TEN STEPS TO CREATING AND MARKETING YOUR VIRTUAL BUSINESS
 

Written By: Darren Roberts
Copyright © 1998, All Rights Reserved


With so many nichés and other gaps in the market all but
sewn up how does one in the world of cyberspace go about
finding something to market and then to make it work?

1) WRITE THESE THINGS DOWN

Everybody needs a starting point and where better to
start than actually working out what your own talents
and fields of expertise are. We all have something we
can offer, by virtue of past hobbies, jobs, sports and other
aspects of our lives. If you take a writing tablet
and write down all the things that you like doing
as well as those that you don't; coupled with your
experience in the third column you will indeed be able
to establish a starting point as to where you are today.
I want you to brainstorm a bit here. Everything
that sounds remotely pertinent write it down.

In the duration of a half hour period you will develop
a list which should be reflective of who and what you
are. It is more or less impossible to move forward in
creating your own Internet Business when you don't really
know what it is that you in fact can offer.

The point to this is to understand your own assets and use
them to your advantage. Although we are sometimes not aware
of it we have several talents that we under-utilise. The time
is ripe to develop these and turn them into a potential
profit making situation for you.

2) UTILISE YOUR STRENGTHS

Your strengths are those which you have either experience
in and/or indeed enjoy doing very much. If you have in the past
been working in a job that you don't like then for heavens
sake don't make the same mistake again! Although you may
have experience here it is indeed far better to take your
experience and apply it into something else that you will
enjoy substantially more as opposed to "The Devil You Know".

Maybe you've been playing around with a paintbrush or a
camera on and off over the years. Up until now it has only
been a hobby. Well, for starters we only ever start hobbies
because we enjoy them. Maybe you could use the Internet as
a medium to further your exploits in this field!

On the same token it is important that you develop your
weaknesses rather than accepting them simply as a
weakness that you can do nothing about. If you have
always been a good photographer but developing your
photos has always let you down, confront the problem and
develop it accordingly so it will indeed assist you
in the future. In this example maybe you could go to
the local photo lab and ask to sit in when they develop
their next set of prints.

3) MAKE A PLAN

Developing a business online is no different in the
sense that it needs to be well structured in order to
develop, survive and naturally, thrive. I have made
available today for readers of this article my précis
entitled, "Ten Brilliant Steps To Attaining Your Own Goals"
which is available by blank email to:
mailto:sendgoals@topliving.com

It outlines the basic steps required to put the "P" into
your "LAN" and we all know how important that is!!!

4) SET UP YOUR BUSINESS FROM THE START

Now that you've got a business direction you want to set
something up online that will be in demand and have a
readily identifiable market.

You will also want to implement procedures to set your
business on to auto-pilot. This means setting everything
up to self-automate your business from the start. This
is imperative as when you strike the right chord you will
want to be marketing and serving your clientele as opposed
to being bogged down with administrative work.

Remember you are here to enjoy your life. Organising your
business from the beginning to self-automate will be one
of your first steps in this pursuit.

5) TAP INTO QUALITY ONLINE MARKETING RESOURCES

Your job will be made so much easier when you have quality
publications such as the ezine you are reading now to
assist you in your pursuits. You have subscribed to this
ezine as you enjoy the quality of information contained
herein.

There are many different types of ezines that will assist
you here such as: online promotions, web design (using
our above example), technical know-how, marketing methods,
associate programs, self-development and an endless array
of other possibilities that will provide you with a wealth
of information. I have set up a web page especially devoted
to brilliant web marketing e-zines. You may access this at:
http://topliving.com/ezine_list.htm

It is a "must do" that you subscribe to quality publications
as you will keep abreast of techniques, methods, ettiquette
etc. Online ezines are the online media; but with a major
difference. The difference is the personalisation that comes
with most quality publications. The publisher is quite often
a one man band probably working from home. This may or may
not be similar to your situation but as a result of this you
will receive an impartial non-bureaucratic perspective on
your topic of interest.

6) GANZ ODER GAR NICHT

This is the german phrase for "All or Nothing". The internet
can present your wares to the world, but will amount to
absolutely nothing if you don't do all you can within your
power to make it work. People will not walk into your shop
and out again as if it was on the street. Your shop (in this
case, web design) will be one of a myriad of others potentially
offering the same service. You will need to give your business
a special kick. It will need a careful combination of your
product knowledge and marketing ability to bring people to your
door.

