Gaining new customers in on line marketing

Cultivating New Customers

In this edition we will discuss how to think out of the Web…out of the World Wide Web, in the never- ending quest for new customers.

Text links, banners and search engines are all ways to attract clients and build a customer base. It’s our buyers that’s we’re really talking about here. But the Web isn’t the only place to look for customers even for Web-based businesses. Some of the old traditional methods like word-of-mouth referrals still work just as well, and still bring me a fair bit of cash each month. Here are some tips to help you grab as many customers as you can while you’re setting up your business and getting your online marketing programs in place.

Know Your Market

Whatever your line of business, you’ve got to know your market. You have to know who your clients are, what they want and what makes them buy. Do the market research, check out your competitors, create a formal marketing plan—but take the effort to put yourself in the shoes of your buyers. Otherwise you won’t get any!

Bring Out Your Benefits

You might think you know what your product’s sales points are—you might even be dead proud of them—but the fact is, your buyers don’t give a toss about all the wonderful gizmos you’ve packed into your product. They just want you to answer one question: what’s it going to do for me?

That’s what all your marketing has to be about: explaining to your buyers how you’re going to improve their life.

Make Your Site Sing

It can take a fair bit of effort and not a small amount of time to create a website that works. But you can’t stop there. You’re going to have to keep updating it, checking it and making sure all the links and addresses work. It’s the first place to look when you notice your sales starting to drop, and it’s crucial to keep them coming in.


Be Alert for New Marketing Opportunities

You must always be alert for opportunities to make new business contacts and not allow yourself to be caught off guard when opportunities arise. It doesn’t matter if you’re out shopping or at a Chamber of Commerce meeting, make sure that you have professional business cards, brochures, etc. on hand—and don’t be afraid to use them.


Don’t Keep Your Business a Secret

Tell everyone about your business and your product. You might even consider sending out a mass mailing to everyone you know, telling them what you’re doing. Chances are, someone knows someone who wants what you’ve got, and friendly referrals usually bring the best business!

Find Repeat Customers

When it comes to building customers, there are clients who buy once—and clients who buy lots of times. It’s the latter that you want to pack into your customer list; they’re worth their weight in gold. Big companies are good places to prospect for repeat business (they have big demands and budgets) but always treat your repeat customers well. That might mean the odd discount or the occasional freebie, but the extra business should make up for it.


To wrap it up, customers are customers no matter where you find them. Customers found on the Web respond to many of the same things that make them customers in the real world. The sooner you think in those terms and apply that knowledge to your site, the better your site will perform.

Choosing a Domain Name

In this article you will learn how to chose an effective and memorable domain name and learn how you can actually increase traffic by using an old, expired domain name.

Times wasting so lets get started…

In the physical world, you can distinguish a business because of its structure, window displays, or signs. You can tell that a bank is a bank, or a clothing store is indeed a clothing store.

In the Internet, however, it is an entirely different story altogether. Your domain name is the only clue to your online business. You do not have visual clues: no location, no look, and no store design. Instead, users have to type in a word or a set of words to reach your site. Your prospective visitor has no way of knowing what your site is all about until he/she finds it and reads its contents. Who can ever tell that Amazon.com sells books? Or that Excite is a search engine?

Your domain name can spell your success on the Internet. A good domain name is the best asset you can ever have. It can make your business stand out in the crowd, or just float aimlessly in space.

The need to provide immediate clues to an online business led to the prevalence of generic domain names. Generic names instantly provide the user with an idea of what a business is all about, what to expect and look for in a site. For instance, Etoys.com is a toy store.

The temptation of the generic name has been so powerful; that some companies even paid ridiculously high prices to get the name they want. The domains Loans.com and Wines.com were both bought for $3 million each. Telephone.com was acquired for $1.75 million, while Bingo.com sold for $1.1 million.

However, generic names do not necessarily create the “buzz” that you’d like surrounding your website. Branding has always been about proper names: McDonald's did not name their store Hamburger. Hertz is not called Car Rental. FedEx is not Mail Carrier. Kodak is not Photographs. Microsoft is not Computer Software.

For better branding results, your domain name should be memorable and easy to remember. Remember the following tips when creating a domain name.

 The domain name should be short
 The domain name should be simple
 It should be suggestive of your business category
 It should be unique
 It should be easy to interpret and pronounce
 It should be personalized
 It should not be difficult to spell
 It should not be difficult to remember

Domain names can be registered through many different companies (known as "registrars") - a listing of these companies is available at ICANN: http://www.icann.org. You can register for 1 to 10 years - prices can vary anywhere from $10 to $20 per year. Most web hosting companies, as explained later, will handle the registration process for you, but make sure that you are properly listed as the owner of the domain when it is registered. If you have registered a domain name for a specific period, make sure you renew it in time. You can be surprised at the number of cases, where site owners have let a domain name slip by if they have not renewed in time.

Using expired domains to skyrocket your traffic

At some point while you’re building your website, you’re going to have to buy a domain name. This is the address that users type into their browsers to reach your site. That takes about five seconds, and depending on the name you want and whether anyone else owns it, it won’t cost you more than a few bucks.

But domain names are also a golden opportunity to make some easy money.

