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Add You - Seven Marketing Questions You Should Ask Before You Get A 10 Year Old To Build Your Website
You have a head spinning with business ideas but you encounter difficulties in financing? Or you have recently started your great potential business but are not yet turning profit? A fundamental aspect for your business, financing is usually the most frequent obstacle in starting a business. You have the option of resorting to a business incubator on condition that your business idea seems viable and promising. Now if you wonder how they are going to find out whether your idea is worth investing, the answer is a very sensible (and predictable) one: by analyzing your business plan.What are business incubators? How many types are there?A business incubator is a system offering support for start-up businesses or recently founded ones. The facilities it offers go from financing, inexpensive office space, various business services (such as secretarial assistance) to management advice and sup
7. Are you really going to trust your 10 year old nephew to do all this?
You may not be using your 10 year old nephew, you may be using a graphics design company instead. But don’t confuse determining your website business model and marketing strategy with the colour and movement of your website graphics. As a general rule of thumb, the flashier the website, the worse it is commercially. (Check out eBay and Amazon- how flashy are their sites? But is there a clear business strategy?) You will need someone to do the html programming, but almost certainly, someone who is good at that will not be good at everything else. A website is just another marketing tool. Like a brochure. Would you get your printer to write your advertising copy?
I don’t suggest that you should not use a great website design company (or even your precocious nephew) to build your website, but don’t let them be in charge of your marketing!
Copyright 2005 Empow
I started playing chess when I was in 11th grade in high school. I immediately became fascinated with the game (the art) after watching my younger brothers banging away at the pieces on the board. I asked them to teach me this ancient game and within weeks I must’ve read a good 10 books on chess.I really fell in love. I would devote hours a day of practice and playing with peers and online chess games. Those that knew me knew that I always carried my green rollup board around with me. I was like a chess warrior ready to challenge anybody anytime.After about a year of playing, I began going to the chess tournaments in Manhattan. There, I would literally play amongst the best in the world. I played people on grandmaster levels (the highest). I usually lost to these players, but I learned a lot in the process so losing was like winning to me. Week after week I would come back to play, losing only to come back stronger
1. What is the purpose of your website?
In business, there are three main types of websites:
• the brochure site
• the lead generator site
• the online shop
The brochure site is an online support to your offline marketing. You will refer to it in your ads, because you pay for ads by the square inch, and acres are cheap on the internet. You will refer to it in your Yellow Pages ads, your business cards and your brochures. An online presence will give you a credibility that your competitors without a website (getting fewer every day) don’t have. But in the end it is just an online version of a tri-fold a printer might do for you. There is nothing wrong with a brochure site, if this is all you want in your marketing plan.
The next step up is a lead generator site. Unlike a brochure site, you want it to generate business on its own. You want people to find your site while browsing on the internet, and having seen your site, feel compelled to call or email you. After that contact is made, hopefully a sale will follow.
The last option is that your website is a storefront where visitors to your site can actually purchase products and services. In other words, after finding your site, and viewing your content, they are compelled to “click here” to make a purchase.
There is a fourth type of website- the vanity site. But financial rewards are rarely connected to this type of site.
Of course a website may be a mixture of these three (or four) types, but unless you have defined your business model, the purpose of your site, it will be a waste of electrons.
2. How will people find your site?
You already know there are 4 billion sites, so the likelihood that a buyer will find it by chance are somewhat remote. And if you calculated the cost per lead on that basis, you would never build such a site. Your business website exists only for one purpose, to make you money- irrespective of the business model. It must pay its way. So if no-one visited your site, why would you pay for it to exist?
Therefore, you must have a strategy to ensure people know your site exists and that there is a reason they should visit it. How can you do that? There are two basic strategies, offline and online.
An offline strategy is based on all your offline marketing- ie advertising, public relations, networking and cold calling. In every case you would refer leads to your website where they can find out more about what you can do for them, and why they should choose you. Your website would build on your offline promotions giving further details of your service, educating your customer and creating credibility for your business.
An online strategy will be built around visibility. The key elements of this are:
• Search Engine Optimisation
• A strategy to get links to your website
• Online advertising
3. What are you going to do to make visitors linger at your site?
The average website visit is 68 seconds. How many widgets do you expect to sell in that time? You must have a strategy to make people linger at your site, get to know you and see the value you can give them.
The three secrets for making people linger are CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT.
To get visitors to stay, you need to give them information that they want. This will not be information about you (at least not on the home page). Your goal should be to educate your visitor. Give them information they will not get elsewhere on how to solve the problem that caused them to search for you in the first place. If you website is just sales hype, your visitors will be gone in a lot less than 68 seconds.
