Essential tools and strategies for online business

I’m up to my ears in alligators at the moment as I work my way through building a membership site while juggling multiple other business interests.

As I’m working on my project, I’m finding that there is an awful lot of information that I have that is relevant and potentially helpful for anyone operating any online business.

I’ve probably got enough material for five or six membership sites, but that is micro-level. What I’m trying to do is to give enough fundamental information that is rock solid and can be applied to building any business online.

What is essential?

It isn’t really rocket science but often the fundamentals get hidden by a combination of smoke, mirrors and bulldust. The fundamentals of business never really change.

At a fundamental level business boils down to being able to satisfy a genuine need with a genuine solution for a justifiable price. This principle applies to affiliate marketers of every description as well as drop shippers, artisans, performers and manufacturers.

Identify a problem. Offer a solution.

That puts you in the game. To succeed you need something else. It’s a really misunderstood concept called brand.

Branding is a whole of business exercise. It requires consistency, integrity and persistence. Branding says, “This is what I stand for.”

As a freelancer, my brand revolves around several key concepts:

  • Delivering quality
  • Underpromising and overdelivering
  • Treating the customer with respect and interest

As an affiliate marketer, my brand revolves around similar but slightly different concepts.

  • Recommend quality products that I use myself
  • Identifying problems that the products I use help to solve problems that I’ve encountered
  • Remaining focused and “on message.”
  • Treating subscribers and customers with respect.
Photo by Brett Jordan: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-wooden-blocks-on-white-table-6037812/

To successfully operate as an affiliate marketer and a freelancer, I need to attract business by standing out from the crowd, so that I can build a client or a subscriber base. As a freelancer, the interaction from that point can be on a one to one basis. As an affiliate marketer, that is much more difficult and I need a way to communicate regularly and consistently identifying problems and offering solutions.

How do you do that?

Standing out requires some thought. You need to be able to create a point of difference that is valuable AND communicate that value. It takes time and it takes practice. The people over at Click Track Profit have a range of material that can help you work through this. Don’t overlook them.

There’s a need for follow up and further communication. How I do that is through a variety of mechanisms.

  • Blog posts
  • Social media interaction (written, audio and visual)
  • Email marketing.
Photo by Oleg Magni: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-man-taking-selfie-2764682/

It’s important to understand that these three channels be operated in conjunction with each other.

By way of example, this blog post will be made on my WordPress platform and syndicated through Hive and Medium. If tagged properly, the Hive Post will appear on the CTP talk platform as well as several others. It will also be shared through various social media channels using a WordPress plugin. Additionally, my email subscribers will be alerted to this post via my Leads Leap broadcast system.

So, what tools do you need to make all this happen?

A blog platform and an autoresponder service. The costs are minimal. There is some learning involved. There s always a choice. Start building your brand and your business or continue building someone else’s.

If you need help with building your brand or any technical aspect thereof, feel free to reach out for help here Put BFZ Help in the subject line

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