008-02-07T22:28:00Z

On Ether, you get to choose your rate for both phone calls and selling digital content through email. How much is your time worth? $3.99 a minute? $75 per hour? $19.99 for 30 minutes? Enter the amount it will cost a customer to either speak with you by phone and/or have the work done through email. You're able to earn money selling through both channels. You can enter the fee as a rate per-minute, an hourly fee, or charge for increments of time. Set a fee based on what you feel is fair and what you think customers will be willing to pay for your services.

To attract and retain customers, try offering Ether's "Free then Paid" option as part of your phone rate specifications. Potential customers are more likely to call you if it starts off for free, even if the free period is very brief. It also gives you the opportunity to let the customers know what you can offer and why they should pay you for your time.

Learn more about Pricing your Services Effectively.

Get Started: Create a Quality Listing

2008-02-07T22:22:00Z

Your Ether listing is an online profile with information detailing the services you provide. When creating your listing, try to distinguish your services from those offered by others in your field. Here are some tips for writing a unique, compelling listing that's easy to read, loads quickly, and captures and keeps a customer's attention:

Use a Strong Call to Action: Why should the user contact you?
Be Professional: Spelling and grammatical errors in your listings or summary make you appear unprofessional. Check your listing for errors before submitting it.
Be Honest: Your listing is representative of the type of business you run and should accurately inform the potential customer on what to expect.
Be Transparent: Potential customers want to know about you, your experience, your qualifications and how you can help them.
Experiment: Test different types of creative content to see what works. You can edit your listing at any time.

Learn more about Creating a Quality Listing.

Get Started with Ether: Submit to a Directory

2008-02-07T22:17:00Z

Using Ether to "sell what you know" offers many benefits. There is no set-up fee and Ether provides you with a rich set of tools and features for you to manage your business. If you have knowledge or information to sell but perhaps aren't sure how to reach your audience or you wish to expand it -- submitting your listing to the Ether Directory is a good place to start.

Your listing in the Ether Directory gives you a presence online for customers to find you and to be found in search results on search engines like Google and Yahoo that crawl and index your Ether Directory listing. Submit your listing to the Ether Directory and increase the opportunities to grow your business.

By participating in the Ether Directory, your Ether listing will be available for distribution through Ether marketing programs including vertical directories that may be promoted by Ether and/or its marketing partners. We expect to launch these programs in the coming months, and you'll be able to take advantage of these marketing efforts as long as you have opted to be listed in the Ether Directory. Below are a few examples of vertical directories that are currently powered by Ingenio (parent company of Ether):

http://www.liveadvice.com/tech-help/
http://www.healthyrelationshipscenter.com/