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Why Are 95% Of Internet Marketers Unsuccessful?

By Graham Bray in Featured

It’s an unnerving fact, but of all potential internet marketing wannabees, only 5% go on to sell products and make a success of their ventures. There is a huge drop-out rate with the vast majority failing to make it even past the first hurdle.

Why do so many people give up before they’ve barely begun? These figures are in stark contrast to those published for more traditional business start-ups. According to statistics published by the Small Business Administration (SBA), seven out of ten new employer establishments survive at least two years and 51 percent survive at least five years. This is a far cry from the previous long-held belief that 50 percent of businesses fail in the first year and 95 percent fail within five years.

So why the big difference? One of the key factors is the ease with which internet businesses can be started. What are your initial outgoings? – a simple website, a product, a domain name, a hosting company, an autoresponder? All of these can be collated for less than $500. If you’re not even willing to do this simple stage yourself, then there are many, many ‘gurus’ who will offer to set up sites on your behalf.

Compare this with a traditional business owner. They will have to find premises, source all of the stock, possibly find employees, arrange for accountants and lawyers to look after the financial and legal side of things… and the list goes on. I’ve just done some “back of an envelope” calculations for starting up a new traditional business, and the figures are a little eye-watering! One time start-up expenses would be in the region of $40,500, with monthly ongoing costs in the region of $12,000. Assuming that it may take 6 months to get established and consistently find customers, then the total start-up costs for the first six months amounts to $112,500!

Let’s just put the two figures side-by-side. $500 for an internet business start-up and $112,500 for a traditional business start-up. Guess who’s going to be more committed to their business!

The key word here is ‘investment’. The more you’re willing to invest in your business, the more willing you will be to stick with it and really give it your best shot. Who in their right mind would be willing to throw away $112,500? In contrast, giving up a $500 internet business is no great loss.

It frustrates me when I receive emails from wannabee internet marketers who quibble about paying $197 for a product that could really launch them into a profitable online business. Get real! – if you’re really committed to your internet dream then do your homework, shop around a bit and then make a commitment.

I speak here from experience. One of my passions is trading on the foreign exchange markets and stock exchanges. When I first started I looked for the cheapest system available, and ended up purchasing a number of these, all $50 or less. Without exception the systems were complete and utter rubbish!

After months of frustration it began to dawn on me (I’m a slow learner!) that if I continued to pay peanuts then I would continue to get monkeys. I therefore spent some time looking for the best system and eventually invested over $3000 in a suitable product. I can honestly say that I have not been disappointed – the level of support and training has been fantastic, and I have an effective system that will continue to generate an income for me.

Recently I made a similar decision with my internet marketing. For years I dabbled, and purchased many ‘products’ that were more or less scams. I then found a system being offered by some guys I know well and trust, invested a significant amount of money, and my marketing has gone from strength to strength.

It hasn’t been easy, but because of my investment I am willing to make the necessary commitment of time and effort.

So what about you? Are you still trying to get your business started ‘on the cheap’? Or are you willing to do your homework and make an investment in your future? Do you want to be one of the 5% who succeed, or are you going to continue failing and remain in the 95%? I think that the answer is obvious, but at the end of the day it’s got to be your decision. I wonder what you’ll decide to do?

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Graham Bray is an enthusiastic internet marketer, and for nearly five years he has been developing websites as part of his Multiple Income Pathways. To learn more about internet marketing and how you can download newsletters, training videos and a *free audio recording and transcript* visit his blog at http://www.easierinternetmarketing.com

10 Major Online Marketing Mistakes

By Terri Seymour in Featured

Online marketing, also called internet marketing is forever evolving and if you own an online business you need to keep abreast of all the options available to you and your business. Building a business is a learning process and we all will make mistakes. The main thing is to learn from our mistakes so as not to make them again. In my years of online marketing I have learned a lot and want to share with you, what I think, are 10 of the major online marketing mistakes.

