What I'm about to show you is a risk-free, proven system to generate more Web traffic and sales in the next 12-36 months. Best of all, these tested strategies don't rely on an expensive Web site.

What they rely on is a simple sales process to contact and close your customers:

Step 1: Find out where your customers are meeting. Target your first contact and make an offer that they want to read.

Step 2: Get them to your Web site or autoresponder once, show them you know what you're talking about, register them, and offer them more.

A recent survey showed that only 30% of Web sites claim to be profitable. These sites aren't flashy, high-tech, or expensive; in fact they're ordinary, easy to use and to find. Following up and giving people what they want, when they want, is the key these sites use.

They also know the best ways to contact prospects and convert them into customers. Here's what they take advantage of:

The 5 Survival Skills That Will Determine the Success or Failure of Your Web Related Business

Dear Friend,

Remember that crazy story people told you as a kid...
If you squirrel away one penny today, two tomorrow, and keep on doubling that every day, you'll be a millionaire in no time flat!

Sure, if you just had the time. Or the pennies. But the moral of the story is simple: save your pennies while you have them.

Instead of pennies, let's talk about customers. The ones who visit your Web site and/or write an email. Do you answer it? Do you try to make this person a customer?

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."    -Thomas Edison

Most businesses online don't. They treat their Web site as a place to look at their product. And they throw away their inquiries, their customers, in search of new ones. They go to banner ads, try to fool the search engines, and run around like crazy trying to find new customers, ignoring the incredible value right in front of their eyes.

The moral of this story is...save your customers while you have them. Answer their questions and follow up with them immediately. If you don't, someone else will. Can you say, with total confidence, that your Web business is generating all the money it can now?

It should be. In three years, you won't have it so easy. The big businesses are just starting to come online. Do you think a million total sites is bad now? Imagine a million more are coming. Customers will be harder to find as the marketing lists settle down. Until then, survival revolves around a simple goal:

"You are trying to win customers...Don't ask them to pay for your efforts to sell them." Claude Hopkins, My Life in Advertising

The early models of Web advertising all made the customer work. Banner ads forced customers to wait for a silly picture. Push Media came and went with the ridiculous promise (and price) of software that doesn't really work yet. Misguided Web sites splashed a pretty message on the cover, while inside, it was a vacant lot. Just empty promises, vague claims, and product driven Web catalogs lying around. Picking up the old Sears catalog was a more personal experience than most Web sites. All of these make the customer pay by wasting their time.

The five survival skills outlined here don't make your customers pay for your efforts to sell them. They benefit your customers whether they buy or not. The key is in your marketing, not in Web sites, banner ads, or technology.

Set your goals: by December 1997, I would like to have a list of _________ qualified, excellent customers who help my business survive.

Survival Skill 1: Email Marketing
Between The Hype of Push Media and the Sensationalism of Bulk Email Lies The Traditional Path to Profits

Email marketing is the most misunderstood term on the Internet. I'm not talking about bulk email or spam, where you cold call a bunch of customers by stripping addresses and sending them a message they never requested. This is the myth of volume, that more email is better.

Bulk email is volatile; more companies will sink than swim.

I'm also not talking about push media, where you focus on a piece of software, hoping it becomes a standard. The idea is to continually send your customers all the information and advertising you can, automatically. You spend all of your time and money developing a product, and forget who to market to. This is the myth of technology, that hooking onto the latest techie trick is the way to get more customers.

Push Media is volatile; more companies will sink than swim.

Push media focused on the way to deliver the message, bulk email on the address gathering. Between the two extremes is a lesson rooted in traditional direct marketing. Instead of sending out volumes of email, you want to develop specific, targeted lists. What you want to find is a targeted group of customers and integrate them into your business. Keeping in touch with them is the goal. Email is the best way to do this, because it's easy, simple, and everyone checks their email.

First Contact: How Do I Find My Customers?

Establishing first contact is the toughest goal of any email marketer. Where do you find your customers? How do you reach them?

Before you begin, be sure you have something free, like a special report, to give them. Don't make them pay for working with you. Build an offer that is so appealing, the person sends you an email. You can then safely follow up with them and test out the process.

