Buzz Gnosis

Do you have a business website? If so, you need to have a mailing list and a way for your website visitors to subscribe to that list. Let me say it again: YOU NEED A MAILING LIST.

Why do I feel so strongly about this subject? Because I want to see you succeed. I want you to make sales and get prospects to sign up under you. Every good business website has some sort of purpose. Do you want your visitor to buy a candle? Do you want a potential new Tupperware consultant to sign up under you? Do you want him or her to subscribe to your recipe mailer? All of these are examples of things you want a visitor to your site to do. The problem is, most of us aren’t comfortable doing much of anything the first time we come across a website. After all, the owner of the site is a complete stranger to us. On average, it takes a person being exposed 7 times to a product or service online before they buy. If you have a mailing list, your visitors on that list will be exposed to your business repeatedly, even though they aren’t actually visiting the site at the time. Material covered in your newsletter or ezine will draw them back and build trust in you as a resource.

Now that we have established why you need a mailing list, let’s take a look at how you would go about setting one up, getting people to subscribe to it, what content you will provide to them and how often you will contact them.

You may be tempted at first to just use your local mail client (like Outlook) to send out your mailing list. I strongly recommend staying away from this option unless you never see your mailing list growing above 50 people. If you email to many people at once, your web host may suspect that you are sending out spam email and will shut your email account down, at least temporarily. The other disadvantage is that you cannot automate the process of adding and removing people from your mailing list, and doing this manually can get very time consuming.

I suggest you invest in a solid mailing and autoresponder service. There are a few free options out there, but those will feature ads that will distract your customers from what’s important – YOUR product or service.

As far as a good autoresponder service goes, you have two different options. You can purchase an autoresponder script, or you can pay a monthly fee to have the service hosted. Here at www.wahmwannabe.com we have opted for a hosted service. Yes, there is a monthly expense as opposed to a one-time fee, but it is worth the time and hassle it saves us. We don’t have to upgrade the script or deal with any technical issues that may arise. When it comes to hosted autoresponders, we recommend aweber. Their service is very reasonable, features unlimited autorsponder and newsletter broadcasts and is very easy to use.

Once you have an autoresponder system in place, think about how people will be able to subscribe to your newsletter. The first thing you should do is add a signup form to every page of your website. If you use aweber, you can use their web form generator feature to create the form. The most effective places to add the form on your website are in the middle of the content or in the upper left-hand corner of your pages. For a full review, please go to http://www.wahmwannabe.com/newsletter/newsletter-subscription.htm

Next, I would suggest you create a separate page that talks about your newsletter. What are you going to send your subscribers each week or month? Will it be a product recommendation, some tips on how to use a particular product, articles of interest to your subscribers? Give them a reason why they should subscribe to your newsletter. As an additional incentive, you may even want to consider offering a freebie. This can be a special report you wrote, an ebook, etc.

For www.wahmwannabe.com, we created a motivational screensaver as a little freebie to our subscribers. Take a look at (insert link to newsletter signup page) to get a feel for an example newsletter signup page.

In addition to your site, add the link to your newsletter signup page to the signature of your email, to your signature line when you participate in message boards and in the byline of the articles you write. Soon you will start to see people signing up for your newsletter.

You want to stay in contact with your list by email at least once per month, preferably once per week. You don’t need to create an elaborate ezine each time. All you need is to write up a little note from you with an interesting tidbit of information and a link back to your website where they can find additional information. For example, if you are selling candles, email them a tip on effective candle burning, some safety tips, or even announce the newest scents available. If you read something interesting that relates to you business, mention it in your newsletter.

With a mailing list, you will have a way to stay in contact with your visitors and potential customers and can keep your product or service in front of them. And sooner or later, they may just buy. Good luck!

WAHMWannabe.com offers all kinds of resources for building home businesses. Sign up for our newsletter (http://www.wahmwannabe.com/newsletter/newsletter-subscription.htm) to get helpful tips, recommendations and support delivered directly to your inbox!

It’s amazing how many business owners make each of the mistakes listed below. Making these mistakes could cost a company thousands of dollars initially, and take away from tens of thousands of potential dollars they should be earning monthly from their website.

1. Get their website done too early. 2. Pay way too much or too little for their website. 3. Focus on making it too pretty and flashy. 4. Do not get any traffic to their website. 5. Never make any money off their website.

The biggest mistake most businesses owners make is getting their website done too early. A smart business owner will first research their target audience in their specific Internet market, and only then build their website around their research.

A business owner needs to get training on how to find a target web audience in a specific niche market. They need to determine which keywords their website needs to be designed around, in order to bring in customers from search engines and other sources. A huge mistake made by business owners is they get their website formed around very broad keywords which have too much competition.

Rushing web design without proper planning could also very well hurt your wallet. Most web development companies quote very high prices on web and graphic design, and most business owners make the mistake of going with those companies. They charge for flashy features that will never bring in traffic and will never make the website any money.

You may also get a very low quote from an offshore company, but beware – there are many problems with offshore designers: their English isn’t great, you can’t reach them on the phone, the time-zone difference becomes a huge problem – while you’re awake they are sleeping, payment is a problem because you have to wire them money, trust and legal issues can be a huge mess, their marketing knowledge is very limited to their country because they have no knowledge of the marketing techniques and economics of your country.

The key, is to find a web design company that doesn’t spend too much or any money on advertising. This way, they can keep their costs down because they don’t have one of the biggest expenses in the industry. A web design company can be extremely successful just through word of mouth. Now they may be hard to find because they don’t actually advertise, but if you ask your friends and co-workers they may have someone great they can refer.

Once you’ve done your keyword and market research, and found the right design company, you have to know what to ask for. One of the biggest mistakes a business owner makes is they ask and pay for a website that is all looks and no sales, no marketing. They spend thousands of dollars on a ‘pretty’ website full of flashy effects which brings in $0 in revenue. You have to ask yourself, what good is a flashy website when no one comes to it?

Sure major companies spend a lot of money on making their website extravagant, flashy, and interactive, but they already have traffic because of their name, that’s called branding. The last thing a smart business owner would do is copy the idea of having an expensive flashy website like those of Fortune 500 companies. A smart business owner understands that for a website to sell it’s main focus needs to be copywriting and marketing, and will put design second. You will rarely find a design company that tells you to put content, copywriting, and marketing AHEAD of the look, layout, and design. You must understand that for a company to be successful on the Internet, that company must direct their focus on marketing their website and worry about how it looks last.

By avoiding the 5 mistakes discussed above, a business owner may actually be very successful on the web. If one does not follow all the rules it could not only hurt their wallet, but their potential to succeed. If you want to be successful in the online game, you have to play your cards right. With proper research, planning, and copywriting, a business owner will be able to dominate their niche market and grow their online business which has unlimited potential.