Internet Business: How the Heck Do I Get Started?
The biggest hurdle most people have when they decide to build an Internet-based business–or use Internet marketing to grow a home-based business–is Getting Started. There’s so much to learn and so many suggestions and steps.
So, take a deep breath–and get started with List Building.
Anyone who has a business, needs a list. Your internet marketing list is the list of people who know, like and trust you–and want to hear from you. You communicate with people on your list frequently, sending them information they are interested in and would benefit from–including offers of products or services–yours or others.
You build your list by having a way that people can request information from you. They may sign up for your newsletter or an email course or a free report. You create content that will appeal to your target market and you give them the opportunity to “opt in” by filling out a web form or giving you a phone call or even, signing a guest book. Let’s take a look at some examples:
1. Joan rents a property to vacationers–and she markets environmentally friendly products via the Internet. There is a guest book in her rental with room for comments by guests. People who sign the guest book receive a Thank You card that is sent to them via a web-based card sending program.
Joan has a website that she directs people to if they are interested in the way she keeps her vacation rental free of toxic chemicals that are harmful to children and pets. The web address is featured in her cards, her email signatures, and her instructions and checklists for guests. Joan also has both physical–and Internet-based–ways to send people to her website and the page where they can sign up (opt in) for more information.
People find the website and the page where they sign up in a variety of ways. (In Internet Marketing lingo, this is traffic generation or driving traffic to your website.) Joan has written a couple of articles posted on the Web, sent out emails to former vacation renters, sent cards, enclosed business cards, posted information on her rental website, posted in online vacation rental communities about her experiences as a vacation renter, and a few other activities–all of which point to her website where people can sign up or opt in to her list.
As soon as someone signs up for her list, they start receiving high quality information from Joan that helps them make their homes safer and healthier. This creates opportunities for Joan to market the products and services she offers–and other products and services that the people on her list may be looking for since she knows they are interested in making their homes safer and healthier.
2. Mark has a health and wellness business. He is particularly interested in anti-aging (being a Boomer himself). He loves finding and reviewing current trends in this growing field of interest. He has built a list of others who are interested in staying current with anti-aging information. Mark has a website and a blog. He uses his website to present information that is relatively stable and he uses his blog to post information that is constantly changing in real time.
Mark has learned a number of ways to direct people to his web and blog pages. He relies on his recently acquired skill as a social marketer, interacting with people online in social networking sites and directly those who are interested to content he has created and posted in many places on the web. Mark spends a couple of hours every day passsing on high quality information about anti-aging and a couple of hours a day talking with people who have contacted him via his “opt in” forms, requesting more information or a consultation with him.
As he works each day, Mark becomes more of an expert on anti-aging and also grows his opportunities to market his health and wellness products and services.
Getting Started with Internet Marketing
It is key to your success with Internet Marketing to have a blueprint and a plan. This will save you hours, days, weeks, and months of effort and trial and error learning. A blueprint is a picture of how people will find you and your information, get to your web form, sign up for your list (or lists) and begin receiving more information from you that is helpful to them and eventually pre-sells them on your offers of products and services.
Your specific plan for getting started will depend on the nature of your business, products and services–and your target market (e.g. who will be interested and where you will find them). There are some key pieces:
- web pages that are full of great content for your audience. You can start with something free, or very inexpensive.
- a web form–a web page with an offer and a form where people give you their contact information in exchange for something of value (e.g. a newsletter, an email course, access to audio or video files)
- follow up information/content (e.g. a newsletter, an email course, access to audio or video files)
Technically speaking, there are a few simple things to learn about:
- blogs and how to post
- hot links–how to create links which when clicked send people to another web page
- content-sharing sites and social networking sites and how to set up a profile and post content
- affiliate marketing–how to become an “affiliate” if you want to start out marketing other people’s tools, products, services until you have some of your own–or as an additional income stream even if you already have your own
- autoresponders–how to use them to deliver newsletters, email series, and create sign up forms
- bookmarking–a little bit about key words and phrases and how to use them so Internet searchers find you
Ready to Get Started with Building a List?
- Check out the Announcements section (top right menu) for some step by step training for new Internet Marketers, or link here to an announcement for How I Built My First List.
- Take a look at my Squidoo and Hub Pages for examples of content created and shared at content sharing sites.
Steps for Growing Your Cash Flow in a Home Based Business–link here to my HubPage
Home Business Marketing–link here to my Squidoo Lens.
3. Sign up for a No Cost consultation with me at my Home Business Start Up consultation sign up page (an example of a web form for sign up, or opt in).
