Posts Tagged ‘List building’

 

It’s nearly been a year now since I came online looking for ways to earn money working from home. I’ve learned so much,  made some great friendships  and like many have made a few mistakes along the way.

Today’s post is all about the most common mistakes made by newbies when they first start out on their internet marketing journey.

If you can avoid making the same mistakes that  a lot of us have already made then you will get on to achieving your online goals a lot faster.

So let’s get started:

Newbie Internet Marketing Mistake # 1:  Buying Too Many Products That You Don’t Need Yet.

This is one of the biggest mistakes that people new to internet marketing make and one that I made myself when I first started out.  I constantly recieved emails on a daily basis from marketers recommending all the latest products that would make me more money or save me a lot of time. I would buy the products only to leave them  sitting on my hard drive waiting for a project to come along that I could use them  for, which sometimes never did.

Also by buying products that I didn’t really need yet,  I wasted a lot of my time reading & learning how to use these products & they distracted me from what I was supposed to be doing.

How Can You Avoid Making The Same Mistake:

• By only buying products that you need for the project you are working on now.  Not for a new project in 6 months time as a better product might become available then.

 

•  Reduce the number of lists that you are already on to avoid the temptation. When you are a newbie you sign up to so many because you are so eager to learn everything you possibly can and  it doesn’t occur to you that you’re going to get emails coming from every direction. If you are not sent the details in the first place –  you can’t buy the products. Work’s a treat for me.

 

Newbie Internet Marketing Mistake # 2 :  Working On  Too Many Projects At The Same Time.

 

This is probably the worst mistake that I made and one that cost me a lot of time at the beginning. I was chasing too many ideas at the same time, juggling too many projects  and wasn’t giving 100% of my time and energy to any,  which resulted in several unfinished projects and….. nothing to show for it.

This made me feel exhausted, frustrated and ready to give up. Obviously I didn’t or I wouldn’t be writing this now ( lol).

Lucky for me I had already joined a forum started up by someone that I had admired and who’s list I was already on called Randy Smith. If your not already on his list I recommend you subscribe now. He’s one of the good guy’s that gives out quality information and advice and is always willing to help out the little guys.

By participating in discussions with all the other members on the forum & listening to Randy’s good advice. I realised I wasn’t on my own, everybody makes mistakes and  it’s how we learn from these mistakes that matters.

How Can You Avoid Making The Same Mistake:

• By staying focussed & only working on one project at a time. Only when your project is completely finished should you start a new one. By doing it this way  you will have a completed project that can start making you  money instead of  having 3 or 4 unfinished projects that are making you no money.

 

• By networking with like minded people that are willing to help,  so you can learn from their mistakes and save you a lot of time and money in the process.

 

Newbie Internet Marketing Mistakes # 3 :  Thinking You Can Do It All Yourself.

 

Another mistake that most newbies seem to make is that they think they can do everything themselves right from the start. They will spend days sometimes even weeks trying to work out how to build a website or how to write a salespage, so they don’t have to pay for someone to do it for them.

Now I’m all for trying to save as much money as I can but I realised early on that you can’t be good at everything , and it would save me  time and money by outsourcing  the jobs that I’m not good at so I can concentrate on the jobs I can do.

How Can You Avoid Making The Same Mistake:

 

•  By coming to terms with the fact that time is money and you simply won’t make any if you carry on trying to do everything yourself.

 

• By outsourcing the jobs that you are not comfortable doing. You can outsource almost any job including graphics, copy writing, article writing, blog posts, product creation, squidoo lens building to name a few. Elance and the Warrior Forum are good places to look to hire someone or take a look at my tools & resources page for some of the people I use.

 

Newbie Internet Marketing Mistake # 4: Not Building A Mailing List Straight Away.

 

This is the biggest mistake of them all. I know you are probably fed up of hearing that to make money online you need to build a mailing list of subsribers. You hear it so much because……it’s true.

If you are not building a mailing list of subsribers yet then you really should think seriously about starting one.

 You will be able to:

• Build a relationship with your subscribers ( People buy from people they know & trust )

 

• Recommend affiliate products that might help them

 

• Increase your own sales

 

• You will be able to get jv partners if you have a list of your own

 

I know when your first starting out it’s a little daunting, you don’t know what to do or how to get started. I was exactly the same but I took action and so can you.

