Five Proven Internet Marketing Techniques

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Auto-responders are pre-written e-mails triggered by a specific event, such as an order being placed. They are a way to build relationships with your customers, follow up on orders, and encourage them to use the product they bought from you.

Consistency and tone are key to the success of any auto-responder message. If you set up a auto-responder, make sure the messages go out in a reasonable time frame. And make sure your tone matches the rest of your messaging (BusinessWeek.com, 6/9/08).

5. Build your potential customer list with joint ventures, affiliates, and social media. Joint ventures are partners where the exchange is equal (or close to it). The way such a relationship typically works in terms of a mailing list is that you present the other party's offers to your list, and the joint venture partner will extend your offer to their list. You can pay them a revenue share on sales generated from their list or decide not to.

Affiliates are more of an extended sales force. Some solo entrepreneurs make a decent living simply building lists and promoting third-party products to them. The goal with either approach of joint ventures or affiliates is to get your product in front of an audience you haven't had contact with before. Standard revenue shares for affiliates range, but I often see 30% for products, 20% for training, and 10% for consulting services.

The two social media platforms that have helped me build my list are Facebook and LinkedIn. I am all for social networking tools that I can monetize (BusinessWeek.com, 8/6/08), but I don't have enough time in the day to waste my time on ones I can't. Granted, I still need to get around to trying the rest.

Those are the most effective Internet marketing strategies I've tried so far, but I'll certainly share whatever I learn next.

Christine Comaford, CEO of business accelerator Mighty Ventures is the author of the best-selling book Rules for Renegades. She invites you to participate in her next Q&A call by registering at www.AskChristineNow.com. She writes her column on small business growth strategies every other week.