Exciting outlook

Getting started in internet marketing is so exciting that many new marketers tell family and friends about their new venture. They see possibilities they never dreamed of – and realize their age, race or physical limitations are not limitations when working online. In their excitement they expound on what they plan to do and how much money they can make and are crushed and angered when friends respond with skepticism. Don’t worry about what others think – get busy and prove them wrong.

These aspiring marketers search online for “how to make money” and are inundated with hundreds of sales pages promising easy cash, fast profits and great income for just working a few minutes each day. They spend hours reading the text on these sites and the claims and promises can cause common sense to fly out the window. If a former truck driver now earns six figures a year, why couldn’t you? The more you read, the better working online sounds. How exciting to be able to choose your own hours, sleep as late as you want, make money while you’re sleeping. And the truth? It’s all possible but not likely for someone who has just decided to become an internet marketer.

Sales pages are written to sell

When you are buying “make money” ebooks and joining multi-level marketing programs and memberships that promise to train you to make money online, you are not a marketer. You are a customer in what is known as a target audience. Some new marketers stay in the buying mode for years and then quit “marketing” in frustration. They haven’t earned an income and may become cynical about working online or may blame themselves for being unable to succeed. They will honestly tell you they have tried everything and nothing worked.

Some will go into debt quickly downloading one ebook after another. They quickly read through the plan the author proposes, and either do a few steps and quit or never start the marketing plan in the first place. They mean to do it but another new method is supposed to be great or a new ebook was just launched – so they move on to the next big idea.

Make your own path

Internet marketing is not a dream or easy path to riches. Taking the time to learn basic skills such as building a website and a blog and the willingness to invest a small amount of funds for domains and good hosting will pay off. Learning to effectively use tactics such as article marketing, marketing through social media and video marketing will provide payoffs for years if you put in the effort at the beginning of the journey.

Internet marketing is like learning the alphabet as a child. You can’t start with A (I’m new) and jump immediately to Z (I’m rich) without learning the letters between A and Z. Don’t read about building a website or blog – do it and learn as you go. If you plan to market with articles it won’t help much to write one article and then wait to see what happens. Write ten articles and while doing that learn how to find good niches and how to choose the right keywords and then write ten more articles.

Ask for advice from other marketers you meet online through blogs or forums and listen to that advice with an open mind. Make purchases carefully and remember you are building your own business. You may learn from others but you can’t follow someone else’s exact footsteps. That path has been taken. Take the best advice and training from different sources and combine them to make a plan that will work for you.

Learning online marketing with you,

~ Julie