Suggestions for a complete newb at marketing

You do have to make a decision about the direction you are going to go so that you can focus and become good at that one thing.

You can do a blog (monetized).

You can do an Amazon affiliate store.

You can create an email list and promote various products.

Ebay store.

Those are just a few suggestions I am most familiar with.

Even though you say you don't know long term, I would pick some kind of theme (to start with) like health or relationships or electronics or etc etc etc. That will help you focus on what you are looking for. Then perhaps narrow that theme down even farther into a specific niche.

Think about what kind of problem needs to be solved in the lives of people you know. Maybe you can have a business theme about that. (Not to market to them directly but just to get an idea of what kind of problems are unsolved out there--a niche.)

There are really so many ways working online could go. A lot of opportunity. But you want to focus on one direction for a while so you can master it. Then later you can expand or change direction. But give one idea a year or two and dedicate yourself.

1. Start reading, researching (Google)
and going through the threads here at the Warrior Forum - use the search function before starting a thread, chances are the question's already been asked dozens of times.

2. Take your time and learn the fundamentals. For example...

• How To Build a List

• How To Do Market Research

• How To Create or Find a Niche

• How and Where To Market Your Product or Service

• How To Build Traffic

• How To Convert Traffic.

• How To Build a Funnel.

3. Take advantage of the the free information before you start buying stuff.
4. Then start asking questions here if you need more clarity concerning something specific.
5. And finally, start taking action.

Be cautious of any advice that encourages you to skip the above 5 steps (i.e short-cuts, quick riches, or I'll do it for you -- if you pay me type offers).

Thank you for the suggestions. Guess it's time to dabble and see what product I can try to sell as my first stepping stone.

There's a lot of places to visit and a lot of places to learn. To start, you might want to check out free-ebooks.net/category/marketing or free-ebooks.net/category/business where you can peruse and download as many free ebooks about marketing or business as you'd like. Just scroll through the pages until you find something that strikes a chord and give it a good read.

Euros, I remember being in your situation just a short 12 years ago. My story began while I was recovering from a major car accident (6weeks later.) I began selling items on eBay to help pay bills. I noticed other sellers that were selling the same or similar stuff had more traffic and higher sales. I emailed several of these sellers and several months later I heard back from one.

He/she said, "Learn Copywriting."

Once you learn to write copy the internet will become a profitable playground for you. I highly suggest that you read Alan Say's eBook "Private Posts volume 1." That book has been one of my main go to for several years. Just do a search for it on Google. Once you get it read it for fun, then study it and apply the lessons.

Hope this helps.
William

First and most important is your education. Your success and failures depends on your level with your skills. Become a better more knowledgeable individual first.

Next is you should be building a list so you'll need an autoresponder in place. I use GetResponse. You can use the same. Aweber is fine too.

Then you need to start creating and driving traffic to capture pages so you can start generating leads. Look for an affiliate program that's solid, a product that people actually want and need.

If you have a budget, go do solo ads and/or FB PPC. If not, then shoot videos daily, upload them on YouTube and make sure you're targeting keywords. Have a blog and do the same thing. Target a niche with specific keywords. Create as much high quality content as possible.

Connect with leaders and find a mentor so your path gets easier.

Kudos for wanting to help out your Mom. That is a noble thing

As far as Math? Well, obviously the basic stuff as far as calculating percentages in your head and knowing the difference between Gross Profit and Net Profit and things of that nature can help you and in fact is probably a necessity



- Robert Andrew.

The first step i would point you to would be picking a niche you have an interest in and have good knowledge about. Brainstorm a list of your passions and write them down on paper.

Your next step would be to find out how popular those passions are on the internet search ratings. A good way to do this is through Google Keyword Planner. Run your topics through it and you will see how many times people search for them in a month. Eliminate any that show to have poor search rates. For the remaining on the list, pick only ONE to focus on.

Your last step will involve deciding what platform you want to showcase your product. This can either be in the form of a squeeze page, blog or webpage. I would personally recommend using a squeeze page to collect an email list as this allows you retain contact of your potential customers.

All the best!

I do things a little bit different than most here.

Everything I do is about data(email) acquisition and monetizing it.

All my data is acquired at specific price points and I start small and test it before investing any large amounts, so that I have a very good idea how long it will take to break-even. Doing it this way, I have never lost money. That's not to say that some data didn't end up taking longer than I would have like to break-even/turn a profit, or that some segment of a larger portion didn't get tossed for failing to perform.

These days my main focus is on acquiring targeted data / generate co-reg that is all real-time/same day (exclusive/non exclusive). The key being what I said above and that you need to start small with each source and test, so you know what you are getting will have the greatest chance of being cost effective.

The main way I monetize the data is through CPA/lead generation. With leads there's no credit card required. So conversion rates are typically much higher. I favor leads that have some financial positioning to them, in that the user can make, get or save money. These type of offers tend to have mass appeal, so the potential to produce high volume exists.

The bottom line comes down to breaking even on your acquisition costs. Once you do that, then you have an asset that you can use to generate traffic anytime you want at very low costs. Once I get to this point, then I test to see how aggressive I can be with promoting additional offers.

There's big money in it. I don't know anyone in the business that knows what they are doing, that's not making 6-7 figures per year.

Anyway, that's the short of the long and something to think about.