My name is Matthew Bredel and as of March, 2007, I am a full-time, work-at-home internet marketer.
For close to 10 years, I worked for a defense company which was an OK job, but I was so uninspired in life and frankly, I needed some more money. That is when I first discovered internet marketing! Now I admit that I didn't start making thousands in my first couple of months (in fact, I lost my shirt!), but I finally saw the "internet light"...
Managing a shopping cart or a customer database is simple with the use of automation. Don’t try to do it yourself! There are plenty of automated solutions to allow you to make sales and fulfill products without you ever needing to turn on the TV. See where I go first…
One of the luxuries of owning an online business is that it does not require you to hire someone to bag their purchases, ring them up, slide their credit card and print out their receipt. This can all be automated.
Believe it or not, but I still know people online that only can accept purchases via the telephone. This is crazy!
The other great thing about the internet is that your website and shopping cart is ALWAYS open: 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. While you sleep, you can be making sales (even fulfilling that product to your customer without you even lifting a finger). How is this done?
Automation!
So where do you start? The first place I turn to is Clickbank.
I know, some of you are saying “huh?” Isn’t Clickbank an affiliate network. And you are correct! But remember they have to sell the stuff, too. If you are selling any type of digital product (information product like an eBook, online videos, membership site, software, etc.), you should at least look into your Clickbank options.
As your merchant, they will:
- Do your credit card processing and management (i.e., no need to do your own merchanting!)
- Place it in their affiliate network (great marketing exposure!)
- They will manage the affiliates and affiliate payouts
- They will manage the billing customer service including refunds and membership cancellations
Basically, they are your merchant-in-a-box solution to selling info products online. All you really need is the product and a sales letter/web page to start. To create a product is a minimal $50 one-time fee. Yes, you do pay higher merchanting fees, but the services more than make up for it.
The only problem is that they can be inflexible with your price points , the type of product you sell and is very limiting on the ways of creating upsells and one-time offers. Still, if it fits into your price point and niche, Clickbank is a great all-inclusive selling solution.
For those of you looking for more control in managing your sales, CRM (customer relations management) systems should be considered. (Don’t try to do it yourself…I have tried and it became a management nightmare!)
1AutomationWiz is your basic and cost effective CRM. This includes the autoresponder, the merchanting options and the affiliate program, but it is kind of limiting when it comes to more advanced marketing tactics.
Infusionsoft is like 1AutomationWiz on steroids. It does everything you could want (and includes the autoresponder and affiliate system) and is flexible to perform some rather complicated marketing functions (some built-in, others through their API). This can get technical or require 3rd party programming assistance.
One other one to check out is Nanacast. This is newer and is aimed more at information products. It has some quite advanced marketing features and it is relatively easy to use (plus is is affordable). It does NOT have its own autoresponder, but it CAN communicate with some autoresponders, like Aweber.
In summary, getting the right automation tool for selling and merchanting your products can be the difference between success and failure (plus keeping your own management sanity…without spending a lot of money!)
cheers…matt
- Read the entire 1AutomationWiz Review
- Read the entire InfusionSoft Review
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