How Can You Avoid Making The Same Mistake:

 

By taking action and building a mailing list of your own. It’s really not that hard. 

All you need to do is:

• Find yourself a free gift to offer your visitors as a thank you for subscribing. This could be free ebooks, a free newsletter or a free report that you’ve created.

 

•  Design yourself an eye catching squeeze page with an attention grabbing headline to entice your visitors to sign up for your free gift. If you need to hire a designer to design one for you I use Pete at Minisite-Wizard & can recommend his services.

 

•  Upload your free gift to your webhosting account. If you haven’t already got one I can recommend D9 Hosting . I use them for all my sites, they are very reliable and their customer service is excellent.

 

•  Get yourself a good autoresponder account . You will need an autoresponder to communicate with your subscribers, deliver your free gift and to keep updated with your latest products. I use Wizard Responder for all my sites and can highly recommend their services.

 

•  Get traffic to your squeeze page. The more people that see your offer, the more people that are going to sign up to get your offer. This can be done for free by  article writing, blogger blogs, joining as a contributor at a giveaway event, creating a squidoo lens & linking back to your offer to name a few.

 

•  Once you’ve got people on to your mailing list follow up with some great free content that will give them value.

 

•  Rinse and repeat.

 

Newbie Internet Marketing Mistake # 5 : Thinking That Your Going To Make Lots Of Money Straight Away.

 

There are so many promises flying around the internet by the top guru’s saying how they made thousands in only x amount of days that I’m not surprised that some people will think that internet marketing is easy money. 

 Well I’m sorry to have to break it to you but……it’s not true.

 Just because it worked for someone else doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to work for you.  Don’t come into this and expect instant money otherwise you will only get frustrated and give up when it doesn’t come straight away.

 

 How You Can Avoid Making The Same Mistake:

By realising that internet marketing is not a get rich quick scheme. It takes time, patience and a lot of hard work to succeed online.

When I first started out  I didn’t know html or how to uploaded my ebooks to my webspace. I had to learn how to do all these things first before I could concentrate on doing anything else. There are so many new things to learn when your first starting out that it’s impossible to do everything at once.

Once you’ve got the basics covered then you are well on your way to making your goals come true.

Newbie Internet Marketing Mistake # 6 : Using A FREE Autoresponder To Save Money.

 

If you ask any of the top internet marketers what the most important part of their business is they will all tell you the same – Their List!.

 Why……..because that’s were they can make the most money from.

So why anyone would risk using a free autoresponder service because they want to save money beats me , but people are still making this mistake.

The Advantages Of Using A Free Autoresponder

• Doesn’t cost you anything. They’re FREE.

 

The Disadvantages Of Using A Free Autoresponder

• They contain advertising from other companies that distract your readers.

 

• They are unreliable – emails don’t get through.

 

• They send visitors away from your sites.

 

• They don’t look professional. Your readers will know your using a free acount.

 

• You receive lots of spam emails.

 

• They might as well write “ Newbie” all over them.

 

How You Can Avoid Making The Same Mistake:

 

By getting a reliable autoresponder company right from the start. I can’t stress enough how important it is to get a good autoresponder so please don’t try and cut costs on what will be your most valuable asset.

As I said before I use Wizard Responder on all my sites. They are very reliable , the customer support is excellent and it’s very easy to use.

Newbie Internet Marketing Mistake # 7 : Not Backing Up All Your Work.

 

Imagine, you’ve just spent hundreds on some new resell rights ebooks that you are going to sell on and make money. You leave them on your hard drive and then your computer crashes and you loose all your work.

Or

You spend months putting new content on your website or your blog and then you delete it by accident or it disappears.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been on a forum and a newbie asks for help because their computers have crashed and they’ve lost everything. If you think this won’t happen to you then think again because it happens all the time and it can so easily be avoided.

 

 

How You Can Avoid Making The Same Mistake:

 

By backing up all your work. If you’ve got ebooks and software on your computer then copy them onto a cd. If you have a website or blog make sure you download back up copies on a regular basis.

If you’ve got a good hosting company they will have free videos on how to do it if your not sure what’s needed .