Millions of people are online, but they are forced to organize the Internet for themselves. Sifting through search engines and Web sites is a daunting task. The goal of email marketing is to find the places where they are meeting and give them the opportunity to contact you.

The most obvious place to find prospects is at other Web sites, newsgroups, and mailing lists. This method of marketing still works, but many mailing lists and newsgroups have settled into their own series of experts. It's harder to penetrate market share this way. Customers have a tough time figuring out who is who.

It would be great to just buy a list of interested customers like you can in direct mail. Email marketing is still in its infancy online and many of the so-called lists are not tested or even targeted. Be wary when buying access to a list; you may be buying a big spam without a target. To buy a list, you want to know:

A. Who the email was sent to;
B. A sample message of what was sent to see if your offer makes sense.
C. Some idea of results generated. Is this just a list of people or of qualified prospects?

The best means of survival is still the endorsed mailing to a group of interested customers. Find a Web site with many customers, or a product/service which you can easily provide back end products to. Create a scenario where you bring value to the person owning the list, and they allow you access to their customers. This is one of the best ways to target your prospective customers safely. It will also add value to a list of email addresses that many businesses have, but never take advantage of.

You need to determine how to qualify your prospects, to narrow down who you want to reach. Print media is perhaps the best way still to generate significant email marketing, because you can find targeted groups of customers via trade journals, newsletters, and magazines. Then use email marketing as your follow-up to their contacting you. Always mix email marketing with another form of marketing, such as direct mail, telemarketing, or faxing. Let them hear from you outside of the Web.

Email marketing really means following up with your customer. Often the fourth or fifth contact will lead to a sale. But allow people to remove themselves from your list with the following in every marketing email you send:

"If you would like to be removed from this list, please hit the reply button and respond with any message."

Don't ever send email to someone who asks to be removed. This is part of your qualifying process. Weed out those disinterested and try to build up your list to qualified prospects only.

What you'll end up developing are lead lists, for new inquiries, and your customer list, for loyal, paying customers. The third key element is to build your remove list, all those addresses that do not want to hear from you. Many database programs exist which can compare your new inquiries to this remove list. That way you avoid sending a message to someone who doesn't want to receive it, and protect yourself from flames or possible shut down by your local Internet service for inappropriate email.

What Are They Buying ? Visit http://www.e-land.com/e-stat_pages/e-stat_splash.html; it's all about e-commerce, what people are buying online now.

Email marketing is a consistent and cost-effective way to follow-up with your customers. You need to treat every contact as a significant lead and follow up via email. Here's how to put email marketing into profitable action:

• Build your email mailing list as your primary business asset. Separate those new inquiries, your lead list, from your steady customer list. Finally, keep a detailed remove list of all those people that don't want your messages. Many of these are available online and can help protect you from customers who would be incensed about your email marketing.

• The goal is to have your customer make first contact, and for you to follow-up. Respect the wishes of your visitor; don't market to someone who doesn't want to hear from you.

• Give them something of real value, a good special report or newsletter, to encourage them to contact you. If you don't give them something, you won't get responses. Most online businesses fail to give them anything at all.

• Use email newsletters and dispatches to contact your customers. Give them enough information but not too much. How do you figure that out? Ask them and test. Don't forget to include your ads in these as well.

• Don't feel up to writing? Sit down with yourself, someone who sells the product or service (could be you), and an interviewer. Sell the interviewer your product or service. Record it. Transcribe it. Save it as a text only file in a word processor. Separate the interview into smaller sections. Email it in parts. You then can email an ongoing, valuable document that includes advertising, rather than another sales letter.

• Create several follow-up letters. First contact is a free report or newsletter. Second contact means checking in to see if they have any questions, and making them a special offer. Third contact should qualify them to see if they want to explore working with you. Don't give up with one or two messages unless they ask you to.

• Send out surveys or contests; test out questionnaires. Set up interviews. The real goal is to get them to respond to your message. This is how you qualify people. Those that respond are potential customers, but keep emailing those who don't immediately respond as well.

