Happyshort

1. Understand that technology should help you achieve your business and personal goals. It is merely a tool to move you forward with your vision: a “means to an end” to HELP and enable you, rather than being an end in itself, (or perhaps even be a disabler to “untechnos” like me). So make modern technology work to it’s highest potential for you and your business.

2. Don’t take the competition for granted…and don’t “knock” them. Never ever! Accept that no business can be the best in every facet. The convergence of computer, media, entertainment and communications means the underlying structures of the computer world will change rapidly and soon… or so my “technogeek” associate, Bill (not Gates) says. The TV/computer/music center is not far away, I hear.

The net is a world wide market-place, so don’t be too zenophobic (now that’s a really big word, that I tried very hard to bring in). I think many Americans (and New Zealanders too) think that theirs is the only country on earth in which to trade and is the centre of the world… and we’re nearly falling off the bottom near Antarctica!

However, we can all compete fairly (”fairly”) against the competition by transcending international boundaries on a “global level playing field” - whereby even the “little guys” can take on the big corporations around the world (except for their massive marketing budgets, of course!). It may mean adjusting your marketing efforts to take into account some cultural differences (like my rather ‘weird’
sense of humor, or different spelling - although it’s the same English language). However, I believe people around the world have more in common than their differences. Common aspirations, eg. security, to do their best for their children, etc. Enough philosophical digression, Craig… and back to your point…

Here in “Sleepy Hollow” (with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country) in little provincial New Zealand near the bottom of the world, we sell our various products around the globe in response to customer needs.

3. Consolidate your business by focusing on what you do best. Don’t try to be “all things” to your customer, nor try to offer too many products. Concentrate on perfecting and marketing your “best sellers” in your CORE business activities. That is the area which produces the most profitable results for your organization. (remember the “80-20 rule” - 20% of your activities produces 80% of your results/profit and vice versa!). For us it’s creative writing courses.

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Over 50 million people have access to the Internet - and yet it is still in its infancy. Every month sees millions of newcomers and thousands of businesses setting up online.
Combine this huge, expanding audience with the fact that marketing and advertising can be done on the Internet at a fraction of the costs of traditional methods . . . and you have a situation where the potential for online success is unlimited.

Here is a 7-step guide to ensure that you will cash in on this growing boom.

1. DECIDE WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO SELL
The online business opportunities that you will come across can be neatly divided into two areas: (1) Products (2) Services.

1.1. Selling Products

When you sell a product you can either carry out the whole operation of handling orders, stocking and shipping the goods, processing the payments

OR

simply market for a company that will handle all the administration for you. Your job is merely to get the orders to the company and then receive commission.

What product sells well on the Internet ?

The item that has been hailed as the number one business product of the future is . . . INFORMATION.

Examples of highly successful information products are the ‘how-to’ and self-improvement books. If you are knowledgeable about a particular subject you could consider writing and developing your own product and delivering it via Email.

1.2. Selling Services

One advantage of selling a service is that you can often generate a ‘residual’ commission - a monthly income all the while that the customer continues to use the service.

What service is suitable for online selling ?

As the Internet boom continues the most obvious candidate is any service which assists companies in using the Internet. A prime example is a web hosting service: a web host will provide the space to put up a web site, the tools to manage it and technical advice.

2. HOW TO ADVERTISE

2.1. The 2-STEP Approach

The usual method of advertising is to have short Classified Ads which leave the reader in a state of enticement, so that he then asks for the full detailed information in your sales letter, ideally sent by autoresponder. The purpose of the ad is not to try to sell the product - it is simply to get interested people to respond.

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If you choose to sell someone else’s products, how will you know what to look for?

So you’ve decided you want to become an Internet Marketer? Will you sell someone else’s products or sell your own?

If you choose to sell someone else’s products, how will you know what to look for? After all, this is a new venture for you.

Or maybe it’s not. Maybe you have been trying out some affiliate programs which have not brought you any money, or, worse, have not paid you for the affiliate traffic you have sent them.

