Online Marketing Essentials 1 � Where Do you Start?

This is the first in a series of five articles taking you through the basic steps you will need to complete to successfully market anything on the internet. This article discusses some fundamental truths you need to know and accept before jumping into the internet shark pool.

Firstly you should be aware of the reality of internet marketing. There are many advertised products around an most of them offer huge rewards for working a very few hours. This a marketing strategy in itself and is very effective, which is why you will see it a lot. In some cases it is an outright lie, in others it does not fully explain that, to make that kind of money, you will need to invest significant up front time and capital. You can make thousands of pounds a month but you will not do it overnight on a shoestring budget. If you can then it's likely to be illegal or at least immoral.

Your Ethics?

Give this point some thought! You may have different ideas on what is acceptable and what is not and it can be tempting to take routes to money that fill your pockets to the detriment of others. Even if you do not believe in Karma (Do good things and good things come back to you – do bad things …...?) but consider this, you want to make a living from the internet and to do that you will need to plan and put in the time and effort. You will want to be in this for the long haul, i.e. you want money coming in months and years from now (that's when you can put your feet up and work your 2 hour days!). To make this work you need a good track record, integrity and loyal customers – you will not get these by ripping people off. On-line trading is not that different from off-line trading, all the same rules apply, you will be helping yourself to succeed by having integrity and treating your customers fairly.

First Steps

So, where do we start?

Firstly you need to be properly motivated and as I said earlier do not look at this as a get rich quick scheme. You will be disappointed. Unfortunately the vast majority of people who start to trade on the internet fail to succeed. Even those with great products. A great product is not a sure way to money.

Many people fail because they set themselves unrealistic targets or worse set an expectation that it will all work immediately with no effort. Either way it's a sure route to failure. What normally happens is that the new starter will become disappointed with the early results, loose enthusiasm and ultimately stop working.

On the other hand if you create a plan and set realistic goals and follow your plan you will almost certainly succeed.

The First and Most Important Lesson

This is probably the most important thing I can teach you. PLAN, PLAN and PLAN..

Very little works in life without a plan, and if it does it would most certainly work better if it had a plan. Remember this – you will need a detailed plan, you will need to follow the plan, you will review your results, alter your plan to improve the results, follow your new (improved) plan, review your results.... and continue in a ever improving circle. This is what will make you consistent money.

Ok, lets assume your motivated and have realistic expectations. We can now focus on some specifics. Especially if this is a new journey for you, you need to keep focus on what is important and ensure that the overall plan is manageable. That means keeping things in perspective and ensuring that you do not wander off down side roads that detract from your core objectives.

Trust me – there is so much info on the internet that you could spend a lifetime reading, learning and trying products and still never get anywhere near making a penny. I guarantee that you will find things that look great and quick and easy and useful and more – but you must not stray from your main goals. Remember PLAN and STICK to it. If you see something good then save it away for later. One good behaviour in marketing is to save everything that may have future opportunity or benefit. That can be programs, adverts, articles, web pages anything. Marketing experts refer to these as snatch files but for now create a folder on your computer to save articles, documents etc. and create a favourites sub folder in your browser to bookmark useful web sites . You really need a number of folders and favourites to hold various categories of things but to start I suggest you just have the ability to save the good stuff rather than let it distract you from your main course.

Keep it Manageable

The final important lesson is to keep your first venture small enough to manage. Don't get over complicated, add too many products, try too many advertising methods, different market sectors etc. The strategy is to get one thing up and working . When you have done this you will have actually done the hardest part. From then on its just a matter of duplicating your successful plan