Dear Friend,

If you plant a tomato, and it does not grow, you do not blame the tomato.

You explore why it is not growing; does it need more sun, water, and/or better soil? What can you do to help that tomato grow?

Funny how this simple logic escapes people online. They plant their business, spend all their efforts on a Web Site, and do little if anything to market it. Then when the Web Site returns nothing, they blame the Web Site.

"See everything. Overlook a great deal. Improve a little."    -Pope John XXIII

Even worst, they blame the Internet. They justify their failure by comparing themselves to Time Magazine (which recently claimed it has no clue on how to make money online), or Microsoft's shutting down of its entertainment sites.

They embrace the problem, instead of finding the solution. Meanwhile, they could be searching for the water (customers), the sun (an online marketing plan based on generating results) and the right soil (the Web Site) to grow their business.

While the corporations fumble, you can step up to the plate. Commit to a tested, proven sales process based on one factor: what your customers want. Let's explore how to do that right now.

Getting Closer to the Water: How To Target Your Customers

No plant or human can survive without water. Your business cannot survive without customers. Target your customers by using the following strategies.

Search Engine Strategy

Most people try only to fool search engines, hoping that their customer will find them on top of the heap. In reality, the search engines are a better research/marketing tool for you than your customers.

Have you ever been to a search engine and found it frustrating? Why not absorb the frustration and use the search engines to lead you to your customer base.

Directories: The Power of Yahoo

Yahoo ( www.yahoo.com ) is the most heavily trafficked site on the Internet, because it took all these millions of sites and created an organized directory. It is a great place to start your search.

As you click through the various subjects, you will find groupings of businesses. You will also find related businesses, networks, and professionals that work together. Yahoo also has local directories; you can enter by zip code or search by state and find listings of local businesses.

You can click on any directory to go to a deeper level, or to go back up a level. Check out the words that appear here and write them down. This will help you collect keywords and categories for your specific customer base.

Also look for Web Sites that act as directories, or guides, for a specific subject. One guide is worth its weight in gold. For example, if you search for local businesses in Indianapolis , you will find a site called www.indylinks.com which acts as a local directory.

What better way to market locally then to discover who is marketing, and where? This is an excellent way to begin targeting customers whether you know who you are looking for or not.

Use Yahoo to help establish the meeting places your customers are going to. Look for small directories that specialize in a niche and harvest them for leads, networking, and researching what your competition is doing.

Concept Based Advertising:
Excite ( www.excite.com ) and WebCrawler ( www.webcrawler.com )

Directories and listings will give you a good overview. Take the keywords and concepts you find and visit Excite. WebCrawler will soon become much more like Excite, with channels and special interests listed.

Excite organizes its pages by themes or terms; enter your keywords and you will see more related words suggested for you to look into. You can develop the keywords that your customer base is looking for with this approach.

See what sites appear as well; how are they grouped?: Check out the top 10 sites; why do you think they appear on top? Emulate what they do to improve your listing online.

Once you find what you are looking for, you will be within a click of related businesses and sites. Excite also reviews sites online, to give you an idea of which ones are best.

The Top Ten Sites for Web Traffic (January 1998)

1. Yahoo, 26.7 million visits.    2. Netscape, 20.7 million visits.

3. Microsoft.com, 15.6 million visits 4. Excite, 12.5 million visits

Create a Tested, Proven Strategy to Appeal to the Top 7 Search Engines

To succeed online, you need to use the search engines for your subject. Be sure to visit the other top search engines, including:

Lycos: www.lycos.com
InfoSeek: www.infoseek.com
AltaVista: www.altavista.digital.com
Hotbot: www.hotbot.com

Enter the terms and find out the few sites your customers are meeting at. Contact Web Sites and invite them to work with you. Conduct a survey or evaluation program.

Newsgroups: Visit Deja News

A few years ago, newsgroups were the place to market. Today there over 50,000 newsgroups, with an estimated 900,000 posts a day, according to Deja News (www.dejanews.com ).

That's the good news; the bad news is that over 50% of these posts are spam. Newsgroups have run amok with wild claims and crazy advertising. You may still find your customers, but it is a headache.

