A feeling of guilt?

The legit way to do email marketing is to offer a value added free chain of emails. Do not just blast them with ads. The more valuable and credible your updates, the more people will trust you. The more they trust you, the higher the chance they will buy off your aff links.

If you read enough around here, you will read the same thing over and over. start with what you know, so you are not one of those.

Joe,

Never, ever, ever engage in dishonest marketing strategies....if the approach feels funny to you, do not go down that path because karma will eat you up.

It is far better to be honest, authentic and warm, from my experience. Sure I sell a spectacular dream of traveling the world but I hold the intent to do it from an authentic place, posting travel picture after travel picture along the way.

2 words: Be Honest. Create value. Build relationships. Karma catches up to dishonest folks again, and again, and again, as whatever you dish out comes back to you multiplied.

Follow IMers who do things from a place of good karma. My blog is helpful, but really, anybody who is kind, and helpful, and is transparent, these are the folks you want to learn from, because anybody lies is secretly fearful and a poor person to emulate.

All the best!

Thank you for your replies!

To be quite honest, the person that introduced me to IM a while ago was what he called a "black hatter", thus why I used to wander the blackhatworld forum back then.

He used to do some very shady things, some even illegal to a certain extent, and he eventually introduced me to a concept called e-whoring. I was SO sickened by it that I just had to quit IM entirely, giving up my dream of working from home.

It's my goal to become a successful internet marketter. And I WILL do everything the "white hat" way, without doing anything immoral whatsoever. But this "Facebook marketing" thing just rang a very familiar and unpleasant bell.

I'm thinking of going the eBay, drop shipping, ecommerce way. Is this something that is recommendable for a total newb?

Thanks again for your help, very appreciated.

Joe

No you are not an idiot. A lot of sales copy, IM or not, sounds false.

Do you really think sugary kids cereals are part of a healthy breakfast?

It's not necessary to "establish yourself as an authority figure" like so many teach. It is also not necessary to know anything about the niche. There are other ways.

My first site was in the MMORPG niche. I knew nothing about the games when I started. I could never come off as an expert gamer so I presented myself as a "researcher."

I said up front that I wasn't an expert, but what I did was research all the guides on the market. I then presented them in a central location. I did all the searching and research and visitors had all the results at their fingertips on my site. I sold a lot of MMORPG guides!

Fake FB accounts won't get your anywhere. A ton of untargeted traffic interested only in a hot profile pic would get you nowhere. Get real fans interested in your niche and market to them.

Most say there are NO MAGIC PILLS. I beg to differ. Magic Pills aren't blackhat rubbish - they are untapped sources that have huge potential.

There's a fine balance between 'hype' and 'passion'. It's always ok to be passionate about your niche and you should be. But with all the hypey copy we see every day, we start thinking that's the only way to sell.
It's not.
In email marketing, as mentioned above, put the needs of your list first. Give them something of value - your time, and free relevant content. Only pitch offers that you think are extremely relevant, and only pitch with passion, not hype.
In this way your list (many of them anyway) will develop trust in you. And from there, sales will occur as a byproduct of the way you treat them.

I understand where your coming from, and operating under different names to appease different niche audiences is a common practice for those who do affiliate marketing, no need to feel guilty on that aspect.

My take on it is simple;

- Thoroughly research the products you promote, and the people who create them

- Be honest and ethical by offing value, and goods that will benefit the buyer and help solve there problems or will enhance their quality of life.

Now, I have personally refrained from doing reviews on many of the newly released products in JVzoo and CB because I know many of them are "Shiny objects" that tend to use a very provocative language which often implies - easy money, whereby the buyer's misconceive or miss the fact; it usually requires they buy upsells 1, 2, and 3 to actually make said products work... if they work at all!

- Those products do sell!
- They also have high refund rates!

Certain people have made great success acting as a reviewer or the "go-to" source for evaluating new products, and if you can give honest reviews from a neutral stand point, then it's up to the buyer to do their own due diligence and decide whether or not to buy into the hype.

Thus, if you do push those types of products, don't feel guilty, just choose your positioning wisely from and honest/ethical/neutral vantage point. It can and has been done successfully by many online marketers, and there is money in those products... even though from my own personal experience... most of them suck out!

Email marketing is not some shady business (like setting up fake FB profiles) and I think linking the two is not fair in the slightest.

The biggest of companies use email marketing as a part of their marketing and if done legitimately can be a huge earner.

Legitimately means that the email address holder ASKS you to send them emails, they give you permission to do so and they have the ability to unsubscribe from those emails.

Of course, in terms of morality you may limit the number of emails you send, how and what you promote and so on.

There are hundreds of email marketers who will promote everything and anything in their niche to make a commission with no regard to the quality of the product. There are then the professional marketers who will only promote specific products that are highly recommended and/or products that they have experience with.

Email marketing CAN be scammy and illegitimate. It can also be the core of a business. It all comes down to how you treat it and how you deal with it.

Good luck!

The real secret to email marketing is to give your subscribers value at each email and also making sure that you get new subscribers all the time.

Most affiliate marketers just sell and sell and sell and never give any value. Most of the time, this is working for them to get sales but other marketers, they know that giving value is the best thing for their list.