I REALLY wish someone had sent me years ago, back when I was just getting started in Internet Marketing.
You see, back then I didn’t know anything. I felt overwhelmed all the time. I spent MANY nights discouraged and frustrated. And yes, I made all of the newbie mistakes you can imagine.
While I wouldn’t say I’ve arrived, or I have nothing left to learn (not by a long shot, believe me), I HAVE learned some valuable lessons about mistakes to avoid.
I’m going to give you what I think are the top 7 mistakes new Internet marketers make.
When I was making these mistakes, I struggled. Now that I’ve put them behind me, things are going great. Here’s
what I mean:
* My business is humming along just fine, even with the recession.
* I’ve worked with most of the top Internet marketers on various projects. Gosh, I have almost all of their phone numbers on my cell phone!
* My business has DOUBLED every year for the past three years running.
* July has been amazing, one of my BEST months ever!
But NONE of that would be possible if I kept on making the mistakes I’m going to tell you about.
So let me tell you what those are, and how to avoid them.
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Mistake #1: Poor Planning
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I could just as easily say NO planning, because most new marketers don’t do any at all.
Without a plan, they get distracted by just about every “new” thing that comes along. They jump into “hot” markets and niches without doing any research. When they get crushed, they’re shocked and angry. I was guilty of that, and found out I was in a bunch of niches where people only wanted to learn and not buy.
Let me tell you, as the old saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
The simple way to avoid this problem is to…PLAN!
You don’t need the world’s best plan. You just need a reasonable one YOU can execute. My plan isn’t yours, and yours isn’t mine.
Here’s what I recommend doing:
1) Pick a market you want to target. Research it. Use Google until you’re sick of it. Find a market full of people who are BUYING right now.
2) Choose a business model you’ll use to target them. You can start with affiliate marketing, or create a membership site, or create a simple product you’ll sell with a minisite, or something else. There’s no one right or wrong answer. Just pick ONE.
3) Create a single, simple, relatively low-cost offer to target your market. Doesn’t have to be fancy. It just has to be real.
4) Focus on that ONE product in that ONE market until you turn a profit, or determine with confidence that you can’t make a profit there.
That’s it.
You don’t need to spend big bucks on every huge launch that comes along so you can get the “missing link.” You just need to stick to a simple plan that will get you results. Then you can grow from there.
Remember, it’s better to have fewer sites that are VERY profitable, than to have a bunch of sites that make nothing. Planning and doing helps you get there.
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Mistake #2: Wasting Time
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Closely related to that first mistake is wasting time.
Internet marketing is FULL of time wasters. If you don’t have a plan, you’ll find yourself wasting lots of time.
Most new marketers are very active, but they’re NOT taking the action they need to take.
They buy domains, make lots of sites, grab graphics and PLR offers…and they don’t sell anything.
I did all of that myself, and the only way I ever succeeded was to STOP. You need to start selling something, monitor the results, learn and get better at generating profits.
And here’s something lots of people do (including me, back in the day) that sounds good, but really isn’t…learning.
You’ll always learn. I learn about my business every single day. But if you get stuck in the learning rut, you’ll find yourself taking (and buying) course after course with NOTHING to show for it.
One of the ways people think they’re learning is by spending hours in marketing forums. Forums aren’t bad, but does spending time there fit your plan? If not, why are you there?
You have to be confident that you’re not “missing” something when you’re not there…because you’re following YOUR plan.
I suggest that you block out some time every day to spend on your business. Don’t do anything in that time that isn’t specifically planned for, and helping you take REAL action toward generating the profits you want to generate. That will keep you focused.
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Mistake #3: Spending With No Return
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This is a big one.
I can remember years ago spending massive amounts of money on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. And I spent a ton on software tools, too.
Look, those things can be helpful, but they also can be a money pit. I’ve wasted a ton of cash, and I bet you have as well.
You should adopt a simple rule for yourself…
Anything you spend should be planned (there’s that word again), and you should only spend if your likelihood of making a good return is going up.
For example, if you throw some money at PPC ads, and you get poor results, that’s not necessarily bad. It’s only bad if you did it just hoping it would go well. No, you should have planned your traffic experiment, and put limits on how much you would spend.
If you do the experiment and you learned something that you think will get better results, you can spend some more to find out. But if you don’t have a plan for it, do NOT spend any more.
Same goes for software and other tools. Ask yourself if you really NEED it. If you’re just buying it because you hope it’ll make the light bulb go on, keep your money in your pocket.
Here’s a good way to keep yourself on the right path…
If you haven’t turned a profit yet with your latest marketing exercise, refuse to spend any cash on anything else until you DO turn a profit.
