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The Internet Marketer's
Mini-Checklist
by Michel Fortin
Throughout my online travels and
particularly in my marketing consulting practice, I encounter many a
entrepreneur who wonder about the reasons why they are not yet successful.
"Mike, why am I not getting as many hits" or "as many sales," they ask.
It's a question of which I am asked all too often, it seems.
I can appreciate their frustration
since I've been there. It took me years to achieve what I'm experiencing
today and a lot of it is the result of pure trial and error. But a lot of
it is also based on simple, common sense. The reality, however, is that so
many people, enticed by the overblown hype and promises of the web, expect
some "get rick quick" solution. I wish there was one.
So I often reply with a checklist,
which I will reprint in this week's editorial. It is far from being a
comprehensive list -there are many more tactics, techniques and strategies
one can implement beyond what the list suggests. Additionally, for many it
might appear as an appropriate roadmap for the newbie webmarketer; some
tend to even scoff at its simplicity.
But surprisingly, its simplicity is
the reason why it is also so easily ignored by the more experienced. I ask
that you take a good, hard look at it. Answer it truthfully and
completely. How many of the tactics suggested did you really implement?
How many have you abandoned after only a few attempts? And how many
tactics do you put into action on a regular basis?
Think about your answers.
Granted, some of these may not apply
to all situations. But generally, I have found that those who complain the
most have not implemented a fraction of these or lack a clear plan of
action through which some of the most profitable among these should be
repeated on a periodic basis. The latter is crucial.
My colleague Jim Daniels of
http://www.bizweb2000.com/ is the master when it comes to
developing and maintaining a rigorous marketing plan. (Jim printed his own
in a recent issue of his very informative BizWeb Gazette as a
template that's worth its weight in gold.) So let me ask you at this
point, isn't it time you too have one ... And stick to it, consistently?
So here is the checklist:
- Are you subscribed to ezines and
websites (like IMC's own at
http://www.successdoctor.com/IMC/) on Internet marketing, and do
you read/visit them on a daily basis?
- Have you implemented most if not some of
the ideas you've learned in them? What were your results? Good? Bad?
Why?
- What ideas worked best for you? What
ideas worked least?
- Do you or did you track your results?
How? Do you review and analyze them on a daily basis? What are they
telling you?
- Do you constantly educate yourself on
your industry and your specific area of expertise? In fact, do people
look upon you as an expert in what you do? Do you *love* what you do?
- Do you follow a daily marketing regimen?
Consistently? If so, what did you do this week? And the week before
that?
- Did you bid on keywords on
http://www.Goto.com/?
Which ones? Did you try other pay-per-rank engines? Did you use their
keyword suggestion tools and looked at different variations?
- Do you have an affiliate program for
your products? If not, have you implemented another form of "viral"
marketing?
- Does your website have tools to help
make it "sticky"? For example, do you maintain a discussion forum? A
site-specific search tool? An archive of informative content?
- Does your business model strive for
quantity or quality? In other words, do you seek bigger profits or
market share? Are you achieving it or do you seem to be achieving the
other?
- What areas of your business need
improvement? An even more important question to ask is what do YOUR
customers think?
- Do you tweak and test your website copy
on a constant basis?
- Do you maintain an opt-in list or
regularly publish an ezine? Do you remain in constant contact with
subscribers? Does your marketing include increasing your subscriber
base?
- Do you continually research your
customers, your product category, your industry and especially your
competition?
- What makes you unique? What's your USP
(i.e., your unique selling proposition)? In other words (and think about
this), what's your single, most marketable, competitive edge?
- Do you communicate that edge in all that
you do?
- Did you submit your site to the major
search engines and niche-specific engines? Do you monitor your rankings?
- Have you written articles and submitted
them to newsletters read specifically by your target market? Do you
periodically write and distribute press releases? How many? To whom?
- Do you market and advertise offline? If
so, where?
- Do you have good, compelling email
signature file? And do you use it with every piece of correspondence you
make?
- Do you participate in newsgroups?
Message boards? Forums? And especially those frequented by your target
market?
- Do you offer one, two or three products?
In other words, how focused are you on your niche or on your perfect
customer?
- In fact, who is your perfect customer?
Do you know your product's demographics (e.g., age, gender, employment,
etc), geographics (e.g., location, country, city, etc) and
psychographics (e.g., interests, culture, lifestyle, etc)?
- And do you have any backend products or
services with which you can upsell your customer base? If not, do you
(or could you) offer products from non-competing strategic alliances?
- Is your ecommerce system a well-oiled
machine? Do you accept credit cards on your site? What other payment
options do you provide? Do you have a customer support number or email?
- Do you package or bundle your products
in order to increase their perceived value? Do you offer alternative
packages (maybe with different price points or additional services)?
- Do you have a top level domain name (yourname.com)?
Does it invoke the core benefit if not at least the nature of your site?
Is it easy to pronounce? Spell? Remember?
- Do you have any strategic marketing
alliances in place?
- In fact, how many alliances do you have
in place? Do you keep in constant contact with them? What about joint
ventures? Cross promotions? Referrals networks?
- Is your site easy to navigate? Read?
Download? Do you provide your visitors with good, fresh, updated
content?
- Most of all, do you give visitors a
reason to come back?
- Have you implemented an automated
referral system on your site (like IMC's
http://www.letemknow.com/) that visitors can use to easily refer
your site to others?
- Do you have testimonials on your site? A
strong guarantee? A bonus offer? A privacy and security policy? An FAQ
page?
- Do you sell advertising on your site? In
your ezine? If so, did you develop a media kit for potential
advertisers?
- Have you advertised online? In which
ezines? On which sites? Do you constantly tweak your ad copy and track
your results?
- Have you participated on online talk
shows? Chat specials?
- Have you expanded your mind in terms of
looking at different places, as many places as possible, in which you
can market your site and where your target market likely congregates?
- In fact, do you try to keep your site,
its address or its offers in front of your target market's eyeballs? How
often?
- Does your site copy invite people to
surf deeper into it? Or is it laced with external links that drive
people out?
- Do you conduct contests? Draws? Surveys?
Does your site capture, with permission, the email addresses of your
visitors, especially on the first page, "above the fold"?
- Do you swap ezine ads with other
publishers? Or in the very least, do you have a reciprocal linking
strategy in place?
As you can see, this list can go on.
But in my experience, just the above could open some eyes. For example,
with my own copywriting service (see
http://SuccessDoctor.com/writing.htm), my clients must fill out a
similar (but more extensive) list of questions before any work commences.
As I found, simply answering it has been quite insightful for many.
Ultimately, you would be surprised
to find out how much it pays to go back to the basics. Regularly.
Consistently.
About the Author
Michel Fortin, of
http://SuccessDoctor.com/,
is a marketing professor and a highly sought-after consultant whose advice
has helped countless clients earn millions in record time. His latest
book, "Power Positioning Dot Com," reveals how to keep your business or
product indelibly carved into your prospects' uppermost consciousness at
all times -see
http://successdoctor.com/pp/. |
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