StealthMoonlighter: The Online Marketer

There are several things that make online marketing difficult. Given a sensible system, Internet marketing is incredibly easy to do.  But when you’re faced with first one “great idea” and a slew of requests to review and promote the latest and greatest joint venture, it’s easy to lose focus and hope for the best as you spread yourself too thin on desperate promotions.

The hardest thing about online marketing can be deciding where to start. There are so many programs, products, and services to promote. Sure you can do some research to gauge the profit/loss potential of just about anything. And then there’s that element of chance that you have to take into account – the “worse case scenario”.

But the root of the word “decide” is decir which is Late for “to cut off”. By definition (as well as by common sense) that means you need to pick something above all else and make it your focus. You can’t ride more than one horse in more than one direction at a time if you’re starting in Sacramento and expect to get to Manhattan in thirty days.

Pity the poor horse!

Finally! Part 2 is here. More answers to the question “Are YOU the Next Great Affiliate Marketer?”

Well, this is just an “excerpt”, but it’s full of tips and tricks about what I know about affiliate marketing so far. You also get a good dose of what I try to pass off as sarcastic humor, but other people try to call it “wisdom.” I turned the full article into a Squidoo lens. Then I sliced and diced it up to create an article for HubPages. I’m doing this so that I can practice what I preach: the Cult of Nichenomics.

OK, so Nichenomics is not a full fledged “cult” yet, but it has potential.

Now, if you’re itching to follow something worthwhile and you’re not afraid of being “social” about it, I’ve been trying out a new membership site: Social Power Linking. It’s run by Jack Humphrey of the Friday Traffic Report and a cast of other very helpful folks. Social Power Linking is the only membership site I’ve had association with so far that’s truly over delivered. And I mean “over delivered” in a big way. If you want to see the whole Magilla, just pay them a visit.

I feel that some explaining is in order, since this “new” thing goes totally against my admonition to you in my Part 2 on Affiliate Marketing. It all comes down to having the prerogative of changing your mind when something does not work as you want it to.

To date, membership at SPL makes my 4th membership attempt this year. It’s not that I insist on being “over delivered” to. It’s that I don’t like paying a hefty monthly fee and getting a “basic” business in a box that I have to spend more time and money on in order to make it professional. In other words, if you’re eying my BlogLog and about to click on NicheRockets, just be sure you have time to spruce up whatever they send you each month before you slap it onto a domain. I only recommend them if you really, REALLY need content just to get something going and you’re open to accepting just about any “niche business of the month”.

OK, so Part 2 of “Affiliate Marketing — Are You the Next Great One?” is ready. Feel free to let me know what you think. And do pass it on if you think it will help someone else!

I don’t know too many people who enjoy living day to day without having a hobby, do you? Some people spend their spare time reading the classics in literature while others prefer music or sports. Other people find enjoyment whiling away for hours at a time with flowers and other plants. Hobbies are great because they help us unwind and forget the troubles and problems we face in our work hours. Ironically, unless you absolutely love your day job and you’ve decided to make it your favorite pastime, your hobby won’t make you as much as that day job.

If you could find a way to make money with your hobby you could use the extra cash to pamper your family and friends — or even to quit your day job. You’ll be surprised to know that there are many people who take their hobbies and turn them into online money making ventures to either supplement their income or replaced it completely. It’s not unusual to take a hobby (otherwise known as a niche), build an informative website about it, find related product to promote, and then combine that knowledge and presentation to generate a good income literally working online.

Affiliate marketing, in case you haven’t heard, is a revenue sharing partnership between a merchant with an online business and one or more individuals who agree to help the merchant promote (and ultimately sell) his or her product. An affiliate has the advantage of having no upfront costs for creating a product, setting up a shopping cart for it, keeping track of sales and commissions (bookkeeping) and customer support.

But just because you skip all the upfront costs and customer support responsibilities, your “job” as an affiliate is not exactly the easiest part of the job. It’s up to you as an affiliate marketer to make the decision on what niche or hobby you want to specialize and then research products offered by merchants who will pay you to promote their products. Once you make that important decision, all that’s required of you as an affiliate marketer is perseverance, patience, determination, and in most cases, creativity and imagination. If you see yourself as having those key character traits then you could be on your way to being a successful Affiliate Marketer.