You may know a lot about your business niche, but does anyone else know that? If not, it's time to set yourself up as an expert.
Sometimes it is WHO you know that counts, like when you're trying to accomplish something and need help. On the path towards expert status, you will need others to reach the destination.
I know, I know - you are not the type of person to shamelessly self promote. Don't worry because there is no shame involved. To do any less, than tell others about what you have worked hard to learn, is selling yourself short and that IS shameful. Even for shy people, networking with others in the business world can only help. What makes it a bit easier is that you and those you network with are all after a common goal - increased profits.
Why Network?
Networking is important in business. Making connections with others in the online world increases your visibility which matters when you want to get noticed. Who do you rub elbows with? Begin with someone with influence in your business area like a guru of sorts. Get to know them by hanging out where they hang out - on their blog, in their social networking groups and by attending events they host or are speaking at.
Networking mutually benefits both parties. While you are getting to know them, don't forget to let them know who you are. When you comment on blogs, link those comments to your own blog and/or website. If you host a podcast, invite them to be a guest.
Other Ways to Network
Blogs and forums are not the only way that you can make a useful business connection to promote your expert business status. Join local and online business associations. This is not in name only. Do our part and get involved so that others see your face, hear your voice and notice your work.
Your involvement in these professional organizations is a two-way street. Use the time to give but also get. Ask questions when you need to. Sharing business tips, tricks and secrets is a part of the perks.
Don't neglect the social networking communities. Facebook and MySpace are a lot of fun for connecting with old friends, but they are also big forums for sharing business information. You can post new happenings on your website and links. You'll be surprised who sees and takes advantage of the news. Invite all of your fellow organizational members as well as clients and other business associates to be your friends so they can view posts to your Wall.
Networking can be intimidating especially for business owners who are not good at self-promotion. But, once you begin, you'll notice the benefits and get hooked.
What do some membership sites have over others? They have found a profitable niche to base their site upon. If you want to drive traffic and increase membership numbers, find a topic that people are interested in.
Finding a topic is not that hard but it does require some research. That is always the most important first step in any business venture. If you don't know what else is out there, how can you compete? How can you improve on an existing model?
Finding Your Topic
Start with what you know. English teachers always tell you to write what you know. That philosophy goes for business as well. If you are interested in fitness, begin your research there. Are there other membership sites on the topic of fitness, nutrition or both? If there is, find out what makes them stand out.
Within each topic there is room to move around. You can choose a niche within that general topic (fitness for example) to specialize your membership site. Maybe the site will offer fitness tools for women or men's fitness. One advantage that your niche membership site would have is a more focused approach to fitness for that particular gender.
Choosing Your Price
What is it about $0.95 or $0.99? It's almost as if people are saving a lot with only a few cents. Someone is more likely to pay $9.95 than $10.00. It must be a psychological thing but it works. Knock off a few cents and you are in business.
Your price will depend on two things: competitive prices and your offerings. If another fitness site offers membership for $9.99, you will have to have something spectacular if your price is higher. And, that might be possible if they offer the basics for their members. Choose membership tools that make life easier for your potential members.
Testing the Waters
If you already run a website or a blog, use that forum to gauge how much interest there is in your niche topic. Poll visitors; send survey links to customers and post engaging blog entries that beg feedback on your possible new enterprise. You don't want to sink money into a venture that won't even get off the ground.
Want to start a membership site that will make you a profit? Research topics for your site and explore niche possibilities that will bring you the traffic and the money. But, when you find a worthy niche, you will see a recurring income each month from your hard work.
Achieving expert status is not all hard work. What it takes is a mind that is open and knowledgeable about their business subject. With a little bit of creativity, you can leverage what you do already to increase sales and product variety.
The first part of any strategy you use to become an expert is visibility. Others have to know that you exist and have something important to say. Through article writing and distribution and networking with other business owners, your "sphere of influence" will begin to grow.
But you are still just scratching the surface. Wouldn't you like to take advantage of tools that help you become an expert without expert work? We figured that you might. So, here are some ways that you can do that.
