Internet and Businesses Articles

You are now reading Part 2 of my article the “Do’s and Don’ts for the Internet Marketing Newbie”. Part 1 covered the Do’s and this part will cover the Don’ts.

· Don’t throw your money away! Unless you have lots to throw away and can afford to buy whatever gets thrown at you. Budget yourself and keep within your budget. Only spend when you need to. You will come across plenty of sites that want you to spend your hard earned money for an internet marketing course, E-book, or piece of software guaranteed to make you money. Don’t fall into the trap. First investigate, ask questions from other marketers to see if they are familiar with the product and recommend it. That’s where the forums come in handy and are beneficial.

· Don’t believe all of the hype you will encounter. Example. BUY THIS SOFTWARE NOW! YOU ONLY HAVE TILL MIDNIGHT TONIGHT OR THE PRICE IS GOING TO DOUBLE OR EVEN TRIPLE. YOU’LL SAVE $200.00 IF YOU BUY RIGHT NOW! Don’t believe it, the price will be the same tomorrow and the next. Or here’s another good one. I’m only selling this to the first 50 people who visit my website. Yeah, right. I really believe that one.

· Don’t forget you are a potential customer to every marketer out there, so they will try to sell you their service or product to make money. Remember you are now a marketer and your purpose is to sell your service or product to others, not for you to buy theirs.

· Don’t get me wrong, some services or products are worth buying. You just have to figure out which are the right ones for you and your business. Remember you’re not trying to line someone else’s pockets. You’re trying to line your own.

· Don’t get frustrated and give up because things don’t happen right away. You have to have the mindset that you can do it and succeed. Granted you will have good days and bad days. Every accomplishment is a victory. Every defeat is a learning experience. No business is an overnight success.

· Don’t limit yourself and your thinking. Be willing to try different things and when you find the one thing that seems to work, build on it, but keep trying other things as well.

· You’ve had your business up and running for a couple of months and you’ve only made one sale. Don’t quit because you think it’s not working. Think in these terms instead. If you’ve made one sale, then you can make 2 sales, and if you can make 2 sales, you can make 3 sales and so on. Many of the top marketers on the internet today took years to find the formula that led to their success.

· Don’t believe that there is such a thing as an “auto-pilot” business. Like Ron Popeil’s rotisserie oven, SET IT AND GO. Just doesn’t work that way. I don’t care what you have heard or have read. You have to promote your business. You have to get your name out there and become visible so people can find you and what you’re offering. Just because you now have a website does not mean the masses will come in droves. There are millions upon millions of websites and probably at least a quarter of a million of them are selling the same service or product as you. The question is how are you going to get people to visit your website instead of someone else’s? Once they are there, what’s going to get them to buy from you or join your affiliation? So understand you are going to have to learn how to promote and sell your business and that involves work and time.

· Don’t upgrade your affiliation accounts until you can afford to do so. Many affiliate programs will try to pressure you into upgrading to a “Pro” account. Wait until you start making some money from your business first, then upgrade.

· Don’t rely solely on emailing to promote your business. Due to major Spam filters your message may not get through. Find all of the different ways to advertise on the internet like writing articles, exchanging links, click/surf exchanges, and Pay Per Click search engines. Use offline ways to advertise your business like newspaper ads, mailings, telemarketing, faxes and flyers. Put your website on a t-shirt and wear it!

· Don’t give up, persistence will pay off eventually.

Okay, I’ll stop there. I probably could go on and on and even write an E-book about this subject (that’s a thought). I think you get the idea about how to avoid the “Information Overload” headache and hopefully I have given you some substance for thought. The most important point is take one step at a time. Don’t rush it! And remember once a “newbie” always a “newbie” because you will be learning all of the time!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Debra enjoys collecting jewelry and gemstones. She operates a retail web site that sells wedding and bridal shower favors and gifts at http://favorsgiftsgalore.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The numbers are supposed to be big in online marketing, but are they significant in the online marketing of music? Clearly, we need someone with 'Net experience to set a few things straight. Scott Meldrum is a businessperson and musician with a dry wit and a background in bulk mail. Oops, excuse me, direct response advertising. He's also the man called on by major labels when they want to brand an artist and reach millions of fans via the Internet.

Beginning with Papa Roach in 1998 and continuing with such platinum-selling artists as Avril Lavigne, Dido and Jennifer Lopez, Meldrum's Long Beach-based firm, Hype Council, is one of the prime marketing weapons utilized by the world's largest entertainment companies.

Taking center stage for a Monday evening presentation by NARIP (National Association of Record Industry Professionals) at the Beverly Garland Hotel in Los Angeles, Meldrum began with some facts about the Internet. Does that sound a bit dull? It wasn't. His presentation quickly revealed things about the 'Net that should be known by every marketer (that's you, if you or your artists are selling music online).

THE GLOBAL AUDIENCE FOR MUSIC.

Most Internet users (nearly a majority of them) are between the ages of 30 and 49, far older than many in the audience thought. And for those of us who believed that the USA had the highest percentage of Internet users, it was a surprise to learn that we're only sixth. (Of course, in raw numbers of users, the USA has by far the most people.)

Fully 40% of the USA's 177 million 'Net users go online for music (more in some other nations). Look at it another way: if you put your music on the Internet, you have a potential audience of some 70 million. And with total Internet users currently at 404 million, that translates into a worldwide potential audience of 161 million people.

The problem is: how to reach them. They are wildly segmented in terms of music genre; they only want to be contacted under certain sets of circumstances; and they need to have a safe, secure, and easy way to make purchases.

Fortunately, "The Internet is still a new medium," Meldrum asserts, "and there are tremendous opportunities for people in the business of selling music."

Some of those opportunities are being wasted, however, through poor Web site design. Meldrum revealed the biggest errors made in creating or maintaining a Web site. . .

TOP 5 MISTAKES OF WEBSITES:

1. Mistaking creativity for functionality. "Don't try to put everything on your front page. Organization is the key. Lead your fans to the most important things." That's what menus are for, so don't hide them. "How many times have you gone to a site that looks interesting, but you have no clue how to navigate it? People don't have time to waste figuring it out. Make it easy for them."

2. Burying the offer. "Links to buy the CD should be available at almost every page on your Website. Many Websites challenge, almost dare visitors to find the product, let alone buy it."

3. Ignoring fans. "Many artist Websites have a registration feature, but it is not prominently displayed. When you are not selling albums at your Website, you need to be collecting email registrations." This builds a fan base where you can sell an album now and more in the future.

4. Not giving fans what they want. "Make your music accessible. Offer a few full streams of your songs. Make a download available in exchange for an email registration. You will win more fans and sell more CDs giving your music away than you will by not letting your potential fans really listen before they buy."

5. Failing to design with bandwidth in mind. "Ever been to a Website and forgot why you were there before the page fully loaded? Getting people to your site is hard enough. Losing them because they got tired of waiting for your page to load is a waste of everyone's time and energy."

CONSIDER OTHER OPTIONS:

Websites are a necessity, but don't overlook other ways of reaching out to potential fans on the Internet. Banners can be bought or traded. Emails can be sent (be mindful of the CAN-SPAM law; see below for link). Marketing can be done on search engines. You can join or participate in message boards and blogs (web logs). And the latest advancement in music marketing involves social networks such as MySpace.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Meldrum had many specific suggestions for attendees, including:

* use Google for research

* check out MySpace.com

* target your audience

* simplify your Website

* give away some songs

* interact with your audience often

"You can send emails in text or HTML format. With HTML (hyper text markup language), you can include pictures and graphics. They look nice, but we get twice the 'open rate' with text emails."

THE BOTTOM LINE ON WEBSITES:

"To your online fans, you are your Website. If they love it, they will love you, and will be eager to follow your careers. Take all the great things about you, your talent and your message, and translate to HTML. Keep it simple, easy-to-navigate and informative, and you will have a highly-effective marketing channel for your music."