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Mistake #4: Not Building A List
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I often wish I could turn back time to when I was just getting started and correct what might be the biggest mistake I ever made—not building a list.
My affiliate marketing efforts were actually paying off, but I wasn’t capturing the e-mail addresses of my visitors. That meant I was getting cash from them once, and then I had to do the hard work of getting a new visitor! Not smart.
Remember, a list is what will make you successful. It gives you opportunities to sell, a group of people to send test offers to so you can learn what converts, and more.
Without a list, you’re really hurting yourself.
Fortunately, this is easy to fix by following a simple guideline…
NEVER put up a website that doesn’t have a way for something to give you an e-mail address. In fact, I suggest that you ALWAYS directly ask for one, or even force somebody to give you one if he wants your offer.
This is easier to do than you might think.
Let’s say you’re selling a product, like an e-book. Simply create a free offer (maybe a very short report on the e-book’s topic) and tell people you’ll give it to them at no cost if they’ll just give you an e-mail address to send it to.
You can put that invitation prominently on the sales page for your product, or even on a squeeze page in front of your sales page.
That will build your list, which will build your business over time.
And one more thing…use a third-party autoresponder. Never host your own scripts on your own web server.
You can often get autoresponder scripts for very low cost, and you might think you’re saving a ton over signing up for a service that charges you a monthly fee. But you’re not. I wasted SO much time struggling with script issues, getting poor delivery rates, and being blacklisted by ISPs. It’s definitely NOT worth it.
A third-party service might seem to cost more, but it’s actually a bargain when you consider the advantages it gives you. It also helps you focus on doing what you need to be doing, not struggling with technology.
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Mistake #5: Chasing Bad Traffic
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Not all traffic is good. I had to learn that lesson the hard way.
I won’t beat this point to death, but let me say if you’re spending time on safelists and traffic exchanges, DON’T. Those things are a waste of time and money. They simply don’t work.
Good traffic is high-quality, targeted likely buyers. Bad traffic is everything else.
Safe lists, traffic exchanges, and other gimmicks can build a list quickly, but the list won’t do anything. You’ll end up with a few thousand subscribers (at most) who sit there and never buy because they are trying to sell to YOU.
What you should be doing instead is going after targeted visitors from reliable traffic sources like this:
* Keyword targeted articles on popular article directory sites
* IM-friendly social networking sites that can help you build a loyal following (like Twitter and Facebook)
* Other Web 2.0 sites that can give you great free traffic from search engines (like Squidoo)
* SMART PPC advertising, where you do great research first, and then split test your ads and offers until you know what works
* Relationships that can bring you “warm” traffic that’s eager to buy what you sell (more on this one in a minute)
When I was just starting, I wasted literally years on bad traffic. Now I spend ALL of my time on joint venture partnerships, solid article marketing, well researched PPC ads, and a few other techniques that reliably bring me great traffic.
That’s what you should do.
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Mistake #6: Neglecting Relationships
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Relationships are the backbone of my business. I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.
In the beginning, I stuck to myself and didn’t do as much networking as I should have done. You know, I’m still very private about my business. :)
But I learned that I needed to be a lot more open to establish relationships with people. Now I talk on the phone, chat, and regularly keep in touch with many of the top gurus. Some have become VERY close friends.
This is what Stephen Covey talks about as the balance between Production and Production Capacity.
Working heads-down on your business is good sometimes. That’s production.
But relationships are where the big profits are, and where the big opportunities are. That’s future production capacity, and it’s why I’m where I am today.
I mentioned before that my business has doubled every year for the past three years. Relationships did that.
So go out and meet people! When you’re in forums (because you PLANNED to be), get to know fellow marketers. Attend live events. Offer to work with folks. That’s how your business will succeed.
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Mistake #7: Not Seeing Things Through
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People quit too soon. Success takes perseverance.
When I first started, I felt like quitting almost every day. But I didn’t. Now I can look back on it and think how crazy it would have been for me to give up.
You’re probably not all the way to success yet, so you can’t relate to what it feels like. That doesn’t matter.
Here’s what you need to do…
Refuse to quit, no matter what, until you make your first sale on the Internet without spending yourself into debt.
If you do the other things I’ve told you about in this article, you should be able to do it.
Only you can decide not to quit.
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Wrapping Up
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Those are the top 7 mistakes I see new Internet marketers making every day.
I’ve given you some advice about how to avoid each of those mistakes. And now you have to TAKE my advice and plan how you’ll avoid these mistakes in your own business from now on.
I hope this information helps you as much as I know it would’ve helped me years ago.
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