Article #1  Internet Marketing - Do You Have a Plan? You've heard that expression before; the one that goes "If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail"? Well, what does that mean exactly? And is it always true? What does this mean to internet marketers? Here are my thoughts regarding that expression. Let's look at it outside of internet marketing first. Let's say you were going to go on a trip to a beach in Mexico. Would you throw everything from a swimming suit to a winter coat in your suitcase? Worse yet, would you just grab an empty suitcase and jump on the plane? Of course not. Would you fly to Mexico without a specific destination or without securing a hotel on the other end? Of course not. Would you go without knowing what was there? Nope. You would do a search and find out what there was to do and see before you go. In other words, you would have a plan. It may be a little sketchy and you'll fill in some of the blanks later, or it might be very detailed and you could end up changing it a little while still referring to it often. The important thing is that you have a plan. Let's say you want to go to the same beach in Mexico again next year. Do you start over? Chances are you'll take your first plan and fine-tune it so it's even better. This will make your trip even more successful as you weed out what you didn't like and put in more of what you did like. This makes for one very enjoyable and successful trip. As far as online marketing goes, yes, you can make some money without a plan. It's been done, but what you've got are "one hit wonders." There aren't a lot of sales, you don't know what you did to get them, and you can't go out and repeat it with even bigger success. No plan = few sales and unpredictable success. Why approach your income-producing endeavors online without a plan? Too many marketers take the buffet approach. They take a little of this and a little of that until their plate is overflowing. They're happy because they got their money's worth from the buffet, but when they try to eat it all they eat too much and end up enjoying none of it. That too full feeling is called information overload. If this is you, take a step back and think about what you're doing and what you'd really like to be doing with your internet marketing. If you're struggling and need help with your plan, visit http://im-focused.com

Article #2  Profile Of A New Internet Marketer... So you're a new internet marketer. Super! So... ummm... have you made any money yet? Have you set up your website or your blog? Have you added great content to either one? Are you successfully promoting affiliate products? Or have you created a product(s) of your own? Are you becoming known as an expert in your niche? If you've answered yes to some of the above questions, then congratulations! If you've answered no to all of the questions, then welcome to information overload and analysis paralysis. This is a common occurrence when you first get online. There is so much to learn, so much to buy, download and read, and so many different directions to go. It's like you're lost in the deep forest that is internet marketing and you can't find your way out because you don't have one really clear path to follow. You might find a small trail that looks promising, but soon it splits off into many smaller trails. You don't know which way to go and it always seems like the one you pick dwindles off into nothing and you are lost again. You still haven't reached your destination. Is this you? Somehow you carve out a precious two hours in your day to work on your online stuff. You start off reading an email which leads you to a sales page for a product they're promoting. The sales page is so great it lures you into buying and downloading the product that will finally put you on the path to the BIG money. You read most of the ebook, watch one of the videos, take some notes, start in on some of the suggestions but hit a snag so you decide to check your email and you see there's a new giveaway going on. That leads to registering for the giveaway and double opting in to everything that strikes your fancy and you take mental notes on what the products are called so you can read them some day. While you're downloading you decide to check out your favorite marketing forum and become enthralled with a new method you see there. You stay on the forum longer than you intended because you are learning so much.... Poof. Your two hours are gone and you haven't actually accomplished anything. You have taken no measurable action. Is this you? It doesn't have to be that way. Learn how to focus and take action so you can finally start seeing success. By putting focus and action together, you will learn just how far focused action can take you. See http://im-focused.com for more info.

Article #3  With Internet Marketing, You've Got To Hunker Down So you've made the decision to become an internet marketer and make money from home. Really, what's not to love about it? It's like the answer to your prayers and all your dreams come true. You can: • Do honest work and make money. • Do what you love and still have an income. • Create a product one time and sell it a gazillion times. • Set up your business almost entirely on autopilot and earn money while you play. • Still be earning while you spend time with your family. • Work from home in your pajamas. • Work whenever you want to. No nine to five office hours. • Possibly make more money than you ever have before. Those are the plusses of working an internet marketing business and they're all possible, but (and there's always a but) there is a right way and a wrong way to get going on the internet. Let's look at the phases you will go through. Phase I: Information Overload The easiest part of this first phase is making the decision to make money on the internet. The excitement, promises, and potential are there. So you go on your merry way learning about this type of money-making model, and then the next, and the next... You spend hours and hours feeding your giveaway addiction by downloading and opting in to everything because they're free. Next thing you know you're splitting your time between reading the dozens of emails you're getting due to all the opting in you've done, and visiting internet marketing forums. You also get caught up in some pretty convincing sales letters that have you buying products faster than you can say "that one doesn't work for me." You start working on a few things, mostly going from one business model to the next trying them all, but only briefly. Phase II: Begin Working Some people give up before they reach this stage. Here's when you realize that you've got to quit reading, browsing, and buying, and start taking real action. This is the time to commit to ONE path and really dig into it and commit yourself to making it work. Consequently, this is when you start having fun and making some money. Phase III: Refine And Put On Autopilot Now that you've picked a path that you've had some success at, it's time to duplicate what you've done. For instance, instead of one successful niche site, why not have 10? The hardest part is doing it the first time; after that you'll use shortcuts. And since you're making money, you can afford to outsource some or all of the work. You will also want to automate everything as much as possible so you can relax on some sun-drenched coast while you still make money from home. If you're struggling with Phase I, take a deep breath and visit http://im-focused.com. I can help you with a game plan plus I have some great tips.

