This is Part 3 in the Series: Learning Internet Marketing. I like to think that all Parts are important but this one Part 3 is especially important so I’m asking you for your own benefit to read, understand and use this real and true information. It’s a long post but I hope it’s of great help to you.

Internet Marketing is not a cake recipe. This means that you can’t just add this, this and this, then mix in this, this and this, and bingo you have success and a wonderful tasty cake as a result. If only falling in love was this easy!

I’m sure most of us at some stage have wondered why Person A can produce a cake or some special dish and the result is always very good, while Person B doing the same thing with the same ingredients, ends up with a big flop. There aren’t always obvious reasons for this and many other things in life as well. Maybe Person A had a better oven or “special tricks” passed down from Mum or Grandma, which would equal mentoring/tutoring/coaching in the world of Internet Marketing.

Sometimes it’s not always clear why one person succeeds and the other fails. This doesn’t mean you just push the issue to one side and ignore it. One of the recommended and important paths to success is to examine, compare and write down the methods of true successful Internet Marketing entrepreneurs (not Gurus) in a field that interests you, which might be Information Products such as PLR, Self Help, Skin Care and Anti-Aging, Weight Loss and Keeping Fit, Natural Medicine, as examples.

I can and will provide some names for you. Try Mike Filsaime, Ewen Chia, Liz Tomey, John Thornhill, Lee McIntye, Dr Joe Rubino, Mike Litman, Chris Farrell, Jim Daniels.

Entrepreneurs dissect methods and results of other successful Internet Marketers and try to find a common thread which can be used as is, or expanded and improved. These entrepreneurs mostly don’t claim to know everything so they often use outsourcing/virtual assistants to fill the gaps.

Time is money so they are constantly testing and making adjustments, to simplify and make the whole process as automated as possible. So what happens is, even while they are elsewhere or on vacation they are making more money than the cost of the vacation. They don’t have to be at home or at their office if they have one.

Having said the above, you need to understand that there never is “one size fits all” or one rule for all, and even though what I say is real and true, there are exceptions to everything including the unofficial rules which may not even be “written down” anywhere with clear cut reasons for each rule.

So you have to be aware of constant changes and be ready for them, which also means staying focused and not getting distracted with side issues such as “instant wealth” and “get rich schemes”. One way to know what’s going on in the IM world is through my blog plus putting your name down for free newsletters from the big players like Google, Yahoo, Clickbank About.com etc

I know some experienced Internet Marketers who were flying along making lots of money, when suddenly Google or Facebook etc changed the rules (what we call moving the goal posts) and they were wiped out or nearly so, financially. This is a major reason why I don’t get involved with Blogger. And of course you never put your eggs in one basket! Some of this is to do with Taxation but I doubt very much this will affect you.

Be flexible and keep adjusting with all the ups and downs and go with the flow.  You can’t stop “progress”. It’s like dancing…get the right rhythm going and sway with the beat. Have fun…don’t get too serious!

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Imagine that it’s Autumn and you are standing under a large tree. There are many leaves falling to the ground and even more so when it’s windy. The tree represents the Internet and the World Wide Web, and each leaf is a website or some source of information about how you can become wealthy, truly happy, successful and perfectly content with your life. And of course you want to stay fit and healthy.

The problem is most of this information (from emails and websites) is false. Full Lies, Half Lies, Scams and Deception.Your job is to catch as many leaves as possible but only those leaves which are genuine and hold the truth. So how can you decide which are the honest leaves before they reach the ground and how will you catch them?

Be loyal to my blog and you will find out. It isn’t just a simple 1 + 1 = 2 but I will show you.

Even if you knew which are the “good” leaves, how can you possibly catch them all knowing it’s a large tree with lots and lots of leaves? And what will you catch them with? What will you use?

And it’s too bad if you’re a newbie, because if you’re a newbie, you have no way of knowing which information is a bundle of lies and which is honest and true!

All red apples aren’t tasty!

Back to reality. Can you see how difficult it is for you to decide almost instantly which is the right information for what you would like to achieve? Even pretty leaves may be diseased inside!

So here we are, just you and me. I’m asking you to trust me because I have many honest leaves to show you. We need to do this quickly because what’s happening on the Internet is changing at a blinding speed and you don’t want to get left behind. Apart from that, the longer you take to obtain and make use of the real deals I will and do provide for you, the more you are missing out.

You have to move quickly and take action. The rules governing how the system (Search Engines and Internet Marketing) works can alter without notice, plus every day there are many new products released which are both good and bad.

I don’t wish for you to throw in the towel and give up because what I’ve said makes you think it’s all too hard. No way! Don’t be a wimp! Just hop up onto my train of knowledge and follow me!

You need to know and understand the Internet Marketing stuff I’ve listed below in random order. Some of it I’ve mentioned before but I’m repeating it because it’s important:

1. Internet Marketing is about making money using the Internet by buying or selling or both. Example: You might buy stuff on eBay or some other site then sell it on eBay to make a profit. Auction sites like eBay are great even for beginners, because there are excellent tutorials to help you get started and you can have cash money in your pocket within a week. eBay has recently been promoting a special deal which is no listing fees.