Sources for more info:

http://www.narip.com

http://www.hypecouncil.com

http://www.scottmeldrum.com

http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm

http://marketingterms.com/dictionary/blog/

http://www.google.com

http://www.myspace.com/thegman

# # #

Scott G (The G-Man) writes and produces radio commercials from G-Man Music & Radical Radio. With albums on Delvian Records, iTunes, Amazon, and many other online stores, he also composes music that is played in clubs, on college radio stations, and on commercials. A member of NARAS (the Grammy organization) and NARIP (National Association of Record Industry Professionals), he writes about music, advertising, marketing, communications, advertainment, and digital distribution for the Immedia Wire Service and MusicDish.com. Samples of his songs and commercials are on his site at: http://www.gmanmusic.com

Why am I so mad I could throw my computer right out of my upstairs window?

Well, I'll tell you. But first I want to tell you who I am.

My name is Cathy Smith and I work at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie Michigan. In the past two years the Governer of our state has cut the state funding for higher education by a whopping 20%. This has resulted in layoffs and job eliminations at our university.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

We used to have a four person office but now thanks to university DOWNSIZING we only have a two person office.

I am one of the "lucky" ones who survived the cuts and still have a job. I not only have my own job but the jobs of the two people in our office who were eliminated. So now I have three FULL-TIME jobs. See how lucky I am?

I am so lucky to come home very night too exhausted to spend quality time with family and friends, too exhausted to devote any time to my hobbies, too exhausted to do any of the things I love to do. My health is suffering from stress and overwork. I have developed migraines and IBS. I can't sleep at night.

Are you a victim of "downsizing"? Do you hate your job? Are you sick of coming home too tired to enjoy your life?

Then listen up!

I decided to do something about it. I got on the internet and started looking for ways to start my own home business. I figured if I'm going to kill myself working, it might as well be for myself!

I typed in home business and a whopping 40,000,000+ webpages popped up. Wow! I thought I must really be on to something.

So I started to read some of these webpages.

And that's how I found the "Golden Carrot"!

Here's how it goes...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Make $10,000 While You Sleep"! (or some other jazzy title)

Hi

My name is (insert name here) and I am an internet marketing (insert "expert", "guru", "millionaire"). I made millions last year selling (insert program, ebook, software, etc.) and I can show you how to do it too. It's so easy a baboon could do it!

For only (insert price here) dollars I can show you how to make (insert a large dollar figure here) in only a few weeks.

Quit your job and have your own home business. Make a fortune. Learn how to do it from an expert.

Send me (insert anywhere from $9.95 to $5000) of your hard-earned dough and I'll show you how to get rich in 7 easy steps.

Click here to order!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I figured that I'm at least as smart as a baboon, so I ordered! And I ordered, and I ordered, and I ordered.

Now I have an entire collection of "Golden Carrots" taking up hard drive space on my computer!!

Am I rich? NO! Am I still stuck in my exhausting job? YES! Am I $4000 poorer? YES!!

Now do you know WHY I want to throw my computer out the window??

So what is the "Myth of Internet Marketing"??

The Internet is NOT a Magic Carpet that can help you market some program, product, ebook or widget and guarantee overnight riches.

Internet Marketing is still "MARKETING". HELLO!!

Do you have a degree in Marketing? No? Neither do I. Do you have a degree in Advertising? No? Neither do I. Do you know how to design a website? No? Me either. Can you write sales letters? No? Nope, Me either.

But if you believe the Internet Marketing "Experts" who dangle their "Golden Carrots" in front of your face you'll believe that you can be successful in internet marketing. All you need are enough carrots and you can realize your dream.

Have I given up on my dream to have my own home business?

Absolutely Not! I'm working at it everyday but I'm doing it the right way. The way I should have done it in the first place.

If you have a "Golden Carrot" story, I'd love to hear it. I'll be publishing the best ones in my "GoldenCarrotMonthly" Newsletter.

No this isn't a ploy to collect your email address and send you MY "Golden Carrot"!! I genuinely want to share the experiences of people just like you and me who are looking for help in realizing their dream of a home business.

email your story at cathy@upwholesalers.com

You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print,in your ebook or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included.

About the Author:

Cathy Smith really does work at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan located in Michigan's beautiful Upper Peninsula. She owns her own business, UPWholesalers. UpWholesalers specializes in offering only the best affiliate marketing programs available on the internet. Get details at http://www.upwholesalers.com

The Advantages Disadvantages Of Internet Marketing are many.

A few Advantages Disadvantages Of Internet Marketing are:

* It's on the internet so it's low cost

* Very fast

* And you can reach a global audience

However it:

* Can leave the businessman feeling isolated

* Hard to tell if people are lying because you can't see their face

* And you can be overloaded with information.

There are more Advantages Disadvantages Of Internet Marketing, but I wont cover them all in one article. However I will focus on a few important ones.

Positives:

Low cost:

The internet is made up of electrons, so there is not really anything physically to grab hold of like in a brick and mortar business. This considerably reduces your costs as you don't really need many materials or buildings. Just a computer with world wide web capabilities : )

Very fast:

A great advertisement I saw once said "If you were an electron, you would be there by now". This was an ad at an airport. It's referring to the internet. It's made up of electrons so it's VERY fast. Click a link, and you could be looking at an Australian website, click another one and you could be in America. If you wanted to get information any other way from these countries, you may end up having to go there.The world wide web eliminates the need for this. Go any where you want with the click of a button.

You can reach a global audience:

By this I mean, you don't have to set up shop somewhere and sell to the locals. You can set up an online shop, and sell to anyone in the world. This means a huge increase in potential revenues and a fraction of the cost it would take for you to set up shops all over the world.

Negatives:

Can leave the businessman feeling isolated:

This is very common. Because the world wide web is faceless (In most cases), it can appear cold and inhuman. This can leave you feeling isolated and very inward. Not a nice feeling at all. Everyone likes to socialize and meet people, but in this case, its quite difficult to, in business anyway.

Hard to tell if people are lying:

There is so much information on the world wide web now, it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between crap and quality. A lot of the crap is targeted at newbies. Here's an example "Make money fast by doing NOTHING", sound familiar? I bet you've had a ton of emails saying something similar.

Information Overload:

Once again we get to the part of there being a lot of information on the world wide web. There can be too much good information too. There can be a lot of competition for an industry, this can leave you more confused than if there were presented with loads of crap. You might not be able to tell who to chose. If you are a veteran of the net, you wont have much to worry about, however if you're a newbie then this is a problem.

The above are the positive and the negatives. Overall, I would definitely say that if you can do business online, then definitely do it.

Stephen Warren is the creator of http://www.makeagreatsite.com Learn how to make a great site and turn it into a money making machine in no time. This article is free to republish as long as it is republished in full and the link back to MakeAGreatSite.com is clickable

One of the best projects to undertake as an online marketer is to master the art of generating sales from your warm market contacts. A warm market is simply people who have already been exposed to your business and marketing plan. It can be described as “breaking the ice” with your potential customers. The best ways to generate sales from a warm market is with lead generation marketing tools.

A marketing tool is a tool that people use to create what we call lead prosperity. "If you are not in lead prosperity, you are not making money with your online business". With lead generation marketing tools you may decide to create several lead capture pages which are designed to generate interest from prospects on your business. The pages will contain a place to enter their contact information i.e. (name, telephone number, and email). This is also called a lead capture form.

After the information is filled out on the lead capture form, the individual is redirected to a URL that contains your main site. This sounds very easy to do, and it is, however when marketing online, most opportunities have a lack of effective lead capture systems and worse, a lack of professional presentations. The goal is to seek powerful lead generation marketing tools and presentations that capture leads and allow proper follow-up no matter the opportunity presented. Seek out professional designers and ad copy writing services that can create professional lead capture pages and the software to manage it all. Also conduct follow-up marketing with the Auto responder systems that follows up with every lead that fills out your capture page. Next, search for a robust prospect manager to properly manage your hot-response leads. Remember, your warm market is created as soon as the prospect enters their information on your lead generation page. You should experience an increase in sales from using this simple but powerful marketing approach.

Erick Shipmon has ben an Online Marketer since 1997. He recently created http://www.workathomebasedbiz.com which is a online business that provides training and online marketing tools for generating lead prosperity and introducing people into their own turnkey internet home business.

Is internet marketing and the potential for it saturated? I have wondered this many times but pure logic wins me over. It has at many times caused me to give up on an idea or marketing plan based on the belief that there were so many other people doing it my offer would never be considered. But after reading the following article you can get an idea that the internet is like a new city that crops up everyday, under a new sun, with all kinds of possibilities before you. You just need to see them and then take the reins and hold on.

