1. DECIDE WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO SELL
1.1 Selling Products
1.2 Selling Services
1.3 Two Vital Points
2. HOW TO ADVERTISE
2.1 The 2-STEP Approach
2.2 Using a Signature File
2.3 Have a follow up strategy
3. WHERE TO ADVERTISE
3.1 Where to place Classified Ads
3.2 Using Signatures in Discussion Groups
3.3 Other places for free ads
3.4 Direct Mail
4. PUT YOUR WORK ON AUTO-PILOT
4.1 Bulk Email software
4.2 Autoresponders
4.3 Free Agent (for Newsgroups)
5. SET UP YOUR OWN WEB SITE
5.1 Design considerations
5.2 Content
6. HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR WEB SITE
6.1 Register with search engines
6.2 Publicity
7. BECOME AN EXPERT
7.1 Study online marketing methods
7.2 Learn how to find information
7.3 Learn from the work of others
7.4 Master the use of Email
7.5 Newcomers
Over 50 million people have access to the Internet - and yet it is still in its infancy.
Every month sees millions of newcomers and thousands of businesses setting up online.
Combine this huge, expanding audience with the fact that marketing and advertising can be done on the Internet at a fraction of the costs of traditional methods .....and you have a situation where the potential for online success is unlimited
Here is a 7-step guide to ensure that you will cash in on this growing boom.
The online business opportunities that you will come across can be neatly divided into two areas: (1) Products (2) Services.
When you sell a product you often have a choice. You can either carry out the whole operation of handling orders, stocking and shipping the goods, processing the payments
OR
simply market for a company that will handle all the administration for you. Your job is merely to get the orders to the company and then receive commission.
What product sells well on the Internet ?
The item that has been hailed as the number one business product of the future is... INFORMATION.
It's a product that is and always will be in demand. It combines the highest mark-up and the highest profit with the lowest possible risk.
Examples of highly successful information products are the 'how-to' and self-improvement books. Ever thought about writing and developing your own product and delivering it via Email ? Our FREE 5-part e-mail course will show you exactly how. Just send an e-mail supertipstims@sitesell.net subject "MASTERS" and your first day lesson will be with you in seconds.
If you wish to look at a very profitable opportunity using an established information product for online marketing click here .
One advantage of selling a service is that you can often generate a 'residual' commission.
This is a commission you receive again and again on a sale that you only make once - all the while that the customer continues to use the service. This will provide you with a steady flow of income every month.
What service is suitable for online selling ?
As the Internet boom continues the most obvious candidate is any service which assists companies in using the Internet, and the prime example is a web hosting service.
A web host will provide the space to put up a web site, the tools to manage it and technical advice.
Find out how you can supply customers to a web host and share in the huge profits of the Internet service industry: see 'Every business needs a web site'.
For more examples and a guide to 'reseller' operations click here.
You cannot overstate how important it is to get your message across effectively.
The usual method of advertising is to have short Classified Ads which leave the reader in a state of enticement, so that he then asks for the full detailed information in your sales letter, ideally sent by autoresponder. The purpose of the ad is not to try to sell the product - it is simply to get interested people to respond.
As your ad may be competing with dozens of others in the same publication you must aim for a winning headline to make it stand out. Study other headlines which attract you and try to see why they are effective. Ads that you see constantly repeated are probably successful. You will often find that they use key words which attract readers such as . . . . Free, How, You , Money, Secret . . . or that the headline asks a question which leads you into reading further. Experiment with different headlines to find the ones that work best.
Your sales letter should be interesting and to the point, and should stress the benefits for the customer rather than features. It should be readable with good use of layout and punctuation. You must make it very clear and simple for the reader to make the order.
Make no mistake - effective Email ads and letters are the key to your success and will multiply your response dramatically. You can see why by visiting 'How to write Great Ads and Sales Letters'
When setting up ads request that a code be placed in the subject field of Email replies so that you know where the reader saw the ad (to allow you to gauge how effective that source is). A useful tip is to make the first letter of the code represent the particular item you are selling.
A Signature File is a section of text that you place at the end of your articles or Email messages. It is an accepted method of promoting yourself in places where blatant advertising is not allowed. It should not exceed 6 lines and should contain
Most Email software allows for easy inclusion of your signature file at the end of your Email messages.
Potential customers will not always respond the first time that they receive your sales letter. You need to remind them again a week or two later, ideally giving them news of some additional benefit or possibly offering an inducement such as a free gift. In fact it could take several such steps before they buy.
