Tender loving care may seem like a funny term to give to a business, but it will actually spell the difference between a business success and a business failure. And the TLC system is not just all about love. It also stands for the things that will help you make a big list for your Internet marketing business.

TLC is mainly the three most important factors to mast money making online through Internet marketing. Know these, apply these and you will be well on your way to becoming an Internet marketing guru yourself.

T = TRAFFIC

Traffic generation is one of your best online allies. If you develop the knack for bringing visitors to your website, you will be able to market effectively. You must make your site viewed often by many people so that it will reach your target market and constantly regain exposure from them. You will stand a better chance at selling your products if you have good traffic.

Managing your traffic will also help you know your status in your business and what actions you must take to maintain and improve it. Traffic building is very difficult to self-study. Often, you will need a mentor to steer you in the right direction of building and managing site traffic. There are various ways of building traffic which can either be free or paid.

L = LEADS

Your leads are those visitors who like what they saw so much that they are willing to subscribe to you on a daily basis. Building your newsletter or email list that will keep your customers loyal and visiting your website is very important. You must have these leads to sell to if you really want your product to click. You may actually find your money working for you already, if you have painstakingly taken the time to build your list with both quality and quantity.

C = CONVERT LIST OF LEADS INTO BUYERS

Your prospects will cease to bring you income unless you get them to buy from you. This is a product of a relationship that you will have to give a lot of time and energy for. People will not buy from you unless they already trust you and have you established as as reliable person who can deliver his promises and go beyond the typical sales pitch.

Among many other things, you must go beyond the purely profit-oriented mindset and go for a win-win situation where your buyers will be able to benefit with high quality service while you get well compensated for it.

 

This comes from a Ning account of Joel Christopher, "The Master List Builder". he is a resident of San Antonio and you might run into him at a local networking event.

Social Media Marketing

How Are You Saying 'Thank You' to Your Customers and Audience?

By Liana Evans, ClickZ, Jan 20, 2010

Sponsored by Online Marketing Summit

One step that gets overlooked in most social media strategies is how companies go about thanking their audience and customers. Your customers and audiences play a significant role in whether your online marketing strategy will succeed, especially if it focuses around social media. Saying "thank you" is now just as important as understanding where and how to communicate with them.

Don't Say Thank You With Your Own Products or Services

Unless you give your customers a limited edition or personalized version of your product or service, saying "thank you" with your own "stuff" comes off as self serving and a bit tacky. This amounts to silently saying, "I'm too lazy to get you a gift that you'd appreciate."

A mass marketed coupon isn't a great way to say thank you either. If it's a coupon that anyone else can get but is only distinguished by a different tracking code, there's nothing really special about it. It could even be seen as a covert attempt to get the community to buy more of your products or services. The last thing you want is your efforts at building solid relationships sabotaged by a misstep in how you say thank you.

Take the time to understand what the community values, especially if you want to thank a community as a group.

Maybe you're working on establishing relationships with a group in Flickr in which group members add photos of the different ways they use your product and they share and discuss what they did. How could you thank them as a group? Perhaps you could offer each of them a year's Pro Membership to Flickr, or a photo package with Snapfish so they can print out and frame their favorite photos? This would be relevant and a different way to say thank you to an entire group.

Do the Unexpected

The unexpected thank you is likely going to be the most remembered and most talked about one. I had the opportunity to speak on a panel about Twitter last year at SES Toronto. On that panel with me was Rayanne Langdon (@rlangdon) from FreshBooks (@freshbooks). Langdon's examples of how she says thank you or even "I'm thinking about you" to FreshBook's audience and customers are unexpected and personal.

In addition to being touching to the person who receives these thank you notes or unexpected gifts, it also makes these people realize that FreshBooks isn't just another company out for their money. It shows that real people who care are behind the operations at FreshBooks. From sending flowers to a customer who was stood up on a first date, to researching that a client really liked "bamboo" and sending a set of dinner plates, Langdon takes the time to show her audience and customers that FreshBooks values those personal relationships they establish.

Hand Written Notes Go a Long Way

The art of writing thank you notes in today's electronic age seems to be something of the past. Sending a handwritten thank you note nowadays gets talked about because it's so rare. Even online companies can send a handwritten thank you to people in social media communities who help you out.

A company can say thank you many ways, or tell its audience and customers that you appreciate them. With social media, companies need to be even more cognizant of how exactly they're doing that. Saying thank you to your customers or the people you're engaging with can become a conversation all on its own and affect how you are perceived in the community's eyes.

One of the most important assets of your business is your "list" You want to build it in both online and offline ways. The easiest customer to sell to is one you have already sold to. Think in terms of the lifetime value of your clients and not just a one time sale. To keep your customers happy, even referring more clients to you, always remember to say "Thank You" It's good manners, good business, and it just plain makes good sense.  -  Jim