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If you are building your online business there are two key areas you should implement to transform your brochure web site to being an on-line client attraction and revenue generating business tool and one of your most important elements of your marketing collateral:
- Firstly, make sure you capture email addresses and build your list of potential clients interested in your products and services. To do this you need to be offering perhaps a white paper, an ecourse or access to free articles for which people enter their name and email address
- Secondly you need to ensure you have a facility for taking on line payments.
Using the e-marketing system, you can send out your newsletters and marketing communication to your clients and potential clients – it can drastically reduce the time you spend distributing information and creating mailshots.
Here’s some examples of what an effective e-marketing system will enable you to do:
- Set up double opt-in confirmation messages to meet CAN-SPAM compliance requirements
Choose from sample confirmation messages or create your own customised messages
- Generate unlimited numbers of subscription forms in HTML code to put on your web or blog pages where people can add in their email address and contact details to register for your news letter, information products or
- Broadcast your ezine to large lists of email addresses (up to 10,000 contacts)
- Segment your database according to your prospects’ interests so you can target you communication
- Set up unlimited sequential autoresponders and an unlimited number of messages which will be sent out to your clients and potential clients even if you are on vacation – and with the benefit that you need set up the series once which then goes to people whenever they register to hear about that specific service you are offering.
An effective e-marketing system will also save you time and money so you don’t need to hire an expensive webmaster – this is something you, a member of your team or a virtual assistance can do and can get in place quickly and cost effectively. In fact many web masters don’t know about these services or don’t tell their clients (why would they if it means that as cleitns we can become less dependent on them for their programming expertise?)
Automating Your Website
My recommended resource is Easy Web Cart – it’s a tool that can grow with you so if you are not yet ready to offer paid for solutions, you can use it just to capture subscribers and distribute your e-newsletter to them. Then as your business develops, you can seamlessly upgrade to a different level of service.
This is the only tool I recommend and what’s more you don’t need a web designer to do anything – you can manage this tool just as I do with the support of a virtual assistant and use it on as many web sites, blogs and pod casts as you like.
There is a trial for US$3.95 a month – find out more about Easy Web Cart and watch a video of how easy it is to use here
Taking Payments
There are a number of resources and merchant accounts that you can use to take payments on-line, the fastest and easiest way to ensure that your clients pay particularly if they are overseas or if you have a paid for product you want to make available from your web site.
Merchant accounts are relatively expensive to run with monthly standing fees and charges for each transaction.
If your volume of sales on line does not warrant establishing a merchant account then PayPal is the solution you are looking for.
PayPal accounts are free to open.
I recommend you establish a business type account in your individual or company name. You then nominate a credit card which has to be verified by using the credit card for a 1 EURO transaction before user restrictions are lifted.
A code then appears on your card statement which you need to enter into your Paypal account. It takes a few days for the transaction to appear on the card statement – if you have online access to your credit card statement you will be able to fast track the process rather than waiting for the credit card statement to arrive by post.
You get the payment credited to your PayPal account so the setting up of the PayPal account is actually free.
Note: Personal accounts are no good for businesses because they do not allow acceptance of credit cards.
PayPal accounts are multi-currency – typically 3 or 4 (USD, STG, EUR for example).
You can nominate and change your default currency.
There is a PayPal iinvoicing tool which can be used to allow people without PayPal accounts (but with credit cards) to make a payment to you.
The person making a payment is not charged anything but the business is, by way of fee deducted from the proceeds of the transaction.
When you make a payment using PayPal, it deducts money either from your credit card or the balance you have in one of the currencies held in the account – or using both – if the balance in PayPal is less than the amount needed.
When people pay you, your balance in that currency increases. You can withdraw money to a bank account and this takes 3-5 days in practice and is free over USD 100. You cannot directly credit your credit card but you can withdraw to your bank then pay your card off and use the card again for purchases.
The sale of goods or services to your customers will appear as such on the purchaser’s creditcard statement. Only where there is a cash transfer or similar transaction will the purchaser bear a cash advance fee on their card and that fee is levied by the card company at their rates not PayPal’s.
A FINAL IMPORTANT NOTE: The one thing to watch out for is that the name of PayPal and many other companies including some of the major banks are being used in spam emails asking for you to verify accounts. NEVER respond to emails that say things like ‘Dear PayPal customer’ – PayPal would never communicate in this way. If you are in any doubt if an email is authentic, don’t reply, treat it as spam and then contact PayPal direct for their guidance on whether they did send you the email.
