The Silent Avatar Speaks

Internet Marketing can be one of  the most effective ways of making money and running your own business online  as you need very little money to start your online business (compared to traditional brick and mortar business) and providing you apply constant and consitent effort in a year or two you can become a wealthy person.

Well, what do you need just to start making a considerable profit online through the internet marketing?

To be successful in internet marketing you should combine three main elements:

1. Find services and products that a lot of people need or require which is not inundated by competition (find a niche)

2. Find a place to endorse these products, this assumes any form of landing page (a web site, forwarded domain, a blog or squidoo lens)

3. A source of visitors or targeted traffic (that means, that people you know are searching for the product or service you may be offering).

The first question you may ask is how to find such product or services?

One way is to try EPC, which stands for Earnings Per 100 clicks or affiliate network where you commonly can find information such as gravity that is a measure of a product.

If you manage to find a product or service with a high EPC or gravity you can for sure suppose that if that product is so popular among the buyers, a lot of people require and need it.

So if you discovered this, you can safely connect your targeted visitors to this product or service and drive them to buy it in order to make income.

But in order to do this it is necessary for you to have a form of landing page of your own. It can be a web site of a seller whose product or services you endorse or you can also use your own pre-sell landing page where a useful information about your products or services are represented, so that your potential buyers can make an informed choice.

This stage of the process is very important, because supposing that the prospects are targeted you still have to help them in making the right choice. To be able to do that you do not have to be a salesman.

Actually, most people browsing the web looking for services and products and what they are really looking for is useful information that helps them to make a right decision. If you provide your potential clients with useful information on the product and services you are marketing they need you are more likely to have more sales as they will be no longer searching fro other information and buy your products.

In some cases the landing page made by a seller will do the whole job and you just have to make a redirect, but if it is not the case, you have to make an extra value by setting up a place (website, blog, lens) where the visitors can get information they are looking for to make sure that they have chosen the right way.

Have you ever put up a questions what is internet marketing in simple words? You do not require any knowledge of specific online entrepreneurial terminology to answer that. Internet marketing is about conquering a bigger part of the online market for your product.

One of the most crucial elements in the successful internet marketing plan is to make sure you get web traffic from search engines for the keywords in your niche; thus you will provide a stable inflow of targeted visitors for your products online.

Nowadays we are living in the world where information makes life easier.

That is why if you are properly armed with the information in your topic you can rest assured that you will in any case find the way out from any bad situation. So, please make sure to track this blog on a regular basis or – an ideal solution for you – sign up to its RSS feed. In such an easy way you will have a direct shortcut to the latest informational updates here. Blogs can be helpful, you just need to understand how to use them.

I’m the silent avatar and I have spoken

Tags: Internet Marketing by the silent avatar
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Every business owner knows that the key to success is how well you market your business. Your business is not any different. Your success depends on your marketing strategies.

There are many different marketing techniques, all with their own price tag attached to them, and no matter what your business you will need to develop a marketing plan that generates sufficient customers to reach your goals. No customers = no sales = no growth = failed business. Even if you are not growing you are failing as there are many other businesses to step into your shoes and take your spot.

Using many different marketing techniques will quickly drain your bank account. Your first goal will be to determine how you can reach the most people for the least amount of money.

Here is one internet marketing technique that is cost efficient and a little more adventurous for you the “Business Owner.”

Become an Expert

What is your business? Look around at your competition. How do they present themselves to the general public? How can you present yourself differently?

Go buy a local newspaper, local magazine, listen to your local radio station; watch your local TV station. Are any of your competitors currently marketing themselves as an expert in your field? Too often we get bogged down ion our own business to keep in touch with what other businessess are doing in the marketplace.

I suggest you contact your local media and discuss the various ways that you could work with them. Local newspapers and magazines will have opportunities to write “Advice” articles. Local radio and TV stations may have talk shows that could host you weekly or monthly.

Contact the various local organisations that are looking for speakers for their monthly luncheons. Your Chamber of Commerce is an ideal place to start. Join your Chamber and get an article about you and your business published in their monthly magazine.

Study your customers and choose the type of media that would reach them. Talk to your current customers and ask them to give you their opinion about which area you should market in. Find out what they listen to and what they read, and what organizations they belong to.

What type of personality do you have?

Make sure that your personality matches your marketing strategy. Radio and TV would be a perfect match for you if you enjoy speaking in front of people, have an outgoing personality and a voice that carries well. Newspaper and magazine article writing will be perfect for you if you do not enjoy speaking in front of groups.

Becoming an expert in your area of business will not take years to achieve. Stay on top of the latest news about your business. Subscribe to trade publications to keep informed about new trends. The Internet offers many ways to stay informed on any topic.

The key to becoming an expert is to take the knowledge you have and the new information received and decide how your customers can benefit from this information. Not all news is beneficial to your customers.

Your goal is to cause your customers to look at you as the one to come to when they need what you are selling. You want them to refer their family and friends to you.

Don’t be shy. Go out there and market yourself as the expert that you are. The more exposure that you receive, the more exposure your business will receive.

I’m the silent avatar and I have spoken

Tags: Internet Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, Online Business, Promotion and Marketing, Tools For Your Business by the silent avatar
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Happy New Year and let’s hope you don’t buy into the doom and gloom sayers and have a prosperous 2009!

So let’s get into my first post of 2009…

The silly season of 2008 is now behind us , however I wanted to share with you my observations as I went about my shopping with the throngs while paying particular attention to the marketing strategies being used amongst the retailers to win business, and how that can translate to online marketing.
Quite obviously, Christmas is a bumper time for retailers as they vie for the largest slice of the pie they can when people are willing to open their wallets and spend. The same can be said for online marketing.