This is how I view internet marketing.

Somebody owns a large plot of land. They put out an ad that welcomes 100,000 people to come build a home and a business on this land all for free. The first thing everyone needs is a place to live. So they must first build a home. "But how do we build a home without lumber?" They ask. Many of the people having the spirit of an entrepreneur see an opportunity to make money ,so 1,000 of these 100,000 people open up a lumber company. And all 1,000 of these people end up making a good profit. "That's great, but how are we going to build our homes without the tools and hardware?" they asked. So 1,000 more people open up a hardware store. And all 1,000 of these people end up making a good profit.

"I don't know how to build a house!" many of them said. So 1,000 people offer to build their house for them and another 1,000 write books on how to build a house. And all 2,000 of these people end up making good profits. "How can we continue to work when we have noting to eat?" They all asked. So 1,000 people open up restuarants, another 1,000 open up catering services, and another thousand open up grocery stores. And all 3,000 end up making good profits. "How am I going to see my friends on the other side of town. It's to far to walk!" They whinned. So 1,000 people open up automoble manufacturing plants and each employs 10 people to work for them. All 1,000 plants end up making good profits.

As more house's are completed lumber becomes less in demand, so 995 lumber yards go out of business leaving those 5 with the best marketing strategy. Because everyone has all the tools and hardware they need 995 hardware stores go out of business leaving those 5 with the best marketing plan. Because people can cook and grow their own food, 995 each of the restuarants, catering businesses, and grocery stores go out of business leaving those 15 businesses with the best marketing plan. And because everyone has a car and/or has found alternate means of transportation 999 auto plants go out of business leaving the 1 with the best marketing plan.

As time goes on all 100,000 people are having their needs met by different businesses which eventually level out the market so their is a healthy competition between all the existing businesses. But there is no need for any more businesses because the market is saturated. That is until 100,000 new people come to town. Then the cycle repeats itself.

The point of the story is this. All towns and cities started out like this with a surplus of goods and services. When a particular service or product was no longer in high demand only the businesses with the best plans survived. Only when the population of the city went up did someone consider opening up another business to meet the need of those people. But even though there was enough businesses to meet the needs of the people, many businesses and people wanted to find out ways to do things smarter, cheaper, faster. So opens up a whole new area of enterprise. And just like a new city the process starts over.

Internet marketing is similar to this. When it started to catch on many saw the opportunity to make money. Some offered tools to make websites while others offered to make a website for those unable. Some offered avenues to market that website, others will market it for you, while others write books to teach you how to do it yourself. There is though one big difference. There is still a large number of people who don't own computers, while many of the ones who do are still unaware of internet marketing.

Every hour of the day people are coming of age. Every hour of the day people who never looked before are looking for ways to earn more money, have a business of their own, find new products or information that aren't offered in retail stores. Think of the internet as a new city that has 100,000 people everyday entering in looking for something. Some will buy a product or use a service. Some will set up a business of their own. Some will give up their business only to come back to try something else. So, is internet marketing saturated? No way. The future of internet marketing looks better than ever.

Article by Jerry Lunsford. Go to my website http://www.quityourcrummyjob.com to find this and other articles to help with your success as an affiliate, and with the success of those affiliates under you. Use these articles on your website, ezine, or wherever they can be helpful. Copyright (c) 2004

-- Internet Marketing Determines Web Success --

Internet marketing is essential to the success of web sites. You can have a professional looking website but what good can it do if internet users are not able to find it when they need your products and services? That is where an internet marketing campaign comes into play.

"Your website has to magically appear before buyers when they need products and services."

Internet marketing is similar to designing websites- it does not require much experience to do a good job, just good knowledge and a keen eye for details. It is fundamentally important for a good internet marketer to constantly update himself weekly, if not monthly, of online markets. There are many ways to market your website .

-- Find A Competent and Reliable Internet Marketer --

Justify the costs of hiring an Internet Marketer - First of all, getting an internet marketer is not essential for every website. If your website is a business website or a website which you want to generate revenue from, it is good to seek a competent internet marketer to work on your website. The costs spent on your website for internet marketing has to be justified and often, they are justified by having more revenue and traffic to your web site.

Potential customers have to know that there are no guarrantees in SEO. Since everything is fundamentally based on search engines, SEO work is at the mercy of major search engines like Google. Many SEO companies tried to secure customers with guarrantees that they cannot fulfil, resulting in lawsuits or customers getting burned for hiring their SEO services.

-- What an Internet Marketer can offer --

In short, an Internet Marketer oversees that your website is built properly for visibility and promoted with the best dollar spent on your internet marketing campaign. It is no good having a website and not appearing in internet searches. Your website has to magically appear before buyers when they need products and services. Internet Marketers deploy search engine optimisation techniques to make your website visible and targetted to internet users.

Internet marketing requires research and analysis effort for individual website, followed by optimisation of website. Hundreds of hours may be spent on each website, depending on the size of your targetted market. You are essentially paying for the amount of effort involved, effectiveness of your internet marketer and daily sales tracking of your website.

How to choose an Internet Marketer- Internet marketing requires constant updating of skills and knowledge. One crude way to test if your internet marketer is a genuine or fake- Ask your internet marketer about recent events that happened in his field. If he cannot answer that, he must have a genuinely good reason to back himself as a good internet marketer! At times, it is easy to fall prey into the hands of bad internet marketing companies as happened in US and other parts of the world.

It is also important for you to feel comfortable with the amount of money you are spending on getting your site popular before committing yourself to a internet marketing campaign. Internet marketing campaigns typically last a few months and requires monthly tune-ups to your website. Include the costs of an internet marketing campaign when doing your company's advertising budget.

Lester Boey works in an Australian SEO and Web Design company (http://www.definiteweb.com/). His life revolves around SEO; providing full-time and freelance seo services to US and Australian businesses. Email: projects@definiteweb.com

Just yesterday a colleague of mine, whom I'll call "Sandy," asked my advice about marketing her new information product online. She saw some of my banner ads on a particular Web site, and wanted to know if she should put her own up there.

I said they didn't work that well for me, but I suggested she try it, because it was a site often visited by her target market.

"But how do I know it will work for me?" she said.

"You don't," I answered.

"What?" she said.

"Test it!" I said. "Try it and see how it works for you."

Test, Test, and Test Again

I then shared with her one of the most important concepts I've learned over the past five years of studying Internet marketing millionaires.

Here are people who have each made millions from selling information online.

But they didn't just become millionaires out of the blue with their first idea and their first marketing strategy. They had failures. In fact, after talking with them, I learned they had MANY failures.

I looked at these people, and tried to imagine them "failing." It was hard. After all, there they were, teaching us what works.

But they'd failed many times. They tried something, it didn't work, and then they moved on to another strategy. They TESTED things, and they still always do test things.

If I tried something online and it didn't work, I saw it as a failure. But they just see it as a test.

It's Time to Reprogram Your Mind

In school, if we didn't have the right answer, we "failed." But in marketing, that's complete bull.

In marketing, if we don't get the right answer, we LEARN. We learn what does not work and where not to spend our marketing money anymore. That's damn valuable information!

Now, I know this concept may seem like a "duh" to you, because it did to me too. I heard stories over and over about testing, but every time I did, my mind answered back, "Of course ... I know that."

Isn't it funny how our minds assume we know things? But we don't really know something unless we're DOING it, day after day.

I thought I knew what was working and what wasn't working, but how could I when I wasn't tracking anything?

And also, how could I take others' marketing advice without seeing if their advice was really working for ME?

Tracking Is Your Key to Riches

So I started tracking and testing.

Five years ago, I couldn't even tell you how many visitors I was getting to my site every month. Now I can tell you not only how many unique visitors I get, but how many of them on an average buy my product, how many of them sign up for my e-zines, the maximum I should spend to get a visitor to my site, and more. Knowing this information has helped me TRIPLE my income over the last two years.

Tracking and testing is not as hard as you think. The beauty of any type of direct marketing, especially online marketing, is your ability to track results.

