Sales Archives - TODAY INDIA

Different Ways Of Generating Traffic, Leads And Sales For Your Affiliate Or Own Offers

When it comes to running an offline or online businesses, the most critical things owners need – besides the necessary licence and equipment – are traffic, leads and sales. Yet in spite of knowing this, the underlying question in most of their minds – is how to get more while spending less or better still, for free?

Having said that, this is what my article going to address today.

Now regardless of what they are called, they still boil down to one common factor which is people. Because without them taking action the way you want be it seeing your offer, listening to and reading what you presented and taking up your free and paid offer, your business is not going to last. That is the brutal truth in traditional and internet marketing as well.

So the question is how do I get traffic?

To be honest, there is no right and wrong answer. But there are free and paid methods you can use.

However before even doing so, it is important to identify if there is a market for your offer and connecting with people within that. This is absolutely necessary in order to build an audience as in groups of people who know, like and trust you. Especially when you focused on free methods which I touched upon later.

It is the same way with how you got to know your friends, boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse and how politicians do to get more people to vote for them and formed the government. You might also see that in networking events and seminars.

Below are both free and paid strategies I know and learnt from more experienced marketers.

A. Free

1. Article Marketing

This is by far the oldest but still workable method. What you do is write and submit an article like what you see now into relevant sites like Ezine Articles.

2. Blogging

This is more of a long-term SEO and wealth building strategy.

You can write whatever you want in your blog – preferably WordPress into your own domain and hosting and then connect with other bloggers in your niche either through blog commenting or guest posting.

3. Classified Advertising

You might not believe this but this is how I got started making my first dollar in 2008.

This is a great alternative and test to paid ads.

What you need to do is to come up with a eye-catching headline and 2-3 lines ad with links before posting to relevant sites like Craiglist and Gumtree.

4. Directory Submissions

In the past this used to work very well.

But in the wake of Google’s relentless updates, many sites have come and go so apart from Dmoz, they are no longer variable today.

5. Email Marketing

This works provided you have a quality email list of subscribers who are eager to read from, trust and buy from you.

But for this to work effectively, you need a high converting landing page and reliable autoresponder to send unlimited emails.

6. Forum Posting

Forums are online discussion sites in which people congregrated and discussed about common issues and interests.

To get started, there are important rules you have to abide by in order not to get banned.

Such as do not spam but provide helpful information in answering what they need and want to know with your blog and landing page links in your signautre – which is the footer text below every post you make

7. Google SEO

If you provided good quality content in your blog in the form of articles and even videos with social media channel links – I will be talking about later, the major search engine will reward you with higher rankings on first page for maximum exposure and even leads and sales from your searchers.

This also helps if you have comments and questions below your posts.

8. PDF Submissions

You can also compile a set of 5-10 articles into MS Word or Open Office into a report or e-book with an attractive cover before publishing in sites like Calameo, Scribd and Slideshare.

9. Press Releases

They are basically online versions of newspaper reports in which you can submit to related sites.

There are both free and paid services in which you can submit.

10. Social Media And Networks

You can also participate in social networks like Facebook where you can post on your timeline, create fanpages, live events, videos and joined and share in groups like what you do in forums.

Others include LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and Tumblr.

11. Video Marketing

This is where you create your videos from your own PC or iPhone camera, powerpoint slides or both with some music background and introduction or highlighted points text.

If you just want to show your face, you can use camera.

But if you want to share your PC screen, I will recommend Jing and Camtasia Studio – the latter gives you a free 30 day trial before you pay a one-time fee of $197.

12.. Web 2.0 Properties.

You can also post your content in other blogging platforms like Blogger, Hubpages, Webs, Weebly and Wix.

In the past these used to work like a charm in the form of Google Wonder Wheel.

But now you can only posted what you had not in your articles and blog posts.

This works best when you are doing e-commerce and your info products.

13. Webinars

They are online versions of seminars in which you can invite your subscribers and customers to attend before presenting your offer.

For this, I recommend Go-To-Webinar and Zoom.

B. Paid

For paid strategies, I will recommend 3 platorms in Bing, Facebook And Google Ads. At the time of writing this, mobile apps and YouTube Ads also came about.

With that said, these are both free and paid methods I know of getting traffic, leads and sales for your sites.

