If you have not spent a lot of time online downloading various files or documents, you may be curious about these ‘.zip’ files that you see being offered everywhere.

Here is a quick summary that will bring you up to speed.

A file that ends in ‘.zip’ like bonus.zip for example may have two characteristics that we care about:

- It is a compressed file
- It is often several files bundled into one (aka an archive)

Why compress files?

Despite the fact that manufacturers are continually assembling computers with ever-increasing disk space, some consumers’ disk requirements seem to outpace what’s available. Storing files in a compressed format frees up some valuable disk space.

More important though, bandwidth is a precious commodity. What is bandwidth? For now let’s say that bandwidth is the speed at which data can be transmitted to and from your computer via networks or the capacity for transferring that data.

If you reduce the size of files being transmitted by compressing them, you will complete your transmission faster and free up those bandwidth resources for other transmissions.

When transmitting multiple files from one location to another, it is usually more convenient to bundle all those files into one package / single zip file, often called a zip archive.

When the transmitted file is uncompressed at the destination, any bundled files return to their ‘pre-bundled’ or original states.

Where Can You Get The Zip / Unzip Software?

A very popular compression software is WinZip. It is now owned by Corel.

You can get a free trial version from WinZip.com

There are some other archival software applications that are totally free however. I have used ZipCentral and it has worked well for me. You can search for this on Download.com

What Are Self-Extracting Executables?

Instead of creating a ‘.zip’ file when you do your compression, you have the option of creating an executable file.

Making the compressed file an executable means that the person who receives it does not need to have software such as WinZip or ZipCentral in order to extract the file(s).

In other words instead of creating a file called bonus.zip, you create the file bonus.exe. When the recipient gets it, just doubleclicking on the ‘bonus.exe’ will start the extraction process - no additional software required.

How Can Self-Extracting Executables Bring Me More Traffic?

One of the largely unused features of these types of files is the ability to launch an application, in particular a browser, when the extraction starts.

So, let’s say you create your ebook and it is being distributed on a free ebook site. There’s no guarantee that a user who downloads the file in ‘.zip’ format will ever visit your site.

If you choose to distribute the ebook as a self-extracting ‘.exe’ instead, while you’re creating it, you can choose to include the option to execute a specific command after extraction. That command could be something like iexplore.exe|http://yourdomain.com

In fact, just placing the URL http://yourdomain.com as the command will launch whatever browser is default on the recipient’s computer.

So once they open the ebook, you get a visit to your site. Once the ebook and the site are related they’re likely to stay on and browse what you have to offer.

Simple and easy. See if it works for you.

This one is for my readers who are into ‘wordsmithing’.

It’s prompted by a Seth Godin’s post “Oldest remaining… a copywriting tip“.

The point is - don’t pad your writing with unecessary words. I agree in principle but with one caveat. I’ve learned in copywriting that writing like people talk, whether it makes sense or not, can help bond you to the reader.

But does that forgive you for saying “very unique”? - hey… it’s either unique or it’s not!

If a writer uses that phrase, I think some pain should be inflicted on him/her… What do you think?

This article from Charlie Page is a good followup to my recent post on the need for marketers to use ad trackers. It goes into more depth on other aspects of marketing - ways of thinking that encourage success.

Enjoy and implement.

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What is Marketing Wisdom?
(c) Charlie Page
http://www.RealWorldTactics.com
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There are some people for whom everything just works. Their websites sell. Their emails are easy to read. They earn as much in a month as most people earn in a year.

It’s easy to admire - even envy - people like this.

But is it easy to *become* a person like this?

Yes … it is.

I don’t mean to be flippant about this. I know there are sincere and hard working people who have a very hard time figuring out how to succeed online.

Almost every week, I speak with people who have been online for a long time (sometimes years) and are still not making it.

Let me be clear; I’m not saying that anyone can just snap their fingers and become Armand Morin.

But I *am* saying that success favors the prepared, and if you take the right steps you can succeed - even thrive - online.

It doesn’t take any special background or advanced college degree, nor does success online favor one age group.

The difference between people who are succeeding online and people who are struggling online comes down to this. The people succeeding online have marketing wisdom.

PLEASE NOTICE, I said wisdom … not knowledge. There’s a big, big difference between knowledge and wisdom. In fact, the difference is probably the most important

So, what is marketing wisdom and how can you get some?

I’m glad you asked. …Continue Reading Article