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VIRAL MARKETING

Any discussion of viral marketing brings up two authors – Malcom Gladwell, “The Tipping Point” and Seth Godin, “Unleasing the Idea Virus”. Really, these authors are incredible thinkers – you should seek out and buy their books, read them for yourself to get the most out of them. But I’m not so in love with their books that I let them go on all points

Let’s take Tipping Point first.

Gladwell is talking about social epidemics. While some of this is applicable to marketing, his book is mostly applicable to the society and social interactions.

Viruses all go past a point of no return. This is where they have gotten a large enough base where the majority become infected. This is the point of critical mass, the threshold, the tipping point.

Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.

We are living in a philosopher’s paradise. Ideas can now be spread and influence people without physical limits. And the best ideas act like mercury – very hard to corral and control. The finest ideas are the universal solvant – unable to be held in any container except itself.

The tipping point is when an illness of a few becomes the epidemic of the many, the moment of change where a minor occurance becomes a major trend.

Epidemics have an exponential (bell curve) life span. This is the same life span of trends and fads. “The Tipping Point” studies the upslope of that Bell Curve progression.

THE LAW OF THE FEW

Word of mouth is still the most important form of human communication. Rumors are the most contagious of all social messages.

A tiny minority of people create the surge which tips the epidemic. Gladwell names three necessary types:

Connectors

are people specialists. They know lots of people, have an extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances, of making social connections. They have mastered the “weak tie”; a friendly, yet casual social connection. They manage to occupy many different cultures and subcultures and niches. They spread the message

Mavens

are information specialists. Once they figure out how to get that great deal, they want to tell you about it too.

They solve their own problems, or emotional needs, by solving other people’s problems. They provide the message.

Salespeople

have the skills to persuade when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing. They translate and communicate via the nonverbal and are practically more charismatic than those around them. Emotion is contagious. “Senders” are very good at expressing emotions and feelings. They are far more emotionally contagious than the rest of us.

Another point, which gives us all hope as marketers, is that any of us are connected to the rest of us by six or fewer other people. So any of us could create the next “big thing” which goes epidemic.

THE STICKINESS FACTOR

Messages have to be packaged and translated into a way that fits into our emotional makeup. Those we adopt into our lifestyle are “sticky”.

The multiplicity of messages through the Internet is both a blessing and a curse. But it only works if you surround yourself with your own niche. For everyone is a niche unto themselves. Now they may have and be part of greater and lesser networks – replete with mavens, connectors, and salesmen – but you really still have to be true to yourself.

That being said, you are free to adopt any new message that comes along which improves your quality of life.

Now, from the reverse view, in marketing you are trying to get out your message that you have a widely applicable solution to a fairly (or very) common problem. And that this solution is readily available.

There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible/sticky and compels a person into action. All you have to do is find it. In order to be capable of sparking epidemics, ideas have to be memorable and move us into action. Content of the message matters too.

The key point where a new message “sticks” with us is where it is translated into an emotionally useful tool. A message is converted to a package which is then translated by a “salesman” so that we can emotionally “grok” what is coming our way, accept it, and use it. (Note: The word “grok” comes from a viral product, Heinlein’s “Stranger In a Strange Land”. Worth looking up.)

A very few individuals can control their emotional states. This takes quite a bit of personal training (which anyone, actually, can master on their own). We respond to the emotions of people around us. Practically, studies have been done which show what we hear and say are a small percentage of the communications we actually recieve. Gladwell’s book mentions several examples and studies of this area.

When you get a point across emotionally, you can appeal to the subconscious and activate patterns and habits the individual may not even know are there. This is what Madison Avenue has paid psychologists to study for years. They want to (hopefully, but in vain) find key push-buttons which will make selling easier. Push-button societies went out with the Internet’s rise.

There are really only a handful of “buttons” which work in very general terms. Ciladini and Maslov have working observations along this line – as I’ve covered elsewhere in this book.

Otherwise, our emotions are like our politics. (And just review the elections of 2000 and 2004 to see how similarly unlike we are to each other – it’s been an even split in elections on our emotional values.) We have assigned our loves, hates, fears, exhilerations, sympathies, et al. to many and varied associations. In the Americas, you cannot find two or more people who have exactly the same responses to anything – even being faced with sudden death. You do find that people will more or less react in similar fashions. But the differences are broad enough that it is impossible to actually “fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time.”