The Pitch
Let's say that you have been writing articles and submitting them to article directories. You might have even written enough to be considered an expert on a certain topic on that site. Ezinearticles.com has experts who blog, answer questions, write articles and provide other multimedia content. Having that label there is a big boost for your business.
The Hit
Those articles are not just articles but pages of potential. One piece of written content can give rise to another. Look at your articles with new eyes. See them turning into:
- eBooks
- Special Reports
- Audio products
- Video products
- Course material
- Seminars
The list goes on but you get the idea. The information in the articles can morph into each one of these. Better yet, take a series of articles, bundle them to create a special report or an eBook if there is a lot of information. Take each section of the eBook and create a course that customers can buy. Add audio and video to the course and turn your course material into a study guide to accompany them.
It's Out of the Park
Instead of one solitary article that has increased your visibility through article marketing you now have leveraged that article into a variety of product offerings all of which will add to your expert status and your bottom line. Instead of the press release saying that you have written hundreds of articles, it will also say that you the author of several eBooks, business courses and a lecturer. If that doesn't say expert nothing does.
If you have a bunch of articles floating around in cyberspace or just sitting on your PC, give them a second look. Each one can bring a new product for sale and a new path to expert status for you.
Building a list of email addresses saves time when you are trying to reach your target market. You have a dedicated group of individuals or companies that you already know are interested in your product. But, how can you get these people on your list to begin with?
What are Opt-Ins?
You have seen them before but probably didn't know that they had a specific name. When you visit a site and they offer you a reduced rate on a product or something free, they usually ask for a name and email address so that they can send it to you. When you volunteer this information, it is called "opting in."
Opt-ins is one way to build your list of targeted customers. People protect their personal information very carefully. If they decide to even give you an email address, then they have demonstrated right there a level of trust that will be the backbone characteristic of your list.
The trick is getting people to opt-in in the first place. For this, there is no trick. But, what you might want to do is to include a disclaimer link on your opt-in forms to let those who sign up know exactly how their information will be used. Without one, you will be considered a spammer if you send unsolicited information to them. With one, you assure people that you will not sell their information to others to build paid lists.
What type of opt-in offers will you promote? It all depends on your niche market and what these potential customers want. One thing that everyone wants on the Internet is information. Helpful information can take your business places that you can't reach in other ways.
Much of the info on the Internet is recycled over and over again. Offering a mix of original, up-to-date resources and content with common sense tips can be your ticket to creating a successful list of email addresses. This includes content on your website and your blog.
Types of Opt-Ins
So, what will you offer? Think free. Everyone loves free stuff. On the Internet, the free stuff shouldn't be just any stuff but relevant information that they can use.
For example, if you have a website that sells homeschooling products, consider giving away a free report on how to teach algebra to pre-teens. This is only an example. What you want to do is create a freebie that is relevant to your target audience. If they already homeschool their kids, then tips on how to do it more efficiently will most likely peak their interest.
You can also offer longer pieces like eBooks. Usually, if you offer a valuable eBook, then it is not your first opt-in offering. You are pretty sure that the ones who will sign up for it are going to buy something else. Maybe use the eBook as a freebie for customers who have bought once, to help encourage them to buy again.
Opt-in pages are a popular way to gain trust and encourage buying from your visitors. Whatever you decide to offer, be sure that you follow through on your promise. Better yet, over deliver on it!
Most business owners would agree that without a plan, their enterprise doesn't stand a chance. It is like firing a shot in the dark hoping to hit a target. Part of that "road map" you build your business upon includes finding people who will become the base on which you will grow.
List building is essential to finding your customer base. Why do you need a list? Without it, there is no way to predict what the outcome will be month to month, let alone year to year.
One school of thought says that if you have a big enough campaign people will come. That may be true, but they will only come once. Even making a million dollars on one promotion won't sustain your business forever if none of those customers ever comes back again.
Now, we aren't talking money like that (at least not yet). So, to keep things real, one-time sales are not the stuff of solid business foundations. Building relationships with people is the key to a sound future for your enterprise.
