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By Smallcapital

 

Using the Internet as a platform for growth is the quickest (and sometimes easiest) way to achieve three goals at once. You generate exposure to a massive global market and can create more effective and efficient communication with less resources. You can also automate much of your customer service, strengthening relationships and ensuring your products are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

But the only way to build on this success in a sustainable fashion is to constantly monitor the effectiveness of your sales and marketing efforts. By assessing return on investment you can establish what you need to be doing differently in order to achieve your objectives.

Virtually every aspect of online marketing is measurable. This includes revenue, profits, new and repeat customers, order size, product information, shopping cart abandon rates, click-through statistics on online advertisements and even the receive/read rates of your online communications. The bad news is that most companies dont bother, and therefore never know how much or how little online tools are supporting their business.

Start measuring your own return on investment by asking the following three questions:

1. What is the goal of your website?

Your website should support your broader business aims. These might include, among others:

• Generating a specific number of sales.
  
  
• Generating a specific number of leads.
  
  
• Creating awareness of, and stirring interest in, a product or service.
  
  
• Informing and/or advertising the public.
  
  

2. What value can you place on each goal?

If you are selling products online this is an easy calculation. Establish your profit per sale, on a sale-by-sale basis. If you have a sales force, its still fairly simple. Determine how many Internet leads convert to customers, and the average value of those customers. Then multiply the two.

3. Can you measure this goal in numbers?

For example, you can track the number of times a specific page or file is viewed using website traffic-analysis software. You can also track what time and where your customers entered the site, and where referrals to the site originated. In this way you can predict when people are most likely to visit your site, which pages interest them most, and which banners, links or portals are generating the most traffic to your site.

Once you know this, you can focus more effort on those channels that yield good results and less on those that dont.

E-commerce Dos and DONTs

DO make the site compatible with more than one web browser. Test your site and system with other browsers. Some tweaking may be necessary and often these are very simple or minor fixes.

DONT underestimate concurrent traffic. Plan for the peak traffic periods when there are many users converging on a site simultaneously.

DO offer information on competitive products. If you give visitors the information they need to make their decision, you will attract more shoppers and generate more sales.

DONT make your online store a standalone orphan. Make it work with other sales channels like mail-order catalogues, phone orders or face-to-face contact.

Build trust

Consumers and business shoppers alike are increasingly turning to the Internet to comparison shop, check availability and to save time. Security, however, makes them cautious. Beef up your security and tell your customers all about it. Build trust by:

• Supplying detailed product descriptions.
  
  
• Providing clear returns policies or warranties.
  
  
• Providing good customer service when something goes wrong.
  
  
• Supplying lots of information about your business, such as a phone number and business address.
  
  

Be a friend

Customers feel more comfortable about buying online if you establish a bond with them. Heres how to do it on your website:

• Create an email address specifically for customer comment and make sure you are able to and do respond quickly.
  
  
• Create a way for customers to track their orders once they are shipped.
  
  
• Create a series of auto-responder email messages to thank customers for visiting your site, to offer an incentive for a further sale, and to confirm shipment.
  
  
• Send newsflash emails to announce new products or price deals, or create a regular email newsletter.
  
  

This Article is written by an expert at Small Capital. Small Capital provides all important information for small business owners. Small Capital shares expert and professional knowledge of the local market and business environment. Find information related to marketing plan examples/samples, selective marketing strategy examples and business listing websites.

Is to provide a regular income daily

By J-Solutions

 It has long been commented that one of the best ways to keep loyal visitors returning to a website

Is to provide a regular daily Joke at the top. Its a brilliant marketing secret that master salespeople already know.

Case in point; look at the sometimes wildly funny gimmicks TV advertisers use in their TV ads. They are crazy for a reason. If the viewer grins or even chuckles a bit, it creates an instant bond with the product.

When people are actually laughing, thats powerful. In particular, they might be inclined to pass the news about the product, or your website to their friends.

The problem for web owners is one of finding appropriate material. Obviously long jokes wont do, It need to be quick and simple to get the viewer buzzing but not off the topic of your website or newsletter.

The other problem is the constant daily chore of posting it to the website. If the website runs on a semi automated mode, or is managed by an expensive webmaster, this can be the stopper preventing the inclusion of daily humor on the site.

In a very unique way, humor website http://www.100earningtips.com has come up with a win, win, win solution for everybody. At the top of the site is a link to a small piece of code which will put a tidy neat daily Quote, Riddle, Answer, etc., bit of humor on your site which is updated automatically every day.

Whats so unique about it is that the humor Dailies are completely free and are also completely free of ads, banners, or other annoying effects. Likewise, there are no sign ups, logins, or other annoying requirements required. The only concession for Whole look is that a small logo for Wholelook.com appears in the Daily which links to Whole look if you click on it.