For a simple but very powerful idea to win customers see 'How to attract thousands of customers'. This has proved to be the Number One top tip at the SuperTips site.
Maintain a file of all your customers and periodically keep them informed with new information or specials you may be offering.
The major online services such as AOL, Compuserve, Delphi, Genie, Prodigy, MSN have sections for placing classified ads. Some charge a fee (such as Compuserve and Prodigy), others are free.
Ezines are Email magazines which you can subscribe to - usually for free.
Most Ezines offer low cost advertising and some can reach tens of thousands of people on a weekly basis. They are also an excellent source of marketing tips. A comprehensive listing of Ezines, arranged in 80 different categories, can be found here .
You can set up your ads at web sites for free or at low cost.
There is a site which provides details of thousands of places where you can advertise: it is called the 'Commercial Directory' .
A discussion group is a group of people with a common interest in a specific topic.
If you participate in discussion groups with useful contributions or helpful articles you can add your signature files at the end of your posting . Before submitting any posts you should spend some time reading the postings in the group and familiarising yourself with the rules.
Here are examples of discussion group areas.
There are thousands of mailing lists available on every conceivable topic.
You become a member of a mailing list by sending a simple `subscribe' Email message to the list (and you can similarly unsubscribe at any time). You can post a message to the list and it will be distributed automatically to all the subscribers . These mailings may appear at frequencies varying from several times a day to less than once a week: it is also possible to receive them in digest form (such as a daily summary).
To find out how to obtain directories of these lists and other useful information see the article 'How to find an interesting mailing list': send an Email (with 'get new-list wouters' in the body of message).
To search online for a list try Liszt
Newsgroups (also known as Usenet) are similar to mailing lists except that you need to access the newsgroup with a newsreader online (whereas mailing list posts are sent to your Email box). Lists of newsgroups can be found in the same article as for the mailing lists above. You can also search the content of Newsgroups using the DejaNews search engine.
Similar to newsgroups, usually better controlled and organised.
Some newsgroups allow ads. A popular list is
alt.ad
alt.america.online
alt.biz.misc
alt.business
alt.business.accountability
alt.business.career-opportunities.executives
alt.business.home
alt.business.home.pc
alt.business.hospitality
alt.business.misc
alt.business.multi-level
alt.commerce.misc-ads
alt.internet.commerce
alt.internet.services
alt.make.money
alt.make.money.fast
alt.misc
aol.commerce.misc-ads
aol.commerce.mlm.announce
aol.misc
biz.comp.misc
biz.marketplace
biz.misc
biz.mlm
biz.newgroup
biz.next.newprod
biz.univel.misc
can.atlantic.biz
market.internet.free
misc.business
misc.entrepreneurs
There are forums where ads are acceptable: try looking for forums which have sections with titles such as 'Opportunities', 'Marketing', 'Business'.
Direct mail is the sending by Email of your advert or sales letter to a list of people who are looking for the product or service that you are offering. Such a list can be purchased from a mailing list broker. It is important to be sure that the names on the list have agreed to receive such mailings, otherwise your mail will be regarded as unsolicited (or spam), which is regarded as unethical and has the possible consequence that your service provider could cancel your account.
Here are some software tools which can automate your work and reduce time and money spent online.
Bulk Email software products handle all of the tasks needed to run an online business such as maintaining a customer database, mail merge, processing website orders, running newsletters: more details here .
An autoresponder spends 24 hours a day responding to enquirers with information such as sales letters, price lists, catalogs, order forms.
Even when this information is available on display at a web site it is often accompanied by an autoresponder to allow the visitor to retrieve it by Email rather than spend time online. And of course it can be used to capture the Email addresses of enquirers.
If you have ever had to reply manually to 100 responses to an ad you will realise the importance of an autoresponder to any business setting up on the Internet.
You may find you cannot have enough autoresponders once you acquire a batch of products: you should therefore look for special deals where you buy a batch at a substantial discount. You should also be aware that there is an assortment of features offered by autoresponder suppliers. Useful features include
Not all suppliers offer these features. For a comprehensive survey see 'How to Choose an Autoresponder'.
Free Agent is a powerful and easy-to-use newsgroup reader. It allows you to browse newsgroups both online and offline. You can download it for free.
