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1. INSERTS – Ask for media kits from print publications that target your industry readers. Find out their rates for inserts. And have their advertising department help you create a marketing insert for your products and services that targets Internet users and includes your URL and email address. Do include a phone number (toll-free, if possible) for those who have technical difficulties or prefer to call.

2. TEACH – Hold affordable (or free) offline classes at a local community center or other educational facility. Share your knowledge in your area of expertise with attendees. And make sure to distribute handouts with complete contact information, including your website and email address.
Be pro-active and post-active by announcing your classes in a press release to the local media; radio, television, print publications. And follow up by inviting students to enter feedback and referrals in your website form after the class if over. Capture their contact information, enter it into your database, and follow up regularly – sending them your ezine and product / service announcements, both via email and regular postal mail.

3. ORGANIZATIONS – Target your offline marketing to groups of people who will actually be interested in your product or service; i.e. local associations and organizations. Check your Yellow Pages for groups near you and find out when their meetings are. Call ahead to make sure guests are welcome. Then go and network at an easy pace, not fast. Slowly work your way into the group and make sure it would be a good fit for you; you’ll want to give at first, then you’ll receive later on (maybe after your first year, even).

Gradually distribute your business cards – with your website and email address on them. Volunteer to teach about your area of expertise if the chance arises, of course distributing your marketing materials with our website and email address on them, too.

Use caution, before rushing to join during or after the first meeting. Take your time to make sure the group would be a good fit for you and your business operations. Sometimes group operations are lacking or suffer due to board member turnover, the economy, new industry laws, etc. So you might benefit from waiting to join for several months down the road, or trying a different group all together.

So reach out and advertise offline to compliment your online strategy. And remember to include your website and email address on all of your marketing tools.

If someone walks into your local storefront, especially if they’ve had to drive to get to it and drop a few coins in the parking meter, they’re at least partly committed to spending some time in the store. They either want something specifically, in which case you’re nearly guaranteed to make a sale, or they think your store probably offers what they want, so they’re willing to spend the time to look around.

In either case, your friendly staff, attractive promotional displays and compelling sale prices can influence someone to make a purchase, even if it wasn’t what they originally came for.

This seldom happens online. Your nearest competitor is only a quick Google search away, a new website visitor may have little or no solid reason to look around your site, and it often happens that you lose a would-be customer in the click of a mouse.

That’s why it’s important for website owners to remember that you need to put the most important, most compelling, most commonly-requested information right up front, preferably on the home page.

This is the exact opposite of a physical storefront, where you can put your sale items in the back of the store and count on people walking past the new merchandise to get to the clearance racks. Online, a visitor to your website will not spend any time looking around unless they can tell immediately that you probably have what they’re looking for, whether that’s information or designer handbags.

You must also consider the fact that website visitors need more overt assurance as to your company’s legitimacy and trustworthiness than visitors to a physical storefront.

Someone who walks into a local store is subtly and sub-consciously bombarded with all sorts of sensory and intellectual cues that reassure them (or not) that it’s safe to do business with this particular merchant. A store that is clean, well lit, intelligently laid out, with merchandise that fits the price being asked and helpful salespeople is more likely to be profitable than one that is not.

These factors are less visible online. Most would-be website owners realize that a site with blinking fonts and inconsistent navigation is a visitor turn-off, but still miss the mark by failing to reassure potential buyers. They neglect to include information on shipping, returns, privacy, guarantees and other store policies in a prominent location, which makes the customer uneasy and less likely to make a purchase.

One last tip for the storefront-owner-turned-website-owner, and that’s to remember where and when site visitors come to your website. Many of your site visitors log on from work, or late at night, or when the kids are napping – and their first panicked impulse is to click away from your site if they’re immediately greeting by loud music or an audio message from the company president. Those site add-ons can add value, but should be optional.

These differences between online and offline storefronts are among the most ignored. Paying attention to them right from the start can help make sure your website is as profitable as you dreamed it could be.

Simply put, networking in person is alive and kicking! Even though we all enjoy the benefits that the work at home lifestyle affords, showing up in person at a live Internet Marketing event is close to becoming a mandatory part of your business plan.

Have you ever exchanged a series of emails with someone, only to meet them in person and realize they were totally different than you expected? Or perhaps it was even a telephone call that followed the emails and when you spoke to the individual, there was a personality that emerged that the prior emails didn’t accurately convey?

This experience is exactly what you will find when you attend live events. We are all used to forming opinions based upon the written word, but when you have a chance to “hear” the person behind the email, it will almost invariably lead to an opportunity to bond on a much deeper level with someone. And in many cases, what you find will amaze and surprise you.