I’m not talking about Internet real estate, where you buy up good names and sell them on for a profit—if you haven’t got into that now, forget it. The bottom’s fallen out of the market and the best domains are long gone.

I’m talking about expiring domains.

Thousands of webmasters invest time, effort and money to promote their site and build up traffic. Many of them then lose interest and move on, leaving their site active. That means that although they still own the domain, they’re not actively promoting it. But they don’t need to. All the automatic marketing systems they’ve put in place are still bringing in traffic. The site runs itself.

Now, at some point the ownership of those domains is going to expire. If you snap up those domains once they come back onto the market, you’ve got a pre-built stream of customers. You can either rebuild the site, or redirect the traffic to your domain. You could set up an affiliate program get paid for users someone else paid for.

It’s that easy.

There are tons of options, and lots of easy ways to make lots of money with very little effort. Opportunities like these are everywhere.

Do be careful when using other sites though. There are some swindlers out there that will sell you subscriptions, provide you with outdated lists, take your money and keep the good domains for themselves.

Blogs in Plain English

The importance of persistence in online marketing

Online marketing is not easy at the best of times and especially at the moment with the global economy the way it is. In these times it can be difficult to start an online business and maintain your presence and marketing strategy in such a competitive environment. If you already have an online marketing business set up it may be doing well or it may have come to a sudden halt and you may be having a difficult time. What are you going to do? Do you look at a new marketing strategy? Do you give up and scrap your online business all together? If you are currently using social networking sites such as facebook and twitter, you will be fully aware of the endless amount of offers that are about at the moment to tempt you into the latest home based business. I know it is tempting to quit what you are currently involved with and move onto something else. But first we need to perhaps question ourselves. Is it really that the business you are involved with is no good or that your marketing strategy is not effective? Or is it our input and commitment that needs to change.

There are many things that can affect your commitment. One of the most prominent factors that lead most online entrepreneurs to failure can be a lack of persistence. The internet is a fast moving place and there are hundreds of stories of fortunes being made overnight. So people can tend to enter into an online marketing business with the wrong expectations. People may think that building an online business and developing a marketing strategy is a matter of setting up a website, putting up some banner ads and profiting. The truth is a lot different. Building a profitable and sustainable online marketing business is just as hard, if not harder than an off line venture.

I firmly believe that when you are trying to start any business persistence and determination are key. I can remember a quote one of my karate teachers used to tell me. When people were feeling de-motivated he would say a black belt is a white belt who never gave up, they stuck with the training. The message here is that persistence is vitally important to developing your online business and marketing strategy. So if you are feeling like you should be giving up on your attempts to make an income online you need to ask yourself can you do more. Is there something else you should be doing to promote your business? Try some different methods. Maybe you have been using advertising through free ads, and it has not been working for you. Take a look at using social networking sites such as facebook. Maybe social networking is not for you. Have you thought about e-mail marketing, article marketing.

One really important point I have picked up on during my time developing my own on line business is the importance of surrounding yourself with positive people. Try to join a community or forum of people who are involved in the same business you are working with. People will be sympathetic to what you are experiencing and they will be able to provide you with tips and advice to help you with your business. If you are using facebook try and link up with other likeminded people, ask for advice and help. You will generally find people are more than willing to help you out. Remember that developing your online marketing business and making it successful will take time, make sure you keep focussed on what you want to achieve.

Top Tips for Using Face Book

1). Be creative, don’t follow the crowd, try to be different, come up with your own ideas.

2). Make your Face Book profile look professional, but don’t be to business like, put some of your own personality in to your profile, be friendly.

3). Add friends on a frequent basis, if you are using Face Book for marketing and networking you will need to develop your friends network. A good tip here is to vary the amount of friends you add each time. One time you could add say 20, the next time 5, and then, maybe the time after that. Also don’t click one friend request straight after another, leave a bit of a gap. Face Book will challenge you if you add to many friends on a frequent basis. Don’t be repetitive.

4). Join Groups. Face Book Groups are an excellent way to communicate with other like minded people, remember you are using a social networking site. Network, make friends, build relationships, and be helpful. It will pay off for you in the long run.

5). Make your status updates relevant. Again people will want to know a bit about you. Don’t try and use Face Book as a sales platform. Yes sales will be a result of your social networking efforts but don’t go using your status updates to post links for products or sites all the time. People will get fed up of this and you will probably lose friends in the process.

6). Offer value and good content. Make your content interesting and relevant to the people you are communicating with.

7). Make use of Face Book applications. If you are trying to develop a business using Face Book, why not make it more productive and make use of the tools on offer. Chances are if you are looking at on line marketing, as well as making more money you may want to free up more of your time.

8). Above all and perhaps the most important. Be friendly, be helpful. Try and portray yourself as a leader and somebody who is knowledgeable. Don’t get involved in silly arguments and never use offensive language. Remember you are networking you are using Face Book to develop yourself and help others.

Face Book Marketing is going to grow and grow. You need to be using Face Book to market your business on-line. Stick to the tips above and your Face Book experience should be a productive one.

The Six Figure Mentors & YourNetBiz

The Six Figure Mentors introduces Daniel Wagner