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In today's Brain Storm! Business Podcast, we will discuss widgets, and how you can use them to market your business.

Widgets are the buzz word nowadays - small, inexpensive, customizable programs that e-retailers and online businesses hope that their clients will download and put on their desktops. First the businesses create widgets, then they figure out how to bribe their customers to download the widgets, and finally, they monitor their customers' responses to what they put on the widget.

You can create your own widget with online tools, brand an existing one, or hire a programmer to do it for you.

In today's competitive business market, every advantage you have can make a difference in profit or loss. Investing in these small programs can potentially increase your income. In 45 days, one company had 10,000 downloads of their widget and an increase of $7,500 worth of sales DIRECTLY related to the widget. Now, THAT's impressive.

Widgets resemble podcasts and RSS feeds in their ability to connect with potential clients without them coming to your website.

The trick is creating something entertaining enough, or informational enough for people to want to download it. Tactics have included telling them a new item is for sale 10 minutes before the information is released to everyone else, or offering financial perks for downloading it. You also have to decide what the widget should do that fits your business.

I'd love to hear some brainstorming ideas about how to use widgets, so if anyone wants to do a live brainstorming session, please let me know.

I hope you respond and we can have a great time while coming up with useful marketing ideas. I'm working on creating some online widgets for syndication for the Online Community Magazines software. Until then, have a fabulous week, and remember to DO SOMETHING with all of those ideas in your head!

Penny Haynes, 1st Podcast Publishing & Online Community Magazines