Friends,
About 50% of people who contact me requesting sales copy for their websites are absolute newbies. They have no previous sales experience and no marketing experience. So how the heck are they ever going to make it with their fledgling web businesses? Sadly, many don't and become totally disallusioned with the Internet. But if only they would take in some sound advice.
I've been a professional copywriter for more than 15 years and I've seen literally hundreds of different business models. Some good, some not so good. Some of my clients have gone on to make incredible amounts of money and some have failed miserably. Those that have made it, simply followed the rules. Now listen up, because I'm only going to say this just one time.
"Many online business owners continually make the mistake of focussing solely on the sales of their products or services. Then wonder why they end up spending all of their profits on advertising costs.
And many online businesses today, whether large or small and regardless of whether they sell products or services, completely miss their targets. Some online businesses fail miserably, simply because they misunderstand the principles of successful e-commerce. Many individuals and companies tend to focus solely on selling and nothing else. That’s a big mistake.
And quite often it can be a very costly mistake. When products and services are not selling as well as expected, many online business owners tend to make many more mistakes. They may reduce the prices of their products or services and hope that this will lead to more sales. But it only results in them making less profits.
They may spend more on advertising, wrongly believing that this will bring more sales due to more exposure. But it just ends up costing them more and further reducing their profits on any possible sales.
Some online businesses will go to any length to make sales, or increase sales, and that includes having their whole website redesigned, stocking a larger range of products, giving away endless discounts etc. etc. Any of these actions might increase their sales slightly, but they’ll never hit the big money league if they continue to adhere to this type of marketing strategy.
So, what is the answer?
Well, let’s get right back to basics. Every online business owner must ask themselves these simple questions:
1. What kind of person will buy my products or services? The obvious answer is…The kind of person who is interested in your products or services. So rule #1 is: Find and target your market.
Next question:
2. Will my customers buy on their first visit to my website? Answer: Most will not! So rule #2 is: Follow up with your customers. And the best way to do this is to encourage them to sign up to a free newsletter, which should contain valuable information about your company’s products and services. It’s important for online business owners to remember that people surf the Internet for information. Simply give them the information they want and eventually they’ll buy your products.
Next question:
3. How should I deliver my newsletter and how often should I send it to them? Answer: Set up an autoresponder and send them your newsletter at least once a month. These days any online business can be fully automated so there’s no excuse for not keeping in touch with customers. Your newsletter should contain interesting information, product offers, product reviews, perhaps a survey and just about anything else that might make your publication appear friendly and acceptable to your market.
Next question:
4. How do I get traffic to my website without spending all of my profits on advertising? Answer: Fill your website with valuable and interesting content. This is where many individual online entrepreneurs and marketers score way ahead of their competition. A website that has lots of interesting content will outsell any website promoting similar products or services…every time…guaranteed!
Whilst large companies tend to rely solely on expensive advertising to bring traffic to their websites, the savvy Internet marketer can get 10 times more traffic for free. Writing and submitting articles to article directories has proved to be the most cost effective online marketing strategy of all time. But that’s not all. Writing interesting and informative descriptions of products and services based on the benefits of those products or services will outscore any type of ad…every time…guaranteed!
So what have learned here?
● Online business owners must first, fully focus on targeting their market.
● The #1 priority of any online business is to build a list of customers and prospects.
● You MUST follow up with your customers, befriend them and keep them informed.
● Automate the whole process of capturing email addresses and sending out newsletters.
● Fill your website with interesting and informative content, which includes articles and product descriptions.
Instead of focusing completely on making the sale, change your focus to befriending your customers then sales will surely come. If you haven’t heard it said already, “the money is in the list”. Build a list of responsive prospects, keep them entertained and informed then the wealth that every online business owner craves will come…guaranteed!
It really is that simple. Just focus on building a list, and not outright selling.
If you had a list of say 10,000 subscribers to your newletter, and you then decided to go for a sale with a product that you know for sure your prospects will be interested in, you will make serious money. So, let's say your target market is gardening. It could be absolutely anything but I'll use gardening as asn example. Your list are receiving your newsletter each month, which is filled with tips and useful information right?
Okay, so you write an ebook about how to keep your garden in tip-top condition spending just 2 hours a week. Make sure you list all the benefits of discovering this vital information and remind them what they could be doing with all the time they save.
So you send out a friendly, sales-pitch-type email to your list offering them a big discount on your new book. You tell them you're going to sell it for $37.95, but they can get it for just $29.97. From 10,000 subscribers, you get an immediate 5% positive response. That's 500 sales!
500 x $29.97 = $14,985
Follow up with 10 -20 of those that didn't buy and offer to give them a free copy of the book in return for their testimonial. So let's say, in comes 8 positive testimonials. Copy these into an email, together with your original offer and send it to all those that didn't buy first time. Chances are you will convert another 5%. That's 475 additional sales!
