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How to Market Your business Online

There are two main approaches to making money on your website.

Directly offer a product/service for sale at your website. You can offer a product or service on your webpage or you can offer free information to lure people to another where you then have a product or service available. This is the most popular way of making money on the net because it's easy to set up and you can get the initial profits rolling almost overnight. Or,

Get as many visitors to your site as possible by enticing them to come with something special you offer (Such as valuable information, help, files, free stuff, etc.). Then, once the visitor counts are high enough, you can sell advertising space on your site or sponsorships or banner advertising.

The above aspect of online marketing, with the intent to sell advertising space, is not talked about as much because it doesn't generate instant cash and requires an investment of time and money of at least six months. Once these sites are successful however, they pay off big and the time commitment and maintenance from that point on is minimal. A good example can be found at http://www.theautochannel.com.

The autochannel site has been a success because it offers daily news on the automotive industry and free information on all things automotive (including new and used car prices and dealer invoice costs).

To the best of my knowledge, the AutoChannel generates over three hundred thousand visitors a week (that's millions of hits a month) and can sell premium advertising space. They generate over $100,000 each month in advertising fees from corporations like Pennzoil and Allstate, regardless of what else they are able to sell.

Another extraordinary example of this is the Netscape site which gets over five million visitors a week and is now selling banner links for a whopping $35,000 per month. Just think; if you have just 30 pages, each displaying a banner that companies are paying you $35,000 per link per page ... that's over a million dollars each month in advertising revenue alone! Of course, the chances of you or me getting as big as Netscape are slim to none... but this example does show you the potential I am talking about.

For another example, I have a friend who has a website that entices a great number of people to come because of a free service he offers. He devotes about one hour every couple of days or so managing the site, and sells banner advertising to various corporations. He is making in excess of $90,000 in advertising revenue... and still working his regular full-time job which pays him another $37,000.

And to boot, the potential of this site (and its advertising revenues) growing three times the size is very, very possible in the next few months! If you are willing to invest the time and effort with the realization that you could do this for six months and get nowhere then this approach may be for you. The chances of making a success of this type of site are much smaller than simply selling a product or service online. But if you have a successful site, the initial time commitments are well worth it since the site can pay off in big profits with a minimal maintenance commitment afterwards.

Let's discuss method #2 above (attracting volume to sell advertising space).
Assume for example's sake that you have 10,000 visitors to your site per month. If you had multiple sub-pages on that website, you could be generating hundreds of thousands of hits every month (the sub-pages could be separated sections of material or information, chapters or whatever). Now, it is not unreasonable to charge $250.00 to place a banner on each of the sub-pages in a scenario like this, so assuming I have 15 sub-pages and am keeping my price list at a measly $250 per banner (one at the top of each sub-page).

That's $250 times 15 which is... hmmm... about $3,750 per month - just for letting a few people have the privilege of placing their ads! I no longer have to take orders, ship anything or provide any customer service... we just collect advertising fees, every month.

Note: Smaller sites charge a flat fee, but the larger sites charge $20-$40 per 1000 impressions of your banner, and the more targeted the market, the higher the price.

The following are examples of organizations that will broker space on your site if you have high enough visitor counts to justify banner ads:

Burst Media - based in NY; steep commission (50%) unless you do an exclusive. Burst Media sells banner space based on demographic, category, etc. but will not represent your site individually. http://www.burstmedia.com

Real Media - based in NYC (another banner rep firm). Same as above but better rates (30 % commission) and has the option of signing a non-exclusive deal. http://www.realmedia.com

Doubleclick - The Poppe Tyson subsidiary that was overwhelmed by responses to their print ads and alienated their customers by not returning calls or answering email. Rumor has it they are very exclusive. http://www.doubleclick.net

Interactive Connection - will partner your site (or "co-brand" it) with another to increase traffic for both of you. http://www.interactive.line.com

Because of the time commitment required to set up a website with the intention of selling advertising space as the primary source of income, just about everyone decides to start selling their products or services first so they may begin to see the sales roll in virtually overnight. It is not until later that they go after the advertising income.

There are other significant advantages to setting up your business for basic product or service promotion online, such as:

It can be completely automated to demand very little of your time.
It can be worked on at your own pace and whenever you choose.
Lowered lead costs - the expense of getting new customers is a fraction of what it costs using traditional media.
Low staffing costs - your products and services are available 24 hours a day without having a retail location.
Access to more customers - you can attract a broad customer base from around the world that is normally not available via traditional advertising vehicles.
Testing - it is easy to find out what your customers want by tracking what they do at your Website. This allows you to be more profitable by adjusting your business to offer what your clients really want and are willing to pay for rather than what you think they want.
Low risk - you can invest very little money testing new ideas and if they don't work, you really haven't lost a thing.

There are so many great things about Internet marketing I could fill an entire book just with comments like these. The above however, are some of the highlights that have brought you and me together in this newsletter.

In my opinion, the best aspects of marketing a product or service online are that start-up and operational costs are minimal and it is possible to access potential buyers at an unprecedented speed. What I mean by "speed" is that you can actually start earning income 24 hours after you launch your online business. And you can also test your advertising in a matter of days, whereas conventional media advertising takes months to conduct a single test.

Internet marketing and running an Internet business is a fantastic way of life if you do it right. The net simply works better than traditional media, but it is new, so you will have to use some imagination to envision your role and character online. There are two basic attitudes towards online marketing:

The Silent Marketer - gets sales directly from websites, newsgroups, BBS's, and email without any direct interaction with the customer. You get the customers coming to you.

The Mouth Piece - gets sales from active participation in newsgroups, mailing lists, etc. (i.e. stating your opinion and helping others with advice in forums, thereby building a relationship with each potential customer individually).

I prefer the silent method, but have done both, and of course you can do a combination of both if you so choose. I prefer the silent method because it requires no major time commitment. If you plan on giving advice or participating in discussions, you have to invest a lot of time to consistently read and post appropriately every couple of days. With the silent method, salesletters and websites are fully automated so you can concentrate on bringing people to the site and let the automated order system take over. There is no direct contact with the customer (as in email or phone correspondence/questions) in closing the sale - the computer does it all!

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