Profit Strategies for Small Businesses Tackling the Challenges of Internet Marketing If you re a small business owner, your goal is profitability. And marketing is the key to big profits. But small business owners can have problems when it comes to marketing and these problems can result in major profit loss. Low customer loyalty, low return on your investments, and shortage of information about your customers are all challenges that can hurt your bottom line. Fortunately there are marketing strategies that can dramatically increase your profits. But first, a few advertising mistakes that drive down profits and prevent sales: 5 Advertising Mistakes that Hurt Your Profits 1) Expensive offline ad campaigns that don t provide feedback. Placing an ad offline can be incredibly expensive, and even after dishing out all that cash it s hard to track exactly what is or isn t working. So when the campaign is over you have no idea why it worked (or more likely, why it didn t). 2) Poorly written and designed ads. When you re working on building your business, you might not have the time or money to seek out top copywriters and designers. But copy and design are essential to generating response, and ignoring them is a surefire way to sink your ad campaign. 3) Lack of information about your target audience. Do you know anything about the people who are most likely to buy your product? You need what pushes their buttons and gets them to buy. Without good clear information, you won t know where to place your ads or how to write or design them and that means no profits. 4) Ineffectively presented product. If you don t know anything (or the right things) about your target audience, you have no idea how to present your product to speak directly to them and if you don t present your product in a way that speaks to your target audience, you re not going to get any sales even if you re selling the best product in the world. 5) Targeting the wrong audience. You spend money to place an ad and then realize when your ads don t work that you weren t speaking to the right people. This is a big problem for many marketers because basically you re just flushing your money away! 1
Fortunately there s a different way to advertise, and it s changing the way people around the world do business. The Internet has becoming the most effective way to market your products. But while thousands of businesses have been learning the tricks to Internet marketing for years, many others are just now getting started. Internet Advertising Statistics: As of January 2009, the Internet has 1 billion users around the world. This presents a lot of opportunities for businesses, but also a lot of challenges in trying to target specific segments of that population. Customers on the Internet spent $174.5 billion in 2007 and $204 billion in 2008 with more to come in 2009. Unfortunately, this is a huge source of revenue that millions of businesses around the world are missing out on completely. However, many businesses are catching on and catching on fast. And those who are can already see the impressive results that Internet marketing can generate. Internet ad spending in 2006 totaled $15.9 billion. In 2007, $19.5 billion. In 2008, 25.8 billion. In other words: if you re not on the Internet, you re not keeping up. (See figure 1) And 33% of advertising executives say the Internet will continue as the #1 advertising channel in 2009. $30 $25 $20 Advantages of Internet marketing: $15 $10 1) Prices. You can reach a global audience for $5 pennies on the dollar. You can make $0 2006 2007 2008 changes without spending thousands. Figure 1 - Total Online Spending (Billions, USD) This is not something you can do as easily with print advertising or other media. 2) Efficiency. Internet advertising can be created quickly and in some cases implemented within a matter of minutes. You don t have to wait for your offline ad to show up in print, you re not enslaved to other people s deadlines you re in control. 2
3) Universality. Unlike offline ads, your advertising goes everywhere and has the potential to reach anyone with a computer. Plus, with many people abandoning print for the web (especially younger audiences), the Internet is where you ll find hundreds of thousands of customers. 4) Flexibility. If you print an offline ad and notice a mistake or realize there s a problem, it s too late. The ad is already published and there s no taking it back. But if your ad is online, it s simple to make changes and you re back in business immediately. 5) Feedback. This is one of the best parts of Internet advertising! You can know immediately if your ad is generating response, and you can change multiple aspects of the ad, run split tests, and create the ad that pulls the most sales (and the most money!) for you. Keys to Successful Internet Advertising Running a successful Internet advertising campaign doesn t come without its own unique challenges. Strategies must be planned and executed carefully and chances are, just when you think you re finished, there are hundreds of additional strategies you can use to increase your profitability even high. To run a successful online ad campaign, here is a short list of steps you may need to take in order to achieve the best results: Develop a corporate identity Gather information about potential customers Create your site Optimize your site for search engines Target your pages to a specific audience Test your product Attract partners and affiliates Create emails to supplement your ad pages and build relationships with customers Create a call center to handle inquiries Start bringing qualified traffic to your site 3
As you can see, putting an ad page up on the Internet is not enough to pull in qualified traffic and buyers. But when you have the right resources and work with experienced marketers, Internet advertising can be the key to huge profits. Introducing ProfitsHelpers.com Your resource for profitable Internet Marketing ProfitsHelpers.com can help you create a massive online ad campaign that results in bigger sales, more customers and, most importantly, maximum profits. Our experts use years of experience to turn your product into a best-seller and send your profits skyrocketing. We will test and improve your product We can attract partners and affiliates for you We have the know-how to optimize your site for search engines We have connections with call centers that will handle all your orders We create newsletters and emails to build relationships with your customers We gather information about your would-be customers We create and execute highly targeted email marketing campaigns We bring streams of qualified traffic to your site How does it work? There are three simple steps to making this happen: 1. We get the information we need about your business, product or website. The team at ProfitsHelpers.com will get to know your business, inside and out. We ll take careful steps to ensure we understand the unique needs of your business and how to meet those needs fast and efficiently. 2. We promote your product or service online. We ll develop effective marketing strategies that are specific to your business or industry. From site optimization to email marketing, we ll take care of everything, and we won t stop until we achieve the results you re looking for. 3. You pay only for results. We ll take a small percentage of the profits you earn as compensation for our strategies and services. We re not satisfied until you are! If you re a business-owner or Internet marketing looking to maximize your online profits, ProfitsHelpers.com can help you consistently reach sales goals, week after week. For more information, visit www.profitshelpers.com 4
Contact Us Telephone: 1-877-GMB-Direct Fax: 1-212-656-1044 Site www.profitshelpers.com Customer Service: support@profitshelpers.com Headquarters: GMBDirect 305 Madison Avenue. Suite 449 New York, NY 10165 5