Internet Marketing Commerce

Customer loyalty can make all the difference for a business. For instance, Zappos.com did $1 billion in sales in 2008 and 75% of it was from repeat customers. If it weren’t for those repeat customers they would have done $250 million. While this is no way a small amount of revenue it just shows how much of a difference customer loyalty can make.

There are several things you need to find out from your customers to create customer loyalty. The first is to identify what your customers expect and want from you. In order to do this you will need to create an exit survey that gives your customers some type of incentive to fill it out. A good way to go about this is to generate a list of drop down menus with different selections. Each drop down menu asking them what they prefer in that particular section of your website and what they prefer from your business. This will allow you to find out what setup the majority of your customers prefer. The reason you need drop down menus with a list is because you will have too many different answers and it won’t really help you improve your overall experience.

The next thing you want to do is to take each of the things that won majority vote with your customers and start implementing them one at a time. The reason you need to do these one at a time is to see if they are actually working. Chances are if your customers are asking for certain things to improve their experience your future customers want the same. If your conversion rate increases you know that that change to your website is working. Not only is this going to improve customer loyalty but it will improve your conversion rate.

This is just a start to improve customer loyalty but one of the most important steps you can take. Knowing what your customers want and applying it to your business will surely send you on your way to success. Always put your customers first and the business side will follow.

There are several reasons why you need to have audio books for your information products. One major reason is for your traveling business people. We find that a lot of our customers are business people who travel a lot and don’t have time to read, but still want to learn Internet marketing or how to make money online. They spend a lot of time in their car and want to be able to put a CD in or hook up their iPod and just listen. We have also come to find that a lot of people just don’t like to read and would just prefer that someone verbally teach them. The fact is there are many people who prefer audio books and there are many who prefer to read. So if you give your customers both options you end up with more sales and more happy customers.

Audio books done the right way can be expensive but will pay off if you do it right. The first thing you want to do is figure out how well you’re informational product like an eBook, is going to sell. This will be the deciding factor of when it’s time to offer an audio book as an option. Say you have 10 eBooks and 2 of them are making you $100.00 a day (10 sales) while the other 8 are making you $10.00 a week (1 sale). The 2 eBooks with the majority of your sales are the ones you need to create an audio book for first. You have to remember though; just because your other eBooks aren’t doing well doesn’t mean they won’t ever do well. The case is mostly likely that you just need to find the right marketing methods for that particular niche. Once you figure out what works, then it’s time to create an eBook for those also. The reason for this is because audio book recordings done right can be expensive. You want to make sure you’re not going to invest hundreds to thousands into something that’s going to remain tied up for a long time. While you can have an audio book created for an inexpensive price there’s a big possibility it will sacrifice the quality and message of your product. If you don’t have an audio book that’s clear, steady volume, read correctly and enthusiastic, you are might as well wait until you can do it right. It’s always better to do something right in the first place even if it means you have to wait longer. You will achieve better success in the long run and you will be able to give your customers exactly what the majority are looking for.

All in all it’s important to have an audio book for an informational product you sell, but only if it’s done right. Just because you have an audio book doesn’t mean it will improve your business. It’s an audio book that’s done right that will improve your business. It will receive positive reviews, people will tell their friends about you and your customers will come back to purchase more products from you because the first was so good.

Pay per click is without a doubt one of the easiest ways to instantly generate traffic and profit if it’s done correctly. In order to effectively accomplish this you will need to find out the value of your traffic. Once you have figured out the value of your traffic you will know what your budget is for advertising.

The first things you will need to get together if you don’t already is the total number of sales you’ve made, gross revenue, total expenses and unique visitors for a months time. The first thing you need to calculate is the conversion rate of your website. This is how unique visitors it takes to receive an order. To find your conversion rate you take your number of unique visitors divided by your total number of sales. The next thing you need to figure out is your net profit per sale. In order to calculate this you take your gross revenue minus your total expenses divided by your total number of sales. To find out the value of each visitor you take your net profit divided by your conversion rate. This will give you the amount you can afford to pay per click.