2. Everything goes in 33333333333′s. eBay has 3 types of Stores. PayPal has 3 levels of Accounts……..you need the middle one. You don’t need the highest level, that’s for networking. Domain hosting companies mostly have 3 levels of hosting services. Membership sites have 3 levels…..usually bronze, silver, gold or something similar. eBook/PLR/software sites might be free, gold, platinum depending on how many downloads you can have. These are just a few examples.

3. Once you are paying and receiving money, you have to be 18 or older. If you’re not 18 use a family member or trusted friend.

4. Join PayPal..it’s free. I’ve been with PayPal for years and I give them 10/10. Later on, you will need others such as AlertPay. They are all free to join. For now, it’s not urgent and I don’t want you to have information overload.

PayPal also provides various free business aides such as colored “buttons” for Subscribe, Buy Now, Pay Now etc

5. Remember this is business not a hobby. You get out what you put in. This relates to the time and effort you make. Don’t take any notice of sites which advertize you only need 30 minutes a day or something similar. Also remember you must always conduct yourself as a professional AND be seen by others such as your visitors/readers, as a professional. You need their trust otherwise they won’t buy from you.

Peoples’ perception is their own reality. They make up their mind based on what they see and here. Write in a way that’s easy to understand but watch out for proper grammar and correct spelling. “talk” to people in letters/emails/articles in a conversational way as if they are sitting across from you at the dinner table.

Always include your visitors/readers/customers and say “we” not “I”. And be prepared to sometimes “dumb” your words down a bit so you can be understood. Never talk down to people.

6. You have to spend money to make money. The general opinion of experienced marketers, is you need $300 to $400 to get your business rolling. This does not mean that if you only have $50 you give up and go fishing. There are lots of good free products if you know where to look but you can’t expect to run a business without spending some money. I have met so many people all trying to be successful without spending a penny. It doesn’t work!

7. When you are surfing the Net don’t sign up for too many free downloads. 99% of the time you won’t need them or know how to use them or even find them later on your hard drive (usually drive C:). In any case don’t clog up your hard drive memory with what’s called digital dust.

I can tell you that the vast majority of these freebies are outdated, useless and have no value even though you are told they are worth “$47″. The freebies are “bait” to get you to buy something. The same goes for free websites “worth $1497″.

8. You must have a simple system of your own in order to catalogue, find and retrieve your “good” saved downloads which mostly will be ZIP files for fast transmission. Use 7 Zip for unzipping, it’s free and works better than the others which are trial products not free ones.

Usually you will be saving to directories called Documents or My Documents. There are other directories of course such as My Pictures but we are not concerned with these at the moment. Inside Documents or My Documents there are major folders which are equivalent to sub-directories. These names will vary a bit depending on which version of Windows you are using, so you might see Documents and Settings. Then inside these major folders you have files and/or smaller folders.

For each folder there will be different products but sometimes these products can have similar file names so don’t mix them. This shouldn’t really happen but it’s because the product supplier was too lazy to name the files properly so you can separate them. If it’s a good supplier you can generally tell which product from the file names.

Quite often the file name doesn’t mean anything because it’s just a mixture of numbers, letters and characters similar to a computer generated password.

If you are confused about the above, imagine a filing cabinet. One drawer is Documents. Inside the drawer there are suspension folders which are your sub-directories or major folders. Inside the suspension folders are manila folders which contain sheets of paper which are your files. Each separate manila folder represents a different product. All of this info is stored on your main hard disk drive (HDD) which mostly is Drive C:

If you haven’t driven yourself nuts already trying to locate a product you obtained/purchased then you certainly will in the future. You can drive yourself insane trying to locate a download/product you have just purchased (or thought you did).

Sometimes you purchase twice because if you can’t find the product, you think maybe the first purchase didn’t go through. Believe me, this is quite common. All products for sale on Clickbank have a 60 day guarantee. If you are seeking a refund, one of the reasons listed is duplicate purchase….

9. Remember what I said before and have a book or journal next to your computer and write down stuff you might forget like user names, password, which email address did you use, transaction details, name of product (it amazes me that lots of transactions/receipts don’t show the product name just a code like DD2V3), bought from whom and date etc. If you might be asking for a refund then you need to know the date, product, price and supplier and how paid eg PayPal or Visa Card. Many suppliers don’t accept American Express anymore because of their higher charges.

You can print out some stuff as a record and also save to Favorites or Bookmarks so get yourself organized. It will save you so much time and stress later. I do all these things.

Don’t forget to do regular backups of stuff on your computer, maybe to a remote hard drive or even a thumb drive. Also checkout the Restore function of your Windows software. If you do something dumb you can restore back to how your computer was a short time before. Maybe once a month go through your Document directories and throw out what’s not useful, what’s too difficult for you and what you can’t recognize.