The reality of all this has opened the door to Internet Marketing events that are popping up all over the globe. In years past, there were only 4 or 5 main events that took center stage each year. But now, if you keep an ear to the ground, no matter where you live, an event is bound to spring up in your community or at the very least somewhere within an hour or two drive from where you call home.

Simply put, the events are increasing to keep up with demand and also to make it easy and affordable to everyone to attend. It is no longer about traveling half way around the country or the world to get to an event. They are easy to find in your own backyard.

Because the events no longer require thousands of dollars just to show up, this is a perfect opportunity to get to just such an event and start to make yourself known. While there, you will find Internet Marketers at every phase of their careers and plentiful opportunities will abound. If you are just starting out, you will find guidance and mentors or if you are a midrange marketer, you will find many clients and opportunities to Joint Venture (JV) with other marketers in your niche.

No matter what your level of understanding, getting an opportunity to get to know someone personally is one of the most invaluable experiences you can have and will often lead to life changing paths that you otherwise would never have been able to cultivate.

The thing about running your own business at home is that you can never have too much traffic. You should always be looking to increase your traffic volume so that you can increase your income. Typically you want to find a few solid marketing techniques and stick to them as opposed to using several different techniques. But you may have to try out several before you find the most effective method for you.

One technique to raising your traffic volume with Internet marketing is submitting a site map to search engines. What this will do is give your site a better chance of being examined by the search engines. With more visits to your site from the search engines spiders, your sites will gradually climb higher on the search engines thus increasing your traffic.

Most people are aware of affiliate programs, but few are familiar with how they can benefit the site they already have. If you set up your own affiliate program for people to sell your product or service, you will have a business within a business. Not only will you have other people selling for you, your traffic will increase as well because of two separate businesses.

Perhaps the easiest method of increasing your traffic volume is posting in forums. There are literally hundreds of thousands of forums to choose from. The key is to post in forums with a lot of people that are all interested in the niche you are involved in. After spitting out some fresh and enticing information, you can reel people in to your website immediately.

The last method is one of the best on the Internet right now: article marketing. Article marketing can do a number of things for your site. First, it allows you to write fresh and enticing content that readers will be astonished by. Second, you can promote or write about whatever people are looking for here. Lastly you can place a bio box with your URL in it to direct customers to your site after submitting the articles to article directories.

Traffic is essential to having success with Internet marketing. It can be difficult having your own business at home, but using a few of these marketing techniques can make life much easier for you.

However, e-commerce also needs effective marketing strategies just like offline businesses to ensure success in the long run. E-commerce marketing tactics are somewhat similar to the marketing strategies being used in conventional types of business.

If you are a novice in the world of e-commerce, then you should make sure to arm yourself with some impressive marketing strategies to attain success at the end of the day. Some of the most impressive, as well as effective e-commerce marketing strategies are the following:

- Establish an outstanding online business. This is in fact the very first thing which you should do. You have to make sure that the online business which you want to set up is something which is in line with your interest and passion so that it would be easier for you to manage it.

- Look for a profitable niche on the worldwide web. You have to see to it to establish your business in a profitable and lucrative niche or market. In doing so, you can be certain that you can have more profits in the days to come.

- Market your business properly and effectively. After looking for a niche, the next best thing which you should do is to market your business. There are actually a lot of ways on how you can do your business or product marketing. Some of these ways have to do with participating in forums, using SEO techniques, posting links, and creating your own business website.

Indeed, you need useful and competent e-commerce marketing strategies to be a successful online businessperson. You just have to make sure to give all your best for the sake of your online business. After all, it is you who will benefit from all your efforts at the end of the day.

Aside from that, you also have to be very cautious when it comes to doing business online. This is because scams are by now very rampant on the worldwide web. Hence, it is safe to say that necessary precautions are also essential to make sure that you and your business are truly safe.

Perhaps you do not understand the various ways you can utilize these many types of social media to brand yourself and expand your business. Here are 7 types of Internet social media you should be doing everyday.

1. Blogging

Your competition has a blog and so should you. Blogs can serve many purposes. A couple of key points are host your own blog and consistently add fresh content. Never let your blog go stale.

2. Social Networking

My Space and Facebook are 2 of the largest. Building relationships online are a big part of having a successful Internet business. Social networking allows you to hang out with people that have similar interests to you.

3. Micro Blogging

Twitter.com is a combination of social networking and blogging. Building a large list of followers is a great way to meet people and increase traffic to your blog and websites. Plus it is fun to Tweet!

4. Social Bookmarking

Directories such as Digg and Technorati serve as search engine bait for your blog posts and for new traffic from people who read your blog articles. Bookmarking a blog post is very easy to do and the rewards can pay off for years to come.

