Most people start internet marketing by being desperate to create a product, or at least have a product to sell. Why? Because their main view is that they’ve committed to internet marketing to make money. You make money, they think, by selling a product.

There’s also usually a vague feeling about setting up their own business, so it’s best to have their own product. Or start an affiliate marketing business which is where even more people make the mistake of not getting the visitor’s email address.

This is a mistake as a first principle.

You need a list first. Imagine you create that first product, put it on your website and even get some traffic to it. You even make some sales. But what happens to that customer of yours? They take the product and you never see them again.

That means that you have to keep generating potential customers for every sale. Suppose you sell one product for every 100 visitors. To sell ten products you’d have to generate one thousand unique visitors. In fact, you’d be forever driving traffic.

Imagine the other scenario. You set up a squeeze page with a valuable free gift. You drive the same traffic to that. Say you still only get ten sign ups from your one thousand visitors. But those sign ups are on your list,they haven’t disappeared. So you can sell to them repeatedly. By this, the list is much more preferable and it only takes the same amount of work to get the traffic.

Join GoldVaultZine for your free ecourse and the ezine that’s (almost) a continuous ecourse itself! You’ll think I should be charging for this! Click the link or sign-up on the right! Thanks!

The definition of an ezine has probably changed over recent times. It used to mean sending out quite a formally structured newsletter publication with separate sections for articles, FAQ and ads. Some are still used. But now it’s much less structured and can consist just of articles or even recommendations of products.

1 Build your list. The top reason for having an ezine is to build your list by offering subscribers valuable information. By doing this you’re able then to make offers as well as give help.

2 Your other sites. You can refer subscribers out from the ezine to your other sites and products. You can keep them in touch with what developments are taking place in your business. In other words, you’re gaining at least their tacit involvement in what you’re doing. In that way, you’re building relationships for long-term customer support of your business.

3 Ask them. A list through your ezine gives you a sounding board of what people in internet marketing want in their products. Once you know that, you can go off and create that product, so you know when you offer it that people genuinely will want to purchase it.

4 Link with a membership. If you set up a membership site too, it’s more likely that people on your list who have stayed with you over a period of time will be willing to join. By running both, you can begin to build up a community of your own based round your products and services.

Join GoldVaultZine for your free ecourse and the ezine that’s (almost) a continuous ecourse itself! You’ll think I should be charging for this! Click the link or sign-up on the right! Thanks!