475 x $29.97 = $14, 235
That's a total of $29,220. If you did this or something similar every month you'd pull in around $360,000 a year. And if that isn't enough, just create another website, target a different market, follow the same format and repeat the process. Simple or what?"
Moral: GET LIST BUILDING
Till next time.
Bill
www.knight-writer.co.uk
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Video Advertising on the Horizon
Hi friends,
Being a freelance web copywriter I have to keep an eye on the changes that abound on the Internet. I need to know what area of marketing will work for my clients and what doesn't, and the only way I can know is to try various aspects of advertising. The long web page sales letter is still by far the frontrunner when it comes to selling individual products, but all that could soon change. And instead of writing sales copy, I could soon be writing scripts and screenplays.
I'm talking about the rising popularity of video. There's no doubt, Internet advertising is evolving. Who will continue to use PPC and other traditional means of advertising, when video is streaming onto computer monitors all around the world?
Keeping with Tradition or Moving with the Times?
When any new business is first launched on the Internet, priority must be given to acquiring customers. Many webmasters spend far too much time concentrating on search engine optimization, and although this is valuable, it should be considered as a long-term tactic. What’s more important is, without a solid advertising and marketing strategy a new Internet business will never get off the ground.
Every single website owner operating any kind of business on the Internet faces the same single challenge. How to drive traffic to their websites? Without traffic there are no customers and without customers there will be no sales. The answer is to advertise, but what is the most effective means and more importantly what is the most cost-effective means?
Let’s consider the options. Pay Per Click on any search engine is effective but as Google is the top dog, then it stands to reason that if Google attracts more users then this is where you’ll find more prospects and potential customers. But, as many online marketers have discovered to their detriment, PPC advertising can be the quickest road to going broke. The advantage is, almost instant traffic. The same effect, although to a lesser degree can be experienced with Yahoo and MSN.
So what else can you do? There’s email marketing, but beware scamsters and shisters and just about every other rip-off merchant are operating unhindered in this field. Anyone can build an email list very quickly by using ‘email harvesting’ software, then rent or sell the list to unsuspecting marketers. Desperate for traffic many marketers will gladly hand over their cash for these lists only to find their websites have been taken down or banned for spamming.
Email marketing can be a very useful marketing tool but it’s highly advisable to always use a reputable list broker. Choose one that guarantees delivery of your email and offers some way of tracking results.
Another method of getting your message out there is article marketing. It runs in close parallel with press releases for getting results but costs nothing, other than a little time. Basically, you write an interesting article about a subject similar to the product or service you want to promote. You can’t blatantly advertise, so the article has to be skillfully crafted to include benefits and features of your product or service without actually mentioning it.
You are allowed to include a resource box at the end of your article, which will include your name, bio and a link back to your website. You then submit your article free, to the main directories such as, Article City or Ezine Articles and wait. The idea is that people looking for free and relevant content for their websites will download your article in its entirety and feature it on their website. Hence you get free promotion. Press releases do very much the same thing.
One of the most effective methods of advertising online today is to find someone who is promoting a similar product or service to yours and who has a large list of subscribers to their newsletter or ezine. Simply contact the webmaster or business owner and ask if you can place an ad in their publication. Most will be happy to accommodate and even recommend your product or service to their list, for a fee of course. They might even offer to promote your products to their list and to other similar lists for a percentage of the profits. This is generally known as a joint venture and works well for both parties.
Next, you might consider setting up an affiliate program. The idea is to get as many people as possible promoting your products all over the Internet. Think of it as building a sales team. Each member of your team will make sales for you in return for a percentage of the sale. To see how this works, visit Clickbank.com or Commission Junction.com.
All the methods mentioned have been tried and tested and are effective in producing varying degrees of success, but the Internet is evolving. As more and more people access the Internet via a broadband connection, video advertising is set to explode.
Time to Put on Your Make-Up and Get Ready for the Curtain Call
Currently online video advertising represents a tiny fraction of the overall advertising market with a total spend of just $121 million last year compared with $9.5 billion for all other online media, according to Jupiter Research.
And according to ‘The Online Publishers Association’, 25% of all Internet users now watch video online at least weekly. Because of these statistics, it is predicted that there will be a 70 percent increase in online video advertising spend next year. The top video aggregators have reported daily video streams in the millions, which goes to prove that the audience is there.
All this adds up to the prospect of the Internet heading for direct ad competition with television. New technical capabilities include adding an interactive Flash layer to streaming video. At the forefront of this emerging rich media technology are companies like Klipmart, Eyewonder, United Virtualities, Eyeblaster and Viewpoint.
So, where can marketers place their ads? The media buyers ClickZ highly ranked MSN in terms of service, implementation and original video content. Also, Yahoo, via its Yahoo Music audio and video destination (formerly LAUNCH), is primed for a big video roll-out.
As video begins to impact on the online advertising scene, we’re also likely to see an upsurge in multimedia search engines. And the most exciting part about video advertising is that anyone can produce their own visual ad, just as they now compete with others for their share of the market via traditional means.
