is it possible?

Hi. First I would like to say that I like where your head is at and I can see that you have put a lot of thought into this matter.

That being said...I think you should do a little more research before spending a single dime.

You see...A high converting squeeze page should not cost you $1-2K. You can get far less than that.

This is my opinion of course....There is no way that you should go out and find a company to create a squeeze page that costs $1K+.

Secondly...An autoresponder will only cost about $30 a month when you start out.

As for a guaranteed income from affiliate marketing...No there is not. You could invest all of your money and end up broke. On the other hand...You could also make a ton of money if you create the right kind of marketing funnel.

As for advertising...You will need to advertise in places where business owners congregate online.

A good place to start is linkedin. Another way to find prospects is to contact business owners on Yellowpages.com.

webmarke hit the nail on the head. You've actually thought about this which is more than most people who come here looking for advice. But, you're still at the very beginning. And you shouldn't be advertising how much money you want to spend on a public forum because I'm sure there will a lot of people on this forum looking to take that money from you.

I'll also mention that I disagree that mobile marketing via text message will ever become a mainstream marketing technique. Yes, people love their phones and texting. But, people don't love having advertisements crammed down their throats. I don't think the future of mobile marketing is anything more that a text saying "Your dry cleaning is ready at The Dry Cleaning Shop". But, you have to do the market research and make your own decision.

The great thing about being online is that the cost to start a business is very low. But, like with regular brick and mortar businesses. There is a great chance that you'll fail. I failed at least 6 times before I learned enough to create a viable online business. If I would have blown my wad on the first idea I had, I would have never made it to the second idea.

Create your idea with a minimal investment and test its viability. Scale it up only if it's viable.

Is it possible (to make money online)? Yes. Is there a guarantee on ROI? No. That is a universal fact of doing any form of business. All the successful marketers do basically the same thing - they identify what a market needs or wants and give it to them. I know it's easier said than done, but that's what IM is essentially.

You have identified sms marketing as your niche and look as though you have some idea of how make money in this niche. Now you should decide on the form of marketing you want to focus on - is it product creation, affiliate marketing, blogging or something else.

If you're thinking, "I'll do all of them," then I'd advise you not to but rather focus on one model at a time.

Suppose you don't have much time or experience in creating your own product and choose to do affiliate marketing in the sms marketing niche. Then you should look for affiliate programs to join.

Google "(your keyword) + affiliate program" and look at the results. Choose an affiliate program that you like and sign up for it. Learn about the product and start recommending it to people who need such a product.

Roscoe,

Yes, but as others have suggested, you are not ready to go full throttle just yet. Put your wallet away and don't start spending your $10K until you have a proven system in place that allows you to pay for traffic and convert that traffic into a positive ROI. You start by testing, tracking and tweaking on a small scale so that your selling system becomes optimized. Only when you can show positive returns do you begin to scale up incrementally.


NO. There are no guarantees in this business at all. That's why you start small and gradually build up the size of your promotions and campaigns but only after you've tested and come out in the black.


I think you are a little confused here. You don't "buy" affiliate offers. You can purchase affiliate products to try them out for yourself (which BTW is a good practice), but when you are ready to begin promoting affiliate offers you need to get approved from the owner - but that generally doesn't have a cost associated with it. If it does, beware.

The amount you spend in advertising and promotion is generally up to you. Of course, the product owner wants you to spend as much as you have. Again, start on a small scale and only ramp up your promoting when you can do it positively (you're making more than your spending.


No one can answer this for you. Every product is different, every niche is different, every offer is different and every audience (your prospects) is different. IM is never one-size-fits all.

An indirect answer to this question is this: generally the most targeted audiences (who want exactly what you're offering and are ready to buy) will be the best places to do your promotions. Extreme targeting often is quite pricey . . . so you have to balance cost per lead with the conversions to sales and try to make the trade-off profitable. Sometimes you will do some trial and error . . . but with small campaigns . . . to see which venues and platforms work best for your offers.

You'll probably end up trying Adwords, Facebook, Linked-in, some solo ads, mailing lists, and other things. Just be sure to target your campaigns so you are not paying for eyeballs that have no interest. This brings up my last bit of advice:

Be sure to do your market research before you spend your first dollar. You may think you know what your audience wants . . . but you need to verify your assumptions. Being a successful online marketer is so much easier and profitable when you are selling into demand. It means that you find out what your audience is clamoring for and what they are ready to buy right now. Then you step in front of that audience with your offer which just happens to be exactly what these people want to purchase!

Too many marketers guess at what their prospects want then they scratch their heads when their offer is mostly rejected. There is a better way!

I wish you the best of luck in your new career.

Steve

It costs me about $15 to make a squeeze page and $20 for my autoresponer. So you should not consider spending more than $90 on building your squeeze page. Rather you should spend more money on generating traffic like buying solo ads and/or hosting your ads on other people's website. This will bring you a lot more traffic than a pretty looking squeeze page that you spend hundreds of dollars on. More traffic should be your main concern because that will pour money into your bank account. Good Luck.