The Internet has dominated all other means of marketing and advertising. While the whole process can end up being very complex, when you're first starting out with selling your invention over the Internet, you need to keep three steps in mind: establish your web presence about your invention, get traffic to your web content and build relationships with the visitors to your web site.
Instructions
Set Up Your Web Real Estate
1. Create a website with a free website builder such as Webs.com, Wix.com, Weebly.com or any of the others. These sites offer step-by-step training and tutorials, as well as a variety of templates from which to choose. The free packages are basic but you can decide to upgrade later to get more enhanced features like your own domain name, e-mail support and more storage.
2. Create a free blog on Blogger or Wordpress. Blogs are a good way to start because they are quick and easy to set up and generally are preferred by search engines (meaning, you eventually will get more traffic to them). The downside is that you do need to consistently add articles, called posts, for them to be effective. Post articles that are informative and solve the problems that your market has. For example, if your invention helps babies sleep, your article would define the reasons that babies don't sleep and how your invention will help with that. Do not just list the features of your invention. Write about the ways your invention will help your target market.
3. Create a free sales page (or landing page) for your invention. While websites and blogs are generally more thorough and content-based, a sales page is focused just on selling your product. You can go to Blinkweb.com or other sites that offer tutorials and tips on optimize your page.
4. Create a video. Use a webcam or camera to create a video about your invention. You can do a demonstration about how it works, or explain how and why you came up with the invention. You can interview people currently using the invention and benefiting from it. The video must be less than 10 minutes long and you can make it as short as 30 seconds. Upload the video to YouTube and include a description of your invention in the text box.
Drive Traffic To Your Web Real Estate
5. Sign up for Twitter, one of the highest traffic sites on the web, for free. Add a little bit of information about yourself and your invention, your contact details, your photo (not a photo of the invention) and a link to whatever web content you have established about your invention. While your end goal is to spread the word about your invention, Twitter works best when there is a real person behind the scenes, not just a product or service. Start following people who might be interested in your invention. (You can do find them by using a search tool for the terms in your niche market). Many will follow you back, and you can keep in touch with them by updating your status, or "tweeting." Try to follow people every day and tweet at least once a day. Keep your tweets informative and not overly promotional.
6. Set up a Facebook page for your invention. You can set up a personal account with your contact details and the link to your web content, or, if you already have a personal account, you can set up a Facebook page specifically for your invention.
7. Participate on blogs, in forums or on YouTube. Comment in forum posts, blog posts, and video posts that are relevant to the industry you are in. When you comment, leave a link to your web content. Your comments should be useful and informative, and not just promoting your link.
8. Do e-zine advertising. Pick out an e-zine (online magazine) that is in your niche and advertise in one of its newsletters. Make sure that you know the exact amount of subscribers, the frequency of the newsletter and the positioning of your ad before you commit.
9. Do pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. This can be done on any of the search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN or on Facebook. All PPC platforms offer step-by-step tutorials on do this properly.
Maintain A Contact List
10. Invest in an auto-responder. This is a contact and e-mail service that charges a monthly fee of about $15 to $30, depending on the service you choose. Auto-responder functions vary but all maintain a list of contacts; allow you to add an "opt-in form" (a form that requires visitors to enter in their contact details) to your web content, which will then automatically place contacts into your account; and allow you to send e-mail to your contact list. For example, when you place an auto-responder form on your website and a person submits their contact details, they automatically enter into your auto-responder list. You can program the system to automatically send them a "Welcome" e-mail when this happens. Or you can view each contact manually and send out personalized messages.
11. Start building your contact database manually. Enter contact details about any existing customers and potential customers (if you already have them) for your invention into your auto-responder.
12. Build your contact database automatically. Your auto-responder allows you to generate a form which you can then place on your invention website, blog or capture page (whatever you have chosen to create in the first section). Once people interested in learning more about your invention fill in the form, their contact details are entered automatically into your auto-responder account.
13. Keep in contact. You can program your auto-responder to send out e-mail --- such as a "welcome" message and product information --- on a regular basis, or you can send out impromptu e-mails anytime you want to your whole list. Even if a contact does not buy your invention at first glance, if you can keep in contact with him and/or remind him about it every once in a while, he is more likely to buy it eventually. Also, keeping in touch via an auto-responder allows existing customers to place repeat orders or buy any future inventions you may sell.
