One of the questions I get from clients of INfoMarketer’sZone is “How do I get serious about this online marketing thing?”
I’m sure you are aware that many people start online by trying a little of this (maybe affiliate marketing) or a little of that (some paid writing or web design gigs) – but they aren’t quite sure how to get serious and turn a hobby income into a thriving, full-time profit center
My advice is pretty simple, you start with your market, work yourself into that market and then offer that market things that they want and need to make money.
Step 1 – Selecting A Market To Focus On. Begin focusing on a market that you a) Have some interest/passion around and that b) you know buy stuff (ideally information, but it could be tangible stuff too). I still get many people telling me that you don’t have to “like” a market to make allot of money. Yet, if you think of any leader in ANY industry – they love what they do don’t they? To be a leader, to make full use of your energy and talent, to feel good about what you do each day, to be healthy and happy you MUST like the business and market you are involved with. At the same time, you also want to make sure you have identified specific buying activity within that market as well – the two sides must go hand-in-hand.
Step 2 – Positioning. Start to build a following of your own, ideally that is done through a blog or network of blogs with some inbound content accomplished through syndication, PR, videos (if you want), etc… Again, you want to leverage your strengths here. If you are a good writer, then develop content. If you like to make videos, then use videos to get attention. If you are a good networker – then attend and speak at events…whatever your strength is to gain attention and interest you want to do it.
Step 3 – Determine Desires And Motivations. Now that you are attracting attention, interest, desire and hopefully some communication – you can begin to pull out the motivations for buying activity and what these people are buying as well as what they would like to buy in the future.  If you do #1 and #2 properly, these ideas will come to you almost automatically.
Step 4 – Match The Desire With A Response. So many people jump right to pushing products or services out to a broad market completely missing steps 1-3. The fact is that when you focus on a market, attract attention and communicate, selling things becomes the simplest step because you are merely recommending or packaging information to questions that market already has. What you then can do is match up desires in that marketplace with products and services – your own reports, ebooks, consulting, training, affiliate products, etc…
It all starts with focusing on a market and then building up your position within that market – so that’s what you can get started with right away. On your mark, get set…GO!
