Endless Graphics Newsletter #29 - How to Make Money on the Web

How to Make Money on the Web

We will be doing a series of Newsletters on this topic, so for a little bit you will be receiving a few more Newsletters than usual!

I would first like to cover some false data we have found that people believe in putting up a website to make money.
Generally held is the opinion that you can just put up a site and people will come running; that their sales will flourish.

The true data is that you must promote and rely on standard traditional promotion that will popularize and drive traffic to your website.

Some traditional ways to promote include:
Surveying your target public
Ads
Brochures
Flyers
Email Campaigns
Web Affiliate Partnerships
Newsletters, web and mailings
Internet marketing technology, basic site design and optimization research and writing

These are all a function of getting to people to arrive to your site to buy your product online. When someone arrives at your site, if you don’t make it easy for them to buy you’ll then have less sales. Conversely, if you do make it easy, you’ll have more sales. That’s the main thing you are trying to do with a website is to make it easier for them to buy.

Advantages to using the internet to make money:
• The web can provide a call to action and a person can buy now.
• You don’t have to have someone manning the phone all day in order to make a sale as people can get their information from the website, and can fully complete all that is needed electronically, which lowers expenses for running a business.
• With the web you are opening the channels so that customers don’t have to interact with a humanoid.
• Money can be made 24 hours a day.

Does the customer feel that your shopping experience is professional and reliable? Without this people will not buy as they do not feel confident. So you need that reliability. You are making a statement: “We have reliable systems, low cost and higher cost”. By having a predictable reliable online shopping experience, they feel that your company is predictable and reliable. They see what they will get, and they then get it.

If you have a poor site, no site or make it hard to navigate or get the information that they want or they cannot complete an online sales transaction, you give a bad first impression and you are not actually “shaking the hand” of your public. It shows you are out of touch with your public. They most likely will not come back, so you are cutting your lines and your sales directly to your public. If they are not buying, this could be why. People these days expect your company to have a professional web presence.

Conversely, if you create a professional, reliable online experience, the wonderful twist is that “the little guys”, then are put on the same footing with the “big buys”; the Walmarts’ and JC Pennies’. The only difference is how the big stores can buy larger quantities and get discounts, but there is a shift from the manufactures. It used to be that only the “big guys” could buy from Manufactures, but now manufactures are more open to selling to smaller companies. And they have to be….

Whole shopping malls are closing, so manufactures selling to mom and pops. Even ever since the .com crash, internet commerce has grown to be a 4 trillion dollar business per year. This means strictly, buyers and commerce back and forth through the web directly. It is predicted that 99.9 % of all shopping all over the world will be done over the internet. Brick and mortar stores will be a thing of the past.

So now smaller companies have a chance to play with the big guys and the web allows them to be on equal footing with them.

Interactivity
You want to have interactivity. You want conversion from that interactivity. If you don’t get it, you can test market and survey to find out why and revise and improve design and the system.

It’s good to give away some sort of a freebee and something that makes it worthwhile for the client to return to your site periodically. People come away feeling like they got something. Samples, shareware, trial ware, click here for a free sample, give your email address for a free sample, free booklet etc.

According to current survey, people will visit your site 7 times before they will buy or interact with a company.

In Summary:
Give info
Make it easy to buy
Make it possible to buy without human interaction
Build a good, easy to use website
Provide enough information for your consumer to make a well-informed decision
Keep your site fresh and newly updated to provide regular interest
Promote your site through any way possible!

One of our Marketing Partners, Beverly Bergman, of BB Marketing Solutions, will tell you in our next Newsletter why one must promote in a “down economy”.

Best,
Taina and Christian