Now, in Sandy's example above, she needs some type of ad tracker program that assigns a special link to her ad. Even better, this program should be linked to her shopping cart, so she can see how many clicks directly turned into sales. (For this purpose, I highly recommend AutoWebBusiness (autowebbusiness.com)

For her Web site, she should track how many visitors she has each month compared with how many sales she has each month. Her reporting program should tell her how many unique visitors she has on her site (not just "hits," which is useless). And if it doesn't tell her that, she should use WebStat (webstat.com) -- an inexpensive program that makes it very easy to read these reports.

Sandy should extend this tracking mentality to every type of marketing she does -- even her free teleclasses. For every teleclass she teaches, she should track how many of those folks sign up for her e-zine and how many buy her product right away.

See where I'm going with this? The numbers don't lie, and once you start seeing the light, marketing will become much more painless. Just stop doing what doesn't work, and put more energy into what does.

THEN, you won't look back and see any failures. You'll only see "tests."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexandria K. Brown, "The E-zine Queen," is author of the award-winning manual, "Boost Business With Your Own E-zine." To learn more about her book and sign up for more FREE tips like these, visit her site at http://EzineQueenTutorial.com/

Six years ago, when I first started selling online, I focused on doing what I did best: generating useful content that people would want to pay for. But I quickly learned that selling a product online required me to have to learn about ...

...my Web statistics.

"Yuck!"

"Why should I have to do this?" I thought. "I'm not a numbers person. Such small details! I want to spend time on big ideas."

Then after a few months of poor sales, I realized I needed to learn more about my numbers so I could learn how to improve my results. (You can't improve something that you can't measure.) After getting acquainted with my stats, I not only realized that this information would help me immensely, but I was relieved that it wasn't so hard after all. It had just been something unfamiliar.

There are four types of basic "Web numbers" I want you to understand. Don't worry -- if I can handle this, you can too!

1. Sales

HOW MANY SALES are you making? This should be easy to determine on your end.

2. Unique Visitors

HOW MANY PEOPLE are visiting your sales page? To know this, you'll need to know your number of unique visitors for that specific page.

Do NOT confuse unique visitors with "hits," which refers to number of graphics downloaded.

Your Web host may already provide some stats you can access, but many of these programs are hard to understand and only track hits. If this is the case, it's well worth it to use a low-cost outside tracking service such as WebSTAT (http://www.webstat.com/) that will show you your number of unique visitors. (I use them and love their service.)

3. Sales Conversion Rate

Here's where we start with some math. Take your number of sales during a given time, and divide it by your number of visitors during that time. We'll walk through this in a minute.

4. Value per Visitor

This tells you how much each visitor is worth to you. It's basically your selling price times your conversion rate.

Let's Walk Through It Together

Say Suzy Q runs a site that sells a special report on how to teach your dog to do a back flip. The report sells for $20.

Last month she had 50 online sales. Her Web stats show that during that month she had 1,500 unique visitors.

First let's figure her sales conversion rate -- sales divided by visitors.
50 / 1,500 = .0333. We'll round it down to .03. (If we're talking about percentages, that's about 3%. Or 3 sales for every 100 visitors.)

Now, let's determine her value per visitor.

The report sells for $20, and we now know that her sales conversion rate is .03.

So .03 x $20 = $0.60.

That means each visitor is worth 60 cents to Suzy, whether they buy or not.

(Here's a longer way of doing this, but it may make more sense to you: Based on Suzy's current conversion rate, she makes an average of 3 sales per 100 visitors. 3 x $20 = $60. So for every 100 visitors she makes an average of $60. $60 / 100 visitors = $0.60 per visitor.)

This number tells Suzy how much it's worth spending to get a visitor to her site. For example, if she decides to advertise via a pay-per-click search engine (such as Google AdWords), she knows that $0.60 is the maximum she'd want to bid.

Want My FREE Calculations Template?

Would you like a free fill-in-the-blanks template to help you make the calculations above? I've put one together for you! Send a blank e-mail to ali-39796@autocontactor.com and you should receive it automatically.

What to DO With Your Numbers

First of all, look at your unique visitors. If your numbers aren't as high as you'd like, work on attracting more prospects to your site via your e-zine, search engine listings, advertisements, articles, etc.

Then look at your sales conversion rate. The average for information products is actually around only 1%, according to both my testing and that of my colleagues. (So don't get upset if that's where you're at!) Often my conversion rate is a lot higher, but it depends on who's visiting that sales page. My conversion rate will be a lot higher if I'm sending my own subscribers there (people who already know, like, and trust me) versus strangers who found me from a search engine or other website. Make sense?

Aim to continually improve your sales page to boost your results.

Keep a log of what changes you make and when you make them so you can see which factors help or hinder your sales. (There's a place for these notes in that template I created for you.)

You should also do simple "split tests", but I'll go into that another time.

Don't Wait Any Longer!

Remember, you can't improve something you can't measure. Take a few minutes and start tracking these things. I guarantee that once you do, you'll actually enjoy this process, because it gives you the power to continually IMPROVE. : )

For STEP-BY-STEP instructions on all of these strategies (and dozens more) see my SPECIAL REPORT (http://www.boostbizezine.com/) that's part of my "Boost Business With Your Own Ezine System".

© 2005-2008 Alexandria Brown International Inc.

Online entrepreneur Alexandria K. Brown publishes the award-winning "Highlights on Marketing Success" weekly ezine with 36,000+ subscribers. If you're ready to jump-start your marketing, make more money, and have more fun in your small business, get your FREE tips now at AlexandriaBrown.com

Set up multiple simultaneous marketing campaigns with database marketing automation email software that get results exploding your internet business marketing while growing multiple optin lists, prospects consistent follow, increasing Back End Sales, and bottom line profits.

When you don’t follow up your prospects or customers with additional information, you are allowing valuable customers and prospects to skip from your grasp, go to your competitors, and satisfied their needs, at the expense of what should have been you’re your profits.

Those are customers that may have been very interested in your products, but simply lost your information, or were too busy when your information was sent. Some customers will purposely wait to see if you find them important enough to follow-up their inquiries. When they don’t receive a follow up message, they take their business elsewhere.

I don’t know about you, but just about everyone doing business on the Net been in that position, because of failing to automate their follow up. Though it’s been found that customer follow up at preset times with pre-written messages, dramatically increases sales.

The exception, those who automated their marketing campaigns, their list and database management, and automated their follow up with personalized email marketing software; and, they dramatically increased their back end sales and bottom line profits.

But, just as important as the increase of sales and profits, is the time saving features of marketing automation, as is the case with email marketing, the single most important aspect of database marketing and back end sales.

Other benefits of doing internet business with email marketing automation is the ability to follow up with prospects, while following through collecting leads, prospects, and customers email addresses and personal data, from a target market; growing an opt-in list of subscribers, managing multiple lists as a list server, and setting up multiple marketing campaigns with unlimited autoresponders.

Regardless of the spam problems of these days, email still remains most effective medium for:

• Keeping customers posted on new products and specials

• Ongoing personalized dialogue with website visitors

• Proactively getting customer satisfaction and testimonials

• Prospects follow up and requesting more information

• Keeping track of all contacts and email communication

• Introducing new products to your contact database

• Motivating and training your employees and associates

• Educating your customers and prospects

And the list could go on and on with no other limitation than the marketer’s creativity and imagination, or the email marketing automation software he’s using to automate his customers follow up.
.
Automated prospect follow up is the solution to selling more on the Internet, and specifically, for more back end sales. There is a wide range of email marketing automation software on the market now a days, some more sophisticated, easier to use, and more expensive than others.

To make a good selection of the wide range of available choices, there’s a minimum of features you must consider.
\
From the marketing stand point the minimum features would be: automated database management and list server for multiple list management; manage and track, import and export, contact data from-and-to its database; and multiple autoresponders for sequential follow-up.

As important, is the ability of data merge for personalized email to potential customers, prospects, newsletters subscribers, clients, colleagues, organization members, affiliate or associates, and network marketing downlines; and, automated add and remove contact data from its database.

Other than the above, the software should allow for the seamless input of prospects on the front end, and when they come out the other end, they have all the information they need to make an intelligent decision to buy, to join an affiliate program, or sign up to a Network Marketing downline.

