Both are great online businesses to start since they are easy to do (learning the skills won’t take long or be hard) and you can start either business with very little money.

Affiliate marketing is when you earn money for selling a product or service. Don’t let the word ‘selling’ freak you out. When it comes to an online business all your selling will revolve around sending people to your website (you will be given a free website for whatever affiliate company you are signed up with).

Network marketing (sometimes called multilevel marketing or mlm) is a way to make commissions by selling a product or service. The difference is that with network marketing you are building an organization. Every time you sign up another business builder they will become your downline.

This is so important because you will receive a percentage of the sales made by all the people in your downline. The bigger you build your organization (and the bigger your down line) the more money you will make. Everyone who signs up under you will also receive commissions from everyone who signs up under them.

With both methods of generating online income your number one job will be to find the most cost effective method to driving a lot of traffic to your website. There are a lot of ways to drive traffic online. Some are time consuming but pretty cheap, others are quicker but will take more money.

One of your very first steps will need to be to find out which way of generating traffic you want to learn about. Once you’ve found a method that you like and can afford, you need to learn everything you can about that method. Become an expert in that method (and start making money) then go on to learn other methods.

With the internet things change often and quickly. You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to your traffic generation techniques. It’s best to have 3 to 5 different methods to drive traffic. But don’t try to take on too much all at once. Start with one method first and only add another method once you’ve perfected the first method (perfection means that you’re getting enough traffic on a steady basis to make money).

Don’t expect to get rich off just one product or one way of driving traffic, it’s a numbers game. You will need to get a lot of traffic because only a small percentage of the people will actually buy from you.

There are lots of ways of making money on the internet, it’s really about finding the method that appeals to you. Once you’ve figured out what you want to do, find the best method of driving traffic and then just rinse and repeat until you’re making the amount of money you want to make.

Join some of my programs and start earning some money!

Sheila Hawley

It seems to me that the phrase work at home has different meanings depending on who is saying it. What exactly does it mean?

1. Home based business. You could have a home business that is home based yet takes you outside of the house.

Many small business owners work out of their house and conduct their business out in the marketplace. Carpet cleaners, plumbers, and so on would be examples of this.

2. Internet home business. Many people stay at home running their own Internet business. Yet in reality you can operate in Internet business anywhere you have a computer with Internet access.

This is why so many people are able to travel and run their business at the same time. An example of this might be somebody who lives in Hawaii and takes a month off to come to Colorado in ski in the winter.

They can conduct their business as normal and the people doing business with them have no idea they’re not in Hawaii doing it.

3. Some people are actually looking for jobs they can do at home and end up on websites that offer work at home businesses.

These phrases become somewhat interchangeable because most work at home opportunities do involve you setting up your own home business in some form or another. This could be true with affiliate marketing and network marketing business models.

As you can see the phrase work at home business does have different meanings depending on how you apply it. However the opportunities to make money from home are universal.

You can get your own site made for you and 30 days training to help like I did. For more info, click here.

Good luck in your journey.

Sheila Hawley

Are you ready to use a simple, proven system that is making an
incredible amount of money right now for hundreds of different
products?

If so, I’m going to reveal a horribly simple way certain “Masters”
of the game are making fortunes all around you right now. It doesn’t
take a genius or a $100,000 investment. In some cases the entire
thing can be put together for $0 cost.

This article assumes you will be selling either information,
software, streaming audio, video seminars, cgi/perl scripts..etc.
Products that can be downloaded immediately after the order is
placed. Instant Access – we all love it.

Let’s get to it.

The first and most vital rule of all is this…

Your site MUST be a Direct Response Site.

Here’s where some shine and the rest just don’t get it. For a web
site to make the most money it must be a Direct Response Web Site.
It must focus on selling one product and get an immediate response
in the form of an order or lead.
(Preferably order)

Most sites exist as nothing more than portals leading their traffic
off in all directions away from their own site. A home page full of
links is just that – a home page full of links. It’s not a profit
machine and never can be.

A web site created out of a hot sales letter and an image of your
product will make you much more money than a web site full of links
ever will.

To me, advertising on the Internet is no different than advertising
in an income opportunity magazine. The only difference to me was the
fact that now I could not only sell the prospect, I could also take
the credit card order and deliver the product at the same time.

That was an exciting thought to me and it’s no less exciting today.
In many way it is even more exciting now. Today we have services we
could only hope for just a few years ago. On today’s Internet you
have services that do it all. A true plug and play opportunity to
sell anything you can come up with.