Pay particular attention to these strategies for boosting revenue and customer numbers:

1. The first thing I noticed was the big, bold claims which literally jumped out at me from the shop windows. If the “offer” (like 20% to 50% off everything” was good enough shoppers would be attracted to come into the store and spend. This mirrors the strategy of capturing the site visitors attention with the view to keeping them on your site.  So what does this tell you? Make your offer compelling. Words really matter.

Learing to write good sales copy is an art, and it takes time, patience and skill to put together compelling sales copy which converts to sales. Top internet marketers will tell you that long sales copy converts better than short copy. though more and more I see video being utilised to deliver the message (and backed up with written copy).  This has a two fold effect by a) drawing in the site visitor by giving the site credibility (OMG.. there is a “real” person attached to this website”, and b) using emotive copy which has an effect on the reader.

2. Another thing I noticed was the “add ons” to lure purchases.  Offers like “buy one, get one free”, or additional products which were given free if you brought a certain product. Again this mirrors offering your site visitors your premium product for a fixed price, and then including additional products to entice them to buy your main product.

3. For customers who didn’t know what to buy as a gift, gift certificates were freely available. This is one area I felt could be utilised by Internet marketers to gain additional sales. Why not include gift certificates on your site? Those who are interested in a particular Internet marketing product could let friends and family know that your product/service you are offering is something they would appreciate as a gift and therefore sending a gift certificate to the recipient would give additional revenue.

4. One thing I found which was completely under utilised was the lack of capturing email addresses from the shoppers. At a time where there is an influx of buying customers not once did I come across an outlet which took advantage of increasing revenue by getting their staff to obtain email addresses to send promotional offers to their customers after the sale.  I find this lack of awareness by business owners and franchises quite astonishing, as in Internet marketing having a list of prospects (and your best prospect without a doubt is customers who have purchased from you before), is guaranteed money in the bank!

5. The other area I felt was extremely under utilised was “up sells”. Again, not one outlet when I purchased an item promoted additional products at the time of the sale. Maybe the staff had no incentive to sell additional items or just couldn’t be bothered, but without a doubt this is sales going begging. McDonald’s would have to be the king of up sells using their “will there be fries with that?” tag to customer orders.  Others call up sells “suggestive selling” and getting into the habit of offering (or suggesting) additional products at the time of sale will significantly increase your revenue turnover. It’s obvious that staff have be trained, or you havr to integrate this trategy into your web site, however with little effort this strategy can be implemented with great results.

One person to bring up sells to the front of Internet Marketing was Mike Filsaime. Mike launched the Butterfly Marketing Script with all the fan fare of a Royal Command Performance, setting the pace for successful Internet product launches. So impressed by the script and the ability to up sell to customers I purchased the script myself (when I purchased it it was significantly less to buy than it is today).  You can get a copy of the Butterfly Marketing script by clicking here.

6. Offering a “gift wrap service”. Again, offering a service like gift wrapping at this time goes a long way to show that you care about your customers, and this type opf service can mean the differnece between whether the customer recommends you, or returns for additional sales.  Gift wrapping can be brought quite cheaply when you are buying in bulk, and having a person whose sole job is to gift wrap and get email addresses can significantly increase customer perception of your business.

Any online business can offer this service as an “addon” either by charging a small additional fee, or using it as a selling point to increase sales.

7. Last but not least it was plainly obvious that the larger stores started planning well ahead for this time of the year and the additional revenue it would bring. It just makes plain good sense to plan your promotions well in advance to give your business every opportunity to succeed.

I’m the silent avatar… and I have spoken

Did you notice any other areas of marketing which were used (or not used) which impact sales? Let me know by posting a comment.

Tags: Advertising, Business Tips, Copywriting, Internet Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, Online Business, Promotion and Marketing, Web Development by the silent avatar
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Looking for ideas for small business? There are endless ideas the problem most face is, picking one and sticking with it.

One of the impending boom ideas for small business is writing. In other words, writing for other small business owners. Content is one of the most sought after prizes on the web. It’s almost like gold. The search engines are fueled by content and people go online seeking it.

But how does this affect or benefit you? Easy. You offer your services as a content writier. Internet marketing is an area where fresh content is sought on a daily basis. If you have even an ounce of writing ability you’ll never be short of work.

Content takes time to produce and many internet marketers have a variety of tasks to perform on any given day with mosty of their efforts directed to prom otion and marketing.

Ideas For Small Business

Writing in the internet marketing field can be quite lucrative but only until you develop a good reputation. Here’s the beauty of writing in online marketing. The niche choices are great and varied. Starting is not difficult and if you develop a good reputation for writing quality content then word spreads fast and your rates can be pushed up.

But at the beginning, be prepared to “write for peanuts.” With competition coming from cheap outsourced labor in several non-English speaking countries, rates can start as low as $3 for a 300-400 word article. Yes, that’s not a lot of money but by producing good work, you can quickly raise those rates with some online writers making up to and over three figures for a solitary article.

Announcing Yourself As A Writer

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. While the idea will appeal to many, just be aware there is some work to be done initially but once you announce yourself as a writer of some substance, then the pay-offs can really be impressive.

Writing is one of the ideas for home business which is not new but many overlook it as a serious home business investment. It’s a skill which you can develop even if you think you have limited writing ability now. Also, writing for the internet marketing field is a lot different to having to produce a prize winning literary piece.

Writing for internet marketing needs to be informative more than it has to be prize winning. If you think you can describe solutions in words you’re half way there. It’s definitely one of the better small business ideas you’ll come across.

Tags: Copywriting, Online Business, Promotion and Marketing by the silent avatar
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