Find your BIG WHY...

There will be no doubt that learning internet marketing will be a long and tiring learning curve. So you have to have what any guru will tell you is 'your big why?'

Your reason for persuing your IM has to be there at the forefront of your mind or even the back of your mind every day. Eventually it will become a habit, or like your facebook addiction, a compulsion. It's the cake you keep adding icing in an effort to perfect or improve it.

You may have a 'Big Why' that you haven't fully acknowledged. Perhaps you have children that you want to spend more time with, perhaps, it's a flexible occupation that fits around your children, perhaps you just want to give up you day job, clear your student loan or automate your business results to reduce your stress and organise your lead generation. If you already have a business and website, many individuals want to generate an income from there website, making it pay for itself or put up a stronger fight against the competition. If you are just looking for a new hobby, great! That a valid reason too.

Be prepared for distractions

We all have our own reasons for delving into internet marketing. Some will take to it like a fish to water, while others may feel that they are bouncing around from one method or technique to another, becoming distracted with each new subscription and drained of energy and time. As you yearn to learn more, you will be bombarded with emails and guru's inviting you to webinars to sell you courses.

Time and persistence

It will take time and persistence to distinguish between that which you need to implement, and what is a distraction from your goal. 

The Learning Curve above (a model of how we learn and forget over time) identifies that if we repeatedly practice what we have learnt, we will maintain recall and longterm learning. If we don't practice or implement what we have learnt - we quickly forget - effectively, we have wasted our time, energy, money or resources that we have invested in our study.

So the key here to longterm results in internet marketing is to focus on what you are learning and continue practicing it everyday over at least 30 days. If your plan involves blogging or article writing, invest in a daily schedule of practice and study over a period of at least 30 - 90 days.

Use a diary if necessary to write down what you intend to learn, how much time you intend to invest and what you have actually done that day. By monitoring your actions, you hold yourself accountable.

Employ stress management techniques

There will be nothing that you can offer yourself except patience and a break. Get away from it all. Go for a walk, a holiday, take a trip even if it's to the shops for a day. Meditate and refocus your mind. Change from doing memtal work to something more physical. Go out and social with friends, old and new. You will soon find clarity and inspiration and return renewed if your why is still there.

First things first

But first you must put first things first and decide - do you have an interest or idea that you want to pursue and write about that will keep you engaged and vibrantly motivated for months or years to come? Just take a look at your own interests and pick out something you enjoy or think about consistently. It just needs to be something you can focus on and enjoy pursuing. Don't worry about whether it will make money - right now you need a topic to build your learning around.

There you have your first niche. That is where you can begin - by focusing on your niche market.

Links:
Tony Buzan: Mindmapping /Learning
Video on Learning Curve and it's financial implications

Where do you start when you want to learn about internet marketing?

Well, it's just like any other course of study or business that you want to learn or establish however - it is both a business and a study course combined. You have to decide where your priorities lie and what resources you have that will enable you to fulfil your goals.

Start with aSWOT Analysis

Analyse your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

• What do you know about internet marketing, webpages, advertising etc already?
• Do you know someone who can help you get started?
• Are there local courses you can join in your community?
• What niche market interests you?
• Are you a good writer with a critical or creative mind?
• Would video or podcasting be a better medium for you?
• Are you time rich and cash poor?
• Do you have skills and knowledge which can be transfered to the internet?

What are your priorites?

Do you want to learn internet marketing for recreation with a long term intention of earning from your efforts, or are you learning in order to add to your skill set for a new job or to progress in your career?

Make best use of your resources

If it is for your already established business, is it going to be a worthy investment of your time to learn these skills or would your time be better valued if you farmed out the worked to someone more competent and quicker at the job? Can you afford to sacrifice your time while you are studying or would you be better off spending your time on your work and strengths while using the extra pay to get another person to design your marketing?

The difficulty with passing your work and hard earned money over to someone else can be that if you haven't seen their work before, or they can not verify their results, it will be difficult to establish if their promises of results are genuine.

However if you are learning internet marketing skills for yourself, these are skills you can carry anywhere for as long as they are valid. As the proverb states, Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. But I should warn you - you will have some very long and frustrating evenings or days ahead of you. It's a steep learning curve and can become an addiction counterproductive to the very reason you entered into Internet Marketing (IM) which may be to buy yourself time, increase your income and enable yourself to escape to freedom from the rate race.

So get yourself a comfortable chair and arm yourself with a stress management mentality, because it's going to be a very bumpy ride!

Links:
SWOT Analysis - Wikipedia

My internet marketing journey started more seriously just over two years ago whilst on sick leave.

Several years ago I had set up a simple site for my hypnotherapy business and used affiliate and associate marketing to attempt to gain an income from traffic to my site. However even then it was difficult. Luckily the site brought me customers to my business and a few enquiries from clients.

I found myself engaged in a series of video streamed conferences about internet marketing, which included several 'pitches' from trainers and coaches who were willing to teach short cuts to the steep learning curve for a huge fee. Some are shameless about caling you up and asking a total stranger for thousands.

I sat down and went from one online trainer to another, learning from each while beng pitched and promoted on every product and training course from here to infinity. Everyone having the 'secret' method, system or technique to simplify and streamline your efforts and earnings. Really!

It is quite easy to see how an individual can be drawn into the vortex of internet marketing and quickly lose their time, motivation and wallet. Lately I have had to wade through hundreds of emails a day, watch countless enticing videos soliciting for my email address and find myself searching for the refund button on sites that deliberately make it difficult for you to exercise the refund guarantee that they have offered you.

Well, here begins the blog. If I blog consistently as I am told, I should generate enough visitors to my site to get rated by Google. Will it work? Join me on my journey and see. I shall watch the visitor numbers and if you would be so kind, feel free to click on an ad that takes your interest and purchase a little something to aid and sustain us both on our journey into internet marketing.

Thanks, Ann