From the technical point of view, the software should feature: the capacity to operate sending email through your regular ISP server, or through its own integrated mail server to by pass your ISP servers, and avoid using up its band width - this is a must feature if you have a list of more than 1000 contacts.

Other important technical features for the email marketing software of your choice would be, the capacity of sending email through multiple simultaneous threads (at least 10 threads), at a sending average rate of 15 emails per thread; and an email address verifier, to verify new contacts email addresses and keeping your list clean from those entering a fake email address only to download your bonus.

Finally, the email software must have the capacity to handle the entire user unknown, undeliverable, and bounce back messages. This feature is very important to keep a clean list, and avoid being filtered by the ISP’s servers as Spam, because of too many undeliverable taking up their band width.

With an email marketing and database management software with all the above features, a Marketer or internet business operator you can set up, operate, and manage multiple programs, multiple marketing campaigns; and, also running multiple special offers, simultaneously and effortlessly.

For Netprenuers with an affiliate program, or into network marketing, this kind of software can help training associates, affiliates, and downlines, via email, on subjects such as distributor handbooks, marketing materials, or instructions for a quick jump start.

Finally, if you’re an e-publisher, this software provide the capacity for multiple broadcasting of newsletter or ezines; as well as to automatically submit article to hundreds of ezines editors at once..

Automated email and database management automation could afford business owners and marketers the means to capitalize on the full power of the internet, by consistently following up on customers, prospects, affiliates, and downlines; and, launching multiple and simultaneous marketing campaigns, while dramatically increasing their back end sales and bottom line profits.

Email marketing automation generates interest, traffic, and sales for an online business; and, its just amazing the amount of work and time that it saves. I cannot imagine someone marketing or doing business on the internet without email marketing automation software like this.

About the Author

Dr. Charles Longsworth, Ph.D., a consultant on marketing automation systems that works, and publisher of “Automation Gazette” his official voice since 2000. For free consultation visit http://www.internet-business-automation.com/emda Subscribe at http://www.internet-business-automation.com/agsubscribe 6 gifts when you join.

For the last couple weeks I have been running a 5-minute survey of marketing trends. Several hundred people have given their input.

[If you haven't taken the survey yet, do it. Your input is important and will help me know what you need to succeed in your own business: http://All-In-One-Business.com/5-minute]

It has been eye-opening.

Two of the questions dealt with who you trust and don't trust for online business information. I am amazed at what is shaping up.

I expected several people to all be pretty much equal for "who you trust," yet one person is currently getting 25% of the votes- and no one else has over 5%.

The same thing is happening on the "who you don't trust" question: While almost everyone mentioned is getting a couple votes, one person is getting 33% of the votes.

I guess those two have made their mark-either for good or bad.

[By the way, as soon as the survey is closed I will give you the names of both of them. If I mention them now, it might skew the results. You can get a full copy of the survey results by taking the survey. You will be re-directed to a page where you can sign up for the results via email. See the link above.]

Here's the application point for the rest of us:

We all are building our online reputation-either good or bad-every day. If you are working at affiliate marketing, you are building it with your web presence, your newsletter, your personal emails.

If you have your own product(s) you are also building it by the quality of the product, the timeliness of your customer service, the value of your expertise.

Everything you do is ultimately available to almost everyone else. You never know when a personal correspondence or customer service email will be posted to a forum. You never know when the person who sends you a seemingly rude email may also hold the key to your future success.

The message: Build you business through grace, integrity and diligence. I guarantee it will pay off.

I have put together a resource of "cut and paste" customer service emails for you to modify and use in your own business. Using these can not only build your positive reputation, they will also save you time. You can pick them up here:

http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/customerservice

Kevin Bidwell is owner of http://www.all-in-one-business.com

Kevin just finished a complete report on building a passive income. Grab your copy here: http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/passive

As we look at building our online businesses, many of us acknowledge, early-on, that we don't know it all. Those who don't, are almost certain to fail because they often attempt to apply techniques that simply don't work online - to their online businesses. The quickest way to online success is to model those who are already successful at what you want to do. It' s that simple.

Of all of the chores involved in building your business, marketing is usually the most critical. Poor marketing is also the reason so many businesses fail. You need to learn to properly market your business or hire someone else to do it for you. I'll give you a few recommended resources to help jumpstart your education in a minute.

A second extremely important skill that goes hand-in-hand with marketing is generating publicity. You can have the greatest product in the world, but if no one knows about it, it may as well not exist. If no one knows about you, then you won't make any sales!

Let's look at generating publicity first...

Publicity can take many forms, and they often overlaps what many would define as marketing. For today, I want you to focus on the most effective, and often cheapest, publicity. In fact, this great publicity is often free. What we're talking about here is publicity generated by getting the media and others talking about you and your business. We're talking about the publicity typically generated through tools such as press releases and doing media interviews.

Why is the above type of publicity so powerful? It's so powerful because people believe what others say about you MORE than they believe what you say about yourself. So when you can get magazines, newspapers, television and radio personalities, and even online ezines talking about you, those hearing this buzz believe it more and are therefore more likely to go check you out.

A second reason this type of publicity is so powerful is because you can literally generate millions of dollars in free publicity if you know what you are doing. You may not be able to afford a full-page ad in a major magazine or newspaper. However, let the right person know about your story and that same publication will be all to happy to tell the world about you... and give them your website url and/or your toll-free phone number.

Learning to get media attention is not hard. To make it even easier, I've arranged for my friend, Annie Jennings, who runs a top PR agency, to help you a little. Her site is at: http://www.anniejenningspr.com/teleseminars.htm

I gave you the above url because it is the page where she tells you of upcoming teleseminars she's hosting on various promotion and sales-related topics. These teleseminars are all free.

While at Annie's site, sign up for other goodies she offers including courses in generating press releases, creating a platform, getting on top radio shows, etc. She'll give you all types of freebies like audiotapes and coffee cups. When I first met her, and she sent me an intro package, it felt like Christmas :-)

So we'll let Annie turn you into a "media darling." Then you can focus on learning marketing. This is where most online business people should probably spend 80% of their time - not on all of the busywork that you can get someone else to do. The highest and best use of your time is probably in marketing your business, not making webpage updates, writing or even creating products. You can get freelancers to do this for you very inexpensively at places like Elance.com

Marketing is nothing more than communicating the benefits of your products or services effectively to your ideal customer. It all hinges upon effective communications, and your communications can be greatly improved if you understand how and why we interact the way we do with each other. To get a firm grasp on that topic I recommend that you read the book, "Influence, The Psychology of Persuassion," by Dr. Robert Cialdini.

You'll never be the same after you've read and digest this book. If you're like me you'll find yourself reading it over and over! You can find this book at online bookstores.

Another solid book on marketing is Jay Abraham's "Mr. X" book. This 376 page book distills several decades of the marketing know-how of Jay Abraham. The full title of the book is "Money-Making Secrets of Marketing Genius Jay Abraham And Other Marketing Wizards - A No-Nonsense Guide To Great Wealth and a Personal Fortune." This book is so good that you could devote six month just to studying the one book, and you'd understand more about marketing than 95% of your competitors.

This book is marketed by the Abraham Marketing Group, but Internet marketers working with the group run specials from time to time. Just watch your email for one of these specials.

A course that I recommend that isn't just on marketing but on developing the proper mindset is by Dr. Robert Anthony. It's called "Know How To Be Rich." In order to run a really successful business, you need to properly train your mind. Many people actually need to give themselves permission to be successful. Dr. Anthony's course was a big "A-ha" for me and many of my clients. You can find it at: http://TheInternetLifestyle.com

You'll notice that none of the resources just recommended were specifically Internet-marketing-only resources. That's because internet marketing is just an offshoot of marketing, and most of the principles are the same. Most Internet marketers who are struggling, don't have a good grasp of the over-riding basic marketing principles. That's what the above resources will provide.

Two Internet marketing resources I will recommend are a private membership site I've set up, and a course on how to generate website traffic. You can find my site at: http://TheRealSecrets.com The webpage does a great job of explaining why you need to be a member :-)

Without website traffic, your website basically has the same results as a billboard on a highway that no one travels. It produces no results because no one sees it. So you do need to learn how to generate traffic. For that I recommend the very indepth, crash course offered by John Reese's Traffic Secrets. I've personally gone through the 13 CD's and DVD ROM's, and 3 manuals - TWICE.

