Internet Marketing Tell All

Traffic rules the internet. If you can figure out the fine points of getting people to a site, to the point that you can turn the volume of people to a site up or down at will, the argument could be made that you could put off learning about conversion until another day.

You’re going to want to focus on learning about laser-targeted traffic, getting the most focused population to the product you want to sell. This is particularly useful if you’re an affiliate marketer.

I haven’t been an affiliate marketer in a long time. For a few years now, I’ve been one of those people that someone approaches to be a joint venture partner, someone who has affiliates rather than is one.  I’ve since decided that I would probably make a lot more money as an affiliate marketer, with a lot less stress, for the remainder of my online career.

That’s taking me back to my original days as an affiliate. And back then, there wasn’t much I could do about how good the sales page was, or whether the system I was sending people to really had good follow-up, and if so, if I’d still credited for the sale.

Eventually I learned how to pre-sell the prospect, and make friends first, so they’d want me to get credited for the sale.

However, my first sales, the ones that made me realize that I could change careers, came from knowing I was able to work intensively for a short period time on a burst of traffic. It  might be a better method if you’re new.

Be sure and remember, though, targeted traffic is where it’s at, from real bodies. Don’t be fooled by the imposters or you’ll end up broke and bitter.

There aren’t any videos here, let me clear that up before you click through from another page. We’re gonna have a discussion on how videos figure into marketing, briefly. I’m really interested in your opinion.

I’ve done video products before, almost all video, and they were among my best sellers. Ironic because sometimes I can’t even be bothered to watch video online, or sometimes I’m too busy. But if I Really need that information, or try a video series once and like it (Diggnation), or someone tells me about a hilarious video, I’ll probably stop what I’m up to and give it a go.

That made me thing of two things.

1. What sort of alternatives should you offer people who don’t want to commit to video? Audio transcripts and a PDF file with screenshots? Should you at all? I had one client say he wasn’t going to buy the product because it was almost all video - but those who liked it, Really liked it.
2. Is a person who will commit to watching a video, either as a purchase or to learn more about your product more committed and more likely to buy or even repeat buy than someone who is just looking for an ebook? Do they have more money (perhaps implied from needing high-speed and usually better equipment  to watch/download videos on a regular basis)?
3. For people here from BUMPzee or anyone else who does affiliate marketing, do you find video a hard sell or an easier sell? More or less likely to convert?

I’ve seen a couple of article series about this around the web. I’ll do a link dump to them another time. Right now I’m curious to what you think, and I don’t want to bias that with the facts that currently prevail.

People keep asking me if you can get rich with internet marketing and if so, how. I always want to know if they really want to be rich or if they’d rather be wealthy before I answer the question. It tells me how that person’s mind works. I don’t like to answer questions like that until I know how the other persons mind works. Little tic I have.

Anyone who hears what rich is, vs. wealthy, and still, after thinking about it, wants to be rich instead of wealthy will end up broke and hate this business.

A wealthy person can wake up in the morning and decide whether they want to work or not. A rich person may have a lot of money in the back, but they HAVE to work, whether they want to or not. A surgeon can be rich and not wealthy.

The best definition of wealth I ever heard was measured by the number of days you could sustain a comfortable lifestyle on the money you have. I currently have 180 days of wealth. When my three deals are signed, I can probably take three years off - at my current lifestyle, not in poverty. I won’t, but I could.

How many days would you like to be able to do whatever you wanted to do, follow your whims, and still feed yourself/your family?

Rich is an amount of money. Wealth is a quality of lifestyle, of freedom that happens to include money. My first year in Internet Marketing I netted about $50,000. I could have made that in a regular job, true.

But I could work whenever I wanted.

I could (and did) take my laptop out on the lawn to work in the sun for an hour or so each day.

At any time I could (and did) take a road trip without knowing where I was going to end up. I went to the movies on Tuesday afternoons. I shopped for groceries when the store was empty.

Being rich just means you have more money than most people. If you make more than $100K in a year, you’re among the top 6% of earners.

In the world.

That’s great. But is it worth it if half of your money goes to income tax and you work 100 hours a week?

Being wealthy is having an income, whether it’s from a business or investments, that supports your lifestyle comfortably and can run without your constant input.

—->sidebar<— Big mistake I made in building my business - for a while there I was the special sauce. You can’t sell the rights to the Big Mac if you aren’t going to include the special sauce. It’s part of the formula.

You could make $40K a year and be wealthy.

If you’re getting into internet marketing expecting that this time next year you’ll have x amount of money, it doesn’t work that way. Sometimes the money will come in bursts - $10,000 in a day, then a couple of hundred a week for a couple of months. Some of that you’ll have to reinvest into your business. There’s hosting fees, and other services you’ll need, the cost of connecting to the internet, advertising…

After a year of hard work, maybe you’ll get to quit your job… and perhaps not.

But if you can be happy with the perks of wealth before the riches come, you’ll enjoy being a long-term internet marketer. Whatever hassles you run into will be worth the payoff.

Note: This post has been selected for a The Start-Up Spark Carnival of Entrepreneurs, the second carnival this site has been selected to participate in. It’s an honor to be chosen, and for such a new site. I invite you to browse the carnival to see a lot great posts.