Home Business | JonClaytonBizBlog

Archive for Home Business

Mar

Marketing Results: 7 Crucial Stats You Need to Track Your Marketing Success

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (0)

Thank you for visiting JonClaytonBizBlog. Your comments and thoughts are encouraged! Be an active part of this blog. Thanks! -- Jon Clayton

You may feel as though you’re on a hamster wheel when it comes to measuring your marketing. You run, run, and run some more, but don’t seem to be getting anywhere. That feeling is perfectly natural if you’re not measuring your ROI (Return on Investment) with your marketing. For years, I’ve been on this hamster wheel myself, without a system that I liked to help me measure my marketing results. Numbers and statistics have never been my strong suit, and even though I got A’s in most of my math classes, it took every brain cell I had to do so.

Late last year, I finally determined what was important for me to track in my marketing, and now have created a system so that I can track my marketing from week to week. Whether you set up your system in a document or spreadsheet, you’ll be amazed at the power that you feel when you view the numbers from week to week and can spot trends developing or problem spots that need a solution. I was amazed to discover that when I started paying attention to my weekly stats, I actually found myself engrossed, fascinated, and excited! Now that I am tracking these numbers, I know exactly where to spend my time and efforts to receive the highest and best rate of return.

Here are 7 statistics that I track in my weekly marketing tracking system:

1. Number of marketing activities. I now list by name and amount of the total number of marketing activities in which I engage each week. This number includes article submissions, direct mailings, direct contacts (in person or by phone), press releases, and programs given. I’ve noticed that the higher the number, the better the rest of my marketing results for the week.

2. Web site stats. I’m primarily seeking the number of unique visitors to my web site each week. However, it’s also important to know what keywords visitors used to land on your site as well as what sites referred the visitor to your site. I don’t keep a separate log of this info, but do have a weekly Google Analytics report emailed to me with this information. Google Analytics is a free web tracking program that’s easy to install on almost any site.

3. Blog stats. I want to know the number of people who read my blog this week. Now, this is a difficult stat to measure, as blog readers use any number of RSS readers to view blog posts or subscribe to my blog via email. So, I have also installed Google Analytics on my blog and look at those results to determine the number of unique visitors to my blog in any given week, which I interpret as number of blog readers.

4. Ezine stats. My weekly ezine serves as my primary connection to my list. I track how many new subscribers I gain each week on that list, my open rate for each issue of my ezine, the number of clickthroughs for each issue, and my total number of ezine subscribers.

5. Social networking connections. I’m not in a contest to acquire the most connections possible for all of my social networking sites. I believe it’s the quality of the connection (i.e. relevance to your target market) rather than the quantity of connections that will be most useful for you. What I’m primarily tracking here is that I’m making a slow and gradual increase in the number of my connections on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.

6. Product and service sales. I note how many product sales I have made each week as well as how much revenue I have earned in the services and consulting side of my business. Because my primary product is my membership site, I probably have many more product sales (i.e. memberships) than many of you who sell information products as an income stream in your business.

7. New clients. I get a number of requests from potential clients each week, but never tracked those in any meaningful way. Now I know how many inquiries have come in, how many have become new clients, and which inquiries need follow up at a later date. This system always keeps me in motion and in front of new client prospects.

Measuring the results of your marketing activities is crucial to your success, and anyone can do it. Start to evaluate your marketing activities to empower yourself to make those strategic decisions about how and where to focus your efforts going forward so that you can achieve the level of success you desire.
________________________________________
Internet Marketing Automation Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals create prosperous online businesses that make more profit in less time. Would you like to learn the specific Internet marketing strategies that get results? Discover how to increase your visibility and get found online by claiming your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, at ==> http://www.TurbochargeYourOnlineMarketing.com

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Marketing Results: 7 Crucial Stats You Need to Track Your Marketing Success

Share and Enjoy:

Categories : Marketing

Comments (0)

Mar

The End Of Dumb Affiliate Marketing

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (1)

The End Of Dumb Affiliate Marketing

One of the saddest things that I witness day after day is affiliate marketers who really struggle to make sales. They send out email after email, promotion after promotion, yet often make very few sales.

This is not only sad, it’s also needless “practice bleeding.” Making affiliate sales is easy when you know the secret. It’s even very scientific and does have fairly predictable results.

Let’s look at what most affiliates are doing wrong, what I’ve termed “dumb affiliate marketing” and how that can be easily corrected.

Before I offend anyone, I should explain that when I use the word “dumb” I mean untargeted. I come from a military background, and I think of “dumb bombs.” Those are bombs that are dropped off of an airplane and they tumble unguided towards a target. They may or may not hit the target but once they are released they get no guidance.

A “smart” bomb often has a built in navigation system, and after it is dropped from an airplane it often flies a precise, pre-programmed route of flight to a target - often getting satellite GPS updates enroute. A smart bomb can be dropped from miles away, and be steered right though a window on a building that the pilot flying the aircraft never even sees.

Your affiliate marketing can be just as on-target when you acknowledge and harness just a little know-how.