4. What do you want visitors to do once they are at your site?
Many would say- “Buy lots of stuff from me.” Well, in your dreams! Most people will not buy from you, or call you on the first visit to your site. They don’t know you (unless an offline relationship has been established). And unless you are selling a commodity, that is the same on every site- eg CD’s, and you are competing on price, you need to be able to establish a relationship. To do this, you need to give visitors a reason to give you a way to stay in contact. This could be by way of a newsletter, or through a free download of information requiring their email details. When you do this, it is essential you provide an unsubscribe option, because otherwise you will be spamming. And there are no rich spammers (although I believe there are rich people selling spam technology).
5. How are you going to get people to come back to your site?
On average, four out of five website visitors will never come to a website. And if they only stay 68 seconds, it’s going to take you several lifetimes to become an internet millionaire. To get people to come back you need to do several things:
• Have sufficient quantity and quality of content, that the visitor will bookmark your site to come back for more
• Continually add to and change the content to make visitors want to come back
• Provide special offers to your subscribers that will encourage them to revisit your website
If your website never changes, why would anyone want to come back?
6. How are you monitoring going to monitor the results of your website?
No-one can guarantee what is going to work for you. Therefore you have to measure your statistics. A good webhost will provide you with a statistics package that will tell you how many visitors you have had, when they visited, how they found you and what they did at your site. When you make an offer, make a change to your site, or undertake some marketing campaign, whether online or offline, check the response on your statistics, and the conversions that you have achieved on your site. Do controlled experiments. Don’t change too many things at one time, because you will never know what caused the change. Find out what works, and what doesn’t. And when you find a good thing, stick to it!
7. Are you really going to trust your 10 year old nephew to do all this?
You may not be using your 10 year old nephew, you may be using a graphics design company instead. But don’t confuse determining your website business model and marketing strategy with the colour and movement of your website graphics. As a general rule of thumb, the flashier the website, the worse it is commercially. (Check out eBay and Amazon- how flashy are their sites? But is there a clear business strategy?) You will need someone to do the html programming, but almost certainly, someone who is good at that will not be good at everything else. A website is just another marketing tool. Like a brochure. Would you get your printer to write your advertising copy?
I don’t suggest that you should not use a great website design company (or even your precocious nephew) to build your website, but don’t let them be in charge of your marketing!
Copyright 2005 Empowe
It seems as though everyone is telling you that you should have an ezine for your web site, heck even if you don’t even have a web site! But why?There are several good reasons to publish your own ezine, the not the least of which is to keep in touch with visitors to your web site. Here are several more reasons:(1) Staying in contact with customers on a regular basis so they remember your site amongst the billions of web sites on the Internet today.(2) Site announcements(3) Staying in contact with potential customers (Maybe one of the most important reasons)(4) Updating your affiliates(5) Sending information in the form of articles and editorials(6) A mechanism to deliver results of a survey or contest(7) Establish yourself as knowledgeable in a field(8) Increase your Search Engine ranking(9) Add content to your web site(10) As an advertising ve
The last option is that your website is a storefront where visitors to your site can actually purchase products and services. In other words, after finding your site, and viewing your content, they are compelled to “click here” to make a purchase.
There is a fourth type of website- the vanity site. But financial rewards are rarely connected to this type of site.
Of course a website may be a mixture of these three (or four) types, but unless you have defined your business model, the purpose of your site, it will be a waste of electrons.
2. How will people find your site?
You already know there are 4 billion sites, so the likelihood that a buyer will find it by chance are somewhat remote. And if you calculated the cost per lead on that basis, you would never build such a site. Your business website exists only for one purpose, to make you money- irrespective of the business model. It must pay its way. So if no-one visited your site, why would you pay for it to exist?
Therefore, you must have a strategy to ensure people know your site exists and that there is a reason they should visit it. How can you do that? There are two basic strategies, offline and online.
An offline strategy is based on all your offline marketing- ie advertising, public relations, networking and cold calling. In every case you would refer leads to your website where they can find out more about what you can do for them, and why they should choose you. Your website would build on your offline promotions giving further details of your service, educating your customer and creating credibility for your business.
An online strategy will be built around visibility. The key elements of this are:
• Search Engine Optimisation
• A strategy to get links to your website
• Online advertising
3. What are you going to do to make visitors linger at your site?
The average website visit is 68 seconds. How many widgets do you expect to sell in that time? You must have a strategy to make people linger at your site, get to know you and see the value you can give them.
The three secrets for making people linger are CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT.
To get visitors to stay, you need to give them information that they want. This will not be information about you (at least not on the home page). Your goal should be to educate your visitor. Give them information they will not get elsewhere on how to solve the problem that caused them to search for you in the first place. If you website is just sales hype, your visitors will be gone in a lot less than 68 seconds.