You can check out this course at: http://TrafficSecretsByJohnReese.com
It's a little expensive, but well worth it if you USE what he teaches. If you aren't going to use it, then you should save your money.

If you work your way through the above resources you'll be well on your way to building a massively successful online business. None of these resources are something you give a quick glance and then the magic happens. They all require effort. Put in the effort now and you'll have a very solid foundation upon which to build your Internet marketing business. By understand basic marketing, and then how the internet differs, you'll possess some very powerful, rarely mastered knowledge.

Copyright 2004 Willie Crawford

Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author, seminar speaker and host, tele-seminar speaker and host, retired military officer, karate black belt, network marketing trainer, and life-time student of marketing. He shows people how to actually generate substantial income on-line using very simple SYSTEMS. An example of such a system can be studied and duplicated at: http://ProfitMagician.com

I, myself, being an internet marketing “newbie” (endearing term used to refer to people who have just started their own internet business and don’t know what the ---- they are doing) have learned a few things and would like to share my observations, tribulations, and triumphs with my fellow “newbies”. In sharing my experiences I hope I can help you avoid some of the pitfalls and obstacles you will face. Let’s try to avoid some of those “Information Overload” headaches as well. I don’t want you to walk through the same mud puddle if I can point it out and help you avoid it.

First, in the article which is Part 1, I will list some important “DO’s”. Part 2 will cover the DON’Ts.

· Do take your time, one step at a time. Do understand that building your business is not something than can be done in a matter of days, not even months in most cases. It’s going to take time, lots of time.

· Do practice Patience! I know it’s not one of my virtues either and it’s really hard to put into practice, but to save your sanity, try to be patient!

· Do understand in the beginning you will be suffocated with so much information and resources your head will hurt (that’s where the Information Overload headache comes from) and you will not know which direction to take first. You’ll just be spinning your wheels if you try to go off into 20 different directions at once. Remember, concentrate on one thing at a time!

· Do use your best judgment when weeding through all of the information. Throw away the obvious hype and keep what you feel is resourceful and useful.

· Do make it a goal to accomplish one task each day. Later when you can handle it add one or two more tasks. Progress slowly.

· Do look for free resources, there’s plenty out there on the internet to help you build and promote your business. There’s also a lot of hype and misinformation and just plain bad information, so definitely use number 4.

· Do join some good internet marketing forums. You will find a lot of advice and tips on how to promote your business. Many people there are also “newbies” and you can bounce ideas off of each other. Many will post what has worked or hasn’t worked for them. Learn from the internet marketing experts, they were in your shoes at one time, benefit from their experiences.

· Do file and organize the information you receive for retrieval later on. Organize your email by creating folders to keep information categorized and easy to find. Keep a log in Microsoft Excel with all of your affiliate ID’s, affiliate URL’s, and memberships.

· Do learn some basic HTML code. This will make it easier for you to change, delete, and make any additions to your website. If you don’t know how to add a link to your website then how will you exchange links with other websites to increase your search engine rankings. Go to http://www.htmlgoodies.com and take their basic HTML tutorial. Read my article titled “Why You Should Learn HTML” on my Articles and News page at http://www.profitfromhomebiz.com

· Do realize that it’s going to take a lot of work and time to establish your business. Especially, a business on the internet. It’s not an auto-pilot business. You will probably spend more hours working at this business than you would a regular 9 to 5 job.

· Chances are you are new to internet marketing, so study and learn as much as you can before you just jump in. Know what to expect and be prepared.

· Do realize that having an internet business is just like having a business in the “real” world. You need to have a plan, you need to advertise, and you must have a budget.

· Do download the “30 Days to Success” E-book written by Stone Evans. You can find a free copy on my website at http://www.profitfromhomebiz.com. You will need to provide your name and email address which will subscribe you to my Home Business Tips Newsletter (which is full of internet marketing tips and articles), and then you can download the E-book. It gives you a day by day guide on how to promote your business online. It’s an invaluable tool!

· Do believe in yourself and your abilities. Believe in your success!

I divided this article into two parts so you would not fall asleep trying to read the whole article at once. Part 1 of this article has covered the DO’s for the internet marketing newbie. Part 2 of the article will cover the DON’Ts. Be on the lookout for the part 2!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Debra enjoys collecting jewelry and gemstones. She operates a retail web site that sells wedding and bridal shower favors and gifts at http://favorsgiftsgalore.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hold a discount sale on your web site. Use the sale to get rid of excess inventory, gain new or repeat customers, and increase your sales. Most businesses pick a theme for their sale, like a Halloween Sale. Below are six unique sales themes you could use:

Nobody's Visiting Today Sale

Every online business has low visitor and sales day through the week. My days are Tuesdays and Thursdays.You could sell your products or services for cheaper to increase and sales on your slow days. You could have this advertised right on your web site.

Time Of The Day Sale

Periodically , pick out a time of the day like 5 to 7 pm to lower your prices. With online sales you need tell people the time zone. Announce your scheduled times ahead of time in your e-zine. This will give people enough time to plan when they will visit your web site.

Product Or Service Of The Day Sale

Each day offer different product or service at a lower price. This will draw people back to your web site everyday. This is a high traffic generating sale. If you don't have a lot of products and services you may want to run the sale weekly or monthly.

Niche Group Sale

Hold a sale for a niche groups of people. Students, senior citizens, single people etc. This really works if your introducing a new product or service for the first time to a new target audience. Announce your sale in a targeted e-zine, e-mail discussion groups, message boards, etc.

Holiday Or Seasonal Sale

Offer lower prices on holidays and during seasonal changes. These type of sales let your visitors and customers know your no scrooge. Be creative and go as far as decorating your web site. You could upload holiday and seasonal graphics. Change the color of your text to match. Get in the spirit!

Get More For Your Money Sale

Give customers more products or services for their money. People relate these kind of sales to getting a bargain or saving money. You could offer a buy one get one for half off sale, a buy two get the third one free, two for the price of one sale, etc.

---------------------------------------------------------
Julia Tang publishes "Smart Online Business Tips", a fresh
and informative newsletter dedicated to supporting people
like you. To find out the best online business opportunities,
to discover hundreds more proven and practical internet
marketing secrets, plus FREE internet marketing products
worth over $200, visit: http://www.best-internet-businesses.com
----------------------------------------------------------

Uniqueness is what separates each business, its services and its products. The difference gives buyers and on-line visitors a way of measuring this against that. It also makes the difference on their decision to buy.

Showing these differences takes creativity and unique ideas. Ideas that aren't too far out for the regular person to understand yet also say, "Hey, wake up, this is different.

Here are six Internet marketing ideas that might just help you demonstrate your difference.

1. To increase people reading your whole copy, place a hidden link in your ad copy and then ask people to find it. Give them a prize for finding it or a freebie, like an ebook by clicking on that link.

2. Start a members-only web site. Tell visitors what they will get for access. Offer them a free membership for something in exchange. Example: (1) having a advertising paragraph about your product on their web site, (2) posting your banner on their home page, or (3) an ad in their ezine for a certain period (balance the dollars). This is a powerful way to get more advertising on a limited budget.

3. Increase your popularity on other people's discussion boards or blogs? Exchange their mentioning your product or service on certain discussion boards in exchange for a product or services of yours. This requires tracking, however, they are testimonials and extremely valuable. This is also called viral marketing.

4. Give your visitors an instant article directory. Tell your visitors they can instantly add a free article directory to their web site by linking to yours. Just place your ad or banner ad on top of the article directory for your main product or service. All those links can add up to a large amount of traffic for your web site.

5. You can exchange articles; yours can be posted on their site and theirs on yours.

6. Create a web book website to stand out. Market it was a free web book. Design the website with a title page, table of contents, chapters, etc. Then place your ad or banner for your product or service on the top and bottom of every page.

Now it's time to ask some questions. "What ideas from this list fit your customer needs?"

You will also want to ask, "Are any of these ideas currently used on your competitor's website?" If not, what are you waiting for. Being first is the name of success in sales. Go ahead, set the precedent.

