Ways to Strengthen your Online Business: Strategy 3

Having an army of people advertising your product is the best way to boost sales. That is what an affiliate program does. This is wherein you have a network of people marketing your product/ service. Now, this is not your regular promo people that you have to pay on a monthly basis. These are people whom you pay a commission with every sale that they make. Basically you only pay when there are results, no results means no pay.

Here are some reasons why you should consider an affiliate program strategy for your business:

1. Automated advertising campaign

Affiliate tracking software is the perfect marketing gadget because you use an automated advertising campaign that will market your product or service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Everything will be done automatically!

2. No sale, no pay

The best part of using an Affiliate Program to market your product / service is that you do not have to pay anyone unless a sale is made. Imagine that hordes of people are advertising your product and they work on straight commission, and the beauty of it: NO HIRING PROCESS INVOLVED!

3. Fringe benefits

This is one benefit of Affiliate marketing that is not really noticed by many people. Even if a customer does not purchase your product / service there is always a chance that they will subscribe to your e-zine or better yet they will bookmark your site. Remember that you only pay affiliates for every sale, so without spending money you get traffic for free.

It is true that affiliate marketing is one of the most powerful ways to market your business. If you want to have a successful online business then be sure to think of starting an affiliate program. Starting an affiliate program is really easy all you have to do is place a page on your site that invites people to apply and by approaching websites you have the same target market as you. You can easily manage the program yourself; there are several affiliate softwares to choose from and one of them is AssocTRAC. This software will handle the entire process from tracking affiliate sales right through paying commissions.

An affiliate program is very effective strategy for generating massive new traffic and multiplying your sales with little effort on your part. This has been proven successful time and again by different online businesses.

Ways to Strengthen your Online Business: Strategy 2

Coffee and creme complement each other

Strategy 2: Offer back-end products to your customers

First, what are “back-end” products? Back-end products are the products that you would like sell to existing customers. According to statistics, 30% of your existing customers will most likely purchase from you again. Why? Because they had a wonderful experience shopping at your site, the product that they got from you served its purpose and most importantly you are a credible entrepreneur.

So offering these existing customers a complementary product is a great way to increase your profit. These products serve as escalators for your business.

Here are some important points that you have to consider when you are selling back-end products:

1. Introduce
It is easy enough to introduce a back-end product and it can be done in various ways. You can include a picture, the new features, etc. of your back-end product when you send a “Thank you” email to your customer. Tell them that the product that they have purchased works great, and they would be able to maximize it if they purchase this back-end product you offer.

2. Special offers
If you are going to have special offer promos, including your back-end product would just be the thing. You can offer them a discount on this product (back-end) if they buy it together with the main product.

3. Freebies
Giving away freebies is a great way of getting a customer’s attention. It is human nature that we, as consumers are always looking to get something for free when we purchase stuff. Example, when you buy a television, you expect to get a table with that right? Giving out freebies is great for customer satisfaction; also you can use this to your advantage. You can include ads / flyers of your back-end product and inform customers how they can avail of this product.

Take time to brainstorm then formulate a list of products related to your existing lineup. The key to discovering new products these people would be interested in is to identify problems that they want to be solved. From their problems come up with a solution, so these people will come to you and purchase whatever it is you offer.

Customer survey is also a great way of finding out what customers want and need. After you come up with a merchandise that fits their needs you can simply send out emails informing them of your new product. It is important that you highlight the problem they have and explain how your new product can solve it. If these customers are dead serious about finding a solution then no doubt they will purchase the product / service you offer.

Ways to Strengthen your Online Business: Strategy 1

Before we start our online business, we have to come up with a good business plan. A good business plan contains the company’s goals and how can the company achieve those goals. A business plan can never be stagnant. It is constantly reviewed and examined with the site’s traffic stats and sales figures. With the aid of these things, an entrepreneur is able to spot new opportunities for the business, identify and resolve problems, and incorporate new goals and strategies into the business.

A wise entrepreneur is always on the lookout for different ways to improve success and get more profits. That is the reason why coming up with a business plan is important. In this, series we will look at three strategies that will help your business get the profit it needs.

Strategy 1: Improve the sales process and convert relevant traffic into sales

Let us try to answer these questions:

• Do you get regular traffic on your site?
• How long do visitors stay on your site?
• How many of your visitors purchase?

The best way to improve your sales is to look into your website statistics. Statistics that we are talking about would be the traffic your site is getting, how many people travel through your site, which pages are the most popular, and where your visitors are coming from.