As the Internet and its choices become more pervasive, we will see more and more fragmentation and realignment of our emotions with our various attitudes.

CONCLUSION

Starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a few key areas. Your resources ought to be solely concentrated on the Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. Or at least getting your idea in front of them.

You have to define your niche and the people who move in it. You need to study what is out there, what solutions are being proposed. You have to find ways for people to get this data. You have to find connectors (specialized article directories, online radio shows, key forums and blogs) within that niche. The Mavens and Salesmen will take your concept from there. But be very willing to give out free samples for people and to reach out to many, many, many sub-niches (nichettes?) in an emotional way they will understand.

“Those who are successful at creating social epidemics do not just do what they think is right. They deliberately test their intuitions.”

They say the bubble is bursting, but you would not know it by the over 32,669 active housing listings from the past 7 days alone in the San Francisco section on Craigslist.com. Real estate sales are alive and well on Craigslist with the real estate sales section as the #3 most popular category, more agents are realizing the power and value in using Craigslist to reach new buyers.

What is Craigslist?

Started in 1995 by Craig Newmark, Craigslist.com was initially created to help people find affordable housing in San Francisco. Craigslist is now the most popular online classifieds website in the world, with over 10 million visitors monthly and growing. Craigslist features 300 available cities across 35 countries for posting. Everyday people come looking to buy, sell and lease property. Agents can capitalize on this traffic by posting free ads and answering ads seeking homes. It truly is a real estate agents dream marketing tool.

Getting Started

Agents interested in using Craigslist can get started by visiting the Craigslist.com website and deciding which cities to post in. Research other ads in your area to identify areas in need of property listings and to find out what your competitors are posting. The real estate section of Craigslist is divided into sections to direct traffic to specific areas including rooms & shares, apartments/houses for rent, housing swap, office & commercial, parking & storage, real estate for sale, sublets & temporary and vacation rentals. Posting an ad is free except in New York City, which just started to charge $10 for rental listings. Once you know where you’d like to post, create either single ads for hot properties or a combination ad listing all your available properties for that area.

Creating an Ad

Ads are simple to create and are mostly text and require no design or html experience. Your ad should be descriptive with contact info and supporting photos. Images of your properties will increase response by over 200%, so be sure to include shots that really help sell the property. Images can be easily uploaded during the posting process.

Posting Your Ad

Posting an ad is as easy as picking your city, choosing the correct category, selecting post at the top right corner and entering your listing into the form. You will need to come up with a good title to get people’s attention. Your ad should also feature keyphrases that people might search when looking for your property region, style, features, etc. Once you enter your text into the form, upload your images. You will need to enter an e-mail address, but you can choose to keep it anonymous. Then you simply submit, review and wait for the link in your e-mail to publish.

Reposting, Multi-Posting and Auto-Posting

Once published, your ad will remain on Craigslist for 7 or 45 days, depending on your selected city. Staying on the first page is very important but you are only allowed to post the same ad in more than one city very 48 hours. However, to get around this rule, create multiple ads for the same property, but slightly different text or use a different e-mail for each ad. To succeed you will need to repost at least every 48 hours as new buyers come to the website all the time. To automate the reposting process you can use an underground auto-posting service or purchase a script. These programs are not sanctioned by Craigslist but are widely used and highly effective. Keep in mind that buyers are turned off by spam, so be sure to only post your property once a day, per city and category. This ensures you get great placement without coming off as desperate or overly aggressive.

As you can see using Craigslist is a very easy and affordable way to reach new customers. This is only the beginning of what agents can do to promote properties on Craigslist. As Craigslist becomes even more popular it is the agents who not only use the service, but can effectively navigate and exploit creative out of the box ideas that will win.

Although Chitika has been around since 1993, not many pople were aware of them in the website marketing business, in fact, I myself didn’t realize of there existence until I saw people start bragging about how much money they were making of off them, even over Adsense.

