WHAT I'VE LEARNED ABOUT HOW TO MAKE MONEY ON THE INTERNET

How long ago was it that you'd never heard the word? A year? Two years? Maybe just a couple months ago? Any way you slice it, the blink of the societal eye. Now the Internet is all the rage. Its surging growth has exceeded the expectations of even the most optimistic. Millions are signing up for access across the globe. E-mail, an essential Internet component, is now a crucial business tool. You can hardly have a conversation in business circles these days without some aspect of the Internet being brought up.

It's easy to get caught up in the sound and fury. But hard headed business people need to ask themselves one insistent question, "How can I make money on the Internet?" Since no one is harder headed than I am in business (grounded as I am in my Scottish heritage), after two years of intense involvement in the 'net, I have some characteristically pungent observations on the subject.

1. A Web Site Is Not A Toy

Problem is, most of these home pages are, to mince no words, a disaster. Because space is no problem on the Internet, people dump whatever they can think of about their products and services on the web, hoping by shere volume to make some sales. Wrong. Client-centered marketing is critical in cyberspace. This means your home page must have

• an offer. An offer is a tool designed to stimulate faster prospect action. Offers can motivate action with more product for less cost, give prospects something special if they act now, save them money. Offers are the cattle prods of marketing and essential to business success. Yet check out the vast majority of business web sites and you'll see -- no offers of any kind. There's information on products and services alright, a ton of information, but no attempt to move that product or service NOW, the purpose of the offer, the essence of successful marketing.
• a heap of client-centered benefits. Marketing on the Internet, after traditional marketing, is incredibly liberating. Whereas traditionally, we had to weigh and measure every single word (because whether we mailed or faxed we were being charged, in effect, by the word), on the Internet we can say what we need to say. This means that you should include every single benefit you can. This doesn't mean dumping words on people. It does mean brainstorming all the benefits of using your product/service, crafting them so that the benefit is clear cut and crisply stated; then prioritizing the benefits so that you lead with the more important.
  Unfortunately, this isn't how most Internet marketers play the game. Instead of honing client-centered benefits until they're diamond hard and bright, they simply dump details about their products and services on the unsuspecting reader. This is madness. Just because people are on the 'net, doesn't mean their tolerance for boring stuff has changed. It's exactly what it is in the real world: nil.
• client-centered testimonials. You can search through thousands of business web sites in vane seeking testimonials about whether wat's being promoted has actually delighted real people. In other words, there are no testimonials. Look, cyberspace or no, people still want to know what kinds of results people just like them have achieved. And they want to be able to contact these people to ask them to confirm these results, too. Cyberspace is ideal for this kind of prospect to buyer contact. Testimonials should have e-mail links. How many web sites do this? Precious few.
• graphics. The other day I went to a swimming pool site hoping to see some pool models. When you're in the market for a pool like I am, you want to get ideas, the more the merrier. When I got there, the only pool picture I saw was a vapid one of the simplest back yard pool, no new designs, no ideas, nada. Instead, this business had packed the site with pictures of the owner's grandson, including a picture of him at Disneyworld with Goofey. Ridiculous! The Internet is a visual medium. It screams for pictures, graphics, illustrations. Not a ton of them, not huge ones that take forever to download. But appropriate ones that drive home visually the benefit of what you're selling.
• simple (but complete) order forms. International commerce on the Internet is rising; I know. I hear from people in a dozen countries or more in my average day. The same kind of wave that's sweeping over the U.S. business community is already beginnng elsewhere in the world. That means you've got to be prepared to sell internationally. This means thinking through the information you're going to need not only from U.S. but from international buyers and making sure you use your order form to get it. Not only do you need to record the usual buyer information (name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, credit cards), you've also got to be prepared for overseas shipment. Thus, you need to ask prospects whether they want their merchandise sent by surface, air, insured, do they have their own shipping agent, etc. In other words, think it through -- and design your order form accordingly. Before going on, review your web site with these criteria in mind. If these elements are not in your web site, dragging all the traffic in cyberland to it is just not going to help.

2. Traffic Doesn't Just Arrive

• You've got to link your site to high traffic malls like Worldprofit. I spend a considerable portion of my day writing ads telling people to visit my Worldprofit Malls at http://www.worldprofit.com. Another portion is spent placing these ads. Every day. Result? In 18 months traffic at Worldprofit has gone from zero to over 1/4 MILLION monthly visitors. In the next 18 months, it will go to well over a million visitors a months. What's the traffic on your web site doing? Deduction? If you want to increase your traffic, link to people who have traffic. It's as simple as that.

  Curiously, there are lots of people who just don't get it. They seem to reckon that if there are 60+ million people with access to the Internet, all these puppies will drop by for a look-see, even if the site owner does squat all to attract them. Where this "Alice in Wonderland" notion originated, I don't know, but I see evidence of it all the time. It just happens that it's dead wrong. A celebrated bank robber once asked why he robbed banks said, unanswerbly, "because that's where the money is." By the same token, why link to high- traffic malls? Because that's where the traffic is... and without Internet traffic, there cannot be Internet profit.

  Linking to high-traffic malls helps solve your problem, but there's more you can and should be doing.