4. What do you want visitors to do once they are at your site?
Many would say- “Buy lots of stuff from me.” Well, in your dreams! Most people will not buy from you, or call you on the first visit to your site. They don’t know you (unless an offline relationship has been established). And unless you are selling a commodity, that is the same on every site- eg CD’s, and you are competing on price, you need to be able to establish a relationship. To do this, you need to give visitors a reason to give you a way to stay in contact. This could be by way of a newsletter, or through a free download of information requiring their email details. When you do this, it is essential you provide an unsubscribe option, because otherwise you will be spamming. And there are no rich spammers (although I believe there are rich people selling spam technology).
5. How are you going to get people to come back to your site?
On average, four out of five website visitors will never come to a website. And if they only stay 68 seconds, it’s going to take you several lifetimes to become an internet millionaire. To get people to come back you need to do several things:
• Have sufficient quantity and quality of content, that the visitor will bookmark your site to come back for more
• Continually add to and change the content to make visitors want to come back
• Provide special offers to your subscribers that will encourage them to revisit your website
If your website never changes, why would anyone want to come back?
6. How are you monitoring going to monitor the results of your website?
No-one can guarantee what is going to work for you. Therefore you have to measure your statistics. A good webhost will provide you with a statistics package that will tell you how many visitors you have had, when they visited, how they found you and what they did at your site. When you make an offer, make a change to your site, or undertake some marketing campaign, whether online or offline, check the response on your statistics, and the conversions that you have achieved on your site. Do controlled experiments. Don’t change too many things at one time, because you will never know what caused the change. Find out what works, and what doesn’t. And when you find a good thing, stick to it!
7. Are you really going to trust your 10 year old nephew to do all this?
You may not be using your 10 year old nephew, you may be using a graphics design company instead. But don’t confuse determining your website business model and marketing strategy with the colour and movement of your website graphics. As a general rule of thumb, the flashier the website, the worse it is commercially. (Check out eBay and Amazon- how flashy are their sites? But is there a clear business strategy?) You will need someone to do the html programming, but almost certainly, someone who is good at that will not be good at everything else. A website is just another marketing tool. Like a brochure. Would you get your printer to write your advertising copy?
I don’t suggest that you should not use a great website design company (or even your precocious nephew) to build your website, but don’t let them be in charge of your marketing!
Copyright 2005 Empow
What comes to your mind when you hear the word leverage? For most people it means borrowing money or taking in investors. The term has even been popularized to the degree that it is often referred to by initials -- OPM -- other people's money.Yes, that is the most common definition and certainly one everybody understands. Using other people's money is also something most successful entrepreneurs practice. They understand how much more they can do if they can hold onto their own money and spread it wisely over several opportunities or keep it for those situations that require immediate cash. Smart entrepreneurs also know that if they have the credentials, they can bring in investors for relatively small percentages of the profits and keep the large percentages of the profits for themselves.Skilled borrowing can produce even better returns for the entrepreneur. I remember the first time I went to a bank to borrow mon
An online strategy will be built around visibility. The key elements of this are:
• Search Engine Optimisation
• A strategy to get links to your website
• Online advertising
3. What are you going to do to make visitors linger at your site?
The average website visit is 68 seconds. How many widgets do you expect to sell in that time? You must have a strategy to make people linger at your site, get to know you and see the value you can give them.
The three secrets for making people linger are CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT.
To get visitors to stay, you need to give them information that they want. This will not be information about you (at least not on the home page). Your goal should be to educate your visitor. Give them information they will not get elsewhere on how to solve the problem that caused them to search for you in the first place. If you website is just sales hype, your visitors will be gone in a lot less than 68 seconds.
4. What do you want visitors to do once they are at your site?
Many would say- “Buy lots of stuff from me.” Well, in your dreams! Most people will not buy from you, or call you on the first visit to your site. They don’t know you (unless an offline relationship has been established). And unless you are selling a commodity, that is the same on every site- eg CD’s, and you are competing on price, you need to be able to establish a relationship. To do this, you need to give visitors a reason to give you a way to stay in contact. This could be by way of a newsletter, or through a free download of information requiring their email details. When you do this, it is essential you provide an unsubscribe option, because otherwise you will be spamming. And there are no rich spammers (although I believe there are rich people selling spam technology).
5. How are you going to get people to come back to your site?
On average, four out of five website visitors will never come to a website. And if they only stay 68 seconds, it’s going to take you several lifetimes to become an internet millionaire. To get people to come back you need to do several things:
• Have sufficient quantity and quality of content, that the visitor will bookmark your site to come back for more
• Continually add to and change the content to make visitors want to come back
• Provide special offers to your subscribers that will encourage them to revisit your website
If your website never changes, why would anyone want to come back?
