Utilizing an Active Marketing Strategy: Tips for Increasing Sales on Your Web Site
| Category: Marketing Strategy | Date: 2002-07-22 |
Many people contact me all the time and ask how they can ramp up sales on their web site. A lot of people think they can simply put up a web site where they offer a few products for sale and the money will instantly and automatically roll in. With that strategy and thinking, you may, if you have dumb luck, make a trickle of money but you certainly will not create a tidal wave of sales.
That is passive marketing, also referred to as the "build it and they will come" mentality. On the other hand, you have active marketing. Before you even complete your web site you should have a good idea of some of the marketing strategies you will be using once your site is ready to be rolled out.
Then as soon as you have completed everything, you instantly begin your marketing campaign. Your goal is to pull in all the targeted traffic you can. Here are some tips you will need to start actively marketing.
1. Build a Mailing List and Send Offers to It: This is probably the most powerful sales building tool available and yet many people do not use it at all or they use it incorrectly. By maintaining a mailing list, you have a constant supply of prospects for your products and services.
You can therefore actively market to them by sending out mailings informing them about your new offers, specials, etc. You want all your subscribers to have made the choice to be on your list. In other words, you want them to have "opted in" to your list.
This way you avoid spamming anyone and cheating advertisers by having them believe their ads are going out to a clean list when in fact they are not. By "opting in" to your list, these people have said: "I am interested in what you have to say, please tell me more". They are therefore pre-qualified leads.
Since these people have raised their hands, you owe it to them, and ultimately to yourself, to provide something worthwhile. Do not just give them a cheap sales pitch or you will have more unsubscribes than you can imagine. Instead, create a newsletter and base the subject on an area that you have knowledge about and your audience wants to know more about.
Send them informative articles, tips, strategies, etc. that would benefit them. Then, once you have filled their heads with your FREE information, make them an offer. Offer your main products/services. Give a time sensitive deadline for them to respond, offer subscriber only discounts, etc.
There is much to be said about building a list. It is the most vital part of a successful online marketing strategy. In the offline direct marketing world, the value of a good list is sometimes immeasurable. However, it is much more difficult to grow a list offline. Whereas, on the Internet, you have easier, cheaper access to a larger audience due to the global nature of the web.
There are subscribers to my newsletter from all over the world and yet they all share some commonalities: They all want to learn about online direct marketing and I am sharing what I know for free. It has been easy for me to build a list of interested subscribers. It is easy for anyone to do the same.
Here is one of the ways I would go about building a list:
Focus on a topic you know a lot about. For this example let us say the movie, Star Wars.
Begin to hang around the online community's where other Star Wars fans hang out, for instance, discussion boards, newsgroups, chat rooms. Build relationships with the people in those community's by answering questions and offering advice. Then leave your signature file at the end of your post.
For those of you who do not know what a signature file (sig file) is, it is the equivalent of a business card. You should leave this "online business card" wherever you go so people can contact you if they wish. Below is an example of a sig file:
Stop spending a fortune on marketing tools & techniques that don't work! Only one system gives you all the proven marketing tools you need for your business to succeed: The Ultimate Marketers Resource. Finally all the tools you need to advertise, track your ads, generate leads, automatically follow up on them, build relationships with your customers, close the sale and then sell to them over and over again. The Ultimate Marketers Resource at: http://www.goldbar.net/lsa/c.cgi/jhinds_umr3
If you leave a file similar to this in all of your email messages, forum and newsgroup posts and anyplace else where it may be appropriate you will soon begin receiving traffic and subscribers as a result of your sig file.
In your sig file you should mention your "Star Wars" newsletter and offer a FREE subscription.
This is a good way to begin to build your list.
2. Free Publicity: The second tool you should be using to build your business is Free Publicity. This is such a powerful tool that those with the knowledge of how to take advantage of it are oftentimes unwilling to divulge their secrets. Anyone can get free publicity, it just takes a little know how and some ingenuity.
First, let's discuss a few types of Free publicity that you could generate for your business and how you should begin your quest.
a. Press Releases: Stories about you in the media are more believable and powerful than any paid ad you could ever run. People generally trust the media (reporters, announcers, publishers, talk show hosts, etc.) Statistics show that most people first hear about a web site through traditional media i.e. TV, radio or newspapers. If you can get the free publicity that a press release will generate for you, you may very well be on your way to some hefty traffic and dollars.
