Direct Sales

Direct Marketing Methods
 
As a follow on to the previous article, we will take a brief view at product creation, and do a basic over view of the launching process. Looking at the steps of website creation. generating traffic. Targeted marketing.. Product branding.
 
So we have a scenario, where a developer has created a new product, and wishes to sell it as an online product. For the sake of this example we will assume the product is a simple information item. The format is a downloadable ebook. The vendor has decided to use a direct marketing approach via an  existing website..
 
Setting up a sales page on a website can work in many ways. Influenced very much on vendor preferences or company policy. However, most  consist of a single information page, which gives the product details in the form of a well written sales pitch. Here the vendor will paint a picture of the product, what it is, the way it works. How the customer benefits from owning the product. It will include customer testimonials, and above all a buy it link..
 
This page is vitally important, in that it is the gateway to your product. Time spent on good design, product representation and, ease of use will make the customer want to see more.
 
The sales page, or to use another term, the landing page. Will be linked to a  purchase page. The purchase link will be a secured payment page powered by the vendors preferred online  payment provider. Most readers will be familiar with sites such as Paypal, Clickbank  etc.. Once the payment has gone through, the buyer will be redirected to a download page. From where the product can be downloaded.. This is more or less the standard procedure There are variations on the theme, maybe an email capture link, whereby the buyers email address is used to send an email containing the download link..
 
This is how the product purchase and delivery are achieved
 
A quick look at any of the product links on this site will show a wide variety of such pages.
 
Branding.
 
This is an often mis-understood term. The brand is frequently recognized as being the product itself. As can be readily seen when reference is made to consumer items of all types. However with  online marketing, the brand applies to much more than just the product. It applies to company selling the product. It is the identity the company uses to make itself stand out from the masses. It needs to be carefully considered in all marketing and advertising processes.
 
Once this has been accomplished, the next considerations have to be, how to get the product to the public eye
 
Advertising
 
There are any number of ways that can be used to generate product awareness via advertising.
 
Here we will briefly cover the main ones we have used.
 
Website marketing,, like any advertising method this is all about getting your message or product details out there. Traffic generation via advertising works on many levels and can be as simple as a banner add, to something more complex such as full site optimization..
 
So simple first, banner adds, many examples of these can be found on our pages, they are simply a product banner, which links to the product sales page. They can be placed anywhere, usually for a fee. Normally placed on sites where the content is related to the product on sale. As an  example, You created an e book on home electrics. Space for links to your product page can be purchase on sites which sell electrical products.
 
Buying traffic. This is quite simply where you use a search engine ad, to drive traffic to your product or offer. We have used Google ads, so we'll use our experience of that medium . We designed an ad, for a specific product, and started an ad campaign using google. With these kind of ads, you essentially purchase traffic in one of two formats.
 
PPI or PPC
 
PPI means Pay per insight, or cost per insight. An insight is simply where someone sees the add itself. Which simply means you pay for traffic to view your ad.
 
PPC Pay per Click, or cost per click, Here someone sees the ad, and clicks on the link to visit your product page.
 
These methods are what we term as directed traffic, Traffic is directed to your page via a web link..
 
Website optimization, or to give it the better known name of Search Engine Optimization. SEO. This is a model whereby you use search engine rankings to drive traffic to your pages. The object is to have your product site appear at the top of search engine listings related to your product.
 
This can be accomplished in several ways, the first would be to have a unique product name which will appear no where else. The chances of that happening are remote, but we do know of cases where this has occured.
 
The other option is to use what are called key words. These are simply words which relate to your product that may be regularly used in searches to find products related to yours. To use our earlier example of a electronic e book.
 
Keywords used in a search engine may be home electronics, electronic components, electronics made easy. DIY electronics, etc. These terms can be added to your site. pr marketing pages. Where they act as filters, which when used bring your page to the forefront of the search engine listings.
 
The final method we will look at in this article is that of subscription list or email marketing.
 
It simply means, that your are aiming your advertising at an existing list of contacts who have either, previously purchased product from you, or have shown an interest in your product by subscribing to an information or email update. This method of marketing to an already established audience is the most desirable of all the options
available..
 These then are examples of targeted or directed marketing methods.
and completes this brief over view of marketing options.
 
In the next article we look at subscription and email list building
 Thanks for taking the time to read this article, and we hope it proves to be informative and useful.

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