Eight Internet New Year's Resolutions
- Terry Dean -
A new year is upon us and it appears that the millennium bug hasn't caused anyone to fall off the face of the
planet. It has caused some minor inconveniences such as scripts that need updating, software with the wrong dates,
etc., but no major disruptions in the lives of you or I.
So, it's time to concentrate on our Internet business plans for this next year. Below I have detailed eight commitments
that you need to make to yourself and to your Internet business if you expect to prosper this year and throughout
the years to come.
1.) Buy Your Own Domain.
If you want to do business online, get your own domain. Having your own domain gives you more play with the search
engines, shows a little more stability, and all-in-all lets the world know that you mean business.
Is it possible to make money from a free server? Yes, it is possible to make money, but wouldn't you prefer to be
making maximum money from everything you do. The fact that you are on a free server will always be in the minds of
your visitor and could hurt your sales. Don't take that chance.
Coming off of a major Web Hosting problem with one of my primary web accounts (we were up and down for 2 weeks), I
am even more convinced that you must make sure the host you chose has good customer service. The one I just
transferred from was horrible. After waiting for three hours on hold one day, they basically told me they didn't
care if I hosted with them or not. This web host was ranked Number three in the world by C-Net Central on the
Web Host List!
I have several web hosting accounts, but the one I have been most satisfied with has been
Virtualis...mainly because their technical support responds within an hour at
any time of the day. They even dare you on their main page
to test out their technical support and compare them to any of their competitors.
Go here for Hosting: http://www.virtualis.com/vr/tdean2
2.) Start Your Own Opt-In Email List.
I have been checking my own stats and the stats of the affiliates I have at allthesecrets.com and I have noticed a
very interesting trend. Around seventy percent of my sales come from my opt-in email techniques, and my top ten
affiliates are all aggressive Opt-In email list owners. By "aggressive" I mean that they own an Opt-In email list and
they regularly send offers, sales, solo ads, and more to their list.
If all of the top affiliates have their own Opt-In lists in my programs, I expect that the same can be said for most
other programs as well.
If you want to make money with your own products or as a member of an affiliate program, you need to start an opt-in
email list.
There are three different ways that people run their Opt-In lists:
Some use email software to run their lists. This solution may work when the list is small, but if they go over 1,000
members they will notice that it becomes very difficult to do their mailings. It takes hours to do the mailings and
it eventually becomes unmanageable.
The second solution is to use a listserver. Currently Web Gold is using this solution and has done so for the past two
years. It works well for management of a list and it has been what I recommended people use the past two years.
The problem is that a good one will cost you right around $400 AND you can't personalize your mailings.
The third solution which has only been made practical very recently is to use a CGI program to handle and maintain
your list. Wes Blaylock has invented a revolutionary new CGI program called "Mail Master Pro" which can send HTML
email messages, personalize the emails with the name of the subscribers, and has been tested on lists of up to 70,000
members.
Not only that, but it also can handle all of the subscribes and unsubscibes automatically. I never liked using a CGI
program for opt-in lists before, but I have been testing this new program during the past few weeks and will be
running a new newsletter coming soon using it.
Mail Master Pro is available at: http://www.bizpromo.com/mmp.html
3.) Target one Specific Theme and Market.
Don't try to be a jack-of-all trades, or else you will end up a master of none. The most ineffective sites try to
put together a hodgepodge of information on many different subjects and topics.
The key to success online is to focus. You need to make sure that your whole web site only focuses on one targeted
niche market. Don't sell web hosting and Pokemon trading cards on the same site. Don't try to mix up 20 different
affiliate programs on your site. It simply won't work.
Focus on one market. For example, if you are selling to Internet marketers, you may sell a downloadable report as
your primary product. Then, you may also offer web hosting and a video series as other backend products. This would
be focusing your web site on one theme and market.
There are thousands of opportunities online, and that is often where much of newbies confusion comes from. You can
make money in any market. You just have to find one that is fun for you and that you know how to target.
Just because someone made $100,000 last month with a specific product doesn't mean YOU should be selling it.
You can make money with anything online if you have positioned it correctly. The most successful people are
almost always the ones who have chosen the product they LOVE selling.
4.) Create at least one of your own Products.
You can make money in affiliate programs, but the biggest profits almost always come from having your own product or
service. Many Internet marketers have limited themselves to only receiving around 25% of the money they could be
receiving if they would just find or create their own
products.
You could create your own information product. What are your interests? What is it that you enjoy studying about?
