Gone are the days when the Internet was only for the geek labs and university libraries. With the emergence of accessible connectivity and affordable technology, ecommerce and online business are not futuristic concepts. Websites like Amazon and Ebay are the prime examples of successful online business ventures.
If you are planning to start your online business or an ecommerce website, you need to be careful about where you host your website. There are two things that are very important to run an ecommerce website: a well-designed, content-rich website and a host that supports seamless hosting. Remember that your ecommerce host is the backbone of your business. Imagine what would happen if there are hundreds of customers eager to pay you and your website is down or certain sections are inaccessible. Or for that matter, some mischievous hackers steals your important customer and sales database and wrecks havoc with your business. Choosing an ecommerce or an online business web host is not as simple as choosing a web host for a normal website.
As it happens with any brick and mortar business, you need to take many things into account before choosing your ecommerce web host. How many other online business websites are they already hosting? What has been their track record till now? What do the other ecommerce entrepreneurs think of them? What all tools do they provide when you purchase their ecommerce web hosting package? Along with these, let us discuss in points what makes a host good for your ecommerce or online business website.
THE HOSTING PLATFORM FOR YOUR ECOMMERCE WEBSTIE
If you yourself are not developing/coding your website then your developer should be able to advise you what business hosting platform you require for your website. You may need Windows environment or Unix/Linux combination according to your website’s development environment and tools implementation. For example, if your developer is an experienced ASP (active server pages) programmer, he/she would prefer a Windows web hosting environment, but if he/she prefers PHP, then you’ll have to go for Linux/Unix business web hosting. Although different people have different issues with both the web hosting types, it all depends on personal preferences.
THE UPTIME OF YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS WEBSITE
This is the bane of countless webmasters. Millions in revenues are lost because when customers arrive at the websites, the ecommerce websites are down or some of the critical pages are not available. The customers arrive with the intention of making a purchase but there is no facility available…this is the worst nightmare for an ecommerce entrepreneur or a business person.
Make sure your ecommerce web host manages parallel servers so that if one server goes down, the others can take over. Your business web host should give you the guaranteed security of your critical data.
THE BANDWIDTH OF YOUR ECOMMERCE WEB HOST
An ecommerce website requires lots of traffic in order to generate business because, as it happens with every business in this world, not every visitor is a buyer or a customer. 10 or 20 people do business if 1000s of visitors come to your website. You have to make provision for lots of traffic, and that too, targeted traffic.
THE STORAGE SPACE OF YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS WEB HOSTING PACKAGE
Ecommerce websites take up more space compared to normal, non-commercial or semi-commercial websites. First of all, you need an online database to maintain comprehensive inventory details. Then, you may have tens of flash files or hundreds of image files if your buyers would like to view the images or if they want to go through some sort of an online catalog. Keep your future server space requirements in mind while negotiating for an ecommerce hosting package.
THE NUMBER OF EMAIL ACCOUNTS YOUR ECOMMERCE WEB HOST OFFERS
Some business web hosts offer a limited number of POP3 email accounts that you can manage through software like Outlook and Firefox and some offer an unlimited number. Some don’t provide a POP3 email account at all and you need to manage all your emails through a web-based interface. Make sure what your email requirements are going to be and go for an ecommerce web hosting package accordingly.
OTHER TOOLS WITH YOUR ECOMMERCE WEB HOSTING PACKAGE
* Some other tools you may want to check out are: Autoresponders: most ecommerce hosts these days provide free autoresponders. * Multiple FTP accounts: You may need multiple FTP accounts if you have a big team of programmers. * FrontPage extensions: FrontPage is shipped with lots tools for an easy and fast assemblage of a basic ecommerce website but these tools need some extensions installed on the server. If you are getting your business website developed using FrontPage, you’ll need the extensions available on the server of the web host. * Secure Socket Layer (SSL): SSL can be used to collect sensitive data from your site visitors, to ensure that your emails are not intercepted online, and to provide a sense of security for your customers. * Shopping cart software: Some business web hosting packages are shift with a shopping cart.
The Real Estate business is truly unique in the sense that most people will only engage in it once or twice in their entire life.
And since purchasing property is such a complicated matter, Real Estate businesses have laboriously pursued every means to make this transaction as easy, and as informative as possible.
This explains the plethora of agents, advertisements, listings, open houses, and gimmicks realtors employ just to attract potential buyers, who, understandably so are squeamish about jumping headlong into such a big investment without thinking everything over.
However, there is great satisfaction in being able to close a successful deal with a client. This is especially true when the client is satisfied and heartily recommends the agent/broker to his friends who may be considering purchasing homes too.
