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Traffic vs Conversions is not the first question...its Income or Cost

by Wayfatwhitey
2 replies
I was about to respond to another thread but thought this went a bit deeper.

Often you need to step back and remember that IM is not a game, is not a sport, is not a hobby (well it sort of is all 3 to some people) but really it is first and foremost a business.

In a business, when you decide to make change. You start at the meta focus, above the process. Everyone here's focusing on traffic and conversions, yada yada yada.

Your first decision should be whether to focus on Cost or Income. If you want to increase your ROI, the fastest way is actually to decrease your costs.

These could be by reducing your personal time investment. Could be by cutting back needless costs (like not buying 90% of the get rich quick guides). Reduce your server costs, I would wager you aren't using 10% of the server power you thought you were going to need when you started this IM thing of yours. Or hey, the world is flat, Outsource Outsource Outsource. Freelancer.com is a great service.

Yes obviously increasing traffic and conversions are great. However if you want to make a fast and positive impact to your ROI, take a lesson from corporate America, cut costs first. Then you can more profitably focus on increasing your Income via traffic or conversion rate improvement.
#conversions #cost #costs #income #questionits #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    Originally Posted by Wayfatwhitey View Post


    Often you need to step back and remember that IM is not a game, is not a sport, is not a hobby (well it sort of is all 3 to some people) but really it is first and foremost a business.
    That's a matter of perspective.

    I'm not surprised you felt the need to mention it, but in reality 'most' IMers are actually treating it like a hobby which is why we see all the rants when people try for a few weeks and then complain it's all a scam.

    If you wanted to be a surgeon you wouldn't think reading a few books and understanding the process would make you an expert and go set up your first surgery - but in IM that's what a lot of people do. They do NOT treat it like a business but they have massive expectations about their results based on what they've seen other people say.

    So - while I agree with you - I also think that your assumption is wrong for most people and they actually do not see or treat IM as a business.

    I think that in reality it's just a marketing channel anyway so I suppose I sort of think that myself in some ways. You don't "need" to do most of the things people call IM in order to have a successful business that runs on the internet.

    Andy
    Signature

    nothing to see here.

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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      It's a matter of focus. If you want to focus on the ROI equation, cutting costs can indeed skew the percentage calculation quickly. The problem is, you can only cut costs so far. And if you cut the wrong costs, doing so could be harmful.

      Increasing income, on the other hand, really doesn't have an upper limit. I'd rather have the net profit number growing, even if it means that the ROI number goes down a bit.

      Gotta keep your eyes on the prize...

      On a side note, I really don't like the term "Internet Marketer", even though it's the de facto term for using the Internet to make sales. Every time someone labels himself as an "Internet Marketer" I want to ask them how many Internets they sold this month... :rolleyes:
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