In order for a press release to be picked up by the media, it must be well crafted, newsworthy, timely, and full of benefits for the audience of a particular publication. Your press release must relate to a publications target audience in order for it to even be considered. In other words, you would not submit a press release about a fishing web site to Cosmopolitan but you may submit it to Salt Water Sportsman Magazine.
Keep in mind, when you are crafting your press release, your goal is to get the attention of the editors or producers. You want them to contact you for an interview. Therefore, your press release should NEVER tell your whole story. Make it informative and newsworthy while leaving out enough to peak the curiosity of the media person reading it. If you achieve this, your phone will soon be ringing off the hook.
Therefore, as you can see, it is crucial that you know exactly what you are doing when preparing your press release. If you choose to write your release yourself the best place to turn is PR Profits. This is one of the online homes of Paul Hartunian, one of the masters at getting Free Publicity. I suggest that you go to his web site and suck up all the knowledge about Press Releases you could ever hope to get.
Once you have an idea for your press release, you can use The Ultimate Media Magnet (one of the tools available through our Ultimate Marketers Resource) to write, format and store your press release. Then, you can browse through all the targeted categories of media and select the ones you want your release to go to. This way you could have your release in front of the media in no time and focus solely on doing interviews and depositing your money.
b. Submit Articles To Online Targeted Publications: The second way to get free publicity is to write and submit articles to targeted publications so that you can generate a name for yourself as an industry "expert". There are a few secrets to writing and submitting articles on the web:
Include Your Resource Box And Make Sure It's Always Published: Your resource box should be considered your classified ad for yourself. If your audience found your article to be beneficial they may be interested in visiting your web site to see what else you have to offer.
Your resource box should include a brief explanation of who you are and what you do. It should offer readers a COMPELLING reason to visit your web site, email you, call you or visit you (offline). It is also helpful if you offer something for free in exchange for the visit. Here is an example of my resource box as it appeared in several newsletters recently:
About the Author
Article by Marc Goldman, Goldbar Enterprises subscribe to The Marketers Resource Weekly: The Free Internet Marketing Resource for the New Millennium. Subscribe at goldbar.net Discover the exclusive members only website that will propel your business to dizzying heights.
webmaster@goldbar.net
http://www.goldbar.net
That is passive marketing, also referred to as the "build it and they will come" mentality. On the other hand, you have active marketing. Before you even complete your web site you should have a good idea of some of the marketing strategies you will be using once your site is ready to be rolled out.
Then as soon as you have completed everything, you instantly begin your marketing campaign. Your goal is to pull in all the targeted traffic you can. Here are some tips you will need to start actively marketing.
1. Build a Mailing List and Send Offers to It: This is probably the most powerful sales building tool available and yet many people do not use it at all or they use it incorrectly. By maintaining a mailing list, you have a constant supply of prospects for your products and services.
You can therefore actively market to them by sending out mailings informing them about your new offers, specials, etc. You want all your subscribers to have made the choice to be on your list. In other words, you want them to have "opted in" to your list.
This way you avoid spamming anyone and cheating advertisers by having them believe their ads are going out to a clean list when in fact they are not. By "opting in" to your list, these people have said: "I am interested in what you have to say, please tell me more". They are therefore pre-qualified leads.
Since these people have raised their hands, you owe it to them, and ultimately to yourself, to provide something worthwhile. Do not just give them a cheap sales pitch or you will have more unsubscribes than you can imagine. Instead, create a newsletter and base the subject on an area that you have knowledge about and your audience wants to know more about.
Send them informative articles, tips, strategies, etc. that would benefit them. Then, once you have filled their heads with your FREE information, make them an offer. Offer your main products/services. Give a time sensitive deadline for them to respond, offer subscriber only discounts, etc.
There is much to be said about building a list. It is the most vital part of a successful online marketing strategy. In the offline direct marketing world, the value of a good list is sometimes immeasurable. However, it is much more difficult to grow a list offline. Whereas, on the Internet, you have easier, cheaper access to a larger audience due to the global nature of the web.
There are subscribers to my newsletter from all over the world and yet they all share some commonalities: They all want to learn about online direct marketing and I am sharing what I know for free. It has been easy for me to build a list of interested subscribers. It is easy for anyone to do the same.
