If you’re just starting out with your online business then how are you going to attract the people that will ultimately determine your success or failure? Drawing customers into your marketing funnel is a basic of business that you will need to put a lot of thought into.
Case Study Of A Sales Funnel That Worked
You may know that I started out online with trading software products, designed to help people create their own business and trade successfully on the stock market.
The products I really wanted to sell were the high-margin information products, but without any credibility initially it was difficult to see me succeeding by going straight into marketing those.
I decided to create a couple of low-cost front-end products that would get people “dipping their feet into” my business and trying first.
I developed “Ultimate Trading Systems” which contained tips for designing trading systems, which sold for under $10. This meant that customers could sign up at minimal risk to themselves – there was no major investment involved. It also allowed me to build my reputation.
This all served a couple of purposes. Firstly it got the customers over the initial BIG step of having enough trust to share credit card and contact details with our business; secondly it allowed us to reference the higher-end products we were selling - the Metastock programming study guide, DVDs, eBooks, software programs , which were the information products that formed the core of our business.
Once we raised our credibility by delivering what we said we would deliver and showing the customer that we knew what we were talking about they became less nervous about spending on the bigger products.
If I was able to wind back time I would probably have added another step into the above process; I would have created an affiliate marketing set up to sell the products from the beginning – perhaps allowing them to sell the cheap products and retain all that revenue but incentivising them with commissions for selling the more expensive products; that way I could have had a whole army of people selling our products with little effort on my part.
How Can You Start Your Marketing Funnel?
Now how do you apply the above model to your own business?
The basic idea is to create cheap or free products to introduce customers to your business and connect them to what you really want to sell them.
This may be in the form of a free report, a free video or another low-cost product; something that benefits the customer by providing information that can help them, as well as helping to position YOU as the expert in your business segment.
Start up businesses need to address very early on how they will attract buying customers, as a critical part of their business plan. We have shown you how to go about building a sales funnel; if you would like more great tips about getting started you can check out the free-to-watch Competition Crusher Workshop. Just click here to find out more.
[caption id="attachment_5515" align="alignnone" width="462" caption="Get customers using a marketing
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
Is Your Online Business Strategy Aiming At The Right Target?
Most businesses don’t fail through lack of effort; they fail because their online business strategy was not focused on the right target.
Call it what you like – “working smarter, not harder” is often used – but there is no substitute for getting your own strategy focusing on the things that will give you the best Return on Investment (ROI).
Or to put it another way – a day’s work going in the right direction is worth infinitely more than a week’s work going in the wrong direction!
How To Focus Your Business Strategy
Sometimes it’s a question of challenging your beliefs, especially if you’ve been taking your business in one direction, only to find that it’s not really working.
A good example of what it takes can be illustrated by the co-founder of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), who taught me how a change of vision or focus can make a world of difference to any situation in life.
We all receive the same stimuli from our surroundings but we all process those stimuli differently, as illustrated by a couple of examples from my NLP training.
The Spelling Test!
With the subject of spelling, the best spellers can visualise the word in front of their eyes and they can spell it forwards or backwards. Poor spellers will sound out the word syllable by syllable which can sometimes work, but only for the simpler words.
It’s a question of how they are looking at it that decides how successful they are.
Finding The Right Aim!
When a group of Olympic shooters were asked how they hit the target so accurately they replied that they imagine a laser pointer on top of the gun and when they shoot they line up the dot with the target. It was this process of visualisation that helped get results. When this technique was introduced to the US military it improved accuracy greatly.
So, bearing these lessons in mind, how do you ensure your business is aiming at the right target?
Here are some pointers:
Question your own business paradigm – is there a new way to look at things that will improve the chances of success, like the speller and the shooter?
Map out your short-term goals and longer-term goals and have them clearly defined in your business plan.
Work out how you will generate cash-flow in the short-term to help reach the longer-term goals
Think about products and services that involve less time and effort, but higher and longer-lasting returns for you. For example, if you run workshops, can you film them so that you are creating extra product opportunities with the footage?