You don’t have to have a merchant account. You don’t have to know
about password protected directories. You don’t have to install any
affiliate script yourself. And the list goes on. If you choose, all
this can be done very easily for you. All you have to do is acquire
your own products to sell.

Once you have them you are going to create a direct response, self
advertising cash machine to sell them. A simple system that works
even when you don’t.

Here’s an example…

Bill is out clicking around on the net and comes upon a site created
by an obvious programming genius. The owner of the site is a 22 year
old who simply loves to create different software programs. He’s not
really interested in trying to sell what he creates.

Bill sees an opportunity. He contacts the young man and convinces
him to create a custom software program that will create incredibly
professional web sites automatically by simply answering the
questions the software asks. Perfect for newbies worldwide!

Bill immediately begins creating his direct response web site to
sell the product. A Buy, Bookmark or Leave site.

He chooses a combination of…

www.digibuy.com and www.affiliatetracking.net

…to accept credit card orders, give instant access to his product,
accept affiliates to sell his product and have affiliate checks sent
out all automatically. Once the software is done, Bill uploads it
and he’s ready to sell.

Bill then contacts e-zine owners in an attempt to make a deal. He
offers the e-zine owners a large percentage of the profit if they
will make an announcement about the offer. Bill contacts a total of
138 e-zine owners. 23 bite on the offer. Bill’s in the money.

Over the next 3 weeks Bill sells 400 copies of his software and
acquires 227 affiliates who will promote his product for him. After
the e-zine runs cooled down Bill averages $2,400 a month in sales
and growing. As more people visit Bill’s site he signs up more and
more affiliates to sell for him..all automatically.

Now this may seem like small numbers to you but realize that Bill
has a whole world of products available to him. He also has 23 e-zine
owners that already know him and will more than likely deal with him
again.

Bill can duplicate this system 100 times if he wants to with 100
different products. More than this, Bill can go to the Bahamas any
time he chooses without having to worry about much at all. His money
machines are on autopilot. Everything is done for him.

This is not fantasy talk. It’s happening right now. One of my own
clients uses the service www.clickbank.com to sell over $11,000 a
month worth of one of his offers. ClickBank accepts the credit card
orders, allows him to accept affiliates AND pays his affiliates.

I’m talking about a simple system with huge potential. Anyone from
any place in the world can do this. The product and the web site are
all you need to concentrate on. The rest can be done for you. You
are only limited by the limits of your own imagination.

Here are the simple steps:

1. Get A Product.
2. Create A Direct Response Web Site To Sell It.
3. Plug In A Card Processing And Affiliate Tracking Service.
4. Do An E-Zine Blast. (Paid Ads or Commission Based Deals)

And wherever you may get stuck in the process, members are standing
by to help you through it in our forum. There is not a single
question you can ask about this process that can’t be answered.

Here’s another awesome bonus I do only for Warrior members. Once you
have your product created contact me and I will include a link to it
in one of my newsletters. I have over 90,000 readers as I write this
so if you have a hot product this should give you a great start. The
only requirement is that it must be a new product created by you or
someone you made a deal with.

To Your Success,
Allen Says

If you have been on the internet for awhile, you know that there are
millions of people trying anything and everything to get your
attention. They want in your wallet. It’s a great big money grab out
there folks, and the net has become the biggest marketing arena on
the planet, driving whole industries and generating Billions of
dollars in sales.

So what’s the problem? Well, none if you are one of the small
businesses with focus. A whole lot of problems if you lack focus.

MORE…
There are myriad small business opportunities on the net today. And
if you do your research and find something you want to associate
with, or you create a product for a well-researched target market,
you are well on your way to financial success. Or are you?

You see the more you become active on the net as either someone
looking for the right opportunity, or as someone who has found the
right opportunity already, the more you are bombarded with choices.
Everyday you get emails saying that the next best thing since sliced
bread has come along.

The new “thing” demands your attention and you get nervous that you
might be missing out on another opportunity for financial success.

But don’t you already have one? At least, haven’t you been presented
with several great opportunities in the last week? So why on earth
take a serious look at yet another? Why fragment the time you need
to spend on your current business with all the marketing it takes to
get yet another off the ground and profitable?

What I am talking about here is something I call “Sign-up-Itis.”
(Not to be confused with Sinusitis, which can be just as
debilitating.)

