M2M Episode 2: The First Thing To Do When Starting An Online Business

Get New Marketing Videos Ask a question

Transcript

I’m Sam Oh, the founder of Money Journal and welcome to episode 2 of Marketing in Two Minutes.

Today’s question comes in from Derek Dilland from New York City. Derek said:

I just got laid off and am starting a clothing line. Where should I focus my efforts when starting a business online?

There’s a lot of places you can start Derek. But I’ll tell you where I think any new business owner should start straight from the start.

Let’s go.

There are a lot of marketing tactics out there. One person will tell you to start a Facebook page, the other will tell you to put money into Facebook ads, and the next person will tell you to focus on SEO.

I disagree with all of the above as a first step.

The first thing any new online business owner should do is build an email list.

Think about it for a second.

Hubspot claims that approximately 96% of visitors that come to your website aren’t ready to buy. There is ZERO trust relationship. They’ve never heard of you, so why would they open up their wallets?

Build an email list, continually give your best value to them and then sell when they are ready.

With an email list, you can get traffic to new articles, send new products and ask questions for product validation by literally clicking the send button.

With marketing tactics like SEO, it takes time to rank for keywords.

With Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, people will only see your site for as long as you’re paying.

And again….

There is ZERO trust relationship.

The very first thing you want to do is build an email list.

Contact your friends who are interested in your niche. Get them to invite their friends who might be interested. Give practical value through your list that people will benefit from.

Focus on giving before you ask.

You don’t need to start with a product. With an email list, you can ask questions like:

Hey, I’m creating my first product and would appreciate feedback from you since you are a [insert your niche here] enthusiast too. I was thinking something like…

• An eBook on [ABC]
• An video course on [XYZ]
• Or a revolutionary product that lets you do [THIS].

Which one interests you the most and would you buy it?

Take that information and then use it as validation to sell what THEY want. Not what you THINK they want.

Focus on building your email list first. Don’t ignore me. Just do it.

Question of the day

Which email marketing tool are you using?

Follow or a contribute. Either way, I look forward to serving your online marketing needs.
Follow M2M Contribute a Question