Web Design and Marketing Strategies (SAMPLE) by Edward B. Toupin - HTML preview

The Product

Before you can actually start a business on the Internet, you have to have a product. Many individuals or businesses simply move their physical storefront to the Web and use their existing products. Others want a business, but don't have a product. What can you do?

There are many ways either to acquire a new product or to enhance your existing product marketing to bring in more people. One of the most popular methods of marketing is to sell information products. Information brokering is a key element of marketing on the Web. Additionally, you can give away free information products to augment your current marketing strategies for an existing product. Another outstanding mechanism for marketing and selling on the Web is to work with the numerous Business-to-Business (B2B) vendors available today.

There are numerous ways to bring in potential customers, but the most effective way is to provide a mechanism that changes on a regular basis (e.g., information, games, etc.) to keep them coming back for more.

Many new online business owners start their career by selling a service or some type of information. Services are fantastic, especially those that involve some level of entertainment. Information is great, but it can't be get rich reports or work at home schemes. If you want to sell information, sell something substantial that involves an ultimate product or service.

There are thousands of information producing Web sites out there today. You can visit places like IceMall (http://www.icemall.com/) and download hundreds of reports discussing various businesses and topics. You can also start your own publishing company by purchasing the rights to various reports and resell them yourself. This is good and it works! However, think hard about the fact that you're falling in-line with thousands of other sites—the competition is fierce.

To attract attention, you need to wrap the information around a product or service. For instance, one of my clients started a real estate service. That was great! However, what would make that real estate service unique? Information, entertainment, a community approach wrapped around the listings and services she offered to her clients. Articles, live chats, and message boards allowed people to use information to make their real estate purchase more pleasant and informative. Additionally, as she wrote more information products herself, she became the expert because she let people know what she could do for her clients as well as what she knew about the industry.

Once you determine the core product, develop a plan to generate articles and reports about the product. Such articles and reports would consist of how-to information and details or reviews about the product. Additionally, write articles covering various aspects of your experience or knowledge about the product or service. Such articles would consist of operating instructions, benefits, or just an overview of what the product or service can do for someone else.

Distribute the articles through various free-content services. Such services take your articles and distribute them to various Webmasters or editors that use the content on their sites. In return for using your articles, the Webmaster posts your byline and contact information so that readers can contact you for more information. Additionally, you can post your own articles on your site or create an e-zine to distribute through various opt-in lists. Once you've acquired enough articles, generate an e-book for sale on your site!

The primary advantage to using B2B services available on the Web is that you can create a new business in a matter of minutes and provide additional income streams. B2B businesses provide various levels of integration with partners on the Web, however, the actual model will vary according to your needs. For this discussion, however, we will focus on the catalogue-hub.

The catalogue-hub provides you with a way to market products and services provided by an intermediary or a manufacturer. The catalogue hub is the last step of a product as it goes to market—it's the marketing site and e-commerce site from which products are purchased. For you, this means that you can create a new business based on the offerings of other companies on the Web. You can provide these services under your name and market the products to the consumer.

Catalogue-hubs can provide a way to market various industries, or various vendors within an industry. Using these various industries, you can either enhance your existing business or create a new business from the groundup. For instance, if your product or service involves some aspect of the automotive industry—selling rebuilt carburetors. You can use the B2B services of other automotive manufacturers to provide additional products for your business.

A market-specific hub of Figure 1 ties together numerous industries to meet the needs of a consumer in one place. With a market-specific hub, your focus is on the market and you take advantage of several industries to meet the market demand. For instance, with your automotive business, you can provide goods and services for various aspects of the automotive market. You can provide access to air fresheners, stereos, seats, ignition systems, tires, hitches, and various other components all from different manufacturing industries.

An industry-specific hub of Figure 2 ties in various components of one industry into one site. With this approach, you are providing access to various vendors or manufacturers within a specific industry. For instance, with the automotive business, you can set up a section of your site for four-wheel vehicles and market various off-road items from several vendors all within the same arena of the industry. Each vendor maintains differing approaches to

To enhance the appeal of your product or service, you can provide affiliate links on your site. Not only do affiliate offerings provide additional information and services to your clients, but they also offer a way to bring in additional income for you.

Affiliate programs offer a simple, but effective, avenue to developing additional income streams. You earn commissions by placing banners or text links on your web pages or ads and articles in newsletters. Classified ads can also be used effectively. The more traffic you create, the more sales you make. Most charge nothing to become an Associate, others may have an inexpensive, one-time fee. Most furnish their Associates with a free web page or a customized URL to the primary marketing site. Additionally, they handle all the ordering and customer service.