It goes like this: You find your focus, you are fired up. All is
good and you are ready to start working on the hundreds of little
things you need to do to get traffic and make sales. You need to get
good search engine positioning, you need a links campaign, you have
to research ezines in your niche and place ads, you need to set up
joint ventures, you need to create and update content on your site,
set up a merchant account, a delivery system, and the list goes on
from there.

Then you get an email from a friend or associate telling you that
you HAVE to check out the latest and greatest. You do. It’s an
awesome opportunity. You look at your plate and it’s already full
with your current project, but the plate has a lot of things on it
you really don’t enjoy doing. It’s a lot of work to make any
business pay off, as you can see from the short list above.

“It’s Much More Fun To Think About Success Than It Is To Do The
Work It Takes To Achieve It”

But this NEW thing is exciting, fresh, new. It draws you in and it’s
MUCH more fun to think about success than it is to do the work it
takes to achieve it, so you buy in. You get a ton of tools to start
this new venture. It’s all overwhelming, especially since you have
gone back to your first venture and realized you now have TWO great
things that can both make you money, but they BOTH need your
attention on a grand scale in order to see profit.

Now, here is the part where most people give up. They say to
themselves “Internet marketing is nothing more than a series of
steps that I cannot complete. I am always excited when I get started
on something, but when it comes down to DOING what I start, it gets
hard and doesn’t happen as fast as I would like it to.”

Let me make one thing clear right now: It is not the net’s fault for
not providing us with real opportunity.

Opportunity abounds and is right there for us to snatch up and
achieve success. Never let yourself fall into the trap of reasoning
your way out of success. “It’s not for me.” “I can’t do this – it’s
for people much better with computers and internet marketing than
me.”

The problem lies with your focus and your fear of success. You must
CHOOSE the opportunity you are passionate about, or create a product
you stand behind and love, and then hunker down for the long-haul!
Make yourself do everything you are taught to do to build your
business and build it – all the way or not at all.

It should be no surprise the next time you get an email with the
next best thing inside. You should say to yourself “That’s great!
Another opportunity for someone has just been born! But I am busy
with MY business and cannot take on another venture at this time.”

We Do It On Purpose

Lack of focus is sometimes a purposeful self-defeating tactic your
subconscious uses to keep you from success. Success is NOT a
destination. It’s a journey.

And that journey scares the hell out of 99% of normal, everyday
people. So be it. It IS scary to think of radical life changes, even
if they are for what you consider to be far better than your current
situation!

But don’t let a lack of focus and your fear of success tear you away
from your dreams. USE your fear and confront it, right now. Today.

Make hard decisions and stick to them, then begin the process of
working on a focused, tight marketing campaign to make whatever
venture you choose the venture that sets you free.

Wear electronic blinders. Keep lean and mean and only take on new
responsibilities that will be good for your CURRENT business. Throw
the rest in the trash.

We all know there are tons of opportunities out there. That is a
fact. It’s time now to get the stars out of your eyes, choose your
niche, your product, your affiliate program or your MLM, and get to
work. Make a vow not to stop until you are where you want to be
financially.

The question is not “Can you really make money online?” This has
been proven time and again over the years by thousands of people,
many of whom you read about all the time.

The question is “Do you really want to be one of those people, or
are you stuck in a cycle of constantly sabotaging your success with
a lack of focus?”

The cure for Sign-up-itis is focus and hard work. Success is
something you decide to achieve one day. It’s that decision that is
often the biggest hurdle any future success story has to conquer.

When you need an auto mechanic or an air conditioning repairman,
where do you turn for help? Sure, some people turn to the yellow
pages. But most will turn to friends and family and ask if they know
of anyone who can do the work.

The best place for your business to be positioned is to be the
business on the tips of the tongues of the people asked to make the
referral.

THE 300 RULE

Preachers, funeral directors and people in a few other professions
have learned “the 300 rule” through their own personal experience.

“The 300 rule” states that the average person knows 300 people on a
friendly level. Wedding planners tend to make reservations for 300
guests. Funeral directors tend to need to make room for 300
mourners. You get the idea.

DOODLING WITH CIRCLES OF INFLUENCE

Imagine your circle of friends, family and acquaintances, a.k.a.
your circle of influence. Now, draw your circle of influence as a
circle on a blank piece of paper.

Next, contemplate the people in your parents’ circle of influence.
Some people who know your parents also know you. Therefore, you will
share some influence with the people your folks know. Now draw your
parents’ circle of influence on your piece of paper.

