What good are your products if you don’t have a place where you could sell them, right? Think of the internet as one big marketplace. Naturally, to be able to sell your wares in a venue like this, you will need a store… a digital store. This digital store takes the form of your website.
A website that sells information products does not have to be complicated. In fact, the simpler it is, the better it would be. Designing your website would depend on what products you’re selling, and how many products you’re actually offering.
If you’re just offering one product for sale, you could simply host one page for the same. This page is called a sales page, or a sales copy. A sales page is where you could try to persuade your visitors to purchase your products. This can be done in a variety of ways. Usually, internet marketers hire a copywriter to prepare a sales page for their goods. However, copywriters don’t come cheap. Some of them charge thousands of dollars per sales page. Some even charge a percentage of the sales you’ll be able to generate, as their fee. If the copywriter is good, trust that whatever he will come up with would most certainly result in quite a number of sales, and eventual profit, for your online business.
The question that needs to be asked, really, is if you have the resources to procure the services of one?
Even if you don’t have such allotted resources for such, you could still prepare your own sales copy. Simply keep in mind the following guidelines:
• Your sales page should start with an attention grabbing headline. If you’re selling an eBook about dog grooming for example, you could emphasize on the best benefit that your readers would be able to derive from the same. Here is an illustrative headline: “Finally, An Ebook That Reveals Easy And Comprehensive Steps In Keeping Your Canine Companion Squeaky Clean!” Remember, a headline should be able to grab your visitors’ attention to compel them to read the rest of what you have to say. Always be guided by this rule.
• After your salutations (“Dear Sir/Ma’am;” “Dear Internet Friend;” Dear Valued Customer;” etc.), you should first introduce who you are and what your business is about. This would make your readers know that they are dealing with a credible expert in the field. Also, this would diminish the anonymity that sometimes makes them hesitant to trust you with their hard-earned money.
• Establish the necessity for the product you’re about to offer. Discuss the market and why there is a need for your goods. This can be done by enumerating some problems with the way things are. With our running example of dog grooming, you could create a semblance of necessity for your eBook if you would discuss the rather unpleasant smell that unclean pups would leave in the house, or the fur that comes off their bodies because of their lack of grooming, etc.
• Introduce your product. Include the specifications for the same.
• Enumerate ALL the benefits that could be derived from the use of your product.
• Lastly, create a sense of urgency. Many internet marketers label this as a “call to action.” This is where you would be able to get them off their seats, in a manner of speaking, and punch their credit card details to order your product. This is the most important component of your sales page.
A sales page can easily become the entirety of your website by itself. Simply add a payment button that would lead your would-be customers to the payment processing page. This is dependent on the merchant account you will procure. PayPal, 2checkout, and ClickBank are the most popular payment processors for online businesses.
If you’re offering multiple products for sale, you would need a sales page for each of them. Your landing page (the page that would load up when the visitor would type in your URL) should contain links to each of your product’s sales page.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Ebay Secret of Finding Reliable Drop Shipper
If you have embarked on some online money making venture through the channels made possible by eBay, the virtual world’s most popular marketplace, then you’re sure to be on a constant crusade for some techniques that would help boost the profitability of your trade. Well, I have two words that would help you when it comes to such:
Drop shipping.
Drop shipping involves a contact with a wholesaler, known as a drop shipper. The drop shipper would offer some items for wholesale prices (i.e. big, big discounts). The clincher? There are a couple of them, actually:
1. You’d get to purchase these items at wholesale prices even if you’re going to get them per piece.
2. The drop shipper will take care of shipping the item to the designated location.
Immediately, you will see the potentials for profitability with this setup. You won’t have to buy items for resale. You won’t have to create items for your offers. You just need a relationship with a drop shipper, select from his selection of products, and market the same at eBay. You could place your own markup. And you wouldn’t have to worry about storage space or shipping. Better yet, you wouldn’t be too pressured to make a sale, as your items aren’t technically in stock, rather, they’re with the drop shipper who will be awaiting your word as when to deliver the same to the winning bidder.
Now, here’s what is of the essence. Where could you find drop shippers?
Here’s an important piece of advice: forget about offers that promise to provide a list of drop shippers. More often than not, these lists contain outdated information, dead links and even fabricated entities. This is a fact that has been confirmed by eBay itself.
Here’s another important piece of advice: forget about searching for “drop shipping” or “dropshipping” at Google. The term has been exploited beyond belief that it has almost lost its essence in many content sites.
