Online Information Marketing

(excerpted from our Internet Information Marketing Course) You want to be an Internet Marketer and market something online, but aren't sure what it should be. Internet marketing is all about having a product that you know people already want, and packaging it so they will want to buy it from YOU. So what product will you market? Keep in mind what the Internet is and what it's best suited for...INFORMATION. Plain and simple, it's information...nothing more and nothing less. We've gotten so used to using the Internet in our everyday lives that we kind of forget that it's not a real thing, but merely an abstract set of ideas. And now we can't imagine living without it. Actually, when you get right down to it, nobody really NEEDS the Internet to live, it just makes life a whole lot easier and more efficient. But it really doesn't matter if we actually need it or not, it's such a part of lives now that its not going away...and that is the best news you ever heard! And why is that the best news you ever heard? Because the Internet has now become the first place that most people turn to when they want to know about something. Pick a topic. Anything. No matter what topic you choose, there's bound to be a web page somewhere with some relevant info on your topic. So, since the Internet is the FIRST place people turn to for info, that makes it the IDEAL place for an information marketer to set up shop. An "Information Marketer"? Yep, that's right. How and what kind of information would people be willing to pay for online? The same kind of information that people have ALWAYS marketed. Here's a little exercise for you. Go to a second-hand book or magazine store, or a garage sale, or any place where you can buy old magazines. Find an old copy "Popular Mechanics", "Popular Science", or "Mechanix Illustrated". Or any type of general-info DIY magazine from at least 15 years ago. Heck, if you're old enough like me, you might actually still have an old copy of one of those magazines in a box somewhere. Open it up to the back, in the classified section, and look at all of those great ads back there. Many of the same ads would appear in those magazines year after year, sometimes for decades. Remember the "Bartlett Flying Saucer", or the plans to build your own satellite or cable TV descrambler? (Yes, you can tell what kind of a geek I was growing up, can't you.) The people placing those ads were no different than you or me, except that they had found a topic that people were interested in and found a way to sell that information to others. Usually it was self-published...meaning that what you received in the mail wasn't some slick glossy publication, but rather a simple collection of type-written pages copied off on the local copy machine. But it really didn't matter what the pages looked like, or how well they were formatted because it was the INFORMATION contained in the pages that people were after. Look again at your old magazine...notice that the biggest classified section in any of those magazines was the section called MONEYMAKING OPPORTUNITIES. People have always wanted to make more money for themselves and their families. If you had experience in some kind of a part-time moneymaking venture, people would gladly pay you for that information. And it's certainly no different today. If you have any kind of knowledge about any type of business or money making idea, people will flock to buy that information from you, IF you know how and where to sell it. In a way, the Internet is really no different than any of those old magazines. It's like a big classified section in the biggest magazine that there ever was, and your website is like a very complicated classified ad. Sure, it may be a little harder to find your website than it would be to find a classified in the back of your favorite magazine, but there are many ways to make website (and hence your information products) "findable". We'll stop here...but be sure to join us in the next article as we explore in more detail about how YOU can create your own information products and market them online. Success To You! -Ted