Tweet

To Make Money OnlineStart By Giving Away The Farm Success Key Two

Written by: Teresa Bohannon

Article Overview: As I talked about in part one.... A female friend asked how to make money online. She worked for a large company, but she was very concerned about everything from the high prices of gas, to the impact of the election, to all of the frightening financial failures making headlines this week. A single lady with no children, or living parents, she confessed her almost paralyzing fear of what would happen to her if she lost her job. I knew exactly how she felt because in my own way, I have "been there...done that" and so I spent a couple of hours telling her how to make money online. ...And it all starts and ends with the word "Free."

To Make Money OnlineStart By Giving Away The Farm Success Key Two

The word “Value” is the Second Key to making money online.

The Internet is the perfect vehicle for instant gratification—when it comes to comparison shopping that is.... The virtual world offers the unique opportunity to instantly and easily comparison shop for price, value, added value, bonuses, shipping costs, etc. etc. etc.... Everything the savvy shopper wants to know either is—or should be, if you are doing your job—available at the touch of a button.

The problem is... your listing is only going to be one in a long line of listings and each and every one will have its own advantages to offer. Therefore, you must be prepared to quickly illustrate why your product stands out from the crowd. If not—your hard won visitor will simply scroll down to the next person in the comparison shopping list that offers essentially the same product at the same price, but with some add on enhancement or feature that makes buying from them, more attractive than buying from you.

So what are some potential enhancements you can offer to make buying from you more attractive?

The answer is simple—refer to Key #1...the word Free.
Free Shipping for virtual products is a given. If you are foolish enough to try to charge someone for shipping them an electronic file, you probably deserve to lose your customer. That is just plain price gouging and darned near everyone on the Internet recognizes that fact by now.

Free Shipping for physical products is a nice value enhancement, but one that is not always affordable due to shipping weights and third party vendor fees; but offering a fair, basic shipping cost coupled with free or discount shipping for additional items is always appreciated, and depending on the circumstances can make or break a sale for you.

For Real Life Examples of how shipping can work against you, and simple value enhancements can work for you see the fourth installment of this series, “To Make Money Online...Start By Giving Away The Farm Real Life Examples.”

Discount pricing. There are two schools of thought in marketing.
#1 It is just as much work to make one large sale as it is to make 10 small sales.
#2 It is better to make lots of small sales regularly, than to make 1 large sale occasionally.

Personally I subscribe to the second theory simply because online comparison shopping is so easy. Unless you are offering a truly unique product, or adding value to your product, it is human nature to want a bargain. Unless you are very good at either building an imperative, or quickly convincing people of the unique value of your higher priced product you will lose a great many sales to the next link in the list. And besides, I would rather have 10 happy customers singing my praises online, then one customer who may or may not be happy. Of course, to be fair to the people who prefer strategy #1, the flip side is that strateby #2 means 10 times more customers to support for less money per customer.

Testimonials. A genuine and sincere testimonial is a great bonus. People want to shop with someone they trust. The Internet is a global marketplace and that makes for some great deals, but it it also means that most people do not have the luxury of shopping with a name they know or can ask their neighbor about. Genuine and sincere testimonials from satisfied customers are great value enhancements. Note: Guru's both good and bad, have websites loaded down with testimonials, they trade them back and forth like prized shooter marbles in an old-time Little Rascals cartoon, which makes the value of this enhancement less successful than it once was.

Bonus products. Everyone likes a perk. Offer something extra for free and most everyone will be appreciative and walk away with a good feeling. See my article, “To Make Money Online...Start By Giving Away The Farm Success Key One” for inexpensive “free” or “bonus” suggestions.

Community: This tactic may not work for everyone but a Blog, Forum or Community Website where your customer can make contacts with persons of similar interests—who are all, of course, interested in the products that you are selling is a great perk for lots of people. Think of it, if you are selling Gardening Supplies, for example, and if you provide your customers, or would be customers a free place to list Heritage Seeds they want to buy, sell or trade, or just favorite gardening tips, you are not just building customer loyalty, but you are also getting free content, more traffic and higher SEO ranking for your website.

Links: This tactic may not work for everyone but a Website where your customer can list their own business link can be a mighty persuasive perk, and this works out especially well if you require a link to you in return.

For more on the Community Website and Links tactics see my article on Community Websites Your Golden Key To Success.

So for the rest of this story, see the next installment...
To Make Money Online...Start By Giving Away The Farm Success Key Three


****
It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to
be generous, frank and independent.
– W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965) Of Human Bondage, 1915

Related Articles
  State Farm Insurance Company - Car Insurance Coverage
  Lesson #3: Be Efficient
  Rolling Into The World: Henry Ford Is Born
  Made in Missouri: James Cash Penney is Born
  How to Work Less and Get More Done

Article Tags: circumstances, comparison shop, comparison shopping, crowd, discount shipping, enhancements, free shipping, instant gratification, party vendor, price gouging, savvy shopper, shipping cost, shipping costs, shipping weights, shopping list, third party, value enhancement, virtual products, virtual world, word value



Related Forum Posts
Re: What or Who Sparks Your Business Interest - It's interesting to see what the different motivations are by Age Category. I've noticed this around me: 20 to 29yr olds: Motivator: Money 30 to 39yr olds: Motivator: Success/Ambition 40 to 49yr olds: Motivator: Family comes first 50 to 59yr olds: Motivator: Leaving a legacy i've only gone that far in my analysis. Of course this is a braid generalization but I find that it helps direct my marketing to individuals in different age brackets. The product/service can be the same but the Marketing message (Benefit Statement) to a 20 year will revolve around "Money" vs. a 30-something would be on their "Self Image"
Re: SES Toronto Next Week - In that case, how about the following? Track: Get Me Up to Speed * State of Search Marketing in Canada Track: Practical & Actionable * Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions Track: Advanced * User Search Behavior * Social Media Success * Web 2.0 & Search Engines * Giving Credit Where It’s Due: Which Campaign Sold What?
Re: Quote of the Day - "The only people witho - Thanks for sharing this Evan, there are some very powerful quotes in there, I particularly like this one:- You are now at a crossroads. This is your opportunity to make the most important decision you will ever make. Forget your past. Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now? Don't think about who you have been. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become? Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully. regards, Mal.
Body Farm? - [quote:10go0a4k]Dr Bill Bass of the University of Tennessee Body Farm.[/quote:10go0a4k] I'm almost afraid to ask what this is?
Re: Which would you start: a Blog or Online Community? - It is a difficult decision to make. Lets start it this way - What are you more interested in? Money? or Friends? or Both? If its purely Money, then Blog might be an appropriate answer. But consider this - It will be people (visitors) that will bring traffic to your blog and then Money will follow. This will be possible after a time and during this time it will be your friends who will be the starters. If you are looking for friends only, then its true that not many will be interested in knowing how you have beaten them in the game or the other way round. So it will be preferable to have a Forum where they can share ideas with you and others. But you can share your insider knowledge with them and invite comments from your Blog. You can also put up information on what others (including your friends) don't know about Tennis. The blog you create can provide News, Inside Information and also Techniques that can be used by the new entrants in the world of Tennis.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Setting Goals for your Home Based Business

Earn More Money - Easy Home Business Ideas

Build Corporate Credit for Your Small Business

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.