Here’s a fact that you should know: 80% of manufacturers would be more than happy to do some drop shipping for you. Whereas a couple of years ago, drop shipping was a novel approach to selling items online, nowadays, manufacturers have realized that drop shipping can be an effective evolution of the direct selling model. It’s easier to look for drop shippers today than it was a couple of years ago.
The first thing you have to learn is how to focus. What do you want to sell, exactly? Have you researched the market for it? Is it a profitable market?
The second step should entail researching appropriate products for the market you have chosen. What are available for the same? What, among these choices, do you want to sell?
Subsequent steps would be easy. All that remains to be done is to pinpoint specific manufacturers based from the list you have prepared, and contacting them individually. Ask them if drop shipping is among the services they could offer for willing partners. Chances are, you will get an affirmative reply.
Of course, there are ways to streamline the process. The website http://www.worldwidebrands.com offers a comprehensive directory of manufacturers that do drop shipping. Unlike the lists that have sprouted all over the internet, this website is very well known for its credibility as well as the equally credible information they offer. Each entry is verified to ensured accuracy. Their service isn’t free, however, but for a serious seller who wishes to make the most out of drop shipping, it would prove to be a good investment.
There are also some dedicated people maintaining websites about their experiences with drop shippers. Take http://www.webpuffs.com for example. The webmaster offers reviews of the drop shipping manufacturers he encounters, and the information he provides for free is immediately worth a lot.
The bottom line is this: drop shipping can make your eBay business more profitable and more convenient. And finding reliable drop shippers is not as difficult as advertised, if you know how to proceed with the same.
Well, now, you’re in a better position than your competitors.
Drop shipping.
Drop shipping involves a contact with a wholesaler, known as a drop shipper. The drop shipper would offer some items for wholesale prices (i.e. big, big discounts). The clincher? There are a couple of them, actually:
1. You’d get to purchase these items at wholesale prices even if you’re going to get them per piece.
2. The drop shipper will take care of shipping the item to the designated location.
Immediately, you will see the potentials for profitability with this setup. You won’t have to buy items for resale. You won’t have to create items for your offers. You just need a relationship with a drop shipper, select from his selection of products, and market the same at eBay. You could place your own markup. And you wouldn’t have to worry about storage space or shipping. Better yet, you wouldn’t be too pressured to make a sale, as your items aren’t technically in stock, rather, they’re with the drop shipper who will be awaiting your word as when to deliver the same to the winning bidder.
Now, here’s what is of the essence. Where could you find drop shippers?
Here’s an important piece of advice: forget about offers that promise to provide a list of drop shippers. More often than not, these lists contain outdated information, dead links and even fabricated entities. This is a fact that has been confirmed by eBay itself.
Here’s another important piece of advice: forget about searching for “drop shipping” or “dropshipping” at Google. The term has been exploited beyond belief that it has almost lost its essence in many content sites.
Here’s a fact that you should know: 80% of manufacturers would be more than happy to do some drop shipping for you. Whereas a couple of years ago, drop shipping was a novel approach to selling items online, nowadays, manufacturers have realized that drop shipping can be an effective evolution of the direct selling model. It’s easier to look for drop shippers today than it was a couple of years ago.
The first thing you have to learn is how to focus. What do you want to sell, exactly? Have you researched the market for it? Is it a profitable market?
The second step should entail researching appropriate products for the market you have chosen. What are available for the same? What, among these choices, do you want to sell?
Subsequent steps would be easy. All that remains to be done is to pinpoint specific manufacturers based from the list you have prepared, and contacting them individually. Ask them if drop shipping is among the services they could offer for willing partners. Chances are, you will get an affirmative reply.
Of course, there are ways to streamline the process. The website http://www.worldwidebrands.com offers a comprehensive directory of manufacturers that do drop shipping. Unlike the lists that have sprouted all over the internet, this website is very well known for its credibility as well as the equally credible information they offer. Each entry is verified to ensured accuracy. Their service isn’t free, however, but for a serious seller who wishes to make the most out of drop shipping, it would prove to be a good investment.
There are also some dedicated people maintaining websites about their experiences with drop shippers. Take http://www.webpuffs.com for example. The webmaster offers reviews of the drop shipping manufacturers he encounters, and the information he provides for free is immediately worth a lot.
The bottom line is this: drop shipping can make your eBay business more profitable and more convenient. And finding reliable drop shippers is not as difficult as advertised, if you know how to proceed with the same.
Well, now, you’re in a better position than your competitors.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Various Affiliate Marketing Website Models
A registered domain name would give you an address in the virtual world. A web hosting service would give you a lot. It’s time to build your house.
But there are many kinds of houses, with each type serving a particular need. In the same light, there are many kinds of websites, and each type would also serve a particular need. Our goal right now is to determine the kinds of websites you could create to best serve you affiliate marketing concerns.
