Do you want to build a successful online business?

Then start using online math and utilize Microsoft Excel.

Ive written an e-book this year that sells at a profit. In fact, Ive written 2 e-books that sell at a profit (Im thankful to all my Internet friends who have helped me.). I can not imagine anyone selling anything on the Internet without using Excel to keep score on profits and performance.

Are you generating a profit or running at a loss? A plain old Excel spreadsheet (or Lotus) will get the job done for you. Are their any trends in profits (or losses) for your online venture? Excel graphs generate it elegant to see (and sometimes predict) trends.

When you started your venture, how did you estimate the demand for your merchandise on the Internet? I did research on Overture to predict the volume of my Google paid click impressions. Using Excel was a key part of that process.

Whenever I contruct an e-book sale I add it to my Excel sales database. I click on an Excel macro button that automatically re-formats my e mail sales notification into a record in my e-book sales Excel database.

Over the past year Ive used a powerful Excel technique called a pivot table to analyze my e-book sales database. This is what I learned about my e-book sales:

1) Tuesday was my slowest e-book sales day. I corrected the sales problem by mass mailing offers on Tuesdays. Tuesdays are better now.

2) My e-books have sold in over 37 countries. But 90% of my sales came from just 5 countries. Solution? I adjusted my branding mix to better spend my advertising dollars.

3) Finally, men purchase about 70% of my e-books. Women purchase 20% and 10% of purchases are from unknown genders (all the people that make use of initials only). Solution? None yet. Women just arent buying my e-book as much as Id like. But if I find a dazzling copywriter who needs to learn more about Excel Im in business. We can trade.

Would you like to find an unexpected ally for Excelling with Online Marketing? Just check your personal computer. If you have Excel (or Lotus) than you already have a sizeably effective tool for tracking not only online promoting profits but all kinds of online advertising performance. Build a simple spreadsheet for tracking your weekly profits and then advance to other techniques for measuring online selling performance.

So, thats it for today. I know that Im just a first year online marketer and have much to learn. But, I am Excelling with Online Marketing and you should too.