The current internet marketing arena is completely not what I had expected when I first started to learn more about it years back.
I was expecting to see an online version of the real life market place, but was I disappointed!
Except for a few giants like eBay,Amazon,Yahoo who are doing well, ordinary online marketers find it near to impossible to sell physical items online.One would expect electronic store fronts should be an desirable alternative to bricks and mortal stores because it will rid the shoppers of traffic jams and the problem of lack of parking spaces.However, very few online stores survive, that is surprising.
The first obstacle which an online marketer has to face is the problem of inventory. Usually when a person starts an online store it is because he believes that the overhead will be minimal therefore relatively easy to get started.If he has to hold his own inventory, he is very likely to shy away from the idea.
Then someone came up with the idea of a drop-shipping mode of business.In this model, when the store owner receives an order, he will pass it to a drop-shipper, who will in turns ship the order directly to the customer, and then bill the store owner.When the customer receives the goods,he pays the store owner.The store owner will then pay the drop-shipper and keeps the balance as profit, perfect.
But the sad thing is that there are always dishonest people in this world, sometimes the customer does not pay the store owner, or the store owner does not pay the drop-shipper, or the drop-shipper delivers low quality goods to customers.Whatever weak link in this chain had caused this model to fail so far.
Then Escrow.com offered its service to be a trusted neutral third party to hold the fund involved in the deal for the buyer and the seller.But it is not popular because of its USD25 minimum fee making it not profitable to conduct business online.
Although there are many more payment processors now, notable ones are Paypal,Payza,Egopay,Solid Trust Pay,Liberty Reserve and Perfect Money.For these payment processors to be really useful one has to get verified first, otherwise the use of these processors is limited. Most of the time the users are discouraged by the verifying process and stop using them.
There are still some drop-shippers around, some charge a very high deposit for using their services, while others are of questionable integrity.
The second obstacle for an online businessman is the high shipping fees.For large items,the shipping is often more than the selling price of the item, this is especially true if the buyer is from overseas.
Then it becomes more expensive than to buy it offline.
It left only one type of product to be viable to be sold online, the digital,downloadable eBooks.This ought to be a very huge market. However, there are very few eBooks to be found online, except for one particular topic - Internet Marketing. The internet is filled with this kind of eBooks from SEO(Search Engine Optimization) to list building,traffic generation,affiliate marketing,copy writing,products making,webhosting,domains,membership sites,blogging and various kinds of tools.
Maybe the potential writers are so caught up with learning to be internet marketers in order to market their future books and forgot their original intention - to sit down and write a book.
It appears that the whole internet comprises of internet marketers selling internet marketing materials to aspiring internet marketers, or self proclaimed Gurus selling to seasoned marketers who are still struggling to make their first dollar online,nothing else.
Internet marketing should be much more than this.All sort of physical items should have a way to be sold and delivered safely and cheaply online.Everyone who so desires should be able to do it, not limited to only the few privileged giants like it is now.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Basic Online Business Model - Part 4
This is the 4th and final part of the Online Business Basic Model.
When you invite someone to join your list and he clicks your link, he will be taken to a capture page or lead generation page.
He will see in the capture page the following things:
1. Key benefits of the gift
2. A picture of the gift
3. A Web Form for him to fill in his name and e-mail address
The sole purpose of this page is to collect the name and e-mail address of your potential subscribers. You should do nothing else with the capture page.
You need to give your visitor some form of incentive to entice him to sign up your list, like giving away an eBook or a discount coupon if you are promoting your online store front. I gave you this report because you gave your name and e-mail address in my capture page.
You can create your own capture page (squeeze page) if you know HTML codes or any web building software like Dream Waver or Front Page. Otherwise you can hire some one from
https://www.elance.com/
I use a free web builder, which is click and play and very easy to use. You might like to try it out, go and download at the link below:
http://www.myfreewebsitebuilder.com/
Install the program on your computer and run it.
Here’s a brief walk through:
On the screen below click “Create A New, Empty Web Page” tab to start a new page. To edit an existing page, then click the other tab below.