If they are being used on your competitor's website. How are they using the idea? And more importantly, how can you use it differently?

If you have a multiple items you want to implement, create a list. Add next to the list what you need to learn in order to complete this. What is the budget? If you want to delegate this to, who would that be? Do you have such a person or company now, or do you need a referral?

Catherine Franz, a Certified Professional Marketing & Writing Coach, specializes in product development, Internet writing and marketing, nonfiction, training. Newsletters and articles available at: http://www.abundancecenter.com blog: http://abundance.blogs.com

When you offer your products via an email campaign to get people to visit your Web site, or sell direct through email, you reap many rewards--you create more profit, spend a lot less time promoting and marketing, and get to be known as the leader in your field.

1. Offer improved customer service and support.

All new subscribers to my ezine get 2 free special bonus reports. I receive their email address. I keep these in a file and follow up every few months with an email "thank you" gifting them with a free special report or free email answer to one question. Customers love a freebie, and they will connect my name with any future purchase they need to make.

For coaching services, I send out a note periodically that includes all the extras I offer. My clients give me the testimonials that remind me of those extras, making it easy to relate.

2. Reduce support costs.

Your online home office costs a fraction of what a brick and mortar storefront would. Think of the rent, the gas you save! Online services cost just a little: Web hosting, Web maintenance, and an email server are a few. Since online marketing is far easier, you'll need only a part time computer or virtual assistant. Reduced costs = less business expenses. And, you will spend less time and money to reap bigger profits because your target market is all online business people.

3. Reduce your time in the office.

It's far easier and faster to use email than phones or faxes. You don't have to have expensive and time-costing lunches with associates, because you can email at your convenience. And, it's all in writing. My promotion time is now only 6-9 hours a week after one year of foundation set up.

4. Reduce the cost of doing business.

In your home-based virtual office, you will have much less overhead. When you self-publish eBooks or other information products you won't have to spend time or money on postage, packaging, or mailing. You don't spend money on printing yielding much more profit as well as reduced expenses.

When you apply online promotion such as submitting free articles to ePublishers who are crying for them, you spend around an hour or so on each article that can be recycled many times. The actual time of sending it out is a few minutes.

Even if you need to mail your product, you still will have to spend less time and money.

Using email to offer and sell your products reduces your dependence on other sales channels such as the brick and mortar stores, traveling to give talks, and writing "round file" press releases.

When you market Online, you eliminate the middleman who can take a hefty percentage of your profit--up to 90%.

My motto is: If someone else who takes a commission can't sell at least 10 times as many products as I can, I don't need them."

5. Reduce your marketing time because email communication is short, fast, and gets to the point quickly.

You don't have to spend time buying stamps, logos, special envelopes and stationery. You do need to keep track of every customer, subscriber and Web visitor. Be alert to collect every person's email address when you meet and greet. Place each one in a categorized file, so you can laser target messages to one audience at a time.

If you sell books on your Web site, you can look like Barnes and Noble reaching thousands, even tens of thousands each day. Your visitor will have an easier time to find your product because you offer only a few on your site.

If you are like me, you will enjoy keeping track of your increasing sales each month. You will enjoy staying in touch with your potential buyers. People Online are hungry for your information and product. Put your effort into online marketing and win!

Judy Cullins, 20-year book and Internet Marketing Coach, Author of 10 eBooks including "Write your eBook Fast," and "How to Market your Business on the Internet," she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, The Book Coach Says...and Business Tip of the Month at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 140 free articles. Email her at mailto:Judy@bookcoaching.com

Still marketing through press releases, networking groups, and talks to groups? If these ways have brought you few clients or product sales, you may now be ready for your virtual marketing machine, the Internet!

To get ready follow the following ten tips:

1. Buy an up-to-date computer with a 56k modem or more and Internet capability.

2. Open an email account. Bypass the freebies, because you need an email account from which you can send an attachment. You want to look professional. For you email address, don't use confusing letters and numbers. Use your name plus business keyword such as Judy@bookcoaching.com.

3. Educate yourself about email, the Internet, and your own computer program. Take a community college or adult school computer and Internet program at low cost or free. You'll notice many others like yourself there, eager to learn. More advanced students will help you each step of the way.

4. Hire a one-on-one low-cost computer/internet coach, who can give you individual lessons if you don't want to attend seminars. They can help you proceed successfully with your eBusiness. Call your local high schools, computer schools or colleges for computer-savvy student who will be happy to receive $8-10 an hour.

Connect with teachers, career centers, or student centers to start the ball rolling. Tell them you want an assistant. Make an ad that lists the capabilities you need. Be sure to follow up because schools are less business oriented and may not call you back.

5. Hire a computer assistant because you are not only a coach, speaker or author, you are a business! These assistants can send out emails, create appropriate folders of important contacts and email lists, send out appropriate email and keep your computer files up-to-date and organized.

Make them part of your virtual marketing machine at a very low cost. Use your assistant as much as you want to expand your success. You will look like a successful professional by adding new part-time staff. Start with 6-9 hours a week, and watch your clients and product sales grow!

6. Offer more than just one product to your potential buyers. Part of the plan is to allow automatic, ongoing sells for your lifetime, either on your Web site or other seller sites. If you plan to write a book, write a short one first. Then, expand as you can. Publishing a short book is savvy business because you start making money right away to fund your other projects. Divide and conquer. Think of chapter excerpts, articles, tips, or how-to lists you can email free to prospective buyers.

Incorporate a plan and action steps to sell other products that relate to your book. These could submit informational pieces to ePublishers so that your word gets out to thousands, even tens of thousands of people daily on the net. This untapped eager-to-buy audience awaits your service and product. For more information on this, contact your book and Internet promotion coach.

7. Include your five-to-eight line signature at the end of every email you send with a benefit or special book you want to sell. Include your name, email address, Web site address and phone number, local and 800 number. Include your business practice number one benefit and be sure to offer a free special report or ezine so you can collect those email addresses for future promoting. Make your email and web site hyperlinks to make it easy for your client to click through to where you are selling your products or service. Separate each email's end and signature with graphics such as ==== or #####.

8. Market your service, book, or products through writing short articles to submit to opt-in ezines. Use a search engine to find Web site ezines in your category or genre or send directly to the ezines. Your article must be compelling, concise and useful, so take care and edit it until it shines. Most editors and publishers want articles from 500-800 words.

These people want and need your free information for their ezines web sites. They publish with your Signature Box at the bottom.

9. Submit your articles to top Web sites to multiply sales. To market your service business or books, boost your Web site popularity to the top ten through the search engines by submitting how-to articles to sites with your category. Top site ezines get from 15,000 to 500,000 readers daily. These sites need your daily content, and they will pay you handsomely by including your key words that help your search engine position. Your Internet marketing coach is #3 now on Google and 35 others. When you submit your articles, the site also includes your URL in a hyperlink straight to your Web site or where ever you sell your products or service. In no time, you can be listed on 900+ other sites with a link back to yours.

10. Create your own inexpensive book Web site. Coaches can catapult their business with a short print or eBook. While it's possible to sell books on other publishers' or book sellers' sites, you need to look forward and eventually develop your own site. Authors without a site are like business people without email. You don't need a fancy Web site. Make your home page sizzle with dazzling ad copy, headings, and a sales letter. You will sell books and make your coaching practice a household word.

Be willing to do what it takes, such as hire an internet or book coach, to get Online savvy because this wonderful marketing machine is there for you and your business success.

Judy Cullins, 20-year book and Internet Marketing Coach, Author of 10 eBooks including "Write your eBook Fast," and "How to Market your Business on the Internet," she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, The Book Coach Says...and Business Tip of the Month at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 140 free articles. Email her at mailto:Judy@bookcoaching.com

(1) Create a Direct Response Website, with the minimum number of pages possible (e.g. an Index Page, a Contact Page, and an Order Page).

(2) Make sure your sales copy is positive and inspiring - people buy things because they want to improve their lives.

(3) Identify a problem and show people how and why your product or service solves the problem.

(4) Keep your paragraphs short - no more than 2 sentences per paragraph.

(5) Use bold headings to break up your sales copy into short chunks of text.

