Serious Marketing Guide

Internet marketing is a very wide term which can be used to encompass a variety of marketing techniques which are used online. Banner advertisements, website promotion, search engine optimization, email marketing and affiliate marketing all fall under the umbrella of the term Internet marketing, but there is even more to Internet marketing than those concepts. Promoting your website or business on message boards can also be considered to be Internet marketing. In fact this is one of the simplest and least expensive Internet marketing options available. This article will examine how savvy business owners can use Internet message boards wisely. It will also explain how message boards can be misused and rendered ineffective as well. Message boards are essentially online meeting places.

In general most message boards are focused on a particular niche subject and encourage those who share an interest in this particular subject to get together to discuss relevant issues, ask questions, provide advice and even just socialize. Message boards can focus on any subject imaginable, they may focus on a particular baseball team or just the sport of baseball in general. Message boards can focus on subjects such as politics, television shows, bands, current events, jobs, hobbies or any subject under the sun. Savvy Internet marketers can take advantage of these message boards to reach a target audience without investing a great deal of money. Consider a business in which the focus of the business is to assist people in finding jobs which offer telecommute options. The concept of working from home is becoming increasingly popular and there are many websites which focus on this subject. Likewise there are also many message boards devoted to the topic of working from home. On those message boards those with an interest in the subject meet to discuss issues such as finding employment where working from home is an option, working around the schedule of children, setting up a home office, dealing with friends or family members who don’t respect your working hours and paying taxes on freelance assignments. A business owner who actively participates in this message board can take the opportunity to post a link to his website when it is relevant and offers something of value to the conversation. He or she may also pick up useful tips and information as well. This is worthwhile because the message board features a high concentration of your target audience members. When using message boards to promote your business, it is important to ensure you are following the rules associated with the message boards.

Message boards may have restrictions regarding the posting of links and failure to abide by these restrictions may result in you being banned from the message board. For this reason it is important for anyone who is interested in using message boards for promotion of their business to carefully read the terms of use to ensure they are not violating any of the rules. It is also important to simply use common sense when promoting your business on a message board. Just because the rules do not restrict posting links, does not mean you should spam the board with your link. Take care to only include your link when it is relevant. This will prevent message board users from assuming your link is just worthless spam. Finally, when using message boards to promote your business it is important to be courteous to other message board users and to keep all posts professional. This is important because you and your business are much more likely to be taken seriously if you act professionally and responsibly. You should maintain this degree of professionalism even in posts which do not include your business link. This is important because other message board participants will remember you by your user name and will not be likely to take you seriously if you have previously made posts which were offensive, mean spirited or inaccurate.

So always be professional and curteous at all times, and with all postings.

Now that my system is set up, all I have to do is check that my affiliate partners are sending me cash, suggest the odd joint venture to a partner, and stay in touch with my customers. I rarely spend more than three hours in front of my computer each day. But it wasn’t always like that. It took a lot of effort and a lot of work to get into the position I’m in now. When I first started, it was a bit of a struggle to organize myself. My first website took ages to launch and while the other ones went up quickly, my family went days without seeing me. Let’s be frank, if you don’t set up your business properly right at the beginning, you’re going to make your life much harder—and your income much lower.

The problem is that until now, you’ve always thought of your home as a place to relax and the office as a place to focus and work. Now you’re going to have to focus at home—and that’s not an easy shift to make. You need to keep the same rhythm (without stopping to watch your favorite daytime soap!) and the same kind of discipline you had when you had to commute every morning. The first thing to do is to give yourself an office. I’m not talking about a laptop on the coffee table or a corner in the library; I mean a proper room with a door you can close and a desk full of goodies: from a computer with broadband to a place to put your safety clips. If you don’t have a spare room to start with, then use your bedroom. But if you’re serious, think about finding an office once your business gets running. The next thing you’re going to need is a schedule—a realistic one. This is one of the greatest challenges when you begin working for yourself. At the end of each day, I’d make a list of all the tasks I was going to do the next day. If I got half of them done, I was lucky. I spent weeks frustrated and grumpy. Once you get a feel for how long each task takes you, whether it’s approving a new site design, planning a new marketing program or answering customers’ emails, set yourself a timetable and keep to it. Turn off the radio, shut the office door and get to work! And at the same time, don’t get annoyed if the day ends before your work does.

Many people would like to give up their job and tell their boss where to go. We have probably all had bad jobs at one time or another, all had terrible bosses who underpaid and overworked us. Perhaps you are in one right now? Would it not be wonderful to set our own hours and make an income we feel we deserve? Well the good news is, we can. Internet marketing gives you, me, and anybody else who desires it, a substantial income working from home, with low start up costs and no boss to worry bout. It really is that easy. With perseverance, patience and willingness to learn, with the ability to muster our own motivation, everybody can succeed online and make a very comfortable income online. This opportunity did not exist ten years ago. Now it does, it is vital to take advantage of it now, while it is still in the early stages. Getting into something early has always rewarded those who did.

And over the next ten years I would only expect the numbers of people living on an income online to triple and more. There are so many choices of how to make this income. Whether it is contextual advertising (Google Adsense), or selling a product you created, to selling a product or service that other people created, there are so many ways to make an income with Internet Marketing. All that is required is taking the time and effort to learn this often mistakenly complicated skill. In reality it is not really all that complex at all. Once you can negotiate all the misinformation and information flood that is out there. And overcome the fantastic promises made by so many people that you can make a huge income online with no effort and no money. Obviously you must be able to accept responsibility for your own income. For the one positive aspect a regular paycheck does give is security. So, without a boss and working for someone else, you lose that security. However, usually the paycheck does not increase much over time, even with promotions. Whereas, with internet marketing, your income really only depends upon time and effort. There are many people making ten thousand dollars a month. And many more producing a full time income of two or three thousand plus. Would you like to join them? Well the good news is you can. Be prepared to work hard and learn, and the results, therefore the high income, will follow for you too, with internet marketing. Copyright Gary Martin 2006 All Rights Reserved