What have you accomplished in your business, life, or hobbies? Create a report, book, or audio tape about it.
Then, you will have your own product.
You could find a product that is currently being sold offline - either locally or through magazine advertising.
Make a deal with the owner of the product and try to become the exclusive dealer of it in the online market.
You could create a service. There are many different service businesses which are opening up online. If you
have learned how to develop web sites, offer this. If you enjoy competing on search engines, start a submission
service. If you enjoy writing, become a ghost writer for other people's articles and books.
Once you own a product or service for the online market, then you could become the affiliate owner instead of just
another affiliate member. By the way, if you are interested in having your own affiliate program installed
for you, please email me at yoap@bizpromo.com and I can send you more information on owning your own affiliate
program.
5.) Develop Multiple Traffic Sources.
Use many different sources of traffic. Submit to search engines. Place free classifieds...especially at Yahoo.
Join pay per click search engines such as Goto. Submit articles to ezines.
If you only have one source of traffic such as a search engine, what happens when that search engine changes their
policies? You could instantly disappear overnight (Alta Vista just did this and drove some people virtually crazy).
All of your traffic would be gone. So, always focus on having as many sources of traffic as possible.
Start a viral traffic strategy where your traffic continually grows for you...using a system such as
the HitTrafficker which we have available at
http://www.ezfree.net/free/users/main.shtml
Download our free Ebook "Unlimited Traffic" which details 55 different ways you can generate traffic to your web
site. It is available by simply clicking on this link: http://www.bizpromo.com/traffic.exe
6.) Develop Multiple Income Streams.
You need to have more than one income in your business. Many of the most successful sites out there will be making
money in a dozen or more different ways. Throughout this new millennium you will find that the trend is to build a
stronger relationship with a set of customers and then make money many different ways from those same customers (it is
at bare minimum 7 times easier to sell to an exiting customer than to create a new one).
I don't recommend a lot of affiliate programs, but here are three of them which I am currently receiving checks from
and that have always paid on time (by the way, they are all two-tier programs):
Virtualis Web Hosting - Virtualis is the web host I have had the best experiences with and they pay very handsomely
for referrals (plus they are paying out an extra $100 per account in January for referrals)...
http://www.virtualis.com/vr/tdean2/vrp.html
AWeber Autoresponders - AWeber is one of the first companies to come up with autoresponders which can
automatically send follow-up messages. I still consider them the best. Free ones are out there, but they require
you to carry their advertising messages and do cut your response rates dramatically.
http://www.aweber.com/?871
Masters of Marketing Inner Circle - This program is owned by Mike Enlow who I have known for two years. I consider
it the second best resource for online training (after my own Secret site at allthesecrets.com of course).
http://www.enlowcircle.com/go/1056
7.) Make a commitment to your own education.
The greatest marketers are also the best students. They learn from those who went before them and they "copy" ideas
and "methods" which have worked time and time again. I personally feel that I am one of the most intense readers
you will find on online marketing...as I constantly want to stay up to date and know exactly what is working online.
Being a student doesn't necessarily mean going to school or college. You may be a student of your market. You may
study, test, and poll your potential customers to find out exactly what it is that they want from a business.
Over the next year, commit to join several Internet training sites and purchase books/videos which will help
you with your online training experience. You can either learn from other marketer's mistakes...or you can take your
turn and repeat them.
The best online training course (although I am biased) is my own Instant Internet Cashflow System which is available
at: http://www.allthesecrets.com
Besides the online training currently available there and in the upcoming training issues, we are also adding several
products with reprint rights within the next 30 days for current members...Don't miss it. Join now.
8.) Make a commitment to family.
Don't just commit to do business. Commit to your family as well. The purpose of an online business isn't just to make
money. It is something more important than that. It is to create a lifestyle which you and your family can enjoy for
the rest of your life.
Working 12 hour days isn't where it is at. You have to work hard to set up your web site and get it running, but
the purpose of the Internet is so that you can automate as much of your business as possible. Use
autoresponders, real time processing, digital product delivery, etc. to all
cut down the time you actually have to physically be working on the business.
The goal is to work yourself out of a job. Online we can accomplish this. We can work hard to create an automated
system which does most of the work for us.
Then, we can enjoy our lives.
Terry Dean is the webmaster at
http://www.bizpromo.com Visit today for turn-key web site solutions, turn-key products you can sell, and answers to all of your Internet marketing questions. For "115 Internet marketing tips" please send an email to..
115tips@aweber.com
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