Knowledge is Power

You can’t do business alone – you will need groupies.

Imagine a rock band. They start out playing in a garage and eventually move to the high school dance circuit. They complete an indie album and open for someone vaguely remembered by some. Their music might be heard on an Internet station or the alternative rock station in the region on “Indie Music” night. At some point the band’s persistence develops a following. Their hard work endears fans. It is this fan base that provides the initial spark needed for this group to be recognized. Why? These fans are motivated to share their interest in the band with others. They will share their music and the band’s story. Others will be intrigues by the optimism.

Ecommerce can be a bit like that. It starts with you. As the ‘lead singer’ in this dream you will have to persistently take your message to virtually anyplace you can. It may start small like the proverbial garage or high school dance, but you must not be content to stay there. Keep pushing forward seeking out new placed and faces. Frequent boards and blogs, offer an advice column on a complimentary site, write expert articles for free article directories and keep ‘singing’.

Every successful band was established when the members continued to push on when the halls were silent and the requests weren’t phoned in. When it would have been easy to go home, lick their wounds and give up they stayed put. When family and friends questioned motive and talent they continued to work at their craft and in the end someone miraculously saw the diamond.

Business startups are always difficult. There can be the exception, but for the most part the individual developing the business will wage a friendly war with the world in an attempt to have enough people view them as a credible source for business that others provide some enthusiastic and much needed support.

Online networking remains the best way to pitch your idea and establish your presence. Are you credible? Authoritative? Enthusiastic? Honest? Does your idea come across as too good to be true or an empire built of plastic? Learn to present yourself well, be professional and welcome new friends to your ‘movement’.

You might consider standard social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Then add relevant forum boards. Establish a credible and highly focused blog. Make your presence known and keep growing your network. Develop a mailing list, maybe even an ezine. Keep in touch with the interested and enlist their help in sharing the cause.

Dale Carnegie once said, “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”

It can be easy in today’s economic environment to want to give in and give up. Don’t do it. Don’t get wrapped up in pessimism. There are opportunities and there are individuals who want desperately to believe in quality, service and integrity. Give it to them. Provide a reason to trust you. Give them more than they expect. If you’re passionate enough about this then the consumer will be at the very least intrigued enough to take a second look at what you are offering.

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PPC Search marketing is a huge, and still growing, area, which grew by almost a third between 2006 and 2008, according to IAB estimates. Almost 60% of all online ad spend is spent in PPC search – with the vast majority paying for smoothies and massage chairs at Google HQ.

While PPC search remains one of the most cost-effective ways to gain conversions, the landscape is changing as the discipline begins to mature. Historically, any PPC search campaign – even one which was poorly organised – would still be likely to work well.

These days, due to increased competition, costs per click (CPC) prices are getting higher and higher, and PPC campaigns need to be a lot more competitive to succeed, particularly with non-branded keywords.

The integrated approach

Advertisers need to think more broadly to ensure that their online campaigns are up to scratch. As well as considering many more online advertising arenas, they must also leverage their interconnectedness.

While PPC marketing will aid a company’s ability to acquire new business and may generate a reasonable ROI on its own, its potential can be increased by using the best performing keywords as anchor text links when carrying out link building exercises. If search terms perform well in a paid search campaign, you would be well advised to improve your natural search listings for the same terms where possible.

Similarly, competitor and customer analysis can inform all areas of your thinking by giving an idea of where you stand in the wider market, and potentially gaining first person feedback from the very people you are targeting with your online marketing strategies.

A more connected online marketplace…

Here is a brief explanation of some of the areas businesses need to invest in to compete in today’s more connected online marketplace, and the reasons why they mustn’t be neglected. It’s important to remember that whilst each of the below is certainly a specialism unto itself – the real value is from a cohesive blend of them all seamlessly working together with common cause.

Social

In August 2008, Facebook reached the auspicious landmark of 100,000,000 users. Social spaces are booming, and anyone marketing their site needs to get on board. Social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Reddit, social networking such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, social tagging such as StumbleUpon or Flickr, blogs & online discussion forums that target your audience, all of these are important portals which, used correctly, can improve your presence online.

Online Advertising

New developments in technology are creating a world where online advertising can be increasingly targeted to relevant consumers. For example, as a result of behavioural advertising, it is now possible to target users according to their actual behaviour online, not only by what page they are looking at. Tracking this customer behaviour can once again inform your thinking in other areas of your campaign.