So, what’s the big deal? You may ask. Well that’s pretty simple actually, Chitika has invented a revolutionary ad-type called eMiniMaills. These eMiniMalls are banner sized shopping cart displaying items that you choose by keywords, and you get paid for every click on the ads.

Chitika introduced eMiniMalls in June of ’05, but people really started to utilize them quite recently, and started to realize the true power that they held over the common consumer. From most, if not all, reports that I’ve seen, most people’s Chitika earnings have surpassed there Adsense earnings by a large amount, and this is no small feat.

Now that I’ve made you all aware of how it all works, and true power of eMiniMalls, let’s get into the nitty gritty. You’ll obviously want to start out with a website, or a blog, in fact, any median will do, and is needed. You’ll then want to sign up for an account here. (https:chitika.com)

Now that you have an account, you’ll want to create the adds that you’ll be displaying on your site, this is almost like your creating your adsense ads and the same rules apply, we’ll discuss this more a little later. Unlike adsense you can’t save color schemes so you may want to write the colors down so you can use them in the future for any other ads.

When deciding colors for your adds, you’ll want to try your best to blend them in to your existing website, color wise. It has been proven that those people that have successfully blended there ads into their site via good colors, have has a higher click-through-rate, and thus higher earnings. Try your hand at this and see how it works out. If you’d like an example of how I did the colors compared to my site, you can visit Super Justin.com. (.superjustin.com).

Another important factor to take into consideration is ad placement, I find that the better ad placement, the better click-through-rate. It’s hard to determine which would best suite every site, because every site is different, so you’ll want to test this out as much as you can through trial and error. Some key things to consider is that you’ll want to have your ads in high traffic areas, such as menus as well as site articles.

In closing, don’t forget to use chitika’s great referral program after you sign up, and give your friends and relatives, so you can earn money from them as well. Click here to sign up. (https:chitika.com)

You know information is valuable.

You know the Internet is a profitable venue for marketing information.

You think you may have a great idea or maybe even a product… Now what?

If you’ve done your research, you already have the right tools to start your online business. Namely, you know how to make a website (or if you don’t know how, you know that you can learn how to do it easily or that you can hire someone else to do it for you) and you understand the mechanics of selling your product online (like signing up with a payment processor and getting visitors to go to your site).

But maybe you’re afraid to start.

There’s nothing wrong with being wary; in fact it’s good business sense to know what you’re getting into. A common statistic thrown around is that 9 out of 10 new businesses will fail within the first year. But knowing that doesn’t mean it’s time to quit before you even start. You have a product and therefore you have a target market; it’s useful, even necessary, and most certainly comforting to your beginner’s brain to do your own research and due diligence.

One method of practicing your business before actually going it alone is to become an affiliate. Using an affiliate program to enter a new market allows you test out your ideas and hone them with the ultimate goal of creating and promoting your own product. (In summary, for you beginners out there, affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission off of purchases made by visitors who arrived at that particular product’s site by clicking on a link on your webpage).

An advantage of affiliate marketing is that your only concern is driving visitors to their site; the affiliate program will worry about having the perfect product, providing customer service, and delivering the product. Affiliate programs may even provide you with banners or free e-books and techniques showing you how to promote them. This will provide a good learning ground for you so that you can garner ideas for eventually promoting your own product.

Find some affiliate programs related to your particular idea or product. The research you’ll derive from joining an affiliate program will be the real benefit. By setting up a website or a few websites testing out your various ideas and promoting these ideas, you can then sit back and see what happens. Hopefully you’ll start making money. Then you can see which products are really selling and what marketing techniques are working. As you work on improving your website for the products that are selling, you’re laying the groundwork for selling your own product. You can then feel more comfortable about your own venture using the successful techniques you learned through this “practice” attempt.

And maybe starting your own business won’t look as scary.

Joshua White

.webwealthmethods.com

For those online business owners getting through the day can be hard. You spend all kinds of time at the computer answering e-mails, fulfilling orders, and updating your customer lists. This is very important and essential for you business but it won’t make it grow. This won’t make more people buy or bring in new traffic. How can you manage to get all the necessary grunt work done and still improve your product or service, increase traffic, or campaign a new idea? You need to be able to market your business to make it work and generate a good profit. Automation is the key to running your business and growing it at the same time. Automating necessary tasks can get these thing accomplished with you having to lift a finger. This gives you more time to focus on growth and increasing traffic and sales. It is the key to success for online business owners.

