Building an Internet Marketing Business

When deciding to start a business, there are many qestions that need to be answered. The primary question should be WHY. The reason that should be your primary question is that every decision you make about your business is determined by that first question. If the answer to that question is financial freedom, then there needs to be a follow up question to that - "will you want time freedom to accompany that financial freedom?" That's also important because it is important to note that financial freedom does not necessarily mean time freedom and if you have money without the time to enjoy it, then you may question whether or not the effort to make the money is worth it.

So now that you've established that you want more money and. just as importantly, more time to enjoy that money, it is time to decide what type of business can "deliver the goods". I personally don't believe that there is any other business that has as much potential to meet both of those criteria as an online business. You may wonder why that is my belief. The reason is simple, no other business offers the flexibility that online businesses offer - what other business is there that you can run from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection? I will admit that there is still hard work involved in getting the business going but if you work smart while working hard, then the reward will be great and the work will lessen over time as you learn how to outsource most of the "grunt" work and focus on the big picture.

The main building block of an Internet Business is to build a list of customers or prospective customers. Among internet marketers, it is a well known fact "the money is in the list". The key to building an profitable list is to make sure that the list you build is a targeted list meaning that the subscribers/prospects on your list are interested in what you're offering/selling. You may be wondering how you go about doing that. The answer is that you have to offer an incentive to your prospects to entice them to give you their name and email address. So you may then ask, "What can I give them?"; the answer is something of real value. Whether that is a report or a video or an audio recording. There is no shortage of valuable giveaways to offer. You have to be sure that whatever you choose to give to your prospective customers is something they would see as valuable. While it may be desirable to have a large list, it is important to note that a small list of loyal buyers is much better than a large list of uninterested tire kickers.

Once they have become a subscriber of yours, it is important to build a relationship with them by regular communication. It is essential to keep the lines of communication open. The advent of blogging has made it possible for that communication to be a two way street rather than one-way as with mass emailing. By keeping the lines of communication open, you will be able to build trust among your subscribers so that whenever you present a product, they will be open to your recommendation. This again ties to the point of having a good quality list rather than a large list of arbitrary people.

Building a list is fairly simple in theory: set up an opt-in page and send people there, give them a free gift and now you have a list. However, actually doing it is much more involved. You need to take the following steps:
* Buy a domain name
* Set up a hosting account
* Set up an autoresponder
* Set up an opt-in page
And Last but not least DRIVE TRAFFIC to the opt-in page.

Those steps when taken as whole may seem daunting but when broken down into simple steps, it becomes fairly easy. For more information on how to do all the above steps, you can go over to my blog at: Doston Stanley or visit IM Goldmine for a free ebook on how to build a profit pulling mailing list.