Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Is Online Business Really an Escape from the World?
Lots of people go into business online with the idea of escaping the daily work world. Many picture a life where they don't have to deal with bosses or irritating co-workers.

They picture a life where they can wear what they want, work when they want, and do what they want without bosses telling them otherwise. They picture a life without having to wrestle with co-workers over how to do things. They picture a life that doesn't force them to pick up the slack from a lazy or incompetent co-workers in order to avoid having their joint tasks fail.

In other words, they picture a life where everybody leaves them alone.

Internet marketing doesn't work that way, though. In any business, there's this little thing called CUSTOMERS. If you try to cut yourself off from potential customers, they never become PAYING customers. And if you don't get any paying customers... well your refrigerator gets miiiiiighty empty.

If you're starting a business to get away from people, you're going to change that attitude -- or you're going to fail. It's that simple. If anything, starting a business puts you that much closer to a lot more people.

Your contact with them involves more than just sharing responsibility with them for getting tasks done. You have to be able to get into their heads. You have to be able to identify and fill their needs.

Starting a business is not an escape from people. It's a commitment to embrace people more than ever. If you can't -- or don't want to -- interact with others, starting a business isn't for you.

Over the next few days, we look at embracing others. I'll share with you some stories of how I went from isolation to socialization in my business and the differences that change made. And I'll share some ideas of how to get started making any shifts you need to make in your thinking to make your business more successful.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you how working at home nearly drove me back into the 9-5 work world. See you then!
Jeff

Labels: marketing, networking, start business

Internet Marketing in the 2010s -- The Death of SEO
The SEO that we've all "grown up" with is dying. The days when you could check your ranking and know that everyone who searches for that keyword will see your site in the exact same position is long gone.

The search engines have long taken the location from which a search initiates into consideration. They boost listings that are geographically closer in cases where they believe that the searcher would prefer listings nearer to where he or she is.

The days are coming, though, where the results for someone a block away from you may have no resemblance to the results you get for the same search. Personalized search will make it much harder to state with any certainty what your rank is.

The search engines infer more and more about individual searcher intent from the way they see the searcher respond to their search results. They tweak future results to try to better anticipate each searcher's intent.

Sites on which a searcher stays longer before returning to their search results get a boost in rankings for that searcher in future searches. Sites from which a searcher immediately abandons gets downgraded for future searches. Sites that consistently keep their visitors engaged get a ranking boost for searchers who have given no prior preferences.

What does this mean for you? Increasingly in this new decade, it will be essential for you to engage your audience, increase stickiness, and increase conversions. The more useful your site proves to be for searchers, the greater your chances of ranking well in more people's individualized search results.

Does all this mean that the many major seo companies will die? Those who don't adapt will. The smart ones, though, will shift their focus from merely making simple onsite tweaks and gathering incoming links. The smart ones will add services that help clients engage and serve their visitors better.

Make sure you understand how to retain and convert your visitors better. This is fast becoming crucial in boosting your search engine rankings. And, even if it played no part in your rankings, it is still key to your bottom line.
Jeff

Labels: marketing, predictions, search engine optimization

Internet Marketing in the 2010s -- Videos Disrupt the Value Equation
With video getting easier for anyone to do online, ebooks are becoming less and less valuable in the minds of your potential customers. This decrease in perceived value will continue throughout the new decade.

You can't charge the same price for a downloadable ebook as you can charge for that exact same information in a nicely packaged, physically shipped, video DVD. And with it becoming increasingly easy for any marketer to produce nicely packaged, physically shipped, video DVDs, those who stick strictly with PDF ebooks will get left in the dust.

The more technologically advanced way that information is packaged, the higher customers perceive its value. That means that as video becomes more common online, the more that people expect that valuable information will be packaged in that way.

Does that mean that ebooks are dead? By no means. They will still serve a valuable purpose as supporting materials. You will still be able to increase the value of your video product by including bonuses in written form:

• Transcripts of your video
• Fact sheets
• Step-by-step process blueprints
• Cheat sheets
• Tip sheets
• Resource lists

They will also serve a valuable purpose as low-end door-openers to introduce yourself to potential customers and get them into the sales funnel for your higher-end products. Ebooks won't go away. They simply won't be the core of selling information online.

