Start an Internet Marketing Business

Starting an Internet Marketing Business is easy if you stay focused.

Here are 8 steps to follow and some good advice from someone who made the mistakes and learned from them.

Getting started in the internet marketing business is an exciting and daunting initiative. Many variables exist that can enhance or hinder your progress but none are so big that they should deter you from moving forward on your goal.

As an entrepreneur you are about to ride a rollercoaster of success tempered with challenge that will advance your efforts and stall your efforts multiple times before you obtain the success you are reaching for. I know because I made the mistakes and went through the ups and the downs before I finally got it. One thing I would like to impress upon you if you are serious about taking this life changing step. Don’t stop reaching for your goal and don’t let others destroy your vision or your enthusiasm for success. Many people will try, they include friends and family. They mean no harm but they are the safe people, you are the entrepreneur and that means you are fundamentally different.

I know that your path ahead is going to be spotty at first and I know this from first-hand experience. I am writing this article to highlight to you that your goal should always be insight of you and do not waver from it. It will be easy to get dejected and walk away and if you do that is OK but my guess is you will come back at some point, so what you do now will still prepare you for when you return. I hope after reading this post you will not give up and instead you will forge ahead and over time achieve the success you are seeking.

So let’s get started. Here is you basic 8 step process.

There are lots of blanks to fill in because obviously I cannot give you a start to finish blueprint in this post but if you gain one valuable piece of information I hope it helps you. I already know the message I want you to take from this but let’s wait until a little later before I reveal it.

Step 1. Picking your Niche

1. What is your niche going to be – have you decided what it is you are going to sell
2. Is it you, your talent, your service to B2B?
3. Are you going to enter the reseller market with clickbank or clicksure?
4. Do you want to be an Affiliate Marketer?
5. Online retail?
6. Do you have your own product to sell?

“True Happiness involves the full use of one’s power and talents.”

John W Gardner

 

 

Many people will argue that this is the easy part of beginning. I will argue it is the one that requires your deepest thoughts and consideration. This is the stage where you set the scene for your future as an internet business person and if you start one thing only to realize a few weeks in that this is not going to work or that you may put that on hold until you are better educated on internet marketing you will not only have lost valuable time but your investment of time and 

     required resources may be wasted.

Research your niche, check out the top 10 in Google for your keyword, see what they are doing, how long they have been doing it, how many visitors they get, what are their keywords and how do they write about their product or service, study them.

 It is important to get your NICHE right!

 If you don’t know what you want to do then follow these steps

Write down your top five skills, write down the top 10 things that interest you or that you have some knowledge of, visit article directories to discover what others are writing about in your areas of interest. Visit niche forums to see what people already in those areas of interest to you are talking about, go to YouTube – see what is being rated high in your chosen niche, check out Facebook and twitter to see what is being talked about or tweeted in your chosen niche. Go to Trend hunter – see what’s hot and what is predicted to explode in the coming year, search google Bing and yahoo to see what is happening in blogs on your niche, use keyword tools to see what are the top keywords in your niche and use them to find out as much as you can. After doing all this if you are confident you have found what you want to do then it is time to move onto step 2.

Step 2. Plan you strategy and set your budget

 

Once you have done all of your research and collected valuable information and statistics it’s time to organize and evaluate the data. Look at what you can do now based on your budget and what you may need to schedule for upgrade in 6 to 12 months. Remember you don’t have to have it all at first, you can let it grow as you become more confident. Ask yourself:

• How long before you realistically want to see a return on your investment?
• What is you start up daily income objective - $100.00 day, more that this?
• Is this realistic?
• How many items do you need to sell to make that much every day?
• How much traffic do you need to bring to your website to generate the volume of sales need to reach your daily income goal.
• What hardware and or software do you need?

Important NOTE*
Throughout your research stage you are going to be exposed to some very savvy online marketers that will WOW you with the latest software to take you from zero to thousands of dollars in sales within days. Don’t be fooled, resist and follow the plan. 
 
You don’t need all of the software they are selling and to tell you the truth there are multiple free versions of the software they will try to sell you but at first you actually don’t need to focus on that. What it will do is divide your focus and cause you to move backwards instead of forward.

Remember: Stay on track – Stay focused

Step 3. You need a website

Domain name and hosting.