10. I just want to go back to saving stuff into Documents or My Documents. Either one is OK but be consistent and do the same thing each time, don’t have some here and some over there.

Suppose you buy products from a IM supplier/seller called Sexy Sue. You can save each product in My Documents for example and shorten the name if it’s long. Here is an example: 43 WordPress Video Tutorials could become 43WPVids. The end result is that in My Documents you will have various products from a number of suppliers/sellers which will be sorted and listed alphabetically.

Some problems are the products will be scattered alphabetically so those from Sexy Sue won’t be clumped together, and you still won’t know which products belong to which supplier.

The better way is to create a new folder called Sexy Sue in My Documents and inside this folder create a new folder for each of the Sexy Sue products. You can use upper case letters and spaces here. You only have to use lower case in email addresses and domain names, and you can’t have spaces either.Now all these products will be contained in one folder ie Sexy Sue. Each product is in its own folder so files can’t get mixed together.

Then you can repeat this process for any other supplier. Right mouse click anywhere on screen, click on New (folder), type in folder name in text box. If any text there already press Delete on keyboard or you can use Rename.

11. Get in the habit  of opening up folders and looking at the separate files, especially if you are blogging or working with Information Products such as PLR….Private Label Rights. Quite often there is a readme.txt file, a licence.txt file plus another file or two advising you about installation. All these files are important otherwise they wouldn’t be there.

Check the terms of the licence which tell you what you can and can’t do with the product, otherwise you might get sued. The licence might say you can claim ownership but not copyright, you can’t give away for free, you can’t sell on an auction site like eBay. These are just examples. Some times the terms have info about new Versions/upgrades or you get a website name to obtain more help if needed or info about other associated products.

If you see any JPEG files with extension .jpg this means it’s an image or photo. Video files are pretty obvious.

12. Be very wary with Upsells and One Time Offers (OTO’s). Mostly I don’t like them at all. Read HATE!

Upsells: You buy Product X for $20 say. The sales copy is so good it seems Product X is exactly what you think you want and even a newbie or small child can be successful. Upsell 1 says or suggests it’s not really easy at all and the Installation Option is only $50 plus you do need a domain name and hosting. Upsell 2 is only $60 extra but you will be a member of the Inner Circle, talk to more users and have access to more videos. So now you can get rich faster.

All this happens at the time of purchase. After purchase the seller often throws a One Time Offer at you. The seller tells you that if you don’t buy right then you will miss out. This is ALL LIES!

What I do if the OTO looks interesting is save to Favorites so I can come back if I want to. It also gives you a short time to check you can afford the OTO. The only time I’ve seen a true OTO is with the Warrior Special Offers in the Warrior Forum. What happens there is you get a special low price for a short time before being released to the general public through Clickbank, at a much higher price.

12.  You must have the right MINDSET. It’s a hard word to define but it’s a combination of guts, determination, believing in yourself, accepting defeat sometimes, learning by mistakes, and always never giving up like the old time inventors. Champions and entrepreneurs have it.

13. Finding the best niche for you to promote/sell into is your first priority not choosing your domain name, hosting etc. The niche is a product or group of products that people are looking for on the Internet because they have an urgent need. The other proviso is there is room for you to compete and the market is not saturated. You don’t have to like what you’re selling if you’re making money. But obviously if you have knowledge or experience already, that’s a good thing.

Often it’s better if you drill down to a micro niche which is less competitive and the big players don’t concern themselves with. Here is an example: Instead of Weight Loss you might concentrate on a micro niche such as “are diet pills good for pregnant women” or “sleeping tips for stressed out business people” instead of Insomnia which is very broad.

14. You don’t try to sell something and hope for the best. You must do research, be focused, but always taking action according to the goals, plan, direction and business model you have studied. Don’t rely on being lucky or similar.

15. Set reasonable goals that are achievable. Reaching these will speed you to success. Break everything down to biteable chunks which means one step at a time. Don’t drown yourself with information. You’re not trying to be the next Einstein. Just learn enough to complete one step then move forward to the next step.

16. Internet Marketing is not just Affiliate Marketing and E-Commerce. There are also other types like Article Marketing, Forum Marketing, Stockmarket/Shares, Futures Trading, Mobile Marketing as examples. But most of these are not suitable for newbies.

17. Internet Marketing is hard and takes time especially in the beginning. Don’t listen to lies. The gurus and scammers want you to believe IM is dead easy so you will buy their products and services. It doesn’t mean you can’t do it well. It’s hard in the sense of starting a new job or learning a new skill/sport or learning a language or music. Once you get going it’s easier and faster and maybe you can afford to use outsourcing like the experts do. Very few people make big bucks under 3-6 months. I know of only a handful.

18. Don’t have several projects going at one time  and have them all unfinished. Finish one successfully then fine tune and repeat your success as you get more experience and have more resources.

Note from Kevin:

There’s more to come in the next Part. Also I want to talk to you about blogging, what you need when starting out, where do you begin, does it take much time……that sort of thing. Also have a look at the differences between a blog and a website, if any.