Internet Marketing 9

While succeeding in internet marketing can be a maze to navigate at times, there are steps any marketer can take to improve the likelihood of success. Here are seven tips which may help pave the way for you:

Craft a quality website-nowadays people will judge your organization by your website before they even pick up the phone or consider doing business with you. With that in mind, doesn’t it make sense to have a high quality website to serve as one of the initial impressions a newcomer sees when researching your organization? With literally thousands of quality templates available for less than $100, it’s not hard to develop a professional presence even if you don’t spend

a ton of money.

Develop your own information product, and offer a free sample of your work to an opt-in list of some sort. Whenever you send out a marketing piece, whether it be direct mail or e-mail, have a way for people to respond to you if there is interest. For instance, a direct mail piece may include a reply card for someone to fill out if they are interested in your offer. Same goes for an e-mail piece-encourage your target to go to a web page and share some of their contact information so that you can involve them in your sales process. One of the best enticements is a free report of some

sort that provides quality information. The report length isn’t as important provided the information is of the highest quality.

Utilize a phased approach-don’t get consumed with introducing every single product or service you eventually want to offer the very first day you open the doors. Implement things in phases in order to keep things manageable. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Don’t be married to one method of marketing-there are several ways to skin a cat so to speak, and marketing is no different. With online marketing taking shape as one of the most widely adopted methodologies, some of the older school ways to market may come back into favor over time. Don’t neglect your

entire offline marketing program in favor of a total online push. Mix and match campaigns until you develop an ideal mix.

Test, measure, analyze and adjust-stay on top of your efforts by outlining key metrics at the beginning and adapting as circumstances dictate. Testing and measurement are frequently overlooked by eager entrepreneurs because their focus is on selling their product or service to anyone who will buy it in the early stages of business. Look at it this way: you’ll never know what works and what doesn’t if you don’t test and measure regularly. The more you test, the better the returns.

Objectively analyze your products and services-where do they fit, and how are you going

to differentiate yourself? Starting your journey to becoming the next Wal-Mart is admirable from an ambition standpoint, but it’s a little far fetched from the realistic standpoint. Focus on something you can achieve success with and something you can regularly duplicate. Standing out in today’s competitive marketplace is extremely difficult, but it can be done with a totally honest look under the hood. Remember: you can’t be all things to all people, but you can be some things to some people, and that’s frequently all it takes to be successful.

Don’t be afraid to compete against bigger competitors-carve out a niche in a large market versus a small specialty market. Most “experts” suggest finding the

“long tail” of a market and focusing considerable attention on that in order to carve out a niche where “nobody can compete with you.” There are likely reasons that market is so untapped-it’s not profitable! If you are to generate a good amount of money in a particular niche, there are going to be some competitors there, and the bigger those competitors indicates a likelihood of profitability.

Slaying Goliath isn’t the goal of every internet marketer, but competing effectively is near the top of the list. With the seven tips just outlined, you can be well on your way to internet marketing success that hopefully helps you to at least play in Goliath’s sandbox at some point.

Roger Bauer is founder and CEO of SMB Consulting, Inc., a nationally recognized sales and marketing consulting firm specializing in revenue growth programs, search engine optimization and strategic initiatives. To learn more, point your browser to http://smbconsultinginc.com or [http://the-seo-bible.com ]organic search engine optimization training at http://the-seo-bible.com