Promoting an affiliate product no longer needs to be a gamble.

First of all, you need to tap into data that is readily available on which products are already selling. One source of this data is the blogs maintained during many affiliate sales contests. Monitor these to see how well a given product is selling, and to see if you want to invest your time and effort into setting up a protracted marketing campaign. You can market many of these products after the big initial launch is over - often with lessened competition.

I personally also rely upon my network of friends who readily share with each other which affiliate products are proven sellers. Many of us are members of a Facebook Group called “Affiliate Products Proven To Sell.” If you are on Facebook, you can join this group for free by registering at http://timic.org/APPTS

Many affiliates also struggle because they use marketing methods that are outdated, and simply no longer work. One newer method that works like CRAZY is using quality videos. You can now have CUSTOM videos created for you for under $50 each, and that includes professional voice talent. For that,

I personally use Jason Anderson’s team at: http://timic.org/ProVideos

These are not PLR videos. They are produced from scratch and are mini-commercials. Mine are 1-minute because, just like your audience, viewers of my videos have short attention spans. So, take a clue from the television industry. They’ve mastered getting the message across in 30 seconds to 1 minute. You need to do the same.

Another fact that you need to “get” - a fact most struggling affiliate marketers still refuse to acknowledge is that your promotion needs to be for just ONE product. If the purpose of a solo mailing or ezine issue is to promote a specific product, then just mention that ONE product in the email.

Without fail, when I’ve tried to promote multiple products in an email, even if they were all free, overall response rate significantly decreased. I think that it’s because when you promote several products in an email, it comes across as too desperate. Be laser focused rather than using the shotgun approach.

Many affiliate marketers fail to make sales because they promote something that they like rather than something customers are ALREADY buying. With so many great products out there, I do not believe in being the guinea pig. You should only promote affiliate products where the product owner has thoroughly tested market demand AND his conversion process.

It’s foolish to put time and effort into promoting unproven products when you can just pick the low-hanging fruit by offering your customers the products that they’ve proven to you that they want.

Given that often there are numerous affiliates for a product that’s a proven seller, you may need to differentiate yourself from all of the other affiliates. One easy way to do that is to offer a valuable, related bonus. I like using unique audio interviews or related courses as bonuses.

If you’ve taken the time to actually communicate with your subscribers and customers, your offer isn’t identical to that made by others marketing the same affiliate product anyway. Just the fact that it’s YOU, whom your clients have grown to know, like and trust, that’s marketing the product… makes it different. The difference is that purchasing through your affiliate link is less risky.

That is one of the key factors in smart affiliate marketing. Earn their trust and the sales come a lot easier. I actually have subscribers email me doing a big product launch ASKING for my affiliate link. Over the past 13 years, I have built that kind of customer loyalty. If you work at doing that, everything else will fall in place.

Now that you know the secret, it’s time to stop doing dumb marketing. If your sales aren’t what they should be start by looking at WHAT you are marketing. Is it something that your customers really want? If it is, then next look at HOW you are marketing it. Read back thought this article for tips on the profitable way to do that.
________________________________________
Willie Crawford is a seasoned affiliate marketer with 13 years of experience selling goods and services online. He now spends several hours many days mentoring other online marketers on a private discussion forum that’s part of a tight-knit membership community called “The Internet Marketing Inner Circle.” Join them at: http://timic.org/

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The End Of Dumb Affiliate Marketing

Share and Enjoy:

Categories : Affiliate Marketing

Comments (1)

Mar

Free Traffic for Your Website or Blog

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (0)

The homework is done, your blog or website is live. You’ve chosen a hot niche/topic, ordered an awesome banner/header and chosen a theme if required…you’ve worked hard.

You add valuable content, affiliate links to high converting products, your own product links…but there is a problem. You have no traffic. Without traffic, there is no one to appreciate your hard work and awesome content.

Without traffic, you are a nobody in the cyber world. Traffic is what gets the search engine Gods to notice you. There is no one to click your affiliate links without traffic.

But, it can get expensive driving traffic to your site if you use some of the paid methods such as PPC.

There are however some very valid traffic producing methods that you can employ for free.

Let’s examine a few:

1) Forum Marketing: The worst think you can do is show up on forums and start dropping one liners with your “signature” and a link back to you blog. This is considered spam and the only thing it will do for you is to get you banned. But, forums are an excellent place to get noticed with when you add great valuable content.

Obviously you want to choose forums that focus on your particular topic or niche. Forums are a condensed concentration of the people that are interested in your niche…all located in one spot. Make sure with each post, you leave your signature with a link to your product, website and or blog.

If you establish yourself as a valued contributor then you will eventually be perceived as an expert and people will navigate to your blog or website to find out more.

2) Article marketing: There is a hungry audience waiting for excellent articles to use on their own websites or blog and article directories is where they go looking. With articles, you don’t want to fill the article with your links but use the author resource/bio box provided to leave your signature and links.

You can employ the use of article directories to get your article listed in hundreds of article directories. Additionally, many directories also submit to newsletter publishers.