Email can be beneficial in many ways to your business but one thing it allows you to do is build a relationship with your customers. A great relationship with your customers is one thing that separates an ok or good business from a great business. Most will start out with good intentions and keeping up with the handful of email you’re receiving. It’s when a website starts to receive hundreds of emails that it becomes overwhelming. While answering these emails is part of your business it doesn’t necessarily help you grow your business. There is one thing you can do to help fix this without hiring someone and it’s called automate. Automation gives you the opportunity to give an instant response, answer common questions without typing, capture your customers email addresses, increase the seriousness of your business and much more. You have to remember that the quicker your response to a customers question the more likely they are to buy. They are most likely asking a question because they are ready to buy. The longer you wait the more of a chance they will find what they’re looking for elsewhere or decide they are no longer interested. With an autoresponder you can set up a list of frequently asked questions and answers. If their question doesn’t apply to any of those give them an option to forward their message to another email address where you will specifically answer their question. This is will surely increase your efficiency while still answering customer inquiries and allow you to keep growing your business. A couple recommended autoresponders are AWeber.com and GetResponse.com. We recommend that you try different services and figure out which one best suits your needs.

There are many different strategies that can be used to increase the amount of opt-ins a website receives. There is one that is not used very often but brings excellent results. That one is showing your visitors a preview of what your newsletter or emails look like. Most of the website actually doing this only show them a portion of an example newsletter or email, but we have found that your opt-ins increase by showing them the whole thing. This gives them a chance to actually see what they are subscribing to before they actually do.

A good way to approach this would be to make a short list of what they should expect from your average email. Even though you allow them to read a preview newsletter some will just want a summary of what to expect. Then under that summary you can provide a link where they can find one of the emails that you’ve sent to your existing list. After doing this along with providing some type of incentive, like a coupon for 10% off your first purchase, you are sure to see your opt-ins increase.

There are many different Internet marketing methods but which ones have the best ROI or return on investment? Some of the most used Internet marketing methods are pay-per-click search, email list, search engine optimization, affiliate marketing, banner ads, contextual text ads and many more. What proves to be the best ROI will depend on your niche but these are the results that we have found. They will most likely be the best methods for your niche but you must always test to see what works.

The number one method for return on investment is search engine optimization. There are many reasons for this being the most effective. While it may take some time to achieve substantial search engine rankings it’s always worth the wait. It’s very inexpensive and the only thing that’s really invested into SEO is time. Once you achieve great results the return is truly amazing. You have to remember you are receiving free traffic! So not only do you not have to control a budget but you get the benefit of thousands to millions of free targeted visitors. The organic search results are also clicked on more than the sponsored search results. It really doesn’t get much better than search engine optimization.

The next best method is marketing to your email list. These are customers who are obviously interested in what you have to offer and some of the most likely people to buy.  Not to mention it’s one of the most cost effective Internet marketing methods. Most likely a majority of your list has already made a purchase from you once. This mean it’s very likely that they will make a purchase from you again. This is one of the most effective ways to market to your existing customers.

Pay-per-click can also have a good ROI if it’s managed correctly. This is something that requires a lot more work and something that needs to be closely monitored. We consider pay-per-click marketing to be the third most effective method of Internet marketing. It’s pretty simple if you could pay $10.00 to make $50.00 wouldn’t you want in? I am pretty sure almost everyone would say yes to that question. This is the exact way that pay-per-click marketing works if it’s done correctly.

Affiliate marketing is sometimes more effective than pay-per-click marketing but it normally depends on the niche. In your normal affiliate program the publisher doesn’t get paid until they make a sale. If you can get enough publishers to make this effective you have a no lose form of marketing. There is not money being spent until the money is made.

Some of the other methods that we use are banner ads and contextual ads. These are some of the least effective forms of marketing. Banner ads are a good way to brand your company but not necessarily something you want to use if you intend on a quick return. Contextual ads are found on publisher websites and you often times have to pay based on the visitors that site receives and it’s very difficult to find publishers that you can make a profit from.