Maybe with your web design business you could add an abundance
of value to your product by offering a life time guarantee. I can
say from experience that the longer the period of guarantee, the
less likely the chance that people will ask for a refund. If you
were to guarantee your design packages 100% how hard would it be
to make necessary adjustments based on customer feedback for the
entire first year? Not very difficult I would imagine. Add value
to your product and service. People prefer value as opposed to
simply the cheapest option.

Give your business a touch of difference. Make it work. Keep
to your goals and targets. Don't ever give up. Put the throttle
to full. Market well...and reap your rewards.

7) QUALITY CUSTOMER SERVICE

Your clients may never ever meet you, see you or even talk
to you. You will need to provide everything your literature
has promised to deliver. You will get many questions from
people asking you certain things before they commit to buying
your product. It is imperative that you are always there for
your clients.

Your client service enquiries can be somewhat reduced by
providing FAQ's both online and by autoresponder. To take
this even a step further you could in fact arrange it so
that your support email address triggers an autoresponder
giving them answers to questions or where to find answers
to their questions. This will indeed reduce the amount of
personal service you will need to give. In addition to
this your potential clients will be impressed at the speed
you answered their query (although you in fact did not even
lift a finger in this case). To see how I do this simply
send a blank email to: mailto:assistance@topliving.com
and you will see the message they automatically receive
just by sharing their query with me. This method saves me
hours of answering emails each month.

When you go away on holiday; or when questions become
backlogged alter your autoresponder message to indicate
this. If I have to wait 3 or more days for an answer to
an email there is very little chance that I will purchase
from this company. If their customer service is not
sufficiently organised before you purchase, what are the
chances that you'll receive the after sales service you
require??? Not much!!!

When you look after clients the true value is realised
by their continual re-purchasing. Take a long term look
at your clients and choose to win.

8) LOOK AT WHAT YOUR COMPETITION IS DOING

One of the best ways to develop new ideas for your own
business is to take a good hard look at what your
competition is doing. Using our web designer example
it's always good to look at what sort of design they
have, how often they change it, how many options they
offer, payment options and an array of other things that
you can in fact analyse and learn from. I am not saying
that you should copy someone elses work. This can be the
first step to self-destruction if you continually copy
the work of others in order to attract clients. How will
you serve them adequately when you under utilise your
own initiative? Not very well! Use their tools to assist
you in developing your own ideas. Create your niché! Make
your marketing position your own!

It is important to look at how your competition has in
fact developed over time as you will get a general idea
of where they're heading, what they are doing and then
you can react accordingly.

9) ALWAYS BE ALERT FOR NEW IDEAS

Like an offline business, in order to stay in for the
long haul it will be necessary to be on the lookout
for additional marketing possibilities for your own
product. In addition to this you may consider marketing
other products that are in demand. As a compliment to
your web design business you may opt to go one step
further and get into CGI Programming to provide a
personalised tracking service to your clients. This
would be a brilliant complimentary product to what you
are doing as there is an immediate connection between
this and what you are currently doing.

The best point about your new venture here is that you
already have a string of faithful and trustworthy
clients who would be more than happy to let you assist
them at improving their income earning potential.

This is just an example. Another could be if you are a
consultant you could actually get into associate programs
to sell the programs that have assisted you in the past.
Believe me it's a whole lot easier to sell things when
you are a firm believer in what it is you are trying to
sell.

10) THE TIME IS NOW!!!

If you want to get into making your presence on the Net
known, do it now!!! Don't do it later or tomorrow as
procrastination is one of the biggest enemies to mankind.
It slows us down and reduces our creativity. The Net is
a plethora of opportunity and an abundance of potential.
Learn all you can about your field of expertise and please,
for your own sake, put it into practise today.


Think Successfully.

Darren
_______________________________________________

Written By: Darren Roberts
Publisher - "AAvenues 2 Your Success"
Marketing Consultant - Topliving Consultancy
URL: http://topliving.com
Email: mailto:darren@topliving.com

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