Recently I came across this website that provides a plan to make…$100 per month. Yes, you read that right and it’s not a typo error.

Unlike so many Internet marketing programs out there that hypes about how many 100’s or 1000’s of green moolahs that you can make a day or a week, this website comes as a refreshing change.

Warning! If you are looking for hype that claims how fast and easy to make truckloads of cash, this is NOT it.

More …

In the recently concluded World Effie Festival, Singapore’s Minister Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew gave an insight on his strategy for Singapore when he was the Prime Minister.

The World Effie Festival, held on 28th and 29th February 2008 in Singapore is a world’s first “global celebration of creative effectiveness, where the brightest minds in creative, design and marketing will gather to analyze and inspire the very best in creative and effective communication.”The event was attended by some renowned personalities such as Lord Sebastian Coe, former double Olympics gold medallist; Simon Clift, Global Chief Marketing Officer of Unilever; Allen Olivo, VP, Global Brand Marketing of Yahoo; Larry Flanagan, Chief Marketing Officer of Mastercard, and Dr Vijay Mallya, Chairman and CEO of India’s United Breweries and Kingfisher Airlines.

Singapore’s Minister Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew grace the event where he gave a speech, titled “Branding of Singapore”. He shared his personal perspectives on the strategy for branding and marketing of Singapore.

In his early days as Prime Minister, he decided that branding Singapore and its people is critical to its success, since the tiny island has no natural resources. Singapore’s current image as an efficient, law-abiding, stable, quality-conscious nation with integrity, is an end result of this strategy. Also part of this image is one of being prudish and up-tight. It is this latter part of image, that the government is now trying to change with casinos, Formula 1 races, and The Singapore Flyer (a giant ferris wheel).

Singapore started out after its independence in 1965 with the intention to create a corruption-free and efficient government so that it can be a place to do business without worry of its integrity. and inefficiencies. This has attracted many multi-national companies (MNCs) like Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments to start manufacturing facilities in the island.Similarly, Internet marketers must have a strategy and treat their online ventures as a long-term business.

Just like Singapore branding itself as an efficient, trustworthy and with integrity, Internet marketers must brand themselves as trustworthy, dependable and efficient. These enable Internet marketers to build good, trustful relationships with their subscribers. And when subscribers trust their Internet marketers, they will buy more! One important thing to note is that Internet marketers must build trust right from the beginning of their journey in Internet marketing. It’s much easier to start from a blank piece of paper.

It’s certainly not overnight that Singapore managed to cultivate it’s successes. Internet marketers, too must abide their time and build up their reputation by providing good content and service to their subscribers.

Strategies, just like business plans must have some flexibility built-in and be tweaked when necessary due to changing circumstances. This is what Singapore is trying to do now, to banish its staid and boring image by bringing in casinos, F1 races and the world’s largest ferris wheel, to attract more businesses and tourists to bring in more revenue.

I recently joined a community site called, Tagged. Just saw a cool video on the site that I just have to share.If you guys were fans of Space Invaders, or know what it is, this video will put a smile on your face. Guaranteed!

http://video.tagged.com/?v=RfstNcMuz 

Imagine the amount of effort and co-ordination that goes into making this video!

In my previous post about Strategy Vs Tactic, I talked about the importance of having a strategy if you want to succeed in Internet marketing. In fact, having the right strategies are also very important when it comes to other areas of life.

Since this is an Internet marketing blog, I’ll just focus on that area in this post.I’m sure many of us, starting in our Internet marketing journey have bought “stuff”, me included. Stuff like eBooks, software, CDs, and coaching programs. We purchased these “stuff” thinking that they would further our cause in our online businesses.

What we’ve purchased are actually just a bunch of tactics, without having a clear idea of how we are going to put them all to work in setting up our online businesses. We buy them thinking, “Yeah, that’s really useful. I’m sure I need them in the near future”. Well, months passed and the CDs are still sealed in the original wrapper, the eBooks and software are still zipped up somewhere in the hard drive, the coaching programs are already gone and done with…but still no action!

Or maybe you’ve put some of the “stuff” to use in some un-coordinated fashion that leads nowhere.

Come on…I’m sure some of you are virtually nodding your head and understand what I’m saying! I’m guilty of some of that too!