A blank work space will be opened up, do all your works within the blank space. First give your new page a name as shown below, I called it Benson’s Newbies List:
You may upload an image of yourself, or your logo like this, first click the “image” button on the toolbar
The Upload image dialog screen will pop up, select “Choose File” button to browse your computer for the picture which you intend to insert. When you find it, high light it and click OK. Before you do that, don’t forget to fill up the “Alternate text” dialog space. It is for people who can not see the image to read.
It will look some thing like this:
The finished squeeze page will look like this:
The capture page is ready for use.
Upload it to your hosting account. Follow these steps:
1. At your browser URL dialog space type” http://www.yourdomain.com/cpanel and hit enter.
2. Go “File Manager”
3. Select “/public_html”
4. Select “Upload” button at the toolbar above
5. A new screen will open up, hit Browse to look this file – your capture page
6. Hit open
7. Your capture page is now on your server
8. Change the name of your capture page to”index.html” (without the quotation marks)
9. Your capture page is live, ready to collect names & e-mail address.
Conclusion
You have now learned all the basic modules of a bare bone model, and you have also put the pieces together to form a working model!
I can hear some of you out there saying,” nay, I know all these stuff long time already!”
True, you have been exposed to these modules before. You may even own some very excellent pieces too. But did you see the relationships between each other? You have always used them as individual pieces, not using them as a whole. The Gurus did not tell you this vital information on purpose, so that you will keep on buying from them to equip yourself.
A hunter who uses only an arrow or a bow but not both together will not have any success. Likewise, an internet marketer must use all the above components together to see any success.
But this model is only sufficient for building your list. You need to expand on it to make it a full fledged online store, or a membership site, or a forum, or a directory. It is better to have a different domain name for each website, so that it will not be Jack of all trades, master of none sort of website. Unless you are confident it will grow up to be like Google, Yahoo and Facebook. That will be a different story!
Summary
1. Your domain points to your website
2. Your website house your capture page
3. Your capture page contains the web form to collect names & e-mail address
4. Your list comprises of the names & addresses collected
5. You do not have to wait for customers to come to your website
6. You go to your customers who are in your list
If you have not created your own product yet, you might want to promote the products listed below. But you are required to purchase it, and you will become an affiliate for the merchant as well.
1. 7 Dollar Secrets:
2. Secret Affiliate Weapon 2
When you invite someone to join your list and he clicks your link, he will be taken to a capture page or lead generation page.
He will see in the capture page the following things:
1. Key benefits of the gift
2. A picture of the gift
3. A Web Form for him to fill in his name and e-mail address
The sole purpose of this page is to collect the name and e-mail address of your potential subscribers. You should do nothing else with the capture page.
You need to give your visitor some form of incentive to entice him to sign up your list, like giving away an eBook or a discount coupon if you are promoting your online store front. I gave you this report because you gave your name and e-mail address in my capture page.
You can create your own capture page (squeeze page) if you know HTML codes or any web building software like Dream Waver or Front Page. Otherwise you can hire some one from
https://www.elance.com/
I use a free web builder, which is click and play and very easy to use. You might like to try it out, go and download at the link below:
http://www.myfreewebsitebuilder.com/
Install the program on your computer and run it.
Here’s a brief walk through:
On the screen below click “Create A New, Empty Web Page” tab to start a new page. To edit an existing page, then click the other tab below.
A blank work space will be opened up, do all your works within the blank space. First give your new page a name as shown below, I called it Benson’s Newbies List:
You may upload an image of yourself, or your logo like this, first click the “image” button on the toolbar
The Upload image dialog screen will pop up, select “Choose File” button to browse your computer for the picture which you intend to insert. When you find it, high light it and click OK. Before you do that, don’t forget to fill up the “Alternate text” dialog space. It is for people who can not see the image to read.
It will look some thing like this:
Now, the MOST important element of the squeeze page, the web form, repeat the above to upload it. Type in the key benefits of receiving your eBook. I typed the following for this eBook: 1. Setting up your domain name 2. Setting up your Web hosting account 3. Setting up your autoresponder 4. Create your Web Form 5. setting up your Capture Page with a free website builder 6. Putting the pieces together to form a working business model |  |
The finished squeeze page will look like this:
The capture page is ready for use.