It’s always a good idea to track your articles by using Google Alerts. If someone is routinely publishing your material, you may want to contact them and offer to submit your articles directly to them whenever you write a new one.

3) Sign up on sites like MyBlogLog and use their widget on your site. You can befriend other bloggers and build your own community of followers with MyBlogLog…a social community that you can tap into and get a consistent flow of traffic.

4) If you have an opt in form on your site, make sure to send an email out every time you create a new post. These people have already shown an interest by signing up to your blog…keep them informed and coming back.

5) Let’s not forget the basics…blog posting. You need to stay on top of your website or blog and keep it fresh with new content including using your keywords for SEO purposes. Ideally, your keywords should be in the title, the first paragraph and the last paragraph. But, only if it makes sense to do so.

6) Yahoo answers is an excellent way to get traffic and show off your expert knowledge. Look for questions in your area of expertise and provide valuable answers. It’s important that you add your link for reference.

7) Getting free traffic can be as easy as guest blogging on some high-ranking blogs but only if you can write intelligent, interesting, value filled posts that will benefit them. Your link will then be added to your post and can bring lots of free traffic your way.

Twitter: Let’s not forget Twitter. Twitter is here to stay and has become an invaluable source of free traffic, so if you haven’t already, it’s time you took a hard look at it. In fact, every time you submit an article to Ezine the reader can tweet the title and link to it.

Once again, don’t go on Twitter and start spamming with links, links, links. That is what you will become known for. Instead, build up a stream of targeted followers by providing interesting tweets.

9) Build a Squidoo Lense: Squidoo pages are the perfect avenue to get 1-way links to your blog. You can get direct traffic to your Squidoo lense if you use your long-tail keywords. Google loves Squidoo pages and using this method will often get you ranked in the top ten.

10) Video: Create and distribute a video that includes a link back to your blog or website. Videos have taken over the Internet as most people would rather watch a video than read a screen. People love them.

This by no means a comprehensive list as there are many more ways to drive free traffic. But, these are some of the most important ones and will get you started.

Don’t be discouraged easily. It takes time for people to discover your new blog or website. You must be patient and consistently work towards your goal and if you do, I promise that you will reap the benefits.

Combine persistent and consistent action with patience and before you know it you will have your own thriving list of subscribers hungry to learn from you.
________________________________________
Kathy Dobson is a free spirited business owner and entrepreneur dedicated to helping others achieve financial and personal freedom through Internet marketing with an emphasis on membership sites.

Learn more about membership sites please visit: http://www.crazycashmembershipsites.com For further tips and resources visit: http://www.kathydobson.com

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Free Traffic for Your Website or Blog

Share and Enjoy:

Categories : Marketing

Comments (0)

Feb

Marketing Tips: The Internet Marketing Secret That Stops Small Business Owners in Their Tracks

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (0)

All of my clients are exceptional at the service they provide for their clients. However, many of them come to me for coaching because they’re having a hard time filling their practices and finding clients. Almost without fail, they tell me that this is a marketing problem. It is a marketing problem, but not the type they think it is.

When I ask them to describe their ideal client or target market, I’ll get a very general and all-encompassing answer like, “Oh, I want to work with entrepreneurs who are kind, loyal, courteous, have a great sense of humor, financially stable, etc.” — you know, in essence, the Boy Scout motto that covers a very large percentage of the world population. That’s a great beginning general descriptor about the type of client with whom they would like to work, but the description is, unfortunately, flawed.

Why?

Because it’s simply not specific enough.

Oftentimes, I’ll respond to their answer with, “I want you to open open up your local telephone directory and turn to the yellow pages listing with the heading ‘Loyal Entrepreneur’.” They are momentarily stumped, as, of course, no such listing exists in any phone directory I’ve ever seen.

Then we begin to work on the process of finding ideal clients in their target market by determining the demographic, industry, income, position, etc. I know without a doubt that the more specific they can be in their description, the easier their marketing becomes. So, I encourage my clients to identify as many specific characteristics as possible so that they can actually reach out and “touch” their ideal client — they know where the clients hang out on- and off-line, what they read, what groups they belong to, what they do for fun, etc. The point of the exercise is for these business owners to determine where they can obtain names and contact info or lists of people who are real, living, breathing, members of their target market that they can call, email, invite to a meeting, or send a mailing.

Once my clients have gathered this very specific info on their target market, the next move is to articulate the top 5 challenges of this group. Since my clients continue to tell me that they have “marketing” problems, I have more specifically defined “marketing” into these specific challenges:

1. determining what business you’re really in (i.e. you’re not selling career coaching but instead are selling a proven system to help someone land a dream job)

2. defining and refining your target market with very specific descriptors

3. determining how to find the members of your target market

4. understanding your ping vs. your pie (the benefits of working with you as opposed to the features of the services you offer and what makes you unique and different enough that they should work with you instead of someone else)

5. determining how to creatively and inexpensively promote your business online to your target market

Does this sound like anyone that you know?

