Even with the ongoing recession, building a business online remains a viable approach for any new start-up. Why? Well, while even online retailers are feeling the pinch of a tight economy, they are also expected to pick up market share at the expense of traditional retailers during this downturn. So, an online approach is both more sustainable during a slowdown and a way to get more out of the next economic recovery.
According to a recent study of 151 online retailers, most expect growth to slow over the next year, and most are seeing the recession impact their bottom lines. However, 80 percent of the survey respondents see online retailing as better equipped than traditional retailing for countering the effects of the recession. This is why online retailers should continue to take market share from more traditional competitors.
However, that does not mean that all online businesses will succeed. There are some fundamental steps that will help an online business get off the ground more smoothly.
1. Research Online Demand For Your Products and Services. Online Research should help you determine several quantitative facts about your potential market, including overall size, demographic makeup, growth rate, and income level. These facts can serve as an initial reality check on your business plan, as well as help you make initial projections about the scope of your business. Beyond the quantitative benefits though, some fundamental market research should help you form a mental picture of your typical customer. This mental picture can subsequently inform a variety of other business choices, from web site design and development elements, to where to promote your site, to what range of related products or services to offer.
2. Understand Who Is Your Competition. Your market may look attractive in isolation, but next you need to assess the competition. Who are the market leaders, and what are their strengths and vulnerabilities? Who are the new entrants into the market, and which ones are picking up market share? Knowing your competition will help you determine where you fit into the marketplace, and this in turn will influence your product, promotion, and pricing strategies.
3. Back-Office Infrastructure Payment Processing. For one thing, an online business relies on a technology infrastructure that is affordable and yet will stand up to spikes in volume due to seasonality or successful promotions. Then there are key details such as credit card processing -and a merchant account– things that make the buying process as seamless as possible. For most start-up businesses, basic infrastructure issues such as the technology platform and credit card processing are outside their primary areas of expertise, so outsourcing solutions should be considered. Always compare credit card processing prices and merchant account prices before you select the one that best fits your business needs.
4. Attractive Website Design to Increase Traffic and Conversions. Now you can think about setting up shop. That’s precisely how you want to think about web site design–it is your place of business. The look and navigation of that Web site help you project an image to your customers. Are you hip, or are you traditional? Are you complex, or easy to access? Different positioning calls for different images, but there are two universal rules to website design: don’t look amateurish, and don’t make it difficult for visitors to make a purchase. This is another area where outside, specialized help can make a big difference, as opposed to spending time on something beyond your reason for being in business.Compare Web Site Design Prices to select the one that best meets your needs.
5. Use Internet Marketing and SEO to Promote Products On Your Web Site. An online business should focus its promotional strategies on capturing an online audience. This means some non-traditional promotional strategies, such as search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing. SEO helps associate your product or service with Internet searches on related topics. Internet Marketing allows you to pay for Internet advertising according to the amount of activity it generates, and to monitor the results of that activity. Because the Internet is still a relatively new business medium, promotional techniques and consumer behaviors are changing rapidly. Fortunately, there are internet marketing specialists who can help you stay abreast of evolving strategies in Internet marketing. Use an online service to find and compare SEO prices and internet marketing price quotes.
Summary
Overall, there are two important principles to apply when starting an online business:
1. Your business plan should represent a combination of traditional business methods and techniques specific to the online medium
2. You should identify the tasks where your organization can add value, and outsource functions outside your primary expertise.
Applying these principles using the steps described above, should help you get your online business off to a successful start.
Category: Online Business
Most people think article marketing is just about getting links. They couldn’t be any more WRONG!
Article marketing is about getting your messages (in the form of articles) out to as many prospects as possible in as many ways as possible.
Here are 21 ways to use your articles so you can build your business:
1. Send your top article placements via email to current clients.
2. Send your top article placements via email to former clients.
3. Send the top article placements via email to prospects. This is how PR LEADS Article Marketing Expert client Kevin Berchelmann scored a $50K+ client!
4. Post reprints on your website. Note – Turn your article placements into PDFs. Do NOT link to your top article placements. This will take people off your website!
5. Include your article placements in book proposals. Roxanne Emmerich, Dr. Vicki Rackner, Dr. Karen Sherman and many other clients of mine have used this strategy to win major book publishing deals.
6. Include your articles in new business proposals.
7. Include your article placements in new business PowerPoint presentations.
8. Add your articles and/or mention your placements in your blog.
9. Add the articles to your newsletter. Remember, your newsletter isn’t ALL about selling. It’s about building relationships based on trust. The way to earn trust is to educate your prospects with powerful knowledge that only you can provide in articles,
10. Mention your article placements on the front page of your website. For example, put across the top of your website: As see on About.com, MarketingProfs, CEO Refresher and Small Business CEO Magazine. Then down the right hand side of your website, put links to your PDF versions of your article placements.