Automation offers the solution of providing awesome customer service that frees up your time for bigger and better things. An autoresponder is an amazing tool to have that can make those pesky e-mail chores go away. They can help you to:

* Get sales on your products and/or services 24 hours per day 7 days per week that will bring in more profit.

* Have excellent credibility with your customers by having instant responses to his or her inquires for more information.

* Increase sales potential by answering questions quickly.

* Provide instant order confirmation that will keep customers coming back and telling other about you.

* Increase your sales by up-selling backend products automatically.

As you can see the faster you get your business automated the better off you will be. This will let you work on generating more growth and add more content to your site. You will be equipped to handle thousands of customers with out getting bogged down. You will be able to auto respond to confirm orders or shipping. You will also want to use theses to answer the most frequently asked questions and or provide more information about what you are selling. This will allow an instant response to come through to the potential customer so they don’t have to wait. You will need look at what type and how many autoresponders will work for you. There are four main ways to get them. You hosting company may offer a few in their package. This is good if you only need a couple. You can get free ones but they will have third party ads attached to them and are limited in their usage. The paid autoresponders allow you to buy as many as you need and use them as you see fit. They don’t have restriction like the free ones do. They also don’t carry any ads in them. Then there is an e-mail management solution that is geared towards e-mail marketing. You would use that tool to set up your responders.

.rodlarrivee.ws

Affiliate advertising represents a massive opportunity to profit from your website, and with any profitable medium there will be people searching for methods of increasing their own slice of the pie by “playing the system”. Why take risks yourself with a product or service when programs such as Google Adsense enable you to profit from others desire to drive traffic and sales to their companies?

You may be tempted to simply create a website with the express intention of selling advertising space. This is a proven business method after all, free local newspapers and newsletters have been operating for years based entirely on advertising revenue and classifieds, and the majority of the worlds television stations can only stay in business by telling you about their sponsors and advertisers products.

The world wide web offers advertisers an low overheads, an unrivalled market reach all combined with a level of statistical feedback that traditional non-interactive media can only dream of. This makes online business extremely attractive but also extremely competitive. Advertisers need to find ways of raising awareness of their products and services against global competition. Maximising penetration in such a massive arena would take more resources than most companies can muster. Enter the affiliate marketeers.

You, as a website publisher become an affiliate by agreeing with companies that you will promote their product on your website. In return the advertisers will pay you for bringing traffic or sales to their website. The more traffic or converted sales you bring the more you will earn for your efforts. By the same measure the more traffic you bring to your own web pages the more you potentially stand to earn from your affiliates.

At this point many affiliate marketeers will disengage their brain, concentrating their efforts on bringing web surfers to their site in order to push them on to their affiliates. Often the webmasters of these sites will be well versed in search engine technology, understanding the core concepts of optimised site design, keyword targetting, external linking and content generation that will increase the “relevance” of their page in the indexes of Google, Yahoo and MSN. It is often the final, and tellingly the most time consuming of these techniques that will merit the least attention in the minds of professional web marketeers.

Often an amount of statistical analysis will take place to identify search trends and high paying affiliate industries that will potentially have the highest payout. A site will then be designed with search engine optimisation at the forefront, simple coding practices that will enable an algorithm to make a good attempt at cataloging the subject matter of the page and relate it to the identified keywords. Search engine experts are also well aware that sites which are updated frequently are treated as “more relevant” in the search engine index. This is a simple equation, if you are searching for information on MP3 players you want to be presented with content telling you about the features of the latest iPod and reviewing the new competing models. You aren’t interested in reviews of a 5 year old device with the ergonomics and storage capacity of a housebrick.

In their rush for content a number of affiliate marketeers will turn to external sources, be it in the form of user generated content or “article directories”. Both can be useful tools for time-challenged webmasters, and particularly in the case of article directories which take the form of free to publish text on almost any subject imaginable. Simply search for an article on your particular subject of choice, paste it into you template, upload it to your site and wait for the search engines to pick it up. Hey presto you are instantly a more relevant site and bumping yourself up the Google results while still leaving yourself time to spend your hard earned affiliate money at the pub.