• Explore ways to mix faxing, telemarketing, direct mail, and email to provide a diverse approach to your customer. Find the one that works best, but use email and at least one of the other approaches to truly set you apart from the rest.

Be careful when establishing first contact with email autoresponders; some people may not understand that this email address will always send them a message. Be creative; use several steps. Follow up with a combination of autoresponders, targeted email messages, sales letters, invitations, surveys, contests, and much, much more.

Survival Skill 2. How To Create Paid Advertising and Build a List

Imagine paying your customers to read your message. Sounds funny, doesn't it? But we're used to paying magazines and newspapers for advertising. What if we went directly to the consumer to make it profitable for them to work with us?

CyberGold ( www.cybergold.com ) has such an idea. Here's how they look at it:

"Soon, CyberGold's technology will also match ads and other online information to people's personal interests and demographics. Eventually we envision a whole marketplace for attention in which every ad is a wanted ad."

People waste so much time on the Internet. They don't have to, but they are looking for directions. They run into sites that don't give them any reason to send a message or even to stay. What better way to encourage them to become part of your business then paying them for their efforts?

CyberGold is an example of paid advertising; you pay per lead to people with mailing lists, why not pay the customer directly? CyberGold arranges customer payments for viewing your advertising. Initial leads might be a buck, more involved could be $5, all building up to a sale. Lead price relies on product price.

Sounds crazy? It's not. Consider this form of inducement as part of your lead costs. Some sites are offering a buck here or there to read their ad. CyberGold has a scale of payment depending on the customer's interest.

CyberGold is just one example of a developing trend. Paid advertising moves the benefit from the list builder to the individual. I doubt this will dramatically change online marketing, but the only way to get those demographics demanded by push media is to have the individual tell you what they want.

What's unique about this approach is that you are paying the customer to work with you. Obviously this must be done with considerable caution. Some customers could just try and collect messages that they are paid for, like coupons. A consumer will have to qualify to be paid for the advertising as a customer.

To avoid this, you need to qualify your list with scrutiny. Which customers are responding? Do you pay them to respond, or just to read your message? How can you determine whether a customer is a dead end tire kicker or a prospect who is taking their time to decide?

Advertising always involves risk. You're not sure how many people see a magazine ad, but you take it because the risk, the price you paid, is measured against your return. Just apply the same principles to this paid model of advertising. What's happening is truly unique. If you give them value, pay them for working with you, you are eliminating the middle person in your marketing. You are going directly to the consumer and saying, let me get in touch with you. Let me send you commercial messages; are you interested in specific messages?

Lead costs in most advertising are based on the time and overhead of mailing the message. Whether via email or by direct mail, the cost to generate a lead, and even more importantly the sale, should be considered. For example, if you do a direct mail piece with 5 sheets of paper, an envelope, a stamp, and your time it's at least a dollar you spend.

Try and apply that model to email. Someone visits your Web site, notices you on a mailing list or newsgroup, hears about your Web site, reads about it, whatever, and they contact you. That first contact is so essential to paid advertising. Because that's where it begins. If your first contact is an offer to pay them to listen to your advertising, what better incentive?

The simple truth is, people rarely buy on first contact via email. It takes time to develop credibility, trust, and value with your customer. Bank on this and use it to your advantage. I always like my first contact to be a non-sales message; my visitors get a free newsletter for visiting, and I follow up with my sales messages in subsequent emails.

Have You Seen WebTV's Infomercial ? The main objection is computers; their answer is television. Now that Microsoft gave them money, they are making the Web mainstream.

Pay Other Companies to Refer You Customers

Paying consumers directly is only one form of paid advertising online. A new model is also developing. NECX ( www.necx.com ) offers a commission sales program to make Web links pay off. The more customers you send, the more you get paid. And it doesn't end with just a click of the mouse, like a banner ad.

NECX is testing a system that will pay commissions up to two years for residual revenue. If you send a paying customer, that customer generates you revenue for two years. Commissions are paid on purchases made by referred customers. An excellent (and costly) tracking system is the cornerstone of this approach.