Use Deja News to research, and use newsgroups to find out the Web Sites, meeting places, and areas where your customers are going. Since over half the posts are advertising, it may not be that great a place for you to actively promote yourself. But it is not a bad place to ask questions and research. Some times you can just check the FAQs for the newsgroup and find the best sites for that specific interest group. Finally, you can "spam the spammer", and sell to all those people selling.

After all, what better customer than someone out there trying to market their products and services?

One final idea is to visit Amazon.com ( www.amazon.com ), the online book store. Enter your keywords and see what comes up. You will have more information on the products and services related to what you are offering. More importantly, you will know where you customers are, and how to contact them. The only cost is your time.

As you start to search for your customers, make a list of:

1. Keywords related to your business; use long and short forms of each word. For example, if you are looking for consultants, use the words "consult" and "consultant" and "advisor" and "consulting" , and so on. Microsoft Word has a Thesaurus that will suggest related words for you as well.

2. Web Sites that act as directories for your specific audience. For example, if you are targeting local customers in the Indianapolis area, find local directories, listings of their addresses, and professional associations.

3. Email addresses and names of sites you visit. It is much more powerful to name the owner of a site, and the name of their site, in your contact than to send out spam to millions of Web Sites. Personalize your direct email campaign by focusing on hundreds of Web Sites, instead of millions of addresses.

The Top Ten Sites for Web Traffic (January 1998, continued)

5. Infoseek, 11.6 million visits.    6. AOL.com, 11.2 million visits.    7. GeoCities, 10.4 million visits.

8. Lycos-Tripod, 7.8 million visits. 9. AltaVista, 6.7 million visits. 10. MSN 6.3 million visits

Here Comes the Sun: Your Online Marketing Plan

E-zines: One of the Proven, and Least Used, Ways to Target your Customer Base

E-zines are online magazines delivered via Web Sites and email, targeted to a specific audience. I subscribe to several which claim memberships of 30,000 and 60,000 people.

Best of all, e-zines are targeted to a market that wants to hear from them. Many offer advertising opportunities, sponsorships, or even ways to donate some content in exchange for a brief plug.

Visit the E-zines database, www.dominis.com, and prepare to be amazed. You can search their database and see what is out there.

And if no one is out there, you may have an opportunity to generate your own e-zine. Delivered by email, it is one of the cheapest ways to develop a list of customers interested in hearing from you. Often called "Opt-in" lists, these are the power of the Web to cheaply and quickly target your market.

Direct Email and Fax

Direct email and fax are two ways to contact your customers without intruding. The key is to target your audience and tailor your message to what they want. Many people focus their ad copy on price only; success is generated from your service and benefits you deliver, more than your price or "knowledge".

First contact is a place to introduce yourself. Don't get into a heavy sales pitch; drive them to a Web page for that. Even better, invite them to hear from you again. Remember not to spam, stripping masses of addresses in hope that a few will respond. The time you spend targeting your customers will more than compensate for waste of time, money, and effort you get by randomly emailing customers who may or may not be interested in your offer.

Promote safe, secured email with a protection of privacy. Whatever you do, don't apologize. So many people are frightened by the dangerous nature of spam, they forget that a living person is reading their ad copy.

Those who want to attack you will with or without this message. Those who want to buy will wonder why you are so paranoid about contacting them.

Is this guy a loser ? In his twenties, he lost two businesses, was defeated in a run for legislature, his sweetheart died, and he had a nervous breakdown...in the next 8 political elections he ran for...

Compare the first lines of these two messages:

Example A.
Headline: How You Can Turn $100 Into A Fortune.

The benefit of this headline is compelling, but is it believable? Fortune is a vague word, if you turned this into "How You Can Turn $100 into $50,000", the terms are more concrete...but still exaggerated. Get rich quick headlines are weak, but not as bad as the following introduction to the sales letter.

Content Notice
===========================================================
Thank you for the information you have provided for us and/or others to see on the Internet, and thank you for making your email location available in the process so we can interact with you. The following offer is in response to accessing your web page/publicly accessible posting or information published on the Internet. Or it is in response to email you have sent to one of our accounts, that caught our attention because of the information it contained. We believe our research indicates it is a response that may be of benefit and interest to you.

