The first task that an online business will face is choosing a domain name. Sometimes this is as simple as extending the existing brand name online. Most often this is not an option because some one else already owns the domain. Successful Internet Marketing starts with understanding creative online brand name strategy and your target audience. In some cases companies such as Coca-Cola or Ford Motor Company already have a brand that makes choosing and owning a domain name a no-brainier. For most of us however, this process is difficult given that our company name was created well before we thought...

When I stumbled upon the imagery below from David Armano at Logic+Emotion it really fueled my thinking about business models in general. I have often been fascinated with the “agency model.” There are those, like myself, that believe the traditional agency model is dead. Strategically, creating a business around this model is the equivalent of agreeing to be a dog chasing it’s tale. A company that operates under this model must always be re-inventing itself. It must be the perfect blend of sales, creative and execution. If any of these three pillars fall short it will impact the...

Take a break from the normal and learn about the adventure of working on your own terms. Sound like a vacation you’d like to take? Then The 4-Hour Work Week, by Timothy Ferriss is for you. Entrepreneur Timothy Ferriss rewrites the rules and upsets conventional wisdom about work and success in his self-help guide to the new, rich economy. It is not necessary to toil for 70 hours per week, according to Ferriss, who runs a company called BrainQuicken. Successful people, he says, have actually mastered a system of working less by outsourcing tasks, severely cutting back on timewasters such as...

Seth Godin, marketing guru, suggests in a recent blog post that online, the economics are clear: repeat business is what matters. Amazon has set the tone with free shipping while most online businesses tend to over inflate shipping prices. This creates a profit center in most cases from shipping charges alone. Not good for repeat business. Take for example small ticket items that cost more to ship than the product itself. This is a loser online for both you and your customer. Once they reach checkout, your customer will feel they are getting ripped off- which is the truth. Your product should...

Many people are using the web for price comparison and research. This means that, unless you have a single unique product, your customers are going to judge you as much on price as anything else at your store. In today’s world people hit a web page and make a decision on where and what to click next within 4-15 seconds. Do you want the conversion? Case in point: The worse usability idea ever was seen during the Christmas shopping season last year. The day after Thanksgiving (the single busiest shopping day in the US) Circuit City decided to force all visitors to add items to their shopping...

An article in “Practical Web Design” magazine from December of 2006 talks about the “Appropriateness of the product to the medium”. A graphic from that article has been recreated and placed here for reference. In general, the higher the cost of the purchase relative to the complexity of the checkout process will make your product much more difficult to sell online. Higher priced products with a more complex purchase process will enjoy its best conversion rates through a face-to-face sell (Real Estate and Automobiles) while lower priced products with an easy purchase process are much more...

Make it quick and easy for people to purchase your product. Don’t make them fill out more information than is absolutely necessary to process the order. Don’t force them to opt-in to your newsletter. Don’t make them provide shipping details for software download. Most online credit card processing companies can determine the type of credit card (i.e. Visa, Mastercard) from the number. Don’t force your customer to select a credit card type. It an unnecessary step. If you sell software online, take a tip from these guys.

Save yourself hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and only accept online credit card orders. You may loose 10% in overall revenue (potential profit) from those who may purchase in another way, but you also loose 40% in customer service and time costs (expense) dealing with those who “don’t get it”. That’s a 30% revenue increase.

Marc Andreessen continues his “Guide to Startups” blog series and addresses a very fundamental principal that speaks to the root of what makes a startup work- “The only thing that matters; Product/Market Fit”. It starts with identifying common traits that best correlate with both startup success and failure: Team, Product, and Market. In my experience, many startups spend an extraordinary amount of time “team building” and creating a “Stellar Product”. While these things are vital there should be a constant need to understand the market. Any market...