Upload it to your hosting account. Follow these steps:
1. At your browser URL dialog space type” http://www.yourdomain.com/cpanel and hit enter.
2. Go “File Manager”
3. Select “/public_html”
4. Select “Upload” button at the toolbar above
5. A new screen will open up, hit Browse to look this file – your capture page
6. Hit open
7. Your capture page is now on your server
8. Change the name of your capture page to”index.html” (without the quotation marks)
9. Your capture page is live, ready to collect names & e-mail address.
Conclusion
You have now learned all the basic modules of a bare bone model, and you have also put the pieces together to form a working model!
I can hear some of you out there saying,” nay, I know all these stuff long time already!”
True, you have been exposed to these modules before. You may even own some very excellent pieces too. But did you see the relationships between each other? You have always used them as individual pieces, not using them as a whole. The Gurus did not tell you this vital information on purpose, so that you will keep on buying from them to equip yourself.
A hunter who uses only an arrow or a bow but not both together will not have any success. Likewise, an internet marketer must use all the above components together to see any success.
But this model is only sufficient for building your list. You need to expand on it to make it a full fledged online store, or a membership site, or a forum, or a directory. It is better to have a different domain name for each website, so that it will not be Jack of all trades, master of none sort of website. Unless you are confident it will grow up to be like Google, Yahoo and Facebook. That will be a different story!
Summary
1. Your domain points to your website
2. Your website house your capture page
3. Your capture page contains the web form to collect names & e-mail address
4. Your list comprises of the names & addresses collected
5. You do not have to wait for customers to come to your website
6. You go to your customers who are in your list
If you have not created your own product yet, you might want to promote the products listed below. But you are required to purchase it, and you will become an affiliate for the merchant as well.
1. 7 Dollar Secrets:
2. Secret Affiliate Weapon 2
Thursday, June 14, 2012
What to do with your business model?
I hope you have downloaded the f.ree eBook and started using it to build your first online business model.
You have 2 choices with this new website.
One path is to use this new website for the sole purpose of list building.
Then you register another domain and create another website with MY Website Builder. This time do not put any squeeze page (capture page) on it. Also do not direct traffic from your auto responder to this website, they all should go to the first website you created earlier on.
You should display your products or affiliate offers on this 2nd website. Advertise about it on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg and many others.
When your list has grown to a reasonable size, tell them about this website.
Spend time on this site to tweak it and put in more valuable contents so that it will look professional.
Do more research to find a new niche, create another squeeze page website for it. Then build a new website related with it. Rinse and repeat, in no time you will have an empire online!
An alternative path is to stay on your squeeze page website, develop and expand on it. That means tweak and add contents to make it appear more professional.
Advertise it on social media networks and tell your list about it.
This method may save your some money on domain names and web hosting, but it would become messy when your business grows.
At the bottom of this e-mail there is a link to a system that will bring f.ree traffics to your websites, but you have to pay a monthly fee. I find it is worth it. Please do not join if you have not follow my advice to set up your business model yet, it will be a waste of time and money to generate those traffics.
You have 2 choices with this new website.
One path is to use this new website for the sole purpose of list building.
Then you register another domain and create another website with MY Website Builder. This time do not put any squeeze page (capture page) on it. Also do not direct traffic from your auto responder to this website, they all should go to the first website you created earlier on.
You should display your products or affiliate offers on this 2nd website. Advertise about it on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg and many others.
When your list has grown to a reasonable size, tell them about this website.
Spend time on this site to tweak it and put in more valuable contents so that it will look professional.
Do more research to find a new niche, create another squeeze page website for it. Then build a new website related with it. Rinse and repeat, in no time you will have an empire online!
An alternative path is to stay on your squeeze page website, develop and expand on it. That means tweak and add contents to make it appear more professional.
Advertise it on social media networks and tell your list about it.
This method may save your some money on domain names and web hosting, but it would become messy when your business grows.