If we were mistaken in thinking you posted this information in order for people/us to see and respond to it and exchange information with you, this is notice that you should not read the below contents of the email. It is not our intention to email those who do not want a response or to offend you in any way. Just accept our thanks for your contribution to the Internet, which got our attention.
===========================================================

This politeness is phony...and exhausting. Try this next ad, which tells you why you should read it...and is not ashamed of selling.

Example B.
Headline: ADV: A Personal Message....

I think the headline stinks, and I don't like the ADV intro. This stands for advertising, done to protect the sender. Good advertising is never thought of as an ad, if it is targeted and delivers benefits. Why remind them of this? Also, a personal message is delivered from their CEO. Why not mention this? "A Personal Message From The CEO.."

Or a winner ? He lost 7 times. Finally, at age 51, he was elected president.               His name ? Abraham Lincoln

Why I Liked This Ad: The Intro Ad Copy

"We placed an ad in one small area of the Internet. And when the dust started to settle we had over six thousand responses in ten days."

Compare this to the one above; instead of apologizing, they show you an immediate benefit of what they actually did. This is a success story, with a result that is not beyond the reach of most people.

Even better, the ad copy develops to show how they converted the leads into customers. The power of such simple ad copy cannot be stressed too much. The results are tangible, easily understood, and invite you to read more.

If you take a professional approach to direct email, you will find that less resistance. Spam is a term for unsolicited email; the real goal is to use your first contact as a way to solicit their input, and start communicating.

Take the following approach with professional, direct email:

1. Realize that a real person exists on the other end, one with limited time. People only complain about advertising that gives them little or nothing. If you have researched your customer base, hit the benefits that your offer brings to your customer.

2. Write your ad copy to focus on a short headline. Personalize it with their name and email address, to show how you reached them. It is good to include the name of their business as well, to show that you actually know what they offer. If you have done the steps in the search engines, this is easy.

3. Get a database program and focus on it. You can use your database to export names and addresses to your email program, personalizing your message to a broad customer base. It is easy to do, and database programs are often less than $200. ACT, Microsoft Access, and MyMailingList are three Windows databases. I use FileMaker for Windows. It also allows me to customize my invoices, sales letters, and personalize campaigns via direct mail, direct email, as well as providing customer tracking.

4. Do not forget the power of different media. Faxes are cheap and a good way to reach someone in print. One site I visit contacts you via email, then follows up via fax with a guarantee to get you one contract as a consultant within a year of joining them.

Paper is still a good way to reach people, and fax is not intrusive. Just make sure that you have earned the right to contact them, and don't intrude on anyone who does not want to hear from you.

Networking and Advertising Online

Business to business selling is one of the best markets. Many people get into competitive stances online, like they are competing for a local market.

The irony is that in the "real" world, networking is a central element of business. Take the real estate industry, for example. Real estate agents, lenders, accountants, appraisers, construction, painters, title companies, escrow companies, and many others have a referral based system.

I know one appraiser in San Diego that gets half of his work referred by out of state lenders. A professional network exists in real estate, one based on referral instead of advertising.

Now go and visit real estate sites online and see how few are applying this model. Everyone is trying to sell their one piece of the pie, when the customer wants to buy the whole package.

This will not last for long. Intuit, the makers of Quicken software, have taken their stronghold in computer based banking and stretched it to the real estate market. They have created a mortgage site ( http://mortgage.quicken.com ) where you can apply for a loan online, pre-qualify, and get a choice of six lenders for your loan.

Soon Intuit will be a broker itself, and will do what every mortgage company basically does. Everyone shops from the same banks to give you a loan. Intuit is using its software as a lead generating mechanism, a referral, for all these real estate professionals. They are also targeting accountants, generating inquiries for these professionals and selling a subscription basis to their lead generating mechanism.

Remember this model of professional networking, and apply it in the following ways:

1. Does a network exist for referrals in your market? Invite people and businesses to network with you. Use your links page as a referral mechanism, and build a select circle of influence to profit from.

2. Think in terms of appointments and actual sales instead of referral fees. You can arrange a professional referral system by forwarding work, more than putting a money figure on it at first.

If you generate enough leads, you'll be able to charge for them. Use your network to enhance your own reputation, and make sure that whoever you work with backs up what they do in action. Make sure that whoever you work with is as good as you. And backs up what they offer with great customer service.

