Recession-Proof Your Business With Online Marketing Part Four by Bob Regnerus
March 10th, 2009
Filed in: Online Marketing
This is the fourth article in the series by “leads king” Bob Regnerus. To read part three of the series go to http://tinyurl.com/ajzrag.
Part Four: You Can Afford To Do It, And You Can’t Afford Not To
Hopefully, in the first three articles in this series, I’ve convinced you that Internet marketing is the right thing to do in the current slow economy and in the faster, very different, economy which is to follow. Here, in the concluding article, I’m going to tell you how to get started in online marketing even if you don’t have much money to spend.
Before I do, let’s review some of the reasons online marketing is such a good idea:
Online marketing is measurable: You know exactly how much you’re spending for each person your advertisement attracts.
Online marketing lets you track your results: You can analyze your website visitors’ behavior and determine whether you’re attracting the right people.
Online marketing lets you provide more information: Your customers want to know as much as possible before they spend their money, and the Internet lets you provide the right information the right way.
Online marketing lets you collect information: By using a lead-generating website, you can find out who’s visiting your site and what they want from you.
Online marketing lets you test everything: Unlike other advertising media, the Internet allows you to test multiple campaigns simultaneously with no additional cost.
Traditional media are dying out: The Internet is growing in importance as television, radio, and print advertising lose their relevance.
Online marketing allows for cheap, easy, two-way communication: To have a dialogue with your customers, you either have to use the Internet or pay people to have your conversations for you.
Email is the ultimate marketing tool: It’s easy, effective, personal, and invisible to your competitors.
With those advantages in mind, let’s talk about some of the obstacles you may think stand between you and an effective online marketing campaign.
If you’re like most people, your first concern is money. Besides that, you may be concerned about technological requirements and a large commitment of time. Those are all understandable concerns, but the good news is that none of those obstacles really exist. Any business owner can start marketing on the Internet with a minimal investment.
There Are No Barriers to Entry
Before we talk about money or time, it’s worth pointing out that there are no barriers to entry on the Internet. No other medium can make that claim. No matter where else you want to advertise, you have to jump through hoops, deal with brokers and middlemen, and conform to someone else’s standards. When you use the Internet, you can do what you want, when you want.
That’s not to say the Internet is a free-for-all. There are rules you have to follow if you use a pay-per-click service like Google AdWords, and there are common-sense rules that you’ll want to follow even if no one forces you. But no one is going to tell you that you can’t advertise on the Internet because you don’t have a large enough budget, or because you aren’t selling the right sort of product or service.
In my opinion, every business needs a website and an online sales funnel, and it’s a fact that every business can have one. All you need is a little time and a little know-how. Money doesn’t have to be an issue at all, because…
Many Forms of Online Marketing are Free
Don’t have any spare cash to spend on pay-per-click advertising right now? Don’t worry. You can still launch an effective marketing campaign without spending any hard dollars. What you will need to spend is time.
In Chapter 10 of my book Big Ticket eCommerce, I discuss the strategy for generating website traffic and sales through Internet referrals. An Internet referral is just what it sounds like, and it works the same way as an old-fashioned word-of-mouth referral. If you convince a person that you’re worth talking to, that person will tell other people about you. On the Internet, you need to convince websites and the people who run them that your site is worth visiting. When you do that, those websites will send other visitors your way.
There are lots of places to look for Internet referrals, and there are things you can do to increase your chances of getting them—in my book, I describe four of the best. In general, your goal should be to get referrals from “authority” websites that large numbers of people look to for information. By putting useful information on your website and contributing to other websites, you’ll start build a name for yourself and attract attention from search engines, larger websites, and your potential customers.
Earning Internet referrals isn’t a quick process, but it’s a good way to supplement a pay-per-click campaign, and it’s a great way to get started in online marketing if you can’t afford to pay for advertising.
Online Marketing is Flexible and Scalable.
Another great thing about online marketing is that you can change what you’re doing at any time. With other media, you’re often locked in to a contract, or at the very least you’re forced to pay up front for a pre-determined amount of advertising. On the Internet, you can change your budget every day, and you can add or remove elements as you see fit.
“Vertical scalability” and “horizontal scalability” are terms used by tech geeks like me to describe computer systems, but they also apply to marketing campaigns.
When a system (or campaign) is vertically scalable, you can increase its performance by adding resources to a single element. In the computer world, that might mean adding more memory to a machine. In the marketing world, it might mean spending more money with Google AdWords. You have that option because AdWords (and other services like it) let you change your budget in real time. If you find out at 2:15 that you have a cash-flow problem, you can turn off your pay-per-click campaign at 2:16. With pay-per-click, you only pay for visitors you’ve already received, so you’re never behind in the game. If you want to learn more about pay-per-click advertising, check out Chapter 8 of Big Ticket eCommerce.
Horizontal scalability, in the computer world, means that you can share a job between multiple computers. In the Internet marketing world, it means that you can market your business on different websites in different ways, depending on your available time and money. You can mix and match pay-per-click and referral-based marketing until you’ve found the right solution for your business.
The Glutton at the Picnic
A friend of mine, Ryan Pitz of NewCallSolutions.com, recently used an analogy which really sums up the advantages you can gain through online marketing in today’s economy: “Advertising right now is like being a glutton at a rainy picnic.” There’s more advertising space available, it’s cheaper than ever before, and there are even more people on the Internet looking at the ads. Those people may not be as quick to buy as they were in the past, but they will eventually buy something. If you’ve connected with them as sales prospects or sales leads, you’ll be the one they go to when it’s time to spend their money.
It may not be easy to start or maintain an Internet marketing campaign right now, but you can do it, and you’ll reap tremendous rewards from it. Everyone else at the picnic is hiding from the rain. If you can stand a little discomfort, everything you’ve ever wanted is out on the table, and it’s all for you.
Bob Regnerus is the creator of the Big Ticket eCommerce System™, a four-step process that helps businesses with complex or high-priced products and services maximize their sales using the internet. Utilizing the proven methods of this system, he has created thousands of websites, attracted more than 35 million website visitors and generated 2.2 million leads for clients in more than 30 industries. To get a FREE copy of Big Ticket eCommerce sent to you by mail, visit http://www.FreeBigTicket.com right now.
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