Choosing your domain – if you are certain you have identified your niche and you have all of the information required to get started then consider including your niche in your domain name.

Example:  You have decided to sell your expertise in report writing.
You might consider a domain name like;
·         expertreports.com or
·         topreports.com or
·         CEOreports.com

Keep searching until you find a combination that reflects your niche and that is available. These days the .com is less important with the sophistication of search engines so if you have to go for .net or .org or .biz that is OK.

If you have a good profile in your niche and you decide to go with your name johnbrown.com that’s good but I recommend you also use a personal branding program to support your launch. Brandyourself.com have a startup free service that will build your links and profile for you over a 6 to 8 week period. Well worth doing this if you are going to brand yourself as the domain name. 

An internet business must have a website so you are going to need to register a domain and locate good reliable hosting.

There are literally hundreds of hosting companies out there, these days they all have high up time and service stability although you may read that there are several of the big companies that are the best. The truth is, there are several hundred around the globe that all offer the same high quality service. It’s not necessary to have a service in your country these days, you are about to embark on a global business so think big, your hosting can be done from any country if the plan and price fits with your needs and budget. Compare service offerings, stability and price. It is a highly competitive industry so you should be able to get your hosting for as little as $10.00 a month if you want to pay monthly or $100 a year. The longer you register the better the search engines will like you so I would go for 1 year at the minimum.

You need to build a website. There are many very affordable services you can use. You do not need to spend thousands doing this, you can interface your domain with a basic WordPress site to get you started for free. WordPress is highly regarded by the search engines, it is a very good hosting agent and it provides seamless integration with most external hosting services.

The cheapest way to get started is to sign up with WordPress, purchase your dedicated domain name through them and your hosting package. WordPress is very easy to work with and they have some very smart and professional website designs to choose from.

Step 4. Get your site ready to start building a subscriber list

You can use the integrated subscriber service with many host providers and WordPress or you can get aweber or one of many other affordable subscriber programs. There are several very good free services available to get you started. You may want to start off with one of the free services first and progress to aweber once you are up and running. I have chosen aweber here because in my experience it is the best and least expensive for the service provided with excellent instructions on how to use it and develop all of the required squeeze pages and responders. Either way it is fairly easy to integrate with your website and most of the available free or pay for services provide very good video demonstrations.

Once you have your list capture and email follow up prepared it is time to launch your site. I do not recommend launching your site until you have all of these elements in place.

Step 5. You will need a shopping cart

If you are going to be a reseller with clickbank or clicksure, ebay or any other third party vendor or an  Affiliate Marketer or going to become an online retailer using products available through clickbank, clicksure, amazon, ebay or any other host you will not need to set up a shopping cart. Each of these programs offers you the use of their shopping carts however you will need to set up accounts with these providers and you will need to ensure you fill in the required information to ensure that you receive your payments once visitors to your site purchase your goods. Each of these services has very good instructions on how to set up your account.

If you are going to market yourself or your talent by way of services you will need to set up a merchant account. Simply search merchant accounts in google to get the list and decide which one you want to go with. Most major banks offer the services and you will be able to have transactions credited to your account daily.

Make sure you keep track of all expenditure you incur in the set-up of your online business, it is tax deductible and you will need it come tax time. Check your bank/merchant requirements and the local tax laws to see if you need to be incorporated, Inc. or Pty Ltd in structure or if you can operate as self-employed without a registered business name. In most instances you will need to have formed some type of company or business structure but this does vary by country and in some instances by state. Being a registered business of one type or another also adds credibility to your online business so it is worth considering.

Step 6. Product or service delivery

If you are selling a product that is downloaded from your site you are going to need an FTP service. There are some very reliable services available for free.

Try https://filezilla-project.org/download.php

Another service that’s free is www.coreftp.com/download.html

Step 7. Marketing Strategy

Now you are getting to the fun part of your business set up but it can also be the most frustrating.

Don’t let anybody tell you that you can go from $0 to $5,000 in a day, week, month or possibly even 3 months. Seriously, if it was that easy don’t you think everyone would be doing it? It is possible to get to $10K a month within six months but you will need to work your site to get there unless of course you have a sneaky little 100,000 person qualified email list in your back pocket. Seriously not many people have that.

