Sorry Kevin Costner. It’s not true.

For those of you that never saw “Field of Dreams,”

(first of all, really? You never saw it?)

…there were scenes where Kevin Costner’s character was haunted with these words:

“If you build it, they will come.”

Well, that may be true for that movie. But too often we hear that to be true about your product, and the sad fact of the matter is, when it comes to marketing, that is a BIG FAT LIE.

Look, I am all for getting started and fail quickly and all that. You have to get in the game and improve.

But you must first start with a solid foundation.

Here is s simple formula to a complex industry.

1 – A Product the Market Wants and Knows They Want

I think it is great to have a product people want. But if they don’t know they want it, they are not going to be looking for it.

But if you have a product people are searching for and they have a need or a strong desire (want) for your product, then you are ready for step number 2.

2 – A Quality Product

“No kidding Mike!” you might be saying?

Well, I think people want to just  get “anything” out there as soon as possible they sometimes forget about the quality of the product. In fact, they forget to ask the right question. And that is:

“If I build this product, can I make it the best product there is out there? One that is so good even the competition will be scared to come after me?”

For examples of products like that, you have Josh Bartlett’s Easy Video Player or James Dysons’ Optimize Press. These products were not made simply because Josh and James wanted to “make money.” They wanted to create a world class product and they saw a need (like in Number 1 above.)

If you are dedicated to the product and not the idea of making money, you are ready for number 3; too often, people ask the wrong questions like “What is the easiest way to make money?” instead of “How can I provide world class value?”

#3 – Focus on the customer

Many marketers try to build solutions where they “never have to deal with customers.” Or say things like “I hate dealing with customers.” These people will never have a long term successful business. You need to love your customers the way Walt Disney loved his KID-Customers when they walked into Disney Land.

Of course you want to automate systems and use the best available technology. But that is to get your customer the help they need faster, not to avoid them.

We take pride in the fact that our help desk has a ticket system, as well as an email and a phone number where people can call us (and yes, we even have a name of a person that you can ask for.) In fact, we even call many of our customers after they made a purchase, to make sure the buying process was perfect.

Having a phone number on your site these days is a must if you want to show customers you are real. They may never call it, but just knowing they can will increase your conversions. Have a well trained support staff as well and consider using other things like a knowledge base, wiki’s, community support like Get Satisfaction (We use that for TweetGlide.com) or even a live chat for instant help.

# 4 – Marketing

People say “Sales and Marketing“ all the time and they think they are the same thing. But the truth is, they are not.

Marketing is about “Lead generation.”

Sales is about “Customer Acquisition.”

You need to look at the ways you can get traffic to your website and there are 3 ways. Buy, Borrow, Create. I think I first heard John Reese say this in Traffic Secrets back in 2004.

Creating traffic is using free sources like SEO, Viral Marketing, Social Media, Press Releases, Article Marketing etc., I like to refer to this as planting seeds. It takes a long time, it is not fun, results seem very slow (like watching grass grow), but one day you wake up and you have a full lawn of green grass. These things are an important part of a business and should be part of every persons marketing especially when you are on a budget.

Borrowing traffic is leveraging the influence of other marketers. To do this, you need to set up an affiliate program. This allows you to get JV Partners to drive traffic as well as affiliates, that you may not even know, that decide to just start sending you traffic. What I like best about this is, it is does not cost you anything to get the traffic and you only pay when you make a sale. So if you sell your $ 100 product, you pay them $ 50 after you collect the money.

Buying traffic is my favorite. You want green grass? Buy this sod and later today, you have the best lawn on the block. Instant Results. To make this work you need to know your metrics. But basically, it is as simple as making more than you spend. This is easy when you have just a front end product, but to dominate your market you need back-end product which can take days, weeks, or even months to get all the revenue in. You can’t always count on that future money in your advertising budget. But if you are profitable on each ad buy, right on the day of purchase, you are in great shape.

I could write an entire article on this but I will keep it simple today. I think many people are scared to spend money; if you knew you could go to Las Vegas, and go to the “Roulette Table” and you knew that every time you bet $ 10 you would get paid $ 15, would you really consider that spending money or making money?

Ah… Right. Now you see. Advertising is not an expense. It is a revenue when you can make it work for you. Newsflash… Look at all those banners on websites, and all those TV and Radio commercials, and all that stuff before a YouTube video. Knock-Knock… “Hello?” This works. This is what makes the world go round. So don’t be scare of it because it is not that hard.

Traffic is cheap. But only when you have Number 5 figured out.

# 5 – Sales Engine

O.K. you now have the visitor to your website. That was marketing. Now it is time to make a sale.

In order to do this, you have to have a website designed to sell. A clear sales message, a clear call to action, and a well crafted “offer.” Good sales copy in print, video, or both will be needed and the right “look” is needed. It is not about flash graphics. It is about the right “conversion design.” Again, I could write an article just on that alone and maybe I will. But a website that gets the message across right away and makes the customer beg to buy is what your website is all about.

From here, you also need to ask yourself, “how do I maximize revenue at point of sale?” You need little pre-transaction bumps and upsets, plus post transaction up-sells and down-sells. In your member’s area, you can do this as well plus you will want to cross sell other affiliate products.

Finally, a backend sale can be made too. Maybe you can call the customer to offer them discounts on more of your products.

This will help you get more value per lead and that makes the “Marketing” (in number 4) even easier, because your advertising dollar goes farther and a losing campaign can even become profitable.

Here is what I have found. Number 4 (marketing) becomes the easiest when you focus on 1, 2, 3, and 5

That’s right. What I am saying is, if you have a winning product and a great offer, “The Traffic Will Find You.”

So, if you have a good product the market wants or needs, good customer support, and a great offer, then yes…

“they will come.” – Yes your marketing will be easier.

I mean that. I have found this to be true in my business. We have an offer that we focused so much on 1, 2, 3, and 5 that we are getting so much traffic we never dreamed it was possible. Affiliates are begging to promote it. People are searching for it. Every bit of advertising we do is making us money.

Many people think “It’s all about traffic” or their “product” but that is simply not the case. You need to look at the big picture.

Again, if you build, it does not mean they will come. And if they do build just a good product, well, a good product + traffic + a bad offer = no sales.

If you really want to succeed, you need all of the items you read here today.

Print this. Bookmark this page. Swipe it. Re-read it or what ever it takes, but make sure this message really sinks in.

There is no “quick” way to make money in any business over night.

There is no rocket science here. But people think that just 1 of these things does not matter and that is the problem.

You can’t have long term success without all these 5 listed here.

This is my formula for a winning business model.

Now it is yours.

Go map out, or re-map out your business model for your online plans, and see where this can help you.

If you “follow this plan,” they WILL come.

Making Money Online

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