Part Five: Accepting Payment Through Your Web Site
By Shelley Lowery

If you're doing business on the Internet, accepting payment through your website is an absolute must. If you're not processing orders online, you're losing a great deal of money in lost sales. Studies have shown, you can increase your online sales by up to 400% simply by accepting credit cards. With today's technology, processing your customer orders online can be as simple as pasting a code within your web page HTML.

Preparing your website to process orders online isn't as difficult as you may think. There are basically two options. The first option is to set up a merchant account. This entails either making arrangements with your bank or using an online company. The second option is to use a third party credit card processor. This option requires no merchant account and usually entails setting up a form or placing a link on your order page.

Merchant Accounts

If you'd like to set up a merchant account, keep in mind, you will also need a shopping cart system and access to a secure server. Many web hosts will provide you with both. If yours doesn't, this professional web host does:

 

A merchant account, for Internet transactions, will enable you to accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover.

Third Party Credit Card Processors

If you'd rather not have your own merchant account, third party credit card processors will process your credit card orders for you. There are usually no monthly fees. They charge a "per transaction" fee and send you payment for all of your orders processed, minus their fee and a reserve fee. A reserve fee is withheld to cover and charge backs you may have. If you have no charge backs within a period of time, your reserve will be refunded to you. Each company has their own guidelines in regard to reserves.

The following websites will process credit card orders for you:

PayPal

PayPal will enable any business or consumer with an email address to securely send and receive payments online. You can also accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and electronic checks. You can sell with PayPal through an online auction, on your own website, or as part of an online marketplace. They also offer recurring billing. There are no setup fees. They charge 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction. Services available for US and non-US merchants.

ClickBank CLICK HERE 

ClickBank will enable you to accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Eurocard, Visa-Debit, MasterCard-Debit, Novus cards and electronic checks.

They charge a one-time $49.95 activation fee, and a $1 + 7.5% fee per sale. There are no monthly fees. The great thing about this company is that they'll enable you to run an affiliate program. Services available for US and non-US merchants.

If you're just starting out, you may want to use one of the third party credit card processors, as this is the easiest route for new Internet businesses. Each company provides you with step by step instructions to assist you in getting your website set up to accept credit cards. The great thing about third party credit card processors is that they handle everything for you. You don't have to hassle with processing your credit card payments or charge backs, as all of this is taken care of for you.

If you're serious about your online success, you must have the ability to process your orders online. With today's technology, even the smallest homebased business can now accept credit credits almost instantly. Visit one of the websites mentioned above and get your website set up today. Your success depends upon it.

Part Six: Setting Up Your Affiliate Program
By Shelley Lowery

If you're marketing your own product on the Internet, you can dramatically increase your sales with an affiliate program.

An Affiliate program will enable you to recruit an unlimited number of individuals to sell your products. The key to obtaining affiliates is to offer a nice commission for each sale. The higher the commissions, the more affiliates you'll recruit.

There are thousands of affiliate programs on the Internet. In order to be successful you must sell your affiliate program just like your product. In other words, your affiliate letter should be written like a sales letter. You must persuade your visitors to join your affiliate program by packing your affiliate sales letter with benefits. Tell them exactly what your affiliate program will do for them, how much commission they will receive and make the sign-up process simple.

One Tier Verses Two Tier

One tier affiliate programs pay commissions on one level. For each sale an affiliate makes, they will receive a commission. For example, if you offer your affiliates 30% commission and your product sells for $39.99, for every sale your affiliate makes, they will receive a $12 commission.

Two tier affiliate programs pay commissions on two levels. Affiliates will receive a commission for each sale they make and for each sale their recruits make. Two tier affiliate programs usually divide the commissions over the two levels. For example, if you want to give your affiliates a total of 30% commission for each sale, you would offer 20% commission on their first level sales and an extra 10% commission for second level sales. If your affiliate makes a $39.99 sale, they would receive a $8 commission. If one of their recruits makes a sale, they would receive an additional $4 commission.

Increasing Affiliate Sales

Nobody knows more about your product than you do. Provide your affiliates with banners, sample ads, articles or anything that will assist them in making sales.

To further increase sales, create an ebook that is directed towards your target audience and allow it to be freely distributed. This ebook should be packed with valuable information and, at the same time, used as a sales tool for your product. Customize a copy of your ebook for each of your affiliates and allow them to freely distribute it. You can customize the ebooks yourself or purchase an ebook compiler that enables your affiliates to customize your ebook themselves. Not all compilers will allow customizations. I highly recommend Ebook Edit Pro. You can find it here:
http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/web/jump.cgi?ID=2894

To keep your affiliates motivated, set up an opt-in list to enable them to subscribe and receive new promotional methods, sales letters and articles to assist them in making more sales. This will not only increase their sales, but it will also enable you to keep in contact with your affiliates and introduce new products.

