True, Internet is a numbers game. What these services are implying is that more people you can expose to your message, more sales you will get.

This is true, to a point, but it's not just about traffic - it's about attracting, converting and KEEPING customers.

Right?

Now, how do you do that? You get them through advertising and keep them through customer service.

So, you carefully analyze a few ezines, determine that ratio of ads to original content is ok, and start getting word out through advertising. Soon your logs tell you that your traffic is picking up. Great!

Now, how do you make them stick around, and hopefully become customers?

Shower them with attention. Get their email address asap, and start wowing them with your knowledge and insight. Maybe record an interview with a guru or two, and post it for free on your site. Make them feel like you're best source of information around.

If you do enough of this, hopefully a prospect will soon become a customer. So, You've Converted Them…Now What?

Now that they're a paying customer, you have to keep them. There are a number of inexpensive, if not outright free, ways that you can show your customers your appreciation. Hopefully most of these will already be familiar:

*Say thank you. Tell them that you appreciate their business. Reinforce that positive behavior!

Information about your product or service will be read from "sea to shining sea" and possibly make its way around world many times a day. With all technological advances and new discoveries, one constant or fine point of marketing that does not change, in any language, or at any destination, is common courtesy and great service. Those magic words of "Thank You" and "Welcome" are understood in any dialect. If you add a very potent one - "I'm sorry" then you have mastered complex world of international marketing.

If you have a great product and service, why is there a need to say "I'm sorry"? Well, when translations occur, requests can be misread or even "lost in translations." Product descriptions or service guarantees may not use terms that are readility acceptable or understood so further explanations are in need. A myriad of other examples exist, but being ready to use "I'm sorry for delay" or "I'm sorry but I don't understand your questions or concern" should be as much a part of your internet vocabulary or responses as is "Thank you for your order" and "Thank you for letting us serve you again."