Following the above lessons and tips should point you in the direction of developing business strategies that produce a good ROI – the name of the game with any business!
Working smarter on your online business strategy is easier if you use all the great web resources available to you; one of those is the Competition Crusher Workshop which you can view completely FREE here: www.CrusherWorkshop.com.
[caption id="attachment_5495" align="alignnone" width="432" caption="Your online business strategy should hit the
Call it what you like – “working smarter, not harder” is often used – but there is no substitute for getting your own strategy focusing on the things that will give you the best Return on Investment (ROI).
Or to put it another way – a day’s work going in the right direction is worth infinitely more than a week’s work going in the wrong direction!
How To Focus Your Business Strategy
Sometimes it’s a question of challenging your beliefs, especially if you’ve been taking your business in one direction, only to find that it’s not really working.
A good example of what it takes can be illustrated by the co-founder of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), who taught me how a change of vision or focus can make a world of difference to any situation in life.
We all receive the same stimuli from our surroundings but we all process those stimuli differently, as illustrated by a couple of examples from my NLP training.
The Spelling Test!
With the subject of spelling, the best spellers can visualise the word in front of their eyes and they can spell it forwards or backwards. Poor spellers will sound out the word syllable by syllable which can sometimes work, but only for the simpler words.
It’s a question of how they are looking at it that decides how successful they are.
Finding The Right Aim!
When a group of Olympic shooters were asked how they hit the target so accurately they replied that they imagine a laser pointer on top of the gun and when they shoot they line up the dot with the target. It was this process of visualisation that helped get results. When this technique was introduced to the US military it improved accuracy greatly.
So, bearing these lessons in mind, how do you ensure your business is aiming at the right target?
Here are some pointers:
Question your own business paradigm – is there a new way to look at things that will improve the chances of success, like the speller and the shooter?
Map out your short-term goals and longer-term goals and have them clearly defined in your business plan.
Work out how you will generate cash-flow in the short-term to help reach the longer-term goals
Think about products and services that involve less time and effort, but higher and longer-lasting returns for you. For example, if you run workshops, can you film them so that you are creating extra product opportunities with the footage?
Following the above lessons and tips should point you in the direction of developing business strategies that produce a good ROI – the name of the game with any business!
Working smarter on your online business strategy is easier if you use all the great web resources available to you; one of those is the Competition Crusher Workshop which you can view completely FREE here: www.CrusherWorkshop.com.
[caption id="attachment_5495" align="alignnone" width="432" caption="Your online business strategy should hit the
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The 3 Pillars Of Product Creation And Marketing
You can’t create a successful business without creating a top product that there’s a demand for, but if that product isn’t made known to the world then you won’t be selling anything.
That’s why recognising the three pillars of product creation and product marketing can help to underpin your whole online business strategy. We detail them below.
Identify The Need
Some businesses develop a product and then look for the need. To us this is nonsensical.
Identifying the need or a hungry market first and tailoring your product to that need guarantees there will be buyers for your product.
No matter whether your product is based around plumbing, IT services or training
That’s why recognising the three pillars of product creation and product marketing can help to underpin your whole online business strategy. We detail them below.
Identify The Need
Some businesses develop a product and then look for the need. To us this is nonsensical.
Identifying the need or a hungry market first and tailoring your product to that need guarantees there will be buyers for your product.
No matter whether your product is based around plumbing, IT services or training
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
How To Map Out An Internet Marketing Plan
#1 Melbourne SEO Services Company
How To Map Out An Internet Marketing Plan is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company
Without an internet marketing plan of where you want to take your online business, it may end up floundering on the rocks. Put simply, you need to know where you want to take your business and how to get there, before you start out.
Below we look at the overall marketing plan for Melbourne SEO Services as an example, to show you the kinds of things you need to be thinking about as you start your journey.
Where Do You Want To Go?
Melbourne SEO Services was designed as a company that would provide information products to businesses needing guidance with their internet marketing strategies.
Why? Because info products are high margin, can be replicated, are scalable and they allow the company to create products once and get paid over and over again!
