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Little Known And Used Online Marketing Methods
Table Of Contents
Increase Your Credibility With Web Site Awards
Reward Your Customers
The Secrets Of Chat Room Marketing Exposed
How To Use Database Marketing To Skyrocket Your Online Profits
Endorsement Marketing Secrets
5 Ways Your Business Can Benefit From Online Auctions
Six Little Used Online Marketing Strategies
5 Lesser-Known Online Business Ideas
Increase Your Credibility With Web Site Awards
Web Site Awards are given from other sites to reward your
site for a specific reason. They will usually give you an award
graphic or text link to include on your site if you win. Awards
are great to display on your Web site because they will give
your business more credibility to your visitors and customers.
Some things your Web site could be awarded for are:
Web Design
Content
Load Time
Web Features
Ease of use
Originality
If you think you have a chance to win one of these awards
submit your Web site to the sites that give out web awards.
Visit other peoples Web sites and see what awards they
have won. Only register for awards that are related to the
content of your Web site; this helps promote your site to
your targeted audience.
Before you register to win an award, make sure your Web
site is ready. Your sites content spelling and grammar should
be correct. It should be easy to navigate through your Web
site. Graphics should be related to the content on your page.
Create your own awards site for other Web sites. Give the
winners a graphic or text link to place on their Web site
when they win. This will link your Web site to theirs and
draw more traffic to your Web site.
Reward Your Customers
The formula for success for any business is to get your
customers to make repeat purchases. There are a number
of factors involved for getting repeat customers: pricing,
quality of products and services, excellent customer
service etc. One of the best ways is to reward your
customers for their repeat purchases. Here are three
effective customer reward programs you could implement:
Number Of Purchases
This program is based on the number of purchases made
by any customer. You could give away a free product or
service to any customer that makes ten or more purchases.
To make the program more effective you could require a
set time period that all ten purchases must be made by.
Dollar Amount
You can require a certain dollar amount be spent before
the customer receives a reward. Tell customers if they
spend over $50 in one month at your web site they get a
50% discount on their next purchase. You could also just
reward one customer who spends the most every month
with a bigger reward like a vacation.
Points System
Reward customers a point for every one-dollar they spend.
Lets say customers can get a free computer for 300 points.
That means customers will spend $300 dollars on your
products and services to get enough points to get the free
computer. To push slower selling products or services just
offer more points per dollar spent for those particular items.
The kind of rewards you give should depend on what your
business can afford. Cheaper rewards could be gift
certificates, coupons, clothes, or movie passes. Expensive
rewards could be jewelry, vacations, bed and breakfast
gift certificates, electronics or computer equipment.
You may want to invest in a good database program to
keep track of your rewards program. I also recommend
contacting a legal professional for advice, set-up and the
structure of your rewards program. I hope these ideas I've
given you help make your business more successful.
How To Use Database Marketing To Skyrocket Your Online Profits!
Database Marketing is the gathering and storing of specific information
about your prospects or customers. This information is usually stored in a
database program on your computer. You would then use the information
to market and advertise to them. It can save you time and money because
you can target your promotional efforts to your best prospects or
customers.
The Types Of Information To Collect
The information will vary depending on the product or service you're selling.
If you're selling a product that costs $2 you wouldn't collect information
about their yearly income. If you're selling web space you wouldn't collect
information about what type of books they read. The basic information you
need would be all their contact information, purchase history, and birthday.
You will need to decide what other information would benefit your
business.
How To Collect This Information Online
It's pretty easy to collect this information online but the hard part is getting
people to give it you. The best way to collect this information is to give them
something FREE in return. Ask them to fill out an e-mail survey before
subscribing to your free e-zine. Tell everyone who visits your web site they
will get a free e-book when they fill out your online questionnaire form. Ask
them this information before they sign up for a free contest at your web site.
Sometimes you have to give a little something to get a little information
online.
Beneficial Uses For Your Database
Find out your customers purchasing habits. Use the information to
improve the design of your web site. Use it to write all your advertising
material more persuasively
Find out the things they like or dislike about your business. Use the
information to target your best prospects
Find out how much money your prospects or customers make. Use it to
improve your customer service
Find out what new products or services they need or want. Use it to test
ideas before launching a total sales campaign
Find out how to your improve your existing products or services. Use it to
build your customer loyalty
Find out which benefits or features they like most about your products or
services. Use it to send electronic greeting cards on holidays or on your
customer's birthdays
The list of beneficial uses are endless. Do you see the importance of
collecting this information? The Internet makes the process of collecting
this information quicker and cheaper than offline methods. Take advantage
of database marketing and watch your online profits skyrocket.
Endorsement Marketing Secrets
Endorsement marketing is having famous or reputable people
recommend your product or service to others. They could be
celebrities, star athletes, musicians, etc. Choose people that
are related to your business and might actually use your
product or service.
Before asking anyone for an endorsement be sure your product
or service gives the results you say it does. They may ask you
to prove it before they will agree to give an endorsement.
