Zen Of Internet Marketing

There are a lot of people who dream about starting their home based business, and today there is no reason to stop you but your fear. If you have an Internet connection, a plan, and the tenacity to get out there and keep going, talent will kick in and you will wind up living the dream of being a successful entrepreneur.

The hardest part is getting started. Here, in condensed form, are the things you need to do to get things moving.

1. Write a business plan. Every business needs a plan, but because internet businesses are often not anchored by real-life objects like stores, it’s especially important when starting online home based businesses. Your business plan needs to include market research, an assessment of other businesses that do things similar to what you’re offering, an outline of who your anticipated customers are, and your financial goals.

It is essential that your business plan includes a clear set of actions to generate steady traffic. This is a special, yet essential part of online business success.

2. Build your online storefront. This is more involved than just a web page. This storefront should have: a. your business home page - about you, what you sell, a portal to what you’re selling, and all the other stuff you would normally put on a business home page. b. You’ll need something to keep customers on your site: a squeeze page, survey, or fun poll, maybe, free downloads, good pictures, reviews, an online community - you get the idea. Offers of goodies will make your webpage memorable and act as an incentive to return. c. Forums will allow customers to interact with you and each other. They can ask questions, get answers and state opinions. You can offer them a discount coupon, offer a free report in exchange for signing up for your mailing list. You’ll want some kind of feedback mechanism so that you can get to know your customers.

3. Write a sales plan. A sales plan can be very complex, taking into account every step to success or simple like an online sales letter outlining what you sell. Most people when starting go with the simpler sales page; however, which ever you decide, you need to get the piece right, so make sure you do some research before you start building.

4. Test systems. The biggest sales stopper for new online businesses is a storefront with problems, whether your sales copy isn’t compelling or your order form doesn’t quite work properly. The only answer to this: test, test, test. Survey your first customers, using a coupon or other offer in exchange for their time, to see how their experience was and how it could be improved. Test it yourself. Have your relatives and friends go out and test it. Rotate your sales copy, and track sales afterward to see what works and what doesn’t. After you think you have a stable system, test again periodically and then again every time there’s a change or a boost in the amount of traffic you get.

5. Build profits. Once your business is online and working, build your product line, focusing on back-end products (the ones you don’t show on the front page) and selling your current customers more of your proven products. This is where your business really grows. You can’t count on new customers continuing to flow in, but you can count on the old ones who love what you offer to keep coming back. That’s why you gathered data about them, gave them free stuff, and maybe even built a community for them to play in.

6. Revisit these steps periodically. The web is a changing, evolving entity. It is different from day to day and hard to keep up with. You will need to keep up with progress while tweaking your own goals to stay on top of you niche market.

If all of this sounds like hard work, look at it this way: you won’t need to buy suits, commute to work or go to lunch with people you dislike. No more boring business meetings. Forget the voicemail! And, best of all, no more answering to the boss who knows less than you. In the end, you are growing your dream and not someone else’s dream. And that makes it all worth it!

Marketing on the internet is not as difficult as you may think. Find legitimate ways to make money online, or how to increase your website traffic at http://www.nitromarketing.com/blog

- Kale McClelland

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Tags: article, blog, Business, forum, forums, Internet, market research, Marketing, Marketing, media, money, Products, squeeze page, Success, Traffic, website

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Tags: article, blog, Business, forum, forums, Internet, market research, Marketing, media, money, Products, squeeze page, Success, Traffic, website

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 4:04 am and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.