Match Internet Marketing Opportunities to Your Life Choices

By:Steve Jackson

There are almost unlimited opportunities in Internet Marketing, in terms of the different paths people can choose to take in search of the mighty dollar. But what many newcomers fail to consider up-front is that the different opportunities place very different demands on your time – in ways that can have a significant impact on your lifestyle.

Some Internet Marketing opportunities are very close to being “set and forget.” The Underachiever strategy for marketing information products, promoted by Frank Kern and Ed Dale, is a case in point. Once an information product is written, the selling web site is up with all payment issues handled by a 3rd party, and pay-per-click ads are bringing traffic, there is relatively little to do. Similarly, anyone building quick-and-dirty web sites for Adsense income has a similar opportunity. In contrast to content-rich theme sites that may be lovingly nurtured and grown over weeks, months or even years, these sites can be created in hours (sometimes minutes!), “activated” as far as the search engines go within a few days after very little work, then effectively abandoned ... to gain traffic momentum over the months with the free search engines.

But many other opportunities demand a serious commitment of time – at least, unless you are prepared to outsource much of the work.

For example, while eBay does not have to be this way, many people selling on eBay end up in a situation where all the tasks involved in operating the business represent a commitment equivalent to a full-time job. What sounds easy on first glance can involve researching opportunities or products, finding sources or products, even making your own products (information products sold on CD’s, for example), taking or finding photographs, finding or writing product descriptions, putting the final ad together, placing the ads, answering bidders’ questions, packing, shipping, dealing with returns, dealing with payment problems, and so on. It’s still Internet Marketing, of course, and potentially very lucrative, but this can become hard work.

Other types of Internet Marketing opportunities demand you go back regularly to update websites to reflect changes in product or technology so that your sites are always current. This is a common problem with some affiliate marketing sites where there are many links to individual pages on merchants’ sites; while these might offer better conversion rates than links to the merchant’s home pages, these links need to be constantly checked and updated because merchants have a habit of changing products (or even just the specific web pages on which a product is offered).

Some opportunities call on you to respond quickly and consistently to questions from prospects and customers. These might be questions asked by people considering buying your product – in which case you certainly don't want to make them wait; or, questions by frustrated people having problems downloading a product they just bought from you. The longer the wait, the higher the frustration. Then there are issues of refunds, questions about billing, and many more situations (sometimes just plain dumb questions) that demand the personal touch - at least, until you are large enough or confident enough to hire others to handle the administrative side of the business.

One of the most effective Internet Marketing strategies is, of course, to maintain a list of people interested in your product or the topic in which you are a specialist. For many marketers, this list IS the holy grail; everything else is just a means to build it. That’s because a good list can be like gold; a captive audience of people who already know and trust you. But there’s no question, it can take a serious commitment of time and effort to maintain and service such a list effectively. Now, if all you do is e-mail to them occasionally with a half-dozen lines and an offer to buy some affiliate product from you, that's one thing; sure, the commitment is minimal, but in return you can expect a high drop-out rate and poor conversions. But if you put together a valuable and interesting newsletter with good formatting, grammar, spelling and content, one designed to develop a solid and lasting relationship with the people on your list, you’re not talking about just a few minutes a week. If you want the most effective use of a list, this demands consistency of timing, too. So you not only have to commit time and brainpower, you have deadlines to meet, too.

One of the issues that had me kicking myself initially was my shotgun approach to building Adsense sites – I built sites that had very little to do with each other. All the Internet marketing experts agreed that if all I was doing was slapping Adsense on those sites, and not collecting Opt-in e-mail addresses, then I was throwing away an income far larger than the one I was making. But there was simply no way I could afford to maintain and effectively service a list for every site if I was to do it justice in terms of establishing a value-based relationship with the people on the lists. Sure, I could have thrown something together, and I know some marketers do exactly that, but that’s not really my style. An anonymous site is one thing, but an e-mail from me, with my name on it, has to represent something of value.

Still on a personal level, I suppose I should also be happy that, for once, my daughter is actually listening to me! Now she’s into Internet Marketing and building her own sites, she is sticking to a common theme for a whole group of different sites. This means that a carefully written single newsletter can be applied to everybody on the List developed from ALL the sites in a group, because it's relevant and valuable content to every site in the group. There are also valuable SEO advantages from having a group of sites ( a mini-net) on a common theme, of course; the extra traffic means more visitors, which means a bigger List, ... without requiring any increase in time committed to the newsletter. When the Affiliate-based income from the List dwarfs the Adsense income, this Internet marketing strategy is the key to some serious coin.

Digg del.icio.us Blink Stumble Spurl Reddit Netscape Furl

Article keywords: Internet marketing, Internet Marketing opportunity, information products, content sites, affiliate marketing, list building, Adsense sites, affiliate income

Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

Steve Jackson is a full-time consultant (in a field largely unrelated to Internet Marketing) who decided to explore Online opportunities as a way to help friends and family develop the increased freedom of choice that can emerge from a serious side-stream income. His website at www.adummygetsitright.com is a massive source of free information on Internet Marketing opportunities.

