In fact, I was quietly building my online business and no one knew about it… until my mother in law found out.

Suddenly my extended family wanted to know more about what I *did,* friends who knew that I worked at home suddenly wanted to know more, and people I barely knew started asking more for more information about my online business.

That’s when the need for business cards hit me squarely in the face… and I didn’t have one!

If I had been a little smarter, I would have created a business card for my ebusiness much sooner.  I guess I just didn’t think about all the opportunities that I was overlooking without them.

Business cards are excellent lead generation tools AND they make you look like a professional… no matter what kind of business you’re in!

The standard business card really hasn’t changed much in last few decades, except for added lines for fax numbers, email and website addresses. While it may be simple, the little card is still an effective lead generation tool that gets results.

• It gives potential customers all the information they need in one location.With that card, they have a contact name, name and type of business, and a website address. That potential customer can access your products or services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Business cards make you look polished and professional.Potential customers are more likely to conduct business with you if you have a professional looking business card than if you scribble your website address on a piece of scrap paper.

• It just makes it easier to communicate with potential customers, friends, and family.Handing out a business card easily explains your business, your website address, and what you *do* in one simple to understand format. It’s like having your thirty second commercial about your online business on a cue card… it works.

• People hang onto business cards forever.Once you’ve handed someone one of your cards, you may not hear anything from them about your business for weeks or month… but they still have your information. I’ve been surprised to hear from people who received my card more than a year ago and now they’re ready to do business.

So, do you have a business card for your online business?

Don’t do what I did and wait until you really need it, get your cards and start using them now.  You’ll be surprised how many doors it will open for you and your business!

I get my cards through VistaPrint.

They’re quick, easy, cheap, and professional looking.  In addition, they’re always offering great deals and free business cards online.

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Go From Zero To Your Own Profitable
Internet Business In Six Easy Steps!

By Derek Gehl and The Internet Marketing Center Team

This week, we’d like to jump right in and answer an important question from a reader. Mike Vernice writes:

“I am interested in building my future for both myself and my loved ones. I have to admit I am scared to make a move because of today’s economy, and I can’t afford to flop. What do you suggest?”

Well, Mike, as far as starting a website during today’s economy goes, we’ve recently gone on record saying that the downturn could actually be a GOOD time to start an Internet business.

Online sales have never been STRONGER, you’ll have access to an entire global market, the start-up costs are negligible, and you can get started while you’re working a “regular” job, so you won’t feel the pressures of needing to earn big profits right away.

In fact, we’ve written an entire article about the benefits of starting an Internet business during a recession, which you can read here.

Now as far as being “scared to make a move,” Mike, it’s common to feel that way when you’re just starting out, but the truth is, there’s nothing to worry about!

As long as you’re following a tested and proven system for starting a successful online business, there’s actually VERY little risk that you’ll “flop.”

With the right system, you can start slowly, with almost NO upfront investment, using your free time on the weekends to get the “basics” in place.

Then, over time, as you continue to learn and grow — and start earning your first modest profits — you can begin to invest more time and money in your business, applying increasingly advanced strategies, until your website is making serious money.

Then, once that site is running hands-free, you can use what you’ve learned to start a second site. And then a third. And so on…

… until you’ve got MULTIPLE streams of income flowing into your bank account automatically, and you’ve kissed your regular job goodbye FOREVER!

It won’t happen overnight, and it’s not quite as easy as some would have you believe, but if you take your time, stay focused and motivated, and don’t give up, a life-changing income really CAN be yours!

To help get you started, Mike, we’d like to walk you through the six-step system we give to all of our clients, to help them build profitable sites.

We’ve been teaching this system for over a decade now, and it’s worked for literally thousands of people, many of whom are now making incomes of $5,000… $10,000… $15,000 or MORE a MONTH!

Step #1: Find A Lucrative “Niche Market” Filled With Hungry Buyers

If you’ve been receiving this newsletter for any length of time, the term niche market should be pretty familiar to you.

