In response to the question, “What is internet marketing all about?” the above title could very well be the best response. Internet marketing or, if you prefer, online business, is primarily about information. Most people who use the internet are looking for information and it is around that fact that a massive business opportunity has grown.
Almost every conceivable topic, issue, problem, subject, desire or ambition can be researched on the internet. A Google search on the most obscure of subjects can produce an amazing number and variety of results with hundreds of thousands of websites covering every possible aspect of that subject.
The first step in setting up an internet business, therefore, is to find a product or service to offer to your customers. Because of the huge and diverse marketplace available to internet marketers, where do you begin to look? A recurring theme which runs through most of the information about setting up an online business is the need to research every step of the way. Indeed, an alternative title to this article could very well have been, “Research; Research; Research”. When it comes to finding your product or service the first bit of research is to locate a hungry market which gets a good response in a search engine, but one which has not been completely swamped already. This is where the term “Niche Marketing” comes in. Rather than focussing on a wide ranging topic, work inwards until you find one aspect of that subject which has plenty of interest but which still has relatively little market penetration.
Don’t become too specialised, however. In the field of footwear it would not be sensible to promote yourself as a left-shoe specialist. That would certainly be “niche” but not much use to any marketer. There are free research tools on the internet which will help you in your keyword research by doing this exploration for you, enabling you to begin with a fairly general subject and gradually work towards a niche within that wider topic.
Once you have your niche then you can create or find a suitable product or service to offer. Selecting an Affiliate offer (perhaps through Clickcbank) is a good starting point as the product and accompanying marketing material have already been created for you. All you have to do is decide on how you are going to promote and sell that product. With Clickbank all the products available to work with are digital so there is no packing and posting to contend with.
When dealing with information products which are not digital (e.g. – CDs, DVDs, Printed Copy) there is the issue of stock to send out. However, internet marketing is a positive cash-flow business; this means that customers pay upfront before the items are sent out. Because of the nature of information products these can be produced simply in response to orders. Whether you are producing and distributing yourself or having a fulfilment house to do it for you, products are produced only when requested. If you have an order for one DVD, then one DVD is produced and sent out. If you have an order for one printed report, one is printed and sent out. There is no need to hold any stock at all. Perhaps, when launching a new product, when you obviously don’t know exactly what the response will be, it might be wise to have a few copies prepared in advance just in case, but this will be neither onerous nor expensive.
So, information; information; information! You need to have good information yourself to find your niche and your products. This requires research. The products you promote and sell will be primarily providing valuable information to your customers. Information is at the very heart of all we do as internet marketers.