By Kevin S. Taylor, MBA

Most Internet entrepreneurs, professional web developers, and designers have one purpose in mind. Simply stated, their goal is to design a website allowing someone to share knowledge, ideas, and products with others. Whether the purpose for the website is to promote collaboration, provoke thought, or simply share information, there is a substantial risk to publishing proprietary information without proper protection. Wise webmasters know the old adage to “not be pennywise and pound foolish!”

A web site is undoubtedly the product of many hundreds or thousands of hours of work and generally a substantial financial investment. Websites contain valuable intellectual property that needs to be protected. Many times the concern is not a normal user copying and pasting material to some friends. More often, it is your competitors taking verbiage verbatim to use on a website that may eventually procure some of your own would-be clientele.

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The eight-fold path to building and maintaining an online business is simple and short.

By Kevin S. Taylor, MBA

1.  Demand and Supply
A common mistake most agents make in the marketing business is trying to sell a product for which the demand barely exists.  The idea behind marketing is to first find the market for a product before starting its supply.  People only search online for products they actually want, and selling something online that the average customer is not searching for is as good as not making a sale at all.  Thus, to begin with, one needs to find a group of individuals with a dilemma they need to make sense of and resolve it for them.

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The following is a presentation summary from a live presentation given at the Internet Merchants Association. The author is posting it as per request from conference participants.

Creating and Maintaining a Web Site that will Blow Away the Competition

As Presented at the Internet Merchant Association Conference 2010

By Kevin S. Taylor, MBA

Abstract

Whether you are planning your first e-commerce web site or redesigning an existing one, there are many important conventions and standards to consider. Keeping your site up-to-date and current is no small feat.

This article will discuss the ‘must-haves’ for every e-commerce site.  This presentation will help you to generate an Internet and Social Media Marketing plan for your site that will blow away the competition!

Introduction
Building and Maintaining Relationships with Customers
Numerous experts have made it clear that the entire purpose for being in business is to procure new customers and keep existing customers. This information relates to any Internet business; whether the company’s web presence is a full blown e-commerce style website or a more basic brochure-style website.

The profits and growth of a company are all contingent on this one variable. So, whether the business is a brick and mortar retail establishment that wishes to extend its reach into the international market; or, a one-man shop with nothing more than a shingle on the Internet, the primary focus should be procuring new customers and maintaining relationships with existing customers.

A company’s website will be the gateway to its Customer Relationship Management. So, it is imperative to understand how to communicate with your customers the way that the customers want to communicate, rather than the old style of e-commerce where a company would develop an Internet presence and expect miraculous profitability. A clear understanding of this dynamic can position a company’s online presence leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.

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Blogging Offers Profitable Results for Small Business Owners

This is part one of the Expert Website Services Social Media Series

By Kevin S. Taylor, MBA

Many small business owners struggle with finding new, innovative ways to increase online exposure and improve their online positioning. The Internet is a dynamic, changing vehicle in which savvy business owners can do very well implementing and managing their own marketing strategies. However, in order to do so, one must continually learn and use the latest technological tools for personal and professional promotion.

The Internet has changed. The way people are doing business has changed dramatically in the last several months. Successful Internet marketers understand and embrace this new paradigm consisting of interactive collaboration. The old-style static websites relying on search engine traffic is essentially passé. Today, online consumers are looking for more content-rich collaboration rather than the older model website that was primarily static. This is what is referred to by some as Web 2.0 and the Social Media Revolution.

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The Internet offers potential business owners a versatile canvas  to implement any business plan imaginable. Its possibilities are now being explored by people from diverse places, cultures, professions, tastes and skills. The Internet provides a new, surreal galaxy where any entity is free to carve out a niche for itself. The possibilities are truly unlimited. Anyone may create a website as the ultimate instrument for effective communication of his or her opinions, skills, products, interests, ideologies, beliefs, theories and almost anything you wish.
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Educational Coordinator Topic

People do not make buying decisions based on the features of a particular product or service. Buying decisions are made when the customer sees that your product or service will fulfill a particular need. If you want to educate your sales team then it is imperative to tell them what sets you apart from your competition. Let them know how you meet or exceed this need! Discuss the benefits of the product or service rather than its features!
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Most companies overlook the benefits of using a newsletter as a potential marketing tool. In fact, newsletters are a quite underrated. Churning out newsletters, without as much as putting a thought on how they can be utilized, is a sad waste of such a powerful instrument. Newsletters are a great way to inform and update new and existing clients respectively, on what your company has been up to.

There is so much you can do with newsletters: inform clients about—latest happenings in the firm; new product launches or upgrades on the existing ones; new company policies and regulations; news, events and achievements; and a whole lot of other information that your customers may find interesting!

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Perhaps the easiest, yet the most difficult, online marketing tool is Email Marketing. How difficult can sending an electronic mail about your business to a target audience be? Not at all, right? Wrong! As easy as this may seem, email marketing is also the most easily abused form of direct marketing.

But first, let’s understand how email marketing works. Whether you are selling your product or services via an email or using emails to enhance your relationship with an old customer, you are resorting to email marketing. So, if you have a considerably simple product to sell that doesn’t need too much research by the customer before online purchase, email marketing can be your best friend.

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Talk about e-commerce web sites and the saying “Content is King” automatically comes up. Ever wondered why? Let’s look at it objectively. Web sites consist of more than one aspect—there are graphics and pictures that create the look and feel of the site, and then of course there is content. Why does the responsibility of the site’s success largely depend on the quality of the content? Well, here’s the answer.

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Someone from the administration department of your firm writes decent emails; so you have decided to hand over the responsibility of writing the content of your web site to her. Now, isn’t that a smart move? Well, we don’t think so! The ability to write decent emails is no guarantee that someone can do professional writing, like that for a web site. While you may be a good writer yourself, a professional writer has the skills and the experience to churn out appropriate content that will eventually help you better sell your products and services.

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Many online business owners have invested a great deal of time and money into developing an outstanding web presence. It is only after the site is built that most business owners understand the need for professional search engine optimization and marketing in order to realize a significant return on their investment (ROI). Sure, they get a few web hits with offline marketing endeavors and by passing out business cards with the domain name prominently displayed. However, for many industries, Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing (SEO and SEM) are the only way to bring traffic in droves.
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How many of you can recall simply picking up something to read while waiting at the doctor’s clinic, only to get totally hooked on it? Most of you, I’m sure! That is the kind of impact a good copy has on anybody, even the average non–reader.

You may find great copy anywhere—in a magazine article, a brochure or an advertisement. Often businesses fail to see the importance of good copy, which can eventually affect the company’s repute. How a business reflects its products and services, policies and regulations, plans and achievements via words, can ultimately make or break its image.

The copy on your company’s web site, brochures, and newsletters and that in its advertisements, sales letters and jingles can decide what kind of perception your potential customer will build about you. Ideally, a good copy will promote your company’s strengths and work at creating a positive image. In addition, a well–written copy will be optimized with keywords and keyword phrases, ensuring high rankings with search engines. This means when customers look for you or your product, they must find you in the first few pages of their search.

Click here to read the full article and gain useful insight with regarding to generating the right copy for your marketing plan.