Without a clear overall strategy on how we are going to build our online businesses, any new “stuff” that we come across will tempt us. And we will buy if the sales copy is good enough.

However, with a clear strategy, we will process each “next-best-thing” and see whether it fits into our strategy. It becomes clearer whether we need to invest more time to figure out whether and how this “next-best-thing” fits into our strategy.

To formulate your strategy, you got to have your goals and objectives set up. Each person’s goals are different and therefore, the strategy is different for each Internet marketer.

Take an inventory of all the “stuff” you have. Make a list of what’s in your possession. For instance, that web graphics package you bought, or that link cloaker software you purchased, or the eBooks sitting in your hard drive, or that eBay self-study course. List down every single item.

Get back to those goals and objectives that we had formulated and see how to integrate them into a plan to further your cause in Internet marketing. It’s the strategy that drives everything. Strategies set the direction of your actions and map out a path for you to navigate through it. The tactics are there to implement the strategy or strategies, as well as all the tools that you’ve purchased or obtained and the skills to use them. If you do not have the skills, learn them. Or if that’s too difficult or take up too much of your time, outsource the tasks.

So the next time you come across an Internet sales letter or attend an Internet marketing seminar, pull your hand-brake before you click the “Submit” button or hand over your credit card, and ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. Does this fit into my strategy and do I really need it?
2. If it does and I need it, do I have a similar thing already in my possession? (That’s why taking an inventory of your items is important)
3. If I don’t already have it, do I need it now?

To succeed in Internet marketing, you have to start thinking about your goals, objectives and come up with a strategy or strategies on how to stake your claim on a significant portion of the online money pie.

LeadsLeap, the people who provides a system for free contextual, PPC ads, has came up with a 9-page report on what LeadsLeap about and how to go about building a subscriber list.

Opt-in is not required. Just download by clicking the image below:

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat”…said Sun Tzu.

Internet Marketing can be likened to be a battlefield where Internet marketers battle for the online money pie. There are many battlefields in the form of different market niches or segments in Internet marketing and the combatants are the Internet marketers in their particular niches. Since Internet marketing is like the battlefield, Sun Tzu’s statement above is very appropriate.

To expand on this statement, right strategy without tactics will lead to success…eventually. Tactics without strategy will bring on many actions that lead to…nowhere. In short, strategy coupled with tactics brings success.

2 other elements smoothens the journey in Internet marketing success. These are tools and skill sets. Tools such as software and programs enhance efficiencies while skill and ability to use these tools shortens and enhances the processes to reach success.

Strategy is like a road map, which shows where to go. To know where to go, you have to know your destination. This destination is your goal. So you need to know your destination (goal) in order to know which road map (strategy) to use. After knowing which road map (strategy) to use, you plan on the methods (tactics) to reach your ultimate destination.

You have to decide on the goals you want to achieve in Internet marketing and other areas of your life and quantify (put into numbers) it, along with the timeline you want to achieve them. This will enable you to break down your goals into yearly, monthly, weekly and daily objectives and formulate strategies on how you want to achieve your goals within the time period you set. Then, devising tactical methods with the tools you have obtained and the skills to use them, you reach your objectives set according to your strategies.

Without a clear strategy in place:

• you are merely using tactics as and when you come across them in the Internet, claiming to be the next best thing.
• you will be swayed by craftily-created sales pitches and buy any product without thinking how they would integrate with your strategy.
• you will not be able to focus on what you are supposed to do and be lead astray by the bombardment of the many, many email marketing campaigns that fill your ‘Inbox’ everyday.
• and its accompanying tactical methods, you are like a little lost sheep going where the grass seems greener, even if its an illusion.

So decide on your goals, quantify them and then break them into various objectives with timelines. Next, formulate your strategies and tactics on how to achieve those objectives. If all these are in place and followed, your success in Internet marketing is virtually guaranteed.

Easier said than done, but that is the challenge in this Internet marketing journey you have embarked, which is not a sprint but a marathon. Just like a real marathon, the right strategy and tactics applied with the dexterity in usage of the proper tools, brings you successfully across the finishing line of accomplishment. 

ps. Click for an English-translated copy of The Art of War by Sun Tzu

For Internet marketing newbies starting their journey in Internet marketing, affiliate marketing is the fastest way to start making money online.

