Internet Marketing Basics - The Autoresponder

If earning money online is your goal, then it's important to learn the basics before you go chasing every rainbow you see. All online 'opportunities', in whatever form they take, will require either your time, your money or both - usually both. An online business is no different than any other business in that most online businesses fail due to lack of funds, lack of knowledge and a lack of commitment. Online or offline, it doesn't matter; most businesses fail. For example, did you know that the average life expectancy of a restaurant (any kind of restaurant) is less than two years? My father opened a video rental shop here in Houston and the whole family helped work it. Guess what? It went under.

My point is, just because you 'start' a business doesn't mean it will succeed. Sometimes, things happen that are beyond your control and there are never any guarantees. That said, if you want a chance to succeed with online business, there are some basic concepts that you must come to understand if you want any hope of making it work. The very first thing to put in your mind is this: Nothing happens until something is sold. It seems like a simple idea, doesn't it? But think about it. From a business standpoint, nothing happens until the cash register rings. So your goal is to make sales. That might seem obvious, but lots and lots of people get into business and do everything BUT sell anything! It's because they don't know how. So the purpose of this post is to outline the first basic idea that (in my opinion) is essential to online business success. And I believe that by the time I'm finished, I will have sold you on TrafficWave. That's the goal, anyway. And if you chose TrafficWave as your autoresponder service, then you might as well join my team advertising co-op as well, called Team OceanSwell. Help is good!

OK, so what's the #1 priority when it comes to online business? It's advertising, of course. Online, advertising results in web-traffic - i.e. the pot of gold at the end of the Internet rainbow! If you can get traffic, you can get sales. But, but, but... (smile) good business practices establish customer relationships so that you can continue selling goods and services to the same people again and again; like a grocery store, for example. So how do you sell to the same person more than once online? You do it with an opt-in mailing list. And for that, you need an email marketing system. In this business, we call it an 'autoresponder'. Until you understand what that is and start using one, then it's like running a restaurant without knowing how to manage a kitchen. There are a variety of autoresponder services out there, with varying levels of prices and features.

I chose TrafficWave because it gives me everything that I want and at flat-rate pricing. The deliverability is good and here's the most important part: TrafficWave has an affiliate compensation matrix that pays ten - yes TEN - levels deep! That's incredible. And what it means is that while you use the tool to build and manage your contact lists, you can also promote the product itself as an additional business! There are a number of ways to do that, including the co-op advertising idea of Team OceanSwell, which certainly helped me in the beginning. It can help you too! But if you'd like to help yourself as well, then you must learn everything there is to know about 'list-building'. And as long as you're learning, then why not also learn how to sell the autoresponder with the #1 affiliate sales plan to other marketers? We're talking Internet Marketing basics... and it doesn't get any more basic than that.

TrafficWave - OceanSwell TEAM Update (#1)

To all the members of my OceanSwell Team, this post is your official welcome to our Team blog! By bringing visitors here, I plan to enhance the visibility of our TrafficWave marketing Team and increase the speed of the Rotator. In addition to surfing the TE's (as I will never stop doing), I promise to draw attention to this Team site in a variety of ways - but mostly through social networking. Anyway, what I have for you today is the updated Rotator list as it stands now. We have had some Team Members drop or refuse to advertise, so the list has been adjusted accordingly.

So, with that said, here is a snapshot of our current Rotator list:

Wanita Busch
Blanca Perez
Frank M Novak
Kavon Mowlavi
Brian Schilling
Jeannette Leduc
Kathy Vanvalkenburg
Lighted Way
Aurora Marketing
High Tide Management
Mona Reeves
Marica Nikolic
Kim Hopkins
Eliezer Ayal
Bernt Mauseth
Bret Townsend
Sondra Carpenter
Jim Reyna
Juli Lopez

If you have an Inactive account, you aren't on the list. But if you re-Activate it, I will place you back where you were. So this means that the entire Team is now promoting for Wanita Busch. Once she has her five referrals, it will be Blanca's turn, then Frank and so on. On my Team, I do not care if you promote your own affiliate link, so long as you include your Team Ad link in your daily and weekly promotions. Remember, Team OceanSwell is here to help you and your TrafficWave downline. But it can't do everything and neither can I. To set an example, I have put myself at the bottom of the current Rotator list, even though I don't have the ten referrals that I need yet. Why? Because, like all of you should be doing, I work hard for our Team and I have my own affiliate link out there in classified ads and other places.

Just remember, everybody. This Team idea only works if everybody makes a strong effort to promote our Team Ads. While it doesn't necessarily work 'fast', it does work. That's why team-builds are so hot in 2010. So promote for our Team, promote for yourselves and keep building your list (and automating your marketing!) with the TrafficWave autoresponder. Do those things, and we will all do well this year, I promise.

Why TrafficWave?

When I discovered the world of Internet Marketing 'way back' in 2009, it seemed like something that I would never be able to do. Phrases, words and abbreviations like list-building, social networking, lead generation, squeeze-page, optin, autoresponder, blog, SEO, OTO, PPC (and so on) meant nothing to me. You might as well have been talking to me about another planet, because it was all ALIEN to me!

But, for reasons of my own, I was determined to find out everything that I could about the cyber-world of online business. Since I am writing this in 2010, I can't claim to be any kind of expert on the subject but I have learned a lot about the general principles of selling things online and making a business out of it. The very first thing I learned is that it's hard to do without any money! It turns out that online business isn't much different from opening a restaurant, dry cleaner or a car wash. It takes money, and plenty of it, to start a business.

But the really attractive thing about starting an online business is that you can substitute time for money. It still takes a lot to get it going, but it doesn't take a lot of money. Instead, it takes a lot of time. I think that's why so many people try this business and quickly give up. They don't have any money and they aren't willing to spend any time at it. That's one of the things I've learned. The other major thing I've learned is that, one way or another, you need to build up a 'list'. If you don't know what that means, I'm talking about people who have agreed to receive business email messages from you and are likely to read them. With such a 'list', you can share products and services that you've found and sell such things to one or more of your readers every time you send a mass email to them. That, in a nutshell, is one major aspect of this thing called Internet Marketing. And there are lots and lots of people who earn full-time incomes doing it!

Anyway, you need something called an 'autoresponder' in order to do this. You need to learn how to use it and you need to commit to the TIME it takes to build a business mailing list. Time: that's the key. It takes time and knowledge, and there's a lot to learn when it comes to list-building! Anyway, an autoresponder service is an email marketing tool that is a must-have if you are going to learn and do this business. The one I chose is TrafficWave. They're based here in Houston, where I live, and they've been around for years. Some other reasons for choosing TrafficWave are:


1) It's a good product that has all of the features you will need as you embark upon your new Internet Marketing career. Well-known industry leaders use TrafficWave and the support staff is very good. Yes, there are free autoresponders available but they include ads in your letters and you are very limited in what you can do with them. If you are going to do Internet Marketing right, you need the right tools!

2) The price is very fair when compared to similar products in the industry. And because of the affiliate referral program, three affiliate sales with cover the cost and effectively make it a free service. That's very good and another good thing is that they don't increase the monthly charge when you increase the number of autoresponder campaigns and lists that you manage, like some of their competitors do. You can have unlimited autoresponder campaigns and the price never changes. Not only that, but you can import an existing optin list into your new TrafficWave account.

3) A potentially very lucrative affiliate sales plan in the form of a 3x10 MLM-style matrix that has become world famous. Not only can this produce a monthly income stream all by itself, but it includes bonuses as well for active recruiters. The 10-level pay plan is one of a kind where this type of product is concerned, and that's what makes the TrafficWave autoresponder truly unique!