Whether you've already got a campaign Internet marketing plan in effect or you're just starting out, it's vitally important for you to understand what your target market wants. This is true of any marketing campaign, whether it's online or at the small store on the corner. And it's never been truer of the niche businesses online today.
When you have a business aimed at a certain target market, identifying that target market is the most important first step. But once you know whom to market your products or services to, where do you go from there? Aside from just getting yourself in front of your target market, how do you better narrow things down to appeal to those within that market who might want or need your product or service now? With a campaign Internet marketing plan that knows what your customers want and appeals to them on that level.
So you already know your target market. Whether your target market is made up of pet owners, whether they're people in the market for new electronic equipment, or they're people who want to make money online, you have to figure out what exactly they want within those general groups in order to get to this level of detailed campaign Internet marketing.
A pet owner, for instance, will want to take good care of the pet's health. They'll want their pet to live a long, happy life, have fun, be comfortable. They'll also want the pet to behave, and not make messes in the house by potting indoors or chewing things up. Pick a want and appeal to it for especially effective specific campaign Internet marketing. If you want to market potty training pads, books about potty training dogs or a CD-ROM with an instructional video on board, then take the customer's desire to potty train a dog and appeal to it when promoting the products.
Breakdown why they might want what they want. When it comes to potty training a dog, they want to keep their floors clean and avoid the sight and smell of a puppy mess indoors. And maybe they want to be able to say how quickly and easily the dog was trained, to boast on the animal's intelligence. Use that in your campaign Internet marketing. Advertise the product by pointing out that it can help them avoid odors and messes. Point out how it will teach their dog to behave in a way that will help the customer avoid those things, and point out that it can do so more quickly than if the customer attempts to potty train the animal without it.
For campaign Internet marketing when it comes to people who want to make money online, think of the reasons they want to do so. Do they want to quit their job, take more vacations, spend more time with family? The best campaign Internet marketing strategy is to take each reason and devise a way to convince the customer that your product or service will help them achieve it.
Nowadays, many people save money to quit their day jobs in hopes of achieving their own customized version of the American Dream by starting what is commonly known as an e-commerce business or a "dot com" venture. They then proceed to spend the savings of their labor on great looking, functional and hopefully practical websites. However, a large percentage of such venturesome warriors that take the initiative to quit a steady job and embark on the bumpy road of e-"self-employment" do not end up reaping the fruits of their courage.
The initial phases of website development both financially and emotionally drain the average venturous individual to a point that at the end of the process they are impatiently waiting for miraculous profit to be pouring their way. In reality, this seldom happens since there are thousands of such individuals both from the past and the present on the very same path striving to prosper. In order for a website to be profitable, it would have to contend in the race for traffic against hundreds of thousands, or even millions of competitors.
It is possible to attract visitors to your website via countless means however the best and the most efficient are what have been rounded up under the roof of Online Marketing. Online or Internet Marketing addresses the concerns of all those website owners that are astounded at the low returns on their investments. It helps strategize a plan to increase the popularity and traffic of the website and tackle the issues of low profits. The most important aspects of Internet Marketing are as follows:
Spreading the Word: Since other online venues require a relatively long initial period of time to yield results, it is quick and efficient to spread the word about your website via submitting articles and news releases to be published. An informative and useful article will intrigue other website owners to syndicate the article hence exposing your website to the visitors of their own websites. On the other hand, a carefully prepared news release if published at the right time will drive major media publishers to run stories on your website which in turn will expose your website to a very wide base of potential visitors and in turn converted customers.
Networking: Propagating the word about your website is a great way to jumpstart your internet marketing campaign, however, you need stability from within to be able to sustain your website's popularity. By partnering or simply having a relationship with websites in and out of your industry you will be able to increase your website link base and provide a one-stop solution for your visitors. You can achieve this by being an active participant in online forums, chat sessions and even seminars not to mention offline venues such as business mixers and conferences.
Search Engines: Once you have created an initial surge of visitors via press releases and worked on networking to maintain your traffic, your website will be seasoned and ready to benefit from a very precious medium that lets targeted visitors come to you rather than you going after them. Search engines are inundated with searchers looking for products and services in virtually every single industry and category imaginable.
