This is a guest post by a well known and respected leader in the internet marketing scene, James Schramko.
James left his $300k per annum salary to become his own boss and now makes even more than he did in his very successful ‘real job’.
Below he shares just some of the methods he used to acheive this. Enjoy…
The Internet is changing rapidly. One of the biggest challenges you face as a business is knowing the right things to DO so that you harness all that potential and turn it into profit. I’m going to teach you stuff I’ve done, stuff that works.
Get ready to harness the leverage.
The great thing about when you have properly set up your business for the internet is that you don’t need to be there all the time. In other words, it can work for you 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
When you compare that to the cost of a one-time newspaper advertisement you can see the compound effect of any energy you put towards enhancing your online presence.
Step 1 – Get a Support Desk Setup
Customer service is one of the resource intensive areas many businesses struggle with. As your business grows, so to will your support requirements. I recommend every business get a ‘helpdesk’ which can take the first line of defense for customer service. This is software you install (preferably on a separate domain name).
Your support system will automatically answer many frequently asked questions and allow you the ability to have outsourced help. Once you set up the help desk you are now ready to scale up traffic to your business.
Step 2 – Social Media Presence
Love it or hate it, you need a voice on the most popular social networks. Setup a Fan page on Facebook for your business. It has a viral effect when people join it. This can help you build a database of clients and at the same time the perfect platform to create sales buzz.
Twitter and LinkedIn are the two other major social media platforms to pay attention too. By linking your website to these social platforms you can automate broadcasts to your target market.
For an example see the how the $1billion dollar online shoe store Zappos deals with social media:
http://twitter.com/zappos 1,7 million followers!
http://www.facebook.com/#!/zappos?v=wall 53,200 fans!
You should also consider having a dynamic element to your website such as a blog. Blogs provide the client the ability to comment and more importantly, share your content easily with social sites.
Step 3 – Outsource Your Work
There’s hardly anything that you can’t ask someone else to do when it comes to the Internet. In the beginning it can be tempting to want to do everything yourself. The reality is we are not all gifted at design, graphics, publishing websites, etc.
Here are some examples of work you can have done by contractors:
You can have a content-writer who prepares and distributes content for you. You don’t have to do anything but come up with the idea. Once the content is prepared you can have them and submit that content to your website.
You can employ a graphics designer, a programmer, a web designer and a search engine optimization specialist for very low rates on a per unit basis.
It’s about finding people who are really good at what you need to have done, and have them do it. The rewards are far greater than what you’re going to pay them.
Step 4 – Create a Range of Digital Products
You don’t have to only deal in physical products or services if you don’t want to.
Adding information products such as high quality PDF reports, whitepapers, video and audio can enhance your profit with hardly any effort.
Your clients are craving ‘how to’ information and these form the perfect compliment to almost any business. You can even give some premium content away for free just to get your prospects into your database. Once they are there you can make them repeated sales offers mixed into great content.
Step 5 – Research
Not the sexiest topic, but it will make or break your business. Imagine if in the real world, you just bought a block of land, and you had this fantastic idea. So you built a building, and got all the staff and put the product out there and no-one buys it. So you go bankrupt.
It’s no different online. A lot of people just come in and don’t have guidelines to judge things. Doing research allows you to find out whether you’re going to win or lose before you even enter the market. If you already have a website you should do this exercise to find hidden opportunities:
Get onto Google and see what’s happening right now, who’s buying and who’s selling and for how much. The whole web is driven from keywords. Keywords are the building blocks of everything. When we go to Google, we type in a keyword. What we put in, will determine what we get out. We need to know the keywords that the buyers are using, and then we need to make sure that it’s OUR STUFF that will come out.
Step 6 – Website Tune Up
Go to your website and make sure it does not say “Welcome to our website”. That is boring and ineffective. Make sure you put a compelling and related benefit instead such as: “Termites Eradicated Fast” etc…
Make sure your page title has your keyword with a benefit in it. This is the little text at the very top of the browser. If it says “home” or “Welcome” you need to slap the web designer and then get a new one!
These small tweaks will make a HUGE difference to traffic and conversions.
Step 7 – Traffic
You can’t get too much traffic. Make sure you take advantage of thre three main types of traffic. If you miss one you are losing money.
Paid traffic is important because if you can make money with free traffic, then you can make more money with paid traffic. Most internet marketers only focus on just free traffic. People get obsessed with free, but that’s really no way to run a business, is it? Consider a Google Pay Per Click campaign with the help of a professional.
Borrowed traffic is when you know someone who already has your customers and you ask them to send them to you. You can tell them that they’ve got the customers, you’ve got the product, and tell them to send over the customers. You can cross-populate things very easily. You might have heard of what’s called a “joint venture”.
Free Traffic is where you submit premium content on your site and away from your site pointing back top your site. Search engines and humans love this and they will bring many visitors to your website.
Find out about James Schramko’s Business Internet Formula course:
CLICK HERE
James Schramko
http://www.BusinessInternetFormula.com
About James Schramko
James is a leader in the Internet Marketing scene. Much of his work is undetectable on the surface hence the term “underground marketer”.
The connections and network of serious multi-millionaire Internet entrepreneurs James has built up over the last few years is astounding. He is able to access the highest level knowledge fast.
Based in Sydney, James runs his profitable business with very few team members, zero staff. The techniques he uses are often simple yet powerful. He is sharing many of these in this course.
