As anyone who has ever run a business knows, before you begin there are a lot of things you need to have in place.
You need to have a kick ass product but more importantly, you need to have an email list – DEMAND for that kick ass product – an audience interested in hearing about and purchasing that product.
I had a conversation several years ago with a friend of mine who thought that Facebook was totally worthless as a stock and was all hype. Like all the short term critics, he felt that they didn’t know how to monetize effectively blah blah.
I thought that was hilarious.
Facebook has a captive market of over 2 BILLION people who use their product. It was always just a matter of time before they figured out the right mix of value and advertising to start making money. They had the toughest part figured out already – they had the people.
Anyway back to Bugatti.
I love cars and was reading an article about the Bugatti Chiron the other day.
The Chiron is a 1500-hp, 8.0-liter 16-cylinder engine having supercar made by legendary car maker Bugatti. It uses four turbochargers to make 1500 hp and 1180 lb-ft of torque, and get this, Bugatti claims a top speed of 261 mph and 0 to 60 time of 2.3 seconds (blink and you miss it).
Price tag: $3 Million
Bugatti has a strong track record of sales and growth and they have done this over and over again but what caught my eye was their very tried and true sales strategy.
- BEFORE they build the car, Bugatti gets their customers and the general public excited about what they are going to do.
- THEN they ask customers to get on the waiting list (with a deposit of course).
- AND once a critical mass of leads is hit, production begins.
Sounds very much like a typical online marketing campaign because those principles also apply to you and the way you should build your online business.
Too many businesses start with the product and try to get the customers later and that’s hard to sustain long term.
In the marketing module of the Online Business Roadmap, I walk through the steps you need to get customers to your business after you build it.
Start with your customers and figure out what their pain points are. What is it they need and how can your next idea solve their problems?
Next, get them excited about your idea or business and offer them something of value as a teaser.
Finally, once you have enough interest and ONLY WHEN you know you have enough interest in the product, open the gates and let the customers in.
With over a billion websites on the planet, it’s critical that you understand these techniques and every year it continues to get harder and harder to get visibility to your business.
What are the challenges you have with getting traffic to your online business? Do you have a favorite form of traffic generation? Let me know in the comments below.