Preparing Your Website For A Pre-Launch

Have you ever launched your own website before and received no traffic or any visitors to it in the first few weeks? I know I have, and it was disappointing. I want to share with you some simple steps to avoid the same mistakes I made when I first started. Also these steps are not hard to implement and does require a bit of effort on your part. I know once you have tried these proven methods you will never launch a website without this.

What Is A Pre-launch?

A lot of famous marketers like Jeff Walker, Mike Filsaime, Russell Brunson preach what they practice about the pre-launch phase. It is one of the most important phases to launching a website. A lot of people overlook this and don’t focus enough on it, usually skipping straight to launching their website. What the pre-launch does is it creates a buzz and anticipation for your website. You want to get the message out to world that your website is launching soon and what you are offering is going to be fantastic. Mike Filsaime coins the pre-launch as the “yeast” in the recipe.

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Building A Successful Ecommerce Business: Where To Market Your Website – Part 4

If you haven’t read parts 1,2 or 3, you should visit those posts first to understand the whole process before reading this post:
Part 1: Find A Niche
Part 2: Create Content
Part 3: How To Write Quality Content

Where To Market Your Ecommerce Website?

Marketing a new ecommerce business looks like a big challenge when you start out and let me tell you it is. Let me assure you though, that everything happens with time and it is a matter of breaking down the bigger picture and taking baby steps. There are simple steps that you can follow once you have created content on your ecommerce website. Say you have been writing articles for the last 2 months and you have a collection of 18 articles relating to your target market, e.g golf. We can take these articles and compile them into one document which can be easily distributed on the web.

If you continue reading I will show you how to create and distribute your document in 5 easy steps  and grow  your ecommerce business two fold.

Step 1 – Create A Report.
Combine all your articles into a quality report with at least 20 – 25 pages of valuable content. Split your report into sections for easy reading and include the most important information about your niche within the report. It will help you to attract more leads, visitors and sales to your website. You can link this report with affiliate programs and make money along the way or you can give this report to your visitors as a free gift. Remember to ask your visitors to opt-in to your newsletter as well to build an email marketing database. If you want to learn how to create an email database, be sure to read: Why Your Internet Business Needs An Email List? You will learn that reports are a great way to help market your products and services through “how to” tutorials.

Step 2 – Create A Mini eBook.
Create a mini-ebook with 30 pages or more on your niche topic. This is another great way to market your ecommerce business. The difference between an eBook and a report is an eBook tells a story behind your product or service. It is a great way to engage your readers and capture a large audience. Simply rearrange your content in a structured manner in pdf format and offer your visitors a download link to retrieve the ebook. Ideally display your ebook next to your products and services, affiliate programs and lead pages as a way to entice visitors to read your content.

Step 3 – Make Your Report And Mini eBook Viral.
Allow your report and eBooks to be rebranded by your visitors and subscribers where they can put their name and website link on it. Another way is to ask your visitors to signup under your affiliate program and let them include their affiliate link in your report or mini ebook. This will help distribute your report or ebook virally at rapid speeds thus helping you reach more customers in a shorter period of time.

Step 4 – Create An Autoresponder Ecourse.

You can create a step by step ecourse and distribute it to your subscribers. Take some of your excellent “how to articles” and split them into a 5 part series. Take this series and email it to your subscribers using an autoresponder and spread the articles over a week. or a month. It will engage your subscribers and allow them time to digest and also take action each day. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you will receive a step by step tutorial on how to set up your Internet business which is sent out weekly. Also if you do not know what an autorepsonder is or where to find a reliable service provider, I would suggest checking out Aweber first.

Step 5 – Increase Your Website Content.
The final step is to use your articles to create step by step tutorials on your website within your niche. Free tutorials and quality information will help you to attract lots of visitors to your website as everyone loves information when it is free. You can then lead your visitors to your squeeze page, product sales letters or to your affiliate programs. You may have noticed this is what I have done with this series called Building A Successful Ecommerce Business. Another great example is Darren Rowse’s 31day blog challenge which you can see in action at 31 days to building a better blog.

Take action today and start implementing these steps in your ecommerce business. Be consistent and persistance with your marketing as it does pay off in the long term. In the next post I will be putting everything together to show you how to build the ultimate ecommerce business and to start making money today.

Tyrone Shum
Marketing Quality Content

Spreading The Word: Turbocharge Your Traffic

For many people who are just starting out or have been running an Internet business for some time, driving traffic to their website is a key factor in marketing products and services. The more traffic gained, the more expose to your products and services. Furthermore, traffic isn’t the end result, it’s converting this traffic into sales. I will talk about how to convert this traffic into sales tomorrow, but for now I’ll show you some great ways to turbocharge your traffic using the latest technologies: (by the way, these are not in any order and try the ones that would fit your Internet business model)

Twitter
Twitter, a highly talked about social networking tool has done wonders for many Internet marketers and you either use it or turn a blind eye to it. I started using it only a couple of weeks ago and it’s helped increase my traffic by up to 500% in a few days, follow me at Twitter to see. It is easy to join and sends out a short 140 character message to all your followers letting them quickly see what you are currently doing. It works well if you approach this strategically by attracting people to follow you from your target market. If you have a blog, then tweet your posts automatically using a Wordpress plugin called Bird Feeder. It works wonders and Twitter is also a great way to monitor what people are saying about your products and services.