Twitter Marketing Your Business to Increase Sales – The Right Way

You’ve hear it before-adjust your message to your audience. It’s a trite saying, but what does it mean and how do you do it? Furthermore, if you have that part down pat and are not adjusting your marketing to capture your target audience’s eyes and ears you have missed the boat entirely.

There’s nothing worse than giving a talk to a group of ten-year-olds that was written for the scientific community. In effect, that is exactly what you are doing if you fail to target your message to your audience. The result of your speech falls on cement and the bottom line-you wasted a ton of time and energy, both yours and your audience’s to boot. While adjusting your message is vital to the success of any business, without adjusting your marketing as well your business will flounder and fail.

First, sit down and figure out who your target audience is. Where do they hang out? Do they still search the Yellow Pages or are they adept at using the online search engines? Do they get their news from the newspaper or TV, or do they get their news online? Do they read digital information products or in-hand books and magazines? What about Twitter, Facebook and the like? Once you have this information you will better understand the makeup of your target market. This will enable you to create a marketing campaign that will result in increased recognition and sales.

Now that you know where they hang out the next step is to use the mediums they prefer to market to them in a way that is compelling and clearly demonstrates how to take advantage of your product or service. Just knowing where to find them is a help but using these mediums incorrectly can be just as damaging as not using them at all-maybe even more so.

If you don’t know where to start, begin by following your competition around. Look at what they are using to market their businesses and how they present their case. This will tell you much about what works and what doesn’t. Try to glean from their advertising tidbits to help you better create your marketing message.

One such online medium that is gaining popularity among the 20 plus crowd is Twitter. Stacy DeBroff, founder and CEO of Mom Central puts it this way, “Social media offers new opportunities to activate…brand enthusiasm.” So, if your audience hangs out on Twitter, then you too should be twittering. However, don’t just post inane messages and thus waste your time and theirs. Don’t just shout your message out, you could ultimately damage your reputation and repel your target audience all together.

Begin by listening to what your target audience is saying about your company or industry. Listen carefully and they will tell you what they want and need. Then gear your marketing message towards fulfilling those gaps. You may find that just offering direction or advice will cause them to sit up and take notice of you so that they are prepared to listen when you tell them how to fill their needs. My advice to you, be truthful, timely and most importantly, fun.

Once you have their trust you may be surprised how quickly they help you spread the word with what is known as re-tweets. Now you have a whole new set of avid fans who will take your message even further than you could dream of doing by yourself. Remember, it’s all about creating a ‘buzz’.

Use your knowledge to enlighten your audience and then offer an easily accessible solution. Be direct and clear as to how to obtain the help you are offering. Don’t take them down a path to your product or service. Rather, tell them exactly where to go to obtain it, not more information about it. Yes, you may also want to include a link to more information, but for those who don’t need it, don’t waste their time-you risk losing them along the way.

Sales Training and Prospecting Tips to Increase Sales With Actions I Learned From My Window Fitter

Sales training and prospecting tips from the unbelievable sites I witnessed while watching window fitters working on my house. I recently had new windows fitted and while watching what happened I saw some fantastic sales prospecting techniques that just naturally happened because of how prospects think and act. Forget classroom sales prospecting skills you learn on courses, I saw a steady flow of sales prospects that would fill any sales person’s diary and make their target for the month. I’m now adapting these techniques with my working sales teams and you can fill your diary or grow your small business sales by doing the same.

The front of my house is on a busy lane that leads to the local shops and throughout the day many people passed by and saw the two guys installing my new windows. I saw people slowing down and stopping to look towards the house and the work being done. Some took the contact details from the side of the window fitter’s truck, and many others stopped to ask the guys questions about windows and for prices for repairs or renewals. I have to admit I cringed as I listened to the window guys responding to these passing sales prospects. They were excellent window fitters but not salesmen.

What I learned was the marketing power this situation created. This was far more effective than expensive T.V. or newspaper advertising. It triggered a reaction from anyone passing that had the slightest need for the guy’s services. This was a sales person’s dream, prospects queuing up to talk to someone. It got to the point where it was stopping the guys from working and they didn’t have the time to deal with all these people. What a waste of sales opportunities, I bet there are home improvement direct sales people that work all month to get that many prospects, more on that later.