Take some quiet time and determine the top 5 challenges for your target market. If you don’t know what these challenges are, ask members of your target market. Once you’ve articulated these challenges, focus your marketing efforts around these issues. You can address them in your web site, your elevator speech, your business card, the articles that you write, the talks that you give, the flyers and brochures you design, and in the conversations you have with prospective clients. Your target market needs to know you feel their pain and you’ve got the remedy that will help make that pain disappear.

So, now I’ve revealed to you the true secret of online marketing. Are you ready to harness the power of that secret and take your business to the next level?
________________________________________
Internet Marketing Automation Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals create prosperous online businesses that make more profit in less time. Would you like to learn the specific Internet marketing strategies that get results? Discover how to increase your visibility and get found online by claiming your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, at ==> http://www.TurbochargeYourOnlineMarketing.com

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Marketing Tips: The Internet Marketing Secret That Stops Small Business Owners in Their Tracks

Share and Enjoy:

Categories : Marketing

Comments (0)

Feb

The Road To Online Marketing Success Requires Commitment

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (0)

commitment Unsuccessful online marketers are notorious opportunity seekers - giving an opportunity only a couple of weeks to start showing results, before changing directions to chase the next flavor of the week. It almost seems that the majority of online marketers are chasing get-rich-quick schemes, rather than trying to develop a legitimate business.

Sometimes it seems like the majority of online marketers change the program that they are promoting, almost as often as they are putting gasoline into their car. “Okay honey… I filled up the car today… it is time for us to find another business opportunity to promote…”

There is also another group of online marketers, who seem to make a real commitment to a specific business opportunity, but success continues to elude this group is well. The second group fails to make a commitment to a particular marketing plan that is designed to help them to achieve success. Like the first group, they change directions, as often as they put gasoline into the car.

Those who are successful online, are the kind of people who make a solid commitment to a particular business model and make a long-term commitment to a realistic marketing plan.

I am not telling you these things because I think I’m better than you… In fact, I am telling you these things because I am guilty of having done the exact same things myself.

Towards the end of 2001, I finally started making serious money online, after having spun my wheels online for more than four years, chasing one opportunity after another, until I made a commitment to a particular business model.

I managed to increase my income year-over-year, and in March of 2005, I quit my job and started working full-time online. I have continued to earn a nice living online, ever since.

My 2009 revenues were down, but primarily because I was working less than normal… In November 2008, I learned that my father was ill… I had my suspicions right away, but we did not have verification of cancer until February 2009. (Contrary to popular belief, he was a non-smoker.)

As 2008 wound down, I made a commitment to my father that if he needed any assistance whatsoever, that I would make myself available to help him. That meant, if he needed transportation to and from doctors’ appointments, I would drive the one-hour to his house, and then take him wherever he needed to go. If he needed me to come to his house to help him with anything whatsoever, I would come to his house to help him.

I made the commitment to him, and I honored that commitment to him.

My online business suffered considerably, as a result of my making that decision. But, I have no regrets… It was the right thing to do, and I am grateful that I did it.

My dad passed away in November of 2009.

I continued to miss work, through November and December of 2009, while doing those things that must be done in relation to matters of his funeral and his estate.

Just a couple weeks ago, I sat down and calculated exactly how much time I actually spent outside the office in 2009.

Not all of my absenteeism, during 2009, could be attributed directly to the time I spent assisting my father during his illness. In March of 2009, I had missed two weeks when we moved across town. My websites had also suffered a 16-day shut down in May, because I was unable to update the DNS records for my domains, when my web hosting company migrated my account to a new server. When I went to do the DNS updates, I discovered that ICAAN was in the process of shutting down my domain registrar and moving my domain registration information to a new domain registrar. Unfortunately, during a move of that type, updates cannot be made to the DNS records. So, my websites were offline until ICAAN finished its work.

All told, I missed two weeks while moving, two weeks while waiting for ICAAN to get everything moved so that I could update my DNS records, and another 12 to 14 weeks while assisting my father and taking care of the things that I needed to take care of after he passed away.

During the course of the last eight years, there has only been one year in which I was not fully committed to my business. That year was 2009. I did not walk away from my business, but I had made the decision that taking care of my family was more important than my business.

While my business, my reputation, and my income suffered tremendously in 2009, due to my frequent absences and slow responses, the commitment that I had shown my customers in previous years helped my business survive 2009 intact.

Now that I have returned to my business full-time, my revenue is starting to bounce back.

The past nine years has been a wild and exciting ride. The thrill of growing a business from nothing to something worthwhile has been an awesome experience for me.

But to the point of this article, this story would have been very different if I had not committed to a specific business model in 2001, and it would have been very different if I had not committed to a specific marketing plan for the promotion of that business.

If I had not made the commitment to develop a viable business model and commit to a specific marketing plan, I would have probably still been working 60 hours per week on a job when my dad got sick. If I had still been working in the brick-and-mortar world of retail sales, I would not have had the opportunity to help my dad when he most needed my help.

Then again, I would have had a different job than I had previously, because my last employer went out of business in January 2009.