Linkedin
To join Linkedin, simply create a profile and you will be promoted a professional online network. Linkedin mainly targets business people allowing them to stay in touch with industry professionals. It’s great for people changing jobs and looking for business opportunities. Furthermore make sure you promote your website if your an Internet business. Many people look for products and services via Linkedin as well, and usually refer others to your website if it’s not relevant to them.

Wordpress Blog
If you’re reading this post, you may not know but you are actually reading it from a Wordpress Blog. This is an excellent way to promote your ideas and get your messages out on the Internet. Also search engines love blogs because they provide new content on a regular basis and that’s what people want, new fresh ideas to read about. It helps drive organic traffic to your website and builds your ranking on search engines.

Digital Press Releases
Have you ever wondered how people get their stories in newspapers, radio and other media channels? Lots of journalists nowadays look at digital press releases listed on sites such as PRWeb, Pressbox or PRLog to write their articles. Create a news story for your Internet business and submit it to generate free publicity and traffic to your website.

Web 2.0 Social Sharing
Have you noticed after reading an article there are icons and a button that say “Share This“? It’s commonly used in blogs and if a reader likes your article then they click on it and it will automatically distribute it via many of the Web 2.0 social networks. So why not add a simple social “Share This” tool to your website? If you want to also learn how to make money from Web 2.0, read my free report: “Make Money From The New Web 2.0“.

Social Networking Presence
Leverage social networks such as Facebook and Myspace by creating a fan page for people to see. Promote yourself and Internet business by developing a personality and brand which people will associate you to. So whenever they visit your fan page then your website they will see a consistent branding across the board and will rave on about you to friends and family.

Create A Mash Up
Feature news and videos from your industry by streaming free content onto your website. Yahoo Pipes allows you to pull in RSS feeds for news and YouTube helps you create and feature videos on your website. It helps drive more traffic from different sources in your market and increase your presence on search engines.

Crowdstorming
By asking your clients what they want you get free ideas on what products or services to create for them. You can leverage their needs and turn them into articles which you can post onto your blog. If there are enough people who demand for these needs, then you have yourself a product and more business will come along your way by simply asking a question.

Continue reading Converting Traffic Into Sales Part 1: Generating Leads.

Tyrone Shum
Turbocharging Traffic

Farming Your Crop Of Clients

When I was working in real estate many years back we used a term called “farming”. If you refer to the term “farming” from Wikipedia:

The term farming covers a wide spectrum of agricultural production work. At one end of this spectrum is the subsistence farmer, who farms a small area with limited resource inputs, and produces only enough food to meet the needs of his/her family.

In real estate we used to be allocated to an area with around 2,000 properties that we would prospect, manage and sell our services to. Being focused on one area I would become the expert and people living in the vicinity would come to me for advice to sell or buy their property. This does not happen overnight and requires a lot of time and effort to “farm” an area, just like a farmer would spend time harvesting his crop. A farmer would spend many hours on the field planting the seeds and making sure the land was fertile and then wait many months before anything would start to happen. The same is true in business and I experienced it first hand when I was working in real estate. It took me almost 6 months before anything happened and I constantly kept marketing and promoting myself in the area using the same proven techniques. I did have doubt over the first few months because nothing was happening and I asked other successful agents for advice, but they kept insisting to stay persistent and focused on the same area.

The result was many sales and referrals. In the beginning I received 4 properties to sell totalling to commissions of about $50,000 for the month. Happening all at once, I didn’t really know what to do and showed I cared and respected them. The later months sales continued to grow and I kept doing what I did – farming the area.

Farming Crops Are Just Actions To A Result

You will find very many similarities with running an Internet business to farming an area in real estate. The key to succeeding in farming your crop of clients is to present a consistent image to your target market. The more they see of you, the branding of your business will stick like glue and they will forever remember you. But to get there you have to take action. It’s not about randomly firing out advertisements and sending out emails to people for the sake of emailing. You have to formulate a strategic plan that will market to your targeted audience and provide value. For example whilst working in real estate, the way I created a brand for myself was to write an article for my weekly letterbox drop. Firstly I gave great real estate information to people in the area and secondly I made sure my face was next to the article so when they read it my face was marketed with the information. Hence when they wanted to sell or buy a property, they would come to me because they started to see me as the expert in the area.

Here’s a three step approach to farming a crop:

1. Work out which is your target market.
2. Formulate which type of marketing would be best to present to them.
3. Take lots of consistent action to market your business.

Consistency Is Key To Farming

I have probably mentioned it many times already in this article, consistency is key. To succeed in your Internet business you need to provide value to your clients and show that your business is constantly available (not you personally, your business). This means constantly marketing and providing valuable content that will generate traffic to your website. Emailing them at least every month with great information and asking for referrals after every transaction. This will ensure your farming efforts will continue to grow with the same amount of work or even less as it gets easier.

Become The Expert

When you have strong rapport with your clients it is easy for you to become the expert in the targeted area. They will come to seek advice and ask for referrals for related areas which you may not cover. This allows you to establish strong links with affiliates or business partners to offer other services and products which you can receive commission as well. It keeps your clients happy and your business will continue to grow.

Farming your crop of clients is a very effective means to grow and sustain a long term business because you establish strong links with clients and also raise your business to become the expert in your industry. If you haven’t decided how to market your business, start growing your farm and take action today.

Tyrone Shum
Business Farmer