Transition to the Information Age
Today’s buyers and sellers turn to the Internet first. To be competitive, Real Estate businesses have started to tap into the power of the internet. Successful websites will more than pay for themselves with the business it generates and the time it saves.
The beauty of the internet is that it puts so much information in the hands of users in an instant and in the comfort of their homes. On the flip side, sellers are now able to push that information to the buyer’s table reliably, instantly, and most importantly – inexpensively.
Real Estate businesses should realize that potential buyers nowadays desire to see many options. Before deciding on purchasing a home, they now do research on the internet, scanning for good deals and supporting information to help them weigh their decision.
If a Real Estate business does not adapt to this need, or to the growing power of information technology, it may find itself lagging behind the competition.
Inexpensive Advertisement
In America alone there are close to 70 million users of the internet. What business would not want to have advertising mileage in this medium? The cost of advertisement on this medium may cost anywhere from nothing to a few hundred dollars.
In any rate that still makes for a great deal.
Instant Communication
A buyer seeks information – what does the agent do? In the older days, they would fax documents, call long distance, send snail mail, and such. This sort of communication made facilitating a sale sometimes tedious and backbreaking.
Today’s information architecture allows buyers and sellers to shuttle mail, images, data, and others at a snap. This too is, like internet advertisement, inexpensive.
Realtors can pitch to not just one buyer at a time, but as many as can access his website. And the good thing about that is that he does not have to repeat himself for each customer.
According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) 80% of people interested in purchasing real estate use the Web in their search. If you are looking for homes for sale it can be a very daunting task. The Internet is a very powerful medium and is very useful to doing just about any research, the purchase of real estate is no exception.
Buying a house involves many different aspects, and the Internet can help you with most of them. 1. Area Research: If you are planning to buy a home in a certain area you are probably interested in finding out about the schools in the area, crime statistics, demographics, etc. If you are coming from out of state or from an area a major distance away and you don’t know specifically which town you would like to move to you could be broad in your search. For example: If you are moving from Ohio to New Jersey and you know you want to buy a home in Central New Jersey then you can go to Google and type in “Counties in New Jersey.” Once you see a map of the counties you can search within the county that you’re interested in and search Google again for “Townships in Ocean County NJ.” Then you take that list and search again to find the crime statistics etc. It takes a little time but you need to know this information so you don’t waste time looking for a house in an area that doesn’t match your needs.
2. Financing Real Estate: Obtaining a mortgage involves different aspects. You want to find reasonable rates and analyze your monthly payments. In addition, and also very important, is receiving a mortgage pre-approval. The pre-approval is important when dealing with a Realtor; a real estate agent will often expect a mortgage pre-approval in order to show a house and usually when you want to give an offer on that dream home of yours. There are many mortgage calculators on real estate websites and, obviously, on mortgage broker and mortgage banker websites. To find the best mortgage rates you still need to shop around but the Internet makes it much easier, since most mortgage websites allow you to apply online.
3. Finding the Perfect Home: Now we finally get to the whole point; your interest in finding, and buying, that perfect house! You can be broad and search for “homes for sale in central NJ” or be more specific with “homes for sale in Jackson NJ.” This depends on if you know exactly what you are looking for. In the end, however, most of the real estate websites that allow you to search the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) offer a broad area to search from. MLS’s can span multiple counties. Once you find a real estate website that covers your area, and you are comfortable with, you can inquire about the individual properties for sale from that Realtor. I hope this helps in your real estate search. Happy hunting!
To begin with, the concept behind network marketing is simple. Sharing – through product or business philosophy – is the basis of network marketing.
Network marketing is a multi-billion pound industry involving millions of independent business people around the globe. Large companies like Gillette, Colgate-Palmolive, Kleeneze Europe, AT&T and others, have all turned to network marketing because of the very real edge it gives them in both domestic and international marketing.
Network marketing is a ‘BIG’ small business, which offers everyone, with or without business experience, the opportunity to start and run a home-based business that works. It is the last frontier where ‘the little guy’, (people like you and me) can make it BIG.
NETWORK MARKETING Vs TRADITIONAL MARKETING
The traditional way of marketing products is to move them from a manufacturer through a network of middlemen. National Wholesalers, regional wholesalers, Cash & Carry warehouses, retailers, – the ‘middlemen’ – all add their ‘valueless’ percentage to the price of the product.
By the time the product or service reaches you, the end user, you’re not only paying for the product, but a percentage of the price for each and every middleman in the network.
In network marketing there are no middlemen. Instead of paying them, a network marketing company will pay you for whatever amount of product you cause to be ‘moved’.