You win because you have valuable new content for your website. Your reviewers and readers win because of the fresh daily warm and fuzzies. Whole look wins, because it becomes greater noticed. In fact, why be stingy. Spread all five Daily Jokes around your website. Keep your viewers laughing.

As a bonus Whole look has also provided the images it uses as samples for each of the assorted types of Dailies in such a way that you can simply cut and past any of the images at the top or bottom of your business and personal emails as attention getters and/or you’re a class act revealer. You can use the same image as part of the bedded message in your email header or footer, or use a different Daily every send by sticking it in.

Did you find this article useful? For more useful tips and hints, points to ponder and keep in mind, techniques, and insights pertaining to credit card, do please browse for more information at our websites.

http://www.adsence-dollar-factory.com

http://www.100earningtips.com

Business Coaching Information From A Professional Source

A Franchise Business is Not for Everybody

By Nazir Daud 1

 If, like so many people, you are thinking of moving out, away from the office, away from the daily grind of working hard to make somebody else rich, and starting your own venture, then a franchise opportunity might very well be the answer. However, it isn’t necessarily the right solution for everyone, and there are several things to think about very seriously before resigning from your day job.

A franchise offers you the opportunity to run your own business, decide on your own working hours, conditions and arrangements, either working from home, on the internet, in an industrial unit, on the road or on the high street. If you are fortunate, it will also mean working within an area in which you have some interest.

Perhaps you really enjoy working with children, and relish the idea of running nursery groups, inflatable party hire or such like, or perhaps you’d prefer the retail side of things, selling something you enjoy. From jewellery and makeup to electronics and gadgets, from computers to internet businesses, there is a franchise to suit almost everyone.

One of the easiest and most exciting aspects of deciding whether a franchise would suit you is investigating the opportunities available. Perhaps you already have a clear idea of the kind of area which interests you, and the sort of thing you can see yourself pursuing on a day-to-day basis. Many people stumble across a franchise that captures their imagination by accident, starting off a whole new ball game.

However, franchising isn’t all about indulging yourself in a field that you enjoy, although naturally, that’s a hugely important aspect, but there is the whole issue of working for yourself to deal with. If you’re currently able to look forward to the end of the month when a paycheck arrives, such a luxury will no longer be happening. You will get paid when you have actually done enough business to have made a profit, and if you don’t make a profit - you don’t get paid. It really is as simple as that.

Whilst many people like the idea of being directly responsible for earning every penny they get, other people find this unsettling. If you have family responsibilities, or very high outgoings, perhaps a mortgage or loan commitments, then taking a step which will necessarily entail a degree of uncertainty may not be the best idea.

If your franchise opportunity involves working from home, as very many do these days, perhaps using the internet to run your business; this in itself can create a number of unforeseen problems. To begin with, if you have family at home, they may quite understandably not consider that you are really at work. Children running around, people dropping in to visit, telephone calls, your partner asking for a hand, the dog wanting a walk… and so on. You will definitely need your own computer as the last thing you want to do is fight over whose turn it is to use the machine! The normal day-to-day strains of running a family as well as a business can result in short tempers on both sides.

Another issue to deal with is the reality that you will become responsible for your accounts. Running your own business can be an exciting prospect, but for most people, running your own accountancy department is not. However, you will need to keep a close eye on every financial aspect of the business, including calculating your own taxes as well. Depending on the exact franchise arrangements, you may be given support, advice or even the facilities for maintaining your own business accounts.

But if you are the sort of person who regularly finds themselves going overdrawn, with checks bouncing and charges causing even more headaches, then it will be important to ask yourself whether you really will be able to maintain the accounts to a good standard. After all, if you start causing problems, the franchise owner may not be happy.

This brings us on to another aspect of franchising, which is the whole issue of independence. Although buying in to a franchise provides you with a way of running your own business, being responsible for your own earnings and working conditions, working from home and enjoying freedom, you are still working for someone else in effect. The franchise owner may well stipulate a number of conditions and rules which you will need to follow.

After all, they are letting you use their good name, and they aren’t going to want you to do something which will cause any harm to the brand image. Sometimes this might involve them asking you to do things that you don’t agree with, and so if you would prefer complete autonomy and independence, then starting your own business might be a better idea to franchising. However, after considering all of these issues, if you still believe that it’s the right solution for you, then it could very well be the best career move you ever make.

Whatever type of business you are looking for; chances are that there is a franchise that meets your needs. Franchising is not for everybody but it can make you successful if you like to play by the rules.

Naz Daud - CityLocal Franchise

Business Franchise Opportunity

Ireland Business Franchises

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Saturday, August 29th, 2009 at 5:10 pm and is filed under business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.