How to get money is a question that more and more people are asking
as the economy continues to struggle, and the hassles of dealing with
their jobs increase. Getting paid online is usually the first thing
people think of when they think of avoiding monotonous commute of
sitting in traffic for hours in order to get somewhere that should only
take minutes.
Getting paid online offers the ordinary person the
ability to grab share of a market, and compete for a share of whatever
profits are generated. Think about it in terms of an off-line business.
Let's have a look at that steps in comparison of starting an online
business, as opposed to a traditional brick and mortar business.
If
you were looking to open a neighborhood dry cleaning business, would
you first check into whether the neighborhood could use another dry
cleaner? Of course you would, so the first thing you would probably do
is drive around the area and have a look around. If you found that the
area was had plenty of dry cleaning businesses, then you could either
find another area, chose to start another less competitive business in
that same area, or decide that you can succeed in starting a dry
cleaning business in this same competitive area.
That is called
"Market Research", and the same principles would apply online. In fact
once you know what you are looking for, it is a lot easier, faster, and
better to do market research about online markets than offline markets.
There are many free tools which can be used to perform market research.
The most popular of which being Google AdWords. There is a keyword
research tool that allows you to perform some pretty extensive market
research free of charge. There are also some other paid programs out
there that will give you much more detailed information. You can easily
find them through Google, or whichever search engine you use. I would
definitely start by using the free tools, and free training from someone
who has used them.
Step 1: Market Research
In order to
start accepting customers and cleaning their clothes, you would first
have to have a building to house your dry cleaning business. So once you
choose your area, you must then build your building, and name your
cleaning business. In this case we'll call the business "ABC Cleaners".
The name of your business should easily let people know what you are
offering. You would not try to get too cute with the name of your dry
cleaning business, so apply the same principles to your website.
(Think
about it like this: McDonald's was McDonald's Hamburgers for years
until they became so recognized, that it was no longer necessary to tell
people what they cooked.)
Step 2: Choose a Domain name for your website.
Let's
take a few moments to review some things about step 2. This seems like
such an easy thing to do, but I have seen studies that have given hard
numbers of as many as 56% people who purchase hosting, give up before
ever deciding on a domain name! Best advice is to choose your domain
name before purchasing your hosting. Which happens to be step 3. Once
you have you business, now you have to pay your landlord.
Step 3: Find a Reliable Hosting Service
Once
you have the doors to your dry cleaners open, you have to let the
public know that you exist. So that brings us to step 4; advertising.
This is where the differences between offline and online marketing start
to become harder to duplicate.
If you had a dry cleaners, you could put
up signs, lights, balloons, and anything else you would need to let the
neighborhood know you were open for business. Most of the neighborhood
would soon know about you, if only because they had to pass by your
location to get in and out of the neighborhood.
Online businesses can't
make you look at their storefronts. Instead they must advertise to bring
in potential customers. Finding the right spots for your ads is the
key. If you do not know how this is done, get with someone who will
teach you for free. There are some great coaches out there, but you have
to find a reliable one, who can be trusted to really show you how to
make money online.
Step 4: Advertise.
Be more than just a
laundry person. If you are not already, then you either want to become,
or hire someone who is an expert in dry cleaning. It is a proven fact
that being seen as an expert, or at least a consultative resource in a
field, increase the likelihood of people doing business with you. A dry
cleaner who can tell a customer how they can remove certain stains at
home is more likely to build a loyal customer base than one who simply
bleeds his customers for an extra buck or two over charging for stain
removal. If you want to know how to get money online, that is how you
build value.
How to get money online is by gaining credibility
within your market the same way. Knowing something that they can use, or
that may help them, and giving it to them for free. Online the most
efficient way of keeping track of the people who take advantage of your
free offer is to get their email address. That way you can send them
more useful information. Most people however will not simply give you
their emails. Humans are creatures of habit. Once someone has visited
your website, if you have done a good job in creating it, they will more
than likely visit again, and when they do, they will be looking for
something that is new.
So the more content you add to your site the
better, and offer all your viewers a free gift of some sorts, in order
to join your mailing list, or subscribe to your newsletter. There are
plenty of items available to you at no cost. Once again, you could
either Google something like "free private label rights" to get some
free giveaway items. You definitely want to get a list of as many people
who are visiting your site as possible. Large subscriber lists can lead
to large bank accounts.
One of the most effective, long-term strategies
for building lists, and relationships is blogging. Even micro-blogging
is popular as a marketing tool. Twitter is the ultimate example of
micro-blogging. (You definitely want to build a list of email
subscribers, as opposed to just having a bunch of Twitter followers or
Facebook friends. These markets are more for branding, not making direct
income).
Step 5: Build a List of Subscribers
Backtracking
just a bit, step 5 is by far the trickiest part of the process. If there
was a such thing as perfect "buyer lists", then the big corporations
would own all of them already. Don't get me wrong, they do have lists,
but the internet is still so new, it is still possible for individuals
to compete for a share a just about any market. Get money by first
giving value, and gaining trust. If you plan on succeeding in making
money online, then this is the most important thing you could ever
remember.
Step 6: Sell To Your List
Once you have delivered
enough information to you visitors, and have gained their trust, you are
in the perfect position to offer them your product or service. This
should be in the form of a solution to whatever it was that first lead
them to your website. In some cases you will be able to make instant
sales. In others you will have to lead your prospects through a sales
cycle. Automation is pretty much a requirement for customer follow-up,
as your prospects flow through your sales funnel.