There are several reasons why these prospects stopped and talked to the working window fitters, and within these reasons we can find valuable sales training and prospecting ideas.

The main reason people felt comfortable was that someone else has taken the first action and decided these professionals were the ones to contact and employ. So the prospects follow some one else’s first action.

Another reason is that these were working tradesmen not salesmen. When a windows salesman knocks on your door they are doing it for their benefit. When you stop a working guy in the street you are doing it for your benefit. Imagine what a sales person could have done with all those leads.

Buyers will always take the easiest actions. Which is easiest, searching through adverts, directories, and the internet and having to make a decision on which company to contact. Then speaking to someone on a sales line and waiting to be ambushed into agreeing to a sales appointment or even a sale. Or, stopping for a casual chat with a working guy that you can see actually knows what he’s talking about? If you wanted information and advice about having new windows fitted who would you talk to. A guy in overalls that fits windows everyday or a smart suited salesperson that knows more about the credit agreement than the windows? So what sales training lessons can we learn from the actions of the passing sales prospects and my window fitters? Without knowing your line of business it’s difficult to give precise sales tips. But consider the following ideas and think how you could adapt them for your sales role.

If you were a sales person for the company my window fitters worked for how about getting your hands dirty and spending some time with the guys fitting the windows. Put on some overalls and talk to all the passing prospects that want information. From what I saw outside my home I guarantee you will fill your sales diary.

Small business sales can be boosted by making all your front line people sales motivated. Put a reward scheme in place and supply every one of your staff with sales and information literature. Give them a prospect pad to take details of any potential sales opportunities, and reward them for every sale that they generate.

Sales people are perceived as doing their job and contacting people for their own benefit. Working people in non sales roles are viewed as being able to offer information that will benefit the buyer. If you’re a sales person how do your prospects perceive you? What can you do to be seen as someone that can benefit the buyer, and how will you get a queue of prospects wanting to talk to you.

Writing Sales Letters That Will Sell

If you get involved in businesses in your daily life, it reaches a point when business sales letters are very important. A business sells letter is an official document that can greatly drive up sales and maintain customers.

To write a good business letter, it requires a number of skills that you can choose to acquire over time or read here. Here, we will look at four major points that will guide you to write a successful sales letter and convince prospective customers or clients why they should choose your business.

Never bluff

What could be worse than dealing with a businessperson who bluffs? This behavior is not only unprofessional and dishonest; it is pathetic and totally uncalled for. Many business people write very convincing letters and attract customers to purchase their products. However, as soon as the customers realize that they were duped, they will never buy from that particular business. Some even consider legal action and discourage all their partners from dealing with you.

Your sales letter should be backed up with research for points that are either not very common or you need the customer to prove it himself. A good business entrepreneur always does research on his niche prior to establishing the business; it is therefore assumed that they know very much about the goods and services they deal. The more you know about the products you are dealing in the easier and better you will convince your customers why they should choose you and not your competitors.

Consider the letter audience

To sell a product, you must be able to speak directly into the buyer’s mind. You must express yourself in a language that the prospective buyer understands. If you use the language, phrases, lingo and loops that your buyers are conversant with, they should be able to establish a connection with you and this will lead to trust. Once you win your buyer’s trust, whatever advice you give on a product, they will most likely take it. This will be a boost to your business because not only will you have established an influence, your customers too will be comfortable directing their friends to you.

Tell a story

Every sales letter that attracts a buyer must tell a story. People love reading stories that they can relate to real life experiences. As much as your letter must be relevant and contain all the necessary facts, they should be concealed in the story that you give to the reader.

Use short sentences and paragraphs

Any good English writer will tell you how boring and tiring long sentences are to read, and to write. To keep the reader interested in your story, use the short sentences so that they don’t have to strain reading and grasping the concept of the lines. No matter how long your letter is, it should not appear like it is a research paper or a medical finding report. People like almost everything done for them, and they would like to have the story simplified so that all that is left for them to do is digest it.

App Development For Property Sales: A Complete Guide To Grow Your Real-Estate Business

None can deny the necessity of mobile apps in our lives. While no business sector has remained aloof from the rage of mobile app development, it is on-demand services, food and retail, and core industry like real-estate which got more share of the pie. Yes, it’s also the retail property businesses that got more benefits in sales after the app revolution and saw their revenue growing high. In regards to this, here is a complete guide on how to make your own real-estate dealings mobile with a useful app.