In fact, it’s probably the one thing we talk about the MOST here at The Internet Marketing Center, because finding one is SO critical to the success of your business!

But if you’re new to the term, here’s how we define it:

A niche market is a group of people who are all searching online for the solution to a common problem, and not finding many relevant results.

In other words, you’re looking for a market that has HIGH demand and LOW competition. Simple, right?

So how do you find a niche market? In a word, research.

You’ll need to do keyword research to find out what problems people are typing into the search engines, you’ll need to do market research to find out where your potential market hangs out online, and you’ll need to do competition research to make sure there’s room for you in the market.

And remember: Do NOT rush this!

This is the single most important step you’ll take when creating your business. Finding a niche is like building the foundation for a house. The stronger your foundation is, the more stable your entire house will be.

Step #2: Find Or Create A Hot-Selling Product That Your Market Will Beg For

Once you’ve found your niche market, and understand the problem you’re going to help people with, it’s time to find the solution (product) you can sell to them.

And while you can build your own product to sell online, Mike, there are plenty of things you can sell without having to spend money on development, manufacturing, shipping, and storing.

You can:

• Work with a drop shipper, selling their products while they take care of the shipping and storage for you
• Join an affiliate program, and make money by recommending other peoples’ products on your website
• Offer to perform a service for people

And while these are all great options for someone just getting started, the HOTTEST thing you can sell online is information!

By creating your own ebook that solves your visitors’ problem for them, you can sell and deliver it hands-free, plus keep 100% of the proceeds from each sale!

Step #3: Write Compelling Salescopy That Turns Visitors Into Buyers

With your market and product figured out, it’s time to start building your website, right? Wrong!!

Before you even think about creating your website, you need to write powerful, compelling salescopy that answers your visitors’ biggest question: “What’s in it for ME?!”

Your copy is going to take the place of a salesperson in a brick-and-mortar store, answering all of your customers questions, overcoming their objections, and nudging them toward the buying decision.

And if you’re worried that your writing abilities may not be up to the task, don’t be! Writing good salescopy is more science than art…

… so as long as you understand a few basic principles of persuasion, you’ll be able to easily create highly effective copy for your site, even if you’re not a writer!

Step #4: Design a Website That DRIVES Visitors To Take Action

Typically, creating a website is the step that “newbies” want to do first.

But hopefully you can see now, Mike, that there are MANY advantages to getting your market, product, and salescopy figured out before you tackle the site!

And when you ARE ready to build your site, you’ll want to avoid just jumping in with both feet. As with everything else related to your business, a bit of planning goes a LONG way!

That’s because you’ve got just a few seconds to “hook” your visitors, convince them that you’ve got EXACTLY what they’re looking for, and keep them on your site long enough to buy.

So by figuring out how your site will look, what kinds of graphics you’re going to use, where you’re going to put the salescopy, and how you’re going to organize the information on the page, you’ll end up with a website that makes sales right from the get-go.

And if you’re not comfortable with the idea of building your own website, it’s actually pretty easy.

In fact, if you can update your Facebook profile or send basic emails, chances are you’ll be able to learn how to create your own simple website faster than you thought possible.

Step #5: Use Email Marketing To Build Relationships With Your Visitors

Chances are, most of your customers WON’T buy from you the first time they visit, so it’s crucial that you stay in touch with them, so you can continue driving them back to your site to make a purchase.

And by far the BEST way to do this is with email marketing.

First, note that we’re NOT talking about spam! You’ll use your site to create a list of “opt-in” subscribers; people who not only WANT to hear from you, but have specifically given you permission to email them!

Email marketing is the perfect way for ANY business to make profits, because:

• Your email list is made up of people who are inviting you to sell to them
• You’re developing lifetime relationships with your customers
• The response is 100% measurable, so you can evaluate the success of your campaigns within hours (saving thousands on advertising)
• It’s effective, instantaneous, and cheap!