I know there are people out there telling you that they have done it, I say prove it. The screen shots they show you in their hyped up selling videos are not validated and if you really listen to the pre sell hype you will learn that they have been trying for up to 10 years to be successful at internet marketing. You will learn if you listen, that they are networking their lists and by doing this they are getting shared power. Pooling of lists is a good way to reach more potential buyers but it is also a really good way to piss off a potential buyer by bombarding them from all sides with up to 10 emails a day. I find this especially rude because that one potential client would have signed up for a single person to contact them. They did not buy in to be invaded by multiple unsolicited email hits daily. How would you like to receive 60 emails a day from unsolicited affiliate marketers?

Set your pace, be realistic about what you know you can achieve while maintaining your integrity as an internet business owner. Plan your strategy.

Consider these elements in your marketing strategy

1.       Competitive analysis – Look at what your competitors are doing and how they are doing it.

2.      Content Marketing – Story telling is the key to your success.

3.      Keyword Optimisation - title, Meta and heading tags make a difference in search engines.

4.      Back linking – network with industry leading sites and as they rise you will rise with them.

 Step 8 – Who said SEO is EASY?

Content marketing and blogging is SEO. Support your business, position yourself as an authority and drive traffic to your sales site.

Consistency of content marketing is the key:

 

Writing an article is easy if you know your business. Writing a 500-word article is all it takes to get started but you need to be consistent. Get an article template from the web, there are hundreds out there but E-zine Articles has a great one and you are going to want to publish to this article marketing site so why not use theirs for all of your writing and get into the habit of getting it right all the time.

Visit other leading blogs and comment on their articles – this will create a backlink to your site and generate solid traffic over time.

Post articles on LinkedIn and engage in discussion in your groups.

 Post content to your blog at least 3 times a week – 5 times is ideal and be consistent. Sometimes to give yourself a break you can reblog from another site and this builds relationships as well as ensuring you have quality ever changing content on your site.

Give a freebie away – you can get royalty free rights on white papers, eBooks, videos and audio. Just google to see what you find that matches your niche.

 Create accounts with Facebook, twitter, yahoo, google+, weebly, Zerply, YouTube, slide share, scribd. Post to each of them at least twice a week and make sure they all link to your website and blog. You can tweek each article to give it some minor variatation and post to all these sites. You don’t need to write different articles every day for each of them. By having multiple social media sites you are creating a funnel that drives traffic to your blog and your website.

Video and slideshare marketing sites such as YouTube and slideshare are very popular, so you can benefit from the traffic that they send your way after posting items. Making videos can be a tedious task, but if you can stick with the technique, you can benefit from all of the traffic.

Use good quality pictures in your articles to add depth and interest for your readers. Pinterest is driving unbelievable traffic so posting and having an account with them is recommended.

 Look at the following article marketing sites and start posting to as many as you can.

EzineArticles.com - goarticles.com - ideamarketers.com - articledashboard.com - articlesbase.com

It’s a lot of work but if you keep it up in a short time you will see the results.

It’s not easy but even a newbie can do it. Just set yourself one goal every day and keep going. Don’t waste your time or money on programs telling you they can get you to number one tomorrow. Only you can do that but do use some of the free programs out there that can give you analytics on the health of your website. Google analytics can do this and it’s free. If you find problems, search google and you will find the answers. If you still can’t get your head around it ask a friend or family member who is a bit savvy to help you with idea’s for things to write. Start small and grow big.

Concentrate on your headings, titles, paragraph headers, pictures in your articles and on your blogging and success will be yours. Be patient, be practical and set realistic goals. You will get it and you will climb your way to page one in Google. If you get bumped just keep going you will come back.

My message to you

Stay focused – it’s easy to get sidetracked. You are a sponge for the first six months and you will seek out information. In doing this you are going fill your inbox daily with emails from people telling you they have the magic key. They don’t. YOU Are the magic key, focus, stay on track, commit to your success and you will get there.

If you do want to dabble in affiliate marketing below are a few I recommend

http://get1958.gsniper.hop.clickbank.net

http://www.fatburningfurnace.com/?hop=get1958

For more information please visit my blog at http://marketsocialmedia.blogspot.com.au

Feel free to comment on any of my articles and I will be happy to link to your site if your content fits with mine, just ask me to visit your site when you comment. Don’t forget to google+, tweet and like and encourage visitors to your site to do this as well. You need to ask them to do it, never assume that they will. My best wishes’ for you success, please let me know if there is any part of this article you would like me to elaborate on or if you would like future articles on specific topics.

