Marketing on a Shoestring

I have opened a new website on my own server and this is where most of my efforts are not going. http://marketingonashoestringunleashed.com

Over the next couple of weeks I am going to be posting info on Building your business with social networking. I have always written all of my own posts but in this case I am not. I am always willing to give credit where credit is due and Bob the teacher has come out with a free mini-course on Social networking. Not only that it is also an affiliate program. If you are interested, you can view the course here or if you also want to become an affiliate and receive the course in your inbox go to: Discover more ways to power your business with social networking at www.DiscoverSocialNetworking.com.

I spend a fair bit of time surfing the net, always looking for ways to improve my own website. One thing that I have discovered is that although many internet marketers give you plenty of great content, they make one simple mistake which kills their sales.

The problem is that they don’t ask for the sale and if you don’t ask, you will never make the sale. Just look at the websites and sales letters of the heavy hitters. On the heavy hitter sites, you will find some sort of sales button every couple of paragraphs. It may say click here for more information or click here for instant access but whatever it says, they are not afraid to ask for the sale.

On many newcomer sites that I visit, I find it very rare that they actually ask for the sale. They will tell you all about the product they are marketing and what it will do for you but, they fail to ask for the sale. If you don’t ask, they don’t buy.

Many years ago, I was a real estate broker and one of the first things that you learn is to ask for the sale or use something called assumed consent to close the deal. Asking for the sale is great. It is a simple answer-either yes or no. Assumed consent is slightly different and in some cases it can be more effective.

In the assumed consent approach, you assume that your customer wants and will buy your product so instead of just asking a yes or no question, you offer them alternatives as to how they want to buy your product.

For example, after you have completed your sales pitch, you simply ask the customer: Would you prefer to use credit card (click here) or would you prefer to use PayPal:click here. It makes it much easier to ask for the sale by giving these alternatives rather than risking a yes or no answer.

Either way that you go, it is important in a sales situation to give your prospect your closing statement (ask for the sale) as often as you can without going overboard.

As I said earlier, this is probably the most common mistake that newcomers make. They are fearful of asking for the sale and as a result it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy and they don’t make the sale. Before long, they become discouraged and drop out of internet marketing thinking that they will never make any money and they are right if they don’t have the nerve to ask for the sale.

You can make a fortune on the net but, you will never make a dime if you don’t actually ask the customer to take action and complete the sale. Remember, ask and ye shall receive.

I could not believe what I was reading. It came in an email, this morning, from one of the so-called gurus of internet marketing. He had the nerve to say:”Far too many people find themselves in a perpetual learning state.” The thing that shocked me was that in an effort to sell his product, he actually believed what he was saying.

You can never have too much knowledge and the moment you stop learning is the moment you start your decline into failure. Knowledge is one of the true keys to success. Of course, knowledge without action leads to the same result. Knowledge in and of itself has no value unless it is applied. So at least part of the formula for success is knowledge plus taking action on that knowledge will lead to success.

In internet marketing to be truly successful, you need as much knowledge as you can get about marketing, driving traffic, PPC, article marketing, keywords, niche marketing, researching niches, finding products that are in demand, creating your own product, creating your own affiliate program, JVs and much much more. In addition, learning must be an ongoing affair because the internet that we know today is already outdated when we wake up tomorrow morning.

Two years ago who ever heard of Squidoo, YouTube, virtual worlds, blogs and forums. Perhaps you had heard of them but, now they are an integral part of internet marketing. What changes are coming up in the future? We can make some guesses but, in reality, the internet is still in it’s infantcy and changing so fast that if we don’t keep learning, we will be left in the dust.

Yes, the basics still work but, new times demand new methods.

That being said, all study and no work makes Jack a poor boy. If you are going to make a living on the internet, it is the application of knowledge that brings about success and massive action leads to massive success.

Actually, the guru that I mentioned earlier, was not really talking about perpetual learning which we all need, he was talking about information overload which is a problem that all internet marketers must contend with. We must study and learn but, we cannot let ourselves become so overwhelmed information overload that we are frozen into inaction. This is probably the leading killer of newcomers to internet marketing. They are greeted with a myriad of routes to marketing success and don’t know which route to take. As a result, they become easily discouraged and give up before they have made any serious attempts.

My suggestion for newcomers is in the beginning, find one program that offers step by step plans and plenty of support and stick with that program until they start to find success. Some things that I would absolutely demand before I bought into a program is that on the programs website, they openly display contact information including not just an email address and a support phone number. If they don’t offer that, then what are you going to do when you need help.

In looking at programs, look out for hype and false promises. There is no such thing as instant success. It takes knowledge, time and work. You can make these vast sums that you hear about but not as a newcomer. Remember, the gurus have vast experience, easily enter into joint ventures with other gurus, have their own affiliate programs and products and a very fat wallet to back up everything that they do.

