1. Differentiate or Die! You Must Stand Out From the Pack. Dont become another me too option for your prospects to choose from. When you allow this to happen, you position yourself to compete only on price a tough arena to play in.
2. You Are in Two Businesses... The Business of DELIVERING Your Products and Services AND The Business of MARKETING Them. Youre better off being a GREAT marketer and have adequate ability at what your business delivers than have great ability at what your business delivers and be an average marketer.
3. Know Thy Target Audience! Who exactly is your ideal customer What do they look like Where do they hang out What is their decision making process Keep drilling down until you are crystal clear and can visualize them in your head. Then focus your marketing efforts directly at them.
4. The Internet is Simply Another Medium to Reach Your Target Audience Dont Be Intimidated by it! You do not need to be a computer expert to market your business online. Nor do you need to go it alone. Help is all around us, we just have to ask for it.
5. Consistency Is Key! This is where the old clich Out of sight out of mind really holds true. You must have consistency in the look, feel and frequency of delivery of your marketing efforts. This builds a level of comfort between you and your prospects and helps you maintain top of mind presence with them.
6. Apply the Rule of Five to Your Marketing Efforts Every Day. Commit to doing at least 5 things per day to market your business and see your business soar!
7. Have a Plan! Know the 5 Ws Who, What, When Where, and Why of every marketing initiative you take. Add to that a financial forecast for your marketing efforts and you are golden!
8. Diversify Your Efforts! Dont put all your marketing eggs in one basket. Have multiple marketing tactics going at all times so that you always have a bread-winning marketing tactic.
9. Tap Into Viral Marketing! Get others promoting and selling for you.
2005 Online Marketing Muscle -- All Rights Reserved.
Dean Mercado is an Internet marketing coach, strategist, author, and speaker. Dean and his company Online Marketing Muscle help entrepreneurial professionals leverage the power of Internet marketing to turn their businesses into money magnets. Visit Online Marketing Muscle for many more Internet marketing tips.
Internet marketing is a numbers game, we all know that. Or is it not Maybe we are all mistaken and chasing a white elephant. Internet marketing is a highly competitive market. If you ever used a pay-per-click search engine you know what I mean. Internet marketing is a tough market. You deal with all kind of people. Just skim your inbox. Im sometimes amazed with the emails Im getting. need money now help make money fast this is an evergreen from my collection of email responses to my newsletter.
Does this sound familiar Well, I think its sad and embarrassing. We are doing everything a so called internet marketing guru told us to do and the responses are mostly from confused and poor people who have no clue what we are actually talking about. Now ask yourself again, is it really a numbers game or should you completely change directions.
One of the marketing systems Im part of recently issued a statement that most of the new subscribers are from non English speaking countries. Keep in mind that the site is completely in English are geared towards English speaking audience. Just a few words of English wont do it either. They are selling the service with the slogan find 3 and its free. This definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Ok, now what How can you make a living or even more than living with an online business Ask 10 internet marketing gurus and you get 11 different answers. The only thing I can say is to approach an online business the same way as you do with a traditional business. With traditional businesses nobody expects a profit in the first year of a brand new business. But on the internet everybody gets frustrated if they dont make money in the first three days.
If everything would work like all the gurus make us believe there would be no more employment. The economy as we know it would seize to exist. Home businesses are by definition meant to be an income supplement. In some cases they become a full time income. On very rare occasions a home business can turn into a money maker. I heard of them, but I never actually met anybody that made it.
After reading all this you can understand that internet marketing is not always a pleasure. This is especially true if you are building a business with internet marketing. So, should you completely avoid internet marketing and focus on other business ventures Well, it depends. If you cant handle the competition and the negative image of this market segment, dont do it.
On the other hand, if you are able to manage a small success in a highly competitive market, keep doing what youre doing. Chances are that some of your competitors are giving up and you can fill the void in no time. Make no mistake its a dog eat dog environment and never ever expect a helping hand from a fellow marketer. Unless you made it into the chosen few league. The big guns are joining forces all the time to increase their market shares and profits. Hmm, this sounds like good old corporate America, doesnt it
As I said, treat your online business the same way you would treat a traditional brick and mortar business. Because the same principals apply to both types of businesses. Anybody who thinks they could push their business into profitable returns by maxing out their credit cards are missing the boat big time. Yes I admit it; in the beginning I spend way too much money on useless stuff because a guru told me so. Then I turned around and tried to convince others to spend too much money on useless stuff. Again a guru told me to do so.
Luckily I was able to break out of this death spiral and forced myself to analyze the situation. First, do I really want to continue with this internet thing Second, do I really want to spend hours after hours everyday to chase something that might not exist Yes I really want this internet thing to work and No I dont want to chase wild goose. I needed to be smarter with my business decisions and more creative in my approaches. Ever since I changed the way Im doing things my business is doing better every day. Like the real world businesses, it takes time to develop.
The bottom line of this little story is; never trust anybodys advices blindly; dont do exactly what youve told to do without researching the consequences. Although the consequences are most likely an empty bank account and maxed out credit cards. It will devastate your financial future. Remember, be smart, play smart and play the internet marketing numbers right.
Peter Dobler is an active real estate investor and successful internet business owner. More information about home based internet businesses at: