What has internet marketing taught me in last 5 years.
Whew, it has been 5 years and right now I am looking back at the lessons Internet marketing taught me over the years. Of course I am not discussing marketing tactics and techniques here otherwise this blog post will probably turn in a huge book.
First lesson :- Strike and Grab the Opportunity fast whenever it presents
This is the first and most important lesson that you’ll learn while doing Internet Marketing.
It all comes down to speed of implementation. If you are slow, time will move on and chances of your profiting from the opportunity has left you by.
If you compare internet time line to offline line real world time line, then time is moving at least 4 times faster on internet (that’s due to advancement in Internet technologies). The cause and effect can be seen almost immediately of internet technology and time.
People who sit on the side line and wait and check are often late and broke.
That’s why I said speed of implementation is important.
Second Lesson : Ideas are dime a dozen, Action is rarer.
Too many people have way too many ideas… but people who take action are rarer. And thats true in harshest of terms for people on internet. With the access to ever changing technologies, people can exchange ideas in a blink. But People who take action on those ideas are rare and those who do, often succeeds.
Again complimented with first lesson of speed of implementation, this will help you tremendously.
Third lesson : Sell whenever the damn you can
Someone told me, “Every attempt at communication is an attempt of persuasion. Either you are persuading someone or being persuaded by someone”. When I am writing as “Sell whenever the damn you can”, it sounds like a sleazy salesman or slick opportunist.
But that’s not my intent at all.
In internet, the method of communication changes a LOT and if you have a business, you have to learn, adapt and implement different communication methods. If you are selling online you have to utilize every opportunity to communicate efficiently otherwise you’ll not sell at all.
Fourth Lesson : Learn to communicate with written word.
Now as you can guess, learning to write is going to be one of the most important way to communicate online. If you can’t write, you can’t communicate. Oh yes there are videos, audios too but let me say it again, written communication is a HUGE part of Online communities. You just cannot ignore it.
Fifth Lesson : It only takes one silly mistake to get crushed in the time
Doing business ethically is important. With internet and the ease of communication methods, you can be easily crushed. If you are a good businessman, then people won’t be able to slander you even with internet. Why ? because your evangelists(customers) will help you fight against them.
You are nothing but a speck of dirt in the time line and trust me, it’s going to be important to do your business ethically and grow and succeed.
There are many other things I can write here but I think the long laundry list is unnecessary. 5 lessons will suffice for now.
Varun Pratap
Desire. Commit. Succeed.
Beware of Sharks When You are Getting Your Business Online
How to harness the true power of Internet for an Offline Business?
Business Owners tend to get burned by greedy sharks when it comes to getting their business online. One of the simplest way they get burned is by SEO (Search engine optimization) Experts. Typical SEO techniques might not work for offline business, Infact I dare say, often they don’t need those services at all.
And often these services are quite pricey even at their lowest packages (at around $5000).
Just couple of days I got a call from one of my reader asking about XYZ SEO company’s package. So I checked out their package and I almost spilled my evening tea on my PC’s screen.
SEO services are expensive and they are the kind of the expense sometimes you can live without. Their price ranges from $5000 – $50,000+. If you are wondering if it’s right decision to buy a package like that, then step back and again rationalize.
The worst part is most business owners can’t differentiate between good service or bad service when it comes to SEO. Heck this field is so complicated it even makes most online marketers sweat. And it’s purposely set that way to wring more money out of you.
When it comes to harnessing the true power for an offline business.
You are better off if you focus more towards creating and building relationships with your customer base.
You are better off spending more time utilizing Audio and Video to help create more trust in your visitors.
You are better off spending more time creating product demos which can help you sell more products.
Think of your website as platform which will help you sell more in real world. Do not worry about Typical SEO or things like that.
Think how can your website help your current marketing efforts in your business?
Think how can your website help you relate with your customers?
These questions will help you understand what kind of marketing approach you should use on your website. Without a sound marketing approach all the SEO, all the bells and whistles, all the graphics on your website is just waste of space.
Think about your marketing first, then about your website.
Own Your Business, Don’t get Owned By it.
Yesterday evening, I spent 3 hrs in meeting with one of the sharpest marketing mind in New Delhi. We discussed content, marketing strategies and many others things that we are going to cover in my upcoming seminar on building business.
One of my foundational base is “Scientific advertising”. In this, you have to understand the nature of your product, your company, your customer base and so much more so that you can create a marketing frenzy. It goes beyond what you might think about marketing or selling.
And because I have worked with pretty darn successful companies in New Delhi. I realized they have no concept of marketing and selling. Often their marketers are doing the job of salesman (and doing a piss poor job of it) and their marketing is literally man-handled by people who should have nothing to do with marketing at all.
For Example :– One of the Marketer for this publishing company was more worried about selling the advertisement page for the magazine rather than creating a strategy which results in automatically selling those pages, building a database or may be more effective brand awareness.
And these marketers have gall to brag about how successful their last campaign was. When you ask them what are they going to do afterwards, their silence give you the answer. Sometimes I wonder what exactly they think their job as marketer is?
Ah, I digress.
The problem with institutional advertising is, it’s too time consuming, too resource hogging, too pricey and almost always gets results which cannot be substantiated. This is where most business owners get owned and swallowed by their own business.
And this is exactly where I am going to show how anyone can handle their own marketing with just a shift in mindset. If your base is “scientific advertising”, then you’ll see results of your campaign and be able to realize and make informed decisions whether you should scrap this campaign or not before it starts bleeding your account dry.
And that’s how exactly you should be doing your business.
For example :– I helped a marketer with a full page advertisement which was going on 4 national monthly magazines with re-creating the offer, changing image position and improving the overall impact of the advertisement. The results was staggering. He could not believe how much response his ad got. His office was swamped with calls and people tried to get their hands on the offer.
The best part was he knew when to scrap this campaign as it started losing steam and instantly changed the offer with new advertisement improving his results.
Now this is what I call smart marketing. I did help create the advertisement, but it’s his job to make sure he runs it and follows it afterwards. Most MBA grads spend spray shinning their diploma/degree rather than understand how to actually successful market and campaign their products.
How to Increase Conversion on Your Website by 39%
How to Increase Conversion on Your Website by 39%
By this simple Marketing Tactic
If you have a website selling products and capturing subscribers, you can use this technique.
Use Your Thank You page More effectively.
Whenever your visitor subscribes and sees the Thank you page, you are better off giving him related offers. According to Marketing Sherpa 39% of viewers accept offers on thank you pages(40% in 2001, compared to 2001, this figure didn’t changed much).
That’s really big number. I think any business trying to get more profits can afford 39% more profit. 
So if you have any thank-you pages out there for anything that only say, “Thank you,” you are wasting very valuable real estate.
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