Trends observed in property purchases

-Most buyers first sneak through the web or online portals to search for property searches before going for other sources like paper advertisements, referrals, etc.

-Millennials rely more on online search for nitty-gritty details or information about a property

-People like to hunt for properties online because they can see a large number of properties.

Types of Real-estate app solutions

-Online property search application

-Property booking solution

-App solution for renting apartments

-Property management solution for owners

While these are the specific apps that can help real-estate business owners as well as buyers, let’s take a look at the key features that an app meant to help rent and property seekers should have.

Direct marketing method

The app should have a direct approach to marketing to promote the properties held by the property owner. The app would list the properties in a fancy manner with location, prices, property aspects, surrounding amenities, landmark, and other related information. In short, the app should be able to showcase all properties in a complacent and clarified manner so that buyers can know every minute thing about a property and can take the decision to choose one smoothly.

Support for location-tracking

Mobile users have been so used to the aspect of GPS or Global Positioning System to navigate here and here that you need to sync your real-estate mobile app to the Google Map to help the property seekers. Integrating the app with geolocation will readily help the buyers to land on the phone’s Google map to know the exact route and convenient mode of transport to the property’s location.

Easy-to-use user interface

You need to keep in mind that a real-estate application is not about showing brilliance and classy design, but is about user-friendliness. Thus, like any other user-centric applications such as eCommerce, online cab services booking, your app should be user-friendly so that users could easily understand how to search for a property. Easy user-interface of an app means quick property search, responsive search filter, hassle-free payments and saving favourites or wishlist.

Scope for customers to place queries

Lastly, do not rule out the need for an online enquiry mechanism in the app like live chat or email integration. It is a must-have for quickly responding to customers who are interested in a property and wish to know more apart from what provided in the app. They might want to talk to the seller directly.

Real-estates is the large and flourishing industry and to get a grip over its every potential you need a mobile app too. It would help your business make more revenue and grow by making your properties more easily accessible to prospective customers. However, make sure to keep in mind the mentioned features while you have your app crafted by an app development company.

E-Commerce Web Design – How to Build an E-Commerce Website That Brings You Sales

Today, most people have heard of online business and e-commerce website. Many people are now thinking to start their own online business. The reason is because they can reach a wider range of audience and a good online business can be automated. However, building a successful online business is not easy. Many people fail to make their online business successful.

The reason why many online marketers fail is because they neglect e-commerce website design. A good e-commerce website will bring you sales 24/7. But just having good products and a shopping cart cannot turn your e-commerce site into a money making machine. Another reason is that people engage unprofessional designers to design their e-commerce sites, which in turn make them lose more customers because of poor design.

Now let me share with some tips to develop a good e-commerce website that will bring you sales.

1. If you look at most e-commerce sites, their pages are too cluttered with information. Visitors will not buy from you if they cannot figure out what exactly you are offering. Therefore, you need to ensure that your products are displayed in the best way possible. Unprofessional designers will not have the experience to help you with this. You need someone who has an internet marketing and design background in order to create a good e-commerce design.

2. Get the right software installed. A good e-commerce website must have the right shopping cart software in order to function properly. A professional web design agency will know what to recommend for your website.

3. Product images must be clear. The images for your product catalog are extremely important when it comes to sales conversion. If your images are not enticing, nobody is going to buy from you. So if you are not a professional photographer, spend some money to hire one.

4. Keep your checkout page as simple as possible. Remove all other distractions on your checkout page. This will help decrease your shopping cart abandon rate.

5. Get the right color combination. A good e-commerce website will have colors that match your target audience choice. A good color combination will build your brand and leave a lasting impression in the minds of your website visitors.

If you are running an online commerce business, your e-commerce site is your lifeblood. You need to make sure that it is good and up to standard if you want your business to succeed.

Online Business Ideas: Product Sales and Internet Services

If you are interested in starting an online business, there are several online business ideas that can assist you to utilize your experience and skills to generate income off your web site. Because they provide you flexibility, starting an Internet-based businesses is a good way to make extra income. In most cases, you can set up a web-based venture in your extra time and supervise your online business operations around your preferred timetable. Furthermore, you can operate your web-based enterprise virtually from everywhere – even on the road.

