5 Core Skills To Build Before Starting Internet Marketing

It kinda bugs me that there are people who are constantly writing about the things that do well in Internet Marketing. I think that’s real silly. People want the real stuff. They want to know the exciting stuff, but they want the truth too.

Why have internet marketers hidden from you, the costs of getting to where they have gotten? Because it is the one thing that separates the real players and the suckers. If you do not know how much time and effort they spent, don’t think that internet marketing is a walk in the park.

My business partner was so excited after a conference, he started up a mini-site that was selling a set of products we already had in existence. It was a great plan, except that for the kind of product we put up, he sold the package at a drop dead price of $97. Now, I operate from Singapore, and we know that most of the people who would buy this product would come from the other side of the world. Without verifying the shipping charges, he happily took orders from the internet. The first one had him jumping up and down… only to realize that the cost of shipping took about 90% of that $97. We couldn’t cover the production costs. Straight away, it was a loss.

But everyone talks about shipping their products as if it were a simple thing. Most people have forgotten completely about the people living on this side of the world and what it takes to sell something. This means that there are a few things that most beginners in internet marketing need to be careful about and learn.

#1 – Learn Copywriting.

Copywriting is the most important skill ever to be taught to marketers and business people alike. If you don’t have the ability to write your own sales letters, it will be easy for people to tell you to outsource the writing. My advice: DON’T. You are letting them develop the skill that you should be building up. No one ever gets to be an expert copywriter overnight. Learn it, and learn it well.

#2 – Understand Business Models

There are about 7 or 8 different business models on the internet. Because I need to make sure that people really understand about business per se, I’ve put it in the form of a freely downloadable format at http://www.stuarttan.com/affiliate/bizmodel.pdf
Go grab it - no holds barred.

#3 – Drive traffic

I’ve included a list for those of you newbies out there, the multiple ways to drive traffic over the internet. There are over 100 ways you can use to drive traffic and I would highly recommend you hop over to learn about these. I directly credit people like John Reese, Jeff Johnson and Yanik Silver for their invaluable knowledge that I have gotten from them. If you don’t know about them, please begin today! They are great people and I highly recommend that you visit them at www.trafficsecrets.com, www.searchenginevoodoo.com and www.surefiremarketing.com respectively. Download my traffic generation chart on www.stuarttan.com/affiliate/Traffic Boosters.pdf
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#4 – Learn New Internet Technology Fast

You need to be learning really fast. I’ve discovered that there are a large number of new internet technologies that keep coming up and they can be very powerful, provided you know how to use them. If you don’t know how to use them, it will most definitely be to your disadvantage. For instance, most people still don’t know how to use RSS and Blogs. In addition, some people are clueless about XML feeds and how that helps to create massive content sites and increase search engine rankings. You need to learn fast. The only way for you to master your learning is to read about them. I highly recommend that you visit www.stuarttan.com/learning/ for more information that I can’t deal with here.

I am going to give you something good, though. If the entire internet marketing world is doing it, DON’T. If you just follow, you will not be at the breakthrough point of technology usage. Start innovating and think creatively to solve a problem. Sometimes, even the simplest things can bring about massive profits online!

#5 – Keep Relationships Going

Keeping relationships going on the internet is a difficult thing. But it is essential. You need to be able to do autoresponse messages, personalized. However, most people miss the point. Automatic isn’t going to build relationships. You need to keep them warm. Call them. Give them ideas. Give them free stuff (learnt this from Yanik). More importantly, ask Jeff Johnson’s single most asked question – ‘Can I help you?’.

I’m all for making money – but if it is at the expense of friendships and relationships, I think it is going to be really stupid to continue making money. Give yourself a chance to put back, in your heart, what many poor, scammy internet marketers have taken away – quality and the desire to help people.