Serious Marketing Guide

Believe it or not organization is one of the most important elements for success when it comes to making money online. I’m a kind of guy who likes things to be in order anyway, but I’ll tell you about a few key secrets that I believe will contribute to your success online.

First and very important it’s an absolute must that you keep your business finances separate from your personal finances. I recommend having 2-3 credit cards that you use for business purchases only. Yes I’m a big fan of credit cards as long as you pay them off monthly. If you don’t plan on paying off your business credit cards monthly, then you should plan for many headaches. That’s all I’m going to say about that. Get just about any book on responsibly managing your finances from Amazon or your favorite bookstore and the author will say the same thing. Paying off your credit cards every month is just as important for your business as it is for your personal finances. I also highly recommend getting some type of financial software as soon as possible. I started out with Quickbooks about 4 months after I started my business and have loved it ever since. I also recommend some kind of Quickbooks for Dummies or Bible type book to help you get started. Many people complain about the complexity of Quickbooks, but hands down I believe it’s the best program for online business accounting. If you can’t afford Quickbooks then use a spreadsheet. There are a couple of other tools that I believe are more important before you buy Quickbooks. Whatever you do, try to keep business stuff separate from personal stuff, including your time. This isn’t an article about time management, there are plenty of those out there, but just do whatever it takes to schedule time to develop your business and schedule personal time to do other stuff. When you’re scheduled to do business stuff, don’t go searching on ebay for that widescreen TV you’ve been wanting. I also highly recommend getting some type of filing cabinet to keep track of your records. Some people think that there’s not much to keep track of if you’ve got an online business but that’s just not true. If you sell some type of product in your business then you’re going to need to keep track of orders that customers have made for you as well as orders that you’ve placed with vendors, as well as credit card and bank statements and several other miscellaneous items.

Even if all you do is affiliate marketing then you still need to have a filing system to keep track purchases you make like an autoresponder, web hosting, software that you purchase like SEO Elite etc. If you plan to have a successful business then it’s very important get these organizational issues in order. Everything doesn’t need to be done right away but I would get it done as soon as possible. Organization will take some practice and diligence and not being too hard on yourself when you mess up, but you can do it. Don’t give up.

The Money is in the List? I am sure that you have heard this before.

If you are involved with Internet marketing, you have probably heard it over and over again. But, Is it True? Absolutely!! I am involved with affiliate marketing and the great thing is that you do not need a product to begin making money. There are thousands of viable products available that you can make a great income on. Whatever your interest or your niche is, there are plenty of products waiting for you to make money with. There is also plenty of room for you to create and promote your own product. Provided of course that it is a good one. As for affiliate programs, they are very simple to get started with. You just need to sign up for their affiliate program, promote it, and watch the money start rolling in (hopefully). This is all great, but then what? Most likely you would find another product and start all over again. What if, when you find or create this new product, you already have hundreds or thousands of people to instantly tell about it? You can shoot them a quick email and have immediate money in your pocket. Then you can start advertising this product and create even more people for your next great idea. As you can imagine, this process can take on a snowball effect.

Before you know it, your primary income will be from your online business.

Now you can work from home! How do you go about starting a list? One of the best ways is to create a squeeze page. This is a simple one page website that is designed to capture your visitors name and email address. You can do this by offering a free report, a free subscription to your newsletter, or both. Once you have their information they are added to your auto responder and they are a part or your list. At this time you would redirect them to your affiliate product website or to your own website with a link. You have now created a potential customer for your current and your future products. When you start to email them regularly make sure that you are offering them something of value. Some ideas include: useful information, free reports, free software, and creative ideas that you come across. You can than suggest your product and offer a link to your product or affiliate page. Build up your product with a strong sales message and watch the sales start pouring in. One piece of advice, do not oversell to your list. This is a very valuable resource and should not be jeopardized. You need to give good solid information and only promote worthwhile products. Treat your list as a group of friends that you want to help with the information that you are providing.

Not as another dollar in your pocket. Just follow the golden rule and treat your list as you would want to be treated and you will be on your way to success.