As an affiliate, here are a number of website models you could decide to employ. Let’s take a look at them.
A Review Center
You could create a website, preferably using a blogging software like that offered by www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com , which seeks to review the products that are released in the market. Here’s the deal, though. Review the products you are promoting. Naturally, you’d want your reviews to be favorable for the affiliate merchant’s offerings. So stress the beneficial points of the products so that your visitors may be encouraged to click on your affiliate link and be redirected to the affiliate merchant’s sales page.
An Affiliate Mall
An effective way of promoting your affiliate links is through an affiliate mall. You could make your website into an online catalogue of sorts. Display the products you are promoting, and attach your affiliate links. Provide a short but encouraging description for each product. Also include a small image of the product itself (as an affiliate, you are allowed to use the affiliate program’s images for your promotional campaigns, so you won’t be violating any copyrights by doing this).
This setup is quite empowering for your visitors. They are given the option to choose which among the products you are pre-selling would be most advantageous for them.
A Content Site
Content is king on the internet. People surf the World Wide Web in search for information. If you have the information they need, then you’re in business. You could focus on unique and quality information for your website, and include your affiliate links by way of recommendation or direct announcement.
There are many kinds of content sites which you could decide to build:
• a news site which offers the latest information on the market you will be catering to;
• an information hub containing guides and general information about the same market;
• a download center for valuable products you’re freely offering (this is great for a viral marketing campaign, which we will discuss in subsequent lessons)
An Opt-In Page
You will not be able to win all of them. You won’t even be able to win a majority of them. The best thing you could aim for is to gather the “yes” visitors, try your best to change the mind of the “no” visitors, and capture the contact information of the “maybe” visitors so that you could continue to convince them for a future sale. And this you could do with a mailing list.
By having them subscribe to your mailing list, you’d be able to contact them at any time, with new offers, or perhaps with some valuable tidbits that would warm them up to purchase what the affiliate merchant is selling. All you need is an account with an excellent autoresponder service, which you could integrate in such a page so that it will capture prospective leads on auto-pilot.
You could employ this strategy on any of the website models we have mentioned above, or you could make a web page specifically designed to capture the aforementioned contact details.
But there are many kinds of houses, with each type serving a particular need. In the same light, there are many kinds of websites, and each type would also serve a particular need. Our goal right now is to determine the kinds of websites you could create to best serve you affiliate marketing concerns.
As an affiliate, here are a number of website models you could decide to employ. Let’s take a look at them.
A Review Center
You could create a website, preferably using a blogging software like that offered by www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com , which seeks to review the products that are released in the market. Here’s the deal, though. Review the products you are promoting. Naturally, you’d want your reviews to be favorable for the affiliate merchant’s offerings. So stress the beneficial points of the products so that your visitors may be encouraged to click on your affiliate link and be redirected to the affiliate merchant’s sales page.
An Affiliate Mall
An effective way of promoting your affiliate links is through an affiliate mall. You could make your website into an online catalogue of sorts. Display the products you are promoting, and attach your affiliate links. Provide a short but encouraging description for each product. Also include a small image of the product itself (as an affiliate, you are allowed to use the affiliate program’s images for your promotional campaigns, so you won’t be violating any copyrights by doing this).
This setup is quite empowering for your visitors. They are given the option to choose which among the products you are pre-selling would be most advantageous for them.
A Content Site
Content is king on the internet. People surf the World Wide Web in search for information. If you have the information they need, then you’re in business. You could focus on unique and quality information for your website, and include your affiliate links by way of recommendation or direct announcement.
There are many kinds of content sites which you could decide to build:
• a news site which offers the latest information on the market you will be catering to;
• an information hub containing guides and general information about the same market;
• a download center for valuable products you’re freely offering (this is great for a viral marketing campaign, which we will discuss in subsequent lessons)
An Opt-In Page
You will not be able to win all of them. You won’t even be able to win a majority of them. The best thing you could aim for is to gather the “yes” visitors, try your best to change the mind of the “no” visitors, and capture the contact information of the “maybe” visitors so that you could continue to convince them for a future sale. And this you could do with a mailing list.
By having them subscribe to your mailing list, you’d be able to contact them at any time, with new offers, or perhaps with some valuable tidbits that would warm them up to purchase what the affiliate merchant is selling. All you need is an account with an excellent autoresponder service, which you could integrate in such a page so that it will capture prospective leads on auto-pilot.
You could employ this strategy on any of the website models we have mentioned above, or you could make a web page specifically designed to capture the aforementioned contact details.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)