It’s time to put on your make-up, write a convincing advertising script and become star of your own marketing show.
Anyone need a script writer?
Till next time.
Bill
www.knight-writer.co.uk
Being a freelance web copywriter I have to keep an eye on the changes that abound on the Internet. I need to know what area of marketing will work for my clients and what doesn't, and the only way I can know is to try various aspects of advertising. The long web page sales letter is still by far the frontrunner when it comes to selling individual products, but all that could soon change. And instead of writing sales copy, I could soon be writing scripts and screenplays.
I'm talking about the rising popularity of video. There's no doubt, Internet advertising is evolving. Who will continue to use PPC and other traditional means of advertising, when video is streaming onto computer monitors all around the world?
Keeping with Tradition or Moving with the Times?
When any new business is first launched on the Internet, priority must be given to acquiring customers. Many webmasters spend far too much time concentrating on search engine optimization, and although this is valuable, it should be considered as a long-term tactic. What’s more important is, without a solid advertising and marketing strategy a new Internet business will never get off the ground.
Every single website owner operating any kind of business on the Internet faces the same single challenge. How to drive traffic to their websites? Without traffic there are no customers and without customers there will be no sales. The answer is to advertise, but what is the most effective means and more importantly what is the most cost-effective means?
Let’s consider the options. Pay Per Click on any search engine is effective but as Google is the top dog, then it stands to reason that if Google attracts more users then this is where you’ll find more prospects and potential customers. But, as many online marketers have discovered to their detriment, PPC advertising can be the quickest road to going broke. The advantage is, almost instant traffic. The same effect, although to a lesser degree can be experienced with Yahoo and MSN.
So what else can you do? There’s email marketing, but beware scamsters and shisters and just about every other rip-off merchant are operating unhindered in this field. Anyone can build an email list very quickly by using ‘email harvesting’ software, then rent or sell the list to unsuspecting marketers. Desperate for traffic many marketers will gladly hand over their cash for these lists only to find their websites have been taken down or banned for spamming.
Email marketing can be a very useful marketing tool but it’s highly advisable to always use a reputable list broker. Choose one that guarantees delivery of your email and offers some way of tracking results.
Another method of getting your message out there is article marketing. It runs in close parallel with press releases for getting results but costs nothing, other than a little time. Basically, you write an interesting article about a subject similar to the product or service you want to promote. You can’t blatantly advertise, so the article has to be skillfully crafted to include benefits and features of your product or service without actually mentioning it.
You are allowed to include a resource box at the end of your article, which will include your name, bio and a link back to your website. You then submit your article free, to the main directories such as, Article City or Ezine Articles and wait. The idea is that people looking for free and relevant content for their websites will download your article in its entirety and feature it on their website. Hence you get free promotion. Press releases do very much the same thing.
One of the most effective methods of advertising online today is to find someone who is promoting a similar product or service to yours and who has a large list of subscribers to their newsletter or ezine. Simply contact the webmaster or business owner and ask if you can place an ad in their publication. Most will be happy to accommodate and even recommend your product or service to their list, for a fee of course. They might even offer to promote your products to their list and to other similar lists for a percentage of the profits. This is generally known as a joint venture and works well for both parties.
Next, you might consider setting up an affiliate program. The idea is to get as many people as possible promoting your products all over the Internet. Think of it as building a sales team. Each member of your team will make sales for you in return for a percentage of the sale. To see how this works, visit Clickbank.com or Commission Junction.com.
All the methods mentioned have been tried and tested and are effective in producing varying degrees of success, but the Internet is evolving. As more and more people access the Internet via a broadband connection, video advertising is set to explode.
Time to Put on Your Make-Up and Get Ready for the Curtain Call
Currently online video advertising represents a tiny fraction of the overall advertising market with a total spend of just $121 million last year compared with $9.5 billion for all other online media, according to Jupiter Research.
And according to ‘The Online Publishers Association’, 25% of all Internet users now watch video online at least weekly. Because of these statistics, it is predicted that there will be a 70 percent increase in online video advertising spend next year. The top video aggregators have reported daily video streams in the millions, which goes to prove that the audience is there.
All this adds up to the prospect of the Internet heading for direct ad competition with television. New technical capabilities include adding an interactive Flash layer to streaming video. At the forefront of this emerging rich media technology are companies like Klipmart, Eyewonder, United Virtualities, Eyeblaster and Viewpoint.
So, where can marketers place their ads? The media buyers ClickZ highly ranked MSN in terms of service, implementation and original video content. Also, Yahoo, via its Yahoo Music audio and video destination (formerly LAUNCH), is primed for a big video roll-out.
As video begins to impact on the online advertising scene, we’re also likely to see an upsurge in multimedia search engines. And the most exciting part about video advertising is that anyone can produce their own visual ad, just as they now compete with others for their share of the market via traditional means.
It’s time to put on your make-up, write a convincing advertising script and become star of your own marketing show.
Anyone need a script writer?
Till next time.
Bill
www.knight-writer.co.uk
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