Selling Yourself to Reach Online Success Written by Brian Moore
Usually, success in an online business depends upon selling outstanding products or representing really good affiliate plans. But just as important in getting people to buy from you is your business image. In this article we will look at how to define that image and sell yourself to help your potential customers decide to buy your products. There are several things to think about when developing your online image. But it's no different from preparing a resume or a personal history. You'll want to look at your education or training, work experience, and your life experiences, and how all of this defines you as an individual in such a large marketplace. We start with education, because that's point where our lives began to take a definite shape. Think about what part of your education relates to who you are. Is it favorite grade school teacher who unlocked your ambition to learn? Or is it special talents your high school studies or extra curricular activities revealed? Remember, your personal level of education not so important. It's how your educational background helps define who you are and how well you can help others online. Next, start thinking about your life experiences. What large events in your life like being married or single, raising children, and maintaining long-time friendships helped shape you? What would you change or keep same assuming you'd have control over such matters? What have you gained from your experiences in life? Then examine your work history. What occupation did you start out in? (This includes what has been traditionally known as "home maker", or household manager, if you will.) What various skills did you obtain? What other occupations have you had? What things about traditional employment brought you to Internet looking for income? Now try to decide how your education, life experiences, and work experience translate into your online goals. In general, how much income do you expect to replace with income from online? What do you think your niche market is? (This is defined by what type of customer you focus your business on.) How does your business fit into large scheme of Internet marketing?
| | Avoid Business Marketing Mistakes and Identify Profitable OpportunitiesWritten by R.J. Reiterman
Without referring to statistics (assuming that such statistics exist) it's safe to say that most marketing campaigns, advertising promotions, and small business marketing ideas produce disappointing results and a smaller-than-expected ROI. The reasons for this include following: advertising in wrong medium, misidentifying your target market, selling a product or service for which there is little demand or too much competition, noncompetitive pricing, bad location, poor customer service, a weak sales strategy; or absence of a compelling marketing message, a distinctive company identity, or unique selling proposition. In other words, act of simply taking out newspaper ads, buying radio spots, making sales calls, and distributing brochures is not, in and of itself, going to make your phone ring off hook or cause your cash register to overheat. The foundation of your marketing strategy must be rock solid, first!Remember, your target market is constantly being inundated with advertising messages, commercials, sales pitches, and an endless parade of business signs, billboards, empty promises, special sales, shouting announcers, and dubious advertiser claims. The burning question for you, small business owner, is: how do you reach right people, stand out in crowd, inspire believability, and get people to respond to your offer (preferably in droves)? Successful Advertising Campaigns Begin with a Captivating Advertising Message Perhaps most effective way to become attuned to what works and what doesn't is by getting in habit of noticing and evaluating hundreds of marketing messages and strategies that you're bombarded with every day. Constantly ask yourself what messages, advertising techniques, and images cause you to stop what you're doing and pay attention, whether it's a radio spot, billboard, a TV commercial, or a magazine ad? Chances are, messages that do best job of attracting your attention are ones that focus on how a product or service will make you feel better, provide you with comfort, pleasure, solve a problem, infuse your marriage with romance, attract opposite sex, bring your family closer together, make your life easier, healthier, safer, more secure, prosperous, exciting, or more fun. The list goes on and on; but point is that ads and marketing strategies that focus on benefits, good feelings, and positive emotions that a product or service can evoke are ones that typically generate most response and sales. In your ads, brochures, and sales presentations, emphasize desirable outcomes, results, and benefits that your prospect will enjoy as result of using your product or service. Features are important, too; but are generally secondary when talking about powers of persuasion and sales success. As you begin to pay attention to and notice all advertising messages that capture your attention and arouse your interest, give some thought to something else: how can you reach your target audience most effectively, without spending more marketing dollars than necessary. By paying attention to what other businesses and entrepreneurs are doing, and by thinking creatively, you will start formulating innovative and sometimes unconventional ideas that you can apply to profitably marketing your own products or services.
|