Your circle and your parents’ circle will intersect in one area,
although the larger majority of the two circles will not intersect.
If you are like most people, the two circles on your page at this
point looks very similar to the MasterCard logo.

Now imagine drawing a page full of intersecting circles, each circle
representing the circle of influence of the people who are within
your own circle of influence. Imagine trying to encapsulate an
accurate rendering of where your circle and the circle of your
friends will actually intersect.

Some circles will share a large area of space, while others will
barely cover one another.

Actually, you can only imagine at this point what your piece of
paper will look like. The actual layout of the circles imagined in
this analogy is simply too overwhelming for the mind to comprehend.

THE BIG PICTURE

300 multiplied by 300 equals 90,000. By using the analogy of doodles
in the previous section, the average person can actually network
with up to 90,000 people! Even factoring in the overlap, one can
still probably network with 50,000 people through their own circle
of influence!

Simply amazing, isn’t it?

HERE IS THE SECRET TO YOUR SUCCESS

There are 300 people on this planet whom you have a reasonable
amount of influence. Take advantage of this fact. Make darn sure
that every person within your own circle of influence KNOWS that you
are in business for yourself, and make sure they understand what
your business offers.

When your friend is asked to make a referral, they will recommend
you.

PASSIVE VERSUS ACTIVE REFERRAL NETWORKING

When people ask your friends for a referral and your friend mentions
your business, that is passive referral networking.

Active referral networking is when you can get your friends go
directly to their friends and say “Hey, I have a friend who just
started a business. If you are in need of what he offers or you know
someone who will need his services, would you please give my friend
a call or make the referral to his business?”

If you can get even a portion of the people in your own circle of
influence to actively refer your business, then you have built the
foundation to build an advertising campaign even more effective than
the average local television advertising campaign.

Think about that for a moment.

Most people only dream of reaching 50,000 potential customers with
their television advertising dollars. You now have the knowledge to
reach 50,000 people without spending a single penny.

Copyright © Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy

Are you an online marketer? Or do you simply promote affiliate
programs? Marketing is truly the most misunderstood word in use
today on the Internet. Let me see if I can clarify this issue just a
bit.

In Marketing 101 at your local university, marketing is actually the
process of Product, Place, Price and Promotion.

PRODUCT

No business can exist without a product or service to sell.

In a nutshell, entrepreneurs are the people who believe in a
product, service or idea, so much that they are willing to invest
their lives into the development of their dream.

Historically, every major corporation in the world was started by an
entrepreneur with a dream and the drive to make it a reality.

However, there comes a time in the life of every corporation when
those who fear the gambling nature of their founder, squash the
entrepreneurial drive that made the company a viable concern in the
first place. The entrepreneur will either submit to the careful
nature of the stockholders, or he will be forced to leave the
company he created.

The only entrepreneurs who withstand the pressure to move more
carefully are those who have maintained majority control over their
companies.

PLACE

In the offline world, place is defined by location. On the Internet,
place is defined by domain name and the web hosting service chosen.

Both online and offline, place can make or break a company without
respect to the quality and value of the product, service or idea.

PRICE

Selecting a price is determined first on a basis of whether the
company wants to be seen as a discount or a value company.

Take for example Wal-Mart and Staples.

Wal-Mart is the lead discounter in the marketplace. Staples on the
other hand is the specialist in office supplies.

Both sell a significant number of office supplies despite the fact
that the lowest price can usually be found at Wal-Mart. As a value
dealer, Staples can afford to charge more for their products than
Wal-Mart.

So the question for you is whether you want to position your company
as a discount or value company.

Testing has shown that products and services can be sold at any
number of prices and still reach a significant number of people.

The challenge of selecting the best price for your product or
service will require a certain amount of testing.

UNDERSTANDING THE PRICING EQUATION

Let’s assume we are selling a product. Let us also assume that we
know that the product can be sold for $10 or $50. Let us also assume
that if the price dips below $10 or rises above $50, then the
product sales fall off significantly.

Our challenge is to determine the best rate at which to sell our
product.

Testing has shown us that we can sell 1000 items a week at $10.
Testing has also shown that we can sell 500 items per week at $50.
And testing has shown that we can sell 650 items per week at $45.

At $10, our projected weekly earnings are $10,000. When we sell the
product at $50, we know that we can earn $25,000 per week. Most
importantly, we know that we can earn $29,250 when our product is
priced at $45.