Once you find the ideal person to endorse your product or
service simply contact them and ask. When proposing any
endorsement deal make it a win/win situation. Tell them you
would get the endorsement and they would get free publicity.
If they're selling a product or service, you could exchange
endorsements. If they ask for a fee, try to give them a
percentage of the profits instead.
Once you get an endorsement from someone, use it on all your
advertising and marketing material. Put their endorsement and
picture on your Web site. Use their testimonial in your ads.
Include it on your product packages.
An endorsement can increase your sales fast. It gives credibility
to your product or service. People will usually believe a person
that's not related to your business before they will believe you.
5 Ways Your Business Can Benefit From Online Auctions!
It seems as if everyone is talking about online auctions. And
why not. There are thousands of online auctions on the
internet with more popping up everyday. People love them
because they can usually find great bargains. Businesses are
now also seeing the benefits of online auctions. Below are
five ways your business can benefit from online auctions.
1. Get Rid Of Excess Inventory
You could sell your excess or discontinued products at an
online auction. Your unsold inventory is doing you no good
sitting around, collecting dust. It's an effective way to make
extra income and it won't be a total loss for your business.
You could even get lucky and make a profit depending
on how much people will bid for your excess inventory.
2. Test Pricing For New Products
An easy way to test new product prices is to see what
people will bid for them at an online auction. First, sell your
product at three different online auctions. Next, calculate
the average selling bid from all three auctions and that will
be your selling price for your new product.
3. Sell Your Products
You can get your product in front of a large audience by
selling it at an online auction. Some of the bigger auction
sites draw over millions of hits a year. The key to being
successful is to sell your product at multiple online auctions
at the same time. Let's say you sold one product a day
from just one auction site. If you sell your product at one
hundred online auction sites that would be one hundred sales
a day!
4. Start Your Own Online Auction
Drive traffic to your web site by starting your own online
auction. People will visit your web site to find bargains
and to sell their own products. You will get plenty of
repeat visitors from people rebidding on products and
adding new products to sell. You could also charge other
businesses to advertise on your web site.
5. Lower Your Business Costs
You can find lower prices on business supplies and
equipment at online auctions. I'm not saying all the time, but
before you go pay retail for a new printer try bidding on
one first. A company may be selling them at a lower price
at an online auction because they have excess inventory.
Six Little Used Online Marketing Strategies
1. Utilize Your Knowledge
Do you have extensive knowledge in a particular subject?
Offer people free consulting or advice on that subject via
e-mail if in exchange they either link to your web site, run
your promotional ad in their e-zine or place your banner
ad on their web site for a set period of time.
2. Become A Publisher
Publish e-zines for other people for free. In return for your
work in designing, updating and gathering content you
request that your promotional ad be placed at the top of
each issue. Their duties will be to promote and send out
each issue to their subscribers.
3. Persuade Them To Sign
A great way to get e-mail addresses and testimonials for
your online business is to ask people to sign your guest
book. The problem is a lot of people won't take the extra
time to sign your guest book. An effective way to persuade
them to sign your guest book is to give them something
free in return.
4. Create An E-mag
Publish your e-zine in ebook format. You could offer more
articles per issue. You could add graphics with the articles
just like in print magazines. Your advertising revenue would
increase because you could charge businesses for full page
color ads.
5. Tell Them What's Next
Get your visitors excited about revisiting your web site.
Tell them about upcoming articles, prize drawings, free
stuff, etc. If they know what's in store for them, they will
revisit. Tell then to sign up for an e-mail reminder or tell
them to bookmark your web site.
6. Share Your Information
Create a web book that's related to your web site topic.
Give people the option of linking to the web book so they
give it away to their visitors. Put your ad on top of the
title page to get free advertising. This strategy will easily
multiply your advertising exposure.
5 Lesser-Known Online Business Ideas
1. Ask people to find a hidden link in your ad copy. If they
find the hidden link tell them they will get a prize or freebie
by clicking on it. This will increase the chance that they will
buy your product or service because they will read your
whole ad copy.
2. Start a members only web site. Tell visitors what's in your
members only site and what it costs to get access. Offer them
a free membership, if, in exchange they link to your web site,
post your banner on their home page or agree to advertise
your web site in their e-zine for a set period of time. Usually
they will agree to the free advertising to save money. This is
a powerful way to get free advertising.
3. Want a popular discussion board? This technique is based on
the number of postings made by any one person. You could
give away a free product or service to any person that posts ten
or more messages on your discussion in a month. It could be a
free e-book, report, e-mail consulting etc. Just keep track of
everyone's postings each month. This could also work for e-mail
discussion lists.
4. Give your visitors an instant article directory. Tell your
visitors they can instantly add a free article directory to
their web site by linking to yours. Just place your ad or banner
ad on top of the article directory for your main product or
service. All those links can add up to a large amount of traffic
for your web site.
5. There a millions of web sites on the internet. Instead of
marketing your web site as a web site. Market it as a free web
book. Design your web site with a title page, table of contents,
chapters, etc. Just place your ad or banner for your product or
service on the top of each web page.
The End
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