Stop Throwing Away Customers!

By Biana Babinsky

I have seen this happen time and time again. Business owners spend a lot of time and effort on getting traffic to their web sites. They perform search engine optimization by researching keywords, modifying their web copy and getting links to their web sites. They use article marketing by writing interesting articles and submitting them to articles directories, web sites and blogs. They start their own business blog and blog diligently a few times a week every week.

In short, they spend a lot of time on learning and implementing online marketing techniques correctly. After some time they get rewarded -- their hard work pays off, their web sites take off and they start getting considerable amount of traffic to their web sites. However, despite increased traffic, these business owners are not seeing an increase in sales of their products and services. People come to their web sites, browse for a bit and leave without actually hiring them.

Why is this happening? The answer for many business owners is that they do not have a process to talk back to their web site visitors. They have created a useful web site and generated web site traffic, but they stopped there. They should have gone one step further and created a process to be able to capture the e-mail addresses of their web site visitors and continue talking to them on a regular basis. They can do that by starting and publishing a regular newsletter, and inviting their web site visitors to subscribe to it.

Many business owners are afraid of publishing a newsletter -- they feel that it will take away too much time from their other business tasks. They decide that they will start publishing a newsletter sometime in the future, sometime when they get a lot of web site traffic and become known. However, I recommend that you start your newsletter first, before you start working on getting web site traffic and before you become known. This is because your newsletter will help you build your traffic, your expertise and your circle of influence among your target market.

Here is a plan to help you start and publish your newsletter:

- Pick a Newsletter Service To Publish Your Newsletter. Research a few different services and pick the one that will best serve your needs. Ask newsletter publishers that you know for recommendations of newsletter publishing services.

- Decide How Often To Publish Your Newsletter. Start small. If the idea of publishing weekly or every two weeks scares you, start by publishing your newsletter once a month. You can always switch to publishing more often, once you get used to it.

- Offer A Gift To Your Subscribers. Make your potential newsletter subscribers an offer they can't refuse -- give them a report or an audio recording on a topic that interests them in exchange of subscribing to your newsletter. This will help you gain more subscribers and promote your expertise all at the same time.

- Promote Your Newsletter. In order to have a successful newsletter, you need to have subscribers. Promote your newsletter everywhere -- on your web site, in your e-mail signature, when networking online, etc.

Stop throwing away your potential customers! The first thing that you need to do if you run an online business is to start and publish your newsletter. It will help you promote your expertise and connect with your potential customers on a regular basis.

About the author: Biana Babinsky is the online business coach, expert and author who teaches business owners how to get more clients and make more money online. Get her special report, Top Strategies To Get More Clients Online absolutely FREE at http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/free_report.html to learn how to get more clients online.