Welcome to the second part of my 3 part series on ‘common knowledge’.

For the most part the ability of newbies to grasp the common knowledge and techniques of seasoned marketers is lacking. When you’re new, sometimes it feels like you’ve jumped into the middle of something and you feel stupid if you don’t know what others are talking about.

Like you are drowning in information overload.

In this segment I am going to cover 3 more topics of Information Marketing that are vitally important to your success. All of these topics important pieces to your online success so be sure to read Part 1 and Part 3 as well.

Topic 1. You need to sell something.

That seems like a no-brainer, but you can’t make any money without selling something.

Your own product.

There are definite advantages to creating your own product; you have complete control over the product and you can create lots of value. You stand to make more money from each sale if you’re the only one selling it, and it’s your property to do what you want with. But consider this: letting others promote it as affiliates will allow them to become your traffic-driving sales team. They make their cut of the profits, but you will probably sell a boat load more of your product this way. Need some direction on creating your own product? My friend Paula Brett has some great information, check it out here

Someone else’s product (an affiliate product).

It takes less work to sell a product that you didn’t have to create yourself.  They’ve done all the hard work and they probably even have some affiliate tools, such as emails, forum signature files, and possibly some small 125×125 images for you to use on your own website. You should capture some of the people yourself, too, by offering a freebie to create your own list.

Ads. Some sites don’t sell anything but they have constant fresh content and maybe do some article marketing to bring people to their site. The people read what’s on the site and maybe click on a targeted ad or two. Every time someone clicks on these ads it puts money in your pocket. Usually the more traffic you get, the more ad money you earn.

2. You need to network with others.

Getting to know other information marketers is one key to your online success. You will be amazed at the personal friendships you make and business relationships you forge. You will get satisfaction from helping others out and you can ask them questions when you have problems. If you want, you can form partnerships (joint ventures) that end up making you more money than you would on your own.

3. You need a plan.

Yes, yes, yes. You can waste days and weeks out of your life when you try to read everything on the internet about what you might want to do online. You can fail before you even begin by getting bogged down with information overload. Many new internet marketers don’t make it because they dabble in this and that, always falling for the next big promise of becoming an online success and making oodles of cash.  They don’t have a plan for what they want to do and don’t get very far.

Considering that you are probably drowning due to information overload, get your focus back with a ‘life jacket’ from my friend and accountability partner, Peggy Baron.

Stay tuned for Part 3 and be sure to sign up for the K.A.R. (Knowledge-Application-Results) newsletter to get more ‘inside’ information marketing tips and tricks.

Here’s to YOUR success,

Ron