Thursday, June 4, 2009

Understanding Marketing Plus Sales Equals Making Money Online

By Robert Stout

An understanding of sales and marketing is essential to any well planned business start-up. Since it requires substantial work and money to create a successful enterprise, a sure way to spend financial and personal energy wisely is to grasp the fundamentals.

Marketing and sales need to work together to give you the results you want. Although they perform different functions, and sometimes overlap, once you realize their separate but equal roles, you align yourself with success. Online marketing and sales unfolds in a step-by-step process.

First Step: What is going to move your prospects eye and attention into your marketing net? It could be an article, a blog, an ad, an irresistable graphic, free stuff, email, and on and on. The internet abounds with effective techniques for getting attention. You just need to find a way to capture someone's interest and then go on to the next phase.

That is what marketing does: it asks for attention and then creates interest. For example, if you are online looking for a product, before you enter that term into a search engine, check out what is vying for your attention. Your computer screen is usually filled with marketing methods. Almost everything on your screen wants your attention.

Your viewing area is bursting with superlative adjectives, enticing graphics, free stuff, and more. You are in a marketing web. Something jumped to first in line for your attention. The word "free" got you. Another successful marketing technique worked so you clicked the link for that freebie. Marketing's success feeds into the next step. Now you will be moved farther along in the process.

Second Step: The process has moved from marketing into the conversion step. It happens very quickly in most cases. As the prospect, you are moving toward a decision to buy. You are influenced by content, color and theme, and even other offers on the page. Successful marketing takes you very smoothly toward a sale.

Third Step: Sales now jumps into the mix. Using efficiency which highlights a product's value, a proper sales process helps you decide on what to buy. Elements such as graphics, descriptions, discounts, and order now buttons, are a few ways that sales closes the deal. Effective sales techniques make the buying decision obvious, as if it was the only choice you should make. To recap this process: After you expressed interest in a product, marketing got your attention with any of a number of methods, and then enhanced your interest before quickly converting you into the sales mode where you got information, choices, and a price you liked. You got a good deal on your product and clicked, "order now".

Once you learn how to analyze the sales process, it will help you refine and continue to refine your own internet marketing. A certain amount of analysis is very healthy as it will allow you to see what works and what needs work. You can go into the three steps, marketing, conversion, and sales, to determine your effectiveness. It'll show up in your bottom line.

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