Starting A Home Business: Step 2
If you put Step 1 of this series into action, you now have a licensed home business with a registered name and active bank account. Today you will see how simple it is to set up the marketing tools you will need to do business on the internet.
(Step 1 is here if you missed it) http://kenleonardjr.com/step1
The smart way to set up your online marketing system is to go with professional tools from the start. The recommended tools mentioned in this series are both professional grade and inexpensive to use. They are used daily here at KLJ Online.
To start setting up your automated internet marketing system you will need a domain name. A *dot com* name that includes your business name will be fine for now. Later on you will market different products or services each with their own web site and domain name. You can use your business domain name as the URL included in all of your email follow up mailings or as the URL included in all of your web site order links. More on that in a minute.
Go to NameCheap.com to see if your desired domain name is available or not. You may have to make 2 or 3 choices before you find one that you can buy. NameCheap is a useful site for managing all of the domain names you will accumulate through your online marketing activities. They only charge $8.88 US a year per domain name. Some web hosting companies charge up to $35 per year, don*t get your domain from them. Get it at NameCheap and have it transferred to your hosting account, simple as that. http://www.NameCheap.com
Now that you have your domain name, you are ready to set up a professional web hosting account. If you are going to be running email lists from your web site server using purchased (coregistration) leads, your best option is to use Host4Profit for your web hosting. http://hosting.kljonline.com
Host4Profit is run by online marketers that are more inclined to stand up for you if you get any email complaints. Some web hosting companies would close your account immediately without reviewing your responsible email marketing practices first. Not Host4Profit... Once you open your account with them, you can even add additional domains to be hosted on the same account at only $5/month each! That*s a good hosting deal.
If you will be running your email list follow ups from an online service, you should open your hosting account with ThirdSphere Hosting. http://hosting.ken-recommends.com
You can*t use purchased email leads with ThirdSphere, but everything else you will need to sell on the web is there for your use. Create your web site, set up link and sales tracking for your products and get a built in shopping cart/payment processing system. Your digital products will be delivered instantly after a sale and the download link will expire in 24 hours, preventing download theft. The domain name you use to set up your ThirdSphere hosting account will be in the URL of all tracking links and web site purchase links, helping to brand your company name.
If you have decided to run your own email lists on a Host4Profit web site, you will need a professional autoresponder system like AutoResponse Plus to manage your lists and mailings. ARP has too many features to list here, so visit this site to see all that it has to offer... http://arp.kljonline.com
If you have set up your web hosting with ThirdSphere, you already have access to an email list follow up manager built into your web site. This feature can only be used for leads generated directly from your ThirdSphere web site, though. To be able to purchase qualified email leads from a reputable source and use them in your email follow up system, your only real option is the online autoresponder service GetResponse. http://followup.ken-recommends.com
Their features and policies will help you once you get your email marketing going. You can even buy leads for your lists right from your GetResponse control panel, without having to confirm each lead (some other popular services make you do this), which can drastically affect the number of purchased leads you can actually contact.
The last thing you will have to set up for your online marketing system to be fully functional is your payment processor. Until your business grows to the point that warrants using a full blown merchant account from one of the major credit card companies, consider using 2CheckOut for your online credit card processing needs. http://payments.ken-recommends.com
2CheckOut is a more professional option compared to using ClickBank. 2CO accepts credit card payments from dozens of countries, has a good antifraud system to protect you, and integrates easily into the ThirdSphere hosting shopping cart system.
You should also use the PayPal business account you set up in Step 1 of this series as another payment method on your sales web site. Give your customers as many payment options as you can. Some people will pay by PayPal only and some only like to pay with a credit card.
In Step 3 you will get some help deciding what kind of business and marketing style you will use and which products or services you should sell.
About the Author
Be In Business For Yourself, But Not By Yourself! Join Willie Crawford and Ken Leonard Jr. and get all the help you need to succeed. Free training, ongoing personal coaching and more reasons why you should are here... http://EliteTeamFreedom.com http://ImagineLifeWithoutDebt.com
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