Need advice on what I should do in the next 3 months

This forum is a great place to start to get some inspiration as well as a wealth of knowledge...If I had to do it all over again I would've built my list from day 1...It does seem overwhelming at first but stick to one traffic method and keep testing, tweaking and tracking your results...You sound like you have a good plan in place but pick a niche you are really passionate about that you know you will not run out of information to give. Also get into the habit of providing people (subscribers) with as much value as possible and they will look to you as a leader and sales will follow...

All the best!

Hi,

Sounds like you have the classic....."INFORMATION OVERLOAD" here.

That could be further added to once you see 20 - 30 different opinions from
many members via this thread.

You won't know which way to turn.

So I'm going to keep this as simple as possible for you.

Forget all the details for now and DON'T THINK YOU HAVE to get
EVERYTHING PERFECT.

And do just this...

1. BUILD YOUR LIST!!!

2. KEEP BUILDING YOUR LISTS.

3. EVERY SINGLE DAY!

4. Don't stop.

5. TEST, tweak & optimize anything else as YOU BUILD your lists.

That way you are building an asset whilst you are learning the ropes too
so now you have nothing to lose.

Too many people are too scared to make mistakes and end up doing NOTHING!

If you want to keep your traffic costs down then evaluate your risk first and asses
whether you want to go all in or test out a traffic source first and then decide if you
should scale your numbers up or not.

Don't fall into the trap of learning everything upfront - you'll never get anything done! Only learn what you need to for the next step.

So first of you need a website. Learn how to do that and create it. Don't move on until you have a website up and running.

Keep a diary of all the things that you need to learn or struggle with as you go through this. This provides you with great material in the future or to put on your website straight away.

Learn bartending, a great skill for people with no real skills chasing dreams.

You can work at nite, get chicks drunk, pick them up, make cash tips, then work all day on your dreams.

Maybe you come across some investors while you tend bar too.

Now bars are great CASH BUSINESSES.

Then you can write a book on bartending, they sell well.

It helps to have cash flow while you chase dreams and learn skills.

Now if you have a cute young gf, show her a pole and put her to work while you chase your dreams.

If your plan is to create a website to drive traffic to, i would suggest you start first with adding valuable content to the website.
While you do that, learn everything you need to know about building a list, because that's the lifeblood of your business.

Then keep adding content, keep building your list and grow your business

Good luck!
Jens

The selling MY JOURNEY IN IM seldom works, but give it a try. How many hours per week do you have?

Here is a simple 10 hour "Get Started" process. ALL free.

Use GOOGLE and search for FREE email, free web site builder.

Get TWO email accounts. Yahoo and Mail or whichever two you want.
Get a paypal account.
Get a Mail Chimp account.
Get a Dropbox account.
Get an eBay account.
Get two FREE website accounts. Lycos and Wix.
Get a gmail account (google account gives access to many google features)
Get Open Office.
Get free pdf reader.

Some of this you may have already.

STEP ONE. Write a ONE page Hotsheet in Open Office about Thailand. Could be food, beaches, doesn't matter.

Export Open Office page to pdf.

STEP TWO. Move the pdf to your dropbox. Get the public code. Send it to yourself. Does your email work, did you get your own report link?

STEP THREE. Use the mailchimp list and send the pdf file or the dropbox link to your "list" your two email addy's.

STEP FOUR. Create a FREE web site, using the PayPal order instructions set up a site to pay for your report, you can set the price for free.

STEP FIVE Buy your report. This whole process should not take you more than a few hours.

What you have done is created a mini version of one of the more popular and profitable business models in IM...selling information products.

Using these steps, you've spent NO money, only time and got off to a quick start all the while learning a few things as you did it.

Advanced version (most of which you pay to have done) looks like this:

Specialty Report. Created by someone else or via PLR.
Web hosting. Cheap 4.95 site like Hostgator, own domain.
Sales page with link to paypal.
Thank you page, possibly an upsell.
Traffic...via PPC, adsensse, sig files, SEO, generic keyword.

Many use a FREE report give away along with Aweber or other autoresponder to create lists.

DO this and learn as you go and there is no good reason you can't start making money in the next 90 days...if you focus on the doing and learning as you go.

gjabiz

No - that's one of the very few things that your first niche definitely shouldn't be.

