Seven Steps to Internet Marketing Success

I am often asked what it takes to make a successful
business on the Internet. Truthfully, there is no single
answer: it takes dedication, patience, and practice.
However, there are some common aspects to Internet
marketing that every entrepreneur should be focussing on.

Before I start however, it is worth considering how
Internet Marketing is not so different from the offline
businesses. Did the owners companies like BP or WalMart
start out with a unique idea that took the world by storm?
Not a chance. They looked at the market and said "I can
build a better company".

Similarly, the chances are that your core business is
probably not unique - but by doing things better than your
competition, you increase your market share and your
business blossoms. Providing there is enough demand for
your what you offer, the possibilities for the home
business owner are endless.

Step 1 - Know your Customer!

You will get absolutely nowhere without identifying who
your market is made up of. Who are you trying to sell to?
What readership are you trying to attract? It makes no
sense to even start a business without working out who your
customer is in the first place. Where would you place your
marketing? What would it say? You have to know the answers
to these questions before you start advertising. You need
to get in the mindset of your customers - try to work out
what they want to hear. If you can match your advertising
to the way your customer thinks, this will dramatically
increase your conversion rate.

In order to track where your visitors are coming from, you
will need some form of analytics. Your system may include a
complete analytics package. If not then you could do worse
than Google Analytics (which is free) or one of the
specialist services such as Statcounter. In either case,
you would be advised to set up tracking codes that then
enable you to identify the source of your traffic. Once you
know how your visitors found you, by establishing what they
do once they reach your site (leave, sign up to a
newsletter, purchase) you can identify which source of
visitors are the most valuable to you.

Step 2 - Build a List

So, you've identified your target clients. Excellent! You
are already ahead of 90% of your competition! Now, no
matter which form of advertising you decide upon, one of
your primary goals should be to build a list of clients.
This is typically acheived in the form of an opt-in email
address database. Why do you think all of the most
successful companies do everything they can to get you to
sign up to email updates from them? They know, as you will
learn, that it is approximately ten times cheaper to sell
to an existing contact than to obtain new contacts.

You should use your list wisely though. No-one likes being
spammed. So every contact you have with your clients should
be targetted to provide as much value to the client as
possible whilst retaining your primary goal to move a sale
forward. Research has shown that the average customer
buys/accepts your offer after seeing your message 7 times.
So you are going to need to leverage this list to make sure
that the client buys into your offering over time.

Online Marketeers also know the benefit of Affiliate
programs. These are schemes where you agree to sell a
complimentary product in return for a commission from the
providing company. Now even with the greatest product, your
offering won't appeal to everyone you come into contact
with. This does not stop you suggesting other products or
services that may be of interest. This way you get to make
money off people who don't buy your primary product or
service.

Step 3 - Play the Numbers Game

I've been involved in sales and marketing for over 15
years, and one of the first lessons I ever learned was a
simple concept of "Don't Eat your Pipeline". You may wonder
what this means, but the message is simple. Sales is a game
of numbers. The more interested people you get, or leads,
the more sales you will get. Basic huh? But it always
amazes me how many businesses fail at this level.

Selling is a funnel process. You have to start by getting
your message out to as many people as possible. If you have
got your marketing message right, this will result in
leads, that go in the top of the funnel - and believe me
you need as many of these as you can get. Some of these
leads will turn into prospects. That is, those who have an
interest in what you have to offer, and the means to take
advantage of it. If you have a valuable product or service,
you will get sales (or conversions).

Step 4 - Free is Better than Paid

This once again seems like I am stating the obvious. Why
would you buy something if you can get the same thing for
free? Well the difference often is time and convenience.
Most people will turn to paid advertising initially to get
their message out to the world, and don't get me wrong,
there is absolutely an essential mix to be had where paid
advertising does indeed feature. However, the web has grown
up and there are so many opportunities out there to get
high quality visitors without paying for every one.

You will have heard of SEO or Search Engine Optimisation,
which is the art of tailoring your online presence to be
successfully pickup up by the major search engines. This
can be vey powerful, and should be part of your stratagy,
but I don't want to go into this today. SEO is the subject
of countless blogs and sites in their own right to do
justice in a short article.

My advice would be to take advantage of what is
collectively known as Web 2.0 resources. These are sites
that are specifically set up to connect people and ideas.
You should look at writing and maintaining your own blog
which gives you all the opportunity in the world to put
your thoughts and ideas across to your clients. Social
Networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter are
fantastic for gathering interested clients as they are read
by 100s of millions of people every day. This ranks the
sites highly with the search engines, increasing your
chance of getting free hits to your site. I will be posting
future articles dedicated to Web 2.0 as this area is
rapidly growing and will become increasingly important to
your online success.

Step 5 - Test everything!

How do you know which marketing activities are proving
valuable? The answer? Check! Unless you constantly are
using reports to assess the effectiviness of your
activities, how will you know what to reproduce and what to
drop? This is where you need to introduce the concept of
split-testing.

Split-testing refers to when you test two variations of
something to identify which works best. This could be two
similar advertising campaigns where the specific wording is
slightly different, or perhaps the page you point your
visitors at (landing page) to see how each affects the
conversion rate.

By working out over time what is effective, you know where
to spend your time and money continuing to further refining
the process.

Step 6 - Have Something to Sell!!!

Sounds obvious eh? Of course you have something to sell! I
am continually astounded at people who sign up to Internet
Marketing schemes whose whole purpose is just to get more
people involved. Where is the product? Where is the value
you are providing to your client?

Without value, those leads you sweated over getting earlier
will drift away as there is nothing to keep their
attention. Whatever you are offering, make sure that there
is always something valuable for them to buy into, and that
there is an upgrade path for further sales as your
relationship with your client develops.

Step 7 - Don't Stop!

Very rarely will you hit on anything that delivers huge
profits without having to work for it. Even if you have a
fantastic product, with amazing profits, you will sell
nothing without continued marketing effort. This is
imperative to a sustainable business. The more you put into
the business, the more you will get out of it.

If something doesn't work and ends up costing you time
and/or money what should you do? Give up? Absolutely NOT!
Change what you are doing? Possibly (so long as you know
what was wrong and where to start fixing it). You may find
however that you are doing the right things and you just
need time to convince your leads that you are in it for the
long term. Remember - most customers will need 7 attempts
to get them to buy from you. You can't do this if you don't
allow enough time for the process to complete.

About the Author:

Matt Lawless is an Internet Entrepreneur based in the UK.
With 15 years sales and marketing experience, his passion
is helping anyone excel online.
Gor more information go to http://www.mattlawless.com .
Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mattlawless