By using keyword popularity tools you can find out approximately how many people search for keywords relevant to your website on a daily basis. Once you find the keywords that would bring valuable visitors to your website, then you can target them by optimizing your website. This process is referred to as Search Engine Optimization which will be discussed in much more detail in future articles.
Refining the User Interface: Refining the User Interface is certainly one of the most ignored yet extremely important aspects of owning and operating a website. You can be getting hundreds of unique visitors on a daily basis to your website yet making less profit than a direct competitor of yours with half the traffic. The secret lies in your user interface consisting of elements such as forms, navigation, contents, links, buttons, customization, localization and more.
By using these elements in the correct places and at the correct time and constantly monitoring your visitor retention and conversation rates, you can not only increase your conversation ratio and therefore your profit but also maintain a larger visitor base potentially creating word of mouth and return business.
The above are the main areas in which you have to be active in order for your online marketing campaign to be successful. However, it is sometimes not possible to achieve the best results in all areas without rigorous research and extensive training. This is where internet marketing firms come to your help in devising and implementing a successful campaign.
Internet Marketing is virtually the only way to turn your investment of time, patience and money into measurable profit that could get you closer to achieving your goals and fulfilling your dreams. This is why I invite you to read my future articles where I will be providing more detailed information on each of the above categories as well as information on how to find do-it-yourself information and shop for internet marketing services.
Over the past few years, research has continued to prove the benefits of e-mail marketing for business: low costs, high conversion rates and detailed tracking are all notable features. But e-mail marketing is becoming much more than just a tool for spammers and e-businesses. Consumers are becoming increasingly savvy on the differences between spam and permission-based emails, and more and more of them are accepting permission-based e-mail marketing as a positive replacement for direct mail.
The best news is that the majority of people who receive permission-based e-mails open, on average, 78% of them.
Jupiter Research reports effective email marketing campaigns can produce nine times the revenues and 18 times the profits of broadcast mailings. But crafting an effective business email is both an art and a science. Here is a list of factors, potential problems and effective solutions to keep in mind:
1. Spam! Spam! Spam! I don't need any Viagra! The average consumer receives more than 300 emails a week, 62% of which are spam. No wonder there's such hostility towards the industry. But spam filters, bulk folders and "report spam" features are helping consumers become more at ease about the perils of spam. While 89% of users cited spam as a major concern in 2003, that number dropped to 85% in 2004, proportionally to an increase in the use of spam-fighting tools.
So as a permission-based business email marketer, what can you do? One tip is to remind your subscribers to add you to their "safe senders" list. The second, and most important, tactic is to make sure your email marketing service provider has a good relationship with ISPs. This will ensure that your email marketing campaigns go into your subscribers' inboxes, not their junk mail folders. When choosing an email marketing software, make sure the company has strict anti-spam policies and complies with the guidelines of Can-Spam.
2. Images and formatting: Why do my emails look broken? Broken email campaigns are an increasing concern among email marketers, especially since several companies and web-based email providers now block graphics as a measure to combat spam. In fact, according to ClickZ, 40% of email marketing messages delivered to inboxes are "broken."
So what's the solution? Some email marketing programs publish all your sent email campaigns to a secure location on the web (a location only original recipients of the email can access, thanks to encrypted technology that automatically authenticates the user). In some programs, the technology also ensures you can track your users' behaviors, even if they are reading your email campaign at the secure web location.
3. Personalization and relevant content: In a business e-mail, one size does not fit all. In a recent study by DoubleClick, email users were 72% more likely to respond to a business e-mail if its content was based on the interests they had specified. That number points out the absolute importance of allowing users to choose their own interest groups and have control over which business e-mails they receive. The most popular interest categories, according to the study, are coupons and household goods.
But you're coupon is no good unless the user opens the email. Users in the study said the most compelling reason for them to open a business email is the name in the "from" field. So it's a good idea to make sure your company name is clearly stated there. Another major factor is the "subject" line. Users cite discount offers and interesting news as the most compelling subject lines, followed by new product announcements and free shipping offers.