5. Discussion Forums

This really was one of the first forms of social media and still is a great way to learn about the niche of your business and to drive traffic to it. Hanging out in discussion forums can be addictive so be careful to use them the right way and not waste time. There is an art to forum marketing and you must learn to do it correctly, but the benefits are many.

6. Email Marketing

There has always been money in having a list. The trick is to build relationships with your list and then sell to it after you have done that. For that reason we include it in social media. Today you can add video, audio, graphics, and other things to make your email more interactive.

7. Video Marketing

When Google bought YouTube everyone was put on notice that video marketing was going to be important. Today internet marketers can drive traffic and build credibility by adding videos to their blog and website.

This is 7 forms of social media you must be using everyday to build your Internet business. The most successful Internet marketers already are!

It doesn’t matter what kind of business you run, online, offline, lots of employees, or self employed. This concept works for everybody.

The amazing thing is most businesses don’t do it and it’s guaranteed to increase your sales.

What is it? Testing!

Testing is pure profit information; lets’ think this through for a minute.

Let’s pretend that you don’t own a business you are just a salesperson for one. You are making phone calls and face-to-face presentations with prospects everyday.

So when you have these meetings are you keeping track of the results? Most sales people just go on to the next call thinking about what an idiot that last prospect was for not buying.

The first thing you must have when you test is what I call the “MWR”, which stands for “most wanted result”. This is the main goal of the sales call. It’s the what do you want the prospect to do next.

When you track that you will at least know if you hit your goal at the end of the call.

Next you need to have a scripted presentation. I can hear you now, “oh no I hate scripts, it’s not natural, it’s not me, it doesn’t let me flow with the prospect. That my friend is a load of crap and if that’s how you feel, you are holding yourself back.

You need a script because you need a place to start from to accurately measure your results. If you are saying something different to every prospect you talk to how are you going to know what works and what doesn’t?

The way you get around all of your objections is to have a script down so cold that it doesn’t sound like a script. If you get off the script you can easily move your prospect back to it.

With a script it’s real easy to test. You have your main points that you want to cover with your prospect. You’ll be saying the same thing to every prospect so you can now record how many calls you made and how many times you got your MWR. This will give you a percentage ratio of your results.

After you have some good solid numbers you can begin to improve your results. You do this by making very small changes to your script as you keep tracking the results.

You may find out as you listen to your prospects that they have the same questions or objections so you start to answer them in your script. If your MWR increases leave it in, if your MWR goes down take it out or change what you are saying or how you are saying it.

You need to do this all of the time until you get to the point where you just can’t get better results, then just keep using your best script over and over again.

You can do this with anything written or verbal that your prospect reads or listens to.

Here is an idea for you. Do you have a receptionist for your business? How does she answer the phone? How does she handle different call situations? Have you trained that person what to say and when to say it? If you are just letting her wing it you are losing business.

The bottom line is you need to have a plan and test everything you do in your business. Most things in a business that are not sales and marketing related use a formula or a system to get done. Why don’t you use a sales and marketing formula?

Test everything!

1. INSERTS – Ask for media kits from print publications that target your industry readers. Find out their rates for inserts. And have their advertising department help you create a marketing insert for your products and services that targets Internet users and includes your URL and email address. Do include a phone number (toll-free, if possible) for those who have technical difficulties or prefer to call.

2. TEACH – Hold affordable (or free) offline classes at a local community center or other educational facility. Share your knowledge in your area of expertise with attendees. And make sure to distribute handouts with complete contact information, including your website and email address.
Be pro-active and post-active by announcing your classes in a press release to the local media; radio, television, print publications. And follow up by inviting students to enter feedback and referrals in your website form after the class if over. Capture their contact information, enter it into your database, and follow up regularly – sending them your ezine and product / service announcements, both via email and regular postal mail.

3. ORGANIZATIONS – Target your offline marketing to groups of people who will actually be interested in your product or service; i.e. local associations and organizations. Check your Yellow Pages for groups near you and find out when their meetings are. Call ahead to make sure guests are welcome. Then go and network at an easy pace, not fast. Slowly work your way into the group and make sure it would be a good fit for you; you’ll want to give at first, then you’ll receive later on (maybe after your first year, even).

Gradually distribute your business cards – with your website and email address on them. Volunteer to teach about your area of expertise if the chance arises, of course distributing your marketing materials with our website and email address on them, too.

Use caution, before rushing to join during or after the first meeting. Take your time to make sure the group would be a good fit for you and your business operations. Sometimes group operations are lacking or suffer due to board member turnover, the economy, new industry laws, etc. So you might benefit from waiting to join for several months down the road, or trying a different group all together.

So reach out and advertise offline to compliment your online strategy. And remember to include your website and email address on all of your marketing tools.