A Beginner's Checklist to Promoting an Online Business
(Part 3)
By Angela Wu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For those of us who operate Internet home businesses,
'cyberspace' is so convenient that it's easy to forget
that people still exist out there in the 'real world'.
Part 3 of our 'checklist' series on promoting your online
business provides you with a few tips on how to reach
your audience offline.
[ Note: Parts 1 and 2 are available online at:
* http://onlinebusinessbasics.com/art...checklist1.html
* http://onlinebusinessbasics.com/art...checklist2.html ]
PART 3: Marketing Techniques for the 'Real World'
1. Business cards. Leave a few in the local library or
with other local businesses where prospects gather
(with permission, of course); include a card in your
postal mail; tack up a card on the bulletin board at
your grocery store, etc. One place that offers quality,
professional business cards at reasonable prices is
ExtraValue.com, http://www.extravalue.com/ . On a
tight budget? Go to VistaPrint for free trial cards:
http://www.vistaprint.com/ .
2. Direct mail. Flyers, brochures, catalogs, coupons....
there are all sorts of things you can send through the
mail. Need help? Freelancers can create pretty much
any type of direct mail promotional items for you at
competitive rates. Try
http://buildyourhomebiz.com/rd/gethelp.html .
3. Use your car! How much time do you spend driving (or,
unfortunately, sitting stuck in traffic)? Take advantage
of this opportunity by placing your URL on your car for
everyone to see. Web Decals offers custom-printed
decals that quickly and easily attach to your car's
windshield: http://buildyourhomebiz.com/rd/webdecal.html
It's also a good idea to keep a few business cards,
brochures, flyers, or other information in your car
that you can give out to people who stop to inquire
about your business.
4. Newspaper advertising. Keep in mind that classified
ads are usually extremely short; you'll need a punchy,
compelling ad that fits into just a few lines.
Nationwide Newspapers offers classified advertising
in over 8000 newspapers across the United States:
http://www.nationwideadvertising.com/
U.S. Media Inc., http://www.usmediainc.com/ ,
specializes in many types of 'offline' advertising,
including newspapers, radio, TV, magazines, and more.
5. Get to the 'heart' of your audience by advertising
in a quality magazine with loyal readers. U.S. Media Inc.
lists a wide variety of trade and consumer magazines and
publications. Contact their reps for more information:
http://www.usmediainc.com/
6. Participate in trade shows. Get exposure by networking
with others in your industry. While you're there, you can
even make a pen and paper available to collect the email
addresses and/or postal addresses of people interested in
receiving your newsletter or additional information about
your product or service. Visit the Trade Show News Network
to search for trade shows of all types in industries
worldwide: http://www.tsnn.com/
7. Visit your local Chamber of Commerce. They may be able
to offer you suggestions on where you can promote your
business locally.
8. Send out postcards. Postcards are short, attractive, and
readers can easily see your information 'at-a-glance.'
Don't forget to display your URL! Extravalue.com is a
great place to get professional, quality cards at very
reasonable rates.
9. Put your URL on every piece of printed material that
leaves your office. This includes brochures, business
cards, flyers, faxes, labels, letterhead, invoices,
cheques, envelopes, and anything else you can think of.
10. Consider using promotional items such as notepads, pens,
mugs, etc. Imprint these items with your URL. Give some
away as gifts to your best clients. You can even sell
them online! iPrint is one place you can find 'do-it-
yourself' promotional items, including t-shirts, golf
balls, pens, mugs, clocks, tote bags, and much more:
http://www.iprint.com/ . And at CafePress.com you can
upload your artwork, set your prices, and you're ready
to sell.