Think of the advantages; if I refer a customer to you, not only to I get a percentage of the initial sale, but I get paid on subsequent sales for a defined time period. This is a paid referral system to generate leads. The advertising savings are tremendous. You can even arrange it to set up a percentage on total profits generated by your leads with a business.

The rules are being written right now. It doesn't matter how they get to a site, all that matters is the accurate tracking. NECX is trying an unusual long term commission basis for its customers. This could be an important idea for joint venturing as well. Let's explore how to put this into action in two scenarios:

SCENARIO 1. Pay Your Customers To Read Your Advertising

You have a $97 newsletter. That's your information product. You offer them:

First Contact: 2 Free Issues that You Can Use To Boost Online Returns by 200-300% or more.

Set this up on an autoresponder (you can do this manually, but first contacts that get immediate responses are more likely to act). Don't sell them anything on the first contact. If my newsletter has six issues per year, that's about $32 you are giving your customers. Tell them this; it is a form of paid advertising.

Second Contact: One free report on exactly how to make money on the Web. Here's where your sales message comes in. Establish value with the first contact, then build them up to the sale with the ensuing emails. Remember, if they ever ask to be removed, get them off your list immediately.

Third Contact: Invite them to ask their questions. Check in and give them a limited time only offer to make them act within one week.

Package it into three separate, timed emails. Give them the two free issues, follow up the next week with their second report, and invite them to participate in your third email.

They've heard from you three times. If at any time during the approach they don't want to hear from you, that's fine. But what you've done is invite them to agree to read what you have to offer.

SCENARIO 2. Pay Other Business to Refer you Customers

Let's start with the same $97 newsletter. If you find a business that could generate you a tremendous amount of leads, start by creating a long term profit stream. For instance, Business A agrees to put your newsletter at it's site. In return, you give them a 50% commission on all newsletters you sell. That's nice and will make some good short term money.

Now send your advertising dollars into orbit by offering much more to a select group of businesses. If that person who bought the newsletter buys other products and services, the referring party gets paid each time for a set period. A year would be quite an incentive.

This does involve some busy work. You'll have to get your database cranking on this one. Make a list of referring agents and make sure that they get paid. It may seem like a headache initially, but reserve it only for those companies who can really send you the mother load of customers.

Like the old saying goes, you'll get more flies with honey than with vinegar - Offering to give commissions for a long period can dramatically increase your profits.

The approach is the same; pay them for working with you. It will be the rule of advertising online.

Survival Skill 3: Personal Information Agents
Less Information is More Value

Information is what everyone talks about with Web sites. I've seen businesses focus all their efforts on providing information to their customers. Financial services are a great example of this; information needs to be timely and is very valuable.

But how many other businesses can really make this claim? People coming online get way too much information. The overload is incredible and it actually dulls your customer to your message.

For instance, I send out emails to my lists. For one month, I was sending them out every week. A few people benefited, but most got overloaded. So I slowed them down to once or twice a month. The response is better, and my customers don't feel like they are getting buried under all my information.

Each business has certain information its customer needs. There is product information, sales information, customer service, and many other elements. To be a successful business, you need to act as the Personal Information Agent for your niche.

Information is where most people waste their time online. Unless you're in competition with ESPN and CNN, avoid the information wars. You'll find that maybe 10% of your customers, your best customers, avail themselves of all the information you have to offer.

It's not the amount of information that's important, but the quality and the credibility that the information provides. If people find a reliable, easy to use resource, they'll go to that again and again. That's what they're looking for, the right information that tells them what they need.

Yahoo Is Number One In Search Engines for a Reason... Like them or not, they are the most popular because they look at Web sites. Every other competitor sends out a bot to scan for words. They send out a human. That's why they're Number 1.

Here's how to make your site a Personal Information Agent:

Determine what your audience wants by looking at what other Web sites offer. Go to related mailing lists and newsgroups. Look at the sites that are mentioned, and ask people where the best site for your particular niche is. See what they do and what you can do better.

