Turn a blind eye to your marketing efforts and you’ll soon find yourself headed down a dark alley littered with failure and without an exit. Sound gloomy? It is, but with the right roadmap, instead of making a wrong turn, you can follow the road to success. It’s not that difficult, you simply must have a plan.
I was listening to a call in show today; a man called the hosts asking how he could decide what his true calling in life was. What he meant was this… ‘how can I find out what I really want to do in life and not just have a job?’
For us in Internet Marketing, we might not have a 9 to 5 job, but if we don’t treat our work AS A business, we have little chance at success.
FIRST AND FOREMOST
Choose something that you like, that you’re good at, and that you have some knowledge of.
If you’re on any email lists (I’m on several) not a day goes by without receiving a sales letter (or a clickable link) that purports to have the latest and greatest techniques to make you wealthy. And while some are great, lately I’ve started deleting them left and right. Why? Simply that I’ve found what I’m good at and everything else is a distraction.
Once you find your niche market, then market it. Stop jumping from one program to another, never accomplishing anything with program one, before jumping on program two. Pick it… Then Stick it… (read – stick with it) That’s my new motto.
What do you know and love, that’s what you should build your business around.
Why would someone choose to purchase from YOUR site, rather than a brand name site?
Simple, because of you and how you present yourself. There’s an old song from long ago about personality…
’cause you got personality,
Walk, personality
Talk, Personality
Smile, Personality
Charm, personality
Love, personality
And of Cause you’ve got
A great big heart
So over and over
Oh, I’ll be a fool to you
Now over and over
What more can I do?
And while adding personality might be an oversimplification, it doesn’t miss the mark by much. What ingredients can you add to your online business that makes it unique? Find it, implement it and begin to be a unique presence in cyberspace.
How did they find you?
Do you know how your visitors found your site? If you don’t you are losing revenue and may be spending advertising dollars in the wrong place. It’s vital that you know where your visitors are coming from, how they found you, if they stay on your site or click off. This isn’t an impossible task; in fact on a basic level it’s easy. My sites run on UNIX, your may run on Windows, but all will have some method of examining your traffic.
Which search engines are sending you traffic?
What search terms are used to find your site?
What other sites are linking to you?
Which page is the MOST visited on your site?
How long do visitors remain on that page?
Once you’re armed with this data, you can use it to refine your marketing efforts, targeting the markets that will give you the MOST bang for your buck. Or, if you’re like me, write more articles about a variety of subjects.
The Money Is In the List
That’s a somewhat tired expression for a timeless truth, if you’re not building a list; you are losing in the long run. By this I’m not talking about sending a sales letter, I get them every day and like I said earlier, I delete most of them. I’m also subscribed to some tremendous lists that offer solid information in an informative manner. This is the type of list I’m talking about.
Keep in touch with those who found you, offer something of value if they’ll join your list. Promise (and stick to it) the fact you will NEVER sell their name or send spam. If you occasionally have a terrific offer, it’s okay to send it, but be certain that is the exception and not the norm.
In today’s marketplace, many are simply surviving on adsense clicks, and while there is nothing wrong with that, the adsense market has and is evolving. There needs to be a reason for people to return to your site and your newsletter (or ezine) is a vital piece of the marketing pie. Use it to your advantage, misuse to your detriment. It’s certainly possible to provide a snippet of information in your newsletter, with a link that leads back to your site; this has been used with excellent result in the adsense world. Your readers enjoy hearing from you, reading relevant information, and then clicking a link that returns them to your site where they may in turn click a revenue producing link.
Pride of Ownership
If you have a home, do you keep it looking pretty? You know, cut the grass, clean the gutters, paint the awnings, etc. I do, not only does it keep the property value intact, it gives me a sense of pride, I know my house looks good and when I entertain family and friends, I’m proud, not embarrassed but how things look or something I forgot to clean up. The same should be true for the products you sell or promote. Make sure they are top notch. Remember the old expression.
You can all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.
Today, in our electronic age, if you sell a product that isn’t up to par, not only will that person never cross your cyber threshold again, but they’ll tell others, maybe tell the tale in forums, soon, this tale of tragedy can circulate around the world and you just might be out of business. That’s the bad news, the good news? The reverse is also true, when you offer something of true value, the same process works; people talk, share and exhort the virtues of you and your product. Go the extra mile with customer service, you won’t be costing yourself anything and you might gain a customer for life.
Procrastination
Procrastination is rampant on the net and I have to personally kick myself in the behind sometimes, but believe me, it’s worth the effort. Proof, in the early days of my Internet career I bought a site on Ebay. The site was nicely laid out, beautiful graphics, good code, had possibilities for the future, I anxiously made my final bid and I WON! You know where the site sits today? On my hard drive, the same place it was when I first bought it. I procrastinated and did nothing with my beautiful site. DON’T do it. Nothing in life and nothing on the net comes easy. Can you make a good living on the Internet? You betcha, but you must develop a marketing plan, then stick with it. My plan is to write articles, some of these titillating tales get me a lot of traffic, others hardly any; but no matter what, I keep writing. No one, unless you pay them, is going to do the work for you.
To sum, find your passion, then light your fuse and NEVER look back. The entire world is your marketplace and what years ago would have costs you thousands of dollars to accomplish, now can be done with just your time, talent and tenacity.
Rahn is an accomplished author, director and world traveler. During those travels, jumping from flight to flight, bivouacking under spartan conditions, carrying sound and video equipment to remote places, relaxation and visualization became part of his daily life. Rahn recently completed “Mind Mastery” [http://mind-mastery.net] (a CD that teaches how to access the hidden reaches of mind and unlock your potential). You can read more of his writing at Unleash The Power Of Your Subconscious [http://unleashthepowerofyoursubconscious.com/freedownload.html] (which offers a free download of several chapters), and Find-Read-Discover.com [http://find-read-discover.com]
Leave a Reply