3. Banner Ads as a networking tool. Banner ads will not make you money, unless you are Yahoo or Netscape. Invite selected businesses to post banner ads in your network, in exchange for showing your ad on their site. Also use Link Exchange ( www.linkexchange.com ), to target customers for banner ads as well. For a little extra, you can specify who will see what you are offering.

Finally, there is a site called the Web Ring ( www.webring.org ) that helps people create networks of links. Each person puts the code on their home page, and members are added easily. You just need one person to maintain it, and the benefits can be tremendous.

4. Qualify anyone in your network; do not link for the sake of linking. Get your network to be as professional and responsible as you would be in the real world. One bad piece of your network can bring everyone down. Make sure that you ask the right questions and take the time to find good partners, not just links.

5. Sponsorships are a great way to work closely with other sites. At the Forbes Web Site, Fidelity sponsors a specific section. Their articles and advertising are the only ones you will find in this section.

Use these sponsorships to your advantage. Place content at other's sites, and use sponsorships as an ultimate form of networking. Work your way up to this via experience and the ability to mutually generate leads for each other.

Even better, offer to set up a section of your site to be sponsored by your network. I have done that with my Web Success Journal ( http://webletter.net/success/ ) by setting up a hosting option, with links, to Members in my network.

This site enables all my customers to have excellent content, updated frequently, and a Web Page that lists them as the host, the sponsor. Instead of struggling only in their own Web Site, they can take advantage of the great writing and information available.

They also have three links of their own, which open a separate window in the visitor's browser, so the focus is on their business. As a lead generator, it is a tremendous benefit. What will happen is that a few people will find this to be a great credibility builder and lead generator. What better way to test?

The "Just" Principle "So what's the point? Just that countless We Sites are being built on what the Net Set calles the "just principle", which states just this: "Just focus on what you can deliver best, and deliver just that."    George Vernadakis, "Why Some World Wide Web Sites Are JUST So", Interactive Week

Planting In the Right Soil: Your Web Site

As a WebMaster, I am amazed at how people consistently make the same mistakes. The most important part of your Web Site is a clear and focused offer. Many Web Sites try to be everything to everyone, which is impossible.

Whatever you offer, focus on the word "Just". "Just email marketing". "Just Generating Leads". "Just selling books" (Amazon.com is an example of this; will they succeed by also selling music CD's?).

What's the point of your site? Focus on what you deliver best, and deliver "just" that.

Key 1. Save Time and you Save Money:
Time is the Most Precious Commodity

You have 30 seconds to make a sale at your Web Site. Make sure that your home page text and graphics do not add up to more than a total of 40K (just look on your computer at the file sizes). That will take about 15 seconds to open up, which means you have to hit them with your message immediately.

Think of your site as having three reasons for your customer to visit. Focus on those three reasons and answer them quickly with headlines that link to specific pages. There is an old rule of design called the "Rules of 7"; never give them more than 7 perceived choices to make, or you will confuse them.

Keep it simple, and minimize your links. You can embellish on your other Web Pages, but at your front door, your Home Page, orient and:

A. Focus your customer on exactly what you offer, and why it will benefit them. Everything else is just commentary.

B. Show why they should believe what you are offering. Back up what you say with testimonials, what other people say about you. Have a page where you introduce the owner, with a picture, or show the track record of the business. If you are new and have no testimonials, focus on success stories and show why you follow the same model.

C. Make your site believable. Credibility is 50% of the reason anyone will stay at your site. Prove you can do what you say, and show the results. Put it in percentages, dollars saved or earned, leads, and compare it to your industry. Make the examples so concrete that there are no questions left. If you are beginning, partner with others so you can benefit from their experience as well. After all, every business began some time; don't let this stand in your way.

D. Get them to contact you immediately. Put your free report on an autoresponder, and get them to fill in a small form on your home page immediately. Do not create a home page without such a simple form.