So far so good but don’t forget the wisdom of your parents generation, “buyer beware” and “you get what you pay for”. Well if you are paying nothing more than a tiny fraction of your internet bill for these articles then you might want to consider the motives of the author of that lovely keyword rich article you just found.

The fact is there are many valuable articles in directories such as EZineArticles and ZapContent.com, but the mistake many webmasters make in their rush for search engine optimised content it that they don’t read, and I mean really read the text that they are merrily pasting into their site. Before hitting ctrl-c ask yourself “does this content really benefit my readers”. The chances are the best content from these services will find itself syndicated across a number of sites, or the information will be republished in differing forms. As people use their search engines to find information they will look at a number of websites and will soon realise which content has been regurgitated ad-nausium. Net result is if their first impression of your site is one that offers the same old information they won’t bother coming back.

Even worse, a number of prolific authors have an ulterior motive. They are simply trying to boost their own search relevance by increasing the number of backlinks to their own websites. If an article you find is borderline check the authors history. If they have submitted hundreds of pages of almost identical content stuffed to the gills with the same keywords the chances are they are simply link-spamming. They don’t care if you publish their content or not, each page in the directory linking back to their website in order to boost their page rank. Would your readers really be interested in such sloppy content? I’m sure mine wouldn’t.

This takes us neatly onto the key message. Why do people return to a website and hopefully trust their sponsors? Because the site has personality, your readers should be able to identify with your informational pages, hopefully they will book mark your page, even tell others to read it. Repeat visitors are far more likely to finally visit your sponsors than those who find your page once and then head back to their search engine of choice. By all means use relevant articles but never compromise your content by relying too much on third party content.

But aside from the human element there is a far more serious reason for ensuring your content is the best, and most original it can be and that is the nature of search engines. Companies such as Google know that their market position is based entirely on trust in their organic results. Expect their search algorithms in future to be tweaked against certain types of syndicated content in order to give the (perceived) best service to their searchers. Spending time now on good quality, original and easily updated content could save you time in the long run as you avoid spending time chasing your page rankings against ever more sophisticated relevance algorithms.

Nowadays, many people save money to quit their day jobs in hopes of achieving their own customized version of the American Dream by starting what is commonly known as an e-commerce business or a “dot com” venture. They then proceed to spend the savings of their labor on great looking, functional and hopefully practical websites. However, a large percentage of such venturesome warriors that take the initiative to quit a steady job and embark on the bumpy road of e-”self employment” do not end up reaping the fruits of their courage.

The initial phases of website development both financially and emotionally drain the average venturous individual to a point that at the end of the process they are impatiently waiting for miraculous profit to be pouring their way. In reality, this seldom happens since there are thousands of such individuals both from the past and the present on the very same path striving to prosper. In order for a website to be profitable, it would have to contend in the race for traffic against hundreds of thousands, or even millions of competitors.

It is possible to attract visitors to your website via countless means however the best and the most efficient are what have been rounded up under the roof of Online Marketing. Online or Internet Marketing addresses the concerns of all those website owners that are astounded at the low returns on their investments. It helps strategize a plan to increase the popularity and traffic of the website and tackle the issues of low profits. The most important aspects of Internet Marketing are as follows:

• Spreading the Word: Since other online venues require a relatively longer initial period of time to yield results, it is quick and efficient to spread the word about your website via submitting articles and news releases to be published. An informative and useful article will intrigue other website owners to syndicate the article hence exposing your website to the visitors of their own websites. On the other hand a carefully prepared news release if published at the right time will drive major media publishers to run stories on your website which in turn will expose your website to a very wide base of potential visitors and in turn converted customers.
• Networking: Propagating the word about your website is a great way to jumpstart your internet marketing campaign, however you need stability from within to be able to sustain your website’s popularity. By partnering or simply having a relationship with websites in and out of your industry you will be able to increase your website link base and provide a one-stop solution for your visitors. You can achieve this by being an active participant in online forums, chat sessions and even seminars not to mention offline venues such as business mixers and conferences.
• Search Engines: Once you have created an initial surge of visitors via press releases and worked on networking to maintain your traffic, your website will be seasoned and ready to benefit from a very precious medium that lets targeted visitors come to you rather than you going after them. Search engines are inundated with searchers looking for products and services in virtually every single industry and category imaginable. By using keyword popularity tools you can find out approximately how many people search for keywords relevant to your website on a daily basis. Once you find the keywords that would bring valuable visitors to your website, then you can target them by optimizing your website. This process is referred to as Search Engine Optimization which will be discussed in much more detail in future articles.
  