And as with most other things related to your new business, email marketing is pretty easy to do! There are lots of tools out there that make it as easy as sending a regular email to a friend!

Step #6: Drive Visitors To Your Website and Start Making Sales

Your job is NOT over when your website goes live! Now you need to start actively sending customers to it, and the FASTEST way to do that is with a pay-per-click (PPC) adverting campaign.

When you get started with a PPC campaign, you:

• Get your site listed at the top of the search results in as little as 15 minutes
• Get lots of traffic for very little money
• ONLY pay for the advertising that actually works

And it’s SO easy to get started!

You just bid on specific keywords so that, whenever someone enters that word into the search engines, a link to your site appears at the top of the results page.

When someone clicks through to your website from that link, you pay the search engine the amount you bid on that particular word.

Then once you’re earning profits with your site through your PPC campaign, you can begin to focus on the many ways of bringing FREE traffic to your website!

Your Personal Blueprint For Starting A Profitable Web Business

Of course, we’ve really just scratched the surface here, Mike. There’s FAR more to starting a profitable web business than we could possibly fit into a newsletter of this size.

But the good news is that we have laid out this entire step-by-step system for you in a comprehensive “roadmap” that ANYONE can follow to quickly and easily start earning profits on the Internet…

… even if you have NO previous business experience and NO technical skills.

We carefully walk you through EVERYTHING you need to do to start your profitable Internet business, including:

• Help you decide what to sell
• Easily get a sales website (complete with copy)
• Attract your first visitors
• And take your first credit card payment

And once you’ve accomplished these key milestones, we’ll show you how to ramp up sales and traffic quickly, and then automate your entire business so it’s “hands-free!”

Then, when your site is making serious money, we’ll show you HUNDREDS of ADVANCED strategies and techniques you can use to drive profits even higher.

Best of all, we’ve JUST finished completely updating and revising the system, so it contains the MOST up-to-date techniques and strategies that people are using to earn BIG profits right this second!

So watch your email inbox over the next week. We’ll let you know the second it’s available.

At the same time, we’ll be revealing TWO very closely guarded secrets that we’ve been keeping under wraps for MONTHS. The first secret is going to revolutionize the way people learn how to make money on the Internet…

… but the second one is going to ROCK the Internet marketing world!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Internet marketing expert Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to successfully start, build, and grow their own profitable online businesses on small budgets. To get instant access to the step-by-step strategies, tools, and resources he’s used to grow just $25 into over $60 Million in online sales, visit: http://www.marketingtips.com/tipsltr.html

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Well, that’s simply not true.

While there are certain circumstances where a merchant account may be necessary, for the majority of online businesses, it’s just an unnecessary expense… especially when’ you’re first starting out.  I’m going to tell you why you don’t have to have a merchant account.

1. Setup Fees:

Merchant accounts cost quite a bit of money to set up. This will often run you $150 or more. Some services will waive this fee, but they will usually hit you with a higher monthly fee or transaction fee. If you want to accept checks online, you’ll usually have a setup fee for that too.

2. Monthly Fees:

There are several monthly fees associated with having a merchant account. Gateway fees, statement fees, customer service fees, etc. If you want to take checks, you’ll also have to pay additional fees for that service.

3. Transaction Fees:

If you process payments through your own merchant account, you must also pay a percent of the transaction as an additional fee. This is called a transaction fee and usually runs you around $0.30 per transaction. Again, eCheck counts as a second service and each check you accept online also incurs a transaction fee.

4. Discount Fees:

You’ll also have to pay a discount fee which is usually about 2.5% of the transaction amount. Ditto for eCheck.

5. More Accounting:

When you have a merchant account, you have a lot more accounting responsibilities. With most systems, each transaction must be specifically added to your ledger. You can often download and import the numbers into your accounting program, but it’s still a pain to keep track of it.

