By William Lockhart

Creating Internet Income is quite a daunting task for anyone however the challenges seem insurmountable for most newbies, especially those who are technically challenged. If you’re considering marketing online or engaging in any form of Internet Marketing there are a few common pitfalls that you should consider.

Though I’m no “Internet Guru, these are just a few of the common mistakes and pitfalls that beginner Marketers typically face. For many, these mistakes don’t surface until the negative effects of these actions surface. Many new marketers develop tunnel vision early in the online business building process. Hopefully this top 10 list will help you avoid the most common pitfalls.

1. Procrastination - The King Of Failure

Procrastination is by far the KING of failure with respect to online business success. If you fall into the trap of “putting things off”, you will e doomed to failure. Be certain that you develop a consistent habit of taking action. Even if you consistently make mistakes it is imperative that you take action on a consistent basis. Create some form of time management system that you can use consistently. Prioritize your tasks and keep lists of everything that needs to be done. If you feel that your confidence level concerning your online activities is not quite up to par, do not allow this to hinder the execution of your planned activities. What ultimately matters is the consistent execution of your key activities. Your comfort level with specific tasks will improve over time!

Develop A Plan And Work The Plan…

2. Seeking Perfection From The Very Beginning

Many new online marketers go to extreme lengths to create the perfect scenario as they begin to execute their online marketing plans. The fact is, no matter how hard you try, it’s very unlikely that you’ll hit the “home run” you seek right out of the gate. Many newbies seek the perfect web site, the perfect email marketing campaign, the perfect online ad or banner, unfortunately it’s VERY unlikely happen. It really doesn’t matter whether your efforts are perfect or not! What’s important is that you get started as soon as possible with the plans that you’ve developed. Your online marketing efforts will always be a work in process. As you move forward, you can easily tweak things to your liking. Some people set specific scheduled times to review work that has been previously performed and update as necessary. If you try to get everything perfect from the start you will hamper your long term success..

3. Wasting Money By Not Prioritizing Your Spending

This is important and key to your long term success. If not handled properly, this simple mistake will kill your spirit and put you out of business immediately. If you don’t have money to try each any every enticing offer that claims to help your business. DON’T spend money unnecessarily!

The Internet is full of fantastic copy and enticing offers, some of which are great others not so great. Don’t get side tracked by jumping from opportunity to opportunity, help program to help program or buying everything that lands in your inbox. The fact is, most online business essentials can be obtained for FREE. This is particularly true when you’re first starting out. If you commit to engage in a little research, you’ll be quite surprised at what you will find. Not only can you find great resources you will find them in many cases at no charge. Try to control your urge to purchase resources and tools. Think and evaluate carefully before you make purchases for your online business. Write a list of what you need. Examine the pros and cons, and make sure that your purchases are essential to achieving your goals.

4. Not Investing Enough Money On The Right Resources

Converse to point #3, many new online marketers fail to make the proper investment in the proper things. Anyone that tells you that you don’t have to spend ANY money to grow an online business is lying to you. Unfortunately you will have to spend money to sustain your business. When you initially start, you won’t have to spend much, as most of your time should be spent engaging in RESEARCH. You will need more money as your business continues to grow. For starters, you’ll need a domain, a hosting service and an autoresponder, all of which are pretty affordable. As you move forward, the bulk of your expenses will be on testing and promotion. If you’re paying someone to create a product or you’re buying resell rights to a product or service, you must account for these initial expenses as well. Starting out with affiliate products can greatly reduce these types of expenses and allow you to gain a greater understanding of the processes involved as you market online.

5. Pursuing Difficult Markets Due To Ineffective Market Research

This is a typical mistake but an easy mistake to make for the new online marketer. Most new marketers pursue markets that THEY THINK will be profitable. Before you decide on a product or market that you wish to target, make SURE that you’ve performed exhaustive market research. If you don’t, it could be months, even years before you realize that you’re involved in pursuing profits in a market that is NOT commercially viable for a beginning marketer. Perform thorough and exhaustive research BEFORE you invest time and money in your online marketing campaigns. Understand exactly what the term “niche” market means and adhere to that definition strictly. All niche markets are NOT profitable. Before you target your market make sure that customers within the targeted market are willing to spend money! If the market that you seek is not commercially viable, refocus your efforts and pursue a different market!