• Post daily. Do you shower daily? Brush your teeth? Comb your hair? Well, then, you must POST DAILY, too. Whether I feel like it or not (and, believe me, there are days when I do NOT feel like it), I post. I've got a string of newsgroups where my messages regularly appear. But, as I can report, for most people Internet posting is at best intermittent. That's daft! Postings are free ads. You can get as many as you want, so long as you stay on newsgroup topic. Posting is a key way of bringing traffic to your site and, importantly, developing your crucial house e-mail list.
• Get free links and classifieds. When was the last time you went to an search engine like Alta Vista and put in the words "free classifieds"? When you do, you'll find HUNDREDS of places for free links and classified ads. So many you couldn't possibly process them all. Each one of them exists to help YOU increase that all-important traffic. Question is: why aren't you using it?
• Make sure nothing leaves your office without your URL and e-mail addresses prominently posted. Take a look at your stationery, your brochures, envelopes, shipping labels, and everything else on which your company name appears. Have you got these three critical elements on them, too:
  • URL
  • chief benefit of visiting your web site ("lose 30 pounds in 30 days")
  • e-mail.
  If not, you're simply throwing your money away. If you want to increase traffic, you've got to use ALL your marketing assets, and that includes factoring in every single thing you use to connect with prospects and customers!

3. You've Got To Capture & Store Key E-Mail Information

Why? Because people on your house list are there (or should be) because they're interested in what you're selling and because, over time, they become familiar with who you are and what you sell and feel comfortable buying, and more importantly, buying again from you. Now move this concept into cyberspace. E-mail is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Indeed, it's better than sliced bread. Why? Because e-mail is

• cheap. For the basic cost of your monthly service (usually $10-$30) you can e-mail UNLIMITED quantities of marketing content. UNLIMITED! That is definitely not the case in the real world where you are charged for every flyer, every brochure, every post card, every follow-up letter. On the Internet, you pay a trifling sum and can market, market, market as much as you like. Which for me means CONSTANTLY.
• unlimited. As already pointed out, you can transmit unlimited client-centered content via e-mail. No more weighing, pruning, wondering which paragraph has to be cut. The only important criterion is, IS THE CONTENT CLIENT-CENTERED. If so, send it!
• fast. How fast? Well, consider this. At Worldprofit, we currently send out by e-mail 10,000 copies of my bi-weekly Worldgram newsletter. The newsletter averages 13-15 pages in length. That's between 130,000- 150,000 sheets of paper per issue. How long does it take to disseminate? Under 20 minutes. How much does it cost? Nearly nothing. How fast does it get there? Well, 99% of the issues have arrived before the last 1% are even sent out. Get the picture? Almost instantaneous. Reread this paragraph, for this is the future right in our faces. Because of these unrivalled advantages, you should be doing EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to create a house e-mail list and to use it regularly.
• Run your e-mail address on everything you use, market, advertise.
• Make sure to record e-mail addresses when people response to your posts, ads, etc.
• Get staff people to record this information.

How's that done?

By brainstorming offers, lots and lots of offers, and by continuously bringing these offers to the attention of your house e-mail list. In the real world, how many offers do you market during the average week? Month? Quarter? One or two? Using e-mail with your house list you can make an offer a DAY. What's more you can inform people on your list how you offer is coming along. "Just 8 left." "Just 4 left." "Only two left." "LAST ONE!"

The existence of the Internet, the existence of e-mail, has notably increased the pace of business. This pace increased with the fax, to be sure. But it is much, much faster -- not to mention cheaper -- with e-mail. Like it or not, you're now playing a high-stakes tennis match, in which your job is to lob offer after client- centered offer at your house e-mail list, offers that are stuffed with value and designed to motivate, motivate, motivate your prospects to the fastest possible action. Reposition Yourself For Increased Web Profits NOW Industry experts predict that within 3-5 years, 90% of the U.S. market, and virtually 100% of the U.S. business market, will be hooked into the Internet. Key foreign markets will come more slowly, but they will come for sure. Deduction? The Internet is going to play a key part of your future. Thus, you must learn how to play it comfortably, confidently, for maximum return. Start today.

1. Review your existing web site before the end of the day. Ensure that it has all the key components presented above. If it doesn't rewrite to give it the vigorous client-centered focus it must have to succeed.
2. Take a portion of every day to work on traffic growth. What's the point of the Internet surging ahead from 60+million users to over a billion users if your traffic stays dinky? Pointless! There's no mystery to what it takes to develop traffic. You've GOT to be connected with people who are traffic-building masters, you've got to tap into their resources, you've got to benefit from what they do. This means linking to people who focus on traffic growth... and it means doing what you can, every single day, to increase your web site traffic.
3. You've got to start building and using a house e-mail list. I don't care if you've only got one prospect's e-mail today. Use it. Rome wasn't built in a day, and your house e-mail list won't be either. The key thing is to build it up, daily, just like you've built your regular house mailing list. Then to recognize that unlike your traditional house mailing (where every prospect contact costs you money), with your e-mail house list, once you've paid your monthly access fee, you can and should be transmitting UNLIMITED amounts of client- centered content and offers, offers, offers by the score!

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