Internet Marketing Time Management
"Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money but youcannot get more time." - Jim Rohn
Earning an income on the internet is a process that in broad
terms involves three stages:
1. Getting your product (acquisition)
2. Developing your product presentation
3. Promoting the product
In this article, "product" means any tangible product, digital
products (ebooks and software) and services such as membership
sites, web design and development, hosting, "print on demand" for
ebooks, fulfillment for orders and so on.
By necessity you will spend time in each of these stages. Each
stage will involve a learning phase and an action phase. It's
important to identify clearly what stage of development you are
currently working on and to focus on completing that stage.
1. Getting your product (acquisition).
Choose between your own product and an affiliate product.
This will involve identifying a demand using for example surveys
or the popularity of search terms.
Key Point: Once you have your product you can stop spending time
looking at other product possibilities for the time being.
2. Developing your product presentation.
Once you have chosen your product you will need to develop a
presentation.
This will include your website primarily and can also include
autoresponder sequences and a newsletter.
Key Points: Once your website and presentation process is
completed you can move on to the promotion. You can always
improve the presentation but once your presentation is
"presentable" you should move on to promotion. Don't get caught
up trying to make things perfect. Good, yes; perfect, no. The
reality is things can always be changes. It does not matter if
you have the best product in your niche and the best presentation
if nobody knows about it. Give your presentation your best shot
and then start promoting.
3. Promoting the product.
No matter now good your product and presentation are, you must
get your presentation in front of your intended audience or
nothing happens.
"We have to become better at promoting what we do than doing what
we do."
This is where it is also important to be clear about what stage
you are in. Remember, time is limited, so if you have already
chosen your product and developed your presentation it is not
productive to keep looking for products or spending a great deal
of time "tweaking" your presentation.
Time can always be spent tweaking sales copy, images, layout, web
presentation, upgrading or trying new software, investigating new
product opportunities (before the current one is complete),
improving design skills, keeping up with the changing web
"standards"... The list can seem endless.
Key Point: Time is better spent developing a clear promotional
strategy and putting it into action. Only when you are seeing
results from your promotional activities should you consider
altering your presentation (such as modifying headlines and sales
copy) to assess how that affects conversion of prospects to
customers.
Here are some examples:
- Write two newsletters each month
- Run a solo ad each week
- Purchase 500 double-optin subscribers each month
- Conduct a Pay Per Click campaign with $x budget each
week/month
- Make three new blog entries each week
- Create ten new web pages each week
Here are a few tips to keep you on track:
1. Name your project
You may name your project as a final name of the product or you
may just give it a code name that means something to you.
2. Understand what part of the three step process you are in:
Acquisition, presentation or promotion.
Here is a simple question to ask yourself to check if you are on
track with your time budget, "What is this activity designed to
do?" or perhaps, "What is the outcome of this activity?"
This will help you to identify if you are spending time in the
wrong area at the wrong time.
3. Set up check lists to make sure everything is covered. Focus
on completion.
4. Promotion: Clearly define your action steps.
5. Track the results or your promotional campaign in terms of
traffic, click through rates, subscribers and purchasers. Include
costs of conducting your campaign and compare that to your sales
to determine your return on investment. It is only by tracking
the results of the promotion that you will know how to
effectively change the presentation for further testing.
A spreadsheet is an invaluable tool as a template for specifying
your promotional campaign and also for tracking results, costs
and return on investment. Adding in columns for each day of the
week allows you to allocate your time so that all your promotions
are covered in a time effective manner. This becomes your
business gauge by which you assess the effectiveness of your
promotional campaign.
Understanding the three stages of the business process and the
stage you are in, using checklists and tracking your results
using business gauges are the proven ways to maximize your time,
your effectiveness and your profits.
Author
George Whitecraft
http://whitecraftshoppingmarketing.biz/info/l/tbp
http://whitecraftshoppingmarketing.biz/info/l/pba
posted by George @ 6:23 PM
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