As a sole individual operating alone, the amount of product or service provision you could ‘move’ from your own efforts, would be relatively small. In network marketing however, the amount you ’caused’ to be moved indirectly could be huge.
Here then is the essence of a network marketing compensation plan. For not only will you be compensated for the product or service provision you personally cause to be moved from your own direct efforts, you will also receive indirect compensation for the product or service provision that your ‘organisation’ ’causes’ to be moved.
YOUR ‘ORGANISATION’
To be successful in network marketing you will need to build an ‘organisation’. That is to say you will need to ’share’ the benefits of both the products/service provision and the business opportunity with others. In network marketing this is referred to as your ‘downline’.
The ’serious’ money to be had in network marketing is to be had from what is termed as ‘over-ride’ commissions from the ‘movement’ of product or service provision from the ‘downline’ your ’sponsor’ will help you to build. (In network marketing it is the responsibility of your introducing ’sponsor’ to help you build your ‘downline’.)
All you need to do initially to build a ‘downline’ is to ’share’ with others the information about the products or service provision and the business opportunity on offer.
Theoretically, if after ’sharing’ the information with others and you subsequently attracted just five SERIOUS individuals who decided to join you in your network marketing business – for illustration purposes only – your ‘downline’ could equate to the following after five levels of geometric growth:
You
You sponsor just 5 SERIOUS people into your business.
Your level 1/ 5
They duplicate your efforts and each sponsor 5 SERIOUS people.
Your level 2/ 25
These 16 duplicate your efforts and each sponsor 5 SERIOUS people.
Your level 3/ 125
These 125 duplicate your efforts and each sponsor 5 SERIOUS people.
A little arithmetic will tell you that’s theoretically a total of 3,906 people on your fifth level.
AN UNLIMITED INCOME POTENTIAL
Imagine the power of a business-building plan that would pay you an agreed ‘over-ride’ commission on each product or service provision ‘moved’ by each and every one of those 3,906 potential distributors in your downline. Network marketing then is about a LOT of people ‘moving’ a little product. The more people you introduce, the greater your income potential. Notice that I said SERIOUS people. You may find that you have to introduce 20 or even 50 new distributors before you find a person who Gets SERIOUS about the business.
If you want to toss aside the potential earnings on offer as being ridiculous or impossible – DON’T. I personally have met people who are earning £5,000 to £50,000 per month (yes per month) from network marketing for part-time effort. Though the majority of networkers earn hundreds rather than many thousands per month, (most working part-time) it must be understood then that if you are to make serious income, you must put in serious effort. No free lunches here! The professionals in Network Marketing (those that earn HUGE incomes) recognise that to become successful you must “go through the numbers”. That is, sort through lots of people until you find those people who get SERIOUS about the business.
SO HOW DO YOU CONVINCE PEOPLE TO JOIN YOUR BUSINESS?
The simple answer is you don’t. You want those who convince themselves. If they are truly looking for a way to become successful, then they’ll come to you to go after it. The key to achieving success in network marketing is not to be had by convincing people, but by helping those (SERIOUS) people who want to become successful themselves.
WHERE DO I FIND PEOPLE TO JOIN ME IN MY BUSINESS
As it has been estimated that 20% of the UK working population – that’s approximately 6 million people – would be interested in starting their own business, the marketplace in the UK alone is truly enormous. With a recent MORI poll indicating that 50% of 16 – 25 year olds were interested in starting their own business, the marketplace is actually growing.
One of the most important things to recognise is that the most precious resource available to you is in the new blood – the millions of business opportunity seekers who are not presently involved in networking. For it is there that you will find the success stories of tomorrow for your downline organisation.
The impact of the Internet on network marketing will be absolutely HUGE.
CHOOSE THE RIGHT COMPANY
In any successful business it is the quality of the product or service that is being offered that is the single most important aspect for its success.
The most lucrative compensation plan in the world will NOT provide you with an on-going residual income if the product or service doesn’t provide tangible value and benefits for yourself and your customers.
Provide a product or service that people need, want, coupled with a business opportunity they are willing to tell their friends about and you can build yourself a business empire in network marketing!
TIPS FOR THE TOP?
Tip# 1/ If you’re already involved in a network marketing programe and you’re being ’sold’ primarily on the benefits of the compensation plan with the product or service being offered as a secondary consideration, then read the above paragraph again and MOVE to a company whose products or services ‘move’.
