Internet Branding and Your Expert Guru Persona Cincinnati OH

 

Most internet entrepreneurs are marketing more than just a product; they are also marketing themselves. This is particularly true if you are selling information, such as an e-book or a mini-course. In this case, part of your internet branding may entail public speaking, seminars, blogging, submitting articles to ezines and other tactics that create a buzz around you and what you are selling.

Perhaps one of the most popular online commodities sold today is the ebook. What could be more appealing than having customers click on a Buy Now button and having your product delivered immediately to their mailbox while you relax with a cocktail in the backyard hammock? This is of course the new American Dream. Selling information again and again.

Many people that are new to the ecommerce business have tried selling ebooks on the internet but most of them failed. The reason for this is that nobody considers them to be an expert on the topic that they have chosen to expound about. They are not self-branded as a professional or an authority. The other possible causes of failing to sell an e-commodity include a lack of awareness of the market, a failure to find a niche topic or hiring a really lousy ghostwriter. These are all issues that relate to internet branding as they refer to your expertise when it comes to figuring out how to give the people what they want so they visit your site again and again. Internet branding is about creating credibility, not ridicule for a sloppily written book or an e-course plagiarized from a "For Dummies" book.

Selling an information based product means that you are going to have to fashion yourself as an expert. One simple way to do this is to send out articles from your book to sites that take free article submissions. Always include your byline as that is what is going to "brand" you as an expert to all those eyeballs on the net." Seeing your byline around a lot in the global village gives others confidence in your authority and credibility. That way people looking for content for their sites can find your article and post it on their site. The favor they do for you in return is to link back to your site beneath your copy. Getting people to link to you for free is one of the major tenets of internet branding. In fact, don't just settle for a link. Create a banner exchange with other sites so that your branded logo can appear in their web site's space as well.

Of course if you are going to use free article submissions as form of internet marketing make sure that you are sending out just a few articles. In other words, if you are selling an e-book don't give the entire manuscript away for free. You don't want to brand yourself as a fool. Also keep in mind that there is such a thing as over exposure when it comes to Internet branding. This is especially true of an informational product as the material can very easily fall into the public domain if you are not careful.

Perhaps the ideal situation is the use of the e-book as an internet marketing tool to draw people's interest to a product or service you are selling on your site. In this case, you can give the e-book away for free, divide the ebook up into articles and post them on your site and submit those free articles to free archives for distribution. You can also use each chapter or section of an ebook as a newsletter and send out your information in a series. If your book is how-to or well-written it can also be repackaged and sold as an e-course or sold as an audio or video tape starring you as the educator.

Typical expenses for commissioning an ebook include the unpaid hours it takes for you to write the book (or the money it costs you to hire an expert to ghost write it for you), the cost of creating a cover, having the e-book laid out and designed and the cost of finding a merchant solution for the facilitation and delivery of informational e-products.

Remember that internet branding is all about customer service as well as your product, so it is important to have the delivery of product to your customer well thought out. By well-thought out I mean things as simple as making sure that your customer can go back a page when it comes to entering their credit card information. Studies have shown that if your ecommerce site is not user friendly then there is no way that user will fool with it for too long before going to another site to look for similar information. One of the worst mistakes you can make is to not think about this aspect of your business before you create your informational product. You can have the best book in the world but all you are going to be doing is shoveling out refunds if the product cannot be delivered in an efficient and customer-friendly way. This is why it is important to go with a solid host that can manage your promotion and delivery needs for you such as thirdsphere.com.

However not all internet branding techniques take place in cyberspace. Much of it takes place offline. If you are going to set yourself up as a guru it is a good idea to set up seminars and public speaking engagements to show others what you have to offer.

If you are not a known quantity or recognized expert in your field then don't expect to be paid for these engagements. Many beginning consultants and gurus have built profitable businesses by offering free seminars and presentations to associations and educational institutions.

Offering a seminar or course offline or online will definitely help you draw attention to your expert e-product. However in order for this to work you also need to be very clear about your goals and plans for your informational product. If your product fits a much-needed niche or is a specialty product, you might be able to get away with charging a small fee. Charging a small fee is also one way to make others think that your product or what you have to say about is somehow valuable.

Typical expenses for offering a live seminar include design and printing of a flyer or brochure, postage, purchase of mailing lists, print and Internet media ads (including calendar listings), printing out hand outs, renting out audio visual equipment and coffee and doughnuts. Factored into this expense should also be the amount of time that you spend booking engagements, writing materials, composing promotional materials or making phone calls.

Remember that no matter how you decide to market yourself the purpose is to use internet branding to make money. If your purpose is to make money, divide your expected profit by the number of hours it will take you to design, market, and deliver your ebook, e-course, videotape, or seminar. Is the amount you will make worth it to you? Is your informational product unique enough to warrant this amount of internet branding in the first place? If you are completely daunted by the idea of writing or speaking about your product or reluctant to invest in it then chances are that your product is just not unique enough to brand as expert advice or content.

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