6. Payment Gateways and Shopping Carts:

You have to purchase or rent additional software to process online payments, specifically a payment gateway and shopping cart.

According to one merchant account company I found online, these are the industry standards for just some of the fees:

Setup Fee: $100- $500
Payment Gateway License Fee: $199
Application Fee: $50- $295
Discount Rate: 2.0%-3.95%
Transaction Fee: $0.25-$0.50
Statement Fee: $10-$25
Internet Gateway Fee: $10-$20

So clearly a merchant account is pricey and maybe a little bit inconvenient, but is there an alternative?

Absolutely!

There are tons of third party payment processors available online.  They will process credit card, and sometimes check, payments for you and then deposit the money in your bank account or send you a check.  Of course, there is a small fee for this service, but it is usually very competitive with the cost of going through your own merchant account, there are often no setup fees, and it’s a lot more convenient.  Plus you don’t have to worry about payment gateways and shopping carts!

In the end, new online businesses and websites rarely need their own merchant accounts when they are first starting out.  Getting a merchant account proves to be too much hassle and too costly to the new online business owner.

Once you’ve been doing business online for awhile and are earning substantial revenue selling your own products and services, then it may be time to look into getting your own merchant account.

Want to know more about operating a successful online business?  Get your Free Copy of 10 Days to Smokin’ Traffic Now!

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According to the author of The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet Version 2009, the Latest Edition is everything you’d Expect From A Beginner’s Guide To Starting An Online Business with over 1,250 pages of detailed, moneymaking strategies and techniques have been carefully laid out in bite-sized, easy to grab-and-apply sections, making it dead-easy to determine what you need, apply it to your business, and move onto the NEXT step.

The “Insider Secrets” system claims to carefully guide you through all the critical steps:

1. Helping you decide what you should sell…
2. Easily get a sales website live…
3. Attract your first visitor…
4. Accept your first credit card payment!
5. Ramp up sales & traffic quickly!
6. Automate your business to be “hands free”

Course Examples

Here is a small sample of what you will find within The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet Course…

• How to use powerful automated research tools to quickly multiply your hobbies and interests into HUNDREDS of potential business ideas!
• The simple “measuring stick” that will instantly tell you if your product idea has REAL income potential… before you spend a penny developing it!
• The SEVEN best ways to make money from a website — add each one to your website like building blocks and watch your income explode!
• How to get paid BIG commissions by recommending other people’s products on your website!
• How you can quickly become a “Super Affiliate” and earn a full-time, six-figure income — without EVER selling a product of your own!
• Plugging NEW Revenue Streams into Your Website to Incrementally Build Your Online Income by $1,500 to $8,000+ Per Month!
• Secrets for Squeezing WAY MORE Sales and Profits Out Of Your Existing Traffic, Subscribers, Products, and Website!

Additional Benefits Reported

Here are some additional benefits reported in The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet course:

• Students receive real time updates with the latest online marketing strategies.
• Streaming videos for ease of student learning.
• Downloadable content for iPod, iPhone or other mobile device.
• The Master Blueprint for Launching and Expanding Your Internet Business is shipped Free to students.
• Foolproof goal-setting DVD and workbook provided to all students.
• A Private 30-Minute Phone Consultation With a Personal eBiz Trainers.

Product Details

Company Information: The Internet Marketing Center has a 12 year long track record of Over-Delivering on their products and providing good customer value.

Product Spefications: Complete guide to starting and growing an internet business in an electronic, web accessible format plust five business building bonuses valued at $443.

Price: $197 after 30 day trial at $2.95

Return Policy: “DOUBLE Your Profits In 1 Year… Or We’ll Pay You $200 Just For Trying!… in addition to a 100% refund of your purchase price.”

Actual Customer Feedback

“The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet Version 2009 is a must have course for anyone serious about having their own Internet business. If you want to make money online, I highly recommend that you get access to this tremendous online business building course now.”