At the bottom of this e-mail there is a link to a system that will bring f.ree traffics to your websites, but you have to pay a monthly fee. I find it is worth it. Please do not join if you have not follow my advice to set up your business model yet, it will be a waste of time and money to generate those traffics.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
The importance of a list
E-mail marketing was once scorned upon by internet marketers as the tactics used by spammers.It was true that at the beginning of e-mail marketing the situation was really chaotic and unethical. Junk e-mails jammed up everyone's inbox, it was like searching for a needle in a heap of hay if one tried to find any e-mail which was useful and informative.You had to spend hours doing it and deleting the junks, otherwise your inbox quota would be exceeded pretty soon, then you could not go into your inbox.
Under such circumstances, there was no point in building an e-mail list because no one will ever read your e-mails.
But the situation is much improved now. The major e-mail providers have strict anti-spamming regulations, anyone failing to comply will have his account deleted.
They also introduce new features whereby the users can set up filters to black list any unsolicited e-mails, so that these e-mails will be thrown into a spams folder and never reach the users' inbox.
Another reason why e-mail marketing was not popular then was because marketers preferred people to purchase their products from their websites.Many people were using free web hosting provided by Geocites, Fire Angel, Tripod and others. These providers divided their users into categories according to their interests, called neighborhoods.They were given long URLs and difficult to memorize, therefore a visitor usually had to scan the neighborhood from top to bottom, and your website stood a very good chance to be viewed if it happened to be in that neighborhood.That means you did not need a list your website still received visitors automatically.
These free web hosting providers are all defunct now, the paid web hosting companies nowadays do not provide such community services any more. You have to bring visitors to your sites by ranking high in the search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN through search engines optimization (SEO)efforts.Or tell your list to go visit your sites.
It is very difficult to attain high ranking on search engines if your chosen niche is very competitive and also it takes time.Whereas if you have a list, you can show your new products or affiliate offers to them immediately. It is so much more effective.If they do not take up your offer the first time, you can send them the offer again with a different approach until they make a purchase. Of course, you have to be careful and sensitive while doing this, never, ever make yourself a nuisance to others!
Spammers are still around, they never learn. Who in his right mind will ever buy from a spammer, who is universally considered of low commercial ethic and integrity? If you build your list following the right procedure, you will not be considered a spammer because you are not sending unsolicited e-mails. Your list members have opted-in and also have the option to unsubscribe if he so desires.
Build a list now and start building relationships with the members.
But the situation is much improved now. The major e-mail providers have strict anti-spamming regulations, anyone failing to comply will have his account deleted.
They also introduce new features whereby the users can set up filters to black list any unsolicited e-mails, so that these e-mails will be thrown into a spams folder and never reach the users' inbox.
Another reason why e-mail marketing was not popular then was because marketers preferred people to purchase their products from their websites.Many people were using free web hosting provided by Geocites, Fire Angel, Tripod and others. These providers divided their users into categories according to their interests, called neighborhoods.They were given long URLs and difficult to memorize, therefore a visitor usually had to scan the neighborhood from top to bottom, and your website stood a very good chance to be viewed if it happened to be in that neighborhood.That means you did not need a list your website still received visitors automatically.
These free web hosting providers are all defunct now, the paid web hosting companies nowadays do not provide such community services any more. You have to bring visitors to your sites by ranking high in the search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN through search engines optimization (SEO)efforts.Or tell your list to go visit your sites.
It is very difficult to attain high ranking on search engines if your chosen niche is very competitive and also it takes time.Whereas if you have a list, you can show your new products or affiliate offers to them immediately. It is so much more effective.If they do not take up your offer the first time, you can send them the offer again with a different approach until they make a purchase. Of course, you have to be careful and sensitive while doing this, never, ever make yourself a nuisance to others!
Spammers are still around, they never learn. Who in his right mind will ever buy from a spammer, who is universally considered of low commercial ethic and integrity? If you build your list following the right procedure, you will not be considered a spammer because you are not sending unsolicited e-mails. Your list members have opted-in and also have the option to unsubscribe if he so desires.
Build a list now and start building relationships with the members.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
Free eBook
If you are in a hurry and do not wish to wait for Part 4 of my report,you can download it now:
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