Managing The Cost Of Doing Business Online

Ken Leonard Jr.,
KLJ Online,
West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A.

http://www.kenleonardjr.com

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Have you spent a boatload of cash on advertising for your web site, only to end up with no sales and an empty bank account? Managing the cost of doing business online can give you the results you are looking for, without going broke in the process.

Throwing money at a new online promotion will not ensure it's success. People have told me about their frustration after spending a thousand bucks on internet and email advertising for a new product launch and having nothing to show for it in the end. Even more disturbing are those that set up their first campaign with a pay per click search provider without knowing what they are doing.

The key to getting results from your online promotions while managing your costs is to start out small. Once your ads are getting clicks and creating sales or leads, you can increase the funding for those ads. The success of your online or email promotions relies on your knowledge and skills. Increase your skills before you increase your advertising spending.

Before your advertising will produce good results, you will have to learn how to write and test ad copy. Running ads in targeted email publications and on web sites without this knowledge is a waste of your advertising dollars.

When using pay per click search providers for your advertising like Google Adwords and Overture, you will need the skills mentioned above as well as a good understanding of how the pay per click service works. Not only can you easily waste your ad budget dollars using a PPC service, but you can loose a lot more a lot faster.

Recently I heard of an unfortunate aspiring online entrepreneur that had set up a PPC campaign but did not monitor it properly. He lost a lot of cash by bidding on keywords that were too expensive for his budget and by letting these listings rack up many clicks.

Imagine the surprise of a lifetime when your credit card bill comes in and you see a charge from your PPC service for thousands of dollars. And if you didn't use a lead capture page that your ads directed prospects to, you don't even have a targeted email list to show for it. It is awful to hear stories like this, but it happens every day to people just like you.

There are going to be costs that are necessary to run your online promotion campaigns and web sites. A professional web hosting company for your website will run you $25US a month. A versatile autoresponder and email mailing list manager will cost you around $20US a month for an online service or a one time fee of $199 to have a professional system installed on your own web site.

Your advertising and list building costs will be set by you according to your budget and will only change if you change them. Some email lead providers allow you to set up your own payment plan that is automatically renewed each month. You know exactly how many leads you will get and exactly how much it will cost. You can check out such a service here.

Using PPC search listing providers opens the door wide open to added risk. In Google Adwords, if you don't set a daily spending limit, you could find yourself with a bill at the end of the month like our poor friend I mentioned earlier. And if you pay too much for each click on your keyword phrase, you may not make a profit from the amount of sales you get. That is why you should know your visitor value before you start bidding and always have the PPC ad direct prospects to a lead capture page before they see your web site. Set your daily spending limit and build a targeted list from your lead capture page. You will then be on your way to profiting from PPC providers safely.

Manage your spending properly and you can do business online with the least amount of risk possible. Start out small and increase your budget as your profits grow. Learn the skills you will need to ensure that every advertising dollar you spend is a dollar well spent.

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