With all that has happened in the last 16 months, I count among my greatest blessings the care and concern that was shown to me by my clients. Sure, some of the new people had absolutely no patience for my absences… But, I received a large number of personal phone calls, snail-mail letters, e-mails, blog comments, and tweets from my clients and people that I know from online, who wanted to offer their support to me, during my emotional roller coaster ride.

My greatest blessings have been realized in 2009 and 2010. I am blessed by the wonderful people, whom I have met online through my online business. And I am blessed to have a business that was strong enough to survive my frequent absences, during the last 16 months.

Those blessings were available to me, because I made a commitment in 2001 to stop chasing new opportunities every couple of weeks. I made the commitment to a business model that I believed could be successful, and I made the commitment to promote that business in a consistent and reliable manner.

When I brought commitment to my online marketing endeavors, I finally started to make money online. As I maintained that commitment over several years, I was able to grow my business to the point where I would be able to consistently earn enough money from my business, so that I would never have to have an outside job again.

To be honest, I believe that the reason my business continued to attract new customers through 2009 was because I had used article marketing to promote my businesses. The articles I write and distribute, for the promotion of my online businesses, seem to have real staying power.

The articles that I wrote and distributed, over the last nine years, continue to influence readers to visit my websites and to learn more about my businesses and what I can do for the reader.

Between September 2008 and January of 2010, I only wrote and distributed four articles for the promotion of my websites. During those 16 months, I barely wrote and distributed one article every four months, yet the traffic to my website was only diminished during May of 2009, when my sites were off-line.

I honestly believe that the reason my websites continued to attract new visitors and new customers, during this period of time, is because I had more than 150 articles online, posted on thousands of websites, doing the hard work of convincing people that they needed to visit my websites to see how I could help them to accomplish their goals.

When your articles are as useful five years from now as they are today, your articles will have the same potential of continuing to send visitors to your website for many more years to come.

If you are seeking true success online, and you are still chasing the flavor of the week in business opportunities, I strongly recommend that you pick out something that seems to have real potential for you and to make a commitment to see it through to success.

If you would like to learn more about how to make article marketing work for you in the same positive manner that it has worked for me, pick up one or both of my article marketing ebooks shown below in my author information.
________________________________________
I encourage you to download my free ebook, “Article Marketing: Beyond The Basics” ebook at: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/advanced-article-marketing.html If you find my free ebook useful, and most people do, I would encourage you to purchase the more advanced ebook, “How To Use Article Marketing To Positively Impact Your SEO Efforts”. It is 70-pages of hard-hitting information about how to make your article marketing truly profitable: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-seo.html. My name is Bill Platt, and I have been earning a nice living from article marketing for more than a decade. In my ebooks, I try to share with you the lessons that I have learned about how to get the most from your article marketing.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The Road To Online Marketing Success Requires Commitment

Share and Enjoy:

Categories : Operating A Home Business

Comments (0)

Feb

Business Planning Tips for New Internet Businesses

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (1)

Business planning for a new online business can be tricky. Often, the businesses struggle along, unsuccessfully, for a period of time–so it’s important in the beginning to keep the operation lean.

However, while Internet businesses often start off slow, they can (thankfully) explode with revenues and profits, which means that suddenly the web-based entrepreneur has all sorts of good problems and puzzles to solve.

And of course, there’s also a dark side to web-based businesses that produce windfall profits. Just as they can quickly ramp-up in revenue, cash flows and profitability, they can just as easily implode.

The unique financial characteristics of Internet business, therefore, suggest several business planning gambits:

Internet Business Planning Tip #1: Use a Limited Liability Company

Often in online businesses, you want to protect yourself as much as possible from unnecessary legal risks. The Internet, of course, can be a dangerous place to do business. Not everyone with whom you transact business is someone you’d feel comfortable taking home to meet the family.

Operating as a regular, traditional corporation represents one simple way to reduce your legal liability. However, a corporation automatically requires fairly complex accounting (including the requirement to do formal payroll.) Furthermore, a corporation means you’ll be doing separate federal and state corporate income tax returns, which are expensive and complicated.

As an alternative to a corporation, therefore, consider using a limited liability company. A limited liability company should provide your online business with the same legal protection as a corporation. But a limited liability company, if it’s owned by a single person, won’t require a separate corporate income tax return. Instead the LLC’s income and deductions will get reported on the owner’s regular tax return.

In summary, using an LLC rather than a corporation means you keep things nice and cheap in the beginning–when cash flows may be pretty lean.

Internet Business Planning Tip #2: Elect for Corporate Tax Status If Profits Ramp Up

A quick tip: Tax laws allow you to elect to have your LLC treated as a corporation later on down the road. And you may want to do this if your online business takes off.

An LLC taxed as an S corporation can save you scads of Social Security and Medicare taxes. And an LLC treated for tax purposes as a C corporation (your other option) can, in some unique situations, save you substantial taxes, too.

Internet Business Planning Tip #3: Setup and Use a Real Accounting System

One big advantage of an Internet business is this: Typically the accounting is pretty easy.

Accounting for an online business is easy, by the way, for a couple of reasons: First, someone else (like PayPal or the affiliated company you’re marketing for) often does much of the accounting work for you, collecting and processing the individual transactions.