Article #4  Do you Need An Accountability Partner? Earning a living with internet marketing can be quite rewarding in many ways, but making money at home on the internet can sometimes be a lonely endeavor. Even if you like to work alone and are really quite a self-motivated type person, having someone to listen, push, and motivate you is invaluable to your internet business. What you need is an accountability partner. An accountability partner: * gives you ideas for growing your business * keeps you focused * helps you get even more done than you ever thought you could * complements you - have strengths where you have weaknesses * doesn't cost you any money This person is someone who can help steer you through the IM jungle. A good partner will motivate you, help you brainstorm ideas, and solve problems. They will, well... hold you accountable for what you say you're going to accomplish. Sometimes you get so busy looking at the little details that you forget about the big picture. Here are a few tips: 1. Find someone who wants to do this as much as you, someone who has a lot to gain from this type of partnership. This is not about working together or sharing a business, it's about telling each other your goals and then being held accountable. 2. Find someone who is not following the exact same internet marketing path as you. You don't want this to be a direct head-on competition. 3. This person should be at about the same place with their marketing. If you're quite experienced, you probably want to find someone else who is also experienced. 4. Decide how often you want to "check in" with each other and what method you want to use. For example, try emailing each other every Monday. 5. When you check in, you should be discussing your goals from last week and whether you completed what you set out to do. Then list out what you want to accomplish in the current week. This helps you to focus on what you want and need to get done. Although you may be like lots of people who work at home and tend to be a list-maker, you'll find you can do more than you think you can when you know you're being held accountable to someone else. As well as working with more focus, you'll also have someone at the ready to bounce ideas off of and get an honest opinion from. You'll find that you will each know things the other doesn't and you'll complement each other with your areas of strength. Maybe he's good with the technical aspects and you're good with sales pages and graphics. Having an accountability partner is one of the things I highly recommend in my ebook, IM Focused. For more information about how to stay focused with your internet marketing, visit http://im-focused.com.