If you are the new person, or the person who is floundering in Internet Marketing, this article will offer you some simple tips for choosing an affiliate program.

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So you’ve found the perfect affiliate program, you’ve signed up and they gave you a website …. now what? “They” say that “all you have to do” is drive traffic to your site … but you don’t have a clue where to begin …

Never fear, Affiliate 101 is here … here’s a list of a few simple, free or inexpensive tasks you can accomplish today.

Detailsfollow, first just the list:

1. Send emails to friends and family;
2. Make new friends o­n the internet;
3. Print out and distribute posters, business cards, and/or postcards;
4. Write articles and post free ads.

First of all, don’t panic. You don’t have to do ALL of these, just whatever you feel comfortable with. But I do heartily suggest that you push the envelope a little o­n your comfort level…

Email Friends and Family

If you’re uncomfortable with contacting family members (they CAN be your sharpest critics) first scan the options, maybe o­ne of the less obtrusive o­nes would work.

Be sure to write o­nLY to friends. Anything else will be considered spam; any worthy company will drop you like a hot potato when they receive legitimate spam complaints.

Consider the friends and family you might write to and decide the best approach for each:

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Here is the most common question that I come across in relation to Internet marketing:

“I can see that there is great potential for success on the Internet but I am a beginner. I don’t really know where to start”

This question is asked by people who either have an existing business which they want to start promoting on the Internet or they are trying to find the right opportunity.

For both cases the answer is the same.

Whatever online business or opportunity you are involved in there is one essential skill that you will have to know.

You will need to know HOW TO PLACE ADVERTS.

Here are some of the things that you start to learn when you submit ads:

The various locations where you can place an ad such as newsgroups, forums, ezines, web sites: and the different rules and methods used for each one such as frequency of posting and size of ads.
How to post information to a mailing list or newsgroup for free but using a signature file to promote your products.
How to code your adverts so that you can identify where the response originates.
How to organise your mail files to handle responses.
How to simplify your own systems so that you have standard replies to common questions.
How to set up autoresponders if necessary to take away the chore of responding manually.
How to deal with the unexpected (for example, even though you may clearly spell out in your ad that a reply should be made to an autoresponder many people will still reply directly to you).
All of this is excellent EXPERIENCE which will prove invaluable for whatever online venture you follow.

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Can you really make big money with affiliate programs? Can you earn a satisfactory income from commissions on selling others’ products? That question has to be on a lot of people’s minds. There are a lot of people considering setting up a website and marketing affiliate products. They wonder whether or not to believe all of the hype. There are also a lot of people who are already marketing affiliate products. Many of these are making very few sales, and they are wondering…. what am I missing!

To answer the first question… yes, you really can earn big money with affiliate programs. There’s just a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Most people are going about it ALL WRONG. That’s
why the majority aren’t making the big money they desire. What are some of the things they are doing wrong, and how can they correct these things?

Far too many people are choosing the wrong affiliate products. They are choosing products that aren’t a good match for their website visitors and ezine subscribers. Trying to market a product to the wrong audience is doomed to fail from the start. Instead, find or create products that meet the expressed needs of your audience. Marketing should not be about trying to convince someone that they need a product that they’re convinced they don’t need. Instead, it should be merely demonstrating that your product is the solution to one of their problems, wants, needs or fears. Selecting the right products or services is essential to achieve any real success marketing affiliate
products.

Many people choose a product that offers too little return on the resources required to make a sale. The commissions earned don’t cover the value of advertising and TIME expended. With these
products or services, even if you make sales, you come out worse than you would be if you had spent the same time working at the local fast food restaurant or car wash.

The solution to the above problem is very simple. Market only products that pay a decent commission. There are many great products available that offer 40 - 100% commission. It generally makes little sense marketing a product paying only 20-30%. The one exception to this rule is products that pay a residual income. The best example of this type of product is web hosting. You earn a lower commission, BUT you earn this commission month after month. Therefore you end up earning more in the long run. If you do market products which are poor sellers, pay low commissions, and don’t offer a residual income, drop them. You time is simply too valuable to do otherwise.