A second reason that accounting for an online business is easy is this: Typically your financial data is available at someone else’s website (perhaps even your bank) for down-loading directly into your accounting system.

Because accounting for an Internet business is or should be easy, therefore, you really ought to go to the very modest effort of getting something like QuickBooks up and running to do your bookkeeping. (Probably, you won’t even have to enter much of the data yourself… some website will do the lion’s share of the work.)

With a good set of books, you’ll be able to better manage your business. And with a good set of books, you’ll definitely save on your taxes by capturing more of your legitimate business deductions.

Internet Business Planning Tip #4: Scenario Plan for Windfalls

One final business planning tip should be considered when you’re talking about an online business. And here it is… You should have a plan for what to do if you’re lucky enough to enjoy a big financial windfall. In other words, you ought to think ahead about how you’ll deal with any large financial windfall that your online business produces.

A really good way to deal with a portion of any windfall, by the way, is to sock away a bunch of money into a pension plan. In other words, if you find yourself with a $100,000 or a $1,000,000 surprise, see if there isn’t a way to stash a goodly portion of this amount into a pension.

Any accountant or financial planner can give you specific details on the options available in your situation, but know from the start that you can rather easily store away tens of thousands of dollars a year into pension options like SEP-IRAs, Simple-IRAs, 401(k) plans and even a few other options as well. (If you’re married and you can get your spouse on the payroll, you can stash away as much as $100,000 a year, tax free, with little headache or hassle.)

Here’s the rationale for this suggestion: The one common feature of Internet business success is that the success typically isn’t very long-lived. And you’ll never be sorry if you salt away a bunch of money from your blow-out years in the online business.
________________________________________
Seattle tax accountant and writer Stephen L. Nelson edits a business plan templates web site and an online business web site, Nelson holds an MBA in finance from the University of Washington and an MS in taxation from Golden Gate University.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Business Planning Tips for New Internet Businesses
<:))))><<

Share and Enjoy:

Categories : Starting A Home Business

Comments (1)

Feb

The Lifeblood of the Internet

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (0)

If you’ve been involved in marketing of any kind over the last two decades, I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “content is King.” Marketers, successful marketers, live by that mantra. When I look at the Internet what I really see are two things. There is the content and then there are the applications that allow you to interact with the content.

To completely over-simplify things, the applications are what make it possible for us to create, share, and use the content we find on the Internet. So to say content is King, you’d have to also say that the applications are Queen in order to have a more complete view of the Internet. There are all kinds of applications from the browsers that make surfing the Internet possible to all sorts of applications that manage and deliver the content.

Think about it. Without the application we know as Google, how would you find the content you’re looking for on the Internet? I’ve been there and I remember finding things online was next to impossible, but that was back in 1987. Then we have Adobe TM Flash that allows us to see and hear sounds and images over the Internet.

There are all sorts of content management systems available to us today that simply didn’t exist a few years back. As it becomes easier and easier to manage and digest, the demand for new content grows and grows.

Marketers who create quality content often find they are able to generate large amounts of traffic, they usually have large mailing lists, and it almost goes without saying that they usually have healthy bank accounts.

It all starts with the content. The more you create, share, distribute, the better off you’ll be in building a profitable business on the web. If you want the real secret to Internet success, this is it.

Content comes in many forms, and it’s best to use as many forms as possible on your web site because there are now so many ways to access and use content and not everybody wants it the same way. Some people love to read, others prefer to listen, some prefer to sit back and watch a video.

As you develop your content, think about creating not just written articles, white papers, and special reports. Be sure to add streaming audio, podcasts, videos, screen-captures, and even animations to your mix.

Sometimes it’s best to offer the same content in different formats. For instance, you might offer an article as both a regular web page and a downloadable .PDF file. You might offer a video and also offer just the audio track from that same video.

Now how do you get from creating content to building a successful business?

Think about why most people use the Internet. They get online and check e-mail. They log into their social networks to keep up with their friends. They search for information to help them answer a question. They look for things to buy. They come to play games and meet people. All of these activities revolve around finding and using content.

When you’ve got content on your web site and you make it easy for people to find, you increase the traffic to your web site, naturally.

The more content you have, the more people will be stopping by your web site. Truly the days of the single-page sales letter web sites are done. You’ve got to do more than make a compelling sales pitch, you’ve got to demonstrate that you’re the leader in your market. You’ve got to show people why they need what you have and how it will truly make their lives better. And most of all, you’ve got to let them sample your stuff before they buy.

Let’s look at it from the customer’s perspective. Your customer wants the best of what’s available but how can they figure out what’s best from a sales letter alone? They need more information that’s not in the form of a sales pitch. They need to feel like they can try it on, test it out, and they can do that when you offer them plenty of content on your web site.

So if you’re selling a product that is best demonstrated in a video, be sure you have a number of videos on your web site showing customers using and loving your product. If you sell consulting, demonstrate your knowledge of your topic with articles, reports, white papers, audio presentations, and even videos of you speaking to an audience.