That's a niche you need as a customer, not one you can serve as a marketer.

Getting involved in IM-related and/or MMO-related niches is the single commonest mistake that beginning internet marketers make, and the single commonest reason for their failures. It's because so many people get drawn into doing that, that the overall success-rate is so very low.

Internet marketing is difficult enough as it is: there's really no need to stack the deck against yourself to so great an extent.

You might choose to use WordPress, but this certainly isn't a skill you need to learn. I've been making my full-time living through IM for over 5 years and it's a skill I don't have.

It's not a bad skill to have, for many people, I grant you. But it seems very strange indeed, to me, in principle, to be deciding "what kind of software you're going to use to make your first site" without yet having decided what sort of site it's going to be and why. :confused:

Why?! You're not planning to be a copywriter, by the sound of it, so why would you need to learn that? Content-writing, ok: one way or another you're probably going to need some of that, in the long run, but surely not copywriting? :confused:

Again, one of those is a skill I don't have, and it never occurred to me that I'd need it.

Please don't take this the wrong way. I mean it only helpfully. You seem to me to be making decisions on the basis of too-incomplete information. I can't really follow or understand what you're saying, and I think you don't yet understand enough about what's involved in making money from IM to be making these decisions yet, and I think some of your decisions are wrong, too.

There are big questions.

I think perhaps you should start by deciding what sort of business you want to create, i.e. whether it's "affiliate marketing" or "CPA" or "service-providing" or whatever. You may have to do quite a bit of reading before being able to identify what all the options are. But at the moment I think you're trying to get ahead of yourself by deciding things you don't yet need to decide, and don't know enough to be able to decide appropriately. Please excuse my mentioning it, but I think this shows, too, in some of the decisions you've apparently already made.

Start with learning traffic source.
You can outsource copyrighting and other tasks.

Thanks

You are on the right track!! And quickly I might add.

Keep focusing on driving traffic to your offer and building your list!!

I would suggest setting up a blog branding yourself. You can outsource this for not too much if you have the funds.

Spend 80 percent of your time doing actions!!
and 20% learning.

Don't worry about knowing it all, just keep moving!!

Cheers- and good luck!

That's a lot of "to do" things there. But if you give yourself three months you'd learn more than the basics for all those except copywriting and list building. The last two IMHO can never be mastered - you just can keep pushing the ROI higher as you learn more.

Just start doing something an focus on one project

I would start by building your authority by creating content and giving it away for free without wanting anything in return .

The more you give the more you get.

Contribute daily to the forum aim for 10 posts a day at least, of high value.

LAT ( Learn , Apply, Teach )

I hope this helps

FOCUS

Here's what you should do.

1) Create a website with email sign up forms. Optional: Offer a freebie at your website
2) Add content and build your list at the same time
3) Drive traffic there

Hope this helps. Oh and... don't buy any products that are not related to what you're doing (blogging and list building) or you'll just confuse yourself.

Before starting anything ... I'd read this book: The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to...
It's a great mindset book.
If I'd only read this book earlier in my "journey" ...

Get your squeeze page up and running and focus on traffic generation. Once you get good at that then you need to focus on copy writing and product creation.

Get your site up with wordpress or outsource this. Don't worry about copywriting. Build yourself a landing page and drive traffic to it. I don't think you should use IM for beginners as a niche because it sounds like you are a beginner yourself. It is overwhelming to try learning all that you mentioned yourself so I wouldn't do it at all. All the things you're talking about are all very time consuming and costly (as far as time and/or money). I would only do these 4 things:

1. I would find an offer that I like in a niche that sells. (My own product or affiliate products)
2. Make sure offer has a high converting landing page(s), preferably created and tested by someone else.
3. Position yourself to make maximum commissions (if promoting affiliate offers)
4. Drive targeted traffic to that high converting landing page. (The only skill you should be focusing on)

That way, all you're focused on is learning how to drive traffic and everything else is already in place for you (the copywriting, etc), and already done by people far more knowledgeable than you will ever be in those subjects. The only "extras" I'd recommend you have at a minimum is your own website and autoresponder to compliment your promotions, build a list, and help you drive traffic.