What a List Can Do for You & Your Business
Let's say that you want to sell a product door-to-door. The first time through the neighborhood, you visit every house on the block because you don't know who might be interested in what you are selling. After chatting a few moments, you quickly learn which people are interested in your product enough to buy. From those customers, you ask for further contact information.
A month from then, you decide to offer a new product. Instead of canvassing the entire neighborhood again, you visit the people who purchased the first time. In addition to information about the new product, you also bring a flyer offering them a free gift if they can recommend two friends who would be interested in the product. Now, instead of twenty names, you have forty more to add to the list in your hand.
This is roughly how list building works online. Your first efforts will cast a net over a larger group of people. The catch will consist of people interested in your market, but not necessarily the product you want to provide. Through marketing efforts on your website and through other sites, you will weed out those who are really outside of your market. Leaving you with a group of people who ARE interested in what you have to offer.
For subsequent offerings, you can go straight to the most interested parties and make your pitch. Each time, you can find more and more people to add to your list.
List building takes the guess work out of marketing. The money you spend is more effective if you know where to concentrate your efforts. Once you build a substantial list, it can seem like you make the sale every time. Sales will increase, but not because you are lucky - it's because you were smart. Like a fisherman, you learned the best place to find what you are looking for, so you dropped your line and came up with the catch of the day!
How do you build trust with others? You get to know them and find out what they are all about. It is easier to do that face to face, yes, but it can also be accomplished in cyberspace if you are willing to work at it. But, why do any of that anyway?
Building relationships with your readers is vital to your business. Remember that your goal is to make money and for that you will need people to visit your site. But, visiting is not enough in and of itself.
Think about it in these terms. Let's say you launch an incredible new product. You advertise everywhere that you can think of. In the first months of your launch, your unique visitors go up 100% (it's possible!) AND the sales go through the roof.
In your bliss don't forget that the journey towards one-time sales is a short trip. If you made six figures in each of those months, it still wouldn't compensate for the next eight months of basement stats because none of those customers came back. That's no way to run and grow a successful business enterprise.
Instead, strive for repeat visitors every month of the year. How do you do that? You build a relationship with each one of them. No, you don't have to know them all by name, but you will want to pay attention and give them what they want to keep them coming back.
Readers are more than just people who come to hear what you have to say, they are looking for something. It could be your product but they won't stay where they are not appreciated.
Here are a few reasons why reader relationships are so important to your site:
1. They have friends. You never know who is visiting and reading your site content. One thing that you do know is that they have a sphere of influence with someone. That sphere can be yours if they are satisfied with their relationship with you.
2. They have money. What started out as simply a visitor can be converted to a customer who uses your products or services if they trust you. Now you have the potential for repeat business.
3. They represent a portion of the population. Whatever their connections, they can be useful to you in building a better business. Online business owners can provide organic backlinks for you; bloggers can ask you to guest post for them; avid social bookmarkers can help lift you to expert status by linking to your content.
Readers are not just numbers; they are people who are important in their own right and to your business. Connect with them.
Who wouldn't want to be viewed as an expert in their field? It can mean more traffic, more sales, more credibility and greater visibility. Your readers and social bookmarking sites can help you there.
When you find something that you love to read, you want to tell everyone. You also want to be able to find it again if you needed to. That is part of what a social bookmarking site is all about.
When you provide good quality content, your readers are happy. They are sometimes so happy that they will bookmark your content on their favorite social bookmarking site.
There are bookmarking sites for just about everything. Readers can tag content, videos, pictures and more. You can create your own account with these sites and add icons to your blog or website content pages.
The sites don't copy your content but index a link to it when someone bookmarks it. The bookmarked content or media is voted on by other members of the site. You could even be featured on the front page. That could bring you more readers.
There is one crucial point: Readers won't bookmark your stuff if you don't try to build relationships with them. Listen to what readers say in surveys and make changes on your site or to your products. Knowing that they are being listened to is a feather in your cap.
But, don't stop there. Your readers may be writers in their own right. Endeavor to find to what your readers are interested in. if they have blogs, read and comment on them. Bookmark posts that you find interesting. If you see any of their bookmarked content, leave comments when you vote.