Setting Up Your Affiliate Program

When you're ready to set up your affiliate program, there are basically two options. The first option is to purchase an affiliate software program. Affiliate software will track your affiliate sales and enable your affiliates to view their stats. This option requires that you run your affiliate program and you are responsible for accepting payment and sending out commission checks.

The second option is to use a third party affiliate tracking company to run your affiliate program for you. These companies will track your affiliate sales, enable your affiliates to check their stats and send out commission checks for you.

Affiliate Tracking Software

AssocTRAC- A great affiliate tracking software that features real time tracking of stats. It tracks both visitors and sales for each associate to determine not only the quality of visitors, but also if your sales copy is turning visitors into buyers. It includes an easy sign up process that instantly creates accounts for associates so they can be up and running within five minutes. An autoresponse email message is instantly sent out with linking instructions and other detailed information. This powerful software tracks through the use of cookies and CGI scripts.
http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/web/jump.cgi?ID=2333

Pro-TRACK - A great affiliate tracking software that will enable you to keep track of sales and which affiliate the sale originated. Although the standard version won't compute any sales data (owners manually keep track of sales), it is an excellent way to track and compensate your affiliate sales. The Pro version will not only track where your sales originate, but also provide you with the statistics you'll need to track how well your affiliate program is doing.
http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/web/jump.cgi?ID=61

Affiliate Tracking Companies

ClickBank - This Company will not only enable you to accept credit cards, but they will also run your affiliate program. Over 60,000 affiliates can choose to sell your products for you. ClickBank enables any web seller to automatically pay sales commissions to affiliates. They will bill your customers, pay you, and pay your affiliates a commission. They charge a one-time $49.95 activation fee, and a $1 + 7.5% fee per sale. There are no monthly fees.
http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/web/jump.cgi?ID=196

Click Trade - Lets you create your own affiliate program to allow others to send paying customers to you. Your business can reach new customers by being featured on thousands of affiliate sites. They have over 120,000 affiliates already interested in participating with your affiliate program.
http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/web/jump.cgi?ID=194

Take your time and select the best affiliate option for your business. If you're just starting out, you may want to use one of the third party affiliate companies, as this is the easiest route. You won't have to worry about anything, as everything is taken care of for you. This will enable you to concentrate on making more sales and developing new products.

Part Seven: Paying For Traffic
By Shelley Lowery

If you've been struggling with your website traffic and your sales aren't what you had hoped for, then maybe it's time to start paying for traffic.

Pay-per-click Search Engines provide an extremely effective means of obtaining highly targeted traffic to your website. The concept is simple. You bid on targeted keywords for as little as .001 per click and receive targeted traffic to your website.

The key to using this technique effectively is to focus on one specific product and select highly targeted keywords. This will help you to weed out all of the window shoppers and attract your specific target audience.

Viewing Search Terms

Most pay-per-click Search Engines will enable you to view exact "search terms" that have been used to perform searches. Use this to your advantage. You can find out exactly what "search terms" are being used for your target market and place your bids accordingly. Try to create a list of as many relevant keywords as possible. The more keywords you bid on, the more traffic you'll receive.

When bidding on keywords, keep in mind that in order to be successful, you don't have to be listed at the top. Although receiving a listing in the top three positions will produce major traffic through Goto.com, most of the time, you must have a large advertising budget to compete.

Before placing your bid, perform a search to find out how much your competitors are paying per click. Try to place your bid so that your listing will appear on the first page to increase your chance of success. By selecting highly targeted, less popular keywords, you'll not only attract a more targeted audience, but you'll also obtain a higher listing for less money.

Your Ad Copy

Your headline and copy are the most important part of your entire strategy. Your headline must grab your potential customer's attention and force them to read on. Your copy should tell them exactly what you have to offer and convince them to visit your site. Try to avoid attracting freebie hunters by mentioning free stuff within your ads. By weeding out those potential visitors expecting to get something free, you will attract a more targeted audience of potential buyers. There is no need to pay for visitors that weren't interested in buying anything in the first place.

Your listing should lead your potential customer directly to your product with no other distractions. In other words, if your product isn't on your main page, then don't direct your potential customers to your main page and make them search for your product. Direct them to your product's page.

Reveiwing Your Reports

Once your campaign begins, make sure you take the time to review the reports provided by the pay-per-click services. These reports will provide you with information in regard to how well each of your keywords are performing and enable you to adjust your keywords or change your bids accordingly.

To increase your traffic even further, don't just stop with one pay-per-click Search Engine -- try several at time. The more streams of traffic flowing to your site, the better.

Here is a list of some of the top pay-per-click Search Engines:

http://www.overture.com
http://www.Bay9.com
http://www.Win4win.com
http://www.Findwhat.com
http://www.7search.com

Visit http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com for a complete list of over sixty pay-per-click Search Engines and reviews.