With the imaginary testing we have done on our imaginary product, we
can easily see that selling our product at $45 per item will earn us
more money over the long haul.

Thus, when we make the decision for a national rollout of our
product, then we will price our product at $45.

Of course, this is a very simplistic analysis of the point I am
trying to make. Though simple, I believe this analogy will help you
understand the methods of developing a product’s prices.

PROMOTION

Promotion, on the other hand, is the process of notifying the
consumers for your product or service of your availability to serve
them.

Methods of promotion vary distinctly and should be arranged to meet
very specific goals.

As with product, place and price, promotion should not be left to
chance. You should test every ad, every media, and every price point
to determine the best bang for your promotional dollars.

HEADS UP!

If you are an online promoter or marketer, please factor in the most
important element concerning the cost of your promotions.

What element is that? Your time!

Value your time at a certain dollar amount, and figure in your time
into the cost of your promotional accounting.

I say this because too many online promoters lose sight of this
concept and spend 20 hours to generate one sale while using free
advertising. Even if you rate your time at the federal minimum wage,
then you will have invested $105 of your time for one sale that
might only net you a gross sale of $45!

ARE YOU TRULY A MARKETER OR ARE YOU JUST A PROMOTER?

Most people who run a business on the Internet call themselves
marketers. Yet, most of these same people are really just promoters
wrapped in the label of a marketer.

True marketers do not promote without a lot of advance work. They
spend time planning, testing and measuring their actions and results
to get the most out of every dollar spent and earned.

Entrepreneurs finesse the art of marketing as they build their
company into a major enterprise.

If you are a promoter who does not keep an eye on the total
marketing equation, then you are bound to fail.

If you do call yourself a marketer, then do what a professional
marketer does. Make sure that every dollar spent is spent well. Make
sure that every dollar earned is put to good use. Market well so
that when the people of the next generation look at your life, they
will see a fine example of a successful entrepreneur that they will
strive to emulate.

No business can survive the long run without some form of consistent
advertising. As a result, most business owners will eventually
consider using advertising to promote their business.

The toughest part of the advertising equation is in determining
where and how to spend your advertising dollars. If you do it wrong,
you could plunk down your entire advertising budget and receive
absolutely no return on your investment. But, if you do it right,
your advertising could continue to bring a nice return for years to
come.

HOW DO I MAKE THE RIGHT ADVERTISING DECISIONS

In order to make good decisions concerning how to spend your
advertising budget, you must first have a good understanding of the
different types of advertising and promotion available and what can
be expected to be achieved by each.

· You must understand which markets the different media’s can reach.
· You must understand the demographics of the media’s consumers.
· You must understand the buying habits of the consumers reached
through the media.

WHAT OFFLINE ADVERTISING & PROMOTION MEDIA’S SHOULD BE CONSIDERED

The media’s that people think of most often are television, radio,
newspaper and magazine advertising. Of course, these are the big
boys that big businesses use regularly.

Other methods of promotion include trade shows, press releases,
direct sales, telemarketing, word of mouth, branding and billboard
advertising.

CONSIDERING THE BIG MEDIA OUTLETS

The big boys of advertising media’s generally cost big bucks. Given
certain circumstances, the big media’s can be bought for very little
money.

Take for example, television, radio and newspapers cost big bucks
during their prime times, but can be bought for pennies on the
dollar during non-primetime hours.

Television primetime is between 7pm and 10pm. Radio primetime is
between 7am and 6pm. With newspapers, the primetime is Wednesdays
and Sundays.

If you intend to hit a media during prime time, get ready to drop
some bucks. Primetime means that you will be able to hit more
consumers during these times. So, in most cases, a primetime buy
will enable you to reach more people with your advertising.

Non-primetime hours can still deliver a lot of eyes and ears to your
message, and sometimes, these off-hours can be bought for a bargain
basement price.

GETTING MILEAGE FROM EVENTS

Trade shows and press releases are more event-driven. The trade show
is the event, while the press release generally exploits an event.

Trade shows are an exceptional tool when you deal directly with
potential sellers of your products or services. Other shows are
directed at the consumer, and those can be very valuable avenues for
sales as well.

The press release is aimed towards gaining attention for a business
by distributing newsworthy information about the business.

Sometimes the appearance of a business at a trade show or other show
can provide the necessary angle for a press release. But most often,
a successful press release will actually require more noteworthy
information than the appearance of a business at a show.

