Most online businesses provides great service to generate satisfaction among their customers. As each and every customer receives satisfaction from the products or the services they get, there is a great chance that they will become a repeat customer and are hungry for more of your great information. Better yet, they will most likely recommend you to other people that could generate more business for you and your site.

As more traffic is driven to your site, you can entice many of them to subscribe to your mailing list or opt-in list. An Opt-in list is a list where website visitors agree to be sent promotional materials such as newsletters, catalogs and such that could keep them updated about your site or the niche of your site and in return for them sharing their email with you, you offer them something great that you have developed.   Many successful online marketers give-away their best, or at least a taste of their best work as a reward to opt-in to their list.

When using e-mail as the media of your marketing and advertisements, you eliminate the need for high costs. Email is very low cost marketing and sometimes it can even be free!  With an opt-in subscribers list, you are more confident that what you are sending out is received, viewed and read by the subscribers and not simply being deleted. They have signed up for service and have consented in receiving it.

This means that there are constant reminders to your subscribers about all your products, new products and services as well as any promotions and special deals you are having. There is also the chance that they can be forwarded to other potential customers as they tell their friends and families about you and your site.

Of course, there will be many subscribers who may unsubscribe if they feel that they are not getting what they want or expected. So be sure that they are satisfied with you the information you share with them and keep them excited to receive your newsletters and catalogs.  Try some of these tips to help you build a list of eager and hungry subscribers.

• Make your promotional materials interesting and fun.  Use a little creativity but don’t over-do it. Build around what your product or service is about. For example; if you are selling motorcycle parts, put some pictures of what is new in the cycle parts world.

• Do your research of what people are looking for, this way you stay one step ahead of them all the time and you will be their go-to person for all things new. They will be eager to receive what you are sending them because they know you always have fresh and new things to share with them.

• Write good content that can is informational but light at the same time. If your subscribers enjoy your articles, they will go to your site by clicking the links that you will be putting on your newsletter to read some more. You can provide articles that can connect to many people. Be diverse in your articles. Put something humorous, then put something informational, then put something that has both.

• Do you procrastinate because you don’t like writing? No problem, there are many professional and experienced article writers that  can do the job for you for minimal fees. They know what they are doing and can provide great content for your newsletters.  The money that you pay for your articles will be well-worth it by the many sign-ups and the potential profit from the sales that you will get.

• Create and send an E-book to your customers about anything that is related to your business or site. Use your knowledge and expertise in the field you have chosen to help other people who are similarly interested. Offer this e-book for free. You can write about anything informational and helpful to your subscribers. For example; you can do manuals and guides in so many things. This e-book could be used as a reference for many people.  Another great idea is to make a Kindle book, with so many iPads, tablets and Kindles out there now.

• Share this e-book with everyone, even other sites; just make sure that they don’t change the links in the e-book that will lead people to your site. If you want, you can even get someone to write it for you just like your articles. Your investment once again will be covered by the great marketing this will generate.

• Add e-coupons in your newsletters for special discounts on an upcoming product or service.  Put a control number in your e-coupon so that they can only be used once. When people get discounts that can be found in your newsletters, they will be hungry to receive your newsletter each month/week to see what you are offering.

If your subscribers can get benefits from your newsletters, they will be very eager and waiting to receive them.  Just be careful not to flood your mailing list with emails so that you don’t annoy your subscribers.

You’ve got your brilliant idea for a start up, you’ve got a product that you’re certain people will be falling over each other to buy, and now you just have to get out there and sell the thing. So, you just need to find yourself some of those “customers” you’ve read so much about. How do you do that then?

Working out your target audience is one of the toughest marketing jobs there is. If you know who you’re selling to, it’s fairly straight forward to work out how to market to them, but actually finding that market is a challenge. Fortunately, we’re here to get you started.

Make It A Niche Market, No, A Really Niche Market

If you ask your average start-up who they want to sell their products to, the first answer that will pop into their heads is probably “Everyone”. This… isn’t much help. You can’t please all the people all the time. Instead, try and please one person all the time. Or at least, one very narrow demographic all the time. The more specific your target audience is, the easier it will be to aim your marketing at them.