Top Internet Marketing Articles
1). The Fly & The Window Of Opportunity By : Rick Davies Copyright 2006 1stPromotion.com One afternoon after going through a small backlog of emails, I was daydreaming about how it shouldn't be tough for absolutely anyone out there to make that first online sale and then to go on and make more and more sales. I feel bad for people that have paid money for some of the programs out there that promise to "stuff their wallets effortlessly" only to find that there is no free lunch.
2). Sign Our Guestbook – How Signing Guestbook’s Or Creating Your Own Helps Your Website By : Anton Cheranev Guestbook’s are some of the most popular areas on websites. Before a consumer does business with you, they are likely to check out your guestbook. Guestbook’s are somewhat like testimonials in that they offer real feedback on your site, your business, and your products. They are honest and are created from those that have had some sort of experience with your business or those who simply visit your site.
3). Where To Find A MySpace Friend Adder By : PaulG MySpace friend adders have become a great tool in maximizing the MySpace experience. Since MySpace has become popular, so has the importance of having tons of MySpace friends. This can benefit the causal MySpace user, the MySpace Music artist, and even the web publishers and marketers that use MySpace as a stepping stone toward success. Now MySpace friend adders have gone even further by adding other MySpace abilities to their programming.
4). How To Monetize A 1,000+ Page Site In 5 min. Or Less Without Violating Google's Adsense Policy! By : D Dean Hall As webmasters, writers and authors we all want to find ways to maximize the profitability of our content. We employ a variety of methods such as Adsense, Yahoo Ads, links to affiliate products of all types but there are a couple of problems. There is the sheer time involved in creating these links and then keeping them updated to the most relevant and profitable products.
5). 'Social Bookmarking' As An Aggressive and Acceptable Blog Marketing Tactic By : gregw Social bookmarking websites are becoming more and more popular. They allow you to save bookmarks online and Tag/Categorize them with keywords instead of saving them as bookmarks in the favorite's list of yourbrowser. This is particularly useful when your browser based bookmarks have become unwieldy. It's also help since you can access your bookmarks from any computer where you have an internet connection.
6). The Four Big Adsense Secrets By : Iszuddin Ismail Is there a BIG secret to the huge Adsense checks? Yes, you’ve seen those screen shots of 5-figure Adsense earning … so have I. And that made you thinking, why are some people earning those huge income, and you are not. Whatever people may say, I only see these are the only factors that make the difference between your earning and those ‘big-guns’. 1 - Adsense Placement Yes, putting your Adsense in a special way can be the difference between 1% click-through rate (CTR) and 10% CTR.
7). The Downsides Of Reciprocal Linking To Increase Search Engine Rankings By : Brian Gilley Reciprocal linking is still a highly sought after method for many companies and webmasters hoping to increase their web site’s ranking in the search engines. Back in 2002, when reciprocal linking firmly took its place as a real way to boost your rankings, many webmasters and sites started using it to quickly and frantically get the upper edge on their competition and the search engines.
8). One of the Quickest and Easiest Way to Dramatically Increase Your Website’s Page Rank By : Tim Wright This is one of the easiest and fastest ways that you can increase the number of one way links to your website and dominate your competition.
9). Spy on the Competition, Stay on Top By : Jay Chirino Just when you thought you had this whole online business thing mastered, it turns out that now you must become a secret super spy, break into your competitor’s databases and steal important documented information that you can put to use for your own benefit. So get your rope and mask ready because we’re going in! Oh, and by the way, I’m just kitting.
10). Let's Start! Create A Business Plan By : Helen Chow Let's Start! Create A Business Plan

New Internet Marketing Articles
1). 5 Tips for Making Mounds of Money on the Internet By : Michael Gulbin Make sure you are doing everything you can to make money on the web.
2). Are You Costing Yourself Money With This Common Article Marketing Mistake? By : Chris Ellington The Article Marketer editorial team reveals the worst mistake an internet marketer can make when submitting royalty free articles.
3). Learn To Market From A Child By : Clint Pollard A marketing lesson I learned from my grand daughter.
4). How To Maximize Your Profits From Backend Sales By : Jason Oickle The truth is with backend sales, you can gain additional or continuous profit without having to do any extra work.
5). Web Site Promotion Guides For Newbies By : Obinna Heche If you are new to the internet world you are not alone. There are a lot of people who are not too familiar with the internet but want to join in on the profits that are available.
6). Network Marketing for Overall Growth By : Sanjay Johari Network marketing provides tremendous opportunity to learn and earn. Those willing to learn have unlimited potential to earn and grow.
7). What Should You Know Before You Start A Home Business By : Arun Pal Singh As 2006 dawns on earth I am quite thoughtful. Many persons started their business in 2005. Some succeeded and some left disappointed.
8). Internet Marketing: Give Me Good Content By : Virginia Bola Have you ever considered how much boring, poorly written, superficial, and totally uninteresting stuff there is in those billions of web pages floating in the ether?
9). Internet Marketing: Give Me Something New By : Virginia Bola Give me freshness, variety, and a taste of greatness. I am totally frustrated by the lack of vitality found in the majority of websites.
10). Why Everyone Needs a Mentor. By : Gary Muller Why do you need a mentor and what could they possibly offer to help you grow your business? Discover why even successful marketers utilize the skills and expertise of an internet marketing mentor.