How to get competitive advantage at internet marketing

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Author: William King

Introduction

There are literally millions of sites out there on the World Wide Web and many sites are being launched daily. In this environment of extreme competition, it is essential for you to gain an edge over the others in your area. It is important not to become complacent about your fantastic idea and forget to market yourself to prospective clients. No matter how great your product is or how customer-friendly your service is, if you can't convert people into customers, you will not make any money. So remember that the key to success is great marketing. Now how do you market your site?

Creativity

First we take for granted that you have a viable product or service that online customers are looking for. Now, get creative. Try various methods of marketing and go with what works. This means that you not only need to try the different methods, but you also need to keep track of the response and ensure that you know which ones have been successful. It will require patience and planning on your part. But no one said it was going to be easy. Or if they did, they lied. It's never easy to make money, online or otherwise, so if you are in a legitimate business, be prepared to be creative and diligent.

Authenticity Rule

This rule says do not over sell your product or service by claiming it to be the 'world's best'. Do not use superlatives or multicolored or red font. People will distrust your site and it will end up looking tacky. It is a better idea to use moderate sales pitches and include the pitch in descriptive areas subtly. Use plenty of good, informative content with subtle messages to encourage a purchase. Furthermore, allow your customer to skip past the sales letters if they choose to go straight to the purchase. Offer different lengths of sales letters so that people with diverse preferences have a choice. Be persuasive but realistic in your approach and allow people who need more convincing to click on longer sales pitch letter.

Usage of Images and Headlines

Use images on your website but only where relevant or esthetic. Also ensure that you don't load up on graphics that take too long to download. Use persuasive, clever copy and headlines to ensure that you catch attention but do not make false claims or sound melodramatic. Use some SEO in your copy but don't try to overdo it by spamming search engines.

Enticing Teasers

Finally, try to give a little enticing teaser - offer something for free that will encourage a sale, maybe a small sample of the product or service. Offering good quality advice and a few free quotes for say a stock trading site will keep the customers coming back and encourage them to trust the site more. This will lead to progressive buying activity. Make sure that if you do choose to offer freebies, don't give away anything completely useless or too much. Try to maintain a balance. Some sites will let you have some information for free and then to get more detailed data, you need to buy the service. This allows the customer a little free sample and gets them hooked.

William King is the director of Wholesale Pages: http://www.wholesalepages.co.uk, Pakistan Real Estate and Property Portal: http://www.zameen.com, Daily Trader: http://www.dailytrader.com, and Australia Wholesalers: http://www.australiawholesalers.com. He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers, entrepreneurs and startups with their product sourcing, promotion, marketing and supply chain requirements.