Successful Online Business – Fact or Fiction?
Is running a successful online business or earning an income through affiliate marketing just hype?
This is a question I’ve received on several occassions over the past few months.
You know, for the longest time I was wondering the same thing… but for some reason it still came as a surprise when I saw these emails in my inbox.
Personally, I think that the "hype" about online success is no larger than people buying into the "hype" of entrepreneurship and developing a successful small business. Whether it’s online or offline is really irrelevant.
The massive attrition rate that you often hear about in regards to starting an online business is not any higher online than starting a traditional small business, which show a failure rate of over 90% within the first two years (according to some statistics). Even more businesses fail within the first five years… And the investment that people put into these business are in the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars (trust me, I’ve been there…).
In contrast, online marketing is easy for people to get into and has a relatively low cost of entry (often the only requirement is "sweat equity"). Hence the numbers of those who fail are proportionately larger that those who fail with small businesses.
This is also the downside of online marketing (and the home business industry in general) as many are seduced by the promises of quick "easy" money…
As we all know, success rarely comes easy… and I can share with you that I’ve crashed and burned countless times with various business ventures. However, I have also experienced phenomenal success both in the home business industry (network marketing) as well as starting and running a traditional "brick and mortar" business… and of course I’ve now realized this online as well.
So what did I learn from my mistakes and experiences over the past several years?
- I needed to learn each facet of the business myself
- Develop a "battle plan" (preferably following someone else’s already successful business model)
- Determination – Stick to it without fail and don’t lose focus). For instance, when building content sites, don’t develop ten sites at once but concentrate on one or two at a time.
- Duplicate the success – See if I can repeat the success of my last project
- Automate / Outsource – duplicate the process at a faster rate by hiring freelancers for mundane tasks
Of course, there are many ways to skin the cat when it comes to internet marketing. But the principles above always remain the same.
But the question still remains, "Is starting a successful online business a pipe dream?"
Well, this may tick some people off, but in my humble opinion, there is no reason why anyone can’t develop a business where they earn $100 / day on the average within a relatively short period of time (2 – 4 months of work) provided you have a plan and stick to it.
Let me give you an example:
About a year ago I has burned out a bit on content site generation and wanted to focus my time on something else. Around the same time, I had several people on my now defunct list ask me what I would do if I was just starting out with little to no money to invest…
I usually had a pat generic answer back then, which was: "build websites and monetize with Adsense" or "Use Adwords and sell Affiliate Products" then proceed to point them to a few resources.
But since this required start up capital, I decided to take a different approach.
Early in the year (early 2006) I came across a report by Captain Tim Gorman on driving traffic to Adsense sites using Article Marketing. I had followed his step by step method at the time and knew it worked well.
So, I decided to "tweak" the method and applied it to a "direct to affiliate" sales process using article marketing…
In other words, it was a method that’s essentially the same as "bum marketing". Of course, this method had been around for a quite some time… I just didn’t know about it. Apparently Travis Sago released his "Bum Marketing Method" around the same time as well… unfortunately I didn’t even get a chance to read this until after I had gone through and finished my own "case study" (some of you may recall my report and the video tutorials I released earlier this year).
In any event, I applied this method relatively consistently over a four month period of time and averaged over $100 per day with this strategy.
Although it’s not a ton of money, it was something I developed "out of thin air" with hardly any expenditures that I still keep getting paid on (albeit it has dropped slightly over time since I haven’t maintained it).
Personally I don’t think Bum Marketing is the best use of ones time and resources particularly since you are not controlling your own virtual real estate, but it’s a method that has proven to work. Not just by me but by countless of individuals who have read Travis’ report.
In case you’re wondering what steps I followed to achieve that level of income, here are the simple steps:
- Niche and Keyword Research
- Choosing a Product
- Article Marketing: Write and syndicate 10 – 25 articles (or more) every single week.
- Rinse and Repeat Ad Nauseum
That’s it… (For more on these topics, I recommend you watch my videos in the Affiliate Marketing Video Tutorials section).
So, when people ask me if it’s all hype OR if they "missed the wave" of internet marketing, I just shrug my shoulders and point to all of those who: stop searching, focus on one method and put in a consistent effort over time to achieve a decent income in a relatively short period of time.
Direct to Affiliate Article Marketing is just one method that can get you there…
To your success,
P.S. If you want to learn how to go beyond Bum Marketing and profit from your own small niche blogs using similar principles, I urge you to check out: Andrew Hansen’s Niche Marketing on Crack (I know, it’s a terrible name, but a great ebook nontheless).
Written by: StevenR - AffiliateMarketingDiary.com : Your Resource For Internet Affiliate Marketing
Original Article: Successful Online Business – Fact or Fiction?
[tags]bum marketing, article marketing, affiliate marketing, successful online business[/tags]
Comments
thanks for the info about article marketing
Most people are lazy, see “online business” as synonymous with “get rich quick” and then bash both when they don’t see results after a month of only working a couple of hours a week. I have been doing this for three years now and still have not reached an “easy” point, but I like this stuff. And when I start burning out, I keep everything else going and try something new with the same stubbornness that I started everything else. Some people just don’t know what it takes.
Good article and I like how it shows how “real” businesses fail 90% of the time as well in the first two years. You need to be focused and have a niche with a keyword plan of attack. It’s hard to always stay positive but online business gets even better with age because Google starts giving your site more authority simply by it’s age (albeit small, everything helps)
Great article – I think the main problem with this industry is all the advertising leads people to believe that if you sign up for this or that youwill become rich. But then reality hits when they get the product or training and realize they have to do work to make that money so they go search for the next easy path to riches, which of course doesn’t exist.
But if you are willing to put in good solid effort and work online there is plenty of money to be made.
Chris
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