(6) Use a bulleted list to itemize the benefits of your product or service. Start each benefit with an action word: "turn", "make", "triple", "grab", "create", "build", "convert", "start", "change", "drive", "organize", "promote", "develop", "learn", "compel", "fill", "attract", "get", "earn", "take", "discover", "produce", "find", "generate", "acquire". "inspire", "send", "blast".

(7) Give your visitors at least 3 order links (e.g. 1/3rd of the way down your page, 2/3rds the way down, and at the bottom). But don't stop there - turn some of your key phrases into hyperlinks that go to your order page. Here are some examples of phrases that you could link to your order page: "increase your sales", "take advantage of this offer", "try it risk-free for 30 days", "get the following 5 bonuses", "the competitive edge you need", "this risk-free offer".

(8) Use purple (#990099, R=153 G=0 B=153) text - the color purple (used sparingly) has been shown to increase sales.

(9) Give a time limit - most people are procrastinators.

(10) At the end of your sales copy make a call to action: "Act now - don't let this opportunity pass by"

------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3
years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this
simple technique to build a successful online business. Click
here to find out more: http://ezine-writer.com/
------------------------------------------------------------

One of the most exciting things about doing business
online is the Multiplier Effect. It's the principal
factor behind some of the fortunes that have been made
on the Internet.

How does it work?

The Multiplier Effect occurs when your marketing
technique either:

A) replicates itself over and over again, or
B) feeds into other marketing techniques

A classic example of the first kind of Multiplier
Effect is the Free E-Book.

Ten people download your Free E-book and offer it from
their websites. Those ten people each get downloads
and it's now being offered on 100 websites, and so on.

The second type of Multiplier Effect occurs when one
marketing technique results in benefits from another
marketing technique.

A good example of this is Link Exchange.

Let's say you get links on 100 different websites.
When the Search Engines spider those websites, they
find your link. Your 'link popularity' then increases
and as a result, your ranking in the Search Engines
goes up.

This kind of Multiplier Effect often results in a
'feedback loop'.

Because your website now ranks higher in the Search
Engines, more people want to exchange links with you.
You now have links on 300 different websites. This in
turn gives you an even higher ranking in the Search
Engines, and so on.

Some marketing techniques have no Multiplier Effect.
For example, posting to FFA sites - after only a few
hours your ad drops off the FFA site and you have to
start again.

One of the most powerful Multiplier Effects I know of
occurs when you write Ezine Articles.

The main purpose in writing Ezine Articles is to get
them published in Ezines. And that on its own will
bring you a lot of highly targeted traffic. But the
benefits don't stop there.

When your Articles are posted on other people's
websites you get free links (from your Resource Box)
back to your website - more traffic. This increases
your link popularity and so your ranking in the Search
Engines goes up - more traffic. Eventually you'll find
your Articles appearing in Free E-Books - even more
traffic.

As you can see, this kind of Multiplier Effect rapidly
builds up its own momentum - after a certain point
it's virtually unstoppable.

Here are 2 ways you could start using the Multiplier
Effect:

1) Launch a Free E-Book

Start collecting Ezine Articles on a particular topic.
The topic could be 'Search Engine Positioning',
'Website Design', 'Affiliate Programs', 'Ad Writing',
'Choosing a Web Host', or it could be on 'Parenting',
'Gardening' etc.

When you have about 25 good Articles on your chosen
topic, contact the Authors and ask their permission to
include their Articles in your Free E-Book (with the
Author's Resource Box).

Make sure your free E-Book has plenty of links back to
your website.

The secret to making this technique work is to ensure
that your Free E-Book is closely related to the theme
of your website. For example, if you market 'Search
Engine Submission' tools from your website, an
excellent topic for your Free E-Book would be 'Search
Engine Positioning'.

Here's a tip that will help you find out exactly how
much traffic you're getting from your Free E-Book.

Make a copy of your index page and re-name it
something else, such as:
http://www.yourdomain.com/free-ebook.html

In your Free E-Book, instead of linking to your home
page (index.html), link to the duplicate home page
(free-ebook.html). This way, you'll be able to check
in your webstats exactly how many visitors are coming
to your website from your Free E-Book.

Include a short note on the index page of your Free
E-Book telling people that they are welcome to give
away your E-Book from their website.

Then submit your Free E-Book to these directories:

http://www.zdnet.com
http://www.upload.com
http://www.ebooksnbytes.com
http://ebooks.searchking.com
http://www.free-ebooks.net/
http://www.reportsearch.com/
http://www.ebookdirectory.com/
http://www.ldpublishing.com/index1.html

2) Write Ezine Articles

Whatever you do on the Web, you must have picked up
dozens of tips along the way - tips that would be very
useful to other people who are just starting out.

Turn those tips into a series of articles, give them
catchy titles and submit them to these 'article
announcement lists' (you'll have to subscribe first):

mailto:article_announce-subscribe@egroups.com
mailto:aabusiness-subscribe@egroups.com
mailto:aageneral-subscribe@egroups.com
mailto:aainet-subscribe@egroups.com
mailto:Free-Content-subscribe@egroups.com
mailto:articles_archives-subscribe@egroups.com
mailto:PublishInYours-subscribe@egroups.com
mailto:publisher_network-subscribe@egroups.com
mailto:ArticlePublish-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
mailto:subportal-subscribe@egroups.com

Then put your articles on autoresponder and submit
them to these 'online article archives':

http://www.ezinearticles.com/add_url.html
http://www.ideamarketers.com/
http://www.mega-success.com/articles/submit.shtml
http://cyberprosper.com/submit.shtml
http://www.womans-net.com
http://www.connectionteam.com/submit.html
http://www.netterweb.com/articles/
http://article_depot.50megs.com/
http://www.ezadsuccess.com/articles/submit.shtml

Think of your Articles and Free E-Books as seeds -
scatter them around and then watch them bear fruit and
multiply.

------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3
years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this
simple technique to build a successful online business. Click
here to find out more: http://ezine-writer.com/
------------------------------------------------------------

A few months ago I was watching a stream meandering back and
forth across a flat plain in a high mountain valley. The stream
reached it's destination - a small lake - but only after dozens
of loops and curves. It occurred to me that Water and clever Web
Marketing have something in common - they both follow the path
of least resistance.

Let me explain.

Your first contact with a future customer usually starts with an
email. It could be an Ad in an Ezine, it could be your Resource
Box at the end of one of your Articles, or it could be your
Signature File in your correspondence.

But in the chain of events that leads to a web sale, an email is
the point of greatest resistance.

Why is that?

Firstly, your future customer is reading your message offline.
She or he has to fire up their modem before they can buy your
product. And that requires effort (and expense).

Secondly, if your message is in an Ezine, it's probably one of a
dozen other messages all clamoring for attention.

Thirdly, whether your message is an Ezine Ad, a Resource Box, or
a Signature File, you've probably had only a few lines to
explain why your widgets are so good.

So if an email is the point of greatest resistance, what is the
solution?

The ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism (pronounced 'Dowism') -
also known as 'The Watercourse Way' - gives us the answer.
Taoism tells us to be like Water and follow the path of least
resistance. Water flows. It is soft and moves easily around
obstacles in its path, instead of attempting to go through them.

Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for
dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it.

The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid.
Everyone knows this is true, but few can put it into practice.
(Tao Te Ching, ch. 78)

"What is the path of least resistance in an email?", I hear you
ask. Offer something free!

Successful web marketers know this already. I recently did a
survey of the Resource Boxes of fifty well known Ezine Writers.
Over 90% of them were not trying to sell anything from their
Resource Box. In fact, an overwhelming majority were not even
trying to get a click-thru to their website - they were simply
offering a free subscription to their Newsletter. In other
words, they were more interested in building a long-term
relationship than they were in making a quick sale.

When I started out on the Internet, I was pretty impatient. I
certainly didn't want to the follow the path of least
resistance. The path I had in mind was more like the flight of
an arrow - straight to it's target.

But the statistics suggest that most web sales are not made like
that; on average your customer will have to see your message
seven times before he or she buys your product.

So next time you plan your marketing strategy, why not take a
lesson from Water and follow the path of least resistance?

------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3
years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this
simple technique to build a successful online business. Click
here to find out more: http://ezine-writer.com/
------------------------------------------------------------