To your success!

Gail Worthington-Eyre

IS LOSING YOUR HISTORY WORTH IT?

Don’t ditch your history for a new look

I recently met with a not for profit to discuss their social media, fundraising and marketing strategy. They asked me; “what is your opinion of our new brand/look?” It was completed over a year ago but it was my first opportunity to give an opinion.

They were not prepared for my response

I advised them of the following;

1. I had to Google you to find out who you were.

They had changed their name to an acronym and although when I looked it up it did make sense, they had not invested in marketing the change so consumers and supporters would make the connection.

2. Your new brand is clean, but it doesn’t really say anything about what the organization does or who it represents.

It was a bright, clean and snappy new look, colourful and trendy but, it actually did not tell a story or paint a picture about the organisation’s past, purpose or vision.

 ___________________________________________________

"In the end, it's not the years in your life

that count. It's the life in your years".

- Abraham Lincoln
_____________________________

Don’t ditch it, bring it with you

To freshen up your corporate image is a necessary thing to do from time to time.

But be careful when hiring ad agencies to bring you a new look for your brand. Be sure that you don’t get caught up in the excitement of bright colours and modernisation. Bring your rich history that made your organisation who and what it is today with you into the now and the future.

Sacrificing your organisations history for a trendy new look could cost you dearly unless you are prepared to invest in re branding your new look. 

 Let your past flow into your present and future

It is important to bring the past with you when creating a new look for your brand. Especially in the not for profit sector.

Your history shaped your organisation, it was most likely filled with struggle, amazing individuals fought for your organisations very existence because they believed in what they were doing. They wanted to make a difference to the lives of those in your  cause and you need to bring that effort and accomplishment with you.

If your cause, the lifeblood of your service cannot be seen easily in your brand and recognised for it’s contribution to building a fair and supported society for the people you represent, then what good is a brand at all?

Before you jump into a new look

Build a bridge that allows the history that defines what your organisation stands for to ensure it comes with you into the future. Your supporters and those that your organisation cares for will come with you too.

The not for profit I am working with is experiencing the after effect of not bringing it’s wonderful history forward in it’s new brand. The impact is wide reaching. The community at large seems to have forgotten who they are in this highly competitive charitable landscape. I recall the messages of their past, they were emotive, courageous and uplifting but I was unable to link them to the now when I looked at their new brand.

Let your champions of the past shine into your future.

If you do not consider this, you may find that the struggles your organisation went through in the past to achieve the recognition and support required to deliver to the community may be relived. Don’t start again, carry forward all that you have achieved in your past to ensure that your new look or brand will prosper for your cause.

By Gail Worthington-Eyre
                                                                                                                                                 

Social Media = Customer Service

Social Media = Customer Service

Late in 2012 over 100 social media statistics were released. As this exciting platform grows in use across all industries and as an add on to previous discussions on how the aged care Industry can leverage social media to connect with the consumer and grow brand loyalty I have extracted just a few of the over 100 statistics that were revealed. It is clear that social media = customer service and the challenge moving forward is to take the relevant data that exists and develop a strategy for how that fits within the industry.

Below are just 7 of the top 15 positive and negative statistics that were revealed along with a few extra interesting stats.

Social media accounts for only 16% of customer engagement today, but is expected to increase to 57%—the second-most used channel, behind only face to face interaction—within five years. (Marketing Pilgrim)

I hope you like the info and would be interested in your thoughts.

Seven Positive Social Media Statistics for 2012

1. 91% of online adults use social media regularly
2. 9/10 mobile searches lead to action (over half lead to purchase)
3. 54% of active social networkers follow a brand
4. 61% of global internet users research products online
5. Companies that blog have 55% more website visitors
6. 77% of B2C companies have acquired customers from Facebook
7. 83% of people who complained on Twitter loved the response from those
companies that did make the effort

Seven Negative Social Media Statistics For 2012

1. 25% of small to medium sized businesses have no strategy and only 28% measure their ROI
of social media activity
2. 83% of socially savvy consumers have walked away from a purchase in the past year after a
negative customer service experience
3. 56% of customer tweets to companies are being ignored
4. On average companies only respond to 30% of social media fans’ feedback
5. 70% of brands ignore complaints on Twitter
6. 55% of companies ignore all customer feedback on Twitter and Facebook, largely because
they have no process in place to respond
7. Only 44% of customers are answered within the first 24 hours

