Position Your Internet Marketing Biz For The Economic Recovery

©2009 Doug Champigny, http://DougChampigny.com. All Rights Reserved.

Here’s some Internet marketing honesty you won’t see many places: right now online marketing sucks. Oh, it still beats pretty much every other form of work-at-home business, but the numbers are way off compared to a year ago.

If you’re an old pro at Internet marketing I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but as an industry we seem to be afraid of telling newbies that things aren’t all champagne and roses at the moment. The truth is, even with sales down so badly as a result of the recession, there are still plenty of 6, 7 and 8 figure marketers online – we’re just not making AS MUCH as we were until the recession hit.

While the worldwide scope of Internet marketing protects us from most localized downturns, a global recession HAS to impact us, and every big marketer I’ve talked to agrees sales have been off 50% or more since the last week of April, compared to earlier this year or last year. But nobody’s talking about it publicly, and it’s become the ‘elephant in the room’ that no one can ignore.

You can see evidence of it all over the online world – in fact, to a big extent it’s separated the order-takers from the marketers. The order-takers – those without a marketing background – are trying to compensate by dropping their prices to $1 and $2.95 to try and get more people to buy. This creates a negative spiral – they’re still not getting enough total income to survive, and have to be constantly rushing new products (mostly resell rights products) to the market. You see them sending out a new product every third day now…

Don’t misunderstand – these are people that were doing well before the downturn hit. It’s just that they come from all walks of life before coming online, and don’t have experience marketing through a recession. Most of this group got by entirely on resell rights and private label rights products, and don’t have their own materials to throw into the pot.

The true marketers, on the other hand, haven’t dropped prices, but instead have added value to both their sales process and their products. From releasing great training videos to offering free e-books, they’ve upped the ante and moved the ‘free line’ to pay it forward by offering helpful content BEFORE the visitor even sees a salespage. Then they’ve added more content to their product or included bonuses to beef up the value while holding the price line.

All of that hasn’t protected them from the recession, but at least it allows them to make as much as possible during this period and maintains the perceived value of their products. And it’s a lot less work than preparing a different product every 2 or 3 days…

Mind you, the smartest ones are putting in extra effort now too – looking for marketing tactics they haven’t yet incorporated into their strategies, such as podcasts, videos, press releases, etc. When Willie Crawford and I recorded the Top Traffic Tips we highlighted 15 different ways to promote your site and products, and few of us use all 15 regularly. But a little extra time now to develop additional targeted traffic streams can pay off both instantly and down the road.

So, with all of that, how can you both protect your current market share and best position yourself for the recovery?

First up, accept that you’re either going to be working smarter AND harder/longer for the next while or you’re going to see lowered profits til things turn around. Either is entirely acceptable – your financial needs and time available should be your deciding factors.

Secondly, protect your price points by adding value rather than dropping prices – you don’t want to get stuck in the ‘discounters’ league’ and have to fight your way back up from there when things turn around. Far too many people have a perceived value of your information based on what it sells for rather than it’s content, so always keep your branding and reputation in mind.

Thirdly, pay it forward. You’re not helping people by cutting your prices if it means they pay less attention to your product – instead, be sure you’re regularly giving them powerful free information they can use right away to help them in their online business. This can be in your e-zine, on your blog, in podcasts or videos, in reports and e-books, on teleseminars & webinars or any combination of methods.
While loyalty and gratitude are rare commodities online, people’s own self-interest keeps them paying attention to those who help them most.

Fourth, strategize your long-term goals. Once you’ve defined what you want your long-term future to be online, map out your path from here to there and work at positioning yourself as best you can to be on track when things pick up again.

We’ve all had the conversation about what we’d do if we won the lottery – about how we’d use the money. Yet most entrepreneurs, online or offline, have put less thought into where they want to go with their business. Granted, often it’s because they’re too busy just trying to make ends meet to devote much time to long-term planning. But there’s no reason those same efforts can’t be moving you in the right direction!

Fifth (and I can’t stress this enough!) Keep building your opt-in lists full time! Whether times are good or bad, the number of targeted, interested people you can reach at the push of a button will be a major factor in determining your success online. Tie some of that free content we discussed in the third point into your list-building strategies, use some of your reports with squeeze pages for ad swaps, etc.

Sixth, use all the free resources currently available to learn everything you can about all aspects of the biz, but don’t be afraid to spend money getting the services and information you need. Just watch out for old, outdated info, because too much of it is being rehashed and recirculated right now as people scramble to find anything they can to throw online.

To sum it all up, you’re not alone – we’re all feeling the pain of the current economic conditions. But it will turn around, and all indicators are that that will happen in the near future. Rather than be a victim of it, hold on though it and position yourself for the best path after times improve. Like all tests the universe throws at us, perseverance and planning will lead to a better position once the test is over & we’ve passed again…

The golden age of Internet Marketing hasn’t even begun yet – there are more people still to come online than there are people already using the Web. Keep plugging away, monitor your efforts and results to be sure you’re on the right path for YOU, and keep your eyes on the better times ahead for Internet marketing – see you at the top!

To Your Work-At-Home Success In Internet Marketing…

Doug Champigny.

PS – If you’re also doing affiliate marketing online, be sure to follow the ‘POWER OF FREE’ series I’ve begun on my Captain Affiliate Affiliate Marketing Training blog.

[tags]Internet marketing, affiliate marketing, online marketing, work-at-home, work-at-home success, business strategies, online business strategies, home business advice, recession, economy[tags]


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