If we are to analyze these things, together with sales and your online promotion you would be able to figure out the portion of traffic that is actually converted into sales, and which promotions is working for your business. In short, you will get an overall picture of what needs to be changed, and what needs to be improved.

Say for example your site is getting massive amounts of traffic but your sales are low, the sales process needs to be modified. Try revising your website’s sales letter and order form.

Sales letter. If visitors are leaving your page without even going to your order form then your sales letter is not at all good. We have to change this part of your website and make it more compelling to visitors. The headline of your sales letter should persuade your target market and should contain the benefits of your product.

Order form. Make your customers life simple. Do not give them a hard time when they are placing their orders. Make sure that the ordering process is easy enough to understand and that you provide a systematic guide that will help the customers through the entire order process.

In the succeeding articles, we will discuss the other strategies that will help your business gain those profits.

Website Turn-off

Marketing your products online is a sure way of increasing company sales. However why is it that many entrepreneurs do not succeed? Part of this blunder can be blamed on the website. Although it is not written in black and white, there are some things that you need to avoid when you publish your website.

Here are some things that should not be done in your website:

1. Re-type galore! Don’t we just hate it when we type in our email addresses over and over? It is just too tedious if you will ask your customer to type it in for more than two times. Some people really, DO NOT HAVE THE PATIENCE. So let us make the shopping experience easier and forego with this redundancy.

2. Add-this / bookmark option. Some of your visitors would want to get back to your site, but how can they do that if there is no option to do so? It is important that you give them this option. You can place ADD-THIS .

3. Up front registration. Requiring visitors to register is not bad at all, however this should be done after they have read what the site is about. If they would like to browse through the site’s other pages I think that is the time that you ask for a registration.

4. Lack of search option. If your site contains a lot of pages it would be much easier for visitors to browse if there is a search box. Not every one has the luxury of clicking through every page until they find what they are looking for. Make life easier for your visitors and place a search option.

5. Usernames versus emails. Let us admit it, how many times have we forgotten our usernames for various websites? Me personally I do not remember exactly how many times but I know it has been a lot. However if you are going to ask for my email address, that one I know really well. So it would be best if you ask for the customer’s email rather than a username.

6. Unreadable captcha. The captcha works by issuing a challenge to the person or entity attempting to gain access. Captchas should not be too hard, or too difficult to understand, it is just a SIMPLE VISUAL TEST to prove that the user is humnan. Say for example I am trying to access my account with your site, I mistyped the captcha 3 times, personally I will not do it again and just let it go. If I am a potential customer then you would have lost me already because of that.

Maybe you can think of more errors other than what I have pointed out. But these 6 are like the most common I see when I go to a website. Really, if you do this it would be a major turn-off to visitors and potential customers.

So let us avoid these things and increase those online sales now!

4Ps of Inbound Marketing

Back when I was in college, we were taught the 4 Ps of Marketing. These are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. These are the basics so naturally, it is still important and we cannot work a business without these things.

The 4 Ps evolved as time went on, this is to better suit the demand of inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is anything that you do as an entrepreneur to get in touch with potential customers. Inbound marketing can be done through social networking, search engine optimization, or article marketing. The beauty of inbound marketing is that it is an efficient way to generate sales leads through associations produced by social media through inbound links, and through search engine rankings. The 4Ps of inbound marketing are:

• Personas
• Participation
• Publishing
• PageRank

Persona – Buyer personas are the basis of highly effective inbound marketing campaigns. Persona is not just limited to the profile of your target market. It also includes bloggers who write about your market niche, media outlets and current customers. As an entrepreneur, you should consider your potential customers’ goals, what sort of media to they turn to solve their problems, and what kind of multimedia attracts them.

The more thought you put into your persona, the more efficiently you will be able to connect with potential consumers, and others (bloggers) who have the power to get your name and message in front of those who need to know about you and what you offer.

Participation – The face of internet marketing has been forever changed by Social Networks. Marketing these days is all about making connections, building relationships and sharing information. It is not just about influencing potential customers by placing your marketing message across. As a marketer, you need to know that relationships are important in the process of inbound marketing.

