A few months ago I was watching a stream meandering back andforth across a flat plain in a high mountain valley. The streamreached its destination - a small lake - but only after dozensof loops and curves. It occurred to me that Water and clever WebMarketing have something in common - they both follow the pathof least resistance.
Let me explain.
Your first contact with a future customer usually starts with anemail. It could be an Ad in an Ezine, it could be your ResourceBox at the end of one of your Articles, or it could be yourSignature File in your correspondence.
But in the chain of events that leads to a web sale, an email isthe point of greatest resistance.
Why is that
Firstly, your future customer is reading your message offline.She or he has to fire up their modem before they can buy yourproduct. And that requires effort (and expense).
Secondly, if your message is in an Ezine, its probably one of adozen other messages all clamoring for attention.
Thirdly, whether your message is an Ezine Ad, a Resource Box, ora Signature File, youve probably had only a few lines toexplain why your widgets are so good.
So if an email is the point of greatest resistance, what is thesolution
The ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism (pronounced Dowism) -also known as The Watercourse Way - gives us the answer.Taoism tells us to be like Water and follow the path of leastresistance. Water flows. It is soft and moves easily aroundobstacles in its path, instead of attempting to go through them.
Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet fordissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it.
The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid.Everyone knows this is true, but few can put it into practice.(Tao Te Ching, ch. 78)
What is the path of least resistance in an email, I hear youask. Offer something free!
Successful web marketers know this already. I recently did asurvey of the Resource Boxes of fifty well known Ezine Writers.Over 90% of them were not trying to sell anything from theirResource Box. In fact, an overwhelming majority were not eventrying to get a click-thru to their website - they were simplyoffering a free subscription to their Newsletter. In otherwords, they were more interested in building a long-termrelationship than they were in making a quick sale.
When I started out on the Internet, I was pretty impatient. Icertainly didnt want to the follow the path of leastresistance. The path I had in mind was more like the flight ofan arrow - straight to its target.
But the statistics suggest that most web sales are not made likethat; on average your customer will have to see your messageseven times before he or she buys your product.
So next time you plan your marketing strategy, why not take alesson from Water and follow the path of least resistance
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Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3
years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this
simple technique to build a successful online business. Click
here to find out more:
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One of the most exciting things about doing businessonline is the Multiplier Effect. Its the principalfactor behind some of the fortunes that have been madeon the Internet.
How does it work
The Multiplier Effect occurs when your marketingtechnique either:
A) replicates itself over and over again, orB) feeds into other marketing techniques
A classic example of the first kind of MultiplierEffect is the Free E-Book.
Ten people download your Free E-book and offer it fromtheir websites. Those ten people each get downloadsand its now being offered on 100 websites, and so on.
The second type of Multiplier Effect occurs when onemarketing technique results in benefits from anothermarketing technique.
A good example of this is Link Exchange.
Lets say you get links on 100 different websites.When the Search Engines spider those websites, theyfind your link. Your link popularity then increasesand as a result, your ranking in the Search Enginesgoes up.
This kind of Multiplier Effect often results in afeedback loop.
Because your website now ranks higher in the SearchEngines, more people want to exchange links with you.You now have links on 300 different websites. This inturn gives you an even higher ranking in the SearchEngines, and so on.
Some marketing techniques have no Multiplier Effect.For example, posting to FFA sites - after only a fewhours your ad drops off the FFA site and you have tostart again.
One of the most powerful Multiplier Effects I know ofoccurs when you write Ezine Articles.
The main purpose in writing Ezine Articles is to getthem published in Ezines. And that on its own willbring you a lot of highly targeted traffic. But thebenefits dont stop there.
When your Articles are posted on other peopleswebsites you get free links (from your Resource Box)back to your website - more traffic. This increasesyour link popularity and so your ranking in the SearchEngines goes up - more traffic. Eventually youll findyour Articles appearing in Free E-Books - even moretraffic.
As you can see, this kind of Multiplier Effect rapidlybuilds up its own momentum - after a certain pointits virtually unstoppable.
Here are 2 ways you could start using the MultiplierEffect:
1) Launch a Free E-Book
Start collecting Ezine Articles on a particular topic.The topic could be Search Engine Positioning,Website Design, Affiliate Programs, Ad Writing,Choosing a Web Host, or it could be on Parenting,Gardening etc.
When you have about 25 good Articles on your chosentopic, contact the Authors and ask their permission toinclude their Articles in your Free E-Book (with theAuthors Resource Box).
Make sure your free E-Book has plenty of links back toyour website.
The secret to making this technique work is to ensurethat your Free E-Book is closely related to the themeof your website. For example, if you market SearchEngine Submission tools from your website, anexcellent topic for your Free E-Book would be SearchEngine Positioning.
Heres a tip that will help you find out exactly howmuch traffic youre getting from your Free E-Book.
Make a copy of your index page and re-name itsomething else, such as:http://www.yourdomain.com/free-ebook.html
In your Free E-Book, instead of linking to your homepage (index.html), link to the duplicate home page(free-ebook.html). This way, youll be able to checkin your webstats exactly how many visitors are comingto your website from your Free E-Book.
Include a short note on the index page of your FreeE-Book telling people that they are welcome to giveaway your E-Book from their website.
Then submit your Free E-Book to these directories:
http://www.zdnet.comhttp://www.upload.comhttp://www.ebooksnbytes.comhttp://ebooks.searchking.comhttp://www.free-ebooks.net/http://www.reportsearch.com/http://www.ebookdirectory.com/http://www.ldpublishing.com/index1.html
2) Write Ezine Articles
Whatever you do on the Web, you must have picked updozens of tips along the way - tips that would be veryuseful to other people who are just starting out.
Turn those tips into a series of articles, give themcatchy titles and submit them to these articleannouncement lists (youll have to subscribe first):
mailto:article_announce-subscribe@egroups.commailto:aabusiness-subscribe@egroups.commailto:aageneral-subscribe@egroups.commailto:aainet-subscribe@egroups.commailto:Free-Content-subscribe@egroups.commailto:articles_archives-subscribe@egroups.commailto:PublishInYours-subscribe@egroups.commailto:publisher_network-subscribe@egroups.commailto:ArticlePublish-subscribe@yahoogroups.commailto:subportal-subscribe@egroups.com
Then put your articles on autoresponder and submitthem to these online article archives:
http://www.ezinearticles.com/add_url.htmlhttp://www.ideamarketers.com/http://www.mega-success.com/articles/submit.shtmlhttp://cyberprosper.com/submit.shtmlhttp://www.womans-net.comhttp://www.connectionteam.com/submit.htmlhttp://www.netterweb.com/articles/http://article_depot.50megs.com/http://www.ezadsuccess.com/articles/submit.shtml
Think of your Articles and Free E-Books as seeds -scatter them around and then watch them bear fruit andmultiply.
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Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3
years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this
simple technique to build a successful online business. Click
here to find out more:
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