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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The Only Advantage That You'll Ever Need to Succeed at Internet Marketing

If you hang around enough internet marketing forums for long enough you will see much of the same questions being asked with varying answers but you have to ask yourself this, "Are these forums the best places to get the right answers to your questions"? - Especially when it comes to getting advice about internet marketing and making money online.   So what is the most popular type of question that gets asked? Well, it goes something like, "What do I need to make money online". There are many variations to that question but it boils down to the same thing, "What do I need to succeed at online marketing or making money online"
There are 101 different answers to this question and you will find all of them on any internet marketing forum but how accurate are these answers? How do you know that your question isn't being answered by someone with just as much, or less, experience than you?  You need to cut through the noise and find the true defining answer to this question and that answer is:
The only thing you need to give you the biggest and most powerful advantage over your competition is a Starving Crowd.  What do I mean by this? Well, regardless of your business whether it is online or offline, regardless of your market or the product that you offer, you will always have competition. But don't worry, competition is good and should drive you to constantly develop and improve your products and services. But if you have a starving crowd then you will succeed in your business and beat your competition every single time.

So what is a Starving Crowd?  This is your audience, these are the people who walk past your hot dog stand, these are the people who search for your product online, these are the people who are desperate for what you are selling. Take the hot dog stall for example.  There are two hot dog sellers, the first seller has the best tasting hot dogs, made with the freshest ingredients and priced lower than the other hot dog seller. The second hot dog seller sells hot dogs that are not as good as the first sellers hot dogs, they also cost more yet don't taste as nice or fresh.  So, which hot dog seller do you think will make more money or sell more hot dogs?
You're obvious choice would the first seller, right? Well, actually no, because we missed out a vital part of the scenario. You see, the first hot dog stall is located on the street in a busy city where most of the people passing by are either not interested in a hot dog or have a lot of choice when it comes to places where they can buy hot food from.  But the second stall is located at a busy sporting event and is the only hot food stand where the people at the event can buy food from. This seller has a starving crowd (literally). If anyone at that sporting event wants to buy hot food then they have no other choice but to buy a hot dog from the seller.
Now this doesn't mean that you can sell low quality goods or provide people with a low quality service as your success will be short lived. But what it does demonstrate is that by having access to the right audience, crowd, potential customers, then you will succeed online and not have to worry about the competition.
When it comes to online marketing it is all about the people who will be buying your products/services. As a quick example, Mary who is an avid scrap booking fan does not sit up at 1 O'Clock in the morning agonizing over where to put that picture of the Empire State Building that she took on her last vacation.

But John, who is being threatened with foreclosure, is desperately looking for a solution to his agonizing and serious problem.  Now which of these people are more likely to buy a related product from you? Do you see the difference here and the important point?  Having a starving crowd who is desperate to buy the solution to their problem is much easier to sell to.  Being ranked on Googles first page can make the difference between your website making zero sales and making many sales every day because websites that are listed on Googles first page does drive a horde of visitors to your site. And getting listed on Googles first page is actually possible to do in less than 60 minutes. You can see how to do this at http://googledin60minutes.com

Webmasters and Internet Marketers Can Learn From the Art of War

The Art of War is unquestionably a well known, highly lifestyle, and overwhelmingly revealing text on military affairs. Yep... military affairs. So I imagine you are thinking what the heck I'm doing sharing anything designed to support generals and warriors wage warfare while combating their enemies. Reality inside matter is, as a webmaster or internet marketer - we too are generally linked to being a commander in a war fought on multiple fronts. The war in opposition to our competition generally stretches through several borders into the depths of the online world and can often be relentless. From Google rankings, to marketplace popularity, to product superiority/differentiation we're frequently and often unknowingly at war.  Getting straight into it, the root wonder is how can this book be applied to our online endevaours? I'm planning to pick it apart, and try to turn its military message into something we could depend on and comfortably employ. Here we go..
1. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.
This is now one amongst my individual loved quotations from the book, and has been something I've frequently enforced into various online projects. This also strengthens the concept of urgency I do think most people neglect to utilize when trying to earn money. Without drifting off point, There's no doubt that the worst mistake you can make isn't applying urgency to your work. My interpretation is that essentially when introducing a project, it is often better to keep the launch a secret, instead of creating a sensation of anxiety. Why? Because your competitors can feed off this foresight, and thus engage in a advertising effort in order to move the awareness off your task come launch time. I've had success with virtually appearing out of no where, and executing a thorough and hefty marketing campaign. By the time my rivals have been able to react, I'd have already launched myself in the industry which hence make their efforts are easier to offset.
2. Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand.  This is a very simple quote, however I want to create an emphasis on conducting market research before you launch a product. It's definitely crucial to understand what specifically your competitors are doing, and identifying trends in their business model. These details will therefore help you anticipate how they will respond. Sometimes utilizing the Way Back Machine can prove enormously useful. I do believe it's also necessary to note that doing anything in making cash online constitutes operating a business, at least on some level. It should hence be handled like a physical organization would, with a thorough level of investigation and planning being used.
3. Now in order to kill the enemy, our men must be roused to anger; that there may be advantage from defeating the enemy, they must have their rewards.  The literal interpretation is a bit savage, still if you apply this to what we're doing, it actually makes lots of sense. Once again, it is something that I've applied in the past - specially when running a web hosting business a short time back back. Fundamentally 'killing the enemy' represents a universal ambition(e.g. attaining a clear market share, or generating a specific profit) that your entire team should be working towards. Your team should thus be inspired to achieve this ambition through some sort of reward; whether it be monetary or personal or whatever. For the record, I'm looking at a reward as well as normal wage. Correctly motivating staff, or even contractors, is something no webmaster or internet marketer should ever overlook.
4. You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended.
This i think is often a critical fault loads of webmasters and internet marketers seem to uninterruptedly make. That is of course - targeting exceptionally saturated markets without implementing any real style of niche, which as a result leaves them exposed to a flood of contenders - mainly of which are typically pre-loaded with monsterous market share and budgets. As such, the assistance of the thoughtful Sun Tzu is consequently with merit. Targeting undefended arrangements, or niches, is an easier way to efficiently ensure achievement and so provides the advantage of usurping a much lesser number of rivals. The world wide web is so easily accessible to everyone and practically anybody these days. Because of this a great chunk of internet sites catering to a flooded sector often fizzle out on the grounds that no one pays consideration to them. Nobody can be aware of them. As cliche as it sounds, imagine you are after some ringtones, and you were hypothically standing infront of a bunch around 20, thousand people, with each individual screaming at you to go to their internet site. You'll most likely only comprehend what the people at the front are saying and in all probability impart them with a shot out of sheer convienience. Who knows what treasures are perched at the back of that mass - but are you reasonably going to sort through 20, 000 internet sites to get a good ringtones site? Certainly not.
In closing, I think this book is absolutely fantastic and is highly recommended for anybody after something which can be applied to so many aspects of their lives. Running a website is simply something in which you need to sieze control of, and therefore act aggressively to stand out in such a competitive online world.
This article was written by Justin Khoury from Insane Profits. The ultimate resource for information how to make money working online.