Internet Marketing Quiddity

What's the most important issue with running an Internet Marketing Business? Some would say have a great product and an irresistible offer, because with nothing to sell, no-one's going to buy! Others would say Traffic Generation, because without traffic, no-one sees your offer. Others would say its Traffic Conversion, because all the traffic in the world is useless if no-one is taking any action. Getting more sophisticated, you might say it's getting sufficient Income Per Visitor (i.e. the total amount you earn, on average, for every visitor to your site - taking account the lifetime income you get from each customer). And so on. But, of course, ALL of those issues are important. You obviously need something to sell (somewhere along the line), and you won't have a viable business unless you have traffic, and that traffic has to convert well, and your income per visitor is sufficient for you to be able to spend enough on generating MORE traffic so your business grows. So what's the problem for Internet Marketers? The formula is pretty straightforward, isn't it? Perhaps it's a shortage of advice? Perhaps people don't know how to generate traffic or convert it or create a product (or find an affiliate product)? But I don't think that is the case. I suspect if you could search on the hard drive of any internet marketer who's been in the business for a few months, you'd find eBooks and videos and audios and links to membership sites that are full of advice about all those topics. So on that basis, I would suggest that none of those issues is the a critical issue. I would say that the two most critical issues for Internet Marketers are:

• Being Organized

and

• Staying Focused

Staying focused means having a plan or an agenda and sticking to it: not being distracted. Being organized means having processes and organizational systems (such a folder structures) so you know where to store all your information and records, and where to find them again rapidly. I believe these are such important points that I created a seminar for Internet Marketers on just these two issue. It's on Monday 1st September, at 7.00 pm Easter - and it's free! (Find the time in your time-zone)

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Technorati Tags: internet marketing focus, internet marketing organization, internet marketing planning, internet marketing strategy, traffic generation

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*** File under "Business Strategy" in your IM Index Mind Map - click for details. Internet marketing blueprints. The much searched-for golden egg of making money on the Internet. We are all searching for that one effective, sure-fire, guaranteed step-by-step guide to riches. Preferably, it should be "secret" and "never-before-revealed". We are all ready to make the sacrifices of time and effort. And we are even ready to learn a few skills (HTML, how to use FTP, CPanel etc.) All we need is someone to give us the exact steps. The formula. "Just gimmi the goddam blueprint!" Here is what Ralph Waldo Emerson has to say about this:

"As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble."

An Internet Marketing blueprint is, in essence, a "method". So we could paraphrase and get:

"As to Internet Marketing blueprints there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully create his own Internet Marketing blueprints. The man who tries Internet Marketing blueprints, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble."

I couldn't agree more. Time and again, I read sales material about some way to make money on the Internet, and a key "benefit" of the product is that it is 100% Practical - No Theory! In Emerson's terms, that means "100% Method - no Principles". And in Emerson's view - and mine - that is a recipe for failure. And people love that idea because it means (they assume) that they don't have to think! They don't mind working hard and perhaps learning a few skills, but thinking? - no thanks! Here's a specific example from my own experience. I recently signed up to follow a blueprint about Social Marketing. It is probably one of the best and most comprehensive step-by-step guides to building traffic using social networks and blogging. But I have to say .... "phew"! To be fair, the people who put it together make it clear that it's hard work, and they don't pretend there's no thinking involved. But the amount of detail is massive. To follow it through requires a huge amount of dedication (which they make clear from the outset). And few people actually manage it all. I quickly realized that I was never going to be able to follow all the steps, and for a lot of the time, I had no idea why many of the steps were there, nor what many of the terms meant. So I stopped following the steps and decided to try and extract the Principles. What I've ended up with is a Mind Map containing the concepts, the principles and the resources organized in a convenient form. And now, I can develop my own blueprint - my own step-by-step guide - that fits in with my own needs and time availability. The guys who put this system together are honest, respected people who know their field inside out and back to front, and they've put a huge amount of effort into making their system easily accessible and easy to use. But it could be so much better. They are no different from 99% of other people providing guidance in the Internet Marketing world (and many other worlds as well). Knowing a subject well is not a qualification for being able to organize and structure it so that others can learn it. The way people learn, the mix of theory and practice, the different types of expertise, and how they are acquired and developed, the forms of practical support needed for different types of task and different stages of learning - these are all deep and complex issues that are not considered by people creating learning and guidance systems. These are - dare I say it - knowledge management issues!

Technorati Tags: emerson, ForFB, internet marketing blueprints, internet marketing strategy, making money on the internet, ralph waldo emerson

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I'm going to ask a big favour of you.

Please, for my sake: do NOT create your own internet marketing strategy and absolutely NEVER get as far as having anything that even resembles an internet marketing business plan.

You see, once you have a strategy and plan in place, I'm going to find it three or four times as hard to sell you anything. The affiliate promotions I try and peddle to you are going to be very ineffective because you're going to know exactly what it is you want and need at this particular point in your business. And if what I send you doesn't meet that need - you'll simply ignore it.

And that means I make less money, and you keep more of yours.

So let me repeat: don't create an internet marketing strategy or plan. Stay confused and undecided. Make it easy for me to persuade you to change your mind about what you were about to do.

Basically, hop, skip and jump to my agenda. Don't bother with your own.

-----

Just in case there's someone out there who's not getting this (and there's usually at least one!): I'm being ironic.

You MUST at all costs have a strategy and plan in place, otherwise you'll never get anywhere with your business. (And if you really are concerned that I won't be making enough money after giving you this excellent advice for free - I thank you sincerely for your consideration and suggest you simply donate to my Paypal account!)

In the internet marketing world we are constantly being bombarded with promotions and offers: it's just the internet marketers doing their job in the internet marketing niche.

No problem.

Except that those of us trying to build our businesses are subjected to the most intense and professional barrage of promotions anywhere on the planet! And that can be a BIG and EXPENSIVE distraction.

To help you, just keep this simple idea in mind:

The promoters try their hardest to get you into their agenda: they provide free eBooks, email courses, videos; they get you thinking their way; they prove that their way works.. you get sucked in to THEIR agenda.

Watch out for this. Spot it early.

And then re-establish YOUR agenda and commit to following THAT instead.

Don't be suckered in!

To read more about this, see my Laser-Focus Shield.

Alex

Technorati Tags: internet marketing planning, internet marketing promotions, internet marketing strategy

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