4. Click-through and conversion: Show me the money! So the user has opened your email and read the content. Great. But where's the sale? There's good news here. For one, consumers are increasingly likely to make purchases as a direct result of a business email campaign. One-third of users in the DoubleClick study had purchased something by clicking a link on an email. Another 42% clicked on an email link for more information, then purchased the product at a later time. Second, online couponing is booming: 73% of consumers have redeemed an online coupon for an online purchase, and 59% have redeemed an online coupon offline.
In terms of industries, the top performers are travel, hardware/software, electronics, apparel, food, home furnishings, gifts/flowers and sporting goods. All companies sending business emails in those categories said between 71% and 80% of recipients have purchased their products because of an email campaign.
There's no need to fret if your company doesn't fit in to one of those industries. The overall landscape for email marketing conversions is looking brighter every day. The average click-to-purchase rate has increased nearly 30% since 2004 and the average orders-per-email-delivered rate has increased more than 18% since last year.
5. Stats tracking: Who are my real consumers? E-mail marketing is an increasingly popular tool in effective CRM, and it's about time more businesses recognize that. First off, if your provider's email services for business do not include detailed, real-time tracking, you're getting a raw deal. Real-time tracking is now an industry standard, and it's highly valuable, as it allows you to see the exact moment a user opens your campaign, clicks on your link and makes that purchase. Studying your users can help you improve your communications efforts, so each campaign performs better than the last (several email service providers also let you compare the performance of your campaigns).
But many marketers are still in the dark. According to a recent WebTrends research, only 5% of marketers are very confident in the measurement of their online marketing efforts, while 26% admit they're "flying blind." WebTrends says the low confidence comes from a lack of knowledge when it comes to measurement, which means there's still a lot of work to be done.
In email marketing, a blind shot won't take you very far. But if you aim properly by following these essential rules of play, you should soon be reaping the same major results as so many online and offline businesses.
So, you want to make money online, but you're having trouble getting visitors to your website? If so, you're not alone. Many people think that running an online busy is easy - just build a website, and in no time you'll be making money.
Well, running an online business is nodifferent than running any business - you need to find ways to reach people who want and need (and are willing to pay for) your product or service.
Affiliate marketing (selling other people's products) is a great way to make money online.
Yet, it is still a business, and the same rules apply to affiliate marketing - you need to find people who need what you are selling.
The best way to be a successful affiliate is to create your own website, provide information to get people ready to buy, and then encourage them to visit the programs you are representing.
How do you do this, without spending a fortune on advertising?
1) Learn how to get free traffic from search engines
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) means getting the search engines (like Google and Yahoo) to place your website at the top of the rankings. Getting "free advertising" from the search engines is great. However, it is not easy, and it does take some time. The key is to make your site the best possible site for your theme - tricks and scams may provide you with an instant "boost" but this rarely lasts (and sometimes even gets you banned permanently!) Over the past few years, I've made lots of money by having high rankings - and I've lost money when my rankings have fallen. It's part of the process, so you shouldn't count only on free traffic from the search engines.
2) Create your own newsletter
By creating your own newsletter, you can contact each person who signs up more than once, increasing your chance for a sale. Don't have any ideas for a newsletter? How about a free course. Or monthly tips about the topic of your website. Sign up for a few newsletters in your industry to get an idea of how other websites maintain this important relationship with their current - and future - customers!
3) Write articles
Writing articles provides you with several benefits at the same time - by writing an article you are positioning yourself as an expert; when your article is published, you get a link back to your site (which helps SEO; you can promote your newsletter so you can contact readers more than once. You don't need to have your article published in USA Today to get these benefits. In fact, getting your articles listed in an article directory (such as EzineArticles.com), can help you get listed in more specialized websites, newsletters, and magazines, helping you reach the right people!
4) Place newsletter, magazine, & newspaper ads
When spending money on ads, especially for the first time, start out small. It's very easy to spend a ton of money, without getting any responses (a tough lesson many advertisers learn the hard way!) Email newsletters or Ezines, are a great way to start (start with the ones in your industry that you subscribed to in order to get ideas for your newsletter above). Make sure you offer something valuable - like your newsletter - to get as many people to respond as possible.
5) Watch out for scams!