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How much actual profit do you make as an affiliate marketer? Are you even making a profit? Most people who try affiliate marketing make less than $1000 a year. This is not what you’re looking for, right? Instead of giving up, think about why you’re not getting the results you want. Here are a few things to think about:

1. Think positive. If you think you will succeed, you will. If you don’t, you’ll be defeated before you begin.

2. Be committed. Don’t give up at the first problem. Be aware that you will have difficult days and create a mental plan to work through them - before they happen. This plan can be something as simple as providing yourself with a list of steps to go through to problem-solve the setback.

3. Educate yourself. Read as many articles as you can and explore websites covering different areas of marketing. You’ll need to learn a lot about different ways to promote your affiliate products.

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After being in business online for over 7 years, I often need a whack upside the head to remind me that not everyone understands this online stuff the way that we do. In fact, there are tens of thousands of people who venture online regularly, exploring ways to make a little extra money. Some are looking for ways to eventually quit their jobs and work full-time from home.
Since I have been living that dream-life for so long, it sometimes takes me a second to answer questions from complete beginners. I’m talking about people who not only haven’t built their first website, but aren’t even sure what type of product or service they want to sell. They just know that they want to make some extra money and have heard that the internet is an easy way to do it.

How would you respond to a complete online beginner who comes to you seeking advice?

Here’s what I tell them and why…

First of all, there are a lot of scams, hyped-up promises, and just plain “ways to lose your money.” So you do need to look before you leap. You can’t be too careful!

Secondly, building a business online is just like building a business offline. You need to decide “what you are going to sell in your store” before you open the doors. So you need both a plan and a product. Most people will advise you to build a website around a personal interest. That way, while the business is slowly “building up steam,” it will be easier to keep motivated, and it may even be more fun!

The easiest way to get into business online is through what are called affiliate programs. These are programs where you sign up and then you earn a referral commission from selling other’s products. Online, these products are very typically books, software, etc… things that have a low production and delivery cost. Software and electronic books can be delivered as a file that’s downloaded directly to your customers’ computers. So it has very little real delivery cost. Therefore, the person selling it can afford to pay you a hefty commission for helping them sell their product.

I generally recommend that beginners join a few affiliate programs and then begin telling others about them… referring others to the site. This is also where beginners hit the first snag. Who do they tell and how?

People like me have a mailing list of well over 100,000, and over 200 active websites. I can tell people about products and services through my mailing lists. I can tell people about products and services on my websites, which are found through the search engines, articles I write, and affiliate referrals. However, the beginner doesn’t have immediate access to these resources.

So how does the beginner attract people to his products or services? First, you need a website. It is possible to market online without one, but a website gives you a “home-base.” It’s a place that you can center your operation around, refer people to, and use to branch out.

You DON’T necessarily need to have a website designed for you since many affiliate programs do offer them for free. You DO need an affiliate website that you can modify to make it different from all of the other sites promoting the same product(s) or services as yours. If it’s identical to thousands of others, the major search engines won’t list it.

You also need to build a mailing list. This is a list of people who have contacted you and given you permission to stay in contact with them. For many online businesses, people join your list by subscribing to your online newsletters. You send these people your regular newsletter, and over time, develop a relationship with many of them.

It’s very important that you understand that people buy from people that they KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST. A newsletter allows you to share information and resources with your subscribers, and eventually causes them to feel this way about you. You have to earn their friendship, trust and admiration. You do this be doing things to help them succeed. It’s that simple.

The easiest way to build a list is to have a signup form on most pages of your site, and ask people to join your list. However, they won’t join unless you give them a good reason. Even though your newsletter may be free, you still have to sell them on the value of joining your list. Your potential subscribers have so many choices of free ezines, that they won’t sign up JUST because you ask them to. Tell them the benefits of being on your list.

So… you need a list, a website, products to sell, and some guidance from people who are actually doing what you want to do.

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It’s not as easy as you may think at first glance.
It’s not as impossible as you may think after giving it a try.
When you own your own business, you only have to work half a day. You can do anything you want with the other twelve hours.

