D.Marze

Everyone that gets into the Internet Marketing game is looking to make a fortune. Some do and most of them don’t. Most of them actually fail miserably or give up too quickly. So, what separates the people who make it big from those that fail?

It’s all about the mindset that you take and the willpower that you exude. These people who make it big have an undeniable confidence in themselves and are supremely confident in their own abilities. When this confidence is shaken and they are down, they exude their willpower and get back on the horse and ride harder towards their goals than ever and with more resolve than ever!

You see they are not afraid of taking chances. Life is about risk and sometimes you have to take chances in order to be successful. If you are going to be a successful Internet Marketer, you’re going to have to learn to take chances. That doesn’t mean that you’re going to be reckless, but take calculated risks instead. Was there risk involved in creating Microsoft? Google? Etc. Sure, a person is taking a big risk by opening a business. A lot, of bad things can happen, but a lot of good things could happen as well.

Where to Start

The greats always have the end in mind when they are beginning. They not only have their goals in place, but also a detailed plan. This goes for not only your whole life, but for every project that someone undertakes. As an Internet Marketer, you will probably partake on hundreds of projects.

Plan each of them out with the end result in mind, what do you want to get out of this project? What do you want to accomplish with each and every project that you undertake? Try and get all of the projects working towards the same goal or goals of yours.

Too many people get in to Internet Marketing with aspirations of making all this money and making all of their dreams come true, but few ever have a plan to make this happen. They don’t take the time to sit down and think out a business plan for themselves and their business.

They depend on other people to provide them with this information. At the end of the day you have to come up with your own plan of action. You can certainly take all of the information that you get from other people and apply that to your business plan, but don’t expect anyone to provide you with one.

Everyone has different goals and are at different stages of their lives. The individual has to come up with their own individual plan. It is also an ongoing process that needs to be adjusted from time to time, in order to, fit the individuals life.

After you have formulated this plan, take action and don’t look back. Focus on your plan and don’t get distracted. That is a tough thing to do when there are always all these new fads that come and go in the Internet Marketing field. They come and go, they maybe make a few quick bucks with them, but after they go they have nothing to fall back on and they are searching again.

I call these Internet Marketers “Searchers” they spend so much of their time searching, instead of building something of meaning. That is why you build up your business with sound Internet Marketing techniques that, at their core, won’t be going anywhere.

Multiple Streams of Income

The Internet Marketing field can be a very volatile area. It is filled with ups and downs and is full of change. The best thing that you can do to stabilize the situation is to diversify your earnings. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.

It’s somewhat like the stock market, when it is going good you can pick and choose single stocks and make good money. When it isn’t so good and things are volatile, professional money managers will diversify their stocks and spread their money around to avoid the big loss.

I’m not going to just focus on one stream of income because what happens if that stream starts to slow down or die out completely, I’m in big trouble then. If I have several different streams, if one gets in trouble hopefully another one can pick up the slack until things pick up again.

The main reason that people fail in the IM field is obviously because they don’t make enough money. Well one way to avoid this is to keep a constant stream of income coming in while you’re getting started building your business.

Start making some money right off the bat. It will give you something to live on and give you some money to invest in your business. Money to buy domain names, web hosting, maybe outsource some of your work. It also gives you some confidence going forward. Sometimes the toughest dollar to make online is the first one.

Some ways that you can do this is to take up a part-time job online. If you don’t want to do that then you can do some freelance work. If you don’t want to do that sell some things on eBay. There are countless other things that you could do, get creative. Money is money, whether it’s earned online or offline, have a garage sale, cut back on spending, just so you have enough to invest some money in your business. It goes a lot quicker if you have some money to invest.

Build Assets

Earlier I talked about searchers and they are searchers because they haven’t taken the time to build their business. They have no assets to fall back upon after their fads dry up. Instead of improving and growing, they have been squirreling along looking for acorns, while the people that are building a business are growing a tree. Acorns come and go, but the tree stays, the tree is a powerful asset.

If you’re creating your own products then build your mailing list at the same time. You should also build yourself a web site or sites to sell your product and gain other revenue from affiliating other products or monetizing the site in a way of your choosing.

These things are all assets that you can rely on for the rest of your life. Having several products that you can sell over and over again are great assets to have. Web sites are good assets to have and a mailing list is the grand daddy of assets. When you combine all of these assets you have a powerful business going forward for years to come.

You just keep on creating more and more products, expanding your web site or web sites and keep adding to your mailing list and keeping them happy. You will see your bottom line rise week to week and month to month. The feeling of progress is not only a great feeling of accomplishment, but the success gets addicting and you keep striving to make more. Produce more assets and make more money.

Taking it to the Next Level

Once you start making some money online, it’s a good thing, but you want to take it to the next level! Take it to the big time. When I got to this stage, I wondered how that I was going to do it. I had some products and I had started building a mailing list and I had dabbled in a few different areas. Well I came up with a plan and a schedule.

