Everyone is jumping on the online business bandwagon, and if you haven't yet, then you're losing out on valuable opportunities. Taking your business online widens exposure and attracts new customers to your door. With Internet use rising dramatically, communicating through the virtual world is important to success. Some people use the Internet as their sole means of communication. Why would you want to miss your chance to establish or increase sales online?
Online business means international business. Your audience comes from all areas of the globe, not just locally. But international business means running your home business 24/7 to compensate for time zone differences. New York might be sleeping, but Tokyo is wide awake. Traditional work hours of nine to five just don't exist for the online business.
This full-time situation makes communication extremely vital to online business success. Not only must you transmit information to potential clients and current customers, but you may need to keep in touch with co-workers and partners.
Using all resources for communicating virtually is important. Email and instant messaging are increasing in popularity as a means to keep in touch and do business. Voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) is another growing media. These three methods of communication are great to keep costs very low versus expensive cell phone plans and long-distance charges.
Setting up scheduled calls is the best way to communicate internationally. This ensures that you and your client are available to discuss projects at an hour that is convenient to both of you, regardless of where you live.
Some online businesses will still need to hold meetings. These meetings discuss employee issues, current projects, future plans and important decisions. While it may seem impossible to hold meetings in a virtual world, nothing could be easier. Online conference rooms provide the location, and a scheduled date and time will make sure everyone can attend.
Using virtual conference rooms, email and instant messaging also help manage time more efficiently. It's important to make the most of every minute in a fast-paced world. Scheduling tasks effectively, such as checking your email and responding to communication at specific times, saves precious minutes. Scheduling these activities also eliminates distractions while you're working on something else.
Online survival is more than being efficient with your time and creating a global presence. Developing your business image and building your brand is a must. Brand building involves providing quality products, fast service and a good experience to potential clients. Your business reputation needs to be credible and recommendable. A poor client experience can tarnish your reputation, and a negative experience spreads infinitely faster than a positive one. It is unfortunate, but nonetheless true. Rumors on the Internet spread like wildfire.
Stay on top of current technology and trends. Learn about what people are discussing, especially if you aren't familiar with the terms. Pay attention to what's hot, like fresh designs for websites everyone is talking about or that new buzzword "Web 2.0". Online entrepreneurs have to be on top of not only their own business, but everything going on around them in the virtual world.
Business survival is tough. Online businesses face global competition in a vast virtual world. Thousands of businesses open shop each day on the Internet, with millions of people getting in on the online business craze. But with determination and the will to succeed, creating an online business is just like any other. Enjoy what you do, dedicate yourself to it, and succeed!
Sell "Shovels"!
Consider the experiences of prospectors in the California gold rush of the mid-1800s. Only one or two percent of such prospectors got rich toiling in the gold-fields. Maybe 5% made a living at it. But there was one group of entrepreneurs out there with a much higher success rate - somewhere between 50% and 80% got wealthy at it. This group was comprised of the merchants who sold the tools, equipment, and supplies that the prospectors needed to go out and dig.
We know the merchants sold much more than shovels. They sold "panning" pans, pick axes, tents, food, cooking gear, clothes, weapons, liquor, and a full panoply of tools and supplies that the prospectors needed. Let's use shovels as an icon for all these necessities - because until the prospector stuck a shovel in the ground, he had yet to actually begin prospecting.
It's a fact. Gold rush merchants were a lot more successful "prospecting" for customers than most prospectors were at finding gold. These merchants made fortunes at it and lived well on the proceeds. Many of the grand mansions of San Francisco were built by just such merchants after the gold rush dust had settled; and many of their businesses continued to thrive for years afterward.
The Same Principle Applies Today
If you want to make big money on the Internet, you need to apply the same principle today that the gold rush merchants applied in their day. Sell shovels - or the Internet equivalent of shovels. Today's equivalent is website traffic - or, more specifically, the means of getting the traffic you need.
Let's say your product sells for $10 and your website traffic amounts to 100 visitors a day, or 3,000 visitors a month. And let's suppose your site is so well designed and so well written that 20% of your visitors become customers. Terrific! So you make $6,000 a month. Not too shabby.
How likely is that 20% conversion rate of visitors to customers? It's not impossible if you are selling exactly what your website visitors are searching for; but it's still highly unlikely. Most successful online marketing sites convert between 1% and 2% of their visitors into customers. And that's the good ones.
So what does it take to make the same $6,000 a month if your conversion rate is only 2%? Answer: traffic of 30,000 unique visitors per month - or 1,000 visitors per day. Do website owners actually achieve such traffic? You betcha! Some get ten times that amount of traffic. So at $10 per customer and a mere 2% conversion rate they make $60,000 a month. Would you agree that's some business?
You Can Do It Too
There are two principle elements to the resources you need to duplicate that kind of success:
* Products of which Internet entrepreneurs are most in need - that is to say, traffic-creating "shovels", and
* The willingness to buy and use those traffic-creating tools yourself.
Following these two simple principles will do the job, because you will be positioning yourself in exactly the position of the gold rush boom-town merchant. Instead of using shovels to dig for gold, you use them to attract the gold prospectors whose need for them is absolute.
The reasoning and methodology of this approach to online marketing are inescapable. And the know-how, and tools (the shovels if you will) required to implement it is widely available online. You won't have to look far to find these resources.
Both Mike Tansey & Robert Podolsky are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Mike Tansey has sinced written about articles on various topics from Internet Marketing, Entrepreneurship and Business Plan. Mike has been online since 2004. He can show you 3 simple steps to turn your Internet Marketing Business profitable.