Surviving Tough Times Online
With economic problems dominating the headlines, all businesses,
online and off, need to make the most of every single customer
contact if they hope to stay in business!
Consumers want to hang onto every dollar and only spend money
for things they feel they really "must" have.
To put yourself and your business in the best position to
survive and thrive in the current economy, follow these simple
rules for making every website visitor count.
The first step in making every visitor count involves knowing
exactly what people want from you. The vast majority of
businesses never bother to ask what customers and visitors want,
and therefore, they make fewer sales than they could with a
little research.
Smart online business owners use surveys regularly to stay in
touch with customer needs, tastes, and preferences. It costs
next to nothing to ask a customer what they want and then simply
give it to them. But, it may cost you everything if you don't
take the time to ask first.
Next, businesses hoping to make it in these uncertain economic
times must form alliances with other business owners who cater
to the same audience. Other business owners have the traffic you
need in order to grow your business.
For this reason, you must constantly look for creative ways to
work with them. The easiest way to profit by working with other
website owners involves endorsing each other's products to your
own lists or, at a minimum, trading links to funnel traffic back
and forth.
Creating traffic from "scratch" rates the slowest and costliest
way to bring customers to your website. Persuading other people
to send targeted traffic your way puts you on the fast track to
profits.
The third step for triumphing in uncertain economic times
entails building one-on-one relationships with your customers
and prospects, even if you have thousands of them. They must
feel as if you are speaking only to them in all of your
communications.
The quickest way to accomplish this involves specializing in one
highly specific area of concern for them. In other words, no
matter what you sell, you'll never succeed as "Wal-Mart." To
succeed, your online business must completely meet the needs of
your customers in one, specific area.
Time to face facts: the Internet won't go away! In fact, despite
the well publicized "dot bombs" of a couple of years ago, the
Internet forms a more integral part of our lives than ever.
Even if you feel like your business, your job, or some other
important aspect of your life doesn't depend on the Internet
today, what about tomorrow?
Finally, everyone must stay current at all times with the
ever-changing landscape of the Internet. At some point,
virtually every one of us will find the Internet an integral
part of our business lives.
As effective business people, we must develop the ability to
adapt to change and give customers what they want - not in
months or years -but in the space of hours or days.