11. State your URL on your voice mail message. Say your
standard spiel, then add something like, 'For more
information on [your product], visit our website at
http://www.MyDomain.com.' uReach is a service that offers
all-in-one communications service that includes voice
mail, email, and faxes. http://www.ureach.com/
12. Seek potential partnerships with complementary
businesses. For example, let's say you sell a dog
training video. You could approach local groomers or
dog agility centers and offer to share the cost of
their next direct mail campaign: when they mail a
postcard or letter inviting their clients to return,
you also offer their clients a discount on your dog
training video. This way you both reduce your costs...
you reach a targeted audience quickly, easily, and
through a trusted party (the other business)... and
your business 'partner' can make a valuable product
available at a discount to their customers.
==============================================
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Angela is the editor of Online Business Basics, a practical
guide to building a business on a beginner's budget. It's
a proven hit with beginners, for the down-to-earth style
and loads of instantly useable tips! For details, visit
http://www.ExclusiveInfoProducts.com/obb
OR request a series of 10 free reports to get you started:
mailto:businessbasics@w...
==============================================
Me And My Best Friend
A Day At The Office!
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
A Beginner's Checklist to Promoting an Online Business
A Beginner's Checklist to Promoting an Online Business
(Part 2)
By Angela Wu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This week we continue with Part 2 of our 3-part series on
how to market your online business. Part 1 is available at
http://onlinebusinessbasics.com/art...checklist1.html .
As much as we all love free stuff, an Internet business is
still a business and you can reasonably expect to invest
in marketing. Fortunately, online marketing can be quite
affordable -- even to beginners on limited budgets. Here's
a quick list of some of the more popular paid methods for
small businesses.
PART 2: Effective Fee-Based Online Marketing Methods
1. Search engines. Web surfers typically use the large
search engines such as Google, MSN, and AOL to find
the information they want. If you can manage to get
a good ranking for some of your top key phrases, you
can get a steady stream of traffic. Expect to invest
funds for review/submissions, and possibly even for
hiring an optimization expert or for self-education.
A great site to learn about search engine optimization
is Search Engine Watch, http://searchenginewatch.com/ .
2. Major indexes. Yahoo [ http://yahoo.com/ ] and Open
Directory [ http://www.dmoz.org/ ] are two of the best-
known indexes. Both of them can significantly increase
your link popularity, and provide you with additional
traffic. At the time of writing, Yahoo charges an annual
review fee for commercial websites. Submissions to Open
Directory are currently still free.
3. Pay-per-click search engines. With these search engines,
you literally pay a certain amount of money for every
click they send your way. The more you bid, the higher
you'll rank for your search term and the more visible
your link will be. The largest and most popular PPC SE
is Overture, http://www.overture.com/. A list of PPC SEs
is available from http://payperclicksearchengines.com/ .
4. Ezine advertising. Although this takes a fair bit of
practice and experimentation, ezine advertising is
potentially one of the best and most profitable ways
to promote your business online. The editor has already
done the hard work of putting together a list of opt-in,
interested prospects; you just take advantage of it.
Search for complementary ezines at NetterWeb.com,
http://www.netterweb.com/ or use the excellent
Lifestyles Publishing Directory of Ezines at
http://buildyourhomebiz.com/directory.html .
5. Direct email campaign from a reputable list broker.
There are companies on the web that specialize in
building permission-based email lists, targeted to
each subscriber's area of interest. This is true
'opt-in', unlike the endless stream of spam email
that implores you to purchase '30 million addresses
for only $99!' True opt-in lists are not cheap by any
means, but they have the potential to yield great
results. Check out http://www.postmasterdirect.com/
as an example.
6. Press releases. Your newsworthy press release could
generate loads of free publicity for your business.
Invest some of your marketing funds in educating
yourself on how to generate publicity; an excellent
source of information is Paul Hartunian's website at
http://www.prprofits.com/ .
7. Advertise on a targeted website. Find complementary
but non-competing sites and check their rates for
advertising. Banner ads are the most common type of
advertising permitted; however, they're usually not
very effective. Text ads or endorsements typically
perform better.
8. Mini-sites. These small sites (typically around 3 or
4 pages) are focused on selling one product. There's
usually no free content; just a sales letter, perhaps
a FAQ and some contact information. Mini-sites are an
excellent way to get your prospect to do just one thing,
whether that's order your product or sign up for your
newsletter. The costs to create a mini-site would
include domain name registration and hosting fees.
