That was the title of a forum post over at Standing Start Profits that I read yesterday. The question was asked by a “newbie” who’d just joined and was looking for a bit of advice.
My reply to the poster is below. It was just one of the many replies given by the very knowledgable and positive minded members at Lee McIntyre’s site which, by the way, is well worth checking out if you havn’t already.
Anyway, this is the advice I gave…
I’m certainly no expert but from what I’ve learnt my suggestion would be to concentrate on the following…
- List Building and building a strong relationship with your list. Use a 3rd party autoresponder, not one you install on your webhost server. The deliverability will be much better. I strongly recommend Aweber. It’s $20 a month but well worth it for the reliability, support and features you get.
- Creating your own products (mainly paid but also some free for list building, traffic generation, relationship building etc)
- Traffic Generation. Your own blog is a great way to start generating traffic and leads for your products. Also outsource article submission, social tagging, blog commenting etc.
- Build relationships with other marketers. Ring them up, email them, help them out in forums etc, promote their products if you like them, do interviews (I did one with Lee…google “Lee McIntyre Interview” to see how viral its gone.)
- Get out from behind your computer once in a while and go meet other marketers in person at seminars, workshops etc. They’re far more likely to promote your products if they know you personally. Do what it takes to get on their radar!
- Try to outsource or automate as much of the tedious, time consuming stuff as you can. Don’t try to do everything yourself…you’ll burn yourself out. Think of it as a business from the outset and value your time.
- Take action and don’t procrastinate or get sidetracked. Write out your goals for each day and stick to it.
Now as I say above, I’m still learning this game and a long, long way off making internet marketing my full-time living. So make of it what you will.
Having said that, I’d have been thankful of the above advice when I started out because it’s largely based on my previous experiences and mistakes, some intermittent success nowadays, and from talking to and observing other marketers and how they operate.
For instance James D. Brausch has an incredible outsourcing strategy in place via his intern program. According to his blog (which I also believe is outsourced to his interns writing under his “Diego” penname), he has around 400 interns helping run his business at any one time.
Now that’s leverage!
And I’ve talked previously about building business relationships with other marketers. It’s often overlooked by beginners (I didn’t consider it when I started out) but having a network of successful marketers you can collaborate and do joint ventures with, is pretty much a prerequisite for success.
That’s why online learning communities like Standing Start Profits are well worth joining just for the opportunity to network with other serious marketers, let alone the great tutorials Lee provides.
Ofcourse, the most important thing you can do is start to build a list of highly targeted subscribers. It’s the best asset your business will have.
Forget about trying to bombard your list with offer after offer though. That might have worked a few years back but not now. Today, web visitors are much more clued up and will only continue to subscribe to your list if you provide great valuable content that they benefit from.
At last year’s Britpack UK seminar, I heard about one very well known marketer whom despite having a huge six-figure list, was apparently struggling to make more than a trickle of sales from his affiliate promotions. Why? Because he hadn’t spent anytime cultivating a relationship with the people on his list. Instead all they got was one promotional mailing after another. No tutorials or tips or advice…nothing.
No doubt they were unsubscribing in droves too!
Anyway, that’s my take on things. What about you? What advice would you give to someone starting out in internet marketing? Why not post a comment below and let me know.
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I totally agree! You hit all the main points! The things you mentioned are starting to really *click* with me.
It’s really all about building a list (relationships) and have your own product to sell.
I love the point you made about observing other marketers. You will find a lot of valuable information just from observing.
Hi Graham,
this is a fantastic site! I would just add a graphic header at the top versus what you have - but other than that very well done.
Tracy Repchuk
Bestselling author of 31 Days to Millionaire Marketing Miracles
http://www.internetmarketingnewbieclub.com
Thanks to you both for the kind words.
Lisa - watching other marketers is one of the best ways to learn nowadays. Particularly things like how they write copy, and the mechanics of a product launch. Invaluable, if you can step back from the sales pitch enough to actually study it!
Tracy - glad you like the site. I keep meaning to drop you a line to tell you where I’m at with my product launch. I will be in touch shortly with an update for you.
Agree about the header. It’s bland as hell I know. I’ll be changing my blog very soon to the thesis theme at diythemes.com at which point I’ll be adding a nice logo and swish everything up a bit.
Cheers…Graham
Graham,
Great list, and point #7 is the key. Nothing will happen until you get off the couch, and do something.
I wasted so much time gathering information & studying. I kept thinking I needed to learn one more thing before getting started.
#7 really is important.
Keith Goodrum’s last blog post..Links, Subscribers & Comments Can Make Your Blog Grow…