The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998/hackers_encyclopedia.iso/etc/scams/10secret.txt

Text File | 2003-06-11 | 11.2 KB | 195 lines

             TEN SECRETS TO MAKING MONEY ON THE INTERNET
                    by Peter A. Bromberg, Ph.D.
        Vice President, MagNet Communications Network, Inc.

This short report is a distillation of some of the best things we've
learned as "Intrepreneurs" along with some of the best advice of
marketing experts, on how to make money on the Internet. Read this
report carefully, avoid the pitfalls, and you too may be cashing big
checks as your Internet marketing plan rolls into action!

SECRET #1:  ANYBODY CAN MAKE MONEY USING THE INTERNET!  You can start
on a shoestring, and build your business from cash flow. You dont
need a large investment, nor does it take a lot of time. But you do
need two very important things: 1) A product or service that is
marketable, and 2) A plan for how to market it!  It's a fair estimate
that, just as with any other distribution medium, a business without
both of the above ingredients will not fly! The Internet is huge -
close to 30 million consumer users in the third quarter of 1995 - many
with average household incomes exceeding $70,000, the majority
college educated.  But they are also sophisticated consumers who do
not like "hype" and who tend to respond somewhat differently than the
traditional advertising media would expect when they are on the Net.
It's your job to design your offering -- and your overall marketing
plan -- to meet this new slant successfully!

SECRET #2: DESIGN YOUR PRODUCT TO MEET A SPECIFIC NEED AND BUYING
"TEMPERAMENT".  What do you want to sell on the Internet?  Is it
something that is inexpensive and would likely be purchased on
impulse, like a special report, newsletter, electronic book, or
special piece of software? For items like this you could take a "one
shot sale" approach where the consumer who accesses your offer will
make the buying decision on the spot, and will not really need any
additional information. For this type of offer you could use an Email
offer, or a WWW page with lots of explanatory text, and no more.

Or, is your product something more expensive that must be shipped
separately after an order is received? For this type of marketing
situation, you may be better off using the Internet simply to provide
information and support, while the actual sale is made either in
person by a salesperson, or over the phone.

SECRET #3: USE AN INTEGRATED MARKETING APPROACH.  Using the Internet,
you could have a WWW page, an Email autoresponder, an FTP download
area,  press releases or product notices in selected search indexes
or "what's new" sites, plus well - placed newsgroup announcements
with your signature lines adding more information. On top of that,
you can also employ reciprocal hyperlinks with other vendors who agree
that your product or service complements theirs, and you could even
have paid advertising in other places on the Internet. Right there,
that is SEVEN different types of promotion all on the same medium -
the Internet. But a  truly integrated marketing approach could combine
these methods with print advertising which mentions your Email or WWW
address, radio and / or TV advertising, and other methods.

SECRET #4: DON'T SPEND TOO MUCH FOR WHAT YOU NEED.  Like any
relatively new medium, the Internet is not fully understood by many
and therefore the pricing of various services has a wide range. For
example, our company markets long distance, voicemail, 800 services
and Internet Access accounts worldwide.  Our Internet account is
$15.00 per month and includes your own WWW page, 5MB of filespace,
an autoresponder to send unlimited sales messages to anyone who
Emails to it, forms and image map capability with CGI scripts, and
the ability to process credit card and electronic check account debits
on-line. Local access numbers in 1,700 cities to access the "Net" and
your account are just $2.50 per hour at off - peak times and weekends.
This same package of services, or ones similar to it, sell for
anywhere from $50.00 per month to as much as $199 per month.  Are they
priced too high, or is ours priced too low? You need to do the
research to find out if the package of Internet services you get is
reliable and competitively priced. Don't make a mistake and then find
that you will have to switch. And don't forget, unless you register a
custom Domain name, if you do have to switch, your Internet address
may have to change!

SECRET # 5: MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ALL THE TOOLS YOU NEED. It's possible
to market on the Internet with only an Email address and nothing more.
But to be really successful, you will certainly need a World Wide Web
address and home page, forms capability so customers can register or
make a purchase, at least one mailbot (autoresponder) that people can
Email to and receive your information file, and the ability to capture
and process customers' credit card or check account information along
with their postal address and other pertinent data so that you can
get paid, and ship your product. In addition you will most likely
need some filespace with FTP access for yourself and your customers,
so that you can easily update your Web Page(s) and / or add files.
Realistically, you shouldn't have to pay more than $15 to $20 per
month for all of this, plus access time. Credit card merchant accounts
are not always necessary - at our site, for example,  we process for
our subscribers for a $2.50 per transaction fee, and remit the proceeds
to your bank.