Yet, even the most mundane of information could be spiced up to give
the real air of importance necessary to get your press release read
and printed.

The great thing about a press release is that might permit you to
get relatively inexpensive promotion on television, radio,
newspapers and magazines; for far less than what it would cost you
to buy advertising in those same outlets.

UTILIZING A SALES TEAM

Depending on what type of business you run and the consumers you are
trying to reach, you might find direct sales and telemarketing to be
very lucrative ways to drive sales to your business.

Both are very similar in nature. Direct sales can be very expensive,
as it requires a great investment of time to accommodate.
Telemarketing seeks to minimize the time expenditure, but it often
leads to a smaller degree of respect and attention.

Depending on your product or service — and always depending upon
the people you employ to the task — each method will be more
suited to each business on an individual basis.

BRANDING YOUR BUSINESS

I grouped branding and billboard advertising together in my original
list for a reason. I did this because billboard advertising serves
most businesses best by helping to support the process of branding.

Branding is the process of establishing your business as the
supplier of a certain product or service, or in emphasizing a
certain USP (Unique Selling Proposition) as it pertains to your
business.

If branding and USP seems to be a confusing concept, think about
Wal-Mart and their tag line: “Always Low Prices, Always.”

Think about Ford Motors, “Quality is Job One.”

Think about the Visa Card, “It’s Everywhere You Want To Be.”

You see, these top corporations have managed to make their USP part
of their branding.

Even if you are only competing in a local marketplace, your USP can
and should fit snugly into your branding strategy.

NO MATTER THE MEDIA OR METHOD

Whichever method or media you should choose to employ in your
advertising and promotion, you should become knowledgable about your
market, and the consumers reached by each media. It is important to
understand which consumers can be reached by a certain media, and in
what quantities.

However you choose to spend your advertising dollars, you should
always track the results of your promotional efforts. Failing to
track successes and failures will ultimately lead to the failure of
a business.

When you know whom you are trying to reach and how you think you
might be able to reach them, you will begin to learn how to use
advertising and promotion to make your business successful. That is
a good thing — after all, that is why you got into the business in
the first place, isn’t it?

Did you realize there are only three types of online promotion?…
This statement may seem odd and even untrue in your mind, but I am
speaking in more general terms than you might be thinking.

Let me explain.

The three types of promotion are Junk, Active and Passive
promotions.

JUNK PROMOTIONS ARE MONEY PITS

Junk promotions are those that seem to produce results, but by their
very nature are really only illusionary promotions.

For example, let me begin with FFA (Free For All) pages. You might
find yourself subscribing to a submission program that tricks you
into believing you are submitting your links to tens of thousands
search engines.

According to the Open Directory website, they have only approved
1705 search engines and directories for inclusion in their database
(http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/).

I like using the DMOZ directory as an example because submitted
links are tested by human beings with integrity, for the honesty
used in site description. Search Engine Watch and other search
watchers tend to show fewer than these 1705 engines, primarily
because a lot of the engines provide very little value.

Yes, you can submit your URL to a FFA page, but FFA’s usually only
permit 100 or 1000 links on their page at any one time. So, if ten
thousand people are submitting a link to an FFA page on a daily
basis, then the average life of your link is between seven minutes
and 144 minutes. I suspect the actual number of submitters is much
higher and the results are much worse. Given that few people surf
FFA pages, the chances of your submission being of any real value is
practically nill!

Most of the people telling you that you can submit your site to tens
of thousands of search engines are truly only submitting your site
to FFA pages! Beware of the false promises.

Another junk promotion method is Safe Lists. A safe list is a
mailing group that is signed up to be received by people who want to
submit their own ads. Now, most safe lists have thousands of
subscribers who are able to submit their ads daily or weekly. The
person signed up to receive the list will receive anywhere from
twenty to 140+ messages a day from the list. These messages will be
received by people only interested in promoting their own thing who
do not have the right motivation to open, let alone read Your
Advertising. As a result, thousands of messages go out daily or
weekly that will never be seen by anyone but the sender of the ad.
Where is the value in that? There is none.

ACTIVE PROMOTIONS

Active promotions are the type that require you to go out on a daily
basis or a weekly basis and put out your advertisements. With active
promotions, you will either place your advertising or you will not
sell your products or services. Your choice is simple — work or
starve.

