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If I Called The Wrong Number, Why Did You Answer The Phone? Advertising will be the lifeblood of your business. Advertise successfully in the right places and your business can be making a good profit within days of it's launch. On the other hand, advertising in the wrong place, or not making your advertisement effective can result in ruin. Hence the somewhat unusual title of this article. Because advertising plays such a vital role in your success, you should try to follow the example of others who have succeeded in the online business world. The following advertising plan has helped many people make a good living from selling products over the Internet. Use it yourself and you will avoid many costly mistakes: 1. First of all, you should decide what sort of person would be interested in the product you have to offer. This will give you a clue as to which websites, newsletters and forums your prospective customers are likely to visit and read on a regular basis. For example, if you have decided to sell a collection of authentic American recipes, your prospective customers are likely to be women who enjoy preparing adventurous home cooked meals. In such a case you would probably decide to look at the advertisements in specialist newsletters and on websites relating to this particular subject. Contact the owners of these websites and suggest setting up reciprocal links. This is where the Internet differs from doing business offline. Building reciprocal agreements with companies selling similiar products and services will actually bring you business rather than cause a conflict of interests between you. There are hundreds of companies willing to trade links with you on the Internet and a good place to start is at the following site: http://advance.to/more_hits. Visit often and start building a profitable alliance with your competitors. 2. If any of the newsletters you selected in Step 1 carry advertisements from other dealers selling recipes, then the chances are that this publication works well for this particular market. As long as your product is competitively priced, it should be a good medium for reaching your prospective customers. A searchable database of email and web-based newsletters can be found at: http://www.dominis.com/ezines. 3. By now you should have selected at least one publication which you would like to advertise in. Many successful Internet businesses started by placing small classified advertisements which ask for the reader to reply by email or visit their website, and you are advised to do likewise. Asking for payment directly from a classifed ad on the Internet simply doesn't work and it is far better to take a two-step or even three-step approach to your advertising. Staying with our example, your first advert might begin, 'a collection of authentic recipes from the USA at a bargain price! Send a blank email to: mailto:free@advance.to.' It is wise to add the 'mailto:' part to your email address as this will automatically create a hyperlink that the reader can click on. The easier you make it for a potential customer to reply the higher the response you can expect from your advertisement. When you receive enquiries to your ad, send them a copy of your well-designed sales letter giving details of your product, the price you are asking for it and any other information you wish to give. It's also possible for you to set up an automatic reply service called an 'autoresponder' which will send out your sales letter 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without you having to lift a finger. This is a perfect example of the power of Internet marketing; your prospect receives information within seconds of requesting it and while his curiosity is still at it's peak. A good supplier of fast, reasonably priced autoresponders is Send This. One autoresponder will cost you only $24 for a full years service and a 'pack' of ten just $17.50 per month. Visit http://www.sendthis.com/c1068 for full details. 4. When you start receiving orders from your advertising, send out your product and, if possible, another related offer. By doing this you will start to build a base of clients who order from you time and time again. Also, always make a note of your customer's name, address and most importantly their email address. In the future you may have something else which they may be interested in buying, and having their details on file will enable you to contact them directly. You can easily build a database of your clients details using a free or low-cost email program like Eudora Light. This program has a built-in address book function which allows you to store email addresses in an easy to manage list. You can download it for free from: http://www.eudora.com. 5. Another approach which you may be interested in adopting at some point is to place your advertisement BEFORE you spend any money on buying your stock of products. By doing this you will be able to judge from the response you get (or lack of it) whether your product is likely to sell successfully or not. If the number of replies you get from your advertisement is smaller than you had expected, then you may simply return any orders to your customers with a brief, polite note informing them that, regrettably, the product is no longer available. If, on the other hand, you receive a deluge of orders from eager prospective customers, then you know that your product is in great demand and is likely to get your Internet business off to a flying start. In such circumstances you would purchase a stock of your product and despatch them as soon as your customer's payment is received. However you decide to advertise in the early days of your business, all successful Internet dealers advise that you start modestly with small adverts and then go onto bigger and better things as you begin making a profit. This ensures that your outgoings are always directly related to the success of your business, which greatly reduces the likelyhood of it ever failing because of just one poor advertisement. PAUL GRAHAM is editor of Advance Consultancy News, a free email newsletter geared towards online business promotion, developing powerful marketing strategies and maximising online profits. For your free subscription please email: subscribe@advance.to?subject=subscribe Add value to your website and essential content to your online newsletter with the Free 'Information Direct' Publishers Pack. Email: free@advance.to?subject=free for instant start-up!
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