SECRET #6: YOU MUST HAVE SOMETHING UNIQUE AND DIFFERENT. Odds are that
unless you have a totally unique product or service with a total "Lock"
on the market, there are going to be LOTS of other people who are
already selling the same thing you have! What will you do to TOTALLY
DISTINGUISH yourself and your site -- so that more people are likely
to buy the product from you?  Some successful "distinguishers":

* Having a "put your Email address in the Hat" offer with a give-away
each week to a winner, and capturing the Email addresses, with Email
follow-up to all who visited.

* Offering a free sample or time- limited Demo version of your product
available either at the site or to be mailed to the prospect on request.

* Offering a newsgroup or mailing list that people can subscribe to so
they can get ongoing information and product support.

* Offering free support materials or "add-ons" once the original product
has been purchased.

* Offering a free bonus product or service the customer gets along with his
purchase of your primary  product or service.

SECRET #7: LEARN AND OBSERVE CORRECT "NETIQUETTE".   Learn where you
can blatantly advertise, and where it must be subdued as a "byline"
or signature file.  DO NOT - under any circumstances - send out large
amounts of unsolicited Email.  Not only will you get "flamed" by
annoyed netizens, you may also be barred by the Postmasters of major
on-line services such as CompuServe, Prodigy and America On-line. In
addition, your ISP (Internet Service Provider) may cancel your
account!  Targeted Email to people who have already registered at
your site or requested information is probably acceptable, but you
still need to be careful!  Trust me - blasting unsolicited Email is
the FASTEST WAY to NOT GET BUSINESS.

SECRET # 8: GET THE FREE PUBLICITY YOU NEED!  There are a number of
Internet sites which specialize in "White Pages" and "Yellow Pages"
type listings of URLS (WWW locations) on the Internet. Because of the
extremely heavy traffic at these sites, they generally are
suppported by corporate and other advertising dollars.

 One of the first and still the best "multiple listing" services is
"Submit-It". To list your  home page address with potentially dozens
of  Internet listing services in a SINGLE VISIT - go to the following
WWW URL: http://submit-it.permalink.com/submit-it/ and follow the
instructions! Remember - thousands of new sites are submitted on a
daily basis. BEFORE - repeat - BEFORE - you submit your listing -
give careful and lengthy  thought to EXACTLY what you are marketing
to, what KEYWORDS you want to link on, and  what your USP (Unique
Selling  Position) is! This is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT - because once you
have listed your WWW address, the services will normally  NOT accept
a revised or new listing  of the same  address!!

 Another source of MULTIPLE listings of your new site is at Yahoo -
another heavily trafficked Internet Service. To go directly to the
listings of places where you can get FREE PR, press releases and
"New Site" listings for your personal or business WWW page(s) go to:
http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_
Web/Announcement_Services/

A third source of free advertising is the reciprocal hyperlink. Find a
vendor that has a product or service that is not competing with yours,
but where there is some link or conceptual similarity.  At our MagNet
site, we offer the services of Travel Avenue for discount / rebate
travel arrangements free to all our long distance customers. We have a
graphic hyperlink to Travel Avenue's home page, and for those who
visit Travel Avenue, they have a similar hyperlink to our page (it
even features our logo!)  Because our 800 voicemail calling card makes
sense  (it "fits") with traveling, we both get "cross traffic" that is
complimentary, and it costs us nothing.

SECRET # 9:  ADVERTISE YOUR SITE!  Remember - a home page, is a home
page, is a home page. That's all it is. If people can't find it, or
they don't know about it, or if they visit and don't have a good
reason to come back, then all it's doing is taking up bandwidth on the
Net!  The Internet is NOT MAGIC! It's just a medium, another tool. If
you don't have an integrated marketing strategy, a really good
product, and a plan to get that product successfully into the hands
of the ultimate consumer, the Internet is NOT YOUR FRIEND!

SECRET # 10:  EXPERIMENT AND IMPROVE!  The best Internet marketing
campaigns are the ones that are constantly changing, updating, adding
and improving based on feedback and research into WHAT WORKS FOR THEM.
Do an experiment: visit Yahoo or Webcrawler, two of the biggest
"Search Engines". See what are the TOP 25 SITES that are listed.
Visit those sites and take notes.  What do they offer? What features
and benefits are making them a TOP SITE? Maybe you are too small to
do all of the things they do, but maybe you could do something
similar that will improve the traffic - and the response to your
Internet marketing campaign!  Good luck! - - and remember - "The
future ain't what it used to be!"
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Peter Bromberg is Vice President and co-founder of MagNet Communications
 Network, Inc., a telecommunications marketing firm and Internet Service
 Provider that offers discounted long distance, 800 voicemail,
 International Callback, prepaid calling cards and Internet Access accounts
 with WWW pages and many other features, utilizing a global network of
 Independent Marketing Representatives who are compensated by residual
 monthly commissions on customer service usage. For free information, Email
 [e-mail],  or visit the WWW site at http://magnet.mwci.net.  The
 company's Email address is [e-mail] and the Sales Office is
 [phone].