6. Lacking The Desire To Grow

You must develop an unquenchable desire to grow. Continual growth of your marketing knowledge and your perspective with respect to online marketing activities is essential. Learning online marketing is continual process not a destination. It’s essential that you develop this mind set immediately. If you’re not open to continual learning and growth you and your online business will become stagnant quickly. The skills needed to market online are constantly evolving and changing. One of the most important things you can do is to constantly update your skills and knowledge base with respect to your marketing internet marketing efforts. It is important to note that this doesn’t always occur in a linear fashion. There will be times where you’ll feel that your learning curve has stagnated but keep reading, listening and learning and your insights will continue to expand. Don’t get stuck using the same skills and ideas or doing things the same way for long periods of time without exploring ways to improve what you are presently doing.

7. Trying To Do Everything That Needs To Be Done… Alone

When starting an online business there is lots of activities and tasks that you need to address. This doesn’t always mean that you have to do it all yourself. Of course, you can do it alone but it will make the road ahead much harder, and in most cases a much longer road. Without the proper support and assistance you are more likely to experience burnout very quickly. You don’t have to outsource each and every thing, however it is wise to target certain areas that will monopolize your time and obtain help when needed. On-line forums, blogs and other portals can be a valuable source of ideas, and sources to provide assistance from other people in this area. Leverage your efforts by seeking assistance in areas that are not your best strengths.

8. The Pursuit Of Smaller Profit Sources / Setting Your Internet Income Goals To Low

Many new online marketers find it less intimidating to sell products or services that cost 10-20 dollars. They are misled into believing that these types of products or services will be easier to market. The fact is, in most cases, it takes just as much time, energy and effort to successfully market a $20.00 product as it does to successfully market a $100.00 product or service. Don’t dismiss the idea of varying the types of offers that you intend to market. Be sure to include a few higher ticket items in your offerings. If you’ve done your research, and handled your marketing correctly you can find success marketing these types of items even during the infancy stages of your online internet marketing experience. Undoubtedly, you’ll get less sales, but you’ll also enjoy more profits. You won’t know if you can market these types of offers unless you’re willing to give them a try. Don’t assume that these types of products and services are off limits to your internet marketing efforts. Do the research, target your market, develop your marketing campaigns and promote offers that give you a chance to earn higher commissions along with your small profit offers. Many high ticket offers perform better with existing customers. You typically have developed a relationship with these customers and many will try your offers based on your business relationship and your credibility.

9. The Failure To Separate Your Business Life and You Home Life

Many new online marketers start their online business in hopes to escape the hustle and bustle of traditional offline business activities. Don’t fall into the trap of creating another JOB at home with your online business. Though initially, getting your online marketing efforts up to par may take a little extra time and commitment, you don’t want your online business ventures to dominate your entire life. One of the biggest pitfalls of working from home is the fact that work s always accessible and so is your home life. Knowing how to separate the two is essential for maintaining balance and a healthy perspective.

You’ll find that your personal home life can also creep into your work activities. The fact that you’re at home makes it easy for the lines that separate these two aspects of life to become blurred. Try to separate the two by establishing fixed times when you work, and fixed times for your personal home life. In many cases it’s a good idea to establish a specific work area for performing your business activities. Work doesn’t have to take dominate your life, define distinct barriers that separate your home life and your work life.

10. The Inability To Remain Positive and Ambitious

When you start to pursue your Internet business, you will undoubtedly have those that will not have faith in your long term success. Conversely, you’ll have others that will encourage you and cheer for you every step of the way. I encourage you to surround yourself with positive thoughts and uplifting people to help you maintain your belief in YOU. Starting any type of business can be a daunting task. You absolutely must believe in yourself and remain ambitious to move forward.

Don’t allow ANYONE to tell you what YOU can’t do. Focus on your goals and set them in stone. Decide to decide to decide…. Once you’ve made a quality decision about your online marketing goals stick to them and pursue them CONSISTENTLY. Over time you will experience tell tale signs of success that will keep you motivated and moving forward. Create your own profitable mind set and don’t allow anyone to rob you of that mind set. If you THINK you can you CAN!

Creating an Internet business that consistently generates Internet income is no small task, however if you execute consistently and stay focused in a few key areas it is certainly something that can be accomplished. Avoid these costly mistakes to help you as you pursue your internet marketing goals.

Email signature marketing is one the the simplest and easiest ways to market a product or service online. The act of placing a compelling headline, call to action and a simple link at the end of your personal emails can easily attract new prospects to your online offerings. Though simple, this is a powerful marketing technique for exposing any offer.

Many people overlook this form of marketing because it’s so simple. Don’t be fooled by its simplicity.

Email signature marketing provides exposure as well as versatility. There is no need to own a web site and no technical skills are required. In addition, if you decide to change your offer, it’s simply a matter of changing a few lines in your email signature.