Customize information to suit your customers. One of my customers was selling long distance services. He wanted to post the rates online so his potential customers could decide. But after looking at the rates, I told him I was confused. It was too much. We eliminated the rates and later found out from someone in the company that posting these rates could have put them into questionable legal areas.

Teach your customers how to avoid information overload. Tailor your content and links to exactly what they need. Avoid the tendency to try and cover every base. A good Web site that holds enough content to elicit interest will generate the real response you want, an email. Email means the client is talking with you, listening, and reading. Just putting up information on your Web site won't do that.

Give them enough information online, but not too much. Set up your information as basic, better, and advanced. Give away the basic information, give them a taste of the better information, and sell them the best. For example, I've set up many books online. I get the publisher to give me 10 pages, some pictures, an author's page, testimonials, and a scan of the book cover. We post the basic content, give them a chapter or so of reading to understand the flavor of the book (better information), and lead them up to purchasing the best information...the book itself.

Information online has little value. Unless it's password protected, it's considered free. Give away some information, but reserve that special information for print.

Use information as a lead generator. For those coming online, provide a direction, offer to help them find what they are looking for in exchange for demographic information. Your email service and Web site support are great ways to pay back your customer for demographic information and the ability to advertise to them.

Survival Skill 4: The Online Copywriter

Business can justify ridiculous prices for programmers, graphic artists, and multimedia developers. It's amazing that so few target the copy, the words that will really get people to buy.

Write your Web site like a good sales letter.

Here's where you need the writer. A Web site needs at least two good headlines to get people moving around. On that first page you need to:

  1. Build the immense promise of what you are offering.
  2. Explain how they can explore what they want to know.
  3. Create immediate credibility.

Online writing is the most important part of a Web site or email. It's worth it to get your ad copy and articles written by a pro, or at least hire an editor. Think of your Web site like Reader's Digest; encourage good writers to contribute content and make sure your sales letters get the response you want by testing.

How long should your online sales letter be? It should be the length of time you need to sell. For instance, if I'm selling a $3,000 product, it's unlikely you'll buy it in 5 minutes. It will take at least a half hour of understanding what goes into the product and being convinced of its value for anyone to buy.

For expensive products, a 16 page sales letter isn't unusual. It takes them a half hour or more to read it. If they don't spend that time, they won't buy anyway. A five page letter would be a waste of time because it would take maybe 5 minutes to read. Measure the length of your sales message by how long it takes to convince your client to buy. Most of all, test your sales letter. If you can get a 5 page sales letter to sell your $3,000 product, do it. I wrote a sales letter for one company that generated $100,000 in online sales; it was selling a $15,000 service. This sales letter was only four pages. There are exceptions to any rule.

Both email and Web site need short headlines to introduce the idea, followed up by the longer piece. On a home page, you need to incite an action, to get them to click. The visitor then clicks the headline to explore what you are offering. Don't try to impress them with cute imagery or fancy printing; make the headline direct, specific, and as short as possible. The goal is to get them to act.

Email headlines work the same way. Check your email program and see how the headline of the email has only a certain number of characters, maybe 25-40 at the most. You have to write three or four word headlines to elicit interest. That's just to get them to open the email.

If you have a longer email sales letter, put it into an autoresponder. Use email writing as a two step process:

1. A short, display ad of a few paragraphs to encourage the person to email your autoresponder for the lengthy report. Treat it like a postcard mailing; your goal is to get them to contact you.

2. When they contact you, they can either go to your Web site or have your message automatically mailed to them with an autoresponder. Use an autoresponder instead of your Web site. It's a better way of delivering what they want with testimonials, reviews, whatever you have to show that your product or service is the best.

"Which Would You Buy?: The new Compaq Presario 2000 has a 133-MHz processor, CD-ROM, 33.6 Kbps modem, and a built-in stereo sound for under a grand. WebTV has... well, WebTV makes the Net work on your TV for 20 bucks a month ($300 box and a $59.99 keyboard not inluded). Just a thought." Wired, May 1997 pp. 45-46.

Online writers will be in great demand. Here's a few ideas to consider:

Web Ghost Writers: Hire someone to write the copy for your site, bringing a personality and flow to your marketing. When a site has a unique voice, or approach, people will remember it. They won't remember your flashing icon.