Those Who Predict the Future, Don't Necessarily See It... "Looking into the future in 1990 I would have missed the importance of the Internet. In 1980 I might have missed the emergence of the PC."    Gordon Moore, cofounder, Intel: Red Herring, April 1998

Key 2. Color

The Web brings color printing to anyone; this is a scary proposition. People put so many colors up, it distracts. Adapt the following rules and you'll be safe:

1. Use just a few colors on your Web Page. One trick I use is to focus on the color blue for my links, dark blue for a new link, and then a lighter blue after they have clicked on it.

Try to use just 3 colors on your page; after all, computer screens are based on an RGB (red, green, blue) model for a reason. These three colors are the most reliable ones for looking the same on most screens Too much color just turns people off.

2. No more than 20 percent of your Web Page should be in color. Use white backgrounds, black text, one color for links, and keep your colors simple. Avoid fancy patterns or gradients, because while it may look good on your computer, it can look awful on others. Use color for your left hand border. For areas with extensive text, use white; it works.

Black is a good alternative for a high tech, entertainment, or "cool" site. Minimize the text you use on such backgrounds. Make the text light gray and yellow so it is easy to read. Avoid red text on a black background, it is tough on the eyes.

3. Use simple color lines at the top or bottom of the page to separate sections. If you use text as a graphic, make it a different color to separate sections of your Web Page.

4. Use your color to accent what you are doing, for key points of action, links, and places you want people to go to immediately. Have one main color for your page, and use the other two sparingly.

5. Color affects people psychologically, for example:

Yellow promotes optimism, but too much makes people uneasy.
White is associated with truth.
Orange is associated with fun, while red promotes appetite.
Black is the most dramatic color for backgrounds.
Blue implies authority, financial responsibility, and security.
Green means health and tranquillity.
Blue is the most popular color.

Key 3. Consistency

The style of your Web site should be consistent from page to page. Select a background and colors, then stick with them.

Web pages comes in one, two, or three columns. Ninety percent of the time, a two column format works best. Make your Web Pages about 600 pixels wide, with 20% (120 pixels) for a left hand border. This is where you put your table of contents, or listings. Use the rest to put your text, headlines, banner ads, and key offers.

Most of all, don't change your formatting from page to page. Use the same colors and standard look so people don't think about where things are. It should be easy to get around your site.

If you use a two column format, stick with it. Each time a Web Page looks different, your visitor will be distracted. Get them to focus on your text by being direct, using the same sets of colors on each page, and formatting it the same way.

HINT: The best way to test this is to create your Web Site and invite people to go through it in person. Watch what they do and most of all, don't say anything to them. Sit them down to the Web Site and observe, do not talk. You will find out what works and what doesn't quickly, if you don't show them what to do. At your Web site, no one is there to guide them. Make sure you watch what they do.

Business Success Has Three Keys:    1. Operations, the ability to generate products and services    2. Sales, the ability to sell what you offer    Finance, the ability to keep paying for your business.

Key 4. Ad Copy and Testing

Like every other medium (print, radio, and television), it all comes down to your ad copy. Words are what make people respond and react.

Spend your time with your ad copy and test what works. See which headlines pull at your Web Site, and via email. Test and change these most of all, especially on your home page. Don't think of updating, think of testing your ad copy.

Key 5. Design

A Web Site should be easy to navigate, which simply means breaking down your offer into its own logical structure. Try to make everything accessible with one or two clicks of a mouse.

Write an outline of your ideas, then for each of your major subjects, write the name on a piece of paper. Put these on the floor in front of you, and circle them around your home page. If you find yourself branching out so much that there is little floor space, try to reorganize it.

The further you get from the home page, the more you need to edit. If you can make everything available in one or two clicks, you will make it easy for your visitor to quickly get through your site.

Make your files names descriptive as well, so people know what they are looking at. If you focus on writing a site simply, you will find that most sites break down into:

1. The Home Page, i.e. Table of Contents, to center everything around
2. Content that shows what you are doing, and that you know what you are doing;
3. Credibility building pages, like resumes, testimonials, and company information
4. Places to contact the business for emails, faxes, inquires, and phone calls
5. Points of Sales, where they decide to buy or not
6. Products/Service pages, to outline what you offer, the benefits, and the costs.

What Internet Malls Really Sell Viaweb ( www.viamall.com ), is one of the most successful online malls. Over 88percent of products there are sold for less than $100, and the majority of that for less than $30.

