In a previous article “Top 10 Strategies to Marketing Online” ten separate ways were listed to create buzz for a business or product, but what wasn't detailed were the intricacies of each strategy. These marketing paths entail much more than what one could put into just a few short sentences, and it is of the utmost importance to provide everyone reading with every useful bit of knowledge that can possibly be bestowed. Each marketing tactic in “Top 10 Strategies to Marketing Online” has its own specific blueprint to success, with 'Word of Mouth' seeming the most straight forward. This is not the whole truth. Sure, someone can inform another of something, but they cannot be forced to tell people. What can be done is to encourage them to inform others of a mind-blowing business or product they just heard about. The problem then is transforming a person from being an interested loved one into a conduit through which beneficial Word of Mouth can flow.
Far too often even the most intelligent entrepreneur assumes their friends and family will increase the potential profitability of their business venture just by being friends and family. While these folks are essential, they are generally not going to take an interest in a business and assist in making dreams come true if they are approached completely passively. It will take a little work, but these loved ones can become a Word of Mouth Base, or 'WoMB'. It is inside this WoMB that a business will grow and thrive in its infancy. The WoMB will initially be just the creator of the business or the inventor of the product. As this business idea begins to grow and take shape, so must its WoMB. Think of a WoMB like a network. It starts with the focal point, the initiator of the business or the originator of the product, and it spreads outward like a web. This web connects to everyone the owner of the business knows, from any co-workers, to immediate family,to extended family, to friends, to class mates. Each of these connections would then connect to their own personal WoMB, their web of contacts. Take for example, friends. Each friend has a plethora of potential conduits, in that they all have their own co-workers, family, etc. It sounds enticing, but unfortunately it takes a bit of work to change a potential conduit into a spigot of favorable Word of Mouth.
Converting a natural circuitry of acquaintances into a valuable WoMB requires much less guile and tact than it appears. It is not necessary or recommended that manipulation be employed to produce a profitable market base from friends and loved ones. In most cases a simple network of connections can be revamped into a WoMB easily by communicating the main idea to those in the first tier of connections in a network. It is imperative that those in the WoMB don't feel like they are being sold something, but that an enticing new idea is being presented and that they would be doing a service to anyone they tell by informing them of it. This way a businessperson is not asking for favors, but helping others. It is this minor shift of ideal that allows for Word of Mouth to spread like wildfire. Customarily people like to feel like they have done a good thing. Presenting a business in such a way that it is a great, helpful thing allows a WoMB to expound on that feeling. This creates a central goodness to a business that allows it to succeed in a harsh world.
Unfortunately, Word of Mouth can be a hazard as well as a boon. If the product is incomplete or poor quality then a WoMB will be unlikely to form. Without a healthy WoMB full of people backing your product, no other marketing strategy will help you. If the product does not fill a need or if it is unnecessary then it will be impossible to market successfully. There are situations, however; where a great product can be labeled poor by disgruntled customers and/or toxic people. These individuals are a cancer on an otherwise healthy WoMB, and without direct action they can destroy everything they come into contact with. Dealing with these customers is tricky. It is possible, albeit unlikely; that they cannot be reasoned with, and that they simply are curmudgeons and refuse to respond positively to any effort made. More commonly there will have been a mix up or miscommunication somewhere along the line where they felt they were promised something they were not given. If this situation can be remedied, it should be done as quickly as possible, turning that person into a benign conduit of healthy Word of Mouth. Remember, if the person feels they were wronged, they were wronged. There is no arguing with an angry person. Putting someone on the defensive walls them off. Admit fault and they will open up, allowing for them to become a potential customer, rather than a problem.
Without productive Word of Mouth, all business ventures are destined to fail. If there is no way to create the seeds of a WoMB for a business, it is most likely unwise to pursue it. Taking a risk is tantamount to taking a leap of faith. If there is no faith, DON'T LEAP. There is little reason to fear a potential success, but it is unwise to dive headlong into a pursuit that is has virtually zero chance of succeeding. If it does not feel right to present a product as a good thing, it isn't one. Such a product will receive counter-productive Word of Mouth. When that is the case, look for a new idea. Everyone deserves success, but to achieve it requires a strong foundation. Do not allow it to be torn down before it begins. A businessperson must be sure of their idea before they can spread Word of Mouth. However, once they are sure, they must do all in their power to succeed.
Keywords: Internet marketing, online marketing, strategies, advertising, website, word of mouth, online marketing
Deena McMahon is an author and entrepreneur for Americas Media Specialist, a continuing education and business development company showing people how to build business success. Get No Obligation Free Tips and Training at http://www.americasmediaspecialist.com. Find out if you qualify to be trained in having your own business at 1-800-719-8268 extension 34978.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Top Ten Online Marketing Strategies, Part One: Creating an Attractive Website
The first step to Internet marketing is the creation of your website. This will be your base of operations for all of your online marketing. From your website you will attain your name recognition, your database of customers for email marketing, and your advertisement revenue. Your website can be geared for e-commerce, a showcase for product, or an online service. These are the most successful internet ventures.