Tracking & Analytics

The tools now available to us to enable advanced tracking and analytics are like gold dust to savvy marketers. Not only is it fascinating on a human level to try and decipher the moods and habits of your cherished visitors, it is also crucial work if you want to leverage the information available to you.

Email & CRM

Gaining new business is always great, but it’s often a lot easier to sell to those customers you have already won. Opt-in email marketing and email newsletters are two useful methods of keeping the relationship you have with your customers fresh and up-to-date. It also allows for you to communicate with users on their own terms, allowing for a two way communication – rather than simply enforcing on them your generic, default marketing messages.

Natural SEO

Search Engine Optimisation is a term incorporating a huge range of activities, including link development, improving the code and content of a site and article and press release distribution. The importance of using these tried & tested methods to gain and maintain good rankings on the major search engines cannot be underestimated, as many a business is made or broken by their positions on the search engines.

Content

The written word is the lifeblood of the internet, so content is always a major part of an online marketing strategy. Using the keywords and phrases your target audience is already searching for when they are looking for your products or services in all areas of your campaign, as well as on site, will reduce bounce rates, increase targeted traffic and ensure the right people engage with your brand.

Usability

Once you’ve done all that hard work bringing in the right people to your site, it really would be a shame to put them off with poor usability. No matter how many visitors you get to your site, you may as well not bother unless the site itself is capable of gaining conversions. Therefore making sure the design is uncluttered, the navigation easy to understand and there is a clear path to checkout is vital.

Andrew Atalla is the founder of atom42, a London online marketing agency for companies wishing to improve their presence on the internet. atom42 employs a range of marketing fields to create an integrated online marketing strategy for each of its clients.

The Promise of Affiliate Marketing Riches

You’ve seen people brag about how much money they’re making online from affiliate marketing and you’ve decided you want to start making money online too. The problem is there’s so much information about how to make money online through affiliate marketing you don’t know which information is true, who is out to scam you and what information is the best to follow. It absolutely kills you to get scammed. Let’s face it you need affiliate marketing instruction for newbies.

Don’t Believe The Hype

Unfortunately, the internet does not have a formal affiliate marketing school for newbies - which leaves the newbie, open to “gurus” who claim to be experts at internet marketing instruction. They ask you to pay anywhere from $97 to $497. Then after they hook you, you still don’t get internet marketing instruction from them. What you get are a lot of emails from them trying to sell you more things. So how do you go about finding reputable internet marketing schools on the internet?

Look Before You Leap - Watch Out For Gurus

Well, the easiest way is to put in quotes exactly what it is you are looking for. So for instance, you can type in quotes “affiliate marketing school for beginners” or “affiliate internet marketing instruction” or “beginners’ affiliate marketing school.” By putting the phrase in quotes, the search engines will give you exactly what you are looking for - people who are offering internet marketing instruction for the person who is a beginner. The next part gets tricky because you don’t know who is out to scam you and who is for real. My advice is to read each ad thoroughly. Don’t buy the first thing with bells and whistles. In fact, the more you keep reading various ads, the more you will get a feel for what it is you are looking for. But the best and least expensive thing to do is to buy an inexpensive affiliate marketing handbook (eBook) on the subject.

Affiliate Marketing Handbook

I’m a big advocate of affiliate marketing handbooks before investing in any sort of online internet marketing instruction for beginners program because eBooks tend to be very inexpensive. They can range anywhere from $1 to $9.95. My experience is that you don’t need to spend anywhere near the high end of the spectrum. In fact, when I was searching for an eBook that focused on affiliate marketing for newbies, I found one for dirt cheap on the web. It was the perfect beginning for me. It taught me how to become a successful affiliate marketer. It told me what to look for, and it literally took me by the hand. Now I’m not saying that all eBooks are quality, but what I am saying is you don’t have to start off investing $100s and $1,000s of dollars in online internet marketing instruction for beginners’ courses either.

If you’re looking for instructions for how to make money online through affiliate marketing, the best and least expensive way is to purchase an inexpensive eBook as your starting point. As you begin reading these eBooks you can then advance in confidence and start investing in the more expensive internet marketing instruction for newbies courses. Until then, play it safe and go with cheap eBooks!

Shalisha is a very successful affiliate marketer who coaches with Rosalind Gardner, who catapulted her to affiliate riches by following The Super Affiliate Handbook