Entrepreneurship

TOP 3 STEPS TO SUCCESS BUILDING THE RELATIONSHIPS

BY : ERNY SETYAWATI

Marketing is a broad business subject that encompasses a range of activities including
advertising, public relations, sales, promotions and building relationships.

Building relationships—often called networking—is a vital foundation
for the building of a strong business of any size. Start by building relationships
with other like-minded people and those with whom you share interests. The more
relationships you build with other people, the longer your lists of people are
who may buy from you or join your business venture.

Bruce DeYoung in "What's Relationship Marketing?" gives a definition
of this idea: relationship marketing is the process of attracting, maintaining,
and enhancing relationships with people. You must seek ways to gain a prospect's
trust and find ways to meet their needs. This concept has recently been discussed
frequently in the media. But it is not new. DeYoung wrote his article in 1988
and some of his references go back to 1983.

How are relationships built?

For starters, be helpful. Find some things your prospect wants and establish
ways to get these for them. Try doing something your prospect needs, or give
advice if desired. You will need to share information to accomplish this. Relationship
marketing cannot be selfish or self-centered. For success building the relationships.
There are Top 3 steps :

1. Successfully Using Discussion Board As A Marketing Tool.

For example, suppose your interests include cooking, swapping recipes, dinner
parties, or parties in general (also known as get-togethers of family and friends).
Look for sites with discussion boards on such topics and sign up. Then get yourself
involved in some of the topics that are on the board by adding to the topic
of discussion before ever trying to make a sale or a recruit out of anyone on
that particular board.

With all discussion boards, the owners will allow you to set up what is called
a signature file. This is a footer for all your posts with your name, a link
(or two) to your Websites that are relevant to the topic of the discussion board.
However, if the discussion board is a topic on cooking, don't put the links
to business opportunities directly into your signature. This could turn off
any potential clients that you may have and may violate discussion board rules
or etiquette. Instead, consider building a small specialty Website with relevant
products that would be of interest to those participating in the discussion
board. On that Website, you can include a link to your business opportunity.

Continuing with the example above, let's say you are in an opportunity that
sells a variety of products, and you have three items that are food or beverage
related.

2. Successfully writing article As A Marketing Tool.

Everyone says writing articles with resource blocks and having them published
in e-zines or websites is a good way to attract traffic and prospective customers.
Lot of marketer do this, and we know it works. There are also many who simply
refuse to distribute free articles, saying their writing efforts are too valuable
to give away. They are entitled to their opinions. But we know articles work.
we also know many of us do not have the international guru status many authors
believe they have. So free articles are the best way for us to get our message
out there. There are many paying opportunities for all kinds of writers. Many
marketers do this, too, and get some results.

What if you hate to write? Use other people's articles after becoming an affiliate
so you can sell their products. There are many e-books and other electronically
distributed items for sale. Most of the producers are avid article writers and
would be glad for you to use these with all the purchase links they put in them.
That's why you need to become their affiliate.

3. Successfully Using E-mail As Marketing Toll.

This is the whole principle that e-mail marketing pivots upon: create an e-mail
list, keep expanding it, and use it to bring customers back to your Website,
where you convince them that your product, your service, and your value are
outstanding. Your Website is where you will make the sale; the e-mail is what
will bring customers there. —Sheri Waldrop, Owner of Proscribe Writing
Service.

E-mail may bring customers, but before you can entice a visitor to your Website
to give you their e-mail address, you have to make your site a place they want
to visit—and stay. Using free offers to get the attention of your visitors
when they visit your Website is still one of the best ways to build a relationship
with that visitor and increase the chances that he or she will return.

Many people who are using the Internet are looking for information. Several
key ways to keep them as returning visitors.

Offer free downloads , Offering them premiums, give-aways, and downloads can
be a very cost effective part of your advertising budget. If you type "free
content," "free ebooks," or "free downloads" into your
Google or other search engine, you'll find thousands of things that you can
offer your Website visitors.

- To begin the process of turning these visitors from prospects into loyal customers,
you need to develop an effective follow-up system. The use of autoresponders
can be a very cost-effective way to follow up with those who have visited your
Website. Autoresponders can be programmed with messages that you will use to
close the deal on products that you are selling.

- By setting up an autoresponder form on your Website (available from your Website
hosting service, or search for "autoresponder form" via search engine),
your visitors can sign up for further information, newsletters, downloads, and
other free offers. This in turn will give you and your visitors the opportunity
for some interaction on your Website, thereby allowing you to build what is
called an opt-in subscribers list or also known as an e-mail list.

Newsletters delivered by autoresponder to the names on your opt-in list are
a great way to keep them informed with updated information about you, your services,
or your products. It is best to keep your newsletters to one page. Keeping them
short and precise, you will not lose the interest of your readers.

The best, and as yet by far the most productive, thing you can do for your subscriber
list is to research any new information and products for them so that they will
not have to. In today's age, most people are searching for quality information
and products in less time.

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Erny Setyawati is Author and Publisher of Bali Global Market Ezine who has experiences
in Internet Marketing. She also write about history ,culture and traditional
food of Indonesian Archipelago. See her Ezine at : http://www.baliglobalmarket.com