A fresh start

Every business needs Traffic and Conversion.

Whether they use the internet or not.

Newspapers let you get access to a target market of daily readers (frequency + niche.)

You could put an ad in there, one that was designed to appeal to the social level of the publication's demographic, and pull some of the readers to you.

That's Traffic.

Conversion is what happens after that point. What do you do with them? Invite them into your store with a coupon? Ask them to call you?

Same concept with radio. The medium changes from visual to audio. The rest remains the same.

The internet is a mix of media. You can use video, written word, audio files. In some way you have to find a target audience and bring some of them, hopefully pre-screening for those who will have an interest in what you have to offer, over to you.

From Facebook through ads to your opt-in page, for example.

That's Traffic.

What happens after that? You know now. Conversion. What are you going to ask them to do?

Watch a webinar?

Consume an educational video series?

Ask them to get on a call?

Read a series of warm-up emails leading to an offer?

YOU have to figure this stuff out. That's called Barrier To Entry.

Most people give up after just three days of effort.

Their belief in success is based on the latest shiny object they go, not themselves.


There is no "one right way." There are no guarantees. Everything you try will fail at the start. You must persist and keep testing to overcome the barrier to entry and start making sales.

First you must learn how to drive Traffic.

Then learn how to execute Conversion.

But then you will have something. An asset. A funnel that works.

That's a point hardly anyone ever gets to.

What are you retiring from? For how long did you do whatever it is you did? What hobbies and interests do you have?

All that THINKING should be done before you even begin. Print out Jason's post and use a red pen, and put big ????? marks beside

TRAFFIC??????? Who do you want for a customer? Will you offer a one off product? Do you want to engage them for a long period of time (I would think not considering you entered retirement mode)????

As Jason pointed, all Internet Marketing is about the media, which way to get YOUR message to the right group, audience or prospect.

So, take some time and hammer out WHO you want as a customer, what sort of THING will you offer them, what is the process, from you wanting to sell something to them wanting to buy it...and create a flow chart always keeping the TRAFFIC source and the Stimulus/Response you want.

If I were starting over, I'd forget about "engaging" the customer and sell them a consumable, something they buy over and over. Maybe a cookie or snack.

The lifetime value of a satisfied customer saves you a lot of time from having to deal with needy customers, support, engagement and all that jazz.

Give it some good old fashioned THINKING before you choose, and keep the two things foremost in your mind TRAFFIC (prospect with money to spend who wants what you have) and your CONVERSIONS (what is your offer and action required).

OR, buy several WSO's and jump in, see you in a year bemoaning the lack of IM success. Your choice.

GordonJ

This seems kind of obvious ... However it's a mistake many People make:

Don't just "chase" the money ― choose something that really interests you and really helps People in some way.
You will be more likely to succeed if you do that. : )

2C.

The basics of internet marketing have never changed. Build, engage, sell and repeat every day. It's not complex nor complicated. In fact it's very simple. And ironically THAT is where the danger lies.

As marketers we get distracted and overwhelmed by all the different marketing tactics, strategies, gimmicks, tools, plug-ins. We start to lose our focus on what's really important.

Getting back to fundamentals and understanding core marketing concepts are much more important than any tactics strategies, gimmicks or tools.

For example core marketing skills are 1). Traffic - audience growth. 2). Creating engaging content 3). Communication - engage directly with your audience and build relationships. 4). Conversion. Use best practices in selling (yes, you are in sales) 5). Tenacity. Remain CONSISTENT and PERSISTENT.

It's not about knowing what to do, it's about doing what you already know. Start today.

If you were doing any kind of IM back in the 2003 era things have changed dramatically. I built my first website before WordPress. Now a person can take one day and learn how to build a website. They can build it on their second day. A beautiful fully functioning website. A lot of other tech things are also faster and simpler.

Other things like getting traffic and beating the tremendous amount of competition in almost every niche is harder.

I have done best with Amazon and other affiliate marketing and I have no regrets. However, if I were to start again I would focus more on something with at least some recurring revenue. I would also take the time and be willing to lose money for awhile learning PPC and other paid traffic. I am very good at SEO but it is constantly changing and not always consistent. I have done well with PPC but am also semi-retired and don't have the motivation to go at it whole hog.

There are so many ways to make money online but here might be a route to consider:

Decide how you want to earn.... affiliate marketing, SaaS, ecommerce, drop shipping, product creation, etc.

Decide on a niche if that applies.

Learn PPC and other paid traffic.

Scale it up!

You've already been given a LOT of information and advice here so far. If you want to keep it simple, start with figuring out what you're good at or what you enjoy doing.

You're retired...why spend a minute doing something you don't enjoy or aren't good at for the sake of making a few dollars?

Once you figure that out, decide what kind of content you want to produce: written, voice, video?

Then start doing that! Once you've produced some content that you enjoy and had fun creating, come back to the forum and search the threads in the search bar at the top for driving traffic to your content and monetizing your content.

Keep it simple for now as you're just starting out and it can be quite overwhelming to figure out what steps to take from beginning to end.

BRETTBrtsk you are on a right place!

here you can learn so many methods and follow best marketers ever. I would also recommend blackhatworld forum the same concept.

if you will need help you can ask me anytime
good luck

I'd have a focus on video marketing or at least creating video content. Using video as a strategy to build traffic to your own website is extremely powerful. Whatever tools I needed or anything I thought would work I'd be willing to look at it and investigate it.