Examples of active promotions include Pay Per Click Search Engines (PPCSE’s),
Direct Email, Ezine Advertising, Solo Ezine Ads, Newsletter
Publishing, Ezine Ad Swaps, Classified Ads, Auctions, Site
Sponsorship and Banner Ads.

Some people are able to utilize these methods very productively,
while others are destined to drop their money into the bottomless
pit of failed Internet promotions.

PASSIVE PROMOTIONS

Passive promotions are those promotions that can continue to provide
results for you long after you have invested the work to make them
available to the Internet community.

Examples of passive promotions include: Link Exchanges, Articles,
Ebooks, Content Exchanges and Writing Testimonials for others.

Let’s look at articles as a solid example of my point.

You are reading an article that I have written to promote my own
business. This article is timeless and therefore could have been
written five years ago and still have been as valuable as it is
today.

Due to the fact that the article is timeless, it can and will be
placed in newsletters/ezines and their accompanying online archives,
on websites and in ebooks for many more years to come.

As a result, this article will continue to serve me well beyond the
time in which I wrote it and submitted it to publishers and
webmasters for public consumption and publication.

This is the best example I can give you of an excellent passive
promotional method.

AVOID THE MONEY PITS

Many try and even fewer succeed to conquer the Internet and to
produce their dreams of online wealth.

My hope is that you will be one of the people who conquer the
challenges before you and to make a nice living while working
online. It will take drive, determination, study plus trial and
error, but you can make it work for you.

Please continue to educate yourself so that you can avoid the money
pits – instead, strive to find the money barrels. It can be done. I
am living proof.

I am certain that, as a business owner, you have often entertained
the question as to how much to spend and where to spend your
advertising dollars. For most small business owners, these questions
can add to the headaches suffered in the course of normal everyday
operations of their business.

THERE ARE NO SIMPLE ANSWERS

The how much to spend and where to spend it questions have no easy
answers.

Depending on your type of business, many people suggest that the
*how much* should be equal to anywhere from 4% to 10% of your gross
receipts.

The quandary is that a business cannot survive without a fresh flow
of incoming customers. But, a business can seldom generate a fresh
stream of customers without spending money to get the word out about
their business.

THE CHALLENGE OF DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE ADVERTISING

Have you ever paid for advertising and sat back to await the fresh
flow of customers, only to find yourself sitting and sitting and
then sitting some more?

Don’t feel bad about that. It has happened to many of us before.

See, knowing where to spend the advertising money is not enough to
get the job done.

Where to spend the money only begins to highlight the other issues
connected with advertising:

· Marketing Plan
· Advertising Strategy
· Headlines, Ad Copy and Visual Presentation
· Tracking the Success of Your Advertising Campaigns

THE MARKETING PLAN

The Marketing Plan is used primarily to identify your own products
and services, costs, strengths, weaknesses and the strengths and
weaknesses of your competitors.

To learn more about constructing your own marketing plan, visit the
Small Business Administration website for a comprehensive study of
the elements of a Marketing Plan:

http://www.home-business.com/nav/articles/links/sba_plan.html

ADVERTISING STRATEGY

It is important to understand what you expect to gain from your
advertising.

Do you simply wish to get your name known so that when your customer
will need you, they will think of you first? Or, do you wish to get
your customers in your front door on Saturday?

Do you want your customers to come in and take a look around to
discover the next object that they cannot live without? Or, do you
want them to come in and buy a specific widget?

Do you hope that enough people will come in to buy enough products
or services to pay for your single ad? Or, do you expect to gain a
lifelong customer who will help pay for your advertising over the
course of several years?

When you know what you want, then you will better understand just
how to do it.

HEADLINES, AD COPY AND VISUAL PRESENTATION

You might be surprised how many business owners put out advertising
without regard for the quality of the sales pitch or presentation.
The quality of your distribution outlet or the amount of money you
spent to get there will do little for you if the advertising vehicle
is a junker.

Test all of your advertising materials in smaller markets before
blowing your advertising bank roll on it. You must absolutely know
the value of your advertising before putting large sums of money
behind it.

TRACKING THE SUCCESS OF YOUR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS

Tell your customers to save another 10% when they tell you they
heard or saw your ad in such-and-such location. Suggest that they
can register to win a free widget if they fill out a form and have
them to tell you how they heard of your business. Advertise a
specific widget in your ad and track the sales of that widget.

It does not matter how you track your advertising — just make sure
you do it!