If you're serious about your business and you're ready to drive a stampede of targeted traffic to your website, then give the pay-per-click Search Engines a try. They're well worth the small investment.

Part Eight: Purchasing Advertising
By Shelley Lowery

If free advertising ventures aren't providing you with the response that you had hoped for, maybe it's time to consider purchasing some advertising.

If you really want to build your business online, you must be willing to invest a portion of your profits back into your business. There are several advertising opportunities available on the Internet that will enable you to purchase targeted advertising very reasonably.

Ezine Advertising

Ezine Advertising is one of the most effective forms of advertising on the Internet. Not only is it effective, but it can also be very inexpensive depending upon the size of the publication.

The key to using ezine advertising effectively is to target your audience and track your response. You must test the effectiveness of both your ad and the publication in which you're advertising. This will enable you to determine which ads are pulling the most response and which publications are providing you with a high response rate.

When selecting an ezine to buy advertising, there are a few factors that should be taken into consideration:

1. Select an ezine that targets your potential customer. In other words, if you were selling health products you wouldn't want to advertise in a "marketing" ezine. You would want to advertise in an ezine that focuses on health.

2. The size of the publication really isn't a factor in determining your ad's success. Smaller publications will many times have a higher response rate, as they may have a higher percentage of subscribers that actually read the publication.

3. Before buying advertising in a publication, make sure you subscribe to a few issues. You want to ensure that the publication contains quality content and see how their ads are displayed. If they're running 15 or 20 ads each issue, your ad's response rate will most likely be low. Try to select a publication that runs only a few ads each issue and places them in the center of the publication.

4. Contact the ezine publisher to make sure that they never run two ads for similar or the same product. This will increase your response rate immensely.

The Directory of Ezines provides a complete online searchable database of ezines that accept advertising. This directory contains all of the information you'll need to know to effectively place your ads. There is a $39.95 per year membership fee. http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/t.cgi?l=doe

If you're looking for a low cost alternative for purchasing ezine advertising, Ezine Ad Auction will enable you to bid on ad space in targeted ezines.
http://www.ezineadauction.com

Pay-Per Programs

Pay-per programs include, pay-per-click, pay-per-lead and pay-per-sale.

Pay-per-click programs will enable you to advertise to your target audience and only pay for results -- you pay a set amount for each visitor that is sent to your website. The most popular pay-per-click program is the pay-per-click Search Engines. You can learn more about pay-per-click Search Engines here:
http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com

Pay-per-lead programs will enable you to only pay for leads. These leads may be potential customers that fill out a registration form, enter a sweepstakes, or download a free product trial.

Pay-per-sales programs are simply affiliate programs. You pay your affiliates a set commission for each qualifying sale.

You can find a number of Pay-Per programs here:
http://www.clickaffiliate.com

Another form of a pay-per-click program is pay-per-click banner ads. There are several companies online that will place your banner within their network and charge you a set fee for each click through.

Here's a few to get you started:

Value Click
http://www.valueclick.com

I-Clicks
http://www.i-clicks.net

PennyWeb
http://home.pennyweb.com

Opt-In Email Marketing

Another powerful advertising method is opt-in email marketing. There are many Internet companies that will allow you to purchase targeted lists of individuals who have chosen to receive commercial email messages. Although this form of advertising can produce a good response, it can be rather expensive. Make sure you have fully tested your sales copy and have a good response rate prior to purchasing this type of advertising. In addition, make sure you only deal with a reputable company, as there is a very thin line between "opt-in" and "spam." Some of these companies may use unethical means of obtaining email addresses. The only company I can recommend is PostMasterDirect.com.

Before purchasing any "major" advertising, make sure you have fully tested your ad copy. Take your time and plan your advertising carefully for the best results. Your success depends upon it.

Part Nine: Building a List of Potential Customers
By Shelley Lowery

Developing your own list of targeted potential customers is the absolute most important marketing strategy you can use.

No matter what strategies you're currently using, if you're not collecting the email addresses of your potential customers, you're literally guaranteeing your failure.

Opt-in lists provide you with the ability to create a targeted list of potential customers in which you can advertise on a continual basis. You will have a direct line of communication, which will increase your sales considerably.

The key to creating an effective opt-in list is to provide your subscribers with quality information. The best way to do this is to provide them with a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly ezine. An ezine is a newsletter or publication that is sent to subscribers who have chosen to receive your publication.

For further information on creating an ezine, download the free ebook, "Ezines: A Complete Guide to publishing." http://www.web-source.net/free_ebooks.htm

In order to build a database of potential customers and start collecting email addresses, you'll first need to set up a mailing list. This mailing list must enable your visitor's to submit their information and subscribe them to your list.

