Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all you had to do was place ads online and the money would come pouring in. Yes, the dream of many – we could almost state everyone – but (there is always a but), it will not happen. It is time for that much needed reality check. By approaching the internet and all it has to offer with not only the right attitude, but the right tools, you dramatically increase your odds. Money making is still not a given, but at least you are armed and ready to take on cyberspace.
First and foremost, not everyone coming to the internet is going to succeed. That’s not just an opinion, there is pure science backing this up. Like offline business, small businesses online fail – a whopping 98% of them go under in much less than a year.
At this point you are either totally disheartened, or boosting your own moral by declaring, “That won’t be me!”
Good for you. Just keep in mind that winners always bring something extra to the table. Here are a few examples and strategies (read even if you have read it before – because if you do not read, there’s your problem):
A Business Plan:
You cannot just throw money around, joining this program or that one, because the person with the glitzy sales letter states that you cannot fail, that making money is a given – it’s not.
There are approximately four categories of people, those that:
1. Join anything that sounds easy
2. Are too desperate to really do the right thing
3. Cannot pick a winner to save their life
4. Understand business is business, join, and have a plan.
The first three categories include people who either have, or will soon have, hard feeling against the internet as a source of income. I call them “jumpers.” Jumpers, well jump. They never stick to anything long enough to reap any benefits from it. When instant wealth doesn’t come pouring in, they quit. And then they go on to the next “biggest loser.”
These individuals also have a horrible time discerning a real program from a bogus scam. They appear to be magnets for the wrong thing. I believe one of the reasons this happens is they just do not look around enough. With literally billions of pages to choose from on the internet, they see one thing with outrageous promises, think “this will be easy” and spend money.
The flip side to that is they see something, somehow convince themselves that “new” really means new, without a shred of investigation and think they are getting in “at the top.” Truth be told? With a decent enough program, hundreds if not thousands are already involved, have been for quite a while and you, sorry, are not the first. Now you have the affiliates within the program to go up against, too. Most likely, they are also just taking the easy route and using whatever ads the program owner may supply (some don’t). Versus writing something new and unique, perhaps “cloaking” their url using tinyurl.com, they just (once again) take the easiest way – which can prove to be not only pointless but expensive. You must have imagination to market effectively online.
Foolish to the extreme. These individuals have great hopes, outlandish expectations, and absolutely no plan to follow. They are relying on dumb luck. Unfortunately dumb luck can get very expensive, and frustrating, and downright scary.
Imagine for a moment that whatever it is you have currently chosen to do online was a brick and mortar business. Unless you are swimming in liquid assets, you most likely would need a small business loan to get up and running. Imagine next showing up at the bank to ask for that loan without any plan. No profit and loss, no asset sheet, no business strategy whatsoever. Think you’ll get that loan?
The same thing translates itself to the web. You need a plan. One of those sit down at the kitchen table and work out your short, medium, and long term goals, including the “hows” of how you expect to achieve those goals.
The “hows” demonstrate the research you have already expended; your willingness to thoroughly do your job (run your business) properly. With the internet at your fingertips, it is research time. You must know what your options are for promoting. You must know what is a fad method, and what are “tried and true” longevity building business techniques.
In addition, you must understand your strengths and your own weaknesses. You must be willing – and financially able – to delegate responsibilities (read marketing) when your own weaknesses reveal you need help.
The Ability To Pick The Good From The Bad And The Ugly:
One of the most shocking things online are the glitzy splash page ads or the long, boring “here’s my story” sales page that promises the moon in exchange for your hard-earned dollars. Some aren’t even glitzy, they are plain, simple, and often ugly. Yet, each is crafted in such a way to ensure that a huge percentage of those visiting do not leave without paying.
It would be fair to state that approximately 1% of the programs you come across are worth the money, time, and effort. The other 99% are profitable solely for the person or persons who put them together. Hey, they are making money online, right? Yes, yours. And, frankly, you cannot fault them for that. However, you can blame yourself for not reading – not reading between the lines – not researching, and not looking for the fine print.
Websites, sales tools, products or services, and tons of “free” bonuses await you with almost every single money making program out there. But do you know why? It is because they must, under law, have something to offer in the back office. If not they are just glorified schemes and methods for passing money around. To get merchant status, you must have a product or something behind the ‘greenroots pass money’ stage. Read carefully. Most people get all jazzed up when they read the compensation plan, yet never bother to check are the products old, does the service work, or even perform a simple BetterWhoIs.com lookup of the domain and its owner.
Then to cap it all off, and you are reading their page carefully, correct?… Do any of them promise what you must have to succeed… traffic?
How many times have you seen the phrase, “all you have to do” followed by “is tell your friends” or “all you have to do is get people to your own web site that we so kindly provide you” and you will be rolling in the dough in no time.
Traffic – no that “guaranteed” stuff is not real human visitors – is the #1 hardest thing to accomplish online. Of course they aren’t going to guarantee that… so have your thinking cap on and – eventually – your wallet ready, because you are going to need to advertise.
Where Ezine Advertising Enters The Picture:
Whether you have a list of individuals to contact or not, reaching out to large quantities of strangers can best be done using the time-tested ezine ad. Ezine advertising co-operatives exist to cut down on your hunt-and-peck, hit or miss method of locating places that will allow you to advertise.
The reason so many marketers choose ezines as a starting point is because of that all-important email list factor. Publishers within a co-op in essence exchange your name and email added to their list for space in their ezine, newsletter, classified edition or posted on their ad board on their website.
The basic ezine ad (typically 3-6 lines long) is a very good place to start. Shopping around, and making sure the ezines listed actually exist, means hitting 100s of 1000s or even millions with permission-based advertising. This is not your shoot spam all over and hope something sticks. Readers, just like you, opt in to most ezines. They request information. And your ad should be listed.
Many program owners tell their new enrollees to hunt out solo ads for advertising. For veteran writers, yes this is a great idea assuming you are writing fresh material and remember to reference the potential of cloaking the link (see above) should the program have been around for a while.
However, solos are one-shot deals. Emails in people’s already crowded inbox. You need to have imagination and, better yet, training, to know how to write that solo that is going to pull.
Starting small is not a bad thing. Hence the insistence to try your hand at writing quick, grab them, get them to click ezine classified ads. This type of advertising also has the added benefit of potentially being archived in back issues on publishers websites. Many publishers have such archives and readers do dig deeper looking for more information. Voila! there’s your ad – long after you thought it was all over and done.
Short Bursts to Take With You From Reading This Article:
o Shop around and do your homework first – everything online is meant to sound grand and promising; much is rehashed and old.
o Have a plan and a budget because you will run out of free ways to do things and need to supplement with paid advertising.
o Stick with tried and true methods. Ezine advertising, YouTube videos, article writing, and blogging are mainstay, solid methods for long-term gains online.
o Work smart not hard, don’t be gullible, and remember less than 1% (far less) are instant, overnight successes. Imagination, work, patience, and persistence are requirements to making money online.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Theresa Cahill has been successfully doing business as the owner of My Wizard Ads since October 2001. Her website is chalked full of information you need to know to use ezine advertising wisely and effectively. Visit My Wizard Ads today.
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