In this article I’ll share with you the 11 most critical mistakes that I’ve made since I first began online marketing. By reading this article you should be able to avoid many of these mistakes and speed up your learning curve exponentially.
Mistake #1 – Quitting My Job Too Soon
Back in 2013 when I first started making a little money online I had an altercation at work with my manager. After 7 years of discontent, I felt that my tenure had run it’s course and I gently slapped my manager across the face. ()
While I must say it was probably one of the most exhilarating days of my life. It turned out to be a bad decision in the grand scheme of things, as far as my business went at least.
Why?
When you’re marketing online you need money to reinvest back into more advertising to really scale your results fast. Click the link in the last sentence to add a tool that can earn you unlimited $20 bills.
If you have to use all of your incoming profits to keep your household running smoothly it will put a tremendous strain on your business.
You’ll also find yourself DESPERATE for that next sale. And whenever desperation comes across to your prospect you can almost guarantee you won’t make that sale.
The only way to rid yourself of desperation for the next sale is to have some financial stability (i.e. a job or another reliable form of income).
If I had do to it all over again, I would have waited until I had 6 to 12 months of living expenses saved up before I quit my job.
Mistake #2 – Comparing Myself to Other Marketers
Another big mistake I made when I came online was comparing my results to the results of other marketers.
This will inevitably cause envy. You can’t reasonably expect to see the same results of a 5 figure per month earner online in your first year.
Is it possibly? Of course.
Is it likely? Probably not.
That’ll depend largely on the opportunity you promote, the amount of your advertising budget, and of course, your level of commitment and determination.
Many times the marketers who portray themselves as an “overnight success” have been quietly marketing online for YEARS.
So regardless of the sob story you might hear marketers tell in order to create more sales. Don’t believe the hype!
Mistake #3 – Joining Too Many Programs At Once
Shiny Ball Syndrome is a term they use online for people who love joining new programs.
This person is always looking for the next best thing, in hopes that the “grass is greener” on the other side.
The biggest problem with program hopping is that the majority of people who do it haven’t developed even the slightest form of mastery in their craft.
Before you can successfully juggle multiple programs online you first have to get some level of expertise in promoting one. Otherwise you’ll find yourself operating a “NON profit organization” rather than generating multiple streams of income like many of the online gurus preach.
Mistake #4 – Trying To Learn Too Many Marketing Strategies
Similar to mistake #3, looking to learn too many marketing strategies at one time is also detrimental to your success.
We call this a jack of all trades and master of none!
This is the easiest way to find yourself confused as well as frustrated online.
It’s better to become an expert at one form of marketing (like Facebook) than trying to master Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Craigslist, and YouTube all at the same time because your favorite marketer says that’s the way to go.
Mistake #5 – Not Building My Email List
I was online for years before I started building a list. I used to hear people say on trainings “the money is in the list” so many times that I eventually got tired of hearing it and bought an autoresponder.
A lot of marketers say that for every person you have on your email list you “should” average about $1 per month in revenue for those people.
While I can’t verify that to be true in my own personal experience. I can say that I had a nice sale come in today from emailing my list that I would have otherwise not received.
This is why building your list is so important because you never know when someone is in the mood to buy.
What you can know for certain is that if you’re not building your list and someone goes to your website after they leave they will NOT be back!
Build your list… then you can follow up with your prospects on demand.
Mistake #6 – Not Mailing My Email List Daily
Depending on who you follow online you may get varying opinions on this. All I can tell you is from personal experience. And from MY personal experience, I get much higher open rates and more clicks to my offers when I’m mailing my list daily.
You will notice that when you email your list on a consistent basis that if/when you stop mailing them consistently your open rates will drop drastically.
The key to mailing your list daily is to share some value. Share some personality. Don’t ALWAYS be selling. Yes, it’s okay to sell in every email. But do it AFTER you’ve given some value or entertainment to your audience.
Mistake #7 – Not Writing My Own Email Follow Up Sequences
In this section I’m speaking specifically to those of you who build business opportunities.