New as of 10/15/08 >>

Article #5  Common Knowledge Amongst Internet Marketers, Part 1 There are many things that are common knowledge amongst internet marketers, but if you're new to internet marketing, you may not have learned them yet. Rather than cram everything into this one article, I'm going to make this a 3 part series and cover 3 topics in each part. These are in no particular order, but all are important to your online success. 1. You need a website. While it is possible to start selling products without a website, it might not be in your best interest to do so. Having your own website(s) contributes to your long-term growth, which is crucial to online success. Your own website says you're a serious, professional marketer interested in building relationships with people while selling products with value. As you add more and more products, whether your own or affiliate products, it's also good to have a "mother ship", a home base website, where you can showcase yourself and your products. A website can promote your products and brand you as an internet marketing expert. This is common knowledge amongst internet marketers. 2. You need a list. Another important factor to your online success is building a list. If you have a list, then you have a group of people who have said they're willing to listen to you and perhaps buy from you. If you didn't have these people on your list, then you have to work much harder to drive traffic to your website each and every time you want to promote a product. Would you rather have 100 targeted people on your list to promote to with one email, or try to get 100 new people to come to your website so you can then promote to them? Consider what can happen if you have a list made up of customers who have already bought from you? They know you now, they know what kind of value you give, and they're much more likely to purchase from you again. You can't get a much more "targeted" crowd than that! So build your list by offering something for free (an ebook, a report, an ecourse, audio or video) in exchange for their name and email address. 3. You need an autoresponder. Autoresponders are your first step in putting your business on autopilot, and they are directly related to the all-important list you're building. It might be easy enough at first to send out emails, promotional and informational, to the 5 people on your new list, but think ahead. When your list is in the thousands, you can't possibly email each one of them. An autoresponder is like a secretary. You set up your emails and they will go out when you want them to at a certain time on a certain day. If you want your autoresponder to deliver an ecourse you can tell it to send the lessons 3 days apart or whenever you want. These are the first 3 of the topics covered in this common knowledge amongst internet marketer series. Stay tuned for Part 2 and Part 3. If you want to get on with your online success and make money quicker, visit http://im-focused.com now. List building and traffic getting tips are yours free upon arrival at http://im-focused.com. Article #6  Common Knowledge Amongst Internet Marketers, Part 2 What is common knowledge amongst internet marketers is not common knowledge for the person new to internet marketing. When you're new, sometimes it feels like you've jumped into the middle of something and you feel stupid if you don't know what others are talking about. I've put together a 3 part series that covers just 3 topics in each part. These are all important pieces to your online success so be sure to read Part 1 and Part 3 as well. 1. You need to sell something. It seems like a no-brainer, but you can't make any money without selling something. Your own product. There are plusses to creating your own product; you have complete control over the product and you can create lots of value, you stand to make more money from each sale if you're the only one selling it, and it's your property to do what you want with. But consider having affiliates on board to become your traffic-driving sales team. They make their cut of the profits, but you'll probably sell lots more of your product this way. Someone else's product (an affiliate product). It takes less work to sell a product that you didn't have to create yourself. They've done all the hard work and they probably even have some affiliate tools, such as emails, for you to use. You should capture some of the people yourself, too, by offering a freebie to create your own list. Ads. Some sites don't sell anything but they have constant fresh content and maybe do some article marketing to bring people to their site. The people read what's on the site and maybe click on a targeted ad or two. Every time someone clicks on these ads it puts money in your pocket. Usually the more traffic you get, the more ad money you earn. 2. You need to network with others. Getting to know other network marketers is one key to your online success. You will be amazed at the personal friendships you make and business relationships you forge. You will get satisfaction from helping others out and you can ask them questions when you have a pressing problem. If you want, you can form partnerships that end up making you more money than you would on your own. 3. You need a plan. Yes, yes, yes. You can waste days and weeks out of your life when you try to read everything on the internet about what you might want to do online. You can fail before you even begin by getting bogged down with information overload. Many new internet marketers don't make it because they dabble in this and that, always falling for the next big promise of becoming an online success and making oodles of cash. They don't have a plan for what they want to do and don't get very far. If you need help making a plan and combating information overload, visit http://im-focused.com. You can certainly become an online success with a plan, a roadmap, a great vehicle to drive, and a full tank of gas. http://im-focused.com. Article #7  Common Knowledge Amongst Internet Marketers, Part 3 Certain topics are such common knowledge amongst internet marketers that they tend to forget what new marketers don't know. When you're a new internet marketer coming on board with the "make money from the web" idea, you need to know some basics. Here are another 3 subjects in this 3 part series that should be looked at for your online success. 1. Drive traffic. Learning how to drive traffic to whatever you're selling, be it your product, an affiliate's product, or AdSense ads, is the most important thing you need to learn. If you were in college to get a 4 year degree in Successfully Making Money On The Internet, the subject of marketing would last 3 of the 4 years. It's that important. What's the point of spending all your time creating a fantastic product and website if no one knows it's there and no one buys it? That's like throwing a New Year's Party at a fancy schmancy ball room with all the bells and whistles and not inviting your guests. Take the time to look at the many ways to drive traffic to your website and product(s). Some are free and some can be expensive. Decide on those that appeal to you and give you the most bang for your buck while taking up the least of your time. Here are just a few ways to drive traffic: Use Pay Per Click (PPC) Buy ad space in newsletters Have an affiliate program and let them drive traffic for you Comment on blogs Comment on forums with your link in your sig Article marketing Participate in giveaways Cross-promote Cross-advertise Sell as a Warrior Special Offer (WSO) on the Warrior Forum if internet marketing related Press releases 2. Have a mentor. When you're a new internet marketer, you can struggle trying to figure out what to do and how to do it. One way to flatten the learning curve is to have a mentor. This can simply be an internet marketer that you respect and you follow their actions. Watch what they do, what they say in their emails, how their websites are set up, what business model they follow, etc. Another option for a mentor is to contact a favorite online marketer and ask them a few questions. Pick someone who is approachable and not so successful that they don't have time to talk to you. Perhaps they have a coaching program that you could invest in. Many new marketers go this route and find success coming much quicker. 3. Outsource. It's not so hard to get things done when you're first starting out. But what if you don't know how to do something? Should you spend countless hours trying to figure it out? Or spend $25 to have someone set it up for you in 10 minutes? Keep in mind you could be using those hours in a more valuable way. As you journey deeper into internet marketing you'll figure out that you just can't do everything yourself. It's definitely time to start outsourcing the work, especially the more menial tasks or the ones you particularly hate to do. With all 3 of these subjects, driving traffic, having a mentor, and outsourcing some of your work, you still need to have a plan of action. If you need help making a plan and getting started, visit http://im-focused.com for more information and also for free tips. You can certainly become an online success with a plan, a roadmap, a great vehicle to drive, and a full tank of gas.   Please let me know if there's anything I can do for you.