I remember it was on a Sunday night, perfect for planning my week. I knew that I wanted to expand across the board in a number of areas. I didn’t just want to grow one area at a time, so this is the plan that I came up with.

I planned on putting in 40 hours this week, eight hours per day.

Monday

- 2 hours writing new e-book on x topic

- 2 hours working on my web site, that sells my own products and affiliates others

- 2 hours getting as much traffic as humanly possible to my sales page that my best product was on

- 2 hours spent towards becoming an eBay powerseller

The next four days were scheduled identical to Monday. An easy enough set-up, but I started to see some real results across the board, I was building assets and gaining more streams of income. I was also building my list by having everyone who bought my products, sign up for my list.

So, as you could see, in just one week I was building a great thing that I was going to be able to rely on for years. The top dogs keep on improving, they keep on pushing for more and are never satisfied.

Vendors and affiliate managers are going to work hard to get you on their virtual team of sales people. The sales copy on some of the affiliate pages will be nearly irresistible, promising big commissions and loads of sales. They’ll have you thinking about buying a new sports car or going on an exotic vacation with all your commissions… and this before you even join the affiliate program!

What you need to do is cut through the hype

to find the very best offers to promote.

Doing so will not only put more money in your pocket, it will also lighten your workload and protect your reputation.

Here’s what to look for:

• Good support. Send an email to the affiliate manager (or call them if they have phone support). Is there someone on the other end promptly and courteously answering inquiries? If so, that’s a good sign.

• Proven track record. Spend a few minutes with your friend Google to dig up everything you can on the product and the vendor. You’re looking for someone who has a good history and a solid reputation.

• Training materials. Even if you’re an expert affiliate marketer, take a peek inside the affiliate program area to see if they provide training materials for affiliates. If so, that’s a sign that they care about their affiliates and your success.

• Pre-sell content. Look for affiliate programs that provide emails, solo ads, classified ads, banner ads, articles, reports and other pre-sell content you can use.

• High conversion rate. You can ask the vendor for the conversion rate. But the only way to know for sure is to test it for yourself.

Tip: A PPC campaign is a fast and easy way to test a new product’s conversion rate.

• High commissions. If you’re selling physical products or services, you can’t expect commission rates much over 10% or so. But if you’re selling digital products, then look for commission rates of at least 50%.

• Backend commissions. Some products offer one-time-offers or other upsells. Check to see that you get credit for those, too.

• No sales leaks. Finally, make sure the sales page and the vendor’s sales process doesn’t have any sales leaks. For example, make sure the sales page doesn’t have an alternative payment method (such as phone or through a different payment processor) that would cut out your commission if the customer uses it.

Drop by Google.com and do a little research. Ask around at your favorite forum for recommendations on top affiliate program offers.

Writing and submitting ezine articles is a great way to drive targeted traffic to your site. And best of all, each of your articles can draw in traffic for weeks, months and even years after it first goes live online.

Most article marketers create informative yet generic articles, which they use to drive traffic to any number of affiliate links or even their own squeeze page.

But here’s the thing:

Sometimes your prospect needs to be lead by the hand

and shown the exact solution to their problem.

If he spends even five minutes researching, he’ll see an overwhelming number of solutions to his problems.

Sometimes even the same article may recommend multiple solutions. It’s confusing.

That’s where your specific article comes in.

You take the position of a strong leader, take your prospect by the hand,
and confidently lead him to the best solution.

He doesn’t even have to think about it because you’re showing him what product to choose.

That’s one possibility.

Sometimes, however, your prospects are also looking for specific information about specific products. They may be on the verge of making the buying decision, but they need confirmation from someone else.

Your product-specific article can serve as that confirmation… which means you pocket a quick commission!

Tip: There are plenty of places to submit your articles online. One of the best places is EzineArticles.com.

Other directories include IdeaMarketers.com, Buzzle.com, GoArticles.com, and ArticleCity.com.

If you have more than one article, then set up a Squidoo.com lens or a HubPages.com hub.

Let me give you three examples to show you what I mean:

Example #1: You create an article titled “How I Improved My Golf Score In 30 Seconds!” Then the article gives the reader tips and tricks for improving the golfer’s stance and swing. It ends by talking about how the biggest improvements came when you used Brand XYZ golf clubs.

Note: Naturally, DON’T use an example like this if the clubs don’t actually improve your game.

Example #2: You create a “how to” article that gives people the secrets of growing big, tasty tomatoes. The article takes the reader through all the steps of planting, nurturing and harvesting. The money-maker? Your article explicitly recommends the reader buy “Tomato Tree” plants in order to get good results (and you provide your affiliate link, of course).

Example #3: You create an article that provides useful but incomplete information about how to save a faltering marriage, “Seven Ways to Save a Marriage.” The article gives the reader a good starting point, but she’ll need to purchase the “Save a Marriage” book through your affiliate link to get all the information.