1. Not Collecting Email Addresses - Have you ever heard the statement, the money is in the list? Your list can be your
goldmine. If you are not collecting email addresses, you need to start now. Put a sign-up form on your site so people can sign up to your mailing list, newsletter, RSS, articles, etc. Offer them a free bonus for signing up. You will be able to collect a list of names with which to send your special offers, sales, etc. and greatly increase your income potential. Be sure to include an opt-out in all mailings. This will give your subscribers the chance to remove themselves from your mailing list if they so choose. Also, never add a person’s email address to your list without their permission.

2. Not Being Social - Social networking has exploded on the internet. Millions of people use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many other popular sites. If you are not using these sites for your business, you are making a grave error. People will be finding other businesses and not even know you or your business exist.

Affiliate Merchant Mistakes To Beware Of

By Jeff Schuman in Featured

You will no doubt make many mistakes in your affiliate marketing career. One thing you do not need is help from your affiliate merchant in adding to that.

I have found over the years that not all affiliate programs are created equal. Surprisingly to me there are many affiliate programs that do not do a very good job of representing their product in a way that will benefit the affiliate marketer the most.

Here are a handful of mistakes I see affiliate programs make. You may want to think twice before joining a program like this.

1. Building the affiliate merchant’s list first. This is become somewhat of a pet peeve of mine as I see affiliate merchants building large lists at the expense of their affiliates.

Most of them will tell you that they will continue to follow up with the subscribers and to promote your affiliate ID number. However, when a new product is launched the merchant is going to contact those affiliates and you are not going to get credit for the sale.

If you are promoting a program that sells a product the emphasis by the merchant should be put on making the sale, not building their list first. Before you join any affiliate program you can take a look at the sales pace to see where that merchant is putting their priorities.

2. Build your own website first. This is a way to avoid the mistake we just read about.

If you are going to promote a product where the merchant wants to build their list, build your list first. The way to do that is to promote your own landing page and have subscribers go into your autoresponder before passing them through to the affiliate sales page.

In reality this is a better approach to doing affiliate marketing anyway. Building an email list is an excellent asset that allows you to make money online in many ways in the future.

3. Greed by the merchant. You can get a pretty good idea how the merchant values their affiliates by how much they are willing to pay.

Some affiliate merchants are greedy. They would prefer to keep more money for themselves. The smart ones do not do this.

They understand that the best affiliate marketers are greedy. If you develop into a super affiliate you can always contact any merchant and negotiate a better rate.

The smart merchants are willing to pay more to both their regular affiliates and super affiliates.

4. Lack of marketing materials. There is no need as an affiliate for you to have an overabundance of affiliate marketing materials.

However, today there are many ways to promote on the Internet. The best affiliate programs will provide banners of various sizes, pre-written email marketing messages, landing pages for you to promote, and videos that can be customized for video marketing.

There really are a lot of excellent affiliate merchants you can join today. Be cautious of the merchant who is making mistakes that can hurt you as an affiliate before joining any program. To make money online with affiliate programs you want to join the right merchants from the start.

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If you enjoyed this article by Jeff Schuman please visit his article marketing website today. If you are not an article writer he offers a hands off program for getting backlinks and traffic using the power of writing and submitting articles. http://www.HandsOffArticleMarketing.com

10 Biggest Internet Marketing Myths Exposed

By David Jackson in Featured

Merriam-Webster defines a myth as “a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon.”

It’s been said all myths are based in fact. Whether or not that’s true is debatable. What isn’t debatable, however, is like society, Internet Marketing also has its myths. This article exposes what I consider to be the 10 biggest Internet Marketing myths.

1. You Don’t Need Any Money to Do Business on the Internet

You wouldn’t expect to advertise on TV, radio, in newspapers, magazines, or any other media for free would you? Yet, for some strange reason, people think they can just come online and not spend any money, and advertise their business for free. To me, that shows an utter lack of respect for the single most important communication medium since television.

7 Campaign Killing Affiliate Marketing Mistakes

By John Thornhill in Featured

Affiliate marketing is becoming more and more popular, especially with the current state of the economy. High unemployment rates have many people turning to the internet as a means of making ends meet.

