Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Testing And Tracking Your Business

Before you run your first ad, before you send out your first email, there are two important questions you need to answer.

1. Who is your target market?
2. What makes them buy or sign up with an organization?

The easiest and cheapest way for you to find the answer to these two questions is through testing and tracking. These methods will highlight your advertising strengths and weaknesses and allow you to maximize your marketing dollar.

Testing:

The purpose of testing is to increase the response rate to your ad or offer. For instance, you could write a sales letter and test out different headlines for the ad. Often a headline can make all the difference in your response. Many marketers have increased sales by as much as 200% simply by changing their headline. Remember, even if your ad is producing steady sales, you should always test. A small change could move your sales from steady to overflowing!

Tracking:

You should keep track of everything you do in your business. Not just your profit and expenses, but also your promotional and advertising campaigns.

Let's say, for example, you're running an ezine ad. What kind of information should you keep track of? The most essential are:
  • Where you placed the ad including the name of the ezine and date the ad was run
  • How many subscribers to the ezine
  • The cost to you
  • The number of responses generated by the ad - Dividing this into your cost will show you how much you paid for each response
  • The number of sign ups you got as a result
  • Contact person and email address for ezine
  • The URL of the ad you used. This is especially important if you promote more than one program
  • Any comments or notes you'd like to keep
  • Headline used in the ad

You could also keep track of other items, depending on how detailed you would like to be. The important thing is to study the numbers. Some ads may produce great interest but if no one buys, your profit is zero. Other ads may produce only a few click throughs but generate more sign ups. Which ad was worth the most to you? Obviously, the second one.

You will also probably use other forms of advertising, such as maybe a pay per click program, and it is just as essential that you keep track of these numbers as well. Set up a spreadsheet in Excel or keep one on paper. Every dollar you spend on marketing should be tracked so you don't waste precious money on things that aren't working.

Also, don't forget, if you have a prospect and you're not sure how they found you, ask them! You must keep track of all your leads.

Do not underestimate the power of testing and tracking! By following these techniques, you'll know exactly where you're making money online.

By : Anne Ahira

Founder of Asian Brain Internet Marketing Center

www.BelajarBisnisInternetAhira.com

How to Be Organized With Your Internet Business

A good foundation is essential to your online success. Organization is the key to that foundation. By focusing early on in creating an organized business, you will be able to spend more time on the parts of your business that will actually bring you money - sales & marketing. The few minutes it will take you to set up your email, and create an accounting of your expenses will make a world of difference in your business.

Lots of people "ignore" such little things but the little things are ACTUALLY very important! I promise, if you organize first, your business will go much smoother and grow much faster.


ORGANIZE YOUR EMAIL

This is normally the first and primary tool that you will use to communicate with your Company, teammates, and prospects. This is what you will use to make your first impression. If you can't make your very first tool organized, then how can you make any of your other things organized?

Basically, all mail programs have the same folders, such as INBOX, SENT ITEMS, DELETED ITEMS, and JUNK MAIL. Now, when you go into business, those folders are NOT enough.

How many times have you read an email and thought "Ok, I know it's there.. I'll just reply to it later"

Now imagine you're in business and have twice as many emails. You go in, read a few, reply to a few, and then leave to do something else. You go back in later and now you have even more emails coming in and you can't remember who you replied to and who you haven't.

Make a new folder and give it a name such as "MAIL COMPLETE".

That way you know, the emails that are in your INBOX, are still waiting for a response. This is an easy way to separate the two, especially the ones that have already been read and cause the most confusion.

Also, make a folder in your mail titled: IMPORTANT MAIL/FILE

At times you will have mail that you will always want to keep, like billing info from your company, and you can put them in this folder. I would also print a copy and keep it in a binder or file cabinet.

Make a special folder for your business: MY ONLINE BUSINESS

You can put this folder in "My Documents" or in "Desktop" You will then need to make other folders to keep inside 'My Online Business' folder. They are:

1. PROMOTIONAL BRIEFCASE
2. SAMPLE EMAILS
3. INFO REQUESTER or PROSPECT
4. IMPORTANT URLs
5. IMPORTANT ARTICLES
6. DOWNLINE INFO
7. MISCELLANEOUS

There might be some other folders you want to add, it all depends on what you need.

I personally add 'Training' folder, and 'EZINE folder' to mine as it's appropriate for my situation, since I give online training for members, and need to prepare articles for my Ezine. You may want to create some for your website such as, Promoting Website or Marketing Advice.


ORGANIZE YOUR RECORDS

Set up an accounting file in Excel or buy an accounting book to record your business expenses and profit.

Create Files or get a shoebox and place all your business receipts inside. This will help you immensely at tax time.

Please don't ignore this step! Organization is essential in creating a well-run, successful business!


By : Anne Ahira
Founder of Asian Brain Internet Marketing Center
www.BelajarBisnisInternetAhira.com