So what exactly is an affiliate marketing program?
An affiliate marketing program is a system where a creator of a product enlists other people or companies to help sell the product. Those other people (called affiliates) who helped sell the product get a percentage of the sale proceeds and gets paid automatically after the sale has been made.

Not all affiliate marketing programs are the same. But good affiliate marketing programs should not charge for affiliates to join. After all, affiliates help create sales and the vendor only pays the affiliates after a sale is made. In fact, owners of affiliate marketing programs will do their best to make it easy for their affiliates to market and sell their products.

Internet marketing newbies with no products of their own and no subscribers list (or opt-in list) to start with, affiliate marketing provides the means by way of products, website and payment system already set up and running.
All that needs to be done is driving traffic to these affiliate product websites by a variety of methods.

But that may not be the smartest way to go about doing it. Like all internet “gurus” who says, “The money is in the list”. What is this list they keep talking about? This list is actually a list of names and email addresses of people who signs up or subscribes for a free gift or newsletters.

So what a smart internet marketer would do is set up a website that describes the benefits of a particular product and at the end of the description to have a means of allowing an interested reader to fill in his or her name and email address to either, receive a free gift (report, eBook or software) and/or to sign up for a newsletter.
This single page website is known as a squeeze page or landing page. Sometimes it’s also known as opt-in page.

The function of a squeeze/landing page is to describe the benefits the product would bring to the reader and get them interested enough to fill in their names and email addresses in boxes (known as opt-in boxes) and then send them to the affiliate product website.

So the basic idea is to drive as much traffic (known as “suspects” at this stage) as possible to the squeeze/landing page and get as many “suspects” as possible to submit their names and email addresses (which would turn them into “prospects) and send them to the affiliate product website. And let the scintillating sales page on the affiliate product website convert as many “prospects” as possible into “buyers”. And if its done successfully, you’re on your way to financial freedom!

Depending on the method the traffic is driven or generated, the squeeze/landing page could take on a more complicated form. A reader searching on the internet for a solution for a problem or answer is initially looking for information. If your squeeze/landing page contains relevant information besides opt-in boxes, the reader would tend to stay longer. In between your pages of relevant information, there are simple links that contain your affiliate information (known as affiliate links) which the readers click for more information. This would bring them to the affiliate product website and this would increase your conversion rate of turning the “suspects” into “prospects” and then to “buyers”.

Yes, the internet marketing newbie still do need to build a simple website in the form of a squeeze/landing page. To enable this squeeze/landing page to be put up on the Internet, a domain name and a web-hosting account is required. These can be obtained from web-hosting companies like An Hosting, Netfirms or Hostgator.

A domain name is the web address or the URL (Universal Resource Locator) that you type in the box at the top to go to a website. A web-hosting account is an account you opened with a web-hosting company to store all your website information (design, layout, contents of your website). These web-hosting companies stores your website information (among many others) on computers commonly called servers, that runs 24/7 so that anyone on the Internet can access your website at any time.

To build a simple website, a software that can create and edit a webpage is used. Frontpage, Dreamweaver and NVU (free) are software that can be used for creating and editing a webpage.
However, if an affiliate marketer finds all this beyond his/her capability, website building can be out-sourced.

Therefore affiliate marketing is one of the easiest, fastest and low-cost way for an inexperienced internet marketer to start making money online.

In a nutshell, LeadsLeap (created by Kennth Koh) is a membership cum networking program where you can advertise for free in newsletters and set up joint ventures with fellow members.

Membership to LeadsLeap, is free. However there’s another level of membership called PRO Membership. The PRO Membership quantity is set at 5% of total membership and is currently closed due to the 5% quota being met.

Regular newsletters with contextual ads will be sent to members. As free members, they would have to check out ads in the newsletter at least once in 30 days. You, as members can earn points for clicking and checking out the ads. Points accumulated can be redeemed for products such as eBooks and videos related to Internet marketing.

You are also encouraged to recruit members which become your downlines. Downlines recruited by you can go to 10 levels deep.

You can put ads advertising your website in LeadsLeap newsletter for free. As a free member, only your downlines will be able to see your ads which you have to renew or update every 14 days. There’s a 30-day challenge starting from 13th January to 12 February 2008, that if you can recruit directly 100 members, your ads can be seen by all members for 6 months.
As a PRO member, your ads can be seen by all members.

