Internet Business

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).

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Ethical marketing is the work of business people who believe that the trust and respect of their prospective customers and clients is more important than a sale.

Spamming is the practice of sending out electronic messages via email and other electronic channels (e.g. instant messaging) to large numbers of people/email accounts in one blast without the permission of the person receiving the message. Email spam is the electronic equivalent of junk mail that chokes our snail mail boxes and telephone sales calls that we try to avoid by joining the Do Not Call lists.

There is one simple rule for you to follow if you want to build trust with your prospective customers and new customers:

Don’t add anyone to your email list who hasn’t asked to be added and confirmed their interest in receiving information from you.

How do you manage this permission asking, permission giving and confirmation? How do you ensuring that these steps become an easy and effortless part of the flow of your internet business model?

Ask. May I send you an article via email that I think you’ll find helpful because of your interest in ____? Would you be interested in being added to my email newsletter list which helps new home business owners get started quickly without spending a lot of money?

Internet entrepreneurs ask by having a “squeeze page” with an “opt in box”, in other words, a web page with a web form where people type in their contact information, often just a first name and an email address. When the web page form has been submitted, the contact information is added to the internet business person’s email list and the person is taken to a next web page (which may be a thank you page or a sales page).

Automate. This part of the process is set up and automated using an auto responder. When you subscribe to an auto responder, you set up a way to build a list (or more than one), storing contact information, sending individual emails out in large groups to your list(s), and sending out series of emails at intervals set by you (e.g. same day as new sign up, 1 day later, 7 days later, 30 days later).

Confirm. At the same time that the contact information is added to the business person’s email list a series of automatic emails is triggered. The first email usually thanks the person for signing up and tells them what to expect in their email box and how often. At the bottom of every email sent from the automatic email series, there is a clear way for people to “opt out” or have their name and email address taken off your list (automatically).

Some auto responders require a “double opt in” and some make it optional. A double opt in system means that before the person signing up with contact information to receive something from you (a free report, an email course or a telephone call to schedule a free consultation), they receive an email with a link asking them to click on the link to confirm they give their permission for you to contact them.

Why all this rigmarole, all these dance steps, all this fiddling around?

The benefit of a double opt in system for your prospective customer or new sign up to your list is that they are in control of what mail and information they receive–and what they turn away. In the end it’s a less overwhelming, more empowering (and respectful) way to establish your new affiliation and relationship.

The benefit to you is that you know that the person joining your list is truly interested in what you offer and has taken action to join your list. You haven’t dragged them into your process and your sphere of influence. You haven’t tricked them.

You have invited them and they have responded to your first call to action.

They are more likely to follow your next invitation and call to action with responsive action of their own which results in a sale of product or service. And then another one. And then another.

You have invited them–now delight them.

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