Tip# 2/ Ask yourself this important question: Is the network marketing programme I’m considering joining one that I’m willing to share with my friends and family? The comment “I don’t want my friends and family to know what I’m doing, l want to become successful first – then I’ll introduce them!!” is almost legendary in network marketing. (A comment oftimes made by failed networkers who had no real belief in the company or the products they were promoting in the first place!) If you immediately feel comfortable with the prospect of letting your neighbours, your friends and your family know about the network programme you’re considering joining, have belief in the company and its products/service provision, have confidence in your introducing sponsor, then you have probably chosen the right company to work with.
Tip# 3/ Don’t be impatient by expecting things to happen overnight! Building a moderately productive downline in any network marketing programme takes TIME – many months not many weeks.
Tip# 4/ Read tip 3 again and avoid like the plague any company which suggests otherwise or does not require you to invest in the development of a distributor base. If your prospective sponsor in the network marketing programme you’re being invited to join doesn’t stipulate that it takes TIME to build a significantly productive downline then it’s not a business your being invited to join but a game – and one you’re bound to lose!
Tip# 5/ If you want to dine with the classes – deal in products or services wanted by the masses!
If you have tried Network Marketing before and failed, you probably chose the wrong company, the wrong sponsor, or the wrong product.
IS NETWORK MARKETING FOR YOU?
A message from the Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Tony Blair MP to the Direct Selling Association.
” I’m delighted to offer my support to the Direct Selling Association and point out to you how big a part direct selling is of our domestic market in the sale of goods and services. We’ve got something like 13% of the entire home
shopping market done by direct selling, almost half a million people are involved in direct selling and 40,000 of those are doing it full time…It also shows how, in a changing economy and changing labour market, there are great new opportunities out there.
I want to say to you that this is a good thing to be involved in and that we, as a Government recognise the tremendous contribution that people who are taking up direct selling opportunities can make to the overall prosperity of the economy. So it is well worth doing, well worth being involved in and I wish those of you who are engaged in it, the very best for the future.”
TO SUM UP
Network marketing isn’t for everybody. While some people swear by network marketing, others simply swear! (Read tip No. 3 again to find out why). To succeed in network marketing you will need determination, commitment, enthusiasm and most importantly – a burning desire for success. If you believe you have those qualities get back to the person who provided you with this information TODAY.
When it comes to website marketing and promotions, you need to start here…
Every website, whether new, old, or just a thought needs to consider the marketing that will be put that website in front of it’s targeted audience. Sounds easy huh? It just takes time, perseverance, and the will to succeed! A budget will help too!
The hardest part is sorting through all the crap that’s available to supposedly) help you. Yes, I said crap.
There is a mountain of businesses out there making incredible claims about FREE traffic generation, FREE hits, Mega sales, $20,000 in 3 hours,- or worse, for a small fee of $29.95 we can… blah, blah, blah.
Save your money! I have spent enough for all of us.
Following through with our suggestions offers you the most lucrative, ethical, and professional ways to achieve substantial results and still sleep at night. No, you don’t have to go for your wallet, I will tell you about these
programs in this article (for no charge). A good education will assist you the most.
If you already have a site, we recommend a Website Analysis.
Before You Build
1. Have a plan – Not just a good idea. Take your idea and formulate a complete plan around your goals. Highlight any USP’s you may have.
2. Build Meta-tags into every category page! This is crucial to targeted traffic success with the Directories and Search Engines. You need to be found, not by your company name (only) but by “keywords” that the general public would use to find your type of business or service. DO NOT just pick any words,this is critical!
3. Use those keyword phrases throughout your site or particular page. Reinforce what topic you are addressing within that page (content).
4. Publish an article or newsletter that shows you are an authority on the topics you cover (or try to sell). Just a spiffy sales letter is not enough. This is also critical in acquiring the email addresses of prospective customers.
5. Create some banner ads with impact for future partnership advertising. You will use these on your site as well as bannerpartners you can swap impressions with.
6. Begin considering what types of businesses or partners would or could compliment your offerings. Start a list.
7. Important: Create a budget for marketing your website.Yes, there are many things that you can implement for free, however, successful websites HAVE spent money wisely to get them to where they are. Don’t be fooled, you WILL spend money on marketing your website – it could be potentially more than what your website costs you to build. The verse goes like this… “Build it and they won’t come”. You may have already learned this, and that is why you’re here. There is much, much more, and we would be happy to help you, but this is a good start.
The Internet’s full of hyped-up promises of the ‘ultimate’ marketing secret that will singlehandedly skyrocket your business to instant success.
Naturally, this is ALL it is: hype. There’s no single ’secret’ that will magically transform a fledgling business into a powerful money-maker. Instead, every business owner is responsible for testing and refining various techniques until he or she has developed a solid, effective base that produces the desired results.
