Other articles of interest to Internet Marketers:
Internet Marketing 101
Succeeding on the Net
How To Sell Anything

So your most fierce competitor has declared war on your little web site. He has more money than you do and he's always on top of you in the search engines.

First, don't give up! Most people who give up do so just before they were about to succeed. Chances are you can outsmart your competition! He or she is used to buying their way out of trouble. With your brain and some good advice you can overcome everything your competitor can throw at you. The Internet is known for levelling the playing field. It gives the little guy a chance to compete with the big guys. You can react faster and you are less concerned about your image.

Step back. Re-evaluate your promotion.

Go to your competitor's site and see what he or she is offering. If you both offer different but similar products, then there is something really nasty you can do. I mean you have to be really underhanded and sneaky to do something like this. Please don't use it on an innocent or weak competitors. I'm only telling you this because I feel compelled to give you all the information that works, and this does work. I don't like it. But it works! Only if your competitor is mean and has been slandering you and your product should you resort to something this low:

Buy a small inventory of your competitor's product and offer it on your website too. But make sure you put a comment below it worded something like this:

Dear Customer. We are only offering this product because we bought some excess inventory from a competitor. But in our personal opinion, this product is inferior to our other products. It works and there is nothing wrong with it. It's just not as good as our other products.

Now a certain portion of the people who visit both of your sites is going to read that and they will feel very silly ordering the "inferior" product and will have no choice but to buy from you instead.

I am not a lawyer! If you are going to do something like this, please check with someone knowedgable in law. I know it works. It was done to me once and it felt horrible and there was nothing I could do about it. I almost threw in the towel at that point. But I have no idea if that paragraph above will land you in hot water. Do not LIE in your advertisements like my competitor did! Only do this if you really feel your product is the better of the two. Try to give all the reasons you can think of to prove it. But don't be surprised if the manufacturer won't sell the product to you anymore, and be careful not to say anything slanderous about it. The last thing you need is a lawsuit at this junction in your career.

Tell good things about the product too so it isn't completely biased. Just make it clear you only recommend "your" product.

If your competitor pulls this trick on you, then you are in hot water. You might have to change your whole strategy to get out of this one.

Okay, so your competitor really isn't that bad. He's just a guy or lady like yourself trying to earn a living. So what else can you do to gain a competitive edge?

Start a review site.

This one too is kind of a low blow but it works, so I feel obligated to tell you about it. It's not much different than one of those television commercials where you see two kids eating cereal talking about how good it is. I mean, they are paid actors, aren't they? The only difference is that you are reviewing your competitors sites too.

Start a web site that reviews products like the one you are selling. Advertise this site in addition to your own site. Call it "Top 10 Hair Growth Sites" or something similar. Make sure your product is the recommended product on the list and give reasons why it's better than the rest. Give your site 5 stars and all the rest of the sites 4 stars and below. Then make sure you include a link to your site so people can buy from you.

If you really want it to be believable, include a form for people to review sites of their own, or allow them to "vote" in some way.

Okay, so no more underhanded dirty tricks. You should always do this:

Sweeten the deal as much as you can!

Come up with all the free bonuses (like informative e-books) you can think of and throw them at your customer until he is drowning in freebies. There gets to a point where a customer convinces himself that he would have to be a complete knucklehead not to buy your product.

If your competitor is offering a 30-day money back guarantee, you should counter with a 1-year money-back guarantee. Don't worry. People are more likely to return products that come with a 30-day money-back guarantee than products that come with a 1-year guarantee. If they didn't like your product, by the time a year rolls around they've already forgotten about you and your company. If they did like the product they'll never send it back anyway.

On the other hand if you offer a 30-day guarantee, it will always be in the forefront of their mind. They will feel like they have to make a decision right away. In effect, you're pressuring them to return your product quickly. "Love it or Leave it" is the message you are conveying.

A Note About Money-Back-Guarantees The longer the guarantee you give, the more relaxed your customer will feel about testing it out, and the less likely anyone will ever be returning your product. Consider offering a double-your-money-back guarantee. Be sure to have funds on hand to give to your customer if he or she should ask for it. If you have a good product you will never have a customer redeem your double-your-money-back guarantee. If you are worried tell them they can get double-their-money-back after six months, and 100% of their money back for the first six months of the year. People don't have six month attention spans, let alone one year. After six months they will most likely have forgotten about you and your guarantee altogether. If they're going to return it, they will do so in the first six months. You will make more money offering a money-back guarantee than you will by not offering it. Even if you have to issue some returns, you will make far more sales to offset it.

Write e-books (downloadable information) that people who buy your product would be interested in. If you can't write yourself, hire someone to do it for you. Just search Google for "writers for hire" and you will find lots of places where freelance writers hang out. Just post a message about what you want written and you will get a lot of responses. (Maybe too many! Everybody wants to be a writer.) Then ask them what they expect to be paid and have them send you some samples of their writing. You will have lots of affordable content in no time.

