.: Fear of Change can Hurt Your Business
By:Bonnie Kotch
Category:Home / Business / Marketing
Most people don’t like change. It means having to re-adjust routine, change habits and throw your order of process into upheaval. You are leaving your comfort zone. Most people don’t want to do this, so those people fail. Even when that change could mean something GOOD people balk.
Internet marketing is no different. You get used to doing something one way, you use the same ad sources for your marketing, you go after promoting the same products, and your web pages even start looking the same. I have heard this saying from just about every successful business person I know:
If you keep doing what you’re doing . . . you’re going to keep getting what you’re getting.
When my income, my web site’s activity (visitors) and my fulfillment hit a plateau and I wasn’t at my goal, I knew I had to do something different. I totally believed in what I was doing, I enjoyed it, but it became routine. When that happens a complacency takes effect and it’s picked up in your written content, your follow ups, and even phone communication with your customers.
Somehow, you realize that you have gotten away from your purpose, but you are doing everything you know to do, and nothing new and exciting is happening. This also happens when you TRY to do something different, but slide back into the same habits and routines because they are COMFORTABLE. Even seasoned internet marketers run into these roadblocks.
When I began working on Single-Parents-Help.com, I was excited. It wasn’t because I saw all this potential money in it, because the site really wasn’t about income. The subject matter of that site was something I was passionate about because its focus was on helping people that felt they couldn’t help themselves.
I began working on the site, but I was getting lost. I had to stop and take a step back.
It was starting to look and read like an internet marketing site. It looked good, but it was not appealing at all to single parents who would come looking for help and support. It looked like I expected them to BUY something!
So I scrapped it. I went to visit various single parent support sites, like parentswithoutpartners.org, and single.parents.about.com. As a relatively new single parent myself, what would I look for if I went online looking for help or direction?
That’s when I felt it. And that’s when I began re-writing content. I took the focus off attracting sales (which was evident all through my text), and instead stressed the position single parents found themselves in, and how to get out of the rut. I wrote from a single parent’s point-of-view, not from a marketer’s point of view. Then I realized something!
I REALLY DID want to help people! I had been there! These people weren’t looking for money! (Well, not JUST money). They wanted someone to understand!
In getting down to communicating, you sometimes have to insert a personal empathy for the situation your target visitors are experiencing. I knew what it was like to have a car repossessed. I knew what it was like to have to ask to borrow money to pay bills, yes! I was an internet marketer, I was successful and made five figures in sales and went down to nothing over a period of three years because my routine changed. I no longer had a home. My family was breaking up and my kids were hurting . . . we no longer had health insurance. My whole security was gone! I came THIS CLOSE to falling apart.
That’s what most single parents deal with on a day to day basis and this was HARD for me to write about. I had to leave my comfort zone and talk about things I don’t talk about. (You don’t talk about personal tragedies on a website about making money!)
Now even though this is a rather extreme example of fear of change, but it was an eye-opener and a wake-up call.
When your main focus is on obtaining sales, it’s going to be evident in your web content, your newsletters, your follow up emails, etc, etc. Take a step back and look at what you are doing.
What are you offering people? What will spending money at your site help them with?
Now take the last part of that last sentence. That should be your focus . . . What are you going to help them with?
If you change your action sentences from “You need to buy . . .” to “You will have . . .” you will not only see a jump in interest to your site, you will begin to see longer visits, more newsletter subscribers, and more people linking to your web page.
Give a little something. You don’t want to just take money from people, there’s no fulfillment in that. You want people coming back because they believe you. They trust you. Make them feel good about purchasing from your site. The more you give, the more you will get in return and the more fulfillment your business will give you.
Article keywords: internet marketing, website marketing, internet income, writing content
Article Source: http://www.articles32.com
Bonnie Kotch is an internet marketing consultant who offers support, resources, lists of part time and full time income sources to help single parents. www.trinityonlinemarketingschool.com
.: New Marketing Articles
1). Birkenstocks & The Customizable Art Of Footwear
Birkenstocks are a German brand of quality footwear, which is best known for it’s contoured footbed. When most people purchase a new pair of shoes, they expect to have a ‘break-in’ time. This usually lasts for a few days and, at that time, the shoe is pretty comfortable and broken in for everyday wear. The main difference with Birkenstocks is that they approach the ‘break-in’ time much differently.
2). Millionaire Marketing in 3 Small Steps
What is money? A child might say that it’s something rich people have and poor people don’t. An engineer might go into a detailed and lengthy explanation, but we all know that money is what really “makes the world go around.”
In the business world, money is the definition of success or failure. That’s why it’s vitally important that every entrepreneur has a good understanding of money – even if their business is still struggling to get off the ground.