IN SUMMARY

The ideal way to spend your advertising budget is to buy a rifle
with a high-powered scope and to only shoot your targets in the
light of day.

If you are not tracking your advertising, then you are shooting a
pellet gun without an attached scope, with blinders on, and shooting
in the dead darkness of night.

Even with a bigger gun, the blinders in the dark constitute the
single largest mistake made by advertisers. If you are unable to
track your advertising to learn what is working well, what is
working somewhat, and what is a money pit, then you are condemned to
repeat your mistakes over and again.

By relying only on gut instinct, you may be choosing to spend more
money in the money pit and to lose all of your money in the process.

When you get down to the nuts and bolts of making money from your
advertising, you should plan, prepare, track and study your results.
You must have factual information on which to base your advertising
decisions. When you are making the right advertising decisions, then
making money from your business might just come easy.

When you are the owner of a home business, you will find hundreds of
distractions that vie for your time, energy and focus.

Common distractions include: children, family, friends, neighbors,
pets, phone calls, mail, household chores, video games, television,
neighborhood children, visitors, and so many more.

As an owner of a home based business, you must always remember your
purpose in bringing your profession home. What was your reason for
wanting to own a home business? Was your goal to work from home so
that you can share in the lives of your children? Was your goal to
be out from under the rule of a tyrannical boss? Was your goal to
have the freedom to work when it is convenient for you? Was your
goal to make tons of money working for yourself?

Here’s a few good tips that will help you stay focused on your home
business:

TIP #1:
Whatever your reason for going out on your own, you must keep your
reason in the forefront of your mind. If you forget your reason for
starting your own home business, you will not be working for
yourself for long. It is far too easy to let circumstance drive your
activities — and when circumstance is in the driver’s seat, you
are more likely to crash and burn.

TIP #2:
Remember — your own business is a lot like a real job. Some people
go to work to play, some go to socialize, and others — most often
those who are paid in a commission or tip environment — go to work
to work and to make money. When you work for yourself, your salary
is directly proportional to your productivity. Therefore, wouldn’t
it make sense to stay focused on getting as much done in as short of
a period as possible?

Go to work to work and to make money. Leave playtime and recreation
for when your workday has ended.

TIP #3:
When you are dealing with family in the course of your workday, it
is important to schedule your activities as much as possible. With
small children, you must take time when you must, but you should
also work hard to make sure you dedicate a specific number of hours
to your workday.

With older children, it is much easier to tell them that you will be
working between the hours of x and y. Your children and your friends
must understand that certain hours of your day are devoted to the
activities of your business.

TIP #4:
Don’t permit your friends and extended family to run over you. Many
people get the blind idea that if one works from home then they are
not actually working.

Well-meaning people may try to fill your doorway to bring advice
about getting a real job. Others may simply believe that if you are
at home, then you are fair game for chitchat and socialization.

You must stand firm. You must make certain your friends and family
understands that when you are working, then you ARE working! If they
wish to socialize with you, then they need to do it during the hours
that are not dedicated to your home business.

You are the only one who can stand up for you. Your friends and
family will seldom be able to appreciate your dedication to your
home business, unless you make the effort to make sure that they
have the same respect for your business that you do.

TIP #5:
You should allot a certain portion of your day to email and to
regular mail. For example, allot one hour in the morning and one
hour in the afternoon to handling your written communications.

Unless you dedicate certain times to the handling of these
communications, you will soon find yourself on the downward slope of
decreased productivity.

TIP #6:
When you find yourself spending too much time doing non-productive
activities, then you should seriously consider finding a third-party
service provider who will assist you in those non-profitable
business activities.

As an example, you might be in the mail-order business. You might
believe that your time is best spent writing ad copy and setting up
your advertising, but you find yourself spending far too much time
taking care of your books to take care of your advertising in the
manner that you should. In this event, it might make more sense to
hire a bookkeeper to handle your financial records for you.

CONCLUSION:
In the end, the success of your home business is entirely and
completely reliant upon you and the decisions that you make.

You had your reasons for deciding to start your own home based
business. You must always keep your reasons in the forefront of your
mind. You must always be able to rely upon your own self and your
dedication to the success of your business.

Your friends and family might be annoyed that they cannot come visit
upon their own whim, but when success comes to you and your
business, they will better appreciate you for putting your foot down
when necessary.

Success is within your reach, if only you can stay focused on your
goals. You must decide to reach for your goals, and then, you must
have the discipline necessary to reach them.