Saturday, February 27, 2010

The 5 Shortcuts To Internet Marketing Success

Guest post by Paul

You’re probably reading this because you want to know how to make a full-time income working from home – if so allow me to introduce you to internet marketing.

You can make a substantial amount of money simply selling other people’s products online. In some instances you don’t even need your own web site.

In fact, the process of making money through internet marketing is actually very easy, but like most things it’s a skill that needs to be learnt. It’s like a musical instrument – the more you practice, the better you’ll become.

That’s not to say that there aren’t any shortcuts you can take to fast track your progress. Here’s five of my top tips for making a full time living from home through affiliate marketing:-

1) Build a List
This is absolutely fundamental if you’re planning on creating a long term, stable business. You’ve probably heard it before but “the money is in the list”. Why? Because in effect your subscribers are assets that you can use to generate income at time you like – essentially it’s traffic on demand!

The top internet marketers out there with over a million people on their list can pretty much generate cash on demand. They just need to send a single promotional email out and a percentage of users are sure to buy the product. I recently met a guy at the World Internet Summit – each time he sent an email he’d expect to receive around $3,000 in sales.
How would you like earn $3,000 for sending one email?!

2) Market Research
This is hugely important – you can’t pitch to a crowd of people if you don’t understand them. I’d go as far to say that you can have the strongest sales pitch in the world, but if you are targeting the wrong audience then you’ll have little to no success.

The easiest way to get to know your audience is to hang out with them. Go into forums and speak to them, ask them questions, find out what their worries are and what problems they face. People purchase primarily on emotions even though they like to think they are purchasing through logic – so as a marketer you need to get under their skin!

3) Steady on Cowboy – One Niche At A Time!
Multiple revenue streams, yes. Multiple income streams, no. There is a big difference. If you’re in a niche and you’re making money from that niche then you should milk that niche for all it’s worth!

Where’s the sense in trading the benefits of a proven money-making niche and risking your time on other niches? Apart from anything else, when you’re marketing to one niche properly you shouldn’t have time for other niches.

If I threw 10 cricket balls at you then you’d probably catch none of them. If I threw one, however, you’d be more than likely to catch it!

That’s not to say that it’s not a good idea to diversify further down the line, but generally you should be at the point where you can outsource all the work in your original niche before setting up new campaigns.

4) People Are Starting To See Through Hype
Studies show that an overwhelming majority of the population are still very cautious when it comes to purchasing online for fear of being ripped off. By using ridiculous sales pitches with false promises you are putting yourself in grave danger of losing any credibility in the eyes of your prospects.

Take this example I just made up:

“I simply had to tell you something before I absolutely EXPLOAD. If you implement everything in this new product then you’ll literally have thousands of dollars flowing into your wallet EVERY SINGLE DAY. What’s even better…It’s on complete auto-pilot – you don’t have to do a THING! You simply need to spend 5 minutes setting the system up and you’ll never have to worry about money again.”

Would you buy from someone who’s promising that?
Your time is much better spent providing your visitors with real value, building a relationship with them and earning their trust. If you can do this well then you’ll have super high conversion rates.

5) Work Cleverly Not Hard
This is such an important part of the equation. I often hear about internet marketers who are spending hours and hours on their online business when the work can be outsourced for peanuts or when there is a path of least resistance staring right at them.

A certain friend of mine is building a free e-book giveaway to encourage people to sign up to his list. He has literally spent the last 5 weeks putting this giveaway together and it’s still not finished. Here’s what he should have done:-

1) Outsource the whole thing – it’s a free giveaway, not a paid for product, there’s no shame in having someone else write you an ebook for $50.

2) Find PLR articles on the web and mash together a useful e-book in a couple of hours. PLR articles are free for you to use and giveaway (always check the licensing rights first).

3) I may decide to create the e-book myself, but you can rest assured I wouldn’t be typing it for 5 weeks. I’d invest in Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 (voice to text conversion software), speak into my microphone and have my words transcribed at 120 words per minute. The book would be done in a couple of days max.

Learning to internet market correctly is about problem solving, intelligent action and getting things done quickly and to high quality.

Like any business if you don’t spend the money, then you need to spend the time. It’s important to manage your resources – weigh up the cost - benefit ratio of each and every piece of work you undertake so that you are not guilty of wasting 5 weeks of your life like my friend.

Author Bio:
My name is Paul and I’m a full time internet marketer.

If you’re truly serious about internet marketing and working from home then I want to show you exactly how you can achieve your goals. You can earn a full-time income in as little as 8 weeks. If that’s the lifestyle you would like then you mustn’t miss what I have for you here: http://www.amshortcuts.com/cfs.