How do you deploy your email signature marketing campaign? Simply find an online offer, create a compelling tag line or headline, add a call to action and place a link to the offer at the end of your email signature area.

Many email programs allow you to create a standard email signature file to be used with each email that is sent from your email account. Edit your signature file to include your contact information as well as a compelling ad that includes the elements mentioned above. You’ve just created another channel for marketing an online product or service. That’s it, a simple, yet perpetual ad that has unlimited possibilities.

Each time you hit the “send button” to send an email to a friend or family member, you’re exposing your offer. Sooner or later curiosity will get the best of your recipient and a simple click of a mouse will result in additional expose your offerings and ultimately another prospect is exposed to your offer.

Some of your emails will be forwarded by your friends to their friend and so on… your signature and the link to your offer could find it’s way to many additional prospects effortlessly.

If you would like to take this a step further, use a tracking link from an ad tracking program to track the number of clicks that the signature ad receives. This will provide great feedback with respect to the effectiveness of your email signature campaign.

One way to use email signature marketing is to send a friend a funny video or an interesting quote and ask them to pass it on to their friends. If your email signature appears in the email and includes a compelling tag line and link to your offering the email has a good possibility of transforming itself into a viral marketing tool.

A simple email with interesting content and a compelling signature that includes a unique link can be passed from one person to another extremely quickly. When marketing with email signatures, it’s a good idea to spend a little time constructing your headline and call to action to insure that you’ve created copy that’s compelling. This will pay huge benefits long term as your simple email signature ad works on your behalf.

Don’t under estimate the power of this simple marketing tool for exposing your online offers. You’ll be surprised how quickly a simple email signature ad can attract the attention of of new prospects and customers. Add a compelling signature your your emails and watch your online offers gain additional exposure.

Cost Per Action and Cost Per Lead marketing are two of the easiest ways for beginning online marketers to start earning money online.

Cost Per Action, sometimes referred to as “CPA” is a form of online marketing that request a consumer to complete a specific action. This usually entails filling out a form and requesting a free product sample, signing up for a free trial or in some cases request the consumer to try a new product by making a minor purchase.

Another great form of marketing for beginning online marketers is called Cost Per Lead marketing. This is a form of online marketing that is based on collecting leads for a particular product or service. Cost Per Lead or CPL marketing campaigns are usually high volume and lightweight in nature. CPL campaigns request consumers submit only basic contact information. The transaction can be as simple as submitting an email address with a zip code.

In contrast, CPA campaigns are usually low volume and complex. Typically, consumer has to submit credit card and other detailed information. The request for more action by the consumer in most cases produces less actions or conversions than CPL marketing campaigns.

Both CPA and CPL marketing campaigns requires the consumer to do more than just clicking on a link. Once the reader performs the required action the originating marketer or advertisement publisher is paid a small fee for advertising the offer. CPA offers tend to pay a slightly higher commission to the advertiser than CPL offers due to the additional effort required by the consumer.

CPA and CPL offers can pay very nicely and are much easier to deploy than traditional offers that require the consumer to make a purchase. Particularly those CPA and CPL offers that only require the reader to simply fill in personal information for a survey or provide small amounts of information. Those offers that ask readers to sign up for a free trial or sign up to receive a free sample of a product convert very well.

The idea is to deploy a CPA or CPL offers and have 30 people sign up for a free trail or complete a survey which pays $2.00 per offer versus deploying a single traditional offer that requires 1 person to make a $30.00 purchase. With CPA offers you need to ask yourself is it better to have one person convert or take action and purchase a $30.00 product or have 20 people perform a desired action for a commission of $2 per action?

Much first time CPA and CPL publishers will ignore offers that pay smaller commissions as they are enticed by higher paying CPA offers. This is potentially a mistake as smaller CPA and CPL offers tend to have greater conversion rates because they request less of an action by the consumer. It’s much easier for a consumer to submit information requesting a free sample of a product than to reach for a credit card to make a purchase of a product.

Content for CPA and CPL offers are ready made, including graphic design and text so there is very little technical skills required. This is great news for the “newbie” or non technical online marketer because there is no need to learn how to build and deploy a complicated web site to deploy these offers. In most cases it’s simply a matter of copying code for the offer and pasting it into a blog or email and you’re ready to advertise the offer and start earning.

If you are new to online marketing and have little or no technical skill, promoting CPA and CPL offers are great ways to start earning money online. These types of campaigns are simple to deploy and easy to track and provide the new online market with a quick and easy path to online profits.

For more information about CPA and CPL offers see our resource links visit CPA Marketing Guides And Tutorials

William Lockhart – CyberIncomeSolutions