Internet Marketing In 5 Minutes

The Money Is In The List

You are going to hear this phrase over and over again in the internet marketing world, and that's because it's still as true today as it was 10 years ago - the only difference being that it is now easier to set up a mailing list and contact your subscribers.

There is a saying that it is easier to sell to someone who has already bought from you than it is to find new customers.

When you setup a mailing list, you have the opportunity to put yourself infront of hundreds, thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of potential buyers - and all for free.

Think about it this way, you have to spend time and money to attract visitors to your website in the first place, but they may not buy from you straight away. If they simply leave your site, they may forget all about you and you've lost a potential sale.

By putting a form on your website that visitors can fill out, they are giving you permission to contact them again at a later date.

However, although some people may tell you that you can treat your mailing list as your own personal cash machine where you can pump it for money on demand, people will quickly unsubscribe if you keep trying to sell them something.

Also, don't leave long gaps between communicating with them. If you've got nothing to sell, send them an email telling them how do something, or send them to your blog to read you latest article.

It's true that the money is in the list, but don't lose respect for the people on your list or you'll quickly get spam complaints and unsubscribers.

There are two types of software you can use. A service hosted on your website and a service provided by a third party.

I'd always recommend that you use a 3rd party provider because there are so many potential problems with email deliverability that you should let someone else take care of it and pay them for the service.

There are dozens of providers available, but the standard when it comes to internet marketers is Aweber.com

Aweber has been in the business for over 5 years and is widely considered to be the best service available to internet marketers.

In terms of price, it is ultra competitive, which is a great bonus. Unfortunately the system takes some getting used to, but they have provided a range of excellent video tutorials and the support desk is extremely helpful.

There are some free options available out there, but they are no recommended and don't provide the features that you really need such as setting up timed autoresponders and sending out emails on demand.

If you can't afford to purchase Aweber just yet, then it's probably best to wait until you can afford it.

Comments (0) 28.09.2008. 12:40

Why Internet Marketers Fail

Everyday, hundreds of people decide to try their hand at internet marketing. And why not? It is extremely easy to get in to, very low upfront costs, zero inventory costs and huge potential.

But why are we not all millionaires? After all, getting one person to give you $1,000,000 is going to be hard, getting 50,000 people to give you $20...it's not unimaginable.

The simple answer is focus. In the internet marketing world there are highly trained marketers who know how to catch your attention and stop you focusing on the things that make you money.

Just look at all the hundreds of ways you can make money online...

- Ebooks
- AdSense
- Joint Ventures
- e-Courses
- Webinars
- AdWords
- SEO
- Clickbank
- Ebay
- Email marketing
- Affiliate marketing
- Viral marketing
- Pay per action
- Pay per lead
- Network marketing
- And so the list goes on

With so many ways to make money and so many marketers out there looking to grab your attention with lures like 'easiest way to make money', it's not long before you become completely overwhelmed and end up with no direction.

The secret is to do your research in the initial stages and find out where your interests lie. Pick a topic and focus your attention on that topic.

If you are a graphics designer, don't try and focus on viral marketing, focus your attention on your graphics business.

If you love your SEO, don't spend time trying to master AdWords as well.

A wise man once said that if you want to be successful, copy what the successful people are doing. There is a fantastic book by Napoleon Hill called Think And Grow Rich. In it, he went around interviewing the millionaires of his day to find out what made them different to 'normal' people.

When it comes to internet marketing, you need to look at the people who are making money hand over fist and copy what they are doing.

One thing you will notice is that the real guru's out there, the ones pulling in 6 or 7 figures each year are the ones that focus on a particular topic and go on to dominate that sub-niche of internet marketing.

Just look at the list below and see how well you can categorise these master marketers:

- Joel Comm: AdSense
- John Reese: Internet Traffic
- Mike Filsaime: Viral Marketing
- Gary Ambrose: Email Marketing
- Chris Carpenter: AdWords & Clickbank
- Armand Morin: Offline Seminars
- Michael Fortin: Copywriting
- Yanik Silver: Selling ebooks
- Jeremy Burns: Private Label Rights
- Edmond Loh: Private Label Rights
- Ewan Chia: Affiliate Marketing
- Russell Brunson: Affiliate Marketing

The list is endless, but it hopefully shows you that these people become successful and wealthy because they focus their attention on a particular subject.

You need to have an understanding of all areas of internet marketing, but you should only focus on a single area and not become distracted.

Too often an internet marketer will start down a road, say building websites to earn AdSense revenue, then read about how to make money with AdWords and Clickbank and forget about his AdSense sites, then find out how to make money with Private Label Rights and start down that road.

In closing, if you want to succeed in internet marketing, gain a knowledge of all topics, know how affiliate marketing works, know how to write sales copy, know how to do SEO and so on, but when it comes to making money, focus all your attentions on the one topic.

Comments (0) 28.09.2008. 10:59

Blog or Website?

When it comes to building your first website, it boils down to whether you want to use a blog or to build your own website.

Both options have disadvantages and advantages, but I think that going with a blog is the better option as it doesn't involve any special skills, you just write your content, just like you write your email and click a publish button and the content appears on your site.

The other big advantage with using a blog is that it gets indexed by the search engine automatically and you can easily add new content at any time.

However, it is important to note that if you plan an internet marketing career, learning the basics of HTML and uploading content to your website are essential skills to learn.

The blogging platform of choice is Wordpress. In my opinion, apart from Google, Wordpress has had the biggest impact on the internet, enabling everyone to have a website and easily publish content to their site.

If you chose one of the hosting options that I recommended in the Find A Webhost article, installing Wordpress on your site is as easy as clicking some buttons.

Login to your hosting control panel and look for an option called Fantastico. You will then see the option to install Wordpress.

If your host doesn't have Wordpress you are going to have to install the software the manual way. Visit Wordpress.org to download the software.

One of the great features of Wordpress is that it's so easy to customize by adding a different template or adding additional functionality.

Check out the huge directory of alternative themes available for Wordpress and select something to personalize your new blog. There is also a massive database of additional plugins to add more functionality to your site.

To learn more about how to set up your Wordpress site, check out this Wordpress Guru ebook - it's 100% free and a fantastic little guide.

Comments (1) 28.09.2008. 08:25