Hi Brett, first let me congratulate you on your early retiterement and new beginnings.

I want to say something positive right from the start. You already have the most important step done, that's having right mindset for success. You already know that starting an online income is going to take some time, an investment of hard work and effort on your part. The proper mindset is something that many never get.

That being said, here's what I woud do to get started. First I would figure out what niche market it is I want to go into. It would have to be something that is profitable, preferaly something I really enjoy doing, am interested in, and know something about. That's important because I wouldn't want to go into something that a year from now I realize I don't want to do this any more because I dont like the niche market I chose to go into. Make sense?

This will take some self-examination, soul-searching and research to find a niche market that is not only profitable but one that you personaly enjoy doing.
Next you'll need need to find out where your niche market hang out, what problems are they currently having? What questions are they looking for answers to? Most of important, ask yourself what it is you can offer to really help them?

By figuring out the answers to the questions above you are on your way to figuring out what product or service you can offer that will be of value and help enough to your niche market that they will be greatful enough to happily pay you for it.

Next I would think about getting some online real-estate in the form of a website or cms (Content Management System). That will enable me to begin to send targeted traffic to my site where I can start building an email-list of potential customers by offering my website visitors something of great value for free in exchange for their email address.

Getting your email list built is one of the most important tasks that you will do when getting started. Your list will enable you to send valuable content that builds strong Business 2 Customer relationships and trust so that you can then market your products and/or services to your list on a regular basis.

That is a brief roadmap to what I would do to get going in profiting from an online marketing income stream. It won't happen overnight, will take some learning, research, patience, hard work and a little help from your friends.

I hope that helps you in your road to making a new start .

Here's hoping you the best in you online income endeavors!

how many of the skils you used in the work you just retired from..can be tranfered into an online business..

or where you don't need the income any time soon where you have the money you have retired this..is there a hobby you want to put effort in and possibly create a businness out of over a few years ..

This is a very good initiative because in life the man should not be limited in matters of knowledge. There are several possibilities to make money on the internet that will depend on the sums that you would like to have in your account. advises you to document yourself in order to have a good view on internet business

Youre starting off with the right frame of mind not looking to be an overnight success !

You are certainly well done. Retired and still want to grow. I admire such people. Regarding Internet marketing, believe me, if you already had experience, you will quickly find a niche in which you will be interested. I agree with the comment above that video content is now in trend. You can try to start with this, but still you need to find something that will be to your liking.

I've been promoting affiliate / CPA offer for a little over 18 years. However, I do things differently than most. If I was starting out again, I wouldn't change a thing.

I heavily promote PPL (pay per lead...lead generation) offers. This is because there is no credit card / purchase required to complete an offer. All a user has to do is fill out a form, so conversion rates are typically much higher compared to offers that require a sale to be made.

I favor offers that have a make, get or save money benefit to them, as they have overall worked the best. They also tend to have the greatest mass appeal (will be of interest to a large general audience), so the potential exists to produce high volume and they are fairly easy to cross promote on the back-end.

Some of the verticals (niches) I have done extremely well with are: education, insurance, loans, debt, credit, mortgage, assistance, discount offers, homeowner offers, etc...

The bulk of the PPL offers that I promote pay $20-$40 per lead, but I also promote offers that pay more and less. You don't want to get too caught up on what an offer pays because how well it converts is just as important. For example, if you have an offer that pays $9, but if it converts at 2X or more of a $20 offer, then it will perform about the same or possibly better. At the same time, if you have an offer that pays $90 and it converts poorly, it may not even be worth promoting.

I have also done just as good with dating website sign-ups and pretty good with free trial + S/H offers. I also promote a very limited number of offers that are straight sales. For them, mass appeal is still the number one thing I look for and I also look for one of the following...

1) The product is new and/or novel-unique and you can't purchase it locally or even something similar. I don't waste my time with it once something similar shows up in Walmart.

2) The buyer can truly get what is being offered at a decent discount.

3) Solves a house is on fire type problem.

However, I mainly promote non-PPL offers on the backend.

Bottom line, it's far easier to get someone fill out a short form than to get them to pull out their credit card and make a purchase. So why struggle with trying to sell this or that, when you can provide free information that users want/need and get paid well doing it.

Something to think about.

What type of hobbies and interests are you into? Find your passion and you've found the niche you can create a business around.

Hello Brett, Internet marketing has gotten quite competitive in recent times, but the real money makers right now are Amazon FBA and Shopify Dropshipping if you want to make 6 figures yearly. Maybe you should explore those and start your own Home Business.

Umm, where the hell is Brett... guess he's got a lot more spare time than he anticipated. Anyway, Brett, if you make it back to the thread you opened, I'd like to know which methods do you plan on using to advertise your business. Starting a new business is easy. However, nailing down a marketing plan and consistently using it every single day is going to either make or break your shiny new business. Give us a little more insight into where your head is about the style of marketing you will be using.

Your best bet Brett is diving into a niche you enjoy working. What interests you energizes you for the long haul internet marketing journey. I happen to love blogging so it fuels me to wake up and get after it daily from an energy of abundance and generosity. Keeps me vibing high.