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Maybe you've been reading about the "overnight successes" of our newest entrepreneurs. People who took an idea and turned it into a lucrative business. No, not the "dot-coms." That was a bubble that needed to burst, so that people who have a serious plan for making money through the internet could carve thier own space on the world wide web.
Interactive marketing is a buzz phrase: it means selling via the internet, email or CD-ROM. But think about it: all marketing is "interactive." It's a two-way transaction between buyer and seller. The nice thing about selling on the web is you don't need a storefront (other than your virtual storefront, your website); you can keep your own hours and you can work in your underwear.
You don't need to spend thousands of dollars on a fancy website (I realize I may be talking myself out of a job here). Some of the most successful sites are very simple. But they do three things very well:
The decision on what product or service to offer is up to you. Below are links to wbsites that discuss this in greater detail. My expertise is in numbers 2 and 3. Read on...
Whatever you decide. If your friends love your barbecue sauce recipe, bottle it and sell that. If you know a lot about refinishing antique furniture, write an electronic book ("e-book") about it and sell that. Here are some sites that can help you choose a product or service for online sales:
Google, the most popular search engine on the internet, recently reported that it has indexed (counted) 4,285,199,774 web pages. That's right, four BILLION. Estimating the average site size at 100 pages, gives us forty-three million websites. How can anyone find your site? How can anyone expect to survive doing business online?
This is the "getting attention" part. If you've ever used a search engine to look for something, you find that some sites appear at the top of the lists, others lower down.
That's what I'm up to. I design sites—and often RE-design sites that others have screwed up—to make them "search engine friendly." More importantly, I can help you find your marketing niche, and advertise most effictively to your customers.
Do not go spending hundreds or thousands of dollars for paid advertising on Google, Yahoo or MSN before you make your site as "search engine friendly" as you can.Web site optimization: this is a critical first step.
Search engine friendly: an example best explains this phrase.
You're a seller of widgets. You've named your website "mysuperwidgets.com." Your Home page title (the name that shows up in the very top bar of your browser) says "Welcome to my Home Page." Your Home page text tells all about your store and its history, complete with a photo of you, your staff and your dog.
Now think like a potential widget buyer, looking for a widget seller just like you. What do you type into the search engine text box? "Widgets" or "widget," or "left-hand thread widgets."
But search engines don't look within the domain name mysuperwidgets.com to find the word widgets. They will look in the web page title and the text. And the mysuperwidgwets.com online store will not show up, since it barely mentions either widget or widgets in the home page.
In other words, it's great to make a visitor to your store feel welcome. But you won't have any visitors if you don't advertise.
Drop by again. I'll be publishing more tips in the weeks to come.