What works for one business may not work for another! Likewise, another business may have poor results with one method, while others experience great success. Here’s a quick checklist of some of the more popular — and completely free — marketing techniques to help you build your online business (note: this is a 3-part series).
PART 1: FREE ONLINE MARKETING TECHNIQUES
1. Build and use your own opt-in list of targeted and interested prospects. Offer a free newsletter that provides fresh, interesting, and relevant content. You’ll receive feedback from your readers about what’s important to them, and over time they’ll come to know and trust you. Your products, services, and even recommendations will then be taken much more seriously because you’ve developed credibility with your readers.
2. Contribute to newsgroups or discussion boards. Establish yourself as a helpful member of a community. Other members of the community who come to know and respect you will often refer you to others.
3. Niche directories or search engines. Find all the highly-targeted directories and SEs for your market, and then work to get listed. You’ll be surprised at how many niche sites there are! Good places to start
looking are http://yahoo.com/ and http://www.dmoz.com/ .
4. Build your link popularity. For example, you can trade links with other businesses in your market so that you can ’share’ each other’s traffic. Most of the major search engines take link popularity into consideration when ranking your site.
5. Endorsed mailings to other lists. Find the editor of a great newsletter, and offer your product or service to him for free in return for a review or an endorsed ad to his list. Endorsements from the editor can far outperform regular ‘ads’, since they come from someone they know and trust (the editor).
6. Testimonials. It’s fine for you to say that your product or service is wonderful… but there’s far more ‘punch’ when someone else says it! Testimonials show prospects that you have happy customers and helps them to make the decision to buy.
7. Use autoresponders to follow-up with your prospects. It has been proven time and time again that autoresponders can dramatically increase your profits! They’re also great time-savers, saving you from following up with
each prospect manually.
8. Ad swaps. You can get extra exposure for ‘free’ (no out-of-pocket expenses) by swapping ad space with another editor that caters to your audience. Plus it’s a great way to put ‘remnant’ ad space to good use.
9. Join a webring. Link to other sites like yours and build an online ‘community.’
10. Offer coupons or gift certificates to entice visitors to make a purchase now*.
11. Make good use of referral marketing. Ask happy customers to refer prospects to you. Many people are so busy these days that they’re willing to rely on a trusted friend or contact’s advice — it saves them the time necessary to do all the research themselves.
12. Write and distribute articles in your area of expertise. This is a great credibility-builder! People who appreciate what you have to say are much more likely to check out your business. Another ‘bonus’ is that articles are often archived on websites for visitors to refer to time and time again.
13. Become an ‘expert’. If you like to write and have the time to do so, consider partnering with a high-traffic site within your niche market and offer to write a regular column or article. You establish credibility and get exposure; your partner site and their readers get great content.
14. Use a ‘Recommend-It’ or ‘Refer-A-Friend’ script. These scripts let visitors send your URL to friends.
15. Make it easy for others to link to your site. Consider adding a ‘Link to Us’ section where you provide the HTML that visitors can simply cut and paste to their own web pages. Again, this helps to build your link popularity (see point #4).
16. Hold contests. For example, every month you could give away one of your products to a lucky subscriber or customer.
17. Use a signature. Also known as ’sig files’, a signature is a brief blurb about your business along with your URL and/or contact information. Put a signature on every piece of email you send out, as well as on any message board posts (if appropriate).
18. Give away a quality free eBook or report. eBooks and reports can be excellent viral marketing tools. You can even offer them as a ‘premium’ to other businesses within your niche, so that they can give it away to
their own customers or subscribers. This is an effective way to build a network that will willingly promote your business for you! More on promoting free eBooks and how they can help you can be found in the
article, ‘10 Quick Tips on How to Create, Distribute, and Profit from Free eBooks’: http://onlinebusinessbasics.com/articles/ebooktips.html Hopefully this has given you a few helpful ideas on how to market your online business. In the next installment of this series, you’ll read about several marketing techniques that may cost you money, but that can be worth the investment many times over. The final installment is all about marketing your online business in the ‘offline’ world! Stay tuned.
NO matter what business you are trying to build online, you will need sales leads if you are ever going to make sales, and sales leads are what you are trying to generate if you are marketing on the internet. In order to survive, any web site needs a steady flow of qualified leads.
The aim of any lead generation campaign is to build your mailing list. Internet marketers often say “the money is in the list”, which is totally true. A list of responsive buying customers that trust you is worth its weight in gold!
