A very warm welcome to the world of Internet marketing! My
name is Robert Benjamin Ingalls and thank you for purchasing
this book. I am sure that this would be a valuable resource for
you to start with if you seriously want to make a decent stream
of income on the Internet.
Let me do a quick introduction about myself. I am an author,
investor, entrepreneur and internet marketer, currently living in
Singapore. I graduated from the National University of Singapore
years ago, majoring in Finance and Marketing. I went on to take
my Master Degree in Aarhus School of Business in Denmark.
For years, I have fell deeply in love with the idea of “multiple
streams of income” since I read the book with the same title by
Robert G. Allen – the international bestselling author. From
there, I have been picking up various techniques and strategies
to build up my income empire. Currently, some of my income
streams include:
Rent from properties in Singapore and Hong Kong
Returns from Stock Investment
Profits from FOREX trading
Dividends from 2 local companies
Royalties from my books
Earnings from Internet marketing
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Robert B. Ingalls
I started Internet marketing 5 years ago and over time I have
accumulated many valuable lessons to pass on to you right here
in this book.
I hope this book would be a useful guideline for you to start your
own online business empire, which is going to work for you in
the years to come.
In this book, I will cover the 3 paths that brought me to the
Internet goldmine. These three separate paths differ in nature,
but eventually overlap, meaning that your efforts may fragment
during the beginning stage, but along the way activities will be
integrated and you will gain more with less effort! I will
elaborate more when you read on…
Without further ado, let me walk you through the 3 paths of
Internet wealth. Sit back and enjoy the journey to wealth, on
which you yourself will soon be travelling!
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Three Paths to Internet Wealth
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Robert B. Ingalls
8
Three Paths to Internet Wealth
Why Internet Business?
If the Internet had been widely accessible during the time I
graduated from the university, I would have selected it as a
starting point.
The very first question you may ask is why the Internet? Well, let
me explain to you why this is the most profitable and hassle-free
business in this date and age. First, let me show you several facts
and figures to elaborate on the great earning potential of
Internet business.
Let’s look at the advantages of Internet business.
Potential Growth in Volume
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Robert B. Ingalls
Looking at the trend line in the graph above, you will see that
there is a boom in the number of internet users over the last ten
years. Why? Because the Internet has been growing so rapidly
that it becomes a primary tool for people to look for information!
Simple as it might appear!
Some categories of information, such as overweight, male
impotence, debt, getting rich, MLM etc., are considered to be so
sensitive that people would not discuss with their folks offline.
They’d rather go online and search because they know the
virtual world will protect their identity and save them from
shame. In other words, the Internet is the place for people to
look for solutions to their problems. If you know how to target
certain groups of people who are willing to spend on those
solutions, you’ve made it!
As can be seen from the graph, there was only 27.1% of the
world’s population are connected in 2009. So, where is the other
70%? Are they going to be connected soon? Are they going to
surf the webs and look for solutions to their problems? If you
vote for a yes, you know exactly where the future Internet
business comes in!
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Three Paths to Internet Wealth
Potential Growth in Value
I want to emphasize that more and more people are spending
their money on the Internet. Nielsen reveals that 875 million
consumers shop online in 2008 and the trend is increasing
rapidly.
Now, with the popularity of Internet-connected mobile devices,
people can spend money with just a click of a button. According
to a study by the University of Oxford, there are more mobile
subscribers than toothbrushes. So you can imagine how huge the
market is and why you should tap onto this business as soon as
possible, before another millions of people come in and make it
more difficult to monetize.
Flexibility
The Internet business gives you the flexibility in working. You
can choose to work anytime of the day, any day of the year,
anywhere you prefer, as long as you have a computer and
Internet connection. Your online store is your own 24-hour
salesman that continuously works for you even when you sleep.
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Robert B. Ingalls
Scalability
The Internet business is the global business. You can sell to
customers in Brazil, South Africa and India etc. without seeing
them physically or setting up physical offices in those countries.
It gives you a greater base of customer compared to a local
business.
Small Start-up Cost
Let’s do some cost analysis to compare an online business start-
up and a traditional brick-and-mortal business start-up.
The table below shows that Internet business is so affordable
that even an average person can get started easily. If you want to
start-up offline, it would cost you at least 1,000 times more.