9. Experiment with some of the promotional services
offered online. The only way to know for sure whether
or not they'll work for you is to try them (and track
the results). Use discretion -- be careful not to
associate your business with promotion services that
are nothing but 'disguised' ways to spam! Before you
shell out the cash for these types of services, ask
around for first-hand experiences.
10. Hold a conference. A great credibility builder is to
offer a web or phone conference for your visitors.
Use it to offer helpful information -- for example,
you could open the conference to questions from the
audience -- and generate additional interest in your
product or service. Two sites that offer conference
services are http://www.easyconference.com/ and
http://www.bridgerentals.com/ .
Don't be afraid to invest in marketing your online
business. Effective 'free' promotion is always wonderful,
but there are many equally effective paid methods that
can result in a great return on your investment. Be
sure to track the results for each method you use; that
way you'll be able to concentrate your efforts on those
methods that work best for *your* business.
Stay tuned next time for a checklist on promoting your
Internet business in the 'real world'!
==============================================
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Angela is the editor of Online Business Basics, a practical
guide to building a business on a beginner's budget. It's
a proven hit with beginners, for the down-to-earth style
and loads of instantly useable tips! For details, visit
http://www.ExclusiveInfoProducts.com/obb
OR request a series of 10 free reports to get you started:
mailto:businessbasics@workyourleads.com
(Part 2)
By Angela Wu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This week we continue with Part 2 of our 3-part series on
how to market your online business. Part 1 is available at
http://onlinebusinessbasics.com/art...checklist1.html .
As much as we all love free stuff, an Internet business is
still a business and you can reasonably expect to invest
in marketing. Fortunately, online marketing can be quite
affordable -- even to beginners on limited budgets. Here's
a quick list of some of the more popular paid methods for
small businesses.
PART 2: Effective Fee-Based Online Marketing Methods
1. Search engines. Web surfers typically use the large
search engines such as Google, MSN, and AOL to find
the information they want. If you can manage to get
a good ranking for some of your top key phrases, you
can get a steady stream of traffic. Expect to invest
funds for review/submissions, and possibly even for
hiring an optimization expert or for self-education.
A great site to learn about search engine optimization
is Search Engine Watch, http://searchenginewatch.com/ .
2. Major indexes. Yahoo [ http://yahoo.com/ ] and Open
Directory [ http://www.dmoz.org/ ] are two of the best-
known indexes. Both of them can significantly increase
your link popularity, and provide you with additional
traffic. At the time of writing, Yahoo charges an annual
review fee for commercial websites. Submissions to Open
Directory are currently still free.
3. Pay-per-click search engines. With these search engines,
you literally pay a certain amount of money for every
click they send your way. The more you bid, the higher
you'll rank for your search term and the more visible
your link will be. The largest and most popular PPC SE
is Overture, http://www.overture.com/. A list of PPC SEs
is available from http://payperclicksearchengines.com/ .
4. Ezine advertising. Although this takes a fair bit of
practice and experimentation, ezine advertising is
potentially one of the best and most profitable ways
to promote your business online. The editor has already
done the hard work of putting together a list of opt-in,
interested prospects; you just take advantage of it.
Search for complementary ezines at NetterWeb.com,
http://www.netterweb.com/ or use the excellent
Lifestyles Publishing Directory of Ezines at
http://buildyourhomebiz.com/directory.html .
5. Direct email campaign from a reputable list broker.
There are companies on the web that specialize in
building permission-based email lists, targeted to
each subscriber's area of interest. This is true
'opt-in', unlike the endless stream of spam email
that implores you to purchase '30 million addresses
for only $99!' True opt-in lists are not cheap by any
means, but they have the potential to yield great
results. Check out http://www.postmasterdirect.com/
as an example.
6. Press releases. Your newsworthy press release could
generate loads of free publicity for your business.