Once you have developed a portfolio of (ideally) related items you will want to bring all the information about them together on your own web site. The website will provide you with a 24 hour international presence and a means for people anywhere in the world to obtain free reports about your products or services instantly, especially when complemented with autoresponders.
You no longer have to be an expert in HTML (the programming language behind the web page) to set up your own web site. There are easy to use web authoring tools which can set up good looking pages for you .
Some online services will provide you for free with an area to set up your site together with such tools: examples are Home Page Wizard for Compuserve and Aolpress for AOL.
However if you are serious about putting your business on the Web
There is a popular videotraining course "How To Create Your First Business Web Site In 10 Days" - details here.
If you don't have an article use ours !
There is a collection of Internet Marketing articles FREE for you to use - at your web site or if you have a newsletter - and you will see EXACTLY how to use them with examples you can simply copy.
Ask for your visitor's input regarding your site and reward them with a free gift - you can duplicate for free this example. Ensure that the content of the site continually changes, consider a weekly column of hints and tips.
Look at other web sites and copy their example.
Here's a bonus - a way to get your site reviewed for Free: click here.
When people are scanning the Internet for a specific product or service they use 'Search Engines' to feed in a 'keyword' to specify what they are looking for. You can submit your site to these search engines specifying the key words that make up the site, so that your site can then appear in such searches. If you are familiar with HTML you can use the META commands to include this information within your web page.
There are over 20 major search engines, some popular ones being:
Alta Vista Excite Infoseek Lycos Yahoo
You can submit your URL to the search engines yourself or pay companies to do it for you.
If you want to go it alone there is an excellent FREE book "Search Engine Ascent".
For the most rapid results use pay-per-click search engines: a comprehensive guide is available here.
Now that you have a web site you can include it in your signature and therefore publicise it
You can advertise offline by including your web address on your company stationery, business cards, letterheads, envelopes, newspaper ads, brochures, shipping labels, catalogs, etc. Include it if you contribute an article to a trade magazine.
Offline advertising can be a vital component of your online business. For a guide to offline promotion techniques with Free samples of actual products click here
You can set up an arrangement with related, but non competitive sites, whereby you both display links to the others' site. Example: a unique guide to the best UK online shops
You will now want to know exactly which of these sources are providing you with visitors, this article tells you how.
Study online marketing methods
You will find excellent marketing tips from Ezines.Visit newsgroups forums, and subscribe to mailing lists.
Study the methods, tools and tricks used by the top Netrepreneurs - we have a selection here .
For an excellent collection of Marketing, Business and How-to information products visit here
Learn how to find information
Master the use of search engines. Major search engines such as Alta Vista have helpful tips on how to submit advanced queries.
Learn from the work of others
No need to reinvent the wheel: study other ads, other web sites, other signature files.
Get a free copy of "The SuperTips Book of Internet Marketing" packed with great ideas for advertising, marketing and bringing visitors to your web site plus income producing opportunities.
Join the SuperTips Ezine - our free weekly newsletter with contributions from the top experts in the online marketing world.
Master the use of Email
Email is the most effective marketing tool you will be using.
Following on from the basic use of Email to send a simple message, you should learn how to attach files, how to use CC and BCC, how to manage separate mail folders.
Be aware of the problems that can ruin the appearance of the mail you send , for example
* messages that appear scrambled or with unprintable characters
* 'runaway' lines which go on and on beyond the right margin of your message
* how different Email programs can display your message in a different way
To find more about these topics see 'Internet Email: Beyond the Basics'.
Check for incoming Email regularly and make sure that personal enquiries are answered first to give a professional image. Don't get overwhelmed by the amount of post coming into your mailbox : it helps to arrange mail into separate folders such as customers, companies, projects, sales letters etc.
If you want to follow up a reply to an enquiry one or two weeks later (as suggested above) you will need a well-organised folder system. Your mail system should allow you to search through messages within a date range so that you can send off the follow up message. You should then move the original enquiry to a follow-up file.
Newcomers
If you are new to online marketing and want to come up to speed rapidly or to become quickly profitable see 'Newcomers: How to succeed on the Internet'.
The title said "Seven Steps" but here's another:
*** Always Give Something EXTRA ***
This can be some useful information, a free gift or a free report.
Put this in the P.S. section of your articles - that's where readers often look first.
So let's put this into practise now - see the P.S. section.
Wishing you success.
P.S.
Thanks for visiting SuperTips.
There's a very popular Free Gift when you click here.