While spam filtering has lessened the impact of email marketing, it’s still a viable means to getting your sales messages out there. In theory, email is marketing is free, although of course its costs you in terms of your time. The theory behind email marketing is that by using a “hook” such as a free product or some other incentive, you can “funnel” interested parties onto specific products and services.
When you consider generating leads via an email campaign there are basically three avenues you can explore: email signatures, joint ventures and safe lists. One word of warning though, and that is avoid spam at all cost, one spam complaint can seriously damage your online business. You should familiarize yourself with the laws concerning spam, and at the very least ensure you include a un-subscription link in ALL your marketing emails. Due to spam, it is advisable that you avoid buying leads, no matter how reputable the company, buying leads can easily lead to a spam complaint, you have been warned!
In its simplest form, email marketing is a matter of putting a signature in all your emails that contains a link to your main product.
If you are looking to vastly increase your list quickly then a joint venture (JV) may well be the key you need. In its simplest form, in a JV you supply the product and a fellow marketer supplies the leads and you share the profits. Hopefully, you will then get the emails of your fellow marketer’s customers, so you can then mail them with further offers.
When considering a joint venture there are many considerations you have to think about, but the main one, before you consider contacting anyone about mailing to their list, is “what’s in it for THEM”, not “what’s in it for me”. NEVER write to a fellow marketer unless you can offer them something of value in return for their help, and that is not necessarily just a share of the profits, be inventive!
Finally you have safe lists. A safe list is a list of people that have agreed to receive marketing emails in return for being able to send their own marketing email. The value of this form of marketing has never been that good. After all you are trying to sell to people who are only interested in selling to you!
You can use pay per click advertising such as overture or Goggle adwords to advertise your site and draw in interested leads.
One other highly effective way of generating interested leads is posting in forums that are related to your area of business. Include a link to your site in your signature and people interested in your sphere of business will often click it if your forum post was interesting.
Three other popular sales lead generation techniques are submitting articles to ezine publishers and article directories, press releases and testimonials for products in your target market.
No matter what lead generation technique you employ you will need a way to capture your leads email address when they arrive at your site.
The traditional method has been to use a pop up or pop under which contains some incentive to get someone to sign up. With the invention of pop up stoppers their effectiveness has dwindled and therefore unstoppable pop ups (also know as hover ads or slide in ads) have evolved. This new generation of pop ups are built into your webpage and as such cannot be stopped. Simply do a search on Goggle for “unstoppable pop up” and you are sure to find a software solution to produce these types of pop ups for you.
The other alternative is to use what is called a “name squeeze page”.
In essence a name squeeze page is a web page whose sole purpose is to capture an email address.
They generally contain a small amount of information about the product or service you are selling as a “teaser” for the reader and will contain a sign up form, with a message like “to find out more simply fill in the form to be immediately directed to further details on this amazing product”.
A name squeeze page not only helps build your list, this information can also be used with certain software to help personalize your site for your visitor, a technique that has been shown to increase sales. Again, simply do a search for name squeeze page generators.
No matter how you generate sales leads there is one thing always to bear in mind, and that is to be effective your leads must be in your targeted market. If, for example, you are selling internet marketing products, then it’s no use advertising on a site that is all about scuba diving!
When you start to build your online business, ensure you include a well thought out sales lead generation strategy from the beginning. Do not make it an afterthought; this should be in place from the very beginning if you want your business to be a success.
Forget clicks, page views, and impressions; the only way to effectively track your online marketing ROI is through Cost-per-Action (CPA) analysis.
As the online advertising market is poised to grow nearly $10 billion over the next six years, it’s essential that we remember the importance of measuring the effectiveness of that spending. There’s no point undertaking any marketing or advertising campaign unless you can measure its results. And results are best measured in terms of return on investment (ROI).
Unfortunately, in the world of marketing and advertising, many businesses seem to be losing touch with their general objectives. The tools may have changed, but the principles remain the same – Your advertising campaigns are only successful if they meet the objectives you set out to achieve. So if you’re after increased sales, you need to measure the cost of each sale generated to determine your return on investment.
Fortunately for advertisers, tracking ROI for online advertising is much easier than it is for traditional forms of advertising, such as TV, Radio, Newspaper, Magazine, and Billboard. When you market online, every advertising campaign can be tracked and measured all the way down to the penny. This is why more and more advertising dollars are being spent online every day.
Why Not Cost-Per-Click or Cost-Per-Impression?
When it comes to tracking campaign effectiveness, many businesses rely on Cost-per-Click (CPC) and Cost-per-Impression (CPM) statistics. But what many people forget is that for most businesses, clicks and impressions don’t earn you money. So by tracking clicks and impressions, you’re not really tracking return on investment. The same is true of page stats.