60% of people who use three or more digital means of research for product purchases learned about a specific brand or retailer from a social networking site. 48% of these consumers responded to a retailer’s offer posted on Facebook or Twitter. (MediaPost)

Social media and blogs reach 80% of all U.S. Internet users. 91% of experienced social marketers see improved website traffic due to social media and 79% are generating more quality leads. (Business2Community)

Is this information useful to your organisation?

Thank You

Marketing Aged and Community Care - Part 2

The power of social marketing in aged care

What value does content marketing as just one social marketing strategy bring to the industry?

In order to respond to these questions we need to explore what is content marketing. In simple terms it is the creation of stories that meet your customer’s needs. Marketing is best defined as the process of distributing and promoting the stories to your consumer group.

Before any attempt is made to commence a social media/content marketing campaign it is important to define what it is you want to achieve. This may sound easy but you need to define what it is you want and need to achieve or it could be a complete waste of time. If you don’t define your objective it could position you poorly in the eyes of your consumer if not done well. My guess is, for most aged care providers you want to be the provider of choice in your given area or region. You do not have to be a marketing guru author or world-leading journalist to write compelling material but you do need to know your industry. You also need to know who you are targeting and why and, you need to have an empathy for the resident/client and their family in order to prepare material that oozes your core business.

I will refer throughout this article to the consumer; in this context the consumer is the person or persons who would be seeking your services on behalf of the resident or client. A son, daughter, brother, sister, grandchild, friend, placement agent, social worker, hospital liaison, or any person that might seek support for a person requiring aged care, in home services or independent living options. It could also be the potential resident or client given more people aged 70 and over are using the Internet to access information and stay informed.

So let us think about three or four key reasons why you would want or need to market using social media and content marketing. In the book IMC, The Next Generation, Don and Heidi Schultz state, “For all the complexity of marketing and communication plans, firms want only four outcomes from them.” Most people in aged care will say but we are not like other companies we don’t have a product to sell. Not true, you do have a product, it is residential care, in home packages and or independent living options, they are simply service driven products.

To follow are the four outcomes and I have provided insight into why they might apply to aged care providers large and small.

1.   To acquire new customers – Yes all aged care providers need to be doing this with the changes about to land on your doorstep. No longer can you rely on being the site just around the corner. Unless of course you literally have no competition around you. In most metropolitan and town locations there is always a site just 20 minutes away and let face it, some of the newly built sites offer 5 star accommodation and facilities. If you are a 5 star facility and five minutes down the road is another 5 star facility, do you think you have got it in the bag? If you have a set bond range and your local competition doesn’t do you think you will always win out over them?

2.   To retain and maintain present customers – yes you need this. Better to keep your residents as long as possible and to have their siblings and family come to you first when they need help. This is one of the cheapest forms of marketing and builds your waiting list.

3.   To retain and grow sales volume or profit from existing customers – This is as critical in

4.    residential care as it is in community, in home services and independent living. It could be the difference between 10 bonds at $30,000 Vs 10 bonds at $300,000. Will your prospective consumer like what they learn about your organisation through your content marketing and social media strategy?

5.   To migrate existing customers through your product or service portfolio – absolutely you want this if you are providing a range of retirement, in home and residential services.

So if you consider these four outcomes at all times when preparing your content, tweeting your messages or asking people to “like” then you will be well on your way to positioning your site(s) as the one that your consumer wants to come to. Understanding this helps you to create content that touches your consumer, they want to relate to it, they need to understand what you are saying and, from what you are saying in your content they see clearly that you can solve their problem, give them a good life with choice and assist them to achieve their goals.

Think about whom you are targeting and provide content that touches that consumer group. You may post an article on “moving into residential care” to reach potential consumers or families on your waiting list but you would post a very different article if you were targeting a potential consumer for in home services. If you are providing both of these services be sure to link the services in some way in your content so those receiving your in home services now understand that this is what they can expect when they need you for the next stage of their care needs.

