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The REAL Secret to Internet Marketing Success

March 26, 2007

Those of you familiar with my previous writings on Internet marketing are well aware of the fact that I am a big proponent of the idea that the only “secret” to successful Internet marketing is this–there are no secrets! The very use of the term “secret” is a marketing ploy (and a very successful one I might add, and one that I utilize myself on occasion) that has been utilized since the primitive times of advertisement and marketing. (And the odds are excellent that this particular word is going to be found in advertisements and marketing campaigns of all sorts until humanity is no longer around to take advantage of it.)

Internet marketing, while having the potential perhaps to pay off in much bigger ways than other forms of marketing and business, still involves work, and lots of it. In fact, it has been my experience that Internet marketing is NOT a quick and easy path to “easy money.” Rather, just the opposite! Generating a sustainable income via Internet marketing, more often than not, does not happen overnight. Success is fleeting, especially early on until you establish your niche market(s) and slowly begin to dominate them.

Internet marketing takes much hard work, persistence, knowledge, creativity, and, above all else, time. (And don’t forget to throw in a little bit of luck for good measure!) Internet marketing is not the quick and easy road to riches that some would have you believe. It is much easier just to go out and get a “regular” job and get paid to make someone else rich.

Internet marketing also has a very high learning curve. It takes time to master. I have been involved with Internet marketing for quite a while now and have enjoyed some major successes of my own, but, even with my experience I still manage to learn something new about the business almost daily. Success in this field particularly requires that you become a student. You have to learn much about technology, marketing, sales, product, and so very much more. And all of these change almost daily! Educating yourself and staying abreast of developments is no easy task but it is a prerequisite to Internet marketing success.

Now, the above having been said, I want to say this–I love Internet marketing! I enjoy the difficulty, i.e., the challenge involved in Internet marketing. It is fiercely competitive and I happen to like the competition–no, I love it! In no other forum do you constantly have to evaluate and reevaluate your tactics and strategies as you do in Internet marketing. A competitor with a similar or same product is always trying to one-up you and you have to, in turn, one-up him or her! This cycle goes on and on, ad infinitum. More often than not, the most creative individual is the one who wins the customer and, subsequently, the paycheck.

Ok, so the title of this article is “The REAL Secret to Internet Marketing Success,” so you want me to go ahead and give you that “REAL secret” right? (Hey–you weren’t expecting this to be a piece on the difficulty of Internet marketing after all!) Remember though, I have already said that there are no secrets, unless the secret to Internet marketing success is a mixture of hard work, dedication, perseverance, patience, creativity, time, knowledge, etc. Of course this isn’t a secret that would sell very well now is it? No one wants to hear something like that for free, much less pay to hear something like that! But I guess if there is in fact a secret to Internet marketing, then that would have to be it, in my humble opinion at least.

My parting advice is this, especially to those of you presently pondering “getting into” Internet marketing and those of you just starting out. Success is there for the taking, if you make up your mind from the beginning to see your endeavors through. Despite the claims of “easy money” being made by thousands of Internet gurus the world over, you WILL have to work hard and persevere. You can’t do “nothing” and watch the cash roll into your PayPal account. It just doesn’t work that way.

Study, absorbing all that you can. Find a niche and exploit it. Be creative–find something that hasn’t been done before or find something someone else is doing that you could do better. Persevere. Success doesn’t happen overnight but in increments. Set goals, small ones at first then becoming progressively more ambitious, and accomplish them. If you are serious about Internet marketing, no one can make it happen other than you yourself. Here, like no where else, you get to see the fruits of your own hand–whether bountiful or otherwise.

by M. Shane Huey

Copyright 2007 by M. Shane Huey. All rights reserved.

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