Find a narrow group of people, and work out what they need and how your product meets that need. Everything else you do to market your company is an extension of this.

Work Out Why Anyone Would Buy Your Product

This is called an Initial Value Hypothesis. Decide what it is that’s special about your product and why customers in your narrowly selected target market would want to buy from you rather than any of your competitors. A common mistake many start-ups make is to stick religiously to their business plans. Don’t- none of your customers care about your business plan. All that matters is you work out what people want, and how you can sell it to them.

Put Your Ideas To The Test

Established companies are learning more and more about their customers every day. The big companies use everything from loyalty cards to iPhone apps to work out how their customers behave and what they prefer. Sometimes this gets to the point where it’s actively creepy, such as recently when Target’s marketing department figured out a teenage girl was pregnant before her dad did.

Now, as a start-up, you don’t really have access to all that Orwellian machinery, so you’re going to have to test out your ideas in much smaller arenas. Some of the ways to do this include surveys and polls.

A particularly useful one is to arrange a one on one meeting with someone in your target market, and simply talk to them. The trick to making this work is not to lead your interviewee. Ask them about problems in the area of your product. Ask what they would be looking for in a product to solve that problem. The results might surprise you.

Offering free samples to see how people respond to them

Equally, a good option is to collaborate with other businesses in your industry. It’s easy to get paranoid and insular with your “industry secrets” but sharing knowledge can actually help everyone involved.

Draw a Portrait of Your Perfect Customer

By now you should be fairly well along in your market research. You’ll have found a narrow demographic you want to sell to, worked out why they would want to buy your product, and talked to members of that demographic to get a better idea of how they think and what they’re looking for in a product. At this point you can start thinking about customer relationship management, or CRM, by creating a custom profile of your target customer, using all the information you have gathered..

Apply What You’ve Learned

Now it’s time to put what you’ve learned into action. Has what you’ve learned changed your business plan? Is there anything that needs to change about the way you present your products, how you sell them, or even the products themselves?

If you’ve gone through this whole process and not discovered anything that needs changing, then it’s possible you’ve not been doing it properly.

Barry Magennis is an SEO executive working with Haymarket Business Media. In his spare time, he writes about numerous subjects, including jobs in media. 

Looking for a great way to stay in touch with family, friends and business contacts? Want to show appreciation easily and quick? Send Out Cards is what I use!

The retail packages are:

• $9.80 Retail Subscription for 20 points which is about 10 greeting cards. This option gets you a greeting card for about a $1.
  
• The second option is a $31/month preferred customer option. It gets you a standard two-panel greeting for $.62 per card (which is wholesale cost). As a preferred customer you end up getting 20-30 cards and 4 or 5 gifts a month for $31. Postage is not included in these packages, this is just for access to the system and to design and send your own custom greeting cards and gifts. The gifts are great for realtors, mortgage lenders, car dealerships, etc. to send a Thank you card and attach a basket, or box of brownies or cookies.

Take a look at the system and give it try for a month or two and let me know if it makes you a better card sender.  You can stop at any time. 

Several of my clients had questions about the new Facebook Timeline.  They were worried about “getting it right.”  Well, there is no right or wrong, but there are several things you can do to maximize your Timeline to work for you in building more friends on Facebook and to even build more business connections.

I recently hosted a webinar where I shared my personal Timeline and went over the essentials to max-out your own Timeline.  It’s free and you can watch the webinar here – Timeline is coming…Are You Ready?  I do ask for your name and email, which will add you to my newsletter mailing.  But you can opt-out at anytime.  OK? 

Go watch the video recording of my webinar and let me know what you learned on my Facebook Page.

I have gotten several people who ask me how to restrict or block people from posting or commenting on status updates on the new Facebook Timeline.  I have done a short video to show you who you can accomplish this. 

Take a look and leave a comment if you found it helpful.