6. How are you monitoring going to monitor the results of your website?
No-one can guarantee what is going to work for you. Therefore you have to measure your statistics. A good webhost will provide you with a statistics package that will tell you how many visitors you have had, when they visited, how they found you and what they did at your site. When you make an offer, make a change to your site, or undertake some marketing campaign, whether online or offline, check the response on your statistics, and the conversions that you have achieved on your site. Do controlled experiments. Don’t change too many things at one time, because you will never know what caused the change. Find out what works, and what doesn’t. And when you find a good thing, stick to it!
7. Are you really going to trust your 10 year old nephew to do all this?
You may not be using your 10 year old nephew, you may be using a graphics design company instead. But don’t confuse determining your website business model and marketing strategy with the colour and movement of your website graphics. As a general rule of thumb, the flashier the website, the worse it is commercially. (Check out eBay and Amazon- how flashy are their sites? But is there a clear business strategy?) You will need someone to do the html programming, but almost certainly, someone who is good at that will not be good at everything else. A website is just another marketing tool. Like a brochure. Would you get your printer to write your advertising copy?
I don’t suggest that you should not use a great website design company (or even your precocious nephew) to build your website, but don’t let them be in charge of your marketing!
Copyright 2005 Empow
In the last months, the number of audio book stores offering an audio book sale has increased exponentially. It seems that everybody is selling them and to be able to compete they are offering in most of the cases a big audio book sale with great discounts.How can a normal person profit from this, earning some extra money?Basically there are two things you can do :1) Convert your books or e-books to audio booksIf you have written a book or e-book , and you are having problems to sell it, you can create an audio version of it. Unless you have a great voice, you should look for some professional voices to do it for you, perhaps in some of those websites where you can post projects to be done by freelancers. Then you can promote it on the web, or offer it to some of the audio book stores which are offering an audio book sale.2) Affiliate Programs You can sign-up as an affiliate in on
5. How are you going to get people to come back to your site?
On average, four out of five website visitors will never come to a website. And if they only stay 68 seconds, it’s going to take you several lifetimes to become an internet millionaire. To get people to come back you need to do several things:
• Have sufficient quantity and quality of content, that the visitor will bookmark your site to come back for more
• Continually add to and change the content to make visitors want to come back
• Provide special offers to your subscribers that will encourage them to revisit your website
If your website never changes, why would anyone want to come back?
6. How are you monitoring going to monitor the results of your website?
No-one can guarantee what is going to work for you. Therefore you have to measure your statistics. A good webhost will provide you with a statistics package that will tell you how many visitors you have had, when they visited, how they found you and what they did at your site. When you make an offer, make a change to your site, or undertake some marketing campaign, whether online or offline, check the response on your statistics, and the conversions that you have achieved on your site. Do controlled experiments. Don’t change too many things at one time, because you will never know what caused the change. Find out what works, and what doesn’t. And when you find a good thing, stick to it!
7. Are you really going to trust your 10 year old nephew to do all this?
You may not be using your 10 year old nephew, you may be using a graphics design company instead. But don’t confuse determining your website business model and marketing strategy with the colour and movement of your website graphics. As a general rule of thumb, the flashier the website, the worse it is commercially. (Check out eBay and Amazon- how flashy are their sites? But is there a clear business strategy?) You will need someone to do the html programming, but almost certainly, someone who is good at that will not be good at everything else. A website is just another marketing tool. Like a brochure. Would you get your printer to write your advertising copy?
I don’t suggest that you should not use a great website design company (or even your precocious nephew) to build your website, but don’t let them be in charge of your marketing!
Copyright 2005 Empow
What is MySpace? It’s an online community that lets you meet your friends’ friends. Share your journal, photos, and interests with a new growing list of friends. It’s a good way to find out about people in the area you live, work and hang out.MySpace is for anyone and everyone! Got a friend that you haven’t talked to in a long time? Perhaps you like setting people up on dates? Or maybe you just want to look for a friend that you haven’t been in touch with for quite some time.To get signed up on MySpace.com is rather easy: register, create a profile, invite friends, and viola! You’re on your way to being a MySpace junkie. Some of the other nice features that MySpace.com provides for it’s members is the ability to completely edit your page. You can change the colors, layout, background image, music, videos, pictures, games and much more!There are sites on the internet that offer add-ons for MySpace users. A lo
7. Are you really going to trust your 10 year old nephew to do all this?
You may not be using your 10 year old nephew, you may be using a graphics design company instead. But don’t confuse determining your website business model and marketing strategy with the colour and movement of your website graphics. As a general rule of thumb, the flashier the website, the worse it is commercially. (Check out eBay and Amazon- how flashy are their sites? But is there a clear business strategy?) You will need someone to do the html programming, but almost certainly, someone who is good at that will not be good at everything else. A website is just another marketing tool. Like a brochure. Would you get your printer to write your advertising copy?
I don’t suggest that you should not use a great website design company (or even your precocious nephew) to build your website, but don’t let them be in charge of your marketing!
Copyright 2005 Empower Business Solutions
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