Well, I’m going to tell you right now, in this article!

First, what IS a Money Magnet Web Site? A Money Magnet Web Site can be defined as one that is equipped with an integrated suite of both e-commerce and internet marketing tools in a fashion that will allow you to be the most profitable with the least amount of effort.

Most e-commerce systems are equipped with the following essentials: a shopping cart, acceptance and processing of credit cards, a maintenance system that allows you to add/change products, an order-retrieval system that enables you to fulfill orders.

However, what most of them are lacking are marketing tools.  There are several marketing strategies that are essential in the creation of a successful e-commerce web site: email marketing (broadcasting) of prospects/customers, effective use of autoresponders (generate automatic email messages), online newsletter, online form/survey to capture your prospect’s email address electronic product delivery (if you sold a digital product), advertisement (ad) tracking, back end sales, affiliate program.

Now, if you had a system that would support the integration of ALL of these marketing tools in addition to the necessary e-commerce essentials, then you would have a Money Magnet Web Site.  After all, it has been shown that it often takes 7 or more ad exposures before prospective customers actually make a purchase.  Consider the following scenario:

A prospect clicks on an advertisement in an online magazine.  This action increments a counter for this particular ad to help you determine how well it’s working.  They don’t decide to buy as of yet but join your newsletter.  They are now considered a prospect.  You begin to send them a monthly email newsletter.  Additionally, an autoresponder kicks in to thank them for joining the newsletter as well as scheduling them to get email twice a month for the next 90 days reiterating your product benefits and inviting them to purchase.

Upon sending them one of your “juicy” offers that they couldn’t refuse, they finally purchase.  They will automatically be removed from your prospect list and added to your customer list.

Based on the particular product or service they’ve purchased, they will receive a series of emails every two weeks for the next 6 months offering complementary products. This will be the engine that will drive your back end sales and keep your customers coming back to your web site.

Being able to play out a scenario such as this using one integrated system would be pretty impressive don’t you think?  The internet big boys do this with expensive e-commerce platform suites produced by vendors such as IBM, Microsoft and Oracle.  Having your system automatically perform these follow up tasks frees you up to spend more time on your business, your health or your family!

=====> What can you do to obtain a money magnet web site?

Fortunately, there are ways that you can automate your website in much the same way that the big boys do.  The best and most cost-effective way would be to sign up with one of the handful of Application Service Providers available on the internet, which provide a shopping cart integrated with a full suite of marketing tools.  Normally, the shopping cart and tools are very flexible and can be incorporated into any website.

=====> Are there any other ways to automate your business besides working with a total solution provider?

You can accomplish some level of automation without an integrated shopping cart system, however, it will require manual intervention and of course it would be incomplete.  I believe that the most important asset of your e-commerce business is your email lists.  Therefore, concentrate on the implementation of a good autoresponder/list server system to “enhance” your present e-commerce website.  There are several good ones on the
market.

Look for providers that allow you to: create multiple lists, add prospects via a web form, email, or manually through a management console, send out an unlimited number of autoresponder messages, send out an unlimited number of email broadcasts, set up and distribute a newsletter.

When setting up your autoresponder system, create one list for your “prospects” and another one for your “customers”.  Now, here’s where you come in: when a person orders your product, you will have to perform the extra task of logging into your autoresponder system and manually remove them from the prospect list and add them to the customer list.  This action will then trigger your customer autoresponder series of messages to be sent.

Remember, the key to building a successful e-commerce web site is to automate your marketing engine as much as possible and drive your prospects and customers back to your web site.  This will certainly create a money magnet e-commerce web site for you!

If you have been on the internet for any time at all, you know that there are just too many tasks to do each day to be really efficient and productive with them all.

Learning to delegate some of those routine,  daily activities is one way to insure your site’s success and to give you much more time in the day for the most important task which is that of promotion and marketing your site.

HERE ARE 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO AUTOMATE TODAY:

1) USE AUTO-RESPONDERS:

Probably one of the best-known and popular ways to handle routine messages to inquirers is the use of auto-responders.

It is simple and easy to set up your messages which usually involve several follow-up messages to remind your visitors what you are offering and how to find your site again.

Here are some free ones:

http://www.freeautobot.com/     (ad free also.)

http://www.getresponse.com/

http://www.sendfree.com/’

http://www.sendthisfree.com/

2) MAILING LIST MANAGEMENT:

If you are trying to run your own newsletter, handling the process by yourself can eat up a lot of valuable time.  In the beginning  this may be possible,  but as your list grows and the tasks involved keep multiplying, your time demands will increase also.

There are lots of ways to manage a mailing list including installing your own scripts and  purchasing your own software.  Weigh the pros and cons, but be sure and check out the possibility of *farming out* the responsibility to a mailing list service.

Here are some to consider:

http://www.ezinedirector.com/

http://www.mail-list.com/

http://www.zinester.com/    (free and paid versions)

Free ones include:

http://groups.yahoo.com/

http://www.topica.com/

3) USE SOFTWARE:

There are many software options available depending upon your work online.  Here are some possible software applications available.  Just do a search online.

~Creating links to your site and others.
~HTML editors
~Ad swaps
~Promotion
~Subscription management
~Survey forms

4) PAYMENT SYSTEMS:

Well,  this is just a no-brainer. It is just too simple not to do this one.

Having an automated payment system that allows you to accept credit card payments for your products or services and is something that everyone has to have to be successful online.

Here are a couple of third-party ones that I use and recommend:

ClickBank–  http://www.ClickBank.com/
PayPal–    http://www.PayPal.com/

5) AD TRACKING SYSTEM:

If you are going to advertise your products and/or services online, then it is critical that you track your results.

Knowing how many hits you got to your site is nice, but it won’t take care of your questions like,  “Where did my traffic and sales come from?”

Here are some ad tracking systems.  (Some offer  free versions.)

http://www.BusiToolz.com/

http://www.hypertracker.com/

http://www.adminder.com/

Implementing these five time-saving helpers is a very important benchmark in moving your business into a phase that will free up some time to insure  your success online.

Best of luck with your promotional efforts.

Larry Johnson,  author

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