Web Answering Service: You could charge per email read, or per lead. I know several people with such services who have great incomes simply answering emails, setting up autoresponders, and delivering what their customers need. Some answer emails for major company executives; talk about a way to generate leads for your own business while getting paid premium money. Fewer than one third of all sites answer their email. Email answering services are an excellent way to generate revenue because your customers will get personal responses to their inquiries.

Web Personalities: Get a writer to do a column for your site. For example, an Internet mall hired a surfer to write a column for its surfing products. The surfer was a student, wrote the columns for free, and by giving him an initial assignment of six related articles, they were able to generate a ton of content right away. They then used these columns to update the site. The surfing products didn't change, just the surfer's column. It also gives the site some flavor beyond just the business.

Survival Skill 5. Web Consulting and Training

You may not think of yourself as a Web Consultant, but your customers do. No matter what you do online, you hear the questions. How does this work? Virtually every business online acts as a consultant now and then. Customers will ask you the latest tricks to Netscape, or wonder how NewsWatcher (software to read newsgroups) works and how you can get it.

Customers have the problems. You deliver the solutions. You teach them how to do it by themselves, and offer them a way to work for you. The formula is simple and proven; just tailor the solution to what they need.

IBM Shuts Its Mall... [ IBM tried to get a percentage of online returns from its customers. Too bad it acted like a bad landlord, charging outrageous prices with little selling going on. ]

Since your customers are going to ask you anyway, why not create reports or products that give people an idea of how you use the Web? Create a section at your Web site (or an autoresponder) to answer their questions. It will be a natural growth to any Web-related business. As the process grows, you create:

• Free reports
  
• Seminars
  
• Videos and audios
  
• Newsletters

out of your efforts. These are extra products for you to sell. It shows your knowledge of the Web, answers their questions, and builds your credibility. Then if they want to work with you, work them up to the bigger promise. Or give them a way to do it themselves.

For example, I set up an Appraiser site online. If we went out advertising appraisal services, we would have been lumped in with everyone else. So I wrote an article, "What Every Real Estate Appraiser Must Know About Marketing Online". I used the Web as a public relations angle to create a special report. We trained appraisers on exactly how we used the Internet to save and make money.

Whoa, giving away information to our competition? In a highly competitive market? That was the exact idea. When you teach people how to do it themselves, they'll use it to their advantage. But most will hire you to do what you teach. Appraisers gained our free report and had two choices:

  1. Compete with us.
  2. Join with us.

By adding Web training to our Real Estate Appraiser advertising service, we trained people how to use the Web page they bought as advertising. We even showed our competition how to do it. But once they visited the site, they decided to work with us. Finally, we were the only real estate appraiser site to give this sort of information, which set this site apart from the rest.

The Web is going to dramatically grow in the next 3 years. To survive, you need to put these five skills into action. How many of them do you use? What ones need improvement? If you put fewer than two of these in action, you'll run into some trouble. The more you use, the more advantages you can give yourself.

But most importantly, let's look at the results you can expect from your Web business:

• Expect a 1-3% response to your marketing as success; if you sell 5% of the people who come to your Web site, you'll be doing great.

• Don't just market online. Mix email with either fax, telemarketing, or direct mail. Don't fall into the rut of Internet-only marketing. Let them hear from you in different, but affordable advertising. Press releases are a great way to advance both your Web site and your business, strictly from what you are doing online.

• Be wary of banner ads. They are expensive and by most accounts, returning about a 1% response rate. The only ones who make money off banner ads are the major search engines, Netscape, Microsoft, and other multi-billion dollar conglomerates. Small businesses get sucked into believing they'll make money on banner ads. The reality is, you'll pay for limited success.

BONUS: A recent WebMaster study found that by placing your banner ad one third down the computer screen, instead of on the top, increased responses by 77%. Better yet, if you place it in the lower right hand corner of the first screen, near the scrolling bar on your browser, response increased by over 200%. Avoid the top of the screen banner ads if you do use them.