Some time ago I was savagely attacked by a bee while innocently enjoying a tipple of sherry in the living room. In the process of battling it (flailing my arms about frantically and screaming like a lunatic) the front door SLAMMED shut so hard that the lock broke instantly. I had to call a locksmith to fix it and do you know how much he charged? Ј90! That’s about $160 if you’re across the atlantic by the way. He didn’t change it. He didn’t even change any of the parts. As far as I could tell he simply twiddled at it with some metal thingy (i think they call it a screwdriver) and then stuck me with a ridiculous bill. I had no option but to pay it. The thing is I checked, and that’s the going rate for a locksmith in London. And do you know WHY they get away with charging such high rates? Because it’s a SPECIAL SKILL. Most people can’t do it. What does this have to do with you? Absolutely everything. You see, YOUR specialist knowledge is absolutely priceless online. If you happen to be an internet business entrepreneur (like me) you can make an absolute BOMB simply by knowing more than most, and having more skills than most. Because people will pay (sometimes exorbidant sums of) cash for your specialist skills knowledge. And the potential is even more potent in the internet arena where new techniques, systems, methods technologies are born almost daily.

Think about that the next time you’re struggling with trying something new online. Because once you sort it out, you can probably write your own ticket by having that skill or knowledge. Here are just a few examples of the type of online specialist skills knowledge I’m talking about:  Creating simple websites.  Understanding penetrating new niche markets.  Installing scripts.  Creating information products software.  Creating graphics.  Pulling in traffic.  Building Opt In Lists.  Setting up membership sites.  Creating Audio/Video.  Creating podcasts RSS feeds.  Creating high-ticket courses. You see, just this small list of topics require SPECIALIST KNOWLEDGE too. This means that like the locksmith, once you start to master them, and know where to find customers who are looking for them, you can start charging those high market prices for them yourself. A lot of people want to earn a massive amount of money online. They want $5,000 or $10,000 online. There’s nothing wrong with that at all but if you’re starting out from scratch then it takes some time and application to develop your skills knowledge online. Perhaps you already have a SPECIALIST SKILL? If so, start to think about how you can market that skill online. The next section of this article looks at how and where to freelance your skills for immediate gains. Freelancing – The Opportunities For YOU Are Endless. Here’s What To Sell, Where To Find Work How To Set-Up A Freelancing Business Selling Your Skills Online! It’s almost startling the way that the entire world is rushing online to conduct business. Did you know that there are an estimated 8 billion websites floating around on the world wide web? That number is going up as we speak. It’s good news. Because as more and more people and businesses come online it creates one thing – opportunity.

As the internet evolves, so does your scope for marketing your skills and services online. So what type of skills can you market online? The answer is just about ANYTHING that you can do for someone else. I’m going to be focusing largely on online business skills today but it could just as easily be something completely different (for example making hand made crafts or creating some kind of trap that would keep Cyril and his teeth at bay for a few days). Here are just a sample of your skills and services that you could offer to the exploding internet business market: – Content creation. – Website creation maintenance. – Graphics creation. – Copywriting. – Information product creation. – Software creation. – Search engine optimisation. – Pay per click campaign management. – Affiliate program management. – Joint venture marketing. – Market research. – Opt in list/leads services. – Audio/Video production. – Accounts/Excel/Word skills. – Access database skills. I could just as easily keep going for AGES with additional services skills that you could charge for (and that are in great demand). For now, lets talk a little about the sort of prices that you could charge for your skills.

Here are some averages I found for you: For WRITING Services (copywriting, transcriptions, reports) – Average price of $376 per project.

For DESIGN Services (book/cd covers/photo editing) – Average price of $264 per project. For PROGRAMMING Services (C++ and other geeky type languages) – Average price of $1,030 per project. For OTHER services (including lead generation, video editing, word processing, excel skills) – Average price of $780 per project. Do YOU have any skills that could be used by the billions of businesses seeking them? Why not find out? Visit the elance site below: www.elance.com You’ll find out exactly what skills are sought after – and if you happen to have them you could start bidding on projects and start creating an additional stream of in come by offering your services. To your immediate success, Tuks Engineer.