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Use The Internet To Improve Profits
Just a few years ago, we all received our monthly bank statements in the mail and the information was 20-30 days old. Nowadays, anyone can access his or her monthly bank statement at any time, day or night, by visiting the bank's website.
There is a reason banks are relegating paper statements to the analog dustbin of history -- money. Printed monthly statements cost the bank dollars per customer, compared with just a few cents to distribute that same information electronically. This translates to millions of dollars in savings each year. This is just one example of the way companies are using the internet to increase their margins and thereby improve profits.

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TOP SHELF TIP NO. 48
"The new information technology, Internet and e-mail, have practically eliminated the physical costs of communications."

Peter Drucker, American business strategist, author

     You, too, can use the internet to streamline your costs. You may have already jumped on the internet bandwagon, if not, here are some tips for using the resources available online to make your company more profitable.

     Go paperless wherever possible. Going "green" is one of today's hottest business trends, but even before concerns about global warming made companies see the photosynthesis, the internet was paving the way for a less paper-dependent economy.
     Following in the footsteps of the banking industry and others, most businesses can experience an immediate increase in margins by invoicing their customers and vendors via e-mail or through their own secure websites. A natural extension of invoicing customers or clients is accepting payments through the internet via secure servers.
     Most end buyers are confident in placing small orders online, and those price points are climbing as customer confidence grows. In the wake of such trends, savvy business owners are encouraging their customers and clients to use the internet not only as a source of information, but as a convenient place to actually place an order. Of course, receipts are then e-mailed to the consumer rather than printed out, another example of going paperless.
     When a client or potential client visits a business's website, the goal of that business should be to share information, and also to "convert" the visitor. This can be done either by influencing a purchase, or acquiring some basic customer information such as an e-mail or phone number. Such tactics pave the way for e-mail marketing. Concepts like converting the website visitor come full circle when a business adds online advertising to its marketing mix.

     Analyze, adapt and improve online advertising efforts. With online advertising through Google, Yahoo, MSN and other players in the pay-per-click search engine marketing industries, businesses usually reap a high return on investment. Additionally, online efforts are rewarded with valuable statistics that allow the advertiser to analyze, adapt and improve their efforts.
     For example, online advertising is often measured in cost-per-conversion or CPC. The advertiser pays when the ad converts into action, typically measured when a user clicks on the ad to see more information about the business. At that point, it is up to the business to convert that user, either by acquiring a telephone number or e-mail address, or by invoking a purchase.
     The number of times someone clicks on the online ad compared with the number of times someone becomes a lead or a customer provides the business with the CPC. When an online marketing effort is properly created, this CPC figure is available for every single ad in a campaign.
     The real trick to improving profits comes next: The business must analyze the CPC for each ad and make small, quantifiable changes. Does the CPC improve or worsen? By continually adapting the language in the ad and the website conversion, or landing page a business can increase the ROI through measurable means.

     Leverage viral marketing. Ideally a business will find itself involved in a viral campaign when advertising takes on a life of its own through the internet.
     Viral marketing exists when there is a certain buzz about a business, product or service. As a result of that buzz, other internet users share the message through social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook or YouTube. Suddenly, groups of people spread the word about the business, even though they represent no advertising expenditure.

     There are a number of ways to kick start a viral campaign. For example, create a MySpace profile or an AmazonConnect account and assign friends with similar interests. Write an article and distribute it through online article banks. Or better yet, write and publish a book about the business, product or service. Print-on-demand technology now allows individuals who never fancied himself or herself a writer to compose a non-fiction, informative book and sell it to the masses. Amazon, Google and eBay suddenly become untapped gold mines of new marketing opportunities or potential clients.
     Too daunting? Start a blog on Blogger or Word Press; upload a video tour of the business on YouTube; create a community on Facebook that focuses on the benefits of the business. The opportunities are endless.
     With Web 2.0, the reality is finally catching up to the internet's potential. Online is where the customers are. It's time for small and medium-sized business to follow suit.

     Source: Brent Sampson is the author of Sell Your Book on Amazon and Self-Publishing Simplified. He is president and CEO of Outskirts Press, and is also a member of the board for the Education and Literacy Foundation.

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