As you plan your content, also keep in mind how you’re going to present it on your web site so that it’s in the formats people can really use, that it’s easy to find, and that it’s readily accessible from different Internet devices, including smart phones.

If you’ll take to time to do this, what you’ll soon realize is that your sales letters will perform better, people will not need as much strong-arm salesmanship before they buy, your mailing list will grow, and your web site will show up in more places on the Internet.

It’s no surprise that web sites that offer a lot of content lead the field when it comes to sales. Take a look at your web site today and think about how a new visitor would really get to sample what it is you do without having to buy what you’re selling.

How good is your web site at attracting new visitors with little or no direct effort on your part? Do you have enough easily accessible content on your web site to keep people coming back for more?

Most web sites, including my own, can always use more great content. Adding content is the best and most profitable use of your marketing dollars because the return on your investment continues for years.

For instance, in 1991 I wrote my very first article on marketing. It was published in a national business magazine a few months later and it continues to appear on the Internet almost 20 years later. In that time, this one article has been read more than a million times, and has generated countless sales for my business. What other kind of marketing can do that?

In my opinion, no other marketing piece can do what adding fresh content to your web site can. Ideally, you’ll be adding new content regularly, and expiring content that is no longer relevant. When you do, you’ll have the most profitable marketing strategy working for you all day, every day for years to come.
________________________________________
Robert Imbriale is the author of the best-selling book, Motivational Marketing (Wiley, 2007). He has personally coached thousands of business owners since he began coaching in 1995. He is a leader in the marketing industry and regularly appears on radio and television. To get your free copy of Why People Buy go to www.UltimateWealth.com/money.htm

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The Lifeblood of the Internet
<:))))><<

Share and Enjoy:

Categories : Marketing

Comments (0)

Jan

One Key To Success

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (0)

fear-of-falling Many people have tried to succeed in the business world and indeed in terms of the successes or failures of different people, there are three general categories that can be used. Firstly, there are the people that are failures; people that really have no success and after a period of denial are eventually forced to give up on their business and go do something else. Then, there are the people that are successful; they are able to parlay their business into something that earns them a nice five figure income that they are satisfied with and can live on. And finally, there are the people that are enormously successful; these are the people you hear about all the time that become millionaires and are able to live a life that is the stuff of dreams because of the money that they have.

The question that most people will ask themselves with regards to this scenario has to do with the difference. Depending on the specific case, most people can figure out the difference between the first group and the latter two groups; it usually has to do with a lack of motivation, a lack of perseverance or the inability to deal with failure and just move onto something else. However, the difference between the second and third group is harder to figure out; after all, for the most part those two people start off the same and a lot of their business development is the same getting to the point of a five figure income. What, then, becomes the difference later on?

Well, in the majority of these comparisons, the difference has to do with a lack of diversification on the part of a person that has the five figure income. If a person builds a business that makes them $75,000 a year, then they might realistically have no problems whatsoever with that income. This is because the person might have all their needs met in a nice way and not really want to try and increase their income.

However, the person that goes on to eventually become a millionaire is not going to be satisfied with that amount. They will take as much money as they can spare and instead of spending it on a lifestyle enjoyed by a person with a $75,000 income, they will re-invest it. Either into another business or back into expanding the one they already have. This kind of person is not interested in living the lifestyle of a $75,000 income person; they want to make more money and have no problems living in less luxury now if it means they can live in more luxury later. A person like this has an income figure in their head from the start and keeps on working at it until they are making that income figure; usually through diversification.

<:))))><<

Share and Enjoy:

Categories : Operating A Home Business

Comments (0)

Jan

Business Planning: Your 17-Point New Year’s Business Inventory and Cleanup

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (0)

A new year always brings New Year’s resolutions, as well as the urge to purge things from your life and business and begin anew. I caught the decluttering bug between Christmas and New Year’s Day this year and removed from my office many boxes of physical materials that had served me well once upon a time but I had now “outgrown.”

The physical act of removing clutter from my workspace left me free to focus on what remained. Much of what’s left is not physical, however. Like me, many online business owners have more electronic items in their business than physical ones. This is the point where many independent service professionals get stuck — trying to organize and take inventory of all those electronic assets and determine how to best utilize them in the coming year.

How can you track these electronic pieces of your business? By taking an inventory. You can take this inventory on paper, on a white board, on your computer, or wherever works for you.

Here are 17 points to include in your online business inventory:

1. Target Market. Describe the market(s) you serve and how you serve it/them. This will help you streamline other assets you find in your business to help you evaluate whether certain projects are right for your business.

2. Domains and hosting. Track down all the domains you own and where they are registered and where they are hosted. Note which domains are attached to web sites or are in use some way (even those that are forwarded to other sites). Which ones are not being used at all? What fees are you paying annually to renew these domains and hosting accounts?

3. Web sites. List all the web sites that you are currently using, including where they are hosted, the username and password to access the hosting control panel, FTP information, and emails associated with the site. Note how much traffic each web site has received over the past few months and estimate how much revenue the site is producing. Then, make a second list of all the web sites you own that are currently under development or are currently working on.