11. Send print copies of your article placements to your current clients.
12. Send print copies to your former clients.
13. Send print copies to your prospects.
14. Mention your article placements in you website bio.
15. Mention your article placements in your speech introduction.
16. Create a list of all the top article placements and post it to your website’s “newsroom’ section.
17. Add your articles to your Facebook page.
18. Twitter about your article placements.
19. Turn your articles into video articles and post it to YouTube, Viddler and other video syndication websites.
20. Use your articles as a list building mechanism. Check out how Shane Ellison uses his articles on his website: www.thepeopleschemist.com/articles to build his list.
21. Mention your article placements in the P.S. of your email signature. For example, put…P.S. My article, “25 Ways to Make Money Using Articles” was just published on About.com. Now you can read it at (put your website URL where you put the text or PDF version of the article)
You don’t have to do all these steps. If you do only ONE of these steps, you will be doing more than you are now to build your business. Take action today to build your business with article marketing!
About the Author:
Eric Gruber uses the power of articles to create online opportunities for Internet marketers, small business owners and entrepreneurs who want more publicity, prospects and profits. Now, you can get his instant article writing templates that will help you write your articles in 30 minutes or less. For a limited time, you can get 3 of his favorite article writing templates for free at: http://www.TryMyFreeArticleTemplates.com
Social networking sites originally became popular as a way for friends to stay in touch with one another and to keep up-to-date with what was happening in their lives, but they quickly became a place for business owners to grow their networks too. These days you can use these sites as a business building tool, but, more importantly, you can get to know your prospects, clients, and colleagues in a more relaxed and friendly environment.
This means that if you’re active on these sites and regularly contributing and seeking out new connections you can very quickly build your network and have a ready audience of contacts who are interested in what you have to say, your services, programs, and products.
However, I hear of many solopreneurs saying that they’re spending hours of time on their social networking activities, whether that’s on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or one of the other popular social networking sites, but are not seeing any benefits as a result of their time i.e. the amount of time they put into social networking is not comparable to the returns they are seeing. And so they lose interest and wonder what all the fuss is about.
As with any of the list building strategies that I teach, the real key to success is consistency. If you decide that social networking is one of the lead generation strategies that you want to implement then you need to be consistent in your approach to make it successful. You need to be spending time each week (several times a week) visiting each of your social networks, contributing, and building relationships.
Even though there are many, many advantages to this latest marketing strategy, there are several pitfalls that can easily be avoided if you’re aware of what they are.
Today I’d like to share with you my top four social networking pitfalls so that you can avoid making these mistakes and so utilize this strategy to grow your network:
1. Not updating regularly.
If you’re a beginner in this area, then you may believe that all you have to do is sign up for an account at one of the more popular sites, add your details, and you’re all set. In order for this strategy to be effective, you need to be a regular contributor to the network, actively seek out new connections, and participate and post regularly.
2. Your profile is lacking in information.
Add pictures; make yourself sound interesting and fun! People want to know about you, what your interests are, and see you. Always include a photo, and, the beauty with social networking is that because it’s informal, you don’t always need your photo to be a professional head shot – a more informal photo works just as well; let your contacts see the ‘real’ you.
3. Not thinking relationships first!
Social networking is all about building relationships with those people in your network – it’s not about getting new clients. Although you’ve probably heard of colleagues getting new clients via social networking, it really is about creating and building relationships with those people in your network. Remember… relationships first!
4. It’s not about sell, sell, sell!
If all you’re doing when you visit the various sites and post your updates is pitch your latest program, product or service then it’s no wonder you’re not seeing results. Share information with your network, whether that’s your own information or you’re passing along information from clients and colleagues. The more you share, the greater your results will be.
Whichever social networking arena you’re active in (and it may be more than one) remember the “social” in social networking – it’s to build relationships, make new contacts, and socialize. Inform your network, not sell to them.
One of the biggest benefits of social media marketing is how easy it is to get started. Anyone can sign up for a Twitter account, or a Facebook account and start using them right away. It’s easy to put up a blog, and, of course, to engage in the conversation.
But the thing to remember is that the ease of use of social media tools does not directly correlate to how effective they will be for your business objectives. Stated another way, you need to think social media strategy first, and tools second.
Very often, people get overloaded with social media simply because they don’t have a strategy. Someone says they should be on Facebook- so they join. Someone says to get on Twitter, so they do. Someone else says to stay connected via LinkedIn- and they do. And it goes like this, on and on, because the number of sites you “should” be on will never stop increasing- and there are hundreds more social media sites coming online each day.
If you constantly jump from site to site, you risk wasting time and losing money.