When the company started, that was the vision and we are just entering that territory now, but there have been deliberate steps taken to get there. It has been a process of steering the company closer to the vision.
Now, where do you want to take your business?
How To Get There?
We couldn’t just start out in the info product space because we hadn’t yet built the credibility or surrounded ourselves with the team of A players that we needed.
We started out with SEO services – helping companies improve their traffic levels. We offered a free report called the SEO Manifesto, which visitors could opt in to receive a copy of in exchange for their email address. This way we built a database of clients that we would keep contact with and sell other products and services to.
This critical first step achieved a couple of things. It gave us the cash-flow to start developing other products and services and it built our credibility and status as experts in what we were doing.
Cash-flow Generators
Taking the above lesson, in order to get where you want to go, your business will need a cash-flow generator at the front end. How are you going to raise the funds you need to take your business forward?
With Melbourne SEO Services we needed to document core processes and systemise all aspects of the business so that this could then be used as information product for business in the next steps. But it was the SEO services that generated enough cash for us to do that.
We have since developed Mastermind groups and business coaching sessions as well, which are other cash-flow generators, but the core business is being steered towards the info products we drew up in the first internet marketing plans we made all those years ago.
Edging Towards The Vision
In addition to the SEO services, we started developing outsourcing products, web video and small business courses that edged us into the realm of the high-margin info products.
That’s not to say we want to spend all our time running workshops. We use the model that we create content once and get paid from it forever, so we run one workshop, video it and then use this content again and again.
All the videos that you see from workshops we run are products we can sell that will generate profits over and over again, growing our business.
Before you take your business headlong into the often chaotic work of internet marketing, know where you want to go and how you will get there – have a sound internet marketing strategy from the word “go” and map it all out.
You can learn more about how to do an internet marketing plan and all aspects of taking your small business to the top of your market in the Competition Crusher Workshop at www.CrusherWorkshop.com.
You need an Internet marketing plan to succeed.
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Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Web Video Marketing: Make Your High-Roller Clients Feel Special
#1 Melbourne SEO Services Company
Keep your high-rolling clients happy.
Are you looking for new ways to make your high-end clients feel special and also to help you with your web video marketing campaign?
One way to make a splash in both of those pools is to send a camera to your customer and ask them to record video testimonials and send the file to you so you can post it; they can keep the camera!
We often think of testimonial videos as chores for the people who have to do them – that applies to write ups or videos; but the truth is that many clients will be only too happy to help, especially if you look after them well.
It also plays to their ego and can give them that feeling that they are special, coveted and important enough to your business to be asked to put it on film.
Many customers, though, have the best of intentions of helping you, but never get round to doing it so, if you want to try the sending-a-camera approach out for your business to try and nail the testimonial you’re after, then try the following way of going about it:
- Buy a Flip Camera or a Kodak Playtouch – these are both decent quality, cheap video cameras. You may like to add a personal touch by sticking one of your logos on the camera.
- Send the camera to your customer with a letter asking them to record a testimonial for you in a quiet, well-lit room; in return they can keep the camera.
- It’s best to include in your letter some questions that they can answer on camera and thereby you can steer the video testimonial in the direction you want it to go.
- Instruct them that , if they want to keep the camera once they have finished recording, either send the SD card back to you or upload the video file to the DropBox folder you have shared with them. Give them clear instructions on how to do this in your letter.
- It’s best once you have edited the video to the required length and format, to seek the client’s approval before uploading the video to your web site. They will appreciate the consideration you have put into the process.
Having the camera in their hand should convince the customer to get the testimonial that they promised done. Of course this approach would only be done with clients who are spending big with you.
The value of these video testimonials is high, because they involve little work for you and are authentic; it’s much more difficult to fake a video testimonial than a text one, which makes them instantly more valuable to your business as a marketing tool.
Do you have any other suggestions or ideas that can help the web video marketing of your business and also give your most important customers that warm, fuzzy feeling? If so please let us know in the comments section below.
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