  




• Refining the User Interface: Refining the User Interface is certainly one of the most ignored yet extremely important aspects of owning and operating a website. You can be getting hundreds of unique visitors on a daily basis to your website yet making less profit than a direct competitor of yours with half the traffic. The secret lies in your user interface consisting of elements such as forms, navigation, contents, links, buttons, customization, localization and more. By using these elements in the correct places and at the correct time and constantly monitoring your visitor retention and conversation rates, you can not only increase your conversation ratio and therefore your profit but also maintain a larger visitor base potentially creating word of mouth and return business.
  
  

The above are the main areas in which you have to be active in order for your online marketing campaign to be successful. However it is sometimes not possible to achieve the best results in all areas without rigorous research and extensive training. This is where internet marketing firms come to your help in devising and implementing a successful campaign. Internet Marketing is virtually the only way to turn your investment of time, patience and money into measurable profit that could get you closer to achieving your goals and fulfilling your dreams. This is why I invite you to read my future articles where I will be providing more detailed information on each of the above categories as well as information on how to find do-it-yourself information and shop for internet marketing services.

When you think about Online Marketing, what do you think of first? Which aspects of Online Marketing are important, which are essential, and which ones can you take or leave? You be the judge.

1. Sell more back end products to your existing customer base. You already created rapport, trust and proved your credibility to them.

2. Make it a practice to up sell to new and existing customers. After they decide to buy one product, offer them another product.

3. Cross promote your products and services with other businesses that aren’t competition. You will reach a wider audience at less cost.

4. Create joint venture deals with other businesses. You can expand your product line and target other profitable markets at a lower cost.

5. Start an affiliate program for your business. You will be able to spend less profits on risk advertising and spend more money on guaranteed sales. I trust that what you’ve read so far has been informative. The following section should go a long way toward clearing up any uncertainty that may remain.

6. Trade advertising with other businesses to save revenue. You could trade e-zine ads, banners ads, links, print ads, etc.

7. Out source part of your workload. This can save on employee costs, equipment costs, taxation costs, expansion costs, etc.

8. Add low cost bonuses to your offer that have a high perceived value. It could be ebooks, members only sites, consulting, e-reports, etc.

9. Use viral marketing to promote your business on the internet. Give away free stuff with your ad copy include on it so others can give it away.

10. Follow up with all your prospects. You can use a free e-zine, a follow-up autoresponder, an update or reminder list, etc.

The day will come when you can use something you read about here to have a beneficial impact. Then you’ll be glad you took the time to learn more about Online Marketing. .internet-marketing-ez.com/

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6 Internet Marketing Myths – By: goalsetter

Every day thousands of people go online to make money but most of them fail miserably because they either truly believe one of the 6 Internet Marketing Myths or or all of them. You can read them below and discover the grain of salt in all of them.

Myth #1: Internet Marketing is EASY

This is probably the biggest myth of all, and let me tell you Internet marketing is hard, takes time, effort not mention money and anyone who suggests otherwise is trying to sell you a bunch of horse hockey. Granted that it’s comparatively easier to brick and mortar in that there’s no inventory to carry, no shipping of goods no sales staff and virtually no overhead, but a lot of work is still involved.

Myth #2: ANYONE Can Make Money Online

Folks, this is simply not true. Unless someone gets off their lazy boy recliner and download/read everything they can about internet marketing, and put an action plan in motion, they will never make a dime on the internet. DO NOTHING, MAKE NOTHING.

Myth #3: You Can “GET RICH QUICK” On the Net!

