Harnessing The Power Of The Internet

As an offline business owner, you know all too well, the necessity of advertising and marketing for success in business.  Without them, you will not generate customers or clients.

Without customers or clients, you will not generate revenues.

Traditional forms of marketing have their place.  However, with the economic climate we’re in today, many businesses are out of business because they simply cannot afford the costly yellow page or newspaper ads that only bring scarce, random results.

Even telemarketing and direct mail are costly options with no significant results to boast.

Now that we are well into the “Information Age”, and with the advent of the Internet, more advertising and marketing opportunities are available than ever before.

More and more, when consumers need a product or service, they go online and search on Google or some other search engine to find what they need or want.

In the Anchorage area for instance, 11,000 new people are going online everyday, looking for the products and services that are being sold.

All local business owners need to do is get in front of them.

Wouldn’t it make sense then, in addition to what you are already doing, to have a web presence that is easily found in the search engines?  Not only would you draw more local business to you,  but you would capitalize on a worldwide market, selling your products and services from your website to anyone in the world.

Surprisingly, very few business owners are tapping in to the vast reservoir of effective,  inexpensive marketing opportunities the Internet provides.

Nowadays, if you have a business but no website, you are way behind your competitors.

More importantly, if you have a business and a website, but your website is not working for you properly, you are worse than behind your competitors, you are losing money.

It is better to be in business with no website, than to have a website that is ineffective because it becomes an income drain, not the profitable marketing tool it should be.  Your website should, not just pay for itself, but generate revenues that you otherwise would not have received.

However, your website does not accomplish this by itself.  Just putting up a website is not enough.  You need an online marketing plan that gets you in front of thousands of potential customers.  

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Weather you are strictly an online marketer or an offline business owner trying to establish a web presence, Internet marketing can be an exciting, lucrative endeavor, or an agonizing income drain.

Back in 2001, I caught the Internet marketing bug.

I knew there had to be a way to make money with my computer.  I was a stay-at-home mom with five young children and I wanted to create a passive, residual income for my family.

For me, it all began with EBay.  I bought an audio product and began to follow the steps to making money.  Soon after, I took the plunge and bought the more expensive coaching program.  I learned about identifying my niche, finding good keywords, merchant accounts, drop shippers, and the like.

I didn’t made any money, just maxed out my credit card.

Over the years, I continued my search.  I joined every affiliate program I could find and bought every ebook, ecourse and teleseminar on how to make money online.  I utilized every traffic system/scam there was.  I spent money on pay-per-click, solo ads, traffic exchanges and so on.

Later, I spent more money on yet another coaching program, guaranteed to make me money in twelve weeks.  It never happened.  I began to wonder,

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Why are others successful online but I struggle?”

“Maybe I should just give up.”

I cannot begin to describe the frustration and despair I felt.  It’s difficult to convey the anxiety of knowing deep down in my gut that it is possible to earn a comfortable, even abundant living online but not knowing how.

Through trial, error, credit card debt, and working jobs I could not stand for not enough pay, I accumulated most, if not all of the pieces to success online.  However, something was still missing.

I didn’t know how to put the pieces together.

In 2006, I finally made some money online.  Some time earlier, I had purchased a day trading course that I absolutely love and still utilize today.  Making money as a trader is a learning process but I was able to earn some very nice $700 and $1,000 commissions on the course as an affiliate.

I finally had enough of the pieces together to make something happen.  However, it wasn’t consistent enough to make a difference in my life.

In 2007, I found a book on how to build a list.  In it the author talked about controlling markets, auto responders and building lists of 3,000, 7,000 and 10,000 in a few months.

He explained how “the money is in the list”, and how every subscriber is worth $1

Although he gave valid steps to take to achieve this goal of building a large, responsive list, many of the how-to’s were left out.

I now know that was by design.

So yes, I bought his course.

His program was good, better than all the others in fact, but there was still one thing missing-one major element was left out.

It’s true, the money is in the list, but not just any list.  Using his strategies did put some people on a list for me but the missing ingredient was relationship.

In order for people to buy from you, especially online, they have to know you, like you, and trust you.  The main ingredient in most Internet marketing courses is selling.  When you make the shift from selling to serving, which comes though building relationships, you make money.  People buy from you over and over again.

So how do you end your frustration and start getting results from your Internet marketing?

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In these trying economic times are you wondering if you’ll be able to stay in business?

I remember, back in the late 80’s, my husband and I owned a small limousine business.  I say small because we owned one limousine while many of our competitors owned fleets of four to eight cars.

Throughout the 80’s, limousine services were all the rave.  Business was booming.  We catered to singers, actors, , business tycoons, as well as the local wedding, funeral, prom, and graduation.

Somewhere around 1995 or so, the limousine industry took a nose dive.  Suddenly the market was no longer there.  A trend that was once big, gawdy and flashy, turned low-key and conservative.  Instead of limousines, sedans and suvs became the ground transportation of choice.

Larger limousine companies, struggled to survive on side services such as vehicle detailing and stereo and alarm installation.  We smaller companies, however, eventually had to shut down and find another industry.

Although we both recognized the inevitable, it was difficult for my husband to accept defeat.  We had started this company from the ground up.  It was drenched with our blood, sweat and tears.

I remember days of juggling babies, dishes, laundry and cleaning the limousine while he slept, and nights of answering the phone and booking runs while he drove all night.  That business was who we were and to fail was heartbreaking-but what can you do when a whole market turns against you?

Well these days, there is a lot that can be done to recession-proof a business.

Thanks to the Internet and a myriad of inexpensive marketing strategies, most businesses today can avoid failure in spite of our economic downturn.

So what exactly can you do to recession-proof your business?

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