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G E T P R O F I T A B L E U P D A T E!

October 2, 2000

The "Get Profitable Update" e-newsletter delivers original,

valuable and usable marketing information, success tips, and business strategies that you can use immediately to increase your revenues and profits.

Published by Clark Marketing Group, Inc. 2000 Issue No. 0009-A

IN THIS ISSUE:

Electronic

Marketing: Your Profit Opportunities in "Electronic Marketing"

E-Commerce: The (computer) mouse will be shopping in the

Your ability to make money and increase your profits are greater now than in any time in history. How can I make such a bold statement? Because the Internet has opened up an enormous opportunity for small businesses to implement new and exciting electronic marketing strategies.

I am writing this issue of the Get Profitable Update while traveling in Seattle, WA. In today's paper there is a report that actually would make you think quite different. The Seattle Times reports that several area Internet companies are in trouble or are closing.

DeepCanyon.com said it will lay off 35 employees and discontinue operations next week. Asterion.com and OnVia.com will both make personnel cuts in an effort to seek profitability.

And yet even with these unfavorable statistics, you can take your offline or online business and create new revenue streams that will rocket you past your competitors. How do you do this? First lets look at the overall benefits of electronic marketing.

• There is an unprecedented speed to get your products and services to your market on the Web.
• It is easy to test your offerings and you can quickly change things making adjustments to take advantage of profitable opportunities.
• There is a lower risk in your Internet marketing versus your offline marketing, i.e. no direct mail costs versus offline advertising media.
• Massive distribution (worlds largest printing press and it's free) helps you develop your name and brand recognition as you increase your publicity and online credibility.
• Minimum skill is required. Yes anyone can do it that has the desire to make more money.

The search engines are changing so rapidly it is essential to keep up with the way they are evaluating, listing and ranking websites.

Another way to make more profits with your site is to stay on top of your website visitor tracking statistics. There are several key areas you should be studying continually including:

• Where your visitors are coming from.
• How many unique visitors your site is attracting daily, weekly, monthly etc.
• What percentage of your visitors are coming back to visit your site over and over again.
• How long they are staying at your site and what pages are they visiting most and which pages are they clicking out of your site on.
• What is your sales conversion ratio.
• Who are your top referring sites.

Once you know these facts you can turn them into opportunities to improve poor copy and understand where you need to go to attract more traffic. Also, what products and services your customers want so you can sell it to them.

And still another strategy is to improve your online customer service capability to make it easier for your customer to do business with you. Creating the best customer experience is a sure way to build your brand and lock in customer loyalty for life. Once an e-customer is happy with you and you have established credibility with them, it is very unlikely they will ever switch.

So even in this time when the newspapers are full of war stories about Internet businesses, be assured your opportunity to make more profit on the Web is tremendous. But you do have to move quick. There is no time to diddle while your competitors penetrate the market and take your customers into their loyal buying base.

If you need further convincing see the e-commerce research statistics below. While these numbers primarily relate to the business to consumer (b2c) marketplace, the greatest growth opportunities on the Web are in the business to business market (b2b).

E-Commerce: The (computer) mouse will be shopping in the 4^th Quarter.

The research studies are in and according to Forrester Research and Price Waterhousecoopers, spending online will surpass $10 billion during the fourth quarter of this year.

What is so amazing about this is that this estimate will double online sales figures from year-end 1999.

Dr. Carl Steidtmann, Director and Chief Retail Economist and Pricewaterhousecoopers, said,"Holiday online sales will be driven by the large numbers of holiday shoppers drawn to Internet shopping for the first time and by a large number of traditional retailers doing business on the Internet for the first time."

According to Forrester, it is anticipated that about one-third of all purchases made on the Web will occur between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

"As holidays get closer and parking spaces become more scarce, 16.6 million U.S. households will opt to visit Web sites instead of battling traffic at the local mall," predicted Christopher M. Kelly, analyst at Forrester. He further commented, "Experienced Web users will drive household shopping this year — pushing the average holiday-buying spending per household to $603."

No matter whether you are marketing business to consumer or business to business on the Internet, this e-commerce news is great if you can use the upcoming season to improve your sales and profits.

The key opportunity here is to create the best customer experience possible so that you build loyal and satisfied customers who will return and repeat purchasing with you again and again.

Even better is that if you deliver a "better-than-expected" sales experience, your satisfied customers will refer you to others exposing your e-business to the most powerful offline to online marketing tool available to you… "viral marketing."

This IS e-branding… and it applies to you whether you sell shirts or whether you sell information products.

For those who "market on" into 2001, the promise for opportunity is good, according to Forrester. The research firm anticipates that the new year will see 41.6 million Web buyers in the U.S. and more than $64 billion in online spending.

In fact, if you market online either as a "pure-play" internet company or as an offline business with an online marketing channel you will not want to miss the next two Christmas shopping seasons as they are expected to be blockbusters.

Now that will add some 4^th quarter holiday cheer to any online marketer.

We welcome your comments, questions and insights.

COMING SOON... Kevin's Hot New Book

Revolutionary Breakthrough Branding Formula Shows Every Internet Entrepreneur How To Differentiate Your

e-Business, Gain a Competitive Advantage, and

Turn Your Web Site Into an Internet Moneymaker!

Check out our newly re-designed Web site. There is a special one-time pre-publication 50% off sales offer on my new book as well as lots of new and valuable information to help make you more profitable.

Feel free to forward this issue of the Get Profitable Update

e-newsletter to others as long as you forward it in its

entirety and leave in this notice. This e-newsletter may not be

included in any compilation, electronic or printed, or as part

of any commercial endeavor without written permission.

Copyright 2000 by Kevin M. Clark

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Written by Kevin M. Clark,

"Entrepreneur of The Year Award Recipient," (Regional

Winner) and President of Clark Marketing Group, Inc.

(c) Copyright 2000 Clark Marketing Group, Inc.