Shelley Lowery, web-source.net

“There are precious few courses that I can recommend without reservation. Insider Secrets is one of them…highly recommended.”

Kevin Tenzo, warriorforum.com

“I give Insider Secrets VERSION 2009 a perfect 10 out of 10 without hesitation. The Internet Marketing Center continues to be the leader in helping people go from nothing to big money online.”

Valeriu, internetmarketingprofitscenter.com

“We’ve used this course as our blueprint to grow the business to $500,000 per year!”

David Gray, mortgagewatchdog.com.au

“Using all that valuable information, I built my first website which now brings in $300,000 per year in sales, on average!”

Larissa Carrus, airbrushing-made-easy.com

“I can honestly say that I have never had so much fun learning anything in my life!”

Darren Salkeld, down-feather-bedding.com

““Insider Secrets” is the first investment anyone should make in their Internet businesses. It will shave off years of trial and error time, and will also save you a lot of money in the long run, by preventing you from making the kinds of mistakes Corey and Derek made as Internet marketing pioneers. I can’t emphasize that enough. Learn from this system and you’ll be so much further ahead.”

Shawn LeBrun, shawnlebrunfitness.com

“The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet has been a great tool for me. It is a very comprehensive course. I would recommend this course to anyone who wants to start an online business!”

Taylor Knight, yourparrotplace.com

The way the positive review stack up, you can’t go wrong… especially with that return policy!

Read more reviews of The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet Version 2009.

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I read an article this morning that talks about a brick and mortar company that required it’s salespeople to acquire at least 25% of customers’ email addresses so that they could conduct email marketing.

When the salespeople couldn’t live up to the quotas, they began submitting made up email addresses… and you can guess what happened then.

Their email system was shut down for sending email to bogus addresses and now they can’t conduct any email marketing at all – even to the legitimate addresses.

The company should have seen that one coming long before they instituted their quota!

Well that article got me thinking about my own inbox and I realized that I seem to be getting a lot more junk email than I used to.  Now I’m getting two or three emails per day from companies that I’ve dealt with for years and used to only get a couple of messages per week from.  And it’s not only that, the email that they’re sending is pure advertising rather than information and other stuff I can use.

It’s gotten so bad that I’ve had to subscribe from several lists that I used to really enjoy.

Just because the economy is down doesn’t mean that businesses, both online and offline, should forget to use sound email marketing practices.

In fact, I say that sound email marketing is more important now than ever.

Rule #1 of email marketing: Send subscribers stuff that they’re interested in.  No one likes a constant barrage of sales material.

I realize that some companies are on the edge of collapse and I empathize, but that means that they need to work twice as hard at making every piece of their marketing plan count. Desperately sending out tons of spam and junk email will only serve to hurt them further and contribute to their demise.

And I think that goes for smaller home businesses as well.

… But that’s just my opinion.  What do you think?

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So of course I clicked on the forum post and found out that the post was meant to be sarcastic.  Then I started reading the responses from other Warriors and was completely appalled with the lack of integrity of some of the posters.  The video below is my rant on the subject:

And here is the Podcast of the video (so you can take it to the gym or something instead of being tied to the computer! )

And for those who don’t like audio/video (or the sound of my voice totally annoys you), here’s a rundown of what I had to say:

1.  If you want to make money online, you probably shouldn’t be in the internet marketing niche.

Internet marketing is used in every niche to promote websites, you don’t have to promote internet marketing in order to USE internet marketing.  In fact, every business on and off line is actually in the business of marketing, whether they realize it or not.

In my opinion, it’s much better to be a big fish in a small pond by applying yourself to a small niche rather than being a tiny fish in an ocean of competition… as you are in the internet marketing niche.

Real money is made online by everyday people who find a niche, completely dominate that niche, monetize that niche, profit from that niche, and then move on to a new niche and do the same thing over and over and over again.

