Man's Take Magazine

Internet Marketing Exposed – Is The Web Really your Ticket to Instant Wealth?

I’m sure you’ve heard about thousands of Internet Millionaires, who went from being “normal people” to instant success stories. Some of their businesses were so stupid-simple that it’s hard to fathom how they could have gotten so rich in such a short time.

You’re a smart guy, right? You know that you could do this “internet stuff” just as well or better than that college kid Mark Zuckerberg who started Facebook, right? Well, he was going to Harvard… but it’s not rocket science, is it?

Can you really make gobs of money surfing the internet in nothing but your SpongeBob boxers?

I’m about to give you a no-holds-barred, inside look at the internet marketing industry. But wait—who the heck am I?

I’m an internet marketer myself and an internet marketing consultant. Normally that should make you wary of anything I say. But in this case I don’t want to sell anything (to you at least). In fact, you may find some of this article a deterrent against entering this ultra-competitive industry.

I want to give you the dirty truth about how the industry works. Is it hype or is it a printing press for cold, hard cash? Then of course we need to know if you can do it yourself, or if you need to hire 42 monkeys with electric typewriters to strike it rich.

First of all, I want to point out that there are semi-secret circles of internet marketers. This occurs in any industry, but it’s important to understand. I’ve been a part of these circles, so I know exactly how they work. If you are on the inside of a really powerful circle, they have the ability to turn projects into gold by leveraging the power of the people in the circle who are already successful.

I’m going to assume for the purposes of this article you don’t know any successful internet marketers, and you’re starting from scratch, like most people. You don’t just walk into these circles, by the way… You can be pulled in if you are a close friend with a lot of enthusiasm, but for the most part you earn your way in by proving that you can really sell online.

Sell? Did I say sell? That makes it sound like work. The ads just make it sound like I plug in a super-secret formula and let the technology suck in hundred-dollar bills like a wet-dry vac.

This industry tends to attract a lot of people who lost their jobs or are looking to make a career change. There’s nothing wrong with that, but very often these people can never commit to their online business in the manner necessary to run a successful business. When they inevitably fail, they claim the whole industry is just a scam.

There are absolutely countless scams out there and you do need to be wary. But this is a real industry, and there really is money out there.

But there’s bad news… it requires actual work.

Internet marketing businesses can be extremely low overhead businesses. Did you notice that word: businesses. I even used it twice for emphasis.

Believe it or not, profitable internet marketing companies are run just like other businesses. That means there’s planning, research, and well… real work.

You may notice a lack of “secret formulas” and other assorted magic from that list.

So are there really secret money making formulas out there?

Actually, there are some.

Do you want to know what they are? Of course you do. Am I going to tell you? Of course not. Is someone else going to tell you? Nope.

But someone might sell you one, right? Negative ghostrider, the pattern is full.

Let’s employ a bit of logic here. Why in the hell would someone spend time and cash developing a formula that makes money online just to give it to your lazy, sorry ass?

Because they are kind, charitable souls who want to see you succeed, right? Fat chance Mother Theresa. They are selling some formula to you because they know they can make more money selling the business plan than they can with the actual business.

Now, in some cases these secret formulas are real. But the person does not reveal the most important parts to making it work. For example, they may tell you exactly how they set up their ads, offers, and products, without telling you the details of their industry. What works for online dating is probably not going to work for auto-repair.

The other possibility is the formula stopped working for some reason. It could be that consumer attitudes changed (recession? style?) or it could also be that they are using a practice that is no longer allowed by the most important people. For example, they may promote an advertising method that now violates Google’s terms of use (most forms of AdSense Arbitrage are good examples of that).

There must be hundreds of people out there trying to teach you how to sell ClickBank information products using just Pay-Per-Click advertising. You may be able to make some money doing this, but there are two problems.

First, you will probably have to try a dozen or more offers to find one that makes money. That means losing considerable sums on the rest.

Second, you have to compete with the actual publisher. You may make a 50% commission, but the publisher can afford to spend more on advertising because he (or she) gets closer to 100% of the sale price. Yeah. You’re screwed from the start.

But wait… it’s not a scam. This stuff does work. No really.

The trouble is that in most cases to make money you need to add value to your offer. This is not to say you can’t promote third-party products successfully online. I’m just saying that you need to treat it like a real business.

Back to that again.

If you do your homework beforehand, set up a real business plan that includes market research, and then conduct some experiments to see what’s going to work for you, you could be on your way to a real business.

I want to make one other point clear. If you put in the time and money you absolutely can develop “mostly passive” income. That means you set up a process that just runs and sells things without your intervention. I say “mostly” passive, because it will still need monitoring, updates, and other attention from time to time.

A profitable campaign can suddenly malfunction and start chewing up dollars like a chipper-shredder. You try to put a little twig in and it sucks in the entire tree while you’re not looking.

Bottom line: Yes, it’s real. No, it’s not as easy as people make it seem. I recommend you get professional help before you get in too deep.

Check out SEORapture for more articles on Business, Internet Marketing, and SEO.

Article by Internet Marketing Guru and Man’s Take CEO Jeffrey M. Mims. Find out more about Internet Marketing, Business Coaching, and Search Engine Optimization.

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