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Three Paths to Internet Wealth
More and more people are planning to go online now. So, you’d
better start soon so that you can still gain the early-mover
advantage in the industry.
Cost of Starting A Business
Traditional business
Internet business
Setup cost
$300,000 Website setup
$200
Rental fee
$15,000 Hosting
$7
Inventory cost
$30,000 Software
$20
Labour cost
$20,000 Autorespond service
$19
Utilities & others
$10,000 PLR products
$27
TOTAL $375,000
TOTAL
$273
If you want to minimize your start-up cost from the table above,
you can! Let me give you a couple of examples:
If you are able to design a website yourself, or outsource it to a
cheap
but
quality
service
provider
on
Elance
or
Fiverr
(http://www.fiverr.com/), you will cut your cost down even further. In fact, my very first website was built from a private
label right (PLR) template that I purchased for less than $10, and
it is now still up and running. Take a look at it:
http://datingneveroutofdate.info/
You don’t need to invest in an autorespond service at the
beginning stage. You can start small, and get it during the latter
stage of your business as it grows bigger.
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Robert B. Ingalls
You don’t need to buy PLR products if you can create an
information product on your own.
You don’t need a domain name or web hosting if you choose to
build your website on a free platform such as Blogger or
WordPress.
Small Maintenance Cost
Every month, you don’t have to spend tens of thousands of
dollars to maintain your business, just like this:
Monthly Cost of Running A Business
Traditional business
Internet business
Rental fee
$15,000 Hosting
$7
Inventory cost
$30,000 App & software
$15
Labour cost
$20,000 Autorespond service
$19
Utilities & other costs
$10,000 Website maintenance
$50
Maintenance
$2,000 Adwords campaigns
$100
Marketing & advertising
$20,000
TOTAL $97,000
TOTAL
$191
You can cut cost for your Internet business if your budget is
tight. For example, no hosting, no autoresponder, no Google
Adwords campaigns etc.
---o0o---
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Three Paths to Internet Wealth
Does it sound good to you? If yes, let’s go straight into the
“income paths” right now. Just follow me; I am walking you
through the three profit centres that guarantee to generate
high returns on investments (by investment, I mean either
money or time, or both).
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Robert B. Ingalls
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Three Paths to Internet Wealth
Income Path #1: Affiliate Marketing
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing At A Glance
Affiliate marketing is simply selling and promoting other
people’s products and services in returns to sales commission.
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Robert B. Ingalls
This business model has become popular over the past few years
and it has created additional sources of income for hundreds of
thousands of people around the world.
Affiliate marketing creates a win-win-win situation, in which:
The customers win because they have their problems
solved
The merchants (or vendors) win because they make
money from the sales
The affiliates win because they make money from the
commissions, and don’t have to own a product
Affiliate Marketing: A Closer Look
Let’s look at one scenario to see the power of affiliate marketing.
If a vendor sells a product at $47 and he can make 100 sales per
month from his own marketing effort, his total revenue is $47 x
100 = $4,700.
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Three Paths to Internet Wealth
If he can get 10 other affiliates (or joint venture partners) to
promote his product and pays 75% commission for each sale
made, and each affiliate can make 50 sales per month, what is
the vendor’s revenue?
In this case, the vendor will be able to make 50 x 10 = 500 sales
per month and generate a revenue of $47 x 500 = $23,500.
He pays out 75% commission: 75% x $23,500 = $17,625
At the end of the day, the amount of money he put in his bank
account is $23,500 – $17,625 = $5,875.
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Robert B. Ingalls
Wow, this is $1,175 more than his initial marketing effort
without the help of the affiliates. And guess what, in this case he
earn the money without any sales effort from his own end!
There you see the win-win-win situation!
Is that the best scenario? No, because somebody can still gain a
bigger slice in this case. Let’s take a quick look:
What if the vendor only gives out 60% of the revenue as
commission, or just 50%, or even 35%? Sure he will make even
more than $5,875 (if he has the same number of joint venture
partners).
What if he has 30 affiliates to promote his products instead of
10? I don’t see how he can earn less than $5,875.
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Three Paths to Internet Wealth
If the merchant has backend upsales for his product, the
affiliates will earn commissions from the upsales as well.
If the merchant offers a product or service with recurring
payment, the affiliates will receive commissions on the recurring
income too, as long as their customers don’t cancel the
subscription.