Here is one of the ways I would go about building a list:
Focus on a topic you know a lot about. For this example let us say the movie, Star Wars.
Begin to hang around the online community's where other Star Wars fans hang out, for instance, discussion boards, newsgroups, chat rooms. Build relationships with the people in those community's by answering questions and offering advice. Then leave your signature file at the end of your post.
For those of you who do not know what a signature file (sig file) is, it is the equivalent of a business card. You should leave this "online business card" wherever you go so people can contact you if they wish. Below is an example of a sig file:
Stop spending a fortune on marketing tools & techniques that don't work! Only one system gives you all the proven marketing tools you need for your business to succeed: The Ultimate Marketers Resource. Finally all the tools you need to advertise, track your ads, generate leads, automatically follow up on them, build relationships with your customers, close the sale and then sell to them over and over again. The Ultimate Marketers Resource at: http://www.goldbar.net/lsa/c.cgi/jhinds_umr3
If you leave a file similar to this in all of your email messages, forum and newsgroup posts and anyplace else where it may be appropriate you will soon begin receiving traffic and subscribers as a result of your sig file.
In your sig file you should mention your "Star Wars" newsletter and offer a FREE subscription.
This is a good way to begin to build your list.
2. Free Publicity: The second tool you should be using to build your business is Free Publicity. This is such a powerful tool that those with the knowledge of how to take advantage of it are oftentimes unwilling to divulge their secrets. Anyone can get free publicity, it just takes a little know how and some ingenuity.
First, let's discuss a few types of Free publicity that you could generate for your business and how you should begin your quest.
a. Press Releases: Stories about you in the media are more believable and powerful than any paid ad you could ever run. People generally trust the media (reporters, announcers, publishers, talk show hosts, etc.) Statistics show that most people first hear about a web site through traditional media i.e. TV, radio or newspapers. If you can get the free publicity that a press release will generate for you, you may very well be on your way to some hefty traffic and dollars.
In order for a press release to be picked up by the media, it must be well crafted, newsworthy, timely, and full of benefits for the audience of a particular publication. Your press release must relate to a publications target audience in order for it to even be considered. In other words, you would not submit a press release about a fishing web site to Cosmopolitan but you may submit it to Salt Water Sportsman Magazine.
Keep in mind, when you are crafting your press release, your goal is to get the attention of the editors or producers. You want them to contact you for an interview. Therefore, your press release should NEVER tell your whole story. Make it informative and newsworthy while leaving out enough to peak the curiosity of the media person reading it. If you achieve this, your phone will soon be ringing off the hook.
Therefore, as you can see, it is crucial that you know exactly what you are doing when preparing your press release. If you choose to write your release yourself the best place to turn is PR Profits. This is one of the online homes of Paul Hartunian, one of the masters at getting Free Publicity. I suggest that you go to his web site and suck up all the knowledge about Press Releases you could ever hope to get.
Once you have an idea for your press release, you can use The Ultimate Media Magnet (one of the tools available through our Ultimate Marketers Resource) to write, format and store your press release. Then, you can browse through all the targeted categories of media and select the ones you want your release to go to. This way you could have your release in front of the media in no time and focus solely on doing interviews and depositing your money.
b. Submit Articles To Online Targeted Publications: The second way to get free publicity is to write and submit articles to targeted publications so that you can generate a name for yourself as an industry "expert". There are a few secrets to writing and submitting articles on the web:
Include Your Resource Box And Make Sure It's Always Published: Your resource box should be considered your classified ad for yourself. If your audience found your article to be beneficial they may be interested in visiting your web site to see what else you have to offer.
Your resource box should include a brief explanation of who you are and what you do. It should offer readers a COMPELLING reason to visit your web site, email you, call you or visit you (offline). It is also helpful if you offer something for free in exchange for the visit. Here is an example of my resource box as it appeared in several newsletters recently:
About the Author
Article by Marc Goldman, Goldbar Enterprises subscribe to The Marketers Resource Weekly: The Free Internet Marketing Resource for the New Millennium. Subscribe at goldbar.net Discover the exclusive members only website that will propel your business to dizzying heights.
webmaster@goldbar.net
http://www.goldbar.net
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