You don’t need to know everything about marketing on the net, but it’s smart to learn more in a targeted way. What you can do is find out what works best with your business and then dive into it. You can use so many different ways to promote your products, and this will add some nice changes to your daily tasks.
You need to work on building your opt-in list so that you can continue to benefit from all of the great things that come from successful list marketing. If you are like the other Internet marketers and the larger businesses out there your opt-in box is probably very obviously located so that every visitor can see (and, if we’re being honest, ignore) it. Here’s something you can test today after you take the time to do it right. Sell your subscription and sell your optin giveaway; the freebie. If you aren’t sure how to go about it, simply publish a little bit of pre-sell copy or even a short sales letter for the both of them. Set them up as just one bit of copy and watch what can happen. Then, instead of having the optin box everything expects to see, you can have a good little ad that makes people want to read about what you have to offer. I know for a fact that you have not seen that approach very much. How much do you already know about preselling copy…do you know what that term means? If you’re not sure, then you really don’t know and this is a critical piece of marketing knowledge you should know. Pre-selling involves copy that doesn’t feel “salesy” because the tone and way in which it is written is meant to feel neutral. You never want your visitors to feel like your pre-sell is actually trying to sell to them. This is usually quite challenging because it is harder to do than it seems in the beginning. If you haven’t ever written any pre-sell copy, you’ll see what we mean when you try to do it yourself. Pre-sell copy can be quite an effective way to open your readers’ minds. It is also very helpful in reducing the resistance you might get to future sales copy.
As of the autumn of 2012, it should be considered normal to pay for things like search engine listings, products and product reviews, etc. At the time of this writing, that’s the state of affairs according to Google. As you already know, this may or may not be the way that it is in the future. But Google is usually really fantastic about things when they roll out these announcements and changes. Obviously most small businesses aren’t going to like this very much. Larger corporations with bigger budgets can more easily absorb new costs.
Thankfully you’ll have some time to get ready and to change your budget in whatever way it needs to be changed. As always, it’s a smart thing to put more diversity in your marketing so you’re not dependent on Google.
Even if you can’t use it right away, it is a good idea to collect marketing knowledge. Someday, believe it or not, you probably will need it. Beyond this, the more you understand about your field, the better off your business is going to be. It all rests on your willingness to put what you know to good use.