Challenges

Well, the last few days have been very challenging and I have not be able to work as much on my internet business as I would've liked. However, I did still find some time to find out about opt-in pages and traffic generation. It's key to create a database of potential purchasers as soon as possible so it is a good idea to use an 'opt-in' or 'landing' page before showing your main sales page. Luckily, an opt-in page is a lot shorter than a sales letter so I was certainly more relaxed about creating one.

Basically, an opt-in page offers something to the visitor for free ie. a free ebook/dvd/interview etc. in exchange for their details. I have created a page which offers a free 31-page ebook about cash building strategies. You can take a look at it at www.ecashmillionaire.com. Once someone has subscribed to it you can then inform them of other products you have available.

I had a few issues with uploading my opt-in page and main sales letter on the same domain but my hosting company Godaddy were great and sorted everything out for me.

Six Keys To Internet Success

I have been reading 'How To Make Money While You Sleep' by Brett McFall today and he says that the 6 keys to internet success are:

1. You don't need to know everything to succeed.
2. The internet is the cheapest place to fail.
3. Outsource much of your work - you can use a fulfilment house to send your products but in the beginning do it yourself. You can find web designers/writers etc. online.
4. Target niche markets - you don't have to create something from scratch - find a starving market.
5. Give people what they want.
6. Let software do most of the work for you.

Sound advice I think. One of his first products was a scrapbooking ebook. He created a website asking for peoples questions about scrapbooking then spent money on Google Adwords promoting it. By doing this it allowed him to test and measure his idea to see if anyone was interested. He received 30 questions which he sent to a writer he hired from elance.com to write the book (80 pages).

He then paid Google Adwords again to promote the book and emailed a copy of it for free to the 30 people who wrote the first questions asking for their thoughts on the book which he then used as testimonials.

Well, it sounds pretty straight forward and a really good way of getting started online and also find out whether people would be interested in your idea. I'll have to give it a try!

Still on the sales letter!

Well, I'm still trying to get this sales letter to sound interesting and make people want to buy my products. I think I'm getting there. I've emailed the second draft over to Andrew and he thinks it's much better than the original - yippee! I was about to give up and get someone else to do it. Maybe it's just me but I have found it really challenging to write and would quite happily let someone else do the next one. Anyway, almost done, just need to make a few more changes then I think it might be ready to go.

If you want to try using a software to create your sales letter then Brett McFall has one which helps called Burpies. It gives you a basic template to work from and you just have to fill in the blanks. It certainly helped me to start my sales letter but you do still have to put in the effort to write the content. I'm sure there is other software out there but this is the only one I have tried so far.

Sales Letters!!

This is the part I have been dreading - writing a sales letter! Now I know my english is fairly good (and I did get two B's in my GCSE for english) but I'm certainly no copywriter. Where do I start? Well, I've decided to scour the internet for examples of copywriting to see what other people have done and get some ideas. You are allowed to use some of their ideas but you can not copy word for word. You have to re-write it in your own words.

I've found lots of great examples and I'm pouring over them day and night to get some ideas for my sales letters. So far it's going ok. I've managed to draft about 5-6 pages but I've been told I need at least 12 pages!! Wow, who wants to read 12 pages of a sales pitch? Well, it's not for me to question why I suppose. If that's how internet marketers have made their millions, who am I to argue with it.

One quick way of writing a sales letter is to outsource it to a writer on Elance.com. They can create something for you from as little as £100. It's best to check someone's feedback first as using the cheapest is not always the best idea. I have posted a request on Elance for some help and had some interesting proposals. Before I decide whether or not to get someone else to do it, I think I'll continue with it myself first to see how I go and if it's really not that great, I'll let someone else lose sleep over it!

Good Day Bad Day

Like anything in life, you will have good days and bad days - yesterday was a good day for me. I learnt a lot on the road to internet success but I realise that the key part is to take ACTION. There's no point having all the knowledge and doing nothing with it! The internet is such an amazing tool for making money and 7 reasons to start an internet business are:

1. You don't need any premises to rent - you only need hosting for your website.
2. You don't need to pay staff - words on your website are your salesperson.
3. Your business can be automated - you can email everyone on a set time and day automatically.
4. Beginners can do it - there are people, tools and software that can do the work for you if you want.
5. You can create as many businesses as you want.
6. You can work WHEN you want.
7. You can work WHERE you want.

So there is NO excuse to not start!

The hardest part I have found so far is writing the sales letter. If you are a natural at copywriting then you will have no problem with this. Unfortunately I am not! I am working with one of the top internet marketers in the UK, Andrew Reynolds, who has made over £50million online. He has given me a number of products to sell but I have to create the sales letter. I've had many sleepless nights over this and tomorrow I'll tell you how I'm getting on.

Brett McFall

Brett McFall is an Australian internet marketer who started off as a copywriter. His course was one of three which I decided to start and I must admit it is really good. Very informative and packed full of ways to get you started making money online. His is a step-by-step system which I think anyone could follow. He emails you audio lessons and sends you dvd's and workbooks. He also sends you a number of products to sell each month and you can attend his World Internet Summit event for free.

Lesson one talks about how to utilise paying less tax when you start an internet business by starting a reviewing site which reviews other peoples products and services. He recommends you start a blog about your reviews either using something like google blogs or wordpress.com and a lot of things you purchase for the review is tax deductible. I must admit I didn't really think much about the tax side when I started but it certainly is worth spending some time thinking about it and talking to an accountant.

He suggests that to get started you can use a website called www.clickbank.com and sell other peoples products as an affiliate. So you don't need to worry about creating websites, finding products etc. The general commission on Clickbank is between 50-75%. The only thing you will need to do is direct traffic to the products which could be done by writing articles (ezinearticles.com), going onto forums - googlegroups.com, yahoogroups.com etc., blogging, goggle adwords etc. I have registered with Clickbank but to be honest not done a lot with it as I am selling other products but I do think it is a great way to get started.

How to start?

I was invited to the Entrepreneurs Bootcamp where I signed up for a number of courses. There were some great speakers there - Andrew Reynolds, Brett McFall, Adam Ginsberg, Pat Mesiti etc. One of the speakers started his business by creating a simple 8-page monthly newsletter about advertising (the industry he was in). He took out a 1/2 page advert in a business magazine at a discounted price for 12 months. People started subscribing and then he turned the newsletter into a manual about the secrets of advertising. Within a couple of years he made over £200,000 from the manual! Could it be that simple?

First thing I learnt is that you need to understand the basics so that you can take ACTION immediately. There's no point being bogged down with tons of information because I found I was getting information overload and ending up doing very little. I would sit and watch lots of dvds, read lots of ebooks and spent hours on the internet but wasn't really putting anything into practice.

So I've been racking my brain to work out what product to start with. Shall I sell a dvd/ebook/membership site etc? I've decided to start with a dvd/ebook set about making money online. Ok, here goes!