Buying 10,000 visitors for only $29.95. Submitting your website to 150 search engines for $19.99. Getting your site listed #1 on all the search engines for just $50. Most of these sound very tempting, especially when you are just starting out. Unfortunately, most of these are great ways to drain your bank account very quickly - and make other people rich.
So learn from the real experts how to build your online business: sign up for newsletters (HighRankings.com is a great resource), read the forums (IHelpYouServices.com and WebmasterWorld.com), read articles (EzineArticles.com).
Yes, you can make money online. So, get started, keep learning and trying, and don't ever give up!
I have been in internet marketing for over ten years and have seen marketing techniques come and go. Some are still around and some are new and innovative. Below you will find what I believe to be the best and most effective online marketing techniques.
Article Marketing - Article marketing was and is one of the most powerful online marketing methods available. Not only does it do wonders for you and your business, it is free as well!
Article marketing consists of writing helpful, informative, easy to understand articles that actually help your readers, not try to sell them something. Then you submit them to article banks, directories and ezine publishers. When your article runs in a popular ezine, it can do great things for your business. Writing articles is not as hard as you might think, so give it a try. You will be delightfully surprised at how much it can affect your business.
Remember:
Don't worry about fancy words. People are looking for help, not big words.
Advertise in your resource box, not your article.
Provide real, helpful info and resources, hot hype!
Write from the heart! Let your personality shine through in your articles.
Blogging - Blogging is a newer form of online marketing that just started becoming popular in the late 90's. Blog is short for weblog and means an online publication in the form of a log or journal. Blogs can increase your customer base, your traffic and your search engine ranking, thus increasing your sales.
Blogging can be done for free through such sites as: blogger.com wordpress.com And livejournal.com
Be sure and update your blog regularly; everyday would be best as people like fresh content, ideas and information.
Ezine Publishing - Ezine publishing has been around much longer than blogging and is far more effective, in my opinion. Your ezine needs to contain helpful resources and information, not just sales pitches. Develop a relationship with your readers. Let them know they can trust you and rely on you when they need your help.
Things to remember when putting together your ezine:
Keep it clean and easy to read. Limit your advertising and be selective. Always provide quality content and information. Add your personality so your readers can get to know you. Always provide contact info and be accessible. Be consistent; send your ezine regularly as scheduled. Be sure and proofread before sending it out.
Online Networking - Online networking, as with offline networking, is very important to your business. This is when you connect with as many people as possible to learn more and share more about your business. Many leads can come from networking. There are several ways to do this online.
Email Discussion Groups: Go to yahoogroups.com and search for appropriate groups.
Message Boards: Be sure and follow the rules for posting and offer your help as much as possible.
Social Sites: Such as MySpace.com, Ryze, Merchant Circle, etc. These can be great ways to make more contacts and get leads.
Joint Ventures - This is when you enter into an agreement with another online marketer that will benefit both sides.
Examples of joint ventures:
Ezine Ad Swaps EBook Ad Swaps Subscription Page Ad Swaps Affiliate Programs Exchange Advertising for % of Sales
And the list goes on and on. Be creative and come up with new ways you and your associates can help each other.
Podcasting - Podcasting is using digital media files which are distributed all over the internet via syndication feeds. Podcasting is still a fairly new way of online marketing and has great potential. Podcasting can be powerful because it uses voice not written words to get the message across. Offer your articles, do voice interviews, offer a chapter in your ebook via podcast, etc. Again, use your imagination to create new ways to spread the word about your business.
Ezine Advertising - Advertising your business, product, service, etc. In quality ezines can be well worth the money spent. There are a few things you can do to help you choose which ezines to advertise in.
Do a search to find ezines that cater to your target market. For example: if you are advertising kids' books, you don't want to advertise in an ezine about cars.
Once you find several targeted ezines, subscribe to them so you can look them over and see if the publisher is reliable in sending them out. You can also look over the other ads and make sure the publisher is selective in their advertising. You can possibly learn what the other readers think of the ezine as well.
Try contacting the publisher to see if they respond to your email. Ask about testimonials from other advertisers. Find out how many ads they run per issue and what the costs are.
You could also ask the publisher to do an ad swap to get an idea of what the response is like. Be selective in your choices and always code your ads so you know which ezines actually deliver.