Make sure you back up everything so that if something does go wrong……your covered.

 

Newbie Internet Marketing Mistake # 8 : Failure To Take Action.

 

The number one reason why most newbies fail is because they don’t take any action. They spend lots of money buying information products to learn how to do something but then fail to follow through.

 The main reasons for that are:

• They are afraid of making mistakes

 

• Scared they don’t know enough about the subject

 

• Haven’t got the confidence to take any  action

 

 

How You Can Avoid Making The Same Mistake:

 

By jumping straight in there and taking action. Start a blog and share your knowledge, create a squidoo lens and promote some products on there. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you can learn as you go along . Just………take action!.

Join some forums in your niche so you can share your experiences, get useful tips off the other members and learn from their mistakes. You don’t have to do it all alone you know. Being part of a community helps  you gain confidence, makes new friendships and will give you the boost you need to get yourself to where you want to go.

Have you made any of these mistakes when you first started out ?

Is there something you would of done differently if you could turn back time ?

Please feel free to leave a comment ,  you never no….. you just might save someone from making the same mistakes.

Warm Regards

 Dawn Kay

www.dawn-kay.com

www.kays-ebooks.com

www.infoproductsgalore.com

 

If you are looking for a great  way of getting  new subscribers onto your mailing list , have you ever considered  taking part in  a giveaway event. Contributing a free gift to a giveaway event is one of the fastest ways of building your list and they are free to join and so easy to set up.

 

A giveaway event is where lots of internet marketers join forces to promote the event  and they send people to the giveaway for them to download free ebooks and software. Before the visitors can download these free gifts they have to opt-in to your mailing list.

 

 If you haven’t started to build a mailing list yet, this is a great way to start off -!!

 

 

What Do You Need To Get Started:

 

• A Gift To Giveaway. Look on your hard drive and see if you can use anything you’ve already purchased. Alternatively,  if you are looking for a collection of private label ebooks to make your own or your just looking for ones with MRR/RR,  I get mine from  More Monthly.)  The added bonus to this site is not only do you get lots of ebooks & software to download each month but there is a community forum where everybody helps each other grow their online business – priceless in my opinion !!!

 

• A Squeeze Page, Thank You Page and a Download page.  If you are good at graphics you can always do them yourself using My Free Website Builder or if you would like them done by a professional designer I use Pete at MiniSite-Wizard  , he does all my graphics for me & I highly recommend his service.

 

• Domain Name  & Hosting.  You will need to upload your squeeze page, thank-you and download pages to your webspace so your subscribers can get their gift.   I use D9 Hosting  for all my websites & blogs, they are very reliable & their customer support is excellent.)

 

• An Autoresponder Account . Where you can manage your mailing list and send out follow on messages to communicate with your subscribers.  I use Wizard Responder for all my sites, they are very affordable & I can highly recommend their service.)

 

  

Your free gift could be:

 

• A collection of ebooks with master resale rights / resale rights.

 

• Graphics & webtemplates.

 

• Free entry to a membership site.

 

• Collection of private label ebooks.

 

• Your own product.

 

 

 

Make sure that the gift you are going to giveaway comes with giveaway rights (you don’t want to get yourself in trouble .) And that it’s a QUALITY GIFT that will give your subscribers value.

 

 First impressions really do count – so use them wisely!

 

 

Now I know when your starting out the thought of entering a giveaway event can be quite scary ….and you don’t  know whats  involved. I was just the same but I took the plunge after reading ” Giveaways Work 4 Little Guys”  by Randy Smith. It gave me all the information I needed to know to get me started and I signed up to be a contributor straight away. You can download a copy for FREE by clicking here  no opt-in required.

 

  

Remember once you get subscribers onto your mailing list your aim should be to  build a relationship with them and to gain their trust . You do that by giving them quality information and tips that will benefit their online business . Then they are more likely to  listen to your recommendations and buy your products in the future.

 

I hope by reading this it will give you the confidence you need to enter your first giveaway event so you can start building a mailing list of your own . Please let me know how you get on and if I can be of any help to you   don’t hesitate to ask.

 

Warm Regards

 Dawn Kay

www.dawn-kay.com

www.kays-ebooks.com

www.infoproductsgalore.com