Learn the basics and become a perpetual learning machine but, at the same time become a perpetual action machine. Knowledge and action lead to success.

Here is the deal. If you have a shoestring marketing method or tips that you like to use, write up a 300 to 600 word article and send it to stanpontiere@internetbizops.ws The winning entry will be published on my blog. At the end of your article, you get to put your signature along with a link to your website or blog. Only a couple of rules. No plugs or links can be included in the article only shoestring marketing tips or content. Second, we expect you to put a link to your content website and/or blog but you may not link to an affiliate sales page. You may ask “Whats in it for me?” Easy you get to prove your expertise in shoestring marketing, published forever on my blog and you should pick up some traffic by having your link being displayed here. Please leave separate contact information with your entry, email subject should be contest entry and then just simply email: stanpontiere@internetbizops.ws

On your blog and on your website one way to get repeat traffic is to run a contest. I have a website called “The Digital Photographer” and each month, I run a Digital Photo of the Month contest. If you are into digital photography, just hop on over to “The Digital Photographer” and click on the contest page and submit your best photographs. The winning photograph will be published at the first of each month, receive a certificate suitable for framing and be entered into a yearly contest with a cash prize. Not only that but if you are available for assignments, we will publish your contact information if you so desire.

In fact, I am now going to run a contest on this blog. Send in you best traffic tip and the winner will be published on this blog and also on my “Marketing on a Shoestring” website. You may ask, what is in it for me? Simple, at the end of your article, if you win, you will have a signature file that may contain links to any websites or blogs that you have. Please send all entries to:
stanpontiere@internetbizops.ws

I hope that you can see how this can help you get repeat traffic if you also run a contest on your blog or website. It is really simple. It costs you virtually nothing and anyone who enters will be returning to your site or blog to read or view the winning entry.

It really is a win/win situation, you get repeat traffic and the entrant get a chance to be published with links to their website or blog. Try it and see how it builds your traffic.

You can spend all the money you want on Google Adwords and their competitors and all that you will get is short-term effects. Shoestring Marketing, on the other hand, will produce results that will last weeks, months or maybe even years. Advertising is not only expensive but it only works while you are forking out your hard-earned dollars. Shoestring marketing costs nearly nothing and builds long term trust and respect. The 5 top secrets that I mentioned earlier are not really secrets but the top 5 methods of marketing on a shoestring.

1. Build a list. You have heard time and time again that the money is in the list. That is not exactly true. The money is in the trust and respect you receive from producing a quality content filled newsletter. Most newsletters are nothing more than blatant advertising but if you give your readers solid content, you will build trust and respect and when you do promote a product, your readers are far more likely to buy from you. One note of caution, don’t go cheap when you pick an autoresponder. Go for the best. Not only do they have higher delivery rates, they also will keep you out of legal hassles. There are a lot of laws involved in email marketing and the FTC can be a real dragon. Many ISPs are so afraid of the FTC that at the slightest sign of a spam complaint, they will shut down your website. Being cheap with an autoresponder could be mighty expensive.

2. Article Marketing is absolutely the best in terms of building trust and respect for your expertise and it is truly a long run affair. Some articles will be picked up by other websites, blogs and social networks, months or even years after you originally wrote the article. The web has a voracious appetite for solid quality information and article marketing meets this need. Not only will this bring you trust and respect, it will build quality back-links. Quality back-links will always improve any Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that you may do.

3. Build a quality content rich website. Nothing is worse than writing great articles and then have the reader click on an Opt-in page. Certainly, you need an opt-in page but it should not be the site that they land on after reading one of your articles. Your readers are looking for content-not fluff. Certainly, you can put an opt-in page on your website, just don’t let it be the first thing that your article readers see.

4. YouTube and the other video sites can be a great method of producing quality traffic for your website. Although, you can’t meet your customers face to face, at least they can see you and hear you on the video sites. This is a great source of quality traffic. If your videos look professional, you will have much the same effect as article marketing.

5. Social networking. Almost everyone I know is on one of the social networking sites-Squidoo, MySpace or one of the myriad of others. For sheer volume of visitors, the social network sites cannot be beaten. There is one caveat (aside from your blog) the quality of visitor is not nearly as good as you will get from article marketing. Certainly, spend some time on the social networks, but not too much. You will get a ton of visitors but, not a lot of customers.

There are many other shoestring marketing methods and you should use them all. These five are the ones that you should concentrate upon.

Unlike Brick and Mortar businesses, where you can meet your customer face to face, you only have two basic options when it comes to internet marketing-your website and your newsletter. No, I am not forgetting about social networking, Youtube and the others. I am talking about your primary point of contact with your customers.

It is far easier in the Brick and Mortar world to build trust. On the net, it is far more difficult but, if you don’t work on building trust with your customers, your online business will fail. So, the question is how do you go about building trust with someone that you will probably never meet in person.

