Different Levels and Methods of IM

10 replies
Hi,

I'm still at the very beginning of my IM career and am currently working my way through the 30 day challenge.

I am starting to get it.

What I don't understand is how it progresses from here.

I'm working on lowish traffic, low competition niches with minimal outlay. What are the next stages on from here? What path did all the gurus take to get to where they are?

The way I understand it is they all started off in small micro niches before gaining more and more experience of IM. At this point, IM becomes their niche and the associated products they produce become their revenue.

Is this generally correct?

How then does IM work with businesses online? Do they simply rely on online advertising or do they have hundreds of people indexing and SEOing their pages. I'd like to eventually build a business from my knowledge but am not sure whether to go down the IM guru route or start an offline business offering IM to companies in a business to business manner.

Any advice or thoughts on this would be gratefully appreciated.

I guess I am trying to see the 'BIG PICTURE' of how everything fits together.

Regards,

Trotters:confused:
#levels #methods
  • Profile picture of the author Fernando Veloso
    Hi Trotters

    Usually a newbie starts by low competition markets cause it's easier to rank for in search engines and the competition is lower then a huge market. So people start that way as a test to see what they can achieve.

    This is vital for you to understand some complicated aspects of IM, and this is also a good time to launch/test/tweak your small websites/blogs/sales channel - with a short investment - as this is important.

    As soon as you have more knowledge, you'll be ready for bigger battles.

    You can do IM with almost every market available. Some people choose to target plumbers, others choose realtors, and some others choose our very own internet marketing niche market.

    In common we all have the ability to use the internet (and the tools available today) to be make our offers be seen by our targeted market.

    Visibility - Customers - Sales.

    Just like good old marketing, you need everything of the above ^^ to make money. Thats why some people learn SEO (or pay someone to do it) so that our costumers can see our offers when they search for them in search engines.

    And thats why you also need alot of other knowledge to make it work properly.

    I advice you to foloow the 30 Day Challenge and see what you achieve. Then you can make a personal analysis of what you have accomplished and what you want to your future IM adventures.

    Sounds fair?

    Wishing you all the best. Any other questions, just reply and we'll be helping you out the best we can.

    Fernando
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    People make good money selling to the rich. But the rich got rich selling to the masses.
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    • Profile picture of the author trotters
      That sounds like some sound advice. Thanks Fernando.

      My problem is looking too far ahead and trying to run before i can walk. It is incredibly difficult to stay focussed so I am 'trying' to just concentrate on the 30DC at the moment. I find myself with a bit of a fried brain when working through some of the stuff. Trying to learn the technology and the principles involved is a lot to take in.

      But I guess I'm also trying to see where I might feasibly end up. I like to have a plan!

      Thoroughly enjoying it and feel like I'm really learning something useful.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nadim Hussain
    Originally Posted by trotters View Post

    Hi,

    I'm still at the very beginning of my IM career and am currently working my way through the 30 day challenge.

    I am starting to get it.

    What I don't understand is how it progresses from here.

    I'm working on lowish traffic, low competition niches with minimal outlay. What are the next stages on from here? What path did all the gurus take to get to where they are?

    The way I understand it is they all started off in small micro niches before gaining more and more experience of IM. At this point, IM becomes their niche and the associated products they produce become their revenue.

    Is this generally correct?

    How then does IM work with businesses online? Do they simply rely on online advertising or do they have hundreds of people indexing and SEOing their pages. I'd like to eventually build a business from my knowledge but am not sure whether to go down the IM guru route or start an offline business offering IM to companies in a business to business manner.

    Any advice or thoughts on this would be gratefully appreciated.

    I guess I am trying to see the 'BIG PICTURE' of how everything fits together.

    Regards,

    Trotters:confused:
    Hi Trotters,

    I'm in a similar situation to you although I've made small amounts of money in the past from Clickbank and more recently with CPA.

    Firstly, I think it's important to understand that most of the 'Gurus' out there have never actually made money from niche marketing. They make their money from selling info products which teach other people how to make money by selling info products. I would advise you to stay away from the Gurus and stick to the brilliant information on this forum as well as the many brilliant warriors who are quietly making truckloads of money from a variety of niches and techniques.

    To get past the confusion of what to do next, I would suggest you start by focusing on your main strengths and what you enjoy doing. In my case, I am good at talking to people and enjoy offering them solutions to problems so I'm taking the route of offering services to local businesses. I also enjoy writing copy and writing articles so I will be setting up some niche sites once I have started making money from my offline marketing.

