I work as an internet marketer. When people ask what I do for a living, I don’t say ‘writer’ anymore (though technically I am), I say PR person because frankly, working in public relations sounds better than being a writer, even though I’m a writer.
Anyway.
Newcomers to working in blogging/internet marketing or any online entrepreneur for that matter have many misconceptions about this line of work. They think of it as a way to get unlimited income working for you and free from the 9-5 grind. The reality is that this line of work is challenging, stressful and demanding. The sooner newcomers to the system grasp that, the more likely it is that they will succeed. Just like running any other business, being successful in this line of work means being patient, building yourself up and learning the right lessons. Here are some to keep in mind so that you’re ready to work in the glamorous (ahem) world of internet marketing/business yourself!
Partner Up with the Right People
Most of us marketers don’t actually have a product-we have a service. This means that we have to partner up with the right advertiser/businesses/affiliate networks and with other people in our line of work to make any money and this isn’t easy.
If you’re a blogger and you get plenty of traffic, you’re going to see offers from affiliate networks. Your new affiliate manager will come off as your best buddy, giving you custom landing pages, new products, new creative and of course, cash. But if you stop playing by the rules, your manager may well turn on you. Some many even figure out how you saw success, copy you and become your competitor. Sheet! And that’s ignoring the sheer number of bad affiliate marketers out there.
If you’re a marketer working for businesses, advertisers or other marketers, you still have to choose your work carefully. There are plenty of shady businesses, clients, and ways to get cheated.
The best way to avoid these problems is to make sure you partner with companies that follow along with your values. Study them carefully and see whether they are people you actually want to have long-term relationships with. Despite what many newcomers think, the marketer/blogger does hold some power and they have the ability to wield it by being choosy about who they work with and support.
Disaster Watch
Bad things happen to good people. Your server goes down, your commission’s drop, your site stops ranking, Google unleashes a new update that makes your site suddenly look awful and you have no visitors. Sometimes you just want to crawl back to bed and scream. It’s ok, we’ll wait five minutes.
It’s important to have a plan in place for disasters because they will happen. Figure out what’s going on and what’s causing the problem. If it’s something you did, fix it; for example, undo your last update/action/change and see if that helps. If the problem isn’t you, figure out what it is and solve it. Don’t start deleting things or making drastic changes; it could be that tweaking a few things here and there will make all the difference. There is always something you can do to manage damage control and a calm attitude combined with patience will go a long way.
Letting Go
Success is sweet; your site is doing well commercially and you’ve nursed it from infancy. But at a certain point, just like your kids, you have to learn to let go, at least partially. Outsourcing some of your tasks may seem impossible to do, but it’s important. You cannot grow a site all by yourself; there are just not enough hours in the day! You may want to hire someone to handle your social media, hire a writer to do content or hire a programmer to update your site. Stick with what you can do best for your site and hire reliable employees to do the rest.
Keep in mind that when you free up your time by outsourcing, you can concentrate on new projects that will add more to your coffers, not to mention freshen up your thinking and give you a new angle to work on. This can be amazing for internet entrepreneurs since the internet makes it easy to move from project to project and have a whole string of mini businesses.
Of course there are plenty of other things all successful internet entrepreneurs will do, but these will give you a good start about what you’ll most likely come across. As with any job, passion, creativity, adequate stress control, and a bit of luck are going to play a huge role in your success and the rest is a learning experience. Good luck!
Lena Paul
Latest posts by Lena Paul (see all)
- Three Lessons from Internet Marketers - 10/11/2012
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