There are many free list services that will enable you to set up a mailing list. However, they are not recommended. They will not allow you to personalize your messages with your subscriber's names and they require your visitor to reply to a confirmation message.

For a complete guide to setting up your own opt-in list system, read the article, Creating, Managing and Building Your Opt-In Lists.
http://www.web-source.net/optin_lists.htm

If you'd rather not have to set up your own system, here are some good scripts you can run on your server:

1-2-All Broadcast
http://www.12all.com

A complete list management system including HTML or plain text newsletters, MySQL database, personalization features, automatic removal links and more.

AutoResponse Plus:
http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/t.cgi?l=autoplus

Complete list management including unlimited lists, HTML or plain text mailings, MySQL database, customizable auto-personalization of messages, automatic removal links, unlimited folow-up autoresponses and more.

Building Your Subscriber Base

There are many powerful ways to build your subscriber base. However, for this article, we will only focus on the "best" ways.

Your Website

Place a subscription box on every page of your website. Make sure you don't overlook this powerful means of gaining new subscribers. Your visitors will enter your website from many other pages other than your main page. They may never even visit your main page, so make sure your subscription box is visible on every page of your website.

Incentive Subscriptions

This powerful means of obtaining subscribers entails offering your visitors a free gift in return for their subscription. This free gift may be a free ebook, software, or report. This method of obtaining new subscribers will increase your subscription rate immensely.

Download free ebooks that you may use as incentives here:
http://www.web-source.net/free_ebooks.htm

Writing Articles

Write informative articles and allow them to be freely published. By writing articles, you can significantly increase your subscriptions. The key to using this method effectively is to include your subscription information within your bylines.

For further information in regard to writing articles, read the article, "Write For Publicity."
http://www.web-source.net/write.htm

Free Ebooks

Create a powerful free ebook and allow it to be freely distributed. Place your subscription box on each page. Your ebook will have the potential to be viewed by millions of Internet users.

For further information on creating an ebook, download the free ebook, "Ebooks: A Complete Guide to Self Publishing."
http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/web/jump.cgi?ID=500

Creating and developing an opt-in list is an absolute must. You must take every opportunity to promote your publication and gain new subscribers. The more subscribers you have, the more sales you'll make. Make sure you don't overlook this powerful method of making sales.

Part Ten: Following Up with Your Customers
By Shelley Lowery

Following up with your customer, once you've made a sale, is an important part of providing good customer service. Not only is it an important part of developing a good relationship with your customer, but it will also enable you to introduce your new products.

Although sending out a personal message to each of your customers may not be possible, you can provide your customers with the illusion that your message was personally sent. By using autoresponders, you can eliminate the need to manually respond each time you make a sale.

Autoresponders

Autoresponders are one of the best promotional tools on the Internet. They were designed to automatically respond to any email message sent to it with an automatic response. The more advanced autoresponders will enable you to set up a series of autoresponse messages to be sent out at a specified time.

You can use autoresponders to send all of the following:

• Thank you messages
• Welcome letters
• Order confirmations

Autoresponders can eliminate many of your routine follow-ups. However, they cannot eliminate your customer's support requests and your future mailings.

Customer Service

In order to develop a good relationship with your customers, you must provide them with quality customer service. Let them know that, should they have any questions or problems, they are free to contact you. Provide them with all of your contact information to make the process simple. Even if you can't personally assist them, make sure that you have a good customer support group ready to help. Reply to their support requests as quickly as possible and assist them until the problem is resolved.

Your customer service is one of the most important factors in determining your customer's satisfaction. Even if you have a great product or service, if your customer support isn't good, your sales will suffer.

For every dissatisfied customer, you can expect to lose one hundred new customers. Why? When one customer has a bad experience with your company, you can be certain that they'll tell everyone they know about their bad experience. It will travel through the grapevine and ultimately cost you sales.

Follow-up with your customers and ask them how they like your product or if they have any questions. This is a great way to not only provide good customer service, but to also obtain feedback about your product. By listening to your customers, you will know exactly what they want, what they're having problems with and how you can develop a better product.

Mailing List

The best way to follow-up with your customers is to set up a mailing list. No matter what mailing program you use, make sure that it will allow you to send personalized messages. Your customers need that personal touch. They don't want to feel as if the message they received was sent to an entire list. They want to feel as if it was personally sent to them.

By following up with your customers and providing great customer service, you are creating a life-long relationship. Satisfied customers are more apt to purchase your new products in the future. Treat them with the utmost respect and go above and beyond the expected.

Copyright © Shelley Lowery

About the Author:

Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, Web Design Mastery. http://www.webdesignmastery.com And, Ebook Starter - Give Your Ebooks the look and feel of a REAL book. http://www.ebookstarter.com Visit Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to Etips and receive a copy of the acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing Strategies." http://www.web-source.net