The Secret Ingredient of Online Business Success
February 8, 2008
When you’re starting an online business, it would be useful to know why some online businesses die and others are successful wouldn’t it?
The following online businesses are successful because they contain a secret ingredient. Can you guess what it is?
Amazon
Zazzle
You Tube
Trip Advisor
Ebay
Stumble Upon
It’s People Power
These are all great online businesses and they have many strengths, but what makes them stand out is people power. Each of them encourages lots of customer interaction, and they also do things to ensure that customers talk about them.
So how do they do it? Here’s a few things they do, and I bet you can think of many more:
What They Do That Involves People Power
Amazon: Customers review products and compile lists of favourites. The following resources encourage customers to recommend amazon to their friends: Associate programs, amazon stores to resell their own books, wishlists.
Zazzle: Customers design their own products and interact in the forums. They can also create their own stores and there is an associate program. All these things encourage customers to tell their friends. They’ll tell friends who want to earn money about the design and stores and they’ll tell prospective purchasers about their online store.
You Tube: Customers can make and upload their own videos free of charge and comment and rate other videos. Those who have uploaded videos tell others about them. And viewers share videos they enjoy with others, by linking to them from their websites, blogs, myspace profiles etc.
Trip Advisor: As with Amazon, the key to Trip Advisors success is the customer reviews. They also have forums where customers can interact and share travel advice. Go lists encourage customers to share places they’ve travelled with others.
Ebay: Customers can sell their own products at auction or in a store and rate other sellers and ratings by other customers encourage people to buy. They can interact through forums and blogs. Both sellers and buyers tell others about Ebay, because more buyers and sellers make it a better experience for everyone.
Stumble Upon: Customers can rate web pages and share favourites with friends, join groups and interact through forums. And once again, the more like minded people they encourage to join, the better the StumbleUpon experience is.
Can you see how this works?
Most people love the opportunity to give their own opinion. And when you’re looking for reviews online, which do you trust more - the reviews of customers, or the reviews of the business actually selling the product?
And any online business which encourages customers to spread the word has a huge potential for success. If the experience is enhanced by more people joining, there is more chance that your customers will spread the word. Forums have always worked well. A busy forum is a successful one, so people encourage their friends to join.
And online businesses that allow customers to make and sell their own stuff, or show it off (You Tube) will always do well, because customers will tell their friends.
So, Here’s The Next Challenge
After you’ve completed part 1 in the series: 7 Must Do’s Before Starting An Online Business, begin thinking of ways that you can use people power in your own online business. How can you get customers to interact and also tell others about you?
This post is part of a series inspired by a request from Dawn at Iowahippiechick Blog. Don’t forget to subscribe to read the next part in the series: The Recipe.
Want to learn more about how to build a successful business? Click here to subscribe in a reader. It’s free.
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22 Responses to “The Secret Ingredient of Online Business Success”
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Very true, too many people forget that businesses are ultimately about people, not search engines, rankings, links or the like but interactions with other people.
John’s last blog post..Bank Of England Cuts Base Rate To 5.25%
That’s a great finding.
You are right. People like to make comments. Bizrate.com is one of the success example. They allow people to leave their opinions.
That give me some idea about how to improve my business.
Thanks!
The Internet Entrepreneur Diary’s last blog post..YiLan Taiwan - A great place to enjoy the nature
Hi Terence - I’m glad you’ve found it useful. I know you’re determined to improve your business and you can do it.
Cath,
You’ve shamed me into looking again at word of mouth. It’s the most powerful form of marketing, but we wrongly believe we can do nothing about it.
We all can. Even down to writing to customers and just plain asking them to recommend us.
It’s so obvious, we don’t do it.
Ian Denny’s last blog post..Champion The Wonder Horse Defeats Business Despair In 32 Seconds
There was a recent post on ProBlogger about how AWeber had made some changes in response to feedback from customers. The first commenter said:
“That says a lot to me when a company listens to people’s suggestions/complaints and acts upon them. I’ve heard of aweber before but was reluctant to try them because of the above mentioned complaints. But, I will give them a shot and see how it goes.”
So apparently they had done things to encourage people to talk about them, and they also listened.
Hunter Nuttall’s last blog post..Are You A Gryffindor Or A Slytherin?
Hi Hunter - Yes Aweber are good at putting things right. I changed bank accounts last year and forgot to give them the new details. Well, they emailed me whilst I was on holiday, but i didn’t have access to my emails so they closed my account.
The trouble is, when they close your account you lose your entire list of customers! I cancelled but went back to them as there was no better alternative. Then recently, there was a problem with my bank payment but they remembered to call me and let me know this time. I really appreciated the fact that they’d listened to my feedback and done something about it.
I use a number of those sites–definitely because they let me interact with them and other sites. I think your responses to comments on this blog help your visitors return to see what’s going on in the conversation.
I use most of those sites too. And I must admit, when I first used the Internet, I was totally addicted to forums.