Initially, while your website is still in the idea stage, you must decide exactly what your website will do for you. While it is true that the first outline of most websites will be similar, the steps taken to customize your website must mirror the steps you took when designing your business plan. Better still, if you can create a plan for your website/online marketing concurrently with the plan for you business you are putting yourself in a prime position to succeed.
If you decide to gear your website for online purchases of your physical product then you will need to both showcase your product and provide a means to purchase directly from your website. Personally I suggest creating a separate bank account for any business transactions, regardless the size of your current enterprise. Once that is taken care of you must create your e-commerce system. Here are some easy steps to setting up your e-commerce system.
STEP 1: Identify Your Products
You will have to determine what you are going to sell online. The more products you have, the more your shopping cart will cost. You may only have one item, you may want to sell hundreds of items, or you may only wish to place your best selling items online.
STEP 2: Organize Your Products
If applicable, you should group your products into logical categories so customers can easily find what they are looking for. For example, if you were selling music you may wish to group titles in the following groups: country, rock, rap, pop, classical and jazz.
STEP 3: Photograph Your Products
The most effective way to share your products with clients is through pictures. If you want to sell, you'll need a digital image (preferably .jpg, .gif or .tif) of each product. If your photographs are sharp and clear, your website will look professional and customers will want to buy from you.
STEP 4: Receive Payment
You will need to decide how you wish to accept payment from customers. I suggest using pay pal, as it is the easiest to set up, and it does not require a fancy shopping cart program (which is usually pricey).
PayPal:
Sign up for Paypal Account
STEP 5: Ship Your Product
Unless you have a special preference, the cheapest shipping is going to be the united states postal service. They just released a new “Flat-rate box” promotion, which allows you to ship anywhere in the US for one price, which is very useful for the online business. All the USPS information on Flat rate boxes (Or other methods) can be found here:
http://www.usps.com/shipping/prioritymail.htm . Don't forget to include the shipping price into the pricing of your products.
When creating a website solely to showcase your product (This is usually reserved for things difficult to ship. For example: Real estate, Vehicle sales, basically any large big ticket items are included) the aesthetics of your website are your main concern. The appearance of your website should always be on your mind, but it will come directly to the forefront if you are trying to publicize your product. In this type of website your advertisements are going to have to be extremely calculated. Trading banner ads (Which will be discussed at length later in this series) will become important to bring motivated potential customers to your website. Your main goal in this type of website is to get your customers to contact you, so it is a great idea to post a bold link that states “CONTACT US FOR MORE INFORMATION” in big bright shiny letters. While I am generally against it, this type of website can and is often expected to be flashy. Now, I don't suggest that you use cliché flashing pop-ups, but know what you're good at and over emphasize that point. For example, if you sell homes have the text of your heading bulge angularly in the center to create the semblance of a roof. Don't forget that flashy and busy are not the same thing. If your website is painful to look at or difficult to navigate you are going to drive away your customers in droves. While this is sage advice for any website it is doubly so for a showcase website. Making your product difficult to find will not do you any favors when trying to sell it!
An online service website can be many different things, from a blog to a multi-level marketing venture to a social networking website (Like Facebook). The creation of this style of website can be tricky. Your website will need suitable explanation, and more importantly publicity. Your online service can either be free or have a cover charge, but do not assume that because you offer your service for free that you will make less money. Just the word “Free” will increase your 'traffic' immensely, which will allow you to increase your ad revenue comparatively. Most commonly your advertisements will be your largest source of income for your online service website.
Your next step, now that you know what your website will be is going through the construction process. You have several choices when you are building your site. Typically business owners will contract both of the construction and maintenance to a web design company, but that is NOT the only option available to you. Taking a course and building your own website is a viable (and financially cheap) option. A third option is to hire a content management website company, and have them build your website. A content management website is a streamlined website with an easy to edit interface, which allows you to forgo the individual costs of each edit you may want to make to your spiffy new website. All of these methods are simple enough to put into motion, and if you follow these easy steps you will be well on your way.
Steps to Hiring a Web Design Company* :
● Produce a written plan of your website ideas.
● Get estimates from as many companies as you deem necessary (at least three).
● Make sure the cost per hour for website changes/edits are included in the estimate.
● Choose your company weighing both the quality of their previous work and cost.
Steps to Learning HTML & CSS to Create Your Own Website:
● Check into any local colleges for web design classes that fit into your schedule and budget.
OR
● Look online for free tutorials in the subjects your future website dictates you learn.
● Learn Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for optimum website design.
● Pay yourself. Keep track of your hours spent learning and working as if you were being paid whatever you believe you're worth, and if it becomes more expensive to pay yourself than it would cost to hire either a content management website company or a standard web design company it may be time to re-think your strategy.
● Remember to include the potential labor cost of future website edits.
FINAL STEP
● Put your brand new website to good use and START BEING SUCCESFUL.
*= These steps are the same for a content management website or a website from a standard web design company, with the exception of a higher monthly hosting cost for a content management site due to the easy to edit interface usually driving up the monthly price.
