Posted on May 22nd 2009 by James Hughes.
type=”text/javascript”>Some people sit around waiting for things to happen. Some people “Make Things Happen”, and others just wonder… “What the heck just happened?” Which of these three categories do you fall under? Be honest, I’m sure everyone wants to believe that they’re in the “Make It Happen” category, but are you really?
In these trying economic times, more and more people are turning to “internet marketing” each day as a means of supplementing their income.
Home based businesses are becoming more and more common place across the world.
Unfortunately many of these entrepreneurs fail. Here’s why, in many respects the very definition of “internet marketing” can preclude you from achieving success. You see, just marketing a product and raising awareness doesn’t make you money, SELLING that product over and over again does.
The key here is to sell, and there are four fundamental skills needed. There are also 8 basic components that you’ll need to thoroughly understand. I’m about to explain the 4 critical fundamentals here and then over the at the bottom of this article, you’ll click on a link where you can find the 8 components you’ll be using to master the fundamentals.
Fundamental #1 List Building
Everything, and I sincerely mean EVERYTHING you do online should be geared towards growing your subscriber list. Your members are the “lifeblood” of your internet business. Your subscribers and followers become your customers but more importantly, they also become your biggest asset in the acquisition of more members.
To build a list of members you’ll need a squeeze page, this is basically a simple “mini website” specifically designed to capture the visitor’s name and email address by way of a web-form.
A web-form is just a name & email field with a submit button that empowers you to store the visitors information in a database for future use. Once the details are in the database you can bulk mail your subscribers to stay in touch with them. As your list grows, you can monetize it by emailing promotional offers for either your own products or affiliate products on which you’ll collect a commission if the subscriber makes a purchase.
The easiest way to entice someone to subscribe to your list and enter their details into your web-form is by way of an “ethical bribe”. This means you give away something of value in exchange for the customers details, once they give you their name and email address you instantly give them access to their “Free Gift”.
Fundamental #2 Driving Traffic
Lets say you have a killer recipe for BBQ Sauce and you want to open your own BBQ restaurant but you’re on a limited budget. You know your restaurants success depends on foot traffic and visibility after all you’ve heard it said many times before in retail… “Location, Location, Location” so you are faced with a tough decision to make. “Do I pay top dollar for prime commercial real estate in a highly visible mall or do I save some money and put my restaurant in an obscure part of town with low rent?” Even though the initial investment is higher, the mall location will produce a profit while the obscure location wont even cover the low rent. In the obscure location you would have to actually create the traffic by paying for advertising while the prime location will have inherent or what we like to refer to as “organic” traffic.
This is what driving web-traffic is all about, it makes absolutely no difference how good your product is if no one can find it on the internet. You have to look for existing flows of traffic online and place traffic signals there which direct the surfers back to your internet real estate, your squeeze page. This can be done in a multitude of ways like banner exchanges, social networking, video sites, SEO, forums, safe-lists, ezines, any many more including Pay Per Click advertising..”
Fundamental #3 Increasing Conversions
Ok, so now you’ve gotten some customers to your BBQ restaurant where they can buy your delicious home cooked secret recipe Chicken & Ribs… but will they? Will they actually buy? How does your restaurant look? Is it clean and tidy? Do you have nice furniture and an attractive menu? Are you fairly priced? What kind of specials do you offer? Do you have a punch card that can earn me a free meal after a certain amount of purchases? What are you actually doing to convert your visitor into a REPEAT buyer? That is called conversions.
The way you structure your website from, graphics & sales copy to offer and guarantee will all determine whether or not your visitor actually buys from you. The key here is to monitor your site metrics impressions vs clicks in comparison to sales. Acknowledge trends and then tweak the site components by “Split Testing” different site parameters.
Split testing can be done with special software or it can be done manually by monitoring the site statistics daily and making subtle changes to see how they affect conversions. Perhaps your background color is too bright, or your headline font is too big.
Maybe you’re guarantee is not in a prominent location on the page. Who knows what it could be! The key here is to test, test, and retest. Once you’ve arrived at a high converting formula stick with it and repeat the process.
Fundamental #4 Duplication
This is probably the most important fundamental of the four… “Duplication.” If you want what one man has, do what that one man does. Contrary to what you may believe, one of the biggest reasons that Newbies fail online is not lack of direction. It’s actually “too much direction” or should I say too many directions (plural.)
The average newbie opportunity seeker subscribes to multiple marketer’s lists and begins acquiring every product that appears to promise instant riches. The problem is that different marketers have different marketing angles and strategies which pull the newbie into an exponential overstretched frenzy of information overload. This in turn causes multiple info products to accumulate on their hard drive until the tasks at hand become insurmountable and they just throw in the towel.
The key to avoiding this is to go on a “Low Information Diet” by choosing a mentor that you like and relate to. Do some research and once you’ve decided on who you will follow, then duplicate their success step by step. Once you begin to see positive results, just duplicate YOURSELF to increase your results. This is a sure fire way to avoid the snags and pitfalls of newbie marketing.
So thats all fine and dandy but “How Exactly Do I EXECUTE The Four Fundamentals?” Well, you can learn those at the website by clicking this link: Internet Selling For Newbies See You There!
To Your Sales Success,
James Hughes
