Getting Serious About Internet Marketing And Need Some Help Getting Started.

Hi Louie,

Thanks for your reply!

I am passionate about quite a few things including:

- music and the music business

- Dating & relationships - helping men with confidence building and meeting women.

- success building and life coaching

- health and wellness

- lifestyle design

- Apple products / internet


One thing I can tell you about myself is that I don't simply quit. No is simply not an answer nor option. I believe that there is always a way as long as you have the will power and desire to succeed.

I want to succeed really bad in this and I am ready to do whatever it takes to get there. If I may not enjoy a specific method or niche but will get better results quicker, it will allow me to have more free time to focus on my passions and really making a difference.

Once I gain a level of success where I can quit my time consuming job, I will then be more prepared to focus on my passions.

You see I don't want to have a full time job where I am confined to an office and must answer to anyone. Rather I want to live life on my terms. I want to travel the world and be able to work from the hotel room using my iPad or Mac to get things done.

I should note that I love marketing and the detail and craft it demands.

With regards to Market Research, I have used the following resources:

Google Keyword Tools
Google Analytics
Alexa
Quantcast
Compete.com

If you have other suggestions, I would love to get your advice for recommended tools as well.

SEO is the one thing I don't know too much about beyond using the All-In-One SEO plug-in for WordPress, using keywords and tags that are most relevant and that get the most hits on Google as monitored via Google Keyword Tools.

With regards to building sites, I can either create a Wordpress site using existing themes and platforms like Optimize Press and Headway.

I did have an idea of using affiliate marketing and to create a blog that would have my marketing articles included. The blog and the content would help with SEO and brining in organic traffic. The articles would be free of charge but would link to helpful tools like Aweber, GoDaddy Hosting, GoToWebinar, and 1shopping cart just to name a few. Once visitors sign up, we would get a commission rate off total sales.

I did notice that some campaigns on clickbank and commission junction are a bit unprofessional.

Have you done affiliate marketing yourself?

How many hours of effort did you put in before you saw a profit?

Thanks for the great advice!

Nathan,

Thanks for your advice and for the warm welcome!

With regards to ideas, I have a lot as many entrepreneurs have.

The challenge for me is figuring out which idea makes most sense to go with. How did you decide on a niche and revenue model?

With regards to tools, I want to make sure that every aspect of my marketing and branding is super professional - from the videos, to the newsletter format, the landing page, and everything in between.

Especially on the web, I learned that presentation is super important. If you seem professional, customers will be more likely to trust you and buy from you.

Value is going to be a major part of our business regardless of the niche I will choose to tackle. One perfect example is hubspot.com. These guys have webinars almost weekly and release ebooks and presentations free of charge in exchange for an opt-in. I would like to see 25% of our efforts focusing on creating real quality value

Thanks Again.

Hi Alphalife,

You are in the right site to learn. And you are right about wanting a mentor, you need one if you want to learn and implement faster (shorter learning curve).

I had a few good ones myself and believe me, it would of taken me forever to even start making money without them.

To find the right mentor, I would begin by looking for WSOs that offer one on one coaching but not all of them are great. You need to find a reputable WSO coming from a reputable Internet Marketer. He will be the one that you can trust to spend on IM tools if necessary.

To do that, look at all the comments and posts from real WSO clients (WF user registered to a specific WSO) and keep in mind the WSOs that has nearly all positive comments.

Then you can look at the Internet Marketer profile that promoted the WSO. Most of the reputable Internet Marketer have more than one WSO on the forum, nothing is stopping you from making a thorough search and look at other comments within his other WSOs. This way you know that you are dealing with not only a reputable WSO but a great Internet Marketer.

Once you've found a few reputable WSOs, look for the one that is the most compatible to your profile and goals and start asking questions (posts) to the Internet Marketer that posted the WSO before buying. Questions should be about the kind of commitment needed, the skills needed, other expenses involved during the program, etc.