If you’re like most businesses, impressions, clicks, and page views are simply a means to an end. (In fact, without corresponding sales conversions, they’re nothing more than unjustifiable expenses.) If you only earn revenue from sales, you need statistics linking costs and sales. In other words, you need to measure cost-per-action (CPA).
Cost-Per-Action (CPA)
In a CPA campaign, you run an online ad on third party sites and they charge a commission when a lead is generated or converted. It’s performance-based pricing. This means the publisher wears most of the advertising risk, as their commissions are dependent on good conversion rates.
Perhaps the most widespread use of CPA is affiliate marketing. With affiliate marketing, you determine what actions you will reward and how much you’re willing to pay per action. For example, you might engage an affiliate site to promote your business. If they generate sales for your business, you can pay them a commission. Your cost-per-action would then be the cost per sale or lead generated.
Tips on Conversion
The following conversion tips will help you plan your CPA campaign and avoid some common pitfalls.
1) How are sales and leads recorded?
For many businesses, the obvious result which constitutes a conversion is a sale. If your sale is recorded or registered online (e.g. e-commerce), it can be considered a measurable action. This means you can choose a sale as the desired action in your CPA campaign.
Depending on the aim of your campaign, you may want to measure other outcomes in addition to, or instead of, sales. For instance, you might measure leads in the form of membership registrations, newsletter subscriptions, software downloads, or just about any other activity beyond simple page browsing. So when your customer clicks register, or subscribe, or download, etc., the conversion is automatically registered and the details are fed back you’re your CPA campaign.
In either case, at any time, you can log in and view your campaign results in real time.
2) Set up a landing page to capture lead contact details
If you’re paying for leads, you obviously need to know when a lead is actually generated. Generally a lead becomes a lead only when the customer supplies you with their details (name, contact numbers, email, etc.). This means you need to set up a landing page on your site capture these details. Your capture page can be collect contact information or it can be as simple as a signup for a monthly newsletter.
3) Get your CPA provider to set up your landing page
If you don’t have the time, inclination, or resources to set up the necessary forms and database on your own site, the CPA provider can do it on their hosted server. They collect the leads and calculate the statistics. For many businesses, this is the ideal option because it saves them time and money, and there are no tracking discrepancies.
4) Find a CPA provider you can trust
If your CPA provider will be collecting leads and calculating statistics, you need to know you can trust them. There are plenty of trustworthy providers out there; you just need to find them. A trustworthy provider will find out what your exact needs are and spend time researching your niche market online. By performing this marketing analysis, your provider will be able to tell you exactly how much business they can bring you on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. If they can’t provide you with this important information, then this is a good indication that you are not speaking with a professional internet marketer.
Just as importantly, with a trustworthy provider you’ll be able to personally speak with the internet marketer who will be working on your project. This person will be an expert in the field of internet marketing, not just a sales rep.
5) Avoiding excess fees
WARNING: Some CPA providers charge a setup fee ($2,500 to $10,000) and/or a network fee (20% to 30%) for each sale or lead that is generated. Before committing to a provider demanding high fees, make sure you are getting more for your money. Most of the time high fees simply mean the sales rep is getting a higher commission!
6) Measuring your conversion rate
The Formula for measuring CPA is by dividing the total cost per advertising campaign by the total number of actions (conversions) that were received from each ad campaign. For example, if your online ad campaign costs $1,000 and generates 50 sales or leads, your cost per action (CPA) is $20.00 each.
7) Improving your conversion rate
A high conversion rate depends on several factors:
·Visitor Interest Level – The interest level of the visitor is maximized by matching the right visitor, the right place, and the right time.
·Offer Attractiveness – The attractiveness of the offer includes the value proposition and how well it is presented. TIP: Small, impulse items typically have a higher conversion rate than large shopping items.
·Ease of Process – The ease with which the visitor can complete the desired action is dependent on site usability. Important considerations here include intuitive navigation, contact info capture page, “Buy Now” or “Apply Now” buttons and fast loading pages.
In summary…
Because CPA allows you to identify exactly how much it will cost to acquire a customer, there’s no guesswork involved. You have the ability to precisely calculate your ROI. And because online tools and ad serving technologies allow you to monitor effectiveness in real time, you can even tweak campaigns while they’re still running. If you can master effective online advertising, you’ll not only save thousands in implementation costs, you’ll also reap the rewards of a far higher return on investment.
When you use computers and the Internet in your business, it’s all too easy to start feeling like you’re drowning in a sea of nonsense. Computer-related things tend to have a language all their own, and while you don’t need to know all of it, there are many confusing words and phrases that you’re going to come across sooner or later. Here’s a quick primer.