As you know how to set up an Internet-based business and discover the numerous opportunities, you will learn that they belong in two common categories: services and product sales.

Product Sales

Do you have goods that you want to market? With an online business, the whole world is your client base. By putting up a web site with payment features and a shopping cart, clients can point, click and choose their way through your items and goods. You may have goods that you make, grow or bake yourself. By placing product descriptions in your web item catalog, clients can choose what goods they want. Once the orders are ready, you supply them and send the packages out.

After finalizing your online business web site, there is still a lot of work to do for your venture to be successful. Always remember that learning the ways on how to start an online business and accomplishing a lot of online work are important for you to be successful in your endeavor.

Services via the Internet

Service businesses are also considered as one of many ways on how to make money online. In this type of job, you will be offering work for someone instead of marketing an item. You can be a writer for online and print magazines or a freelance proofreader. You can arrange the delivery and transportation of products or do research through the World Wide Web for others. You can be a virtual assistant and assist organizations manage, plan and schedule proceedings. When you pause and think about it, being a virtual assistant is an income-generating job. You can offer services virtually to several employers and earn as much as you can.

Whether you follow a service or sales business, it is vital to understand that the job by nature will be unsocial. If you want external motivation or need frequent interaction, this career may not be the one for you.

However, if you enjoy the challenges and flexibility that come from being employed online, you can obtain a piece of online business idea by finding out how to launch an online business.

The Small Business Success Secret to Marketing With Ease and to Increase Your Sales

So many entrepreneurs struggle to create a successful home-based business – going through times of plenty, and times of drought. Only about 18% of entrepreneurs are extremely successful. Want to know a small business success secret? Successful entrepreneurs make the best use of resources to accomplish more with less effort – they use the principle of leverage.

Small business resources that entrepreneurs can leverage include knowledge, expertise, time, human resources, systems and technology. The result of leverage is a turn-key business that can “run itself”, generate more profits with less stress, and allow for the freedom to enjoy prosperity.

A great way to leverage technology is to automate and simplify your sales and marketing with an online professional shopping cart. This small business success secret allows you to put your small home-based business on autopilot, exposing hidden profit sources. Using an online shopping cart is the fastest and most flexible way to do business online, without expensive and complicated software.

The shopping cart small business success secret will grow your online business by leaps and bounds when you:

o Use custom forms and opt-in boxes to collect names and email addresses of website visitors

o Keep in touch with your customers 24/7

o Maintain accurate contact information of your clients and prospects

o Automate product sales and purchases

o Send personal automatic email responses (auto responders) to inquiries, registrations, purchases, and to follow up with prospects

o Deliver scheduled, informative emails, newsletters and promotional messages to your mailing list

o Set up multiple affiliate programs for others to market your business

o Track the success of your ads and emails

o Test and track your website links

o Use questionnaires to discover customer needs

Statistics show that you need to contact a prospective customer 7-9 times, before they remember your business. Many entrepreneurs stop at only 2-3 follow-ups and are losing 70-80% of their sales! The online shopping cart will help you follow-up easily and effortlessly with autoresponders.

It is easy to believe that doing already contracted work is more important than marketing, but you must have marketing systems in place to generate sales consistently. You want a successful home-based business, not the feast-or-famine roller coaster that many home-based business entrepreneurs experience. Even if you are doing well now, keep looking toward the future and how to further take advantage of this small business success secret.

Several online shopping cart companies offer similar services, but at the very minimum, you want to ensure the program you choose:

o Offers support services

o Offers free tools

o Is easy and accessible

o Is simple to setup, even for a novice

o Offers multiple packages

o Offers a NO RISK trial period

Here’s how to get started with an online shopping cart:

1) Identify your marketing and sales goals.

2) Determine what products and services to sell on the internet.

3) Sign up for an online shopping cart and discover how you can easily use its internet marketing tools to achieve your goals.

4) Get the help of an e-Commerce Virtual Assistant or Shopping Cart Strategist who has the technical cart skills and strategic expertise to effectively market your business online

The online shopping cart technology and its small business resources are essential to any successful home-based business. Implement this small business success secret to develop a consistently thriving business that is easy to manage, achieve your marketing goals with ease and skyrocket your sales.