Invest some of your marketing funds in educating
yourself on how to generate publicity; an excellent
source of information is Paul Hartunian's website at
http://www.prprofits.com/ .
7. Advertise on a targeted website. Find complementary
but non-competing sites and check their rates for
advertising. Banner ads are the most common type of
advertising permitted; however, they're usually not
very effective. Text ads or endorsements typically
perform better.
8. Mini-sites. These small sites (typically around 3 or
4 pages) are focused on selling one product. There's
usually no free content; just a sales letter, perhaps
a FAQ and some contact information. Mini-sites are an
excellent way to get your prospect to do just one thing,
whether that's order your product or sign up for your
newsletter. The costs to create a mini-site would
include domain name registration and hosting fees.
9. Experiment with some of the promotional services
offered online. The only way to know for sure whether
or not they'll work for you is to try them (and track
the results). Use discretion -- be careful not to
associate your business with promotion services that
are nothing but 'disguised' ways to spam! Before you
shell out the cash for these types of services, ask
around for first-hand experiences.
10. Hold a conference. A great credibility builder is to
offer a web or phone conference for your visitors.
Use it to offer helpful information -- for example,
you could open the conference to questions from the
audience -- and generate additional interest in your
product or service. Two sites that offer conference
services are http://www.easyconference.com/ and
http://www.bridgerentals.com/ .
Don't be afraid to invest in marketing your online
business. Effective 'free' promotion is always wonderful,
but there are many equally effective paid methods that
can result in a great return on your investment. Be
sure to track the results for each method you use; that
way you'll be able to concentrate your efforts on those
methods that work best for *your* business.
Stay tuned next time for a checklist on promoting your
Internet business in the 'real world'!
==============================================
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Angela is the editor of Online Business Basics, a practical
guide to building a business on a beginner's budget. It's
a proven hit with beginners, for the down-to-earth style
and loads of instantly useable tips! For details, visit
http://www.ExclusiveInfoProducts.com/obb
OR request a series of 10 free reports to get you started:
mailto:businessbasics@workyourleads.com
A Beginner's Checklist to Promoting an Online Business
By Angela Wu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Internet's full of hyped-up promises of the 'ultimate'
marketing secret that will singlehandedly skyrocket your
business to instant success.
Naturally, this is ALL it is: hype. There's no single
'secret' that will magically transform a fledgling business
into a powerful money-maker. Instead, every business owner
is responsible for testing and refining various techniques
until he or she has developed a solid, effective base that
produces the desired results.
What works for one business may not work for another!
Likewise, another business may have poor results with
one method, while others experience great success.
Here's a quick checklist of some of the more popular
-- and completely free -- marketing techniques to help
you build your online business (note: this is a 3-part
series).
PART 1: FREE ONLINE MARKETING TECHNIQUES
1. Build and use your own opt-in list of targeted and
interested prospects. Offer a free newsletter that
provides fresh, interesting, and relevant content.
You'll receive feedback from your readers about what's
important to them, and over time they'll come to know
and trust you. Your products, services, and even
recommendations will then be taken much more seriously
because you've developed credibility with your readers.
2. Contribute to newsgroups or discussion boards. Establish
yourself as a helpful member of a community. Other
members of the community who come to know and respect
you will often refer you to others.
3. Niche directories or search engines. Find all the
highly-targeted directories and SEs for your market,
and then work to get listed. You'll be surprised at
how many niche sites there are! Good places to start
looking are http://yahoo.com/ and http://www.dmoz.com/ .
4. Build your link popularity. For example, you can trade
links with other businesses in your market so that you
can 'share' each other's traffic. Most of the major
search engines take link popularity into consideration
when ranking your site.
5. Endorsed mailings to other lists. Find the editor of a
great newsletter, and offer your product or service to
him for free in return for a review or an endorsed ad
to his list. Endorsements from the editor can far
outperform regular 'ads', since they come from someone
they know and trust (the editor).
