What’s that I hear you say? You’re not a marketer? You’ve got an online business haven’t you? Well, guess what, baby. You’re a marketer!
With all due respect, I have never been too fond of what I think of as “marketing types”. To my mind, they were always supreme manipulators with one, and only one, purpose in mind at all times. To convince me by devious means to part with my hard-earned money. Like if I spend $35,000 on this cute little bubble car, rich, handsome men will have an epiphany and suddenly conclude that I have style and panache and that certain irresistible “something” they never realized before they’ve been in search of their entire lives. Yeah, right. Give me a break.
Since I’ve been running my own online business, though, I have come to view “marketers” in a new, softer light. (I’m still not buying that car thing though.)
Like you, I started out with an idea. In my case it was to create an online business that tapped into the entrepreneurial spirit of people like me wanting to break the corporate shackles for the “freedom” (which is a WHOLE other article) of work-from-home self-employment.
So, I identified my niche and set about creating my first website. As any one of you who has built their own website knows, the first thing you notice when creating your site is just how much “how-to” information there is out there. “Build it and they will come” is a common internet expression to describe the naive expectation some of us had when first starting business online that all that is required to have a hugely successful online business is to build a brilliant and beautiful website that people will flock to in droves. I’m embarrassed to even admit this now, but when I started out, I ACTUALLY thought that all I had to do was create a website and it would automatically be found by all the major search engines!
Reality check #1 – No-one knows your site exists. And so you learned that to get people to visit your site you must first announce its existence. You learned then of improving search engine rankings and getting listed in the big directories, of the importance of linking and forging strategic alliances.
Reality check #2. No-one cares that your site exists. If there’s nothing in it for them, that is. You learned the first principle of ecommerce-psychology – WIIFM. What’s In It For Me?
Reality check #3. Even if you manage to drive traffic to your site and then deliver something your visitor values, that doesn’t mean they will buy from you. You learned that when it comes to giving over information, whether that be names and email addresses or credit card numbers, online consumers are a distrustful lot. And rightly so.
Reality check #4. Our predecessors have done such a wonderful job of scamming and spamming that we have to overcome the presumption in the minds of our site visitors that we are all a bunch of crooks.
So, how do we go about convincing visitors to look at our site; how do we go about convincing them that we have something to offer that will benefit them; how do we go about convincing them that we will safeguard their privacy; how do we go about convincing them that we are honest and reputable and professional?
Answer (in unison, please): we MARKET ourselves. Every day, in every way. Every time we answer an email. Every time we send an email. Every time we tweak our home page. Every time we write an article. Every time we request a link. Every time we swap an ad. Every time we accept an order. Every time we issue a refund. Literally, with every action we take, we are marketing ourselves and our businesses.
What does YOUR marketing say about YOU and YOUR business?
Start with reality check #1, your website. Is it clean and professional looking? Does it load quickly or is it bogged down with humongous graphics that take so long to load that your visitors hit the BACK button in frustration? Is it well designed and easy to navigate? Is the color scheme easy on the eye? Is it welcoming? Does it contain full contact information so your visitors can actually COMMUNICATE with you?
Or is it little more than a long list of banners, each one of which is linked to that wonderful, you-beaut self- replicating site you got for FREE! when you joined the affiliate program?
Which brings us smack into reality check #2. WIIFM? What’s in it for your visitor? What benefit does a long list of banners for your umpteen different and unrelated affiliate programs bring to your site visitors? You’ve heard it before. Hear it again, now. C O N T E N T is K I N G. Creating a website is a LOT of hard WORK! Slapping up affiliate program banners is not. Any idiot can do that. And plenty have.
What do you have to offer that’s different from the rest? Find it and develop it. Separate yourself from your competition. Find your niche. Give people a reason to visit you. More importantly, give people a reason to come back. You want to be bookmarked. Make your site one they just can’t put down.
Let’s move onto reality checks #3 and #4. Why should people give over their information to you, a total stranger? The internet is a great, big, level playing field. You can be a one-man band working out of your basement for two hours after work each night in your underwear and still give every impression of being Microsoft if you want. The internet is the great leveler AND it is anonymous. What’s that saying? On the internet no-one knows how ugly you really are. Something like that. No-one knows WHO you are, either.
Putting my site visitor hat on for a moment, I want to KNOW who I’m dealing with! I don’t want to transact with a personality-free website that may or may not be legit. I want to know your name. I want to know your telephone number. I’m not going to call you. I just want to know you’re a real person with a real voice who I can call if I want to or if I need to. I want your email address. I want to know I’m dealing with a PERSON and not an ATM.
So how do you get me to give you my name and email address and, maybe, eventually, my credit card number? Simple. You show me yours and I’ll show you mine. Let me get to know who you are and why I should do business with you. Be accessible. Then, maybe, just maybe, I’ll trust you with my email address. But show me your privacy policy first. Promise me you won’t sell my address or give it away to anyone either.
Do that, and maybe, ten visits from now, or twenty visits from now, I may just trust you enough to give you my credit card number.
2000 Elena Fawkner
Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based Business Online … practical business ideas, opportunities and solutions for the work-from-home entrepreneur. http://www.ahbbo.com/