4. Blogs. List all the blogs you use, separating those that are inactive from the ones that are active. Note where they are hosted or the service hosting them, the username and password to access the hosting control panel, and login information. Note how much traffic each blog has received over the past few months, the number of subscribers you have to the blog, and estimate how much revenue the blog is producing, if you can.

5. Email marketing. List every mailing list, including your newsletters, autoresponders, customer lists, affiliate lists, prospect lists, etc. Note the purpose of the list, number of subscribers for each, and estimate how much revenue that list is producing.

6. Products. If you sell information products, make a note of both those that have been completed and are for sale and those in development. Also note any products that you give away for bonuses or give away on your site. If you sell physical products for which you keep an inventory, write them all down. Record how many you’ve sold of each product in the past year.

7. Paid Memberships. Inventory all the paid memberships you have in paid forums, PLR sites, professional associations, membership sites, and other memberships you pay for that are directly related to your business, along with their URLs, usernames and passwords. Take note of how much you pay for this membership and how often and how you use it.

8. Free Memberships. Note all the free memberships you have in various groups, forums, social networks, etc. Outline why these memberships are valuable to you and how much time you spend on each of them on a daily/weekly basis.

9. Software. Record all the software you have on your computer that is related to your business, including license/registration info, purchase price, and date purchased. Make a note of how frequently you use this software.

10. Outsourcing Team. Write down who works with you, what they do, how much you pay them per hour or per job, and their average monthly payment.

11. Affiliate links. Regularly recommending products and services for which you are an affiliate is a great way to add another stream of income in your business. Make a list of the products and services for which you are an affiliate, including your affiliate URL, affiliate account URL and username and password, and how much you have made in sales from each affiliate relationship.

12. Master password list. Incorporate all the passwords you have collected thus far into a master list, along with others you use regularly.

13. Speaking topics. Note the title, description, learning points, and interview questions of talks that you give regularly both face-to-face or virtually as a presentation or an interview.

14. Articles. Note the titles of all of the articles you have authored, along with a summary description of each. If you use an article distribution service, you may find your article index there. Move all of your articles under one folder on your computer so that you can easily access them in the future.

15. Recordings. Note the titles of all of the audio and video recordings you have made, including those where you were someone else’s guest, along with a summary description of each. Write down how the recordings are being used — for sale as an info product, as a bonus for one of your products or someone else’s product, or as a free giveaway.

16. Services. Note the nature of all services you currently provide, and those you plan to offer in the coming year, as well as your current pricing plans, future pricing plans, and how much money you made from each service in the past year.

17. Clean it up. Now it’s time for serious evaluation and to make some difficult choices. Remember, these will be some of the most important business decisions you’ll make to help you refocus for a highly productive and profitable business. There are just two rules to follow here: — If it doesn’t fit in with your chosen target market and business plan – GET RID OF IT! — If you still decide to hang on to it anyway, but it weighs on you in any way – GET RID OF IT!

This business inventory and cleanup may take a week or more, but once it’s completed, you’ll have a visual accounting of all of your business assets, which will help you plan for a profitable year in your business.
________________________________________
Internet Marketing Automation Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals create prosperous online businesses that make more profit in less time. Would you like to create a business inventory for your business? Discover how to set up your business to run without you at http://www.OnlineBusinessDashboard.com/
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Business Planning: Your 17-Point New Year’s Business Inventory and Cleanup
<:))))><<

Share and Enjoy:

Categories : Operating A Home Business

Comments (0)

Jan

Reasons to Work from Home Online 4

Posted by: Jon Clayton | Comments (0)

Table of contents for Reasons To Work From Home Online

drivig-mw-uts 9. It might grow into a big business

Most websites start as a hobby. If your idea is good and you put enough work on it, however, it might grow into a big business. Just consider blogs like Tech Crunch. It started as a one-man show, and today it employs several writers, editors, and it generates millions in revenues every year.

And you don’t need to go to the very top to see this pattern. There are hundreds of web design, affiliate marketing and consulting firms that were started as a hobby and turned into profitable businesses over time.

10. Your work will go into something you own

We believe there are no shortcuts to success. Whether you work for a corporation or have your own small business, if you want to succeed you’ll need to work your butt off.

The difference of the two scenarios above is quite a big one, however. On the first one you’ll be putting your heart and soul on someone else’s business. Sure you might get a good salary in exchange for that, but the fact that someone else owns the whole thing and will collect most of the profits remains unchanged.

If you have your own online business, on the other hand, all your sweat will go into something that you actually own. If you hit a home run, you’ll collect all the profits, and you can also decide to sell the whole business down the road.

Conclusion

Now don’t get the wrong idea. Working from home online is not a panacea. It is work. It is hard work. It has drawbacks too, and it is not the right lifestyle for everyone (i.e., there are people who hate sitting in front of the computer for hours in a row). If you believe that the pros would out-weight the cons for you, however, give it a shot. You can start working on your websites without quitting your day job, and after six months or so you’ll be in a better position to decide if that is something you would like to do full time.