Don't spend more than 500$ for a coaching program (WSO) and there's a lot out there a lot cheaper than that. You can have a full coaching for more or less 17$ sometime from very serious marketers.

Once you've made your decision to buy and commit, make sure you focus and commit long enough to it so that you are begin to see results. Don't let yourself lure to other shiny things on the internet like most new Internet marketers do and, at the end, never accomplish a thing.

Good Success

DonHuevos,

Thanks so much for the great advice. It makes perfect sense for niche marketing to be of key importance.

These are the tools I have for tracking keywords and niches.

1. Amazon.com
2. Google Keyword Tool
3. Clickbank (to track gravity and popularity)


Can you recommend some good books and resources on niche marketing?

With regards to SEO I have used the All In One SEO WordPress plugin.

I have not heard of SE Nuke or Ultimate Demon but will do some more research on those.

For backlinks, I was thinking of doing the following:

1. YouTube videos directing to a landing page for email opt-in
2. Commenting on major related blogs with link
3. Forum links when allowed
4. Sharing content across Facebook and Twitter
5. Link Swapping with similar sites

Thanks Again for the great advice.

Cheers.

Clarity is a HUGE part of IM success.

IM is actually pretty simple: you can sell only one of two things:

1. Products
2. Services

That's it!

And selling products or services online happens in the same basic way for everyone, no matter what they're selling:

Traffic > Opt-in page > Autoresponder series (or e-zine) > Sales page

That's it! It's just that simple. (We IMers tend to overcomplicate things.)

But no matter what your niche is, or whether you're selling a product or a service, do you know what your business model is?

A business model is the framework or skeleton of your business. Essentially there are three types of online business models:

1. Membership-based model

A membership-based business model allows you to build a community of people (your members) who are as passionate about your subject as you are. Your membership fees can be monthly or annual, but either way, you're building recurring, passive income.

There are a lot of resources and information out there to help you build a membership-based business if you're interested in doing this.

2. Product-based model

Selling products allows you to maximize your time and effort by selling items over and over again. This can be hard goods or it can be information products. Information marketing is it's own business model under the product-based model. Information marketing allows you to take your brain to the bank by creating a product ONCE based on what you know and selling it over and over again.

I see someone has already recommended affiliate marketing. You can choose to market either products or services as an affiliate.

3. Service-based model

Selling services can be great for 1) generating quick cash (as in the case of article writing or video producing) and 2) establishing your expertise and getting testimonials.

However, in the long run, your goal should be to offer services at a PREMIUM. The biggest advantage of IM is LEVERAGE. You're able to leverage your time, money and expertise exponentially online. We all have just 24 hours each day. Time to get ruthless about what you expect for those hours you spend in IM each day. Expect more of yourself and more from your business friends, clients, partners, etc.

What results are you getting for those hours you spend online each day? Ultimately, your services should be at the bottom of your funnel and cost the most since they involve your time and personal attention. (We all have a limited amount of time each day.)

The fun (and confusion) comes in with all of the endless mix-and-match possibilities of the above models. If you're just starting or still struggling to make money, keep it simple:

Pick just ONE!

1. Pick ONE niche. (Something you're interested in and know something about.)

2. Pick ONE target market for your product or service. (Who will buy what you're offering? The more specific you are, the more you narrow it down, the more successful you'll be.)

3. Pick ONE business model.

Now that you're clear about what business you're in, FOCUS! (And stop buying any info not related to your niche and target market, period!)

F -- Follow
O -- One
C -- Course
U -- Until
S -- Successful

And remember: build a list, Build a List, BUILD A LIST!

In IM, it's easy to put the cart before the horse. Take a deep breath, step back and consider what type of business you're REALLY want. Don't worry about getting traffic or buying that expensive traffic product until you know 1) what your business model is, 2) what niche you're in and 3) WHO your target market is!

Successful business people will tell you that MARKETING is more than half the effort that's needed for success anyway. So pick a niche, target market and business model. Then spend most of your time and effort marketing it.