3). Free T Shirt Offer – Are they really free?
The modern day craze has created a huge demand for designer clothing all over the world. Many young guns are going for a casual wear than what it used to be 20 years ago. A simple T-shirt and low waist jeans makes both the genders comfortable. It’s become almost a compulsory act to hang out in t-shirts and jeans even in colleges. Youths like to have wide collection of t-shirt of current fashion.
4). How To Promote Your Home Based Business On A Shoestring Budget!
Getting customers is the key to success in any business. There are many ways to promote your home based business - the only way to know which ones are best for your business is to test. Here are some tips for getting customers without spending a fortune!
1. Tell everyone you know that you are starting a business AND ask them to tell everyone they know.
5). Cash in on Neighbors
What could be more welcoming than the spicy smell of hot apple pie to receive you into a brand new neighborhood full of people you’ve never met? Hopefully you life has been full of warm, hospitable neighbors wherever you’ve lived. Perhaps not…
If you’ve ever had a bad experience with a neighbor, you know just how much those invisible people really know about you.
6). Technology Controlled Marketing
RSS feeds and blogs took Internet marketing by a storm in 2005. Every time we turn around there’s a brand new marketing vehicle speeding down the Internet highway. In the fast paced race of the virtual world, it’s easy to get swept away in the current of technology.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that computers have taken control of both our personal world and the business world.
7). Finding Your Niche In The Business World
Who am I and what do I love to do? Well, isn't this the twenty million dollar question! A more appropriate question might be "Who was I and what did I love to do?"
As you search to find yourself, and what it is you love to do, you may find the task harder than you thought it would be. Try to think about your childhood. Can you remember what thrilled you as a child? Like many people you've probably forgotten what brought try joy and excitement to your essence.
.: Top Marketing Articles
1). John Warwicker - Co-Founder of Tomato Design Company
Design company Tomato
( http://www.tomato.co.uk ) was founded in 1991 in London by John Warwicker, Steve Baker, Dirk Van Dooren, Karl Hyde, Richard Smith, Simon Taylor and Graham Wood. In 1994, Michael Horsham and Jason Kedgely joined.
tomato specializes in: Architectural Design, Consultancy, Drawing, Education, Electronic Interactive Media, Film & Commercial Direction, Graphic Design, Fashion, Motion Graphics, Music & Sound, Strategy, Branding & Identity, Photography, Publishing, Title Sequences, Typography, Writing.
2). The Benefits Of Branding
Branding is the process of creating distinctive and durable perceptions in the minds of consumers. A brand is a persistent, unique business identity intertwined with associations of personality, quality, origin, liking and more. Here’s why the effort to brand your company or yourself pays off.
1. Memorability. A brand serves as a convenient container for a reputation and good will.
3). Ultimate Wealth Package: Is It Worthy Of Its Name?
What Is Ultimate Wealth Package All About?
Have you been considering the Ultimate Wealth Package? The sales page makes a lot of promises, but doesn't give you much detail at all. So let me fill you in!
Ultimate Wealth Package is a guide that has been put together by a young guy named Mark Warren. Within the guide he shows you in simple steps how he himself made his internet fortune, and how you too, by following the same steps can do the same.
4). MySpace Marketing
With the ever-growing popularity of internet social groups, MySpace has become the leader. MySpace has become so popular; it has spawned a whole market of new business opportunity through marketing and advertising. No other website in the world allows one person the ability to communicate with millions of people with the click of a button. This has allowed e-commerce a new channel of communication with potential customers.
5). Eniva: The Next Billion Dollar Home Based Business?
Delray Beach, FL – While tirelessly searching for the perfect home based business opportunity, a Florida man stumbles across a real, passionate, solid, and trusting eight year old company called the ENIVA Corporation.
After researching the company, the products, and the founders of ENIVA, Brisson soon realized the potential of this fast growing Minnesota based company: the potential to be the next billion dollar home based business opportunity.
6). Subliminal Persuasion
Subliminal persuasion? It is simply influencing people at a level below their conscious recognition. Many people don't even realize they are being influenced by a smile, making even that a subliminal technique. Here are two more subtle methods.
Subliminal Persuasion Using Inflection
It is easy to assume that a sentence like "I can't promise you that price.
7). Avoiding A "Failure to Communicate"
It's in every classified ad and most job descriptions: must have excellent communication skills. Worse yet, once hired, it reappears annually at review time: Improve communication skills. What's a worker to do? Communication skills don't require a graduate degree, just some common sense, a bit of homework and a better understanding of the role communication plays — in everything:
Listen.