When the Internet first exploded into people's homes back in the 1980's and 1990's, it was inevitable that someone would figure out how to use it for commercial gain.
Being a capitalistic country, this was expected.
And the results have gone beyond anyone's wildest imaginings!The Internet is supporting everything from small home-based businesses to huge international corporations.
So how can you use this awesome power to increase your sales? In the beginning, you really had two methods of getting potential customers to your website.
Either they found your website on a search engine, or they clicked on a banner on a site they were already visiting.
The search engine results method was dicey, since there were many search engines available.
Some sites used cataloguing, others used metatags, and some used keywords.
you really had to work to get your site visible on all these search engines.
Banner placement was a huge part of early internet marketing.
Remember when domain names sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars? Remember domain name hijacking and reverse domain name piracy? That's because potential customers would simply go to www..
com and then use whatever was on that site, to find the site they really wanted.
The inefficiencies of this method soon became obvious.
The next step was to capture the email addresses of visitors to your website, and then market to those people (as opposed to the entire internet user world).
By capturing email addresses, you - the marketer - are sending ads to people who are at least interested enough in your website (or in the freebie) to give you their email address.
You - the marketer - must then build on this slight connection, to persuade the customer to purchase whatever you are selling.
Thus we were introduced to on-line eCourses, free eBooks, and squeeze pages.
By capturing email addresses, you create your own little market to sell to.
Sort of setting up a store on the corner and selling to your neighbors, except your neighbors live in the virtual house-next-door.
This was a tremendous step forward, and has produced many successful internet marketers.
The next step is to BUILD on the slight connection you have with your list, and develop a RELATIONSHIP with your list.
My uncle truly did own the little store on the corner, and he knew that Mrs.
X liked to keep a little extra fat on the steak, but that Mr.
Y preferred day-old bread.
How did he know this? By talking with his customers.
WITH - not at.
WITH his customers - not polling them or surveying them.
TALKING WITH his customers - dialogue face to face.
Impossible on the Internet? No.
The Internet is the most powerful communication tool every invented.
It can be used to establish communication with each and every member of your list, and BETWEEN each and every member of your list.
Once you get people talking, you will learn what they WANT, what they NEED, and what they LIKE.
You can then present your customers - actually, your neighbors who are shopping at your store - with products that are useful to them, and which they already recognize the value of.
The next evolution in internet marketing will be to apply the awesome communication capabilities of the Internet to the listbuilding techniques developed for internet marketing, to explode your marketing efforts by knowing in advance what your customers will buy.
You can be at the front of this evolution.
Or you can be left behind and spend all your time just fighting off extinction.
Being a capitalistic country, this was expected.
And the results have gone beyond anyone's wildest imaginings!The Internet is supporting everything from small home-based businesses to huge international corporations.
So how can you use this awesome power to increase your sales? In the beginning, you really had two methods of getting potential customers to your website.
Either they found your website on a search engine, or they clicked on a banner on a site they were already visiting.
The search engine results method was dicey, since there were many search engines available.
Some sites used cataloguing, others used metatags, and some used keywords.
you really had to work to get your site visible on all these search engines.
Banner placement was a huge part of early internet marketing.
Remember when domain names sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars? Remember domain name hijacking and reverse domain name piracy? That's because potential customers would simply go to www..
com and then use whatever was on that site, to find the site they really wanted.
The inefficiencies of this method soon became obvious.
The next step was to capture the email addresses of visitors to your website, and then market to those people (as opposed to the entire internet user world).
By capturing email addresses, you - the marketer - are sending ads to people who are at least interested enough in your website (or in the freebie) to give you their email address.
You - the marketer - must then build on this slight connection, to persuade the customer to purchase whatever you are selling.
Thus we were introduced to on-line eCourses, free eBooks, and squeeze pages.
By capturing email addresses, you create your own little market to sell to.
Sort of setting up a store on the corner and selling to your neighbors, except your neighbors live in the virtual house-next-door.
This was a tremendous step forward, and has produced many successful internet marketers.
The next step is to BUILD on the slight connection you have with your list, and develop a RELATIONSHIP with your list.
My uncle truly did own the little store on the corner, and he knew that Mrs.
X liked to keep a little extra fat on the steak, but that Mr.
Y preferred day-old bread.
How did he know this? By talking with his customers.
WITH - not at.
WITH his customers - not polling them or surveying them.
TALKING WITH his customers - dialogue face to face.
Impossible on the Internet? No.
The Internet is the most powerful communication tool every invented.
It can be used to establish communication with each and every member of your list, and BETWEEN each and every member of your list.
Once you get people talking, you will learn what they WANT, what they NEED, and what they LIKE.
You can then present your customers - actually, your neighbors who are shopping at your store - with products that are useful to them, and which they already recognize the value of.
The next evolution in internet marketing will be to apply the awesome communication capabilities of the Internet to the listbuilding techniques developed for internet marketing, to explode your marketing efforts by knowing in advance what your customers will buy.
You can be at the front of this evolution.
Or you can be left behind and spend all your time just fighting off extinction.
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