Basically there are three secrets of success in internet marketing that work together. To be blunt, these three magic success secrets separate the winners from the losers. Master them and your business will start to move forward.
Slowly at first, then you’ll pick up momentum and things will start to move amazingly quickly. No gimmicks, no tricks. These three secrets are:
Budget – While some folks think this should be the first step, realistically you can better create the budget for your marketing plan when you have a good idea of the costs involved. That can only be done once you’ve figured out your targets. You probably already have a figure in mind of how much you can really spend, so go back to your marketing campaign sheet and total up the costs of all the ad spots you’d like to do. Chances are that total will exceed your overall spending limit. If you are engaged in pay-per-click advertising, check in daily for the first week or so and monitor your results to ensure you are paying for results.
Creating Your Ad Content – Internet marketing works best when you focus only on one or two things. You may have a variety of products but pick one or two items that are good sellers and have a solid appeal to your target market for your marketing campaign. Next, ask yourself, “What am I selling”? – It’s rarely the product or service. You are selling a benefit, something that registers at the emotional level. If you are selling fishing rods, for example, you’re selling the excitement of successfully landing that monster in the lake. If you are selling cosmetics, you’re selling beauty. The most successful ads use words that relate to the customer. Use of You and Yours and never put the focus on Me, Mine, Our, My or We. Create several emotional words associated with the product – fun, comforting, relaxing, stimulating, addictive – and use at least one of them in the ad. Coupons are also an effective marketing tool. They can be easily tracked either manually or by an automated shopping cart system.
Have a plan – The down side of “just taking action” is that if you do a lot of random tasks, you tend to get a lot of random results. You need to put together a simple, reasonably logical plan. If you want notoriety and attention for its own sake, put together a Paris Hilton sort of plan. If you want credibility and trust from your customers, make it more of a Copyblogger kind of plan. There’s an old saying that when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem tends to look like a nail. Fight that kind of thinking as much as you can. Your plan may call for expertise you don’t have, or actions you aren’t very good at. So make some room in your plan to partner with someone else. If you’re great at connecting with customers but lousy at technology, find a partner whose strengths and weaknesses perfectly complement yours. Believe me, that person is out there and wants desperately to work with you. Making too many plans can be the enemy of your success. Tracking and reacting to your campaign’s successes are critical in maintaining an effective marketing campaign. From your website stats to PPC stats, there are many ways to determine what is working and what isn’t. By paying attention you’ll learn volumes about your ads and how to hone them for best results.
