I've been tagged with the following question:
How would you list the following, in order of importance from top to bottom?
-Creating your own digital product
-Affiliate marketing
-Adwords and/or adsense
-JV’s
-Building your list
I'm not sure if they want to know which of the 5 are most important to your online business (in order of importance), or the order in which you should do these 5 things. I figured I'd tackle it from both angles...
Of the 5 Internet Marketing Strategies listed, the most important to your online business is List Building. It doesnt matter if you create products, promote affiliate programs or use contextual advertising and ad sales to monetize your website. Building a mailing list is the most important marketing strategy, and the best way to get (repeat) traffic & make sales.
Obviously the type of website you create, and your objective with that site, is going to determine the order of importance of each of these elements. But in general I would suggest the following:
- 1. Building Your List
- 2. Joint Ventures
- 3. Creating Products
- 4. Affiliate Marketing
- 5. Adwords/Adsense
The order of initiating each of these strategies may be a different story altogether. Let's say that you are going to create an affiliate site. In that case, the correct order would be:
- 1. Building Your List
- 2. Adwords/Adsense
- 3. Affiliate Marketing
- 4. Creating Products
- 5. Joint Ventures
Ordering these marketing strategies "as-is" was a bit difficult, as there are steps combined and steps missing and such. As for implementing them with an affiliate site, obviously you should always set up your mailing list first so that any promotion you do will result in conversions from visitors to subscribers.
I listed Adwords/Adsense next simply because you may want to use Adwords as your initial promotion strategy, and you may want to use Adsense to monetize your site (or test conversions/interest) before you begin promoting affiliate programs or creating products.
Affiliate Marketing comes before Product Development, as this is a great way to perform a "market test" and guage interest before you invest time in creating your own products.
And of course, Joint Ventures is last on the list because you want to create your products and have your systems in place before you bring on partners and affiliates.
Your thoughts?
About Lynn Terry
Hi Lynne, thanks for the great insight. I am focusing on good ontent as step number one. In fact I am thinking of removing ALL my ads until I really settle in on content & design and have regular reliable traffic. Traffic isn't coming for the ads, but by focusing on monetizing too soon, I may easily drive away the crowd!
BTW, I'm going to link to this in this Weekend's "Sunday Seven", so stop by!
Excellent - thanks 😉
I agree with your strategy 100% - focusing on the content and on building a good presence online is key to the foundation of your success.
Hi Lynn,
That question is from a recent survey run by Keith Wellman for his new mentoring program.
Thanks
Pete
Cool - I'm not familiar with it, but hopefully my response helped!
Hi Lynn, it seems I've not started at all judging from what you listed here.
--------------
1. Building Your List (Not doing it)
2. Joint Ventures (Not doing it)
3. Creating Products (Not doing it)
4. Affiliate Marketing (Well, I am affiliate marketing selling others products. Is this what you mean?)
5. Adwords/Adsense (Not doing it)
Hmm... I still have a long way to go. But I will get there.
Well that doesnt mean you havent started at all - I was simply given these 5 internet marketing strategies to work with, specifically, as a tag to order them by importance to an online business (in general).
That said, depending on how you are promoting affiliate programs now, I might could make some suggestions to help you increase your income potential. You are welcome to join the Affiliate Marketing group at my discussion forum and let me know any questions you have - or just brainstorm ideas.
Best,
Lynn Terry
Lynn, great post. The money is in the list, and it's a must have in business. Creating a product can do that at the same time too, and lead to all the rest.
Hi! I was the one who tagged you and then I went AWOL. Thanks for answering.
Yes.. it was from Keith Wellmans mentoring program and I wanted to know if I answered the way others would. I see your logic and agree with you. I had selected
Creating products first
Joint Ventures
Building your List
Affiliate
Google
I figure you if you have a product, you can reel in JV's, then you will naturally be able to build a list from clients, and so on..
For many of us, the answer will be based on where we are in our IM education. A few years ago my answer would have been different.
Anyways.. much thanks for tackling this 🙂
You're most welcome, Andrea!