1. Selling To Everyone Means You Sell to No One

If you do not target your offer, it will confuse your customers. People are not patient. In a recent survey, 73% of people claimed to be "insanely busy". If you do not develop a target customer profile and appeal directly to them, you will lose customers. And they will never come back to your site again.

Visit www.inetdesign.com for my latest version of this approach. I found that people visited for 3 reasons. I define those reasons and get them to contact me immediately via telephone. I met a real estate agent who took the same, lead generating approach with his Web Site. He made 18 sales in one year, not because of the Web Site, but because of the phone calls that came from his Web Site. Like most real estate professionals, he knows that a phone call is more powerful than a "virtual" contact.

2. Web Flea Market: Buy a Web Site or Get a Grocery Coupon

These Web Sites are quickly dying out. You can find them by going to the search engines. People are selling Web Sites, classified advertising, pre-paid legal services, long distance phone cards, and reminder services...All on the same Web Page!

Think about this the next time you go to your grocery store. Do they offer to sell you a Web Site with your pickles? Flea markets diminish the value of what you are selling. Most people who own these sites tell me they depend on selling a high volume of low price items. How do I know this is a doomed approach? Visit their sites and see if there is any life there.

3. Huge graphics that make your site take 30 seconds to open, which is all the time you have to sell your customer on staying.

The worst thing about computers is that they enable us to do things we just should not be doing. Graphic design is a skill; most people get some Paint program and have absolutely no sense of size, or what the graphic makes them look like. If you want to SCREAM AT YOUR AUDIENCE AND BE OBNOXIOUS, then use big graphics.

The average screen is about 600 wide X 440 high (pixels). Keep your graphics down to less than 25% of this screen at most, 150X110 as a general guideline. You can make them wider, just beware of making them too tall. At some sites, all you see on the first screen is a huge company logo.

This is one job you should definitely outsource, especially if your Web developer is a techie...techies often know little about graphic design.

4. Great Gobs of Content.
Remember the early days of the Web, when everyone screamed how content was king? Visitors do not equate into value, unless you convert them. Focus on your marketing copy and give them enough, but not too much.

5. This site has XXXX number of visitors (How many bought?)
Does it really matter to anyone how many people visit your store? The sure sign that a store is visited often is the success and profits of the owner. All the rest is empty bragging.

6. Explaining what technology you use, frames, etc.
To this day it amazes me how people explain the technical design of their Web Page. If you use any reference to technology, you are distracting your customer. Keep it simple.

7. Download the following plug-ins to get this site working.
No one will spend ten minutes downloading the plug-in to see your cutesy message. Avoid plug-ins, with the possible exception of RealAudio.

8. You need a screen 800X600 wide to view this.
You need to get a clue. Don't sell to customers based on their screen size, sell to them based on the benefits you deliver.

9. No place to send an email, or gain a free report.
After spending all this time to create a site, most people forget to ask for inquiries. They just think people will work hard to contact them. Assume that a person will visit your site once, and never return....unless you remind them to via email.

10. Look at all the awards we've won.
Best of the Web awards are nice for entertainment and education, but for business they are just another boring promo of someone else's site. No one knows who gives the awards, and it isn't like an Oscar. Awards have no credibility.

Summing Up

The reason most Web Sites fail is that they fall in love with an idea, and never think of what their customers want. Be sure you focus on:

1. Researching your customer base and finding those select places they go for information and entertainment. Find a way to drive them to your site.

2. Study your competition continuously. Always be on the look out for people to partner with. As one Silicon Valley exec puts it, partner with as many people as possible, because you do not know which ones will succeed.

3. Commit to increasing sales AND decreasing costs. A sales only approach means you miss half the value of the Internet. Create a Web marketing plan and apply it, step by step. Evaluate your cash flow monthly, find out which promotions work, then sink your money into the one or two best places to generate leads and sales for your specific niche.

4. Keep on training and improving your skills. After all, people can always buy a product or service some place else. The reason they work with you is the value you add, and the service you back it with.

Good customer service and attention to your customers is the best, long term, marketing of all. Having the water, sun, and soil is important, but remember that through bad weather and good, your customers are what keep your business alive.

Make sure you do your best to benefit them.