Transcript Internet-Based Businesses

Internet-Based
Businesses
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Definitions:
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Affiliate Marketing:
An Internet based marketing practice where a business pays an
individual for each customer or visitor brought about through the
individuals marketing efforts.
Click and Mortar:
A business model where a company has both offline and online
presences. Also known as Bricks and Clicks.
Content Advertising:
Content based advertising placement such as that pioneered by
Google, also classified ads and ‘pay for performance’ models.
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Definitions: Cont…
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eCommerce:
Electronic commerce that takes place over the
Internet.
Incentive Marketing or Pay for Performance:
A business model used in online advertising where
an ad agency charges a marketer for the results
achieved by the ad campaign.
Monetize:
How something earns money.
Virtual Merchant:
A retail sales business that only has a presence
online, rather than a ‘brick and mortar’ storefront.
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Internet & Business:
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The power of the Internet has leveled the playing
field
It possible for anyone to start a business and earn
income.
The majority of the top earning web sites in the
world are run by talented young men and women
under the age of thirty.
The Internet has opened up the world of global
commerce to anyone, not just the big corporations
that had traditionally controlled the market.
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Internet & Business: Cont….
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Anyone with a computer and a credit card
can easily setup a website overnight and be
ready to sell their products or services to
customers from around the world.
The advances in technology and the new
world economy also give business people
access to resources and suppliers without
having to leave their desk.
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Internet & Business: Cont….
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This opens up many more potential business models to
individuals that have never before been so readily available such
as importing or exporting, self publishing, software publishing,
affiliate marketing, incentive marketing and virtual merchants, or
e-retailers like Amazon who only have an online presence.
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The explosion of E-commerce and the increasing availability of
Internet access around the world, small businesses are able to
easily gain access to foreign markets so they can either locate
unique or less expensive products to import for sale in this
country, or they can export their own products for sale abroad,
either wholesale to other distributors or retail to foreign
consumers.
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Self-Publishing:
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This is the publishing of books and other media by
the author, rather than a third party, is a popular
example of a successful new Internet business
model.
The ability to sell e-books, videos, software and
other digital content directly to the consumer without
having to go to the expense of a big print run or
other production and packaging expenses, has
made many entrepreneurs wealthy while at the
same time providing consumers better access to
specialized information.
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Affiliate Marketing:
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Affiliate marketing and incentive marketing are both
business models where an individual or business
puts up a content based website then partners with
other websites with the agreement that they get
paid for either sending traffic or sales to the partner
(affiliate marketing) or for getting a site visitor to
perform some action like signup for a newsletter
(incentive marketing).
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With this model the website is monetized, or earns
money, from the affiliate or pay for performance
fees.
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Traditional Business Models:
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Traditional business models have been
reinvented and redefined by the Internet,
such as drop shipping, content advertising,
auctions, and broadcasting.
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Drop Shipping Business model:
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It allows individuals and businesses to sell
another company’s products online through
their own website or auction sites without
ever having to touch the products.
You simply take orders from customers then
you turn around and place the orders with
your supplier who has agreed to ship directly
to the customer for you.
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Google AdSense:
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Google AdSense program pioneered content
advertising, where advertisers pay to have
their ads displayed on other relevant
websites.
The advertiser pays on a per click or per
impression basis, and the website that
displays the ads gets a portion of the fees.
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Auction Sites e.g. Ebay
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Auction websites like eBay, eBid, Overstock,
uBid, and Yahoo Auctions allow individuals
and businesses to sell anything and
everything online, either for a fixed price or to
the highest bidder.
Sellers can list new or used items and are
only charged minimal fees, typically an initial
listing fee plus a small percentage of the final
sale price.
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Information Broadcasting:
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Information broadcasting has traditionally been
limited to those companies able to make large
investments in media outlets, print and/or broadcast
equipment.
This business model of selling information or
content through subscription services
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E.g. HBO, online newspapers) or selling advertising space
within content (e.g. magazines, television commercials,
classified ads) has easily translated to the Internet.
E.g. bloggers earn income from the ads that show up
alongside their blog posts, and membership sites earn
monthly fees for access to clipart , templates, coaching,
educational materials and other types of information.
