Automating your ebusiness and freeing up your time is really easy to do, right? Actually, it is... with the right tools. Listed below are some must-do's for your e-business if you want to combine tasks, free up more up your time and be a serious competitor selling on the Internet.
1. Build Targeted Email Lists
You must build your own targeted lists of subscribers. This is easily done using autoresponders that let you sequentially send a series of messages to your subscribers. Entice these subscribers to join your list by giving them a valuable product/service in return. Set this process up to run without you ever having to touch it ever again - automate it.
2. Track your advertising campaigns.
You MUST do this to keep track of your expenses and profits. Tracking can tell you where your visitors are coming from and what they are buying. It can also tell you which of your affiliates are performing really well, and which ones need your help. Tracking your ads can also point out how well your JV-deals are performing. It can let you know where and where NOT to continue placing your ads.
3. Setup a Newsletter.
Setup a newsletter or niche ezine to capture emails. It's best if you set this up on your own domain, or at least use some method that gives the illusion that a prospect is signing up to YOUR newsletter from YOUR domain. Set up what's called an" auto-niche ezine". This could be a "x" number of days - training course, or an ezine that you publish quite frequently. The trick to this is to create about 8 or 9 messages before you begin accepting subscribers. This way if you use your autoresponder to send weekly messages, you'll always be several messages ahead of the game. I suggest sending weekly, with mailings no less than 3 days apart - unless you're offering a training course where the information can be assimilated and applied quickly. Even here, you should give your readers a chance to digest the information.
4. Setup an affiliate program.
There are several people out there who would rather market other peoples' HOT producst, rather than create their own. This is great for you, if you're running your own quality affiliate program. Select a program that allows you to not only offer your affiliates an affiliate link to promote, but one where you can train your affiliates to sell your product(s). Guess what? You can use autoresponders for that too. Simply create a series of messages that teach your affiliates how to promote your product(s) or service. You should also allow your affilates to use your text and images (banners, etc.) to promote for you. Also, it would be really bottom-line affecting if you and your affiliates could track your ad campaigns. That is the icing on the cake and some pretty good icing too. You and your affiliates get to zero in the most effective and least effective advertising methods and adjust your campaigns accordingly.
5. Use proper product management
Some people don't understand this one. You should use shopping carts for physical products, not digital ones. Your credit card processing and product delivery should be secure and efficient. If you're selling digital products (ebooks, software, etc.), make sure your customer downloads are secure so people cannot steal from you. Yep - people steal on the Internet. The ideal download link is one that is encrypted and that expires after a certain time period - say 24 hours. This gives your customer plently of time to download their new product. For physical products, your shopping cart should be responsive and searchable. The layout should be simple and intuitive. If you offer your customer options such as colors and/or sizes, make sure this is easy for them to follow and integrates seamlessly with your cart.
6. Follow-up promptly and professionally
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can make you or it could break you. You must always practice prompt and courteous communication with your prospects and customers. A good practice is to use an autoresponder and/or help-desk system to follow-up with your customers and to offer them support. An auto-responder with a simple message stating, "Thank You for your inquiry. Someone will contact you shortly...." could work wonders for your image. It could also be that extra something that makes a customer remain loyal and/or refer you to their friends and family.
A Support/Ticketing system with pre-formatted answers to commonly asked questions can cut your response time dramatically. This is especially powerful if mail-merge functionality is included as well. Mail-merge is a way of automatically including things like the customer's name and email address, etc in your message. This personalizes your messages. It's a warm way of communicating with your prospects and customers. In your auto-responder it would look like this: "Hello $firstname, thank you for buying our widgets! We love you! And $firstname, if your friends buy some widgets, we'll love them too!" The tag "$firstname" would be replaced with the prospect's first name, i.e. Bob, Jane, Joe, etc.
An Internet business is probably the easiest and most profitable business in the world to setup. However, careful planning and execution can ensure your ebusiness does not become a burden on you and your loved ones. E-Business Automation is the answer to this problem. it allows you to put your business on auto-pilot and streamline your efforts. You can automate your entire business, from credit card processing and affiliate management, to digital product delivery, email management, autoresponder system, shopping cart, to follow-up and customer relationship management, using one system. That's what ecommerce is all about - Integrated solutions! Not hard work - you can do that off the Internet.
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About the Author
Ettione Stuckey, Performance Technologist, Webmaster, Internet Marketer Ettione holds degrees in electronics and business. His passion is ecommerce and Internet Marketing. Ettione runs several ecommerce websites. "ProWebWare E-Business Automation" is his fourth website and is a big HIT for its powerful ecommerce features and extreme value. If you're thinking of automating your e-business, we highly recommend ProWebWare.