All you need is a computer and an internet connection to
make money online, right? Well, I am afraid it’s not that simple. In my opinion
anybody with a tiny little bit of business acumen and common sense can make
money on the internet. A person with a lot of business attitude and business
knowledge has a slightly better chance of making it. The buying attitudes, reasons
and motives of customers buying on the web are very similar to the ones buying
on the high street. A lot of business principles can be applied to marketing
online and off-line so people who are aware of these business principles are
just one step ahead of others. Having said that, you certainly do not need
business knowledge to make it. It is just an advantage and not a necessity.
The traditional elements of marketing are the “four Ps”.
These also apply to the IM business. The point I want to get across here is
that IM is comparable to doing business outside the internet. An internet
business is like running a normal business; it will need your full-time attention
to succeed.
Here are some business terms that are very well known in
the marketing/business world outside the internet and can also be applied to the IM
environment.
a) The 4 Ps are:
- Product. Your product is whatever you are selling, online or offline.
- Price. Your price needs to be realistic compared to comparable products on the market, in our case on the web.
- Placement is about your distribution channels. Where and when are your products going to be available? There is one big difference here with normal marketing because products are available online 24/7.
- Promotion is your channels of communication with your customers and prospects.
If there is a problem somewhere with your sales, on the
web or outside the web, you need to investigate each P to see which is causing the problem.
b) AIDA
A = Attention. Get your visitor’s attention, in our case
by building a website with various sources of potential interest.
I = Interest. Get your visitors interested in what is on
your site.
D = Desire. Give your visitors the desire to click on
something on your website. In our case we are trying to make the visitor click
on something that makes you money.
A = Action. Your visitor takes action and clicks on one
of the links on your website. All links are links that make you money, so the
principle you need to follow when designing your website is to include as many
money-making links as possible.
c) 80/20 rule
80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers applies
very often in any business environment. This also applies in keyword research,
as 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your keywords that are used in, for
instance, an adword campaign. It is therefore important to look after that 20%
of your customers and to focus on the 20% of your good keywords.
d) Rule of 10
A sales representative can get 100 prospects gathered at
an exhibition. Out of these 100 prospects he might get ten more interesting
leads, and out of those ten leads one person will buy his product. If he is
lucky, the sales rep could get between 2% and 5% of sales out of his 100
prospects. That is a principle that I have always applied in all my businesses.
How does this work in IM? If 100 people click on your ad
and one person buys your product, you have a conversion rate of 1%, which is
acceptable in IM. A realistic IM conversion rate (discussed later in more
detail) is between 1% and 5%.
e) Know your competitors
Knowing your competition is vital whatever business you
are in. Further in the book I will give you some tools to “spy” on your
competition.
f) Supply and demand – pricing policy
If a manufacturer makes a product and there is a large
demand and no competition, they will probably sell the product with a high
profit margin as there is no competition. If other manufacturers start to
produce similar products and bring them to market, the first manufacturer will
probably have to reduce his price, as it is likely that the other manufacturers
will have a lower selling price.
The same applies for the pricing of eBooks: if you find a
niche and there is no competition you can sell your eBook for a high price. If
five other people publish an eBook in the same niche, chances are you will sell
less, and have to lower your price to stay competitive in the market.
g) Benefits, benefits, benefits
When selling any products, you HAVE to concentrate on
what the benefits are for the customer when purchasing the product. If you are
selling a product online, exactly the same applies: benefits, benefits, benefits. Don’t say “We
make good quality chairs” but instead say “Your back pain could disappear
forever with our chairs”.
h) Only two sales
There are only two reasons for sales in any sales
environment, on the web or outside the web:
- A solution to a problem
- A fulfilment of a need or dream
i) Put on other shoes
If you want to be in business you need to put yourself in
your customer’s shoes. What would you like to see if you were a potential
customer? Look at the world, your product, your sales letter, your eBook, etc…
as a potential customer. If you visit a website, what would you like to see ?
Develop the website in that way.
j) KPI indicators
KPI stands for Key Performance Indicators – also called
Key Success Indicators and are used a lot in businesses outside the web
environment. As an internet marketer you also need to analyse as many aspects
of your website as possible and try to improve it all the time. Just like the giant
supermarkets know more about your spending habits than you do, you need to try to
find out what the searching habits of your customers are. The purpose of a KPI
is to measure a certain activity, analyse the data and learn or improve.
k) Last but not least: Your USP =Unique Selling Point. What is unique about your product? How do you stand out from your competition?
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