Now, I’m not a big fan of MLM and words like “recruit” and “downlines” set off a bell in my head. But I guess, MLM is here to stay, like it or not. Membership is free, but there’s no free lunch, so have to do a bit of work.

Another attractive feature of LeadsLeap is the joint venture or JV Network. There are organisers who will post innovative JV proposals or campaigns in the membership site and all members will be able to review and decide whether to participate.

Campaigns could be events like mega giveaways, where Internet marketers could each contribute an item to give away to subscribers. For example, if 40 participants were interested in a “Christmas Giveaway” and each of these Internet marketers have a subscribers list of roughly 200, there would be 40 gifts. These 40 gifts or products should preferably be something that they are currently selling and would be offered to the combined subscribers base of roughly 8000 (40×200).

This is a win-win situation for all participating Internet marketers, as their subscribers list has increased exponentially and subscribers has many more gifts than if each marketer were to offer only their product to their own list.

Such JV opportunities were previously available only to Internet marketing “gurus” with their clout for proposing such JVs. But through LeadsLeap, even those relatively new Internet marketers could participate in such JVs and leverage on fellow Internet marketers subscribers list.

Here’s a view of the membership site:

 There is also a Free Bonus link where free members can download products such as:

1.  How to Create Paypal BuyNow Button
2.  How to Generate Leads through Co-Registration
3.  7 Photoshop Tutorials
4.  How To Convert Cragslist Into Your Personal ATM
5.  How To Generate Cash From Your Blog With Or Without Clicks
6.  Website Conversion Mastery
7.  How To Get A Lot More Google Traffic For Free
8.  Skype Product Secrets
9.  5 Easy Ways To Maximize Your Adsense Commissions
10. 10 Easy Steps To A Google Friendly Page
11. Instant Audio Mastery
12. Instant Blog Traffic
13. 10 Easy & Instant Programming Tricks For Your Website
14. How To Master Web Graphics In 10 Easy steps
15. How To Create Profit Pulling Toolbars For Free

and many, many more…
I’ve stopped here because I’m getting bored typing the freebies list. For freebie-junkies, the free stuff is already worth signing up for, which is also FREE anyway!

For the rest of us (shush! I’m a freebie-junkie too!), the free ads and JV Network is worth signing up for. I’m sure there’ll be more features and stuff added later on.
LeadsLeap was just launched on 17th January 2008 and it definitely pays to be early-movers to be a member.

The fruits of a successful Internet marketer are very tempting to a newbie in Internet marketing.
The dream of making money while sleeping or relaxing by the pool and beach sure conjure up a tempting picture!
And the image of cash pouring in at the push of a few buttons cooked up by some Internet marketers just increases the excitement felt by Internet marketing newbies.

The statistics on sales made online sure makes that a definite possibility. According to figures given by PC Magazine, in UK alone, web sales in 2007 rose 29% to a staggering £130 billion! Now, who wouldn’t want a slice of that online pie? Even if its a teeny weeny slice!

At Internet marketing seminars like World Internet Summit, you can commonly hear the Internet marketing experts say, “As long as you know how to send email, you can be Internet marketer!”

But is it really possible to make your fortune from the Internet?
Sure, its certainly possible to make piles of cash from the Internet. It’s been proven before.

But then again, is it really that simple?
Certainly…for some people. People with the right aptitude and mindset do make fortunes online. But for the majority, a huge, overwhelming majority I suspect, making enough money online to quit their day-time job remains a pipe dream.

Many new Internet marketers want to make it big but don’t have a clear idea how to go about it. So they buy coaching programs from “gurus”, hopefully to short cut the learning curve. But many “gurus’” coaching programs are not of the quality they claimed to be. Even if they are, newbies are not guaranteed success.

Even as the coaching programs’ quality is important in contributing to a newbie’s success, just as important if not more so, is each individual’s mindset and aptitude. Even with the best Internet marketing coaching program, if the newbie is not prepared mentally and physically to take action to implement it, he or she will not succeed. If he or she is not prepared to put in the hours to go through the program, he or she is better off saving the expensive fees, steering clear of such coaching programs. Some people buy such programs after being shown how good they are, hoping that the programs will somehow transform their lives.

