Forget all the hype and flamboyant promises. Here is an online business in a nutshell:
- you need to sell something
- what you sell needs to be something people want and/or need
- for them to buy from you they need to get to know you
- for them to get to know you you need a way to contact them
- for them to give you their details you need to have them find you
It’s not so different to a traditional business, really. The principles are the same and you have probably heard these lines before:
“Nothing happens until you make a sale” (point 1)
“People buy on emotion and purchase on logic” ie they rationalise their gut reaction (point 2)
“People buy from people they know, like and trust” (point 3-5)
So, fill in the blanks for yourself:
- what can you sell?
- services, courses, information, products
- will you create them, have them created or
- sell someone else’s?
- how do you know people want or need what you have to sell?
- what market research have you done?
- have you been on relevant forums to watch what people are struggling with?
- have you asked people you already know?
- have you worked out appropriate keywords and checked them out
- have you got an autoresponder?
- is it setup and loaded
- is it flexible enough to send one-off broadcasts
- can you easily read replies and respond to people asking questions or commenting?
- where can I sign up?
- for each service or product you are go9ing to sell
- do you have optin pages (landing pages)
- do you have your autoresponder script included
- what are you offering to the subscriber in return for their contact details?
- have you got a thank you and/or download page or are you sending the gift in the autoresponder?
- how will they find you?
- will you write a swag of articles on the topic of your sales item and submit them to ezine directories with a call to action and back-link?
- will you jump on relevant forums, get known by being helpful and then include a signature to your optin page?
- will you join forces with someone else in a complimentary area and make the offer to their database of people?
- will you run some teleseminars or webinars to demonstrate your stuff and build credibility
- do you have your optin page on things like business cards, brochures and the like if these are relevant to you?
- are you going to use FaceBook or Twitter or other social media to educate and inform people and lead them to your optin?
That’s it, in a nutshell.
Be open. Be honest. Avoid the hype and follow good marketing practice.
Make a decision on one thing and stick to it. Don’t switch and continually chase rabbits down holes – you might find you are leaving the money on the table right under your nose.