If you DON'T have a solid plan or system, THAT'S when it's hard. A good system will shave YEARS (and save you big $$$) off of your learning curve

That's why I recommend investing in at least one good, comprehensive IM course (or mentor who will give you such a system) instead of jumping from one $37 e-book to the next. A lot of people here complain about not being able to make any money. But neither are they willing to invest in their business. (Buying a random bunch of $37 e-books doesn't count.)

The best thing I ever did was invest in a comprehensive IM course aimed at REAL business owners, not just other IM wannabes. Yes it was $1500. (Now it's only $997. :p) But it was truly some of the best A-Z IM info I ever bought. Everything else I've learned (from the $37 e-books) since has simply been plugged into this system.

Get a solid plan or system and then work the plan!

Hope this helps!

Michelle

Michelle,

Wow. I am completely blown away at the incredible information your provided. Thanks so much for the time and effort you put in to offer such a detailed reply.

While I still consider myself a beginner at this, I am extremely dedicated to making this work. I don't believe in such a thing as CAN'T - if there is desire, there is always a way.

I think having a mentor seems to be the key thing I am missing.

I've done some research on current experts out there and Eben Pagan seems most appealing and most professional. I watched some of his videos on YouTube and his content seems to be way more professional then some of the competitors.

Ultimately, I see myself focusing on products rather than services, unless of course the service can operate on autopilot without much of my attention.

At the end of the day my goals is to achieve the freedom of time and to help people through information. I would like to quit my current job, be able to move out to either the big apple or the silicone valley where more opportunities are available. I wish to travel and never have to be confined to an office, thus building a mobile office is going to be a necessity.

In terms of immediate goals, I really need to earn enough to purchase a Mac Book Pro so that I can work more efficiently and be able to produce more professional content.

Thanks for the breakdown of launch models. I like the membership one because it would allow me to create the program as I go and still generate revenue and test in the process. This could also lead to a repackaging of the content into a home study course with dvds, group coaching, workbooks, and ebooks.

I am also open to providing services to start out and generate some more money in order to get all the things necessary such as a good mentor.

I will research the top 3 ideas that I have and will post a thread about them including some research stats to get feedback on what might work out best to start with. I am eager to get started and start building a successful business.

Once I have a niche and solid plan, I will set up a landing page and work on some free content to give away.

Very helpful information.

Thanks!

Hi Alphalife,

I want to thank Michelle for her insights about mentoring and how it is important to do a good research of what you are really after within the huge IM industry.

After reading Michelle's post, I have to clarify what I meant about one on one coaching, I should of actually said "coaching in general terms". In other words, your potential mentor would coach you through whatever media (Video-audio teaching, telephone group conference once a week, one on one coaching on Skype, etc.) As Michelle said, the one on one is usually too expensive at the beginning but any GOOD coaching could benefit you very much.

Now, when you are ready to look for a mentor, here's another tip: you looked at different WSO's (mostly IM coaching in your niche) and verified if subscribers of the program you are interested in posted positive comments about the WSOs. You've also looked at other WSOs posts related to your potential mentor within the Warrior Forum. Another way to validate the reputation of your potential mentor is to verify if that mentor and/or offer is mentioned in other serious IM review sites like IM Report Card.

IM Report Card is a site that constantly reviews IM opportunities and IM professionals and tends to be a lot less bias on there reviews. Their reviews are reviewed by real IM opportunity subscribers and they also have a certain level of experience with the IM industry in general.

In other words, if you see good reviews in both Warrior Forum and IM Report card websites, you can be sure you are dealing with a genuine and successful Internet marketer that wants to share his skills to you so you can become successful in IM.

To respond to your last question, one mentor that I consider genuine and with great mentor-ship skills is williamrs. He has several WSOs on CPA/affiliate marketing and niche product marketing. You can search him in WF with that name I just gave you. (WF advanced search and search by username and by threads)

Good Success

David

You have to get to the point where you actually take action and not buy product after product, but instead use what you have to start generating you an income.