2.  Long term income and longevity online comes from being original.

It’s not okay to copy other ebooks and rehash them to make your own product… but you can use other’s work as the inspiration for your own original products.

Rehashing old ebooks isn’t working as well for “gurus” as it used to because the online community is finally starting to wise up.  No one wants to pay $50, $60, $100 for a twenty page report that contains the same information that they could find online with a little searching.

3.  You can’t just throw in the towel when it gets tough!

If what you’re doing isn’t working, you’ve got to track it, analyze it, research it, study it, until you figure out why.  It just doesn’t make sense to repeatedly throw in the towel, start over, and move to something else when you don’t immediately make thousands of dollars online.

Proactive Steps You Can Take:

1. Track and analyze everything on your website so you can determine what’s working and what isn’t for your business.

2. Master a marketing strategy before you move on to another one. In article marketing, for example, you wouldn’t do five or six articles and then move on.  You’d need to do hundreds of articles over months before you could say that that marketing method doesn’t work for you.

3.  Realize that earning substantial revenue online takes time.

4.  Don’t be schizophrenic with your business. Make a plan, stick to your plan, and be consistent with your marketing.  You can’t jump around from idea to idea… you need to focus on one goal at a time.

5.  Find a mentor. Mentors can be extremely helpful in helping you fix whatever might be broken in your business.  In addition, if you can find a mentor in your niche you may be able to piggy back off them and become successful more quickly.

6.  Believe in yourself and don’t let yourself get negative. The world is full of people who try something for a week, claim it doesn’t work, and then tell everyone who will listen that the idea is crap.

Don’t let yourself become one of those people.  Those kinds of people spend their entire lives being victims and blaming others for why they aren’t happy and successful.  Life’s too short for that!

So that’s my big rant for today… what do you think?

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If you want to get the rest of the story, you’ll have to subscribe to Answers eMagazine and read the January 2009 Edition.

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In this month’s issue we’ve discussed sales letters and I’ve given you some tips on how you can increase your conversion rate, we’ve continued our discussion of giveaway events by talking about how to build profit into them, and we’ve explored how you can choose the right subscriber incentive for your market.

In addition, we’ve got an article about the branding power of article marketing and I’ve put together a step-by-step tutorial on how to upsell while using Clickbank.

Subscribers can get their copy anytime in the subscriber area, as well as download all back issues of Answers eMagazine.

If you’re not a subscriber, but you’d like to become one, you can sign up to get your own copy of Answers at:

http://imarketingwatch.com/answers/

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In this month’s issue we’ll discuss giveaway events and how to use them to build your email list, talk about how AIDA can help you write your next sales letter, and I reviewed the Top Secret Magic Code. Believe me, you don’t want to miss this review. I’ll give you a hint… it was ugly.

In addition, there’s also a couple of other articles that I think you’ll like, including my take on the American Presidential Election marketing campaigns.

Only subscribers can get current and archived issues, so I hope you’ll subscribe now!

If you’d like to ask any questions about this month’s issue, suggest a topic for next month, or make any comments, please let me know. I’d love to hear from you!

No Nonsense, How-To           Marketing and Online Business     Information Revealed!           Name: Email:

Don’t worry… I won’t share your address with anyone OR send you a
bunch of junk emaill messages that you can’t use! I HATE Spam too!

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The July Issue of Answers eMagazine is finally out and available for your enjoyment (at least I hope you enjoy it!)

In this month’s issue we’ll discuss link trading and find out if it’s worth spending your time on, talk about a killer way to increase your article revenue, and point out some ways that you can actually market your business while helping your child’s school at the same time. 

In addition, I also recently joined Dan Lok’s Insiders Club, so there’s a full review of that little gem as well.  You can get your copy of this months issue anytime at:

http://www.imarketingwatch.com/answers/july2008.pdf

On a personal note… 

The last couple of weeks have been a little rough, but thanks to your many well-wishes and a little help from above I’m well on my way to a full recovery.  Thanks for your concern!

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