Reply when readers post on your blog. Use your responses to start a conversation with them. It can be as much a fact-gathering mission as curiosity about those who read what you write or buy your products.
When your loyal readers see your stuff bookmarked on a site like Digg or StumbleUpon, they will vote for you. Social bookmarking is one way to drive traffic to your site and help build expert status. Choose social networks that cater to your type of content.
If readers like and trust you, they may be more inclined to use social bookmarking to interest others in your work too. Reciprocate by visiting their blogs or websites and tagging their work. Again, the reader/business relationship has proven to be mutually beneficial.
When you start planning your business, you have a business plan that will help map out where you see your sales going from one year to the next. With online businesses you can do this through website statistics. These are measurements of various activities on your website that directly relate to your business.
Site Statistics
One of the things that you want is traffic. Without traffic you won't get any sales and your business won't grow. Your marketing plan outlines how you will proceed with getting that traffic. But, it is not foolproof.
You won't know if your efforts are working unless you measure it. That is where statistics come in. What do you measure? Here are a few examples:
- Unique visitors (how many different people visit your site)
- Keyword analysis (which keywords bring in traffic and which don't)
- Conversion rates (how many visitors go from reading to buying items)
- Web page analysis (where visitors go when they are on your site)
- Page views (how many people visit each unique page on your website)
These are just a few of the stats that you will be interested in knowing. When you first begin marketing your site, statistics can help you find out if you are on the right page. Do the keywords you use drive traffic?
Statistics are gathered on a monthly basis but it can take a few months to see trends. Trends are a measure of the way that your current plan is taking shape. Because of the lag time, it's not wise to make changes to your plan for several months to give it time to work or not work. When a business is in start-up mode, it will take that long to get an accurate measure of sales.
Site stats give you a starting point. Without some way to measure your business efforts it is like shooting in the dark - you don't know if you've hit or miss. Looking at all the statistics together gives you a better idea of what to change first in an attempt to improve your business.
So, if you have not instituted a way to measure vital information pertaining to your website business, it is time to do so. There are software tools (both free and paid) that can help you compile these statistics. You can also hire companies to measure that information for you and analyze the data to anticipate the next more that you need to make. But, for small businesses, using software to compile the data and your own brain to analyze it will suffice.
Every person has bought at least one product that didn't do what the advertising said that it did. That's what we get for watching late night infomercials. If you want your online business to be around in three years, build relationships through integrity.
Integrity
It's a word that some business owners know nothing about. They would promote any product or service to get a quick buck. What happens after the customer pays their money is immaterial to them. Their websites pop up one week and disappear when the heat gets to be too much, only to resurface under another name.
There is a reason for that. They know what people are looking for, but instead of trying to provide it, they exploit it for the money.
Integrity in business means keeping your promise. It may not seem like it, but readers scrutinize website businesses. It could be because there is no physical body to put with the company that the eyes watch a little closer. The result is the same though: if you don't come through you will lose readers and sales.
One area where readers learn to mistrust is use of their personal information. If they opt-in for an email newsletter, don't sell their names to mailing lists and by all means, don't spam them. This is not the way to get what you want from your readers.
Test, Test, Test
Are you selling products on your website? There are a lot of variables with that especially if it is a physical product. Before you offer a new product, always test market to see if it is going to garner a demand. No market means no money.
With digital products testing comes in the form of knowing that the advice inside will work for the person buying it. If you sell an eBook about how to set up your own affiliate program in one day (example only) then every customer should be able to duplicate your process.
The same goes with affiliate marketing. Only upsell affiliate products or services that you know are legitimate and deliver what is promised. What is the money going to help if your online reputation is shot?
Truthful Content
Before readers become customers, they will visit your site over and over. They are reading your content. Be sure that everything you write is truthful and unique. There is enough bad information floating around and you can't build a relationship of trust on false information.
You don't have to make big boasts to get readers to keep reading, just make good on what you do offer them. This builds a relationship of trust that can benefit you and your readers for years to come
Recent Comments