“Once every hundred years media changes. The last hundred years have been defined buy the mass media. In the next hundred years information won’t just be pushed out to people: It will be shared among the millions of connection people have.” -- Mark Zuckerberg Facebook founder

Participate in the social web by monitoring your favorite blogs, write comments on blogs whenever your comments are appropriate, rating and reviewing products that are relevant to your market niche, posting to forum discussions that are relevant to your products or services. Set-up accounts with MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and make sure that you maximize these networks.

Publishing – Traditional marketing involves using print media, broadcast media, etc. most of these methods require a lot of monetary investment. On the other hand, inbound marketing uses blogs, case studies, eBooks, and articles. Let us compare the two types or marketing mentioned, it is obvious that inbound marketing is less expensive than traditional marketing.

Marketers rarely have to pay for advertising space given the wide variety of free content distribution opportunities available. Make sure that your content is constantly updated and always relevant.

PageRank – This is Google’s method of measuring a site’s popularity. You can increase your inbound links quickly by publishing first-rate, relevant content, and by natural search engine optimization. And the higher your PageRank, the more your site will be sought out by potential customers, competitors, and those with whom you can build important relationships.

All these 4 elements that I have mentioned is important to a company’s marketing plan. Once you have mastered each and every element developing an effective marketing plan will be really easy.

Referrals for Business

A steady stream of customers keeps the business afloat. This is what every online entrepreneur wants for their business. They hope to build a concrete and consistent stream of referred leads.

Continuous flow of referred leads can only happen if you offer an amazing product or extraordinary service. However, given the number of entrepreneurs starting their online business the competition gets tough. To get the referral tap flowing, you also need to create compelling ways to stay top of mind with your referral sources and convince them to sing your praises. Here are referral tactics I've seen start-ups use successfully:

1. Getting back on them. Among the referral techniques I have read about, this is by far the easiest. After your customers avail of your product you can say. “We expect that you are going to be thrilled with this product that you have purchased. To make sure that you have everything you need, we would also like to ask for three others who would like to get the same amazing product you have.”

2. Free gift certificate. Send gift certificates for your products to your customers and referral sources. These gift certificate can be sent quarterly, and the recipients are free to pass this on to anyone if they want. Most customers would really want to refer your product to friends and family and getting your gift certificate is the best way to get started.

3. Refund all the way. This is a fun and easy way of gaining new customers. This is how it works:

• A customer purchases from you. Send them a referral code through the mail.
• If they refer your product to one friend, and this friend buys one of your products the previous customer gets 20% back (referred customer provides the code so you can keep track of who gets the 20%).
• The person who referred her friend can get up to 100% refund of the product they got from you. So that means you gain 5 new customers in the process.

If you really want a steady flow of referrals doing the tips above would help you. These tips have been tried and tested by both offline and online businesses, and I must say it does work.

So give it a shot and see which one works best for your business.

Plan, design and then launch

In the world of internet marketing both small and medium sized business are on equal footing with huge enterprises. The internet enables them to compete against these giants. How? Through inbound marketing. All of these entrepreneurs have unlimited use of various inbound marketing techniques. These inbound marketing techniques are used to attract visitors and convert them into customers.

However, some businesses are doing it the wrong way. They build their website first THEN think of ways to generate leads. You will not be able to maximize inbound marketing if you follow this path.

If you are an aspiring internet entrepreneur developing your own website is what you will think of first. You think that since we are dealing with internet, having a website is more important than coming up with an internet-marketing plan this is a fatal mistake that must be avoided.

Even before you develop your website, make sure you already have an online marketing plan. An online marketing plan (website aspect) should include:

• Site design
• Site architecture
• Site capability requirements

I know you are thinking, “I’LL JUST HIRE A WEB DEVELOPER/DESIGNER FOR THOSE.” You can always hire a web designer and developer for those that is for sure. However, the average web design firm does not understand the connection between site design/site architecture and internet-marketing techniques such as SEO, PPC landing pages, blogging, and social media. Most of these firms are just there to develop websites and move on to the next client. They do not provide help when it comes to driving traffic and lead generation.

Always remember that your website should be able to attract traffic and capture leads. There are businesses out there who are experts when it comes to web design, development, and online marketing. These companies build websites as well as provide assistance with online marketing.

So to conclude this article, I would have to say that even before you publish your website make sure you have a plan / strategy already. This is to get better results and to be able to maximize inbound marketing. Write down the necessary stuff that you want your website to achieve. Hire a competent web designer and web developer. The firm that you'll be hiring should know the following: (1) web design, (2) development, and (3) online marketing. When everything has been put to order, then that is the best time to launch your website.