Initially, while your website is still in the idea stage, you must decide exactly what your website will do for you. While it is true that the first outline of most websites will be similar, the steps taken to customize your website must mirror the steps you took when designing your business plan. Better still, if you can create a plan for your website/online marketing concurrently with the plan for you business you are putting yourself in a prime position to succeed.
If you decide to gear your website for online purchases of your physical product then you will need to both showcase your product and provide a means to purchase directly from your website. Personally I suggest creating a separate bank account for any business transactions, regardless the size of your current enterprise. Once that is taken care of you must create your e-commerce system. Here are some easy steps to setting up your e-commerce system.
STEP 1: Identify Your Products
You will have to determine what you are going to sell online. The more products you have, the more your shopping cart will cost. You may only have one item, you may want to sell hundreds of items, or you may only wish to place your best selling items online.
STEP 2: Organize Your Products
If applicable, you should group your products into logical categories so customers can easily find what they are looking for. For example, if you were selling music you may wish to group titles in the following groups: country, rock, rap, pop, classical and jazz.
STEP 3: Photograph Your Products
The most effective way to share your products with clients is through pictures. If you want to sell, you'll need a digital image (preferably .jpg, .gif or .tif) of each product. If your photographs are sharp and clear, your website will look professional and customers will want to buy from you.
STEP 4: Receive Payment
You will need to decide how you wish to accept payment from customers. I suggest using pay pal, as it is the easiest to set up, and it does not require a fancy shopping cart program (which is usually pricey).
PayPal:
Sign up for Paypal Account
STEP 5: Ship Your Product
Unless you have a special preference, the cheapest shipping is going to be the united states postal service. They just released a new “Flat-rate box” promotion, which allows you to ship anywhere in the US for one price, which is very useful for the online business. All the USPS information on Flat rate boxes (Or other methods) can be found here:
http://www.usps.com/shipping/prioritymail.htm . Don't forget to include the shipping price into the pricing of your products.
When creating a website solely to showcase your product (This is usually reserved for things difficult to ship. For example: Real estate, Vehicle sales, basically any large big ticket items are included) the aesthetics of your website are your main concern. The appearance of your website should always be on your mind, but it will come directly to the forefront if you are trying to publicize your product. In this type of website your advertisements are going to have to be extremely calculated. Trading banner ads (Which will be discussed at length later in this series) will become important to bring motivated potential customers to your website. Your main goal in this type of website is to get your customers to contact you, so it is a great idea to post a bold link that states “CONTACT US FOR MORE INFORMATION” in big bright shiny letters. While I am generally against it, this type of website can and is often expected to be flashy. Now, I don't suggest that you use cliché flashing pop-ups, but know what you're good at and over emphasize that point. For example, if you sell homes have the text of your heading bulge angularly in the center to create the semblance of a roof. Don't forget that flashy and busy are not the same thing. If your website is painful to look at or difficult to navigate you are going to drive away your customers in droves. While this is sage advice for any website it is doubly so for a showcase website. Making your product difficult to find will not do you any favors when trying to sell it!
An online service website can be many different things, from a blog to a multi-level marketing venture to a social networking website (Like Facebook). The creation of this style of website can be tricky. Your website will need suitable explanation, and more importantly publicity. Your online service can either be free or have a cover charge, but do not assume that because you offer your service for free that you will make less money. Just the word “Free” will increase your 'traffic' immensely, which will allow you to increase your ad revenue comparatively. Most commonly your advertisements will be your largest source of income for your online service website.
Your next step, now that you know what your website will be is going through the construction process. You have several choices when you are building your site. Typically business owners will contract both of the construction and maintenance to a web design company, but that is NOT the only option available to you. Taking a course and building your own website is a viable (and financially cheap) option. A third option is to hire a content management website company, and have them build your website. A content management website is a streamlined website with an easy to edit interface, which allows you to forgo the individual costs of each edit you may want to make to your spiffy new website. All of these methods are simple enough to put into motion, and if you follow these easy steps you will be well on your way.
Steps to Hiring a Web Design Company* :
● Produce a written plan of your website ideas.
● Get estimates from as many companies as you deem necessary (at least three).
● Make sure the cost per hour for website changes/edits are included in the estimate.
● Choose your company weighing both the quality of their previous work and cost.
Steps to Learning HTML & CSS to Create Your Own Website:
● Check into any local colleges for web design classes that fit into your schedule and budget.
OR
● Look online for free tutorials in the subjects your future website dictates you learn.
● Learn Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for optimum website design.
● Pay yourself. Keep track of your hours spent learning and working as if you were being paid whatever you believe you're worth, and if it becomes more expensive to pay yourself than it would cost to hire either a content management website company or a standard web design company it may be time to re-think your strategy.
● Remember to include the potential labor cost of future website edits.
FINAL STEP
● Put your brand new website to good use and START BEING SUCCESFUL.
*= These steps are the same for a content management website or a website from a standard web design company, with the exception of a higher monthly hosting cost for a content management site due to the easy to edit interface usually driving up the monthly price.
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