This is the trap that a lot of newbie internet marketers falls into including myself when I first started, why? because scammers make it sounds so easy and let me tell you, chasing “get rich quick scheme” is a WASTE OF TIME!, money and energy. It just won’t happen overnight, instead do some research and find out what people really want and need then give it to them especially a sense of reality.

Myth #4: It’s FREE to Do Business Online

This is one of my favorite myths because I believed it during my first year of internet marketing and it just wasn’t true then, it isn’t true today. Compared to opening your first coffee shop or gift shop in downtown Los Angeles, internet business start-up cost and maintenance cost is pretty low. Once you have your domain set up, you only pay for internet connection, advertising and ongoing educations, that’s it. You can’t expect to make money selling free stuff and ask others to do the same. Folks! it takes money to

make money.

Myth #5: It’s TOO LATE to Start an Internet Business

Most internet marketers would love to hear people say “It’s too late now, too many competitions, I should just pack my bags and go home, the internet is too complicated, etc…”. You know why? the less people they have to compete with the better which in turn will make them more money.

The fact is, it’s never ever too late to start anything and that includes internet business. I firmly believe that the internet is not going anywhere and you should too. Every year the stats will show you the number of people shopping

online are increasing, their spending dollars are growing and the number of people going online is increasing also.

Myth #6: The BIG Money Talk is JUST HYPE

As I’ve told you before, “it takes money to make money?” Well it’s true, although you will be hard pressed to find experienced internet marketers to tell how much they spend on promoting and advertising. Sometimes, you have to dig a little deeper to find the truth in every hype you read. It’s a fact that the people that makes alot of money online also spends alot of money on advertising, tools, resources and know how to get the job done.

If you are willing to take the necessary action to make ‘big money’ happen for you – it will. It takes time. You can criticize, be skeptical and sure that ‘big money’ can’t happen for you – and it won’t. Sit down and write a financial and a sound business plan. Local Chamber of Commerce can give all the info you need to get started.

If you believe that you will succeed you’re right, if you believe that it won’t work, you’re right also.

To summarize, you have heard people’s story how they’re making a fortune on the internet and how easy it is but the reality is some stories are NOT out of this world or unrealistic but it just doesn’t happen overnight. You just

have to apply a bit of common sense into it, find what you love to do, have a game plan, stay focus and you my friend might find the right opportunity to make all your dreams come true.

The following are 10 simple yet very powerful ways to increase your sales significantly:

1. When you make your first sale, follow-up with the customer. You could follow-up with a “thank you” email and include an advertisement for other products you sell. You could follow-up with them regularly. The goal is to begin building a relationship with your customers so you need to keep in constant contact with them.

2. You could upsell to your customers. When they’re at your order page, tell them about a few extra related products you have for sale. They could just add it to their original order.

3. Tell your customers if they refer four customers to your web site, they will receive a full rebate of their purchase price. This will turn one sale into three sales.

4. When you sell a product, give your customers the option of joining an affiliate program so they can make commissions selling your product. This will multiply the sale you just made.

5. Sell the reprint/reproduction rights to your products. You could include an ad on or with the product for other products you sell. You could make sales for the reproduction rights and sales on the back end product.

6. You could cross promote your product with other businesses’ products in a package deal. You can include an ad or flyer for other products you sell and have other businesses selling for you.

7. When you ship out or deliver your product, include a coupon for other related products you sell in the package. This will attract them to buy more products from you.

8. Send your customers a catalog of add-on products for the original product they purchased. This could be upgrades, special services, attachments, etc. If they enjoy your product they will buy the extra add-ons.

9. Sell gift certificates for your products. You’ll make sales from the purchase of the gift certificate, when the recipient cashes it in. They could also buy other items from your web site.

10. Send your customers free products with their product package. The freebies should have your ad printed on them. It could be bumper stickers, ball caps, t-shirts etc. This will allow other people to see your ad and order.

There you go. The great thing about these powerful strategies is that you can implement them immediately. As I said, they are easy to start using but the outcome could be a substantial increase in your conversion and/or buy rate which is the ultimate goal. It is extremely important to make your customer and/or prospect feel special and to provide them with additional value-added items that will keep them coming back.