Many Christian home-based businesses are finding success selling products and services online. Internet marketing is based on some pretty simple stuff. The formulas are already known you just need to know what they are and how to use them to benefit your Christian internet business.
1. Know why you’re in business.
2. Focus on one source for information and ideas.
3. Always act fast.
4. Take consistent action steps.
5. Decide what your priorities are and be willing to make sacrifices.
6. Get help from others, someone who is doing are done what you want to do.
7. Learn as much as you can about online marketing.
8. Get some training on traffic generation techniques
9. Build a list of prospects as you go along.
10. Build a community of loyal followers.
To build a successful Christian online business you don’t have to be a computer whiz, a world class marketer, or even have a college degree. What it does require is a commitment to focus on increasing your personal knowledge and obtaining the best business intelligence possible. You will have to acquire many of these skills yourself. Some of them you can draw on the knowledge of other professionals who are already adept in these areas for your business, company or organization
Personal Knowledge
To develop the personal knowledge needed to run an online business, you have to look inward and answer a few key questions.
1. Why you are in business.
To make money is not enough of an incentive to keep anyone in business for long. Because at times you could probably make more money working for someone else than you’ll make in your own business. You should have a desire to fulfill a need in the marketplace and help others enjoy there lives. This requires a deeper fulfillment and will take goals that require long range planning and objectives.
2. Act Fast
You have to turn on a dime when you compete in a technology driven marketplace. If you spend to much time thinking and mulling over important decisions in your business you can miss a lot of opportunities and lose money in the process. Neither of these are desirable outcomes in any successful business.
3. Become knowledgeable about attracting web traffic.
Forty-eight percent of marketers said that search engine optimization (SEO) was the best method for generating conversions online. This is an area that you need a basic understanding of how it works, but you don’t really have to get bogged down in traffic generation you can always hire others to perform this service for you.
4. Decide what your priorities are.
You’re the only one who can determine what things are important to your business and need to be done now or what things you can put off until later. You have to decide from the outset of your internet business how you will make strategic decisions on who, what when where and how things get prioritized in your business.
Business Intelligence
5. Learn some basic marketing principles.
Sure, if you know the ins and outs of direct marketing, copywriting and promotions you can put together some well organized campaigns. But marketing research, analytics and sales are equally important to your business. If you need to, get help in some of these areas. You still need to be able to have some understanding of the role marketing plays in a company.
6. Build a list of prospects.
Most of your best efforts will come from selling and reselling to people you have done business with before. Some people call it a database, customer list or leads. A big part of internet marketing is building relationships with people on your list, people who you communicate with regularly.
7. Build a loyal following.
Once you have a list, your objective is to convert everyone on that list into loyal followers, regular customers and evangelist for your organization. They will not only become your best customers, but some of them will act like an unpaid a sales team, telling others about your business and be valuable tools in helping your company to grow.
8. Get help from someone who is doing are have done what you want to do.
You can get help from paid consultants, mentors or friends who are willing to guide you and your business from the beginning stages to a level where it’s a viable competitor in your market. You can meet many of them online through forums and social networking. Make sure that these people are trustworthy and rewarded well for their services.
9. Focus on one source of business information.
Many beginning Christian entrepreneurs, business owners and home-based business persons try to digest too much information from too many sources. Before you know it you’re confused from conflicting information, and paying to belong to a bunch of memberships sites with similar products that only causes you to lose valuable time, money and resources because you’re stuck in a vicious cycle of reading and filing data.
Your best bet is to avoid white papers, reports and other information when they are full of hype and short on actual facts. You only need one credible source at a time that you rely on for your information needs.
10. Take consistent action steps.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed when trying to learn something new. Suddenly you find yourself just sitting idly unsure of what to do next. You have to define some strategic steps and commit to taking action everyday in your business. Sure, some days you may accomplish more than on other days, but every day you should have some actionable steps that you are working to complete.
Businesses that operate on the internet fail in the first year, if they don’t accomplish the 10 things on this list, according to Internet Mastery. Now that you are aware of them, it’s up to you to make good use of this list and increase the chances for online success for your Christian home-based businesses.