Forgive me if I’m repeating myself, but may be worth a reminder.
Word of mouth emails, if you can persuade your clients to do it, generate amazing results.
I’ve seen response rates between 10 and 45% from an email sent by a client to people they know recommending a particular product.
There are rules though:
1) Must be the clients words and conversational
2) Recommended something like this is used “I’m seeing them next week, so if you like, I can ask them to call you? Hit reply if you want to give them a try”
3) If you can, let your client forward on an offer - a “free trial” gets great responses.
I’m sure I’ve written an article on it once before, but can dig it out if anyone wants it (a step-by-step guide).
Ian Denny’s last blog post..Champion The Wonder Horse Defeats Business Despair In 32 Seconds
You’re right - from memory, it needed a bit of spacing because it was a long paragraph!
And it was long enough as it was!
Ian Denny’s last blog post..Champion The Wonder Horse Defeats Business Despair In 32 Seconds
Hello, my first time here. Great post, Catherine. This is exactly what I have tried to do with my company. I’d love for you to take a look. I have founded a web hosting company with a completely different direction than other hosting companies. When I first began the brainstorming for my company, I analyzed dozens of hosting companies and wanted to take a different approach. I love helping people and I like to socialize online. I decided that would be my primary driving focus to make my business successful.
I decided above anything else I wanted to build a business community; acquiring web hosting customers was/is secondary. I foresee my community (one day) being my advertisers. I look at it as a slow start but something that will grow into something HUGE with hopefully a great network of entrepreneurs coming together.
I’ve seen some hosting companies have forums but noticed for the most part they are geared toward their hosting services. I don’t want my forum used for such things, that’s what tech support is for. My forum is for business people to come together, network, and grow together. I also run a blog similar to yours.
I think you’re right on the money . . . community is key, or at least for my sake I hope it is.
About replying to comments on blogs . . . I agree it’s a great thing that the poster actually participates in commenting (more than one or two). I just don’t get why some sites get to cheat? I love Copyblogger but Brian gets to get away with maybe one or two comments per 30. Oh life and business is not fair, is it?
John Hoff’s last blog post..8 Drawbacks to Free Web Hosting
Hi Catherine,
Another excellent post.
Word of mouth can either build or kill a business, or website/blog. It’s the ones who listen and act on their customers comments/concerns/compliments, etc, who do succeed.
I also like 1-800-Flowers. I ordered online from them, and they emailed me during the whole process until the flowers ( it was actually a gift basket) were delivered. They then followed up with a coupon for my next online order. I still get emails from them (most of which I delete), but they are great on follow up. I know I will continue to use them for future flower/gift basket deliveries. Plus, the recipient said that the gift basket arrived, packed well, and nothing was damaged or broken. Hmmmm Now I just gave them a “plug”. I love how that works.
I also agree that blog authors who do not take time to answer comments may lose out on loyal readers. For me, that’s the best part of blogging…hearing from and responding to those who comment on my blogs.
It all comes down to “community”.
Barbara’s last blog post..Are Spammers Saying “Gotcha”
Your post has inspired me with ideas to create a deeper experience for my future customers…
I am learning so much from you!
Thank-you Catherine
dawn’s last blog post..Hesitate Now That’s A Subtraction…
Yes, a bit of social networking included makes Sites become much better businesses these days it seems :).
Great post - as usual :)!
http://www.resellerratings.com
is also another great resource — ratings of online businesses by customers. Again, the people angle.
If you see an online offer that looks “too good to be true” — you can be sure it’s probably is, and the people who fell for it have talked about it on resellerratings.
Of course, they could have used common sense and known that a camera that sells for $1500 cannot be had for $799, at least not without a catch.
Nez’s last blog post..The Magic of Lego
Hi Barbara - thank you. I haven’t tried 1-800 Flowers but their service sounds impressive. So many online companies screw up by not even sending you a confirmation after you’ve ordered, so you don’t know if they’ve even processed your order. Customers like to be kept informed don’t they?
Hi Dawn - Thank you. I’m glad it’s helping. And if I miss anything out that you want me to cover, just let me know.
Hi Nicole - thank you. That post you did last night was interesting. I hadn’t even heard about it. My husband heard it on the radio while he was out - it seems to be big international news. That is the amazing thing about the internet - we often hear the big news from a blogger before any other media.
I totally beleive in the power of PR, whether in the form of one-one customer word of mouth or telling your story and not letting other just interpret it.
Re: Blogs - Maybe it is just the size that mine is, but i feel anyone who takes the time to comment deserves to be answered or at least thanked for visiting!
On top of it being couteous, it encourages other to comments which incites discussions!
RacerX’s last blog post..Personal Finance QuickTake: PayPal Rule Changes
I do enjoy visiting your blog though and you are right - discussion makes it more interesting. I delete anything that’s too small.
Hi
Great post
You’re right - I agree with you
Developing integrated relationships with customers is very important.
Worth spending time to read the whole of it
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