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Internet Technology:
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Internet is the single biggest advance for small
business people everywhere and the surge in its
use has led to a growing number of Americans
working from home or starting home based
businesses.
This Information Age, where anyone with Internet
access can have instant access to information that
was previously difficult or impossible to find, makes
it both easy an inexpensive for people to start
Internet based business ventures.
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Information Technology:
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One of the greatest benefits of the Internet is that
there is no commute so you can have more
productive hours in the day if you’re able to work
online from home, or you can easily “moonlight” with
your online startup after hours while keeping your
day job as a safety net.
More businesses today involve creating,
processing, and moving information and by relying
on technology like computers, fax machines, video
conferencing and other tools, it makes it much less
complicated to start and run a successful business.
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Online Marketing Methods:
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Article Marketing
Auto responder Email Systems
Blogs
Directory Submissions
DMOZ Listing
Forum Posts
Google AdWords (pay per click advertising)
Google Indexing
Opt in Mailing Lists
Paid Advertisements
Partners & Affiliates
Point of Purchase Up Sells
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Online Marketing Methods:
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Partners & Affiliates
Point of Purchase Up Sells Press Releases
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Signature on email messages
Social Bookmarking – Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon
Social Media – Facebook, Twitter, MySpace
Testimonials – Both Giving and Receiving Them
Webinars & Teleseminars
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How to Start your own InternetBased Business: Terms…
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Angel Investor:
Affluent individual who backs emerging entrepreneurial ventures.
Bootstrapping:
Starting a business without outside investors.
Domain Name:
The address or URL of a particular website.
Hosting:
A service where a web server maintains and serves the files for
one or more websites.
URL:
Uniform resource location or web address of a site.
Venture Capital:
Money and resources made available to startup firms and small
businesses that exhibit exceptional growth potential.
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How to Start your own InternetBased Business:
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More and more entrepreneurs are realizing
their dream of establishing a business online,
and now that you understand how to use the
Internet for business, and the types of
business models available, your next move is
to go from planning to action.
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**The hardest part of any journey is
the first step**
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Setting up your Internet Business:
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Most important step to starting an internet-based business is to
create a larger presence.
When just starting out, odds are that you don’t have an excess
amount of cash to spend, so you’ll need to focus on doing
everything within your power to make it appear that your
company is established and perhaps larger than it is in reality.
The best way to appear big is to avoid doing things that will
make your business seem small or inexperienced.
 E.g. Every company needs business cards, but it’s surprising
how many startups go for those fancy but “free” business cards
that come with the printing company’s logo on the back.
 This not only makes an enterprise seem small, it also makes the
company look cheap.
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Setting up your Internet Business:
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This same principle goes for your email address
and web hosting—do not use free services and
expect to be taken seriously.
Free hosting accounts typically come with
advertising banners that you can’t remove, and you
don’t want to waste your efforts to market someone
else’s business.
Using a Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail or other free email
account as your main business address will make
your potential customers question your
professionalism
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Setting up your Internet Business:
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Set-up a website for your business once you’ve
registered a domain name.
No matter how large or small the business, every
company needs a website in this Information
Age, even if it is merely a one page site with contact
information.
A website is the best marketing tool you can have
for your business as it will help you to build your
company’s identity and brand around the clock.
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Importance of Dressing the Part:
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Wear business attire whenever you visit with
potential customers, partners, or if you’re
attending business related functions and
seminars.
Share that people really do form an opinion
of you based on their first impression, so
dress professionally and people will think of
you as a professional.
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Tools:
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There are technology tools that you can use to make
your small business look big,
such as virtual phone systems that allow you to route
call and faxes to and from all of your phone numbers so
you don’t have to hire a receptionist or secretary until
you can afford one.
 Tell them if you need an actual meeting space to get
together with potential clients, then look for office or
meeting space that you can borrow or rent by the day
or by the hour
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Tools:
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Many home-based businesses do not need this much.
Many times you can have a phone conference or video
chat to do this.
However, if your business needs full-time office space,
but you can’t really afford to hire support staff yet, then
you could also look for co-op style office space where
you rent an individual office and share a receptionist
with others in the same building.
Have a professional sounding voice mail.
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