Is It Possible To Build An Online Business Fast And Easy?
The best way to make money online fast is to go where most of the people are online and use paid advertising to get your message in front of them. With paid traffic, you can get started quickly and reach large numbers of prospects.
The best way to make money online easy is to sell a product that already has an existing online infrastructure in place. For example, by becoming a representative or affiliate of a product, you get access to an online infrastructure that includes a complete sales funnel and makes it easy to get started selling.
But are these two systems compatible? Let's take a closer look.
What It Takes To Make Paid Advertising Work
In order to make paid advertising profitable, you need a comprehensive, efficient and highly converting marketing and sales funnel. In order to achieve this, you need to have the ability to track the results of every step that your prospect takes, from their click on the ad, to the email opt-in, to the sales page, to the shopping cart, to the email follow up. This means that you are able to exactly measure your conversion rates for each step in the process.
With this ability to track, you are able to figure out where the weakest link is, make improvements to one element at a time, test and track the changes you make, and increase the strength of the overall sales funnel.
Limitations Of An Existing Online Infrastructure
Unfortunately, by selling a product with an existing online infrastructure, most of the time you have limited control over all these parts of the sales funnel.
That means that you can't track your results and work on improving your conversion rates. And with paid advertising, making the math work so you are profitable is a very finely nuanced process with the ultimate goal of making your cost per customer acquisition less than your average order value.
So although using such a plug and play system makes it easy to get started making money online, it doesn't lend itself well to paid advertising which is the fastest way to get in front of lots of people.
But Wait! You Say
Now you may be wondering if you're selling a product made by a large company, haven't they already tested and made their sales funnel as highly converting as possible? Yes, they've probably hired experts and done their best, but there is a separate issue you need to consider.
How are you going to closely match the ad you create and pay for with the landing page your company creates? It's important to maintain congruency between the ad and where your prospect goes next in order to keep your conversions high.
The Continuity Problem
When building an online sales funnel, it is extremely important for the entire funnel to have what is called a "Continuity Of Message." For example, you see an ad that states, "The 12 Strategies Of Winning Ads." You click on the ad and go to a landing page that states at the top, "The 12 Strategies Of Winning Ads." Even the colors and font on the ad and the landing page are the same. This alerts the prospect that they are in the right place.
As the prospect goes through the sales funnel, the message that originally captured their attention in the ad, is woven throughout, creating a seamless flow of thought for the prospect and motivating them to take the action you want.
When you combine an ad you create with an already existing online infrastructure, there can be a real difficulty in maintaining this Continuity Of Message. A prospect will say to themselves, "What's this? That's not what I came here for." They get confused or angry and leave.
How Much Control Are You Willing To Give Up?
Consider creating and paying for an ad that then goes to a sales funnel over which you have little control. You are unable to closely examine how your paid prospect is progressing through it, which steps have low conversions and are blocking the sales process.
It's like throwing money at a process over which you are completely in the dark, and hoping for success. Hope is not a word that successful online marketers have in their vocabulary. They track and measure every step and make decisions based on the numbers.
Summary
So what this all means is that, in our opinion, if you use an existing online infrastructure in conjunction with paid advertising, you may find it difficult to be profitable. That's because you are unable to track all the many elements of your sales funnel, make improvements, and work on increasing your conversions.