6. Testimonials. It's fine for you to say that your product
or service is wonderful... but there's far more 'punch'
when someone else says it! Testimonials show prospects
that you have happy customers and helps them to make
the decision to buy.
7. Use autoresponders to follow-up with your prospects. It
has been proven time and time again that autoresponders
can dramatically increase your profits! They're also
great time-savers, saving you from following up with
each prospect manually.
8. Ad swaps. You can get extra exposure for 'free' (no
out-of-pocket expenses) by swapping ad space with another
editor that caters to your audience. Plus it's a great
way to put 'remnant' ad space to good use.
9. Join a webring. Link to other sites like yours and
build an online 'community.'
10. Offer coupons or gift certificates to entice visitors
to make a purchase *now*.
11. Make good use of referral marketing. Ask happy
customers to refer prospects to you. Many people are
so busy these days that they're willing to rely on a
trusted friend or contact's advice -- it saves them
the time necessary to do all the research themselves.
12. Write and distribute articles in your area of
expertise. This is a great credibility-builder!
People who appreciate what you have to say are much
more likely to check out your business. Another 'bonus'
is that articles are often archived on websites for
visitors to refer to time and time again.
13. Become an 'expert'. If you like to write and have the
time to do so, consider partnering with a high-traffic
site within your niche market and offer to write a
regular column or article. You establish credibility
and get exposure; your partner site and their readers
get great content.
14. Use a 'Recommend-It' or 'Refer-A-Friend' script. These
scripts let visitors send your URL to friends.
15. Make it easy for others to link to your site. Consider
adding a 'Link to Us' section where you provide the
HTML that visitors can simply cut and paste to their
own web pages. Again, this helps to build your link
popularity (see point #4).
16. Hold contests. For example, every month you could give
away one of your products to a lucky subscriber or
customer.
17. Use a signature. Also known as 'sig files', a signature
is a brief blurb about your business along with your
URL and/or contact information. Put a signature on
every piece of email you send out, as well as on any
message board posts (if appropriate).
18. Give away a quality free eBook or report. eBooks and
reports can be excellent viral marketing tools. You
can even offer them as a 'premium' to other businesses
within your niche, so that they can give it away to
their own customers or subscribers. This is an
effective way to build a network that will willingly
promote your business for you! More on promoting free
eBooks and how they can help you can be found in the
article, '10 Quick Tips on How to Create, Distribute,
and Profit from Free eBooks':
http://onlinebusinessbasics.com/articles/ebooktips.html
Hopefully this has given you a few helpful ideas on how
to market your online business. In the next installment
of this series, you'll read about several marketing
techniques that may cost you money, but that can be worth
the investment many times over. The final installment is
all about marketing your online business in the 'offline'
world! Stay tuned!
==============================================
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Angela is the editor of Online Business Basics, a practical
guide to building a business on a beginner's budget. It's
a proven hit with beginners, for the down-to-earth style
and loads of instantly useable tips! For details, visit
http://www.ExclusiveInfoProducts.com/obb
OR request a series of 10 free reports to get you started:
mailto:businessbasics@workyourleads.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Internet's full of hyped-up promises of the 'ultimate'
marketing secret that will singlehandedly skyrocket your
business to instant success.
Naturally, this is ALL it is: hype. There's no single
'secret' that will magically transform a fledgling business
into a powerful money-maker. Instead, every business owner
is responsible for testing and refining various techniques
until he or she has developed a solid, effective base that
produces the desired results.
What works for one business may not work for another!
Likewise, another business may have poor results with
one method, while others experience great success.
Here's a quick checklist of some of the more popular
-- and completely free -- marketing techniques to help
you build your online business (note: this is a 3-part
series).
PART 1: FREE ONLINE MARKETING TECHNIQUES
1. Build and use your own opt-in list of targeted and
interested prospects. Offer a free newsletter that
provides fresh, interesting, and relevant content.
You'll receive feedback from your readers about what's
important to them, and over time they'll come to know
and trust you. Your products, services, and even
recommendations will then be taken much more seriously
because you've developed credibility with your readers.
