I have clients consistently that tell me that it seems really complex to build an online business, but once they found me, it got alot easier.

That is because it IS easy, but it is NOT EASY to simplify it.

That’s why most “gurus” and people who have built successful information marketing businesses have such
a hard time teaching it simply. Because they tend to focus on “how they did it” (which is full of twists and turns, just like parenting has twists and turns, if you were teaching someone to parent, would you teach them the core things they need to know, or would you focus on the exact disciplines you recommend for each infraction. And with information marketing, many experts dwell too heavily on the details…and you get left out of understanding how the whole thing works)

So my goal with my clients is to make it really simple.

And by the way, I don’t mean so simple that there are no details.

I just get rid of all the superfluous stuff you don’t need.

Ok, let’s get started. This is my exact formula for information marketing success.

1) You need to choose a niche in a profitable area online. I know you might have been told to just follow your passion, or use some complex keyword competition formula to figure out what to sell. Don’t. Instead, go into a niche where lots of other people are successful. That is the best way to predict your own possibility of success…other people are successful in your proposed niche.

2) You need to build a list of people in that niche that need help. To build a list, I recommend a squeeze page, then send traffic to that squeeze page.

3) You need to have an email list that communicates with your list automatically. You CANNOT run your business by sending one email at a time. You MUST use an autoresponder. This doesn’t mean you can’t respond personally to someone who has a question, but your primary communication emails need to be automated.

4) You must find out what the needs are of the people on your list. Then create products to meet their needs. Since you are in information marketing, the needs you will be meeting will be “how to” information. That means you will learn the answers to their problems, then create products to tell them the answers. The easiest way to do this is to record your products using audio (mp3s). You can also write ebooks, but they take more time and sell for less than audios. You could record videos instead, but they take more time to produce, and don’t really sell for more (sometimes they do, but if this is your first product – create an audio, not a video)

5) You must write a sales letter for your product. I recommend using a sales letter template, I can recommend a couple of really good ones if you need.

6) You must write a prelaunch and launch sequence for your product. Then you must put that prelaunch and launch sequence in your autoresponder campaign so each new subscriber gets exposed to the exact same launch sequence over time.

7) Repeat steps 4-6 ad infinitum.

Create higher priced, higher level products to sell to people who buy your initial products. These backend selling campaigns should also be automated.

9) You need to constantly improve conversion rates with testing and tweaking, not just to your sales letters, but also to your email sequences, and backend selling sequences.

This is my entire formula. Anything else is just an addon. Meaning an upsell is an addon. Or traffic sources are addons. Various additional coaching products (to sell to people who buy your first product and your backend product) is an addon.

The automation is critical.

Without the automation, even if you have products, you are re-inventing your business each month, week, and day as you write emails to get people to buy.

Instead automate the entire selling process in your campaign.

By the way, do you want to learn more about using articles like this to drive traffic to your website and increase online conversions?

BLOGGING – which is one of the most under-used and misunderstood aspects to promote you and your knowledge. You don’t have to be an professional at blogging to get your content posted, just have the basic knowledge of what you are trying to market.

For example, there are many different blog sites that offer ‘guest blogging’ – you can Google that term – from the various sites listed you can find many that will accept your content (Don’t forget to always contain a link back to your website). This can give you the ability to reach out and target a much larger audience than just using your own blogging site. Once you have found sites that accept guest blogs, check you are posting to your target market (Don’t post ‘How to replace a roof’ on a food related blog for example!) and keep it short (3 – 5 paragraphs is usually recommended). Just write good, simple to read content.

TARGETING YOUR AUDIENCE – as marketing online, step back and look at exactly what you are marketing – take replacing that roof – know the different ways to replace one, the materials needed setting, time frame, costs, weather related issues, difference in possible regulations from State to State, etc – and talk about these, use different angles on the same subject at different times, make yourself the EXPERT in home roof repair/replacement or whatever industry you are promoting, the more people read about your knowledge, the more they will feel you as THE EXPERT!

CREATE FREE REPORTS – Give people a reason to continue following you – offer free reports that are relevant – create a comparative analysis about your business and it’s product, offer some information that can be used as a catch to have your audience click on your link for more, stay focused on your product, promote it with confidence and knowledge, impressions last, you want yours to be a first and lasting.

Internet Marketing for Small Business – Creating an Optimized Site
The first step to any internet promotion venture is to ensure that there is an optimized site. Search engine optimization (SEO) is becoming a large figure in marketing today, and involves several processes that must be performed appropriately.

* Keyword research and development
* Keyword placement through text, tags, and descriptions
* Back linking and link exchange
* Registration with search engines

From the very moment you choose a site, SEO should be on your mind. Internet marketing for small business is a powerful venture but even the start must be appropriate.

Internet Marketing for Small Business – Targeting the Audience through the Search Engines
As you begin your internet marketing venture, you will realize that you are considering your audience in every step of the way. You choose
keywords that are likely to be searched by your target consumers, and you are exchanging links with other sites that your target consumers are using. The thing is, internet marketing for small business has another target in mind: search engines. The most popular search engines include:

Google
Yahoo
Bing
MSN

SEO should play a key part in your internet marketing for small business efforts. You are targeting these search engines as well, seeking to be indexed as much as possible, receiving the highest search engine ranking possible. Why? Mainly because your target consumers get online and choose one of these search engines to search for what they need. They type a few words in the search bar and there is a search engine results page that shows up and you want to be at the top, because 9 times out of 10, your target consumers are choosing between the first 10 sites as the business for their needs.

Internet Marketing for Small Business – Social Networking is exceptionally effective
More and more these days, internet marketing for small business is performed through social networking. There are several different types of social networking sites including blogs and forums and networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and others that are becoming popular, in which an entire community gets together in order to discuss services or products, and you want your business to be in the discussion.

Through the use of keyword rich blogs and articles, you can communicate with your target consumers, providing them with solutions they may need in order to gain their trust in your services or products. These blogs can contain links to your pages, but most importantly should assist in building an email list through opt-ins and subscriptions.

Internet Marketing for Small Business – Summary
If you have not started already, now is the time to focus a major part of your marketing efforts on the web. Internet marketing for small business is a strong force in growing a large consumer base. Marketing locally or even globally is possible, and most effective with the appropriate keywords. You will learn through time that the more quality your keywords and link exchanges hold, the more power your web marketing has, allowing you to generate high quality traffic and build a much larger consumer base. The use of web based marketing strategies has never been so easy and manageable, putting more power into the efforts without as much of the cost as traditional marketing measures to bring forth even similar results. Internet marketing for small business is a must if you want to ramp up your business and income to the next level.