Ask your consumers to subscribe to your website, or to register on your waiting list. This provides you with a list of people you can continually reach out to for a range of purposes. You could use the list of subscribers to publish information on,

1.   How to get an ACAT

2.   What to do once you have your ACAT

3.   Join your fundraising activities

4.   Volunteer at your sites

5.   Receive your newsletters

6.   To provide information on your bequests program

7.   To survey so you are informed about your prospective consumers

However you link readers/visitors to you long-term know that it extends your reach into the wider community and that is a good thing. Ask them if they would like to receive information on each of the suggestions above or if you have more ideas just add them to the list and ask your consumers to subscribe and to let you know how much information they would like to get from you. They might only want a newsletter.

Make sure you use social marketing to get your content out there. It is no good posting it on your website if they don’t know how to find it. Set up a facebook page and post, set up a twitter and google+ page, post it on all of them and make sure you provide a link on these pages to your website where your consumers and potential consumers can find out more information on what you can do to help them and what they can do to help you. Don’t forget to link all of your social pages to each other as well as to your home site.

Create amazing content, get personal with it. You are working in an emotional industry where personal is all around you. If your current and future consumers can see that you are a caring organization then you bet your buttons they are going to want to come to you.

Don’t forget your headlines they are important – think about them. If you are writing about one of your current residents who is happy with your service and wants to share his/her story be sure you leverage your content to find a punchy headline. Use your content to educate about disease and impact as well as what you do to give meaningful life during the disease progression. People crave information about disease that impacts them.

I once wrote a story on a resident who transferred to one of my sites from a place that was in her eyes and that of her family not up to standard. Because she was quite young, just under sixty, nobody else would help her. So I headlined the story, “When nobody else cared, xxxxxx did”. Always, always get your corporate name in the body of the story and if you can in your headline. I should mention the other provider was never named or referred to other than the resident stating she was unhappy, instead it focused on the remarkable change in her physical and mental health subsequent to the move. What if you wanted to write a story on how your residents love your new internet program to stay in touch with their families? You could headline it as “Residents at xxxxx turn into facebook junkies” Have some fun with it!

You can write interesting articles/content about any part of your service, tell the world how good you are and how you add life to your residents/consumers lives. This is what your future consumers want to hear so start telling them now. Do not STOP! If you get a negative comment use it and turn it into a positive that supports your business.

It may take several articles or pieces of content to go up on your social marketing streams before you start to see an increase in website visits or subscribers. That is perfectly normal. Just do not stop. If you decide that you are going to publish two or three articles a week then do it (Don’t do less than this). Allocate resources, define a budget, and employ someone full time to manage this part of your business. This requires a full time position to plan, manage and prepare your content and ensure you are alive and highly responsive at all times. You need to be up front communicating with your consumers with quality information. Make a commitment not to miss one post. Make sure that you have someone on your staff that is your social marketing manager and is monitoring your social pages daily. Respond to tweets and posts quickly, keep your customers impressed that you are communicating with them in real time. State on your pages that you have a two-hour response time during normal business hours. Make sure your social media manager is proofreading all articles before they are posted even if they come from different authors and departments, consistency in presentation and style is important.

Make sure that all articles have a call to action – a few examples

Have you subscribed yet – click here,

Want to volunteer – click here

Upload your ACAT now – click here

Donate – click here

Please help us by joining our survey – click here

The information here is by no means exhaustive, it is a starting point, it’s what you can do and what you should be thinking about getting ready to do now. To get you started, don’t over think or complicate the process, keep it simple because that is what your consumer’s want, easy to read, simple help and fast response. Don’t be boring – your content needs to be real, emotional, inspiring and most of all it needs to tell your consumers that if they come to you they will be part of the family and you have the solution.

A great way to get started is to get your employees on side, tell them what you are going to do and invite them to be the first to subscribe. Invite your staff to comment but set some parameters around that so you know they understand the value of constructive comments. Engage them so they are your strongest advocates. They will be proud to join the group and support your corporate objective.

I hope you like what I have written here and once again I hope it gets you thinking and excited about how you can leverage social marketing to support your organization as we move at lightening speed into the dynamic social space.

Remember, you don’t need to be expert that will come with experience; you just need to get started. I look forward to discussion on this post and or to expanding sections if required. If you have questions that you would like answered off line just send me an email gailweyre@iinet.net.au.

Thank you Gail