These are some of the best and most used methods of Internet marketing. If you aren’t using them I would suggest that you start testing right away. It may take some time and money to find the right methods for your niche, but once you do it will pay off more than you could have ever imagined.

One thing you need to take note of are your emails that bounce or in other words do not send. Normally, an email bounce occurs because of a busy server. It’s a good idea to take note of the emails that bounced and to test them with another unique email. This way you will know if the server was just busy or if the email address is misspelled or deleted. You want to be careful how you approach this so that you do not accidentally send your list the same email again. This may cause some of your subscribers to report you as spam. By just a few of your subscribers doing this could result in a total annihilation of your list. By this I mean that your emails may start to end up in the spam box and the rest of your subscribers will never see them.

The second thing you need to do is always provide a way for your subscribers to unsubscribe. This may not only get you into trouble with the law but will more than likely get you blacklisted. If someone chooses to unsubscribe from your list it is very important that you do not ignore that request. If you do not you are almost guaranteed to be reported as a spammer.

These are only two things to help keep you off the spam list, but they are two of the most important. This will keep your emails known as “clean” and sure to keep your list growing.

One of the biggest things that makes a great Internet company or just a great company is great customer service. Zappos.com is providing just that and beyond! Of the companies and CEOs out there who really do care about their employees and their customers one of them is definitely Zappos. The CEOs salary is $36,000 a year and some of Zappos call center employees are making more than that. With sales approaching 1 billion dollars and 75% of their customers are repeat customers their approach is far beyond succeeding. The core values of Zappos are: Deliver WOW through customer service, embrace and drive change, create fun and a little weirdness, be adventurous, creative, open-minded, pursue growth and learning, build open and honest relationships with communication, build a positive team and family spirit, do more with less, be passionate, determined and be humble.

This is a company that any Internet marketer should definitely take notes from. The way they do business without a doubt creates a WOW factor. If you run your business even half as well as the way they do you’re sure to succeed.

If you want to be successful with email marketing you need to keep your opt-in list growing. In order to do this you need to effectively implement some simple but important strategies. The number one thing you need to do to gain subscribers is provide an incentive that your traffic can’t resist. For instance give everyone who signs up for your opt-in list a coupon worth 5% off any purchase. Any type of incentive that has great value will do wonders for your list.

There are many different ways you can present your visitors the opportunity to opt-in. One is to have a standard “subscribe to our newsletter” form somewhere visible on your homepage. While this is better than nothing it’s most commonly the least effective. If you’re going to use this method at least make sure that it’s displayed globally on your website, meaning it shows up on every page. While it really all depends on your niche, commonly, the most effective method of building a list is to use what’s known as a hover ad or a pop in form. This is a form that “hovers” into the middle of the screen after 5 seconds or so of being on the website. The reason this is commonly the most effective way to build your list is the fact that it can not be missed. Without doing this a lot of your visitors will not even see the fact that you have a newsletter when if they did would have signed up.

These are just a couple of the strategies you can use to grow your email opt-in list, but some of the most effective. By implementing these to your website you are more than likely going see an instant increase in subscribers.

Email complaints are probably the number one thing that will send your emails to the spam box. If you send emails to frequently like more than once a week many of those on your email list will start to mark your emails as spam. For a lot of people this is way too many emails, even once a week is too many emails for some.

Another thing you’ll want to look at is how up-to-date your email list is. If too many of your emails bounce back your list may be seen by ISPs as outdated or rented. A lot of fake emails could also cause a lot of bounces. A way to help eliminate this is to make sure that all of your subscribers are required to confirm their subscription after they sign up.

It’s also a good idea to try and avoid words like free if you can. This is a word that’s used in a lot of spam emails and if it’s used multiple times in your emails they will most likely be considered spam. You also want to make sure you use as much text as possible and less images. You have to remember spam filter robots can’t see images and may view an all image email as spam due to lack of content.

There are many different things you can do in order to remain away from the spam box, but these are some of the most common. This should keep you on your way and away from the spam box.