The days of getting $97 for an ebook are fast disappearing though. (Although you still might be able to get $97 for the same information in a set of DVDs with assorted bonuses.)

It will become important as the decade progresses to master creating products in forms that customers perceive as requiring higher technological skill. As I said before, these skills are increasingly available to marketers, so there's not reason not to learn them.

If you're currently feeling a little behind the curve of Internet product creation, I suggest you check out Jim Edwards' "The Net Reporter" training site. Jim is at the forefront of teaching marketers how to create all of the product types that have the highest perceived values. And you'll get training not just on product creation, but on all aspects of promoting your products, too. TNR is the one business expense I would never cut unless I was closing my business forever.

Whether you're already comfortable with creating products in forms that have higher perceived value or looking to learn, it will be important to move your product creation into those higher perceived forms.
Jeff

Labels: Jim Edwards, marketing, predictions, The Net Reporter, video

What the World Needs from You
Here's a favorite quote from Gil Bailie:

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

I talk a lot when it comes to finding a niche about finding a problem to solve. That's very true, but one thing should never be lost in that. The problem you want to solve for people needs to be something you have a passion for.

You can find a problem to solve that you have no interest in. For example, a lot of women love expensive, designer handbags. I could look for ways to get them the best designer handbags at the best prices. I have absolutely no interest in designer handbags, though.

Will I be more effective finding solutions for people in a market in which I have no interest? Or will I be more effective finding solutions for something I'm passionate about, like helping people start their own business online?

I'll be more effective where my passion lies. I'll be more effective at something I think about in my free time. I'll be more effective at something I naturally choose to learn more about. Following my passion leads me to be a better business owner. And that makes me a more profitable business owner, too.

Most people, when they start a business, feel they have to start it in an area that is totally divorced from what they know and love. They feel that success will come from something totally outside them.

It will come, though, from what's inside you. It will come from what you have available to share with the world.

Follow your passion. Come alive. That's where you'll find what the world really needs from you.
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes, niche marketing

Internet Marketing in the 2010s -- Creating Your Own Community
What does it take to succeed in business online? A lot of people start their own business because they don't want to have some boss making their decisions for them. They don't want to deal with irritating co-workers. They want to be left alone.

If you went into business online because you hoped it would insulate you from people, you've probably already reached that fork in the road where you needed to make a decision. You had to decide either to continue your isolation and fail in your business, or open up to others in order to succeed.

Even if you run a sole proprietorship, business is never a solitary task. You have to interact with people. You need to learn what your potential customers really want, what needs they have, what buttons lead them to buy.

You have to work with others to get your business moving forward. Looking back on my career both in Fortune 100 and in self-employment, I can't see a single major step in my career that didn't involve help from someone else.

Working with others is an integral part even of a one-person business. I almost closed my business three years ago when I grew too frustrated with being totally isolated. It wasn't until I started partnering with other business owners and bouncing ideas back and forth between us that I had the social engagement I needed to be able to work alone.

The beauty of this is that this need to connect can benefit your business. People want connections, especially as life in general gets more disconnected. You can capitalize on that need by finding ways to build your target customers into a community.

You can find ways to help people through a membership site. Build a community around your area of expertise. They will get the connection they need. And you will get recurring, monthly income instead of one-time sales.

Not sure how to start a membership site? Become part of Jim Edwards' "The Net Reporter" training site and you'll find both community for you and a wealth of training in his Vault on how to set up a profitable membership site.

Or check out Jim Cockrum's "My Silent Team" training site. It has great training on a lot of different marketing strategies and is a great community of marketers in which to kick around ideas and get lots of new ones.

Look for ways to build community into your business. It will benefit both your customers and you.

And make sure you get your needs for community filled. It will make you a happier, healthier, and more successful business owner.
Jeff

Labels: Jim Cockrum, Jim Edwards, marketing, membership sites, My Silent Team, predictions, The Net Reporter

Internet Marketing in the 2010s -- Make a Living Consulting for Small Businesses
Remember the OLD way to job security? It went something like this: get a job with some big corporation, work your way up the corporate ladder, and never have to worry about looking for a job ever again.

