Are you a newbie thinking about starting the next great ‘make-a-million-online-overnight-at-home-while-you-sleep.com' blog to rake in big bucks from the Internet marketing business opportunities niche?
Think again!!
PLEASE think again.
I've had numerous discussions with my colleagues throughout the many years I've been involved in the Internet marketing space — and we've all talked about ditching the niche entirely.
Seriously, the IM niche is NOT a fun place to be unless you have a LOTS of experience and unlimited grit. Even then it's not really fun.
The only reason I and my friends remain in this market is NOT about love or money. We stay because we feel that there have to be at least a few of us who represent value, honesty and integrity in the space.
In a nutshell, we hate to see the many ways in which hopeful netpreneurs / online entrepeneurs get ripped off and totally disillusioned.
Here are just a few.
- The products sold are mostly crap. In too many cases, products purported to be the ‘latest and greatest way' to get a site to the top of Google's listings, or build a list of ten million subscribers or make $17,398 (all overnight) is a rehash of a product that was first introduced in 2002, didn't work at that time and has been relaunched every year since.
Another con job is when info marketers take someone else's work (such as my Super Affiliate Handbook), outsource it for a rewrite and then try pass it off as their own product.
Experienced Internet marketing niche researchers pick up on and report these thieves quickly.
However, unless you've been in the IM niche for a long time, you won't recognize either the players or their bad (or stolen) products.
That leads to the next problem…
- Selling crap will ruin your reputation. Many IM marketers in the last decade have gone down in a ball of fire after buyers publicly complained about the shoddiness of their products or total lack of customer support.
Affiliate marketers who enthusiastically promote those products without doing proper reviews lost respect with their audiences and suffered a similar fate.
- List mining. Too many newbies who learn enough about the Internet Marketing niche to successfully build a huge list of subscribers – completely dessimate their lists on the possibility of winning an XBOX or iPad during a big IM launch.
Trading your list for an iPad will never replace what you will lose in terms of future sales… for a couple of reasons.
Most marketers in the IM niche don't pay for the leads you send them.
Many others don't pay on upsells.
Their primary interest is NOT in how many sales you generate.
Oh sure, you make commissions on the initial sale, they make money and that seems to be a good thing.
In reality, however, it's ALL about the qualified leads that you send that they capitalize on for years to come and are lost to you forever.
They continue to sell directly to them over and over again — and you'll never make another dime on the leads you took time to capture and cultivate.
These factors have become SO much more prevalent since the U.S. economic downturn began and the scam artists jumped on the opportunity to take advantage of those who'd lost their homes and/or jobs and were now looking for online business opportunities to shore up their incomes or avoid bankruptcy.
The situation has now gotten so bad that it almost makes me sick.
I learned my lessons in this industry the hard way — trusting my valued subscribers to those who turned out to be (or into) into scam artists. I finally refused to promote all but one or two — but you can avoid those issues right from the start.
Either stay out of the internet marketing “make money online” niche completely — or, spend gobs of time doing your homework to make sure that the business opportunities and products that you promote in the internet marketing niche are HIGHLY valuable to your subscribers.
The key point to remember is that you need to place your hightest value on the trust you build with your readers – don't squander it.
Don't get me wrong.
There's plenty of money to be made online in SO many different niche markets — but opting for the Internet marketing niche is a big mistake for 99% of newbies for the reasons discussed above.