1.1. Selling Products When you sell a product you can either carry
out the whole operation of handling orders, stocking and shipping the goods, processing
the payments OR simply market for a company that will handle all the administration
for you.
Your job is merely to get the orders to the company and then receive
commission. What product sells well on the Internet ?
The item that has been
hailed as the number one business product of the future is . . . INFORMATION.
Examples of highly successful information products are the 'how- to' and self-improvement
books. If you are knowledgeable about a particular subject you could consider
writing and developing your own product and delivering it via Email.
1.2. Selling Services One advantage of selling a service is that you can
often generate a 'residual' commission - a monthly income all the while that the
customer continues to use the service. What service is suitable for online selling
? As the Internet boom continues the most obvious candidate is any service which
assists companies in using the Internet. For a superb example look no further
than the familiar autoresponder. An autoresponder spends 24 hours a day delivering
information to inquirers from classified ads or news articles. If you have ever
had to reply manually to 100 responses to an ad you will realize the importance
of an autoresponder to any business setting up on the Internet: in a word . .
. INDISPENSABLE.
HOW TO ADVERTISE
2.1. The 2-STEP
Approach The usual method of advertising is to have short Classified Ads which
leave the reader in a state of enticement, so that he then asks for the full detailed
information in your sales letter, ideally sent by autoresponder. The purpose of
the ad is not to try to sell the product - it is simply to get interested people
to respond. As your ad may be competing with dozens of others in the same publication
you must aim for a winning headline to make it stand out. Use key words which
attract readers such as . . . Free, How, You , Money, Secret.
2.2.
Using a Signature File A Signature File is a section of text that you place
at the end of your articles or Email messages. It should contain contact details
and a brief summary of what your company offers.
WHERE TO ADVERTISE
3.1. Where to place Classified Ads Online Services Classifieds:
The major online services such as AOL, Compuserve, Delphi, Genie, Prodigy, MSN
have sections for placing classified ads. Ezines (newsletters): Ezines are Email
magazines which you can subscribe to -usually for free. Most Ezines offer low
cost advertising and are also an excellent source of marketing tips. WWW (World
wide web): You can set up your ads at web sites for free or at low cost.
3.2. Using Signatures in Discussion Groups A discussion group is a group
of people with a common interest in a specific topic. If you participate in discussion
groups with useful contributions or helpful articles you can add your signature
files at the end of your posting.
Here are examples of discussion group areas.
Mailing Lists: There are thousands of mailing lists available on every
conceivable topic. You become a member of a mailing list by sending a simple 'subscribe'
Email message to the list. You can post a message to the list and it will be distributed
automatically to all the subscribers.
Newsgroups: Newsgroups (also
known as Usenet) are similar to mailing lists except that you need to access the
newsgroup with a newsreader online (whereas mailing list posts are sent to your
Email box).
Online Services Forums: Similar to newsgroups, usually
better controlled and organised.
3.3. Other places for free ads
Newsgroups: Some newsgroups allow ads. Examples are alt.internet.commerce, alt.make.money.fast,
misc.entrepreneur. Online services Forums: There are forums where ads are acceptable:
try looking for forums which have sections with titles such as 'Opportunities',
'Marketing', 'Business'.
3.4. Direct Mail Direct mail is the sending
by Email of your advert or sales letter to a list of people who are looking for
the product or service that you are offering. Such a list can be purchased from
a mailing list broker.
PUT YOUR WORK ON AUTO-PILOT
Here are
some software tools which can automate your work and reduce time and money spent
online.
4.1. Autoresponders We've already shown above the importance
of autoresponders for any online business. You can use them to respond to inquiries
with any information you wish such as a sales letter, price list, catalog, ordering
information.
4.2. Free Agent (for Newsgroups) Free Agent is a
powerful and easy-to-use newsgroup reader. It allows you to browse newsgroups
both online and offline.
4.3. Navigator (for Compuserve Users)
CompuServe Navigator (CSNAV) allows you to set up in advance a script to navigate
the Compuserve Forums, sending and retrieving messages, downloading from or uploading
to the libraries.
4.4. Waytogo (for AOL users) If you want to
post ads on AOL classifieds then, instead of manually navigating the various menus
and options, you can automate the task with a program called "Way To Go".
4.5 Internet Fax Even though you are working online you may still
need to contact customers by FAX. You can now make great savings in time and costs
by sending faxes from your PC via the Internet using Fax/Internet software.
SET UP YOUR OWN WEB SITE
Once you have developed a portfolio
of (ideally) related items you will want to bring all the information about them
together on your own web site.
The website will provide you with a 24 hour
international presence and a means for people anywhere in the world to obtain
free reports about your products or services instantly, especially when complemented
with autoresponders.
5.1. Design considerations
* Make your
site easy to navigate
* Don't clutter up your pages with information
* Ensure that there are no long delays in loading web pages (the chief cause of
this is the use of large graphics)
5.2. Content Make a good first
impression with your front page, make it interesting and let it show clearly what
the rest of the site contains. You may only have ten seconds or so to keep your
visitor's attention. Offer free information and useful articles. Ensure that the
content of the site continually changes, consider a weekly column of hints and
tips.
HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR WEB SITE
6.1. Register
with search engines When people are scanning the Internet for a specific product
or service they use 'Search Engines' to feed in a 'keyword' to specify what they
are looking for. You can submit your site to these search engines specifying the
key words that make up the site, so that your site can then appear in such searches.
There are over 20 major search engines, some popular ones being:
* Alta
Vista
* Excite
* Infoseek
* Lycos
* Yahoo
6.2.
Publicity Now that you have a web site you can include it in your signature
and therefore publicize it
* whenever you send an Email
* when you contribute
to discussion groups
* when you contribute a posting to an Ezine
You can advertise offline by including your web address on your company stationery,
business cards, letterheads, envelopes etc. BECOME AN EXPERT Learn how to find
information:
Master the use of search engines. Learn from the work of
others: Study other ads, other web sites, other signature files. Study online
marketing methods: Visit newsgroups and forums, and subscribe to mailing lists.
You will find excellent marketing tips from Ezines - just see the footnote below.
This article is an extract from the publication "7 Steps to Online
Success" which contains full details of all the sources of information mentioned
above, such as web site addresses, lists of ezines, mailing lists and newsgroups,
software tools and services and also includes relevant business opportunities
and many more valuable ideas. You are welcome to read the "7 Steps to Online Success"
PLUS Harvey's FREE BOOK "The SuperTips Book of Internet Marketing" at http://www.supertips.com/
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