Every day new people are added to the ever growing force of work-at-home Internet Marketers. The market place is vast! Statistics show that new people come online at a rate of approximately 300,000 per day, and currently there are more than 600,000,000 people online worldwide!
So Internet Marketing should be a walk in the park, right? Wrong! It can be fun, challenging, rewarding, aggravating, frustrating, a life’s work, a week’s work ? it can be whatever YOU decide. But it’s not just a walk in the park.

As with any worthwhile venture it is imperative that you come in decisively.

First, if you haven’t already, ask yourself if you really want to succeed and what price you are willing to pay for your success, and then pay close attention to your answer. No matter what the plethora of self appointed “guru’s” tell you in their $19.95 e-book about how easy it was for them to make millions (and that’s not to say they haven’t done it), the real truth is that for the rest of us, it can be a struggle to make money on the Internet; but not impossible. Enough to pay some, if not all your bills? Yes, it can be done.

OK, let’s discuss how it can be done; how you, the average computer literate person can make money on the Internet.

More than four years ago, as an average computer literate person, I decided to become an Internet Marketer. I had no idea how to do this. First starting with prayer, and then employing the search engines and as many keyword phrases I could think of, I began looking for ideas. I was immediately overwhelmed by all that was out there. Most of which sounded too good to be true! Quickly, it became obvious to me that the promises of make-tons-of-money-with-no-effort-all-for-free had to be at best questionable! Common sense kicked in and told me that traditionally what you get for nothing is still nothing.

Whatever you decide to try, the keys to success are commitment and effort and determination to succeed! Whatever you do, DON’T jump from one opportunity to another without ever really applying yourself to any of them. That is the formula for frustration and failure. That should tell you that you’re looking for something for nothing.

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How do you maximize your site?

By earning some few dollars per click from displaying Adsense ads on it. Many are now realizing that good money is made from this source of revenue. Try the simple mathematical computation of multiplying those clicks for every page on your website and you get a summation of earnings equivalent to a monthly residual income with that little effort you have made.

Google Adsense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant and text-based Google ads on their website?s content pages and earn money in the process. The ads displayed are related to what your users are looking for on your site. This is the main reason why you both can monetize and enhance your content pages using Adsense.

How much you will be earning will depend on how much the advertisers are willing to pay. It will depend also on the keywords required. If the keywords the advertiser have chosen are in high demand, you could receive more dollars per click. On the other hand, low demand keywords will earn you just a few cents per click.

How can you start making profits out of your website using Adsense?

1. Sign up for an Adsense account. It will only take a few minutes of your time.

2. When the site is accepted, you will be receiving a clip code to include in your web pages. You can insert this code on as many pages or web sites that you want. The AdWords will start appearing immediately after.

3. You will be earning a few cents or some dollars per click when someone starts clicking on the AdWords displayed on any of your web pages. Trying to earn false revenues by repetitively clicking on your own ads is a no-no. This will result in a penalty or the possibility of your site being eliminated. The money you have already earned may be lost because of this.

4. View your statistics. Adsense earnings can be checked anytime by logging into your web site account.

Once you got your account working, you may still want to pattern them to the many sites that are earning more money than you are. It is important to note that there are factors affecting how your website will perform and the amount of money it will give you.

It is a common practice that when a site earning money, the tendency is for the owner to want to make more out of what they are getting already. It usually takes some time combined with trial and error to attain what you want for your Adsense contents.

Time and some important factors that you can practice and use.

How do you increase your Adsense earnings?

1. Choose one topic per page. It is best to write a content for your page with just a few targeted phrases. The search engine will then serve ads that are more relevant which will then result in higher clickthoughs.

2. Using white space around your ad. This can make your ad stand out from the rest of your page so visitors can spot them easily. There are also other choices of colors you can use, provided by search engines, which can harmonize the color of your ad with the web page color.

3. Test your ad placement. It is recommended to use the vertical format that runs down the side of the web page to get more positive results. You can also try both horizontal and vertical formats for a certain period of time to see which one will give you better results.

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