Unless you are selling gifts or
other Christmas-related items, December can be a deadly slow time
of the year. Marketing-related sales can fall off by 50% or more.
On the other hand, January often kicks off with a roar as thousands
of new customers enter the marketplace thanks to well-meaning New
Year's Resolutions that involve working from home and making more
money.
So what can you do about it? Here are some ideas.
1. Work on
your site.
If you've got a To Do list, now is the time to attack it
with a vengeance. Fix those graphics. Rewrite that sales letter. Add
those new products for which you purchased resell rights. Get your
infrastructure ready for new customers.
2. Test
Now is also a great time to test new ideas. Create
a new sales page and see how it pulls vs your old page. While it may
take a bit longer to get a statistically significant sample, at least
you will know what works better when hot-selling January rolls around.
3.
Build your autoresponders
If you don't have an email list you are continually
promoting to, now is the time to start one. You can't find a guru
that doesn't agree that the list IS your business. So how do you start?
There are gigabytes worth of products, eBooks and advice on eZines
out there. Jimmy D. Brown's Ezine Profit Producer is one of the most
respected. Shop CB Mall Online
4. Strengthen your Affiliate Program
If
you have an affiliate program, now is the time to make it better.
What have you offered your affiliates lately? Create some new banners.
Write an article or ad they can use. Give them some new promotional
ideas that seem to be working for you.
This idea worked great for me.
I created an upgrade program that included significant new benefits.
Not only did it increase the commissions earned by my own affiliates,
but many of them took advantage of the upgrade as well, increasing
my sales. (Make any offer like this attractive to your affiliates,
mine only paid 50% of what others would pay.) Every product should
have an upsell option - does yours? If not, create one!
5. Join new
affiliate programs
This is a great time to research new affiliate programs
that can add multiple income streams to your web portfolio. Look for
programs that fit well with your target niche, offer significant ongoing
income potential, and provide excellent customer support.
Another tip:
Carefully analyze how much work program demands. Can you make enough
extra money to justify the additional work required on your part?
Remember, your time is the most valuable asset you have.
Summary
While
this may be a slow season for sales, December offers great opportunities
for webmasters to improve the performance, effectiveness and income
potential of their internet business. Take advantage of this time
by working on the things you can leverage when January sales take
off.
| Resource Box: Jeff Mulligan, a 20-year marketing veteran, owns CBmall which provides 15 ways to earn income on thousands of top-selling ClickBank InfoProducts by promoting one URL. Features the unique ClickBank Cash Search Engine. Shop CB Mall Online |