Bandwidth. Bandwidth is the amount of data that your website can send each second, as well as the amount of data that the visitor to your website can receive. If either one doesn’t have enough bandwidth, then the website will appear slowly. For this reason, you should choose a host with plenty of bandwidth, as well as testing that your site doesn’t take too long to download on slow connections.
Browser. A browser is the software (see below) that visitors to your site use to view it. The most popular browser is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which comes with Windows.
Cookie. Cookies are data files that your site can save on the computer of someone who visits that site, to allow it to remember who they are if they return. You will find that problems people have in ordering from you will almost inevitably be related to cookies — they will need to have them turned on.
Download. Transferring data from a website to a computer.
Favourite. A favourite is a website that a user has stored to look at again, by choosing ‘Add to Favourites’ in their browser’s menu.
FTP. File Transfer Protocol. This is a common method of uploading (see below) files to your website.
Javascript. A common language for writing ’scripts’ on websites, which are small programs that make the site more interactive. Another common cause of problems for visitors.
JPEG. Joint Photographic Experts Group. This is the name of the most popular format for pictures on the web, named after the group that came up with it. If you want to put pictures on your website, you should save them as JPEGs.
Hardware. Hardware is computer equipment that physically exists. It is the opposite of software.
Hosting. If you’ve got a website out there on the Internet, then you’ll be paying someone for hosting. It is the service of making your site available for people to see.
HTML. HyperText Markup Language. A kind of code used to indicate how web pages should be displayed, using a system of small ‘tags’. The ‘b’ tag, for example, causes text to appear in bold, and the ‘img’ tag displays a picture.
Hyperlink. A hyperlink is when a piece of text on a website can be clicked to take you to another site, or another page on the same site. For example, if clicking your email address on your website allows someone to email you, then your email address is a hyperlink.
Programming. This is when the computer is given instructions to tell it what to do, using one of many ‘programming languages’. Programming languages for the web include PHP and Perl.
Server. The server is where your website is stored, and it is the server that people are connecting to when they visit the site. If someone tells you, for example, that your server is ‘down’, it means that your website is inaccessible. Note that server refers both to the hardware and software of this system.
Software. Programs that run on the computer, or that make your website work. Microsoft Word is software, for example, as is Apache (the most popular web server software). Opposite of hardware.
Spider. Don’t be scared if a spider visits your website! Spiders are simply programs used by search engines to scan your site and help them decide where it should appear when people search. It is good to be visited by spiders, as it means you should start appearing in search engines soon.
Upload. Uploading is when you transfer data from your own computer to your website. For example, you might upload your logo, or an article you’ve written. Opposite of download.
URL. Uniform Resource Locator. This is just a short way of saying ‘web address’, meaning what you have to type in to get to your website. Sometimes pronounced as ‘Earl’.
Most home business owners are involved with affiliate marketing. As an affiliate marketer, a combination of techniques can be used to promote your affiliate website and/or link. Here are five things you can do to help with your promotional efforts resulting in increased affiliate sales.
1. Become an “expert” on the product
The most successful affiliate marketers are “experts” on the products they promote. To become an expert, it’s highly recommended that you purchase the product yourself to gain first-hand experience using it. If you cannot purchase the product, you must thoroughly research it until you become familiar and knowledgeable enough to promote it.
2. Participate in chat rooms related to the product
You can start your own chat or join an existing one. Do not try to selling initially, but during your chat, mention the product you’re promoting and describe its benefits. If there is interest in your product, you can then refer them to the product through your affiliate link. The same concept holds true for forums and discussion boards.
3. Write your own affiliate program ads
Most merchants will provide pre-written ads for their affiliates to use. If you write your own ad, or make significant changes to the one that’s pre-written, your ad will stand out from the others. Done properly, this will give you a great advantage over those affiliates that are using the same ad as everyone else.
4. Create a free newsletter or ezine
Submit your newsletter to the ezine directories and promote it on your website. Keep in mind that most subscribers are interested in receiving “information” that can help them. If you use your mailing list solely for selling, you will never gain credibility and will end up with a high unsubscribe rate. After you’ve developed a relationship and the trust of your subscribers, you can then recommend the products you are promoting
5. Create a free ebook
As part of your ebook, include an advertisement and a link to your affiliate website. The ebook can be given away free or used as an incentive to sign up for your newsletter. Submit your ebook to the ebook directories and offer it to other webmasters for inclusion on their website. The more exposure your ebook receives, the more sales you can make.