First thing that you must do is create a killer page. Put your picture on your site. Put your name, address, email address and a contact phone number on your contact page. You should also put a contact form on your contact page. This information should also appear in every newsletter that you put out and make sure that your readers understand that you truly want to hear from them. This way you are not just a faceless entity.

On your website, you should also put a bio page (About Me) giving your reader a glimpse into your personality, your background and what you intend to do with your website and newsletter. Again, this is a trust building issue and the more the reader knows about you, the more they are likely trust and respect you.

Make sure that your website is more than just a sales page. Your website and newsletter should always have solid fresh content on your niche. If you provide your readers with expert content, they are far more likely to trust you.

When it comes to the products you promote, make sure that they are products that you have either used yourself or at least have a copy of so that you can honestly represent that the product really does what it claims and that you can attest to that from first hand experience. I have several websites (they are all areas of personal interest) and every product I promote I have either used or have a copy of the product. A customer is far more likely to buy from you if they know that you are personally involved with the product. When you can tell the customer that you own the product and give them the personal results that you have had with the product.

Avoid Hype. The shortest way to lose a reader’s trust is to over-hype a product. If anything, a little understatement will go that extra mile in product promotion. Anyone who has been on the net for any period of time immediately sees hype for what it is and will quickly kill the trust that you are trying to build with your customer.

Another thing that I now like to do with my websites is to produce a Youtube video of myself talking about some of the content on my website and then embed the video on the website. As they can’t see you in person,at least they get to see you on the video. It gives them just one more reason to trust you and your expertise.

In closing, the main point with your website and newsletter is to use them to create mutual respect and trust between you and your readers. Give them the respect that they deserve and you will gain their respect.

Please do not be insulted, I was talking out-loud to myself. I just have to remember when I start writing an article to remember KISS. We all know that article marketing builds our reputation and trust between us and our readers. It also creates great back-links to our websites but is does you no good if the article does not get published. I have reviewed my previously published articles and found that the articles that get published the most have two common factors that seem to make it easier to get them published.

First, it needs a strong and unique Article Title. Just like when I used to work for newspapers, which had a whole desk of people that did nothing but write article headlines. You must put the same effort into your title (headline) to get people interested enough to at least read the first paragraph.

The second important thing is that the article must not be overly long or short. Newspapers style writing is probably the best approach to article writing. It has the major points in the first paragraph and the following paragraphs provide supporting information. It has been my experience with my articles that my most widely published articles run between 450 and 650 words. Shorter than 450 and you are not giving your reader sufficient content. Then, longer than 650 and the reader gets bored as you have filled the article with too much fluff.

Of course, these are not hard and fast rules, just a guideline as to what seems to work for me. In all honestly, when I look at some of the article available and find that they are 4 or 5 thousand words long, I rarely bother to read them. I am, in fact, on both sides of the fence. Not only do I write articles, but I also use other people’s articles on my websites. In some subject areas, I have found that there are many article writers who have done an excellent job of writing good solid content articles. In addition, if the article writer has achieved status in a given field, using their work can add trust from your readers. On some of my websites, I have found that using an expert author is sometime better that trying to prove that I am the end-all, top expert in the field. I am not and I am glad to give credit where credit is due. This is especially true in some of my niche sites.

As you may know, I am a big believer in Shoestring Marketing. But there are so many things that you can do that you have to make a decision as to how to spend your limited time. Certainly, advertising has it’s place but, Shoestring Marketing has much better long term results.

The problem is that some Shoestring methods produce a ton of traffic but it is not targeted on the other hand, some Shoestring methods produce a lesser traffic volume but it is quality traffic and if they like what they see, you will see much better repeat business.

Tops on my list of producing quality traffic is article writing. The people who read your articles and then click on your link are very likely to join your list and make many repeat visits to your blog.

Second place is shared by making entries to my own blog and also making forum comments. These people tend to also become repeat visitors.

YouTube can produce a lot of visitors of moderate quality. They may or may not become repeat customers but in sheer numbers, this is still an important method of Shoestring Marketing.

At the bottom of my list is Social Networking (Squidoo, MyFace, etc). This method of marketing will produce a ton of hits to your website and or blog but, they are typically one-time visitors. They will take whatever you might be offering for free and then be gone forever. They might even sign-up for your list but when you look at your stats, they have a very low open rate of your newsletter.

If you have your own product and affiliate program, this is one of the best ways of receiving quality traffic. They come to your sales page and the affiliate has already pre-sold them. The only problem with this method is that you must have produced a quality product and that does take time to produce.

All in all, you have to make a decision. You can spend your time on quality traffic or spend your time on creating a ton of poor quality traffic. My choice will always be go for quality and you can’t go wrong. Quality traffic is looking for help in building their business. The other way to go is to do things that produce a ton of traffic but, they are usually just freebie seekers.

To your marketing success