by Kevin Sinclair on September 8, 2010
An old adage in sales is that “the customer is always right.” Over the years as retailer grew large, profit margins faded and experienced salespeople grew scarce, there seemed to be less interest in the customer.
People grudgingly accepted the lack of customer service as the price they paid for cheap products. They complained, but they bought anyway because that’s just the way it was. Online shopping, while distant, is more customer centered than many local retailers.
To develop a rapport with customers in a virtual environment, online marketers had to establish trust and they did it with money back guarantees plus fast delivery. This customer-centered approach not only created trust as planned, but also caused a surprising number of customers to ignore the local stores and shop at major retailers’ online sites.
As a developing Internet marketer, you can learn from this brief history. You want to position your product as user friendly and open for refund. Granted, this is easier with downloads and information products than with shipped products.
But even shipped products that offer guaranteed, no questions asked refunds actually have fewer refunds because the consumer feels free to try to return it if they’re not satisfied. Before the sale, you want to provide ample information about the product – including several photo views if appropriate.
Think about the questions a buyer might ask and have the answers ready before the question arrives. An easy way to provide this information is with an expanded FAQ (frequently asked questions) page. Make sure there’s a link to the FAQ page from each product page.
If your product requires assembly after delivery, post an extra copy of how to assemble it. Even better is to post a video showing and telling how to do the assembly. Another great idea is to post videos showing alternative ways to use the product. This gives buyers options that they might not have considered.
To be consumer-centered means that you can be reached easily. Post your email (or that of your customer service center) and a phone number or SKPYE name. If you are the “Customer service center,” send those emails to a designated email box and answer them promptly.
If you can’t, at least set up an autoresponder saying that you received the customer’s email and are working on the solution. The more ways you can be contacted, the more the customer feels at ease that you aren’t hiding in some unreachable corner of cyberspace. You can’t shake hands with your online customer, but you can create an ongoing buying relationship by demonstrating that you’re a customer-centered online marketer.
by Kevin Sinclair on September 6, 2010
For a beginning marketer, article marketing is a great way to make your first few hundred dollars. It’s easy and it’s fast to get started. Who should you article marketing, how do you get started and how do you achieve an exceptional level of success with article marketing? Read on to find out.
Who Should Use Article Marketing?
Article marketing is great for beginning marketers who’ve never gotten more than 5,000 visitors to their website. It’s a simple and fast way to get traffic to a website without having to invest money before you’ve made money.
If you’re already making money from paid traffic sources, you may not want to use article marketing. The time investment probably won’t be worth it.
What Can You Expect?
For every article you submit, you can expect 50 to 500 visitors over the course of a couple months if you only submit to article directories.
If you make one sale out of every 100 visitors, your sale is worth $40, you get 200 visitors per article and each article plus submission takes you an hour, then you’re getting paid $80 an hour.
Granted, you won’t get the entire $80 right away, it’ll take some time. Article traffic tends to trickle in rather than come all at once.
If you go beyond submitting to just article directories, you could get a lot more traffic than that.
The Basic “How To” of Article Marketing
The first step is keyword research. Go on the Google Keyword Tool and find a list of keywords with at least 1,000 to 10,000 searches. Next go into Google and type your keywords in, in quotes. For example, “How to tile my roof” in quotes. Ideally there should be less than 10,000 competing results.
Compile a list of 10 keywords that match these criteria. You’re looking for keywords with moderate search volume and not too much competition.
Put this keyword in your title tag and use it sporadically throughout your article. You’re targeting the top 5 rankings for the specific keyword you’re targeting, plus any other keyword you happen to rank for.
Submitting Your Articles
Once you’ve written your keyword targeted article, the next step is to submit and distribute your articles.
The first step is to submit your articles to article directories like EzineArticles. This will get you a small amount of traffic. Perhaps enough to be worth the effort, but you won’t build massive traffic just by submitting to directories.
The second step is to either send your articles to other websites in your industry, or offer to write original content for higher traffic websites.
Instead of just putting together an article and sending it to a directory, the big traffic is made when you get your articles picked up by many websites in your industry. You get relevant one-way links and targeted traffic.
Article Marketing in Short
In short, article marketing is great for someone looking to make their first few hundred dollars online. It’s also great for building a presence in your field, if you’re willing to go the extra mile.
Select your keywords carefully. Choose keywords with moderate search volume and low competition. Submit your articles to article directories for a moderate amount of traffic. Contact other website owners to have your articles posted if you want the big traffic.