That is why affiliate marketing has become so popular!
Affiliate Marketing Models
Basically, there are four common models of affiliate marketing:
Pay Per Sale (PPS): You earn commission for a product
purchased or service rendered.
Cost Per Action (CPA): You earn commission when somebody
completes certain action (such as filling in a form, completing a
survey etc.).
Cost Per Click (CPC): You earn commission when somebody click
on an ad.
Pay Per Install (PPI): You earn commission when somebody
install a software or application on their computer.
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Robert B. Ingalls
The Myths of Affiliate Marketing
You may ask: “If everybody is doing affiliate marketing, how can
I profit from it?”
Simple! The online marketplace is just a simulation of its offline
counterpart, in which there are demands and supplies for
products or services in thousands of different niches.
Different people will look for different things to buy. For
instance, rich people are looking for high-end luxury sport cars.
Many youngsters spend money buying condoms and sex toys.
Overweight individuals are looking for weight loss solutions.
Low income workers seek the chances to earn extra income from
home. Retired people consume travel services. You name it!
So, you don’t need to worry about doing something that
everybody is doing, and getting nothing out of it. Chances are
that, you will be able to find profitable niches with moderate
competition to start making money. The only issue is whether
you are decisive enough to take the early-mover advantage.
You may also wonder whether affiliate marketing is a form of
multi-level marketing (MLM)? The answer is NO!!!
In affiliate marketing, you are a salesperson, promoting products
or services to those who need them and earn commission from
the sales you make.
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Three Paths to Internet Wealth
Unlike most MLM programs, you don’t have to buy any product
before being accepted into an affiliate program, although it is
best that you should try the product first in order to understand
it better and promote it more effectively.
In affiliate marketing, you are not recruiting downlines, and your
customers don’t have to recruit their own downlines either. You
may retain a customer in your list and re-sell to them in the
future. This is absolutely not the same as the MLM model.
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Robert B. Ingalls
The Affiliate Marketer Roadmap
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Three Paths to Internet Wealth
Step #1: Market Research
If you want to sell something, you need to make sure that
somebody out there is willing to buy it. This is called “finding the
hungry crowds” who will spend their money on the products you
are promoting.
The fastest way to make money is to understand the problems
that many people are seeking solutions to. Only in these cases
are people willing to take out their credit card and make a
purchase.
Below are some examples of common problems people always
try to solve:
Weight loss
Real estate
Dog training
Make money online
Dating solutions
Men impotence
Investment solutions
etc.
There are several ways of doing market research:
You can go to Google Hot Trend to find out what are the
things people are crazy about during a certain period of
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Robert B. Ingalls
time, and what are they willing to spend money on.
(http://www.google.com/trends/)
You can go to eHow.com to find out the problems that a
majority of people are seeking solutions to.
You can visit 43Things.com to find out what many
people want to do.
Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/) is another place because it lets you know what products are selling well.
Simply visit the website, go to Features & Services,
Amazon Exclusive, Amazon Bestseller to acquire the
updated buying trend and behaviour.
Clickbank (http://www.clickbank.com/) is the largest online marketplace for digital products. I’ll explain more
on how it works in the upcoming appendix in this section.
Alternatively, you can find tons and tons of information
on relevant blogs and forums.
Step #2: Decide A Niche
Once you have done your market research, you can choose a
niche to go into. My advice is that you choose only ONE solid
niche first and work on it for until you make some money out of
it. Don’t try multi-niches when you just get started because it
won’t give you any solid result.
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Three Paths to Internet Wealth
Personally, I am currently working on only four niches, and
these have been my decent streams of income months after
months.
You can do some research and consider these following niches:
Dog training
Golf techniques
Dating solutions
FOREX investment trainings and software
Gardening
Body building
You name it!
Step #3: Find A Product To Promote
There are many places out there where you can find a product to
promote. Most of them are free and easy to use.
Commission Junction
One of the biggest affiliate marketplaces is Commission
Junction (http://www.cj.com/), which is also the pioneer network in the affiliate marketing landscape. Here, you can find
any high quality products to promote, ranging from physical to
digital, paying good commission.
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Robert B. Ingalls
Their affiliate programs also provide you with useful tools and
supports so that you won’t get lost during your partnership with
them.
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