The successful Internet marketers are some of the most hardworking people despite what some claimed. If the newbie is not mentally prepared to dig in the trenches and do the required work or wants success bad enough to do whatever it takes, its best to stick to their day jobs. Sure, they can outsource the tedious work but not everything can be outsourced. So what does it take to be a successful Internet marketer?

7 traits of a successful Internet marketer, in no particular order:
1. An entrepreneurial spirit
2. A can-do, never-quit attitude and does whatever it takes to make things happen
3. A marketing expert and be innovative in marketing techniques
4. Internet & technically savvy (not an absolute must but it sure cuts your learning curve)
5. Ability to focus on what’s important, one at a time in terms of priority
6. Integrity as a good business person. Building trust relationships successfully is huge, huge factor in Internet marketing
7. Be well-informed about the current and effective marketing techniques and ability to apply them quickly. This also means willingness and ability to learn and apply new stuff (techniques and technology)

If you have all 7 traits, GREAT! If not, you can still succeed if you have some of them.

If you are unwilling or unable to find time to take action to learn the ropes of internet marketing AND implement the knowledge you’ve acquired, don’t sign up for the “guru’s” coaching program! Don’t fool yourself into thinking that just by purchasing the program, you will somehow succeed in creating a passive income stream.

As an Internet marketer, it’s important to understand the factors that induce people to fork out their credit cards to buy things online.

Jim Edwards, a highly successful Internet marketer, shares what those factors are.

Everyone has a mental “switch”, which when flipped, would make him or her pull out his/her credit card to buy.
There are 2 basic emotions and one (or more) of 4 basic buying motivators that entices people to make purchases online.

The 2 basic emotions are:
1. Fear
Offline retailers try to invoke fear of losing out by holding sales (deadlines with financial incentives), but they hold sales so often that they lose much of their effectiveness.
Online retailers can effectively use fear of losing out by threatening to increase the price at any time, or only make an offer good until a certain period, or offer a limited quantity of bonuses.

2. Greed
Greed will also intensify the buying motivation by giving people a self-serving reason to buy now rather than later. This can be done simply by telling them how much money they can make or save as a result of buying now as opposed to waiting. This is especially effective in multi-tier marketing.
Greed can manifest in a more emotional form where customers covet the feeling they’ll get by making a purchase before anyone else. Whether it’s the good feeling from buying a loved-one that coveted gadget or the feeling of smug satisfaction of snagging the most popular gift, consumers are greedy for both material and emotional gain. Imagine the iPhone…Explain to them how they’ll be the first people to own that coveted item and you have a winner!

The 4 basic motivators are:

1. People buy because of money.
They buy based on how much money they can make or save by making the purchase. As a matter of fact, making money is the number one reason people buy just about any “info-product” online.
As an Internet marketer, you could put a spin on how your product could help people save or make money.
For example if you sell stuff related to golf (apparel, videos, equipment, etc.) you could add a report that explains how to get more
business by playing golf with clients. Businessmen, investment advisers, Realtors would buy your products just to get the bonus report about making money while playing golf.

2. People buy products that saves time and effort
People are always saying they don’t have enough time. So they buy products hoping to save effort and time in doing mundane tasks.
Software is popular because people hope (sometimes in vain) to offload tasks to their computers.
Show how your products saves time and reduces effort and people will help increase your sales.

3. People buy products to escape either physical or mental pain
Online pharmacies do well even though they represent a risky proposition, because people with physical problems need medicine.
One way to position your product or service to alleviate pain is by explaining how you take the risk out of the transaction. Explain how others put all the risks on the customers while you actually remove them through your guarantees, testimonials and proof that your products deliver as promised.

4. People buy products that promise increased popularity and social status

Why do you think people buy perfumes, books on how to pick up women, stylish clothes, acne treatments? So they can feel better about themselves and be more confident in social situations!

In summary, you can increase your online sales just by shifting the emphasis off what the product or service does (features) and onto what it does for the person buying it (benefits), along with putting in context as many of the 4 motivators for people to buy as you can.
Then, by intensifying your prospects’ desire through effective use of fear and greed, you can truly explode your sales.
All it takes is a little bit of careful thought, some basic explanation to your prospects, and the motivation to do a tiny bit more than others are willing to do in their marketing.

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