    For you, if your niche sites are doing well and you enjoy setting them up then why not keep doing that? You could get very good at it and eventually have a bunch of niche sites making you anything from $200-600+ per month. Niche sites are brilliant for passive income if you can be bothered with the work of researching, setting up, SEO etc.

    Whatever you do, my biggest tip would be to focus on ONE thing at a time and see it through to completion before you even think about doing anything else. Hope that helps.

    Regards,

    Nadim.
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  • Profile picture of the author Fernando Veloso
    Thats why you need to go easy on yourself Trotters.

    Remember this?

    Visibility - Customers - Sales
    Keep this in mind and all the rest will much easier - you'll just need to adjust your marketing skills and methods to achieve that strategy.

    First obviously a product (site/own product/affiliate product/etc), then create visibility for it, so customers can see it/buy it and you make sale - profit.

    Tip:

    Perhaps you could buy a old school marketing book at Amazon, can't advice one, but some folks here have good suggestions I am sure.

    Old school marketing is great cause those guys teach the roots of it - not this web mambo jambo.

    Signature
    People make good money selling to the rich. But the rich got rich selling to the masses.
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  • Trotters,

    My advice is that you start off with a niche you are familiar and passionate about. It will make the learning curve MUCH easier, trust me.
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  • Profile picture of the author bayumaulana2003
    Just Focus on 2 marketing strategies, free and paid..

    a beginner usually want to learn everything..and that is why they don`t make money, just focus on 2 marketing strategies
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  • Profile picture of the author Benjamin Ehinger
    Originally Posted by trotters View Post

    Hi,

    I'm still at the very beginning of my IM career and am currently working my way through the 30 day challenge.

    I am starting to get it.

    What I don't understand is how it progresses from here.

    I'm working on lowish traffic, low competition niches with minimal outlay. What are the next stages on from here? What path did all the gurus take to get to where they are?

    The way I understand it is they all started off in small micro niches before gaining more and more experience of IM. At this point, IM becomes their niche and the associated products they produce become their revenue.

    Is this generally correct?

    How then does IM work with businesses online? Do they simply rely on online advertising or do they have hundreds of people indexing and SEOing their pages. I'd like to eventually build a business from my knowledge but am not sure whether to go down the IM guru route or start an offline business offering IM to companies in a business to business manner.

    Any advice or thoughts on this would be gratefully appreciated.

    I guess I am trying to see the 'BIG PICTURE' of how everything fits together.

    Regards,

    Trotters:confused:
    Personally I think there is way too much emphasis on competition, searches, and doing the different things to make sure you have the perfect keywords. My strategy is just to get a good long list of keywords and try to put content out for all of them. You never know where you might get listed and you never know what traffic you could get from somewhere you didn't expect.

    For me it is not about small or large niches, but just about writing and getting listed for as many as possible. This, to me, means that you have to just put out as much content as possible.

    Benjamin Ehinger
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  • Profile picture of the author trotters
    Wow! Thanks for all the responses folks, some interesting thoughts. I'm particularly taken by having a look at the old classic marketing books.

    I started the Challenge a couple of years ago but had real problems finding a niche that fitted the criteria. It was the wrong time for me to be doing it and I gave up.

    This time I've found a niche. It's not in something I'm passionate about but it all fits and it's in the same market as I work in - healthcare.

    I'm treating this whole experience as a test and a learning experience and if I make money at the end of it I shall refine, rinse and repeat.

    That's the plan anyway...........
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  • Profile picture of the author Robert M Gouge
    Now that you have your niche all you need to do is...

    1. Start to make profit from your websites and then..
    2. Scale up whatever you did to make profit

    Don't get too wrapped up in things and forget that the point is to make money. I've seen a lot of new people get all confused and have 15 million things on their site and almost completely forget to showcase their money makers.

    Good luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author JackPowers
    I would strongly advise against thinking the gurus represent even 1% of successfull affiliate marketers.

    The vast majority of people who make money online do it with one or a few successfull niche sites that they've built into a resource and get traffic from Google as well as from forums, Facebook etc.

    A very small percentage of marketers, maybe 5%, work professionally with affiliate marketing focusing either mostly on being experts on getting traffics with SEO or with PPC. Few do both.

    The so called 'gurus' are the snake oil salesmen of the past with a fancy wrapping and smooth talks. They're the ones who would have sold you stuff in coupon catalogs and direct mail before the internet. Unless that is the kind of person you see yourself as, I really think you should let the guru dream go.

    I am still convinced that building a quality website on a topic you're passionate about is the best way to learn all the aspects of internet marketing. Then use those skills learned to target other more profitable niches.
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