You Can Get There…Just Follow the Right Road! October 8, 2008
Posted by Riley West in : The Making of an Internet Marketer , 1 comment so farIf and when someone asks my advice on how to get into Internet Marketing (and that does happen)….I remember how flummoxed I was at first.
I allowed myself to be inundated with offers.
I signed up for every autoresponder series. (This was before I knew what an autoresponder series actually was)
In a short while I had spent $1000 bucks and didn’t know where to start.
That’s the biggie. For newcomers to IM it is a real challenge to pick a good path, stick with it, and make it work.
Heck, most IM’ers never make it to there! That’s right. Most! 96% I’ve heard.
Every day a whole new bunch of newcomers wash up onto the shores of Internet Marketing and get gobbled up! By old pros. Not pretty.
I’m not gonna let that happen to me. Wait….it already did! And I’m an experienced businessman from way back.
What happened?
I wanted it too badly. You see, I’m an old school brick and mortar retail store owner.
For the last 35 years I have gotten up in the morning like most folks. Still, the first thing on my mind was…”I have inventory. I gotta sell it! I need better inventory. I have to upgrade.”
And…”My expenses are climbing. I have to sell more! And I have to get a better markup!”
All that time, I had overhead that could eat me alive if sales slumped. Which they did.
So I started looking into marketing on the internet as a viable way to earn money without having an overhead that can bury me! But, first I had the idea to build a website that presented my store nicely.
So, I got one. That was a struggle! Then I watched it for a while. Nothing happened. I got traffic stats for the site and it showed, on average, 10 to 20 visits a day and a lot of that was probably me.
I don’t remember how I got onto it but I found Google Adwords. I opened an account. I started a little ad campaign for my store, geo targeted to my trading area.
My website traffic went from practically nothing to 3000 visits a month. And, get this, they were visitors that had typed in a search term that identified them as a person in the market for furniture.
(That’s what I sell out in the real world - http://www.rileyrealwood.com)
That was 18 months ago and 16 of those months were all time records for sales. What a testimonial for Google. But that’s not why I’m here, right now. Later I’ll tell you what I know from 18 months of successful Adwords advertising.
I’m here right now because I want to provide useful Internet Marketing information from a particularly unique position. Also, I want to build a business that thrives on brain power and doesn’t have a huge overhead!
I don’t have to have a storefront, for example. That’s huge.
You’re probably looking into Internet Marketing as a possible (highly possible) way to add to your income. There are about as many reasons as there are people.
Maybe you’ve been sold on the fact that IM’ers experience FAR LESS overhead (costs) than your typical business. (therefore it’s easier to make a profit) You’ve also been told it is easy. It’s not. At first it can seem impossible. So many little details.
You are in the right place for additional, and even large income. It depends on who you are. The Internet is the exciting new medium you have heard that it is. There is a lot of hype, though. You don’t have to despair in the indecision. You can get moving.
At the beginning of this post I said that when someone asks my advice on how to get ahead in the world of Internet Marketing, my answer is..
1. Pick the right way. Look at this for help on picking your way.
2. Stick with it until it works.
3. When you get your first money coming in you will already be in the game!!
Why do I say that? It’s because of the Internets incredible scalability. If you can earn one dollar you can earn ten. You are going to see how.
In my next post I am going to recommend some resources that take a little money.
But they are the ones that I should have known at first and once I did I moved ahead fast. Lordy. Why is it that it is so hard to get the info you need at the right moment?
I’ll see you on the road to success,
Riley West - An Oregon pioneer making his way in the trade
PS: I still go to this place when I’m looking for an answer.