Instead, start by considering your social media strategy. If you don’t have one yet, let me offer some suggestions and advice for building one:
1) Understand what business objectives you want to reach by engaging in social media. Business objectives might include outcomes such as increasing your network, becoming more visible, positioning yourself as the top expert in your field. Business objectives may also include outcomes such as growing your database, increasing blog visitors, and improving your online reputation. While several of these can be accomplished in parallel, for the most part, stick with one objective at a time. What is the one outcome right now that would move your business forward in the most significant way?
2) Acknowledge the time frame for your business objective. Social media is not a quick hit strategy and it can take a certain amount of focused effort to start seeing returns. If your time line for results is too short, you will feel like you’ve wasted time. If your time line is too long, you’ll feel frustrated, when it seems like results aren’t happening fast enough. For example, if you want to add 100 names to your database, you can probably accomplish this in 4-6 weeks. If you want to position yourself as the top authority in your niche, it will probably take a bit longer, especially if there is a reasonable amount of competition. Right-size your time line to the size of your business objective.
3) Focus on depth rather than breadth. While it can be tempting to be join 100 social media sites, you risk spreading yourself too thin, and diluting your resources. Better to select 2, 3, or 4 sites which you can commit to participating on regularly, than joining 100 sites you never have time to access. Repetition is an important element of building recognition and reputation. Focus deeply on a select group of sites, and participate as fully as possible.
4) Test your levels of participation to define how much is enough. There will be a sweet spot in terms of time put in and results obtained. This is true for any business process. Try participating very fully for two weeks, and see what your results are. Participate slightly less often in week three, and see if your results change. By focusing on measuring one specific business objective, you’ll have a good sense of how much effort you need to make on the social sites in order to reach your desired results.
5) Adopt new technology thoughtfully. There are multiple tools you can use to implement your social media strategy. Typically, you want to use the tools which are easiest, most cost-effective, and which provide the best results. Don’t adopt every new technology blindly, but then, on the other hand, don’t delay when a new technology can help you accomplish your business goals faster or easier.
Remember, the ease of use of social media tools does not correlate with their effectiveness in your business. Craft your strategy first, and then use tools to execute it. That’s the right order for business success.
Dr. Rachna Jain is Chief Social Marketer at The Mindshare Corporation. Rachna works with speakers, consultants, authors, and small business owners to develop and execute effective social media marketing strategies. Her proprietary persuasive social media process (sm) focuses on building influence, credibility and visibility online. This translates into greater recognition, increased website traffic, faster lead generation, a shorter sales cycle, and more opportunity for her expert clientele. She blogs regularly at The Mindshare Blog
Have you heard any of these?
* A guy who works part time for the Eagles Football team updates his status report by saying something to the effect that the Eagles suck due to a trade they made. The Eagles fire him.
* A woman gets a job offer from Cisco. She tweets “Got a job offer from Cisco. Now have to decide between a fatty paycheck versus a long commute and hating my job.” One of Cisco channel partners sees it on Twitter and comments. I didn’t hear how it turned out but I’m fairly certain Cisco rescinded the job offer. (And chances are she’s going to have a heck of a time finding another job since this story was all over the place to such an extent it will take awhile to get it out of Google.)
* A guy who I think is the agency owner travels to the headquarters of one of his biggest customers for a presentation (ironically on social networking). He tweets an unflattering tweet about the city where his client is headquartered. The employees spot it, call him on it and he ultimately loses the account.
I’m sure there are more of these stories, but you get my point. Social networking can give you credibility, visibility, leads and can help grow your business. It can also lose you jobs and customers.
So what do these stories have in common? Simple — the person forgot social networking was public.
And that’s the point of today’s article. What you do on social networking is public.
Now, I know that sounds obvious but, like most obvious things, it gets overlooked. And it’s easy to see why. I mean, half the time (or even more) you get no response to things you do on Twitter or Facebook. So it’s easy to start thinking no one’s watching.
And the moment you slip and think no one is watching, no one cares, that’s when it bites you. You think you can say whatever you want, and you do. Only to discover much to your dismay that people really ARE paying attention.
The same thing that makes social networking such a powerful networking tool is the same thing that can ruin you.
Remember, your biggest strength is your biggest weakness. And that’s true here as well. The power social networking has to get your name out there in a big way can also replicate your unfortunate choice of tweets or posts in a big way and ruin your reputation faster than you can say “to tweet or not to tweet.”
Now, I’m not saying you should run scared of social networking. This isn’t about you agonizing over every comment, tweet, post, etc. you put out there. This is about being smart. It’s about never forgetting you’re dealing in a public arena and people are paying attention, even if there are days where you wonder where all that social networking love went.
And if you DO screw up and say something you shouldn’t? Well, depending on what exactly it was, you might have to do some damage control, and/or just come to grips you’ve put a black mark on your reputation and have to do some cleaning up. You CAN come back, it might not be easy or fun, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world either.