I hope this article has given you some insight as to how to market your home/online business. I use several of these methods (and should be using the rest) and know from experience that they work!
The possibilities with the internet are endless and we need to keep up with new and innovative ways of marketing ourselves and our business. And we need to keep using tried and true methods as well.
When trying to start a home business, look into fields that interest you. You must enjoy what you are about to embark on because you will be spending a lot of time in this field.
Just because you love something doesn't mean it will sell well. Make sure that what you pick has a market. You want paying customers to come to your site and buy what you have to offer. So where can you go to find out some great business opportunities? Well, you can go into your browser and type in different subjects and see what other people are doing with them. You can also look on marketing sites for the hottest trends in business. Remember that these sites are also businesses and will offer you products as well as information. Make sure you know all the tools that are available to you before purchasing the first book or start up kit you see.
Most people want to see money and not spend it. Lets face it you will have to do some investing if you really want to succeed. But you don't have to spend thousands. Books can be a great tool and a very inexpensive way of learning how to run your own business. Not only will these books give you a step by step way to start your business they will give you ideas of what type of businesses you can have. You can get books very cheap on Amazon. You can even use your local library, but it would be better to have the books constantly at your disposal.
You might even want to consider such markets like eBay. You can sell products there very easily and everyone can readily find you. There are many people making an excellent living just buying and selling on eBay. Here are some quick tips for being a good eBay seller.
* Sell a product you know about. You will not be able to answer peoples questions if you have very limited knowledge about what you are trying to sell. This will also get you a bad name and no more bids. The more familiar with what you are selling and its potential uses the better off you are. You are the one trying to get people to buy, know your stuff.
* Use eBay as your purchasing guide for what you plan on selling. Look up what people are charging for similar items. Don't pay more than 65% of what the eBay sales history tells you. You want to buy in bulk and wholesale and know what you are being charged for per item to see if any money will be made off of it.
* Ship your paid orders on the same day they buy. Buyers want fast shipping that doesn't take three weeks to get there. Companies like Fed Ex offer online shipping and will give you an immediate 10% discount. They will also increase your discount the more volume you get.
There are also tons of little tricks to selling on eBay that make life good. Listing your product Auction on a Thursday for 10 days will close out all bidders on a Sunday. Sundays are great days because more people are home.
Niche markets are small specific markets. Individuals or businesses are grouped together for niche marketing if they share similar interests or needs. For instance, females who play golf can be considered a niche market. Reaching as many people in the same niche is necessary to make your small business work. However, if you are an online business start-up, finding your target audience may be challenging in the beginning.
One way to quickly find your target audience is if you submit articles to article directories as a way of marketing. People reading your articles on a niche topic and who clicks through on the author's resource box to your website are likely to be your targeted audience. If you are female, but don't play golf, you would probably not be reading an article that teaches about getting the perfect golf swing. However, a female that does play golf is more likely to read one with a topic that says "How a Female Golfer Can Improve Her Distance". As you can see, finding your prospective customers in this manner reaps much direct benefit. A good marketing strategy is one that involves focusing your articles on sharing information whilst your site (via a winning sales letter) does the job of converting the targeted audience to clients.
It is important, therefore, that when you submit an article, you should look for article directory sites that will be visited by your niche market. If the article directory site is a general one, then ensure that you submit your article to the appropriate category.
Writing articles entails some knowledge, but you do not have to be an expert writer. Your article should be focused on solving an issue or problem for your reader. For article topics, think of common questions that are likely to be asked regarding that niche business. Using keywords that are easily identified by your niche market within your articles will further ensure that your audience can easily find your writings.
Compared with other forms of marketing, writing articles is almost free. You may find some small fees associated with publishing, but they are nothing compared to the high cost of placing ads or doing mailing promotions. Thus, website promotion through articles is a good idea, especially if you, as a small business owner, have a limited marketing budget to begin with.
Writing and submitting articles for niche marketing may seem a tedious exercise to first-timers. But after you get the hang of it, marketing via articles can be a really easy and effective way to promote your small niche business. What is also highly rewarding is that you can build your credibility through the content you share. Thereafter, as you submit more and more quality content articles for the same niche market, traffic to your site will steadily increase.