It sounds great at first. You’re told all you have to do is start a free blog and write a few articles, and you can achieve wild riches. Many people buy into this myth, and are let down after weeks go by and they haven’t made a single dollar.

Believe it or not, more than ninety percent of internet entrepreneurs fold up shop within the first month. Once reality sets in, it’s easy to get discouraged. Affiliate marketing, like any other business, requires hard work and effort for success to become a reality.

In this article, we’re going to discuss seven of the worst mistakes that an affiliate marketer can make. If you can avoid these career killing pitfalls, you’ll have a good chance at becoming a successful affiliate marketer.

1. Using Free Services

The problem with many affiliate marketers is they don’t want to make an investment into their business. This is due in part to all of the tutorials available that instruct marketers to use free services. While there is nothing wrong with free services, the lack of imminent control over one’s content can be a problem. If the company providing the free service decided to delete your account, or went out of business, you could lose content that may have been making you some money.

2. Promoting The Wrong Product

Market research is especially important in affiliate marketing. Many affiliates promote products that have a very low demand, hence making it near impossible to succeed. Researching your chosen niche is crucial.

3. Promoting Too Many Products

It’s easy to lose focus. There are so many great products to promote that many affiliate marketers try to promote five or ten products at once. It’s not good to spread yourself so thin. Rather than promoting ten products and giving ten percent effort to each, it’s better to put one-hundred percent effort into promoting a single product.

4. Not Starting An Email List

Many affiliate marketers refuse to believe in the importance of email marketing. This is partly due to the wealth of information available about article marketing. Many are led to believe that article marketing is a miracle money maker. While it’s true that money can be made this way, it’s much better to establish a contact and build trust with a potential buyer through email.

5. Spamming

Spam is a gray area when it comes to affiliate marketing. Basically, spamming is blatantly promoting your products or services to those who didn’t ask for information. The worst kind of spam is email spam. Many affiliate marketers engage in this without even knowing. Spamming is a surefire way to ruin your reputation as a marketer.

6. Not Writing Unique Content

Affiliate marketing requires a lot of writing. It usually comes in the form of sales copy, classified ads, and articles. Since outsourcing the work is costly, many affiliate marketers turn to what’s known as private label rights, or “PLR” articles. These are articles that have been written specifically for the use of others. The problem is that they have been sold to many people. This means that they are no longer unique. Most marketers rewrite the content before publishing, but the general idea of the article remains the same. Content is king on the internet, and those that write fresh, exciting content will always have a leg up on the competition.

7. Not Using The Products They Promote

A great way to promote affiliate marketing products is by writing reviews. However, many affiliate marketers review products that they don’t own. If written properly, this can be effective. For the most part, though, readers can tell if the reviewer has actually tried the product. It’s not a good idea to recommend a product to anyone that you don’t like and use. If you don’t purchase the product, you can’t honestly know if you like it. If the product isn’t quality, and you continue to recommend it, you’ll quickly lose customers and tarnish your reputation.

Affiliate marketing is hard work. However, you shouldn’t get discouraged. The best advice I could give you is to avoid making the above mistakes, and NEVER, EVER give up! Persistence and knowledge are the two most important tools you could possess if you want to be a successful affiliate marketer.

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John Thornhill is a full time Internet Marketer and has sold thousands of products as an affiliate. Find out more about John and his no nonsense marketing approach at his blog: ,a href=”http://www.planetsmsblog.com/”>www.planetsmsblog.com

5 Reasons Why Most Internet Marketers Fail

By Titus Hoskins in Featured

When it comes to starting any endeavor, whether it be learning a new hobby or starting an online business, we all have to start at ground zero. We all have to start at the very beginning from the very same place. Granted, we each bring different skills and backgrounds into the mix, but for the most part we are all on equal footing at the starting line.

If this is the case, then we really have to ponder why is it only a choice few go on to succeed, while most people don’t. Just what are the reasons why most online marketers fail? This is the core question that has to be answered if you want to fully understand Internet marketing and how it works.

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