Didn't quite work out that way, did it?

This career model used to leave you set for life. That's not the case anymore.

If you still hope that career model will reappear anytime soon, I have bad news for you: things won't go back to the way they were.

The big companies find they must get leaner and more nimble in the face of the 21st century's volatile economy. And what created it? That's right. It's the ability of smaller, more nimble competitors to take a bite out of them.

More and more people will dabble in starting their own businesses. More and more small brick-and-mortar businesses will try to get up to speed with the rapidly-changing online world.

This is good news for anyone who has a basic knowledge of Internet marketing. New business owners will need help getting started. Established small brick-and-mortar business owners will need knowledgeable consultants to whom they can outsource their online marketing.

What does that mean? The marketing knowledge you've already gained in your own business puts you in demand. It gives you job security even if you don't have anything remotely like the kind of big-company job that used to bring it.

How can you benefit from this trend? You can feel out the local businesses in your community to assess their online marketing needs. Talk casually with the owners of businesses where you do business personally.

Chances are you'll find several who could use a hand. Chances are you'll be surprised to see how much they're ready to pay for your help.

What if you feel uneasy talking consulting with local business owners? Check out Jim Cockrum's OfflineBiz training site for those who are getting started at doing exactly that. Jim has the tools and strategies to get you ready to set up a profitable consultancy.

He shows how to approach small business owners, how to set your rates, even how to handle requests in areas of marketing that you don't feel comfortable handling yourself.

Whether you take Jim's training or jump right in on your own, though, don't overlook this profitable trend. It's your job security for the new economy.
Jeff

Labels: consulting, Jim Cockrum, marketing, predictions

Internet Marketing in the 2010s -- The Rise of the Little Guy in Blogging
It used to take years of working your way up the corporate ladder and developing serious social connections to achieve a position of influence in whatever field you wanted to influence. Today, all you need is an Internet connection and a solid understanding of how to market yourself there.

Many bloggers have risen from obscurity to positions of great influence in their market. That only stands to increase in the next decade.

News bloggers whom the big media companies once considered eccentric cranks now erode listeners away from the big behemoths. Similarly, big companies outside the news industry have felt the effect of a negative comment from popular bloggers. "Little guys" have shown themselves fully capable of bypassing the old power structures to have massive influence through their blogs.

That's not to say that anyone and everyone who starts a blog will automatically exert great influence on the world around them. You still need a solid understanding of how to find, attract, and engage an interested market to have any chance to rise to a position of influence in whatever field you have a passion for.

Even getting that understanding of marketing no longer is a big obstacle anymore, though. You don't have to go through the old power structures to get it. You just need to get it online and put it to work for you in building your business.

How can you take advantage of this opportunity? A quirky little blog called John Cow.com offers a free ebook that walks you, step by step, through the process that they have used to build their profits and their influence as bloggers in a number of different niches.

They walk you through all the steps from how to determine whether the niche you're eyeing even has potential for profit, through building your site, through promoting it successfully. It helps you build a profitable blog and an influential position for yourself. And it does all this for free.

In short, you don't have to be one of the "big guys" to have influence in whatever niche you have a passion for. All you have to do is use your passion -- and a bit of marketing know-how -- to build your own audience and become a recognizable name to them. In doing so, you can become a mover and shaker in that field.

I won't lie to you. You don't reach a position of influence overnight. You'll need your passion to motivate you to make the effort it will take to build that position of influence. If you're willing to make that effort, though, the opportunity is there.

Many people bemoan the fact that they didn't get in on the Internet riches when it first started. Those people miss an important fact. The opportunities are still right there.

In many ways, the opportunities are even greater than they were fifteen years ago. The Internet has spurred the development of many tools that didn't exist back then.

Those tools now give anyone the chance to leap past the gatekeepers that used to hold "the little guy" out of any chance of grabbing the limelight. You can use tools, like blogging and the print-on-demand capabilities that I described yesterday, to do things that would have been impossible for you to do in the "Wild West" days of the Internet.

Take advantage of the opportunities that this upcoming decade offers. Those opportunities make it possible for you rise to a real position of influence in the decade to come.
Jeff

Labels: blogging, marketing, predictions