You get the idea.

And this can literally work for any market and niche. In other words, it can work for you.

Originally I was going to leave this one out of the report simply because it’s obvious. However, the report would be incomplete without it, because one valid way to increase your affiliate commissions is to increase your traffic.

Let me be blunt: Affiliate marketing is a numbers game.

If you want to make more money, you’re going to have to massage one of the numbers. We’ve talked about a number of tips to increase your numbers, such as by massaging the conversion rate (by building a list and relationships first), and boosting your commission rate.

Now here’s another number that’s easy to manipulate: Namely, by –

Increasing the number of targeted visitors who see your offer.

Makes sense, right?

If you’re making $100 for every 100 visitors, then an easy way to make more money is to get your links in front of more people.

If 500 see your link this month, you make $500. If 5000 see it, you make $5000.

And so on.

There are dozens of ways to drum up more traffic, including (but not limited to):

• Using content marketing such as article marketing, blogging, etc.

• Working with joint venture partners.

• Taking advantage of media marketing, including social networking, social bookmarking, and submitting your content to sites like Squidoo.com and YouTube.com.

• Creating and distributing free reports, free videos and other viral pieces.

• Getting traffic from the PPC search engines as well as the organic search engines.

• Distributing press releases.

• Building your mailing list.

• Blogging.

And so on.

More traffic = more commissions. End of story.

Remember earlier when I said it’s easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to a first-time customer?

Here’s something else:

It’s easier to sell to a “warm” customer than a cold customer.

And one way to warm-up and pre-sell your customers is keeping in frequent contact with them using a newsletter list.

Consider this: Imagine you’re directly promoting your affiliate link. If you’re pulling a 2% conversion rate on a particular product, that means you’re selling 2 products for every 100 targeted visitors.

What a waste!

You have 98 targeted visitors just slipping through your fingers, never to be heard from again.

Ouch! That’s gonna leave a mark.

So instead of sending your targeted visitors to the merchant’s page,
you instead send all your visitors to your squeeze page.

Instead of making a couple sales here and there, you’re now building a list – and you’re building relationships.

Since people buy from those they know, like and trust, your conversion rates will explode.

Plus now you’re NOT wasting visitors.

If your squeeze page is persuasive enough, your freebie attractive enough and your visitors are highly targeted, you could be getting 25%, 35%, or even more of these visitors onto your mailing list!

Now instead of getting one shot to sell one
product to them, you can promote as many products
(and make as many sales!) as you’d like.

You can do this over and over for as long as your subscribers stay on your list. And you’ll make a lot more money with this list than if you let 98% or 99% of your visitors wander away!

One of the things that I highly recommend you do in order to really get people to join your list is to…

Disclose Highly Desirable “Results”

The idea here is to inform the visitor to your opt-in page that in your special report or mini-course (I.E. Your list offer), you’ll be revealing exactly how you achieved some desirable result – with the implication that they can duplicate your method if not your success.

“Here’s how I did XYZ in XYZ with XYZ“.

One of my favorite examples for this is my friend John Reese. If you visit his AuctionSecrets.com site you’ll notice a list offer midway through his salesletter. Here’s what John says…

——- Begin John’s Opt-In Offer ——–

As you’ve probably already read, I actually made over $38,000 in PROFIT from one single auction on eBay. And I know exactly what you’re thinking!

“He must have sold a car or some kind of real estate…”

If you thought that you’d be wrong!

What’s even more amazing about that one auction is that it was something that I bought for $100. Yep, 100 bucks. Not a bad profit, eh? I think that’s something like over 300,000% return. I’d say that was a “good” investment.

You can learn EXACTLY how I made the $38,450.27 PROFIT in my FREE…

5-Day Email Mini-Course, “The eBay Home Business Explosion!”

——- End John’s Opt-In Offer ——–

Now, I ask you, if you’re even remotely interested in selling on eBay, could you possibly resist joining his list to find out how he did it? Of course not. It’s irresistible. And that’s the point.

You want to inform the visitors to your opt-in page that you’ll be revealing some specific information on tremendous results you’ve achieved. And hint at some “amazing” aspect of your results. Look at John’s copy, not only did he mention that he made $38,450.27 on ONE auction, but he also stated that he did it with something he bought for only $100. Now there is a built-in curiosity factor. Not only do I want to know “how” he did it, but I also want to know “what” he sold to do it!

See how compelling this is?

Disclosure of tremendous results + hint of an amazing aspect = irresistible urge to join your list!

Note: People are inherently lazy and want something for nothing or something very easy. (Listen, I point to myself as well on this – it’s just a fact of life, all things being equal, we’d like things done with as little effort as possible.) If you can point to a shortcut you have figured out, an idea or tool for automating a process, a way to avoid a troublesome mistake or the ability to get someone else to do it for you, you’ll have a very powerful motivating factor for getting people to subscribe to your list.