After building a successful online business myself, not to mention being a part of my clients’ online businesses, I’ve found there are 3 main keys you need to have in place to enjoy a solid successful Internet business.
Although it’s not easy to build a successful anything, these 3 keys will go a long way to putting the foundation together for a successful online business.
Ready to get started?
1. Send warm leads to your web site. Every successful business needs a fresh source of new leads and a great place to find those leads is on the Internet.
But that’s just easier said than done. Alas, the “if you build it, they will come” just doesn’t work for web sites. So how do you find new prospects on the Internet? Here are 6 ways to get you started:
* Social networking (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Linked In)
* Article marketing (placing articles on article portals such as Ideamarketers or EzineArticles)
* Paid ads (pay per click or Facebook ads)
* Online press releases
* Podcasts
* Videos
The key is to integrate several ways to drive traffic to your site. If you rely on just one or two, and something happens to those sources of traffic, it could dramatically impact your bottom line. (In a bad way.) The more sources of traffic you have, the more stable your business becomes.
2. Get those warm leads in your database. You may have heard the saying “the money is in the list” and that’s because there’s a lot of truth to that. When you have a warm list of names to market your products and services to, it makes building a successful and profitable business that much easier.
So how do you build a warm list? (Note — a warm list is defined as people who know who you are and are inclined to buy your products and services, versus a cold list that doesn’t have any idea who you are and needs to be convinced you do indeed have the solution to their problems.) You build a warm list by first capturing leads (from your web site, from speaking on stage and teleclasses, etc.) and then by making sure you get in front of them on a regular basis so they get to know you. A regularly published ezine is an excellent way to do that. You also want to regularly sell to your list, because if you don’t ask your list to buy your products and services, you’ll create a list that is only interested in what you offer for free.
3. Turn warm leads into paid customers. This is where direct response copywriting comes in. Actually, it starts in the second key as you need to use direct response copywriting to get people on your list in the first place.
Copywriting is writing promotional copy for business (it has nothing to do with copyrighting a book or piece of artwork, note the spelling difference). Direct response means the copy itself is persuading people to take action (the copy is causing a direct response). This is a learned skill, no you don’t have to be a writer to be a successful direct response copywriter. And once you master this skill, selling online becomes a heck of a lot easier because you can make money directly from emails and web site pages.
If you master these 3 keys, you will be well on your way to building a successful online business.