Many of the programs nowadays offer pre-written follow emails for members to load into their autoresponders.
The problem with this is 1.) you’re the same as everybody else, and 2.) you don’t have a unique VOICE when you use pre-written follow ups.
When you write your own follow ups you can brand yourself, share value that nobody else is sharing, and develop a more intimate relationship with your readers.
Mistake #8 – Not Having a Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is some type of ethical bribe that you use online in order to get people to give you their contact info (usually an email address).
What most amateurs do is create a capture page, write an offer on the capture page, and then send people directly to the offer. Like This
The problem with this is that even though you generated the lead, you’ve given them no value. If they’ve received no value they have no inclination to reciprocate. And by “reciprocate” I mean BUY.
More times than not, when you give value to your prospects on the front end, they feel a little more compelled to do business with YOU because you gave them something of value.
A typical lead magnet might be an eBook, video series, interview of some sort, etc.
AFTER they’ve received the value you promised you can then start to promote your business opportunity afterward through your email follow ups and/or broadcasts.
Mistake #9 – Not Branding ME Over The Opportunity
While your biz opp may be awesome, what people are really buying into is YOU.
Have you ever noticed that the majority of the top earners online tend to always offer bonuses and incentives to people who join their teams?
That’s because they’re placing more value on the benefits of doing business with THEM instead of just promoting their opportunity.
When I started offering bonuses and incentives for people to work with me I started closing twice as much business online.
Many times we don’t realize how much value that we have to offer. Remember this, you only have to be 1 step ahead of your prospects in order to be able to teach them. So what is it that you know and they don’t?
Promise to teach them something new, share some cool marketing tools or give them some leads. All of these “incentives” will help you get more sales.
If you’re just completely new and have very little knowledge of online marketing and not many resources, talk to your sponsor and ask them if you can leverage what they offer. In most cases they will say yes.
Mistake #10 – Not Learning FB Ads
Facebook should be every online marketers focal point when they are brand new.
Yes, there are tons of ways to get leads online. Yes, there are many places outside of Facebook to get leads fast.
But… Facebook has over 1 billion users. Not only that, it comes with an ad platform that makes it fairly easy to target exactly who you want.
Many online marketers earn 5 figures per month or more and spend less than $1000 per month on Facebook ads.
Here’s a big secret you may not be aware of. Before you go out and spend thousands on Facebook courses did you know that Facebook offers over 80 online courses free of charge to learn the ins and outs of Facebook Marketing?
Or you can get access to a kick ass 10 hour FB course for $1 here.
Mistake #11 – Lack of Consistency
When it comes to getting results in life, nothing beats good old fashioned consistency.
Nothing can stop the man or woman who simply won’t quit.
The reason that most people are not further along in whatever they want to do is because when the going gets tough, they’d rather go and find something that’s “easier.”
This is the same reason that over 40% of Americans with incomes under $35,000 annually believe that the lottery is going to pay for their retirement.
Good luck with that!
Looking back, if I could do it all over again. I would have chosen one thing to do.
- Network Marketing
- Affiliate Marketing
- CPA Marketing
- AdSense Websites
etc… (Not all of them!)
Then I would have chosen ONE and focused on mastering lead generation with ONE strategy first. Google Adwords, Bing, Solo Ads, Facebook Ads, Text Messaging, etc.
Finally, I would have focused on building my list.
My Top 4 Recommendations For You
- Get An AutoResponder and Start Building Your List ASAP
- Track Your Links – Know Where Your Traffic Is Coming From
- Find a Marketing Strategy That Works & Stick With It
- Find a Unique Business With Large Commissions and Lots of Value
There’s a huge difference between being committed to something and only being interested.
You might be interested in online marketing but mere interest won’t get you too far.
You have to be committed!
The day you commit to learning online marketing you’ll start to see the possibilities opening up for you.
Take my advice and avoid these 11 mistakes.
You’ll be glad you did.
Thanks for reading.
