I thought: “Doing business on the Internet is simple, right?”
Have a product of your own to sell, or sell someone else’s, build a website or have someone build it for you, and you too can become an instant millionaire working from home in your PJ. We’ve all heard these stories, and unfortunately for many, right now the world is full of people in boardrooms or on the internet, convinced that this is fact. It is not! The chances of getting rich aren’t too bad if you work, learn, and apply what you learn to your business, but the chances of getting rich quick are about the same as winning the lottery! The sad reality is that most people who try to do business on the Internet will not succeed, they will eventually give up and lose, not make, money in their Internet home business.
Is doing business online easy? Yes and no.
The CONCEPT is simple (in fact it is the same as for a retail store, a local service or an old fashioned profession). Have a good product – locate customers or customers who need (and/or want) your product – make these customers or customers aware of your product and convince them of the benefits of your product – make them an offer that will convince them to buy your product or service – make the sale and deliver the product with great service – and ultimately turn these customers or customers into missionaries who will tell everyone they know about you and your product. In terms of internet marketing; have a good product to sell – have a place to sell it (a website or blog) – attract leads or customers to your website or blog – capture the address of these prospects for follow-up – convert these prospects into buyers who will provide referrals – resell to your buyers (much easier and cheaper than getting new customers).
Let’s expand that a bit:
- Have a plan: Know what you want to do.
- Conduct market research to determine what products people want to buy.
- If you don’t have your own product, select other’s products to sell.
- Create effective platforms (websites or blogs) to sell products.
- Drive traffic to your site (there are many ways).
- Capture the addresses of your site visitors for legitimate tracking without spam.
- Turn prospects into buyers and repeat buyers.
- Deliver your products or services.
- Collect your money.
Each of these steps has multiple techniques or strategies to achieve them, so yes, the concept is simple, but knowing how to implement the strategies and techniques to achieve it is another matter.
I urge you to learn the basic strategies and techniques of internet marketing and doing business on the internet before committing a large amount of time and money without knowing what you are doing. The learning curve is steep and expensive. I thought internet marketing my services and products on the internet would be easy. I was wrong. Oh sure, you can find any number of “internet gurus” who will give (or sell) you a “can’t fail” system, but you can be pretty sure of two things:
- You will be offered “upgrades” or “support programs” that will be expensive.
- The “Internet Guru” will have given (or sold) the “can’t fail” system to hundreds, maybe thousands, of other people, many of whom are highly experienced and knowledgeable about Internet marketing. They will be your competition.
Think about that for a minute. Do you need, or can you afford, upgrades or support programs? How can you be sure that your site will be at the top of the rankings and your conversion rate will be such that you don’t lose valuable visitors (leads) who find your site? I’d like to see if I can help. I’m going to set up a series of ezine articles that will cover the basics and provide some references to additional resources.
Here’s what the series will cover:
- Have a plan: Know what you want to do and plan how to do it.
- How to select products to sell on the Internet (if you don’t have your own).
- How to do market research to determine what products people are looking for.
- How to build effective platforms (websites and/or blogs) to sell these products.
- Where you can get pre-built sites if you can’t, or don’t want to, do it yourself.
- Drive traffic to your site (critical). There are many ways – we’ll cover 8 or 10.
- Build a list and communicate effectively with autoresponders.
- Convert prospects into buyers and repeat buyers.
- And finally – My thoughts on MLM (Multi-Level-Marketing).
Stay tuned for the series (Business – Small Business).
Until the next article, For you and for your success!