Affiliate Business – Page 22 – TP Javeton WebNet

Entrepreneurial

It’s a great time to be an entrepreneur–in the last decade, technology has leveled the playing field and propelled an entrepreneurial revolution. As an entrepreneur, you now have more access to information that enables you to make more intelligent choices more quickly. You have an advantage over big businesses in that you’re lighter, more flexible, and faster on your feet. You can target new markets more quickly, and you can turn on a dime.

But being a successful entrepreneur requires that you look at the big picture and follow a plan through from beginning to end. Rieva Lesonsky, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine gives some practical guidelines that can help you when beginning your own enterprise:

First and foremost

Don’t Quit Your Day Job. Consider starting your business part-time, especially if it’s online, while you’re working and have a steady income. It usually takes six months to a year to get a business going and you don’t want your ability to make your house payment to hinge upon your company being an overnight success. Start with what you can manage, financially and time-wise, and scale up as your business grows.

Second

Find Your Niche. The days of general stores are over. Particularly online, consumers are looking for stores that specialize. You have to find a need–something a specific group of people want, but can’t get at the big chain stores–and fill it. Advises Lesonsky, “You can’t compete with the big guys, so you have to find where the big guys aren’t and go into your niches.

Third

Have an Online Presence. Even if you’re not planning to start an online retail business, consider that the internet can still play a valuable role in your company. Having an online presence eliminates the limitations of physical location and broadens your customer base by, literally, millions. It’s also a great tool for promoting yourself and letting people, even in your own area, know that you’re there, and what you’re doing.

Fourth

Refuse to Quit. Successful entrepreneurship requires creativity, energy, and a drive to keep going when you fail. Few people realize that before Bill Gates created the extremely successful Microsoft 3.0, he created a Microsoft 1.0 and 2.0, both of which flopped–but he kept at it. And that determination and refusal to give up is what will separate successful entrepreneurs from unsuccessful ones. Says Lesonsky, “Arm yourself with optimism to get beyond the ‘No’ or the trouble. There’s nothing wrong in failure–just don’t repeat the same mistake!”

Traffic flowing from viral marketing

An increasing number of webmasters have the recurring dilemma of exactly how to increase the flow of traffic to their websites. During the past few years a variety of approaches and methods have been created to deal with this predicament; and while most of these approaches could work – some certainly did – most of them would not make even a small impact.

One of the methods that have spawned many success stories in driving traffic to websites is viral marketing. Viral marketing makes use of an individual’s desire to share something s/he finds interesting, and/or informative as well as entertaining, with others in his/her sphere of influence.

Many companies rely on this behavior to create interest in their products and increase the popularity of their company brand or website. Viral marketing makes use of multiple media forms in order to entice this behavior. Such behavior might be in the form of an interesting story, an addicting flash game, an amusing video, or a number of other activities that might attract a person’s interest.

This ingenious form of marketing is typically low cost and is a wonderful tool for any company to utilize. One reason for this is simple; the benefit greatly outweighs the cost or efforts to initiate such a marketing scheme. Any website would greatly benefit from the proper implementation and utilization of viral marketing.

A tell-a-friend script traffic solution

It bis somewhat ironic however, that one of the easiest methods used to implement viral marketing is the utilization of a tell-a-friend (TAF) script. TAF is a simple programming script that you can attach to the programming functions of your website. More specifically, tell-a-friend scripts are installed in pages where a media program is placed so that a person can easily send the media to any friends or family members s/he chooses.

The basic concept of a tell-a-friend script is to enable an individual to enter his/her name and e-mail address, as well as the recipient’s e-mail address, and send that media to the intended recipient much like an e-mail with an attachment. As the recipient receives the e-mail s/he would not think of the mail as spam mail because s/he would see the sender’s name as someone s/he knows and trusts.

Tell-a-friend scripts eliminate to a great extent, the chances of being blocked, because they use information provided by the sender. This allows for wider spreading of such a unique and relatively unfamiliar marketing method. It can be quite sneaky, but it is very effective.

With the e-mail sent and opened, the attached media will either be read, viewed or played. Also, along with the mail, would be a brief description of the company or site that sponsors the sent media. This allows for the introduction of either the site, company name or its products; and along with it, another tell-a-friend script.

Then the process begins again, because as more individuals use the tell-a-friend script, more and more people will know of the existence of the sponsoring company or site. People who read the ads inside such an mail who liked what they see would go and click on the link and visit the site. This drives traffic to the originating site which results in a greater number of potential customers.

Availability of tell-a-friend scripts

A tell-a-friend script is very simple and does not require a complicated method of programming. In fact, you can copy & paste a script and simply put it on an intended page. Finding one is even simpler, since all you have to do is go to a search engine and type in the search box “tell a friend script,” and then press enter or click go.

In the search engine results page (SERP) you will see many links that will direct you to a site where you can get a tell-a-friend script. It would then be just a simple matter of looking and searching for the script and copying it to your intended web page.

With a tell-a-friend script viral marketing strategy, you can drive traffic to your site which could potentially result in huge profits. This is a simple and harmless script that offers great benefits at low cost, coupled with great creativity and foresight.

It is imperative that you have patience in your use of a tell-a-friend script. If your chosen media doesn’t get the mileage that you anticipate and desire, it may take some time before it is spread around or shared. But certainly there are many people who will see your ads, and there is a great probability that they will visit your site, thereby increasing your traffic flow.