2. Contribute to newsgroups or discussion boards. Establish
yourself as a helpful member of a community. Other
members of the community who come to know and respect
you will often refer you to others.
3. Niche directories or search engines. Find all the
highly-targeted directories and SEs for your market,
and then work to get listed. You'll be surprised at
how many niche sites there are! Good places to start
looking are http://yahoo.com/ and http://www.dmoz.com/ .
4. Build your link popularity. For example, you can trade
links with other businesses in your market so that you
can 'share' each other's traffic. Most of the major
search engines take link popularity into consideration
when ranking your site.
5. Endorsed mailings to other lists. Find the editor of a
great newsletter, and offer your product or service to
him for free in return for a review or an endorsed ad
to his list. Endorsements from the editor can far
outperform regular 'ads', since they come from someone
they know and trust (the editor).
6. Testimonials. It's fine for you to say that your product
or service is wonderful... but there's far more 'punch'
when someone else says it! Testimonials show prospects
that you have happy customers and helps them to make
the decision to buy.
7. Use autoresponders to follow-up with your prospects. It
has been proven time and time again that autoresponders
can dramatically increase your profits! They're also
great time-savers, saving you from following up with
each prospect manually.
8. Ad swaps. You can get extra exposure for 'free' (no
out-of-pocket expenses) by swapping ad space with another
editor that caters to your audience. Plus it's a great
way to put 'remnant' ad space to good use.
9. Join a webring. Link to other sites like yours and
build an online 'community.'
10. Offer coupons or gift certificates to entice visitors
to make a purchase *now*.
11. Make good use of referral marketing. Ask happy
customers to refer prospects to you. Many people are
so busy these days that they're willing to rely on a
trusted friend or contact's advice -- it saves them
the time necessary to do all the research themselves.
12. Write and distribute articles in your area of
expertise. This is a great credibility-builder!
People who appreciate what you have to say are much
more likely to check out your business. Another 'bonus'
is that articles are often archived on websites for
visitors to refer to time and time again.
13. Become an 'expert'. If you like to write and have the
time to do so, consider partnering with a high-traffic
site within your niche market and offer to write a
regular column or article. You establish credibility
and get exposure; your partner site and their readers
get great content.
14. Use a 'Recommend-It' or 'Refer-A-Friend' script. These
scripts let visitors send your URL to friends.
15. Make it easy for others to link to your site. Consider
adding a 'Link to Us' section where you provide the
HTML that visitors can simply cut and paste to their
own web pages. Again, this helps to build your link
popularity (see point #4).
16. Hold contests. For example, every month you could give
away one of your products to a lucky subscriber or
customer.
17. Use a signature. Also known as 'sig files', a signature
is a brief blurb about your business along with your
URL and/or contact information. Put a signature on
every piece of email you send out, as well as on any
message board posts (if appropriate).
18. Give away a quality free eBook or report. eBooks and
reports can be excellent viral marketing tools. You
can even offer them as a 'premium' to other businesses
within your niche, so that they can give it away to
their own customers or subscribers. This is an
effective way to build a network that will willingly
promote your business for you! More on promoting free
eBooks and how they can help you can be found in the
article, '10 Quick Tips on How to Create, Distribute,
and Profit from Free eBooks':
http://onlinebusinessbasics.com/articles/ebooktips.html
Hopefully this has given you a few helpful ideas on how
to market your online business. In the next installment
of this series, you'll read about several marketing
techniques that may cost you money, but that can be worth
the investment many times over. The final installment is
all about marketing your online business in the 'offline'
world! Stay tuned!
==============================================
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Angela is the editor of Online Business Basics, a practical
guide to building a business on a beginner's budget. It's
a proven hit with beginners, for the down-to-earth style
and loads of instantly useable tips! For details, visit
http://www.ExclusiveInfoProducts.com/obb
OR request a series of 10 free reports to get you started:
mailto:businessbasics@workyourleads.com
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