Offer these products to your visitors for free and sell your customer on the value of the e-books. Don't just say "Free e-book tells you how to boost your self-confidence." Spell it out for them. Give them 10 - 20 bullets about why they have to have your e-book. Then put a price tag on it. If it cost you $200 to have the book written, then it's fair to say the book is worth $200. Of course it will probably be more believable if you say it's worth $30. It really depends on the value of the content. If you ask me, the page you are reading now is priceless.

Spend as much time promoting the free e-book as you would promoting your other products. It makes no difference to the customer that it's free. If it's good information, he'll buy your product just to get the e-book! It also allows the customer to justify the purchase in their mind. People like to spend money. They just don't want to feel guilty about it afterwards. Offering e-books will definitely catapult you ahead of your competition. It's also a great idea to tell the customer they will get the e-book delivered immediately by e-mail or they'll get a password for downloading the e-book on your website as soon as they order. This way they can read the e-book while they're waiting for their product to be delivered!

Track your sales.

Always track your sales! What if you advertised in two different places and you only got one sale? How do you know where that sale came from? Which source was worth the money, and which one flushed your money down the toilet? That is the reason so many dot-coms are failing. They don't know how (or are too big) to track where their sales are coming from! They flush millions of dollars down the toilet every day hoping to improve sales. Fortunately for you, RareHost.com has just the product you need to track all your sales. Inquire about it today!

Here's an idea to make more money...

Find a product that makes more profit!

Sure, you can peddle your low-cost product on the Internet and make $30 per sale. But what about $30 per month? What about $500 per month? Think about services that people need! Think about services with residual income. Consider writing your own web-based subscription site that people will pay you to visit every month. If you are not a programmer, invent an idea and hire RareHost.com to write it for you.

What, you don't have any ideas for subscription-based websites?

Okay, consider partnering up with a company in your area. Who do you know that will pay you a percentage of every customer you bring to them? Maybe a local credit card processing company will pay you %25 of their commissions every month for every customer you bring to them. This is called residual income. I used to know a guy who was a fantastic credit card processing salesman. He would sell one account to a really large company and then take a three month vacation with the residual income he was earning. He did this four times a year. Imagine if that was you! Could you sell one account a week? Always keep your eyes open for high-profit items to sell. It's just as easy to sell a high-priced item as it is to sell a low-priced item. All you have to do is find someone who wants what you are selling. Or get out there and advertise and let them find you instead!

Advertise Where Your Customers Hang Out

Find out everywhere your customers hang out and then find a way to advertise to them. I'm sure you can find lots of web forums where your customers discuss their products. Consider signing up and being a regular of their forums. If it's not against the rules, put your website in the signature of your posts. If you are helpful, courteous, and are knowledgable in your subject, people will seek you out to do business with you. Also consider buying banner ads on your favorite relevant forums or websites.

Don't Be Afraid of Breaking Even

Never be afraid to break even on a lead source. You might not make anything acquiring that customer the first time, but the second time they buy from you won't cost you a thing. Also you can get lots of word-of-mouth advertising from these customers.

Offer 24/7 Telephone Support!

Customer service should be your #1 priority. Only web sites that offer top notch customer service will survive in today's competitive market place. Do anything you can to keep your customers happy. They will talk about you anyway, so you might as well make sure it's all good. When I first bought from Amazon.com so many years ago the book I bought came with three pages missing. I called them up expecting an argument or for them to tell me there was nothing they could do about it. Do you know what they did? The lady went and got another copy of the book and told me they all had three pages missing. She said she would contact the publisher, and do you know what happened? They sent another copy of the book two days later with all the pages intact and I received it in three days. They had it reprinted and sent it Next Day Air! I was so impressed. I have been buying from Amazon.com for years since and recommend them to everyone I talk to. Be Amazon.com. Always put your customer #1 and they will tell everyone about the good experience they had with you.

Upsell Your Customers

For crying out loud, don't forget the upsell. You'd be surprised how many people don't upsell anything. Does McDonald's ever forget to offer you fries or a drink with your cheeseburger? Heck no. At least they're not supposed to. Upselling makes McDonald's a sizable portion of their profits.

On your order form you should always try to include some relevant and complementary products. For some reason a certain percentage of customers will buy anything you put on your order form. I've never put anything on my order forms that someone didn't buy sometime. Don't forget to upsell!

Compounding Effort

I want to show you something that I like to call compounding profits. It's really just basic math but most people don't ever think about it. It excites me every time I think about it so I'm including it. It will really make you see dollar signs.

There are three things that determine how much money you make from your website.

RareHost.com Web Design is a team of Web Designers that understands Search Engine Optimization and the psychology of Selling Online. Consider consulting with RareHost.com before you create or redesign your next web project.

You may use this content freely on your website as long as you don't change it in any way and you include a link back to http://www.RareHost.com in every place you publish this article. You must also leave this paragraph intact.